View allAll Photos Tagged Attuning
There is something quite lovely about the sensitivity of being attuned to beauty that is ephemeral and passing.
It reminds me of the loveliness of the rainbow, here, and gone.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Sunday! <3
Kiss that which you love, even if it seems unattainable; become closer with its familiarity without fear at the top of a ladder so that you don’t make the same mistake that Icaro did.
This is the only wall that will survive the renovation of Murcia’s Castillejo. -Sam3-
Two angels met one day in heaven above,
Two kindred souls attuned to perfect bliss,
Attracted by the subtle power of love
Lips greeted lips, and thus was born a kiss.
And since that time, on earth as in high heaven,
Whenever faithful lovers meet or part,
Fond lips touch lips, a fervent kiss is given
That seals the vows of each devoted heart.
When a Jedi scouting party was searching an asteroid belt in the Cularin System for Imperial installations, they stumbled upon a hollowed out rock with an unusually high organic signature. Upon entering they found a long-dead station, so old that even the automated defences, a hitherto unknown biomechanical system, were somnolescent.
Within were thousands of sleeping pods, all empty, living quarters so ancient that walls and furnishings crumbled to dust at the slightest touch, and then, right in the centre, held aloft by a gently writhing plinth of non-Newtonian fluid, a single, intact starfighter.
The fighter, a bizarre object with a twin V-shaped hyperdrive armature and very pointy primary weapons, was gently removed and shipped back to the quarantine level of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. It resisted all attempts at taking samples or opening. Its material seemed softly organic to the touch but immediately developed a preternatural toughness as soon as any tool was brought close.
The V-Wing remained impregnable and unassailed for several months until it was moved to the Jedi museum on the main temple level. Master Yoda happened by, accompanied by Pokludix Zaa. The starfighter immediately reacted, the transparent, globe-like cockpit suddenly dematerialising and the green tentacular structures within seemingly beckoning to Pokludix.
Master Yoda himself said very little, simply, “Hmmm? Hm. Errhhhm.” And then, after a few more moments of green tentacular beckoning towards Zaa, “Pokludix, to fly it perhaps this starfighter wants you. Perhaps somehow attuned to its systems you are. Yes, hmmm.”
Zaa tentatively approached and placed himself within the pilot’s seat. The green tentacles eveloped him in a gentle embrace, and then morphed themselves into an organic safety harness. The globular cockpit rematerialized and then the whole ship began to hum. And then…
My final build for the Alphabet Fighter contest at FBTB.
Name: Jon/John (last name unrevealed due to wanting change of identity)
Aliases: Lord Salient, The Energy
Age: 34
Affiliation: Villain, independent, has his own army
Profile: Salient is a potential future version of Multi Sharp who resides in a unnamed alternate dimension (much similar to the Reverse-Flash/Savitar).
Jon faced multiple losses after a mass destruction that affected the entirety of America, and in the process, damaged half his neck. He did not intend to rebuild the Flickr Fighters and sought out any remaining, alive ones who would join him. Building his fortune and remaking a new business empire after his grandfather’s failures, he kept steady, but a downside was his insanity because of guilt. Jon still kept his intelligence to a degree after meditation, but became cold, ruthless, dominant and sometimes arrogant. Jon also went on to adopt the “Salient” mantle, implying he had given up the past, as he shaved his hair and improved his eyesight through surgery.
He seeks to conquer other dimensions and kill various Multi Sharps across the universe, slaying most except for his biggest enemy, the prime, original Sharp who he was defeated once. Alongside Exo, this dimension’s Rongzero as his right hand man, he lusts for vengeance, power and will not stop at any cost to kill Sharp and rob his power.
Powers and abilities: Energy manipulation, construction and defense. After killing Ethereal and taking full control of the energies, he managed to strip away of his technology and persona as a whole, using his intelligence to build a new suit and weapons for himself. Such examples include the generation of energy holes—white and black. He is a adept combat fighter, businessman, and still retains his skills as a agent.
Equipment: Armoured suit, upgraded vests/gear, a energy sword that partially helps channels his powers after giving up the invisibility arm (sacrificed it for his powers). Has stealth tech and spy gadgets imbued with his suit and tactical gear/weapons. Neck has been laced for protection.
Weaknesses: His sanity, which can slip. Is bipolar. Neck damage has caused 1/3 of his vocal cords to be unrepairable. His stories can be unreliable when he makes claims or has made up stories, which attunes to make him think it is real.
Pentri's duty was to protect the Fe-Matoran of Nynrah, but lacking a Turaga's leadership and chastising the Nynrah Ghosts' involvement in the creation and retailing of deadly weapons, she soon decided to spend her life in reclusion, meditating, training herself and attuning her mind to the elements around her. Everything changed when Makuta Kuperix was sent to the island of Nynrah in order to dispose of the Ghosts; Pentri had no choice but to engage the menace in order to protect the lives of her tribe.
Pentri, despite her overwhelming amount of physical strenght and durability, lacks practical combat experience. She's been an hermit for most of her life, but is very sociable and friendly. She has strong values and condemns violence, but her lack of guidance and her headstrong nature rarely allow her to come to moral compromises. She is equipped with a Kanohi Pakari and a pair of devastating Jackhammer Claws, and she can harden her outer armor using her elemental powers.
While my wife was at the Arizona Bar Association Conference, I took a photo trip to the San Diego Japanese Friendship Garden. From prior experience I knew to get here early before the crowds and to catch some early light.
"A Japanese Garden is at once a picture and a poem; perhaps even more a poem than a picture." Lafcadio Hearn
The mission of the Japanese Friendship Garden Society of San Diego (JFG) is to develop a traditional Japanese garden as a center to educate, engage, and inspire people of diverse backgrounds about Japanese culture and community legacy.
JFG is an accredited museum that offers a variety of educational programs, exhibits, and cultural festivals to enhance appreciation and understanding of Japanese culture. Over 330,000 visitors from the United States and internationally attend the garden annually. JFG opened to the public in 1991 and is an expression of friendship between San Diego and its sister city, Yokohama. The garden is inspired from centuries-old Japanese design and techniques that showcase JFG’s living exhibition comprised of plants and florae native to Japan and San Diego. The second phase opened in 1999 and was designed by renowned landscape architect Takeo Uesugi, which included the addition of the Exhibit Hall, Activity Center, and Upper Koi Pond. The third phase, completed in 2015, incorporated a 200 cherry tree grove, large azalea and camellia garden, a water feature reminiscent of the San Diego watershed, and the state of the art Inamori Pavilion. Today, JFG resides on 12 acres and fosters a relationship between humans and nature, providing a respite attuned to Japanese simplicity, serenity, and aestheticism.
lajollamom.com/japanese-friendship-garden-san-diego/#h-5-...
1. Pause Before You Walk In
There are a couple of important things to note about the entrance to the Japanese Friendship Garden (JFG).
The first is that its gate opens toward Yokohama. Also, the gate serves as a place where you leave stress and evil behind to enter a place of peace and tranquility.
If facing the gate, to the right you’ll see the Entrance Stone with kanji characters that say San-Kei-En, which means Three Scene Garden (pastoral, mountain, and water). JFG was named San-Kei-En by its designer, Landscape Architect Takeshi Ken Nakajima, in 1985. This stone was donated by the San Diego Yokohama Sister City Society.
To the left of the gate, you’ll see a black Japanese pine tree. Pines trees are auspicious in Japanese culture and symbolic of longevity. There are others growing throughout the garden.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Friendship_Garden_(Balboa_Park)
The Japanese Friendship Garden, also known as Sankei-en ( 三渓園 ) is a twelve-acre Japanese garden located within Balboa Park in San Diego, California. It is an expression of friendship between San Diego and its Japanese sister city Yokohama that binds the two cultures to create a unique experience for visitors from all over the world; over 240,000 people from across the United States and the world visit the garden annually. Representing a new concept in the development of a Japanese garden outside Japan, the Japanese Friendship Garden is designed to present an atmosphere of elegant simplicity (shibui) and quiet beauty. The garden's naturalistic design is guided by the original principles/techniques of the Japanese garden while incorporating elements of the regional San Diego landscape and climate; in terms of features, the garden is well-known for its unique placement, sukiya-style buildings, koi ponds, and landscape exhibits. The Japanese Friendship Garden also hosts many local educational programs, activities, festivals, and horticultural classes that focus on the relationship between nature and Japanese culture.[1]
The Japanese Friendship Garden was built and continues to be maintained under the philosophy that, "a garden is always in a state of change but the basic elements of trees, shrubs, rocks and water designed in natural balance create a peaceful, harmonious, and transcendental environment conducive to contemplation and meditation."[2]
San Diego 2023
DSC04375 LR Entry
except not staying within a closed heart, true happiness is always there within, but enlarged and felt, when an action full of heart is attuned; and your happiness becomes an endearing one to others, if the intimate workings of the heart is full of eterna innocence.
Pentri's duty was to protect the Fe-Matoran of Nynrah, but lacking a Turaga's leadership and chastising the Nynrah Ghosts' involvement in the creation and retailing of deadly weapons, she soon decided to spend her life in reclusion, meditating, training herself and attuning her mind to the elements around her. Everything changed when Makuta Kuperix was sent to the island of Nynrah in order to dispose of the Ghosts; Pentri had no choice but to engage the menace in order to protect the lives of her tribe.
Pentri, despite her overwhelming amount of physical strenght and durability, lacks practical combat experience. She's been an hermit for most of her life, but is very sociable and friendly. She has strong values and condemns violence, but her lack of guidance and her headstrong nature rarely allow her to come to moral compromises. She is equipped with a Kanohi Pakari and a pair of devastating Jackhammer Claws, and she can harden her outer armor using her elemental powers.
So... been a little while since I’ve uploaded eh? So, yeah, here you go, an upload. Also, I know I’ve been posting quite a few of these drawings as of late, though I’m planning on posting some Lego stuff soon-ish, so yay!
Anyways, onto the drawing, this is a diagram of my magic system of Rivél (dang, I’ve been posting a lot of Rivél stuff as well. XD) But yeah, the magic system in Rivél is a bit complicated, so I’ll just give you a basic run-down of it.
It’s quite similar to the magic of Avatar, the Last Airbender (look it up if you don’t know) except there’s two more elements (wood and metal,) these elements are represented by a symbol. Magic users can use any of these elements, though they are all naturally attuned to one specific element. These elements can be separated into ‘sub-elements.’
The elements may also be combined, creating new elements, such as fire, lighting, and electricity.
Magic users can use magic because of a special ‘life power’ (still need a name for it,) and if you guys would like, I’ll post another diagram explaining how that works.
And... that’s my brief magical explanation. Hope you guys don’t mind these more story-ee posts, because I quite like posting stuff like this.
