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Photographs from Wat Buddharangsi -  a Theravada Buddhist Thai temple, located in Homestead Florida – April 2010

The Sand Mandala  is a Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of mandalas made from colored sand.  A sand mandala is ritualistically destroyed once it has been completed and its accompanying ceremonies and viewing are finished to symbolize the Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life.

Historically, the mandala was not created with natural, dyed sand, but granules of crushed coloured stone. In modern times, plain white stones are ground down and dyed with opaque inks to achieve the same effect. Before laying down the sand, the monks assigned to the project will draw the geometric measurements associated with the mandala. The sand granules are then applied using small tubes, funnels, and scrapers, until the desired pattern over-top is achieved.

Sand mandalas traditionally take several weeks to build, due to the large amount of work involved in laying down the sand in such intricate detail. It is common that a team of monks will work together on the project, creating one section of the diagram at a time, usually working from the center outwards.

Happy Independence Day to our United States of America!

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave, our Land of Opportunity!

I visited Kennedy Space Center yesterday, the second time in two months… Happy to see our United States of America working together with other countries around our globe in unity to build the International Space Station.

We salute our American leaders , as our President Kennedy said “The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.”

The Statue of Liberty’s torch is now passed to our President Obama and is glowing brightly with his speech to our National Aeronautics and Space Administration “Now, little more than 40 years ago, astronauts descended the nine-rung ladder of the lunar module called Eagle, and allowed their feet to touch the dusty surface of the Earth’s only Moon. This was the culmination of a daring and perilous gambit — of an endeavor that pushed the boundaries of our knowledge, of our technological prowess, of our very capacity as human beings to solve problems. It wasn’t just the greatest achievement in NASA’s history — it was one of the greatest achievements in human history. And the question for us now is whether that was the beginning of something or the end of something. I choose to believe it was only the beginning.”

Our United States of America … Land of Leadership … Land of Imagination… Land of Inspiration!

Naveda Abdool – Culturepology Inc.

]]> http://culturepology.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/space-the-final-frontier/feed/ 0 Culturepology earth-from-space http://culturepology.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/four-years-go/ http://culturepology.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/four-years-go/#comments Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:50:18 +0000 Culturepology http://culturepology.wordpress.com/?p=536 ]]>

FOUR YEARS. GO. is a rallying call asking us all to…

• Wake Up to the enormous harm we are doing to Earth and ourselves
• Wake Up to the profound opportunity we have now to create a future to match our deepest longing and greatest dreams
• Become change agents in redirecting humanity’s current path from self-destruction to sustainability
• Do it now. Don’t wait for any one or anything. And complete it by 2014.

http://www.fouryearsgo.org

Experience the gripping story – full of hope, crushing disappointment, dazzling ingenuity, bravery, and triumph – in Hubble 3D, the seventh awe-inspiring film from the award-winning IMAX® Space Team.

Through the power of IMAX® 3D, Hubble 3D  will enable movie-goers to journey through distant galaxies to explore the grandeur and mysteries of our celestial surroundings, and accompany space-walking astronauts as they attempt the most difficult and important tasks in NASA’s history.

The film will offer an inspiring and unique look into the Hubble Space Telescope’s legacy and highlight its profound impact on the way we view the universe and ourselves.

For more information, visit the Hubble 3D website: http://www.imax.com/hubble/

Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects.

The Kiss (original Der Kuss) was painted by Gustav Klimt, during his ‘golden period’, and is probably his most famous work. It depicts a couple, in various shades of gold and symbols, sharing a kiss against a bronze background.

Two figures are situated at the edge of a flowered escarpment. The man is wearing neutral coloured rectangles and a crown of vines; the woman wears brightly coloured tangent circles and flowers in her hair. The couple’s embrace is enveloped by triangular vining and a veil of concentric circles.

