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Pages 402-410
A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (North-Eastern Cambridgeshire). Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 2002.
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In 1066 just over half the ten hides in Fordham had belonged to the royal demesne manor, which rendered £10 by tale, by 1086 blanch, besides a three-day food farm of wheat, malt, and honey. That farm had been converted to a cash payment of £13 8s. 4d. by 1086, when the manor's ten ploughlands, six in demesne, were worked by six villani and 15 bordars, with four ploughteams; the demesne had only two teams, with one servus. On the rest of the vill Count Alan's vassal Wihomarc had at most one ploughland in demesne. The three sokemen of 1066 were probably represented by three sokemen or villani, apparently with one team each. (fn. 1)
The size of the demesne of the royal manor, at least briefly in hand in 1173, (fn. 2) was apparently reduced by the 13th century: of the two manors into which it was divided by 1200, (fn. 3) one included 196 a. of demesne arable c. 1300, (fn. 4) but only 120- 40 a. later in the 14th century, (fn. 5) when the other had just 70-80 a. (fn. 6) In the 17th century many of Christ's College's strips belonging to Coggeshall manor adjoined those of Trinity Hall's Feltons demesne, suggesting that those manors' openfield blocks had been physically divided. (fn. 7)
Of c. 1,000 a. of tenanted fieldland reported under Fordham in 1279, only a quarter was then held fully in villeinage, including six half yardlands of 15-18 a. The half yardlanders were not heavily burdened, owing mainly rents and reaping duties, besides threshing and carrying services; one had also to plough 27 a. yearly. Villeins with lesser holdings of 2-3 a. owed in labour only reaping, like the 28 'coterells', also obliged to thresh, on the larger Crown manor; among them were twenty with 6 a. each. That manor's tenants also included six sokemen, with 80 a. altogether, perhaps personally free, two holding 20 a., the rest 7-11 a., each, who likewise had to reap, perhaps relics of an earlier manorial regime. The priory's seven villeins, holding merely 10 a. with their dwellings, had only to reap, mow, and dig turf for a day, while its ten cottagers owed reaping and hay-making. There were then no villeins on the Richmond fee, all of its 260 a., partly held of Richmond manors in adjoining parishes, being freehold. (fn. 8) By 1290 the smaller, once royal, manor that became Coggeshalls had only 57 works due, apart from harvest services sufficient to reap 74 a. of demesne crops and carry the corn in one day, while only cottagers' works were reported in 1332. (fn. 9) On the other manor, later Feltons, customary works were only valued in cash in the 14th century. (fn. 10) In the 15th century former customary tenures were treated as rent-paying copyholds. (fn. 11) Much land in Fordham's northwestern fields had belonged from the 13th century to the demesne and tenants, both free and customary, of the Soham Duchy manor. Its customary tenants in Fordham, numbering c. 15 in the 14th century, had their labour services commuted by the 1390s, when the Fordham part of its demesne was leased out. (fn. 12) On Bassingbourns manor the demesne was at farm by 1440. (fn. 13) Tenants on that manor, where widows were excused paying heriots, might inherit and entail their holdings by the 1450s. (fn. 14)
Bassingbourns manor had no demesne in 1279, but built one up subsequently, as Fordham priory had earlier by gift and purchase, in the late 13th and the 14th centuries. (fn. 15) Its later demesne probably derived in part from the substantial freeholds reported in 1279, often with their own under-tenants. One such tenement, whose owner settled 70 a. in 1278 and who was still in 1279 lord of eight free tenants, had provided 90 a. of the priory estate. (fn. 16) Of two other such holdings then of 60-70 a., one apparently passed c. 1296 from the Clerbeks to the Wiggenhalls. (fn. 17) Of c. 540 a. of non-manorial freehold in 1279, over 400 a. belonged to eighteen men with 10 a. or more, including five with over 30 a. Another forty house-holding freeholders with 5 a. or less, including fifteen with c. 1 a. each, possessed barely 67 a. between them. (fn. 18)
It was probably those lesser freeholders who depended most on Fordham's position on the fen edge, which provided extensive common pastures in the north-west of the parish to complement the open fields that occupied its east and south. By the 14th century, (fn. 19) and until the 1810s, (fn. 20) Fordham had effectively two groupings of open fields: a possibly older one lay in its south and east, while another, perhaps later, group with smaller fields developed west of the village. Three large fields, altogether c. 1,660 a., lay east and south of the village: Barrow field, so named from 1410, (fn. 21) lying north-east towards Isleham, covered c. 550 a. To its south the 615 a. of Church field, usually so named c. 1380- 1550, (fn. 22) but renamed by the 1550s (fn. 23) as until the late 18th century Kenninghall field, (fn. 24) and styled by the 1790s Chippenham field, (fn. 25) occupied the south-east quadrant. Westward beyond a belt of grassland and Fordham priory's inclosures, lay the third field, covering c. 485 a. It was mostly called c. 1400, as until the 1630s, Budgate or Butgate field. (fn. 26) Part, perhaps in the north near 'Biggen' priory's buildings, was already known by 1400 as Biggen field, (fn. 27) a name used for the whole field from the mid 17th century. (fn. 28)
Further west, close to the north-western boundary, lay on relatively drier ground the Hales field covering, 1656 × 1670, c. 260 a. of arable. A narrow strip probably of common, called by the 1540s Fordham Frith, (fn. 29) divided that field into Fordham Hales to the east, then c. 175 a., and another 80 a. to the west called Burwell Hales, a name recorded from the 1390s, (fn. 30) but renamed Block field by 1780 after the adjoining Block close and farm. (fn. 31) Further north, beyond the roads to Soham, were the 206-15 a. that lay within Fordham parish of Clipsall field, a name in use from the 13th century, when some land in it was already kept as permanent grass. (fn. 32) Some land nominally within that field which was used as meadow or inclosed pasture, probably in the 15th century, certainly after 1500, (fn. 33) probably lay along its eastern edge; c. 100 a. there in 1656 and 60 a. c. 1800 were effectively held as several closes. About 1670 c. 75 a. of that field's 143 a. of arable strips (local measure) in Fordham were owned by c. 30 men, apparently mostly from Soham, who also had 100 a. of the Hales, but little or no land elsewhere in Fordham. Fordham's own manorial demesnes had only 4½ a. in Clipsall field, and barely 15 a. in the Hales. (fn. 34) Those fields may have been Fordham's share of a field-system linked to the adjoining one lying along Soham's southern border. The open arable in Clipsall field at least presumably shared its rotations with the Soham part of that field.
Besides the open fields, subject to a triennial rotation by the 1320s, (fn. 35) Fordham had other arable in crofts, mostly divided internally into separately owned strips. (fn. 36) Surrounding the village to east, north, and west, they comprised c. 95 a. c. 1810. (fn. 37) About 1210 Fordham priory had been granted land in one man's field called 'Halldam croft', perhaps to the south where the Abbey crofts later lay. (fn. 38) Other crofts mentioned in the 13th century included Calvescroft, Oxcroft, Toliscroft, and Goosecroft, (fn. 39) recorded until c. 1780. (fn. 40) Crofts lying by the mid 15th century near Market Street (fn. 41) probably became the Carter Street crofts of 1656, (fn. 42) covering 25-35 a., between those two streets. Hurts crofts, (24 a. in 1656, later 12 a.), (fn. 43) lay to their south-east. West of Market Street were Holders crofts, 40 a. in 1656, and beyond them the West Fen crofts, then covering 34 a., recorded c. 1550-1800. (fn. 44) At the village's east end Church croft, mentioned by 1400, covered 9½ a. south of the church. (fn. 45) To its north, probably west of the Isleham road running past Fordham moor, the Moor Street crofts, recorded into the 1530s, contained one 10-a. block in 1452. (fn. 46) The crofts west of the Isleham road covered 30 a. c. 1800. Beyond them to the north lay a group of several closes, 22 a. belonging to Bassingbourns manor, mostly with curving borders, perhaps medieval intakes from the moor to the north. (fn. 47) East of the river and north of the village street lay Wildcroft, recorded from the late 14th century to the 18th and covering 48 a. in 1656. (fn. 48) By 1800 Fordham's crofts, then called 'every year land', were probably being cropped continuously. (fn. 49) Wildcroft also included meadow by 1610, and parts of other crofts had by the late 17th century been converted to pasture. (fn. 50) Although c. 1670 some crofts had been formally grouped with adjoining open fields, Church croft for instance with Kenninghall field, (fn. 51) they were effectively held in severalty, and at inclosure were accordingly directed to be allotted to their existing owners. (fn. 52)
From the 13th century Fordham's commons and pastures had fallen into three sections. (fn. 53) South of the village the narrow South fen, adjoining Biggen field in 1545, (fn. 54) stretched along the river. The priory, whose crofts lay to its west, had already by 1279 inclosed 10 a. of that fen. (fn. 55) Although South fen was still reckoned as commonable in the early 18th century, (fn. 56) the Russells had made inclosures there in the 17th: by 1800 the Abbey estate, once theirs, included 35 a. of closes between the river and Biggen field. (fn. 57) To their north-east lay the Blackland, c. 27 a., so named from c. 1320 (fn. 58) until c. 1800, (fn. 59) later called the Brackland. In the 17th century turf was dug and straw cut there. (fn. 60) Its northern part served as Lammas meadow until inclosure. (fn. 61) The riverside grassland was continued northward through the village closes by Mill meadow, 3 a., and Pool fen common, 7½ a., so named by 1534, north of the bridge. (fn. 62)
Much of Fordham's other more extensive fen commons west and north of the village was intercommonable with Soham until that parish's fens were inclosed in the 1660s. (fn. 63) In the 1340s some Fordham men, presumably not holding of Soham's Duchy manor, regularly paid its lord for the right to feed their beasts on that intercommon. (fn. 64) The Fordham Duchy tenants were still in the 1620s considered to be entitled to intercommon over the whole 560 a. ascribed to the Hales common in the west of the modern parish and the 432 a. of Fordham Moor in its north. (fn. 65)
In the 13th century Fordham's West fen, six furlongs each way, stretched from 'Nesdam' on the Burwell boundary to 'Hopperislane'. (fn. 66) That fen probably originally occupied most of Fordham's western projection and southwestern quadrant. (fn. 67) Much of its north-western portion, called Hales fen by 1422 and reckoned as 283 a. in 1618, was still in the 1650s intercommonable with Soham. When it was mostly inclosed in the 1660s, the Soham Duchy manor estate received c. 200 a., which were later represented by the 227-a. Block farm lying in Fordham's western projection. Another 27 a. at its west end had already in the 1630s gone to the Bedford Level Adventurers. (fn. 68) A small part of Hales fen left uninclosed south of Block field was apparently by 1820 renamed Block corner. (fn. 69) To the south-east watercourses draining west from the village into Burwell New River divided the Hales fen and fields from the larger fen to the south-west, not involved in the 17th-century inclosures, still called West Fen common in 1800 when it covered 422 a. That common was bounded eastward by a line of ancient closes west of Biggen field with the West Fen crofts at their northern end. Beyond those closes' southern end lay another 70 a. of old inclosures, attached by 1820 to the Cottons' Landwade estate. (fn. 70)
North of Fordham village the North fen, not intercommonable, in 1279 two furlongs long and one broad, extended north-eastwards towards the Isleham border. (fn. 71) It was possibly also called the Moor fen by the 1350s, and c. 1400 contained 'lakes' held in severalty, which might flood it. (fn. 72) Supposedly covering 232 a. in 1618, (fn. 73) it was partly represented c. 1800 by the 136-a. North fen west of Barrow field. West of North fen lay the intercommonable Fordham Moor, so called by 1316, which by the 1340s was separated from Clipsall meadow to its south-west by a deep, waterfilled dyke, (fn. 74) probably along the then course of the river Snail. In the 1660s Thomas Chicheley, then Soham's chief lord, had Fordham Moor divided, despite opposition from Fordham villagers. Though only allotted 90 a. in the Moor in 1665, (fn. 75) he had by the 1670s taken possession in severalty of all the half of the moor, supposedly 200-250 a., assigned to Soham. (fn. 76) Under an agreement of 1658 effected in 1665, Fordham's commoners nevertheless retained until inclosure as their share of the former intercommon the 189-a. Moor common. It was partly separated from their North fen by the 186 a. of closes, representing Chicheley's share, which became Moor farm in Fordham parish. (fn. 77)
