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Persimmon Vase
Esercitazione metafisica nella serie delle tazze
Exercise of metaphysics in the set of cups
Copyright Corrado Riccòmini
Der 65 Meter hohe Felshügel von Cashel, in der Grafschaft Tipperary gelegen, ist ein einzigartiges Monument irischer Geschichte und gilt daher als irisches Wahrzeichen. Als Sitz von Feen und Geistern wurde er schon im Altertum verehrt. Davon habe ich bei meinem Besuch allerdings nicht bemerkt. Wahrscheinlich, weil ab dem 4. Jahrhundert die Könige von Munster obenauf eine Steinburg als ihren Sitz erbauten, die aufgrund der erhöhten Lage einen guten Überblick auf das umliegende Land bot und daher von strategischer Bedeutung war. Außerdem machte der heilige Patrick die Festung im 5. Jahrhundert zusätzlich noch zum Bischofssitz. Und heute sind es Besuchermassen, die den feinstofflichen Wesen wohl die Anwesenheit vermiesen. Doch es gibt genügend Platz für sie im Land rundum. Hier ein Blick auf die Ruine der Kirche und auf den 28 Meter hohen Rundturm aus dem Jahr 849 am Rock of Cashel.
The 65-metre-high rocky hill of Cashel, located in County Tipperary, is a unique monument to Irish history and is therefore considered an Irish landmark. It was revered in ancient times as the seat of fairies and spirits. However, I didn't notice any of that during my visit. Probably because, from the 4th century onwards, the kings of Munster built a stone castle on top of it as their seat, which, due to its elevated position, offered a good view of the surrounding countryside and was therefore of strategic importance. In addition, St Patrick made the fortress a bishop's seat in the 5th century. And today, it are the crowds of visitors who probably spoil the presence of the ethereal beings. But there is plenty of room for them in the surrounding countryside. Here is a view of the church ruins and the 28 metres high round tower from anno 849 on top of the Rock of Cashel.
Waterfalls beneath a very old arched bridge at Palaeokaryá, near Trikala, Greece.
There is a dreamy, emotive element emerging from the scenery, despite the winter weather. The clear waters of Portaïkós river can inspire and cleanse…
The scenery reminds us of a poem written by the romantic as well as metaphysical poet of the 17th century:
“With what deep murmurs through time's silent stealth
Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat'ry wealth
Here flowing fall,
And chide, and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue stay'd
Ling'ring, and were of this steep place afraid;…”
—Henry Vaughan (The Waterfall)
“Art is the fatal net which catches these strange moments on the wing like mysterious butterflies, fleeing the innocence and distraction of common men.” * Giorgio de Chirico – Artist.
I love this quote, and you’ll now see why I borrowed part of this title from the self-designated Metaphysical Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). Even the most mundane of scenes may well have something of a revelation in it for the sensitive soul. Surely that’s what makes YOU choose YOUR favourite subjects: nature, landscape, wildlife, city streets, rural life. It’s a genre you connect with PERSONALLY. It resonates with YOU. This is what makes us want to pick up a camera. Take the photos YOU want (not what you think others will like or might get Explored) and you’ll find the kind of people who really will connect with you.
Is there a story in this photograph of a darkening alley, a light in the window, no other person around except the observer (photographer)? Does the colour create a mood? Is it melancholic? It’s why some people look at a picture and will see nothing special, and others stand back and have an A-Ha moment. Of course the viewer needs to take more than two seconds to really look – not common on social media these days.
The quintessential Twentieth century American photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975), realist and promoter of “straight photography”, may not have been as mystically inclined as de Chirico, but he also believed he was an artist with something to say. What sets the artist apart in photography (or any art, including literature - because writers must be great observers too) was for Evans “the hungry eye”:
“Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”
Evans may not have been the intellectual artist that di Chirico was, but he believed in photography’s power in a way not unlike this other quote from de Chirico:
“Although the dream is a very strange phenomenon and an inexplicable mystery, far more inexplicable is the mystery and aspect our minds confer on certain objects and aspects of life.”
Indeed. The fundamental reason why human beings create art (although Bower birds also create artful nests) is to discover meaning. But like life itself, the creation of art is a process, a journey and a pilgrimage. The danger in photography is to miss the forest for the trees. We are often such inveterate collectors of “things” (animate and inanimate) in our photos that we fail to see the connections BETWEEN our images.
