Many of us would love to improve our vision naturally. However, very few of us are aware of the fact that besides glasses, contacts and laser surgery, other options or natural vision improvement alternatives exist that can help us solve our vision problems. I am referring to the kind of natural alternative that can either help us to reduce, or even in some cases, eliminate the hassle of wearing glasses and contacts.

One such alternative is an eye exercise program. This consists of techniques that help to strengthen, improve, and upgrade the visual system through a series of eye exercises, which if practiced consistently, strengthen the focusing power of the eyes; thereby helping us to achieve better natural vision. The eyes like any other part of the body needs exercise to stay in shape.

While improving eyesight naturally through eye exercises may sound crazy, bizarre or even unbelievable, the evidence that such techniques work is available in clinical journals such as the American Journal of Optometry and the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

One of the most fascinating and interesting experiences that people who practice eye exercises encounter is a miraculous phenomenon called Clear Flashes. What exactly are clear flashes? This phenomenon is defined as sudden intervals or periods when your natural vision without glasses suddenly becomes crystal clear, sharp and crisp. These in the beginning normally lasts just a few seconds.

When you have just begun your program of eye exercises you may find that clear visual experiences happen once in a while. However, the longer you persist with performing the eye exercise techniques, you will find that such incidents or periods actually become much more frequent.

They may also increase in duration from a few seconds to minutes and from minutes to hours until eventually they are permanently sustained as an integral part of your permanent natural eyesight without glasses. Not only is this miraculous but it is quite encouraging in helping continue to spur your motivation to see your eye exercise program to a successful conclusion. As you look forward to having more of these experiences. These clear flashes are classified into 2 main categories:

Involuntary Clear Flashes: These are sudden periods of crystal clear natural eyesight without glasses that happen very spontaneously. For example, they happen not because you have consciously caused them but because you just happen to look up or just glanced at an object randomly.

Voluntary Clear Flashes: This involves the process of using relaxation eye exercise techniques to create clear flashes so that you can experience them whenever you want to.

Clear flashes are a sign that you have made considerable progress in your vision improvement program in terms of the following: Eye strain reduction, improvement of the natural focusing power of the eyes, in addition to the fact that you are further along in terms of the reduction of your prescription. What causes this phenomenon? Think of it this way. Both of your eyes don’t usually have the exact same focusing power. The focusing power of one eye is usually a little stronger than the other eye. Clear flashes, therefore, through the stimulation of the visual system through eye exercises, causes the brain to correct visual imbalances in both eyes by producing a single clear image. Hence, the creation of clear flashes.

Clear flashes are not just miraculous, but an exciting and interesting sign that you have made significant progress in your vision improvement pursuits. Once you have experienced clear flashes, you look forward to more of these occurrences that are constant reminders that ultimately, with a little more persistence, you’ll be well on your way to experiencing them not just as brief flashes, but as a permanent state of your crystal clear, natural eyesight without glasses.

Is viewing adult web sites a form of infidelity if you are married? Or is it a relatively harmless diversion for broad-minded people? Does spending time in fantasy encounters or engaging in behavior of an imaginary nature no different than a one-night stand or a long-term love affair make you a cheating spouse? Does the absence of an actual, physical partner make this behavior more acceptable? Could the use of adult web sites be a sign not only of infidelity but a of other personal and marital problems?

Before the Internet and other digital technologies, obtaining and viewing adult material was largely a fringe activity, pursued discreetly in movie theaters and bookstores, or via mail order. While magazines featuring women and men in various stages of undress have been available on newsstands and by subscription since the 1950’s, today’s Internet delivers an inexhaustible volume of far more explicit material catering to every conceivable taste within a few keystrokes, usually at little or no cost. Addiction or use of adult websites is now cited as a reason for irreconcilable differences in divorce proceedings.

There are several reasons why adult website use is a form of infidelity:

First, the sharing of your desire and affection outside of marriage is wrong – even if the objects of your desire don’t actually exist. The simple act of coveting someone not your spouse, which is inherent in adult visual stimulation, should give pause to those who hold traditional religious views.

