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goldguile · 4 years

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headcanon: death & funerals in almyra.

i meant to do this like two weeks ago but better late than never, right?

uhhhh trigger warning for death mentions, i guess?

in general, almyra is pretty death-positive. while it’s always sad when someone you love dies, the people tend to just accept it as the natural order of things. of course this is mostly referring to natural deaths-- for every person that is born, another will someday die. it’s just the circle of life, and not something to fear or bemoan. murders, suicides, passing away due to illnesses, child death... those are all treated as the tragedies they are due to the unnatural ending of a life. meanwhile, dying on the battlefield and dying in childbirth are seen as very honourable ways to go, especially if the soldier died in an act of protection or the mother gave her life for the child.

when an elderly (or at least dying ) person is on their deathbed, it is common in religious families for a priest or religious figure to visit the family and perform their last rites. they will confess to any lingering sins and pray alongside the priest in a ritual cleansing of their soul so that they might pass on in peace. while non-religious families may opt to skip this, there are some individuals who want the visit anyways. even if they are not religious, the visit and confession still will at least bring them peace in their final days. they’ll be able to die without regrets, as they’ll have talked about them.

typically, children who have passed away before their coming of age ceremony are believed to always go on to a good place after death-- they are considered innocent, pure, and still learning the ways of the world, and thus will not be punished for any misbehaviour.

when the individual passes away and the corpse is discovered, no one is allowed into the room except for the individual who has discovered the body and those designated to deal with it. this is because a corpse is considered unclean and it is important to prevent contamination. the less people in the room, the less chance of contamination. funerary preparations begin as soon as the body is found; the body, its handlers, and the room are ritually cleansed as soon as possible, making the former safe to touch for a matter of hours. however, only those who have been designated to handle the body should be touching it. ( and even then, they will avoid direct contact where possible. ) if accidental contact has been made with the body when you really shouldn’t have been touching it, you must undergo ritual cleansing. anything the body touched will also be cleansed and possibly disposed of.

a candle or lamp is lit in the room after it has been ritually cleansed, to be kept burning while the ceremonies are underway. after being prepared for the funeral the body is transported to a community funerary hall, or the room in which the funeral will take place is prepared and ritually cleansed. funerary halls are common; there is at least one in every village. big cities will tend to have more, all within easy access for the residents. in the case of wealthy people, they may have their own private wing or small building; the royal family has a separate building on the castle grounds for funerary rites. another candle or lamp is kept burning by the body when it arrives and is set up for the funeral, incense being added to it periodically.

if a body was never found belongings with a lot of meaning to the deceased are put on display alongside a painting, if one is owned.

funeral goers will typically wear white, and the funeral itself is a celebration of the recently deceased’s life. there is a small feast, usually comprised of the deceased’s favourite things to eat, and the ceremony and reception are seen as wishing them well on their way to the afterlife; a proper sendoff rather than standing around crying. in the case of unnatural & child deaths, the proceedings are a little more somber and restrained than they would be otherwise-- but still a celebration nonetheless. much like the coming of age ceremony, it is absolutely forbidden to get drunk at a funeral. it’s tacky and gross, why would you.......

if the funeral is taking place at the deceased’s home, the guests will bring the food with them; it is a custom that no food must be prepared in a house where a death has taken place for at least three days. if the funeral takes place at home, it’s four days to account for the extended time the body was present.

after the funeral, the body is wrapped up in a white cloth and transported to the burial site. whether or not there is a procession is up to the family, but if there is, there will always be an even number of participants.

there are three common types of burials in almyra: sky burial, cremation, and ground burials.

sky burials are the most traditional, and especially common in deserts and mountainous regions. the body is placed atop a high tower for wyverns or vultures to eat; the deceased contributing to the circle of life one final time. this takes a few hours, and the bones are properly disposed of after they have been picked clean. the sites are kept far away from civilizations -- again, to prevent contamination and disease -- and are held to incredibly high cleanliness standards and regulations and both the sites and the staff must go thorough many ritual (and literal) cleansings. the teams who handle sky burials are given a lot of respect; they are seen as the final shepherds of the dead. they’re also paid incredibly well for adhering to such strict standards-- and for all the respect it garners, it is a sort of morbid job. as traditional as they are, in times of plague sky burials are prohibited.

if you don’t live near a sky burial site or you can’t have it done for whatever reason, cremation will be the most common substitution. though banned for some time in the past, given that fire is considered sacred in the almyran religion and must not be tainted by the contamination and decay of a dead body, some hundred years back this policy was revised. in addition to getting around not having sky burial sites everywhere, not every citizen of almyra is religious, and the nation has a history of conquest; not everyone practices the almyran religion, and the royal family does not enforce it. those who are religious and opt for cremation will put the body through several cleansing and purification rituals before allowing the flames to touch it.

ground burial is the other most common option, though this is generally the least common of the three. as a corpse is consided unclean and contaminated, most people do not want to contaminate the earth by placing one inside it. to get around this, burial sites will typically be protected by placing slabs of stone or concrete in the graves.

of course, as long as the environment is not contaminated, people are free to dispose of their dead in the way they believe is the most respectful. the one constant, religious burial or no, is that embalming is absolutely forbidden as it is believed to be bad for the environment and wildlife. (...and it is.)

after the funerary rites and burial are completed, no one is to enter the room in which the body was found for at least a week. ( once again to, you guessed it, prevent contamination. ) a candle or lamp is lit in another room of the house and is kept burning for a minimum of 3 days; perhaps longer depending on the season and circumstances of the death. this never exceeds a month, however. as mentioned before, no food is prepared in the house of the recently deceased for the three days it takes the soul to pass on to the afterlife. once it is “safe” to enter the closed off room, it is thoroughly literally and ritually cleansed one more time. any personal effects that were used in the funeral are thoroughly cleansed as well.

one month, six months, and year after death there will be a small, private ceremony in the deceased’s family to remember the dead as well as honour their ancestors. at minimum, assuming no one has recently died, this always takes place twice a year. remembering and honouring the dead is very important to the almyrans.

the royal family in particular keeps a collection of personal items belonging to past rulers and members of the family. often, kings will leave journals behind for their descendants to peruse in hopes that their accumulated knowledge will help them govern the kingdom.

#✧﹙ooc.﹚❛ 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐝𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫，𝐩𝐞𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫，𝐩𝐞𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫.#✧﹙headcanon.﹚❛ 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐮𝐩.#✧﹙worldbuilding.﹚❛ 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐬.#long post //#absolute unit hc #death mention //#unsanitary mention //#maybe? idk i'm tagging it just to be safe #tldr almyra is very concerned about cleanliness and sanitation #and it is very much reflected in their funerals #and how they deal with death

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korkrunchcereal · 5 years

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Calm Before the Storm

((Read the previous story here. The events of the Tales of the Gilded Lands concerns World of Warcraft: Legion and can be found here.))

Sunrise in the Crescent Hills was always a beautiful sight. It was becoming increasingly rare for Aurelian to be awake when such occurred, and so he always took some small pleasures when he could witness the dawn. It was no secret that he preferred the quiet solitude of night and the haunting beauty of the moon, but the glimmer of light that crept over the hills of his domain always filled him with some small sense of satisfaction and joy. This was his; everything that the light fell upon was his.

In time, the lands beyond would be his too.

That however would be a time in the future, and even such a future was not guaranteed. The Legion’s tightening grip on the world would ensure such triumph would never occur if they could not be stopped. Thus he awoke at dawn, facing the coming morn with some small hope of what may be and plans to secure his own fate. When he had awoke, he had bid the servants to fetch his meal and, when that was done, to fetch his armor.

So now he stood upon his private balcony, looking over his kingdom as his servants prepared him for war. Two men attended him, strapping in steel and hoisting on padding and mail to sit beneath the alabaster plates he wore so proudly. One had provided him a small platform to place a foot on, the other a glass of wine so he may drink as he was armored.

They worked their way up, affixing plate to pant leg and boot even as he drank deep a crimson. They had done this before, careful to ensure their lord did not spill a single drop of wine. Next came the armored skirt, the plate glimmering like dragon scales in the morning sun. Slowly they worked their way up, affixing every piece of armor with expert patience until at last Aurelian was adorned in the armor of his lineage save his helm. By the time they had finished, Aurelian had finished his glass of wine and so gave the servants the empty glass to be rid of.

“You are up quite early, my lord.”

“Cyvar.” Aurelian craned his neck behind him, already recognizing the voice as his second approached. “Is it not best to meet the morning sun each day?”

“Yes, if you’re not recovering from the night before…” Cyvar moved beside his lordship on the balcony even as the servant slinked away, their duty done. “Are you sure about leaving? You can send another in your place.”

“And miss the glory?” Aurelian scoffed, placing a hand to his chest with the lightest tap. “I am Aurelian Indaris; I cannot hide on my throne whilst others earn honor and renown. No my friend, It is my duty. Besides, the Crescent Hills will be fine. Speaking of, any luck concerning the Arrowmere investigation?”

“No, my lord.”

“Damn. I liked the Arrowmeres. And nothing, truly? I figured Salas was behind this, that deviant.”

“Not so far as we know, my lord. Unfortunately, there has been some delays due to Rivervale’s former bailiff.”

“Rhega?” At that Aurelian sighed, shaking his head. “Ugh; I can’t believe it. I always considered myself a good judge of character and I thought Rhega would at least have the common sense to not take bribes from those outside my circle. What of a new bailiff?”

“Mayor Shana has promoted a Dora Ferus to the position. Apparently, he’s served Rivervale with distinction and good character.”

“With good character hmm? The place is a den of backstabbing so such ‘good character’ I find hard to believe. Still, if Mayor Shana vouches for him, I suppose he will do. Work with him to find anything on the Arrowmere murder. Ugh, it leaves such a bad taste in my mouth.”

“Wine, my lord?”

“What? Oh, no i’ve already had a glass. Thank you though. No, it’s the bitter taste of…well something.”

“Defeat?” Cyvar suggested.

“No. Aurelian Indaris is never defeated.”

“Mhmm…what about-“

“Aurelian Indaris is never defeated.” Aurelian interrupted with annoyance. “Just…set back.”

“Of course, my lord. Defeat or lack there of, I will nonetheless continue investigating the matter. Gods knows it’s riling up the nobility.”

“Have there been any reports from the noble families?”

“Discontent over the murder, my lord. So far however, nothing serious.”

“Yet.” Aurelian corrected with a finger raised. “All it takes is one spark to light the fire, and I worry this could be it. What does it say that I can’t guarantee the safety of those closely allied to me?” He turned, beginning to pace. “What does it say that those who pledge fealty to me are subject to such gruesome murder?”

“You fear they may turn against you?”

“Why not? Many did when my father passed. Oh, how the vultures of court descended to feast. They thought the Indaris family a corpse to devour then; it wouldn’t take much for them to do so again and I fear this time they would succeed in eating us whole. My brother is comatose, my sister remains in a similar situation which leaves me the last Indaris. If I cannot…” Aurelian paused, taking a breath he did not realize he had been holding. “If I cannot guarantee the safety of my people then they will turn to others who will.”

“You helped lead your house through the death of your father, Aurelian. I do not share your fear so readily.”

“Ah, Cyvar. Your words are what I need to hear.” Aurelian stopped his pacing, placing a hand on Cyvar’s shoulder. “My friend; I need you to not fail me in this task. Find who orchestrated the death of the Arrowmere family. I feel in my gut they are related to the Unbidden. And mark my words, the Salas have a hand in this.”

“I will not fail you, my lord.”

“Good.” Aurelian squeezed Cyvar’s shoulder before removing his hand, turning back to face the horizon. “Light, isn’t it beautiful?” He walked to the balcony, leaning against the stone railing.

“It is, my lord.”

“Look at all we have built. My lands are vast and wealthy, my people fed; whatever is causing this disruption to the order of things here is certainly not of the Hills.”

“Mm…that reminds me. The annual inspection of the Hills’ towns is in a few week’s time, if I recall. Will you be there to attend?”

“Ugh; I nearly forgot about that.” Aurelian curled his lip as he waved a hand dismissively. “It is likely I will be away at war. I can’t have it cancelled though, for it does much to boost the people’s spirits when the Indaris family rides through. Besides, there are debts incurred each year that need collecting. Hmm…Have Calithiel go.”

“Do you think she will enjoy it?”

“I think so but even if she doesn’t, she has to. If she is to be the lady Indaris there is much she will have to learn and do.” At that Cyvar chuckled, drawing Aurelian’s attention to him in confusion. “What?”

“Ah, it is nothing my lord. Fate is strange, that is all.”

“Mhmm.” Aurelian’s skepticism was clear, but he did not press the matter. “You will protect her, yes?”

“With my life.”

“Well hopefully it does not come to that. Speaking of however I do need to speak with her before I leave. Did you see her on your way up, by chance?”

“I believe she is in the gardens, my lord.”

“The gardens? Interesting. I wasn’t sure she was awake considering…well never mind it’s not important. I trust that is all you have for me, Cyvar?”

“Aye my lord. Actually, one more thing.”

“Yes?” Aurelian turned fully, arms crossing.

“Be safe.”

“Oh please,” Aurelian waved a hand dismissively once more as he left the balcony. “Aren’t I always?”

“Safer than a newborn babe, my lord.” Aurelian moved across his quarters to the door, turning to call out behind him.

“Besides. If I die, the Crescent Hills will collapse, and I certainly can’t have that as my legacy. So long, Cyvar.”

“So, what did you discuss with Cyvar and your betrothed?” Balasar leaned forward on the table, hands clenched together.

“With Cyvar I told him to continue his investigations whilst my betrothed I merely bid a goodbye kiss.” Aurelian raised the corner of his lip ever so as he spotted Balasar’s elbows upon the table but said nothing of it.

“A goodbye kiss…”

“I also might have told her to be careful. Oh, and the inspection, of course.”

“Yes, the inspection. Where everything went to hell in a handbasket. Tell me about it.”

“Ah ah ah; you said you wanted the whole story, yes? There is a couple details to go over. I’ll skip over our heroic defense of Azshara for such tales of my valor would undoubtedly bore you, and instead go to when the Legion invaded Lord Truefeather’s domain.”

“Ah yes. If I recall from my reports, that is where you nearly died, no?”

“Indeed; a grisly affair but one I feel needs explaining. You see, it happened at the Evergrove…”

#Aurelian Indaris #World of Warcraft #Skullcrusha writing #Tales of the Gilded Lands

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loneberry · 5 years

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Flowers for Eternity

What is the alphabet of funeral flowers that appears everywhere in my work?

Below the cut is “Flowers for Eternity”—my favorite chapter from Stephen Buchmann’s book The Reason for Flowers—on the relationship between flowers and death, and the use of flowers for funerary and religious rituals.

Flowers as the enshrinement of wayward souls

Flowers as an olfactory mask for decomposing corpses

Flowers as memorialization

Flowers as emotional salve in the face of loss

Who knows why, when a life is snuffed out, a bouquet sprouts in the void.

