NEWSLETTERS 2002
6th January 2002
Dear Everyone,
And a Very Happy Year, under the Circumstances. May it be Creative and Fuitful.
If you remember, I showed some slides of Ayahuasca Visions at Norman and Bron's House in Port Elizabeth,in September 2001 and then again, by coincidence, on that fateful day of September 11th at Hugh and Cheryl's in Johannesburg, the day before my departure for Europe. Anyhow I have established that the artist was Pablo Cesar Amaringo.
Here is some information I have edited about him - there are some excellent sites with his paintings and his projects such as the Art School. Just click on the BLUE LINKS.
Love and Peace
Samten
There is a biography and some excellent paintings at:
The Visions of Pablo Cesar Amaringo
The Main Link is the USKO-AYAR Art School which Pablo Amaringo has found with Finnish help. A Documentary film has also been made.
See also paintings here.
All paintings here are by Pablo Amaringo.
http://www.erowid.org/culture/art/art.shtml
Richard F. Brush Art Gallery - St_ Lawrence University
Pablo C. Amaringo - Untitled, 1996 - Gouache on paper - 18 x 24 in.
Explanatory text by Pablo C. Amaringo
AYAHUASCA VISIONS - The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman,
Louis Eduardo Luna and Pablo 1991 North Atlantic Books, Berkeley.
ISBN 1-55643-064-7
The art of a Peruvian shaman representing visions induced by a psychotropic are reproduced in high-quality, detailed color in this highly informative book about life on the Amazon. Identifies all images, biological and mythical, with tribal and cross-cultural references verified by major Amazonian experts. 79 photographs, 49 in color; charts and maps.
Pablo Cesar Amaringo practiced for many years as a healer in the Peruvian towns of Iquitos and Pucallpa. Today he paints the visions he remembers from his shamanic practice, and teaches young people to paint as director of the USKO-AYAR Amazonian School of Painting in Pucallpa, an arts school where local youth are educated in the care and preservation of the Amazon ecosystem.
Luis Eduardo Luna was born and raised in the Columbian Amazon. He earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the Institute of Comparative Religion of Stockholm University. The author of Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon, he has been since 1979 a Senior Lecturer in Spanish at the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki.
There is a Pablo Amaringo images at Chris King's:
Genesis of Eden Diversity Encyclopedia
part of the interesting: Twelve Constellations of the Girdle of Gaia Page.
Also See:
Twelve Constellations 2: The True Hallucinogens
MUSHROOM JOHN'S - Entheogenic and Psychedelic Inspired Art RAINBOW ART (E-MAIL:[email protected])
Today is the most divine day imaginable, a real June day in Italy, soft, sultry with a wonderful sense of fecundity in the earth and the air. The birds are singing themselves hoarse, and Mr. Cecil and Mrs. Celia Letterbox Lizzard, are working on their sun tans.
Yesterday the catheter was removed without much pain. Very nice young doctor, and I was happy to lie their with my trousers around my ankles perhaps for a bit longer than necessary. Anyhow, there is still some pain, at the end of the pee time - which is where the little valve at the exit of the bladder is learning to close and open, again, after having being denied its duties for the past week. The last ten days since the surgery and with the catheter, have been so exhausting, what with not being able to sleep properly and the pain, that I have slept for the past day - and now feel refreshed and renewed. Thanks to my astrologer Anne Cillers who said that I have remarkable powers of recovery after illness.
Anyhow, as a reward for all the suffering, I treated myself to the most delicious pair of summer sandals, now that daytime shoes are no longer necessary, but could not really afford the most exquisite summer shirts that I had a beady eye on, for the equivalent of about R480 each. Cheap, because in Milan, Genevieve was making eyes at shoes for about R2,000 each. Now, I am happy to go to Paris on Monday 3rd and Chartres for a day or two. Then I have to be back to look after Peggy - while Giorgio goes on a well deserved holiday to the Mountains with a group of children, consisting of Emilio and his friends.
