SATURN
There's an extensive system of haze layers in the bizarre hexagon on Saturn, a new study has found.

© Provided by Space A high-res, colorful view of Saturn's Hexagon. 

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University)

"Saturn's Hexagon" is a swirling maelstrom at the planet's north pole that, as its name implies, has an odd, hexagonal shape. The hexagon is an ever-present cloud pattern that "stands" tall as an enormous, whirling tower on the planet. The phenomenon was first discovered in 1980 by NASA's Voyager spacecraft and was later on imaged in exquisite detail by the Cassini spacecraft, which orbited the planet from 2004 to 2017.

Now ina new study, scientists with the Planetary Science Group at the University of Basque Country used images from Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope to show that Saturn's hexagon is more than just a geometric oddity. The feature has its own system of hazes layered on top of one another.

Related: Saturn's weird hexagon storms in stunning photos

© Provided by Space A view of the layers in Saturn's Hexagon. (Image credit: UPV/EHU)

In 2015, Cassini's main camera snapped high-resolution images of Saturn that revealed the hazes above the clouds in the hexagon. Fifteen days later, the Hubble telescope also took a look at the planet and its strange hexagon. Using these images, the team was able to understand more about the layers of hexagon hazes spotted by Cassini.


"The Cassini images have enabled us to discover that, just as if a sandwich had been formed, the hexagon has a multi-layered system of at least seven mists that extend from the summit of its clouds to an altitude of more than 300 km [186 miles] above them," Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, a professor at the University of Basque Country who led the study, said in a statement. "Other cold worlds, such as Saturn's satellite Titan or the dwarf planet Pluto, also have layers of hazes, but not in such numbers nor as regularly spaced out."

The researchers found that each of these haze layers is approximately between 4.3 and 11 miles (7 and 18 kilometers). The team thinks that because of the drastic freezing temperatures in Saturns atmosphere (which range from minus 184 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 292 degrees F (minus 120 degrees Celsius to minus 180 degrees C)) there are likely frozen crystalline particles made up butane, acetylene or even propane in the cloud structure.

Now, this wasn't the first time these hazes have been spotted and studied but, with this work, these researchers have not only studied these layers closer, but they also suggest that the hazes are vertically distributed based on oscillations in density and temperature in Saturn's atmosphere caused by a gravitational pull. "Gravity waves" like this happen on other planets too, even on Earth with jet streams traveling in the atmosphere.

While Saturn's hexagon is still not completely understood, by understanding phenomena like Saturn's hexagon better, researchers hope to better understand not only this strange cloud pattern on Saturn but also atmospheric phenomena that happen here on our home planet, according to the same statement.

This work is detailed here in the May 8 edition of the journal Nature Communications. 

Bizarre Giant Hexagon on Saturn May Finally Be Explained

Bizarre Saturn Hexagon, Vortex Star in Cassini Photo

Saturn's Mysterious Hexagon Gets a Close-Up in New Cassini Photo

© Provided by Live Science

A Lens to Candomblé Afro-Brazilian culture through the work of Pierre Verger

https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/33946/A%20Lens%20to%20Candombl%C3%A9.pdf?sequence=1

