Echoes in the Mist

This video is about an Eurasian hoopoe in Sweden.

Of what we see.

What we perceive,

depends on where we look.

Beauty is everywhere,

just waiting to be found,

even on a cloudy and foggy day.

Cheers to you from Olympic National Park~

(Note: We are home at The Holler now. These photos were from our May trip. I wouldn’t want you to think we are never home!)

A traditional tea ceremony with centuries-old creamics and tea cups performed by the head monk of Kennin-ji Temple – believed to be the olded Zen Buddhist temple in Japan — Kyoto, Honshu Island, Japan

Our second day in Kyoto, Japan, we began with a meeting with the head monk of Kennin-ji Temple who explained the history of the temple who taught us how to meditate and then led us through a formal tea ceremony with tea cups that were several hundred years old and examples of the best ceramics artisanship in Japan during that period.  Kennin-ji Temple is believed to be the oldest Zen Buddhist temple in Japan, dating back to the 13^th century (the original temple buildings, like much of Kyoto, were destroyed by fire).  At present, there are three branches of Zen in Japan – the Rinzai, Soutou and Oubaku schools.  Kennin-ji belongs to the Rinzai tradition…

This July 2019 video is about a bird sketching trip to Iceland by Dutch artist Erik van Ommen.

Featuring harlequin ducks, female long-tailed duck, dunlin, Atlantic puffin, common loon and others.

Ma Durga as the divine mother can guide humanity into a new era of peace and happiness. But she does so by first eliminating the powers of darkness, not by appeasing them. – Dr David Frawley

No country in the world demonstrates such enduring reverence for the Great Mother Goddess, as does India. The Goddess is celebrated in every form, aspect and quality, through music, art, ritual, mantra and meditation. She is honoured in women, the Earth, nature and the transcendent beyond all expression. Her worship is full of splendour, delight, mystery and wonder.

The Goddess is shakti, meaning power, the resort of all transformative energy and cataclysmic force that mere human logic cannot comprehend. She possesses martial and regal forms that all must bow down before in awe. During the Navaratri—India’s famous autumn festival of the Goddess—she is worshipped as Durga, the supreme shakti, holding all majesty…

In much of the “Old World” (approximately Africa, Asia and Europe) the names of many places cannot easily be interpreted or understood;[citation needed] they do not convey any apparent meaning in the modern language of the area. This is due to a general set of processes through which place names evolve over time, until their obvious meaning is lost. In contrast, in the “New World” (roughly North America, South America, and Australasia), many place names’ origins are known.

Here are some Indian Place Names

• -abadFrom Farsi, ‘populated’ or ‘settled’. E.g., Ahmedabad.
• -adriSanskrit (?) ‘hill’. E.g., Narayanadri, Anjanadri.
• -aranyaSanskrit ‘forest’. E.g., Namisharanya.
• -baghFarsi ‘garden’. E.g., Charbagh.
• -bakkam, -vakkamTamil, ‘area’ or ‘neighbourhood’?? E.g., Nungambakkam, Villivakkam.
• -bandar, -bandraWestern India, ‘port’. E.g., Porbandar.
• -bari?? Bengali ‘house’, Assamese ‘orchard’. E.g., Alubari.
• -bastiHindi ‘settlement’. E.g., Dayabasti, Shakurbasti
• bazarMostly in UP/Bihar. ‘Market’. E.g., Siswa Bazar.
• cutchery, kacheri, kutchuhery

This video from Belarus says about itself:

Nightingale bird is singing in the spring morning. Close-up of the singing bird. Amazing bird song. Thrush nightingale, Luscinia luscinia.

To provide justification for colonial rule, the British declared that Indian society was pre-rational and it needed guidance by Western ideas. Depicted thus in textbooks at all levels, Indians came to believe this characterization, and this included nationalist politicians and intellectuals. – Prof Subhash Kak

There are many who see India’s recent election results as a repudiation of the textbook idea of India. They find the results painful, as if the walls of the India of their imagination have been brought down.

They say they love India as much as anyone, so they can’t understand how the people could have been so destructive to vote the way they did.

Spring is passing, the birds cry, and the fishes eyes fill with tears. — Matsuo Bashō (17th century)

I want to present a different take on the election. I concede that the results are a rejection of an India that many…

The destruction of ancient cultures is caused by insecurity and arrogant ignorance that impose an alien god’s law on vanquished populations. Rookie religions are predatory and political. – Ravi Shankar

History isn’t always written by the victor. It is rewritten by vandals and murderers, too. Today, the Great Indian Cultural Debate has Leftist scholars scoffing at the classical authenticity of the scriptures and the Right claiming spiritual provenance as proof.

But there could be more credible answer for the absence of written records detailing post-Vedic India. Islamic holocausts perpetrated by waves of invasions burned down libraries and condemned native knowledge as heresy.

The writings of Chinese explorer Hiuen Tsang who visited India between 627 and 643 CE reveal a highly sophisticated civilisation.

He wrote of people wearing clothes of cotton, silk and wool, were well educated and loved literature and the arts. Students between nine and 30 years of age…