#Ashram House

[aayrasposts]

#धनवान_बनाने_वाला_भगवान

धनतेरस के दिन सोना,चांदी,गहने,बर्तन आदि खरीदने से नहीं बल्कि पूर्ण परमात्मा कविर्देव की शास्त्र विधि अनुसार पूर्ण गुरु से दीक्षा लेकर भक्ति करने से ही सुख,समृद्धि,कार्यसिद्धि व मोक्ष की प्राप्ति होगी। गीता अध्याय 16 श्लोक 23, 24 तथा गीता अध्याय 4 श्लोक 34

[senorboombastic]

a/s/l: Dog Race

Remember the days of the old schoolyard? Remember when Myspace was a thing? Remember those time-wasting, laborious quizzes that everyone used to love so much? Birthday Cake For Breakfast is bringing them back!  Every couple of weeks, an unsuspecting band will be subject to the same old questions about dead bodies, Hitler, crying and crushes.   This Week: Off the back of releasing their…

[gardenschedule]

What Happened In India?

(or around that time...)

Before

Shortly before we were due to leave for India John spent the weekend with Derek Taylor, a former journalist who had become the Beatles' press spokesman and a good friend to us all. He, his wife Joan and their five children lived in a big country house where they seemed incredibly contented. When he came home after that weekend John put his arms around me and said, 'Let's have loads more kids, Cyn, and be really happy' Despite my increasingly strong feeling that John was slipping away from me, it seemed at moments like that as though nothing had changed. John was off drugs and seemed almost like his old self. 'We can make it work, Cyn,' he said. 'When we're in India we'll have time for us and everything will be fine.' I hoped he was right.

John (Cynthia Lennon)

Cyn hoped that Rishikesh would afford seclusion, privacy and an opportunity for her and John to rediscover each other and to revive their marriage. ‘Impossible hopes,’ she said sadly. ‘John said to me just before we went to India that he wanted us to have more children. Well that came out of the blue, I can tell you. I was really surprised, as he’d never said a word about that before.

Lesley-Ann Jones - The Search for John Lennon

Cynthia: “It was a time for us all to drop out for a while. The years of fame and fortune had taken their toll on our nerves and minds. John and I both felt closer. There seemed to be a greater possibility of our finding a solution to personal difficulties. If our trip to India wasn’t going to solve our emotional problems, then nothing would.”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

That letter made it crystal clear that they [John and Yoko] had been in contact. How well had they got to know one another? I tackled John, who told me she'd written many times, both letters and cards, but said, 'She's crackers, just a weirdo artist who wants me to sponsor her. Another nutter wanting money for all that avant-garde bullshit. It's not important.' I had no way of knowing whether he was telling me the truth. He sounded genuine, but a sixth sense told me there was more to this than he was admitting. I tried to put it to the back of my mind. We were going to India, and I wanted that to be a special time for us.

John (Cynthia Lennon)

John panicked at the accumulating threats from the Princess of Darkness. That was when he decided to go to India with Cynthia to put some distance between himself and Yoko. If he stayed away long enough, he could hope Yoko would just go away. Maybe she’d go back to America, or vanish in a puff of smoke. Her scissors act might go horribly wrong, or while she was bagged up one day the Royal Mail might frank the bag and deliver it to anywhere but India. Yes, a long trip to the ashram, where he could meditate and learn how to be calm and in control, give up drugs and spend romantic moments with Cynthia and glue his crumbling marriage back together, seemed opportune.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

“I don’t like the unhappiness she [Yoko] caused. She was horrible. John wanted to avoid her at first. He said, ‘Get rid of the bloody woman!’ But after India, he saw her differently — perhaps filtered through an exotic mindset.”

Tony Bramwell - the band’s ex-road manager

During

“The pressure of being the Beatles had driven a wedge between them individually and that had all percolated in the months leading up to their visit to Rishikesh,�� he said. “Once they got there, and they unburdened themselves from all of that, they reconnected with their songwriting and their creativity. It just flowed forth.”

Bob Spitz to the New York Times

 “I was in a room for five days meditating,” said Lennon in The Beatles Anthology. “I wrote hundreds of songs. I couldn’t sleep and I was hallucinating like crazy, having dreams where you could smell. I’d do a few hours and they you’d trip off, three- or four-hour stretches. It was just a way of getting there, and you could go on amazing trips.” Cynthia Lennon said in Bob Spitz’s book The Beatles that for John, nothing else mattered when it came to mediation, adding “John and George were [finally] in their element [at the ashram]. They threw themselves totally into the Maharishi’s teachings, were happy, relaxed and above all found a piece of mind that had been denied them for so long.”

The Beatles in India: 16 Things You Didn’t Know

I was right in the Maharishi’s camp writing “I wanna die” you know. I’m So Tired and Yer Blues where they were pretty sort of realistic, you know, they were about me

Lennon Remembers

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da was born on the steps of one of the low slung cottages where the entourage lived. One day, remembers Saltzman, he was passing by the cottage when he saw Lennon and McCartney sitting on the front steps and strumming the tune on their acoustic guitars. He ran back, picked up the camera and took pictures of the two with a pensive-looking Starr sitting on the side, from outside a wicket gate. Saltzman remembers the two were singing the first two lines of the song "over and over again, going fast and slow, having fun". "That's the riff we have," McCartney told Saltzman, "but no words yet".

filmmaker Paul Saltzman

Jenny Boyd, Patti’s sister “I sat with John a lot, since he didn’t feel well, either from terrible jet lag, and insomnia. He would stay up late; unable to sleep, and write the songs that would later appear on The Beatles’ White Album. When I was at my lowest, he made a drawing of a turbaned Sikh genie holding a big snake and intoning, ‘By the power within, and the power without, I cast your tonsil lighthouse out!’ Sometimes, late at night, I can still hear John singing those sad songs he wrote during those evenings, like ‘I’m So Tired.’”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

John “I went to the Maharishi and, regardless of what I was supposed to be doing, I did write some of my best songs while I was there. It was a nice scene. Nice and secure and everybody was always smiling. The experience was worth it if only for the songs that came out. It could have been the desert or Ben Nevis. The funny thing about the Maharishi camp was that, although it was very beautiful and I was meditating about eight hours a day, I was writing the most miserable songs on earth, like ‘I’m So Tired’ and ‘Yer Blues.’”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

Meanwhile, I was not having the second honeymoon I'd hoped for. John was becoming increasingly cold and aloof towards me. He would get up early and leave our room. He spoke to me very little, and after a week or two he announced that he wanted to move into a separate room to give himself more space. From then on he virtually ignored me, both in private and in public. If the others noticed they didn't say so. I did my best to understand, begging him to explain what was wrong. He fobbed me off, telling me that it was just the effect of the meditation. 'I can't feel normal doing all this stuff,' He said. 'I'm trying to get myself together. It's nothing to do with you. Give me a break.' What I didn't know was that each morning he rushed down to the post office to see if he had a letter from Yoko. She was writing to him almost daily. When I learnt this later I felt very hurt.

John (Cynthia Lennon)

And because the Beatles didn’t know anything about ashrams and they haven’t seen anything before because they went for Maharishi, not for the ashram. Maharishi didn’t allow men to stay with their wives. John was delighted with the idea. He loved it, actually. I think it made Cynthia very unhappy. She wanted to stay with John, everybody had his own problems. My great interest was with John. I was very happy because I found John much healthier. The color in his face was different and he was happier and he took the whole thing very seriously, and he was trying hard and he was so excited when I arrived because perhaps I was part of the reason he was there.

Magic Alex in All You Need Is Love – Peter Brown & Steven Gaines

We all went through a depression after Maharishi and Brian died; it wasn’t really to do with Maharishi, it was just that period. I was really going through the “What’s it all about?” type thing – this songwriting is nothing, it’s pointless, and I’m no good, I’m not talented, and I’m shitty, and I couldn’t do anything but be a Beatle. What am I going to do about it? It lasted nearly two years and I was still in it during Pepper. I know Paul wasn’t at the time; he was feeling full of confidence, and I was going through murder during those periods. I was just about coming out of it around Maharishi, even though Brian had died – that knocked us back again. Well, it knocked me back.

John Lennon, interview w/ Barry Miles, (partially) unpublished. (September 23rd, 1969)

By spending two months in deep meditation in India, John brought his deepest problems to the surface but he was unable to resolve them: the contradiction between his family life and his life as a rock star with all the drugs and groupies was too great. Had he stayed with the Maharishi until the end of the course, he might have avoided some of the pain, but by terminating the instruction abruptly, he was left hanging in thin air. During the weeks at the camp, he had been receiving daily letters from Yoko, though nothing sexual had yet happened between them. He was very attracted by her but he felt tremendous guilt about breaking up his marriage: doing to Julian what his own parents had done to him, repeating the pattern.

Many Years From Now - Barry Miles

He [Mick Jagger] told me with amusement that the real reason why the Beatles left the Maharishi was that he made a pass at one of them: “They’re simple north-country lads; they’re terribly uptight about all that.” Am still not sure if I believe this story.