Introduction

 This Research Master Arts and Culture thesis deals with Afro-Brazilian culture, focusing on the work of Pierre Verger, a French photographer and ethnologist who executed extensive work on this topic. My field of research is photography and cultural exchange, or interculturality, specifically between Africa and Brazil in regards to Candomblé ritual. Candomblé is a cultural-religious practice that is the result of cross-cultural exchange. In Flash of The Spirit (1984), Robert Farris Thompson, who has devoted serious study to the art history of the Afro-Atlantic world, emphasized that African civilizations in transition to the West represent an important migration style to the world’s history.1 This author belongs to the state of the art in this field, representing much of what has been written about the art history of Afro-Brazilian topics in the English language. Another recent work worth mentioning written in English is Ecstatic Encounters (2011) by Mattijs van de Port from the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Amsterdam.2 This author has concentrated on Bahian3 Candomblé, which is my specific object of study. Even though a lot of research has been done on Bahian Candomblé, very little is available in English. In this thesis I wish to contribute opening up material for an English speaking audience; also, I aim to show how Pierre Verger, through the lens of his camera and his theoretical framing, is fundamental for the academic research of Candomblé. I am going to introduce Pierre Verger, and explain what Candomblé is composed of in an attempt to contribute a relevant study to the field, considering the context of Leiden University and the Netherlands at large, where little is known in regards to Afro-Brazilian culture despite the significant sources available. My approach will be based on how Candomblé has been framed by scholars such as Pierre Verger, who went after the African historical and cultural roots that compose Brazilian Candomblé. The corpus of this research is Pierre Verger’s 1957 work, Notes sur Le Culte des Orisha et Vodum, la Baie de Tous les Saints, au Brésil et à l’ancienne Côte des Esclaves en Afrique, which is a rare title available at Leiden University Library. This book concerns, as the title suggest, an extensive compilation of notes and photographs regarding the cults of orishas and vodun, which in Brazil are venerated (not exclusively) in Candomblé. Therefore, my research question is concerned in analyzing how Candomblé was conveyed by Pierre Verger’s lenses, both in visual and discursive ways

   

The Golden Chain

   This creation story comes from the Yoruba people of Nigeria, Togo and Benin. In the religion of the Yoruba, the supreme being is Olorun, and assisting Olorun are a number of heavenly entities called orishas. This story was written down by David A. Anderson/ Sankofa, who learned it from his father, who learned it from his mother, and so on back through the Yoruba people and through time.

---------------------------

      Long ago, well before there were any people, all life existed in the sky. Olorun lived in the sky, and with Olorun were many orishas. There were both male and female orishas, but Olorun transcended male and female and was the all-powerful supreme being. Olorun and the orishas lived around a young baobab tree. Around the baobab tree the orishas found everything they needed for their lives, and in fact they wore beautiful clothes and gold jewelry. Olorun told them that all the vast sky was theirs to explore. All the orishas save one, however, were content to stay near the baobab tree.
      Obatala was the curious orisha who wasn't content to live blissfully by the baobab tree. Like all orishas, he had certain powers, and he wanted to put them to use. As he pondered what to do, he looked far down through the mists below the sky. As he looked and looked, he began to realize that there was a vast empty ocean below the mist. Obatala went to Olorun and asked Olorun to let him make something solid in the waters below. That way there could be beings that Obatala and the orishas could help with their powers.
      Touched by Obatala's desire to do something constructive, Olorun agreed to send Obatala to the watery world below. Obatala then asked Orunmila, the orisha who knows the future, what he should do to prepare for his mission. Orunmila brought out a sacred tray and sprinkled the powder of baobab roots on it. He tossed sixteen palm kernels onto the tray and studied the marks and tracks they made on the powder. He did this eight times, each time carefully observing the patterns. Finally he told Obatala to prepare a chain of gold, and to gather sand, palm nuts, and maize. He also told Obatala to get the sacred egg carrying the personalities of all the orishas.
      Obatala went to his fellow orishas to ask for their gold, and they all gave him all the gold they had. He took this to the goldsmith, who melted all the jewelry to make the links of the golden chain. When Obatala realized that the goldsmith had made all the gold into links, he had the goldsmith melt a few of them back down to make a hook for the end of the chain.
      Meanwhile, as Orunmila had told him, Obatala gathered all the sand in the sky and put it in an empty snail shell, and in with it he added a little baobab powder. He put that in his pack, along with palm nuts, maize, and other seeds that he found around the baobab tree. He wrapped the egg in his shirt, close to his chest so that it would be warm during his journey.
      Obatala hooked the chain into the sky, and he began to climb down the chain. For seven days he went down and down, until finally he reached the end of the chain. He hung at its end, not sure what to do, and he looked and listened for any clue. Finally he heard Orunmila, the seer, calling to him to use the sand. He took the shell from his pack and poured out the sand into the water below. The sand hit the water, and to his surprise it spread and solidified to make a vast land. Still unsure what to do, Obatala hung from the end of the chain until his heart pounded so much that the egg cracked. From it flew Sankofa, the bird bearing the sprits of all the orishas. Like a storm, they blew the sand to make dunes and hills and lowlands, giving it character just as the orishas themselves have character.
      Finally Obatala let go of the chain and dropped to this new land, which he called "Ife", the place that divides the waters. Soon he began to explore this land, and as he did so he scattered the seeds from his pack, and as he walked the seeds began to grow behind him, so that the land turned green in his wake.
      After walking a long time, Obatala grew thirsty and stopped at a small pond. As he bent over the water, he saw his reflection and was pleased. He took some clay from the edge of the pond and began to mold it into the shape he had seen in the reflection. He finished that one and began another, and before long he had made many of these bodies from the dark earth at the pond's side. By then he was even thirstier than before, and he took juice from the newly-grown palm trees and it fermented into palm wine. He drank this, and drank some more, and soon he was intoxicated. He returned to his work of making more forms from the edge of the pond, but now he wasn't careful and made some without eyes or some with misshapen limbs. He thought they all were beautiful, although later he realized that he had erred in drinking the wine and vowed to not do so again.
      Before long, Olorun dispatched Chameleon down the golden chain to check on Obatala's progress. Chameleon reported Obatala's disappointment at making figures that had form but no life. Gathering gasses from the space beyond the sky, Olorun sparked the gasses into an explosion that he shaped into a fireball. He sent that fireball to Ife, where it dried the lands that were still wet and began to bake the clay figures that Obatala had made. The fireball even set the earth to spinning, as it still does today. Olorun then blew his breath across Ife, and Obatala's figures slowly came to life as the first people of Ife.




