Hathor is the Ancient Egyptian sky and mother goddess, who is the wife (or mother) of the falcon-headed Sun god Horus. Her name literally means "House of Horus", as the sky is the house of the sun. Cows as emblems of nourishment are sacred to Her, and She usually is shown with some bovine attributes: either a cow's head on a woman's body, or cow ears (like at right), and long horns on Her head that enfold the sun disk, like the arms of the sky embracing Her beloved.

Hathor is also goddess of women, love and joy, music, dance, celebration and beauty. She protects women and is present whenever they beautify themselves. She blesses women with fertility, and many of the ritual objects associated with Her - such as the sistrum and menat-necklace - also have an erotic significance, and in fact the Greeks identified Her with their Aphrodite.

Manyoshu (万葉集, man'yōshū?, "Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves") is the oldest existing, and most highly revered, collection of Japanese poetry, compiled sometime in the Nara or early Heian periods.

The compiler, or the final in a series of compilers, is believed to be ÅŒtomo no Yakamochi, and the last datable poem in the collection is from 759. The collection contains many poems from much earlier, many of them anonymous or misattributed (usually to well-known poets), but the bulk of the collection represents the period between 600 and 759.

here is a taste (translated into English)...


When the tide is full

the surf covers up the shore

hiding the seaweed

so like you, the less I see

the deeper grows my longing.

[excerpt]

The Mayan Calendar



For the Maya there was a time for everything and everything had it's place in time. The priests could interpret the heavens and calendar. As the result they could control the daily activities of the populace. Knowing when to plant, when to harvest, the rainy and dry seasons, etc. gave them total power and control. Their comprehension of time, seasons, and cycles was immense.

The Maya understood 17 different Calendars based on the Cosmos. Some of these calendars go back as far as ten million years and are so difficult that you would need an astronomer, astrologer, geologist, and a mathematician just to work out the calculations. They also made tables predicting eclipses and the orbit of the planet Venus.

The calendars that are most important to beings of earth are the Haab, the Tun-Uc and the Tzolk'in. The Tzolk'in is the most important and the one with the most influence.

The Haab is based in the cycles of earth. It has 360 + 5 days, totalling 365 days. The Haab uses 18 months with 20 days in each month. There is a 19th month called a Vayeb and uses the 5 extra days. Each month has it's own name/glyph. Each day uses a sacred sun/glyph.

The Tun-Uc is the moon calendar. It uses 28 day cycles that mirrors the women's moon cycle. This cycle of the moon is broken down into 4 smaller cycles, of 7 day each. These smaller cycles are the four phases of moon cycle.
The Tzolk'in is the Sacred calendar of the Maya and is based on the cycles of the Pleiadies. The cycle of the Pleiadies uses 26,000 years, but is reflected in the calendar we are using by encompassing 260 days. It uses the sacred numbers 13 and 20. The 13 represents the numbers and 20 represents the sun/glyphs. The Tzolk'in has four smaller cycles called seasons of 65 days each guarded by the four suns of Chicchan, Oc, Men and Ahau. There are also Portal days within the Tzolkin that create a double helix pattern using 52 days and the mathematics of 28. This sacred calendar is still being used for divination by the traditional Maya all over the Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize, and Honduras.
The Tzolkin calendar was meshed with a 365-day solar cycle called the "Haab". The calendar consisted of 18 months with 20 days (numbered 0-19) and a short "month" of only 5 days that was called the Wayeb and was considered to be a dangerous time. It took 52 years for the Tzolkin and Haab calendars to move through a complete cycle.
Archaeologists claim that the Maya began counting time as of year 3114 B.C.
This is called the zero year and is likened to January 1, 1 AD. All dates in the Long Count begin there, so the date of the beginning of this time cycle is written 0-0-0-0-0. 13 cycles of 394 years will have passed before the next cycle begins, which is in year 2012 A.D. (13-0-0-0-0).

Mayan Calendar Basics

The Mayas used three different calendar systems (and some variations within the systems). The three systems are known as the tzolkin (the sacred calendar), the haab (the civil calendar) and the long count system.

More on the Aztec vs. Mayan calendars:
http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_3.htm

[excerpt]

AFRIKAN ALPHABETS - the story of writing in Afrika
Saki Mafundikwa
ISBN 0972424067

Roots of Afrikan Writing Systems

There is a commonly held belief that most graphic symbols in Afrikan societies are merely decorative. In fact, in Afrikan culture, symbols fill an important communication role.

