'Better late than never' they always say...

 

Peppercorn A1 Pacific 60163 'Tornado' passes Danta Way near Stafford with a light loco + support coach move from the East Lancs Railway to Stewards Lane (5Z63) ready for the railtour at the weekend.

 

The reasoning for the previous phrase is that at this point it was around and hour and a half down after dilly-dallying in Basford Hall yard for two hours.

 

At least it turned up on the day though!

{5:45 P.M.}

 

The thief got away before the police could stop her. Perhaps it’s my fault for not recognizing the woman, or the “Top” as she called herself, as the threat. Her clothing didn’t strike me as that of a “typical thief” garb. Though knowing now that she’s a meta makes me realized that was probably the point. The Rogues aren’t normally known for wearing generic clothes. I think that’s mainly due to the fact that we superheroes often wear bright colored outfits. No matter the reasoning I must take that knowledge forward and do what Barry said he learned from Bruce, survey an area before going into battle. No matter how harmless a situation may be, no matter how easy the bad guys look to take down you must always be prepared for them to hiding something. You need to always be one or even two steps ahead of the people you are taking on.

 

Now normally a meta would hit one bank and be done for the day. Wait for the heat to cool down but this Top doesn’t seem to have that same mindset. A woman with her exact description was seen entering a bank not too far from the bank she had originally stolen from. I quickly arrive outside the bank and take a quick peek at the surroundings. Again the people outside the bank all seemed to be in a drunken, stumbling state and those inside had completely fallen to the floor. I spot the Top joyfully spinning into the back room. Knowing she would be distracted by the large amounts of boxes, I decided to make my move. I quickly run into the bank and make my way to the back room. Within an instance I am at the door. Knowing the room locks from the outside, I swiftly grab the door handle and slam the door shut. That ought to stop her from causing anymore mischief until the cops get her.

 

{5:51 P.M.}

 

“Thank you, Flash. Without your help I don’t think we could have ever safely put this woman under custody.” Commissioner Bellows says as the Top gets seated into a squad car. “Those anti-meta cuffs work wonders. I can see why Iron Heights has trusted them for years.”

 

”Thanks, but it was my mentors invention.” I respond as I shake his hand.

 

“Well, next time you see him tell him I said thanks.” Bellows smiles as he says this. I quietly sigh at the statement though.

 

”I-I will be sure to.”

 

{5:52 P.M.}

 

After Bellows says goodbye I quickly make my way back home. I’ve got a date with Linda at six and I don’t want to be late. As I get home I quickly take off my Flash suit and quickly change into an outfit more suitable for my date. The clock on my wall reads five fifty-three. I’ve got just enough time to just normally walk to Infantino’s. Perfect. Sometimes being the Flash I forget to slow down. That was something Barry always made sure to tell me. Something his mother always told him was that “life is locomotion. If you’re not moving, you’re not living, but there comes a time when you’ve got to stop running from the things and you’ve got to start running towards something.” Barry added that “You’ve got to forge ahead. Keep moving. Even if your path isn’t lit, Trust that you’ll find your way.”

 

That’s has stuck with me ever since he told me about that. It’s important as a Speedster to always have a lightning rod. Something to keep you grounded. Without a lightning rod we’d have nothing to cling to. We’d constantly speed off into the Speed Force. Jay used to know a man named Max Mercury. He was the Flash even before Jay. Now Max had nothing to cling to. Sure he had Jay, but that bond wasn’t strong enough. Jay said that he used to hear Max screaming in his sleep for a Laura. Jay never really thought anything of it until one night Max’s screaming stopped. By then, Jay realized that this Laura was Max’s lightning rod and he was subconsciously trying to find her. Jay never figured out where Max went. He even searched for him for more than a year but to no avail.

 

I don’t want that to happen to me. I was fortunate enough to have Joan while I was in high school and college. Unfortunately we had a falling out, but fortunately I found Linda shortly thereafter. Linda, since then, has been my lightning rod. When Barry died I almost ran myself into the speed force but I remembered one name. Linda. She kept me from losing myself. Speaking of.

 

“You’re late.” Linda points to her watch that reads six-o-one.

 

”I’m sorry, I must’ve got lost in my thoughts on the way h…” Linda cuts me off by swiftly kissing me.

 

“It’s fine, Wally, I don’t mind. You’re here now and that’s all that matters.” She says with a smile on her face. That smile is what keeps me here…

At Messiah Foundation International, we have a profound understanding of the factors that draw vulnerable youth towards radicalisation.

