Sir Zidan Mirror: History and Culture

The Alchemist

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 03:07:09 GMT

   Considering the material capitalist within me, spirituality seems to evaporate away, gradually. Of course I still experience some kind of spirituality either in sex, the warm emotions of music or arts in general. But Coelho's philosophy of following the omens, gypsy kings, alchemists, beginner's luck, Personal Legend, the unity of all things, Language of the World and Soul of the bla, bla bla... etc to all those pre-revolutionary medieval hallucinations seem hilarious to me, now. The man didn't even mention the word science - the word that let his books sell millions, and let him communicate with his fans allover the world. I think that Coelho's lives this weird life, when he affiliates everything to the spirituality to, "even the hawks movements." Actually, I didn't like the book, nor Coelho's philosophy of the pure idealism. On the other side, I can't deny that I loved his limitless-dream-point and his late-yet-perfect idea of the Alchemist novel, by which Coelho opened his readers' eyes towards the place, "where they least imagine their treasure lies." Because travelling to search in the far sites isn't always the clue, dream of anything, anytime, observe the place where you're well, conclude the very details of everything, carefully, live the full moment, risk and die alive far-off the fucking routine.

     I have - myself - many quotes, which are - in a way or more - runs with the general concept of the Alchemist, as follows:

- "When your internal mind speaks, it's always something that it seeks!"
- "Let your internal mind discovers the hidden person within you!"
- "Let the nature play its role!"
- "Don't only dream to beat the record! But. to reach the apices of all mountains!"
- "There're more than one meaning for every word, but there's only one word for this meaning: 'love.'"

     And I liked those sentences in particular from his bestselling novel, the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho:

- "Santiago and I are exposed to the greatest and eternal alchemy of all - love." (He's with Fatima, and I with Mai.)*
- "Search within yourself." (There where the true treasure lies.)
- "Usually, the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their own lives."
- "There's only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure." (Never stop dreaming!)
- "The darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn."
- "Don't think about what you've left behind."
- "It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil... It's what comes out."
- "When you're in love, things make even more sense."
- "Eat when it's time to eat! And move along when it's time to move along!"
- "Allah cures our illnesses."
- "When he looked into her dark eyes, the time stood still and the Soul of the World surged within him... And when he saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that the entire world spoke -- the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart... It was love, something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert and something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met... She smiled, and that was certainly an omen--the omen he had been waiting, without even knowing he was, for all his life. The omen he had sought to find with his sheep and in his books, in the crystals and in the silence of the desert."
- "Love requires no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time."
- "Sex is a physical manifestation of God, and that is not a sin--it is a blessing... The sexuality is first and foremost the way that God chooses for us to be here on earth, to enjoy this energy of love in the physical plane." (Perfection, Mr. Coelho.)
- "Making a decision is only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he's really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision."
- "When he was more confident in himself - he could conquer the world."
- "Relaxed and unhurried… Resolved and concluded."
- "He had not cent in his pocket, but he had faith."
- "Every blessing ignored becomes a curse."
- "The beauty is the great seducer of men." (Simplicity is the sign of beauty, and love is the sign of purity.)**
- "I'm like everyone else - I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does."
- "The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never forget the drops of oil on the spoon."
- "Follow your Personal Legend through to its conclusion!" (conclude and observe, survive your thoughts.)
- "Try to make your own decisions." (Be an adventurer!)
- "If you start out by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work toward getting it."
- "People learn, early in their lives, what is their reason for being. And, maybe that's why the majority of them give up on it so early, too." (I'm from the minority.)
- "The Soul of the World is nourished by the people's happiness, and also by unhappiness."
- "The world's greatest lie - fate."
- "The secret of life, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times."

P.S. Thanks to Menna's hire, I read this book.
* All the in-between-brackets are of me, except (**.)
** This quote is my GF quote, Mai's quote.
                                                                                          Sir Zidan

The Divine Proportion

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 00:47:44 GMT

Phi was derived from the Fibonacci sequence - a progression famous not only because the sum of adjacent terms equaled the next term, but also because the quotients of adjacent terms possessed the astonishing property of approaching the number 1.618 - Phi!

