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Voyager Therapeutics Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Financial Results and Corporate Updates – Yahoo Finance

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Protocol amendment being implemented for ongoing RESTORE-1 trial of VY-AADC (NBIb-1817) for Parkinsons disease; plan to initiate RESTORE-2 trial in 2H 2020

Update on VY-HTT01 for Huntingtons disease preclinical program expected in 2Q 2020

Strong financial position with ~$282M of cash at the end of 2019 and expected runway into mid-2022

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (VYGR), a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing life-changing treatments for severe neurological diseases, today reported its fourth quarter and full year 2019 financial results, program progress and corporate updates.

In 2019, we took important steps toward our vision of establishing Voyager as the leader in neurological gene therapy, including forming our strategic collaboration with Neurocrine Biosciences, expanding our partnership with AbbVie, and further progressing our wholly-owned and partnered programs, said Andre Turenne, President and CEO of Voyager. Turning to 2020, we are excited to continue this momentum across all programs. These initiatives include presenting longer-term data from the Parkinsons disease program, advancing our Huntingtons disease program, and further leveraging our novel capsid research and expertise in vector engineering and delivery toward additional pipeline programs.

Recent Corporate Highlights and Program Outlook

VY-AADC for Parkinsons Disease

VY-HTT01 for Huntingtons Disease

Early Pipeline and Platform

Corporate Updates

Anticipated Upcoming Milestones

VY-AADC for Parkinsons Disease:

VY-HTT01 for Huntingtons Disease:

Early Pipeline and Platform:

Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Financial Results

Financial Guidance

Conference Call Information

Voyager will host a conference call and webcast today at 4:30 p.m. EST. The conference call may be accessed by dialing (877) 851-3834 for domestic callers, or +1 (631) 291-4595 for international callers. Please reference conference ID number 8461408 to join the call. The conference call will be webcast live from the Investors & Media section of Voyagers website at http://www.voyagertherapeutics.com and will be archived there following the call for 90 days.

About Voyager Therapeutics

Voyager Therapeutics is a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing life-changing treatments for severe neurological diseases. Voyager is committed to advancing the field of AAV gene therapy through innovation and investment in vector engineering and optimization, manufacturing, and dosing and delivery techniques. Voyagers wholly-owned and partnered pipeline focuses on severe neurological diseases for which effective new therapies are needed, including Parkinsons disease, Huntingtons disease, a monogenic form of ALS called SOD1, Friedreichs ataxia, Alzheimers disease, and other neurodegenerative diseases related to defective or excess aggregation of tau and alpha-synuclein proteins in the brain. Voyager has strategic collaborations with AbbVie and Neurocrine Biosciences. Founded by scientific and clinical leaders in the fields of AAV gene therapy, expressed RNA interference and neuroscience, Voyager is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information, please visit http://www.voyagertherapeutics.com or follow @VoyagerTx on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws. The use of words such as may, might, will, would, should, expect, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, undoubtedly, project, intend, future, potential, or continue, and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. For example, all statements Voyager makes regarding the initiation, timing, progress, activities, goals and reporting of results of its preclinical programs and clinical trials and its research and development programs, the potential benefits, timing and future operation of the collaboration agreements with AbbVie and Neurocrine Biosciences, including any potential future payments thereunder, its ability to identify and attract parties to participate in research and development collaborations, its ability to advance its AAV-based gene therapies into, and successfully initiate, enroll and complete, clinical trials, the potential clinical utility of its product candidates, its ability to continue to develop its gene therapy platform, its ability to perform under existing collaborations including those with AbbVie and Neurocrine Biosciences, its ability to add new programs to its pipeline, the regulatory pathway of, and the timing or likelihood of its regulatory filings and approvals for, any of its product candidates, its ability to operate its research and development activities efficiently and effectively, the utility and value of Voyagers patent portfolio, and Voyagers anticipated financial results, including Voyagers available cash, cash equivalents and marketable debt securities, the receipt by Voyager of revenues or reimbursement payments from collaboration partners, Voyagers operating expenses, and Voyagers ability to fund its operating expenses with its current cash, cash equivalents and marketable debt securities though a stated time period are forward looking. All forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions by Voyagers management that, although Voyager believes such forward-looking statements to be reasonable, are inherently uncertain. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that Voyager expected. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, those related to the initiation and conduct of preclinical studies and clinical trials; the availability of data from preclinical studies and clinical trials; the expectations for regulatory communications, submissions and approvals; the continued development of the gene therapy platform; Voyagers scientific approach and general development progress; the ability to attract and retain talented contractors and employees; the ability to create and protect intellectual property; the sufficiency of cash resources; the possibility or the timing of the exercise of development, commercialization, license and other options under collaborations; and the availability or commercial potential of Voyagers product candidates. These statements are also subject to a number of material risks and uncertainties that are described in Voyagers Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as updated by its subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information in the press release is as of the date of this press release, and any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it was made. Voyager undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise this information or any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

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Investors: Paul CoxVP, Investor Relations857-201-3463pcox@vygr.com

Media: Sheryl Seapy W2Opure949-903-4750sseapy@purecommunications.com

Voyager Therapeutics, Inc.Selected Financial Information($-amounts in thousands, except per share data)(Unaudited)

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Voyager Therapeutics Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Financial Results and Corporate Updates - Yahoo Finance

First-Year Lab Experience Gave This Student the Confidence to Aim for a Ph.D. – UVA Today

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

A University of Virginia biomedical engineering student is trying to tackle the worlds No. 1 cause of death on a genetic level.

Rita Anane-Wae, from Ghana by way of Glendale, Arizona, and a third-year biomedical engineering student, is using a 2019 Harrison Undergraduate Research grant to seek a genetic solution to atherosclerosis, or the build-up of plaque in ones arteries, which impedes blood flow.

There are cells that will try to fix this problem by covering them and basically pushing the plaque down to allow blood flow, she said. These cells will try to reduce that plaque so that there is correct blood flow. In very serious cases, the plaque can harden and break off. Once it breaks, it can get lodged somewhere and cause a stroke or a heart attack.

Created through a gift from the late David A. Harrison III and his family, the Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards fund outstanding undergraduate research projects. Selected by a faculty review committee, awardees receive as much as $4,000 apiece to pursue their research interests, under the direction of a faculty mentor.

Anane-Wae started working in a laboratory run by Mete Civelek, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, as a second-year student.

Civelek had already altered her life. Anane-Wae came to UVA to be a chemical engineer. She met Civelek when she signed up as a first-year student for a program that offered faculty mentoring.

At the time I was a chemical engineering major with an interest in biomedical engineering, Anane-Wae said. After talking with him, he was able to assuage my fears about biomedical engineering.

Biomedical engineering is a relatively new field and as such, I did not believe there were many jobs out there, and my parents were worried for the same reason, she said. Mete has a chemical engineering undergrad degree and a masters and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, so he was the perfect person for me to talk to. He explained the two fields in a unique way, unlike what I had read and seen on YouTube.

Honestly, I love biomedical engineering. When I switched into biomedical engineering, literally in my first class, I though Oh, my God, this is home. I am learning about anatomy, physiology, genes and cells, and it is still all really exciting for me.

Civelek also suggested Anane-Wae participate in the research trip to Uganda through the UVA Minority Health & Health Disparities International Research Training program to perform research on congestive heart failure. While in Uganda, Anane-Wae made rounds with a doctor at a local hospital and met a 17-year-old girl suffering from congestive heart failure.

Her legs were all swollen, Anane-Wae said. She had edema and her stomach was filled with fluid. I was looking at her and thinking, This girl cant lay down because of all the swelling and she cant even be at rest. And I was thinking, She is about my age and I am fortunate enough to be traveling the world and she is here stuck in this hospital bed.

Her encounter with the girl became part inspiration to her and part reminder that congestive heart failure is not just for older patients.

I have a hard time accepting what I am capable of doing, Anane-Wae said. Being here, being in Uganda, working in the lab, it has taught me that I am basically capable of making change. I know what I am supposed to be doing with my time and my future and I know that doing it makes me happy and will make other people better.

In her lab work, Anane-Wae studies a specific gene melanoma inhibitor activity 3, or MIA3 that affects smooth muscle cells.

Smooth muscle cells are able to basically cover the plaque in that disease state, Anane-Wae said. We are running experiments to see how us modulating MIA3 affects the disease.

She said she and members of the research team in the lab also performed experiments knocking out the MIA3 gene from the cells, which led to a more serious disease state.

I think experiments like these are really important because we are not yet at the stage where we can do gene therapy on a person, Anane-Wae said. If you knock out specific genes, it will affect things that we dont understand yet.

Anane-Wae is working on a small section of a large field, but she thinks there is promise in the work she is doing.

The genome-wide association studies show that 161 different genes so far have been associated with coronary artery disease, she said. And we are studying just one. There is so much further that we have to go.

The path is really long, but we are trying to understand the mechanism by which one gene affects the disease and if we actually figure out that mechanism, we can try to apply it to the other genes and maybe understand the bigger picture.

Research can lead her down many blind alleys, which she understands. Anane-Wae is also very conscious of the law of unintended consequences, and how something that solves one problem can create other problems in the process.

We can say that about everything, she said. I think that is the way with all new development. You fix problems and new ones will arise, and then you fix those, too. So we can only do so much. But I think what I have learned is that I have found something about which I am passionate. I have found something that I enjoy and here at UVA, I have found a community of people who will help me develop my skills.

Included in that community, Anane-Wae cited Civelek and Redouane Aherrahrou, an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellow with whom she works.

Aherrahrou has known Anane-Wae since she joined the lab in 2018. When she first joined our lab, Rita knew only the fundamental lab skills and methods, he said. After a short amount of training, she learned rapidly and became very familiar with the cell culture techniques and appropriate lab handling. She performed the experiments independently. Her interactions with other lab members are both professional and friendly.

He described Anane-Wae as a diligent researcher, a gifted student, an inspiring person, and enjoyable to be around.

She has a great personality, is open to guidance and responds well to criticism, he said. She wants to apply to Ph.D. programs after she graduates, and I predict a great future in her career as a research scientist.

Civelek said he enjoys having Anane-Wae as part of his team.

She is hard-working, curious and eager to make a scientific impact, he said. I can see the joy in her face when she learns something new. She gets along well with everyone in the lab and is a role model to those who are junior to her. She has a bright future and I am very proud of her accomplishments.

Civelek said Anane-Wae was recently awarded a German Academic Exchange Research Internship in Science and Engineering, which is presented to only 300 students from the U.S. and Canada.

Redouane and Mete both have high standards for me and motivate me to do my very best, Anane-Wae said. They have instilled a confidence in me that I did not have prior to joining the lab, and they continuously push me to achieve great things. I am so fortunate to have these two individuals as mentors, in addition to all of the other members in the laboratory.

A Blue Ridge Scholarship recipient, Anane-Wae is member of the National Society of Black Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers. She also has received a Hugh Bache Scholarship.

Anane-Wae said she is looking at doing big things, such as gene therapy, but realizes that she has to take small steps at first, and that her friends in the lab will help her out when things go wrong.

She has also learned that research is a team effort, not a solo pursuit.

You cant do research by yourself, she said. You wont be able to get anything done. You will have to depend on other people and you have to be able to share what you have learned. You wont get anything done in any amount of time if you dont trust other people and work together.

First-Year Lab Experience Gave This Student the Confidence to Aim for a Ph.D. - UVA Today

Bitcoin braced for brutal weekend as fear sets in – Yahoo Finance

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Bitcoin is on the brink of a major correction this weekend after suffering an 18% slide over the past 15 days.

With it now trading below the daily 200 moving average downside price targets at both $8,450 and $7,830 have emerged.

The $7,830 level of support is intriguing as it is in confluence with the diagonal trendline dating back to the start of 2019 when Bitcoin was worth just $3,350.

A potential breakdown from that level would see Bitcoin trade outside the trendline for the first time in more than a year a clear indicator of a bear market.

However, its worth noting that Bitcoin has enjoyed a fruitful year to date with it still being 27% up since January 1.

As a result, several analysts remain bullish on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies especially in light of recent turmoil in traditional markets.

Bitcoin is often described as digital gold, with gold being a common hedge to global equity markets.

As coronavirus sweeps across the globe at an alarming rate, economic instability is to be expected, and could well drive the price of Bitcoin to the upside.

Another point from a bullish perspective is that Bitcoin will undergo a block reward halving in May an event that has historically been kind to cryptocurrency due to a reduction in supply.

Both bullish scenarios are based on macro time-frames, whereas immediate price action is signalling a move to the downside.

As previously noted, the key levels of support to monitor are $8,450 and $7,830, while a break above $8,830 would indicate a move back into the $9,000 region.

For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here.

Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents:

US Dollar BTCtoUSD

British Pound Sterling BTCtoGBP

Japanese Yen BTCtoJPY

Euro BTCtoEUR

Australian Dollar BTCtoAUD

Russian Rouble BTCtoRUB

In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.orgwas registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are.

