A Seasonal request

Hello wonderful forum members, as you can see the festive season is upon us and we have our beautiful Christmas Tree up on the forum, thank you Lotus

This lead me to thinking that perhaps we could do something fun and spirit lifting where members can get involved actively

so i was wondering if any members would be happy to offer some pictures or designs to celebrate the New Year that can go up in place after Christmas, if anyone would like to be involved please make sure they're of the wider style of pictures like the christmas tree is, and also if you could find more than one picture each so there is a variety to choose from then Myself and Armine will choose the best option to go up in time for new years.

Also in the past we have had a very lovely member design a banner for the forum, so if anyone is feeling creative and would like to design a festive banner to go at the top of the page that would be wonderful, if so please let us know so Lotus can pass on the dimensions

Merry Christmas

1. Hi Night. Thanks for this thread. (And please don't be amazed at either the number or the quality of the posts you received in response; that, you know, is what forums are for).

2. At least Freya would definitely share, however, but she preferred to give us another surprise. So for those who don't know, the current Christmas artwork was designed by Freya—as was the Halloween banner last October. Thanks for the effort and time she put in it and thanks for her dedication. (And by the way, as I told her briefly, the "value" of this work is not in its artistic quality, but in its having been especially designed for the forum. I mean, KFC is great, but the chicken prepared by my mother or wife or even sister—into which she breathed; in which are thus added, literally, the subtle flavor of love and aroma of care—is definitely more delicious. This is certain and even proven so don't argue about it. If your mother's sandwich doesn't taste better than McDonald's, I'm afraid you'll have to deal with your mother then not with me).

3. This artwork, as was the banner on Halloween, was also first inspired or at least triggered and motivated by your childlike (or perhaps motherlike) heart, Night. You're the one who always care and ask about such candies and toys. It was finally approved by your and Armine's wisdom. So thanks to both of you as well.

4. Please in the future, for Freya, Willow and all designers; for whoever's going to share with their designs, also for the Mods to please check, "Le Cafe" is a brand name. If you guys here still care about such management stuff, then you may do whatever you want but you cannot, ever, change the font, the color or the way these two words are written. They must always look the same in all "visual communications." This rule even applies to the solgan although not as strictly. (This is Le Cafe the original anyway, and here is the slogan).

5. The "Merry Christmas" on the front page is my own pick from Google and we may therefore take it down or replace it with any other picture or artwork. I think it's too much for the front page. But I also think it's no big deal if it's only for a couple of weeks every year. This I anyway leave to the Mods to decide.

6. In case approved, I suggest that we use this extra space for Santa, for all Santa friends who would miss him this year in Freya's designs. (I'm a Santa friend myself and I even believe he's real—seriously. He's as real as the Christ, and I can even prove it). Anyway, only in case both the extra space and the Santa choice are approved, you Mods may please choose one or two of the following photos (all my pics, only cropped as to fit in this space, so please add yours too if as wide):  

1



2



3



4



5

 

Well, I guess that's all for now.
Thanks Night and merry Christmas to you too.

I like #1 if I had to choose.

Thanks everyone!

Thanks for your lovely words Lotus

Armine glad you said that i like 1 aswell

so there we go, Santa sorted in synchronicity

thank you Freya for your hard work and lovely designs x x

I like #2 cause Santa looks like a badass thief and he knows it which is why he's giving all the other thieves a thumbs up lol....just kidding, #1 it is.

Loved your designs Freya  

And Lotus, I want to see your proof that Santa exists

Firstly, thanks Night and Armine for approving the designs

President Roosevelt wrote:Loved your designs Freya  

Thanks PR

Lotus wrote:
4. Please in the future, for Freya, Willow and all designers; for whoever's going to share with their designs, also for the Mods to please check, "Le Cafe" is a brand name. If you guys here still care about such management stuff, then you may do whatever you want but you cannot, ever, change the font, the color or the way these two words are written. They must always look the same in all "visual communications." This rule even applies to the solgan although not as strictly. (This is Le Cafe the original anyway, and here is the slogan).

Thanks for the images, Lotus.

For all concerned , one of the reasons I changed the font (and downloaded an extra-special candy cane font to suit the occasion - even though I think it's in danger of being eaten by PR ) was that I could not find the original font, and for image quality reasons wanted to work from scratch rather than using the original banner as the base layer in the way I did for Halloween. I would have asked Admin which font to use, but it was all meant as a surprise for everyone (though for you especially Nighty ).

I may have never seen as a brand name (Le Cafe?) because I've never thought we were a business, but I've always known how important it is to keep the font the same given that it's a logo.

Nonetheless, Christmas is Christmas.

In any future designs, I'll use the logo text, of course, now that I have it.

