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"Since writing on toilet walls is done for neither financial reward or critical acclaim - it is the purest form of art. Discuss ---"
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Sodom is a German thrash metal band formed in 1981. Original line-up were Tom Angelripper, Chris Witchhunter and Aggressor. Receiving inspiration by bands such as Motörhead and Venom, they released two demos which led to a record deal with Steamhammer. Aggressor left the band shortly before releasing the In the Sign of Evil EP, and was replaced by Grave Violator, who did not last long himself. On the debut album Obsessed by Cruelty he was replaced by Destructor. However, after the release Destructor left the band to join Kreator.
Thereafter their break-through album Persecution Mania was released with yet another guitarist, Frank Blackfire. A live album Mortal Way of Live followed. The next album made Sodom famous; Agent Orange was released in 1989. Since then, Sodom is one of the three big names of German Thrash metal; the others are Kreator and Destruction. Again a new guitarist was to be found as Blackfire also left the band to join Kreator. The replacement was found in Michael Hoffman.
In this line-up the Better Off Dead album was released in 1990. During the South American tour however, Hoffman decided to stay in Brazil and therefore was forced to quit. His replacement was found in Andy Brings and a new album was recorded, titled Tapping the Vein, which was more death metal influenced than before. This proved to be the last album with the drummer Witchhunter who quit because of lack of interest in metal music. Atomic Steif found his way behind the drumkit.
This line-up now, recorded the next album, Get What You Deserve. Out were the death metal influence, in came the hardcore influences. At this time Angelripper also started a solo carreer doing metal impressions of drinking songs, German schlagers and even Xmassy Carols. Another live album was recorded of the tour in support of this album called Marooned - Live.
In the same vein as the previous album, Masquerade in Blood was released in 1995. Again another guitarist was to be found. The new axeman was Sthrahli, but he did not stay very long with the band either; he was fired due to drugs problems. Also Atomic Steif left and again Angelripper needed to search for new members. These were found in the person of Bernemann on guitars and Bobby Schottkowski on drums.
The new album 'Til Death Do Us Unite featured a controversial album cover, depicting the belly a pregnant woman and a beer gut of a man pressing a human skull together. Apparently this line-up has stabilised the band significantly as this still the current line-up. In 1999 Code Red was released and formed a return to the sound of the 1980s thrash metal. A limited edition featured a bonus CD containing a tribute to Sodom album called Homage to the Gods. In the same vein, M-16 was released displaying Sodoms interest in the Vietnam War. The title of course refers to the automatic rifle M16). A tour followed with the other two big German thrash metal bands Kreator and Destruction.
In 2003, a double live album was recorded in Bangkok, titled One Night in Bangkok. In 2006 Sodom released their Album "Sodom" and after the release the band played a lot of shows all over the world.
In 2007 comes "The final Sign of Evil". On this record the original Line up with Chris Witchhunter, Grave Violator and Tom Angelripper acting very old school. In Wacken the band played a really special Set at the Wacken Open Air with Old Members like Andy Brings, Atomic Steif, Grave Violator and a lot of more. This show will be a part of the long waited second Part of the Lords of Depravity DVD.
Drummer Legend Chris Witchhunter died at age of 42 in September 2008. We still miss him!
"The Chippewa County Courthouse is a government building located on Court Street in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It is one of the oldest courthouses still in use in Michigan.
Chippewa County was split off from Michilimackinaw County (formed from the entire Upper Peninsula and part of the lower) in 1826. Sault Ste. Marie was chosen as the county seat. The Chippewa County Courthouse was built in 1877 for $20,000, using a design by Detroit architect William Scott and his son John. In 1904, a rear addition costing $25,000, designed by R. C. Sweat, was added to the structure. A second addition was constructed in approximately 1930.
In the 1980, the courthouse was completely renovated. Paint was stripped off woodwork, new doors and windows were installed, and the face of the tower clock was restored.
The Chippewa County Courthouse is a three-story Second Empire built of cut stone. The original courthouse was a rectangular plan; the 1904 addition made the whole structure into a T-plan. The Second Empire architectural style is consistent between the original courthouse and the later additions. The stone walls are two feet (0.61 m) thick, and the building features a contrasting, red-colored stone in beltcourses, quoins, lintels, and entryways. The center entrance is set in a slightly projecting pavilion topped with a pediment. Windows on the first floor have a segmented arch, while second-story windows are elliptically arched. Both the main structure and the clock tower are topped with a mansard roof; the roof was originally covered with slate but is now covered with asphalt shingles. Round windows were added to the mansard roof in 1904.
