#fivefold flame

[tempestforged]

-> HE DARE NOT RAISE HIS HEAD FROM WHERE IT HANGS, even now the last of the Schwanenritter is ever the obedient servant to the one who sits upon that broken obsidian throne. WHILE the TSARITSA had given him a means to continue to track the Twilight Sword, his loyalty to a forsaken homeland was never in question, even DEATH herself had not seen fit to ask that of him in return for her favour, the double-edged sword of immortality that moved ever closer to his throat. WHEN IRMIN cast aside all semblance of sanity, it was the PRINCESS that had beckoned him to raise his banner, to lead the helpless masses from the depths of despair in hopes of ensuring their survival.

HOW COULD SHE HAVE KNOWN? How could any have known that the fivefold blasphemies had cursed her subjects, her PEOPLES, to a doomed existence. HE HAD WATCHED, WITH BITTER REGRET, the way in which so many of those he had sworn to protect were taken by the curse of the wilderness, punished by the heavens themselves for the crimes of others. ONE BY ONE, their order fell to a corruption so sweeping and indiscriminate that none escaped its chill touch, some had fled back through the gate, through the hoards of field tillers, rift hounds and abominations unleashed by GOLD'S experimentation.

HE HAD HUNTED EACH OF THEM, each despicable sinner under a different name and pretence, for those long 500 DARK YEARS in an attempt to bring justice to those who perished for their gods forsaken HUBRIS. EACH YEAR took more and more of him, accelerated the CORROSION of his being until only a fragment of who he was remained, a glimmer that never faded no matter how dark it grew. DAINSLEIF had become a shadow, one corroded by a hatred and desire for vengeance that had long strayed from the role of the BOUGHKEEPER, allowing the COMMANDER'S distant brethren to assume the role of counsel when they should have been tossed aside for their HUBRIS.

THE FEELING OF FINGERS WHERE A CHIN HAD ONCE BEEN IS MORE ELECTRIFYING THAN ANY LIGHTNING, bowed head raises with the touch of gloved digits, diluted blue hues shining behind the cloth veil as they met with ever vibrant gold. HE KNOWS the flame of ambition that guards her soul even now, it calls to him to ask every question that swirls in the tempest of his mind, for he has never known her to leave her travelled road unguarded and yet like breadcrumbs it carried him to her now amidst the ruins of MARE JIVARI. Was it the Abyss itself that drew her from the ruined KINGDOM beneath the sands, or was she here to bear witness once more to the TYRANNY of the heavens as they punished a nation for perverting their laws for the sake of SURVIVAL?

" PRINCESS... " A thousand, thousand things he wishes to say to her upon fated reunion, and yet his tongue fails him like it always has in her presence. THOUSANDS of memories flash through his mind at the moment, from the days of yore when she had KNIGHTED him in IRMIN's steed, to the blade she gifted him ever present as the SCHWANENRITTER scattered across the land to fight the hoards that the SINNERS had unleashed.

THERE'S SORROWFUL REGRET in his breast, that she had sent him away before the gods had levelled punishment onto her for the actions of those seduced by the chaos that lurked beneath the roots of IRMINSUL. IT HAS ALWAYS left such a bitter taste in his mouth to see that endless red tide descend from the heavens to punish the many for the deeds of the few, perhaps that is the reason why that LONELY SOVEREIGN who sits atop the frozen throne had beckoned him to serve until such time that the PRINCESS was freed from the ruined land.

" LUMINE. " The taste of the name is foreign on his tongue after so many endless nights, even the sight of her twin from afar had done little to quell the doubt in his chest that she would ever re-emerge. AND YET, that stained black gauntlet curls ever tighter around the handle of the blade, a solemnly bowed head as its tip is implanted into the ashen soil beneath his knee. " YOU NEED ONLY ASK IT OF ME, AND I SHALL REND THE SKIES ASUNDER FOR YOU. " An oath renewed, a vow eternal as gauntlet clad hand brings her hand to his lips, a kiss, an unbroken promise, renewed once more beneath a shattered sky.

@tempestforged asked :

-> THE CAPTAIN KNEELS, head bowed, with all the respect that a knight can offer to her. Even 500 painfully long years have failed to wipe the chivalry of a man in his position from him. He doubts, in a treacherous part of his mind, that the PRINCESS can remember the face of a COMMANDER that can barely remember his own name, and yet it does not stop him from summoning that ecliptic blade, raising it to her like he had so so many times in the past wordlessly. HE is not the Boughkeeper, but even so he had sworn himself to her, be it in life or death, an oath that even the one labelled OATHBREAKER continues to hold in armoured grasp. "Princess... whatever you command of me, I shall carry out ever willingly."

unprompted. || always accepting

─「荧」─  the sight of the FIRST HARBINGER taking a knee before her brought her back to the time almost long forgotten. the memory of the dark royal hall, with a row of KNIGHTS who pledged their loyalty to the throne of khaenri'ah, and some who had also pledged their fealty towards her. towards THE PRINCESS of a fallen kingdom despite her carrying no blood ties to the family of the royal. she was an OUTLANDER, yet hailed as hope to rule and to save the kingdom forsaken by the gods and heavens above.

                his attire changed from what she could remember, how the sight of that blade told her enough of who it was that knelt before her, once again devoting every bit of his decaying existence to the princess who no longer had a throne. the title was almost mocking, but LUMINE knew he had nothing but loyalty and respect for her. even after five hundred years, his pledge remained unbroken unlike that of the twilight sword. gloved digits reached out, tracing the line of his blade before gently caressing the metallic part of his mask, and tilting his chin up.

                " nikolas. " despite his face being concealed by the mask, she knew who he was, she remembered every detail of the man who stood TALL as the strongest human alive. the commander whose name was almost FORGOTTEN yet rang clear within the abyss princess's mind. " even now, after five hundred years, after the fall of khaenri'ah, without the throne and naught to the title i was given — "

                " — will you still stand by my side to fight against the heavens themselves ? "

[lil-demi-boy]

Inspired by @trickyspook 's lyric drawings, I kinda made my own except they're like

Idk if abstract is the right word im looking for but they're funky

Each line is a different song i associate with them n I'll leave a list of all the songs I used under the cut (also I plan on doing more characters eventually)

Edd

Sugar Sugar - The Archies Moscow - Autoheart Pocketful of Sunshine - Natasha Bedingfield Walking the Dog - fun. Drink, Swear, Steal & Lie - Michael Peterson So Good - Bratz No Such Thing - John Mayer Keeper of the Flame - Richie Branson Love is on the Radio - McFly Squid Melody - TheLivingTombstone

Tom

The Pantaloon - Twenty One Pilots Lost Within - Fivefold Never Too Late - Three Days Grace Up in Smoke - Hollywood Undead Hungover in the City of Dust - Autoheart Dancing With Demons - Palisades Handlebars - Flobots Sweater Weather - The Neighbourhood Save Tonight - Eagle Eye Cherry A Moment of Silence - Dan P We Will Fall Together - Streetlight Manifesto

Matt

Break My Stride - Matthew Wilder How We Kill Stars - Shaka Ponk Let’s Face it I’m Cute - 11 Acorn Lane Looking Like This - Lyre De Temps Oh No! - MARINA Everybody Loves Me - OneRepublic Applause - Lady Gaga Trndsttr - Black Coast Anniversary - Autoheart Thumbnail - Louie Zong Mirror Mirror - Casey Lee Williams Bow Chica Wow Wow Wow - Jeff WIlliams

Tord

Epoch (TLT Remix) - Savlonic Choke - I Don’t Know How But They Found Me Emperor’s New Clothes - Panic! at the DIsco Broken - Savlonic Purple - MandoPony Subdivisions - Ninja Sex Party Toes - Glass Animals Not Myself - Richie Branson Smalltown Boy - Autoheart The Real You - Three Days Grace

Dan

Two - Sleeping at Last Scars - Sixx AM Is the World Strange or am I Strange - Cosmo Jarvis Passing Papers - Egg My Type - Saint Motel We Got the Power - Gorillaz I’m Still Here - John Rzeznik Not Fall in Love with You - Jeff Williams Shut Up and Trust This - Ken Ashcorp Smile Song - Daniel Ingram Cirice - Ghost

CL

You Are the Moon - The Hush Sound Possibility - Autoheart Riptide - Vance Joy Not Fall in Love with You - Jeff Williams Shut Up and Trust This - Ken Ashcorp Out of My League - Fitz and the Tantrums She’s so High - Tal Bachman Home - Casey Lee Williams Quiet - Lights Brown Eyed Girl - Reel Big Fish 1, 2, 3, 4 - Plain White T’s

(also rip me I put an Autoheart song in everyone’s pic except my own, go figure.  And double rip cause I didn’t mean to double up on songs like I did with Dan and CL’s, but I guess it’s thematic since both the characters and the irl versions are dating so w/e)

[thenamesblurrito]

Firestar: when she learned she was selected to attend a brand new premier Academy on Cybertron, Firestar was thrilled. When she learned her group of Camien transfer students would include her younger sibling Flareup and be led by her creator Nautica, she was significantly less thrilled. She’s practical and outgoing, if occasionally callous, and had been looking forward to starting something new without the influence of her family. She tries not to associate with them any more than she has to, and her new friendship with her roommates Ariel, Arcee, Chromia, and Moonracer has certainly helps set her apart. At first glance, a size 5 shuttle like her might seem ungainly, but she moves with a careful grace that belies the stereotype of her frame.

