The secret of the heart is its pressing love of self. Often times when we visit a new place, one may be intimidated. However, the advantage of travel is by seeing a great deal of both people and manners; it teachers us mutual respect; and mutual respect teaches us mutual love. Sacramento, California is very impressive because everything looks so new and shiny and clean. The city is so big, and there are a lot of trees; and a very nice river where you can go hiking and rafting, or fish for fresh salmon. If you are lucky, you may see a deer or a cotton tail rabbit. Everything that is possible, is possible. A good place in possession is better than one in expectation. The homes are all nice, and many of them are oversized, and the houses have emerald green lawns that you can run your hands through, or there is nice landscaping to conserve water.  The city basically looks like a forest with houses and businesses. There are also a lot of wonderful and historical landmarks in Midtown Sacramento, and a very nice rose garden at the State Capitol Castle of California. If you want, you can literally spend hours or days just wondering around looking at the beauty. There is no such thing in a civilized society as self-support. The people in Sacramento, California are very friendly and warm. They like to be social and talk, which is really nice when you come from a big city where the people are busy and cold. The middle of the downtown area holds gems often overlooked by those who jet to the nightclubs, mountains, or head to the coast to get away from it all. A poet never kept a secret yet.

One of my favorite restaurants is in Midtown Sacramento, called Paesanos, and it is an Italian restaurant, located at 1806 Capitol Avenue, Sacramento, California 95811. My favorite cuisine is spaghetti and they make one of the best pizzas I have ever had. When you dine with them, no matter how much you are spending, the staff will treat you like royalty. The interior of Paesanos is dimly lit and kind of romantic, with a lot of dark and neutral tones. And, Paesanos also has an outdoor eating area, which is pretty big, and you can enjoy the Victorian mansion and its roses, as you sit on the patio of the restaurant and have something to eat. With Valentine’s Day coming up, I would recommend taking your date to Paesaons, the prices are reasonable, and after you eat, you can tour the State Capitol, the rose garden, walk around and experience some of the shops, tour the Stanford or Governor’s Mansions, or even hope on over to J street and enjoy the nightlife. To every philosophy are certain rear parts, very important parts, and these, like the rear of one’s head, are best seen in reflection. If you really want to get away from it all and go somewhere nice and romantic, a trip to Sacramento, California may be in the cards for you. Sacramento is hidden in Northern California, when you come here and tour Midtown, you will feel like you are a character in a fairy tale. And the suburban communities in Sacramento, Elk Grove, and Roseville are like the homes you would see in Leave it to Beaver. This is a great place to raise a family, go to college, or retire.  It is like a mixture of the Midwest and New York. 

