This photo art was created in memory of Bambi, the Pitbull. She was one of the gentlest dogs I've ever known, and she was our "grand-doggy." A number of years ago our son, Mark went to an outdoor "Adopt a Pet" event. He had set up a booth to help out with no intention of adopting a pet himself. However, Bambi was one of the "mascot pets" that weekend and was allowed to roam free. She made her way over to our son, began wagging her tail, whimpering, and licking his hand when he petted her. The rest is history.... Bambi went home with our son and was his devoted companion, living a happy life. She had a hip problem, when our son adopted her and it became more severe over time, so really didn't like to walk far, but loved going for car rides. Our son bought a doggie ramp so that she could get into his truck with ease, then they go crusin' all around town!

Sadly, Bambi suffered from cancer in her last years and finally to end her suffering, Mark had her put to sleep in late February 2023.

*These were photos that I took of her when we visited with her in Florida, in 2019.

Summer has finally arrived! Which is great, but we had to get a trig point in. Which was also great because we chose one without too much of a hot sweaty climb up. There was the gentlest of breezes on the ridge, I had a hand-made pie foraged from the local farmers' market for my lunch..

And better yet, there was on table free in the garden of the Lazy Trout, where I sipped on a post-hike Peregrine ale, (donation to Staffordshire Wildlife Trust included in the price).

The Hill behind in the distance is Hen Cloud, where Peregrines have nested in recent years.

My favorite Percheron in the world. He stands 18 hands high and is the gentlest giant I know.

Corey Lynn Tucker Photography

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I processed the film today. Even though I have done this thousands of times, you never really relax until you see those first few frames come out of the wash.

That's the magic of film. It demands your abilities.

And even though I should be in bed, I at least had to do a few scans to serve my impatience.

Though this may not end up being an official part of the series....It's at least a tribute to how much Devon nailed this very difficult part...a part that is probably one of the most evil persons in the entire book of Judges.

It's even more of a tribute because Devon is probably one of the kindest, least violent and gentlest person you could meet.

More and much more to come. But for now....I know Sunday delivered up it's promise....

FROM 'IN THE TIME OF THE JUDGES'

(CONTINUING)

"Departing summer hath assumed

An aspect tenderly illumed,

The gentlest look of spring;

That calls from yonder leafy shade

Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,

A timely carolling."

William Wordsworth, September

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© Copyright Natalie Panga - All rights reserved.

* Lightbox: Best seen in larger size on black (click image above)

A lady with the very gentlest of smiles enjoying herself at Belmullet heritage day

At the summit of Mount Wakakusa in Nara, as the last light of day gilded the distant mountains, the city lights below began to awaken like a field of stars.

In this magical moment where heaven and earth meet, the true masters of this land stood quietly, nuzzling close. They seemed to be in a silent conversation that no one else could understand, a quiet dialogue about the bustling world below. They are the oldest residents of this ancient capital, and the gentlest guardians of its tranquility.

My precious, gentle Shorty has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

He died of natural causes.

He had been able to enjoy the garden this year and had spent time in the shade of the flowers. I had just bathed and brushed him last Wednesday. His fur was so soft.

www.flickr.com/photos/indee/3494121138/in/photostream/

Possible the gentlest, most shy kitty i have ever loved. Rescued from a feral litter in the spring of 1996.

Shorty April 1996- June 28, 2009. Good bye sweet little one.

Nature, the gentlest mother,

Impatient of no child,

The feeblest or the waywardest, --

Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill

By traveler is heard,

Restraining rampant squirrel

Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,

A summer afternoon, --

Her household, her assembly;

And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles

Incites the timid prayer

Of the minutest cricket,

The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep

She turns as long away

As will suffice to light her lamps;

Then, bending from the sky

With infinite affection

And infiniter care,

Her golden finger on her lip,

Wills silence everywhere.

MOTHER NATURE - Nature, the gentlest mother

BY

Emily Dickinson

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Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures. ~Thomas de Quincey

Adjective #53 Open- for the adjectives 101 group

I want to give myself

utterly

as this maple

that burned and burned

for three days without stinting

and then in two more

dropped off every leaf;

as this lake that,

no matter what comes

to its green-blue depths,

both takes and returns it.

In the still heart

that refuses nothing,

the world is twice-born -

two earths wheeling,

two heavens,

two egrets reaching

down into subtraction;

even the fish

for an instant doubled,

before it is gone.

I want the fish.

I want the losing it all

when it rains and I want

the returning transparence.

I want the place

by the edge-flowers where

the shallow sand is deceptive,

where whatever

steps in must plunge,

and I want that plunging.

I want the ones

who come in secret to drink

only in early darkness,

and I want the ones

who are swallowed.

I want the way

this water sees without eyes,

hears without ears,

shivers without will or fear

at the gentlest touch.

I want the way it

accepts the cold moonlight

and lets it pass,

the way it lets

all of it pass

without judgment or comment.

There is a lake,

Lalla Ded sang, no larger

than one seed of mustard,

that all things return to.

O heart, if you

will not, cannot, give me the lake,

then give me the song.

~ Jane Hirshfield

First ever flower photo

Strobist info; Canon 580exII in HONL traveller8 camera left, side on to subject and high above, triggered by 7D wireless function

A whisper of the gentlest sort — A poem about lilies

friendsofthegarden.org/fog-blog/2011/06/25/a-whisper-of-t...

by George Deatz

This small work is the first of a series of similar sized compositions Albert Moore made examining the theme of sleeping women in 1875 & 1876: Apples (1875, private collection), A Sofa (1875, private collection) and Beads (1876, National Gallery of Scotland) and a study for Beads (the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven). This subject culminated in his masterpiece, Dreamers (1882, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery). Moore developed the arrangement of figures, drapery and accoutrements through preparatory studies. Once the composition was complete he used each picture to explore different sequences of palette and colour combinations. This painting is the only one of the series to feature a cat (and of all his works) and is closest to the freer, softer brushwork favoured by his close friend and colleague, James McNeill Whistler. Moore was an eccentric, sharing his life with his dachshund dog and an army of cats, which effectively took over his home and his studio (see extracts from Time Was by W. Graham Robertson below).

As with all painters, some works are very personal for the private collection of the artist and most works are highly finished for public consumption. This version is very personal and was retained by the artist and not shown until after his death in the Memorial Exhibition at the Grafton Gallery in 1894. It contains several private jokes and references: the mouse in the centre is peeping out from under the bench, whilst the cat, having finished its saucer of milk, sits contentedly and blissfully unaware. In a passing reference to his famous paintings Shuttlecock 1870 and Battledore 1872 (both works are studies in cooler shades of blue, as is this painting) the exhausted model drops the shuttlecock from her sleep-induced hand. And the stripes of the cat echo those of the vases on the left-hand side. The artist's anthemion signature is described both by the falling shuttlecock and the fan. It also demonstrates Moore’s classical training, where the figures are initially painted in the nude and subsequently the clothes are glazed on top. Albert Moore has used the looser, but less popular, "impressionist" technique favoured by his great friend James McNeill Whistler, whereas in the other versions he draws the outlines more carefully and finishes the works to comply with the expectations and taste of the buyers of the time. Albert Moore’s practice of the use of pattern on pattern in his compositions prefigures the paintings of Édouard Vuillard.

This painting, although small in size, is a prime example of the Aesthetic Movement of which Albert Moore is the supreme master. The Aesthetic movement was fuelled by Japonism, demonstrated here by the apple blossom and the fan. Albert Moore chose as his vehicle for expressing Japanese sensibilities by using figures drawn from Greek antiquity (he was a great advocate of the Elgin Marbles), mixed with contemporary objects. In Japan, during the Kaei era (1848–1854), after more than 200 years of seclusion, foreign merchant ships of various nationalities had begun to visit the country. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan ended a long period of national isolation and became open to imports from the West, including photography and printing techniques. In turn, many Japanese ceramics and ukiyo-e prints, followed by Japanese textiles, bronzes, cloisonné enamels and other arts, came to Europe and America and soon gained popularity, and travel to the Far East became possible. Japanese sensibility became all the fashion rage and could be observed in the most up-to-date interior decoration.

This perfect little Albert Moore aesthetic painting, Two female figures reclining on a sofa, in its original "Albert Moore" frame decorated with anthemion devices, was in the distinguished collection of Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read, who between them pioneered the revival of the Victorian era in the 1960s. Their taste was supreme and they collected at a time when all things Victorian were "non-U"(1). They had the market to themselves until, in 1971, Sotheby's Belgravia opened its doors, where expertise was solely devoted to selling works from the Victorian period.

In 1865, when James McNeill Whistler's Symphony in White, The Little White Girl, was exhibited at the Royal Academy, the artist met Albert Moore whilst admiring his The Marble Seat also exhibited there. As a result of their friendship and close cooperation, together they explored the ideals of Art for Art's sake and the similarity of subject and technique in their work in the 1860's is without doubt. They were both drawing nude and draped female figures with semi-classical accessories, usually in very simple settings - by a balcony, the sea, a sofa. They made drawings in chalk on brown paper, then small oil studies, and finally, large oil paintings. In fact, Whistler's studies rarely progressed to this final stage, partly because he found the drawings satisfying for their own sake, but partly because he was worried about the danger of his and Moore's work becoming too alike.

Whistler wrote to Moore in September 1870 about his painting Symphony in Blue and Pink (Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) that in general sentiment of movement it was not unlike Moore's work and he was concerned as to whether they could each paint their picture without harming each other in the opinion of those who do not understand us(2). Moore’s drawing technique and Whistler's are very close around 1870. Similar cross-hatching, for instance, on drawings had lead, until the new revival of scholarship in the second half of the twentieth century, to confusion. Many Moore drawings were ascribed to Whistler, but have since have been correctly reallocated.

