Lapis lazuli is a semiprecious stone prized since antiquity for its intense blue color. It has been mined in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan for 6,500 years, and trade in the stone is ancient enough for lapis jewelry to have been found at Predynastic Egyptian sites. Lapis beads have been found at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh in Pakistan, the Caucasus, and as far from Afghanistan as Mauritania in northwest Africa.

Many of the blues in painting from medieval Illuminated manuscripts to Renaissance panels were derived from lapis lazuli and used in tempera paint. Ground to a powder and processed to remove impurities and isolate the component lazurite, it forms the pigment ultramarine. This clear bright blue, which was one of the few available to painters before the 19th century, was rare and expensive.

As tempera painting was superseded by the advent of oil paint in the Renaissance, painters found that the brilliance of ultramarine was greatly diminished when it was ground in oil and this, along with its cost, led to a steady decline in usage. Since the synthetic version of ultramarine was discovered in the 19th century, along with other 19th century blues such as cobalt blue, production and use of the natural variety has almost ceased, though several pigment companies still produce it and some painters are still attracted to its brilliance and its romantic history.

The first noted use of lapis lazuli as a pigment can be seen in the 6th- and 7th-century AD cave paintings in Afghanistan temples, near the most famous source of the mineral. Lapis lazuli has also been identified in Chinese paintings from the 10th and 11th centuries, in Indian mural paintings from the 11th, 12th, and 17th centuries, and on Anglo-Saxon and Norman illuminated manuscripts from c.1100. Natural ultramarine is the most difficult pigment to grind by hand, and for all except the highest quality of mineral sheer grinding and washing produces only a pale grayish blue powder. At the beginning of the 13th century an improved method came into use, described by the 15th century artist Cennino Cennini.

This process consisted of mixing the ground material with melted wax, resins, and oils, wrapping the resulting mass in a cloth, and then kneading it in a dilute lye solution. The blue particles collect at the bottom of the pot, while the impurities and colorless crystals remain in the mass. This process was performed at least three times, with each successive extraction generating a lower quality material. The final extraction, consisting largely of colorless material as well as a few blue particles, brings forth ultramarine ash which is prized as a glaze for its pale blue transparency.

The pigment was most extensively used during the 14th through 15th centuries, as its brilliance complemented the vermilion and gold of illuminated manuscripts and Italian panel paintings. It was valued chiefly on account of its brilliancy of tone and its inertness in opposition to sunlight, oil, and slaked lime. It is, however, extremely susceptible to even minute and dilute mineral acids and acid vapors, which destroy the blue color producing hydrogen sulfide in the process. Acetic acid attacks the pigment at a much slower rate than mineral acids. Because of this susceptibility, ultramarine was only used for frescoes when it was applied is such a way that the pigment was mixed with a binding medium and applied over dry plaster.

European artists used the pigment sparingly, reserving their highest quality blues for the robes of Mary and the Christ child. As a result of the high price, artists sometimes economized by using a cheaper blue, azurite, for underpainting. Most likely imported to Europe through Venice, the lazuli pigment was seldom seen in German art or art from countries north of Italy. Due to a shortage of azurite in the late 16th and 17th century the demand for the already expensive pigment increased dramatically.

In 1814 Tassaert observed the spontaneous formation of a blue compound, very similar to lazuli if not identical with it, in a lime kiln at St. Gobain, which caused the French Society for the Encouragement of Industry to offer, in 1824, a prize for the artificial production of the precious color. Processes were devised by Jean Baptiste Guimet and by Christian Gmelin, then professor of chemistry in Tubingen. While Guimet kept his process a secret Gmelin published his, and thus became the originator of the artificial ultramarine industry.

It was once believed that lapis had medicinal properties. It was ground down, mixed with milk and applied as a dressing for boils and ulcers. The Romans believed that lapis was a powerful aphrodisiac. In the Middle Ages, it was thought to keep the limbs healthy, and free the soul from error, envy and fear.

Visioning is a popular method in the studies of desirable futures that gives emphasis to values. The visioning process is based on the assumption that images of the future lead peoples’ present behaviours, guide choices and influence decisions. Images of the future can be positive or negative and cause different responses according to the perceptions.

