What is really with Soma which can be bought from PrescriptionSoma.info? To know more about Soma, we should start with its definition and some more facts worth knowing.

According to Drugs.com, Soma (Carisoprodol) is one muscle relaxer that works by blocking pain sensations between the nerves and the brain. Usually, it is being prescribed to those who are having rest and physical theraphy due to injuries and other painful musculoskeletal conditions.  It works on the nerves to relieve muscle pain and it may also relieve pain by calming the nervous system.

The proper use of this medication is by taking it by mouth whether with food or without and it is usually taken three (3) times a day and at bedtime or as otherwise directed by the doctor. However, it is still recommended to take Soma with food or with milk because it will help minimize the likelihood that the patient will suffer an upset stomach as a result of taking the medication. Usual adult dosage is one 350 mg tablet and is not recommended to be taken by children under twelve (12) years of age.

The doctor usually prescribes Soma for one’s current medical condition or injury only. Thus, it is not advised that this medication be saved for future use. Always go with what the doctor has directed or instructed. If he says you can reduce your dose, take it less often or stop taking it, then do so.

Now, let us know the precautions. What should and should not be done would be as follows:

-          If you have an acute intermittent porphyia, don’t take Soma.

-          Inform your doctor if you are suffering from a kidney or liver disease because lesser dpse pr special monitoring during therapy might be necessary.

-          There is no specific finding if Soma could be harmful to an unborn baby. Thus, pregnant women should always consult their doctor before taking this medication. This holds true to women who are breast-feeding a baby as it is not known if Soma passes into breast milk, thus, the doctor must likewise be informed of such fact.

-          If you have any allergy to meprobamate, tybamate or mebutamate, or some other allergies, tell your doctor or your pharmacist. In addition, your doctor should likewise be aware if you have had an unusual reaction to carisoprodol or any of the above-mentioned medications.

-          If you have history of regular alcohol or drug abuse, asthma or seizure disorder, never forget to inform you doctor about it. This is so because Soma may be a habit-forming, thus, should only be used by one to whom it was prescribed for and should be properly stopped when so directed.

-          In order to reduce dizziness and lightheadedness, it would be better if you get up slowly when rising from a seated or lying position.

-          It is possible that Soma might cause dizziness or drowsiness, thus, it is recommended that the patient should not drive, use machinery or such other activities that requires alertness until and unless you are sure that you can perform such activities safely.

-          Alcoholic beverages should be avoided.

-          Keep the medication in a safe place where some other persons have free access to it. It is best to store Soma at controlled room temperature 15°-30°C (59°-86°F). Also, dispense in a tight container.

-          Withdrawal symptoms such as sleep problems, stomach pain, nausea, headache, and seizure may occur when you stop using Soma after you have taken the same for a long time. Thus, you should not stop when the doctor did not ask you to do so. The doctor might advise you to use less and less or reduce your dose gradually before you can completely stop with the medication. For more details, consult your doctor or pharmacist and tell them about any withdrawal reactions immediately.

-          If symptoms persist or worsen after a period of two (2) to three (3) weeks, immediately inform your doctor.

Missing a dose is sometimes inevitable. If you miss a Soma dose, take it as soon as remembered if it is within an hour or so. If you failed to remember until later, skip that missed dose and continue with your usual dosing schedule. Never ever ‘double-up’ your Soma dose just to catch up.

What’s with Prescription Soma Online Pharmacy? There’s no other way to explain it but to mention the best it offers. Firstly, Soma is not the only quality medication it offers but also some other medications that each and every person might need. Secondly, all medications of this pharmacy are approved by Foods and Drugs Association. Thirdly, Prescription Soma does not require presentation of a prescription because it provides free prescription to its buyers. Fourthly, all medications offered are its cheapest and reasonable price. Fourthly, complete privacy is given paramount consideration. Fifth, overnight shipping through FedEx is made possible. And last but not the least, US Licensed Pharmacies and Physicians work together with Prescription Soma.

In Prescription Soma, your benefit is on top of the interest of this online pharmacy.

