Christ is Born ! – Image Source: Holy Cross Monastery
Happy Nativity Christ was born 2022 years ago ! I wish a happy Nativity (Christmas). ILet with the birth of Christ, his light and eternal dominion is born in us and lights us, as the star lighted the Magis who followed the Christmas star.
I wish my dear readers Peace, Love, Hope, Faith Good spiritual and bodily health and God's mercy by the prayers of the Holy Mother of God.
Saint Alexander Nevsky Largest Cathedral, Sofia Bulgaria. Tallest (53 m) and largest (by area and volume) cathedral in the Balkans and one of the 3 largest Eastern Orthodox Churches in Europe.
I wish you also a Happy New 2022 year ! Let the new year bring you new power to fight evil and do more good. Let the new year be peaceful, full of Grace and kindness to each of my dear readers ! Let the new year bring you more wisdom and understanding on everyone's life destination and bring you understanding on what is the proper things to do that would bring more joy and for our family, colleagues at work and people who surround is over the coming 12 months time.
Let each those who were sorrowful become joyful, those who hurted, get healed and those who worked hard find fruits out of their hard labor. Let those who hunger find food and those who are in pain find relief ! Use your obtained knowledge wisely and not only work on the mind but work on the soul so they both become better !
Many of us today in the world who are baptized and members of the Church or do at least accept the Christian principles deeply routed in most of the Civillized developed workd tend to excuse themselves for not being good and doing the righteous things, thinking it is hard to stand for the christian principles and norms in a general antichristian atmosphere pointing it as a reason to not follow the guidance recommendations of the Church.
However we should not excuse ourselvse with the circumstances or the Church clergy who seems to us to not follow properly the spiritual vows. We should not excuse with time we're living in as it is reflected in perfect examples in the spiritual life of the saints and the practice of monks, who always have the golden rule to not excuse themselves for anything in the world for not following Gods perfect will and predestination in the good.
Lets look at the first Christians who lived, did their life was easier or more favourable than today for confessing the faith ? Even materially if we think at the times back then most people were poor, they have attained everything they had with a hard labour and was busy 24/4 / 7 days a week, there was no medicine for almost nothing except few herbal treatments, there was no dentist, no electricity and no transport. The doctors who can help at times of sickness were few, in the beginning of Christianity, it was prohibited to be Christian and being a Christian was a sure sentence for death sooner or later, not to mention that emperors and the powerful of the day were requesting from people obedience in anything they say and slavery was popular and even many much more than today lived all their live in slavery both physical and spiritual (as most people did not have the chance to hear the Graceful words of the Holy Gospel). Priests were scarce, there was practiculally no education and there was no easy way to produce and keep information, paper was not there. Having a book was only possible for few of the richest people who were the top layer of society. The few knowledgable who can read or knew solution to the innumerable problems of man were considered nobles (Elders / wise men) had been often wanted and scarce as well as kept near the "top management" people who governed society society – kings, emperors, governors or amy man. This is rawly how the world looked back then. Even though that people both Christians and non Christians had been more stronger in spirit and had been unshakable in their decisions for confession their life credo.
Those old nobles have been divided generally speaking into two categories the fraudants: Wizards (whose wisdom was received by the demons)
Second truthful ones Servants of God the prophets the righteous, the Jewish priests who confessed truely the One True God, the saints and other gifted people by God.
The most likely location of holy relics of Prophet Daniel Tomb of Daniel at Susa, Iran
Among the truthful ones perhaps most significant for elevating the humanity from the worst to perfect are the prophets, who has the revelation from God directly from God, to be leaders and examples for perfection of the religion, moral and political life for the Old Testamental choosen people the Jews and respectively after Christ's crucifix the Christians who has held their place as the true choosen children of God and through them for the gentile.
Today we celebrate the memory of one of the supreme prophets who has lived in world for all ages – Saint Prophet Daniel his name is delivered from Jewish and means "God (El) is my judge".
Daniel and the Stone Slavonic Icon (Bulgarian ?)
Prophet Daniel is the biblical hero of the Book of Daniel who interprets dreams and receives apocalyptic visions. His book is one of the most notable prophetic book in which in a hidden way it is said what is expecting the world until the end of the times.
The Prophet Daniel appears in the Old Testament in the Book of Daniel as a captive carried away to Babylon by order of Nebuchadnezzar after the fall of the kingdom of Judah during the sixth century before Christ. His ministry as a prophet came late in his life. He is commemorated by the Church on the December 17.
While remaining loyal to his faith in the one God, Daniel attained a high position of the court of Nebuchadnezzar and was known for his skill in the interpretation of dreams (Daniel 1:17 and 2:14) and of mysterious handwritings on the wall. He is included in the Septuagint among the prophets and was referred to by Christ as a prophet in Mark 13:14 and in Matthew 24:15. The precise time and circumstances of Daniel's death are not recorded. By tradition his age at death was near 100 years. A number of places have claimed to be his place of burial, including Susa in present day Iran, Daniel's Tomb in Kirkuk in Iraq, as well as Babylon, Egypt, and Tarsus.
He is a descendant of Jude's knee, he was descending of noble rich family, presumably he might have descendent even from king's line an evidence for that is the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar II, after the conquest of Jerusalem in (year 607 B.C.) give an order to select the best and most educated and intelligent from the captured jews with the goal to learn the Chaldean language and receive education, and prepare for a government service.