Vision is usually seen as a positive, desirable image of the future and can be defined as a compelling, inspiring statement of the preferred future that the authors and those who subscribe to the vision want to create.

There are a number of issues that need to be addressed while using the visioning method. Vision comprises peoples’ values, wishes, fears and desires. In order to make the visioning process work it is necessary to ensure that it is not making an idealistic wish list, that vision is an image of the future shared by a whole community, and that the vision is translatable into reality.

Vision building is thinking in the future and determining where a person or organization wants to go. Individually, a vision will be different from visioning with a group. This way of visioning may work in this linear form of visioning, but there is a more powerful way of visioning which is called Field Process Visioning. It is a way of thinking about the vision as a surrounding field. 

The epitome of Field Process Visioning is captured in Cervantes’ statement, “The road is more important than the inn.” Here goals are minimized, and the road or the field is emphasized. In so doing, the ubiquitous nature of the vision arises into the present moment. Instead of having a destination to pull a person or organization forward, Field Process Vision permeates and guides the individual and the organization.

Clarity between the difference of vision and mission is essential. Vision is knowing where you want to go or what you want to become. Vision includes both tangibles, such as what products define you in the world, as well as intangible products such as the surrounding values, virtues and culture. Vision is like a collage of you and your family, or you and your organization, and you are all standing in the present while unfolding the future intention.

Peter Senge, in The Fifth Disciple Field Book, says “The test of a vision is not in the statement, but in the directional force it gives the organization.” Mission is the reason for being and the work being pursued to realize the vision. 

Dr. Michael Beckwith states that “Visioning is a process by which we train ourselves to be able to hear, feel, see, and catch God’s plan for our life or for any particular project we’re working on. It is based on the idea that we’re not here to tell God what do or to ask God for things, but to absolutely be available for what God is already doing, to open ourselves up to what’s already happening.”

When Einstein said, “I want to know the thoughts of the creator, the rest is a detail,” he was demonstrating the difference between leadership and management. Management is concerned with the details of the vision, leadership with goals and values. Both are important and both have their place in the creative process in which an individual or organization is engaged as one brings dreams into actuality.

Fire is the oxidation of a combustible material releasing heat, light, and various reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water. Archaeology indicates that humans might have controlled fire as early as 790,000 years ago.

The control of fire by early humans was a turning point in human cultural evolution that allowed for humans to proliferate due to the incorporation of cooked proteins and carbohydrates, expansion of human activity into the night hours, and protection from predators.

One of the primary changes to the behavior of humans due to the control of fire was the utilization of the light. With the light from fires, activity was no longer restricted to the daytime. In addition, animals in general avoid fire and smoke. Another change that fire provided was the opening of the nutrition in cooked proteins.

The cooking of plant foods may have triggered brain expansion by allowing complex carbohydrates in starchy foods to become more digestible and allow humans to absorb more calories. Because of the indigestible components of plants such as raw cellulose and starch, certain parts of the plant such as stems, mature leaves, enlarged roots, and tubers would not have been part of the hominid diet prior to the advent of fire. 

Instead, the diet consisted of the parts of the plants that were made of simpler sugars and carbohydrates such as seeds, flowers, and fleshy fruits. The incorporation of toxins in the seeds and similar carbohydrate sources also affected the diet, as cyanogenic glycosides such as those found in linseed, cassava, and manioc are made nontoxic through cooking. 

The use of fire profoundly altered the landscape. Intentional burning of vegetation was taken up to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories, thereby making travel easier and facilitating the growth of herbs and berry producing plants that were important for both food and medicines.

It is believed that the earliest pottery was hand built and fired in bonfires. Firing times were short but the peak temperatures achieved in the fire were high. Clays tempered with sand, grit, crushed shell or crushed pottery were often used to make ceramics, because they provided an open body texture that allows water and other volatile components of the clay to escape freely.

The first technical application of the fire may have been the extracting and treating of metals. There are numerous modern applications of fire. In its broadest sense, fire is used by nearly every human being on earth in a controlled setting every day. Users of internal combustion vehicles employ fire every time they drive. Thermal power stations provide electricity for a large percentage of humanity. 

