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September 20, 2019

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Global Multimedia and Multidisciplinary Cultural Organization Empowering and Inspiring Minds to Promote Social Change and Raise Consciousness
💙✨🌴🌈🌍🕊🧿

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐙𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

The power of visualization works hand in hand with the Law of Attraction. The idea is to visualize an image in your head; by consistent visualization of this image, it will be attracted to you.

You already do this, probably without realizing you do it! Whenever you focus on what might go wrong, things will go wrong and serve to reinforce a tendency to focus on what might go wrong… because it has, in the past, over and over!

But you can also take that immense creative power and use it for your benefit.

By keeping the idea of what you want on your mind, you will be more likely to do what it takes to make that dream a reality. You will also be more attuned to opportunities and the right people when you give your mind a powerful visual command.

What makes visualization so powerful?

How can using visualization to create your reality possibly happen?

You may have heard people say, “I can’t imagine (riding a 100 miles on my bike, performing on stage, painting a mural, etc. etc.). They are never, ever going to achieve these things because they are not capable of imagining themselves achieving them.

Everything that was ever created or achieved first started as an idea in someone’s mind. Usually in response to some need or some desire, an idea took hold and the person began focusing mental energy on it. The idea built on itself as the mental energy became infused with emotions. This created a massive desire and the person’s mind went into overdrive looking for ways to marry the vision with physical reality.

Ideas of “how” and “when” were generated based on that initial visualization… and this snowballed until… the chair you’re sitting on was designed built; the keyboard on your computer was designed and built; the music on your iPod was written, rehearsed and recorded; your favorite perfume or cologne was crafted…

Every idea you put on paper or read contains a mental image that is a composite of pictures, feelings, imagined sensory experiences, etc. In fact, your mind is creating images right now based on what you are reading here. Right now, you are visualizing! - MINDVALLEY @mindvalley 📸 @indg0

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐆

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐆𝐈𝐅𝐓

One of the greatest gifts we can offer people is to embody nonattachment and nonfear. This is a true teaching, more precious than money or material resources. Many of us are very afraid, and this fear distorts our lives and makes us unhappy. We cling to objects and to people like a drowning person clings to a floating log. .

Practicing to realize nondiscrimination, to see the interconnectedness and impermanence of all things, and to share this wisdom with others, we are giving the gift of nonfear. Everything is impermanent. This moment passes. That person walks away. Happiness is still possible.
- Thích Nhất Hạnh 📸 @profvhb

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame. - Brené Brown

Photographer 📸 Sugar McD @shooglet

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘

But the very question of whether photography is or is not an art is essentially a misleading one. Although photography generates works that can be called art --it requires subjectivity, it can lie, it gives aesthetic pleasure-- photography is not, to begin with, an art form at all. Like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made.

Out of language, one can make scientific discourse, bureaucratic memoranda, love letters, grocery lists, and Balzac's Paris. Out of photography, one can make passport pictures, weather photographs, pornographic pictures, X-rays, wedding pictures, and Atget's Paris. Photography is not an art like, say, painting and poetry. Although the activities of some photographers conform to the traditional notion of a fine art, the activity of exceptionally talented individuals producing discrete objects that have value in themselves, form the beginning photography has also lent itself to that notion of art which says that art is obsolete.

The power of photography --and its centrality in present aesthetic concerns-- is that it confirms both ideas of art. But the way in which photography renders art obsolete is, in the long run, stronger.
― Susan Sontag

Photographer 📸 Ed Freeman @edfreemanphoto

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐒

Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure?
Must you value what others value,
avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous!

Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don't care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.

Other people have what they need;
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have purpose;
I alone don't know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.

I am different from ordinary people.
I drink from the Great Mother's breasts.

- Lao-Tzu

📸 @poesiacomelos @pfacco

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐎

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅

Whether it’s your health, wealth, happiness, or any other element of your entire life experience, it is essential to keep in mind the importance of the movement of your attention. You must be obstinate and persistent in not allowing the viewpoints or information of others to alter your inner world. You know what you wish to become and what you would like to manifest for yourself.