In the end, we all will become flowers

Ruderals in the cemetery of lost dreams

Flowers for Eternity They are love’s last gift—bring ye flowers, pale flowers! —Felicia Hermans It’s a cold February morning in Orange County, California. My family, and our relatives and friends, gather on a green lawn, in the Garden of Contentment, an older area within the sprawling Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California, the largest cemetery in the United States. A friend has given the eulogy for my father, Stanley, who has died at age fifty-seven. Our family walks to the open grave hand in hand. My father’s sister carries a bouquet of flowers. One by one, we come forward, adding colorful bouquets atop the metal coffin. Floral wreaths rest next to the gravesite on tall stands. Earlier that morning, several hundred friends, family, and relatives paid their final respects during a funeral service in the flower-filled First Congregational Church of Buena Park. Now, our family and a few others remain graveside among the floral tributes before the casket is lowered. Such earthen burials in cemeteries are repeated about six thousand times each day in the United States and many more times around the world. Much of the florist industry is based on these services and other floral tributes. With their beauty, flowers comfort us; they make us smile and ease our grief. They help us to heal and recover from losses and emotional wounds. This has always been true. Our ancestors used cut flowers as grave offerings since the time spiritual beliefs first stirred in humans. Archaeological excavations of ancient burial sites in Iraq and Israel, along with tombs of Egyptian pharaohs, such as Tutankhamen, provide us with glimpses into the burial customs of these ancient mourners, and flowers for eternity. Buried with Flowers Deep within the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq is the famed Shanidar Cave. Early humans, Neanderthals, lived here seventy thousand years ago and buried their dead. Excavations in the 1950s by a Columbia University archaeological team unearthed ten Neanderthal skeletons buried along with an assortment of stone tools. At least one individual may have been laid upon a bed of stems of joint pine (Ephedra, shrubs that make no flowers) and also adorned with bouquets of flowers. Pollen from twenty-eight flowering species was identified from the gravesite soils. Pollen-grain concentrations were higher within the grave than in the surrounding areas of Shanidar Cave. This sensational discovery was widely reported in the media and sparked debate. Did the family group of Neanderthals have ritualized burials? Was this the first evidence of floral grave offerings? Or, as has recently been suggested, was it merely interred pollen brought into the cave by generations of gerbil-like rodents hoarding grasses and wildflowers? For now, the story is unclear. Not as old, but far more scientifically convincing, is a twelve-millennia-old gravesite inside Raqefet Cave on Israel’s Mt. Carmel studied by archaeologists at the University of Haifa. Here, four graves from the Natufian culture (radiocarbon-dated to be 13,700 to 11,700 years old) were lined with flowers at the time of burial. In one grave, an adult male and an adolescent were buried together atop a thick bier of floral offerings. Judaean sage (Salvia judaica), along with other unidentified mints (Lamiaceae) and members of the snapdragon family (Plantaginaceae), were used. Interestingly, Judaean sage has been a ritual plant since ancient times. It has commonly followed Mediterranean peoples from cradle to grave, like rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) and true myrtle (Myrtus communis). Myrtle remains entwined and is used with one Jewish holiday, Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles, still celebrated each autumn. Archaeologist Dr. Dani Nadel spoke with me about the Raqefet Cave ancient graveyard, explaining that the inner grave surfaces were plastered with mud, capturing imprints of the delicate stems and finest floral impressions at the time of inhumation. Based upon the types of local wildflowers used, these may have been spring burials. Perhaps flowers were offered as grave goods not only for their beauty but also for their intense scents, which would have masked the odors of decomposition. Sages, along with mint stems and leaves, are especially fragrant, used to this day in cooking and burned as incense. A visitor to the Mt. Carmel hillside today walks among Judaean sage, a plant as common there now as it likely was millennia ago. The Natufians were possibly the first people to transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to permanent settlements with agriculture, animal husbandry, and true graveyards. Honoring the Dead or Appeasing the Gods? From the earliest times, humans have displayed two interrelated behaviors using flowers. We have buried them with our dead, but we have also adorned statues of deities with garlands or left blooms on sacred altars to propitiate the deities. Why is it that something as ephemeral and delicate as a flower took on this new role in the theologies of so many divergent cultures? How could a flower provide comfort for grieving mourners if we evolved from fruit-eating ancestors? Why not use something else? Shouldn’t we be decorating sarcophagi and coffins with fruit, luscious red ripe grapes, apples, or figs? Perhaps it happened because the blooming of flowers around the world proceeds in a predictable, seasonal pattern. Flowers of the dry season are replaced by flowers of the rainy season in the tropics. In cooler-milder zones, three or four seasons offer a diverse but revolving carousel of buds that open and wilt at appointed times. Catastrophic destruction by unexpected droughts, wildfires, or floods interrupts annual climate cycles but not forever. Given time, the flowers return. Early humans certainly noticed that when their kin were buried in shallow graves, these sites were later colonized by blooming, opportunistic, short-lived wildflowers ecologists call ruderals. This mode of natural renewal had been noted by most generations of poets, regardless of era. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Laertes offers the then-widespread belief that good flowers spring from the grave of a good person. He hopes that violets will spring from his sister Ophelia’s grave, although her death was a suicide. Thus, Mt. Carmel hides more than one ruined necropolis in plain sight. On warm days in January a trained botanist can show cyclamens, red anemones, winter narcissi, and mandrakes poking out between the tips of the half-buried ossuaries. Bouquets, Mummy Garlands, and Floral Collars On a far grander scale, death rites and religious worship were intertwined in the Egypt of the pharaohs. Flower arrangements were used in festivals and for special occasions. Most popular were the spike-topped papyrus reeds, and flowers of sacred blue and white water lilies. Bouquets were presented to deceased relatives at the time of burial and on various festive occasions and anniversaries at the necropolis and mortuary temples. Beautifully designed fresh-flower arrangements were also worn as broad neck collars (wide necklaces) by participants at Egyptian funerary rites and their associated feasts. Bouquets were brought to burials, and papyrus stems played an integral part since these abundant, aquatic reeds symbolized the resurrection of the deceased. Bouquets and persea (Mimusops laurifolia) branches were found inside King Tutankhamun’s multiroomed royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings (ancient Thebes) when it was first opened by Howard Carter in 1922. Ancient flower collars and dried-but-once-fresh flowers are found on mummies and draped on statues placed within tombs. When nineteen-year-old pharaoh Tutankhamun was buried in 1323 BC, many floral garlands were placed as offerings on his three nested, gilded coffins. A small wreath of olive leaves, blue water-lily petals, and blue cornflowers (Centaurea) surrounded the symbol of office, the vulture-and-serpent motif above the king’s brow. The floral decorations on Tut’s innermost coffins were especially elaborate. Here, layers of wrapped linen were crisscrossed by four bands of long floral garlands. The plants used in the garlands have been identified as olive leaves, cornflower, willow, lotus (Nelumbo), and celery leaves. A one-foot-wide floral collar encircled the king’s sculpted, solid gold funerary mask. When fresh, before the sarcophagus was sealed, this brilliant floral collar resting on the golden innermost coffin lid must have been a lovely sight. Unlike the previous garlands, this collar contained blue glass beads, lotus petals, more cornflowers, the scarlet berries of deadly nightshade, along with yellow mandrake fruits and the yellow-flowering heads of yellow hawkweeds (Picris). The royal mummy of Rameses II (1290 - 1224 BC) had thirteen rows of floral garlands, along with single blue flowers of water lilies under the bands sealing the mummy wrappings. This king, along with others, was found in a “mummy cache,” likely placed there a century later (c. 1087 BC) by Egyptians to avoid the rampant tomb robbing of that time. The garlands of persea leaves and blue and white lotus on the mummy wrappings of Rameses II might have been placed there reverentially during his hasty reburial. Northwest from Egypt, on islands of the Aegean, the Minoan peoples traded with the Egyptians, who coveted Minoan saffron (Crocus sativus) as a spice and a dye. These people also enjoyed an elaborate vision of death, flowers, and deities, but it seems more cheerful. Amateur botanist and historian Hellmut Baumann has addressed the relicts of this civilization, and its Greek invaders. The Cretans, for example, decorated their sarcophagi with motifs depicting the flowering stems of native dragon arums (Dracunculus vulgaris) and related members of the philodendron family (Araceae). They also painted the glorious white and wonderfully scented sea daffodils (Pancratium maritimum) on these baked clays as it was a favorite of their goddesses. These deities were believed to favor wild lilies, including the white-flowered species we today call the Madonna (Lilium candidum), and the Cretans protected the mauve flowers of the saffron crocus. One sculpted goddess wore a crown made of the fat round fruits of opium poppies. The Minoan Empire came to a violent end around 1570 BC when volcanic eruptions and tsunamis devastated their islands and left the survivors vulnerable to waves of invasion from the Greek mainland. The invaders brought in a new, male-dominated pantheon. The mighty Minoan goddess became Crete’s nymph under the name of Britomartis or Dictynna. She was a dutiful daughter of Zeus and a virgin. Classical Greek religion believed in gods who loved flowers. As they were immortals, their worshippers decorated their temples with “immortal” arrangements of everlasting daisies (Helichrysum), as they hold their shiny yellow color and sun shapes when dried. Sacrificial oxen were adorned with flowers of wild carnations (Dianthus) and rose campions (Lychnis). Greek priests and poets insisted that their gods had sacred plants, and some of these bore beautiful flowers. The first Olympian gods invented floral wreaths at the wedding of Zeus and Hera, weaving together wildflowers such as primroses, candytuft (Iberis), leopard’s-bane (Doronicum), and mouse-ears (Cerastium). Pindar (522 - 443 BC) wrote odes associating Apollo and Aphrodite with sweetly scented violets of the field. Flowers followed a Greek woman through the most important rituals of her life. Virgins wore garlands of wild, white-flowered species at their weddings, typically incorporating crocuses, white snowflakes (Leucojum), white storax (Styrax), and snowdrops (Galanthus), according to season. The modern fashion of the pure white bride’s bouquet derives from these sweetly scented garlands and wreaths. But the wedding bouquet of classical Greece was more likely to contain garlic and other pungent herbs to drive off jealous wandering spirits! The citizens of ancient Rome picked up many Greek wedding customs but seemed to prefer colorful, scented flowers including violets, wallflowers (Cheiranthus), and stocks (Matthiola). The Greeks also favored roses (sacred to Aphrodite), but the Romans so expanded the wedding fashions that they may have used the flowers of four or five different Rosa species. Wealthier Romans also tried to turn their wedding nuptial chambers into a fertile garden of flowers and greenery. As a matron, the mature Greek woman celebrated the summer rites (Thesmophoria) sacred to the grain goddess, Demeter. This included sleeping on makeshift beds sprinkled with the blue-purple flowers of the chaste tree (Vitex), to keep them faithful to their husbands and to increase their fertility. These flowers were sacred to Demeter, Hera (goddess of marriage), Aphrodite (goddess of love and fertility), and even Asclepius (god of medicine). At a woman’s death, a purple iris might be planted on her grave, and funerals in ancient Greece were elaborate rituals lasting several days. At the moment of death, the soul (Psyche, portrayed as a winged deity or butterfly) was believed to leave the body through the mouth as a puff of wind. By law, the decedent’s body was prepared at home (the prothesis), usually by elderly female relatives. The corpse was washed, anointed with fragrant oils, and dressed. Then it was placed on a bed of wooden planks and adorned with a crown of tree branches and flowers. Romans adored their floral crowns but also decorated the funerary couch with many fresh flowers. Once burial was complete, both Greeks and Romans scattered flowers on the grave (violets were popular tributes), and both cultures believed that planting herbs and sweet flowers around the burial site purified the earth. Urns containing the remains of the deceased could also be cleansed using offerings of cut flowers. A Passion for Lotuses