Second, the very act of secrecy makes it wrong. There are certainly areas of a married person’s life which remain personal, such as unspoken thoughts, avocations, even friendships. But would you be embarrassed by sharing your hobbies with your spouse, or introducing your spouse to your friends? Unless you and your spouse share adult material together, which some might consider open-minded and others a symptom of dysfunction, your use of adult websites is probably not something you would be pleased to have your spouse know.

Third, how likely is it that you will stop at imaginary relationships and pursue the real thing? Adult websites, like other ‘slippery slopes’, can serve as a ‘gateway drug’ for infidelity. Like the flirtatious ‘dinner date’ with a co-worker you don’t mention to your spouse or hanging out regularly in strip clubs, placing yourself in situations where unfaithfulness is easy increases the risk of temptation.

Finally, adult website use is a more insidious in the damage it does to your marriage and yourself. Immersion in fantasy worlds of any kind for long periods of time is unhealthy. The same could be said of people obsessed with the lives of movie stars and celebrities. But imaginary romantic and physical encounters de-personalizes intimacy and sets unreal expectations for appearance and intimate performance. Movies, adult or not, are not real and the characters depicted are stylized. Adult websites set weird and unreal physical and behavioral standards which are impossible, and not necessarily desirable, to achieve in real life.

Worse, like any drug addiction, frequenting adult web sites set ever higher thresholds for satisfaction. Addicts lose interest in real intimacy and genuine relationships, which come with their own real-world complexities and imperfections. While you’re engaging in fantasy, the rich, complex personality of your partner is obscured. While you’re sharing your fantasy man or woman with millions of other partners around the world, you’re losing precious time exploring and enjoying the unique person you married.

If you find yourself deriving intimate satisfaction outside your marriage through use of adult websites, you are a cheating spouse. If you want to halt the damage you are doing to yourself and your marriage, there are resources, such as books and counseling that can put you on the road to recovery.

Fiction is an integral part of human life. Man has an inherent need for diversion to get away, even if for a few moments, from the humdrum of life. Story telling has been one of the earliest ways of accomplishing that and over the ages it has grown into the diverse forms of entertainment we have in the present day world. Entertainment is basically of two types – active and passive. The active involves physical participation in one way or other, while the passive does not. Fiction is essentially a passive entertainment even though the mind plays an important role in it. Fiction always involves visualization whether it is covert or overt. The earliest form of overt visualization was the enacting of dramas as the civilizations developed. The development of technology brought in its modern forms – cinema and television. The covert form is inherent to story telling and reading. It is an inherent characteristic of the human (or perhaps any) mind that a thought is always accompanied by an image. So as soon as one hears or reads a story the mind visualizes the scene and the characters; this process continues throughout the story and often even after it has ended.

Fiction by its very definition is unreal. When we read a novel we know that the story and the characters in it are merely a product of imagination of the author. When we see a movie we know that the characters are just acting their parts essentially pretending to be someone other than themselves. Still we are emotionally affected by the twists and turns in the story. We laugh with them, weep with them, and even feel indignant towards the bad guys. The lovable hero or heroine may be despicable in real life and the villain may be a perfect gentleman, but we identify them with the characters they are portraying. In essence for that brief period we ourselves get transported into the imaginary world of the author. Strangely enough this happens also with the author at least to some of them. He or she goes through the same emotions while writing and perhaps later as well.

“Knowledge is limited, imagination is not.” Albert Einstein said that although the wording of the second part might have been different. Einstein like any other human being was not infallible. Some of his views that he held right till the end turned out to be wrong even in the field of physics. In this particular statement also he seems to have it backwards. Knowledge may be limited in the case of an individual but in general it is unlimited even if we consider just rational knowledge leaving aside transcendental. Science in particular has demonstrated this at every step in the course of its development. Imagination pertains to an individual mind and is constrained by several factors depending on the circumstances of the individual. A mind can imagine only what relates in some way to things already stored in it. A person who has never been outside a remote place in wilderness and has had no contact with the world outside cannot imagine what metropolitan cities are like.

