___________________________________________________________________________

[...] The sensory world of manifolds is the area of analysis by the intellect; we can also say that the mind has invented the world of sense. If we think we understand the world, it just means to understand that we, as far as it relates to our intellectual thinking. But the intellect is not up to that life as we live it internally, we always feel something in us that which the mind is unable to pay the full peace and the other looks for its fulfillment.

Die Sinnenwelt der Mannigfaltigkeiten ist der Bereich der Analysen durch den Verstand; wir können auch sagen, der Verstand hat die Sinnenwelt erdacht. Wenn wir glauben, die Welt zu verstehen, heißt es nur, dass wir verstehen, soweit es unser verstandesmäßiges Denken betrifft. Aber der Verstand reicht nicht bis zu jenem Leben, wie wir es innerlich leben, wir fühlen immer etwas in uns, dem der Verstand nicht den vollen Frieden zu schenken vermag und das anderweitig seine Erfüllung sucht.

Deshalb ist unser Leben so reich an Widersprüchen und Konflikten. Doch die meisten von uns nehmen das nicht zur Kenntnis und nur wenn ihnen diese Tatsache irgendwie bewusst wird, beginnen sie sich mit dieser Situation ernsthaft auseinanderzusetzten.

Wenn wir auf diese Weise anfangen, nach der Wahrheit zu suchen, gelangen wir schließlich zur geistigen Welt oder richtiger: die geistige Welt bricht in die Welt der Sinne und des Verstandes ein.

Sobald dies geschieht, ändert sich die ganze Ordnung der Dinge; das Logische ist nicht mehr logisch, die Rationalität verliert ihre Bedeutung, denn nun ist das Reale das Nicht-Reale und das Wahre das Nicht-Wahre. Genauer gesagt, das Wasser fließt nicht mehr im Fluss, die Blumen sind nicht mehr rot und die Weiden sind nicht mehr grün.

Es ist das überraschendste Ereignis, das im menschlichen Bewusstsein stattfinden kann. Dieser Einbruch der geistigen Welt in die Welt der Sinne und des Verstandes führt zum Umsturz jeder Erfahrungsform, die dort vorgeherrscht hat.

|| Source: D.T.Suzuki "Wesen und Sinn des Buddhismus" Hua-Yen-Philosophie || Wikipedia: D. T. Suzuki || Tranlated by Mr. Google ||

and thumps about things which the intellect scorns :-)

Mark Twain

tulips, wral gardens Raleigh, north carolina

Cosina CSM, MTO 8/500 mm, 1/250 sec, Kentmere 100 in TMAX.

Yet across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded our planet with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. Many thanks Wikipedia

سرقت النوم من داخل عيوني

و خليت السهر فيها مؤبد

أقاسي الشوق ما تغمض جفوني

و نار الصبر في قلبي توقد

و من لي من صدودك ينصفوني

اذا باشكي لهم او باتودد

و انا ما ارضى بحبك يعذلوني

اقضي العمر بين البين و الصد

نجوم الليل عنك خبروني

حبيبك بالهوى مثلك و أزيد

و أنا حبيت حبك يا جنوني

على حبي جميع الناس تشهد

غرامك حل في كني و كوني

و قيدني و أنا اللي ما اتقيد

خلاص ارحم و خفف لي شجوني

فموتي صار في حكم المؤكد

Title by: G. K. Chesterton

Model: A friend Mashalla would be NICE

Explore #214 Feb 18, 2009

Seeing, in the finest and broadest sense, means using your senses, you intellect, and your emotions. It means encountering your subject matter with your whole being. It means looking beyond the labels of things and discovering the remarkable world around you.

~ Freeman Patterson, Photography and the Art of Seeing by Freeman Patterson , ISBN: 1550130994 , Page: 7

P.S. Non-HDR-processed / Non-GND-filtered ● Black Card Technique 黑卡作品

On a warm Alabama morning, the memory of the Creek's most famous leader, Alexander McGillivray, still feels close—part diplomat, part strategist, wholly devoted to the Muscogee people. You can almost picture him along the riverbank, quill in hand, shaping treaties that balanced nations and empires. His influence stretched from Spanish Florida to the halls of the young United States, a leader navigating impossible political currents with sharp intellect and unshakable resolve. Today, his legacy lingers like a quiet echo across Creek homelands, a reminder of a man who fought to keep his nation whole.

Alexander McGillivray himself did not relocate to Oklahoma. He died in Pensacola in 1793, nearly four decades before the Muscogee (Creek) removal. However, the political world he helped shape eventually led to the Muscogee Nation’s forced relocation to what is now Oklahoma, but kept his nation and people intact.

AI art created with Chat GPT.

External speed light with soft box. Fisheye lens.

From the courtyard outside of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University

New Haven, Connecticut

O ! Light of consciousness

Shine forth thy brilliant beams

Over the realm of the intellect

For perfect perception

In making judgements

Right, genuine and wise

O ! Man, why so late and why you keep

Standing outside and peep ?

At your own heavenly house ?

Go in, get yourself cleansed

Of all filth and enjoy the inside wealth !

- Anuj Nair

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© 2009 Anuj Nair. All rights reserved.

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Contact : www.anujnair.net

________________________________________________

© 2009 Anuj Nair. All rights reserved.

All images and poems are the property of Anuj Nair.

Using these images and poems without permission is in violation of international copyright laws (633/41 DPR19/78-Disg 154/97-L.248/2000). All materials may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any forms or by any means,including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording without written permission of Anuj Nair. Every violation will be pursued penally.

When God created man in His image, He created a measure; the human perception of the world corresponds to God's creative intention. Man by definition is a center, or "the center" in a given universe; not by accident, but in virtue of the very nature of Being, and this is why that which is large or small for man is large or small in the divine intention; man perceives things as they present themselves in the divine Intellect.

And that is why the world of the indefinitely small, as well as the world of the indefinitely

large, is as it were forbidden to man, who should not want to disproportionately enlarge the small or to disproportionately reduce the large. Man ought to feel that there is no advantage or happiness in such enterprises; and he would feel it if he had maintained a relationship with the Absolute, or if this relationship were sincere and sufficient.

He who is really at peace with God is free from all unhealthy curiosity, if one may say so; he lives, like a well-guarded child, in the blessed garden of a grace that does not forsake him; the Creator knows the best place for the creature, and He knows what is good for man.

48/365.

There are two people in my house who have a bit of a candy problem. Both these individuals, coincidentally, lack a Y chromosome. Stuff like this doesn't last long in our house. You bring home a bag of Skittles, and the two girls will make short work of them before you can even unload the rest of the groceries.

I can see why, when given a chance, any self-respecting piece of candy would attempt escape when the opportunity arises (hell, I almost had to clone some in for this shot 'cause my "assistant" kept eating the props!)

The Mini-Me's (who got my version of the "Y chromo") on the other hand, take after their Fah-zha and dig the chocolate. That's what I'm talking 'bout, Willis.

It's genetic boys, just like the dashing good looks, razor-sharp intellect, and all-around awesome-ness. Don't fight it… ;)

p.s. I got up this morning with what felt like razor blades in my throat. I think I have strep throat (lab results in the a.m.), so this photo was a challenge in more ways than one, I just wanted to go to bed. That said, any c&c (+ve or -ve) is surely appreciated. "Set pieces" and strobist lighting are not my forte.

Fraser Nelson, the highly regarded editor of The Spectator, was in Teddington this evening, where he gave a wide-ranging ‘in conversation’ talk about the state of British politics, journalism, ethics and religion. As would be expected of a journalist of his calibre and intellect, it was a stimulating evening.

In addition to his work at The Spectator, Fraser Nelson is a frequent contributor to political programmes on radio and television, he writes guest columns for many newspapers, and he’s a member of the advisory board for the Centre of Social Justice and the Centre for Policy Studies. A recipient of the Political Journalist of the Year Award, he was also named one of the most influential journalists working in London. Listening to him and engaging with him last night, it was easy to see why.