This evening, a day or two before the super full moon, I found myself on a high mesa completely alone, with a view below of one of the most magical scenes imaginable. I had the place to myself for the entire night, with no human sounds or sights whatsoever. Technically, it is outside the national park, and part of the Bureau of Land Management, which meant camping was available anywhere. There was no wind, no sound, and the silence was unnerving at times during the night, as I became attuned to the sound of my own body. I listened to my heart, my breathing, and the relentless buzz of my own ears. So strange.
Optic illusions anyone?
Check Mate, or Checkmate as it was called in 1975, was a glorious maxi-dress made of rather thick fabric interlacing silver threads and orange velvet to create a powerful pattern that seem to change when she moves.
The cute handbag was attuned to match both the frock and the pearl necklace, just as the silver braided handle matched the headband (this one being a replica).
Sold with white daisy sandals.
*****************
Me: Check Mate? Sounds Australian to me. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate with Check Chum or Check Partner?
Sindy: Let me counter with this question; Can you see the pattern?
Me: Naturally, lot's of boxes, to be checked I suppose.
Sindy: Very amusing my dear. No, it's a checkered design, hence checkmate. As in chess.
Me: Hold on! (Fetching my encyclopedia) *Reading* Ahem, When a king is attacked, it is called check. A checkmate (also known as "mate") occurs when a king is placed in check and has no legal moves to escape.
Sindy: And your point being?
Me: Weren't you on your way to meet Paul?
Sindy: Ha ha, touché! Or should I say, checkmate Paul?
Cape Perpetua in the fog.
There's something magical about walking in a forest during a morning fog. The promise of sunshine peaks through the tips of the trees whilst the droplets cling to the ferns and understory layers. Jewels of mist gather on stray tendrils of hair around my face and it feels so mystical to see the muted shades of green and brown hidden in a veil of mist. One's senses become attuned to sounds rather than sights and the scents of the forest become more acute as well. Nature offers the best cathedrals, I think.
Light on Granite. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell - all rights reserved.
A gesture of light falls across an irregularity in the granite face of a Yosemite cliff.
There is a tendency for people to regard the landscape as a fixed and even a permanent thing. The mountain will be there when you go back to it in a year or ten or a hundred, so the photograph "captures" a thing that is unchanging. This is, of course, incorrect, and on multiple levels. Supposedly permanent things change constantly — in fact, the forms by which we know them today are the result of profound forces of change that are ongoing. (One reason that climbers wear helmets is that rocks fall...) But changes on much shorter scales are of tremendous interest to those who photograph (or just like to view) than landscape. They range from annual (what is it like [i]this[/i] year?) to seasonal. Some of them obviously occur on a daily basis — and photographers think about those a lot. Light and atmosphere vary in profound and often remarkable ways.
In so many cases, timing is everything. For some, calculating that timing is a key. I just read a friend's report on a night photograph that he had "figured out" over a year ago — it required him to be in a certain place during a narrow window of time with conditions that were just right. I am impressed! For others — including my friend — even more critical is being attuned to what is happening right now or in the next few minutes or hours and then being ready to respond. I share all of this here with this photograph as the effect of light on this granite face was tremendously transitory. The time between the bulk of the face falling into shadow (and leaving the thin strip in sun) and the complete loss of light was perhaps measured in seconds, and certainly little more than a minute. (This is another photograph from my artist-in-residency sponsored by Yosemite Renaissance this past winter and spring.)
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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, "California's Fall Color: A Photographer's Guide to Autumn in the Sierra" is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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You don't get many opportunities for photographing a wild wolf, but I had the good fortune of doing just that! It's amazing attune they can be to their environment - its even more amazing how they can slip away without a making a noise.
Is this what it boils down to? I found this, well, old fashioned blackboard in the main street of Airlie Beach, tempting some people to make rather inane commentaries on their lives, others sound like great goals. Maybe I misjudge, perhaps they were all grey nomads. I have had to disguise parts of the shot a bit, it did contain some X rated comments and I am attuned to the sensitivities that can occur. I will leave judgements and thoughts to your own minds, apart from the above.
There are a few glimmers of hope there. I must be getting old and stodgy, many years ago I would have probably added my bit! Ah, there was space but no chalk, probably removed to be COVID safe!
Background
www.flickr.com/photos/brenda-starr/4472201611/in/set-7215...
Texture
www.flickr.com/photos/lenabem-anna/5395004401/in/set-7215...
Model
intergalacticstock.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=120#/d1...
====================================================================♥
Come to the dance in Circle…. ♫ ☼ ♫ ☼ ♫ ♥ ƸӜƷ
====================================================================♥
Come to the dance we step in a circle
Dance to the earth and your soul attune
Come with a sing for the love of the Mother
Sing with the voice of the rising moon
Come to the dance we do for the Old Ones
Dance into space and time apart
Send up the call to those who will hear it
Arise all you of the Pagan heart
Away we'll go to the rhythm of the pounding night
So we flow from darkness into light
We may dream from awakening into trance
So it seems as we all come to the dance....(Esmerald Rose)
***********************************************************************************************☼
Utrecht Maraton accross the city, passing in front of the Schröder House
Designed by Gerrit Rietveld in 1924. A private residence until 1985.
Architectural highlight of De Stijl and iconic
landmark in Utrecht.
In 1924, Truus Schröder asked well-known Utrecht furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld to design a new house for her. A recently widowed mother of three, she wanted a dwelling completely attuned to her – and to her unconventional ideas about what a home should be. Having worked with Rietveld in the past, she knew his disdain for tradition. It was a match made in heaven.
Schröder played an important role in the design process. She knew exactly what she wanted: simplicity and a space that freed rather than constrained her.
Source: www.rietveldschroderhuis.nl/en
---------------
Utrecht Marathon door de stad, langs het Schröderhuis
Ontworpen door Gerrit Rietveld in 1924. Bewoond tot 1985.
Architectonisch hoogtepunt van De Stijl en icoon
in de stad Utrecht.
In 1924 vraagt Truus Schröder de bekende Utrechtse meubelontwerper Gerrit Rietveld of hij haar nieuwe woonhuis wil ontwerpen. De moeder van drie kinderen is net weduwe geworden en wil een huis dat helemaal voldoet aan haar eigenzinnige woonideeën. Ze kent Rietveld al van een eerdere samenwerking en weet dat ook hij zich afzet tegen tradities. Een perfecte combinatie.
Rietveld en Schröder werken samen aan het ontwerp van het huis. Schröder weet precies wat ze wil: soberheid en léven in plaats van geleefd worden.
Bron: www.rietveldschroderhuis.nl/nl/rietveld-schroderhuis?set_...
Winter ineffably attunes the senses. Cold culls bright colors of previous seasons, leaving the hungry eye to find pleasure in sublimely nuanced red and green complements. All the while 11 bald eagles chatter to one another as they disperse this year's salmon nutrients back to the soil, transmuting red to green.
PRINTS: pierre-leclerc.artistwebsites.com/featured/aloha-pierre-l...
All you need is Aloha!
Aloha in the Hawaiian language means affection, love, peace, compassion and mercy but is more widely used as greetings, hello and goodbye.
The Aloha Spirit is a well known reference to the attitude of friendly acceptance for which the Hawaiian Islands are so famous. However, it also refers to a powerful way to resolve any problem, accomplish any goal, and to achieve any state of mind or body that you desire.
In the Hawaiian language, aloha stands for much more than just "hello" or "goodbye" or "love." Its deeper meaning is "the joyful (oha) sharing (alo) of life energy (ha) in the present (alo)."
As you share this energy you become attuned to the Universal Power that the Hawaiians call mana. And the loving use of this incredible Power is the secret for attaining true health, happiness, prosperity and success.
A week later and another trip to Slimbridge on the 1st of April.
The Juvenile Spoonbill was putting in a great appearance again as it worked its way along the edge of the Tack Piece Lagoon.
Spoonbills are relatively rare breeding birds in the UK, but their numbers are increasing. They are most often found along coastal sites in southern and eastern England. The main stronghold for breeding spoonbills in the UK is Holkham Nature Reserve in Norfolk.
Spoonbills are named after their bizarre spatula-like bill. Generally feeding in flocks, they swing their slightly open beaks from side to side through shallow pools of water. Their remarkable bill is packed full of sensors attuned to the tiniest vibrations, and once located, unlucky beetles, crustaceans, worms, small fish, tadpoles and frogs stand no chance of escape.
Drawn from the Origin of Mind, attuned to Ancient Relics: The Harbinger.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M_W8bGZt94
Visit this location at Remnants of Earth // Roleplaying Game // Dawn Colony in Second Life
Abandoned. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Abandoned vehicles at a desert mining site.
When you travel even a bit in the desert landscape (at least the California version that I know) you will come across evidence that you are not the first visitor. The original residents left behind fragile, compelling, and sometimes beautiful evidence in the form of rock art. (Treat them with respect, leave them as you found them, and don’t share their locations.) Later immigrants left traces that seem less attuned to the nature of the place. But over time, as they weather and degrade, they start to almost seem to be part of the landscape, and they make us pause and imagine coming to such a place to live and work. (Surprisingly, perhaps, some of these sites are only decades old.)
A bit of exploration in Death Valley National Park reveals many examples. Some, like this one, are not hard to find, and they may feel like intrusions in the landscape. Others are more remote and sometimes not immediately obvious. One of the most powerful experiences I had in this landscape came on my first visit years ago, when I wandered up a large fan and sat on a rock to rest. I happened to look down and notice one stone among the others — one that had been shaped for a purpose many years ago. I picked it up, turned it over in my hands, and tried to imagine the life of the person whose hands had shaped it. I put it back where I found it and returned to camp.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
Attune
Installation et performance d'Alexandra Pirici (Bucarest, 1982)
dans le hall central de la Hamburger Bahnfof, Galerie d'art contemporain, Berlin
Avec Attune, Alexandra Pirici transforme le hall central de la Hamburger Bahnhof en un paysage vivant dans lequel les performeurs explorent l’émergence de structures complexes issues de sons, de mouvements, de réactions chimiques et physiques. L’artiste invite les visiteurs à appréhender la magie et l'intelligence de la matière auto-structurée, qu’elle soit organique ou inorganique, et à apprécier la réalité de notre monde vibrant...Attune incarne en ce sens un continuum entre le vivant et le non-vivant – entre la matière dite « inerte » et la matière biologique... Extrait du site Audemars Piguet Contemporary
www.audemarspiguet.com/com/fr/news/art/alexandra-pirici-a...
Hamburger Bahnhof, Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin
www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/hamburger-bahnhof/...
A skilled tracker and sharpshooter, Rakau fiercly protects not only the plantlife she is elementally attuned to, but Rahi and other wildlife as well. Together with her tamed Visorakling named Reka, she acts as the Toa Motu's scout and ranged supporter.