Getting back to fiction the imagination of the author also has to be based on his direct or indirect experiences. In this sense fiction is based on reality and to that extent it represents just another dimension of reality. Here of course we run into the philosophical problem of the precise meaning of reality. There are two diametrically opposite views – materialistic and spiritualistic. According to the former only things that can be perceived through our senses are real, everything else is unreal. The latter maintains that there is just one ultimate reality from which all that we perceive comes out and everything that is perceived is simply an illusion. We again consider a statement by Einstein: “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one.” He was obviously referring to the reality of the phenomenal world. The word illusion can have different connotations but in general it means perceiving something as different from what it is. So the existence of the thing is a prerequisite for illusion, it is not a mental construction. Imagination is purely a mental phenomenon and has nothing to do with anything actually existent. Therefore the relationship between fiction and reality is entirely different from that between illusion and reality.

In a philosophical sense the phenomenal world itself may be regarded as fiction. This is what Shakespeare perhaps meant when he wrote: “All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players”. We may as well think of everything in the universe (space, time, matter) as players because everything has its entry and exit. We of course run into the problem of stating what the stage is and who wrote the script. Shakespeare most probably believed in God, strict determinism, and in the reality of the world, so he did not have this problem. Now it is generally believed that the universe also has a beginning and will have an end. If the universe is also a player, are there multiple universes or does it come alone on the stage and then introduces other players? But what is the stage in this case? Quantum physics points to one possibility. At extremely small scales of space and time there is a quantum void that is not really empty but filled with energy which is constantly transforming itself into virtual particles and back. What remains after the end of the universe may be an infinite version of this quantum void filled with energy into which all the matter has converted itself. This universal energy is the source of and background for everything.

It is not merely a philosophical point either. We spend a considerable part of our life in the imagined or fictional world. We muse about the things in future and also dwell over the past imagining what could have been. The imagination about the future is based on our hopes and aspirations and to some extent it is a positive in the sense that we are in a position to mold our future if we sincerely try. But musing over the past is a futile exercise because we know for a fact that ‘what could have been’ is mere fantasy that never happened. Still it serves the same purpose as fiction from the point of view of entertainment. We entertain ourselves by imagining how life would have been, knowing fully well that it has no reality whatsoever. In a metaphorical sense past, at least the remote past, is fiction. In a certain sense history itself is fiction since it invariably contains the subjective bias of the author. What we know of Buddha and Jesus now is more fiction than facts.

We all may be players on the world stage, still the question remains why we show the emotional responses to the happenings depicted in the fiction, whether in print or visual presentation, just as in real life? Just like dreams our imaginations get presented to us on the mental screen as if we were watching television or movies. And just as in dreams the real world gets supplanted by the imagined virtual world even though we are fully awake. That world still has perfect resemblance to the real one and everything happening in it seems real due to something changing in our cognition faculty. But the mechanism that triggers our emotional responses remains unchanged and therefore we react to the fiction in the same way as in real life.

Here we have some similarity with the virtual reality of the modern computer technology, which is an artificial environment created by software. It is presented to the viewer in such a way that the person temporarily suspends own belief pattern and accepts it as a real environment. In a way it is not different from the phenomenon of being transported to the imagined world of fiction, except that the computer doing the job is in the mind and we have no clue as to what is the software and who is the programmer.

That brings us to the cause of emotional response itself. In regard to fiction the most common emotions are likes and dislikes that may turn into their stronger forms of love and hate. In real life we love or hate a person because of some attachment through kinship, friendship, or even through indirect knowledge of the person. One cannot love or hate a person one does not know at all. Attachment can also be to other living beings, material things, and even to imaginary things. We love or hate a story or even an idea. For an ordinary person it is impossible to live unattached to things in the world. If one is able to get rid of attachment, one joins the rank of enlightened souls who are indeed rare. We carry our capacity and desire for attachment even into the imaginary world of fiction. We see the characters that we come to know as the story progresses, form our likes and dislikes, and react in the same way as in real life except that we cannot interact with them physically. But we do interact with them in our minds and hearts from where the emotions come.

The fact is that in a certain sense life itself is fiction. Like a story it has a beginning, an end, and lot of things in between. We do not know who writes this fiction nor will ever know. Thus we have an innate affinity with fiction and cannot completely detach ourselves from it. And perhaps that is why, while reading or viewing fiction we get lost subconsciously in the wonderland of imagination, but for that brief period we function exactly in the same way as we would in the real world of our perception. In that sense fiction is just invented reality.