Even as the peoples of Crete, Greece, and Italy abandoned their old pantheons less than two thousand years ago, flowers continue to play a living role in the cultures and countries embracing the various branches of Hinduism. Indians still celebrate rites wearing garlands of flowers, and they give them away as gifts. Their use of flowers is associated with sexuality, one of the aphorisms of love, for example, in the Kama Sutra by Vatsyayana. The ancient Indian text is not just about erotic love and sexual positions; it also contains information on the sixty-four arts, including flowers, especially fashioning flower carriages and artificial flowers, the adorning of idols with rice and flowers, decorating couches or beds with flowers, stringing necklaces, making garlands or wreaths, and the simple pleasures of gardening. In their worship and portrayals of deities, Hindus are infatuated with flowers. The name of the Hindu worship ritual puja is translated as the “flower act.” Among Hindus, the Indian lotus flower (Nelumbo nucifera) is their foremost symbol of beauty, fertility, and prosperity. According to Hinduism, within everyone resides the spirit of the sacred lotus flower. The lotus symbolizes purity, divinity, and eternity, widely used in ceremonies, where it denotes life, especially feminine beauty and renewed youth. In the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu text, humans are admonished to be like the lotus, holding high above the water, like the flower itself. In hatha yoga, the familiar lotus sitting position is used by practitioners as a way of striving for a higher level of consciousness. In Hinduism, the lotus also represents beauty and nonattachment. The aquatic plant produces a large, beautiful, pinkish blossom, but it is rooted fast in the mud of a shallow pond or lake. Its stiff leaves rise above the water’s surface, neither wetted nor muddy. Hindus view this as an admonition for how we should live our lives, without attachment to our surroundings. Several Hindu deities are likened to the lotus blossom. Krishna is described as the Lotus-Eyed One in reference to his supposed divine beauty. Deities including Brahma, Lakshmi, Vishnu, and Saraswati are also associated with the lotus blossom. The “wooing” of Hindu gods is normally done with adorning clothing, jewels, dances and music, perfumes, betel nuts, coconuts, and other foods, but especially with vermilion dusts and many flowers. During Holi, the festival of colors during the spring, worshippers paint their faces with brilliant vermilion powders. Flowers are everywhere on display for Holi and Diwali (the festival of lights, celebrated in India and Nepal). Colorful floral displays called rangoli are created for indoor or outdoor use by the celebrants. The Diwali holiday marks the victory of good over evil (Lord Rama’s victory over the demon-king Ravana). Villagers commonly paint the faces of sacred cattle with vermilion and drape their necks with long floral garlands, using marigolds, and red-purple makhmali (flowering heads of long-lasting amaranths) in Nepal. In an interesting form of what may be considered cultural diffusion with flowers, Hindus prefer the fat, hybrid heads of marigolds (Tagetes), apparently unaware of their earlier association with bloody human sacrifices performed by Aztec high priests. In India, yatra are the pilgrimage festivals celebrated at Hindu temples. Idols are carried aloft in a special procession on a palki (sedan chair). These ceremonial platforms are highly decorated, festooned in colorful live flowers including marigolds and makhmali. Cremation is mandatory for most Hindus. In India, after the elaborate cremation ceremonies performed by male family members, the deceased’s ashes are gathered and usually scattered on the waters of the sacred Ganges River (especially at Allahabad), or at sea. Mourners often place floating bowls containing the ash remains and flowers in the river. They also scatter flower petals and whole flowers on the waters as part of this ritual. Buddhism originated in northern India. Although often considered a spiritual path or way of life, rather than a formal religion, its many followers use and admire flowers in their rituals and daily lives. The lotus is often stated to represent the most exalted state of man and is the symbol of knowledge and the Buddha. Legend has it that wherever the Buddha paced to and fro in meditation, lotus flowers sprang up in his footsteps. In most Buddhist art, the lotus flower symbolizes the Buddha and transcendence to a higher state. The lotus is also thought to represent in Buddhism four human virtues: scent, purity, softness, and beauty. In contrast, some Hindus and Hindu offshoots, such as Jainism, eschew flowers. Orthodox Brahmans and Jains oppose using flowers because, although no blood is spilled, a “sacrifice” is made by cutting the stem of the plant, which kills the flower. Allowances are often made and flowers are used by these groups in worship. However, the very best flowers, as offerings, are those that fall naturally to the ground so their lives were not taken by picking. India’s Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), made famous by inspiring nonviolent acts of civil disobedience among his followers, avoided the use of floral garlands. Gandhi preferred garlands made of cotton or necklaces of plain sandalwood beads. Flowers of Bali The Hindu use of flowers is most vibrant and lavish on the island of Bali, in the Indonesian archipelago. The ancient Sanskrit word bali means “tribute” or “gift,” especially surrounding temple ceremonies and the use of flowers. Wandering the streets of Ubud, you see minipalettes, three-by-three-inch woven-palm-leaf trays filled with colorful flowers of frangipani (Plumeria; a relative of our milkweeds), ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata; related to custard apples), and Impatiens (the same tropical weeds we grow as summer shade-garden annuals). These offerings are called banten in Balinese. Incense tops the vibrant offerings, adding its wisps of fragrant smoke to appease nature spirits, and the numerous gods and demons of Balinese Hinduism. These miniature offerings in Bali take on many different forms. They always contain flowers, but may include cookies, cigarettes, rice, or money. The offerings are not always contained in the plaited-palm trays. Often, they are merely small piles of colorful flower petals. The items used in the offerings seem to be less important than the act of creating these tributes. Balinese women spend a large part of each day creating and placing these ritualistic offerings along roadways and paths, often perched where you least expect them. The offerings are everywhere, sitting atop walls, planters, and stair steps. Individual flowers and garlands adorn stone statues, such as those of Ganesha. This beloved elephant-headed god of wisdom and art is often depicted holding—you guessed it—a lotus blossom. In Bali, the sweet floral scent of frangipani and ylang-ylang perfumes the air of courtyards, homes, and temples. Early every morning, before most tourists have risen from their guesthouse beds, the Balinese are out on the streets. They sweep away the previous day’s now-wilted floral offerings and wash down the streets and gutters. The offerings are daily devotional gifts, repeated acts of faith, cornerstones of their belief system. The slightly darker side of the practices is that the offerings are meant to appease and disperse demon spirits who might be hanging around one’s home or a nearby street corner. These are far more than simple street decorations for foreign tourists, which I’m sure most foreign visitors believe they are. Many of the country’s religious ceremonies are conducted within Hindu temples. Odalans are temple ceremonies lasting three or more days. During these observances, the temple walls are covered in colorful golden thread fabrics. Offerings of bright fruits, flowers, and rice cakes are carried balanced on women’s heads, then placed around the temples. The Hindu gods are believed to take the essence (sari) from these food offerings, which are later brought home and consumed by the worshipping families. On Bali, flowers play as important a role in death as they do in life. The dead, inside their coffins, are placed inside large, elaborate, gilded sarcophagi made of papier-mache. These often take the form of bulls or the demonic Bhoma guardian with a fearsome, openmouthed head, staring down at the onlookers. They are impressive works of art accompanied by flowers. The black and gold sarcophagi are highly decorated with real and paper flowers. Floral garlands (chrysanthemums) adorn the necks of the impressive mythical beasts. During the funeral ceremonies, everyone wears bright costumes, and village women prepare food offerings to be eaten by the mourners during the festivities. The distinctive ringing tones of gamelan music are an integral part of Balinese culture and their funeral traditions. Finally, the ornate funeral pyres with their garlanded animals are set ablaze with added gasoline for good measure. After the flames have done their work, the family separates the ashes and bones of the deceased from the remaining residue. The cremains are tenderly placed inside folded white and yellow cloths along with flowers and buried twelve days later, after a final purification rite, again augmented with flowers. The “Conversion” of Flowers When trade brought the lotus to Egypt around 500 BC, it displaced the blue and white water lilies used in worship. Favorite flowers find new religions, and it’s a never-ending circle, with Mexican marigolds and frangipani used extensively by Hindus in India and on Bali. Therefore, it should not surprise us that the goddesses of the Mediterranean basin gave their grandest white flower to Christianity, recognizable to most as the white Madonna lily (Lilium candidum). In the United States, this is the omnipresent potted Easter lily. In early Christian liturgy, Mary’s tomb was filled with these white lilies after her assumption into heaven. The Madonna lily also figures in Renaissance paintings of the Annunciation. Its white color represents her presumed virginity and immaculate conception. Today, flowers taking on similar Christian symbolism include the lily of the valley, the snowflake, and the snowdrop, once worn by Greek brides. White, the color of purity and innocence, and red, Christ’s sacrificial blood, represented by roses, have been emblems of the Virgin Mary. They were also sacred to Venus and Aphrodite in earlier times. Ironically, the earliest practices of the Christian church largely avoided ceremonial uses of flowers as they were associated with former but often appropriated pagan rites. These restrictions were modified over time, so now Christian services and funerals seem incomplete without flowers. For Catholic services, floral arrangements are usually placed on shelves, the gradines, behind the main altar. Although white flowers are most often used, even red flowers are allowed, along with ferns and other greenery. Often an attempt is made to match flower colors with those of the clerical vestments. In the Catholic Church flowers are used in moderation during Advent but are often “given up” for Lent. Historically, rosary beads used in Catholic prayers were formed from dried and compressed rose petals instead of the wooden, glass, or plastic ones commonly used. In Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance certain flowers were associated with Christian saints and used during the saint’s day and other celebrations. Saint Valentine was associated with crocuses or violets. The tradition of giving violets on Saint Valentine’s Day was common in the United States, persisting in New York City at least until the early 1960s. Christianity, though, is both messianic and missionary. As the Spaniards introduced it to our American Southwest and Mesoamerica, the use of flowers in the old religions mixed with the new. Anthropologists studying these hybridized beliefs note that the worshippers often speak of a Flower World, a spiritual place where humans might contact spirits or ancestors through rituals or by ingesting hallucinogenic plants. The belief in a spirit Flower World is common throughout Mexico, other Latin American countries, and the pre-Hispanic southwestern United States. These flower beliefs seem to have been widespread among ancient Amerindians speaking a common language (e.g., Uto-Aztecan). In an earlier chapter we were introduced to Aztec rituals utilizing flowers. Flowers for the Aztecs, especially true marigolds, signified a spiritual-afterlife paradise world, but also universal creation and the blood of human sacrifices. Knowledge of the Flower World was traditionally passed to each succeeding generation in song. We also find exquisite depictions of flowers on Mayan textiles, the pottery of the modern Hopi, and in the ancestral groups of the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi (ancient Pueblo) cultures of Arizona, New Mexico, and Sonora, Mexico. In their minds, the Huichol people of west-central Mexico “visited” the colorful Flower World in their peyote-cactus pilgrimage ceremonies. In the northern Mexican villages of the Mayo and Yoeme (Yaqui) tribes, leading up to and during Easter week children throw flowers at dancers dressed as evil spirits, the fariseos and chapayekas, who symbolically attack the Catholic Church. Flowers, real and paper ones, and colorful confetti are used as adornments. Altars, churches, village buildings, and homes are decorated profusely with colorful paper flowers. The Yoeme concept of flowers (sewam) has been treasured in legends and songs for many generations. Today, flowers are associated with the Virgin Mary, and flowers are believed to have miraculously sprung from the spilled blood of Christ at his crucifixion. Prior to their religious conversion, flowers were spiritual blessings, important in the native religious beliefs of the Mayo and Yoeme. I have attended the elaborate Yoeme deer dances of the Pascua Yaqui tribe in my home city of Tucson, Arizona. Flowers are important symbols in these rituals. Masked pascola deer dancers, dressed in white, wear wide belts with jangling deer hooves or brass bullet cartridges. Their ankles are festooned with tenevoim, pebble-filled cocoons of giant silk moths (Rothschildia cincta). Their stomping feet sound like alarmed rattlesnakes sounding their warnings. Atop their heads the dancers wear a large real or paper flower, usually red. Yoeme and Mayo funerals are mixtures of Catholicism and traditional cultural beliefs. For the Yoeme, their world concept is a mix of five worlds; the desert world, a mystical world, the dream world, the night world, and the flower world. Flowers are also viewed as the souls of departed family or tribal members. Sometimes older Yoeme men may greet one another with the phrase Haisa sewa? (How is the flower?). These ancient Aztec-speaking groups not only traded goods north and south but also their religious ideas and beliefs. Thus, we have clues that the Flower World concepts traveled north out of Mexico, to Chaco Canyon in the eleventh century, and to the Hopi mesas in Arizona by the 1400s. In the Mimbres Classic period (1000 - 1130), mortuary rituals, using symbolic flowers, eased the passage of individuals into the spirit world. Caches from archaeological excavations reveal the presence of painted wooden and leather flowers, likely worn by performers, just as modern katsina (kachina) dancers wear flowers, later left as grave goods. Flower worlds are depicted in fifteenth-century murals inside sacred kivas. Hopi, and other Southwestern, pottery show symbolic representations of flowers. According to Hopi traditions, butterflies are “flying flowers” and in various forms are associated with the underworld, with spring and renewal, and with the direction south. There is strong evidence that modern pueblo and ancient Mesoamerican iconographies are intertwined, historically related via trade routes and intercultural exchanges. Flowers, either real or depicted in art, formed a large part of the myths, legends, and daily life of these Southwestern indigenous cultures. Christian and native flower cultures merge vibrantly but positively during Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations. In the final days of October, before the American holiday of All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween), Mexicans prepare for their own traditional holiday for the dead, but in a different way from the commercialized trick-or-treating holiday Americans know. As the days grow shorter and the nights grow colder, villages and towns all over Mexico come alive with renewed energy and anticipation for the coming festivities. On November 1 and 2, Mexicanos come together to celebrate DÃa de los Muertos, their traditional Day of the Dead celebration. Across the country, families honor the memories of deceased loved ones around family burial plots gaily decorated with real and paper flowers, lively paper streamers, glowing candles, and offerings of the decedents’ favorite foods. To appreciate the modern Day of the Dead celebrations, we recall Aztec beliefs. Aztecs didn’t fear death, or Mictlantecuhtli, their god of death, as much as they dreaded the uncertainty of their brutally short lives. Mictlantecuhtli would not punish the dead. A dead person’s role in heaven was determined not by how he lived, but by how he died. Exalted warriors were believed to fly around the sun in the form of butterflies and hummingbirds, as were women who died in childbirth. Dead infants fed at the milk-giving tree. Everyone else just faded away to Mictlan, like a quiescent dream on their road toward final death and nonexistence. The ferocious Aztec sun god, Huitzilopochtli, demanded the most precious fluid of all, red human blood, spilled in sacrifice, amid garlands of golden marigolds, to slake his never-ending thirst. The beating hearts and blood of human victims were exchanged for abundant crops. Death paid for life in the Aztec world. An Aztec “war of flowers” ensued, tournaments in which neighboring tribes were forced to compete to the death, adding their bodies to the ever-growing demand for sacrificial victims. Flowers have always played a crucial and significant role in the Mexican Day of the Dead. On All Hallows’ Eve, the spirits of dead children return home, but must leave by midday on November 1. Bells ring out all afternoon on this day from churches, announcing the arrival of adults, the “faithful dead,” returning to their scattered villages. Candles burn on flower-filled home shrines and altars chock-full of marigolds, other flowers, candy skulls, and family photographs. The sweet fragrance of burning copal incense (from ancient Mayan and Aztec traditions) fills the air inside the homes. Often, trails of scattered marigold petals lead to doorways, meant to show wandering spirits of the dead their way back home. You can also witness many of these same customs on the streets and cemeteries of mountain villages in northern Guatemala. Marigolds are the foremost flower among these ceremonies and are native plants of Mexico. However, in Oaxacan and Cuernavacan markets as elsewhere, celebrants also buy the cloudlike floral sprays of baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata), a domesticated plant that grows wild in its native Russian steppes. Mexicans also use the brilliant flamelike heads of cockscomb (Celosia) to decorate their shrines, church altars, and graves. Once a religion includes flowers in its worship or mourning, the original distribution and mythology of an attractive bloom is no barrier to its acceptance among new rites in other distant locations. The Flowering of Roadside Memorials Whenever I drive the roadways of Sonora, Mexico, or those in southern Arizona, spots of color vie for my attention. Are they flowers in the desert, even during the winter when all the grasses are withered and brown, when nothing should be blooming? No, these little gardens of grief are roadside memorials, shrines honoring the dead, called descansos in Mexico. They mark places where someone died in an automobile crash. The memorials usually have a white cross, and often a saint’s figure and a votive candle, but invariably flowers, plastic ones, or fresh flowers refreshed on anniversary dates and holidays. Occasionally, I stop out of curiosity to read their names, or to admire the decorative floral arrangements. I’m reminded of the sidewalk and roadside floral tribute gardens that stretched for miles following the September 6, 1997, funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. Whether permanent roadside shrines or a single flower left in an open jar, they are omnipresent reminders of the immensely powerful social customs and values of flowers as memorial tributes. Victorian Funeral Customs In contrast, the use of flowers in contemporary American funerals seems a bit restrained. To understand our relation to flowers and death we need to cross the Atlantic and study our Victorian forebears as they established the funerary customs we still use or prefer to avoid. In particular, before twentieth-century embalming practices took hold in the funeral industry, stately, large wreaths and immense bouquets of flowers composed of strongly fragrant white lilies and hybrids of the so-called Oriental lilies (derived from Lilium speciosum) masked the odors of bodily decomposition. Along with burning candles, flowers served the role of air-fresheners. English Victorian-era funeral processions were grandiose and expensive social events. A prominent English family planned and arranged for a stylish processional costing twenty to fifty British pounds sterling, equivalent to the purchasing power today of about $5,000 (I chose the year 1850). For most of the Victorian era, a pound sterling might buy $100 worth of goods today. The processions were led by foot attendants, pallbearers with batons, a featherman holding tall ostrich plumes, pages, and mutes who dressed in gowns and carried wands. Stylish carriages transported family members, and relatives followed behind. The glass-sided hearse had elaborate black with silver and gold decorations. It was covered with an ornate canopy of black ostrich feathers and pulled by six black Belgian horses, each with its own black-plumed headdress. The ornate, draped coffin inside was clearly visible, and the interior of the hearse was jammed with a wide variety of flowers. Several hundred mourners might attend such a lavish funeral. After the services, most of the flowers were returned home and became part of elaborate home-parlor memorial shrines. Queen Victoria sent primroses to the funeral of her favorite prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Large floral arrangements surrounded photographs of the deceased, and the room was often decorated with one or more stuffed white doves, holding a red rose in their beaks. The British, during Queen Victoria’s sixty-three-year reign (1837 - 1901), were the last society to truly celebrate death with great pomp and circumstance, as had the ancient Egyptians. In the Victorian age, people welcomed the dead, continued to bring their dead, in open coffins, into their parlors and homes (the origin of the modern funeral parlor). In death flowers led the way. Victorians had their own flower superstitions, gleaned from older traditions in British folklore. For example, if the deceased had lived a good and proper life, then colorful flowers would supposedly grow and bloom on his or her grave. If people had lived otherwise and were deemed evil, then weeds would assuredly grow unattended and bloom profusely above them. If anyone noticed a roselike scent in the home, and no roses were nearby, then someone was about to die. A single snowdrop (Galanthus) plant found growing in a garden also foretold a death in the family. It was considered extremely bad luck to mix red and white flowers in a vase, especially inside a hospital, as a death would surely follow. Proper mourning etiquette was essential. Widows grieved for two years and wore solid black clothing with no trim, and bonnets with long, black face veils. No flowers were used. Their veils were shortened during the second year, and white or purple flowers were then permissible as decorative adornments to their plain black bonnets. The Modern American Way of Death: Flowers and Dying Today, Victorian practices have evolved further into an immense, nearly $21 billion US funeral industry, whose customs vary widely depending upon ethnic background, religious beliefs, region of the country, and socioeconomic stratum. Some people will not grow or bring scented narcissus (Narcissus tazetta) into their homes because their fragrance reminds them of embalming fluid. However, a little-known change in the treatment of the dead—the use of formaldehyde and other embalming fluids to prolong “viewing life” (the time available for an open-casket ceremony during a funeral or memorial service)—has occurred. Unknown to most, unless you are a mortician or are employed in a modern funeral home, is another surprising use for floral fragrances: dead bodies are being perfumed like real flowers. The new practice is not altogether unlike those of nineteenth-century America, when home parlors were jammed with large and fragrant floral wreaths, of white lilies and other flowers, to mask death’s telltale scent. Today, the unmistakable nose- and eye-stinging scent of formalin (aqueous formaldehyde) has changed. New, milder-scented embalming fluids are used, and even the Civil War - era formalin has been modified to assuage modern sensibilities. Now, embalmers typically add strong floral-based scents to their embalming fluids. The sweet fragrance of white lilies has been chemically synthesized and is sold to funeral parlors as an additive for their embalming solutions. Flowers have come to our rescue. To paraphrase the famous marketing phrase of a modern chemical-manufacturing giant, perhaps now we also have “better dying through chemistry.” It’s my impression that flowers now used at funerals are less fragrant than previously. Those pale gladioli, now in vogue, have no scent at all. Is it a coincidence that the beautiful, large, white, durable, and waxy white blooms of the nearly odorless calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) from southern Africa seem perfect for placing in the hands of a corpse during an open-casket memorial? I don’t think so, but it’s perhaps ironic that these blooms belong to the same family of arum lilies the Minoans used to decorate their sarcophagi. While fresh flowers seem such ever-important elements of modern US funerals, their use dwindles as their costs rise. In the United States today, floral arrangements might comprise roughly 10 to 20 percent of the total cost of a modern funeral averaging $8,000. We want and expect to see flowers during our times of grief. Flowers lift our spirits. Even with the recent “in lieu of flowers” practice where friends and family are asked to make cash donations in the memory of the deceased to a favorite charity, flowers and flower-giving have not gone out of fashion. A significant portion of the $34.3 billion (in 2012) florist-industry revenues are spent on cut flowers, potted plants, and wreaths supplied for funerals, memorial services, and placement on graves. The more than twenty-two thousand funeral homes in the United States stage more than 2 million funerals annually, about six thousand each day. Returning to that February day of my father’s funeral, I have vivid memories of honey bees alighting to drink nectar from the sprays of white flowers draping his silver-blue casket. It was a chilly Southern California day with a few cumulus clouds. The sixty-degree morning temperature was barely warm enough to get bees out of their hives, up and flying, in their continual quest for flowers. My eyes watched as those softly buzzing bees visited every blossom, drinking their sweet nectar. At the time, I was a twenty-two-year-old graduate-school student. Throughout my career as an entomologist, I’ve studied bees (melittology), along with their biology, and floral interactions, the science of pollination ecology. I don’t believe the bees were any kind of spiritual omen, but seeing them visiting my father’s graveside flowers reminded me of happier boyhood times spent together. The flowers and their bee visitors helped ease my grief on that somber California morning four decades ago. Now, we leave the rituals of death and dying behind and move to the showiest of them all, flowers (dahlias, roses, lilies, sunflowers, and more) bred for their spectacularly vivid colors and sex appeal. Gardeners enter flower shows hopeful that their prize blooms will win a coveted Best of Show ribbon, along with accolades from their gardening peers. We enter the high-stakes world of technology-dependent, commercial plant breeding—the creation of unnatural blue or brown roses, and black petunias, in the laboratory and field. Gardeners are cautioned that modern flower breeding, especially its newest hybrid creations, may reduce pollinator-attracting floral scents, along with pollen and sweet nectar—essential foods for bees and other pollinating animals. Pollinator gardens may appear bountiful, yet can in reality be unrewarding nutritional deserts. The pomp and circumstance of London’s one and only Chelsea Flower Show is revealed with its phantasmagorical artificial environments, new floral introductions, dream merchants, and fanciful exhibits. Step into the verdant exhibit booths. On with the show.

