Origin of tsunamis

 I was recently watching a documentary on Netflix about natural disasters, such as tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic explosions, and tsunamis. I would love to share with you a very creative and cool legend about the origin of volcanoes in Japan.

Japan is one of the places with the highest number of natural disasters per year, including tsunamis, those huge waves that form in the sea, and sweep away everything in their path, taking the lives of hundreds or even thousands of people. 

Tsunamis have been part of Japan's entire history, and even before Japan was formed as a country. Normally when these things happen, human beings try to give a rational explanation, which, in those days, rational did not exactly mean something related to logic as we know it today, let alone science.

Nowadays, we know perfectly well that tsunamis are caused by earthquakes of great magnitude under the water surface, something completely normal in a geographic point like Japan.  

Because of this, people resorted to their beliefs to find the explanation they were looking for, assuming, in most cases, that bad things happen to us because of the sins (capital or religious) that we have committed.

The Legend of Amemasu and the Tsunamis

This is the story of a Yokai with the shape and large size of a whale, which used to inhabit Lake Mashu (considered the lake with the clearest water in the world), This huge Yokai prevented the passage of water from the Pacific with his body.

One day, a young deer appeared and was so thirsty that he did not realize that he had arrived at the dreaded creature's lake, so he approached it without any precaution to drink from its waters. The Yokai, who used to be very territorial and constantly hungry, did not hesitate for two seconds to devour the poor animal, without even bothering to chew it. 

The deer, already inside the Yokai, was still alive, but he knew that it would not take long to be digested, so he resigned himself to die, crying for his bad luck. The gods, seeing such pure tears rolling down the animal's cheeks, decided to help it, making its tears capable of piercing the stomach of the fearsome Amemasu.

In this way, the deer managed to get out of the Yokai's body, moving between its guts, while it was losing its life. While this was happening, a bird passing nearby witnessed the whole scene and, worried about what would happen when Amemasu stopped blocking the water of the peaceful ocean, went to alert the villagers, so that they could escape the consequences.

Unfortunately, the people he warned did not want to heed his fears; on the contrary, they were happy to learn that the beast was dead. Only the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido and Honshu, heeded his words and left immediately.

The others, far from being frightened, went to see, with much curiosity, the dead Yokai, and then took its flesh, and gladly ate every part of it. It is said that, besides desecrating the body by eating it, they did not even thank the food, as was customary, and went so far as to fight over the last pieces, stealing from each other.

When there was nothing left but bones of the Yokai, whom they had treated as a mere animal, the waters of the Pacific Ocean were unblocked, causing the lake to grow into a powerful body of water, which ended the lives of all the inhabitants, except for the Ainu, who went to the highlands, saving themselves.

This was the first tsunami to hit Japan, as the story goes, causing so much fear and despair, that the few who survived among those who remained nearby, died soon after in the same way when tsunamis began to become frequent.

From then on, every tsunami is provoked by Amemasu, who is still seeking revenge for all that those humans put him through centuries ago.

Tornadoes

 Hi y'all.

Welcome back to my blog. 

I would like to share something a little personal with you, my dear readers. 

I am a nature lover. I am not only referring to the sunsets or sunrises (although I must admit that the colors that are presented in each of them are incredibly spectacular, what a beautiful combination of orange, pink, and purple); but also the storms, the combination of wind and shades of gray, for me is also amazing.

both pictures are beautiful

I have respect for nature because it is beautifully terrifying. Something that fills me with excitement and terror is tornadoes. I have never lived in a storm with a tornado, although this year something similar happened here in our country, but it would be a unique and terrifying experience.

I really admire the intensity and strength that tornadoes have. There are 5 types of tornadoes, and their number changes according to their magnitude.

Rope tornadoes are usually the smallest kind of tornadoes. This type of tornado appears weak but becomes more intense as it narrows and tightens.

Cone tornadoes are widest at the base and much wider where they meet the thunderstorm. This gives them a conical appearance.

The stovepipe tornado. Its width on the ground and at the base of the storm are similar.

Wedge is slang for a large tornado that has a condensation funnel that is at least as wide at the ground as it is tall. Wedges often appear with violent tornadoes, ranking EF-4 or EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

And finally, Multi-vortex tornadoes. Are those in which two or more condensation funnels or debris clouds are present at the same time. These tornadoes can be especially damaging. 

Surprisingly scary.

Thank you for reading to the end, I hope you loved this reading as much as I did.

