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my bark is not worse than my bite
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.
"Nature versus nurture" in its modern sense was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare (The Tempest). Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education and social privilege are often historically passed to genetic offspring.
The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula rasa ("blank slate"). This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive—representing an outdated state of knowledge. Psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?" That is, the idea that either nature or nurture explains a creature's behavior is a sort of single cause fallacy.
In the social and political sciences, the nature versus nurture debate may be contrasted with the structure versus agency debate (i.e. socialization versus individual autonomy). For a discussion of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also psychological nativism.
Personality is a frequently cited example of a heritable trait that has been studied in twins and adoptions. Identical twins reared apart are far more similar in personality than randomly selected pairs of people. Likewise, identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Also, biological siblings are more similar in personality than adoptive siblings. Each observation suggests that personality is heritable to a certain extent. However, these same study designs allow for the examination of environment as well as genes. Adoption studies also directly measure the strength of shared family effects. Adopted siblings share only family environment. Unexpectedly, some adoption studies indicate that by adulthood the personalities of adopted siblings are no more similar than random pairs of strangers. This would mean that shared family effects on personality are zero by adulthood. As is the case with personality, non-shared environmental effects are often found to out-weigh shared environmental effects. That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be life-shaping (such as family life) may have less of an impact than non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development. Random variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial source of non-shared environment. These results suggest that "nurture" may not be the predominant factor in "environment."
EXPLORE Worthy, ALPHA CHALLENGE #14 - LETTER "N" (Art from 2012)
You can help the billions of animals across the world who suffer everyday, if you care enough ,
"Nurture:" I captured a couple glimpses of this parent owl helping to pass small bits of dinner to its offspring, eyes closed as they completed the transfer via their beaks.
I don't garden....but I appreciate growing things in a pot. My succulents are the closest to the dirt that i get...and I love and 'nurture' them. This is my most recent...Mimicry Plant, Pleiospilos Nelii Royal Flush..a long name for a tiny plant. It has already divided once, and hopefully will again and again. #cy365 'cultivate, garden, nurture, produce'
What do you water your seeds with? How do you nurture your dreams?
Be careful what you water your
dreams with. Water them with worry
and fear and you will produce weeds
that choke the life from your dream.
Water them with optimism and
solutions and you will cultivate success.
Always be on the lookout for ways to
turn a problem into an opportunity for
success. Always be on the lookout for
ways to nurture your dream.
~ Lao Tzu
The Path to Freedom and Love and their Significance in World. Theodora’s Prophetic Revelation
Between these two poles lies the balancing factor that unites the two — unites the will that rays towards the head with the thoughts which, as they flow into deeds wrought with love, are, so to say, felt with the heart. This means of union is the life of feeling, which is able to direct itself towards the will as well as towards the thoughts. In our ordinary consciousness we live in an element by means of which we grasp, on the one side, what comes to expression in our will-permeated thought with its predisposition to freedom, while on the other side, we try to ensure that what passes over into our deeds is filled more and more with thoughts. And what forms the bridge connecting both has since ancient times been called Wisdom. (Diagram XI.)n his fairy-tale, The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, Goethe has given indications of these ancient traditions in the figures of the Golden King, the Silver King, and the Brazen King. We have already shown from other points of view how these three elements must come to life again, but in an entirely different form — these three elements to which ancient instinctive knowledge pointed and which can come to life again only if man acquires the knowledge yielded by Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition.From: The Bridge Between Universal Spirituality and the Physical Constitution of Man The Path to Freedom and Love and their Significance in World Events
December 19, 1920.... in english from Rudolf Steiner comments about Goethe's Work