--- The Toa Motu ---
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More images: www.instagram.com/p/C6XBFK1NHzF/
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Aaaaand that's six for six! The team is finally complete - this was a really fun project to work on and was nice, consistent moccing "comfort food". I plan to follow up with some outdoor group shots, and maybe after a bit of a break will whip up a villain for the Toa Motu to face off against, but for now the project is complete! There's just something very satisfying about a team of six colour coded elemental heroes with similar body types...
I trust
I feel
I love
I heal
In a brief lull of Storm Ciara I had my Reiki attunement. This place choose me. In the middle of the woods I found a bronze age stone, which had a spiral carved at the head. I knew this was where I would have my attunement. I had gone there to take photographs the day before in the fog. I wished for sunbeam. I stumbled across the stone first. Everything flowed naturally. It was full moon, the snow moon.
Towards the end of March I made another trip to Slimbridge, Gloucestershire.
This Juvenile Spoonbill continued to have a flap around.
Spoonbills are relatively rare breeding birds in the UK, but their numbers are increasing. They are most often found along coastal sites in southern and eastern England. The main stronghold for breeding spoonbills in the UK is Holkham Nature Reserve in Norfolk.
Spoonbills are named after their bizarre spatula-like bill. Generally feeding in flocks, they swing their slightly open beaks from side to side through shallow pools of water. Their remarkable bill is packed full of sensors attuned to the tiniest vibrations, and once located, unlucky beetles, crustaceans, worms, small fish, tadpoles and frogs stand no chance of escape.
If I had had more attuned senses I might have got this shot in full sun as the 90 was fully lit in the next field south of where I was standing. If I had ran 70 or so yards I might have got it but then I might have missed it altogether, which was my initial line of reasoning for not moving (I was also hoping that the advancing sun would get here in time but was it was fractionally too late). Annoyingly it was a complete 180 degree rainbow a couple of minutes later but I would have had the wrong lens on the camera for that anyway....
Chronicles of lifting Light C (The Reception Game)
The alternate version of Chronicles of lifting Light B ( Bridesmaids) - Album
“The wedding was a little over the top. The bride wanted her girl’s dresses to be something they would wear out again. A nice thought, but the gowns she found were a little too long for anything but formal evening wear, according to our girls who were asked to be part of the bridal party. The maid of honor wore a red silk version; the six Bridesmaids wore theirs in black satin.”
“A few years ago, “Ginny” was watching some type of show when I heard her squeal out. Our Golden Retriever ‘Sam’ meandered back in to see what all the fuss was about? I obediently followed. Ginny pointed out to me a model who was wearing fetchingly a long black satin gown, That’s m’ gown Ginny exclaimed, you remember, the one I wore at “Sheila’s” wedding, the one where my necklace was.., But at that point her attention was diverted back to her program. Squirrel I teased as Sam and I watched with her.
It was a gown strikingly very similar in colour, cut, and material to the one worn by Ginny ( and me sister) at a chums wedding years before ( and winningly worn several times hence I might add). It is a pretty thing to behold my charming Ginny sporting it, and in its time, it has born witness to a few goings on that most ladies wearing a gown like that would never encounter…….”
Chronicles of lifting Light C
*************************************** **************************************** *****
This story is true, and is really pretty much told as it happened.
What we did may sound daft, but read and understand the circumstances, plus realize we all were pretty well lit up with drink.
I have enhanced certain aspects of the story, but not as much as on my first draft, for that one came out sounding more farfetched than it should have.
For indeed, truth can be stranger than fiction… and coincidences occur, both sweet and bitter….. as I’m sure someone once said.
So here goes it….
My twin sister and our friend “Ginny” were invited to join in a school chums bridal party. The groom didn’t have enough to go around so my sister’s boyfriend “Brian” and I were pressed, not unwillingly, into service.
At the reception my Ginny made a comment about the flimsy clasps on the rhinestone jewelry they were wearing. My Sister, touched her necklace, told her, “ no worries, luv, no one would nick them anyways, they are only rhinestones”. Except my ring isn’t, said Ginny looking down at the ruby ring she was wearing on her pinky. My sister, thinking a minute, retorted “Then one never knows… “ , It looked like she was going to add something, but at that point the band restarted, and we joined the swarm of fancy gowns, silky dresses, suits and tuxes heading to the dance floor.
As we headed off, I was still perplexed about what had been going on in Sis’s head that made her come out with that reply, and I swear she had stolen a look at me while saying it. But as I had watched her pull at an earring to emphasize how loose the sparkling jewel was, a seed was planted in my head about a subject I myself had always found fascinating, pickpocketing jewelry!
Much later that evening, found Brian, me sister, and I alone, and probably more than a little drunk (always a precarious time with us). As Sis and Brain chatted on about a topic I had lost interest in, I started to watch Ginny, who had been asked to dance by some twit with shifty eyes in a red silk shirt, (open colored), who had rudely cut in on us. As I watched Ginny’s swishing gown move and flutter about in quite an interesting exhibition, I found meself mesmerized by the manner in which her healthy display of rhinestones were sparkling about( as they had been all evening). I looked back at my sister, and her own show of jewelry, sparkling up nicely against a black satin backdrop.
Still not being able to shake me twin’s earlier comment, nor its answer, out of my head about nicking jewels, I finally chanced asking my twin about her comments. She looked at me, having to think back a bit about the question, ( As I said, we were more drunk than sober by then), placing a nicely ringed finger to her lips, while regrouping her thoughts. Got it, she exclaimed proudly remembering what had triggered her memory, and started to explain.
When she was a tyke of about 7, there was a show that she had seen on the tele that centered on this group of people trying to reform a thief. Believing that he had turned a new leaf, they threw a fancy dance for him in honor of his new ways. During the dance, he cut in and danced with each of the three ladies who had been trying to teach him the errors of his ways. From one he slipped off her long diamond earrings, from a second her diamond necklace was lifted away, but me sister was unsure what the scoundrel took from the third. Sis thought that the earrings and necklaces that she and Ginny were wearing that evening, looked a lot like the ones from that show.
Now, as me twin described the thief’s antics, certain emotions awakened, rearing their tantalizing heads; my mind began wandering in some deep waters, pulled bout by some deep personal emotions. Cause I had been sitting on the couch with her, when as quite young children, we had first seen that episode.
As it happened my sister had been outside earlier playing dress up in on of mum’s old party gowns and was still wearing it, along with a set of costume pearls. Suddenly, that day, I wanted nothing more in the world than to lift the pearls she was wearing. I simmered over it for the rest of the program, getting to the point of actually laying my arm on the back of the couch, inching my fingers towards the clasp of her pearls laying there upon the back of her throat. But then the show ended, and I got no closer to stealing anything more than a touch of a really soft old evening gown. After the show ended, I warily suggested we go back outside and play Robin Hood (my sister has always been into his story).
We did, and as Sir Robin led her to his hideout, conveniently located through a thicket of Hawthorne’s, the pretty Maid Marion’s pearls mysteriously melted away.
That is when I had I had my epiphany, hitting me like a brick wall! Waiting till sis finished her story, I pointed out to Ginny, and asked the pair, If Ginny had been the third lady he had danced with, what jewelry do you think he would have lifted from her while dancing?
Brian , always the more pragmatic of the group, snorted, that’s stuff that only happens in stories and movies. I said I would bet it can be done, a quid says I can lift a piece of Ginny’s jewelry with her never noticing. Sis chimed in, you wouldn’t dare, but she was looking at me like she knew the answer already. Brian caught her tone, and took me up on it, betting me the quid that I couldn’t get away with lifting her necklace,( I liked his choice, it had been a necklace that “Sir Robin” had first lifted from me sisters neck that day in the woods long past).
At this time the music ended, and Ginny swished back to rejoin us. We drank and talked for a bit more, and I’m was all but certain Brian and my sister had all but forgotten the wager. But I hadn’t, nor had I been able to keep my eyes from studying the rhinestones Ginny had wrapped around her pretty throat. When a slow song started up, I rose and asked Ginny to a dance. I caught Brian’s eyes, and read the dare reflecting in them, so we were still on with the wager. Leading Ginny to the dance floor, we embraced, and danced to the pretty song, a slow one. Ginny was absolute pure heaven in my arms, and I found me self so entrapped that I never made an attempt upon her lovely rhinestone necklace.
As the song was ending, I caught a look from Brian across the dance floor, noticing that he smugly was looked at Ginny’s throat. I did not want to lose me quid on principle (I swear), so as the dance ended I held onto Ginny, waiting. Soon a second song started, disappointedly a more fast paced one with a Latin beat. I spun Ginny around onto the floor before she had time to catch a breath, we danced, like the song says:
And we… danced like a wave on the ocean, romanced
We were liars in love and we danced
Swept away for a moment by chance
And we danced, danced, danced
And dance we did, hot, furious and fast. A couple of times I spun Ginny around, and the poor girl already a bit tipsy, fell against me, giggling. About the third time I spun her, she stopped, and dropped backside into me and began to do this sort of gyrating move, slithering up and down my front side, with her hands held high above her head, her longish ginger hair had fallen over one shoulder, exposing her necklace in all its fine brilliance. As her warm, sweaty figure slipped up and down against mine, I watched the back of her throat, eyeing the necklace as it sparkled brilliantly in the dim lights. Studying intently the sparkly chain with it’s the hook in eye clasp.
She brought her hands down behind me back, crossing them behind me waist. My right hand went to the front of her waist, holding onto her squirming, satin slippery figure, pressing it tightly against me. My left hand went up to her shoulder, gliding along the glossy slick fabric of her black satin gown, until I reached her necklace. It only took seconds for my fingers to lift, and slip off the hook from its”eye” , letting the shimmering chain slither down the front side of Ginny’s satin clad breasts. My right hand left her waist, and travelled nimbly, tingling, all the way up the front until my fingers grasped the dangling chain. My left hand let go, and the necklace whisked down the front of her perking bosom, tightly covered by the glossy black satin bridesmaid gown. The whole bit of thievery took me only a few chords of the music, but it seemed a lot longer in the process. We finished out the song, me basking in the fact that my gyrating partner was innocently unaware that her shiny necklace was absent from around her throat, and now resided in her dance partners vest pocket.
We made our way back to the others, Brian had a smug look on his bearded face, I knew he was up to something. As I sat down, he whispered double it or nothing mate, that she notices it’s missing before we leave. I nodded, taking him up on it. So, the game was still on, and for the last two hours that we stayed at the reception, Brain waiting for Ginny to notice her missing necklace, I tried to distract her as much as I could, even with me sister constantly played with her necklace whenever she held Ginny’s attention, but the poor creature never caught on that her necklace had been lifted.
We finally left the reception after midnight and made our way along the ten city blocks back to the hotel where Ginny and my sister shared a joining room with Brian and meself. Ginny walked calmly with us, unaware of the devils that were us, keeping pace beside her. As were making our way through a short cut in a wooded Provincial park, we stopped in a small isolated glen and circled around Ginny. Sis was grinning as she asked poor unawares Ginny, So luv, whatever did happen to your necklace? Gin’s reaction was absolutely, rewardingly priceless.
