I never really understood the concept of sacrifice, that is, in the context of reading about the ancient Greeks or South American cultures or Indians (dot not feather), say. Like, why on earth would forty oxen or whatever be seemingly wasted and thrown away or burned or whatnot - I understand there may have been some theological principle I was missing, but each example I read seemed quite a material waste, in modernity or antiquity.

Then I came across a yoga article on the concept, which included the line, "we must give up some of what we have if we are going to gain more of it in return." But it was the examples given that cinched it for me - namely, "in investment, we risk our money in order to gain more money," and in "exercise, we sacrifice our strength in order to gain greater strength." Now that theological principle I wasn't getting starts to make more sense - I workout, kind of tear up my muscle a bit, make it sore, in essence "giving up" some of its functionality, and bam, a day or two later, that muscle is that much effecient and stronger and bigger. Which might translate into ideas concerning the mind half of bodymind concepts, where it's often said that to gain more one needs to "give up" their conscious/ego, or "surrender." Hmm...

I don't know how I came across this, just one of my tangential-thought-threads I guess, but the Fianna seem like they were pretty interesting (I like their tests in particular).

ArtBots - interactive art, that also reacts to itself in one example - how fun!