Les Marches Folkloriques de l'Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse trouvent leurs origines dans les processions de croix banales du moyen-âge. Celles-ci avaient lieu dans l'octave de la Pentecôte et étaient destinées à rendre hommage et à permettre de verser l'obole à l'abbaye suzeraine voisine dont dépendait le clergé.

L'escorte militaire qui les accompagnait avait pour but d'en rehausser l'éclat mais aussi de préserver les pèlerins contre les bandes de malfrats qui rôdaient à cette époque dans nos contrées. Ces compagnies spéciales d'archers et arbalétriers que l'on appelait "serments" furent les ancêtres des marcheurs.

C'est dans le courant du XVIII siècle qu'une crise importante frappa nos Marches car de plus en plus ces cérémonies devenaient un prétexte pour s'amuser et tourner le religieux en dérision, ce qui ne plut pas au clergé qui interdit ces manifestations.

Les coutumes reprendront en 1802 après le concordat signé entre Napoléon Ier et le Pape Pie VII. C'est à ce moment que les Marches prirent un nouvel essor et devinrent des escortes militaires.

En ce qui concerne les costumes adoptés dans nos manifestations aujourd'hui, ils sont du premier et du second empire. A ce sujet, il est certain que l'on a d'abord marché en premier empire car de nombreuses défroques de l'armée de Napoléon étaient disponibles dans nos régions. Ces uniformes se dégradant, nos Marcheurs ont adoptés les costumes militaires de l'époque qui a immédiatement suivi, c'est-à-dire les uniformes que l'on appelle du second empire.

Bien que l’aspect religieux ne semble pas prépondérant, il s’agit quand même d’une procession religieuse avec sortie de la châsse et des saints patrons, bénédictions, messe, …

L’un des moments les plus forts de la Saint Hubert, c’est le fameux bataillon carré. Un moment solennel, plein de tradition et avec un déroulement codifié et immuable. Il commence par une revue des troupes, suivie de décharges et de feux roulants.

The Folk Marches of Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse find their origins in the banal cross processions of the Middle Ages. These took place in the octave of Pentecost and were intended to pay homage and allow the payment of the mite to the neighboring suzerain abbey on which the clergy depended.

The military escort which accompanied them was intended to enhance its splendor but also to protect the pilgrims against the gangs of thugs who were roaming our region at that time. These special companies of archers and crossbowmen called "oaths" were the ancestors of the walkers.

It was during the 18th century that a major crisis struck our Marches because more and more these ceremonies became a pretext for having fun and making fun of religion, which did not please the clergy who banned these demonstrations.

Customs resumed in 1802 after the concordat signed between Napoleon I and Pope Pius VII. It was at this time that the Marches took on new development and became military escorts.

Regarding the costumes adopted in our demonstrations today, they are from the first and second empire. On this subject, it is certain that we first marched in the first empire because many cast-offs from Napoleon's army were available in our regions. As these uniforms deteriorated, our Walkers adopted the military costumes of the era which immediately followed, that is to say the uniforms we call the Second Empire.

Although the religious aspect does not seem predominant, it is still a religious procession with the release of the reliquary and patron saints, blessings, mass, etc.

One of the strongest moments of Saint Hubert’s Day is the famous square battalion. A solemn moment, full of tradition and with a codified and immutable sequence. It begins with a review of the troops, followed by discharges and rolling fire.

Immutable

Modelo/Model: Angela Lopez

Vestuario/Wardrobe: Angela Lopez

Maquillaje/Make-Up: Angela Lopez & Rocío Lopez

Asistente/Assistant: Ana Cignetti & Rocío Lopez

Los invito a ver y a poner Me Gusta en mi nueva página de fotografía en Facebook el siguiente link: www.facebook.com/javiercanalefotografia . Gracias!

People, I have a new photography page on Facebook, I invite you to look around and Like my page, here´s the link: www.facebook.com/javiercanalefotografia . Thanks!

fourteen kids

set tires on fire

and laughed the night away;

the man on the roof shouted "go away you fools"

angry and outraged because through his tiny eyes he saw

his dreams turning to dust forever.

yet the kids kept laughing

and dancing

and singing

for they knew that

no one could blow out their fire

their dreams

their immutable light.

www.feliciasimionphotography.com

The wind draws towards me whispers, dumb voices for many, but there lie spiritual companions, unseen but deeply felt. They are the echoes of ancestral wisdom, the whispers of those who walked the path before us. Through the veils of time, their rituals and traditions stand as pillars, shaping the contours of our identity.

In the sacred dance of life, we find ourselves in the embrace of uprooted roots, seeking to transplant the essence of who we are to new landscapes. Yet, the soil of our origins remains irreplaceable, a connection unbroken even as we venture into the unknown. It is the contradiction of being pulled in two directions, a yearning for the past while reaching for the future.

Uprooted roots, like echoes of forgotten songs, yearn for a soil they can no longer touch. They hold stories of distant lands and forgotten faces, their yearning a testament to the immutable ties that bind us to our origins. Just as these roots cannot be transplanted, the echoes of ancestral heritage persist within us, shaping our identities and coloring our perceptions.

Galloping against the wind, beneath the tempest of existence, we find ourselves engaged in a perpetual journey. It is a journey fraught with challenges and triumphs, a journey where the winds of change push us forward even as the storms threaten to overwhelm. Amidst this tumult, the companionship of our spiritual forebears whispers encouragement. They gallop alongside us in the currents of time, offering solace in moments of doubt and a steady hand when the path becomes treacherous.

The legacy of our ancestors are not stagnant tales, but living energies that inspire us to create our own narratives. As we walk the uncharted territories, we carry their courage, their love, and their dreams. In this symphony of existence, their voices are the timeless melodies that accompany us, harmonizing with the rhythm of our hearts as we navigate the enigma of life...

by me

Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 521/16 + Zeiss Opton Tessar 75mm + Ilford Delta 3200

Natural movement

Crystalline spheres

Immutability doctrine

Serenity is resignation, at once intellectual and moral, to the nature of things: it is patience in relation to All-Possibility insofar as the latter requires, by its very limitlessness, the existence of negative possibilities, those that deny Being and the qualities manifesting It, as we have noted above. We would also say, in order to provide one more key, that

serenity consists in resigning oneself to that destiny, at once unique and permanent, which is the present moment: to this itinerant "now" that no one can avoid and that in its substance pertains to the Eternal.

The man who is conscious of the nature of pure Being willingly remains in the moment that Heaven has assigned him; he is not feverishly straining towards the future nor lovingly or sadly bent over the past.

The pure present is the moment of the Absolute: it is now - neither yesterday nor tomorrow - that we stand before God.

The quality of serenity evokes that of dignity: far from being merely a matter of outward demeanor, natural and sincere dignity has a spiritual basis, namely the quasi-existential awareness of the "prime mover"; the man who is concretely aware of greatnesses that surpass him could not disavow them in his behavior, and this is moreover what his deiformity demands; in fact, there is no piety without dignity.

Man's reason for being is to be situated above the plane of

existence upon which he has been projected, or upon which, in a certain respect, he has projected himself; and this while adapting himself to the nature of that plane. Man's cosmic

mission is to be pontifex, "bridge-builder": of the path that links the sensible and moving world to the immutable divine Shore.

At Arches National Park

Have you seen this photo in out-date tone? Well I really like her pose and mood in this picture, so let's make the colorful one!

Josephine Nandy

“But the world moves on, even when you don’t want it to, even when change feels like the end of everything. It never stops. That’s harsh and magical and somewhat comforting because nothing is immutable, however much we want it to be. Moments cannot be caught like fossils in amber, ever- perfect,ever-beautiful. They go dark and raw, full of shadows, leaving you with the memories. And the world moves on.” - ann aguirre

Well, I'm sorry that I have put up so many sea and water photos, it's just that the sea gives me so many new ideas :)) And expect more water photos to come..