Ginny, a relatively innocent soul, who is prone to believing most anything told to her, started, and her hand went to her throat, feeling about fruitlessly, as her rustling glossy gown and remaining jewels glistened dark in the full moons’ light. “M’ necklace, why it’s gone? , where did it go!, she pleaded helplessly, her thought patterns and speech a little slurred by her rather intoxicated condition. We than got into it, playing dumb along with her, and tried to figure out the “mystery” I said the last time I saw it was when that seedy bloke cut in, and I ran my hand up her back, feeling the shivers going down her spine, did the blighter touch you like that, then luv. No she said, then thought hard, no she repeated, he couldn’t have, he was a proper gentleman, and it was only rhinestone, like your sister said. My sister commented that the bloke may have not noticed no difference, and she held out her own necklace, I’m glad the bloke didn’t ask me to dance. No, Ginny shook her head, her long earrings flickering a frenzied fire out from her hair, no one could have lifted them like that, I’d have felt it….
She looked desperately around at us, then seeing the look on upon our faces, Ginny froze with the realization that we had all been up to something, and, then a smile of relief showed up on her pretty face, as I held up her necklace, sparkling in front of her eyes. A sly look of understanding that we had been up to something crept into those dazzling green eyes , as she told us now to spill it out.
We explained the whole tale as sis helped Ginny place her necklace back on. Ginny, with her usual good humor, said she had never noticed a thing, and it probably was a good thing we weren’t real thieves, because if her necklace had been real, it would have been worth a small fortune. And shame on us for having her believe it was that poor blighter in the red shirt.
We wouldn’t’ make very good thieves I agreed we drink too much. She just smiled, a curious gleam creeping up into those witchy green eyes of hers. Let’s get going before we meet a real thief then, urged my sister, all this talk about someone thinking our jewels are real is giving me the chills.
Our drunken little group then merrily, if not a little more guardedly, made our way home..
This next bit is my favorite.
We rode the elevator up to the boy’s room, as the girls called our room, where we drank beer, danced to music and talked on a bit about the reception. The girls stayed in dress and I happily soaked up the pretty picture the pair of admirably attractive girls presented with their long sheets of straight hair just hanging down, their diamonds sparkling and all other assorted frills enticing. About two hours later found Brian and myself sitting on the couch in kind of a hazy stupor while holding onto our beers. Ginny and my sister were standing directly in front of us, holding beers of their own and giggling over some girlish nonsense, the swaying of their long glossy black satin gowns slowly putting me to sleep.
Brain, draining a beer, got up to get another, bumping against my sister and playfully grabbing a handful. My sister started giggling at him as he sauntered off grinning, turning her figure so the brooch at the center of her gowns’ waistline almost hit me on the nose. Half asleep I reached over and lifted it up.
Looking up at the girls I saw that neither was paying no never mind towards me. Ginny, however, laid a hand on my twins shoulder, drawing her close so she could whisper some girlish secret about Brian. I continued on, and was able to undo the brooch, and slip it carefully off without notice. I slipped her jewel into my pocket; until I could think of what it was I was going to do with it to tease me twin sister.
Brian stopped on the way back and reset the music, a slow song. Sis went to him, and the pair started dancing. I rose and taking Ginny by the hand, followed suit, leading her to the bit of a dance floor we had cleared. She was again, pure heaven in my arms as my hands slipped liberally up and down her smooth, slinky gowned figure. Ginny smiled, I knew that smile, and realized that something was going on behind her pretty green eyes. She flicked back her sheet of ginger hair, and leaned against me. I saw you, she whispered, her voice putting a tickle in my ear. Saw me I asked, not getting it. I saw you lift that dame’s diamond brooch, Ginny said in a sultry voice as she looked over towards where my sister was dancing, (no, she was actually swooning), in Brian’s arms. You see that one over there, in the black dancing with the bearded gent? I looked over, as she continues, look at ‘er necklace, I have a fancy for it, and if you don’t want me to call security, I suggest you get it for me, darling, she said, like she was some old time actress in a movie. I loved the devilishness of Ginny’s role play idea and threw me whole heart and soul into it.
Check out the Sonia clip shortcut at the end of my tale( recommend viewing)
Now wide awake, I got fully into Ginny’s game. As we continued dancing my eyes watched Brian and me sister, taking careful inventory of all her sparkling jewelry. Sis turned, and caught my eyes looking her over, she blushed, and not knowing what was really going through my mind, smiled at me. As I smiled back, my eyes drinking her fetchingly attired figure up, I was imagining that all of her ample collection of rhinestones so prettily positioned on her figure, were real diamonds. And that I was an actual thief after her lovely sparklers. I looked into Ginny’s eyes. You have a deal miss, I whispered, making my voice deep and throaty, as I imagined meself as Humphrey Bogart type character in some shadowy film noir movie.
The song ended and a second, even slower one began playing. Brian and my sister were still locked into each other’s arms, but I felt that the time to make my move was now. Throwing Ginny a wink, I went over and cut in, Brian looked drunkenly at me like “whattsup chap,” but Ginny was right behind and swirled him away before he could properly react.
And as I took the pretty, wide eyed with innocence looking “dame” into my arms I found it exciting that she was oblivious to my intentions. Naïvely unaware, that in indifference to her own words earlier, someone did now want to nick the jewelry so merrily dangling from her svelte figure. Don’t forget at this point she was no longer my sister, but my sweet victim, and I was nothing more than a thief hungering after her bright baubles, albeit, a slightly inebriated thief!
I bided my time, appearing to look into my twins half opened eyes ( she was really lit by this time, as we all were) , my mind was working overtime on how to best approach my objective.
Employing the same method that the thief had used in the Gilligan’s Island episode to remove his dance partners necklace, I began to compliment my twin on how devastating her and Ginny looked both looked that evening (no lies), slowly moving my one hand up the slick material of the gown covering her back until I reached the dangling part of her hook and eye necklace with its’ glittering row of single “diamonds”. She ate it up, blushing and closing her eyes, tilting her head down, exposing even more of the back of her throat, and laying bare the chain of her “diamond” necklace. As she fawned over my words of (not false) praise, I subtly lifted up the chain of her necklace, holding her ever so her tightly around the waist. As I felt the heat emanating from her figure, I used my free left hands’ fingers to unhooked the clasp, and let the necklace fall over her one shoulder. Sis never felt it hanging, or noticed it as I peeled it off her chest (whisking along smooth as silk) and pulled it over her gown’s satin shoulder till it slipped sparkling down behind her. I held it hanging behind her back for a few turns, still pouring out the compliments, until I pocketed it, letting it join her purloined brooch.
Meanwhile, Brian had left Ginny to go to the loo, and I saw Ginny, who had been watching all of it, give me a wink. Then she turned and stole out the apartment door, her longish slinking gown slipping through behind her as she closed the door. I made ready to make some excuse to break away from my sister and head after her with my loot.
But just as I opened my mouth to make that excuse , Sis pulled her arms behind me head, and laid her own head back on my shoulder and closed her tired eyes, getting into the music’s deep beat. One of her longish rhinestone earrings just hung there sparkling, mocking me to touch it, and like Gingers diamonds, was ripe for the picking.
With the prize within my grasp, I momentarily forgot about the departing Ginny, and I made my move. I found meself trembling a bit, as I reached up and placed my hands gently alongside her ear, her eyes still shut, my victim smiled. The rest of the maneuver was surprisingly easy, as I glided my fingers down and slipped it off the earring in one effortless motion. The sparkling beauty came away from her sweaty ear as smoothly as an ice cube moves along a steaming hot grill ( I actually did have a thought like that). I held it in one fist for a bit, watching my victim, she had not felt so much as a tickle on her earlobe, as I had taken her earring. Relishing in my success, I looked at it dangling and shimmering in my hand behind her back. Then I secured her diamond away. I thought about trying for the other, but thought better of it, knowing Ginny was just waiting on the other side of the door.
I finished out the dance, taking my sisters hand with its dazzling bracelet and rings, and admired them while I kissed it. I’d better be off after Ginny I said, and then let go of her hand. Nice doing business with you I said, bemused as I watched the puzzlement creep into her eyes. That is how I left her.
However it was my turn to look puzzled as I went out, Ginny was nowhere to be seen. I quickly looked around, then headed to the elevator and rode down in it, alone at this early morning hour, to the lobby.
I arrived there, and at first the lobby appeared deserted, cept for a lonely desk clerk with her head buried in a novel. Then breathed a sigh of relief, there, around a corner, Ginny stood talking to some older lady wearing a garish grey pant suit, with this blue tinted helmet of curly hair covered by a large silk head scarf, and carrying an overlarge purse. I suddenly realized that now my anxiety had gone, another urge had taken its place. Ginny looked up, and smiles happily at me, and I smiled back, indicated that I had to go for a minute, and headed meself to the loo.
Coming out after I finished, I saw that the lobby was actually now really empty, not even the desk clerk was visible. Thinking Ginny may have gone back upstairs, I first went to the hotels double doors to chance a look outside onto the street below. I just caught sight of a wisp of black gown moving just out of sight past the stairs, on the now smoggy sidewalk below.
I headed out, and there was Ginny walking with the Blue haired stranger, they appeared to be looking for something. I started wondering if Ginny had invited this stranger to go on out walk with us? But no, apparently the blue haired lady in the unfortunate grey pantsuit had discovered her keys were missing, and thought they had dropped somewhere after getting out of a taxi just around the corner. And Ginny, bless her kind heated soul, had offered to help the distressed lady look for them.
As Ginny was telling me all this after I had caught up, the blue haired older lady , her cheerful face now stern, had started rummaging in her large shoulder bag, I sneaked a peek over her shoulder and saw that is contained quite an amazing assortment of items , ( no wonder it had to be so big). Suddenly she uttered an exclamation, found them she said, triumphantly pulling out an interesting assortment of skeleton type keys on a small ring. Happily smiling at Ginny, she pulled her into an enveloping hug for her efforts, before quickly leaving, but not without first giving me a sidelong glance with a disapproving look from her now pursed–lipped mouth as she passed. But I at the time put it down as her just being stressed out from believing she had misplaced her keys.
I am so glad she found her keys remarked Ginny, taking up me hand. That lady was ever so nice, she wanted to know where I had been dressed up all pretty like I am, and when I told her about the wedding, she said it must have been lovely. Then she admired me dress, and rhinestones. Then asked if me ruby ring was a gift from the bride. Liked your ring huh, I asked Ginny, my mind clearing up a little. Oh yes she said, lifted my hand, looked at it an everything!