Inside, original stamped tin ceilings are still installed. Pillars inside the courtroom have ornate cast iron capitals, and the radiators are covered with grillwork.
Sault Ste. Marie (/ˌsuː seɪnt məˈriː/ SOO-seint-ma-REE) is the only city in, and county seat of, Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. With a population of 14,144 at the 2010 census, it is the second-most populated city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette. It is the central city of the Sault Ste. Marie, MI Micropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Chippewa County and had a population of 38,520 at the 2010 census.
Sault Ste. Marie was settled as early as 1668, which makes it Michigan's oldest city and among the oldest cities in the United States. Located at the northeastern edge of the Upper Peninsula, it is separated by the St. Marys River from the much-larger city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The two are connected by the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, which represents the northern terminus of Interstate 75. This portion of the river also contains the Soo Locks, as well as a swinging railroad bridge. The city is also home to Lake Superior State University.
For centuries Ojibwe (Chippewa) Native Americans had lived in the area, which they referred to as Baawitigong ("at the cascading rapids"), after the rapids of St. Marys River. French colonists renamed the region Saulteaux ("rapids" in French).
In 1668, French missionaries Claude Dablon and Jacques Marquette founded a Jesuit mission at this site. Sault Ste. Marie developed as the fourth-oldest European city in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the oldest permanent settlement in contemporary Michigan state. On June 4, 1671, Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson, a colonial agent, was dispatched from Quebec to the distant tribes, proposing a congress of Indian nations at the Falls of St. Mary between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Trader Nicolas Perrot helped attract the principal chiefs, and representatives of 14 Indigenous nations were invited for the elaborate ceremony. The French officials proclaimed France's appropriation of the immense territory surrounding Lake Superior in the name of King Louis XIV.
In the 18th century, the settlement became an important center of the fur trade, when it was a post for the British-owned North West Company, based in Montreal. The fur trader John Johnston, a Scots-Irish immigrant from Belfast, was considered the first European settler in 1790. He married a high-ranking Ojibwe woman named Ozhaguscodaywayquay, the daughter of a prominent chief, Waubojeeg. She also became known as Susan Johnston. Their marriage was one of many alliances in the northern areas between high-ranking European traders and Ojibwe. The family was prominent among Native Americans, First Nations, and Europeans from both Canada and the United States. They had eight children who learned fluent Ojibwe, English and French. The Johnstons entertained a variety of trappers, explorers, traders, and government officials, especially during the years before the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States.
For more than 140 years, the settlement was a single community under French colonial, and later, British colonial rule. After the War of 1812, a US–UK Joint Boundary Commission finally fixed the border in 1817 between the Michigan Territory of the US and the British Province of Upper Canada to follow the river in this area. Whereas traders had formerly moved freely through the whole area, the United States forbade Canadian traders from operating in the United States, which reduced their trade and disrupted the area's economy. The American and Canadian communities of Sault Ste. Marie were each incorporated as independent municipalities toward the end of the 19th century.
As a result of the fur trade, the settlement attracted Ojibwe and Ottawa, Métis, and ethnic Europeans of various nationalities. It was a two-tiered society, with fur traders (who had capital) and their families and upper-class Ojibwe in the upper echelon. In the aftermath of the War of 1812, however, the community's society changed markedly.
The U.S. built Fort Brady near the settlement, introducing new troops and settlers, mostly Anglo-American. The UK and the US settled on a new northern boundary in 1817, dividing the US and Canada along St. Mary's River. The US prohibited British fur traders from operating in the United States. After completion of the Erie Canal in New York State in 1825 (expanded in 1832), the number of settlers migrating to Ohio and Michigan increased dramatically from New York and New England, bringing with them the Yankee culture of the Northern Tier. Their numbers overwhelmed the cosmopolitan culture of the earlier settlers. They practiced more discrimination against Native Americans and Métis.