MEET BABY SOMA*

​

Soma is four months old. Her family is among the poorest in Iraq. Their home consists of two rooms with no kitchen, not even a sink. They live in a town called Kalar, which is about 3 hours south east of Suly. But that isn’t the worst of it: she has Ebstein disease – a heart defect that has caused thousands of children in Iraq to die and more than 3,000 waiting for surgery. If Soma doesn’t receive surgery in January, she will become inoperable and may not live to the age of one or two. Her parents and her older sister’s greatest hope is to see Soma’s heart healed. This is where we get to help. Right now Soma’s family is having difficulty raising funds for her heart surgery. So, we want to partner with her family and PLC so that Soma may receive this critical, potential life-saving surgery. This is where we have the opportunity to touch lives for the sake of the gospel in Iraq.

As a College Ministry, we’re hoping to raise the $7,000 that it will cost to give Soma this much needed heart surgery.

7 ways YOU CAN help Soma

1. give :: each week, we will take up money and all of it will go directly to Soma.
2. pray :: ask the Father to provide for Soma.
3. join a small group :: each group will be collecting as a group to give & to spread the word to friends about Soma.
4. donate :: you can give in honor of a friend or family member as a gift for Soma.
5. go to preemptivelove.org :: for more info about what they do.
6. visit n. iraq :: see Soma and many others during the summer.
7. Christmas at the Criners :: during the annual Christmas party, we will be collecting funds for Soma.

Send all checks here:

First Woodway

101 Ritchie Rd.

Waco, TX 76712

Make checks out to “First Woodway College Missions” and in the memo line put “Soma”

I am finding levity very difficult this morning when some of our churches are under such intense trial.

Pray for

1. The Village Church and Matt Chandler

2. Soma Communities and Tacoma in response to the 4 police officers who were murdered

3. The Sanctuary in Houston Texas ( http://www.acts29network.org/acts-29-blog/thomas-young/ )

4. Protection and wisdom for the leaders as they help their people navigate these storms

We decorated the tree and house yesterday.  Lily’s eyes and face just lit up when I plugged in the lights for the tree,  so cute!  Now here is one of my most favorite pictures EVER (my two girls)……….

A Couple of Problems Along the Way
Of course working out what the church is from the Bible is far from an easy thing.  And there are three particular problems we need to address, the first two are similar to most theological issues:

1. Occasional Letters
Most of what we need to know about church comes from the New Testament letters.  These letters are not a theoretical exposition of what different things that Christians need to know and believe are.  They are letters written by the Christian leaders of the day, the apostles, and were written to particular situations or occasions.  Hence they are known as occasional letters (i.e. written to particular occasions, rather than written when the writers got around to writing!).  So the problem here is that a lot of the letters written to churches are addressing what has happened when things go wrong, rather than painting a picture of when things go right for them.  So rather than having a systematic manual as to what church is we have a series of pictures of where things have gone wrong.

2. The Prescriptive/ Descriptive Issue
This leads to another problem in that the issues that churches are facing in say C1st Corinth may not be the same as churches in C21st Australia.  For example one of the big issues for the Corinthian church that Paul has to address in his first letter to them is that of whether to eat meat that has been dedicated to an idol (1 Corinthians 8-10).  While this issue is not outside the realms of experience in Australia, most of us can have a BBQ without even thinking about whether the steak has been placed in front of a block of stone in the shape of someone’s idea of God.  This means that what has been described in the Bible may not be exactly what is prescribed for us and we will need to do some work on how it does apply to our situation.

3. The Normative/ Regulative Issue
But there is another issue, that is somewhat unique to the doctrine of church.  There is also a debate among pastors and theologians about how much freedom we have to change things in the church.  Mark Dever, holding the regulative principle, shows both sides of the argument:

“Briefly, the Regulative Principle states that everything we do in a corporate worship gathering must be clearly warranted by Scripture.  Clear warrant can either take the form of an explicit biblical command or a good and necessary implication of a biblical text.  The Regulative Principle has historically competed with the Normative Principle, crystallized by the Anglican minister Richard Hooker.  Hooker argued, along with Martin Luther before him, that as long as a practice is not biblically forbidden, a church is free to use it to order its corporate life and worship.  In short, the Regulative Principle forbids anything not commanded by Scripture and whereas the Normative Principle allows anything not forbidden by Scripture.