Oh, and by the way, if you happen to like Vietnamese food, please check out one of my favorite restaurants called Viet Hoa. Viet Hoa is family own, very clean and the staff is friendly. The food is also reasonably priced. Viet Hoa is located at 4805 Laguna Blvd, Elk Grove, CA 95758, and that is in Sacramento County. The phone number is (916) 428-4295. My favorite dish on the menu is I believe the number 33, which is, if I recall correctly, a really good egg roll, rice noodles, charbroiled chicken and a nice sauce that goes with it. You have been everywhere else and tried everything else, so why not give Sacramento a chance? You may fall in love with what you see. I never give up on anything that I choose to do. Heaven is above all. The curtain of our fate is still undrawn. How brilliant and tender is the moon on the night of Valentine’s Day. In this silvery World, the white snowflakes are my missing and blessing for you. I wish you to stretch out your hands and accept my best wishes. May the flower of happiness be fragrant in your future days. May floating thoughts turn to colorful stars and sparkle in your dreams every night. You are water, blue with waves and ripples, in the clear spring, flowing happily. You flow into my heart, like spirits and leave me feeling intoxicated. The World smiles when you smile. My heart is waiting and waiting. I love the lilac you presented me with, and I miss you, every second, every minute, in every day. I dream of you, every second, every minute at night. I have been laughing with you, full of tender feelings; I have gained your elation which only loves gives you. If you are the beautiful seashore, I will be the tidal wave at your foot. The white wave is the love song sung for you and the colorful seashells are the poetic lines composed for you. Whether on the ebb or flow, the sea and shore are always together. Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds. Heaven at distance does not attract us so forcibly as a fool’s paradise, in sight. Love is the soul of harmony, the connecting chain that links the whole frame of being; it is the glory of nature, and the very perfection of humankind. As soon as a man awakens a woman’s passions, she begins to idealize him and there is no limit to the virtues he will be made to carry. A real passion is too mighty for words. No misery can equal the struggles of a virtuous mind wishing to act in a manner becoming its own dignity, yet carried by passions to do otherwise. Virtue alone is true honor, true freedom, and solid, durable happiness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since like and thought began, experience, that unvarying and rational order of the World, has been the appointed instrument of man’s training. Extremes inevitably meet. The bear can dance, and the money, which is one of the most sportive, if not the most formidable, is one of the most malignant of the wild tribes of the forest. A frivolous people are apt to be a savage people; and the most desperate Indian warriors prefer the looking-glass worn about their necks to any other ornament. There lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of whiteness, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which frights in blood. It is the fate of most men who mingle with the World, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art.  Poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength. Powerful angels, safe in Heaven! They smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones wee over their destruction.  I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Generosity will not surly permit a worthy mind to doubt of its horrible and beneficent intentions: much less will it allow itself to shock, to offend anyone; and, least of all, a person thrown by adversity, mishap, or accident, into its protection. It is seldom that a bad person expects to be accounted good.It is the general desire of such a one to conquer the existing evil impression; but it is generally presumed that the evil impression is there. Sin is the only real color-element left in modern life. The main objection to this argument is obvious. The Ghost demands blood-revenge, and it would seem to be out of character for an agent of good to engage in such a mission. Some look upon revenge as a legitimate alternative to the punishment meted out by the law, particularly if the offended party could not expect to bring his adversary to justice by due process—essentially the situation. However, the answer is unsatisfactory. There are indeed members in society who argue in this vein, but they are rare and hardly representative, being frequently fencing-masters and almost to a man admirer of the dueling code that hard already led to a serious decimation of young bloods in France. Responsible individuals—statesmen, magistrates, and clergymen alike—unanimously condemned such conduct, and I find it impossible to believe that society, who caused the dilemma and the consequences of their choices with such moral and psychological insight, could have accepted the revenger’s code of honor.

 An equally familiar and somewhat more plausible argument may also be adduced to explain the significance of the Ghost: society, like his or her fellow dramatists, did not personally regard blood-revenge as justified but followed the so-called revenge convention of the enlightened ones. Dramatic heroes were, in other words, traditionally supposed to have the right to revenge the deaths of their kinsmen, provided that they did not resort to such un-English methods as poisoning or allow their desire for vengeance to express itself in the form of indiscriminate murder, in the manner of Episcopal Priest Israel Ahimbisibwe, his wife Dorcus, and their son Israel Ahimbisibwe Jr., who were found dead in their Huston, Texas home on Monday, 2 February 2015. A maintenance worker discovered the family’s bodies covered in towels and blankets; they have been dead for some time. Police report that Isaac Tiharibondi, age 19, used a hammer to beat his parents to death, then stabbed his brother, age 5, in the neck and back. Isaac Tiharihondi was arrested at the Diamond Motel in Mississippi on Wednesday Morning, 4 February 2015. Isaac Tiharihondi reported to family and friends that he had planned to join the Marines, however, his parents did not believe him and planned to confront him just hours, prior to their murder on 29 January 2015, the day police believe that they were killed. A neighbor recalled seeing Isaac Tiharihondi and asking him why his little brother did not make it to school, Isaac told the neighbor that the boy was not feeling well, but he was already dead. 

Family friend, Nancy Taylor, took the teen out to lunch, on the day that he may have murdered his family. There was absolutely nothing in his demeanor that was out of the ordinary, he could not have been more pleasant, more sweet, more fun. It saddens me to think that there was something terribly, psychologically wrong. Isaac Tiharihondi must have had a psychotic break. Isaac Tiharihondi has been charged with two counts of capital murder and is due to head back to court in days.  The tradition, however, is by no means so simple. True enough, from 1592 to 1607, we have at times looked deceptively like a stage debate on the question of the justification of revenge, but in no completed reality, a product which it is very difficult to take seriously, would I say that revenge is presented as justified beyond doubt. Somewhere in the execution of his duty, the revenger seems to go wrong and develop into a creature that must not be allowed to survive. Thus, no matter how closely society considered himself obligated to follow his sources—which do accept revenge as the order of nature-it is a demonstrable mistake to say that he had to follow a strong dramatic tradition. First, Isaac Tiharihondi did not have to and, second, the tradition was rather in the opposite direction.