In the 12th and 13th centuries Fordham's fields grew wheat, rye, barley, and oats. (fn. 78) Individual fields were designated from the 15th century to the 18th as the 'wheat field', (fn. 79) the 'rye field, (fn. 80) the 'barley field', (fn. 81) and the 'pease field'. (fn. 82) By the early 16th century villagers' wills most often, however, bequeathed barley. (fn. 83) The winter corn field was still expected to include rye c. 1660. (fn. 84) That traditional rotation of two crops and a fallow was still used in the 1790s. (fn. 85) By 1700 the titheable crops had also included turnips and coleseed. (fn. 86)
Parts of the commons were being dug for turf by 1200. Fordham priory was soon after granted rights of turbary. (fn. 87) Cutting rushes and digging turf were regulated by 1400, their sale outside Fordham being then and later forbidden. (fn. 88) About 1610 the moor was largely devoted to cutting turf. (fn. 89) But the fen commons' main use from the 13th century was as pasture. In 1210 over 120 people may have kept beasts there. (fn. 90) Fordham sometimes suffered encroachments on its commons from neighbouring villages, as in the 1390s, with up to 400 sheep. (fn. 91) About 1545 Fordham men were similarly encroaching, by cutting sedge and digging turf, on 60 a. of Snailwell's High fen adjoining Fordham's 'Hard grounds'. (fn. 92)
In the early 14th century Fordham sokemen and freeholders might have up to 12 sheep at a time stolen from their folds. (fn. 93) Locally owned flocks of 40, 60, and 200 were reported c. 1420. (fn. 94) In 1533, to prevent overcharging the commons, villagers were forbidden to feed more beasts there in summer than they could maintain throughout the year, while in 1536 they were barred from folding outsiders' sheep between Midsummer and Lady Day. (fn. 95) By the 17th century sheep were apparently kept mainly on the manorial farms, although two other holdings supposedly still had c. 1800 sheepwalk for 240 and 180 sheep respectively. (fn. 96) In 1618 Feltons and Bassingbourns manors had each been entitled to sheepwalk for four hundred beasts, Coggeshalls and the Abbey estate for three hundred, probably in long hundreds of 120 animals. By the 1670s such large flocks were overburdening the pastures, and the manorial lessees agreed to halve their size. (fn. 97)
The North fen, styled by 1543 the Horse fen, from which sheep and oxen were excluded after Lady Day by 1540, was thereafter reserved from March to November for farmers' working horses, though each commoner was also allowed three weanling calves there. (fn. 98) Horses commoning there in the 17th century had to work three days a week. By the 1670s craftsmen and occupiers of less than 20 a. might not keep more than two horses each there. Sheep, allowed on that common only in winter, like cattle, grazed mainly on West fen, though from 1698 they were barred from doles there between April and November. Sheep could enter upon the openfield 'rye stubble' ten days after harvest; cattle, still required in 1659 to feed together in the keeping of a common herdsman, apparently still acting c. 1740, might feed on the 'barley stubble' after six days. (fn. 99) Frequent deaths in the 1790s, 280 perishing in 1795, among the 1,800 Norfolk sheep then kept were ascribed to foot rot on ill drained soils. (fn. 100) By the early 19th century some farmers also kept Southdown sheep, besides milking cattle. (fn. 101)
Of Fordham's 61 taxpayers in 1523-4 the five wealthiest, with 20 marks or more, had paid on c. £115 of some £200 assessed on the village, while only three others were worth over £5, and 33 had only £1-2 each. Of twenty men taxed on wages thirteen probably worked for the five largest farmers. (fn. 102) In the 16th and 17th centuries, despite a practice among yeoman families of dividing holdings among several children, Fordham had a few dynasties of prosperous yeomen, such as the Cheesewrights, two of whom were taxed c. 1523 on £45 and £20. (fn. 103) Five generations of that family were recorded between the early 15th century (fn. 104) and the early 17th. (fn. 105) One who died in 1563 left his freeholds to one son, leaseholds and copyholds to another. (fn. 106) They intermarried with the Hinsons, established by 1500 and providing the wealthiest villager in 1522. (fn. 107) They were lessees of Bassingbourns manor farm from the 1570s (fn. 108) and of Feltons by the 1590s, when one left £740 among his younger children. (fn. 109) The Hinsons who bought up land from the 1550s, (fn. 110) sometimes allegedly took advantage of another family's difficulties to acquire its inheritance, (fn. 111) and remained substantial landowners in the early 17th century. (fn. 112) Their counterparts in the 1660s were the Masons and Bridgemans, whose heads, reckoned as gentry and owning respectively 137 a. and 103 a., then occupied houses with 8 or 9 hearths. (fn. 113)
At that period there were still numerous smallholders: out of c. 2,275 a. (local measure) of arable in open fields and crofts recorded c. 1670, 253 a. belonged to the Abbey estate and, probably, c. 610 a. to the three colleges. Apart from the Stewards' 148 a., there were only seven holdings of 50 a. or more, totalling 588 a., all but 60 a. of which lay in the three more ancient fields. Nine other owners had 20-40 a. and six 10-20 a. each, equivalent to medieval full and half yardlands; such holdings totalled respectively c. 245 a. and 80 a. Forty others with less land, including 25 with under 2 a. each, had barely 120 a. between them. (fn. 114) By the late 18th century Fordham's farming was coming to be dominated by a few families such as the Wilkins, Westropes, tenants under Christ's College from the 1740s, and Fysons, who combined tenancies of manorial and college farms with the accumulation of property in the parish. (fn. 115) Members of the last two families emerged with over 50 a. each at inclosure. (fn. 116)
When first proposed in 1798 an inclosure was rejected by Fordham's leading farmers as without benefit. (fn. 117) An Act was finally obtained in 1809 with little opposition. (fn. 118) Despite some disputes, (fn. 119) the parish was actually divided in 1811. (fn. 120) Formal execution of the award was put off, however, until 1820, (fn. 121) arousing disquiet among some small landowners over uncertainty about their title. (fn. 122) The delay arose from disputes caused by the inclosure commissioners' attempt, after raising £8,456 in 1812, to collect a second rate of £5,690 in 1817 to compensate some allottees who had, through poor surveying, received less than their strict entitlement. Many owners refused to pay. (fn. 123) The area allotted, including croftland and inclosures exchanged, came to 3,201 a.; the 17th-century inclosures from fenland to the north and west, like the ancient closes around the village, were not involved. (fn. 124) Much land changed hands during the inclosure. William Dunn Gardner (I) purchased land from seven landowners, while Robert Hayward added to the Stewards' former farm the holdings of at least six others. (fn. 125) After c. 775 a. had been allotted for glebe and tithe, Dunn Gardner emerged with 520 a., including 85 a. of closes, and the three colleges' manorial farms with 650 a. between them. Hayward had 225 a. and William Coote, the next largest landowner, 217 a. Four others, some non-resident, emerged respectively with 135, 117, 67 and 60 a., while eight more with 25-45 a. each had 267 a. in all. The remaining allottees, occupying altogether only 190 a., were smallholders: twelve had 5-12 a. each, but 65 others less, including almost forty receiving under 2 a. Their minute allotments, averaging 1¼ to 2½ a., many probably for common rights, were largely laid out north and west of the village in Block and Clipsall fields, and in the former moor by a newly made road. (fn. 126)
Following inclosure the parish continued to be dominated by a few substantial farms, such as the twelve rentable c. 1803 at over £100, half yielding over £200, which usually combined land held under various owners. Among the largest farms were those, such as two then occupied by the Blands, that were based on the Fordham Abbey estate. Robert Hayward, before 1830, and the Cootes and Fysons, the latter Trinity Hall's lessees until 1857, also assembled considerable holdings around their owner occupied property. (fn. 127) In the 1850s there were up to ten smallholders working 25 a. or less, but the bulk of the farmland, c. 3,400 a., was included in twelve holdings of over 100 a., and two thirds of it in the six largest. Most farms, even the larger ones, were occupied by men born in the parish. (fn. 128)
About 1910 six farms of over 200 a., including two over 400 a., covered 1,790 a. altogether, and six more with over 100 a. comprised another 925 a. (fn. 129) About 1900 barely 450 a. of Fordham's farmland was owner-occupied. (fn. 130) The Abbey estate, on which, as on the Cootes' property, rents were reduced by a tenth in 1879, (fn. 131) included, until its break-up from the 1910s, four large farms, covering much of the east and south of the parish: Moor farm, 292 a., partly in Soham; Lord's Barn farm, 144 a.; Slate farm, 305 a.; and Biggen farm, 277 a. (fn. 132) Slate farm was worked from c. 1850, usually through a bailiff, by the Robinses of Isleham, also tenants under Christ's College by 1880. (fn. 133) By the 1920s part of the land bought by the county council, especially Moor and Block farms, had been divided among smallholders, numbering ten c. 1925, 5-6 in the 1930s. (fn. 134) Smallholding later increased: of c. 80 holdings reported in 1950 three quarters were under 50 a., including 24 of less than 5 a., and only five covered over 150 a. (fn. 135)
The mid 19th century had seen sharp hostility between the farmers and their labourers, of whom 30-40 out of 329 adults were unemployed in winter c. 1830. (fn. 136) The fires that frequently destroyed or damaged farmhouses, farmsteads, and cornstacks, were usually until the 1850s ascribed to arson. The Blands' Biggen farm suffered in 1829, (fn. 137) two others in 1844-5, (fn. 138) and three more on Market Street in 1848, when some villagers allegedly refused to help save them. (fn. 139) In 1849, after the farmers, who as strong Protectionists blamed Free Trade, had cut their employees' wages to 7s. a week, many labourers demonstrated, breaking ploughs on R. D. Fyson's farm, burnt down soon after. (fn. 140) He and three other farmers suffered such fires again in 1851. (fn. 141) From the 1850s the Fysons held horkeys after harvest for their 45-50 workers, (fn. 142) a practice soon followed by other farmers. (fn. 143)
In 1851 the farmers had work for c. 210 adult labourers, two thirds on the six largest farms, and 13 boys: in the 1850s the village had available over 160 grown men and up to 40 younger ones, besides 40-60 girls doing farmwork. (fn. 144) The number of adult labourers had fallen to c. 105 by 1881. (fn. 145) A Michaelmas hiring fair was still held at a Fordham inn c. 1860. (fn. 146) In 1930 Fordham's farms were employing 143 full-time male workers and 36 more part-time, and in 1950, after extended wartime cultivation, 172 and 57 respectively, but by 1970, when there were over 40 working farmers, a quarter part-time, it had only 56 full-time farm labourers. (fn. 147)
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries over half the farmland was arable, (fn. 148) even on the former fenland. (fn. 149) One college at least still required a four-course rotation c. 1880. (fn. 150) The area under cereals, c. 1,700-800 a. from c. 1870 until after 1910, fell to c. 1,500 a. by 1930 before recovering. Until after 1910 wheat predominated, perhaps more than before 1860, (fn. 151) over barley. By 1950, however, the area of barley was triple that under wheat, those crops covering respectively c. 1,300 a. and 460 a. in 1970. Potatoes and turnips were also grown by the 1850s, (fn. 152) the latter rootcrop covering over 400 a. by 1890 before declining. Mustard, cultivated in 1848, (fn. 153) covered 152 a. in 1930, but later almost disappeared, whereas the area under sugar beet, grown by 1930, had increased by a half to over 660 a. by 1970.
