miércoles, 15 de octubre de 2014

"Things We Surely Need, In These So Technologic Times"

All the things we can't explain in spite of our scientific advances and discoverings, makes the hyper-technified life of these days more attractive and mysterious.
Mostly because we need this kind of things, here's a selection of findings and facts of our world that science and history still can't explain.

Svergies Television, which set up cameras on Sweden's Storsjon or Great Lake, has released images of a blurry, long and narrow silhouette moving in the depths said to be the famous Swedish sea monster. The "Sweden's Loch Ness Monster" was first mentioned in print in 1635 and 500 people have reported 200 sightings since then.

Taos Hum, New Mexico:
A mysterious noise heard in the distance, resembling hidden -or unseen- engines. Sounds like this have been reported through all the world, sometimes described as coming from the sky.

The Voynich manuscript was written in a language that men through the centuries have tried to decode with no success.

In the mysterious Easter Islands where the Moai stands, a set of glyphs have been discovered, called the Rongorongo. Like the mentioned manuscript, they were never at least partially translated.

Chinese mosaic lines:
These strange lines are found at coordinates: 40°27’28.56″N, 93°23’34.42″E. They're located in the desert of the Gansu Sheng province in China.

Unexplained stone doll:
The July 1889 find in Nampa, Idaho, of a small human figure during a well-drilling operation caused intense scientific interest last century. Unmistakably made by human hands, it was found at a depth of 320 feet which would place its age far before the arrival of man in this part of the world.

The Lolladoff plate:
12,000 year old stone dish found in Nepal. Is that a flying saucer and the other figure one of the pilots?




Ancient rocket ship:
This ancient cave painting from Japan is dated to be more than 5000 BC.




Turkey's Gobekly:
This site is composed of more than 200 pillars arranged in 20 circles. Gobekly Tepe was built more than 13,000 years before Stonehenge.

WOW SIgnal:
This 72 seconds signal appeared to have originated from the Sagittarius Constellation near a star called Tau Sagittarii, 120 light years away.

Baghdad batteries, at least 2,000 years before 20th Century:
Some theorize that an acidic liquid was used to generate an electric current inside the jar.




-From various sources-

viernes, 19 de septiembre de 2014

Facts And Myths Of My Favorite Reptile

Here you will read something about the reptile who became my favorite since the first documentary I saw showing this big Lizard.






Komodo Dragons have a hard life until they're 4 or 5 years old, but since then, they can live as the strongest predators mainly in that island.
These reptiles can weigh up to around 90 kilograms and grow up to 3.0 meters; they have a tail as long as the body, short but strong arms and legs, and about 60 serrated teeth that can measure up to about 2.5 centimeters.
Their bite, it was discovered not long ago, is lethal for any of their preys but only because of the venom glands that they use just like some Snakes and other Lizards.

Once upon a time, a princess of the world of spirits lived on Komodo Island. Her name was Epa or Dragon Princess. She was married to a human named Majo.
By tradition of the village, childbirth should not be through the normal process but through a 'surgery operation' by using the blade of bamboo skin by a midwife.
She conceived and gave birth to an egg she kept in a cave. A Komodo Dragon hatched out of the egg and was given the name Ora. A child, Gerong, was born at the same time.
When they were kids, the twins lived peacefully under the care of their parents.
But, as time went by, Ora was growing up and slowly showed her aggressive and malignant characters. Her appetite also changed. She did not want any longer to eat ‘rampi’, a rice dish made of the fruits of cabbage palm tree that was then the staple food of people on Komodo Island. Instead, she started to prey cattle of the local villagers.
The villagers could not accept Ora’s behavior. They finally agreed to cast her out of the village. Ora went away and lived in the jungle. Despite being in exile, Ora still visits her hometown once in a while to see her twin brother Gerong.
The story continued. It was told that Gerong as a youth often hunted Deer in the jungle. One day, when he was about to take a Deer he had killed, a big Lizard appeared from the bush and ate his Deer. Taken by surprise, Gerong immediately grabbed his spear to kill the giant Lizard. But suddenly, her mother, Dragon Princess came, preventing Gerong from killing the Lizard. She told him that the Lizard was Ora, Gerong’s sibling. Gerong calmed down and behaved kindly toward Ora.