Divination, from the Latin divinare to be inspired by a god, is the attempt of ascertaining information by interpretation of omens or an alleged supernatural agency, either by or on behalf of a querent.

If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune telling, divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a religious context, while fortune telling is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Divination is often dismissed by skeptics, including the scientific community, as being mere superstition.

Psychologist Julian Jaynes categorized divination according to four types. 

1) Omens and omen texts: “The most primitive, clumsy, but enduring method is the simple recording of sequences of unusual or important events.” Chinese history offers scrupulously documented occurrences of strange births, the tracking of natural phenomena, and other data. Chinese governmental planning relied on this method of forecasting for long range strategy. It is not unreasonable to assume that modern scientific inquiry began with this kind of divination.

2) Sortilege, consisting of the casting of lots, or sortes, whether with sticks, stones, bones, beans, coins, or some other item. Modern playing cards and board games developed from this type of divination.

3) Augury, a form of divination that ranks a set of given possibilities. It can be qualitative, using shapes and proximities. For example, dowsing developed from this type of divination. The Romans in classical times used Etruscan methods of augury such as hepatoscopy, which examined the livers of sacrificed animals.

4) Spontaneous. An unconstrained form of divination, free from any particular medium, and actually a generalization of all types of divination. The answer comes from whatever object the diviner happens to see or hear. Some religions use a form of bibliomancy where they ask a question, riffle the pages of their holy book, and take as their answer the first passage their eyes light upon. Other forms of spontaneous divination include reading auras and New Age methods of Feng Shui such as intuitive and Fuzion.

In the 2nd century, Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan, Alexander the false prophet, trained by “one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure, and successions to estates”. Though most Romans believed in dreams and charms, divination was considered a sin in most Christian denominations.

This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes on the subject of Christian dating sites. She invites your feedback at hollymccarthy12@gmail.com

The pursuit of happiness is one goal that’s common to almost every single one of us — perhaps it’s only very young children who are able to be truly happy without being conscious of the emotion. The psychology of happiness is not easily understood, because each of us is unique, and what makes one person happy need not necessarily induce joy in another. But there are a few things in life that do bring happiness universally — a loving family, supportive friends, a job that you love, a nice pay packet, an understanding boss, a great relationship, passionate sex and burgeoning romance, healthy and smart children, achievements in various activities like sports and performing arts, and so on. 

It’s simple enough to figure out why people feel happy when they have one or more of the above-mentioned aspects in their lives on a continued basis. What’s quite hard to understand is why some of us need to feel extreme thrills (like bungee jumping) or near-the-edge experiences (like adventurous sports) in order to feel happy. And what’s even more difficult to grasp is the idea that some human beings have brains so perverted that they take pleasure in hurting and torturing others. 

Happiness is an elusive concept, one that varies not just according to the kind of person we are, but according to the kind of mood we’re in. It’s a common enough reaction to find pleasure in the antics of a child when you’re totally relaxed and feel equally irritated by the same actions when you’re in the middle of an important discussion that’s not going too well. 

There are many people who believe that happiness comes from doing something for others — altruism is said to be a great mood elevator, but from what I’ve seen, people who help others often expect something in return, even if it’s just gratitude. If you help someone out and they’re not openly grateful to you, you’re likely to feel slighted and irritated that you’ve “wasted” a good deed on someone who did not deserve it. 

In my book, there’s only one way to be truly happy at all times and in all situations — and that is to have no expectations at all and be totally content with what you have. When you don’t expect anything, you cannot be disappointed that it hasn’t happened. And when you’re satisfied with what you have, you don’t feel sad when you try to gain something more and fall short of your goals. 

That being said, it’s up to each of us to take care of our own happiness. There’s no use in placing the blame on all and sundry for our woes and misery when the truth is that true happiness comes from within. A large part of being happy involves taking each day as it comes, not building castles in the air, and learning to appreciate even the smallest blessings that are being showered on us. I’d like to conclude with a song we were taught when I was growing up — Happiness is like a circle of dancers in a ring; you have to keep it moving, or it doesn’t mean a thing. So be happy, and spread the good cheer around so that it comes back to you sooner or later. 