It is helpful to begin with D. A. Carson’s irenic not that “theologically rich and serious serviced from both camps often have more common content than either side usually acknowledges.”  Carson goes on to observe “there is no single passage in the NT that establishes a paradigm for corporate worship”.  Agreed.  Yet in leading God’s people in corporate worship, we are in some sense binding their consciences to participate in each part of the service.  That binding is only legitimate insofar as it has positive scriptural warrant, because Scripture alone is worthy to bind the conscience and function as the final rule for faith and practice.”(1)

While Dever’s words are a good word of warning to a young church planter, and Carson’s comments that the two views are not too distant from each other are helpful, the Normative principle would seem to be the more Biblical perspective.  Jesus is building his church throughout the world, in different cultures, languages and places.  Church needs to be able to adjust to these different contexts.

The aim of the Naked Church Project is to work out where the lines need to be drawn as to what should be changed and what should not.

(1) Mark Dever and Paul Alexander, The Deliberate Church: Building your Ministry on the Gospel (Illinois: Crossway, 2005), 77-78

Did you know that way back in 1932, a fiction novel entitled “Brace New World” was written by Aldous Huxley. In that novel, it narrated about a futuristic society in the year 2540 that universally consumed a mind altering substance known as “Soma”. The novel stated that people depend on this mind altering substance in order to escape from the reality of their bleak and government controlled lives. They do so by taking Soma in pill form, liquid form, or in a frozen form just like an ice cream. Majority of the people living in the said society got addicted to soma. Those who were not addicted to the drug were considered as unusual optimists who do not need soma to be happy.

In the Veda, where the oldest scriptures of Hinduism originated, Soma was considered as a god and a sacred drink. It was considered as a divinity and a drink that is divine in nature that was being consumed by priests during sacrificial rituals. But now, under Western medicine, Soma is known as a skeletal muscle relaxant that acts on the central nervous system (CNS) to relax muscles. It works by blocking the nerve impulses or pain sensations that are sent to the brain. Soma, with generic name of Carisoprodol, is likewise defined as that which relaxes certain muscles in one’s body and relieves him or her from the discomfort that is caused by acute (short-term), painful muscle or bone conditions. However, it should be noted that this medication is never intended to replace rest, physical therapy, exercise, or such other treatments that are recommended by doctors depending on one’s medical condition.

Precautionary measures dictate that if you have ever had any unusual or allergic reaction to this medicine or any other medicines, it is best to tell your doctor about it. In addition, you should also inform your health care professional if you have any other types of allergies like food allergies, or allergies to animals and the like. Always remember to look into the label or package ingredients if ever the products you are using are non-prescription ones.

Other than the above-mentioned, it is also best that you identify the medicines that you are currently taking in because there are those that interact with Soma, and this is not advisable. Nonetheless, there may be some cases where Soma and other medicines may be taken in together as determined by your doctor. In case both medicines are prescribed to a single person, the doctor may change the dose or the number of times that the same person should take one or both of the medicines. The medicines that I am talking about are the following:

• Adinazolam
• Alfentanil
• Alprazolam
• Amobarbital
• Anileridine
• Aprobarbital
• Bromazepam
• Brotizolam
• Butabarbital
• Butalbital
• Carisoprodol
• Chloral Hydrate
• Chlordiazepoxide
• Chlorzoxazone
• Clobazam
• Clonazepam
• Clorazepate
• Codeine
• Dantrolene
• Diazepam
• Estazolam
• Ethchlorvynol
• Fentanyl
• Flunitrazepam
• Flurazepam
• Halazepam
• Hydrocodone
• Hydromorphone
• Ketazolam
• Levorphanol
• Lorazepam
• Lormetazepam
• Medazepam
• Meperidine
• Mephenesin
• Mephobarbital
• Meprobamate
• Metaxalone
• Methocarbamol
• Methohexital
• Midazolam
• Morphine
• Morphine Sulfate Liposome
• Nitrazepam
• Nordazepam
• Oxazepam
• Oxycodone
• Oxymorphone
• Pentobarbital
• Phenobarbital
• Prazepam
• Primidone
• Propoxyphene
• Quazepam
• Remifentanil
• Secobarbital
• Sodium Oxybate
• Sufentanil
• Temazepam
• Thiopental
• Triazolam

Soma medication is available only with your doctor’s prescription. Nevertheless, you can still order soma online and it is best and much more advisable to do so from OrderSomaOnline.org.