One of the tasks I have been consciously working on in my Flickr page is to create real links between my images as a curator might in a museum. It takes me as much time to choose when and where to post a photo on my page as it does to process them. Nothing is random and certainly not chronological. Why? Because those links will very often reveal why it is we do the kind of photography we do. What we are trying to say, who it is we might be trying to communicate with through our pictures. Why bother? Well it’s every individual’s choice, but as Walker Evans rightly said, “(We) are not here long”.
“Only connect,” E.M Forster said in his novel “Howard’s End”. In that is the secret and mystery of this life and the reason why we all do photography and art (whether acknowledged or not). De Chirico and Walker Evans would have agreed on that.
John Donne (pronounced /ˈdʌn/ "dunn"; 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English Jacobean poet, preacher and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are notable for their realistic and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially as compared to those of his contemporaries.
Despite his great education and poetic talents, he lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. In 1615 he became an Anglican priest and, in 1621, was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London.
John Donne was born on Bread Street in London, England, into a Catholic family at a time when Catholicism was illegal in England.[3] Donne was the third of six children. His father, also named John Donne, was of Welsh descent, and a warden of the Ironmongers Company in the City of London. Donne's father was a respected Catholic who avoided unwelcome government attention out of fear of being persecuted for his religious faith.[4][5] Donne's father died in 1576, leaving his wife, Elizabeth Heywood, the responsibility of raising their children.[5] Elizabeth Heywood, also from a noted Catholic family, was the daughter of John Heywood, the playwright, and sister of Jasper Heywood, the translator and Jesuit. She was a great-niece of the Catholic martyr Thomas More.[6] This tradition of martyrdom would continue among Donne’s closer relatives, many of whom were executed or exiled for religious reasons.[7] Despite the obvious dangers, Donne’s family arranged for his education by the Jesuits, which gave him a deep knowledge of his religion that equipped him for the ideological religious conflicts of his time.[6] Donne's mother married Dr. John Syminges, a wealthy widower with three children, a few months after Donne's father died. In 1577, his mother died, followed by two more of his sisters, Mary and Katherine, in 1581.
Donne was a student at Hart Hall, now Hertford College, Oxford, from the age of 11. After three years at Oxford he was admitted to the University of Cambridge, where he studied for another three years.[8] He was unable to obtain a degree from either institution because of his Catholicism, since he could not take the Oath of Supremacy required of graduates.[6] In 1591 he was accepted as a student at the Thavies Inn legal school, one of the Inns of Chancery in London. In 1592 he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, one of the Inns of Court[6], where he held the office of Master of the Revels.[3] His brother Henry was also a university student prior to his arrest in 1593 for harbouring a Catholic priest, William Harrington, whom Henry betrayed under torture.[3] Harrington was tortured on the rack, hanged until not quite dead, and then was subjected to live disembowelment.[3] Henry Donne died in Newgate prison of bubonic plague, leading John Donne to begin questioning his Catholic faith.[5]
During and after his education, Donne spent much of his considerable inheritance on women, literature, pastimes and travel.[4][6] Although there is no record detailing precisely where he traveled, it is known that he traveled across Europe and later fought with the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh against the Spanish at Cádiz (1596) and the Azores (1597) and witnessed the loss of the Spanish flagship, the San Felipe.[1][5][9] According to Izaak Walton, who wrote a biography of Donne in 1640:
“ ... he returned not back into England till he had stayed some years, first in Italy, and then in Spain, where he made many useful observations of those countries, their laws and manner of government, and returned perfect in their languages. ”
By the age of 25 he was well prepared for the diplomatic career he appeared to be seeking.[9] He was appointed chief secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton, and was established at Egerton’s London home, York House, Strand close to the Palace of Whitehall, then the most influential social centre in England.
During the next four years he fell in love with Egerton's niece Anne More, and they were married just before Christmas [3] in 1601 against the wishes of both Egerton and her father, George More, Lieutenant of the Tower. This ruined his career and earned him a short stay in Fleet Prison, along with the priest who married them and the man who acted as a witness to the wedding. Donne was released when the marriage was proven valid, and soon secured the release of the other two. Walton tells us that when he wrote to his wife to tell her about losing his post, he wrote after his name: John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done. It was not until 1609 that Donne was reconciled with his father-in-law and received his wife's dowry.
