Wisdom in SpaceI would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
-- Bertrand Russell
The Skeptic's KaddishStartled sparrows, or: Solitudes
A Sijo
for years I trusted bridges built slowly between solitudes; evening dishes in the sink made endurance seem natural; then a familiar conviction scattered like startled sparrowsReena’s Xploration Challenge 432
For Reena’s RXC prompt, she invites us to compose poems inspired by this phrase:
A thought brushed my palm, then scattered like a startled bird.
Sijo?
A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka and comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each, for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line contains a pause near the middle, similar to a caesura, though the break need not be metrical. The first half of the line contains six to nine syllables; the second half should contain no fewer than five. Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure. Modern sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.
Let’s write poetry together!
When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.
–Ben Harper (b. 1969)Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!
#Belief #Disappointment #Endurance #Life #Poem #Poetry #Reality #Relationships #Sadness #Sijo
WIST QuotationsA quotation from Robert Ingersoll
The dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought, nor satisfy the hunger of the heart. While dusty faiths, embalmed and sepulchered in ancient texts, remain the same, the sympathies of men enlarge; the brain no longer kills its young; the happy lips give liberty to honest thoughts; the mental firmament expands and lifts; the broken clouds drift by; the hideous dreams, the foul, misshapen children of the monstrous night, dissolve and fade.Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Essay (1881-08) “The Christian Religion,” “Is All of the Bible Inspired?” ch. 3, North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 297
More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #robertgreeningersoll #belief #clarity #dogma #edification #faith #folklore #history #illumination #irrationality #modernity #myth #past #progress #religion #superstition #tradition #understanding
Ingersoll, Robert Green - Essay (1881-08) "The Christian Religion," "Is All of the Bible Inspired?" ch. 3, North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 297 | WIST Quotations
The dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought, nor satisfy the hunger of the heart. While dusty faiths, embalmed and sepulchered in ancient texts, remain the same, the sympathies of men enlarge; the brain no longer kills its young; the happy lips give liberty…
Alex Head📣 Book Release Announcement 📣
As our one living planet teeters upon its very axis, heavy munitions pound the Earth stomping out lives like falling forest trees. Up among the branches 🫀love🫀conquers all when we pursue its infinite variations actively and with intention. In this spirit my old pal the photographer Fabrizio Dal Vera and I share our studio shoot of How To Survive Secular Mysticism - a spiritual manifesto, by moi and now available on https://www.plural-studio.net/how-to-survive-secular-mysticism
there is nothing in this book
that you do not already know
though you may have
forgotten
therefore soften your perspective as you engage
these realities
softness allows the future to be remembered into
the present
like brush lines in an act of creativity
How To Survive Secular Mysticism is a fierce meditation on the cultural hijacking of mystical language and imagery. Alex Head’s swirling aesthetic sensibility and kaleidoscopic commentaries pull us through the subtle yet profound distinctions between lived spirituality and its secular simulacrum, demanding conscious intention and devotional presence amid ever-intensifying chaos.
- Ferdiansyah Thajib, author of Enduring Otherwise
Dense and earnest, this is someone thinking seriously about finding transcendence through art, community, and presence rather than doctrine. ‘Secular mysticism’ numbs you, disorients you, and opens you to external control. Genuinely strange and original writing, somewhere between cultural criticism, spiritual autobiography, and conspiracy theory, held together by artistic intelligence.
- Erin Honeycutt, pamphleteer
Secular Mysticism includes but is not limited to:
• Uninitiated or uneducated audiences exposed to
religious ideas and icons such as the ‘all seeing eye’
• Drugs and alcohol consumed without intention
• Social-media generated content consumed without
consent
• Trigger responses to environmental stimuli that confuse
thoughts and feelings, opening a way in for fear and anger
• Hypnotic sexual imagery such as the ‘Super-Hero’
Launch event in Berlin coming soon.
Colophon:
How to Survive Secular Mysticism
Alex Head
Plural Studio
2026, Berlin
First edition
All rights reserved
Fonts: Suisse Neue, Suisse International, Suisse
Works, Work Sans, Fergus McDonald
Layout: Lizard in the Spring
Editing: Anna Kostreva
Cover image, after a collaboration with artist
Gabriel Birch, circa 1994
ISBN: 978-3-9828617-0-8
#drugs #religion #hypnosis #sacred #taoism #buddhism #hinduism #christianity #judaism #secularism #secularmysticism #faith #belief #intoxication #dreamtimehealing #aboriginal #holographickinetics #startrek #thoughts #feelings #sex #vision #visions #initiates #esoteric #secret #love #culture #human #intelligence #art #magic #Berlin
A quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt
How do you think our boys who have gone to war and risked their lives should treat conscientious objectors after the war?I should think that the boys who go through the war, and who believe in what they are doing, would have a respect for a conscientious objector who had an equally strong belief that he should not kill other people.
We have put these conscientious objectors to work in this war. They are clamoring for more dangerous work. Some of them are already doing work which requires great courage, but not the taking of another man’s life. It would certainly seem a curious thing to me if a boy were not able to understand, having had deep convictions himself, that other people have a right to equally deep convictions and that they should be respected.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Column (1942-08), “If You Ask Me,” Ladies’ Home Journal, Vol. 59
More about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-eleanor/83…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #eleanorroosevelt #belief #combat #conscientiousobjector #conviction #killing #respect #soldier #war #conscience #killing
Roosevelt, Eleanor - Column (1942-08), "If You Ask Me," Ladies' Home Journal, Vol. 59 | WIST Quotations
How do you think our boys who have gone to war and risked their lives should treat conscientious objectors after the war? I should think that the boys who go through the war, and who believe in what they are doing, would have a respect for a conscientious objector who…
Create the Ripple“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” H. Jackson Brown Jr.
So much of life is created in the moments where we choose courage over comfort and possibility over standing still. 🧡
#belief #courage
Picture by Katie Abey
Coleman LaingThe one before Warhammer 40K, when the Emperor of Mankind was alive.
That is my Bible, that is my Quran.
What would the Earth be, without religions?
A singular ruler over all the humans of Earth?
Regardless of gender or race.
Although I'm Atheist, it makes me think.
WordofTheHour#belief : an acceptance that something is true
- French: croyance
- German: der Glaube
- Italian: credenza
- Portuguese: crença
- Spanish: creencia
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Guess the next word of the hour @ https://24hippos.com
Lifestyle Travel NowAt Lifestyle Travel Now, we believe travel is more than a journey—it’s a way to live your best life. #belief
RDNA study of approximately 100 individuals tested whether repeated exposure to false but fluent statements leads people to believe they are true, and whether knowledge of their falsity protects against such a tendency. Results were ambiguous, but evidence weighed in favor of knowledge protecting against truth illusions.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027726001393