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I have always been fascinated with the origins of things, with why we indulge in certain traditions, why we partake in certain rituals and why certain symbols, words or gestures have specific meanings. In this blog I want to share a few discoveries that have either made me perk up my eyebrows or at least exclaim in the universal sound of interest (a monosyllabic ohhh).
Origins of words:
Ecstacy.
Comes from the greek word Exstasos or Ekastasis meanting to be “outside the body.” This was a concept first explored by the cult of Dionysus (bacchus), who would encompass themselves in a womb of crashing symbols and loud music, would whip themselves into a frenzy and emulate the grisly death of their deity (who was dismembered by titans) by ripping apart a live bull with naught but their teeth and bare hands. They believed that by doing this, they would transcend the restrictions of mortality and allow the soul to taste liberation from the body.
Enthusiasm.
Comes from the word Enthousiasmos, it quite literally means to be possessed, god filled, or inside the god. By achieving this state of ecstasy, by being outside their mortal confines, they allowed themselves to be possessed by bacchus and experience the paradise that would be theirs in the next life.
Origins of gestures:
The hand shake:
This one is debated, some historians assert that when two parties of warrior or knights met, they shook with their right hand to assure the other that they were neither concealing weapons or could draw their sword (the scabbard was predominately hung on the left) against them. Another theory is that it was a yemini tradition that circulated with the expansion of the Islamic empire. Yet another is that when St Paul met with James, Peter and John in Jerusalem, he gave each of them upon departing his right hand of friendship. It really came into prominence via the English quakers in the 17th century though, as a means of extending equality and egalitarianism across social classes.
The middle fingered salute:
Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger, it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew." Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew ... ... PLUCK YEW!"
Even preceding this though, the raised middle finger was a phallic gesture demonstrating virility (just like the traditional thumbs up).
That’s all ill do for now, if you would like to know about a certain gesture, tradition, ritual, symbol etc…ill do my best to track it down for you.
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Shadow scars her loving face,
Kept silent by closed fisted caress,
She wears the badge of her tortured home,
Behind her crimson wedding dress,
Love that was once a heartfelt serenade,
Has become a blood stained canvas,
She sings a requiem for the end of spring,
Once so beautiful now so powerless.
She will never see past the remnants of her broken heart,
She will be faithful and forgive while she slowly falls apart.
She will take blame for his cruelty and smile at her tears,
His betrayal now her own, her fault, her life, her fears.
A wreath is laid upon her whispered pain,
Yet no one mourns her hollow laugh.
Desperate longings for a hidden providence,
To find meaning amongst ruins of her past.
She weeps for affection so long forgotten,
Clinging to the thorns that touched her last.
She hides in memories that belong to only her,
Lies of a once tender kiss become her mask.
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Most know that according to the book of genesis, god created everything with an opposite. He/she gave birth to darkness in order to define the nature of light, he/she created the various seasons, the radiant suns and the reflective moons, god shaped being and nothingness and fashioned good and evil etc. surprisingly enough though, many Christian denominations refute the theory that god was responsible for the creation of darkness and evil. They say that it is the betrayal of yhwhs gift of free will which incurs evil, it is the choices and the actions of humanity that breed sin and immorality. Whilst it is irrefutable that man is responsible for his own sin, this absolute ideal does not exactly fit with the book of law and almost all theocratic mythology.
According to legend, the archangel Lucifer resented the love god had for Adam and abhorred the decision of god to place his son (or extension/division of self) as second in command. He did not want any more barriers between himself and the divine throne and he believed that gods decision was a repudiation of all his service and many years of faithful obedience. Thus he decided to gather the renegade angels and stage the very first revolution in the history of existence. The morning star as we all know, failed to overthrow god and was consequentially cast down with the rest of the fallen (Beezlebub, Leviathan etc). Lucifer was supposedly content with this and has reigned ever since, asserting that it is far better to rule in hell than serve in paradise.
This theory has gained quite widespread acceptance amongst the respective churches and branches of faith (though certain myths place samael in place of Lucifer and separate the cherubim from satan himself). What has eluded many subscribers to the notion of gods complete benevolence however, is the knowledge that the angels were never imbued with free will like humans (though this is sometimes disputed in doctrine). They are essentially a medium of God's power and exist to execute the will of yhwh and shekinah. If this is true, logically it must follow then, that the choice made by the fallen angels was not a decision made freely. It was imposed upon them by a deity who wished to create a realm of existence ruled over by a malevolent (or according to some legends, objective) entity.