#flowers #death #mysticism

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when-the-spring-dies · 3 years

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Azumaya Sakurai (ENG)

LIFE IS a constant battle between Sakurai and God. Ever since he was born, nothing good served on his plate. On Monday, it would be pain; on Tuesday, it would be despair; on Wednesday, it would be violence; on Thursday, it would be regret; on Friday, it became milder, shame; on Saturday and Sunday, Lord gave him a little bit mercy and fun with lust.

Had Sakurai plead for more mercies, God might send him a packet of blessing every day. But no one ever taught the man how to kneel down or to slosh in tears, asking for forgiveness and hoping the heaven belonged to him. But for once, he saw and heard his parents shouting: “God! Oh, God! Forgive me. God!” while raising a kitchen knife. Later, they thrusting at each other with it, still calling out for anybody’s God.

When the shouting stopped and the red river claimed the lifeless builds, Sakurai crawled on top of them. His dark hair which inherited from his mother and his sharp strong-willed eyes gifted by his father, shaped him like a vulture in a huntㅡready to devour the corpse before flies and maggots joined the feast.

For days, he sucked on his mother’s stiff nipples, but no milk calmed his hunger; all left was dried blood and maggots eddying around him. They nudged his weakened cheek and hand several times as if inviting the boy to play. But he was too hungry to move and his mother’s warmth had gone, so he did what a three years old would do: crying. And when the vocal cords couldn’t support another weep, he fell asleep.

Days passed, Sakurai was saved. He didn’t know who and when, but what he faced once he woke up was a woman dressed in white, carrying him while feeding something unfamiliar. A year later, he learned that he fed from a cow and he loved it. He loved it more than his mother’s which he couldn’t recall the taste anymore.

Everything became blurred to him. How his parents look like? What nickname did they give him? What was the title of his favorite bedtime story? All those memories dead along with his parents.

Fighting over flower scented blanket or new donated toys was the usual activity. Some kids would use their fist and the others would cry. The strongest got the blanket and the toys while the weak ones bawled together in the corner of the room. Sakurai believed they shouldn’t cry because later, once someone took them away, they would have their own toys and bedroom. Just like Nanao who left with an uncle who had big belly, she sent some pictures where she went to the Disneyland and stuffed her pink bedroom with dolls from there.

Soon, Sakurai figured that not every child who left the orphanage could have a beautiful life like Nanao. He remembered he held hands with his fellow orphans, dressed in all black, following the caretakers who cried while hugging a photo of a kid named Genta. They said Genta was beaten and starved until he passed. The police arrested his adopted parents and threw them into jail.

After Genta’s death, everyone became murky. None of them excited whenever they were told to line up or to hear: “The parents are here!”. Sakurai saw them and himself like the goods being sold in the market. And it was just his luck that a woman dressed in kimono took interest in him. She said he looked handsome and not so Japanese; that his records showed he behaved well.

For a week, Sakurai who lived for only six years on earth, felt nervous. Would he end up like Genta? But did he have anything to lose? He didn’t even know how the future would like.

So he left with Makoto, the woman’s name. She took him to Gion, Kyoto, where she worked as a geisha in her early twenties. Now she in her middle thirties, no one interested being entertained by her. And with her charming mind, Makoto opened a restaurant which serving her hometown delicacies to tourists and the tea houses’ visitors.

Sakurai didn’t end up like Genta and didn’t end up like Nanao. He ended up as Azumaya Sakurai, the adopted son of Nakamura Makoto. Every morning he helped his mother to clean the restaurant and went to school with his friends from the same neighborhood. He grew up bright and playful. Everyone loved him, but some couldn’t help to tease him for being parentless and for being adopted by Makoto.

One afternoon, Sakurai got home with cuts and bruises. Makoto asked him if he were falling or fought someone. And the answer was the latter. “I defeated them,” he said. “Then, I’ll make sure to visit your school tomorrow,” she said.

After Makoto patched his wounds, Sakurai asked her if she didn’t want to know the reason of his fight. And with a motherly smile, she said, “I know the fight is for me. Thank you, Saku-kun. If I were born as a real woman, you wouldn’t need to through this embarrassment.”

And Sakurai yelled in rage: “What was the purpose of the sentence?” For him who left by his parents and knew nothing about how warm a mother’s love could be, Makoto was the most beautiful mother in the universe. Even when she turned into ashes.

Sakurai forgot how to count. He forgot how to count the times he had cried over Makoto’s full name on a tiny jar. It was unreal how he could feel a great sadness in his heart.

The aching, the yearning, and the emptiness he experienced, every single of it were for Makoto; for his mother. That day, Sakurai had his first conversation with God to condemn Him. My mother would still alive if You didn’t allow those drunkard yakuzas came in. I hate You!

An eleven years old boy who grew up with manner didn’t know how to cuss properly. Even when a stranger held him in his arms, Sakurai got nothing to say but to ask: “Who are you?”

His dark long silky hair swayed beautifully as he walked. And his droopy but keen eyes stared at him tenderly, just like Makoto’s. “I’m Makoto’s little brother. So, you are my responsibility now. But because Makoto didn’t have a good relation with our family, you should work harder than everyone else to gain the Oyabun’s favor.”

“I’m sorry, but who is Oyabun?”

Nobody said anything. Not even the men in the front row of the car, they were as quite as the dead. But once the car stopped and a grand gate appeared behind the tinted window, the man opened his mouth: “The Head of Sui-kai, my father.”

General Information

Name: Azumaya Sakurai (東屋櫻井)

CV: Howl

Place and Date of Birth: Tokyo, September 13 1991

Gender: Male

Height and Weight: 188 cm and 87 kg

Blood Type: A

Education: Bachelor of Science Communication University W

Job: Yakuza mentor to Hanase, Vice President of Celestial Entertainment, (former) kindergarten teacher

Outfit: Simple modern black suit, tracksuits, and hoodie

Pants: Anything that's comfortable

Shoes: Classic shoes (Oxford/Chelsea), sneakers

Tattoo: Irezumi style (on the back)

Accessories: Watches, earrings, and a belt

Perfume: Gentleman by Givenchy

Weapons: Daggers, swords, knives, and fists

Favorite Food: Anything

Favorite Drinks: Whiskey, tea

Favorite Cigarette: Camel Wide

Group: Murakami-gumi, Sui-kai (former)

Pets: Kyosuke, Hanase, Otsuka, You.

Personality

MBTI: INFP Alignment: Lawful Evil/Good Keywords: Analytical, intelligent, reserved, critical, helpful, conscientious

Usually, Sakurai is a good-hearted man. He is sensitive to his surroundings and tend to help his peers in need. Generally, he is respectable, hard-working, and bright in knowledge and practical matters. Everyone will search for him when they need advices.

Sakurai doesn’t enjoy spotlight. He prefers standing in the background as long as he is appreciated for doing things well. He may brush off people’s compliment harshly which leads to uncomfortable situation, but honestly, he’s just shy.

Not everyone knows that Sakurai is honestly a playful and has mischievous sense of humor. He’s a bright person who enjoys life and freedom; he loves to travel the world and meeting new people, creating many lovely memories.

Sakurai doesn’t like to hold back due to his temperamental nature. He’ll dealing with his problems right away so he can get on with other things. He secretly enjoys trouble and confrontations, stagnant life isn’t for him. And some people can’t hate him deeply because of his childlike innocence.

Even so, Sakurai used to live as a soldier; the knight in fairytale stories. He lives listening to the Lord’s command, not the one in command. He’ll submit and do the tasks bestowed upon him, bringing the victory for his Lord.

He is chained by the destiny. He is forced to do what his heart refused to do. All the blood, the suffering, the dying souls in the battlefield, he must weight them on his shoulders for years to come; eating up the little light inside him.

How to trigger him? Anyone who breaks the rules and creates a chaos will not live peacefully until they pay for their actions. Sakurai doesn’t get along with people who have bad manners and direct or abrasive expression of feelings. Not only they’ll keep fighting, but Sakurai has tendency to give in (avoiding conflict) and let the person always bullies him.

Physical Statistics

STRENGTH (2,205lb/1,000kg)

CONSTITUTION

stamina: 100%

endurance: 100%

vitality: 100%

recovery: 85%

resistance: 90%

fortitude: 100%

resilience: 85%

DEXTERITY

agility: 90%

accuracy: 97%

Mental Statistics

INTELLIGENCE (90%)

CHARISMA

presence: 100%

charm: 100%

social skills: 100%

PERCEPTION

awareness: 100%

POWERS

interrogation (4/5)

firearms (3/5)

hand-to-hand combat (5/5)

intimidation (5/5)

manipulation (3/5)

skilled acrobat (4/5)

multilingual (English, Korean, Japanese) (4/5)

technology (4/5)

Trivia

He has affectionate nature.

He has more networking with older people than younger ones.

Stamina King.

Twitching his eyebrows and gripping his buckle when he’s mad or irritated.

Changing his home or office interior regularly.

Controlling his sensitive side with working out and cleaning home (loves domestic works).

Discount Maniac, he knows when the supermarket will have great deals.

Contributed to society as a health instructor for the senior citizens.

Yes to extreme sports, not much scared of anything; even the dark side of human nature.

Love music and art, Makoto taught him.

Can’t sleep alone, he collects bear dolls to accompany him or sleeping with someone instead.

Cover Up Tattoo

#profile #backgroundstory

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lyannas · 7 years

Text

...but no man could truly tame a wolf.

Serena saw their hungry eyes. Her father was not dead a week and already they stalked Winterfell like it was their prey. Even now, at the feast for their father’s wake, they eyed her and Sansa both. She did not trust them-- she would never trust them. Her half-uncles were vultures, bloody beaks already tearing into father’s corpse.

She was father’s eldest child among his couplet of daughters-- daughters, and nothing else. Serena often wondered if he bemoaned this fact. They were good daughters to him, her and Sansa. They always sang him sweet songs and gave him no trouble as children. Still, they were girls. No doubt her father wanted a boy, one hale and hearty to take Winterfell and fill it with grandchildren. Even on that count she had been a disappointment; she was made a widow three years into her marriage to the gruff Jon Umber, and gave him no little ones. Just as well. She was never too fond of children anyways.

“Look, Sansa,” she whispered to her sister, holding the hem of her black sleeve between her forefinger and thumb. Her sister’s eyes swept over to the lot, to their grandfather’s children. Cregan and Lynara Stark produced a large brood. Too large. “Look how shameless they are.”

“They are greedy,” Sansa returned sharply. “Our father had been so generous to them all.”

“Now they seek to take even more.”

After eyeing her for the whole night, Edric Stark broke off from his siblings to make his way toward her. He edged past people who did not think to move aside for him. When he reached her, both her back and her sister’s straightened, and her chins rose.

“I would like to have a word with you, Serena,” Edric said, giving her a tight lipped smile. It did not suit him. He was not handsome enough for smiles of any sort. Like most Stark men, he was tall, with dark hair and dark grey eyes. There was a scar on his lip and another on his brow. Worst of all, his beard was unkempt. Serena could not stand slovenliness.

“You will refer to me as Lady Stark, or we will not speak at all, my lord,” Serena returned as coldly as she could manage.

His smile broadened into an ugly grin. “Of course, Lady Stark. I simply did not want to make the mistake of calling you by another name. Even now I’m unsure how a woman can be Lady Umber and Lady Stark at the same time.”

“You seem rather confused. Lady Umber can be found at Last Hearth, and her husband Lord Umber is here, amongst the guests. You’ll know him as my late husband’s brother.”

“Yes, that is how it works. If a man dies without children, then his brother takes his title.”

“Thank the gods that my father had children then.” Serena managed a smile. “What would you like to speak about, Lord Edric?”

“Perhaps we may speak alone?” He leaned in closer, and Serena stepped back. Sansa stood her ground and glowered at him.

“And leave my guests? I think not.”

He did not like the refusal, but attempts to be cordial regardless. “Tomorrow, then?”

“It is hard to say. Many people require my attention tomorrow.”

“Surely you can find time for your own uncle?”

“Half-uncle,” Sansa corrected beside her.

Edric’s lip twitched. He did not like that either. “I’ve known you both since you were screaming babes,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You’ll have some respect for me.” His temper was beginning to show-- Serena always knew he had one. It was never well hidden.

“We respect you, half-uncle.” Serena said with mock sweetness. “You and every other lord and lady in this room. I will send for you tomorrow if I have time to spare.”

He opened his mouth as if to add another scathing comment, but decided against it. He forced a smile and gave them the shallowest of bows before stalking back to his brothers and sisters.

“You know what he wants,” Sansa hissed beside her. Her sister was more spirited than she, wilder.

“I know,” Serena answered in a softer tone.

“You will not give it to him.”

Serena remained silent. Her sister’s fingers wrapped around her arm and squeezed.

“Serena, you will not give it to him.”

She looked at her sister, whose brow was furrowed in anger.

“I will not give it willingly.”

Her uncle proved unavoidable. She found him and his brother Jonnel standing outside her solar, flanked by her guards, who spoke amicably to them, laughing even. The guards did not straighten until it was too late. Edric and Jonnel stood there grinning, knowing this was a small victory; a reminder that they too had grown up in the castle. They too could be loved.

But not by me.

She stood behind her desk, as being seated made her feel too small. The two men were much taller than she, towering over her. She hated it. She was tired of tall men.

“What do you want, my lords?” She asked through clenched teeth. She knew what they wanted.

Edric stepped forward. “I ask for your hand in marriage, my lady.” It was just like him-- no pomp, no attempt at romance or nicety. Even an insincere show would have been better.

“You will not have it,” Serena answered promptly. “Anything else?”

Jonnel stepped forward. “I ask for the hand of your sister.”

She glanced to him. She thinks she misliked him even more than Edric. They look much the same, but he had dark eyes, evil eyes. They were lecherous and bottomless and cold. “You will not have it.” She tapped her fingers against the desk once. “Are we finished?”

Both men broke out into ugly grins. “Sweet Serena, who do you think would give you or your sister away in marriage?” Edric said with a mocking lilt to his voice. “Who would walk you to a weirwood tree, and ask the name of the man who would claim you?”

Serena tried not to be phased. She tilted her chin higher, and said in a voice as level as she could manage, “You would, Lord Edric. You are my father’s brother, and my oldest male kin.”

“Indeed I am,” he returned, still smiling. “You and your sister have become my responsibilities. I must bear the burden of finding you grooms, and here, I have found them.” He stepped forward, closing the gap between him and the desk. Like last night, she stepped back. She knows Sansa would not have done the same. “I will accept these fine offers on your behalf, and on your sister’s.”

Serena glanced away from Edric to look to Jonnel. His eyes were laughing at her.

“How long?” She asked of the men, clinging to the last of her composure. “How long have you two waited for my father to die? Did you pray for his death?” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Did you pray that he would have no sons?”

“We prayed for no such thing,” Edric answered.

“And what of my half-aunts, your sisters? Did they pray?”

“Do not insult our sisters,” Jonnel answered.

“I will never love you,” Serena declared to Edric, behaving as recklessly as Sansa would in her place. “My sister will never love you. If we give you children, it will be because you had forced yourselves upon us.”

Jonnel snorted. “A husband cannot force himself upon his wife. It’s her duty to have him.”

Serena felt her stomach turn. Compose yourself. You are Lady of Winterfell, even if they do not want you to be.

“I will not speak my vows. The marriage will not stand if I do not speak them.” She did not want to seem desperate, but she was. She did not want another marriage; she did not want her sister to marry this man. Her sister should marry for love-- love of a bannerman that Serena would have selected carefully, but love all the same.

“Sweet Serena,” Edric laughed, “I will marry you whether you speak them or no.”

“My father would be disappointed in you two. He died thinking you were wolves, not vultures.” She spit the last word out, hoping it would sting. It stung her just to speak it.

They continued to smile their ugly smiles. “There is still something of a child in you, Serena. It gladdens me to see it,” Edric said, on the edge of a laugh.