The falls proved a choke point for shipping between the Great Lakes. Early ships traveling to and from Lake Superior were portaged around the rapids[8] in a lengthy process (much like moving a house) that could take weeks. Later, only the cargoes were unloaded, hauled around the rapids, and then loaded onto other ships waiting below the rapids. The first American lock, the State Lock, was built in 1855; it was instrumental in improving shipping. The lock has been expanded and improved over the years.
In 1900, Northwestern Leather Company opened a tannery in Sault Ste. Marie. The tannery was founded to process leather for the upper parts of shoes, which was finer than that for soles. After the factory closed in 1958, the property was sold to Filborn Limestone, a subsidiary of Algoma Steel Corporation.
In March 1938 during the Great Depression, Sophia Nolte Pullar bequeathed $70,000 for construction of the Pullar Community Building, which opened in 1939. This building held an indoor ice rink composed of artificial ice, then a revolutionary concept. The ice rink is still owned by the city." - info from Wikipedia.
Now on Instagram.
The Compass Point development around Saunders Ness Road and taking in Mariners Mews and Sextant Avenue was built in the mid-80s forming a quiet, neat upmarket estate on the Isle of Dogs.
As part of the development, two tall blocks of flats are abutted by full height cylindrical towers, framing and echoing the view of silos across the Thames and acting as a small reminder of the estate's industrial past.
Architect Sir Jeremy Dixon's Georgian-inspired designs were built on Dudgeon's Wharf, reclaimed after the closure of the docks.
At the end of Sextant Avenue, a memorial remembers the old Wharf - not for its years of hard labour in the service of heavy industry - but for a reason more poignant and tragic.
Forty years ago the world was looking skywards for news of Nasa's audicious mission to take Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins to the moon.
On July 17, a day after Apollo 11 shot into the skies atop a cone of fire, another explosion took the lives of five fireman, the biggest loss of life suffered by the London Fire Brigade in peace time.
Dudgeon's was a ship building firm in the 1800s and was one of a cluster that prospered on the island - including names such as Ash, Stewart's and Samuda's. At its height, in the early 1860s, it is estimated that the firms on the Isle of Dogs employed up to 15,000 men and boys in the shipyards and engineering firms.
The most iconic of the ships built at these docks was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Eastern, the largest ship ever built at the time of her launch in 1858.
But the Great Eastern was a last hurrah for ship building on the Thames. The rivers of the North were more efficient and labour and materials were cheaper and in double-quick time large firms of the Thames went bankrupt and tens of thousands were out of a job.
People starved, shipyards became wastelands and revival would take many long painful years.
Some shipbuilding survived by specialising - Yarrow built steam-powered gunboats while other firms turned to ship repair. Shipbuilding skills evolved. Workers produced a diverse range of goods including parts for major civil engineering projects - bridges and gas holders - as well as boilers, engine parts, tanks, propellers and wire rope. Other skills were cannabilised into new industries - sacks and tarpaulins, woodworking and paint, varnishes and chemicals.
Industry survived one way and another for another 100 years of so until the docks and their associated works began disappearing in the 1960s.
The arrival of containers - which London couldn't handle - in the late 60s finally rendered the docklands obsolete.
By the time of the 1969 tragedy, the wharf was a redundant "tank farm" with an array of a hundred or so containers for storing oils and spirit, some up to 200,000 gallons in size. However, these tanks were destined to go as part of the regeneration of the land and demolition contractors had received advice on how to take apart these structures safely.
The demolition was rife with danger and difficulties and firefighters had frequently attended the site after sparks from cutting gear ignited small fires.
Less than two weeks before the fatal explosion, 40 men with eight pumps had tackled a fire on waste oil in a derelict tank and now another call arrived at Millwall Fire Station at 11.21am alerting the emergency services to another fire.
Two appliances were sent from Millwall in F Division and another from Brunswick Road. A foam tender from East Ham was sent later along with a fireboat from Greenwich.
Station Officer Innard, believing the fire to be out when he arrived, decided to put a curtain of water into the open top manhole of Tank 97.
Four other officers joined him on top of the tank to feed in the water. Later reports concluded that this pull of water drew air into the tank, mixing with the flammable vapours.
SO Innard then decided to ensure there was no further fire by opening the bottom manhole. Unable to find a spanner to undo the nuts, it was suggested they should be burned off.
As soon as a workman applied the cutting flame of his torch to the first nut, the vapours inside the tank ignited immediately, blowing the roof off the tank, together with the five firefighters and a work man.
