Definition and meaning of restoration ecology :

restoration ecology   - activities undertaken by humans to repair ecological damage, such as establishing vegetation on degraded habitat, increasing the populations of endangered species, and decreasing the threatened area of an ecosystem

(Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) )

Also see these pages: Oceanography, Oceanography Sitemap, Coral Reef, Environment, Sustainability, Climate Change,

Definition and meaning of sucking disk:

sucking disk - a disk-like structure used by some fishes to attach itself to rocks or vegetation

(Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) )

Also see these pages: Oceanography, Oceanography Sitemap, Coral Reef, Environment, Sustainability, Climate Change,

Definition and meaning of swamp:

swamp - a type of wetland that is dominated by woody vegetation. When it does not, it is usually termed a marsh. Swamps may be fresh or salt water and tidal or non-tidal

(Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) )

Also see these pages: Oceanography, Oceanography Sitemap, Coral Reef, Environment, Sustainability, Climate Change,

Dwarf(s) (Icelandic) (from dvergr, Anglo-Saxon dveorg, German zwerg, Swedish dvarg)

Popularly thought to be "little people," in Norse mythology they are described as mindre (which can mean either "smaller" or "less") than human; hence dwarfs may be regarded as creatures smaller than or less evolved than human beings. The word may also connote "middle," which can describe the position of the so-called dwarf kingdoms in our universe.

Among the dwarf names in the Eddas are typical animal characteristics, such as Antlered or Speedy. There are also more general names such as Sindre (vegetation) and Brock (the mineral world). At the formation of our globe earth Sindre and Brock, sons of Ivaldi, regent of the former earth -- now the moon -- created suitable gifts for the gods Odin, Thor, and Frey in competition with Loki and Dvalin (human nature). Their respective gifts were:

Artisans: Sindre and Brock // Loki and Dvalin

for Odin: Draupnir - - - - - - // - - Gungnir

for Thor: Mjolnir - - - - - - - // - - Sif's hair

for Frey: Gullinbursti - - - - - // - - Skidbladnir

Thus the vegetable and animal world produce for Odin the cyclic progression of events, for Thor electric power and life force, and for Frey (the earth deity) the golden boar (earth) on which he rides through space; the gifts of Loki (intelligence) and Dvalin (unawakened human soul) are: for Odin the spear which never fails its mark (spiritual will), for Thor they restore the golden hair of Sif (the harvest, spiritual and material), and for Frey the ship which contains all seeds of life but which can be folded up like a kerchief when its age is over.

(See also: Dwarf, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Fourth Round The circling of each life-wave around the globes of a planetary chain for the fourth time is its fourth round. The midpoint of the fourth round is the turning point for this planetary manvantara. Before this point the monadic hosts pursue their gyrations downwards on the descending arc, karmically evolving material vestures from within the womb of spirit. During the fourth round on globe D, during the fourth root-race, the midway point of this manvantara is reached, for the lowest point in the descent of the life-waves then takes place, and thereafter the monads begin evolving upwards on the ascending arc: the involution or matter and evolution of spirit.

What are termed the geologic eras are the product of nature's evolutionary forces at work during our present fourth round; and every one of the globes of the chain, including globe D, was of characteristically somewhat different aspect and consistency during each of the three previous rounds. Each round develops a cosmic principle, and the fourth principle, earth, is in process of developing during the fourth round (the three previous rounds having developed fire, air, and water) -- these elements are not to be understood in their popular meaning, but in the sense in which they are used in archaic philosophy. Thus the fourth round "transformed the gaseous fluids and plastic form of our globe into the hard, crusted, grossly material sphere we are living on" (SD 1:260).