“The Sixties,” the second volume of Christopher Isherwood’s diaries

After

And I was slowly putting myself together after Maharishi, bit by bit over a two year period. I destroyed me ego and I didn’t believe I could do anything. I let Paul do what he want and say, them all of them do what they want, I was just nothing, I was shit. And then Derek tripped me out at his house after he got back from LA, and he sort of said you’re all right and pointed out which songs I’d written, and ‘you wrote this and you said this, you are intelligent, don’t be frightened’. And then next week I went down with Yoko and tripped out again and she filled me completely to realize I was me and it was alright.

Lennon Remembers

So much had changed since I’d last seen the Beatles just a few months previously. They had come back from their trip to India completely different people. They had once been fastidious and fashionable; now they were scruffy and unkempt. They had once been witty and full of humor; now they were solemn and prickly. They had once been bonded together as lifelong friends; now they resented one another’s company. They had once been lighthearted and fun to be around. Now they were angry.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

The rage that was bubbling inside John was the most obvious sign that something was seriously wrong. There was new tension between John and Paul, and even between John and Ringo, in addition to the often strained relationship that Paul had with George and the resentment that Ringo sometimes exhibited when Paul coached him too much on drum parts. In fact, the only two Beatles who seemed to get along during the White Album sessions were John and George. Perhaps that came from the experience they had shared at the ashram—after all, they were the two who had stuck it out, staying on long after Ringo and Paul had gone back home. Maybe they felt deserted by their bandmates, or betrayed. The undercurrents between the four Beatles were so complex at that point, it gave me a headache just thinking about it.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

Our first night back in the studio began, as usual, with small talk and catching up. “So how was India?” I asked. “India was okay, I guess… apart from that nasty little Maharishi,” John replied, venomously. Harrison looked deflated, as if it were a conversation they’d had many times before. With a deep sigh, he tried to calm his agitated bandmate. “Oh come on, he wasn’t that bad,” he interjected, earning a withering glance. Lennon’s bitterness and anger seemed almost palpable. Ringo tried deflecting things with a little humor. “It reminded me of a Butlins holiday camp, only the bloody food wasn’t as good,” he said with a wink. I glanced in Paul’s direction. He was staring straight ahead, expressionless and weary. He didn’t have much to say about India that day, or any other. I sensed at that moment that something fundamental in them had changed. They were searching for something, but they didn’t know quite what it was; they had journeyed to India looking for answers, and they were disappointed that they hadn’t found them there… but it seemed to me that they didn’t even know the questions.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

“By all accounts, John had hit an all-time low [after India]. “John was in a rage because God had forsaken him,” George recalled. “Then he went and completely reversed himself. He turned from being positive to being totally negative.” According to Pete Shotton, who was spending time with John at Weybridge, there was an overriding feeling of humiliation—from the Maharishi, from the Apple Boutique shambles, from his deteriorating marriage, from what he felt was his shrinking position in the Beatles. “He was more fucked up than I’d even seen him,” Shotton remembers. “It seemed like everything was going to the dogs. He’d been desperately grasping [at] straws, as far as I was concerned, and there wasn’t even a straw there.”

the beatles: the biography, bob spitz

JOHN: How can two women split up four strong men? It’s impossible. You know, The Beatles were disintegrating slowly after Brian Epstein died, it was a slow death, and it was happening. It was evident in Let It Be – uh, although Linda and Yoko were evident then, but they weren’t when it started, I don’t think. It was evident in – in India, when George and I stayed there and Paul and Ringo left.

October, 1971 (St Regis Hotel, New York)

There was little need for me to repeat my instructions. As soon as we got there, it was obvious that things were not hunky-dory with the Beatles. Their recent month-long meditation retreat with the Maharishi didn’t seem to have helped their relationships very much, and the estrangement was definitely having an effect on their work. I don’t think any actual recording got done that night. Paul, George and Ringo were rehearsing some new songs, trying different ways of playing and singing them. Meanwhile, John spent most of his time sitting on the floor next to Yoko, chatting privately with her as she stroked his hair. He seemed no more involved in the proceedings than me and Lawrence, who watched the uncomfortable tension building from the other side of the studio. “Hey John.” Paul turned around to face him at one point. “Are you in this band or what?”

Leslie Cavendish, The Cutting Edge: The Story of the Beatles’ Hairdresser Who Defined an Era

Back at Kenwood John continued to be distant towards me. Now that we were away from the others and the charms of India, I felt increasingly afraid and depressed. John and I were back in the same bed, but the warmth and passion we had shared for so long were absent. John seemed barely to notice me. He was little better with Julian and was more likely to snap at him than give him a hug. There was just one moment of real warmth between us and that was, ironically, when John confessed to me that he had been unfaithful. We were in the kitchen when he said, out of the blue, 'There have been other women, you know, Cyn.'

John (Cynthia Lennon)

On the flight back from India, he had gotten very drunk and, for some reason, decided to confess all his affairs to Cynthia. Brutally, he ticked off a very long list, which included groupies, models, prostitutes, the wives and girlfriends of his and Cynthia’s friends and, possibly cruelest of all, Cynthia’s own girlfriends. Cynthia felt totally betrayed.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

The shattering of his faith in the Maharishi, meanwhile, had left John spiritually adrift once more; his instinctive response was to return with a vengeance to his former drug habits. (Like the other Beatles, John had totally abstained from alcohol and drugs while in India.) In retrospect, it's easy to see how wide open John was, at this particular juncture, to anything—or anybody—that might conceivably lift him out of his rut.

The Beatles, Lennon, and me - Pete Shotton

PAUL: I gave myself a set period, and then if it was gonna be something we really had to go back for, I was thinking of going back. But at the end of my month I was quite happy and I thought… this’ll do me. This is fine. If I want to get into it heavy, I can do it anywhere. That’s one of the nice things about it, you don’t have to go to church to do it, you can do it in your own room. So I was quite happy.

RINGO: I left just a little disillusioned, and John was a little disillusioned when he came back, and Paul was. [pause] George just loved it.

1993 rough cut of the Anthology series

Although Paul was the first to leave [India] disillusioned, John left in the mind of, ‘OK, well, we tried, we surrendered to God but it wasn’t God, it was Maharishi and this God thing is proving itself to be a total fallacy’ - and then went back to being The Beatles.

I left Rishikesh with John. Alex [Madras] had been the naughty boy who’d stirred everything up. John went in a rage because God had forsaken him (although it was nothing to do with God, really). Then he went and completely reversed himself. He turned from being positive to being totally negative.

I went to South India […] and everything that happened to me went wrong to the point that I felt, like John and Alex, that the Maharishi had put the heeby-jeebies in me.

George Harrison, c/o Derek Taylor, Fifty Years Adrift. (1984)

JOHN: I’ve got no regrets at all, ‘cause it was a groove and I had some great experiences meditating eight hours a day—some amazing things, some amazing trips— it was great. And I still meditate off and on. George is doing it regularly. And I believe implicitly in the whole bit. It’s just that it’s difficult to continue it. I lost the rosy glasses. And I’m like that. I’m very idealistic. So I can’t really manage my exercises when I’ve lost that. I mean, I don’t want to be a boxer so much. It’s just that a few things happened, or didn’t happen. I don’t know, but something happened. It was sort of like a click and we just left and I don’t know what went on. It’s too near—I don’t really know what happened.

John Lennon, interview w/ Jonathan Cott for Rolling Stone: The first Rolling Stone interview. (November 23rd, 1968)

Cynthia Lennon “John had taken acid once more and enthused, ‘Cyn, it was great. Christ Cyn, we’ve got to have lots more children. We’ve got to have a big family around us.’ At this point, I burst into tears … All I could blurt out was that, in no way, could I see us as he did. I was so disturbed by John’s outburst, that I even suggested that Yoko Ono was the woman for him. John protested at my crazy suggestion and suggested that I was being ridiculous. Although life went on as usual, my fears grew and I felt nervous and depressed. John was aware of my depression and suggested that, as he had to work for long hours in the recording studios for a few weeks, I should accompany Jenny, Donovan, Gyspy and Alexis on a holiday to Greece. The very thought of sun and sea really brightened my outlook.”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

During the spring of 1968, John was as confused, lonely, and unhappy as I'd seen him in years. Though his relationship with the other Beatles was still free of serious strain, he was seeing increasingly less of Paul and George, both of whom were now pursuing independent lives and interests of their own.

In My Life, Pete Shotton

The resentment might have been coming from a different place. With his marital problems still unsettled and Cynthia gallivanting around Greece, drugs continued to govern John’s fitful moods. He dosed himself continuously with LSD, tweaking its random effect with any spare pills he happened to find lying around the house. In the right company, it plunged John into a deep, unfathomable trance that altered between indecipherable rambling and deadpan silences. At Weybridge, into which Pete Shotton had moved in order to keep his friend company, he stayed up nights, tripping and battling wave after wave of incendiary rage. One night, after the usual snack of hallucinogens, Shotton says he noticed John moving his arms around very slowly in a circle. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ ” recalls Pete, “but John couldn’t explain it. He said, ‘I can’t stop. There’s something making me do this. I can’t help myself.’ ” Tears followed, uncontrollable rivers of tears, intermingled with hideous laughter. When Shotton tried to comfort him, John resisted. “I’m not crying,” he insisted peevishly, wiping his eyes with the back of a hand. Suddenly John declared that he was Jesus Christ, back from the grave. “He was convinced of it,” Pete recalls, “saying… ‘This is it, at last—I know who I am.’ ” The next day the Messiah convened an emergency meeting at Apple to announce his identity to the other Beatles. Unimpressed, they said: “Yeah, all right then. What shall we do now?” After someone suggested lunch, the matter was dropped.