Then the poor dear missed her keys, and asked if I could be a dear and help her look outside, and that was that until you showed up. (Looking outside for keys at 2:30 in the morning? I thought to myself) As I said ti Ginny, it is a pretty ring, and taking her arm, we started down the block together.
My mind, now somewhat attuned to the reality of things, went back to the blue haired lady and her large shoulder bag. Among some of various items I had seen had been a penknife, a length of old silk sash cord, small bundle of lacy handkerchiefs, and a small torch! Then add in the odd assortment of keys on her “misplaced” keyring, and put it all together, it all began to sum up to a new, slightly more sinister meaning of her intentions, in my take on the episode.
As we walked, I said nothing in reply to the happily chirping, richly attired girl walking beside me , as for the first time, and not the last, I wondered if something had been afoot with the Blue Haired, pursed mouthed lady that Ginny had seen as a kind older lady needed help, like the bird with a broken wing she had tried to help a few days past( a blue jay!). So was the blue haired lady, with the silk scarf and wearing a rather unisexual pantsuit, acting out the part of a “blue jay”, using her “broken wing” as a ruse to lure my Ginny safely away for her own nefarious reasons?
Surreptitiously, I carefully checked over Ginny from head to heeled toes as we walked, to make sure nothing was amiss. Her rhinestones were still safely all in their place, but I did not see the ruby ring, and me heart went still, and chills prickled down my spine! Bullocks! I swore under my breath, that pucker faced tart walked away with it. Ginny, I said, a little choked, she swirled facing me, her green eyes questioning, as she raised her hand to her perked breasts, and there it was, the small, but rather pricey, ruby ring she so loved wearing, the glittery darling had turned around on her finger so it was hidden from my view
.
I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, I just wanted to say how lovely you looked this evening my lass, I said saving myself. She smiled winningly, giving me a deep hug for my words. We walked on, as my beating heart slowed down, I convinced myself that maybe the incident of lost keys had all been harmless, and I was just being a worry-wort. I apologized silently for what I had called the fashion challenged blue haired lady in my mind. But I was still beginning to feel like ever a fool to have let Ginny, handsomely decked out as she was, out of my sight at this early hour of the morning.
I opened my mind and let all such thoughts flee my head, for the world was now ours, as we made our journey together, hand in hand. We ended up making a very long stroll in the Provincial Park, and reentering the same isolated, secret glen we had been in earlier, proceeded to continue acting out the role playing game we had started at the apartment.
Ginny went to the middle of the clearing to wait, pretending she was smoking, like a moll from a gangster movie. I circled and watched her sparkling figure, black in the glens shadows, move about a bit.
And as I did, my thoughts wondered a bit, and I remember reflecting ( not for the first time) how in the older black n whites, the heroine, or villainous, is always wearing gowns, elegant long gloves, and jeweled to the sparkling hilt. Then she walks alone to and then waits in some dark alley or other desolate spot for her contact, or hero to show up, much like Ginny was acting out now. So how is it that those fancy dressed and well jeweled unescorted dames, always manage to get to those spots, and are able to wait around in them alone, in those movies, and nary ever meet a ruffian who strips them of those pricy looking sparklers they are flaunting about? Just saying!
Saying a brief prayer that my thoughts were not tempting a fate of that type to occur to us now that I had been thinking it, I came out of the shadows and approached Ginny. Keeping my left hand in my pocket like I was carrying a heater. Hey sister, I said, been waiting long? No, she whispered, did you get the goods. Hot as ice I said proudly, producing the necklace and earring I had liberated from the dancing “dame”.
As I showed Ginny my take from “the dame”, she squealing over the fact I was able to take one of her diamond earrings, bonus she chanted. We laughed over what the “dames” reaction would be when the jewels were discovered missing. As we snickered, Ginny caught my eyes and then we got off on a tangent about jewel thieves in love, and ended up reenacting the “lure” scene from the movie ‘To Catch a Thief” ending up producing fireworks of our own making as Ginny lost all her jewels as well as her “innocence”.. We then made our way back home, as the cock crows, receiving a few odd looks from the occasional early morning lorry drivers.
And above all, I still remember feeling pretty bloody cocky as Ginny and I had sauntered our way to the park. And why not, I ask? Cause not only did I get to stroll about with the most captivating ginger haired lass, sparkling in fancy dress around, But I also had totally scored a hat trick in the jewelry lifting department, collecting two Quid to boot, and that’s what life is all about for us boys, winning the game, isn’t it?
So ends my story, of which I have written 2 versions.
My question is now this:
Which version, if one reads both, do you believe to be the truer?
Please leave a comment at the end of the story you believe is..
In appreciation,
Thank You
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In Appraisal
Tis story may be unique in its nature, but if not we would love to hear about it. Please leave a comment or drop an email ( or both) about you own experience.
Thank You
The Sonia clip shortcut ( recommend viewing)
youtu.be/HAZdjhNVjxk
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Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives
This last Autumn I had the chance to walk with my camera for about 2 hours in the picturesque Thera, the capital city of Santorini, one of the most beautiful and famous Greek Cyclades islands.
The day was cloudy and there was a certain serenity around, although there were a lot of tourists as always. What really struck me, was that I discovered other colors around in the traditional architecture, apart from blue and white!!
You can read right here why Santorini and the most of the Aegean Sea Greek islands are mostly dressed in blue and white :
“Santorini and the rest of the islands that form the group of Cyclades in the Aegean Sea are known for their beauty and astonishing architecture. The Cycladic architecture is characterized by simplicity and grace, free from palaver and complex additions. It comes in proportion with the surroundings and the aura of the Greek islands. The architecture of Santorini likewise is accordant to the environment and the conditions of the island and tailored to the needs of its residents.
The first thing that catches your attention when you set eyes on a Cycladic island is the whitewashed houses, usually accompanied by blue doors and windows. The houses are evidently in absolute concordance with the light blue sky and the vast Aegean Sea. This harmony has been established many years ago for various purposes. Nowadays, these colors constitute the hallmark of Cyclades and represent Greece, as they also match its flag.
As for utility reasons, the white color of the houses is of paramount importance. The ideal climate of Santorini offers hot summers and the bright sun is present several months of the year. The inhabitants, in order to confine the heat in the interior to a significant extent, had to construct their houses accordingly. The white color reflects the biggest part of the dazzling light, preventing the houses from getting warm and that was a basic goal of the traditional architecture. Making the houses heat resistant, the summers are much more tolerable and pleasant.
According to historical sources, there is one more explanation to what led to the prevalence of the whitewashed houses. At the beginning of the 20th century, during the war, serious deceases, like cholera, plagued the Greek islands. Whitewash is a cheap, disinfectant material that was used regularly to limit the contagion. Back to that era, it was probably the most effective or even the only medium available for disinfection.
Regardless of the various reasons, white remained the dominant color and trademark of Santorini and Cyclades and creates an awe-inspiring spectacle. The island radiates a beaming light and so a sense of optimism, brightness and tranquility overwhelms visitors. The white color, especially in Santorini, complements the wild beauty, brings balance and is attuned to the details of other colors that simply highlight.”
Built for the WINTER GOURD PARTY
THEME: JET
Technology vs nature, this is the future of hog hunting. A battle between the tools of man and the abilities of animals, is quite the epic duel to behold. As such I have picked the song Duel in the mist from Genshin impact to be this builds theme song. The mysterious melody and high energy convey the hunt and struggle for survival. You are whisked away into this story. Will The Jet Powered Robot catch The Hog, or will the hog escape using it’s attuned reflexes? It truly is an uncertain duel, almost as if it is shrouded in mist…
Quests:
A New New Low - Include a weeb (touhou preferred) theme song for your build (must provide reasoning in min. 100-word short answer).
Dual Degree - Build must consist of 2 or more fully-realized characters (no mini-scale figures).
Sabotages:
Full Disclosure - Back of moc cannot be left unfinished (Back shot required, no editing out stands)
The Ol’ Switcheroo- Switch 2 parts of your build and keep them that way (Switch arms and legs).
Meet The New Guy- Forced to use a part (Piraka Stars Spine).
Whoops!- Stress test video required.
M42 The Great Orion Nebula, catalogued as Messier 42 or NGC 1976, it is one of the brightest nebulae in the sky, and one of the nearest star-forming regions to Earth. M42 is located at an approximate distance of 1,350 light years away from Earth and is estimated to be 24 light years across.
First DSO light with my new astro camera, Altair Astro’s IMX269C, I captured over an hour or so yesterday evening 25.01.2023. Super results from this sensor, so much dusty detail on show here zoom in
Sadly a neighboring security light is more attuned to brightening the sky and everybody else’s property, rather than shining down on the ground where it needs to, so annoyingly some scattered light has encroached into the Running Man at the top of the image which was disappointing, but managed to crop away the worst of it.
Equipment
🔭 Altair Astro Astronomy 72 EDF f/6 refractor (Lightwave x1.0 flattener)
📷 Altair Astro IMX269C Hypercam ProTEC
⛰️ SkyWatcher AZ-EQ6 GT
💡 SkyTech LPRO-Max LP filter (but not inconsiderate security lights)😏
🌠 Altair Astro 50mm guidescope - GPCAM 130M. PHD2
Technical
Exposures: 60x 90sec lights
Calibration: 50x Dark, 50x Flats and 50x DarkFlats
Gain: 565
Black level: 24
TEC Temp: -3°C
Acquisition with SharpCap Pro 4.0
Integration with Astro Pixel Processor
Processed with PixInsight (Blur XTerminator / Noise XTerminator)
Final tweaks with Photoshop 2023
A new term at school, so another school marm outfit. It gets cold in the Writing Center so I always take a sweater, but today I couldn't decide on which one, long or short. Flickrverse, what do you think?
I felt so old and overdressed around all those twenty-somethings, until one of them, very modern with her piercings and boots and fishnet hose, looked up from her computer and told me how much she liked my outfit and the way I looked. I was flattered, of course, but also impressed: attuned to what looks good and is appropriate for her age and station, she had the perspicacity to recognize what is appropriate for mine as well.
After the kind words from another young woman the other day,
( www.flickr.com/photos/189385075@N08/51392788011/in/dateta... ) I'm beginning to think there may be hope for the world!
Our true, abiding home!
(David Harsha, "The Savior's Ascension")
Heaven is now our true, abiding home.
While on earth we are strangers and pilgrims, far from our final rest. And while such is our condition here, should we not often think of our heavenly home? Should not Heaven attract us more and more as we journey through life?
Shall we still cleave to earth, since Christ has obtained eternal salvation for us, and passed into the heavens to prepare a way for our entrance into those unending joys in the presence of God?
Oh, let our best affections be placed on those spiritual and divine things above.
Let the noblest aspirations of our minds be after a more intimate knowledge of Jesus.
Let us look beyond this valley of tears and keep our eyes fixed on that better country . . .
where the Savior ever reigns in glorious majesty;
where the fountains of bliss ever flow;
where the tree of life ever spreads its delightful shade, and yields its immortal fruits;
where all is unending joy, and love, and peace and felicity!
