"Ritual" by Jon Hopkins

Simply extraordinary music... "Ritual" by Jon Hopkins, his new release.

His website says:
"By turns devotional, empowering and nurturing, Jon Hopkins’ forthcoming RITUAL is a 41-minute ceremonial epic built from cavernous subs, hypnotic drumming and transcendent melodic interplay.. Tense, immersive and ultimately triumphant, it is a culmination of themes explored throughout his 22-year career, and acts as the kinetic counterpart to 2021’s Music For Psychedelic Therapy.

A single piece unfolding over eight chapters, RITUAL is personified by depth and contrast. Taking ceremony, spiritual liberation and the hero's journey as inspiration, it taps into an ancient and primal energy."

Clear vinyl copies of this album are available for order on his website!
https://www.jonhopkins.co.uk/

BEAUTY: Sculpture--Rhonda Wheatley

Artist Rhonda Wheatly combines spirituality and sculpture into fascinating objects. She explains in her Artist Statement:

"My work is grounded in the speculative, metaphysical, and spiritual, and through it I explore healing, consciousness expansion, and transformation. As an energy healer, I imbue my work with meditative focus and intent. Each sculpture is attuned to the combined energies and symbolism of my materials—vintage found objects and electronics, as well as organic and natural materials, including fossils, cicadas, barnacle clusters, moss, and shed snakeskin. I treat these materials as ingredients that flavor each piece with purpose and power. For instance, barnacles, which attach to objects or other lifeforms for the duration of their lives, are a 'glue' that enhances one’s ability to adhere to intended changes. Fossils bring the energy of millions of years. Clock radios reference time manipulation and frequency—moving through states of consciousness—while antennas and crystals amplify signals.

My long-form titles, themselves written works, are integral to each piece, as they indicate the objects’ uses as shamanic tools. While I push the limits of reality as it’s commonly understood, I also explore often-uncomfortable limitations. Caveats such as 'For self-use only' on a power object that transmutes negative energy and 'The future is a moving target,' on a hybrid device that predicts future outcomes of potential decisions highlight these limitations, emphasizing the importance of others’ free will, the inescapability of unknowns and uncertainty, and that there are few guarantees in life. Ultimately, my objects and accompanying texts hint that acknowledging a universe of vast, yet-to-be-understood possibilities while relinquishing the need for total control, is key to attaining radical freedom."

FULL TITLE: Empath Protector. Helps empaths create healthy energetic boundaries so that they may clearly distinguish their own emotions, needs, and desires from those of others.

MEDIA: Vintage mannequin hand, wooden beads, natural fluorite crystal octahedrons, and acrylic paint.

FULL TITLE: Life Review Device. The Life Review process uplifts users from depression and despair, triggering a life re-boot. Users re-experience their entire lives in a full/extra-sensory consciousness download, infused with the hope and purpose with which they entered this lifetime. The device facilitates the process of releasing blame and grudges, forgiving one’s self and others, and getting back on mission.

MEDIA: Three vintage clock radios, vintage TV antenna, and quartz crystal cluster

FULL TITLE: Energy and Intention Reverberator. Increases strength and resonance of healing energy one receives and.or one’s intention and will.

MEDIA: Vintage mannequin hand, barnacle cluster, ceramic with glass, shed snakeskin, quartz crystals, hand-cut paper, collage, and acrylic paint. Round canvas and moss.

FULL TITLE: Karma Planning Device for Future Lifetime Maximization. Instantly assesses karmic debt accumulated throughout user’s earth incarnations. Knowledge embedded in dormant memory cells, activated by soul at opportune times. Does not override free will. Increases chances of reincarnating at higher levels in subsequent lifetimes. Positive past lifetime impact reverberation highly likely.

MEDIA: Vintage clock radio (metal), vintage TV antenna, and two orange rhomboid calcite crystals

FULL TITLE: Power and Energy Amplifier. Increases power and healing energy one receives and/or sends to others.

MEDIA: Vintage mannequin hand, barnacle cluster, titanium quartz crystals, cholla cactus wood, and acrylic paint.

FULL TITLE: Subconscious Translator. Navigates unconscious mind. Decodes messages from one’s subconscious self received via dreams, physical ailments, and mysterious behaviors. Gets to root of self-sabotage, projection, haterism, addiction, and more. Provides emotional protection as painful suppressed memories surface. For self-use only.

MEDIA: Vintage headphones, beads, quartz crystals, plant roots, fossilized shark teeth, snake skin sheddings, collage, and acrylic paint

FULL TITLE: Trauma Healer. Repairs damage to physical body brought on by emotional trauma, beginning at the cellular level.

MEDIA: Vintage mannequin hand, wooden beads, snakeskin sheddings, various seashells, snake bones, catfish atlas bone, and acrylic paint.


https://www.rhondawheatley.com/

We Need A Phurba NOW!