As I said, you can order soma online because the required prescription shall likewise be issued by a US Licensed doctor who is affiliated with the online pharmacy. The drug shall be coming from a US Licensed Pharmacy, thus, no worries on its quality. To provide more convenience to the buyers who order soma online, this online pharmacy likewise offer free medical consultation, all kinds of shipping such as Next Day Shipping, Saturday Shipping, and Private and Confidential Shipping.

In Order Soma Online, the interest and convenience of the buyers are given paramount consideration.

The way we use the Word
I remember an ad on television introducing us to a new company.  The catch cry of the ad was “What’s an Axa?”.  It was effective in introducing us to a new word, though I am still not sure what Axa actually does.  But words we use every day give us a familiarity with them which means that we don’t actually think about what they mean.  Think about the word “church”.  We use it all sorts of ways:

Congregation               “St Davos at Worryvale”
Denomination             “The Anglican Church”
Building                       “Near the church down the road”
Universal body of believers     “The church says”
as a verb                          “where do you church”
as religious service         “ I am going to church”
organised religion         “Church v State”
professional vocation         “going into the church”

So what does the word church mean?  Sometimes it is helpful for us to go back and look at a history of the word as to where it came from.

History of the word “church”
The history of the word church is far from simple (1).  Robert Reymond sums up the history of “church” as this:

“The English word as is true of the Scottish word kirk and the German word Kirche, is derived from the Greek word kuriakos, which means “belonging to the Lord”.  The Greek phrase to kuriakon, came to be used to designate the place where Christians met to worship and in time was transferred also to the people themselves as the “spiritual building” of the Lord.”(2)

What this means is that the word church was used originally referred to the building.  The word church or churche or chyrch did not really appear until the 1500s(3) in reference to the people who met in the church, coming from the term “belonging to the Lord”.

At about the same time the Bible was beginning to be translated into English.  Up until then the vulgate, written in Latin was the standard text.  Translators started to translate the New Testament from the Greek text and as they did they chose to translate the Greek word “ekklesia” as “church”.  This means we need to understand what the word “ekklesia” means.

Meaning of “ekklesia”(4)

Let’s start by asking the question, why did the early Christians call their gatherings ekklesia’s in the first place?  Why not call them Christian synagogues (5), since they have come out of the Jewish culture and this would be the nearest analogy (6) for them?  The reason appears to lie in that though the two terms overlap quite a lot, both refer to assemblies of God’s people, they mean very different things.

“Most probably the word “church” was already in Christian use before he [Paul] commenced his work, at least in the Hellenistic-Jewish Christian circles.  This means that from the earliest times such communities distinguished their gatherings from Jewish assemblies on the one hand and Hellenistic cults on the other.”(7)

In terms of how the word is used in Greco culture leading up to the writing of the NT we have these observations:

“ekklesia..(d)enotes in the usage of antiquity the popular assembly of the competent full citizens of the polis, city”(8)

“In contrast to ekklesia, which had become a technical term by an early date, the other word which is important to us in this context, synangoge, exhibited from the first a wide breadth of usage.  It denoted quite generally, in the translated sense, the collecting or bringing together of things (books, letters, possessions, fruit at harvest time) and also of troops and people.”(9)

While this is not the way we find the word used in the NT, normally it was about the place where people met (e.g. Acts 18:7) , though this was a later usage.    There occasions that the term is used in a non-Jewish sense (Acts 6:9 and of course more aggressively in Rev 2:9 and 3:9).

“It is impossible to find in classical Greek absolutely clear attestation of the face that synangoge, progressing from the nature of the activity in its scene, was used to denote the place of assembly.  This probably originated within Judaism.”(10)

This leads Coenen to the following conclusions about ekklesia:

“Thus ekklesia, centuries before the translation of the OT and the time of the NT, was clearly characterized as a political phenomenon, repeated according to certain rules and within a certain framework.”(11)

“It seems indisputable that, if ekklesia here represents the idea of late Judaism, it has taken over the context of qahal, and is probably to be understood as the eschatological assembly of the true people of God.”(12)

This is not to say that ekklesia and synagoge are completely different.  James, for instance  uses the term interchangeably in his letter (13), albeit he is the only one in the New Testament to do so.  In the Old Testament, in the Greek translation called the Septuagint, in Deuteronomy the meeting at Sinai is called an ekklesia, and in Exodus the references to the same event are often referred to as the synagoge.

