The Wheel of Fortune

Is this the color wheel? The perfectly balanced colors of the wheel sections are accented by the pink and red of the hearts at the top. The artist has used every tone available for the frame of pegs around the circle. Each pointer triangle is a different hue and is outlined with another color. The pegs space out at the end of the rotation indicating the slowing down of the pointer until it stops and the buzzer bells go off. These bells are indicated by the circles with the spiral overlays. The layers of colors - pink over yellow and green over yellow - is a skilled technique which glows in the original fluorescent inks painted by the artist. Altogether this is a sophisticated design that demonstrates motion in the turning of the wheel and the pointer around pegs. The artist (A.B.) displays both motion and emotion with the spinning of the triangular pointer, and the Valentine heart hues of pink and red at the top which are the prize won by the player of the wheel. Even sound is portrayed when the pointer reaches the buzzer bells at the end of the rotation of the triangles. The fascination with the workings of the Wheel of Fortune shows an aptitude for engineering and design - Good Work A.B.!

Tibetan Beauties in Turquoise and Amber

Litang Horse Festival. Khampa Tibetan Costume at Litang The striking and beautiful costumes of the Khampas are the main store of families' wealth, and have been handed down from generation to generation. Rich nomadic Khampas favor precious metal and jewels as a store of wealth because they are easily transported. These costumes will be worth on average several hundreds of thouands of US dollars, and at least $10,000, and it is not uncommon for costumes to be worth many millions of dollars, depending on the quality and antiquity of the gemstones and ornaments. Ornaments are made from gold, silver, coral, amber, turquoise and jade. The costumes can weigh up to 20 kg (44lb) , much of that weight coming from the gold and silver amulet boxes worn in front and behind and on the head. These costumes are worn on annual festival days such as at the Litang Horse Festival where these photos were taken.

Tibetan Palm Frond Prayer Books

With illustrations. Ancient version of the Tibetan Book of the Dead prayers. Modern Tibetan singing bowl used for healing. White yaks at Heavenly Lake in Tibet.

The Castillon Diary List of Clues Obtained on Arcadia Forum

Castillon List 1.) The discovery concerning the WWI Memorial to Rodrigo`s regiment whose remains were found in 1992. 2.) The Boscolo Hotel in Lyon, described by Rodrigo as a “bourgeois” - this hotel was not the Grand Boscolo of later years. 3.) Emma`s manager J.B. identified as Jules Bois, referred to as the “eminence grise” by Rodrigo. 4.) The discovery of Sauniere`s Masonic collar among his belongings, identified as the collar of the Grand Master of the Martinist chapter of Memphis-Mizraim Freemasonry. Don Rodrigo revealed that Sauniere and Emma Calve were Martinists when they met at San Sulpice in Paris in 1893. They recognized one another by their secret society hand gestures. 5.) The documents preserved by Patrice Chaplin and used in her initiation compare to Memphis-Mizraim Martinist doctrine, not Hebrew or Rosicrucian Cabala - this is due to the Egyptian references. 6.) Berenger Sauniere`s umbrella is seen in photographs and in an RLC mural, it is mentioned by don Rodrigo. 7.) The surveyors` equipment seen in Sauniere`s room by Rodrigo on his trip to Rennes-le-Chateau - there was a receipt for such equipment found among his belongings. Patrice Chaplin states that her guide revealed Sauniere`s “task” to be the passing on of information in symbol to those to come – does this refer to the symbolic décor in his church? 8.) Emma Calve met Rodrigo through the daughter of the chocolate manufacturer at one of her soirees. 9.) Rodrigo descended from one of the members of Elus-Cohen who was with Pasqually in Haiti when they organized the Martinist doctrine. 10.) De Sede states that we will never know exactly how Sauniere and Emma met, but thanks to Don Rodrigo, we know that they met in her Paris church where she attended mass. 11.) Patrice Chaplin mentions meeting “Raoul” digging for treasure at RLC. He was the son of the workman who discovered the original parchment that led Sauniere to the discovery of the Merovingian genealogies and other pages. Patrice wonders whether Raoul`s father was rewarded for his find. Rodrigo met his brother at RLC in 1900, the men complained bitterly that he had not been given anything for his discovery. 12). The clue from Irmine concerning the end of the diary where the pages were ripped out. He said that "R" must refer to Rilke. This led to the connection between Rilke and Louisa Salome or "Salomon", the name used by Rodrigo. Lou Salome was a counselor to don Rodrigo in his grief.