These young man has been put into many temptations as the custom of the chaldean civillizations was pagan and contradicted the jewish. Four of the chosen ones were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (who as an attempt to change the mindset and are identity of the ones and distant them from their original jewish mindset, were renamed with the Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah even though the babylonization attempts of their identity, have shown severe firmness and continued to follow the Jewish Law of Moses.
As they were part of the kings palace courtiers, they lived surrounded by luxurity, they did not forget God's law diligently they prayed and eat as food only bread and fruits, refusing any food given by the Kings table as this food has been consecrated to the pagan idols the babylonians were worshipping.
The good God seeing the perseverance in goodness of the youngsters and their fortitude in confession of truth and strict follow the Mishrah (the law of the jews) gifted them with amazing abilities to understand visions and dreams.
Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, late 3rd century/early 4th century.
At the beginning the four were not among the famous ones in the babylonian kingsdom, however they became famous as the king has called them to interpret a troubling dream he had – a dream the king immediately forgot. Noone among the wise mand and wizards couldn't neither tell the kings dream nor tell what it meant thus, by God's providence the 4 ones whose fame continuously grow in kingdom were summoned and Daniel could interpret the kings dream and the meaning of it. The king out of amazement decided for future to always council the the 4 God people, as he saw their wisdom exceeded the wisdom of the other liege in the kingdom. Daniel and his 3 friends were tested by the fire, as they have been thrown in fiery furnace fire, as a punishment for their rejection to obey a Golden pagan idol statue as god, breaking the king's decree.
Icon Source: Pinterest
In the burning enormous fire the king was amazed to see not 3 but 4 people (the fourth one was an Angel of God who was protecting them). The fire not only did not damaged them even though it was all throughout their body but did not even burn the clothes or the hairs on them.
Prayer of the Three Holy Youths known in Church as "The Song of Daniel"
The Prayer of the Three Holy Youths is a component of the biblical Book of Daniel. It is a segment of a larger component called The Prayer of Azariah and the Prayer of the Three Holy Youths which. although part of the Septuagint text, is considered by Protestants as part of the Apocrypha rather than a fully canonical part of Scripture, and so appears in most English-language bibles as a seperate section. If included within the larger text of Daniel, it would appear in the third chapter of between verses 23 and 24.
In Orthodox Christian worship, the prayer is the basis of the seventh and eighth biblical canticles sung at Orthros. Although the text of the canticles are generally not read in contemporary practice, the hymns sung as part of the canon reference the theme of the Three HolyYouths. At Vespers of Holy Saturday, the text of the prayer is heard as part of one of the fifteen Old Testament readings prescribed for that day. In Byzantine practice, the closing refrains to each verse "bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever" are chanted elaborately.
The song constitutes a hymn of thanksgiving to God for deliverence from the fiery furnace into which the three young men, Ananias, Azarias and Misael (also known as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego) had been cast by the Persian king Nebuchadnezzar. They were cast into the furnace for refusing to worship a golden idol that Nebuchadnezzar had created. However, an Angel of the Lord entered the furnace and protected the three young men. In liturgical practice, the event is seen to presage the Resurrection of Christ, thus its inclusion in the canon.
The Abingdon Bible Handbook (ISBN 0687001692) suggests that the Prayer was based on an earlier composition and was added to the existing text of Daniel sometime in the second or first century B.C.
The Song of the Three Holy Youths
Text
Blessed art thou, O Lord God of our fathers: thy name is worthy to be praised and glorified for evermore: For thou art righteous in all the things that thou hast done to us: yea, true are all thy works, thy ways are right, and all thy judgments truth. In all the things that thou hast brought upon us, and upon the holy city of our fathers, even Jerusalem, thou hast executed true judgment: for according to truth and judgment didst thou bring all these things upon us because of our sins. For we have sinned and committed iniquity, departing from thee. In all things have we trespassed, and not obeyed thy commandments, nor kept them, neither done as thou hast commanded us, that it might go well with us. Wherefore all that thou hast brought upon us, and every thing that thou hast done to us, thou hast done in true judgment. And thou didst deliver us into the hands of lawless enemies, most hateful forsakers of God, and to an unjust king, and the most wicked in all the world. And now we cannot open our mouths, we are become a shame and reproach to thy servants; and to them that worship thee. Yet deliver us not up wholly, for thy name's sake, neither disannul thou thy covenant: And cause not thy mercy to depart from us, for thy beloved Abraham's sake, for thy servant Issac's sake, and for thy holy Israel's sake; To whom thou hast spoken and promised, that thou wouldest multiply their seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that lieth upon the seashore. For we, O Lord, are become less than any nation, and be kept under this day in all the world because of our sins. Neither is there at this time prince, or prophet, or leader, or burnt offering, or sacrifice, or oblation, or incense, or place to sacrifice before thee, and to find mercy. Nevertheless in a contrite heart and an humble spirit let us be accepted. Like as in the burnt offerings of rams and bullocks, and like as in ten thousands of fat lambs: so let our sacrifice be in thy sight this day, and grant that we may wholly go after thee: for they shall not be confounded that put their trust in thee. And now we follow thee with all our heart, we fear thee, and seek thy face. Put us not to shame: but deal with us after thy lovingkindness, and according to the multitude of thy mercies. Deliver us also according to thy marvellous works, and give glory to thy name, O Lord: and let all them that do thy servants hurt be ashamed; And let them be confounded in all their power and might, and let their strength be broken; And let them know that thou art God, the only God, and glorious over the whole world. And the king's servants, that put them in, ceased not to make the oven hot with rosin, pitch, tow, and small wood; So that the flame streamed forth above the furnace forty and nine cubits. And it passed through, and burned those Chaldeans it found about the furnace. But the angel of the Lord came down into the oven together with Azarias and his fellows, and smote the flame of the fire out of the oven; And made the midst of the furnace as it had been a moist whistling wind, so that the fire touched them not at all, neither hurt nor troubled them. Then the three, as out of one mouth, praised, glorified, and blessed, God in the furnace, saying, Blessed art thou, O Lord God of our fathers: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever. And blessed is thy glorious and holy name: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever. Blessed art thou in the temple of thine holy glory: and to be praised and glorified above all for ever. Blessed art thou that beholdest the depths, and sittest upon the cherubims: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever. Blessed art thou on the glorious throne of thy kingdom: and to be praised and glorified above all for ever. Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven: and above ail to be praised and glorified for ever. O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever, O ye heavens, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye angels of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O all ye waters that be above the heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O all ye powers of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye sun and moon, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O all ye winds, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever, O ye fire and heat, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye winter and summer, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye dews and storms of snow, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye nights and days, bless ye the Lord: bless and exalt him above all for ever. O ye light and darkness, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye ice and cold, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye frost and snow, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye lightnings and clouds, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O let the earth bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye mountains and little hills, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O all ye things that grow in the earth, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye mountains, bless ye the Lord: Praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye seas and rivers, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O all ye fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O all ye beasts and cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye children of men, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O Israel, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye priests of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye servants of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye holy and humble men of heart, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever: far he hath delivered us from hell, and saved us from the hand of death, and delivered us out of the midst of the furnace and burning flame: even out of the midst of the fire hath he delivered us. O give thanks unto the Lord, because he is gracious: for his mercy endureth for ever. O all ye that worship the Lord, bless the God of gods, praise him, and give him thanks: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Daniel and the Lions Den
Daniel was also thrown at another time in a Den hole with Hungry Lions (a typical fun for Romans usually the victim was a very dangerous criminal), however in adverse to the well known natural laws instead of cutting him into pieces eating him the Lions started licking the legs of Saint Prophet Daniel.
The Grace of God in Holy Prophet Daniel restoring the original Lions nature of grass-feeding animals as they were. The abundance of Grace of the Holy spirit of the Lions turned them to treat the prophet as Cats would their beloved master.
Daniel and the Lions (Book of Daniel 6:16-24)fresco of catacomb of Saint Marcellinus and Peter in Rome
Daniel and his friends, even though the paganism has followe their faith and establishment of the fathers, even though the hardship. How sad it is that today many of us are excusing with the time and the situation or encirclement as a reason to not follow the prescription spiritual cures of the Church (The holy mysteries, Confession, Repentance, Fasting and Holy Communion).
No ! We should not excuse ourselves with the situation and time of living. Are the first Christians lived in more benevolent world and did this stopped them from following Christ's teachings strictly and go for a martyrdom to them following the bright examples of the prophets ?
Church Troparion sung on Church service (Tone 2)
Great are the accomplishments of faith, for the Three Holy Youths rejoiced in the fountain of flames as though in the waters of rest; and the prophet Daniel appeared, a shepherd to the lions as though they were sheep. So by their prayers, O Christ God, save our souls!
Kontakion sung on Church service (Tone 6)
You did not worship the graven image, O thrice-blessed ones, but armed with the immaterial Essence of God, you were glorified in a trial by fire. From the midst of unbearable flames you called on God, crying: Hasten, O compassionate One! Speedily come to our aid, for You are merciful and able to do as You will.
Troparion of Saint Daniel and the three Jewish Youths Feast sung in Church (Church Slavonic)
Today 17 of December, we celebrate prophet Daniel and the the three Jewish youths Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, were chosen to serve the worldly emperor, but they preferred ofthe One God and be God's choosen people than to choose the temporary world glory.
Let us also follow the example of saint Daniel and the three Youths, and follow the Gods revelations, the divine revelation moral law nevertheless of the environment and the circumstances, because God shows mercy to those who love him and his laws.
Let by the Holy Prophets Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah God have mercy on us all the sinners ! Amen!
Text Translated from Bulgarian from Father's Karamihailev Preach (A Priest in Bankia's Church Saint Cyric and Julita) with inclusions
Historical and other references used:
1. The Holy Bible also briefly mentions three other individuals of this name: The Book of Ezekiel (14:14, 14:20 and 28:3) refers to a legendary Daniel famed for wisdom and righteousness. In verse 14:14, Ezekiel says of the sinful land of Israel that "even if these three, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness."
2. In chapter 28, Ezekiel taunts the king of Tyre, asking rhetorically, "art thou wiser than Daniel?" The author of the Book of Daniel appears to have taken this legendary figure, renowned for his wisdom, to serve as his central human character. 3. The Book of Ezra (8:2) mentions a priest named Daniel who went from Babylon to Jerusalem with Ezra. 4. The First Book of Chronicles (3:1) mentions a son of David called Daniel.