Phi is the basis for the Golden Section, Ratio, or Mean. The ratio, or proportion, determined by Phi known to the Greeks as the "dividing a line in the extreme and mean ratio" and to Renaissance artists as the "Divine Proportion." It is also called the Golden Section, Golden Ratio, and the Golden Mean.

Despite Phi's seemingly mystical mathematical origins, the truly mind-boggling aspect of Phi was its role as a fundamental building block in nature; plants, animals, and even human beings all possessed dimensional properties that adhered with eerie exactitude to the ratio of Phi to 1.

Phi can be derived by 3 ways, either by the numerical series discovered by Leonardo Fibonacci (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 ...), Mathematics, or Geometry.

The Golden Number appears inside us and around us, the Golden Number appears in the tiniest unicellular creature you may know and in the most complicated system the man could know, in the DNA spiral double helix and in the Cosmology of our galaxy and the solar system.

Sunflower seeds grow in opposing spirals with the ratio of each rotation's diameter to the next equals Phi, spiraled pinecone petals, leaf arrangement on plant stalks, insect segmentation - all displaying astonishing obedience to the Divine Proportion. The female bees always outnumber the male bees in any honeybee community, if you divide the number of female bees by the number of male bees in any beehive in the world; you always get the same number. Nautilus seashell spiral's diameter to the next again is Phi. The eye-like markings of moth fall at golden sections of its width and length lines. The eyes, beak, wing and key body of the penguin all fall at golden sections of its height. The eye, fins and tail all fall at golden sections of the length of a dolphin's body. Nobody understood than Da Vinci the divine structure of the human body. Da Vinci actually exhumed corpses to measure the exact proportions of human bone structure. He was the first to show that the human body is literally made of building blocks whose propositional ratios always equal Phi. The distance from the tip of your head to the floor by the distance from your belly button to the floor. Phi. The distance from one's shoulder to the fingertips divided by the distance from the elbow to the fingertips. Phi. Hip to floor divided by knee to floor. Finger joints. Toes. Spinal divisions. Phi. Phi. Phi. Each of us is a walking tribute to the Divine Proportion. The mysterious magic inherent in the Divine Proportion was written at the beginning of time. Man is simply playing by nature's rules, and because Art is man's attempt to imitate to the beauty of the Creator's hand, many of the great artwork by Michelangelo, Albrect Dürer, Da Vinci, and many others, demonstrating each artist's intentional and rigorous adherence to the Divine Proportion in the layout of his compositions, among the paints, there's The Last Supper. Notable, that Leonardo da Vinci's famous male nude - The Vitruvian Man - named for Marcus Vitruvius, the brilliant Roman architect who praised the Divine Proportion in his text De Architectura. In Architecture, Phidias, a 5th century B.C. sculptor and mathematician of ancient Greece, also studied Phi and created sculptures for the Parthenon and Olympus using the Golden Ratio. The pyramids of Egypt, the design of Notre Dame in Paris, and even the United Nations Building in New York all were constructed by architectural dimensions according to the Golden Number. Phi appeared in the organizational structures of Mozart's sonates, Beethoven Fifth Symphony, as well as the works of Bartók, Debussy, and Schubert. Far away in Musical intruments, Phi was used by Stradivarius to calculate the exact placement of the f-holes in the construction oh his famous violins. It also appears in the stock market, Population growth, Theology, and even in the proportion of sides of Visa® or MasterCard®.

The Greeks believed there to be three concomitants of beauty: symmetry, proportion, and harmony. Which proves Phi to be the

pretty number. That's why the pentagram symbol is considered both divine and magical by many cultures; simply because, if you draw a pentagram, the lines automatically divide themselves into segments according to the Divine Proportion, making this symbol the ultimate expression of the Divine Proportion. For this reason, the five-pointed star has always been the symbol for beauty and perfection associated with goddess and the sacred feminine. The Last Supper is said to be one of the most astonishing tributes to the sacred feminine with its hidden symbology, as mentioned in many old and modern books.

Phi's ubiquity in nature clearly exceeds coincidence, and so the ancients assumed the number the Creator of the universe must have preordained Phi. Early scientists heralded one-point-six-one-eight as the Divine Proportion. The description of this proportion as golden and Divine is fitting; perhaps because it is seen by many to open the door to a deeper understanding of beauty and spirituality in life. That's an incredible role for a single number to play, but then again this one number has played an incredible role in human history and in the universe at large.