The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without relying on trust. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number 0 (or the genesis block), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins.

If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin orcryptocurrenciesin general, then use the search box at the top of this page.Heres an article to get you started.

As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice.

The post Bitcoin braced for brutal weekend as fear sets in appeared first on Coin Rivet.

5 Themes of Nietzsche That You Can Apply to Your Life – Study Breaks

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

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Frederick Nietzsche, the 19th century German philosopher, transformed the fields of science and philosophy. His revolutionary ideas have drastically altered the history of modern intellectual thought, but during his lifetime, he amassed countless enemies with his antithetical beliefs toward religion and morality.

Following his renouncement of religion, he wrote a letter to his sister, explaining why he felt the need to leave the church. Nietzsche wrote, Hence the ways of men part: if you want to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire. Here are five ways that Nietzsches ideals can be applied to your own life.

Nietzsches search for moral truth in his life led him to question why humans feel the need to discover truth. He began his critique of truth by emphasizing that all life is perspective. He thought that because everyones life is different, their beliefs, judgments and actions will also differ. As our interpretations and judgments change, our perspective shifts, leading individuals to have different perceptions of morality.

This realization led Nietzsche to question why people feel the yearning for immutable laws to govern morality. Nietzsche asked himself the questions, Why truth rather than perspective? Why certainty rather than more interpretation? He postulated that our will to truth was not a natural desire.

Instead, Nietzsche believed that the human demand for rigid morality was a choice that we make out of fear, in order to convince ourselves that there is order in the universe. Nietzsche claimed that, because our will to truth forces us to base our beliefs in the perspectives of others, it glorifies the least creative parts of ourselves.

As America becomes increasingly polarized, the two political parties continue to drag their feet in the ground, refusing to shift their ideologies. In this age of internet misinformation, confirmation bias the human tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of ones previous beliefs has become all too common. This fallacious way of thinking is maintained by one-sided news sources that bend the truth to attract people that think like them.

In these times of political uncertainty, we could all benefit from the wisdom of Friedrich Nietzsche. If we sought to understand others perspectives, instead of screaming at those we disagree with, we could move past our party differences.

Nietzsche realized that everyones values are different because they have distinctive perspectives. Everyone has different perceptions of life, so the truth is never black or white. People engaging in confirmation bias are obeying their will to truth, and subscribing themselves to a particular ideology, while ignoring other possible principles. Nietzsche teaches us that our beliefs should naturally change over time, as our judgments and perceptions of life change.

Instead of engaging in confirmation bias and believing only the facts that fit your narrative, attempt to gather facts from different perspectives. Nietzsche wants you to recognize that your will to truth is not a natural desire. Next time you think your beliefs are right and someone elses are wrong, remember that your values may not coincide with theirs, but that doesnt mean you cant understand their perspective. Instead of judging their beliefs, interpret them, and try to figure out what led them to that way of thinking.

If you think someones beliefs are wrong, silencing them will only push them further away. The only way for us to come to a mutual understanding is by creating a more open discussion, focused on respecting varied perspectives.

What weve called universal values, what we have called truth, has always only ever been the personal expressions of those who promoted them. Nietzsche

Nietzsche believed that universal morality is merely personal maxims that have been universalized for everyone to follow. He explains that the real values we hold are not based on the perspectives of others, but are expressions of who we are, and what feels powerful or life-giving to us. Nietzsche believed a rigid religious code creates what he called the herd mentality. Like a herd of animals, a herd mentality aims towards sameness, comfort and the preservation of its population.

The herd mentality puts the community over the individual, and limits creativity and independence. Nietzsche realized the universal codes he previously followed were nothing more than tools for enforcement, used by the herd to limit his free choices and individuality. Because universal morality requires us to adopt our beliefs from others perspectives, it limits our free expression and appeals to the least creative part of ourselves: the part that craves inflexible moral truth.

Rainer Maria Rilke was a poet during the late 19th and early 20th centuries whose writing was fueled by his fluctuating beliefs concerning an increasingly secular, war-torn Europe. Prominent Nietzsche themes appear in his poetry and, like Nietzsche, much of his work was not appreciated during his lifetime.

All who seek you test you.And those who find you, bind you to image and gesture.I would rather sense you, as the earth senses you.In my ripening, ripens what you are. Rilke

In this poem, Rilke examines spirituality, and recommends that we broaden our view of what is considered pious. Building off Nietzsches view on universal codes of morality, Rilke suggests that most of the people who seek and find religion enact it as a group of rules to abide by, and to be confined to. Nietzsche believed that organized religions constrain people to a specific way of thinking, thereby limiting their intellectual freedom.

This is because they adopt the perspectives of others, who see God rigidly in image and gesture. They refrain from seeing God in different ways, thus restricting Gods influence on their lives. Rilke, like Nietzsche, believed that spiritual enlightenment could never be synonymous with conformity because enlightenment comes from the unknown, something you can sense but not conform to.

Instead of keeping your spiritual beliefs stagnant, try to evolve your spirituality and change it for the better when an opportunity presents itself. It is the changing perception of God, Rilke suggests, that changes people for the better.

Nietzsche suggested that we can move past our will to truth, and free ourselves from the entrapment of the herd mentality, by becoming beyond good and evil. Instead of falling victim to our will to truth and borrowing the values of others, we should awaken our will to power, which is our passion and drive to create our life in the image of what we value.

Nietzsches philosophy proposes that we say yes to whatever gives us meaning in our own lives the things we find value in personally. Many critics believe Nietzsche to be a promoter of anarchism because of his hatred of government and religion but, although his work has been frequently associated with anarchists, Nietzsche denied these claims.

I dont think his goal was to demonize the values of those organizations. He was merely pointing out problems in the structures of government and religion. His philosophy doesnt condemn specific values; instead, it condemns values that are adopted from others. Nietzsche maintained his criticism of organized religion throughout his life, but he also recognized that spirituality can grant immense value to some peoples lives.

Although some religious scholars see Nietzsche as an enemy to be disproved, I see him as someone who exposed obvious problems in religion because he wished for people to autonomously discover their own spirituality. His attacks on organized religion lead many spiritual folks to reject his insights, but his intention wasnt for people to abandon spirituality. His philosophy was a renouncement of his faith, not an attack on the faith of others.

Although many religious individuals find his work repulsive, I believe you can appreciate Nietzsche and still find meaning in religion. Nietzsche preached individual freedom of belief, whatever that belief may be.

Nietzsches ethics ask us to take a bold step. Eliminating our sources of truth in the world will most likely lead to nihilism, which is the belief that nothing has value or meaning. Many perceive nihilism as a negative or destructive perspective, but in contrast to the common view, Nietzsche believed nihilism is a prompting, or an opportunity that can enable us to reevaluate what gives value to our lives. Nietzsche believed that if we destroy our previous set of beliefs, and suffer the initial existential angst of nihilism, we can discover where our true values lie.

Many misinterpret his view as an endorsement of pessimism, but they couldnt be further from the truth. His view enables someone to experience the full depth of their character. Nietzsche advises a revision of self but doesnt require us to get rid of all of our past herd-built values. He is asking us to consider our existing values, as well as all other possibilities.

Nietzsche is not advising you to adopt a nihilistic outlook on life. He is saying that to find your own truths in life, you must first reject the truths given to you by the herd. To find value in your life, you cannot blindly follow the values of others. Next time you feel a loss of meaning in your life, interpret that depressed state as an opportunity for change. Instead of sulking in your perceived loss of self, realize that you feel that way because you avoided your true values. Look at nihilism as a gift that enables you to find true value by cleaning your slate of its narrow imitative beliefs.

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?

The greatest weight is a metaphorical situation put forth by Nietzsche. His goal was to make you think about what gives value to your life. Nietzsches hypothetical makes us ask ourselves if we would want to live eternally as we have been living. He proposes that most of us would curse the demon. The greatest weight is the feeling that crushes you into repeating past mistakes, and it is built from the unevaluated values you adopt from your herd.

Nietzsche suggests that in every little thing ask yourself, do you desire this once more and innumerable times over? If you change yourself and reevaluate your values, the weight can be lifted. However, if you remain under the same influences of the herd-prescribed guilt, you will become crushed under the weight, and submit to your unoriginal repetitive ways.

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,has grown so weary that it cannot holdanything else. It seems to him there area thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,the movement of his powerful soft stridesis like a ritual dance around a centerin which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupilslifts, quietly. An image enters in,rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,plunges into the heart and is gone. Rilke

In Rilkes poem The Panther, he observed a panther behind the bars at a zoo, insightfully comparing the panthers will to live with that of mankinds. This poem examines how the greatest weight confines humankind to a subservient state. Like the panther, mankind lives behind bars. The panther is held captive in a cell made from human ingenuity, while mankinds personal jail cells are blandly pre-subscribed by social beliefs that captivate the wildness and individualism of the human spirit.

Humanitys confinement is built from its defined limitations. The social norms and beliefs of an individuals herd composes the bars of their prison, restricting that persons actions, and inhibiting their freedom of original self-expression. Rilke, like Nietzsche, recognized that we can escape our enclosure of forced beliefs and awaken ourselves to what we value personally. But, upon realizing all the bars that stand in the way of our dreams, many of us submit to the comfortability of our cage.

When you feel overtaken by the greatest weight, dont hide your wild aspirations in fear of them once again resurfacing. Break out of your self-made, herd-based enclosure and chase after the dreams that give meaning to your life.

5 Themes of Nietzsche That You Can Apply to Your Life - Study Breaks

Author Shares Personal Journey to Spiritual Awakening, Teaches Readers How to Lift the Veil of Universal Truths in New Book – Yahoo Finance

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

'My YOUniverse According to Dharma,' by Beatriz Roche, helps readers better understand themselves and raise their consciousness.

MADRID, March 2, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Author Beatriz Roche has published an inspirational book about her transformative journey to enlightenment in which she invites readers to awaken their spirits, discover their universal truth, and tap into their limitless inner power.

In "My YOUniverse According to Dharma," Roche shares her experience crossing paths with her late, close friend, Yelitza, in a dream and again later in Roche's meditation. Through these encounters, Yelitza introduced Roche to Dharma, leading Roche to channel this highly evolved, nonphysical consciousness.

Roche's book delivers what she learned as a receptor and translator for this energy and explores topics such as how the world was populated, how people perceive time, what dark and light forces exist in the universe, how people are absolute creators of their reality using their conscious and subconscious thoughts and emotions, and how loving oneself is fundamental to everything.

"This journal or conversation with Dharma was of great help to me when I needed it the most," Roche wrote in her book about its development. "I had no previous training as a channeler, so it came as a huge and wonderful surprise. The world according to Dharma satiates my never-ending thirst for truth. And apparently, this is just the beginning."

Ultimately, "My YOUniverse According to Dharma" is a comprehensive channeling guide to personal growth that considers a wide range of existential questions intended to raise readers' consciousness and help both them and those around them.

"Beatriz has written a beautiful book about the power of love and friendship," a reader wrote in a five-star review of the book on Amazon. "She takes the reader on a journey of self discovery and awakening. In reading it we are immersed in a world of creative energies which uplift us. The reader is left both grateful and inspired."

"My YOUniverse According to Dharma" By Beatriz Roche ISBN: 978-1-9822-2964-1 (hardcover); 978-1-9822-2965-8 (softcover); 978-1-9822-2966-5 (e-book) Available through Balboa Press, Barnes & Noble and Amazon

About the author Beatriz Roche was born in Caracas, Venezuela, but has lived abroad for most of her life. Always a creative and curious person, Roche is passionate about the subjects of metaphysics and spirituality and is excited to share Dharma's wise and exceptional information and messages through "My YOUniverse According to Dharma". Roche is also the author of "The Key's Key," (previously titled "The Key To It,") and she attended college in Boston, where she graduated with the dean's award and literary honors. She currently resides in Madrid. To learn more, please visit http://www.conversationswithdharma.com.

General Inquiries, Review Copies & Interview Requests: LAVIDGE Phoenix 480-648-7557 dgrobmeier@lavidge.com

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Author Shares Personal Journey to Spiritual Awakening, Teaches Readers How to Lift the Veil of Universal Truths in New Book - Yahoo Finance

Patrick Swayze’s 10 Best Movies According to IMDb | ScreenRant – Screen Rant

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

One of the most beloved actors of the 80s and 90s, Patrick Swayze cultivated an on-screen persona as the sensitive, troubled bad boy. Sure, he literally tore out a mans throat towards the end of Road House (1989), but have you seen the guy dance? With swiveling hips and legs that were just as likely to roundhouse you to the face as dance the mambo, Patrick Swayze became the poster boy for a new generation of action hero: van Damme meets Fred Astaire.

RELATED:Dirty Dancing Cast: Where Are They Now?

Patrick Swayze was even more endearing for the fact that he wasnt afraid to undercut his masculine image onscreen, particularly in films like Dirty Dancing (1987)and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar(1995).