The explosion happened at 11.52. Three appliances were sent from Bethnal Green and Bow. Their role was to collect the bodies.
Remembering the tragedy on a brigade forum, one ex-firefighter wrote: "I had been in the job for seven years when this happened and it really shook us. As you say 'Never forgotten' especially from us guys who could have been involved. Rest easy, mates."
THE VICTIMS
- Temporary Sub Officer Michael Gamble of F23 Millwall, 28, married, 10 years in the brigade.
- Fireman John Victor Appleby of F22 Brunswick Road, aged 23, married, three children, almost five years' service.
- Fireman Terrance Breen of F22 Brunswick Road, aged 37, married with three children, 12 years' service.
- Fireman Paul Carvosso of C25 Cannon Street, aged 23, married, one child, four years' service.
- Fireman Alfred Charles Smee of F23 Millwall, aged 47, one son, 24 years' service.
Nottingham's famous Mortimers Hole.
Formed 230 million years ago from Bunter Pebble bed. Within this tip of an unusual area of rock is a tunnel that lead to the castle above The tunnel was used by Edward III in 1329 to seize control of his rightful place on the throne of England from his regent mother Queen Isabella and her lover, Roger Lord Mortimer.
Built into the side of the rock is the School Room and Toy Shop area of the Museum of Nottingham History at the Brewhouse Yard
Taken with a Nokia 6230i phone camera
African Ambassadors & Diaspora Interactive Form AAIF Awards Gala Dinner United Nations buildings International Maritime Organization HQ IMO London. Photo Opportunity Portraits with Her Excellency Dr Justina Mutale and Epi Mabika
yellow morph or leucistic form of black collared barbet
Lake Niassa, Mozambique
Latin: Lybius Torquatus
Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Brasil - 01/06/2023 - Maracanã -
Copa do Brasil. Oitavas de Final. Jogo 2. Fluminense x Flamengo.
MAILSON SANTANA/FOTO FLUMINENSE FC
IMPORTANTE: Imagem destinada a uso institucional e divulgacaoo, seu uso comercial está vetado incondicionalmente por seu autor e o Fluminense Football Club.
IMPORTANT: Image intended for institutional use and distribution. Commercial use is prohibited unconditionally by its author and Fluminense Football Club
IMPORTANTE: Imágen para uso solamente institucional y distribuición. El uso comercial es prohibido por su autor y por el Fluminense Football Club.
The Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza form Mexico's best known ancient site, as well as one of the most extensive. The monuments are hugely impressive and include some of the most iconic architectural statements surviving from Mayan culture, including the Temple of the Warriors, the enormous Ball Court and the great stepped pyramid known as El Castillo, the centrepiece of the first area of the city seen by the visitor from the site entrance.
The chief god worshipped here appears to have been Kukulkan (the Mayan form of Quetzelcoatl) whose open-jawed serpent heads adorn many of the main temple structures.
The city and it's monuments mostly date between 600-1200AD and thus exhibit a variety of styles, making this a kind of architectural open air museum or textbook on Mayan art, with most buildings following a more severe, monumental design (though often adorned with low relief), whilst a few in the southern group feature the lavish ornamentation of the Puuc style as seen at Uxmal.
Chichen Itza receives a far greater influx of visitors than Mexico's other ancient sites (being within easy shot of daytrippers from resorts like Cancun) and thus for their own protection most of the monuments are now roped off to prevent the wear and tear of thousands of feet climbing the pyramid and the many temple platforms. This was something of a disappointment to us having had so much more free reign to explore other sites, though having seen the numbers increase dramatically through the day can readily understand and support such measures.