Elita 5: when Ariel picked up the Enigma of Combination and shared it with her roommates, Firestar finds herself capable of an upgrade into Elita 5, a formidable bastion of strength named after her desire to live up to her full potential. Alongside the rest of the fivefold Elite Guard, she stands in defense of justice for everyone, from both corruption and catastrophe. Her faction usually works alongside the Autobots, but she would never side with them over her fellow Guardsmecha. Her powers include a sense for her team that lets them work together perfectly, a burning blade called the Omni Saber, the ability to manipulate fire as one of the five Primal elements, access to the Infinite Combinatoric that turns separate mecha into a gestalt individual, and the ability to combine with her teammates to become Elita Infin1te with the Cyber Caliber. Her most common enemy on the battlefield is Triptych, wafting away the flames of Predator’s cannons, and she and Elita 4 join forces to take him down.

It’s the second biggest buffest toughest wife in SNAP! After this I’ve got some more Autobots for y’all...

[redsixwing]

One word prompt: MoE and Iconoclast

For those unaware: MoE is a warning. Torture references ahead, although current scene is safe.

*

It was the remembrances that did it. Cheris could have sworn she'd focused her way through the unpleasant duties more times than she could recall - a simple equation would answer. 71% of them were merely strange; 25% were depressing and left her with a headache. The remaining 4% were the sort of ritual that you bore with a careful count of seconds, because they were both necessary and mandatory. 

Never had she struggled with a remembrance like this one. The focus was a candle made like a hand, cut wrist on a spike and fingers grasping upward. Alert flames stood at the tip of each, and she knew the sculpted digits would bend back and finally drop free as the waxes melted and ran. 

The revenant didn't like it, and it was making it impossible to focus. Cheris gritted her teeth and used the equations to steer her mind. If the focus was across the Hexarchate, and there were a few hundred participants here, the curves of the terrain must be described so...

And then the revenant spoke, and her concentration went skittering off again.

*

It wasn't the remembrances that did it. Jedao had spent his efforts at first trying to convince his anchor that he, too, observed them in his own way. He could not light a candle, but he could contemplate one. Revenants depended on the calendar, or so he'd been told. That probably meant he could affect it in turn. 

Not that there were enough of them to make a difference.

His current anchor was annoyingly focused. Perhaps she didn't realize that she was subvocalizing, near chanting what must have been calendrical equations as she stared with pained eyes at the horror recreated in wax.

He'd been there. He'd overseen the Vidona ritual that removed the eponymous limbs, mute and outwardly emotionless after arguing against that use of the captives. The timing was terrible - he'd been orienting himself for so short a time, and then, this. It was a struggle to remind himself what year it was. To stay with the candle, the representation, not the memory.

It was a reminder, and he needed none.

Numbers like Shuos shouters, unavoidable, beating against his sense of self. "There's got to be another solution to that." Something that wasn't a flayed thumbnail melting into a drooping crimson petal. He didn't know; the numbers just laughed at him if he tried to wrap his mind around something like that, but people had written the rules, and people weren't good at strict one to one correspondence.

Her chanting stopped, and she tensed. Her burning eyes stayed locked to the fivefold candle, fourfold now. 

"Do you know," she said slowly, "I think there is." 

He dropped his voice until it was almost a whisper. "Perhaps you can make a more efficient solution."

The nonsense stream of numbers started up again, and this time, the tone was curious rather than rote. Exploratory.

He couldn't close his eyes, nor remove the offending candle from his field of vision. As the last flame guttered itself to death in the hollowed stump, he dared contemplate that some day, the last Remembrance of the Severed Hands would be extinguished too. 

[the-angry-witch-forgot-pass-blog]

Jailbreaking The Goddess

Lasara Firefox Allen had a lot of good points in her book. And I enjoyed the perspective a great deal. As a white woman, I know that I am privileged. The color of my skin is not held against me. My history isnt fetishized or looked down upon as being 'savage'.

Lasara makes it clear that we owe it to everyone to acknowledge our privilege, and stop the cycles of colonization. To address our own racism and our behaviours that stem from colonization. To realize that our experiences are not the norm. And to try to help heal the wounds our actions and decisions, made consciously or not, have created.

In her model, she presents the fivefold Goddess. A single Goddess, that comes to us in five different faces, five different aspects. This is largely a response to the model of the threefold Goddess, the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone.

Lasara has a great point in the fact that when a woman's divinity and power, the cycles of her life, are directly stemming from her fertility and her having children, it diminishes her power. It also becomes increasingly problematic when some recognize the transition from Maiden to Mother to be the first period. Many girls aren't even ten when they have their first period. And placing such a weight on them is a heavy burden, and often times an unwelcome one. Others believe that a girl, a Maiden, transitions to Mother, when she first has sex. So in essence, when an outside force acts upon her. It's just not a good situation in my personal opinion, and one that I had more than a few problems with in my journey to find knowledge about Wicca and modern paganism.

The fivefold Goddess is as follows.

Femella, the divine child. She's a girl, the girl. Curious and rambunctious and wild. Self centered like all children are. Learning about the world around her with glee. To quote the text, "Femella is the eternal innocence of childhood... Innocence in this case is the blamelessness of the toddler who does not know her own strength and power."

Next, in the linear sense, is Potens.

Potens, the Woman of Power. "Potens is burgeoning strength. She is the energy of bud bursting to blossom, the spark catching flame. She is the energetic, passionate energy that moves forward... She is the One who will change her world; through force, through passion, through art, through fight, through words... She is unrelenting, wild, untamed, untethered."

Next comes Creatrix, She Who Creates. "She creates worlds, beasts, babes, books, artworks, armies, stories, songs, languages, life, evolutions, and revolutions of thought. She creates culture and she creates the wild."

To me, Creatrix is a welcome change from the traditional acknowledgment of Mother. To know that I can see my face in this Goddess, no matter what path I choose in life, is a comforting thing. To be at one with Her I dont need to bring forth new life. I dont need to allow a man's seed to grow within me, to meld with my egg to create a child. The idea terrifies me if I am to be honest. Perhaps I am too literal in my interpretation of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone.

The next aspect of the fivefold Goddess is Sapientia, Woman of Art and Wisdom. "She is the woman who has mastered her art. She is the wisdom-teacher, the librarian, the storyteller, the spiritual leader. She is the politician, the professor, the chief executive officer. She is the lawmaker, the law keeper, the judge. She is the mediator, and the diplomat. She is the scientist, doctor, mathematician. She is the midwife, the herb woman, the Green Witch. She is the chef, the woodworker, the philosopher."

The last of the five faces is Antiqua, The Ancient One. Antiqua is the face of the Goddess that teaches us the frailty of our own humanity, our mortality. Hers is the knowledge of the ages past, the knowledge from a life long lived, and what happens as that knowledge begins to fade. She is the woman that has lost her grip on reality with her age. The one that forgets. She is the one lost in memory of days past. Antiqua is also the keeper of knowledge. The storyteller. The beloved grandmother that sits by the fire. Antiqua is the parting of ways, the ending of things, and she teaches us how to move on past that.

The fact that Lasara has made it clear that these aspects can come to our life at any time in a cyclical spiral is a comfort. We could be at home in one aspect or all of them. See ourself in whatever face we choose. We can be under the wing of Potens when choosing to study a new path, or Creatrix when we take on a new project. We can feel closer to Sapientia when we teach others what we know, sharing the knowledge with sisters, be they young or old. We can feel Antiqua with us when we part ways with something we thought integral with our lives. Femella can come into our lives often. Curiosity about the world around us and gleefully learning new facts and enjoying the simple pleasures of life are well within her domain.