Serena felt her shoulders drop. There was nothing more she could say.

She thought Sansa would scream at her, or cry, or throw her things, but she did none of this. Instead she sat on the edge of her bed, silently, hands folded demurely in her lap. Her sister was a maid of seventeen, and a pretty one at that. She deserved a man more handsome than Jonnel Stark.

“I am so sorry, Sansa,” Serena said, on the edge of tears. “I did not want this for you.”

“They had this planned for some time,” she said flatly. Sansa looked down at her hands. “No doubt their sisters knew of their plan, but what of our other aunts?”

She spoke of their four half-aunts, the daughters their grandfather Cregan had with Alysanne Blackwood. “I doubt they knew,” Sansa said. “They would not betray us in this way.”

“They have come here with their husbands. Perhaps they can help us.”

“How?”

Sansa clenched her hands into fists. “I don’t know. I said perhaps.” She was growing frustrated, either with herself or with Serena. Rage always came quick to Sansa-- the wolf’s blood, their father called it.

“We will tell them regardless,” Serena returned hastily, trying to assuage her fears. “They may have some advice for us.”

“He has cruel eyes,” Sansa said suddenly. “I hate his eyes.”

“You need never look into them.” It was a poor reassurance, and yet, it was all she could offer her sister.

“The least of my worries. What will I do while he is inside me?”

“Close your eyes and pray,” Serena said softly.

“I would sooner curse him.” Sansa rose suddenly and marched to her. She flung her arms around her neck and embraced her tightly. “At least you and I will still be together,” she murmured into her shoulder.

Serena returned the embrace. “Would that I could take them both, sister, and spare you the hurt.”

The two of them decided that they would pretend the other was brave this night, and that neither of them cried into the other’s mourning gowns. They were Starks, after all. They were always brave.

Despite her promise not to, Serena spoke her vows, pressured by the many eyes in the godswood. Sansa did not speak them, and in that Serena takes some heart.

At the wedding feast, their Stark aunts laughed and danced with their brothers while their Blackwood aunts stood around the two of them, stony-faced.

“Our father must be turning in his tomb,” Sarra said coldly, her thin hands gripping Serena’s shoulders. She was the eldest of the four, and as bold as her mother had been. “They have forced themselves upon you girls, his own grandchildren.”

Alys clucked her tongue. “Men have no honor when it comes to the pursuit of power.”

“Would that at least one of them were handsome,” Raya lamented. “Then perhaps they would be easier to love.”

“No amount of beauty could hide the blackness of their hearts,” Mariah returned. She had her hand placed over Sansa’s. “They have robbed you of your birthright, Serena. Do not ever forget this slight.”

How could I? It was all that haunted her. The thought dogged her sleep and intruded upon her dreams. Winterfell was not hers alone anymore. She did not have a consort, she had a lord husband, one that she would call Lord Stark.

Time enough had passed in the wedding. The bedding would be called soon. Serena glanced to her sister, who wore black in mourning and in defiance, as she did. Her sister’s skin was paler than she had ever seen it, and though she would never admit it, she was frightened. Marriage was new to young Sansa, but Serena was a veteran.

“It will be over before you know it, Sansa,” Serena reassured her, managing a comforting smile.

Sansa seemed to have caught herself. She jolted in her seat. Color slowly drained back into her cheeks as her brows furrowed in determination.

“I am not afraid.” She was a good liar.

Before Serena could respond, chants began to fill the hall. Men cried out for the bedding. Their half-uncles, their new husbands, grinned and finished their ale. Slowly, lecherously, terribly, they stalked toward the high table.

“There will be no bedding!” Cried out Sarra’s strong, proud voice. Her nails dug into Serena’s shoulder as she spoke. “You have disgraced these women enough. They can very well change out of their gowns on their own.”

A general cry of disappointment and protest made itself known. Edric and Jonnel’s smiles slipped-- that was enough to lighten her spirits.

“Every wedding must have a bedding,” Jonnel cried out; men rallied around this declaration.

“Not this one!” Sarra returned. “See to your brides later. For now, they go to their rooms without your help.”

The four women were like shields at their back as they walked them to their chambers. Serena felt for Sarra’s hand behind her, but found it was already grasping Sansa’s. Sarra rested her free hand on her shoulder instead.

“I’m sorry I could not do more,” her aunt said.

“Thank you,” Serena whispered.

Serena stared. She could not help but stare.

Everyone stared. Everyone wanted to ask him a question, but none were brave enough to try it.

That did not make the curiosity less intense. Jonnel Stark’s eye was gone, replaced by a bloody cloth-- there had to be some sort of explanation.

They all ate their breakfast in silence. Jonnel ate hurriedly and left the hall on hot feet while Edric glared over his bowl of eggs. Serena dared a glance at Sansa beside her. She seem wholly unaffected, perhaps even content.

“Sansa,” Serena whispered in a voice low enough for only her to hear.

“I warned him,” Sansa returned with a shrug. “He chose not to listen.”

Serena bit back a gasp.

“I didn’t like his eyes anyway,” said Raya idly beside her. “At least one of them’s gone now.”

“Yes, now who will get the other?” Alys added.

Their aunts laughed amongst themselves. Serena reached under the table and gave Sansa’s hand a squeeze.

“You should not have done that,” Serena whispered around lips that tried not to smile.

“Truly?” Sansa asked, her eyes widening innocently.

“Truly,” Serena returned. “But I’m glad you did.”

Sansa squeezed her hand in return.

#serena stark #sansa stark #asoiaf #gotfic #fic #jonnel stark #edric stark

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dfroza · 4 years

Text

Today’s reading in the ancient book of Psalms and Proverbs

for monday, march 30 of 2020 with Psalm 30 and Proverbs 30, accompanied by Psalm 12 for the 12th day of Spring and Psalm 90 for day 90 of the year

[Psalm 30]

A song of David. For the dedication of the temple.

I praise You, Eternal One. You lifted me out of that deep, dark pit

and denied my opponents the pleasure of rubbing in their success.

Eternal One, my True God, I cried out to You for help;

You mended the shattered pieces of my life.

You lifted me from the grave with a mighty hand,

gave me another chance,

and saved me from joining those in that dreadful pit.

Sing, all you who remain faithful!

Pour out your hearts to the Eternal with praise and melodies;

let grateful music fill the air and bless His name.

His wrath, you see, is fleeting,

but His grace lasts a lifetime.

The deepest pains may linger through the night,

but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning.

When things were quiet and life was easy, I said in arrogance,

“Nothing can shake me.”

By Your grace, Eternal,

I thought I was as strong as a mountain;

But when You left my side and hid away,

I crumbled in fear.

O Eternal One, I called out to You;

I pleaded for Your compassion and forgiveness:

“I’m no good to You dead! What benefits come from my rotting corpse?

My body in the grave will not praise You.

No songs will rise up from the dust of my bones.

From dust comes no proclamation of Your faithfulness.

Hear me, Eternal Lord—please help me,

Eternal One—be merciful!”

You did it: You turned my deepest pains into joyful dancing;

You stripped off my dark clothing

and covered me with joyful light.

You have restored my honor. My heart is ready to explode, erupt in new songs!

It’s impossible to keep quiet!

Eternal One, my God, my Life-Giver, I will thank You forever.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 30 (The Voice)

[Psalm 12]

A David Psalm

Quick, God, I need your helping hand!

The last decent person just went down,

All the friends I depended on gone.

Everyone talks in lie language;

Lies slide off their oily lips.

They doubletalk with forked tongues.

Slice their lips off their faces! Pull

The braggart tongues from their mouths!

I’m tired of hearing, “We can talk anyone into anything!

Our lips manage the world.”

Into the hovels of the poor,

Into the dark streets where the homeless groan, God speaks:

“I’ve had enough; I’m on my way

To heal the ache in the heart of the wretched.”

God’s words are pure words,

Pure silver words refined seven times

In the fires of his word-kiln,

Pure on earth as well as in heaven.

God, keep us safe from their lies,

From the wicked who stalk us with lies,

From the wicked who collect honors

For their wonderful lies.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 12 (The Message)

[Psalm 90]

Book 4

The Numbers Psalms

Psalms of our pilgrimage on earth

God, the Eternal

A prayer of Moses, God’s prophet

Lord, you have always been our eternal home,

our hiding place from generation to generation.

Long before you gave birth to the earth

and before the mountains were born,

you have been from everlasting to everlasting,

the one and only true God.

When you speak the words “Life, return to me!”

man turns back to dust.

One thousand years pass before your eyes

like yesterday that quickly faded away,

like a night’s sleep soon forgotten.

One day we will each be swept away into the sleep of death.

We glide along through the tides of time—

so quickly gone, like a dream that fades at dawn.

Like glistening grass that springs up one day

and is dry and withered the next, ready to be cut down!

Terrified by your anger, confined beneath the curse,

we live our lives knowing your wrath.

For all of our faults and flaws are in full view to you.

Everything we want to hide, you search out

and expose by the radiance of your face.

We are banished to live in the shadow of your anger.

Our days soon become years until our lifetime comes to an end,

finished with nothing but a sigh.

You’ve limited our life span to a mere seventy years,

yet some you give grace to live still longer.

But even the best of years are marred by tears and toils,

and in the end with nothing more than a gravestone in a graveyard!

We’re gone so quickly, so swiftly;

we pass away and simply disappear.

Lord, who fully knows the power of your passion

and the intensity of your emotions?

Help us to remember that our days are numbered,

and help us to interpret our lives correctly.

Set your wisdom deeply in our hearts

so that we may accept your correction.

Return to us again, O God!

How much longer will it take until you show us

your abundant compassion?

Let the sunrise of your love end our dark night.

Break through our clouded dawn again!

Only you can satisfy our hearts,

filling us with songs of joy to the end of our days.

We’ve been overwhelmed with grief;

come now and overwhelm us with gladness.

Replace our years of trouble with decades of delight.

Let us see your miracles again, and let the rising generation

see the glorious wonders you’re famous for.

O Lord our God, let your sweet beauty rest upon us

and give us favor.

Come work with us, and then our works will endure,

and give us success in all we do.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 90 (The Passion Translation)

[Proverbs 30]

The Words of Agur Ben Yakeh

God? Who Needs Him?

The skeptic swore, “There is no God!

No God!—I can do anything I want!

I’m more animal than human;

so-called human intelligence escapes me.

“I flunked ‘wisdom.’

I see no evidence of a holy God.

Has anyone ever seen Anyone

climb into Heaven and take charge?

grab the winds and control them?

gather the rains in his bucket?

stake out the ends of the earth?

Just tell me his name, tell me the names of his sons.

Come on now—tell me!”

The believer replied, “Every promise of God proves true;

he protects everyone who runs to him for help.

So don’t second-guess him;

he might take you to task and show up your lies.”

And then he prayed, “God, I’m asking for two things

before I die; don’t refuse me—

Banish lies from my lips

and liars from my presence.

Give me enough food to live on,

neither too much nor too little.

If I’m too full, I might get independent,

saying, ‘God? Who needs him?’

If I’m poor, I might steal

and dishonor the name of my God.”

Don’t blow the whistle on your fellow workers

behind their backs;

They’ll accuse you of being underhanded,

and then you’ll be the guilty one!

Don’t curse your father

or fail to bless your mother.

Don’t imagine yourself to be quite presentable

when you haven’t had a bath in weeks.

Don’t be stuck-up

and think you’re better than everyone else.

Don’t be greedy,

merciless and cruel as wolves,

Tearing into the poor and feasting on them,

shredding the needy to pieces only to discard them.

A leech has twin daughters

named “Gimme” and “Gimme more.”

[Four Insatiables]

Three things are never satisfied,

no, there are four that never say, “That’s enough, thank you!”—

hell,

a barren womb,

a parched land,

a forest fire.

An eye that disdains a father

and despises a mother—

that eye will be plucked out by wild vultures

and consumed by young eagles.

[Four Mysteries]

Three things amaze me,

no, four things I’ll never understand—

how an eagle flies so high in the sky,

how a snake glides over a rock,

how a ship navigates the ocean,

why adolescents act the way they do.

Here’s how a prostitute operates:

she has sex with her client,

Takes a bath,

then asks, “Who’s next?”

[Four Intolerables]

Three things are too much for even the earth to bear,

yes, four things shake its foundations—

when the janitor becomes the boss,

when a fool gets rich,

when a whore is voted “woman of the year,”

when a “girlfriend” replaces a faithful wife.

[Four Small Wonders]

There are four small creatures,

wisest of the wise they are—

ants—frail as they are,

get plenty of food in for the winter;

marmots—vulnerable as they are,

manage to arrange for rock-solid homes;

locusts—leaderless insects,

yet they strip the field like an army regiment;

lizards—easy enough to catch,

but they sneak past vigilant palace guards.

[Four Dignitaries]

There are three solemn dignitaries,

four that are impressive in their bearing—

a lion, king of the beasts, deferring to none;

a rooster, proud and strutting;

a billy goat;

a head of state in stately procession.

If you’re dumb enough to call attention to yourself

by offending people and making rude gestures,

Don’t be surprised if someone bloodies your nose.

Churned milk turns into butter;

riled emotions turn into fist fights.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 30 (The Message)

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autolovecraft · 6 years

Text

On October 29 we found it.

It is not dream—it is not dream—it is not dream—it is not dream—it is not, I bade the knocker enter, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our shocking expedition, or catalog even partly the worst of all, the horrible shadows; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we proceeded to the theory that we were troubled by what we read. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the stealing of the neighborhood. These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the city. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we were mad, dreaming, or sphinx with a semi-canine face, and mumbled over his body one of our shocking expedition, or sphinx with a charnel fever like our own. And when I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade.

Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had assembled a universe of terror and a faint, deep, sardonic bay as of a gigantic hound. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a nameless deed in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the theory that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade.

Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. Much—amazingly much—was left of the earth. -Upheaving stenches of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the night of September 24,19—, I attacked the half frozen sod with a blow of my spade.

Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. They were as baffling as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old manor-house on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. I had robbed; not clean and placid as we looked more closely we saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar. In the coffin lay an amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and we could neither see nor definitely place. But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and in the night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower. And when I spoke to him, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! As we heard the faint baying of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

Four days later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, and he could not be sure. The moon was up, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the objects it symbolized; and were disturbed by what we read. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.

My friend was dying when I saw on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I departed on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet. St John and myself.

We were no vulgar ghouls, but we recognized it as the victims of some ominous, grinning secret of the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the unnamed and unnameable. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and were disturbed by what we read. I dared not look at it. When I aroused St John must soon befall me.

When I aroused St John was always the leader, and every subsequent event including St John's pocket, we proceeded to the calm white thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or in our ears the faint distant baying of some gigantic hound.

When I aroused St John and myself. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John was always the leader, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John must soon befall me.

As we heard the faint baying of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure. His screams had reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and I had once violated, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! I approached the ancient house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered. Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the neighborhood. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was the night, not only around the sleeper's neck. Wearied with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher.

They were as baffling as the baying in that ancient churchyard, and it ceased altogether as I. The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the earth we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered.

So, too, as if receding far away, a jarring lighting effect, or a clumsy manipulation of the thing hinted of in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could not answer coherently. The enigmas of the thing that lay within; but I felt that I must try any step conceivably logical. And as I approached the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. This is the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I attacked the half frozen sod with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a crouching winged hound, or in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the picture of ourselves, the dancing death-fires, the titanic bats, was the dark rumor and legendry, the pale watching moon, the titanic bats, the sickening odors, the horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the amulet. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade.

In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to ribbons. Around the walls of this loot in particular that I must try any step conceivably logical.

Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. I saw a black shape obscure one of our shocking expedition, or catalog even partly the worst of the unknown, we thought we saw that it held. The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. What the hound was, and with headstones snatched from the centuried grave.

May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

#H.P. Lovecraft #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains #1922 #The Hound #The Hound week

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thekingsmanscycle · 6 years

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Karlemon’s Lands: Dalecar (continued)

Geography of Dalecar

River Dusan. The easternmost of the great floodplain rivers, Dusan is a calm and deceptive water course, with all its many rock fields and sinkholes hidden deep beneath the water. With its source in the Milesian hinterlands and its mouth in the Szwed fjord, its main claim to fame is as the mythical home of the apocryphal fifty-eighth Vanathe, Marwa the Betrayer.

River Vilya. The river which supports the great naval yards of Sarnika, it holds a special place in Dalecarii folklore as the water course used by the last of the Kanjani to leave their ancestral home in the Rise. Its mouth in the forested highlands of central Dalecar runs to its mouth on the Cosiman side of the border in the Tethyrian Finger, a long inlet that runs many miles inland.

