Soma

Resources => Pictures [Public] => Topic started by: TIOTIT on July 29, 2006, 12:38:09 AM

Title: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on July 29, 2006, 12:38:09 AM
Hope you see one you like...Tiotit
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on July 29, 2006, 12:40:21 AM
These are wonderful, tiotit! I especially love that owl!
Welcome to Soma, by the way --- glad you dove in!!

Warm Regards,
~V
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jennifer- on July 29, 2006, 12:47:35 AM
Hi Tiotit! These are just wonderful!!!

Its a pleasure to meet you and welcome to Soma! I look forward to getting to know you.

Many Blessings, Jennifer/Raven
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Michael on July 29, 2006, 12:57:21 AM
Hope you see one you like...Tiotit

that dervish looks a bit like you tiotit - btw what is tiotit?
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on July 29, 2006, 01:08:43 AM
I don't know my lizards, Tio -- what sort is this beauty?
And where are you if he is around your home?
Interesting fellow!
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Taimi on July 29, 2006, 01:21:26 AM
The lizards eye looks like drawn
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on July 29, 2006, 12:00:16 PM
SE Queensland! Hmmm... dare I be so predictable and ask you about the Australian Zoo? We hear a lot about it and its owners, the Irwins, here in the US.

Koalas! Do you see them where you are?

Look forward to seeing and reading more from ye!

 :) :)

namaste 
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: xero on July 30, 2006, 02:07:56 AM
Hi Tio...can i call you that. (Though that would then be...'There is Only')  I like it !

Good to see the images. A select package of your aspirations perhaps?
 I look forward to hearing (and seeing) more from you.

Queensland is such a weird name for a state. I dig it. A bit like CommonWealth...a profound concept weakened by crass familiarity.
One thing about forums and the dialogue of friends, is the potention for reinvigorating our language so that it regains it integrity as the aural vessel of magic and meaning.
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on July 30, 2006, 02:13:05 AM
One thing about forums and the dialogue of friends, is the potention for reinvigorating our language so that it regains it integrity as the aural vessel of magic and meaning.

Well put, xero! Reinvigorating, reblending, reinventing -- and even a little creation into the pot too.  :)
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: daphne on July 30, 2006, 02:21:25 AM
Hello tiotit!  I love your avatar picture!
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: xero on July 30, 2006, 02:44:37 AM
Tiotit,

Tell us about your signature picture.
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jahn on August 02, 2006, 09:18:19 PM
Hello Queensland - Sweden calling!

Hi Tio,
I was visiting my new summerhouse this weekend (where my parents have lived for 40 years) and had a evening stroll in the neighborhood. It is not our house on the pictures.

But this is what it look like on our countryside of South Sweden - the color red and white on the houses is very common.

The near village
(http://lrg.zorpia.com/0/2140/13696328.8f7a1a.jpg)

A sleeping house
(http://lrg.zorpia.com/0/2140/13696324.b20071.jpg)
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jennifer- on August 02, 2006, 10:35:14 PM
The Sleeping House caught my attention in a strange way...

Have you ever been inside?

Nice pictures!
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on August 02, 2006, 10:40:43 PM
Caught mine too, Jen.
Feels very unhappy there, as if someone felt trapped there and overwhelmingly disappointed.
The house itself is cute, though.

Jahn, the area is very serene.
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jennifer- on August 02, 2006, 11:13:48 PM
At some point it was someone's escape. Im oddly drawn to want to go inside, can even see the interior.

Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on August 02, 2006, 11:43:25 PM
Hi Juan Miguel...or do I call you Jen?
It looks like a quiet part of the world
what happens there? farming,dairy or
just lots of space...looks a bit cold...I
lived in a cold part of Australia
(very similar to your pictures) before
moving to the tropics,warm is for me.
But I have friends who live in cold parts
of the country and I always look forward
to a bit of time around the fire...some of my
most memorable adventures of spirit were in
remote cold places...thanks for sharing your
images...these photos are places near my home
where I like to walk and swim...Tio
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jennifer- on August 02, 2006, 11:49:36 PM
I'm the Jen..   :-*

These are incredible pictures youve just shared, I love the waterfall and rocks.  :)
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on August 02, 2006, 11:50:06 PM
Beautiful places, Tio!
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on August 02, 2006, 11:56:06 PM
Hi Nichi...
About koalas...I have a couple that live near the house
but I hear them more than see them....they are very shy
and only eat gum leaves so you can't get them to come
around looking for food...I've never been to the Aussie Zoo
it's a few hundred K's from where I live but if I'm ever in the
area I'll drop in and take a look,send you some pics...Tio
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jahn on August 03, 2006, 12:27:14 AM
The Sleeping House caught my attention in a strange way...