I have been feeling so restless the last days and I have been photographing every day. Which makes me want to start a 365 project.. I wont do that yet because I need to finish the 52 weeks project first and it's for the best so I can really think it through and maybe try out monthly project or so. My plan is to have a 14 days of summer project during the time I'm in Barcelona this summer (can't wait!!). I know it is normal to do a 100 days but honestly Norway doesn't even have 100 days of summer haha..

I have a new series in mind which I will be calling My Truths Of Life, where I will presenting my.. truths in life visually. It is very exciting and I want to start soon! Just need to develop my ideas.

Currently I have been just shooting shooting editing and I haven't had so much time to be active on Flickr. I really recommend you to follow me on my Facebook page where I upload the photos I take almost everyday. The place to follow me is on Facebook, not on Flickr. Just saying! :)

Facebook, Getty Images, Tumblr

~ William James

Nature is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. -- Galileo Galilei

MUSIC:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GKx2MPveMQ

"We seek rest in a struggle against some obstacles. And when we have overcome these, rest proves unbearable because of the boredom it produces", [....] "only an infinite and immutable object – that is, God himself – can fill this infinite abyss."

(from Pensées by B.Pascal)

....With one more year on my shoulders, I can say to be agreed with him!

Curiously, when I tried converting the image to monochrome, the bird didn't change. Black & White Warbler at Laffite's Cove, Galveston Island, Texas.

whether her work was for the world or her living was of the world

or her site and hiding was in the life that was the world

and that her abode and abiding was of the world, of that world

with addresses and the immutability of the moment, does it matter, it does,

if living is not the facts and events and ounces and inches of lost time and place.

why did i come to live here, why will i be sewn into this sack

bought centuries for me ago dedicated to the task of loving me

beyond sight or hope or knowledge, from the dry-goods store

and its circuit of peddlery and why was i not thrown out long ago,

why not denied entry into the battered door.

and why.)

A forlorn window in an abandoned building in Valley View, TX reminds us that gravity is one of the immutable laws of the universe.

Lone Fir Cemetery, Portland Oregon. One of the oldest cemeteries in Portland, Lone Fir is the final resting place for over 25,000 souls. It is also Portland's second largest arboretum.

This tombstone depicts James and Elizabeth Stephens, “Here we lie by consent, after 57 years 2 months and 2 days sojourning through life awaiting natures immutable laws to return us back to the elements of the universe of which we were first composed.”

Crown Graphic 4x5, Rollei Retro 100 @ box speed, Ilford DDX 1:4

Immutable = Impossible

Envoyé par un contact flickr:

J'ai tendance à croire que ce que nous appelons temps est une perception de notre conscience sur la succession dans l'élaboration de l'information que le réel nous demande d'assimiler au cours ce notre existence. Mais dans ce "réel" toutes les combinaisons possibles d'évènements existent...en même temps.

Il semble y avoir une direction inaltérable de l'ordre dans lequel nous avons accès à cette information: des évènements que nous appelons "organisés" vers ceux que nous nommons "chaotiques".

Send by a flickr contact:

I tend to believe that what we call time is a perception of our consciousness of the succession in the development of the information that we request to assimilate real in this existence. But in this "real" all possible combinations of events exist ... at the same time.

There seems to be a direction of immutable order in which we have access to this information: events that we call "organized" to those whom we call "chaotic".

Entre terre, ciel et mer.

Au cœur de cette fusion entre Terre, ciel et mer, s'élève majestueusement l'église médiévale Sainte-Radegonde, gardienne du temps à Talmont-sur-Gironde, un village français fortifié aux ruelles empreintes d'histoire. Perchée à flanc de falaise, dominant l'estuaire de la Gironde, cette église romane, telle une sentinelle du passé, a été érigée au XIIe siècle par des bénédictins.

Elle a inspiré de nombreux auteurs et écrivains :

- Pierre-Henri Simon a écrit : « À la pointe du rocher, blessée mais immuable, les vents ne cessent de la frapper ; les jours de tempête, elle est enveloppée d'écume. Elle est vraiment la nef ancrée sur les flots. Je ne connais pas de plus belle image (...) de l'éternel au cœur de l’histoire ».

- André Malraux, devant une affiche représentant l'église fragilisée, a déclaré un jour à des visiteurs : « Voyez ces pierres sublimes, indifférentes aux rumeurs des âges... »

L'horizon révèle un ciel paré de nuages multicolores, un phénomène naturel rare appelé "airglow". Ce dernier est provoqué par une réaction chimique dans la haute atmosphère, où les rayons du soleil excitent des molécules, émettant ainsi une très faible lumière (chimiluminescence) de couleur verte et/ou orange. Ce soir-là, il était particulièrement intense.

À gauche de l'église, Jupiter émerge comme un phare céleste, son éclat se reflétant même dans les eaux de l'estuaire.

Au-dessus de l'église, un trio galactique se dessine… Tout d’abord, la galaxie du Triangle et la galaxie d’Andromède. Ces spirales, composées de milliards d’étoiles, sont situées à plus de 2 millions d’années-lumière de la Terre. À droite, la Voie lactée, notre galaxie, notre maison. La constellation du Cygne s'y dessine avec grâce, déployant ses nébuleuses rouges (Nébuleuses de l’Amérique du Nord, du Papillon).

À l'intérieur de l'église, une petite bougie vacillante donne naissance à une lueur chaleureuse, émergeant des fenêtres.

Dans cette photographie, tous les éléments convergent, de la mer caressant la base de la falaise à la pierre immuable de l'église, du ciel étoilé s'étendant au-dessus à l'univers infini. C'est un instant figé dans le temps, où le passé, le présent et l'éternité se rencontrent..

——-

Between Earth, Sky, and Sea.

At the heart of this fusion between Earth, Sky, and Sea, rises majestically the medieval church of Sainte-Radegonde, the keeper of time in Talmont-sur-Gironde, a fortified French village with alleys steeped in history. Perched on the cliffside, overlooking the Gironde estuary, this Romanesque church, akin to a sentinel of the past, was erected in the 12th century by Benedictine monks.

It has inspired numerous authors and writers:

- Pierre-Henri Simon wrote: "At the tip of the rock, wounded but immutable, the winds never cease to strike it; on stormy days, it is enveloped in foam. It truly is the ship anchored on the waves. I know of no more beautiful image (...) of the eternal in the heart of history."

- André Malraux, in front of a poster depicting the fragile church, once declared to visitors: "See these sublime stones, indifferent to the rumors of ages..."

The horizon reveals a sky adorned with multicolored clouds, a rare natural phenomenon called "airglow." This is caused by a chemical reaction in the upper atmosphere, where the sun's rays excite molecules, emitting a very faint light (chemiluminescence) in green and/or orange hues. That evening, it was particularly intense.

To the left of the church, Jupiter emerges as a celestial beacon, its brilliance even reflected in the waters of the estuary.

Above the church, a galactic trio unfolds… First, the Triangle Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy. These spirals, composed of billions of stars, are located more than 2 million light-years from Earth. To the right, the Milky Way, our galaxy, our home. The Cygnus constellation gracefully unfolds within it, displaying its red nebulae (North America Nebula, Butterfly Nebula).

Inside the church, a flickering candle gives birth to a warm glow, emanating from the windows.

In this photograph, all elements converge, from the sea caressing the base of the cliff to the steadfast stone of the church, from the starry sky stretching above to the infinite universe.It's a moment frozen in time, where the past, present, and eternity intersect.