 This argument would seem to lead to an unpleasant conclusion: Isaac Tiharihondi attempt to test the Ghost’s veracity ends in a failure to discover the truth; the Ghost is actually the devil’s emissary, and Isaac Tiharihondi follows the advice of the devil when he plans and finally executes his revenge. However, this, I would say, is only apparently so; the real situation is different. In the tragedy Isaac Tiharihondi does not concern himself with the question whether blood-revenge is justified or not; it is raised only once and very late by the protagonist and never seriously considered.  The dramatic and psychological situation rather than the moral issue is what seems to have attracted Isaac Tiharihondi, and he chose to develop it, in spite of the hard-to-digest and at times a little absurd element it might involve. Psychotic disorders are characterized by hallucinations and delusions, social withdraw, and a retreat from reality. Psychosis, which tends to be severely disabling, may lead to hospitalization. At times, psychotic persons cannot separate their hallucinations from reality. In addition, their ability to control their thoughts and actions is severely impaired. Here is what a young college student, who became psychotic told his father: It is the strangest things. I hear voices, hundreds of them, telling me that everyone wants me dead. It is like all the radios of the World are blaring all the stations at once, and it does not stop. It jams my brain.

 Politeness, even to excess, is necessary on men’s part, to bring us to listen to their first addresses, in order to induce us to bow or necks to a yoke so unequal. Schizophrenia, delusional disorders, and some mood disorders include psychotic symptoms. Psychotic symptoms may also accompany medical problems (such as brain diseases), drug abuse, and other conditions. Since the nature of the Ghost remains ambiguous and there is no safe association between Isaac Tiharihondi and the devil or between Isaac Tiharihondi and God, we have to rely on the impression that his opponents make on us, on first appearance and in revealing scenes together—a standard procedure, I would say, in the interpretation of any society. People seldom commit sin without intending to derive benefit from it. This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brothers were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the World hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the sense. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.

 The Winchester Mystery House

 Take a journey into the World’s most haunted house. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

 

 

 

 

Some cannot any longer endure the torments of hopeless love, and, standing before the doors, keep this in mind, you have conquered, and shall no longer have to bear my importunities. Enjoy your triumph! Even when the intention is not to aestheticize the subject, as often true in photojournalism, the power of the photographer will come from its ability to focus our attention on that from which we would normally avert our eyes. Pictures can be beautiful, but must tell facts, too.  The ability to aestheticize the everyday—to reveal beauty that which we normally take for granted, we must place ourselves and our camera in the right relationship with the subject, and it is in fitting the latter into the frame of the viewfinder that the problems of composition begin. If something should happen, you remain alert, wait a bit, then snap the photograph and leave with the sensation of having something. Two-dimensional surface of the photograph, the landscape yielded sometimes stunningly beautiful formal plays of line and texture. A photographer’s eye will often be halted where ordinary people see nothing remarkable. A casual gleam of sunshine or a shadow thrown across his path, a time-withered olive tree, or a moss-covered stone may awaken a train of thoughts and feelings, and picturesque imaginings.

 When I have such beauty before my camera, my whole heart has endeavored to do its duty towards the subject in recording faithfully the greatness of the World, as well as the features of the community—not everyone is lucky enough to live around such natural and man and woman made beauty. The photograph thus taken has been almost the embodiment of a prayer. This media engages our lives, just as collage engages the realities of the World around it by admitting such things as the news into space of art. As art, photography became legally recognized in 1862. As Timothy O’Sullivan, one of the first great photojournalist noticed, photography is inclusive of the movement of the arts as a whole—two World collide—the World of art, leisure, pleasure, and peace, and the World of death, misery, agony, and war. My goal is to make you forget the bad and feel good, so that you can help others feel good and see the beauty in their community, which is absolutely free for everyone to enjoy. The World is supposed to seem like a special kind of tapestry, in which the weft yarns are of several colors and the weaver manipulates the colors to make a design as intricate as The Unicorn in Captivity. The idea is to fit the World into a symbolic Heavenly World, so you can see life is not that bad. There is relative isolation and silence, and it gives you some sense of the vastness around you, of limitless freedom and time without end.