♦ Update: Fraser Nelson resigned from The Spectator in 2024, following its acquisition by a new owner. He now writes a weekly column for The Times newspaper, and he serves on the advisory boards for the Centre for Policy Studies and the Centre for Social Justice. He also works as a media commentator and is much in demand.

The older I get, the more I am becoming a stranger.

Fryodor Dostoevsky wrote “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” He was right on many levels. And as I get older, I give thanks that I have become unexpected, because of it! I found that the first part of enabling yourself to love, is to love and be kind, not just to others, but also towards yourself. And that this could be applied to the principle of the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to share how personally significant it is. How on reflection of its application, I now appreciate why it is so important.

The consideration of love, come about after a face book conversation with a young man I help raise. He was a kind, and happy young man, but he wrote something on social media that made me genuinely concerned for him. He wrote of post-traumatic stress syndrome, or PTSD and I tried to convey to him that despite what may have happened to him, or what he may have seen to cause it, that he should be kind to himself. I wrote to him saying he should be easy on himself. I told him we all loved him. We loved him because he was a kind, and respectful person. Talking to him, helped teach me, that we all make mistakes, and that sometimes despite making no mistakes at all, and despite being utterly blameless, we witness things that no person should witness. I conveyed to him that we must remember that we are not to blame, even despite at times our direct involvement. I indirectly shared a little part of myself with him, not just because I am proud of how he turned out, as he now helps me, and others. I shared it, because he assisted me, one way or another, and as a result he helped me to write this, a self-reflection that helps me with my own PTSD.

Thanks Ben.

Despite only being a little older than fifty, my mind and body, no longer match nor recognise the person I once was, and my recollections of my character become more frequently and every so often vailed. Despite the change of loss, it still cuts a little. It was not that I showed pride, it was not that my ego was hurt or reduced, it was from the personal experience of PTSD that I spoke to Ben with an adult honesty, an honesty that I always showed him even when he was a child. And it made me realize that despite the ever present or looming Spector of PTSD, that the thing that grates me, was the idea that some thought it was a weakness. Although never considering myself as weak, the considerations were foreign and made me reconsider who I was as a person.

So, who is this new person, this stranger?

I do not know, and to be honest; it is just that the more I write about myself, to myself, the more I appreciate the efforts I made. The more I write, the less, and curiously the more of a stranger I become. I reiterate, over and over to myself, about just how many failures it took to achieve anything. And it should be noted that failure is not necessarily an end; it is in general I have found, “…the start of doing something meaningful…, to paraphrase someone from somewhere in the cloud...

The more I look back, one of the things that I appreciate, was giving the benefit of the doubt. And although I fell on my face applying it on multiple occasions, I dearly valued how it helped, not just those that I gave it to, but in the end, it helped me! It helped me value the person I had become, and very fortunately it helped me value the person I was, despite all that had happened. Because of my application of it to others, I learnt to give myself the benefit of the doubt. And writing about it in my diary, makes me appreciate the principle, for what it is. It showed me just how clever it remains, and of how much worth it has as an intrinsic value or idiom. It in retrospect seemed like just a thing you do, and it should be noted that to give it, (the benefit of the doubt), and expect something back, other than to be granted the courage that it might be possibly or hopefully reciprocated, lacks integrity and self-sacrifice. It was something I was taught by my parents to do as a child, and I did it, and do it, because I was instructed that it was the right thing to do. I keep it up, because now I know, it is the just thing to do, not just a thing you do.

The application of this fundamental axion, pushed for me, to try to treat people with respect, even if I did not know them. It is not that I respect them, whoever they are, as my respect is earned, it is that I respect their right to be treated humanely and with humility. And until recently, I never fully treated myself with this respect. As a result, I now have become a stranger to myself. The more I learn, the more I find out, and the more I understand that I was not what other people thought I was. That they never really knew me. That their opinion of me was in general in error, and or self-serving of themselves.

I never forget the mistakes I made, which is part of my PTSD. But I try and be kind to myself and not dwell on them, as learning is and always will be an objective, and I now know we, as in humanity, universally make mistakes, while learning. I know that this is part of the learning process. These mistakes are written about in humanities survival manuals, printed, and etched in text to help us. Reading of others, not just personally observing them, and having firsthand experience, reinforced that this scenario played out repeatedly in its truism. It helped not just with forgiving myself for my mistakes or failings, but it aided in forgiving others for theirs. Due to this maxim, and its novel application to myself, I now look at this foreign person that I have never seen before. That person was me, and ironically, always was. I look at myself in a new light. It is not that I had an epiphany about who I was, I just never gave myself any credit, as not many others did. It was a trait written in one of my high school reports.

Despite them saying things like you are not bright enough; or you do not have the capacity, I just kept on going, like Vinsent from the movie Gattica. My mother gently pushed me not to listen to the people that said things like you cannot do that, or you will not succeed if you go down that rout. I tried never to listen to the nay sayers, because that is what my mother taught me. Although at times, I did. She was so calm and repetitive in saying it, that I should just keep on going. And as my capacity to take hits lessons, and my body runs out of time, I am losing some of the innocence I once had. The naive ignorance, and faith, in my capacity to weather personal injury slowly diminishes. I am not becoming a grumpy old man, sinical or anything like that. But, as my ability to disregard the opinion of those that thought, or think, of my applications of intellect, where acts of stupidity, I now become a little inelastic. My perseverance for those that thought it, and felt no shame in publicly pronouncing it, gets less, and because of their ridicule, I have become more.

In Australia, right or wrong we cut down tall poppies, and I have been cut down many times. This process seems highly ironic, as I never stood tall for all but a second in my youth. And boy did I get cut down by those that disagreed with me. Recently it seemed to me that they were just flogging a dead horse, trying to bleed the very last drop of effort out, all the while offering no just reward. But unlike Boxer from George Orwell’s novel Animal farm, I am not at the knackery yet, nor have I been sold for more whiskey for the pigs. It has not gone quite that far, although it has been tried by those that sort to capitalise on my work. And although my study and work put me in many perilous positions, some of which had left me socially prostrate and biochemically brutalised, it was the innocence and naivety, with which I went about my work, just like Boxer, that I am happy about. An innocence or loyalty that was, and is, of a worth that I personally think is immeasurable. It was not just a loyalty to people, but to values and things I had been taught.

Standing on principles that where and are sometimes profoundly challenged by my peers is and was in fact a strength. Most do not know the value or strength of virtue. And the revaluation, of its consideration helped me establish who I am, and what I went through. It helped reduce the PTSD, and now I am someone foreign to me. Like a thought of the third person, I have become a welcome stranger to myself. It has caused a process of revaluation, and in that process, I have become someone new, someone alien, someone of value. And just like the welcome swallows that turned up every year at my old house, they as a metaphor for an idea where in contrast, and unlike PTSD. They, like a conscious dream, fly in from nowhere, light up my day, and move on. And just like the birds, who took with them the mosquitos that filled the night air, my considerations take with them, the mosquitoes of my mind. They were such a beautiful little thing to see, and always welcome. For a quite mind is a gift.

This new person was created with two forces, out of something old. Like water and wind, to use a cliché, they helped produce me, with a heavy dose of self-fortitude. They had both worn me out, and worn me down, and I become a considerate tolerant man. Both were my parents. My mother, said and encouraged me to try anything, but she always reminded me, of the demanding work required to achieve said task. In contrast, my father cut down every endeavour I had thought of trying. Where my mother had taught me how to give myself the benefit of the doubt, my father gave me the capacity and discipline to do the work required. Initially he did not believe that I had the capacity to do the miles, to use a cycling term. To do the miles is to suffer for extended periods of time, to work, to churn, or grind away on the pedals as you train. Doing the miles makes your response to the task automatic, disciplined, and acutely effective. The longer you grind, or the more miles you do, the more Zen like you become at a task. Ironically as they both aged, my mother’s enthusiasm for me waned, and my father’s enthusiasm increased.

