Meditation
The word meditation carries different meanings in different contexts. Meditation has been practiced since antiquity as a component of religious traditions. Meditation often involves an internal effort to self-regulate the mind in some way, Meditation is often used to clear the mind and ease many health concerns, such as high blood pressure and anxiety. It may be sitting, or in an active way—for instance. Prayer beads or other objects are commonly used during meditation in order to keep track of or remind the practitioner about some aspect of that training. The term meditation can refer to the state itself, as well as to practices or techniques employed to cultivate the state, Meditation may involve repeating a mantra and closing the eyes. The mantra is chosen based on its suitability to the individual meditator, Meditation has a calming effect and directs awareness inward until pure awareness is achieved, described as being awake inside without being aware of anything except awareness itself.
In brief, there are dozens of styles of meditation practice. The English meditation is derived from the Latin meditatio, from a verb meditari, meaning to think, devise, in the Old Testament, hāgâ means to sigh or murmur, and also, to meditate. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, hāgâ became the Greek melete, the Latin Bible translated hāgâ/melete into meditatio. The use of the term meditatio as part of a formal, the term meditation in English may refer to practices from Islamic Sufism, or other traditions such as Jewish Kabbalah and Christian Hesychasm. An edited book about meditation published in 2003, for example, included contributions by authors describing Hindu, Taoist, Christian. Christian and Islamic forms of meditation are typically devotional, scriptural or thematic, the history of meditation is intimately bound up with the religious context within which it was practiced. Some of the earliest references to meditation are found in the Hindu Vedas of Nepal, wilson translates the most famous Vedic mantra Gayatri thus, We meditate on that desirable light of the divine Savitri, who influences our pious rites.
Around the 6th to 5th centuries BC, other forms of meditation developed via Confucianism and Taoism in China as well as Hinduism and early Buddhism in Nepal and India. In the west, by 20 BC Philo of Alexandria had written on some form of exercises involving attention and concentration. The Pāli Canon, which dates to 1st century BC considers Indian Buddhist meditation as a step towards liberation, by the time Buddhism was spreading in China, the Vimalakirti Sutra which dates to 100 AD included a number of passages on meditation, clearly pointing to Zen. The Silk Road transmission of Buddhism introduced meditation to other Asian countries, returning from China around 1227, Dōgen wrote the instructions for zazen
Michael Dwyer
Michael Dwyer was a United Irishmen leader in the 1798 rebellion. He fought a campaign against the British Army in the Wicklow Mountains from 1798–1803. Dwyer was born in Camara, a townland in the Glen of Imaal County Wicklow and he was the eldest of seven children of farmer John Dwyer and his wife Mary, who had a farm in the widespread fields of Wicklow and supplied the men of the rebellion with food. In 1784 the family moved to a farm in Eadestown, Dwyer was a cousin of Anne Devlin, who would achieve fame for her loyalty to the rebel cause following the suppression of Robert Emmets rebellion. Dwyer joined the Society of United Irishmen and, in the summer of 1798, he fought with the rebels as captain under General Joseph Holt in battles at Arklow, Vinegar Hill and Hacketstown. Under Holts leadership, he withdrew to the safety of the Wicklow Mountains in mid-July and Holt tied down thousands of troops. Dwyer and his men began a campaign targeting local loyalists and yeomen, attacking small parties of the military, due to the constant hunt for him, Dwyer was forced to split and reassemble his forces and hide amongst civilian sympathisers to elude his pursuers.
On 15 February 1799 at Dernamuck, he and about a dozen comrades were sheltering in three cottages when an informer led a force of the British soldiers to the area. In the hopeless gunfight which followed, the cottage caught fire, at this stage, Dwyers comrade, Antrim man Sam McAllister, stood in the doorway to draw the soldiers fire on him, which allowed Dwyer to slip out and make an incredible escape. Dwyer made contact with Robert Emmet and was apprised of plans for his revolt but was reluctant to commit his followers to march to Dublin unless the rebellion showed some initial success. The subsequent failure of Emmets rising led to a period of repression, Dwyer arrived in Sydney on 14 February 1806 on the Tellicherry and was given free settler status. He was accompanied by his wife Mary and their eldest children and by his companions, Hugh Vesty Byrne and Martin Burke, along with Arthur Devlin and he was given a grant of 40.5 ha of land on Cabramatta Creek in Sydney. Although he had hoped to be sent to the United States of America.