Sir Aurel Stein - Pioneer of the Silk Road

Urumqi Warrior. The Cave of 1000 Buddhas, guardian figure and Buddhist statues. Greco-style Buddha head - post Alexander, Greek influence.

Turfan Translations

Dunhuang Moga textile. Lou Andreas-Salomé and her husband Friedrich Carl Andreas (1886). "Working with the Manichean fragments from Turfan, he quickly isolated those texts written in Parthian (which he called the “northern dialect”) and identified another “Pahlavi dialect” as the Sogdian language. Even when his ideas were later modified, they proved important starting-points for research; this is particularly true of the hotly debated “Andreas Theory". In an equally sharp controversy concerning an alleged Iranian “salvation mystery” Andreas took no personal position, but his translations of the Manichean Turfan fragments provided part of the basis for discussion." The excavations of Turfan by Aurel Stein. Turfan. The Silk Road monasteries and the Cave of 1000 Buddhas - artifacts, tapestries, murals, and scrolls. Turkoman Buddhists.

Rilke and Russia - Castillon Diary

Saenz de Castillon Diary 1903 Confesses to feelings of deep depression and despair. Meets a Louisa Salomon, a lady of Russian origin who has studied the new psychoanalytic techniques in Vienna under Wilhelm Stekel a member of Sigmund Freud's inner circle. She puts him through a course of therapy with beneficial results. Salomon is a rich and emancipated woman (she is married to a certain Alois Andersson a German linguist proficient in Oriental languages then teaching at the Ottoman Imperial Military Academy in Constantinople but theirs is an "open marriage") who all her life has had a close relationship with artists, writers, musicians, philosophers a sort of intellectual groupie one could say although that would not do justice I think to lady's own intellectual capabilities.In May he is invited by her to take part in a tour of Russia together with R an upcoming poet,an Austrian living in Paris, E a French doctor and mage and C an English initiate of the Golden Dawn. They declare their interests - Salomon, sex and religion (especially the Khlysty and Skoptsy); R, meetings with Russian poets and artists and hopes to visit the aging Tolstoy (he is writing articles on the history of icon painting); E, shamanism, thaumaturgy;C, qabbalah. R the poet seems to have taken Salomon as his muse, she seems to be a mother figure to him. Sadly there is no more diary terminates abruptly on the eve of their departure due to mutilation i.e. pages torn out. From "Irmine"; "As for other names, I've not yet had chance to think about them, but I'll let you know if I come up with anything. Edit - PS The poet R has got to be Rilke". Can you guess who "C" might be? Rilke and Russia "One can sense the poet behind them, the vibrancy of Rilke`s inspirations, and his great love of Russia, which he called his “spiritual motherland.”Rilke’s keen interest in Russia was first planted in him by his friend, the Russian-born author, Lou Andreas-Salomé (née Louise von Salomé or, in Russian, Luiza Gustavovna Salomé). He first met her in 1896, when he was 21, they were lovers for several years, and she remained his confidante and an influence on him for the rest of his life. She began teaching him Russian in the late 1890s so that he could read Pushkin and Tolstoy in the original. In April-June 1899 Rilke, in the company of Salomé and her husband Friedrich Carl Andreas, made his first visit to Russia. In the six weeks that he spent in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Rilke met several major cultural figures including Leo Tolstoy, the artists Ilya Repin and Leonid Pasternak (the poet Boris Pasternak’s father), and the sculptor Pavel Trubetskoy (Paolo Troubetzkoy). On his second and more extensive trip to the Russian Empire, with Salomé, from May through August 1900, Rilke’s travels followed a far-flung itinerary: Moscow, Tula, Leo Tolstoy’s estate at Yasnaya Polyana, Kiev, Kremenchug, Poltava, Kharkov, Voronezh, Saratov, Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, and Moscow again. Those were days filled with many vivid experiences, cultural interactions and keen observation that had an impact on his poetry and prose. He was fascinated by Russian aristocrats and common folk alike. Russian orthodoxy and the Russian style of spirituality appealed to him; he visited many churches; Easter celebrations at the Kremlin etched themselves into his memory. He met and was impressed by the Russian peasant poet, Spiridon Drozhzhin, whom he soon translated into German. Rilke’s Russian was far from fluent, but he read it passably and worked hard on it especially during this period of intense Russophilia and dissatisfaction with Western civilization. On returning from his first trip to Russia, full of deep impressions and planning to move there permanently (a dream that never came true), Rilke suddenly found himself writing poems in Russian. As he noted in his diary, the first of them “unexpectedly occurred” to him in the Schmargendorf forest near Berlin in late November 1900. By early