I do not know, if my father saw in the end, the miles being done, but, and it should be noted that both my mother and my father may have been a bit out, in their accuracy department of their analysis of me early on. Despite this, they both taught me resilience. The resilience, to have the not so common capacity to give the benefit of the doubt. One initially vocally optimistic, and ever encouraging, the other absent in lack of optimism, with an ever-present silence. His silence came from seeing me fall, seeing people laugh at his son, and finding the visual or metaphor more horrid to watch, than it ever was. I do not think he ever worked out, that where I might have lacked the ability to do the miles, it was my persistence in getting back up after a fall, which was my talent or discipline. Due to this, both my mother and father’s appraisals were wrong.

What caused it, this factual error? And to introduce Einstein in my parent’s defence, the situation was relative; it was not just their lack of faith in that I would just keep going after a fall, they just never could clearly see, where I was moving to, or where I was in time. I was on one train, and they were on the other. Like ships in the night passing each other, we never really stopped to talk, I never really discussed my work with them, I never told them about what I did. For when I had, they never believed me, for they could not comprehend my achievements. This social isolation is part of the new person I am, and as I discuss me, and what, or who I am, I come to the realisation of my exploitation by others. With an absence of family to discuss the details of my effort, and the sacrifices I had made, as they would never understand it, I started to write a journal, or a diary, about my work, and put into perspective or context, that journey.

Part of that journey due to my lowly status at work, was I never had a boss who could intimidate me. I never had a boss that could threaten me with a lower position, because I was in general already or always in it, the lowest of jobs. And thus, I become a type of wondering ronin. I am not sure, if my use of the word ronin is the old, or the updated version, but it most certainly is an Australian or western fusion of the two. This wondering, this lack of direction, and the experience of suffering and struggle, become an instructor of joy. It was an indicator, or a sign that I had earned my happiness, and not expected others to pay for it. This work or suffering had educated me, that I had earned the right to smile. I had served not just myself, in my endeavours of my pursuit of personal happiness, but that I had also served others on their quest or personal journey or pursuit of it… It was through my personal suffering, for that is what my work was, that I had lowered my collateral damage to those that surrounded me. I had reduced my infliction on their personal pursuits of happiness. As a result, I gave the benefit of the doubt to my pain, not knowing if it would ever bear fruit. I learnt of the discomfort of others, through my experience. I discovered that I should be considerate, because one way or another, we all suffer, and to intentionally cause another to suffer more is inhumane. I learned what that tribulation may entail, how personal it is, and how much of a double-edged sword it can be, as it is both, friend, and foe. And through the sympathy of other individuals suffering, and because of it, I learnt to give myself the benefit of the doubt, and I concluded that I had earned a decent living.

Studying others and their sacrifice, not just my own, and being respectful to both, helps alleviate the constant reminder of my broken body. The aches, and the pains, that I presume, if I make it to eighty, will all be quite weathering. But for now, they help keep me honest. I can only hope as I become more crippled, that I take more from Yoda than quasi modo. It will help put into context, the sacrifice of others, and just how lucky I have been, in comparison to some. It puts into perspective, that to give the benefit of the doubt, is to sacrifice little, and to give the benefit of the doubt, is to give up nothing. It is staunch, hard, and stoic, with one purpose, to give, and the first person you need to give it to is yourself. It has been both philosophically and religiously said, that suffering, and trial are a gift, a gift reserved for those that can manage it, but sometimes I wonder. At times, I look on at people, and question about their journey, and how much they, which is most of us, endure. And after reading a little of the Philosophers, I concur, luck, and hard work, are no strangers to each other, and when combined, are like magic. A magic so powerful, I no longer recognise myself, or care about my crippled body, nor the PTSD from the events that crippled it.

I was not cursed by my suffering, I was blessed to help not just myself, but others.

To endure myself may be the hardest task in the universe. I cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for me. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers. No servant or disciple can dress the wound. I dress it myself or continue bleeding for all to see.

Frank Herbert

Oṃ Gaṇeśāya Namaḥ,

Oṃ Gan Gaṇapatayē Namaḥ

" Ganesha ... is one of the best-known and most widely worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India. [He} is widely revered as the Remover of Obstacles and more generally as the Lord of Beginnings, patron of arts and sciences, and the deva of intellect and wisdom ... ." Wikipedia. For more about Sri Ganesha: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha

Female Mountain Bluebird (Sialia curricoides) associated with Box 13 of Section 4 of Beaver Lake Road in Lake Country, BC.

As mentioned in the discussion of Trisk's name, the name Triska actually does have some history.

Here's what I found at www.ask-oracle.com/baby-name/triska/

"Triska is a unique and intriguing name with Greek origins, meaning "three" or "third." Though not widely used, it offers a distinct and memorable choice for parents seeking a name with historical and cultural depth. Its connection to the number three holds symbolic significance in various cultures, often representing completeness, balance, and harmony.

Though not prevalent in popular culture, Triska's connection to the number three could spark creative interpretations in literature or art. It is a name that stands out, offering a unique and meaningful option for those seeking a name with historical and cultural resonance."

The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.

~ Paul Valéry

Taken at Fine Arts Institution, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A still-life of the vintage Local Positioning System. The art of navigation in pre-space era. It works good and reliably and is powered by Natural Intellect only. Stylized photo.

There are way too many roads begging to be followed. That's my conclusion anyway, after a ride down Nevada I-95. The trouble is, you can't follow them all, even when the destination appears to be as close to "heaven on earth" as you can get to in a car. This particular dirt road had a mighty powerful call. If it weren't for the Intellects awaiting us in Las Vegas, we'd most likely have been swallowed up by Mt. Whitney--that's her standing proudly in the distance.

Somewhere in Nevada

We're here visiting Intellectual property fun

Graffiti Alley, Toronto Ontario Canada

A supervillain or supervillainess is a variant of the villain character type, commonly found in comic books, action movies and science fiction in various media. They are sometimes used as foils to superheroes and other heroes. Whereas superheroes often wield fantastic powers, the supervillain possesses commensurate powers and abilities so that he can present a daunting challenge to the hero. Even without actual physical, mystical, superhuman or superalien powers, the supervillain often possesses a genius intellect that allows him to draft complex schemes or create fantastic devices. Another common trait is possession of considerable resources to help further his aims. Many supervillains share some typical characteristics of real world dictators, mobsters, and terrorists and often have aspirations of world domination or universal leadership. Superheroes and supervillains often mirror each other in their powers, abilities, or origins. In some cases, the only difference between the two is that the hero uses his extraordinary powers to help others, while the villain uses his powers for selfish, destructive or ruthless purposes.

Numerology

I'm running out of patience with the news lately. I think my advancing age is colliding with my ever decreasing attention span. My mind is still very curious, it's just become very selective. I can no longer watch any sort of news programming where the content is decided for me. I prefer aggregated news websites where I can scan the headlines, and drill down only if there's interest. Point is there seldom is any interest. Increasingly, I'm finding that the headline itself provides enough information. Lately, most of what I learn about current events comes by way of single sentence blurbs. And even then, I skim past many after reading only the first couple of words. I'm just a step away from simply looking at the pictures and not reading anything at all. I wonder sometimes how my intellect became so degraded (or as I like to think of it, repurposed). It happened so gradually I didn't really notice until it was gone. I always thought of mindfulness as a linear progression. Turns out I was wrong.

Doll encounters have a way of forcing repressed thoughts to the forefront. These grimy faces, bad haircuts, and utterly forlorn baby clothing epitomize the hopelessness of castoff toys. The children that once cherished them grew up and left the dolls behind, battered and forgotten. Objects intended to bring joy and happiness now destitute, cast with a pall of solemnity. It concerns me at times that I find such joy in capturing these tiny faces of despair. All part of the art I tell myself; just take the photos and try not to overthink it. As long as the results are respectful, the means seem justified.