Have you ever been inside?

Nice pictures!

Thank you.

No I haven't been in that house but I know it is a old house with simple standard and it has been left alone for many years now. They say it s a lady from Stockholm that owns it.
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jahn on August 03, 2006, 12:30:45 AM
That valley and the waterfall, it is very exotic!
Thank you for sharing Tio.

The cold is not much to trade against warmth but I agree, a crispy winterday or a rainy october evening it is nice to lit the fire. When I lived on the countryside, 20 km south of this town, I used the fire every evenng for a relax and meditation. One can track figures and messages in the coal.

Now living in the ouskirts of town I use the fireplace more seldom.
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jahn on August 03, 2006, 04:56:14 PM
Jahn, the area is very serene.

Yes Nichi it is.

Here is "our" lake. We have a bridge but below the garden is our "sleeping area." We have to clear the bushes so we can get down to the water. My parents have only been circling around the house the last ten years and we haven't managed to clear the way down to the lake. But I have swimmed a lot in it before.

 (http://lrg.zorpia.com/0/2143/13715725.45b53e.jpg)
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: SoulFire on August 04, 2006, 01:46:04 AM
At some point it was someone's escape. Im oddly drawn to want to go inside, can even see the interior.



Me too Jen
Somethin feels funny though, gives me goosebumps on the back of my arms.
 :o
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on August 07, 2006, 12:54:03 AM
About the avatar pic...I really like this image for many reasons,
it recalls my early roots and reminds me of the magic that visited
many moons ago and changed my life in a moment...each in your
own way must recall a moment when the world changed...the first
awakening to the beauty and mystery of Being...Here's a nice bit
of syncronicity...while getting ready to send this post,I was browsing
a web site I check out for daily news...the story at the top of the list
is added to this post...I can hear Jung saying SEE!!! Tio

P.S. I'm enjoying all the images being shared....great stuff


God Is In The Magic Mushrooms

God Is In The
Magic Mushrooms
This just in: Psychedelic drugs could be very good
for your mind, heart, soul. Can you believe?
By Mark Morford
SF Gate Columnist
8-5-6
        Hide the children. Pour some absinthe, fluff the pillows, take off your
        pants. It is time.
         
        Because now we know: Getting nicely and wholly high on illegal but
        completely natural hallucinogenic drugs might, just might open some sort
        of profound psychological doorway or serve as some sort of giddy
        terrifying rocket ride to a higher state of consciousness, happiness, a
        sense of inner peace and love and perspective and a big, fat lick from
        the divine.
         
        It's true. There's even a swell new study from Johns Hopkins University
        that officially suggests what shamans and gurus and botany Ph.D.s and
        alt-spirituality types have known since the dawn of time and Jimi
        Hendrix's consciousness: that psilocybin, the all-natural chemical found
        in certain strains of wild mushrooms, induces a surprisingly large
        percentage of users to experience a profound -- and in some cases,
        largely permanent -- revolution in their spiritual attitudes and
        perspectives.
         
        Not only that, but the stuff reportedly made a majority of testers feel
        so much more compassionate, open-hearted, connected to and awestruck by
        the world and the universe and God that it ranks right up there with the
        most profound and unfathomable experiences of their lives. I know. Stop
        the presses.
         
        But let us sidestep the face-slapping obviousness. Let us look past the
        fact that you are meant to react to this study's findings like it's some
        sort of revelation, like it doesn't merely reinforce roughly 10 thousand
        years of evidence and modern research and opinioneering and responsible
        advocacy by everyone from Timothy Leary to Terence McKenna to Huston
        Smith to the Tibetan Book of the Dead with yet another study to add to
        the pile in the Science of the No Duh.
         
        You know the type -- studies that merely reinforce ageless common sense,
        that simply reiterate something that's been said and understood for
        eons. There have been, for example, recent studies that prove that
        meditation actually reduces blood pressure (no!) and that MDMA (Ecstasy)
        is amazing at releasing inhibition and tapping the deeper psyche
        (shocking!) and that marijuana is roughly a thousand times less harmful
        than Marlboros and nine vodka tonics and smacking your family around in
        an alcoholic rage. You know, duh.
         