5. https://orthodoxwiki.org/Prophet_Daniel 6. https://orthodoxwiki.org/Prayer_of_the_Three_Holy_Children 7. Orthodox Church Service Liturgical Books (Chasoslov) 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel 9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_(biblical_figure)
The last 15 years, we've been accustomed to listen about the Climate Change and the Global Warming problem. I remember for a first time heard about this possible problem from my Grandfather in late 1990's. Since then there is plenty of initiatives like Kyoto (Protocol) Convict for reduce of unwanted emissions. While browsing I found interesting video which is short overview of History of Climate Change. I think it is worthy to see it and get idea on the pure mess and lack of interest of governments to work well for solving the is issue…
There are plenty of youth organizations who claim to suggest how to solve global warming. But most of it is just talks. The fact is to stop it, the only way is by individual change of each of us. It is impossible for a consumer society to keep going. From time of creation of human, God created us not as consumers but as creator beings. Now most of us are dumb consumers hanging in front of Computer in Youtube and Facebook all day, watching post after post video after video, then you go to shop and you buy a lot of food. Because we're depressed of the unhuman way of living most of us eat plenty of food to somehow mitigate our awareness of unhappy reality (Americans are best in that). With overeating there is the increased number of health issues in us. We produce too much and consume too much, if we don't stop this parasite behavior soon it is more than clear, humans and our planet as ecosystem will not survive.
Some people might argue me but recently and over the last years, I had thoughts over the so common nowadays problem of constipation. I think constipation is God judgement on our increasingly gluttony self-love instead love for others, ungodliness and our multiple sins.
I'm deriving this conclusion from my personal experience with constipation, every-time I over ate forced by my gluttony (partially forced by the over filling from everywhere with marketing to eat), I get constipated. Constipation is one of the worst experience one can get and probably there is no person on earth who didn't experienced this in a stage of his earthly life. Probably half of the world is suffering from this terrible problem at least few times a year, where the frequency of constipation around people tends to be increasing with every consequential year. Most of people from western world countries are in a number of times suffering more compared to less developed countries.
Main reason for increased constipation percentage in the western world (in my view) is the bad quality of half-artificually produced vegetables and fruits. Many of which grows as you should know grows in laboratories like places in order to do a cost saving for the companies. Due to the marketing hype and fuzz that took over westerners, many as a trick use the "green product" labeling just to make you convince their product, where in reality the product is far from green.
I think, God allowed the poisons which we hold in our hearts to materialize in our food as a punishment for our lack of repentance.
The hyper consumption that is ruling over western europe model is trying to spread itself in the less developed countries as well, while maybe a billion of peoples all around the world are on the edge to die from hunger. In the west all businesses are trying to restructure themselves to more green friendly / (more green), whether parallel with that the same 'environment concerned businesses' are stimulating people to over consume through their marketing departments. Tell me isn't that one huge hypocrisy? How comes on one place a company talks about any efficiency if its fruits are inefficiency (over consumption)?
In the past days people consumed much less than today and less varied foods, still most of them were more heatlthy and many of them lived to an older age compared to know (this is a fact that one can learn not from the fake company statistics on the internet trying to all the time show that the age barrier is increasing, this can be learned from our grandmothers and grandfathers and a bit of staring into history).
"Seed Companies" like Monsanto are already dominating the markets and killing the little farmers, so every next day, less and less of original God blessed plant seeds is left on earth. And even those who still are trying to be individual middle and little farmers are forced to buy already a genetically or hybrid modified seeds so a lot of the grown vegetables or fruits is not grown through God blessed and given original food fondamential but some kind of 'human laboratory altered' plants. Most people and companies doesn't care if the seed is blessed or not by God or what kind of seed or food it is due to the fact they have long ago rejected God and do operate all their life with no God in their mind, but with the only goal for more and more pleasure and self-fulfillment of interests. It is sad really our bodies are constipated but it all starts from our soul constipation, we don't develop our souls in God's knowledge of good but advance instead in the "constipation" of evil.
But constipation is not so bad in reality and it can be seen as a blessing from God as all pain makes us re-think over life and our deeds. Thus I believe though many might argue me, Constipation is just another of God's innumerous mercies over man to turn us to repentance and prayer.
But I think still there hope as long as each of us tries to be good or develop for good and pray to God, I believe all can be changed our soul and body constipation can be removed through God's power and mercy – only we have to strive for it ….
In my continous research on color programming I have come across an interesting interview with a Marketing Manager, who explains a few bits on why the super markets and big stores are designed the way they are.
Another typical things in super markets is the flower on the front doors, trying to make the impression to the customer of freshnes and mood UP. Then it comes the other things like the positioning of products. Many supermarkets put the fresh fruits and vegetables, either near the entry where the client walks in or at the end of the supermarket (this depends on the kind of customers targetted) and company policy and top managerial decisions.
As the short movie I post below mentions the baby products are positioned on a bit secluded place the reason is to invoke old time feelings to adults. Nowdays many supermarkets include also TVs playing cartoons so parents can leave the kids watch the cartoons and spend more time "pondering" what they have to buy for home and therefore buy more of goods (the reason is the kids are a common distractor and they could be a reason for the parent to buy quickly and leave the shop) and what actually is targetted in the shop is to customer to spend more time inside.
Longer stays in the shop means often more purchases and more money for the store. What really shocked me in the video is that as of time of writtings many shop chains have even an eye tracking devices with which they aim to track where the clients is watching (e.g. based on the feedback the shop can products can be re-ordered in a way to generate more sales profit).