Love And Peace, Samten
__________________________________________________
THEATRE
March 31, 2002, New York --THE KAZBAH PROJECT (Bridgit Antoinette Evans and Rana Kazkaz, Producers) announced the launch of The Venus Project, a caravan of South African and American theatre artists who will engage audiences across South Africa in an exploration of the relationship between race and domestic violence through a staging of Pulitzer nominee Suzan-Lori Parks' VENUS in June 2002. The 5-city South African processional is produced in conjunction with the historic repatriation of the remains of Saartjie Baartman, aka the "Hottentot Venus", a Khoisan woman paraded in the freak shows of London in the early 1800s. After her death, Baartman's body parts were exhibited in a museum in Paris until 1985. In ceremonies presided over by Nelson Mandela and President Thabo Mbeki, her remains will finally be laid to rest in June 2002. The Venus Project involves subsequent residencies in New York, London, Paris, Sydney and Sao Paulo.
THE KAZBAH PROJECT organizes international theatre collaborations that address urgent humanitarian crisis. For more info, please contact us at 091-212-358-3195 or via email at [email protected]
From Mike Dickman:
Here's
an interesting web page: I used to teach this as a meditation- technique... These are just the inner edges of a minuscule 'box' in the midst of a universe that is quintrillions of times vaster... in both directions... And that's before it even dissolves into nothingness in both directions!From Glen Meyer:
c a l c
casqueiro atlantico laboratorio cultural
Teresa Alonso, Luks Brunner and t.Omi Scheiderbauer live and work in Navia, Spain, and on the Internet. In 1990 they founded a cultural laboratory, an experimental artistic structure in real/virtual space aiming to explore and develop matters of artistic/social relevance.
The "Male Gaze" as a Cultural Code in Patriarchy
The psychoanalytic background that has been discussed in this article is relevant to the pleasure and unpleasure offered by traditional narrative film. The scopophilic instinct (pleasure in looking at another person as an erotic object) and, in contradistinction, ego libido (forming identification processes) act as formations, mechanisms, which mould this cinema’s formal attributes. The actual image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man takes the argument a step further into the content and structure of representation, adding a further layer of ideological significance demanded by the patriarchal order . . .
Mulvey, 1989, 25
Christian Kyriacou and Eileen Rawson
Christian Kyriacou is a Chartered Architect, Feng Shui Consultant, Musician, Composer and Teacher. He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Chartered Society of Designers and is on the consultant registers of the Feng Shui Network International and the Feng Shui Society. Trained in Architecture, Interior Design, Music and Feng Shui, Christian Kyriacou has run his professional architectural design practice since 1971. He has designed and consulted on, a plethora of architectural/interior design projects: Airports including Heathrow and Gatwick, 333 Restaurants, Healing Spaces, Educational and Residential structures. Christian has studied Architecture, Feng Shui, Eastern Philosophies, Music and the Sacred Arts since childhood and gained much knowledge and experience in China, Tibet, India and London. His current design projects come from clients wishing to incorporate principles of feng shui, sacred geometry and music into their buildings.
Eileen Rawson is an International Feng Shui Consultant, Psychic and Healer, with more than 15 years experience. Eileen has worked and taught world-wide, including the United States, Spain, Greece, Munich, Vienna, Scotland and Ireland. Her experience and expertise in this field has brought her into contact with a variety of businesses from Dental Surgeries to Public Houses, Recycling Plants, Real Estate Companies and Residential Properties. As part of her extensive training program Eileen has taken part in a study tours of countries such as Hong Kong, China, Tibet, Nepal and India
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Christian Kyriacou riba mcsd
UK Contact Details
telephone: 020 8541 1700
facsimile: 020 8541 1277
mobile: 07790 906 977
email:
web site:
www.Kyriacou.com
Glenn Meyer:
One such organic manifestation that has emerged on the web is http://www.mkzdk.org/
19TH April
Samten: I dunno if what's in the attachment is worthy of the description 'Tree of Life', but it's my contribution to the subject. The paper is to be presented to the national South African Museums conference in Durban in June 2002.
Cheers,
manton
--------------------------
Dear Friends,
On Tuesday 5th Feb a new film about JOHN DEE will be shown by the BBC on Channel 4. It was made by Diverse Films, directed by Neil Rawles and produced by Marcus.
This film was shot last year, partly in the Czech Lands with on-site locations in some of the most interesting and attractive places associated with Dee and Kelley - including Trebon, Cesky Krumlov and Krivoklat, places which are also included in the Magical Journeys in Bohemia which I also organise. I had the pleasure of 'fixing' the logistics for the film. Though it was April we faced extreme weather hardship, with a mighty snowstorm in Krivoklat and unceasing rain in Trebon, which however made for some scenic moments in addition to chilled bones.
