Aarti is a Hindu religious ritual of worship in which light from wicks soaked in ghee (purified butter) is offered to one or more deities. Elaborate celebrations are also common.

Arti: The Hindu Ceremony of Light

The arti (pronounced ‘aarti’) is one of the most important and popular ceremonies of the Hindu faith. It is a prayerful ceremony performed in extolled greeting and thanksgiving of the Deities where devotees are reminded of God’s glorious presence and providence.

Origin
The arti ceremony is said to have descended from the ancient Vedic concept of fire rituals, or homa.

Others attribute it to the practice many centuries ago of illuminating a murti set deep inside the dark recess of a mandir’s cave-like inner sanctum. To allow devotees darshan of the sacred image, the priest would wave an oil lamp from the Deity’s head to toe while chanting Vedic mantras or singing a prayer. Gradually, the practice developed into the arti.

The arti sung within the Swaminarayan tradition was composed by Muktanand Swami, one of Bhagwan Swaminarayan’s most senior and learned sadhus, when Bhagwan Swaminarayan was only 21. Learn more about it here.

Meaning
In Sanskrit, the word ‘arti’ – written as ‘aarati’ – is composed of the prefix ‘aa’, meaning complete, and ‘rati’, meaning love. The arti is thus an expression of one’s complete and unflinching love towards God. It is sung and performed with a deep sense of reverence, adoration, and meditative awareness.

Practice
Often called the ‘ceremony of light’, the arti involves waving lighted wicks before the sacred images to infuse the flames with the Deities’ love, energy and blessings. It is performed by sadhus (Hindu monks) and pujaris (attendants to the Deities). Continue reading →

We all live in one world. Everything is connected to everything, materially, spiritually and emotionally. We can ultimately only be happy together. A world of love, peace and happiness benefits all. Without forgiveness you harden inside. You block your energy of happiness. You put this in all your future relationships. It is very important to obtain forgiveness. Even though it is sometimes very difficult. Forgiveness is to become healthy inside. Without forgiveness, there will always be wars in the world. If we want peace, the world should learn to forgive. ~wikiHow

10 Takes on No-Makeup Makeup at New York Fashion Week

Jason Wu
Makeup Artist Diane Kendal used Lancôme products like a pinky coral blush and a tinted lid primer—Aquatique Waterproof Eyecolour Base in Sienne ($26)—to make the models look alive. But there was no lip color in sight! Instead she used L’Absolue Rouge in La Base ($30). Essentially, fancy lip balm. Imaxtree

By Joanna Douglas, Senior Editor 
Yahoo Beauty, Sep 11, 2014

How many ways can a makeup artist interpret no-makeup makeup? There’s the fresh-faced flush, with sheer color on the cheeks and lips. There’s the absence of color, with concealer pressed on eyelids and lips. Or the rosy look, with shades of pink dusted over eyes, lips, and cheeks. Whichever way you like it, nude is the word on spring’s runways.

Nearly all of the top-tier makeup artists working backstage welcome the minimal approach (even if it doesn’t necessarily mean less work for them). “Easy is the big thing this season,” Gucci Westman said at rag & bone. “It’s less complicated and more real.” Backstage at Marc by Marc Jacobs, Diane Kendal agreed that spring will be a time of simplicity. “Natural makeup always looks good,” she said. “It’s modern and contemporary to go nude.” At Rodarte, James Kaliardos used a new, your-lips-but-better Nars Audacious Lipstick called Barbara ($32). “It’s the perfect lip color,” he said. “I could wear it and you wouldn’t know.”

Rebecca Minkoff
To accompany the bohemian vibe of the collection, Sarah Lucero applied Stila products for a pinky, peachy glow. All Over Shimmer Powder in Kitten ($22) kept the look from being too flat, while Color Balm Lipstick in Vivienne ($22) livened up the lips just a smidge. And wow, is that mascara?! OK, fine, it was just a hint on the top lashes.

Of course, these are runway trends we’re talking about—so take them with a grain of salt. It might look chic to parade 30 women down a runway without a stitch of color on their face, but there’s nothing wrong with livening up your face with a pinch of blush or a sweep of mascara. The real message here is to be comfortable with your natural look, and know when and how to enhance your best assets. So whether you prefer going bare or faking perfect skin with a few products, here’s how the pros have been doing the natural look all week.

A cow whose baby is taken from her, screaming with longing and pain. In every factory farm, cows are artificially impregnated in order for their bodies to produce milk. After giving birth, they are immediately separated from their babies. Female calves will become, like their mothers, a milk production machine. Male calves will go to the meat industry.

The video footage was taken by Lilach Luria in March 2014 at Hakfar Hayarok dairy farm in Israel.

Caption: Flying snakes flatten their bodies into a concave C shape to trap air as they fall. By undulating back and forth, they can actually make turns in the air. Photograph by Jake Socha

National Geographic

The image of airborne snakes may seem like the stuff of nightmares (or a certain Hollywood movie), but in the jungles of South and Southeast Asia it is reality.