Locals on Komodo Island believe the story above dates back to time immemorial.
Based on it, the residents of Komodo Island believe that they are the descendants of Gerong, while the Komodo Dragons living also on the island are those of Ora. That is why local people can live peacefully together with these animals and treat them humanely. They have emotional ties.
They feed aged Komodos who are no longer capable of stalking prey, while the youngsters are free to chase Deer and other animals in the forest.
For a similar reason, most of rangers at the Komodo National Park have been recruited from the native tribe of the island, Ata Modo. There is a myth that the tribe can communicate with the ancient Dragon.
The cave where Ora is said to have hatched is called Loang Atawini. There, the grave of Majo is also highly venerated. The Dragon Princess herself has no burial place, because locals feel certain that she is immortal and comes back when necessary to protect the island.

Until now, the relationship between Komodo Dragons and locals still feels intimate and emotionally very close to them.
Such a familiar feeling like this is almost perceived by outsiders or people who visited the village.
Komodo Dragons can come in and roam freely in the village and sleep under villagers’ traditional, house on stilts without being disturbed by the hustle and bustle of the local residents. Locals also never feel disturbed or concerned of the existence of the ancient animal in their midst.
Considered the original inhabitants of Komodo, for them Dragons are ancestors.
Even to show respect to their ancestor, Ata Modo people hold a special ritual every year called ‘aru gele’, a traditional ceremony of pounding the fruits of cabbage palm tree. The rite was a symbol in a memory of the parents of Ora and Gerong who fed their children with cabbage palm fruits a long time ago.

sábado, 16 de agosto de 2014

Concerning Some Animal Brides / Grooms

Having seen stories about the Selkies and the McCodrums, I thought I could make an entry about this kind of folk tales where Animals become brides or grooms.
There are many tales of marriages between humans and Seals in Scottish and Irish tradition. Some families are supposed to be descended from the Seal People, and their children were born with webs of skin between their fingers and toes.
Members of the Clan MacCodrum of South Uils have been known as the Children of the Seals.

Selkies, sometimes called Silkies, are Seals with the magic ability to turn into men or women when they leave their skin on the coast after getting out of the water. If at that time a fisherman finds one of the skins belonging to a Seal turned into a woman, he takes it forcing her to follow him to his house and live out of the water until she recovers the stolen skin. But not without having lived far from her underwater home for years and even giving children to her kidnapper. However, eventually one of her children helps unknowingly his mother to recover her precious object, and she returns at last with her real family turned again into a Seal.
This kind of legends generally includes Skin-Changers, and even in Africa we can find them:
"A hunter in Chad found an Elephant skin and hid it. Soon he saw a lovely big girl crying, because she had lost her good clothes. The hunter promised her new clothes and married her. They had many big children, for the son of an Elephant can't be a dwarf. One day when the grainstore was empty, his wife found the Elephant skin where the hunter had hidden it, so she put it on and returned to her old life as an Elephant. Her sons became the ancestors of the clan whose totem was the Elephant, and they don't have fear of them".

Others instead have very tragic ends, like the following story.
There was once a young girl called Yaiwa who went far from her home in Wujyashima and walked alone to the mesa where she played, running behind the low tide waves and going backwards before the breaking waves.
A Sea Wolf in love was watching her without being noticed, and when a big wave made her fall, she found with the animal beside her.
Like all the Yagan women, the girl was an excellent swimmer, and thus tried to escape. But keeping between her and the beach and forcing her to go even more far from the coast, the Sea Wolf finally managed to extenuate her and then she found herself forced to hold to his neck.
Now that her life depended of him, a little later the girl also fell in love with the Sea Wolf. They swam together for many miles until they reached a big rock where there was a cave. The woman knew that she couldn't return home by her own, so she decided to stay with the Sea Wolf in the cave. He would bring abundant fish for her and, having no fire, she would eat them raw.
After some time they had a child. He looked like a human, but covered with hair like a Seal. Their son grew up quickly and was a good companion for his mother specially since he learned to talk, something that the old Sea Wolf would never do. Nevertheless, her husband was so kind and 
sweet-hearted that she had got to love him greatly.
But in spite of all, the woman wanted with all her heart to see once again her homeland and her people. She made her husband understand her desire and one good day they went to Wujyashima. Some times mother and son swam side by side with their protector; ocassionally he would push them in the water at great speed and some times they went on his back. At last they arrived to the gravel mesa. The Sea Wolf crawled out of the water and started to rest under the warm rays of the Sun, as the mother -with her strange son by her hand- walked to Wujyashima.
In the village she found some relatives who thought her dead long time ago. Great was their surprise when the woman told them her story and were very interested in her strange son.
When the commotion had ended, the women of the village proposed to go to the west in search of Mussels and those Sea Urchins that have the size and form of flattened apples and whose hard shell is covered of rigid barbs resembling nails. The young mother joined them while children and men stayed there waiting for their return.
The other children began to play and the newcomer joined them. The village men, wanting meat instead of Mussels or Sea Urchins, and knowing that on the beach there was a Seal took their spears and found the old Sea Wolf and killed him. With all that meat, they returned to the village and grilled it. The children smelt the delicious smell of grilled meat went quick to gather around the fire. When the moment came to share the food, a piece was also given to the young visitor and he, after tasting it, said delighted "It's meat of Seal!"
Still eating, he started to run by the road to reunite with his mother who was returning that very moment. The boy ran to his mother and offered her the last piece of meat saying how delicious it was. She inmmediately discovered what had happened; took an Urchin from her basket and hit with it her son in his forehead. The boy fell into the deep water and turned instantly into Suyna, the Fish of the Rocks, went away swimming.
The other women went to the huts to enjoy the cooked meat of Seal but the mother refused to eat and mourned alone for her lost son and her beloved companion. She never married after this any of her own race, and still can be seen crying for having lost the two beings she loved so much.
If one examinates a Suyna will see that the head is flattened and marked with little holes left by the Sea Urchin barbs, which is enough to prove the veracity of this tale.

