Month: June 2014

hellas-inhabitants:

Statue of Dionysus. Thessaloniki, 2 nd c. A.D. Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki.

Άγαλμα του Διόνυσου. Θεσσαλονίκη, 2ος αι. μ.Χ. Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Θεσσαλονίκης.

errors-dot-albi:

thatscienceteacher:

theveganarchist:

stfuconservatives:

lesserjoke:

antigovernmentextremist:

gerrycanavan:

Jury nullification. Pass it on.

Jury nullification is so fucking important.

This is something that more people should be aware of, if only because (in many states, at least) defense attorneys are actually prohibited from mentioning it to jurors. The law allows a jury to return a “not guilty” verdict contrary to the facts of the case, but not for the defense to inform them of that power or to argue for its application in the current trial.

I didn’t know about this. Wow.

always reblog

This is SUPER IMPORTANT and also a good reason to show up for jury duty. You know all those laws you think are stupid? This is your chance to maybe do something about it. 

I…. I thought this was common knowledge… signal boosting this because it obviously isn’t!

ceremonialmagic101:

Meditation: on duality

After the practitioner has given due thought to the One, or the Unity of all things, the practitioner may choose to spend some time meditating on duality.  If the practitioner has considered a single point, this may involve selecting a second point, and meditating upon the nature of the line.

Consider: it does not matter how far apart two points may be, or how close together. The line that is indicated between those two points may be delimited by those two points, or may be infinitely extended.  The two points may be an inch apart, or a Planck Length, or as wide as the Solar System apart.  It matters not — the line drawn between them is infinitely extensible. Those two points, that duality, defines both a possible and an impossible distance.

But it does not define width. The line so defined has only length (infinite or finite), but neither depth nor breadth.  In this it resembles light, perhaps, but perhaps it also represents the soul, which goes from one thing to another along straight lines.  

The line also can also represent other dualities: on-the-line, against not-on-the-line. Once the practitioner has established the use of the four-fold breath, the practitioner can turn his or her attention to other dualities or apparent dualities besides the line: male and female, for instance, or day and night, or passive and active. The practitioner may discover that there are few true dualities, though: day and night are conditions brought about by other factors, and male and female have both physical and social dimensions that are rarely perfectly understood; active and passive have gradations and continuities that resemble successive points on a line — a series of intermediate steps.

Let the practitioner consider for fourteen days the question of duality in meditation, after establishing the fourfold breath at the start of the meditation. Some possible themes of this meditation may include, but are not limited to:

  • light and darkness
  • male and female
  • active and passive
  • war and peace (the conditions, not the novel)
  • self and other
  • mortal and divine
  • sacred and profane 
  • responsible and irresponsible
  • precise and vague
  • noble and common
  • active and reactive
  • acidic and alkaline
  • matter and spirit
  • matter and energy
  • truth and falsity
  • life and death
  • hero and villain
  • yin and yang
  • courage and fear
  • anger and peace

Wherever possible, let the practitioner turn his or her attention to one such pair of ideas (or ideas of their own choice) and consider the ways in which these are a duality or not (or whether they are two points in a continuum) at a time.  Where possible, the practitioner should attempt to identify when their thoughts stray away from the chosen duality being explored. The practitioner should consider only one pair at any given time, and dutifully return the mind’s contemplation to the chosen theme. 

Part of the purpose of the meditation on duality is to consider the nature of the number 2, just as part of the purpose of the meditation on the One is to consider the nature of the number 1.  What kinds of things come in twos? What is the nature of the number 2?  What does two-ness mean? What does it not mean? How does it differ from one, or from unity? Let the practitioner seek to understand how two-ness and duality function in his or her thinking.

— abwatt