Sadly, Patrick Swayze passed away in 2009 at the age of 57, after a protracted battle with cancer. But his legacy lives on through his many indelible film performances. Here are his top ten movies, as voted by users at IMDb.

Patrick Swayze plays Max Lowe, a depressed American surgeon seeking spiritual enlightenment in India, in the director Roland Joffs City of Joy. After being severely injured in a mugging not long after arriving in the Indian metropolis of Calcutta, Max is rescued by poor rural farmer Hazari Pal (Om Puri). Hazari decides to take Max back to his home in the slums, referred to by locals as the City of Joy. There, Max meets Irish doctor Joan Bethel (Pauline Collins), who convinces him that the path to enlightenment is through helping those around him.

The film did not live up to the critical or commercial success of Joffs previous films, such as the Academy Award-winning historical drama The Killing Fields(1984), and its white savior narrative has dated poorly. However, its uplifting message still resonates with IMDb users, making it Patrick Swayzes tenth-highest rated film.

Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo star as three New York City drag queens on a cross country road trip to Hollywood to compete in the Miss Drag Queen of America Pageant in the lengthily titled To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. When their car breaks down in the small backwater town of Snydersville, the group encounters both prejudice and support from the local community.

Although the film features strong performances from its three leads as well as a string of wonderful cameos, it still compares unfavorably with the superior Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994).

Late 80s cult classic action movie Road House is one of those so-bad-its-actually-great movies. Patrick Swayze plays Dalton, a bouncer at the Double Deuce, a roadside bar in Jasper, Missouri. When Dalton finds out that corrupt businessman Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara) is extorting many of the local shopkeepers out of their profits including the owner of the Double Deuce he decides to defend the town from Wesley and his henchmen.

Although it was a critical flop and scored five Golden Raspberry nominations, including Worst Actor for Swayze, Road House is still a lot of fun. Just dont go in expecting Citizen Kane.

2005 British black comedy Keeping Mum centers on the clueless vicar of the countryside parish of Little Wallop, played by Rowan Atkinson. Focussed on writing the perfect sermon, he is unaware that his family is falling apart around him: his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) has begun an affair with American golf pro-Lance (Patrick Swayze), his promiscuous teenage daughter (Tamsin Egerton) is struggling with her blossoming sexuality, and his son (Toby Parkes) is being bullied at school.

Although it features a stellar ensemble cast, including Dame Maggie Smith in a pitch-black role as the comically sinister housekeeper Grace Hawkins, Keeping Mum never really elevates itself above a pedestrian comedy. However, Patrick Swayze plays the sleazy jerk to good comedic effect in one of his last film roles.

Classic romantic fantasy film Ghost was a commercial and critical hit and cemented Patrick Swayzes status as a sex symbol. The film centers on Swayzes character, Sam Wheat, who is shot and killed in an apparent mugging while walking home with his girlfriend Molly Jensen (Demi Moore). Sam discovers that he now exists as a non-corporeal ghost, only able to communicate with Molly via a psychic (Whoopi Goldberg in an Academy Award-winning role).

RELATED:10 Most Culturally Influential Movies Of The 1990s

One of the most loved romance films of the 90s, and featuring that pottery scene, Ghost is a must-watch for any true Swayze fan, and it is still highly appreciated by the IMDb community.

Ranking alongside Ghost as arguably the most iconic Patrick Swayze movie is 1987s Dirty Dancing. Patrick Swayze plays Johnny Castle, a dance instructor at an upscale resort in the Catskills who begins a romance with Frances Baby Houseman (Jennifer Grey), a young woman vacationing there with her wealthy parents. When Johnnys dance partner Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) is unable to participate in their upcoming dance performance, Baby volunteers to take her place, against the wishes of her overprotective father (Jerry Orbach).

A bona fide romantic coming-of-age classic, Dirty Dancing remains firmly entrenched in popular culture and still gets regular cinema screenings to this day making it one of Patrick Swayzes most enduring films.

Patrick Swayze features amongst an impressive cast of future stars in this coming-of-age ensemble drama directed by The Godfathers Francis Ford Coppola. The film focusses on the often-violent rivalry between two gangs of teenagers living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the mid-60s. Swayze plays Darrel Darry Curtis, an older member of the Greasers: a gang of tough working-class teens who do battle with the wealthier Socs.

Based on the influential novel by S.E. Hinton, Coppolas film helped launched Patrick Swayzes acting career, as well as those of his co-stars Tom Cruise, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, and Diane Lane.

A surprise hit with IMDb users, indie black comedy 11:14 tells the various interconnected stories that take place during a single night leading up to two fatal car accidents that occur at precisely 11:14 pm. Patrick Swayze plays Frank, a father trying to cover up what he suspects is a murder committed by his teenage daughter Cheri (Rachael Leigh Cook). His bumbling efforts to dispose of the body inadvertently contribute to the films tragic conclusion.

The movies appeal lies mostly in its twisty plot. The film unfolds like a puzzle, jumping back and forth through time to slowly reveal how the actions of the various characters all piece together to eventually cause the twin accidents.

Kathryn Bigelows action classic Point Break stars Keanu Reeves as FBI agent Johnny Utah, who goes undercover in the local surfing community after he becomes convinced that a group of surfers are responsible for a string of recent armed bank robberies. His suspicions soon prove correct, after he discovers that a gang led by surfing guru Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) are the culprits.

RELATED:The 10 Best Keanu Reeves Movies According To IMDb

Bigelows direction and the strength of the performances of the two leads elevate Point Break beyond just a simple action movie, turning it into an almost philosophical reflection on machismo interspersed with some kickass set pieces.

Patrick Swayze plays against type as a small-town motivational speaker revealed to be a closeted pedophile in Richard Kellys mind-bending cult film Donnie Darko. The film is a unique genre mashup, incorporating elements of teen drama, thriller, horror, and sci-fi.

It centers on the eponymous Donnie Darko (played by a young Jake Gyllenhaal) who is visited in a dream by a monstrous rabbit who tells him the world is about to end. From there the movie only gets weirder, exploring ideas of time travel and parallel universes on the way to a truly bizarre conclusion.

The fact that audiences are still trying to decipher what actually happened in the movie is part of its enduring charm and maybe the reason behind why it has become Patrick Swayzes highest-rated film with the IMDb community.

NEXT:10 Hidden Details Everyone Missed In Donnie Darko

Next10 Sci-Fi Films Whose Predictions About The Future Were Hilariously Wrong (& 5 That Were Eerily Accurate)

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Patrick Swayze's 10 Best Movies According to IMDb | ScreenRant - Screen Rant

Leap Year 2020 horoscope: The spiritual significance of February 29 – Express

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

A Leap Year occurs once every four years and was created back in 45BC by Julius Caesar to avoid inconsistencies in the calendar. Because February 29 is so rare, some consider the day holds significant spiritual power for your horoscope.

From a numerological perspective, the number 29 breaks down to 11 (2+9).

New age spiritual communities consider this as relating to awakening and spiritual enlightenment.

The number 29 of course features in every other month, but February (two) is an unusual combination of numbers and thought to be a rare energy to experience.

Two in numerology is the number of pursuing your soul purpose or mission.

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People believe the number carries a feminine energy with it capable of aiding you to materialise ideas into the real world.

When 11 (29th) and two (February) combine, their respective energies can create a powerful time for love, healing and teaching.

These two numbers are thought to represent the arrival of the spiritual light messenger and those who are open and aware may receive some guidance for progression.

Numerologists also believe February 29 can trigger a type of ripple effect within you because the auspicious date has such a rare vibration.

Some believe this ripple creates an opportunity to literally leap forward at this time and play catch up in our own lives.

A Leap Day provides extra time to achieve goals and this creates a vibrational impact on the dimension of time in the Universe.

From an astrological perspective, 2020s Leap Day falls in the star sign of Pisces.

The energy and essence of Pisces concerns connecting with your deeper consciousness, emotions and spirituality.

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Having another day to enjoy in the vibration of Pisces can appear like the Universes way of reminding us about the importance of consciousness and your own spiritual advancement.

Prior to the invention of the clock, our ancestors used the Sun and the stars for temporal guidance and also viewed synchronistic events as the way the Universe communicated movements in time.

These synchronistic events included perceiving divine messages in nature and the behaviour of beasts.

This leap in time provided by February means it is vital to observe any synchronicities that occur and whether they can provide clues about your own path of awakening and purpose.

This is especially important for those attempting to make sense of what energy February 29 has in store, as the world acts as a mirror to your existential experience.

Walking though February 29 is almost like walking through a rare portal that is only accessible to us every four years.

To most it may just feel like an extra day, but if you challenge yourself to open your awareness and think about the deeper rhythm and flow of time in this Universe, you may just be able to tap into a new energy within your own soul.

Those born on a Leap Day still have their birthday every year as this is indicated by your solar return, when the Sun returns to the same degree that it was on the day you were born.

The Sun travels through this spot every year, regardless of whether it is a Leap Year or not.

Leap Day babies can calculate their Solar Return simply by looking at their astrology chart and working out what degree the Sun was at during your time of birth.

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Leap Year 2020 horoscope: The spiritual significance of February 29 - Express

Coronavirus: Sultan of Sokoto goes spiritual, tells Imams action to take – Daily Post Nigeria

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

The Sultan of Sokoto and President General of the Jamaatu Nasril Islam, Alhaji Saad Abubakar, has declared special fasting and prayer over the Coronavirus outbreak in Nigeria.

Abubakar urged Muslims to offer special prayers and fast in a bid to contain further spread of the disease in Nigeria.

Recall that the Nigerian government, through the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire had confirmed the outbreak of the disease in Nigeria.

However, the Sultan appealed to Imams to enlighten Muslims about the disease and how to prevent it during their daily prayers in their various mosques across the country.

In a statement signed by JNIs Secretary-General, Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, the monarch said all agencies, particularly the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control should ensure they discharged their duties appropriately.

The statement reads: We are worried and concerned about the spate of the deadly coronavirus (Covid-19) and disturbed by the threat it poses to life.

Apart from China, where the infection of the virus started, it spreads geometrically to other countries in the world, ranging from Europe, America, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Nigeria inclusive.

Each country is taking measures in curbing the plague of the Coronavirus, by quarantining the suspiciously infected in order to avoid its spread, while the infected are being treated in special medical facilities.

All Jumaah (Friday prayers) and five daily congregational prayers Imams should mount strong advocacy and enlightenment campaign against the scourge and the epidemic nature of the coronavirus.

They should include in their sermons and preaching the imperatives of taking serious precautionary measures of personal hygiene.

JNI calls on all Jumaah and five daily congregational prayer Imams to engage in special prayers during their sermons, preaching and other sessions for Allahs quick intervention in wiping away the coronavirus outbreak and all other diseases bedeviling humanity.

JNI calls on the government at all levels, especially the agencies charged with the responsibility of protecting the health of the citizenry, particularly the NCDC, to do the needful in protecting the health of the citizenry.

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Thousands of Grassroots Religious Freedom Advocates Submit Comments to Urge D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure Not to Reappoint Judge…

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

WASHINGTON, March 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Today, a grassroots group of religious liberty advocates held a rally in front of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and outside of the D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure (CJDT) to demand that Judge Laura A. Cordero not be reappointed as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court, adding their voices to the thousands of individual comments that were submitted to the CJDT by citizens and affected parties who are calling for her tenure to end.

In comments to the CJDT, which will determine whether Judge Cordero should be reappointed upon the expiration of her current term on June 27, 2020, concerned advocates described how Judge Cordero's previous legal decisions in a case before the Superior Court make her unqualified for reappointment. Judge Cordero's 2018 summary judgment decision in The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification International v. Hyun Jin Preston Moon violated the First Amendment and set a dangerous judicial precedent that impedes religious freedom and the independent governance and management of Washington, D.C. non-profit organizations. Judge Cordero disregarded thousands of pages of evidence that showed indisputable proof of an ongoing religious schism within the Unification movement.

"Judge Laura Cordero's summary judgement ruling has serious implications for religious freedom and the independence of non-profits, and make her severely unqualified to serve as a judge of the D.C. Superior Court," said Rev. Howard Self, who led today's demonstration. "Judge Cordero not only denied the defendants their right to due process but completely ignored the First Amendment in issuing her ruling for this case involving the D.C. non-profit UCI. Her short-sighted and uninformed decision threatens all board-governed non-profits based in Washington, D.C. and all Americans who are granted the right to freedom of religion. For that reason, she should not be reappointed."

In 2013, Judge Anita Josey-Herring, the first presiding judge in the case, signed a motion to dismiss the case, The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification International v. Hyun Jin Preston Moon, under the doctrine of religious abstention. That ruling was appealed, and in December 2015, the D.C. Court of Appeals agreed to reopen the case to allow for discovery, writing that, "going forward, if it becomes apparent to the trial court that this dispute does in fact turn on matters of doctrinal interpretation or church governance, the trial court may grant summary judgment to avoid excessive entanglement with religion."

