Predicting the Rain

 Amazing facts shared by my farmer friend Madhu Reddy, from an article in Down to Earth: 

"The Baiga are an ethnic group found in central India primarily in the state of Madhya Pradesh, and in smaller numbers in the surrounding states of Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. The name Baiga means "sorcerer- medicine man".

Baiga Weather Science

"Baiga tribals have quite a well-developed system for rainfall prediction, according to which they alter the timing and composition of their crops. In bewar cultivation, sowing has to be done just before the first gentle showers of early monsoon. This makes accurate prediction of these first showers crucial. 

Baigas in Dindori district do it with the help of a local tuber known as baichandi kanda. “We plant it in our badi (vegetable garden) in summer, and when it sends its first shoots up through the ground, we know that rains will be here in a week or 10 days,” says elderly Nankibai Dhondia of village Garjanbeeja. “That is the signal for us to start burning the undergrowth to prepare for sowing.”

Another signal for the coming monsoon is the peepul tree. “When the tree has shed all its old leaves and the process of sprouting new leaves is complete, we know that rains are about two-three weeks away,” says Nankibai. These two nature signals taken together usually give a sufficiently accurate estimate, says she.

The proportion of different millets to be sown in the bewar is decided through weather prediction too. “In late summer,” says Taini Sarjamia of Bhalu Khodra village in Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, “A tiny insect called ghunghuti appears in droves in the open spaces. When there are too many of those, they get in our eyes. That is when we know that it will be a heavy rainfall year, and plant more kutki.”

Do you have similar stories? Please do share in the comments. I find this fascinating!

The Hui: China’s other Muslims

"By choosing assimilation, China’s Hui have become one of the world’s most successful Muslim minorities."

"Surprisingly, the Hui have not lost their religion or identity despite centuries of assimilation. Mr Ma, the retired professor, says Hui people often form close-knit communities and pursue similar occupations; restaurants and taxis in many cities are run by Hui. But their religion is “still the most important binding factor”, he says. The Hui maintain a delicate balance. They can practise their religion undisturbed thanks to assimilation. But it is their religion that makes them distinct."

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21708274-choosing-assimilation-chinas-hui-have-become-one-worlds-most-successful-muslim?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/chinasothermuslims

Tell me your story

".....one Sunday morning in 1971, Lewis was summoned to a terrifying scene. A man was holding a loaded gun on his family, threatening to kill them and himself and anyone else who got in the way. Lewis walked right into the man's house, sat down beside him, and said quietly: "Tell me your story."

Ten hours later, the man gave him his gun.

The truth buried in this drama gets to the very heart of Crisis Center work: each of us has a story, each of us has a loaded gun that we aim at ourselves. After hours, or years, of talking, the story can at last be told in its fullness, and the gun can be laid down.

The story has both happy and sad chapters, and parts if it may be forgotten. Sometimes it takes an outsider to help remember or clarify it. Lose your story and you lose the pageant of your life."

Page 23, 'A Slender Thread, Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis', Diane Ackerman

The Enemy

"...Storr sees in Churchill's story a classic relationship between depression and hostility, in which an emotionally deprived child resents his deprivers but can't risk showing any anger or upset, since he desperately needs the very people who are torturing him.

Depression results from turning that hostility against oneself.

Sometimes such people aim at opponents in the outside world. As Storr observes, "It is a great relief to find an enemy on whom it is justifiable to lavish wrath."

In Churchill's case, "fighting enemies had a strong emotional appeal to him....and when he was finally confronted by an enemy whom he felt to be wholly evil, it was a release which gave him tremendous vitality."

Page 183, 'A Slender Thread, Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis', Diane Ackerman​

An Innate Sense of Value

"...For most of his life, he (Winston Churchill) crumbled under the repeat blows of a depression so familiar, loud, and unshakable, that he called it his "Black Dog" - I suppose because it hounded him. It had its own life and demands, was uncompromisingly brutal, and became a monstrous family member to be reckoned with.

It seems to have been an affliction he shared with a number of his ancestors, including his father, who suffered from what was described as "melancholia". A small, feeble boy, bullied at school and neglected by his remote, glamorous, high-society parents, Churchill grew into a dynamo of a man packed with energy, assertiveness, bravery to the point of recklessness, a tough attitude, extreme ambition, plentiful ideas, willfulness, aggression alternating with compassion, artistic tastes, egomania, and a yen for daring adventures.

The deprivation he felt as a child may well have fueled his ambitions, but, having no innate sense of value, he was easy prey for the armies of depression that plagued him throughout his life.