This also makes more sense of Acts 19 where Paul faces an angry mob.  This is the only case of the ekklesia not referring to a Christian gathering (19:32, 39, 40).  This gathering is a mob of angry people who want to stone Paul and his friends.  Before they are able to do so they are hauled up before the city clerk (19:35) who rebukes the crowd because they are not a legal assembly (19:39), they are just a crowd of people.  They are a gathering, not an ekklesia.

Relationship between Kingdom and Church
This also explains the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the church.  In the Gospels the word church (ekklesia) only comes up twice, both in Matthew.  But the idea of the Kingdom comes up some 121 times.  In contrast the idea of kingdom only comes up 36 times in the rest of the New testament and yet church (ekklesia) comes up 112 times (subtract the Acts 19 references and we end up with 109 times).

The point is that when the New Testament talks about the Kingdom of God and the church it is talking largely about the same thing.  The Kingdom is the place where God reigns and the church is the place where this should be seen most clearly on earth.

What does this all mean?
I think that the Christians did not merely think of their gatherings as gatherings, but as political entities of the Kingdom of God. This would link the term ‘kingdom of God’ with ‘church’. This means that they are not just “gathered around God’s Word”, but gathered as “God’s people”.  They are the citizens of heaven gathering together to enjoy their citizenship and understand it better.

This will also impact the following sections on where church meets and why it meets.

1 See “Church” Oxford Dictionary vol 3. pp199-203. for a history of the church

2 Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), 805.

3 “Church” Oxford Dictionary.  p200.  “The chyrch therefore must nedes bee the comen knowledge of the muilittude of christen good and bad togither while you bee the church here in earth”  (1529)

4 Much of this section is based on the work of L. Coenen, “Church,” in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1986), 291.  See also P. T. O’Brien, “The Church as a Heavenly and Eschatological Entity,” in Church in the Bible and the World (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1987), 90.  Also refer to G R. Stanton, Athenian Politics c. 800-500 BC, A Sourcebook (London and New York: Routledge, 1990).

5 “Giles suggests that the early Christians chose ekklesia rather than synagoge as a self-designation (though cf Jas 2:2), because they wished to differentiate themselves from Judaism, not because there was a profound difference in the meaning of these terms”  David Peterson, “The Locus of the Church: Heaven or Earth,” The Theologian, http://www.theologian.org.uk/church/locus.html

6 As far as I can work out James 2:2 is the only place where the term synogogue is used to refer to a Christian gathering.

7 Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, Revs. (Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 29.

8  Coenen, 291

9 Ibid., 292

10 Ibid., 291

11 Ibid., 291

12 Ibid., 302

13 James 5:14 ‘church’; 2:2 ‘synagogue’

Click here to play TSDC Episode 34

Ken Weinert makes logic puzzles, and he’s one of the supporting people behind Charles Neil’s website.

He’s had to overcome quite a few problems in getting the precise cuts down, and we talk about his solutions.

Please follow along with the images at this website

© ತುಮಕೂರು ಸಂವಾದ ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ ತೆಗೆದ ಚಿತ್ರ.

Pe cand credeam ca am zis si scris totul despre Pleiade, iata ca am descoperit ca uitasem de pomul etern verde, “nemuritor”, bradul. La: http://strasihastrii.blogspot.com/2009/11/116-sulitele-de-sacrificiu-sulitele.html am gasit un articol care mi-a adus aminte de brad si de legatura profunda dintre brad si poporul roman. Bradul este “nemuritor”, la brad se inchinau nou nascutii, bradul il aducem in casa, de craciun. Cu siguranta bradul a reprezentat idea de vigoare, sanatate, tinerete vesnica, vesnicie.

Sulita poate foarte usor sa fie, pe langa simbolul lui Muruga, Vel (Pleiade), simbol al bradului. Un desen al bradului si un desen al unui varf de sulita, cu usurinta, pot sa fie confundate.

Nemurire si Pleiade, nemurire si brad.

Exista oare vreo legatura intre Brav si Brad? Pe langa asemanarea dintre aceste cuvinte (o singura litera difera) Brav poate sa fie legat de idea de lupta (si sulita), brad legat de nemurire.
Alte cuvinte care par sa aiba legatura: Bra-sov, Dum-brav-a, Bra-tocea, Bra-n.

