Falling in love takes a fifth of a second - Paolo Coelho

Why people don’t accept love as it is, full of agonies and extasies, a misterious force that keeps the universe together?
But no, even for love there is a need for explanations….
According to a study in the recent issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, people who “fall in love at first sight” do so in a fifth of a second.
The researchers say the feeling is the same sort of sensation that one gets from using cocaine.

 

This explanation could explain the odd love attraction in the movie Thornbirds.

"There's a legend about a bird...which sings just once in its life more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth.From the moment it leaves the nests it searches for a thorn three and doesn't rest until it's found one.There singing among the savage branches,it impales itself upon the longest,sharpest spine.And dying it rises above it's one agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale and the hole world stills to listen and God in his Heaven smiles.For the best is bought only at the cost of great pain or so says the legend...but when we press the thorn to our breast we know,we understand,but still we do it."

Cassandra of Troy - Spoke the truth but no one believed her

ECOSMARTFIRE - Greek Designer - Australian Made

Zeta

Designed by John Dimopoulos

Stylish and striking, the EcoSmart Zeta fireplace is nothing if not original. Designed by John Dimopoulos, director of Geoform, Design & Architects Firm in Sydney and the first architect ever to specify EcoSmart Fires in Australia, the EcoSmart Zeta fireplace is so-named because of its elliptical shape and pays homage to its Greek ‘origins’.
A clever fusion of timber, leather and stainless steel, the fully portable Zeta sits on a brushed or polished stainless steel swivel base. The plywood body of the fire is shaped from a high frequency heated aluminium mold into the perfect elliptical shape. A ventless stainless steel firebox insert is moulded to the internal face of the plywood, and the outer surface is upholstered in leather. The toughened glass screens that sit either side of the fire enhance the stunning visual effect created by the flame.
The Zeta is available in different leather colours including Ciocolatta, Nero, Ranch Hide and Latte.
Like other models in the Designer Range, the Zeta is fuelled by denatured ethanol, an environmentally friendly, renewable energy.
http://www.ecosmartfire.com/en/freestanding-fireplace-designs/zeta-portable-ventless-fireplace

Jupiter Goes Direct followed by Venus - Astrology.com

On November 18, the two planets that represent good fortune, money and happiness -- Jupiter followed by Venus -- turn direct and the lessons that they have been trying to teach us in their retrograde periods of introspection are now ours to put into practice!
Jupiter turned retrograde in Aries on July 23 and moved into Pisces during its retrograde motion. It now turns direct in Pisces and will stay there until January 2011.

This is, however, the last time until 2021 that Jupiter will be in Pisces, and there are significant lessons that this transit holds for us. When Jupiter is direct, the energy of the cosmos calls for renewed enthusiasm, and the time is ideal to put in a stronger sense of meaning and purpose in life and move onward with a revived sense of direction and sparkle. Jupiter gives us momentum to accomplish our goals and favors idealism, good luck, and financial success!

With Jupiter retrograde in Pisces, many of us may have been questioning our real values and priorities in life and what it is that is really important for us in life that we must gain or accomplish! Now that Jupiter turns direct, we have a chance to put into practice our new goals and philosophy of life. With Jupiter direct, there'll be more opportunities for outer expansion -- at work and with money. Good fortune should not be so hard to find and optimism should soar.

With Venus retrograde in Libra, the sign of one-to-one relationships, many of us may have felt a sense of failure in being unable to attain the kind of intimate emotional connection we are ideally seeking with a significant other in our lives -- regardless of the nature of the relationship -- other than this relationship is very central to our lives. This has been a period of introspection. But now the universe urges us to step out -- softer, wiser, more heart-centered and better equipped to fully embrace what life and relationships have to offer. This is a time to value your partners and romance will burn ever more brightly!

http://fisica.cab.cnea.gov.ar/estadistica/abramson/celestia/gallery/slides/Venus-Jupiter-1818.html
http://libraseekingbalance.com/archives/3586