Unfortunately I haven't seen the film yet, am expecting it daily; when its here I'll arrange private viewings in Prague and also in Cesky Krumlov. For those of you in England it will be easy enough to see if you have a TV! Since I don't have one I have no idea whether there are cable or satellite connections here or in other countries which would ennable you to see it but hope that perhaps there are and that this information will be of practical value! Perhaps it will come around later??!!
I'd be interested to hear feedback from anyone who does get to see it..
Meanwhile we have an official opening date for the Alchemy Museum in Kutna Hora: Thursday 16th May, 2002 at 6 p.m. More about this later!
With best regards, Michal Pober
x
"There can be no sides in a round world."
THE HYMN TO THE EARTH, ATHARVA VEDA
This Hymn to the Earth: from the Atharva Veda is to my mind a wonderful Prayer to be used in an ecological, environmental sense FOR Healing the Earth.
THE ROYAL LIBRARY OF THE NETHERLANDS
ASTROLOGY AND ART
The PALAZZO SCHIFANOIA in Ferarra, is one, among many, of the great frescoes of astrological cycles in Italy. The frescoes were severely damaged, and the Palace itself was at one stage a tobacco factory. What could be restored, has been restored, and you can see some some beautiful images at:
And here at The PALAZZO SCHIFANOIA cycle includes the 36 Decan Images, which in themselves have a very interesting history, evidence suggests their origins in Ancient Egypt.
There is an excellent ASTROLOGY site here:
THE FIXED STARS AND THE CONSTELLATIONS
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF
MICHAEL MOORE?
SPIRAL INSTITUTE
Dean: Rabbi Dr Yehuda Leib Mirvis - Tel/Fax:+27-21-7623670 - P.O.Box 18362, Wynberg 7824 R SA - email: [email protected]
community at YahooGroups.com, Topica.com, or CoolList.com. And if you don't, build your own.
I was thinking you might find THE FOLLOWING interesting.... Very close to Dzogchen, but slightly differently expressed... Have a look, anyway. The translator's introduction with its caveats is also well worth the time. Mike Dickman. Also try HERE.
If you go to my website at http://www.jungcircle.com/mist/ and follow the links at the bottom of the page *OUT* of it and into the Jung-Circle site, I'd be interested in any comments you might have on the documents there on 'mental illness' and shamanism by my friend Maureen Roberts who wages a one-woman war against the Australian psychiatric establishment.
The following excellent websites:
www.rumionfire.com
From: "
Thom F Cavalli, Ph.D. Dear friends, family, colleagues and associates, I invite you to visit my new website, www.AlchemicalPsychology.com. If you like want you read, order the book and/or tell a friend! with best wishes for a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year, Thom CavalliThe Secrets of Harry Potter
Four books reviewed by Gail A. Grynbaum
This article was originally published in the San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, Volume 19, Number 4, 2001, pp. 17-48. Reprinted here with the permission of the Editor.
The Global Monoculture
'Free Trade' versus Culture and Democracy
by Maude Barlow - The Council of Canadians
October 2001
Global Village or Global Apartheid? The World After September 11, 2001
By Maxwell A. Cameron - Maxwell A. Cameron is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia and a Research Associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - BC
A rather interesting site with some Alchemical and Hermetic themes of which Adam McLean writes: Dear Samten, I bought the catalogue last weekend. Really good material. I bought it especially for item 58 by Theodor Galle 1596, which is obviously a procursor of the well known image of Robert Fludd. I have also seen a version of this in English. Best wishes, Adam
Getting Away from the Science of Dr Strangelove
David Bellamy and Alastair McIntosh say that science policy is failing both children and nature. In a plea for conservation, they argue that the wisdom of the ancients should inform the practice of science.
Go and look at the shamanic Peruvian fabrics:
servilletas
on black, white and orange cloth etc.HERE: Stunning!
You can find many Memory Theatre links at a site named ...
Memory Theatre.
The crew of the starship Enterprise considered as univeral archetypes. For further details see
The Star Trek Tree.
This site is maintained by
Colin Low. Feedback requested.
The Globalization of Repression: A Special Report to the European Parliament
Censored Stories: 'The Technologies of Political Control'
The following is an edited version of a 112-page "Special Report to the European Parliament" prepared by the Omega Foundation for the European Parliament's department of Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA). While this report and its subsequent updates are widely known throughout Europe, it has never appeared in the US media.