The Acqua Felice is one of the aqueducts of Rome, completed in 1586 by Pope Sixtus V, whose birth name, which he never fully abandoned, was Felice Peretti. The first new aqueduct of Early Modern Rome, its source is at the springs at Pantano Borghese, off Via Casilina. Its length is fifteen miles (24 km), running underground for eight miles (13 km) from its source, first in the channel of Aqua Alexandrina, then alternating on the arches of the Aqua Claudia and the Aqua Marcia for seven miles (11 km) to its terminus at the Fontana dell'Acqua Felice on the Quirinal Hill, standing to one side of the Strada Pia, so as to form a piazza in this new part of Rome. The engineer was Giovanni Fontana, brother of Sixtus' engineer-architect Domenico Fontana, who recorded that the very day the new pope entered the Lateran, he decided that he would bring water once again to the healthful hills of Rome, which had remained waterless and sparsely inhabited, largely by monasteries, since the Roman aqueducts had been destroyed in the sixth century. From the source, which Sixtus purchased, there was only a very small fall, and the work required an underground conduit as well as an aqueduct carried on arches. The work was completed within eighteen months, at the same time that Sixtus was engaged in laying out the street plan that would provide the arteries of modern Rome. By October 1586, water was running at his Villa Montalto, and by 1589 it was filling no less than twenty-seven public fountains. The three-arched Fontana dell'Acqua Felice (designed by Domenico Fontana, 1587) marked the entry of the new water source into Rome, with the conventional mostra or showy terminus: "what makes a fountain a mostra is not essentially its size or splendor, but its specific designation as the fountain that is a public memorial to the whole achievement of the aqueduct. Even in the seventeenth century this fountain was considered as being in very bad style (pessimo stile)," Siegfried Giedion reporter "and it is scarcely conceivable that such mediocrity was possible only two decades after the death of Michelangelo". Its disproportionately large attic, a billboard for the triumphant inscription, has an unbalanced stagey flatness; its proportions may be unfavorably compared to the Arco Scalette, Vicenza, erected in 1576, probably designed by Andrea Palladio. Arco Salette, Vicenza, 1576, attributed to Andrea Palladio, for comparison.The allegories are resolutely Biblical, avoiding classical pagan allusions in publicising the modern pope who demolished the Septizonium to make way for his avenues linking the major Christian monuments of Rome, the pilgrimage basilicas. Any mostra had its practical aspect in providing public water supply for its rione (the city's administrative areas). The marble basins, flanked by Egyptian lions that spit water, served as reservoirs for local inhabitants; marble barriers keep animals from polluting the water: for them there is a special basin nearby. Next to the fountain Sixtus installed two long basins for washing laundry, and a covered washhouse where women might enjoy privacy.
Aquatics Centre
for London 2012.
It forms part of the gateway to the Olympic Park – more than two-thirds of spectators will enter the Park at the south-east corner via a bridge that forms part of the venue’s roof.
The design and build
With a capacity of 17,500, the Aquatics Centre’s spectacular wave-like roof is 160m long and up to 80m wide – giving it a longer single span than Heathrow Terminal 5.
The venue features a 50m competition pool, a 25m competition diving pool, a 50m warm-up pool and a ‘dry’ warm-up area for divers. Construction on the venue began in July 2008 and was completed in July 2011.
The venue’s roof proved to be one of the most complex engineering challenges of the Olympic Park big build. Its skeletal structure rests on just two concrete supports at the northern end of the building and a supporting ‘wall’ at its southern end. This steel framework was initially constructed on temporary supports, before the entire 3,000-tonne structure was lifted up 1.3m in a single movement and successfully placed back down on to its permanent concrete supports.
Work began on the inside of the venue once the roof was in position. The three pools were dug out, lined, filled with water and tested, before they were fitted with more than 180,000 tiles.After the Games
The Aquatics Centre will be transformed into a facility for the local community, clubs and schools, as well as elite swimmers, attracting an anticipated 800,000 visitors a year. All the pools have moveable booms and floors to create different depths and pool sizes, so it can be used by swimmers of all abilities and experience. After the Games, the venue’s operator after the Games will be Greenwich Leisure Limited
The two temporary wings will be removed – reducing its capacity to 2,500 – although it will be possible to increase the venue capacity for major competitions.
The venue will also feature a creche, family-friendly changing facilities and a cafe, alongside a new public plaza in front of the building.
1919. Aquarel·la, tinta i llapis de grafit sobre paper. 31,8 x 24,4 cm. Museu Solomon R. Guggenheim, Nova York. 49.347.
September 18, 2015 at 09:44AM Harley Quiin - A próxima ilustração a ganhar forma, estampando capas de cadernos e outros produtos! :D
Exposition
Du 14/06/2017 au 10/09/2017
L’exposition Le Rêve des formes, présentée à l’occasion du vingtième anniversaire du Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains, est conçue comme un paysage imaginaire, un jardin monstrueux où se cultivent des formes périssables et des surfaces en germination, des organismes protubérants et de plates silhouettes.