I dont know if this will be everyone's cup of tea, but I know it certainly resonated with me. While I dont agree with everything Lasara said, her model is one that I will be using as I build the foundations of my own sense of spirituality, and my own way of worshipping a Goddess that is whole and wholly female.

[avillainess-blog1]

     "Tell me what I need to know," he said, rising. "Tell me about the drownyard."

     "He's asking leading questions, trying to bring certain thoughts to the front of your mind," said the Raven Man. He smirked. "A basic maneuver of the telepath."

     The smug bastard was right. Liliana's vision swam as Jace tried to force his way into her mind.

     "Stop it," she said. "Even if I knew anything about a drownyard, your tricks wouldn't work on me."

     She sent another bolt of agony through him, then another, but he kept up his attacks. He fell, rose, fell again—and this time only made it back up to his knees before she lashed him again.

     "Tell me," he growled.

     Her skin had begun to burn, her demonic scars etched in purple flame. And the Veil...oh, the Veil wanted to help her. It siphoned off a few stray rivulets of necromantic energy and returned them to the stream fivefold. She struggled to hold it back, to keep it from killing him instantly.

     "Stop doing this!" she said. "I can't control—"

     Jace was screaming now, eyes still glowing, his assaults on her mind intensifying along with the pain.

     "Just...tell...me!"

     The backlash started, agony suffusing Liliana as the Chain Veil took its toll. Blood began to drip from her scars. She gritted her teeth. She'd felt worse, though—when the scars were administered, for instance. She'd survive this. Jace might not.

     "He's almost broken through," said the Raven Man. "Kill him."

     "Don't tell me what to do!" she shouted—at both of them, at the Chain Veil, at the moon and the world and at death itself. "Stop it!"

     "You'll have to kill me," wheezed Jace, tears streaming from inhuman glowing eyes. Liliana's vision began to fade.

     "Do it," said the Raven Man.

     "Jace, I don't want to hurt you anymore!"

     The words echoed against stone, the pounding in her head stopped, and for a moment there was no sound but the boom of thunder and the drumming of the rain. The Raven Man sighed in disgust and disappeared in a rustle of feathers.

[draugsresurrection]

DR Testing 10/24/2018

- First off, gave a moderate buff to the Ailment portions of almost all damage+ailment skills, like Noxious Flame or Silencer Arrow. They're a bit less dependant on raw damage now, so even if your Silencer Arrow bounces off for zero damage, it'll have a fair chance of doing a couple points of Silence anyway. Makes them a lot more useful for debilitation for weaker characters who can't dance with the stronger foes. Further, slightly nerfed the Basic series spells; they were hitting for a bit too much for a bit too fast and too cheap. Guess I buffed them a bit TOO hard a couple weeks ago.

- Times between boards on Whiterock were reduced after consistently finding myself leaving in the morning, only to reach the volcano by about midnight and have to deal with really nasty foes. Yeah, a smarter person would leave at night, but even still, Whiterock is supposed to be a fairly small island. By comparison to the rest of the world, the passage of time between boards was unusually long.

- More minor changes. Pure Debuff skills like Chill and Palsy are now Direct+Indirect range, rather than just Indirect. The Ailment Poison now hits for its potency times three, making it significantly more dangerous, even in the short-term. Making bad things suck less is always important, especially so with Poison, being part of the main character's shtick and all. I think originally Poison ticked on every action, and other ailments ticked on every fifth, but poison got standardized, thus cutting its usefulness fivefold. I think it's reasonably strong now, but it's pretty easy to adjust, so we'll see.

- I said earlier that I fixed a glitch with basic attacks ignoring Enhancements. Apparently, despite being written as done, I didn't actually fix that. It was fine for some Enhancements (Frost Mail, the most visibly obvious), but not others (Terra Shield, the most common). So that took a night to hammer down again. Hopefully permanently this time. The old one did nothing to check on 4x fights, either, so that's patched up, too.

- Haven't talked much about gameplay progression, mostly because there's not a lot of note, or what there is I'm, well, not really hiding, but otherwise don't feel a need to mention. I will at least say that I've seen way too many Antaguar for my liking, and Chizuru seemed really underwhelming at first, before I shifted battle strategies to utilize her ludicrous speed and not rely on her borderline garbage MP pool. It's nice that I actually really do need to change tactics a bit based on party setup. It's easy to say 'oh yeah, they're totally different, you'll need to do stuff differently', but feeling the actual need to do so is nice.

- Long and short of this is that these are more balance changes than bug fixes (if only slightly); that's good, obviously. I was originally hoping to have a new demo/alpha/whatever by October, but obviously that's sailing clear by. Still, I've almost obtained four artifacts, and I think what I plan on doing is temporarily crippling the sixth or seventh memory event so that's where the game 'ends' for now, or something. I don't know that I need to, or for whom. At 0.8.7, it's no secret there's holes, and that'll be like 15+ hours in, so, like. Rambling aside, I've fallen short, but not too badly, if I don't mind things being a tad inevitably buggy. It's not like 0.8.7 is any fancy or enduring milestone.

[southasianhandicraftdotcom]

Ashtamangala

The eight auspicious symbols (Ashtamangala) stands for good fortune or happiness. The symbols are accepted not only by Buddhists but also by different Hindu sects. These Auspicious symbols are said to represent the celestial offerings presented to Buddha Sakyamuni after he attained enlightenment under Bodhi tree. These symbols reproduced here, are very popular among Nepalese and Tibetans. They can be found not only in most of the monasteries of the Kathmandu valley but also in private homes. They can be painted on walls or fashioned out of wood or metal. Apart from their decorative function, these eight are thought to be auspicious omens of spiritual and material well being. These eight symbols are also drawn in the entrance gate of a monastery or in a Newar private home to welcome a newlywed bride or elders because of their auspicious nature. Newar Buddhist, during wedding ceremonies or other religious occasions, often recite a verse dedicated to all these symbols. They enjoy wide popularity not only in Nepal but also in Tibet, Bhutan, China, and Mongolia.

1. Endless Knot   A pattern of 8, 10, 18 rectangles or squares studded with jewels, said to give off a cool sweet fragrance and five colours of dazzling light. It stands for the possibility of attaining omniscience of Buddhahood by following the path. It is also interpreted as representing the begginingless round of existence. The eternal knot overlaps without a beginning or an end, symbolizing the Buddha’s endless wisdom and compassion. As a secular symbol, it denotes continuity or dependent origination as the underlying reality of existence.

2. Lotus This is one thousand-petalled lotus with pistils of five colours. Just as a lotus grows from the muddy bottom of the lake and remains pure and undefiled by the mud, similarly the Buddha Dharma afflictions were undefiled by them. The lotus, therefore, represents spiritual purity and compassion. It symbolises the stainless actions of body, speech, and mind which lead to happiness and enlightenment. The lotus is a favourite emblem of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara or padmapani. When the Buddha was born, he took seven steps and immediately lotus flower sprang up underneath his feet. According to Swayambhu Purana, the Adi Buddha manifested himself in the form of a flame rising from a lotus. In the Buddhist tradition, it represents the non-abiding nirvana (Skt. Apratistha Nirvana) of Buddha and Bodhisattvas. Although the lotus comes from a muddy lake, it still unstained by the mud of the lake. Similarly, Buddha and Bodhisattvas are born in this world and yet are not defiled by the delusions of cyclic existence. In Hindu tradition, the Padma symbolizes creation; for example, this is why Brahma sits on a lotus throne.

3. Banner A flag or banner made of cloth woven by heavenly fairies or deities, studded with jewels having the fragrance of a sweet smell such as incense. Just like the banner flatters in the sky, so too does the Buddha doctrine stand out prominently and unchallenged in the world. The banner of victory, which is planted on the summit of mt. Meru at the centre of the universe proclaims the victory of dharma over the forces of ignorance.

4. Vase (skt: Kalash; Tib: bum pa) A vase or jar of gold studded with precious jewels with fivefold divine light. Just as the vase is the container of ambrosial nectar, which gives immortality to one who drinks it, in the same way, one who experiences the teaching of buddha achieves the immortal state of nirvana. In other words, the vase pours forth an endless rain of long life, health and prosperity available to all beings who sincerely follow the dharma.