Cred ca articolul in cauza, care pune alaturea bradul si sulita, nu face decat sa intareasca idea ca bradul este simbol al grupului Pleiade. Foarte interesante postarile de pe acest blog: http://strasihastrii.blogspot.com/

HYPE MUSIC a le plaisir de vous présenter, en partenariat avec OUI FM, le concert évènement: HyPE + SOMA + PORCELAIN

Mercredi 25 novembre à la Scène Bastille à 19h30, 2, rue des Taillandiers – 75011 métro Bastille/Ledru Rollin.
Ne ratez pas ce line-up de qualité avec les excellents SOMA et Porcelain, pour une soirée très pop – rock
Ouverture des portes : 19h30. Ordre de passage Porcelain / HyPE / Soma

Les places sont disponibles auprès du groupe : contact.hype@gmail.com pour 10€ en prévente ou à 12€ sur place, à la Fnac, Virgin ou toute autre billetterie habituelle.

Pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas encore ces très bons groupes, allez donc sur les différents myspace pour écouter !www.myspace.com/somafrance
www.myspace.com/porcelainpoprock
et bien sur HyPE sur www.myspace.com/hypemusic

Long before there were creme brulee carts, kitchenettes, and little skillets, there was El Tonayense.  Seriously tasty and seriously cheap street food.

You can play it safe and enjoy the traditional pollo: chicken; asada: beef; carnitas: fried pork; or al pastor: marinated pork. Or you can be less pedestrian and try the more adventurous lengua: tongue; cabeza: head and cheek; tripitas: tripes; or buche: neck.   These don’t actually faze me a bit since feasting on barbequed chicken intestines and sizzling chopped pig cheeks was part of growing up in the Philippines.  Either way, it’s all good Mexican street food.

$1.75 buys you a tasty taco.  Served on unpretentious paper plates with pickled peppers, these tacos are best enjoyed sitting on a pavement and watching the world go by.

Catch the taco truck right outside Best Buy at 14th and Harrison in SoMa or visit their shop at 24th Street and Shotwell in the Mission.

Last Saturday, a few friends and I got dressed up, donned some Marriage Equality stickers and went to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Big Idea Party: State of the Queer Nation. This evening was about raising awareness and lowering inhibitions. There was a queer activist fair, music, dancing, cheap drinks, munchies from Citizen Cake and Orson, a burlesque show and other good stuff. The added bonus about attending a free party after hours at YBCA is being able to check out current art exhibitions.

Let me take you through it.

My friend Marcy drove up from San Jose (she’s on the left and I’m on the right).

My roommate Tatiana and friend Jenna expressed their thoughts on gender identity at a booth in the lobby.

This was the one photo I got away with snapping in the exhibitions before a YBCA gallery guard very politely asked me to knock it off. I had to risk it though because how else could I properly illustrate this unique work? This was in the section of the gallery dedicated to modern Brazilian artists. The work, entitled Roda dos Prazeres (Wheels of Delights) was done originally in 1968 by Lygia Pape (1927-2004). There were sixteen bowls on the ground filled with water of different colors and flavors. Using disposable plastic eyedroppers, we got to taste the water. The color and flavor combinations were somewhat unexpected (red was minty, green tasted like cake batter, etc.), in order to play with preconceived notions of associations with color and our senses.

This condom dress had a “Please Do Not Touch” sign. No problem. It was really well-constructed and surprisingly pretty for a garment made of prophylactics.

Funny moment of the night: Jenna shoving a cupcake from Citizen Cake in her mouth when we realized chef Elizabeth Falkner was standing two feet away from us. To make matters nerdier, Tatiana immediately updated her Facebook status to alert the Internet.

A queer-friendly event in San Francisco wouldn’t be complete without at least one sighting of a drag nun. Luckily, several of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were there to party it up and make me feel bad that I can’t apply eye make-up for shit.

It was a good night, and a nice reminder that while gay marriage isn’t yet legal, there are plenty of people out there not giving up on it. I’m a huge supporter of the gay community myself and I can’t wait for the day we’re all equal.

I also look forward to the big party that would inevitably follow such a positive change. More good drinks and fun music would be the icing on the Citizen Cake.

