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What does it mean to be a billionaire?

So there’s been a lot of discussion floating around regarding billionaires and society, and I’ve noticed that most people have no idea what a billion dollars is for practical purposes - people tend to think of it as a vague, nebulous concept of “a lot of money” rather than something concrete you can wrap your head around. This is understandable, considering 1) a billion of anything is really hard to visualize and 2) the average person has no real reference point for an amount of money that large. So I’m going to try to break it down for everyone:

Okay, so imagine you have a billion dollars. What can you actually buy with that?

This is a mega mansion that will have an Imax cinema, a bowling alley, and a spa when it’s fully complete. It costs around 4.6 million dollars.

Now let’s buy one of these in every country in Europe - that’s 50 mansions you now own. So how are you going to travel between all your many homes?

This is a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, the fastest street-legal car in the world. It has a maximum speed of a face-melting 254 mph and can go from 0 to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds. It costs around 2.5 million dollars.

Let’s buy a dozen of them - you know, in case you total a few of them racing around the highway. But maybe a sports car is still to slow for you:

This is an Embraer Lineage 1000. It’s private jet that can seat up to 19 passengers, and we’re going to buy it for 53 million dollars.

How about a boat? The Tatoosh is a 303 ft private yacht, meaning it’s longer than a football field. We’ll take it for 369 million dollars.

Do you like art? Just for fun let’s buy Monet’s most expensive painting ($90 million) Van Gogh’s most expensive painting ($151 million), and this monstrosity, which is made with 8,601 diamonds and costs 65 million dollars.

Now that we’ve gone on our ludicrous and absurdly wasteful shopping spree, how much money do we have leftover? About 12 million dollars, which is almost an order of magnitude more than the average American with a bachelors degree or higher earns in a lifetime ($1.8 million). So if you for whatever reason decided to buy the 50 houses, 12 sports cars, plane, yacht, art pieces etc. and immediately set them all on fire, you would still have enough cash leftover so you never would have to work again if you so chose. This is what it means to be a billionaire.

But we’re not done yet.

The richest person in the world is Bill Gates, with a net worth of 86 billion dollars. If he liquidated his assets, what could he buy?

Well, for starters, the Burj Khalifa - the tallest man-made structure in the world at 2,722 feet tall, costing around 1.5 billion dollars.

The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s biggest and most advanced particle accelerator for 9 billion dollars.

The Hubble Space Telescope for 10 billion dollars (including 20 years of operating costs).

The Three Gorges Dam, the largest power station in the world, more than a mile wide.

And to top it all off, a fleet of five Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, the largest military vessels ever built for around 8.9 billion dollars each. If you look at the picture very closely you can see the people standing on it for reference.

If Bill Gates bought all of this, he would still have around 2.3 billion dollars leftover. That’s enough to go on the billionaire shopping spree I described above twice over (so 100 mansions, 24 sports cars etc.) and still have hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank when it’s all said and done.

But we’re not done yet.

Currently, it’s estimated that there are 2,043 billionaires alive today, with a combined net worth of around 7.67 trillion dollars.

This is Russia, the largest country in the world, extending more than six and a half million square miles, with a population of more than 144 million people. The United Kingdom could fit inside Russia 70 times.

In 2016 Russia’s gross domestic product was about 1.28 trillion dollars. This means that if the two thousand and some odd richest people in the world - less than half of 0.1% of 0.1% of the Earth’s population - liquidated and pooled their assets together, they could buy every single product and service made in Russia for almost 6 years.

So yeah, make of that what you will.

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from here

to the moon

and back

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Through the Veil - A 31 Day Spirit Work Challenge

To honor the season and the thinning of the veil that happens during this part of the year, I decided it would be fun to set up a 31 day spirit work challenge for October! While I did design this with October 2017 in mind, you can start this anytime and in any month! To participate, do the challenges and then write a post about it! You don’t need to do this in order – if you want to rearrange days to fit your schedule feel free!