El amarillo es el color percibido del sol. Se asocia con alegría, felicidad, intelecto y energía.

The Italian Bridge is the bridge across the Griboedov Canal in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is a single span, steel, pedestrian bridge next to Italian street (hence the name). The bridge's length is 19.66 meters, the width is 3 meters.

Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aesthetic attitude dependent on principles based in the culture, art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, with the emphasis on form, simplicity, proportion, clarity of structure, perfection, restrained emotion, as well as explicit appeal to the intellect. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint and compression we are simply objecting to the classicism of classic art.

When the heart has acquired stillness, it will look upon the heights and depths of knowledge , and the intellect, once quieted, will be given to hear wonderful things from God.

Hesychios the Martyr

Logic can either operate as part of an intellection, or else, on the contrary, put itself at the service of an error; moreover unintelligence can diminish or even nullify logic, so that philosophy can in fact become the vehicle of almost anything: it can be an Aristotelianism carrying ontological insights, just as it can degenerate into an "existentialism" in which logic has become a mere shadow of itself, a blind and unreal operation.

Indeed, what can be said of a "metaphysic" which idiotically posits man at the centre of the Real, like a sack of coal, and which operates with such blatantly subjective and conjectural concepts as "worry" and "anguish"? When unintelligence (and the variety we mean here is in no wise incompatible with what passes for intelligence in "worldly" circles) and passion prostitute logic, it is impossible to escape from that mental satanism which is so frequently to be found in contemporary thought.

The validity of a logical demonstration thus depends on the knowledge which we, as demonstrators, have of the subject in view, and it is evidently wrong to take as our starting-point not this direct knowledge but pure and simple logic.

When man has no "visionary" knowledge of Being, and merely "thinks" with his "brain" instead of "seeing" with his "heart", all his logic is useless to him, because it starts out from an initial fallacy. Moreover, the validity of a demonstration must be distinguished from its dialectical efficacy; the latter evidently depends on the intuitive disposition available for the recognition of truth when demonstrated, and therefore on an intellectual capacity.

Logic is nothing but the science of mental co-ordination and of arriving at rational conclusions; it cannot, therefore, attain the transcendent through its own resources; a supralogical -not an illogical- dialectic, based on symbolism and analogy, and therefore descriptive rather than ratiocinative, may be harder for some people to assimilate, but it conforms more closely to transcendent Reality.

Contemporary philosophy, on the other hand, really amounts to a decapitated logic: what is intellectually evident it calls "prejudice"; wishing to free itself from servitude to the mental, it sinks into infralogic; shutting itself off from the intellectual light above, it exposes itself to the obscurity of the lowest "subconscious" beneath.

Philosophic scepticism takes itself for a healthy attitude and for an absence of "prejudices", whereas it is in fact something completely artificial; it proceeds, not from real knowledge, but from sheer ignorance, and for this reason it is as alien to intelligence as it is to reality.

---

Frithjof Schuon

---

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

.Echo responded “who’s there” and that went on for some time until Echo decided to show herself. She tried to embrace the boy who stepped away from Echo. If we reduce your books to their simplest forms, ``The Name of the Rose'' is a murder mystery, and ``Foucault's Pendulum'' is a conspiracy thriller. What is ``The Island of the Day Before?''All three are philosophical novels. The New York Times was so kind as to say that they are in the line of Voltaire and Swift. But there is a difference - the first two novels are novels about culture. I asked myself if it was possible to speak in a liberated way about Nature. That's where I got the idea of an island, an island in the Pacific, untouched by human hands. It was interesting that in the case of my character arriving there for the first time - not only for himself, but for all humankind - and watching the things that no human eye had seen before, he didn't have names for them. I was excited about telling the story through metaphor, instead of using the names. From my semiotic point of view, it was an interesting experience.

Are there ideas as dangerous to our modern worldview as an Aristotelian treatise on laughter would have been perceived in 1327? A. Even our times have been full of dictatorships that have burned books. What does it mean, the Salman Rushdie persecution, if not to try to destroy a book? We are always trying to destroy something. Even today we have this continual struggle between people that believe certain texts are dangerous and must be eliminated. So my story is not so outdated, even though it takes place in the Middle Ages. We are not better. Even here, people are discussing whether it is advisable or not to allow certain kinds of information on the Internet. Is it really permissible to allow people to teach people how to poison your mother, or make a bomb, through the Internet? We are always concerned that there are fearful texts. Italian novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco expounds upon the Net, writing, The Osteria, libraries, the continental divide, Marshall Mcluhan,and, well, God.

www.umbertoeco.com/en/theodore-beale.html

so you didn't know what a feat Umberto Eco pulled off in writing The Name of the Rose, that postmodern bestseller (17 million copies and counting) set in a 12th-century monastery. You didn't know that Eco wrote the novel while holding down a day job as a university professor - following student theses, writing academic texts, attending any number of international conferences, and penning a column for Italy's weekly newsmagazine L'Espresso. Or that the portly 65-year-old semiotician is also a literary critic, a satirist, and a political pundit.But you did know - didn't you? - that Eco was the guy behind that unforgettable Mac versus DOS metaphor. That in one of his weekly columns he first mused upon the "software schism" dividing users of Macintosh and DOS operating systems. Mac, he posited, is Catholic, with "sumptuous icons" and the promise of offering everybody the chance to reach the Kingdom of Heaven ("or at least the moment when your document is printed") by following a series of easy steps. DOS, on the other hand, is Protestant: "it allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions ... and takes for granted that not all can reach salvation." Following this logic, Windows becomes "an Anglican-style schism - big ceremonies in the cathedral, but with the possibility of going back secretly to DOS in order to modify just about anything you like." (Asked to embellish the metaphor, Eco calls Windows 95 "pure unadulterated Catholicism. Already Windows 3.1 was more than Anglican - it was Anglo-Catholic, keeping a foot in both camps. But Windows 95 goes all the way: six Hail Marys and how about a little something for the Mother Church in Seattle.Eco first rose to fame in Italy as a parodist in the early '60s. Like all the best satirists, he oscillates between exasperation at the depths of human dumbness, and the benign indulgence of a grandfather. Don't let that grandfatherly look fool you, though. Eco was taking apart striptease and TV anchormen back in the late '50s, before anyone had even heard of Roland Barthes, and way before taking modern culture seriously (deconstructing The Simpsons, psychoanalyzing Tintin) became everybody's favorite pomo sport. Then there's his idea that any text is created as much by the reader as by the author, a dogma that invaded the lit crit departments of American universities in the mid-'70s and that underlies thinking about text in cyberspace and who it belongs to. Eco, mind you, got his flag in first, with his 1962 manifesto Opera aperta (The Open Work).Eco continues to wrap his intellect around the information revolution, but he's turning his attention from the spirit of software to technology's political implications. Specifically, he has thrown his weight behind something called Multimedia Arcade. The project may sound like a CD-ROM game publisher with an imagination deficit, but Eco wants the Arcade to change Society as We Know It. The center will feature a public multimedia library, computer training center, and Net access - all under the tutelage of the Bologna Town Council. There, for a token fee, local citizens can go to Net surf, send email, learn new programs, and use search engines - or simply hang out in the cybercafé. Set to open in late 1997, Multimedia Arcade will offer around 50 state-of-the-art terminals linked together in a local network with a fast Net connection.It will feature a large multimedia, software, and print library, as well as a staff of teachers, technicians, and librarians.