Naturally the geologic changes which the globe underwent up to our own time, took many, many millions of years; for example, sedimentation on globe D in this round began more than 320 million years ago. Sedimentation refers to the appearance of the mineral life-wave on globe D after preliminary work during the fourth round had been accomplished by the three preceding elemental kingdoms. After the mineral kingdom had run through its septenary cycling, then its surplus of life passed to the succeeding globe E, and the life-wave of the vegetable kingdom made its appearance on globe D; after the vegetable life-wave came the animal; and after the animal appeared the human, which in its turn will be followed by the life-waves of the three dhyani-chohanic kingdoms.

At the beginning of the human stage of the fourth round on globe D, the lunar pitris or human monads projected their astral doubles from the bodies which these pitris had evolved during the third round, and "it is this subtle, finer form, which serves as the model round which Nature builds physical man" (SD 1:180). The human life-wave has completed its fourth root-race on this globe and has now reached the midpoint of its fifth root-race. The point of man's grossest physical development has already been passed and his body henceforth will evolve along the lines of increasing refinements and ethereality.

During the fourth round the fourth principle kama (desire) will be fully developed, both in man and in the world. Man became truly human with the intellectual enlightenment of early mankind in this round through the descent of the manasaputras. This great event occurred during the third root-race.

In regard to the beast kingdom, at the midway point in the manvantara, the "door" to the human kingdom automatically closed, for then began the ascending arc: i.e., all monads not reaching the evolutionary status where they were able to pursue their evolution by entering the human kingdom must thereafter remain in the lower kingdoms for the three and one-half rounds still to come. The mammalian beasts all appeared in this round, but the first mammal on this globe was man himself, as the mammalian beasts were very early off-throwings or specializations from offthrowings originating in the human stock.

As to the vegetable kingdom, vegetation began in its ethereal form before what is termed the Primordial Epoch, continuing on through the Primary Era, during which it condensed, to our own time. It reached its fullest physical efflorescence in the early part of the Secondary, and probably even during the middle and later Primary, where the great coal deposits are now found.

(See also: Fourth Round, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Quickening Physiologically, the first feeling on the part of the prospective mother of fetal movements, occurring between the fourth and fifth months, about the middle of pregnancy.

Up to that period, the embryonic development of the human germ-cell has been animated and guided largely by the psycho-vital-magnetic influence of the reincarnating ego, "yet it is only when the infant thus generated first moves in the bosom of its mother what occurs what may be called the actual and real entrance into the unborn child of the characteristic, because higher, attributes and qualities of the Reincarnating Ego. Yet these 'higher qualities and attributes' are not of course the highest parts of the constitution of the man-to-be.

Hitherto the embryo or foetus has been the growing of the solely vegetative part of the incarnating being, in other words, the vital-astral part of it, . . ." (ET 906). Blavatsky speaks of the earlier stages of the embryo which has not yet become "either human or immortal, for the Kabalists tell us that this only occurs at the 'fourth hour.' One by one the foetus assumes the characteristics of the human being, the first flutter of the immortal breath passes through its being; it moves; and the divine essence settles in the infant frame, which it will inhabit until the moment of physical death, when man becomes a spirit" (SD 2:188).

As the developing embryo epitomizes the stages of racial history, this quickening, relatively halfway through its intrauterine cycle, suggests the analogy of the lighting of the fires of mind by the agnishvattas in the later third root-race and early fourth when the human life-wave had reached the upward turn of its septenary racial and planetary round. {delete or rewrite -- SBD}

(See also: Quickening, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Kingdom(s) In natural history, a large group, department, or domain, marked off from others by characteristic qualities, three being generally recognized: animal, vegetable, and mineral, with mankind at the summit of the animal kingdom. Ancient thought as a whole, however, took account of vast spheres of cosmic inner space and inner consciousness inhabited by numerous hierarchies of all-various evolving, intelligent, and semi-intelligent beings.

Hence it is that mankind was a separate kingdom; and, if we consider human nature as a whole, humanity is more sharply distinguished from the lower kingdoms than they are from each other. To these four in theosophy are added three kingdoms below the mineral called elemental kingdoms, thus making a septenate. Above the human may be enumerated three dhyani-chohanic or god kingdoms, but the word "man" has often been used so as to include these kingdoms. These divisions correspond to the other septenary and denary divisions in the cosmos.

