Archetypal Rites of Passage in Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima

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In Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya tells a classic coming of age story by interweaving ancient world symbolism, particularly nature archetypes, with the ritualistic traditions of the Catholic Church in a New Mexico village near the end of World War II. These symbols connect to each other with such historic strength that together they give depth to a tale that becomes not only Antonio Marez's story of growing up in the Southwest in 1944 but also one that reaches back to the beginning of time and becomes universally an archetypal motif for humanity.

The Sun and the Moon

Although all of the characters contribute to the cohesiveness of the novel, the story belongs to Antonio, who is seven years old when the story opens, and Ultima, the curandera who was present at Antonio's birth and who has now come to live with his family in her remaining years. While Antonio, or Tony, has two older sisters at home, he also has three brothers who have been serving their country overseas in the war and return home. Tony's father is a Marez, a man whose traditions cling to the earth, the llano, the large grassy, ​​almost treeless plain where a man can ride his horse and enjoy the camaraderie of his wandering friends, seeking freedom in this open country. His wife is a Luna, a family of farmers who love the rich soil by the river, roots, and the tradition of living by the moon's cycles. The sun and the moon have come together, but is it a sacred marriage of heaven and earth?

Influence of the Feminine Principle

Tony's father wants him to take up the Marez ways, but his mother prays every day that Tony will become a farmer-priest and continue the path set by the Luna family. His mother, Maria Luna, embodies the feminine principle associated with her name, holding onto the power of cyclic time, and her source of strength comes from that lunar Queen of Heaven, the Virgin de Guadalupe, whose statue she kneels before every day. The Virgin is the Moon Goddess, the weaver and spinner of the thread of destiny, and it is she whom Maria implores for her son's destiny in the Catholic Church. It is no coincidence that Saint Anthony is the patron saint of poor people, for Maria Luna prays that her son Tony's destiny will also be worthy of sainthood, a priest beyond praise. The matriarchal influence that surrounds Tony grows even stronger when Ultima arrives.

Questioning the Matriarchal World

Antonio develops a bond with Ultima the moment she enters their house, addressing her by her first name rather than the respectful Grande, and his mother scolds him for this breach. But Ultima recognizes this connection between them and takes Tony with her every day to gather the plants and herbs she will use in her cures. He learns from her as she speaks gently to the plants she takes, explaining to them why she must take their roots from the earth. She teaches him that all of nature has a spiritual life, a presence. While Tony thrives in this matriarchal world of his mother, the Virgin de Guadalupe, and Ultima, he begins to question the spiritual beliefs of his mother as well as those of Ultima, torn between which one is the true belief, and then he discovers the spiritual presence of the golden carp from his friend Samuel.

The Golden Carp

It is bad luck to fish for the big carp that summer floods wash downstream. Like the big fish fighting their way back upstream to regain their abode and not be trapped, Tony struggles for his own evolution of the spirit. Samuel tells Tony the story of an ancient god who loved the people of the earth so much he turned them into carp instead of killing them for their sins. As the story evolves into a parallel of his own Catholicism, he learns that the god who loved the people turned himself into a fish, the golden carp, so he could take care of his people. Tony is confused about who is right-God, the Virgin, or the golden carp.

Ultima, Curandera

As Tony witnesses Ultima healing his family with her magic cures, he wonders if she is also stronger than the church and her saints. When Maria's brother Lucas suddenly becomes very ill, feared to have been cursed by one of Tenorio Trementina's daughters for stumbling onto her witchcraft, the family asks Ultima to use her power as a curandera to heal him. Medicine and the Catholic Church have not been successful. They accept Ultima's condition: When anybody tampers with fate, a chain of events is set into motion over which they will not have control. They must be willing to accept this reality. They do and the grandfather pays Ultima $ 40 in silver-silver typifying once more the lunar feminine principle, to cure his son Lucas.

Good Is Stronger Than Evil

Ultima's requests for supplies and quiet are met, but she also requires Tony's assistance because, he says, his first name is Juan-John as in Saint John and John the Baptist-whose name means graced by God. Tony watches her rituals, the bathing of his dying uncle, the burning of incense, the ingesting of the potion of herbs, and the long hours of waiting. He knows he is in the midst of evil but he is not afraid. Ultima calms his fears, "Good is always stronger than evil. The smallest bit of good can stand against all the powers of evil in the world and it will emerge triumphant." Tony will strengthen the good she can do because he is graced by God, a concept that is in alignment with his Catholicism.

Before Ultima forces the cure down Lucas's throat, she sculpts three dolls from her magic oils and fresh black clay. She dresses them and lets Lucas breathe on them, and then she dips three pins in oil and sticks them into the dolls. Tony does not fully understand what Ultima has done until later when two of the Trementina daughters die. He is confused by her power that seems to be one with and yet greater than God's.

Narciso, Dionysian Life and Death

Tony's friend Samuel tells Cico about the golden carp. When Samuel leaves to herd sheep with his father, Cico takes Tony to see the coming of the golden carp, but on their way, they stop at the house of Narciso, a Dionysian figure who gets drunk in the spring and plants at night in the moonlight. When he is away and the two boys slip into his hidden garden, Tony understands what Cico means when he says, "The garden is like Narciso-it is drunk." Tony is awestricken by the fruitfulness of this garden nurtured in moonlight, but in fear or perhaps superstition he will not partake of the bounty.

Narciso tries to warn Ultima of Tenorio's intention to kill her in retribution for the alleged curse she has put on his second daughter who is dying. Tony, returning home in the snow from rehearsing the school Christmas pageant, secretly follows him. When Tony's brother Andrew can not break away from Rosie's house of ill repute to help, the aging Narciso must go himself and Tony continues to follow him. Tenorio shoots Narciso, who lies dying under the juniper tree. Even though Tony is confused about his role in the Catholic Church, he makes the sign of the cross over Narciso and takes his confession, acting as the priest his family expects him to become. Succumbing to pneumonia, Tony dreams of the omnipresence of evil in his village as everything in it dies a violent death and is burned while the golden carp swallows all and glows as brilliant as a new sun.

Emptiness: Where Is God?

It is now time for Tony to study his catechism with the other boys at the church in preparation for his first communion, yet he still wonders if the golden carp is more powerful than the God of his Catholic Church. He wonders if the Virgin Mary or the golden carp rules in God's absence. On Easter Sunday as Tony takes the wafer for the first time, he prays for answers to his question: why is there evil and death and torture? He feels only emptiness. He thinks, "The God I so eagerly sought was not there," and he later confides to his teacher that growing up is not easy. He tells her, "Ultima says a man's destiny must unfold itself like a flower."

Again Tony is witness to Ultima's power to cure as she performs rituals to lift a curse from Tony's father's friend Tellez. That night Tony still has received no communication from God. He asks, what really is God's power? Cico tells him he must choose between the God of the church and the golden carp. As they watch the majesty of the God-like carp swimming in the creek, they decide that their friend Florence, one who could not take his first communion because he would not confess his nonexistent sins, has earned the right to witness the golden carp for himself. When they go to find him, however, they discover he has drowned in a swimming accident below the Blue Lake.

Tony dreams again, and in this dream everything he believes in dies-even Ultima and the golden carp. Distraught, he is sent to his uncles in Los Puerto to learn about farming. Before he goes, Ultima says, "Life is filled with sadness when a boy grows to be a man." Tony asks his father if a new religion could be made. Tony's father Gabriel Marez explains to his son that understanding does not come from God. It comes from experiencing life, and it takes a lifetime to acquire this understanding. He realizes Tony's confusion about religion and healing, in particular, and he tells him that Ultima has no fear because "she has sympathy for people, so complete that she can touch their souls and cure them." Tony grows stronger that summer from everything that has happened to him.

Ultima and the Owl: The Blessing of Antonio

But Tenorio's second daughter dies and in his insanity, he first tries to kill Tony, who escapes him, and then goes to Guadalupe to find and kill Ultima. Instead Tenorio shoots the owl and, as he points the rifle at Tony, Pedro, who is Tony's uncle, kills him with his pistol. Ultima, whose life is connected to the life of the owl, is dying. She whispers to Tony that she is like the owl, "winging its way to a new place, a new time." Before she dies, he asks for her blessing. "Her hand touched my forehead and her last words were, 'I bless you in the name of all that is good and strong and beautiful, Antonio. Love life, and if despair enters your heart, look for me in the evenings when the wind is gentle and the owls sing in the hills. I shall be with you- "

Tony buries the owl under the juniper tree in the moonlight, symbol of his mother's family. He covers the owl with the earth of the llano, the home and symbol of his father. Whether or not Tony has the maturity to comprehend the totality of the blessings as well as the evil accompanying his rites of passage, he nevertheless has been touched deeply by the feminine archetypes of the moon, the three fates, the river and the fish, the owl and the juniper, and the cyclic changes around him so that he will recall Ultima's advice with greater understanding and wisdom as he grows into a man: "Take life's experiences and build strength from them, not weakness."

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Source by Susan O'Connor

A Do It Yourself Wedding in New York City For $ 10,000 Or Less, Is It Possible?