 Our visual experience of it is itself an assemblage, a construction of multiple points of view, not only from the photographer, but from the architectures and landscape architects, city planners, and citizens. The ritual place is an inner sanctuary….everyone has access to this space. Is there something in your life that disturbs you? Be persistent with your disturbance until you get face-face with the Lord Himself. Do not deify common sense. To sit calmly by, instead of creating a disturbance, serves as a sign of inner peace. When Jesus ask what we want Him to do for us about the incredible problem that is confronting us, remember that He does not work in commonsense ways, but only in supernatural ways. Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. However, when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God’s blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. My eyes have seen all this, my ears have heard and understood it. Why do you all repeat the same stories over and over, for decades, but do nothing to make the situation any better? You are no more than insane gossips, spreading the same rumors for entertainment. What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. However, I desire to speak to the Almighty and to discuss my case with God. You, however, smear me with lies; you are worthless physicians, all of you! If only you would be altogether silent and sit down. For you, that would be wisdom. Hear now my discussion; listen to the supplication of my lips. Will you speak wickedly on God’s behalf? Will you speak deceitfully to God?

 Would it turn out well if he examined you? Could you deceive him as you might deceive men, women and children?  If you showed partiality, God would surely rebuke you. Would not his splendor terrify you? Would not the dread of him fall on you? Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are barricades of clay. Keep silent and let me speak; then let come to me what may. Why do I put myself in jeopardy and take my life in my hands? Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face. Indeed, this will turn out of my deliverance, for no godless man or woman or child dare come before him! Listen carefully to my words; let your ears take in what I say. Now that I have prepared my case, I know I will be vindicated. Can anyone bring charges against me? If so, I will be silent and die. Only grant me these two things, O God, and then I will not hide from you: Withdraw your hand far from me, and stop frightening me with your terrors. Then summon me and I will answer or let me speak, and you reply. How many wrongs and sins have I committed? Show me my offense and my sin. Why do you hide your face and consider me your enemy? Will you torment a windblown leaf? Will you chase after dry chaff? For your write down bitter things against me and make me inherit the sins of others. You fasten my feet in shackles; you keep close watch on all my paths by putting arks on the soles of my feet. So man wastes away like something rotten, like a garment eaten by moths. However, I have perseverance and it is more than endurance. I have faith in my heart and integrity and combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. We are being purified—every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. However, one of the greatest acts of faith in life, is the virtue of waiting for God. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time. We just have to show God that our love is genuine.

 The Winchester Mystery House

 Some energies cannot move on because they are unable to leave the tragic past behind. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

 

I too can be brave for once, and my love is as strong as thine. What will not love discover! The Aaliyah Movie produced by Wendy Williams was not a biography, but it was a tale of love, perseverance and determination. The focus was on a young girl, Aaliyah Dana Haughton, and from day one she knew she wanted to sing, and dance and act. Aaliyah has such a light and a passion in her, she was never normal, always a step ahead. Aaliyah had the determination of a newborn baby. You know how they are born and have no idea about the World, but know they want to explore and love and smile, well, that is the essence Aaliyah possessed. As Aaliyah developed, she had a sense of maturity and wisdom, you would not expect out of a child or a young adult. She excelled in school, she knew of things much older than herself, and with such conviction that you knew she was sincere and not being sarcastic, she really and truly knew what she was talking about.   For example, how when Mrs. Diane was talking about Veronica Lake, Aaliyah knew who she was off the bat, and she was an actress from the 1940s, who had her career cut short. Normally when you are recalling stuff you learned from others, you need a reminder. However, this young girl, Aaliyah, knew of Veronica Lake, as if she was a current popular actress.

 This enchanting story of Aaliyah really captivated because it was about a good, solid, Christian family, who had dinner together, played together and they just shared everything and had open communication. The family was also very humble and appreciative of everything, but did not take no for an answer.  I really liked how Aaliyah was just ahead of her time. She crafted her music and changed her image accordingly so the audience would accept her, and it was real! She really developed and grew right before our eyes. Now the focus of the movie was mainly on Aaliyah’s music and love life. Now when she met with Robert Kelly, he would not even look at her, out of respect for the young lady and her family. However, after working closely, the two fell in love. Robert liked her Aaliyah was just down to Earth, she was not after money, she just wanted a friend and someone to talk to and Robert could not help himself and he fell in love. It was a forbidden love because of the age difference, but the girl knew what she wanted. However, after her daddy found out what was going out, he was hot and had words with Robert Kelly, which dissolved Aaliyah’s relationship with Robert. It was a tumultuous time for the young lady—she was at a level of success others could only dream of and her tender heart fell in love for the first time, but like Juliet and Romeo, it was a love that was not allowed. Aaliyah had to split ties with Robert and it broke her heart. She lost her confidence and felt like he made her. However, Aaliyah’s mother let it be known that her daughter, Aaliyah, was young, independent and self-made. This gave Aaliyah the passion to keep going. Yet, not only did Aaliyah want to make a new album, but she also wanted to become an actress.