5. fly-whisk (Skt. Camara) This is a chowrie or the bushy tail of a yak (Camara), waved like a fan over the head of a kind of a Buddha; It has a golden handle bedecked with precious jewels and drives away disease when fanned over the patient. Just like a fan cools the weary traveller, so too does the Buddha’s teaching bring the deluded traveller out of his cyclic existence. Instead of a fly whisk, the dharma -wheel (Skt. Dharmacakra; tib: Chokyi Khorlo) is used in Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

6. Pair of Fishes (Skt. Matsyayugma; Tib: ser nya) A pair of golden coloured fishes having miraculous powers symbolizing the unity of wisdom and compassion. The pair also represents the release from the ocean of samsara. Just as a fish is not bothered by the turbulence of water when they swim through the deepest oceans, so too is it possible for spiritual seekers to follow the path without being distracted or impeded by the vicissitudes of life. The Buddha’s teachings constitute a pure and defile Mahamudra, the unity of wisdom and compassion.

7. Umbrella (Skt. Chatra; Tib: Rinchen dug) Just as an umbrella tames the heat of the sun, similarly, beneath the umbrella of the Buddha’s doctrine one finds the peace and happiness of Nirvana, devoid of disease, grief and any kind of suffering. The umbrella also represents the symbol of royalty which protects one from evil influences.

8. Conch (Skt: Sankha; Tib: dung gye kyil) Just as one note of the conch shell awakens one from sleep, similarly, the sound of Buddha’s Dharma awakens people from the deep sleep of ignorance.

[opalstream]

Opal Flame If thou wilt see opal flame drive darkness evermore, searing Thy silence with the sword of pranayama. Through the star in opal eye see the Christ everywhere, sleeping in every atom, in protons, electrons. Golden misty aureole adorns the opal door, through the star in the blue meet the Christ everywhere. Starry dove with wings of rays alights on forehead, Showing you throne of Christ in the peace of every heart. Make thine eyes a single flame to see the starry gate, Thy body will be light illumining all space. By wise inspiration follow the starry eye, to see the Christ born in thy soul anew. Starry dove with wings of flame baptize me in Thy light, spreading my soul with Christ in the bliss everywhere. Shining opening in hall of matter, O star I peep through Thee, into the land of astral light that kindles life in everything. The Colors of the Spiritual Eye - Gold, Blue, and White Underlying the gray matter in the brain is white matter, which is spoken of as passive. The construction of the brain has a correspondence with the single or spiritual eye in man. In fact, this eye of astral light, which can be seen in meditation, is an epitome of the creative energy and consciousness of which man’s body is formed and by which it is enlivened. Jesus said, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” The spiritual eye is perceived as a golden aura surrounding a sphere of blue, in the middle of which is a five-pointed star of white light. When you look in a mirror at your two eyes, you see they are patterned after the spiritual eye; the inner circle or iris; and the central “star” or pupil. The point of origin of the single eye is in a subtle spiritual center in the medulla oblongata (at the base of the brain, where it joins the spine). The energy from this single eye divides at the medulla and pours through the brain into the two physical eyes, through which the world of duality is perceived. The spiritual eye with its three lights, or three different rays - one within the other like an extending telescopic lens - has all-seeing spherical vision. Through the gold ray, the deeply meditating yogi beholds all matter and the mass of radiation (the vibratory cosmic energy) permeating the universe. Penetrating the blue light, the yogi will realize the Christ or Krishna Consciousness - the Kutastha or infinite intelligence of God, the “only-begotten son” or reflection of God - which is present in all creation. Piercing the tiny five pointed white star, the yogi experiences Cosmic Consciousness - the transcendent consciousness of God that underlies all creation and that is also beyond the realms of manifestation in Infinitude. The yogi in Cosmic Consciousness perceives that all creation, including the microcosm of his body, is a projection of the fivefold rays of God’s Cosmic Consciousness. Gold, blue, and white - the colors of the radiations of the Holy Trinity of God in creation - are therefore the most spiritual of all colors: white reflecting the transcendent God-Consciousness, blue reflecting the Christ or Krishna Consciousness, and gold (or red, a transformation of gold) reflecting the radiation or energy present in the cosmos. Throughout history, man has instinctively associated white with purity and spirituality; blue with tranquil omnipresence, as in the blue sky or heavens; and gold or red with energy. - Paramahansa Yogananda, Journey to Self-realization, p 92; Opal Flame, Cosmic Chants.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

As Texas was crippled last month by frigid temperatures that killed more than 100 people and triggered widespread blackouts, drilling companies in the state’s largest oil field were forced to burn off an extraordinary amount of natural gas — on the worst day, an amount that could have powered tens of thousands of homes for at least a year.

The need to intentionally burn off, or flare, an estimated 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas in a single day — a fivefold increase from rates seen before the crisis, according to satellite analysis — came as the state’s power plants went offline and pipelines froze, so the wells simply had no place to send the natural gas still streaming out of the ground. As a result, the gas had to be set ablaze, fueling towering flames, the highest of which can reach hundreds of feet into the air.

“This is clearly one of the highest spikes” in flaring ever observed in the Permian Basin, said Mark Omara, a senior researcher at the Environmental Defense Fund who led the analysis, which was based on satellite data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “And it could be an underestimate,” he said.

The findings are the latest example of the consequences of the Texas crisis that are only now becoming clearer. Far more people died in the winter storm — at least 111 people lost their lives, nearly double an earlier estimate — state officials said on Thursday. They also underscore the risks of the state’s heavy reliance on natural gas to generate power, even as some fossil-fuel advocates misleadingly tried to blame frozen wind turbines for the blackouts.

Natural gas was once hailed as a “bridge” toward renewable forms of energy such as wind or solar, because gas burns more cleanly than oil coal. But in recent years, researchers and environmental groups have raised growing concerns over the climate-change consequences of turning to natural gas.

Flaring is one reason. Burning off unused gas instead of capturing it not only wastes a valuable energy source, it emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is the main contributor to climate change.

[ravioverse]

Trivia Entry #1

Not every Ravio has a Sheerow, but several do. They bear very little resemblance to each other.

Empyrean’s is his wyvern-loftwing.

The loftwings here are inspired by the Lorulean weathervanes in ALBW. 

The standard loftwing has fur lining its back, a pair of horns on its head, and a feathered tail; Empyrean’s is the only one to have a red underbelly and violet scales.

Sketch’s is the little blue and white bird we all know and love.

May be hiding some secret magical abilities.

Warp’s is a little machine that he built.

Like all of Warp’s gadgets, this one has its own set of knit accessories– a hat, a beak warmer, and a scarf (the favorite, and matches Warp’s own).

Has several abilities that will be covered at a later date.

Shade’s is one of the Twilit Kargaroks that fly around the Twilight Realm.

It likes to sing! It’s song sounds like trumpet music, and Shade gets to wake up to that cacophonous mess every day.

Compass’ is a parrot that stays with his sister once he’s traveling with the other Ravios.

Loud, just like Compass. May or may not have aided in distractions and other schemes.

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/another-presidential-assault-on-science-as-fires-andpandemic-rage-cnn/

Another presidential assault on science as fires and pandemic rage - CNN

As wildfires swept across the West, causing dozens of deaths, destroying property and polluting the air with smoke, Trump abruptly shut down an official who warned that climate change was fueling the flames — by saying the weather would soon start “getting cooler.” Even by his own standards, it was one of the President’s most shocking comments on global warming — which he has previously referred to as a “hoax.”

New reports emerged, meanwhile, of the President’s spinners trying to cook the facts on the pandemic, about which he misled the nation and which will soon claim its 200,000th American partly as a result. Trump continued to flout epidemiological guidelines by cramming people into indoor events that risked spreading Covid-19, exacerbating disbelief and extreme frustration among medical experts. At a Latino outreach event, the President was the only person in a packed room who was socially distanced — granting himself protection that his campaign stops are denying attendees.

‘I don’t think the science knows’

These were just the latest occasions when a President who harbors bizarre theories on health, the environment and other issues — often distilled from conservative media conspiracy theorists — has turned away from the world-leading science and expertise that solidified US global leadership.

For years, Trump has rejected the counsel of his own intelligence services and preferred propaganda from US adversary Russia. He pushed discredited therapies for Covid-19, such as hydroxychloroquine, that federal regulators spurned. His Environmental Protection Agency has sent a wrecking ball through regulations meant to save the planet. He withdrew from the Paris climate accord to accommodate his embrace of fossil fuel polluters and has overturned fuel efficiency standards for cars.