The more highly each kingdom is specialized along its peculiar lines, the more sharply is it differentiated from the other kingdoms; but the distinction tends to disappear and merge into a continuity when the entities in the different kingdoms are in an elementary or germinal stage. The entities in any kingdom higher than the lowest must pass in brief recapitulation through all the stages represented by the preceding kingdoms, before they can develop the features characteristic of their own kingdom.

In another sense, kingdom is sometimes used in theosophy to signify the life-waves circling around a planetary chain, or the various individualized hierarchies in universal nature, each one comprising the kingdom or domain of its own characteristic species, topped by its hierarch.

(See also: Kingdom, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Allfather; Alfadir (Icelandic) (from al all + fadir father)

Odin, father of gods and men. As Allfather, Odin occurs on many levels: as the indwelling divinity in a universe and in every part of the universe. He is also, together with his two brother-gods, the creative power of life on each level of existence. Odin (divine intelligence, Sanskrit mahat), Vile (will), and Vi or Ve (awe, sanctity) comprise the cosmic creative trinity. They spring from Bur, the quasi-manifest or Second Logos, which in turn emanated from Buri, the legendary king of cold. Buri was immersed in the ice of non-being until the cow Audhumla, symbol of fertility, uncovered his head when licking the ice blocks for salt.

On the next level Odin is again instrumental in creation. Here his brother creators are named Honir and Lodur. The gods of this second trinity correspond to the Hindu tattvas: Odin stands for air (breath, spirit), Honir for water (fluidity, intelligence), and Lodur for fire (energy, will and vital heat). They found on the earth "Ask (ash) and Embla (alder), indeterminate," and gave to these vegetative life forms out of their own nature the properties needed to complete the human constitution.

In his capacity as Allfather, Odin "hung nine nights in the windtorn tree pierced by a spear," in order to "raise runes of wisdom" from the nether worlds: the cosmic spirit sacrificed "my self to my Self above me in the tree" to gain universal experience.

(See also: Allfather, Alfadir, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Anima (Latin) Air, wind, breath; secondarily life, soul, spirit, mind. A distinction, not generally observed, has been made between anima and animus, where animus is very close to the mentality or manas of theosophical terminology and anima is equivalent to the theosophic usage of prana.

Because equivalent to prana, it exists on seven planes, from the atman to the physical; and consequently there is an anima for every class of celestial being, anima not being limited only to human beings, beasts, and other beings having bodies of material substance. From anima came "animal," a being with a living personal soul. The vegetable and mineral kingdoms do not have it; but the earth has, and the earth was called an animal in consequence.

There was in classical times a distinction between three souls of the defunct: anima (pure spirit) went to the heaven world, while manes went to the nether regions, and umbra hovered on earth (IU 1:37). Anima is spoken of as pure spirit because the essence of prana is indeed spirit, as it is derivative directly form the atma-buddhic monad, although colored on the lower planes by its intimate connection with the personal ego or manes.

(See also: Anima, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Abred, Cylch yr Abred (Welsh) Inchoation; the cycle of inchoation. The lowest of the three cycles of existence in Druidism, including the human kingdom and probably the animal and vegetable: "the Cycle of Abred, in which are all embodied and dead existences" (Bard p. ?). Abred has four stages: Annwn, Obryn, Cydfil, and Dyndeb. Hawl yr ail (the second examination) reads:

Q. Whence didst thou proceed? and what is thy beginning?

A. I came from the Great World, having my beginning in Annwn.

Q. Where art thou now? and how camest thou to where thou art?

A. I am in the Little World, whither I came, having traversed the circle of Abred, and now I am a man at its termination and extreme limits.

Q. What wert thou before thou didst become a man in the circle of Abred?

A. I was in Annwn the least possible that was capable of life, and the nearest possible to absolute death, and I came in every form, and through every form capable of a body and life, to the state of man along the circle of Abred, where my condition was severe and grievous during the age of ages, ever since I was parted in Annwn from the dead, . . .

