Video: Uncontacted tribes

Over one hundred tribes around the world choose to reject contact with outsiders. They are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet.

Many of them are living on the run, fleeing invasions of their land by colonists, loggers, oil crews and cattle ranchers. They have often seen their friends and families die at the hands of outsiders, in unreported massacres or epidemics.

This is their story.





(The photo above is a recent fly over of a remote area between Brazil and Peru where the native people took up arms when they saw the planes flying over.)

Vatican says it will Excommunicate female Priests

By Phil Stewart
Thu May 29,2008
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican issued its most explicit decree so far against the ordination of women priests on Thursday, punishing them and the bishops who try to ordain them with automatic excommunication.

The decree was written by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, giving it immediate effect.

A Vatican spokesman said the decree made the Church's existing ban on women priests more explicit by clarifying that excommunication would follow all such ordinations.

Excommunication forbids those affected from receiving the sacraments or sharing in acts of public worship.

Rev. Tom Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, said he thought the decree was meant to send a warning to the growing number of Catholics who favor admitting women to the priesthood.

"I think the reason they're doing this is that they've realized there is more and more support among Catholics for ordaining women, and they want to make clear that this is a no-no," Reese said.

The Church says it cannot change the rules banning women from the priesthood because Christ chose only men as his apostles. Church law states that only a baptized male can be made a priest.

Proponents of women's ordination say Christ was only acting according to the social norms of his time.

They cite the letters of Saint Paul, some of the earliest texts of Christianity, to show that women played important roles in the early church.

Attempts to ordain women priests are highly unusual. But the archbishop of St. Louis earlier this year declared three women excommunicated after an ordination ceremony in his diocese.

Excommunication is usually "ferendae sententiae," imposed as punishment.

But some offences, including heresy, schism, and laying violent hands on the Pope, are considered so disruptive of ecclesiastical life that they trigger automatic excommunication, or "latae sententiae.

"The decree says that women priests and the bishops who ordain them would be excommunicated "latae sententiae."

This was the same excommunication invoked against a renegade African archbishop who also broke Vatican rules when he ordained four married men bishops in 2006.

The archbishop, Emmanuel Milingo, made world headlines in 2001 for getting married himself in Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church at a mass wedding in a New York hotel. His union was never recognized by the Catholic Church.

Ron Eglash: African fractals, in buildings and braids

"I am a mathematician, and I would like to stand on your roof." This is how Ron Eglash greeted many African families while researching the intriguing fractal patterns he noticed in villages across the continent. He talks about his work exploring the rigorous fractal math underpinning African architecture, art and even hair braiding.
(Thanks Noelle!)

Scientists Call for Halt to Releases of Genetically Engineered Trees

by Phiona Hamilton-Gordon, ed.

Bonn, GERMANY--Organizations and scientists from around the world spoke about their opposition to genetically engineered trees in relation to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's Ninth Conference of the Parties (CBD COP-9). [1] They are demand that governments at the UN agree to accept the proposal to suspend all releases of genetically engineered (GE) trees into the environment, due to their extreme ecological and social threats.

Camila Moreno, a researcher from Terra de Direitos in Brazil further explained, "there is a clear link between two of the major issues to be discussed at this meeting--agrofuels (biofuels) and GE trees." She added, "A clear sign of this is the ethanol cooperation agreement being signed by Brazil and Germany. While German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in Brazil, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva assured her that so-called second generation biofuels -- made from GE trees and other cellulose--would better suit the German market."

"Genetically Engineered trees threaten to contaminate native forests around the world with unnatural and destructive traits such as the ability to kill insects, or have reduced lignin--the substance that enables a tree to stand up straight and withstand disease," stated Anne Petermann, Co-Director of Global Justice Ecology Project (the North American Focal Point for Global Forest Coalition) and Co-Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign. "Escape of these GE tree traits into forests would devastate wildlife, biodiversity and forest-dependent communities. It is for this reason that 137 groups from 34 countries have become members of the STOP GE Trees Campaign to demand a global ban on genetically engineered trees," she added.

At the CBD COP-8 in Curitiba, Brazil in 2006, the CBD passed an historic decision that urged countries to use the precautionary approach with regard to genetically engineered trees. This amounts to a de facto moratorium since the precautionary approach is a direct reference to the precautionary principle, enshrined in the CBD. Groups are now calling on the CBD to strengthen this decision into a binding halt to any release of GE trees into the environment.

"The CBD should take measures to stop the expansion of large-scale monoculture plantations, and ban both transgenic trees and 'terminator' technology. This is the request supported by many organizations around the world as stated in our 'Open letter to the COP', " said Ana Filippini, of the World Rainforest Movement, one of the organizations promoting this initiative. WRM is the Southern Hub of the STOP GE Trees Campaign. The Campaign will have a very visible and vocal presence throughout the COP-9, with numerous events and activities planned throughout the two-week period.