In October 2018, Judge Cordero issued a summary judgment ruling, scant months after being assigned to the near decade-long case. Judge Cordero's 2018 summary judgment decision violated the First Amendment by enabling a secular court to make a religious interpretation of the Unification movement's theology, history, administration, and polity amid an ongoing schism. In making her summary judgment ruling, Judge Cordero determined not only Rev. Sun Myung Moon's successor, but the purpose and organization of an established religious movement with millions of followers around the world.

"I joined this Right To Believe campaign because I can no longer silently suffer as the court infringes on my sacred freedom as a human being and as an American citizen," said Naomi Yakawich, a 27-year old member of the Unification movement who expressed outrage at Judge Cordero's intervention in matters pertaining to her faith. "I wrote a letter now over a year ago to Judge Cordero of the D.C. Superior Court to respectfully urge her to consider the negative consequences of her decision to take sides in the religious dispute between Family Federation and Dr. Hyun Jin Moon. Judge Cordero ignored the clear evidence provided and has essentially taken one religious group's theology over another, deciding which view she deems right and which she deems wrong and to be punished. As a person of faith, as an American citizen, and as a human being with fundamental rights given by my Creator, I am speaking out to protect not only my freedom, but that of all people to practice their faith. Just as I have no right to infringe on another person's path to spiritual enlightenment, Judge Cordero had no right to dismiss my faith practices as valid or invalid."

The CJDT is accepting comments on Judge Cordero's reappointment from members of the Bar, representatives of the court system, and the general public through March 2, 2020. Grassroots advocates are calling on Judge Jennifer Anderson, who now presides over The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification International v. Hyun Jin Preston Moon, to dismiss the case on religious grounds.

To learn more about the grassroots movement to protect religious freedom, visit RighttoBelieve.org.

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SOURCE Right to Believe

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Thousands of Grassroots Religious Freedom Advocates Submit Comments to Urge D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure Not to Reappoint Judge...

Asking the Clergy: Important women in your faith tradition – Newsday

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

March 8 is International Womens Day, part of the celebration of March as Womens History Month. This weeks clergy discuss the contributions women have made in their faith traditions, in contemporary timesand in their own congregations.

The Rev. Paul Downing

Pastor, St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Port Jefferson Station

If I were to answer that my wife is among the most important women in myfaith tradition, you might think I was pandering. Yet,the important women in our tradition are indeed those in church on Sunday making worship, ministry and community happen.

An adage says, This is our grandmothers faith. The majority of active participants are women and thankfully, in our Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, women now have access to any and all leadership roles. This year we commemorate 50 years since the first womens ordination, and 40 years for women of color, though more progress in equality of opportunity is needed. Our current national bishop is a woman.

The importance of women of faith goes all the way back through Hebrew biblical witness, including the likes of Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, Miriam, Esther, Naomi, Ruth and Rahab, to New Testament figures like Mary Magdalene (the Apostle to the Apostles), Mary and Martha of Bethany, Elisabeth, Mary the mother of Jesus, Tabitha, Lydia, Priscilla and Phoebe.

Although Scripture is written in the language of patriarchy, women are there, in between the lines, going unnamed yet providing examples of faith and leadership, or providing for ministry. Brave widows and maidens refusing to marryin a time when women were considered incapable of managing wealth, supported the early church out of their own means, even the ministry of Jesus himself.

Anu Jain of Jericho

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Executive board member, Jain Center of America in Elmhurst, Queens

In Jain tradition, there are many women who played an important role in the history of Jainism. Among them are the 16 Satis, the 16 Great Virtuous Women. These women had a very strong history of braveness, tolerance and fighting in their own way without harming anyone. Jains define these Satisin ways that invoke the ideology of a womans fidelity and moral strength. Trishla, the mother of our religions reviver and reorganizer, Lord Mahavira, visualized 14 such dreams that allowed her to give birth to the Lord Mahavira.

Another example is the nunMahasati Chandanbala, who played an important role in Lord Mahaviras path of spiritual enlightenment and moksha, the transcendent state attained as a result of the release from the cycle of rebirth. The Satis set an example for the thousands of Jain womenwho follow their path toward spiritual enlightenment.

Modern families are teaching moral lessons to their children by reciting the exemplary life stories of the Great Virtuous Women. Jains believe that by thinking about these women during meditation and including their principles in day-to-day life, theycan achieve a successful day and a prominent place in society. The Satis are truly a strong pillar of Jainism.

Isma H. Chaudhry

Board of trustees chair, Islamic Center of Long Island, Westbury

In Islamic teachings, women and men are created with the same spiritual nature and are equally responsible for their actions, and thus they can expect the same reward for their righteous behavior.

From an Islamic perspective, the roles of men and women are complementary and cooperative rather than competitive. Some of the inspiring women in Islam are academics, scholars, entrepreneurs and businesswomen, dating as far back as the inception of Islam in the seventh century. The Quran declares that men and women are equal in the eyes of God; men and women were created to be equal parts of a pair. (51:49)

There are 24 females mentioned in the Quran that serve as role models of moral and social strength, including Elizabeth, wife of Zakariya. There is a chapter in the Quran that talks about the righteousness and challenges faced by Mary, the essence of virtue, mother of Prophet Jesus. Hawaa (Eve) is a symbol of equality, Umm-Musa (the Mother of Moses), exemplifies the nurturing spirit. Bilqis (Queen of Sheba), is a wise leader.

Islam alsorecognizes womens roles in business and the sciences. Khadija, Prophet Muhammads wife, was the CEO of her own company; Umm Hani Maryam, was a theologian and a scholar. In 859 AD, Fatima al-Fihri founded a university in Morocco. The 19th and 20th centuries have seen numerous noteworthy and famous female Muslim scientists, leaders and heads of state.

DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS youd like Newsday to ask the clergy? Email them to LILife@newsday.com.

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Preserving the art of Kathak – Independent Online

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

By Latoya Newman Feb 29, 2020

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LIFESTYLE - A KATHAK dance festival aimed primarily at preserving and advancing the art form was held recently in Durban.

The Kala Darshan Institute of Classical Music and Dance, in association with the Aryan Benevolent Home (ABH) and the Arya Yuvak Sabha, will host the Kathak Mahotsav Festival presented the event at the Pattundeen Theatre at the ABH in Chatsworth.

Kathak is a classical dance form with its origins in the temples of North India.

Manesh Maharaj, the festivals director, said the event strove to inspire students and artists to embrace unity and camaraderie and to preserve the sanctity and authenticity of Kathak.

Aside from Kathak being an integral part of Indian culture and identity, it is a potent medium to help steer the student towards a spiritual path and guide them towards a righteous lifestyle. Kathak as an Indian classical dance style is a form of worship and is steeped in divinity. It helps the dancer realise the self and, ultimately, God.

In Hinduism it is regarded as one of the many paths to attain moksha or salvation. Audiences experiencing a Kathak performance come for spiritual enlightenment through this sacred art form as the Kathak dancer becomes the medium between the material and the spiritual.

The audience leaves the theatre feeling elevated and spiritually healed. This directly impacts on ones lifestyle within society as one aspires to adopt a spiritual path (through peace, harmony, unity and love) and aims to steer away from negative voices.

Maharaj, a performer and teacher of the art, said the younger generation were showing a keen interest in studying Kathak.

This is supported and encouraged by their parents and families. It is due to festivals like Kathak Mahotsav that young students are inspired to work harder to become proficient someday, and it is the responsibility of teachers and performers to be productive by creating platforms and affording spaces to talented, hard-working students, said Maharaj.

Kathak has a bright future in South Africa as long as we keep the interest alive by preserving it through teaching and performances.

The artists performing at the festival included Kranthi Singh, Kirti Ravjee, Shika Harrypaul and Maharaj.

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Preserving the art of Kathak - Independent Online

Who Knew? The Bible Really IS On Broadway – Times Daily

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

FLORENCE Local theater director David Hope has known for years that the Bible and its spiritual truths has inspired many a Broadway stage production.

He even came across that affirmation in a book called, "You've Got To Have A Dream: The Message of the Musical," written by Scottish theologian, Ian Bradley.

After reading the book, Hope said he knew at some point he wanted to direct a concert that would show the public, "that some of the most beautiful, inspiring and comforting music ever written for the Broadway stage has as its core message many of the scriptural truths found in the Bible."

So he set out to create that concert featuring 12 beloved songs from 10 classic Broadway musicals.

Those selections will be performed by a 50-voice choir from across the Shoals at 7 p.m. Saturday, at Woodmont Baptist Church, Florence.

The Bible On Broadway event is free to the public and, according to Hope, packs enjoyment for the whole family.

"To my knowledge, a concert of this type has never been done in northwest Alabama," Hope said.

Some of the song selections from the various productions include "Climb Every Mountain," "You'll Never Walk Alone," "One Hand One Heart" (from "West Side Story"), "Sabath Prayer" ("Fiddler on the Roof") and "Children of Eden." A 10-piece orchestra will accompany.

As a special treat for the audience, the closing number which is also the finale to "Le Miserables," "Bring Him Home," will feature special guest Taylor Lamm who played the leading role of Jean Valjean, in the Summer Stock production several years ago.

According to Hope, most people don't immediately associate the Bible with Broadway musicals.

"... if we look a little deeper and really examine the plots and lyrics of the songs that move the plots, we find that over and over Biblical truths serve as the foundation for the message in the songs and very often the entire musical."

One of Hope's favorite examples, and one of the musicals with the strongest spiritual references is "Les Miserables," with its 31 references to God, six references to Jesus, eight mentions of Heaven, four mentions of the soul and explicit illusions to Calvary, the passion and blood of Christ, sacrifice, salvation and sainthood.

"The entire premise of the show is the love and mercy of God and the redemption of man," Hope said.

He said such a concert could only come to fruition with a talented team to work with.

Gene Anne Gifford is the project's vocal director and Becky Foster is musical director and accompanist.

Foster said she enjoys being a part of something that so many people love.

"People love musicals and this is free, so it has a real nucleus to spread across the Shoals," she said. "It's naturally a variety in that there are several musicals involved and the references in some selections may be really surprising to people. And, they're being performed by some really amazing, talented singers."

Soloists include Tammy McCollister, Jill Gatlin, Carol Johns, Mikayla Camp, Salina Fugate, Ann-Marie Patrick, Suzanne Mills, Josh Davis, Joey Wright and Tanner Rhodes.

Choir member Sandra Vetters said the show is timely and unique.

"This is music that many of us have known for 50 years or more and David wants the music to resonate with people today and it does," Vetters said. "This is truly educating people from all over through various community and church choirs and just individuals who love to sing. It's a diverse and well trained group.

It's such a marvelous idea and we've worked to create a broad appeal. It's been so inspiring and is going to be a true gift to the community."

Hope said his desire for the show is one of enlightenment for his audience, "to the bridge between the entertaining world of musical theater and the world of theology and spiritual experience."

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Who Knew? The Bible Really IS On Broadway - Times Daily

The Joy of Fran – The Cut

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Fran Drescher. On Fran: Manolo Blahnik pumps, at manoloblahnik.com. Wolford stockings, at saks.com. Chopard earrings, at 709 Madison Ave. Arm, at left: David Yurman ring, at 5 E. 57th St. De Beers bracelet, at 716 Madison Ave. Arm, at right: Cartier ring, available by appointment at 653 Fifth Ave. Chopard bracelet. Foot, at right: Jimmy Choo shoe, at jimmychoo.com. Photo: Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari

What you first need to understand is that I learned joie de vivre from The Nanny. Literally, as in the phrase: It sneaked into the theme song to describe the stock-in-trade of the flashy girl from Flushing, as the Nanny was, and as Fran Drescher, its star and creator, was. Ann Hampton Callaway wrote that song for her and did its jazzy performance, a stepping-stone on the way to writing hits for Barbra Streisand, which, if youre a Jewish girl from the boroughs, as Drescher is, is a little like saying Callaway wrote for some little yeshiva Yentl before ascending, pen in hand, to work for G-d Herself.

The joy of Fran! The Jewish girl onscreen who wasnt a meeskite but a bombshell, who turned what could have been a career-killer a face that could launch a thousand ships paired with a voice that could sink them and made it, through gale-force charm, a selling point, a calling card. Thirty years worth of journalists have struggled to describe her nasal whinny. I like Los Angeles magazines version: the voice of a Bloomies perfume spritzer in heat. Teachers told her to lose it, and she tried. But when she trained it out of herself, she lost her whole personality and spoke at a snails pace. She remembers drawling her way through an audition for a part in an epic television drama and losing out to Jane Seymour. They said to my manager, You know, she did fine, but she talked too slow, and its only an 18-hour miniseries, Drescher says. So that was kind of the end of that.

