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Marriage is not easy. It can be difficult. It can also be amazing and beautiful. Your partner is not perfect. Neither are you. So why demand perfection? The grass is not always greener on the other side. Today, let us pray for all those marriages which are causing heartache and may Allah protect, bless and guide us all. AmeenWHAT IS MUSLIM

The Muslim is one who yields his will to the will of Almighty God. We must keep in mind forever that God's will is the salvation of the people. Not our will; our will can't save us unless we give it to the guidance from God.

Jesus said, "Your will be done," according to the language of the Christians. "Not my will, your will." The Muslim is one who yields his will to the will of God.

God has given us human will so we can earn something for ourselves. So we can earn dignity for ourselves.

He has also given us hints in His creation, and has sent prophets to us to back up those hints. By those hints he has guided us and taught us that our will alone cannot save us.

The human being's will, from the time it is created, is searching for some guidance to give itself to. This is nature. The baby is looking for something to guide it. The woman, the man, grow and become adults looking for something to guide them. They go to the institutions of learning, to the houses of worship, looking for something to guide their will so they may form their lives by it.

They are looking for something to shape their will, to give meaning to their lives in the world. They run into so many problems. They can't find the answers they think they should get. They give up; and what do they do after this?

Many give their will to the forces of destruction. They give their will to lies, to corruption, to confusion, and they go down. They are destroyed by ignorance and by corruptible things.

The will in man is naturally designed or naturally made to seek God. The human will seeks God and when we find God, we find our peace.

We don't know God in all of His divine names or in all of His divine attributes. God has to show us these things through His prophets, through guidance. But we know that there is something that needs to be united with something that is missing. We don't always know what it is, but it is truth.

The human being comes into the world and the world teaches the human being some truth and some lies. The lies separate us from the reality that we should naturally be united with.

So God sends us His messengers to teach us that we are one creation, and not two. One creation, and that the Creator of this creation is one, not two, not three. One God. One Allah. One Creator for everything.

This oneness brings peace to us. Two or three bosses over us, running our lives brings confusion as the Quran says. Many people don't stop at two or three bosses, they worship prophets and saints. They give their lives to many directions. And what has this resulted in? The absence of the worship of God.

Look at the society of these people who have given their lives to two and three Gods, and to many saints for guidance. The leaders are writing "God is dead." And recently these words appeared in the New York Times commercial ad: "If God is alive, why is religion in so much pain?"

Why is religion in so much pain for whom? Not for us. Our religion is free of pain. It's relieving us of our pain.

God is alive and has always been alive for the Muslims, and all true believers.

A Muslim life is a clear life, not a life of confusion. The way that is shown to us is a clear way.

The Quran itself is called the clear book. Al-Bayan, very clear evidence, guidance, not something to guess at. It is self-evident. It doesn't leave us to interpret and establish it.

There's a lot in the Quran that needs interpretation but such is not the basis of the Book. Allah says in the Quran that "these verses are allegorical and basic." Allegorical may need interpretation.

"Those in whose hearts is crookedness or perversity, they prefer the allegorical over the basic." They like to get into the mysteries and avoid clear teaching.

"But the clear verses are the basis of the Book." That is where we stand. We stand on those clear teachings. We can all discuss and maybe make some contribution toward understanding the allegorical teachings but that's not what we stand on. We stand upon the clear teachings.

One God Who's not creation. Who is Creator. Who has no image, no likeness in creation, and He's not like creation. He made creation but He's not like it.

"Creation must exist by two"— forces, male and female, negative and positive. Allah says: "But I am the one who exists alone,"—needing no forces to aid Him.

Allah says again in His attributes that He is God, whose very being will not permit any contribution. Want to contribute something to God? Give Him a little help? No! Give God obedience. His very being refuses any contribution. It is our being that wants something. "Come, help me. Give me something." That is the human cry.

God says to us in the Quran, "Slumber nor sleep touches Him." He does not need food or anything. "He's the one who feeds and is not fed."

He needs nothing from us and the attribute As-Summad says, Allah is eternal, whose very being rejects contributions. Don't make your contribution thinking God can suffer a want for something. Make contributions to righteousness. Make contributions to yourself for God's sake. Make contributions to your life in obedience to God.

Send God some charity? Give God some help to save sinners? He doesn't need any help to save sinners. We need help to save ourselves.

God gives us that help in our intelligence. He gives us that help in our nature, in the sentiments of our heart. He also gives us help through inspired people, the prophets. But He needs no help. The God that is perfect. The God that is whole, needs nothing. The God that has no need for anything, no flaws, the perfect being, the Giving, the Loving, the Almighty.

Imam W.D. Mohammed (raa)SUPPORTS YOU CAN'T SEE

And God says, "Look at the heavenly bodies." Both Scriptures point us to the heavens, for us to observe the wisdom for a higher order of human life on this planet earth. God says, "Observe the bodies that you see in the sky and how they appear to be supported with no props or supports under them that you can see."

What is that saying to us? It is saying that not only your life but the existence of the material universe is existence upon powers that you can't see. The sun you can't see what is holding it up. The moon you don't see what is holding it up there. You get a telescope and look at planets and material bodies or material mass bigger than ours.

Look at the planets, like Jupiter. You cannot see what is holding them up there. Science tells you of the trillions and trillions of tons not pounds in that mass. There it is hanging out there in space seemingly with no support holding it up.

That is pointed out to us to tell us to trust the God that designed this creation, trust the God that designed the Universe. Trust Him. You can't explain everything He did. Trust Him. He knows and you know not.

You look at what He has done and then come up with your own explanation for it. I know about universal gravity. That is what science tells us.

But when the farmer looks up there, he doesn't see any universal gravity. All he sees is big bodies up there and nothing is holding them up. So God's Lesson is going to stay, no matter what science says.

God gives us a Lesson that says, "Have faith in the Lord that designed this creation. The way it is designed is too big for your mind to grasp. Have faith in The One that designed it and don't doubt.

Imam W.D. Mohammed (raa)ASA

The Children of Israel or Jews as some call them were chosen by Allah; G'd, to deliver His message to all the people, they were not chosen by G'd to be the one special people above all other people on earth, Allah has no partners or associates. They failed to follow the command of Allah through their Prophet Moses, Moses was successful but most of the following went astray. The same mission was then placed upon Prophet Muhammad 610 AD, to call the people back to their original G'd given human nature.

Allah made a covenant with the Children of Israel, when they broke the covenant Allah gave that same covenant to Prophet Muhammad, that same covenant is upon us Muslims today. Praise be to Allah.

Isaac and Ismail are from the same Father, Ibrahim, Isaac, the father of Israel was the first leader of the Children of Israel; the 12 tribes. Ismail was the beginning of the Muslim movement, finalized with Prophet Muhammad, Allahs Messenger, The last Prophet of Allah to mankind.

All Prophets and Messengers, and Holy Books, are from One Source, Allah, The One and Only G'd.

See Qur'an, 2:40-86“No created thing lives for itself. And we shouldn’t neither.A river does not drink from its own water. Trees do not eat their own fruit.The light of the sun is not intended to warm itself. The flower benefits not from its own nectar nor profits from its amazing aroma, nor the bee from its own honey. Every created thing makes a contribution to things other than itself.”

~ Shades of GreyBook #3 WDM p.18 of 86

Allah judges

Allah knows their value. we can’t judge that. We may take a brother who drinks and sit him over there with the corrupt, and that brother who drinks may be in heaven a little higher than us when are resurrected. We don’t know. Maybe the drinking that you did with Islamic science was bigger, made you a bigger drunk than he is. So we don’t know. So it is hard for us to do that. But sometimes I would like to see a good situation where all the corrupt, I know they are over there. I would be free, more relaxed to talk over here. When I talk over there I’d have something for them to say. It would be more relaxed for me to address them knowing that they are over there. But we can’t do that.

So now, what do we have to see, first? That Al Islam is a Religion that focuses the light on man and shows him firstly, principally, as a social creature; that G-d intended for him to be a social creature; not to be satisfied being an island, or on an island all to himself; that he must mate and become a bigger social unit; family, tribes, and then until you embrace the whole community of man on this earth and see yourself as a member in one family, with all people. So man is a social creature.

Qur’an gives social inspiration

Man is a social creature and the spirit of the Qur’an is, what? The spirit of the Qur’an is social inspiration. It feeds our social aspirations. This word social is bigger than we think it is. By social we don’t mean just associating with each other, physically, but our dependency on each other as members of a world society. We want to keep the focus on the Muslim community right now. As members of the Muslim community, our dependency on each other brings us together and our love for each other brings us together. So here we have a love for each other that brings us

Book #3 WDM p.19 of 86 together, and a dependency on each other that brings us together.

Pretty soon we find that the teacher of the school has to be tied up full time in doing that. But there is also a need to have business growing in the community. So there is a business person feeding business.

The social context in terms of people keeps expanding with growth, and as it grows there is more demand for more things to take care of the needs of its growing people. He can have the regulation of the home in the parent. He can have the regulation of the family in the parent. He can have the regulation of the morals in the parent, the discipline, the laws that discipline the family can be in the parent, everything. Everything can be in the parents.

That’s a small unit and he can manage that. But when it extends and involves hundreds of families, he can’t manage that. If there is nobody but him and his family, he can go out, take his sons out with him, children with him, go out and plow the field, and regulate his own food. He doesn’t need anybody to regulate the economy for him. He can handle that. But when they multiply in a social unit, it’s the social unit that is getting bigger. The social unit gets bigger and brings in demands for industry, for more sophisticated government, more complex government ideas, and everything else we can think of. There is not one other single influence responsible for the growth and development of society, other than the social principle, or the social influence.

Now, go back to the sun as a symbol. The sun, I said earlier that it’s the principle behind all the changes in the weather, the growth and everything, didn’t I? So here you have, now, me saying that the social interest, the social principle, is the influence behind all the other growth and possibilities.

Allah judges

Qur’an gives social inspiration

Book #3 WDM p.19 of 86 together, and a dependency on each other that brings us together.

Can’t we then say that the sun is also a symbol of man as a social unit, the Khalifa is male and female, and the purpose of male and female is to have generations? That’s the social principle. So the Khalifa is the social principle. He is the sun. He is the social principlThe roots of white Supremacy making a human figure into a DEVINE figure! The truth is that WE SHOULD MAKE NO IMAGES OR LIKENESS UNTO THE DEVINE.A ND WE SHOULD KNOW THAT TO GIVE G-D A SON,IS TO FORCE THE MIND TO GIVE HIM A RACIAL FEATURE! THIS WAS THE TRICK OF DIABOLICAL WORLD DOMINATING PSYCHOLOGY! WHITE IS RIGHT,WHY? BECAUSE G-DS SON IS WHITE,A D HAVEN'T WE BEEN THROUGHLY BRAINWASHED TO BELIEVE THAT,"WHEN YOU SEE THE SON YOU'VE SEEN THE FATHER FOR THE SON IS THE FATHER! OH MY PEOPLE NOW IS THE TIME TO UN-WHITE WASH YOUR PERCEPTION OF YOUR SAVIOUR! YOUR BIBLE TELLS YOUR THAT,"G-D IS A SPIRIT AND THAT THOSE WHO WORSHIP HIM MUST WORSHIP HIM IN SPIRIT" SLS YOU ARE FAMILIAR IN JOHN," NO MAN HAS EVER SEEN G-D AT ANY TIME" NOW YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE AWARE THAT IN JOHN 20:17 JESUS TOLD MARY MADELEINE "TOUCH ME NOT FOR I HAVE NOT YET ASCENDED TO MY FATHER,BUT GO A D TELL MY BRETHREN THAT I GO TO MY FATHER A ND YOUR FATHER,TO MY G-D AND YOUR G-D" PEOPLE KNOW THIS THAT THERE IS NO G-D BUT ONE G-D,THAT NOTHING IS LIKE HIM HE NIETHER BEGETS NOR IS HE BEGOTTEN AND THERE IS NOTHING LIKE HIM! FIND ME SOMEWHERE IN THE BIBLE WHERE JESUS(PEACE ON HIM)TOLD US THAT HE WAS G- D AND THAT WE SHOULD WORSHIP HIM! NO,NO,HE TAUGHT US TO PRAY," OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN,HOLLOWETH BE THY NAME,THY KINGDOM COME, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN" SO PEOPLE DON'T SEE ME AS AN ADVERSARY SEE ME AS A HELPING FRIEND TO STAMP "WHITE SUPREMACY IMAGERY IN THE FORM OF A VISIBLY WHITENED G-D" REMOVE ALL RACIAL IMAGES THAT ATTEMPT TO PORTRAY THE DEVINE" GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK LETS START A DIALOGUE! PEACE AND LOVE!THE ROBE

Lost Knowledge

Now, let’s continue here. What is the robe symbolic of? Do you recall? Symbolic of the way you use the knowledge, the dress, symbolic of the way you use the knowledge. The sheet is the knowledge, the pages, the script.Remember now, when Jesus was crucified, he lost his robe and they gambled to see who would possess his robe. Now if you understand the meaning of robe, then you should understand that this world doesn’t have the true knowledge, the true use of the knowledge that Jesus gave them.