—-

Panorama of 20 photos, Canon 6d Astrodon - Sigma 28mm F1.4.

- 19/12/2022

This is the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Corona (Virgin Mary of the Crown), a small complex built inside an inlet in the mountain, and ruled by the silence.

It's accessible by car through a narrow and curvy road, but the most of the joy is actually going there by feet, and it's only fifteen/twenty minutes.

We were close to the sunset and light couldn't arrive far there, but it gives this wonderful bluish background. The scene is simply amazing: the immutable mountain, the stuck and strong rock, and this tiny pale church clung to it, almost hidden, like a limpet.

Les Marches Folkloriques de l'Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse trouvent leurs origines dans les processions de croix banales du moyen-âge. Celles-ci avaient lieu dans l'octave de la Pentecôte et étaient destinées à rendre hommage et à permettre de verser l'obole à l'abbaye suzeraine voisine dont dépendait le clergé.

L'escorte militaire qui les accompagnait avait pour but d'en rehausser l'éclat mais aussi de préserver les pèlerins contre les bandes de malfrats qui rôdaient à cette époque dans nos contrées. Ces compagnies spéciales d'archers et arbalétriers que l'on appelait "serments" furent les ancêtres des marcheurs.

C'est dans le courant du XVIII siècle qu'une crise importante frappa nos Marches car de plus en plus ces cérémonies devenaient un prétexte pour s'amuser et tourner le religieux en dérision, ce qui ne plut pas au clergé qui interdit ces manifestations.

Les coutumes reprendront en 1802 après le concordat signé entre Napoléon Ier et le Pape Pie VII. C'est à ce moment que les Marches prirent un nouvel essor et devinrent des escortes militaires.

En ce qui concerne les costumes adoptés dans nos manifestations aujourd'hui, ils sont du premier et du second empire. A ce sujet, il est certain que l'on a d'abord marché en premier empire car de nombreuses défroques de l'armée de Napoléon étaient disponibles dans nos régions. Ces uniformes se dégradant, nos Marcheurs ont adoptés les costumes militaires de l'époque qui a immédiatement suivi, c'est-à-dire les uniformes que l'on appelle du second empire.

Bien que l’aspect religieux ne semble pas prépondérant, il s’agit quand même d’une procession religieuse avec sortie de la châsse et des saints patrons, bénédictions, messe, …

L’un des moments les plus forts de la Saint Hubert, c’est le fameux bataillon carré. Un moment solennel, plein de tradition et avec un déroulement codifié et immuable. Il commence par une revue des troupes, suivie de décharges et de feux roulants.

The Folk Marches of Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse find their origins in the banal cross processions of the Middle Ages. These took place in the octave of Pentecost and were intended to pay homage and allow the payment of the mite to the neighboring suzerain abbey on which the clergy depended.

The military escort which accompanied them was intended to enhance its splendor but also to protect the pilgrims against the gangs of thugs who were roaming our region at that time. These special companies of archers and crossbowmen called "oaths" were the ancestors of the walkers.

It was during the 18th century that a major crisis struck our Marches because more and more these ceremonies became a pretext for having fun and making fun of religion, which did not please the clergy who banned these demonstrations.

Customs resumed in 1802 after the concordat signed between Napoleon I and Pope Pius VII. It was at this time that the Marches took on new development and became military escorts.

Regarding the costumes adopted in our demonstrations today, they are from the first and second empire. On this subject, it is certain that we first marched in the first empire because many cast-offs from Napoleon's army were available in our regions. As these uniforms deteriorated, our Walkers adopted the military costumes of the era which immediately followed, that is to say the uniforms we call the Second Empire.

Although the religious aspect does not seem predominant, it is still a religious procession with the release of the reliquary and patron saints, blessings, mass, etc.

One of the strongest moments of Saint Hubert’s Day is the famous square battalion. A solemn moment, full of tradition and with a codified and immutable sequence. It begins with a review of the troops, followed by discharges and rolling fire.

I have this strange fascination for the people living in the back alleys of Hanoi and going about their things as if they would be in another time and place.As if life would be immutable and precarious at the same time.And then ,suddenly, the very next day, that alley is gone and there is a new building site.

Matters immutable.

Could you identify a "tall tale" if you experienced it first hand? When I took my first look at this photo of an Oxpecker on the back of a Zebra, it was exactly that, and nothing more. But within seconds I realized just how the photo was permeated with analogies. The oxpecker observes the "tall tail" cautiously while standing on solid ground, the black and white, the immutable truth. So many people think that the things we see and hear daily can't be anything but the truth. If we've seen it, heard it, or read, it must be true! There's an old adage that says, "believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear." Let's face it, our senses are under constant intense super stimulation by this century's widespread forms of communication. Governments, corporations, and innumerable groups are out to push their agendas. They do so in ways that are overt and in others that totally unapparent and subconscious. I caution that even the immutable truths, the things in black and white, are never really immutable . Perspective changes everything and the perspective of one oxpecker on the back of one zebra is different than the visage of another on a completely different zebra. Besides, the stripes of one zebra are never the same as another. So believe only half of what you see, and nothing of what you hear, for tall tales abound and the things that seem black and white are usually just shades of grey! #iLoveNature #iLoveWildlife #WildifePhotography in #Tanzania #Nature in #Africa #Oxpeckers #Zebras #truth #DrDADBooks #Canon #WildlifeConservation

www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/God-s-sovereignty-over-al...

Introduction

Watch the full documentary at: Praise and Worship Music "The One Who Holds Sovereignty Over Everything" (Christian Musical Documentary)

Christian Movie Segment - God Holds Sovereignty Over All Things in the Universe (Gospel Music)

Mankind has been seeking these answers for several thousand years: How can the celestial bodies in the universe proceed in such perfect order? Why do all living things always move in cycles following immutable rules? Why are people born, and then why do we die? Who has really determined all of these rules and laws? Who really does rule over the universe and all things? This wonderful segment from the Christian movie, The One Who Holds Sovereignty Over Everything, will guide you to get to the root of these questions and unveil all these mysteries.

Terms of Use： en.godfootsteps.org/disclaimer.html

Lloret de Mar és una ciutat catalana de la comarca de la Selva, dins de la Selva Marítima que és al sud de la Costa Brava. Judicialment, forma part de Blanes i la seva demarcació electoral és Santa Coloma de Farners. Pionera en el turisme europeu dels anys 50, Lloret s'ha convertit en una de les destinacions turístiques més importants. Punt de trobada de cultures i tradicions, manté la seva identitat cultural, i tradicions que resten immutables al pas del temps, a les quals n'ha incorporat de més actuals, com a ciutat cosmopolita i capdavantera que és. Juntament amb Blanes i Tossa de Mar conformen una unitat territorial i turística que acull més de 80.000 residents i 1.500.000 turistes a l'any.

Lloret de Mar es una ciudad catalana de la comarca de la Selva, dentro de la Selva Marítima que es al sur de la Costa Brava. Judicialmente, forma parte de Blanes y su demarcación electoral es Santa Coloma de Farners. Pionera en el turismo europeo de los años 50, Lloret ha convertido en uno de los destinos turísticos más importantes. Punto de encuentro de culturas y tradiciones, mantiene su identidad cultural, y tradiciones que permanecen inmutables al paso del tiempo, a las que ha incorporado más actuales, como ciudad cosmopolita y puntera que es. Junto con Blanes y Tossa de Mar conforman una unidad territorial y turística que acoge más de 80.000 residentes y 1.500.000 turistas al año.