Graham Robertson, Time Was (3):

The Grosvenor Gallery was still the cave of Aladdin, hung with Jewels [1878-9] … Whistler had shown his masterpiece 'Miss Alexander'; round which scoffers were already remaining to pray, and groups and single figures exquisite in colour and execution still flowed from the brush of Albert Moore.

The technical perfection of his pictures fascinated me; the rather uninteresting Graeco-West Kensington young woman who invariably appeared in them did not appeal very strongly; they were a little monotonous in their calculated loveliness, but – if one could only paint like that!

… my mother extracted a rather unwilling promise from the kindly painter to take me ‘on approval’ as a studio pupil

…

His was a strange and interesting figure in the world of art. Few people knew him well, for he seldom took the trouble to make friends, yet he was the most gentle and affectionate of men. His splendid Christ-like head with its broad brows and great visionary brown eyes was set upon a awkward little body that seemed to have no connection with it.

His favourite attitude of repose was squatting on his heels like a Japanese, and when settling himself for a talk, would suddenly subside thus on the floor, to the amazement of casual beholders.

His usual costume was a very long and very large ulster, far too big for him and once, in remote ages, the property of an elder and taller brother. With this he wore a large broad-brimmed straw hat without a crown.

He lived in a curious building at the corner of Holland Lane, its accommodation consisting of two huge studios, a sitting-room with nothing to sit upon it in it, a bedroom and, I suppose, a kitchen. His constant companion was Fritz, a dachshund of depressed appearance reported by models to live entirely upon sardines and oranges. Fritz’s sole accomplishment was ‘doing George Eliot’, in which impersonation he sat up with folded paws and looked down his long nose while his ears flapped forward like cap lappets.

He was very like portraits of the distinguished authoress, but he did not realise it, and the performance bored him. The great embitterment of his life was cats. Cats pervaded the whole house; vaguely, unofficially, holding no recognised position, they swarmed in the studios and passages, were born abruptly in coal-scuttles, expired unpleasantly behind canvases, making the place no home for an honest dog and taking, as it were, the very sardines out of his mouth.

Albert Moore regarded them mournfully but placidly as inevitable. There were the cats. There also were the spiders and their cobwebs, the dust, the leaks in the pipes, and other like phenomena.

They were perhaps not pleasant, but they were endurable, and certainly could not be got rid of without admitting tiresome people to the house who would hammer and move things about – which would be unendurable.

I sided with Fritz about the cats, which infested the studio in which I worked, and I made one determined effort to suppress them. I turned out all I could find, rummaging out the coy or morose specimens from behind the dusty pictures until I felt sure the room was clear; then I banged the door and started work again in a cat-less void with a charming sense of quiet privacy. I would be careful to keep the door shut in future; I would not open the low window on to the lead where perhaps – Bump! A heavy object fell from the ceiling, smearing a long streak down my canvas and landing at my feet. “Pr-r-r-ow”, said the object, regarding me malevolently out of evil yellow eyes. It was a new cat fallen through the skylight.

I gave up. If the Heavens themselves were against me and rained cats like manna from above, I might save myself further trouble. Henceforth I was cat-ridden like Fritz. Yet Albert Moore could never have liked cats: he was emphatically dog nature, loyal and affectionate. He had the eyes of a dog; beautiful tender eyes which could light up with a brilliant smile which never reached the lips.

Nothing in the way of papering, painting or white-washing was ever done in the house, and even of ordinary dusting I saw no sign, nor was anything ever mended.

Many years afterwards, when I had a studio of my own, I remember calling on Albert Moore with Whistler, who had a very real admiration for his work and a great respect and liking for the man himself.

We found him in huge, desolate workroom solemnly painting, surrounded by a circle of spoutless handle-less jugs each holding a large cornucopia of brown paper.

Whistler was instantly fascinated by the jugs and could think of nothing else, but he remembered Moore’s dislike of being questioned. He edged nearer to me.

“What are the jugs for?” he asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know.”

“Ask him.”

“You ask him: you’ve known him longer.”

“You’re his pupil. You might ask him.”

I summed up my courage. “What are the jugs for?”

“The drips” said Albert Moore laconically.

“The drips” whispered Whistler. “What drips? Ask him.”

Luckily at this moment a fat water-drop oozed from the ceiling and fell with a plop into the receivers.

The roof leaked. It had probably leaked for months, perhaps years, but Albert Moore sat dreaming amongst his jugs and never thought of repairs.

Whistler was always at his best and gentlest with Albert Moore; he understood the rather slow working of his brain and knew his thoughts were worth waiting for. Moore on his side adored Whistler, whose quick wit stimulated him. He was a sad man, and loved to laugh.

Whistler once told me that he had tried hard to bring about a friendship between him and Rossetti, knowing how Moore would have delighted in the poet’s unexpected turns of humour; but Rossetti was impatient and would not respond. “He’s a dull dog,” he pronounced. “A dull dog.”

“He thinks slowly, but he’s not in the least dull” persisted Whistler – but it was no good.

However, Rossetti had already won Albert Moore’s heart entirely on the occasion of their first meeting.

As they sat down for dinner, the poet was served with soup. “I say, what a stunning plate!” cried Rossetti – and instantly turned it upside-down to look at the mark. The ensuing flood seemed to come upon him as a complete surprise, and Albert Moore laughed he remembered the incident for the rest of his life.

That life was in many ways a very lonely one. He lived apart, absorbed by his work, know and caring little about the outside world, whose ways sometimes puzzled him very much. At such moments he would hastily seek advice, his choice of mentors was distinctly original. When in difficulty with a picture he would gradually form the habit of consulting with my mother, whose suggestions he often adopted, to her unbound surprise, but for an opinion on any social or economical point he always went to the cab rank near the gates of Holland House where the men gave him much good counsel, although sometimes the language in which it was couched provided him with an additional puzzle.

…

He built up his compositions very slowly and laboriously, making elaborate charcoal cartoons of the whole group, then each single figure, first nude, then draped. Then came the chalk studies of the draperies, colour studies of the draperies, rough photographs of the draperies, so that before the great work was actually begun he had actually produced many pictures. The colour studies of the draped figures, done straight off while the model stood and never retouched, were his most perfect works. The touch was so light, the paint so fresh and exquisite in texture, the drawing and colour so true and sensitive, and they were miracles of artistry.

After they had served their purpose as studies he would often complete them by adding heads and backgrounds, and thus it came about that so many of his pictures were so much alike; two or three slightly varying studies for the same figure, each in turn developing into a finished painting.

When the studies had all been made, the first step towards the actual picture was the putting in of the whole composition in grey monochrome. Over this, when it was dry, came a thin, fluid painting very delicate in colour through which the grey design clearly showed. Next came the heavy impasto, strong and rather hot in colour, over which, when dry, was passed a veil of semi-opaque grey; and on this was wrought the third and final painting, thin and delicate like the first.

In later years he modified this process slightly, merging the first and second paintings into one richly toned impasto painting which, while still wet, he stabbed into the canvas with a great brush until the grey drawing beneath became visible through it.

He would always make his pupils work exactly in his method while they were under him.

“You will not want to paint as I do when you are doing work of your own,” he would say. “You cannot know as yet how you want to paint, but what I am teaching you will help you find out.” (3)

1. Non U (U standing for upper class) was a phrase coined by the English linguist Alan Ross in 1954 and immediately taken up by Nancy Mitford who used the term in her essay, The English Aristocracy, published by Steven Spender in Encounter Magazine the same year.

2. Whistler papers, n.d., Glasgow University Library, BPIIM/97-8

3. W. Graham Robertson,Time Was, the reminiscences of W. Graham Robertson, with a foreword by Sir Johnson Forbes-Robertson, Hamish Hamilton Ltd. 1931, pages 57-62

Throughout our lives, certain archetypes shape our sense of self, the world, the road we’re on, and the goals we seek. Our idea of good and evil, male and female, leaders, parents, mentors, friends, and more are framed in the stories of the Bible. The picture’s not always pleasant, but it never fails to be instructive and is sometimes downright revelatory. Mirror, mirror on the wall: what’s the purpose of us all?

Topics of the Day:

Sunday, Day 1: “Introduction” and “Your Life as Revelatory Source. How did you get to be who you are? Your life is a sacred text read by all.

Monday, Day 2: “The Character of God” and “The Male/Female Thing” You and I meet God in sacramental and sacred encounters. But in Scripture, we meet the God who is one character among many in the remarkable story of faith. And our second topic — Gender is complicated. Adam and Eve were just the beginning of the conflict. Gender issues remain with us in secular and sacred realms.

Tuesday, Day 3: “Follow the Leader” and “The Parent Trap”

Leadership styles come and go. From biblical patriarchs and kings to modern-day presidents and celebrities, we follow the leaders we invent and choose. And our 2nd topic – The Ten Commandments bid us to honor our father and our mother. Jesus says we should hate our parents. Please explain!

Wednesday, Day 4:“The Guiding Light” & “You’ve Got a Friend” Elisha had Elijah. Timothy and Titus had Paul. Thank God for mentors: those significant folks along the way who show us how life works. Our second topic — It’s not good for us to be alone, as Genesis attests. Famous friendships help us explore the role of holy companioning.

Thursday, Day 5: “Who’s Your Devil?” and “What a Wonderful World” Everyone fears the Dark Side. Who’s the enemy, and where does it reside? And our second topic — The universe is beautiful. Earth is our home. The Bible and science agree it will come to an end one day. What’s our relationship to a fragile planet?