David A. Anderson/Sankofa, 1991, The Origin of Life on Earth: An African Creation Myth: Mt. Airy, Maryland, Sights Productions, 31 p. (Folio PZ8.1.A543 Or 1991)  

Back to the Table of Contents of Creation Stories from around the World.  

Perceptions on Santería: Then and Now 

Glaude, Ludmille, "Perceptions on Santería: Then and Now" (2018). 

Undergraduate Research. 15. http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/undergraduateresearch/15

This paper will examine how the Batista and Castro regimes were able to impact the perception of Santería amongst the Cuban public. Santeria is a polytheistic religion practiced in Cuba that combines elements of Yoruba beliefs and Catholicism. Recently, Santeria appears to be experiencing a growth in visibility in Cuba. The syncretic religion and its visibility, has become of interest to examine and report on, amongst many media outlets. According to a Vice News article published as recently as 2014, the author dubs Santería as “Cuba’s New Religion”. The article describes Santería as a dynamic form of worship, with participation and a creation of a shared identity amongst all levels of Cuban society and other societies of practicing Latin American countries. In this paper, I plan to examine the perceptions of Santeria during the twentieth and twenty first centuries, and demonstrate these perceptions of Santeria have affected their visibility--or lack thereof. 

A Concrete Psychological  Investigation of Ifá Divination
http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/rcps/v21n2/v21n2a12.pdf
Abstract 

Divination —the consultation of an oracle in order to determine a course for future action— has long been considered a practice characteristic of “primitive mentality.” We describe research with the babalawo of Santería, who are expert in the divinatory system of Ifá. Our first goal is to offer an example of what Vygotsky called “concrete psychology”: the study of particular systems of psychological functions in the concrete circumstances of specific professional complexes. Our second goal is to explore the character of divination as psychological and social process, given the somewhat negative views of divination expressed by many social scientists, including Lévy-Bruhl and Vygotsky himself. Analysis of a recorded consultation identified features characteristic of institutional discourse. We argue that the institutional facts of divination may constitute an unfamiliar ontology, but the epistemology —the appeal to logic and to empirical evidence— is a familiar one. Keywords: cultural psychology, higher psychological functions, Lev Vygotsky, divination, concrete psychology, argumentation.

