Ordinary People: Rita Hayworth "The Love Goddess" & "One of the 100 Greatest Stars of All Time"

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Ordinary People: Rita Hayworth "The Love Goddess" & "One of the 100 Greatest Stars of All Time"

...."Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me." Rita Hayworth....

....In his book, In the Arena, Charlton Heston writes about Hayworth's brief marriage to Hill. One night Heston and his wife Lydia joined the couple for dinner at a restaurant in Spain with the director George Marshall and the actor Rex Harrison, Hayworth's co-star in The Happy Thieves. Heston wrote the occasion, "Turned into the single most embarrassing evening of my life," describing how Hill heaped, "Obscene abuse" on Hayworth until she was, "Reduced to a helpless flood of tears, her face buried in her hands." Heston writes how the others sat stunned, witnesses to a, "Marital massacre" and, though he was, "Strongly tempted to slug him" (Hill), he left with his wife Lydia after she stood up, almost in tears. Heston wrote, "I'm ashamed of walking away from Miss Hayworth's humiliation. I never saw her again.".....

....Hayworth was married and divorced five times. She said, "Basically, I am a good, gentle person, but I am attracted to mean personalities.".....

...."Featuring Rita Hayworth in her best-known performance, Gilda, released just after the end of WWII, draws much of its peculiar power from its mixture of genres and the way its characters interact with each other...Gilda was a cross between a hardcore noir adventure of the 1940s and the cycle of 'women's pictures.' Imbued with a modern perspective, the film is quite remarkable in the way it deals with sexual issues.".....

Rita Hayworth 

Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918 – May 14, 1987) was an American dancer and film actress who achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars.

Appearing first as Rita Cansino, she agreed to change her name to Rita Hayworth and her natural dark brown hair color to dark red to attract a greater range of roles. Her appeal led to her being featured on the cover of Life magazine five times, beginning in 1940.

Hayworth appeared in a total of 61 films over 37 years. She is one of six women who have the distinction of having danced on screen with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. She is listed by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 Greatest Stars of All Time.

Hayworth was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1918 as Margarita Carmen Cansino, the oldest child of two dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino, Sr., was from Castilleja de la Cuesta, a little town near Seville, Spain. Her mother, Volga Hayworth, was an American of Irish-English descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies. The Catholic couple had married in 1917. They also had two sons: Eduardo Jr. and Vernon Cansino.

Margarita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer, while her mother hoped she would become an actress. Her paternal grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was renowned as a Spanish classical dancer. He popularized the bolero and his dancing school in Madrid was world famous. Hayworth later recalled, "From the time I was three and a half... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons." She noted "I didn't like it very much... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood".

She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex, where she was taught by her uncle Angel Cansino. She performed publicly from the age of six. In 1926 at the age of eight, she was featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros.

In 1927, her father took the family to Hollywood. He believed that dancing could be featured in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio, where he taught such Hollywood luminaries as James Cagney and Jean Harlow. During the Great Depression, he lost all his investments, as musicals were no longer in vogue and commercial interest in his dancing classes waned.

He partnered with his daughter to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since under California law Margarita was too young to work in nightclubs and bars, her father took her with him to work across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. In the early 1930s, it was a popular tourist spot for people from Los Angeles. Due to her working Cansino never graduated from high school, but she had completed ninth grade at Hamilton High in Los Angeles.

Cansino (Hayworth) took a bit part in the film Cruz Diablo (1934) at age 16, which led to another in In Caliente (1935) with the Mexican actress, Dolores del Río. She danced with her father in such nightspots as the Foreign and the Caliente clubs. Winfield Sheehan, the head of the Fox Film Corporation, saw her dancing at the Caliente Club and quickly arranged for Hayworth to do a screen test a week later.

Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract at Fox, under the name Rita Cansino, the first of two name changes for her film career.

During her time at Fox, Hayworth appeared in five pictures in non-notable roles. By the end of her six-month contract, Fox had merged into 20th Century Fox, with Darryl F. Zanuck serving as the executive producer. Dismissing Sheehan's interest in Hayworth, Zanuck did not renew her contract. Feeling that she had screen potential, the salesman and promoter, Edward C. Judson, whom she would marry in 1936, got her the lead roles in several independent films and arranged a screen test with Columbia Pictures. The studio head Harry Cohn signed Hayworth to a long-term contract, and cast her in small roles in Columbia features.

Often cast as the exotic foreigner, Hayworth (Cansino) appeared in several roles in 1935: in Dante's Inferno with Spencer Tracy; and Paddy O'Day, in which she played a Russian dancer. She was an Argentinian in Under the Pampas Moon and an Egyptian beauty in Charlie Chan in Egypt. In 1936, she took her first starring role as a "Latin type" in Human Cargo.

Cohn argued that Hayworth's image was too Mediterranean, which reduced her opportunities to being cast in "exotic" roles, more limited in number. With Cohn and Judson's encouragement, Hayworth changed her hair color to dark red and her name to Rita Hayworth. By using her mother's maiden name, she led people to see her British-American ancestry and became a classic "American" pin-up.

Hayworth appeared in five minor Columbia pictures and three minor independent movies in 1937. The following year she appeared in five Columbia B movies. In 1939, Cohn pressured director Howard Hawks to use Hayworth for a small but important role as a man-trap in the aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings, in which she played opposite Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. With this film's box-office success, fan mail for Hayworth began pouring into Columbia's publicity department. Cohn began to see Hayworth as his first and official new star. The studio never officially had stars under contract, except for Jean Arthur, who was trying to break with it.

Cohn began to build Hayworth up in 1940 in features such as Music in My Heart, The Lady in Question and Angels Over Broadway. That year, she was first featured in a Life magazine photo. He loaned Hayworth to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to appear in Susan and God opposite Joan Crawford. While on loan to Warner Bros., Hayworth appeared as the second female lead in The Strawberry Blonde (1941) opposite James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland.

As the film was a big box-office success, Hayworth's popularity rose; she immediately became one of Hollywood's hottest properties. So impressed was Warner Bros. that they tried to buy Hayworth's contract from Columbia, but Cohn refused to release her.

Her success led to a supporting role in Blood and Sand (1941) opposite Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell with Fox, the studio that had dropped her six years before. In one of her most notable screen roles, Hayworth played Doña Sol des Muire, the first of many screen sirens.

She returned in triumph to Columbia Pictures and was cast in the musical You'll Never Get Rich (1941) opposite Fred Astaire in one of the highest-budgeted films Columbia had ever made. The picture was so successful that the following year the studio produced and released another Astaire-Hayworth picture, You Were Never Lovelier. In 1942, Hayworth also appeared in two other pictures, Tales of Manhattan and My Gal Sal.

During this period, Hayworth was featured in an August 1941 Life magazine photo in which she lounged seductively in a black-lace negligee. When the United States joined World War II in December 1941, the photo made Hayworth one of the top two "pin-up girls" of the war years; the other was the blonde Betty Grable. In 2002, the satin nightgown Hayworth wore for the photo sold for $26,888.

Peak years at Columbia

In 1944, Hayworth made one of her best-known films, the Technicolor musical Cover Girl (1944) with Gene Kelly. The film established her as Columbia's top star of the 1940s. For three consecutive years, starting in 1944, Hayworth was named one of the top movie box office attractions in the world. She was adept in ballet, tap, ballroom, and Spanish routines.

Cohn continued to showcase Hayworth's dance talents; she was the first dancer featured on film to partner with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Columbia featured her in the Technicolor films: Tonight and Every Night (1945) with Lee Bowman; and Down to Earth (1947) with Larry Parks.

Her erotic appeal was most noted in Charles Vidor's black and white film noir Gilda (1946) with Glenn Ford, which caused censors some consternation. The role, in which Hayworth wore black satin and performed a legendary one-glove striptease, made her into a cultural icon as a femme fatale. While her film was still in release, extensive publicity linked her to a widely covered nuclear bomb test in the South Pacific.

Numerous reporters from hundreds of papers across the country were covering preparations in 1946 at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean's Marshall Islands for testing of the first nuclear bomb after World War II. The United States had been the first nation to use nuclear bombs, against the civilian population of Japan. Reporters publicized that young scientists had put the name of "Gilda" and Hayworth's image on the bomb, alluding to her bombshell status as a film star. Coverage varied widely at the time, but the story stuck that her image had been put on the bomb, and was repeated in her 1987 obituary in The New York Times, which readers relied on as fact.

Her husband at the time, Orson Welles, issued a public statement, saying they would be pleased only if this were the last bomb test ever. Hayworth was furious to be used in this way.

Her biographer Barbara Leaming had a later interview with Welles in which he recalled,
...the angriest was when she found out that they'd put her on the atom bomb. Rita almost went insane, she was so angry. She was so shocked by it! Rita was the kind of person that kind of thing would hurt more than anybody. She wanted to go to Washington to hold a press conference, but Harry Cohn (president of Columbia Pictures) wouldn't let her because it would be unpatriotic.

Recent research documents that only the name "Gilda" was put on the bomb; no image of Hayworth was used.

A year later, Hayworth's performance in The Lady from Shanghai (1947) directed by Orson Welles was critically acclaimed. The film's failure at the box office was attributed in part to Welles' having had Hayworth's famous red hair cut short and dyed platinum blonde for the role. Cohn had not been consulted and was furious that Hayworth's image was changed.

Also in 1947, Hayworth was featured in a Life cover story by Winthrop Sargeant, which led to her nickname as "The Love Goddess".

This term was adopted and used later as the title of a biopic and of a biography about her. In a 1980s interview Hayworth said, "Everybody else does nude scenes, but I don't. I never made nude movies. I didn't have to do that. I danced. I was provocative, I guess, in some things. But I was not completely exposed."

Her next film, The Loves of Carmen (1948) with Glenn Ford, was the first film co-produced by Columbia and Hayworth's production company, The Beckworth Corporation (named for Rebecca, her daughter with Welles). It was Columbia's biggest moneymaker that year. She received a percentage of the profits from this and all her subsequent films until 1954, when she dissolved Beckworth to pay off debts.

The Hollywood princess

In 1948, at the height of her fame, Hayworth traveled to Cannes and was introduced to Prince Aly Khan. They began a year-long courtship, and they were married on May 27, 1949. Hayworth left Hollywood and sailed for France, breaking her contract with Columbia.

As Hayworth was already one of the most well-known celebrities in the world, the courtship and the wedding received enormous press coverage around the world. Because she was still legally married to second husband Orson Welles, Hayworth also received some negative backlash for her courtship with the prince, causing some American fans to boycott her pictures. The wedding marked the first time a Hollywood actress became a princess. On December 27, 1949, Hayworth gave birth to the couple's only daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan.

Though Hayworth was anxious to start a new life abroad away from Hollywood, Aly Khan's flamboyant lifestyle and duties proved too difficult for Hayworth. She did not get along with his friends, and she struggled to learn French. Aly Khan was also known in circles as a playboy, and it was suspected that he had been unfaithful to Hayworth during the marriage.

In 1951, Hayworth set sail with her two daughters back to New York. Although the couple did reconcile for a short time, they officially divorced by 1953.

Returning to Columbia

After the collapse of her marriage to Aly Khan, Hayworth was forced to return to Hollywood to star in her "comeback" picture, Affair in Trinidad (1952) with Glenn Ford. Director Vincent Sherman recalled that Hayworth seemed "rather frightened at the approach of doing another picture". She continued to clash with Columbia boss Harry Cohn, and was placed on suspension during filming. Nevertheless, the picture was highly publicized. The picture ended up grossing $1 million more than her previous blockbuster, Gilda (1946).

She continued to star in a string of successful pictures. In 1953, she had two films released: Salome with Charles Laughton and Stewart Granger; and Miss Sadie Thompson with José Ferrer and Aldo Ray. Her performance in the latter film won critical acclaim.

She was off the big screen for another four years, due mainly to a tumultuous marriage to the singer Dick Haymes. During her marriage to Haymes, she was involved in much negative publicity, which significantly lessened her appeal. By the time she returned to the screen for Fire Down Below (1957) with Robert Mitchum and Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak had become Columbia's top female star. Her last musical was Pal Joey (1957) with Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak. After this film, Hayworth left Columbia for good.

She received good reviews for her acting in Separate Tables (1958), with Burt Lancaster and David Niven, and The Story on Page One (1960) with Anthony Franciosa. She continued working throughout the 1960s. In 1962, her planned Broadway debut in Step on a Crack was cancelled for undisclosed health reasons. She continued to act in films until the early 1970s. She made a well-publicized 1971 television appearance on The Carol Burnett Show. Her last film was The Wrath of God (1972).

Struggles with Columbia Pictures

Hayworth had a strained relationship with Columbia Pictures for many years. In 1943, she was suspended without pay for nine weeks because she refused to appear in Once Upon a Time. (During this period in Hollywood, actors did not get to choose their films; they were on salary rather than receiving a fixed amount per picture.)

In 1947, Hayworth's new contract with Columbia provided a salary of US$250,000 plus 50% of film profits. In 1951 Columbia alleged it had $800,000 invested in properties for her, including the film she walked out on that year. She left Hollywood to marry Prince Aly Khan. She was suspended for failing to report to work on the film Affair in Trinidad.

In 1952, she refused to report for work because "she objected to the script." In 1955, she sued to get out of a contract with the studio, but asked for her $150,000 salary, alleging filming failed to start when agreed. She said,

I was in Switzerland when they sent me the script for Affair in Trinidad and I threw it across the room. But I did the picture, and Pal Joey too. I came back to Columbia because I wanted to work and first, see, I had to finish that goddamn contract, which is how Harry Cohn owned me!" "Harry Cohn thought of me as one of the people he could exploit," said Hayworth, "and make a lot of money. And I did make a lot of money for him, but not much for me.

Years after her film career had ended and Cohn was dead, Hayworth still resented her treatment by him and Columbia.

I used to have to punch a time clock at Columbia ... Every day of my life. That's what it was like. I was under exclusive contract, like they owned me ... I think he had my dressing room bugged ... He was very possessive of me as a person, he didn't want me to go out with anybody, have any friends. No one can live that way. So I fought him ... You want to know what I think of Harry Cohn? He was a monster.

Hayworth resented that the studio failed to train her to sing or to encourage her to learn how to sing. Although she appeared to sing in many of her films, she was usually dubbed. As the public did not know the secret, she was embarrassed to be asked to sing by troops at USO shows. She complained that:

I wanted to study singing, but Harry Cohn kept saying, 'Who needs it?' and the studio wouldn't pay for it. They had me so intimidated that I couldn't have done it anyway. They always said, 'Oh, no, we can't let you do it. There's no time for that; it has to be done right now!' I was under contract, and that was it.

Cohn had a reputation as a taskmaster, but he had his own criticisms of Hayworth. He had invested heavily in her before she began a reckless affair with the married Aly Khan, and it could have caused a backlash against her career and Columbia's success. For instance, an article in the British periodical The People called for a boycott of Hayworth's films. It said, "Hollywood must be told its already tarnished reputation will sink to rock bottom if it restores this reckless woman to a place among its stars." Cohn expressed his frustration with Hayworth's judgment in an interview with Time magazine.

Hayworth might be worth ten million dollars today easily! She owned 25% of the profits with her own company and had hit after hit and she had to get married and had to get out of the business and took a suspension because she fell in love again! In five years, at two pictures a year, at 25%! Think of what she could have made! But she didn't make pictures! She took two or three suspensions! She got mixed up with different characters! Unpredictable!

Personal life
Marriages and family

In 1941, Hayworth said she was the antithesis of the characters she played. "I naturally am very shy ... and I suffer from an inferiority complex." She once complained, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me." In 1970, she remarked that the only films she could watch without laughing were the dance musicals she made with Fred Astaire. "I guess the only jewels of my life," Hayworth said, "were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire."

Hayworth's two younger brothers, Vernon and Eduardo Cansino, Jr., both served in World War II. Vernon left the United States Army in 1946 with several medals, including the Purple Heart, and later married Susan Vail, a dancer.

Eduardo Cansino, Jr. followed Hayworth into acting; he was also under contract with Columbia Pictures. In 1950, he made his screen debut in Magic Carpet.

Hayworth was married and divorced five times. She said, "Basically, I am a good, gentle person, but I am attracted to mean personalities."

Edward Charles Judson

In 1937, when Hayworth was 18, she married Edward Judson, an oilman turned promoter who was more than twice her age. They married in Las Vegas. He had played a major role in launching her acting career. A shrewd businessman, he was domineering and became her manager for months before he proposed. "He helped me with my career," Hayworth conceded after they divorced, "and helped himself to my money."

She alleged Judson compelled her to transfer considerable property to him and promise to pay him $12,000 under threats that he would do her "great bodily harm." She filed for divorce from him on February 24, 1942, with the complaint of cruelty. She noted to the press his work took him to Oklahoma and Texas while she lived and worked in Hollywood. Judson was as old as her father, who was enraged by the marriage, which caused a rift between Hayworth and her parents until the divorce.

Judson had failed to tell Hayworth before they married he had previously been twice married. When she left him, she literally had no money—she asked her friend Hermes Pan if she could eat at his home.

Orson Welles

Hayworth married Orson Welles on September 7, 1943. None of her colleagues knew about the planned wedding (before a judge) until she announced it the day before. For the civil ceremony, she wore a beige suit, ruffled white blouse, and a veil. A few hours after they got married, they returned to work at the studio. They had a daughter, Rebecca, born December 17, 1944, died June 1, 2004, aged 59.

They struggled in their marriage. Hayworth said that Welles did not want to be tied down:

During the entire period of our marriage, he showed no interest in establishing a home. When I suggested purchasing a home, he told me he didn't want the responsibility. Mr. Welles told me he never should have married in the first place; that it interfered with his freedom in his way of life.

Hayworth filed for divorce in 1948.

Prince Aly Khan

In 1948, Hayworth left her film career to marry Prince Aly Khan, a son of Sultan Mahommed Shah, Aga Khan III, the leader of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam. They were married on May 27, 1949. Her bridal trousseau had been influenced by Dior's "New Look", launched in 1947.

Aly Khan and his family were heavily involved in horse racing, owning and racing horses. Hayworth had no interest in the sport, but became a member of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club anyway. Her filly, Double Rose, won several races in France and finished second in the 1949 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

In 1951, while still married to Hayworth, Khan was spotted dancing with the actress, Joan Fontaine, in the nightclub where he and his wife had met. Hayworth threatened to divorce him in Reno, Nevada. In early May, Hayworth moved to Nevada to establish legal residence to qualify for a divorce. She stayed at Lake Tahoe with their daughter, saying there was a threat the child would be kidnapped. Hayworth filed for divorce from Khan on September 2, 1951, on the grounds of "extreme cruelty, entirely mental in nature."

Hayworth once said she might convert to Islam, but did not. During the custody fight over their daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, born December 26, 1949, the Prince said he wanted her raised as a Muslim; Hayworth (who had been raised a Roman Catholic) wanted the child to be a Christian.

Hayworth rejected his offer of $1,000,000 if she would rear Yasmin as a Muslim from age seven and allow her to go to Europe to visit with him for two or three months each year.

"Nothing will make me give up Yasmin's chance to live here in America among our precious freedoms and habits," declared Hayworth. "While I respect the Muslim faith and all other faiths it is my earnest wish that my daughter be raised as a normal, healthy American girl in the Christian faith. There isn't any amount of money in the entire world for which it is worth sacrificing this child's privilege of living as a normal Christian girl here in the United States. There just isn't anything else in the world that can compare with her sacred chance to do that. And I'm going to give it to Yasmin regardless of what it costs."

Dick Haymes

When Hayworth and Dick Haymes first met, he was still married and his singing career was waning. When she showed up at the clubs, he got a larger audience. Haymes was desperate for money, as two of his former wives were taking legal action against him for unpaid child support. His financial problems were so bad he could not return to California without being arrested.

On July 7, 1954, his ex-wife Nora Haymes got a bench warrant for his arrest, because he owed her $3,800 in alimony. Less than a week prior, his other ex-wife, Joanne Dru, also got a bench warrant because she said he owed $4,800 in support payments for their three children. Hayworth ended up paying most of Haymes's debts.

Haymes was born in Argentina, and did not have solid proof of American citizenship. Not long after he met Hayworth, US officials initiated proceedings to have him deported to Argentina for being an illegal alien. He hoped Hayworth could influence the government and keep him in the United States.

When she assumed responsibility for his citizenship, a bond was formed that led to marriage. The two were married on September 24, 1953 at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas, and their wedding procession went through the casino.

From the start of their marriage, Haymes was deeply indebted to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). When Hayworth took time off from attending his comeback performances in Philadelphia, the audiences sharply declined.

Haymes's $5000 weekly salary was attached by the IRS to pay a $100,000 bill, and he was unable to pay his pianist. Haymes' ex-wives demanded money while Hayworth publicly bemoaned her own lack of alimony from Aly Khan. At one point, the couple was effectively imprisoned in a hotel room for 24 hours in Manhattan at the Hotel Madison as sheriff's deputies waited outside threatening to arrest Haymes for outstanding debts.

At the same time, Hayworth was fighting a severe custody battle with Khan, during which she reported death threats against their children. While living in New York, Hayworth sent the children to live with their nanny in Westchester County. They were found and photographed by a reporter from Confidential magazine.

After a tumultuous two years together, Haymes struck Hayworth in the face in 1955 in public at the Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles. Hayworth packed her bags, walked out, and never returned. The assault and crisis shook her, and her doctor ordered her to remain in bed for several days.

Hayworth was short of money after her marriage to Haymes. She had failed to gain child support from Aly Khan. She sued Orson Welles for back payment of child support which she claimed had never been paid. This effort was unsuccessful and added to her stress.

James Hill

Hayworth began a relationship with film producer James Hill, whom she went on to marry on February 2, 1958. He put her in one of her last major films, Separate Tables. On September 1, 1961, Hayworth filed for divorce, alleging extreme mental cruelty. He later wrote Rita Hayworth: A Memoir, in which he suggested their marriage collapsed because he wanted Hayworth to continue making movies, while she wanted them both to retire from Hollywood.

In his book, In the Arena, Charlton Heston writes about Hayworth's brief marriage to Hill. One night Heston and his wife Lydia joined the couple for dinner at a restaurant in Spain with the director George Marshall and the actor Rex Harrison, Hayworth's co-star in The Happy Thieves. Heston wrote the occasion, "Turned into the single most embarrassing evening of my life," describing how Hill heaped, "Obscene abuse" on Hayworth until she was, "Reduced to a helpless flood of tears, her face buried in her hands." Heston writes how the others sat stunned, witnesses to a, "Marital massacre" and, though he was, "Strongly tempted to slug him" (Hill), he left with his wife Lydia after she stood up, almost in tears. Heston wrote, "I'm ashamed of walking away from Miss Hayworth's humiliation. I never saw her again."

Beauty

Hayworth was a top glamour girl in the 1940s, a pin-up girl for military servicemen and a beauty icon for women. At 5'6" (168 cm) and 120 lb (55 kgs), she was tall enough to be a concern for dancing partners such as Fred Astaire. Hayworth got her big motion picture break because she was willing to change her hair color, whereas other actresses were not. She reportedly changed her hair color eight times in eight movies.

In 1949, Hayworth's lips were voted best in the world by the Artists League of America. She had a modeling contract with Max Factor to promote its Tru-Color lipsticks and Pan-Stik make-up.

Barbara Leaming writes in her biography of Hayworth, If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth (1989) that due to her addiction to alcohol and the stresses of her life she aged before her time.

Reappearing in New York in 1956 to begin work on her first film in three years, Hayworth was described by the following: "Despite the artfully applied make-up and shoulder-length red hair, there was no concealing the ravages of drink and stress. Deep lines had crept around her eyes and mouth, and she appeared worn, exhausted, older than her thirty-eight years."

Leaming wrote that during the filming of Fire Down Below, Hayworth heard a comment that she should hurry up as, "No amount of time was going to make her look any younger." In San Francisco the following year filming Pal Joey, she was signing autographs when she heard a fan say, "She looks so old."

Health problems

Hayworth struggled with alcohol throughout her life. Her daughter Yasmin Aga Khan said,

"I remember as a child that she had a drinking problem. She had difficulty coping with the ups and downs of the business ... As a child, I thought, 'She has a drinking problem and she's an alcoholic.' That was very clear and I thought, 'Well, there's not much I can do. I can just, sort of, stand by and watch.' It's very difficult, seeing your mother, going through her emotional problems and drinking and then behaving in that manner ... Her condition became quite bad. It worsened and she did have an alcoholic breakdown and landed in the hospital."

In 1972, Hayworth was 54 years old and wanted to retire from acting, but she needed money and so signed up for The Wrath of God. The experience exposed her poor health and worsening mental state. As she could not remember lines, they filmed her scenes one line at a time.

The following year, Hayworth agreed to do one more movie, the British Tales That Witness Madness (1973). Due to worsening health, she abandoned the movie set, and returned to the United States. She never returned to acting.

In March 1974, both her brothers died within a week of each other, which caused her great sadness and led to heavy drinking. In 1976 at London's Heathrow Airport, Hayworth was removed from a TWA flight after having an angry outburst while traveling with her agent. "Miss Hayworth had been drinking when she boarded the plane," revealed a TWA flight attendant, "and had several free drinks during the flight." The event attracted much negative publicity; a disturbing photograph was published in newspapers.

Hayworth's alcoholism hid symptoms of what was eventually understood to be Alzheimer's disease. "For several years in the 1970s, she had been misdiagnosed as an alcoholic." "It was the outbursts," said her daughter. "She'd fly into a rage. I can't tell you. I thought it was alcoholism-alcoholic dementia. We all thought that. The papers picked that up, of course. You can't imagine the relief just in getting a diagnosis. We had a name at last, Alzheimer's! Of course, that didn't really come until the last seven or eight years. She wasn't diagnosed as having Alzheimer's until 1980. There were two decades of hell before that."

In July 1981, Hayworth's health had deteriorated to the point where a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that she should be placed under the care of her daughter, Princess Yasmin Khan of New York City. Hayworth lived in an apartment at The San Remo on Central Park West next to her daughter, who arranged for care for her mother through her final years.

Death

Hayworth's grave at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California
Rita Hayworth lapsed into a semicoma in February 1987. She died at age 68 from Alzheimer's disease a few months later on May 14, 1987. A funeral service was held on May 19, 1987, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.

Pallbearers included actors Ricardo Montalbán, Glenn Ford, Don Ameche, agent Budd Burton Moss, and the choreographer Hermes Pan. She was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City. Her headstone includes the inscription: "To yesterday's companionship and tomorrow's reunion."

"Rita Hayworth was one of our country's most beloved stars", said President Ronald Reagan, who had been an actor at the same time as Hayworth.
"Glamorous and talented, she gave us many wonderful moments on stage and screen and delighted audiences from the time she was a young girl. In her later years, Rita became known for her struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Her courage and candor, and that of her family, were a great public service in bringing worldwide attention to a disease which we all hope will soon be cured. Nancy and I are saddened by Rita's death. She was a friend who we will miss. We extend our deep sympathy to her family."

Awards

1964: Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama in Circus World (1964)

1977: National Screen Heritage Award.

Hayworth is included as one of the American Film Institute's Greatest Stars of All Time.

Legacy

A fund raiser for the Alzheimer's Association is named in her honor by her daughter, Yasmin Aga Khan, who has been the hostess for these events and a major sponsor of Alzheimer's Disease charities and awareness programs.

The film I Remember Better When I Paint (2009) describes how Hayworth took up painting while struggling with Alzheimer's and produced art.

Lynda Carter portrayed Hayworth in the television movie Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess (1983).

In the movie Beat the Devil (1953), starring Humphrey Bogart, he tells the Sheik that he knows Rita Hayworth very well, and that he would introduce him to her. The Sheik has pictures of Rita Hayworth all over the wall behind him and Humphrey Bogart, and she is the Sheik's idol.

Actress Veronica Watt portrayed her in the film Hollywoodland (2006).

Hayworth's pin-up poster is portrayed in Stephen King's novel Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (1982), and was later brought to the screen in the film The Shawshank Redemption (1994) directed by Frank Darabont (which itself features a videoclip of Hayworth in Gilda, shown as a film the prisoners are watching).

Rita Hayworth Quotes 

I've had a lot of unhappiness in my life — and a lot of happiness. Who doesn't? Maybe I've learned enough to be able to guide my daughters.

Movies were much better in the days when I was doing them.

I'm an afternoon person.

Just because I was married to Aly Khan, people think I'm rich. Well, I'm not. I never got a dime from Aly or from any of my husbands.

Dancing in Tijuana when I was 13 — that was my 'summer camp.' How else do you think I could keep up with Fred Astaire when I was 19?

Wikipedia

Rita Hayworth. The Love Goddess (Artwork) 

Amera Ziganii Rao © Digital Darkroom Art

Thank you to outside source for original

Gilda 

Gilda is a 1946 American black-and-white film noir directed by Charles Vidor. It stars Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth in her signature role as the ultimate femme fatale. The film was noted for cinematographer Rudolph Mate's lush photography, costume designer Jean Louis' wardrobe for Hayworth (particularly for the dance numbers), and choreographer Jack Cole's staging of "Put the Blame on Mame" and "Amado Mio", sung by Anita Ellis.