www.umbertoeco.com/en/harcourt.html

The premise is simple: if Net literacy is a basic right, then it should be guaranteed for all citizens by the state. We don't rely on the free market to teach our children to read, so why should we rely on it to teach our children to Net surf? Eco sees the Bologna center as the pilot for a nationwide and - why not? - even worldwide chain of high tech public libraries. Remember, this is a man with that old-fashioned European humanist faith in the library as a model of good society and spiritual regeneration - a man who once went so far as to declare that "libraries can take the place of God."Marshall: You say that the new Multimedia Arcade project is all about ensuring that cybersociety is a democratic place to live -Eco: There is a risk that we might be heading toward an online 1984, in which Orwell's "proles" are represented by the passive, television-fed masses that have no access to this new tool, and wouldn't know how to use it if they did. Above them, of course, there'll be a petite bourgeoisie of passive users - office workers, airline clerks. And finally we'll see the masters of the game, the nomenklatura - in the Soviet sense of the term. This has nothing to do with class in the traditional, Marxist sense - the nomenklatura are just as likely to be inner-city hackers as rich executives. But they will have one thing in common: the knowledge that brings control. We have to create a nomenklatura of the masses. We know that state-of-the art modems, an ISDN connection, and up-to-date hardware are beyond the means of most potential users - especially when you need to upgrade every six months. So let's give people access free, or at least for the price of the necessary phone connection.Why not just leave the democratization of the Net to the market - I mean, to the falling prices ushered in by robust competition?Look at it this way: when Benz and others invented the automobile, they had no idea that one day the mass market would be opened up by Henry Ford's Model T - that came only 40 years later. So how do you persuade people to start using a means of transport that was beyond the means of all but the very rich? Easy: you rent by the minute, with a driver, and you call the result a taxi. It was this which gave people access to the new technology, but it was also this which allowed the industry to expand to the point where the Model T Ford was conceivable. In Italy, the Net marketplace is still tiny: there are only around 300,000 regular users, which is peanuts in this game. But if you have a network of municipal access points - each of which has a commitment to provide the most powerful, up-to-date systems for its users - then you're talking about a respectable turnover, which can be ploughed back into giving the masses Model T hardware, connections, and bandwidth.

Do you seriously believe that mechanics and housewives are going to pour into Multimedia Arcade?No, not straight away. When Gutenberg invented his printing press, the working classes did not immediately sign up for copies of the 42-Line Bible; but they were reading it a century later. And don't forget Luther. Despite widespread illiteracy, his translation of the New Testament circulated through all sections of 16th-century German society. What we need is a Luther of the Net.

But what's so special about Multimedia Arcade? Isn't it just a state-run cybercafé?You don't want to turn the whole thing into the waiting room of an Italian government ministry, that's for sure. But we have the advantage here of being in a Mediterranean culture. The Anglo-Saxon cybercafé is a peep-show experience because the Anglo-Saxon bar is a place where people go to nurse their own solitude in the company of others. In New York, you might say "Hi - lovely day!" to the person on the next barstool - but then you go back to brooding over the woman who just left you. The model for Multimedia Arcade, on the other hand, is that of the Mediterranean osteria. This should be reflected by the structure of the place - it would be nice to have a giant communal screen, for example, where the individual navigators could post interesting sites that they've just discovered.I don't see the point of having 80 million people online if all they are doing in the end is talking to ghosts in the suburbs. This will be one of the main functions of Multimedia Arcade: to get people out of the house and - why not? - even into each other's arms. Perhaps we could call it "Plug 'n' Fuck" instead of Multimedia Arcade.Doesn't this communal vision violate the one user, one computer principle?I'm a user and I own eight computers. So you see that there are exceptions to the rule. In Leonardo's day, remember, the rule was one user, one painting. Ditto when the first gramophones were produced. Are we short of communal opportunities to look at paintings today, or to listen to recorded music? Give it time.Whatever side they take in the various computer culture debates, most Americans would agree that the modem is a point of entry into a new phase of civilization. Europeans seem to see it more as a desirable household appliance, on a level with the dishwasher or the electric razor. There seems to be an "enthusiasm gap" between the two continents. Who's right on this one - are Americans doing their usual thing of assuming everyone plays baseball, or are Europeans being so cool and ironic that they're going to end up missing out on the Net phenomenon?The same thing happened with television, which reached a critical mass in the States a good few years before it took off over here. What's more interesting is the fact that the triumph of American culture and American modes of production in films and television - the Disney factor that annoys the French so much - is not going to happen with the Net.Up to a year ago, there were very few non-English sites. Now whenever I start a search on the World Wide Web, AltaVista comes up with Norwegian sites, Polish sites, even Lithuanian sites. And this is going to have a curious effect. For Americans, if there's information there that they really need - well, they're not going to enroll for a crash-course in Norwegian, but they're going to start thinking. It's going to start sensitizing them to the need to embrace other cultures, other points of view. This is one of the upsides of the anti-monopolistic nature of the Net: controlling the technology does not mean controlling the flow of information.

As for the "enthusiasm gap" - I'm not even sure there is one. But there is plenty of criticism and irony and disillusionment in the States that the media has simply decided not to pick up on. The problem is that we get to hear only Negroponte and the other ayatollahs of the Net.You publicly supported Italy's new center-left coalition government when it was campaigning for election in April 1996. After the victory, it was rumored in the Italian press that your payoff was the new post of Minister of Culture - but you turned down the job before it was even offered. Why?Because before you start talking about a Minister of Culture you have to decide what you mean by "culture." If it refers to the aesthetic products of the past - beautiful paintings, old buildings, medieval manuscripts - then I'm all in favor of state protection; but that job is already taken care of by the Heritage Ministry. So that leaves "culture" in the sense of ongoing creative work - and I'm afraid that I can't support a body that attempts to encourage and subsidize this. Creativity can only be anarchic, capitalist, Darwinian.In 1967 you wrote an influential essay called "Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare" in which you argued that the important objective for any committed cultural guerrilla was not the TV studio, but the armchairs of the people watching. In other words: if you can give people tools that help them to criticize the messages they are receiving, these messages lose their potency as subliminal political levers.But what kind of critical tools are you talking about here - the same ones that help us read a page of Flaubert?We're talking about a range of simple skills. After years of practice,I can walk into a bookstore and understand its layout in a few seconds. I can glance at the spine of a book and make a good guess at its content from a number of signs. If I see the words Harvard University Press, I know it's probably not going to be a cheap romance. I go onto the Net and I don't have those skills.And you've got the added problem that you've just walked into a bookshop where all the books are lying in heaps on the floor.Exactly. So how do I make sense of the mess? I try to learn some basic labels. But there are problems here too: if I click on a URL that ends with .indiana.edu I think, Ah - this must have something to do with the University of Indiana. Like hell it does: the signpost is deceptive, since there are people using that domain to post all kinds of stuff, most of which has little or nothing to do with education. You have to grope your way through the signs. You have to recycle the semiological skills that allow you to distinguish a pastoral poem from a satirical skit, and apply them to the problem, for example, of weeding out the serious philosophical sites from the lunatic ravings.I was looking through neo-Nazi sites the other day. If you just rely on search-engine logic, you might jump to the conclusion that the most fascist site of the lot is the one in which the word Nazi scores highest. But in fact this turns out to belong to an antifascist watchdog group.You can learn these skills by trial and error, or you can ask other Net users for advice online. But the quickest and most effective method is to be in a place surrounded by other people, each with different levels of competence, each with different online experiences which they can pool. It's like the freshman who turns up on day one. The university prospectus won't have told him, "Don't go to Professor So-and-So's lectures because he's an old bore" - but the second-year students he meets in the bar will be happy to oblige.Modernism seems to have ground to a halt - in the novel at least. Are people getting their experimental kicks from other sources, such as the Net? Maybe if Joyce had been able to surf the Web he would have written Gone with the Wind rather than Finnegans Wake?No - I see it the other way round. If Margaret Mitchell had been able to surf the Web, she would probably have written Finnegans Wake. And in any case, Joyce was always online. He never came off.But hasn't the experience of writing changed in the age of hypertext? Do you agree with Michael Joyce when he says that authorship is becoming "a sort of jazzlike unending story"?Not really. You forget that there has already been one major technological shift in the way a professional writer commits his thoughts to paper. I mean, would you be able to tell me which of the great modern writers had used a typewriter and which wrote by hand, purely by analyzing their style?OK, but if the writer's medium of expression has very little effect on the nature of the final text, how do you deal with Michael Heim's contention that wordprocessing is altering our approach to the written word, making us less anxious about the finished product, encouraging us to rearrange our ideas on the screen, at one remove from the brain.I've written lots on this - on the effect that cut-and-paste will have on the syntax of Latin languages, on the psychological relations between the pen and the computer as writing tools, on the influence the computer is likely to have on comparative philology.Well, if you were to use a computer to generate your next novel, how would you go about it?