That night at Weybridge, in the middle of another drug-induced reverie, the TV flickered off, whereupon John, already chastened and in a self-abasing mood, asked Pete if it was okay if he invited a woman to the house. Shotton, who had no intention of staying up another night with his friend, was relieved. “Well, I think I’ll call up Yoko,” John said.

The Beatles – Bob Spitz

What happened that night can only be left to the imagination, but since it patently wasn’t the coming together of two virgins for the very first time, did Yoko do her hypnotism thing, as some of John’s friends thought she had, or did she have a powerful new drug in her arsenal? Nobody really believed that John fell in love overnight, because why hadn’t he done so before? He’d been kicking Yoko in and out of his life for over a year. Mostly, he had given the impression that he resented and despised her. So it must have been something pretty potent that made John fall headlong out of his casual affair with her into a mad obsession. Perhaps it was that he really was mentally ill and like many schizoid personalities, got religious mania. If he really did believe that he was Jesus, Yoko would probably have convinced him she was the Virgin Mary. A virgin at any rate. John was shortly to tell the world that they spent the night at the top of the house in his bloodred music room, recording the Two Virgins tape. They say that a moose in heat can waken the dead and achieve the impossible with his bellows. John and Yoko spent the night screaming.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

Whatever her reasoning, Cynthia remained determined to see the marriage through [after finding John and Yoko together]. Convinced that John still needed her, she returned to Kenwood, mollified by his apparent denial that anything improper had occurred. “For a while, everything was wonderful,” she recalled. “We could speak more openly and honestly with each other, and there really was a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.”

But the tunnel was short, and the light soon faded. Within weeks their life together had disintegrated into a revolving state of solicitude and withdrawal, resignation and despondence. Following a stretch when John became disturbingly incommunicative, Cynthia packed once again, escaping on still another vacation to Pesaro, Italy, with her mother, Julian, and a favorite aunt and uncle.

The Beatles – Bob Spitz

No sooner were they back from India, than Jane returned to her work at the Bristol Old Vic, and Paul launched into what was probably the most relaxed time of his life. He opened wide the doors of Cavendish Avenue and the groupies, who had camped as faithfully outside as they had in Wimpole Street during the years that Paul had lived there with the Asher family, were astonished to find they were now invited in. Not only were they invited into the house, but also into Paul’s bed. Whenever I went up to see Paul, the house was filled with giggling, half-naked girls, cooking meals, walking Martha, or glued to the phone for hours on end, calling the world.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

It came as a welcome relief that John and Paul, along with Neil Aspinall, planned a quick trip to New York on May 11, where several press events had been scheduled to announce Apple Records in the States. Friends agreed that getting John away might do him a world of good; being alone, with just Paul to steady him, might have a calming influence. But Paul was grappling with his own set of anxieties. “We wanted a grand launch,” Paul said, “but I had a strange feeling and was very nervous.” Drugs, he later admitted, may have been at the root of his problem; there was a lot of dope-smoking before takeoff and even during the transatlantic flight. But Jane Asher also helped spike Paul’s mood. The grudging engagement between Beatle and actress had been ticklish at best. But since traveling together in India and a subsequent ten-day trip to Scotland, Jane’s eccentricities rankled. Paul was having serious second thoughts about the relationship, which had reached a kind of critical, now-or-never stage.

Between John’s attitude and Paul’s paranoia, the Beatles were a PR nightmare. “It was a mad, bad week in New York,” recalled Derek Taylor, who met the two Beatles there to chaperone a round of press conferences, followed by interviews. Taylor had fashioned himself into a debonair drug aficionado since the Beatles first dosed him at Brian Epstein’s housewarming party, and now he and John gorged themselves on speed and a “mild and extremely benign hallucinogen” called Purple Holiday, courtesy of their New York chauffeur. The effect of it came through in the interviews. John was gallingly withdrawn and dismissive, Paul unusually distracted—which made them come off as two rich, snooty rock stars peddling another product.

The Beatles – Bob Spitz

+ a couple of extra things

A quick timeline

December 25 Paul and Jane announced that they were engaged to be married.

February 15 George, Patti, John and Cynthia flew from London Airport to India.

February 19 Paul, Jane, Ringo and Maureen flew from London Airport to India.

March 26 Paul, Jane and Neil Aspinall flew back to England from Rishikesh, leaving George and Patti, John and Cynthia and “Magic” Alex who had come out to join them.

April 12 John and Cynthia, George and Patti and “Magic” Alex left in a hurry from Rishikesh, India, after “Magic” Alex convinced John and George that the Maharishi was using his position to gain sexual favours from at least one of the female meditators.

May 11 John and Paul, accompanied by “Magic” Alex, Neil Aspinall, Mal Evans, Ron Kass and Derek Taylor, flew to New York to launch Apple in the US.

May 15 Accompanied by Linda, Nat Weiss drove John, Paul and “Magic” Alex to the airport for their flight back to London.

May 19 With Cynthia taking a short holiday, John called Yoko Ono and invited her out to Kenwood. They made a random sound tape, which was later issued as Two Virgins with the notorious sleeve showing them both naked.

May 26 Cynthia returned home from a brief holiday in Greece, to discover Yoko Ono in residence with John.

May 31 Abbey Road. The White Album sessions. Work continued on ‘Revolution 1’ and the last six minutes was removed to form the basis of the chaotic ‘Revolution 9’. Yoko screamed on the track, her first appearance on a Beatles recording.

June 4 Paul began seeing Francie Schwartz.

June 22-23 On this day Paul McCartney addressed a sales conference attended by executives from Capitol Records, where he announced that all future Beatles records would be released through the group’s Apple Records label. The day after they fell in love in Los Angeles, Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman spent much of the day together at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he was staying as part of an Apple promotional trip.

July 20 Jane Asher, appearing on Simon Dee’s BBC Television show Dee Time, said that her engagement to Paul was off – but that it was not she that had broken it. She told Dee that they had been engaged for seven months, after knowing each other for five years. (She had arrived back at Cavendish Avenue one day to find Paul in bed with a girl named Francie Schwartz.)

The Beatles Diary Volume 1 The Beatles Years (Barry Miles) & https://www.beatlesbible.com/

A comment from Heydullblog, which I find interesting and think sums up how insufficient & unsatisfying most explanations are for how John changed during this period:

Michael Gerber November 25, 2021 at 4:31 pm

What, in all that, makes you HATE Cyn, and divorce her in the most abrupt and vicious way, even attempting to get her to commit adultery so you can give her (and your own son) as little as possible? Why not a quick and amiable divorce from a woman who, let’s be honest, knew she was getting cheated on pretty constantly since 1961.

What, in all that, makes you HATE Paul McCartney, who has been your closest professional collaborator since 1957, and engage in a five-year campaign to smear and demean him in the press? Why do you insist your millions of fans choose you or him? Why not simply pause the group, and everybody goes solo and remains friends, as was predicted at the end of touring?

What makes you DETERMINED to bust up your rock group, the most popular group in the world, the source of all your fame, money, and power?

What makes you pick Yoko Ono IN PARTICULAR out of all the groupies, hangers-on, and even sensible appropriate partners within your current circle? Eighteen months ago you were attracted to Maureen Cleave, Sonny Freeman, Alma Cogan, etc — pretty much the type of women you always picked — but now, you pick a conceptual artist offering total submersion into someone else’s ego?

And what makes you spend the rest of your life pretending all this was the greatest thing ever, the fullest flowering of your genius?

It’s not that John Lennon looked around at his life in early 1968 and thought, “I don’t want this anymore. This isn’t for me.” It’s that he lashed out incredibly fiercely, in every direction, made no distinction between friend and foe, demonstrated a huge amount of resentment and bitterness towards the very people who it would seem had helped him the most, and spent literally the rest of his short life at least arguably LESS happy than he’d been before. He didn’t dump his wife for the nanny and live happily ever after; he started a process of picking things up and throwing them away with great force that, if he’d been that way in 1957, would’ve kept any of his genius from ever emerging.

He changed, fundamentally, in a short time. Why?

Midlife crises happen, they are to be expected, but this one gets more singular the more you look at it. And the thing about post-India Lennon is how he’s no more happy, no more productive, no more self-aware, no more comfortable in his own skin, than pre-India Lennon. What does the guy in August 1980 have to be angry about? Really? It was only after I reached middle-age and went through my own version of crisis (crises) that I thought, “How strange.”