 This time around, Aaliyah wanted a new style, and no one knows how, but she found two new producers, Missy Elliot and Timberland, and was told not to work with them, but Aaliyah clutched her strings and respectfully let it be known that she makes her own decisions, and this is what she wanted. And yet again, Aaliyah produced another platinum record. Her style went from Rhythm and Blues to a new techno hip hop, and she was the only African American and young girl out there, in the music industry and really paved the way for Britney Spears and Beyonce. Now, Aaliyah also wanted to get into acting, but before the One in a Million album dropped, Aaliyah was told by Hollywood that African Americans women were not really welcomed in Hollywood and consider being in the background in a movie. Again—respectfully, Aaliyah said, “No, I am going to be a leading star in a film.” Once again, she made it happen. Hollywood was beating down her door to put Aaliyah in a movie. Mainstream America saw her, and not only was she African American, but she was The American Dream. No matter your culture, every female could see themselves as Aaliyah and the men loved her because she was real. So Aaliyah took Hollywood by storm and landed roles in the Matrix II and III, Romeo Must Die, Queen of the Damned, Honey, Sparkle and more. Aaliyah had so many movie offers she never for to accept them all, these are just a few we know about. Hollywood had big plans for Aaliyah, and her music career was doing well, but started to wane a little because Aaliyah was calling the shots and not letting anyone talk under her skirt, so people got upset with her and would not play, “We Need a Resolution.” Not only that, but Aaliyah was so busy that people felt she was out of reach, but she was juggling, filming movies, making music videos, recording music, touring, spending time with her family and had a new romantic relationship with Damon Dash.

 It was clear to Mrs. Diana, Aaliyah’s mother that her daughter was very selective, but she also knew that Aaliyah was in love with Damon, not only because he was nice to her, but he also reminded her of her first love, Robert Kelly. It broke Aaliyah’s heart when Robert got married. Nonetheless, she moved on. I really liked the movie about Aaliyah because no matter if you are rich or have a modest life, you can relate to the love story. Then when you watch Romeo Must Die, and Queen of the Damned, and her interviews, you get a full scope of Aaliyah. Another thing people loved about Aaliyah is people used to steal her material, and she would go home crying because that was her work and others were trying to pass it off as theirs and trying to steal her image, but Aaliyah realized that she was a master, and these girls and guys were her students, and she was teaching them how to be good artist, and let it go. Aaliyah was about peace, love, family, God and perseverance, and she was a great person and a full-on entertainer.  And her voice and style, on every album it is different, and it is so real. How does one go from Hip Hop to contemporary music, in just seven short years? Aaliyah did every style of music you can think of, and all of her albums are really an evolution of her style. My personal favorite is the red album, self-titled Aaliyah. It is just different, edgy. However, all of her music is great, a few American favorites are: Back in Once Piece, At Your Best, Young Nation, One in a Million, Are you that Somebody, Never Giving up, I got you Back, We Need a Resolution, Never no More, More than a Woman, Whatever, What if, I Refuse, All I Need, I Care 4 U, Don’t Worry, and many more. Please check this young lady out at Aaliyah.com

 

 

 

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth—the creation of the World is a problem naturally fitted to excite the liveliest interesting of man, its inhabitant. The ancient pagans, not having the information on the subject which we derive from the pages of Scripture, had their own way of telling the story, which is as follows: Before the Earth, and Sea, and Heaven were created, all things worse one aspect, to which we give the name of Chaos—a confused and shapeless mass, nothing but dead weight, in which however, slumbered the seeds of things. Earth, Sea, and Air were all mixed up together, so Earth was not solid, the sea was not fluid, and the air was not transparent. Now the Earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water. God and Nature at last interposed and out an end to this discord, separating Earth from the Sea, and Heaven from both. And God said, let there be light.  