Friday, Day 6: “And the Purpose of It All Is” We’re born, we live, and we die. For most of us, that’s a pretty full plate of responsibilities. What should we do with this “one wild and precious life?”What qualities are we looking for in the aspirants at Saint-Sulpice? Parish Experience - Before an aspirant joins the Society, Sulpicians want to ensure that an aspirant has completed at least two years of parish work, which will have allowed him/her to develop a strong sense of belonging to the diocese and an attachment to the parish ministry. Indeed, they need priests who live and love their priesthood and who wish to assist the bishops in the service of seminarians and diocesan priests. Ability to work in a team - Sulpicians are looking for candidates who are able to work in a community environment and are able to work collegially on a mission in consultation with fellow priests as well as with lay people or religious. To know how to share one's faith through a life of prayer that nourishes a true enthusiasm for Christ and his Gospel, for the Church and the priesthood. The Apostolic Spirit who animated their founder, Jean-Jacques Olier, is the source of this sharing. Special gifts that open the way to a quality intellectual and professional preparation in several fields: spiritual accompaniment, teaching of philosophy or theology, pastoral animation. This presupposes the openness to learning of a constantly renewed Sulpician pedagogy. How can a priest become a Sulpician? Prerequisites - To be a diocesan priest incardinated in a diocese, to have completed at least two years of parish ministry in the diocese of origin and to be available for service in the Canadian Priests of St. Sulpice Province. Initial recognition - If a priest meets these prerequisites, he or she can contact the Sulpician Vocations Officer for his or her region (see list below). He will inform him about the regular meetings organized for the aspirants to the Society and he will be in charge of this first experience with Saint-Sulpice until the Provincial Council accepts him as a candidate. His participation in these meetings will give him sufficient information about the Company and the demands of Sulpician life. This priest will also be accompanied spiritually in discerning his possible Sulpician vocation. Candidature - After this time of discernment, with the support of the Sulpician Vocations Officer in his region, he asked his bishop for written authorization to make an experience in Saint-Sulpice. The aspirant then applies by contacting the provincial superior or the provincial delegate in writing. First experience in Saint-Sulpice - If formally accepted and admitted as a candidate, the Provincial Council becomes directly responsible for his experience with the Priests of Saint-Sulpice. He then took over his duties and gave him a first appointment to a team in the Canadian Province from the moment his bishop relieved him of his duties. Usually, this first experience in the Company lasts at least two years.The expression "art Saint-Sulpice" is misleading, because it encompasses very different periods and artists in the same name and in the same discredit, because it confuses art of reproduction and wide circulation with the search for an authentic sacred art which has been continuous for nearly two centuries.

In the proper sense, Sulpician art refers to the objects that are sold in the specialized shops that surround the church of the same name in Paris: industrial and economic art, of poor quality, where the mimicry and the fading of style reassure and somehow carry the seal of an official art, orthodox and without excess. Thus understood, Sulpician art is of all times and every effort to renew religious art naturally secretes its counterfeiting. The virgins and saints, with their white eyes and pale air, coming from Ary Scheffer and his raphaelism, the statues of the Virgin of Lourdes, poor translation of the mediocre model of the pious sculptor Cabuchet, the overly sensitive effigies of Thérèse de Lisieux or Saint Anthony of Padua, even the neo-byzantine works, pale reflection. In fact, the interest of Sulpician art is not only sociological; it is also, as in countertype, the revealing of the interest that religious art has never ceased to arouse, against all appearances. Holy Mirror! The creatures on the reverse will be merged in the reflected image but probably not in a laplacian way - just as concentric circles. If anyone has a magic mirrorWe first address the problem of simultaneous image segmentation and smoothing by approaching the paradigm from a curve evolution perspective. In particular, we let a set of deformable contours define the boundaries between regions in an image where we model the data via piecewise smooth functions

www.vallombrosa.org/the-holy-mirror-discovering-ourselves...

Origin of the Holy Mirrors!

Mirrors have been regarded as sacred at least since the Han Dynasty in China. Many of these mirrors and from the subsequent Wei dynasty have been found in Japan. They bore images of gods and sacred animals particularly the Chinese dragon (1,2) . They were very popular, and possibly later manufactured, in Japan. The bronze mirrors are found in great number in ancient (kofun period) burial mounds in Japan. In the biggest archeological find of 33 mirrors, the mirrors were placed surrounding the coffin such that their reflective surface faced the deceased. The Han mirrors were "magic" in that while they reflected they were also able to project an image usually of the deities and animals on the back and refered to as "light passing mirrors" (透明鑑） (Needham, 1965, p.xlic; Needham & Wang, 1977, pp. 96-97).This magic property is due to the their method of construction. When polishing the reflective face of the mirror, the patter on the back influences the pressure brought to bear on the reflective surface and change the extent to which it is concave. Muraoka also claims that Differences in the (slight) "inequality of curvature" (Ayrton & Perry, 1878, p 139; see also Thompson, 1897, and Needham & Wang, 1977, p96 for a diagram) of the mirror result in the mirror reflecting light bearing the pattern shown on the reverse. More recent research has elucidated the precise mathematical model describing the optics of these mirrors as a laplacian image (Berry, 2006), a type of spatial filter today used for edge detection and to blend two images together. It is not known whether the mirrors popular in ancient Japan were also able to project, but later during the Nara period mirrors were found to concel magic Buddhist images, and during the Edo period, concealed Christians (Kurishitan) concealed images of the cross or of the Holy Mary within their bronze "magic" mirrors. Mirrors in Japan contined to be made of brass, until the arrival of Western glass mirrors, and were "magic" in that they displayed the patter on their reverse when reflecting sunlight or other powerful light source (Thompson, 1897). Ayrton (Ayrton & Perry, 1878; Ayrton & Pollock, 1879) claims that in Japan mirror vendors were unaware of the "light passing" quality, and that there is no mention of this 'magical' quality known to Han Chinese in Japanese texts. Even a Japanese mirror maker was unaware of how to make magic mirrors though had inadvertently made one himself by extensive polishing a mirror with a design on its back (Ayrton & Perry, 1878, p135). Unlike the ancient Korean mirror top right (3), the ancient Han and Japanese mirrors were made to be rotated, displaying images in the four directions of the compas. The reason for the holes in the central "breast" (or nipple) is unclear but it is found to be pierced with a hole (of varying shape depending upon the manufacturer) from which the mirror was suspended by a rope. Bearing in mind that the images on the mirrors required that the mirrors be rotated, the central nodule might also have enabled the mirrors to be spun like a top. I am not sure why someone would want to spin a mirror but my son does (see the toy explained later). I would very much like to see what the reflected "magic" image becomes when spun. The creatures on the reverse will be merged in the reflected image but probably not in a laplacian way - just as concentric circles. If anyone has a magic mirror I would like them to try spinning it to see. Skipping the holy mirrors in shrines, mirror rice cakes, and the mirror held by the Japanese version of Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, King Enma, which holds a record of ones life, and, jumping to the present day... Mirrors are popular in the transformational items used by Japanese superheros. The early 1970's Mirror Man transformed using a Shinto amulet infront of any mirror or reflecting surface. Shinkenja, a group of Super Sentai or Power Rangers, that transforms thanks to their ability to write and then spin Chinese characters in the air, also transforms with the aid of an Inro Maru (4) upon which is affixed a inscribed disk. When the disk is attactched to the mirror the super hero inside the mirror is displayed. Transformation (henshin) by means of a mirror is popular too among Japanese femail super heros notably Himitsu no Akko Chan (Secret Akko), who could change into many things that were displayed in her mirror, sailor moon, and OshareMajo (6). The female super heroes mirrors usually make noises rather than contain inscriptions. The latest greatest Kamen Rider OOO sometimes transforms by means of his Taja-Spina which spins three of his totem-badge "coins" inside a mirror (video). In this ancient tradition we see recurrence of the following themes 1) Mirrors being of great benefit to the bearer enabling him to transform. 2) Mirrors containing hidden deities 3) Mirrors being associated with symbols: iconic marks, and incantations. 4) Mirrors being made to be rotated or spun. Thanks to James Ewing for the Mirror Man (Mira-man) reference and to Tomomi Noguchi for the Ojamajo Doremi reference, and to Taku Shimonuri and my son Ray for getting me interested in Japanese superheros. Addendum One of My students (A Ms. Tanaka, and a book about the cute in Japan) pointed out that the Japanese are into round things, and it seems to me that this Japanese preference for the round may originate in the mirror. Anpanman and Doraemon and many "characters" have round faces The Japanese Flag features a circle representing the sun and the mirror Japanese coats of arms (kamon) Japanese holy mirrors are round "Mirror rice cakes", and many other kinds of rice cake, are round The Sumo ring is round Pictures of the floating world (Ukiyoe) often portray the sitter in a round background Japanese groups always have to end up by standing in a round The Japanese are fond of domes and have many of the biggest The Japanese are fond of seals (inkan), which are round Japanese groups just can't help standing in a round The taiko drum is round The mitsudomoe is round Mount Fuji is round But then there are probably round things in every culture?