In The Kiss, Klimt depicted a couple locked in an embrace. The rest of the painting dissolves into shimmering, extravagant flat patterning. This patterning has clear ties to Art Nouveau and to the Arts and Crafts movement and also evokes the conflict between two- and three-dimensionality instrinsic to the work of Degas and other modernists. Paintings such as The Kiss were visual manifestations of fin-de-siecle spirit because they capture a decadence conveyed by opulent and sensuous images.

The Kiss is a discreet expression of Klimt’s emphasis on eroticism and the liberation therein. The Kiss falls in line with Klimt’s exploration of fulfillment and the redeeming, transformative power of love and art. The Kiss is deviant from Klimt’s frequent portrayal of women as the lascivious femme fatale.

The piece is currently at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum, which is housed in the Belvedere palace, in Vienna, Austria.

Then said Almitra, “Speak to us of Love.”

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them.

And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, I am in the heart of God.”

And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

The Rosetta Stone

From Fort St Julien, el-Rashid (Rosetta), Egypt

Ptolemaic Period, 196 BC

Valuable key to the decipherment of hieroglyphs

The inscription on the Rosetta Stone is a decree passed by a council of priests, one of a series that affirm the royal cult of the 13-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation.

In previous years the family of the Ptolemies had lost control of certain parts of the country. It had taken their armies some time to put down opposition in the Delta, and parts of southern Upper Egypt, particularly Thebes, were not yet back under the government’s control.

Before the Ptolemaic era (that is before about 332 BC), decrees in hieroglyphs such as this were usually set up by the king. It shows how much things had changed from Pharaonic times that the priests, the only people who had kept the knowledge of writing hieroglyphs, were now issuing such decrees. The list of good deeds done by the king for the temples hints at the way in which the support of the priests was ensured.

The decree is inscribed on the stone three times, in hieroglyphic (suitable for a priestly decree), demotic (the native script used for daily purposes), and Greek (the language of the administration). The importance of this to Egyptology is immense. Soon after the end of the fourth century AD, when hieroglyphs had gone out of use, the knowledge of how to read and write them disappeared. In the early years of the nineteenth century, some 1400 years later, scholars were able to use the Greek inscription on this stone as the key to decipher them. Thomas Young, an English physicist, was the first to show that some of the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone wrote the sounds of a royal name, that of Ptolemy. The French scholar Jean-François Champollion then realized that hieroglyphs recorded the sound of the Egyptian language and laid the foundations of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian language and culture.

Soldiers in Napoleon’s army discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1799 while digging the foundations of an addition to a fort near the town of el-Rashid (Rosetta). On Napoleon’s defeat, the stone became the property of the British under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria (1801) along with other antiquities that the French had found.

 Barra Recipe – Trinidad Doubles Recipe Step 1   

 4 cups – all purpose flour
     2 teaspoons – saffron powder
     1 teaspoon – ground geera (cumin, preferable roasted)
     3 teaspoons – yeast
     ½ teaspoon – sugar
     1 teaspoon – salt (adjust to taste)
     Canola oil for frying

 Put 1 cup of lukewarm water in a small bowl, add sugar and sprinkle with yeast. Then leave mixture until it swells to twice its size.

  Combine flour, salt, saffron and geera in a large bowl.

 Add yeast to flour mixture along with 1¼ cups of water and mix into slightly firm dough. Mix well but try to handle dough as little as possible, cover and let it rise to double its size, then form dough into 36 small balls and then let rise for another 10 to 15 minutes.

 Take a ball of the barra dough and pat into a flattened 4-inch circle with both hands. If the dough sticks to your hands dampen hands with water. Fry immediately after shaping in hot oil, turning once. Drain on paper towels and allow to cool to room temperature.