Following his release, Donne had to accept a retired country life in Pyrford, Surrey.[6] Over the next few years he scraped a meagre living as a lawyer, depending on his wife’s cousin Sir Francis Wolly to house him, his wife, and their children. Since Anne Donne had a baby almost every year, this was a very generous gesture. Though he practiced law and worked as an assistant pamphleteer to Thomas Morton, he was in a state of constant financial insecurity, with a growing family to provide for.[6]
Anne bore him 12 children in 16 years of marriage (including two stillbirths - their eighth and then in 1617 their last child); indeed, she spent most of her married life either pregnant or nursing. The 10 surviving children were named Constance, John, George, Francis, Lucy (after Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford, her godmother), Bridget, Mary, Nicholas, Margaret and Elizabeth. Francis, Nicholas and Mary died before they were ten. In a state of despair, Donne noted that the death of a child would mean one less mouth to feed, but he could not afford the burial expenses. During this time Donne wrote, but did not publish, Biathanatos, his defense of suicide.[7] His wife died on 15 August 1617, five days after giving birth to their twelfth child, a still-born baby. Donne mourned her deeply, including writing the 17th Holy Sonnet.[6] He never remarried; this was quite unusual for the time, especially as he had a large family to bring up.
Donne's earliest poems showed a developed knowledge of English society coupled with sharp criticism of its problems. His satires dealt with common Elizabethan topics, such as corruption in the legal system, mediocre poets, and pompous courtiers. His images of sickness, vomit, manure, and plague assisted in the creation of a strongly satiric world populated by all the fools and knaves of England. His third satire, however, deals with the problem of true religion, a matter of great importance to Donne. He argued that it was better to examine carefully one's religious convictions than blindly to follow any established tradition, for none would be saved at the Final Judgment, by claiming "A Harry, or a Martin taught [them] this."[7]
Donne's early career was also notable for his erotic poetry, especially his elegies, in which he employed unconventional metaphors, such as a flea biting two lovers being compared to sex.[9] In Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed, he poetically undressed his mistress and compared the act of fondling to the exploration of America. In Elegy XVIII, he compared the gap between his lover's breasts to the Hellespont.[9] Donne did not publish these poems, although he did allow them to circulate widely in manuscript form.
Donne was elected as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Brackley in 1602, but this was not a paid position and Donne struggled to provide for his family, relying heavily upon rich friends.[6] The fashion for coterie poetry of the period gave him a means to seek patronage and many of his poems were written for wealthy friends or patrons, especially Sir Robert Drury, who came to be Donne's chief patron in 1610.[9] Donne wrote the two Anniversaries, An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul, (1612), for Drury. While historians are not certain as to the precise reasons for which Donne left the Catholic Church, he was certainly in communication with the King, James I of England, and in 1610 and 1611 he wrote two anti-Catholic polemics: Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius his Conclave.[6] Although James was pleased with Donne's work, he refused to reinstate him at court and instead urged him to take holy orders.[5] Although Donne was at first reluctant, feeling unworthy of a clerical career, he finally acceded to the King's wishes and in 1615 was ordained into the Church of England.[9]
Donne became a Royal Chaplain in late 1615, Reader of Divinity at Lincoln's Inn in 1616, and received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Cambridge University in 1618.[6] Later in 1618 he became chaplain to Viscount Doncaster, who was on an embassy to the princes of Germany. Donne did not return to England until 1620.[6] In 1621 Donne was made Dean of St Paul's, a leading (and well-paid) position in the Church of England and one he held until his death in 1631. During his period as Dean his daughter Lucy died, aged eighteen. It was in late November and early December of 1623 that he suffered a nearly fatal illness, thought to be either typhus or a combination of a cold followed by the seven-day relapsing fever. During his convalescence he wrote a series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness that were published as a book in 1624 under the title of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Meditation XVII later became well known for its phrase "for whom the bell tolls" and the statement that "no man is an island". In 1624 he became vicar of St Dunstan-in-the-West, and 1625 a Royal Chaplain to Charles I.[6] He earned a reputation as an eloquent preacher and 160 of his sermons have survived, including the famous Death’s Duel sermon delivered at the Palace of Whitehall before King Charles I in February 1631.
