Initiation Well Location: Sintra, Portugal
A pair of wells, called the Initiation Wells, spiral down deep within the earth, like inverted towers. The wells were never used to collect water. Instead, they were part of a mysterious initiation ritual within the Knights of Templar tradition.
As a word and concept, "terrorism" has acquired an extraordinary status in American public discourse. It has displaced Communism as public enemy number one, although there are frequent efforts to tie the two together. It has spawned uses of language, rhetoric and argument that are frightening in their capacity for mobilizing opinion, gaining legitimacy and provoking various sorts of murderous action. And it has imported and canonized an ideology with origins in a distant conflict, which serves the purpose here of institutionalizing the denial and avoidance of history. In short, the elevation of terrorism to the status of a national security threat (though more Americans drown in their bathtubs, are struck by lightning or die in traffic accidents) has deflected careful scrutiny of the government's domestic and foreign policies. Whether the deflection will be longstanding or temporary remains to be seen, but given the almost unconditional assent of the media, intellectuals and policy-makers to the terrorist vogue, the prospects for a return to a semblance of sanity are not encouraging. - Edward Said
Throughout history and in our modern society, women are supposed to be: thin, silent, chipper, happy, pale, dressed modestly but not too modestly, sexy but not too sexy, young, reserved, sane, able-bodied, fertile, mothering, selfless, humble, restrained, and, above all, white. She has to be a She, she has to be cis, she has to wear makeup and dresses, skirts; she cannot under any circumstances be described as smelly, loud, brash, dark, or crude. She cannot wrinkle, she cannot stink, she cannot cause a scene. A woman is always religious, a woman is always married or seeking to be married, a mother or hoping to be a mother. To stray from this path is to become weird. While I personally do not believe that any act that subverts the status quo makes one queer, I do think it makes you weird. There’s an honor to that, to stepping outside of the very thin, very pale line set by mainstream culture. To exist as one’s truest, boldest self, to exist as a human being with warts and farts and smells, to be unusual and to react with the madness, the anger that this world we live in inspires is brave. It is weird to be brave, and it is brave to be weird.
“Through Beaded Veils” by Marcin Górski