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Tom Heflin original fine art

Rated Oct 13 2008 • 1 review • humor, fine art, paintings, native american • tomheflin.com

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Tom Heflin,  






                                     



                                                    Quanah Parker










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Tom Heflin original fine art

Rated Oct 13 2008 • 1 review • fine art, paintings • tomheflin.com

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Tom Heflin, 







                               



                                                  Flight of the Lark







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Foto usNature - dunes - White Sands, NM - Image by Der...

Rated Oct 13 2008 • 0 reviews • nature, photography • fotocommunity.com

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aliasinkhorns review - StumbleUpon

Rated Oct 13 2008 • 1 review • stumblers, neuroscience, motherhood • stumbleupon.com

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(Ask any mother, we already knew this! But now there's proof.) 



Motherhood improves brain power, says study - Telegraph

Motherhood improves the abilities of the brain, according to research.

From the page: "Although women experience a decline in mental powers during pregnancy, they benefit from better brain functions after giving birth, the study found.

Researchers believe the improvement equips women for the greater demands of life with a child and challenges the notion they suffer from 'baby brain' after becoming a parent.

"Pregnant women do undergo a phase of so-called baby brain, when they experience an apparent loss of function," said Craig Kinsley, professor of neuroscience at the University of Richmond, Virginia.

"However, this is because their brains are being remodelled for motherhood to cope with the many new demands they will experience.

"The changes that kick in then could last for the rest of their lives, bolstering cognitive abilities and protecting them against degenerative diseases."

His research suggests employers should seek out women who have a family rather than discriminate again them.

Among the high-profile women who claims motherhood enhanced their cognitive abilities is Helena Morrissey, 42, chief executive of an investment firm Newton Capital Management, which has £37 billion of assets, who had her eighth child last year. She maintains that she finds it easier to juggle her responsibilities now than when she had her first child.

Women often report problems with memory and reasoning after they become pregnant. A 2002 study by Angela Oatridge of Hammersmith hospital, London, reported that brain scans of pregnant women showed a 4 per cent decline in size.

Last year, two Australian researchers reported that pregnant women consistently performed worse on tests for memory and verbal skills.

However, Professor Kinsley and his colleagues found these temporary declines are part of a process of remodelling the brain, most of which is eventually beneficial.

His studies, carried out on animals including rats and primates, show mothers become much braver, are up to five times faster at finding food and have better spatial awareness than those without offspring.

Kinsley will report his findings to the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting next month.

When he compared the brains of mother animals with those of non-mothers, he found physical changes related to these new-found skills.

In particular, nerve cells in crucial areas known to be linked to parenting had grown larger and developed more connections with neighbouring cells. This appeared to give the creatures more "computing" power. They also grew new sets of brain cells that Kinsley calls "maternal circuits".

"Although most studies have so far focused on animals, it is likely women also gain long-lasting benefits from motherhood. Most mammals share similar maternal behaviours controlled by the same brain regions," he said."






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aliasinkhorns review - StumbleUpon

Rated Oct 13 2008 • 1 review • stumblers, buddhism, death, spirituality • stumbleupon.com

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Three weeks after death, monk's body still glows

From the page: "The body of an 80-year-old Mundgod monastery monk who died three weeks ago has shown no signs of decomposition.

The KLE hospital in Belgaum had declared the Buddhist spiritual leader, Trippa Lobsung Nyama, dead but his followers insist he has attained samadhi (a deep, blissful, meditative state).

All these days the body was kept inside an air-cooled hall where his followers offered prayers. Their belief only got strengthened when the body showed no signs of decomposition weeks after the death.

The Mundgod monastery soon turned into a pilgrimage centre for Buddhists.

A KLE medical team then studied the body. Senior Dr Vinay Mahishal, who was part of the team, told DNA that they sent their "confidential" report to the KLE medical trust chairman. "There's no doubt that he is clinically dead. And I am surprised how putrefaction has not yet set in. The body was as serene and shining as on the day of death," the doctor said.

The hospital authorities explained that when a person stops taking water and food, water content in the body dries up, slowing down, or even temporarily arresting, putrefaction. The monk in question had stopped eating from some time before his death. It does not, however, mean that his body will remain that way for long. It could seem fresh for a while only. The only way to keep it intact for ages is to mummify it and his followers are doing that.

