Parent half bury their children on Solar Eclipse

Eclipses, whether lunar or solar, have many myths, superstitions, beliefs and anecdotes or even bad omen attached with their occurrences. While a majority only takes these eclipses as the signs of Nature’s majesty and powers, people with weak beliefs or those suffering from some pain or trouble or even disease look for such occurrences as a means of cure and divine help. It is one’s belief into supernatural happenings like eclipses that make these days special and widely witnessed and reported.

The first solar eclipse of the year 2011 came just four days after the New Year. This year it came earlier as it was 15th January last year when the solar eclipse occurred. It wasn’t a complete eclipse and was seen in parts of Europe, North Africa, and Central Asia including Pakistan. In Pakistan the eclipse started to appear around 11:40 AM local time and ended at a minute past four in the afternoon. The maximum area covered with a dark curtain was around 13:51 hours. As per predictions, three more partial eclipses will be witnessed later this year on 2 June and 1 July and 25th November, but will not be visible in Pakistan.

Now coming back to myths, beliefs and superstitions. When the son of the Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him)died , it was the day of solar eclipse and people of Arab readily attributed the death of the Prophet’s son due to the eclipse as it brought a bad omen. But the Prophet (PBUH) addressed the people and categorically announced that eclipses have nothing to do with anybody’s life or death or good and bad that comes t a person. He added that these occurrences are only natural occurrences and be taken s such.

As for the bad omen, many term the murder of the governor of the Punjab province of Pakistan by his personal guard in Islamabad as a forewarning in the shape of the eclipse that occurred just hours before his murder.

But people who are suffering continue to take these natural occurrences as a time when their prayers could be heard and their troubles addressed. While many people do many rituals, parents in parts of Sind, the southern province of Pakistan, half bury their diseased or crippled children into the sand on the river banks or sea shores and pray for their health (as seen above). How far their prayers are addressed is not known as calling Nature cannot be restricted a particular day or time as Nature is all attentive all the time and throughout one’s life. But people of shaky faith continue to do rituals in a hope for the wellbeing and health of their family and loved ones.

Photo Parents burying children courtesy Express News

Related reading: Solar Eclipse - myths and stories (Jaho Jalal)

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Buy Nothing Today!!

Weird? Well for many in Pakistan this may strange. But most people in most of the countries today, the 27th of November, are celebrating the day buy locking their purses and literary not buying anything today.

Why celebrate the Buy Nothing Day? Well those who propagate the idea contend that everything that we buy has an impact on the environment. Thus Buy Nothing Day highlights the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism. The world population is fast depleting the natural resources by excessive buying and causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage, and an unfair distribution of wealth.

In fact as consumers we need to question the products we buy and challenge the companies who produce them. What are the true risks to the environment and developing countries? We all know recycling is OK for the environment, but consuming less is better and Buy Nothing Day is a great way to start.

There are also people for whom prices do not matter and they buy as the have swollen purses to do so. I remember a surveyor on TV when asked a fashionable woman about the impact of soaring prices of sugar and petrol on people; she simply shrugged her shoulders and remarked, “It doesn’t matter to me.” Well this is pure selfish attitude as it may not have an impact on you doesn’t mean that it is not affecting others. We as consumers have to keep the larger interests of all consumers supreme, rather than caring for our very own.

Although the celebrating of the day is symbolic, as people would be buying the next day, but we have to see its impact on the mindset. The spirit of the day should translate into our buying philosophy for buy only what is required. If we buy more than the requirement, we will be throwing away the surplus in the litter, which has its many adverse effects on life and environment. For one thing, we have squandered our own resources, and likewise we have consumed more natural resources than actually required and thirdly we have littered more, causing more harm to the environment. An apple on a tree adds beauty and life to the environment and nature, but a rotten apple in the garbage makes environment ugly, dirty and polluted.

So let us buy nothing today and make a resolve not buy anything in excess of our requirement to keep our land healthy and free of pollution and environmental sickness.

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Yellow Poppy

Every spring, a wide variety of flowers ornament my garden, thanks to my wife’s love of flowers and gardening. While I join her to admire her mature flower plantation, it also provides me a chance to satisfy my photographic hobby. The bright yellow poppy above was once part of our spring plantation. The beautiful fully grown petals spread out majestically to all directions while exposing its full bloom.

Poppy flowers have generally 4-6 petals, but some species also have up to eight petals. Oriental poppies, natives of the Mediterranean region, have the largest flowers, often six to eight inches across. The popular, many-colored Shirley Poppies are cultivated forms of the corn, or Flanders poppy, a common wild flower of Europe and Asia. Poppy comes in many colours; red, blue, orange, yellow and white. While the ornamental poppy flowers are used in homes and garden, wild poppy provides ingredients for food and drugs and their extracts are also used for making opium. The wild poppy has gray-green leaves and white to purple flowers and the juice for opium making is extracted from its unripe seed pods.

Poppy is a symbol of both death and sleep, mainly because of its ability to produce opium. The bright red coloured poppy in Greco-Roman mythology symbolizes death. But home grown poppies for use in gardens and decoration have more pleasant use and display value.

Photo: Flora-Poppy (Jalalspages at Flickr)

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