Lloret de Mar is a Catalan city of the region of La Selva, in the Maritime Forest is south of the Costa Brava. Judicially, is part of Blanes and its constituency is Santa Coloma de Farners. A pioneer in the European tourism 50s, Lloret has become one of the most important tourist destinations. Meeting point of cultures and traditions, maintaining their cultural identity and traditions that remain unchanged over time, which has added more current, as cosmopolitan and toe it is. Along with Blanes and Tossa de Mar are a territorial and tourist unit which houses more than 80,000 residents and 1,500,000 tourists a year.

Les Marches Folkloriques de l'Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse trouvent leurs origines dans les processions de croix banales du moyen-âge. Celles-ci avaient lieu dans l'octave de la Pentecôte et étaient destinées à rendre hommage et à permettre de verser l'obole à l'abbaye suzeraine voisine dont dépendait le clergé.

L'escorte militaire qui les accompagnait avait pour but d'en rehausser l'éclat mais aussi de préserver les pèlerins contre les bandes de malfrats qui rôdaient à cette époque dans nos contrées. Ces compagnies spéciales d'archers et arbalétriers que l'on appelait "serments" furent les ancêtres des marcheurs.

C'est dans le courant du XVIII siècle qu'une crise importante frappa nos Marches car de plus en plus ces cérémonies devenaient un prétexte pour s'amuser et tourner le religieux en dérision, ce qui ne plut pas au clergé qui interdit ces manifestations.

Les coutumes reprendront en 1802 après le concordat signé entre Napoléon Ier et le Pape Pie VII. C'est à ce moment que les Marches prirent un nouvel essor et devinrent des escortes militaires.

En ce qui concerne les costumes adoptés dans nos manifestations aujourd'hui, ils sont du premier et du second empire. A ce sujet, il est certain que l'on a d'abord marché en premier empire car de nombreuses défroques de l'armée de Napoléon étaient disponibles dans nos régions. Ces uniformes se dégradant, nos Marcheurs ont adoptés les costumes militaires de l'époque qui a immédiatement suivi, c'est-à-dire les uniformes que l'on appelle du second empire.

Bien que l’aspect religieux ne semble pas prépondérant, il s’agit quand même d’une procession religieuse avec sortie de la châsse et des saints patrons, bénédictions, messe, …

L’un des moments les plus forts de la Saint Hubert, c’est le fameux bataillon carré. Un moment solennel, plein de tradition et avec un déroulement codifié et immuable. Il commence par une revue des troupes, suivie de décharges et de feux roulants.

The Folk Marches of Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse find their origins in the banal cross processions of the Middle Ages. These took place in the octave of Pentecost and were intended to pay homage and allow the payment of the mite to the neighboring suzerain abbey on which the clergy depended.

The military escort which accompanied them was intended to enhance its splendor but also to protect the pilgrims against the gangs of thugs who were roaming our region at that time. These special companies of archers and crossbowmen called "oaths" were the ancestors of the walkers.

It was during the 18th century that a major crisis struck our Marches because more and more these ceremonies became a pretext for having fun and making fun of religion, which did not please the clergy who banned these demonstrations.

Customs resumed in 1802 after the concordat signed between Napoleon I and Pope Pius VII. It was at this time that the Marches took on new development and became military escorts.

Regarding the costumes adopted in our demonstrations today, they are from the first and second empire. On this subject, it is certain that we first marched in the first empire because many cast-offs from Napoleon's army were available in our regions. As these uniforms deteriorated, our Walkers adopted the military costumes of the era which immediately followed, that is to say the uniforms we call the Second Empire.

Although the religious aspect does not seem predominant, it is still a religious procession with the release of the reliquary and patron saints, blessings, mass, etc.

One of the strongest moments of Saint Hubert’s Day is the famous square battalion. A solemn moment, full of tradition and with a codified and immutable sequence. It begins with a review of the troops, followed by discharges and rolling fire.

Les œuvres d'art monumentales illustrent la montée dans les années 90 d'une nouvelle architecture influencée par de nouvelles méthodes de conception et de processus de production numérisés. En permettant la variation de forme, qui est caractérisée par le flux d’informations qui la traverse, ces méthodes ont stimulé la création d’une architecture animée, vivante et dynamique dans laquelle se croisent les processus biologiques et la dynamique des fluides. Cette tendance, dite numérique, arithmétique et numérique, remet en question une architecture qui serait immuable et définitive au profit d'une "architecture liquide" (Marcos Novak), aux formes libres et évolutives, dans laquelle des cercles organiques et des surfaces continues se mélangent. Cela correspond au style de cette autre architecture qui, dans les années 1960 et 1970, est revenue aux styles plus anciens (gothique, baroque, expressionnisme) en évoquant la courbe, l'organique et le mouvement par rapport à la rigidité de l'angle droit.

The monumental works of art illustrate the rise in the 1990s of a new architecture influenced by new methods of digitized design and production processes. By allowing shape variation, which is characterized by the flow of information passing through it, these methods have stimulated the creation of an animated, dynamic and dynamic architecture in which biological processes and fluid dynamics intersect. This trend, known as numerical, arithmetical and numerical, calls into question an architecture that would be immutable and definitive in favor of a "liquid architecture" (Marcos Novak), with free and evolving forms, in which organic circles and continuous surfaces take place. mix. This corresponds to the style of this other architecture which, in the 1960s and 1970s, returned to older styles (Gothic, Baroque, Expressionism) evoking the curve, the organic and the movement in relation to the rigidity of the angle law.

View On Black

Lay in the bracken in the lee of the hill, the whistling wind bypassing

[Montage of three of my photos: sunset, waves and anchor (found in Anastasia State Park, FL). I used an additional layer of the anchor converted to B&W with the contrast turned way up to get the details in real strong. The colours of the sunset are a little saturated, but not much, from the original photo.]

"Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus. . ." Hebrews 6:17-20a

via Instagram ift.tt/1LJrE8w

I believe that a good wildlife image should tell a story. It should arouse emotion, and create a desire to know, see and understand more about the subject. It should demand awe. A good wildlife photographer possesses an appreciation of nature, immutable patience, and a zeal for exploration. A tincture of luck always helps. Like so many of my friends that pursue the art, I am in love with the vision of nature through the lens. It shapes how we see the world. We see the bird on the wire while most see the busy street below. We scramble to find the line of sight on the frozen tundra while others just try to stay warm. I delight in the uncertainty of wildlife photography. The best plans are never really certain, for wildlife, after all, is wild and nature, unpredictable.

With that in mind it is with great appreciation that I have the honor to announce that my photo "Blade Runner" has been selected as Highly Honored in the Polar Passion category of the Windland Smith Rice International Awards. It will be displayed in this fall's Smithsonian Exhibition and published in the 2018 Fall/Winter Special Collector's Edition of Nature's Best Photo magazine, going to press next month. I am incredibly thankful to Nature's Best for this honor, and to all of you who take the time to view, read, and comment on my social media posts.

#Windlandsmithriceawards @naturesbestphotography.org

Individual freedom is immutable ...

slurl : Sinners Heaven

Tuesday Morning by Melissa Etheridge for MM theme ‘Inspired by a Song’

For this week’s Macro Monday theme I chose the song Tuesday Morning by my favourite singer / songwriter Melissa Etheridge. The photo isn’t special but the lyrics of the song and the story behind it, are.

This protest song tells the story of Mark Bingham, a gay man who was among those who fought the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11th, 2001. The plane crashed in Pennsylvania and was the only one of the four hijacked planes that did not reach the terrorists' target. The song conveys he was an American hero, even though America discriminated against him as a gay man.