When in the Lady bars (really it should be just bar… but I am trying to remain hopefully), shopping in grocery stores, drinking coffee downtown and looking at the gorgeous women one thing comes to mind “Is she Vanilla or Chocolate?”

We all have are own individual sexual style and being with a woman is so wonderful in itself it is hard to describe or put into words the magic of lesbian love-making. There are an infinite amount of ways lesbians can have sex, and we have a variety of women to experience sex with, bisexual, woman who enjoy sex with other women (no label necessary), queer women, and lesbian transgender. Here are some reasons why lady loving is so fantastic:

The roles can be switched up, back and forth. We can be dominant and in control (ripping her clothes off against a wall) then completely submissive and gentle (soft kisses and caresses). Because of the way are bodies are shaped and created we are free to do whatever are imagination allows us. Playing, switching and trying different roles is empowering and exciting!

Of course there is the big “O” for orgasm. Women do not need to recharge or stop we can keep on going, it is like we are powered up with batteries! Non-stop sex sessions are common amongst lesbians compared to heterosexuals (one more reason why we are so special!).

Then, there is just something about watching a women get off that is unreal and incredibly sexy. It is a powerful surge of energy that can make the darkest of days find light.

A woman’s body is soft, so soft it is where we find security and warmth. There is nothing on this planet that can compare to the beauty of a naked women, artist throughout the centuries have attempted to capture it but never emulated it!

The best part is that sometimes you find a woman who is completely linked to your sexual stamina, and our able to explore and experience sex in an open and like-minded way.

However, with that said some of us opt for a more traditional, sweet, and soft approach (Vanilla), where as other girls like it hot, sexy, and hard (Chocolate). What determines our sexual energy or expressing of love? Is the way we get naked and rub up all over each other a representation of who we are?

Some people put a lot of value on who you are by how we do it, but truly, how you have sex tells a lot about how you feel about yourself. It shows your confidence, maturity level and intimacy skill. Do you like it with the lights on or off? Public or behind closed doors? Upside down or missionary? Are you just a giver, taker or both? Are you happy with how you feel as a sexual being or is it uncomfortable?

Depending on how you answer the questions will determine how you express yourself in bed and how the other lady will mirror it back. Being physical can make us feel vulnerable and exposed, that is part of the process of connecting with another human being. The healthier your own self-image and confidence the more wonderful experiences you will attract, therefore good sex starts with self (and I mean that literally too…. that is the next article!).

Once you have that down, then the rest is all about fun and expressing yourself. So what do you think you are, Vanilla or Chocolate? Personally, I have always sided towards dark bitter-sweet chocolate!

Alex Karydi~The Lesbian Guru

As we analyze Willa Cather’s short story, “Paul’s Case,” we must recall that it is more than twice as long as Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and more than three times as long as Joyce’s “Clay.” Thus, as we would expect, the length of the story provides many opportunities for richness of detail and some looseness involving the use of the strong old view value statement and the new view reversal at the end of the story. When you write your essay on the story, take that into account.

The good news — despite all that rich detail, the clarity of the core new view in Paul’s Case still finds a way to make this long, rich-in-detail story understandable.

Step #1: At the beginning of a short story, a strong value statement, an old view, is given by or about the main character.

As the story begins, Paul is in a meeting with his school principal and several of his teachers, being interviewed to see whether he should be allowed off his suspension and back into school-When questioned by the Principal as to why he was there Paul stated, politely enough, that he wanted to come back to school. This was a lie, but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found it, indeed, indispensable for overcoming friction.

Paul didn’t really want to come back to school because he didn’t like or respect anyone there. The principal and teachers, who weren’t fond of the idea, either, formed a ring of tormentors about Paul as they interviewed him, peppering him with hostile questions.

Their negative evaluation and attitude toward Paul is expressed by the narrator in a strong value statement:

His teachers…[stated] their respective charges…with such a rancor and aggrievedness…this was not a usual case….

A strong, memorable, and vivid symbol is also mentioned-His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower.

After Paul left the meeting, having been accepted back into school by the principal, a teacher made a second strong value statement about Paul: I don’t really believe that smile of his comes altogether from insolence; there’s something sort of haunted about it. There is something wrong about the fellow.