Everyone always says, “There’s SOMEthing about San Francisco.” And then they proceed to try to nail it down by making lists of the things that make this city what it is… But you can’t do that and actually capture that something. Maybe because it’s different for everyone. Maybe it’s not actually something and people just need to justify why they live in a loud, crowded, dirty city with a bunch of loud, crazy people.

For me, it’s the pulse. This city is a living breathing thing that feeds creative energy into the lives of the people who live here. There’s a constant need to produce, to do things, to make art, to make science, to marry the two to each other and to make things Interesting. There are places in this city that you’d never could have dreamed existed. There are people in this city that defy the laws of common social nature. And they’re all proud to be who they are and excited about what they do. It’s a city of life filled with alcoves of hidden art, cultures from all over the world, and people with zillions (yes, zillions) of stories. It’s a colossal panoply of universes all laying one on top of the other and we are here in the middle of it all, eyes rolling, mouth stretched taught with glee and in awe of everyday life.

I fall in love with someone or something in this city at least once a day. I’ve never experienced that before I moved here. And I wouldn’t give that experience up for anything.

I’m a menswear designer. Something, had you asked me 5 years ago, I would have never considered doing. This city found this passion in me.

I dance and perform. Something I would have never had the courage to do if it weren’t for the people in this city who drew it out of me.

I make art for people to play in and to change perspectives on the possibilities at hand. And if it weren’t for the other artists defying logic and pushing possibilities, I would have never thought to try.

For the first time in my 27 years, I found a place that feels like home. A place that I can always come back to and feel comfortable with friends who are excited to see me. This is why I live here.

A fost odata ca niciodata……..

Soma (ambrozia, amrit) este considerata bautura zeilor. Ea le dadea viata eterna sau puteri iesite din comun. Ea mai este considerata ca implicata in scrierea faimoaselor Vedas.

Trei, din multimea de povesti legate de soma, imi par mai importante.

1. Culoarea fetei lui Shiva
In luptele care s-au dat intre zeii buni si cei rai au fost implicati si oamenii. Datorita inteligentei lor, foarte curand, ei au descoperit metode cu care puteau sa le vina de hac zeilor. Disperati, zeii, s-au adresat zeului suprem pentru o solutie. Solutia gasita a fost bautura Soma, care le dadea “viata fara de moarte”. Aceasta bautura a fost obtinuta din mare cu ajutorul unui sarpe. Din pacate in procesul “fabricarii” somei, sarpele a scuipat si veninul sau in licoarea fermecata. Shiva pentru a salva licoarea de efectele otravii a baut otrava. Astfel fata si gatul sau au devenit albastre.

2. Usturoiul
Dupa obtinerea somei, zeul suprem a luat-o si inainte de a da-o zeilor i-a oferit-o consoartei lui. Licoarea nu a fost pe placul iubitei si aceasta a scuipat-o. Pe locul unde a cazut a crescut o mica planta. Aceasta planta este Usturoiul.

3. Saptamana
Zeul suprem ajunge in fata zeilor si le ofera bautura. Primii care o primesc sunt zeii buni. Unul dintre cei rai (dragonul) banuieste insa ca doar cei buni o sa primeasca licoarea si se strecoara printre ei (intre “soare” si “luna”) si astfel primeste si el licoarea imortalitatii. Realizand ca fost inselat zeitatea suprema ii reteaza capul. Chiar si asa, cele doua parti (capul si corpul) au ramas vii. In cultura hindului, Rahu (capul dragonului) si Ketu (coada dragonului) sunt venerate Duminica (Rahu) si Luni (Ketu).

Somesoara (Someshoara) este zeitatea hindusa care guverneaza soma. Cateva rauri din Romania au numele de Somes. Exista in nord, raul Somes cu Podisul Somesan si Campia Somesana. In Apuseni avem Somesul Rece si Somesul Cald. Banuiesc ca Somes este varianta romaneasca a vechiului Soma.

Ambrozia este o alta denumire pentru Soma. Ambra (chihlimbar) ar putea sa aiba ceva legatura cu aceasta bautura a zeilor. Se considera ca chihlimbarul “suge” boala din corp.

Una din modalitatile sub care este reprezentat zeul Soma este aceea de taur (vaca ?!).