The hospital authorities said the monk's relatives and associates agree that he is not going to be the same again. But "he was no ordinary mortal" they are convinced. "How else does one explain the non-decomposition of his body," asks a monk. They are already working on a `samadhi sthal'." 







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Indian summer - Alexi Zaitsev - Russian Fine Art

Rated Oct 13 2008 • 1 review • fine art, paintings • artrussia.ru

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Alexi_Zaitsev





 




                                                Indian summer

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE - THE QUALITY OF MERCY

Rated Oct 13 2008 • 2 reviews • forgiveness, mercy, gift to self • maryourmother.net

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As usual, "Shakespeare said it best": 





 

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Forgiving the Son Who Killed My Family - Oprah.com

Rated Oct 13 2008 • 1 review • psychology, forgiveness • oprah.com

Forgiveness is a gift -- to oneself:  


                                                 



Friends say Kent and Tricia Whitaker had one of the kindest families you could ever hope to know. Their house in Sugar Land, Texas, was a gathering spot for friends of their sons--smart, athletic Bart and outgoing, popular Kevin.

On December 10, 2003, the Whitakers returned home from a dinner celebrating Bart's graduation from Sam Houston State University. When they opened the door, Tricia and Kevin were immediately shot in their chests by a gunman inside the house. Kent ran to the door to see what happened and was shot in the shoulder. Then Bart ran into the living room and was shot too.

Neighbors and a wounded Bart called 911. Tricia and Kevin died from their wounds; Bart and Kent survived and were hospitalized for four days. While he was in the hospital, just hours after the attack, Kent promised himself that he would forgive the person who killed his wife and son.
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Police learned that while the Whitaker family was murdered coming home from a dinner celebrating Bart's graduation from Sam Houston State, Bart actually was on academic probation at the school. In fact, Bart only had enough credits to qualify as a freshman.

Investigators also learned that police had been dispatched to the Whitaker house two years earlier. After an informant's tip, they warned Tricia and Kent that Bart was overheard plotting to have his family killed. "Kent and Tricia allegedly confronted Bart, and he said that it was part of a drunken joke. And they believed him," Lisa says. "Tricia apparently told a friend that she was concerned about it, but she just couldn't believe that it could be true."
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Even though Bart was considered a suspect early in the investigation, Kent lived with him for seven months--despite repeated warnings about his safety from the police--in the house where the shootings occurred. "I'd reached a zone when I got up to the front door where I was just numb and it was like I was a robot, and I passed by the spots [where Tricia and Kevin died]," he says. "People ask me how I could possibly live in that house. And while there was something very horrible that happened there, it was still my home and had been my home for 25 years. And there were a lot of great memories there, and it was still my house."

As the evidence against Bart grew, Kent says his opinion about his son's innocence changed. At the beginning, he says he thought there was a 5 percent chance police were right. Within four to five weeks, Kent says, he started thinking the chance that Bart was guilty was "about 50-50."

"But by the time that he actually ran, I was probably 80 percent believing that he was responsible," Kent says. "But I wasn't going to desert him anyway. He's my son."
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Kent says he thinks he knows his son better than he did before. "I think he's changed, but I don't know that he has," Kent says. "I can't truly read his heart. I thought I'd read his heart for all these years."

Because Kent has been able to forgive Bart, he says he has moved past trying to analyze Bart's statements. "My love for him and my forgiveness for him isn't based on him changing," he says.
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Dr. Ned Hallowell, psychiatrist and author of Dare to Forgive, says Kent's ability to forgive is remarkable. "It's a gift he gives to himself, that he will see his son off to his death loving him rather than hating him," he says. "That's so much better, and it takes such courage."

Kent says resolving to forgive Bart has helped him heal. "The wonderful thing is, if you do take that choice and you do choose to forgive, changes come in you, and that's when you're really able to start healing," he says. "I can tell you, I would never be where I am now if I had not made that choice in the hospital that night."

Although grieving is painful, Kent says forgiveness is the light at the end of the tunnel. "I'd hate to waste all that pain ending up on the other end after having gone through the grieving with still that bitterness of spirit," he says. "I wanted to get through that hard time and know that there's still life out there--and I'm excited about it."

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