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A do-it-yourself (DIY) wedding in New York City sounds like an oxymoron, but it can be done. There are various ways of complying with that statement above and all for under $ 10,000. Well, under $ 10,000. You can still have quite an extravagant wedding, even an over the top wedding for under $ 10,000 AND in New York. Let me show you how it can be done, including your honeymoon. Now I know you're thinking that is an impossibility. My husband and I did it and so can you.

It mostly depends on just what it is you want your fantasy day to say and whether or not one thing is the most important item or if you would prefer to have featured several things. For me I wanted the colors of our wedding to be featured, my dress and the water feature for my husband at the reception. At another time I will tell you about my excursions to and from the various locations to secure, just what I wanted for my wedding. Right now, I will give you the nitty-gritty about what I reaped from my excursions.

What if you only wanted one thing to be the major featured item? Of course, it does not have to be just one thing, it can be several, but just so you do not go crazy, I suggest you choose one to two items rather than a whole slew, but if you want more than that, do not do any more than five. Most brides start off believing they can do it all and realize within eight to six months of the wedding that they can not. A friend's help comes in quite handily, after all your really close friends will have asked you all along what they can do to help. At about ten to eight months out from the wedding is the best time to take them up on their offers. I did. More about me later, though. I have a friend who did a wedding with a potluck reception at a very famous church here in Manhattan and even though it was phenomenally delicious, to my idea that was not even the featured item in her wedding. I am getting ahead of myself though.

Her wedding had a committee of three women -the project managers- to help her stay within her budget which was WAY under $ 10,000. I believe she and her new husband paid no more than $ 6000 for their entire wedding, which included the reception space in that very same famous church. They did not pay for catering which can be quite pricey when it comes to weddings. In fact, the wedding couple paid nothing for the food at the reception, so plus the cost of the space, If they'd paid for catering it would have run close to the $ 6000 for their 150 guests. By having a potluck, she paid nothing other than the cost of the hall. The Riverside Church Chapel for me cost $ 800 (In a previous article, I said $ 1200, but in reality it was $ 800 for mine.) In 2005, but for another friend of mine last year, she paid $ 1500. I got the members' cost, but last year, there was no differential between members and nonmembers, so even though she is a member, she had to pay big bucks.

My friend's wedding costs are an approximation, because I did not pry that much, .. yet. She is out of the country now, so I can not ask her at all, but I am judging from her comments to me at the time. Forgetting about the cost of hers and her husband wearing apparel which I can tell you he had his own tux in his closet and her wedding dress was bought from a non-wedding wedding store on sale.

  • Since my friend is a singer too, she had friends who sang during her wedding, that were of course gratis or gifts. Basically that is a win-win situation all around. Since you tap your friends, you tap the voices you want singing your songs of choice. That's what I did and both she and her ex-husband sang at my and my husband's wedding.
  • Here's a big tip if you do not want to spend big time money on your dress, if it's to be one of the featured items, go to a non-wedding store in search of your gown. Personally I went to Filene's Basement bridal store, a year before my wedding and bought a dress for $ 536 with tax, so it is possible to pay for a dress under $ 3000. But my friend did not go the bridal store route. She went to Paramus Mall to Lord & Taylor. I do not remember exactly how much she paid, but I do know it was almost half as much as my dress.
  • She also did not go with a traditional veil, but went with a tiara alone. For mine, I had both, but did not pay a premium for either. I made up my own veil for less than $ 10 and found a tiara that did not look cheap at Claire's Accessories for less than $ 20. She wore a tiara as well. A gold tiara, which costs no more than a $ 100.
  • For her reception, she had no music, we'd had plenty during her wedding ceremony. In another article I've already told you about using your own Mp3 player and saving big bucks in that respect. If you do want to hire a DJ or reception host, I suggest you go with a friend of a friend who is just starting to spin, but that the friend can vouch for their abilities, if you have not experienced them for yourself. Remember, whatever you do, GET a contract. One that spells out exactly what you want and expect them to do at the party. That means the songs you expect and when. That way, the surprises will not have anything to do with dancing. That way both you and your guests can be happy without much annoyance on anyone's part. New DJ's can start as low as $ 75 an hour and go up from there. If you want an established DJ, it could be as much as $ 125 – $ 350 an hour. This again is if you want to stay within your budget of $ 10000. Just remember you will need your DJ for at least four hours, so do your multiplication from there.
  • Transportation: Ah, you can go the traditional route with the white limos, or you can go with black limos, too. Did you know that the color of the limo can determine the price. White limos are more expensive and if you mention wedding additional money is added for that special day. Just be glad that you are not going to prom, because that is the limousine's big day (s) for money making. Limousines can be anywhere from $ 500 for a two and half hour rental to, of course thousands. To really save money, if you are friends with a special car association you could rent or borrow the owners' cars. Or now with the Internet companies, Zip Car, Drive Mint or even Connect By Hertz you could rent a car of your dreams for a great rates. Each of these dot com hourly car rentals can save you a bundle. Think about it.
  • Did you guess already that the featured item for my friend's wedding was the dress? Well, if you did you would have been correct. The bride wore, what appeared to be gold. In actuality, the dress was a copper lace with a light pink undergarment that peeked through, which made the dress upon entrance and even as she continued to walk down the aisle appear to be molten liquid gold. She was drummed in. Of course, the bride is usually the center piece of most weddings, but as they say in the theater, people were humming the dress the rest of the evening, especially since she was able to match the dress with a cape, that was already in her closet.
  • Transportation – Getting to and sometimes from the wedding ceremony can be challenging when it comes to keeping costs down, but with these suggestions you can be home free.

Dress $ 536

Tux Rental $ 56

Cake $ 825

Limo / Catering $ 375 / $ 625 = $ 1000

Special added catering $ 0 Wedding gift from Mother-in-Law

Professional Photographer $ 400 for 5 hours – childhood friend of groom

Video $ 0 Best Man's gift

Ceremony / Minister $ 800 Christ Chapel Riverside Church

Flowers $ 375 from Flower wholesaler

Reception rental and 2 cases of champagne $ 1251

DJ $ 250 – 4.5 hours

Printer $ 68 printing wedding invitations & thank you notes

Papers Invitations, Envelopes, (Inner / Outer) Thank You Notes / Envelopes $ 82

Save-the-Date magnets $ 16

Miscellaneous Favors, candles, material, silk rose petals, disposable cameras, decorative Chinese boxes, & tissue paper $ 350