Flying snake is a misnomer, since, barring a strong updraft, these animals can’t actually gain altitude. They’re gliders, using the speed of free fall and contortions of their bodies to catch the air and generate lift.

Once thought to be more parachuters than gliders, recent scientific studies have revealed intricate details about how these limbless, tube-shaped creatures turn plummeting into piloting. To prepare for take-off, a flying snake will slither to the end of a branch, and dangle in a J shape. It propels itself from the branch with the lower half of its body, forms quickly into an S, and flattens to about twice its normal width, giving its normally round body a concave C shape, which can trap air. By undulating back and forth, the snake can actually make turns. Flying snakes are technically better gliders than their more popular mammalian equivalents, the flying squirrels.

There are five recognized species of flying snake, found from western India to the Indonesian archipelago. Knowledge of their behavior in the wild is limited, but they are thought to be highly arboreal, rarely descending from the canopy. The smallest species reach about 2 feet (61 centimeters) in length and the largest grow to 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Fast Facts

Type:
Reptile
Diet:
Carnivore
Size:
Up to 4 ft (1.2 m)
Did you know?
The paradise tree snake is one of the smaller flying snakes and the best glider. It’s been known to travel up to 330 ft (100 m) in the air.
Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man

Their diets are variable depending on their range, but they are known to eat rodents, lizards, frogs, birds, and bats. They are mildly venomous snakes, but their tiny, fixed rear fangs make them harmless to humans.

Scientists don’t know how often or exactly why flying snakes fly, but it’s likely they use their aerobatics to escape predators, to move from tree to tree without having to descend to the forest floor, and possibly even to hunt prey.

One species, the twin-barred tree snake, is thought to be rare in its range, but flying snakes are otherwise quite abundant and have no special conservation status.

Caption: Children from the Growing Tree Learning Center II daycare center in Jersey City, N.J., who accidentally ingested a mixture of water and bleach are placed on an EMT bus to be brought to the Jersey City Medical Center on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014. More than two dozen children and two adults accidentally drank a mixture of bleach and water at a day care center Thursday and were briefly hospitalized. Photo: Joe Shine, AP

Reuters, September 11, 2014

Twenty-eight preschoolers and two adults mistakenly drank bleach at snack time at a New Jersey day care center on Thursday and were taken to a hospital after some complained their stomachs were burning.

The children, aged 3 and 4, and adult staff members of the Growing Tree Learning Center in downtown Jersey City were transported in five ambulances to the Jersey City Medical Center after a late-morning call to 911, said Mark Rabson, a hospital spokesman. He said some complained of light-headedness, others of upset stomachs.

By mid afternoon, all 30 were in stable condition and were being discharged, Rabson said.

“There was a poisoning and many children were injured,” he said, adding the children were walking on their own or were being carried out by their parents and “have smiles on their faces.”

Keith Kearney, executive director of United Cerebral Palsy of Hudson County, which runs the day care center that is open to all community members and serves 65 children from infants to age 4, said he had heard no reports of injuries and that the hospital visits were a precaution.

“We had an incident where one of the staff in the kitchen used the cleaning solution bottle to pour water for some of the children,” Kearney said.

In an undated photo provided by Guinness World Records 2013 Book, Zeus drinks from the kitchen faucet in Otsego, Mich. The Great Dane is now officially the world’s tallest canine according to the record book. The 3-year-old measures 44 inches from foot to shoulder. Standing on his hind legs, Zeus measures 7-foot-4. (AP Photo/Guinness World Records 2013 Book, Kevin Scott Ramos, HO)

AP, September 11, 2014

OTSEGO, Mich. (AP) — The Great Dane from Michigan that held the title of world’s tallest dog has died at age 5.

Owner Kevin Doorlag told the Kalamazoo Gazette that Zeus made his debut in the 2012 edition of Guinness World Records as the tallest living dog. Zeus was 44 inches tall at the shoulder and 7 feet, 4 inches on his hind legs.

Zeus weighed 165 pounds and ate a 30-pound bag of food every two weeks, the Battle Creek Enquirer reported.

Doorlag, of Otsego, said the entire family will miss Zeus.

Zeus was a local celebrity in the Kalamazoo area and frequently visited local schools and hospitals as a therapy dog. Doorlag said he will also miss seeing the joy Zeus brought to other people.

“Those are some of the things I’ll never forget about him,” Doorlag said. “He was definitely a great dog.”

Zeus died last week from old age, just two months shy of his sixth birthday, according to Doorlag. 

When you want your message to be heard, always speak from your heart.
An act of kindness may take only a moment of our time, but when captured
in the heart the memory lives forever. ~Molly Friedenfeld

There is great power in our words, because they are thoughts to which we have given additional energy by speaking them aloud so another person can know them. ~Molly Friedenfeld

A Spiritual Samaritan lives knowing that
if we were to leave this world tomorrow,
we were the best humans we could be and we
 touched the lives of as many souls as possible.
We are not asked to be perfect. We are asked
to make a difference. ~Molly Friedenfeld