The grassland, of which two thirds was usually permanent, and whose total area rose slightly from c. 900 a. in 1870 to c. 1,100 a. 1890-1910, before declining steadily to 600 a. by 1970, had helped support c. 1900 flocks including c. 2,000 grown sheep. Few sheep were kept after 1930. Instead numbers of cattle, mostly for milk before 1970, rose gradually from 300-400 c. 1930-50 to over 1,000 in 1970. Between the 1860s and 1890s Fordham had one or two specialist cattle dealers, (fn. 154) and in 1937 two dairymen, also by the 1930s two or three poultry farmers: (fn. 155) over 8,000 fowls were kept in 1930. An egg-packing plant at the south-west angle of the village, opened c. 1980, then employed 55 people. It closed in 1989. (fn. 156)
From the 1850s Fordham contained three or four nurserymen and seedsmen, (fn. 157) including until after 1900 two of the Blands. They partly specialized in developing and growing seeds, especially for rootcrops, (fn. 158) on nurseries largely laid out just west of the village between the Soham and Burwell roads, conveniently close to Fordham station. (fn. 159) In 1861 the Blands and Townsends between them employed over fifty labourers. (fn. 160) The latters' nursery was started by George Townsend (d. 1881), in business as a seedsman by 1848. (fn. 161) By 1870, when he also grew flowers, he employed 30 men on a 600-a. holding. (fn. 162) In the 1870s his firm won prizes for its turnips and swedes at Norwich shows. (fn. 163) Of his 223-a. Fordham estate sold in 1893, mostly west of the village, 18 a. was used for nurseries, including glasshouses. Part was then occupied or bought by his sons George and Charles Townsend, who had divided the business when he retired. The younger George, holding the 300-a. Biggen farm by 1881, (fn. 164) traded in seeds at Norwich from the 1870s until c. 1910, when two or three other nurseries had begun business. Charles, who controlled the Townsend nurseries west of Market Street, sold his produce from 1890 at King's Lynn (Norf.). By the 1930s and until c. 1960 Charles Townsend Ltd. supplied flowers to Sandringham. Other nurseries still survived at Fordham then, some growers sending flowers to Covent Garden market. (fn. 165) There had been five florists, one a nurseryman, in 1937. (fn. 166) About 1950 Fordham grew almost 400 a. of flowers and vegetables: one man, trading 1924-74, who grew 15 a. of flowers, at times employed 30 people to despatch 950 boxes cityward daily. (fn. 167)
The Townsend firm, having passed to heiresses, was taken over c. 1968 by a Norfolk one, which in 1972 moved its landscape gardening work elsewhere, reducing its Fordham branch to a tree-growing nursery, converted to a garden centre in 1991. (fn. 168) In 1989 a descendant gave the Townsends' former arboretum of ornamental trees behind their Shrubland House east of Market Street, called Townsend Wood, to the Woodland Trust for preservation. (fn. 169) Some land west of the village was still used for nurseries in the 1990s, four or five being in business c. 1995, including one tree-growing business started c. 1984. (fn. 170) From the 1950s the former Biggen farmhouse south of Fordham Abbey served as the headquarters of the Biggen Stud, using the surrounding land. (fn. 171) About 1996 it was taken over for a horse-racing forensic laboratory. (fn. 172)
In 1086 the royal manor had included two mills, probably later alienated. (fn. 173) One was perhaps represented in 1279 by a water mill held by a freeholder of the Norreys manor. (fn. 174) Other Fordham freeholders had in 1239 leased, then c. 1252 sold, to Philip Basset their rights in a water mill called 'Mormilne', (fn. 175) presumably that owned before 1286 by the Earl Marshal and exploited into the late 15th century by Basset's successors as lords at Soham. (fn. 176) It probably stood near Fordham moor, at the north end of the parish where the river Snail bends westward into Soham. Bassingbourns manor included a watermill, once Maud de Kemesek's, c. 1298. (fn. 177) Two water mills were in use in the 19th century: (fn. 178) one, which probably had a steam engine by 1848, (fn. 179) stood, perhaps by the 1520s, (fn. 180) besides the modern Island House, where the Snail divides just south of the village's main bridge. That water mill, worked c. 1895-1915 by the Newports, remained in use until c. 1930. (fn. 181) The other 20th-century water mill derived from one apparently held by a villein of the Richmond manor, and given to the new Fordham priory soon after 1200. (fn. 182) It remained part of Biggen manor until the Dissolution (fn. 183) and was thereafter included in the Fordham Abbey estate until 1929. Then in hand, (fn. 184) that water mill, perhaps the 'Welnemelne' mentioned c. 1320, (fn. 185) stood on the Snail at the north end of the Biggen closes, just south of the modern River Lane. Its millers also employed steam by 1904. It remained in use until the 1910s. The three-storeyed brick building was pulled down c. 1940. (fn. 186) A late 18thcentury greybrick miller's house, on an L-plan with some arched windows on its north front, restored c. 1983, survived in the 1990s. (fn. 187)
Windmill bridge close to Biggen field and the Blackland was so named by the mid 16th century, perhaps from a windmill standing in Kenninghall field, through which a Mill lane ran in 1689. (fn. 188) A six-storeyed tower mill, built after 1840, was for sale in 1846. (fn. 189) A windmill worked by the Livermores, who also occupied the Biggen water mill c. 1880, from c. 1875 until 1892 was perhaps that by the Mildenhall road removed before 1903. (fn. 190) Another, a smock mill, standing from the 1850s on the Isleham road, probably rebuilt by a farmer shortly before it was burnt down in 1877, was rebuilt and again in use in the 1910s, and survived in 1950. (fn. 191)
From the 1270s to the mid 15th century tenants of a market (forum) at Fordham paid yearly rents to the later Duchy manor at Soham. As a former royal demesne estate, it may not have required a charter for holding it. (fn. 192) In 1332 Sir Edmund Hengrave also received the profits of a market on his manor. (fn. 193)
Among those, apparently villagers, accused of disputing a lord's common rights c. 1210 were a smith, a carpenter, a weaver, and a tanner. (fn. 194) A cordwainer was mentioned in 1405 and bakers in 1465 and 1533. (fn. 195) In 1831 67 households in the parish were supported by trades and crafts, compared with 180 engaged in farming; (fn. 196) among them were two or more blacksmiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, bricklayers, tailors, and shoemakers, and a glazier and a joiner, also butchers, bakers, and grocers, (fn. 197) and even c. 1780-1810 watchmakers. (fn. 198) An old-established grocer's and draper's shop was for sale in 1783. (fn. 199) In the 1850s Fordham had three blacksmiths and up to three master carpenters, employing 6-10 journeymen, besides a wheelwright and a plumber. The number of craftsmen supplying shoes and clothing, then including one or two tailors and up to four shoemakers, declined from the 1860s. (fn. 200)
Despite Fordham's relatively large size, and perhaps owing to its nearness to Soham, the number of traditional village craftsmen fell further thereafter: (fn. 201) from the 1870s there was only one blacksmith, though still often 2-3 shoemakers and until c. 1930 a harness-maker and saddler, also c. 1890 another watchmaker. Its wheelwrights took to supplying farming machines: one was supplying and maintaining steam threshing machinery from the 1850s to the 1880s. (fn. 202) There were 2-3 small building firms, also in business from the 1850s, (fn. 203) sometimes built up by carpenters: the last, the Boons', started in the 1890s, was employing 40 people when liquidated in 1982. (fn. 204) Such builders probably helped provide custom for plumbers, plasterers, and house painters, recorded from the 1890s. Besides 3-4 butchers and two or more bakers, the village was well supplied from the mid 19th century to the 1930s with 3-4 grocers and drapers, and until the 1920s as many ordinary shops. The Newmarket Co-operative Society started c. 1935 a small shop still open in the 1990s near the bend of Carter Street, where the village's shops, numbering fifteen in 1973, (fn. 205) were then mostly concentrated. They included, besides an antique shop, one of several recorded in the late 20th century, (fn. 206) and a working carpenter, a Chinese restaurant opened by 1991, (fn. 207) also from 1984 an Asian-owned newsagents' at Market Street green. (fn. 208)
In the late 20th century (fn. 209) Fordham also housed some industry unrelated to agriculture. The Newports, corn merchants from the 1880s, who had also provided farm machinery from the 1890s, started by 1929 a sand and gravel business. (fn. 210) From the 1930s that firm was divided into Allen Newport Ltd., producing sand ballast, and the Euston Lime Co., making lime for farmers. Both were still run from Walton House off New Path in the 1990s. In 1989 they employed 90 people, by 1995 almost 150, to produce concrete and asphalt, using material from East Anglian quarries. (fn. 211) About 1985 a timberprocessing works was moved from near Mill Lane to Station Road, (fn. 212) where a roofing business had been started by 1983. The Fordham Printing Works, also off New Path, started c. 1943, continued there until it moved its works to Mildenhall (Suff.) in 1993. (fn. 213) Other firms still in business at Fordham in the mid 1990s included one started in 1976 on the Mildenhall Road and enlarged in 1980, making commemorative and garden earthenware. (fn. 214) Another on the Soham road, set up c. 1977, made reproduction antique furniture, supplying 76 shops by the 1990s. Its workshops were rebuilt, 1992-4, after a fire. (fn. 215) A firm established at Fordham House to the south from 1980 engaged diversely in financial advice, horticulture, bark products, and music publishing and recording, employing 30 people by 1990. In 1989 it opened in the stables a studio recording popular music. (fn. 216)
A large haulage firm, Turners of Soham, started c. 1947, was established by 1960 at a depot east of New Path, and had 312 employees by 1988: its lorries then made 200 movements daily through the village. (fn. 217) Turners moved its headquarters in 1993 to a massive new building, accommodating offices, workshops, warehousing, a cold store, and a depot for 120 lorries, on a more spacious site south of the village, west of the Snailwell road, bought in 1990-1 from the county council. (fn. 218) East of that road other buildings, gradually added to a core established by 1950, (fn. 219) were partly occupied by a caravanmaking firm, closed in 1975, which had used over half their 155,000 sq. ft. as workshops. (fn. 220) From the 1970s the premises housed a firm collecting and processing scrap metal, (fn. 221) including from 1983 asbestos and cast iron, and after 1989 aluminium. By 1995 it employed over 100 people. (fn. 222) Between their factory and the Snailwell road a small industrial park laid out c. 1990 housed in 1996 seven firms, some engaged in warehousing, transport, and light engineering. (fn. 223)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Liquid Sky
1982, Slava Tsukerman, USA, 112 min. With Anne Carlisle, Paula E. Sheppard.