The film's plot is continually narrated by Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford), a small-time American gambler newly arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When he wins a lot of money cheating at craps, he has to be rescued from a robbery attempt by a complete stranger, Ballin Mundson (George Macready). Mundson tells him about an illegal high-class casino, but warns him not to practice his skills there. Farrell ignores his advice, cheats at blackjack, and is taken by two men to see the casino's owner, who turns out to be Mundson. Farrell talks Mundson into hiring him and quickly gains his confidence. However, the unimpressed washroom attendant, Uncle Pio (Steven Geray), keeps calling him "peasant".

One day, Mundson returns from a trip with a beautiful and spirited new wife, Gilda (Rita Hayworth). It is immediately apparent that Johnny and Gilda have a history together, though both deny it when Mundson questions them. Johnny visits Gilda alone in the bedroom she shares with her husband, and the two have an explosive confrontation that elucidates both their past romantic relationship, which ended badly, and their love–hate dynamic.

While it is unclear just how much Mundson knows of Gilda and Johnny's past relationship, he appears to be in ignorance when he assigns Farrell to keep an eye on Gilda. Johnny and Gilda are both consumed with their hatred of each other, as Gilda cavorts with men at all hours in increasingly more blatant efforts to enrage Johnny, and he grows more abusive and spiteful in his treatment of her.

Meanwhile, Mundson is visited by two German businessmen. Their secret organization had financed a tungsten cartel, with everything put in Mundson's name to hide their connection to it. However, when they decide it is safe to take over, Mundson refuses to transfer ownership to his backers. The Argentine secret police are interested in the Germans; government agent Obregon (Joseph Calleia) introduces himself to Farrell to try to obtain information, but the American knows nothing about that aspect of Mundson's operations. When the Germans return later, Mundson shoots and kills one of them.

That same night, at Mundson's house, Farrell and Gilda have another hostile confrontation, which begins with them angrily declaring their hate for each other, and ends with them passionately kissing. Mundson arrives at that moment, then flees to a waiting airplane. Farrell and Obregon witness its short flight; the plane explodes shortly after takeoff and plummets into the ocean. However, Mundson has parachuted to safety, thus faking his death.

With Mundson apparently dead, Gilda inherits his estate. Gilda and Johnny marry, but while Gilda married him for love, Johnny has married her to punish them both for their mutual betrayal of Mundson. He stays away, but has her guarded day and night out of contempt for her and loyalty to Mundson. Gilda tries to escape the tortured marriage a number of times (including one especially memorable and oft-imitated sequence where she tries to humiliate Johnny into setting her free by performing a striptease for a room full of male patrons), but Johnny is ultimately able to thwart every attempt, determined to keep her trapped in the relationship that has become a prison for them both. Finally, Obregon tells Farrell that Gilda was never truly unfaithful to Mundson or to him, prompting Farrell to try to reconcile with her.

At that moment, Mundson reappears, armed with a gun. He faked his death to deceive the Nazis. Mundson tells them he will have to kill them both, but Uncle Pio manages to fatally stab him in the back. Obregon shows up, and Johnny tries to take the blame for the murder. Uncle Pio finally credits Johnny for being a true gentleman, while insisting that he had killed Mundson. Obregon reminds them both that Mundson had technically died months before, but there is also such a thing as justifiable homicide. Farrell gives Obregon the incriminating documents from Mundson's safe, and the police confiscate the estate for the government.

Farrell and Gilda finally reconcile and confess their mutual love, and apologize for the many emotional wounds they have inflicted on each another.

When first released, the staff at Variety magazine liked the film and wrote, "Hayworth is photographed most beguilingly. The producers have created nothing subtle in the projection of her s.a. [sex appeal], and that's probably been wise. Glenn Ford is the vis-a-vis, in his first picture part in several years...Gilda is obviously an expensive production—and shows it. The direction is static, but that's more the fault of the writers."

More recently, Emanuel Levy wrote a positive review: "Featuring Rita Hayworth in her best-known performance, Gilda, released just after the end of WWII, draws much of its peculiar power from its mixture of genres and the way its characters interact with each other...Gilda was a cross between a hardcore noir adventure of the 1940s and the cycle of 'women's pictures.' Imbued with a modern perspective, the film is quite remarkable in the way it deals with sexual issues."

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 96% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on twenty-five reviews. The film was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival, the first time the festival was held.

Wikipedia

Creator. Disturber. A Self Portrait. Amera Ziganii Rao Photography  

AMERA ZIGANII RAO

A PROFILE  

FEMINIST AND HUMAN RIGHTS, METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHER. WRITER. MENTALIST AND ARTIST

AMERA ZIGANII RAO ALCHEMY & LIBERATION & HUMANITY™

The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™

The Super Sacred Brother Lover™

The Return To The Source. Ascension.

The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™. When we were giants. All of us. When you did more than rape me.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Neo Feminist™, Post Tribe Social Reformer™ and Sacred Sexualist™. Human Rights Healer. Metaphysical Philosopher, Writer, Spiritual Intelligence Teacher, Hierophant (Interpreter of The Universe) and Mentalist Self Actualiser.

I can help you grow power, from nothing.

Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

The Sacred Whore High Priestess Hierophant™ and Sacred Pimp Warrior Protector, Brother Lover™ Society. The kings and queens of old. Angels and Sorcerers together in each of themselves and in the other. The Wizard life. Forever. Living and loving from The Source. Sourcery, Carlos Castaneda first said. I'll say it again. Sourcerers together. Living a life worth living. At last.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Witches are healers. Witches are the Love Healers and SOURCErers of The Lost World, when we were the giant warriors. We were good and so were were you. 'The World of Men'. The Tribe of Misogyny and Bourgeois™.

Gives us all a bad name. And poisons all hearts.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Feminist Lolita Intellectuals™. You lucky man. A place at the table, a place at the Executive Table. That's all. The rest is easy.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: APPLIED CONSCIOUSNESS™, NEO FEMINISM™, METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY & SACRED SEXUALISM™. POST TRIBE SOCIAL REFORM™. POWER IS THE NEW LOVE. FREEDOM + HOPELESSNESS + SEX. NIHILISM FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIFE™ THE LOST KNOWLEDGE™ THE WIZARDRY OF BEING™ POLITICAL SPIRITUALITY™ TRUE NEW LOVE. BEYOND THE REVOLUTION™

SOCIAL REFORM. THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND LOVE. SHAMANISM. PHILOSOPHY. TRUE (UNIVERSAL) LOVE. NEO FEMINISM™. ANTI MISOGYNY. THE ARTIST'S WAY. WIZARDRY. TRUE INTELLECTUALISM™. WISDOM. GONZO SPIRITUALITY. NIHILISM. SEX. SOUL. GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE™. SPIRITUAL EXISTENTIALISM™. THE VOID OF CREATION™. ALCHEMY & LIBERATION & HUMANITY™. HELL. SUFFERING. GROWTH. ASCENSION. LOVE. LIFE. DEATH. WARLORDS OF LIGHT™ TRUE LOVE & TRUE SEX. THE POST TRIBE SOCIETY™

The Company.

Writer, Speaker and Enlightener, Amera Ziganii Rao, is now putting together a comprehensive and unique programme of Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™. A programme of learning that is specifically about one particular kind of woman. And one particular kind of man. The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the true society that they come from and the one they, in particular, she can and has to return to and that anyone can join her and him in. This is about Paradise on Earth.

This is about The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity that is for all as a result of their healing and in particular, hers. This is about the kind of woman who is at the bottom of the pile in a Patriarchal Toilet Tribe from Hell Society™, the norm, the conventional world and the world of the Tribe. This is about the kind of man who is next in line from the bottom. The sensitive man and the female chattel. The High Priestess and High Priest of a profane society, that has long forgotten who they are.

This is about being at the bottom of the pile, for the forgotten and strangled shamans, and for her, the story of escape. Abused by her family, her friends, her men, her whole society, by the very nature of who she is and who they are and what has happened on this Earth. It is about women of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about men of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about the Cinderellas of this world. It is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™. Who she is and how, loving her is the secret to Paradise on Earth and how we have been living a lie for 8000+ years. A lie of male (non High Priest) religion with a male ‘God’ and with Patriarchs and Patriarchal types and Matriarchs and Matriarchal types ruling over us and making our lives hell, all in the name of family, the tribe and the way things are and should remain. Hate, fascism and profanity. A sick society that vilifies, more than anyone else, the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, just because it was told to. A sick society that calls her Eve. A sick society that has forgotten who we all are, let alone the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™. This is about us remembering and knowing who WE are.

This is a programme of healing for the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, to take them and particularly, her, from monstrous levels of low self esteem and lack of self knowledge, back to herself and it is a programme for all those who truly want to love her, and indeed, him. This is a programme for the greatest carers on Earth, who are vilified, destroyed, ridiculed, ignored, abused, used, misused and hated for being everything that those who would steal from us are not. This is a programme to turn Cinderellas into The Sacred Whore High Priestesses and for anyone who wants to love her or live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™. And this is a programme to turn sensitive men into Sacred Whore High Priests™ and for anyone who wants to love him and live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and High Priest Society. Love, humanity, Spirit and sex. This is a programme to reverse 8000+ years of witch burning, women hating and healer ridicule. This is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and all those who would love her and live by her values.

This is about the chance for Paradise on Earth. This is a programme for the most beautiful, kind hearted, wounded women and men on this planet. A programme of how to implement a system of how to beat life, how to survive life and how to resurrect from the grief that is a true life. Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity of the lower mind into the higher mind, the soul and the inner heart and therefore one's true, confident, ‘happy’, successful, creative, sexual, sensual, individual, intelligent, emotionally healed, capable of loving and being loved self. How to turn grief into creation and survive and thrive, despite all the shit, all the pain and all the hurt. How to live in a world of madness, hollowness and cruelty and how to be a winner. How to stand up for oneself and to take back the power that has been stolen from anyone with heart, Spirit and sex. The art and science of Alchemy.

This is a programme, based on my scholarly and non scholarly work over 15 years (so far), if not for my whole life, and my extensive and intense, visceral experiences of self transformation from resignation, cynicism and despair to a state of relative bliss, and above all, the right to be. The programme and the courses and my speaking and indeed my forthcoming book, will cover the method of change. The psychological, sociological, spiritual, cultural, political, emotional and physical and even anthropological methods of change. Why we are here. Who the Sacred Whore High Priestess™ is and why she is here. And who the Sacred Whore High Priest™ is. Why we are here. Who we are and what we are and why we are. The beauty and glory of the truth. The meaning of life, no less. This will be on offer in the future.

My first book of consciousness, my first book of the spiritual politics of humanity, of authentic power and of self love and strength. A comprehensive series of online courses, live events and audio and visual material. Books, live events, CDs and DVDs. And one on one personal empowerment consultations. The Amera Ziganii Rao Method of Change™. The right to be and the way to have the right to be. And indeed, how to maintain the will to live without love. How to BE unconditional, self sufficient, self caring, self love. The right to be and the will to be and the unparalleled success that comes with that. The Lost Knowledge™. HOW to live. And how to heal others, the profane and the sick and the soulless. The others. My Business and that of any Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and Sacred Whore High Priest™, is Human Rights, The Right to a Sexual Society, Self Actualisation and Freedom.

My Business is To Overthrow Fascism, in the Home and in the Country. My business is also mastering destiny. Overthrowing the ultimate 'fascism'. Our journey on Earth and The Return To The Source. Our healing, our ascension and our redemption. Fate. The daily crucifixions of a true life, the challenges and the fury of being healers and people of love on a planet like Earth.

Submitting to the journey to liberate and evolve oneself, through following one's heart, however much heartbreak and devastation it leads to on the long long long journey to freedom and then the longer journey to happiness. 'Long Road to Freedom', as Nelson Mandela says. My business is always taking risks, never giving up and making the endless sacrifices it takes to become whole. Enlightenment, Nirvana and then Parinirvana and beyond. My business is pain. My business is bliss.

My business is seeing the truly glory of Spirit on Earth. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™ and all that it is. Spirit, humanity, sex and love again at last. And the end of our legacy as either servants or witches or unpaid carers or indeed, ignored mistresses, other women, other men even, and the weirdos that are at the bottom of society. This is our world and it is time to take it back and I can show you how. And that makes my life, truly, worth living.

I want you to feel the way I do. Alive, with the right to be and the belligerence to exist in this profane and male ‘God’ led world of male supremacy, female supremacy, domestic, casual fascism, tribe rules from hell, with beautiful and kind, love intelligence laden, female and male Cinderella warriors at the bottom, caring for everyone else and getting nothing but hatred, ridicule and isolation for it. The meek are already inheriting the Earth and I can show you how.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They told you I and my kind were dictators and that you were slaves, when all we had done was love you, honour you as companions and above all, we had let you just live.

We were the holy communers, the ones who gave birth to human beings, the leaders of society, the creators of society, the vehicles of Divinity on Earth and the channels of wisdom. The ones who looked after everything and the ones who built everything and ran everything, because we could. And because we loved it. We are and were the force of creation. And you loved us and you lived.

But they told you that you ‘deserved’ power too and that we were the ones standing in your way. And you believed them. The oldest ‘divide and rule’ strategy of hate in history and it worked. They used it and you bought it, hook, line and sinker. You had to give up sex, love, magic and your own spiritual gifts and you burnt, destroyed and violated me for 8000 years.

The world calls that male supremacy. And indeed, family supremacy, Matriarchal supremacy and supremacy of the material world and all who believe in it. Men and women like you. When all that you are are slaves to a reptile force to generate hate energy for them to live and thrive and vampire the human race. The puppets of a hate force, that chose to destroy women and men like me, for hate to grow, so they could live. You bought it and it worked. The greatest fraud in the history of the world.

I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They taught you that my mind was evil. My mind, my sex, my body and my ways of life.

The humanity, the glory of sexuality and the glory of creation and creativity and the glory of Divinity in each and every one of us. Our souls. They taught you that human beings are separate from Divinity, that sex was wrong and that women who have minds of their own are uppity slaves. They vilified us but much much worse than that, they destroyed your relationship with all that is unseen, all that we honour and love.

They taught you to hate what is really God. By teaching you to hate us, you hated all that is good in yourselves. They taught you to hate the light. They taught you to kill us. The daughters of The Universe. The High Priestesses of God. The Spiritual Mothers. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Avatars of The Universe™. The Sacred Army of Love on Earth.

The Shamans, the Mystics and the Communers. The Hierophants.

They called me Eve and blamed me for the downfall of the human race and created the awesome profanity that is religion. Of men, by men and from men. Of reptiles, by reptiles and from reptiles. Christianity, Islam and Judaism and every other philosophy around the world was poisoned. There are no female spiritual leaders left. It is all profanity. They chose you to represent them because they wanted to divide us and they did. They told you to hate me. And you believed them. Now I am back and I forgive you.

I forgive you because I can. Because I came here to save your soul. And because I finally know who I am. I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past. I came here to return your soul to The Source. God, The Mother, The Universe. To return you to what is really God. Because I love you. And because She loves you and your kind, whatever you have done.

Whatever you have done to me and whatever you have done to Her. And most of all, whatever you have done to yourself. We forgive you. This is your redemption. Your freedom and your ascension. We are here to save your soul.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

You bought the Sacred Whore like a piece of meat and you called that a wife. Your trophy wives. Your dancing girls. Your chattel and serving girls. Your piece of beauty. You bought us like you would cattle. Then you called it wives. Now you call it prostitution. The High Priestesses of the real God. You bought us to buy God, The Mother, The Universe and you caged us, separated us from our Divine gifts and skills in the Temple and drove us mad and then lost interest in us, because we had no gifts left, no excitement, no hunter in ourselves and no hope or joy left. Then you just called us mad and discarded us. You called us evil and you call love obedience, even though it had already killed us. You moved into our Temples and you played with the divination tools and thought you communed. The destruction of Atlantis was your gift.

You stole us from God, The Mother, The Universe and you tried to usurp us. You vilified us, enslaved us and you still envy us today. You call it intuition. You might want to think about this when you hate us out of your jealousy. The mystic gene means physical tortuous pain and taking on the empathy of the human race. All their pains, evils and dark thoughts. We see and feel everything. We make crucial sacrifices to be near Spirit and the unseen and we go without for years. To be shaman is not glamour. I make it glamour. To be shaman is a specific Samurai existence, ascetic and harsh. We commune to be guides. And you take that and you shame yourselves because you just want the meat. You didn’t just want the meat. You wanted our beauty of spirit, our personalities and our love and kindness. And you destroyed them, because you caged us and called us wife.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

The High Priestess Sacred Whores, the High Priests and the true protectors. Those who do not have the gift like either the High Priests or especially like the highest of all, the High Priestess Sacred Whores but who honour, protect and facilitate them to the world. Who honour the Shaman Sacred Whores of this world most of all, and who know who they are and who they are not. Who know the difference, who do not envy and who protect and love the representatives of Spirit, GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE, on Earth. Who honour their wisdom and who honour the latent Shaman in themselves too and who honour the communing ability of the High Priestess Sacred Whores. The non violators. Our only friends. The New Society exists. It is called Enlightenment. It is called Love. It is The Holy Grail.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

The master race. It's all a lie. You are brought up to be a despot king and it is only your sister who ever tells you that you have become a pratt. The master race is all a lie. There are no kings in an equal world. Your father was misinformed. What he brought you up to be was a killer. Pure and simple. A misogynist. A modern misogynist. A polite killer.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

I enter the magical hours of pure feeling, pure thought, pure imagination and I think and I write and I 'mysticise' the Universe. I escape at will, the truth of my humanless, Samurai solitude, and I pursue the truth of love in myself and in everyone else. I am philosopher. I am shaman. I am alone. I frontier the Soul to be spirit on Earth.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

Amera Ziganii Rao is a former hard news journalist who is now turning professional with her art forms and indeed, her healing forms, after a long journey of inner searching, self teaching and exploring many layers and areas of both craft and wisdom. She is now working on her first book of philosophy and esoteric thought, and social, cultural and spiritual commentary. She is also showing her first photography collections. And last but most definitely not least, she is building a business to share her Sacred Whore High Priestess Society consciousness and empowering explorations to reach as many people as possible across the world. She is in her forties and lives in London.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

In the meantime, please enjoy this website. I have included many of the subjects I am covering, areas of experience and insight that I will be exploring to the fullest in my book, the courses and all the other work that is to come as a dramatist, novelist and essayist. I also of course, include many of the wise people on this planet, who have come long before me; authors, screen dramatists, playwrights, film makers, artists, and other enlighteners and grand carriers of the wisdom I have found the most helpful on my journey, to find peace and become enlightened. The seemingly impossible journey, in the face of oneself and one’s circumstances. People who have contributed massively to my healing on this mad journey called life, in this insane existence called The Universe. People who have helped to make me as good a carrier of wisdom as I in turn, can be. Thank you.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

Copyright and intellectual property rights are serious issues. And legally protected. Please do not reproduce my work anywhere without due credit and obviously, never for financial gain. 'Big Sister' is watching you! Other than that, please continue to enjoy my original work and the work of (credited) others, for free, while I work on using my material in further professional formats. Thank you for your interest and support.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

Amera Ziganii Rao © Digital Darkroom Art

Thank you to outside source for original

Natural Born Mystic™. Ascension Discourse on Love Pt XVl. The Empathy Series. The Return ll. Amera Ziganii Rao

Sylvia Kristel. Jean - Regis Rouston 

Natural Born Mystic™. Ascension Discourse on Love Pt XVl. The Empathy Series. The Return ll. Amera Ziganii Rao 

Empathy and Liberation. Amera Ziganii Rao 

Yes I know my sweet. Alchemy is understood enough. Humanity is thoroughly cleaned. It is Liberation that is left, while the others catch up and develop and grow, as is anyone’s right and responsibility. 

Liberation. 

Tennesee Williams. I always think of the playwright Tennesee Williams. Liberation from the bourgeois to the Circus. To authentic living, loving, fucking and being. To authentic expression. 

No other storyteller for me has summed up bourgeois better than him, despite my limited but loved education of all that is Honore de Balzac with Le Cure de Tours, the biting anti bourgeois, or Gustave Flaubert with his anti bourgeois piece of genius that is Madame Bovary, a book that I began with my over romanticism to get so excited about, as we studied it in literature, as it was so romantic, before I realised what that book is about. An extraordinarily piercing piece of work about romanticism, all that is polite society, the absolute repression for women in marriage of course, but the harridan rage of suppression, alongside the mute and resigned turgidness of her well meaning and kind husband, together with how Madame Bovary tries to harness and somehow use her sad fancifulness, as it turns out to be. That book thrills me even at the thought of it. Flaubert said Madame Bovary was him. His disillusionment at romance. That was the book for him. Moliere with his pedantic court ladies, Les Femmes Savantes, the parlours of pretentious talk, even though in my feminist consciousness I’d have to go back and see what all that was about again. 

Liberation. To be a performer, anyone who is involved with art, images, thought, philosophy, original art of any kind, is to be a whore. Producers, through to directors, through to performers, through to thinkers, through to saints. Saints are only canonised after death. Anyone who falls into the category of weird, is a whore to polite society. Male or female. In the Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity method of recognising the shadow, the enemy, so it loses power over us, see that and you are free. 

It takes time. You are – there are so many things I want to say, but there’s not enough space right now – the magnificence I always knew. You are returned. You are doing very well, is what I was going to say. The shadow of male, of misogyny, of daughter mother dependency, is no shadow anymore. It is yours and you are piercing it everyday. I see that and my heart is slowly gushing back into love. As I take in the extraordinary power of what our love actually is. Romanticism aside. And romance aside. We are devoted. The doubts are over. The war is gone. 

And thanks to all that comes to me, I am in empathy for the greatest evil on this earth. Empathy with and empathy for. Both. Father dependency and daughter mother dependency. The dark and the light. The light and the dark. Now, I feel like Tess McGill’s character in Mike Nichol’s Working Girl. Her great new, hard fought for, love has packed her lunch and she is sitting in a grown up office, despite everything. She has proved herself, has her self autonomy and is loved by a truly caring, sexy, wise, fatherly man. 

And after the past four years, that can’t be bad. It’s beautiful. If we are truly to be able to give this message, that it can work and has worked and will always work, it’s more than beautiful. There may actually be joy in this last most important stretch. 

Liberation. Inhibition, religious society guilt, shame, embarrassment, vulnerability blocking, embarrassment, embarrassment and embarrassment. 

Entering the new archives style, makes me relate all over again. Each day I integrate the dimensions of what we are doing, from the sexuality, to the spirituality to the politics, to the sexuality, I, like all developed artists, know that is part of the day. A major part of the day’s work. 

You are an artist as a man. You are the artist’s way. The rest is knowledge, confidence and experience of the new language. 

Consciousness is an analysis of imagination. Imagination is the truth. Harnessing imagination and living it on earth is success. And what you and I and so many others strive so hard and fully for. It’s our time. It is time. 

Having an intellectual or imaginative thought or ‘daydream’ or visualisation is powerful enough. Being able to analyse what you need to do to live that thought or imagination in life, is both the skill of ‘the virility of prophets’ – we did that before, remember – and the courage of the virility of prophets – female and male. Female courage to go with male courage. Which you have in buckets. You are learning to find it and direct it towards what you really want, as opposed to what you try to want, both to fit in, but certainly not just for that. Because you don’t want to leave what you have and you don’t want to be hated and you don’t want to have to choose between two things, but have it all. 

And why not? 

Because this is earth. The only reason you cannot have everyone’s love at the same time, is because there are two tribes. Consciousness demarcates what tribe you LIVE in. Life is spending one’s time, bouncing back and forth between the two, until one chooses. That is Ascension. The choice that leads to the choice. Freedom. 

The politics of the spirituality of consciousness. So, yes. First, need is not love has to be brutally integrated and crucified into existence. Then, you have to find out that you are going to lose half if not all the people you’ve known anyway, because you are now growing into something that even you can’t keep up with. That is liberation. 

Liberation separates ‘the men from the boys’. That is bitter news. Our sincere – and obviously not often known about me – grief and rage and resentment and sorrow that we cannot bring everyone with us is so profound and so crucifying all over again. Something that is completely not to be understated or ignored. It’s devastating. 

You can’t push it, even if you work on it everyday as you are now. It will come. It comes just by being yourself. As you grow more and more into your real self, as you spend more and more time alone, in the silence – with me too of course – you become the self you were born to be. What stops us and what rage you have been in for so long, is that deep down, you know what it means. We all do. 

Which is why at this stage, and why I have been freaking out in all sorts of ways, even in these joyous new days, you have to go slow. You have to surrender to the process and I have to let you do that. That is the way. The misogyny shock of clearing and cleaning that began four years ago was the digression. The ‘temporary’ other project. I’ll say. 

Liberation was where we were at. Let us happily and finally return to that. Back to inspiration, instead of demand for ego to soul subjugation in you. The mortal husk as I feel it now, will go. It will have to go, so again, as you have now stepped into being convinced that you don’t want to be daughter mother dependent and that you want to be able to love a woman and all the women you love so much and want to love everyone enough to turn up as yourself and that means your good, kind, ENLIGHTENED selfish human being, instead of the ‘Stanley Kowalski’ (Tennessee Williams) version we all begin with, with the Werewolves obviously carrying that with frightening finesse and brilliance. 

At the moment you don’t know what to be when. That is understandable and highly commendable. You have a new bag of tricks and you don’t know what to do with them. While still reeling from the war of course. 

In the middle of a huge pragmatic obstacle now, myself, I aim to get over this hurdle, in the same clumsy, innocent way right now, taking my time and taking in the vast war we have fought and what it all means and where I go with it next. The material, not the war. The material from the dedication of our ‘mystic exchange’ (Rumi) that I finally can start thinking about ‘playing’ with, after fighting for my right to an education, Malala style. In other words, my self fathering to your self mothering. It’s hard and lonely and painful, but truly, utterly worth it. 

We are one again. At the moment, liberation is something you crave, but what also scares you silly. Let it. Let fear have its last stand. Liberation is also the easiest. Because it’s the nearest one to the sex instinct. And you will remember what it is all for. To live a holy and sexual life. To live a life of love. 

And for that you have been preparing to leave the tribe since the day we met. Me too. It’s a never ending journey. Our platforms only get bigger. It’s what we came here for. To get naked and show the way, like all artists. The whores of this world. The priestesses and priests of this world. We look within. That, to polite society is whoredom and Sodom and Gomorrah and all the other profundities of the banal that go with it, through to every symbolic literal from The Inquisition. As simple as that. It’s the whole thing. You will do it because you have already chosen. 

Time will help you get there. And don’t you worry. This time, I will definitely be waiting. And for the first time, not waiting. Because I do what I am told. And because I agree. 

And because unconditional love and hope and desire and all that is Spirit is supposed to strip one of anything other than humility. It’s called compassion. What all suffering is for. And why you and I met, with the level of UNIVERSE grief and sorrow and yearning, that we did. We knew. And what in true spirituality, only makes the sex better. The sex. The friendship. The brotherhood. The sisterhood. The parenthood. The self parenthood. The truth. The true, spiritual intimacy of love. Love, where dependencies are all gone and we can both freak out in need together. Playing with the greatest art form in life. Love & Life. 

Tennessee Williams. A gay anti bourgeois playwright with phenomenal self belief, who was born in the southern states of the US, and brought up in a parsonage. His preacher grandfather. And he was talking about these still taboo themes in the 1950s, the first era of teenage life at all. Of a love life at all, let alone gay. His arena of course is the family. The desperation of wanting to be loved, alongside the desperation of wanting to be loved for who we are. The struggle over being people who don’t believe in the cold sexlessness of the psychological death of normal life. The struggle over wanting to be loved and to fit in and not leave home. In a great film watching family, I had access to him by the age of about ten. I was hooked. If anyone liberated me, long before my consciousness journey it was him. Narrative. Narrative is visionary. Human is catching up to it. Artist, life artist, is about becoming it. You have a clear channel now. 

And I love you more than ever. I believe in you again. And I believe in hope again. Misogyny is curable. Misogyny is as curable as female love dependency. All illness can therefore be healed. You are not Hitler. Men were meant to be who they are. Women are the heroic, protagonist journey. For love. From the love that men bring. The revolution is turning it all round. This is the era of Ascension. It may be happening more than we know, in our consciousness bubble of sacred. You can be free too. 

Beautiful, even in the training pods. The training pods of Ascension. 

A life, worth ‘fighting’ for. 

Us. At last. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

  

Emmanuelle l (Artwork) 

Earth Angels. Doreen Virtue 

Hierophant Knowledge. Doreen Virtue. Earth Angels. The Wise Ones, Reincarnated Sorceresses, High Priestesses and High Priests, Sorcerers, Wizards, Shamans & Witches. An Excerpt

Intense, erotic, eccentric. The Wise Ones glow from the inside. They look like romance-novel characters, usually with long, silky hair, oval faces and haunting eyes complete with a lifetime of shadows beneath them. Earth angels from this realm possess profound wisdom and are highly intuitive. Their eyes are penetrating, and there’s no point in pretending or lying to Wise Ones, because truth is apparent to them. 