The lightning in the shop is very important also the scent many shops have intentionally a separate department chopping meats or yellow cheese in front of the walking customers. Seeing fresh food makes the customer feel hungry so he might buy more.
The result of this secret tricks designed to make us consume more makes us a dumb un-thinking consuming society.
SuperMarket Psychology Entrances layout and Shelving
The science of "psychology in supermarket" is more developed in the west and we the Eastern Europeans were less exposed to buyer behaviour modification due to our belonging to the USSR communist Union and the existing of the "cold barrier" between communistic and democrats free economies.
Its my personal belief that more and more people should get aware of what is happening in super markets. I personally have never been a fan of super-markets since they're connected with amalgamation of business and always when I can I do buy food and goods from small district grocery stores.
It is my firm believe that buying from Malls and supermarkets is in future time to create more problems than goods since by doing so one helps the large business to become even larger and helps the merging of companies and therefore helps the creation of one new global communism based not on government ruling but on a tiny number of companies to own the world product creation distribution and selling …
Super Market Psychology – Few tips on how to shop "budget" friendly"
SUPERMARKET SECRETS & DECEPTIONS PART 1 (Full Video) – (AKA "How To Avoid Being Fooled at the Supermarket")
Today almost every country in both the developed the less-developed and the under-development world has already largely adopted the super market buying culture. Not that the people are so keen on buying from super-market but rather it is the people with money business-es has slowly "forced" those fake buying culture.
Though things are organized so well and it seems like the supermarket is a great place all made to benefit the client it is exactly the other way around. The truth is the whole super-market with the most little details was designed to benefit the company owning the market.
Below is an interesting documentary, showing parts of how foods are processed before they enter the super-market shelf. Also it is explained, how the strive for perfect looking products takes its toll in terms of end-client quality. Though many fruit and vegetables looks perfectly looking (perfectly shaped) the nutrition this perfect vegs and fruits is often inferior to grown foods which are less symmetrical. Often this is evident even by tasting the fruits and vegetables bought, they somehow are tasteless or whether you eat it feels like you eat plastic.
The movie also wents through showing a lot of farms for growing cows for beef and milk and the bad conditions the animals lives their whole short live on earth. Also the fast food injections the animals are given often results in unexpected animal disease. The lack of movement and the short living space for animals is another severe problem as most of the animals does not grow the way God intended them to when he created the earth animals and us.
The offers to get 3 for the price of 1 or "pay 1 get 2" that so many super-market offer today is another sad story.
The expenses for this fall on the producer and the client instead on the super-market franchiser.
Another severe problem is the 'international logistics' applied by mostly all large super-market chains. At many cases foods grown or breed has to travel hundreds or thousands of kilometers for something as simple as cutting the meat or vegs and packaging them. So a food produced just 50 or 100 kilometers away from the local super-market from where we buy travels some 500 kilometers for the packaging and then comes back packaged in the super-store. As you can guess this increases significantly the price of the product for us the buyers and besides that creates a large environmental contamination.
Also the movie shows that often fruits and vegetables one can buy from local open market are both more nutritious than in super-markets as well as can be gotten on lower price.
Knowing all this it makes one wonder why anyone still is buying from the super-market. Well let me tell you it is because of habit. Through the last 50 years in most countries large supermarket chains successfully imposed the New Age super market culture. As a result for youngsters it is absolutely natural to purchase goods from the super market and buying from anywhere else is considered nowdays unusual.
The result of the lack of nutritious food we buy from the super market severe affects our health and budget. In many countries the over fatness of youngsters is a severe problem.
This problem has a direct relation with the culture of eating junk package food introduced within super markets as well as the over consumption which took place the last years again "thanks" to the huge increase of advertisement influence on people behavior and supermarkets profit only concerned company policies.
While checking some videos on the net I've came across information that Bill Gates bough 500 000 shares from Monsanto.
Gates is a well know for being Philantrophist, giving large amounts of charities aiming to fight the hunger in Africa through his and his life charity foundation Bill and Melinda Gates. This charity looks like something perfect on a first glimpse as of September 2011 he has donated $33 billions to the foundation which is trying to help Africans to fight hunger diseases, find cure for HIV etc.
The methodology to help the hungry and sick people in africa is done via distribution of food grown and vaccination and helping the "poor" people in Africa get some education. It all sounds like a very good deed and one can say "what a good man of honour" GAtes is.
Well this would have been true only if Gates didn't said it clear in TED's show that vacination is one of the ways which can be used to battle the over population and increased need for food, medical service and energy.
See the short video below:
Bill Gates suggests Depopulation Through Vaccines on a talk on TED show
I don't think it is too likely gates made an error in saying what he said on the presentation, obviously it was a clearly prepared presentation for the show and what he said was exactly what he meant. Now put aside the vacination of africa along with the likeness that a lot of latest drug medicine are probably injected in many unknowing Africans used as a guinea pig and you understand that this $33 Billion are given for eradication of large and testing of medicals on large population uneducated mass in Africa.
