Ber Season Quotes

Our 182-passenger Boeing Classic this morning is under the able command of Captain Hiram Slatt, discharged from service in the United States Air Force mission in Afghanistan after six heroic deployments and now returned, following a restorative sabbatical at the VA Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Wheeling, West Virginia, to his “first love”—civilian piloting for North American Airways. Captain Slatt has informed us that, once we are cleared for takeoff, our flying time will be between approximately seventeen and twenty-two hours depending upon ever-shifting Pacific Ocean air currents and the ability of our seasoned Classic 878 to withstand gale-force winds of 90 knots roaring “like a vast army of demons” (in Captain Slatt’s colorful terminology) over the Arctic Circle. As you have perhaps noticed Flight 443 is a full—i.e., “overbooked”—flight. Actually most North American Airways flights are overbooked—it is Airways protocol to persist in assuming that a certain percentage of passengers will simply fail to show up at the gate having somehow expired, or disappeared, en route. For those of you who boarded with tickets for seats already taken—North American Airways apologizes for this unforeseeable development. We have dealt with the emergency situation by assigning seats in four lavatories as well as in the hold and in designated areas of the overhead bin. Therefore our request to passengers in Economy Plus, Economy, and Economy Minus is that you force your carry-ons beneath the seat in front of you; and what cannot be crammed into that space, or in the overhead bin, if no one is occupying the overhead bin, you must grip securely on your lap for the duration of the flight. Passengers in First Class may give their drink orders now. SECURITY:

For generations beyond count, this land sustained one of the highest densities of population on earth. Without any chemical 'fertilizers', pesticides, exotic dwarf strains of grain, or the new, fancy 'bio-tech' inputs that [agricultural scientists] champion… The Upanishads say: Om Purnamadaha Purnamidam Purnat Purnamudachyate Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnamewa Vashishyate "This creation is whole and complete. From the whole emerge creations, each whole and complete. Take the whole from the whole, but the whole yet remains, Undiminished, complete!" In our forests, the trees like ber (jujube), jambul (jambolan), mango, umbar (wild fig), mahua (Madhuca indica), imli (tamarind), yield so abundantly in their season that the branches sag under the weight of the fruit. The annual yield per tree is commonly over a tonne - year after year. But the earth around remains whole and undiminished. – Open Letter from Bhaskar Save to M.S.Swaminathan

Chanukah is one of the best known and perhaps most celebrated holidays of the year. it is a festive, family-oriented holiday that comes in an appropriate season: when the days have become the shortest and the desire to connect with family and friends is greatest.

The Chanukah story and symbolism of 'kindling lights within darkness' is spiritually rooted within the context of the season in which it occurs.