But Trump’s visit to California for a briefing on the fires that have consumed more than 3 million acres in a record year and have also ravaged other Western states was perhaps his most stunning climate change intervention yet.

Trump doubled down on his theory that a failure to rake forest floors was responsible for creating tinderbox conditions. He cited an unnamed foreign leader who he claimed said they had mitigated their “explosive trees” problem by managing forest floors.

A consensus of scientific evidence has found that while forest management is important, longer dry seasons and warmer weather, including at night, are worsening forest fires in places like California. A study last year in the journal Earth’s Future found that between 1972 and 2018, California saw “a fivefold increase in annual burned area” and that “increased summer forest‐fire area very likely occurred due to increased atmospheric aridity caused by warming.”

Trump has no time for such science. After Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged there needed to be more brush clearance, he also asked the President to “respect” the scientific consensus that “climate change is real.”

When another local official told Trump it was time to take “our head out of the sand” by relying on the forest management excuse, the President pounced.

“It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch,” Trump responded.

“I wish science agreed with you,” the official replied.

“I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump said, closing the official down.

The exchange was a flagrant example of how the President simply dismisses any information that does not fit his preconceived idea of a problem. While many of Trump’s opinions do seem uninformed and not shaped by the almost limitless resources of the federal government, there is also a clear political motivation underscoring his responses.

The President has fixed priorities: For instance, promoting big oil companies. Accepting that climate change is real would require him to take some steps to address it. Since he is loath to do so, the President finds that ignoring the problem — and using his propagandistic Twitter feed, which is a gusher of misinformation and falsehoods — suits him better.

Trump’s dismissal of science is a power move

Rejecting the advice of highly educated scientists and expert government bureaucrats also sits well with the President’s political image as an outsider and scourge of elite political, academic and scientific establishments. It helps to solidify his bond with supporters, who prize that image and may themselves share Trump’s reluctance to accept changes to traditional lifestyles — which a national effort to combat global warming, for instance, might entail.

As such, Trump’s dismissal of science and fact is not just a personality trait, it’s also a key factor in the method he uses to build, wield and cling to power.

A similar sequence of events has played out during the pandemic — a once-in-a-century disaster that, as Bob Woodward shows in his new book, Trump decided to downplay to Americans for his own personal reasons in an election year.

Trump’s longtime hostility to mask wearing — which scientific experts say is critical to slowing the spread of the virus — was clearly rooted in hostility to what many of his supporters see as an infringement of individual rights.

Trump then ignored science when he pushed states to reopen before the pathogen had been suppressed — a development that helped unleash a wave of sickness and death across the Sun Belt. Now, Trump’s indoor campaign events, like a crammed rally in Nevada on Sunday, are a huge act of defiance against the scientific community and the counsel of experts — another political play.

“The nerve he has, to hold that kind of rally. I’m speechless.” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Monday.

A scientific ‘bible’ corrupted by politics

In a fresh indication of how Trump’s political allies appear to be working his will inside government agencies that once prided themselves on their political neutrality, The New York Times first reported an extraordinary outburst on Sunday by Health and Human Services spokesman Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official.

Caputo, who confirmed to CNN the statements made during a live video hosted on his personal Facebook page, accused career government scientists of “sedition” in their response to the coronavirus. He also claimed without evidence in the video that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experts had become “political animals” and given up science. A federal health official told CNN on Saturday that Caputo’s communications team pushed to change the language of weekly science reports released by the CDC in a story first reported by Politico.

The news came as another body blow to scientists dealing with the pandemic.

“I find it abhorrent that political influences are trying and perhaps successfully inserting themselves into the CDC communications, which have always been a model of science-based rectitude, very, very rigorous,” Dr. William Schaffner, an internationally renowned infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, said on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”

“They are the bible that everybody in public health reads not only in this country but around the world. We can’t have them contaminated with politics.”

On the pandemic, and many other issues for which the US government was once counted upon for reasoned, scientific problem solving, it’s too late for that.

[officialjrocksupportblog]

All July 2017 Song Recommendations

Missed a post? No problem. Here’s a list of all the song recommendations for July 2017.