Tag me and I will reblog your post as well! I would love to see your progress during this challenge! You can also tag your posts #ttvchallenge2017 and I will follow along!

Day 1: Who or what got you interested in spirit work?  

Day 2: Write down 5 goals you have for the next year. They don’t have to be big. Can spirit work help you with these in any way? How?  

Day 3: Spend time working on your astral area. If you don’t have one yet, now is a good time to discover or design it! If you already know what it looks like, do some maintenance or work within it. Write about your experiences/what you did.  

Day 4: What is your favorite method(s) of communication? Write about it and why.  

Day 5: How are your protections/wards? Have you checked and reinforced them lately? Spend some time reinforcing your protections and wards today. 

Day 6: Spend some time designing an altar for your spirit work. If you want, you can actually set it up, but the focus is just on designing it! Use pinterest, make a blog post designing it, draw it, write about it… whatever! Just design your ideal spirit working altar!

Day 7: Try to communicate with a spirit that you may overlook otherwise. This can be your car, the spirit of a rock, plant spirits, your house spirit, etc.  

Day 8: Spend some time aligning your energy points and/or doing some aura work. Alternatively, you can work on opening up your inner eye. Suggested exercise: [x]

Day 9: Do a guided meditation of your choice with a spirit & record how it goes.

Day 10: Discover what your astral self looks like. Draw or describe what your astral form looks like when you discover it. Was it different then how you expected or how you look like physically? If you already know your astral form, go ahead and do the above exercise as well, but has it changed over time?

Day 11: Spend time outside during the day (if you can) with a spirit. Go for a walk, lounge on the grass and talk with them, go sit at a café – whatever you enjoy!

Day 12: Draw a spirit of your choice. This can be a companion or another spirit you work with or have worked with in the past. It doesn’t have to be good or perfect even, but flex those creative muscles.  

Day 13: Find a song that best represents the spirit of your choice. Listen to it with them. Better yet, make a playlist with them or for them! Journal your thoughts, why you chose this song, how your spirit reacted to your choice, etc

Day 14: Attempt or practice your automatic writing with a spirit! Post your results if you like, and journal your thoughts and feelings on this automatic writing session. How did it go? How do you think you can improve your next attempt?

Day 15: Reflect on your favorite aspects of spirit work as well as your least favorite aspects of it, if any. Journal about it.

Day 16: Figure out the tarot card that most represents the spirit of your choice. Explain why. (You can do this with more spirits if you want to as well.)

Day 17: Go on an astral adventure with one of the spirits that you work with! If you can’t astral travel or project yet, spend this time practicing or meditating with your companion.

Day 18: Spend some time thinking about 3-5 areas of your spirit work practice that can be improved, as well as different ways that you can improve upon these areas in the coming months/years. Write it all down.

Day 19: Cleaning and cleansing day! Spend some time cleaning your space and spiritually cleansing it as well. Journal about how your space feels before and after the cleansing.  

Day 20: Pick a movie or TV show that both you and a spirit friend/family member will enjoy and watch it together

Day 21: Pick any method of communication you don’t normally use or have never attempted and attempt to communicate with a spirit of your choice via this new route.  

Day 22: Spend time with a spirit outside (if possible) during the nighttime! Go for a walk (safely please!), stare at the stars together, or any other activity the two of you will enjoy together!

Day 23: What is a type of spirit you would like to learn more about or work with more and why? Journal about it. After you journal, do a bit more research into that spirit and record your discoveries!

Day 24: Spend some time connecting with your guides. Helpful guided meditations: [x] [x] [x] Youtube is also a great source for guided meditations! This workbook may also be helpful to some. [x]

Day 25: Do you work with any past life spirits? Either spirits of you from your past lives, or spirits that you knew in your past lives. If yes, what are your experiences with them? If not, would you be curious? Why/why not?

Day 26: Try playing a video game with a spirit! See if they like it or what they think of it!

Day 27: Practice scrying with a spirit. Record how it goes.