The fiery part, being the lightest, sprang up and formed the skies; he separated the light from the darkness, God called the light day and the darkness he called night. The air was next in weight and place. The Earth, being heavier, sank below, and the water took the lowest place, and buoyed up the Earth. Here, some god—it is not known which—gave his good offices in arranging and disposing of the Earth. He appointed rivers and bays,  like the Rio Grande, which separates Mexico from the United States of America, and The Bay Area, in California their places, and raised mountains such as Chisos Mountains in Big Bend, which includes 800,000 acres. God also scooped out valleys not one of my favorites, but Sacramento Valley (the people are extremely immature and rude). Then God distributed woods such as the Olympic National Park in Washington, which has red-legged frogs, owls, 300 different types of bird, deer, glacier-capped mountains and rugged coastlines. He created fountains, such as the Kilauea Volcano, in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and fertile fields like the bush plane on Kahiltna Glacier, and stony plains like Denali in the Arctic National Park. The air being cleared, the stars began to appear, grizzly bears began foraging for food, salmon swam in nearby Brooks Falls and Lake Clark. A bush plain lands on Kahitlna Glacier at the 7,200-foot base camp of Mountain McKinley, which is 20,000 feet tall, North America’s tallest peak. And God saw that it was good.  

And God said, let the water teem with living creatures, and let bird fly above the Earth, across the expanse of the sky. So God created Glacier Bay with harbor seals. However, a nobler animal was wanted, and Man was made. God said, let us make man in our image, in the image of God, and he created him; male and female he created them. It is not known whether the Creator made him of divine materials, or whether in the Earth, so lately separated from Heaven, there lurked still some Heavenly seeds. Prometheus took some of this Earth, and kneading it up with water, made man in the image of the gods. He gave him an upright stature, so that while all other animals turn their faces downward and look to the Earth, he rises his to heaven and gazes on the stars. Prometheus was one of the Titans, a gigantic race, who inhabited the Earth before the creation of man. To him and his brother Epimetheus was committed the office of making man, and providing him and all other animals with the faculties necessary for their preservation. Epimetheus undertook to do this, and Prometheus was to overlook his work, when it was done. Epimetheus Theus accordingly proceeded to bestow upon the different animals the various gifts of courage, strength, swiftness, sagacity; wings to one, claws to another, a shelly covering to the third, etc.  Large flocks of roseate spoonbills, white pelicans, ibis and even the occasional flamingo can be seen in Everglades National Park, along with alligators, lurking in the water or sunning themselves just off the well-traveled path.  

Or you may see a grizzly bear cub walking through the tall grass by Brooks River. However, when man came to be provided for, who was to be superior to all other animals, Epimetheus had been so prodigal of his resources that he had nothing left to bestow upon him. In his perplexity he restored to his brother Prometheus, who with the help of Minerva, went up to Heaven, and lighted his torch at the chariot of the Sun and brought down fire to man,  and as a treat we were blessed with the Aurora borealis. With this gift, man was more than a match for all other animals. It enabled him to make weapons wherewith to subdue them; tools with which to cultivate the Earth; to warm his dwelling, so as to be comparatively independent of climate; and finally to introduce the arts and to coin money, the means of trade and commerce. Woman was not yet made. The story (absurd enough!) is that Jupiter made her and sent her to Prometheus and his brother, to punish them for their presumption in stealing fire from Heaven; and man, for accepting this gift. The first woman was named Pandora. She was made in Heaven, every god contributing something to perfect her. Venus gave her beauty, Mercury persuasion, Apollo music, etc. Thus equipped, she was conveyed to Earth and presented to Epimetheus, who gladly accepted her, though cautioned by his brother to beware of Jupiter and his gifts.  

Epimetheus had in his house a jar, in which were kept certain noxious articles, for which, in fitting man for his new abode, he had no occasion. Pandora was seized with an eager curiosity to know what this jar contained; and one day she slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man—such as gout, rheumatism, and colic for his body, and envy, spite, and revenge for his mind—and scattered themselves far and wide. Pandora hastened to replace the lid; but, alas! The whole thing only excepted, which lay at the bottom, and that was hope. So we see at this day, whatever evils are aboard, hope never entirely leaves us; and while we have that, no number of other ills can make us completely wretched. Another story is that Pandora was sent in good faith, by Jupiter, to bless man; that she was furnished with a box, containing her marriage blessing. She opened the box incautiously, and all the blessings escaped, hope only excepted. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God, as he was walking in the garden, in the cool of day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. However, the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” And God said, “Who told you where naked? Have you opened that box I commanded you not to touch?”  