The real question is why. Why is all suffering necessary when so much anguish serves no purpose? Was the creation of evil worth the consequences, merely to provide us with a choice? But then again, can one ever truly be virtuous without the choice to be otherwise? Should we have been given the ability to commit acts of evil so that we might choose to be altruistic? and could we ever find a fulfilling happiness if we werent aware of an alternative?
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According to Robert Dahl, one of the main ideological pioneers of modern democracy and liberty, there are certain characteristics a state must possess in order to be considered democratic. Unfortunately, we in Australia don’t bear many of the necessary hallmarks of a free, egalitarian state. We don’t have a free and diverse press, reporters sans frontiers (without borders) place Australia 35th in the world in terms of press freedom (and we are due to slide even further when the new amendments to foreign and cross ownership laws come into effect). We have meagre restrictions on the separation of powers with one coalition currently controlling both the executive and the legislature (and choosing the judicial representatives). We have commercial in confidence legislation which means that corporate manoeuvrings are opaque and consequently render most corporate enterprises unaccountable. Our entire working structure has been reformed to deprive employees of rights, laws which revert back to the old soviet system of command and control. Through the fear of terrorism, we have relatively new laws that enable federal and state police to detain people guilty of the “heinous crime of sedition”. We have long since lost the positive liberties that were once the hallmark of Australian capitalism, and now the negative liberties that prevented government and business from intruding and exerting control are slowly eroding away also. These are just a few of the issues that expose the descent into authoritarianism in Australia. Do not get me wrong, we are a long way from Marcos, Franco or Mussolini, but we are also a long way from true democracy.
There are no enshrined rights of free speech in this country, our constitution does not preserve the essential civil liberties of the individual. Because of our status as a constitutional monarchy, we do not possess a bill of rights that would guarantee us the freedoms that other countries entitle their populace to. This was exposed quite noticeably on Thursday the 15th of September last year when the federal government in conjunction with ASIO detained and then deported Houston based environmental and peace activist Scott Parkin, utilising the recent anti-terrorism legislation it passed through the senate. Parkin was over in Australia on a six month visa to attend the Forbes protest in Sydney, to object to the corporate profiteering in Iraq by companies such as Halliburton and to instruct local activists from New South Wales and Melbourne in methods of peaceful remonstration via civil disobedience workshops. According to foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer, Parkin was “a threat to national security” and despite the fact that the Houston based activist was not charged for his behaviour at the Forbes conference, an ASIO spokesman asserted that the peace activist “could possibly increase violence at political protests and endanger riot police.” Parkin of course, was not legally permitted to defend himself against the groundless character accusations and was consequently exiled under the new terrorism laws. Other alarming examples of the Australian government waging a war on individual freedom of expression include raids on publishers and radio stations, the racial profiling and detention of an Arab student studying politics, censorship of books and websites that are critical of the Howard and Bush administrations, the imposition of new restrictive, editorial practises at media institutions like the ABC and SBS, and the promotion of a simplistic, generalised, us vs them mentality that enforces attitudes of racism and bigotry
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I want to do something for a friend of mine who has been recently diagnosed with cervical cancer. At 22, she has already lived an incredibly hard life. She has struggled through and somehow survived countless episodes of trauma, abuse and neglect. I can never express in words the admiration I have for this woman, she has been through so much but has managed to become more beautiful, more compassionate and more loving despite (or perhaps because of) all she has suffered.
I want, nay need, the help of all the writers here. I need it because this person is beginning to lose hope (and if you have known anyone who has endured a disease of this ilk, you know mental state can play quite a big role). I want to write a poem imbued with as many different perspectives and reasons to survive as I possibly can. I want to know why you keep going on, why you continue to fight, why you struggle against a cruel providence or a merciless chance. I want to know how you retain your faith, your hope in this life after witnessing the depth of the abyss. I don’t need eloquence. I don’t need it to be poetic or articulate. I just need it to be real. Please add on your reasons via a comment. Thanks for your time
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So once again it begins. in the signing of the new australian and indonesian security pact (called the lombok treaty), it seems like there is yet another brutal genocide in south east asia that the australian government actively supports. the pact is a subservient gesture to indonesian president susilo bambang yudohuno by downer and howard to make up for their "mistake" of allowing 43 west papuan refugees asylum on january 18th this year. the howard government has been on the backfoot with their increasingly powerful neighbour ever since leading an united nations intervention force in east timor and have been trying to improve relations ever since. the treaty declares that the indonesian government has full sovereignty over all its provinces and that in no uncertain terms, irrespective of circumstance, can australia interfere with their hegemonical status.