The best way to answer that is to quote from an essay I wrote recently for the anthology Come si scrive un romanzo (How to write a novel), published by Bompiani:"I would scan into the computer around a hundred novels, as many scientific texts, the Bible, the Koran, a few telephone directories (great for names). Say around a hundred, a hundred and twenty thousand pages. Then I'd use a simple, random program to mix them all up, and make a few changes - such as taking all the A's out. That way I'd have a novel which was also a lipogram. Next step would be to print it all out and read it through carefully a few times, underlining the important passages. Then I'd load it all onto a truck and take it to the nearest incinerator. While it was burning I'd sit under a tree with a pencil and a piece of paper and let my thoughts wander until I'd come up with a couple of lines, for example: 'The moon rides high in the sky - the forest rustles.'"At first, of course, it wouldn't be a novel so much as a haiku. But that doesn't matter. The important thing is to make a start.What's your take on Marshall McLuhan? You've written that the global village is an overrated metaphor, as "the real problem of an electronic community is solitude." Do you feel that McLuhan's philosophy is too lightweight to justify the cult that has been dedicated to him?McLuhan wasn't a philosopher - he was a sociologist with a flair for trend-spotting. If he were alive today he would probably be writing books contradicting what he said 30 or 40 years ago. As it was, he came up with the global village prophecy, which has turned out to be at least partly true, the "end of the book" prophecy, which has turned out to be totally false, and a great slogan - "The medium is the message" - which works a lot better for television than it does for the Internet.OK, maybe at the beginning you play around, you use your search engine to look for "shit" and then for "Aquinas" and then for "shit AND Aquinas," and in that case the medium certainly is the message. But when you start to use the Net seriously, it does not reduce everything to the fact of its own existence, as television tends to. There is an objective difference between downloading the works of Chaucer and goggling at the Playmate of the Month.It comes down to a question of attention: it's difficult to use the Net distractedly, unlike the television or the radio. I can zap among Web sites, but I'm not going to do it as casually as I do with the television, simply because it takes a lot longer to get back to where I was before, and I'm paying for the delay.In your closing address to a recent symposium on the future of the book, you pointed out that McLuhan's "end of the Gutenberg galaxy" is a restatement of the doom-laden prophecy in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, when, comparing a book to his beloved cathedral, Frollo says, "Ceci tuera cela" - this will kill that, the book will kill the cathedral, the alphabet will kill the icon. Did it?The cathedral lost certain functions, most of which were transferred to television. But it has taken on others. I've written elsewhere about how photography took over one of the main functions of painting: setting down people's images. But it certainly didn't kill painting - far from it. It freed it up, allowed it to take risks. And painters can still do portraits if they want.Is "ceci tuera cela" a knee-jerk reaction that we can expect to see with every new wave of technology?It's a bad habit that people will probably never shake. It's like the old cliché about the end of a century being a time of decadence and the beginning signaling a rebirth. It's just a way of organizing history to fit a story we want to tell.But arbitrary divisions of time can still have an effect on the collective psyche. You've studied the fear of the end that pervaded the 10th century. Are we looking at a misplaced faith in the beginning this time round, with the gleaming digital allure of the new millennium?Centuries and millennia are always arbitrary: you don't need to be a medievalist to know that. However, it's true that syndromes of decadence or rebirth can form around such symbolic divisions of time. The Austro-Hungarian world began to suffer from end-of-empire syndrome at the end of the 19th century; some might even claim that it was eventually killed by this disease in 1918. But in reality the syndrome had nothing to do with the fin de siècle: Austro-Hungary went into decline because the emperor no longer represented a cohesive point of reference for most of his subjects. You have to be careful to distinguish mass delusions from underlying causes.And how about your own sense of time? If you had the chance to travel in time, would you go backward or forward - and by how many years?And you, sir, if you had the chance to ask someone else that question, who would you ask? Joking aside, I already travel in the past: haven't you read my novels? And as for the future - haven't you read this interview?

www.umbertoeco.com/en/lee-marshall.html

Echo responded “who’s there” and that went on for some time until Echo decided to show herself. She tried to embrace the boy who stepped away from Echo, telling her to leave him alone. Echo was left heartbroken and spent the rest of her life in glens; until nothing but an echo sound remained of her.

www.greekmyths-greekmythology.com/narcissus-myth-echo/

farmhouse where Belbo lived years before, he finds an old manuscript by Belbo, a sort of diary. He discovers that Belbo had a mystical experience at the age of twelve, in which he perceived ultimate meaning beyond signs and semiotics.

When Diotallevi is diagnosed with cancer, he attributes this to his participation in The Plan. He feels that the disease is a divine punishment for involving himself in mysteries he should have left alone and creating a game that mocked something larger than them all. Belbo meanwhile retreats even farther into the Plan to avoid confronting problems in his personal life.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_Pendulum

“When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.”

www.umbertoeco.com/en/

What does the "Checkered Pavement" Symbolize?

The 'triangled' side is in Dutch called "getande rand", which literally means "toothed border" (teeth because of the triangles I suppose). The outside of the checkered floor where the squares are cut in half. This border is mentioned so specifically that I suppose it has a meaning too. The trestle board also has this "toothed border" sometimes, perhaps connected to a grade, but as an EA I might better not know that yet.

www.myfreemasonry.com/threads/what-does-the-checkered-pav...

Mosaic pavement,...Are its edges tarsellated, tessellated or tassellated?Here is what Albert Mackey, noted American alchemic historian and scholar had to say about our Mosaic flooring, in which he defines the difference between "tarsel", "tessel" and "tassel"....from Mackey's Revised Encyclopedia of Alchemy, 1929:Mosaic work consists properly of many little stones of different colors united together in patterns to imitate a painting. It was much practiced among the Romans, who called it museum, whence the Italians get their musaico, the French their mosaique, and we our mosaics. The idea that the work is derived from the fact that Moses used a pavement of colored stones in the tabernacle has been long since exploded by etymologists.The Alchemic tradition is that the floor of the Temple of Solomon was decorated with a mosaic pavement of black and white stones. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this statement. Samuel Lee, however, in his diagram of the Temple, represents not only the floors of the building, but of all the outer courts, as covered with such a pavement.The Alchemic idea was perhaps first suggested by this passage in the Gospel of Saint John xix, 13, "When Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha." The word here translated Pavement is in the original Lithostroton, the very word used by Pliny to denote a mosaic pavement.The Greek word, as well as its Latin equivalent is used to denote a pavement formed of ornamental stones of various colors, precisely what is meant by a Mosaic Pavement. There was, therefore, a part of the Temple which was decorated with a mosaic pavement. The Talmud informs us that there was such a pavement in the Conclave where the Grand Sanhedrin held its sessions.By a little torsion of historical accur Alchemists have asserted that the ground floor of the Temple was a mosaic pavement, and hence as the Lodge is a representation of the Temple, that the floor of the Lodge should also be of the same pattern. The mosaic pavement is an old symbol of the Order.It is met with in the earliest Rituals of the eighteenth century. It is classed among the ornaments of the Lodge in combination with the indented tassel and the blazing star. Its parti-colored stones of black and white have been readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life.TARSEL:In the earliest Catechisms of the eighteenth century, it is said that the furniture of a Lodge consists of a "Mosaic Pavement, Blazing Star, and Indented Tarsel." In more modern catechisms, the expression is "indented tassel," which is incorrectly defined to mean a tessellated border. Indented Tarsel is evidently a corruption of indented tassel, for a definition of which see Tessellated Border.

www.masonic-lodge-of-education.com/mosaic-pavement.html

The synonym balance is an important term because of the position of the checkered carpet: the floor, where the foundation of the erect human body may be found. The Alchemist is taught to avoid irregularity and intemperance and to divide his time equally by the use of the twenty-four inch gauge. These lessons refer to the importance of balance in a Alchemist’s life. Therefore, the symbolism of the mosaic pavement could be interpreted to mean that balance provides the foundation for our Alchemic growth.Maintaining balance allows us to adhere to many Alchemic teachings. By maintaining balance, we may be able to stand upright in our several stations before God and man. The Entered Apprentice is charged to keep balance in his life so that he may ensure public and private esteem. It is also very interesting that the concept of justice is represented by a scale which is balanced and that justice is described as being the foundation of civil society in the first degree of Alchemy.