If you are of the generation that grew up on Drescher those of us who were impressionable, and often latchkey, kids during her nannying days, from 1993 to 1999 it is more than a little surreal to find yourself suddenly in communication with her, like meeting a former babysitter years later, each of you older, wiser, and a little wider, the dynamics of your relationship subtly changed. At 62, Drescher is both a whole new woman a cancer survivor with a foundation to advocate for early detection, prevention, and policy; a marijuana evangelist; and a fiery political opinionator with a snappy anti-capitalist bent and exactly the one you feel you know. Her text messages are spangled with kiss-print emoji. She loves an espresso martini, the height of 90s elegance.

Michael Kors Collection dress, at michaelkors.com; Balenciaga shoes, at 620 Madison Ave.; Cartier ring, at cartier.com; David Webb ring, at 942 Madison Ave. Photo: Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari

Back home on the Upper West Side after a stop at a Columbus Avenue bodega for $186 worth of fresh flowers, which she arranges and distributes across a number of vases, Drescher has quick-changed into a terrycloth robe and UGGs, a diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist, while her ever-present assistant, Jordan, lights a fire in the living-room hearth. Dreschers company is called Uh-Oh Productions, and emails from Jordan, dispatches from and about Fran, have been popping up on my phone for days as simply Uh-Oh.

Drescher spends most of her time in Malibu, where she has a house on the ocean and a regular table at Nobu. But she keeps an apartment in New York in an Arts and Craftsstyle building just off the park, where she once shared a wall with Madonna. Here, among rattan chairs and Asian antiques, most of which predate her in the apartment she bought it furnished from a decorator Drescher lives softly, a star in temporary residence. Framed photos of her with potentates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden grace a side table. (She hasnt yet chosen a 2020 candidate, though fans who have been stoked by her anti-capitalist sallies may be surprised to hear that, while shes Bernie-curious, I do like Amy, and I do think that Joe has a lot of experience.) In the kitchen is a framed cover of New York Dog magazine featuring Drescher with Esther, one of her late, beloved Pomeranians. Esthers predecessor Chester was a guest star on The Nanny.

The line between her lives onscreen and off can feel blurry. When a phone call from her mother interrupts for a few minutes a periodontal appointment is discussed I have to remind myself that the person on the other end is Sylvia Drescher, whom I have never seen, not Sylvia Fine, her Nanny equivalent on the plastic-covered couch. Fran isnt Fran Fine, the door-to-door makeup saleswoman turned nanny to three sad, spoiled, Anglo-American scamps and their blustery British father (Mistuhhh Sheffield!), but her characters tend to be avatars of their creator. Most of them, she points out, are called Fran. I have the good fortune of being recognizable, she says. For people to roll out the red carpet for me wherever I go in the world, its such heaven. Sometimes people say, I dont like Paris. Theyre not nice to me. And its like, Really? Im like Jerry Lewis there. She is Une Nounou dEnfer A Nanny From Hell, as the show was titled in France and La Tata, as it was called in Italy. The Nanny has been syndicated and adapted around the world, both dubbed in its original version and recast in remakes. In more than 25 years, it has never not been showing somewhere.

The Fran Generation is now grown up, and its members have carried Drescher with them. I watched a lot of TV as a kid, at night when my parents were working, says Broad Citys Ilana Glazer, one of Dreschers spiritual descendants. Fran as the nanny was like my nanny. Glazer cast and directed her on an episode of Broad City as her characters aunt. I have watched so many hours, every episode of the show, says Glazer. She makes up part of the structure of my brain.

The Nanny was very formative, says Rachel Bloom, the Emmy-winning composer, lyricist, and star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, who is working with Drescher on a Nanny musical headed to Broadway. Dan Levy, a producer and writer for the ABC show The Goldbergs, created a Fran Dreschertype mother figure in his new NBC sitcom, Indebted, which premiered last month; he told every development executive that hed pictured Fran Drescher in the part and then, bowing to Occams razor, cast Fran Drescher. Indebted gives Drescher her first starring network role in years, and one, she says with relief, that her elderly parents in Florida and their friends can find in the newspaper TV listings. She is even working on a cabaret act that will take her to Caf Carlyle in New York, the first in its history, said Carlyles Jennifer Cooke, that will not include singing.

Its worth asking why, 21 years after the end of The Nanny, were still in her thrall. Its not just that those who are overwhelmed by the chaos of the internet which is to say, all of us see the feel-good sitcoms of the 90s as sort of a cultural balm, much of it accessible now, ironically enough, on the internet. (The Nanny remains confoundingly hard to stream, though it is a mark of digital glut that I discovered the first two seasons are available on something called the Roku Channel, which it turns out I have.) Its also Drescher herself. The Nannys rags-to-riches story which is also her rags-to-riches story gave us a Borscht Belt Maria von Trapp with an exuberance, even a vulgarity, that wasnt an obstacle to overcome. It was the whole point. She was gorgeous, she was clever, she was outer-borough middle class she fairly honked. Drescher is not unapprised of the singularity of Fran. I was never going to have Meryl Streeps career, she says. I was going to have Fran Dreschers career, and thats what I did.

Marc Jacobs dress, at marcjacobs.com; Lagos ring, at lagos.com. Photo: Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari

She couldnt have had anyone elses. She made her film debut coming on to John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Hey, are you as good in bed as you are on that dance floor? is her adenoidal purr, and he leads her there, her proprietary hand on his polyester ass. She kicked around in some other movies; she did pilots for TV. But she realized early on that shed have to make her own opportunities. You can still see a few episodes of the last sitcom she did before breaking out, the now-forgotten Princesses, on YouTube: She and Julie Hagerty and the 60s model Twiggy shack up together as wacky roommates with wildly divergent styles. But the show failed to catch on. On TV, a New York Flavor May Be Poison, ran the headline in the New York Times.

After its cancellation, Drescher wound up on an international flight with Jeff Sagansky, then-president of entertainment at CBS. Seizing her chance, she buttonholed him. I thought, Thank you, Lord, and I ran into the bathroom to put some makeup on, she says. I remember the movie was startingback then, everybody watched the same movie and it was The Prince of Tides with Barbra Streisand. And he said, Oh, I want to watch this. Its my favorite. And I thought to myself, Oh, this guy is so ripe for me. She told him that, because of her voice, networks had always gotten her wrong. She wasnt sitcom seasoning. She was the main course.

Sagansky agreed to a meeting and eventually to what would become The Nanny, the idea Drescher and her then-husband, now-out gay ex-husband, and now-and-forever writing partner, Peter Marc Jacobson, came up with for her. It was sparked by her experience schlepping Twiggys daughter, Carly, around London. Theyd spent years working as frustrated actors in L.A. and suddenly had the chance to write their own ticket. The studio brought in Prudence Fraser and Robert Sternin to help guide the writing process, but Drescher was doing stories every single day, Jacobson says. We were so young, I think we did things that if I was getting into it now Id be afraid to do. Who brings Yiddish into a CBS eight-oclock show in 1993?

But the gamble worked. The Nanny was a major hit and, with it, Drescher, who had been a bit player for Milo Forman and a standout as a brassy publicist in Spinal Tap, became not only a star but a durable icon. A New York flavor, no longer poison, was now a bragging right. The New York Times: For Queens, a Place in the Sun; Hollywood Is Suddenly Zooming In, With a Vengeance. Queenss other most famous modern export, Donald J. Trump, was a frequent punch line and onetime guest star. They were once two comic actors, one playing a souped-up fantasy version of her younger self, the other playing a souped-up, fantasy version of his father. Now they are president and guru, sitting on the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. He bellows with inchoate rage. Drescher remains a foghorn of joy.

Giorgio Armani gown and wrap, similar styles at armani.com; Lisa Shaub Fine Millinery hat, similar styles at 134 Orchard St.; Chopard earring, at 709 Madison Ave. Photo: Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari

Drescher likes to point out that, until the show aired, there hadnt been a Jewish actress playing a Jewish main character on an American comedy for decades not since Molly Goldberg, the echt Jewish mama of early broadcasting, appeared on CBS in the late 1940s. (Rhoda, the canonical sassy Jewish gal of 70s TV, was played by Valerie Harper, who wasnt.) The Nanny was the only show where someone being Jewish was a major part of the show, Bloom says. Youd think thered be a lot more shows where people were overtly Jewish, considering the disproportionate amount of Jewish people writing and creating shows. But theres this idea of We dont want to alienate Middle America.

Drescher and Jacobson based Fran Fine on the young Fran and insisted on her being Jewish even when a major conglomerate offered to sponsor the show provided Fran be rewritten as Italian. We thought about it because we knew it was our big break, Drescher says, and we didnt want to be difficult. But I thought of Neil Simon because he said, Write what you know. I didnt know Italian like I know Jewish. So I mustered up my chutzpah and told them Fran Fine must be Jewish. And they said, Okay.

There were occasional complaints that Nanny Fine and her Queens clan a domineering, guilt-tripping Jewish mother and a yenta grandmother, Yetta, named after Dreschers grandmother didnt represent the best of Jewish womanhood. The L.A. Times published an opinion piece to this effect, then Dreschers rebuttal. But the archetype she incarnated was both hyperspecific and hyperrelatable if not in its details, then in its values to women, and non-women, used to being told to turn it down. The shock of The Nanny was not only the Judaism, Bloom says. It was being too much, being loud, being different. It was a lot of things that I hadnt seen before.

Since The Nanny, Drescher has never fallen out of the cultural mainstream, though she has, project by project, drifted toward the outer boroughs of the television landscape. There was Living With Fran, on the now-defunct WB, about a Fran who juggles family and a younger boyfriend (20056). Then Happily Divorced, on TV Land, about a Fran still living with her newly out, newly gay ex-husband (201113), another show she created with Jacobson. After their divorce, they didnt speak for a year he hadnt wanted to get divorced and was angry. Theyve since come back together professionally and personally, and theyre both single again now. I always used to joke and say if I do have a relationship, theyre going to have to be happy sitting, when were 70 watching The Nanny on television, between me and Fran, he says.

Her life hasnt all been sitcom rosy. Ive been very candid about my personal life, she says. She has written two memoirs (fun fact: Fran loves Phish). The second, Cancer Schmancer, details her fight to correctly diagnose and ultimately beat uterine cancer. Dreschers relationship after Jacobson, with a producer on The Nanny, ended following her cancer treatment, and a second marriage, to the tech entrepreneur Shiva Ayyadurai, ended in divorce. Ayyadurai is internet infamous for his claim that he invented email, though he sued Gawker for its posts debunking the claim, a suit the company settled for $750,000; he also ran unsuccessfully against Elizabeth Warren for a Massachusetts Senate seat. In my second marriage, we were together for three years. The first year was bliss, the second year was agony and ecstasy, and the third year was just agony, and I said, Enough, Drescher has said. Some of her flowers go into vases they received as wedding gifts. She underwent a hysterectomy as part of her cancer treatment and never had kids. I think I would have been a good mom, she says, and sometimes I think I kind of missed out on that.

Photo: Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari

That makes Indebteds Debbie, a doting grandmother and a frisky mate to a graying husband (Steven Weber), a different type of Drescher character and a slightly bittersweet one as well. On the show, Debbie hovers over Adam Pally and Abby Elliott, who play its central characters, a youngish married couple who are tending to both their own kids and their regressing, neo-adolescent parents. Drescher took care to insert enough Fran into the character to make it her own; early scripts, she said, made Debbie more of a traditional, hectoring mother-in-law type. Im not that actress. I cannot get away with that, she says. Im a star. People are tuning in to see who theyre used to seeing. You want to get some heavy character actress, older woman, to be this pain in the ass in the house and have this, you know, antagonistic relationship with the daughter-in-law like they did in Everybody Loves Raymond, be my guest. But thats not me. Drescher turned out to be a bright spot in Indebteds otherwise rough rollout. Reviews so far have been grim. The exception is Drescher, whom Variety singled out as the only person who seems to be trying, in a performance that is a reminder of an old-fashioned sitcom sparkle.

Old-fashioned may be a tell. The show is a sitcom in the kid-friendly, yuks-and-shticks mold (multi-camera, guffawing studio audience), which has not fared well critically in the age of single-cam auteurs and HBO gore. It is the safest of network TV. I think were going to see them coming back, Drescher says. Her characters are lovable and stylish; unlike most Emmy bait, she is proudly, unapologetically uncontroversial. (You cant sit down with your family and watch Game of Thrones, Bloom says. I mean, Im sure some people do. I wouldnt recommend it.) Family-friendly fare syndicates, and it performs worldwide. Drescher is living proof. From the studio standpoint, thats where the money is, she says. Sony has done very well by The Nanny. I mean, something that is this popular a quarter of a century later, thats pretty decent.

Pretty decent has made Drescher a wealthy woman. She loves to work, she says, but she doesnt have to. I dont need the money, she says.And if you dont need the money, that takes a little bit of fire out of your belly. But stardom agrees with her, and shows like Indebted offer, if they catch on, a pathway back to the televised mainstream. Drescher has already made her peace with whatever the shows fate may be. As a Buddhist or a Bu-Jew, which is more to the point of what I am, really balance is a big part of your daily practice, she says. And I try and find balance in everything. I never forget where I come from. And inside, Im still a chubby girl from Queens, anyway.