Through the way in which Goethe lets gold flow through this fairy tale, he shows how he looks back into the time in which wisdom — for which gold also stands, hence, “The Golden King of Wisdom” — was exposed to such persecutions as those described. Now, he sought to show past, present and future. Goethe saw instinctively into the future of eastern European civilization. He could see how unjustifiable is the way in which the problem of sin and death worked there. If we wished to designate, not quite inappropriately perhaps, the nationality of the man who is then led to the Temple and the Beautiful Lily, who appears at first as without vigor as if crippled, then, from what we have had to say recently about the culture of the East and of Russia, you will not consider it unreasonable to deem this man to be a Russian. In so doing, you will almost certainly follow the line of Goethe's instinct. The secret of European evolution in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch lies concealed within this fairy tale, just as truly as Goethe was able to conceal it in his Faust, especially in the second part, as we know from his own statement. It is clearly to be seen in Goethe — we have already shown it in various respects; later it can be shown in others — that he begins to regard the world and to feel himself in it, in accord with the fundamental demand of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.From: Inner Impulses of Evolution ...VI Ancient Cultural Impulses Spiritualized in Goethe. The Cosmic Knowledge of the Knights Templar
As he lay desperately ill, he had a momentous experience, passing through a kind of Initiation. To begin with, he was not actually conscious of it but it worked in his soul as a kind of poetic inspiration and the process by which it flowed into his various creations was most remarkable. It flashes up in his poem entitled “The Mysteries,” which his closest friends have considered to be one of his most profound creations. And indeed this fragment is so profound that Goethe was never able to recapture the power to formulate its conclusion. The culture of the day was incapable of giving external form to the depths of life pulsating in this poem. It must be regarded as issuing from one of the deepest founts of Goethe's soul and is a book with seven seals for all his commentators. Then, however, the Initiation took increasing effect in him and finally, as he grew more conscious of it, he was able to produce that remarkable prose-poem known as “The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily”; — one of the most profound writings in all literature. Those who are able to interpret it rightly know a great deal of the Rosicrucian wisdom.
We often find that persons who have not gone far enough into the matter will ask how a man such as Goethe can on the one hand bear within him certain secrets of the human soul, and on the other hand be so often torn by passion, as he is found to be by those who read his life-story in a rather superficial way. In fact, there was in Goethe something that can be called, in a crude sense, a double nature. To a superficial view the two sides can hardly be brought into harmony. On the one hand there is the great, high-minded soul who could bring forth certain portions of the second part of Faust, and gave expression to many deep secrets of human nature in the Fairy-Story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily; and one would like to forget everything one knows from biographies of Goethe and pay homage only to the soul who was capable of such achievements. On the other side, there appears in Goethe, tormenting him and often causing him pangs of conscience, his other nature, “human, all-too-human”, in many respects. In earlier times the two natures of man were not so widely separate in their development; they could not diverge in this way. A person with a biography comparable with Goethe's could not rise to such heights as are revealed in certain passages of the second part of Faust or in the Fairy-Story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, and at the same time be so divided in his soul. That was not possible in earlier times. It has become possible only in later days, because there now exists in human nature something we have already spoken of — the part of the soul that has become unconscious, and the part of the organism that has died. The part that has remained alive can be so elevated and purified that the impulse which leads on to the Fairy-Story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily; can be nurtured there, while the other part may remain exposed to the attacks of the outer world. And because the forces described are able to make their abode there, circumstances may arise in which there is very little agreement with the higher ego of the person. It should be understood that the soul living in Goethe had once belonged to an Egyptian Initiate, and had then lived in Greece as a sculptor and a disciple of philosophy; then, between this Greek incarnation and the one as Goethe, there comes an incarnation (probably only one) which I have not yet been able to find. If we keep this in mind, we can see how a soul who in former incarnations could rule the entire man can be led downwards, and then has to relinquish a part of the total human nature, which then lies open to the influence of evil forces.
That is what is mysterious and so hard to understand in a nature such as Goethe's; but by the same token it brings to light many hidden aspects of the human soul in modern times. Everything brought about by the duality of human nature lays hold, in the first place, of the Intellectual Soul, and the Intellectual Soul divides into those “two souls”, whereof one can sink fairly deeply into matter and the other can rise into the spiritual.