..In psychiatrist Anthony Storr's fascinating character study of Churchill, he argues that in 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, it took a bold conviction for Churchill to rally the British people, but "it was because all his life, he had conducted a battle with his own despair that he could convey to others that despair can be overcome."

...For the last five years of his long life, Churchill sat in a chair staring at a fire, partly paralyzed by a stroke, wholly demoralized by depression. He stopped reading, he rarely spoke. The Black Dog finally caught up with him and pounced, flattening him under its rough weight.

But what a dynamo he had been, so inventive, so courageous, so resilient. A history-making, difficult life."

Page 183, 'A Slender Thread, Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis', Diane Ackerman

Talk to me

"In his exquisite taxonomy of the nine kinds of silence, Paul Goodman included “the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear.”  And yet so often we think of listening as merely an idle pause amid the monologue of making ourselves clear."

"...Speaking calls for risk, speaking calls for a sense of what one has to lose. Not just what one has to gain."

"...Some people use language as a mask. And some want to create designed language that appears to reveal them but does not. Yet from time to time we are betrayed by language, if not in the words themselves, in the rhythm with which we deliver our words."

"...I wanted to get people to talk to me, in a true way. Not true in the sense of spilling their guts. Not true in the sense of the difference between truth and lies. I wanted to hear — well — authentic speech, speech that you could dance to, speech that had the possibility of breaking through the walls of the listener, speech that could get to your heart, and beyond that to someplace else in your consciousness."

How to Listen Between the Lines: Anna Deavere Smith on the Art of Listening in a Culture of Speaking
Maria Popova

http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/29/anna-deavere-smith-talk-to-me/

Crowds

"We worship individuality and long for freedom, but we are invariably drawn to crowds, which leaves us with a resentful ambivalence toward ourselves and others."

"Only together can men free themselves from their burdens of distance; and this, precisely, is what happens in a crowd… Each man is as near the other as he is to himself; and an immense feeling of relief ensues. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no-one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd."

Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti on Our Fear of Being Touched, the Four Attributes of Crowds, and the Paradox of Why We Join Them

Maria Popova

http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/06/crowds-and-power-elias-canetti/

Ariadne

Myth and Creativity: Ariadne’s Thread and a Path Through the Labyrinth
Allison Stieger

"The process of living creatively brings new things into the world and to humankind, but there is a monster guarding the gift, because the maze "takes one to the center of one's self, to some hidden, inner shrine, occupied by the most mysterious portion of the human personality".

http://www.creativitypost.com/arts/myth_and_creativity_ariadnes_thread_and_a_path_through_the_labyrinth

Ariadne
A performance with compositions of Clio Karabelias and a butoh:contemporary dance by Marianna Tsagaraki

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW8ZN1X4S9M&feature=youtu.be

Attention

Mary Oliver, while speaking about her late partner, Molly Cooke, in 'Our World':

"It has frequently been remarked, about my own writings, that I emphasize the notion of attention. This began simply enough: to see that the way the flicker flies is greatly different from the way the swallow plays in the golden air of summer. It was my pleasure to notice such things, it was a good first step. "

But later, watching M. when she was taking photographs, and watching her in the darkroom, and no less watching the intensity and openness with which she dealt with friends, and strangers too, taught me what real attention is about.

Attention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report. An openness — an empathy — was necessary if the attention was to matter. Such openness and empathy M. had in abundance, and gave away freely…"

http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/20/mary-oliver-molly-malone-cook-our-world/

That last Friday he looked so ill

Beaver Moon - The Suicide of a Friend
Mary Oliver

When somewhere life
breaks the pane of glass,
and from every direction casual
voices are bringing you the news,
you say: I should have known.
You say: I should have been aware.

That last Friday he looked
so ill, like an old mountain-climber
lost on the white trails, listening
to the ice breaking upward, under
his worn-out shoes. You say:

I heard rumors of trouble, but after all
we all have that. You say:
What could I have done? and you go
with the rest, to bury him.

That night, you turn in your bed
to watch the moon rise, and once more
see what a small coin it is
against the darkness, and how everything else
is a mystery, and you know
nothing at all except
the moonlight is beautiful-
white rivers running together
along the bare boughs of the trees-

and somewhere, for someone, life
is becoming moment by moment
unbearable.

From 'Twelve Moons', Poems by Mary Oliver

Torobaka

   














 

A Duel and a Duet as Flamenco and Kathak Face Off

Israel Galván is the maverick of the flamenco world, a brilliantly talented, ground-breaking artist who combines the almost tragic seriousness of his art with an absurdist sense of its possibilities. Akram Khan, the kathak-trained British choreographer, is known for his fusion of that north Indian classical form with a more contemporary physical idiom, and for his collaborations with artists (Juliette Binoche, Sylvie Guillem, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui) from other dance traditions and disciplines.

