November 11, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
In Chinese the words, feng shui, literally mean wind and water. For centuries the Chinese have used feng shui to advance the quality of life, since they have long observed that some environs are better than others. Feng shui in the present day has developed into a fine art used to improve fortune and happiness through the adjustment of layout and orientations of workplaces and houses and is gaining recognition in the West.
Bring flow into your existing career by adding a water feature near your homes front entrance. Whether or not youre currently working, an indoor waterfall with water flowing into the house, not out, will generate a torrent of opportunities for you. Placing pictures of moving water such as oceans with rolling waves or tumbling Amazonian waterfalls in that spot will achieve the same fabulous feng shui home decor objectives.
Water is symbolic of wealth. Having water near your home will influence you. Water that meanders and flows gently will give you a sense of flow in your life. Gently flowing clear water represents a consistent flow in your life flow of chi and money. Along with prosperity, this sense of flow brings more relaxation, that go with the flow feeling. Remember that water is essential to our lives and our bodies are part water.
When correctly placed, a six-tiered waterfall is among the most powerful wealth enhancers in the garden and home. It should be placed in the southwest inwards direction to invite positive energies. The southwest is described as the place of indirect spirits or elements and water in this sector of the room or garden will harness a lot of wealth/luck. The waterfalls size must be in balance or proportionate to the garden or room and must not overwhelm it.
A waterfall should never be placed in bedrooms. The bedroom is a yin place and the waterfall will contradict this. Waterfalls and fountains are strongly recommended for commercial buildings, i.e. inside hotel lobbies and outside the building, especially in front. If youre placing a waterfall in your family room, make sure the room is big enough to accommodate the waterfall along with the regular furniture.
The ideal time to apply feng shui rules is when youre designing a new building:
1.Consider employing a feng shui advisor to assist you in understanding the rules
2.Look for a parcel of land thats flat and generally rectangular
3.Plan a home thats square or rectangular
4.Avoid sharp projections, and make the building regular in shape
5.Add an entrance hall to the floor plan
6.Floor-to-ceiling windows placed in bedrooms allow too much chi to escape, so avoid them
7.Choose smooth surfaces for interior walls
8.Design a curving walkway to your front door
Adam O’Connor is the owner of www.eventceilingdecor.com, which provides excellent free information on interior decor . Adam O’Connor is an expert in this industry and his website helps people find answers to questions such as, which indoor waterfalls are recommended commercial buildings, i.e. inside hotel lobbies
November 10, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
It is difficult to resist requests from people with whom you have close relationships, because of your fear that they will take offence. But agreeing to something that you resent damages your authenticity in the relationship and over time does more harm than being truthful from the beginning.
In the situation below Teresa is concerned that she will not be comfortable spending a long weekend with her father-in-law and his new wife whom she has not yet met. She would prefer to offer an excuse for refusing the invitation but her husband Richard, in the conversation with his father, is honest about their reason for declining the invitation and offers an alternative plan.
Teresa opened the conversation with Richard over dinner. ‘Your father phoned this afternoon to invite us to spend the long weekend with them. I said we’d talk about it and let him know.’
‘What’s the problem?’ Richard looked puzzled. ‘We’ve nothing planned for that weekend, and I think it’s time we got to know Nikki properly. They must be thinking it strange that we haven’t invited them over yet.’
‘I know. We should have. And that’s the problem.’ Teresa sighed. ‘I still haven’t met her. I’ve no idea what’s she’s like. You say she’s very nice, but I’m worried I’ll feel really awkward with her. I’m definitely not ready to spend a whole weekend with her. I’d much rather we made an excuse. We could say we’ve got plans for that weekend and maybe invite them over for dinner one evening instead.’
Richard shook his head. ‘We’ve both been worried that Dad was lonely. He’ll never replace Mum, but we don’t want to see him on his own for the rest of his life.
Teresa sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. But I’d still rather meet her first, before spending a whole weekend with her. Can’t we make an excuse?’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Richard said. ‘You know that excuses lead to lies and then more lies. I’d rather call Dad and tell him the truth: that you’d like to meet Nikki first, and spend some time together before we go away with them. Maybe we can plan a trip for later in the year. I’ll invite them to dinner one night next week. What do you think?’
