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queenofcandynsoda · 10 months

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Multiverse OC: Agnes Helvig

Agnes Helvig

Names: Real name is hidden away/[REDACTED], Agnes Glöckner (disliked), Agnes Helvig

Aliases: Xochitlicue (El Dorado), Sybella (Mesopotamian), Omarosa (Babylon), Dwura (Assyria), Onatah (Akkadian), Devorah (Old Hebrew), Wadjet (Ancient Egyptian), Hecate/Hekate (Greek), Trivia (Roman), Sassa (Old Norse), Gabija (Baltic), Avia Trivia (Sol Fertilis)

Titles: Mother of Witches and Warlocks, Giver of Magic, Goddess of Witchcraft, Ghost Goddess, Woman in the Crossroads, The One Who Can Not Be Judged, The One Who Protects, The White-Haired Seer, The Woman with Golden Eyes, Serpent Goddess, The First Witch, The Woman Who Wants to Be Forgotten, The Uncanny Crone (by the Church of Blood), The Mysterious Benefactress, The Fiery Maiden, The Ancient Virgin (can no longer use), The Creature that Won’t Die, Grandmother of the Ayran Race (disliked), Reborn Queen of the Great Earth, Stingy Bitch (by John Constantine)

Age: 100,000+ (Chronologically), Mid-20s (Physically)

Gender: Female

Height: 5’8” (173 cm)

Birthday: Unknown

Race: Half-Cosmic/Underworld Goddess and Half-Demon Goddess

Residence: El Dorado (partially, currently), Semi-nomadic, Buto, Egypt (formerly), Selinunte, Sicily, Italy (formerly), Viking era Denmark (formerly), Lithuanian countryside (formerly), Kutha (birthplace)

Relatives: Ereshkigal (Biological mother, deceased), Nergal (Biological father, estranged), Inanna (maternal aunt), Nergina Fritz (Half-sister), Aunt Sis Fritz (Step-mother), Nyx (adoptive mother), Nyx’s children [Aether, Hemera, Moros, Dolos, Thanatos, Hypnos, Oneiroi, Momus, Oizys, Charon, the Hesperides, The Fates [Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos], Nemesis, The Keres, Apate, Philotes, Geras, Eris, Amitola/Lucinda] (adoptive siblings), Twilight (adoptive niece by Amitola/Lucinda), Dr. Sigmund Glockner (Ex-husband, former captor), Xocoatl (Current Husband), Sehkmet, Bastet, Hathor, and Maat (foster sisters), Circe (adoptive daughter), Medea (adoptive daughter; disowned) Medea’s sons (adoptive grandchildren, deceased), Diedrich Glöckner (biological son, with Glockner), Malaea Koi (Granddaughter), The Cuckoos (Genetic Grandchildren), Tochtli (biological daughter, with Xocoatl)

Occupation: Goddess of Magic, Ghosts, Crossroads, the Moon, Travel, Mysteries, Hidden Passages, Fertility, Rebirth, and Gold (currently), Experiment (formerly), Goddess of Protection and Reunification (Egyptian, formerly), Goddess of Magic, Crossroads, and Ghosts (Greek/Roman, formerly), Virgin Goddess of Fire, Home, and Family (Baltic, formerly), Seer (Nordic, formerly)

Likes: Her Family, Xocoatl, Nyx, Offerings, Order, Rabbits, Gold, Reading new books, Modern Technology, Medicine, Kleicha, Chocolate, Tea, Traveling, The Underworld, Playing the Lyre, Animals, Dancing Dislikes: SIGMUND GLOCKER, National Unity Party, Witch Trials, Anyone who disrespects her, Mad Scientists, Being Trapped, Church of Blood, Grave Robbers, Gods’ Arrogance, Demons, Angels, John Constantine’s Antics, Forbidden Arts

Appearance: Often, Agnes is seen with waist-length golden hair and cyan eyes. Her skin appears silvery with a holographic shimmer. It is impossible to determine which race or ethnicity she is. Her eyes would glow golden whenever she used her magic. She has several surgical scars around her torso and upper legs from years of being the “wife” and test subject of Glockner. Those scars could not fade away regardless of what Agnes did. Sometimes, her eye colors vary from purple to red to green. She would have different hairstyles depending on the occasion.

Causal: Agnes currently wears a blue-purple sun dress with golden embroidery of the sun and moon. She also wears a pair of black sandals. Other times, she wears a purple short-sleeved blouse with dark blue high-rise jeans and a pair of black boots.

Young: As a child, Agnes would wear a black tunic with silver accents, given to her by Nyx.

El Dorado: While staying with Xocoatl in El Dorado, she wears a white tunic with blue and violet accents and a white skirt/loincloth. She also wears turquoise earrings, a pair of golden arm bands, gold bangles, a gold and turquoise necklace, and two gold rings on her left hand.

Mesopotamian: As Sybella, she wears a white tunic dress with a violet shawl around her. She would have a pair of gold earrings and a necklace.

Egyptian: As Wadjet, she wears a green regal sheath dress with a scale design and a red robe with feathers and hieroglyphic patterns depicting guardianship. She also has a royal blue blindfold that covers her eyes in a crisscrossed way. Her wings resemble a falcon’s and she has what seems like closed eyelids. Her jewelry consists of a golden collar, ornate bracelets, a pair of serpent anklets, and a golden crown that has the uraeus with the Sun on the center.

Hebrew: As Devorah, she wears a long blue tunic with a violet cloak. She also wears a white mitpaḥat, a pair of silver earrings, and wool sandals.

Greco-Roman: As Hecate, Agnes wore black undergarments with a purple cloak. It is attached together with silver ornaments. She is always barefoot. Her physical appearance was greatly altered during this time. She had three faces and six arms. Two of them held a torch in each hand as one held keys and another held a dagger. Behind her head, there is a strophalos.

Baltic: As Gabija, Agnes wore a traditional red Baltic dress with a white shirt and a pair of black shoes. Her necklace is silver and her dress has a fiery movement. Her necklace is actually a grass snake that wraps itself on her neck.

Nordic: As Sassa, Agnes wore a blue hangerok with yellow and white ornaments around it. She also wore a pair of brown leather boots. She often wears a shawl during the harsh winter. During this time, her hair was very long. This allows her to fuse her hair to the floor and the walls of her private longhouse to see the legends of the Nordic Gods without directly interacting with them.

Sol Fertilis: In Sol Fertilis, she dressed as a Gamma Plus. Her clothes are a purple bodice with a tiered skirt, a pair of purple heels, a purple mantilla, and a purple wedding ring. She also wears a golden necklace with an amethyst and a pair of golden earrings. The clothes are from Ivoire, which is a luxury clothing brand. Her hair is braided in a Minoan style and covered in pearls.

Pre-capture: In 1920s Norway, Agnes wears a long, simple white dress with a girdle of vines and flowers. Her hair is braided with lilies of the valley and leaves with a wreath of white water lilies. She is often mistaken as a Skogsrå.

Capture: After being captured, Agnes was forced to wear “Ostanized” conservative clothes. Usually, she had to wear a teal dress with black stockings and black low heels. Her physical appearance deteriorated heavily during this time. Her hair had become stringy, her eyes become glassy, her skin had begun to crack and pale, and appeared malnourished.

Tomb: After her false death, Agnes wore a royal blue court dress made of satin, adorned with golden embroidery. The bodice is fitted with a voluminous skirt, complemented by a matching dress. A mantua in the same hue and adorned with golden embroidery drapes over the gown. She also has black dress shoes that also have gold embroidery. Glockner had her wrapped in Germanic and Old Zandian runes to make sure that she would not be able to move. After years underground, the dress looks tattered.

[REDACTED]: In a certain form, her hair becomes white, while it is burning hot, as her eyes become completely black in the shade where light can not be reflected. It looks like black tears come out of her eyes. The ends of her mouth extend to her ears and fangs form on it. The scars around her torso form to become mouths and have sharp teeth there as well. A pair of falcon wings appear on her back as eyes appear on them. She gains four pairs of horns. Her feet turn into falcon talons. Agnes wears a long purple Mesopotamian dress, which exposes her stomach and legs, and a black shawl. The edges of her shawl have golden linings and onyx. Her nails become black and sharp as if there is poison coming from them. For jewelry, she has a golden necklace with a pendant that has her personal sigil, a pair of obsidian earrings, three golden armcuffs, and a gold bracelet with runes. Finally, she wears a gold crown with the symbols of the moon, including crescents and a full moon, with stars made of obsidian and a long gold chain mail covering the upper portion of her hair.

Personality: Agnes is an aloof, studious, and quiet woman who has years of knowledge and experience. She has shown to others that she is hands-off, considering she rarely, if ever, interferes with the affairs of mortals and it is not uncommon for her to ignore calls for her. This is not the case with her close friends and family. Agnes takes her long-standing position as the Goddess of Magic very seriously as she is why magic exists among mortals. She refuses to interfere or get involved with mortals’ affairs unless it is necessary, such as dealing with inter-dimensional beings, including demons, mortals tampering with the natural order, unauthorized resurrection, and dangerous warping of reality, among others. She is often annoyed at being worshiped since she wants to remain hidden, especially since the 20th century. At the same time, she does not prevent it. Agnes deeply loves Diedrich, despite him being the result of the brutality from Glockner, and deeply regrets not being there in his life. She also wants to be a caring grandmother to the Cuckoos. She is rather cautious towards angels and demons since they are naturally opposed to her. Despite her cautiousness about demons, she is willing to help cambions. She has severe distrust towards any scientist due to the trauma and torture she endured under Glockner. She particularly hates scientists who use their technology to abuse others and is willing to either kill or maim them for that. Agnes is very interested in modern technology as she tends to infuse her magic with her cell phone, TV, laptop, wifi router, etc. Since marrying Xocoatl, she has become happier and more open as she is taking steps to recover from the trauma. She is highly distrustful towards Nergal and does not believe he is capable of changing. However, she cares deeply about Nergina and Aunt Sis, being concerned about their well-being.

#agnes helvig #multiverse oc #multiverse #DC AU #Grimm Adventures of Billie & Manny AU #Grimm Adventures of Billie & Manny #Spy X Family AU #FOP AU #TND AU #Courage the Cowardly Girl AU #Danni Phantom AU #Hazbin Hotel AU #Gravity Falls AU #Sol Fertilis #AAnA AU

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the-annotated-antichrist · 1 year

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Act I, Track 04 - Signs are here

Song links: Spotify - YT Music - Apple - Tidal

Today we meet Johanna Orsini, who was already mentioned in the last track. She is the main antagonist of the story and played by Chiara Malvestiti, an Italian soprano singer whom people who have seen Therion live in recent years will be well-aquainted with.

Another fun fact that you may or may not care about: Chiara started singing for Therion due to a recommendation by Melissa Ferlaak, who plays her mother in this work!

Chiara Malvestiti photographed by Federica Moretti

Born in Rome and remarkably gifted in many aspects already as a little girl, [Johanna] did choose to join the official school of the Catholic Church. When her parents and sister moved to Berlin, she demanded to stay in Rome and was left in the care of a fanatic religious sisterhood. As an adult she has become the leader of the same group, which has very strong bonds to the now restored Vatican state.

In this track, Johanna has a meeting with her order (which seems to include men too at this point). Also present are her two assistants and confidantes Agnes and Mare. I will write more about them later so this post doesn't become too long. The song starts out in a tranquil and solemn mood, I picture candles being lit in a gorgeous church.

[All:] In the grace of God we trust In the grace of God we trust In the grace of God we trust In the grace of God we trust

However, the members of the order are actually disquieted and the song becomes more tense:

[All:] Watching the sign of the Capricorn Daughters and sons of Adam Darkness, Johanna No longer sworn to cross the path of heaven [Agnes:] Enter night, enter night, fallen angel Satan Praised Master Jesus, enter thy dawn Hallelujah [Johanna:] I am ...still your Johanna

Sinners are, clearly, everywhere. What is a religious order to do? What will Johanna, being their leader, advise?

[Johanna:] Stand, dearest Agnes, by my side And Mare join her in the light Come, let our prayer rise and shine The flame of holy war ignite [All:] Jesus, save us, children of God! [Johanna:] Signs are here to tell of Antichrist [All:] Jesus, save us, children of God! [Johanna:] Stars align to form the end of time

Johanna sees very clearly that the Antichrist will soon arise and that they need to be vigilant. She speaks of holy war. I can see her walk around while speaking, addressing each person in turn. The song ends on a calmer note, with a call to unity:

[Men:] Two paths diverge in time Choose the one light travels by

[All:] Free thy soul and unchain thy heart Free thy soul and unchain thy heart In the grace of God we trust In the grace of God we trust In the grace of God we trust In the grace of God we trust

Clearly, Johanna is doing a fine job keeping her order focused and motivated. But where is she leading them? We will see...