if this all smacks of familiarity, theres a reason. in 1975, when the dutch left their former colony of east timor, it didnt take long for the indonesian military and sponsored militias to move in. it conducted one of the most oppressive and violent campaigns in recent history, waging a bloody war for dominance that cost the lives of over a third of the east timorese population. the australian government were not only bystanders to this act of genocide - perpetuated by the infamous general suharto and backed by all major western powers - it was an active participant. it supported, trained and financed the indonesian militia kopassus in techniques of "forceful interrogation" and "population control". what this amounted to was that the australian defence force, via the requests of our government, trained a violent and unruly militia in the arts of torture and oppression. why did we do such a thing you may ask? well, there were two reasons... firstly, general suharto and the indonesians were willing to sell us oil from the timor sea gap at a much cheaper price than any real national government ever would (the timor gap treaty) and secondly, there was a very vague threat of east timor becoming australia's cuba, a socialist nation right next door. eventually in 99, under huge domestic and international pressure, the howard government decided to graciously intervene in timor leste for so called 'humanitarian reasons
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According to federal law in australia, an intervention order is a verdict reached by the magistrates court that expressly forbids a certain individual to make contact with another (or one that at least allows only certain forms of exchange) on the grounds of physical/emotional abuse or severe negligence. The magistrate reaches this decision after evaluating the relevant precedence and then the local police either enforce the separation or monitor the permissible contact. The most common precipitating circumstance that leads to an intervention order is one of either domestic assault or sexual abuse. When children under the age of 16 are involved in cases of abuse at home or at school, the state run human services department is able to intercede directly and remove the child from the unsafe environment. But on the other hand, when an adult is involved in a case of domestic violence or sexual abuse, an intervention order requires consent from the victim in order to be enforced. In other words, this means that unless the one suffering from the brutal environment requests an intervention order, except in situations where a life is directly at risk, the police are powerless to separate the victim from an abusive circumstance. This has grievous implications when one considers how often a victim of abuse will keep silent about their horrendous, oppressive situation.
There are a myriad of reasons why people stay with people who abuse them. I do not presume to know them all. Some stay because of love, some because of fear, some because of adopted cognitive distortion (basically where the victim adopts the mindset of the perpetrator and deems the abuse justified), some because they are acclimatized to the atrocious environment they dwell in. my question is, should all negative freedoms (the freedom from something, eg- direct state intervention in our lives) be allowed? Should the police in conjunction with human services be able to directly intercede in certain instances despite the lack of permission and/or consent? Where do we draw the line between allowing individual freedoms and assuming social responsibility? Should we as a society allow people to make a choice that will inevitably hurt them? And is it worth the potential consequences to enable government to choose what might be best for us?
last night, in one of my regular 3am sessions of insomnia, i found myself dwelling on the concept of how to describe myself as an individual from an utterly detached perspective. as i stared at my bedroom ceiling, i was wondering how to define who i am, what i am and what makes me unique as both a person and a member of our species. i deliberated on how often we seem to find ourselves running through the same tired litany when we introduce ourselves "hey, my names chris, im 21 years old, im a student, i work at such and such, i enjoy, admire, love and hate this and that, my beliefs are as such and my experiences have been this".