This statement had been used against him and he was arrested in February 1807, on 11 May 1807, Dwyer was charged with conspiring to mount an Irish insurrection against British rule. An Irish convict stated in court that Michael Dwyer had plans to march on the seat of Government in Australia, Dwyer did not deny that he had said that all Irish will be free but he did deny the charges of organising an Irish insurrection in Sydney. On 18 May 1807, Dwyer was found not guilty of the charges of organising an Irish insurrection in Sydney, governor William Bligh disregarded the first trial acquittal of Michael Dwyer. Michael Dwyer was to become Chief of Police at Liverpool, New South Wales but was dismissed in October for drunken conduct, in December 1822 he was sued for aggrandising his by now 620 acre farm. Here he evidently contracted dysentery, to which he succumbed in August 1825, originally interred at Liverpool, his remains were reburied in the Devonshire Street Cemetery, Sydney, in 1878, by his grandson John Dwyer, dean of St Marys Cathedral
Folk music
Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century, but is applied to music older than that. Some types of music are called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways, as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers and it has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. Starting in the century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times and this type of folk music includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two, a consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive.
The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions and they are extensions of the term folklore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions and superstitions of the uncultured classes. Traditional folk music includes most indigenous music, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music is. Some do not even agree that the term Folk Music should be used, Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers, the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character. Such definitions depend upon processes rather than abstract musical types, one widely used definition is simply Folk music is what the people sing. For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók, Folk music was already. seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear, particularly in a community uninfluenced by art music and by commercial and printed song.
In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a schema comprising four types, primitive or tribal, elite or art, folk. Music in this genre is often called traditional music. Although the term is only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre
Bollandist
Their most important publication has been the Acta Sanctorum. They are named after Jean Bolland or Bollandus, the idea of the Acta Sanctorum was first conceived by the Dutch Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde, who was a lecturer at the Jesuit college of Douai. Rosweyde used his time to collect information about the lives of the saints. His principal work, the 1615 Vitae Patrum, became the foundation of the Acta Sanctorum, Rosweyde contracted a contagious disease while ministering to a dying man, and died himself on October 5,1629, at the age of sixty. Father Jean Bolland was prefect of studies in the Jesuit college of Mechelen, upon the death of Rosweyde, Bolland was asked to review Rosweydes papers. Bolland continued the work from Antwerp and he was assigned an assistant, Godfrey Henschen or Henschenius. The first two volumes of the Acta, by Bolland and Henschen, were published in Antwerp in 1643, unlike Rosweyde and Bolland, Henschen was allowed to devote himself exclusively to the writing of the Acta.
He solved many problems relating to chronology and the interpretation of the sources. February and April took up three volumes each, May covered eight, and June seven volumes, by the time of his death,24 volumes had appeared, Henschen left many notes and commentaries for the following volumes. It can therefore be said that the Acta owe their form to Henschen. In 1659, Bolland and Henschen were joined by Daniel van Papenbroeck or Papebrochius, from July 1660 until December 1662, Henschen and van Papenbroeck travelled through Germany and France in order to collect copies of hagiographic manuscripts. Another Bollandist of this period was Jean Gamans, with publication of the first volume of April, the Bollandists became embroiled in a lengthy controversy with the Carmelites. But learning that the attacks could jeopardize the work of the group, he, from 1681 to 1698 a series of letters and other documents was issued by each side. The Carmelites were supported by a Spanish tribunal, while the Bollandists had the support of Jean de Launoy, in November 1698, Pope Innocent XII ordered an end to the controversy.
