Archive for August, 2010

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Periodically relax your eyes to reduce computer generated strain and help up your nerves

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

While I was looking for information about how to relax when you spend a lot of time in front of pc screen I came across two interesting article, that might concern your interest. Link to the article named Rlex your eye quickly but soothing way during a busy time can be red here
In the article you will find few eyes relaxing exercises which are said to improve the overall experience infront of pc screen as well as calm down the computer generated stress by some nice eyes massages.

Some more precious info on the results in daily life caused by life strain like for instance headaches, increase in stress for the visual nervous system, overall body fatigue are to be found here and is under the name Compuster Eye Strain: How to relieve it with free eye exercises, nutrition and lifestyle.

This two ones are a really interesting articles, so big thanks to the post authors !

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Posted in Everyday Life, Various | 1 Comment »

Cults to Saint Elijah in Heterodox Islam and their relation to Hebrew faith and Christianity

Monday, August 30th, 2010

A Tekke Heterodox Islam, Sufist Tekke

Christians and Jews, are quite aware of the glorious earthly living of Saint Elijah also known under the name (Elias).

In the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) as a basis of our Christian scriptures as well as in our Christian faith, St. Elijah is one ofthe most honored saints lived on earth grounded in the same saints line the new testamental Saint John the Baptist and the old times God holy man Enoch

Both of the saints Elijah and Enoch are known to be the only God prophets who were taken to heaven alive. The two saints are well known to be referred in Both the Old Testament and The New Testament in the Holy Bible.

An interesting not well known fact about the name Elijah is the name meaning literally translated from Hebrew the name means “My God is Yahweh” or Jehovah as we know one of God’s names referred within the Holy Bible.
In the Qu’ran as a later book compared to Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) and The Holy Bible we Christians have.

It appears there are two references in the Holy Quran referring to the Old Testament Holy man Elias this are the verses number “37:123–132” and “6:85”

The two verses as directly translated from Arabic to English says the following:

Qur’an 37:123–132

Elijah too was one of the Envoys;
When he said to his people, 'Will you not be Godfearing?
Do you call on Baal, and abandon the Best of creators?
God, your Lord, and the Lord of your fathers, the ancients?'
But they cried him lies;
so they will be among the arraigned, except for God's sincere servants.
And We left for him among the later folk.
'Peace be upon Elijah!'
Even so we recompense the good-doers;
he was among Our believing servants.

Qur’an 6:85

And Zechariah and John and Jesus and Elijah, all in the ranks of the righteous.

As we see in the Qu’ran Eliajah is considered a high estate prophet in a similar fashion as we honour him as a great Saint in Christianity.
We see the quick reference to the Holy Bible chapter 1st and 2nd Kings , however the verses doesn’t gave us a good account on who Elijah was.

As many muslims consider the Old Testament from the Holy Bible as one of their Holy Books along with some muslims considering the New Testament though under a very wild Islamic interpretation, St. Elijah has a reference in Islamic seems to appear in Islamic faith under a lot of “hoods”.
Therefore Islamic interpretation on the Prophet living and deeds are varying quite wildly.
There are plenty of places in Turkey as well as in the Arabic World and even the Balkans that are said as a sacral places where it’s beeing said the prophet has abode or has done a numeous miracles like for instance under his will some miraculously healing water has emerged and all kind of mystic stuff alike.
This kind of legends being spread along muslims are quite known and mostly derive from (heterodox) muslim (Sufi’s – see Sufism for a refence) tradition.

Most of the Holy places indicated by the Islamic Heterodox beliefs as a place where the saint is said to have either appeared, did miracles, lived or appeared are the so called (Tekkes) see my post referring about my going to one of the Tekkes here in Bulgaria in Obrotishte

It’s an interesting fact that the Islamic understanding of the Prophet and the thousand places around the world that are said the prophet has appeared at most cases used to be a holy places for local Christians or used to contain a Church, a chapel, or some hermit saint that used to inhabit the place during his earhly life time.

This kind of Christian gathering places were often places with a name under our Christian Orthodox Saint – St. Nicholas

It’s rather strange that the islamic Sufi cults somehow mistakenly identified St. Nicholas (the wondermaker) with St. Elijah, therefore from a Christian Monasteries or a Church (ecclesias) at a certain time of Christian desolation on that places the past Christian Holy places has slowly become a places to be honoured by the muslims.
Often from a Prophet islamic saint Elijah has been known to be a BABA (most probably this word derives it’s meaning from the Christian ABBAs [ Fathers ] which are considered the first Christian hermits and saints who lived in the time interval of 1st to 5th or 6th century after A.D.

Therefore in a similar manner that we Christians ask the saints to have a prayer intercession to our saints, muslims go to venerate the BABA Prophet Elijah and believe whatever they ask him he will do for them.

Even in this days it’s a common thing here in Bulgaria that the veneration to the Elijah BABA turns to be a festival, where people gather to a spring that is believed to be miraculous or to a local Tekke and start looking Prophet Elijah’s protection or blessing.

The things with Islam especially with a Heterodox one (which means non main stream) Islam are quite entangled, therein myths and legends from various faiths has been implicated in a real odd manner and a various cult believes has emerged.

Since many of Islam practicing people this days are not quite religion literate they tend to believe everything they hear, same thing is also quite true for other faiths like Christian.
In Turkey situation is a bit better since all the Tekkes (Khanqh) in Turkey were prohibited from the first Turkish president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

However in many other places where muslim population is present like in the balkanies things are quite chaotic, many Tekkes still exist until very day.
Almost each one of the Khanqah’s is belied to have a burried body of a BABA or a saint most commonly, saying that it’s St. Elijah’s body buried there.

Thus believing muslims often go to this sacral places which used to be in between the 16th to the 18th century a sacral places for Sufists.

Sufists used the Tekkes to have their religious believes and ritual practices.
For more about Sufism check out here
There is plenty much I can say about the cults that emerged in almost inexplainable way to Elijah the Tekkes sufism and the Heterodox Islam inverted faith beliefs, however I think I’ve said the most essential.
If somebody has a special interest on the topic I guess he can read plenty of information online and get a good idea of the many cults to the Prophet Elijah and the other baba’s (Saints) thought to be Allah’s servants in Islam.

This kind of topic was really interesting one since it gives us a better glimpse on religion and modern religion cults. Hope it was an interesting one for you as well.

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Posted in Christianity, Various | 3 Comments »

Torus Trooper, Tumiki Fighters and Starfighter one of the best Arcade native Linux games made ever

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

I’m not a big gamer this days, however every now and then I do like playing some fast pace arcade game to cheer up.
The arcade games for Linux are really lot, however most of them are too boring and has a notable bad graphic design or a game play, here is why I decided to blog about two really worthy games to be noted and placed among best arcade games produced so far.

Below you will find a quick game review of the arcade game Linux trio Torus Trooper, Tumiki Fighters and Starfighter

1.Let me begin with Torus Trooper

Torus trooper is an awesome fast pace japanese game a bit in the tradition of the good old Star Wars racer the graphics of course as with most Linux games are not that awesome as with Star Wars racer, however the game is a really nice one 3D tunnel shooter, especially if you’d like to play half an hour to relax from a heavy strained day. In the game you have a spaceship and you have to navigate through a rotating tunnels and kill the enemy’s spaceship, there is quite a lot of action involved and this makes the game really wonderful to lift up your adrenaline 🙂

While navigating though the tunnels and killing enemies you can switch up and down your spaceship acceleration,
you have a limited time for which you have to complete each of the game levels, whether killing a series of enemies
would win you some bonus seconds usually if you get a bonus time an extra +15 seconds is added to your time limit you’re supposed to complete the level.
On certain scores also can grant you extra time bonus of (+15) seconds. If you get killed then a (-15 seconds) are deducted from your level completion time limit.

As every arcade in the game each level has a boss (a base) you have to destroy dependantly the time interval in which you succeed in destroying the end level boss would add up either (+30) or (+45) seconds to your overall game time limit.
The enemy will show up after you kill a previously game defined number of enemy’s spaceship, the remaining enemy’s spaceship to be destroyed is (displayed at the right up corner) of the game.

Below I present you with the screenshot taken from Torus Trooper ‘s official website and hopefully it will give you a brief idea what to expect if you desire to give the game a go on your GNU/Linux.

Torus Trooper Linux game screenshot

The game installation on Debian is pretty straight forward is available as a debian package to install just copy paste in your root terminal the:

debian:~# apt-get install torus-trooper

Now all left is to start up the game in full-screen mode by typing as a non-privileged user:

debian:~$ torus-trooper -fullscreen

What annoyed me a bit was the fact that I couldn’t find a fullscreen option in after starting up the game without the -fullscreen option. But heh, let us not forget we are on Linux, things to be a bit commandish 🙂
Hopefully in future releases of the game (if there are such), the fullscreen will be added as a possible option to be selected from within the game itself.

Another very notable thing about the Torus Trooper game is the addicting music and game play I belive is the real charm of arcade games.

2. TUMIKI Fighters

Is another great japanese arcade game, it’s an interesting fact that both TUMIKI Fighters and Torus Trooper are created by a single Japanese man Kenta Cho

Mr. Kenta Cho has done quite a good job especially if we consider the fact that he is the only one that has developed this two wonderful games.

TUMIKI Fighters‘s also very dynamic, however it’s more a 2D like arcade, each of the ships within the game are actually a toy like (Lego like).

What I find unique about TUMIKI Fighters as a game is the fact that whenever you kill an enemy toy ship you’re able to assimilate the destoying ship before your eyes.
As described in TUMIKI Fighters official game web site ,
“Stick more enemies and become much stronger.”

In other words the more ships you are able to gain to your basis ship the stronger your ship becomes.

Below I present you with a screenshot to get an idea what to expect if you consider installing and playing the game.

TUMIKI Fighters game screenshot Linux

The screenshot is a bit messed and the game looks a way better in reality so I urge you to take few seconds to install and try it.
If you’re on Debian just issue command:

debian:~# apt-get install tumiki-fighters

To start up the game in fullscreen in a similar fashion to Torus Trooper you will have to pass the -fullscreen command option next to the main game binary.

So:

debian:~$ tumiki-fighters -fullscreen

Will start the game in fullscreen.

3. Finally I’ll tell you a few words about Project Starfighter

Project Starfighter is I a class above both Tumiki Fighters and Torus Trooper this is most probably because it was developed by a developers group called Parallel Realities
If you’re a Linux game developer, it’s very likely that checking their website will provide you with a number of precious articles on Game development e.g. making many of the developed Parallel Realities developed games as well as game source code.
Parallel Realities has so far developed a lot of games, they’ve done a great job that each of the games has Linux / Unix ports.

I find Project Starfighter a real game with a class for the Linux platform. Below I provide you with a screenshot from a battle between your own battle ship and an enemy boss:

Project StarFighter on Linux battle scene with a game bossSome of the game includes features (as taken directly from the game’s website) are:

  • 26 missions over 4 star systems
  • Primary and Secondary Weapons (including a laser cannon and a charge weapon)
  • A weapon powerup system
  • Missions with Primary and Secondary Objectives
  • A Variety of Missions (Protect, Destroy, etc)
  • 13 different music tracks
  • Boss battles

Mentioning about the game music here is the time to tell you that the game music of Project Starfighter is among the best game soundtracks I’ve ever heard in my life!
The music is quite much a demoscene like so I’m quite sure if you play the game you will truly enjoy the wonderful game music.
The game would require you to have a succesfully configured and running SDL library on your Linux, along with that you will have to have a properly installed video drivers otherwise the game would run up very slowly.

The game is available for a numerous computer OS platforms including even Microsoft Windows 🙂

Again we the Debian users are favourable because the game has been packaged in a deb for a Debian platform to install the game on Debian GNU/Linux invoke in your root terminal:

debian:~# apt-get install starfighter

The game is started either by navigating to GNOME / KDE menus games menus or directly via a terminal by executing:

debian:~$ starfither

The game has one major drawback, it’s difficulty level is a real killing one, you have to play at least a couple of games until you’re able to pass level 1.
I’ve never ever passed level 2, if the developers work out the too complex game level of difficulty then I believe the game will be a way more addictive.

Anyways each of the 3 reviewed games Torus Trooper, TUMIKI Fighters and Project Starfighter are really addictive and makes the ordinary sys admin / programmer life a bit more enjoyable 🙂

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Posted in Games Linux, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop | 8 Comments »

Code snippet to check if form typed email is present in Database with Zend Framework / substitute for Db_NoRecordExists (Db_RecordExists)

Friday, August 27th, 2010

I’m writting a registration form and in Zend Framework (ZF) and I came to the point where the input email form address had to be stored in database if it’s not already there.
Thus I needed a way to complete the task. Firstly I tried using Db_NoRecordExists and Db_RecordExists which is the “proper” way to complete this task in Zend Framework.

I tried to apply a code to my Zend Form similar to:

$email = new Zend_Form_SubForm();
$email->addElements(array(
$email_addr = new Zend_Form_Element_Text('email'),
));
$email_addr->setRequired(true)
->setLabel('Email:')
->setValue('email (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.)')
->addFilter('StringTrim')
->addFilter('StripTags')
->addValidator('EmailAddress', false)
->addValidator('Db_NoRecordExists', false, array('table' => 'my_table_name','field' => 'email'))
->setAttribs(array('minlength' => '5', 'maxlength' => '40'));

Nevertheless I couldn’t make the above code to work out, thus I eventually ended up writting my own function in order to check if the form input email is not already stored in database and if it’s stored to render again my Zend Registration input form.

Herein I present the code with a hope that somebody else that is a juniour with PHP Zend Framework just I am will benefit out of it.
1. First here is what is in my form controller application/controller/RegistrationForm.php:

// pick up the email entered earlier from Zend Form
$this->email_address = $email_address = $formData['email']['email'];

// if query_result = 1 then registrar has already an existant email in db
$check_if_email_in_db = new Model_DbTable_Registration();
$query_result = $check_if_email_in_db->checkUserisNotRegistered($this->email_address);

if($query_result == ‘1’) {
$this-view->errorMsg =’ Your email address is already taken! Please type another one. ‘;
$this->form;
return;
}

In order to be able to use the above code you will also have to have existing application/models/DbTable/Registration.php or whatever name you’d like to choose.
2. Within that file place code like:

class Model_DbTable_Registration extends Zend_Db_Table_Abstract
{
// set database name
protected $_name = 'database.my_table_name';
public function checkUserisNotRegistered($email_address) {

if(empty($email_address))
throw new Exception(’empty parameter passed.’);

$where = $this->_db->quoteIdentifier(’email’) . ‘ = “‘.$email_address.'”‘;
$this->fetchAll($this->select()->where($where));

$result = $this->fetchAll($this->select()
->where($where));
$query_result = $result[‘0′][’email’];

if($query_result == NULL) {

$query_result = ‘0’;

} else {
$query_result = ‘1’;
}

return $query_result;
}

}

Of course change the database.my_table_name with whatever your database and table name is, also assure $email_address which is defined by the above code $this->email_address = $email_address = $formData[’email’][’email’]; has to be properly tuned in your application/controller/RegistrationController.php or whatever it is called.In my case I use the $formData data array to store my email variable earlier taken by the Zend Form I use the following code to check if my request is properly posted by the Zend_Form:

if ($this->getRequest()->isPost()) {
$formData = $this->_request->getPost();
....
}

As you can see I use $formData to get Zend_Form posted conteny, if you use another modify the above code to math up with it.
Hope that’s helpful to somebody out there!
Feedback as always is very welcome.
}

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Posted in Linux, Programming | No Comments »

Uploading multiple files from a form with Zend Framework (ZF) / Storing uploaded zf files with unique name

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Here is the code basis I used to implement a form file uploader in Zend Framework (ZF).
I tried to write the code as self explanatory as possible, hope I achieved my goal. If you have to solve the task I believemy code can help you out. Check out the code:

// open Zend Http file transfer stream
$file_upload = new Zend_File_Transfer_Adapter_Http();
// Returns all known internal file information
$files = $file_upload->getFileInfo();
$file['unique_key0'] = My_General_Functions::gen_random_string(10);
$file['unique_key1'] = My_General_Functions::gen_random_string(10);