In this story, by the way, you can see easily two things: the Animal groom was always a Sea Wolf, and the magical transformation came only to their son, leaving to us the mystery about why he turned into a Fish just because of falling to the sea.
The second is, something so apparently trivial and brief has been enough to create a whole story, even if a woman indeed married a Sea Wolf but having nothing to do with the rest of this myth.

sábado, 19 de julio de 2014

Seres Humanos Y Otras Personas

Desde hace unos años hay instalada una discusión en los foros de internet, relacionada con el tema del título que le di a esta entrada: la de los Animales como personas.
¿Qué cosas hacen a una persona o a un grupo de ellas?, dirán en algún lado.

Lo primero y elemental, tal vez, será la capacidad de organizarse. Pero eso también lo consiguen los Leones (no siguen todos a un jefe, sino que cada uno tiene un lugar en la jerarquía). Los Lobos son dirigidos por dos líderes pero logran igualmente un gran nivel de organización tanto grupal como individual.
Y a su modo, sus descendientes -los que conviven en nuestros hogares desde hace milenios-, hacen lo mismo cuando forman jaurías.

Lo segundo debería ser la forma del vínculo entre dos individuos, de igual o distinta especie. La mencionada jerarquía influye sobre esto cuando un Lobo forma familia con una Loba creando una relación de por vida muy parecida a nuestros casamientos.

En tercer lugar -y originada en lo anterior-, la posibilidad de sentir tristeza si un integrante del grupo o de la pareja que se formó muere o desaparece por algún motivo.
De esto, como se sabe, hay innumerables ejemplos; y no sólo son casos entre madre e hijo pertenecientes a una misma especie, sino entre madres e hijos de otras especies como Kamunyak y sus bebés Oryxes.
Siendo los sentimientos hasta hoy algo perteneciente a un número indeterminado de especies aunque sólo nosotros sepamos identificarlos, nos encontramos ante otro misterio casi imposible de develar.
Aparte de esto encontramos vínculos de amistades -Gatos y Perros, los más comunes-, en los que si uno de los dos desaparece o muere el otro cae en un estado de tristeza casi interminable.

Esto nos habla claramente de una capacidad relacionada con la memoria; los casos más conocidos se encuentran entre los Elefantes, pero igualmente muchos otros Animales la tienen bastante desarrollada.

El quinto elemento a favor es el nivel de comunicación, sea con alguien de su especie o de otra con la cual comparta una casa. Aquí se incluye particularmente la forma en que nos observan, principalmente, los Perros.

Las dos últimas características importantes son la habilidad para engañar con un plan elaborado de antemano o al menos intencional, y la de reconocerse frente al espejo; esto lo hacen Elefantes, Delfines y Chimpancés. Se dice que algunos Perros también lo hacen al ver su imagen reflejada.
Y con respecto a los Gatos, ahora algunos también les dan ese nuevo grado en su relación con ellos.