There are stories to be found in the rock art of the San people in southern Afrika; the carvings on the calabashes of the Kikuyu of Kenya. There is information stored in tally sticks like the Ishango Bone from The COngo, the knotted strings of Nigerian Aroko, and the scarification found in many Africkan societies.

The meaning attributed to these symbols and artifacts qualifies as proto-writing, or forerunners of writing. Most of these symbol systems are several thousand years old, suggestING that Afrika has a much older tradtion of writing than some have recognized.

[more to come...]

coffee

I've read that Ethiopians were using coffee at least as early as 800 BEC.
And around the year 1000, Arabs monopolized the growing of coffee.

There is debate whether the name coffee comes from the Kaffa region of Ethiopia, or from the Arabic word gahwa - 'that which prevents sleep.'

I came across this word/concept for the first time this week... the original meaning of Ubuntu has now been borrowed as a name for Ubuntu (Linux distribution), a computer operating system

Ubuntu (ideology)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ubuntu, pronounced /ùbúntú/ (oo-BOON-too), is a sub-Saharan African ethic or ideology focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. The word has its origin in the Bantu languages of Southern Africa. Ubuntu is seen as a traditional African concept.

A rough translation in English could be "humanity towards others," or "I am because we are," or "A person 'becomes human' through other persons," or also, "A person is a person because of other persons." Another translation could be: "The belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity."

Ubuntu is seen as one of the founding principles of the new republic of South Africa, and is connected to the idea of an African Renaissance.[citation needed] In the political sphere, the concept of ubuntu is used to emphasise the need for unity or consensus in decision-making, as well as the need for a suitably humanitarian ethic to inform those decisions

Louw (1998) suggests that the concept of ubuntu defines the individual in terms of their several relationships with others, and stresses the importance of ubuntu as a religious concept, stating that while the Zulu maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu ("a person is a person through other persons") may have no apparent religious connotations in the context of Western society, in an African context it suggests that the person one is to become by behaving with humanity is an ancestor worthy of respect or veneration. Those who uphold the principle of ubuntu throughout their lives will, in death, achieve a unity with those still living.

The "Ubuntu" distribution of the Linux computer operating system is inspired by the concept, arguing that it "brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world."

The concept of Ubuntu also features heavily in the film In My Country, about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FireFly,

Ubuntu [ubu ntu] n. S. African. humanity or fellow feeling; kindness. [Nguni] From Word Reference.com

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. When we want to give high praise to someone we say, "Yu u nobuntu"; "Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu." Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have.

It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours." . . . We say, "A person is a person through other persons." . . . A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed....

To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. What dehumanizes you inexorably dehumanizes me. [Forgiveness] gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them.

- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from "No Future Without Forgiveness"

anthropocentric:
[an-thruh-poh-sen-trik]
adjective
1. regarding the human being as the central fact of the universe.
2. assuming human beings to be the final aim and end of the universe.
3. viewing and interpreting everything in terms of human experience and values.

[Origin: 1860–65; anthropo- + -centric]


etymology:
[et-uh-mol-uh-jee]
noun, plural -gies.

1. the derivation of a word.
2. an account of the history of a particular word or element of a word.
3. the study of historical linguistic change, esp. as manifested in individual words.

[Origin: 1350–1400; ME < L etymologia < Gk etymología, equiv. to etymológ[os) studying the true meanings and values of words [étymo[s) true [see etymon) + lógos word, reason) + -ia -y3]

Music...

Mandekalou
Mandekalou II

[review from a UK music paper]

The charged, declamatory tones of West Africa's griot praise singers may have their roots in the region's medieval empires, but the most striking thing about this summit meeting of great singers and instrumentalists from Mali and Guinea, is how much the music swings.

The scratchy plucking of the ngoni lute, tinkling kora and the picking of at least three excellent guitarists interweave in a humbling river of sound, shot through with disarmingly pretty melodies, over which the personalities of the singers stand out with startling clarity.

While the first Mandekalou album was one fo the most acclaimed world-music CDs of recent years, the second volume is even better.

There's a freshness and immediacy to the music, an earthy vitality to the voices, from venerable diva Bako Dagnon to young pretender Sekouba Bambino - an invocatory force that reflects this music's ongoing relevance.

Hugely influential on modern music from Salif Keita and Youssou N'Dour to far younger artists, the griots are also a link to an older world of belief where music still carries a more than worldly power. MH.

I'm reading Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and came across the term ... "gum-grease".

