COW APPRECIATION DAY

Tnaks, guatam, for the information on Hinduism and cowlore. Really great stuff to know!!

Hello plainoldme. I guess we are kindred spirits.I too am a true cowboy. Had a pet cow when I was a boy named Charlene.It was on those minus 10 mornings in south central Maine, my mother would wake me at 5:30 and I would get up and get dressed and go out and tend our Cows, Horse, Goats,Dog and Cats.Now I had to truge through 150 feet of snow to get to the old barn.There when feeding Charlene I would pop into her hay bin and she would cuddle me with her head or lick my face, ouch!
I loved her so and was saddened that when she ended up on the dinner table,nobody thought anything special about eating her.I asked didn't she even taste the best and the strength and vitality she gives as nourishment fell on several deaf ears.

I moved on and years later I was to find my solice with the Holy Cows in India. There was a chance to document the most fasinating relationship between People and Animals, that will ever exist. It's goes to the core of thier religion with Shiva and Krishna plus Karmadenhu.

So, I spent 8 years working on HolyCow and witnessing over 30 mystical ESP type things between them and myself. With further research on Cow Culture world wide, I was able to find that the cow was there at the moment of thruth for alot of different cultures and in vastly different regions.

So I made these images and eventually became a Christmas Miracle in the city of Benares. It was declaired it was a miracle, but by who, you see I was carring a cow bell, and my whole intent was to satisfy the cow with a marvelous ode to it via photography. The story ran,on the front page of the cities largest newspaper and declaired this the official miracle of the Christmas day. You see I was run directly over by a car and the rest is now history.

One day I will post some of the photographs.

M

The cow is said to be the first creature that god communicates with when addressing situations on earth.

In the Zoroastrian religion,when a faction tryed to have the prophet Zorothrustra assasinated they through him in the path of stampeding cattle. One stood over the prophet and saved his life.

The Elgin marbles formly know as the headdress of the acropolis has cows carved in it.

Crete was the home of the Minotaur.

Shiva delivers verdicts of justice while sitting on his Bull.

Krishna was known as the divine cow herder and his ancient flock still resides in Brindavan.

There is also a goddess called Kahmadenhu who grants you material type wishes.

There is a prayer for everyhair on a cows body.

A pure white bull with a pink tongue and blue eyes carries the sacred urine for purification . You drink the urine after the appropriate teaching and ritual.

There are legends on Crete where Zues turns into a white bull to capture the heart of a princess, or something like that, sorry.

Cow worship also happened in Egypt.

My ancestors favorite passtime until the christian killjoys came along was the cattle raid . . . does that count?

The bit about Zeus- The Greek God Zeus seduced the human woman Europa while in the guise of a bull.

So effen he seduced Europa while in the guise of a bull, he musta athunk she was a he . . . so yer sayin' Zeus is a homo, huh ?

Every year in Tamil Nadu they have a winter festival called Pongal.On these 3 days the cows and bulls are adorned with colorfull paints and ornaments. It's a big who can decorate the bovine the best kind of thing. The street are decorated with colored powder mandala's.They also have games where alot of players get seriously hurt by the charging bull they are trying to ride.On the peak day, of the event, the locals feed all thier cattle Pongal ,a sweet rice dish that is more like a sweet rice pudding only flavored with cardamem.

Pongal falls usually in January and is great fun for all cow enthusiasts.One day I'll make a calendar of the top winning cows from the Holy Night Parade around the Minacshe Temple or maybe do it in Tangure where there is a giant carved Nandi bull, carved out of a solid piece of rock. All around the Nandi are temple walls each covered with 3 foot high Nandi's every 25 feet around the periferie of the wall.

There a bird called the koolooo that calls from the near by woods and has a beatifuull story about it's nature.

This is fabulous, Algis. Do tell more about the cows in India. I've really been enjoying reading about your experiences.

Every once in a while on a2k I miss the old system for rating posts...love some of these.

Algis, here you go...and the photographer on the Chamber of Commerce site is related to our Cow artist...hmm, small world..

http://www.victorianferndale.org/chamber/

Gee, this is fun, have some more Ferndale specials for you. (Did you notice the kinetic sculpture race? That is in itself a pretty amazing event.)

The last site has some of Willa's work on it...

http://www.geocities.com/redwoodsoaring/bear.html

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/slideset/16/16_336_slide.html

http://www.sbawca.org/portfolios00/briggs/briggs.html

That was pre her being in our group of artists, so we're not listed.