Tuesday Morning, at its core is about identifying a fundamental inconsistency in the American conception of justice and equality. It asks a pressing question - can homophobic bigotry, whether originating from the state or from society, be justified against a class of people defined by an immutable characteristic. To put a name and a face on the discrimination, Etheridge identifies one of America's most noble heroes who stood up to terrorism on one of the most tragic days of its national history. The question is of significant importance when we consider how many gays and lesbians are serving in the United States armed forces to defend their country but who can be or have been discharged when it is or has been discovered that they are gay - under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". They are asked to shed their blood in defence of their nation as long as they conceal part of their fundamental makeup as individuals from others. "Stand up America; Hear the bell now as it tolls; Wake up America; It's Tuesday morning; Come on let's roll."

Tuesday Morning on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sTKzMbB_18

(Anais Nin, from Henry and June)

Some people do have a way with words, don't they? Whew!

I'll have some of whatever she's having, right?

It would be sweet, if we could save our happiness, and wallow in it, wrapped in silk and lace.. But alas, it's impossible. We have to take it as it comes, and savor it while it lasts - like a peach that is just at that perfect peak of ripeness. You can't save it for Friday, you have to enjoy it now or lose it forever..

Flowers bloom when they are ready to bloom.. Children grow regardless of whether you have the time to watch them or not.. The sunset dims and the moon sets on their own immutable timetables.. The trick is to be willing to stop what you're doing, and enjoy them while you can..

30 below, 9,000 foot of train with third rate power... what could go wrong? Every winter is the first winter on the railroad. By the time we got to this train the crew on it had been dead for hours, we sat on it for another couple before tying it down and leaving it for the wolves... Just as we left the clouds cleared and made for a nice winter view.

Molto spesso non ci facciamo caso, le nostre attenzioni viaggiano in velocità e in divenire, per noi osservare diventa sempre più difficile. Ma le cose comuni che spesso riteniamo immutabili, immobili da anni nel loro ambiente, meritano una visione ravvicinata e consapevole. Ogni volta che tutto ciò accade ci stupisce inesorabilmente.

Alla natura serve tempo ma prende sempre su tutto il sopravvento.

-----------------------------------------

Very often we do not pay attention, our attention traveling speed and become, for us it becomes increasingly difficult to observe. But the common things that we often immutable properties for years in their environment, they deserve a closer look and aware. Whenever this happens amazes us inexorably.

Nature takes time but always takes precedence over all.

Castle Sinclair Girnigoe is located about 3 miles north of Wick on the east coast of Caithness, Scotland. It is considered to be one of the earliest seats of Clan Sinclair. It comprises the ruins of two castles: the 15th-century Castle Girnigoe; and the early 17th-century Castle Sinclair. They are designated as a scheduled monument.

The earlier Castle Girnigoe was built by William Sinclair, 2nd Earl of Caithness, probably sometime between 1476 and 1496, but certainly before his death at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. There is some evidence to suggest that the castle was built on the foundations of an earlier fortalice.

In 1577, George Sinclair, 4th Earl of Caithness, imprisoned his own son John Sinclair, Master of Caithness, in Castle Girnigoe, on suspicion of rebelling against his rule. He was held there for seven years, after which his father fed him a diet of salted beef, with nothing to drink, so that he eventually died insane from thirst. The rebel Earl of Bothwell was at Girnigoe in December 1594.

Expansion occurred in 1606 when Castle Sinclair was built, comprising a gatehouse and other buildings, along with a curtain wall. These were connected to the earlier castle by a drawbridge over a ravine. The same year George Sinclair, 5th Earl of Caithness, requested the Scottish Parliament to change the name to Castle Sinclair, but because the names Castle Sinclair and Castle Girnigoe were both written down in 1700, both names have been in use since.

Robert Sinclair describes Girnigoe as "an adapted 5-storey L-plan crow-stepped gabled tower house, which sat upon a rocky promontory jutting out into Sinclair Bay. Of interest is the secret chamber in the vaulted ceiling of the kitchen."

In 1672, George Sinclair, 6th Earl of Caithness, was in heavy debt to his fourth cousin, John Campbell of Glenorchy, and transferred the castle to Campbell as payment. When Sinclair died four years later with no heir, Campbell claimed the title Earl of Caithness and married Sinclair's widow. However, Sinclair's first cousin, George Sinclair of Keiss, challenged Campbell's title. This resulted in the Battle of Altimarlach in which Campbell defeated Sinclair in 1680. Glenorchy and some of his troops remained in Caithness for some time and levied rents and taxes on the people, subjecting them to the most grievous oppression. He sent the remainder home immediately after the battle. However, George Sinclair of Keiss continued his opposition and laid siege, with firearms and artillery, to Castle Sinclair Girnigoe which he took after feeble resistance from the garrison. As a result, he and his three friends who had assisted him, Sinclair of Broynach, Sinclair of Thura and Mackay of Strathnaver were declared rebels. The political current having turned in favor of Sinclair of Keiss however, this was quashed. Having failed to regain his inheritance by force, Sinclair of Keiss then turned to the law.[9] Through the influence of the Duke of York and afterwards James II, he took his place as 7th Earl of Caithness on 15 July 1681, and his lands were restored on 23 September. Campbell of Glenorchy was made Earl of Breadalbane by way of compensation.

The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.

The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim  The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.

The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.

The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.

Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.

Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".

Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".

Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West.  Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way.  The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes. 

Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities.  Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land.  In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.

In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.

When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected.  This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms.  Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.

The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.

Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.

According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".

The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.

For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.

In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.

A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.

Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.

The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.

Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.

There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.

Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.

The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.

These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.

The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.

Climate

The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.

Places of interest

An Teallach

Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)

Arrochar Alps

Balmoral Castle

Balquhidder

Battlefield of Culloden

Beinn Alligin

Beinn Eighe

Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station

Ben Lomond

Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Cairngorms National Park

Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore

Cairngorm Mountains

Caledonian Canal

Cape Wrath

Carrick Castle

Castle Stalker

Castle Tioram

Chanonry Point

Conic Hill

Culloden Moor

Dunadd

Duart Castle

Durness

Eilean Donan

Fingal's Cave (Staffa)

Fort George

Glen Coe

Glen Etive

Glen Kinglas

Glen Lyon

Glen Orchy

Glenshee Ski Centre

Glen Shiel

Glen Spean

Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)

Grampian Mountains

Hebrides

Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.

Highland Wildlife Park

Inveraray Castle

Inveraray Jail

Inverness Castle

Inverewe Garden

Iona Abbey

Isle of Staffa

Kilchurn Castle

Kilmartin Glen

Liathach

Lecht Ski Centre

Loch Alsh

Loch Ard

Loch Awe

Loch Assynt

Loch Earn

Loch Etive

Loch Fyne

Loch Goil

Loch Katrine

Loch Leven

Loch Linnhe

Loch Lochy

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park

Loch Lubnaig

Loch Maree

Loch Morar

Loch Morlich

Loch Ness

Loch Nevis

Loch Rannoch

Loch Tay

Lochranza

Luss

Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)

Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran

Rannoch Moor

Red Cuillin

Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83

River Carron, Wester Ross

River Spey

River Tay

Ross and Cromarty

Smoo Cave

Stob Coire a' Chàirn

Stac Polly

Strathspey Railway

Sutherland

Tor Castle

Torridon Hills

Urquhart Castle

West Highland Line (scenic railway)

West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)

Wester Ross

In a certain sense, Adam's sin was a sin arising from inquisitiveness, if such an expression be admissible. Originally, Adam saw contingencies in the aspect of their relationship to God and not as independent entities. Anything that is considered in that relationship is beyond the reach of evil; but the desire to see contingency as it is in itself is a desire to see evil; it is also a desire to see good as something contrary to evil. As a result of this sin of inquisitiveness - Adam wanted to see the "other side" of contingency - Adam himself and the whole world fell into contingency as such; the link with the divine Source was broken and became invisible; the world became suddenly external to Adam, things became opaque and heavy, they became like unintelligible and hostile fragments. This drama is always repeating itself anew, in collective history as well as in the life of individuals.