[ezekiel-krishna]

7th Lord in All Houses [ Spouse/Marriage, Partnerships & Public ]

Part 3 .. { Vedic Astrology }

🔘To Check Your Placement

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7th Lord in 8th House

When the seventh lord enters the eighth house, it can naturally pose challenges. The eighth house, similar to the sixth and twelfth houses, represents distant and challenging circumstances. The most significant indication here is the transformative nature of relationships and partnerships, as they have the power to completely change you from the core.

The eighth house is known as the house of crisis, indicating that there are deep karmic lessons to be learned. It is possible to meet a potential spouse during a major crisis or turning point in your life. Alternatively, you may also meet a spouse while working in crisis-related fields such as medicine, emergency services, counseling, or psychotherapy, where you are helping others in their time of need.

With this placement, it can be challenging to connect with your spouse on a deep level. Your spouse may have their own psychological issues and difficulties, making it even more difficult to relate to them. Early experiences may have also caused psychological problems when dealing with people in general.Trust issues and difficulty being vulnerable to others may arise. You may find yourself in chaotic love affairs or short-term relationships that don't seem to lead anywhere.

However, when you do find a potential long-term spouse, having a strong network of friends can help sustain the relationship. This placement is intense and sometimes challenging in terms of relationships, but having friends around can alleviate some of the weight and help smooth things out. Your elder sibling or your spouse's elder sibling may also be very supportive of your relationship.

In a relationship, safety and financial security are often top priorities. However, marrying solely for these reasons can lead to challenges, especially when it comes to communication. Walking on eggshells and facing misunderstandings with your partner can strain the relationship. Additionally, dealing with a spouse's health issues can add another layer of difficulty.

Balancing the demands of the relationship with personal goals can be draining. It's important to maintain honesty and avoid any shady dealings. While partnerships may face obstacles, venturing into self-employment or starting a business can bring great benefits, including wealth and success.

7th Lord in 9th House

This is an incredibly fortunate placement as it resides in the house of dharma, bringing blessings to your life through marriage. You possess a liberal and open-minded nature, attracting many people and being attracted to many in return. Typically, individuals with this placement have the opportunity for multiple relationships, but you strive to maintain a righteous and dharmic attitude within them. Interestingly, you are likely to meet your spouse in a foreign land while traveling for higher education or even in religious settings.

Your deepest desire is to become an entrepreneur, yearning for the freedom to pursue your own path in life and establish your own business. Therefore, this position is exceptionally auspicious for business people or those seeking business success. True wealth and triumph can be achieved when the seventh lord resides in the ninth house, and your spouse takes immense pride in your accomplishments. The foundation of your relationship thrives on frequent intimacy, such as sharing a bed, embarking on spiritual pilgrimages, visiting ashrams, or seeking spiritual wisdom together. However, be cautious of potential challenges arising from your or your spouse's home. At times, the relationship may face opposition from your mother or your partner's mother.

When purchasing property together, careful consideration is necessary to avoid potential issues. It is crucial to prioritize being together rather than being apart. If you have separate properties or anything that creates distance within your home, it may strain the relationship. Additionally, be mindful of childhood friends who could pose a threat to the stability of your relationship. Stay vigilant and protect what you hold dear.

7th Lord in 10th House

The placement of the 7th lord in the tenth house can be quite challenging, but it doesn't mean that long-lasting relationships are impossible. In fact, with hard work and dedication, you can make your relationship thrive. You are attracted to a partner who is ambitious and has a high status or the potential to achieve it.

Together, you both support and uplift each other in your careers. However, it's important to maintain a healthy balance in your relationship. Working in the same field or even meeting at work can create conflicts, so it's crucial to give each other the freedom to pursue your own paths. Avoid meddling in each other's careers and focus on nurturing your individual growth. While you can be business partners, it's essential to prioritize creative freedom and personal space to ensure the survival of your relationship.

When the seventh lord is in the tenth house, taking control of your marriage becomes vital. Put in a hundred percent effort to make it work, especially as your status and success in life increase. This will serve as a protective factor for your marriage.Your ultimate desire is to have a beautiful and comfortable home, filled with all the luxuries and comforts of life. You also have a strong attachment to your early home environment and your country of origin. It's important for your relationship to be a part of this, as it brings you a sense of belonging and fulfillment.

One potential threat to your marriage could be an old lover from either you or your spouse. This can create turmoil, but on a positive note, your children have the potential for excellent success in life. However, they may not always be subservient to you, and there may be disagreements with your spouse regarding their upbringing. In such cases, compromise will be necessary to maintain harmony within the family.

7th Lord in 11th House

You may experience financial benefits through marriage, it's that straightforward. The 11th house pertains to society in general, so having similar perspectives on society, politics, and social morals is crucial for this relationship. Your main aspiration will be to start a family and have children as soon as possible. Being a creative individual, sharing creative hobbies or work with your spouse can greatly enhance your marriage. However, just like the seventh lord in the tenth house, your children will be happy and successful individuals but may not always be submissive to you, posing a challenge.

With this placement, you are more likely to have daughters than sons. You are most likely to meet your potential spouse within your social, political, or professional circles. A colleague at work could potentially become your spouse, introduced by friends, elder siblings, or relatives. Communication is key to maintaining this marriage - frequent and open conversations are essential. Engaging in activities like cooking together and sharing meals can strengthen your bond.

The main risk to this relationship comes from subordinates or individuals you have conflicts with, who may pose a threat to your marriage. Despite this, the position is favorable for business, with new opportunities constantly presenting themselves.

7th Lord in 12th House

It seems like the universe has some challenging karmic lessons in store for you when it comes to your spouse. Interestingly, you are most likely to meet your potential partner when you are in foreign lands or traveling. The twelfth house, which represents internet connections, also plays a significant role in bringing you together with your spouse. It's quite common for your partner to have some foreign cultural influence, either because they are from a different country or belong to a different culture than yours.

Interestingly, no matter how hard you try to meet someone similar to yourself in your local environment, fate seems to have other plans. You often find yourself drawn to individuals who are far away, with different perspectives on life and diverse cultural backgrounds. Long-distance relationships are also quite common for you.However, being together can be quite challenging.

It could be a situation where one of you is working abroad while the other is working elsewhere and traveling back home. These difficulties and separations can even occur in a committed, long-term relationship. It's important for you to have open and honest conversations about finances and how you both handle them.

It is crucial to prioritize honesty and openness in any relationship, as keeping secrets or manipulating others can have negative consequences. When the 7th lord is positioned in the 12th house, financial matters become a significant aspect of the relationship. Initially, you may be quite generous towards your spouse, but over time, you may become more frugal with your resources. This change in behavior is often triggered by your spouse's extravagant spending habits, which can create fear and insecurity within you.

Disagreements regarding finances can pose significant challenges, and in the worst-case scenario, it may lead to actual financial losses. You may find yourself spending excessively just to maintain the relationship, such as traveling long distances to be with your spouse, which can further strain your finances.

Additionally, your spouse may experience health issues or illnesses, adding to the financial strain and overall difficulties in the relationship. Similar to the influence of the seventh lord in the eighth house, it is crucial to avoid excessive secrecy in order to maintain a healthy dynamic.However,I have seen many couples tend to enjoy frequent travel or holidays together, which can positively contribute to the relationship.

Exercising, engaging in activities, and going for long walks are all factors that contribute to a stronger bond between you and your partner. These shared experiences bring you closer together and create a sense of connection. Additionally, the support of your partner's siblings can also play a positive role in your relationship. However, it is important to be cautious about relying too heavily on sexuality to maintain your bond. While physical intimacy is important, it should not be the sole foundation of your relationship. It is crucial to cultivate emotional depth and connection as well.

Sometimes, individuals may choose not to marry if their seventh lord is positioned in the eighth or twelfth house. They may come to the realization that marriage is not the right path for them after having already been married. It is important to honor your own desires and make choices that align with your true self.

Your ultimate desire in this lifetime is to purify yourself spiritually, which will bring you happiness and fulfillment. As you embark on this journey of self-purification, you may find that a more suitable spouse enters your life. Your affinity for animals is also significant, as they bring you comfort and joy. Having pets in your relationship can strengthen your bond and bring you closer together.

However, there may be challenges in your relationship when the seventh lord is in the twelfth house. Your partner may hold a significant amount of power and control, leading to frequent breakups and feelings of insecurity. It is important to address these issues and communicate openly about your dissatisfaction.

While this placement may not be favorable for business partnerships, it is excellent for working as an entrepreneur in foreign lands or dealing with foreign companies. Profit can be gained through these ventures. Additionally, businesses related to fashion or those that address people's distress through psychotherapy, counseling, or life coaching can also be highly successful for you.

Let me know your placement below !

Remember This is a General Analysis , Whole Chart is to be consider for Accurate Personalized Predictions.

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[mikasasrippedtoenail]

The Plight of Indian Widows

A woman's dignity is not her own possession. Her life is at the mercy of men around her. She is a commodity to be owned and sold first by her father then her husband. Her entire existence is tied to her servitude to those around her. After giving so much to the world, there is little life left inside of her. Yet, the world still demands her forfeit of this little life after the death of her husband. In India, a woman was expected to burn herself alive in the holy pyre of her husband's body as a show of loyalty in a practice called Sati that was outlawed in 1929(yet it is still rampant today in many rural parts of India).