Cast and polished bronze mirrors, made in China and Japan for several thousand years, exhibit a curious property [1–4], long regarded as magical. A pattern embossed on the back

is visible in the patch of light projected onto a screen from the reflecting face when this is illuminated by a small source, even though no trace of the pattern can be discerned

by direct visual inspection of the reflecting face. The pattern on the screen is not the result of the focusing responsible for conventional image formation, because its sharpness is independent of distance, and also because the magic mirrors are slightly convex. It was established long ago that the effect results from the deviation of rays by weak undulations on the reflecting surface, introduced during the manufacturing process and too weak to see directly, that reproduce the much stronger relief embossed on the back. Such ‘Makyoh imaging’ (from the Japanese for ‘wonder mirror’) has been applied to detect small asperities on nominally flat semiconductor surfaces [5–8]. My aim here is to draw attention (section 2) to a simple and beautiful fact, central to

the optics of magic mirrors, that has not been emphasized—either in the qualitative accounts or in an extensive geometrical-optics analysis : in the optical regime relevant to

magic mirrors, the image intensity is given, in terms of the height function h(r) of the relief.on the reflecting surface, by the Laplacian ∇2 h(r) (here r denotes position in the mirror plane: r = {x, y}). The Laplacian image predicts striking effects for patterns, such as those on magic mirrors, that consist of steps ; these predictions are supported by experiment

The detailed study of reflection from steps throws up an unresolved problem concerning the relation between the pattern embossed on the back and the relief on the reflecting surface. The Laplacian image is an approximation to geometrical optics, which is itself an approximation to physical optics. The appendix contains a discussion of the Laplacian image starting from the wave integral representing Fresnel diffraction from the mirror surface. Geometrical optics and the Laplacian image If we measure the height h(r) from the convex surface of the mirror (figure 3), assumed to

have radius of curvature R0, then the deviation of the surface undulations from a reference plane (figure 3) is η(r) = − r22R0+ h(r. The specularly reflected rays of geometrical optics are determined by the stationary value(s) of

the optical path length L from the source (distance H from the reference plane) to the position

R on the screen (distance D from the reference plane) via the point r on the mirror. This is L = (H − η(r))2 + r2 +(D − η(r

))2 + (R − r)2≈ H + D + (r, R), (2)where in the second line we have employed the paraxial approximation (all ray angles small), with (r, R) = r2 2H+(R − r)2 2D+ r2 R0− 2h(r). In applying the stationarity condition ∇r(r, R) = 0, it is convenient to define the magnification M, the reduced distance Z, and the ;demagnified observation position r referred to the mirror surface: M ≡ 1 +D H+2D R0, Z ≡ 2D M , r ≡ R M . We note an effect of the convexity that will be important later: as the source and screen distance increase, Z approaches the finite asymptotic value R0. With these variables, the position r

(r,Z), on the mirror, of rays reaching the screen position r, is the solution of r = r − Z∇h(r). The focusing and defocusing responsible for the varying light intensity at r involves the

Jacobian determinant of the transformation from r to r, giving,after a short calculation,Igeom(r,Z) = constant × ∂x ∂x

∂y ∂y − ∂x ∂y ∂y ∂x−1 r→r (r,Z)= 1 − Z∇2 h(r) + Z2

∂h(r) ∂x2 ∂h(r) ∂y2 − ∂h(r) ∂x ∂y2−1r→r(r,Z), ().where the result has been normalized to Igeom = 1 for the convex mirror without surface relief (i.e. h(r) = 0). So far, this is standard geometrical optics. In general, more than one ray can reach r—that is, can have several solutions r—and the boundaries of regions reached by different numbers of rays are caustics. In magic mirrors, however, we are concerned with a

limiting regime satisfying Z Rmin 1, where Rmin is the smallest radius of curvature of the surface irregularities. Then there is only one ray, simplifies to r ≈ r, (9) and the intensity simplifies to ILaplacian(r,Z) = 1 + Z∇2 h(r). This is the Laplacian image. Changing Z affects only the contrast of the image and not its form, so explains why the sharpness of the image is independent of screen position, provided holds. The intensity is a linear function of the surface irregularities h, which

is not the case in general geometrical optics (i.e. when is violated), where, as has been emphasized the relation is nonlinear. And, as already noted, for a distant source and

screen Z approaches the value R0, implying that (8) holds for any distance of the screen if R0 Rmin, that is, provided the irregularities are sufficiently gentle or the mirror is sufficiently

convex. Alternatively stated, the convexity of the mirror can compensate any concavity of the irregularity h, in which case there are no caustics for any screen position.The theory based on the Laplacian image accords well with observation, at least for the mirror studied here. The key insight is that the image of a step is neither a dark line nor a bright line,

as sometimes reported , but is bright on one side and dark on the other. It is possible that there are different types of magic mirror, where for example the relief is etched directly onto

the reflecting surface and protected by a transparent film , but these do not seem to be common. Sometimes, the pattern reflected onto a screen is different from that on the back, but

this is probably a trick, achieved by attaching a second layer of bronze, differently embossed, to the back of the mirror.

Pre-focal ray concentrations leading to Laplacian images are familiar in other contexts, though they are not always recognized as such. An example based on refraction occurs in old windows, where a combination of age and poor manufacture has distorted the glass. The distortion is not evident in views seen through the window when standing close to it. However,when woken by the low morning sun shining through a gap in the curtains onto an opposite

wall, one often sees the distortions magnified as a pattern of irregular bright and dark lines. If the equivalent of is satisfied, that is if the distortions and propagation distance are not too

large, the intensity is the Laplacian image of the window surface. (When the condition is not satisfied, the distortions can generate caustics.) Only the optics of the mirror has been studied here. The manner in which the pattern embossed on the back gets reproduced on the front has not been considered. Referring to ,this involves the sign of the coefficient a in the relation between hback and h. There have been several speculations about the formation of the relief. One is that the relief is generated while the mirror is cooling, by unequal contraction of the thick and thin parts of the pattern ; it is not clear what sign of a this leads to. Another is that cooling generates stresses, and that during vigorous grinding and polishing the thin parts yield more than the thick parts, leading to the thick parts being worn down more; this leads to a 0: bright (dark) lines on the image, indicating low (high) sides of the steps on the reflecting face, are associated with the low (high) sides of the

steps on the back , not the reverse (figure 7(b)). This suggests two avenues for further research. First, the sign of a should be determined by direct measurement of the profile of the reflecting surface; I predict a > 0. Second, whatever the result, the mechanism should be investigated by which the process of manufacture reproduces onto the reflecting surface the

pattern on the back. The fact that h0 = 378 nm is smaller than the wavelengths in visible light does not imply that the Laplacian image is the small-κ limit of (A.3), namely the perturbation limit corresponding to infinitely weak relief. Indeed it is not: the perturbation limit, obtained by

expanding the exponential in (A.3) and evaluating the integral over τ , with a renormalized denominator to incorporate the known limit I = 1 for ξ = ±∞, isψpert(ξ , ζ, κ) = 1 − iκ erf(ξ/√1+iζ /κ)

√ 1 + κ2 . For the gentlest steps, this predicts low-contrast oscillatory images, very different from the Laplacian images of geometrical optics; this is illustrated in figure 8(b), calculated for k =0.05, corresponding to h0 = 5.2 nm.

European journal of physics, 27, 109. Retrieved from www.phy.bris.ac.uk/people/Berry_mv/the_papers/berry383.pdf Spatial Filters - Laplacian/Laplacian of Gaussian. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2012, from homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/log.htm Thompson, S. P. (1897). Light Visible and Invisible: A Series of Lectures at Royal Institution of Great Britain. Macmillan. Retrieved from www.archive.org/stream/lightvisibleinvi00thomuoft#page/50...

In the industrial and materialist period that began in the 19th century, Catholicism, even though it had to give in to its official positions, underwent glorious revival. In the years 1830-1880, an attempt was made to revive an authentic religious art, in the image of restored faith, through examples of medieval art. The Gothic cathedral, in its 13th century purity, Fra Angelico, the painter who paints on his knees, will be the models unceasingly questioned and translated through the teaching of Ingres.

Moose is the gentlest dog but really turns it on when we play. Catching fly balls or grounders, his reflexes are incredible.

Unfailing Prayer to Saint Anthony

Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.O Holy St. Anthony, gentlest of Saints, your love for God and Charity for His creatures made you worthy, when on earth, to possess miraculous powers. Miracles waited on your word, which you were ever ready to speak for those in trouble or anxiety. Encouraged by this thought, I implore of you to obtain for me (request). The answer to my prayer may require a miracle. Even so, you are the saint of Miracles.O gentle and loving St. Anthony, whose heart was ever full of human sympathy, whisper my petition into the ears of the Sweet Infant Jesus, who loved to be folded in your arms, and the gratitude of my heart will ever be yours.Amen.

tiny grasses brushing the yellow columbine, Lakeway, TX. Sony nex5r and Tasco 70mm enlarger lens with helicoid adapter.

Ar hyd ei oes fe gar dyn

Y pridd sy' piau'i wreiddyn

T Llew Jones

This is a picture of my Daddy - man of the soil - he is 80 and carried this heavy piece of oak some 200 yards to chop ready for the winter wood stock. He is the strongest and gentlest man in the world.

Dyma llun o'n Nhad - dyn y tir - mae yn 80 oed ac yn cario y darn o dderw dros 200 llath iw dori ai grynhoi erbyn y gaeaf. Dyma y dyn cryfa a thyner sydd yn y byd i gyd.

It is becoming clearer each day that the fishermen of Taiji are proud to disgrace their great nation before the eyes of the world. Their activities have become more brutally sadistic than ever before and the argument that they are simply trying to feed their families is a provable lie. They are the wealthiest people in Taiji as this picture of their cars parked near their fishing vessels shows quite clearly. Former Cove Guardian leader Scott West reported that they "swagger through the town strutting like peacocks, displaying and boasting of their wealth." These are not poor fishermen. This is not tradition, and it has nothing to do with Japanese culture. These fishermen want the entire nation of Japan to justify their greed in the name of all of Japanese culture. Japan is a great nation held hostage by a small group of vicious thugs who have apparently succeeded in equating the character of Japan with the inhumane and brutal slaughter of one of the most intelligent, peaceful, socially complex, and gentlest species on Earth. This is the animal that has saved human lives at sea. This is the animal whose image is equated with peace, love and harmony. Beloved by the majority of humanity, brutalized by a small minority within Japan. All of humanity is disgraced by these killers and it is our duty, responsibility and obligation to do all within our power, acting within the law and non-violently to stop this on-going murder of these dolphins in Japanese waters.

Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.

~Thomas de Quincey

Giant False Leaf Katydid (Pseudophyllus titan, Pseudophyllinae, Tettigoniidae)

Pu'er, Yunnan, China

see comments for additional image......

"Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures." ― Thomas de Quincey

Minolta 58/1.2 Rokkor PG.

Of the f1.2 50's I've used, I'd say the Rokkor stands apart as perhaps the gentlest of the bunch. I am reminded more of the afformentioned Planar 85 ZK in both use and result, which isn't a bad thing.

"O Holy St. Anthony, gentlest of Saints, your love for God and Charity for His creatures, made you worthy, when on earth, to possess miraculous powers. Encouraged by this thought, I implore you to obtain for me (request). O gentle and loving St. Anthony, whose heart was ever full of human sympathy, whisper my petition into the ears of the sweet Infant Jesus, who loved to be folded in your arms; and the gratitude of my heart will ever be yours. Amen."

Stained glass window from St Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent.

For thee the rose her balmy buds renews,

And silver lilies fill their cups with dews;

Flora for thee the laughing fields perfumes,

For thee Pomona sheds her choicest blooms,

Soft Zephyr wafts thee on his gentlest gales

O'er Hackwood's sunny hill and verdant vales

Taken from: Mawa

Whilst standing in Barbara Hepworth's sculpture garden, pondering on what to shoot next, I saw this pool of water glinting out of the corner of my eye. It actually resides on top of a square, stone plinth which supports a bronze sculpture called 'Francessa's Thinking' (imagine a 4ft tall, elongated Tic Tac on end with a similar looking hole cut through its body). The stone plinth is so perfectly flat and level that when it rains the water forms a shallow pool about 5mm deep, which is held in place at the edges by the wonder of surface tension, only if the water is disturbed by the wind or other external force do droplets escape down the sides, otherwise it's like a liquid mirror, reflecting the world around it, which gives a fortunate observer the rare chance to get a totally unique perspective on the sculpture.

What fascinated me in particular were the circular ripples of movement across the pool's surface and how they ricocheted back from the edge, merging with the original ripples. At first I thought it was caused by some insect having a paddle, or drowning, but in fact it was the gentle breeze blowing from the other side of the sculpture. I just had to get a shot of those ripples! Crouching low on the nearby steps that looked down on the plinth I raised my camera to my eye and waited…and waited…and waited..then, just as I moved the camera from my eye the breeze blew, the ripples rippled, and then were gone in the briefest of seconds…and I missed my shot. Bugger. This little game went on for a good 15 minutes and during that time I took 8 shots; 4 had ripples, 4 didn't. Of the 4 that did only one caught the moment I'd wanted to catch, this is it.

In the end, though, as pleased as I am with the final image, it was the waiting that I enjoyed most and got the most from. Crouching there in silence amongst the plants and trees, watching the play of light and wind on the water, a deep calm slowly suffused my body and mind. My attention became so focussed on watching the still pool, waiting for when the fickle breeze would choose to flit across its surface, that the constant mental chit chat in my head quietened down to barely a whisper. Time seemed to stop and my senses became heightened (or more likely my silent mind allowed me the rare opportunity to be truly aware of them), the smell of the damp earth and subtle flower scents filled my nostrils, the bird song filled my ears, the light and shadows danced inside my eyes, my bare skin felt the gentlest waft of the cool breeze drift across it… then, taking the camera away from my eye I just looked at the pool and the reflection of the sculpture clear and sharp within it...and it was in that moment, that perfect storm of empty mind, heightened senses, flora and fauna, light and movement, stillness and silence, that I finally, at long last, truly 'got' Barbara Hepworth's sculptures, and I 'got' what she had done here in this sculpture garden, why she insisted on putting her nature inspired art back into nature. To use a word that the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein coined in his book Stranger in a Strange Land, I 'grokked' it. – to 'grok' means 'to understand something profoundly by intuition and/or empathy'. What that understanding is I can't put into words, it's at a gut/soul level, words are inadequate, limited. 'It' resides in the quiet spaces within me, and stays there...no matter how hard I try and drag it out into the world of words and thoughts, which for a lover of words and thoughts is incredibly frustrating! What I love about the whole moment, what tickles me daft, is that the actual experience of 'grokking' was totally accidental, it was an experience that I've tried to induce deliberately many times over the years and failed at more times than not. So, once again it appeared only when I stopped trying to make 'it' happen. Ha, I never learn! C'est la vie, eh! :-)

“A friend is one to whom you can pour out the contents of your heart, chaff and grain alike.

Knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

(Unknown)

This picture was shot from the balcony of a Shiva mandir (temple) near Manikarnika ghat, in Varanasi (Benaras) from where I see any kind of people walking along the Ganges.

Those friends were walking holding hands, it is a common gesture in India which doesn't imply any other overtones whatsoever.

However physical demonstrations of affection in public between opposite sexes, even between husband and wife, are frowned upon.

View On Black

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The swan

Illusion: the black swan knows how to break

Through expectation, beak

Aimed now at its own breast, now at its image,

And move across our lives, if the lake is life,

And by the gentlest turning of its neck

Transform, in time, time’s damage;

To less than a black plume, time’s grief.

James Merrill

◉🎵◉Loreena McKennitt Night Ride Across the Caucasus

The Dior building is a trapezoid box in Tokyo’s fashion center, Omotesando Avenue, designed by the Japanese practice SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa). To respond to Tokyo’s rigid building codes – the building could be no higher than 30 meters – and to maximize space, the architects designed the building with floors of variable heights. Retail floors were alternated with utilitarian spaces. Exterior walls were constructed of glass. This skin is the building’s showpiece. The clean, square, outer skin of clear glass covers a second skin inside, of translucent acrylic. This gives the external facade the gentlest of hints at what is inside (while revealing nothing), and provides a glowing blank canvas for seasonal additions.

Source:ArchitectureTokyo

The King still reigns. Master Aspen "Moose" is the most gentlest, affectionate, obedient, trusted and loving companion, anyone could ever own in this world. He was 18months old when we adopted him. We sure were blessed with this good soul.

Workers Operating Heavy Machinery.

To buste to brechen thy ass aut back,

to earn thee tous les jours endless wolfish crust,

verdienst for thine fluttering rich, 'tis a oceanus bitch without a ring,

diegenen that buan in thee centaurs buzzards hammering pack,

thee stifling zwoegen is real,tis breathless air thy breathes, is all but dust,

thee melancholy aches wonen deeper than thous mourning anima yells isnt it unjust?

thou garnish'd coin is never enough,O'art how merciless hungor stings,

as thee gentlest colt cries for moore,thous face is gressy scorpio black,

thee tortuios hands are spinavy beyond the means of indulging soap,

thou invinge eveille are dirty full of condemn'd disgust,

thy crumbl'd body needs requiescere , with a small faepmrim of gallows hope,

but thine fattening wirt needs are getting moore, than a bohaty heart attack,

no demands ! dreari'st work,he say;th unto thee ,gedoning a endless slanting temperate slope,

to used thee up,gone faste years of yore, when thou was so unimaginable robust,

thou is now just another unconscious part now, art thous bewilder'd brain smacks,

when in essence that is all thee is hence forth fleeting rust,

beran part in the heavy zephyrus machinery called piteous life, void of human scope,

thee marbl'd tomb day shall come,ascierpan as a sombre tack,

when'st thou deux shall need a little smear'd grease to adjust,

'tis doesnt matter now,staring at thy hanging wither'd rope,

for thou aussi are now despondingly whack'd!

realizing now that once you fonctionner thee machines, now they operieren thee dope.

Steve.D.Hammond.

And you didn't even notice when the sky turned blue

And you couldn't tell the difference between me and you

And I nearly didn't notice the gentlest feeling

You are the bluest light

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

It seems to me that photography is a journey ... an exploration ... a quest to capture the most beautiful light ... to freeze unforgettable moments ... to showcase the most attractive angles ... of every subject ... every time ... to the best of your ability. What a blessing.

Beauty comes in a vast array of forms ... and hidden treasures often await us down paths we've yet to explore. Most of my photos so far have been taken from a realist approach, but some subjects ... like these gerber daisy petals ... appeal for the softest treatment ... the gentlest touch ... the calmest and quietest of spaces ... to flutter ... to flow ... to whisper sweet light.

Shhhhhh ... listen.

~s

An illustration from the old book: The Pearl of the Orient: the Philippine Islands 1900

The merely well-to-do and the poorer classes wear clothes woven of cotton, silk, and pina and hemp, or of hemp or bamboo. But the glory of the wealthy, Spaniard or Meztizo, man or woman, are their garments of pure pineapple-leaf fiber, called jusi. This is durable and almost priceless. I small jusi handkerchief is worth $50.00. So delicate is the thread, that, in weaving, it is protected by gauze from the gentlest breeze. The costliness of the material, therefore, is due to the difficulties of the weaver and to the time and patience necessary to produce even a single inch.

Author: Browne, George Waldo

Boston: D. Estes and Co, 1900

Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Library

" thank you bert. i wan't you to go home tonight. i don't want you to stay here ngyong gabi. come back tomorrow when i'm already ok. please don't get depressed. ok?"

those were the last words that i heard from my dear friend sid exactly a year ago. 5 min after i left his pad he passed away...

i received the news that he was sick that same day only. dean our mutual friend called me up to say that sid is not ok. i really thought that it was a bad joke... i cried in the CR for almost an hour. i tried to calm myself... i dont want sid to see me teary eyed.

marco accompanied me at sid's pad and studio, that was around 6pm. his mom, sister and some of his brothers were there at that time. he can barely talk... ate rosa gave him a porridge to eat then afterwards a lay minister came to give blessing. he can't even raise his hand to say amen, so i raised it for him... we changed his bed covers and i gave him a sponge bath... time was susspended for me at that time i can't even recall all of what transpired afterwards...