Show Times
- Fri, Jun 29th 8:00pm
- Sat, Jun 30th 8:15pm
- Sun, Jul 1st 5:15pm
- Mon, Jul 2nd 8:00pm
- Wed, Jul 4th 8:00pm
- Thu, Jul 5th 8:00pm
"The funniest, craziest, dirtiest, most perversely beautiful science-fiction movie ever made." - David Denby, New York Magazine
"At last, after sitting out the DVD and streaming eras, Slava Tsukerman's 1982 neon-fired New Wave New York alien sex-party punk-disco orgasm-as-revenge proto-electroclash feminist genderfuck is on screens in its finest form, scrubbed and crisp and gorgeous, ready to baffle, disquiet, thrill, and trigger." - Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice
Coming out of nowhere in 1982, LIQUID SKY not only drew SRO crowds at midnight-movie flagships around the country, but also captured the near-unanimous acclaim of mainstream critics from The New York Times to Time Magazine. After decades of unavailability, it is now back in a dazzling new 4K restoration. A heady mixture of high style, deadpan wit, and tabloid fantasy, the film brings together No Wave subculture and science-fiction gimmickry in an alien-on-alien configuration drenched with garish smears of neon, dayglo, psychedelia, and sunset. A space junkie, roughly the size of a jumbo shrimp, roams the cosmos in a dish-sized UFO, searching for heroin or a chemical surrogate produced in the human brain during orgasm. He/she/they finds a mother lode of both substances at the downtown Manhattan rooftop apartment of Margaret, a model who is both witness and victim to a wide variety of perverse and degrading acts. In a legendary performance, Anne Carlisle plays both the female and male leads with ferocious conviction. New 4K DCP digital restoration. (MR)
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InfiniDB Community Edition is a scale-up, column-oriented database for data warehousing, analytics, business intelligence and read-intensive applications. InfiniDB's data warehouse columnar engine is multi-terabyte capable and accessed via MySQL.
|database column-store data-mining relational column-database no-sql mysql-fork
Infobright combines a columnar database with our Knowledge Grid architecture to deliver a self-managing, self-tuning database optimized for analytics. Infobright eliminates the need to create indexes, partition data, or do any manual tuning to achieve fast response for queries and reports.database non-relational column-database no-sql mysql-fork
EventQL is a distributed, column-oriented database built for large-scale event collection and analytics. It runs super-fast SQL and MapReduce queries. Its features include Automatic partitioning, Columnar storage, Standard SQL support, Scales to petabytes, Timeseries and relational data, Fast range scans and lot more.database columnar-database columnar-storage timeseries streaming distributed-database distributed analytics column-store
The main strength of Vici CoolStorage is the ease of use. Most ORM tools still require a lot of unneeded code to accomplish basic data persistence tasks, but Vici CoolStorage is designed to relieve the programmer from these tedious and error-prone tasks, making it very intuitive to use.orm persistence database-development datamapper ormdotnet
MonetDB is a high-performance SQL- and XQuery- column-store database management system with automatic index management, flexible optimizer infrastructure, and programmable backend functionality.database column-store data-mining
HBase provides support to handle BigTable - billions of rows X millions of columns. It is a scalable, distributed, versioned, column-oriented store modeled after Google's Bigtable and runs on top of HDFS (Hadoop Distributed Filesystem). It features compression, in-memory operation per-column. Data could be replicated between the nodes. HBase is used in Facebook and Twitter.database non-relational column-database no-sql scalable distributed distributed-database
MapD Core is an in-memory, column store, SQL relational database that was designed from the ground up to run on GPUs. MapD Core is the foundational element of a larger data exploration platform that emphasizes speed at scale. By taking advantage of the parallel processing power of the hardware, MapD Core can query billions of rows in milliseconds. Furthermore, by using the graphics pipelines of GPUs, MapD Core can render graphics directly from the server.gpu database olap visualization sql machine-learning analytics column-store columnar-database
RedBeanPHP is an open source ORM (object relational mapping) tool for PHP. It focuses on simplicity and ease of use. What makes RedBean unique is that it creates your database schema on-the-fly. It scans your data and adjusts the column types to fit your object properties. If your models are stabilized you can freeze the database. This way RedBean is easy to develop with but is also extremely fast on production servers.orm persistence database-development orm-php
Metakit is an embedded database library with a small footprint. It fills the gap between flat-file, relational, object-oriented, and tree-structured databases, supporting relational joins, serialization, nested structures, and instant schema evolutiondatabase column-store embedded-database relational
LucidDB is the RDBMS built entirely for data warehousing and business intelligence. It is based on architectural cornerstones such as column-store, bitmap indexing, hash join/aggregation, and page-level multi versioning. Every component of LucidDB was designed with the requirements of flexible, high-performance data integration and sophisticated query processing in mind.database column-store data-mining relational
ORM for nodejs. Supports postgres, mySql and sqlite. 1.7.1 Support for schemas (postgres only). 1.7.0 sqlite3 is now a peer dependency. Add it to your own package.json if you intend to use it. 1.6.9 Bugfix: one-to-many relation returns empty if strategy is included. 1.6.8 Bugfix: one-to-many relation returns empty if insert/update is done earlier in transaction. 1.6.7 Bugfix in relations. 1.6.6 Bugfix. 1.6.5 Improved performance on relations. 1.6.4 Bugfix. 1.6.3 Bugfix: potential incorrect timeZoneOffset when serializing date to JSON. Got timeZoneOffset from now() instead of on actual date. 1.6.2 Removed es6 syntax to ensure backwards compatability. Fixed global var leak. 1.6.1 Now supporting sqlite. 1.6.0 Bugfix: potential ambigous column error when using limit and relating to other tables. 1.5.9 Bugfix: using multipleStatements in mySql could sometimes cause an error when updates are run right before a select. Improved performance on limit when relating to other tables. Using uuid instead of node-uuid Updated all dependencies but generic-pool to latest. (Generic-pool has some breaking changes in latest. I will update it in next release.) 1.5.8 Cleanup line breaks in documentation. 1.5.7 Bugfix: getById.exclusive and tryGetById.exclusive did not lock if row was cached. Improved performance on tryGetFirst. 1.5.6 Raw sql filters can accept sql both as string and as function. E.g. var filter = {sql: function() {return 'foo > 1';}}. 1.5.5 Optional locks for getMany, tryGetFirst and tryGetById. Instead of calling getMany(params) just call getMany.exclusive(params). Same syntax goes for tryGetFirst and tryGetById. This will result in SELECT FOR UPDATE. Bugfix: bulk deletes now accepts raw sql filters too. 1.5.4 Transaction locks. Postgres only. 1.5.3 Upgraded to pg 6.0.3 1.5.2 Improved performance and reduced memory footprint. 1.5.1 Documented JSON column type. Bug fix: Insert and foreign key violation. 1.5.0 JSON column type. Postgres json type does not support rdb filters. 1.4.1 Empty filter would sometimes cause invalid filter. 1.4.0 Raw SQL query. 1.3.0 getMany() now supports limit and orderBy - same syntax as in streaming. 1.2.3 Bugfix: iEqual gave incorrect sql when parameterized. 1.2.2 Exlusive no longer returns a clone of table. It has changes current table to exclusive locking. 1.2.1 Bugfix: Exclusive row locks 1.2.0 Exclusive row locks 1.1.0 Now supporting streaming. Requires postgres or MySQL >=5.7.7 1.0.8 README fixup. 1.0.7 Better performance on insert and update. 1.0.6 Bugfix: Transaction domain should not forward rdb singleton from old domain. 1.0.5 Documentation cleanup. 1.0.4 orderBy in toDto(). 1.0.3 toDto() using next tick on every thousandth row to avoid maximum call stack size exceeded. 1.0.2 Reduced number of simultaneous promises in order to avoid maximum call stack size exceeded. 1.0.1 Bugfix: Incorrect insert/updates on timestamp without timezone. The time was converted utc instead of stripping the timezone. 1.0.0 Transaction domain forwards properties from old domain. Semantic versioning from now on. 0.5.1 Improved performance 0.5.0 Logging: rdb.log(someFunc) logs sql and parameters. Raw sql filters. 0.4.9 New method: tryGetById. New filter: iEqual, postgres only. Bugfix: rows.toJSON() without strategy did not include any children. 0.4.8 Explicit pooling with size and end(). Bugfix: mySql did not release client to pool. 0.4.7 Upgraded to pg 4.3.0 Upgraded to mysql 2.5.5 0.4.6 Upgraded pg 4.2.0. 0.4.5 Oops. Forgot to use pg.js instead of pg. 0.4.4 Upgraded all dependencies to latest. Using pg.js instead of pg. 0.4.3 Can ignore columns when serializing to dto. 0.4.2 Bugfix: update on a row crashes when a delete occurs earlier in same transaction. 0.4.1 Bugfix: more global leaks. 0.4.0 Bugfix: global leak. 0.3.9 Bugfix: eager loading joins/hasOne with non unique column names was not handled correctly. 0.3.8 Supports mySql. Bulk deletes. 0.3.7 Bugfix: eager loading manyRelation on a join/hasOne returned empty array #11 0.3.6 Fixed sql injection vulnerability. 0.3.5 Built-in fetching strategies for lazy loading. Works best in readonly scenarios. 0.3.4 Docs and examples split moved to separate file. 0.3.3 Fixed documentation layout again. 0.3.2 Fixed documentation layout. 0.3.1 Case insensitive filters: iStartsWith, iEndsWith and iContains. 0.3.0 Fix broken links in docs. 0.2.9 Support for row.delete(). Rollback only throws when error is present. 0.2.8 Guid accepts uppercase letters. Bugfix: null inserts on guid columns yielded wrong sql. 0.2.7 New method, toDto(), converts row to data transfer object. Bugfix: toJSON returned incorrect string on hasMany relations. 0.2.6 Fixed incorrect links in README. 0.2.5 Bugfix: caching on composite keys could give a crash #7. Improved sql compression on insert/update. 0.2.4 Bugfix: getMany with many-strategy and shallowFilter yields incorrect query #6. 0.2.3 Reformatted documentation. No code changes.orm sql mysql postgres pg