Les artistes et chercheurs rassemblés dans Le Rêve des formes témoignent de leur rencontre avec de nouvelles possibilités de représentation, issues de découvertes scientifiques et techniques récentes, qui bouleversent notre façon de voir et de montrer. En renouvelant grâce à cela le champ du perceptible – nanotechnologies, imagerie de synthèse, scan 3D, stéréolithographie… –, ces nouvelles visualisations nous laissent présumer de géométries encore inconnues.
Des images, des transcriptions, des modélisations, des formes spéculatives produites par les inventeurs et savants des sciences prospectives, issues des mathématiques, de la physique, de la biologie, de l’optique ou de la chimie par exemple, rejoignent ou inspirent des œuvres qui résultent des greffes opérées entre art et science, entre spéculation et invention, par une vingtaine d’artistes contemporains.
Avec : Francis Alÿs, Hicham Berrada & Sylvain Courrech du Pont & Simon de Dreuille, Michel Blazy, Juliette Bonneviot, Dora Budor, Damien Cadio, Julian Charrière, Sylvie Chartrand, Clément Cogitore, Hugo Deverchère, Bertrand Dezoteux, Mimosa Echard, Alain Fleischer, Fabien Giraud & Raphaël Siboni, Bruno Gironcoli, Spiros Hadjidjanos, Patrick Jouin, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Annick Lesne & Julien Mozziconacci, Adrien Missika, Jean-Luc Moulène, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Katja Novitskova, Jonathan Pêpe & Thibaut Rostagnat & David Chavalarias, Olivier Perriquet & Jean-Paul Delahaye, Arnaud Petit, Jean-François Peyret & Alain Prochiantz, Gaëtan Robillard, Gwendal Sartre, SMITH & Antonin-Tri Hoang, Anicka Yi
Mandala (Sanskrit: मण्डल Maṇḍala, 'circle') is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, representing the Universe. The basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. Each gate is in the general shape of a T. Mandalas often exhibit radial balance.
The term is of Sanskrit origin. It appears in the Rig Veda as the name of the sections of the work, but is also used in other Indian religions, particularly Tibetan Buddhism.
In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.
In common use, mandala has become a generic term for any diagram, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically; a microcosm of the universe.
HINDUISM
RELIGIOUS MEANING
A yantra is a two- or three-dimensional geometric composition used in sadhanas, puja or meditative rituals. It is considered to represent the abode of the deity. Each yantra is unique and calls the deity into the presence of the practitioner through the elaborate symbolic geometric designs. According to one scholar, "Yantras function as revelatory symbols of cosmic truths and as instructional charts of the spiritual aspect of human experience"
Many situate yantras as central focus points for Hindu tantric practice.Yantras are not representations, but are lived, experiential, nondual realities. As Khanna describes:
Despite its cosmic meanings a yantra is a reality lived. Because of the relationship that exists in the Tantras between the outer world (the macrocosm) and man’s inner world (the microcosm), every symbol in a yantra is ambivalently resonant in inner–outer synthesis, and is associated with the subtle body and aspects of human consciousness.
BUDDHISM
The mandala can be found in the form of the Stupa and in the Atanatiya Sutta in the Digha Nikaya, part of the Pali Canon. This text is frequently chanted.
A mandala can also represent the entire universe, which is traditionally depicted with Mount Meru as the axis mundi in the center, surrounded by the continents.
PRACTICE
Mandalas are commonly used by tantric Buddhists as an aid to meditation.
The mandala is "a support for the meditating person", something to be repeatedly contemplated to the point of saturation, such that the image of the mandala becomes fully internalised in even the minutest detail and can then be summoned and contemplated at will as a clear and vivid visualized image. With every mandala comes what Tucci calls "its associated liturgy [...] contained in texts known as tantras", instructing practitioners on how the mandala should be drawn, built and visualised, and indicating the mantras to be recited during its ritual use.
By visualizing "pure lands", one learns to understand experience itself as pure, and as the abode of enlightenment. The protection that we need, in this view, is from our own minds, as much as from external sources of confusion. In many tantric mandalas, this aspect of separation and protection from the outer samsaric world is depicted by "the four outer circles: the purifying fire of wisdom, the vajra circle, the circle with the eight tombs, the lotus circle." The ring of vajras forms a connected fence-like arrangement running around the perimeter of the outer mandala circle.