‘I guess that’s a good idea. I don’t want Dad to think that we disapprove of Nikki, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings,’ Teresa said. ‘I suppose you’re right. If we make some excuse and he finds out, he’ll be really hurt.’
The next morning Richard phoned his father. He wasn’t expecting a difficult conversation. He had a good relationship with his father, and they had often talked about how his father was coping with life on his own.
They chatted for a few minutes before Richard brought up the invitation. ‘Teresa told me you phoned to invite us to join you and Nikki for the long weekend.’
‘Yes,’ his father said. ‘But I’m not sure that she was pleased about the invitation. She sounded a bit taken aback. Is anything wrong?’
‘There’s nothing wrong, Dad,’ Richard replied. ‘We’re both happy for you that you found someone. We know you must have been lonely on your own. And I know it’s important that Nikki becomes part of the family. It’s just that Teresa and Nikki haven’t met yet, and we feel it’s a bit soon for us to spend four days together. There might be, you know, some awkwardness. We’d like to get to know Nikki a bit better before we go on holiday with the two of you. We realise we should have invited you over ages ago. I just don’t know where the time goes! So why don’t we start by having dinner together soon, and then take it from there?’
‘Yes, I suppose we could do that,’ his father replied. ‘It’s just that Nikki and I thought it would be nice to get away, somewhere we could relax, get to know each other. Look, I realise it was all a bit sudden, meeting her and everything. I suppose Teresa thinks I’m crazy, settling down with someone so soon.’
‘Well, it did happen quickly, but from what I can see, the two of you seem very happy together,’ Richard reassured his father. ‘Teresa needs to see that for herself, and to have time to get to know Nikki. Why don’t we get together one evening this weekend? How would Saturday be for the two of you?’
Straight Talk tips on this conversation
– Notice how Richard opens the conversation by reassuring his father that he and Teresa are happy for him and want his wife to become part of the family. This sets a positive tone for the rest of the conversation;
– He gives his reason for declining his father’s invitation simply and honestly, with the words ‘we feel it’s a bit soon for us to spend four days together’.
– He then offers an alternative invitation that would work for everyone and ends the conversation on a positive note.
November 9, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
Elephant-headed Ganesh, Hindu’s most renowned God, is a study in contrast. He is held in awe and reverence as a strong force who removes barriers in people’s lives. But Ganesha also summons a very down-to-earth affection. Some of this warmth originates from his direct involvement in our everyday lives and from the mythological tales about him and his family. The legends about Ganesha depict him as a committed son and a affectionate brother.
There’s no Hindu grandmother who doesn’t love reciting the story of Ganesh’s parentage and birth. Many versions abound, but here’s the popular one. Officially, Ganpati’s father is Lord Shiva the Destroyer, one of the holy trinity in the Hindu pantheon, a rather fearsome figure with matted locks and an ash-smeared body who spends eons meditating in the Himalayas. Parvati, his divine wife, presides over all of creation. Without her, the earth would be barren and perennially cold. During her husband’s extended absence, Parvati created a young boy for herself from a dollop of clay – none other than Ganesha. When Shiva, incognizant of his ‘son’s’ existence, returned back, Ganesh refused him from access to Parvati, who was bathing and had directed her son to guard against intruders. Shiv, whose rage could shatter the universe, chopped off the child’s head. When he realized his mistake, he replaced the boy’s head with that of an elephant. Shiva also granted Ganesha a boon – that he would be worshipped before the start of any earthly enterprise. Notwithstanding this dramatic event in childhood, Ganesh grew up to be regarded as the epitome of filial devotion.
Hindu mythology has few stories about Ganesh and his younger brother, Karthikeya. Where Ganesh is revered all over India, Karthikeya’s presence is predominant in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu, where he is also known as Murugan, Subramanya or Arumugham. You couldn’t find two more contrasting personalities. Ganesh is comfortably tubby, warm, and patience personified; brother Karthikeya is all radiant energy and an impulsive lad. Ganesha has the lowly mouse as his vehicle while Karthikeya prefers the flashy peacock.