A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun. In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from a thin rod or a sharp, straight edge onto a flat surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. As the sun moves across the sky, the shadow edge progressively aligns with different hour lines on the plate. Such designs rely on the style being aligned with the axis of the Earth’s rotation. If such a sundial is to tell the correct time, the style must point towards true North, not the north magnetic pole, and the style’s angle with horizontal must equal the sundial’s geographical latitude. However, many sundials do not fit this description, and operate on different principles.

The custom of measuring time by one’s shadow has persisted since ancient times. In Aristophanes’ play, Assembly of Women, Praxagora asks her husband to return when his shadow reaches 10 feet. The Venerable Bede is reported to have instructed his followers in the art of telling time by interpreting their shadow lengths.

On any given day, the Sun appears to rotate uniformly about an axis, making a full circuit in 24 hours. A linear gnomon aligned with this axis will cast a shadow that, falling opposite to the Sun, rotates about the celestial axis at 15° per hour. The shadow is seen by falling on a receiving surface that is usually flat, but which may be spherical, cylindrical, conical or of other shapes. If the shadow falls on a surface that is symmetrical about the celestial axis, the surface shadow likewise moves uniformly and the hour lines on the sundial are equally spaced. However, if the receiving surface is not symmetrical, as in most horizontal sundials, the surface shadow generally moves non uniformly and the hour lines are not equally spaced.

Since half of the Earth’s globe is either north or south of the Equator, a sundial at a particular latitude in one hemisphere must be reversed for use at the reciprocal latitude in the other hemisphere. To position a horizontal sundial correctly, it has to point to the true South in the Southern hemisphere as in the Northern Hemisphere it has to point to the true North. Also the hour numbers on a horizontal dial run counterclockwise rather than clockwise. Sundials are not as common in the Southern hemisphere as in the North. One proposition for this is that when Europeans arrived, the mechanical clock was accurate enough for their purposes of time keeping and there was no need to erect sundials.

Among the most precise sundials ever made are two equatorial bows constructed of marble found in Yantra Mandir in India. This collection of sundials and other astronomical instruments was built by Maharaja Jai Singh II at his new capital of Jaipur, India between 1727 and 1733. The larger equatorial bow is called the Samrat Yantra (The Supreme Instrument); standing at 88 feet, its shadow moves visibly at one millimeter per second, or roughly a hand’s width every minute.

Designers of the Taipei 101, the first record setting skyscraper in the third millennium, brought the ancient tradition forward. The tower, tallest in the world when it opened in Taiwan in 2004, stands over half 1,640 feet in height. The design of an adjoining park uses the tower as the style for a huge horizontal sundial.

The association of sundials with time has inspired their designers over the centuries to display mottos as part of the design. Often these cast the device in the role of memento mori, inviting the observer to reflect on the transience of the world and the inevitability of death, such as “Do not kill time, for it will surely kill thee.” Other mottos are more whimsical: “I count only the sunny hours,” and “I am a sundial and I make a botch, of what is done far better by a watch.” Collections of sundial mottoes have often been published through the centuries.

Bach flower remedies are dilutions of flower material developed in the 1930s by Edward Bach, an English physician and homeopath. The remedies are used primarily for emotional and spiritual conditions, including but not limited to depression, anxiety, insomnia and stress.

The remedies contain a very small amount of flower material in a solution of water and brandy. Because the remedies are extremely dilute they do not have a characteristic scent or taste of the plant. Each remedy is used alone or in conjunction with other remedies, and each flower is believed by advocates to impart specific qualities to the remedy. Bach flower remedies are also used on pets and domestic animals. Remedies are usually taken orally.

Remedies may be prescribed by a naturopath or doctor, or recommended by a trained Bach flower practitioner after an interview. An individual may also choose the combination they feel best suits their situation. Some vendors recommend dowsing to select a remedy. 

The most well known flower remedy is the Rescue Remedy combination, which contains an equal amount each of Rock Rose, Impatiens, Clematis, Star of Bethlehem and Cherry Plum remedies. The product is aimed at treating stress, anxiety, and panic attacks, especially in emergencies. Rescue Remedy is a trade mark and other companies produce the same formula under other names, such as Five Flower Remedy.