The middle of the nineteenth century was a much more incisive point in man's spiritual history than people can realise today. The period before it is represented in Schiller and Goethe; it is followed by something quite different, which can understand the preceding period very little. What we now call the social question, in the widest sense — a sense that humanity has not yet grasped, but should grasp and must grasp later on — was born only in the second half of the nineteenth century. And we can understand this fact only if we ask: why, in such significant and representative considerations as those attempted by Schiller in his “Aesthetic Letters” and represented pictorially by Goethe in his “Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” do we find no trace of the peculiar way of thinking we are impelled to develop today about the structure of society — although Goethe in his “Tale” is evidently hinting at political forms?
If we approach the “Aesthetic Letters” and the “Tale” with inner understanding, we can feel the presence in them of a powerful spirituality which humanity has since lost. Anyone reading the “Aesthetic Letters” should feel: in the very way of writing an element of soul and spirit is at work which is not present in even the most outstanding figures today; and it would be stupid to think that anyone could now write something like Goethe's fairy tale. Since the middle of the nineteenth century this spirituality has not been here. It does not speak directly to present-day men and can really speak only through the medium of Spiritual Science, which extends our range of vision and can also enter into earlier conditions in man's history. It would really be best if people would acknowledge that without spiritual knowledge they cannot understand Schiller and Goethe. Every scene in “Faust” can prove this to you.
Looking back before the nineteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, we can observe a significant impulse. It was the impulse working in Schiller when he wrote his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man; this was the time, too, when Goethe was stirred by his dealings with Schiller. They led Goethe to express the impulse which lay behind Schiller's “Aesthetic Letters” in his own tale, “The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.” You can read about the connection between Schiller's “Aesthetic Letters” and Goethe's fairy-tale in my recent small book on Goethe.
Goethe has not left the source uncertain from whose depths he has drawn his inspiration. In another tale, The New Paris, he gives in a veiled manner the history of his own inner enlightenment. Many will remain incredulous if we say that, in this dream, Goethe represents himself just at the boundary between the third and fourth sub-race of our fifth root-race. For him, the myth of Paris and Helen is a symbolic representation of this boundary. And as he — in a dream — conjures up before his eyes in a new form the myth of Paris, he feels he is casting a searching glance into the development of humanity. What such an insight into the past means to the inner eye, he tells us in the Prophecies of Bakis, which are also full of occult references:The past likewise will Bakis reveal to thee; for even the past oft lies, oh blind world, like a riddle before thee. Who knows the past knows also the future: both are joined in To-day in one complete whole.
Hence Goethe was stirred to write his “Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” in which not only three but about twenty powers of the soul are described, not in concepts, but in pictorial forms, open to various interpretations. They are headed by the Golden King, who represents (not symbolises) wisdom, the Silver King who represents beautiful appearance, the Bronze King, who represents power, and Love who crowns them all. Everything else, too, indicates soul-forces;The three worlds are here represented as two regions separated from one another by a river. The river itself stands for the astral plane. On this side of it is the physical world, on the other side the spiritual (Devachan), where dwells the beautiful lily, the symbol of man's higher nature. In her kingdom, man must strive if he would unite his lower with his higher nature. In the abyss — that is, in the physical world — dwells the serpent which symbolizes the self of man. Here too is a temple of initiation, where reign four kings, one golden, one silver, one bronze, and a fourth of an irregular mixture of the three metals. Goethe, who was an alchemist, has clothed in alchemic terminology what he had to impart of his mystic experiences. The three kings represent the three higher forces of man: Wisdom (Gold), Beauty (Silver), and Strength (Bronze). As long as man lives in his lower nature, these three forces are in him disordered and chaotic. This period in the evolution of man is represented by the mixed king. But when man has so purified himself that the three forces work together in perfect harmony, and he can freely use them, then the way into the