* References:

The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. Visit http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/reviews.html
http://goldennumber.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

Sir Zidan

Who's Valentine ?!

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:41:22 GMT

Although the misconception of "Saint Valentine's Day" in different regions of the world, each 2 couples celebrate this day their way, while other homosexuals celebrate it too, others prefer to help the poor and support charities by money, and others vow to celibacy, or just single and look for a mate. Actually "Saint Valentine" refers to one or more martyred saints of ancient Rome, his birth date and birthplace are unknown. "Valentine's" name does not occur in the earliest list of Roman martyrs, that was compiled by the Chronographer of 354. The feast of "St. Valentine" was first decreed in 496 by "Pope Gelasius I" (492 - 496), who included "Valentine" among those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." As "Gelasius" implied, nothing is known about the lives of any of these martyrs. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Saint whose feast was celebrated on the day now known as "St. Valentine Day" was possibly one of three martyred men named "Valentinus" who lived in the late third century, during the reign of "Emperor Claudius II" (213/214 - 270), maybe a priest in Rome, a bishop of Interamna (modern Terni of old Italy) or a martyr in the Roman province of Africa. Various dates are given for their martyrdoms: 269, 270 or 273. As "Pope Gelasius I" implied. The name was a popular one in "Late Antiquity", with its connotations of Valens, "being strong". The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines". Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged "Cupid", since the 19th century. In the US, the marketing of Valentine's Day has tagged it as a "Hallmark holiday" - holiday exists primarily for commercial purposes. Many of the current legends that characterise "Saint Valentine" were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by "Geoffrey Chaucer" and his circle, when the feast day of Feb. 14 th, first became associated with romantic love. In 1969, as part of a larger effort to pare down the number of saint days of purely legendary origin, the Church removed "St. Valentine's Day" as an official holiday from its calendar. Different tales are available about "St. Valentine", some are true stories, while others are just legends, and among them I picked the following:

1 - On the ancient Athens calendar, the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion dedicated to the sacred marriage of "Zeus" - king of gods - and "Hera" - wife and the older sister of "Zeus" - , according to the Roman myths.

2 - In ancient Rome, Feb. 14th, was "Lupercalia" - a very ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral festival to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility, literally "Fertility Festival". It was local to the city of Rome. The more general "Festival of Juno Februa", meaning "Juno the purifier" or "the chaste Juno", was celebrated on Feb. 13 - 14th. "Plutarch" - a Greek Historian - declared that: "at those times, noble youths and also high rank women were running naked in streets for sport and laughter". This festival was also called Februatio, and the day dies februatus (from Latin februare= to purify). Hence the name of the month of February. The word "Lupercalia" came from a wolf that said to be suckled "Romulus" and "Remes", "Romulus" was the first king of Rome, and "Remes" was his wife according to the Roman myths. The idea that Valentine Day customs perpetuated those of the Roman "Lupercalia" has been accepted uncritically and repeated, in various forms, from eighteenth-century antiquaries, up to the present by many respectable modern scholars. "Lupercalia" has many origins and many celebration rituals, both Roman and post-Roman eras.

3 - The "Pope Gelasius I" also declared in 496 that the feast of "St. Valentine" would be on Feb. 14 th, because; legends in medieval and modern times, assumed that During a ban on marriages of Roman soldiers by the "Emperor Claudius II". "St. Valentine" secretly helped arrange marriages. He - then - was prisoned. While in prison, "Valentine" fell in love with the jailor's daughter who visited him during his confinement. Before his death he wrote her a letter, which he signed "From your Valentine.". The Catholic Church supposedly created those legends as a substitute for the common pagan fertility festival, for mentioned as "Lupercalia". Meanwhile, others discard the idea of "Valentine's Day" being a Christianized pagan tradition. They believe the holiday is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of "Valentine's" death, burial or execution by "Emperor Claudius II" for disobeying his orders. Thus, "St. Valentine" became the patron Saint of lovers, and they began to celebrate his martyrdom by expressing love and exchanging romantic gifts.