Today was my first lesson in traditional Arabic.

I'm now working with an Australian born in Algiers. He speaks fluent French, Arabic, and Spanish.

I asked if I could 'bribe' him weekly with baklava and coffee and he agreed, lol. He's very patient.

So today we sat in the park surrounded by those spooky lunch-stealing ibis birds and started off with some simple phrases. I'd like to learn at least enough to be friendly and welcoming to visitors here in Australia and perhaps if I ever get to travel to North Africa - after the lottery win, that is.

misology a hatred of reason or reasoning.

misoneism hatred or dislike of what is new.

missish prim, affected, prudish.

Butterfly
Chinua Achebe

Speed is violence
Power is violence
Weight is violence

The butterly seeks safety in lightness
In weightless, undulating flight

But at a crossroads where mottled light
From trees falls on a brash new highway
Our convergent territories meet

I come power-packed enough for two
And the gentle butterfly offers
Itself in bright yellow sacrifice
Upon my hard silicon shield.

infantile: characteristic of or befitting an infant; babyish; childish: infantile behavior.
Synonyms: puerile, immature, weak.

intelligent: 1. having good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend, as persons or animals: an intelligent student.
2. displaying or characterized by quickness of understanding, sound thought, or good judgment: an intelligent reply.
3. having the faculty of reasoning and understanding
Synonyms: bright. Intelligent, intellectual describe distinctive mental capacity. Intelligent often suggests a natural quickness of understanding: an intelligent reader. Intellectual implies not only having a high degree of understanding, but also a capacity and taste for the higher forms of knowledge

quote:

Originally posted by FireFly:
Today was my first lesson in traditional Arabic.

I'm now working with an Australian born in Algiers. He speaks fluent French, Arabic, and Spanish.

I asked if I could 'bribe' him weekly with baklava and coffee and he agreed, lol. He's very patient.

So today we sat in the park surrounded by those spooky lunch-stealing ibis birds and started off with some simple phrases. I'd like to learn at least enough to be friendly and welcoming to visitors here in Australia and perhaps if I ever get to travel to North Africa - after the lottery win, that is.

how are those going?

The lessons have stalled because my lunch HOUR has been whittled down to 20mins thanks to the rantings of a particular staff member at work I'd rather not discuss or it'll raise my BP.

So now his and my lunch "hours" and work hours don't tally up so I've got to pull out my Let's Learn Arabic DVD and learn on my own. So... slowly.

I've been keeping up the Arabic Drumming though.

quote:

Originally posted by FireFly:
The lessons have stalled because my lunch HOUR has been whittled down to 20mins thanks to the rantings of a particular staff member at work I'd rather not discuss or it'll raise my BP.

So now his and my lunch "hours" and work hours don't tally up so I've got to pull out my Let's Learn Arabic DVD and learn on my own. So... slowly.

I've been keeping up the Arabic Drumming though.

20 mintue lunch...ya'll don't have labor laws out there in the land of Oz?

These were in a recent book and I had to drag out the dictionary

interlocut ~ 1. a person who takes part in a conversation or dialogue.
2. the man in the middle of the line of performers in a minstrel troupe, who acts as the announcer and banters with the end men.
3. a person who questions; interrogator.

epistolary ~ 1. contained in or carried on by letters: an epistolary friendship.
2. of, pertaining to, or consisting of letters.

[Origin: 1650–60; < L epistolāris of, belonging to a letter. See epistle, -ar1]

polymath ~ a person of great learning in several fields of study; polyhistor.

I really like this... and thought you might too.

Words
by Yahia Lababidi

Words are like days:
coloring books or pickpockets,
signposts or scratching posts,
fakirs over hot coals.

Certain words must be earned
just as emotions are suffered
before they can be uttered
- clean as a kept promise.

Words as witnesses
testifying their truths
squalid or rarefied
inevitable, irrefutable.

But, words must not carry
more than they can
it's not good for their backs
or their reputations.

For, whether they dance alone
or with an invisible partner,
every word is a cosmos
dissolving the inarticulate

quote:

Ubuntu [ubu ntu] n. S. African. humanity or fellow feeling; kindness. [Nguni] From Word Reference.com

I recently came across this word in the book "Mistakes Were Made" and immediately fell in love with it. I came across practically the same definitions you found FF. Still I feel that these definitions probably don't do the concept justice. I also found a video of Nelson Mandela describing ubuntu.

But there's something about Linux co-opting it that doesn't feel quite right to me, though.