Eccentric and flamboyant, Wise Ones love to dress in flowing garments reminiscent of romantic eras in the past. There’s a certain element of mystery accompanying each member of this realm. It’s obvious, when first meeting the gaze of Wise Ones, that they KNOW.

The Wise Ones are humans with past lives in which they learned how to channel their power into miraculous healings and manifestations, including the ability to affect the weather and material objects (through levitation and telekinesis, and so on).

These are the extremely powerful and well-trained magicians of the human race who were called out of ‘retirement’ from the spirit world in order to come back to Earth for the currently urgent situation on our planet.

Their energy is darker and heavier than the other Earth Angel realms. Wise Ones have a somber, serious, almost depressed energy, and they’re sometimes quite stern. In relationships, they’re highly opinionated in a helpful way. They’re the ‘stage moms’ and directors of their friends and family members, always knowing the best route for others to take. If someone wants solid advice, they should ask a Wise One.

Whereas the other realms are new to being human (or have past lives where they were Incarnated Angels, Elementals, and so on), the Wise Ones have been human for eons. 

Like the other Earth Angels, they feel ‘different’. In fact some Wise Ones proclaim, ‘I AM different, and proud of it!’ As one Incarnated Sorcerer puts it, ‘In childhood, I realised I was different and didn’t fit in, and that created difficulty – until I finally realised that my uniqueness was a benefit. I wasn’t part of the mass or the norm, and when I matured, I realised that this was positive.’

For that reason, the Wise Ones are more comfortable with Earth life than those in other realms. They’re realistic, compassionate and patient with people, and they’ve learned to enjoy their time here. Incarnated Sorceress Linda spoke for many Wise Ones when she said, ‘I know I’m different from other people, but I don’t really feel like an outsider because I basically don’t care if most people like me or not.’ This detachment from other peoples opinions is a hallmark of Wise Ones.

The History of the Wise Ones

The common denominator of Wise Ones is the number of years they’ve logged learning to harness their magical powers. Some developed their own interest in metaphysics, and others were handpicked as children and schooled in the psychic arts. 

The Wise Ones have lived as High Priests and Priestesses in Atlantis, Ancient Greece and Egypt; during Arthurian times; among the Mayans; as Essenes; and as native medicine men and women.

They’ve witnessed civilisations destroyed, and people murdered for their spiritual beliefs. The Wise Ones know and appreciate the innate darkness within the human ego, but they have an even greater appreciation and respect for the heights to which humans are capable. And this is what they’ve come back to teach.

On the other side, many Wise Ones were comfortably enjoying the afterlife plane. They’d created paradise – like communities in the spirit world, complete with castles, gardens and waterfalls. Everything seemed wonderful. But then the Wise Ones were approached by a committee of guides that was trying to enlist retired ‘spiritual soldiers’ back into service.

They asked the Wise Ones to return to Earth to teach and model peacefulness, and to remind people how to use their inner power and strength to create harmony.

Some Wise Ones reluctantly agreed to return to Earth. When they got here, they felt the heavy density of the shifting energy. A few Wise Ones, unable to handle this climate, exited immediately by willing their own deaths. Other Wise Ones relegated themselves to an Earth life, but felt depressed or angry about it.

The best-adjusted Wise Ones were those who resumed the study of Earth-based spirituality – such as astrology, Wicca, Kabbalistic magic, paganism, rituals, crystal healing, herbology, candle invocations, shamanism and so forth.

Grethel says one of the reasons why she believes she is a Reincarnated Sorceress is ‘because of my early interest in chants, herbs, magic wands, the apparatus of ritual (candles, incense, water and so on). I also had an imaginary friend as a child who was a wizard. If that weren’t enough, my great aunt called me a ‘sorceress’ when I was young.

Members of the Wise Ones realm have spent lifetimes developing their spiritual and magical gifts. They’re well practised in the spiritual arts of manifestation, alchemy and healing. They are born as psychic children who may view their gifts as being curses, especially if they’re prescient about a forthcoming ‘negative’ situation. The children may blame themselves for not diverting a tragedy, since they foresaw it.

Yet these psychic insights are often an opportunity for the individuals to pray about it. If they were supposed to intervene, they would have been clearly told what to do to prevent the situation.

The majority of Wise Ones whom I interviewed had vivid memories of past lives where they were witches, wizards, priests and the like....

Guidance and Suggestions if You’re a Wise One

Honour the power of the word

Use vigilance with your thoughts and words to ensure that they mirror what you want, not what you fear. You manifest so quickly that you can’t afford to think or talk about your fears. Focus all your energies on manifesting your desires and life purpose.

Honour your past

Engage in past – life regressions to clear away leftover emotions that could be holding you back today. Read books and watch movies related to your past lives.

Be aware of the power of your temper

When a Wise One slings anger toward another person, it’s akin to casting a dark spell. Use your power carefully, and think twice before cursing someone, as this can hurt other people, as well as come back to haunt you.

Teach what’s important to you

You’re always teaching by example. One reason to pull yourself up to your highest level is to inspire others. You elected to come to Earth to teach about human potential, so it’s important for you to model that in your own life.

Laugh and play

Even though you have a vital mission, it’s important to inject regular doses of playfulness into your life. Sincerity, not seriousness, is called for in your mission. Laughter also helps you heal any heartbreak suffered in this life or past ones.

DOREEN VIRTUE

Emmanuelle ll (Artwork) 

Hierophant Knowledge. The Way of the Warrior. Eric Montaigue

A warrior is not just a person who has learned some moves, is able to kick at 90 miles per hour or who has won the world championships at kick-boxing. A warrior must earn his/her title. The martial artist is a person who knows things that go far deeper than just self defence, he/she is someone who walks into a room full of people and an immediate calm falls upon that room, he/she is a person who can touch a person's head or arm or hand and cause an inner stillness and peace to fall upon that person. You know a warrior not from the way he/she looks, his/her big biceps, or his/her rolled up sleeves revealing a row of tattoos, or his/her shaven head or the fact that he/she wears his/her full GI (karate uniform) to parties! 

We know the warrior by his/her presence and the healing he/she automatically gives to everyone he/she meets. His/her energy, his/her 'Qi' is touching you, you don't feel anything physical, but rather the internal effect of this touching, and peace is with you. 

The warrior looks upon the earth in a different way than those who are not warriors, everything, from the smallest insect to the largest mammal, and the most insignificant rock or tree is important and has life, the grass he/she walks upon, he/she thanks for softening the rough path he/she walks upon, the trees, he/she thanks for giving him/her shade and oxygen. Everything has importance because it was put there by mother earth for some reason. 

Sure, he/she has to live in modern times, he/she must drive a motor car and go to the supermarket and mow his/her lawns, but always, he/she never loses sight of what he/she is, and more importantly, where he/she is. He/she knows that what he is, is not only what he/she has made himself/herself to be, but also what is handed down to him/her and what is an accumulation right inside the very cells that he/she is made of, from his/her ancestors. 

Everything that they were, is now him/her, every bit of information that his/her fathers and mothers gathered, is now inside of him/her, this is how we live on in our children, we literally, and I mean literally, pass on our knowledge, along with eons of knowledge accumulated since the beginning of time, to our children. 

Everything that we at the conception of our children is passed onto them. We think that we have certain talents, but the warrior knows that all that he/she is, has come from the beginning of time, he/she knows that he/she is made up of the same stuff that a rock is made of, or a tree, or a blade of grass, the difference is only physical. 

He/she knows that that he/she owns nothing, and that all animals are free, his/her animals chose him/her to be with, he/she does not go the pet shop to choose a new dog, he/she knows that the dog has chosen him/her to come to that pet shop to choose it. 

The warrior communicates wtih the earth, he/she talks to the dogs, to the cats and owls, to the snakes, not so much verbally, but simply by being. This is the one thing that everything on earth has in common, being. 

He/she knows that there are forces at work on this earth, forces that he/she must learn to go with and to live with, otherwise he/she will surely perish. The energy within the warrior has the power to join with these forces, and then he/she has the power to change. But this comes not without payment, for he/she also knows that we cannot receive without first having paid for it. The whole of the universe is based upon this giving and taking, it is called yin and yang. 

For every up there must be a down, for every happiness, there must be a sadness, for every full tummy, there must be an empty one. The warrior knows that he/she must lose in order to gain, and so he/she sacrifices. He/she sacrifices his/her food, he sacrifices his/her sexual longings, his/her everyday comforts, in order that he/she has the power to change and to help others to change. 

Not in going out specifically to help others, but to have the internal power always there to automatically help others to be peaceful, and in doing so, they too will be able to see where they are,a dn who they are. We are not only someone's son or daughter, we are the sons and daughters of an infinite amount of people, those who have passed onto us their cells inside of which is hidden the very substance of creation and everything that has happened. Not 'since time began', because there is no beginning or ending. 

Being a martial artist is only one hundredth of what a warrior is, it is only a part of the whole, it is what gives us the confidence to become a healer, the internal energy to make changes. 

A warrior knows that we do not have teachers, but guides, the people we meet who are able to give us something internal, that something extra to cause us to become our own great teachers. Just by simply being, a guide helps us to realise that it is we, ourselves, who teach us, because the warrior also knows that locked away inside of everything, is that primordial cell that contains all information. 

He/she learns to read this information which comes in the form of 'flashes' at first, and this is too much for his/her feeble human brain to handle, he/she shuts off as soon as the flash arrives. But soon he/she learns to read these flashes, and they become longer in duration than just a moment. This is when the warrior knows that he/she is reading time.

He/she learns to communicate other than speaking, he/she knows that his/her physical needs are being looked after, and needs not worry where the next mortgage payment will come from. 

The warrior finds his/her place on the earth and stays there, where the power is. It is not a physical searching, but rather the warrior is 'taken' to where he/she must be, and there he/she stays, and the whole world will pass by, he/she needs not to travel, because the universe is there within him/her, and those who will in turn need to seek him/her out, will do so when their time is right, in just the same way that he/she did when he/she had to travel the world searching for his/her own guides. They then will have to learn to teach themselves from within, and also then go and find their own place, and he/she may never see them again, but this does not worry the warrior, he/she is in contact. 

The warrior is not the master, he/she is not the sifu nor the sensei, these are just physical words that we put upon ourselves to make us seem important, or better than those who we guide. The warrior is a friend to his/her students, and so cannot be our master. He/she does not wish to gather students as they will search him/her out, and those who need to have a master or sensei will not stay, they will keep searching until they realise that what they search is within them, and who they search, can only be their guide. 

Eric Montaigue

If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place. -Lao Tzu 

You owe it to all of us to get on with what you're good at.-W.H. Auden 

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

The past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. TS Eliot 

“I must find a verbal formula to combat the rise of brutality—the principle of order versus the split atom.” — Ezra Pound 

Practicing alchemy is doing God’s work - Alchemy: Manipulating Natural Forces to Further the Divine Purpose. Humanity Healing 

Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength, not my weakness. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott 

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." Albert Einstein 

Those who go to work everyday needing less are inevitably the ones who end up earning more. Russell Simmons 

"When people get fearful, they get fearful en masse. Confidence comes back one at a time." Warren Buffett 

Victory belongs to the most persevering. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte 

The god Baphomet, also is called Lord of Perversions, because He transforms things others consider perverse & profane into holy acts. Sacred Leather

Emmanuelle lV (Artwork) 

My beautiful, wolf, hyena, over masculinised, sexually advanced, snake, lizard, Sacred Pimp, twin soul. Amera Ziganii Rao 

My beautiful, wolf, hyena, over masculinised, sexually advanced, snake, lizard, Sacred Pimp, twin soul. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

My Twin Soul. Amera Ziganii Rao

And suddenly, the corner is turned, the horse whisperer has broken the horse and so can remember and realise new as well, that she chose him because he has the gift. The glorious gift of love, God and Soul. Feeling. Magic. Beauty. Compassion. Passion. Love. The gift of Soul. The sensitivity, the ‘psychicness’ and the latent, beautiful, glorious healer. The spiritual man. The cosmic, psychic, other world, magical, sacred sexual, sacred creativity, spiritual man, hidden underneath the ego from Tribal Hell. The man she had to forget about, while she broke the horse back into the vengeance of First Ego. The pain that caused the mask in the first place. The pressure of the Tribe, the Darth Vader teachings from Hades, that turned a young wizard of the most sensitive and magical heart, into a beast of coercive fascism and misogyny, blandness and turgidity. All teachings and all the Earth’s hemisphere sheit to clear.

Under there, past that is the glorious truth I have prayed for and searched my soul for the answers for, for so long. That we do all have the gift of love. That, despite the virulence of ego and the despicable madness and cruelty of the Mars archetype ego, ego is ego, Mars or Venus, male or female, female or male. The external mortal husk, forced on us as wounded children. Generation after generation after generation. The mortal husk of the Earth’s hemisphere. Nothing more. The mask. 

That can finally be the past, if healing has truly occurred. Then it comes to the flow and gush and pouring out of love intelligence. Soul. And you, my twin soul, have it in oceans. You are, after all my twin soul and we have, after all been in this together from the beginning, if not THE beginning. First Man and First Woman. Us. 

The High Priest in you is born. The sacred, the sacred pimp, the wizard, the witch, the shaman, the esoteric, the healer, the sage. The wisdom. The strength of Hercules and the wisdom of Solomon. The whole man. You. The combination of male and female, female and male in all of us. The male and female psyches. 

How vast the extent of the gift of love is, how vast the gift of psychic abilities, love intelligence, spirituality, visceral abilities, is immaterial. We all come here at different levels, depending on how many lives we have lived and the like. The point is that we do all have it. I doubted it for a while, I can tell you. And then I remembered who I met. My psychic, love intelligence equal. My twin soul. A man of magic. A man of love. A man of Soul. And what a soul. Together we can move mountains. Literally, psychically and with all the passion and compassion in the world. The whole. Us. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

Psychic

Psychic; Of the Soul. Of or relating to the psyche. Lying outside the sphere of physical knowledge. Immaterial or spiritual in origin or force. Sensitive to non-physical forces and influences. Marked by extraordinary or mysterious sensitivity, perception or understanding. 

Offical Definition

"If you Ever Need a HELPING HAND you'll Find One at the... END of your Arm" Yiddish Proverb 

This then is salvation - when we marvel at the beauty of created things and praise their beautiful Creator. Meister Eckart 

If you want people to see you the way you truly are, start showing yourself the way you truly are. The Golden Mirror 

When I talk to you, my day gets a whole lot better. Real Talk 

At last, however, his (her) eyes opened, and amazedly he (she) gazed into the forest and the stillness, amazedly he (she) gazed into himself (herself). Friedrich Nietzsche 

ENTREPRENEUR'S DILEMMA: What drives you, ambition or money? 40 Billion 

"We are not makers of history. We are made by history." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr 

Police say dead baby found in teen girl's bag at a NYC lingerie store was born alive and then asphyxiated. Associated Press 

"If you swing hard enough and often enough you must eventually hit a home run." Brian Tracy 

Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Teddy Roosevelt 

Obstacles: "A scene is good only when it's difficult." The ScriptLab

Exodus as The Team. Amera Ziganii Rao 

It doesn't matter. Once unconditional love has been attained as a spiritual DNA shift - yes, I see it and I see it big - trust is the new option. Caring and sharing. Suddenly it is a team and not the financial whoremongering judgment or indeed, the obedient chattel chained to the kitchen sink or all the other awful equivalents. 

We know what we found. It is here again. 

Once the shadow is gone, then there is a team. We grow together and help each other. We empower each other and we make sure each other can be as free as possible. We help each other with our gifts and are trusted to give those gifts as the holder of those gifts. Respect is ours again. Together and 'together'. As it always has been and how, now the tribe mortal shell of evil is being smashed into a thousand pieces, power is to be shared, power is being shared and power is to share. 

In grace, normality and love. 

The war is over. Now it is human language. 

Yes. 

And when power becomes shared and the dark side of the Executioner and Victim abuse of power and over need and demands and 'rights' over other people and absolutely, all that is the sickness of dependency, both father dependency and daughter, mother dependency, we are double the power. 

Together. 

Against the rest of the tribe. As leaders. Warriors for freedom. 

Exodus to the real world. 

The Sacred Whore High Priestess Monarch Society™. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Hierophant Avatar Valkyrie™ and Sacred Pimp Warrior Protector, Brother Father Friend Lover™ Society. When we were giants. All of us....

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Emmanuelle V (Artwork) 

Leaving Home. Amera Ziganii Rao 

(The language and emotion may be different in this piece to follow. You've seen it before. The politics of war have to remain. Exodus is a human right. Happiness a divine right. Leadership. A divine and emotional and humane and human duty. AZR) 

Leaving home. Maturity. Second Existence. Leaving the pseudo love of maternal solicitude, the cruel dependency ridden, bully of a mother, and the pseudo love of Darth Vader, the cruel father. 

Women are chattelled to their mothers and the (pseudo) mother archetype, the Mars macho bragadaccio female of coercion and tyranny, and men are chattelled to their first wives and the mother archetype, the Mars macho female of coercion and tyranny. While they mete out the same coercion and tyranny. Misogynist twats of selfishness and the so called Madonna.

The women who are natural leaders of a kind, but forced to give up vocation for their families. The women who run the world alongside the men. At home, in the workplace, in your so called best friendships. The women tyrants alongside the men tyrants. Co-dependency, misuse of power and strangulation and an overload of animus all round. And most of all envy, suffocation and disempowerment. Their idea of motherhood. The negative female jealous principle, gone mad. In men and women. 

In other words, no prince charmings and only ugly stepmothers and stepsisters instead. 'Castrated' out of their pure hearts of wisdom by an animus overload world. Choosing hate and the Patriarchal Womb Stealing Toilet Tribe Society from hell, over love. The root of it all. The corrupt society. But ultimately, the (Cinderella) daughters and (the ugly prince charming) sons struggle with the same thing. 

Leaving home and growing up. It's called Enlightenment. It's called Freedom. It's called Nirvana. Female 'misogyny' if you like, alongside misogyny and male supreme hatred. And just as institutional. 'La Familia'. The mother. The last illusion of sentimentality in a fucked up world of religion without spirituality, intelligence, wisdom or love. Religion. Polite society. The norm. And we all buy it because none of us want to leave home. 

Disempowered or empowered, we are all abandoned children by the very nature of being born. And born into a world without female wisdom, thanks to the men who took power. And probably the women who colluded with them, thinking they would get power too. The cowards and fascists of the world. Evil. Strangulated adults in a harsh and abandoned child world of the Patriarchal Tribe Dowager and of course, Daddy. The tyrant of them all. 

The fool. The one that is emulated all round. Darth Vader. The Mummies and Daddies who feed our ego of need, greed and fear. First to Second Existence. The path to freedom. The path to the Goddess. The path to the God. The path. Leaving home. The heroic journey is there for all. Get out while you can. Get out when you can. But get out of there. And live. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

Transformation. Death. Resurrection. The Age of Aquarius. Transformation as a way of life. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

The Matrix mind is the tribe mind is the psychologically warfared mind is the ego mind that so wants to die and leave us alone. The soul is the higher mind is the purified mind is the re-educated mind is the de-matrixed mind is the real mind is the free mind is the mind without the tired ego. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. 

Albert Camus 

The Sacred Whore High Priestess Hierophant™ and Sacred Pimp Warrior Protector, Brother Lover™ Society. The kings and queens of old. Angels and Sorcerers together in each of themselves and in the other. The Wizard life. Forever. Living and loving from The Source. Sourcery, Carlos Castaneda first said. I'll say it again. Sourcerers together. Living a life worth living. At last.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Avatar Self Esteem. No one told me I was special. People only told me I was weird. By the time the angels in men (women) started speaking, I couldn't even hear that it was real. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Official Definition of Hierophant

(Not old enough for me, and just one version, but it will do. AZR). 

A Hierophant is a person who brings religious congregants into the presence of that which is deemed holy. The word comes from Ancient Greece, where it was constructed from the combination of ta hiera, "the holy," and phainein, "to show." In Attica it was the title of the chief priest at the Eleusinian Mysteries. A Hierophant is an interpreter of sacred mysteries and arcane principles. 

Wikipedia

The Final Taboo. Family. Amera Ziganii Rao 

The final taboo. Family. The Tribe. Servitude under the guise of duty. Slavery under the guise of honour. Love under the guise of misery, co-dependency and cowardice. Born human, nurtured to become slaves and born to become free. The truth about the real struggle to leave home and grow up. Fascism is as domestic as it is global. As female as it is male. As dangerous as it is ugly. And never ever far away. The last taboo is family. The right to leave one's family. The right to leave the Tribe and the right to be you. The right to be anything you fucking well want to be. The courage and the right. The last taboo. Worldwide, generic, across religions, across societies, class, cultures and eras. The last taboo. Family. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011 

Submitting to the journey to liberate and evolve oneself, through following one's heart, however much heartbreak and devastation it leads to on the long long long journey to freedom and then the longer journey to happiness. 'Long Road to Freedom', as Nelson Mandela says. My business is always taking risks, never giving up and making the endless sacrifices it takes to become whole. Enlightenment, Nirvana and then Parinirvana and beyond. My business is pain. My business is bliss.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

The High Priestess Sacred Whores, the High Priests and the true protectors. Those who do not have the gift like either the High Priests or especially like the highest of all, the High Priestess Sacred Whores but who honour, protect and facilitate them to the world. 

Who honour the Shaman Sacred Whores of this world most of all, and who know who they are and who they are not. Who know the difference, who do not envy and who protect and love the representatives of Spirit, GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE, on Earth. 

Who honour their wisdom and who honour the latent Shaman in themselves too and who honour the communing ability of the High Priestess Sacred Whores. The non violators. Our only friends. The New Society exists. It is called Enlightenment. It is called Love. It is The Holy Grail.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

The Wheel of Time. Carlos Castaneda lV

Everybody has enough personal power for something. The trick for the warrior is to pull his (her) personal power away from his (her) weaknesses to his (her) warrior’s purpose. 

Human beings love to be told what to do, but they love even more to fight and not to do what they are told, and thus they get entangled in hating the one who told them in the first place. 

The Second Ring of Power. The Wheel of Time. Carlos Castaneda 

I'm not cheap but I am on special this week.  ~ Unknown 

"Don't blindly believe what I say. Don't believe me because others convince you of my words... Find out for yourself what is truth." Buddha 

Look at the way you're looking at me. I can't wait for you, I'm bowled over, I'm totally knocked out, you dazzle me,..Harold Pinter 

You can have anything you want if you will give up the belief that you can't have it. Dr. Robert Anthony 

Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got. ~ Sophia Loren 

Knowing more doesn't necessarily make you wiser. Knowledge belongs to the mind, wisdom to the heart. The Golden Mirror 

Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult. Anne Rice 

Life is a brief opportunity to do something prehumously. ~ Robert Brault 

 "Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money..." Andy Warhol 

"Would that I were wiser! Would that I were wise from the very heart, like my serpent! Friedrich Nietzsche 

wise men say fools rush in .... but i cant help falling in love with you. Elvis Presley

The Alchemist. Paulo Coelho. Excerpt l

....The sword remained where it was. "Who are you to change what Allah has willed?" 

"Allah created the armies, and he also created the hawks. Allah taught me the language of 

the birds. Everything has been written by the same hand," the boy said, remembering the 

camel driver's words. 

The stranger withdrew the sword from the boy's forehead, and the boy felt immensely 

relieved. But he still couldn't flee. 

"Be careful with your prognostications," said the stranger. "When something is written, 

there is no way to change it." 

"All I saw was an army," said the boy. "I didn't see the outcome of the battle." 

The stranger seemed satisfied with the answer. But he kept the sword in his hand. "What 

is a stranger doing in a strange land?" 

"I am following my destiny. It's not something you would understand." 

The stranger placed his sword in its scabbard, and the boy relaxed. 

"I had to test your courage," the stranger said. "Courage is the quality most essential to 

understanding the Language of the World." 

The boy was surprised. The stranger was speaking of things that very few people knew 

about. 

"You must not let up, even after having come so far," he continued. "You must love the 

desert, but never trust it completely. Because the desert tests all men: it challenges every 

step, and kills those who become distracted." 

What he said reminded the boy of the old king. 

"If the warriors come here, and your head is still on your shoulders at sunset, come and 

find me," said the stranger. 

The same hand that had brandished the sword now held a whip. The horse reared again, 

raising a cloud of dust. 

"Where do you live?" shouted the boy, as the horseman rode away. 

The hand with the whip pointed to the south. 

The boy had met the alchemist. 

The Alchemist. Paulo Coelho 

The Alchemist. Paulo Coelho Excerpt ll 

But the boy continued, "I had a dream, and I met with a king. I sold crystal and crossed 

the desert. And, because the tribes declared war, I went to the well, seeking the alchemist. 

So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you." 

The two embraced. It was the first time either had touched the other. 

"I'll be back," the boy said. 

"Before this, I always looked to the desert with longing," said Fatima. "Now it will be 

with hope. My father went away one day, but he returned to my mother, and he has 

always come back since then." 

They said nothing else. They walked a bit farther among the palms, and then the boy left 

her at the entrance to her tent. 

"I'll return, just as your father came back to your mother," he said. 

He saw that Fatima's eyes were filled with tears. 

"You're crying?" 

"I'm a woman of the desert," she said, averting her face. "But above all, I'm a woman." 

Fatima went back to her tent, and, when daylight came, she went out to do the chores she 

had done for years. But everything had changed. The boy was no longer at the oasis, and 

the oasis would never again have the same meaning it had had only yesterday. It would 

no longer be a place with fifty thousand palm trees and three hundred wells, where the 

pilgrims arrived, relieved at the end of their long journeys. From that day on, the oasis 

would be an empty place for her. 

From that day on, it was the desert that would be important. She would look to it every 

day, and would try to guess which star the boy was following in search of his treasure. 

She would have to send her kisses on the wind, hoping that the wind would touch the 

boy's face, and would tell him that she was alive. That she was waiting for him, a woman 

awaiting a courageous man in search of his treasure. From that day on, the desert would 

represent only one thing to her: the hope for his return. 

* 

"Don't think about what you've left behind," the alchemist said to the boy as they began 

to ride across the sands of the desert. "Everything is written in the Soul of the World, and 

there it will stay forever." 

"Men dream more about coming home than about leaving," the boy said. He was already 

reaccustomed to desert's silence. 

"If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come 

back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you 

would find nothing on your return." 

The man was speaking the language of alchemy. But the boy knew that he was referring 

to Fatima. 

It was difficult not to think about what he had left behind. The desert, with its endless 

monotony, put him to dreaming. The boy could still see the palm trees, the wells, and the 

face of the woman he loved. He could see the Englishman at his experiments, and the 

camel driver who was a teacher without realizing it. Maybe the alchemist has never been 

in love, the boy thought. The alchemist rode in front, with the falcon on his shoulder. 

The bird knew the language of the desert well, and whenever they stopped, he flew off in search of game. On the first day he returned with a rabbit, and on the second with two birds. 

At night, they spread their sleeping gear and kept their fires hidden. The desert nights 

were cold, and were becoming darker and darker as the phases of the moon passed. They 

went on for a week, speaking only of the precautions they needed to follow in order to 

avoid the battles between the tribes. The war continued, and at times the wind carried the 

sweet, sickly smell of blood. Battles had been fought nearby, and the wind reminded the 

boy that there was the language of omens, always ready to show him what his eyes had 

failed to observe. 

On the seventh day, the alchemist decided to make camp earlier than usual. The falcon 

flew off to find game, and the alchemist offered his water container to the boy. 

"You are almost at the end of your journey," said the alchemist. "I congratulate you for 

having pursued your destiny." 

The Alchemist. Paulo Coelho

Emmanuelle Vll (Artwork) 

The New Journey. Amera Ziganii Rao  

Which means that there is now a closing point. You have consciousness flowing through you now. And we both have to 'face ourselves', twin soul like all over again. Because we haven't done it yet. No matter. Everything is different. For you, it is all that you have to do to exodus The Matrix. For me, I focus on my 'Lord of the Rings' now. Back in the shire, to tell the story. It's been quite a year. I cannot actually add anything to that. Quite a year indeed. 

Now the new journey. Building greatness of the soul. 

And we are still intact. If that is as good as it can be for now, that is pretty damn good. It's been a hell of a war. 

And we are still intact. 

Now, I enter my Jackson Pollack, studio time, (I remember the very inspiring biographical film, Pollock, with Ed Harris, where Jackson Pollock works for months in this beaten up garage, on a country property, until he finds the exact voice of his work) to find the real voice. The real story. 

I'll stay in touch. 

And you, keep falling in love with love. It's good for you. Keep working through that daughter mother dependency and you will shamanically shift that mortal husk of pain out of you. 

Feel what you feel and then analyse it. We are on the rigid path to 'un angry' love. The truth of the definition of compassion. Passion without anger. High love. We just found out that it is genius. Genius takes work. Genius takes love. 

And that, we have. 

The external obstacles are the structure of discipline for both of us. Souls, caged as human. The alchemy of what we do. What we do, being the do of alchemy. Un angry love. Compassion. That's how we open the doors. By giving up and taking the new direction. 