By the time of the death of Father Papenbroek in 1714, work continued in the following years, led by Conrad Janninck among others. By the time the Society of Jesus was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 and their library was acquired by the Premonstratensians of the Abbey of Tongerloo, who endeavored to carry on the work. The fifty-third volume was published by the abbot of Tongerloo in 1794, the 53 volumes of the first series covered the saints from January 1 to October 14. After the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus in Belgium, a new Society of Bollandists was formed in the quarter of the nineteenth century under the patronage of the Belgian government
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems.
The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC.
Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
Kevin Smith
Kevin Patrick Smith is an American filmmaker, comedian, public speaker, comic book writer and podcaster. He came to prominence with the comedy film Clerks, which he wrote, directed, co-produced. Jay and Silent Bob have appeared in Smiths follow-up films Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back which were set primarily in his home state of New Jersey. Smith directed and produced such as the buddy cop action comedy Cop Out, the horror film Red State, and the horror comedy Tusk. Smith is the owner of Jay and Silent Bobs Secret Stash and he hosts the movie-review television show Spoilers. As a podcaster, Smith co-hosts several shows on his own SModcast Podcast Network, including SModcast, Fatman on Batman, Smith is well known for participating in long, humorous Q&A sessions that are often filmed for DVD release, beginning with An Evening with Kevin Smith. Kevin Smith was born on August 2,1970 in Red Bank, New Jersey, the son of Grace, a homemaker, and Donald E. Smith and he has an older sister, and an older brother, Donald Smith, Jr.
He was raised in a Catholic household, in the nearby clamming town of Highlands, as a child, Smiths days were scheduled around Donalds late shifts at the post office. Donald grew to despise his job, which greatly influenced Smith, Smith vowed never to work at something that he did not enjoy. Smith attended Henry Hudson Regional High School, where as a B and C student, he would videotape school basketball games, an overweight teen, he developed into a comedic observer of life in order to successfully socialize with friends and girls. After high school, Smith attended the New School in New York, but did not graduate On his 21st birthday, Smith went to see Richard Linklaters comedy Slacker. Smith relates, It was the movie that got me off my ass, it was the movie that lit a fire under me, and I had never seen a movie like that before ever in my life. To finance the film, Smith maxed out more than a credit cards and sold his much-treasured comic book collection. He cast friends and acquaintances in the major parts.
Clerks was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994, where it won the Filmmakers Trophy, at a restaurant following the screening, Miramax executive Harvey Weinstein invited Smith to join him at his table, where he offered to buy the movie. In May 1994, it went to the Cannes International Film Festival, released in October 1994 in two cities, the film went on to play in 50 markets, never playing on more than fifty screens at any given time. Despite the limited release, it was a critical and financial success, the film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, solely for the sexually graphic language. Smiths second film, which marked Jason Lees debut as a leading man and it received a critical drubbing and earned merely $2.2 million at the box office, despite playing on more than 500 screens
Columba
Saint Columba was an Irish abbot and missionary credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He founded the important abbey on Iona, which became a dominant religious and he is the Patron Saint of Derry. He was highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts, and is remembered today as a Christian saint, Columba studied under some of Irelands most prominent church figures and founded several monasteries in the country. He remained active in Irish politics, though he spent most of the remainder of his life in Scotland, three surviving early medieval Latin hymns may be attributed to him. Columba was born to Fedlimid and Eithne of the Cenel Conaill in Gartan, near Lough Gartan, in modern County Donegal, on his fathers side, he was great-great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish high king of the 5th century. He was baptised in Temple-Douglas, in the County Donegal parish of Conwal, by his teacher and foster-uncle Saint Crunathan.