#tracks #act 1 #johanna orsini #mare aravena #agnes azarova #symphonic metal #therion #taaposts #chiara malvestiti #opera #metal

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ambisun · 2 years

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Orchid - A Little Rain

Orchids are highly ornamental plants that range in colour, shape, and come in many hybrid forms. You’ll find the Vanda Miss Joaquim orchid on the card – a hybrid species created by Agnes Joaquim, a celebrated botanist and orchid breeder in the 1800s. This particular orchid is a blend of two unique varieties, which shows the perfect union between different species.

It also serves as Singapore’s national flower, standing as a symbol of unity and strength. The adaptability of the orchid to form new and unique forms, flowers, and shapes illustrates just how open to change nature, and by extension, you, can be.

#orchid #singapore national flower #vanda miss joaquim #floral art #botanical illustration #illustration #little rain oracle

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abwwia · 2 months

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Agnes Pelton’s “Star Gazer” (1929). A bud stands like a pilgrim, offering itself to an azure vase, behind which brilliant red hills soften. “The tension of unity in formation is the template of Pelton’s best work,” our critic says.Credit... via Whitney Museum of American Art

#Agnes Pelton #women painters #painting #art

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valkyries-things · 5 months

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AGNES ASCHE // RESISTANCE FIGHTER

“She was a German socialist who resisted the Nazis. Asche became a widow when her first husband died during WWI and between the wars, she was active in the Sozialverband Deutschland (Social Association of Germany). She became a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany and the communist-oriented Committee for Proletarian Unity. In September 1934, she was arrested for high treason and taken to the Hanover court prison for pre-trial detention. In June 1935, she sentenced to three years in prison. After her release, she remained active in resistance circles until the end of WWII. A street in Hanover was named in her honour in 1990.”

#female history #war history #german history

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2q5b · 8 months

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Mishpatim

By Ezra

February 7th, 2024

There’s the top of the mountain, and there’s the bottom of the mountain. Each and every Israelite, in this famously egalitarian way, is present at Mt. Sinai, but only Moses goes to the top. Everyone hears the voice of God, at first. But only Moses gets to stay with God for weeks on end, taking in the full teaching. The rest of us have to wait at the bottom of the mountain and wonder what is going on up there.

The verticality is invoked again and again. Moses goes up, comes down, goes up, comes down. Three times even before the ten commandments, and then more times after. The rest of us stand b’tachtit ha-har, underneath the mountain. Moses is told, aleh el hashem, go up to God. Our parasha even explicitly mentions, v’ha’am lo ya’alu imo. And the people are not to go up with him.

Last week I was in the grip of some really dark days. No energy, no drive, no self-confidence. Hopeless thinking, dwelling on thoughts of disaster, suffering, pointlessness. People reached out to me and I didn’t get back to them. I read the news and thought, everything’s just going to get worse. I didn’t want to work on the things I had previously been passionate about. My whole body was aching and I was exhausted– another flare-up of the mysterious illness that’s come and gone over the past nine months that my doctor can’t seem to figure out. And I stopped praying. It is my practice to pray at least once a day, either the morning, afternoon or evening service, even if I’m distracted and busy, even if it feels mechanical or burdensome. But in this place of stuckness and negativity and pain, day after day, even though I had the time, I skipped it. I just couldn’t get there, couldn’t see the point of it.

This mode of alienation is familiar to me. I know dark days well, have had many different types with different levels of intensity. I don’t have the kind of depression that afflicts me for weeks at a time. Mine comes and goes in a day, or three days. Sometimes I have to claw my way out of it, sometimes it just lifts. It’s nowhere near as debilitating as the kind some friends of mine have. But the experience of it is overwhelming, sometimes shocking. Especially strange is the transition in and out of that state: seeing the same world, my same life, through my same eyes, only a day later, and it looks utterly different.

Agnes and I, researching for our podcast a while back, found this other podcast called Inward with Rabbi Joey Rosenfeld, an addiction and recovery therapist with a Chabad background and who is extremely well-versed in Hasidic literature. Reading this week’s parasha I found myself remembering a teaching of his from around Shavuot, the holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. He teaches, with reference to various classic Hasidic texts, that there is a dichotomy of two modes in which one can receive the Torah, the divine wisdom: me’al ha-har, atop the mountain, and b’tachtit ha-har, underneath the mountain. One is a state of transcendence and freedom, where one can experience the pure unity of God. The other, the underneath-the-mountain consciousness, is a place where one feels stuck, without illumination, weighted down by the physical, living under a shadow, a place where “I don’t have that idealism, I don’t have that freedom to fly into states of transcendence, but rather, I feel the heaviness and the cords of connectivity of this world.” And the point is that both of these places are essential modes of the human encounter with God, that both are equally necessary for the receiving of the Torah. And though the holy and pure experience that Moses is having on top of the mountain is exalted and cosmic, it is the experience of being at the bottom of the mountain and still receiving the Torah from there that really brings the fullness of all that is human in contact with all that is beyond the human. And that’s the encounter that really needs to happen, that really causes God and the world to meet.

And what, after all, is God saying to Moses up there on the mountain, shrouded in darkness with fire burning at the top? Well, it is our parsha, Mishpatim, civil ordinances. Ordinary rules of how to deal with everyday life in human society. Penalties for property damage, for theft, for injury. You can point to various quotable statements of high-minded principle, but you can’t help but be struck by the immediate abundance of detail, the this-worldliness of it all. These are, apparently, the first topics on God’s mind when God finally instructs Moses on what to tell everyone. It’s as if God, having kept silent for centuries with regard to what human beings should be doing down here on Earth, is bursting with desire to be involved in our most non-Godly affairs. Whenever you think the text is about to lapse into the transcendent, it always regrounds itself in the physical. “People of holiness, anshei kodesh, you shall be to me,” one verse begins, and then finishes, “Flesh that is torn off in the field, you are not to eat; you shall throw it to the dogs.”

But maybe most un-transcendent of all is the section that opens the parasha, the first rules given to Moses alone. It is an extended section about the laws of slave ownership. Everyone hates this part. Nothing takes you out of the experience of reading the Torah like this moment. Not only is this where the epic saga of miracles and liberation turns into a meticulous law book, but the laws are about slavery. Here God seems to permanently enshrine the practice of human beings owning other human beings, the practice that has been the source of some of the worst exploitation and human suffering in history, in memory both ancient and recent, even contemporary, its poisonous effect materially reverberating through our society, our communities, our own bodies.

This is the moment where some get bored and some get sick, and either one can be your reason to walk away from this book. This is where depression sets in, where the whole thing, the whole Torah, can suddenly seem pointless, a story of liberation and mountaintop-reaching that immediately puts you right back at the bottom of the mountain, crushed by its uncaring weight, right back in the grip of slavery, in the world of the domination of subordinates and the perennial invincibility of the rich. I feel that alienation from our Torah. There are sections I read and feel that not only is God no longer speaking to me, but that God is so far from this text that I feel like a fool for ever listening for a holy voice between its lines.

And then a day or two goes by, or a year, or five years. And I read it again, because that’s what we do. And I see it a new way.

I see a nation of escaped slaves who have just met God, waiting hungrily for a system that addresses what’s happened to them. A law that is not pure idealism and transcendence of society, but takes the ordinariness and difficulty and even the trauma of life as we know it, the world as the refugees from slavery in Egypt know it, and asks that world to evolve, asks it to begin to reach toward somewhere holier, more just. It is not accidental that the law begins with laws of slavery. That is where its recipients have experienced the most pain. That is the part of them that needs healing. And the Torah comes not merely to legislate, but to heal.

I make no apology for the section on the laws of slavery. I wish it were not there. But it is perhaps possible to read these laws not as a statement that slavery should continue, but that law should first deal with the parts of us that are most broken. This is law as a trauma response. You can see these rules as a disastrous capitulation to power dynamics of the ancient world, or as a radical rebellion against them in that they put major limits on slave ownership and grant legal rights to slaves. Either way, what amazes me is that they are the first section of laws given through Moses, and they address issues not of the leadership, but of the underclass, not triumph but trauma.

There is a story in the Talmud, masechet Shabbat page 88:

And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: When Moses ascended on High to receive the Torah, the ministering angels said before the Holy Blessed One: Master of the Universe, what is one born of a woman doing here among us? The Holy Blessed One said to them: He came to receive the Torah. The angels said before Him: The Torah is a hidden treasure that was concealed by You 974 generations before the creation of the world, and You seek to give it to flesh and blood?

The Holy Blessed One said to Moses: Provide them with an answer as to why the Torah should be given to the people.

The angels want to know how it’s possible that such a transcendently holy spiritual gift, the foundation of the world, could be given to mere mortals. God leaves it to a human to speak for the humans. After expressing great fear and humility and asking for encouragement and protection from God, which God grants, Moses gives his answer.

Moses said before God: Master of the Universe, the Torah that You are giving me, what is written in it? God said to him: “I am the Lord your God Who brought you out of Egypt from the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2). Moses said to the angels: Did you descend to Egypt? Were you enslaved to Pharaoh? Why should the Torah be yours?

This is not just semantic. It points to the one spiritual experience to which the most enlightened beings have no access: the experience of suffocating pain, being trapped, being subjugated in a world of limitations. Not only is that experience included in the law, it is the very beginning of the Divine communication, the foundation on which our relationship with God is premised.

The psychoanalyst Avgi Saketopoulou writes about traumatophilia: thinking of trauma not as something that can be transcended or left behind, but that needs to be repeatedly revisited to keep it from unconsciously controlling us. “Much as we would want to think otherwise,” she writes, “the impact of traumatic experiences cannot be eliminated or repaired: at best, we live in their aftermath on different terms than when they were inflicted on us. Relinquishing the idea that trauma can be repaired opens paths to thinking about what subjects do with their trauma.”

God brings us out of slavery to speak to us in the wilderness, and the first thing God says is to remind us of slavery, to situate the entire Divine-human relationship in the wake of slavery. What does this tell us about past suffering, about building a decent society in the wake of leaving one that harmed us immeasurably? What does this ask us to do with our trauma? How can we re-encounter it in a way that allows us to live honestly with it, and not to be controlled by it?

One answer may be the commandment that comes toward the end of this first dispatch to Moses, a concept that is reiterated and rephrased, re-encountered, dozens of times going forward throughout the Torah:

A ger, an outsider, you are not to oppress: you yourselves know the life of the outsider, for you were outsiders in the land of Egypt.

This is a Torah that cannot only be given to a deeply free, spiritually connected, Moses-like figure, experiencing intense closeness with God on top of a mountain, seeing beyond all obstacles. This is a Torah that is given to those in the shadow of that mountain, blocked from lofty consciousness by the limited and embodied life of human beings who feel pain. That experience, that knowledge of the life of the ger is what allows the Torah to outlaw oppression, what allows it to be a healing gift, a world-transforming gift, allows it to not just stay up in heaven but to touch the earthbound. The Torah is not a gift that entirely soars above and beyond the physical in a transcendent space. It is one that is received through the physical, from the bottom up, not out of reach of the worst experiences of the human condition, but incorporating those experiences.

When we are in great pain, depressed or shattered or terrorized, we are underneath the mountain. The Torah was given there, too. There is no other place where its healing can be felt as deeply.