EXPLORING ANCIENT WORLD CULTURES University of Evansville
http://eawc.evansville.edu/ispage.htm
Green Web, Nova Scotia, Canada
On Prehistoric Rock Art & Psychedelic Experiences
International Network for Cultural Diversity
A voice for culture and the arts in the era of globalization
INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Japan Mthembu, South African stage and screen actor and General Secretary of Performing Arts Workers Equity (PAWE);
http://www.incd.net/html/english/conf/Luc.html
Shame! Here is
A POOR INDIVIDUAL who writes: "But as for Kabbalah, let it be altogether purged out of Jewish life and culture and religion, forever! " How thousands of years of culture, philosophy etc. can be purged, we will never know. Book burning I supposed. Anyhow, this enlightened indivual refuses to receive emails contrary to his opinion. So much for democracy.
ANOTHER STUDY OF
THE SEFIR YETZIRAH From Bob Zucker
The Global Monoculture
'Free Trade' versus Culture and Democracy - by Maude Barlow - The Council of Canadians. Excellent article and worth doing a google search to see what else she is up to. A real Hero! (ine) (person) S.
The url of an interesting article in NEXUS MAGAZINE:
And LAST but not LEAST, make yourself a RENAISSANCE GOWN!
A lovely article, with pictures of the BEKTASHI ORDER IN CAIRO.
Top one is Topkapi Museum in Turkey, bottom ISLAMIC ART -
A rather interesting site with some Alchemical and Hermetic themes
Some more
HORSE SYMBOLISM HERE:
Rather nice site on
NAGAS - plus all sorts of other delicious things...
This is a wonderful page from someone Kagyu - with all sorts of links to
FROGS - seen by Tibetans as part of the Naga Family - and has links going all over the place...
There is a valuable lists of links - with many of mandalas and
Kagyu Centres at KhandroNet:
From a Davike Ike Site.
What is
Quantum Monkey?The Prometheus Trust - email: Tim Addey
Getting Away from the Science of Dr Strangelove
David Bellamy and Alastair McIntosh say that science policy is failing both children and nature. In a plea for conservation, they argue that the wisdom of the ancients should inform the practice of science.
Professor David Bellamy is a botanist and broadcaster. Alastair McIntosh directs the MSc course at the Centre for Human Ecology, presently under threat of closure by Edinburgh University. His critique of science policy leads the current issue of the philosophical, Environmental Values.
Towards A Global Cultural Pact - Lucerne, Switzerland - September 21-23, 2001 FINAL REPORT Friday, September 21
The Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art
Visual Resources Library, Department of History of Art, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
SAMTEN'S MWEB SITE? IS IT STILL UP?
Okay now you can go to
COFFECUPOn monday 6th May - I managed to rush through to Milan to catch the final three hours of:
MiArt 2002 - Modern and Contempory Art Fair - 7th Edition - 3-6th May 2002
Here were 216 galleries, 38 from outside Italy, 12 publishing houses and art journals - 7 associations, organizations and foundations all spread out though 23,000 square meters of exhibition space. Milan is a city with an addiction to modernism - and this Art Fair is certainly valuable in that an immediate up to the minute overview of the State of Art is avalable under one roof, so to speak. The only South Africans represented, that I saw, were Conrad Botes and Willie Bester.
EMAIL:
[email protected]
The Fashion District of Via Montenapoleone.
The Silly Season has now begun in earnest. Last night was the first warm night, and everyone was out in force, the street cafes all full of trendy young things - and parking all but impossible in the City Centre. Giorgio and I went to the International Book Fair - though I think the international is a bit of an exaggeration - the thousands of stalls mainly representing Italian publishing houses, of which there are about 10,000. Anyhow, an exhuasting experience - but I enjoy looking at the books on culture, art history and archaeology - of which there are many in vast coffee table tomes, heavy enough to knock an enemy unconscious with. One of the highlights was a new book brought out by Peter Greenaway, called The Tulse Luper Suitcase, limited to 460 copies, signed and hand-bound and numbered. I did not dare ask the price. This is part of a multimedia Project that Greenaway in working on - including cinema, TV, C.D. and the Internet - there is a website which seemed to refuse admission:
but perhaps you have to JOIN first at:
Unfortunately, the book was in a glass case, so I have NOT seen it.