December he had written six Russian poems. He dedicated them to Salomé, who found them “grammatically off” yet poetic. He revised those and added another two in April 1901. In the fall of 1900 Rilke met his future wife, Clara Westhoff, and his life changed. He never returned to Russia but retained his love of it and his ties with Russian poetry, namely, with Marina Tsvetaeva and Boris Pasternak. My translations of Rilke’s Russian poems are intended as an experiment in bringing to light their substance, form and implied tone as faithfully as I could manage, while stripping away the infelicities of the originals." —Philip Nikolayev Rainer Maria Rilke, Lou Andreas-Salomé, and the Russian peasant poet Spiridon Drozhzhin in Moscow, 1900. Philip Nikolayev - Nikolayev states that Rilke never returned to Russia, but don Rodrigo de Saenz y Castillon planned a trip there with Madame Salome and a poet "R" who sounds much like Rilke. Some researchers think that the character "C" refers to Aliester Crowley who was known to have spent time in Russia and to have written a treatise on the Kabbalah in the following years. What a group, the mystic lady, the dashing writer, our Rodrigo, the poet Rilke, and Crowley. The Castillon diary abruptly ends here on the eve of their departure with pages ripped out. We can only imagine Castillon`s reaction to Crowley and what happened on their journey. Perhaps he did not want his diary to include this interlude. Who is "E"? Could it be the French Dr. Encausse... aka "Papus" the leader of the Martinists - "Dr. Gerard Encausse PAPUS - Rosicrucian Order". Louisa Salome/Salomon with Rilke on one of their trips. "Salomon, sex and religion (especially the Khlysty and Skoptsy)";- Lou Salome`s interests on their trip to Russia from the diary. "It is said to have been founded by a peasant, Daniil Filippovich, (or Filippov), of Kostroma. The Khlysty renounced priesthood, holy books and veneration of the saints (excluding the Theotokos). They believed in a possibility of direct communication with the Holy Spirit and of His embodiment in living people. Curiously enough, they allowed their members to attend Orthodox churches. The central idea of Khlystys' ideology was to practice asceticism. Khlysty practiced the attainment of divine grace for sin in ecstatic rituals (called радéния, or radeniya) that were rumored to sometimes turn into sexual orgies. Flagellation was also rumored, possibly due to the similarity of their name to the word for "whip". Secret Khlysty cells existed throughout pre-revolutionary Russia (with approximately 40,000 followers in total); they were most common in the factories of the Perm district. Each cell was normally led by a male and a female leader, who were called the "Christ" and the "Mother of God" respectively. The cells themselves were referred to as 'Arks' among members and messages were carried between them clandestinely in order to facilitate communication. They were often subject to persecution and perceived as a subversive element by the nineteenth century Russian authorities and ecclesiastical bodies. Rasputin In 1910, Grigori Rasputin was accused of having been a Khlyst by Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva, a governess of the Grand Duchesses of Russia, after being horrified that Rasputin was allowed access by the Tsar to the nursery of the Grand Duchesses, when the four girls were in their nightgowns. Rasputin's daughter later contested this claim, writing that her father investigated but ultimately rejected the sect." Archivo:Nietzsche paul-ree lou-von-salome. Lou Salome with a whip with Paul Ree and Fredrich Nietzsche. Rejected Marriage Proposal "Nietzsche saw Andreas-Salomé as something of an ideal woman whom he could mold into a disciple and partner. He proposed marriage but was rejected, and the relationship eventually deteriorated under the pressure of hostility from Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth. Each partner influenced the other as a writer, however; Andreas-Saloméis mentioned in Nietzsche's Ecce homo (Behold the Man), and Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), written soon after the breakup, was directly credited to Andreas-Salomé's influence. “My disciple became my teacher—the god of irony achieved a perfect triumph!” Nietzsche wrote, according to the Dictionary of Literary Biography. “She inspired me with the thought of Zarathustra: my greatest poem celebrates our union, and our tragic separation.”

Tourmaline - October`s Colorful Birthstone

The Phoenix Lights

10/10/01 Three amber lights over Phoenix.

Blue-eyed Sumerians

Tecumseh the Shawnee Prophet and his descendant Link Wray

When Tecumseh was just 6 years old his beloved father, Puckeshinwau, would be killed at the Battle of Kanawha River, in 1774 Ohio. Mortally wounded by white men, he would die in the arms of his wife, Metheotashe, with Tecumseh by his side. Link Wray descendant of the Shawnee prophet Tecumseh looking like an M.I.B. Link Wray, inventor of surfer reverb in Phoenix, Arizona. Link played inside of an empty water tower to get that sound.