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brookston · 1 year

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Holidays 9.13

Holidays

Bald is Beautiful Day

Barbershop Day

Battle of Fort McHenry Anniversary Day

Be Different Day

Blame Someone Else Day

Corn Day (French Republic)

Day of the Children Heroes (Mexico)

Day of the Programmer

Defender’s Day (everywhere except Maryland)

Defy Superstition Day

Día de los Niños Héroes (Mexico)

Eleven Days of Global Unity, Day 3: Environment

Engineer’s Day (Mauritius)

European Heritage Day (EU)

International Legacy Giving Day

International Mountain Chicken Frog Day

International Slow Loris Day

Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day

National Celiac Awareness Day

National EV Charging Day

National Hug Your Boss Day

National Jose Day

National Juan Day

National Odd Sock Day of Adventure

National Twilighters Day

National Urban Eden Day

9 x 13 Day

Pet Birth Defect Awareness Day

Positive Thinking Day

Programmers' Day (a.k.a. Day of the Programmer) [256th day]

Roald Dahl Day

Scooby Doo Day

Soap Day

Supernatural Day

Swiftie Day

Uncle Sam Day

World Indigenous Rights Day

World Sepsis Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Fortune Cookie Day

Gluten Free Beer Day

International Chocolate Day

National Cachaca Day (Brazil)

National Peanut Day

Snack-A-Pickle Day

2nd Wednesday in September

International Quiet Day [2nd Wednesday]

National Quiet Day (UK) [2nd Wednesday]

Independence Days

Republic of Drew Star Line (Declared; 2005) [unrecognized]

Venda (from South Africa, 1979) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Aimé (a.k.a. Amatus; Christian; Saint)

Ame (Christian; Saint)

Aristides the Athenian (Christian; Saint)

Barry Fell Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Basil of Iberia (Christian; Saint)

Cornelius of Baden-Olonets, Dionysius, and Misail (Christian; Saints)

Cornelius the Centiurion (Christian; Martyr)

Cronides and Serapion in Alexandria (Christian; Martyrs)

Dave the Human (Muppetism)

Day of Anubis (All Souls’ Day; Ancient Egypt)

Elias, Zoticus, Valerian, Macrobius, and Gordian at Tomi in Romania (Christian; Martyrs)

Epulum Jovis (Feast of Jove; Ancient Rome) [Ides of September]

Eulogius of Alexandria (Christian; Saint)

Feast of the Cross (Assyrian Church of the East)

Ketevan, Queen of Georgia (Christian; Martyr)

Hierotheus of Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos (Christian; Saint)

Hierotheus of Kalamata (Christian; Saint)

Ides of September (Ancient Rome)

John Chrysostom (Christian; Saint)

Lictisternia (Old Roman festival to Jupiter, Juno & Minerva)

Livia Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Marcellinus of Carthage (Christian; Saint)

Maurilius (a.k.a. Maurille) of Angers (Christian; Saint)

Mosquito Avoidance Day (Pastafarian)

Nectarius of Autun (Christian; Saint)

Otway (Positivist; Saint)

Peter of Atroe (Christian; Saint)

Robert Indiana (Artology)

Seleucus in Scythia (Christian; Martyr)

Venerius the Hermit (Christian; Saint)

Wulfthryth (a.k.a. Wilfrida) of Wilton (Christian; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Martes (Unlucky Tuesday; Spanish culture) [Tuesday the 13th] (1 of 2 for 2022)

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Triti (Unlucky Day; Greece) [Tuesday the 13th] (1 of 2 for 2022)

Premieres

After Hours (Film; 1985)

Agnes of God (Film; 1985)

Almost Famous (Film; 2000)

Barbershop (Film; 2002)

Batman Unlimited: Mchs vs. Mutants (WB Animated Film; 2016)

Benson (TV Series; 1979)

Bones (TV Series; 2005)

Candle in the Wind, Diana Version, by Elton John (Song; 1997)

Centerfold, by The Cars (Song; 1981)

Children of the World, by The Bee Gees (Album; 1976)

Clerks III (Film; 2022)

Come Dancing (UK Musical Show; 2008)

Crime of the Century, by Supertramp (Album; 1974)

Dogfight (Film; 1991)

The Dreaming, by Kate Bush (Album; 1982)

The Drew Carey Show (TV Series; 1995)

Easy-Duz-It, by Easy-E (Album; 1988)

Everybody Loves Raymond (TV Series; 1996)

The Ginger Man, by J.P. Donleavy (Novel; 1955)

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood (Novel; 1985)

Hard Rain, by Bob Dylan (Album; 1976)

Highway Star. Written by DeepPurple (Song; 1971)

In Utero, by Nirvana (Album; 1993)

Law & Order (TV Series; 1990)

Mishima (Film; 1985)

The Muppet Show (TV Series; 1976)

The Nitty Gritty, recorded by Shirley Ellis (Song; 1963)

One More from the Road, by Lynyrd Skynyrd (Live Album; 1976)

Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (TV Series; 1986)

Ready to Die, by The Notorious B.I.G. (Album; 1994)

Scooby-Doo Where Are You (Animated TV Series; 1969)

Skinny Legs and All, recorded by Joe Tex (Song; 1967)

Soap (TV Series; 1977)

Solid Gold (TV Series; 1980)

The Spectacular Now (Film; 2013)

Star-Spangled Banner lyrics written, by Francis Scott Key (Lyrics; 1814)

Supernatural (TV Series; 2005)

Take Me to Church, by Hozier (Song; 2013)

Thud!, by Terry Pratchet (Novel; 2005) [Discworld #34]

Truth and Soul, by Fishbone (Album; 1988)

Undone (Animated TV Series; 2019)

Yesterday, by The Beatles (Song; 1965)

Yojimbo (Film; 1961)

Today’s Name Days

Tobias (Austria)

Ivan, Ljubo, Zlatko (Croatia)

Lubor (Czech Republic)

Cyprianus (Denmark)

Ervi, Ervin, Ervo (Estonia)

Orvo (Finland)

Aimé (France)

Johann, Notburga, Tobias (Germany)

Aristeides, Aristeidis, Cornelius, Kornelios (Greece)

Kornél (Hungary)

Crisostomo, Giovanni, Maurilio, Regina (Italy)

Iza, Izabella, Izanda, Izīda (Latvia)

Barmantas, Barvydė, Mangailis (Lithuania)

Stian, Stig (Norway)

Aleksander, Aureliusz, Eugenia, Filip, Lubor, Materna, Morzysław, Szeliga (Poland)

Ctibor (Slovakia)

Amado, Crisóstomo, Juan (Spain)

Ambjörn, Sture (Sweden)

Arlando, Milton, Orlando, Roland, Rolanda, Rolando, Stone, Stoney (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 256 of 2024; 109 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 37 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Muin (Vine) [Day 9 of 28]

Chinese: Month 7 (Geng-Shen), Day 29 (Jia-Xu)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 27 Elul 5783

Islamic: 27 Safar 1445

J Cal: 16 Aki; Twosday [16 of 30]

Julian: 31 August 2023

Moon: 2%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 4 Shakespeare (10th Month) [Otway]

Runic Half Month: Ken (Illumination) [Day 2 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 84 of 94)

Zodiac: Virgo (Day 23 of 32)

#calendar #Holidays

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brookstonalmanac · 1 year

Text

Holidays 9.13

Holidays

Bald is Beautiful Day

Barbershop Day

Battle of Fort McHenry Anniversary Day

Be Different Day

Blame Someone Else Day

Corn Day (French Republic)

Day of the Children Heroes (Mexico)

Day of the Programmer

Defender’s Day (everywhere except Maryland)

Defy Superstition Day

Día de los Niños Héroes (Mexico)

Eleven Days of Global Unity, Day 3: Environment

Engineer’s Day (Mauritius)

European Heritage Day (EU)

International Legacy Giving Day

International Mountain Chicken Frog Day

International Slow Loris Day

Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day

National Celiac Awareness Day

National EV Charging Day

National Hug Your Boss Day

National Jose Day

National Juan Day

National Odd Sock Day of Adventure

National Twilighters Day

National Urban Eden Day

9 x 13 Day

Pet Birth Defect Awareness Day

Positive Thinking Day

Programmers' Day (a.k.a. Day of the Programmer) [256th day]

Roald Dahl Day

Scooby Doo Day

Soap Day

Supernatural Day

Swiftie Day

Uncle Sam Day

World Indigenous Rights Day

World Sepsis Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Fortune Cookie Day

Gluten Free Beer Day

International Chocolate Day

National Cachaca Day (Brazil)

National Peanut Day

Snack-A-Pickle Day

2nd Wednesday in September

International Quiet Day [2nd Wednesday]

National Quiet Day (UK) [2nd Wednesday]

Independence Days

Republic of Drew Star Line (Declared; 2005) [unrecognized]

Venda (from South Africa, 1979) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Aimé (a.k.a. Amatus; Christian; Saint)

Ame (Christian; Saint)

Aristides the Athenian (Christian; Saint)

Barry Fell Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Basil of Iberia (Christian; Saint)

Cornelius of Baden-Olonets, Dionysius, and Misail (Christian; Saints)

Cornelius the Centiurion (Christian; Martyr)

Cronides and Serapion in Alexandria (Christian; Martyrs)

Dave the Human (Muppetism)

Day of Anubis (All Souls’ Day; Ancient Egypt)

Elias, Zoticus, Valerian, Macrobius, and Gordian at Tomi in Romania (Christian; Martyrs)

Epulum Jovis (Feast of Jove; Ancient Rome) [Ides of September]

Eulogius of Alexandria (Christian; Saint)

Feast of the Cross (Assyrian Church of the East)

Ketevan, Queen of Georgia (Christian; Martyr)

Hierotheus of Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos (Christian; Saint)

Hierotheus of Kalamata (Christian; Saint)

Ides of September (Ancient Rome)

John Chrysostom (Christian; Saint)

Lictisternia (Old Roman festival to Jupiter, Juno & Minerva)

Livia Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Marcellinus of Carthage (Christian; Saint)

Maurilius (a.k.a. Maurille) of Angers (Christian; Saint)

Mosquito Avoidance Day (Pastafarian)

Nectarius of Autun (Christian; Saint)

Otway (Positivist; Saint)

Peter of Atroe (Christian; Saint)

Robert Indiana (Artology)

Seleucus in Scythia (Christian; Martyr)

Venerius the Hermit (Christian; Saint)

Wulfthryth (a.k.a. Wilfrida) of Wilton (Christian; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Martes (Unlucky Tuesday; Spanish culture) [Tuesday the 13th] (1 of 2 for 2022)

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Triti (Unlucky Day; Greece) [Tuesday the 13th] (1 of 2 for 2022)

Premieres

After Hours (Film; 1985)

Agnes of God (Film; 1985)

Almost Famous (Film; 2000)

Barbershop (Film; 2002)

Batman Unlimited: Mchs vs. Mutants (WB Animated Film; 2016)

Benson (TV Series; 1979)

Bones (TV Series; 2005)

Candle in the Wind, Diana Version, by Elton John (Song; 1997)

Centerfold, by The Cars (Song; 1981)

Children of the World, by The Bee Gees (Album; 1976)

Clerks III (Film; 2022)

Come Dancing (UK Musical Show; 2008)

Crime of the Century, by Supertramp (Album; 1974)

Dogfight (Film; 1991)

The Dreaming, by Kate Bush (Album; 1982)

The Drew Carey Show (TV Series; 1995)

Easy-Duz-It, by Easy-E (Album; 1988)

Everybody Loves Raymond (TV Series; 1996)

The Ginger Man, by J.P. Donleavy (Novel; 1955)

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood (Novel; 1985)

Hard Rain, by Bob Dylan (Album; 1976)

Highway Star. Written by DeepPurple (Song; 1971)

In Utero, by Nirvana (Album; 1993)

Law & Order (TV Series; 1990)

Mishima (Film; 1985)

The Muppet Show (TV Series; 1976)

The Nitty Gritty, recorded by Shirley Ellis (Song; 1963)

One More from the Road, by Lynyrd Skynyrd (Live Album; 1976)

Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (TV Series; 1986)

Ready to Die, by The Notorious B.I.G. (Album; 1994)

Scooby-Doo Where Are You (Animated TV Series; 1969)

Skinny Legs and All, recorded by Joe Tex (Song; 1967)

Soap (TV Series; 1977)

Solid Gold (TV Series; 1980)

The Spectacular Now (Film; 2013)

Star-Spangled Banner lyrics written, by Francis Scott Key (Lyrics; 1814)

Supernatural (TV Series; 2005)

Take Me to Church, by Hozier (Song; 2013)

Thud!, by Terry Pratchet (Novel; 2005) [Discworld #34]

Truth and Soul, by Fishbone (Album; 1988)

Undone (Animated TV Series; 2019)

Yesterday, by The Beatles (Song; 1965)

Yojimbo (Film; 1961)

Today’s Name Days

Tobias (Austria)

Ivan, Ljubo, Zlatko (Croatia)

Lubor (Czech Republic)

Cyprianus (Denmark)

Ervi, Ervin, Ervo (Estonia)

Orvo (Finland)

Aimé (France)

Johann, Notburga, Tobias (Germany)

Aristeides, Aristeidis, Cornelius, Kornelios (Greece)

Kornél (Hungary)

Crisostomo, Giovanni, Maurilio, Regina (Italy)

Iza, Izabella, Izanda, Izīda (Latvia)

Barmantas, Barvydė, Mangailis (Lithuania)

Stian, Stig (Norway)

Aleksander, Aureliusz, Eugenia, Filip, Lubor, Materna, Morzysław, Szeliga (Poland)

Ctibor (Slovakia)

Amado, Crisóstomo, Juan (Spain)

Ambjörn, Sture (Sweden)

Arlando, Milton, Orlando, Roland, Rolanda, Rolando, Stone, Stoney (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 256 of 2024; 109 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 37 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Muin (Vine) [Day 9 of 28]

Chinese: Month 7 (Geng-Shen), Day 29 (Jia-Xu)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 27 Elul 5783

Islamic: 27 Safar 1445

J Cal: 16 Aki; Twosday [16 of 30]

Julian: 31 August 2023

Moon: 2%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 4 Shakespeare (10th Month) [Otway]

Runic Half Month: Ken (Illumination) [Day 2 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 84 of 94)

Zodiac: Virgo (Day 23 of 32)

#Holidays

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tempi-dispari · 1 year

Photo

New Post has been published on https://www.tempi-dispari.it/2023/08/28/raff-la-fortuna-e-cieca/

Raff, la fortuna è cieca...