Not that I say vacination is necessery bad as one could think. From the few videos, I've seen with Gates rationalizing on various world problems one can come easily to the conclusion that Gates has a strong Utalitarian mindset. If you're not aware of Utilitarianism frightening philosophy see here
In the present age it’s really modern for companies to cut costs and increase a foodproduct durabity and endurance using addition of specially crafted chemical compontents. Most of which are starting with E and followed by a number for example E328 . Though this is generally profitable for companies and is prolonging the food durability it’smaking the food less nourishing and more harmful or even sometimes toxic for us humans. A good friend of mine Necroleak or as earlier known Pro-XeX has created a nice J2MEapplication for mobiles that has a database of most groups of E food chemical additives and is able to tell youif a certain E type like E329 for instance is belonging to which chemical additive group. This is quite handy especially when you go for grocery to the city market and you have to buy a can of milk or some type ofcanned food. In the european Union as well as in America, New Zealand, Australia and Israel the E number of the additives are encountered on every non-biological food label. Hence it’s really helpful when you launch the E-additives application whileyou’re selecting your food and check the food additives E E labelling and therefore know what type of chemical you might swallow while eating the purchased food. This type of behaviour is really smart and could have a positive impact on your physical health in a long term and help you select a food which is less chemical contaminated.More about the ETATA / E-Additives can be read on it’s official page Some of the benefits of E-Additives as an application that it is really multi-platform oriented and is supposed to run on most mobile phones which include the J2ME Java Virtual machine I decided to try the e-additives mobile software on my Nokia 9300i and I have to share the program installed and runs on the mobile quite nice, though the J2ME included with Nokia 9300i is currently quite outdated.
Here are some pictures of e-additives running my Nokia 9300i mobile:
The only downside of th e-additives on my nokia is that some pictures shown on the e-additives website are not appearing on my phone. However since I can search in E-additives – E database the application is performing it’s original intention through enabling me to check how actually contaminated with chemical additives (preservative food additions) are my daily meals.
Me and my wife Svetlana, spend our weekend in Beograd (or BeoGreat! as it is also famous among English speaking). I was sceptical about Serbian, always thinking Serbians are living poorer and that we Bulgarians have better living standard. What I saw in Beograd convinced me Serbs lives at least half or 1 time better than us Bulgarians. Starting from Road Infrastructure and coming to the prices and ending with buildings, people live and mood and everything is just amazing!
serbian-tram-beograd-city-nice-infrastructure
Serbs as people have deeply impressed me, they are one of the best people, I've seen really. Serbs have respect for their Church, know how to enjoy their life much more than us. Also the culture in Serbs as they are more western oriented than us. The language is not so easy to understand as a I though, generally you can understand with a serbian as its slavonic similar language. The whole 2 way sleeping car train ticket from Bulgaria ( Sofia ) to Serbia ( Beograd ), costed us about 55 euro per person – which is a bit expensive because the real distance between Sofia and Serbia is only 400 km, but as it is international ride it is a bit overcosted.
The sleeping car were inscribed with the words (Liegen Wagen – in German Sleeping Car) and were an old wagons left from communism – produced in Bulgaria. Though the wagons were old the were clean and warm, the sleeping sheets were clean and generally it was confortable as we were only 2 people in compartment (this was so because not too many people travel from Beograd to Sofia and vice versa). Also the service in the train is on a high level, the woman who was accomodating us in the train was very affable. In train we were checked twice once by and once by Serbian border control and by Bulgarian border police and customs. On our way to Serbia the train come late with a delay about 2 hours we started from Sofia at 20:30 on 5th of July, Friday and we were supposed to be in Beograd in 05:00 Serbian time (which is 06:00 BG Time). However the train arrived in Beograd just about 07:00 (Serbian time). Belgrade_railway_station
We had the great blessing to have a very warm and dry days which was quite nice (especially after the heavy floods that hit Serbia and Bulgaria less than a month ago. The central train station in Beograd is much smaller than Sofia's central station but it looks much beatiful as it is an old-fashioned building probably 100 years old. What striked me right after our arrival is the public transport trams, were very new and clean. Also the cars Serbs drive seem to be newer than Bulgarians, Serbians drive second hand bought cars from West Europe approximately produced in 2006, while the avarage cars we drive here in BG is from 2001 or 2000. There are few buildings in the city center which seemed abondoned and seemed like they need renovation but besides that everything looked quite well looking for a city that was bombed in 1998 – 1999. Later I learned from Galin bombing conducted by Americans was done only on few government and military buildings – and were done in a very "human" way – everything was clear earlier what will be bombed etc. etc. Serbia-Belgrade-bomb-damage-building
Can you believe, there might be a "human way of bombing?", well according to Americans and UN, there could be! On our arrival merrital god-father Galint took us from train station and brought us to their living apartment located on str. Maršala Birjuzova, Beograd. Andrea (Galin's wife) and our merriage god-mother received us warm harted as always. We met also Andrea's mother Milenka (Serbian equivalent of Bulgarian name Milena) … Andrea's mother Milenka Perolo is owning a small an English to Serbian and Serbian to English translation angecy called "Perolo". Andrea and her mother are by linkage Croation, it is very interesting that genetically Croatiaons are very close to Bulgarians just like we Bulgarians are genetically close to Italians and even according to some researches Italian nation originated from Bulgarian. There is probably something true in that because it seems we can very easily interact with Croations … 23 days old cute baby girl Boryana (which got baptized – becoming a young Orthodox Christian 🙂 )