The knowledge was lost from Jesus’ body and it fell in the hands of crooked sinners. They gambled for it. Not only that, the silver cup, the special cup, it was lost too. Which tells us not only the proper use of the knowledge was lost, but also the moral cleanliness was lost from the religion.Silver chalice I think they call it. Is that what they call it? I think it is called Silver chalice. It was lost from Christianity. So how would they explain this? Ask the preacher next Sunday morning at 11 o’clock. Ask him. Say preacher; please tell me what it means in Christianity when they say that they lost the Silver chalice, the silver cup. Ask the preacher, how they can have the shroud of Jesus, in this city that is called Turin.

When the Bible says that his robe fell into the hands of sinners and they gambled to see who would possess it. So how can they have his robe there? If they have it, sinners gave it to them and if the sinners gave it up, it wasn’t fit to wear. That’s right. That robe wasn’t fit to wear. After it fell into the hands of sinners, who would want to wear it?

What is sweeter than honey?

Let’s continue now, it says he gave them another riddle. And this riddle is: “What is sweeter than honey?” And “What is stronger than a lion?”So he gave two riddles. In fact four parts to it.Second one is, “What is sweeter than honey?What is stronger than a lion?” All right. You know honey means the beauty of pure scripture. How do we know this? We know it because in the Qur’an this word is used. Honey is a good word for scripture. The honey is the essence of the flower and flowers are symbolic of beautiful culture.What is sweeter than the beauty that G-d offers you? What is sweeter than the sweetness that you find in G-d’s pure scripture? That’s what he’s telling them. And what is stronger than a lion? What he’s telling them is that, the east has honey.

They have the beauty of G-d’s revelation. And you have the strength of a lion. I’ve got something that makes you stronger, and I’ve got something to give you to make your doctrine sweeter than their honey.You see this thing? Yes, it’s plain. So he gave them, the Gentile world, the doctrine of love, the love of Christ that was sweeter than the moral and spiritual teachings to weak people, than the pure teachings of the Prophet. It’s sweeter to them … that G-d loves you sinners so much, that he gave his only begotten son, that he should be scorned, mocked, spat on, tortured, crucified, and die and be buried for your sins. Oh that’s sweet to ignorant weak people, sweeter than the truth of G-d’s scripture. So he said what is sweeter than honey? This lie I am going to give you is sweeter than the pure honey of Scripture that the east has.

Cheated Samson out of his heifer

And what is stronger than a lion? This subtle psychology…. (indiscernible) and he himself was going to destroy the Philistines. They have cheated him out of his heifer; I am talking about right now!The Christian Church that he thought would be his heifer betrayed him. Say oh, you can have business, you can have media, you can have this, but you are not going to run our churches. The Gentile doesn’t want any Jews over their churches. If you want to have something, you can have Peter. Go and tutor the Pope in secrecy. He’ll accept it. But these ordinary Gentiles are not going to accept that no Jew rule over them.So you mean to tell me you are not going to give me my heifer? So why don’t you, can’t you all do it through me, can’t you all carry out my orders?No we can’t do it. They are not going to listen to it. Well very good. Well then can I tell you what kind of doctrine you should give to the masses that won’t follow Peter?Yes it’s okay. All right. I’m going to make bread again. I’m going to get on a wheel. I’m going to make Marxism. I’m going to make Communism.I’m going to make the Age of Reason. I’m going to exalt logic. I’ll give them some new flour, is that okay? Well that’s okay. As long as you don’t take over the church. No, I won’t bother the church. Okay. Go on to the wheel again. It’s okay.

Bring society down on me and them

Now listen. After all that he still was not satisfied. Is that right? Yeah look at the story now, remember, he still is not satisfied. So he said, “I am blind, but I got something that they don’t know I’ve got. I got special power, in my arms.” “All I want to do is just have somebody show me to the pillars of the foundation of their society. And if I just can get to the two pillars that hold up the structure of their society, I’m going to bring it down on me and them.”So Samson goes and stands between the two pillars with the help of a little boy. He couldn’t see but he used the help of a little boy. What is the help of that little boy? Psychology. Psychology.

Don’t think it’s another person; he’s not even a person. Persons carry it out, but he’s a knowledge body. Then he goes and he used a little boy, psychology. Don’t human beings use psychology before they use intelligence?That’s why in psychology in this particular context it’s called a little boy. Your little children, before they are able to compete with you on an intelligence plane, they already using psychology on you. So psychology is an early development in the human being. That’s why the Jahcubite’s cousin, Fard Muhammad said Yakub conceived his idea at the age 6, as a little boy, a psychology. He’ll be surprised to know that I know that. I hope he gets this. I understand that he’s back home now. So he’ll get this message, Insha ‘Allah. Now, let me continue. With the help of psychology, he finds his way to the foundations of the new society. And when he gets to the foundation, what does he do? He forms a cross of himself and he begins pressing with all his might. That’s what the Scripture says. Said he pressed with all his might, with all his strength on the pillars, forming of himself a cross. What does this mean? This is more than Trinitarianism, this is the psychology of the mentality that Trinitarianism has produced.

Weaknesses in the mentality that trinitarianism has produced

He has now learned that there are certain weaknesses in the mentality that Trinitarianism has produced. And he knows that he can appeal to their emotions, and he can push in two directions at the same time.He didn’t pull the pillars, he pushed. He can push in opposite directions at the same time. Make one people give in to emotions, and the other people give in to logic. Push them. So that some will become highly emotional and some will become highly logical.And in doing this the logic will act against the emotions, and emotions will act against the logic. The emotional makeup will kill the logic, the logic will offend the emotions, the society will be divided against itself and the pillars will fall. Don’t you know that’s a strategy that is used in this Society? Whenever the hidden evil in the structure is about to be exposed they began firing the society with emotion, sentiment, flower children, love for everybody, crazy kind of sentimentality and emotionalism. They fire it up and build up strong emotions, this is depressing. Now when he does it it’s going to drop the whole thing. If he can be successful and bring in the sentimental and emotional elements against the logic, it’s going to destroy the whole thing.But look, he will certainly, he will be killed, as a knowledge body. He was already blind wasn’t he? What the hell has he lost? Nothing. Once he brings it down, he would start up all over again. Do, ra, mi, fa, sol, la, ti.

By the Grace of G-d, through IWDM, America was not destroyedJust in a few years that have passed us dear people, that scheme has tried to destroy America. But by the grace of G-d, through me, America was not destroyed. Why do I say through me? Because I was the only one that came out when the trend was to go in the form of the cross. When the trend was to become emotional, highly emotional and give one side to dry logic, I came up in the middle of that action and said there is a scheme going on, there is a trick going on.This whole thing is designed to fire up your sentiments, your emotions and topple the society. Somebody must have heard me and believed others who had been talking before I started, and all of it came together to save America. Yes.

See they didn’t believe others who were saying, there is a scheme, there is a hidden scheme. But when I began to speak, they say look, now we know this boy, we’ve been watching this boy since his father raised him up. We know that this boy is not a tool of outside influence. So if he says these things that ring a bell, where did he get it from? We believe maybe G-d is inspiring Wallace D. Mohammed. So they went back to the desk. And they begin to pull out things from the old file and they studied history all over again. And they said that Wallace D. Mohammed is an inspired man, he sees something. And what he is saying is what we’ve heard before. It might be something to it. How else could he get it?

Simple Simon met a pie man on the way to the square

Say oh no, let’s check this thing. Let’s check this thing. Said I’m sorry, you can’t get sixpence today, only one. Sorry, we aren’t buying pies today. We’re buying cakes. You heard that old story of Simple Simon … Simple Simon met a pie man on the way to the square. I think it goes,” … said Simple Simon to the pie man, would you have a sixpence to spare?” And I think he said, “If I was selling sixpence, I wouldn’t be selling pies!” Well, that’s another one of the conspirators’ riddles. And I will tell you what it means. Sixpence means the knowledge behind the scheme. It’s said the man was made on the 6th day. The sixpence is the knowledge behind the scheme. Simon was given seven (7), not six (6). He couldn’t see 6, six (6) was ruling seven (7). But he wanted the six (6).What is the secret in this? Will you tell me please, Mr. Pie man? You know what Pi is? 3.1416, I think it is. It’s a formula for finding the circumference of the earth. It’s a formula for world dominance. Now I’m not saying anything that I didn’t want to say, I know it’s a formula for finding the circumference of a circle. It’s a formula for world dominance.

If I was selling my own secrets you think I’d be selling pies And Peter, the Catholic Church wanted it. But the conspirator wouldn’t give it to them. Said if I was selling my own secrets you think I’d be selling pies? You think I’d be telling you how to get the world, if I was selling the secret to how to get it.I’ll just tell you how to get it; I’m not going to tell you my secret. You get it from me. Yes. All Peter got was some magic beans; he did manage to get those didn’t he? You remember that riddle? Nursery rhyme, whatever you want to call it. Jack and the beanstalk. Yeah. He had Jack, which is nothing again but Peter, or the Western society. Pardon me, I shouldn’t say Peter, not Peter, Jack is not the Catholic Church, it’s the Western society, Protestant society. Catholic Church headquarters is in Rome. This is typical American. Jack is talking about typical America. That’s why we call each other Jack. You know, hey jack, what’s happening Jack?

Yes, so, it was Peter, the Pope who asked them for his sixpence. But Jack, the American Christian society, they asked for magic beans. Well really they didn’t know what to ask for. All they wanted was really to be rescued, because their cow had got so lean, it was about to die.Everything was going bad. And they wanted to know how to bring back life. How can my cows get fat again? How can the society thrive again?So, while they were (wandering) wondering, this funny looking thing jumped out in the road. And he made himself visible and he said, “Magic beans want to buy some magic beans, like to buy some magic beans?” And Jack agreed to give his cow up for the magic beans. I’m showing you that this is not only in Scripture. If it is only in Scripture that means that what I’m talking about may not be existing in the world today. Or maybe it was just a story that was only in Scripture, maybe it was just fiction. But if it’s in the world too, we should listen.

What do the magic beans represent?