Then the man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit and I ate it.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent aroused me, and I opened the box.” So the LORD God said to the serpent (man), because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock, and all the wild animals. You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.  To the woman God said, I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. This story seems more probable then the former; for how could hope, so precious a jewel as it is, have been kept in a jar full of all manners of evils, as in the former statement? The World being thus furnished with inhabitants, the first age was an age of innocence and happiness, called the Golden Age. Truth and right prevailed, though not enforced by law, nor was there any magistrate to threaten or punish. The forest had not yet been robbed of its trees to furnish timbers for vessels, nor had men built fortifications round their towns.  There were no such things as swords, spears, or helmets. The Earth brought forth all things necessary for man, without his labor in ploughing or sowing. Perpetual spring reigned, flowers sprang up without seed, the rivers flowed with milk and wine, and yellow honey distilled from the oaks.   

Then succeeded the Silver Age, Jupiter shortened the spring and divided the year into seasons. God said because you listened to your wife, and ate from the box about which I commanded you to avoid at all costs, cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it, all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food, until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. Then first, men had to endure the extremes of heat and cold, and houses became necessary. Caves were the first dwellings, and leafy coverts of the woods, and huts woven of twigs. Crops would no longer grow without planting. The farmer was obligated to sow the seed, and the toiling ox to draw the plough. Next came the Brazen Age, more savage of temper and readier to the strife of arms yet not altogether wicked. The hardest and worst was the Iron Age. Crime burst in like a tornado super outbreak. All hell broke loose. Modesty, truth, and honor fled. In their places came fraud and cunning, violence, and the wicked love of gain. Then seamen spread sails to the wind, and the trees were torn from the mountains to serve for keels to ships, and vex the face of the ocean. The Earth, which till now had been cultivated in common, began to be divided off into possessions.  

Men were not satisfied with what the surface had produced, but must dig into its bowels, and draw forth from thence the ores of metals. Mischievous irons, and more mischievous gold, were produced. War sprang up, using both as weapons; the guest was not safe in his friend’s house; and sons-in-law and fathers-in-law, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives could not trust one another. Sons wished their fathers dead, that they might come to the inheritance; family love lay prostrate. The Earth was wet with slaughter, and the gods abandoned it, one by one, till Astraea* alone was left, and finally she also took her departure. Jupiter, seeing this state of things, burned with anger. He summoned the gods to council. They obeyed the call and took the road to the palace of Heaven. The road, which anyone may see in a clear night, stretches across the face of the sky and is called the Milky Way. Along the road stand the palaces of the illustrious gods; the common people of the skies live apart, on either side. Jupiter addressed the assembly. He set forth the frightful condition of things on Earth and closed by announcing his intentions to destroy the whole of its inhabitants, and provide a new race, unlike the first, who would be more worthy of life and much better worshippers of the gods.  

So saying he took a thunderbolt, and was about to launch it at the World, and destroy it by burning; however, recollecting the danger that such a conflagration might set Heaven itself on fire, he changed his plan and resolved to drown it. The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the Earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on Earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, I will wipe mankind, who I have created, from the face of the Earth—men and animals and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them. The North wind, which scatters the clouds, was chained up; the South was sent out, and soon covered all the face of Heaven with a cloak of pitchy darkness. The clouds, driven together, resounded with a crash; torrents of rain fall; for forty days the flood kept coming on the Earth. The water rose greatly on the Earth, and all the high mountains under the entire Heavens were covered. The waters flooded the Earth for a hundred and fifty days. The year’s labor of the husbandman perishes in an hour. Jupiter, not satisfied with his own waters, calls on his brother Neptune to help him with his. He lets loose the rivers and pours them over the land. At the same time, he heaves the land with an Earthquake and brings in the reflux of the ocean over the shores. Flocks, herds, men and houses are swept away, and temples, with their sacred enclosures, profaned. If any edifice remained standing, it was overwhelmed, and its turrets lay hid beneath the waves.  

*The goddess of innocence and purity. After leaving Earth, she was placed among the stars, where she became the constellation Virgo—the Virgin. Themis (Justice) was the mother of Astraea. She is represented as holding aloft a pair of scales, in which she weighs the claims of opposing parties. It was a favorite idea of the old poets that these goddesses would one day return and bring back the Golden Age. Even in a Christian hymn, “The Messiah” of the Pope, this idea occurs. All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail, Returning Justice lift aloft her scale, peace o’er the World her olive wand extend, and white-robed Innocence from Heaven descend. Meanwhile, now all was sea, sea without shore. Here and there an individual remained on a projecting hilltop, and a few, in boats, pulled the oar where they had lately driven the plough. The fishes swim among the treetops; the anchor of the ark was let down into a garden. Where the graceful lambs played, but now unwieldy sea calves’ gambol. The wolf swims among the sheep, the yellow lions and tigers struggle in the water. The strength of the wild boar serves him not, nor his swiftness the stag. The birds fall with weary wing into the water, having found no land for a resting place. These living beings whom the water spared fell a prey to hunger.  

