All posts with the tag: esoterica...
A strange, surprisingly frequently occuring character in religions and mythologies. The “guide of souls” to the land of the dead, the Charon. According to Jung, the psychopomp archetype is the mediator between the conscious and unconscious realms. Thus a shaman can be regarded as a sort of living psychopomp.
The oldest songs in English for which the original settings survive are by St. Godric of Finchale, a medieval hermit.
Israeli researchers planted a 2000-year-old date palm seed that archaeologists collected from Masada in the 60’s and it actually grew!
(via The History Blog)
This is a beautiful plant that resembles a fairy wand. Prairie Blazingstar can be readily distinguished from most other blazingstars by the sharply recurved bracts subtending the flowerheads. Other species usually have smooth, straight bracts that vary in their shape or hairiness. The size and showiness of the flowers can depend on the local ecotype. There are some wild populations of plants with white flowers, although they are rare. This plant blooms after Liatris cylindrica (Cylindrical Blazingstar), but before Liatris aspera (Rough Blazingstar).
Via kottke, reposted here for my own convenience, a chronological list of fears, from childhood to parenthood.
New designs for British coinage. These are absolutely beautiful, beautiful enough for me to bother posting something that’s already on kottke.
Buzkashi, a sport played by Central Asian peoples since the days of Gengis Khan. The players are on horseback, and the “ball” is a dead goat.
I missed this at the time, but in 2003 the tiny country of Liechtenstein proposed that it rent itself out to companies for corporate parties - that’s right, the entire country! Vaduz Journal; For Rent: One Principality. Prince Not Included. - New York Times
The Headington Shark - I’ve seen it, it’s weird.
Shamanistic remnants in Hungarian folklore - pretty interesting, pretty esoteric.
Powered by WordPress, the ltlblg theme and the written word.