Also present at the Book Fare was:
M. MOLEIRO Editions, from Barcelona, Spain. This publishing house produces the most exquisite facsimile reproductions of medieval Mss: The Golden Book of Queen Mary of Navarre; The Gulbenkian Apocalypse; The Book of Treasures; The Book of the Knight Zifar; The Theatrum Sanitatis and so on. The original paper is recreated even down to the smell, which I had an opportunity of savouring. Pure Gold Leaf is used - and the cost of one volume is enough to induce instant heart attack. But they will send you a delicious catalogue:
And register and order a Catalogue.
Samten, Here's some inspiration from Kalidasa:
Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities
and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of beauty;
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision;
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
A dream of happiness
sand every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore to this day.
with love and gratitude
ellen kitonga, Nairobi, January 18, 2002.
_______________________________
Subject: Tree of life
Dear Samten, again so many riches in your e-mails.which i cannot respond to all. but want to thank you for . Enjoyed "tree of life" article and attach my image. Thank You - for being in contact Love Monika . Johannesburg,
April 20, 2002Dear Friends,
Here are some sites that I have enjoyed - with a letter to follow soon.
Love and Peace, Samten
MANDALAS:
Superb site on the KALACHAKRA MANDALA:
AND:
http://www.matrix.com.au/tibetan.html
Deborah Mattingly Conner says "My friend Anand sent this. See also:
ANOTHER JOHN DEE MONAS HIEROGLYPHICA - Translated by J.W. Hamilton-Jones, 1947.
MAURIZIO NICOSIA (Italy) runs a very good page on FREEMASONRY - with some material in English:
KABBALAH
Here is a section of lectures by Moshe Idel, given in note form, but enough to get the gist of the talks:
- Another Translation - [Book of Creation] & Saadia's Commentary (excerpts) [From Saadia ben Joseph (al-Fayyumi), Commentaire sur le Séfer Yesira ou Livre de la Création par Le Gaon Saadya de Fayyoum, trans. & ed., M. Lambert, Paris, Emile Bouillon, Editeur, 1891); translated into English from the French & Hebrew by Scott Thompson and Dominique Marson, San Francisco, 1985.] Translated from the Hebrew and French by Scott J. Thompson & Dominique Marson. The Url:
http://www.wbenjamin.org/saadia.htmlHERE IS:
AN INTERACTIVE TREE OF LIFE OF THE KABBALAHMike Dickman comments: *Yeah. Not bad. Golden Dawn attributions. Try the really excellent one at:
There is really such a wealth of information on the history of alchemy at the :
ARCHIVES OF THE ALCHEMY ACADEMY.
For a series of very extra-ordinary alchemical images:
http://members.tripod.de/Alchymie/heilige_dreifaltigkeit.html
And
MAIN PAGE:CHINESE ALCHEMY
Resources on Chinese Alchemy- For ARTICLES, SHORT NOTES, REVIEWS.
ROSICRUCIANS:
Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!
Recently, George Harrison died, and I have not done much to honour his memory. It so happens, and by co-incidence, the following incredible story turned up on the COUNTERPUNCH Site:
After September 11, Clear Channel, the nation's largest owner of radio stations, sent out an internal memorandum with a list of songs the stations were not to play, including John Lennon's "Imagine."
In response, Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, took out a full page ad in the New York Times with eight words from the song: "Imagine all the people living life in peace."
Then she took out a billboard on Time Square that said: "Give Peace a Chance."
"What John wrote is a very strong and beautiful message," Ono said. "I think they (Clear Channel) wanted everyone to be in a kind of attack mode."
John Lennon: "Give Peace a Chance."
Thomas Friedman: "Give War a Chance."
You decide.
Thanks to Bron Kaplan of Port Elizabeth, South Africa for suggesting
COUNTERPUNCH as an alternative source of news:http://www.counterpunch.org/wtcarchive.html
ANOTHER SITE: Of course, the peace voices have been shunned by the big media corporations. But as Jan Nederveen Pieterse writes: Folks, commondreams is an interesting site, there are millions of Americans who are opposed to the current US set of policies. See:
Afghani.com's
Afghan Traditions & History page discusses the mythic origins of the new year festival of Nowrouz which has some ties to Zoroastrianism. 6th January 2002The Afghan Cultural Information Center maintains a small collection of
Afghan Folklore including a few folktales.