It is thought that his final illness was stomach cancer. He died on 31 March 1631 having published many poems in his lifetime; but having left a body of work fiercely engaged with the emotional and intellectual conflicts of his age. John Donne is buried in St Paul's, where a memorial statue of him was erected (carved from a drawing of him in his shroud), with a Latin epigraph probably composed by himself.
Frankie has it all figured out...
I decided to read this book after feeling quite out of my philosophical element while reading Marilynne Robinson's essays "The Givenness of Things"...
So after it appeared in several photos I started getting messages about about my Hammer pendant and why I wear it :-)
Its made by Kunst if anyone wants to find one inworld..
So far as "why I wear it"; I think anyone's religious beliefs are personal to them and personally I am a "many roads lead to the Truth" type.
What I can say is that for *me*, my personal belief is that its important to *do* things and not just believe in them; so I have a penchant for systems that embrace that outlook.
Belief systems that embrace *moral* courage are also - in my opinion - valuable; because without courage people never accomplish anything worthwhile.
Moral courage is not about exposing yourself to violence or loving violence and war; its about doing what you believe to be right - even if it costs you something.
I feel like the world gets better when we push back against the things that diminish our humanity :-)
..and yes, If I get to pick Valhalla, Nirvanna, the Afterfields or Heaven; I'm going where the Party is :-)
Believe in something that makes you a better person, whatever form that takes !
“There was something disquieting about the way an intimate object, seemingly withdrawn into its solemn steadfastness, could affect human emotions. Any old thing forgotten in a corner, if the eye dwelt on it, acquired an eloquence of its own, communicating its lyricism and magic to the kindred soul. If a neglected object of this kind were forcibly isolated, that is, divested of its warmth and of the protective coat of its environment, or even ironically combined with completely unrelated things, it would reassert its dignity in the new context and stand there, incomprehensible, weird, mysterious.”
—Werner Haftmann, Painting in the Twentieth Century (1982)
"That from which is everything that exists and from which it first becomes and into which it is rendered at last, its substance remaining under it, but transforming in qualities, that they say is the element and principle of things that are. …For it is necessary that there be some nature (φύσις), either one or more than one, from which become the other things of the object being saved..." Aristotle. Metaphysics. Originally Thales of Miletus
“But as for certain truth, no man has known it,
Nor will he know it; neither of the Gods
Nor yet of all the things of which I speak.
And even if by chance he were to utter
The perfect truth, he would himself not know it;
For all is but a woven web of guesses.” [Parmenides]
Book jacket for the New Metaphysical Library no.003,
An easy to read reference for the trans-dimensional traveler,
Chapters include: You and Evil You, Getting from Point A to Point -A, 6 Simple Steps for Starting your own Tangent Universe.
To discover that metaphysical Tree which hid
From my worldling look its brilliant vein
Far deeper in gross wood
Than axe could cut.
But before I might blind sense
To see with the spotless soul,
Each particular quirk so ravished me
Every pock and stain bulked more beautiful
Than flesh of any body
Flawed by love's prints.
— Sylvia Plath “On The Plethora Of Dryads”
#farm #wisconsin #barn #midwest #fields #counutry #agriculture #earth #soil #barn #farming #metaphysical #cinematic
Taken in the Venice Lagoon
on the background you can see the
Isola di Poveglia
You can see this part of lagoon from Lido
for the place, follow this link:
wikimapia.org/#lat=45.381482&lon=12.334106&z=16&a....
No photoshop, no digital processing
The calm of Lagoon in that moment allowed me to take this photo
For a music follow this link: Rondò Veneziano "Tramonto sulla laguna"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptNkh0mRrts&feature=related
PLEASE, SEE ON BLACK
Haiku Salut, Album Launch & Metaphysical Performance Event. #iphoneographyhub #iphone7 #iphonephotographyoftheday #iphoneography #iphoneographer #iphoneographers #mobile #mobiography #shootermag_uk #lensbible #livemusic #music #musicphotography #haikusalut #iphoneology #vr #virtualreality #lp #album #launch #metaphysical #derby