Like many Hindu sagas, stories of the Ganesh-Kartikeya interactions are possessed of a innocent simplicity, yet imbued with lessons for human race. One time, a mango infused with divine knowledge was brought to Mount Kailas in the Himalayas, where Shiva and Parvati hold court. Since only one individual could consume the fruit, a competition was suggested between their two sons – whosoever circumambulated the earth thrice and returned first would win the mango. Confident that his peacock would outrace Ganesha’s mouse, Kartikeya went off into space. Ganesha, on the other hand, simply folded his hands in prayer and walked around his seated parents, returning to his starting point ahead of Kartikeya. His reasoning? Shiva and Parvati contain the world within them; walking around his parents is equivalent to actually going around the earth. He won the mango, but then magnanimously offered it to his sulking brother.
There are contradictory views regarding the marital status of Ganesha. Some regions of India worships Ganesha as a bachelor while the rest of India worships him along with his two consorts. Ganesha is thought to be married to Siddhi (spiritual strength) and Buddhi (intellect) – the daughters of Brahma the Creator – one of the holy trinity in the Hindu pantheon. This is popularly taken to mean that where Ganesh is present, intellectual acumen and spirituality will follow. Legend also has it that Kartikeya grew up to marry Valli, a tribal maiden and Devayani, the daughter of Indra, the wind god. However, he is widely worshipped as a child-god possessed of a warrior’s skills, one who protects his devotees against all harm.
November 8, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
MAN-WOMAN RELATIONSHIP IN THE POETRY OF KAMAL DAS
India is a unity in diversity and its literature also gives the same fragrance. Modern Indian English poetry emerged at the end of the Second World War after the end of colonialism. It is one of the many -new literatures’ which began at that time. It is also a fact that modern Indian poetry in English has been neglected by the most of the critics, foreign readers and intellectuals as compare to the creative writings of Africa and the Caribbean. The reason is that it has no obvious and direct relationship to the cultural movements which led to national independence. But by 1947, the situation had changed and with it the concern of the new poets became their relationship to and alienation from the realities of their society. They got a hard challenge from older nationalist writers and from regionalists who demanded a renaissance of the culture of pre-colonial languages of India.
Now English is no longer the language of colonial rulers. It is a language of modern India in which words and expressions have recognized national significances and references. English is not the language of ordinary people. It is the language of those who govern, communicate, produce and make decisions at the national level. Words, phrases, expressions of modern Indian English poetry show the local realities, Indian traditions and ways of feeling. Such Indianization is present in the poetry of Kamala Das, Pritish Nandy and more strongly in the works of Keki Daruwala. It is more commonly present in terms of voice and stress in the poetry of Nissim Ezekiel and Jayant Mahapatra.
Indian English poetry is become a part of the process of modernization which includes urbanization, industrialization, independence and social change and resulting the evolution of an English language culture alongside that of Hindi and the regional languages. Despite continuing attacks on the Indian English poets, their place in modern Indian culture is recognized.
The Indian English poets as a group tend to be marginal to traditional Hindi society not only by being alienated by their English language education but also by belonging from such communities as the Parsis, Jews and Christians or being a rebel from Hinduism and Islam or by living in foreign countries. Many poets of Indian English language come from westernized Indian families and several poets were sent to boarding schools in their childhood. They often do not have local roots.
The Indian English poet’s decision to use English as a language of writing poetry is not only influenced by education but also by the poor state of regional language poetry. In this regard, a critic of Kamala Das says that:
-When she began writing in English, there was no modern poetry in Malayalam.- Manohar Shetty also has the same views regarding his regional language poetry or literature. He opines that:
-In Tulu (the language of his family) there is no creative literature.-
Many Parsi poets writing in English language may be explained by the fact that Parsi-Gujrati is a dialect without a tradition of serious and creative literature.
Many of the poets have been particularly active in translating from regional languages. Ramanujan is famous for his translations from classical and medieval Tamil and modern Kannada, Jayant Mahapatra from Oriya, Kolatkar from Marathi, Patel from Gujarati, Mehrotra from Hindi and Nandi’s translations Bengali are known to every one who is familiar with Indian English poetry.
Kamala Das is the most distinctive and unique voice in Indian English poetry in particular and the whole Indian literary scene in general. She brings a most noticeable and directly perceptible feminine sensibility and an explicit, undisguised, natural idiom in her poems. Recognized as one of the foremost poets of India, Kamala Das was born on March 31, 1934 in Malabar in Kerala. By the influence of her great uncle Nalapat Narayan Menon who is a prominent writer, her love poetry began at an early age. Kamala Das remembers watching him -work from morning till night- and thinking that he had a blissful life. Kamala Das was also greatly affected by the poems of her mother, Nalapat Balamani Amma, and the sacred writings kept by the matriarchal community of Nayars. She was married to K. Madhava Das at the tender age of fifteen. She herself says in her interview that she -was mature enough to be a mother only when my third child was born.- Her husband -often played a fatherly role for both Das and her sons-. There is a big age difference between kamala Das and her husband.
When Kamala Das wished to begin writing, her husband supported her decision only because of his want of improving the income of the family. However, she could not enjoy the morning – till – night schedule like her great uncle. She would wait till night to write. In an interview, she accepts:
-there was only the kitchen table where I would cut vegetables, and after all the plates and things were cleared, I would sit there and start typing.-
At the age of 65, in 1999, she converted Hindu to Islam and became Kamala Das to Suraiya. She had the view that only Islam could provide a woman love and protection.
Kamala Das began to write at the tender age of six and after that she gave a number of remarkable and memorable works. She has the great writing skill both in poetry and prose. She has the perfect hand both in prose and verse. She wrote effectively in both the languages i.e. in English and in Malayalam. In English language, she published her first work in 1964 titled as -The Sirens’. After that -Summer in Calcutta – in 1965, -The Descendants’ in 1967, -The Old Playhouse and Other Poems’ in 1973, -My Story’ in 1976, -Alphabet of Lust’ in 1977, -The Anamalai’ in 1985, -Padmavati the Harlot and Other Stories’ in 1992, -Only the Soul Knows How to Sing’ in 1996 and -Yaa Allah’ in 2001 were published. Among them -My Story’ is an autobiography, -Alphabet of Lust’ is a novel, -Padmavati the Harlot and Other Stories’ is a collection of short stories and the remaining are the collections of poems.
In the language of Malayalam, she wrote -Pakshiyude Manam’ in 1964, -Naricheerukal Parakkumbol’ in 1966, -Thanuppu’ in 1968, -Balyakala Smaranakal’ in 1987, -Varshangalkku Mumbu’ in 1989 and -Palayan’ in 1990.
Kamala Das received many national and international awards for her great literary contribution. Some of them are Asian Poetry Prize, Kent Award for English Writing from Asian Countries, Asan World Prize, Ezhuthachan Award, Sahitya Academy Award, Vayalar Award and Kerala Sahitya Academy Award.
Kamala Das is a poet of many facets and moods. She is a poet of free love. Love is the lynch-pin round which the poetry of Kamala Das revolves. Her unfilled need for love is the main treatment in her poems. Love is a complex and multi-dimensional human experience in her poetry. It has physical, emotional and spiritual moods in the poetry of kamala Das. Love and hate are often neighbors in her poetry. The theme of alienation is also present in the poems written by her. Because of her disillusionment and alienation from this physical world, she gives the note of protest with feminism in her poetry. Apart from these themes, the theme of glorifying the womanhood is also grabbing our attention. Her poems are mainly concerned with her uncaring husband, her childhood, her marriage, love, life and her intimacy others. Kamala Das delights in celebrating herself in her essential feminine self. Kamala Das is not only a poet of Indian English language, but she is an age herself.
The treatment of man-woman relationship is the main and most important theme of the poems of Kamala Das. Although the treatment of man- woman relationship in her poetry is something subjective, but it is also true for general life of common man common woman. In her famous poem -The Freaks’, Kamala Das talks about the disgust relationship of a husband and wife. In this poem she concludes about the base of the husband- wife relationships in the following lines:
-But, they only wander, tripping Idly over puddles of Desire-can’t this man with Nimble finger-tips unleash Nothing more alive than the Skin’s lazy hungers?-
Here she has the view that only physical relation cannot give a perfect touch to a man-woman i.e. a husband-wife relationship. She asks:
-Who can Help us who have lived so long And have failed in love?-
Meaning is that love is necessary to build a healthy and long lasting relationship between anyone. Only physical relationship is not able to bind the two persons.
In her another poem -The Sunshine Cat’, she also talks about the same kind of loveless relationship of the man and woman. She complains:
— the man she loved who loved her not enough-
the husband who neither loved nor used her
and concludes the fate of this loveless bond of man – woman relationship in the following way: -a bed made soft with tears and she lay there weeping..-
Hence, in the poetry of kamala das, she strongly recommends that the presence of love is necessary to make any kind of healthy and long lasting relationship between man and woman. Whether it is a bond of husband and wife or lover and beloved or it is bond of mother and son, all types of man-woman relationship can be made only by a bond of love.
November 7, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
Is a family holiday on the cards? Germany is an easily accessible, family-friendly destination with entertainment for all ages. Numerous low cost airlines offer direct links between the United Kingdom and the European mainland country’s airports such as Frankfurt-Hahn, Dusseldorf-Weeze, and larger city airports. It needn’t be a pricey holiday!
Accommodation
If you’re hoping to save money and don’t mind very basic accommodation, hotel chains such as Formule 1 offer very reasonably priced family rooms with bunk beds and communal bathroom facilities. Alternatively, you might be able to snap up an affordable self-catering deal if travelling at low season. Holiday lets are quite common in tourist areas such as the Rhine wine region and Black Forest.
Keen on meeting some German locals? Consider arranging a place to stay through Airbnb, an exciting internet-based project that sees people opening up their homes to foreign visitors for short stays in return for a small fee.
If money’s no object, both Germany’s cities and rural areas boast posh hotels and luxurious guest houses to choose from. For inspiration, think Villa Kennedy in Frankfurt and Schlosshotel Im Grunewald in Berlin.
Sights and Attractions
It’s impossible for any family member to get bored in as big and diverse a destination as Germany. From world class museums for history buffs to theme parks for thrill seekers, no one risks being left dissatisfied with the holiday.
Many families choose to visit Heide Park near Hamburg. It’s one of the country’s largest theme parks with rides including a freefall tower, and various seriously scary rollercoasters.
Outdoor-loving families should visit Bavaria and its Alps. Here, you don’t have to splurge on entrance fees to museums and theme parks as everywhere is an attraction in itself. Hiking is the best way to discover the area so cram your backpacks full of snacks and set off for a day in the wilderness. If you’re kids are begging for more entertainment, visit one of the Kinderlands in Oberstdorf or the Ammergau Alps where they can pet farm animals, go on some rides, and even try their hand at canoeing.
Berlin and its history are fascinating and so worth exploring. For a bizarre adventure with a bit of an edge, visit the abandoned Spreepark fun park that features eery old rides overrun with flora. Guided tours are held over weekends. You could also be checking out MountMitte, an urban adventure park where families can go wild, climbing up all sorts of contraptions and even sliding in and out of old cars suspended in the air. Full safety gear and harnesses are provided.
General Tips
To set your mind at ease, book your accommodation, rental car, and any planned activities in advance. A cheap calls to Germany service may come in handy to sort out all the details quickly and effectively.
Airports served by low cost airlines, such as the above-mentioned Frankfurt-Hahn, do have a tendency to be located outwith city boundaries. Make sure you’re aware of this when you book your flights, and ensure you can get to your chosen accommodation easily and on time.
In Germany, autobahns (expressways) have no speed limits for regular passenger vehicles travelling without an additional load, unless signs indicate otherwise. An advisory speed limit is in place, however, and is 130km/h.