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As the peoples of the earth contemplate ..

 that season of the year  when one year ends ...
 and another begins ...
 
  when thanksgiving is offered, good news is rejoiced and the TIME
  is celebratedas they have done so Year in Year out for millennia ...

  LET US all remember what Pericles established in a small city state called
  Athens - following the revolution of the people against tyranny,
  corruption, selfish sophistication, arrogance and greed.


It was he who established the first ever democracy - on which all western democracies today - are now based. A democracy which for 30 years was led by his guidance and husbandry - in nurturing and establishing a template based on direct involvement of the people ...

NOT one based on a representative basis - BUT by a

process of evolution following revolution in fact.

A 1st person singular present tense version of - a democracy of the people - not a third person - thanks for the vote - NOW this is the way I'm going to govern you - type democracy.


 


It was the revolution of the Athenians
and their request of Pericles to return from exile - coupled with an understanding of the need for change - which brought this about - & subsequently acted as the catalyst for this small insignificant city state to transform itself into a trading nation at the heart of the Mediterranean - which influenced the Roman Empire and all other western civilizations since. An Art of ZEN - INTEGRAL solution in fact - which was established by way of the Parthenon, the Acropolis & Athenian democracy - an all inclusive impulse of the moment - as similarly created by DALI in his painting the - Apotheosis of the Dollar in the act of painting Gala - in which you can see - on the left MarceDuchamp masquerading as Louis XIV behind a vermeerian curtain which is the invisible but monumental face of "Hermes" by Praxiteles - a multitude of references to MIND, BODY & SPIRIT - WAR, PEACE, LOVE & LIFE - & the shadows of DALI's own religious mysticism, hallucinogenic mysticism, mysticism of gold and the mysticism of his soft watches in his interpretation of Bridget Riley's " FALL " - albeit a mirror image thereof.

In his television programme, A History of Britain, the historian Simon Schama says of Magna Carta ...

IF NOT exactly the birth certificate of democracy -  IT IS the death certificate of despotism. IT spells out, for the first time, the fundamental principle that the law is not simply the will or whim of the King. The law is an independent power unto itself and the King could be brought to book for violating it. A contract whose underlying understanding - guaranteed by charter - that the government of the kingdom had to be subject to the sovereignty of the law.

Why hunt for excalibur - when you had something

already that was as potent as Magna Carta.

As 2007 approaches - should it not now be incumbent on those @ zaadz to recognise that the initiatives of Pericles - brought back from exile by the people - provided a structure, a mechanism and a place where those that had involved themselves in revolution, must now be supplanted on a global scale by an evolution of consciousness based on the interconnected creative impulses of ALL on earth - who would participate in the establishment of a NEW global democracy at the direction of the people - which would bring together - for the first time in the history of HOMO SAPIENS -

EVERY viewpoint, concept & context into a holistic integral whole.

First posted by Michael Grove @zaadz on November 23, 2006 at 14:00
.

Access_public Access: Public

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Michael : catalyst-producer

about 3 hours later
Michael said


Hail to ALL @ zaadz and the very best wishes for 2007


Michael : catalyst-producer

over 2 years later
Michael said


Hail to zaadzsters_et_al@gaia and the very best wishes for 2009 …


NEVER FORGETTING that OUR HISTORY will BE WHAT WE MAKE IT




Leave Your Wise and Insightful Comment

Views: 187

Comment by Michael Grove on February 6, 2012 at 22:34

PERCEPTION IS indeed THE MEDIUM

Bridget Riley is about the changes - progressive, sometimes abrupt, sometimes apparently disastrous - that can take place in a given situation.

The situation is presented in the simplest possible terms

            John Russell - Sunday Times - September 1963


One of the most distinctive characteristics of Bridget Riley's art is that it "insists" with such concentration that it changes sensory response into something else.

The experience which Riley offers is closely related to the expression of emotion or, more exactly, to the creation of visual analogues for sharply particularized states of
mind.

The very intensity of the assault which her painting makes on the eye drives it, as it were, past the point at which it is merely a matter of optical effect.

It becomes acute physical sensation, apprehended kinesthetically as mental tension or mental release, anxiety or exhileration, heightened self-awareness or heightened awareness of unfamiliar or even alien states of being.

                                                    Bridget Riley Catalogue introduction - David Thompson
                                                                                            Venice Biennale, June 1968

Comment by Michael Grove on June 30, 2014 at 6:39

This is my school project for History on Pericles, a Greek leader in the 5th Century BC. The time

period I set this video in is 444 B.C., when, historically, Pericles was fighting Thucydides, an

Athenian statesman, for control of the Greek government. I used the "campaign video" theme to

illustrate some facts and some fun stuff on Pericles. I hope you enjoy! 

Pericles Project

 

Comment by Michael Grove on December 8, 2015 at 10:06

Gregory's own story of Bucky's sailings passed-by "his lighthouse", reminded me of a BBC television

transmission almost three years ago to the day, which I thoroughly enjoyed, in which reference

was made to the grandeur and magnificence of the lighthouse of Portus, which shone out to sea

right to the horizon. In the Vatican Gallery of Maps there is a fresco of the hexagonal shaped Portus

area, painted in 1582 by Antonio Danti after cartoons of Ignazio Danti; but the more recent

utilisation of more sophisticated satellite imagery techniques as well as Lidar has led to the

discovery of evidence of a much larger hexagonal shaped central harbour, catering for approximately 

50 ships, at the core of a larger complex of port facilities, including an amphitheatre capable of

seating and entertaining a mob of 50,000 people,

a mob packed in as a giant communal celebration of conquest utilising slaves brought in from

defeated armies and occupied provinces and then slaughtered for the entertainment, again and again and again, of the citizens of Rome.

for the coming together of perfect order on one hand and terrible violence on the other; a powerful

combination which helped in the process of bringing the empire together. 


Portus was constructed as THE Port of Rome, connected directly by a grand 
canal rather than the

meandering river Tiber, and provided an icon of mind-melding control over access to the entirety

of its million square mile Empire of 60 million people; as well as inspiring an awe of Empirical

Existence, in the hearts and souls of those approaching Rome for the first time from the

extremities of the empire by way of the Mediterranean Sea. It is now known that the port was

constructed of a specially developed Roman Concrete, which strengthened with age, regardless

of whether submerged in water or not. The concrete domed roof of the Parthenon in Rome is

assumed to have been constructed of a similar material, and remains to this day the oldest

concrete roof structure on earth. All of this, in conjunction with a road network of 25,000 miles,

connected the entirety of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in 'The Empire' together. 


I have slept on this thought overnight and am preparing a piece which will focus [y]our

project on the juxtaposition of the NATURAL democracy of Athens and the MIND GAMES CONTROL

of Rome and its Empire. Any thoughts on this would be welcome. 

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