Honeymoon Cruise & extras $ 1391

Our total expenditures in 2005 Wedding / Honeymoon $ 7400

  1. For the Rental Car weekend: the Go Green with Http://www.ConnectbyHertz.com $ 160.33 / weekend day Whether it is for 6 hours or 24 hours. Go with the 24 since you can use it for those last minutes things that come up before the wedding. That is for a smart Fortwo, talk about making an entrance. Keep in mind with Hertz you can pick the car up at one location and drop it off somewhere else, as long as they have a lot. That could save you some time. For instance: pick up at a Hertz on the upper west side and drop it off at one of their hotel locations especially if you're not going away to your honeymoon right away ..
  2. Car rental for the 3-day weekend from Speedy-Rent-A-Car $ 205.00
  3. Rental from Zipcar.com or DriveMint.com are by the hour $ 11.00 from – $ 17.00 for the weekend depending on the car. Scion Xb or A smart 's Fortwo on the Low Shoes end hourly or a Mercedes on the high end at hourly DriveMint.com
  4. Or offer relatives and friends a couple of dollars, depending on your budget, to chauffeur you and your wedding party around for a couple of hours.
  5. What if you want to have your wedding catered, it is still possible to do it economically in a big city, whether it is in New York City or Chicago, or even Boston, you just need a bit of ingenuity to stay within your budget. If you're a curious detailed oriented person like I am, then you'll decide this is the fun part, the chase or the journey to end that you really want. It is actually the magic part about the entire wedding, I think, because you are at the stage where you are shaping the outcome of the day. It will take patience and possibly legwork, to see just what you might be getting for the day of event, but the hunt (for the guys) is on and it can be a great deal of fun. Here are a few tips:
  6. Decide on the type of wedding and plan your food accordingly. Such as casual, spiffy-casual, or formal, (usually sit down) While casual and spiffy-casual may come very close to looking like the same thing, they really are quite different when it comes to food. I have seen casually catered events start as low as $ 12.95 per person or just under $ 1200 for 85 people. This is strict buffet style, no seating provided, but stand-up cocktail tables in various spots with food arrangements on them along with some passed appetizers, as well.
  7. My friend's wedding although it had a very high-church of various cultures feel to it had a casual reception, since all the guests were expected to bring something. With her committee of 'wedding corralling ladies', the guests with each acceptance of the invitation was then asked what were they bringing. By doing it that way my friend saved all sorts of money and even had leftovers. Wedding party paid nothing, zero, zip, for that feast. Their reception had everything from appetizers to desserts including rum balls, (YUM!). Some of us were getting high just smelling the rum balls, additionally there was even a fruit bowl.
  8. Another casual reception could be to have a stand around party with a huge sandwich or various pizzas or have your new mother-in-law make something for the crowd. You can probably strike up a deal with your favorite pizza store once you pass 10 pizzas. Figure at 3 slices per guest and you've got it made. For instance, a pizza usually has 12 slices and for 80 guests, you'd have to have 20 pies feeding each person 3 slices each. My neighborhood pizza store sells a large pie for $ 16 each, but if I ordered 20 pies for 85 guests, my budget for food would be at around $ 350. Even as much as $ 350, you must give your guests something to wash down the pizzas.
  9. For more organic less oil, use whole grain flat breads; American or Italian version with different toppings, as your starter rather than bread and cheese.
  10. Perhaps as I did you can get a combination price with another feature of the wedding. My limousine company managed a caterer and so I got a combination price. Plus, my new mother-in-law, made something special in large quantities for her son. We had 85 guests and our total with the 4-hour use of the limousine and caterer was $ 625. My new mother-in-law's food was gratis. Ours was a casual formal of sorts. It was buffet style with seating.
  11. The formal caterer or sit down with service is where you'll have to weigh your options on how much is too much. These types often run as low as $ 27 per person and up into the thousands. If you're trying to do a wedding for under $ 10,000, as I am advocating then you're probably priced out of this market unless you can strike a deal with one of your favorite restaurants. Perhaps Carmine's, in which the food is served family-style, but everyone is sitting. This could be a possibility. My friends took me there for graduation and we ordered one full meal and had left overs for two additional people.
  12. If using Carmine's works for you, I am betting that it can work for your budget as well. Think about it, a main dish for a meal is $ 21 – 25, which easily feeds 5 – 6 people. If you have 12 tables of 8 could still be pricey, but your guests will be full and have potential doggy bags to take home. Roughly your pricing could still be under $ 1000, even with the addition of salad, garlic bread and dessert. YUM! A pure feast to behold.
  13. Decorations is another item that can run into lots of pennies. In this instance, I am talking about the flowers for the bride and the wedding party and the extras for the reception to make it wedding theme oriented. The extras could include tulle and floating or almost infinite ideas as motifs or table decorations of some kind. Here are few of my favorites with pricing of the day:
  14. Check any of the websites that sell pre-made flowers and you're good to go. Flower arrangements start as low as $ 29.95 and go $ 79.95 for our purposes. Flowers can, of course go into the hundreds from these websites and upward if you use a florists.
  15. To cut cost further, the bride and matron / maid of honor could be the only people to carry flowers and then everything else could be decorated at the ceremony venue with tulle or aisle candles.
  16. At the reception venue, the theme could be carried further with floating candles on the tables as centerpieces instead of flowers. If, like we did, you have a water feature, add some floating candles, larger than the table candles, to it and call it a day. Candles at the reception venue could run you a whopping $ 100 to start unless you want or have a half an acre to decorate.
  17. Add some special candies or other cheery items for the table; M & M's or Jordan Almonds or Junior mints. We went with special made-to-order M & M's. I bought 3 bags and that was all I needed, at $ 11 per bag, it was a steal. And you get to choose your colors so they can coordinate with your wedding colors. Pretty cool, I think and inexpensive, too.
  18. Do not forget those disposable cameras, so your guests can snap some fun pictures as well. Check out various websites and you might be able to get 9 cameras all for $ 35, just like I did.

So, it can be done with a bit of ingenuity, verve, and flair. Dreamers can.

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Source by CharLena M. Pearson

The Silent Communication in "The Duchess and the Jeweler" by Virginia Woolf

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The Duchess and the Jeweler is the story of the world's greatest jeweler who had promised his mother to become the richest jeweler in the world in his childhood but now that his dream has materialized he does not feel satisfied. So trying to achieve satisfaction, knowingly he buys fake pearls from a Duchess in exchange for passing a whole weekend with her daughter whom he is in love with. The purpose of this essay is to show how Virginia Woolf has successfully presented the inner mind of the characters, their struggle and their communication through the least amount of verbal communication among them.

The silent communication created by Woolf's "The Duchess and the Jeweler" is firstly the communication between the reader and the story and secondly the communication between the characters in the text themselves. In better words this story firstly reveals the mind of the characters to the reader through the least amount of explicit expression of their states and secondly presents the interaction among the characters of the story through the fewest possible dialogues among them.

The first stance in the unvoiced communication between the reader and the story is the revelation of the childhood memories of Oliver Bacon that takes place without the author's giving voice to them. The very first acquaintance of the reader with Oliver's childhood takes place when he addresses himself: "you who began life in the filthy little alley" and then falls in to his childhood memories. This very short statement of Oliver to himself is very expressive of his childhood and also of his attitude towards this period of his life. Through the author's prior descriptions of the living place of Oliver, his servant and his habits it is revealed that Oliver Bacon is a very affluent man now while this short self-address reveals his childhood poverty. Also it is through his retrospections that the readers get aware that he has started with selling stolen dogs, continued with selling watches in a little counter, and finally has promoted to his present profession as a jeweler. So it is mostly through Oliver's silent remembrances that the reader gets familiar with his early days. Also this little talk of Oliver to himself shows the reader that he has a pre-occupation with his childhood and all the efforts he has gone through in order to save all his money. Though he never mentions this, his constant retrospections show the importance that his childhood has for him. As an example when Oliver is in his room just before the entrance of the Duchess, he starts thinking of his boyhood passed in misery and hard times. This shows how Virginia Woolf cunningly, without explicit mentioning of Oliver's pre-occupation with his childhood, interacts with the reader through the character's retrospections and gives the reader the chance to get involved with the text. Therefore the mind of Oliver and also his general history is disclosed to the reader through the least number of spoken words of the character.

Woolf has also took the advantage of using imagery in order to disclose to the reader this state of dissatisfaction of Oliver through her language of signs and images as an alternative to the words. She resembles Oliver to a camel that is entrapped in the zoo, and is not satisfied with its life, because it can see "the blue lake and the fringe of palm trees in front of it." In other words, Oliver wants more and more and in spite of all his gatherings he feels like a mere camel that is thirsty of the water it sees but is not able to reach it. Also the reader reads the Oliver's loneliness and his need of a soul mate, when Oliver remembers the days when "mademoiselle used to pick one (red rose) every morning and stick it in his button-hole." This picture gives the reader the understanding that Oliver is feeling the lack of an anima in his life; that there has been someone who probably Oliver had a sense of love for (image of red rose) and who has left Oliver due to his greed for money. This is confirmed later on by the text itself: "but mademoiselle had married Mr. Pedder of the local brewery- no one stuck roses in his buttonholes." This sentence again confirms his loneliness and his need of a wife, though this is not mentioned directly by Oliver himself.

The revelation of the dominance of Oliver's mother over his life and the fact that she has been dictating him all her life and is even now after her death dictating her, is understood through his constant remembrance of his mother in all his choice makings in his life though this is never mentioned directly in the story. He remembers his mother reprimanding him when he stole dogs as a child and when he buys the fake pearls from the duchess at the end of the story he asks the forgiveness of the old woman in the picture and again feels like a little boy. So these constant rememberings of his mother also imply to the reader his mother's dominance over him even after her death though this is just understood and never stated.

The reader also gets aware of Oliver's arrogance and pride, in his contacts with his workers though there hardly takes place a conversation with them; In the first contact of the workers with Oliver at his shop, there is no spoken communication; however through their "envying look" the reader understands their attitudes to Oliver and his indifference to them is revealed as the author says "it was only with one finger of the amber-colored glove, waggling that he acknowledged their presence." This unspoken interaction between them is to a large extent expressive of their attitude towards each other.

As mentioned earlier, this unspoken communication between the reader and the text takes place among the characters of the story as well. The very first silent communication among the characters occurs when Oliver as a youngster is passing through a group of jewelers discussing the price of gold and "one of them would lay a finger to the side of his nose and murmur, 'hum-mm,' as he passed. it was no more than a murmur; no more than a nudge on the shoulder, a finger on the nose, a buzz that ran through the cluster of the jewelers … but still Oliver felt it purring down his spine, the nudge, the murmur that meant, 'look at him- young Oliver, the young jeweler- there he goes. " As the text says the slightest gestures of the jewelers has meant a lot of encouraging words to Oliver and he is still remembering that murmur among the jewelers.

The next stance of the non-voiced interaction among the characters is the communication between Oliver and the Duchess. At the visit of the Duchess to Oliver's shop, the very colorful descriptions of the author of the Duchess, her dressing, her glittering jewels, her fragrance, her wave-like moving and her resemblance to a peacock in beauty and arrogance reveals much of her high status and the influence that she can have upon Oliver. However their communications is not restricted to a non-spoken conversation; a dialogue takes place between them, though this communication is through the least number of words. They speak but their use of words is very economical that makes their interaction the most efficient. An example of this brief interaction is fragmented words of the duchess when she wants to persuade Oliver to buy her fake pearls; she drops the pearls out of a bag: " 'From the Appleby cincture' she moaned. 'the last … the last of them all'". And she continuous justifying her desperateness: "Dear Mr. Bacon, a bit of bad luck …" and then she justifies her cause of coming as " 'that villain! That sharper'" that explains her objection to her husband. These brief, simple and seemingly fragmented conversations between the Duchess and the Jeweler depict very clearly their inner states and attitudes towards each other. We understand that both Oliver and the Duchess understand the meaning of this speechless communication. Also as soon as they shake hands they feel the enmity among them though they also sense the need they have to each other so they both take part in this game of deceiving and submitting to the deception. A clue of this is their play upon the phrase: "old friend '' when the Duchess tries to soften Oliver by calling him" old friend "two times and Oliver who understands this what she means, repeats her phrase two more times. Their speechless communication continues up to the point that Oliver buys the fake pearls from the Duchess without questioning the Duchess.