Nighty, I hope you like my new Christmas profile picture - the non-cropped version looks like this...

.
Night & Armine:
Nice that you both agreed.
OK ladies, thank you.

Freya wrote:a brand name (Le Cafe?) because I've never thought we were a business, but I've always known how important it is to keep the font the same given that it's a logo.

Everything is a brand. "Freya" is a brand. "Night Eyes" is a brand. "Lotus " is a brand. It's not about "business" it's about how our mind works. Only in business we studied this a bit more deeply and utilized it more systemically. It's OK though; I never even mentioned this before. Moreover, I definitely like this Christmas font and appreciate your taking the time to download and use it. Yet these details sill make a lot of difference and even differentiate one site from another, so it'd be great if you considered this next time and good luck to you and all other designers on board.

President Roosevelt wrote:
....
And Lotus, I want to see your proof that Santa exists

No you don't. It's long and even requires a bit of thinking, and this is not the "season" for thinking. It's about "Reality" itself and what it really means for anything to "exist" at all.  

(To give you a hint: Take a grain of salt and examine it closely: Can you see or hear or touch or by any means know it tastes salty? It's salty only when you put it in your mouth, right? It's salty when you taste it. It's never salty unless tasted. "Saltiness" exists only on your tongue, only at the event of tasting and only because of this tasting. Saltiness comes into existence only when you taste this grain of salt, by virtue of this tasting, and it's never anywhere else. Right? Saltiness, therefore, is not a "property" of salt that exists independently or apart from you; rather, it's a property of your tasting. Saltiness is the flavor your tasting "gives" to salt, as "sweetness" is another property or flavor your tasting gives to sugar. Salt is never salty, nor is sugar ever sweet, unless tasted; unless right in your mouth. You, therefore, are the Source who gives the flavors to whatever has a flavor, not the other way around.

Now, this salt is also white. Is it? Does "whiteness" exit independently or apart from your "seeing"? Or is it you who also give the colors to everything?...)  

Anyway this is the kind of proof I mean. We can get back to this later and in detail if you're really interested. But the bottom line is, the world is literally in the mind, and is merely a "mental structure." Santa, being a mental structure, is therefore as real, or as illusory, as everything else.

(He doesn't show up though, not because he doesn't exist, but only because we don't "believe" we can see him).

I remember thinking i saw Santa when i was a kid (i've already told the ladies) he seemed very real to me at the time

here's Merry Christmas in the language Adi thinks i'm making up



(this isnt a forum pic suggestion)

p.s Pressie might have to fight me for the Candy canes

Night Eyes wrote:I remember thinking i saw Santa when i was a kid (i've already told the ladies) he seemed very real to me at the time

here's Merry Christmas in the language Adi thinks i'm making up



(this isnt a forum pic suggestion)

p.s Pressie might have to fight me for the Candy canes

I think it's a lovely pic, we could use it as a third image at some stage  though the Santa (no 1) goes better with the other pictures

Speaking of Santa, I think I told Pressie but not you Night or anyone else - I didn't believe in him (Santa, not PR  ) already at the age of about five, and I was always most distressed when my older cousins said they believed. But he's just a story! He doesn't exist!

But for me, that has always been the beauty of stories and imagination. They are a world of their own, a beautiful one... I remember a Rupert Spira lecture where he says that dreams are just as real as any other part of what we call "reality", which means that any and all of our imaginings are real. As a kid I used to think it would be nice if somewhere in the cosmos there was a planet where all dreams come true... though it would be just as frightening as it would be wonderful. I'm very rusty on this, but I think there was also a land where dreams were true in one of the Narnia books?

I also used to imagine a planet where all imaginings - book characters, film plots, even daydreams and so on - were real. Interestingly, later in my life I came to love a TV series where exactly that happens, though in a country on earth. In the real world someone dreams up a new character, and in the land of fairy tales (divided into land of fairy tales or land of grown-up fairy tales [inc things like Westerns, Frankenstein, and so on]) that character comes to life. Literally.

P.S. Nighty you like candy canes? I only think they're pretty but I can't eat them, too much work! I mean do you suck them or break your teeth trying to bite them? 

P.P.S. Lotus, I forgot to mention that I have an example of how much more professional the banner would look with Alice Blue ( #e6f6f6 ) - here

Merry Christmas everyone! It's already the 24th in Australia, so my family are already celebrating tonight

I changed my mind, after all these years. Santa is real ---- and he's driving down the street in a fire truck




I'm sorry to harp on it, but I've always been something of a perfectionist -- the more I look at the white background of the Christmas banner the more it seems a bit Windows 95 -- which is not a bad thing, I loved Win 95, but it's not the look I'd intended. If the seasonal banner will still be up for a while, I'd like to revise the official concept to a wholly light blue ( #e6f6f6) banner:



larger concept art

live example

The moderators have graciously already approved the colour change, but I believe Admin has not been around to set it up yet.