Day 28: Find out more about the past of a spirit of your choosing (that is willing to share with you, don’t push it or open any wounds). Where are they from? What is it like there? What are their friends like?  

Day 29: Spend time meditating and connecting to your higher self. Suggested Exercise: [x]

Day 30: Practice energy work with a spirit. If you are just starting out with energy work or have never practiced it before, attempt sensing the energy of a spirit or plant!

Day 31: Now that your 31 day journey is almost over, spend time reflecting over the last few weeks. What have you learned from this challenge, if anything? Did you try anything new? What day was the most challenging for you? The least? Journal your feelings about it.  

Alternative Days: I created two alternative days that you can sub out with one of the days listed above, if needed.

Alt Day 1: Practice energy shielding! This is really important when it comes to spirit work (in my opinion), and scales to skill level as well.  

Alt Day 2: Work with your own energy. Figure out how you feel energetically, and practice forming your own energy, as it can help you sense a spirits energy as well.  

Special shout-out to @hoodiecladknight, @sifilord and @divineclecticism for your help in putting this together (& putting up with me while I did it)! Thank you to @magickalmenagerie for allowing me to use your workbooks and meditations as suggestions & your hard work making those! I couldn’t of done it without your imput and suggestions, so thank you all.  

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Top Ten Spookiest Classical Pieces

Perhaps I’m feeling macabre, but tonight I’m digging out my favorite spooky classical pieces and listening to them. So I thought putting together a top ten list of these would be fun while I drink my scotch. Note: These are not really in any particular order. I love them all.

1. Beethoven: Piano Trio in D major, op. 70 no. 1, “Ghost” - 2nd movement. Rattling of chains, shrieking of spirits; the nickname of this trio fits it well. The first and third movements are good as well, but only the second movement is really spooky. 2. Schubert: Der Leiermann (from Winterreise). A heartbroken young man sings about the hurdy-gurdy, an outcast who sits just outside the village and plays his instrument while dogs snarl at him and people ignore him. Particularly chilling is that this is the last song of an hour-long cycle, and it drones on without clear resolution, ending with the line: “Strange old man, should I go with you? Will you accompany my songs on your hurdy-gurdy?”  3. Mussorgsky: Night On Bald Mountain. You may know this one from Disney’s Fantasia, which is featured during the Witches’ Sabbath sequence. 4. Schubert: Der Erlkönig. Based on a poem by Goethe, this song tells the chilling story of a father and his ailing child riding through the woods on horseback, while a malicious spirit tries to lure the boy away, unseen and unheard by the father. 5. Saint-Saens: Danse Macabre. Death plays his fiddle in the cemetery, rousing all the skeletons from their graves and dancing with them until they have to slink back at the first light of dawn. 6. Brahms: Ballade in D minor, op. 10 no. 1, “Edward.” Based on a Scottish ballade, the story is of a mother who knows that her son has murdered his father - she just wants to hear him say it himself. 7. Shostakovich: Viola Sonata. Shostakovich composed during the height of Soviet censorship, and his music almost always has a hunted, almost panicked feel to it. He composed this viola sonata just a month before his death. 8. Shostakovich: String Quartet no. 8 in C minor, op. 110. Between the frenzy of the second movement and the insistent “knocking on the door” of the fourth, this quartet can really put you on edge. What makes this music even freakier is Shostakovich’s musical signature (D E-flat C B) throughout the work. 9. Mussorgsky: The Hut of Baba Yaga the Witch (from Pictures at an Exhibition). This one always sounds like Baba Yaga’s “Hut On Chicken’s Legs” is chasing me through the woods, but that might just be my wild imagination. 10. Scriabin: Piano Sonata no. 9, “Black Mass.” Some of the directions that Scriabin writes in the score are “mysteriously murmuring”, and “with a sweetness that becomes increasingly poisonous,” which is a pretty apt description for much of this work. It begins mysteriously, then builds in tension until it all explodes in some kind of orgiastic climax. It ends just as enigmatically as it begins.