Happiness isn’t some thing in the material world that can be acquired and stored and used when needed or wanted. If it were, I’d give you a lifetime supply that would guarantee a happy life. No—happiness is an attitude that comes from within you. It’s accessible when you place in your imagination an I am statement that reflects your attunement with the simple truth that happiness is indeed an inside job. Happiness is an inner belief that you bring to everyone and everything you undertake, rather than expecting your happiness to come to you from others or from your accomplishments and acquisitions. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.

Snatch a thought from the running ribbon of thoughts and contemplate it. As you toss it around, notice how you feel—sad, depressed, happy, frightened, and so on. Every thought going by has an imprint on your concept of yourself. First be the observer, and then the contemplator. Now become the choice maker who can consciously decide to put that thought back into the running stream and pick a different one, a thought that perhaps allows you to feel better.

In many ways you’ve been programmed to believe that you do not possess the wisdom or ability to manifest the fulfillment of your wishes and desires. - Wayne Dyer

📸 Dr Christian Thompson @christianthompsonartist

𝐌𝐔𝐗𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐎𝐀𝐗𝐀𝐂

𝐌𝐔𝐗𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐎𝐀𝐗𝐀𝐂𝐀 𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐂𝐎

This project began a decade ago when I started photographing my culture in the isthmus of Oaxaca, where I came from. I started documenting the daily life of muxes, attending their festivities, understanding their world, which led me to create a special relationship with them. Over the time, I went deeper into the muxe subject and it became part of my life and personal project.

The project became more and more a form of an introspective process, in which questions about my own identity intertwined with the images and experiences of the photographic sessions with the muxes. I began to develop a relationship of admiration and desire for the muxes. In each session, disturbing emotions began to emerge in myself. The images seemed to be born of deep emotional drives, and at the same time those images awoke feelings in a way that my own identity was in play.

More and more, the muxe series has become a mixture between a desire to merge to be one of them, to enjoy the same untimely and transgressive freedom, and the crush with her exaggerated notion of their feminine side, the tension between desire and rejection among them, but also to myself and my own sexual and cultural identity.

The muxes are part of me and my culture. They are beautiful and terrible; dual beings who, rather than defining themselves as homosexuals, have transcended the idea of gender to assume a totally new identity in a constant search for a notion of beauty. Two genres into one body.

During this journey my work has traveled through many aspects. The muxe has become a central project, covering different dimensions and moments of my life.

Gradually I have developed a free and specific aesthetic imagery, with a challenging attitude, and disquieting characters. I realized that I was finding something very special, and that made me feel happy. That has satisfied me, and until now, I have not been able to stop doing this project. - Nelson Morales

📸 @nelsonmoralesmx

𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐂𝐀𝐍'𝐓 𝐄𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐎𝐘 𝐁𝐈𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒?

The impact of the fast growing elderly population in Brazil for Brazilian families has been a source of much debate in scholarly literature. Many researchers have indicated the unpreparedness of public institutions, such as social security and health systems, to support fast ageing in Brazil. While others have focused on the psychosocial context of middle-aged and elderly women in a society that emphasises the need of eternal beauty and youth. By addressing the metabolic and hormonal alterations that bring changes to women’s lives, in addition to the social pressure of eternal beauty, Brazilian women face other challenges, such as the stereotyped social view about women’s roles in society, that is, wife and mother. This established social view “can interfere negatively in women’s view of themselves and in their relationship with people and the world”.

So how is getting old in a society that values youth? For some older women, it can be a liberating experience. Colleagues from a model course for senior citizens, they organized an act for freedom of the body: they dressed in bikinis and met on the beach. The protest drew the attention of the photographer, who was already researching the impacts of ageing and invited the women to pose for her project.