Contesto storico

(Fonte)

Il mondo camminava con tutta la sua umanità verso un assetto che sarebbe stato quello della fine della guerra fredda e l’inizio di nuove ere sempre più convulse, come quella dei nostri giorni che spesso ci asteniamo dall’interpretare. Stati Uniti e Cina fecero accordi che stabilivano una priorità per entrambi in funzione antisovietica e l’Urss sentendosi circondata invase l’Afghanistan poco prima di Natale. I carri sovietici a Kabul, con rovesciamento di governo e inizio di dieci anni di guerriglia afghana alimentata dagli americani per dare filo da torcere a Mosca.

Fu così che questi strani personaggi che imparammo a conoscere – i Mujaheddin – diventarono popolari. In Italia nacque RaiTre per il Partito comunista: l’assetto era perfettamente lottizzato e anche bilanciato: il Pci che fino a quel momento era stato tenuto fuori dal governo diretto della Rai, diventò titolare di un’intera rete televisiva. RaiUno restava saldamente demo cristiana, Rai Due altrettanto saldamente socialista anzi craxiana e una gentile signorina molto sexy apparve sullo schermo per avvertire che d’ora in poi ci sarebbe stato questo piacevole terzo incomodo, RaiTre.

Il telegiornale della nuova rete fu inizialmente diretto da Agnes ma la personalità più caratteristica e caratterizzante fu quella di Sandro Curzi, vecchio giornalista comunista dall’età di quattordici anni, un sindacalista che avevamo imparato a conoscere nelle redazioni perché veniva a illustrare con il suo smisurato impermeabile, lo stato dell’informazione. Il suo Tg3 fu ribattezzato “Tele-Kabul”, qualcosa di rovesciato rispetto a Radio-Londra, perché Curzi aveva intenzione di rompere gli schemi e quando verrà il momento della caduta del muro di Berlino, riuscì ad appropriarsi di quell’evento di per sé “anticomunista” e farne un cavallo di battaglia di sinistra.

Ma questo accadrà dieci anni dopo, quando anche il corpo di spedizione sovietico in Afghanistan se ne tornerà sconfitto e umiliato, in un Paese- l’Unione delle Repubbliche socialiste sovietiche – destinato a finire di lì a pochi anni. La Terza Rete della Rai diventerà gradualmente un grande laboratorio guidato da Angelo Guglielmi, uno degli intellettuali del “Gruppo 63” e questo fu un notevole rimescolamento di carte televisive, con un elemento costante. In fondo, anche oggi si può vedere che il Tg1 non è più grillino con grande malumore di Conte e il Tg2 è pallidamente leghista, ma il Tg3 e la rete sono e restano i rappresentanti dell’area di sinistra dominata allora dal Pci ed oggi dal Pd.

I morti ammazzati furono ancora moltissimi: gli scontri fra neofascisti e gruppi armati di sinistra lasciavano cadaveri sulle strade mentre proseguivano anche le vigliacche esecuzioni con un colpo alla nuca delle Brigate Rosse o di Prima Linea, come quello che uccise il giudice Emilio Alessandrini che indagava sulla pista fascista di piazza Fontana. A proposito della strage di piazza Fontana, in quell’anno ci fu una prima sentenza che sembrava definitiva e non lo fu, ma che condannava i soliti Freda, Ventura (che riuscì a evadere e fu poi riacciuffato in Argentina) e Guido Giannettini.

Assolti l’anarchico Mario Merlino e Marco Pozzan. Ma altre sentenze rovesciarono il verdetto fino a una estenuazione dell’attenzione pubblica che nel frattempo aveva dimenticato piazza Fontana e quel tremendo 12 dicembre del 1969 quando per la prima volta dai tempi dell’occupazione tedesca era avvenuta una strage di civili in un pomeriggio avanzato nella filiale della Banca dell’Agricoltura a Milano. Il primo febbraio l’ayatollah Khomeini lasciò Parigi che lo aveva ospitato per oltre dieci anni e sbarcò a Teheran accolto da folle deliranti che pensavano di aver conquistato la libertà dopo la cacciata di Reza Pahlavi.

La dittatura di Khomeini e degli altri ayatollah mostrò al mondo occidentale qualcosa che ancora non aveva mai visto: un regime autoritario religioso sciita, cioè nemico dell’altra metà dell’Islam che è sunnita, come era ad esempio l’Iraq di Saddam Hussein con cui il nuovo Iran ingaggerà una guerra estenuante e sanguinosissima durante la quale il dittatore iracheno farà largo uso di gas letali.

Sparisce in un attimo la Teheran moderna delle impiegate in minigonna dei tempi dello Shah e comincerà la repressione contro le donne costrette a indossare il velo e il burka che lascia visibili soltanto gli occhi. Il mondo faceva anche i conti con le scorte petrolifere perché il nuovo regime esercita un potere militare sul Golfo Persico da cui transitavano e transitano le petroliere che portano milioni di tonnellate di rifornimenti petroliferi in Occidente e fu subito ansiosamente l’apertura di un nuovo fronte: non più e non solo quello fra capitalisti americani e comunisti sovietici, ma quello con gli islamici.

E neppure tutti gli islamici, ma solo quelli fedeli alla tradizione del cognato Alì del Profeta. L’Urss si era gettata in un certo senso a capofitto nel primo conflitto mondiale di carattere etnico e religioso attaccando l’Afghanistan che è in prevalenza sciita e dunque con una popolazione che allora come oggi guarda a Teheran più che alla Mecca. Tutto ciò era totalmente nuovo per il mondo occidentale che aveva pochissima confidenza con le diverse culture ed etnie di religione islamica.

L’ayatollah Khomeini durante i quindici anni trascorsi in un compound parigino protetto dallo Stato francese, aveva spiegato in decine di interviste il carattere autoritario religioso della dittatura che avrebbe instaurato una volta rientrato nel suo Paese e dunque nessuno poté sentirsi davvero sorpreso.

Tuttavia, la sorpresa fu egualmente enorme e ben presto sarebbe arrivato il momento della resa dei conti fra Iran khomeinista e gli Stati Uniti d’America, e il primo round andò nettamente a favore di Teheran, con la crisi degli ostaggi nell’ambasciata americana e il maldestro tentativo del presidente americano Jimmy Carter di risolvere la situazione con un colpo di mano miseramente fallito.

Dunque, dopo le guerre fra Israele e i Paesi confinanti con lo Stato ebraico, adesso sia l’Occidente filoamericano che l’Oriente filosovietico si trovavamo a fare i conti con una realtà che avrebbe pesato sempre di più sullo scenario internazionale. In Italia a marzo termina il processo per lo scandalo Lockheed, di cui si è persa ormai traccia nella memoria collettiva, che invece quarantadue anni fa fu quasi travolta da una storia di tangenti e imbrogli che portarono alle dimissioni del presidente della Repubblica Leone su cui gravava il sospetto – mai dimostrato – di essere il misterioso “Antilope cobbler” (il ciabattino o il massacratore di antilopi) secondo una indicazione in codice di uno dei personaggi americani della trattativa che incluse in molti Paesi d’Europa e del mondo delle stecche destinate ai politici che facilitarono il contratto.

Lo scandalo stroncò anche la carriera del leader democristiano Luigi Guy – totalmente innocente ma dato per due anni in pasto agli attacchi giornalistici e politici – e il segretario del Partito Socialdemocratico Mario Tanassi che fu condannato a un paio d’anni di servizi sociali.

Ricordo di averlo intervistato all’inizio dello scandalo e Tanassi mi disse che sospettare di lui equivaleva a sospettare il papa di essere un molestatore di bambini. Il curioso paragone fece il giro del mondo e non giovò alla sua causa. Comunque, lo scandalo Lockheed, legato all’acquisto di alcuni aerei americani militari da trasporto Hercules, richiese la formazione di una Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta presieduta da Mino Martinazzoli che sarebbe diventato un giorno il segretario della Democrazia Cristiana, l’ultimo. Diventammo amici – io ero uno dei giornalisti di Repubblica che avevano seguito la vicenda fin dall’inizio – perché condividevamo la passione per il filosofo austriaco Ludwig Wittgenstein e del suo “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus”. Il Pci schierò uno dei suoi più onesti intellettuali, Ugo Spagnoli.

Fu quella una battaglia durissima che anticipò la crisi della Repubblica prima ancora che cadesse il sistema basato sugli equilibri della guerra fredda. La vicenda giudiziaria italiana era peraltro figlia di quella americana: negli Stati Uniti era stata istituita un’altra Commissione di indagine congressuale sulle stesse vicende, guidata dal senatore Frank Church, che a sua volta era il seguito o lo sviluppo di un’altra inchiesta sulle malefatte della Cia, guidata dal senatore Pike e che già aveva messo a sconquasso il campo dei servizi segreti in tutto il mondo. L’inchiesta giudiziaria che aveva viaggiato parallelamente a quella parlamentare si era chiusa con un punto interrogativo: era davvero Giovanni Leone – stando al suo cognome – quel “divoratore di antilopi”, citato in un rapporto segreto americano?

Ebbi la ventura di intervistare per ultimo Giovanni Leone poco prima della sua scomparsa per La Stampa e l’ex Presidente, profondamente traumatizzato ancora a molti anni di distanza mi giurò di non aver saputo mai nulla della storia di quegli aerei e mi ricordò quanto non avesse bisogno di farsi concedere mance dai fornitori stranieri per un tenore di vita che aveva raggiunto da molto tempo con i suoi mezzi di grande avvocato napoletano, prima ancora che come Presidente prima della Camera e poi della Repubblica. Io stesso ero stato uno dei giornalisti che, sia pure indirettamente, aveva fatto parte della campagna che specialmente l’Espresso e la Repubblica avevano condotto contro di lui con il massimo spiegamento di forze giornalistiche e confesso che provai un grande imbarazzo e per lui una pena profonda perché credevo alle sue parole.

Pile di teschi a milioni: le foto invasero televisioni e giornali e settimanali rotocalco: il più feroce regime del mondo, quello dei Khmer rossi in Cambogia venne deposto con l’intervento armato della Repubblica del Vietnam e del suo esercito regolare che cacciano Pol Pot – in testa alle classifiche mondiali dei peggiori assassini di massa insieme a Stalin e Hitler. Ma di questo ed altro parleremo nella seconda puntata dedicata a questo anno di grandi eventi e impreviste trasformazioni.

In questo contesto nascevano i Raff

E’ in questo periodo (1978) che nasce la leggenda dei fratelli Bianco. Chris e Fabiano (Master) sono cresciuti in una famiglia che viaggiava spesso per il mondo, il padre lavorava nella moda e per otto anni i due ragazzi si ritrovarono a New York, dove frequentarono le scuole primarie, cominciando ad appassionarsi molto alla musica rock, un interesse favorito dalla facilità con cui riuscivano a reperire materiale su vinile rock e punk, gruppi che in Italia ancora non venivano adeguatamente distribuiti.

Rientrati a Milano i fratelli Bianco si misero subito alla ricerca di ragazzi disposti a dar vita a un progetto rock’n’roll punk. E così nacquero i Trancefusion.

DAI TRANCEFUSION AI RAFF Tra il 79 e l’ 80 la famiglia si trasferì a Roma per motivi di lavoro, per cui anche l’attività musicale dei Trancefusion ne risentì, con un drastico cambio di line-up. I fratelli Bianco, arrivati nella Capitale, rimisero in piedi la band, reclutando nuovi innesti romani e cambiando però anche nome. Nacque il monicker THE RAFF.