Let our hearts be more and more disentangled from the cares and temptations of the present life.
Let us live in the world as those who are not of it; as those whose treasure is in Heaven, and whose hearts are there also.
The nearer a Christian comes to Heaven, the less he loves or esteems this present world.
May our affections rise heavenward, endeavoring to bring the realities of future, eternal things more vividly before our minds, and to realize our interest in them.
O my soul, rise above these earthly scenes; and, on the wings of faith, soar to the realms of the blessed, where Jesus is enthroned in unspeakable glory—reigning as my life, my hope, and my treasure!
"Blessed Jesus, we beseech You to show us Your glory, and to raise our hearts, our hopes, and our desires, to that blessed world to which You have ascended. O may our souls be daily rising, in holy thought, towards our home where the ransomed of the Lord shall forever obtain joy and gladness. May our thoughts become heavenly, and our hearts be attuned to those songs with which the arches of Heaven shall resound to all eternity! O my Savior, wean my heart from earth, and enable me to place my affection on things above!"
Amedeo Modigliani
Italian, 1884 - 1920
Woman with a Necklace, 1917
Oil on canvas
(closeup)
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920) was a Jewish-Italian painter and sculptor who pursued his career for the most part in France. Modigliani was born in Livorno, Italy and began his artistic studies in Italy before moving to Paris in 1906. Influenced by the artists in his circle of friends and associates, by a range of genres and movements, and by primitive art, Modigliani's oeuvre was nonetheless unique and idiosyncratic. He died in Paris of tubercular meningitis—exacerbated by a lifestyle of excess—at the age of 35.
Early life
Modigliani was born into a Jewish family in Livorno, Italy.
Livorno was still a relatively new city, by Italian standards, in the late nineteenth century. The city on the Tyrrhenian coast dates from around 1600, when it was transformed from a swampy village into a seaport. The Livorno that Modigliani knew was a bustling centre of commerce focused upon seafaring and shipwrighting, but its cultural history lay in being a refuge for those persecuted for their religion. His own maternal great-great-grandfather was one Solomon Garsin, a Jew who had immigrated to Livorno in the eighteenth century as a religious refugee.
Modigliani was the fourth child of Flaminio Modigliani and his wife, Eugenia Garsin. His father was in the money-changing business, but when the business went bankrupt, the family lived in dire poverty. In fact, Amedeo's birth saved the family from certain ruin, as, according to an ancient law, creditors could not seize the bed of a pregnant woman or a mother with a newborn child. When bailiffs entered the family home, just as Eugenia went into labour, the family protected their most valuable assets by piling them on top of the expectant mother.
Modigliani had a particularly close relationship with his mother, who taught her son at home until he was ten. Beset with health problems after a bout of typhoid at the age of fourteen, two years later he contracted the tuberculosis which would affect him for the rest of his life. To help him recover from his many childhood illnesses, she took him to Naples in Southern Italy, where the warmer weather was conducive to his convalescence.
His mother was, in many ways, instrumental in his ability to pursue art as a vocation. When he was eleven years of age, she had noted in her diary that:
“The child's character is still so unformed that I cannot say what I think of it. He behaves like a spoiled child, but he does not lack intelligence. We shall have to wait and see what is inside this chrysalis. Perhaps an artist?"
Art student years
Modigliani is known to have drawn and painted from a very early age, and thought himself "already a painter", his mother wrote, even before beginning formal studies. Despite her misgivings that launching him on a course of studying art would impinge upon his other studies, his mother indulged the young Modigliani's passion for the subject.
At the age of fourteen, while sick with the typhoid fever, he raved in his delirium that he wanted, above all else, to see the paintings in the Palazzo Pitti and the Uffizi in Florence. As Livorno's local museum only housed a sparse few paintings by the Italian Renaissance masters, the tales he had heard about the great works held in Florence intrigued him, and it was a source of considerable despair to him, in his sickened state, that he might never get the chance to view them in person. His mother promised that she would take him to Florence herself, the moment he was recovered. Not only did she fulfil this promise, but she also undertook to enroll him with the best painting master in Livorno, Guglielmo Micheli.
Micheli and the Macchiaioli
Modigliani worked in the studio of Micheli from 1898 to 1900. Here his earliest formal artistic instruction took place in an atmosphere deeply steeped in a study of the styles and themes of nineteenth-century Italian art. In his earliest Parisian work, traces of this influence, and that of his studies of Renaissance art, can still be seen: artists such as Giovanni Boldini figure just as much in this nascent work as do those of Toulouse-Lautrec.
Modigliani showed great promise while with Micheli, and only ceased his studies when he was forced to, by the onset of tuberculosis.
In 1901, whilst in Rome, Modigliani admired the work of Domenico Morelli, a painter of melodramatic Biblical studies and scenes from great literature. It is ironic that he should be so struck by Morelli, as this painter had served as an inspiration for a group of iconoclasts who went by the title, the Macchiaioli (from macchia—"dash of colour", or, more derogatively, "stain"), and Modigliani had already been exposed to the influences of the Macchiaioli. This minor, localised art movement was possessed of a need to react against the bourgeois stylings of the academic genre painters. While sympathetically connected to (and actually pre-dating) the French Impressionists, the Macchiaioli did not make the same impact upon international art culture as did the followers of Monet, and are today largely forgotten outside of Italy.
Modigliani's connection with the movement was through Micheli, his first art teacher. Micheli was not only a Macchiaioli himself, but had been a pupil of the famous Giovanni Fattori, a founder of the movement. Micheli's work, however, was so fashionable and the genre so commonplace that the young Modigliani reacted against it, preferring to ignore the obsession with landscape that, as with French Impressionism, characterised the movement. Micheli also tried to encourage his pupils to paint en plein air, but Modigliani never really got a taste for this style of working, sketching in cafes, but preferring to paint indoors, and especially in his own studio. Even when compelled to paint landscapes (three are known to exist), Modigliani chose a proto-Cubist palette more akin to Cézanne than to the Macchiaioli.
While with Micheli, Modigliani not only studied landscape, but also portraiture, still-life, and the nude. His fellow students recall that the latter was where he displayed his greatest talent, and apparently this was not an entirely academic pursuit for the teenager: when not painting nudes, he was occupied with seducing the household maid.
Despite his rejection of the Macchiaioli approach, Modigliani nonetheless found favour with his teacher, who referred to him as "Superman", a pet name reflecting the fact that Modigliani was not only quite adept at his art, but also that he regularly quoted from Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra. Fattori himself would often visit the studio, and approved of the young artist's innovations.
In 1902, Modigliani continued what was to be a life-long infatuation with life drawing, enrolling in the Accademia di Belle Arti (Scuola Libera di Nudo, or "Free School of Nude Studies") in Florence. A year later while still suffering from tuberculosis, he moved to Venice, where he registered to study at the Istituto di Belle Arti.
It is in Venice that he first smoked hashish and, rather than studying, began to spend time frequenting disreputable parts of the city. The impact of these lifestyle choices upon his developing artistic style is open to conjecture, although these choices do seem to be more than simple teenage rebellion, or the cliched hedonism and bohemianism that was almost expected of artists of the time; his pursuit of the seedier side of life appears to have roots in his appreciation of radical philosophies, such as those of Nietzsche.
Early literary influences
Having been exposed to erudite philosophical literature as a young boy under the tutelage of Isaco Garsin, his maternal grandfather, he continued to read and be influenced through his art studies by the writings of Nietzsche, Baudelaire, Carduzzi, Comte de Lautréamont, and others, and developed the belief that the only route to true creativity was through defiance and disorder.
Letters that he wrote from his 'sabbatical' in Capri in 1901 clearly indicate that he is being more and more influenced by the thinking of Nietzsche. In these letters, he advised friend Oscar Ghiglia,
“(hold sacred all) which can exalt and excite your intelligence... (and) ... seek to provoke ... and to perpetuate ... these fertile stimuli, because they can push the intelligence to its maximum creative power.”
The work of Lautréamont was equally influential at this time. This doomed poet's Les Chants de Maldoror became the seminal work for the Parisian Surrealists of Modigliani's generation, and the book became Modigliani's favourite to the extent that he learnt it by heart. The poetry of Lautréamont is characterised by the juxtaposition of fantastical elements, and by sadistic imagery; the fact that Modigliani was so taken by this text in his early teens gives a good indication of his developing tastes. Baudelaire and D'Annunzio similarly appealed to the young artist, with their interest in corrupted beauty, and the expression of that insight through Symbolist imagery.
Modigliani wrote to Ghiglia extensively from Capri, where his mother had taken him to assist in his recovery from the tuberculosis. These letters are a sounding board for the developing ideas brewing in Modigliani's mind. Ghiglia was seven years Modigliani's senior, and it is likely that it was he who showed the young man the limits of his horizons in Livorno. Like all precocious teenagers, Modigliani preferred the company of older companions, and Ghiglia's role in his adolescence was to be a sympathetic ear as he worked himself out, principally in the convoluted letters that he regularly sent, and which survive today.
“Dear friend
I write to pour myself out to you and to affirm myself to myself. I am the prey of great powers that surge forth and then disintegrate... A bourgeois told me today - insulted me - that I or at least my brain was lazy. It did me good. I should like such a warning every morning upon awakening: but they cannot understand us nor can they understand life...”
Paris
Arrival
In 1906 Modigliani moved to Paris, then the focal point of the avant-garde. In fact, his arrival at the epicentre of artistic experimentation coincided with the arrival of two other foreigners who were also to leave their marks upon the art world: Gino Severini and Juan Gris.
He settled in Le Bateau-Lavoir, a commune for penniless artists in Montmartre, renting himself a studio in Rue Caulaincourt. Even though this artists' quarter of Montmartre was characterised by generalised poverty, Modigliani himself presented - initially, at least - as one would expect the son of a family trying to maintain the appearances of its lost financial standing to present: his wardrobe was dapper without ostentation, and the studio he rented was appointed in a style appropriate to someone with a finely attuned taste in plush drapery and Renaissance reproductions. He soon made efforts to assume the guise of the bohemian artist, but, even in his brown corduroys, scarlet scarf and large black hat, he continued to appear as if he were slumming it, having fallen upon harder times.
When he first arrived in Paris, he wrote home regularly to his mother, he sketched his nudes at the Colarossi school, and he drank wine in moderation. He was at that time considered by those who knew him as a bit reserved, verging on the asocial. He is noted to have commented, upon meeting Picasso who, at the time, was wearing his trademark workmen's clothes, that even though the man was a genius, that did not excuse his uncouth appearance.
Transformation
Within a year of arriving in Paris, however, his demeanour and reputation had changed dramatically. He transformed himself from a dapper academician artist into a sort of prince of vagabonds.