We strongly believe that radicalisation is principally based on wrong interpretation of the text of the Quran. People are being told fascinating, lustful stories to lure them towards Islamist organisations. In order to help prevent radicalisation, we are offering free classes for the public, in which attendees will be presented with academic reasoning to counter what radical Islamists teach.

 

Classes begin every day at 8:00 PM in our London office. To reserve your seat, please call us on WhatsApp: +447456280590

 

Address: 22 Park Street, Park House Suite 414 Croydon, CRO 1YE

HV389 leaving first stop at Anerley.

HW100 driver changeover basically outside Norwood (N).

 

Check out my 2nd photostream.

My YouTube channel

Read my blog posts.

 

First and foremost. Thank you all for joining me in this ride, each and every one of you. At first I didn't anticipate I could get here but what do you know, I have. I went from photographing 100 a day to a few every week or other.

From a mere 4MP quality to 13MP.

From a few followers to 250.

From hundreds of photos to 2450 photos.

I enjoyed replying to comments, posting non-photo stuff like bus nets, even stuff I won't do now as I find it embarrassing to do now (hint: 159 special).

 

My reasoning for this, I simply don't desire to upgrade. My own reasons after all, plus I'd rather store my own photos than pay to store them.

 

I'll continue making videos and upload them of course, and continue writing though it's probably bad. The below-mentioned could've-been-uploaded are here.

 

I can't come up with decent endings so I'll just go on about something else.

 

About my name. Kid me thought that up on the fly and thought it was A-ok. I've thought of changing my name at one point but thought it was too late, it's easy to keep my Flickr name as simply a Flickr personality.

To this day I still am anonymous, admittedly few people have seen who I am but the point stands. I'm not Anonymous for nothing.

 

When the policy came up I was just about to upload about 9 photos, though I immediately stopped that and thought up of a way to solve this issue. My viable choice was to simply stop. You may notice now that my photo number is going down, that's me deleting stuff to reach the 1000 quota. I have some stuff I was planning on ridding so that gave me the motivation to go with it, also meant anything stored as private should preferably be stored by myself, tough. If the 1000 quota changes then, well so be it. I can wave goodbye to this stream along with the London bus network all in one. But really I won't delete the account or anything and will leave it as an archive to go back on. I didn't start out great though there are memories in each photo I've taken, for myself at least. Going back I didn't remember I've taken photos of certain stuff, take a cow-horn DLA on 109.

 

Now that I reread this, I remember with my VGA camera Nokia, I took lots of photos of 26, 48, 388, a lot of other routes in the City, but had no PC to at least store them on. Neither did I know of a photo sharing site like this. So it's all down the drain never to be recovered but that's how I've actually started out snapping buses. My last photo with that same Nokia was the last DLA to make it out on 2, I believe my normal phone was dead at the time.

 

So, yeah, Fake Anonymous April 2014- November 2018. Hoping you've enjoyed my stuff (ahem), and I guess, farewell?

 

I was gonna upload both of these separately but keeping it like this helps draw closer to a thousand.

 

I thank you for reading this far, I've added extra albums for ease of search, enjoy.

 

HV389 LC67AHX 249:

Euro 6 parallel hybrid

I-SAM electric motor (94-160hp)

Volvo iShift AT2412E 12-speed (gearbox)

Volvo D5K 240hp (engine)

Volvo B5LH 10.5m (chassis)

Wright Eclipse Gemini 3 10.6m (body)

Chassis number: Vo B5LH YV3T1U225JA188835

Body number: Wt AQ480

Layout: H41/21D + 30 standees

Weighs 11315kg

New February 2018 for 468.

 

HW100 SK68TNJ 468

Euro 6 parallel hybrid

ZF hub motors

Daimler OM934 231hp (engine)

Voith DIWA864.6 4-speed (gearbox)

Wright StreetDeck HEV96 10.6m (integral)

Chassis number: Wt StreetDeck SA9DDRSXX17141329

Body number: Wt AP806

Layout: H41/22D + 28 standees

Weighs 11587kg

New September 2018 to Norwood (N) to trial against the current HV282-323/380-412.

How unoriginal, right? I have my reasoning but I don't feel like explaining. I hate the existance of fmylife.com. I hate that people complain so much about stupid petty shit. How about "I live in Africa in the middle of a war zone and we have no clean water and I'm dying of AIDS, fml." Otherwise, shutthefuckup, you're life isn't horrible just becuase the barista at Starbucks only gave you two shots instead of three in your grande half calf carmelmochavanillawhateverthefuck.

Like everything else in this country, the structural integrity is being supported by strings of specious reasoning. What could go wrong with that?