Galin and Andrea are having only 23 days born baby called Boryana, its their 3rd child after Georgi and Konstantin. After having a good braekfast from fast food like Bulgarian famous Banica (from Pekara – a place where they sell fast food equivalents to Banica) and we bought Yogurt which is something like the Bulgarian Soar Milk (Kiselo Mlijako) with this difference that Serbian Yogurt is not so good for health as Bulgarian Yoghurt (Kiselo Mlijako). After the morning meal Galin brought us to the city center where we enjoyed a lot the Serbian language writtings in shops and buildings. The words are similar to Bulgarian. However cyrillic writting in Serbia is not so common as they tend to write a lot of their words in Latin letters being highly influenced by western culture. After the main city center street full of majestic buildings of significance to Serbian history, the national bank, the national museum, theatres etc. We came to KaleMegdan a very beautiful green park full of statues of Serbian revolutionaries, Kings and national heroes, very much in the spirit of Sofia's Borisova garden (gradina) – Sofia's central park. What striked me is the fortress situated in the middle of the park. KaleMegdan fortress is probably one of the best preserved and biggest early age (12/13th century) fortress and medieval times renewed fortress in Europe. It is the biggest I've seen in my wife so far, in the middle of the fortress there is a tennis court! a basketball field, volleyball field etc. etc. In very middle of KaleMegdan fortress there is a an exposition of tanks and warfare items and heavy anti-tank weapons left from I-st and II world war. There are also a boats and even submarine missles and underwater mines exposed, along with war boats. I was never seriously interested in warfare technology but seeing all this complete took up my attention. Continuing further the fortress one ends to a fortress walls and park continuation from where you see the two rivers Savva (Sava) river and Dunabe mixing beatifully together their blue and green waters, along with a sideview to whole Beograd city! Again amazingly beuatiful!
The air of course is very wet and there is humidity everywhere as there is a big river nearby. And in summer in Beograd you feel like being on the beach except there are no beaches. There is an improvised beach on the river, but as I heard from Beograd locals, beaching ont he river is much less enjoyable as going to a real sea beach. In the fortress there are two Churches as well one used to be a military church and interestingly its lusters are all made of war bullets. The otherChurch Saint Petka is historically very famous as it was temporary holding the holy relics of Saint Petka and even today in the Church there is small part of holy relics from Saint Petka. On Dunabe river there is a view of many boats and river resturants beautifully ordered on the river shore so it is perfect for people to relax from heavy stressful daily life. On the city park there is also a large children playground, where children could have a great fun and very near the fortress is situated Beograd National – City ZooPark!
Beograd-city-center-national-zoo-white-lion
The Zoo is fantastic and has even more animals though situated on less space than Sofia Zoo. We went to Famous Beograd Zoo on Sunday 06.07.2014, after being for a holy liturgy in the main cathedral Church of Beograd – St. Archangel Michael (the Church building is situated opposite to Serbian Orthodox Church Holy Synod, and very nearby to a iconographic academy and the patrierchal residency.
Saborna-Crkva-Beograd-city-center
The Church service was quiet understandable as big parts of the service is in Church Slavonic and as I'm adjusted to understanding big part of the Church slavonic and understand a bit of serbian speech, I was feeling in Serbian church almost like in a service here in Bulgaria. Serving Holy Liturgy in Church in Church slavnic is a big blessing for us slavonic people as we can understand the service in Serbia, Bulgaria, Monte Negro, Croatia, Bulgaria 🙂 After the Church service we went for a coffee in a Serbian coffee nearby the iconographic academy in Beograd. One thing to note here is always in all ex-Yugoslavia, if you order coffee you get a cup of free fresh water with the coffee – a great coffee drinking habit of Serbs. In the street I've seen a car under the brand Yugo which is pretty much like the small old Fiat cars, but it used to be produced in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After the coffee we went back home have a another coffee with a small dinner and a cake with Serbian Coca-Cola which has a little bit of a different taste than the coca-cola in BG and other countries I've been (note I usually hate Cola and I don't drink it but here I dеcided to give it a try with experimental aim 🙂 What impressed me on the Coca Cola plastic bottle was written "This Cola doesn't contain conservants or any chemical substances" – I LOL-ed (Laughted Out Loud ) to this non-sense. We all know cola is one of worst conservant of modern man so such a writtings is a big non-sense.
Pljeskavica – Serbian Traditional most popular food meal
For a lunch I ate the most famous Serbian (food) meal called "Pleskavica" a very, very big meat ball – talking about food Serbian are crazy about meat. They probably are the nation with biggest meat consumption in Europe! – I heard for Serbs and Croations, a kilo and a half of meat eaten a day is something very usual!
After lunch time on Saturday, around 14:00 serbian time, we jumped in our god-fathers Opel car and travelled to Kaona Monastery where was arranged to happen baptism of 23 days new-born baby Boryana. The archimandrite Philimon (which is very young 30 years old) received a us hospitably in Kaona Monastery – a monastery nearby the Serbian village Kaona. The monastery is a true heavenly garden. It has a small monastic property – sheeps, ducks, chickens 🙂 Crkva Kaona Monastir
There is a miraculous water spring like in most monasteries, a baptisterium, two beautiful Churches (a Church school) and lake with a boats where you can have rest sailing with a small rowing boat. My wife Svetlana became the spiritual mother of the 23 days baby Boryana, making our bond with our marriage god-parents family even stronger. We had a safe travel from Beograd to Kaona and vice versa by God's grace. By an old tradition after batism there was small gathering and we ate same biscuits, baklava and drink a little of Rakia, coffee tea etc. After that by Abbot's blessing Philimon we went to the small monastic lake and sailed on the small rawing boat, where I had the chance to oar the boat for a second life in my life (btw rowing is quite pleasurable and healthy thing to do).