With her husband no more, she must have no reason to live.Widowhood is the harbringer of acute discrimination for women in South Asia. Widows are ostracized by society and shunned by their family to live a destitute life in "Vidhwa Ashrams". Even the shadow of a widow was believed to inflict depredation and brought. They are called witches and man-eaters. They are forbidden from wearing anything but white clothes and are expected to practice strict abstinence. Widows in Afghanistan are called besarparast, meaning "household without a head". It is customary for a woman to shave off her head to appear undesirable. Her sexuality is confined, her needs and wants must die alongside her husband. Widow remarriage-although legal- is deeply stigmatized as a grave sin.

Widows are not considered to be a part of society. They can neither celebrate festivals nor travel without a religious purpose. In some extreme cases, they are made to drink the bathwater of their husbands’ dead bodies and have unprotected sex to "cleanse themselves of the sin of causing their husbands" death. Young widows also fall prey to the leering eyes of men. Child brides especially are prone to fall victim to manipulation by people around them. Men consider that since marriage has taken away her "innocence", she can now be sexually exploited.

Barring a few states, married women cannot inherit their husband's property. This lack of financial stability is the root cause of their exploitation. Most husbands leave their wives penniless. What little savings he might have had are spent on funeral rites. Relatives do not want to support her financially, considering her children and herself as excess baggage. Her parents also close the doors on her face for it is often said - "only a woman's dead body should come out of her husband's house."

This new found vulnerability makes her an easy prey for prostitution. A primary form of survival for widows is to sell their body through pimps. However, in most ashrams, they are forced to perform sexual favours by the heads of the ashram to gain money. The heads use their political power to silence the widows from raising their voice against this rape. With nowhere else to go, this cycle continues. The widows who get pregnant from this rape are "mauled by quacks for a painfully searing abortion and If that’s not done, then they would have an extra mouth to feed and an extra pair of hands to beg."

As of today, India is the abode of 42 million widows-a social class that is woefully exploited. Widows are often forced to dedicate the remaining parts of their lives to their religion. They must have no desires or wants except singing the God's praise. Widowhood for most women marks the death of their happines and social life. Although with changing times the attitude towards widows is turning positive, it is the bitter truth that the condition of widows from orthodox regions live a terrible life.

Laws protecting women are scarce- let alone widows. In India, widows are considered to be the class 1 heirs of ancestral properties. However, most of them are uneducated and unaware of the laws surrounding them. They are easily manipulated by relatives to give up their rights to the property. As for self acquired property, most men do not mention the name of their wives in their wills. After 2005, women alive on december, 2005 have a right over their father's ancestral property alongside their brothers. One must not forget that women inheriting property is still not socially acceptable in India and women who recieve property are few and far between.

To uplift widows, one must make them aware of the rights around them. Government and local NGOs should work together to organize awareness campaigns on the rights of widows. Women without capital left behind by their husbands should get a monthly stipend. "Vidhwa Ashrams" should be heavily regulated. More so, the social stigma shrouding widows must be removed. Treatment of women belonging to marginalized communities are a reflection of how dire the situation of women's rights are in India. Opening women owned women only shelters is the prime solution for the upliftment of women.

[talonabraxas]

Kalpavriksha 'Wish Fulfilling Tree' Talon Abraxas

Kalpavriksha - The Wish Fulfilling Tree & the Nature of Our Mind

In the scriptures there is mention of a tree called Kalpavriksha – the Wish Fulfilling Tree. Sitting under this tree, whatever one wishes for will manifest.

As the story goes, a man was walking on a hot, sunny day. He was tired, and when he saw this beautiful tree, he went to sit in its shade. As he sat there, he thought, “It would be so nice if there was a glass of cold water.” A glass of cold water appeared. Not only that, but a glass of cold beer, too! He enjoyed them both.

As he continued to rest, the man thought, “I’m feeling hungry. It would be so nice if there was a little food.” A few of his favorite dishes appeared and he enjoyed a nice meal. Then he thought, “Wow, it would be really nice if there was a comfortable bed.” Even the bed appeared and he rested after his long day.

When he woke up, the man realized there must be a genie somewhere that was responding to all his thoughts. As he set out walking again, he soon came across a small man sitting underneath a tree. The man called to him, “Come, come. I’m a genie! I need a home and I promise I will give you anything you want. Anything you wish for, I will provide. But the day you don’t have anything for me to do, I will devour you. Can I come with you?”

The man thought for a while and said, “Okay, come. I have many projects that you can help with.” The genie accepted the man’s invitation, saying, “I will come with you, but remember, the day you don’t have anything for me to do, I will devour you.”

The man returned to his home with the genie and they got started on all of the small projects around his house. The very moment that he mentioned a project, it would be completed: wells were dug, walls were built, things were moved from here to there. The man started thinking of bigger projects and the genie completed those very quickly as well.

In time, the man began to worry that he would run out of things for the genie to do. He decided to seek the advice of a sage living at the edge of the town. The Babaji listened intently to the man’s predicament and responded, “Okay. Have him install a long pole in the ground. When you have nothing for him to do, ask him to go up and down the pole. And whenever you have a project, call him to do it. When the project is finished, send him back to the pole.”

The man followed the sage’s advice and lived happily ever after!

What is this story really about? The genie of the Wish Fulfilling Tree is our mind.

The mind is a beautiful instrument. Whatever comes into the mind will manifest. It may take some time, but the mind can create whatever we want. But if we don’t cultivate the mind, we get into trouble. With nothing to focus on, the mind’s tendency can veer towards destruction, negativity, and getting caught on small things.

What is the pole that can be used to control the genie, our mind? Our breath. Whenever the mind is free with nothing specific to focus on: straighten your spine, imagine your breath rising up and descending. The mind will follow and you can save yourself from all kinds of negativity.

No matter where you are, with determination and with a little joy, bring the mind back to your breath. Imagine a light sitting at the bottom of your spine. As you inhale and the breath is rising, that light rises up the spine to the space on your forehead between your eyes. As you exhale, the breath and light go back down the spine. Hold that imagery. Breath in and out three times. Then return to engage in the world, renewed.

This mind is capable of providing us with anything we want, if we just learn how to use it, and how to prevent it from running our lives. It’s all about remembrance. Before you start flowing out in a negative direction, remember to take that breath. You’ll see it will change your day. It will change your life.

[workersolidarity]

( Subtitles are autogenerated and do not always reflect the precise meaning of the words being spoken.)

[📹 Scenes from the Kuwait Specialized Hospital in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, following several Israeli occupation bombings in areas where civilians gather, which tore its Palestinian victims to pieces, including children and babies. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

ISRAELI GENOCIDE TARGETS CIVILIAN TENTS AND PALESTINIAN CHILDREN ON SATURDAY EVENING

The Israeli occupation army targeted on Saturday tents housing displaced Palestinian families, as well as residential homes in various axis of the Gaza Strip, killing and maiming Palestinian civilians by the dozen.

According to local witnesses and reporting in the Palestinian media, 19 civilians, including women, children and babies, were killed, and dozens of others wounded, in the occupation's bombing and shelling of residential homes in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, as well as the Al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City.

Paramedic and civil defense personnel managed to recover the bodies of 9 Palestinians and several wounded civilians, including a young girl, after Zionist fighter jets bombed the Al-Louh family home in the Deir al-Balah Camp.

The bombings also reportedly caused extensive destruction to citizens homes and properties.

In yet another strike, Israeli warplanes bombed a civilian residence belonging to the Al-Ashram family in the Al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, murdering at least 10 Palestinians and wounding a number of others.

The death toll in the Israeli occupation's genocide in Gaza now exceeds 34'971 Palestinians killed, while another 78'641 others have been wounded since October 7th, 2023.

May 11th, 2024

#source

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[cosmicpuzzle]

Ketu in Houses- ☋ South Node in Houses

Ketu or South node is signifcator of spirituality, wisdom, worldly detachment, disappointment, wisdom, release from cycle of birth and death, black magic, occult, astrology, enlightenment.

1st House - Detached, reserved, observer, childhood difficulties, bodily issues, education troubles, introspective, less talkative, thinker, wise, headaches, researcher, acne or spots in face.

2nd House- Money issues, family issues, dissatisfied family life, arguments, domestic quarrels, eye troubles, troubles in earning, troubles till middle life, stammering, harsh speech.

3rd House- Patient, fearful, intellectual, problems with younger siblings, famous, good listening ability, better place for Ketu, shoulder pains, ear pain.

4th House- Problems with mother, health of mother affected, problems with inheritances, troubles in early education, problems with comforts, travel issues, discomfort at home, problems with vehicles, no affection from mother, settles abroad.

5th House- Troubles having children, could adopt, disappointment with children, troubled love affairs, affairs outside marriage, interested in spirituality, mantras, failure in love, trouble getting inheritances, stomach issues, past life sins.