This photo essay aims to put into question established views about women by portraying ladies who are not young in bikinis. The Brazilian bikini is an icon of youth, sensuality and beauty; qualities which are not commonly associated with elderly women. However, in order to make women feel good about growing old, we should re-signify the meaning of ageing for women. This essay draws inspiration from an incident involving a well-known Brazilian actress Betty Faria. In 2013, she saw herself involved in a controversial debate on social networking sites because she wore a bikini at a beach in Rio de Janeiro. Once considered one of the sexiest female idols in Brazil, Faria was offended on social media by people who found an absurd a 72-year old woman wearing a bikini in public. - Simone Marinho @simonemarinho

📸 @simonemarinho

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘 : 𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈

Identity and social connection are driving forces in my life and work, and I have long been drawn to making photographic portraits in pursuit of a deeper understanding of these human experiences. Over the past fifteen years, my photographs have explored issues of gender, sexuality, identity, and community, shifting between an internally focused, subjective examination of myself and an outwardly focused, socially and politically motivated documentation of the LGBTQ community. These perspectives are inextricably linked; my personal identity as a queer person is inherently political, and the open portrayal of my body, experiences, and family creates a platform from which I can intimately engage with others.

Although my investigation surrounding identity was born out of personal experience, my focus has continually expanded outward, centering around the process through which we each come to know our authentic selves and the difficulties that arise when we assert those selves within constraining environments.

Formally, I use medium and large-format cameras, natural light, and a slow working method to combine a traditional style of photographing with contemporary subject matter. My work does not attempt to provide definitive answers; rather, it invites viewers to engage with others in an intimate, meaningful way, requiring them to reflect on their own identities in the process. - Jess T Dugan @jesstdugan

📸 @jesstdugan Self-portrait
with mom (2005-present)

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑

Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.

Don't look for peace. Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender
- Eckhart Tolle

📸 @jacobjonasthecompany A stunning series of Jacob Jonas’ project “Human Architecture” of nude bodies in natural environments taken in Malibu.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐀

It's been more than 30 years since Australia started interrogating its own problem with Indigenous deaths in custody, but it's an issue that often fails to command social or political attention.

Many of the recommendations from the 1987 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody were never implemented, and it's estimated hundreds more have died in custody since.

As Australians took to social media to denounce the events occurring in America, many Indigenous communities were left wondering where is the outcry for my family?

So does Australia have less empathy for its own deaths in custody? Or is the American influence so great that as a country we understand their race struggles better than our own?

In some ways Australia's criminalisation of its black citizens is even more pronounced than the United States, but we don't have music, movies and TV shows explaining it to us as regularly.

In the US, African Americans make up about 14 per cent of the population, and roughly 30 per cent of the country's inmates.

Indigenous Australians make up 3 per cent of the population and about 30 per cent of the prison population.

We lock up Indigenous Australians at four times the rate of black Americans. It's an even more jarring figure in the youth detention system, where about 50 per cent of all detainees are Indigenous.

It's a crude and imperfect comparison, but it still paints a picture of our justice system.

Kumanjayi Walker, a 19-year-old Walpiri man, had been allegedly shot and killed by a white police officer in his home in the remote community of Yuendumu, home to just 1000 people.

Hundreds travelled hours away from their home in the heart of Australia to sit in the Alice Springs town square and call for justice.

There is the added complexity that in Indigenous communities like this one, English isn't a first language and there's added cultural protocols about who can speak out on behalf of their people. - Isabella Higgins, ABC News Australia

📸 Aboriginal artist Rene Kulitja. Language: Pitjantjatjara. Her family are Pitjantjatjara and her Pitjantjatjara name is Wanuny. @renekulitja

𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐔𝐒 There is n

𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐔𝐒

There is no nutritional need for humans to eat any animal products; all of our dietary needs, even as infants and children, are best supplied by an animal-free diet.

Cows’ milk is suited to the nutritional needs of calves, who, unlike human babies, will double their weight in 47 days (as opposed to 180 days for humans), grow four stomachs, and weigh 1,100-1,200 pounds within two years. Cow’s milk contains about three times as much protein as human milk and almost 50 percent more fat.