@Lotus , I know that there's very little chance that you'd have time to do this yourself, and obviously no chance before Christmas as we are all in the midst of our own festive galaxies. But if you happen to be online before Dec. 31st and have time to set it up, in the Admin control panel you select Display > Pictures and Colors > Colors > Background Colors > Header Background Color. Then insert #e6F6F6 and save. It should only take a minute.



BONUS @Night Eyes and @Adi,



see 1:04 onwards for how Tolkien drew on Welsh to create Elvish




Pressie's Secret Christmas Pressie

Thank you Freya and everyone else who is involved in taking the time to make our cozy little community look so festive!

Night Eyes wrote:I remember thinking i saw Santa when i was a kid (i've already told the ladies) he seemed very real to me at the time

This is the whole point. "Seeing Santa" (or anyone or anything) and "His Being" are not two things, but one event. One and the same mental event. It's but a dream here. So like a dream: the elephant you see in a dream, for example, is not real; there is no elephant in your head or in the room where you're lying asleep. Yet you do see an elephant, and because of this "seeing" there seems to be an elephant out there. Similarly, Santa is not less real than Lotus; they both don't even exist at all. Only in your world-dream they appear to exist because YOU see them (or not to exist when you don't see them). So this is the whole point. It's all about your seeing the world, not its existence.

(The importance of this understanding may not be readily clear, I'm aware. It may even sound like a philosophical exercise. But it's immensely important even crucial especially in the LOA context. We simply can't master or deliberately create our reality without first and fully understanding what reality is, can we? Just my opinion anyway.)

Freya wrote:The moderators have graciously already approved the colour change, but I believe Admin has not been around to set it up yet.

@Lotus , I know that there's very little chance that you'd have time to do this yourself, and obviously no chance before Christmas as we are all in the midst of our own festive galaxies. But if you happen to be online before Dec. 31st and have time to set it up, in the Admin control panel you select Display > Pictures and Colors > Colors > Background Colors > Header Background Color. Then insert #e6F6F6 and save. It should only take a minute.

(O Lord my God; O save me according to thy mercy!)


What are you talking about???
The background IS #e6f6f6, NOT white.
The Admin had two jobs and I believe she did both already, in the same one visit many hours ago: Replace "Merry Christmas" on the front page with "Santa" option 1 AND change the header white background to #e6f6f6, upon your request. So it's already #e6f6f6, right now, and it's been since this Santa came out. No problem though; I'll check again later today.

lol the background doesnt look different, perhaps the forum has decided it wants to look white

and yes Lotus, we create our own reality, so Santa is very real, or unreal to everyone

Night Eyes wrote:lol the background doesnt look different, perhaps the forum has decided it wants to look white

and yes Lotus, we create our own reality, so Santa is very real, or unreal to everyone

I'm thinking that perhaps by the same token as Santa being real, the background colour has changed if you believe it has.

....but in my reality it's definitely still white lol

Haha, this must be a perfect example of everyone living in their parallel universe for some it is blue for some it is white    For me it is still white for example.

But Night, of course Santa is real, jeez how many sightings does there have to be for people to have enough proof
Here's the latest-


Thank you Freya, Night, Armine, Lotus and others for all your hard work to make forum pretty

i believe in santy claws

Nope sorry. Until Santa actually comes to the forum, I'm not believing in him, no matter how many times I see him in fire trucks or shopping centres.

Thanks everyone who helped organise the forum Christmas - which when you think of it is everyone, beginning with Night's secret something and our elves manufacturing designs (I should have said to Lotus - they just sent the top two care of me  ) and also including Pressie's help to make a Christmas Wishes thread, and everyone's festive contributions. I actually had another idea as well, but I think we already exhausted ourselves this year, so maybe next year.

Did you get coal in your stocking... you non believer

Coal? Me? 

I got a small lump of coal along with my other presents when I was about five and I was actually very hurt because I thought I'd been a good girl all year. I had been, it was later explained to me that I was meant to experience the novelty of it.

Aww beautiful, thanks Admin! I never thought you'd have time to do it during public holidays.

Thanks for all your work and wishing you a lovely festive season!

alright, Night, you've got three non-white options (or black or any solid color, if you so prefer):

1




2




3

If you're doing countdown what timezone will it follow?

I think Lotus said at the moment its set to London time

I like number 1 Lotus, but honestly... whatever's easiest for you and the Admins

I hereby submit the NYE banner Night requested



and matching filler image from Google:

Doesn't The Simplifier get a say in the countdown and banner?