4 - The day became associated with romantic love in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtley love flourished. Courtly love was a medieval European conception of ennobling love which found its genesis in the ducal and princely courts in regions of present-day southern France at the end of the eleventh century. In essence, courtly love was a contradictory experience between erotic desire and spiritual attainment. A "High Court of Love" was established in Paris on "Valentine's Day" in 1400. The court dealt with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading.

5 - The earliest surviving valentine dates from 1415. It is a poem written by "Charles", Duke of Orleans to his wife. At the time, the duke was being held in the Tower of London following his capture at the "Battle of Agincourt" - between England and France. In addition, this is alleged to be the first Valentine's card ever.

6 - The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in "Parlement of Foules" (1382) by "Geoffrey Chaucer":
"For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese [chose] his make [mate]".
This poem was written to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of "King Richard II" of England to "Anne of Bohemia". In fact there was no such tradition before "Chaucer". It was a traditional English and French belief during the middle ages that on Feb. 14 th, birds began their mating season. And this is one of the strongest evidences why Feb. 14th, specifically.

It's clear now that many stories and legends from old ages to medieval times helped to create a romantic image for "Valentine's Day", from the fertility festivals in old Rome, to martyrdom of "St. Valentine", and also through middle ages beginning from the belief of mating of birds in England and France, to Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries English and French poets' and litterateurs' romantic verses further promoted the concept of linking "Valentine's Day" to romantic love, for example "Dame Elizabeth Brews" and "Geoffrey Chaucer". All those cooperated in a way or more to creating the current global "Love Revolution" - as I like to say - at this day. It has equivalents in many other cultures around the world, including Korean, Chinese, Persian, Latin, and many others.

Regardless being legends or true stories transmitted from a generation to another, I believe love is a positive emotion, we must all live it, and enjoy its passion and erotic desire; for both spiritual and sexual needs. However, love or sex doesn’t need a day to be praised because they're almost daily habits. Of course this day plays a big role in getting any couple nearer to each other, and opens the playground for new players, but we still can play the same game everyday. I - myself - think that each couple has much special day in their relationship than this so-called "St. Valentine's Day". It's o.k., I'll tell my G.F. "Happy Valentine!" - the word that makes the day -, but other dates are far more important for me than commemorating naked youth while they were running in the streets, mating of birds in England or martyrdom of a Catholic Saint.

I can see it's a chance to pass quickly on types of love, according to Wikipedia.com, love maybe evolved historically like Courtly love (for mentioned), or Religious love, which differs from religion to another.

According to the site, there're another types of love, described as emotions as follow :

1 - Erotic love : based on sexual desire and attempts to incite the opposite sex desire.

2 - Platonic love : "Plato's" theory of love has 2 parts. Mainly it's a modern popular sense - an affectionate relationship into which the sexual element doesn't enter, like non-sexual friendship between two heterosexual people of the opposite sex. A second part of "Plato's" theory indicates men's desires towards boys, and this is - ironically - the paradox of the theory according to Wikipedia.com. And this second model was supposedly used by educated gay men since the early Renaissance. To resolve this confusion, French scholars found it helpful to distinguish between "amour platonique" (the concept of non-sexual love) and "amour platonicien" (love according to Plato).

3 - Familial love : In sociology, it's a type of affinity or natural affection felt between members of a group bound by common ancestry or blood ties. The cultural ideal of familial love is one that is committed, unconditional, selfless, emotionally full, and reciprocally returned by the other.

4 - Puppy love : is an informal term for feelings of love between young people, especially during adolescence, so-called for its resemblance to the affection that may be felt towards a puppy dog. Puppy love is also commonly known as a "crush". The crush is the small form of love, which can grow into romantic love. During Elizabethan times, it was known as 'calf-love'; a traditional example is in the famous "William Shakespeare" play "Romeo and Juliet".

5 - Romantic love : is a form of love that is often regarded as different from mere needs driven by sexual desire, or lust. Romantic love generally involves a mix of emotional and sexual desire, as opposed to Platonic love. There is often, initially, more emphasis on the emotions than on physical pleasure.

Properties of romantic love purported by Western culture include these:

· It must take you by surprise (be the result of a random encounter.)

· It cannot be easily controlled.

· It is not overtly (initially at least) predicated on a desire for sex as a physical act.