When sufficiently advanced in letters he entered the school of Movilla, at Newtownards. He was about twenty, and a deacon when, having completed his training at Movilla, he travelled southwards into Leinster, on leaving him, Columba entered the monastery of Clonard, governed at that time by Finnian, noted for sanctity and learning. Here he imbibed the traditions of the Welsh Church, for Finnian had been trained in the schools of St. David, in early Christian Ireland the druidic tradition collapsed due to the spread of the new Christian faith. The study of Latin learning and Christian theology in monasteries flourished, Columba became a pupil at the monastic school at Clonard Abbey, situated on the River Boyne in modern County Meath. During the sixth century, some of the most significant names in the history of Irish Christianity studied at the Clonard monastery and it is said that the average number of scholars under instruction at Clonard was 3,000. Columba was one of students of St. Finnian who became known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.
He became a monk and eventually was ordained a priest, another preceptor of Columba was St. Mobhi, whose monastery at Glasnevin was frequented by such famous men as St. Canice, St. Comgall, and St. Ciaran. A pestilence which devastated Ireland in 544 caused the dispersion of Mobhis disciples, and Columba returned to Ulster and he was a striking figure of great stature and powerful build, with a loud, melodious voice which could be heard from one hilltop to another. The following years were marked by the foundation of important monasteries, County Londonderry, County Offaly, County Meath. While at Derry it is said that he planned a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem, thence he brought a copy of those gospels that had lain on the bosom of St. Martin for the space of 100 years. This relic was deposited in Derry, tradition asserts that, sometime around 560, he became involved in a quarrel with Saint Finnian of Movilla Abbey over a psalter. Columba copied the manuscript at the scriptorium under Saint Finnian, intending to keep the copy, Saint Finnian disputed his right to keep the copy
Clonmacnoise
The monastery of Clonmacnoise is situated in County Offaly, Ireland on the River Shannon south of Athlone. Clonmacnoise was founded in 544 by St. Ciarán, a man from Rathcroghan. Until the 9th century it had associations with the kings of Connacht. From the ninth until the eleventh century it was allied with the kings of Meath, many of the high kings of Tara and Connacht were buried here. In the modern day, the stands as a preserved ruin under the management of the Office of Public Works. An interpretive center and facilities for visitors have been built around the site, the graveyard surrounding the site continues to be in use and religious services are held regularly on the site in a modern chapel. This was a wooden structure and the first of many small churches to be clustered on the site. Diarmuid was to be the first Christian crowned High King of Ireland, in September 549, not yet thirty-three years of age, Ciarán died of a plague, and was reportedly buried under the original wooden church, now the site of the 9th-century stone oratory, Temple Ciarán.
While he was there he prophesied about the debates in the churches of Ireland about the dating of Easter. Towards the close of the century a plague carried off a large number of its students. Clonmacnoises period of greatest growth came between the 8th and 12th centuries and it was attacked frequently during these four centuries, mostly by the English, the Irish, the Vikings and Normans. The Book of the Dun Cow a vellum manuscript dating to the 12th century, was written here, by the 12th century Clonmacnoise began to decline. The reasons were varied, but without doubt the most debilitating factor was the growth of the town of Athlone to the north of the site from the late-12th century. Athlone became the trading town for the midlands of Ireland. The influx of religious orders such as the Franciscans, Benedictines, Cluniacs. Irelands move from a framework to a diocesan one in the twelfth century similarly diminished the sites religious standing, as it was designated the seat of a small. In 1552 the English garrison at Athlone destroyed and looted Clonmacnoise for the final time, the monastery ruins were one of the stops on the itinerary of Pope John Paul II during his visit to Ireland in 1979.
