On this day in 1865,

a contingent of Federal troops lead by Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston Texas to proclaim, to enforce the end of enslavement of black Americans.  Today is Juneteenth, a national day of remembrance.

I offer for your pondering along with me, these magnificent words from Nietzsche. 

The photos were captured at the Kentuckianna Pride Fest this past weekend.

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I welcome all signs
that a more virile, warlike age is about to begin,
which will restore honor to courage above all.

For this age
shall prepare the way for one yet higher,
and it shall gather the strength
that this higher age will require some day
–the age that will carry heroism into the search for knowledge
and that will wage wars
for the sake of
ideas and their consequences.

To this end
we now need many
preparatory courageous human beings
who cannot very well leap out of nothing,
any more than out of the sand and slime
of present-day civilization and metropolitanism

–human beings who know how to be silent,
   lonely,
      resolute,
         and content
            and constant in invisible activities;

human beings who are bent
on seeking in all things
for what in them must be overcome;
human beings distinguished as much by
cheerfulness,
   patience,
      unpretentiousness,
         and contempt for all great vanities
            as by magnanimity in victory
               and forbearance
regarding the small vanities of the vanquished;

human beings whose judgment concerning all victors
and the share of chance in every victory
and fame is sharp and free;

human beings with their own festivals,
their own working days,
and their own periods of mourning,
accustomed to command with assurance
but instantly ready to obey
when that is called for

–equally proud, equally serving
their own cause in both cases;
more endangered human beings,
more fruitful human beings,
happier beings!

For believe me:
the secret for harvesting from existence
the greatest fruitfulness
and the greatest enjoyment is
–to live dangerously!

Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius!
Send your ships into uncharted seas.
Live at war with your peers and yourselves!

Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and
possessors, you seekers of knowledge!

Soon the age will be past
when you could be content
to live hidden in forests like shy deer.

At long last the search for knowledge
will reach out for its due;

it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!*

–excerpt The Gay Science, Book 4, Section 283 by Friedrich Nietzsche

*THE QUOTED PASSAGE FROM THE GAY SCIENCE CONTENDS A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS IS CALLED FOR, WHICH DEMANDS STRUGGLE WITH THE STATUS QUO ATTITUDE OF INDIVIDUALISM, MY TRIBE UBER ALLES, AT THE EXPENSE OF ALL OTHERS.  EACH OF US CAN CHOSE TO SHARE THE NATION, AND SHARE THE EARTH WITH OTHERS WHO ARE NOT LIKE US…  BUT THEY ARE “US” BECAUSE THEY ARE HUMAN.  I MUST OVERCOME THE PAIN, RANCOR, AND BLAME WITHIN MYSELF.  THE WAR IS TO BE WAGED WITH MYSELF TO MAKE WAY FOR A NEW AGE, AN ERA OF MUTUAL RESPECT, REVERENCE FOR NATURE, CARE FOR EVERY LIVING THING BORN OF THE EARTH.