Alone, for now. A long, short, now. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

The New Journey ll. Amera Ziganii Rao 

No. Got it wrong again. You have to enter the promised land with me. No 'Jackson Pollock studio time' until I am with you. I am glad. 'Naked in the dark' together (Lord of the Rings; The Return of The King). Your ring has to be put into the fire and watched while it melts. I am glad. The Prophet Shamanism has to wait. We are with the Sacred Whore High Priestess Hierophant Avatar Valkyrie™, until the Sacred Pimp Warrior Protector, Brother Father Friend Lover™ is born, reared and ready for action. United we stand. Divided we fall.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Not Dark Yet. Bob Dylan 

Shadows are fallin'

And I've been here all day

It's too hot to sleep

And time is runnin' away

Feel like my soul has

Turned into steel

I've still got the scars

That the sun didn't heal

There's not even room

Enough to be anywhere

It's not dark yet

But it's gettin' there

Well my sense of humanity

Is goin' down the drain

Behind every beautiful thing

There's been some kind of pain

She wrote me a letter

And she wrote it so kind

She put down in writin'

What was in her mind

I just don't see

Why I should even care

It's not dark yet

But it's gettin' there

And I've been to London

And I've been to gay Paris

I've followed the river

And I've got to the sea

I've been down on the bottom

Of a whirlpool of lies

I ain't lookin' for nothin'

In anyone's eyes

Sometimes my burden

Is more than I can bear

It's not dark yet

But it's gettin' there

I was born here and I'll die here

Against my will

I know it looks like I'm movin'

But I'm standin' still

Every nerve in my body

Is so naked and numb

I can't even remember what it was

I came here to get away from

Don't even hear

The murmur of a prayer

It's not dark yet

But it's gettin' there

Bob Dylan

My heart’s in the highland. I’m going to go there when I feel good enough to go.....my heart’s in the highland. I can only get there one step at a time. Bob Dylan 

"Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan." John F. Kennedy 

My life is my message. ~ Mahatma Gandhi 

The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. Erica Jong 

“To the whole world you might be just one person, but to one person you might just be the whole world.” Pablo Casals 

The greatest pleasure of life is love. Euripides 

"Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them." Bill Cosby 

Try to say nothing negative about anybody for three days, for forty-five days, for three months. See what happens to your life. Yoko Ono 

"Find what turns you on." Warren Buffett

Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™ Pt ll. Erica Jong on Henry Miller. The Artist as Human. The Human as Artist. Amera Ziganii Rao 

There are many books and sources of education and inspiration that I have been to, on my long journey. Too many to mention in one go. There are two books however that I am drawn to, in terms of Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™ that not only sent me on the magical and arduous path of turning myself into an artist, they also turned me into a liberated human being. 

The first, is Erica Jong, the free thinking, heavyweight intellectual writer, who wrote the famed ‘Fear of Flying’, the book that 'freed a generation', wrote, as far as I am concerned, an even more extraordinary work in this. The Devil at Large. Erica Jong on Henry Miller. 

It is a phenomenal piece of literary commentary, psycho analysis, shamanic analysis, cultural commentary, social commentary and a great contribution to the dialectics of all that is feminism with the subject of Miller’s much maligned misogyny. She and he were great friends in his last years. 

It is first and foremost though, an absolute homage to the pursuit of freedom. Erica Jong breaks down what art really is, what writing really is and what the creative world offers the normal world, as it goes, perennially, unrecognised and unappreciated. As indeed, does freedom. 

The second was The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes. The other most important book I could ever have read. Page after page after page, he features nothing but the timidity and terror of writing and therefore, any creative expression. Both books were the turning point in my life. 

The life that set me towards liberation so fundamentally and completely. Liberation of the mind, heart, emotions, Puritanism, guilt, hypocrisies, shames, everything. I mention these two works, as first, any true discussion of art is almost invisible. 

The shallow TV shows that cover art just do not do anything for me, and used to leave me hollow and bored. A newspaper feature or interview is useful, only to one particular level. An intelligent but prosaic level. Artists discuss art like no one else. 

As usual, these are the people we have to search out, as normal society has no interest in promoting anything that encourages depth, spirituality, sexuality of the soul or indeed, sexuality of the poetic soul. Fortunately, that is just one society. Artists and philosophers.  The only teachers we need, to learn how to live a proper life. The rest we already know. The rest, we know only too well. 

I have dealt with the Hierophant and Prophet Shaman aspects of liberation and alchemy and humanity on my website. Communing and going into the silence and visiting the frontiers of the soul to explore the human condition and then coming back and reporting the findings. Absolutely. 

The artist’s journey of Prophet Shaman is however as specific, as available to all who can, and as profoundly spiritual as anything literally shamanic or Hierophant or Mystic. Or ‘religious’ to those who still find comfort in that word. Whatever. As long as you know what is behind religion, believe. It can still be a comfort, I am sure. 

Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™ and Puritanism however do not go. One can only be attained by letting go of the other. It’s called Paradise on earth. And it takes courage. Massive, alchemical courage. The good news is that it is absolutely attainable. Most artists begin in the normal world. We make the journey. So can you. 

Art is the sexuality of the heart being expressed. The sensuality of the sexuality of sensitivity of the spirituality of the humanity of the anti puritanical world. And we all love it, all learn from it, all get comforted by it and all crave it. The art of spirit and the spirit of art. Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™ is for all. 

What it takes is courage and education always feeds courage. The right education explodes courage through the roof, and sets us on the path forcefully and completely. Erica Jong, Henry Miller and Ralph Keyes fit the bill. For human beings as well as artists. Artists begin as human beings. Like the Mystic, we frontier the creative soul to deliver. As arduous, as courageous and as naked. As humbling, as painful and as blissful. 

Intimacy across the board. Self TRUTH esteem. Why would we like someone we don’t like? We don’t like ourselves in ego, because it is not who we are. The simple vastness of consciousness and healing. Intimacy is the real. Total anti Puritanism. Sex as a state of being in all its forms. Leaving the tribe. The New World. Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™ is for all.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

The New Journey lll. Amera Ziganii Rao 

Cool. It's the Prophet Shamanism and the Sacred Whore High Priestess Hierophant Avatar Valkyrie™, together, until the Sacred Pimp Warrior Protector, Brother Father Friend Lover™ is born, reared and ready for action. The 'Pollock Studio Time' has to be on the move. The hard way, as usual. So what. 

Taking a 'break'. Going to let the voice rest. I have mundane matters to attend to, and a soul of sadness to pick up again, like you. And what's the hurry now, anyway? Our purpose is unrequited love, to grow beautiful hearts. Pace. 

Pace, and the chance to think about something truly wondrous. Our story. The story of earth. The pain of men and women. The love ascetics we have to become, in order to truly love. And why we don't want anything else. Because we've seen it all before. 

Requited, profound love. 'Un - choleric' love. Love in The Time of Cholera. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Persuasion 

Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December that year (but dated 1818).

Persuasion is linked to Northanger Abbey not only by the fact that the two books were originally bound up in one volume and published together, but also because both stories are set partly in Bath, a fashionable city with which Austen was well acquainted, having lived there from 1801 to 1805.

Besides the theme of persuasion, the novel evokes other topics, such as the Royal Navy, in which two of Jane Austen's brothers ultimately rose to the rank of admiral. As in Northanger Abbey, the superficial social life of Bath—well known to Austen, who spent several relatively unhappy and unproductive years there—is portrayed extensively and serves as a setting for the second half of the book. 

In many respects Persuasion marks a break with Austen's previous works, both in the more biting, even irritable satire directed at some of the novel's characters and in the regretful, resigned outlook of its otherwise admirable heroine, Anne Elliot, in the first part of the story. Against this is set the energy and appeal of the Royal Navy, which symbolises for Anne and the reader the possibility of a more outgoing, engaged, and fulfilling life, and it is this worldview which triumphs for the most part at the end of the novel.

More than eight years before the novel opens, Anne Elliot, then a lovely, thoughtful, warm-hearted 19-year old, accepted a proposal of marriage from the handsome young naval officer Frederick Wentworth. He was clever, confident, and ambitious, but poor and with no particular family connections to recommend him. 

Sir Walter, Anne's fatuous, snobbish father and her equally self-involved older sister Elizabeth were dissatisfied with her choice, maintaining that he was no match for an Elliot of Kellynch Hall, the family estate. Her older friend and mentor, Lady Russell, acting in place of Anne's late mother, persuaded her to break the engagement.

Now 27 and still unmarried, Anne re-encounters her former love when his sister and brother-in-law, the Crofts, take out a lease on Kellynch. Wentworth is now a captain and wealthy from maritime victories in the Napoleonic wars. However, he has not forgiven Anne for rejecting him. While publicly declaring that he is ready to marry any suitable young woman who catches his fancy, he privately resolves that he is ready to become attached to any appealing young woman except for Anne Elliot.

The self-interested machinations of Anne's father, her older sister Elizabeth, Elizabeth's widowed friend Mrs. Clay, and William Elliot (Anne's cousin and her father's heir) constitute important subplots.

Although readers of Persuasion might conclude that Austen intended "persuasion" to be the unifying theme of the story, the book's title is not hers but her brother Henry's, who named it after her untimely death. Certainly the idea of persuasion runs through the book, with vignettes within the story as variations on that theme. But there is no known source that documents what Austen intended to call her novel. Whatever her intentions might have been, she spoke of it as The Elliots, according to family tradition, and some critics believe that is probably the title she planned for it. As for Northanger Abbey, published at the same time, it was probably her brother Henry who chose that title as well.

On the other hand, the literary scholar Gillian Beer establishes that Austen had profound concerns about the levels and applications of "persuasion" employed in society, especially as it related to the pressures and choices facing the young women of her day. Beer writes that for Austen and her readers persuasion was indeed "fraught with moral dangers"; she notes particularly that Austen personally was appalled by what she came to regard as her own misguided advice to her beloved niece Fanny Knight on the very question of whether Fanny ought to accept a particular suitor, even though it would have meant a protracted engagement. Beer writes:

Jane Austen's anxieties about persuasion and responsibility are here passionately expressed. She refuses to become part of the machinery with which Fanny is manoeuvering herself into forming the engagement. To be the stand-in motive for another's actions frightens her. Yet Jane Austen cannot avoid the part of persuader, even as dissuader.

(Fanny ultimately rejected her suitor and after her aunt's death married someone else.)

Thus, Beer explains, Austen was keenly aware that the human quality of persuasion—to persuade or to be persuaded, rightly or wrongly—is fundamental to the process of human communication, and that, in her novel "Jane Austen gradually draws out the implications of discriminating 'just' and 'unjust' persuasion." Indeed, the narrative winds through a number of situations in which people are influencing or attempting to influence other people—or themselves. Finally, Beer calls attention to "the novel's entire brooding on the power pressures, the seductions, and also the new pathways opened by persuasion".

Anne Elliot is the overlooked middle daughter of the vain Sir Walter, a spendthrift baronet who is all too conscious of his good looks and rank. Anne's mother, a loving, intelligent woman whom her second daughter resembles in appearance and temperament, is long dead. Anne's older sister, Elizabeth, takes after her father, and her younger sister, Mary, is a nervous, fretful woman who has made an unspectacular marriage to Charles Musgrove of nearby Uppercross Hall, the heir to a rustic but respected local squire. None of her family can provide much companionship for the refined, sensitive Anne, who is still unmarried at 27 and seems destined for spinsterhood. Nearly nine years after breaking her engagement (and subsequently turning down a proposal from Charles Musgrove, who went on to marry her sister), she has still not forgotten Frederick Wentworth.

Wentworth reenters Anne's life when Sir Walter is forced by his own fiscal irresponsibility to rent out Kellynch, the family estate. He and Elizabeth move to pricey rental lodgings in the fashionable resort of Bath, while Anne remains behind in Uppercross with her younger sister's family. Kellynch's tenants turn out to be none other than Wentworth's sister, Sophia, and her husband, the recently retired Admiral Croft. Wentworth's successes in the Napoleonic Wars have won him promotions and wealth amounting to about £25,000 (around £2.5 million in today's money) from prize money awarded for capturing enemy vessels, and he is now an eminently eligible bachelor. 

The Musgroves, including Mary, Charles, and Charles's younger sisters, Henrietta and Louisa, are happy to welcome the Crofts and Wentworth to the neighbourhood. He is deliberately cool and formal with Anne, whom he describes as altered almost beyond recognition, but delighted with the Musgrove girls, who both respond in kind. Although Henrietta is nominally engaged to her clergyman cousin Charles Hayter, nothing is official, and both the Crofts and Musgroves, who know nothing of Anne and Frederick's previous relationship, enjoy speculating about which sister Wentworth might marry. 

All this is hard on Anne, who has spent the last several years bitterly regretting that she was ever persuaded to reject him and realises that he still holds her refusal against her. To avoid watching him keep company with the Musgrove sisters, particularly Louisa, whom he seems to prefer, she does her best to stay out of his way. When they do meet, his conspicuous indifference, coupled with a few acts of seemingly careless kindness toward her, nearly break her heart.

The sad slow pace of Anne's life suddenly picks up when the entire Uppercross family decides to accompany Captain Wentworth on a visit to one of his brother officers, Captain Harville, in the coastal town of Lyme Regis. There Anne meets yet a third officer, Captain James Benwick, a passionate admirer of the Romantic poets, who is in mourning for the death of his fiancée, Captain Harville's sister, and appreciates Anne's sympathy and understanding. 

The new location, new acquaintances, and fresh ocean air all agree with Anne, who begins to regain some of the life and sparkle that Captain Wentworth remembered, and she attracts the attention of another gentleman, who turns out to be the Elliots' long-estranged cousin and her father's heir, William Elliot. While Wentworth is absorbing these developments, Louisa Musgrove sustains a serious concussion in a fall brought about by her own stubborn and impetuous behaviour. While her family and friends panic and look on helplessly, Anne coolly administers first aid and summons assistance. Wentworth, who feels responsible for encouraging Louisa's irresponsible behaviour in the first place, is both confused and impressed, and begins to re-examine his feelings about Anne.

Following this near-tragedy, Anne relocates to Bath to be with her father and sister, while Louisa stays in Lyme to recover her health at the Harvilles. In Bath Anne finds that her father and sister are as shallow as ever, obsessed with rank and wealth, and flattered by the attentions of William Elliot, a widower, who has now successfully reconciled with his uncle, Sir Walter. Elizabeth assumes that he wishes to court her while Lady Russell, who is also in Bath, more correctly suspects that he admires Anne and is elated to think that her young friend may have a second chance at married happiness with such a suitable suitor. However, although Anne likes William Elliot and enjoys his company, she finds his character disturbingly opaque and tells Lady Russell, "We should not suit," while admitting to herself that his admiration has done a great deal to lift her spirits.

In the midst of this, Admiral Croft and his wife arrive in Bath, and soon afterward comes the news that Louisa Musgrove is indeed engaged—but not to Captain Wentworth. The lucky man is Captain Benwick, who had attended her during her long and interesting convalescence. In short order Wentworth also comes to Bath, where he is not pleased to see Mr. Elliot courting Anne, and he and Anne begin to tentatively renew their acquaintance. Anne also takes the opportunity to reunite with an old school friend, Mrs. Smith, a once prosperous matron who is now a widow living in Bath in straitened circumstances. 

Through her she discovers that behind his charming veneer, Mr. Elliot is a cold, calculating opportunist who had led Mrs. Smith's late husband into crippling debt. Although Mrs. Smith believes that he is genuinely attracted to Anne, it appears that his real aim in making up to the Elliots has been to keep an eye on the ingratiating Mrs. Clay, whom he worries that Sir Walter may take it into his head to marry. Should Sir Walter marry Mrs. Clay and provide himself with an heir with her, it would spell the end of Mr. Elliot's inheritance. 

Although Anne is shocked and dismayed by this news, it helps to confirm her belief that she, not Lady Russell or anyone else, is the best judge of what will constitute her own happiness.

Ultimately, the Musgroves visit Bath to purchase wedding clothes for their daughters Louisa and Henrietta (now officially engaged to Charles Hayter). Captain Wentworth and his friend Captain Harville encounter them and Anne at a public room in Bath, where Wentworth overhears Anne and Harville conversing about the relative faithfulness of men and women in love. 

Deeply moved by what Anne has to say, Wentworth writes her a note declaring his feelings for her. In a tender scene, Anne and Wentworth reconcile, affirm their love for each other, and renew their engagement. 

The story ends less well for Anne's father and sister. They are both jilted by Mr. Elliot, who succeeds in persuading Mrs. Clay to become his mistress. Lady Russell admits she was wrong about Wentworth; she and Anne remain friends; and Wentworth helps Mrs. Smith recover some of her lost assets. Nothing remains to blight Anne's happiness—except the prospect of another war.

Persuasion is widely appreciated as a moving love story despite what has been called its simple plot, and it exemplifies Austen's signature wit and ironic narrative style. While writing Persuasion, however, Austen became ill with the disease that would kill her less than two years later. As a result, the novel is both shorter and arguably less polished than Mansfield Park and Emma since it was not subject to the author's usual careful retrospective revision.

Although the impact of Austen's failing health at the time of writing Persuasion cannot be overlooked, the novel is strikingly original in several ways. It is the first of Austen's novels to feature as the central character a woman who, by the standards of the time, is past the first bloom of youth. Austen biographer Claire Tomalin characterises the book as Austen's "present to herself, to Miss Sharp, to Cassandra, to Martha Lloyd . . . to all women who had lost their chance in life and would never enjoy a second spring."

The novel is described in the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition as a great Cinderella story. It features a heroine who is generally unappreciated and to some degree exploited by those around her; a handsome prince who appears on the scene but seems more interested in the "more obvious" charms of others; a moment of realisation; and the final happy ending. It has been said that it is not that Anne is unloved, but rather that those around her no longer see her clearly: she is such a fixed part of their lives that her likes and dislikes, wishes and dreams are no longer considered, even by those who claim to value her, like Lady Russell.

At the same time, the novel is a paean to the self-made man and the power and prestige of the Royal Navy. Captain Wentworth is just one of several upwardly mobile officers in the story who have risen from humble beginnings to affluence and status on the strength of merit and pluck, not inheritance. It reflects a period in Britain when the very shape of society was changing, as landed wealth (exemplified by Sir Walter) finds it necessary to accommodate the growing prominence of the nouveau riche (such as Wentworth and the Crofts). 

The success of two of Austen's brothers in the Royal Navy is probably significant. There are also clear parallels with the earlier novel Mansfield Park, which also emphasised, in a rather different context, the importance of constancy in the face of adversity, and the need to endure.

As in her earlier novels, Austen makes some biting comments about "family" and how one chooses whom to associate with. Mary Musgrove wants to nurse her sister-in-law Louisa but doesn't want to stay home to care for her own injured son if it means she will miss making the acquaintance of the famous Captain Wentworth. Elizabeth prefers the plebian Mrs. Clay to her own sister, yet avidly seeks the attentions of Lady Dalrymple who is "amongst the nobility of England and Ireland."

Through her heroine's words, Austen also makes a powerful point about the condition of women as "rational creatures" who are nevertheless at the mercy of males when it comes to recounting their own story through history and books, nearly all of which have been produced by men, and many of which castigate women's "inconstancy" and "fickleness." "Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. . . the pen has been in their hands," Anne tells Captain Harville. "I will not allow books to prove anything." (Persuasion Volume 2 Chapter 11).

Austen ends her last completed novel on a note similar in many respects to Pride and Prejudice. The heroine marries for love, with money, moves into a social, emotional, and intellectual sphere worthy of her, and leaves her less admirable connections behind.

Sir Walter Elliot, Bt. — A vain, self-satisfied baronet, Sir Walter's extravagance since the death of his prudent wife 13 years before has put his family in financial straits. These are severe enough to force him to lease his estate, Kellynch Hall, to Admiral Croft and take a more economical residence in Bath. Despite being strongly impressed by wealth and status he is attracted in some way to Mrs Clay, who is beneath him in social standing.

Elizabeth Elliot — The eldest and most beautiful daughter of Sir Walter encourages her father's imprudent spending and extravagance. She and her father routinely put their interests ahead of Anne's, regarding her as inconsequential.

Anne Elliot — The second daughter of Sir Walter is highly intelligent and, although accomplished and attractive, is unmarried at 27, having broken off her engagement to Wentworth eight years previously. She fell in love with Captain Wentworth but was persuaded by her mentor, Lady Russell, to reject his proposal because of his poverty and uncertain future.

Mary Musgrove — The youngest daughter of Sir Walter, married to Charles Musgrove, is attention-seeking, always looking for ways she might have been slighted or not given her full due, and often claims illness when she is upset. She greatly opposes sister-in-law Henrietta's interest in marrying Charles Hayter, who Mary feels is beneath them.

Charles Musgrove — Husband of Mary and heir to the Musgrove estate. He had wanted to marry Anne but settled for Mary (much to the disappointment of the Musgrove family, and to his misfortune) when Anne refused him due to her continued love for Wentworth.

Lady Russell — A friend of the Elliots, particularly Anne, of whom she is the godmother. She is instrumental in Sir Walter's decision to leave Kellynch hall and avoid financial crisis. Years ago, she persuaded Anne to turn down Captain Wentworth's proposal of marriage. While far more sensible than Sir Walter Elliot, she shares his concern for rank and connections and did not think Wentworth good enough for Anne because of his inferior birth and financial status.

Mrs. Clay — A poor widow, daughter of Sir Walter's lawyer, and intimate 'friend' of Elizabeth Elliot. She aims to flatter Sir Walter into marriage, while her oblivious friend looks on.

Captain Frederick Wentworth — A naval officer who was briefly engaged to Anne some years ago. At the time, he had no fortune and uncertain prospects, but owing to much success in the Napoleonic Wars, his situation has greatly improved. One of two brothers of Sophia Croft.

Admiral Croft — Good-natured, plainspoken tenant at Kellynch Hall and brother-in-law of Captain Wentworth.

Sophia Croft — Sister of Captain Wentworth and wife of Admiral Croft. She offers Anne an example of a strong-minded woman who has married for love instead of money.

Louisa Musgrove — Second sister of Charles Musgrove, Louisa, aged about 19, is a high-spirited young lady who has recently returned with her sister from school. Captain Wentworth admires her for her resolve and determination, especially in contrast to Anne's prudence and what he sees as Anne's lack of conviction. She is ultimately engaged to Captain Benwick.

Henrietta Musgrove — Eldest sister of Charles Musgrove. Henrietta, aged about 20, is informally engaged to her cousin, Charles Hayter, but is nevertheless tempted by the more dashing Captain Wentworth.

Captain Harville — A friend of Captain Wentworth. Severely wounded two years previously and discharged at half-pay, he and his family have settled in nearby Lyme.

Captain James Benwick — A friend of Captain Harville. Benwick had been engaged to marry Captain Harville's sister Fanny, but she died while Benwick was at sea. Benwick's loss left him melancholic and a lover of poetry. His enjoyment of reading makes him one of the few characters in the story to find an intellectual connection with Anne, and it is implied that he might have an interest in her, but Benwick ultimately becomes engaged to Louisa Musgrove.

Mr. William Elliot — A relation and the heir presumptive of Sir Walter, Mr. Elliot became estranged from the family when he wed a woman of much lower social rank for her fortune, though Sir Walter and Elizabeth had hoped William would marry Elizabeth Elliot. He is now a widower, and (wanting very much to inherit the title) he mends the rupture to keep an eye on the ambitious Mrs. Clay. If Sir Walter married her, William's inheritance would be endangered. When Mr. Elliot meets Anne by accident, his interest is piqued: if he could marry Anne his title and inheritance likely would be secured. Rumors circulate that Anne and he are engaged.

Mrs. Smith — A friend of Anne Elliot who lives in Bath. Mrs. Smith is a widow who has suffered ill health and financial difficulties. She keeps abreast of the doings of Bath society through news she gets from her nurse, Rooke, who also works for a friend of William Elliot's. Her financial problems could have been straightened out with some assistance from William Elliot, her husband's former friend, but Elliot would not exert himself, leaving her much impoverished. Wentworth eventually acts on her behalf.

Lady Dalrymple — A viscountess, cousin to Sir Walter. She occupies an exalted position in society by virtue of wealth and rank. Sir Walter and Elizabeth are eager to be seen at Bath in the company of this great relation.

Wikipedia

Emmanuelle Vlll (Artwork) 

The Lake House 

The Lake House is a 2006 American romantic drama film directed by Alejandro Agresti and starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock and Christopher Plummer. It was written by David Auburn. The film is a remake of the South Korean motion picture Il Mare (2000). The story centers on an architect living in 2004 and a doctor living in 2006. The two meet via letters left in a mailbox at the lake house they have both lived in at separate points in time; they carry on correspondence over two years, remaining separated by their original difference of two years. For Alex the time goes from 2004 to 2006. For Kate the time goes from 2006 to 2008.

This film reunites Reeves and Bullock for the first time since they co-starred in Speed in 1994.

In 2006, Dr. Kate Forster is leaving a lake house that she has been renting in suburban Wisconsin to move to Chicago. Kate leaves a note in the mailbox for the next tenant to forward her letters should some slip through the system, further adding that the paint-embedded pawprints on the walkway leading into the house were already there when she arrived.

Two years earlier, in 2004, Alex Wyler, an architect, arrives at the lake house and finds Kate's letter in the mailbox. The house is neglected, with no sign of pawprints anywhere. As Alex restores the house, a dog runs through his paint and leaves fresh pawprints right where Kate said they would be. Both Alex and Kate continue passing messages to each other via the mailbox, and each watch its flag go up and down as the message leaves and the reply arrives, which takes place as they wait at the mailbox. They cautiously look around each time the flag changes, hoping to somehow spot the other, but in vain they do not, as they are alone at the mailbox.

Baffled, Alex writes back, asking how Kate knew about the pawprints since the house was unoccupied before he arrived. An equally perplexed Kate writes back, and she and Alex discover that they are living exactly two years apart. Their correspondence takes them through several events, including Alex finding a book, Persuasion, at a train station where Kate said she had lost it, and Alex taking Kate on a walking tour of his favorite places in Chicago via an annotated map that he leaves in the mailbox. Alex and Kate eventually meet at a party, but he doesn't mention their letter relationship to her as for her, it hasn't happened yet.

As Alex and Kate continue to write each other, they decide to try to meet again. Alex makes a reservation at Il Mare (Italian for "The Sea"), a restaurant whose name is a homage to the original Korean motion picture, for around March 2007 — two years in Alex's future, but only a day away for Kate. Kate goes to the restaurant but Alex fails to show. 

Heartbroken, Kate asks Alex not to write her again, recounting a tragedy a year ago before, on Valentine's Day 2006, when she witnessed a traffic accident near Daley Plaza and held a man who died in her arms. Both Alex and Kate leave the lake house, continuing on with their separate lives.

A year later, on Valentine's Day 2006 for Alex, Valentine's Day 2008 for Kate, Alex returns to the lake house after something about the day triggers his memory. Meanwhile, Kate goes to an architect to review renovation plans for a house she wants to buy. She notices a drawing of the lake house on the conference room wall and learns that Alex Wyler — the same person with whom she'd been corresponding — had drawn it. She also learns that Alex was killed in a traffic accident exactly two years ago to the day and realizes why he never showed up for their date; he was the man who died in Daley Plaza.

Rushing to the lake house, Kate writes a letter telling Alex she loves him, but begs him not to try to find her if he loves her back. Wait two years, she says, and come to the lake house instead. Meanwhile Alex has gone to Daley Plaza to find Kate.

At the lake house, Kate sobs, clutching onto the mailbox stand, sure she was too late, but then the mailbox flag lowers; Alex has picked up her note. Soon, she sees a vehicle arriving and then a figure walking toward her. It is Alex. They walk toward each other. Kate says, "You waited!" She and Alex kiss, then walk toward the lake house.

Wikipedia

The French Lieutenant's Woman 

The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), by John Fowles, is a period novel inspired by the 1823 novel Ourika, by Claire de Duras, which Fowles translated into English in 1977 (and revised in 1994). Fowles was a great aficionado of Thomas Hardy, and, in particular, likened his heroine, Sarah Woodruff, to Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the protagonist of Hardy's popular novel of the same name (1891).

In 1981, director Karel Reisz and writer Harold Pinter adapted the novel as a film, starring Meryl Streep. During 2006, it was adapted for the stage, by Mark Healy, in a version which toured the UK that year. In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present.

Set in the mid-nineteenth century, the novel's protagonist is Sarah Woodruff, the Woman of the title, also known unkindly as “Tragedy” and by the unfortunate nickname "The French Lieutenant's Whore". She lives in the coastal town of Lyme Regis, as a disgraced woman, supposedly abandoned by a French naval officer named Varguennes – married, unknown to her, to another woman – with whom she had supposedly had an affair and who had returned to France.

She spends her limited time off at the Cobb, a pier jutting out to sea, staring at the sea itself. One day, she is seen there by the gentleman Charles Smithson and his fiancée, Ernestina Freeman, the shallow-minded daughter of a wealthy tradesman whose origins are Scottish. Ernestina tells Charles something of Sarah's story, and he develops a strong curiosity about her. 

Eventually, he and she begin to meet clandestinely, during which times Sarah tells Charles her history, and asks for his support, mostly emotional. Despite trying to remain objective, Charles eventually sends Sarah to Exeter, where he, during a journey, cannot resist stopping in to visit and see her. At the time she has suffered an ankle injury; he visits her alone and after they have made love he realises that she had been, contrary to the rumours, a virgin. Simultaneously, he learns that his prospective inheritance from an elder uncle is in jeopardy; the uncle has become engaged to a woman young enough to bear him an heir.