1. Schwarz Stein - New Vogue Children 2. Story of Hope - Forever 3. Hold Out Hope - Twilight Syndrome 4. Head Over Heels - Haters Gonna Hate 5. Salty Dog - Meteor 6. Anarchy Stone - Our World 7. Uplift Spice - Omega Rythm 8. Secondwall -  “恋の終わりに、桜舞い散る” 9. Touch My Secret - Like A Paradise 10. Pulse Factory -  希望灯 11. Delhezi - Alone 12. Neko - Fade 13. Jiluka - Lethal Affliction 14. DIV - Seasons 15. Kaya - Salome 16. Duel Jewel - Azure 17. Moran - Eclipse 18. Wing Works -  『シルヴァー』 19. Jupiter - Nostalgie 20. Jiluka - Omelas 21. DIV - RxR 22. The Black Swan - Ruvish 23. The Thirteen - Liar Liar 24. Galneryus - Angel of Salvation 25. Pentagon - Tetsu Kizu 26. Smileberry - No More Cry 27. Luche - Heartless 28. Realies - Step By Step 29. Avanchick -  「ねぇ…神様？」 30. Codomo Dragon - Wolfman 31. Clowd - Rudeness Resort 32. Ladybaby -  Renge Chance 33. Tenshi No Yume - Niwa 34. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - PONPONPON 35. Soroban - Sekishoku Ranpu 36. Novelis - End Roll 37. Serial Number - Futari No Paradise 38. Lolita23q - Ceramic Star 39. The Kiddie - Soar 40. Vidoll - Eve 41. Juka - Aravesque 42. Velvet Eden - Igyou Hime 43. Malice Mizer - Beast of Blood 44. As.Milk - Disturb 45. Razor -   ネイキッド 46. Art Cube - Suna No Hana 47. D=OUT - Sunrise 48. Vistlip - Chimera 49. Megamasso -  Hoshi Furi Machi Nite 50. Kamijo - Throne 51. Balalaika -  「刑法202条」 52. Ensoku - This Is A Pen 53. The Piass -  螺子時計リビドゥー 54. Umbrella - Keihaku Na Hito 55. Baiser - Pegasus 56. Babylon - Loveless Involve 57. Screw - Raging Blood 58. Necro Circus - Cynical Romance 59. Blood - The Funeral For Humanity 60. Buck Tick - Romance 61. Kerbera - Counterpoints 62. Dio - Garasu No Umi 63. Ansinomy - Danpen Kou 64. Siva - Youen 65. Sugar - Afterglow 66. Dolly - Moonlight Disco 67. Popcore - Heart 68. Lc5 - Refrain 69. Ecthelion - Drive U Crazy 70. Yeti - Monochro 71. The Sherry - Future 72. Vistlip - Period 73. Depain - Doll 74. Kuroyume - I Hate Your Popstar Life 75. Celestial Garden - Monochrome Pleasure 76. Chemical Pictures - Walking Ashland 77. Misaruka - Jester 78. Piko - Tears In 79. Asami Shimoda - Meltdown 80. Nega - Haunted Jealousy 81. 12012 - Tattoo 82. AND - Bluff 83. Spiv States - Flavor 84. Fake Cradle -  Dare no tame demo naku 85. Feeche - Meisei 86. Fenrir - Butterfly Effect 87. Kiryu - Ameyo Ni Waraeba 88. Galruda - Progress 89. Purple Stone - Blame 90. Claire - Moon Dew 91. Aim - Hysteric Liar 92. ISK;M -  「未来trip」 93. Litchi Hikari Club - Dark Knight 94. Yuyoyuppe - It’s Over 95. Undivide - Verge 96. Sid - Enamel 97. Akira - Aoki Tsuki Michite 98. Lisa - Rising Hope 99. The Lotus - Grace 100. The Gallo - Belial 101. Sujk - Stay With 102. Light Bringer - Hyperion 103. Kitcha Saventhes - Stay Alive 104. Sol Ardour - Heart of Violents 105. Hybrids - Illusion 106. MinstreliX - Caterina 107. Baby I Love You - No One Is Immortal 108. Lusia - Ibara No Ori 109. Amano Izanagi -  Yamato Takeru no Mikoto Daiichishou～Seisei 110. Veronica -  Urami Koushinkyoku 111. Paranoid Circus - 69 112. Van9ish - Jewel 113. Gimmick - Whispered Cell 114. Ry:dia - Anata No Senaka 115. I.rias - Vawdy Rabbit 116. Fi’Ance - Ring 117. La’Miss Fairy - Dress 118. Arege - Nocturne 119. Laybial - Visage 120. Vice Risk - Nostalgia 121. Distray - Still 122. Crossfaith - Rx Overdrive 123. Dir En Grey - Toguro 124. Infi2ty - DualxFace 125. Anima -  不完全カタルシス 126. Syndrome - Deep Sky 127. La:Sadie’s - Setsudan 128. Vrzel - Fivefold Envy 129. Zero Mind Infinity - Be Proud 130. Avel Cain - ID 131. An Cafe - Jibun 132. Deep Girl - I Kill 133. Meteoroid -  「背徳者に敬礼を」 134. Mazeran -  寄生 | マゼラン 135. Krad - Plantman 136. Yusai -  ��アイラク偽心』 137. NEXX - Neo World 138. NEXX - BBG 139. DIV - Teddy 140. Akaku Somatta Kioku -  トラウマ 141. ViV - Anagram 142. Develop One’s Faculties - Insert Memory 143. Shiva - Varuna 144. LiPS - Maria 145. Amy Dolly - Pain Pain 146. SiM - Make Me Dead 147. The 3rd Birthday - I Am 148. ZON - Super Liar 149. Xaa Xaa - Saigo No Uta 150. Razor - Missing Piece 151. Doguramagura - Mennheraderera 152. Mekakusi - Mi Wo Shiru Ame 153. Devize - Ambrosia 154. Gaga - Sky 155. More - Nokoriga 156. Synk;yet -  [絲] 157. SchwarzKain- Moment Glow 158. Ensoku - 12 Monsters 159. Sibilebashir -  『二重人格』 160. Avanchick -  「他人の不幸は蜜の味」 161. Dezert -  大塚ヘッドロック 162. Razor - Maisou 163. Rides In Revellion - Close 164. Monolith - Akatsuki 165. Kra - Eclipse 166. Kiryu - Sazanami 167. Royz - Lilia 168. Kameleo - Obake 169. Sadie - Madara 170. Lycaon -  「gossip-ゴシップ-」 171. The Gallo - Incubus 172. Gossip - Kimi Ga Anoyo Ni 173. Reign - Death Mary 174. Matenrou Opera - Helios 175. Miyavi - Torture 176. Dice and Joker - Eternal Insanity 177. L’Arc~en~Ciel - Yokan 178. Gacharic Spin - Next Stage 179. Jiluka - Ajna 180. Miseria - Mad Brain 181. Chronus - Brand New Days 182. Blesscode - Bizarre 183. Amanjaku - Suicide World 184. Link - Protective Color 185. Follow -  「ピノキオ」 186. Jilled Ray - Scars 187. Astaria - My Venus 188. Lin - Missing Melody 189. Xenon - Planetaria 190. Crimson Shiva - Exdysist 191. Holyclock - Akasha 192. Codomo Dragon - Butterfly 193. Chariots - Rinpun 194. Royz - Pandemic 195. Nihilizm - Anthology 196. Spell Box - Monochrome 197. 2nd Dyz - Neo Gate 198. Nega - Deluge 199. Piece - Brave Sword 200. Choujikuu Android Piece -  Atomic Beam 201. Airish - Sora Iro Letter 202. The Lem - Prism 203. Eve - Divergence 204. Jackman -  平成B型 205. Wing Works -  『シルヴァー』 206. Adams - One and Only 207. Gigamous - Giga Speaker 208. Jiluka - Citrus 209. DIV - Vanish 210. Deviloof - Nightmare 211. Jiluka - B.A.L.U.S. 212. Gore - Itan 213. NoGoD - Missing 214. Far East Dizain - Dizainerve 215. Rides In Revellion - Rusty Nail 216. Die/May - No Longer Burden 217. The Gazette - Guren 218. Tra Tra Tra - Unchain 219. Meidara - Oni No Me Ni Mo 220. Diaura - Kinji Roku 221. D=OUT - Shangri La 222. X Japan - Endless Rain 223. Dadaroma - Yume Tarareba 224. Daizystripper - Smile World 225. Rides In Revellion -  紫煙 226. Blood Stain Child -  Tri Odyssei 227. Avanchick - Liar 228. Vrzel - Mind 229. Blood - Sweetest Disease 230. Malice Mizer - Beast of Blood 231. Moi Dix Mois - La Dix Croix 232. DIV - Natsu No Yukue 233. Deathgaze - Dead Blaze 234. Luna Sea - Deja Vu 235. Deathgaze - Ring The Death Knell 236. Babykingdom -  カマッチャイナ！ 237. Chiodo - Emorir 238. Jilled Ray - Maria 239. Lig -  「ホロスコープ」 240. Madeth Gray’ll - Missantroop 241. Kuroyuri To Kage -  「黒百合と影」 242. Calmando Qual - Born Iqual Pain 243. Speed-ID - Moonshine 244. Sakrun -  白昼の足跡 245. Ru:natic -  精神欲求不安定 246. Mazohysteria - Your Only Master 247. Missalina Rei - Meruhen Yuuenchi 248. Shelly Trip Realize - Mirakuru Fantasy 249. Lynch - Ambivalent Idea 250. Kiryu - Oirantan 251. Kuroyuri To Kage - Chocolate Kaidan 252. Mejibray - Uka 253. Deprive -  タイトル不明 254. Kuroyuri To Kage - Yokusou 255. Canary -  死期の影 256. Deshabillz -  劇薬喜劇 257. Lolita23q - Nejidokei Libido 258. The Gazette - Calm Envy 259. Dir En Grey - Garden 260. Megaromania - Ideal Future 261. Memento Mori - High Collar Ondo 262. Vierge - Myth Shine 263. Gill’e Cadith -  哀愁ぱれっと 264. Karen - Dusty Mirror 265. Grieva -  Taihaitekikyou Sou 266. Jelly Berry - Mother Crisis 267. Gossip -  Akudōkai -Kusottare  Kōshinkyōku 268. Aliene Mariage - Suicide 269. Kagerou - XII Dizzy 270. Jennie - Hate 271. Kaggra - Urei 272. Lareine - Fuyu Tokyo 273. Kamijo - Death Parade 274. Versailles - Ayakashi 275. Mejibray - Decadence - Counting Goats 276. Matenrou Opera - Gloria 277. Plastic Tree - Ghost 278. Psycho Le Cemu - Ai No Uta 279. Deluhi - Frontier 280. Janne Da Arc - Feel The Wind 281. Schwarz Stein - Last Hallucination 282. La'cryma Christi - Forest 283. Due Le Quartz -  Jisatsu Ganbou 284. Shazna - Melty Love 285. Kuroyuri To Kage - Hesonoo 286. Kuroyuri To Kage -  「未遂」 287. Pentagon - Popcorn Monster 288. Shin - Jack The Ripper 289. Silently Shooting Traitors - Manipulate 290. Breathe My Words - Trigger 291. Azami - Farewell 292. Nocturnal Bloodlust- Break This Fake 293. Darrell - Dead Inside 294. Razor - Liquid Vain 295. C-Gate - Broken Wings 296. Victim of Deception - Suffering 297. Paledusk - Bonds 298. Alive Like The Flame - Empty 299. Graupel - Etherial 300. Inception of Genocide - Bullseye 301. Soul Japan -  ‘落ちこぼれからの脱却’ 302. 7 Years To Midnight - Mirage 303. FOAD - Our Future/Our Past 304. Hotoke - Trend Kill 305. Crystal Lake - Omega 306. A Ghost of Flare - Endless Demise 307. Last Day Dream - Violet Blood 308. Falling Asleep - Bookshelf 309. Earthists - Cybele 310. Enth - Tears 311. Shark Ethic - HMS Resolution 312. Hone Your Sense - One Last Time 313. Coldrain - Wrong 314. My First Story - Alone 315. ONE OK ROCK - Last Dance 316. Acme - Senkou 317. Xaa Xaa - Shinitai 318. Akira - Waltz of Vanitas 319. The Lotus - A.P.O 320. Ganglion - Never Ever Again 321. Bataar - Always Die Young 322. Black Gene For The Next Scene - Doom

[sciencespies]

Communities search for ways to live with growing fire threat

https://sciencespies.com/environment/communities-search-for-ways-to-live-with-growing-fire-threat/

Communities search for ways to live with growing fire threat

by Anton L. Delgado and Dustin Patar

In this photo taken June 11, 2019, is a sign outside Shingletown, Calif. The town got its name from its heyday making wooden roofing materials. The wildfire-vulnerable town has two nicknames, Little Paradise and Gateway to Mount Lassen. Despite federal fire suppression costs quadrupling and an increase in employed firefighters, the damages caused by wildfires has increased fivefold. (Anton L. Delgado/News21 via AP)

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Unless it’s Sunday, Kelly Loew is steering her rusty red Jeep down the same mail route in Shingletown, as she has six days a week for the last seven years. But she delivers less mail these days as California’s persistent wildfires drive residents away.