"Killed a Bird Today: 
The Emergence and Functionality of the Santeria Trickster, Eleggua"

Gauck, Megan, 
 (2018). 
Undergraduate Honors Theses. 
Paper 461. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/461

Abstract
Recognizable by their cunning exploits and gray morality, tricksters can be found in
mythology, folklore, and religions throughout the world. Two tricksters were familiar to the
Yoruba people in West Africa, Ajapa and Eshu, and their stories and abilities provide insight to
the functions fulfilled by trickster characters. Upon the introduction of Regla de Ocha (or
Santeria) to Cuba following the transatlantic slave trade, a new figure emerges, known for his
tricks and adaptability. Due to the West African influence in Santeria religious practices, the
original roles and traits of Eshu and Ajapa are analyzed for comparison, but Eleggua, the
Santeria trickster, has become his own entity. Through ethnographic observations, personal
conversations, and a collection of various sources and manuals, this project explores Eleggua 
and  the trickster presence in Cuba. Although his role as a trickster has changed throughout 
the past few centuries, Eleggua and the trickster identity persists in modern Cuba, visible in 
religious practices and secular exchanges


 ELEGGUA WHO IS HE?
 WHAT MUSIC IS PLAYED TO HONOUR HIM?
 Schmartz, Jeanne. BFA (2006).
MASTERS THESIS IN MUSICOLOGY 2008
Coached by Wim van der Meer (UVA) Oscar van Dillen (CODARTS)
DOI: 10.13140/2.1.3883.3282

Poll: US believers see message of change from God in virus

MASS PSYCHOSIS 

THEY BELIEVE IN A WHITE MAN IN THE SKY THAT KILLS THOSE WHO DON'T BELIEVE IN HIM

By ELANA SCHOR and HANNAH FINGERHUTtoday


NEW YORK (AP) — The coronavirus has prompted almost two-thirds of American believers of all faiths to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives, a new poll finds.

While the virus rattles the globe, causing economic hardship for millions and killing more than 80,000 Americans, the findings of the poll by the University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicate that people may also be searching for deeper meaning in the devastating outbreak.

Even some who don’t affiliate with organized religion, such as Lance Dejesus of Dallastown, Pa., saw a possible bigger message in the virus.

“It could be a sign, like ‘hey, get your act together’ – I don’t know,” said Dejesus, 52, who said he believes in God but doesn’t consider himself religious. “It just seems like everything was going in an OK direction and all of a sudden you get this coronavirus thing that happens, pops out of nowhere.”

The poll found that 31% of Americans who believe in God feel strongly that the virus is a sign of God telling humanity to change, with the same number feeling that somewhat. Evangelical Protestants are more likely than others to believe that strongly, at 43%, compared with 28% of Catholics and mainline Protestants.

The question was asked of all Americans who said they believe in God, without specifying a specific faith. The survey did not have a sample size large enough to report on the opinions of religious faiths with smaller numbers of U.S. adherents, including Muslims and Jews.

In addition, black Americans were more likely than those of other racial backgrounds to say they feel the virus is a sign God wants humanity to change, regardless of education, income or gender. Forty-seven percent say they feel that strongly, compared with 37% of Latino and 27% of white Americans.

The COVID-19 virus has disproportionately walloped black Americans, exposing societal inequality that has left minorities more vulnerable and heightening concern that the risks they face are getting ignored by a push to reopen the U.S. economy. Amid that stark reality, the poll found black Americans who believe in God are more likely than others to say they have felt doubt about God’s existence as a result of the virus — 27% said that, compared with 13% of Latinos and 11% of white Americans.

But the virus has prompted negligible change in Americans’ overall belief in God, with 2% saying they believe in God today, but did not before. Fewer than 1% say they do not believe in God today but did before.

Most houses of worship stopped in-person services to help protect public health as the virus began spreading, but that didn’t stop religious Americans from turning to online and drive-in gatherings to express their faiths. Americans with a religious affiliation are regularly engaging in private prayer during the pandemic, with 57% saying they do so at least weekly since March — about the same share that say they prayed as regularly last year.

Overall, 82% of Americans say they believe in God, and 26% of Americans say their sense of faith or spirituality has grown stronger as a result of the outbreak. Just 1% say it has weakened.

Kathryn Lofton, a professor of religious studies at Yale University, interpreted the high number of Americans perceiving the virus as a message from God about change as an expression of “fear that if we don’t change, this misery will continue.”

“When people get asked about God, they often interpret it immediately as power,” said Lofton, who collaborated with researchers from the University of Chicago and other universities, along with The Associated Press, on the design of the new poll. “And they answer the question saying, ‘Here’s where the power is to change the thing I experience.’”

