The Shadow Of The Caravans - Afghanistan before the Russian Invasion (1979)

 

This film is a glimpse of the traditional life of the Afghan people, their culture and their music, just before the Russian invasion in 1979. 

About Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion in Dec.1979. Border unrest, trade routes blocked and the Afghan mujahideen is about to take up arms against the intruder. In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in a bloody coup d'état against then-President Mohammed Daoud Khan, in what is called the Saur Revolution. The PDPA declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, with its first leader named as People's Democratic Party general secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki.

The Saur Revolution (/saʊər/; Dari: إنقلاب ثور‎ or ۷ ثور (literally 7th Saur); Pashto: د ثور انقلاب‎), also romanized Sowr Revolution, and alternatively called the April Revolution or April Coup, was the process by which the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) overthrew Afghan President Mohammed Daoud Khan on 27–28 April 1978, who had himself taken power in the 1973 Afghan coup d'état. Daoud Khan and most of his family were killed at the presidential palace by military officers in support of the PDPA. The revolution resulted in the creation of a Soviet-aligned government with Nur Muhammad Taraki as President (General Secretary of the Revolutionary Council). Saur or Sowr is the Dari (Persian) name of the second month of the Solar Hijri calendar, the month in which the uprising took place.

The revolution was ordered by PDPA member Hafizullah Amin, who would become a significant figure in the revolutionary government; at a press conference in New York in June 1978, Amin claimed that the event was not a coup but a revolution by the "will of the people". The coup involved heavy fighting and resulted in many deaths. The Saur Revolution was a significant event in Afghanistan's history, marking the onset of 43 years of conflict in the country.

A Man Between Three Rivers

Bygones from 1975 - Documentary series exploring East Anglian history and traditional rural crafts. Meet Ernie James, the last Fen Tiger who made a living by eel catching and punt gunning. Ernie shares with us some of his centuries old knowledge about living self-sufficiently on the Fens. 

Ernie James was born on January 8, 1906 in Welney, Norfolk, England. He died on July 5, 2005 in Norfolk.

He was one of the last (some said the last) of the legendary "Fen Tigers" - the elite breed of men who scratched a seasonal living on the Fens of East Anglia. He was born in Welney on 8th January 1906. His parents lived in a cottage that had been home to several previous generations of the James family, on land they owned between the rivers Delph and Old Bedford, close to the two bridges.

The cottage was known as Ferry House because Ernie's father operated a ferry service across the Washes in winter when the Wash Road (the A1101) road was impassable. Ernie took over the service in 1922 when only 16 and continued it right through the 2nd World War.

He spent all his life in Welney, working for his father on his smallholding when he left school until his 20s, then making a living from a square mile of land and water close to his cottage. At the age of 21 he married Doris, a local Welney girl whose father was employed as a mole-catcher by the local drainage authority.

Ernie never had a 'regular' job - his work, in deed his whole life, was ruled by the seasons. Winter was for punt gunning and his shooting skills were recently recognised by the Shooting Times which listed him as one of the 12 great shooting eccentrics. His greatest achievement was killing 48 birds with a single shot one morning and another 30 in the afternoon.

Shortly after his marriage, his father-in-law became ill and Ernie inherited his job and worked for many years between October and February as a mole-catcher along the banks of the Delph and the Old Bedford rivers. Winter recreation was ice-skating when the washes froze over, and he and his friends would skate for miles on wooden "fen runners".

Springtime saw him busy in his osier beds along the River Delph cutting willows to make eel traps and griggs. He caught thousands of eels during his lifetime, and continued to catch them until he was in his early 90s. One of his great pleasures was to walk along Welney high bank observing the movement of the wild fowl and changes in the scenery of the washes as the seasons passed. Summertime was ditching in the washes and harvest work.

Autumn saw the start of plover-catching which continued until the frost came, and the cycle began again. Although he never travelled far from home he gained a reputation as a master of country lore. People came to visit him from all corners of the world to listen to his stories, view his collection of photographs, and learn about calling birds, trapping eels and catching moles.

In the 1950s he began a media career which lasted for almost 40 years. In 1975 Anglia Television made this documentary about his life in the Fens and he worked with personalities including Dave Allen, David Bellamy and Harry Secombe.

In 1986 his daughter-in-law Audrey James wrote his biography “Memoirs of a Fen Tiger” which not only chronicles his life but also a good deal of Welney's history too.

 

He left a son, two daughters, two grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. His wife of 72 years, Doris, died in 2000.

His funeral service and burial were at St Mary's Church, Welney, on Monday 11th July 2005.

Growing Pains: The Ecological Cost of an Insatiable Economy

 

A look at the global and political obsession with economic growth and the ecological and humanitarian consequences.

Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times of Chogyam Trungpa

Promiscuous drunk who liked guns, and incarnated Bodhisattva.....

A provocative account of Trungpa’s global odyssey, Crazy Wisdom offers a perceptive, if one-sided, perspective on Trungpa’s impact on American spirituality and the arts. Well before American Buddhists and New Age acolytes began flocking to the feet of Tibet’s Dalai Lama, hippies and spiritual seekers were following in the footsteps of Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan lama who took up residence in the U.S. during the 1970s.

Born in Tibet in 1939, Trungpa was identified as a reincarnate lama (“rinpoche”) before he was two years old and completed ecclesiastical studies within the Kagyu branch of Tibetan Buddhism before escaping his homeland in 1959 and resettling in India following China’s invasion of Tibet. A move to London to study at Oxford University eventually led him to Scotland to cofound the first Tibetan Buddhist center in the West and the decision to give up his monastic robes to become a lay teacher and marry Diana Pybus, a 16-year-old follower.

In 1970, Trungpa and Pybus moved to the U.S., where they settled rather incongruously in Vermont, establishing a rural meditation center. Trungpa began teaching a growing following of lay meditation practitioners, many of them counter-culture refugees seeking spiritual inspiration, and expanding his interest in the arts. Wherever he traveled around North America, however — eventually settling for a time in Boulder, Colo., where he founded the renowned Naropa University — Trungpa provoked controversy and intense curiosity, as well as devotion.

He freely slept with other women besides Pybus — many of them his students — and smoked and drank openly. Trungpa’s spiritual methods were often as divisive as his lifestyle, prompting followers to identify him as an embodiment of “crazy wisdom,” a traditional teaching style involving unconventional ideas and practices that shock students into new realizations of Buddhist principles.

Whether a lifestyle or a religious choice, Trungpa’s excesses led to his death in 1987 from cirrhosis of the liver at age 48, after he had established a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, a network of Shambala meditation centers and published dozens of English-language books on Buddhism.

"The Life of Milarepa"

MILAREPA Part 1 - "How I met Marpa" - Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche Homage from Oseling on Vimeo.

Jetsun Milarepa (Tibetan: རྗེ་བཙུན་མི་ལ་རས་པ, Wylie: rje btsun mi la ras pa, 1028/40–1111/23) was a Tibetan enlightened Yogi, who was famously known as a murderer when he was a young man, before turning to Buddhism and becoming a highly accomplished Buddhist disciple. He is generally considered one of Tibet's most famous yogis and spiritual poets, whose teachings are known among several schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He was a student of Marpa Lotsawa, and a major figure in the history of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. He is also famous for the feat of climbing Mount Kailash.