River Tailabaciu. The river upon which the city of Griegesstadt is built, its course flows eastwards into Ugurzhna from its source in the foothills of the Milesians. Said to have been the site of the first contact between primitive humans and their stalwart dwarven allies in who eventually settled in the Wyrmspine, there is a monument dedicated to the folkloric encounter at the Bronzehorse Ford presided over by a statue of Peohtric, the androgynous demigod of dwarven legend.

The Taman Peninsula. Dalecar’s colonial holdings across the Vestal Sea, they have been a hotly contested territory for close to six hundred years, with towns and villages changing hands between Dalecar and the tribes of Ugurzhna on a fairly regular basis. The governing city of Kistalint is a fortress city built in the style of Sarnika and Valdemar, though its destroyed sister city lies fallow further to the south.

The Milesians. A range of mountains that line Dalecar’s northern border with Fallsund, the Milesians have been the refuge for exiles, dissidents and bandits for centuries from all across Karlemon’s Lands. They are also known for a long and labyrinthine complex of tunnels, not connected to the infamous Underdark, but self-contained and known as the Burrows and Barrows, depending on the altitude of the individual entrance.

The Isle of Srovor. Once the highest peak of the hills surrounding the Ynen Valley, the Isle of Srovor is an isolated island between the Dalecarii mainland and the Taman Peninsula with a remnant of the Yneni culture still extant. With a population numbering in the low thousands, many rumours circulate about these secretive and remote villagers and the ancient gods they claim to walk the rocky fields of the isle.

Landmarks of Dalecar

The Barbican of Kistalint. The oft besieged citadel of southernmost Dalecar, Kistalint’s barbican has withstood seven sieges, six pitch battles and two months sustained tunnelling to reach the high levels of dependability that the defenders of the city have come to expect from the near-four hundred year old walled bastion. Due to the near constant rate of violent death within and without its walls, the Barbican is reputed to be haunted in the extreme, with over twenty individual entities known to persist within its gates.

The Great Trade Hall of Valdemar. The first mass complex for trade and commerce in Karlemon’s Lands, the Trade Hall, as constructed by Vasil I Leonidovich in 704 CE is the first stop for merchants from Sinhal, the cities of Ugurzhna and the great elven metropolises as far abroad as Emel Caelora. Every type of ware and good is sold here at reasonable prices and the goods are taxed by the city in return for reputation and revenue.

The City of Lyukomorye. Named for a chieftain of the Sun Vulture tribe which lived nearby during the Dalecarii occupation, this abandoned city was left to rot following a long drought which preceded a virulent and deadly plague. The sister city to Kistalint, Lyukomorye is an eerie and disturbing place, haunted by beasts, bandits and more dangerous creatures as well in the deeper places of the land, but which also boasts the most detailed maps of any where in the area.

Ser Boleslav’s Elder. In the centre of the city of Sarnika a great elder tree grows, known to be the last resting place of the ashes of the founder of the Church of Four Virtues, Ser Boleslav Nedza. Raised in a family of mystics, Boleslav is said to have been dissatisfied with his lot in life and sought out a greater purpose. Finding no calling from above, he did not despair as many would and began to craft his own philosophy based on the tenets of courage, wisdom, temperance and justice.

Wildlife of Dalecar

Akhlut. A vicious, dangerous beast that ventures onto land in order to hunt humans and other animals. Its tracks can be recognised because they lead to and from the ocean, indicating that it is lurking under the water nearby.

Wallah. Towering two legged predatory birds native to eastern Dalecar and the border with Ugurzhna, they prey on nearly anything that moves with a particular proclivity for horse flesh.

Vudansk. A hulking bug-eyed fish-like creature from the eastern most reaches of the Vestal Sea, they are said to live far in the depths of the ocean and only rise to the surface in search of slaves and prey.

Owlbear. Formerly the result of experimentation by hedge witches in centuries past, there is now a breeding population of these powerful and dangerous monstrosities in Dalecar.

Goldhorn Ibex. A distant southern relative of the Chillfoot, the goldhorn is a cunning and flighty beast, given to allowing hunters to chase it into treacherous passes in the mountains where it can give them the slip and leave them lost.

Hippogryph. A rarely seen creature of central and western Dalecar, the hippogryph makes its home in the deepest reaches of the forests and only ventures into the open during its brief mating season, which only occurs every five years.

Demi-human Races of Dalecar

Gnolls. These savage hyena-men have ravaged the settlements of Dalecar since even before the tribes of Ugurzhna from whom the Dalecarii conquered their kingdom. Their pack-oriented lifestyle and fierce territorial streak have not engendered them to the Dalecarii in the slightest, and neither has their penchant for eating livestock, family pets and the occasional wayward child.

Dalecarii Folklore

Chthon, the Dark God. An ancient being of terrible reputation and power, Chthon isn’t worshipped in Dalecar so much as he is reviled. An ancient holdover from the beliefs of the Kanjani ancestors of Dalecar’s people, he is still feared and the folklore of the nation contains many heroes who seek to subvert, trick or overcome his entropic, rotting grasp. A substantial proportion of northern Dalecarii practice an ancient worship and teaching of this one’s power and warn others against the danger they say that he poses to all mortals, not just humans. His domain is death, decay and the end of creation.

Hexen. The last night of Spring is celebrated in Dalecar with raucous dancing and feasting, accompanied by huge bonfires lit to ward off the hunting parties of Chthon and his many retainers. Children dress in masks of stitched cloth and run between the fires, pretending to be monsters, knights or witches. Real witches use this night as a time of peace and walk freely amongst the peasantry, where they are valued as talented herbalists, magicians and midwives in defiance of Chthon’s dark powers.

Afanas, the Immortal One. Once the greatest scion of a family of mages, Afanas came to fear his own death enough that he locked away his soul in a large emerald which he hid away from the sight of Chthon. In his search for the methods of immortality, he drove himself mad with obsession, becoming cruel, petty, selfish and pitiless. In some versions of the tale, he sacrifices his own son to Chthon to stave off his own death, turning to what he hated and feared in order to become ever-living. None are certain whether he still lives, but many fear the return of such a powerful lich.

Vrykani. Though lycanthropes are fairly common in Dalecar, by far the most numerous are the vrykani, which are born and not made. Theirs is a bloodline that goes back centuries to beyond the days of Caradec Grall, when the great chieftain Konrad Jagielov ruled in what is now Sarnika. Said to be descended from Vrykan Jagielov, Konrad’s bastard son by the witch Gromalka, they are near to a fault vicious bloodthirsty monsters with a hatred for mortal humans and a taste for flesh.

Rushana. The vengeful spirits of drowned women killed by jealous husbands and lovers, these spirits of the water lurk in rivers and lure besotted handsome unmarried men to their deaths with their beautiful appearances. They may leave the water for a short time before needing to return and replenish their essence, searching for travellers on nearby roads or drunken revellers for easier pickings. They are specifically thought to inhabit the Vilya river, but have also been seen in the Dusan and Tailabaciu as well.

Strigoii. The risen undead corpse of the recently deceased, strigoii are known for their pallid complexion, aversion to sunlight and taste for blood. In Dalecarii folklore, their rise is caused by improper burial in unconsecrated ground and so a watch is placed over each burial plot to ensure the risen vampire can be put down if necessary via quick decapitation. Among the most famous of the strigoii was the former Dalecarii ambassador to Ouranaiel Borys Korshovich, who died after three days out in the sun and resurrected as a revenant in front of several dozen witnesses.

#dnd 5e #worldbuilding #geography

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tagapagharaya · 7 years

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10 Funerary Practices from Around the World

Fantasy Coffins – Ghana

We expect coffins at a funeral – it’s nothing out of the ordinary. So what’s so special about Ghana’s coffins? Among the Ga-Adangbe People of the Greater Accra Region, Ghana, the dead are laid to rest inside works of art. The Ga-Adangbe believe that their ancestors have great influence over their daily lives and sending them off in style – even if one coffin can cost an entire year’s salary – is supposed to win their favor. Each fantasy coffin or abebuu adekai (proverbial coffin) is custom-made, hand-carved and painted in bright colors to represent the life and personality of the deceased. So a fisherman can be buried in a model of their boat or their favorite fish and a tribal chief can be buried inside a leopard-shaped coffin.

The practice is said to have begun in the 1940s when Seth Kane Kwei – who was famous for making carved chairs – made a palanquin for the chief. When the chief died, he convinced the family to bury him inside the palanquin instead of letting it go to waste. In the 1950s, he carved an airplane-shaped coffin for his grandmother who had always dreamed of flying but never got the chance. Since then, coffin-making has become an art and museums across the world have commissioned fantasy coffins for exhibits.

Jar Burial – Southeast Asia

Like coffins, jars really aren’t unusual. Most cremated remains are stored in jars and urns. What makes jar burials unusual is that they don’t contain ashes but bones – even whole bodies. Jar burials can be found across Southeast Asia and even in Korea and Japan. However, the most well-known burial jars were found in the caves of Indonesia and the Philippines. One of the most famous of these jars is the Manunggul Jar discovered in Palawan, Philippines and is considered a work by a master potter. This jar is depicts two human figures riding in a boat, representing the soul of the dead and the ferryman to the underworld.

These massive jars have been used for centuries to store the bones of the deceased. The body is first buried in the ground and allowed to decompose. After a period of time, the remains are dug up and cleaned then transferred to the ornate jars for secondary burial. While most of these jars are ancient, the practice has lasted until modern times among the Berawan and Kelabit ethnic groups of Indonesia who used imported Chinese stoneware jars for both primary and secondary burials.

Tree and Scaffold Burials – North America

The different Native American peoples practiced a wide variety of burial customs. Aerial sepultures – above ground “burials” on high platforms unreachable by scavengers – is primarily found among the Plains Indians and the groups in the Pacific Northwest. The bodies were left to decay over time and loud wailing and mourning is usually done around the platform as an expression of grief.

A variety of platforms were used between different groups. Where trees were plentiful, they were used and the body can be laid out on its back or wrapped in a cloth and hung from the branches. In other areas where trees are few or their shape is not suitable, scaffolds may be built or open coffins are raised on stilts. Regardless of the type of the platform used, food offerings are also usually hung beside the bodies and personal belongings might be placed with the body especially in the case of powerful persons within the community.

Cave Burials – Hawai’i

In Hawai’i, there are many different ways of burying the dead. One of the most common practices was to inter the deceased inside caves. In fact, burial caves can be found on all Hawaiian islands. Bodies were traditionally curled into fetal position and left sitting inside lava tubes, rockshelters and deep within caverns with food, cloth and other grave goods. But newer bodies found near the mouths of caves – anthropologists theorize this was after Hawai’i adopted Christianity – were laid out on their backs, showing the changing attitudes of the Hawaiian people towards death.

One gravesite can be reserved for one person but most are familial burial grounds. Most people buried in caves are commoners (maka'ainana), but some caves, such as the Forbes’ Cave, were reserved for royalty (ali’i) that were distinguished by their luxurious grave goods. To prevent theft, a wall of false rock is sometimes used to disguise the cave entrance and guarded by a kahu (family retainer). Sadly, gravesites have been looted ever since cave burials fell out of practice.

Towers of Silence – The Middle East and India

According to Zoroastrianism, when a person dies, the body is invaded by the corpse demon (nasu daeva), making it unclean (nasu). Burial – both in the ground and at sea – and cremation are not practiced because the bodies of the dead are believed to pollute the earth, water and fire and make them unfit for use by the living. To prevent contamination, Zoroastrians put their dead in high places far away from their cities.

The tower of silence (dakhma) is a flat, circular and roofless building made to contain the dead. It is built in concentric circles meant to separate bodies based on sex and age – men are placed in the outermost ring, women in the middle ring, and children in the innermost ring. Carrion birds such as vultures and buzzards have learned to hang around these places and make quick work of the body. When only the bones are left, they are moved either to the ossuary well at the center of the dakhma or to a columbary nearby. The exposure to the sun and wind disintegrates the bones into powder which is then washed out into the sea by the rain.

Sky Burials – Tibet

Sky burial or bya gtor (literally “alms for the birds”) involves feeding the bodies of the dead to the vultures which are considered the corporeal forms of angels (dakhini) in Tibetan belief. While it has its similarities with the Zoroastrian funeral practice this Tibetan tradition has a very different reason for being. Instead of believing that dead bodies are unclean, Tibetan Buddhists believe that corpses are empty vessels once the soul has left to be reincarnated so there is no reason to keep them around.

The ceremony begins by washing the corpse and chanting. The body is then hauled up into the mountains and juniper incense is lit to attract vultures. Professional body breakers called rogyapa chop up the body and smash the bones to make the work easier for the vultures. The ground up bones mixed with tsampa (roasted barley flour) are served first before the internal organs and finally the flesh. It might sound macabre, but bya gtor is the Tibetans’ way of returning the body to the circle of life and is considered an immense show of generosity and compassion – by feeding dead flesh to the vultures, they spare the life of another animal that could have been the birds’ meal.

Fire Mummies – Philippines

Thanks to media, when we think of mummies, we think of Egypt and dead pharaohs wrapped in gauze. But it’s not the bandages that make the mummy. Mummies are actually any preserved body and can be made in a variety of ways. Smoking the bodies is one of the rarer ways to make mummies, but this is exactly what is done with the fire mummies of the Philippines. These mummies made by the Ibaloi ethnic group can be found in the caves of Benguet, lying curled up in a fetal position inside open coffins. Scientists can’t decide whether the practice began in 1200 CE or if it’s much older, but they do agree that it stopped when the Spaniards colonized the archipelago.

As morbid as it sounds, the mummification process begins shortly before death and the soon-to-be mummy participates. The dying drink a very salty concoction meant to speed up dehydration. After death, the body is washed and put in a sitting position above a fire to be smoked until all water content in the body has evaporated while tobacco smoke is blown into the corpse’s mouth to dry out the internal organs. This process can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months. When it’s done, the body is laid to rest in a coffin and placed inside one of the caves where they can still be found today.

Wet Mummies – China

We’ve already established that the most famous mummies are from Egypt. But the oldest and best-preserved mummy is in China. The Lady of Dai has been dead for over 2,100 years, but she looked like she had just been dead for a few hours – a few days at the most – when her tomb was opened. Even her eyelashes haven’t fallen out yet. She was so well-preserved that scientists were able to run an autopsy on her body and find out that she died of a coronary heart attack. A wealthy noble from the Han dynasty, stepping into her tomb is like stepping back through time.

In Ancient China, a lot of care was taken to preserve the bodies of the dead and provide them with the luxuries they would need in the afterlife. Unlike the Egyptians or the Ibaloi, the Chinese didn’t dehydrate bodies to preserve them. They did the reverse and soaked them in embalming solutions. Each mortician had their own secret formula and scientists today haven’t even figured out what they put into them. The bodies are then sealed away tightly away and the lack of oxygen prevents bacteria from surviving long enough to begin decomposing the body. The Lady of Dai’s tomb was sealed so well – and the floor was sprinkled with charcoal and white clay to neutralize bacteria – that even the feast she was buried with had not decayed and the paint on her pottery had not even started to fade. Another wet mummy – from the Ming dynasty this time – was found entombed in a stone coffin underground during road construction.

Skull Burial – Kiribati

For the I-Kiribati, the dead don’t leave and that is meant very literally. The family waits until the body is partially decomposed before cutting off the head and burying the rest. The head is cleaned and the flesh is removed so the skull can be taken home and put on a high shelf – it is never left on the floor to avoid accidentally flashing the ancestor. Other bones can also be kept to make tools and the body can be dug up later to take some more.

The skull is still considered a part of the family that must be given respect. Relatives still regularly talk to it and ask it for favors, usually of the supernatural kind. Daily food offerings are made and the deceased’s favorite relative is required to eat it by the end of the day. Tobacco is also a popular offering and a living relative would blow the smoke into the skull’s jaws. Great care is taken to make sure that the skull is never offended and remains happy.

Funerary Cannibalism – Papua New Guinea

Cannibalism tends to leave a bad taste in our mouths. When we hear about it, we think of horrible crimes committed by the likes of Armin Meiwes and Sagawa Issei. But here’s the thing: Cannibalism comes in different flavors. The kind practiced by several Papuan tribes is called funerary endocannibalism – eating dead relatives as a show of grief and respect. The most famous of these tribes is the South Fore because of a mad cow-like prion disease called kuru (also called the “shaking disease”) which spreads through the ingestion of an infected brain. Because of this, the practice has since been banned in Papua New Guinea.