Now. Says this little funny thing, man, jumped out, and he talked Jack into giving up his cow for these magic beans. Right. Some of you remember it. He went away with his cow. What do the magic beans represent? A way to, again, to the secret knowledge in Christian religion. A way to the secret knowledge in Christian religion.And dumb Protestant society gave up their lean cow for this heavenly knowledge. What is the lean cow? The lean cow represents what they had before. What did they have before? They had rational growth. The Protestant movement began with an interest in rational growth. Is that right? Yes.

Our knowledge is weak, our cow is lean

They wanted to pursue knowledge. The Catholic Church had suppressed enlightenment, had suppressed education. The people weren’t allowed to learn. The masses couldn’t learn and educate themselves. So a thirst for knowledge came with Martin Luther. Right. And they began to want knowledge to develop their minds.Here comes Jake, Jack pardon me, feeling himself desperately in need of help. We have the interest in rational development of our society, but our knowledge is weak, our cow is lean. We haven’t yet produced anything. We need help. Who would help us?Oh Lord Jesus, help us. We got this logic. But Rome is powerful. We got this logic and Rome is powerful. G-d help us please! Ding, ding. Jahcubite conspirator. I will help you! Would you like to have some magic beans? If I give you my magic beans you’ll have to give me your lean cow. In effect he was saying the same thing that Samson said. I’m going to give you a new world, but you’re going to have to give me the one that you got now. And if you give him the one you got now, when it becomes fat, who does it belong to? Belong to him. He got it. He got it in exchange for the magic beans.

Over the heavenly kingdom was a mean old giant

So he (Jack) went home and planted. Went home and he didn’t know the value of them right? But I think accidentally one fell into the ground right? The thing grew up and it went up, up, up. He saw it going up past his window, he ran out and jumped on it, and the thing took him up into heaven. (It) took him up on the plane of clouds, into a castle that was in the clouds. Right. Yes.There he found a nice old woman that befriended him. But over that heavenly kingdom was a mean old giant. That right? Yes. He said fee, fi, fo, fom, I smell the blood of an Englishman, be he live or be he dead; I’ll grind his bones with my bread. With my bread. Remember bread is of two kinds. Leaven and unleavened. I’ll grind his bones with my bread.So, he managed to escape with the help of this woman up there, old woman who was nice. He managed to escape. Who is the old woman who was nice? Means people in the religious knowledge of the secrets of religion that weren’t corrupt. Didn’t have no evil designs on the world like the conspirators. They shared with him after he got up there. They shared with him some knowledge. Helped him to get the golden knowledge down from heaven.

The Golden knowledge it came from the hen right? The hen who laid golden eggs. But the hen couldn’t lay any golden eggs without music playing. When music played the hen would lay the eggs. The music stopped, the hen stop laying the golden eggs. Which means that the wisdom is tied to music? Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do. Do, ra, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do. Now when he got the musical scheme, he came back down with the hen and the music harp plus the knowledge, and he tied them together, then he had wisdom.He had wisdom to bring back down with the hen, and the music harp right, according to the story. From heaven, he brought back with him, they don’t say heaven, but it is the heaven of religious symbolism — Biblical symbolism. He came back down with the music maker and with the egg layer. You needed both in order to get the wisdom. The golden egg means wisdom. All right.

Giant’s fall from heaven left a big hole in the earth

The giant fell from heaven. Is that right? He was so big and heavy that when he fell he knocked a big hole in the earth, left there a big hole in the earth. The giant was finished. Who was finished? Who is the big giant that was finished? The people in the secret religion. The Pope.The Pope and certain others that I don’t care to name right now, that hoard the secrets of religion. When the Protestant was given the secret way to get it, and when Protestant leadership got it, got their share. Don’t think they got all, they got their share. Catholic got his share yes. Protestant got their share. The conspirators got the whole share.When they got it, the position of superiority of them over American Christian leadership fell. When it fell, it knocked a big hole in the ground. What is that symbolic of? Actually they were not spiritual people, they were material people.And when they fell a big part of the material that they had before was taken out. So much of the material wealth that was under Catholicism, and under other secret conspirators in religion, fell to Jack, to the American Christian Society. Is that right? Yes.Then they began to rise. But they only had magic beans. Magic beans is not knowledge. Magic. The only way you can get it is through magic. You have to have the knowledge of the magic to know how to work them. And, they were secret, so only a few of the Jack people can have them.

Jack: the American Christian society

Let me quickly tell you what Jack represents in the American Christian Society. It represents the intelligent leadership, Jack represents the intelligent leadership. Now Jack is not as long as Jacob. So their knowledge is shorter than Jacob, you see?Jack is a derivative of the word Jacob. Jacob is the origin, Jack is a derivative, derived from Jacob. So Jack is just a short …. they don’t have Jacob that’s long. But they do have enough to enable them to keep this same rhythm going.Rotating events, with a seven note scale, or is it eight. Yes, an eight note scale that goes to seven, and comes back to where it started. Right? Do, ra, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do, come back to where it started. So they were given knowledge of how to keep society going through these changes, psychological changes.

So America unknowingly, has been going through these changes. Look at the trends, one fad behind another. Pretty soon you are wearing what you wore 20 years ago. Right. Pretty soon you’re dancing the way you danced 20 years ago. You are talking the way you talked 20 years ago. You are thinking the way you thought 20 years ago.So they keep rotating. They have the Jahcubite scheme, but they have only that pie that Jahcubite wanted them to have. Jahcubite sell pies all over the world Jahcubite sell pies all over the world. Sold the Pope a pie. Sold Protestant America a pie. Sold Communists East a pie, called it the red pie. Yes, the red pie. I’m getting ready to let you go now.

What does the red represent? What do they mean red? You say passions? That’s to trick you. Yes,Red means passions in the other octave. It has been played. It’s another octave. It takes on another color, it takes on another dress. It don’t keep the same dress, it says I will sell you changes. You see?Yes, it meant passions in one place, but not passions in Communist Russia, although passions are involved. It means the social life. Red means the social life. What ties me together with my brother? Blood. Blood is red. See. So people, as a social group are tied together first by blood. And they call each other brother, you see. So that’s blood.Red stands for blood. What blood? Human blood. Human blood, according to the Bible, New Testament in particular, should combine with water, which is human spirit, symbolic of human spirit.

Bring the social life too

So people should be spiritual, as well as social, according to the New Testament teaching. You shouldn’t just be blood. Christ Jesus says, “I come not of water only, but of blood also.”What does this mean? It means that before him, the people were all spiritual, but were neglecting the social development of society, the development of the relationship of person-to-person, people to people, communities to communities.He came to bring the blood, means to bring the social life up too, with the spiritual life. This is in the Scripture.So now, if the East has become red, it means that they now have gone to another … see the world was spiritual, and then it became religious.Now they are trying to get it to become all red. No spirituality, take the spirituality out of it. Make it all red, that we are social group and we are born out of materialism, so material concepts should govern us. We shouldn’t have spiritualism in our life. Give up; give out the water, only the red.

Imam W.D. Mohammed (raa)