Akumuli is a time-series database for modern hardware. It can be used to capture, store and process time-series data in real-time. The word "akumuli" can be translated from Esperanto as "accumulate".time-series database c-plus-plus tsdb time-series-database metrics column-oriented columnar-database
Druid is a distributed, column-oriented, real-time analytics data store that is commonly used to power exploratory dashboards in multi-tenant environments. Druid excels as a data warehousing solution for fast aggregate queries on petabyte sized data sets. Druid supports a variety of flexible filters, exact calculations, approximate algorithms, and other useful calculations. Druid can load both streaming and batch data.analytics column-store time-series time-series-database aggregation no-sql
Hypertable is based on Google's Bigtable Design, which is a proven scalable design that powers hundreds of Google services. Many of the current scalable NoSQL database offerings are based on a hash table design which means that the data they manage is not kept physically ordered. Hypertable keeps data physically sorted by a primary key and it is well suited for Analytics.no-sql distributed-database column-store analytics database distributed scalable cloud-database
Pinot is a realtime distributed OLAP datastore, which is used at LinkedIn to deliver scalable real time analytics with low latency. It can ingest data from offline data sources (such as Hadoop and flat files) as well as online sources (such as Kafka). Pinot is designed to scale horizontally, so that it can scale to larger data sets and higher query rates as needed.olap-database olap analytics realtime-analytics columnar-database distributed column-store
ActorDB is ideal as a server side database for apps. Think of running a large mail service, dropbox, evernote, etc. They all require server side storage for user data, but the vast majority of queries is within a specific user. With many users, the server side database can get very large. Using ActorDB you can keep a full relational database for every user and not be forced into painful scaling strategies that require you to throw away everything that makes relational databases good.database distributed-database newsql rdbms
dORM is a PHP 5 ORM (object relational mapper) library that seamlessly loads, saves and deletes PHP objects from and to a relational database. dORM requires a small XML file that maps classes to their respective database tables. currently, only MySQL was tested.orm persistence database-development orm-php
Cloudata is Distributed Large scale Structured Data Storage, and open source project implementing Google's Bigtable. It's DBMS(Database Management System), but not Relational DBMS. It can store more than Peta bytes.nosql google-bigtable database distributed scalable cloud distributed-database column-store
LibreOffice is the free power-packed Open Source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. LibreOffice is the perfect choice for home users, businesses, government and other organizations. It's native file format is the ISO standardized ODF (Open Document Format), but LibreOffice can open and save Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel files, as well as many other formats, bringing you the widest-available compatibility with other products.office-suite document office word excel graphics-editor
High-performance distributed analytical database + Spark SQL queries + built for streaming. Columnar, versioned layers of data wrapped in a yummy high-performance analytical database engine.database columnar-database column-store distributed
rqlite is a distributed relational database, which uses SQLite as its storage engine. rqlite uses Raft to achieve consensus across all the instances of the SQLite databases, ensuring that every change made to the system is made to a quorum of SQLite databases, or none at all. It also gracefully handles leader elections, and tolerates failures of machines, including the leader. rqlite is available for Linux, OSX, and Microsoft Windows.rqlite gives you the functionality of a rock solid, fault-tolerant, replicated relational database, but with very easy installation, deployment, and operation. With it you've got a lightweight and reliable distributed relational data store. Think etcd or Consul, but with relational data modelling also available.sqlite distributed-systems database relational-database raft consensus distributed-database sql
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text:
Dr. Nader Najafi, President and CEO of ISSYS, stated that "We are very excited about this project since it provides, for the fist time, an accurate analytical means to directly study the effects of micro-bubbles. We anticipate that this research will push many existing technologies to a level of viability not possible before. For instance, compensating for small bubbles can enhance the accuracy of capsule coating, filling, dosing, mixing and other critical processes using small fluid sample volume."
About ISSYS
ISSYS is a leader in advanced micromachining technologies for medical devices, microfluidic and scientific analytical sensing applications. Founded in 1995 by world-renowned leaders in MEMS technology, ISSYS is one of the oldest independent MEMS companies in the US and has been offering MEMS services longer than any other company in the US. ISSYS operates a "full manufacturing under one roof," multi-million-dollar, state-of-the-art MEMS fabrication facility located near Ann Arbor, Michigan. An ISO 9001:2000 certified and ISO 13485 qualified organization, ISSYS is a vertically integrated company dedicated to developing and manufacturing system-level products based on MEMS technology, please visit the company's Web site.
Doug Sparks
Executive VP
Integrated Sensing Systems (ISSYS)
391 Airport Industrial Dr.
Ypsilanti, MI 48198
Tel: (734) 547-9896 Ext. 119
Fax: (734) 547-9964


text:
Beautiful Soapstone Incense Burner with Sun engraving plus 10 Vegan Incense of your choice - Expertly handmade from a traditional Indian incense recipe, our natural incense sticks are scented only with natural resins, flower petals and pure essential oils. They're also only coloured with natural dyes. 100% free from chemicals and synthetics, these are soothing and gentle sticks perfect for yoga, meditation and burning in the home. A potent and smooth burning incense, suitable for even delicate pet noses.
Choose from:
Vrindavan champa comes from the wildflowers of Vrindavan, a place in Northern India. It has rich deep floral notes, powerful with a fresh aroma
Rose and Patchouli is a sweet floral incense using pure rose oil, with deep rich earthy tones from the patchouli.
Pink Sayali is a floral incense with the pure oil from the sweet jasmine flowers. Beautifully rich, undeniably floral.
Vanilla incense is scented with pure vanilla oil. It has a sweet and subtle scent.
Sandalwood & Lavender is a combination of two popular scents, combing subtle and earthy base notes of sandalwood with the distinctive floral overtones of lavender.


text:
I came - I saw - I spent
The bus trip to Paducah was just what I expected, a great show, beautiful quilts, lots of walking, lots of spending!
This is my fabric diet for April...
..but it was a planned binge.
And here is the LOOT that I brought home from the show
We had an hour after the show to stop at Hancock's of Paducah. They have a back room of flat fold, bolt ends for 3.98 a yard. I went a little NUTTY! 24 yards! (you do the math.... that's a hundred clams) I really need to find a pattern that will show case the loveliness of these great fabrics that won't require me to cut them into little pieces. They are so out of character of the other fabric I possess, but right in character with how they make me feel
(A bit of a weird reference to 24, but I sort of felt like Jack digging through the flat folds and dodging other eager hunters at the store. And then I came up with the magic number of 24 yards... and I do like the show. "I promise to do everything I can to get the fabric home safely and not let if fall into an enemy's hands, I promise")
The pictures I took at the show were the quilts that inspired me the most, and were all detail shots. I bought the show picture catalog so I will have a quick visual of every quilt at the show.
These are two of my favorites were more abstract in design; "Evergreen" and "Loose Curves"
Most of the quilts chosen for this year's show were symmetrical, more traditional than in the past, and many quilters were adding crystals to their quilts. Wonder how the Nashville AQS show in August will go...
Labels: amy butler, stash, thread


text:
29. The Key To Freedom
30. Normalcy Bias
31. Cognitive Dissonance
32. Doublethink
God is neither alive nor dead, but rather manifesting as activity in consciousness – transcending and transforming one's ordinary awareness
31 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Education, Freedom /Liberation, Happiness, Truth
29. The Key To Freedom
30. Normalcy Bias
31. Cognitive Dissonance
32. Doublethink
31 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Cosmology, ENVIRONMENT
The Inspiration Behind Journey of the Universe
"We have a new story of the universe. Science has given us a new revelatory experience. It is now giving us a new intimacy with the earth."
– Thomas Berry, Dream of the Earth
At its heart, this 60 minute documentary and book celebrates the collective inspiration of a lively and prolific 30-year-friendship between three visionaries in the fields of science, evolutionary philosophy and world religions – Thomas Berry, Mary Evelyn Tucker and Brian Thomas Swimme.
Deeply inspired by Berry's article titled "The New Story," which observed how humans are in between stories–creation stories of the world's religions and the scientific story of the evolution of the universe–both Brian and Mary Evelyn joined forces to co-write this epic narrative that translates our wondrous connection to the cosmos to a broader audience.
We live in a universe of remarkable creativity that has evolved over some 14 billion years. The goal of Journey of the Universe is to tell the story of cosmic and Earth evolution drawing on the latest scientific knowledge, in a way that makes it profoundly relevant and deeply moving to the viewer. What emerges is an intensely poetic story, which evokes emotions of awe, excitement, fear, joy and belonging.