To this point, we have several strong value statements about Paul, as seen through the eyes of his teachers and the principal. We have been told that,

• Paul was quite accustomed to lying & needed it to overcome friction.

• Paul’s was not a usual case.

• Paul has a sort of hysterically defiant, contemptuous manner.

• Paul’s whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippant, red carnation flower.

• There is something wrong about Paul.

And so now we have acquired two solid parts of the old view strong value statement:

…not a usual case…something wrong about the fellow.

The final part of the old view strong value statement doesn’t occur until the middle section of the story. (Talk about looseness in utilizing the old view-new view relationship!)

When Paul was kicked out of school, his father put him to work as a clerk at a company called Denny and Carson’s. His father also closed Paul’s access to Carnegie Hall and the theater troupe. The members of the theater troupe were vastly amused when they found out about Paul’s many creative stories involving them, and their evaluation fulfills the final portion of the old view strong value statement: They agreed with the faculty and with his father that Paul’s was a bad case.

We can now see all the parts of the strong value statement:

• This was not a usual case.
• There is something wrong about Paul.
• Paul’s was a bad case.

And since that ties in nicely with the title of the story, on the matter of the old view I rest my — errr, Paul’s — case.

Step #2: In the middle of a short story, the old view is supported or undercut with descriptions, conflicts, and resolutions that set up the new view at the end.

DESCRIPTION: One description plays a major role in supporting the old view. Paul lived on Cordelia street, and, after late-night concerts, Paul never went up Cordelia Street without a shudder of loathing. He approached it with the nerveless sense of defeat, the hopeless feeling of sinking back forever into ugliness and commonness that he had always had when he came home. He experienced all the physical depression which follows a debauch; the loathing of respectable beds, of common food, of a house penetrated by kitchen odors.

The description and the name of the street are not coincidental. Cordelia is the name of the rejected daughter in Shakespeare’s play, “King Lear.” It is plain that Paul feels rejected by his father, as Cordelia was by hers. And Paul, in turn, rejects the poverty of his home, the plainness of his life, and the dullness of his life at school, preferring the exotic, unreal life of art, music, and theater to the harsh realities of his real life.

CONFLICT: From various incidents, we find conflict supporting the old view as Paul grapples with his father’s wrath and rejection by constantly lying to him about why he is late coming home, where he has been, or where he is going. For instance, one Sunday he can’t stand his ugly home, so he tells his father he’s going to a friend’s house to study.

RESOLUTION: But he goes instead to hang out with his friend, Charley Edwards, the leading juvenile of the permanent stock company which played at one of the downtown theaters. So Paul resolved his conflicts by lying, going outside reality and associating with people who live the unreal, exotic life of art, music, and theater: Matters went steadily worse with Paul at school. In the itch to let his instructors know how heartily he despised them and their homilies, and how thoroughly he was appreciated elsewhere, he mentioned once or twice that he had no time to fool with theorems; adding-with a twitch of the eyebrows and a touch of that nervous bravado which so perplexed them-that he was helping the people down at the stock company; they were old friends of his.

CONFLICT: Paul was kicked out of school, and his father put him to work as a clerk at a company called Denny and Carson’s. His father also closed Paul’s access to Carnegie Hall and the theater troupe. Paul hated and internally resisted the situation.

RESOLUTION: With his real life of fantasy closed to him, Paul resolves his conflict by lying (as usual, outside of reality) about a deposit he was supposed to make for his employer, stealing about three thousand dollars. And he went to New York to live the life of the gloriously rich. In those days, three thousand dollars went a long ways.

Step #3. At the end of a short story, a new view reversal of the old view is usually revealed.

At the end of the story, Paul has gone to New York where he is surrounded by many people, sort of a ring of admirers who give him respect, the reverse of the ring of tormentors at the story’s beginning, even though the respect at the end is based on his false, stolen wealth. And Paul plays his new role by showing his own respect toward everyone in New York at the end, quite the reverse from how he had been flippantly treating others at the beginning of the story.

The title, “Paul’s Case,” and the use of not a usual case and a bad case in the beginning and the middle all refer to something never specifically verbalized within the story. But the meaning is shown very clearly — Paul has problems with growing up, with school, with home, with identity, with finding himself, and with belonging.