... all i could recall was the txt message of dean saying that sid passed away and his remains lie at his pad. we are still at south superhighway then, i never really cared, i wailed so hard upon reading it that marco got one of the most shocking moments of his driving career. : ) i told him that we should return at sid's pad but he insisted that he should take me home because im unconsolable, exhausted and going balistic. (hehehe) now i'm trying to smile whenever i recall those painful moments....

before that....

...it had been months since i last saw him. due to the hectic scheds of both our works we seldom meet na lang during those times. what is baffling is that i never received any txt messages from him for about 3 weeks. and one thing that made me think that he was not ok is that for the very first time no poems composed by him were forwarded to me on last years easter sunday.

....

whoa. i think i'll have to continue this story some other time. hwooo! need to get some fresh air muna....

even before i met him, we were correspondents. we would often talk of life and everything under the moon and sun. i never really knew who sid was until i met him in person. he was the silent type. the one who thinks a thousand times before uttering the words. i never knew that he was the director of the visual arts department and graduated with architecture as his course. he was among the top in their board examination (third if i remember it right). he was so humble that these things unfolded to me via his friends pa, walang ere.

the things that we both love much; our fascination with tofu, squid and chowking. hahahaha. and of course our great love for the arts. he was an abstract painter, while i, a classical naturalist. we often criticize each other's works and we always end up in heated debates and most of the time ends with heartfelt resounding laughters.

we also adore books. we have massive collections of them and we make it a point to share. we read everything and anything. we were not biassed nor judgemental when it comes to acquiring knowledge...

he was the most gentlest of souls that i've met so far. quiet, yet he had this imposing/commanding aura. he was well loved by his friends and adored by his collegues.

in 2007 he gave me a book. it was about philosophy and sculptures. i said "i am not a sculptor!"

he said, "you will be."

he found out that when CCP mounted an exhibit at their lobby i sat there for two hours with clay. i joined a group of artist and molded the bust of a pregnant woman emerging on a cut down tree trunk which was also made of clay.

upon seeing my works on clay he decided to give me some of his proportional compasses that i use now for my sculptures.

this dolorosa, i made in honor of his memories; who i gave to a dear friend as a birthday gift... whom i met exactly 7months after the death of sid. although they are so different from one another one thing that they both have is the thirst for knowledge and an overwhelming drive to strive hard for the sake of art.

rest well sid in the arms of your creator. you may not be here with us physically but your good works and memories will live on...

Sloe bloomers

The water doctor Sebastian Kneipp described the blackthorn blossoms as the gentlest laxative in the world. Hildegard von Bingen also used the delicate blossoms of the blackthorn as a medicine with many different effects.

Strobist info; Canon 580exII in HONL traveller8 camera left, Just behind subject and high above, triggered by 7D wireless function

A whisper of the gentlest sort — A poem about lilies

friendsofthegarden.org/fog-blog/2011/06/25/a-whisper-of-t...

by George Deatz

A peaceful afternoon in Trastivere, with only a Yashicamat 124G and the gentlest of clicks...

I love bees and am always amazed that they can have such a bad reputation. Not only do they do so much good for the world we live in but they really are the most gentlest of creatures.

HWW

#blacklab

Ami Bangali.

Tagged by [http://www.flickr.com/photos/aftab/]

The following is heavily inspired by the narrator's voice in Amelie.

1. I like it when I am writing with an ink pen and I can see the ink on the paper dry.

2. I like my hand as a dark shadow pressed against the bright white wall by my bed with my room lit by just my computer screen.

3. I like it when a car passes by and I can watch the light pattern change on my bedroom ceiling at night.

4. I like it when I can pop my ears open in a high speed elevator.

5. I like it when I can feel the shock-wave from fireworks.

6. I like it when the pillow is all cool when you flip it over.

7. I like open source software.

8. I like it when I feel the sideways g-force when making a sharp turn while driving.

9. I like the bloom of green in spring, more so than the colourful flowers.

10. I like the gratification I get from stains that come off with just the right amount of effort.

11. I like the way the blinds on my window look on a bright sunny day - with the gentlest breeze, they look like piano keys to me.

12. I like cats and dogs.

13. I like engineering - that's why I am in it.

14. I like the random.

15. i like to play reels of memory in my head.. from when I was less than 8 years old.

16. I like the Golden rule.

17. I like to sit idle at times.

18. I like tool-kits.

1. I dislike being confused when I am confused about the direction of the source of a sound.

2. I dislike dusty wires.

3. I dislike being just a passenger in a car on an open road.

4. I dislike how I cannot keep the right stress on tones for different syllable of words..like "photographer" or "heart/hurt".

5. I dislike lack of green in snowy winters.

6. I dislike having no air movement in my room.

7. I dislike overcooked carrots.

8. I dislike bananas that are too ripe.

9. I dislike not being able to fall asleep when I am anticipating something exciting to happen the next morning.

10. I dislike tissue paper after it has been all crumpled up.

11. I dislike roaches.

12. I dislike being not able to memorize - hence I am not in something related to Bio.

13. I dislike crowd-psychology.

14. I dislike intolerance.

15. I dislike pixelated video.

16. I dislike backward incompatibility.

In the picture I was trying out my home-made paper soft-box/diffuser(?) on the on-camera flash. Managed to soften it down quite a bit. =)

To the Memory of the Household It Describes

This Poem is Dedicated by the Author:

"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits,which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine lightof the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the CelestialFire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth thesame." -- Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy,

Book I.ch. v.

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,

And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet

Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of Storm." EMERSON, The Snow Storm.

The sun that brief December day

Rose cheerless over hills of gray,

And, darkly circled, gave at noon

A sadder light than waning moon.

Slow tracing down the thickening sky

Its mute and ominous prophecy,

A portent seeming less than threat,

It sank from sight before it set.

A chill no coat, however stout,

Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,

A hard, dull bitterness of cold,

That checked, mid-vein, the circling race

Of life-blood in the sharpened face,

The coming of the snow-storm told.

The wind blew east; we heard the roar

Of Ocean on his wintry shore,

And felt the strong pulse throbbing there

Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, --

Brought in the wood from out of doors,

Littered the stalls, and from the mows

Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows;

Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;

And, sharply clashing horn on horn,

Impatient down the stanchion rows

The cattle shake their walnut bows;

While, peering from his early perch

Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,

The cock his crested helmet bent

And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light

The gray day darkened into night,

A night made hoary with the swarm

And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,

As zigzag, wavering to and fro,

Crossed and recrossed the wingëd snow:

And ere the early bedtime came

The white drift piled the window-frame,

And through the glass the clothes-line posts

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:

The morning broke without a sun;

In tiny spherule traced with lines

Of Nature's geometric signs,

In starry flake, and pellicle,

All day the hoary meteor fell;

And, when the second morning shone,

We looked upon a world unknown,

On nothing we could call our own.

Around the glistening wonder bent

The blue walls of the firmament,

No cloud above, no earth below, --

A universe of sky and snow!

The old familiar sights of ours

Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers

Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,

Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;

A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,

A fenceless drift what once was road;

The bridle-post an old man sat

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;

The well-curb had a Chinese roof;

And even the long sweep, high aloof,

In its slant spendor, seemed to tell

Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath

Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!"

Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy

Count such a summons less than joy?)

Our buskins on our feet we drew;

With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,

To guard our necks and ears from snow,

We cut the solid whiteness through.

And, where the drift was deepest, made

A tunnel walled and overlaid

With dazzling crystal: we had read

Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,

And to our own his name we gave,

With many a wish the luck were ours

To test his lamp's supernal powers.

We reached the barn with merry din,

And roused the prisoned brutes within.

The old horse thrust his long head out,

And grave with wonder gazed about;

The cock his lusty greeting said,

And forth his speckled harem led;

The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,

And mild reproach of hunger looked;

The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,

Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,

Shook his sage head with gesture mute,

And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore

The loosening drift its breath before;

Low circling round its southern zone,

The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.

No church-bell lent its Christian tone

To the savage air, no social smoke

Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.

A solitude made more intense

By dreary-voicëd elements,

The shrieking of the mindless wind,

The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,

And on the glass the unmeaning beat

Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.

Beyond the circle of our hearth

No welcome sound of toil or mirth

Unbound the spell, and testified

Of human life and thought outside.

We minded that the sharpest ear

The buried brooklet could not hear,

The music of whose liquid lip

Had been to us companionship,

And, in our lonely life, had grown

To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest

Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,

The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank

From sight beneath the smothering bank,

We piled, with care, our nightly stack

Of wood against the chimney-back, --

The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,

And on its top the stout back-stick;

The knotty forestick laid apart,

And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,

We watched the first red blaze appear,

Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam

On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,

Until the old, rude-furnished room

Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;

While radiant with a mimic flame

Outside the sparkling drift became,

And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree

Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.

The crane and pendent trammels showed,

The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed;

While childish fancy, prompt to tell

The meaning of the miracle,

Whispered the old rhyme: "Under the tree,

When fire outdoors burns merrily,

There the witches are making tea."

The moon above the eastern wood

Shone at its full; the hill-range stood

Transfigured in the silver flood,

Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,

Dead white, save where some sharp ravine

Took shadow, or the sombre green

Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black

Against the whiteness at their back.

For such a world and such a night

Most fitting that unwarming light,

Which only seemed where'er it fell

To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,

We sat the clean-winged hearth about,

Content to let the north-wind roar

In baffled rage at pane and door,

While the red logs before us beat

The frost-line back with tropic heat;

And ever, when a louder blast

Shook beam and rafter as it passed,

The merrier up its roaring draught

The great throat of the chimney laughed;

The house-dog on his paws outspread

Laid to the fire his drowsy head,

The cat's dark silhouette on the wall

A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;

And, for the winter fireside meet,

Between the andirons' straddling feet,

The mug of cider simmered slow,

The apples sputtered in a row,

And, close at hand, the basket stood

With nuts from brown October's wood.

What matter how the night behaved?

What matter how the north-wind raved?