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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A SPECIAL JOURNAL REPORT: Native women face epidemic of violence Trisha Etringer, left, and her sister, Sasha Rivers, right, console their mother, Muriel Walker, as Walker talks about her sister, Paulette Walker, who was murdered in Riverside County, California, in 1986. Trisha Etringer, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and operations director for Great Plains Action Society, talks about patterns of Indigenous women being murdered or going missing during an interview in her Sioux City home. Trisha Etringer, left, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and operations director for Great Plains Action Society, talks about patterns of Indigenous women being murdered or going missing during an interview in her Sioux City home. She is with her sister, Sasha Rivers, right, and their mother, Muriel Walker. Trisha Etringer, left, Muriel Walker, Jessica Lopez-Walker and Sasha Rivers, right, gather at the Sioux City Journal office to talk about their aunt and sister Paulette Walker, who was found murdered in a remote area of Riverside County, California, in December 1986. Trisha Etringer, left, Muriel Walker, Jessica Lopez-Walker and Sasha Rivers, right, gather at the Sioux City Journal office to talk about their aunt and sister Paulette Walker who was found murdered in a remote area of Riverside County, California, in December 1986. SIOUX CITY — When they were kids, Muriel Walker and her sister Paulie would tickle each other’s faces. Decades later, that childhood game, which the girls played after being sent up to bed early, vividly reminds Walker of her late sister. “At night, she’ll come to me. I’ll be tickling my face. I know that’s her way of comforting me,” Walker said. Paulette “Paulie” Walker, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, was found murdered in a remote area of Riverside County, California, in December 1986. No one has ever been charged in connection with the 26-year-old’s death. Muriel Walker talks about the death of her sister, Paulette Walker, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. Paulette Walker was killed in California in 1986 and her death is still unsolved. Paulie is one of the thousands of Indigenous women who have gone missing, been murdered or died under suspicious circumstances on and off reservations in the United States over the years. This national epidemic of violence gave rise to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), a growing movement that seeks to bring awareness to the issue. Three women found dead on two reservations in Northeast Nebraska last year are among the victims. Ashlea Aldrich, a 29-year-old mother of two, was found lying naked in a muddy cornfield on Jan. 7 just outside Macy, Nebraska, on the Omaha Indian Reservation. Her family said she died as a result of domestic violence, but no charges have been filed in federal court against anyone in connection with her death. Trisha Etringer, left, Muriel Walker, Jessica Lopez-Walker and Sasha Rivers, right, gather at the Sioux City Journal office to talk about their aunt and sister Paulette Walker who was found murdered in a remote area of Riverside County, California, in December 1986. Kozee Decorah, 22, was killed and her body burned on May 16 at a remote cabin on the Winnebago Indian Reservation. Her family was angered when Jonathan Rooney, her 26-year-old fiancé, was initially only facing a manslaughter charge. But, in October, Rooney’s charge was upgraded to second-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to stand trial on May 10 in U.S. District Court in Omaha. Lenice Blackbird’s decomposing body was found by one of her relatives on June 27 in a remote area of the Omaha Indian Reservation, after the 25-year-old’s mother reported her missing. Her family suspects foul play was involved. A National Institute of Justice-funded study found that 84 percent of Indigenous women report having experienced violence at some point in their lifetimes. And, in some counties, they are murdered at more than 10 times the national average. As of 2016, more than 5,700 Indigenous women and girls had been reported missing, according to the National Crime Information Center. Activists say that number is likely to be much higher, due to racial misclassification of victims and inconsistent data collection. Only 116 of those cases ended up being logged in the U.S. Department of Justice’s federal missing persons database, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute. Michael Wanbdi Gdeska O’Connor, a Native American activist and Yankton Sioux tribal member who lives in Sioux City, said the brutal crimes being committed against Native women are shocking, but not surprising, because Native Americans are in “continuous crisis,” facing not only high rates of violence, but also poverty, unemployment and social injustice. “It has always been dangerous to be Native American and it has always been open season on our lives, on our rights,” he said. “We have always lived in fear. We have always been made to feel less important.” Experts say a lack of communication and planning across jurisdictions, underfunded tribal justice systems, legal loopholes that benefit non-Native offenders, and the prevalence of sex trafficking in and around communities where Native Americans live all contribute to the disproportionately high rates of violence that Native women face. While this crisis has been largely ignored in the past, recent grassroots efforts to illuminate it have gained the attention of lawmakers. Victims’ loved ones have shared their stories, held vigils and rallies and testified before Congress. In response, the Trump administration launched the Operation Lady Justice Task Force in November 2019 to review cold cases, strengthen law enforcement protocols and work with tribes to improve investigations and information sharing in Indian Country. Then, in October, then-President Donald Trump signed into law Savanna’s Act, a bipartisan bill, to further combat the violence against Native women. Among other provisions, Savanna’s Act requires the DOJ to train law enforcement to record tribal enrollment for victims in federal databases. Support of MMIW has continued under the Biden administration. Earlier this month, Interior Secretary Debra Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, announced the formation of the Missing & Murdered Unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services. “The new MMU unit will provide the resources and leadership to prioritize these cases and coordinate resources to hold people accountable, keep our communities safe, and provide closure for families,” Haaland said in a statement issued April 1. Muriel Walker, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, holds a photograph of her sister, Paulie Walker, during an interview. She said her sister was murdered in California in 1986. Tim Hynds, Sioux City Journal Trisha Etringer, Muriel Walker’s daughter, said Indigenous people need to be the ones controlling their own data. She cited the MMIWG2 Database, which Annita Lucchesi, a Cheyenne descendent and executive director of the nonprofit Sovereign Bodies Institute, created to log cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and those who are two-spirit — a term used in some Native American cultures to describe gender-variant individuals in their communities. According to a report released by the institute in July, the database documented 2,306 cases in the United States from 1900 to 2020, of which 58 percent are homicides. “We need to have Indigenous data keepers that hold that data, because it’s sacred to us. It’s not just numbers that you throw around. These are people,” said Etringer, who serves as operations director for Great Plains Action Society — a collective of Indigenous organizers working to resist and indigenize colonial institutions, ideologies and behaviors. Walker remembered Paulie, who was a year younger than she, as a strong, caring, artistic woman. She said her sister liked to draw animals and people and was the family comedian growing up. The girls spent time in foster care, and Walker, who described herself as rather shy and timid, clung to Paulie for protection. As adults, Walker said Paulie ran to her for refuge from an abusive relationship. “She would come running to me and we would take her in, and then, she would go right back to him,” Walker said of Paulie’s boyfriend, a non-Native. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. featured_button_text In 1986, after Paulie had moved to California with her boyfriend, Walker said she received a phone call from a law enforcement officer. She said he told her Paulie had been murdered in California. Paulie’s boyfriend was a suspect, according to Walker, but she said authorities couldn’t locate him at the time. Lester Harvey, an investigator with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, said the man has since been ruled out as a suspect. “I just got that one phone call and that was it,” said Walker, who lacked the financial resources to bring her sister’s body back home. Since no one claimed her body, Paulie was buried in California. More than 30 years passed before Walker learned more details of her sister’s murder case, thanks to her daughter Jessica Lopez-Walker’s efforts. After her uncle Ben Walker’s death in December 2018, Lopez-Walker said she often thought about Paulie and how she wanted to unite her family, which had become disconnected over the years. She arranged to have her uncle buried next to her grandfather, Ernest Walker, in Winnebago and hoped to someday lay her aunt to rest there, too. “When I was growing up, I saw how it affected my mom, and I always had that in the back of my mind — I wish there was something we could do,” Lopez-Walker recalled. Lopez-Walker turned to Facebook pages operated by missing persons groups and even reached out to psychics to find her aunt. An inquiry sent to a Facebook group called “Locating The Missing” proved fruitful. On Feb. 4, 2019, Shannon Blankenship, a member of the group, reached out to Lopez-Walker, and, within 24 hours, Lopez-Walker said Blankenship had located a potential match in Riverside County. The deceased woman’s first name was Paulette. She had the same date of birth and Social Security number as Paulie, but a different last name. “My aunt was married. I don’t think we knew that when we were originally searching for her. We were looking for her under the last name Walker, and her last name was actually Steadham,” Lopez-Walker said. Two of Lopez-Walker’s aunts submitted DNA for testing in May of that year, and, in July, the results came back a match to Paulette Steadham, who was buried in Evergreen Memorial Historic Cemetery in Riverside on Feb. 10, 1987. A California Highway Patrol officer discovered Paulie’s body at 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 22, 1986, while measuring the scene of a motor vehicle crash seven miles east of State Route 195 near Chiriaco Summit in Riverside County. Harvey said the body, which was lying among some sagebrush and couldn’t been seen from the roadway, was found 90 miles away from Long Beach, the last place Paulie was reportedly seen alive. “The cause of death is asphyxia from strangulation. She had fractured cartilage in the neck,” Harvey said of Paulie, who had been staying in a motel in Long Beach with her husband before her death. “That night she was last seen, it sounded like she was possibly in an intoxicated state. Possibly, she’d been in a disagreement with somebody that she was in company with before she left and, then, she was picked up by a truck driver.” Harvey said the homicide is considered a cold case, since all viable leads have been exhausted. He said he is looking to future advances in DNA technology to bring about a break in the case. “We have quite a bit of physical evidence that has been forensically analyzed, even to recent testing trends. Even with those current trends, we have not been able to gather enough data at this point to identify a suspect or suspects,” he said. Jessica Lopez-Walker, center, refers to her notes as she talks about where her aunt Paulette Walker’s body was found in Riverside County, California, in December 1986. Lopez-Walker’s mother, Muriel Walker, left, and sister, Sasha Rivers, right, look on. Jesse Brothers, Sioux City Journal In the meantime, Lopez-Walker and her family are waiting for the process of retrieving Paulie’s remains to move forward. The tribe is assisting with the cost of disinterment, cremation and shipping, according to Lopez-Walker. “There’s all these other people who are still not claimed by their families. At least I knew where she was,” she said. Lopez-Walker hopes sharing the story of her search for her aunt can help other families find their missing loved ones. Etringer said this current epidemic of violence against Indigenous women can be traced to European colonization. “We were raped, pillaged and termed as ‘merciless Indian savages,’ so right then and there you already have the groundwork of why we’re looked at in that sense,” she said. Centuries later, Etringer said Native women are still being sexually objectified in media and pop culture. In fact, 96 percent of Native women who experienced sexual violence reported being victimized by non-Natives, according to the National Institute of Justice. The domestic violence that is occurring among some Native Americans has its roots in the boarding school era. From roughly 1860 to 1978, the U.S. government forced tens of thousands of Native children to attend boarding schools in effort to assimilate them into white society. Sasha Rivers, Etringer’s sister, said the children were beaten, raped and stripped of their language, hair and culture while at the schools. When they returned home, she said they didn’t know how to connect to their parents and the family structure was dismantled. This trauma has trickled down through the generations, according to Rivers. “How do you deal with this trauma if you’re not taught or not given the resources? You drink, or you do other toxic behaviors,” she said. “You have generations that are still trying to reconnect to their culture.” Etringer said demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline have prompted deeper conversations about the violence and what can be done to curb it. She said she gained a greater awareness of the issue while participating in protests on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in North Dakota in 2016. A year later, Etringer attended a MMIW symposium in South Dakota, and her involvement in the movement, which is symbolized by a red handprint across the mouth, has only grown from there. She goes to runs, rallies and marches to raise awareness of not only Indigenous women whose voices have been silenced by violence, but also children, relatives and two-spirit people. “Some of the stories that are shared are very triggering and they’re really sad, but I think our women, as traumatizing as it is, are gaining some sort of healing from it,” Etringer said. “From that healing, they’re able to stand up and do something about it. It may be art. It may be song. It may be prayer. It may be actually going onto the front lines and advocating for equality.” A SPECIAL JOURNAL REPORT: Questions surrounding death of Omaha Nation woman remain Dialysis unit slated to open in Walthill Authorities investigating woman’s death near Macy Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Source link Orbem News #ashleaaldrich #epidemic #Face #full-longform #greatplainsactionsociety #Journal #kozeedecorah #leniceblackbird #mmiw #native #nativeamericans #paulettewalker #Report #special #Violence #violenceagainstwomen #Women

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officerhaughtstuff · 8 years ago

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as for trivia stuff (which i will relate to wynonna earp)... do you know anything about the first nations? i kind of would love to see more of that on the show. i think aboriginal culture was mentioned maybe twice? the ep w/ the bear and i think we were supposed to see the blacksmith as part of the first nations? anyways, any interesting facts you know about first nations?

okay. so i know i know more trivia facts than these, but i blanked. so you can have 1 true trivia fact, 2 myths/legends originating from indigenous people, and 3 badass historical indigenous people to look up or maybe ask me about later:

here is the trivia fact related to aboriginal people in australia for you: despite the common myth, kangaroo does not mean “i don’t know” in aboriginal. bc first off aboriginal isnt a language or even a single fucking group. in 18th century australia there were at least 700 tribes speaking as many as 250 different languages. the word kangaroo (or gangaru) is from the guugu yimithirr language of the people who lived by Botany Bay. it means large grey/black kangaroo. big surprise. but the english used the word to refer to any kangaroo or wallaby, not just the specific one to which the people of Botany Bay were referring.

it goes further though. bc the origin of this misconception is when the English went up to the Baagandji people 14 hundred miles away and used this word. even though the people there didnt /speak/ guugu yimithirr, the Baagandji people reasonably interpreted this word as “an animal that hasn’t been seen before” bc i mean it makes the most sense. they used the word to describe the English’s horses, which they had never seen the likes of before.

here’s one myth: associated with the Tupi people, a major indigenous group in Brazil about a mermaid named Iara. well, mermaid after a sort. Iara grew up in a tribe that lived in the Amazon, the pride of her people, the best warrior, the smartest person, the most beautiful, and the daughter of the spiritual leader. she had two brothers who grew jealous of how much she overshadowed them in every way. so they decided to get down with some murder to solve their problems. they waited until she was asleep, bc theyre big brave warriors but also bc they knew if she was awake that she could take them. only they were only half right. she killed them both in self defense while still half-asleep bc she was that rad. only no one listened when she said it was in her defense, that they were trying to kill her. so her dad let the tribe hunt her down. she escaped for a while, but eventually with the whole tribe hunting her she was caught and drowned in a river. the fish, however, thought she was p rad so they turned her (dead body btw. she died. real dead. all the way. not even “mostly” dead. full stop dead dead) into a half-fish half-human. she was the first of the Iara, a whole group of mermaids that lived in Amazonian rivers. they (and Iara herself first) would entrance men so completely with their singing/general beauty and awesomeness that men would be lured to them/her. and what happened next differed. you either were drowned and eaten, or turned into a brainwashed member of their/her harem and treated fairly decently for a brainwashed harem member. if a man did escape, the Iara’s beauty would leave them literally insane.

this myth probably was a result of co-mingling of indigenous beliefs and european influence. but, as i said before, it is closely associated with the Tupi people

the second myth: this time from Mayan culture. This one relates to another myth, but the backstory is what we’re talking about here. so the other myth, to provide some reference point, is another myth that is about a demon who is the spirit of a beautiful young woman. who seduces men and kills them. bc who doesn’t love a good siren mythos? but the origin of this siren-esque mythos is interesting, much like the myth of Iara. we start with the typical virgin/whore dichotomy. this time in the form of two beautiful sisters, Utz-Colel and Xkeban. which mean “good woman” and “sinner” respectively and also inventively. i think you can figure out who was the virgin and who was the whore in this dichotomy for yourself. but! interestingly enough, thats not all there was to their personalities! which is something that not even modern media can always handle, so props to the Mayans. Xkeban, the “whore” was generous with her love. which, sure, meant she had a bunch of sex. but it also meant that she shared her love with everyone, like the poor and the needy and the sick. she’d even sell the gifts from her suitors and donate the proceeds to those in need. nice lady, is what im saying. Utz-Colel, the virgin, on the other hand, took her whole “im a good girl and a virgin and im pure and therefore better than you” thing to extremes. she wouldnt even smile at those who she thought were “unworthy”. we all know the type. we’ve all met the type. this type is, apparently, eternal. unfortunately.