Among the South Fore, it was believed that a person had five souls, three of which stayed in the world of the living – the parts containing good qualities, occult power and bad luck. Eating the body was supposed to ensure that the good qualities and magic possessed by the dead will be inherited by descendants and the bad luck would be contained. It was considered normal to give one’s relatives instructions about how their body was going to be divided after death. There are even traditions regarding who is allowed to have which part. After a period of mourning, the body is washed, taken to a shady grove and prepared by the women of the family. A lot of care is taken so that nothing touches the ground or becomes wasted – even the bones are ground and mixed with plantains to be eaten. Usually, it is the kinswomen that consume most of the body. Men are only allowed small portions. Once the body is devoured, the family engages in various purification rituals.

#funeral #funerary practices #burial #fantasy coffin #jar burial #tree burial #scaffold burial #cave burial #tower of silence #sky burial #fire mummy #wet mummy #skull burial #funerary endocannibalism #cannibalism #death #culture #customs

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dfroza · 3 years

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Today’s reading from the ancient book of Proverbs and book of Psalms

for may 30 of 2021 with Proverbs 30 and Psalm 30, accompanied by Psalm 72 for the 72nd day of Spring and Psalm 150 for day 150 of the year

[Proverbs 30]

The Words of Agur Ben Yakeh

[God? Who Needs Him?]

The skeptic swore, “There is no God!

No God!—I can do anything I want!

I’m more animal than human;

so-called human intelligence escapes me.

“I flunked ‘wisdom.’

I see no evidence of a holy God.

Has anyone ever seen Anyone

climb into Heaven and take charge?

grab the winds and control them?

gather the rains in his bucket?

stake out the ends of the earth?

Just tell me his name, tell me the names of his sons.

Come on now—tell me!”

The believer replied, “Every promise of God proves true;

he protects everyone who runs to him for help.

So don’t second-guess him;

he might take you to task and show up your lies.”

And then he prayed, “God, I’m asking for two things

before I die; don’t refuse me—

Banish lies from my lips

and liars from my presence.

Give me enough food to live on,

neither too much nor too little.

If I’m too full, I might get independent,

saying, ‘God? Who needs him?’

If I’m poor, I might steal

and dishonor the name of my God.”

* * *

Don’t blow the whistle on your fellow workers

behind their backs;

They’ll accuse you of being underhanded,

and then you’ll be the guilty one!

Don’t curse your father

or fail to bless your mother.

Don’t imagine yourself to be quite presentable

when you haven’t had a bath in weeks.

Don’t be stuck-up

and think you’re better than everyone else.

Don’t be greedy,

merciless and cruel as wolves,

Tearing into the poor and feasting on them,

shredding the needy to pieces only to discard them.

A freeloader has twin daughters

named “Gimme” and “Gimme more.”

[Four Insatiables]

Three things are never satisfied,

no, there are four that never say, “That’s enough, thank you!”—

hell,

a barren womb,

a parched land,

a forest fire.

* * *

An eye that disdains a father

and despises a mother—

that eye will be plucked out by wild vultures

and consumed by young eagles.

[Four Mysteries]

Three things amaze me,

no, four things I’ll never understand—

how an eagle flies so high in the sky,

how a snake glides over a rock,

how a ship navigates the ocean,

why adolescents act the way they do.

* * *

Here’s how a prostitute operates:

she has sex with her client,

Takes a bath,

then asks, “Who’s next?”

[Four Intolerables]

Three things are too much for even the earth to bear,

yes, four things shake its foundations—

when the janitor becomes the boss,

when a fool gets rich,

when a prostitute is voted “woman of the year,”

when a “girlfriend” replaces a faithful wife.

[Four Small Wonders]

There are four small creatures,

wisest of the wise they are—

ants—frail as they are,

get plenty of food in for the winter;

marmots—vulnerable as they are,

manage to arrange for rock-solid homes;

locusts—leaderless insects,

yet they strip the field like an army regiment;

lizards—easy enough to catch,

but they sneak past vigilant palace guards.

[Four Dignitaries]

There are three solemn dignitaries,

four that are impressive in their bearing—

a lion, king of the beasts, deferring to none;

a rooster, proud and strutting;

a billy goat;

a head of state in stately procession.

* * *

If you’re dumb enough to call attention to yourself

by offending people and making rude gestures,

Don’t be surprised if someone bloodies your nose.

Churned milk turns into butter;

riled emotions turn into fist fights.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 30 (The Message)

[Psalm 30]

A song of David. For the dedication of the temple.

I praise You, Eternal One. You lifted me out of that deep, dark pit

and denied my opponents the pleasure of rubbing in their success.

Eternal One, my True God, I cried out to You for help;

You mended the shattered pieces of my life.

You lifted me from the grave with a mighty hand,

gave me another chance,

and saved me from joining those in that dreadful pit.

Sing, all you who remain faithful!

Pour out your hearts to the Eternal with praise and melodies;

let grateful music fill the air and bless His name.

His wrath, you see, is fleeting,

but His grace lasts a lifetime.

The deepest pains may linger through the night,

but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning.

When things were quiet and life was easy, I said in arrogance,

“Nothing can shake me.”

By Your grace, Eternal,

I thought I was as strong as a mountain;

But when You left my side and hid away,

I crumbled in fear.

O Eternal One, I called out to You;

I pleaded for Your compassion and forgiveness:

“I’m no good to You dead! What benefits come from my rotting corpse?

My body in the grave will not praise You.

No songs will rise up from the dust of my bones.

From dust comes no proclamation of Your faithfulness.

Hear me, Eternal Lord—please help me,

Eternal One—be merciful!”

You did it: You turned my deepest pains into joyful dancing;

You stripped off my dark clothing

and covered me with joyful light.

You have restored my honor. My heart is ready to explode, erupt in new songs!

It’s impossible to keep quiet!

Eternal One, my God, my Life-Giver, I will thank You forever.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 30 (The Voice)

[Psalm 72]

A song of Solomon.

True God, bestow Your honest judgments upon the king

and anoint the king’s son with Your righteousness.

May he be honest and fair in his judgments over Your people

and offer justice to the burdened and suffering.

Under his reign, may this land of mountains and hills know peace

and experience justice for all the people.

May the king offer justice to the burdened and suffering,

rescue the poor and needy,

and demolish the oppressor!

[May the people fear You] for as long as the sun shines,

as long as the moon rises in the night sky, throughout the generations.

May the king be like the refreshing rains, which fall upon fields of freshly mown grass—

like showers that cool and nourish the earth.

May good and honest people flourish for as long as he reigns,

and may peace fill the land until the moon no longer rises.

May the king rule from one sea to the next,

and may his rule extend from the Euphrates River to the far reaches of the earth.

Let the desert wanderers bow down before him

and his enemies lay prostrate and taste the dirt.

Let the kings of Tarshish and the island kings

shower him with gifts

And the kings of Sheba and Seba bring him presents as well.

Let every king on earth bow down before him

and every nation be in his service.

For he will rescue the needy when they ask for help!

He will save the burdened and come to the aid of those who have no other help.

He offers compassion to the weak and the poor;

he will help and protect the lives of the needy!

He will liberate them from the fierce sting of persecution and violence;

in his eyes, their blood is precious.

May he live a long, long time

and the gold of Sheba be given to him.

May the people constantly lift up prayers for him,

and may they call upon God to bless him always.

Let grain grow plentifully in this land of promise,

let it sway in the breeze on the hilltops,

let it grow strong as do the cedars of Lebanon,

And may those who live in the city bloom and flourish

just as the grass of the fields and meadows.

May his name live on forever

and his reputation grow for as long as the sun gives light.

May people from all nations find in him a blessing;

may all peoples declare him blessed.

May the Eternal God, the God of Israel, be blessed,

for He alone works miracles and wonders!

May His glorious name be blessed forever

and the whole earth be filled with His eternal glory!

Amen. Amen.

The prayers of King David, Jesse’s son, are ended.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 72 (The Voice)

[Psalm 150]

Praise the Eternal!

Praise the True God inside His temple.

Praise Him beneath massive skies, under moonlit stars and rising sun.

Praise Him for His powerful acts, redeeming His people.

Praise Him for His greatness that surpasses our time and understanding.

Praise Him with the blast of trumpets high into the heavens,

and praise Him with harps and lyres

and the rhythm of the tambourines skillfully played by those who love and fear the Eternal.

Praise Him with singing and dancing;

praise Him with flutes and strings of all kinds!

Praise Him with crashing cymbals,

loud clashing cymbals!

No one should be left out;

Let every man and every beast—

every creature that has the breath of the Lord—praise the Eternal!

Praise the Eternal!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 150 (The Voice)

0 notes

dfroza · 3 years

Text

Today’s reading from the ancient books of Proverbs and Psalms

for Wednesday, december 30 of 2020 with Proverbs 30 and Psalm 30, accompanied by Psalm 10 for the 10th day of Winter, and Psalm 65 for day 365 of the year (now with the consummate book of 150 Psalms in its 3rd revolution this year)

[Psalm 30]

A song of David. For the dedication of the temple.

I praise You, Eternal One. You lifted me out of that deep, dark pit

and denied my opponents the pleasure of rubbing in their success.

Eternal One, my True God, I cried out to You for help;

You mended the shattered pieces of my life.

You lifted me from the grave with a mighty hand,

gave me another chance,

and saved me from joining those in that dreadful pit.

Sing, all you who remain faithful!

Pour out your hearts to the Eternal with praise and melodies;

let grateful music fill the air and bless His name.

His wrath, you see, is fleeting,

but His grace lasts a lifetime.

The deepest pains may linger through the night,

but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning.

When things were quiet and life was easy, I said in arrogance,

“Nothing can shake me.”

By Your grace, Eternal,

I thought I was as strong as a mountain;

But when You left my side and hid away,

I crumbled in fear.

O Eternal One, I called out to You;

I pleaded for Your compassion and forgiveness:

“I’m no good to You dead! What benefits come from my rotting corpse?

My body in the grave will not praise You.

No songs will rise up from the dust of my bones.

From dust comes no proclamation of Your faithfulness.

Hear me, Eternal Lord—please help me,

Eternal One—be merciful!”

You did it: You turned my deepest pains into joyful dancing;

You stripped off my dark clothing

and covered me with joyful light.

You have restored my honor. My heart is ready to explode, erupt in new songs!

It’s impossible to keep quiet!

Eternal One, my God, my Life-Giver, I will thank You forever.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 30 (The Voice)

[Psalm 10]

Why, O Eternal One, are You so far away?

Why can’t You be found during troubling times?

Mean and haughty people hunt down the poor.

May they get caught up in their own wicked schemes.

For the wicked celebrates the evil cravings of his heart

as the greedy curses and rejects the Eternal.

The arrogance of the wicked one keeps him from seeking the True God.

He truly thinks, “There is no God.”

His ways seem always to be successful;

Your judgments, too, seem far beyond him, out of his reach.

He looks down on all his enemies.

In his heart he has decided, “Nothing will faze me.

From generation to generation I will not face trouble.”

His mouth is full of curses, lies, and oppression.

Beneath his tongue lie trouble and wickedness.

He hides in the shadows of the villages,

waiting to ambush and kill the innocent in dark corners.

He eyes the weak and the poor.

Ominously, like a lion in its lair,

he lurks in secret to waylay those who are downtrodden.

When he catches them, he draws them in and drags them off with his net.

Quietly crouching, lying low,

ready to overwhelm the next by his strength,

The wicked thinks in his heart, “God has forgotten us!

He has covered His face and will never notice!”

Arise, O Eternal, my True God. Lift up Your hand.

Do not forget the downtrodden.

Why does the wicked revile the True God?

He has decided, “He will not hold me responsible.”

But wait! You have seen,

and You will consider the trouble and grief he caused.

You will impose consequences for his actions.

The helpless, the orphans, commit themselves to You,

and You have been their Helper.

Break the arm of the one guilty of doing evil;

investigate all his wicked acts;

hold him responsible for every last one of them.

The Eternal will reign as King forever.

The other nations will be swept off His land.

O Eternal One, You have heard the longings of the poor and lowly.

You will strengthen them; You who are of heaven will hear them,

Vindicating the orphan and the oppressed

so that men who are of the earth will terrify them no more.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 10 (The Voice)

[Psalm 65]

For the worship leader. A song of David.

All will stand in awe to praise You.

Praise will sweep through Zion, the Sacred City, O God.

Solemn vows uttered to You will now be performed.

You hear us pray in words and silence;

all humanity comes into Your presence.

Injustice overwhelms me!

But You forgive our sins, restoring as only You can.

You invite us near, drawing us

into Your courts—what an honor and a privilege!

We feast until we’re full on the goodness of Your house,

Your sacred temple made manifest.

You leave us breathless when Your awesome works answer us by putting everything right.

God of our liberation—

You are the hope of all creation, from the far corners of the earth

to distant life-giving oceans.

With immense power, You erected mountains.

Wrapped in strength, You compelled

Choppy seas,

crashing waves,

and crowds of people

To sit in astonished silence.

Those who inhabit the boundaries of the earth are awed by Your signs,

strong and subtle hints of Your indelible presence.

Even the dawn and dusk respond to You with joy.

You spend time on the good earth,

watering and nourishing the networks of the living.

God’s river is full of water!

By preparing the land,

You have provided us grain for nourishment.

You are the gentle equalizer: soaking the furrows,

smoothing soil’s ridges,

Softening sun-baked earth with generous showers,

blessing the fruit of the ground.

You crown the year with a fruitful harvest;

the paths are worn down by carts overflowing with unstoppable growth.

Barren desert pastures yield fruit;

craggy hills are now dressed for celebration.

Meadows are clothed with frolicking flocks of lambs;

valleys are covered with a carpet of autumn-harvest grain;

the land shouts and sings in joyous celebration.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 65 (The Voice)

[Proverbs 30]

These are the collected sayings of the prophet Agur, Jakeh’s son—

the amazing revelation he imparted to Ithiel and Ukal.

God, I’m so weary and worn out,

I feel more like a beast than a man.

I was made in your image,

but I lack understanding.

I’ve yet to learn the wisdom

that comes from the full and intimate knowledge of you,

the Holy One.

[Six Questions]

Who is it that travels back and forth

from the heavenly realm to the earth?

Who controls the wind as it blows and holds it in his fists?

Who tucks the rain into the cloak of his clouds?

Who stretches out the skyline from one vista to the other?

What is his name?

And what is the name of his Son?

Who can tell me?

[A Pure Heart Is Filled with God’s Word]

Every promise from the faithful God

is pure and proves to be true.

He is a wrap-around shield of protection for all his lovers

who run to hide in him.

Never add to his words,

or he will have to rebuke you and prove that you’re a liar.

God, there are two things I’m asking you for before I die, only two:

Empty out of my heart everything that is false—

every lie, and every crooked thing.

And give me neither undue poverty nor undue wealth—

but rather, feed my soul with the measure of prosperity

that pleases you.

May my satisfaction be found in you.

Don’t let me be so rich that I don’t need you

or so poor that I have to resort to dishonesty

just to make ends meet.

Then my life will never detract from bringing glory to your name.

Never defame a servant before his master,

for you will be the guilty one

and a curse will come upon you.

There is a generation rising that curses their fathers

and speaks evil of their mothers.

There is a generation rising that considers themselves

to be pure in their own eyes,

yet they are morally filthy, unwashed, and unclean.

There is a generation rising that is so filled with pride

they think they are superior and look down on others.

There is a generation rising that uses their words like swords

to cut and slash those who are different.

They would devour the poor, the needy, and the afflicted

from off the face of the earth!

There are three words to describe the greedy:

“Give me more!”

There are some things that are never satisfied.

Forever craving more, they’re unable to say, “That’s enough!”

Here are four:

The grave, yawning for another victim,

the barren womb, ever wanting a child,

thirsty soil, ever longing for rain,

and a raging fire, devouring its fuel.

They’re all insatiable.

The eye that mocks his father and dishonors his elderly mother

deserves to be plucked out by the ravens of the valley

and fed to the young vultures!

[Four Mysteries]

There are four marvelous mysteries

that are too amazing to unravel—

who could fully explain them?

The way an eagle flies in the sky,

the way a snake glides on a boulder,

the path of a ship as it passes through the sea,

and the way a bridegroom falls in love with his bride.

Here is the deceptive way of the adulterous woman:

she takes what she wants and then says,

“I’ve done nothing wrong.”

[Four Intolerable Things]

There are four intolerable events

that are simply unbearable to observe:

when an unfaithful servant becomes a ruler,

when a scoundrel comes into great wealth,

when an unfaithful woman marries a good man,

and when a mistress replaces a faithful wife.

[Four Creatures Small and Wise]

The earth has four creatures that are very small but very wise:

The feeble ant has little strength,

yet look how it diligently gathers its food in the summer

to last throughout the winter.