“Torobaka,” a flamenco-kathak encounter between these two men, is another such collaboration for Mr. Khan, but a departure for Mr. Galván, until now a proudly solo performer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/arts/dance/a-duel-and-a-duet-as-flamenco-and-kathak-face-off.html?_r=0

Torobaka, trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6zjg0_0wYU

Gnosis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Gl3rVm7SQ

Image: From Google Images

The indifferent sidewalk

Phone Therapy
Ellen Bass

I was relief, once, for a doctor on vacation
and got a call from a man on a window sill.
This was New York, a dozen stories up.
He was going to kill himself, he said.
I said everything I could think of.
And when nothing worked, when the guy
was still determined to slide out that window
and smash his delicate skull
on the indifferent sidewalk, “Do you think,”
I asked, “you could just postpone it
until Monday, when Dr. Lewis gets back?”

The cord that connected us—strung
under the dirty streets, the pizza parlors, taxis,
women in sneakers carrying their high heels,
drunks lying in piss—that thick coiled wire
waited for the waves of sound.

In the silence I could feel the air slip
in and out of his lungs and the moment
when the motion reversed, like a goldfish
making the turn at the glass end of its tank.
I matched my breath to his, slid
into the water and swam with him.
"Okay," he agreed.

A frozen mouth experience

"I didn't tell anyone about my experience because I couldn't make my mouth form the words. And I mean that literally; it is like a frozen mouth experience."


Your Personal Ghosts
Scott Adams

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/your_personal_ghosts/

All I know is what I have words for

"Wittgenstein said, ‘All I know is what I have words for.’ And I think that if you don’t have the words for it, you can’t explain to somebody else what your need is. To some degree, you can’t even explain to yourself what your need is. And so you can’t get better.”

http://ideas.ted.com/2013/12/18/how-should-we-talk-about-mental-health/

Dualities

"In 2013, she decided to begin a series that dealt with the realities of what it means to put on a brave face while simultaneously coping with forms of depression. Starting with herself, Obert took two photos: one that showed the person she chooses to present to the world, and a second portrait that presented an image of how she existed behind closed doors when feeling depressed."

 The Secret Dual Lives of People Living With Mental Illness
 David Rosenberg

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2014/10/28/liz_obert_dualities_looks_at_the_hidden_and_visible_worlds_of_people_living.html

Dualities
 Liz Obert

 "As a person who suffers from bipolar II disorder, I lead a double life. I have one persona that people see everyday, and another that I hide from the world. Many others who suffer from bipolar and depression have the same experience. I decided to document this experience in a photographic series titled Dualities. I believe it is important to put a human face to disorders that affect millions of people."
 
http://www.lizobert.com/dualities/dualities_statment.html

Why Scott Adams is such a funny man

Like Robin Williams and Spike Milligan and everybody.

Your Personal Ghosts
Scott Adams

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/your_personal_ghosts/

Those who know us construct us

“Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.”

Salman Rushdie, 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet'

You let me speak, and you just listened

"For many years Sergeant Kevin Briggs had a dark, unusual, at times strangely rewarding job: He patrolled the southern end of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, a popular site for suicide attempts. In a sobering, deeply personal talk Briggs shares stories from those he’s spoken — and listened — to standing on the edge of life. He gives a powerful piece of advice to those with loved ones who might be contemplating suicide."

"....When Kevin came back over, I asked him, "What was it that made you come back and give hope and life another chance?"

And you know what he told me?

He said, "You listened. You let me speak, and you just listened."

Kevin Briggs: The bridge between suicide and life

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_briggs_the_bridge_between_suicide_and_life?language=en

What makes you happy?

Splendid road trip documentary, and not just for the ride and the stunning locales, but the amazing conversations with the funniest wisest people they meet on the way, in remote mountain towns and villages.  Interesting, how so many of them answered "Work" when asked what makes them the most happy.

Ashes Before Dust

http://vimeo.com/76342730

"This documentary tells the story of a 5,500 mile motorcycle adventure from Seattle to the Arctic Circle and back. While traveling the back roads through British Columbia, the Yukon Territory, and Alaska, we interviewed the unique and inspiring characters we randomly met along the way. The tale of our journey is flavored with these interviews, providing a glimpse of life in the North Country."

"I would rather be ashes than dust.
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.”

Jack London

Helen Llyod Solo Cycling albums

Helen Lloyd is a British cyclist who cycles solo through remote parts of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia. Watching these in slideshow full screen mode  - see box-like icon on the right-hand top - is like watching a peaceful quiet movie, travelling across stunning landscapes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/helenlloyd/sets/