but even all these things cant completely define a person though can they? my name certainly doesnt define me, nor does my age . what im studying does not define me as an individual. sure, i am quite likely doing it for different reasons than others are, but what i love to learn doesnt make me really unique. ones work, one purpose used to be enough to define oneself 50 years ago for some. but apparently not so much anymore. even if i attained my dream job, would that be the extent of who i am, or even my defining characteristic? many different philosophers have espoused over the years that we are as we do. but if we are defined by both the reasons for, and the results of our actions. what about our conflictions, what about the plethora of reasons we didnt want to act that way, what about all the possibilities that we left unrequited? are we defined also by what we might have done given a different circumstance? how about the ways i feel about things? do my emotions or my beliefs define me? am i this because i feel a certain way about something? then we have to ask ourselves why we feel this way, what are the reasons i love this so strongly, despise this so passionately, accept one belief system and reject another? would i be the same, feel the same, think the same if i was born in a different place, raised in a different household. of course i wouldnt be, the environment would shape me in a completely different way. so then are we the totality of our experiences and/or memories, whatever they happen to be? what if the memories i possess up untill this moment were stripped from me and i was struck with severe amnesia, how would i define myself without memory of the past? i still think, i still feel, but without knowing the reasons i feel or think this way, without context am i still the same person? who would i be if the only moment i can remember is now
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the last words of a dying man named jeannot are now a popular art exhibit. These words were etched into a household basements floorboards by a man who suffered from severe paranoid schizophrenia. After the death of this middle aged man from france, the floorboards were excavated, evaluated, circulated and are now an artistic sensation throughout Europe. They are part of a relatively new post modern phenomenon called 'brut art'. A movement that showcases the work of those enduring various kinds of mental illness.
Jeannot’s story is one plagued by ignorance, negligence and tragedy. But it is the last year of his life I will tell in brief. After the death of his mother, basically his only companion for 35 years, he moved his bed into a small, cramped room, next to a decaying staircase under which he had buried her. His movement was confined only to carving words into the floorboards, using any implement he could find. He gave a voice to the thoughts that were consuming him, for months he wrote without cessation of things such as the machines that controlled the human mind and the horrendous things the Catholic Church had done in subservience to Hitler. Eventually Jeannot died of starvation. He had not bothered to feed himself and was found months later by a neighbour, lying atop the chaotic thoughts that he could no longer silence
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one question really leaps up at me when examining the current quagmire that is todays Iraq. it seems obvious to me, but why the hell didnt the leaders of the coalition of the willing look at the history books when they invaded the country? why didnt they take heed of what happened to the british efforts to create an artificial state and a puppet dictatorship in mesopotamia? when the british imposed the saudi arabian sunni Faisal as leader in the 20's, bonded the three former provinces of the ottoman empire into one (basra, baghdad and mosul) and tried to establish lucrative trade routes back to london, what were the results? they created the conditions for numerous brutal coup's, governments that were complicit with the nazi's, the need for yet another invasion (yup, the british have been there now 3 times in the last 80 odd years), oh yeah, and the ability for the ba'athist party to come to power....which soon after lead to the rise of mr saddam. why didnt bush, blair and howard learn from the lessons that the british provided via their incompetence. that its one thing to bomb a country back to the stone ages, its quite another to strip the nation of the barbaric leader who ruled it but had somewhat unified it, devoid it almost entirely of its former defense networks (republican guard and the army), impose a new leadership which is essentially powerless, and then expect to be treated as triumphant liberators when the massive power vaccum appears on the horizon.
what we have today in Iraq is not just a civil war. we have all major towns run by militia, we have militia competing against one another for meagre resources. we have huge infiltration by sectarian militants in all facets of the newly created defense networks. we have parliamentary officials that are afraid to come to work. we have an occupying force that is neither sufficient enough to maintain control, nor popular enough to gain the support of the local communities they work in. the fact of the matter is, we in the west are not winning the war. we have as much chance of defeating the insurgency in iraq as we had defeating the vietcong in vietnam. the question i pose to you is what should the leaders of the coaltion do now? if your opinion is to depart immediately, withdraw the troops and leave the country to its own devices. what will you say when the spectre of another failed state appears, when iraq goes the way of afghanistan after the americans rallied the mujahideen and permitted entrance of the foreign fighters to defeat the USSR? if you wish to stay, are you willing to permit the only logical conclusion that the military advisers of our countries will reach, another carpet bombing of an entire country? to try and limit the power that the fundamentalists in iraq will have in victory. i say the latter because no government imposed by the west will be accepted, no deals brokered by us will have longevity. or am i missing something, what other options are on the table? if you were in charge of a coalition country today, what would you do?
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Comment by ChrisM
on Ode to a fragile self deceit
yeah, i wrote it for a few people i know and have known. i focused somewhat on a relationship between a married couple in this poem, but it was written for those who are forced to endure any form of domestic violence.