As a meditation on impermanence (a central teaching of Buddhism), after days or weeks of creating the intricate pattern of a sand mandala, the sand is brushed together into a pile and spilled into a body of running water to spread the blessings of the mandala.
Kværne in his extended discussion of sahaja, discusses the relationship of sadhana interiority and exteriority in relation to mandala thus:
...external ritual and internal sadhana form an indistinguishable whole, and this unity finds its most pregnant expression in the form of the mandala, the sacred enclosure consisting of concentric squares and circles drawn on the ground and representing that adamant plane of being on which the aspirant to Buddha hood wishes to establish himself. The unfolding of the tantric ritual depends on the mandala; and where a material mandala is not employed, the adept proceeds to construct one mentally in the course of his meditation."
CHRISTIANITY
Forms which are evocative of mandalas are prevalent in Christianity: the celtic cross; the rosary; the halo; the aureole; oculi; the Crown of Thorns; rose windows; the Rosy Cross; and the dromenon on the floor of Chartres Cathedral. The dromenon represents a journey from the outer world to the inner sacred centre where the Divine is found.
Similarly, many of the Illuminations of Hildegard von Bingen can be used as mandalas, as well as many of the images of esoteric Christianity, as in Christian Hermeticism, Christian Alchemy, and Rosicrucianism.
A superb example of Christian and alchemical symbolism in Mandala art can be seen in the Church of Saint John the Baptist, Maddermarket, Norwich in the Layer Monument dating from circa 1600.
WESTERN PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS
According to art therapist and mental health counselor Susanne F. Fincher, we owe the re-introduction of mandalas into modern Western thought to Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst. In his pioneering exploration of the unconscious through his own art making, Jung observed the motif of the circle spontaneously appearing. The circle drawings reflected his inner state at that moment. Familiarity with the philosophical writings of India prompted Jung to adopt the word "mandala" to describe these circle drawings he and his patients made. In his autobiography "Memories, Dreams, Reflections," Jung wrote:
"I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing,...which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time....Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is:...the Self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious." pp 195 – 196.
Jung recognized that the urge to make mandalas emerges during moments of intense personal growth. Their appearance indicates a profound re-balancing process is underway in the psyche. The result of the process is a more complex and better integrated personality. As Jungian analyst Marie Louise von Franz explains:
"The mandala serves a conservative purpose—namely, to restore a previously existing order. But it also serves the creative purpose of giving expression and form to something that does not yet exist, something new and unique….The process is that of the ascending spiral, which grows upward while simultaneously returning again and again to the same point.
Creating mandalas helps stabilize, integrate, and re-order inner life.
According to the psychologist David Fontana, its symbolic nature can help one "to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises."
WIKIPEDIA
Forms of Nature #8
digital collage
by Kenneth Rougeau
The eighth image in the new "Forms of Nature" series of digital collages I'm currently constructing. Prints are available in my Etsy store (artfamilia). At present, I'm planning several individual pieces and at least one triptych for the set. More to come soon!
Phnom Bakheng (Khmer: ប្រាសាទភ្នំបាខែង) at Angkor, Cambodia, is a Hindu temple in the form of a temple mountain. Dedicated to Shiva, it was built at the end of the 9th century, during the reign of King Yasovarman (889-910). Located atop a hill, it is nowadays a popular tourist spot for sunset views of the much bigger temple Angkor Wat, which lies amid the jungle about 1.5 km to the southeast. The large number of visitors makes Phnom Bakheng one of the most threatened monuments of Angkor. [1] Since 2004, World Monuments Fund has been working to conserve the temple in partnership with APSARA.
Constructed more than two centuries before Angkor Wat, Phnom Bakheng was in its day the principal temple of the Angkor region, historians believe. It was the architectural centerpiece of a new capital, Yasodharapura, that Yasovarman built when he moved the court from the capital Hariharalaya in the Roluos area located to the southeast.
An inscription dated 1052 AD and found at the Sdok Kak Thom temple in present-day Thailand states in Sanskrit: "When Sri Yasovardhana became king under the name of Yasovarman, the able Vamasiva continued as his guru. By the king's order, he set up a linga on Sri Yasodharagiri, a mountain equal in beauty to the king of mountains."[1] Scholars believe that this passage refers to the consecration of the Phnom Bakheng temple approximately a century and a half earlier.