then, one day, Xkeban is found dead in her home, to everyone’s surprise! but instead of your typical “rotting-corpse” smell she instead emits a beautiful fragrance, the most beautiful perfume. when she was buried sweet-smelling flowers sprang up from her grave. Utz-Colel was confused. her sister was literally the worst. a dirty sinner. how could a dirty sinner emit anything but the worst stench in death? either way, she figured, she was sure to emit a smell ten times better than her sister on her own death bc she is Pure and Good. its even in her name. Utz-Colel eventually died, as so many of us do. she died a virgin and was commended by her neighbors as being very chaste. only when she died she emitted the mother of all stenches. like “rotting corpse” stench but the dial is turned up to eleven. foul-smelling flowers are what sprang form her grave. from the afterlife Utz-Colel is confused and pretty pissed off. now, for most people this may be mildly distressing and a turning of your worldview but youre dead, whats it matter now? youve got cool afterlife shit to get up to. only Utz-Colel sucks at letting things go. so she mulls this over for a while. then comes to the exact wrong conclusion. instead of “my sister was actually pretty nice, even with all the sinning and i was kinda Terrible” she thinks “my sister clearly committed the sexiest of the sins, i gotta get in on that”. so she twists Xkeban’s generosity in all things, including love, to become Xtabay (literally “female ensnarer” what ingenious subtlety) who seduces and kills wayward men. because Utz-Colel sucks at figuring out the right lesson to learn.

the three historical people to look up:

-Malinche, who was Mayan and about whom there are conflicting stories and opinoins. be sure to look up both sides. she was influential when the Spanish met the Mayans

Osh-Tisch, who was from the Crow Nation and one of the last baté(Two Spirit spiritual leaders). Her name translates to “Finds Them and Kills Them” she was crazy brave, despite the horrible treatment white people gave to people like her. (also it would be helpful to look up Two Spirit as it is an interesting and important gender identity amongst some indigenous groups and i don’t want to do it disservice by explaining it incorrectly at 1:30am on a trivia rant)

Micaela Bastidas, who was from Peru/Bolivia and instrumental in conflicts with the Spanish there at the time. It would be a mistake to claim she was only an accessory to her husband’s goals. She was the daughter of an African man and an indigenous woman, and she was tactically gifted. She also worked closely with a Creole woman whose name I am sadly blanking on.

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ulrichfoester · 5 years ago

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How to nurture a healthy brain for life (Part 7 of Your Brain at 100)

This is part 7 of a series of lessons in brain health from our elders — those folk who lived the longest and healthiest. Click here to download the entire series as a PDF

Dementia, memory loss and cognitive decline are robustly related to old age, and AD is one of the leading causes of death globally. So, is the payoff for a longer life memory loss and poor brain health in our final years?

To answer this question, I’ve look to two sources — those exceptionally old folks who remain in robust physical and mental health until the very end of their lives, and our evolutionary past.

Over millennia, Mother Nature has equipped us to survive and thrive in the wild. Our brains evolved such that from the womb to the tomb we’re required to move, eat well, sleep, immerse ourselves in nature, avoid stress, love and befriend, and seek meaning. These requirements neatly match the everyday life prescriptions followed by the world’s longest-living people.

Prevention is our best defence and the research on dementia is clear. Those of us who lead mentally, socially and physically stimulating lives have reduced risk of age-related brain disease. If we live as close as possible to how Mother Nature intended, while reaping the rewards of our modern healthcare, there is every chance we can add not only years to our lives but life to our years.

Our human ancestors likely evolved facing similar survival challenges to other species.

Whereas the need to acquire food was a major day-to-day challenge during much of our evolutionary history, today we live with a constant oversupply of food.

Today, our intellectual challenges focus on work or education, rather than the challenge of acquiring food.

Neuroscientist and ageing researcher, Prof Mark P. Mattson writers in Ageing Brain Reviews.

Regular intellectual challenges are critical for brain development and a successful career, and recent findings suggest that intermittent exercise and energy restriction can further enhance and then sustain the functional capabilities of the brain during aging.

Rather like an animal in the wild, our intellect evolved to function optimally when we’re motivated towards a goal, slightly hungry, and on foot, a state Mattson likens to ‘Hunger Games’ bolstered brainpower.

In a 2017 Trends in Neurosciences paper, University of Arizona researchers David Raichlen and Gene Alexander support Mattson’s case that our brains are a product of our evolutionary history and our past as hunter-gatherers.

They argue as humans transitioned from a relatively sedentary ape-like existence to a more physically demanding hunter-gatherer lifestyle, starting around two million years ago, we began to engage in complex foraging tasks that were simultaneously physically and mentally demanding, and that may explain how moving and thinking came to be so connected.

Notably, the parts of the brain most taxed during high cognitive load tasks such as foraging (the pre-frontal cortex, hippocampus and entorhinal cortex) are the same areas that show vulnerability in Alzheimer’s disease.

When faced with inactivity as is so common in our modern-day life, our brains adaptively reduce capacity as part of an energy-saving strategy, leading to age-related brain atrophy…

The evidence from modern science and ancient wisdom is clear. How we eat, move, sleep, form relationships and find meaning is intimately connected to how our brains grow, think, feel and, ultimately, age.

1. The best exercise for your brain is physical exercise

Our brains and nervous systems evolved to move us around and to sense and perceive the world. Our cognitive prowess and human intellect evolved while we were on foot. Our brains evolved, not to think or feel, but to control how we move. Therefore, moving is the best way we know to keep our brains fit and well.

A Canadian review of twenty-four randomised control trials and twenty-one prospective cohort studies calculated that at least one in seven cases of AD could be prevented if everyone who is currently inactive took up exercise.

People living in Blue Zones people don’t run marathons, wear Fitbits, or join Crossfit gyms. Instead, they live in environments that constantly ‘nudge’ them into moving without thinking about it. Jeanne Calment rode her bike till she was 100, and lived in a second-story apartment with no lift until she was 110.

2. Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants

Our ancestors and their smart brains were trotting across the landscape hunting, fishing and foraging for food. We evolved to eat food from the rivers, forest and sky. We are also adaptable, and the many versions of a healthy ‘diet’ vary by country, culture (and today by social media platform). What sets those who live the longest apart is not the minutiae of their diet and balance of nutrients gained from fats, protein or carbohydrates, but the absence of refined processed foods.

Evidence from epidemiological studies such as the Blue Zones and clinical trials strongly implicates a Mediterranean-style diet slows brain ageing.

And most recently, a clinical trial in Australia proved successful in treating depression by encouraging young people with depression to up their consumption of vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, legumes, fish, lean red meats, olive oil and nuts, while reducing their consumption of unhealthy ‘extras’ foods, such as sweets, refined cereals, fried food, fast-food, processed meats and sugary drinks.

When we eat, we’re consuming not only nutrients but energy in the form of calories. Researchers, such as the Dunedin Study team, are now unravelling the relationships among calories, lifespan, healthspan and cognitive health. Calorie restriction (eating less) and intermittent fasting (fasting on and off) increases longevity in all species thus far observed, from yeast to rodents to primates — it’s assumed the same is true for us.

This notion ties back to the ‘Hunger Games’ concept whereby our brains evolved to function most optimally when we’re hungry and looking for food. Eating less benefits our glucose control, cholesterol and may produce mild neuronal stress which engages signalling pathways that improve the ability of the brain to resist ageing.

Dietary advice for brain health can be summed up by Michael Pollen’s famous adage,

Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants.

3. Get more sleep

As earthlings, our biological rhythms are determined by the rising and setting of the sun. Our sleep patterns, when hormones are released, our blood pressure and body temperature, ebb and flow in sync with day and night.

Modern-day life with its artificial lighting late at night, alarm clocks, shift work, iPhones in bed, and jetlag, is very good at interfering with our natural sleep patterns. As a basic biological function, sleep is overlooked and underappreciated, and globally, modern humans are chronically sleep-deprived.

Sleep deprivation (even a few hours a night) impacts cognition, mood, memory, and learning, and long-term leads to chronic disease including depression, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, all risk factors for developing dementia.

A good night’s sleep every night should be a priority, not a luxury. And my personal daily indulgence, a short afternoon nap, consolidates memory, sparks creativity and smooths your rough emotional edges, giving you greater control over your thoughts and feelings.

4. Challenge your mind

Lab mice kept in bare cages with no toys or places to explore show greater rates of age-related cognitive decline compared to their counterparts kept in enriched novel environments full of toys, tunnels and mazes. As we’ve discussed, humans are no different.

People who stay mentally engaged in life and constantly challenge themselves to step out of their comfort zone have reduced risk of age-related cognitive decline and dementia.

Children have a natural tendency to run and play, whereas adults tend take life more seriously. We don’t lose the need for novelty and pleasure once we grow up. Game playing, whether it be video or online, traditional board games, dancing, or team or individual sports, has been shown to alleviate boredom, anxiety, depression, loneliness, despair and even physical pain.

As Charlene Levitan said to me,

We don’t stop playing and learning because we get old, we grow old because we stop playing and learning.

5. Find your place or moment of calm

One pervasive theme I came across writing my book was how stress ‘gets under our skin’ to influence our mental and physical health decades later.

Not all stress is bad, but chronic or toxic stress, especially life events that are out of our control, have deleterious effects.

The key to buffering stress is to find ways to improve your perceived ability to cope with whatever life throws your way. Find peace amid the chaos. Find your place or moment of calm.

The evidence is mixed whether or not stress causes dementia, but it’s clear stress hormones alter risk for anxiety, depression, obesity and cardiovascular disease, which in turn increase dementia risk. 292

More has been spoken or written about the practice of mindfulness meditation in recent years than any other previously free stress-relief practice. With good reason. Paying attention to your breath, which is a core component of many mindfulness practices, reduced anxiety and depression, and improves sleep.

Blue Zones people have in place varied daily rituals that reduce or buffer the impact of stress in their lives. Activities include prayer, napping and happy hour with friends. (I’ll add walking the dog or enjoying a good book to the mix.)

6. Connect with family and friends

After we foraged, caught or hunted our food, we trotted back to our tribe. Being socially connected to other people protects against stress and because socialising involves many cognitive functions such as thinking, feeling, sensing, reasoning and intuition, friendships contribute to cognitive reserve.

Old age brings ‘costs of survivorship,’ and a ‘thinned’ social landscape. Richard Setterson writes,

We lose people with whom we shared many experiences, who are central to our identities, and who are no longer there to validate — or to question — our memories or accounts. This kind of identity loss also occurs with the death of older generations, as we are pushed up the family ladder and, once at the top, become orphans in time.

A 2010 meta-analysis of 148 studies including 300 000 people who were tracked for 7.5 years after completing surveys of how often they met with family and friends, found socially connected folks live longer.

On the flipside, loneliness was associated with late-life loss of cognition, including elevated blood pressure, depression and poor sleep. The startling conclusion of this report was that the influence of social isolation on the health and risk of death was comparable to smoking.

7. Seek out meaning and purpose

With purpose and meaning comes positive emotions — love, compassion, and appreciation — which counteract stress and support a healthy brain throughout life. Blue Zones residents are members of faith communities and find meaning and purpose through spirituality. Living a meaningful life seems an unlikely addition to a book about the brain, but ‘purpose in life’ is a concept in neuroscience that links to robust brain and mind health.

Purpose, defined as the tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and to possess a sense of intentionality and goal-directedness that guides behaviour, can be quantified.

A study published in Archives of General Psychiatry in 2010 examined the association of purpose in life with risk of AD in more than 900 elderly people living in residential care. During the seven years of follow-up, greater purpose in life was associated with a substantially reduced risk of AD, such that a person with a high score on the purpose in life measure was approximately two and half times more likely to remain free of AD than a person with a low score.