Actually, it is not unusual for a young man to have such problems growing up. In Paul’s case, however, it was not a usual case — it was more than that, it was a bad case. But the ending reveals that Paul’s case was a lot worse than merely bad — it was deadly, it was fatal, since it ended with Paul’s suicide. So we see that the ending of the story emphasizes a drastic expansion of the old view to a new view that is adding, not only reversing, showing that Paul’s case was far more serious and far more dangerous or bad than anyone had realized or imagined.

On the other hand, at the beginning of the story Paul was daydreaming his fantasies about the theater, whereas at the end of the story he was actually living the privileged life of the respected wealthy — even if only for a short time — not merely fantasizing it. That reversal is what counted most — at least, from Paul’s point of view.

Whether you choose in your essay to emphasize the new view reversal of Paul’s situation or the reversal for his teachers, his father, and others at the very end, our analysis of the new view core does provide the lens through which we can clearly see through all the details to the new view reversal and expansion at the end.

This is not a book review, though it may be a review of a book. Let me expand. It´s all in the title, which is, of course, “The Childhood of Jesus”. But then you already know that, since you have got this far. Jesus does not appear in this childhood of Jesus, but David does. David is a boy. He is a just a toddler at the start, but his mere presence seems to dominate the lives of those around him. This is probably about par for the course for any toddler, but in David’s case, there is always something intangibly special.

David is of unknown parentage. He arrives from afar, on a boat as a refugee, perhaps, fleeing conflict, perhaps, exchanging the poverty of origin for a poverty of destination, perhaps, in a port city called Novilla, where everyone speaks Spanish. Perhaps Novilla is in Spain. He arrives by sea with Simón, who is not a fisherman, but a stevedore. At least this is what he becomes to earn a living sufficient to keep himself and the boy.

Simón is middle-aged, unmarried and childless and along the way has godfathered David. He cares for the boy selflessly, houses him, feeds him, tries apparently unsuccessfully to educate him. But who is he? Simón seems to have both a past and an identity, though he chooses to share neither. David, on the other hand, seems to have sprung from nothing. He admits to neither mother nor father, nor origin. He is tabula rasa, or here perhaps pizarra en blanco. But he always seems in control of his own anonymity. Who is he? We will never know, so please do not read The Childhood of Jesus thinking it´s going to tell you. The boy’s documents, if they ever existed, are decidedly lost. Quite normal, I hear you say. What self-respecting refugee is likely to retain an identity to which one might be returned?

By page ten of The Childhood of Jesus many a reader may ask if it might be worth continuing. The text is sparse. The characters seem strangely unreal, like flat cut-outs crossing a two dimensional landscape, which is hardly described and almost never figures beyond the functional. There seems to be no plot. Equally, despite everyone speaking Spanish, there is little sense of place. Readers, like the principal characters, seem to be outsiders. Until, that is, we become drawn in, almost teased into believing that this little boy is indeed special, as he himself starts to claim.

He can´t read. He can´t write. He has no sense of number and can´t count. He needs a mother. And, while out one day trying to find one, Simón and he stumble upon Inés, playing tennis with her brothers and her dog. “You are the boy’s mother,” she is told. “No, I am not,” she replies, before becoming that mother. This is surely a divine calling from an angel, an annunciation, though not one depicted by any old master, but merely directed by a middle-aged stevedore-guandian-angel. Inés becomes devoted and doting, but regularly in need of help and direction from Simón, who persists in his mission to care.

The Childhood of Jesus thus gradually transforms itself into an allegory of the biblical story. At the start, we hover between a mundane list of events and a preparation for what might become a dystopic vision of refugee experience. But as the book develops, we recognise the emerging allegory. Our realisation is as subtle as the writing. At no point do we feel dragged unwillingly into a parallel story. J.M. Coetzee achieves his ends via subtlety and suggestion, despite the introduction of a vice-loving character called Mr. Dagger. I wonder whose temptation he might represent? There is no census, but there is school and assessment, and both go wrong, so there is flight. And along the way, disciples start to adhere. Thus the nominated mother, the protecting godfather and the boy become the house of David.