Maybe I can nudge Willa to join a2k and post. Of course then there would probably be one more person with a certain cow avatar.

I am so happy that I started this thread!!! I have never had more fun on the internet!!

algis,
you of the handsome avatar! What great info! I never knew cows were on the Elgin Marbles!

Setanta knows about the Celtic Quarter Days. On which day did the Celts run cows between bonfires to eliminate bovine diseases/pests?

Ossobucco,
I love the cow paintings! Wish I could afford to be in the art market!!

Love the Ferndale images. One actually looks like the decorations that adorn many of the temples in South India.

Once in Mysore I saw a cow with a beautiful face.It was a typical bovine of the region and it was distinguished by it's long slender horns. That were both capped with brass decorative pieces. Now, I had been photographing cows and bulls for awhile and decided this Beauty was going to be a big head shot.

I was imaging the image and wandered over to size it up. The cow gracefully stopped eating some deposited rice and looked at me. As I went to frame the picture I notices a big stain of muck on it's shoulder. Being a critical part of the composition I realized I couldn't take the image the way I planned to. The cow looked dismayed, as I gave a sigh of saddness at not being able to achieve this image. Then to my surprise the Cow started to lick the gunk off of it's shoulder, as if to say wait hold on. Well it wasn't enough so I settled on a tight image of the eye and horn.

I still swear that the cow understood my delemma. I also wish to state that I think some cows can pick up visually thought ideas. The better you are at visualizing the better the transmission.

Anyhow, I have colllected about 30 stories over the years of the magic and ESP abilities that might exist in cows. I have witnessed unexplanable events in 3 continents with the bovines really perplexing the daylights out of me/us.

Algis, you're wonderful, I'm interested in those stories. Will post some more of Willa's work, but I guess I should mention it to her first. Among the interesting aspects of her painting is that it seems beyond haphazard, but she snags a lot of essence as she does it. Did you check out those Bear Ridge photos by those boomerang folks? the land around here is gorgeous....

POMe, I like this thread a lot too, value Gautam's and Algis' input, plus that of us other cow lovers.

I am probably repeating myself here, but when I was seventeen I went on a trip - that was the summer after my senior year in high school - with my dad and his cohorts. They were making an industrial film on feed additives for Armour inc. Trust me, I certainly now see the folly of this, or worse, but that was 1959. My dad, a sound editor, a film editor, cameraman, and me, the so called script girl, although I think that status was only when my parents suggested it to me, and never on paper, certainly not for money. The deal was, I was going to show up at the convent with my purchased postulant outfit at the end of August. My very religious parents must have been beside themselves and decided I should go on the trip.
Well, it worked, I fell madly for the film editor, who used to disappear later in the evening on that trip. (hmmm, to be a fly on the wall now). Don't know in my adult mind's eye what his choice of partner would have been...but my crush on him kept me from buying the shoes of August.

Anyway, on that trip, we shot film in various stockyards. I won't go on about it since I can already feel the arrows flying through cyberspace. My present thoughts on the philosophic matters about us and eating animals coincide with what I last read of Peter Singer's thoughts. I am not a vegetarian but may move over there one of these days. But ne'er mind, on that trip long ago, I loved the ...well, they weren't cows, they were steers.

Thanx Osso, your wonderfull too. Are you the original one from abuzz ? If you don't mind me asking ?

I was in Calcutta. It was the end of a long moderately hot day.Not really so bad but moving around one tends to get warm and sweaty. So I returned at dusk to my hotel . I was beat and there as I passed through the center square with all the street venders one man grabs my arm and says Here take my picture. Well, I say, yes, I could but I only take pictures pertaining to the cow or there must be a cow in the image somewhere in order to take a photograph. Sorry! about this but this is my mandate.

The gentleman selling a variety of old hard cover text books. Suddenly he reached down and picked up a big 4 inch book and making a display of himself , let the book open randomly.

I was thinking what on earth is this about and then looking at the book was a picture of a guy milking a cow. Who could believe it. There were very few illustrations in the book and one of a guy milking a cow as an example of thought movement behavior in context with ones visual world was amazing. It was a book on human behavior.

So, I gasped and declaired yes indeed this is a miracle of sorts and I took his picture holding up the book.

Yes, that's me, for better or worse.

I remember trying to impress you back in the old days, which in current cyber history is just awhile ago or the blink of an eye.

Who me?