God is dead

11 Feb, '07 in Life

– Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)

Actually, Nietzsche never issued this famous proclamation in his own voice but rather put the words in the mouth of a character he called the madman and later in the mouth of another character, Zarathustra.

Nevertheless, Nietzsche endorsed the words. “God is dead” is often mistaken as a statement of atheism. It is not, though Nietzsche himself was an atheist. “Dead” is metaphorical in this context, meaning belief in the God of Christianity is worn out, past its prime, and on the decline. God is lost as the center of life and the source of values. Nietzsche’s madman noted that himself came too soon. No doubt Nietzsche, too, thought he was ahead of his time in heralding this news.

Zazen:

5 Feb, '07 in Zen

A form of Zen meditation which involves sitting in an asana position (commonly the lotus position) and clearing the mind. The word literally means “sitting meditation”.

If you wish to be realized in Suchness, immediately practice Suchness.
A quiet room is good for zazen. Eat and drink moderately, don’t entangle yourself in delusive relationships. Just leave such things to themselves. Don’t think about good or bad, right or wrong. Don’t give rise to the mind’s common concepts, the judging of thoughts and observations. Don’t sit to become an Awakened One because you can’t fabricate a Buddha out of sitting or lying down.

Now Reading: Die Nuba

3 Feb, '07 in Books

from Leni Riefenstahl. A great book with stunning photos !!

Website from Leni Riefenstahl
The Nuba Survival Project
At Amazon: Die Nuba

Ida Craddock: Sexual Mystic and Martyr for Freedom

1 Feb, '07 in Books, World

In Volume III Number 1 of the Equinox (published in 1919), Aleister Crowley reviewed a paper called “Heavenly Bridegrooms”. In this work, a woman identified only as “Ida C—–” claimed to be the wife of an angel. A scholar named Theodore Schroeder edited the manuscript and published it in a psychological journal, where it apparently attracted the attention of Crowley. In the review, Crowley states that Heavenly Bridegrooms “is one of the most remarkable human documents ever produced.” He goes on to say:

“I am very far from agreeing with all that this most talented woman sets forth in her paper, but she certainly obtained initiated knowledge of extraordinary depth. She seems to have had access to certain most concealed sanctuaries…. She has put down statements in plain English which are positively staggering. This book is of incalculable value to every student of occult matters. No Magick library is complete without it.”

This is quite an endorsement from Crowley, and perhaps even more significant in that he signed the review “Baphomet,” using his magical name as Tenth Degree of O.T.O.

More here:
www.idacraddock.org
At Wikipedia

100-year-old dancer fetes the art of darkness

31 Jan, '07 in World

100-year-old dancer fetes the art of darkness -(stolen from Yahoo! News UK)

YOKOHAMA, Japan, Jan 29 -No chickens were strangled at the gala performance for Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno’s 100th birthday, a sign of just how much Japan’s most provocative dance has changed since its debut after World War Two.

Fans of Ankoku Butoh, the “Dance of Utter Darkness”, flew in from around the world for the weekend to honour Ohno, one of the founders of the dance that shocked audiences in the 1960s with stark performances reflecting the horrors of the war and the destruction of Hiroshima.

In one of the first Butoh performances, Ohno’s son Yoshito simulated sex with a chicken, smothering the bird in the process. Other Butoh dancers sometimes performed in loincloths — or in the nude — with wild hair and white body makeup.

But Butoh has moved on, and the new generation uses techno beats and strobe lights rather than blood and nakedness to express the confusion and insecurity of Japan’s youth.

“Butoh emerged in the years after the war, so it carried all those associations with it,” Yoshito Ohno said after the show, which ended with him pushing his wheelchair-bound centenarian father across the stage in a tender, slow dance.

“But now the world is totally different. Butoh was shaped by the difficult wartime experience, and we’ve passed it on to the next generation so that it will never happen again.”

While Butoh is often associated with distorted faces and tortured movements, its admirers say the dance is less about violence and more about life, death and the human soul.

Now Reading: Bukowski

30 Jan, '07 in Books

Post Office.: A Novel & Notes of a Dirty Old Man.

From Wikipedia: Bukowski died of leukemia on March 9th, 1994 in San Pedro, California, at the age of 73, shortly after completing the novel “Pulp”, his last. His funeral rites were conducted by Buddhist monks. His gravestone reads: “Don’t Try”. According to Linda Lee Bukowski, her husband’s epitaph means something along the lines of “If you spend all your time trying, then all you’re doing is trying. So don’t try. Just do.” (is this where the got the “Just do it” from ?)

At Amazon:
Post Office
Dirty Old Man

Both Books are well worth reading, a bit overrated in my humble opinion. They are more to entertain and to please the simple mind, then anything else.

Google: Images from Bukowski

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