This story told in Journey of the Universe is a dramatic one. Throughout billions of years of evolution, triumph, and disaster have been only a hair's breadth apart. Violence and creativity are pervasive. The ability of matter to organize and re-organize itself is remarkable – from the formation of the first atoms to the emergence of life.
The message of Journey of the Universe shows how we are not just a part of this astonishing process, we are at the very edge of evolution, a primate species that has found in its language and symbols the power to take over the very evolutionary process itself. But this control that we now exercise comes with a responsibility; and viewers of Journey of the Universe will not only be imbued with a sense of astonishment at all that has taken place, they will also come to feel the excitement in learning that now we live in a time when the human species is being asked to play a central role in activating the flourishing powers of Earth's living systems.
One of the aims of this project is to use the art of storytelling to capture the grandeur and drama of this epic of the universe – from the Big Bang, to where we are today in a moment of great transition.
Carl Sagan was the first to remind us that "We are all stardust," in Cosmos (a series co-created by the Director of this film). Twenty five years on, The Journey of the Universe will show us how the lineage of stardust can shape the way we feel about our own planet, so that we might better cherish and protect what gave us life and nourishes us still.
29 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in New Age, Uncategorized
Christian apologist argues that mass media figures such as Oprah and Deepak Chopra active in supporting New Age movement.
A noted Christian religious expert is the latest to confirm something careful watchers of the media have known for years: The American media is peddling New Age spirituality to its viewers as a substitute for traditional religion.
On January 24, the Christian Post reported that Ravi Zacharias, the founder of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and a noted Christian apologist, warned that the mass media is trying to push New Age ideas on the general population in his book "Why Jesus? Rediscovering His Truth In an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality."
In his book, Zacharias writes: "Mystics, spiritual masters all are in the lineup to give the viewer the feeling that she who has become all but deified in their eyes can now make each viewer just like them." Zacharias specifically cited Oprah and Deepak Chopra as examples of influential media figures peddling New Age nonsense to a large audience.
It is difficult to disagree with Zacharias' assessment. For the figures he cites and other media outlets have supported a form of New Age spirituality, while at the same time de-emphasizing traditional religious belief.
Oprah has been heavily involved in the New Age movement – so much so that Washington Post blogger Amarnath Amarsingam called her in May 2011 the "High Priestess of the New Age" In a January 2011 interview with Piers Morgan, Winfrey declared herself to be a spiritual leader: "I am the messenger to deliver the message of redemption, of hope, of forgiveness, of gratitude, of evolving people to the best of themselves." In her Book Club in 2008, she promoted Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" whose promotional blurb states: "Tolle describes in detail how our current ego-based state of consciousness operates. Then gently, and in very practical terms, he leads us into this new consciousness. We will come to experience who we truly are-which is something infinitely greater than anything we currently think we are-and learn to live and breathe freely."
New Age spirituality guru Deepak Chopra has been even more avid in his promotion of New Age ideals. His book The Third Jesus is "about the consciousness of Jesus which was in touch with the source of all creation. If you can aspire to be at one with that consciousness, then you too can be in touch with the source of all creation. He has denied traditional Christian teachings, having been cited by major media outlets such as ABC denying the existence of Satan. YouTube promoted his channel, The Chopra Well, in late 2011.
Mainstream reporters have not been shy about de-emphasizing traditional religion, while promoting a nebulous concept of "spirituality." In 2008, CBS' Katie Couric celebrated what she saw as a combination of American spirituality and lack of religious belief: "This survey seems to have a lot of good news. People think prayer and faith is very important in their lives and they don't think it's their way or the highway when it comes to salvation." In November 2009, CBS' Martha Teichner touted a poll claiming that Americans were increasingly abandoning organized religion for spirituality.
The mass media has taken upon itself the task of transforming religious belief into a pile of feel-good mush – when they aren't actively seeking to destroy religion altogether. And testimony from religious experts like Zacharias confirms that assessment.
29 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Consciousness, Enlightenment, Grace, Meditation/TM Tags: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Money Is Not The End Of Life
Our movement is one of the fulfillment of desire. Those who desire money are surrounded by it…. and those who think that money is not everything, then that is there. It's all a matter of what one likes, you know.
Rushing around all the time is a psychological hang-up. The activity in the transcendent is more speedy than anything on the surface. So one doesn't have to rush around on the surface.
The activity of the movement is to raise the effectiveness of the mind…. I think that money is not the end of life. For some it may be…. The whole of the Gita is what Krishna told Arjuna: 'You transcend, Arjuna'–the way to get what one wants.
Enlightenment is insured with a regular morning and evening program. Other times, enjoy.
God Helps Those Who Help Themselves
Maharishi's Press Conference, 7. May 2003
Question: How is enlightenment achieved? Is the state of enlightenment achieved by mechanical means through regular practice of Transcendental Meditation, or does enlightenment become established through the Grace of God?
Maharishi: Both things are the same thing. We remember a phrase: God helps those who help themselves.' God helps those who help themselves. So one's own effort, and we give credit to the Almighty God. God helps those who help themselves. When we know how to light a lamp, we should light a lamp. And then when we light a lamp and then suddenly the darkness is gone, we say: Oh yes, thank God. Always we have God in our awareness.
God is that fullness, fullness of all possibilities. And that is characterized in our own Ātmā, in our own Self. Self-referral consciousness is a total disclosure of–we can say God's Grace, God's Will. And then we say Merciful God.
All these things have been throughout the ages. Now we begin to see a better world in the same old Light of God, same old Light of Natural Law, same old Light of Consciousness, of intelligence, infinite creative power. All these are beautiful exhortations about our own creative potential. Everyone's own creative potential.
God is within you, within me, within this, within that, within this. So much so God is Omnipresent. God is Omniscient. Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent. That's why throughout the ages human awareness has been wanting, has been trying, has been associating with this field of intelligence, a lively field of all possibilities. In this generation we say Transcendental Consciousness. Because for Omnipresent, for Omnipresent, one has to transcend the field of change. So Transcendental Meditation brings transcendental field of consciousness, Unified Field of intelligence.
Self-referral is the value of the Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent field of God's Grace. There is some joy in saying God's Grace. I am doing this. I am doing this. There is some kind of not such pleasantness. Not such fabulous expanded awareness. But God, there is some warmth in it. Some warmth in it. There is some real upsurge of intelligence in it. It is something. It is beyond words. Something real. Something very, very real. And that reality is, when our own awareness transcends the boundaries. When it transcends boundaries then it's unbounded, omnipresence of God.
Something profound. It is beyond speech to describe it all. It's a great reality of life. It's a great reality of life. It's a great joy of life.
29 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Meditation/TM Tags: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Question: Please tell us more about the spirits, and is it possible for a spirit to enter one and one not know it or one be by spirits and not realize that it is happening?
Maharishi: Everything is possible, yes. But sure enough, those who meditate, spirits don't come to them anymore.
Question: Sometimes I feel spirits and I feel presences.
Maharishi: Any time you feel the presence it, it will be good to find out, whether it is rooted in the inner activity of the system anywhere–if there is any sensation in the body or something. Whenever you feel something, some presence or some such thing, close the eyes and feel the body and see if there is any sensation anywhere. Maybe due to that particular type of sensation, some unwinding of that particular type produces that hallucination, it may be that.
Hallucination, at the time of hallucination it is a very real perception, only it does not exist. [laughter] Just like a dream. At the time of dream it is very real. Only after that time we know that it was a dream.
Now we'll verify whether it is a real spirit from outside trying to influence us or whether it is some sort of unwinding from within and due to that our vision is taking that form. Both could be a possibility.
How to verify? First we verify within ourself. When we see something–close the eyes and very naturally, normally, innocently feel the body. And if we are not feeling anything and if it is all quiet, feel that quietness, maybe after a few seconds some sensation develops here. And then be on it, be on it and feel it, feel it until the sensation goes away and then open the eyes.
If the figure is yet standing before us without any sensation within us, then continue to check for the second time. Close the eyes. [laughter] Because before finalizing, better we check twice. And when we have checked, maybe after a few seconds of silence again something starts. We feel it and feel it until it is gone. And when it is gone we wait for about a minute to see that it is not coming back again.
And when we don't see it again then we infer that it was due to some inner unwinding of some sort of stress which was causing that type of vision. There was nothing of outer spirits. We may verify this two, three times.
And if we don't find anything inside, then we will think that something is there of the outside value. Then we say 'Come on, welcome to you, we meet in the transcendent'. [laughter] And then we start the mantra and the mantra goes 'ding', 'ding', 'ding' [laughter]. Because if it is a spirit, real something, then it comes to us to find a rescue in this body to refuge. This is a refuge for the spirit.
And then if we want to give it a refuge, then give it a refuge in bliss consciousness. By the time he'll fly away thinking that we are too big for him to be occupied. Just like a poor man, he can't take courage to enter into a castle. He has to be a king, maybe of another castle, but he has to be a king to feel bold to step in.
Any spirit that might try to enter us would just stand outside and wait and go away, feeling that it is too precious a castle to enter. Therefore we don't feel afraid, we just either feel the body or take the mantra and go deep and let it follow if it can. That is how we meet the situation.
And there is absolutely no need to be afraid. Nothing, because these spirits can't do anything to you unless you start accepting them–positively or negatively. Negative acceptance is 'Oh, he is coming, he is coming, he is coming' [laughter] Fear. We are accepting it in fear. This is negative acceptance.
We just don't take notice of them. And meditator's thought force, the whole structure, the whole thing, is so precious that it can't be occupied by these spirits. They are too confused in their structure…
Question: Why spirits pick on some people and why not on others?
Maharishi: There is a proverb 'Survival of the fittest' is the law of nature. If there is some good, comfortable nervous system, good soothing and the mind is weak, and intellect is dull, then in that dull intellect, when the mind is not wide awake, a spirit may try to come in.
The reason will be a good quality of nervous system and weak indweller–beautiful body and weak indweller. The inner man who dwells in the body and sometimes goes out of the body when the body is useless.
A house can only be entered by someone, who sees from outside 'It must be a good house, comfortable house'. And the man who is living there is so weak and he comes in and suppresses the man and turns him out. Or for some time suppresses him, eats whatever is there in the beautiful kitchen and rests in the beautiful bed. He uses the house, goes away, leaves the house to that weak man. Sometimes he comes back again and the weak man is suppressed.
For the body to be possessed …(break of tape) …this huge, enormous, expanded mind cannot be suppressed by any spirit. Because the spirit itself is a very confused entity. Highly confused people become spirits–a man, those who commit suicide or who have no direction in life, completely confused and in that confusion the body ceases to function and they die. Then they have not paved a way for their where to go. They remain hovering in the atmosphere in the form of spirits.