Was soll man machen? Wörter sind so unglaublich langweilig, zuweilen. Aber auch der Beruf des Bestattungsunternehmers hat sicher seine öden Momente. Um jetzt mal ein Beispiel aus einer ganz anderen Ecke zu zitieren. Sogar wenn die flennenden Anverwandten im Nebenraum sind, um den Sarg vereint, dann bohrt man vermutlich in der Nase und löst auf die Schnelle ein Kreuzworträtsel. Immer kann man sich mit den tiefsten Dingen nicht abgeben. Dem widerspricht die menschliche Natur, deren Credo bekanntlich lautet: ”Wer das Tiefste gedacht, liebt das Lebendigste!” Und das Lebendigste sind nun einmal nicht unbedingt Wörter und ein Leichenschmaus.

Hello

July 5th – not Independence Day, but nonetheless a day that will go down in history as the day when Roger Federer finally won 15 grand slam tennis titles – saw another historic milestone. Yes, that’s right: book club no.30! If only we’d realised this at the time we might have made more of an effort to celebrate it.

The text before us was “The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell” – two separate, short works of non-fiction prose (our first foray into this genre) by renowned English bohemian and all-round literary dabbler, Aldous Huxley.

The group was reduced to a core of four personages – Owain (host), Sophie (hostess and sous chef), Pete (watching the tennis) and Ed (late). Nonetheless – and despite a certain amount of trepidation about how to approach these tricky, ambiguous books – the session was immensely fruitful and thought-provoking.

Debate started by considering Huxley’s motivations for writing the book, a description of a mescalin trip he took in 1953 and its impact on his thinking about mystical or visionary experiences. Pete argued that Huxley in some sense through this book helped give birth to the Californian movement (which has been so important in the modern West) which focused on self-realisation and consciousness expansion, and that this book was particularly influential in giving credence to the drugs movement that became emerged during the 1960s. When considering why these books remain in print and are regarded so highly, we felt that Huxley’s status as an outsider – an English aristocrat arguing for drug legalisation – was significant.

We also discussed how Huxley’s attitudes to drugs in these books seem to differ from that in “Brave New World”, where his invented drug ’soma’ is used to keep the masses in a state of soporific acquiesence. And we considered the relationship of this book to previous book club authors, including JG Ballard (who wrote a cursory introduction to our edition of the text) and Thomas Pynchon, the former developing Huxley’s interest in how drugs began to permeate mainstream, ‘respectable’ society during the second half of the twentieth century, while the latter was clearly influenced by Huxley’s description of the paranoia that drug trips could bring on.

However, despite the interesting ideas raised by both books, the group found them on the whole rather disappointing. “The Doors of Perception” – with its greater narrative drive – was agreed to be the stronger of the two, but “Heaven and Hell” came in for particular criticism, especially from Ed who commented on Huxley’s pro-drugs stance and the distinct lack of a “hell” in his description of what drugs such as mescalin do to people’s minds and behaviour.

Owain (who chose the book) was particularly let down by it, finding the narrative description of Huxley’s trip – though its strongest part – still weak and unexciting, while he felt the other sections looking at the role of mysticism in art and religion were simply poorly argued, biased and subjective. We also agreed that the pieces of art shown or played to Huxley during his trip by his wife and friend – Cezanne, Mozart, Botticelli, Van Gogh – demonstrated a canonical bias of Huxley’s time and place without shedding too much valuable light on the impact of the drug trip itself.

All in all, there was much to discuss – including genre, the status of the book as ’scientific’ or otherwise, its Western bias and Orientalist attitudes, and its wider cultural impact – but our feeling was the book was not all it was cracked up to be.

The baton is passed over to Fleming (host of one of our favourite ever book clubs) even though he couldn’t be bothered to turn up this time.

Pete

st. patrick’s church at night. this is one great location in the city, in front of the yerba buena gardens, next to jessie square, behind the contemporary jewish museum, a block from the sfmoma. it thrives during the day, mixing tourists, locals, students, children, the elderly, the homeless, the list goes on. i have had lunch sitting on the grass here on many occasions, a breath of much-needed fresh outside air. parks and public squares are the lungs of the city, they become a critical factor in the inhabitability of a city. the desire and pleasure of a city grows according to the quality of its public spaces.