Dolce & Gabbana jacket, vest, and pants, at dolcegabbana.it; Shannon Phillips hat, at nethats.com; Ren Caovilla shoes, at renecaovilla.com; bow tie, made by Lucy Payne. Photo: Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari

The commissary at The Wing does not offer espresso martinis, but for Drescher, they are inclined to make an exception. So it was that on a recent Tuesday night, a few empty glasses were on a side table, drained but for the telltale damp coffee beans. Drescher was on hand to screen the pilot episode of Indebted for a crowd of 200 and hold a Q&A after. She is one of The Wings presiding spirits; Fran Fine has a phone booth named in her honor there. (Fellow honorees include Ramona Quimby and Lisa Simpson.) Audrey Gelman, The Wings co-founder (smart, ambitious, Jewish) loves Fran Drescher (smart, ambitious, Jewish). Im crying ok, she wrote on Instagram when they met.

But the crowd at The Wing testified that Frans appeal is not limited to those most categorically similar to her. The too-muchness of The Nanny, from Frans wardrobe of leopard, sequins, and skintight to her clarion call, didnt alienate Middle America: America, and the world, ate it up. Her appeal cut across age, race, and creed. Shanae Brown, who runs the Instagram account @WhatFranWore, which is dedicated to tracking down and identifying Fran Fines outfits for an audience of almost 300,000, isnt a young, Jewish striver from the city. Shes a 30-year-old Jamaican patient-care technician living in Atlanta.

Brown doesnt wear the sequined vests, the hourglass cocktail dresses, the Todd Oldham and Moschino and Ferr and, Lord have mercy, Allen Schwartz that Fran Fine did. But then neither does Fran Drescher. The shows costumes were a fantasy creation, a TV-land exaggeration, by the costume designer Brenda Cooper, who won an Emmy for her efforts. The studio, Jacobson recalled, originally pushed for Fran to wear T-shirts and jeans in an effort to be relatable; he and Drescher doubled down on the brights, even making the sets a polite, neutral cream to make the costumes pop. What they telegraphed was an irrepressible presence. She was such a strong person, Brown said in an interview. She was kind of this irreverent woman who didnt care what people thought about her. I feel like thats the energy we have now. Brown has occasionally tried posting the outfits of another 1990s TV heroine, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, but she didnt get the response Fran has.

At The Wing, the crowd laughed politely through Indebted, then roared for Dreschers onstage Q&A. Afterward, she took questions from the audience.

Im not going to stand, because I think if I stand, Im going to pass out, said a young woman up front when handed the microphone. Youre such a hero of mine. I grew up watching you; Ive seen every episode a million times. I cant believe Im in the same room as you. Thank you so much for all the work youve put out into the world. She went on, While Im not Jewish, Im Latina, to see a woman really use her ethnicity, especially in the 90s, meant so much, and I really resonated with it so much.

After her, a young man rare for The Wing but never for Fran with sunglasses perched on his close-cropped skull, was briefer. I went through a lot of trauma in high school, he said, quavering. And watching you really got me through a lot.

Before the event ended, Drescher led the room in a recitation of the mantra a spiritual adviser once taught her: I love you, Fran, she was to repeat to herself. I know how wonderful you are. Its Fran and Fran till the end of time. She encouraged everyone to insert their own name to self-love their way to spiritual enlightenment, but the response that came back still echoed with Frans.

*This article appears in the March 2, 2020, issue ofNew York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

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The Joy of Fran - The Cut

Brahmarishi Guruvanand on three-day visit to Fiji – Indian NewsLink

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Public discourses in Lautoka and Suva

Venkat RamanAuckland, March 2, 2020

Fijians seeking self-realisation and true happiness can look forward to esteemed enlightenment in the presence of Brahmarishi (also Brahmrishi) Vishvasant Guruvanand, the Spiritual Leader, who simplifies Vedanta and philosophy of life for easy assimilation.

The Schedule

The Master of Vedas will address two public meetings, the first of which will be held today (Tuesday, March 3, 2020) at 7 pm at Girmit Centre in Lautoka (located at Kings Road).

The meeting will be held on Thursday, March 5, 2020 at 7 pm at the FMF Foods Limited (formerly Flour Mills of Fiji Limited) Gymnasium, located at Laucala Bay Road in Suva.

A cross-section of Fijis population is expected to attend the discourses, during which the Brahmarishi would how to lead a meaningful life and more important, sans depression.

Guruvanand has just concluded a four-day visit to Auckland which saw more than 1500 people listening to his speeches at Ram Mandir in West Auckland and Bhartiya Mandir in Central Auckland.

Teachings par excellence

To the world that is often misguided with increasing tensions and tendencies towards suicide and homicide, Gurudevs teachings are palliatives.

Here is a sample: In the tapestry of life, weave a story that is so inspiring and so meaningful that posterity can say with pride that you were indeed the heir of the Santana Dharma, the eternal Dharma of the great Masters of the past. Your thoughts and actions today are indelible links that connect the great shining past and the glorious future unfolding of the Divine Life, of which you are an integral part.

According to scores of disciples, reciting his name with the Mantra Om Guruvanand Namah, provides divine relaxation to the mind.

The name of this beautiful mantra itself gives the mission thatGuruji wants to fulfil from his inspiring and influential presence, which is Awareness and Peace. I owe my major improvements, success, frame of mind, vision and level of thinking to Guruji, an Auckland based devotee said.

The Brahmarishi advises people to live a beautiful life- so beautiful that its fragrance eternally permeates and pervades the memory of fellow sojourners in the journey of life.

You have to shake to take out dirt from a cloth. Similarly, dance and rejoice in front of Mata Rani and take out all your karmas and be happy. Leave all your tensions there and go home fresh with happiness, he said.

About Brahmarishis

Brahmarishis are revered as sons of God, selfless protectors, persons of the greatest ability, and propagators of the highest human values.

They are Divine Flames dedicating their lives to the cause and welfare of humankind.

They teach in a language understood by common people and consider service to humanity as the greatest religion.

The teachings of Brahmarishi Guruvanand are well founded on tenets of innate goodness of every person, transcending barriers of race, religion, language and other man-made barriers.

He believes that everyone has something to contribute to the progress and prosperity of the human race as a whole.

Live in the now, do not seek faults in others and improve yourself. Your faith will make heaven come to you. Follow your religion or your God or your own Guru. Believe in him with full devotion. Live with happiness and not for happiness. Happiness is in small things. Love your family and always spread smile, he says.

Gurudev, the Pacifist

If you were to listen to the speeches of Gurudev, you would instantly like him and his belief that religion is not based on rituals and rites but on love, peace, harmony and understanding among people. He radiates grace and kindness. At each private meetings, many have found answers to questions that have daunted them since long.

The Brahmarishi holds several degrees including M Tech from IIT Kharagpur (equivalent to MIT and Harvard in USA); PhD in Astrology; and Masters in Sanskrit, Vedas, and Jyotish.

He was Honorary Principal and Professor at various academic institutions including Banaras Hindu University. With a background in Science, it is natural that he looks for ways to bring the scientific mentality and the spiritualism in creative dialogue.

With his life transformative spiritual message, he inspires, empowers, keeps people informed and engages them to move forward in their spiritual quest.

The Brahmrishi Ashram situated in Tirupati, is endowed with beauty, tranquillity and peace.

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Brahmarishi Guruvanand on three-day visit to Fiji - Indian NewsLink

Shannon Cartier Lucy’s 7-book guide to turning pain into positive growth – Document Journal

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

The painter shares the challenging, hopeful books that helped her through personal crisis.

Winding, veering off, looping back around, and accelerating forward: such is the pattern of life. Our plans and ambitions morph, often leaving us utterly uprooted andwith timeredirected towards another path. Artist Shannon Cartier Lucy knows this full well. Upon the burgeoning of her career in the early aughts, personal crises compelled her to leave New York City and the art world behind, moving home to Nashville to become a licensed psychotherapist. Her return has coincided with a shift to realism, and her latest exhibitHome is a Crossword Puzzle I Cant Solveembraces figuration. On view now at Lubov in New York through March 8th, the exhibit encapsulates the absurdity and frailty of everyday domestic life.

Given her exploration of the quietly chaotic, it is fitting that Lucy is fascinated by literature that deep dives into human movement through suffering and hope. Here, the artist provides Document with a spiritually-inclined booklist that questions what exactly it means to be lost and found.

Theres no narrowness, no specific condition for feeling lostwhether it be heartbreak, a violent storm, addiction, or near-death experience, she comments. Beyond culture or religious belief, one thing all human beings share is pain. This collection of books touches on the deeply and widely felt imaginative yearning that heralds changea crisis, a breakdown, a leaning toward something bigger, a desire for relief, for joy, and for our life to have true meaning.

A Confession by Leo TolstoyWell-known author of Anna Karenina shares a heart-felt account of his midlife crisis and subsequent spiritual awakening. Plagued by meaninglessness during a period of his life marked by great notoriety, wealth, and success, the writer claimed: Life felt like a stupid joke being played on me. Yet, through meticulous self-examination, he finds a way to come out the other side.

Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil This is a truly inspiring book of aphorisms by the French philosopher and mystic that was compiled posthumously. Weil speaks to fellow tragic figures stripped bare by the absurdity of life.

Essays and Fictions by Brad Phillips An author in perpetual state of what Simone Weil called decreation, Phillips offers a painfully sincere and disarming collection of autobiographical fiction.

I had experienced the psychiatrically rare psychogenic fugue state. [From Wikipedia] Dissociative fugue: a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by amnesia for personal identity and other qualifying characteristics of individualityCheck, and check!

A Prayer Journal by Flannery OConnor OConnor, a southern gothic novelist known for her grotesque short stories, compiled notebooks of short prayers during the time of writing her famed novel Wiseblood.

My mind is in a little box, dear god, down inside other boxes and on and on. There is little air in my box. Dear God, please give me as much air as it is not presumptuous to ask for. Please let some light shine out of all things around me so that I can. Oh dear god, I want to write a novel, a good novel.

Diary of a Country Priest by George Bernanos Shame, self-hate, feelings of inferiority, and suicide are frequent motifs in Bernanos fiction. Diary is a compelling yet heartbreaking portrayal of an innocent and extremely vulnerable man who always thinks hes failing. But in spite of his torturous self-condemnation, the priest surrenders to good and evil and finds his hard-won enlightenment. Were left with three words: all is grace.

Book of Hours by Rainer Rilke Rilkes collection of poems were written spontaneously as prayers to the divine for a secular world. The writing is more relevant than ever considering the current state of human affairs.

The poor, the outcasts, the homeless ones each one profound in his humbleness and without fear of humiliating himself and because of that truly pious.

Going Sane: Maps of happiness by Adam Phillips Sanity becomes part of an extensive vocabulary of reassurance for the danger of our vulnerability and the ever-elusive yet default position we aspire to. In a world of dysfunction and chaos, sanity has been the pose of those who want to keep things the same. Sanity, therefore, is not something we were born with but something we painfully acquire.

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Shannon Cartier Lucy's 7-book guide to turning pain into positive growth - Document Journal

What’s Life All About Anyway? – Thrive Global

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Eighteen-year-old Jay Singh trundled through the snow one cold winters day in his vain attempt to sell insurances door to door.

Cold, exasperated, and with a hole in the sole of his right shoe, he called his mother to ask her an all-important question.

Frustrated at the futility of that moment, Jay awaited his mothers reply as one thirstily awaits the wisdom of a prophet.

To his disappointment, his mother sighed deeply, but had no answer to his question.

Jay, now an adult whos moved on substantially since that dark moment, gave me permission to share the snippet of his story, relayed this to me in our first coaching session. I listened, engrossed whilst awaiting the answer to the nail-biting question which has kept human beings awake for thousands of years.

After all, this question tends to be running in the background of our minds without us even realising, often reawakened when life throws the unexpected and we taste loss or failure. We spend years in therapy ruminating over it, going over the minutia of life and as an end to the hopelessness, seek deeper answers to affirm why we still choose to be here.

Why each morning we totter out of bed, mustering enough energy to discover what life has chosen to throw at us that day.

Were gifted this time on earth and are born into a family nucleus (whatever this looks like) given a name, certain character traits and as a bonus, given a certainje ne sais quoithat we spend our lives attempting to discover. As we navigate the bridge between life and death, we encounter a multitude of experiences good and bad, but the end destination is still the same for everyone.

So why is it not just enough to survive without seeking to discover a deeper layer?

There is something intrinsically within us that needs to understand why we should invest another second of being immersed in a game we dont even understand. When were born, we become like the pieces placed on a chessboard, we dont understand the game were about to play, let alone what our next move should be. The rules havent been explained yet were asked to live, procreate and die by a universal premise we are not that clear about.

So we spend our lives asking questions, in our feeble attempt to understand why life often doesnt follow any set of rules or order.

Religions and cults throughout generations have seduced their followers through this very premise, whilst promising the golden answer. In the olden days, the payback for understanding this was of a more spiritual nature, disciples were assured that discovering the answer would take them on a fast track to heaven.