Greek Movie Reviews

SPOILERS, ONE OF WHICH CAN BE LISTED AS MAJOR(Though most of what is written is what can be found in most reviews about the movie):"To proxenio tis Annas" is the first great film of the director Pantelis Voulgaris. Anna, a young woman comes to a Greek house in Athens to work as a servant. The family loves her and they try to find her a man in order to get married. When the man is finally found, they change their mind and this is when relations start to break up. Voulgaris depicts in a great way the way Athenians used to live, people gathering on Sundays and/or Holidays at big momma's house, playing backgammon, little ambitious girls wanting to become models, the ethical way of family, Anna has to find a man and make a good, descent, Christian family etc. Voulgaris as he had once said was inspired by an incident that has happened in his family when he was young. There is also a kind of political implication, Anna's father was executed at Kalavryta by the Germans. But most of it, the film shows how 2 families are attached to and depend on a girl, the victim in the whole case, and how difficult it is finally for her to make her life the way she wants it to be when she finally compromises with it. Anna Vagena and the rest of the cast (along with a must-seen Costas Rigopoulos) are great !

TO PROXENIO TIS ANNAS (THE ENGAGEMENT OF ANNA)
Director: Pantelis Voulgaris, Greece 1972, 82 minutes
Cast: Anna Vayena, Smaro Veaki A classic of world cinema, recently chosen as one of the ten best Greek films of the last 30 years by International Film Guide, Voulgaris' feature debut swept all of the Greek film prizes, won several awards abroad, and was hailed as "one of the most sensitive, human and impressive Greek films ever made" (Variety). Establishing the quiet but charged tone of his subsequent cinema, Voulgaris sets the film in the sunny garden of a middle-class Greek household as relatives and friends come by to celebrate the engagement of Anna the maid. As the day wears on, the family realizes that they cannot afford to lose the services of this faithful "girl from the village," and decide to stop her marriage. "***1/2" (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune). "Marvelous" (Georgia Brown, The Village Voice). 

http://www.greekfilmfestival.com.au/filmfestival05/melbourne/films/film_anna.htm

 Greek Civil War 1946-49, "Psyhi Vathia (Soul Deep)".

Produced in 2009 from one of Greece's most important film directors, Pantelis Voulgaris, the film presents the human side of these dramatic historical events, through the tale of two young brothers who find themselves enlisted in opposing camps after their father is killed and they are separated from their mother.

The film features breathtaking battle scenes on the mountain of Grammos, in northern Greece, where the last episode of the war took place. The great actor Thanassis Veggos pays his tribute to the victims in a characteristic scene, and the soundtrack has been composed by Yiannis Aggelakas.
This is the story of two brothers, Anestis and Vlasis who fight in two different
camps during the Greek civil war. The story takes place in 1949; the last year
of the war and probably the year that the most ferocious battles took place
between the guerrillas and the Greek Army. In this story the two brothers
(who are not even adults) have to face their worst fear: losing each other.
While the story evolves, the audience can see the most realistic to date,
images of this brutal war who cost the lives of 70.000 soldiers on both sides
and resulted in the immigration of over 500.000 non combatants.

http://www.officeofhellenicstudies.com/Office_of_Hellenic_Studies/Office_of_Hellenic_Studies_-_Events_files/psixi%20V%20handout.pdf

Mantinada - Η απόσταση είναι αυτό που με κρατά μακριά σου και δε μπορώ κάθε βραδιά να βρίσκομαι κοντά σου

A mantinada, (plural mantinades, Greek: μαντινάδα, μαντινάδες) — are Cretan rhyming couplets, typically improvised during dance music. Rhymed Cretan poetry of the Renaissance, especially verse epic Erotokritos, are reminiscent of the mantinada, and couplets from Erotokritos have become used as mantinades. Mantinades have either love or satire as their topics. They are invariably composed in dekapentasyllabos verse and are often antiphonal, i.e. a verse elicits a response and this leads to another response and so on. The word is derived from Venetian matinada, "morning song". *Wikipedia*

Σ'αγάπησα όπως αγαπά η μάνα το παιδί της
που αν το χάσει κάποτε τελειώνει η ζωή της

Πόσο μωρό μου σ'αγαπώ κι ένας στραβός το βλέπει
κι εσύ μου λες δε γίνεται δε κάνει και δε πρέπει

Πάλι σε ψάχνω στου μυαλού το κάθε μονοπάτι
γυρεύω ένα χάδι σου κι ας είσαι οφθαλμαπάτη

 Ζήσε εσύ με τις χαρές που σου προσφέρει η μοίρα
κι εγώ θα ζώ με τους καημούς που απο σενα επήρα

Alexiou - ali mia fora