The Tree of Life or Shajarat-al-Hayat, as it is called in Arabic, is a lonely mesquite tree that stands in the heart of Bahrain’s desert.
It stands alone, on top of a 25-foot-high sandy hill, at the highest point in Bahrain, miles away from another natural tree and with no apparent source of water. With 32 feet in height, it has continued growing-despite the extreme temperatures, lack of fresh water, and nutrients.
The tree is abundantly covered in green leaves. Due to its age and the fact that it is the only major tree growing in the area, the tree is a local tourist attraction and is visited by approximately 65,000 people every year. The yellow resin is used to make candles, aromatics and gum; the beans are processed into meal, jam, and wine.
It is not certain how the tree survives. Bahrain has little to no rain throughout the year. Its roots are 50 meters deep, which may be enough to reach the water. Others say the tree has learned to extract moisture from grains of sand. Some claim that the tree is standing in what was once the Garden of Eden, and so has a more mystical source of water.
In 2009, the tree was nominated to the New 7 Wonders of Nature list, but it did not finish on the list.
In October 2010, archaeologists unearthed 500-year-old pottery and other artefacts in the vicinity of the tree. A soil and dendrochronology analysis conducted in the 1990s concluded that the tree was an Acacia planted in 1582.
Here is a video if you want a closer look at it, it is in Indonesian, but they get some nice footage of the tree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl-w4FwoNWU
Megathreads and spaces to hang out:
- ❤️ Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube
- 💖 Come talk in the New Monthly queer thread
- 💛 Read about a current topic in the news
- ⭐️ October Movie Nominations ⭐️
reminders:
- 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
- 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes struggle sessions over upbears
- 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
- 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can go here nerd
- 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
- 💙Comprehensive list of resources for those in need of an abortion -- reddit link
- 💙Resources for Palestine
Theory:
- ❤️Foundations of Leninism
- ❤️Anarchism and Other Essays
- ❤️Mega upload with theory for many tendencies
:soypoint-1: :headshot: :dubya: :alzaidi-three-pointer: :soypoint-2:
It’s so funny to me how many times I’ve seen US lawmakers call tiktok a “pied piper”
Y’all really don’t remember what that story was actually about, do you? He kidnaps the children because the adults of the town screwed him over and refused to pay him for the services they requested.
The moral of that story has basically nothing to do with children, the moral of the pied piper is “pay your contractors”
As far as labor disputes go its hard to go harder than "I will use my magic flute to lure all of your children in to the river to drown, as specified in the penalty for non-payment clause of my contract".
Fr tho, I just finished The Conditions of the Working Class in England in 1844 and no one wants to talk about how awful shit was with me :angry-hex:
Anyway, I want to do something similar. I’m thinking a collaborative website with interviews, pictures, and data. Idk if I’ll make anything of this idea, but I think it would be cool to make a Conditions of the Working Class in the US in <current year> as a resource to show the worst conditions of society and radicalize people.
We get taught about the industrial revolution as this cool thing where they invented technology instead of a slow burning, decades long act of mass killing and enslavement.
Did you see that John Oliver a couple weeks ago about migrant farm workers in the U.S.A.? There is no moral consumption under capitalism.
My 2 year old attended a picket line with her mom this afternoon, and she’s currently going around our apartment saying “we had a picket line at school” over and over again :gaddafi-happy:
Get a stiffy but you're just trying to be friends, call that a Platonic Solid
my copy of the Communist Party of Kenya's book just came in! It's a thick ass boy and I'm excited to dig into it. I hope the CPK can turn my $25 into something good 🥰
My 14-year-old brother just came home talking about a fantasy football NFT game everyone in his class is playing
14-year-olds getting roped into gambling scams :yea:
constantly flipping between being jealous of how hot hasan is 😡 and in awe of how hot hasan is 😳
I mean it's ridiculous. I'm aroace and still go "fucking hell he's hot" every time I see him :azan:. Like normally every person basically looks the same to me, I don't care nor feel anything, but I notice that he's conventionally attractive every time
"if you think about it, " - man about to say the dumbest shit you've ever heard
Midjourney doesn't let you use twink as a prompt, AI art is dead to me
cloud-based AI can fuck off. stable diffusion is free and runs locally if your PC is powerful enough
My pc is not powerful enough but I will keep in mind for the future!
How about if you use a workaround like
2023 dandy. I know, I know - that's not the same thing at all. But it could be a start.A journey of 1,000 miles begins with you know the thing.