In "The Duchess and the Jeweler" Virginia Woolf skillfully depicts the greatest amount of communication that takes place between the characters in the text in spite of their lack of verbal communication and also the deep understanding that the readers can get of the characters within the text though their emotions and states of mind is not expressed explicitly. She replaces the lengthy dialogues and direct descriptions of the states of the characters with brief but meaningful dialogues and use of images and entrance in to the mind of the characters and giving the reader the chance to read much of their present state and enough of their past lives needed to accomplish her story.

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Source by Farzaneh Bolourieh

The Meaning of a Pendant

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What is the significance of a pendant? A pendant is a decoration and symbolization of the things that a person treasures. A favorite past time, a special person, a milestone affair, or something that describes you are just a few ideas of pendants to display on a necklace.

Pendants are great gift ideas, acknowledging a friend or family member's interests. To consider what kind of pendants you can give a loved one, here are some ideas of how you can celebrate some of the things that they treasure most.

Sports pendant- Basketball and jewelry might not mix , but with a sports pendant [http://www.harrismichaeljewelry.com/pendant.html], you can display a friend's passion for a sport in elegant fashion. Whether it's a professional sports team fan, or a friend's identity with a sport, you can find a favorite team pendant or a sports pendant to recognize their interests.

Friendship pendant- A display honoring your best friend can be captured in a friendship pendant. A broken heart split in the middle, this pendant is not to be mistaken by what is described. In elementary or junior high, you might have recalled two friends displaying half of a broken heart, implying their relationship as best friends.

Gemstone pendant- On a loved one's birthday celebrate their birth with a gemstone pendant. As every month has its own gemstone, you will personalize your loved one's birthday with their month's birthstone. A ruby, a sapphire, a diamond or amethyst pendant, a gemstone pendant will be a frequent reminder of the significance of their birth.

Pendant lockets- Such a keepsake as a baby picture will be a treasure for a pendant locket. Giving your mother such a necklace will be her reminder of you as a baby, a phase of nurturing and raising you from the time you were little until now. Thank her with a memorable pendant locket for her to wear so she can always think of you.

If you choose to give your loved one a pendant, just remember that it is not just a gift you're giving them. You will be capturing one of their symbolic treasures in a beautiful necklace, an adornment they will enjoy forever.

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Source by Stephanie Tuia

Cuban Women – How to Taste the Forbidden Fruit of International Dating

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Cuba is an island nation wrapped around rumors, intrigue and the hypnotic pull of a forbidden paradise. The US embargo may have been disastrous on Cuba's economy but it created a vacuum.

Time has stood still in this tiny country of enormous spirit. The values, traditions and family centered-ness of the Cuban people are exactly those, most of us long for in today's "modern" world. Family is the focus; love, care and affection run wild and grow everywhere. The unity created from despair has given birth to a unique woman.

The Cuban woman is born on a tropical island with its sensual rhythms, the push and pull of the ocean and caressing Caribbean breezes. Sexiness is as natural to her as breathing. And because of the economic conditions, she has learned to be intelligent, resourceful, appreciative of what really matters and graceful in all she does.

The women of Cuba have become known (by those in the know) to be the most succulent, sought after angels on planet Earth. These women make the perfect companion, friend, lover, mother and wife.

A "Cubanita" as women from Cuba are known, is a savage in the bedroom, or wherever else she takes you to feed her carnal appetite. She is a pristine lady in public, a chef of the highest caliber in the kitchen. A tour de force in her chosen profession and an intoxicating mate at all times. In essence, the vacuum created in Cuba has bred what some may consider to be the ideal woman.

However, the problem for many men has been how to meet and date these exotic creatures.

The Big Challenge

The big challenge is not where to find Cuban women. After all the grand majority of them are all living in the same 110,860 sq km island 90km off the southern most tip of Florida.

The challenge in meeting these women has been a question of how to get right up next to them.

For men from the US the idea of ​​going to Cuba represents a Federal Offense. For men from other countries such as Canada and Australia it is a voyage to a strange, unknown place the media has made out to be an active war zone.

But why should any government or media hype keep you from finding the woman of your dreams? With today's advances in technology there is little reason to let them.

Tasting The Forbidden Fruit

Internet access is growing in Cuba, although sometimes via underground means. The spreading of awareness and availability of the online world has led to new a trend in Cuba. Cuban women are now putting up profiles in dating and social networking sites on a daily basis.

You can go to several paid dating sites or free sites such as Facebook and Twitter and find Cuban woman already there. While the number of "Cubanitas" online is not as high as the number of other Latinas, such as Dominican women, Colombian women or Costa Rican women ( "Ticas") online, the quality of the Cuban women with online profiles is second to none !

The first step towards getting yourself all tangled up with one or several of these delicious delights is to get online, set up your own profile and start chatting with the Cuban girls on the sites. Most of these women are career orientated and / or currently studying at the university level.

Cubans can get e-mail accounts in most government post offices; this makes communication even easier once you have met a few ladies on line. Additionally cell phone use, particularly cell phones with chat and text capabilities is also growing in Cuba. Once you start making friends with Cuban women online staying in touch is simple, not like in times past when a call to Cuba was a huge deal.

The next step is setting up actual dates. To do this you must plan a trip. And here you have a few choices.

Contrary to popular belief, Cuban's can get travel visas. They just can not get travel visas to countries like the US with any form of ease. But you will find Cuban women who already have travel visas and can visit countries such as Venezuela, Russia and Dominican Republic.

If you are not willing to travel to Cuba you can carefully arrange to meet a special lady friend in a country where she can travel. However the best thing is really for you to go there.

With new regulation being introduced in the US if you are of Cuban descent getting permission to visit Cuba is a reality now. You can go to Cuba, find the woman you want to marry and bring her to the US with a fiancée visa.

If you do not live in the US then you have every reason and opportunity to get on a plane and start dating face-to-face the sizzling "Cubanitas" you meet online.

If you live in the US and are not of Cuban descent getting to the forbidden island nation will be more difficult. You could apply under a humanitarian visa. There are also reports of US citizens who visit Cuba illegally (illegal in the US not Cuba) by first flying to a country such as Mexico. From there they will take a second flight into Cuba. Because Cuba does not stamp their passport there is no evidence of them having entered the country.

At the end of the day, if you meet Cuban women online you will be filled with the courage and sense of purpose required to actually visit with them, hold them, hug them and kiss them.

Love beyond your borders is waiting; all it takes is a little bit of commitment on your part and a few mouse clicks. May you find the love life you most desire and may nothing hold you back from doing so.

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Source by Carlos M Duran

The Parable of The Unprepared Builder Made Simple (Luke 14: 28-30)

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This is returning back to a theme covered in an earlier parable. But it is good to be reminded about this regularly.

I read this parable in the context beginning from Luke 14:26.

26 "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can not be My disciple. 27 And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me can not be My disciple.

The word hate here does not necessarily mean the bad way. To be Christ's disciple, we are told to hate our father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, even our own life. "Hate" here means to love less. It then goes to say that anyone who does not love their father, mother, children, brothers, sisters and his own life "less" than God is not worthy of Him. Anyone who does not love everyone who's important to them less than Jesus is not worthy of Jesus.

Jesus set a very high standard here. We all love our family and relatives; we love our own life too. In this passage, Jesus was saying, "You can not be my follower unless you love them less." Some people take this as a strict command literally. For them, this is all too much; this is all too hard.

Sounds impossible?

You might say to yourself, "I really love my wife; I really love my mother and brother, I really love my friends; I love my own life. I can not love Jesus more. What does He expect from me? I can 't do it. "

The apostle Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)." We can not do it in the natural; but with the Holy Spirit's help, we can love Jesus more than our loved ones and even our own life. And to be honest, until Jesus is in that place, life simply is not as rich as it can be.

I know this can be a scary sort of verse. But this is what the Christian life is going require of you. This is the way you have to be prepared. When we make a decision to follow Jesus, it is with all our heart; with everything we have, no holds barred. It is like saying, "I'm going to devote my life to Him more than anything. I'm going love Him more than anyone."

You see, the trouble is when you become a Christian and you start to act in godly ways, sometimes your family start to act differently towards you. If you are the only Christian in your family, there may be persecutions and tribulations.

Let's get some more context in verse 28, "And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me can not be My disciple."

Here, Jesus was saying that if you want to be a disciple, there's going be a price to pay. It is one thing to say you love Jesus; it's another thing to be a disciple. A disciple is someone who practices everything that Jesus taught.

The parable starts in verse 28:

28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it- 29 lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish'?

Living the kingdom way is hard. When people around you find out you're a Christian, they are going to be watching you, just like the builder of this tower. It is not going to be easy leaving your family and loved ones for the sake of Christ.