realm of the spiritual lies open before him. The still unpurified man is represented by a youth who, without having attained inner purity, would unite himself with the beautiful lily. Through this union he becomes paralyzed.Goethe here wished to point out the danger to which a man exposes himself who would force an entrance into the super-sensible region before he has severed himself from his lower self. Only when love has permeated the whole man, only when the lower nature has been sacrificed, can the initiation into the higher truths and powers begin. This sacrifice is expressed by the serpent yielding of its own accord, and forming a bridge of its body across the river — that is to say, the astral plane — between the two kingdoms, of the senses and of the spirit. At first man must accept the higher truths in the form in which they have been given to him in the imagery of the various religions. This form is personified as the man with the lamp. This lamp has the peculiarity of only giving light where there is already light, meaning that the religious truths presuppose a receptive, believing disposition. Their light shines where the light of faith is present. This lamp, however, has yet another quality, “of turning all stones into gold, all wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones, and of destroying all metals,” meaning the power of faith which changes the inner nature of the individual. There are about twenty characters in this allegory, all symbolical of certain forces in man's nature and, during the course of the action, the purifying of man is described, as he rises to the heights where, in his union with his higher self, he can be initiated into the secrets of existence. This state is symbolized by the Temple, formerly hidden in the abyss, being brought to the surface, and rising above the river — the astral plane. Every passage, every sentence in the allegory is significant. The more deeply one studies the tale, the more comprehensible and clear the whole becomes, and he who set forth the esoteric quintessence of this tale at the same time has given us the substance of the Anthroposophical outlook on life.Goethe, in his Legend of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, has treated the forces of the human soul as three members, or forces; Power, Appearance, and Knowledge or Wisdom — or, as the Bronze King, the Silver King and the Golden King. Many remarkable things are spoken of in this legend, regarding the governing relationships which are being prepared for the present and which will live into the future. We can point out that what Goethe symbolizes by the Bronze king, the force of Power, is that which spreads over the world through the English-speaking peoples. This is necessary because the culture of the Consciousness Soul coincides with the special qualities of the British and American peoples.From: Social and Anti-Social Forces in the Human Being A lecture by Rudolf Steiner Bern, December 12, 1918
GA 186
you can read this in a article...by Rudolf Steiner
Sur la voie de la connaissance, il faudrait en connaître beaucoup pour rayonner sur toutes les raisons universelles, bien collées au sol de leurs pensées vers* la terre à terre,atterré par la lumière verte vient lire les lignes courbes des chemins de vie. L'effort d'attendre un moment que le train passe et espérer un rayon vert.
*vers de terre qui laissent les rayons du soleil purifier notre terre ou vers luisant qui éclairent la nuit dans la forêt des pensées inutiles qui serpentent au fond de l'esprit; le rayon vert c'est le dernier , l'orange du couchant rassemble les signes dans un faisceau d'idées qui éclaire les serpents entre les fenêtres du tramway vert,comme un autre signe d'un lien avec le savoir, le serpent devient un pont au moment exact deux trams se croisent un rayon se forme, le serpent devient droit pour laisser passer la lumière qui l'éclaire...
The Bacalhôa Buddha Eden Garden covers 35 hectares of land and was created as a reaction to the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the 6th century monumental statues carved into the side of a cliff in Afghanistan that were destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban. There are dozens of statues, some very traditional but many others that are definitely modern and somewhat risqué for Buddha. There are of course, many Buddhas, as well as pagodas, hand-painted replicated terracotta soldiers of Xian (once in colors but now all same bright blue) and even dwarfs hidden in the forest. There is a huge metal spider as well as many statues of lovers and erotic female forms. There is a huge lake with lots of Koi and there are even sculpted dragons rising out of the water. Beautiful flowers bloom all over. In the African Sculpture Art Garden there are more than 200 sculptures arranged among the more than 1000 palm trees. These are fabulous animal sculptures as well as people represented. Then there is the awesome giant staircase leading to giant Buddha! The garden is reputed to be the largest Asian garden in Europe.