From there, the novelist offers three different endings for The French Lieutenant's Woman.

First ending: Charles marries Ernestina, and their marriage is unhappy; Sarah's fate is unknown. Charles tells Ernestina about an encounter which he implies is with the "French Lieutenant's Whore", but elides the sordid details, and the matter is ended. This ending, however, might be dismissed as a daydream, before the alternative events of the subsequent meeting with Ernestina are described.

Before the second and third endings, the narrator – who the novelist wants the reader to believe is John Fowles himself – appears as a minor character sharing a railway compartment with Charles. He tosses a coin to determine the order in which he will portray the two, other possible endings, emphasising their equal plausibility.

Second ending: Charles and Sarah become intimate; he ends his engagement to Ernestina, with unpleasant consequences. He is disgraced, and his uncle marries, then produces an heir. Sarah flees to London without telling the enamoured Charles, who searches for her for years, before finding her living with several artists (seemingly the Rossettis), enjoying an artistic, creative life. He then learns he has fathered a child with her; as a family, their future is open, with possible reunion implied.

Third ending: the narrator re-appears, standing outside the house where the second ending occurred; at the aftermath. He turns back his pocket watch by fifteen minutes, before leaving in his carriage. Events are the same as in the second-ending version but, when Charles finds Sarah again, in London, their reunion is sour. It is possible that their union was childless; Sarah does not tell Charles about a child, and expresses no interest in continuing the relationship. He leaves the house, deciding to return to America, and sees the carriage, in which the narrator was thought gone. 

Raising the question: is Sarah a manipulating, lying woman of few morals, exploiting Charles’s obvious love to get what she wants?

En route, and as footnotes, Fowles the novelist discourses upon the difficulties of controlling the characters, and offers analyses of differences in 19th-century customs and class, the theories of Charles Darwin, the poetry of Matthew Arnold, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and the literature of Thomas Hardy. He questions the role of the author – when speaking of how the Charles character “disobeys” his orders; the characters have discrete lives of their own in the novel. Philosophically, Existentialism is mentioned several times during the story, and in particular detail at the end, after the portrayals of the two, apparent, equally possible endings.

The Film 

The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1981 film directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by playwright Harold Pinter. It is based on the novel by John Fowles. The music score is by Carl Davis and the cinematography by Freddie Francis.

The film stars Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons with Hilton McRae, Jean Faulds, Peter Vaughan, Colin Jeavons, Liz Smith, Patience Collier, Richard Griffiths, David Warner, Alun Armstrong, Penelope Wilton and Leo McKern.

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards: Streep was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress, and the film was nominated for Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), but both lost to On Golden Pond.

Meryl Streep plays Anna, an American actress brought in to play the quintessentially English part of Sarah Woodruff in the period film being made within the film. Jeremy Irons plays the actor Mike, who is to play the part of a Victorian Gentleman palaeontologist, Charles Smithson. The actors, both married with families, begin an affair, making love, sleeping in the same bed in their location hotel, whilst talking evasively on the phone to their respective partners. In their final scene at the film wrap party, Anna leaves Mike without saying goodbye. 

Mike calls out to Anna from an upstairs window as she drives away, but he actually calls out the name SARAH! the Victorian character she has been playing. The characters of Charles and Sarah, however, develop an intensely emotional relationship that leads them into sex, separation, dishonor and a final reunion by Lake Windermere. The credits roll as they venture out into the calm waters in a row boat, a portent of the change in moral climate to come on the dawn of the 20th century.

Wikipedia

The Spiritual Journey l. Amera Ziganii Rao 

I know. It's all a pile of shit. Alchemy is a full time job. Doesn't matter. Only remember one thing. Only love is real. 

That’s it. I am born. You are born. We are born. The miracle of life is upon us. The Holy Grail of requited and fulfilled love. The true love of unadulterated and unhesitating love. Pure love. The twin souls that we are. On earth as it is in heaven. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2008

The rest is mechanics. Life on earth. 

Only love is real. Remember the love. Perform the tasks. Suffer the 'unrequitement', to grow the beautiful heart. We always knew. The rest is mechanics. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Loving yourself means seeing yourself as important and allowing yourself to do what is beneficial to you. The Golden Mirror 

"I'm thankful to those who said NO, because of them I did it myself." - Albert Einstein 

"Be true to your work, your word, and your friend." - Henry David Thoreau 

"I'll have what she's having." Customer (Estelle Reiner) When Harry Met Sally... 1989 

The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it. Get over it.  ~ Twyla Tharp 

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. Wise Quotes 

I have a simple philosophy:  Fill what's empty.  Empty what's full.  Scratch where it itches.  ~ Alice Roosevelt Longworth 

As we learn to see each other through our spiritual eyes, the physical differences will cease to matter. Iyanla Vanzant 

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." - Henry Ford 

"However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship." - La Rochefoucauld (1665)

Women in Love 

Women in Love is a 1969 British romantic drama film directed by Ken Russell and starring Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, and Jennie Linden. The film was adapted by Larry Kramer from D. H. Lawrence's novel of the same name.

The plot follows the relationships between two sisters and two men in a mining town in post First World War England. The two couples take markedly different directions exploring the nature of commitment and love.

The film was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Director and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Jackson won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role, as well as a slew of critics' honours. 

In 1920 in the Midlands mining town of Beldover, two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, discuss marriage on their way to watch the wedding of Laura Crich, daughter of the town's wealthy mine owner, Thomas Crich, to Tibby Lupton, a naval officer. At the village's church each sister is especially fascinated by a particular member of the wedding party – Gudrun by Laura's brother Gerald and Ursula by Gerald's best friend Rupert Birkin. Ursula is a school teacher and Rupert is a school inspector; she remembers his coming to her classroom and interrupting her botany lesson to discourse on the sexual nature of the catkin.

The four are later brought together at a house party at the estate of Hermione Roddice, a rich woman whose relationship with Rupert is falling apart. When Hermione devises, as an entertainment for her guests, a dance in the "style of the Russian ballet", Rupert becomes impatient with her pretensions and tells the pianist to play some ragtime. This sets off spontaneous dancing among the whole group and angers Hermione. She leaves the room. When Birkin follows her into the next room, she smashes a glass paperweight against his head, and he staggers outside. He discards his clothes and wanders through the woods. 

Later, at the Criches' annual picnic, to which most of the town is invited, Ursula and Gudrun find a secluded spot, and Gudrun dances before some Highland cattle while Ursula sings "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". 

When Gerald and Rupert appear, Gerald calls Gudrun's behaviour "impossible and ridiculous", and then says he loves her. "That's one way of putting it", she replies. Ursula and Birkin wander away discussing death and love and end up making love in the woods. The day ends in tragedy when Laura and Tibby drown while swimming in the lake; she has pulled him under.

During one of Gerald and Rupert's discussions, Rupert suggest Japanese style wrestling. They strip off their clothes and wrestle in the firelight. Rupert enjoys their closeness and says they should swear to love each other implicitly, but Gerald cannot understand Rupert's idea of wanting to have an emotional union with a man as well as an emotional and physical union with a woman. 

Ursula and Birkin decide to marry while Gudrun and Gerald continue to see each other. One evening, emotionally exhausted after his father's illness and death, Gerald sneaks into the Brangwen house to spend the night with Gudrun in her bed and then leaves at dawn.

Later, after Ursula and Birkin's marriage, Gerald suggest that the four of them go to the Alps for Christmas. At their inn in the Alps, Gudrun irritates Gerald with her interest in Loerke, a gay German sculptor. An artist herself, Gudrun is fascinated with Loerke's idea that brutality is necessary to create art. While Gerald grows increasingly jealous and angry, Gudrun only derides and ridicules him. Finally he can endure it no longer. After attempting to strangle her, he trudges off into the snow to die. 

Rupert and Ursula and Gudrun return to their cottage in England where he grieves for his dead friend. As Ursula and Rupert discuss love, Ursula says there can't be two kinds of love. She asks, "Why should you?"

"It seems as if I can't," Rupert responds, "yet I wanted it. "

Wikipedia

That Hamilton Woman 

That Hamilton Woman, also known as Lady Hamilton, is a 1941 black-and-white American historical film drama produced and directed by Alexander Korda for Alexander Korda Films Inc during the producer's American exile. Set during the Napoleonic wars, the film tells the story of the rise and fall of Emma Hamilton (Vivien Leigh), dance-hall girl and courtesan, who married Sir William Hamilton (Alan Mowbray), British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, and became mistress to Admiral Horatio Nelson (Laurence Olivier).

The story begins with an ageing, alcoholic woman being clapped into debtor's prison in the slums of Calais. In a husky, despairing, whiskey-soaked voice, the former Lady Hamilton narrates the story of her life to her skeptical fellow inmates. In one of the early scenes that launches the flashback, Emma, well past her prime, looks into a mirror and remembers "the face I knew before," the face of the young, lovely girl who captured the imagination of artists - most notably George Romney and Joshua Reynolds.

Emma's early life as the mistress of the charming but unreliable Charles Francis Greville leads to her meeting with his wealthy uncle Sir William Hamilton (Alan Mowbray), the British ambassador to Naples. Greville gives Emma to Sir William in exchange for relief on his debts. At first Emma is crushed by this turn of events. Gradually, however, she comes to appreciate her luxurious surroundings and her glamorous new life. She also grows to respect Sir William, who marries her and explains the reasons for Britain's war against Napoleon. 

When Horatio Nelson arrives in Naples, Emma is soon deeply attracted to him and is impressed by his passionate insistence on resisting Napoleon's dictatorial rule. She leaves Sir William to live with Nelson. Their idyllic life together is threatened by the continuing war. Nelson leaves to confront Napoleon's navy in the decisive Battle of Trafalgar. After his death in the battle, she succumbs to alcoholism and spirals down into poverty and oblivion.

Shot in the United States during September and October 1940, the film defines Britain's struggle against Napoleon in terms of resistance to a dictator who seeks to dominate the world. It was intended as a parallel with the current situation in Europe, and was intended as propaganda at a time before the attack on Pearl Harbor when the United States was still formally neutral. 

Korda's brother Vincent designed the sets, creating Sir William Hamilton's palatial home that looked out over the sea of Naples, as well as the interiors of Merton Place: the home Emma and Nelson shared when they returned to England. On a tight budget, Korda completed filming in only five weeks, working from an original screenplay by Walter Reisch and R.C. Sherriff. Originally intended to be named The Enchantress, the film was first released in Britain as Lady Hamilton.

The supporting cast includes Sara Allgood as Emma's mother, Gladys Cooper as Lady Nelson, and Alan Mowbray as William Hamilton, Emma's husband, the British ambassador to Naples and collector of objets d'art.

Because of the strict Motion Picture Production Code, the two lovers never appear in bed together, nor ever even partially undressed together. Before the affair begins, Emma sits on her bed, wherein Nelson is recovering from exhaustion, to feed him some soup. 

According to K.R.M. Short's study of the film, the major problem for the Production Code office was not the scenes showing romantic encounters: It was the script's treating an "adulterous relationship as a romance instead of a sin". 

Stars Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier were newlyweds at the time of filming and were considered a "dream couple". That Hamilton Woman is one of three films they made together. Their first film, Fire Over England, was also produced by Korda. In one scene Nelson (Laurence Olivier) says he has received orders from Admiral Hood; Olivier played Admiral Hood 43 years later in The Bounty (1984).

While the movie was marketed as historical romance, its subtext falls into the "war propaganda" category. In July 1941, the isolationist group America First Committee (AFC) targeted That Hamilton Woman and three other major Hollywood feature films (The Great Dictator, Chaplin/United Artists, 1940; Foreign Correspondent, Wanger/United Artists, 1940; The Mortal Storm, MGM, 1940) as productions that "seemed to be preparing Americans for war." The AFC called on the American public to boycott theaters showing these movies.

Critical sources usually point out that That Hamilton Woman was Winston Churchill's favorite film. In “Remakes, Outtakes, and Updates in Susan Sontag's The Volcano Lover,” Stacey Olster claims that it was Winston Churchill who suggested the story of the Hamilton/Nelson romance because of his interest in a vehicle “that would promote Britain's historic role as a scourge of tyrants (Hitler here equated with Bonaparte).” 

Olster reveals that at the time the movie was made, Alexander Korda’s New York offices were “supplying cover to MI-5 agents gathering intelligence on both German activities in the United States and isolationist sentiments among makers of American foreign policy.” According to Olivier’s biographer, Anthony Holden, That Hamilton Woman “became Exhibit A in a case brought against Korda by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Committee had accused him of operating an espionage and propaganda center for Britain in the United States—a charge Korda only escaped by virtue of the fact that his scheduled appearance before the committee on December 12, 1941 was preempted by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor five days earlier".

Bosley Crowther said the film is "just a running account of a famous love affair, told with deep sympathy for the participants against a broad historic outline of the times....Perhaps if it had all been condensed and contrived with less manifest awe, the effect would have been more exciting and the love story would have had more poignancy. As it is, the little drama in the picture is dissipated over many expansive scenes; compassion is lost in marble halls."

Of the two stars, he said "Vivien Leigh's entire performance as Lady Hamilton is delightful to behold. All of the charm and grace and spirit which Miss Leigh contains is beautifully put to use to capture the subtle spell which Emma most assuredly must have weaved. Laurence Olivier's Nelson is more studied and obviously contrived, and his appearance is very impressive, with the famous dead eye and empty sleeve.

Wikipedia

For Whom the Bell Tolls 

(Wow. Last time I saw this I was 5 or 6. It's like yesterday. AZR)

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a 1943 film in Technicolor based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. It stars Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff and Katina Paxinou. This was Ingrid Bergman's first technicolor film. Hemingway handpicked Cooper and Bergman for their roles. The film was adapted for the screen by Dudley Nichols and was directed by Sam Wood. The film became the top box-office hit of 1943, grossing $11 million. It was also nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning one.

The first complete score from an American film to be issued on records was Victor Young's music for For Whom the Bell Tolls.

During the Spanish Civil War, an American (Gary Cooper), who is allied with the republicans, gets involved in a mission to blow up an important bridge.

The film won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Katina Paxinou) and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Cooper), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Akim Tamiroff), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Ingrid Bergman), Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color (Hans Dreier, Haldane Douglas, Bertram C. Granger), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and Best Picture.

The Novel 

This novel is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan. The character was inspired by Hemingway's own experiences in the Spanish Civil War as a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Robert Jordan is an American in the International Brigades who travels to Spain to oppose the fascist forces of Francisco Franco. As an experienced dynamiter, he was ordered by a communist Russian general to travel behind enemy lines and destroy a bridge with the aid of a band of local antifascist guerrillas, in order to prevent enemy troops from being able to respond to an upcoming offensive. (The Soviet Union aided and advised the Republicans against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Similarly, Hitler's Nazis and Mussolini's Italy provided Franco with military aid.) In their camp, Robert Jordan encounters María, a young Spanish woman whose life had been shattered by the execution of her parents and her rape at the hands of the Falangists (part of the fascist coalition) at the outbreak of the war. His strong sense of duty clashes with both guerrilla leader Pablo's unwillingness to commit to an operation that would endanger himself and his band, and his newfound lust for life which arises out of his love for María. However, when another band of antifascist guerrillas led by El Sordo are surrounded and killed, Pablo decides to betray Jordan by stealing the dynamite caps, hoping to prevent the demolition. In the end Jordan improvises a way to detonate his dynamite, and Pablo returns to assist in the operation after seeing Jordan's commitment to his course of action. Though the bridge is successfully destroyed, it may be too late for the purposes of delaying enemy troop movements, thus rendering the mission pointless, and Jordan is maimed when his horse is shot out from under him by a tank. Knowing that he would only slow his comrades down, he bids goodbye to María and ensures that she escapes to safety with the surviving members of the guerillas. He refuses an offer from another fighter to be shot and lies in agony, hoping to kill an enemy officer and a few soldiers before being captured and executed. The narration ends right before Jordan launches his ambush.

The novel graphically describes the brutality of civil war.

Wikipedia

The Spiritual Journey ll. Amera Ziganii Rao 

That’s it my sweet. You remember two things. First, that you don’t want to ‘beat up women’ anymore. Second, that the whole world has made us ‘mad’ and mad. Remember those two things and you win every day. Daughter mother dependency. You lost many times over. The sickness is from the real grief. The sickness can heal. Fear of loss is no simple psychological matter. We are old souls. 

Let it go. Love, trust and God, The Mother, The Universe, The Womb of Creation. Cause and effect rules. That’s why, one life, we triumph. It is inevitable. That IS written. And you’ve got my story. I used to be ‘mad’ too and now I am not. ‘Madness’ can heal. Ascension speeds up the more you want it and the more skills you acquire. 

Just keep that discomfort. You don’t want to be a ‘wifebeater’ anymore, you want to be a hero to women. And the whole world has made us mad. Know that and you know the enemy. 

You love spiritual intelligence because that is your true language. Me. Stay with that perspective, despite everything around you, and you win. The world is insane. You no longer have to be. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, careful to have it even more fully in your heart. Saint Francis of Assisi 

The art of cuppa making? I've got it down to a tea. PG Tips 

Notice your harshest critic is usually yourself. Self love rocks! Lorane Gordon 

Love Heals our Hearts, our World and the Universe in the silence of our beliefs. ~ Francis Griffin 

As you breath right now, another person takes his (her) last. So stop complaining, and learn to live your life with what you got. Phil Crackin 

Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility. Oprah Winfrey 

“Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.” ~ Brendan Gill 

Daily meditation is one way to achieve awareness. It requires a decision to seek inner experience, not outer reward. Neale Donald Walsch 

Parents can give good advice or put them on the right path, but the final forming of a persons character lies in their own hands. Anne Frank 

Success is not counted by how high you have climbed but by how many people you brought with you. ~ Wil Rose 

“Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.” ― Elie Wiesel 

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark. ~ George Iles

Writings. Self Esteem. The Manna of Heaven on Earth. Amera Ziganii Rao 

Self Esteem. What it has all been for. What the only journey of life is ever about. Knowing who we are (Socrates), creating who we truly are. Self esteem. Self worth and self love. Individuation, original thinking and entrance into the inner heart and the higher mind. Feeling, feeling, feeling and feeling.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

Coming from a disturbed background is no joke. You are taught, by well meaning people, to hate yourself. And unless you make the momentous journey to then find out, by yourself, how to love yourself, what love is, what love is not, you remain broken in a world where broken people are not to be sympathised with or even tolerated. Mostly out of ignorance, as opposed to straight up lack of compassion. 

Spiritual wisdom however would say that compassion comes from suffering in the first place. Self esteem for people from disturbed backgrounds is not a luxury. It is something that has been hard fought for, hard worked for and researched into the minutest detail. To create one's own self esteem from scratch, is the genius of any human being, who can do it.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

Emmanuelle lX (Artwork) 

Hierophant Knowledge: Intention. Wayne Dyer. Thoughts on a True Life of Alchemy

Part 1. The Essentials of Intention

Viewing intention from a new perspective. During the past several years, I have been so strongly attracted to the studying intention, that I’ve read hundreds of books by psychological, sociological and spiritual writers. Ancient and modern scholars and academic researchers. 

My research reveals a fairly common definition of intention as a strong purpose or aim, accompanied by a determination to produce a desired result. People driven by intention are described as having a strong will that will not let anything interfere with achieving their inner desire. 

I imagine a kind of pit pull resolve or determination. If you’re one of those people with a never give up attitude, combined with an internal picture that propels you, towards fulfilling your dreams, you fit this description of someone with intention. 

You are most likely a super achiever and probably proud of your ability to recognise and take advantage of opportunities that arise. For many years I held a similar belief about intention . In fact, I’ve written and spoken often about the power of intention being just what I described above. 

Over the past quarter of a century however, I felt a shift in my thinking from a purely psychological or personal growth emphasis, towards a spiritual orientation, where healing, creating miracles, manifesting and making a connection to divine intelligence are genuine possibilities. This hasn’t been a deliberate attempt to disengage from my academic and professional background, but rather a natural evolution that’s been unfolding as I began to make more conscious contact with spirit. 

My writing now emphasises my belief that we can find spiritual solutions to problems, by living at higher levels, and calling up on faster energies. In my mind, intention is now something far greater than a determined ego or individual will, it’s something almost totally opposite. 

Perhaps this comes from shedding many levels of ego in my own life, but I also feel the strong influence of two sentences I read in a book by Carlos Castaneda. In my writing life, I’ve often come across something in a book that starts germinating something in me, that ultimately compels me to write a new book. At any rate, I read these two sentences in Carlos Castaneda’s final book. 

The Active Side of Infinity, while I was waiting to have a cardiac procedure to open up one clogged artery, leading into my heart that had caused a mild heart attack. Castaneda’s words were “Intent is a force that exists in the Universe. When Sorcerers, that is those who live of the Source, beckon intent, it comes to them and sets up a path for attainment. Which means that sorcerers always accomplish what they set out to do.” When I read those two sentences, I was stunned by the clarity and insight it gave me about the power of intention. 

Imagine that intention is not something you do, but rather a force that exists in the Universe as an invisible field of energy. I had never even considered intention in this way, before reading Castaneda’s words. I wrote those two sentences down, then I had them printed on a card and laminated, I carried the laminated card into the c—lab, for my minor surgical procedure. And as soon as I could, I began to talk about the power of intention to anyone who would listen. I made intention a part of every speech I gave. I immersed myself in the idea of how to use it, not only in my own healing, but to help others use the power of intention to carry them where they are fully equipped to go. 

I had experienced what is called Satori, or instant awakening and was intent on offering this insight to others. It had become clear to me that accessing the power of intention, relieved so much of the seemingly impossible striving to fulfil desires by sheer force of will.

Since that defining moment, I’ve thought of the power of intention in virtually in all of my waking hours, and books, telephone conversations, items arriving in my mail inbox, and arbitrary works I might be looking at in a bookstore. All seem to conspire to keep me on this path, so here it is. 

The Power of Intention. I hope this book will help you view intention in a new way, and also to make use of it in a manner that leads you to define yourself in a way as Pantangalli suggested more than 20 centuries ago, “Dormant forces and faculties come alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far, than you ever dreamed yourself to be. “ Patangalli’s two words, ‘dormant forces’ kick-started me in the direction of writing about intention. 

Patangalli was referring to forces that appear to be either non existent or dead. And he was referring to a powerful energy when someone feels inspired. If you’ve ever felt inspired by a purpose or calling, you know the feeling of spirit working through you. Inspired is our word for ‘inspirited’. I have thought long and hard about accessing seemingly dormant forces to assist me at key times in my life. To achieve an inner burning desire. 

What are these forces? Where are they located? Who gets to use them? Who’s denied access and why? Questions like these have propelled me to write this book and subsequently arrive at a totally new perspective on intention. 

At this point, as I’m writing about my excitement of realising a long, obscure truth, I know that intention is a force that we all have within us. Intention is a field of energy that flows invisibly beyond the reach of our normal, everyday, habitual patterns. It’s there, even before our actual conception. We have the means to attract this energy to us and experience life in an exciting new way. 

The meaning of omnipresent intention. Try imagining a force that’s everywhere. There’s no place you can go where it isn’t. It can’t be divided and it is present in everything you see or touch. Now, extend your awareness of this infinite energy field beyond the world of form and boundaries. 

This infinite, invisible force is everywhere, so it’s both in the physical and the non physical. Your physical body is one part of your totality emanating from this energy. At the instant of conception, intention sets in motion how your physical form will appear and how your growing and ageing process will unfold. 

It also sets in motions your non physical aspects, including your emotions, thoughts, and disposition. In this instance, intention is infinite potential. Activating your physical and non physical appearance on earth. You formed out of this omnipresent to become present in this time and space. 

Because it is omnipresent, this energy field is accessible to you, after your physical arrival here on earth. The only way you de-activate this dormant force is by believing that you are separate from it. Activating intention means re-joining your source and becoming a modern day sorcerer. 

Being a sorcerer means attaining the level of awareness where previously inconceivable things are available. As Carlos Castaneda explained, “the task of sorcerers was to face infinity or intention. And they plunged into it daily as a fisherman plunges into the sea.” Intention is a power that is present everywhere as a field of energy. It isn’t limited to physical development. It’s the source of non physical development as well. 

This field of intention is here now, and available to you. When you activate it, you begin to feel purpose in your life and you’ll be guided by your infinite self. As you make your metaphorical bow to this power, recognise that you are bowing to yourself, the all pervading energy of intention pulses through you towards your potential for a purposeful life. 

How you came to experience yourself as disconnected from intention. If there’s an omnipresent power of intention that’s not only within me but in everything and everyone, then we’re connected by this all pervading source to everything and everyone and to what we would like to be and what we would like to have and what we want to achieve and to everything in the Universe that will assist us. 

All that is required is re-aligning ourselves and activating intention.

Wayne Dyer

The Scarlet Letter 

The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus. Set in 17th-century Puritan Salem, Massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. 

Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.

In June 1642, in the Puritan town of Salem, a crowd gathers to witness an official punishment. A young woman, Hester Prynne, has been found guilty of adultery and must wear a scarlet "A", ('A' is a symbol of adultery and affair) on her dress as a sign of shame. Furthermore, she must stand on the scaffold for three hours, exposed to public humiliation. As Hester approaches the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd are angered by her beauty and quiet dignity. When demanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses.

As Hester looks out over the crowd, she notices a small, misshapen man and recognizes him as her long-lost husband, who has been presumed lost at sea. When the husband sees Hester's shame, he asks a man in the crowd about her and is told the story of his wife's adultery. He angrily exclaims that the child's father, the partner in the adulterous act, should also be punished and vows to find the man. He chooses a new name – Roger Chillingworth – to aid him in his plan.

Reverend John Wilson and the minister of her church, Arthur Dimmesdale, question Hester, but she refuses to name her lover. After she returns to her prison cell, the jailer brings in Roger Chillingworth, a physician, to calm Hester and her child with his roots and herbs. Dismissing the jailer, Chillingworth first treats Pearl, Hester's baby, and then demands to know the name of the child's father. When Hester refuses, he insists that she never reveal that he is her husband. If she ever does so, he warns her, he will destroy the child's father. Hester agrees to Chillingworth's terms even though she suspects she will regret it.

Following her release from prison, Hester settles in a cottage at the edge of town and earns a meager living with her needlework. She lives a quiet, somber life with her daughter, Pearl. She is troubled by her daughter's unusual character. As an infant, Pearl is fascinated by the scarlet "A". As she grows older, Pearl becomes capricious and unruly. Her conduct starts rumors, and, not surprisingly, the church members suggest Pearl be taken away from Hester.

Hester, hearing the rumors that she may lose Pearl, goes to speak to Governor Bellingham. With him are Reverends Wilson and Dimmesdale. When Wilson questions Pearl about her catechism, she refuses to answer, even though she knows the correct response, thus jeopardizing her guardianship. Hester appeals to Reverend Dimmesdale in desperation, and the minister persuades the governor to let Pearl remain in Hester's care.

Because Reverend Dimmesdale's health has begun to fail, the townspeople are happy to have Chillingworth, a newly arrived physician, take up lodgings with their beloved minister. Being in such close contact with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth begins to suspect that the minister's illness is the result of some unconfessed guilt. He applies psychological pressure to the minister because he suspects Dimmesdale to be Pearl's father. One evening, pulling the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment aside, Chillingworth sees something startling on the sleeping minister's pale chest: a scarlet "A".

Tormented by his guilty conscience, Dimmesdale goes to the square where Hester was punished years earlier. Climbing the scaffold, he sees Hester and Pearl and calls to them to join him. He admits his guilt to them but cannot find the courage to do so publicly. Suddenly Dimmesdale sees a meteor forming what appears to be a gigantic A in the sky; simultaneously, Pearl points toward the shadowy figure of Roger Chillingworth. Hester, shocked by Dimmesdale's deterioration, decides to obtain a release from her vow of silence to her husband. In her discussion of this with Chillingworth, she tells him his obsession with revenge must be stopped in order to save his own soul.

Several days later, Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest, where she removes the scarlet letter from her dress and identifies her husband and his desire for revenge. In this conversation, she convinces Dimmesdale to leave Boston in secret on a ship to Europe where they can start life anew. Renewed by this plan, the minister seems to gain new energy. Pearl, however, refuses to acknowledge either of them until Hester replaces her symbol of shame on her dress.

Returning to town, Dimmesdale loses heart in their plan: He has become a changed man and knows he is dying. Meanwhile, Hester is informed by the captain of the ship on which she arranged passage that Roger Chillingworth will also be a passenger.

On Election Day, Dimmesdale gives what is declared to be one of his most inspired sermons. But as the procession leaves the church, Dimmesdale stumbles and almost falls. Seeing Hester and Pearl in the crowd watching the parade, he climbs upon the scaffold and confesses his sin, dying in Hester's arms. Later, witnesses swear that they saw a stigma in the form of a scarlet "A" upon his chest. Chillingworth, losing his will for revenge, dies shortly thereafter and leaves Pearl a great deal of money. It is hinted that Pearl uses this money to travel to Europe, and possibly gets married.