Parnassus alone, of all the mountains, overtopped the waves; and there Deucalion, and his wife Pyrrha, of the race of Prometheus, found refuge—he a just man, and she a faithful worshipper of the gods. Jupiter, when he saw none left alive but this pair, and remembered their harmless lives and pious demeanor, ordered the North winds to drive away the clouds, and disclose the skies to Earth, and Earth to the skies. Neptune also directed Triton to blow on his shell and sound a retreat to the waters. The waters obeyed, and the sea returned to its shoes, and the rivers to their channels. Then Deucalion thus addressed Pyrrha: Oh, wife, only surviving woman, joined to me first by a common danger, would that we possessed the power of our ancestor Prometheus, and could renew the race as he made it. However, as we cannot, let us seek yonder temple, and inquire of the gods what remains for us to do. They entered the temple, deformed as it was with slime, and approached the altar, where no fire burned. There they fell on prostrate on the Earth and prayed the goddess to inform them how they might retrieve their miserable affairs.  

The oracle answered: Depart from the temple with head veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of your mother. They heard the words with astonishment. Pyrrha first broke silence: We cannot obey; we dare not profane the remains of our parents. They sought the thickest shades of the wood, and resolved the oracle in their minds. At length Deucalion spoke: Either my sagacity deceives me, or the command is one we may obey without impiety. The Earth is the great parent of all; the stones are her bones; these we may cast behind us; and I think this is what the oracle means. At least, it will do no harm to try. You noticed the children as not so quick to sale out their parents like Isaac so willingly did in Genesis 22.2. So Pyrrha and Deucalion veiled their faces, unbound their garments, and picked up stones, and cast them behind them. The stones (wonderful to relate) began to grow soft, and assume shape. By degrees, they put on a rude resemblance to human form, like a block half finished, in the hands of the sculptor. The moisture and slime that were about them became flesh; the stony part became bones; the veins remained veins, retaining their name, only changing their use. Those thrown by the hand of the man became men, and those by the women became women. It was a hard race, and well adapted to labor, as we find ourselves to be at this day, giving plain indications of our origin.  

The comparison of Eve to Pandora is too obvious to have escaped detection. More lovely than Pandora, whom the gods Endowed with all their gifts; and O, too like in sad event, when to the unwiser son of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged on him who had stole Jove’s authentic fire. Prometheus and Epimetheus were sons of Iapetus, which changes to Japhet. Prometheus has been a favorite subject with the poets. He is represented as the friend of mankind, who interposed in their behalf when Jove was incensed against them and who taught them civilization and the arts. However, as in doing so, he transgressed the will of Jupiter, he drew down on himself the anger of the ruler of gods and men. Jupiter had him chained to a rock on Mount Caucuses, where a vulture preyed on his liver, which was renewed as fast as devoured. This state of torment might have been brought to an end at any time by Prometheus, if he had been willing to submit to his oppressor; for he possessed a secret which involved the stability of Jove’s throne, and if he would have revealed it, he might have been at once taken into favor. However, that he disdained to do. He has therefore become the symbol of magnanimous endurance of unmerited suffering, and strength of will resisting oppression.  

Titan! To whose immortal eyes the suffering of mortality, seen in their sad reality, were not as things that gods despise, what was thy pity’s recompense? A silent suffering, and intense; the rock, the vulture, and the chain; all that the proud can feel of pain; the agony they do not show, the suffocating sense of woe. Thy godlike crime was to be kind; to render with the precepts less the sum of human wretchedness, and strengthen man with his own mind, and baffled as thou wert from high. Still, in the patient energy, in the endurance and repulse of thine impenetrable spirit, which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, a mighty lesson we inherit. Or, like the thief of fire from Heaven, Wilt thou withstand the shock? And share with him—the unforgiven—His vulture and his rock? After the last few chapters, I feel you are ready for more understanding, please watch “Queen of the Damned.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNXcXudqzv4