Lucky Bamboo ( Dracaena Sanderiana )

I've mentioned the above indoor plant in some previous posts. 

I must confess, I'm greatly attached to it as I believe it kind of protects me.  When one of its leaves gets yellow, I panic. "Here goes my protection"  I say to myself. No kidding.

I've discovered this plant while reading and trying to learn about Feng Shui - chinese tradition of creating a balanced, harmonious environment that will attract to it good energies promoting Health, Wealth,  Luck, and Love.

The gracious (towering stalks, delicate leaves) lucky bamboo plant is my favorite Feng Shui item. It is believed  to purify the room air and introduce positive vibes into the house.

 It can be grown in soil or water. I prefer  to grow it in a bowl with water and pebbles to stabilize it.

It requires minimal care: water (distilled) once a week, moderate light, moderate room temperature. It can be propagated through stalk cuttings and through its leaves, but that takes time.

This decorative plant can be offered , in a nice container, as a gift; it can even be sold at a small profit, especially if it's a specific arrangement of stalks.

I've got some 30 individual such plants and don't wish to lose any of them. On the contrary, I wish to buy some more, but they are imported and rather expensive here.

Autumn Leaves

 

A lot has been written  in blogs  and elsewhere about Autumn ( Sept 1 - Nov.30). There's description of change in color, falling leaves,  drop in temperature, animals preparing for winter hibernation,  migration of birds in search of food,  autumn holidays etc..

Autumn always reminds me of the famous song the  'Falling Leaves' (in french the 'Dead Leaves'),  and  of the famous singers performing  it, among them: Ives Montagne (in french), Nat King Cole, Andy Williams,  Frank Sinatra (in english).

The musical versions of this song on Youtube are not very  good , I'm afraid.  The lyrics are beautiful and even worth memorizing.  It' s a romantic song mentioning color (red and gold),  the departing summer, the approaching winter,  the falling leaves that make the singer miss his darling.

Here are the lyrics:

The falling leaves, drift by the window  /The autumn leaves of red and gold

I see your lips the summer kisses / The sunburnt hands I used to hold

Since you went away, the days grow long

And soon I'll hear old winter's song

But I miss you most of all, my darling

When autumn leaves start to fall.

Nat King Cole

Globalization - the world interacting together

1.   We asked for it (globalization), and we got it. What happens in one corner  of the world, affects life in the remaining corners.

Ukraine, Gaza, and other places, are daily  'on the table'   everywhere in the world through protests, violence, rise in prices, danger of nuclear war , etc... 

To all those who roll their eyes up and mention 'innocent' people - please be aware that there are no innocent people. We are all sinners, big sinners:  wicked, evil, conceited, stupid, greedy, cruel, and... the list is long.

Israel sees herself as part of the western world, imitates everything western, including use of foreign labor in vital fields: agriculture, industry, services.   Foreign work has its advantages and disadvantages, but in our case it also poses security risks.

Israel has probably employed  arabs  from Gaza, at the border settlements where  the 7h of October slaughtering took place. I suppose those  workers have  taken shots of each house, garden,  path, lane , event, and submitted the info  to the Hamas  terrorists prior to the ferocious attack.

2.   In a previous post, I mentioned my theory that globalization is a challenge on God's  diverse world order.  Hence, natural  disasters have intensified since the increase of Globalization processes (during the  last decades) which seek to make the world one big place with interconnected cultures and economies.

It seems Climate Change is not going to have any mercy on us. We cannot prevent the disasters even if we make all the proper ecological efforts;     it's in God 's hands,  and God is furious at us for constantly violating His world Creation in the name of progress and evolution. 

Rhodium

 

It seems people (not me) are back to investments in gold and other precious metals  to minimize the risks of inflation, and for other various reasons.  

I've recently learnt,  about a very rare and expensive metal - rhodium.  Its symbol on the periodic table of elements is Rh and its atomic number 45.   It is used  in industry  primarily as an agent of  hardening, increase  of resistance to corrosion, and reflectivity.

Rhodium is much more expensive than the other known precious metals (gold, titanium, silver) because of its rarity. It cannot be mined on its own; it's a by product of titanium mining. The main country source for rhodium is South Africa.

The name 'rhodium'  has been brought up , the other day, in a discussion on plated jewelry.   Rhodium is used to coat mainly white gold and or platinum jewlery to give it durability and improve its brightness.

I've got no plated jewlery at all, so I'm not familiar with the process. I do own  a few personal jewlery pieces made of gold, silver, titanium of various karat values, but these pieces are not coated with some other metal for protection  and shine.

They say, that unlike nickel, this silver-white metal rhodium, has no allergenes, so the plating is hypoallergenic. When added to a white gold ring with a diamond, it enhances the brilliance of the diamond.

Anyway, rhodium is not for people with modest means. It's too expensive, but like anything found in nature,  'rhodium' is an interesting  topic, and not only to those looking for metal investment or jewelry plating  (I'm not looking for either).