Last year, California experienced its deadliest and most destructive wildfire season. Shingletown, nicknamed Little Paradise, is one of the state’s most wildfire-vulnerable communities.

Despite the National Interagency Fire Center recording federal fire suppression costs quadrupling since 1989, the damage caused by wildfires has increased fivefold.

“The fear is palpable,” Loew said. “When I drive home through my neighborhood, I see tinderboxes everywhere.”

According to data from the National Catastrophe Service, wildfires over the past decade have resulted in more than $52 billion in insured losses across the country. Flames have burned nearly 49,000 structures across the U.S. since 2014, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. That’s more structures lost than in the previous 14 years combined.

“We shouldn’t be surprised that we’re seeing not only our cities growing, but lots of people taking over what had been rural landscapes and making them an urban environment,” said Stephen Pyne, a wildfire historian. “People like to live in lots of areas that are full of natural hazards and it’s very hard in the American system to tell people they can’t do what they want on their property.”

This summer, the Woodbury Fire northwest of Superior, Arizona, burned close to 124,000 acres and prompted a mandatory evacuation of Roosevelt and nearby communities. It’s the fifth largest wildfire in state history.

“My mind was on overload. I have to pack this, I have to pack that. … Plus you have to pack your personal stuff,” said Pat Spencer, a business owner in Roosevelt, Arizona. “Everybody was like, ‘Why are you packing it up?’ I said, ‘Just to be safe, rather than sorry.'”

In this photo taken June 13, 2019, is Kelly Loew creating a defensible space around her home in Shingletown, Calif., by trimming pine branches and burning them in a pile. It’s a common but dangerous practice in the forested community. Despite federal fire suppression costs quadrupling and an increase in employed firefighters, the damages caused by wildfires has increased fivefold. (Anton L. Delgado/News21 via AP)

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Among her most important possessions: three figurines of angels embracing firefighters. Spencer has six firefighters in her family. Three of them—her son, husband and nephew—spent more than a week battling the Woodbury Fire, which broke out June 8.

Last year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, Arizona had 838 wildfires more than the U.S. state average, placing it among the top 10 in the nation. The data show that in the first six months of 2019, wildfires in Arizona have burned more land than was burned in all of 2018. Seven other states, including Alaska and Rhode Island, have shown the same trend.

Over the past three decades, the number of wildfires declared major disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been steadily growing, with 19 since 2009. Nearly 68% occurred in California, Colorado and Oklahoma; the others were in Texas, Washington, Tennessee and Montana.

The cost of wildfire recovery often falls to individual states. To get federal dollars flowing, the governor has to request a disaster declaration and FEMA must recommend it to the president, who can deny or approve it.

But while the number of wildfire disaster declarations has grown in the past two decades, only 16.2% of wildfires larger than 100,000 acres have been declared major disasters, which is about 0.002% of all wildfires in the past 20 years.

___

TINDERBOXES EVERYWHERE

“Being human means there’s risk of some sort in your life,” Loew said. “If you’re looking for a quiet mountain town with a good community, a good school and great people, this is the place to be. … I don’t know why people wouldn’t want to live here.”

In this photo taken June 7, 2019, most homes in Shingletown, Calif., are barely visible through the thick trees of Shasta County, California. The town got its name from its heyday making wooden roofing materials. The wildfire-vulnerable town has two nicknames, Little Paradise and Gateway to Mount Lassen. Despite federal fire suppression costs quadrupling and an increase in employed firefighters, the damages caused by wildfires has increased fivefold. (Anton L. Delgado/News21 via AP)

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According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2010 Wildland Urban Interface report, Shingletown is an intermixed community, meaning housing and wildland vegetation intermingle, which increases wildfire risk.

The report shows over 39 million people across the country live in forested communities like Shingletown. More than half live in 10 states: Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New York, California, Florida, Virginia, South Carolina and Alabama.

In California, more than 1.74 million residents live in such communities. Since the report came out in 2010, more structures have been burned in the Golden State than anywhere else in the United States.

The more than 41,000 burned structures in California is nearly 13 times more than the next state, Texas, which had 3,222 structures burned in the same time span.

“Fueled by drought, an unprecedented buildup of dry vegetation and extreme winds, the size and intensity of these wildfires caused the loss of more than 100 lives, destroyed thousands of homes and exposed millions of urban and rural Californians to unhealthy air,” according to a February report by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.

More than 25 million acres of California wildlands are classified as under very high or extreme fire threat. The report blames “climate change, an epidemic of dead and dying trees, and the proliferation of new homes in the wildland urban interface.”

Research by the University of Idaho in 2016 found that wildfires in the West have been made worse by higher temperatures associated with climate change. Warmer air has made forests drier, making vegetation more flammable and better wildfire fuel.

Shingletown, named after its historic production of wooden shingles, is considered vulnerable because of its average age of 61, its median household income of $42,000—more than $18,000 less than the national median—and its location in the foothills of the Cascade Range.

In this photo taken June 6, 2019, in the footprint of the 2018 Carr Fire, members of Cal Fire and the California National Guard grind dead vegetation to mitigate the wildfire risk in Shasta County, California. Despite federal fire suppression costs quadrupling and an increase in employed firefighters, the damages caused by wildfires has increased fivefold. (Anton L. Delgado/News21 via AP)

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To prevent larger wildfires, Cal Fire plans to grind down vegetation. Its top priority project is to create defensible space, along Shingletown’s main road, State Route 44.

In a low-income community like Shingletown, not everyone can afford to create defensible space. Some simply burn the flammable brush, known as slash, in their yards.

“Every slash pile being burned has the potential of getting away,” said Tom Twist, deputy chief of the Shingletown Fire Safe Council, which offers a program that gives residents access to a site to dump flammable vegetation. “We want to reduce the chances of what we call doorstep burn piles.”

California Assemblyman Jim Wood said he’s been working to find funding for wildfire prevention since wildfires in 2017 killed 44 people in Northern California, which until last year, were the most destructive in state history.

In November 2018, the Camp Fire in Butte County killed 86 people and destroyed close to 12,000 structures. That made it the deadliest wildfire since the 1918 Cloquet Fire, which killed more than 450 people in Minnesota.

Wood, a dentist by trade, volunteered with local authorities to use dental records to identify victims in Paradise. Less than a month later, he proposed Bill AB38, which would establish a $1 billion fund meant to financially aid low-income residents to fireproof their homes. The bill passed but was stripped of funding.

“The legislative process is not perfect,” Wood said. “But the commitment I have to trying to find a funding source … to help people protect their homes isn’t going away.”

California’s building code requires homes in fire-prone regions built after 2008 to have fire resistant roofs and siding, and other safeguards. This year, a similar amendment was passed in Oregon, which had the sixth most wildfires in 2018. Both codes require homeowners to pay for it.

In this photo taken June 8, 2019, is Tom Twist, deputy chief of the Fire Safe Council in Shingletown, Calif. Twist says the dump site eliminates the chance of wildfire. “We want to reduce the chances of what we call doorstep burn piles.” Despite federal fire suppression costs quadrupling and an increase in employed firefighters, the damages caused by wildfires has increased fivefold. (Anton L. Delgado/News21 via AP)

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In 2010, 40 million people in the country lived in forested communities, approximately 1-in-10 Americans. But despite the risk of wildfires, building projects continue to be approved in areas still recovering from previous blazes.

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FIGHT OR FLIGHT

Twist, of the Shingletown Fire Safe Council, said he sees this as his second war. He served two tours in Vietnam—first in the infantry, then in the air cavalry.

