Dad Rocks ! [ They're Scandanavian ]

Amazing video and song

http://allscandinavian.com/7300/dad-rocks-battle-hymn-of-the-fox-father/

Groove nugget

The Coconut Pony goes mad for this track....

Rules for being human

Apart from the unproven sanskrit claim aimed at adding weight (honour by association fallacy * stickler), I can vouch for some of these especially no.5...

no.8 is irritating, eh !

Heart Chakra Exercise

Chakra Four Exercise: A real pick me up ! from sacred centres website. This would work well in a group.

Sitting in a comfortable meditation posture with spine erect, close your eyes and tune into your heart. 

If you can, feel your heartbeat. 

First begin gently breathing in and out getting a slow steady rhythm. 

Then imagine that you are inhaling in the left side (receptive) and expanding your heart out to the left. 

Take a few breaths here, then imagine expanding your heart to the right side (expressive) and feel your heart space widening. 

Then breathe into the bottom of your heart, deepening your compassion, for self and others. 

After a few breaths here, imagine you are breathing into the top of your heart, lifting the heart to blossom into the shoulders. 

Finally inhale, pushing your heart energy forward, out in the world.

Lorraine Chase

Or Lorraine Quiche if you prefer...Yellowhammer honours the original Essex type of girl with a Campari and Lemonade.

Psychedelic Solstice

Let others do the talking this Solstice... If you can possibly bear it !

 

==== /// Terence Mckenna speaks out ..his ability to construct an unrehearsed sentence to express his philosophy is phenomenal.

Hear him seeking the stone: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgQfC4WRg-g

You dont have to agree with it all to want him round for dinner.

Terence mentions Iboga, and YH has heard about Ibogane's 100% hit rate with alcoholics and other addicts. [apart from the one that died of course]

Truly an incredibly spiritual medicine.  Interview by Jan Irvine on Gnostic Media.

http://www.podcast-directory.co.uk/episodes/dr-deborah-mash-interview-%E2%80%9Cclean-ibogaine-clean%E2%80%9D-076-13075438.html 

-----

Prairie home companion pocket sunshine for the day after any solstice shennanigans, this last month's have been quality..

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/about/podcast/

---- 

and one for the road....or path...
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/about-krishnamurti/dissolution-speech.php

*thanks DayZero, happy solstice wherever you are >>>>> (-:

Studio Ghibli - The Cat Returns (2002)

http://www.onlineghibli.com/cat_returns/

Hiroyuki Morita takes us to the Kingdom of Cats.

If you like cats then this is essential viewing !

The Baron and Haru, mid transformation.

The Cat King.

Choc-full of cats.

Solstice Echo

FlourescentLightArt (FLART)

 

 

Bollywood and Sikhism

Yellowhammer had the privilege of cooking a korma for a Friend who is Sikh  this weekend and managed to get a few nuggets.

Sikhism is fairly new (about 300years) offshoot of Hinduism, and sprung from the need to defend against the Muslims at the time in that area.  Like the Shaolin to Buddhism.

Factoids learnt were that many Sikhs believe in reincarnation and love whiskey, but aren't allowed to cut their hair. 

Unlike Hindus they have 1 God and 10 Gurus as opposed to a pantheon. Got that ?

Some great swordsmanship with tiny shields. Springy feet !

Also, if interested in Indian films, this film is a good way in, intelligent script with spirituality and politics built in, fantastic cast and of course some drumming, dancing, laughter and crying.  Not your average Romeo and Juliet meme.

Veer and Zaara. Directed by Yash Chopra.

One of the best musical numbers was the This Is My Land song. Turn it up!

The most famous female indian singers is Lata , who is known for the perfect voice.

Once a megastar beauty, she came out of retirement to cameo and sing in the Veer-Zaara film as the songs were written by a dear friend of hers who died.  

This is a short fuzzy live clip of her in concert :

Like Opera this is not about being the best you can be, it is about being the best of that art form.

Brother Bat

No, not a colleague of Cadfael, but the animal that flaps about in the twilight, the part inbetween day and night, the heralder of change and the seer through the dark.