Le cose sembrarono andare subito alla grande. La EMI tramite un giornalista amico dei Bianco, dichiarò di volerli mettere sotto contratto. Nella formazione di quel momento, oltre ai fratelli Chris al basso e Master alla batteria, c’erano: alle chitarre Lu Cillis e Fausto Roddo Donato e alla voce solista Vittorio Zammarano.

THE RAFF registrarono un singolo che nelle speranze del gruppo avrebbe dovuto imporne il nome sulla scena punk. La sfortuna però cominciò a ricamar sodo sopra la band. Malgrado i concerti super affollati al Sebastian, al Tube e il Titan, e la popolarità dei RAFF che cresce velocemente, come per i Sex Pistols, il rapporto con la EMI non andò molto bene e finì per interrompersi. Dissidi interni e discografici innervorono il gruppo fino alla rottura. Il singolo rimase nel cassetto (non ricordo se poi è uscito ufficialmente).

La crescente scena metal colpì in pieno volto anche i Raff che decisero di cambiare pelle. Chris passa alla voce solista (oltre che a suonare il basso) e si parlò di un chitarrista inglese che avrebbe sostituito il punker Cillis. Si vociferò addirittura che sarebbe stato Clive Wisbey fondatore della prima incarnazione dei Tygers Of Pan Tang e… in effetti così fu. Si trasferì in Italia e poco dopo militò nei Raff per un periodo!

I RAFF E BRUCE DICKINSON

Nell’estate del 1980 i Raff aprirono il concerto romano dei Ramones a Castel S.Angelo. Nell’82 seguirono il tour italiano degli Iron Maiden che erano freschi di cantante nuovo. Lo stesso Bruce Dickinson appare nelle foto ufficiali degli Irons con una spilletta dei Raff infilata nel bavero del suo giubbotto di pelle.

L’anno seguente (1983) suonarono di supporto alla Gillan Band. Ormai i Raff venivano considerati la miglior band metal italiana soffiando il titolo persino ai milanesi Vanadium di Pino Scotto. Ne è conferma la classifica del magazine Rockerilla che li piazzò al terzo posto tra i più lanciati gruppi rock, dietro a Litfiba e Denovo e precedendo appunto i Vanadium, che erano usciti con l’album d’esordio.

Il 1983 fu un anno importantissimo per la band, segnato dal solito cambio di formazione (ora erano un trio con Gianni Russo alla chitarra) e la firma con King Steve Records che li chiuse in studio per registrare quello che avrebbe dovuto finalmente essere il lancio definitivo dei Raff nel gotha della musica metal internazionale non La band si presentò al Festival di Certaldo. con la convinzione che presto avrebbe assaporato location ancora più suggestive in giro per l’Europa.

PROBLEMS!?

Purtroppo, in un momento così delicato, le cose cominciarono ad andare storte. A parte il nuovo cambio di line-up, con il bassista Brian Vagnarelli entrato a sostituire Chris al basso (mentre lui si sarebbe solo occupato delle voci) ci fu lo split con il chitarrista Gianni Russo, che decise di abbandonare la band, a registrazioni in corso, subito dopo la partecipazione al concerto estivo di Ostia Antica con Vanadium e i Crossbones.

La ricerca del sostituto di Gianni non era certo facile e come se non bastasse, la King Steve commise una serie di grossi errori a livello di organizzazione. Impose ai ragazzi il chitarrista Dave Sumner, già con i Primitives di Mal. Sicuramente un grande strumentista, per carità, ma lontano dalle rasoiate metal di Gianni.

Iniziò così un lungo braccio di ferro tra i Raff e l’etichetta, che non digeriva le rimostranze dei ragazzi per la scelta obbligata e fuori luogo. Ricordo un bellissimo show al Teatro Colosseo del settembre 1983 che è rimasto impresso nella mente della nostra generazione metallica. 750 paganti con i Fingernails di supporto. Lo show dei Raff seppur di ottima fattura, regredì nell’impatto sonoro. Dave era assolutamente inadeguato e non dava la spinta necessaria al metal aggressivo dei ragazzi.

L’INIZIO DEL PEGGIO Dopo quel concerto, Lo stesso discografico si impossessò del cospicuo incasso della serata e annunciò ai ragazzi che aveva subìto una rapina. Nessuno venne pagato tranne che una cena pagata al ristorante di Rione Monti con tanto di caos ai tavoli, ubriachezza molesta, bicchieri rotti e proprietario che ci cacciò tutti via.

Si arrivò alla rottura totale anche perché l’album era finito e con la copertina già pronta, ma la King Steve non dava più segni di vita. Pare che di mezzo a questa improvvisa mancanza di entusiasmo per i Raff ci fosse un contratto firmato dalla band con l’etichetta svedese che aveva lanciato gli Heavy Load.

Lo ricordo perché lo stesso manager del gruppo mi fece vedere il contratto. Ora non capisco cosa sia successo, se fossero gli stessi ragazzi a non voler far uscire il vinile per la King Steve o se fosse il discografico a chiedere denaro per il trasferimento, fatto sta che dagli uffici dell’etichetta sparì il master premixato del disco. Si racconta che sia stato proprio Master Bianco a scavalcare la finestra dello studio dove si trovavano i master e di averli trafugati.

Rimane ancora oggi tutto avvolto nel mistero, comunque. L’episodio indispettì il manager dell’etichetta e la notte di quel capodanno, durante lo show organizzato dai discografici (suonammo noi dei Fingernails) i Raff rifiutarono di esibirsi con la scusa di non aver ricevuto il budget accordato. Tant’è che la serata ebbe degli incresciosi episodi di teppismo, con metallari che rubarono birre e alcolici dal bar del locale e un energumeno che quasi venne alle mani con noi.

A quel punto i rapporti tra la band e la King Steve si interruppero e Sumner ovviamente fu fatto fuori dai Raff. Da quel punto, la carriera del gruppo subì un imprevisto stop. Il gruppo cercò di rimediare al difficile momento con il ritorno di Fausto Donato alle chitarre.

Nel 1985 parteciparono alle registrazioni della compilation Metallo Italia curata da Al Festa che riunì una folta rappresentanza delle migliori band metal italiane tra cui Steel Crown, Crossbones, TIR, Vanexa, Elektradrive e altri.

Ne venne fuori un prodotto probabilmente non all’altezza delle produzioni internazionali ma il film documentario che ne seguì l’uscita ebbe un buon ritorno d’immagine soprattutto grazie alle visioni TV della Rai.

I Raff eseguirono il brano I Trust con la novità della batteria elettronica Simmons suonata da Master. Fu in apparenza il segno di una svolta per la band, che presto si registrò il primo Ep su vinile con quattro tracce.

Purtroppo l’album non risultò all’altezza del potenziale dei Raff. Chris febbricitante terminò il lavoro con grande fatica. Il pubblico ebbe difficoltà a seguire il nuovo corso dei Raff e la nascente scena thrash metal rese tutto molto più difficile.

In quel periodo Master partì per gli States assieme agli emiliani Raw Power che avrebbero girato per tre mesi in tour nel 1985 (aprile/giugno e in settembre). A causa di un’indisponibilità del cantante originale, la Toxic Records contattò Chris Bianco per partecipare al tour di circa quattro mesi come cantante solista degli stessi Raw Power.

A quel punto anche Fausto Donato dei Raff si unì al gruppo reggiano. La variazione della formazione non venne accolta con favore dai membri originali dei Raw Power che ripresero in mano la gestione della band mettendo alla porta i membri dei Raff.

Ritornati in Italia i fratelli Bianco decisero di provare con un ultimo assalto. Donato uscì dal gruppo per far posto a due chitarristi: Dani Macchi e Max Annibaldi che riportano il sound della band su binari meno commerciali. Purtroppo la carriera dei Raff non decollò e nel 1988, dopo un ultimo spettacolo al Piper di Roma, decisero di sciogliersi.

2001 – IL RITORNO

Nel 2001, dopo tredici anni di silenzio la band inaspettatamente torna in pista. Oltre i fratelli Bianco e Gianni Russo alla chitarra, troviamo la collaborazione di Angus Bidoli (me stesso) e alla voce Anthony Drago. Con questa formazione i Raff fanno diversi concerti nella Capitale. Sono anche invitata al festival metal di Chicago, evento che verrà però rifiutato a causa dei mancati accordi economici.

Nel 2002 il gruppo apre allo show romano degli Uriah Heep e compaiono nella compilation Fuoricentro prodotta dalla Gridalo Forte Rc. I Raff partecipano con un brano live registrato nell’estate del 2001 al Foro Italico. A questo punto si decide di suonare il concerto evento del 2003 con la presenza dei chitarristi Dani Macchi e Fausto Roddo Donato e del bassista Brian Vagnarelli, show che sancirà un nuovo scioglimento.

Un paio di anni dopo però si torna ancora in sella con la partecipazione a un paio di concerti nella provincia laziale, senza la collaborazionme di Drago e mia, ma con Donato e Vagnarelli. Sono solo uscite estemporanee perchè i Raff si fermano di nuovo per qualche anno, tornando nuovamente nel 2012 con la formazione a trio (Chris, Master e Gianni Russo) e partecipano ai festival Heavy Night di Villa Rosa e il Roman Hard’n’Heavy Festival all’Atlantico.

Dopodichè al posto di Gianni Russo subentra Tony Arcuri con il quale il gruppo registra l’album d’esordio (!) con tutti i vecchi brani anni ’80 che sarebbero dovuti uscire nell’83 per la King Steve. Inoltre suonano live in giro per l’Italia. E nel 2015 i Raff decidono di ritirarsi di nuovo e questa volta sembra definitivamente.

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queenofcandynsoda · 2 years

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The Cuckoos in SPY X Family AU

The Cuckoos were born from an experiment by Dr. Sigmund Glockner during the later stages of the world. This was the “Project Ayrans”, an experiment on how Diedrich, his abused son, can give off his “dominate Ayran traits” to non-Ayran mothers. It consists of kidnapping different ethnic women from other nations with two willing participants. Those being Gelvira Schober and Matea Asper. He forced Diedrich to impregnate Melia and used his sperm on the other twenty-nine. As a result, the women are forced into a locked village where they are constantly observed, including Lea, who was hand selected from a concentration camp. Some women were married to collaborators and their husbands forced them into the project to increase their status.

Melia was originally on a mission to collect information on Dr. Glockner for WISE while being a maid. She is known as Agent Sunshine. However, she did not know that Glockner has a son that he kept locked in a basement for eighteen years nor that he wants to use her for the Ayran Project. Diedrich was extremely emotionally unprepared and was abused for his entire life having to be forced into tortuous experiments. This is due to his mother’s, Agnes Helvig, rare “Ayran Germanic” traits, despite being kidnapped from Norway, do not speak German, and has shown to have an immense hatred for Abaddon Hässlich and National Unity Party before her death. Gelvira’s now ex-husband, General Modares Schober, was assigned to overview the village where the children are born. Many of the women had children who were either left behind, forced into labor camps, or in Lea’s case, outright killed. Adela was actually an enslaved maid before Glockner sees her as a more valuable subject than Duc’s wife. In a rage, Duc sexually assaulted a pregnant Adela in hopes she would miscarry. However, it failed and Duc and his wife were forced out.

Seven months after the children’s births, Archibald was promoted and assigned to provide protection when the Allied Forces started to advance and a surge of mysterious deaths of Reich Military soldiers. During this time, Archibald noticed the unusual abilities that the children exhibited when Glockner was showcasing his theory of “Hive Mind” and “Mental Push”. He also noticed how some of the children were helping some of the servants to escape and get back their kidnapped “Ayran” children. So he decided to help. After a month, Modares brought in child soldiers to protect the children and their mothers as he arranged his eldest daughter, Hannelore, to marry a much older man to be a part of Project Ayran. However, she quickly left with a soldier named Gustaf Lavarie, a mixed-ethnic man, to the Allied Forces. When Hässlich was gunned down in a theater, Modares believes that there is no hope for Ostania. So he planned to poison all thirty of the babies. Fortunately, Archibald and his men stopped him.