A poppy head and seeds....if you look closely, they have an almost golf ball like surface to them :)
cultureel centrum
Nature Nurture
Marc Milissen (1956)
moulds for concrete structure in www.flickr.com/photos/lru333/54187430795/in/photostream/
St Mary and St Walstan, Bawburgh, Norfolk
There are islands off the coast of Norwich. Here we are in typical rural Norfolk, a quiet village set in a rolling landscape of farms and sprawling fields punctuated by woods and copses, the sound of traffic on the busy A11 and A47 not so very far off. And yet, we are very close to Norwich, but floating free from it thanks, perhaps to local authority planning.
Norfolk and Suffolk have their similarities of course. Norfolk is a lot bigger, and emptier, especially towards the west. But the biggest difference between the two counties is their relationship with their county towns. Ipswich, above all else, is Suffolk distilled and amplified, the working and historic county translated into an urban setting. Industrial Ipswich was the fountainhead of the county's agricultural production, the docks an interface between Suffolk and the world. To know brash and breezy Ipswich is to know what Suffolk was and is.
But Norwich is different to Ipswich, and it is different to the rest of Norfolk. As you enter the city you pass hoardings which proudly proclaim, in George Borrow's words, that you are entering Norwich, a Fine City! It is like crossing a forcefield. Norwich is a fine city, and it is also a small city, but as Norwich is so far from any other place of near-equivalent size - Ipswich is 40 miles away, Cambridge nearly 60 - it is completely out of scale to its population. If Norwich were dropped into South or West Yorkshire, or Greater Manchester, it would disappear. Here, it assumes the importance of a Leeds or a Sheffield, cities four times as big.
At times, Norwich can feel like a great European city, living a technicolour life in the soft, pastel setting of its rural hinterland. Its industrial past, in shoes, textiles and chocolate, was not grounded in the local countryside in the same way as the industry of Ipswich. In the 1960s the University of East Anglia came, and Norwich's nightlife is lived by people who have, in fair proportion, not grown up in Norfolk.
To set off from Norwich is to enter a countryside that feels different. It is like leaving a shore for the open sea, a sea with islands. The soft fields of Norfolk wash right up against the edge of the city, insulating villages that would have been absorbed if she had grown any larger. Just a mile or so from the edge is Bawburgh. Every island has a story, and Bawburgh's is the story of St Walstan.
St Walstan was a Prince, the son of Benedict and Blid of the royal house of East Anglia. Blid would herself become a Saint. Walstan was born in Bawburgh, or perhaps at the royal vill of Blythburgh in Suffolk. As a teenager, he followed Christ's instruction to renounce all he possessed and become a disciple. Giving up his claims to succession, he did not delay to reach northern parts, as the Nova Legenda Anglie tells us, and humbled himself to become a farmworker in central Norfolk.
After a series of adventures which revealed his saintly character, one of which involved him being rewarded with a pair of young oxen, he received news in about 1015 from an Angel. He would die and be received into heaven in three days time. With typical East Anglian stoicism, he nodded his head and left his scythe to go and find a Priest to receive the Last Rites. Unfortunately, the Priest had no water, but, magically, a spring welled up where they stood.
This was in Taverham, and when Walstan died the two oxen carried his body on a cart to be buried at Bawburgh. On the way, they stopped to rest in Costessey, where another spring sprang up. At last, they came to Bawburgh. They stopped outside the church, and a third spring appeared, the biggest. And then, the Nova Legenda Anglie tells us, Angells opened the walls in hast, and the two oxen with their burden walked into the church. Walstan's body was placed in the church, becoming a site of pilgrimage for people who sought miracles and healing. Eleven miracles have been handed down to us.