6th House- Defeats enemies, victory and success, success with loans, minor health issues, diet issues, food poisonings, stomach issues, kidney issues, digestion issues, life gets better with age, court cases, criminal connections.

7th House- Trouble satisfying spouse, disappointment with spouse and business partners, troubles in married life, urinary infections, business breaks down.

8th House- Afraid of longevity, good researcher, brings secrets of others, finds treasures, interest in occult, tantra, health issues during Ketu period, more interest in isolation and psychic matters, problems with private parts, genitals

9th House- Trouble with father, no luck, interest in pilgrimages, world travel for religious purposes ,less opportunities, wanderer, joins ashrams, finds good mentors, teachers, spiritual trips, sciatic pain, thigh pain

10th House- Finds good jobs and opportunities, good worker, medical career, good for profession, knee issues, ortho troubles, Government fines, managerial success.

11th House- Good place for Ketu, but no success in early years, influential contacts, success post 35, success in actions, good wealth, disappointing friends, leg and calf pains, varicose veins, hearing issues, strained relations with elder siblings and father's relatives

12th House- Less practical, dreamy, more expenses, interest in liberation, sleep issues, foreign travels, searches for enlightenment, may be end of soul journey, sacrifices worldly things, feet issues.

Book your Ketu Reading- DM Here

[pluckyredhead]

Character Profile: Connor Hawke (Green Arrow II)

It's time to meet another member of the Lost Titans! The most beautiful boy in the world: Connor Hawke!

Connor is the oldest biological child of Oliver Queen and the second Green Arrow. He was introduced in 1994, possibly the best year for blorbos of all time, although readers didn't know that he was Ollie's son right away.

(His mother, we would eventually learn, is Sandra "Moonday" Hawke, who had a brief, no strings relationship with Ollie during their hippie days. Moonday has a Black father and a Korean mother, and is charmingly flaky with a shitty abusive new husband, the arms dealer Milo Armitage, who Connor butted heads with repeatedly in his solo series.)

At the time, Ollie was smack dab in the middle of a nervous breakdown, as well as injured (Connor helped patch him up, hence the line about seeing him naked). He'd taken refuge in a Buddhist ashram where he'd once found peace.

At the time, Connor was about 18 and had been at the ashram for five years. He was a big Green Arrow fanboy and the two quickly bonded. He was also an aspiring archer, although his archery was just okay, while his hand-to-hand combat was superb. (In the 90s, Connor was ranked as the fifth best martial artist in the DCU, which means he's better than Nightwing. (The top four are probably Lady Shiva, Richard Dragon, Bronze Tiger, and Batman. Cass Cain didn't exist yet.))

When assassins came to the ashram to kill Ollie, Ollie and his ex-CIA frenemy Eddie Fyers fled. Connor insisted on coming with them. Eddie guessed the truth about Connor, but Ollie was still in the dark until Hal Jordan, in the middle of his own Parallax-induced breakdown, showed up out of nowhere and asked Ollie to introduce him to his son.

Ollie...didn't handle the news well.

Ollie's nervous breakdown only escalated from here on out, and he eventually wound up dying in a helicopter explosion (though he did go out a hero, saving all of Metropolis). Connor decided that though Oliver Queen had disappointed him, the world could still use a Green Arrow - and maybe if he walked in his father's shoes for a bit, he could try to understand him a little bit better.

Connor spent about five years as the only Green Arrow, traveling the world with Eddie as a curmudgeonly mentor figure. He quickly made a few superhero friends, most notably Tim Drake and of course the new Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner:

Kyle 100% STOLE THIS MOVE FROM ROY and that will always be funny to me.

Connor was briefly on the JLA before deciding (much like his father had before him) that he felt more effective and comfortable on the ground, helping individuals rather than fighting cosmic horrors. Eventually, the GA book was canceled and Connor decided to return to the ashram, trying to find what he was searching for by looking within, rather than by cosplaying as his dad.

In 2001, Ollie returned. Connor basically magically sensed that his father was back and in danger, and raced off to help him fight demons. Ollie, for his part, gave up his chance at staying at peace in Heaven in order to save Connor's life. Once the demons were defeated, Ollie seriously committed himself to getting to know his son and making up for lost time. They moved into a house together in Star City, along with Mia Dearden, a teenage former sex worker Ollie had taken under his wing. Connor and Mia quickly became very close.

There were a couple of major Connor-related developments early on in this run: first, Connor was shot in the head by the supervillain Onomatopoeia, though he survived thanks to quick emergency services and a blood transfusion from Ollie. And second, it was revealed that Ollie had always known about Connor, had been there for his birth, and just lied to everyone when he said he didn't have a kid. I hate this retcon, which to me makes Ollie's behavior irredeemably horrible - not just to Connor, but to Dinah and Roy, too. Brad Meltzer isn't the greatest writer when it comes to paying attention to past continuity, characterization, or, uh, logic. But my rant about how Archer's Quest sucks is a separate post. Anyway just know I will never acknowledge this retcon in a fic. I spit on it. Ptoo.

During this time, and really ever since his origin, there was speculation about Connor's sexuality. Connor is a very reserved, introverted character and was canonically a virgin when he was introduced (and still is, unless you count "sex" with a ghost where he didn't even get his pants off), and this of course stood in marked contrast to Ollie and Roy, both loud extroverted horn dogs. The fact that women were constantly throwing themselves at a blatantly uninterested Connor didn't help:

Ollie, Roy, and Kyle all flat-out asked Connor if was gay, which at the time he always denied, but he also explained to Roy that he was looking for The One, which I just love, because so was Roy, just in a different way! Everyone always says that Connor is so different from Ollie and Roy, and they're not wrong, but that's something they absolutely have in common: they are all hopeless romantics.

Connor's life was pretty good immediately after Ollie's return (getting shot in the head notwithstanding), but no writer really seemed to know what to do with him. There was an attempt to give him a spotlight again in the Connor Hawke: Dragon's Blood miniseries, which is...fine, I guess? Connor is forced to kill a supervillain who is trying to turn into a dragon and destroy the world. Also he makes out with Shado, the woman who raped Ollie in the early 90s, which is...certainly a thing that happened. (Connor wasn't going to be gay on Chuck Dixon's watch, nosirree!) (And actually I think the whole Shado issue is extremely complicated but there's no denying that the Shado/Connor kiss was really, really off. But my Shado rant is yet another post!) There's some interesting character stuff there but overall the miniseries has been mostly forgotten.

In the second half of the 2000s, things got shitty for Connor, just like they did for basically every character. First, he was shot with a bullet laced with a toxin that left him in a coma:

God Cliff Chiang draws him so beautifully.

Anyway, Connor was just sort of...left in the coma for a while. Eventually he was kidnapped and Ollie had to rescue him. There's a long stretch where Connor's body is just sort of used as a prop without any actual personhood involved, which is...really, really not a great way to use a BIPOC character? Oof.

When Connor finally woke up from the coma, he a) had amnesia, b) had a healing factor because of spliced in DNA from Plastic Man???, c) none of his old personality or character traits anymore (he had no archery prowess, was no longer a vegetarian, etc.). He then wandered off to find himself. Again: I love that Ollie came back, but aggressively sidelining Connor in Ollie's stories and/or only allowing him to be a victim for Ollie to save or a wise prop to serve Ollie and Mia's stories, then writing him off by putting him in a coma, then literally having him leave the book, was NOT GREAT.

Connor returned for Blackest Night and its aftermath, when he was like "Hey Dad, I have my memory back for no reason now, and also? I hate you."

Then the New 52 happened and Connor stopped existing. But don't worry! The ensuing years brought us not one but three riffs on the character who were all entirely white! (The New 52 Earth-Two version of Connor who looks like Roy, the Injustice "Connor Queen" who is the biological son of Ollie and Dinah, and Oliver's kid on Arrow and yes I know Connor Hawke is a separate character on that show but it was still a very bad look.)

Connor finally returned to us in 2021 as one of Damian's competitors during the assassin tournament on Lazarus Island. The two quickly bonded, and Damian was one of the first people Connor came out to as asexual (FINALLY):

Currently, Connor is appearing in Green Arrow as his family tries to find a way to be together and locate all of their missing members. It hasn't really been explained where he was or how he ended up in the clutches of the League of Shadows on Lazarus Island, and might never be explained. He also hasn't reunited with Ollie yet, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it (and someday Kyle maybe please?).

In conclusion: I love Connor very, very much, he deserves better than what he got for the past 15 years or so, and I'm very happy he's back in comics and allowed to actually be queer, connected to his Korean heritage, making friends outside of Ollie's sphere, etc. Mazel tov, baby.

[invisibleraven]

“I didn’t know where else to go” / Flarrie

"Zombies, why did it have to be zombies?" Flynn grumbled as she made her way through the streets.

She had dealt with more than a few of the undead as she had left her house, thankful for her wide array of self defense abilities and the steel bat that Carlos had gifted her the year she was on the softball team.

So far it was horrific and depressing, but she was surviving, and that was all that mattered. Unfortunately the places to go were growing slim.