The poet and journalist Louis Latourette, upon visiting the artist's previously well-appointed studio after his transformation, discovered the place in upheaval, the Renaissance reproductions discarded from the walls, the plush drapes in disarray. Modigliani was already an alcoholic and a drug addict by this time, and his studio reflected this. Modigliani's behaviour at this time sheds some light upon his developing style as an artist, in that the studio had become almost a sacrificial effigy for all that he resented about the academic art that had marked his life and his training up to that point.
Not only did he remove all the trappings of his bourgeois heritage from his studio, but he also set about destroying practically all of his own early work. He explained this extraordinary course of actions to his astonished neighbours thus:
“Childish baubles, done when I was a dirty bourgeois."
The motivation for this violent rejection of his earlier self is the subject of considerable speculation. The self-destructive tendencies may have stemmed from his tuberculosis and the knowledge (or presumption) that the disease had essentially marked him for an early death; within the artists' quarter, many faced the same sentence, and the typical response was to set about enjoying life while it lasted, principally by indulging in self-destructive actions. For Modigliani such behavior may have been a response to a lack of recognition; it is known that he sought the company of other alcoholic artists such as Utrillo and Soutine, seeking acceptance and validation for his work from his colleagues.
Modigliani's behavior stood out even in these Bohemian surroundings: he carried on frequent affairs, drank heavily, and used absinthe and hashish. While drunk he would sometimes strip himself naked at social gatherings. He became the epitome of the tragic artist, creating a posthumous legend almost as well-known as that of Vincent van Gogh.
During the 1920s, in the wake of Modigliani's career and spurred on by comments by Andre Salmon crediting hashish and absinthe with the genesis of Modigliani's style, many hopefuls tried to emulate his 'success' by embarking on a path of substance abuse and bohemian excess. Salmon claimed—erroneously—that whereas Modigliani was a totally pedestrian artist when sober,
“...from the day that he abandoned himself to certain forms of debauchery, an unexpected light came upon him, transforming his art. From that day on, he became one who must be counted among the masters of living art.”
While this propaganda served as a rallying cry to those with a romantic longing to be a tragic, doomed artist, these strategies did not produce unique artistic insights or techniques in those who did not already have them.
In fact, art historians suggest that it is entirely possible for Modigliani to have achieved even greater artistic heights had he not been immured in, and destroyed by, his own self-indulgences. We can only speculate what he might have accomplished had he emerged intact from his self-destructive explorations.
Output
During his early years in Paris, Modigliani worked at a furious pace. He was constantly sketching, making as many as a hundred drawings a day. However, many of his works were lost - destroyed by him as inferior, left behind in his frequent changes of address, or given to girlfriends who did not keep them.
He was first influenced by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, but around 1907 he became fascinated with the work of Paul Cézanne. Eventually he developed his own unique style, one that cannot be adequately categorized with other artists.
He met the first serious love of his life, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, in 1910, when he was 26. They had studios in the same building, and although 21-year-old Anna was recently married, they began an affair. Tall (Modigliani was only 5 foot 5 inches) with dark hair (like Modigliani's), pale skin and grey-green eyes, she embodied Modigliani's aesthetic ideal and the pair became engrossed in each other. After a year, however, Anna returned to her husband.
Experiments with sculpture
In 1909, Modigliani returned home to Livorno, sickly and tired from his wild lifestyle. Soon he was back in Paris, this time renting a studio in Montparnasse. He originally saw himself as a sculptor rather than a painter, and was encouraged to continue after Paul Guillaume, an ambitious young art dealer, took an interest in his work and introduced him to sculptor Constantin Brancusi.
Although a series of Modigliani's sculptures were exhibited in the Salon d'Automne of 1912, he abruptly abandoned sculpting and focused solely on his painting.
Question of influences
In Modigliani's art, there is evidence of the influence of primitive art from Africa and Cambodia which he may have seen in the Musée de l'Homme, but his stylisations are just as likely to have been the result of his being surrounded by Mediaeval sculpture during his studies in Northern Italy (there is no recorded information from Modigliani himself, as there is with Picasso and others, to confirm the contention that he was influenced by either ethnic or any other kind of sculpture). A possible interest in African tribal masks seems to be evident in his portraits. In both his painting and sculpture, the sitters' faces resemble ancient Egyptian painting in their flat and masklike appearance, with distinctive almond eyes, pursed mouths, twisted noses, and elongated necks. However these same chacteristics are shared by Medieval European sculpture and painting.
Modigliani painted a series of portraits of contemporary artists and friends in Montparnasse: Chaim Soutine, Moise Kisling, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Marie "Marevna" Vorobyev-Stebeslka, Juan Gris, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, and Jean Cocteau, all sat for stylized renditions.
At the outset of World War I, Modigliani tried to enlist in the army but was refused because of his poor health.
The war years
Known as Modì, which roughly translates as 'morbid' or 'moribund', by many Parisians, but as Dedo to his family and friends, Modigliani was a handsome man, and attracted much female attention.
Women came and went until Beatrice Hastings entered his life. She stayed with him for almost two years, was the subject for several of his portraits, including Madame Pompadour, and the object of much of his drunken wrath.
When the British painter Nina Hamnett arrived in Montparnasse in 1914, on her first evening there the smiling man at the next table in the café introduced himself as Modigliani; painter and Jew. They became great friends.
In 1916, Modigliani befriended the Polish poet and art dealer Leopold Zborovski and his wife Anna.
Jeanne Hébuterne
The following summer, the Russian sculptor Chana Orloff introduced him to a beautiful 19-year-old art student named Jeanne Hébuterne who had posed for Foujita. From a conservative bourgeois background, Hébuterne was renounced by her devout Roman Catholic family for her liaison with the painter, whom they saw as little more than a debauched derelict, and, worse yet, a Jew. Despite her family's objections, soon they were living together, and although Hébuterne was the love of his life, their public scenes became more renowned than Modigliani's individual drunken exhibitions.
On December 3, 1917, Modigliani's first one-man exhibition opened at the Berthe Weill Gallery. The chief of the Paris police was scandalized by Modigliani's nudes and forced him to close the exhibition within a few hours after its opening.
After he and Hébuterne moved to Nice, she became pregnant and on November 29, 1918 gave birth to a daughter whom they named Jeanne (1918-1984).
Nice
During a trip to Nice, conceived and organized by Leopold Zborovski, Modigliani, Tsuguharu Foujita and other artists tried to sell their works to rich tourists. Modigliani managed to sell a few pictures but only for a few francs each. Despite this, during this time he produced most of the paintings that later became his most popular and valued works.
During his lifetime he sold a number of his works, but never for any great amount of money. What funds he did receive soon vanished for his habits.
In May of 1919 he returned to Paris, where, with Hébuterne and their daughter, he rented an apartment in the rue de la Grande Chaumière. While there, both Jeanne Hébuterne and Amedeo Modigliani painted portraits of each other, and of themselves.
Last days
Although he continued to paint, Modigliani's health was deteriorating rapidly, and his alcohol-induced blackouts became more frequent.
In 1920, after not hearing from him for several days, his downstairs neighbor checked on the family and found Modigliani in bed delirious and holding onto Hébuterne who was nearly nine months pregnant. They summoned a doctor, but little could be done because Modigliani was dying of the then-incurable disease tubercular meningitis.
Modigliani died on January 24, 1920. There was an enormous funeral, attended by many from the artistic communities in Montmartre and Montparnasse.
Hébuterne was taken to her parents' home, where, inconsolable, she threw herself out of a fifth-floor window two days after Modigliani's death, killing herself and her unborn child. Modigliani was interred in Père Lachaise Cemetery. Hébuterne was buried at the Cimetière de Bagneux near Paris, and it was not until 1930 that her embittered family allowed her body to be moved to rest beside Modigliani.
Modigliani died penniless and destitute—managing only one solo exhibition in his life and giving his work away in exchange for meals in restaurants. Had he lived through the 1920s when American buyers flooded Paris, his fortunes might well have changed. Since his death his reputation has soared. Nine novels, a play, a documentary and three feature films have been devoted to his life.
This last Autumn I had the chance to walk with my camera for about 2 hours in the picturesque Thera, the capital city of Santorini, one of the most beautiful and famous Greek Cyclades islands.
The day was cloudy and there was a certain serenity around, although there were a lot of tourists as always. What really struck me, was that I discovered other colors around in the traditional architecture, apart from blue and white!!
You can read right here why Santorini and the most of the Aegean Sea Greek islands are mostly dressed in blue and white :
“Santorini and the rest of the islands that form the group of Cyclades in the Aegean Sea are known for their beauty and astonishing architecture. The Cycladic architecture is characterized by simplicity and grace, free from palaver and complex additions. It comes in proportion with the surroundings and the aura of the Greek islands. The architecture of Santorini likewise is accordant to the environment and the conditions of the island and tailored to the needs of its residents.
The first thing that catches your attention when you set eyes on a Cycladic island is the whitewashed houses, usually accompanied by blue doors and windows. The houses are evidently in absolute concordance with the light blue sky and the vast Aegean Sea. This harmony has been established many years ago for various purposes. Nowadays, these colors constitute the hallmark of Cyclades and represent Greece, as they also match its flag.
As for utility reasons, the white color of the houses is of paramount importance. The ideal climate of Santorini offers hot summers and the bright sun is present several months of the year. The inhabitants, in order to confine the heat in the interior to a significant extent, had to construct their houses accordingly. The white color reflects the biggest part of the dazzling light, preventing the houses from getting warm and that was a basic goal of the traditional architecture. Making the houses heat resistant, the summers are much more tolerable and pleasant.
According to historical sources, there is one more explanation to what led to the prevalence of the whitewashed houses. At the beginning of the 20th century, during the war, serious deceases, like cholera, plagued the Greek islands. Whitewash is a cheap, disinfectant material that was used regularly to limit the contagion. Back to that era, it was probably the most effective or even the only medium available for disinfection.
Regardless of the various reasons, white remained the dominant color and trademark of Santorini and Cyclades and creates an awe-inspiring spectacle. The island radiates a beaming light and so a sense of optimism, brightness and tranquility overwhelms visitors. The white color, especially in Santorini, complements the wild beauty, brings balance and is attuned to the details of other colors that simply highlight.”
(Author’s note: Despite my heavy workload and some stressful stuff going on, here is a prose limited series in the works of Star Wars: Fate, even if I had started the first issue previously. The short series will tie into the main one and also this is my first finished Mecabricks project to date, which is quite unconventional to have a photo like that. I do hope you all enjoy reading, and have a happy late May 4th/Revenge of the 5th/Return of the 6th!)
***
Cox stares to me as he readies his dual blaster pistols. He’s always carried it close. His breath is nervous, full of panic. Arms shaking under that armor of his, because he knows the next thing we’re all going through is a fate worse than death.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this! None of this, none at all,” he says. “I…can’t do this to my fellow brothers.”