Blow high, blow low, not all its snow

Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.

O Time and Change! -- with hair as gray

As was my sire's that winter day,

How strange it seems, with so much gone

Of life and love, to still live on!

Ah, brother! only I and thou

Are left of all that circle now, --

The dear home faces whereupon

That fitful firelight paled and shone.

Henceforward, listen as we will,

The voices of that hearth are still;

Look where we may, the wide earth o'er,

Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,

We sit beneath their orchard trees,

We hear, like them, the hum of bees

And rustle of the bladed corn;

We turn the pages that they read,

Their written words we linger o'er,

But in the sun they cast no shade,

No voice is heard, no sign is made,

No step is on the conscious floor!

Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,

(Since He who knows our need is just,)

That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.

Alas for him who never sees

The stars shine through his cypress-trees!

Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,

Nor looks to see the breaking day

Across the mournful marbles play!

Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,

The truth to flesh and sense unknown,

That Life is ever lord of Death,

And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,

Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,

Or stammered from our school-book lore

"The Chief of Gambia's golden shore."

How often since, when all the land

Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand,

As if a far-blown trumpet stirred

The languorous sin-sick air, I heard:

"Does not the voice of reason cry,

Claim the first right which Nature gave,

From the red scourge of bondage to fly,

Nor deign to live a burdened slave!"

Our father rode again his ride

On Memphremagog's wooded side;

Sat down again to moose and samp

In trapper's hut and Indian camp;

Lived o'er the old idyllic ease

Beneath St. François' hemlock-trees;

Again for him the moonlight shone

On Norman cap and bodiced zone;

Again he heard the violin play

Which led the village dance away.

And mingled in its merry whirl

The grandam and the laughing girl.

Or, nearer home, our steps he led

Where Salisbury's level marshes spread

Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;

Where merry mowers, hale and strong,

Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along

The low green prairies of the sea.

We shared the fishing off Boar's Head,

And round the rocky Isles of Shoals

The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;

The chowder on the sand-beach made,

Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,

With spoons of clam-shell from the pot.

We heard the tales of witchcraft old,

And dream and sign and marvel told

To sleepy listeners as they lay

Stretched idly on the salted hay,

Adrift along the winding shores,

When favoring breezes deigned to blow

The square sail of the gundelow

And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel

Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,

Told how the Indian hordes came down

At midnight on Concheco town,

And how her own great-uncle bore

His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.

Recalling, in her fitting phrase,

So rich and picturesque and free

(The common unrhymed poetry

Of simple life and country ways,)

The story of her early days, --

She made us welcome to her home;

Old hearths grew wide to give us room;

We stole with her a frightened look

At the gray wizard's conjuring-book,

The fame whereof went far and wide

Through all the simple country side;

We heard the hawks at twilight play,

The boat-horn on Piscataqua,

The loon's weird laughter far away;

We fished her little trout-brook, knew

What flowers in wood and meadow grew,

What sunny hillsides autumn-brown

She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,

Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,

The ducks' black squadron anchored lay,

And heard the wild-geese calling loud

Beneath the gray November cloud.

Then, haply, with a look more grave,

And soberer tone, some tale she gave

From painful Sewel's ancient tome,

Beloved in every Quaker home,

Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,

Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, --

Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! --

Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,

And water-butt and bread-cask failed,

And cruel, hungry eyes pursued

His portly presence mad for food,

With dark hints muttered under breath

Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,

To be himself the sacrifice.

Then, suddenly, as if to save

The good man from his living grave,

A ripple on the water grew,

A school of porpoise flashed in view.

"Take, eat," he said, "and be content;

These fishes in my stead are sent

By Him who gave the tangled ram

To spare the child of Abraham."

Our uncle, innocent of books,

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,

The ancient teachers never dumb

Of Nature's unhoused lyceum.

In moons and tides and weather wise,

He read the clouds as prophecies,

And foul or fair could well divine,

By many an occult hint and sign,

Holding the cunning-warded keys

To all the woodcraft mysteries;

Himself to Nature's heart so near

That all her voices in his ear

Of beast or bird had meanings clear,

Like Apollonius of old,

Who knew the tales the sparrows told,

Or Hermes, who interpreted

What the sage cranes of Nilus said;

A simple, guileless, childlike man,

Content to live where life began;

Strong only on his native grounds,

The little world of sights and sounds

Whose girdle was the parish bounds,

Whereof his fondly partial pride

The common features magnified,

As Surrey hills to mountains grew

In White of Selborne's loving view, --

He told how teal and loon he shot,

And how the eagle's eggs he got,

The feats on pond and river done,

The prodigies of rod and gun;

Till, warming with the tales he told,

Forgotten was the outside cold,

The bitter wind unheeded blew,

From ripening corn the pigeons flew,

The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink

Went fishing down the river-brink.

In fields with bean or clover gray,

The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,

Peered from the doorway of his cell;

The muskrat plied the mason's trade,

And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;

And from the shagbark overhead

The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer

And voice in dreams I see and hear, --

The sweetest woman ever Fate

Perverse denied a household mate,

Who, lonely, homeless, not the less

Found peace in love's unselfishness,

And welcome wheresoe'er she went,

A calm and gracious element,

Whose presence seemed the sweet income

And womanly atmosphere of home, --

Called up her girlhood memories,

The huskings and the apple-bees,

The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,

Weaving through all the poor details

And homespun warp of circumstance

A golden woof-thread of romance.

For well she kept her genial mood

And simple faith of maidenhood;

Before her still a cloud-land lay,

The mirage loomed across her way;

The morning dew, that dries so soon

With others, glistened at her noon;

Through years of toil and soil and care,

From glossy tress to thin gray hair,

All unprofaned she held apart

The virgin fancies of the heart.

Be shame to him of woman born

Who hath for such but thought of scorn.

There, too, our elder sister plied

Her evening task the stand beside;

A full, rich nature, free to trust,

Truthful and almost sternly just,

Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,

And make her generous thought a fact,

Keeping with many a light disguise

The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best

That Heaven itself could give thee, -- rest,

Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!

How many a poor one's blessing went

With thee beneath the low green tent

Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part

Of all she saw, and let her heart

Against the household bosom lean,

Upon the motley-braided mat

Our youngest and our dearest sat,

Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,

Now bathed in the unfading green

And holy peace of Paradise.

Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,

Or from the shade of saintly palms,

Or silver reach of river calms,

Do those large eyes behold me still?

With me one little year ago: --

The chill weight of the winter snow

For months upon her grave has lain;

And now, when summer south-winds blow

And brier and harebell bloom again,

I tread the pleasant paths we trod,

I see the violet-sprinkled sod

Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak

The hillside flowers she loved to seek,

Yet following me where'er I went

With dark eyes full of love's content.

The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills

The air with sweetness; all the hills

Stretch green to June's unclouded sky;

But still I wait with ear and eye

For something gone which should be nigh,

A loss in all familiar things,

In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.

And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,

Am I not richer than of old?

Safe in thy immortality,

What change can reach the wealth I hold?

What chance can mar the pearl and gold

Thy love hath left in trust with me?

And while in life's late afternoon,

Where cool and long the shadows grow,

I walk to meet the night that soon

Shall shape and shadow overflow,

I cannot feel that thou art far,

Since near at need the angels are;

And when the sunset gates unbar,

Shall I not see thee waiting stand,

And, white against the evening star,

The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,

The master of the district school

Held at the fire his favored place,

Its warm glow lit a laughing face

Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared

The uncertain prophecy of beard.

He teased the mitten-blinded cat,

Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat,

Sang songs, and told us what befalls

In classic Dartmouth's college halls.

Born the wild Northern hills among,

From whence his yeoman father wrung

By patient toil subsistence scant,

Not competence and yet not want,

He early gained the power to pay

His cheerful, self-reliant way;

Could doff at ease his scholar's gown

To peddle wares from town to town;

Or through the long vacation's reach

In lonely lowland districts teach,

Where all the droll experience found

At stranger hearths in boarding round,

The moonlit skater's keen delight,

The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,

The rustic party, with its rough

Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff,

And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,

His winter task a pastime made.

Happy the snow-locked homes wherein

He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,

Or held the good dame's winding-yarn,

Or mirth-provoking versions told

Of classic legends rare and old,

Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome

Had all the commonplace of home,

And little seemed at best the odds

'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;

Where Pindus-born Arachthus took

The guise of any grist-mill brook,

And dread Olympus at his will

Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;

But at his desk he had the look

And air of one who wisely schemed,

And hostage from the future took

In trainëd thought and lore of book.

Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he

Shall Freedom's young apostles be,

Who, following in War's bloody trail,

Shall every lingering wrong assail;

All chains from limb and spirit strike,

Uplift the black and white alike;

Scatter before their swift advance

The darkness and the ignorance,

The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,

Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth,

Made murder pastime, and the hell

Of prison-torture possible;

The cruel lie of caste refute,

Old forms remould, and substitute

For Slavery's lash the freeman's will,

For blind routine, wise-handed skill;

A school-house plant on every hill,

Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence

The quick wires of intelligence;

Till North and South together brought

Shall own the same electric thought,

In peace a common flag salute,

And, side by side in labor's free

And unresentful rivalry,

Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night

Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.

Unmarked by time, and yet not young,

The honeyed music of her tongue

And words of meekness scarcely told

A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,

Its milder features dwarfed beside

Her unbent will's majestic pride.

She sat among us, at the best,

A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,

Rebuking with her cultured phrase

Our homeliness of words and ways.

A certain pard-like, treacherous grace

Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,

Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;

And under low brows, black with night,

Rayed out at times a dangerous light;

The sharp heat-lightnings of her face

Presaging ill to him whom Fate

Condemned to share her love or hate.

A woman tropical, intense

In thought and act, in soul and sense,

She blended in a like degree

The vixen and the devotee,

Revealing with each freak or feint

The temper of Petruchio's Kate,

The raptures of Siena's saint.