The consumption of animal products has been conclusively linked to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and osteoporosis. Cholesterol (found only in animal products) and animal fat clog arteries, leading to heart attacks and strokes. The rate of many cancers—including colon, breast, cervical, uterine, ovarian, prostate, and lung—is highest in regions where meat consumption is high and lowest where meat-eating is uncommon. A study of more than 25,000 people found that vegetarians have a much lower risk of getting diabetes than meat-eaters. A South African study found not a single case of rheumatoid arthritis in a community of 800 people who ate no meat or dairy products.

There is no physical reason for humans to eat animal products. Cutting animal products from your diet is healthier for you, the animals, and the environment. Learn more about the health benefits of a plant-based diet at PCRM.org. - PETA @peta

Photographer 📸 @eliacplt

𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄

𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐈 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇 𝐒𝐔𝐃𝐀𝐍

The Mundari are friendly and enjoy being photographed. The dust and smoke intermingle to create and inimitable atmosphere. We arrived in the late afternoon when the light was soft and warm with long shadows. The tribe have all their wealth in their cattle and there are thousands of them. When young men of the tribe get married the dowry may be as much as 40 cattle. .

At night they sleep with their cattle to protect them and they carry Kalashnikovs to do so. Cattle rustling is commonplace and is a cause of conflict. The Ankoli Watusi cattle have the largest horns (perhaps a metre long in some cases) I have ever seen and the biggest of the cattle may be worth $500. During the day the cattle disperse from the banks of the Nile into the long grasses of the alluvial floodplain. They return at dusk instinctively.

Whilst they enjoyed having their photographs taken, they were always at work. We were a novelty to them and their reaction to us was welcoming. They collect the dung deposited overnight and spread it on the ground, some of it is used to coat the cattle horns with a veneer of manure. We watched as boys immersed their heads in the flow of fresh urine from the cattle. The outcome of this is to make use of a natural antiseptic and to change their hair colour to red or even bleached blonde!

The more you see, the more you realise that there is an inextricable bond between the tribe and their cattle. The way they lead them, rub ash into their skins, attend to their needs, use their milk, dung and urine. It is a symbiotic relationship where there is an understanding of the cattle which goes beyond normal animal husbandry. They take pride in their animals and the whole community of man and beast is interconnected. I have never seen anything like it. - Trevor Cole 📸 @trevcole

𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐘 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐍

𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐘 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑

Defining gender as a condition determined strictly by a person’s genitals is based on a notion that doctors and scientists abandoned long ago as oversimplified and often medically meaningless.

Researchers who have studied gender issues and provided health care to people who do not fit the typical M/F pigeonholes said that the Trump administration’s latest plan to define gender goes beyond the limits of scientific knowledge. “The idea that a person’s sex is determined by their anatomy at birth is not true, and we’ve known that it’s not true for decades,” said Dr. Joshua D. Safer, an endocrinologist and executive director of the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. He is also president of the United States Professional Association of Transgender Health.

But exactly what does determine gender identity — a person’s powerful, core knowledge of who they are — is not so clear. “We know that there is a significant, durable biological underpinning to gender identity,” Dr. Safer said. “What we don’t know are all of the biological factors at play that explain gender identity. As far as we in the mainstream biological-medical community understand it in 2018, it is hard-wired, it is biological, it is not entirely hormonal, and we do not have identified genes, so we cannot specifically say it is genetic.” - Denise Grady, The New York Times .

Photographer 📸 Mariette Pathy Allen @mariettepathyallenofficial

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃

I don’t like people who like me because I’m a Negro; neither do I like people who find in the same accident grounds for contempt. I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticise her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverised by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one’s own moral centre and move through the world hoping that this centre will guide one aright. I consider that I have many responsibilities, but none greater than this: to last, as Hemingway says, and get my work done. I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

The question I’m trying to raise is a very serious question. The mass media – television and all the major news agencies – endlessly use that word ‘looter’ … On television you always see black hands reaching in, you know. And so the American public concludes that these savages are trying to steal everything from us. And no one has seriously tried to get where the trouble is. After all, you’re accusing a captive population who has been robbed of everything of looting. I think it’s obscene.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.