Let's say you are going build a block of apartments, rent them to people, and make a lot of money. It was your dream and you started in faith. You had a good job and you are confident that you could arrange the finances for the construction. What if in the middle of the project, you suddenly lost your job and you could not pay the loan back? The work stopped suddenly and you felt really foolish.

Or if you had money and you projected a cost but you made a wrong calculation. It says here that before you start something like this, you should sit down with proper accountants and cost analysts for the projection. Because if you start putting up half block of apartments and then you stop building due to bad finances, everyone in the neighborhood is going to laugh at you.

In this passage, Jesus was essentially saying that the Christian life is like that. If you decide to become a Christian, people are going to watch you. And believe me, they are going to laugh at you, mock you and cause all sorts of trouble in your life.

However, Christian life is not at all that bad. Once you get in touch with Jesus and move in the right direction, Christian life is a joyful experience, albeit difficult. It's not something that should be taken lightly.

Through this book, I encourage you to make the decision to give your life to Him. Say the prayer written in the appendix of this book and see the Holy Spirit come into your life.

For some Christians, things may not go as well as you thought they would. Maybe you're stuck, depressed, hurt, broken, you do not have vision, you do not know the purpose of your life, you're not being used, you're not fulfilled. Well, that's not the life God had planned for you. God's has a life for you where you live in total abandonment to Jesus Christ and your life is fully surrendered to Him.

A ship without the sails up just does not go anywhere. But it takes a lot of effort to put those sails up and once they're up the boat meets the resistance of the wind and it sails. And now a boat not only sails with the wind but can go against the wind in a tack and the wind is a very necessary thing for a sailing boat.

Now, if you have not got your sails up in your life to catch the spirit of the living God; if the wind can not move in your sails; if you have not given your life to God and say, "I surrender, Lord"; if you're still trying to run your own life and not allowing the Holy Spirit to give you directions, you're like a ship with no sail up, you're going nowhere.

If you are hundreds of miles at sea, you'll starve and you get in a desperate condition and the seas will break all over you if your sails are not up. You got to learn how to move in the Holy Spirit. But you need to know that Christianity comes with a cost and if you're one of those people who made a decision for Christ and you think it's not working for you now, just take comfort in the fact that Jesus warned us in this parable.

Know that you can have love, success, joy and peace; God can turn tremendous suffering into tremendous joy. You can have purpose in life. Your sin-muddied life can turn into a life of holiness and righteousness.

You can be transformed by God but it comes at a cost. Be prepared to pray to the Lord and surrender your life fully to him. Ask Him to take control.

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Source by Matthew Robert Payne

A Psychological Profile Of Jimi Hendrix

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Jimi Hendrix

Biographical Overview

If ever there was a guitar player who redefined this instrument for anyone who has ever played it before or since, it would be Jimi Hendrix. Jimi's exceptionally creative, powerful, psychedelic licks helped him reach a musical standard that has never been duplicated, and in his four short years as a recording star he established himself as a musical legend without equal. His performances at the Monterrey Pop Festival which established him as a star, and later at Woodstock were some of the most awe-inspiring in the history of live music, and history will remember Jimi Hendrix as one of the most influential albeit enigmatic and mysterious musicians who ever graced the stage.

Jimi Hendrix was born John Allen Hendrix on November 29, 1942 to James (Al) Hendrix and Lucille Jeter in Seattle, Washington. Jimmy's father Al, who would be his primary parental force throughout Jimi's life, was in the Army when Jimi was born. Fearing that Al would go AWOL to go see his newborn son, the army placed Al in the stockade on "general principle" where he stayed for over a month until the army saw fit to release him.

Back in Seattle Jimi's mother Lucille quickly grew tired of being a single parent and virtually abandoned Jimi during his first few years of life. Jimi, then known as Johnny, first lived with Lucille's family, but was then placed with a woman named Mrs. Walls who took Johnny in and cared for him.

Al was finally released from the Army in 1945 when Jimi was three years old. Upon arriving back in the United States, Al regained custody of Johnny and promptly named him James after himself. Originally Jimi was known as "Buster" by his family, but at the age of 6 everyone began calling young James "Jimi" which would stick with him for the rest of his short life. Between the ages of 3 and 6 Al raised Jimi with the assistance of Lucille's Sister Dolores, and Jimi became very close to her children who were being raised in the same home.

When Jimi was 6, his mother briefly came back into Jimi's life when Al and Lucille attempted a reconciliation. Because there was little work in Seattle at the time, Al joined the Merchant Marines, and while he was away Lucille returned to her old carefree lifestyle, and was kicked out of the housing the Hendrix's were residing in for having inappropriate male visitors. Upon his return from the Merchant Marines, Al and the family reunited, and Lucille eventually had another son Leon in 1948, who had Asian features and was clearly not Al Hendrix's son. Lucille eventually had another son Joey by still a different father, and Al eventually divorced Lucille in 1950 as a result of her lack of stability.

Over the next few years Al raised Jimi and Leon with the help of his relatives, and Jimi briefly had another maternal figure "Edna" enter his life, who he grew close to but who was eventually forced to leave the Hendrix home to make room for other relatives. Lucille popped in and out of Jimi's life during his formative years, and would make extravagant promises to Jimi that she would not follow through on. On February 2, 1958, following many years of hard drinking and frivolity, Lucille passed away at the age of 32 which deeply saddened Jimi.

In his teen years Al Hendrix bought Jimi his first electric guitar which Jimi became so attached to that he slept with it on a nightly basis. Jimi was eventually recruited by a man named James Thomas, and Jimi then became a member of James Thomas and the Tomcats. During this same time frame, Jimi, who had grown disinterested in school, dropped out of Garfield High, and also got in trouble for being in a stolen car. Jimi eventually joined the Army during this period, and decided he wanted to be a paratrooper in the Screaming Eagles like his father before him.

Jimi met Billy Cox while in the Army and the two of them had a great deal in common including musical tastes. While in the army they begin to play a little together, and they formed a friendship and partnership that would later be rekindled when Jimi formed the band Band Of Gypsies.

Following his stint in the Army, Jimi moved down south and began playing the "Chitlin" circuit where he used the stage names "Maurice James" and "Jimmie James" and had some success as a guitar player. Jimi would even play backup on a Supremes record, and in 1964 he played with the Isley Brothers who were also very popular at the time. It was during this period when Jimi met Little Richard, who was a bit of a narcissist, and felt that Jimi's guitar playing upstaged him and took the focus off him which he felt was a necessary component of the act.

Jimi eventually split with Little Richard and moved to New York City where he at first had little success. After spending some time in Harlem, Jimi settled into the Greenwich Village neighborhood, where he formed a new band called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Jimi's unique improvisational style alienated a number of his fans, while others thought they were witnessing the birth of a genius. One of these people was Chas Chandler, who formerly played base for a band called the Animals who knew when he saw Jimi that he had discovered an amazing new talent. Chas convinced Jimi that he would have more success in England than in the United States, and in 1966 Jimi packed his bags and left the US to live in London.

While in London Jimi met Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, and the three of them formed the band The Jimi Hendrix Experience and begin touring around England. Jimi dazzled the English crowd, who were alternately shocked and amazed by Jimi, and he was described in the English papers as "The Wild Man of Borneo" which was a kind of racial slur against Jimi's heritage. The group was very successful, and their first album Are You Experienced produced the songs Hey Joe and Purple Haze which were both big hits on the English rock charts.

Jimi's breakthrough performance came upon his return to the Unites States at the Monterrey Pop Festival where his use of distortion and feedback on the guitar helped him create a sound previously unheard by American audiences. With the crowd already in a frenzy over his performance, Jimi set his guitar on fire at the end of his set, which further electrified the crowd and created a buzz about Jimi Hendrix that would propel him to the top of the music world.

One important ally Jimi made during this time was Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones, who introduced Jimi at Monterrey and was one of Jim's first important fans in the world of music. Following his performance at Monterrey, Brian introduced to Jimi to a lot of important people in California, which culminated in The Jimi Hendrix Experience being signed to go on tour with the Monkees who were one of the top drawing bands in the world at this time.

Jimi's wild style and sexually explicit actions on stage were not well suited to the Monkees crowd, and soon this tour dissolved and The Jimi Hendrix Experience began touring on their own. Over the next two years the band became hugely successful, and in addition to Hey Joe and Purple Haze, produced songs such as Castles Made of Sand, and Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, which were all big hits for the band. The band eventually produced three hit albums, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland which all were huge successes. The band was not without its difficulties however, as Jimi and Noel Redding had difficulties agreeing on several issues related to the band, and in the summer of 1969 the band broke up despite the fact that they were at the peak of their commercial success.

Some speculated that Jimi broke up The Jimi Hendrix Experience because both of his bandmates were white, and that he was receiving pressure from the Black Panthers to make a statement about Black solidarity. Although Jimi did have an association with the Panthers in the 1960's, he used the standard "creative differences" approach to explain the band's breakup. But in any case it was apparent that he was hurt by all of the negative press he received following this incident.

Following the breakup of The Jimi Hendrix Experience Jimi began heavily using drugs, and a major turning point came in his life when he was arrested on May 3, 1969 at the Toronto airport for possession of Heroin and Marijuana. Jimi adamantly claimed the drugs were not his, but was rightfully disturbed at the prospect of facing seven years in prison, and thought a great deal about his legacy following his arrest. Jimi was eventually cleared of these charges, but still faced a great deal of inner turmoil as a result of this experience.