$file_upload->setDestination(Zend_Registry::get(‘Config’)->file_uploads->destination_dir);
$i = 0;
foreach($file_upload->getFileInfo() as $info) {
// get uploaded files extensions
$file_ext = $this->getExtension($info[‘name’]);

// generate file names for the ones to be stored on server
$fileName = ‘file’.’_’.$i.’_’.$file[“unique_key$i”].’.’.$file_ext;
$filename[$i] = $info[‘name’];

$i++;

// rename each of the uploaded files with random name based on unique_key0 and unique_key1 array vars

$file_upload->addFilter(‘Rename’, array(
‘target’ => Zend_Registry::get(‘Config’)->file_uploads->destination_dir . ‘/’ . $fileName,
‘overwrite’ => ‘yes’
));
if(!$file_upload->receive($info[‘name’])) {
$this->view->msg = $file_upload->getMessages();
return;
}
}

public function getExtension ($name)
{
if($name){
$exts = preg_split(“[/\.]”, $name);
$n = count($exts)-1;
$exts = $exts[$n];
return $exts;
}

In the above code example the getExtension function is prepared in order to extract the file extension, this is necessary to build up the uploaded file name.
In this code sample, the foreach loop will get through all the defined file names earlier on and will iterate through them setting each file a unique name in the format similar to file_0_UVicsNlBcH.your_file.txt .
As you can see the generated file has few parts “file” is a static one 0 is generated because the file to be saved is the first uploaded file from a defined Zend_Form. The UVicsNlBcH within the file name is an unique key by which you can later recognize the file name, this is especially handy if you also store the string somewhere in database.

The code:

$file_upload->addFilter('Rename', array(
'target' => Zend_Registry::get('Config')->file_uploads->destination_dir . '/' . $fileName,
'overwrite' => 'yes'
));

is responsible for renaming each of the uploaded files to the custom generated file name. I believe the rest of the code is very easy to understand.
It took me a while until I come up with this code and I do not guarantee that this way of doing things is secure or anything it just seems to work for me for now so I decided to share it in an attempt to help to somebody developing a file uploader in Zend Framework.
The feedback or code improvement suggestions are very welcome!

Tags:
Posted in Linux, Programming, Various | 1 Comment »

VIM Project (VI Improvied IDE Editor extension to facilitate web development with vi enhanced editor

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

I use VIM as an editor of choice for many years already.
Yet it's until recently I use it for a PHP ZF (Zend Framework) web development.

Few days ago I've blogged How to configure vimrc for a php syntax highlightning (A Nicely pre-configured vimrc to imrpove the daily text editing experience

This enhancements significantly improves the overall PHP code editing with VIM. However I felt something is yet missing because I didn't have the power and functunality of a complete IDE like for instance The Eclipse IDE

I was pretty sure that VIM has to have a way to be used in a similar fashion to a fully functional IDE and looked around the net to find for any VIM plugins that will add vim an IDE like coding interface.

I then come accross a vim plugin called VIM Prokject : Organize/Navigate projects of files (like IDE/buffer explorer)

The latest VIM Project as of time of writting is 1.4.1 and I've mirrored it here

The installation of the VIM Project VIM extension is pretty straight forward to install it and start using it on your PC issue commands:

1. Install the project VIM add-on

debian:~$ wget https://www.pc-freak.net/files/project-1.4.1.tar.gz
debian:~$ mv project-1.4.1.tar.gz ~/.vim/
debian:~$ cd ~/.vim/
debian:~$ tar -zxvvf project-1.4.1.tar.gz

2. Load the plugin

Launch your vim editor and type : Project(without the space between : and P)
You will further see a screen like:

vim project entry screen

3. You will have to press C within the Project window to load a new project

Then you will have to type a directory to use to load a project sources files from:

vim project enter file source directory screen

You will be prompted with to type a project name like in the screenshot below:

vim project load test project

4. Next you will have to type a CD (Current Dir) parameter
To see more about the CD parameter consult vim project documentation by typing in main vim pane :help project