Q. Through how many forms didst thou come? . . .

A. Through every form capable of life, in water, in earth, and in air. (Bard 227).

(See also: Abred, Cylch yr Abred, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Ask (Scandinavian) Askr (Icelandic) Ash tree; in Norse myths the first humanity was fashioned by the three creative gods using Askr and Embla (the ash and, probably, the alder) as a physical basis. Allfather Odin and his two brothers endow these vegetative beings with spirit, mind, and desire coupled with will.

The universe is depicted as an ash tree, Yggdrasil, within which every lesser being is an ash tree in its own right. A Tree of Life is part of the traditions in every part of the world. "The Norse Ask, the Hesiodic Ash-tree, whence issued the men of the generation of bronze, the Third Root-Race, and the Tzite tree of the Popol-Vuh, out of which the Mexican third race of men was created, are all one" (SD 2:97).

The Norse tree of life is said to be rooted in the divine "ground" and to spread through the shelves of space, bearing living worlds upon its branches. Where the ash tree refers to humanity on earth it is the subject of the tale called "Askungen" (ash child or Cinderella), using an intricate play on words.

See also YGGDRASIL

(See also: Ask, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Enoch, Onech hanoch (Hebrew) Initiation or initiated; hence also hierophant. In the Bible (Genesis 4, 5), "there are three distinct Enochs -- the son of Cain, the son of Seth, and the son of Jared; but they are all identical, and two of them are mentioned for the purposes of misleading. The years of only the last two are given, the first one being left without further notice." He is the great grandfather of Noah, and stands for the first subrace of the fifth root-race (BCW 14:86&n).

The prophet Enoch, supposed to have been an antediluvian, was the inventor of learning, letters, and the founder of initiatory rites. Among the Arabs Enoch is commonly called Idris, meaning the wise or learned. Again, "The Kerkes and the Onech stand for a race cycle, and the mystical tree Ababel -- the 'Father Tree' in the Kuran -- shoots out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phoenix" (SD 2:617). The connection with the phoenix is purely mystical, because just as the phoenix is said to be reborn from its own ashes, thus bringing about a new cycle, so the neophyte during initiation is said to be reborn from the "ashes" of his past self.

(See also: Enoch, Onech, hanoch, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Erinyes (Greek) (cf Latin Furae furies)

Also Dirae. Furies, avenging goddesses; sometimes legion, sometimes three in number, according to the point of view of the ancient writers, named by Alexandrian authors, copying Euripides: Tisiphone (avenger of the slain), Megaera (the jealous), and Alecto (unceasing hatred). Their mission was to follow and reform evil doers, which has popularly been misunderstood to be persecution.

Aeschylus speaks of them as being daughters of Night, Sophocles as being born of Darkness and Earth, and Hesiod as having sprung from the blood of the injured Uranus. They dwell in the underworld, whence they issue to pursue the wicked towards reformation and the reestablishment of all broken natural equilibrium; upon the expiation of crime in Aeschylus they transform themselves into gracious and beneficent deities called the Eumenides. In Athens they were known as Semnae (the venerable ones).

The Erinyes or Eumenides are thus seen as beings who function almost automatically as karmic agents in the restoration of broken or disturbed equilibrium in the universe, and therefore are inherent in the vegetative and automatic functions of nature; thus the human body, as an analogy, when injured in some part, will attempt by latent and automatic restorative functions, as it were, to heal the injury. Their functions therefore in the world are seen at once as avengers and beneficent healers or eumenides.

(See also: Erinyes, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Definition and meaning of Geographic Factors

Geographic Factors

Several factors may influence the settlement and development of a place. Geographic factors include the physical characteristics of a place such as landforms, bodies and sources of water, vegetation, climate and weather patterns, and animal life. People who relocate to an area to farm prefer fertile land, abundant rainfall, and a moderate climate to a desert. Those who make their living by fishing settle near bodies of water. Settlers often avoid mountainous areas or swamp land for various reasons. Other geographic factors such as accessibility to transportation routes and to markets also influence settlement and population distribution in Texas.