In the summer of that year, Jimi put together a group of musicians to play with him at Woodstock, and his performance there was one that helped cement his legend as one of the truly inspired live performers in the history of music. His Star-Spangled Banner on guitar was a huge hit with the fans, and would later become one of the featured scenes in the Woodstock film recordings that were produced at the festival. Later that year Jimi would also play at England's answer to Woodstock, called The Isle of White Festival, where he also dazzled and amazed his English fans, many of who had been with him from the beginning.

At the end of his life, Jimi reunited with his old army buddy Billy Cox, and they formed the Band of Gypsies, which would be Jimi's final group. This group had some success, but Jimi was beginning to become fatigued from years of working almost constantly, his continuing drug use, and the anxiety he felt arising from battles with his management, and earnings in the millions that he could not account for.

In September of that year, as the group was touring Europe, Jimi Hendrix was found dead on his hotel room floor as a result of an overdose of sleeping pills that caused him to choke on his own vomit. Jimi's death was highly controversial however, as some claim he was mishandled by paramedics which caused him to eventually suffocate on the way to the hospital. Jimi's death has been thoroughly investigated and researched, and despite all of the claims, a coroner's report confirms that Jimi had been dead for some time when he was eventually found on the morning of September 18th.

The legacy of Jimi Hendrix endures, and many still consider him to be the most unique guitar player that ever lived. His estate has made millions of dollars following his death, most of which was originally hidden from his father by unscrupulous managers of Jimi's affairs. Al Hendrix and his family eventually won back Jimi's legacy with the help of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and Allen would eventually go on to build a Jimi Hendrix museum called the Experience Music project, which is a major tourist attraction in Seattle Washington.
Analysis
Gender Role Preparation perceived through Gender Guiding Lines and Role Models

Though his interactions with his father, Jimi learned the values ​​of hard work and perseverance that would guide him throughout his life and career. Although Jimi was occasionally portrayed as a spaced-out wild man under the influence of LSD, he was in fact an extremely hard worker who produced an amazing amount of material in his short career.

Jimi's father also instilled in Jimi the value of perseverance. Through all of his struggles with his wife Lucille, job difficulties, prejudice, etc, Al Hendrix continued to soldier on and raise his boy Jimi, and this lesson was not lost on his young son. This value of perseverance was so strong in Jimi that he practiced his guitar so often and so much that he eventually became a virtuoso. With no ability to read music and no real training, Jimi still managed to teach himself to play the guitar with his right hand despite the fact that he was born left-handed. All of these obstacles must have made the guitar very difficult for Jimi to learn, but through watching his father Jimi learned a man never gives up, and he therefore continued to work tirelessly at learning to play his guitar.

Jimi's female gender guiding line was much more complex. Although Jimi loved his mother, she disappeared often in his life, and Jimi was well aware of her infidelities towards his father. Later in his life Jimi's interactions with women appeared to be unstable, and his fear of commitment with women may very well have arisen from watching his mother's irresponsible behavior.

Jimi's mistrust of women is interesting to consider with regard to one of the women he was the closest to named Devon Wilson. Devon was a former prostitute, heavy drug user, and party girl who had also been romantically linked to Mick Jagger during the late 1960's. Devon lived with Jimi at his New Your apartment, handled many of Jimi's affairs, and was even the subject of one of Jimi's songs called Dolly Dagger. Like Jimi's mother Lucille, Devon would often disappear for days at a time and then come back when she was done with her extended binge. The fact that, despite Jimi's access to so many women, he trusted a clearly irresponsible woman like Devon Wilson to get closest to him, seems to suggest that he may have chosen her because her behavior was so much like his mother's growing up.
Interpersonal Style perceived through Experience of Family Atmosphere

On the subject of Jimi's mother, she and Al fought often while Jimi was growing up, and the Hendrix household was often filled with storm and strife when Lucille was around. Watching his mother and father fight so often appeared to affect Jimi's own relationships with women, as he was on several occasions verbally and even physically violent with women during periods of confrontation.

Jimi also lived in a number of different homes and places growing up, and in this capacity learned not to get too close to people as they may abandon you at any time. One poignant story Jimi himself related involved meeting his father for the first time at the age of three and taking the train from Berkeley to Seattle. Jimi recalled how much he wanted to return to the only "family" he had ever really known, and how odd it was to be taken on a train by some strange man he had never met. This sense of instability was reinforced often throughout Jimi's life, as a number of people would be significant in his life for a couple of years and then simply disappear, and this appears to have affected Jimi's ability to trust and get close to people.

Because Jimi was unable to achieve a sense of stability, he developed a shy and introverted personality that caused him a great deal of loneliness. Jimi dealt with painful feelings through artistic expression, and the ultimate capacity of his talent may have been a reflection of the intensity of his painful feelings.
Personal Code of Conduct Perceived through Acceptance / Rejection of Family Values

The family values ​​in the Hendrix household involved obedience to authority and a healthy respect for one's elders, and although Jimi had respect for his father, he came to distrust authority in his own life. There are many different versions of Jimi's life with Al Hendrix, many of which paint a picture of a very unhappy home life where Al constantly reminded his children of the sacrifices he had to make for his children. In Al's own autobiography My Son Jimmy (1999) he talked about how Jimi used to escape responsibility for his actions by blaming misdeeds on an imaginary friend named "Sessy" who Jimmy would evoke when he felt he had disappointed Al. It certainly must have been difficult for Al to raise Jimi by himself, and given the economic climate in Seattle at that time, there's no doubt that Al must have had to make some great sacrifices for Jimi. Perhaps Jimi's creation of an imaginary friend was a psychological defense against Al's disappointment, which seemed to be yet another factor in Jimi's unhappy childhood.

Another family value that Jimi seemed to reject concerned the family's views on religion. Although Jimi was raised by a church-going family who believed in worship, Jimi came to believe that his music was a form of great spiritual expression. Jimi rejected the stifling versions of Christianity he learned as a young man, and instead felt music was the way he could connect to the mystical and spiritual side of life.

Music also offered an escape for Jimi from his problems, and was certainly a positive adaptation for him to an unhappy childhood. Jimi often described how music would compose itself in his head, and his unparalleled talent in music may have been a result of this intense desire to escape his emotionally painful cognitions.
Perspective on the World perceived through Experience of Psychological Birth Order

As the first born son in the Hendrix household and the only son sired by his father Al, Jimi developed a sense that he was particularly special when he was a young man. Although Jimi's younger brother Leon spent a great deal of time with Jimi and his father growing up, he was also often shipped to another family during difficult times. The fact that Jimi was always the one that remained with his father must have made him feel like the "chosen" one much of the time, and he appeared to develop a sense that he was something special. This is not an uncommon reaction from a first born child, as they often receive more attention than their siblings do when they are born, as they become literally the center of their parent's universe.

For Jimi this situation did not unfold exactly like this, as his first three years were filled with a great deal of moving around that must have confused and frightened him at such a fragile age. The two women that adopted Jimi in these years both referred to his "specialness" however, so one can assume this was something he felt that was further reinforced when Al eventually came and got him following his release from the Army.

Jimi's biographers (Hendrix 1999) discuss how it was clear to Jimi that his younger brother Leon had a different father than him, and although Al certainly loved and cared for Leon, he must have felt some resentment from having to raise another man's child. Jimi therefore was the "favorite" growing up, and developed a sense of his own uniqueness that instilled in him a great deal of confidence in his abilities. This confidence was especially relevant in the early stages of Jimi's career, where audiences often disliked and were unable to understand his unique style of music. Although many artists would have become discouraged in this situation, Jimi was convinced of his own talent, and much of this resolve appears to have its roots in Jimi's early childhood experiences.
Self Assessment Perceived through Genetic Possibilities

Jimi Hendrix came from a talented family with a long history of performing in front of groups. Jimi's grandmother was an entertainer who traveled and worked as a singer and performer before her son Al was born, and even prior to this generation music was a strong part of the Hendrix tradition. Jimi's father Al and his uncle Leon both showed musical talent at a very young age, and both of them could play the piano, sing, and also dance at a young age, and often did so growing up. Jimi therefore appeared to have a predisposition to music that was inherited from the talented Hendrix family.

Jimi developed a stutter at a young age however, and was not confident as a singer and a dancer like the rest of his family. Therefore when Jimi did find a musical instrument to play, it appears that he compensated for his stutter by practicing a great deal on the guitar in an attempt to belong with his otherwise musical family.

Jimi also felt a strong identification with his family's Cherokee heritage. The extent of Jimi's Indian blood has been misrepresented often in several biographies that mention the subject. Jimi's father Al (Hendrix 1999) eventually clarified that Jimi's great grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee, but Jimi did feel a strong identification with this portion of his ancestry. Al Hendrix explained that when Jimi and the other children played games like Cowboys and Indians when Jimi was a kid, Jimi always wanted to be the Indian as it helped link him with a part of his Heritage. Jimi created a great deal of art as a child that depicted the Indians conquering the cavalry, and he even discussed later as an adult how he felt a sense of power that came from his Indian blood.