And suddenly he can read. He can write and do sums. Aged six, David reads Don Quixote, that tale of good deeds by Benengeli, itself allegorised by another, whose name we will not mention. Or was that the other way round? Will we ever know the truth?

J.M. Coetzee in this novel has achieved what few great writers have even attempted. Through allegory he invents both a style and a form. A simple unadorned style weaves monochrome threads into a brilliant tapestry. And, like the characters in the book, we feel we too begin to believe in David´s special status. We recognise the dagger of temptation when we see it, but like David we also feel we are better trying to reform it rather than rejecting it. Whether we are sufficiently convinced to become disciples is an open question, and is probably the point of the book.

And here is the ultimate in allegory. The message conveyed and illustrated by these characters may be debated. But the book´s ability to convey it will be accepted, utterly.

Many people see an empty swimming pool in their dreams. This dream scene represents maturity. It indicates that the dreamer finally understood something very important and stopped being superficial.

How could I come to such conclusion?

I continued Carl Jung’s research in the unknown region of the human psyche through dream interpretation. I learned how to translate the meaning of dreams better than him. Later, I simplified his method of dream interpretation. Therefore, I can directly tell you the meaning of any dream scene.

You will see an empty swimming pool after discovering that you are in great danger and you have to protect yourself. Or, after understanding that you were totally wrong for believing in something unreal. The lessons you have when you see an empty swimming pool in a dream are quite bitter. However, the absence of water in the swimming pool indicates maturity and wisdom. Now you’ll stop repeating the same mistakes, and change your attitude.

Water in dreams has two different meanings depending on the quantity. When you see only a few drops of water in a dream, water represents forgiveness. It is the liquid that purifies the soul. A few drops of water represent salvation from craziness and despair due to compassion and forgiveness.

When you see too much water in a dream (like a flood) this means that you are being superficial and materialistic. You don’t believe that there is a spiritual reality and you should care about your spiritual transformation. You think that nothing is more important than your daily routine. Or, you have lost your faith. You don’t believe in salvation.

Thus, when you see an empty swimming pool in a dream, you see that there is no water in a place where water should be abundant. Water in this case represents superficiality. The absence of water means that you stopped being superficial and you finally understood something that you didn’t want to understand.

A swimming pool full of water in a dream represents a study based on limited aspects of reality that don’t correspond to the entire truth. In other words, when you are swimming in a swimming pool full of water in a dream, this means that you are analyzing your problems without taking into consideration many key factors. Your vision is too limited.

You would discover the truth about your reality only if you were swimming in the sea, or in a river. If you are swimming in a swimming pool full of water in a dream, this means that you believe in illusions.

An empty swimming pool represents the bitter comprehension that you were too far from the truth before seriously analyzing your reality. Or, that you were acting like a child because you couldn’t understand God’s wisdom. This comprehension will save your life, and help you evolve.

Many people dream of an empty swimming pool after interpreting the meaning of a dream collection. This happens because they now understand their false impressions thanks to the enlightening unconscious lessons in their dreams.

The strength of the male orgasm can greatly change each and every single time you touch him. Sometimes when you touch him, it feels amazing and other times it doesn’t do much for him. You don’t want things to be so hit and miss for him. You want to make sure that what you are doing for him gives him great pleasure all of the time.

You want to know how to make a man orgasm harder than ever before. You want to be able to give him pleasure so good that he doesn’t even know what hit him. You want to learn the top male orgasm techniques that are going to make him literally explode with pleasure in the bedroom.

In order to give your man this kind of amazing pleasure, there are a few things that you need to know. By learning these techniques, you will be able to master the male orgasm and you will be able to give him an orgasmic experience that is truly out of this world.

Here are the techniques that you need to know that will help you to make a man orgasm harder than ever before:

Set the mood. The easiest way to make sure that he has an unreal orgasm is to set the tone for the evening. You want to show him that you are the one in control and that you are the one who is going to be dictating what happens tonight. Showing him your dominance puts him in the submissive position but he wants to be there. He wants you to control him and he wants you to turn him on. Being the one in control for the night will not only get him turned on, but it will also build up that anticipation in his body and make him want you bad. The more anticipation and sexual tension he feels from you, the more he is going to explode when he orgasms.