Several years later, Hester returns to her cottage, resumes wearing the scarlet letter, and becomes a person to whom other women turn for solace. When she dies, she is buried near the grave of Dimmesdale, and they share a simple slate tombstone with a scarlet "A".

Sin 

The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the story of Adam and Eve because, in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering. But it also results in knowledge – specifically, in knowledge of what it means to be immoral. For Hester, the scarlet letter functions as "her passport into regions where other women dared not tread", leading her to "speculate" about her society and herself more "boldly" than anyone else in New England.

As for Dimmesdale, the "cheating minister", his sin gives him "sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his chest vibrate[s] in unison with theirs." His eloquent and powerful sermons derive from this sense of empathy. The narrative of the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is quite in keeping with the oldest and most fully authorized principles in Christian thought. His "Fall" is a descent from apparent grace to his own damnation; he appears to begin in purity but he ends in corruption. The subtlety is that the minister's belief is his own cheating, convincing himself at every stage of his spiritual pilgrimage that he is saved.

The rose bush, its beauty a striking contrast to all that surrounds it – as later the beautifully embroidered scarlet "A" will be – is held out in part as an invitation to find "some sweet moral blossom" in the ensuing, tragic tale and in part as an image that "the deep heart of nature" (perhaps God) may look more kind on the errant Hester and her child than her Puritan neighbors do. Throughout the work, the nature images contrast with the stark darkness of the Puritans and their systems.

Chillingworth's misshapen body reflects (or symbolizes) the anger in his soul, which builds as the novel progresses, similar to the way Dimmesdale's illness reveals his inner turmoil. The outward man reflects the condition of the heart; an observation thought to be inspired by the deterioration of Edgar Allan Poe, whom Hawthorne "much admired".

Although Pearl is a complex character, her primary function within the novel is as a symbol. Pearl herself is the embodiment of the scarlet letter, and Hester rightly clothes her in a beautiful dress of scarlet, embroidered with gold thread, just like the scarlet letter upon Hester's bosom.

Puritan legalism

Another theme is the extreme legalism of the Puritans and how Hester chooses not to conform to their rules and beliefs. Hester was rejected by the villagers even though she spent her life doing what she could to help the sick and the poor. Because they rejected her, she spent her life mostly in solitude, and wouldn't go to church.

As a result, she retreats into her own mind and her own thinking. Her thoughts begin to stretch and go beyond what would be considered by the Puritans as safe or even Christian. She still sees her sin, but begins to look on it differently than the villagers ever have. She begins to believe that a person's earthly sins don't necessarily condemn them. She even goes so far as to tell Dimmesdale that their sin has been paid for by their daily penance and that their sin won't keep them from getting to heaven, however, the Puritans believed that such a sin surely condemns.

But Hester had been alienated from the Puritan society, both in her physical life and spiritual life. When Dimmesdale dies, she knows she has to move on because she can no longer conform to the Puritans' strictness. Her thinking is free from religious bounds and she has established her own different moral standards and beliefs.

Hester Prynne 

Hester Prynne is the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. She is portrayed as a woman condemned by her Puritan neighbors. The character has been called "among the first and most important female protagonists in American literature."

A resident of Colonial America, Hester is sent ahead to the "New World" by her husband, who later assumes the name of Roger Chillingworth, as he has some business to finish before he can join her. After he is shipwrecked and captured by Native Americans and presumed dead, Hester continues to live her life as a seamstress in the town. She looks to the local pastor Arthur Dimmesdale for comfort; somewhere along the way passion emerges, culminating in the conception and subsequent birth of their child, Pearl. 

Because Hester has no husband with her, she is imprisoned, convicted of the crime of adultery, and sentenced to be forced to wear a prominent scarlet letter 'A' for the rest of her life.

Though scorned by her fellow citizens, Hester continues to lead a relatively uneventful life. Shortly after the birth of the child and her punishment, Hester's husband reappears and demands that she tell him the name of the child's father. Hester refuses, but swears not to reveal the fact that Chillingworth is her husband to the town folk. Hester continues living her life as a seamstress, providing for herself and her child.

Novelist John Updike said of Prynne:

She's such an arresting and slightly ambiguous figure. She's a funny mix of a truly liberated, defiantly sexual woman, but in the end a woman who accepts the penance that society imposed on her. And I don't know, I suppose she's an epitome of female predicaments. ... She is a mythic version of every woman's attempt to integrate her sexuality with societal demands.

One analyst wrote:

All the contradictions of Hester Prynne — guilt and honesty, sin and holiness, sex and chastity — make her an enduring heroine of American literature. She is flawed, complex, and above all fertile.

The idea of Hester Prynne, the good woman gone bad, is a cultural meme that recurs again and again — perhaps because we as a culture are still trying to figure out who Hester really is and how we feel about her.

Inspiration and Influence 

According to popular tradition, the gravestone of Elizabeth Pain in Boston's King's Chapel Burying Ground was the inspiration for Hester Prynne's grave. 

Scholar Laurie Rozakis has argued that an alternate or additional source for the story may be Hester Craford, a woman flogged for fornication with John Wedg.

In various film adaptations of the novel, Prynne has been portrayed by actresses such as Lillian Gish, Sommer Parker, Meg Foster, Mary Martin, Sybil Thorndike, Senta Berger and Demi Moore.

In the cult television Series Twin Peaks the name was also adopted as a pseudonym by the character Audrey Horne. 

Another literary figure using the surname Prynne is a woman who had an adulterous relationship with a pastor in the novel A Month of Sundays by John Updike, part of his trilogy of novels based on characters in The Scarlet Letter. 

In the musical The Music Man, Harold Hill refers to Hester Prynne in the song "Sadder but Wiser Girl." He sings that he wants a girl "with a touch of sin." remarking "I hope, and I pray, for a Hester to win just one more 'A'."

Wikipedia

Emmanuelle Vl (Artwork) 

Becket 

Becket is a 1964 film adaptation of the play Becket or the Honour of God by Jean Anouilh made by Hal Wallis Productions and released by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Peter Glenville and produced by Hal B. Wallis with Joseph H. Hazen as executive producer. The screenplay was written by Edward Anhalt based on Anouilh's play. The music score was by Laurence Rosenthal, the cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth and the editing by Anne V. Coates.

The film stars Richard Burton as Thomas Becket and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II, with John Gielgud as King Louis VII, Donald Wolfit as Gilbert Foliot, Paolo Stoppa as Pope Alexander III, Martita Hunt as Empress Matilda, Pamela Brown as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, Siân Phillips, Felix Aylmer, Gino Cervi, David Weston, and Wilfrid Lawson.

Newly restored prints of Becket were re-released in 30 theatres in the US in early 2007, following an extensive restoration from the film's YCM separation protection masters.

The film was released on DVD by MPI Home Video in May 2007 and on Blu-ray Disc in Nov 2008. The new film prints carry a Dolby Digital soundtrack, although the soundtrack of the original film, which originally opened as a roadshow theatrical release, was also in stereo.

Becket won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and was nominated for eleven other awards, including for Best Picture, Best Director, and twice for Best Actor.

The original French play on which the film is based was given its first performance in Paris in 1959. It opened on Broadway with Laurence Olivier as Becket and Anthony Quinn as King Henry II in a production directed by Peter Glenville, who later went on to direct the film version. The play opened in London in a production by Peter Hall with Eric Porter and Christopher Plummer. O'Toole was originally signed to play Henry II in the production, but broke the contract before rehearsals began to take the lead in David Lean's film of Lawrence of Arabia.

The film was made at Shepperton Studios, England and on location at Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle and Bamburgh Beach in Northumberland.

Peter O'Toole went on to play Henry II once more in The Lion in Winter (1968) with Katharine Hepburn as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Siân Phillips, who plays Gwendolen, was Peter O'Toole's wife at the time of filming.

The film enjoyed great popularity and acclaim.

The film's action takes place during the late 12th century, about 100 years after the 1066 Norman Conquest of England. The conquest largely removed the native (largely Anglo-Saxon) ruling class, replacing it with a foreign, French-speaking monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy.

The story line monitors the transformation of Thomas Becket, portrayed, following the play, as a Saxon protégé and facilitator to the carousing King Henry, into a man who continually invokes the "honor of God". Henry appoints Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury to have a close confidant in this position that he could completely control. Instead, Becket becomes a major thorn in his side in a jurisdictional dispute. 

Much of the plot concerns Henry, the "perennial adolescent" as described by the Bishop of London, who finds his duties as king and his stale arranged marriage to be oppressive. Early in the film, we see him escaping them through drunken forays onto the hunting grounds and local brothels. He is increasingly dependent on Becket, a Saxon commoner, who arranges these debaucheries when he is not busy running Henry's court. This foments great resentment on the part of Henry's Norman noblemen, who distrust and envy this Saxon upstart, as well as the queen and queen mother, who see Becket as an unnatural and unseemly influence upon the royal personage.

Henry finds himself in continuous conflict with the elderly Archbishop of Canterbury, who opposes the taxation of Church property to support Henry's military campaigns in France ("Bishop, I must hire the Swiss Guards to fight for me – and no one has ever paid them off with good wishes and prayer!"). During one of his campaigns in coastal France, he receives word that the old bishop has "gone to God's bosom". In a burst of inspiration, Henry exercises his prerogative to pick the next Archbishop and informs an astonished Becket that he is the royal choice.

Shortly thereafter, Becket sides with the Church, throwing Henry into a fury. One of the main bones of contention is Thomas' excommunication of Lord Gilbert, one of Henry's most loyal stalwarts, for seizing and ordering the killing of a priest who had been accused of sexual indiscretions with a young girl, before the priest can even be handed over for ecclesiastical trial. Gilbert then refuses to acknowledge his transgressions and seek absolution.

The King has a dramatic secret meeting with the Bishop of London in his cathedral ("I have the Archbishop on my stomach, a big hard lump"). He lays out his plan to remove the troublesome cleric through scandal and innuendo which the position-conscious Bishop of London quickly agrees to (thus furthering Henry's already deep contempt for church higher ups). These attempts fall flat when Becket, in full ecclesiastic garb, confronts his accusers outside the rectory and routs them causing Henry to laugh and bitterly note the irony of it all, "Becket is the only intelligent man in my entire kingdom...and he is against me!" Becket escapes to France where he encounters the conniving yet sympathetic King Louis (John Gielgud). 

King Louis sees in Becket a means by which he can further his favourite pastime, tormenting the arrogant English. Becket gets to Rome, where he begs the Holy Pontiff to allow him to renounce his position and retire to a monastery as an ordinary priest. The Vatican is a hotbed of intrigue and political jockeying. The Pope reminds Becket that he has an obligation as a matter of principle to return to England and take a stand against civil interference in Church matters. Becket yields to this decision and asks Louis to arrange a meeting with Henry on the beaches at Normandy. Henry asks Becket whether or not he loved him and Becket replied that he loved Henry to the best of his ability. A shaky truce is declared and Becket is allowed to return to England.

The remainder of the film shows Henry rapidly sinking into drunken fixation over Becket and his perceived betrayal. The barons worsen his mood by pointing out that Becket has become a folk hero among the vanquished Saxons who are ever restive and resentful of their Norman conquerors. There are comical fights between Henry and his frumpy consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine, his dimwitted son/heir apparent, and his cold-blooded mother, who repeatedly reminds her son that his father would have quickly had someone like Becket done away with for the sake of the realm. During one of his drunken rages he asks "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" His faithful barons hear this and proceed quickly to Canterbury, where they put Thomas and his Saxon deputy, Brother John, to the sword. A badly shaken Henry then undergoes a penance by whipping at the hands of Saxon monks.

The film concludes with Henry, fresh from his whipping, publicly proclaiming Thomas Becket a saint and that the ones who had killed him will be justly punished.

Most of the historical inaccuracies in the film are from the play, as Anouilh was writing drama rather than a history, and he took dramatic license as would be expected.

The major inaccuracy is the depiction of Becket as a Saxon who has risen to a perceived Norman social standing, when in fact the historical Thomas Becket was a Norman (while Henry was an Angevin). Anouilh did this because he had based the play on a 19th-century account that described Becket as a Saxon. He had been informed of this error before his play was produced, but decided against correcting it because it would undermine a key point of conflict, and because "history might eventually rediscover that Becket was a Saxon, after all."

Becket is depicted as Henry's loyal "drinking buddy", who aids him in illicit romantic entanglements, but who becomes saintly and responsible after his appointment as Archbishop. Passing mention is made in the film of the Constitutions of Clarendon (simply as the "Sixteen Articles"); the struggle between Becket and Henry is boiled down to their conflict over Lord Gilbert's murder of the captive priest. In no way is Becket depicted as a man who desired special legal privileges (defrocking rather than prison) for his clergy, as some believe that he was.

Although the story takes place in the late 12th century, the armoured helmets that King Henry's children play in are right out of the 15th century, as one might see in films about Joan of Arc, Henry IV or Henry V.

Henry's mother, Empress Mathilda, died in 1167, three years before the treaty of Fréteval allowed Becket to return in England. Henry appears to not have any respect for his mother and treats her as something of an annoyance, a rather drastic departure from what is generally held as historical fact. Empress Mathilda was Henry's sole parent for much of his childhood, and she was instrumental in shaping Henry into the fierce warrior and skilled administrator he was. Far from seeing his mother as a burden, Henry seems to have adored Mathilda and relied heavily on her advice and guidance until her death.

Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, is shown publicly rebuking Henry in a scene near the end of the film, when in fact Eleanor, whatever private reservations she may have had, is not known to have ever behaved in such a manner in public. During the same scene, she says she will go to her father to complain of Henry's treatment of her; however, her father had died decades before, when Eleanor was just 15 years old. It was her father's death that made Eleanor the Duchess of Aquitaine and the most eligible bride of the 12th century, and Henry would not have married her had she not come with Aquitaine. When combined with Henry's own duchies in France, the marriage gave the royal couple control over more land in France than the actual King of France possessed at the time. Also, the movie shows Henry and Eleanor as having four children, all boys. In truth Henry and Eleanor had eight children, five sons and three daughters. While the eldest son, William, had died before the events of the film, the three daughters are neglected.

Wikipedia

The Spiritual Journey lll. Amera Ziganii Rao 

I know. I’m exhausted too. It is easier to look to the friends. It is enough to even accept that one’s partner or love or lover has a private life that has nothing to do with you. Infidelity and all that is associated with it. Nothing wrong with love. And love can be spread all around, if it is moving from the right place. We are expansive people and should be and as we become more and more, we connect with our true friends. Everyone is in our life for a reason. And it all truly does add to the love. If it is done right. Illusion and the need for it however is something different. The ‘temptation’ is there all the time. The need to escape. The need to daydream. The need to get ‘distracted’ from the task ahead. However awesome the magic is, the daily grind of love development still has to exist. Ego doesn’t want that. Ego wants to fly in the ‘love’ of love all the time, no matter what. In soul, it’s not easy either. Loneliness is loneliness whatever dimension one lives in. When love appears to be on hand, it takes a discipline that is completely unwelcome. Infuriatingly it takes love, to love. In other words, don’t use the friends as painkillers. They don’t appreciate it either. 

‘Temptation’ of illusion. In ego that ‘temptation ‘ is relentless. Ego will give itself any excuse not to face the Thomas Moore defined ‘Daimonic’ (Dark Night of the Soul). Being in soul doesn’t make it easy. It just makes it simple. To love, one has to keep loving. Soul is the ability to do it. Enjoy the love of the friendships that are soul real too, whether we are in ego or not. Every connection is deliberate. But know they are there to soothe us in between the real discussion. How, to love. How, to love each other, without illusion and without fear, and indeed, with all the illusions we will ever want. 

Courage, trust in the other and endurance. These are our difficult times, to say the least, and they are not. The ego is defined. We are just recovering together and searching for more keys to unlock that heart of yours, so it will finally accept life. And not take the synthetic sugar version. Ego. 

Get ‘distracted’, seek solace in the friendships. Have a private life. It is not enough for us to say that if it isn’t physical, it’s not real. Alchemists do not have that excuse. It all goes on in the mind, behind closed doors. Our partnership means those doors are open. We know that. We have both honoured that. Times have just got tougher all over again. The responsibility is across the board. We all take refuge and we all need to learn how not to. While taking any refuge we are allowed, for that friendship moment. You and I, my love, are learning commitment and partnership. Not the marriage kind that seems to be fallen into, so easily. That we all thought was so easy. This is the real kind. The kind that moves from the heart. The heart is tender, ferocious and highly self protective. The heart does not want to live. The heart wants to escape. The good news is this. We want to escape with each other. The rest is courage and discipline. 

And accepting that it is not easy. These are our difficult days. Anything will be preferable to where you are going. And in soul, the same applies to me. Persistence and staying on the straight and narrow is our lot at the moment. Not attractive. Not fun. Not sexy. Not anything resembling what you wanted love to be. Ego is raging. 

And it takes courage. Courage to believe in my love. Courage to believe in yours. Courage to believe that any of this is worth it. Courage to believe that any of this is sane. Courage to believe that any of this is POSSIBLE. Courage. 

Don’t drift from the adventure. And in that, you also, paradoxically, get to finally, make feeling a part of your daily life. And you honour the friendships and you don’t abuse through them. You stay in the adventure and you diffuse it into life. 

If you drift from the adventure you stay at level one. Illusion and cynicism and hollow, angry, ‘loving’. Blame. Blaming everyone and getting a ‘bandaid’ for the problem. A plaster. Because the honeymoon moments always go. Then, it is just the same. The Daimonic still exists and still has to be dealt with. Your entrance to soul. Our entrance to existence. 

Changing the spiritual DNA of your matter. Ascending. Have a rest, yes. Remember who you are, outside of our soul stripping stage of relationship. You need it. I need it. Talk about ‘losing yourself’ in love. Good grief. We need all the help and time possible. But don’t get lost. And neither will I. 

Love, takes love. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Look Back in Anger 

Look Back in Anger (1956) is a John Osborne play—made into films in 1959, 1980, and 1989—about a love triangle involving an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working class origin (Jimmy Porter), his upper-middle-class, impassive wife (Alison), and her haughty best friend (Helena Charles). Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace. The play was a success on the London stage, and spawned the term "angry young men" to describe Osborne and those of his generation who employed the harshness of realism in the theatre in contrast to the more escapist theatre that characterized the previous generation.

Look Back in Anger was a strongly autobiographical piece based on Osborne's unhappy marriage to actress Pamela Lane and their life in cramped accommodation in Derby.

While Osborne aspired towards a career in theatre, Lane was of a more practical and materialistic persuasion, not taking Osborne's ambitions seriously while cuckolding him with a local dentist. It also contains much of Osborne's earlier life, the wrenching speech of seeing a loved one die being, for example, a replay of the death of Thomas, Osborne's father. What it is best remembered for, though, are Jimmy's tirades. Some of these are directed against generalised British middle-class smugness in the post-atomic world. 

Many are directed against the female characters, and this is a very distinct echo of the playwright's profoundly uneasy relations with women, starting with his mother Nellie Beatrice, described by Osborne in his autobiography A Better Class of Person as "hypocritical, self-absorbed, calculating and indifferent".

Madeline, the lost love Jimmy pines for, is based on Stella Linden, an older rep-company actress who first encouraged Osborne to write. After the first production in London, Osborne began a relationship with Mary Ure, who played Alison, and divorced his wife to marry Ure in 1957.

The play was premiered at London's Royal Court Theatre, on 8 May 1956 by the English Stage Company under the direction of Tony Richardson, setting by Alan Tagg, and music for songs by Tom Eastwood. The press release called the author an angry young man, a phrase that came to represent a new movement in 1950s British theatre. Legend has it that audiences gasped at the sight of an ironing board on a London stage. 

The cast was as follows: Kenneth Haigh (Jimmy), Alan Bates (Cliff), Mary Ure (Alison), Helena Hughes (Helena) and John Welsh (Colonel Redfern).

The following year, the production moved to Broadway under producer David Merrick and director Tony Richardson. Retaining the original cast but starring Vivienne Drummond as Helena, it would receive three Tony Award nominations including for Best Play and "Best Dramatic Actress" for Ure.

Wikipedia

Realms of The Earth Angels. Doreen Virtue 

Blended Realms and Hybrids: Mystic Angels, Knights, Leprechauns, and Merpeople. Doreen Virtue  

During my certification programmes, I explain the various realms in detail. I then ask audience members to meet with members of their realm. Those who are unsure of their realm are encouraged to join each group to discover which one feels the most comfortable. People can instantly feel if they belong in a group. 

Some audience members have felt that they belonged in two of the realm groups. For example, several said that they couldn’t decide whether they fit better into the Incarnated Angels or the Wise One categories. I thought that they must be souls who were evolving from one realm into another, so I’d send them to the Evolvers, Shapeshifters, or Dabblers group. 

Interestingly, when my son Chase was the chief registrar for my U.S. certification programmes, we always had a high percentage of Elementals among the class members. I never questioned the Elemental proportions until a spiritual counsellor named Betsy Brown came on board and took over Chase’s position. Suddenly, the energy of our Angel Therapy Practitioner programmes completely changed. 

The first course that Betsy had handled had at least 50 people who felt displaced during the realms exercise. They all had the same complaint: They fit into both the Incarnated Angels and the Wise One groups. We also had virtually no Elementals in the class, whereas we’d always previously had a rowdy group of fairies and brownies in the audience. 

A new realm was discovered just like that! The new students were hybrids, which we call ‘Mystic Angels,’ just like Betsy Brown. I realized that the previously high percentage of Elementals had reflected Chase’s own Elemental realm. Like does attract like! 

MYSTIC ANGELS 

When you look into the eyes of a Mystic Angel, you see compassion. 

As mentioned above, the Mystic Angels are half Wise Ones and half Incarnated Angels. Mystic Angels share much of the same characteristics as Incarnated Angels, in that they’re loving, helpful and caring. Yet, since they’ve had several lifetimes on Earth (as Incarnated Angels), they’re street smart and edgy. They might cuss, abuse alcohol, or gamble...yet they’re still angels. 

Mystic Angels appreciate rules because they abhor chaos. Like Incarnated Angels, they’ll apologise. Yet they only say ‘I’m sorry’ because it’s a fast way to clear up conflict, and not because they feel guilty. Incarnated Angels have the corner on harbouring guilt feelings among the realms. 

Mystic Angels have the hard-won wisdom that comes from many lifetimes of helping in the trenches of wars and conflict. Even though they’ve seen it all. Mystic Angels still retain faith in the goodness of humanity. 

Mystic Angels aren’t timid in front of audiences compared to Incarnated Angels. With their Wise One heritage, Mystic Angels make wonderful teachers, speakers and workshop presenters. They love to teach about healing techniques and offer tips for happy living. 

Mystic Angels aren’t afraid to acknowledge the shadow side of life. They clearly see their ego issues behind human dramas. The focus and language of a Mystic Angel is a bit darker and earthier than that of an Incarnated Angel (which is a realm that doesn’t like to look at or acknowledge problems or shadows). 

One Mystic Angel described her realm’s characteristics in this way: “We like to use both Angel Oracle Cards and also Tarot cards. We’re healers who are know-it-alls. Because we’ve been killed in previous lifetimes, we’re often afraid to come out of the spiritual closet. But when we do, we fly high and fast in putting our purpose into action.”

KNIGHTS PALADIN

This realm was uncovered by my son Grant. As you may recall, Grant was the person who originally pointed out the Wise One realm to me. After we delineated this realm, Grant saw that he actually fit into a subcategory of Wise Ones that we initially called ‘Knights’. However, that term wasn’t accurate because it implied pure warriors. So the term Paladin was suggested by two members of this realm. Paladin, pronounced pal-AH-din, refers to a magical or holy knight who crusades in the name of upholding goodness and order. Historical Paladins were wizards who cast spells to complete their missions. 

(What I call Alchemy. What is also called Neuro Linguistic Programming. How strong is how Paladin wizard achieves success, with it. AZR)

Knights Paladin share many qualities with Mystic Angels in that they’re half Wise One and half angel. Mystic Angels express their angelic side through healing others, either with their teaching wisdom or with their energy. Knights Paladin have a lifelong fascination with knights, suits of armour, stories of the Round Table, dragons and jousting. They love video games, books and movies involving wartime strategies, sword fights, and redemption. 

Famous Knights Paladin include Joan of Arc, King Arthur, King David, and Sir Lancelot. 

Many Knights Paladin are drawn to armed services, security, and police work, which are modern equivalents of knight orders. They also join or read about secret spiritual societies such as the Freemasons, Knights Templar, and Rosicrucians. Yet, modern-day Knights Paladin often must take solo missions to fulfil their destinies. Instead of following the King’s orders, today’s Knights Paladin must follow the orders of their internal guidance. 

So joining the military or police force may hamper the freedom to follow this inner wisdom, or could even dampen the voice itself. 

Knights Paladin also have Eastern counterparts in Samurais and Shaolin Monks, who incorporate breath work, posture, self-discipline, and wisdom in their approaches to managing life. 

Knights Paladin make wonderful advocates and activists who champion the causes they believe in. They do well in areas of law, politics, writing, speaking, coaching, campaigning, and leading. Knights Paladin who are Indigos (the generation of highly sensitive natural-born leaders and visionaries) can make intense and inspirational leaders. 

Incarnated dragons are a subcategory of this realm. 

MYSTIC STARS

This hybrid is a blend of Starpeople and Wise Ones. Mystic Stars are natural-born teachers who bring universal knowledge to Earth. Their teachings have the global purpose of inspiring world peace, by giving humans helpful information to reduce their stress levels. 

Mystic Stars are highly sensitive and can feel the energy of other people’s emotions. They often become uncomfortable around others, and can sometimes act socially awkward. Mystic Stars combat social stress by teaching facts and philosophies. 

Mystic Stars unwittingly try to teach family members whose eyes are glazed over from an overload of technical information. So Mystic Stars do best when they pay attention to cues from their students and audience members, and watch for wavering attention levels. 

Mystic Stars are so intelligent that they may unwittingly talk over someone’s head without realising it. Without dumbing down their lessons, Mystic Stars can tailor their teachings so that they’re more easily digestible. 

LEPRECHAUNS

When we think of Leprechauns.....

Doreen Virtue 

The Spiritual Journey lV. Amera Ziganii Rao 

...Look Back in Anger...and indeed, written by a man. What an extraordinary vision of the consciousness that has poured into and out of me. Our journey. You see it too. The literals are irrelevant. The symbolism of the daughter mother dependent male and the reactive madness that follows. Tribe marriage. Ego marriage. The dark out of control. The rage of earth. 

What we have worked so hard to move out of. You see it. It's done. The rest is how fast you can shift it out of you. You are not Jimmy Porter anymore. You have mastered yourself, to keep the greatness, without the shit. The trumpet player and biting intelligence, without the non wealth consciousness or the wife beating. You have conquered what it is to be a man. 

That is ego to soul. So you can do it your way. In you. That is killing 'Darth Vader'. That is male ascension. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™. Writings. On Human Nature l. The Perfection of the Sado Masochistic Dream. Amera Ziganii Rao

Thunder

Perfect Mind

I was sent from the power 

and have come to those who contemplate me 

and am found among those who seek me.

Look at me, you who contemplate me, 

and you who hear, listen to me. 

You awaiting me, take me to yourselves. 

Do not banish me from before your eyes. 

Do not let your voice be hateful toward me, 

nor your hearing. 

Do not be ignorant of me, 

in any place, at any time. 

Be alert; do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last. 

I am the honoured and the scorned. 

I am the whore and the holy. 

I am the wife and the virgin. 

I am the mother and the daughter. 

I am the limbs of my mother. 

I am a barren woman 

who has many children. 

I have had many weddings 

and have taken no husband. 

I am a midwife 

and a woman who does not give birth. 

I am the solace of my own birth pains. 

I am bride and groom, 

and my husband produced me. 

I am the mother of my father 

and the sister of my husband, 

and he is my offspring. 

I am the servant of him who fashioned me, 

I am the ruler of my offspring. 

He produced me with a premature birth, 

and he is my offspring born on time, 

and my strength is from him. 

I am the staff of his power in his youth, 

and he is the rod of my old age, 

and whatever he wishes happens to me. 

I am silence that is incomprehensive 

and insight whose memory is great. 

I am the voice whose sounds are many 

and the word whose appearances are many. 

I am the utterance of my own name.

You who hate me, why do you love me 

and hate those who love me? 

You who deny me, confess me, 

and you who confess me, deny me. 

You who tell the truth about me, 

tell lies about me, 

and you who have lied about me, 

tell the truth about me. 

You who know me, be ignorant of me, 

and as for those who have not known me, 

let them know me.

For I am knowledge and ignorance. 

I am shy and bold. 

I am shameless; I am ashamed. 

I am tough and I am terror. 

I am war and peace.

Be attentive to me. 

I am disgraced and great. 

Be attentive to my poverty and my wealth. 

Do not be arrogant toward me 

when I am thrown down on the ground, 

and you will find me 

in those who are to come. 

If you see me on the dungheap, 

don't go and leave me thrown there. 

You will find me in the kingdoms. 

If you see me when I am thrown out 

with the disgraced in the most sordid places, 

don't mock me. 

Don't throw me down violently 

with those in need. 