The St Walstan legend is interesting for all sorts of reasons. Compared with the West Country, survivals of local Saints' cults are very rare in East Anglia. This part of Norfolk was strongly recusant during the penal years, and it is likely that local people kept stories of Walstan in their tradition even after the practice of devotion to him became impossible. When the penal years ended, the new Catholic church at Costessey in 1841 was dedicated to Our Lady and St Walstan.
Although there is no evidence that the Saint was part of the original dedication of Bawburgh church, the foundations of which certainly predate the St Walstan legend, it bears the name today, and that is because the relics of St Walstan continued to be important right up to the Reformation. Bequests made to the shrine are recorded in late Medieval wills, and these in turn were noted by 18th century antiquarians who restored dedications to parish churches, not always very accurately, after the long puritan night.
During the late 14th century, when acts of pilgrimage were at their most significant, thousands of people must have made their way every year. On the north side of the church was the chapel that contained his bones. From this, a sunken pathway led down the steep hill to the well on the site of the third spring. Incredibly, this pathway was destroyed as recently as 1999, to be replaced by a sterile driveway that circumnavigates the farm to the north of the church.
The date of the Walstan legend is interesting, right on the eve of the Norman settlement of England. It is almost exactly contemporary with that much more famous legend, the founding of the shrine at Walsingham by Lady Richeldis. Could it be that these cults endured partly as a form of resistance by the Saxons, popular local legends in the face of Norman cultural hegemony? Or was it that the Normans themselves who ensured that these popular pieties continued, nurturing them in the place of surviving neo-pagan practices?
We can never know, but what is certain is that St Walstan's legend recommended him as a Saint of the ordinary people, a worker Saint if you will, which may explain his almost complete disappearance from popular English story after the Reformation.
Two excellent books by local author Carol Twinch have helped popularise this very East Anglian figure. And, interestingly, in the latter half of the 20th century his cult has been explored increasingly by the Anglicans, at a time when devotion to Saints seems to be going out of fashion in that Communion. There are popular pilgrimages here every year still under the auspices of the Anglican Diocese of Norwich. Perhaps it is the simplicity of Walstan's life, and the healing nature of his miracles, that lend themselves particularly to the quiet nature of modern Anglican spirituality.
You approach the church from the village street and your first sight of it is from the south-east, looking down into the churchyard. What a beautiful church it is! It must be among the loveliest of all East Anglia's 160-odd round-towered churches. The idiosyncratic stepped gables, the red roof of the nave and a little flame-like pinnacle on the cap of the tower are memorable, particularly in this dramatic setting on the steeply-pitched side of the ridge. The graveyard falls away dramatically on the northern side, and from there St Mary and St Walstan appears fortress-like.
You step into a wide, simple interior, white walls and bare wood setting into relief sudden flashes of colour. How much of this church was here when Walstan's body was brought here? Probably, none of it. The archway to the tower is 13th century, and the windows suggest that the rest of the building is early 14th century. Quite probably, the whole church was rebuilt as a result of the prosperity brought about by the shrine of St Walstan. On the north side of the nave there is a large archway, a filled-in opening. It is tempting to think this is the wall that the Angells had opened in hast, but it was probably the entrance to the later chapel of St Walstan, since this wall post-dates the St Walstan legend by 300 years.
The remains of the 15th century roodscreen are made up rather dramatically into an early 20th century screen with bubbly cusping and a canopy of honour above, all of it unpainted. It is difficult to know how they resisted painting it, but it suits the simplicity of the building just as it is. And there are plenty of survivals here of Bawburgh's colourful Catholic past. Most interesting of all, the collection of brasses. Bawburgh has two shroud brasses and a chalice brass. The biggest of these is above a memorial inscription to Thomas Tyard who died in 1505. It is 60cm long, and he lies with the shroud partly open, his hands crossed in an act of piety. Beneath it is the inscription plate, but it seems likely to me that the inscription and the shrouded figure do not belong together, given the differences in the quality of the two. As if to confirm this, a surviving brass rivet in the stone above the figure's head suggests the loss of another brass, presumably Tyard's.