The site includes the ruins of a cathedral, seven churches, most of the churches have recently undergone comprehensive conservation works, mostly re-pointing, with the Nuns Church, currently under wraps while it too undergoes the same process
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin
The Archdiocese of Dublin, is a Roman Catholic archdiocese in eastern Ireland centred on the republics capital city – Dublin. The archdiocese is led by the Archbishop of Dublin, who serves as pastor of the church, St Marys Pro-Cathedral. It was formally recognised as a province in 1152 by the Synod of Kells. Its second archbishop, Lorcán Ua Tuathail, is its patron saint, as of 2013 the incumbent Ordinary is Diarmuid Martin. The Province of Dublin is one of four provinces that together form the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. As well as Dublin city, the diocese contains several towns, Balbriggan, Celbridge, Leixlip, Maynooth. Altogether it covers an area of 698,277 statute acres, the suffragan dioceses of the province are, Ferns Kildare and Leighlin Ossory. The Dublin area was Christian long before the establishment of the diocese. There are vestigial remains and memory of monasteries that were famous before that time at Finglas, Glendalough, Rathmichael, Swords and they witness to the faith of earlier generations and to a flourishing Church life.
Several of these functioned as churches, the most important of which was Glendalough. The monastic basis of the church power vested the greatest authority in the abbots of the major communities. While there were bishops, they were not organised dioceses in the modern sense, in many cases, the offices of abbot and bishop were often comprised in one person. Although Wares Antiquities of Ireland mentions Bishops of Dublin dating as far back as 633, when formal organised dioceses began to emerge in Ireland, all of the current Diocese of Dublin, and more, was comprised within the Diocese of Glendalough. This new diocese was not part of the church in Ireland, sitric provided for the building of Christ Church Cathedral in 1028 with the lands of Baldoyle and Portrane for its maintenance. At the Synod of Rathbreasail, convened in 1111 on papal authority by Gillebert, Bishop of Limerick, Dublin was not included, the city being described as lying in the Diocese of Glendalough. However, the Danish bishopric continued, still attached to Canterbury, in 1151, Pope Eugene III commissioned Cardinal Paparo to go to Ireland and establish four ecclesiastical provinces, appointing to each a metropolitan.
At the general synod of Kells in 1152, the provinces of Armagh, Cashel. The part of northern County Dublin known as Fingall was taken from Glendalough Diocese, the new archdiocese had 40 parishes grouped in deanaries that were based on the old senior monasteries
Cornwall
Cornwall is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area of England within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, Cornwall has a population of 551,700 and covers an area of 3,563 km2. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the south-west peninsula of the island of Great Britain, and this area was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples, there is little evidence that Roman rule was effective west of Exeter and few Roman remains have been found. In the mid-19th century, the tin and copper mines entered a period of decline, china clay extraction became more important and metal mining had virtually ended by the 1990s. Traditionally and agriculture were the important sectors of the economy. Railways led to a growth of tourism in the 20th century, the area is noted for its wild moorland landscapes, its long and varied coastline, its attractive villages, its many place-names derived from the Cornish language, and its very mild climate.
Extensive stretches of Cornwalls coastline, and Bodmin Moor, are protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history. Some people question the present constitutional status of Cornwall, and a nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the United Kingdom in the form of a devolved legislative Cornish Assembly. On 24 April 2014 it was announced that Cornish people will be granted minority status under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The modern English name Cornwall derives from the concatenation of two ancient demonyms from different linguistic traditions, Corn- records the native Brythonic tribe, the Cornovii. The Celtic word kernou is cognate with the English word horn. -wall derives from the Old English exonym walh, the Ravenna Cosmography first mentions a city named Purocoronavis in the locality.
This is thought to be a rendering of Duro-cornov-ium, meaning fort of the Cornovii. The exact location of Durocornovium is disputed, with Tintagel and Carn Brea suggested as possible sites, in times, Cornwall was known to the Anglo-Saxons as West Wales to distinguish it from North Wales. The name appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 891 as On Corn walum, in the Domesday Book it was referred to as Cornualia and in c.1198 as Cornwal. Other names for the county include a latinisation of the name as Cornubia, the present human history of Cornwall begins with the reoccupation of Britain after the last Ice Age. The area now known as Cornwall was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods and it continued to be occupied by Neolithic and Bronze Age people. The Common Brittonic spoken at the time developed into several distinct tongues