Rather than being based on medical research using the scientific method, Bach’s flower remedies were intuitively derived and based on his perceived psychic connections to the plants. If he felt a negative emotion, he would hold his hand over different plants, and if one alleviated the emotion, he would ascribe the power to heal that emotional problem to that plant. He believed that early morning sunlight passing through dew drops on flower petals transferred the healing power of the flower onto the water, so he would collect the dew drops from the plants and preserve the dew with an equal amount of brandy to produce a mother tincture which would be further diluted before use. Later, he found that the amount of dew he could collect was not sufficient, so he would suspend flowers in spring water and allow the sun’s rays to pass through them.

Rather than recognizing the role of germ theory of disease, Bach thought of illness as the result of a contradiction between the purposes of the soul and the personality’s point of view. This internal war, according to Bach, leads to negative moods and energy blocking, which causes a lack of harmony, thus leading to physical diseases.

Bach was satisfied with the method, because of its simplicity, and because it involved a process of combination of the four elements: The earth to nurture the plant, the air from which it feeds, the sun or fire to enable it to impart its power, and water to collect and be enriched with its beneficent magnetic healing.

Bach flower remedies are not dependent on the theory of successive dilutions, and are not based on the Law of Similars of Homeopathy. The Bach remedies, unlike homeopathic remedies, are all derived from non toxic substances, with the idea that a positive energy can redirect or neutralize negative energy.

Temple Grandin is a professor at Colorado State University. She was diagnosed as autistic in 1950, and at age two she was placed in a structured nursery school with what she considers to have been good teachers. Grandin’s mother spoke to a doctor who suggested speech therapy, and she hired a nanny who spent hours playing turn based games with Grandin and her sister.

At age four, Grandin began talking, and she began making progress. She considers herself lucky to have had supportive mentors from primary school onwards. However, Grandin has said that middle school and high school were the worst parts of her life. She was the the one who everyone teased and picked on. She would be walking down the street and people would say “tape recorder,” because she would repeat things over and over again. Grandin states that “I could laugh about it now, but back then it really hurt.”

After graduating from Hampshire Country School in Rindge, New Hampshire in the 1960s, Grandin went on to college. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Franklin Pierce College, her master’s degree in animal science from Arizona State University, and her Ph.D. in animal science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Based on personal experience, Grandin advocates early intervention to address autism, and supportive teachers who can direct fixations of the autistic child in fruitful directions. She has described her hypersensitivity to noise and other sensory stimuli. She claims she is a primarily visual thinker and has said that language is her second language. Temple attributes her success as a humane livestock facility designer to her ability to recall detail, which is a characteristic of her visual memory.

Grandin compares her memory to full length movies in her head that can be replayed at will, allowing her to notice small details that would otherwise be overlooked. She is also able to view her memories using slightly different contexts by changing the positions of the lighting and shadows. Her insight into the minds of cattle has taught her to value the changes in details to which animals are particularly sensitive, and to use her visualization skills to design thoughtful and humane animal handling equipment.

One of her most important essays about animal welfare is “Animals are not Things,” in which she posits that animals are technically property in our society, but the law ultimately gives them ethical protections or rights. She uses a screwdriver metaphor: a person can legally smash or grind up a screwdriver but a person cannot legally torture an animal.

Grandin says “the part of other people that has emotional relationships is not part of me” and she has neither married nor had children. She lives alone in Fort Collins, Colorado. Beyond her work in animal science and welfare and autism rights, her interests include horse riding, science fiction, movies, and biochemistry. She describes socializing with others as “boring” and has no interest in reading or watching entertainment about emotional issues or relationships.

She has noted in her autobiographical works that autism affects every aspect of her life. She has to wear comfortable clothes to counteract her Sensory Integration Dysfunction and has structured her lifestyle to avoid sensory overload. She regularly takes antidepressants and uses a squeeze box (hug machine) that she invented at the age of 18 as a form of stress relief therapy.

Despite this anxiety, she has stated that, “If I could snap my fingers and become nonautistic I would not do so. Autism is part of who I am.” As a proponent of neurodiversity, Grandin has expressed that she would not support a cure of the entirety of the autistic spectrum.