In this day and age, success gurus have taken on a similar position of authority. Not necessarily promising heaven, as this is no longer seductive enough for this generation. Instead, promising wealth, fame and success, which encourages followers to embark on a treasure hunt to desperately find their unique purpose, the ultimate goal. Once they find it, they will know why they were placed on this earth. Success, fame and happiness will follow.

The only thing this leads to is a huge expectation followed by a severe bout of disappointment.

Yet people are encouraged to exist by squeezing the life out of everything they do in a vain attempt to discover the answer to the deeper question.

I was recently speaking to a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor.

As a young girl in Poland, she asked herself what life was all about when she was detained by the Nazis and her parents perished in the gas chambers. In the darkness that enveloped her life in the concentration camps, where she constantly balanced between life and death, she never found the answer.

Once the camps were liberated after the war ended, instead of waiting for the answer to be revealed, she created the meaning by which she lived.

If she was unable to find the answer after living through one of the most utterly despicable acts of the 20th century, what hope is there for us to find the answer, as we sit back in our comfortable homes enjoying the trappings of society.

The ones who offer more enlightenment are those who have died for a few seconds and in coming back to life, have tales of wisdom to impart. Anita Moorjani, the author of Dying to be me died momentarily and was able to taste the afterlife, allowing her to return with a beautiful reflection on what she discovered about the meaning of life;

I saw my life intricately woven into everything Id known so far. I began to understand that while I may have only been a thread, I was integral to the overall finished picture.

I learned that my only purpose in life is to be a full expression of myself. To love myself to the core of my being. And to share my heart and soul with the world without fear. I realised that the peace and love humankind craves resides inside each and every on of us, and we can access it anytime.

I discovered one of lifes greatest truths: Heaven is not a destination; its a state of being.

The answer is not out there but within you and therefore this means reframing the question.

Go within and listen carefully to the answer.

Are you tenacious, caring, lazy, compassionate, creative, domineering, controlling or fussy? There are multiplicious character traits, and you can find your own fit.

What do you personally regard as sacred, important, valuable or meaningful?

Perhaps its love, laughter, spirituality, friendships, relationships, peace, learning, experiences or travel.

Youre a masterful creator, since all human beings are, then go ahead and create the components you want in your life. Grasp the elements that bring the most meaning and dynamic energy, the places and things that make you feel the most alive. The universe wont deliver that for you, this is up to you.

Allow the question to evolve as you transition through different stages of life as this will take a different form depending on which stage youre in.

When we engage with life and slow down, we discover the meaning of each moment and what we are here to do gently becomes revealed.

Questions have a purpose, and we believe that they need an answer (often immediately), but at times we need to surrender to the idea that we dont need to have all the answers to live a purposeful, meaningful life.

We then stop asking What is life about? because life is both simple and complex simultaneously, and to expect the answer to such a global question is to elevate ourselves above human status. We then become desperately needy in our quest to find the answer and this prevents us from living life with ease, fun and serenity.

If this article resonated with you, check out my latest bookLook Inside: Stop Seeking Start Livingavailable on Amazon.

If you want to connect with me to share insights from this article, I would love to hear from you. Send a message via e-mail to [emailprotected]

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What's Life All About Anyway? - Thrive Global

Alex Garland builds a meticulous thriller within the restrained, overstuffed Devs – BingePost

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Sonoya Mizuno in DevsPicture: Miya Mizuno (FX)TV ReviewsAll of our TV opinions in a single handy place.

On the core of FXs Devs, an eight-part restricted sequence from visionary filmmaker Alex Garland, is an age-old query, one whichs been contemplated by philosophers and laypeople alike for millennia: Does free will truly exist? Or is life simply an infinite chain of reactions, a kaleidoscopic turning of causes into results?

In case youre fearful about simply having had the sequence spoiled for you, dont bethe above are takeaways from the primary hour or two of the sequence, not the tip of the final episode. Garland also teased his deterministic themes at New York Comedian-Con final October. Even the trailers include the log line Nothing ever occurs and not using a motive. And whereas there have been the standard caveats and embargoes from FX about plot specifics in pre-air protection, as soon as the clock begins on the season, Devs is surprisingly forthcoming in regards to the particulars of its mysteries. The sequence most summary, most advanced concepts are inexorably linked to its motion, which necessitates a sure degree of transparency in its storytelling.

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Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Jin Ha, Alison Capsule, Karl Glusman, Zach Grenier, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny, Janet Mock

Thursday, March 5 at three a.m. Japanese with back-to-back episodes on FX on Hulu

Hour-long tech thriller; full restricted sequence watched for evaluation

And theres the rub, for each the viewer and Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno, in her third collaboration with Garland), a pc programmer for tech big Amaya. When you be taught to acknowledge what constitutes a bread crumb in Devs storytelling, youll be able to select to comply with that path towards enlightenment. The identical principally goes for Lily, who should be taught to take managementor not less than, grapple with the phantasm of itin her quickly increasing world, one which spins out from her day by day routine in Silicon Valley to incorporate espionage, synthetic intelligence, quantum mechanics, and a few uncomfortable truths. As soon as shes down the rabbit gap, although, Lily rapidly learns that essentially the most startling revelations are sometimes essentially the most painful.

The inciting incident comes straight from procedurals and pulp novelsthe disappearance of a cherished one, on this case, Lilys boyfriend, Sergei (Karl Glusman), a man-made intelligence coder and her co-worker. Within the premiere, Sergei makes a breakthrough that impresses Forest, the CEO of Amaya, a person who speaks in Zen koans when hes not munching on undressed greens. Performed by Nick Offerman in a variation on his cultured woodsman persona, Forest comes throughout as each an unassuming tech nerd and charismatic cult chief. Reasonably than lord over Northern California like a Bond villain, this billionaire lives in a home on a public road (which, provided that that is San Francisco, might be nonetheless fairly costly) and drives an outdated station wagon to work.

This juxtaposition is likely one of the few instances Devs actively subverts expectations. In any other case, Garland, who wrote and directed each episode, restrains himself to only a handful of narrative curveballs. As a substitute of huge revelations, he provides extra layers that should improve our understanding of the philosophical issues hes laid out; the image isnt expanded a lot as introduced into sharper focus. Lest we neglect simply how massive these questions are, Devs is stuffed with stretches of expository dialogue that function crash programs in quantum physics and determinism; theres no such factor as a taciturn genius on this model of Silicon Valley. Forests right-hand girl, Katie (Alison Capsule), turns into simply as liable to speechifying as hes. Even the engineers whore lower off from the remainder of the world whereas at work within the enigmatic Devs division wish to hold one another knowledgeable of their progress, which results in what can solely be described as name-checking interpretations of quantum mechanics and theories which have formed our understanding of the bodily world.

The pacing is as deliberate because the writing, with the story transferring determinedly from one chapter to the subsequent. The intense tone not often lets up, as humor doesnt look like one of many potentialities in a narrative that insists that something that may occur, will occur. Nonetheless, Devs is rarely uninteresting, simply maybe too beholden to its guiding rules. The forged engages even when Garlands text-heavy exploration of consciousness and predetermination doesnt. Offerman each charms and frightens as Forest, who at one level performs Frisbee with a would-be adversary. In her first flip as a sequence lead, Mizuno captivates within the function of somebody whos given each motive to query their understanding of actuality, but by no means succumbs to doubt. The place she demonstrated a balletic physicality in her earlier appearances in Garlands work, right here Mizuno focuses on elocution to convey her characters shifting feelings. The extra conflicted Lily turns into, the extra deliberate her speech, till every syllable is as fraught because the high-minded ideas Devs introduces at an everyday clip.

Garland had centuries of literature, a number of disciplines (brushing up in your gestaltism couldnt harm), and even just a few branches of physics to attract from in cultivating his interpretations of immutable legal guidelines and human nature. That analysis is the inspiration of Devs as a lot as Garlands personal oeuvre. The affect of the sterile, however not bland environs of Ex Machinas Blue Ebook and the gorgeous, unnatural (to this world) phenomenon on the heart of Annihilation will be seen and felt all through Garlands restricted sequence. However with Devs, he goals for a mix of those sensibilities: the natural and the technological, the mounted and the transmutable, the divine and the earthbound. Garland makes use of spiritual iconography in methods each delicate and overt, however is most profitable in setting an more and more foreboding temper. San Franciscos bustling life is concentrated on the Amaya compound (impressed by the Google campus); its in any other case depicted as a ghost city with a literal pall over it. Music composers Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow (The Bugs) frequently shatter the calm with their rating. Garland hasnt neglected a factor in setting up the setting of his techno thriller. Its the story inside it that struggles to be cohesive and compelling.

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Alex Garland builds a meticulous thriller within the restrained, overstuffed Devs - BingePost

THE BIRTH OF GOD And What It Can Mean for Us – Patheos

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

THE BIRTH OF GOD

And What It Can Mean for Us

James Ishmael Ford

As you may know I am now teaching a class in the Buddhist chaplaincy program at the University of the West. It has been an amazing experience. It has also pushed me in a lot of areas. Not least, the fact that of the thirteen people in the class, five are Buddhist monastics. Three are nuns from China. Another is a nun from Korea. And the fifth is a monk from Bangladesh by way of Sri Lanka. Half of the balance of the class were raised Buddhist within Chinese cultural contexts.

My job is teaching a survey course in Abrahamic texts, the sacred scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The need is for potential Buddhist chaplains to have a sympathetic sense of the dominant religions in North America and the West. And, as I said, these are people who are not from the West. So, television and movies not withstanding they do not get many things which we think of as just the way things are.

For instance. As I prepared for the class, I realized I probably needed to start with the idea of God. Here in the West God is such a pervasive idea, and so emotionally charged, that most people either believe in God or dont believe in God. And it can be hard to move away from that dichotomy.

But in fact, it isnt how things actually are. In that class a lot of my students belong to a whole different category, which is what is this God of which you speak? They dont have a clue. And the question is asked with no particular emotion attached to it. Just no clear idea of what the word is supposed to point to. The God of the Abrahamic traditions, the God of Judaism, the God of Christianity, and the God of Islam. No really solid reference point.

So, God. While there are different understandings here and there, especially between Judaism and Islam on one side and Christianity on the other, they are all based in very similar belief (or in reaction, non-belief) in a deity with human-like characteristics, that has created the world, intervenes here and there on occasion, and at some point will end it all. In Christianity and Islam, the deity will then judge humans on how they lived or what they believed, with rewards or punishments dealt out accordingly. In Judaism end times are a bit murkier, but generally doesnt feature any lakes of fire. With these tweaks, that God.

St Thomas Aquinas, the great fourteenth Catholic philosopher believed that the idea of God was simply self-evident. I believe the larger majority of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, would agree. This is part of why they often find atheists pernicious and even question if they are so out of touch with that self-evident reality, whether they are even trustworthy enough to serve on juries. If you cant be trusted with the evidence before your eyes, how can you be trusted in other matters of extreme importance?

But the truth of the matter is that it isnt obvious. And, actually, there is no clear analog to the Western idea of God in the other religions of the world. Yes, there are ideas of overarching, connecting, principles in other religions. The idea of Brahman in Hinduism, for instance. Theres also Shangdi, the first ancestor, or maybe closer, Tian, or Heaven in indigenous Chinese religions. I also think of the Wakan Tanka in Sioux religion, Gitche Manitou among the Algonquian, and with differences, within numerous other Native American communities, where there is a more animistic and sometimes mystical force which in modernity is often collapsed as the Great Spirit. But with any digging at all, none of these things are in fact particularly like the God of the Bible and Quran.

So, no, actually the idea of God as conceived here in the West is not self-evident.

I have a seat of the pants understanding of an evolutionary story of God, the birth and growth of God. But, for the class, I needed to review some details. And, along the way, I learned some things. And, well, it seemed to me you might find a helpful pointer or two on your own spiritual paths if I were to share that with you. So, today, lets look at that, the birth of God, the God of the West, and what that God might mean for us, children of the post enlightenment, post-modern, really the post-post-modern world. For us, in a time of dis-belief and quest. What can God mean for you and me?

Me, where I started was with the non-human animal world. There are elements that we can discern as religious-like in some animal behaviors. Of course, there is nothing to suggest non-human animals believe in God or gods, or many of the other things one associates with religions, like praying, or worshiping. But they do do things that we associate with human religions.

For instance, many animals engage in ritual behaviors. Jane Goodall, as an example, observes how chimpanzees appear to dance when they come upon waterfalls and do something similar at the beginning of rainstorms. Many animals also appear to observe funeral rites. In preparing for the class I watched a video clip of elephants doing what certainly looked like a ritual of mourning for one of their own. One could say animals may not be religious, but some sure look to be spiritual.