Endnotes:

[1] Speakers included:

Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, biologist, geneticist, Director, EcoNexus, Representative, Federation of German Scientists; Dr. Michael Hansen, Researcher, Consumers Union Camila Moreno, Researcher, Terra de Direitos, Brazil; Anne Petermann, Co-Director, Global Justice Ecology Project, North American Focal Point for Global Forest Coalition and Co-coordinator of STOP GE Trees Campaign; Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network

Art: Ancient Temples

Recently I have been collecting images of ancient sites of worship. Here are a few gems...( Some of them are not ancient but equally as amazing.)




Tikal Temple 1: " The Maya of Tikal considered Temple I the portal to the Underworld. Ha Sawa Chaan K’awil’s rich tomb was discovered in the interior of the building (Burial 116). Yikin, his son, sealed the tomb after his father's death, before construction began on the temple. Being buried in this spot was a huge break with tradition. Before this time, for more than 500 years, all the rulers of Tikal were buried in the North Acropolis. His royal tomb included several kilos of jade, shells and pottery. Ha Sawa Chaan K'awil was almost 6 ft. tall and his body was left under Temple I after his death with a richly adorned burial, which was excavated by archaeologist Aubrey Trik in 1962. The temple complex may represent the Full Cycle of Life itself."



Pillar from a Jain Kama Sutra Temple.



Unknown Buddhist temple.




The famous St. Basil's Cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible and built on the edge of Red Square between 1555 and 1561. Legend has it that on completion of the church the Tsar ordered the architect, Postnik Yakovlev, to be blinded to prevent him from ever creating anything to rival its beauty again. (He did in fact go on to build another cathedral in Vladimir despite his ocular impediment!) The cathedral was built to commemorate Ivan the Terrible's successful military campaign against the Tartar Mongols in 1552 in the besieged city of Kazan. Victory came on the feast day of the Intercession of the Virgin, so the Tsar chose to name his new church the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat, after the moat that ran beside the Kremlin. The church was given the nickname "St. Basil's" after the "holy fool" Basil the Blessed (1468-1552), who was hugely popular at that time with the Muscovites masses and even with Ivan the Terrible himself. St. Basil's was built on the site of the earlier Trinity Cathedral, which at one point gave its name to the neighboring square.




The Temple of Edfu is an ancient Egyptian temple located on the west bank of the Nile in the city of Edfu. It is the second largest temple in Egypt after Karnak and one of the best preserved. The temple, dedicated to the falcon god Horus, was built in the Ptolemaic period between 237 and 57 BCE. The inscriptions on its walls provide important information on language, myth and religion during the Greco-Roman period in ancient Egypt. They are translated by the german Edfu-Project.




unknown.



Wat Chai Wattanaram: Standing right on the river, Wat Chai Wattanaram is, in our view, one of the most impressive of the remaining monuments of old Ayutthaya. It was built in 1629 by King Prasat Tong, probably on the site of his mother's cremation. King Prasat Tong was actually a commoner who overthrew the previous king and took the throne. The monastary may well have been established to assert his legitimacy to the throne.


Angkor Wat:
Angkor Wat (or Angkor Vat) (Khmer: អង្គរវត្ត), is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built for King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu, dedicated to Vishnu, then Buddhist. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors.

Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple mountain and the later galleried temple. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the gods in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 km (2.2 miles) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs and for the numerous devatas (guardian spirits) adorning its walls.

The modern name, Angkor Wat, in use by the 16th century,[1] means "City Temple": Angkor is a vernacular form of the word nokor which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (capital), while wat is the Khmer word for temple. Prior to this time the temple was known as Preah Pisnulok, after the posthumous title of its founder, Suryavarman II.[2]



Temple of Manu Rishi:
This is the only temple of Manu in India. Manu was believed to be the creator of the human race.

Intro to the Hebrew Alphabet

This is a great video about the Hebrew Alphabet/Kabbalah. I do not know much about the man who made it but he has some great information synthesized in easy to understand language.
Enjoy!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208619888961779202&q=Stan+Tenen&ei=TMwwSKvYEoSaqQLsxOWWCg&hl=en

"The Hebrew Alphabet, Genesis, and Kabbalah: What is The Meru Project? Using the objective tools of science, Stan Tenen has studied the mathematical structure underlying the sequence of letters in the Hebrew text of Genesis. His research has shown that the geometric patterns fundamental to modern physics were available to us long before physics per se was considered an independent science. These patterns are intrinsic to the Hebrew letter-text of Genesis, and were known to traditional Kabbalists and sages. Studying these patterns leads to a deep understanding of the framework of our own existence, and ways to access our potential to improve ourselves and the world around us. The Meru Project has discovered that the sequence of letters in the Hebrew text of Genesis reveals a simple yet extraordinary and unexpected series of geometric models whose intrinsic meaning describes processes inherent in fields as diverse as embryology, modern physics, and consciousness studies. Meru research demonstrates that the Hebrew alphabet, in its early rabbinic form, is at its core a universal language of gestures. People from all cultures, even those who are blind from birth, and children before they speak, make spontaneous use of this natural language. The gestures of the Hebrew alphabet express universal needs and choices. The benefits of using this extraordinary and uniquely elegant model range from personal and spiritual growth to the expansion of scientific knowledge. Meru Foundation is a non-profit organization formed to support this research."