Surrounding the mount and temple, labor teams built an outer moat. Avenues radiated out in the four cardinal directions from the mount. A causeway ran in a northwest-southeast orientation from the old capital area to the east section of the new capital's outer moat and then, turning to an east-west orientation, connected directly to the east entrance of the temple.[2]
Phnom Bakheng is a symbolic representation of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods, a status emphasized by the temple’s location atop a steep hill. The temple faces east, measures 76 meters square at its base and is built in a pyramid form of six tiers. At the top level, five sandstone sanctuaries, in various states of repair, stand in a quincunx pattern—one in the center and one at each corner of the level’s square. Originally, 108 small towers were arrayed around the temple at ground level and on various of its tiers; most of them have collapsed.[3]
Jean Filliozat of the Ecole Francaise, a leading authority on Indian cosmology and astronomy, interpreted the symbolism of the temple. The temple sits on a rectangular base and rises in five levels and is crowned by five main towers. One hundred four smaller towers are distributed over the lower four levels, placed so symmetrically that only 33 can be seen from the center of any side. Thirty-three is the number of gods who dwelt on Mount Meru. Phnom Bakheng's total number of towers is also significant. The center one represents the axis of the world and the 108 smaller ones represent the four lunar phases, each with 27 days. The seven levels of the monument represent the seven heavens and each terrace contains 12 towers which represent the 12-year cycle of Jupiter. According to University of Chicago scholar Paul Wheatley, it is "an astronomical calendar in stone." [4]
Phnom Bakheng is one of three hilltop temples in the Angkor region that are attributed to Yasovarman's reign. The other two are Phnom Krom to the south near the Tonle Sap lake, and Phnom Bok, northeast of the East Baray reservoir.
Following Angkor's rediscovery by the outside world in the mid-19th century, decades passed before archeologists grasped Phnom Bakheng's historical significance. For many years, scholars' consensus view was that the Bayon, the temple located at the center of Angkor Thom city, was the edifice to which the Sdok Kak Thom inscription referred. Later work identified the Bayon as a Buddhist site, built almost three centuries later than originally thought, in the late 12th century, and Phnom Bakheng as King Yasovarman's state temple.
Black and white illustrations formed as black pen hits the white paper...allowing the creative force to control the form not my over exercised past directed art works.
1992 was a very profound year at every level of my life...finding ancestors l had no idea about ...finding my higher self forming out of the remains of the lower nature...the preparation of letting go of so much self believe to finally finding Baha’u’llah and all His profound knowledge and spiritual guidance to assist me in creating my new pathways my new way of being...a decade of self transformation recorded in my visual diaries...1992 was only the beginning of my awakenings.
Peas, Radish, Pickled Ramps, Gribiche & Porcini Foam
Feeling like pork, I asked if it was possible to order the suckling pig course from the tasting menu as my main course. What I encountered was this massive display of pork - in its many possible glorious forms rolled into one dish (pun intended. See pancetta.)
Here I found house made pancetta tightly wrapped around a juicy suckling pig loin; crisp confit belly (loved the shield of skin!) tucked behind and amongst cipollini onions, streaks of garlic purée, button mushrooms, puffy pork crackling (!) straws, and puddles of porcini foam. It was nice to have the crisp, refreshing radish slices and pickled ramps to help cut through the umami and mildly fatty gribiche-sauced dish.
There was also a surprise hidden in that garden of pork and vegetables that I wouldn't discover until my last bites!
African Ambassadors & Diaspora Interactive Form AAIF Awards Gala Dinner United Nations buildings International Maritime Organization HQ IMO London. Photo Opportunity Portraits with Chereena Miller Positive Runway Global Catwalk
This was taken at a sculpture garden in a estate called Grande Provence, Franschhoek, Cape Town, South Africa.
Opal is a stone of inspiration which enhances the imagination and creativity as well. It helps one release inhibitions and enhances the memory.
The forms are in place and concrete is poured at the brand-new CCS-agriKomp on-farm reference plant in Millbrook, Ontario.
More info here:
info.octaform.com/blog/bid/38924/Canadians-Bring-German-B...