 Channa Recipe – Trinidad Doubles Recipe Step 2 

 1 (16oz) tin – channa (chick peas or garbanzo beans)
     1 teaspoon – ground coriander
     1 tablespoon – ground geera (cumin, preferably roasted)
     2 tablespoons – canola oil
     1 small – onion
     4 cloves – garlic
     2 tablespoons – chive
     ½ teaspoon – turmeric powder
     ½ teaspoon each – salt and black pepper (adjust to taste)

 Dice onion, garlic and chive, keeping each separate.

 Put oil in a pot along with finely chopped onion and saute on medium heat until onion begins to caramelize.

 Add all remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly.

 Add enough water to cover channa by about 1½ inches, and then boil channa until it’s very soft. Depending on the type of pot you use, and how often you remove the lid to stir, you may need to add water during this process. When you are finished cooking there must be some liquid left in pot, so don’t let it dry out.

 Preperation Notes Doubles venders don’t use tinned channa. We use it to reduce preparation and cooking time, but if you use tinned channa it must be thoroughly washed. 1¼ cups (8ozs) dry channa can be substituted but it must be presoaked for 24 hours, changing the water at least twice during that period, and then pressure-cooked for about 1 hour.

 Trinidad Doubles Recipe Final Step 

With all the elements prepared, it is now time for the last step in the assembly of your Trinidad Doubles recipe. On a plate, place 2 barra side-by-side but overlapping slightly. Now, add a tablespoonful of channa and a liberal garnish of cucumber chutney, then finally, a drizzle of Trinidad pepper sauce to create the level of spiciness you desire. Enjoy…  

Thailand is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia. The country is a kingdom, a constitutional monarchy with King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who has reigned since 1946, making him the world’s longest-serving current head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The largest city in Thailand is Bangkok, the capital, which is also the country’s center of political, commercial, industrial and cultural activities.

The official language of Thailand is Thai, a Kradai language closely related to Lao, Shan in Burma, and numerous smaller languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Yunnan south to the Malaysian border. It is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout the country. The standard is based on the dialect of the central Thai people, and it is written in the Thai alphabet, an abugida script that evolved from the Khmer script. Several other dialects exist, and coincide with the regional designations. Southern Thai is spoken in the southern provinces, and Northern Thai is spoken in the provinces that were formally part of the independent kingdom of Lannathai.

The culture of Thailand incorporates a great deal of influence from India, China, Cambodia, and the rest of Southeast Asia. Thailand’s national religion Theravada Buddhism is central to modern Thai identity and belief. In practice, Thai Buddhism has evolved over time to include many regional beliefs originating from Hinduism, animism as well as ancestor worship. The official calendar in Thailand is based on the Eastern version of the Buddhist Era, which is 543 years ahead of the Gregorian (western) calendar. For example, the year AD 2010 is 2553 BE in Thailand. In areas in the southernmost parts of Thailand, Islam is prevalent.

The traditional Thai greeting, the wai, is generally offered first by the younger of the two people meeting, with their hands pressed together, fingertips pointing upwards as the head is bowed to touch their face to the hands, usually coinciding with the spoken word “Sawasdee khrap” for male speakers, and “Sawasdee ka” for females. The elder then is to respond afterwards in the same way. Social status and position, such as in government, will also have an influence on who performs the wai first. For example, although one may be considerably older than a provincial governor, when meeting it is usually the visitor who pays respect first. When children leave to go to school, they are taught to wai to their parents to represent their respect for them. They do the same when they come back. The wai is a sign of respect and reverence for another, similar to the namaste greeting of India and Nepal.

“Waste your money and you’re only out of money, but waste your time and you’ve lost a part of your life.”  – Michael Leboeuf

The Persistence of time is also sometimes known as The Persistence of Memory, Melting Clocks, Soft Watches and Droopy Watches.  Officially however, it is known as La persistencia de la memoria.

Created in 1931 by Salvador Dali and owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1934, this seminal work of surrealistic art is certainly Dali’s and the Surrealist movements most recognisable icon.  The painting represents Dali’s thoughts on softness and hardness, which was a theme of much of his work during that part of his life.