Her own house was not defensible, though she felt better knowing her parents were on a cruise, hopefully away from the virus ravaging the population. The Molinas and the guys were huddled in the bunker under the house, but she knew space was also limited there.

This meant she was headed to the most defended place she could think of-a certain house in Malibu that housed Carrie Wilson-her one time enemy-though now they were more antagonists to each other.

As she got closer to the Wilson's, Flynn saw fewer and fewer zombies-probably due to the guards outside each community and the fact that these mansions were full of people who had more guns than sense.

Finally she was stood outside the gate and swore. "Fuck, I forgot about the barbed wire."

Thankfully she had her fingerless gloves on, and started scaling the gate.

"We have a buzzer you know."

Flynn looked down, and there was Carrie, arms crossed, an amused little smile on her face.

"I wasn't sure you would let me in unless I was already past the gate," Flynn admitted, dropping to the ground.

"That's still up in the air. Why are you here Flynn?"

"Umm all the fucking zombies, figured this was a safe place to go," Flynn replied, but Carrie's cool stare wore her down. "I didn't know where else to go."

Carrie hummed, then opened the gate, then inside the house. "My dad is in some ashram or another, so hopefully he's safe. Your folks?"

"Cruise."

Carrie nodded, then opened up a cabinet, tossing Flynn a pistol. "The security guard left me some stuff before heading home to his family. My dad would freak about them being here, but better safe than sorry."

"Do you even know how to use one?" Flynn asked-she had Girl Scouts with some air rifle training to thank for a mild proficiency with guns, but they still weren't her favourite things to use.

"I have the top score at the shooting gallery downtown," Carrie replied, twirling the pistol on her finger. "One of my bodyguards as a kid thought I should know how to use them. I've been learning ever since." She then turned, heading towards the kitchen. "You want a snack?"

"Why are you being so nice?" Flynn asked.

"Seems pretty petty to hold onto grudges in the middle of the freaking apocalypse," Carrie replied, sliding her a bowl of frozen yogurt.

"That's fair."

The quiet was a bit awkward as they ate, but it wasn't too bad, and Flynn couldn't complain about sitting out the horde of zombies in a freaking mansion.

"You think it's all over or just in LA?" she asked.

"The news says California for now, but who knows how far this could have spread?" Carrie replied, sitting back on her couch. "The government has been called in, and the sciencey types are making a vaccine, but you know how long that could take."

Carrie flicked on the television-skipping past the news stations and landing on a cartoon they both had enjoyed as kids-a happy little reprieve from reality. They sat and binged a bunch of episodes, trying to ignore what was going on outside their little fortress.

"You think everyone else is okay?" Flynn asked quietly.

Carrie shrugged. "I've got no bars to check-I think the phone lines are down."

Flynn pulled out her phone and saw the same, seeing even her little heart emoji to Julie sent several hours ago had yet to go through.

"This is gonna be a long apocalypse."

The days passed slowly, the two of them trying to give each other space, but also seeking human connection in a fallen world. Their conversations slowly went from grudging to civil to somewhat friendly.

It probably was because they were all each other had, and probably wouldn't continue if the world went back to normal, but for now, Flynn was okay for the tension between them to be set aside.

"We're running out of food," she remarked that night as she made them a salad.

"My dad was a giant prepper, we have lots of jarred, canned, and box stuff set aside," Carrie stated. "We might want to ration it as we can, because it doesn't look like this is gonna be fixed any time soon."

The news stations were no longer reporting-mainly because the cable had cut out earlier that day. The radio was full of static, so they were left to wonder what was going on.

"I'm scared," Flynn admitted.

"Me too."

Carrie opened her arms, and Flynn didn't hesitate to step into them, holding each other tight as they wondered what was going on on and what would happen. They were reluctant to let go, and slowly settled into constant touch or holding hands as the night went on, just to assure themselves they were not alone.

That kept happening though as time passed, neither of them keeping track of how many days they had been locked away from the world.

Or when their hugs turned into gentle pecks before sliding into bed together-not wanting to be alone at night any longer. When those pecks turned more passionate.

When they finally admitted that maybe-just maybe-they were more than the enemies they once were, or the friends they had become.

"I'm glad you tried to climb my fence," Carrie said over breakfast one morning.

"I wish the circumstances around why I was were different though," Flynn admitted.

Carrie took her hand then. "You may have not known where else to go, but I hope you know now that you can always come to me."

Flynn kissed the back of her hand at that, hoping the echoing sentiment came through. And wondered what her former self would think of this-and the fact that she had zombies to thank for being the happiest she had ever been.

[aayrasposts]

श्राद्ध किसके लिए निकालते हैं। श्राद्ध उनके लिए करते हैं जो मृत्यु को प्राप्त हो गए यानी प्रेत पित्तर बन गए। गीता अध्याय 9 श्लोक 25 में इसके लिए मना किया गया है।

विष्णु पुराण के अंदर ���िखा हुआ है, व्यास जी कह रहे हैं कि हे राजन

Sant Rampal Ji Maharaj

#पितरों_का_उद्धार_कैसे_करें

[jesse-eisenberg-interview]

A list of Jesse Eisenberg's writing

I made a list of Jesse Eisenberg's writing.

2009

NOV 30 Manageable Tongue Twisters.

2010

FEB 24 Marxist-Socialists Jokes

2011

JUL 21 A Post Gender Normative Man Tries to Pick Up a Woman at a Bar

DEC 07 ACTOR & PLAYWRIGHT JESSE EISENBERG ON THE THRILL OF THE STAGE

2012

JAN 25 Courage Is Just an Act

FEB 15 Jeremy Lin Has Helped Me Through Some Pretty Tough Times

MAR 12 Jesse Eisenberg on His Lifelong Aversion to Youth Culture

MAY 24 Sushi Nozawa

JUN 06 Masgouf

JUL 09 The Whiskey Blue Bar at the W Hotel

AUG 01 TCBY

AUG 20 Robert Frost Elementary School Cafeteria

OCT 02 Organix vs. the San Gennaro Street Festival

NOV 21 Thanksgiving With Vegans

DEC 11 Body Rituals Among the Lauxesortem

2013

FEB 22 Matthew’s House

MAR 17 Marv Albert Is My Therapist

APR 15 The League, Passed Down

APR 17 I Didn’t Win Any Pulitzer Prizes This Year

APR 25 A Marriage Counselor Tries to Heckle at a Knicks Game

JUN 03 Fuddruckers and an Unreliable New Friend

JUN 24 Separation-Anxiety Sleepaway Camp

AUG 06 A Crawfish Boil and Dad’s New Family

SEP 09 A Bully Does His Research

OCT 02 A Post Gender Normative Woman Tries to Pick Up a Man at a Bar

OCT 07 Final Conversations at Pompeii

NOV 01 The Museum of Natural History and Making Compromises

NOV 12 Alexander Graham Bell’s First Five Phone Calls

DEC 12 The Ashram and Mom

2014

JAN 20 If I Was Fluent in . . .

JUN 10 Carmelo Anthony and I Debrief Our Friends After a Pickup Game at the Y.M.C.A.

2015

MAY 25 Men and Dancing

SEP 01 My Nephew Has Some Questions

SEP 09 My Spam Plays Hard to Get

NOV 22 THE GUY WHO HATED NOW YOU SEE ME, A SHORT STORY

NOV 23 An Honest Film Review

2016

JAN 27 What Do You Do When Your Mother Won’t Shut Up at The Ballet?

FEB 04 Act Like You Know

FEB 12 Why I Broke Up with the Little Mermaid

MAY 19 My Cousin Recently Became A Realtor

NOV 04 SELF-DEPRECATING HEROES

DEC 11 LOW TALK IN HIGH PLACES

2017

JAN 23 YOU NEVER REALLY KNOW

JAN 25 My Very Good Friend

FEB 01 发现肉——致中国读者

MAR 04 HAVE YOU DINED WITH US BEFORE?

NOV 14 Mongolia

2018

JAN 15 Sad Stuff on the Street

MAR 20 Thanks, Giving

MAY 14 My N.B.A. Knowledge Comes In Handy

MAY 18 One Small Blow Against Encroaching Totalitarianism: The Natural Order of the World Depends On It

MAY 31 Jesse Eisenberg on the Relentless Work Ethic of Philip Roth

DEC 05 The Cast Members and Their Crew

2019

JAN 03 MY SISTER PUSHES THE LOBSTER

NOV 21 My Two-Year-Old Requests Just One More Song Before Bed

NOV 23 Jesse Eisenberg: Recommends four contemporary plays

2021

MAR 02 Writer Courtney Zoffness and Jesse Eisenberg on the Radical Compassion of Art

2022

NOV 07 Content Warning

2023

FEB 20 A G.P.S. Route for My Anxiety

[lesbianspeedy]

i think the real victim of ollie-mia arguments is connor who in ga 2001 should have been paid for the triple shifts he was working making that house bearable to live in in the aftermath of one. that is MY truth

live with your father and the pint sized clone of your father and dont explode challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

the fact he didnt pack up and leave to return to the ashram is a miracle

mia: we're literally fine ollie: yeah we're fine connor, knowing in roughly 32 hours he's going to have to hold down the crockery to keep it from shaking off the counters from the volume of their argument: every day i am tested

[ndbookstudy]

i am that, nisargardatta maharaj, ch. 96.