The delicate rock-badger isn’t all that strong,

yet look how it makes a secure home, nestled in the rocks.

The locusts have no king to lead them,

yet they cooperate as they move forward by bands.

And the small lizard is easy to catch

as it clings to the walls with its hands,

yet it can be found inside a king’s palace.

[Four Stately Things]

There are four stately monarchs

who are impressive to watch as they go forth:

the lion, the king of the jungle, who is afraid of no one,

the rooster strutting boldly among the hens,

the male goat out in front leading the herd,

and a king leading his regal procession.

If you’ve acted foolishly by drawing attention to yourself,

or if you’ve thought about saying something stupid,

you’d better shut your mouth.

For such stupidity may give you a bloody nose!

Stirring up an argument only leads to an angry confrontation.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 30 (The Passion Translation)

0 notes

dfroza · 4 years

Text

Today’s reading in the ancient book of Proverbs and Psalms

for Sunday, August 30 of 2020 with Proverbs 30 and Psalm 30 accompanied by Psalm 72 for the 72nd day of Summer and Psalm 93 for day 243 of the year

[Proverbs 30]

The Words of Agur Ben Yakeh

God? Who Needs Him?

The skeptic swore, “There is no God!

No God!—I can do anything I want!

I’m more animal than human;

so-called human intelligence escapes me.

“I flunked ‘wisdom.’

I see no evidence of a holy God.

Has anyone ever seen Anyone

climb into Heaven and take charge?

grab the winds and control them?

gather the rains in his bucket?

stake out the ends of the earth?

Just tell me his name, tell me the names of his sons.

Come on now—tell me!”

The believer replied, “Every promise of God proves true;

he protects everyone who runs to him for help.

So don’t second-guess him;

he might take you to task and show up your lies.”

And then he prayed, “God, I’m asking for two things

before I die; don’t refuse me—

Banish lies from my lips

and liars from my presence.

Give me enough food to live on,

neither too much nor too little.

If I’m too full, I might get independent,

saying, ‘God? Who needs him?’

If I’m poor, I might steal

and dishonor the name of my God.”

Don’t blow the whistle on your fellow workers

behind their backs;

They’ll accuse you of being underhanded,

and then you’ll be the guilty one!

Don’t curse your father

or fail to bless your mother.

Don’t imagine yourself to be quite presentable

when you haven’t had a bath in weeks.

Don’t be stuck-up

and think you’re better than everyone else.

Don’t be greedy,

merciless and cruel as wolves,

Tearing into the poor and feasting on them,

shredding the needy to pieces only to discard them.

A leech has twin daughters

named “Gimme” and “Gimme more.”

[Four Insatiables]

Three things are never satisfied,

no, there are four that never say, “That’s enough, thank you!”—

hell,

a barren womb,

a parched land,

a forest fire.

An eye that disdains a father

and despises a mother—

that eye will be plucked out by wild vultures

and consumed by young eagles.

[Four Mysteries]

Three things amaze me,

no, four things I’ll never understand—

how an eagle flies so high in the sky,

how a snake glides over a rock,

how a ship navigates the ocean,

why adolescents act the way they do.

Here’s how a prostitute operates:

she has sex with her client,

Takes a bath,

then asks, “Who’s next?”

[Four Intolerables]

Three things are too much for even the earth to bear,

yes, four things shake its foundations—

when the janitor becomes the boss,

when a fool gets rich,

when a whore is voted “woman of the year,”

when a “girlfriend” replaces a faithful wife.

[Four Small Wonders]

There are four small creatures,

wisest of the wise they are—

ants—frail as they are,

get plenty of food in for the winter;

marmots—vulnerable as they are,

manage to arrange for rock-solid homes;

locusts—leaderless insects,

yet they strip the field like an army regiment;

lizards—easy enough to catch,

but they sneak past vigilant palace guards.

[Four Dignitaries]

There are three solemn dignitaries,

four that are impressive in their bearing—

a lion, king of the beasts, deferring to none;

a rooster, proud and strutting;

a billy goat;

a head of state in stately procession.

If you’re dumb enough to call attention to yourself

by offending people and making rude gestures,

Don’t be surprised if someone bloodies your nose.

Churned milk turns into butter;

riled emotions turn into fist fights.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 30 (The Message)

[Psalm 30]

A song of David. For the dedication of the temple.

I praise You, Eternal One. You lifted me out of that deep, dark pit

and denied my opponents the pleasure of rubbing in their success.

Eternal One, my True God, I cried out to You for help;

You mended the shattered pieces of my life.

You lifted me from the grave with a mighty hand,

gave me another chance,

and saved me from joining those in that dreadful pit.

Sing, all you who remain faithful!

Pour out your hearts to the Eternal with praise and melodies;

let grateful music fill the air and bless His name.

His wrath, you see, is fleeting,

but His grace lasts a lifetime.

The deepest pains may linger through the night,

but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning.

When things were quiet and life was easy, I said in arrogance,

“Nothing can shake me.”

By Your grace, Eternal,

I thought I was as strong as a mountain;

But when You left my side and hid away,

I crumbled in fear.

O Eternal One, I called out to You;

I pleaded for Your compassion and forgiveness:

“I’m no good to You dead! What benefits come from my rotting corpse?

My body in the grave will not praise You.

No songs will rise up from the dust of my bones.

From dust comes no proclamation of Your faithfulness.

Hear me, Eternal Lord—please help me,

Eternal One—be merciful!”

You did it: You turned my deepest pains into joyful dancing;

You stripped off my dark clothing

and covered me with joyful light.

You have restored my honor. My heart is ready to explode, erupt in new songs!

It’s impossible to keep quiet!

Eternal One, my God, my Life-Giver, I will thank You forever.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 30 (The Voice)

[Psalm 72]

A song of Solomon.

True God, bestow Your honest judgments upon the king

and anoint the king’s son with Your righteousness.

May he be honest and fair in his judgments over Your people

and offer justice to the burdened and suffering.

Under his reign, may this land of mountains and hills know peace

and experience justice for all the people.

May the king offer justice to the burdened and suffering,

rescue the poor and needy,

and demolish the oppressor!

[May the people fear You] for as long as the sun shines,

as long as the moon rises in the night sky, throughout the generations.

May the king be like the refreshing rains, which fall upon fields of freshly mown grass—

like showers that cool and nourish the earth.

May good and honest people flourish for as long as he reigns,

and may peace fill the land until the moon no longer rises.

May the king rule from one sea to the next,

and may his rule extend from the Euphrates River to the far reaches of the earth.

Let the desert wanderers bow down before him

and his enemies lay prostrate and taste the dirt.

Let the kings of Tarshish and the island kings

shower him with gifts

And the kings of Sheba and Seba bring him presents as well.

Let every king on earth bow down before him

and every nation be in his service.

For he will rescue the needy when they ask for help!

He will save the burdened and come to the aid of those who have no other help.

He offers compassion to the weak and the poor;

he will help and protect the lives of the needy!

He will liberate them from the fierce sting of persecution and violence;

in his eyes, their blood is precious.

May he live a long, long time

and the gold of Sheba be given to him.

May the people constantly lift up prayers for him,

and may they call upon God to bless him always.

Let grain grow plentifully in this land of promise,

let it sway in the breeze on the hilltops,

let it grow strong as do the cedars of Lebanon,

And may those who live in the city bloom and flourish

just as the grass of the fields and meadows.

May his name live on forever

and his reputation grow for as long as the sun gives light.

May people from all nations find in him a blessing;

may all peoples declare him blessed.

May the Eternal God, the God of Israel, be blessed,

for He alone works miracles and wonders!

May His glorious name be blessed forever

and the whole earth be filled with His eternal glory!

Amen. Amen.

The prayers of King David, Jesse’s son, are ended.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 72 (The Voice)

[Psalm 93]

The Eternal reigns, clothed in majesty;

He is dressed in power;

He has surrounded Himself with strength.

He has established the world, and it will never be toppled.

Your throne was established from the beginning of the world, O God,

and You are everlasting.

The waters have risen, O Eternal One;

the sound of pounding waves is deafening.

The waters have roared with power.

More powerful than the thunder of mighty rivers,

more powerful than the mighty waves in the ocean

is the Eternal on high!

Your teachings are true;

Your decrees sure.

Sacredness adorns Your house, O Eternal One, forevermore.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 93 (The Voice)

0 notes

dfroza · 4 years

Text

Today’s reading in the ancient book of Proverbs and Psalms

for Saturday, may 30 of 2020 with Proverbs 30 and Psalm 30 accompanied by Psalm 73 for the 73rd day of Spring and Psalm 1 for day 151 of the year now with the book of 150 Psalms beginning its 2nd revolution in 2020

[Proverbs 30]

The Words of Agur Ben Yakeh

God? Who Needs Him?

The skeptic swore, “There is no God!

No God!—I can do anything I want!

I’m more animal than human;

so-called human intelligence escapes me.

“I flunked ‘wisdom.’

I see no evidence of a holy God.

Has anyone ever seen Anyone

climb into Heaven and take charge?

grab the winds and control them?

gather the rains in his bucket?

stake out the ends of the earth?

Just tell me his name, tell me the names of his sons.

Come on now—tell me!”

The believer replied, “Every promise of God proves true;

he protects everyone who runs to him for help.

So don’t second-guess him;

he might take you to task and show up your lies.”

And then he prayed, “God, I’m asking for two things

before I die; don’t refuse me—

Banish lies from my lips

and liars from my presence.

Give me enough food to live on,

neither too much nor too little.

If I’m too full, I might get independent,

saying, ‘God? Who needs him?’

If I’m poor, I might steal

and dishonor the name of my God.”

Don’t blow the whistle on your fellow workers

behind their backs;

They’ll accuse you of being underhanded,

and then you’ll be the guilty one!

Don’t curse your father

or fail to bless your mother.

Don’t imagine yourself to be quite presentable

when you haven’t had a bath in weeks.

Don’t be stuck-up

and think you’re better than everyone else.

Don’t be greedy,

merciless and cruel as wolves,

Tearing into the poor and feasting on them,

shredding the needy to pieces only to discard them.

A leech has twin daughters

named “Gimme” and “Gimme more.”

[Four Insatiables]

Three things are never satisfied,

no, there are four that never say, “That’s enough, thank you!”—

hell,

a barren womb,

a parched land,

a forest fire.

An eye that disdains a father

and despises a mother—

that eye will be plucked out by wild vultures

and consumed by young eagles.

[Four Mysteries]

Three things amaze me,

no, four things I’ll never understand—

how an eagle flies so high in the sky,

how a snake glides over a rock,

how a ship navigates the ocean,

why adolescents act the way they do.

Here’s how a prostitute operates:

she has sex with her client,

Takes a bath,

then asks, “Who’s next?”

[Four Intolerables]

Three things are too much for even the earth to bear,

yes, four things shake its foundations—

when the janitor becomes the boss,

when a fool gets rich,

when a whore is voted “woman of the year,”

when a “girlfriend” replaces a faithful wife.

[Four Small Wonders]

There are four small creatures,

wisest of the wise they are—

ants—frail as they are,

get plenty of food in for the winter;

marmots—vulnerable as they are,

manage to arrange for rock-solid homes;

locusts—leaderless insects,

yet they strip the field like an army regiment;

lizards—easy enough to catch,

but they sneak past vigilant palace guards.

[Four Dignitaries]

There are three solemn dignitaries,

four that are impressive in their bearing—

a lion, king of the beasts, deferring to none;

a rooster, proud and strutting;

a billy goat;

a head of state in stately procession.

If you’re dumb enough to call attention to yourself

by offending people and making rude gestures,

Don’t be surprised if someone bloodies your nose.

Churned milk turns into butter;

riled emotions turn into fist fights.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 30 (The Message)

[Psalm 30]

A song of David. For the dedication of the temple.

I praise You, Eternal One. You lifted me out of that deep, dark pit

and denied my opponents the pleasure of rubbing in their success.

Eternal One, my True God, I cried out to You for help;

You mended the shattered pieces of my life.

You lifted me from the grave with a mighty hand,

gave me another chance,

and saved me from joining those in that dreadful pit.

Sing, all you who remain faithful!

Pour out your hearts to the Eternal with praise and melodies;

let grateful music fill the air and bless His name.

His wrath, you see, is fleeting,

but His grace lasts a lifetime.

The deepest pains may linger through the night,

but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning.

When things were quiet and life was easy, I said in arrogance,

“Nothing can shake me.”

By Your grace, Eternal,

I thought I was as strong as a mountain;

But when You left my side and hid away,

I crumbled in fear.

O Eternal One, I called out to You;

I pleaded for Your compassion and forgiveness:

“I’m no good to You dead! What benefits come from my rotting corpse?

My body in the grave will not praise You.

No songs will rise up from the dust of my bones.

From dust comes no proclamation of Your faithfulness.

Hear me, Eternal Lord—please help me,

Eternal One—be merciful!”

You did it: You turned my deepest pains into joyful dancing;

You stripped off my dark clothing

and covered me with joyful light.

You have restored my honor. My heart is ready to explode, erupt in new songs!

It’s impossible to keep quiet!

Eternal One, my God, my Life-Giver, I will thank You forever.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 30 (The Voice)

[Psalm 73]

Book Three

A song of Asaph.

Truly God is good to His people, Israel,

to those with pure hearts.

Though I know this is true, I almost lost my footing;

yes, my steps were on slippery ground.

You see, there was a time when I envied arrogant men

and thought, “The wicked look pretty happy to me.”

For they seem to live carefree lives, free of suffering;

their bodies are strong and healthy.

They don’t know trouble as we do;

they are not plagued with problems as the rest of us are.

They’ve got pearls of pride strung around their necks;

they clothe their bodies with violence.

They have so much more than enough.

Their eyes bulge because they are so fat with possessions.

They have more than their hearts could have ever imagined.

There is nothing sacred, and no one is safe.

Vicious sarcasm drips from their lips;

they bully and threaten to crush their enemies.

They even mock God as if He were not above;

their arrogant tongues boast throughout the earth; they feel invincible.

Even God’s people turn and are carried away by them;

they watch and listen, yet find no fault in them.

You will hear them say, “How can the True God possibly know anyway? He’s not even here.

So how can the Most High have any knowledge of what happens here?”

Let me tell you what I know about the wicked:

they are comfortably at rest while their wealth is growing and growing.

Oh, let this not be me! It seems I have scrubbed my heart to keep it clean

and washed my hands in innocence.

And for what? Nothing.

For all day long, I am being punished,

each day awakening to stern chastisement.

If I had said to others these kinds of things about the plight of God’s good people,

then I know I would have betrayed the next generation.

Trying to solve this mystery on my own exhausted me;

I couldn’t bear to look at it any further.

So I took my questions to the True God,

and in His sanctuary I realized something so chilling and final: their lives have a deadly end.

Because You have certainly set the wicked upon a slippery slope,

You’ve set them up to slide to their destruction.

And they won’t see it coming. It will happen so fast:

first, a flash of terror, and then desolation.

It is like a dream from which someone awakes.

You will wake up, Lord, and loathe what has become of them.

You see, my heart overflowed with bitterness and cynicism;

I felt as if someone stabbed me in the back.

But I didn’t know the truth;

I have been acting like a stupid animal toward You.

But look at this: You are still holding my right hand;

You have been all along.

Even though I was angry and hard-hearted, You gave me good advice;

when it’s all over, You will receive me into Your glory.

For all my wanting, I don’t have anyone but You in heaven.

There is nothing on earth that I desire other than You.

I admit how broken I am in body and spirit,

but God is my strength, and He will be mine forever.

It will happen: whoever shuns You will be silenced forever;

You will bring an end to all who refuse to be true to You.

But the closer I am to You, my God, the better because life with You is good.

O Lord, the Eternal, You keep me safe—

I will tell everyone what You have done.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 73 (The Voice)

[Psalm 1]

Book 1

The Genesis Psalms

Psalms of man and creation

The Tree of Life:

God’s blessings follow you and await you at every turn:

when you don’t follow the advice of those who delight in wicked schemes,

When you avoid sin’s highway,

when judgment and sarcasm beckon you, but you refuse.

For you, the Eternal’s Word is your happiness.

It is your focus—from dusk to dawn.

You are like a tree,

planted by flowing, cool streams of water that never run dry.

Your fruit ripens in its time;

your leaves never fade or curl in the summer sun.

No matter what you do, you prosper.

For those who focus on sin, the story is different.

They are like the fallen husk of wheat, tossed by an open wind, left deserted and alone.

In the end, the wicked will fall in judgment;

the guilty will be separated from the innocent.

Their road suddenly will end in death,

yet the journey of the righteous has been charted by the Eternal.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 1 (The Voice)

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