As a totem he is the death of ego, upside down like the hanged man tarot card - not only attaining a different perspective, but surrendered to it.

Check the lovely Bev and her Totem blog for her views on Brother Bat !

http://native-american-totems.com/animal-totem-medicines/bat-totem/

As Bats arent much to look at, here resonates the hanged man instead - when he rights himself, he must apply what he has learnt from this surrender.  ...how to actually get down may be a concern to him but he looks quite happy about it.

Quizling

Modern Mandalas

First a selection of Yellowhammer's favourite Highwaymen - theyre going nowhere without a fight.

Now - See you in 10.

One to print out and colour in :

 I got masses of mandalas.

Doledrums

Open Stage at Bill's Picking Parlor, West Columbia, SC, 12-7-07. Jack Alsup, lead vocalist & guitarist, Ralph Cox, tenor vocalist & guitar, Van Price, fiddle, Ben Boatwright, bass.

Yellowhammer this touching little vid embedded in someone else's blog and dug a copy out with a digital penknife.

How to be Alone: 

A video by fiilmaker, Andrea Dorfman, and poet/singer/songwriter, Tanya Davis.

However, if you thought being with a family was fun then check poor Wendy Craig in Butterflies. Carla Lane wrote this series, and Wendy Craig along with Penelope Kieth are two of Yellowhammers top actresses of their era.

Swing YelLow

Someone once recommended singing this song as morning therapy.

It would be great to hear it coming out of other peoples open windows alongside !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ASC20TIwY 

Cat

Bee Plants

Peat Bog Secrets

Tolland Man - Found in 1950, laying in a boggy patch since 400 BC.  Denmark. Celtic.

Once removed he was preserved for six months, first by smoking like a sausage, and he has also had his head steeped in alcohol, and the bogwater padding out cells replaced by bees wax (which never goes off). 

It is a shame Gunter Von Hagens wasnt around for a spot of plastination in 1950, but whatever the method, this man's face is preserved for us to see and ponder on today and I think he'd be chuffed with the results, that is if he wasn't thoroughly insulted. It's hard to tell what he would have thought and Im not sure anyone even considered that - it seems if you fall outside a few generations, you become an artefact rather than an ancestor. . However, although body didnt last so well, the unadulterated bones can be used for further tests and this all serves some purpose by allowing us to understand the life and conditions of the Iron age.  I suppose the question is this - is our quest for truth and knowledge more important than anything else.? Apparently so!
I wonder if war heroes will be dug up and smoked in a few centuries?

Other examinations show he wasn't keen on fish, or had little access, but liked a good bowl of barley and seed soup or porridge....which would be welcome after a day of ploughing and self sufficiency Im sure..

Scans reveal he was hanged, whereas cremation on a pyre and then buryng of ashes in urns was the norm, so it is hard to say if he was a sacrifice, suicide, a punished criminal...or just murdered.

There are many bog bodies - Lindow man, Elling woman, Grauballe man  - Im sure each has their own story.  

Yellowhammer honours them.

The Gundestrup Cauldron was also found in a peat bog dating back to about 100BC.

Check out this wonderful image on it of a Celtic Shaman type or God Cernunnos:

 Possibly made by a Thracian craftsman, this certainly reveals a spiritual culture on a par with the Egyptians or others.

Just as an aside, here is a beautiful page about trees : 

http://merganser.math.gvsu.edu/myth/trees.html

Shakespeare Sonnet 34

Yellowhammer likes a slice of Shakespeare, and is grateful to have had a few key plays included in school education. I once heard a snobby academic on the Radio saying the sonnets were for teenagers, and yes, they can be a bit angsty and existentialist, but given that Harry Potter is now considered literature for adults, then the sonnets are the most relevant display of bitesize brilliance for the broken hearted - and those unable to concentrate for longer than 10 minutes..

This one contains a mixture of medicinal (physic, salve, cure) , biblical (repent, cross) and weather (clouds, storm, rain) imagery.

I also like the quick turnaround at the end with the rhyming couplet - Phew cos I thought that someone was definitely chucked !

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,   
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?        
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
   Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
   And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.