All these spirits want to have a comfortable place somewhere.
28 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Awareness, Consciousness, Illusion/Maya, Meditation/TM, Vedas Tags: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
The world is like a snake in the string – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
1. (Dr. Dillbeck:) This question Maharishi from the Community Television, Montgomery Community Television in Rockville, Maryland. Many Sages have talked about the illusory nature of life, what is it about our experience that is illusory and what is the experience of one who has awakened from that illusion?
2. Maharishi: Direct case of illusion is in the state of the dream.
3. The world is like a snake in the string. The string is there, but when you are not able to see the string properly, then you make a snake out of it.
4. The snake world is just like illusion, and when you are awake, when you know the string, then there was no snake.
5. The snake is just the physiology. Every fiber of the physiology is an impulse of consciousness. Different bodies are the various expressions of the one reality of consciousness.
6. There are seven states of consciousness, waking, dreaming, sleeping, TC (Transcendental Consicousness), CC (Cosmic Consciousness), GC (God Consciousness) and UC (Unity Consciousness).
7. Vedic knowledge means knowledge of all these seven states of consciousness.
8. Now is the time of the world to have an administration of life in unity consciousness.
9. Proper administration is administration through education, where the individual is trained to use the total brain.
10. The full brain of the individual is used only when the Transcendental Consciousness comes to direct experience. Transcendental Meditation, enlivening the full creative potential of the brain physiology, enables
a man to function from the level of Total Knowledge. Total Knowledge is Veda.
11. Highly enlightened individuals will create permanent peace on earth.
27 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Truth
24. Think Outside Of The Cell
25. See The World Anew
26. Question Everything
27. Your Indoctrination
28. Technical Difficulties
26 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Awareness, Consciousness, Education, Meditation/TM Tags: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
1. Dr. Bevan Morris: One member of the press asks about Maharishi's frequent references to the junction point–the area between the field of unity and the point of infinity. What is the junction point, and what is its practical significance?
2. Junction point is the junction point of unity and diversity. The junction point is very basic to what we want to achieve: All possibilities lively in the awareness of the individual. Then that individual will be utilizing all the laws with reference to dynamism and all the laws with reference to silence. This will be a perfect level of life.
3. Vedic Education, including the six Darshanas, trains the individual to use his total brain.
4. The junction point in Yoga terminology is called Samadhi: The Intelligence is even on the dynamic level
of awareness, and on the silent level of awareness.
5. Silence is lacking in education. When silence is lacking in the field of action, the individual becomes tired.
Now we are planning to establish beautiful oases in the desert.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is considered one of the foremost scientists in the field of consciousness.
26 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Consciousness, Meditation/TM, Silence, Uncategorized Tags: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
1.Dr. Hagelin: There are a few questions, Maharishi, on some very deep principles and interesting principles that arose from your press conference of last week. If Maharishi would like to address one of these questions, it has to do with the nature of the gap and a comment that Maharishi made about that: Maharishi frequently speaks about two basic values of life-silence and dynamism. But Maharishi also speaks of what seems to be a third value, which is neither silent nor dynamic, and that is the gap which balances the two. Then last week, Maharishi said that silence is upheld by the devata Shiva, and dynamism is upheld by the devata Vishnu, with the devata Ganapati "holding the reins of coordination between the two." Would Maharishi please talk more about Ganapati? And is the gap, in fact, a distinctly third value? And finally, how does it balance silence and dynamism?
2. Maharishi: Gap is like a tunnel. The train comes; it enters into the tunnel, and then comes out of the tunnel. The word for this flow is purnat purnamudachyate: "fullness emerges from fullness."
3. In the mantra of the Veda, the previous word transforms itself in the gap into the following word. The previous fullness flows through the gap and comes out to be another fullness. That is how the whole Constitution of the Universe is a flow of fullness.
4. The process of evolution is a flow from fullness to fullness. And it is this, ultimately, that is said to be Brahm.
5. Vedic Science is a perfect science of life. It's a science of unity, and science of diversity, in one expression.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is widely regarded as one of the foremost scientists in the field of consciousness.
26 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Consciousness, Tao Te Ching, wisdom Tags: Tao Te Ching
The Tao-te Ching, a classic of the literature of enlightenment, expresses the same reality of life as the Vedic literature of India. Speaker: Dr. Bevan Morris, President of Maharishi University of Management.
25 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Awakening, Destiny, Dharma, Hinduism, JUSTICE, Leadership, Mysticism / Mystics, Non-violence/Ahimsa/Harmlessness, Truth, wisdom Tags: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Terrorists are cowards. Whenever terror has struck in any part of the world, we have heard people say it is an act of cowardice. A coward runs away from action but harbours all negative feelings and does it surreptitiously.
This is exactly what happened to Arjuna. Arjuna was angry, upset, sad and wanted to run away. In the Bhagawad Gita, Lord Krishna said not to be a coward. So, it is an antidote to terrorism. Shri Krishna said bravery is the way – face the war when it is inevitable and do your duty.
A terrorist is stuck in his identity – he hides it, has no rationale and inflicts pain. Whereas Bhagawad Gita helps one to transcend one's identity, encourages reason and infuses wisdom. In this sense, it could be called the antidote to terrorism.
The duty of a policeman, a soldier or a king is to be impartial for the sake of the nation, whether it is their mentors or relatives. Terrorists are never impartial. A soldier is brave and a terrorist is a coward. A soldier is protecting and preventing violence and a terrorist is inflicting pain and suffering. The Bhagawad Gita is the scripture of bravery in both realms of physical and metaphysical.
Terrorism is deeply steeped in hatred. An act without hatred is what Gita propounds. The Gita epitomizes the correct action – of righteousness, of upliftment of spirit and an action or duty that ought to be performed even in the most compelling situation.
In the last 5149 years of the existence of the Gita, there is no evidence of someone becoming a terrorist after reading it. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi wrote commentaries on the Bhagawad Gita and it was an inspiration for his non-violent movement. The Bhagawad Gita is a unique scripture which caters to the entire range of human evolution, comprising every level of this vast existence.
Gita stands for poise and equanimity and for performing one's designated duty. Krishna does not encourage everyone to take the weapons and fight but a soldier cannot sell bananas in the market. He has to take his weapon to bring security to his people. If Bhagawad Gita is a terrorist scripture then all military academies in the world are nothing but terrorist organizations. Doesn't this sound strange? Would the courts ban Lenin, Marx and Mao Tso-Tung, who to stay in power inflicted terror on millions?
A terrorist or a coward hides and inflicts pain on others whereas a soldier sacrifices his own life to bring security and peace to people. They both may take the gun but their intentions are poles apart.
Gita encourages reasoning and dialogue while terrorists are blind to any reasoning and are closed to any form of dialogue.
Interestingly, in any military training all over the world, the soldiers are asked to see the enemies as dangerous objects which need to be eliminated. The psychology behind indoctrination of such an idea is that when they think the enemy is a human being the soldiers are unable to raise their arms. There are many such survival tactics where the army men are desensitized.
A similar situation happened to Arjuna. Lord Krishna went step by step to deal with Arjuna's emotions, ego, mindsets and concepts. He finally touched on the nature of his spiritual being; revealing him the highest knowledge and making him realize his eternal nature. This brought him enormous strength and then propelled him to perform his worldly duties. A doctor cannot be taken as a dacoit just because he opens up the stomach of the patient.
Krishna says, no sin begets him whose intellect is unattached and free from cravings and aversions, even if he kills the whole world. Now, the condition of an intellect free from cravings and aversions itself counters terrorism. Terrorism is done when the intellect is deeply attached and is hateful. The metaphors and the high standards of humanism exhibited in the Gita are unparalleled.
Jesus had said, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the members of his household." In the Quran, there are many verses which talk about striking terror in the hearts of the infidels and cutting off their fingers. By these standards if you still call Gita a terrorist scripture then you have to precede such statements by Bible and Quran.
The fact is that it is not the scriptures that inflict terrorism; it is the mis-interpretation of an ignorant and stressed mind which justifies their actions quoting scriptures.
By Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
This article is to cater to the common man. This piece was written in December 2011, in the midst of a Russian court case against the Bhagawad Gita. The case ended with the Russian court rejecting the ban.
24 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in Awakening, Awareness, Book Reviews/Interview, Consciousness, JUSTICE, Non-profits/Activism, Spirituality, Transformation /Transformative practices Tags: Book Review
Product Information
Remember Who You Are is destined to transform the way vast numbers of people see themselves and the world – and it could not have been published at a more pivotal moment in known human history.
We live in extraordinary times, and we face the most enormous challenge to our individual and collective freedom. David Icke has been a trailblazer for more than two decades, warning of the coming global fascist/communist state that is now unfolding on the television news and in our daily experience. He was subjected to mass ridicule and called a madman – but events have proved him right, and continue to do so.
David has exposed the global network of families behind Big Banking, Big Biotech, Big Food, Big Government, Big Media and Big Pharma in book after book as his awareness has expanded – and he takes this on to still new levels of exposure in Remember Who You Are. But David goes far deeper down the rabbit hole than merely our daily experience of the 'five senses'. He reveals the true nature of our reality where there is no 'solidity' or 'physical' – only vibrational, electrical, digital and holographic information fields that we decode into what appears to be a 'physical world'.
David calls this the 'Cosmic Internet', and in this amazing work he explains how a malevolent force has 'hacked' into the cosmic information source via the 'Saturn–Moon Matrix' to feed us a false reality very similar in theme to the illusory world portrayed in the Matrix movie series. Remember Who You Are breaks massive new ground as David connects the dots between apparently unconnected people, subjects and world events like never before. Suddenly, a world of apparent complexity, mystery and bewilderment makes sense.
The key is in the title. We are enslaved because we identity 'self' with our body and our name, when these are only vehicles and symbols for what we really are – Infinite Awareness, Infinite Consciousness. We are imprisoned in the realms of the five senses and 'little me' when we are All That Is, All That Has Been and All That Ever Can Be. To breach the perceptual walls of the Saturn–Moon Matrix and bring an end to mass human enslavement, we need to awaken to our true identity. Everything, but everything, comes from this. Remember Who You Are. Remember 'where' you are and where you 'come' from. Remember.