Tribal ethnographic art site Primitive Inc. is showing a beautiful antique Buddhist object whose use is desperately needed now!

"In the summer of 1900 a Daoist monk traveled to the edge of the Gobi Desert on a retreat. Locals had told him about some unusual caves on the eastern slope of Echoing-Sand Mountain. They sounded like the perfect place to meditate. However, upon his arrival he discovered more than caves. In front of him lay a series of grottoes containing complete temples carved into the mountainside. Meditation gave way to exploration. He found fantastic frescoes covering walls and ceilings, deities carved into bedrock, and evidence of a once vibrant, now abandoned community. Inside one cave he found a vault containing thousands of documents dating all the way back to the fourth century. In time, exploration gave way to knowledge and he uncovered ancient instructions on how to magically wield this week’s New Arrival.

This week’s New Arrival features a Yak bone Phurba from Nepal. Also known as a Kila or ritual dagger, it is really a ritual implement used by shamans. Yet, who uses it is less important than why it is used. The documents discovered in 1900 revealed how the Phurba could connect heaven and earth; obliterate violence and aggression; and vanquish ignorance, intolerance and insensitivity. Capable of destroying negativity through transmutation, if used properly it can neutralize prejudice, anger, and hate; whether those thought forms are generated by an individual or a group. Although the Phurba is not a physical weapon, it is the only weapon demanding deployment now."

YES! PHURBA NOW!!!

http://www.beprimitive.com/past-new-arrivals/phurba

Carnevale In Sardinia

Carnevale in the Barbagia Villages
Another different but amazing Carnival is held in some Barbagia Villages where Carnevale is influenced by ancient cult and rites. The masks in Barbagia probably recall ancient Dyonisus rituals. The main principle of Carnival is based on the world upside down and in Barbagia men become animals. Shepherds turn into their bulls or sheep.

Carnevale in Mamoiada
The most famous masks parade takes place in Mamoiada. They are called Is Mamuthones. They appear first on the night of Sant'Antonio Abate on January 17. During that night, in the different quarters of the village, several bonfires are lit and the Mamuthones come round to bless all of them. The Mamuthones are men who are transformed into animals and wear sheep skins and cow bells hanging on the shoulder. They also wear a grotesque wooden mask and walk rhythmically. When they leap the sound of their cow bells casts away the evil spirit.
They are flanked by the Issocadores, people wearing a sort of Spanish costume with a woman's shawl wrapped around their waist. They hold a lasso and catch people while they watch the parade of the Mamuthones.

Carnevale in Orotelli
Another village in Barbagia is Orotelli and they have another mask called Sos Thurpos (it means the blind people, or the creepers). They wear no mask but their faces are painted in black with soot and they are hidden by a long hood. They're dressed in a velvet black suit with leather hand-made boots and a long black rough wool coat (su gabbanu) used by the shepherds in winter. Across the shoulder they have cow bells to ward off the evil spirits. They parade in Orotelli.
Sos Thurpos includes a man who represents Su Thurpu Voinarzu (il contadino, the peasant) who has to govern the stubborn people who are the Thurpos Boes (i buoi, the bulls); then there are the Thurpos called seminatori ( Sowers) who throw grain along the road; Su Thurpu Vrailarzu (il fabbro, the blacksmith) who shoes the bull represented by Su Thurpu Boe, and then there is Su Thurpu who lights a fire with a steel, flint-stone and holds a little bull horn full of dry freula ( a plant from Sardinia) used to start the fire.

More Barbagia Carnival Masks
Another mask in Barbagia are the Merdules and Boes from Ottana. The merdule is a human figure who represents the owner of Sos Boes the bulls or shepherd. Sos boes are men dressed as animals with sheep skins and their faces are covered with a wooden mask with bull horns. The mask is also nicely decorated with small carvings. Sos boes also carry cow bells on the shoulders.

Sa Sartiglia in Oristano
Oristano's carnaval is very unique and interesting since they have been running a horse race called La Sartiglia for centuries, at least since XVI cent AD. The Sartiglia is organized every year by two different guilds (ancient medieval corporations), the Gremio dei Contadini or di San Giovanni Battista and the Gremio dei Falegnami or di San Giuseppe.
La Sartiglia is a sort of Medieval Tournament with knights wearing fabulous costumes and white androgynous masks. The most important people in the Sartiglia are the Componidori. They are the leaders of the knights. The knights ride beautiful horses adorned with flowers and coccarde (colorful flowers made of fabric). All the knights are chosen and selected for their ability by a knight leader called Su Componidori. They all have to run and catch with their swords, while gallopping fast, toward a silver star hanging in front of the Duomo in Oristano's historic center.

(All information from goitaly.about.com)