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Autumn Magic

by Maja Lindberg

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Hind and her calf observing deer rut

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The Dark Hedges, Northern Ireland

photo via donna

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HE MADE ANOTHER ONE! AGAIN, IF YOU PLAY A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT, OR ARE IN BAND, ORCHESTRA OR CHOIR, WATCH THIS VIDEO. IT’S FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.

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okay but why come up with a pleasing, smooth modulation when you can just abruptly change the key? it’s the twenty-fricking-first century

frustrated music theory student (via classical-crap)

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how sheet music looks for different composers (on the same instrument)

chopin

debussy

shostakovich

mozart

scriabin

liszt

rachmaninoff

ravel

robert schumann

clara schumann

beethoven

scott joplin

philip glass

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How NOT to Behave at Rehearsal

I’m in a new city, with a new performance crowd, and in a bunch of new ensembles. It’s opened my eyes to some habits that I had started to ignore at my undergrad. Stuff I had started ignoring as just character traits of people I’d performed with for years now leaps out as unprofessional behavior. A lot of it comes from adults long out of school, too, so keep that in mind when you start performing in the wider world!

Be early.  If you’re not at LEAST five minutes early, you’re late. I’d argue that ten to fifteen is better. Especially at the professional level, it’s expected that people are in their seats and ready to begin at the stated start time. Get to rehearsal early to get your stuff put down and socializing out of the way, so you’re not the reason the director is shushing people.

PRACTICE. I get that there’s eight MILLION things you have to practice for. However, you shouldn’t take a gig in the first place if you don’t have time to prepare it. Once you receive your music, make sure your parts are learned and ready to go for rehearsal as much as possible. Rehearsal is not practice - rehearsal is for polishing, not note plunking.

Keep snide comments to yourself. No one wants to hear your muttered “Seriously?” when the director tells you to do something. Eye-rolling at someone else’s biffed solo is a bad look. Just because the rehearsal isn’t living up to expectations doesn’t mean you should have a snotty attitude about it. The aloof, vocally annoyed person is just as likely to get dropped as the unprepared person. The well-prepared, cheerful person with a good attitude is going to get hired again, and complimented, and talked about to other people who run gigs.

Also: venting to other performers in the gig can be okay, but there’s a fine line between venting and badmouthing. Sometimes it’s better to say nothing at all to anyone at all related to the event - that’s why I recommend keeping some non-performer friends at all times.

Show the director respect. The director is the one in charge of the performance, for the most part. That means whatever happens is their responsibility, as long as the performers prepared and did their best. Having questions and comments in rehearsal is fine, just keep them polite and don’t interrupt others with them. Even if the director is completely wrong, it’s better to nod at what they say and then ignore them to do the part correctly than to get in an argument - it won’t reflect well on you.

Take the production seriously, not yourself. Unless you’re the only person in a performance, then the goal should be to make the entire production look good, not just yourself. Work for the greater good, not just your own. If you’re not the best person in the room (which you shouldn’t be!), then chill - your goal is to improve and grow and help make a good performance. That’s all you need to do. Laugh at your mistakes and move on, don’t stress and act embarrassed.

(If you’re absolutely sure that you’re the best performer in the room, take a step back and see if your ego is blinding you. If it isn’t, then you need to start auditioning for better ensembles - there’s always someone in the area better than you, and you should be working with them for your own growth.)

You’d be shocked at the way grown adults will act in rehearsal sometimes. It’s like people get it in their head that because they are a Professional and Very Busy that they have carte blanche to be rude or unprepared or whatever. Don’t turn into that! Every great ensemble I’ve been in has been great because people were kind, prepared, and ready to work. Aspire to be one of those people. You got this!

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Illuminate by C D     Photographer’s  Facebook  | Instagram

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“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~Henry David Thoreau 

Happy birthday to someone who has been a great source of inspiration, my dear friend, Matt @catharticexperience​!! Best wishes for all the joy, laughter and love you can handle!! 😘 I am blessed to have you as my friend!! 🤗 *BIG HUGS* ~Angie 💖💖