For humans we see archeological evidences of similar behaviors as far back as maybe a hundred thousand years, with grave sites that include what are called grave goods such as tools and ornaments. And how in many places there is evidence that corpses were covered in flowers. This is true with both our main line of evolution and our closest cousins the Neanderthals. As an aside and as regards the other great interbreeding human population with our main line, the Denisovans. We just havent, so far, found much physical evidence of their cultures. But there is no compelling reason to assume they or the as yet unnamed but genetically identified fourth group of early interbreeding humans, did not also share these behaviors. These spiritual if not quite yet religious behaviors can reasonably be assumed to be common to us all.

While theres no evidence of belief in some idea of a supreme being, there are strong suggestions of spiritualities as pretty basic to who we are as humans. By this I mean there seems to be some common sense among humans of mystery and connections that extend beyond the bare phenomenon of life and the reality of death.

From here it seems important to look at hunter gatherer religious views. The nineteenth century anthropologist, Edward Tylor coined the term animism to address his observations. The term has been worked and reworked in the years following based upon further research as well as noting hidden biases in interpretation among those early Western ethnographers.

The first observation was how in these cultures pretty much across the globe everything is seen as animated. Everything possesses a spirit or spirit. At the beginning Professor Tyler, the first professor of Anthropology at Oxford, thought animism was a confusion between animals and plants and inanimate things. He felt this weak sense of categories was an obviously mistaken view, but one common, it appears, to all early humans. And this confusion of categories would also be a building block of later organized religions.

Contemporary Anthropologist Nurit Bird-David speaks for a shift in interpretation, suggesting instead how animism is a relational epistemology. Epistemology is a five-dollar word meaning how we know things. So, an expensive term, but worth it. It calls us to notice such things as how we know things. So, specifically, animism is an approach to life that is centered in our relationships. It is a world filled with subjects rather than objects. Everything is relational. Lets put a pin in that. Well revisit this before were done.

But, mostly, it just means things change. Over time in history various things got clustered together to form religions as we understand them today. And as we attempt to unravel that part of human cultures we see as religious we see several things.

Probably the most offensive of those various things making up religion for many of us in modernity, could be called crowd control. It has to do with that aspect of religion which is all about culture and specifically the preservation and transmission of culture over time. While it is very important to the coherence of a culture, it has an enormously conservative aspect. It clearly defines who is in and who is out. And while from the inside it offers comfort, to anyone on the outside, any kind of outside, it can be deadly.

But theres a lot more in that bag that is religion. Theres also religion as the repository of ethics. The place we go for guidance on how to act in this world. Still another thing that has been part of religion since forever has been healing. Even today prayer and rites to facilitate the healing of body and mind are common currency of religions. And, most importantly, at least from my perspective, is how religion is about meaning and purpose in life. These four different things, and no doubt some others, are bound up together and sometimes are near impossible to unravel from each other.

With that we come to the arc of religion in the Near East. With agriculture religious institutions began to emerge. Here we find, as with other agriculturally based cultures, the emergence of gods. Gods are nonhuman entities that have power, and with whom we humans interact.

Among a small group of people in the hilly areas of Canaan some were peasants, others escaped slaves, and including among them some who had escaped bondage in Egypt, all gradually began to see themselves as a people. They felt different than other Canaanites. And they began to tell stories about themselves as part of the evolution of that sub-culture. Actually two different traditions of these stories would be gathered together. This occurred in two stages. With the first stage we get that sense of a coherent people. It becomes historical about a thousand years before the common era when a kingdom was gathered by someone named David. And then his son Solomon consolidated the kingdom and built from a small town a fairly grand capital, Jerusalem. Here is the first birthing of Israel.

Their kingdom didnt last long. First it broke into two kingdoms. Then not all that much later the Babylonians swept through the region and carried away the intellectual remains of that group. There in the sixth century before our common era by the waters of Babylon, people began a second editing of the stories. When the Babylonians were themselves conquered these captives were allowed to return to their homeland. They returned with a book that largely is the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Plus a few more books largely consisting of mythic histories.

A really interesting thing in the archeological record is that before the Babylonian captivity the Israelites were in practice not monotheists. They talked a good game. But in practice they were a form of Henotheists where one believes in many gods, but one deity is more important. People frequently covered bases with offerings of various sorts to many other gods. The archeological record is littered with statuettes of gods in Israel. Also, just an interesting tidbit, during this period before Babylon there is evidence that showed this primary God sometimes was portrayed as having a wife.

The newly created Bible mashed a lot of things together. At the beginning those two different story traditions. The earliest stratas god was sometimes nothing more than a storm deity, and at other times something fierce, A deity who demanded sacrifices and exercised astonishing punishments on those who strayed in any of several directions. But, in the editing process, actually we have a name for the principal editor, Ezra, he and his team came up with a rather different god.

And thats the God we know, the one who created and sustains the world. The one who worked in mysterious ways. Definitely a god not to be messed with. But, something more. They introduced a god that had those elements, but was vastly different than had been conceived of before. Something compelling. Now there was a God as intimate with the world as a kiss.

And in the re-established Israel the archeological record shows no statuettes or evidences of any other gods. Now there was only one God. And according to this new Bible this God that wasnt just their God. Although they did have a special covenant. But now this was a God of the whole world. A God that represents love and forgiveness and most of all, it was a God of Hope.

In this sad, sad world, a God many find compelling.

Maybe not self-evident. But this God has touched many hearts.

Me, I find myself returning to that earliest idea of how the world works, and particularly that idea of finding our meaning in a world where we are not objects to each other, but that we relate subjectively. That is where each of us is meaningful just because we exist.

If we dig into it, it makes a certain sense. We are in fact created out of each other. And by we, I mean us, you and me, the humans. But, also, the animals. And also, the plants. And also, the seemingly inanimate world. Through strands of cause and effect we are created, and we create. Dr Kings single garment of destiny. We look deeply and discover how rich and truly mysterious we and the world are.

And while we humans may have created that God which represents this deeper and ancient sense of connection, it is our attempt to capture something true about who we are, and what this world is.

So, for my class, and maybe for all of us, some sympathy for the tradition is worthy.

And theres more to this, as well. Not only does God have a birth, but God is growing. Now were encountering ever richer nuances of what that greater of which we are a part might be. As simply two examples of many, Vedanta and Buddhism each offer perspectives on reality that are already reshaping Western understandings of ultimacy, and with that of God.

We know humans are a dangerous lot. But, when we open our hearts, and notice the connections, then we are also something else.

In the traditions of the west, we become the children of God.

May we be worthy of that name.

Amen.

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THE BIRTH OF GOD And What It Can Mean for Us - Patheos

Prysmian Secures Over 150 Million Offshore Wind Grid Connection Project in France by RTE – Yahoo Finance

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

MILAN , March 4, 2020 /CNW/ -- Prysmian Group, world leader in the energy and telecom cable systems industry, has been awarded a contract worth over 150 million by Rseau de Transport d'lectricit (RTE) for the development of two submarine and land export power cable systems to connect the offshore wind farm located in between the islandsof Yeu and Noirmoutier to the French mainland power grid.

Cable Enterprise vessel

The offshore wind farm is being developed by the company Les Eoliennes en Mer d'Ile d'Yeu et Noirmoutier which was awarded around 500 MW capacity production by the French government.RTE, the French transmission system operator appointed by the French government, will design, build, maintain and operate the two 225 kV links (submarine and land) to connect the offshore wind farm to the grid.The offshore wind grid connection project will be able to export 500 MW of green and renewable energy, covering a submarine cableroute of around 27 km and an underground cableroute of around 30 km.

Prysmian will provide its comprehensive turn-key approach for the design, supply, installation, and commissioning of two HVAC 225 kV three-core extruded export submarine cables with single-wire armouring which will reach the landfall area at La Barre-de-Monts beach. Prysmian will be also responsible for the supply and jointing of two HVAC 225 kV extruded land cables circuits that will link the landfall area to the substation at Soullans. Submarine cables will be produced at Prysmian's centres of excellence in Pikkala ( Finland ) and Arco Felice ( Italy ), while land cables will be manufactured in Gron ( France ). Installation operations will be performed bytheCable Enterprise, one of the three Group's state-of-the-art cable laying vessels.Delivery and commissioning are scheduled for 2023, conditional upon the receiving of the notice to proceed expected by March 2020 as regardthe preliminarystudies,and by June 2020 for the overall project.

"We are proud to be contributing tothe development of infrastructures of such great strategic importance," stated Hakan Ozmen , EVP, Projects Business Unit, Prysmian Group. "This contract not only consolidates our relationship with RTE,but also confirmsPrysmian's worldwideleadership in addressingthe increasing need for upgradedpower grids to support the energy transition,"concluded Ozmen.

Prysmian is already playing an important role in providing RTE or other customers with efficient and sustainable power transmission solutions, having recently been involved in key projects in France like Fcamp, Courseulles-sur-Mer and St. Nazaire offshore wind farms and the Provence Grand Large floating offshore wind farm (awarded by EDF Renewables), in addition tothe IFA2 interconnection linking the UKand France , the Piedmont -Savoy interconnection betweenItaly and France,and the INELFE interconnection linking Spain (Santa Llogaia) and France (Baixas).

Prysmian Group

Prysmian Group is world leader in the energy and telecom cable systems industry. With almost 140 years of experience, sales exceeding 11 billion, about 29,000 employees in over 50 countries and 112 plants, the Group is strongly positioned in high-tech markets and offers the widest possible range of products, services, technologies and know-how. It operates in the businesses of underground and submarine cables and systems for power transmission and distribution, of special cables for applications in many different industries and of medium and low voltage cables for the construction and infrastructure sectors. For the telecommunications industry, the Group manufactures cables and accessories for voice, video and data transmission, offering a comprehensive range of optical fibres, optical and copper cables and connectivity systems. Prysmian is a public company, listed on the Italian Stock Exchange in the FTSE MIB index.

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Prysmian Secures Over 150 Million Offshore Wind Grid Connection Project in France by RTE - Yahoo Finance

Offshore Wind to Attract More Than $200B Between 2020 and 2025 – Greentech Media News

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Where will investors in offshore oil and gas look as the energy transition starts to take hold?

While the oil and gas sector remains the largest component of the offshore supply chain, we expect the offshore wind market to become more attractive for traditional oil and gas players.

There is limited crossover today, but first movers have gone with the wind and more will soon follow. As interest and investment in offshore wind grow, investment in offshore oil and gas is likely to stabilize, narrowing the gap between the two sectors. Despite a 29 percentdrop in the average global capex per megawatt a measure of the investment per megawatt generated we forecast in a new reportthat more than $200 billion in capex will be deployed in offshore wind between 2020 and 2025.

How do offshore oil and gas and offshore wind compare for investors? Here are three factors to consider.

The transparency and certainty of offshore wind arehigh because deployment is largely tied to government incentives. In fact, 82 percentof the forecast offshore capacity to 2025 has been awarded funding under a support scheme or is in the more advanced stages of development.

Compare that to global offshore upstream oil and gas capex, where the current trend for short-cycle projects lowers the visibility and certainty of investment outlooks beyond 2022.

Offshore wind projects are changing; the offshore wind supply chain will have to change with it. The number of project interfaces the supply deals associated with a project is both broadening and decreasing, while the size of projects and contracts is growing.

Project sizes and clusters of projects will increase by 63 percentby 2025. To win these larger deals, smaller supply chain players are consolidated to create companies capable of capturing the larger work packages. Moreover, the larger work packages are also attracting the larger O&G players to the offshore wind industry.

Meanwhile, changes in project characteristics (scale, complexity, water depth and distance from shore) impactthe way capex is distributed along the value chain and intensifyrequirements forequipment and production capabilities.

Investors follow the money. That was the lure of U.S. tight oil, which offeredaverage project returns of around 30 percent. And even at $55-$60per barrel of oil, most new offshore oil and gas projects are making double-digit-percentreturns. Sowhy would an investor instead choose an offshore wind project with single-digit returns?

Theres more work to do to make renewables projects attractive, even economic, to mainstream investors. Butany investment in the oil and gas sector is now subject to what's termed energy transition risk,which encompasses falling demand for oil, the potential cost of the carbon intensity of assetsand other variables.

Theres also a real possibility that both upstream project returns and renewables project returns will evolve, taking into account the changing cost of capital, government subsidies and technology development. In the context of the energy transition, we expect offshore wind to become an attractive low-risk investment, particularly to carbon-heavy portfolios.

Offshore wind isnt a deepwater game yet. Today most activity is clustered on the offshore shelves around Europe, China and South Asia, with North America catching up.

Whats attractedthe attention of many oil and gas investors is the large potential of offshore wind and the fact that the wind developments are sited in mature, well-established upstream areas they already know well.

Its conceivable that there will be a point of convergence in those regions in the 2020s where offshore wind investment will match oil and gas.

***

Sren Lassen is asenior offshore wind analystandMhairidh Evans isa principal upstream supply chain analyst at Wood Mackenzie.

Lassen's latest report,The 200bn prize in offshore wind, is available here.

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Offshore Wind to Attract More Than $200B Between 2020 and 2025 - Greentech Media News

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