Her tapering hand and rounded wrist

Had facile power to form a fist;

The warm, dark languish of her eyes

Was never safe from wrath's surprise.

Brows saintly calm and lips devout

Knew every change of scowl and pout;

And the sweet voice had notes more high

And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town

Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,

What convent-gate has held its lock

Against the challenge of her knock!

Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares,

Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs,

Gray olive slopes of hills that hem

Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,

Or startling on her desert throne

The crazy Queen of Lebanon

With claims fantastic as her own,

Her tireless feet have held their way;

And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,

She watches under Eastern skies,

With hope each day renewed and fresh,

The Lord's quick coming in the flesh,

Whereof she dreams and prophesies!

Where'er her troubled path may be,

The Lord's sweet pity with her go!

The outward wayward life we see,

The hidden springs we may not know.

Nor is it given us to discern

What threads the fatal sisters spun,

Through what ancestral years has run

The sorrow with the woman born,

What forged her cruel chain of moods,

What set her feet in solitudes,

And held the love within her mute,

What mingled madness in the blood,

A life-long discord and annoy,

Water of tears with oil of joy,

And hid within the folded bud

Perversities of flower and fruit.

It is not ours to separate

The tangled skein of will and fate,

To show what metes and bounds should stand

Upon the soul's debatable land,

And between choice and Providence

Divide the circle of events;

But He who knows our frame is just,

Merciful and compassionate,

And full of sweet assurances

And hope for all the language is,

That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,

Sent out a dull and duller glow,

The bull's-eye watch that hung in view,

Ticking its weary circuit through,

Pointed with mutely warning sign

Its black hand to the hour of nine.

That sign the pleasant circle broke:

My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,

Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,

And laid it tenderly away;

Then roused himself to safely cover

The dull red brands with ashes over.

And while, with care, our mother laid

The work aside, her steps she stayed

One moment, seeking to express

Her grateful sense of happiness

For food and shelter, warmth and health,

And love's contentment more than wealth,

With simple wishes (not the weak,

Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,

But such as warm the generous heart,

O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)

That none might lack, that bitter night,

For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard

The wind that round the gables roared,

With now and then a ruder shock,

Which made our very bedsteads rock.

We heard the loosened clapboards tost,

The board-nails snapping in the frost;

And on us, through the unplastered wall,

Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.

But sleep stole on, as sleep will do

When hearts are light and life is new;

Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,

Till in the summer-land of dreams

They softened to the sound of streams,

Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,

And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

Next morn we wakened with the shout

Of merry voices high and clear;

And saw the teamsters drawing near

To break the drifted highways out.

Down the long hillside treading slow

We saw the half-buried oxen go,

Shaking the snow from heads uptost,

Their straining nostrils white with frost.

Before our door the straggling train

Drew up, an added team to gain.

The elders threshed their hands a-cold,

Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes

From lip to lip; the younger folks

Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,

Then toiled again the cavalcade

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine,

And woodland paths that wound between

Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.

From every barn a team afoot,

At every house a new recruit,

Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law,

Haply the watchful young men saw

Sweet doorway pictures of the curls

And curious eyes of merry girls,

Lifting their hands in mock defence

Against the snow-ball's compliments,

And reading in each missive tost

The charm with Eden never lost.

We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound;

And, following where the teamsters led,

The wise old Doctor went his round,

Just pausing at our door to say,

In the brief autocratic way

Of one who, prompt at Duty's call,

Was free to urge her claim on all,

That some poor neighbor sick abed

At night our mother's aid would need.

For, one in generous thought and deed,

What mattered in the sufferer's sight

The Quaker matron's inward light,

The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed?

All hearts confess the saints elect

Who, twain in faith, in love agree,

And melt not in an acid sect

The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed

Since the great world was heard from last.

The Almanac we studied o'er,

Read and reread our little store

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;

One harmless novel, mostly hid

From younger eyes, a book forbid,

And poetry, (or good or bad,

A single book was all we had,)

Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse,

A stranger to the heathen Nine,

Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,

The wars of David and the Jews.

At last the floundering carrier bore

The village paper to our door.

Lo! broadening outward as we read,

To warmer zones the horizon spread

In panoramic length unrolled

We saw the marvels that it told.

Before us passed the painted Creeks,

And daft McGregor on his raids

In Costa Rica's everglades.

And up Taygetos winding slow

Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks,

A Turk's head at each saddle-bow!

Welcome to us its week-old news,

Its corner for the rustic Muse,

Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,

Its record, mingling in a breath

The wedding bell and dirge of death:

Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,

The latest culprit sent to jail;

Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,

Its vendue sales and goods at cost,

And traffic calling loud for gain.

We felt the stir of hall and street,

The pulse of life that round us beat;

The chill embargo of the snow

Was melted in the genial glow;

Wide swung again our ice-locked door,

And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look

And folded wings of ashen gray

And voice of echoes far away,

The brazen covers of thy book;

The weird palimpsest old and vast,

Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past;

Where, closely mingling, pale and glow

The characters of joy and woe;

The monographs of outlived years,

Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,

Green hills of life that slope to death,

And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees

Shade off to mournful cypresses

With the white amaranths underneath.

Even while I look, I can but heed

The restless sands' incessant fall,

Importunate hours that hours succeed,

Each clamorous with its own sharp need,

And duty keeping pace with all.

Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;

I hear again the voice that bids

The dreamer leave his dream midway

For larger hopes and graver fears:

Life greatens in these later years,

The century's aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,

Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,

The worldling's eyes shall gather dew,

Dreaming in throngful city ways

Of winter joys his boyhood knew;

And dear and early friends -- the few

Who yet remain -- shall pause to view

These Flemish pictures of old days;

Sit with me by the homestead hearth,

And stretch the hands of memory forth

To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze!

And thanks untraced to lips unknown

Shall greet me like the odors blown

From unseen meadows newly mown,

Or lilies floating in some pond,

Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;

The traveller owns the grateful sense

Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,

And, pausing, takes with forehead bare

The benediction of the air.

(Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl

John Greenleaf Whittier)

Nature, the gentlest mother,

Impatient of no child,

The feeblest or the waywardest,

Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill

By traveller is heard,

Restraining rampant squirrel

Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,

A summer afternoon,--

Her household, her assembly;

And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles

Incites the timid prayer

Of the minutest cricket,

The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep

She turns as long away

As will suffice to light her lamps;

Then, bending from the sky

With infinite affection

And infiniter care,

Her golden finger on her lip,

Wills silence everywhere.

"Nature, the Gentlest Mother" by Emily Dickinson

My Brother-in-law Ger Finnan has two Tibetan terriers called Charlie (nearest the camera) and Mia and most days takes them walking in Curragh Chase! They are two of the gentlest creatures you ever met and don't appear to have a mean bone in their bodies! They just love the opportunity to stretch their legs and run wild and free ( when they can) in the Forest Park and the exercise is good for Ger:-)

AB FAV for today…

www.facebook.com/groups/1148438991917313/

THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST.

Rudyard Kipling

Poems

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face,

tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

(Excerpt)

This image means so much to me, it came about (like many good things in life) by sheer luck.

We had this couple in our studio for a portrait session.

She is the gentlest, sweetest lady you can imagine.

Of Indian descent, born in Africa, just like her husband, they met in England, fell in love, married and after all these years, are still very much in love, there ís an ease about them and we all share a great sense of humour.

She was waiting for him to join her; he was looking through the lens, talking to Paul about the whole set-up, technicalities and cameras.

I sat next to her for a chat; we suddenly realised that we both wore a long skirt, a pink top!

We sat in the same way, no, this is not posed!!! So I asked Paul to push the shutter.

(In our book, it is not the one who pushes the shutter, but the one who has the idea, that the photo belongs to )

I treasure her as my friend, I respect her for her religion and beliefs, I admire her for her beauty, both in and out, if there were more people like her, the world would be a better place.

East and West have firmly met!

Have a sweet day and thanx for visiting, Magda (*_*)

For more of my other work visit here: www.indigo2photography.com

IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN (BY LAW!!!) TO USE ANY OF MY image or TEXT on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Waterhead/36/76/25

Sometimes life circles back in the gentlest ways. After all those years, finding him again felt less like a surprise and more like a truth I’d quietly carried with me. There was no awkwardness, no distance to close—just that effortless ease, as if we’d paused a conversation and were simply picking it up again. Being near him felt like stepping into a place my heart had always known, a warmth that settled deep and sure, reminding me that some connections don’t fade… they wait.

Sergeant Major William Planer, USMC (Ret) was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery today. He was Susan's grandfather.

A Marine of his rank is does not ordinarily qualify for burial at Arlington, but Mr. Planer was not an ordinary man. He served in Special Operations Group in WWII, Special Forces in the Korean Conflict and Special Forces in Vietnam -- when he was in his fifties.

Ben and Emily, however, knew him as the gentlest of great grandfathers.

It was a very moving ceremony.

The gentlest goat at Twin Valley Ranch. At the ranch, goats are allowed to freely roam the grounds at certain times of day. Most take full advantage, running, roughhousing, eating the flowers, getting into mischief, and being cute (shame about the flowers though). This fella seems to prefer staying quietly in his pen even with the gate open.

Unfailing Prayer to Saint Anthony

Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.O Holy St. Anthony, gentlest of Saints, your love for God and Charity for His creatures made you worthy, when on earth, to possess miraculous powers. Miracles waited on your word, which you were ever ready to speak for those in trouble or anxiety. Encouraged by this thought, I implore of you to obtain for me (request). The answer to my prayer may require a miracle. Even so, you are the saint of Miracles.O gentle and loving St. Anthony, whose heart was ever full of human sympathy, whisper my petition into the ears of the Sweet Infant Jesus, who loved to be folded in your arms, and the gratitude of my heart will ever be yours.Amen.