The appearing screen will be something like:

vim project extension cd parameter screen

5. Thereafter you will have to type a file filter

File filter is necessary and will instruct the vim project plugin to load all files with the specified extension within vim project pane window

You will experience a screen like:


vim project plugin file filter screen

Following will be a short interval in which all specified files by the filter type will get loaded in VIM project pane and your Zend Framework, PHP or any other source files will be listed in a directory tree structure like in the picture shown below:

vim project successful loaded project screen

6. Saving loaded project hierarchy state

In order to save a state of a loaded project within the VIM project window pane you will have to type in vim, let's say:

:saveas .projects/someproject

Later on to load back the saved project state you will have to type in vim :r .projects/someproject

You will now have almost fully functional development IDE on top of your simple vim text editor.

You can navigate within the Project files loaded with the Project extension pane easily and select a file you would like to open up, whenever a source file is opened and you work on it to switch in between the Project file listing pane and the opened source code file you will have to type twice CTRL+w or in vim language C-w

To even further sophisticate your web development in PHP with vim you can add within your ~/.vimrc file the following two lines:

" run file with PHP CLI (CTRL-M)
:autocmd FileType php noremap <C-M> :w!<CR>:!/usr/bin/php %<CR>
" PHP parser check (CTRL-L)
:autocmd FileType php noremap <C-L> :!/usr/bin/php -l %>CR>

In the above vim configuration directovies the " character is a comment line and the autocmd is actually vim declarations.
The first :autocmd … declaration will instruct vim to execute your current opened php source file with the php cli interpreter whenever a key press of CTRL+M (C-m) occurs.

The second :autocmd … will add to your vim a shortcut, so whenever a CTRL+L (C-l) key combination is pressed VIM editor will check your current edited source file for syntax errors.
Therefore this will enable you to very easily periodically check if your file syntax is correct.

Well this things were really helpful to me, so I hope they will be profitable for you as well.
Cheers 🙂

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Programming, System Administration, Various | 5 Comments »

Free Software in Balkans 2010 (A free software conference on the Balkanies is approaching)

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Richard Stallman on a Free Software Conference

Today when I was reviewing my daily visited websites I come across an interesting news.
This kind of meeting is quite a news because it is the first in line where Free software users and developmers fromall around the balkanies will meet to discuss,test,share and continue the free software code and ideals.
The first Free Software conference in the Balkanies is about to be hosted in Vlora University Albania .

The conference Free Software in Balkans (FreeSB2010) is an annual meeting of the free software users, developpers and supporters in the Balkan countries. It will travel from country to country, year to year to different locations. The Conference will gather professionals, academics and enthusiasts who share the vision that software should be free and open for the community to develop and customize to its needs, and that knowledge is a communal property and free and open to everyone.

This kind of event will build up the social network between free software fans and developers and will further help in the general spread of free software on the balkanies.
This kind of meeting are already for a long time a tradition in many states in America, so having it in the balkanies is quite a development.

You can read a bit more about the exact focus of Free Software in Balkans 2010 conference here

Pitily right now there is no published scheduled list of presentations which are about to be given in the conference, but I guess the conference schedule would be out in a few days time.
I’m not yet sure if I’ll have the time and opportunity to attend the conference, however I do hope that somebody of my balkan readers will got interested into the “fabulous” Free Software event and will support the event’s initiative by visiting it 🙂

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Various | No Comments »

Last day after the great Christian Orthodox feast The Dormition of the Thetokos (sending the feast away the feast)

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Uspenie Bogorodichno, The Dormtion of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary

On 15th of August we celebrated in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, as well as the other Orthodox Churches around the world, the celebration of the Great Feast commemorating the "falling asleep" e.g. physical death of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary)

We believe in the Orthodox Church that on this date the Mother of God Virgin Mary has passed away. The church tradition says that on that date it's our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ himself that come from heaven to gather her soul.
We use to say that Virgin Mary has fall asleep because her physical death happened without any pain or suffering.
God bestowed Our Lady with such a death because of her humility and sinless life she choose to left while being on Earth.