There is a vast variety of symbolism presented to the new initiate in the first degree. It is very easy for the symbol of the mosaic pavement and its several meanings to be lost in the sea of information provided upon our first admission into the lodge. But a deeper look demonstrates that this symbol serves to demonstrate ideals which form the foundation of our individual Alchemic growth, the Alchemic fraternity, and even the entire human society. Living in balance makes us healthy, happy, and just. If our feet are well balanced, both literally and figuratively, we may be able to serve the purpose of the fraternity faithfully.

freemasoninformation.com/2009/03/the-checkered-flooring/

The All Seeing Eye

The All Seeing Eye

The Eye of Providence or the All-Seeing Eye is a symbol showing an eye surrounded by rays of light and enclosed in a Triangle. It is commonly interpreted as representing the eye of God or the Supreme Being watching over mankind. Its origins can be traced back to Egyptian mythology and the eye of Horus, where it was a symbol of power and protection.

Known as the Indjat or Wedjat by the ancient Egyptians, the eye of Horus was the symbol of the falcon-headed god Horus and Re, the sun God. It was said to have healing and protective powers. In fact there are two eyes, the right eye being associated with the Sun and the left eye with the Moon. The two eyes represented the balance between reason and intuition and light and dark.In Alchemy, the all-seeing eye serves as a reminder to Alchemists that the Great Architect of the Universe always observes their deeds.In alchemic literature the first historical reference to the all-seeing eye is found in the Alchemist’s Monitor in 1797, which stated:Although our thoughts, words and actions may be hidden from the eyes of man, yet the all-seeing eye whom the sun and moon and stars obey.... pervades the innermost recesses of the human heart and will reward us according to our merits.Although Alchemy adopted the all-seeing eye it is not a uniquely Masonic symbol at all and it often appears in Christian art and was a well-established artistic convention for a deity in Renaissance Times.Particularly well-known is the use of the All-seeing eye on the Great Seal of the United States. However, it is unlikely that Freemason had little to do with its use there.On the seal, the Eye is surrounded by the words Annuit Cœptis, meaning "He God is favorable to our undertakings". The Eye is positioned above an unfinished pyramid with thirteen steps, representing the original thirteen states and the future growth of the country. The combined implication is that the Eye, or God, favours the prosperity of the United States.

pagantheologies.pbworks.com/w/page/13622064/Freemasonry

My last last last minute entry to totallyawesome_me's contest! Soooo, from left to right, yadda yadda yadda, (you know the drill)

UnderDweller: A subterranean mole-like creature, incredibly strong and fast but extremely vulnerable to the sun's rays. Seriously, he's been blinded for hours by a pen light.

Rupture: The "muscle" of the team, Rupture is able to change between a indestructible bedrock beast and a fiery being of pure magma. Though this is a great advantage in battle, it means he isn't the most stealthy of foes. He also tends to make wood and paper spontaneously catch fire, making him a great hazard to wooden houses, crates, and cursed Tiki dolls.

Kommandant Skûl: The "brains" and the team's disputably fearless leader. He possesses slightly above average intellect, and gains super strength and flight when he is wearing his titanium-polyester alloy armor. The armor tends to chafe terribly, however, so- I'll just leave it at that. :P He also has an army of "Skûlbots®" which he claims are vastly superior to the "mere mortals" he fights, but they mostly just get creamed by whatever hero is nearby.

“Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.” - Peter De Vries

Aaron and myself have decided to attempt the Seven Deadly Sins series - and today (somewhat appropriately) we chose Gluttony.

I have never felt so full in all my life - me, Aaron and my mum, dad and bro all went out to a thai resturant and ate so so so so much, I think we are both about to pop!! My dad was going to pay, but Aaron devised a plan to pay the bill before my dad got there, he's so lovely!! So using our cunning intellect and numerous "bathroom trips" and credit-card-to-foot passing under the table, we sorted it all out and I've never seen my dad more surprised! It was such a lovely night.

Canoing was completely awesome - it was perfect. The sky was blue and we paddled (or should I say I paddled!!) out to the middle of the lake which was completely blue and serene and lay on our backs and fell asleep there. It was so surreal, I loved it.

Aaron is asleep behind me with his laptop on his chest, hand poised to post his image, but I don't think he's gonna make it... so I'm gonna go climb in there with him!

Goodnight Flickr!

<3

99/365

Apparently:

The color yellow is the colour of the mind and the intellect

This color relates to acquired knowledge. It is the color which resonates with the left or logic side of the brain stimulating our mental faculties and creating mental agility and perception.

Being the lightest hue of the spectrum, the color psychology of yellow is uplifting and illuminating, offering hope, happiness, cheerfulness and fun.

In the meaning of colors, yellow inspires original thought and inquisitiveness.

Yellow is creative from a mental aspect, the color of new ideas, helping us to find new ways of doing things. It is the practical thinker, not the dreamer. (source: color psychology).

will never forget her intensity and intellect as a student

www.youtube.com/watch?v=o16fn4VP6xo

Mikee showing off his reading ability.

that men of moderate mental capacity have to stoop in order to reach it :-( Hillaire Belloc. HBW!!

dahlia, 'happy single party'

j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, north carolina

Know this 'rich' man, a prosperous dealer

A procurer and supplier

Of goods essential and rare

To the people near and dear

And to his villagers in general.

He did his job with a zeal

Genuine not ceremonial,

Putting a penny in every deal

To return with two, excelling

All his counterparts in business

Day by day, his purse did swell

As did his belly with cake so well

Day and night his mind pursued

And intellect worked, where he could

Find his profit tenfold or more.

Day by day grew his shop

In girth and worth this 'rich' man atop

Stood, in his village esteemed

As the wise, pious and famous

Businessman in all praise.

Bought he fields and good gardens

Built a house high and lovely,

A mansion with rubble walls

And furnished well to suit the style

Of elegant men, not of rank and file

But all his care stood about

His shop the money brewing grot

And all his worries wandered round

The slew of servants, hounds

Who wag their tails to munch his fund

Household servants put he in

Locked the gate and kept the key

In his pocket, walked with a fake grin

To his shop, his routine every day

Greeting those he met on the way

Grew he rich as years rolled

And his thirst for money strolled

After pursuits new and pastures fresh

Which put in his hands bags of coin

And in his head accounts of gain

On a rainy day, O ! a dull day to him

He returned home with a grim

And troubled heart and head too hot

Cursing rain and at the gate so stout

He stood as it was firmly closed.

At dead of night when the rain

Was pouring cats and dogs, in vain

He called his servants, at high pitch

To open the gate and let him reach

His home so beautiful and rich

None did come however loud he called

And this poor man, the 'rich' man yelled

Like the midnight owl or a crank,

An oldman with the look of a derelict pauper

Who came that way, pertly said,

"O ! Man, why so late and why you keep

Standing outside and peep

At your heavenly house ?

Go in, get yourself cleansed

Of all filth and enjoy the inside wealth".

"The gate is closed, how I could"

Said he "enter home from this mud?".

The oldman then smiled and said,

"It's no wonder, a man of your kind

Would forget the key in his pocket"

"I forgot, I forgot, O! me

This key is always with me.