A meaningless knowledge, a knowledge to which we have no right either by virtue of its nature, or of our capacities, and therefore by virtue of our vocation, is not a knowledge that enriches, but one that impoverishes. Adam had become poor after having acquired knowledge of contingency as such, or of contingency in so far as it limits. We must distrust the fascination which an abyss can exert over us; it is in the nature of cosmic blind-alleys to seduce and to play the vampire; the current of forms does not want us to escape from its hold.

Forms can be snares just as they can be symbols and keys; beauty can chain us to forms, just as it can also be a door opening towards the formless.

Or again, from a slightly different point of view: the sin of Adam consists in effect of having wished to superimpose something on existence, and existence was beatitude; Adam thereby lost this beatitude and was engulfed in the anxious and deceptive turmoil of superfluous things.

Instead of reposing in the immutable purity of Existence, fallen man is drawn into the dance of things that exist, and they, being accidents, are delusive and perishable.

---

Frithjof Schuon

---

Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)

"Be careful what you wish for."

"Welcome to the Big Time, Sarah. I hope you enjoy your time in the sun."

btw... Thank you so much for dragging the rest of us along with you.

Can you tell that I'm loving being an Alaskan right now? : )

In all seriousness, her administration's done some good things for this State. I didn't vote for her in 2006, even though I was happy she won the primary, it was mostly because I just really, really didn't like Murkowski at all.

I posted this same shot of her back when I originally took this in August of 2006.

I was thinking about that shot on the drive home from work today as I listened to story after story about this situation. Figured I'd check it when I got home.

Yup. 7K+ hits, most all of them in the last six days or so.

Shocking! /sarcasm

All I really care about right now?

LEAVE HER KIDS (AND THEIR FRIENDS) ALONE.

Do I see the delicious irony in the fact that her daughter is pregnant and she advocates for abstinence only as a basis for sexual education? Well, duh.

Regardless of her mother's political policies/ideology, she's still entitled to be a child (and/or young adult). I can't repeat some of the horrid things I have read just tossed about about this seventeen year old and her boyfriend. Whom, I must admit from his myspace page, seems like a complete tool, but you know what? HE'S A KID TOO. We were all freaking tools as teenage boys. (Go on. Lie to yourself. We were.) Some of us made stupid mistakes. This guy makes one and his GF's mom gets picked for a Veep ticket and now he won't be able go to the local store or answer his freaking phone and has HIS every action and statement "vetted" and magnified? WTF?!?

I feel that somewhere between the mid to late 80's and today, the world just up and forgot that we are all human. We all have feelings and are all trying to make a life. Now everything and everyone seems to be fair game for everything.

LET ME BE CLEAR: I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for Sarah right now. She's in her 40's and a public figure. She's old enough and smart enough to know what awaited her once she accepted that nomination. Let the chips fall where they may for her. But her kids shouldn't be part of that reality. Every politician and public figure's kids shouldn't be. Sue me. It's what I believe.

And don't give me the "I'm being naive", or "it's Sarah's fault for dragging her kids through this" crap either. Use that for an excuse and we should all just go back to being knuckledraggers and be thrilled with the occasional fire. It's news worthy because people condone the salaciousness of the reporting. Because there are reporters who feel the need to get "in depth" with this sh!t.

She's human. Her daughter's human. Her daughter's boyfriend is human. If anything, this makes her a real human being with real problems just like the rest of our country deals with on a daily basis.

God forbid we ever have one of *those* in an office that matters. *gasp!*

PS: That last statement (well, this whole post, really) is not an endorsement of the McCain/Palin ticket. I am, and have always been, an UNDECLARED voter. That should not equate as apathy, for I do vote. Every single opportunity I have to. It's just that I am as disenchanted with our society (and its political processes) as I have ever been right now and this lack of reason and candor in all of this stuff, both liberal and conservative, well, it's just not helping me one iota.

PPS: God Bless The Internet. : )

EDIT 04 Sep 08:

If you'd like, you can read the full comment below. Thanks.

Q: How am I to think myself out when my thoughts come and go as they like? Their endless chatter distracts and exhausts me.

M: Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic. People come and go; you register without response. It may not be easy in the beginning, but with some practice you will find that your mind can function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware of them all. It is only when you have a vested interest in any particular level, that your attention gets caught in it and you black out on other levels. Even then the work on the blacked out levels goes on, outside the field of consciousness. Do not struggle with your memories and thoughts; try only to include in your field of attention the other, more important questions, like 'Who am l?' 'How did I happen to be born?' 'Whence this universe around me?'. 'What is real and what is momentary?' No memory will persist, if you lose interest in it, it is the emotional link that perpetuates the bondage. You are always seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, always after happiness and peace. Don't you see that it is your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither asking, nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which 'I am' is timelessly present. Soon you will realise that peace and happiness are in your very nature and it is only seeking them through some particular channels, that disturbs. Avoid the disturbance, that is all. To seek there is no need; you would not seek what you already have. You yourself are God, the Supreme Reality. To begin with, trust me, trust the Teacher. It enables you to make the first step -- and then your trust is justified by your own experience. In every walk of life initial trust is essential; without it little can be done. Every undertaking is an act of faith. Even your daily bread you eat on trust! By remembering what I told you you will achieve everything. I am telling you again: You are the all-pervading, all transcending reality. Behave accordingly: think, feel and act in harmony with the whole and the actual experience of what I say will dawn upon you in no time. No effort is needed. Have faith and act on it. Please see that I want nothing from you. It is in your own interest that l speak, because above all you love yourself, you want yourself secure and happy. Don't be ashamed of it, don't deny it. It is natural and good to love oneself. Only you should know what exactly do you love. It is not the body that you love, it is Life --perceiving, feeling, thinking, doing, loving, striving, creating. It is that Life you love, which is you, which is all. realise it in its totality, beyond all divisions and limitations, and all your desires will merge in it, for the greater contains the smaller. Therefore find yourself, for in finding that you find all. Everybody is glad to be. But few know the fullness of it. You come to know by dwelling in your mind on 'I am', 'I know', 'I love' -- with the will of reaching the deepest meaning of these words.

Q: Can I think 'I am God'?

M: Don't identify yourself with an idea. If you mean by God the Unknown, then you merely say: 'I do not know what I am'. If you know God as you know your self, you need not say it. Best is the simple feeling 'I am'. Dwell on it patiently. Here patience is wisdom; don't think of failure. There can be no failure in this undertaking.

Q: My thoughts will not let me.

M: Pay no attention. Don't fight them. Just do nothing about them, let them be, whatever they are. Your very fighting them gives them life. Just disregard. Look through. Remember to remember: 'whatever happens -- happens because I am'. All reminds you that you are. Take full advantage of the fact that to experience you must be. You need not stop thinking. Just cease being interested. It is disinterestedness that liberates. Don't hold on, that is all. The world is made of rings. The hooks are all yours. Make straight your hooks and nothing can hold you. Give up your addictions. There is nothing else to give up. Stop your routine of acquisitiveness, your habit of looking for results and the freedom of the universe is yours. Be effortless.

Q: Life is effort. There are so many things to do.

M: What needs doing, do it. Don't resist. Your balance must be dynamic, based on doing just the right thing, from moment to moment. Don't be a child unwilling to grow up. Stereotyped gestures and postures will not help you. Rely entirely on your clarity of thought, purity of motive and integrity of action. You cannot possibly go wrong. Go beyond and leave all behind.