“There is a lot of correlation between warfare between humans and warfare between humans and the environment,” he said. “When the fire comes … it’s chaotic for the first several hours until people settle in. It’s the same in a firefight.”

To control the chaos, Twist has been pushing to install SR-7 wildfire early-detection systems, which use infrared and optical cameras to detect growing wildfires.

“The Camp Fire is a prime example of what happens when you’re dealing with inadequate information in a rapidly developing wildfire,” he said. “If the SR-7 system had been deployed … it would have detected the fire and it would have given the people of Paradise about an hour and a half more time to evacuate.”

In June, residents of Roosevelt, Arizona, had a day’s warning before they had to flee the Woodbury Fire.

In this photo taken June 21, 2019, hotshot crews return to their camps as smoke from the Woodbury Fire rises over the Superstition Wilderness in central Arizona. Despite federal fire suppression costs quadrupling and an increase in employed firefighters, the damages caused by wildfires has increased fivefold. (Anton L. Delgado/News21 via AP)

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“We want people to be ready to go. If it’s moving towards them, when we say go, we want them to grab their bags and get out of there,” Dick Fleishman, a National Forest Service fire information officer, said the day before the June 20 evacuation.

Spencer spent five days working on her brother’s yard waiting for the threat to be extinguished and the evacuation lifted. She was among the first to re-enter Roosevelt Estates.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, Lord, for protecting us, for protecting our homes. Thank you, Lord, for protecting our firefighters; without them our homes would not be safe,” Spencer said. “There are just no words, but thank God we are home. There’s no place like home. Amen.”

As she prayed, Spencer’s eldest son and nephew were still on the fire line.

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PRESCRIBED POTENTIAL

David Rubalcaba, 56, has been working fires for nearly half his life. As a hotshot, his job was to rappel from helicopters into wildfires across the country. He did that until 2003, when a burning sequoia crushed his left hand in California.

Now, as the assistant fire management officer—or “burn boss”—for the Karuk Tribe in Northern California, Rubalcaba’s job is to ignite and control prescribed burns. The forest management technique guides the destruction of vegetation that could fuel future wildfires.

In this photo taken June 26, 2019, a reflective mural of The Last Supper and three firefighter figurines were among the first things Pat Spencer unpacked after the mandatory evacuation over Roosevelt, Ariz., was lifted during the Woodbury Fire. Her husband, John, watches as she hangs up the mural. Despite federal fire suppression costs quadrupling and an increase in employed firefighters, the damages caused by wildfires has increased fivefold. (Anton L. Delgado/News21 via AP)

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“I came to the realization one day that firefighting is the problem. I wanted to become part of the solution, and so I got into prescribed fire,” Rubalcaba said. “Prescribed fire is the big thing now because it’s the only solution to this catastrophic event we’re having annually with fire.”

For the first time since the 1920s, data from the National Interagency Fire Center has recorded the amount of acreage being burned by wildfires increasing. Federal fire suppression costs quadrupled to nearly $18.5 billion from $4.5 billion 20 years ago.

In the same time span, wildfire damages have increased fivefold with more than $52 billion in damages this last decade, according to the National Catastrophe Service, which analyzes disasters to assess risk management.

Last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order pushing for federal land management and wildfire risk reduction, which said “post-fire assessments show that reducing vegetation through hazardous fuel management … is effective in reducing wildfire severity and loss.”

To better respond to wildfires, firefighting agencies divided the U.S. into 10 geographic regions. The Southern region leads the country with more than 25 million acres of prescribed fires in the past decade—twice the amount of the nine other regions combined.

According to the annual wildland fire summary and statistics report, for the past two decades the Southern region is one of only two regions that has had more land burned by prescribed fires than by wildfires. In 2018, four of the five states with the most wildfires were in the Southern region: Texas, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. But none was in the top five for most land burned.

Research published this year by Crystal Kolden, a wildfire expert and professor in the department of forest, rangeland and fire sciences at the University of Idaho, shows that the region’s use of prescribed burns “may be one of the reasons why the Southeastern states have experienced far fewer wildfire disasters relative to the Western U.S.”

In 2018, California had the most amount of land burned and the second most wildfires. The two regions that represent the state have burned roughly 2.4% of the Southern regions’ total in the past decade.

In this photo taken June 12, 2019, David Rubalcaba, known as the “Burn Boss” of the Karuk Nation in Northern California, supervises all prescribed burns on tribal land. The former smoke jumper took the job after a burning tree crushed his left hand in 2003. “I came to the realization one day that firefighting is the problem. I wanted to become part of the solution, and so I got into prescribed fire,” Rubalcaba said. Despite federal fire suppression costs quadrupling and an increase in employed firefighters, the damages caused by wildfires has increased fivefold. (Anton L. Delgado/News21 via AP)

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“Fire is a driverless car,” Pyne said. “It’s barreling down the road integrating everything around it and at some point, it may be a really sharp curve called climate change. Another point it may be a really tricky intersection called wildland urban interface. It may just be filled with road hazards leftover from logging or past fires.

“There is no fix to the fire problem. … We have to live with it.”

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Prescribed burning to combat wildfires has not increased in the U.S. West

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Citation: Communities search for ways to live with growing fire threat (2019, September 22) retrieved 22 September 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-09-ways-threat.html

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#Environment

[miserys-supremacy]

De profundis mors advocat! The pact is sealed, crystallised Dark are the paths without return Ash and blood colour my world Ever downward winding steps spiraling to the utmost depths Where the sun is but a memory of a murdered dream As if emerged from the Abyss Evoked by his own tongue Antichrist, Devil's child Possessed by the night Through will unfettered in darkness Death was granted life The blind man was given sight And the fivefold star to shine forevermore As a flame within the heart Restlessly beckoning through The guilt and vanity of a world deaf to it's call To dare what's lit sole by the friar's lantern Through labyrinths so desolate and dark to travel far in solitude and silence 'cross thornclad deserts vast To witness the erection of a temple At the place where order dies and chaos unfold It's tower shall lean out over the precipice Oh the wonder's those that mount it shall behold For there the waves of Absu smash the rocks of definition And feast upon them with erosive force Yes there the ancient giants of primordial waters Are hunting in the twilight near the shores And I am their son, my ribcage the shrine, my flesh the prison For my blood is their blood, my will is theirs Mine is the gift that shall conquer all fears See my glowing eyes reflect a heart that burns That in turn reflects the chasm for which it yearns He shall return to the Abyss Heeding his masters call Antichrist, Devil's child At one with the night Wordless without form in deepest depths, Yet most besung, most present and most high Thou wellspring from which horror's holy flow Through gates wide open Thou who placed these words of praise upon my lips The infant's cry and the rapist's sigh of joy The world has gone blurred but the road gets Ever clearer in search of thy burning kingdom

[phynxrizng]

VERNAL EQUINOX EOSTAR

Vernal Equinox (Eostar)

Preparation:

A Symbol of the Wheel is on the altar, flanked with burning candles, or with fire in some form - torches, or small tripods with fire in their cups.

The Symbol of the Wheel may be a plain disc, or an eight spoked wheel, or the pentacle. Alex and Maxine Sanders used a circular mirror with a broad frame, also circular, decorated as a twelve-pointed star.

In the centre of the Circle is either a cauldron full of inflammable material, or (out of doors) a bonfire ready to be lit.

HPS casts the Circle.

HPS then stands in the West, and the HP in the East, both with carrying wands.

HPS:

We kindle this fire today In the presence of the Holy Ones, Without malice, without jealousy, without envy, Without fear of aught beneath the Sun But the High Gods.

Thee we invoke, O Light of Life; Be thou a bright flame before us, Be thou a guiding star above us, Be thou a smooth path beneath us; Kindle thou within our hearts A flame of love for our neighbours, To out foes, to our friends, to our kindred all, To all men on the broad earth; O merciful Son of Cerridwen, From the lowliest thing that liveth, To the Name which is highest of all.

HPS then draws invoking pentagram before the HP and then hands the Wand to him, together with the scourge.

The Maiden strikes a light and hands it to the High Priest, who lights the cauldron or bonfire. He (carrying a wand) and the High Priestess (carrying a sistrum) lead the dance, with the rest following in couples. Each couple must leap over the fire.

The last couple over the fire before it goes out must be well purified. The man must then give a fivefold kiss to each of the women, as the woman to the men, or any other penalty the HPS shall decide.

Cakes and wine shall follow.

Source, the pagan library.com

Posted by, Phynxrizng