Questioner: I am an American by birth and for the last one year I was staying in an Ashram in Madhya Pradesh, studying Yoga in its many aspects. We had a teacher, whose Guru, a disciple of the great Sivananda Saraswati, stays in Monghyr. I stayed at Ramanashram also. While in Bombay I went through an intensive course of Burmese meditation managed by one Goenka. Yet I have not found peace. There is an improvement in self-control and day-to-day discipline, but that is all. I cannot say exactly what caused what. I visited many holy places. How each acted on me, I cannot say.

Maharaj: Good results will come, sooner or later. At Sri Ramanashram did you get some instructions?

Q: Yes, some English people were teaching me and also an Indian follower of jnana yoga, residing there permanently, was giving me lessons.

M: What are your plans?

Q: I have to return to the States because of visa difficulties. I intend to complete my B.Sc., study Nature Cure and make it my profession.

M: A good profession, no doubt.

Q: Is there any danger in pursuing the path of Yoga at all cost?

M: Is a match-stick dangerous when the house is on fire? The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it will destroy the world in which you live. But if your motive is love of truth and life, you need not be afraid.

Q: I am afraid of my own mind. It is so unsteady!

M: In the mirror of your mind images appear and disappear. The mirror remains. Learn to distinguish the immovable in the movable, the unchanging in the changing, till you realise that all differences are in appearance only and oneness is a fact. This basic identity -- you may call God, or Brahman, or the matrix (Prakriti), the words matters little -- is only the realisation that all is one. Once you can say with confidence born from direct experience: 'I am the world, the world is myself', you are free from desire and fear on one hand and become totally responsible for the world on the other. The senseless sorrow of mankind becomes your sole concern.

Q: So even a jnani has his problems!

M: Yes, but they are no longer of his own creation. His suffering is not poisoned by a sense of guilt. There is nothing wrong with suffering for the sins of others. Your Christianity is based on this.

Q: Is not all suffering self-created?

M: Yes, as long as there is a separate self to create it. In the end you know that there is no sin, no guilt, no retribution, only life in its endless transformations. With the dissolution of the personal 'I' personal suffering disappears. What remains is the great sadness of compassion, the horror of the unnecessary pain.

Q: Is there anything unnecessary in the scheme of things?

M: Nothing is necessary, nothing is inevitable. Habit and passion blind and mislead. Compassionate awareness heals and redeems. There is nothing we can do, we can only let things happen according to their nature.

Q: Do you advocate complete passivity?

M: Clarity and charity is action. Love is not lazy and clarity directs. You need not worry about action, look after your mind and heart. Stupidity and selfishness are the only evil.

Q: What is better -- repetition of God's name, or meditation?

M: Repetition will stabilise your breath. With deep and quiet breathing vitality will improve, which will influence the brain and help the mind to grow pure and stable and fit for meditation. Without vitality little can be done, hence the importance of its protection and increase. Posture and breathing are a part of Yoga, for the body must be healthy and well under control, but too much concentration on the body defeats its own purpose, for it is the mind that is primary in the beginning. When the mind has been put to rest and disturbs no longer the inner space (chidakash), the body acquires a new meaning and its transformation becomes both necessary and possible.

Q: I have been wandering all over India, meeting many Gurus and learning in driblets several Yogas. Is it all right to have a taste of everything?

M: No, this is but an introduction. You will meet a man who will help you find your own way.

Q: I feel that the Guru of my own choice can not be my real Guru. To be real he must come unexpected and be irresistible.

M: Not to anticipate is best. The way you respond is decisive.

Q: Am I the master of my responses?

M: Discrimination and dispassion practised now will yield their fruits at the proper time. If the roots are healthy and well-watered, the fruits are sure to be sweet. Be pure, be alert, keep ready.

Q: Are austerities and penances of any use?

M: To meet all the vicissitudes of life is penance enough! You need not invent trouble. To meet cheerfully whatever life brings is all the austerity you need.

Q: What about sacrifice?

M: Share willingly and gladly all you have with whoever needs -- don't invent self-inflicted cruelties.

Q: What is self-surrender?

M: Accept what comes.

Q: I feel I am too weak to stand on my own legs. I need the holy company of a Guru and of good people. Equanimity is beyond me. To accept what comes as it comes, frightens me. I think of my returning to the States with horror.

M: Go back and make the best use of your opportunities. Get your B.Sc. degree first. You can always return to India for your Nature Cure studies.

Q: I am quite aware of the opportunities in the States. It is the loneliness that frightens me.

M: You have always the company of your own self -- you need not feel alone. Estranged from it even in India you will feel lonely. All happiness comes from pleasing the self. Please it, after return to the States, do nothing that may be unworthy of the glorious reality within your heart and you shall be happy and remain happy. But you must seek the self and, having found it, stay with it.

Q: Will compete solitude be of any benefit?

M: It depends on your temperament. You may work with others and for others, alert and friendly, and grow more fully than in solitude, which may make you dull or leave you at the mercy of your mind's endless chatter. Do not imagine that you can change through effort. Violence, even turned against yourself, as in austerities and penance, will remain fruitless.

Q: Is there no way of making out who is realised and who is not?

M: Your only proof is in yourself. If you find that you turn to gold, it will be a sign that you have touched the philosopher's stone. Stay with the person and watch what happens to you. Don't ask others. Their man may not be your Guru. A Guru may be universal in his essence, but not in his expressions. He may appear to be angry or greedy or over-anxious about his Ashram or his family, and you may be misled by appearances, while others are not.

Q: Have I not the right to expect all-round perfection, both inner and outer?

M: Inner --- yes. But outer perfection depends on circumstances, on the state of the body, personal and social, and other innumerable factors.

Q: I was told to find a jnani so that I may learn from him the art of achieving jnana and now I am told that the entire approach is false, that I cannot make out a jnani, nor can jnana be conquered by appropriate means. It is all so confusing!

M: It is all due to your complete misunderstanding of reality. Your mind is steeped in the habits of evaluation and acquisition and will not admit that the incomparable and unobtainable are waiting timelessly within your own heart for recognition. All you have to do is to abandon all memories and expectations. Just keep yourself ready in utter nakedness and nothingness.

Q: Who is to do the abandoning?

M: God will do it. Just see the need of being abandoned. Don't resist, don't hold on to the person you take yourself to be. Because you imagine yourself to be a person you take the jnani to be a person too, only somewhat different, better informed and more powerful. You may say that he is eternally conscious and happy, but it is far from expressing the whole truth. Don't trust definitions and descriptions -- they are grossly misleading.

Q: Unless I am told what to do and how to do it, I feel lost.

M: By all means do feel lost! As long as you feel competent and confident, reality is beyond your reach. Unless you accept inner adventure as a way of life, discovery will not come to you.

Q: Discovery of what?

M: Of the centre of your being, which is free of all directions, all means and ends.

Q: Be all, know all, have all?

M: Be nothing, know nothing, have nothing. This is the only life worth living, the only happiness worth having.

Q: I may admit that the goal is beyond my comprehension. Let me know the way at least.

M: You must find your own way. Unless you find it yourself it will not be your own way and will take you nowhere. Earnestly live your truth as you have found it -- act on the little you have understood. It is earnestness that will take you through, not cleverness -- your own or another's.

Q: I am afraid of mistakes. So many things I tried -- nothing came out of them.

M: You gave too little of yourself, you were merely curious, not earnest.

Q: I don't know any better.

M: At least that much you know. Knowing them to be superficial, give no value to your experiences, forget them as soon as they are over. Live a clean, selfless life, that is all.

Q: Is morality so important?

M: Don't cheat, don't hurt -- is it not important? Above all you need inner peace -- which demands harmony between the inner and the outer. Do what you believe in and believe in what you do. All else is a waste of energy and time.

[astrotalk1726]

What is the significance of the twelfth house in a birth chart?

The 12th house in a birth chart holds deep spiritual and karmic significance, often relating to endings, isolation, and the subconscious. Here are three key points about its significance:

Spiritual Growth and Liberation: The 12th house is associated with moksha (spiritual liberation). It represents detachment from the material world, spiritual practices, and the quest for higher understanding. People with a strong 12th house may have an inclination toward meditation, charity, or spiritual retreats.

Isolation and Seclusion: It governs isolation, solitude, and spaces like hospitals, ashrams, and foreign lands. Planets placed here can indicate experiences of withdrawal, time spent in isolation, or a preference for working behind the scenes.

Foreign Travel and Settlements: The 12th house also signifies foreign travel and living abroad. It represents long journeys, often for spiritual purposes, but it can also indicate the possibility of settling in foreign lands.

Overall, the 12th house is a complex house that represents both challenges and spiritual growth, and focuses on things beyond the material world. And if you want information based on your horoscope, you can use Kundli for Android - Astrology App. Which can give you better information based on your horoscope.