(Source: The Social Studies Center at Texas University )

Also see these pages:  Social Studies, Social Studies Sitemap, History, History Sitemap

Definition and meaning of Character of a Place

Character of a Place - [World Geography]

Places are parts of Earth's surface endowed with meaning by humans. Each place possesses a distinctive set of tangible and intangible characteristics that help to distinguish it from other places. Its physical characteristics include climate, landforms, soils, hydrology, vegetation, and animal life. Its human characteristics include language, religion, political systems, economic systems, population distribution, and quality of life. The identity of people is influenced by the character of the place they come from. Personal identity, community identity, and national identity are rooted in place and attachment to place.

(Source: The Social Studies Center at Texas University )

Also see these pages:  Social Studies, Social Studies Sitemap, History, History Sitemap

Definition and meaning of Geographic Factors

Geographic Factors

Several factors may influence the settlement and development of a place. Geographic factors include the physical characteristics of a place such as landforms, bodies and sources of water, vegetation, climate and weather patterns, and animal life. People who relocate to an area to farm prefer fertile land, abundant rainfall, and a moderate climate to a desert. Those who make their living by fishing settle near bodies of water. Settlers often avoid mountainous areas or swamp land for various reasons. Other geographic factors such as accessibility to transportation routes and to markets also influence settlement and population distribution in Texas.

(Source: The Social Studies Center at Texas University )

Also see these pages:  Social Studies, Social Studies Sitemap, History, History Sitemap

Definition and meaning of Character of a Place

Character of a Place - [World Geography]

Places are parts of Earth's surface endowed with meaning by humans. Each place possesses a distinctive set of tangible and intangible characteristics that help to distinguish it from other places. Its physical characteristics include climate, landforms, soils, hydrology, vegetation, and animal life. Its human characteristics include language, religion, political systems, economic systems, population distribution, and quality of life. The identity of people is influenced by the character of the place they come from. Personal identity, community identity, and national identity are rooted in place and attachment to place.

(Source: The Social Studies Center at Texas University )

Also see these pages:  Social Studies, Social Studies Sitemap, History, History Sitemap

Free Will The inherent power or capacity of choice, divine in its origin, which every being in the kosmos exercises in some degree as, consciously or unself-consciously, it evolves forth its essential self. Every thing and being has its own essential characteristic or svabhava and, the universal urge being towards self-expression and self-consciousness, of necessity each has its relative share of inherent free will with which to work out its destiny. Since evolution is a coming forth of the involved monadic essence, the unfolding of inner capacities and attributes, it cannot be produced, however stimulated, by something outside of itself. The one divine will is the force behind evolution on all planes of manifestation throughout the kosmos. Hence, each entity, as a unit of the divine All, has its portion of free choice and power to bring forth what is within itself.

Free will is manifesting, however feebly, in vegetative or automatic action in the whirling electrons of the atom; also in characteristic actions of matter, such as cohesion, polarity, and electricity; in the varied growths of vegetation; in the range of animal activities; in the evolving human being, and in the perfected humans called gods; and so forth up the scales of being. It acts in the urge which brings the monad to cast off its former garments in the minerals in order to assume new ones in the vegetable kingdom, from which again, after casting off these latter, it progresses to the animal kingdom; and from this again, the monad rejects beast forms and assumes the human shape where it gains in range and momentum because now acting self-consciously in greater or less degree.

The karma which brings to a person conditions which he does not choose or wish for in his present life, is yet consistent with his free will because he is the result of all his previous actions, now expressing themselves in results. These reactions of causes which he set in motion in this or in former lives, being the result which was inherent in his previous choices, is a self-imposed destiny; but it is not fatalism, because he is now free to decide again how he will meet the results of what he previously had chosen for himself. Karma is mathematically exact, both physically and metaphysically, but it is so constantly involved with new elements of choice and of proportion that its effects of necessity are measured on a sliding scale of being, so to say.