I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain. - James Baldwin .

Photographer 📸 @jacobholdtofficial

𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 When a new day

𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄

When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.

When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.

When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.

When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.

When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.

When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.

When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going.

When times are tough, dare to be tougher.

When love hurts you, dare to love again.

When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.

When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.

When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.

When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.

When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.

When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.

Dare to be the best you can –

At all times, Dare to be!
- Steve Maraboli .

Photographer 📸 @ethanjamesgreen 👦🏻 @juandanceswild 👦🏾 @tyl000rd

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐔𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐅𝐔𝐄𝐋𝐒

The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. .

They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum. In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. .

This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we'll really get paradise in return? We've seen it on television.
- Yuval Noah Harari .

Photo 📸 Georgina Cranston. In December 2005 in southern Sudan, a boy drinks water from the Akuem River, near the village of Malual Kon in Bahr el Ghazal State. Only about one-third of the population has access to safe drinking water, and the threat of water-borne disease has increased as towns swell due to the return of displaced people and refugees following decades of civil war.

𝐅𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐀 𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐎 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓

It is recognised now that Freud never gave proper attention, even in man, to growth of the ego or self: 'the impulse to master, control or come to self-fulfilling terms with the environment'. Analysts who have freed themselves from Freud's bias and joined other behavioural scientists in studying the human need, and that interference with it, in any dimension, is the source of psychic trouble. .

The sexual is only one dimension of the human potential. Freud saw women only in terms of their sexual relationship with men. But in all those women in whom he saw sexual problems, there must have been very severe problems of blocked growth, growth short of full human identity -- an immature, incomplete self. .

Society as it was then, by explicit denial of education and independence, prevented women from realising their full potential, or from attaining those interests and ideals that might stimulated their growth. Freud reported these deficiencies, but could only explain them as the toll of 'penis envy'. He saw that women who secretly hungered to be man's equal would not enjoy being his object; and in this, he seemed to be describing a fact. But when he dismissed woman's yearning for equality as 'penis envy', was he not merely stating his own view that woman could never really be man's equal, any more than she could wear his penis?
- Betty Friedan 📸 @alexandravonfuerst

𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓

𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐀 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍

Eu Clandestina, insana, hostil, dose de cachaça, amor mandacaru, vencida.
Eu Clandestina, sangro em beco sem saída, flor coagulada, despedaçada, vezes, quase nunca chora.
Eu Clandestina, terço de uma das metades, pow, pow, pow, tiros, magoas apodrecidas, em-pretecidas, podres feridas, mulher invadida, prato sujo na pia, no horário de meio dia, puta que pariu 7 caminhos.
Eu clandestina, envelhecida, perdei a serventia depois de abortar relacionamentos vazios.
Autorretrato. - Helen Salomão @helesalomao .

Photo 📸 @helesalomao .

Why don’t we call menstruation by its name? Euphemisms serve a purpose. They give us words to talk about things that are considered culturally taboo. The impact of typical menstrual taboos is clear: they can lead to significant challenges in menstrual management, adverse reproductive health outcomes, social ostracization, disease, and even death.

Menstruation stigma is a form of misogyny. Negative taboos condition us to understand menstrual function as something to be hidden, something shameful. And by not naming a thing, we reinforce the idea that the thing should not be named. - Anna Druet, Clue

𝐍𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐎𝐅 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒

To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude. ( The sight of it as an object stimulates the use of it as an object.) Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguise. .

To be on display is to have the surface of one's own skin, the hairs of one's own body, turned into a disguise which, in that situation, can never be discarded. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.
- John Berger .

Photo 📸 Ramon Pereira @ Elle Model Brazil gets photographed by Attila Kiss for Coitus Online @coitusmagazine

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