Ursi's Eso Garden

The parting of the Red Sea, the feeding of the five thousand, the turning of water into wine - miracles. Miracles?

Yet Miracles have been part of human culture for thousands of years. From beliefs about the shin bone of a saint to ideas about the nature of creation and the laws of nature, miracles have been a measure of disputes within religion and between religion and rationality from St Augustine in the 4th century to David Hume in the 18th. They have also been used by the corrupt and the powerful to gain their perverse ends.

Miracles have been derided and proved to be fraudulent and yet, for many, the miraculous maintain a grip on our imagination, our language and our belief to this day.


Three Miracles of Saint Zenobius, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Melvyn Bragg asks: Miracles - will they never cease?
He is joined by:

• Martin Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture
  
• Janet Soskice, Reader in Philosophical Theology at Cambridge University
  
• Justin Champion, Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas at Royal Holloway, University of London

Listen to this programme in full here (42 minutes):



Broadcast was on 25 September 2008 at BBC 4, 'In Our Time'.
Also available for RealPlayer.


See also:
Miracles by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Ambient Nights is a unique collection of music gathered from Ambient and New Age genres and presented in a "non-stop" listening form. All the songs were mixed by Alex Hephaestion.

Ambient Nights - a really unique collection of music to make you feel good and peace. CD Listing: - Ambient Nights CD1 - Ambient Nights CD2 - Ambient Nights CD3 - Ambient Nights CD4 - Ambient Nights CD5 - Ambient Nights CD6 - Ambient Nights CD7 - Ambient Nights CD8 - Ambient Nights CD9 - Red God, Yellow God - Brighton Beach - A Present for a Friend - Life As is Is - Ambiotic Dreams - My Dreams of Tengerines - Picking up Where Schiller Left   Off - Closed Eyes Open Doors - Plastic Flowers Didn't Change   The World - The Missionary Position - The Chill Surrounding the   Promise of Snow

And check also the other sections: Sol System, Ethni-City, Club Nights.
All files can be downloaded for free. Online Listening is also available.
xxx hours of pure musical bliss!!!

This is a very nice music play thing for a short meditation: Rain

Play around with your mouse ... and click ...

All In The Mind, presented by Natasha Mitchell, is ABC Radio National's weekly foray into the mental universe, the mind, brain and behaviour - everything from addiction to artificial intelligence.



There was a very interesting radio show two weeks ago:
Brain hijinks: out-of-body experiences and other tricks of consciousness

What happens when your brain sees the world not as it really is? This week, the scientific effort to simulate out-of-body experiences to probe the limits of the self. And, remarkable stories of vision gone heywire - what they reveal about our 'seeing brain'. Two scientists join Natasha Mitchell with extraordinary insights into how your brain creates your mind.

The guests are:

• Professor Olaf Blanke, Director Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience (LNCO) and the Neural Correlates of Self Consciousness.
  Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
  
  Olaf Blanke from Lausanne is using Virtual Reality to induce OBE-like feelings in healthy people. As a neurologist his preoperative examination (with direct electrodes) of the brains of people with epilepsy has also induced extraordinary OBEs in patients. Unhinging experiences to say the least.
  
  
• Professor Melvyn Goodale, Director Neuroscience - University of Western Ontario, Canada
  
  Melvyn Goodale from Ontario is a world leader on the neuroscience of vision and he'll tell us about the unusual experience of a woman called D.F, and what she's revealed to him about the mechanics and evolution of vision.

Tune in right here!
"Brain Hijinks: Out-of-body Experiences and other Tricks of Consciousness"
Duration 30 minutes



You may also like the transcript.


Related Entry:
Experiment of Out-of-Body Experiences

Lisa Thiel is a visionary artist and ceremonial singer whose healing song prayers and chants are among the most popular in the women's spiritual movement today.

Originally a holistic healing professional in Los Angeles, California, Lisa began creating her music as an expression of and as a vehicle for her own process of personal growth and transformation. Her spiritual path led her to study many of the world's spiritual traditions and her teachers were yogis, shamans, Tibetan Lamas and wise women of the Goddess tradition.

The connecting thread throughout was the practice of sacred song for healing and empowerment, and an emphasis on the Sacred Feminine found in all traditions in one form or another.

Lisa's songs literally are shamanic healing (medicine) songs - a vital, authentic music that resonates with the energy of her experiences.

Enjoy!

Sacred Ancestors' Chant:

Sacred ancestors come to me
Sacred ancestors who love me
Sacred ancestors come to me
Sacred ancestors, please help me

All my mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters
and relations too
Who had love me for always
I keep the light for you

From the CD "Invocation Of The Graces" (2001).

Acchi Mantra (Chant):



The lyric is a mantra to the Goddess Acchi. It goes:

Om Sarva Buddha Dakini Hri Mama Sakta Soha.

It's from Lisa Thiel's CD "Journey to the Goddess" (1995).


Daughter of the Elements:

Daughter of the elements
Daughter of the rain
Daughter of the thunder
Daughter of the flame

Daughter of the dawn
And daughter of the light
Daughter of the stars
And daughter of the night

Daughter of the earth
And daughter of the trees
Daughter of the storms
And daughter of the breeze

Daughter of the moon
And daughter of the seas
Daughter of the winds
And daughter of the leaves
(3x)

I am the elements
I am the rain
I am the thunder
I am the flame

I am the dawn
I am the light
I am the stars
I am the night

I am the earth
I am the trees
I am the storms
I am the breeze

I am the moon
I am the seas
I am the winds
I am the leaves

I am the elements

From the CD "Invocation Of The Graces" (2001).

Winter Solstice Song (Yule):

Enter the night and you'll find the light,
That will carry you to your dreams.
Enter the night, let your spirit take flight,
In the field of infinite possibilities

On the longest night we search for the light,
And we find it deep within.
Open your eyes to embrace what is wise,
And see the light of your own soul shining.

Wrap up in the cloak of starry darkness my child,
And you'll find the center of all things.
For from this space of the deepest dark place,
Life Eternal does spring.

So when you find that spark
When you dream in the dark,
Hold it close to your heart and know.
All that you see is all that can be
When you give birth to the dreams of your soul.

From the CD "Circle Of The Seasons" (2005).

God, does this bring back memories !

This album (original 2LP pressing) is mainly the work of Rick Holmes who wrote the text about the different zodiac signs, each sign being represented in a different track with Rick Holmes narrating over a background of funky spaced out jazz, produced by Cannonball and David Axelrod, the music is by Nat Adderley's sextet. The album was released in 1972 on Capitol Records, digital released May 2008.

It's a darkly brooding batch of funky jazz that shows a strong Miles Davis electric influence at points, thanks to Nat Adderley's spacey trumpet lines, Mike Deasy's trippy guitar, and George Duke's excellent keyboards! Other tracks are a bit more laidback, fitting the mood of their respective signs.

Really adventurous! Enjoy!

Rick Holmes, Narrator
Cannonball Adderley, Alto & Soprano sax
Nat Adderley, Cornet
Ernie Watts, Tenor sax, Flute, Tambourine
Mike Deasy, Guitar
George Duke, Fender electric piano
Walter Booker, String bass & Guitar
Roy Mac Curdy, Drums

Soul Zodiac: Introduction (03:01)
Soul Zodiac: Aries (04:54)
Soul Zodiac: Taurus Part 1 (06:41)
Soul Zodiac: Taurus Part 2 (07:01)
Soul Zodiac: Gemini (03:41)
Soul Zodiac: Cancer (02:44)
Soul Zodiac: Leo (02:57)
Soul Zodiac: Virgo (04:15)
Soul Zodiac: Libra (03:20)
Soul Zodiac: Scorpio (04:26)
Soul Zodiac: Sagittarius (05:17)
Soul Zodiac: Capricorn (06:10)
Soul Zodiac: Aquarius (07:54)
Soul Zodiac: Pisces (03:56)

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In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice the young Lorenzo woos his sweetheart with talk of the stars:

"There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

This is the music of the spheres - the idea that the stars and planets as they travel through space make beautiful music together.




The music of the spheres played out of the classical world, through the medieval period and into the Renaissance. It affords us a glimpse into minds for whom the universe was full of meaning, of strange correspondences and grand harmonies.

Melvyn Bragg considers the celestial harmonies of the planets, a Pythagorean concept which fascinated astrologists, artists and mathematicians for centuries.
He is joined by:

• Peter Forshaw, Postdoctoral Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London
  
• Jim Bennett, Director of the Museum of the History of Science at the University of Oxford
  
• Angela Voss, Director of the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination at the University of Kent, Canterbury

Listen to this programme in full here (42 minutes):



Broadcast was on 19 June 2008 at BBC 4, 'In Our Time'.
Also available for RealPlayer.


You may also like:
Skyscript:
Kepler and the Music of the Spheres
Geometry in Art & Architecture, Unit 3 - Paul Calter:
Pythagoras & Music of the Spheres
Essay by Angela Voss on The Music of the Spheres:
Ficino and Renaissance Harmonia
Sacerd Texts:
The Pythagorean Theory of Music and Color
An astronomical approach to the Music of the Spheres by Greg Fox:
Carmen of the Spheres
Google Books:
The Music of the Spheres: Music, Science, and the Natural Order of the Universe by Jamie James.



Click the picture for a larger view

These are the duration in seconds of our star’s planets (and Pluto):
Mercury: 0.453028141, 0.906056282, 1.812112564, 3.624225128, 7.248450256, 14.49690051
Venus: 0.578586448, 1.157172895, 2.314345791, 4.628691582, 9.257383163, 18.51476633
Earth: 0.470244884, 0.940489769, 1.880979538, 3.761959076, 7.523918152, 15.0478363
Mars: 0.442216873, 0.884433746, 1.768867493, 3.537734985, 7.075469971, 14.15093994
Jupiter: 0.697366839, 1.394733678, 2.789467356, 5.578934712, 11.15786942, 22.31573885
Saturn: 0.432755629, 0.865511258, 1.731022516, 3.462045032, 6.924090064, 13.84818013
Uranus: 0.617729291, 1.235458581, 2.470917163, 4.941834326, 9.883668652, 19.7673373
Neptune: 0.605743574, 1.211487148, 2.422974297, 4.845948594, 9.691897187, 19.38379437
Pluto: 0.455707172, 0.911414343, 1.822828687, 3.645657373, 7.291314746, 14.58262949

And in hertz (cycles per second):
Mercury: 2260.345235, 1130.172618, 565.0863088, 282.5431544, 141.2715772, 70.6357886
Venus: 3539.6612, 1769.8306, 884.9153001, 442.45765, 221.228825, 110.6144125
Earth: 2177.588813, 1088.794407, 544.3972033, 272.1986017, 136.0993008, 68.04965042
Mars: 2315.605899, 1157.802949, 578.9014747, 289.4507373, 144.7253687, 72.36268433
Jupiter: 2936.761379, 1468.38069, 734.1903448, 367.0951724, 183.5475862, 91.7737931
Saturn: 2366.231498, 1183.115749, 591.5578744, 295.7789372, 147.8894686, 73.9447343
Uranus: 3315.368124, 1657.684062, 828.8420311, 414.4210156, 207.2105078, 103.6052539
Neptune: 3380.968593, 1690.484297, 845.2421483, 422.6210742, 211.3105371, 105.6552685
Pluto: 2247.057022, 1123.528511, 561.7642555, 280.8821277, 140.4410639, 70.22053193

In 2006, Greg Fox took the above orbital periods and divided them until their frequencies fell within the human acoustic range. This gave him six octaves of "planetary notes" for each planet. He called the resulting "music": "Carmen of the Spheres". It can be heard here or click the link above.

Greg Fox' "Carmen of the Spheres"
for nine sine waves totalling 64 minutes 12.246 seconds for stereo speakers.




The Mundane Monochord With Its Proportions And Intervals
from Fludd's De Musica Mundana:

Ra Ma Da Sa Sa Say So Hung is one of the most powerful mantras known and is extraordinarily effective in dealing with health challenges. It is powerful. It is universal. It works on many levels; the mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical.




Listen below in full length (13:33) this Healing Mantra:
Ra Ma Da Sa by Snatam Kaur from the CD "Grace", 2004.

Ra Ma Da Sa is like a rare diamond, which connects you with the pure healing energy of the universe. You can instill the health trend in your consciousness by injecting this strong healing vibration into your mind.



Here is a detailed explanation by Shakta Kaur:

Posture: Sit in easy pose or in a chair with a straight spine.

Focus: Eyes are closed and focused at the third-eye point.

Breath: The breath will come automatically as you chant. Inhale deeply before you begin chanting.

Mantra: “Ra Ma Da Sa, Sa Say So Hung.” The mantra should be sung in one complete exhalation. As you chant the first “Sa,” your navel point is pulled in so that this syllable is abbreviated. You should rest for 4 beats between the first “Sa” and the second “Sa.” You should also pull your navel point in as you chant “Hung.” “Hung” should be vibrated at the root of the nose. The rest of the syllables are drawn out in a strong, powerful chant. Strive to keep your chant at full volume (loud but not raucous) throughout the meditation.

Meaning of Mantra:

• Ra=sun energy
  
• Ma=moon energy
  
• Da=earth energy
  
• Sa=infinity, universal energy
  
• Sa=repeat in second half of mantra
  
• Say=the personal embodiment of Sa
  
• So=the personal sense of merger with Sa
  
• Hung=the Infinite, vibrating and real.

The mantra literally means, “I am Thou.” It is also used to mean, “The service of God is within me.”

Mudra: Bend the arms and bring the elbows against the side of the rib cage. The palms of the hands are parallel and face the sky. The elbows are snug at your sides with the forearms in close to your upper arms. The hands are at a 60 degree angle, halfway between pointing forward and pointing to the sides (pictured).

Time: 11 minutes, increasing gradually to 31 minutes.

End: Inhale deeply, hold your breath and visualize the person you want to send healing to (it can be yourself). Make that image in your mind very clear and see a glowing green light around the person. Keeping that person in your mind, exhale. Inhale deeply, hold your breath and continue to send the person healing green light. Still keeping that vision in your mind, exhale. For the last time, inhale deeply, hold your breath and see the person very clearly, see the green healing light bathing the person, bathing every cell in the body. Exhale and relax.

Note: This highly effective meditation deals with vayu siddhi, the power of air. It brings health and many other desirable positive changes. If you wish to heal yourself, imagine a glowing green light around yourself as you meditate.





Here is another beautiful version but I don't know the artist. Some idea anyone?



Chanting or listening to this mantra set to this classical tune will drive out depression and revibrate your life. It is timeless and can not be outdated. It has worked in the past, it works now, and it will work in the future. There is no time, no place, no space and no condition attached to this mantra. It burns the seed of disease. Use it everyday. Offer it to anyone.

If you work with it, it will work for you. In moments of anxiety, despair, fear or worry, let it be your safeguard. It will give you a strong sense of your own centeredness.

In the words of Yogi Bhajan, Master of White Tantric and Kundalini Yoga, who openly taught this healing mantra to the Western world, "It has worked for three thousand, four hundred years, why should it not work now?"

Related Entry:
Snatam Kaur - Mul Mantra

Sitting, listening, chilling. Music for background or foreground. Music for tripping, for relaxing, or for making us uneasy and challenging us with a new perspective. At the start of the third millennium music to chill-out to makes perfect sense. As the Western world becomes faster, more complex, more rife with nervous energy, the joy of listening to instrumental music that expresses both our external environment (both man-made and natural) and our inner spaces (both emotional and mental) is now more popular than at any other time in the history of recorded sound. Such music has many names: ambient, new age, contemporary instrumental, experimental, spacerock, chillout, ambient techno, ambient trance, mood music, world music, new acoustic music. The protests of some musicians and A&R people notwithstanding, I believe one of these names in particular - ambient - is a perfectly useful signpost for the phenomenon. It points to music across a hugely diverse spectrum: from the gorgeous solo guitar of John Fahey to the environmental techno of Biosphere; from the minimal avant-pop of The Penguin Cafe Orchestra to the chilled-out Celtic ambience of Enya and her clones. A history of ambient sound - take a short trip through the ambient universe.

Further Essential releases & key artists with reviews of some of the best albums in the world of ambient, downtempo and chillout spanning the 1960s to the present day.
And of course an Audio Page, where you can listen 24/7 ambient music.

This and more you will find at the Ambient Music Guide - A Guide To Essential Ambient & Downtempo Albums by Mike Watson (aka Mike G)

Secret Garden is an Irish-Norwegian duo playing New Age Music or New Instrumental Music, also understood by some as Neo-classical music.

It features the Irish violinist Fionnuala Sherry and the Norwegian composer/pianist Rolf Løvland. Secret Garden has sold over 3 million albums and won the Eurovision Song Contest for Norway's second time in 1995 with the composition "Nocturne".

Their success at Eurovision spearheaded the success of their first album Songs from a Secret Garden. It sold a million copies around the world going platinum in Norway and Korea, gold in Ireland, Hong Kong and New Zealand and spending two years in the Billboard New Age charts in 1996 and 1997. Barbra Streisand adapted "Heartstrings" from this album as the song "I've Dreamed Of You" on her A Love Like Ours album. She also used "Heartstrings" in her wedding to James Brolin.

Their latest CD "Inside I'm Singing" presents an amazing circle of different artists who perform different songs of Secret Garden.

For further information, traks and videos go to the Secret Garden website.

Note: Secret Garden are on world tour, started in Asia. Right now they are in Korea ...


They perform directly from their inner beings,
inviting you to visit your own secret garden.

Close your eyes, listen and you'll hear what I mean.

Secret Garden: Nocturne (03:10)
Secret Garden: Songs From A Secret Garden live (02:24)
Secret Garden: Dreamcatcher live (04:39)
Secret Garden: Sona live (04:48)
Secret Garden: Children of The River live (03:57)

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Relaxation music set to beautiful landscapes and inspiring quotes. Let this 6 minute video guide you into a moment of peace and contemplation, using the quotes to focus us on some of the more important things in life.

Music from the album "Lunar Khandro" composed by Jai Larkan - Vocals by Simone Townsend.

Enjoy A Peaceful Moment!

Born in Germany, Mars Lasar moved to Australia with his parents when he was less than a year old. He started playing the piano at age eleven and received training in classical, jazz and composition. At age fifteen he won the "Young Composers Award" at the Sydney Opera House.

Predominantly new age, his music also contains elements of electronica, jazz, pop, world, and rock. Lasar's music has appeared on television and in films: one notable example is music from his first album, Olympus, being used for CBS's coverage of the Olympic Games. He has also worked with other artists including Seal, Herbie Hancock, Jon Stevens, John Sykes, and t.A.T.u.. Many of his album covers feature his own artwork.

** Launch Mars Lasar Radio **
Click the link and enjoy his silky sound in the player above!


Visit also Mars Lasar Offical Web Site.

But what exactly is heaven and where is it?

How does the Protestant conception of the afterlife differ
from the Catholic conception?

How does one achieve salvation and what do the saved do when they get there?

And, if heaven is so interesting,
why has western culture been so spellbound by hell?



Hieronymous Bosch, Center panel, 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', circa 1504
Click the picture fpr a larger view

The great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote 'that in the end language can only be related to what is experienced here, and given that the hereafter is not here, we can only infer'. Aquinas encapsulated a great human conundrum that has preoccupied writers and thinkers since ancient times: what might heaven be like. And although human language is constrained by experience, this has not stopped an outpouring of artistic, theological and literary representations of heaven.

In the early Middle Ages men ascended up a ladder to heaven. In his Divine Comedy, Dante divided heaven into ten layers encompassing the planets and the stars. And the 17th century writer John Bunyan saw the journey of the soul to heaven as a spiritual struggle in his autobiography, The Pilgrim's Progress.

Melvyn Bragg's guests are:

• Valery Rees, Renaissance scholar and senior member of the Language Department at the School of Economic Science
  
• Martin Palmer, Theologian and Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture
  
• John Carey, Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Oxford University

If you wish to find out more of this subject,
then listen to this programme in full here (43 minutes):



Broadcast was on December 2005 at BBC 4, 'In Our Time'.
Also available for RealPlayer.

• Universal Wisdom Foundation - 'Science and Buddhism' (1998), an album of Buddhist songs in English by the Universal Wisdom Foundation, Inc. (Phillipines) • Wayfarers' - 'Collected Works Vol.1' (1998), Buddhist Devotional songs from the albums of the Wayfarers' Moments of Inspiration & The Sunrise Comes. • Pass It On, Buddhist childrens' songs (primary level) - with lyrics and karaoke versions. • Daniel Yeo - 'Man with Love' (2003), album by Daniel Yeo, a Buddhist composer from Singapore. • Daniel Yeo - 'Come Forth' (2003), here is another collection of Buddhist songs by the Singapore composer. • Pass It On, Chinese Buddhist Childrens Songs - with lyrics and karaoke versions. Buddhist Songs in English I like this one: The Bodhisattva And this one: Reason Behind Your Birth

Heute habe ich mal wieder Schiller's Album "Weltreise" reingezogen. Ist einfach immer noch genial, auch wenn das Album nicht mehr ganz neu ist. Überhaupt - wer Schiller nicht kennt, sollte mal auf der Website rumschauen, bezw. rumhören. Im Schiller-Player oben links werden Songs, Videos, seltene Remixe, Schiller im TV und mehr angeboten.

Schiller Musik (German version)
Schiller Music (English version)

Oder hört gleich hier mal rein:

The Smile - Schiller mit Sahra Brightman (Radio Remix)
Show me - Schiller Remix mit Moy Brennan