There is an automatic phase of free will in the purposeful instinct which marks the various activities of even minute and lowly forms of life. The unself-conscious beasts are protected, and therefore guided, by the wills of celestial beings who make the so-called laws of nature, yet even the beasts instinctively choose to run true to their own inner types or svabhava. They unconsciously will to be themselves and to copy no other. They have free will exactly in proportion to their consciousness, just as any person has it in the higher degrees of his intelligence and more active intuition.

Thus human beings have the power to work out their evolution, for the kingdom of heaven is taken by strength. The gods have gone ahead on the pathway towards omniscience -- so far as our universe is concerned -- by their own individual efforts consciously to act with an ever-enlarging measure of harmony with the one divine will. Thus the volume or power of free will is in strict proportion with the degree in which the entity has brought forth the central spark of divine willing fire which animates all that is. Nevertheless no single being or entity has completely unfettered and perfectly irresponsible free will, because of its relative imperfection and because of its inescapable subordination to greater wills, each such entity ever evolving from its stage of imperfection as it ascends along the scales of being: those on the higher rungs of the hierarchical ladder consciously willing in ever-enlarging degree to follow the greater divine will which holds all in its keeping.

(See also: Free Will, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Vegetables

• To dream of eating vegetables, is an omen of strange luck. You will think for a time that you are tremendously successful, but will find to your sorrow that you have been grossly imposed upon.
• Withered, or decayed vegetables, bring unmitigated woe and sadness.
• For a young woman to dream that she is preparing vegetables for dinner, foretells that she will lose the man she desired through pique, but she will win a well-meaning and faithful husband. Her engagements will be somewhat disappointing.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Vegetables, Meaning of Dreams about Vegetables, Dream Interpretation Vegetables)

Roman references to a cabbage family vegetable that may have been broccoli are less than perfectly clear: the Roman natural history writer, Pliny the Elder, wrote about a vegetable which might have been broccoli. Some vegetable scholars recognize broccoli in the cookbook of Apicius. Broccoli was certainly an Italian vegetable, as its name suggests, long before it was eaten elsewhere. Its first mention in France is in 1560, but in 1724 broccoli was still so unfamiliar in England that Philip Miller's Gardener's Dictionary (1724 e ...

See also:

Broccoli, Broccoli - Broccoli history, Broccoli - Broccoli in culture

Read more here: » Broccoli: Encyclopedia II - Broccoli - Broccoli history

At the trial the plaintiff's counsel, after reading in evidence definitions of the words 'fruit' and 'vegetables' from Webster's Dictionary, Worcester's Dictionary, and the Imperial Dictionary, called two witnesses, who had been for 30 years in the business of selling fruit and vegetables, and asked them, after hearing these definitions, to say whether these words had "any special meaning in trad ...

See also:

Nix v. Hedden, Nix v. Hedden - The case, Nix v. Hedden - The decision, Nix v. Hedden - Subsequent history

Read more here: » Nix v. Hedden: Encyclopedia II - Nix v. Hedden - The case

The court unanimously decided in favor of the defense and found that the tomato was classified as a vegetable, based on the ways in which it is used, and the popular perception to this end. Justice Gray in his decision stated that: "The passages cited from the dictionaries define the word 'fruit' as the seed of plants, or that part of plants which contains the seed, and especially the juicy, pulpy products of certain plants, covering and containing the seed. These definitions have no tendency to show that tomatoes are 'fruit,' as distinguished from 'vegetables,' in common spe ...

See also:

Nix v. Hedden, Nix v. Hedden - The case, Nix v. Hedden - The decision, Nix v. Hedden - Subsequent history

Read more here: » Nix v. Hedden: Encyclopedia II - Nix v. Hedden - The decision