Remember who you are, your not Effel Jurnt , your not Charlie Smith, your not your Job, your not your income bracket, your not your colour or your race; that's what your experiencing. You are consciousness, all powerful, infinite, eternal consciousness; all it is, can be and ever will be, and when we move to that perception of self, to that self identity and recognize who we are that's is when we can bring this house of cards down! – The Great David Icke
David Icke: Remember Who You Are 1/4
David Icke: Remember Who You Are 2/4
David Icke: Remember Who You Are 3/4
David Icke: Remember Who You Are 4/4
24 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Dharma, Film / Animation, Hinduism, Non-violence/Ahimsa/Harmlessness, Peace
The film 'Invitation to World Literature: the Bhagavad Gita' (WGBH, Annenberg Media) will screen at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City on Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 1 p.m. The following is filmmaker Joshua Seftel's interview with Hindu monk and Columbia University Chaplain Gadadhara Pandit Dasa, who appears in the film.
Joshua Seftel: When I was in college, I was walking through Washington Square Park, and a Hindu monk came up to me and handed me the Bhagavad Gita, and I remember I was too shy to know what to say so I just took it and I brought it home. But I didn't open it for 20 years. The reason was I felt intimidated by it, and I felt it wouldn't be relevant to me. It wasn't until I worked on the film about the Bhagavad Gita that I realized it's everywhere. It has influenced so many things I already knew about.
Gadadhara Pandit Dasa: The Bhagavad Gita did influence the lives of very prominent western people — not just Indian people like Ghandi — but Martin Luther King Jr., and Emerson, Thoreau, Oppenheimer.
Seftel: If you had to tweet what Bhagavad Gita is about, what would you say?
Pandit: (laughs) OK, what Bhagavad Gita is about (pause), "The guide to overcoming life's biggest obstacles, which are caused by the mind and understanding the difference between the body and soul."
Seftel: Would you say the main character, Arjuna, is having a nervous breakdown?
Pandit: Well, here is what Arjuna says: "My hair is standing on end. My skin is burning. My mind is whirling; my bow is slipping from my hand. I can no longer stand here any longer." I would say that if you can't stand on your own feet and things that you are holding are slipping from your hand, then that would qualify as a nervous breakdown.
Seftel: Arjuna, and his chariot driver, Krishna, have a relationship that is timeless and relatable. There's a little "Tony Soprano and Dr. Melfi" or "Tiger Woods and his caddy" here.
Pandit: I don't know if you saw the movie "The Legend of Bagger Vance" with Will Smith and Matt Damon? That's based on Bhagavad Gita actually, because Matt Damon's golfer character is named Rannulph Junuh. So that's Arjuna. And Will Smith, his caddy, is named Bagger Vance. If you take Bag and Vance, that's Baggavan which means "god" (laughs). And there's some Karate Kid here too. You know they've got Mr. Miyagi and Danielson (laughs). So Danielson, when he wants to learn he goes to Mr. Miyagi and asks him about karate and Mr. Miyagi then becomes a teacher. I think you can find this relationship everywhere in contemporary life.
Seftel: What about "The Matrix"?
Pandit: There's definitely a good amount of the Gita in The Matrix. Neo is very much like Arjuna because in the movie you see that Neo is looking for something. He sits on his computer. He knows that the world he sees around him isn't everything. He knows that there is something more out there. He just can't figure out what it is. When he finally meets Morpheus, his guru or teacher, Morpheus says, "You know it's out there, you just don't know what it is. It's kind of like a thorn. You have always felt it."
Seftel: In our film, Amitav Kaul says that he had a breakthrough in understanding Hinduism and the Gita after seeing Star Wars.
Pandit: Yes, the scene where Obi Wan tells Luke about "the force." That's why in Hinduism many say "Happiness is found within," because the divine is there. We are not able to access it because we are so busy doing so many things and progressing materially that we are not able to access that divine. So I think that is what he was referring to. The force is the divine.
Seftel: How does the story of the Bhagavad Gita end?
Pandit: It ends in a really beautiful way. One of my favorite passages in the Gita is where Krishna says to Arjuna that I've told you everything that I want to tell you, deliberate on it fully. And now, you do as you wish to do. I think that is so wonderful from a spiritual point of view that God is detached from our life to some degree. He's interested in educating us, but ultimately he says: You make your own decisions.
Seftel: I went to a bar mitzvah a few months ago, and I met a boy named Arjuna. Do you think Arjuna is going to become a popular name in the States?
Pandit: Well, it all depends on how well this documentary does (laughs). I think that is largely in your hands (laughs).
Seftel and Pandit will speak after the January 25th screening of the film at the Rubin Museum of Art.
If you missed the show, you can watch Joshua Seftel's 26 minute film on-line.
Click here watch and view the transcript of the video clip on the top right hand column.
21 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Book Reviews/Interview, Meditation, Vedic Chant /Mantra/ Kirtan/vedic hymns/sutras/strotam, Yoga Tags: Book Review, Dr. David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri)
Secrets of Bija (Seed) Mantras Foreword by Thomas Ashley-Farrand
Perhaps the most detailed book available on the yogic meaning of the prime seed mantras and letters of the Sanskrit alphabet along with their application for body, mind and spirit. Unfolds secrets of how to use mantra with pranayama and many esoteric meditation practices. Examines the usage of mantras in all the main branches of Yoga (Hatha, Raja, Bhakti, Jnana), Tantra, Veda, Ayurveda, Jyotish and Vastu, as well as relative to Kundalini and the chakras and major Hindu deities. An excellent reference guide for years to come.
Click here to browse inside
20 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Acceptance, Truth
19. Stage 1. Denial
20. Stage 2. Anger
Stage 3. Bargaining
22. Stage 4. Depression
23. Stage 5. Acceptance
20 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Mysticism / Mystics, Spirituality, Sufism/ Rumi
Is there an innate spiritual impulse independent of the fear of death and of religion itself? I have never been able to espouse any religion, even as I have been attracted to various elements in all of them. I am often moved by religious art and architecture in all its forms, for example; and by Sufi poetry or Gregorian chant, both of which raise the pitch of my heart and mind beyond their usual octave.
Yet there is also an echo of something in all religions that goes deeper for me than art appreciation. I have always had the intuition, felt in the marrow and not just in the mind, (a feature of my temperament, shared by many) that we live on the edge of a fullness of life that, while constantly available, seems all too often to be just out of reach. A lack, or sense of incompleteness, that gives rise to a longing for something beyond the known, and that cannot be spoken. No wonder the Jews leave out the vowels in YHVH.
Sometimes, whether through meditation, a walk in the woods, or being in love, or any number of catalysts, the incompleteness, the separateness, falls away and we feel less ourselves than part of everything; joined to a life both larger and more knowing than ourselves alone. More knowing, because in those moments we are a speck in the endless web of life, and yet joined even to the intelligence of the wheeling stars; a web that has no need of a computer terminal. Indra's net, the Hindus call it.
A life more knowing, and yet ever a mystery to our ordinary mind; a mystery with horizons that stretch away the more we gaze into it. An anonymous English writer in the 14th century called it The Cloud of Unknowing. Rumi and Hafiz, the two great Persian poets of Sufism, couched the experience in the language of lover and beloved. So too did Christian writers like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, Hindus like Ramakrishna and Tagore, and countless others.
This flow of longing into an awareness of belonging and back into longing again is, I suggest, the original and naked religious impulse. It is common to human beings everywhere throughout time; and it is this that has been concretized and systematized into different belief systems around the world. It itself, however, is prior to belief of any kind.
The poet Rilke urged us to live the question rather than settle for easy answers. To live the question in this regard surely means being willing to feel and explore that eternal itch — to experience its poignancy, its pleasure and pain — and then the awe, the wonder, the beauty, the deep peace and fullness that may come as the wave hits the shore — without either dismissing or explaining away any part of the cycle.
The fullness I refer to has nothing to do with thinking or believing. It is a spontaneous emergence of clarity, peace, aliveness, connectedness — truth and beauty if you will — and all for no reason. We might justly call it an authentic expression of the human spirit; and as such it is the source of spirituality, unbound by any religion of any kind.
The intuition of a larger life which embraces everything that lives and breathes is a felt sense rather than a thought or a concept. Reason, after all, is just one kind of knowing; felt sense, another. The one, more objective, gives rise to secular humanism, while the other, more subjective, can give rise to a personal and secular form of spirituality. Both can arise independently of external beliefs, and both are the fruit of a questioning mind.
Both are concerned with compassionate action in this world and not with rewards in some hypothetical afterlife. The abolition of slavery, the right to vote for all colors and both sexes; human rights, animal rights, environmental protections – all these extraordinary accomplishments of the human spirit surely add up to more lasting good done in the service of humanity than all the religions of the world together.
You may say that these extensions of the circle of life to include the previously disenfranchised are simply a reflection, not only of an age of enlightenment but also of the mirror neurons that we now know make us empathic creatures who can identify with a We as well as an I. But do mirror neurons account for the ecstatic love poetry of Rumi?
I wonder whether this We also reflects something of a larger reality still, beyond the neurons firing in our brain; whether it is a felt awareness of a dimension beyond the separate sense of self, one in which we are one body, one mind, with everything that lives and breathes. Not only that, but that there is an inscrutable wisdom in the way it all works. Not the wisdom of some Creator looking on bemusedly at his creation, but a wisdom and intelligence inherent in all creation itself.
Do I know this to be true? I can only say I recognize it to be true — I remember it to be true — in a region not accessible by my reasoning mind. In his book The Ego Tunnel, the German philosopher and radical materialist, Thomas Metzinger, argues persuasively that absolutely everything we experience, however cosmic it may seem, happens only within the confines of our own brain. He may be right; though we have no way of knowing. In the meantime, I will take that tremor of recognition until my experience tells me otherwise.
A secular spirituality, far from being an oxymoron, brings heaven down to earth, and encourages everyone to be their own priest. It bows in recognition of the extraordinary mystery that we are living in this very moment, without packaging it up in a neat bow of explanation. Bowing in a gesture of wonder and awe, not to any god or deity, but, as W.S. Merwin says in his poem,
For The Anniversary of My Death,
bowing not knowing to what.
Saved by Beauty by Roger Housden – Book Trailer
Forty years ago, Roger Housden discovered the poetry of Rumi and Hafez, read tales of exotic Sufis, and was carried away by the music and wisdom of a culture that reached back over three thousand years, ac culture that gave us our word for paradise.
Longing to see is the Iran of his imagination continued to exist, or whether it had been lost forever in the revolutionary zeal of the last thirty years, Housden sets off on a journey to discover a country filled with remarkable contradictions. "This books is a pilgrimage, a prayer, a heartfelt reminder, a poet-traveler's window into the eternal soul of Iran." –Jack Kornfield
Poetry to change your life
Poetry to change your life, featuring Roger Housden