After the war, many of the mothers left Ostania for their home countries. However, some of them, such as Eliana, Libélula, and Karlijn, were violently attacked by having their heads shaved and beaten by crowds. Gelvire and Matea took plea deals to avoid imprisonment but lost their natural citizenship in their respective countries, Belgium and Switzerland. Isobel, Cecile, Porzia, and Nicole were deemed outcasts. Wenna has severe PTSD and developed agoraphobia. Realtim is declared to be “unchaste” and was nearly excommunicated. Adela, Sibylla, and Liwei were denied aid. The rest escaped harsh prosecution but develop PTSD and aversion to anything relating to Ostania. The children also suffered from this. Francois, Saul, and Steef were nearly attacked during their mothers’ walks of shame. People were ready to kill them in their mothers’ arms if it weren’t for their mothers’ adopted sons protecting them. Alfie was nearly taken away from Inala when she went to Australia before escaping to New Zealand and going to Mazepa. Rehema’s father would neglect her entirely until her parents divorced. Verona had gotten death threats and Hannelore refused to acknowledge her and Gelvira as her family despite the latter denouncing her involvement. Melia was able to return to Westalis with Malaea and married a fellow agent named Benjamin Hughes, known as Agent Civil Dawn. However, she has still deemed an outcast for being willing to keep a “cursed” baby. A few of the children and their families had to stay in Ostania due to being rejected from nearly everywhere else. All of the children are referred to as “Cuckoos” for being brood parasites to mankind.

Diedrich was put into a mental institution to the severe abuse he received and lack of personal care. During his rehabilitation, he was able to recover mentally, develop social skills, and have a Master's in education.

Over the years, different Cuckoos have met Anya as she went through several foster homes. One of them is Clovis, a boy who was living in a bayou with his parents and grandmother. They spend a lot of time together before Anya had to back to the orphanage.

One day, Archibald, who is now a part of the SSS, has become increasingly aware of a growing threat from a group known as AES, meaning Ayran Eradication Syndicate. He knows that the Cuckoos are in danger and must be put in a secure location. The issues are that none of the families want to go to Ostania and the country is not cracking down on far-right groups.

So he decided to make a deal with Mazepa College to house all of the Cuckoos and he and Yuri went across three countries to gather most of the children. Afterward, some of the Cuckoos came from more remote nations, such as Brazil, the Philipines, and Koreana. Once twenty-nine of the Cuckoos are in Mazepa, Malaea wants to go there as well. WISE took notice of this and contact Melia for a mission meant to observe the Cuckoos and see if Ostania would try to use them as weapons. It is called Operation Sparrow. Melia and Benjamin agreed to do it as teachers, though dislike that Fiona has to be there as well due to her lack of attachment to Malaea. Meanwhile, a psychologist named Dr. Rachael Zellaby starts meeting with the Cuckoos to oversee any abnormal changes.

Sometime later, Diedrich is released from the institution and allowed to teach at Mazepa College. Despite never interacting for six years, both got attached to each other quickly and start to rebuild their relationship, much to Benjamin and Melia’s shock. This led to all of the Cuckoos to dorm in Mazepa College in droves, upsetting and confusing their parents since they did not trust Diedrich.

The Cuckoos were able to meet Anya again on a field trip in Ostania around the time of Archibald’s wedding. This is where Clovis meets Damian and immediately, they become romantic rivals as both like Anya.

After some time, Archibald and the SSS were tracking down Glockner’s right-hand man, Bernard Sussman, and his affiliation with Neo-Nazi groups. While they can not find either Glockner and Sussman, they were able to find where Glockner kept his most important documents and tapes. They were located in a tomb-like room with a coffin that is covered with Germanic runes. They open it to reveal a young woman in a regal dress, bind in Germanic runes. Despite being declared dead for twenty years, she did not decompose. Once they got the coffin to the station, they got answers and even more questions.

#the shinra cuckoos #the midwich cuckoos #spy x family #spy x family au #cuckoo #cuckoos #the midwich cuckoos oc

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venicepearl · 1 year

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Agnes Mowinckel playing the part of Lady Inger in 1921.

Lady Inger of Ostrat (original title: Fru Inger til Østeraad) is an 1854 play by Henrik Ibsen, inspired by the life of Inger, Lady of Austraat. The play, the third work of the Norwegian's career, reflects the birth of Romantic Nationalism in the Norway of that period, and had a strongly anti-Danish sentiment. It centers on the Scandinavia of 1510–1540 as the Kalmar Union collapsed, the impacts of the Reformation were becoming evident in Norway, and a last desperate struggle was being mounted to maintain Norwegian independence. Its initial sentiments were so strongly anti-Danish that Ibsen ultimately toned them down.

Norwegian literature was virtually nonexistent during the period of the Scandinavian Union and the subsequent Dano-Norwegian union (1387—1814) — Ibsen characterized that period as "Four Hundred Years of Darkness." Ibsen was a major participant in a flood of nationalistic romanticism that followed the "Four Hundred Years of Darkness" and is recognized as one of the great four contributors of this period (the others being Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Alexander Kielland, and Jonas Lie). A unity of purpose pervades the whole period, recreation of a national culture based on the almost forgotten past. Subsequent research has shown the play Fru Inger til Østeraad deviates rather liberally from the actual historical events, and should be understood in its context as a statement of nationalism.

#Lady Inger of Ostrat #Henrik Ibsen #Fru Inger til Østeraad #XIX century #Agnes Mowinckel #stage play #theater #photo #photography #black and white

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madewithonerib · 1 year

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Hearing GOD is a Life | Dallas Willard & Richard Foster

You are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in GOD's great universe.

1.] More than Guidance

Dallas in this session we're working on hearing GOD in the context of life: The life that GOD gives our lives, as we learn to live them in context with this light.

Now I want to take you way back 40 years ago, when you were teaching a little ragtag group of people, and taking us through the Book of Acts.

And you & the SPIRIT working together together came up with this sentence. I mean helping us see how acts fits in the larger picture.

The sentence was the aim of GOD in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of loving persons with GOD HIMSELF at the very center of that community.

As its prime sustainer & most glorious inhabitant

Remember that?

I remember that. I'm glad you wrote it down because I couldn't say that in one sentence if my life depended on it. Well it was a wonderful sentence.

And it kind of captured that whole sense & the flow into how the Book of Acts fits into that—but then of course you were not just teaching the Books of Acts.

You were teaching the whole Bible & the whole of our lives & how it all fits together. Yes then years later we were working on a Bible Project & you came up or you worked with..

We were struggling with this whole concept of the unity of the Bible—which you know, when you theologians, they're going to tie themselves into all kinds of knots about this big seminary topic.

I know it & yeah, you came up with that phrase:

The with GOD life, as the unity of the Bible it was just like whoa so now talk with us a little bit about that in terms of the sweep of Holy History—from Genesis to Revelation

In about four & a half minutes

Dallas: Ought to be possible, the speed of the SPIRIT.

Richard: On the with GOD life

1.1] Biblical Memory Lane

DW: Yes, well you see from the very beginning that GOD has placed human beings in positions of responsibility, and we actually have no way of discerning the degree of responsibility and power that Adam & Eve had in the garden.

But it was a position of great responsibility cause it clearly says in Genesis 1, we take charge of the fish & all the other living things.

So you know the green ethic that we talk about today is right there in Genesis 1, & obviously much bigger than we can manage indeed.

I would have trouble just with the trout.

I don't know how to handle them I must say & there's a lot of other things & it winds up with creeping things.

Yes I don't know if I want to, well you know [touch them] maybe if you only had to speak to them, right. You know, as Agnes Sanford create by speaking, she could tell the bees to go away & they would go.

I know I like that way of working with them.

So it must have been a great response the mosquitoes have never been very [compliant] I think they must have got here after the fall.

But in any case, it was a situation where there was great responsibility & great power & interestingly distance—& this is crucial to the whole story.

And when we look at the woeful path of human history, we we wonder where is GOD? I think the answer is well the real question is where is man?

He's away from GOD & that's his choice

GOD hasn't left him alone, but now you see GOD showing up in the garden & apparently they were on very friendly terms at that point..

But still HE would come & visit & then obviously give them some distance, a little space and that

sense of GOD when man disobeys GOD, HE’s hiding HIMSELF from us

So that we can fight from GOD that's exactly right

And that's crucial to the plan of GOD in human history to bring that community out of human history which is almost nothing compared to time

Yeah it's extremely short & who knows what else HE has in mind in this great universe that HE's created.

But there's this project of bringing that community of love—indwelt by GOD—out for obviously cosmic & eternal purposes.

.................................................................................. So you see GOD giving distance after the fall, HE was still coming around. HE had this little chat with Cain, & then Enoch who walked with GOD. ..................................................................................

1.2] Friend of GOD

Noah in favor with GOD.

So now for a while it's hard to track that until you come to Abraham, & it is very interesting that Abraham is the first one who is called the friend of GOD.

So a different kind of relationship is now developing because instead of just having an individual here or there—we have a family

A family, a natural union, so we've gone from the individual to the family. And this is GOD's way of being more fully in the human condition

—without standing over it & so when you look at Abraham's life, it's very interesting to watch the ins & the outs.

But GOD has now a covenant & the covenant is with a family—& the family grows into a nation [right]

A nation as yet with no place to be & then the events of the Exodus & the life of Moses—see an increasing with GOD Presence in the world.

And GOD is saying to Abraham through you & through your seed—all the families all the world will be blessed & the tabernacle then becomes part of that with GOD.

RF: That's right, sensibility, it gives a focal point for human beings to locate GOD in relationship to themselves. Now that really is crucial to this whole story because even today — you ask:

DW: Where is GOD from here? [7:45]

RF: Right

DW: Wherever here is [LOL] For living that's a crucial question & you see in the spiritual life of people at the present overcoming distance as they experience is really a major project..

But the way of preparation for dealing with that which we now know through JESUS CHRIST & the Kingdom of GOD.

As HE brings it to Earth in an available form.

That's prepared by centuries through which GOD is with people—who aren't necessarily doing what HE wanted right?

So they we go through a period after coming out of the Exodus—GOD is present with the people of Israel through judges who are raised up & the people of Israel finally say:

We don't do this anymore; we need a King. We need a King & GOD says it's not a good idea & so HE says to the last of the judges Samuel.

Now tell them what's going to happen:

....................................................................................... This King you want is going to make your life miserable & sure enough that statement to Samuel—they're not rejecting you, they are rejecting ME. One of the most profound statements in all of this with GOD's story. .......................................................................................

Comment: June 12, 2023 @8:56AM

I started reading the Bible 2019, & I picked Samuel to start & moved thru to end of Kings, which apparently both are 2 books not 4. I hadn't realized Samuel was the last judge, was more focused on 1st King aspect of the entire spiel..[1 Samuel 8:7]

But it's true this statement by GOD is so powerful: They are rejecting ME, not you. Isn't that something JESUS says when HE told us, they will hate you bc they first hate ME. [John 15:18]

DW: But HE didn't reject them. HE said okay we'll work this out. Then HE uses the monarchy in many ways one was to establish a different kind of presence in the Priest & in the Prophets.

And the Prophets remain outsiders even if they're insiders—in some sense like Isaiah and Jeremiah were outsiders in terms of how they were operating with GOD, in relationship that was oppositional.

Often right? Which is why so many of them got killed [9:48] But that was GOD's way of being with them.

RF: I remember you once saying to me because we were kind of out in the sticks, the Prophets get killed, but only in Jerusalem [right] LOL

DW: That's right. That's where you go to get killed.

RF: So we went with the movement from individual to family, then a nation of people—even identified in terms that GOD didn't want the identification

DW: But now then in that period, you have the building of the Temple you had the formulation of the law & carrying that forward.

So that when the nation gets smashed, which it does, then exiled—

RF: But GOD is still with them [that's the key]

DW: That's the key is they found out that there was a GOD in Heaven, and so the idea of Heaven now begins to intrude. [10:46]

Not as something far away, but something they went to Babylon & they thought GOD isn't here & lo & behold HE was there!

GOD's here. HE's here & you have these wonderful stories—Daniel is so magnificent, that book is so magnificent because it is always bringing in

There is a GOD in Heaven yep

Oh you have a dream we can do something about that; there is a GOD in Heaven.

RF: 1st Heaven in in Hebrew cosmology is the atmosphere

DW: That's right, that's exactly right. It is not far away as I'd like to say: It goes all the way down to your socks

That's the first Heaven. And now that's what they're learning is the Presence of GOD in the surrounding atmosphere. [11:37]

Then when you look back you see how that happened over & over in the history of Israel.

The wonderful passage in Deuteronomy about the everlasting arms is actually a statement about GOD's presence in the atmosphere.