Have you figured out why you’re here?

What’s your north star? Your ‘ikigai’. Your ‘plan de vida’? There are possibly many clever strategies to find meaning of your life — somewhere in the nexus of passion, skillset, employment opportunity, education and service to others. William James the psychologist said in 1920,

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

Recently I’ve come across a simpler way. Over the years, I’ve taken taken stage with Paul Baldock, a bone biologist at Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research. We called on to share our wisdom, purpose and what we’ve learned on our career paths in science. Baldock has developed a novel formula for every decision he makes in the research lab, career, and life. He simply asks,

Is it awesome? Does it help?

This is part 7 of a series of lessons in brain health from our elders — those folk who lived the longest and healthiest. Click here to download the entire series as a PDF

The post How to nurture a healthy brain for life (Part 7 of Your Brain at 100) appeared first on Your Brain Health.

How to nurture a healthy brain for life (Part 7 of Your Brain at 100) published first on https://familycookwareshop.tumblr.com/

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7r0773r · 6 years ago

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The Witness by Juan José Saer

Children blame the intransigence of the world on their own callowness and lack of knowledge; they think that far off on the other side of the ocean, on the farther shore of experience, the fruit is more succulent, more real, the sun yellower and kinder, men’s actions and words more intelligible, clear-cut and just. (pp. 9-10)

***

The unknown is an abstraction; the known, a desert; but what is half-known, half-seen, is the perfect breeding ground for desire and hallucination. (p. 10)

***

The fundamental vice of all human beings is the desire to stay alive and in good health no matter what, to make real our images of hope whatever the cost. (p. 13)

***

I think that was the first time — aged all of fifteen — that an idea with which I am now familiar first occurred to me: namely that the memory of an event is not sufficient proof that it really happened, just as the memory of a dream that we believe we had in the past, many years or months before the moment in which we remember it, is not sufficient proof that the dream took place in the distant past rather than the night before the day on which we recall it, or even that it occurred before the precise moment we state that it has occurred. For me, despite the physical fact of their bodies piled up at the foot of the river bank, by the edge of the water, the captain and my companions had already disappeared for ever from my life. Up until that moment I had had no time to feel compassion for them — or for myself either. I felt light, almost as if I did not exist at all, and events, however tenuous and fleeting, now picked me up and carried me with them as my strong, impassive escorts had done before. (pp. 31-32)

***

Every life is a well of loneliness that only grows deeper with the passing years. (p. 34)

***

There are many days, hours and minutes in ten years. Many deaths and births too. As I was changed and shaped by the flow of time, what had seemed strange to me when I stepped on to the beach that first night slowly became familiar. It is hard for any of us to locate our past with any certainty in a precise moment in time and space. Coming as I do from nothingness, I find the reality of my past even more problematic. No human life is longer than those last seconds of lucidity that precede death. Twenty, thirty, sixty, or even ten thousand years of past life are of the same duration, the same reality. However huge the fire the only truth it leaves is ashes. But there is in every life one decisive moment, which is, no doubt, also pure illusion, but which nonetheless gives us our definitive shape. It is an illusion slightly more substantial than the others, which is given to us so that when we proffer it as an explanation, we have some sense of what the word ‘life’ means. I was soft clay when I reached those dreamlike shores and adamantine rock when I left, despite the fact that given my age now, my time there was relatively short and even though in the years that followed I have apparently lived a life which others might think significant and interesting. (pp. 88-89)

***

There can be no doubt that when we forget, it is not so much a memory we lose as our desire to remember it. Nothing is innate in us. However neutral and grey the new life we accumulate, it is still enough to cause our most steadfast hopes, our most intense desires to crumble. Experience is heaped on us in spadefuls like the final earth on a coffin in its damp grave. In short, two or three years after my arrival it was as if I had never lived anywhere else. There was nothing but the pliable present, on which we struggle to impose our valiant but feeble lucidity, and a future which promised not novelty but more of the same. (p. 90)

***

[Father Quesada] said to me once, shortly before he died, that there are two types of suffering: in the first the sufferer knows he is suffering and is aware that while he suffers a better life, whose taste still lingers in his memory, is being slowly conjured away from him; in the second the sufferer is unaware that he suffers but to that person the world, even in its humblest manifestations, seems a scorched and deserted place as he passes through it. (p. 111)

***

It was not the impossibility of the other world that terrified them but the impossibility of this one. (p. 124)

***

They tended and protected this world, trying to increase or rather maintain its reality. If storms or fire demolished huts, if water rotted the canoes, if constant use wore out or broke things, it was because the insidious hidden face of the world, all non-existence and blackness (which is the ultimate truth of all things ) had broken its natural bounds and was beginning to gnaw away at the visible world. (p. 132)

***

The Indians knew, as surely as night follows day, that the force that drove them out towards the far horizon in search of human flesh was not the desire to devour the inexistent but the more ancient, more deep-rooted desire to eat one another. They were thus the cause and the object of that anxiety. They knew themselves without knowing it and they carried out acts whose meaning, they knew, was not what it appeared to be. The true aim of those acts was rather the pursuit of what was apparently the least likely and furthest removed object of their desire: themselves. Although doubtless they never clearly acknowledged it, they knew the real purpose behind their expeditions. In their quest for the taste they had once known, they took an immensely circuitous detour to the outside world. For a while this simulacrum satisfied them. They allowed themselves to fall, drunk and blind, into the blackness in order to emerge slowly into a brighter, more orderly day which, with the passing of another year, would in turn degenerate. They did not want to think about those events because they had experienced them from the inside and had no illusions about what really lay behind them. Somewhat incredulous at the persistence of that recurring hunger which each time they thought to have sated once and for all, they resorted, as a tribe, to concocting an elaborate explanation which set out as plain as day the irrefutable proof of their existence and their innocence. But, however convincing the proofs they came up with, they could not erase something they carried with them from the start. They only half-deceived themselves. They had been party to a blind pact in which they, the underdogs, always came off worst. For them the world could not be of much value because they knew that in their essential actions even the only true men, those who seemed to have hauled themselves up out of the dark, still trailed the dark, sticky dough of formlessness, into whose swamp no steady, continuous light could penetrate. (pp. 140-410)

***

Bent over him in the morning sun, I watched him dying. Unlike the other memory, which is made up of many different experiences which have fused to form a single image in my memory, this one is unique because the death of every man is unique and it was that man and no other who was dying. In this respect death and memory are identical: they are unique to each man, and men who think that because they have shared similar experiences with others they therefore share common memories fail to realize that everyone’s memories are different and that they are condemned to the solitude of those memories as surely as they are to the solitude of their own death. Those memories are a prison for each man in which he remains confined from birth to death. They are his death. It is because of their uniqueness that each man dies, because that is what dies, that is what is transient and never reborn in others, that is what amongst the crowds is doomed to die: the unique memories which feed the illusion of a shared rememberer whom death will ultimately erase. And that morning I learned from the battered man, now scarcely breathing, that virtue cannot save us from the surrounding blackness. Even if we have the courage to find our way through one night, a little way off another longer night awaits us. In vain he had, in calmer days, striven to be good; the gaping mouth over which he danced, innocent and poised, devoured him anyway. Our lives are lived in a place of terrible indifference which recognizes neither virtue nor vice and annihilates us all without compunction, without apportioning good or evil. At midday the man at last stopped breathing. Amidst blue sky, green leaves, golden river and yellow sand, he became just a blurred, nameless blotch, as if the extravagant outward show of the world about us had plundered him of his breath and his very substance and rendered it up to the light. (pp. 157-58)

#juan josé saer #book quotes

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reddirtramblings · 6 years ago

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Before settlers crossed the Mississippi River and literally ran for 160-acre plots in one of several Oklahoma land runs in the late 1800s, much of the territory’s western half was covered in mixed prairie grasses. In what became Oklahoma Territory, the Osage, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche and Apache tribes hunted bison and other animals. Oklahoma’s diverse landscape, including its glorious grasses, made such hunting possible because prairie and forest plants provided cover and forage for animals like bison, elk, bear, rabbits, squirrels, turkeys, and white-tailed deer. On the eastern side of Indian Territory, the land was wooded with blackjack oaks, eastern cottonwoods, post and pin oaks, and many other tree species. Being rocky and hard to develop, much of it is still very wooded today.

1892 Map of Oklahoma and Indian Territories courtesy of the Library of Congress.

I live at the junction between the prairie and the forest in what is now Logan County, a green section at the center of the map above. Each day, I wake up grateful that I own 7.5 acres of land where I continue to work in a garden that’s become a pollinator and bird habitat. Lizards, snakes and frogs like it too. It’s always a work in progress, and that’s what makes gardening such a fascinating hobby. You never run out of things to learn.

And, one thing I’ve learned over the last ten years is that glorious grasses help me build my own little corner of the prairie.

[Click on photos in the galleries to make them larger.]

Grasses and other plants in my garden midsummer of 2013. It looks similar now, but the chairs are painted purple. I could no longer find French blue paint.

Pennisetum purpureum ‘Fireworks’ with Phlox paniculata ‘Bright Eyes’ behind. See how great they go with my purple chairs?

Tallgrass prairie once covered 14 states throughout the central part of the United States. On November 12, 1996, the Nature Conservancy purchased the Chapman-Barnard Ranch covering 29,000 acres near Pawhuska, Oklahoma. This purchase helped form what is now the 39,650 acres of the Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve near Pawhuska, Oklahoma, once part of the Cherokee Outlet and the Osage lands in the above map and stretching into southern Kansas.

Bill and I have visited the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve numerous times in various seasons. It is a source of respite and inspiration to me in my own garden. I especially notice this In late summer and early fall. Grasses that have been providing background support for the rest of our landscape now take center stage. Ornamental grasses are at their full height and sport fully-formed seedheads. The prairie is a thing of true beauty in any season, but in fall, it is magical. Ornamental grasses breathe life into a garden. Let them breathe life into yours.

Good old Miscanthus sinensis, maiden grass in my garden. It is next to Blush Knockout rose. Although M. sinensis is invasive in some parts of the U.S., it has never moved from this spot in my garden. I also use ‘Adagio’ in another spot.

How can you replicate some of the tallgrass prairie for your home? One way is by strategically planting grasses. Although the Great American Prairie is composed of a multitude of plants, grasses are its living backbone providing structure for three seasons out of the year. The only time ornamental grasses don’t look good is in late winter/early spring when just cut back. However, the plants surrounding them will shelter grasses until they begin to grow. Grasses are relatively unobtrusive unless you have an entire row of a particular grass as I do with my pink muhly grass.

Muhlenbergia capillaris ‘Lenca’ Regal Mist, pink muhly grass, with Salvia leucantha, Mexican bush sage peeking through.

Even then, the grasses don’t look bad. They just don’t look like anything.

Bouteloua gracilis ‘Blonde Ambition’ blue grama grass. I grow it in pure gravel, and only water it occasionally in summer.

Many varieties of grass are simple to grow. In fact, in some climates, they can be invasive, but we haven’t seen that in Oklahoma. You can grow many by seed, or by purchasing container grown plants in the spring or fall. Although I have grown some by seed, I prefer to buy plants to get things more quickly established. Some of the ones I grow are native. Others are not. I tend to choose grasses based upon what I need in a particular space. I then surround them with other prairie plants attractive to pollinators and birds. Although I still love roses and grow them, Rose Rosette Disease wiped out many of my rose shrubs. I will never plant a rose in the same spot for a variety of reasons, and I’ve found grasses are wonderful for rose replacement although I’ve also planted numerous fruiting shrubs for the birds too.

Grasses require some garden work, but it isn’t onerous.

Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Ginger Love’ is a dwarf fountain grass that I love more than ‘Hameln,’ although I grow ‘Hameln’ too.

Grasses come is many different heights. Among the shortest are Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Hameln’ and ‘Ginger Love’ dwarf fountain grasses. I love these small grasses for the front of the garden bed. In fact, I bought two more one-gallon containers of ‘Hameln,’ and I’ve planted them in the front of the garage border. Schizachyrium scoparium ‘Standing Ovation’ is a shorter little bluestem grass. I have trouble growing bluestem grasses, tall or small, in my garden probably because I water more than they like. I use drip irrigation, but I also have years like this one where Oklahoma received tons of rain. Bluestem grasses do not like too much rain or enriched soils. I have both at various times. I also can’t grow Festuca glauca ‘Elijah Blue’ fescue.

No one can grow everything, and that’s okay.

Panicum virgatum ‘Northwind’ up close. See all those shades of yellow?

P. virgatum ‘Northwind’ turning bright yellow.

P. virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ with a crapemyrtle behind.

I have tremendous success with the native switchgrasses, and I grow several from tall ‘Northwind’ to the shorter ‘Heavy Metal’ and ‘Cheyenne Skies.’ At eight or nine feet, ‘Cloud Nine’ is one of the tallest switchgrasses available. At the present time, panicums are probably my favorite grasses. They’ve performed so well in the garden that I’ve been able to split them several times. All of the switchgrasses turn beautiful colors in the fall with some being more yellow and others more purple. They are perennial.

Rosa ‘September Song’ with P. virgatum ‘Cheyenne Skies’ behind it.

Speaking of purple grasses, for pure theater, I don’t think you can beat Pennisetum purpureum ‘Fireworks.’ I’ve grown this grass in pots on the deck and in the borders for years. I especially love it with coleus and Phlox paniculata ‘Bright Eyes.’ Such a beautiful combination. Purple fountain grass is not perennial in Zone 7, but also check out ‘Princess Caroline’ for a large focal point.

Pennisetum purpureum ‘Fireworks’ with Phlox paniculata ‘Bright Eyes’ behind. See how great they go with my purple chairs?

Pennisetum purpureum with purple heart and coleus at Bustani Plant Farm.

Another view of ‘Campfire’ coleus and purple fountain grass in the terraces. The trees are still small, but they will get bigger each year eventually providing windbreaks and shade.

The very gorgeous Pennisetum ‘Princess Caroline’ is a showstopper next to Hibiscus ‘Maple Sugar’ and Senorita Blanca® cleome.

Dramatic dark grass at OSU Botanical Gardens. Might be ‘Princess Caroline’ or Vertigo.

If you want a nice tall grass with large plumes, consider Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Overdam,’ a variegated selection. If you can’t find ‘Overdam,’ try ‘Karl Foerster.’ I’m growing it along a fenced border in the back garden as a kind of screen. It’s going to take a while to fill in. I like larger grass clumps at the edge of my gardens because they dissuade deer from entering the space. They don’t like the swishing noise or that they cannot see.

Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ with the very late-blooming and tall Hemerocallis ‘Autumn Minaret’ daylilies.

Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Overdam.’ In front of the grass is Penstemon smallii ‘Violet Dusk.’

I mustn’t forget Mexican feather grass either. Although it is invasive in some climates, it is well-behaved here. I do have to replant it periodically because it tries to die out. I love how the plumes swish with the wind. Is there anything better?

Mexican feather grass and other plants, native and non-native make up a the palette used by Piet Oudolf.

Phlox divaricata, woodland phlox with Mexican feather grass planted in a shallow border. I lined the border with Nassella tenuissima, Mexican feather grass because it softens the concrete.

Nassella tenuissima, Mexican feather grass, planted along the edge of a border softens the concrete blocks.

Side border next to the deck has Tightwad Wad crapemyrtles, Little Lime® and Quick Fire® hydrangeas. There are also daylilies and Mexican feather grass in this border.

Try some glorious grasses in your garden, and you’ll see what I mean.

Glorious grasses Before settlers crossed the Mississippi River and literally ran for 160-acre plots in one of several Oklahoma land r…

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2traveldads-blog · 7 years ago

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New York City is a lot of things, and one thing it’s not is boring. Even when visiting NYC with small kids it’s fun and interesting. Us Dads were particularly interested in checking out the historic side of New York when we were there and it didn’t disappoint. Visiting historic sites in NYC was fun and fascinating, particularly in Lower Manhattan.

New York is one of the oldest cities in the United States, and with that comes some of the most important sites in our country’s history. We only visited about half of what we wanted to, but the following historic sites in NYC are plenty for giving you a taste of American history and a feel for the importance of New York through the centuries.

Visiting historic sites in NYC with kids

Before we dig into our favorite historic sites in NYC we want to encourage you to have some conversations with your kids (or whoever is visiting with you) to give a little background or perspective around what you’re going to visit. Not everybody knows the history of the USA and to understand the gravity of the sites and stories, you need a little context. Maybe this is a great chance to exercise your research muscles and get to visit some National Park sites!

Wall Street and the neighborhood

Wall Street is more than the stock exchange, even though that’s a huge part of it. It’s the main street of Old New York. The narrow streets are reminiscent of European city streets. The structures are a mix of modern architecture, new Gothic, Greek revival, and just perfect NYC.

From Bowling Green and the Charging Bull to the random old tavern house that our hotel was built around, the Wall Street neighborhood is unlike any other. Probably what makes it so interesting to walk through and explore is that the sites and names are all ones you’ve heard your whole life, that you’ve seen on the news or read about once.

We would happily choose the Wall Street neighborhood as our home base for our next trip to the Big Apple. The historic sites in NYC are largely concentrated here, so it makes for an easy place to start and end your day.

Subway trains in the Wall Street neighborhood include:

R 1 2 3 4 5 J Z – Primary subway stations to be familiar with are Wall St, Rector, Bowling Green and Broad/Wall. And know that there is Wall St and Wall St Station (east of 55 Wall).

Single-train sites from Wall Street/Lower Manhattan

Penn Station (1 @ Rector); Union Square (14th via 1 @Rector); Brooklyn ( 2/3 @ Wall St Station); Central Park South (R/W @ Rector East); Herald Square (R/W @ Rector East); The Met (exit 77th via 4/5/6 @ Bowling Green)

Federal Hall National Memorial

Unless you’re researching historic sites in NYC you might not have ever head of Federal Hall National Memorial. “It doesn’t sound very exciting.” No, it’s not exciting but it’s interesting and gives you a sense of place in the history of the United States.

Federal Hall on Wall St in NYC was were George Washington, first President of the United States, was sworn into office. It also served as the treasury and other government offices, but what makes it so cool to visit is this strange tingle in your soul when you think about all of the world-shaping people who have walked across that same marble floor. Yeah, try to explain that concept to a little kid. 😉

Best time to visit: visit when Federal Hall National Monument first opens. It’s not an immensely popular attraction, but photographing the hall with minimal people makes for some cool shots.

Subway Station: 2/3 trains stop @ Wall St Station which is directly across the street. Wall St subway stop at Trinity Church is one block up.

Trinity Church

Before you visit New York and seek out all the historic sites in NYC, rent National Treasure. It’s an okay movie, but what’s really cool is when they go to Trinity Church on Wall St. It is one of the oldest churches in New York City and has been very well preserved. It is the building with the longest continual use in NYC. The inside is absolutely beautiful and if you’re lucky you’ll even get to experience the church choir practicing. Services are open to the public too if you’re interested.

Most of the churches we visit are historic missions so Trinity was very different and the kids noticed. What it did have in common with the missions we’ve been to is the adjoining cemetery.

Trinity Church Cemetery

Cemeteries are always kind of strange to visit and we don’t hit up too many of them with the kids, but this particular one has some iconic graves. Rapidly becoming one of the most popular historic sites in NYC, the Trinity Church cemetery is the burial ground of Alexander Hamilton, a man of both great historical and Broadway significance. Robert Fulton, the inventor of the paddlewheel river boat, and several other historic figures are also buried here.

Tip: check the schedule either at the church or online and try to get onto a guided tour. The tour covers both the old church and the cemetary, so it’s a great way to learn a little extra while checking out this wonderful historic site.

Subway Station: 4/5 trains stop at Wall St and the exit/entrance is directly outside of Trinity Church. Rector station is one or two blocks west for 1/R/W.

National Archives and the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian

We didn’t plan on visiting the National Archives when we were in New York, but then we realized that the Customs House, a beautiful historic building in itself, is also home to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. Wow. What a place.

We’ve talked to the kids a little bit about their heritage but not a tone. Visiting the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian opened up a whole new conversation with the kids and they were able to put together what heritage is in relation to their own lives (or at least our oldest did).

Highlights of the Museum of the American Indian included the performance hall which was full of traditional clothing and headdresses, displayed to showcase many of the tribes of North America, including our tribes: the Lakota and Blackfoot; and the artifact rooms.

Tip: if you haven’t talked to your kids about or if you have a visitor from outside the USA, giving a brief history of the decimation of the native tribes is very important before visiting the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. The exhibits do not give much history or context when it comes to how tribes were relocated or exterminated. Those conversations are very important to have and keep in mind when visiting a museum like this.

Also in the Customs House building is a branch of the National Archives. If you visit the Archives in Washington, DC you’ll get to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The collection here at the NYC National Archives is not as famous or comprehensive and is much more functional, particularly relating to immigration history.

Subway Station: 5 train to Bowling Green is right in front of the Customs House building and the South Ferry station is one block away for trains 1/R/W.

Visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

The Statue of Liberty is a bucket list item for so many travelers, both from the USA and internationally. It’s not as simple to visit as you might think though, so be sure to read everything following to make sure you have the best visit… and that you actually CAN visit.

Planning for Ellis and Liberty Islands

While it may seem like an easy task to get yourself out to the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island, it takes planning. The big things to know are these:

Statue Cruises is the only authorized vendor to land at Liberty Island – don’t book something else

The ticket to visit the Statue of Liberty INCLUDES going to Ellis Island also

If you want to do the Pedestal or climb into the Statue of Liberty crown, that’s a separate cost and it sells out fast. Book that online as soon as you know when you’ll be visiting.

Get to Castle Clinton to check in for you transportation as early in the day as possible. The security wait could acctually be several hours, as could the ticket purchase line if you didn’t get them in advance.

If you purchase a CityPASS, the correct Statue Cruise is a part of that ticket, but you still need to visit the ticket office to convert it to an actual ticket, and that has a very long line too.

As long as you’ve planned your visit and are ready to invest a chunk of time, you’ll have a great time exploring Liberty and Ellis Islands. Be sure to dress warmly if you’re visiting October through April and remember that even if it’s a beautiful day, the wind chill on the boat or islands can still be super chilly.

Schedule tip: if you are buying your Statue Cruises tickets in person, know that you can get them and then come back first thing the next day (or even a few days after) and then you’ll just have to go through security. You don’t have to wait through multiple hours of lines if you don’t want to.

Subway stations: 1/R/W to South Ferry at Battery Park or 5 to Bowling Green station are the closest to Castle Clinton, which is where you’ll catch the boat to the islands.

Ellis Island National Monument

I remember visiting Ellis Island National Monument when I was a kid and not understanding it in the slightest. Then I visited as an adult and had the knowledge of US history and immigration, but still didn’t totally get it. And then I visited wtih my family and truly got it. The emotion of being at Ellis Island with my husband and children and thinking just for a moment about the thousands of other families who came through, or parents who came to America in hopes of bringing their kids to the USA… It was kind of heavey to experience.