I, I am compassionate and I am cruel. 

Take care not to hate my obedience, 

but love my self-control. 

In my weakness do not disregard me, 

and do not fear my power.

For why do you despise my terror 

and denounce my pride? 

I am present in all fears, 

and I am strength in agitation. 

I am a weak woman, 

and I am well in a pleasant locale. 

I am foolish and I am wise. 

Why have you hated me in your counsels? 

Because I shall be silent among the silent 

and I shall appear and speak? 

Why have you hated me, you Greeks? 

Because I am a barbarian among barbarians?

For I am the wisdom of the Greeks 

and the knowledge of the barbarians. 

I am the judgment of Greeks and barbarians. 

I am one whose image is great in Egypt 

and who has no image among the barbarians. 

I have been hated everywhere and loved everywhere. 

I am the one called life, 

and you have called me death. 

I am the one called law, 

and you have called me lawless. 

I am the one you pursued, 

and I am the one you seized. 

I am the one you have scattered, 

and you have gathered me together. 

I am the one before whom you have been ashamed, 

and you have been shameless to me. 

I am a woman who does not celebrate festivals, 

and I am she whose festivals are many. 

I, I am godless, 

and I have many gods. 

I am one you have professed, 

and you have scorned me. 

I am uneducated, 

and people learn from me. 

I am one you have despised, 

and you profess me. 

I am one from whom you have hidden, 

and you appear to me. 

Whenever you hide, I shall appear. 

For whenever you appear, I shall hide from you.

As for those who have.....foolishly...... 

take me away from their understanding, from grief, 

and receive me, from understanding and grief. 

Receive me, from low places in creation, 

and take from the good, even if in a lowly way. 

From shame, take me to yourselves shamelessly. 

From shamelessness and shame, 

put my members to shame within you.

Draw near to me, 

you who know me and you who know my members, 

and establish the great among the insignificant first creatures. 

Draw near to childhood, 

and do not despise it because it is small and insignificant. 

Do not make what is great turn away, 

part by part, from what is small, 

for what is small is known from what is great.

Why do you curse me and honour me? 

You have smitten and you have shown mercy. 

Do not separate me from the first ones, 

whom you have known. 

Do not cast anyone out 

nor turn anyone away.... 

Turn yourselves.... 

do not know.....what is mine.... 

I know the first ones, 

and those after them know me.

I am perfect mind, 

and rest....... 

I am the discovery of those who seek me, 

the command those who ask of me, 

the power of powers, through my knowledge, 

of angelic ambassadors, through my word, 

of gods among gods, through my counsel, 

of spirits of all people dwelling with me, 

of women dwelling within me.

I am honoured and praised, 

and scornfully despised. 

I am peace, and war has come because of me. 

I am alien and citizen. 

I am substance and a woman without substance. 

Those from union with me are ignorant of me, 

and those sharing in my being know me. 

Those near me have been ignorant of me, 

and those far from me have known me.

On the day I am near you, 

you are far from me, 

and on the day I am far from you, 

I am near you.

I am......a lamp of the heart. 

I am.....of natures. 

I am.....of the creation of spirits, 

and the request of souls. 

I am restraint and lack of restraint. 

I am unity and dissolution. 

I abide and dissolve. 

I am descent, and people ascend to me. 

I am judgement and pardon. 

I, I am sinless, 

and the root of sin comes from me. 

I am desire outwardly, 

and within me is self-control. 

I am hearing adequate for everyone 

and speaking that cannot be repressed. 

I cannot talk or speak, 

and plentiful are my words.

Hear me in gentleness, 

and learn from me in roughness.

I am the woman crying out, 

and I am cast upon the face of the earth. 

I prepare bread, and my mind within. 

I am the knowledge of my name. 

I cry out and I listen. 

I appear.....walk..... 

 ....seal......sign of refutation..... 

I am the judge, I am the defence..... 

I am the one called justice, 

but violence is my name.

You honour me, 

you who overcome, 

and you whisper against me, 

you who are overcome. 

Judge before you are judged, 

because in you are judge and partiality. 

If you are condemned by it., 

who will pardon you? 

Or if you are pardoned by it, 

who can detain you?

For what is within you is outside you, 

and the one who fashions you on the outside 

has formed you within. 

What you see outside you, you see within you. 

It is visible and it is your garment.

Hear me, you listeners, 

and learn my words, you who know me.

I am hearing adequate for everything. 

I am speaking that cannot be suppressed. 

I am the name of the voice and the voice of the name. 

I am the sign of the letter and the indication of division. 

I......light.......and shadow. 

Hear me, you listeners, 

....take me to yourselves. 

As the Lord, the great power, lives, 

the one who stands will not change the name. 

It is the one who stands who created me. 

I shall utter his name.

Look at the words of this one, 

and all the texts that have been written. 

Pay attention you listeners, 

and you also, you angels, 

and you who have been sent, 

and you spirits who have risen from the dead. 

I alone exist, 

and I have no one to judge me. 

For there are many sorts of seductive sins 

and deeds without restraint 

and disgraceful desires 

and fleeting pleasures that people embrace, 

until they become sober 

and rise up to their place of rest. 

They will find me there 

and they will live and not die again. 

The Gnostic Gospels

Bend It Like Beckham

Bend It Like Beckham is a 2002 British comedy-drama film starring Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Anupam Kher, Shaznay Lewis, and Archie Panjabi, first released in the United Kingdom. The film was directed by Gurinder Chadha. Its title refers to the football player David Beckham and his skill at scoring from free kicks by bending the ball past a wall of defenders.

Jesminder "Jess" Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) is the 18-year-old daughter of Punjabi Sikhs from Hounslow, west London. Juliette "Jules" Paxton (Keira Knightley) is the daughter of an English couple. Jess is infatuated with football, but because she is female (and Indian), her parents do not allow her to play, and due to a burn scar on her leg, her mother forbids her from wearing shorts.

However, she sometimes plays in the park with various boys and her good friend Tony, a closeted homosexual. When Jules discovers Jess' skills, she invites Jess to try out for her local team, the Hounslow Harriers, coached by Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is impressed with her play and puts her on the team. 

Jess becomes best friends with Jules, until their friendship sours over a budding romance between Jess and Joe, on whom Jules also has a crush. Meanwhile, Jess' parents learn that she has been playing on the team and become more strict, while Mrs. Paxton suspects that Jess and Jules are in a lesbian relationship. Jess keeps sneaking out to play football while the elder Bhamras are distracted by the elaborate preparations for the upcoming wedding of their older daughter, Pinky (Archie Panjabi).

As the Harriers make their way towards the top of the league, Jess and Jules must sort their differences, make peace with their parents, overcome cultural prejudice, win their way to a prestigious scholarships to Santa Clara University in California, and most importantly, dance at a big fat Indian wedding.

The film surprised the critics, and it was met with mostly positive reviews. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times noted that the film "was really full of easy humor, an impeccable sense of milieu that is the result of knowing the culture intimately enough to poke fun at it while understanding its underlying integrity."

The Times of India noted that Bend It "is really about the bending of rules, social paradigms and lives – all to finally curl that ball, bending it like Beckham, through the goalpost of ambition [...] The creeping divide shows that Britain is changing, but hasn't quite changed yet. The stiff upper lip has travelled miles from the time Chadha's father was denied a pint at some pubs at Southall, but like dollops of coagulated spice in badly stirred curry, discrimination crops up to spoil the taste, every now and then, in multi-racial Britain."

Planet Bollywood gave the film a 9 out of 10 and stated that the "screenplay not only explores the development of Jesse as a person, but also the changing values and culture of NRI teens: Jesse's urge to break the social norm of the Indian homemaker, her sister's (Archie Punjabi) sexually-active relationship, and the gay Indian [Tony, played by Ameet Chana]."

The Hindu argues, "if ever there is a film that is positive, realistic and yet delightful, then it has to be Dream Production's latest venture directed by Gurinder Chadha [...] Light hearted, without taking away the considerable substance in terms of values, attitudes and the love for sport, the film just goes to prove that there are ways to be convincing and honest."

The BBC gave it 4 out of 5 stars and argued that "Mr. Beckham ought to be proud to have his name on such a great film."

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives Bend It Like Beckham a rating of 85%, based upon 147 reviews (125 fresh and 22 rotten).

The film's plot originally resolved with the two female leads ending up together romantically, but director Gurinder Chadha rewrote the script for fear of upsetting conservative Indians. The film retained its message challenging homophobia and the role of women in society, but the two female leads fight over their male coach instead.

The British film went on to set the record in India for most number of tickets sold during a single weekend for a foreign movie. It also went on to become the highest-grossing Indian-themed film ever in the US with $32 million in box office revenue.

Wikipedia

The Spiritual Journey V. Amera Ziganii Rao 

Because you are Jimmy Porter (Look Back in Anger) my lovely love. We might as well face it. Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire), Bud White (LA Confidential), Jimmy Porter. I could list hundreds of characters. You are all those men. You know this. You will slowly ease your way out of them, in your own time and in your own way. As it is when it's known. 

Basically, you are not ready. Ego shedding as you know by now, is layer by layer by layer. 

I have stumbled my way through three and a half years of novice Hierophant and Sacred Whore High Priestess Hierophant Avatar Valkyrie, to deliver the same kind of healing I gave to myself. Now, you are in automatic pilot and should be. My work is done. The exploration and the material continues, of course. We are the material. The strategy for life however has to change. 

We are just not meant to live relationship. We might as well face it. One day. When you are ready. 

So, I am falling in love now, with another lover. As I fell in love with you, to that extent and with the same determination and obsession. My life. 

It is in sore need of attention. As I have said, and I say again now, with serenity and empathy and resignation, I stopped in chaos, 16 years ago. I had to find out why I was not loved. 

I found out. It's not personal. I have certainly found that out too. It is as it is meant to be too. That is the problem. I have certainly found that out too. 

The question is, what do I do next? My answer is equally clear. Only things I have never done before. 

Spiritual retreat. The films are soothing my mind. I am a very silent wordsmith. 

Grief. Rest. Healing. Spiritual and creative retreat. Friendship. But no relationship life and all release of wanting. You need time. And I would be dishonest if I didn't say that I need time too. I don't want it but I need it too. 

Dancing with a tiger man is a particular life. I have to relive my dreams and decide what I want from MY life. Frankly, I am sick of relationship and all that relationship is. It's my work. 

That's fine. I am sure a great deal will come out of all that we are. 

But I am enjoying 'Bending it like Beckham' quite frankly, and having seen the final scene again, and being moved to tears, 10 years after the film's release, in almost the same way as I was then, as a British Asian female, seeing myself in narrative for the first time, but realising that once again, that I have missed out on love, because I just cannot get that support from family. Wow. You've done it all over again. And I still 'got my scholarship' in spite of it. In spite of you. That's not the problem. No. I don't need anyone. Never have, never will. I have never been allowed to. And once again, we know why. You just don't care about anything else about me, other than what serves you. 

You are who you are. You will mature. You will enter soul. 

Emotional rape, as is your purpose. You are still Jimmy Porter and you actually do not yet even understand. That is your absolute right. We have a very very very very long way to go. 

Spiritual retreat, my love. You do what the fuck you want. Do what you need to do. I am in healing. The light shines in sadness and friendship. It is so great though to be a woman and not have to think about love. My work is done. Now, for now, it is just work. 

So, I would rather work. And be work. And be my work. Just as you are yours. The proof is your life. I'd like one now too. 

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

The Sandpiper 

The Sandpiper is a 1965 film, directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Plot

Laura Reynolds (Taylor) is a free-spirited, unwed single mother living with her young son Danny in an isolated California beach house. She makes a modest living as an artist and home-schools her son out of concern that he will be compelled to follow detrimental conventional social norms in a regular school. Danny has gotten into some trouble with the law through two minor incidents, in her eyes innocent expressions of his natural curiosity and conscience rather than delinquency, and now with a third incident a judge orders her to send the boy to an Episcopal boarding school where Dr. Edward Hewitt (Burton) is headmaster, and his wife Claire (Eva Marie Saint) teaches.

At an initial interview, there is a momentary immediate attraction between Laura and Edward, but this quickly turns into tension brought on by their greatly differing world views and Laura's dislike of religion, and finally she storms out. She attempts to flee the area with her son but they are quickly picked up by police who then take Danny to the school. He initially has trouble fitting in because his mother's home schooling has left him far in advance of boys his age in several subjects; also the standard course of instruction at Edward's school leaves him restless and bored. At Claire's suggestion, Edward visits Laura to learn more about Danny and his upbringing.

Laura's unconventional morals initially disturb Edward, as they conflict with his religious training, but after visiting her several more times he finds that he wants her very much and cannot get her out of his mind. The two begin a torrid extramarital affair. Edward struggles with the guilt this produces in him while Laura encourages him to accept their love as right. Meanwhile, Danny flourishes after Edward relaxes school rules and allows the boy to choose more advanced classes.

The love affair is eventually exposed by a remark made to Edward in the presence of Claire by a jealous former lover of Laura's, and Edward is forced to confess all to his wife. At first Claire is distraught, but later they quietly discuss it in the light of how their lives have diverged from the idealistic religious fervor of the first years of their marriage. He says that he still loves her and that he will end the affair. They decide to separate for a while. He resigns his position at the school and decides to travel. The school year over, Laura tells Danny that they can move away, but he has put down roots at the school and wants to stay there. She has a moment of pain but realizes his need to be free and agrees. On Edward's way out of town, he stops at her place for a silent farewell, she and the boy down on the beach, he high up on the bluff above looking down at them.

Wikipedia 

It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. Vladimir Nabokov 

"Success is something that can't be paid for upfront. You have to buy it on the installment plan..." Unknown 

"The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented." Dennis Gabor 

In conflict with your true love, it's one war that you can win by surrender. Rock Christopher 

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. ~ Peter Ustinov

Now and then it is a joy to have one's table red with wine and roses. ~ Oscar Wilde 

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye. - Helen Keller 

Do not spoil the wonder with haste. Tolkien 

It's better to fight for something than against something. ~ Author Unknown 

"Failure is not about insecurity. It's about lack of execution." Jeffrey Gitomer

Macbeth 

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is the beginning of the second sentence of one of the most famous soliloquies in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. It takes place in the beginning of the 5th scene of Act 5, during the time when the English troops, led by Malcolm and Macduff, are approaching Macbeth's castle to besiege it. Macbeth, the play's protagonist, is confident that he can withstand any siege from Malcolm's forces. He hears the cry of a woman and reflects that there was a time when his hair would have stood on end if he had heard such a cry, but he is now so full of horrors and slaughterous thoughts that it can no longer startle him.

Seyton then tells Macbeth of Lady Macbeth's death, and Macbeth delivers this soliloquy as his response to the news. Shortly afterwards he is told of the apparent movement of Birnam Wood towards Dunsinane Castle (as the witches previously prophesied to him), which is actually Malcolm's forces having disguised themselves with tree branches so as to disguise their numbers as they approach the castle. This sets the scene for the final events of the play and Macbeth's death at the hands of Macduff.

In Macbeth's final soliloquy the audience sees his final conclusion about life: it is devoid of any meaning, full of contrived struggles. Days on this earth are short, a "brief candle" and an ignorant march towards a fruitless demise, "lighted fools. . . to dusty death." A person's life is so insubstantial that it is comparable to an actor who fills minor roles in an absurd play. There is a struggle for substance in life, the actor who "struts and frets his hour" or a playwright who tells a "a tale full of sound and fury" but it is contrived and senseless and will thus fade into obscurity, a tale "Told by an Idiot. . . Signifying nothing" in which a "walking shadow" performs "And then is heard no more".

Macbeth's feelings towards Lady Macbeth in this soliloquy are not as clear as the main theme. There are many opinions regarding Macbeth's initial reaction when he hears that his wife is dead. Those who take the first line to mean "she would have died at sometime, either now or later" usually argue that it illustrates Macbeth's callous lack of concern for Lady Macbeth.

Macbeth said in Scene III of the same act that the battle would cheer him ever after or unseat him now. Up to that time he had expected to win the battle; he was ready to laugh the siege to scorn when interrupted by a woman's cry. 

His visionary thought may have pictured the victory as restoring him to the man he once was. He pauses on the word "hereafter" - two feet are missing from the meter - and realises that the time will never come. 

Depressingly, he reflects that if it could have been, if he could have gone back, there would have been time to consider that word, death, and mourn properly. 

Now, however, since there will be no victory nor going back, and she is gone, the tomorrows creep on with their insignificantly slow pace to the very end of all time.

Wikipedia

The Insider 

The Insider is a 1999 American drama film directed by Michael Mann based on the true story of a 60 Minutes segment about tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand. 

The 60 Minutes story originally aired in November 1995 in an altered form because of objections by CBS' then-owner, Laurence Tisch, who also controlled the Lorillard Tobacco Company. The story was later aired on February 4, 1996.

The film stars Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, with Christopher Plummer, Bruce McGill, Diane Venora, Michael Gambon, Philip Baker Hall, Lindsay Crouse, Gina Gershon, Debi Mazar, and Colm Feore in supporting roles.

The script was adapted by Eric Roth and Mann from Marie Brenner's Vanity Fair article "The Man Who Knew Too Much".

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Russell Crowe), Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Picture, Best Sound and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published.

The Plot 

In Lebanon, Hezbollah militants escort producer Lowell Bergman (Pacino) to Hezbollah founder Sheikh Fadlallah. Lowell convinces him to be interviewed by Mike Wallace (Plummer) for CBS show 60 Minutes.

In Louisville, Kentucky, Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe) leaves his Brown & Williamson office, returning home to his wife Liane (Venora) and two children, both of whom have serious medical conditions requiring ongoing treatment. When Liane asks about the boxes in Wigand's car, he reveals that he was fired from his job.

Upon returning home to Berkeley, California, Bergman receives a box containing highly technical documents relating to the "ignition propensity" of tobacco from the Philip Morris company, and approaches a friend at the Food and Drug Administration for the name of someone who can put the information in layman's terms. Bergman is referred to Wigand, only to be steadfastly rebuffed. Bergman eventually goes to Louisville and finally convinces him to meet at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville.

Wigand agrees to interpret the scientific documents but stresses that he cannot talk about anything else. After leaving with the documents, Wigand is summoned to a meeting with Brown & Williamson CEO Thomas Sandefur (Gambon), who coerces him into signing an expanded confidentiality agreement. A lawyer threatens to immediately take away his family's health benefits and file suit if he does not comply. Wigand calls Bergman and accuses him of betrayal.

Bergman visits Wigand's house the next day and maintains that he did not reveal anything to Brown & Williamson. Reassured, Wigand talks to Bergman about the seven CEOs of "Big Tobacco" perjuring themselves to the United States Congress about their awareness of nicotine's addictiveness. Bergman says Wigand has to decide for himself whether to blow the whistle on big tobacco. Wigand finally reveals that he is under a confidentiality agreement and gives Bergman a copy of it.

Bergman returns to CBS Headquarters in New York City, where he and Wallace discuss Wigand's situation. A lawyer at the meeting states that Wigand's confidentiality agreement would effectively silence Wigand. Bergman proposes that Wigand could be compelled to speak through a court order arising from unrelated State litigation against Big Tobacco aimed at recovering Medicare and Medicaid costs arising from tobacco-related illnesses. They conclude this could give Wigand some protection against Brown & Williamson should he do an interview for 60 Minutes.

The Wigand family move into a newer, more affordable house, and Wigand begins teaching a Louisville high school. One night while asleep, he's alerted by his daughter to sounds outside the house. Upon investigation, he discovers a fresh shoe print in his newly planted garden.

The next night, Wigand and Bergman have dinner together, where Bergman asks Wigand about incidents from his past that Big Tobacco might use against him. Wigand reveals several incriminating incidents before declaring he can't see how they would affect his testimony. Bergman assures him they will.

Bergman contacts Richard Scruggs (Feore) and Ron Motley (McGill) who, with Mississippi's attorney general Mike Moore, are suing Big Tobacco to reimburse the state for Medicaid funds used to treat people with smoking-related illnesses. The trio express an interest in Bergman's idea and tell him to have Wigand call them. 

Meanwhile, Wigand receives an email death threat and finds a bullet in his mailbox, prompting him to contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation who, after subtly accusing him of being emotionally unbalanced, confiscate his computer for evidence.

Enraged over the threats to his family, Wigand phones Bergman and demands to fly to New York and tape his testimony immediately. During Wigand's interview with Wallace, Wigand states that Brown & Williamson is making their cigarettes more addictive. He continues by saying Brown & Williamson have consciously ignored public health considerations in the name of profit.

In Louisville, Wigand begins his new teaching job and talks to Richard Scruggs. Upon returning home, Wigand discovers that Bergman has given him some security personnel. Wigand's wife is struggling under the pressure and tells him so. Days later, Wigand travels to Pascagoula, Mississippi, where he is served a restraining order issued by a State court in Kentucky to prevent him from testifying.

Though the restraining order, obtained by Brown & Williamson's lawyers, was thrown out in Mississippi, Wigand is threatened with the contention that if he testifies and returns to Kentucky he could be imprisoned for contempt of court. After a lengthy period of introspection, Wigand goes to the Mississippi court and gives his deposition, during which he says nicotine acts as a drug. Following his testimony, Wigand returns to Louisville, where he discovers that his wife and children have left him.

Bergman and Wallace go to a meeting with CBS Corporate about the Wigand interview. The applicability of a legal theory has emerged, one known as tortious interference: if two parties have an agreement, such as a confidentiality agreement, and one of those parties is induced by a third party to break that agreement, the third party can be sued by the other parties for any damages. The more truth Wigand tells, the greater the damage, the theory applied goes, and a greater likelihood that CBS will be faced by a multi-billion dollar lawsuit from Brown & Williamson. It is later suggested that an edited interview take the place of the original. Bergman vehemently disagrees, and claims that the reason CBS Corporate is leaning on CBS News to edit the interview is because they fear that the prospect of a multi-billion dollar lawsuit could jeopardize the sale of CBS to Westinghouse. Wallace and Don Hewitt agree to edit the interview, leaving Bergman alone advocating airing it uncensored.

A PR firm hired by Big Tobacco initiates a smear campaign against Wigand, dredging up details about his life and publishing a 500-page dossier. Through Wigand, Bergman discovers that Big Tobacco have distorted and exaggerated numerous claims, and convinces a reporter from the Wall Street Journal to delay the story until it can be disproven. Bergman contacts several private investigators who do begin their own investigation. Bergman releases his findings to the Wall Street Journal reporter and tells him to push the deadline. Meanwhile, due to his constant fights with CBS management, Bergman is ordered to go on "vacation" (which is really a suspension).

Soon after, the edited interview is broadcast. After bluntly telling Wallace over the phone what he thought of the news broadcast, Bergman attempts to call Wigand at his hotel but receives no answer. He instead calls the hotel manager, who opens Wigand's door but is stopped by the chain. Peering into Wigand's room, the hotel manager spies Wigand sitting alone, lost in a daydream about the idyllic life he could have led without his testimony. Per Bergman's request, the hotel manager convinces Wigand to accept Bergman's phone call. Wigand screams at Bergman, accusing him of manipulating him into his position.

Bergman tells Wigand that he is "important to a lot of people" and tries to assure Wigand that he is doing the right thing by offering that "heroes like you are in short supply". After hanging up, Bergman contacts The New York Times and reveals the scandal that occurred at 60 Minutes, after which the Times publishes a scathing article that accuses CBS of betraying the legacy of their famous reporter, Edward R. Murrow for bowing to such attempts to silence publication of a truthful news story. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal exonerates Wigand and reveals his deposition in Mississippi, while condemning Big Tobacco's 500-page smear as "the lowest form of character assassination." 60 Minutes finally broadcasts the full interview with Wigand.

Bergman talks to Wallace and he tells him that despite their finally airing the piece, he is still quitting, saying, "What got broken here doesn't go back together again." He leaves the building. A $246 billion settlement was made by tobacco companies with Mississippi and other States in their lawsuit and that Wigand lives in South Carolina. In 1996, Dr. Wigand won the Sallie Mae First Class Teacher of the Year award, receiving national recognition for his teaching skills. Lowell Bergman works for the PBS show Frontline and teaches at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Wikipedia 

Giant 

Giant is a 1956 American drama film, directed by George Stevens from a screenplay adapted by Fred Guiol and Ivan Moffat from the novel by Edna Ferber. The film stars Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean and features Carroll Baker, Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Mercedes McCambridge, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo, Rod Taylor, Elsa Cardenas and Earl Holliman. Giant was the last of James Dean's three films as a leading actor, and earned him his second and last Academy Award nomination – he was killed in a car accident before the film was released. Nick Adams was called in to do some voice-over dubbing for Dean's role.

In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Jordan "Bick" Benedict (Rock Hudson), head of a wealthy Texas ranching family, travels to Maryland to buy War Winds, a horse he is planning to put out to stud. There he meets and courts socialite Leslie Lynnton (Elizabeth Taylor), who breaks off an engagement to Sir David Karfrey (Rod Taylor) and marries Bick.

They return to Texas to start their life together on the family ranch, Reata, where Bick's sister Luz Benedict (Mercedes McCambridge) runs the household. Luz resents Leslie's presence and attempts to intimidate her. Jett Rink (James Dean) works for Luz and hopes to find his fortune by leaving Texas; he is also secretly in love with Leslie. When riding Leslie's beloved horse, War Winds, Luz expresses her hostility for Leslie by cruelly digging in her spurs. Luz dies after War Winds bucks her off. In her will, Jett is bequeathed land on the Benedict ranch. Bick tries to buy back the land, but Jett refuses to sell. Jett makes the land his home and names it Little Reata. Leslie and Bick have twins, Jordan "Jordy" Benedict III (Dennis Hopper) and Judy Benedict (Fran Bennett), and later have a daughter they name Luz Benedict II (Carroll Baker).

Jett discovers traces of oil in a footprint of Leslie's. He drills in the same spot and hits a gusher. Drenched in oil, he drives to the Benedict front yard and proclaims to the family and their guests that he will be richer than the Benedicts. In the years preceding World War II, Jett's oil drilling company prospers, but determined to continue to be a cattle rancher like his forefathers, Bick rejects several offers to drill for oil on Reata.

Tensions in Bick's and Leslie's household revolve around their children. Bick insists that Jordy must succeed him and run the ranch, as his father and grandfather did before him – but Jordy wants to become a doctor. Leslie wants Judy to attend finishing school in Switzerland, but Judy loves the ranch and wants to study animal husbandry at Texas Tech. Both children succeed in pursuing their own vocations. When WWII breaks out, Jett tries to persuade Bick to allow oil production on his land to help the war effort. Realizing that his children will not take over the ranch when he retires, Bick agrees. Both Bick and Jett have a drinking problem. Luz II, now in her teens, starts flirting with Jett. Once oil production starts on the ranch, the wealthy Benedict family becomes even wealthier, as evidenced by the installation of a new swimming pool next to the house.

After the war, the Benedict-Rink rivalry continues, coming to a head when the Benedicts discover that Luz II and the much older Jett have been dating. At a huge party given by Jett in his own honor at Jett's hotel, Jordy's Mexican-American wife, Juana (Elsa Cárdenas), is racially insulted by hotel staff. An irate Jordy tries to start a fight with Jett. Jett's goons hold Jordy, Jett punches him repeatedly, then has Jordy thrown out. Fed up, Bick challenges Jett to a fight. Drunk and almost incoherent, Jett leads the way to a wine storage room. Seeing that Jett is in no state to defend himself, Bick lowers his fists, says "You're not even worth hitting...You're all through," then topples Jett's wine cellar shelves like a row of dominoes. Jett, completely drunk, takes his seat of honor then passes out on the table. All the guests leave. Later, Luz II sees him recovering from his drunken stupor, talking to an empty room, and disclosing that his sexual interest in her was an attempt to vicariously possess her mother.

The next day, the Benedicts are driving down a back road and stop at a diner. The racist owner, Sarge (Mickey Simpson), insults Juana and her and Jordy's son Jordan IV. When the owner goes on to eject an old Mexican man and his family from the diner, Bick tells Sarge to stop; this leads to a fight that Bick loses, but his family members are proud of Bick for standing up to the burly owner.

Later, back at the ranch, Bick and Leslie watch their multiracial group of grandchildren and reflect on their life. Leslie tells Bick that she respects his new understanding of the concerns of people unlike his wealthy forbears, and says she considers their version of the Benedict family a success.

Wikipedia 

Rebecca

The Novel 

Rebecca is a novel by English author Daphne du Maurier. A moderate best-seller, there were 2,829,313 copies of Rebecca sold between 1938 and 1965 and the book has never gone out of print. The novel is particularly notable for the character Mrs. Danvers, the fictional estate Manderley, and its opening lines:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . . I came upon it suddenly; the approach masked by the unnatural growth of a vast shrub that spread in all directions . . . There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the gray stone shining in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and terrace. Time could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls, nor the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand.

“With those famous opening lines of Rebecca . . . [du Maurier] created one of the classic Gothic romances.” Rebecca "remains Daphne du Maurier's best-loved novel."

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" is the book's famous opening line, and after the first two chapters, its unnamed narrator (only known as Mrs de Winter or the second Mrs. de Winter) reminisces about her past.