In considering this idea it is fascinating to examine the lyrics from one of Jimi's big hits, Castles Made of Sand-

"A little Indian brave who before he was ten, played war games in The woods with his Indian friends, and he built a dream that when he Grew up, he would be a fearless warrior Indian Chief. Many moons passed and more the dream grew strong, until tomorrow He would sing his first war song,
And fight his first battle, but something went wrong,
Surprise attack killed him in his sleep that night "

Reading the lyrics to this song which Jimi wrote, one can not help but wonder how much it reflected both Jimi's dreams as well as his disappointments. In many ways this song demonstrated the conditions of Jimi's life, as, despite having "conquered" the music world, he still was very anxious about his life circumstances as a result of his arrest and also the large amounts of money he was missing. Much like the little Indian in the story, Jimi had been blindsided by events in his life, and this song seems to reveal the depths of his unhappiness.
Openings for Advancement perceived through Environmental Opportunities

One important adaptation Jimi made as a young man concerned the first guitar he ever received which Al purchased for Jimi for the price of 5 dollars. Jimi, who was born left-handed but learned to do most things right-handed, changed the strings around on this right-handed guitar and instead played it left-handed which was an adaptation that would eventually have a direct impact on his future musical genius. Jimi learned that by manipulating the instrument like this he could get different sounds out of it, and later as an adult he played his guitars both upside down and backwards which helped him carve out his own unique sound that no one else was readily able to replicate . Because Jimi made this adaptation at such a young age and practiced so excessively, his technique became something that was uniquely his.

Another early experience that shaped the young Jimi Hendrix was seeing an Elvis Presley concert while he was growing up in Seattle. Jimi became fascinated by Elvis's showmanship, and much of his early artwork produced flattering pictures of the King. Although Jimi was somewhat shy throughout his life, on stage he truly had no inhibitions, and at least some of this he learned from watching Elvis when he was a young man. The impact of seeing Elvis live seemed to awaken in Jimi a sense of the heights a person could reach through playing music, and this rare opportunity was for Jimi a tipping point that helped give birth to his eventual persona as a stage performer.
Range of Social Interest perceived through Other Particularities

One barometer of a person's mental health can be observed by examining their relationships and interest in the welfare of other human beings. Jimi Hendrix, who appeared to have abandonment issues related to his childhood, and who had also been betrayed by several business associates, therefore seemed to have trouble developing a profound sense of social interest. Although Jimi was often approached about social causes, he seemed to be most comfortable letting his music do his talking for him, and did not feel as comfortable as an advocate and leader to promote social change as many of his 60's counterparts.

In this capacity it is interesting to consider Jimi's relationship with the Black Panthers as well as the larger issue of racism in the life of Jimi Hendrix. Growing up Jimi watched his father experience a great deal of racism related to finding jobs, etc. and this must have affected the young Jimi a great deal, as a lot of his early artwork depicts struggles for equality and justice. Jimi also experienced racism following his release from the Army when he went to play the "Chitlin" circuit in the Southern United States, where there was clearly different treatment for white and black musicians.

Jimi was eventually discovered a white man Chas Chandler, and found fame and acceptance with two white musicians who were of course Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. Although Jimi found success in the UK with these two men, he was still mocked by the British papers as "the wild man of Borneo" and with other racial epitaphs that appeared to alternatively mock and praise Jimi. Jimi eventually became known for playing "white" music by some of the more extremist black national groups in the United States, and many speculate it was the Black Panthers who pushed Jimi into eventually disbanding the Jimi Hendrix experience to form an all-Black band. Although there are widely varying accounts as to Jimi's relationship with the Panthers, it seems clear that Jimi was heavily conflicted about the issue of race.

In terms of social interest, Jimi's use of escapism through music is also interesting to examine. Music appeared to be the one thing that let him escape painful thoughts and feelings, and it was only when he had to quit playing and deal with other human beings when he seemed to be unhappy. People certainly took terrible advantage of Jimi throughout his life, as he died with only 21,000 thousand dollars in his banking account as a result of people pilfering millions from him over the course of his career. Jimi's lack of social interest therefore appeared to be based on very real experiences with people in the world, as his early home life and professional career were filled with repeated abandonment, disappointments, and betrayals from those that he thought he could depend on.

Jimi also had a great deal of narcissism, much of which contributed to the development of his music, which was also a defining characteristic of his personality. Many people who had experienced the kind of rejection Jimi had at the beginning of his career would have simply returned to playing mainstream music, but Jimi truly believed that his music was something special despite the negative reinforcement he had received from the New York crowds. A narcissist will often believe his or her own way is not only special and unique, but also better than the way anyone else is doing it, and this was very much demonstrated by Jimi's creation of his own music.

Although narcissism is often malignant, many exceptionally talented people demonstrate high levels of this trait in their dealings with others, which was certainly true in the case of Jimi Hendrix. When someone disagrees with or challenges someone who is malignantly narcissistic, their reaction may be extreme irritation, and Jimi's interpersonal relationships seemed to represent this idea. His habitually abusive behavior towards women showed Jimi had a very low tolerance for frustration, and when others, and particularly women disagreed with him, his response to this frustration was very often physical violence.

Jimi's violence towards women may have also arisen in part from his interactions with his mother Lucille, as Jimi never seemed to develop a healthy respect for women throughout his life. His lack of a consistent feminine presence and maternal gender guiding line growing up must have created some anger in Jimi, and hearing his father's descriptions of his mother's life may have also contributed to this dynamic.

Jimi's life was therefore empty of the kind of social interest in others that many felt was a larger part of the idealism of the 1960's. Although Jimi participated in some of the causes and issues of his times, his involvement was often at the recommendation of those around him. Jimi's lack of trust in other people, which had its roots in childhood patterns, was reinforced often throughout his life, and Jimi overcompensated for his lack of interest in others by developing a truly awe-striking ability that allowed him to escape from the world. Although this talent was extraordinary, it seemed to be in part created through the sublimation of his personal pain, and this left Jimi without a path other than music in which to actively experience joy in his life. Jimi's gift of music to the world was and is a lasting contribution that influenced thousands of musicians both before and after him, but was also in many ways a reaction to a troubled history, and this was the sadness and irony of this truly unique musician.

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Source by Joe Guse

Do's And Don'ts Of Wearing Jewelry To A Friend's Wedding

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Whether you agree or not, but you will any day enjoy your bestie's wedding more than your own wedding. Therefore, do not you think you need to look amazing on this day? You never know, you might bump into a guy who might become your future "prince charming" (of course, if you are single and ready to mingle). To bedazzle everyone at your friend's wedding, all you need to do is pamper yourself in a professional spa, pick a designer Indian attire, choose some dazzling Indian jewelry and of course, choose the ethnic bag that goes with it. You may confidently choose all the above-mentioned stuff to doll up, but in the case of jewelry, you need to be very careful.

Jewelry are the stuff that makes your attire look even better, so you need to pick the right trinkets that'll not just make your outfit look stunning, but will also make you pretty. Here are some do's and don'ts that will help you accessorize your outfit:

Do's of wearing jewelry to a friend 's wedding:

• The first and foremost thing that you have to do is choose ornaments according to your outfit. While purchasing an ornament, you must always make sure that they compliment the attire really well; or else, it will turn into a disaster. For example, with ethnic attire purchase a jadau or polki set, and with western wear purchase a trendy statement necklace or earrings that would increase your attire's charm.

• If you want to look modern and chic, purchase latest designer ornaments to look marvelous. For instance, Victorian styled jewelry are trending, so what you can do is purchase a Victorian statement necklace or earrings, that would do justice to your outfit.

• Play with colored ornaments as much as possible, especially if your outfit has a single tone or color. For instance, if you are donning a fully black outfit, then try to accessorize it with colorful statement pieces, such as statement necklace that has hot pink colored beads / stones.

Don'ts of wearing jewelry to a friend's wedding:

• If you are planning to purchase trinkets according to the color of your outfit, hold on! That's not at all a good idea. The 'matchy-matchy' concept has lost its existence long back. Now, it's time to mix and match your clothes with accessories.

• Do not over accessorize your outfit, otherwise you are going to look very cheap. While wearing ornaments keep the "less is more" concept in your mind.

• Do not put on too many statement pieces, because that's not going you look ultra-attractive. Just remember one thing, statement necklaces or earrings are worn to create a "statement" and to drags everyone's attention onto that particular dazzling piece of jewelry. But, if you put on too many statement pieces, then the people will not be able to focus on any one piece; and on top of that, the entire look will be spoilt as it will look over accessorized.

These were the do's and don'ts of wearing jewelry to a friend's wedding or any other occasion. From now onward, follow the above given tips and accordingly accessorize your attire.

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Source by Pallabi Ray Chaudhuri

Women's Cosmic Personality Quiz: Are You a Star Woman or an Earth Mother?

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Star Women are visionary leaders, and focused on the future. Earth
Mothers are focused on nurturing, caring, and giving. Knowing which of
these beautiful images best represents you can lend you a better
understanding of your own nature and improve your relationships with
others.

