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Tang dynasty women playing polo, paintings by Wang Kewei

The word polo is thought to derive from the Tibetan pulu, the wood from which the ball was made.  

Much controversy surrounds the origin of polo. Tibet, China, Iran, India, and Central Asia have all been proposed as homelands for the game. It remains possible that the game had more than one point of origin, though a recent study has argued convincingly that polo developed in northeastern Iran out of the equestrian chase games played by the mounted nomads of Central Asia in the last centuries before the Common Era.

Polo probably was introduced to China sometime between the end of the Han period (206 B.C.E.- 220 C.E.) and the early part of the Tang dynasty (618-907). It seems likely that it was introduced by the Xianbei tribes that controlled northern China from the fourth to sixth century. The ruling house of the Tang dynasty, the Li family, itself had Xianbei ancestry, at least on the maternal side. The Xianbei, because of their nomadic origins, had a great fondness for horses, a trait that (like many aspects of their culture) was inherited by the Tang dynasty. It is also notable that the Xianbei accorded higher status and more physical freedom to women than the Han Chinese, so women became avid polo players under the Tang dynasty.

The emperors of the Tang dynasty such as Zhongzong, Xuanzong, Muzong, Jingzong, Xuanzong, Xizong, and Zhaozong were all supporters and participants themselves in the polo sport. In the 6th year of the Tianbao era (747), Emperor Tang Xuanzong issued a special order, and declared that polo would become one of the subjects for military training.

Polo was wildly popular during the Tang dynasty but it was also dangerous; riders thrown from their horses were frequently injured or killed. So sometimes donkeys were used instead of horses - as a safer alternative.

The Tang era terracotta figurines of polo players, both male and female, were unearthed in China. The game is also depicted on paintings and on frescoes in excavated tombs.   

From Tang times on, the education of the upper class became more bookish, and martial skills, such as horsemanship, archery, and swordsmanship, came to play a lesser role in the elite life. So polo also gradually lost its popularity and completely fade away by the Qing dynasty. 

Women stopped playing polo much earlier - when the conservative Neo-Confucian teaching grew in popularity after the Tang dynasty fall. For women, Neo-Confucianism placed extra emphasis on chastity, obedience and diligence. A good wife should have no desire other than to serve her husband, no ambition other than to produce a son, and no interest beyond subjugating herself to her husband’s family. Of course, this left no space for physical training, horsemanship and sport.

https://sites.asiasociety.org/arts/asiangames/power02.html

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Green Snake, 1993, Tsui Hark

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Masaaki Sasamoto, Paintings.

Outstandingly exquisite paintings by Japanese artist Masaaki Sasamoto.

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Be sure to follow Supersonic Art on Instagram!

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sketch2020/3/11 by minovo wang https://www.artstation.com/artwork/k45rq6

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Legend of Hao Lan, starring Wu Jinyan, Mao Zijun, Nie Yuan

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Scorpio - Compulsive Control 

The issue of ‘control’ is one I feel I have to discuss with Scorpio. The Scorpio’s controlling compulsion is typical the residual excess of variable Scorpio qualities. Scorpio is a model of solo action and demands control over themselves, their decisions, and their future. They are rarely dampened by the opinions of others and react harshly to confinement. Scorpio refuses to answer for their actions, because they are unanswerable to you. This can create the sense isolation or distance for the individual. The intense internal activity is another contributing factor, the Scorpio’s unpredictable and hostile emotional experience leaves the individual feeling out of control. This exacerbates their need to control the external environment, to give themselves some sort of semblance of order. There are constant threats from invisible worlds, and secret snakes slithering by their sides. They are constantly fighting something unseen. So it is impossible for them to relinquish anything that can be seen, touched, and felt. The relationships and bonds Scorpio develops with other people are inherently intense. It’s all or nothing with Scorpio and their romantic encounters take ahold of the soul itself. Scorpios are fiercely protective of lovers and the little sun they have created together. It is terrifying when this becomes threatened, so Scorpios can exhibit these controlling behaviours with partners, at their worst becoming over surveilling and commanding. Scorpio is compulsive by nature. They operate out of pure survival and they can be bound by control.

-C.