Fifty-five percent of American believers say they feel at least somewhat that God will protect them from being infected. Evangelical Protestants are more likely than those of other religious backgrounds to say they believe that, with 43% saying so strongly and another 30% saying so somewhat, while Catholics and mainline Protestants are more closely split on feeling that way or not.





However, the degree and nature of protection that God is believed to offer during the pandemic can differ depending on the believer. Marcia Howl, 73, a Methodist and granddaughter of a minister, said she feels God’s protection but not certainty that it would save her from the virus.

“I believe he has protected me in the past, that he has a plan for us,” said Howl, of Portalas, N.M. “I don’t know what’s in his plan, but I believe his presence is here looking after me. Whether I can survive it or not, that’s a different story.”

Among black Americans who believe in God, 49% say they feel strongly that God will protect them from the virus, compared with 34% of Latino and 20% of white Americans.

David Emmanuel Goatley, a professor at Duke University’s divinity school who was not involved with the survey, said religious black Americans’ view of godly protection could convey “confidence or hope that God is able to provide -- that does not relinquish personal responsibility, but it says God is able.”

Goatley, who directs the school’s Office of Black Church Studies, noted a potential distinction between how religious black Americans and religious white Americans might see their protective relationship with God.

Within black Christian theology is a sense of connection to the divine in which “God is personally engaged and God is present,” he said. That belief, he added, is “different from a number of white Christians, evangelical and not, who would have a theology that’s more a private relationship with God.”

Fingerhut reported from Washington.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,002 adults was conducted April 30-May 4 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The River That Crosses an Ocean: Ifa/Orisha in the Global Spiritual Marketplace

Alexander Chirila
Webster University, Thailand
http://www.qualitativesociologyreview.org/ENG/Volume31/QSR_10_4_Chirila.pdf

Abstract

Ifa/Orisha, the traditional spiritual practice of the Yoruba nation, has entered the global spiritual marketplace. With thousands of worshipers on both sides of the Atlantic, practitioners and participants are engaging new arenas of discourse. In southwest Nigeria, storytellers are expressing the living religion through narratives that are relevant, adaptable, and meaningful in a plurality of contexts. From the often antagonistic relationship between Ifa/Orisha and the Abrahamic faiths, to the challenges posed by modernity and globalization, practitioners are renegotiating the identity of their religion in social and philosophical ways. Interpreting data gathered from interviews conducted in Nigeria and the United States, I present a qualitative analysis of how practitioners, participants, and non-practitioners interact with the fundamental premises underlying the matrix of symbols, rites, and narratives that represent traditional Yoruba religion

Grew up to Be a Screw-Up: A Comparison of Homosexuality in Cuba and Jamaica

Bernhard Maier

282 Views103 Pages

1 File ▾

https://www.academia.edu/29683810/Grew_up_to_Be_a_Screw-Up_A_Comparison_of_Homosexuality_in_Cuba_and_Jamaica  

The present thesis analyzes the role of homosexuality in Cuba’s society and compares it to that in Jamaica’s. The focus will be on the present-day legal situation and its development, the role of slave trade, as well as religion. The arts, including literature, music, and film, reflect a country’s attitudes toward homosexuality in a vivid way, and their analysis substantially contributes to one’s understanding of the role of homosexuality within a certain society. The attitudes of various religious societies, authors, filmmakers, musicians of various genres, and – obviously – political institutions in both Caribbean countries will be analyzed and compared to each other. The importance and origins of religious communities in either island state are another important aspect which deserves and requires to be researched.

Remarks on the Hanged Man of the Tarot

Timothy Scott

https://www.academia.edu/22153184/Remarks_on_the_Hanged_Man_of_the_Tarot

782 Views16 Pages

1 File ▾

Symbolism,

Tarot,

Methods of Analyzing the Tarot,

Tarot Studies

This paper was originally written during my undergraduate, although not for any subject as such, but rather simply out of interest. It was edited and redrafted in 2006. The paper presents a survey of the development of the Hanged Man from Court de Géblin’s identification of this card with the Cardinal Virtue, Prudence, through some of the key esoteric currents associated with the Tarot. By way of a conclusion it reassess de Géblin’s vision of the Hanged Man.