Musical ensemble

Glad to have you back on my blog, I hope your week has been great 💗

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I am in a musical band at church. 🤭 So, I would like to tell you a little bit about what we do in our rehearsals to prepare the songs to be played.

We meet at the rehearsal room every Thursday, even though we only play 2 Sundays a month. There are 8 members, a pianist, an electric guitarist, an acoustic guitar player, a drummer, a bass player, two backing singers, and the lead vocalist. Before getting together, we rehearsed each by ourselves, which included listening to the song repeatedly to identify musical figures and define the "tempo" of each one of them. After having listened to the song in detail, it is time to practice. 

For voices, we are in charge of making melodies, that is, making different voices to create a melody.

Melodies are created when a series of notes (chords) are joined together. To make it clearer, I will show you an example.

The "do" chord is made up of the notes: do, mi, and sol.

So, when taking the voices out of a song with the "do" chord, the lead vocal sings on the "do" note, the other vocalist (who usually does the second voice) does the "mi" note and I (who usually do the third voice or the highest voice) do the "sol" note. By doing this, we manage to create a melody while singing and we complement each other very well.

We practiced all week and on Thursday we got to assemble what we practiced by ourselves.

We fine-tune details and play the songs 1 or 2 times, sometimes we don't have enough time, but that's why we rehearse every Thursday.

That's all, I hope you enjoyed this little music class haha.  🤭 

And remember:

Life without music would be a mistake.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Sound of Freedom

Last week, I went to the movies with my mom (we usually do it, we have like a "date", because we have a good relationship).

As I was saying, we saw the movie "the sound of freedom". I don't know if you have heard about it or if you have already seen it, but if not, let me tell you that it is an incredible movie!

Even though the movie is based on real events, we can find different genres, such as: drama, action, adventure and a little bit of comedy. 

I will try not to make spoilers for people who haven't seen the movie yet but want to do it.  

This movie leaves a very powerful message about the situation that we are living in the whole world, but especially in Latin America.It is difficult to know that what we are seeing, can really happen at this time.

how difficult it is to know that children are sold into slavery and alienated from their families because of the evil mentality of the people (even if it seems like a spoiler, it is not, what I am commenting is something we all know).

Without a doubt it is a movie that touches the heart of anyone and wakes us up from whatever situation we are in. Children are very important, we must take care of them even if they do not belong to us or to our friends or family.

I know that while watching the movie you will experience a variety of mixed feelings, such as sadness, hatred or helplessness, because that is what I felt, nevertheless, my dear readers, I really recommend this movie to you.

Sleep paralysis

Has it ever happened to you that, when you are asleep and wake up, you cannot speak or move?

Well, let me tell you, it's a really horrible experience.

Scientifically there is an explanation for this and it is that, when this happens, it is due to an altered cycle of rapid eye movements, which means that the person who sleeps is awake or half awake and, therefore, is aware that he/she cannot move.

Possibly for many people, this explanation fulfills their expectations, well not for me and I will explain why. Unfortunately, I have experienced this many times.

The first time I experienced it, I was asleep and it was around 1 a.m. When I woke up (I know I wasn't asleep) by the moonlight coming through my window, I could see a black shadow coming towards me, I tried to scream but I realized I couldn't do it, I couldn't even move. Then, I started to feel a great pressure in my chest and I could feel that there was something that wanted to enter my mouth. I could no longer see anything, as the shadow prevented me from seeing the window. The only thing I managed to do was to pray and in the end, after a couple of minutes, the pressure in my chest started to disappear, it was very scary; however, it wasn't the worst experience. 

I remember that after that, the same thing happened to me 1 more time, although it was not as bad as the first time. After that, I was able to sleep for a while without any problems.

On one occasion, I remember I was tired and decided to go to sleep. I remember that I could see the lights in my mommy's room on (this time, the window I told you about was behind me). I was lying down and I started to feel a strange sensation, and all I could think of was "it's coming". I tried to make noise, to get my mommy's attention, as it hadn't even been 5 minutes since I told her I was going to sleep. When I tried to hit the bed to make some noise, I saw my hand slowly fall in front of my eyes, obviously not causing any noise. This time I didn't feel any pressure on my chest, but on my whole body, I was lying on my left side. I started to hear a kind of screaming in my left ear, which was the side I had on the pillow. I also began to see some kind of drawings, like sketches made by hand and with pencil, of people who seemed to be screaming, it looked like a short film.

I think that experience lasted about 2 or 3 minutes, however, I felt it was longer. It may sound like a fiction story because I know it may sound unreal, but it was what I experienced. 

Thanks for reading, let me know if you have gone through something similar 😉