The Church tradition also teaches that her bodily resurrection occured in a close similarity to Christs by Christ himself and she resurrected in the body was taken up to heaven after her death. The two weeks before dormition of the Theotokos occurs are being preceded by a two weeks fasting period. The dormition fast is one of the strictest fasts in the Church life, it's one of the 4 major fasts periods that occur within the Church life every the year. It's an interesting fast that a little while before Virgin's Mary "fall asleep", she has prayed to her son and our God Jesus Christ to let her see the Holy Apostles once again.
The Lord heard her prayer as she is the most venerable among the ones who lived in this earth and in a miraculous way transported the St. Apostles in the house of St. apostol John where the Theotokos was living. All the apostles were transported to see Virgin Mary except st. Apostol Thomas whose transport has been delayed a bit. He is been said to have arrived three days after her death, when he asked the other apostoles to see her grave so that he could bid her good bye, when all the 12 apostles went to Mother of God's grave they found no body and a sweet fragrance was filling the tomb air. As I said earlier Christ has taken her body to reunite it with the soul he had accepted 3 days earlier. Therefore theology teaches that Virgin Mary has undergone the second resurrection already, a resurrection that is about to come for all who currently abide at this earth with the Second Coming of Christ

An spiritual elder and a brother and Christ has mentioned to me that it is the sending away of the feast which apparently which's commemoration lasts for 8 days, quite an interesting fact I decided to share herein

A good account about the Dormition of the Holy Theotokos is found here and I suggest you read it up if you have some time.

There is another reason that the feast is so venerated it's being said by many people that Virgin Mary the mother of God blesses abundantly and protects everybody who keeps the fast before the feast of her Dormition.

Another practice within the Church is that flowers are being blessed on the date of the Dormition of Virgin Mary. In some Churches even there is a special shroud depicting the Theotokos's sleeping body after her death.
I've been to an interesting Liturgy where the Shroud or (Plashtenica) as better known in the Slavonic Eastern Orthodox world is being placed and is exhibited for a veneration of the layman and Church clergy. On the third day similarly to the resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ this Plashtenica is being put away by the priest in order to show off that the body of the Mother of God was taken to heaven and has miraculously been resurrected and taken to heaven by God.

In Bulgaria the feast is known under the name Uspenie Bogorodichno – "The Dormition of the Theotokos". Uspenie derives from old slavonic and literally translated means "falling asleep".

Let the Holy Mother of God pray her son and our God Jesus Christ to have mercy on us the sinners.

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Back from a nice tent camping on Krapets Beach

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

I’ve just returned from a nice camping night spend in Krapets beach if we don’t count the unjustified outburst because some irritation all went peaceful. Earlier on I’ve blogged about The nice July Morning spend on Krapets beach For a second time this year I have the blessing to come to this wild beach thanks to Cvetomir (Ceco) an orthodox Christian broter in Christ as well as a close friend.

The other friends that came with us was Stelio and Adriana.
I do recommend Krapets as a tourist destination to everybody who is commited to really have a good rest from daily stress as nowadays we experience in the cities.
Unfortunately we couldn’t much swim because of the heavy high waves, but even the black sea air has a body and soul healing effect on health.
I always feel myself charged with new energy to go on with the strained daily wife when I spend such a wonderful time on such an magnifient places with such a nice people.

On our way back from Krapets beach, we went through Spasovo village (Saviour’s) as it literal translation meaning from English says).
I just found out today that Spasovo appears to be one of the big villages in terms of population here in Bulgaria.
We sat to have a lunch in pub in the village.
We met there English couple family and took a conversation with them. It appeared that many English people and probably many westeners are crazy about Bulgaria and do feel it as a growing country and as a place where life is different and a way more interesting than England.
That was quite an interesting view for a English folks. It seems according to their story that paying bills in England and also the general normal life as we know it there is quite expensive even for English people.

They told us that a normal house in England costs like 30 000 to 40 000 pounds and this is a hell a lot of money to gather and that food expenses and taxes are really a killing ones there.

Anyways I’m gonna close the post with a picture view of Krapets just to give you an idea what to expect if you decide to visit it someday.

Krapets Wild Beach Village

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