“What choice do we have, Cox?! If Klal says we stick to the damn plan, we do it!” Rune scolds. “The 442nd is no more; we shouldn’t even be on Mimban! Our brothers…our brothers are gone.”
“Both of you keep it down.” I say. “You don’t want to alert the droids near the exit, sufficient to say that’s where the army is head now. While Tretta’s still out, we’re going to keep it low until he’s done conversing with the locals.”
Three years ago I’ve heard about the 501st, a Jedi and a Gungan who went here, and they managed to repel off the Separatists. But Mimban shouldn’t have had a second campaign. It was a mistake. I thought there wasn’t another one until this point.
With my men had turned against me, then the Republic must have fallen. I cannot acknowledge the fact my head’s still spinning at the fact of so much has gone on, from witnessing my apprentice being gunned down in front of me mere hours ago.
“General, we need to break transmission, I cannot do this any longer; the more we stall means that they’ll be able to trace us.” Rune says to me. He dumps his helmet on to the ground. “I cannot associate with anyone in this mask.”
“Alright, but we’re not going out yet.” Cox checks his pistols. “I’m gonna run out so we keep this low then. And General, here’s your padawan’s lightsaber…I hope you should store it right away.”
“Thank you.” I reply. I feel the emotions rapidly running through me, but this isn’t a good time to let it take over.
Eventually Tretta gets a hold of the other villagers, who have been alerted to let us go through the escape routes. We go through a nearby trench, crossing under slowly…
***
Our group gathers at rendezvous point, preparing for the takeoff. Tretta comes forward with his rifles. I can feel his stern look under the mask.
“I managed to find a shuttle, but there’s a small blockade in front of us, gents. Cox, see if you still have some extra EMPs left.” Tretta glances at us.
“I do. Not much charges left, but it’ll work. Hopefully. How’d the villagers say?”
“The tribal chief should be aware, the villagers said we’re gonna get dirty for the escape. Doused in mud if you will.” Tretta explains in his cold tone. “General, I’ll lead the way.”
We enter the swamps as one of the helpful villagers points their fingers towards our direction. Once we arrive near the platform, the number of battle droids have surrounded the area. It does not seem like an easy task, to the contrary.
Rune prepares his rifle as he throws a rock at the droids, as they react with returning fire. One super battle droid fires a rocket but Rune’s perfect shot blows up the ones next to him in capacity.
“Hey! Intruders!” As the battle droid commander shouts. Rune hands me a EMP as I force push it towards him, disabling its functions. Cox uses his dual pistols to fire at the stronger ones while taking over with Tretta at his side. The plan works but enemies seem to be overrunning from the sides.
I ignite my lightsaber and my padawan’s, both cyan and blue colours flickering in the air, deflecting the blaster bolts. One of the shots seem to have hit Cox as Tretta drags him to a wall for further cover.
“We’re running out of grenades! We have to leave!” Tretta shouts. He throws his last one at the droid manning a turret.
“General, the ship is over there! Leave on your own while you still can!” Cox says to me. “I can’t make it out like this.”
“Not today.” I reply. With all the Force attuned to me, I tap into my anger, as I crush the droids and their weapons with my fists. “We leave as a whole. The shuttle is just right there.”
Rune runs towards the transport shuttle while still using his rifle. He stands near the hanger, possibly anticipating droids in it, which turns out to be a Magnaguard. I run over as I throw in my last bomb at the droids, igniting my own lightsaber right through the Magnaguard’s chest, destroying its processor.
“Sir, now’s a good time!” Rune says as he stumbles with the controls. “Damn...alright, we’re gonna take off!”
The ship begins to rise from the platform as Rune gets ahold of the controls, blasting the droids from the shuttle’s turrets. I open the hangar door, using the Force to pull both Cox and Tretta into the bay....
***
“Commander? A moment?”
“Yes, speak up.”
“The Jedi is gone. We found his compatriots, three clones who left with him.”
“Then we shell execute the conspirators who escaped with him. It’s treason again the Republic. Our mission is done here on Mimban, sergeant. We will continue the protocol given to us by the chancellor. Keep scanning for the coordinates and the last position they left—I want Klal dead.”
“Yes, sir.”
#maythe4thbewithyou #revengeofthe5th #returnofthe6th #happystarwarsday
A week later and another trip to Slimbridge on the 1st of April.
The Juvenile Spoonbill was putting in a great appearance again as it worked its way along the edge of the Tack Piece Lagoon.
Spoonbills are relatively rare breeding birds in the UK, but their numbers are increasing. They are most often found along coastal sites in southern and eastern England. The main stronghold for breeding spoonbills in the UK is Holkham Nature Reserve in Norfolk.
Spoonbills are named after their bizarre spatula-like bill. Generally feeding in flocks, they swing their slightly open beaks from side to side through shallow pools of water. Their remarkable bill is packed full of sensors attuned to the tiniest vibrations, and once located, unlucky beetles, crustaceans, worms, small fish, tadpoles and frogs stand no chance of escape.
"Your first adjustment will be hardest,
the wild spinning.
Brightness is easier, though shocking--
and breathing air--
but this movement
even in the container
that keeps you from exploding
back into light,
eve with this pump
that exerts a constant argument
against gravity . . .
even with these things, you'll feel it
the vertiginous swirl of all of it
the surging of things,
massive rhythmic advance of sea
shrugs that heave mountains
out of shale plain.
Every on of us is overwhelmed by this at first.
Cry about it all you need to.
You will make your surefooted way in time,
a sailor on a rolling ship.
You will forget.
Can you trust me, stranger?
Listen:
one day you will attune to this mad dance;
one day
nothing will seem to move at all
but the rivers
and the wind
and your own wild heart
as you run."
Nancy A. Henry
#1915 - 2013 Day 88: A flash of warm colour from the garden. Perception can become attuned to certain colours. When the world has been grey and white for months, a striking fire-like red will always make a leap ...
I have found the 12 rays on Lake Wolfgang in Austria. Set on the banks of Seecamping Primus.
I think the rays are cool for a holiday photo. Because you can interpret.
Here is what a find in Internet for Example:
What are the 12 Rays
"The 12 Rays of God are a gift to us from our Creator. They are made up of frequency bands of electrical energy that are radiated from Source Energy. Up until 1991, only seven of the Rays could reach our planet. However, on Jan. 26, 1991, five higher Rays became anchored into the Earth. We now have 12 Rays available to help us ascend into higher consciousness and these Rays are becoming more and more intense as we move toward the Golden Age. Because of this, deeper attunements and new information are becoming available to us (by Ray-Overseer Ascended Masters such as Djwhal Khul and the Cosmic Christ)."
My personal experience is that MS has become an acute barometer for my state of well being. I used to try to be a superwoman, I disrespected the signs when I was under extreme stress, I ignored the signs of not caring for myself and my body. MS changed all that. To live well with MS, I can no longer even pretend to be a superwoman - it took me most of the afternoon to recover from this flighty jaunt in the park yesterday. To live well with MS, I am more attuned and when I fall into old habits, my body quickly tells me with fare ups and I pay a price for not living well.
9 days left to share and image with the pledge to kiss goodbye group to help raise awareness about MS.
I also have a fund raising page, Palo's Pledge, that accepts donations on behalf of MS Australia to further research into this disease.
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COPYRIGHT © Dragon Papillon Photography. 2013. All rights reserved.
This last Autumn I had the chance to walk with my camera for about 2 hours in the picturesque Thera, the capital city of Santorini, one of the most beautiful and famous Greek Cyclades islands.
The day was cloudy and there was a certain serenity around, although there were a lot of tourists as always. What really struck me, was that I discovered other colors around in the traditional architecture, apart from blue and white!!
You can read right here why Santorini and the most of the Aegean Sea Greek islands are mostly dressed in blue and white :
“Santorini and the rest of the islands that form the group of Cyclades in the Aegean Sea are known for their beauty and astonishing architecture. The Cycladic architecture is characterized by simplicity and grace, free from palaver and complex additions. It comes in proportion with the surroundings and the aura of the Greek islands. The architecture of Santorini likewise is accordant to the environment and the conditions of the island and tailored to the needs of its residents.
The first thing that catches your attention when you set eyes on a Cycladic island is the whitewashed houses, usually accompanied by blue doors and windows. The houses are evidently in absolute concordance with the light blue sky and the vast Aegean Sea. This harmony has been established many years ago for various purposes. Nowadays, these colors constitute the hallmark of Cyclades and represent Greece, as they also match its flag.
As for utility reasons, the white color of the houses is of paramount importance. The ideal climate of Santorini offers hot summers and the bright sun is present several months of the year. The inhabitants, in order to confine the heat in the interior to a significant extent, had to construct their houses accordingly. The white color reflects the biggest part of the dazzling light, preventing the houses from getting warm and that was a basic goal of the traditional architecture. Making the houses heat resistant, the summers are much more tolerable and pleasant.
According to historical sources, there is one more explanation to what led to the prevalence of the whitewashed houses. At the beginning of the 20th century, during the war, serious deceases, like cholera, plagued the Greek islands. Whitewash is a cheap, disinfectant material that was used regularly to limit the contagion. Back to that era, it was probably the most effective or even the only medium available for disinfection.
Regardless of the various reasons, white remained the dominant color and trademark of Santorini and Cyclades and creates an awe-inspiring spectacle. The island radiates a beaming light and so a sense of optimism, brightness and tranquility overwhelms visitors. The white color, especially in Santorini, complements the wild beauty, brings balance and is attuned to the details of other colors that simply highlight.”
Good old Belvedere was under two fallen trees when I found him, so I cleared away the rotten remnants to get a good look. Boxed in all around by trees my age or older, it's pretty clear he wasn't brought here anytime recent. Someone must have needed some big steel sheets, leaving jagged marks from metal shears where the roof was cut away – the trunk and hood gone missing too. No engine either, hell, you're just left with a pretty skeleton. That's more than enough beauty for me, though. I think there's a friendliness in ugliness that you can really get attuned to. I sure am in the silent wastes, tracing streams and tangled paths, seeing what was pulled to the backs of fields in the years before large scale salvage. Nothing against nature, but I'm always that little bit more drawn to a memory encapsulated. Countless miles it took to get here, all the way up to the last one.
April 20, 2023
Mount Rose, Nova Scotia
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San Joaquin Antelope Squirrel
Jackass Pass
Panoche Road
Scared, and rightly so. This endemic, endangered rodent only survives in a handful of places in California, places where man has not tilled the soil, used chemicals or over grazed the land, places where the native grasses and forbs still grow, not the many invasive plants that have taken over vast swaths of the state. The Antelope Squirrel is social, living in small bands, attuned to the alarm calls of Horned Larks and White-crowned Sparrows to alert them to Coyote, Kit Fox and Badger, their main predator.