Another way to make sure that you make him orgasm hard is to use some pressure on him. The male body is built tough so he can handle you manhandling him a little bit. Don’t be afraid to use some force on his member with your hands or your body. The rougher you are with him, the better it feels and the more inclined he will be to explode with pleasure in the bedroom.

Stop giving your man the run of the mill pleasure and use these tips to make him explode in the bedroom tonight. You can make him orgasm hard and fast and if you use these techniques, you can make that happen now.

In 2006, we bought a big dog. At the request of my youngest son, I made sure that it started as a small dog. Needless to say, everyone loved Isabelle when we could carry her. That lasted for about a month.

Then, she was too heavy for any of the kids to lift and only fun for Dad. This is when the wife said maybe we should give her to a nice family and find a small dog. Personally, I could not envision the family (myself) with a small dog. Small dogs are small. After finding a happy home for Isabelle, we went out on our search for a small,tiny, (I hope I don’t step on the dog) dog..

As a family, we were pretty patient in our search for our new puppy. Me, I was very slow in the entire search process. I wanted a big dog. Of course, some advantages of a small dog include:

• Everyone, even the littlest child, can carry the dog.

• Clean up duty is pretty minimal and fast. It used to take a dump truck.

• She does not shed at all (added bonus of Shih Tszu-Poodle mix)

• She thinks she is a big dog.

• She can sleep on any bed and still leave room for the kids.

• 40 pound bag of dog food lasts 6 months plus.

I’m sure there are many more.

One day we got a call from my wife’s sister who would sell us a puppy for $51. We headed out that weekend to see what the little puppies looked like. They were small!!! The kids were real excited. You know a dog is small when your 8-year old can hold a puppy in each hand. After watching them rip and run in the backyard, we decided on the smallest one known as Taylor.

We took Taylor home that afternoon. Needless to say, she trained very quickly. She is quite friendly. All the kids can carry her around the house. Her full name became Taylor “Tot” Clark AKA the Dorito eating wonder dog. That dog loves chips. I realized soon after that she did not shed at all. What a great bonus.

From the whole experience, it can be said to be flexible in your pet search. Getting a small dog has been great for the family. She has been fun for all although she drank half of my caramel frappe’ today.

One of the greatest thrills as we research our genealogy is discovering we are descended from royal bloodlines. The idea that some distant uncle was a king or noble is exciting and can make anyone feel special. The whole allure of royalty, besides the obvious money and power, is belonging to a small group of people having a high place in society. For some, being a distant part of this group means we’re finally one of the “in crowd.”

But before you go wearing a crown to work tomorrow, you should know that science has shown that royalty in your bloodlines really isn’t all that special. It turns out that more people have royal blood than you would think. Statistician Joseph Chang discovered that the bloodlines of prominent royal figures like Emperor Charlemagne have crossed over into literally every present-day European’s ancestry.

This doesn’t mean that Charlemagne had thousands of kids, but instead is an observation that, if you go back far enough, almost all bloodlines within a given megapopulation will come together around a common ancestor. The further back you go, the wider your family tree spreads, to the point that at some point about 1,000 years ago, “all individuals who have any descendants among the present-day individuals are actually ancestors of all present-day individuals,” Chang determined.

Translating that into plain English, what he’s saying is that the population of Europe 1,000 years ago was so much smaller than it is today that, statistically, every person that was alive then and had children will somehow fit into the family tree of any given European alive today. What that means to us is that if you’re European, then you are definitely descended from Charlemagne. Taadaa! We’re all royal.

So, is it just the Europeans who are guaranteed royal lines? Not even close. By expanding his mathematical model from covering only living Europeans to everyone else on the planet today, Chang discovered that every single person on earth today is related to the Egyptian queen Nefertiti.

Yet another study found that all living Europeans can be traced back to the same pair of people going back only 1,000 years. When you look at how long people have been on Earth, 1,000 years isn’t very long at all. This study also found that people living as far away from each other as Britain and Turkey (at their closest points, more than 1,300 miles and 8 countries apart) share enough DNA to prove they are direct relatives around 20% of the time.

“It underlines the commonality of all of our histories,” said UC Davis evolutionary biologist Graham Coop. “You don’t have to go back many generations to find that we’re all related to each other.”