· If requited, it may be the basis for a lifelong commitment.

6 - Unrequited love: is love that is not reciprocated, even though reciprocation is usually deeply desired. This can lead to feelings such as depression, anxiety, and mood swings such as swift changes between depression and euphoria.

From the humor to mention that a recent trend has been to refer to Feb. 14th, as "Singles Awareness Day" (SAD), it's a humorous holiday celebrated on Feb. 14th, (although some prefer the 13th or the 15th to get away from the commercialism associated with the 14th). It serves as an alternative to "Valentine's Day" for people who are single; that is, who are not involved in a romantic relationship and can therefore not participate in "Valentine's Day" traditions. Some observers of "SAD" do so out of spite for "Valentine's Day", as a Hallmark holiday, or for other reasons. Some want to remind romantic couples to remember those less fortunate than they are. A common greeting on this day by its adherents is "Happy SAD!". The holiday is a good example of self-deprecating humor.
However, I'm sure if any luscious heterosexuals of opposite sex, meet at "lovers-go-die" club. They will make love on the nearest bed!

Happy Valentine everyone,
love and peace be upon you all!

References :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupercalia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine
http://media.www.omnibusonline.com/media/storage/paper193/news/2004/02/12/TheGallery/bird-Mating.And.A.Man.Named.Valentine-605254.shtml?sourcedomain=www.omnibusonline.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com
http://www.stvalentinesday.org/valentines-day-in-middle-ages.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtly_love
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_%28religious_views%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eroticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_love
http://www.practical-philosophy.org.uk/Volume4Articles/PlatoTheoryOfLove.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_love
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_love
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_love
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrequited_love
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singles_Awareness_Day
All pictures added, are available at Wikipedia.com, at some of the sites formentioned above as references, or the mentioned below as additional references.

Additional references for specific information :

Sir Zidan

Faked Moon Landing!

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 02:07:52 GMT

Through all the times and ages, USA is the biggest liar on Earth, biased declares liberty... Dictatorial requests democracy... Unjust claims justice... Full-atomic power wants peaceful Non-nuclear world... The greedy force wants more of oil resources and money... The richest economy ignoring Africa where people dying from starvation and poverty... While there in the city of glory, they are settling more of their nuclear power... Defending Israel and yet attacking Iran and North Korea... Israel don't have a nuclear weapons then??!! How the world can believe such a big lie, such a fucking masked politicians, skillful deceitful government, and this idiot called Bush, my Lord, he's no more but a devil in human skin... How the hell they control the world with their faked dual nature!!!

I cannot stop hating most the US masked politicians...

Another black point in the history unleashes their deception from a long time through the history. Meanwhile, their poor public still could believe they live in the greatest country ever, they do not know that the main axis of their country is originally a mixture of the world's brightest scientists in all fields, and the natives no more money machines, no more idiots, and pigs!

I'm here to unveil the worst lie in the human life... the faked Moon landing, with a references from worldwide web, and American Astronomy sites their selves quite sure that NASA swallowed bunch of lies and made the public swallow it JUST to appear infront of the world they still No.1 force.
All the story begins when Soviet cosmonaut "Colonel Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin" who in 1961 became the first human in space and the first human to orbit the Earth, and you all know the cold war between the world's two leading forces after the second world war till end of eighties was the longest cold war ever in history... So how come "Soviet Union" send this cosmonaut to travel in space and we still stand still, then NASA decided to deceive the whole world in that critical time and to put a full story of complete imagination about their hoax Apollo 11 Moon landing under the leadership of "Neal Armstrong" in 1969... As far as I've read the texts in the sites given below, it convinced me to some extent - not because I'm an astronaut and knows about space - mainly because I'm sure that US government lies everyday 24 lies... One every hour!

Contemplate deeply... US next Moon visit was after 20 years, how comes? 30 billion$ were in the pocket of someone, from this propaganda; they gathered those enormous money to travel to the faked moon!!

But all this hoax - maybe - was recorded in "Nevada Desert!!!"

Check out these sites:

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html

http://www.moonmovie.com/moonmovie/

http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/ (here's a full report about reasons led NASA to fake a landing)

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm

http://stuffucanuse.com/fake_moon_landings/moon_landings.htm

Sir Zidan