The other shroud brass is unidentified, and quite different. It depicts a smaller figure sewn tightly into a shroud, with just the face peeking out. It is so like the figures mounted on the wall at Yoxford in Suffolk that I assume it is a figure adrift from a larger collection, perhaps representing one of the dead children of a larger figure.
Set in between them is a late 17th century brass inscription and shield to a minister of this church, Philip Tenison. It is quite fitting that it should be here, because Tenison was an antiquarian at a time when such things were looked on with grave suspicion, and Carol Twinch notes that he recorded information about the Walstan shrine here that might otherwise have been lost to us. Deprived of his living by the Puritans, he later became an Archdeacon after the Restoration, in which case the date of 1660 here is obviously wrong.
I think that all five of these brasses were reset here from elsewhere in the church by the Victorians. The chalice brass may well be in its original position. It is to the Priest William Rechers, and is right on the eve of the Reformation, 1531, so he would have been one of the last Priests to be commemorated in this fashion. As at Little Walsingham, two hands are shown holding the base of the chalice, elevating it.
In the nave, there are three further pre-Reformation brass inscriptions, at least two of which are on their original matrices, and one of which retains one of the two figures commemorated, Robert Grote, who died in 1500. His wife is missing, as is the Priest Edward Kightling, whose empty matrix shows that he was wearing priestly vestments.
This is a wonderful collection of late medieval brasses, and is extraordinary that so much has survived. Only a couple have been stolen, but it is clear an attempt has been made on the life of the smaller shroud brass. It has been broken in half, and the lower part protrudes upwards. These chancel brasses have also suffered very badly from being covered by carpets, the underlay breaking up and soaking with moisture to scour the brass. On my most recent visit, the churchwarden agreed that to would be better to remove the carpet altogether, and I do hope that this will happen.
But the most vivid memory of the past at Bawburgh is the superb collection of late medieval glass in the nave. Best of all is the wonderful St Barbara, as good as anything else in Norfolk. She stands proudly, holding her church. Across the nave is a lovely fragment of an Annunciation scene. Mary stands in front of a pot of lilies, and a scroll declares Ecce Ancilla Domini Fiat ('Behold the Handmaid of the Lord, Let it be so'). A crowned female head nearby is probably from a Coronation of the Blessed Virgin.
There are floating angels, perhaps censing or collecting the precious blood at the crucifixion, and a king who may be Christ from the same Coronation scene. There is larger, crowned, bearded king, perhaps God the Father, some fragments of St Catherine and perhaps St Gregory, and a lay figure in late medieval dress who might just be a pilgrim to the Shrine of St Walstan. Perhaps most pleasing, because it is so complete, is a set of roundels featuring the words of the Nunc Dimmitis, Simeon's prayer on seeing the infant Christ for the first time. It is rather moving to find them in the same window as the Annunciation, which features words which would be familiar to pilgrims from both the Ave Maria and the Magnificat. It is easy to imagine them sitting telling their beads at a journey's end, contemplating this glass.
At the west end of the church is a small patch of wall painting which defies easy interpretation. It is obviously at least three separate subjects, the most recent being part of an Elizabethan text, below that apparently two figures embracing, the lowest a roundel topped by indecipherable text. It is likely that there is part of a Seven Works of Mercy sequence, which was often placed on the western wall of a smaller church like this.
There is much else besides. The people here were obviously very pleased at the 1660 Restoration, and immediately erected a new set of royal arms to Charles II. You can't help thinking of Philip Tenison, and how it might just be his influence that the people were pleased to see the back of puritanism. One old bench end with an inscription is marooned on the wall, curiously in the shape and location of a holy water stoup (is it covering it?) and there's a nice European roundel in the chancel, which I take to be from a series of Stations of the Cross. Otherwise all is Victorian, or the influence of Victorians. And then you spot the 17th century poorbox fashioned like a newel post, still secured in the east end of the nave. It is from the protestant days of this church, but it is still a reminder of charity, and the offerings of generations of pilgrims that made this one of Norfolk's most significant shrines, and still a beautiful and interesting church today.
