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Saturday, June 24, 2023
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States
Via White Crane Institute // INTI RAYMI
2018 -
INTI RAYMI in Cusco, Peru; The Inti Raymi ("Festival of the Sun") was a religious ceremony of the Inca Empire in honor of the god Inti. It also marked the winter solstice and a new year in the Andes of the Southern Hemisphere. Since 1944, a theatrical representation of the Inti Raymi has been taking place at Sacsayhuaman (two km. from Cusco) on June 24 of each year, attracting thousands of tourists and local visitors.
During the Inca Empire, the Inti Raymi was the most important of four ceremonies celebrated in Cusco, as related by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. The ceremony was also said to indicate the mythical origin of the Incas, lasting nine days of colorful dances and processions, as well as animal sacrifices to ensure a good cropping season. The last Inti Raymi with the Inca Emperor's presence was carried out in 1538, after which the Spanish conquest and the Catholic church suppressed it.
Some natives participated in similar ceremonies in the years after, but it was completely prohibited in 1572 by the Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, who claimed it was a pagan ceremony opposed to the Catholic faith. In 1944, a historical reconstruction of the Inti Raymi was directed by Faustino Espinoza Navarro and indigenous actors. The first reconstruction was largely based on the chronicles of Garcilaso de la Vega and only referred to the religious ceremony.
This writer was in Cusco for the celebration in 2000. Check out these images of this colorful celebration in a city whose flag is the rainbow.
Midsummer Day in England refers to specific European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice, or that take place June 24 and the preceding evening, related to the birthday of St. John the Baptist European midsummer-related holidays, traditions and celebrations, many of which are pre-Christian in origin and have been Christianized as celebrating the Nativity of St. John the Baptist as "Saint John's Day" festivals, are particularly important in Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Estonia, but also found in Ireland, parts of Britain (Cornwall especially), France, Italy Malta, Portugal, Spain and in other parts of Europe and elsewhere, such as Canada, the United States, and even in the Southern Hemisphere (Brazil) where this European celebration would be more appropriately called Midwinter..
Midsummer is also sometimes referred to by neo-pagans and some others as Litha, stemming from Bede's De temporarum ratione in which he gave the Anglo-Saxon names for the months roughly corresponding to June and July as "se Ærra Liþa" and "se Æfterra Liþa" (the "early Litha month" and the "later Litha month") with an intercalary month of "Liþa" appearing after se Æfterra Liþa on leap years. Solstitial celebrations still center on June 24th, which is no longer the longest day of the year.
The difference between the Julian calendar year (365.2500 days) and the tropical year (365.2422 days) moved the day associated with the actual astronomical solstice forward approximately three days every four centuries, until Pope Gregory XIII changed the calendar bringing the solstice to around June 21st. In the Gregorian calendar, the solstice moves around a bit, but in the long term it moves only about one day in 3000 years.
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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Via White Crane Institute // ELIZABETH EDWARDS
2004 -
"I don't know why somebody else's marriage has anything to do with me. I'm completely comfortable with Gay marriage. If he's pleasant to me on the street, if his children don't throw things in my yard, then I'm happy. It seems to me we're making issues of things that honestly don't matter." – The late ELIZABETH EDWARDS, ex-wife of Democratic presidential candidate (and narcissistic cad) John Edwards, speaking to reporters after her keynote speech to San Francisco's Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club. Her philandering husband responded by saying that he loves the way his wife always speaks her mind, but that he continued to only support civil unions for Gay couples all while having a child with another woman outside of his marriage and while his wife was fighting the cancer that would eventually take her life. Yeah...bye Felicia. Elizabeth Edwards deserved so much better.
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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Friday, June 23, 2023
Via Daily Dharma: The Power of One Bow
We offer ourselves as a vehicle for our buddhanature to manifest in the world for the welfare of others. With this heartfelt attitude, one prostration performed at the right moment can touch us as deeply as one hundred thousand done without such commitment.
Rob Preece, “The Solace of Surrender”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given
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Via White Crane Institute // ALAN MATHISON TURING OBE, FRS
1912 -
ALAN MATHISON TURING OBE, FRS was born on this date (d: 1954); An English mathematician, logician and cryptographer. Turing is considered to be the father of modern computer science. Turing provided an influential formalization of the concept of the algorithm and computation with "the Turing machine," formulating the now widely accepted "Turing" version of the Churq-Turing thesis, namely that any practical computing model has either the equivalent or a subset of the capabilities of a Turing machine.
With the Turing Test, he made a significant and characteristically provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial intelligence: whether it will ever be possible to say that a machine is conscious and can think.
The "standard interpretation" of the Turing Test, in which player C, the interrogator, is given the task of trying to determine which player – A or B – is a computer and which is a human. The interrogator is limited to using the responses to written questions to make the determination.
He later worked at the National Physical Laboratory, creating one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, although it was never actually built. In 1948 he moved to the University of Manchester to work on the Manchester Mark I, then emerging as one of the world's earliest true computers.
During WWII Turing worked at Bletchley Park, Britain's code-breaking center, and was for a time head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval crypto-analysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the “bombe,” an electromagnetic machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.
The 2014 film, The Imitation Game is Turing's story. The title refers to Turing's proposed test of the same name, which he discussed in his 1950 paper on artificial intelligence entitled "Computing Machinery." In 1952, Turing was convicted of "acts of gross indecency" after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man in Manchester. He was placed on probation and required to undergo estrogen therapy to achieve temporary chemical castration. The treatment caused him great anxiety and physical pain. An avid runner, he was no longer able to enjoy this exercise.
Turing died after eating an apple laced with cyanide in 1954. His death was ruled a suicide, but this was controversial and many think he may have been murdered to silence him.
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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Thursday, June 22, 2023
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Verbal Action
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Via Daily Dharma: Meditation’s Purpose
Meditation is not merely a useful technique or mental gymnastic, but part of a balanced system designed to change the way we go about things at the most fundamental level.
Judy Lief, “Is Meditation Enough?”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
o survive,
Know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past
Go.
Know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past
Go.
—From "Earthseed: The Books of the Living," Parable of the Talents.
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