So this is the learning that goes on & of course then there's the restoration period & GOD's with them in that I mean Nehemiah story.

And the big deal here is: They don't have a government. GOD is dealing with them through Cyrus & the Babylonian, then Medes, & the Persians & all of that.

And that is such an incredible lesson because now they learn we don't have to have a government to have a GOD! And to live with GOD we can live with GOD without the government!

And incidentally without a very impressive Temple exactly because what they had in the 2nd Temple was pretty grimy.

It really was, but there was a lot of learning there because GOD was still present. Now the shekinah did not return to the second Temple, as it was in the first Temple.

That is the visible presence of GOD did not return but that was pulling them forward. So that by the time John the Baptist shows up on the scene, & he says: “Well rethink what you're doing because the Kingdom of GOD is right here.

Okay & that lays a foundation & he establishes the connection between the old Prophetic tradition and the new one with JESUS.

RF: And JESUS then becomes the embodiment of a with GOD life [13:35]

DW: That's right HE is the shekinah in person & HE returns to the Temple & of course there's a future to that. But we can't go into it.

RF: But now that the life of JESUS is so important because it is helping us catch a picture of this with GOD life.

DW: That's right & so that's Emmanuel.

RF: Right

DW: Emmanuel, HE is it & HE comes in the form of a person & now a face is put on GOD and it is the face of JESUS. [14:12]

RF: I love the idea of the great doctrine of the NT of the CHRIST-likeness of GOD, that GOD is like JESUS & so the Gospels as the cotton patch version says that JESUS is tops overall.

DW: That's right.

RF: HE gives us a clarity about that with GOD life, but then that moves into the Church the Book of Acts.

DW: Well that's the continuing incarnation is the Church & the way that forms is HE of course says now we are dealing with the Jewish people.

They're the ones that have been prepared for this & they are the ones through whom the Abrahamic blessing comes to all of the Earth.

And all the families of the Earth & so now you get a body of people animated by the presence of the SPIRIT of GOD—enabling them to live like GOD.

A wonderful phrase in Ephesians 5 Be ye followers of GOD as dear children such a wonderful way of watching a little child imitating their parents.

So GOD has become accessible in JESUS & a body has been formed & a body formed that is this community of loving persons with GOD

At the very heart of that community & of course Acts tells that story, it does indeed & you see it up to today Richard.

You find people spread out in history & in time & place—they don't look like there's a lot of them, but they aren't actually for show-and-tell, and GOD doesn't necessarily set them on exhibit.

But you have these wonderful people: [16:04] Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Bonhoeffer, & man alive. I love Bonhoeffer especially in my context because in the academic world:

People just can't avoid him. It's astonishing & it's so funny to watch them kind of twist & turn to get around his devotion to JESUS.

Which is just the whole deal for him.

RF: When I was a teenager, it was: Cost of Discipleship that kept me, because I couldn't find it anywhere.

But I would have this old tattered copy that I would read over & over as a high school kid because it gave me a picture of [life with GOD].

Then of course life together right now in the Bible but this projects on into the future.

DW: That's right & the blow up is on the day of Pentecost because that is the point at which everyone comes from all the nations & they are imprinted & in many cases—inhabited by this GOD that came in JESUS through HIS SPIRIT

Now & they spread out across the world & take that Message out completely, non-secretarian as we say it isn't just religion—it is a life now! It's available to everyone [without any cultural priesthood].

Yes, and we we're so used to talking about that.

We have no idea what an incredible thing it was to go into a meeting with a group of people & find Greeks here & Jews there...

Then over here is Scythica.

The Scythians were made up of nomadic groups who all lived in an area once known as Scythia. Scythia is an area in modern day Iran and other areas of eastern Europe.

RF: LOL, I love that

DW: Now you know, it's again we just don't pick up on that but the Scythian was.. Well as I like to say a scythian is the one when the barbarians saw the Scythians coming they said, “Now there are barbarians.”

You know because they're a mean bunch of people & you know that's well established. But it was sort of the bottom of the human barrel. The next level down was animals, but here they are.

They're sitting together loving one another ministering to one another; loving their people—people in their community & it all comes out of one thing & that is CHRIST is all in all in all!

RF: Then John in his revelation, projects that on to eternity

DW: Right because by the time you get to John they have begun to understand WHO JESUS was. [18:51]

They couldn't get their minds around it & that's why at the end of the last CH of John, John says these things are written that you may know JESUS is the CHRIST!

And I always like to think of the lone ranger you know at the end of the old sequence: Who was that masked man? The LORD!

RF: LOL, I'm sorry that was before my time.

DW: You're a spring chicken.

But they didn't [know], but by the time you get to the Book of Revelation, they have got it.

RF: That's right you've been in the community.

DW: When John sees JESUS there, the only appropriate response is to pass out. [Yeah exactly] & of course he could never have come like that & done his work because you can't make much progress when you're passed out [19:30]

RF: Of course John was in essence the pastor of these seven little Churches. That's right & so that may be the best thing for pastors is "pass out” LOL

DW: They need to be able to experience that at least to get them in the right posture.

RF: Well one of the things I love in this Dallas is this sense all through the Bible of GOD saying to us: I'm with you, I am with you, I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you & then that haunting question: [20:22]

Are you willing to be with ME?

DW: Right yes

RF: And so that's what this life [is all about]: Life with GOD

DW: That's the great choice & of course that is How are we with HIM?

Well that's the choice that we make & then we learn through Discipleship how to live in that right & as we grow, we get a sense of something far beyond anything we know & you know..

The wonderful word there in 1 John 3:2-4

1 John 3:2-4 | ² Beloved, we are now children of GOD, & what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when CHRIST appears, we will be like HIM, for we will see HIM as HE is. ³ And everyone who has this hope in HIM purifies himself, just as CHRIST is pure. ⁴ Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness as well. Indeed, sin is lawlessness.

And such we are, but we don’t yet know what we shall be. We just know that when we see HIM, we shall be as HE is. [21:04]

.................................................................................... And that means we're getting in position to reign with HIM forever & ever. ....................................................................................

I am with you, I am with you, I am with you.

RF: This week you've been encouraging us about the crucifixion with CHRIST, as a good thing [yes] to lead us into greater life of the Kingdom of GOD, in which we hear & obey the formation of the soul

Leading us into a a all-inclusive community of loving persons—with GOD at the heart of that community—as its prime sustainer. [22:02]

And the most glorious enhancement

DW: We get the taste of that in daily life. And we don't get the whole deal, we couldn't stand it if we did.

But we get to be people living now an eternal kind of life—wherever we are, because we are really living from the Kingdom of GOD. [22:23]

RF: Now without getting too technical, I want to explore this idea of life in the NT. There are 2 words for life:

[a] bios just physical life & [b] zoe this eternal uncreated life.

And so that's why it's possible to be physically alive bios & spiritually dead zoe. Now can you just un- pack this idea of the zoe, a life of GOD that comes into the human being from the outside. [22:45]

This is where I really hope you can help us with that has a principle of its own: This life & what does that mean & how does that work out for us?

DW: Okay that's a great question. [23:20]

Let me start like this, life is a process or activity that is defined by how it is directed. What is it directed towards? Life is always propulsive & there is a movement that is natural to the kind of life that we're talking about.

Whether it's a plant or a snail or a giraffe or a human being that has a direction & is a part of that direction it has various parts to it.

A snail doesn't spend any time studying algebra human beings do & that's a different part of life.

Some human beings do right.

But it's a human capacity, whereas the snail is sort of left out [Laughter] & that's characteristic of kinds of life now.

The other thing that life does is it eats plants, eat dirt, & they absorb light. They do photosynthesis with that & we take in & if we are not provided what would nourish us for the kind of life that we have—then we die.

Now the human being is directed towards the governance of their world under GOD, that is a spiritual life; that's how we're created.

We lost that because being a spiritual life it was grounded in choice & the ability to choose the fundamental role of the human spirit is to:

simply trust GOD & when you pull that away you lose the nutrients that are necessary for human beings to flourish.

Just like if you take sunlight away from a cabbage plant, not much going to come of that—so the human being has in it a kind of life that derives from its capacity to draw on GOD as the principle that sustains it; gives its direction/power/keeps the direction

When we withdraw from GOD, we turn back on ourselves and we try to make GOD out of ourselves & the pickings there are pretty slim.

You know quite frankly & so human life does not go well & you get the story in Romans 1 about the degeneration that comes as human beings turn back on its own body & tries to draw from that.

The nutrition that will enable it to flourish. This is a so important for us to understand what goes on in our world today.

So then, now the person who is a Disciple of JESUS has reestablished the connection with GOD through CHRIST.

And that's where of course GOD with us has the initiative on GOD's side. But HE's willing & HE makes HIMSELF available & the new new birth which of course is actually the birth from above.

It's not just a new one. It's located in a certain source & that above is where the Kingdom of GOD is, so from the outside comes in life.

Reestablishing the connection the word of the SPIRIT, word & the SPIRIT comes in and the response is to receive it.

I'd like to think of these wonderful refueling planes, so that you they trail a hose out back of them & the plane comes up & that's us.

We're taking in fuel from GOD.

RF: Now this life that comes in then is indestructible & destroyed & that's one of the reasons that the resurrection of JESUS meant so much.

Absolutely, the Disciples saw right that this life can't be destroyed. It keeps on..

DW: In effect JESUS on the Cross is saying hit ME with your best shot. [28:00] And I live beyond

RF: I'll live beyond it. So the Disciples knew then that they were possessors or participators in a life that will go on forever & will accomplish its purposes.

DW: That's right & it's two contemporary manifestations are always in transformation of character & power to accomplish what is good.

Now that the power to accomplish what is good that was our original charter. But we can't do it if we don't have the life--that is alive [zoe]

Now when we have that.

Then we grow in our capacity to do that. As our character becomes more capable of bearing the power.

........................................................................................... RF: That's part of the reasons for spiritual disciplines. Right, to help them train in righteousness. ...........................................................................................

DW: That's right, it's very important here to understand that is a continuation of GOD's provision for us to find ways to deal with HIM—at an appropriate distance.

Because see the disciplines are not themselves Holy works. They are avenues into the presence of GOD.

And you like to use that word means of grace & that's what it is a discipline you go into solitude or silence. Well that's something you can do, but it's not for its own sake. It's to be receptive.

RF: Exactly, I mean I like you know Paul's words to Timothy exercise yourself into godliness [yes] & that word exercise has the Greek gymnasium

In its background, so the idea of training like the athletes would train & somebody was asking the question of:

What discipline is appropriate? Well it's like an athlete that is, if you're a gymnast then you're good at the parallel bars.

But you're not good at the floor exercises.

DW: That's absolutely right. You've got to get to the floor exercise & another word NT word is pidea which has also a classic background to it.

It refers more to the holistic development of the whole person, but of course you can't do that unless you're developing the parts.

And so you need both gimnaso & paidea & GOD gives us teachings about how to enter into that & go to school with JESUS & be HIS student.

........................................................................................ RF: And that's where our word piety comes from the whole life being formed in a way that's exactly right. ........................................................................................

DW: Yeah, so now then that whole life requires that we be with one another. [30:45]

And so that keeps us out..

You probably hear the same thing I do, when you say in some quarters when you bring up spiritual disciplines—people will say: Oh privatization!

You know, well of course they don't know what they're talking about because what the spiritual disciplines do is they teach you how to love with power & that is communal from start to the end & so it isn't privatization at all.[31:16]

You turn this person loose out here

They're operating in a bank or in a taco stand or whatever & that's where the power of character & the presence of GOD comes through.

RF: Now I want to turn our thinking a little bit more specifically to hearing GOD & particularly your teaching here in this book on the way we come to understand the voice of GOD.

And the quality of the voice of GOD right the SPIRIT of the voice of GOD & the content & that sense of the SPIRIT you know..

GOD draws & encourages, but Satan pushes & condemns CHRIST; & we can learn the difference

Yes indeed & so then we learn the voice of GOD & as you put it in the still small voice & you make a statement in here about the greater expression the more immature that is.

As you develop in maturity you don't need it's like in my mind I think of you know a horse that has learned a neck rein, it doesn't take much at all to turn. [32:50]

DW: That's right. Sometimes just leaning is enough.

RF: If people have visions & dreams, that's wonderful but it isn't necessarily a compliment. [33:00]

DW: No it isn't, it's a grace in this respect; that is another aspect of GOD's fine tuning on this issue of distance.