Kaona monastery tiny monastic lake
The Abbot Philemon very much in the monastic spirit of good willness and love invited us to have a dinner together with a few of the other people who was on a pilgrimage journey to the monastery.
Kaona Monastery sheeps
Eating in a monastery is a true blessing as always. Before eating a prayer is said by the abbot and the food is blessed during the dinner. There was a person reading the sayings of the Holy Church fathers, letting the monks remember even when they eat that the spiritual food is more important and should not be forgot even when physical food is eaten. Church for funeral services nearby Kaona monastery
Kaona Monastery entrance Church side door
Parakles (Small Baptismal Chapel)
Going back from the monastery on late Saturday we had the plan to go outside with Galin and enjoy a bit the night life of Beograd but, we were very tired so we went sleeping almost immediately. On the next day after the Church service, we went to the Zoo and we had 2 hours and a half of great time, and I have the opportunity to see a lot of animals I saw for a first time in my life by God's grace 🙂 Here are some pictures from the zoo-park.
Beograd-National-Zoo-Lamma
hip0-and-a-Lion-in-Beograd-Zoo
My-wife-and-a-Camelopard-in-Beograd-Zoo
hipos in Beograd ZooPark 🙂
Grandmother Camel in Beograd Zoo In the afternoon after the zoo I went to the Military museum. It is the first war museum visitation in my wife so again quite an interesting experience.
Military-museum-belgrad-voenen-muzei-Belgrad
Among the machine-guns there was even Bulgarian. It is interesting too see that a big part of history of Serbs is in their war history, there war weapons from all ages starting from pre-medieval times, going through the mediaval, the renessance the Serbian liberation war, the Ist and II-nd world war and ending in the just recent war in Kosovo and conflicts in Monte Negro (Cerna / Crna Gora)
. Military Museum within fortress wall Belgrad
To end up the great time, few hours before we had to go Galin and Andrea brought and left the two kids for a birthday party and brought us for a drink of few beers in boat-restaurant anchored on the river shore of Savva river.
Zaicharsko Serbian beer / Rabbit drink 🙂
An interesting fact is Savva river is named after Saint Savva (who was the first Serbian Archibishop, the creator of Serbian Church and partially the creator of Serbian state), St. Savva is considered the greatest serbian saint of all times and protector saint of all Serbian. Saint-Archibishop-Sava-creator-of-Serbian-Orthodox-Church
A curious fact is saint Savva's dormition happened in nowdays Tarnovo Bulgaria. As a closure I would say I enjoyed Serbian land a lot and I recommend it to anyone who want to have a great rest time. I think it is a big blessing for Serbians to not be in the European union, and one can feel the difference even spiritually when he is out of EU. In being not yet officially part of European Union though they have put their candidature Serbia reminds me somehow to Belarus.
Serbia just like Bulgarian is a land very rich in saints and martyrs throughout the long history, they're our brothers and we have one faith. One of the ways for a growth and well being for us as Bulgarians is to keep tight connections with our Serbian brothers and sisters. Just as an interesting fact for those who like monastic tourism near Beograd there is a mountain with 17 monasteries! Serbia is also among the countries still having relatively big number of monks, as of my knowledge Serbia has about 2000 monks
While reading one of my daily tech news websites today I stimbled on very unusual news and a business idea, worthy to re-blog 😉 The idea of the new Innovative business is just genious and simple as that – knitted digital equipment cases. There are plenty of old ladies in Bulgaria who are used to knitting sweaters, hats and all kind of hand made winter clothes. Knitting was among the must have skills for ladies in Bulgaria until some years time even my grandmother when a bit younger used to knit in most of her free time. Thus most of grandmothers in Bulgaria still when get old and have a lot of free time, kill their time with the craft they learned as young. For the young European people who probably never heard of it knitting is unique kind of manufacture for producing winter clothes from yarn.
Knitting was a top ladies craft before the boom of industrial manufacture before 19th century industrial revolution, nowadays its almost a forgotten craft. Now some genious people in Bulgaria decided to give work to this old ladies and pay them for knitting computer and mobile equipment cases (cases for Tablets, Smartphones, Notebooks etc.) Knitting of mobile equipment cases opens new work places and introduces new way for old people to earn some extra income, such extra income is absolutely necessary in Bulgaria nowdays as most old ladies receive ridiculous pension of 120 to 150 EUR per month (money insufficient to pay expensive winter heating bills and so expensive food that is nowdays in Bulgaria).
The company who invented this new business and introduced it for the masses is Snug Essentials and is started by enthusiastic young people who had grandmothers practicing the old craft. The innovative product is distributed via Etsy Global Platform for distributing hand crafted goods as well as in Facebook, Twitter and Ebay. As of time of writting the companyis extremely small 6 old grandmas work on producing the knitted cases for digital equipment but the tendency is this to rise soon, as there are plenty of people who love the hand made cases. The price of a case is also not too high, it costs only around 10$ per knitted case. Here are few nice knitted cases produced by grandmas 🙂
Your girlfriend will love it if you gift her one of these 🙂