        Because one thing painfully redundant studies like this do provide is a
        nicely clinical framework, a structured context from which to view a
        long-standing phenomenon. But here's the fascinating part: In the case
        of something like psilocybin, it's not so much the astounding findings
        that can make you swoon, it's also, well, the illuminating shortcomings
        of science itself.
         
        Put another way, they are trying, once again, to measure enlightenment.
        They are attempting to put a frame around consciousness, cosmic awe,
        God. And of course, they cannot do it. Or rather, they can only go so
        far before they hit that point where the sidewalk ends and the world
        spins off its logical axis and the study's participants cannot help but
        deliver the death blow every scientist dreads to hear: "You cannot
        possibly understand."
         
        Witness, won't you, these revelations:
         
        The psilocybin joyriders claimed the experience included such feelings
        as "a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a
        transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and
        deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love." What's more, for a
        majority of users, the experience was "impossible to put into words."
         
        It doesn't stop there. Two months later, 24 of the participants (out of
        a total of 36) filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their
        reaction to psilocybin "one of the five top most meaningful experiences
        of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most
        spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40
        percent ranking it in the top five. About 80 percent said that because
        of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or
        life satisfaction that was raised either 'moderately' or 'very much.'"
         
        You gotta read that again. And then again. Because those statements are
        just a little astonishing, unlike anything you will read in some FDA
        report on Prozac from Eli Lily. The most profound experience of their
        lives? One of the most spiritually significant? Can we get some of this
        stuff into Dick Cheney's blood pudding? Into the Kool-Aid at the
        American Family Association? Into Israel and Lebanon?
         
        But this is the amazing thing: Here, again, is hard science running
        smack into the hot cosmic goo of the mystical. Here, again, is science
        peering over the edge of understanding and jumping back and saying,
        "Holy crap." It is yet another reminder that our beautiful sciences have
        almost zero tools with which to quantify something like "transcendence
        of time and space" or "a feeling of sacredness and awe." And watching
        them try is either tremendously enjoyable or just depressing as hell. Or
        a little of both. It all depends, of course, on how you see it.
         
        Here then, are your choices. Here are the three ways to look at the
        effects of magic mushrooms on the consciousness of humankind. Which
        angle you choose depends a great deal on how nimble you allow your mind,
        your heart, your spirit to be. Or maybe it's just how much wine you've
        had.
         
        The first way is to simply presume that the lives of the study's
        participants had obviously been, up to their psilocybin joys,
        tremendously mediocre. So bland and so limp that something like
        hallucinogenic mushrooms could not help but be, in contrast, as profound
        as being licked by angels.
         
        This is a clinical interpretation. The gorgeous experience itself means
        nothing except to say that normal life is terribly drab and crazy drugs
        temporarily scramble your brain in occasionally positive and interesting
        ways, but never the twain shall meet, so oh well let's go back to work.
         
        But you can also take it one step further. You may conclude that the
        study underscores the harsh fact that we as a species are so divorced
        from deeper meaning, so detached from the mystical and the divine and
        the universal in our everyday instant-gratification lives, that it takes
        something like a powerful hallucinogen to show us just how meek and
        limited and far from merging with God we still very much are. This is
        the pessimistic view. And it is, by every estimate, a very primitive and
        sour place to be.
         
        Ah, but then there's the third way. This is to suggest that it's exactly
        the other way around, that perhaps at least some of us are, as Leary and
        his cosmic cohorts have suggested for decades, just inches from the
        celestial doorway, already on the precipice of realizing that we are, in
        fact, the divine we so desperately seek. Problem is, we can't see the
        edge through the tremendous fog of consumerism and conservatism and
        quasi-religious muck.
         
        But even so, every now and then we manage to take a tiny, unconscious,
        clumsy step ever closer to the edge, stumbling toward ecstasy without
        really knowing or understanding that we're doing so. And ultimately, sly
        entheogens like psilocybin are merely nature's way of clearing the fog
        for a moment, of letting us know just how close we are by smacking us
        upside the scientific head and tying our cosmic shoelaces together. And
        doesn't that sound like a fascinating way to spend the weekend?
         
        _____
         
        Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday
        on SF Gate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle. To get on
        the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one
        article of clothing. Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive
        of past columns, which includes another tiny photo of Mark probably
        insufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts.
         