Also, of all the historic sites in NYC Ellis Island is probably the most relateable and connected to anybody who’s family has been in the United States for several generations. While not everyone who immigrated to the USA went through Ellis Island, more than __________ did.

When you consider visiting Ellis Island with kids, know that there will be much more to check out than you’ll probably want to. The best exhibits to do with kids are the ones that they’ll most likely understand or engage with. Suggestions:

Baggage room

Registry room

Through America’s Gates

Treasures from Home

Statue of Liberty National Monument

One day we’ll write a more detailed article about visiting the Statue of Liberty, as it is one of the most iconic of the historic sites in NYC… but we weren’t able to do two of the sections of Statue of Liberty National Monument, so we’ll share more once we’ve done that.

Visitng Liberty Island is still really cool even if you don’t get to do the tours within Lady Liberty. You can walk the full circle of the island, take some amazing pictures, take in the views of New York City, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ellis Island and more. The primary highlight of visiting the Statue of Liberty is truly just taking her in. The site is overwhelming and so special to many Americans, newly immigrated and not.

Tip: be sure to either complete the Junior Ranger sheets in advance or do it while you’re on Liberty Island. Due to the number of visitors, the Park Rangers will not allow you to take Junior Ranger badges in advance of completing the packet.

Other NPS or historic sites in NYC that you’ll find in the Lower Manhattan neighborhood (or close by) include:

Castle Clinton National Monument – a few exhibits within the historic structure at Battery Park where you do Statue of Liberty tickets

President Ulysses S Grant’s tomb – on the Upper West Side at Riverside Park

The Brooklyn Bridge – you can easily access the Brooklyn Bridge from the Lower East Side if you want to walk across the iconic historic NYC site.

New York City with kids can be kind of an overload, but with some good planning and prioritizing a family trip can be unforgettable. Working in the historic NYC sites is a great way to add variety and learning to a trip to the Big Apple.

Want to pin this for your own NYC trip planning? Go for it!

Lower Manhattan: visiting historic sites in NYC with kids New York City is a lot of things, and one thing it’s not is boring. Even when visiting NYC with small kids it’s fun and interesting.

#American History #Ellis Island #Lower Manhattan #Manhattan #NYC #Smithsonian #Statue of Liberty #Wall Street

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nerdybookahs · 8 years ago

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Folk Tale has been in development and in Steam Early Access for a long time already and this is where a lot of the negative reviews are coming from. The developer, GamesFoundry, has steadily been working on the game and there have been regular updates (game updates as well as communication!) in all that time (please note: I’m using the experimental build which gets updated even more often). So I personally never thought the game to be abandoned (but I do understand people getting impatient). However, this is not going to be the focus of my blog post. What has been or what will be one day isn’t important if you are now sitting here wondering: Should I buy this game? So I will instead focus on this: “What do you get for your money right now?”

For those of you who have never even heard of Folk Tale before: It’s a kind of city-builder / simulation game with some RPG features set in a medieval-fantasy world. Kind of like the Settlers or Cultures. It’s in real-time and apart from managing your city, you also need to defend it from beasts and enemies. So it is not like Cities: Skylines where you focus on building but never have to worry about getting attacked. The game is in its alpha stage on Steam Early access and costs $19.99€. If this is too much for you, you can also wait for a sale.

Folk Tale offers a tutorial, a campaign, a sandbox mode and the editor. The FAQ says that Act I of the campaign is already finished with Act II “nearing completion”. I will try to avoid spoilers here for the story campaign, of course! But let’s start with the bit that a new player would probably start with as well:

The Tutorial

Folk Tale has one, despite being in Early Access, and it’s even voiced already! The tutorial is quite long and detailed and as far as I can tell (as somebody who isn’t new to the genre), it explains everything you need to know.

It is basically a little campaign with some nice humour introducing you to the game and the setting. You start by slowly building the foundation of your village. It’s the typical way of doing things in such games: You have a build menu where you can choose certain buildings like the woodcutter hut or the fishing hut. You need free, peasants (unoccupied villagers) to build a building and you need a certain amount of resources (wood, stone etc. depending on what you want to build). The buildings need villagers who work there and you can choose which of them is the lucky one to get the job. You increase your population by building more huts. If your villagers are happy in general, then new villagers will come when you have the capacity (that is, when you’ve got enough huts). Villagers can also be dissatisfied (e. g., when they’re hungry) and I guess this means no new villagers are coming or they will come very slowly. Either way, your villagers can apparently also revolt and the crime increases. I read something about villagers burning down buildings when that happens… Speaking of burning: Make sure to build a well soon! I didn’t do that (though that wasn’t in the tutorial, but in a sandbox game) and then I could do nothing but watch three buildings burn down. If a fire breaks out, the building slowly burns down unless you have a well and a peasant to run to the well, grab water, run to the building and extinguish the fire. Fire can also travel to nearby buildings. In other words, if extinguishing doesn’t happen or takes too long, more houses will start to burn. That’s why I lost three buildings at once.

Back to the tutorial village: You’re asked to build a windmill, wheat fields and a bakery after the woodcutter hut. Once that is done, your village’s needs are basically covered as they won’t freeze or starve. That’s when Ser Gregory appears! Folk Tale isn’t the peaceful city-building game. It features mobs to kill and loot to gain! Ser Gregory is one of the heroes that you get who will fight for you against the various enemies on your map. More on these heroes later, though. For now, it’s time to leave the tutorial and take a look at the other parts of the game…

The Campaign

As I mentioned above, the campaign isn’t finished yet, but the first act is there already. In the campaign, you get quests that guide you through a story. This part reminds me a lot of the Cultures series. Regular readers are probably going to roll their eyes at me now, because I keep throwing in this game series whenever anything even remotely similar appears in the gaming world. :p But here it just fits! Cultures 2 also had heroes on top of the regular soldiers you could have. And I actually almost exclusively played the campaign in these games. It was engaging and fun and I liked following their stories. As I said, I will not give you any spoilers here, so I will keep it rather short. You get a story, you follow it and the heroes play an important role in there. Also, the characters are voiced and the voices are really well done!

At one point, my hero was asked to enter a cave. After entering, I was inside that cave (well, duh!), with no easy access to my village anymore. At least, not on that map. I didn’t look whether I could switch back to the map at that point. Once I finished the quest (again, no spoilers), I had the option to leave again and then I was on the main map again which housed my village, too. But it’s a very nice feature as it feels a bit like a game within a game. Diablo-light maybe? And again, it lets you get closer to the heroes and get to know them better.

But that’s all I’m saying about the campaign now.

The Sandbox

You can play freely here with no quests telling you what to do. The heroes and villagers are still talking every once in a while which makes it more lively than if they’re all silent. You start with nothing but a handful of villagers, Ser Gregory and Willow. The latter are two heroes who can fight and protect your village. Before you can do anything, you have to set your supply wagon on the ground. I guess it’s best to have a look around the near area to check for a good place. Don’t ask me what a good place for it is, though. I don’t really know… I usually choose something that’s probably going to be the centre of my village, but I also try not to use the only open space as that’s probably better suited for the mill later which requires wheat fields nearby and thus, needs quite a bit of open space!

You can order your peasants (the unoccupied townsfolk) to go gather resources, e. g., wood or berries. But this isn’t as good as having professionals, of course. I often look for the river and see if there is fish in there. You can see them swim, but it’s easier to open the building menu, choose the fishing hut and just look for the fish icons at the river. As soon as you give the order to build the fishing hut, peasants will come build it. As is often the case with such games, you can only order them to build that fishing hut if you’ve got enough resources for it! So, you hopefully sent your other peasants collecting some wood in the meantime. Also, don’t forget to assign somebody to work as a fisherman / fisherwoman from now on. The next thing on your agenda should be the woodcutter hut. One of the tooltips said the foresters also plant new trees, so you shouldn’t worry about running out of resources. I am not sure what happens with stone or iron mines. They obviously can’t just be refilled. Also, as I noticed in the tutorial: Don’t wait too long to build a well! I also learned that wells should not be too far away from my buildings as the peasants need to run to that well, get some water and run to the burning building. As you can see, these peasants actually do serve a very important purpose!

In general, I like that there are so many different things to build. You have the usual resource gathering buildings, the food production ones, but also a herbalist den which produces medicine for sick villagers. Each building can get upgraded or you can choose to invest in some “research” to improve productivity, for example. Some buildings also have crafting options, but I have nothing to craft yet. The tooltip mentions finding recipes as loot. Speaking of loot: When your heroes defeated enemies (spiders, for example), you can loot them. Sometimes, the enemies even drop some upgraded armor for your heroes. And not only do these items come with stats, they also have skins that change the way your characters look! Willow is a healer type of hero and she reminds me a lot of the Sylvari in Guild Wars 2. Some forest-loving fae-thingy, I assume. But with my fighting Ser Gregory and Willow, I have a nice strong pair of military to fight against the nearby bears, wolves, spiders and… I think they were goblins. Unfortunately, when my village got attacked, my villagers always ran to fight instead of running away. In Cultures, when attacks happened, the regular villagers tried to get away or, if it was enemy tribes, I could even ring an alarm bell which made all villagers run into the main building to hide there. That’s the much smarter choice, after all! Especially since my villagers have no weapons to defend themselves. Thankfully, new villagers arrive fast enough when the general happiness isn’t too low.

The Editor

You can make your own maps if you like or you can load other people’s maps from the Steam workshop. I only loaded the editor, but did not feel like getting into the controls. I did play a lot with it back in the early days when the game wasn’t really there yet and the most you could do was create maps. It was fun, but in the long run, I lack the patience to really build like that. I just felt I should mention it if you happen to like making maps in games. And, of course, being able to load other people’s creations is always great because we can all benefit from others’ creativity that way!

General personal impressions

What I have seen so far is working very well. The game crashed only once so far and the loading time when I first start a game is really bad sometimes. As in really really bad. Up to a couple of minutes, actually. However, once it has loaded, everything reacts fast – and it’s not always that slow. And hey, the developers probably have to worry about other things like optimizing the game loading times. If Folk Tale was released already, I’d say this is a negative point that’s annoying. Until then, it doesn’t count. Other than that, I really enjoy the game! The graphics are cute (“good” graphics aren’t important to me as long as the style fits to the game and it certainly does here if you ask me). The buildings are really neat and I like looking at all the details. I assume it takes quite a while to unlock everything for your village (buildings that can be upgraded, having all buildings filled with workers, doing all the research associated with the buildings and so on). The campaign seems to be quite entertaining, too. The characters’ voices are amazing if you ask me! They add a lot of personality to the characters and it all fits together. So, if I hadn’t already bought the game, I would definitely buy it now.

My verdict

If you like what I’ve written here and you think this is worth 20 bucks, then go buy it! Or wait until it’s on sale… or check out YouTube videos (but make sure it’s more recent videos as the game is in development, after all) if you need more information or want to see the game in action. I think that right now, the game offers quite a lot already and it’s worth it – but I did buy the game at a cheaper price when it went into Early Access, so my “anchor” is lower than the current price.

However, do not buy it if you say “It will be worth it, once it has feature X or Y!” – If this is what you think, then wait until the game does have feature X or Y. And definitely don’t buy it if you only want to play a game that’s officially released. It is in its development stage, so bugs and everything related to it are to be expected.

Oh, and if you are now wondering whether you want to buy Folk Tale, but have unanswered questions about it: Feel free to ask them here. Maybe I can help you!

Folk Tale: Where is it now? (March 2017) @gamesfoundry Folk Tale has been in development and in Steam Early Access for a long time already and this is where a lot of the negative reviews are coming from.

#Folk Tale #gamesfoundry #steam early access

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hak-7 · 4 years ago

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