Because dramatic cases address the distance, that it’s there, in the sense of grabbing someone who might never recognize the still small voice if it came. But also the meaning is not so clear the person is unable to respond to it. [33:45]

And I think this is so important to understand & it does stand out in that passage in Numbers where Aaron & Miriam get in trouble with GOD because of their jealousy of Moses.

I think that's one of the most important passages in coming to understand the voice because GOD just explains HIS policy & it starts out by saying something very important:

that Moses is the most humble on Earth

WOW that's that character formation absolutely right opens the right & that's also you know isn't such an illustration of the thing.

That turns up both in Peter & James in the NT where it says GOD resists the proud. [34:32]

Well Miriam & Aaron, they're getting resisted but HE gives grace to the humble & HE says “Now MY servant Moses is not like other ppl other Prophets, the ordinary Prophet will have a dream or a vision or something of that sort.

But I just talk to Moses. [34:52]

RF: Yeah

DW: And HE talks to me; & that's the ideal condition.

But GOD doesn't leave us alone, if we can't do that; [RF: & that was the thing the teaching of Elijah, after that incredible experience with the Prophets of Baal, which had plenty of fireworks

Then of course he skedaddles & that whole story wanting to die under the broom tree & getting over to the cave.

DW: Yeah a lot of self-deception because if he wanted to die, he could you just stayed there & then

RF: But the passage that I find so interesting is when he gets to the cave & I think often you know well sometimes when we go through it.

We want to say move over Elijah — let me come & pout in the cave with you. But then GOD does not leave him there, but takes him out of the cave

That's right & GOD says go out & stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by now.

That passage has Sinai in its background when GOD passed by & [scared him] Yeah! plenty of fireworks! So Elijah was looking for the fireworks.

DW: Well he was good at fireworks, but not much more to tell you the truth. I mean he's such a fascinating thing to study & I think the story there about how when that little voice comes he wraps his face in his mantle.

I think that's Elijah realizing what he didn't have & of course this was the end of his ministry & from there he went to ordain Elisha.

And I mean there were some other things that happened after that, but basically that was the end of the fireworks. [37:04]

.............................................................................................. It was over it's very instructive to us again in this whole issue of GOD with us & the speaking is absolutely essential to that & of course it comes in many ways. ..............................................................................................

The Bible is a constant speaking to us where we can go to seek the word of GOD. It's kind of like word at a permanent address whereas Israel was a permanent address for GOD's Kingdom.

At one time the Bible as a form of GOD's presence in the world, it's speaking & we need to go beyond the sacred pages.

The Psalm says beyond the sacred page we seek the LORD, our spirit pants for THEE living GOD & that's the point where the speaking goes on..

RF: But even though it was the end of Elijah's Earthly Ministry, it wasn't the end because he ends up on another mountain, which he does & JESUS & the Disciples

DW: And even gets a ride in a fiery chariot [Laughter]

RF: His exit, but then even beyond that what we call the amount of transportation he ends up Elijah & Moses & JESUS so then we go to JESUS as the ultimate example of GOD moving with us.

DW: Yes that's right, I'm so touched by what they were talking about. They were talking about HIS death.

And I think that I think that they were encouraging HIM & you know they never found Moses's body I have a feeling that it wasn't left on Earth.

And there's some indications of course about the Angel contending with Satan to get his body & if Satan hadn’t got his body, I'm sure there would still be a statue of Moses.

Somebody that will worship him.

But it's so important to get out of that same way with Elijah [& Eli exactly] yeah

& JESUS HIMSELF, I mean imagine what it would be like if someone had the body of JESUS

RF: Or even the grave clothes or something..

............................................................................................... DW: Oh yes, but these are important things about how GOD is with us, to draw us into the spiritual world fully; & to understand its reality. ...............................................................................................

And of course to know that the physical world does not disappear. It's still there, but now we've moved into a mode of life with GOD—where we're not under the limitations that are imposed by matter & JESUS you remember HE said

“Well if I don't go away, the SPIRIT can't come.”

RF: So we can move into that life.

Well Moses & Elijah encouraging JESUS about HIS death. This week you've been encouraging us about crucifixion with CHRIST.

As a good thing, to lead us into the greater life of the Kingdom of GOD, in which we hear & obey the formation of the soul.

Leading us into an all-inclusive community of loving persons with GOD at the heart of that community as its prime sustainer.

DW: And the most glorious enhancement & we get the taste of that in daily life; & we don't get the whole deal, we couldn't stand it if we did.

But we get to be people living now in an eternal kind of life, wherever we are because we are really living from the Kingdom of GOD.

RF: So that death is merely a minor transition from this life to greater life.

DW: JESUS said, “You wouldn't experience it.”

Very interesting thing & that's a big part of the NT Message, and you remember Paul even says in 2 Timothy 1:10 that JESUS abolished death & brought life & immortality to life thru the Gospel.

That's Kingdom living, that's eternal living; and I think we should really emphasize that Richard because so many of our folks are still deeply troubled about dying & death.

And we want to say: Now that it will make a difference to the people who are left here, but you're not going to be here.

You will go on, out of here, & your experiences as you know it now—especially as you know it living in the Kingdom of GOD will be continuous through the event which from this side looks like dying but your experience will go on.

I don't think Lazarus as he was at that banquet in Abraham's bosom was thinking about death.

& I actually think a good way of saying it is probably you won't even know you've died until later because you've stepped beyond time—that's right now.

That's the eternal life, however we've run out of time so we have to stop. Eternity keeps on.. That's right.

#piety

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jdgo51 · 1 year

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL FOR APRIL 17, 2023

Making a Difference

By Agnes Wee (Singapore)

READ EPHESIANS 4:11-16

"You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."

1 CORINTHIANS 12:27 (NIV)

"The year 2020 may have come to an end, but it will not be easily forgotten. It was a year that brought horrific pain, loss, and change in the lives of many.

But the pandemic also brought positive change. Working from home helped some people realize that they have missed spending time with family and friends. Many who used to spend hours working late have started to appreciate a better balance between work and home life. The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of mental health, so often neglected in a highly competitive society.

Seeing so many people suffering from the effects of the pandemic, I have strongly felt the call to join mental health volunteers to help others overcome their adversity. Sometimes, a listening ear or an encouraging word can make a positive difference in someone’s life. In Ephesians 4:11-16, God calls on different people to come together to provide works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up, as each part does its work in love.

God can turn ashes into beauty through people from all walks of life banding together in love to make a difference in the lives of others." Everyone has their part to play in life and we should do nothing less than fulfill it. Believe completely that God is making it all progress with you. No time will you be along. Take time to support everyone around you. Together everyone makes everything work.

TODAY'S PRAYER

"Heavenly Father, thank you for the different talents you have given to each of us and for opportunities to use them to make a difference." Amen.

Ephesians 4:11-16

New International Version

"11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." Continue to do your part and be an encouragement to everyone else in doing theirs. He equips everyone one of us to do the job given to us. Blessings to everyone! Joe

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theenchantedecho · 2 years

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Unity in the Wizarding World: How Nonprofits are Bridging the Gap and Fostering a Stronger Community

March 17, 1982

In these trying times, as the war against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his followers casts a dark shadow over our world, it is essential to recognise the efforts of nonprofits dedicated to making a difference in the British wizarding community. From providing medical care to marginalised communities to advocating for equal rights, these organisations work tirelessly to bridge the gap between various groups and foster unity.

One such nonprofit, The Healing Hands Hospital, has made a significant impact in the wizarding community by catering to marginalised groups such as the very poor, trolls, werewolves, and other magical beings. Founded by a group of compassionate healers led by the visionary Madam Clara Fawcett, this specialised medical facility offers accessible and inclusive care regardless of background or circumstances. In an interview with the Daily Prophet, Madam Fawcett said, "Our mission is to ensure that no one is left behind when it comes to receiving essential medical care." Its services have already saved countless lives and given hope to those who may have otherwise been neglected by the healthcare system. The Healing Hands Hospital also hosts community outreach programmes, providing magical first aid training and seminars on understanding and accepting various magical creatures in our society.

Another crucial nonprofit, the Wizarding Rights Advocacy Group, fights for equal rights and opportunities for minority groups like goblins and house-elves. Led by the tenacious lawyer, Gertrude Goldsworthy, the organisation promotes and protects the rights of marginalised and disadvantaged groups within the wizarding world. In a recent article in the International Association of Wizarding Standards Agency's newsletter, Goldsworthy declared, "We will not rest until every member of our community is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve." The group has also spearheaded public awareness campaigns, including the "Equality for All" initiative, aiming to create a more inclusive and progressive society.

Additionally, the Wizarding Elder Care Society, under the guidance of the empathetic and experienced director, Agnes Whiffleby, provides support and assistance to elderly wizards and witches. In a feature published in Magical Home and Hearth, Whiffleby shared, "These wonderful people have contributed so much to our society, and they deserve our care and attention." The organisation offers home visits, social activities, and transportation assistance to help seniors maintain their independence and live fulfilling lives. In an age when many older members of the wizarding community face loneliness and isolation, the Wizarding Elder Care Society is a beacon of hope and companionship. They have also recently launched a mentorship programme, connecting younger wizards and witches with their elderly counterparts, fostering intergenerational relationships and understanding.

Lastly, the Wizarding Green Alliance and the Wizarding Conservation Society have joined forces to protect and preserve the natural habitats of magical creatures and promote environmentally friendly practices within the wizarding community. Spearheaded by renowned environmentalist and magizoologist, Samuel Greenbriar, these organizations work to ensure that the wizarding world's natural resources and biodiversity remain intact for future generations. In a speech at the Wizarding Academy of Higher Education, Greenbriar stated, "Our magical creatures and environment are our responsibility, and it's crucial to preserve them for our children and their children." They organize clean-up events, educational seminars, and magical creature adoption drives to raise awareness about the importance of environmental stewardship and conservation in Britain.

Despite the challenges presented by the ongoing conflict with You-Know-Who and his followers, the resilience of these nonprofits is truly inspiring. Their commitment to unity, compassion, and equality in the wizarding world serves as a reminder that even in the darkest of times, there are still heroes among us, striving for a brighter future. By working together and supporting these organizations, we can create a more harmonious and just society that stands strong in the face of adversity and fosters a sense of belonging for all members of our diverse community.

These nonprofits are but a few of the many organizations working towards a better future for the wizarding world in Britain. As we navigate the challenges of our current situation, it is essential to recognize the power of unity and collaboration. Each organization, while focusing on different aspects of our society, contributes to the overall well-being and harmony of our community.

The Confederation of Wizards conference, held annually, provides a platform for representatives from different wizarding governments to come together and discuss pressing issues. This year's conference, set to take place in June, will be held in the enchanting location of Hogsmeade Village, near Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The conference will address the need for increased cooperation and support between various organizations, both governmental and nonprofit, to tackle the challenges facing the wizarding world in Britain. The conference will also highlight the importance of citizen participation and engagement in promoting positive change.

It is through the collective efforts of individuals within the British wizarding community that true progress can be made. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about various initiatives and ways they can contribute to the betterment of the wizarding world, from volunteering at local nonprofits to advocating for policies that promote inclusivity and equality.

In these difficult times, the power of the collective is more critical than ever. As the battle against You-Know-Who and his followers continues, it is crucial for the British wizarding community to come together, standing united in the face of adversity. By supporting and engaging with these nonprofits and their missions, we can all play a part in creating a more inclusive, just, and unified society.

Now more than ever, we must remember the power of love, empathy, and understanding. As Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and leader of the Order of the Phoenix, once said in a speech to the students, "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light." By championing the work of these organizations and lending our support, we can help to create a brighter future for the British wizarding world, built on the foundations of compassion, unity, and hope.

As members of the British wizarding community, it is our responsibility to contribute to the well-being of our society in any way we can. By supporting these nonprofits and their missions, participating in community initiatives, and promoting unity, we can make a meaningful impact in the lives of our fellow wizards and witches. In doing so, we not only help to build a more harmonious and just society but also send a strong message of defiance against the forces of darkness that seek to divide and conquer us. Let us stand together, united in our commitment to fostering a more inclusive and harmonious world for all. As we face the challenges and uncertainties ahead, let our collective strength and unity be a guiding force that propels us toward a brighter and more promising future.

#The Healing Hands Hospital #The Enchanted Echo #ch:Madam Clara Fawcett #Wizarding Rights Advocacy Group #ch:Gertrude Goldsworthy #Wizarding Elder Care Society #ch:Agnes Whiffleby #Wizarding Green Alliance #Wizarding Conservation Society #ch: Samuel Greenbriar #The Confederation of Wizards conference

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