[art: Xue Wang]

[qualist]

i dont think you have to question the genuineness of a scorpio in a friendship. kind of like virgo. a scorpio wouldnt bother keeping in contact or uttering a word to you unless they were fascinated, charmed or feel they have something to learn from you. they just don’t bother with people that are off frequency. this is probably why they are intensely loyal. they choose the people in their lives with great precision. a compliment from a scorpio will mean everything. you never have to question the pedestal they have you on

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Scorpio archetypes

Magician

Priestess

Shaman

Witch

Ambitious executive, familiar with power

The Hermit, who is the “missing” part in many people

Withdrawn Child 

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scorpios are flooding with compassion, but they can find it difficult to summon empathy when they see people making no attempt to help themselves first. scorpios know what it’s like to self destruct, and they know that in the end nobody can save you but yourself - this is why they are so brilliant at shining a light on people’s inner demons and also their personal power

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“Scorpio is always the author of their own destiny. They are strangely adult from infancy, and assume everybody to be equally able and willing to look after themselves. Here is, without exception, the most self-intent of the twelve types. Anything coming from the exterior and narrow world of less-introspective people seems thin, transitory, and inadequate”

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Scorpio

Dr Marc Edmund Jones

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“Scorpio I have seen miracles happen, when people just tell the truth. Not the ‘nice’ truth. Not the truth that seeks to please or comfort. But the wild truth. The feral truth. The inconvenient truth. The tantric truth. The ‘fucking’ truth. The truth you’re afraid to tell. The horrible truth about yourself The truth of your deepest feelings: The rage you have been concealing, controlling, pasting over. The terrors you do not want to speak. The sexual urges you’ve been trying to numb. The primal longings you cannot bear to articulate. The truth you’re afraid to tell. The horrible truth about yourself that you hide in order to ‘protect’ others. To avoid being ‘too much’. To avoid being shamed and rejected. To avoid being seen. Finally, the defences break down, and this ‘unsafe’ material emerges from deep within the unconscious. You can’t hold it back anymore. The image of the ‘good boy’ or ‘nice girl’ evaporates. The ‘perfect one’, the ‘one who has it all figured out’, the ‘evolved one’, these images burn. The truth of how you feel. The truth that lets another person see you in the raw. The truth that makes one gasp. The truth that makes your heart pound. This is the truth that will set you free.”

— - Jeff Foster

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scorpios desire to be understood is self-deceptive because they know the energies, forces, and symbols that flow through them cannot be articulated or known by the limitations of the mind. it reveals the cardinal longing for the warm body by their side that makes them feel less alone and disconnected, the intimacy that makes time stop, and the impassioned emotional entanglements that manage to touch the closest thing inside they could describe as “I”, - something incomprehensible glowing in a striking momentary silhouette

scorpio is the black mirror that catches people’s dark projections in a bottomless murky river. the scorpio’s reflection reveals the monster in apparition, the sinister and disintegrated shadows that belong to the people who refuse to acknowledge or accept the duality of their true nature, qualities never belonging to scorpio. but scorpios confront these reflective monsters regardless, and sometimes the constant association with the immoral and malicious dynamics of human nature becomes a condition they identify with. true or not, sometimes people who are constantly reminded how difficult, depraved, or bad they are begin to adopt and prove these characterisations correct. scorpios also lose a part of themselves when they do this, the healer and the saint is usually a force more present. 

scorpio is mesmerising, hypnotic incense carnal, sexual, emotional, loving, evolutionary, intelligent, and beyond words. it’s a concoction of mysterious and magic cosmic mixes that must be discovered, known, and tamed or else they will be taken hostage by forces that seem larger than personal will.  scorpio has to own their rawness and inability to shake that sense of aloneness. they have to intensify the sound of their soul, vibration, and name as loud as it goes and prove the false illusions of those projections.  the Lord of the Underworld refuses to accept anything less. if you longed for another life, he would probably reply that you would be far worse to be anything else,  and to stand dignified in your own body and eternal being with the secret knowledge that you conduct this all, otherwise the Lord of the Underworld will likely give up and assume you have already spiritually died. scorpio cannot be understood, and if people try to understand it will never be in the way that scorpio wants, trying to interpret this with a brain and language and it can only real be seen and felt on the inside

C

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in scorpio there is an ancient elder who is resiliently graceful, has walked this path many times before and undertakes spiritual battles while healing those burned by the flame of life and a furiously volatile young being who is incensed at the world and hell bent on self-destruction and following the routes of obliteration 

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just for fun if i could decide, i would decide for god to be a scorpio, because scorpio is a mastermind, and scorpio would have a plan of destiny for everybody that challenged and ascended them, and scorpio would have a world of harmony, this may be surprising to think because mars rules scorpio, but the bad people would be punished, the bad people would be punished so badly that we would all be forced to look at the bad in us and understand the polarity of existence. the good would be rewarded. justice would prevail

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scorpios will only come to your rescue when you’re in complete free fall … and even then they will only advise you where to land so it hurts a little less. scorpio is a healer, and the best kind of healing scorpio does is the way of personal redemption, the way of showing other people the weapons are there to destroy their demons and have been all along