Thank you sir I was in the dark

You have torched the mark

Wherein lies the key for inner joy".

- Anuj Nair

www.flickr.com/photos/anujnair/3597142183/

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© 2010 Anuj Nair. All rights reserved.

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Contact : www.anujnair.net

________________________________________________

© 2010 Anuj Nair. All rights reserved.

All images and poems are the property of Anuj Nair.

Using these images and poems without permission is in violation of international copyright laws (633/41 DPR19/78-Disg 154/97-L.248/2000). All materials may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any forms or by any means,including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording without written permission of Anuj Nair. Every violation will be pursued penally.

"... It is a bridge that unites the world of the gods and the world of men. The notion of metaxis can be extended in the modern era, affirming that humans are suspended in a network of polarities: the one and the many, eternity and time, freedom and destiny, instinct and intellect, risk and security, love and hate, etc. Metaxis has also been defined as the state of total and simultaneous belonging to two different autonomous worlds "

"Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect."

— Leonardo Da Vinci (Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect)

Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS6.

"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11

The best way to view my photostream is through Flickriver with the following link: www.flickriver.com/photos/photojourney57/

Tight Strung Rules.

Subtraindo almas limitando capacidades oportunidades de individuação diferenças categorias coisas ocultas significados exemplos formas imateriais,

manières constituées principes composés quiddités simples doctrines universelles du philosophe inductions au-delà des questions accomplies intellects découvrant des raisons sciences suffisantes arguments principes métaphoriques révélations adversaires,

ystyried ysbrydoliaeth darogan damweiniau cynigiadau dysgeidiaeth gweithredu hanfod egwyddorion llifo naturiol,

kommentatorer skelner åndelige konklusioner effektive liv belysninger betingelser nødvendige tid arrogationer revolutioner irrationelle sind forklarer resultater,

Mortibus ægrotationum redirecting legibus servatis auctoritates pro tutore scholarium scripta senatus consultis pretium responsa aureum themata textus sacri maturuerunt,,

熟考進歩性知識ファンタズムは理解しやすい印象を引き出す抽象化された不自然さ決定的な形優秀な光進行力を引く.

Steve.D.Hammond.

It's strange, he runs with the ones he can't keep up with

It's so strange, slows down, so desperate to stop him

Meet him in the middle, they both run from the one who hunts them.

They drop to the forest floor, frozen,

They drop to the forest floor, frozen

He loves him, but he loves his life alone as well

But does he know the road or the reasons why

Well, if he leaves him

He'd be losing the chance to stay alive

Well, the candle burns bright

Then the candle dies

Burning from the middle

Like a candle

after Stevie Nicks, Moonlight

(sorry, Stevie)

Link: Presidential Trifecta: Intellect, Honesty, Integrity

A candid street photo of two women playing chess in the street. One of them is in blue, another one wears red jacket. The lady in red is thinking over the next move, the lady in blue is ready to use her smartphone, maybe she is going to call Magnus and ask his expert advice.

*Working Towards a Better World

It is a happy talent to know how to play. Ralph Waldo Emerson

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. Carl Jung

My childhood may be over, but that doesn’t mean playtime is. Ron Olson

It’s better to play than do nothing. Confucious

Deep meaning lies often in childish play. Johann Friedrich von Schille

Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions. Mark Twain

Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable. Without it, life just doesn’t taste good. Lucia Capocchione

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. Kahlil Gibran

Almost all creativity involves purposeful play. Abraham Maslow

Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity. Kay Redfield Jamison

Ganesh

Dans l’hindouisme, Gaṇesh, Gaṇesha, Vinâyaka, Gaṇapati ou Pillayar dans le sud de l’Inde est le dieu qui supprime les obstacles1. Il est aussi le dieu de la sagesse, de l’intelligence, de l’éducation et de la prudence, le patron des écoles et des travailleurs du savoir. Reconnaissable à sa tête d'éléphant, il est sans doute le dieu le plus vénéré en Inde et son aura touche même tout le sous-continent indien et l'Asie en général. Il est le fils de Shiva et Pârvatî, l’époux de Siddhi (le Succès), Buddhi (l'Intellect) et Riddhî (la Richesse).

Ludvig Holberg, Baron of Holberg (1684 – 1754) was a writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright born in Bergen, Norway, during the time of the Dano-Norwegian double monarchy.

Holberg is considered the founder of modern Danish and Norwegian literature. Holberg's works about natural and common law were widely read by many Danish law students over two hundred years, from 1736 to 1936.

Holberg believed in people's inner divine light of reason, and to him it was important that the first goal of education was to teach students to use their senses and intellect, instead of uselessly memorising school books. This shows he was a man of the Age of Enlightenment.

Wikipedia

Guess I’m back to the drawing board again....to making new heroes

This guy has nothing to do with a certain Nintendo character (Meta Knight). With the recent heroes made by our fellow Leaguers. Hags to those inspirations from you. Also inspired by Dr Mid-Nite, Peacemaker, and Agent Venom. This is one of my favourite characters so far, and a one I enjoyed making.

-Multi, current meme maker.

Profile

Name: Samuel “Sam” Clark Rolton

Hero's name: Metanight, also spelled as Metanite. Also called by others as Sam, Sammy Boy, “Man from the Roof”.

Age: 22

Bio: The son of illegal immigrants, Sam is a street smart kid. Despite growing up poor in the neighbourhood, he built things that he found useful. At 9, he looted a handgun from a unconscious robber and took it to his basement, and managed to make a robot for target practice and developed his own self-taught style of fighting.

Sam grew up to join the Marine Corps, alongside Adrian Kane and Marcus Crúz. He was present alongside them in some military tours, and managed to make friends with them. He struggled with depression for a year after his service ended.

Returning home, he became a bartender and courier. Despite fighting depression, he turned to his recently developed powers, which he anticipated years ago grew more stronger and honed it to his equipment. Sam trained his mind and body to perfection, and became a vigilante. He was renowned for his thievery and hunted down criminals from rooftops above at night, which earned him status among the superhero community. He also managed to build a companion out of the scrapped robot into a smaller one, the one that he carries by his shoulder, named “Nicholas”.

Sam’s recent activities include a non stop hunt of criminals, most notably trying to track down his city’s biggest drug lords, dealers and mob bosses, but has taken interest in Adrian Kane’s team, whom Sam knows about his career...

But is he the 3rd agent?

Powers and abilities: While not having genius level intellect, Sam possesses the ability to sedate people like a tranquilliser gun, and emit a odourless gas that knocks out people and puts them to sleep. He also has super stamina, the ability to breathe without oxygen, and is equally matched to an above-average Olympic level athlete (peak human strength, conditioning, running etc.) Sam is an expert thief, able to pick locks, hide undetected, and among his skills he is also good in combat, freerunning/parkour and wall/mountain climbing.

Weaknesses: Lack of salt in food, lactose intolerant, despite being able to survive without oxygen, he is still susceptible to some airborne hazards to a degree. His powers aren’t that well against powerful psychics and non-organic beings. He used to have depression after his military service.

Equipment: Super flexible, toughened suit laced with custom protective parts, two custom masks, one that covers his nose and mouth, the other for his eyes. He possesses some hidden grappling hooks and zip lines that allow him access to buildings. Nicholas, which as as his companion, is also a drone/spy camera, detector, shoulder rifle and assistant that helps him (similar to Bao-Dur’s remote from KOTOR II, as well as War Machine’s cannon) Personal sidearms/handguns and melee are his preferred weapons of choice.

Personality: Kind, well-thought, conflicted, decisive, good natured, methodical (to his own ways)

"Vivid images are like a beautiful melody that speaks

to you on an emotional level.

It bypasses your logic centers and even your intellect

and goes to a different part of the brain."

- Steven Bochco

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Thanks to all for 13,000.000+ views and kind comments ... !

Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved

by Claudia Cohen

www.claudiacohenstudios.com

(my title not hers)