El caso es que este año 2014, en la India, se efectuó un reclamo para que los Elefantes fueran considerados personas y dejaran de ser definitivamente mantenidos en circos, a veces por desgracia muy mal tratados. Todo esto a pesar de la ley que prohíbe tener Animales en esos lugares creados para nuestra diversión.
Con ese reconocimiento, podrían tener los mismos derechos que nosotros y tendrían que pensarlo antes de matarlos o hacerlos sufrir como ocurre incluso hoy.
Ahora que recomenzó la polémica, también quieren incluir Ballenas, por lo cual contando estas dos especies, en total parece haber Ballenas, Chimpancés (tal vez otros primates), Delfines, Elefantes, Gatos y Perros.

Es de esperar por lo tanto que pronto estén en esa lista Tigres y Leopardos así como otros vecinos que tenemos en nuestro propio planeta, quienes por el momento están enfrentando el serio peligro de desaparecer para siempre.

jueves, 10 de abril de 2014

Dragones para todos

Blancos, dorados, naranjas, rojos, púrpuras, negros, grises, azules, celestes, verdes... Tal vez nunca hayan Dragones suficientes para colmar nuestro más oculto deseo de ver a uno de ellos personalmente.
Ese deseo está en todos nosotros aunque sea por distintos motivos... El científico más racionalista del mundo deseará ver uno para estudiarlo como especie nueva; un filósofo al verlo tratará de formular nuevas ideas e hipótesis.
Un botánico se preguntará si también come plantas o pequeñas frutas; algún zoólogo querrá establecer y comparar medidas en relación con otros ejemplares del Reino Animal.
Un escritor buscará datos para hacer una historia sobre él y un artista querrá representarlo en pintura o modelando una escultura. Los ejemplos, aquí también, son innumerables.

...Así que, por lo menos, dejo estas imágenes para que cualquiera de los mencionados arriba pueda hacer su trabajo particular.


Two Becoming One In Love
-Katherina Romanova-

We´re Not So Different
-Layout Sparks-

My Wrath Is Like The Sun
-Stuff Point-

Burning A Cold Dawn In Winter
-Snowskadi-

I Bring Good News, My Lord
-Sakimichan-

...When The Sun Attacked Us
-Lukasz Matuszek-

The Living God Of This World
-HothdWallpaper4U-

Summer Love
-Iasha Bolton-

Everything Here Is Mine
-picscrunchblogspot-

I'm Very Happy Of Being Your Daughter
-ForestOfTheFaiening-

I'll Never Ever Leave You
-Anne Stokes-

The One King Of The Mountain
-Zelda-Akita-

Don't Say I'm Bad Only For My Color!
-Shaori07-

Inner Light In The Darkest Places
-Stuff Point-

viernes, 14 de febrero de 2014

My Special Saint Valentine's Day

St. Valentine's Day...
And for some, the perfect moment
to show the glory of their love.
In complete and true liberty.



"I feel like holding my own heart"
(Romeo and Giulietta, the Rat)
__________


"I love it!!! Thanks, sweetheart!"
__________


"Can you leave us alone for an hour or two?"
(Stamp and Fredda, the Cat)
__________


"My little heart goes now like a wild Horse"
(Annie and Tigger)
__________


"I'm not by your side... I am by your heart"
(Negra and Pancho, the Cat)
__________


"Please let me be your wife"
(Lady and Boo Boo the Cat)
__________


"Don't be so sad, I will stay here"
__________


"You made me find peace..."
"...You did the same for me"
(Geraldine and Rex, the Dog)
__________


"He's my gallant Bear... I am his happy girl"
__________


"Our love can go against the most cruel rules"
__________

sábado, 11 de enero de 2014

12 Very Good Ways Of Starting This Year

Well, another year started
less than two weeks ago.
To begin it, I bring these pictures
found in a site which you surely know already.
And if you want to count them, they're twelve...
Meaning one for each month,
to make it look as a calendar
or even use the pictures for that.


January

Let Them Know How We Love Each Other
__________

February

This Family Has Grown
__________

March

"Want To Marry Me Today?"
__________

April

"My Mom Have Wings And I Can't Fly?"
__________

May

"This Is Me With My Kittens"
__________

June

"Our Peaceful Farm"
__________

July

Royal Company And Cuddles
__________

August

The Most United Family
__________

September

With All The Love Of Kamunyak
__________

October

"Time To Sleep, Honey, Isn't It?"
__________

November

Good Nights Kiss
__________

December

"Protecting What I Love So Much"