Q: But can anything be left for good?

M: You want something like a round-the-clock ecstasy. Ecstasies come and go, necessarily, for the human brain cannot stand the tension for a long time. A prolonged ecstasy will burn out your brain, unless it is extremely pure and subtle. In nature nothing is at stand-still, everything pulsates, appears and disappears. Heart, breath, digestion, sleep and waking -- birth and death everything comes and goes in waves. Rhythm, periodicity, harmonious alternation of extremes is the rule. No use rebelling against the very pattern of life. If you seek the Immutable, go beyond experience. When I say: remember 'I am' all the time, I mean: 'come back to it repeatedly'. No particular thought can be mind's natural state, only silence. Not the idea of silence, but silence itself. When the mind is in its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after every experience or, rather, every experience happens against the background of silence.Now, what you have learnt here becomes the seed. You may forget it -- apparently. But it will live and in due season sprout and grow and bring forth flowers and fruits. All will happen by itself. You need not do anything, only don't prevent it.

If you are angry or in pain, separate yourself from anger and pain and watch them. Externalisation is the first step to liberation. Step away and look. The physical events will go on happening, but by themselves they have no importance. It is the mind alone that matters. Whatever happens, you cannot kick and scream in an airline office or in a Bank. Society does not allow it. If you do not like their ways, or are not prepared to endure them, don't fly or carry money. Walk, and if you cannot walk, don't travel. If you deal with society you must accept its ways, for its ways are your ways. Your needs and demands have created them. Your desires are so complex and contradictory -- no wonder the society you create is also complex and contradictory.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Excerpts from I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj

I Am That is a compilation of talks on Shiva Advaita (Nondualism) philosophy by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, a Hindu spiritual teacher who lived in Mumbai. The English translation of the book from the original Marathi recordings was done by Maurice Frydman.

Painting by William Blake

I learned that time is universal, a constant, immutable...

I discovered that's wrong.

Time is a Titan, a Titan who's projectig his shadow on us, on our lives like a nightmare on a screen...

Now I see...

Now I understand that time's fading everything in his way, movements, colors, life...

Now, I see the past, the futur which are framing my present and I watch my son's living, running inside It.

No need to discuss... That's just a question of time

fr.youtube.com/watch?v=mrNatcsrkSE

Strictly speaking doctrinal knowledge is independent of the individual. But its actualization is not independent of the human capacity to act as a vehicle for it. He who possesses truth must none the less merit it although it is a free gift. Truth is immutable in itself, but in us it lives, because we live.

If we want truth to live in us we must live in it.

Knowledge only saves us on condition that it enlists all that we are, only when it is a way and when it works and transforms and wounds our nature even as the plough wounds the soil.

To say this is to say that intelligence and metaphysical certainty alone do not save; of themselves they do not prevent titans from falling. This is what explains the psychological and other precautions with which every tradition surrounds the gift of the doctrine.

When metaphysical knowledge is effective it produces love and destroys presumption. It produces love, that is to say the spontaneous directing of the will towards God and the perception of "myself" - and of God - in one's neighbour. It destroys presumption, for knowledge does not allow a man to overestimate himself or to underestimate others. By reducing to ashes all that is not God it orders all things.

All St. Paul says of charity concerns effective knowledge, for the latter is love, and he opposes it to theory inasmuch as theory is human concept. The Apostle desires that truth should be contemplated with our whole being and he calls this totality of contemplation "love".

Metaphysical knowledge is sacred. It is the right of sacred things to require of man all that he is.

Intelligence, since it distinguishes, perceives, as one might put

it, proportions. The spiritual man integrates these proportions into his will, into his soul and into his life.

All defects are defects of proportion; they are errors that are lived. To be spiritual means not denying at any point with one's "being" what one affirms with one's knowledge, that is, what one accepts with the intelligence.

Truth lived: incorruptibility and generosity. Since ignorance is all that we are and not merely our thinking, knowledge will also be all that we are to the extent to which our existential modalities are by their nature able to participate in truth.

Human nature contains dark elements which no intellectual

certainty could, ipso facto, eliminate...

Pure intellectuality is as serene as a summer sky - serene with a serenity that is at once infinitely incorruptible and infinitely generous.

Intellectualism which "dries up the heart" has no connection

with intellectuality.

The incorruptibility - or inviolability - of truth is bound up neither with contempt nor with avarice.

What is man's certainty? On the level of ideas it may be perfect, but on the level of life it but rarely pierces through illusion.

Everything is ephemeral and every man must die. No man is

ignorant of this and no one knows it.

Man may have an interest that is quite illusory in accepting the

most transcendent ideas and will readily believe himself to be superior to some other who, not having this interest - perhaps because he is too intelligent or too noble to have it - is sincere enough not to accept them, though he may all the same be more able to understand them than the other who accepts them.

Man does not always accept truth because he understands it; often he believes he understands it because he is anxious to accept it.

People often discuss truths whereas they should limit themselves to discussing tastes and tendencies ...

Acuteness of intelligence is only a blessing when it is compensated by greatness and sweetness of the soul. It should not appear as a rupture of the equilibrium or as an excess which splits man in two. A gift of nature requires complementary qualities which allow of its harmonious manifestation; otherwise there is a risk of the lights becoming mingled with darkness.

-----

Frithjof Schuon

-----

Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)

Το κάστρο της Μονεμβασιάς

Το 375 μ.Χ. μία σεισμική δόνηση απέκοψε τη χερσόνησο δημιουργώντας ένα βράχο που έμελλε να μείνει στη θάλασσα αγέρωχος και αναλλοίωτος στην αιωνιότητα, φυσικό φρούριο, προστάτης ψυχών, διακηρυγμένος πόθος των μεγαλύτερων αυτοκρατοριών που γνώρισε ο πλανήτης. Αυτός ο βράχος, κάποτε μονοπάτι του Μυκηναϊκού και του Μινωικού πολιτισμού, χάρη στη μία και μοναδική πρόσβαση (μόνη έμβαση) που τον ενώνει με την Πελοπόννησο ονομάστηκε Μονεμβάσια.

The castle of Monemvasia

In 375 AD an earthquake cut off the peninsula, creating a rock that was to remain at sea cocky and immutable in eternity, a natural fortress, professed desire of the largest empires the world has known. This rock, sometimes the path of the Mycenaean and Minoan culture, through a single access who joins the Peloponnesus, called Monemvasia.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgtnyiBvkUY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=01aFP88qfQs

...just think about for a sec, the heart will suddenly

upholds and keeps forever accumulated joy

by lengthily prodigious existence,

of rhymes and rhythms and happily co-palpitates

accordingly dispersing darkness by long

headlights of auto Rays, with-out harshly

pulling bridle, or never suddenly releasing reins,

or never slashing pedal-whip on all cylinders

of so monstrous motor, already takes away a fear,

however, happy heart politely oscillates

for all entire Life of excellence without

pauses acquiring all power

of majesty and immense of inner voice,

without waiting for third call

has not been settled yet, and

still suspended upon ether

by bows of reverberated waves from dusty trivia

of opera's intrigues enclosed by curtain-gossips

presumably of shabby love affairs illuminated by

inexplicable to us entirely adopted wonders

beyond the global course and shift, and habits of

changing cyclically each many thousands of years

its periodically magnetic axis of ellipsoid, beyond

Cyclops and savvy tarnished deck-of-cards of

naughty dam casinos, otherwise Damocles in

diapers-wet fled to the pampas headstrong

conquer with everything up his sleeve from

Pushkin's "Three cards", and Lisa and only

two forgotten Queens of Spades,

and also in foie buffet the sandwich still choked

and was not finished, and old man's worn

plush seats annoying creak, now, that's it!

again! and every time the same!

the miracle of the multi-act "Ops-Stop!" will

happens, and will either "Zoya!" in her astonishingly

submissive loving kindness, or "... Marusenka

washes her sweet legs!" already happens,

and why is it nervous about Valerian-root pills

it down, pour the "Shkalik" into cherished three

beer's mugs, ah! Shkalik-Sharik! you was and

still my favorite of dogs, for six and more decades your

acoustically familiar to me salute-I-dog vivacity left a

mnemonic immutable imprints and stamps,

but fading trail, however, X-many times is stronger

than any peppy motors, stronger than a collective

noise accompanied orgasmic, but theatrical delight,

but equalizing courteous libretto-plays from

foggy shores in splashing rays-fantastic light,

and stronger any cupids, winged-cupids a.k.a. satyrs

in patios with cozy gurgling fountains,

and can be only catch up with wet-a-branch of

blessed lilacs by goodness impregnated of

Thee Rain impossible an idols dream could ever ...