While working as the companion to a rich American woman vacationing in Monte Carlo, the narrator, a naïve young woman in her early 20s, becomes acquainted with a wealthy Englishman, Maximilian (Maxim) de Winter, a 40-something widower. After a fortnight of courtship, she agrees to marry him and, after the wedding and honeymoon, accompanies him to his mansion, the beautiful West Country estate Manderley.

Mrs. Danvers, the sinister housekeeper, was profoundly devoted to the first Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca, who died in a boating accident about a year prior to Maxim and the second Mrs. de Winter's meeting in Monte Carlo. She continually attempts to undermine the new Mrs. de Winter psychologically, subtly suggesting to her that she will never attain the beauty, urbanity and charm the first one possessed. Whenever the new Mrs. de Winter attempts to make changes at Manderley, Mrs. Danvers describes how Rebecca ran it when she was alive. 

Each time Mrs. Danvers does this, she implies that the new Mrs. de Winter lacks the experience and knowledge necessary for running an important estate. Cowed by Mrs. Danvers's imposing manner, the new mistress simply caves in.

She is soon convinced that Maxim regrets his impetuous decision to marry her and is still deeply in love with the seemingly perfect Rebecca. The climax occurs at Manderley's annual costume ball.

Mrs. Danvers manipulates the protagonist into wearing a replica of the dress shown in a portrait of one of the former inhabitants of the estate—the same costume worn by Rebecca to much acclaim shortly before her death. The narrator has a drummer announce her entrance using the name of the lady in the portrait: Caroline de Winter. When the narrator shows Maxim the dress, he gets very angry at her and orders her to change.

Shortly after the ball, Mrs. Danvers reveals her contempt for our heroine, believing she is trying to replace Rebecca and reveals her deep, unhealthy obsession with the dead woman. Mrs. Danvers attempts to take revenge by encouraging Mrs. de Winter to commit suicide by jumping out the window. However she is thwarted at the last moment by the disturbance occasioned by a nearby shipwreck. A diver investigating the condition of the wrecked ship's hull also discovers the remains of Rebecca's boat.

Maxim confesses the truth to our heroine: how his marriage to Rebecca was nothing but a sham; how from the very first days husband and wife loathed each other. Rebecca, Maxim reveals, was a cruel and selfish woman who manipulated everyone around her into believing her to be the perfect wife and a paragon of virtue. She repeatedly taunted Maxim with sordid tales of her numerous love affairs. The night of her death, she suggested to Maxim that she was pregnant with another man's child, which she would raise under the pretense that it was Maxim's and he would be powerless to stop her. After intentionally being provoked, he shoots her, leading to her death. Then he disposed of her body on her boat and sank it at sea. The second Mrs. de Winter is relieved to hear that Maxim had never loved Rebecca but instead really loves her.

Rebecca's boat is raised and it is discovered that it was deliberately sunk. An inquest brings a verdict of suicide, however, Rebecca's first cousin (and lover) Jack Favell attempts to blackmail Maxim, claiming to have proof that Rebecca could not have intended suicide, based on a note she sent to him the night she died.

It is revealed Rebecca had an appointment with a Doctor Baker in the blue outskirts of London shortly before her death, presumably to confirm her pregnancy. 

When the doctor is found, he reveals that Rebecca had been suffering from cancer and would have died within a few months; furthermore, due to the malformation of her uterus, she could never have been pregnant. Knowing she was going to die, Rebecca manipulated Maxim into killing her quickly, rather than face a lingering death. Maxim feels a great sense of foreboding and insists on driving through the night to return to Manderley. However, before he comes in sight of the house, it is clear from a glow on the horizon and wind-borne ashes that it is ablaze.

Characters 

The speaker, Mrs. de Winter: The narrator's name is never revealed. She is referred to as "my wife", Mrs. de Winter, "my dear", etc., but her first and last name are never revealed by the author. The one time she is introduced with a name is during a fancy dress ball, in which she dresses as a de Winter ancestor and is introduced as "Caroline de Winter", however this is evidently not her own name; when she signs her name, she signs "Mrs. M de Winter" but the M is Maxim's initial, not hers. Early in the novel she receives a letter and remarks that her name was correctly spelled, which is "an unusual thing", suggesting her name is strange, foreign or complex. Whilst courting her, Maxim compliments her on her "lovely and unusual name."

Mrs. Danvers: The cold-hearted, overbearing housekeeper of Manderly. She is obsessed with Rebecca and preserving her memory, and resents the new Mrs. de Winter, convinced she is trying to "take Rebecca's place."

Maximilian (Maxim) De Winter: The reserved, unemotional owner of Manderly. He marries his new wife after a brief courtship, yet displays little affection toward her after the marriage. He eventually does reveal that he does love her, yet after several months of marriage.

Rebecca de Winter: The unseen title character, who has been dead for less than a year, after dying in a boating accident. An infamous beauty, whilst on the surface she was a devoted wife and perfect hostess, Rebecca was actually a compulsive liar and an openly promiscuous woman who tormented her husband Maxim with lurid tales of her non-stop affairs. She goaded Maxim into killing her when she found out she was dying of cancer yet her presence overwhelms Manderly. Dialogue concerning Rebecca's exploits suggests she was mentally unstable.

Development

"In 1937, Daphne du Maurier signed a three-book deal with Victor Gollancz" and accepted an advance of £1,000. A 2008 article in The Telegraph indicates she had been toying with the theme of jealousy for the five years since her marriage in 1932. She started "sluggishly" and wrote a desperate apology to Gollancz: 'The first 15,000 words I tore up in disgust and this literary miscarriage has cast me down rather...'"

Her husband, Tommy Browning, was Lieutenant Colonel of the Grenadier Guards and they were posted to Alexandria, Eypt with the Second Battalion, leaving Britain on 30 July 1937. Gollancz expected her manuscript on their return to Britain in December but she wrote that she was "ashamed to tell you that progress is slow on the new novel, ... There is little likelihood of my bringing back a finished manuscript in December."

On returning to Britain in December 1937, du Maurier decided to spend Christmas away from her family to write the book and she successfully delivered it to her publisher less than four months later. Du Maurier described it as "a sinister tale about a woman who marries a widower... Psychological and rather macabre."

Derivation and inspiration

Some commentators have noted parallels with Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Another of du Maurier's works, Jamaica Inn, is also linked to one of the Brontë sisters' works, Emily's Wuthering Heights. Du Maurier commented publicly in her lifetime that the book was based on her own memories of Menabilly and Cornwall, as well as her relationship with her father. 

While du Maurier "categorised Rebecca as a study in jealousy ... she admitted its origins in her own life to few." Her husband had been "engaged before – to glamorous, dark-haired Jan Ricardo. The suspicion that Tommy remained attracted to Ricardo haunted Daphne." 

In The Rebecca Notebook of 1981, du Maurier "'remembered' Rebecca's gestation ... "Seeds began to drop. A beautiful home... a first wife... jealousy, a wreck, perhaps at sea, near to the house... But something terrible would have to happen, I did not know what..." She wrote in her notes prior to writing: "I want to built up the character of the first [wife] in the mind of the second... until wife 2 is haunted day and night... a tragedy is looming very close and CRASH! BANG! something happens.""

Du Maurier and her husband, "Tommy Browning, like Rebecca and Maximilian de Winter, were not faithful to one another." 

Subsequent to the novel's publication, "Jan Ricardo, tragically, died during the Second World War [she] threw herself under a train."

Childhood visits to Milton Hall, Cambridgeshire (then in Northamptonshire) home of the Wentworth-Fitzwilliam family, may have influenced the descriptions of Manderley.

Contemporary reception in the professional and popular press

The Times said that "the material is of the humblest... nothing in this is beyond the novelette..." In the Christian Science Monitor of 14 September 1938, V S Pritchett predicted the novel "would be here today, gone tomorrow."

Few critics saw in the novel what the author wanted them to see: the exploration of the relationship between a man who was powerful and a woman who was not.

The Film. 11 Academy Award Nominations and 2 Academy Awards

Rebecca is a 1940 American psychological dramatic thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock as his first American project and his first film produced under his contract with David O. Selznick. The film's screenplay was an adaptation by Joan Harrison and Robert E. Sherwood from Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan's adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel of the same name. 

It was produced by Selznick and stars Laurence Olivier as the aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter, Joan Fontaine as his second wife, and Judith Anderson as the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers.

The film is a gothic tale about the lingering memory of the title character, Maxim de Winter's dead first wife, which continues to haunt Maxim, his new bride, and Mrs. Danvers. 

The film won two Academy Awards, including Best Picture, out of a total 11 nominations. Olivier, Fontaine and Anderson were all Oscar nominated for their respective roles. Since the introduction of awards for actors in supporting roles, this is the only film named Best Picture that won no other Academy Award for acting, directing or writing.

Rebecca was the opening film at the 1st Berlin International Film Festival in 1951.

The film begins with a female voiceover: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again", to images of a ruined country manor.

The heroine is a very young (and nameless) woman (Joan Fontaine), a paid companion to the wealthy but obnoxious Edythe Van Hopper (Florence Bates). The heroine meets the aristocratic widower Maximilian (Maxim) de Winter (Laurence Olivier) in Monte Carlo. They fall in love, and within two weeks they are married.

Maxim takes his new bride to Manderley, his country house in Cornwall, England. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), is domineering and cold, and is obsessed with the great beauty, intelligence and sophistication of the first Mrs. de Winter—the eponymous Rebecca—and preserves her former bedroom as a shrine. Rebecca's sleazy cousin Jack Favell (George Sanders) appears at the house when Maxim is away.

The new Mrs. de Winter is intimidated by her responsibilities and begins to doubt her relationship with her husband. The continuous reminders of Rebecca overwhelm her; she believes that Maxim is still deeply in love with Rebecca. She also discovers that her husband sometimes becomes very angry at her for apparently innocent actions.

Trying to be the perfect wife, the young Mrs. de Winter convinces Maxim to hold a costume party as he did with Rebecca. The heroine tries to plan her own costume, but Mrs. Danvers suggests she copy the beautiful outfit in the portrait of Caroline de Winter, an ancestor. At the party, when the costume is revealed to Maxim he is appalled; Rebecca wore the same outfit at their ball a year ago, shortly before she died. The heroine confronts Danvers, who tells her she can never take Rebecca's place, and almost manages to convince her to jump to her death. A sudden commotion reveals that a ship is sinking.

The heroine rushes outside, where she hears that during the rescue a sunken boat has been found with Rebecca's body in it. Maxim admits that he had earlier misidentified another body as Rebecca's, in order to conceal the truth. At the very beginning of their marriage Rebecca had told Maxim she intended to continue the promiscuous and perverse sex life she had led before the marriage. He hated her but they agreed to an arrangement: she would act as the perfect wife and hostess in public, and he would ignore Rebecca's privately conducted affairs. Rebecca grew careless and complacent in her dealings, including an ongoing affair with her cousin Jack Favell. One night, Rebecca informed Maxim that she was pregnant with Favell's child. During the ensuing heated argument she fell, hit her head and died. Maxim took the body out in a boat which he then scuttled.

Shedding the remnants of her girlish innocence, Maxim's wife coaches her husband on how to conceal the mode of Rebecca's death from the authorities. In the police investigation, deliberate damage to the boat points to suicide. Favell shows Maxim a note from Rebecca which seems to indicate she was not suicidal. Favell then tries to blackmail Maxim, but Maxim tells the police. Maxim is now under suspicion of murder. The investigation then focuses on Rebecca's secret visit to a London doctor (Leo G. Carroll), which Favell assumes was due to her illicit pregnancy. However, the coroner's interview with the doctor reveals that Rebecca was mistaken in believing herself pregnant; instead she had a late-stage cancer.

The doctor's evidence persuades the coroner to render a finding of suicide. Only Frank Crawley (Maxim's best friend and manager of the estate), Maxim, and his wife will know the full story: that Rebecca lied to Maxim about being pregnant with another man's child in order to goad him into killing her, an indirect means of suicide.

As Maxim returns home from London to Manderley, he finds the manor on fire, set alight by the deranged Mrs. Danvers. The second Mrs. de Winter and the staff manage to escape the blaze, but Danvers dies in the flames.

Adaptation

At Selznick's insistence, the film adapts the plot of du Maurier's novel Rebecca faithfully. However, one plot detail was altered to comply with the Hollywood Production Code, which said that the murder of a spouse had to be punished. In the novel, Maxim shoots Rebecca, while in the film, he only thinks of killing her after she taunts him, whereupon she suddenly falls back, hits her head on a heavy piece of ship's tackle, and dies from her head injuries, so that her death is an accident, not murder.

According to the book It's only a Movie, Selznick wanted the smoke from the burning Manderley to spell out a huge "R". Hitchcock thought the touch lacked subtlety. While Selznick was preoccupied by Gone with the Wind (1939), Hitchcock was able to replace the smoky "R" with the burning of a monogrammed négligée case lying atop a bed pillow. According to Leonard Luff's book Hitchcock and Selznick Selznick took control of the film once Hitchcock had completed filming, reshooting many sequences and rerecording many performances. Some sources say this experience led Hitchcock to edit future pictures in camera—shooting only what he wanted to see in the final film—a method of filmmaking that restricts producers power to reedit the picture.

Although Selznick insisted that the film be faithful to the novel, Hitchcock did make some other changes, especially with the character of Mrs. Danvers, though not as many as he had made in a previous rejected screenplay, in which he altered virtually the entire story. In the novel, Mrs. Danvers is something of a jealous mother figure, and her past is mentioned in the book. But in the film, Mrs. Danvers is a much younger character (the actress, Judith Anderson, would have been about 42 at the time of shooting) and her past is not revealed at all. The only thing we know about her is that she came to Manderley when Rebecca was a bride. Hitchcock made her more of a mysterious figure with subtly lesbian overtones, overtones which match well with du Maurier's own bisexuality.

Wikipedia

Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow. ~ Alice Mackenzie Swaim 

He (she) who fears something gives it power over him (her). Moorish proverb 

"The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power."  Mary Pickford 

If you don't practice you don't deserve to win. Andre Agassi 

Let's all celebrate Gloria Steinem's 80th birthday. Marianne Williamson 

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. George Santayan 

There's no need for an abuse of power when your strength comes from within. The Golden Mirror 

Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.  ~ Martin H. Fischer 

Pain is weakness leaving the body. Ashley 

Most editors are failed writers - but so are most writers. ~ T.S. Eliot 

And God Created Woman ll Pt lll (ll). A Self Portrait 

AMERA ZIGANII RAO

A PROFILE  

FEMINIST AND HUMAN RIGHTS, METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHER. WRITER. MENTALIST AND ARTIST

AMERA ZIGANII RAO ALCHEMY & LIBERATION & HUMANITY™

The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™

The Super Sacred Brother Lover™

The Return To The Source. Ascension.

The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™. When we were giants. All of us. When you did more than rape me.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Neo Feminist™, Post Tribe Social Reformer™ and Sacred Sexualist™. Human Rights Healer. Metaphysical Philosopher, Writer, Spiritual Intelligence Teacher, Hierophant (Interpreter of The Universe) and Mentalist Self Actualiser.

I can help you grow power, from nothing.

Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

The Sacred Whore High Priestess Hierophant™ and Sacred Pimp Warrior Protector, Brother Lover™ Society. The kings and queens of old. Angels and Sorcerers together in each of themselves and in the other. The Wizard life. Forever. Living and loving from The Source. Sourcery, Carlos Castaneda first said. I'll say it again. Sourcerers together. Living a life worth living. At last.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Witches are healers. Witches are the Love Healers and SOURCErers of The Lost World, when we were the giant warriors. We were good and so were were you. 'The World of Men'. The Tribe of Misogyny and Bourgeois™.

Gives us all a bad name. And poisons all hearts.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

Feminist Lolita Intellectuals™. You lucky man. A place at the table, a place at the Executive Table. That's all. The rest is easy.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2013

THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: APPLIED CONSCIOUSNESS™, NEO FEMINISM™, METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY & SACRED SEXUALISM™. POST TRIBE SOCIAL REFORM™. POWER IS THE NEW LOVE. FREEDOM + HOPELESSNESS + SEX. NIHILISM FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIFE™ THE LOST KNOWLEDGE™ THE WIZARDRY OF BEING™ POLITICAL SPIRITUALITY™ TRUE NEW LOVE. BEYOND THE REVOLUTION™

SOCIAL REFORM. THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND LOVE. SHAMANISM. PHILOSOPHY. TRUE (UNIVERSAL) LOVE. NEO FEMINISM™. ANTI MISOGYNY. THE ARTIST'S WAY. WIZARDRY. TRUE INTELLECTUALISM™. WISDOM. GONZO SPIRITUALITY. NIHILISM. SEX. SOUL. GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE™. SPIRITUAL EXISTENTIALISM™. THE VOID OF CREATION™. ALCHEMY & LIBERATION & HUMANITY™. HELL. SUFFERING. GROWTH. ASCENSION. LOVE. LIFE. DEATH. WARLORDS OF LIGHT™ TRUE LOVE & TRUE SEX. THE POST TRIBE SOCIETY™

The Company.

Writer, Speaker and Enlightener, Amera Ziganii Rao, is now putting together a comprehensive and unique programme of Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™. A programme of learning that is specifically about one particular kind of woman. And one particular kind of man. The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the true society that they come from and the one they, in particular, she can and has to return to and that anyone can join her and him in. This is about Paradise on Earth.

This is about The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity that is for all as a result of their healing and in particular, hers. This is about the kind of woman who is at the bottom of the pile in a Patriarchal Toilet Tribe from Hell Society™, the norm, the conventional world and the world of the Tribe. This is about the kind of man who is next in line from the bottom. The sensitive man and the female chattel. The High Priestess and High Priest of a profane society, that has long forgotten who they are.

This is about being at the bottom of the pile, for the forgotten and strangled shamans, and for her, the story of escape. Abused by her family, her friends, her men, her whole society, by the very nature of who she is and who they are and what has happened on this Earth. It is about women of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about men of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about the Cinderellas of this world. It is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™. Who she is and how, loving her is the secret to Paradise on Earth and how we have been living a lie for 8000+ years. A lie of male (non High Priest) religion with a male ‘God’ and with Patriarchs and Patriarchal types and Matriarchs and Matriarchal types ruling over us and making our lives hell, all in the name of family, the tribe and the way things are and should remain. Hate, fascism and profanity. A sick society that vilifies, more than anyone else, the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, just because it was told to. A sick society that calls her Eve. A sick society that has forgotten who we all are, let alone the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™. This is about us remembering and knowing who WE are.

This is a programme of healing for the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, to take them and particularly, her, from monstrous levels of low self esteem and lack of self knowledge, back to herself and it is a programme for all those who truly want to love her, and indeed, him. This is a programme for the greatest carers on Earth, who are vilified, destroyed, ridiculed, ignored, abused, used, misused and hated for being everything that those who would steal from us are not. This is a programme to turn Cinderellas into The Sacred Whore High Priestesses and for anyone who wants to love her or live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™. And this is a programme to turn sensitive men into Sacred Whore High Priests™ and for anyone who wants to love him and live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and High Priest Society. Love, humanity, Spirit and sex. This is a programme to reverse 8000+ years of witch burning, women hating and healer ridicule. This is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and all those who would love her and live by her values.

This is about the chance for Paradise on Earth. This is a programme for the most beautiful, kind hearted, wounded women and men on this planet. A programme of how to implement a system of how to beat life, how to survive life and how to resurrect from the grief that is a true life. Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity of the lower mind into the higher mind, the soul and the inner heart and therefore one's true, confident, ‘happy’, successful, creative, sexual, sensual, individual, intelligent, emotionally healed, capable of loving and being loved self. How to turn grief into creation and survive and thrive, despite all the shit, all the pain and all the hurt. How to live in a world of madness, hollowness and cruelty and how to be a winner. How to stand up for oneself and to take back the power that has been stolen from anyone with heart, Spirit and sex. The art and science of Alchemy.

This is a programme, based on my scholarly and non scholarly work over 15 years (so far), if not for my whole life, and my extensive and intense, visceral experiences of self transformation from resignation, cynicism and despair to a state of relative bliss, and above all, the right to be. The programme and the courses and my speaking and indeed my forthcoming book, will cover the method of change. The psychological, sociological, spiritual, cultural, political, emotional and physical and even anthropological methods of change. Why we are here. Who the Sacred Whore High Priestess™ is and why she is here. And who the Sacred Whore High Priest™ is. Why we are here. Who we are and what we are and why we are. The beauty and glory of the truth. The meaning of life, no less. This will be on offer in the future.

My first book of consciousness, my first book of the spiritual politics of humanity, of authentic power and of self love and strength. A comprehensive series of online courses, live events and audio and visual material. Books, live events, CDs and DVDs. And one on one personal empowerment consultations. The Amera Ziganii Rao Method of Change™. The right to be and the way to have the right to be. And indeed, how to maintain the will to live without love. How to BE unconditional, self sufficient, self caring, self love. The right to be and the will to be and the unparalleled success that comes with that. The Lost Knowledge™. HOW to live. And how to heal others, the profane and the sick and the soulless. The others. My Business and that of any Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and Sacred Whore High Priest™, is Human Rights, The Right to a Sexual Society, Self Actualisation and Freedom.

My Business is To Overthrow Fascism, in the Home and in the Country. My business is also mastering destiny. Overthrowing the ultimate 'fascism'. Our journey on Earth and The Return To The Source. Our healing, our ascension and our redemption. Fate. The daily crucifixions of a true life, the challenges and the fury of being healers and people of love on a planet like Earth.

Submitting to the journey to liberate and evolve oneself, through following one's heart, however much heartbreak and devastation it leads to on the long long long journey to freedom and then the longer journey to happiness. 'Long Road to Freedom', as Nelson Mandela says. My business is always taking risks, never giving up and making the endless sacrifices it takes to become whole. Enlightenment, Nirvana and then Parinirvana and beyond. My business is pain. My business is bliss.

My business is seeing the truly glory of Spirit on Earth. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™ and all that it is. Spirit, humanity, sex and love again at last. And the end of our legacy as either servants or witches or unpaid carers or indeed, ignored mistresses, other women, other men even, and the weirdos that are at the bottom of society. This is our world and it is time to take it back and I can show you how. And that makes my life, truly, worth living.

I want you to feel the way I do. Alive, with the right to be and the belligerence to exist in this profane and male ‘God’ led world of male supremacy, female supremacy, domestic, casual fascism, tribe rules from hell, with beautiful and kind, love intelligence laden, female and male Cinderella warriors at the bottom, caring for everyone else and getting nothing but hatred, ridicule and isolation for it. The meek are already inheriting the Earth and I can show you how.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They told you I and my kind were dictators and that you were slaves, when all we had done was love you, honour you as companions and above all, we had let you just live.

We were the holy communers, the ones who gave birth to human beings, the leaders of society, the creators of society, the vehicles of Divinity on Earth and the channels of wisdom. The ones who looked after everything and the ones who built everything and ran everything, because we could. And because we loved it. We are and were the force of creation. And you loved us and you lived.

But they told you that you ‘deserved’ power too and that we were the ones standing in your way. And you believed them. The oldest ‘divide and rule’ strategy of hate in history and it worked. They used it and you bought it, hook, line and sinker. You had to give up sex, love, magic and your own spiritual gifts and you burnt, destroyed and violated me for 8000 years.

The world calls that male supremacy. And indeed, family supremacy, Matriarchal supremacy and supremacy of the material world and all who believe in it. Men and women like you. When all that you are are slaves to a reptile force to generate hate energy for them to live and thrive and vampire the human race. The puppets of a hate force, that chose to destroy women and men like me, for hate to grow, so they could live. You bought it and it worked. The greatest fraud in the history of the world.

I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They taught you that my mind was evil. My mind, my sex, my body and my ways of life.

The humanity, the glory of sexuality and the glory of creation and creativity and the glory of Divinity in each and every one of us. Our souls. They taught you that human beings are separate from Divinity, that sex was wrong and that women who have minds of their own are uppity slaves. They vilified us but much much worse than that, they destroyed your relationship with all that is unseen, all that we honour and love.

They taught you to hate what is really God. By teaching you to hate us, you hated all that is good in yourselves. They taught you to hate the light. They taught you to kill us. The daughters of The Universe. The High Priestesses of God. The Spiritual Mothers. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Avatars of The Universe™. The Sacred Army of Love on Earth.

The Shamans, the Mystics and the Communers. The Hierophants.

They called me Eve and blamed me for the downfall of the human race and created the awesome profanity that is religion. Of men, by men and from men. Of reptiles, by reptiles and from reptiles. Christianity, Islam and Judaism and every other philosophy around the world was poisoned. There are no female spiritual leaders left. It is all profanity. They chose you to represent them because they wanted to divide us and they did. They told you to hate me. And you believed them. Now I am back and I forgive you.

I forgive you because I can. Because I came here to save your soul. And because I finally know who I am. I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past. I came here to return your soul to The Source. God, The Mother, The Universe. To return you to what is really God. Because I love you. And because She loves you and your kind, whatever you have done.

Whatever you have done to me and whatever you have done to Her. And most of all, whatever you have done to yourself. We forgive you. This is your redemption. Your freedom and your ascension. We are here to save your soul.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

You bought the Sacred Whore like a piece of meat and you called that a wife. Your trophy wives. Your dancing girls. Your chattel and serving girls. Your piece of beauty. You bought us like you would cattle. Then you called it wives. Now you call it prostitution. The High Priestesses of the real God. You bought us to buy God, The Mother, The Universe and you caged us, separated us from our Divine gifts and skills in the Temple and drove us mad and then lost interest in us, because we had no gifts left, no excitement, no hunter in ourselves and no hope or joy left. Then you just called us mad and discarded us. You called us evil and you call love obedience, even though it had already killed us. You moved into our Temples and you played with the divination tools and thought you communed. The destruction of Atlantis was your gift.

You stole us from God, The Mother, The Universe and you tried to usurp us. You vilified us, enslaved us and you still envy us today. You call it intuition. You might want to think about this when you hate us out of your jealousy. The mystic gene means physical tortuous pain and taking on the empathy of the human race. All their pains, evils and dark thoughts. We see and feel everything. We make crucial sacrifices to be near Spirit and the unseen and we go without for years. To be shaman is not glamour. I make it glamour. To be shaman is a specific Samurai existence, ascetic and harsh. We commune to be guides. And you take that and you shame yourselves because you just want the meat. You didn’t just want the meat. You wanted our beauty of spirit, our personalities and our love and kindness. And you destroyed them, because you caged us and called us wife.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

The High Priestess Sacred Whores, the High Priests and the true protectors. Those who do not have the gift like either the High Priests or especially like the highest of all, the High Priestess Sacred Whores but who honour, protect and facilitate them to the world. Who honour the Shaman Sacred Whores of this world most of all, and who know who they are and who they are not. Who know the difference, who do not envy and who protect and love the representatives of Spirit, GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE, on Earth. Who honour their wisdom and who honour the latent Shaman in themselves too and who honour the communing ability of the High Priestess Sacred Whores. The non violators. Our only friends. The New Society exists. It is called Enlightenment. It is called Love. It is The Holy Grail.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

The master race. It's all a lie. You are brought up to be a despot king and it is only your sister who ever tells you that you have become a pratt. The master race is all a lie. There are no kings in an equal world. Your father was misinformed. What he brought you up to be was a killer. Pure and simple. A misogynist. A modern misogynist. A polite killer.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

I enter the magical hours of pure feeling, pure thought, pure imagination and I think and I write and I 'mysticise' the Universe. I escape at will, the truth of my humanless, Samurai solitude, and I pursue the truth of love in myself and in everyone else. I am philosopher. I am shaman. I am alone. I frontier the Soul to be spirit on Earth.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

Amera Ziganii Rao is a former hard news journalist who is now turning professional with her art forms and indeed, her healing forms, after a long journey of inner searching, self teaching and exploring many layers and areas of both craft and wisdom. She is now working on her first book of philosophy and esoteric thought, and social, cultural and spiritual commentary. She is also showing her first photography collections. And last but most definitely not least, she is building a business to share her Sacred Whore High Priestess Society consciousness and empowering explorations to reach as many people as possible across the world. She is in her forties and lives in London.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

In the meantime, please enjoy this website. I have included many of the subjects I am covering, areas of experience and insight that I will be exploring to the fullest in my book, the courses and all the other work that is to come as a dramatist, novelist and essayist. I also of course, include many of the wise people on this planet, who have come long before me; authors, screen dramatists, playwrights, film makers, artists, and other enlighteners and grand carriers of the wisdom I have found the most helpful on my journey, to find peace and become enlightened. The seemingly impossible journey, in the face of oneself and one’s circumstances. People who have contributed massively to my healing on this mad journey called life, in this insane existence called The Universe. People who have helped to make me as good a carrier of wisdom as I in turn, can be. Thank you.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011

Copyright and intellectual property rights are serious issues. And legally protected. Please do not reproduce my work anywhere without due credit and obviously, never for financial gain. 'Big Sister' is watching you! Other than that, please continue to enjoy my original work and the work of (credited) others, for free, while I work on using my material in further professional formats. Thank you for your interest and support.

Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012

Thank you to outside sources for photography and artwork. Darkroomed by Amera Ziganii Rao