        As if that weren't enough, Mark also contributes to the hot, spankin' SF
        Gate Culture Blog.
         
        http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/


 
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on August 25, 2006, 01:08:35 PM
These photos taken in front garden today...
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on August 25, 2006, 01:35:31 PM
Tio, great mushroom article -- funny thing, when I clicked on your link, up came this hilarious commentary on Bush! Too funny!

Love those firetails!  :) :) :)

Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jennifer- on August 25, 2006, 09:46:45 PM
Great article Tiotit! Thanks for sharing it :)

And your pictures! The birds are beautiful, you capture them well with your camera. The snake looks huge, is it aggresive?
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on August 25, 2006, 11:08:53 PM
No this one had just had a meal...I found him sitting in the Sun digesting...
a very compliant model for the camera...With the firetails you have to stand
like a statue one flinch and their gone...
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jennifer- on August 25, 2006, 11:15:42 PM
He's absolutly beautiful! The only snakes I have here are (at the largest) 4 ft skinny little garden snakes, that eat small mice as their largest prey.  Usually mostly solid in color, earth tones of browns and greens. Nothing as striking as yours!

Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on October 12, 2006, 11:05:57 PM
A new friend ...
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jennifer- on October 12, 2006, 11:10:33 PM
Wow! Its beautiful  :o This might seem a silly question but being a Maine girl I think I can get away with it.. *smiles*

Is it wild? It looks to be outside..

Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on October 12, 2006, 11:16:25 PM
IT IS ...I've been getting it's trust for a few weeks now...now he comes around for a feed and even sits on my arm...
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jennifer- on October 12, 2006, 11:20:03 PM
I envy you! How wonderful to of made such a lovely friend!!!

Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on October 12, 2006, 11:34:14 PM
It won't be long before this one is hand feeding...I can get as close as a foot at the moment
(notice the feed tray and background)the free feed gets m every time...
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: erik on October 12, 2006, 11:49:50 PM
You have wonderful gift, Tio!
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Taimi on October 13, 2006, 01:26:22 AM
Cute birds  :-*
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on October 13, 2006, 03:42:38 AM
Wow, Tio!

I'm in total reverie, trying to picture what it must be like to have these birds as part of the landscape there! In us, the birds are nowhere near so exotic, unless a troupe of pet store birds make an escape and "go wild."

It's so cool to see them so happy.

Thanks for the pictures. You have a gift for the fauna!!  :-*
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on October 13, 2006, 10:35:28 PM
This guy hasn't been around for a while...but he came by today for a bit of a snack while
I was working on the shed.....
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Jennifer- on October 13, 2006, 11:32:51 PM
Another beauty! As V mentioned here in the US, well where I am more so then the south.. things are rather boring compared to your world! Thank you for sharing them and your own special connection to the wild things :)

Now if I could get a moose to eat out of my hand.. Ill be posting!!!

 :-* Jennifer
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on October 13, 2006, 11:48:58 PM
Boy you can see their intelligence in their eyes!
Are they (kookaburras) a bit of the trickster energy for you all there?
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Michael on October 14, 2006, 05:54:57 PM
the last, a kookaburra, is the most wonderful of birds - head and shoulders above the rest in maturity. we get them occasionally, and as such they always forecast visitors or rain, or both.

the white cockatoo is also a magical bird, but has become a real pest in some parts of the country - we almost never get them in our valley for some reason - probably to do with food issues.

the king parrot - we have a lot of them in our yard - they stay over the seasons as we feed them, then they eat all our fruit. A very gentle and beautiful bird ... very fond of them.
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: Taimi on October 16, 2006, 06:37:41 AM
i met some nice birdies this weekend. but they can't stay still for one moment...this is the best shot i got... it would be really nice if it would be possible to feed all these little fellows from hand. only in parks some braver sparrows dare do sit on your hand.
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: TIOTIT on November 12, 2006, 03:34:22 PM
I've been watching this firetail for a couple of months...always getting bullied because it
stands out...when it flew into the house 2 days ago I took the opportunity to get a few close ups...such delicate little creatures...
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: daphne on November 12, 2006, 07:48:07 PM
They so tiny!
Title: Re: Around the home
Post by: nichi on November 12, 2006, 10:27:33 PM
Tio, is that a normal characteristic  --- his orange versus the others' red?
(You know, like some gender dimorphism.)
S/he sure is pretty! Their feathers are so fine!