"Eternal, immutable, immaterial, timeless. It is the region of the ideas or forms. These are the true reality, the essence of the real, the essence of all that exists, not perceptible by the senses, but only knowable by human understanding."

The most indelible disappointment and takeaway from this COVID pandemic will be the failure of my fellow Americans to get vaccinated. Why are we so divided about something that seems so apparent? This division is why we’re now experiencing yet another rise in infections, this time from the delta variant.

Americans’ belief in the immutability of our individual rights has often collided with our concern for the public good. Our Declaration of Independence states that the authority to govern is given only by the consent of its people. Some treat this as an absolute. But we have many laws which limit the rights of individuals. As the dire nature of the pandemic became evident, efforts to contain it with mask mandates and lockdowns only intensified the altercations between personal freedom advocates and those who believed in doing what’s appropriate for the greater good. We have been on this trajectory for decades. I’m disappointed because this is who we are.

There is that giant elephant in the room. The virus’ origin story, former President Trump’s inability to formulate a national response, with his complete abdication of any responsibility, and the Republican Party’s and right-leaning media’s politicization of this crisis are all responsible. Science deniers have always been a part of our culture. The politics of the right — to win elections at any cost and use the COVID crisis as a wedge issue — has exacerbated that divide and stoked an already incendiary distrust in our institutions. Promoting disinformation and conspiracy theories for political gain while people are dying is galling.

Most recent outbreaks are in red states, where political leaders not only discourage mask mandates they have prohibited them. Despite this bit of GOP Russian roulette, leaders in some of these conservative and rural states are noticing the negative optics of their decisions. Florida governor Ron DeSantis, whose campaign was selling “Don’t Fauci My Florida” t-shirts a few weeks ago, has reconsidered his message after discovering his state accounts for twenty percent of new COVID cases. “These vaccines are saving lives. They are reducing mortality,” he pivoted. Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey is finally urging her constituents to get vaccinated as the state has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation. She told reporters, “I want folks to get vaccinated. That’s the cure. That prevents everything. It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.” When did Republicans begin referring to vaccinated Americans as “regular folks”? And why did it take them so long to advocate for vaccinations? Blame has become part of the bedrock of this crisis. Their decisions have little to do with the human cost. There are now political and economic incentives to do so.

As Washington Post opinion writer E.J. Dionne stated, “It’s the new political geography of sickness and death.” He quotes Democratic pollster Guy Molyneux who said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if GOP pols are hearing from business leaders: Knock it off with the anti-vax nonsense.” Red state businesses have no desire for more lockdowns.

But isn’t this what many of us have been saying all along? We don’t want lockdowns either. But it may be necessary for the short term if we want this pandemic to end. Follow the science. Wear masks and get vaccinated. We’ve all suffered from the loss of our friends and relatives. Many of us have lost our jobs and our homes. And most of us have been sequestered in our houses for over a year.

From the very beginning, our leaders failed to present a unified voice of reason, one that focused on our distrust and hesitancy while promoting short-term sacrifices. The mis- and disinformation that scientists and doctors like Anthony Fauci are lying to us or don’t know what they’re talking about is a common criticism. “They keep changing their minds” shows a misunderstanding of scientific inquiry. Science is based on facts. Scientists test hypotheses about the way COVID infects people. When research shows these hypotheses are accurate, they become theories that become part of our knowledge base. Sometimes new information supersedes previous conclusions.

The coronavirus is constantly evolving. Variants have developed more efficient ways of infecting a host. The delta variant’s infection rate is higher because its virus load is greater than in previous variants. So, even if we know a lot about how the original coronavirus works, new variants present differently. Scientists aren’t lying to us or simply changing their minds. They’re adapting to new information that has resulted from their studies. This process is the message our leaders should have and still need to convey to the public.

To date, fifty percent of Americans have been fully vaccinated. While vaccines aren’t one hundred percent effective, they go a long way to protect people from the disease, even the more communicable delta variant. Most break-through infections of vaccinated people do not lead to death or even hospitalization. But what about the other fifty percent? Ninety-nine percent of COVID deaths right now are those who were unvaccinated.

Hospital COVID patients are now expressing their regret at not getting the vaccine. And many are begging for it now. Dr. Brytney Cobia at the Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama wrote in a Facebook post: “I’m admitting young, healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections. One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

Are Americans finally going to do what it takes to end this pandemic? The Department of Veterans Affairs has just become the first federal agency to require vaccinations of all its front-line workers. Hundreds of colleges and universities have mandated vaccinations for all returning students.

But by the end of May 2021, twenty-five percent of health care workers and over thirty-eight percent of nursing home workers were still not vaccinated. The American Public Health Association, the American Pharmacists Association, the National Medical Association (which represents over 50,000 Black doctors), and 54 other groups are now calling for vaccine mandates for all health workers.

President Biden has just issued a mandatory vaccination mandate (or regular COVID tests) for all federal employees. The Pentagon is following suit for all military personnel. Will this encourage the private sector to do the same?

This wave of sanity is still in its early stages. So it’s unclear if these efforts will be enough. Former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who’s running for Arkansas governor, blamed the Biden Administration for vaccine hesitancies: “No one did more to undercut public confidence in the vaccine than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Biden doubted that the vaccine would be ‘real,’ while Harris said in her debate [with Vice President Pence] that she would not take any vaccine the Trump administration had a hand in creating.” Sadly, Sanders’ remarks reflect the partisanship that has fueled this pandemic. Biden and Harris made those comments while Trump was president. Their concerns reflected their distrust of any self-centered motives he might have had for rushing a vaccine’s development. In her debate with Pence, Harris stated she would be one of the first to take a vaccine endorsed by Dr. Fauci. But she voiced her concerns about taking one promoted solely by Trump.

Many still view mandates as intimidating. Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, issued a statement in which he said, “In order for everyone to feel safe and welcome in their workplaces, vaccinations must be negotiated between employers and workers, not coerced.” While Henry A. Garrido, the executive director of District Council 37, New York City’s largest municipal employees union, tweeted, “If the Mayor wants to mandate Vax or weekly testing for City employees, he must first [bargain] over its impact.” I think we’re beyond pleading, offering incentives, or negotiating.

If we’d worn masks and gotten the vaccine, there probably wouldn’t have been a delta variant. And the worst would be over. Our ignorance and obstinance have resulted in the deaths of over 600,000 Americans and millions across the world. I’d like to think we’ve learned something. But many are still suspicious, and their fear and disregard for “real” facts have made them easy targets for 21st-century shysters and political opportunists.

COVID really kills. Our morgues are full of proof. Let there be no more tearful goodbyes. No regrets. Get the shot.

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