All women have both Earth Mother and Star Woman attributes, but one
is your primary identity. When the situation requires it, we can call forth
the other personality type to help us. "

Find out where you stand in the cosmos. Give yourself one point for
each statement that is most often true about you:

  1. I would rather lead than follow.
  2. I hate housework.
  3. I always dreamed of having my own business.
  4. I am very ambitious.
  5. I love envisioning the future and making it happen.
  6. I take more risks than most other people.
  7. I am decisive.
  8. I'll do almost anything to avoid feeling dependent on other people.
  9. I usually make more money than my partner or the men I date.
  10. My partner works for me.
  11. In a group situation I always end up taking charge.
  12. I can be so focused on my goals that I do not notice people's feelings.
  13. I'm more comfortable being in control most of the time.
  14. I sometimes act like a prima donna.
  15. I pursue my goals relentlessly.
  16. I think more about the big picture than the details.
  17. I'm good at inspiring other people to take action.
  18. I have difficulty relaxing and putting work aside.
  19. I feel that I'm here to accomplish something really important.
  20. I'm always thinking and planning far ahead.

SCORING

1 – 7 Points – Earth Mother

Thank goodness for strong Earth Mothers! We need the nurturing,
sustaining energy you grounded gals bring to this world. Earth Mothers
derive great satisfaction from selflessly giving, serving and helping other
people. Their power and leadership abilities are directed towards
others. They are the wonderful women who attend to, and care for, their
families and communities.
Because Earth Mothers often have trouble saying "no" to others and
tend to be people pleasers, you may find yourself easy prey for
domineering men. Work on finding your inner center of power so you
will have the emotional strength to make sure your needs and opinions
are taken seriously.
8 – 13 Points – Combination Earth Mother & Star Woman

A great many women have managed to cultivate a wonderful balance of
both Earth Mother and Star Women characteristics. Gentle but powerful,
combination women are a force to be reckoned with!

In certain circumstances or periods of life, you may find yourself leaning
more closely to one role or the other. Revel in your ability to balance the
combination and be proud of all you are.
14 – 20 Points – Star Woman

Welcome to the cosmic club of Star Women! You gung-ho gals are
natural born leaders who are driven to set and accomplish goals and
who persuade and inspire others. Ambitious visionaries, Star Women
are often destined for greatness.
While Star Women possess a great masculine, action-oriented type of
energy, you may find yourself a little short in the nurturing and empathy
department. This can make you appear cold or standoffish to others.
Work on developing a pool of more gentle, receptive feminine energy to
balance things out and let your softer side show.

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Source by Barbara Wright Abernathy

The Psychology of Children

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On the need to focus on childhood events along with the developmental theories for a comprehensive psychology of children

Child psychology is associated with the social and personal development of children and a child goes through several stages before stepping into the adult world. The psychology of children has been studied from various perspectives including issues of nature and nurture and whether the child is a product of genes and heredity or a product of society and environment as also different developmental stages of sensory discrimination and perception, emotional expression and learning through language and cognitive development, development of intelligence and the socialization process. The study of child sexuality and sexual and moral development are also very important especially from a psychoanalytic viewpoint.

Children are vulnerable and affected easily by all events in the immediate environment. Events which are only trivial or unimportant to adults, may leave deep scars or memories in a child's mind. A child's mind is extremely impressionable and changeable and before the child reaches adolescence, certain very insignificant events can have great personal significance in a child's life. So 'childhood memories' and 'childhood events' are primary factors in determining adult personality pattern. Some major factors which can affect a child's later development and have potential long term effects are:

1. Loss or gain of a friend or friends
2. Memorable physical / bodily sensations
3. Separation in the family or divorce of parents
4. Domestic abuse or violence
5. Sexual molestation or abuse
6. Learning experiences either at play or during study
7. Personal experiences / events that evoked strong emotions of fear, joy, sorrow etc.
8. Accidents or illnesses experienced or observed
9. Death of family members, neighbors or close ones
10. Change of residence or relocation
11. Emotional relationships with friends, teachers or family members
12. Personal success or failure in school
13. Influence of films, stories, books or news events
14. War, terrorism, conflicts, bomb attacks etc.
15. Natural calamities like earthquakes, flood, famine etc.

The factors here are very general and every child goes through certain very specific events that affect him or her individually although there are certain very general theories in psychology that have been established through research studies and these theories have highlighted links between success or failure in later life and childhood events. Some of the major theorists of child development are John Bowlby, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg and Lev Vygotsky. Whereas Bowlby emphasized on childhood relationships, Piaget focused on cognitive development of the child through various stages and Freud wrote extensively on sexual development of children. Kohlberg studied moral development of children whereas Vygotsky analyzed the socialization process of children through social contextualism. All these theories on different aspects of child development only prove the immense complexity and the varied number of factors that tend to play a role in the psychological development of children. There are many dimensions to the psychology of children from social, emotional to cognitive, sexual and moral. Here I will provide a brief account of all these different theories and finally provide a comprehensive analysis on how these theories could be used along with the general factors listed above in the study of the psychology of children.

John Bowlby, a British psychiatrist, developed the 'attachment theory' in which he emphasized the importance of a mother or primary caregiver in a child's life. He showed in his study that any infant should develop and maintain a warm and intimate relationship with the mother or mother substitute and all maternal deprivation can lead to serious mental health problems in the child later in life. Bowlby's theory is very true and a mother should develop a strong physical and emotional intimacy with the child by being physically close to the child at least until the child is 2 years old. Doctors around the world have recommended breast feeding and an important part of this is the physical closeness between the child and the mother which is extremely necessary once the child is out of the mother's womb. When the child is released from the mother's womb, the first emotion is fear and the mother's continued physical closeness instills confidence and a sense of security in the child. Orphaned children or children who are separated from their mothers at birth require a substitute or they can grow up as mentally ill or maladjusted individuals.

Freud on the other hand provided a complete psychosexual theory and emphasized on what many of us do not like to believe – the sexual pleasure of children. Freud overturned the concept of childhood innocence and suggested that we are born with our unrepressed basic instincts which are slowly tempered with social adaptation. Freud believed that the inherent pleasure seeking desires that we are born with focus on certain erogenous zones of the body and accordingly there are different stages of psychosexual development from oral and anal to phallic, latent and genital stages. In psychosexual development, the child's pleasure seeking behavior changes from the mouth as in sucking and biting to the anus through toilet training and then finally to the genitals. Thus the child according to psychoanalysis derives complete sexual pleasure by sucking, biting, playing with genitals and releasing waste by defecation. I do not necessarily endorse Freud's views on the sexual pleasure of children and the pleasure derived from bodily sensations could be explained in other ways as I will discuss in another article.

Jean Piaget, a French-Swiss philosopher established the theory of cognitive development in children and laid out four developmental stages – the sensorimotor period, the pre-operational stage, the concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage. The first stage is when the child develops spatial abilities and comes to terms with the world through the senses during the first two years of life. The second stage is about developing and using concepts when children understand meaning of things and this continues until the age of 7. From 7-11 years the child reaches higher cognitive development through concrete operational stage and can sort and classify objects and can use logic to solve problems. The formal operational stage that begins around 12 years of age helps children to understand abstract thoughts, hidden meanings etc. Kohlberg provided a theory of moral development of children through six stages of pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional levels. These are related to concerns for punishment and self interest, as also inner need for conformity and striving for social order, as maintaining universal ethical principles. So moral development seems to move from a belief of 'what is right and what is wrong' and whether there is punishment for the wrong to what is universally ethical and acceptable social behavior. Another prominent psychologist Vygotsky highlighted the importance of socialization and interpersonal communication and child development according to this theory is seen as an internalization of social and cultural knowledge.

Of course, all these theories will have to be added up and a complete or comprehensive theory that would provide an insight into the child's mind and behavior will have components from all these theories. In addition childhood experiences and events which have been highlighted in psychoanalytic theories are also extremely important and not just from a sexual point of view. All the general factors that I have mentioned in the beginning of the essay should be considered as factors that underlie social, sexual, moral, emotional, physical and cognitive development of children. As learning experiences lead to cognitive development, personal emotional experiences lead to later emotional development and maturity. Sexual molestation, abuse or other types of bodily sensations in childhood affect later sexual development and divorce or separation in the family can affect moral development. Thus an individual who has been molested as a child may either develop a fear of sexual activity or may show complete lack of sexual restraint as an adult.

A child who has lived without a father may either become extremely irresponsible or can develop into an adult with a very strong sense of parental responsibility. Experiencing trauma in childhood through death or accidents of family members or living in times of war, natural calamities have deep impact on children and can leave a perennial sense of insecurity or a need for attachment in the children which continues through adulthood and even old age or on the other hand these events can make a child isolated, schizophrenic or simply detached in later life. For healthy life of children it is important to not just depend on psychological theories to understand how a child grows up and perceives the world, but it is also important to focus on events or experiences of the child and use these along with the theories for complete psychological understanding of children.

In contemporary child psychology the focus on events is mainly psychoanalytic and the impact of adverse events is considered especially significant. However it is important that all events, positive and negative are considered and this should then be used to complement psychological theories. To understand the child, it is important to understand the child's world and memories so an 'event-based' psychology of children should be balanced with a 'theory-based' psychology of children.

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Source by Saberi Roy