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♀ ..:: JarsMcLucien @ DeviantArtStore::.. ♂
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I am one of the lucky ones.
I Survived.
Seeing life through fresh eyes and through my lens helps to quell the fear of return. I thank Cancer for giving me a true perspective.
I hope we find a cure for all Cancers very soon.
Kodak Moment: Following Ansel Adams footsteps � Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger
Robert Scoble has a great write up on our Thurs/Fri trip that we just got back from up in Yosemite visiting with Michael Adams, Ansel Adams' son. Robert's also got some of his photos up in his Flickrstream from our trip. I think my favorite is one of me that Scoble took with my 14mm ultra wide angle lens. Scoble literally had half his body out of the car to get that shot and I kept worrying he was going to fall out of the car entirely. Anything to get the shot.
I published one photograph the other day as an Ode to Ansel Adams on Flickr -- but will probably end up with about 150 in total from the trip. I started my editing process earlier this morning but still have quite a bit of work to do. Watch my Flickr and Zooomr streams over the course of the next week and you'll probably see a lot more.
I'm going to do a much more detailed write up on my own thoughts on our time with Michael Adams and his father's legendary photography in the next few days. I'm still formulating a lot of my thoughts about the trip but suffice it to say that it was an amazing treat.
Getting to go to the famous spots in Yosemite where Ansel made his photographs and listen to his son annotate about the locations was one of those once in a lifetime experiences.
Robert has already published a bunch of the ad hoc video that we did on the trip broadcasting live on Qik. Interestingly enough the cell phone reception almost 8,000 feet up in the sky at the top of Glacier Point was fantastic. Robert said that when we broadcast live on the internet from atop Glacier Point that this was the first time in history that this had been done. I'm still scratching my head on why my AT&T iPhone reception was far, far, better atop Glacier Point than it is in downtown San Francisco.
There will be a much more professional and polished video of the trip coming up in the next few weeks for a new photography video show that we are working on called PhotoCycle.
Speaking of PhotoCycle, it's going to be an exciting new photography video series. It's going to include interviews with famous people in photography, tips and tricks on how to get your own photography even better, episodes about the business side of photography and lots of exciting new photowalking episodes where we take you to new and exciting places with photographers to discuss this thing that so much of us love.
Marc Silber, a professional photographer who went to art school with Annie Liebovitz is going to host the show. Rocky Barbanica is the executive producer. We are still looking for a corporate sponsor for the show so if you know a company who might have an interest in a show like this drop Robert, Marc or I a line. It would be a great way for the right company to get a ton of exposure with photographers all over the world.
You'll hear a lot more from me about our visit with Michael Adams over the course of the next few days. There were so many highlights. Getting to go up to Glacier Point (which is closed off to the general public right now) for a private taping session, dinner with Michael in the historic Ahwahnee Hotel dining room, getting Michael's views on what his father would have thought about today's new digital photography, and so much more.
The photo above, by the way, is of my wife who not only was my model but did a great job making sure we were all well fed and organized.
Coincidently, the NY Times also is running a front page article on Ansel and his photography.
The one thing I’ve always had trouble with is that very fine line between what is funny and distasteful. I did stand-up comedy and improv in Hollywood for a few years, and it's always tough to delineate that boundary. Some people might find an image like this distasteful, while others might think it’s funny and shows the personality of the couple and the creativity of the photographer. I’m a pretty light-hearted guy who doesn’t take things too seriously, so something like this to me is just funny. I’ve done other slightly off-color shots before, but that’s the reason my stuff looks a little different. Not afraid to push the boundaries. They’re just digital, you can delete them.
Hey, and I just found out that I’m going to Miami from Nov. 7-12 so is there anyone from around there that wants to show me around, maybe head to the Keys some afternoon?