 

Voigtlander 50mm f/2.0 Lanthar VM

Handheld, cropped

dodge and burn

Social distancing, or physical distancing, is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures taken to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. It involves keeping a distance of six feet or two meters from others and avoiding gathering together in large groups. By reducing the probability that a given uninfected person will come into physical contact with an infected person, the disease transmission can be suppressed, resulting in fewer deaths. The measures are combined with good respiratory hygiene and hand washing. During the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested the reference to "physical" as an alternative to "social", in keeping with the notion that it is a physical distance which prevents transmission; people can remain socially connected via technology. To slow down the spread of infectious diseases and avoid overburdening healthcare systems, particularly during a pandemic, several social distancing measures are used, including the closing of schools and workplaces, isolation, quarantine, restricting movement of people and the cancellation of mass gatherings. Social distancing measures date back to at least the fifth century BCE. The biblical book of Leviticus contains one of the earliest known references to the practice, likely as response to leprosy. During the Plague of Justinian, emperor Justinian enforced an ineffective quarantine on the Byzantine Empire, including dumping bodies into the sea, blaming the widespread outbreak predominately on "Jews, Samaritans, pagans, heretics, Arians, Montanists, and homosexuals".[11] In modern times, social distancing measures have been successfully implemented in several previous epidemics. In St. Louis, shortly after the first cases of influenza were detected in the city during the 1918 flu pandemic, authorities implemented school closures, bans on public gatherings and other social distancing interventions. The case fatality rates in St. Louis were much less than in Philadelphia, which despite having cases of influenza, allowed a mass parade to continue and did not introduce social distancing until more than two weeks after its first cases. Social distancing has also been used during the 2019-20 coronavirus epidemic. Social distancing measures are more effective when the infectious disease spreads via droplet contact (coughing or sneezing); direct physical contact, including sexual contact; indirect physical contact (e.g., by touching a contaminated surface); or airborne transmission (if the microorganism can survive in the air for long periods). The measures are less effective when an infection is transmitted primarily via contaminated water or food or by vectors such as mosquitoes or other insects.Drawbacks of social distancing can include loneliness, reduced productivity and the loss of other benefits associated with human interaction. Since January, Taiwan, India and Thailand, all of which also make face masks, have banned their export, although, to help China, India later temporarily revoked its restriction. South Korea also banned the export of masks, as will Indonesia soon. Outside Asia, Russia, Germany and the Czech Republic also stopped exports in early March. So did Kenya, where the first case of coronavirus was confirmed on March 13.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released straightforward guidance in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic: Everyone in the US should wear a cloth mask or face covering while in certain public settings. The recommendation marks a shift from the federal government. Less than six weeks ago, Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted that members of the general public should “STOP BUYING MASKS!” He added that masks “are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!” The CDC is still advising against the general public wearing traditional medical masks, such as surgical variants and N95 respirators, to preserve them for health care workers. The shift in messaging on cloth masks, the agency said, came in light of evidence that people with few or no symptoms of Covid-19 can still transmit the virus. The CDC now recommends everyone use cloth masks in public. The upshot: Masks can help stop the spread of coronavirus not just by protecting the wearer, but by preventing the wearer — who could be an asymptomatic spreader — from breathing and spitting their germs everywhere. Some studies in households and colleges “show a benefit of masks,” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have described social distancing as a set of "methods for reducing frequency and closeness of contact between people in order to decrease the risk of transmission of disease".[10] During the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic, the CDC revised the definition of social distancing as "remaining out of congregrate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance (approximately six feet or two meters) from others when possible". Previously, in 2009, the WHO described social distancing as "keeping at least an arm's length distance from others, [and] minimizing gatherings".[7] It is combined with good respiratory hygiene and hand washing, and is considered the most feasible way to reduce or delay a pandemic.Raina MacIntyre, head of the Biosecurity Research Program at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, told me, “so it would be plausible that they would also protect in lower-intensity transmission settings such as in the general community.” But masks do not make you invincible. They can’t replace good hygiene — Wash your hands! Don’t touch your face! — and social distancing, both of which have been key to stemming the coronavirus even in Asian countries where widespread mask use was already common. Epidemiological models also suggest coronavirus cases will rise if social distancing measures are relaxed, potentially causing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of deaths in the US alone. That’s true whether people are gathering wearing masks or not. People wear masks in midtown New York City on April 6. Kena Betancur/Getty Images. Still, the CDC’s about-face has left many people with plenty of questions: What does it mean to use a mask correctly? When should they be used and washed? Do you need them for all public situations? Can they really keep you safe? If you can’t find a mask, how can you make one? Knowing that a disease is circulating may trigger a change in behaviour by people choosing to stay away from public places and other people. When implemented to control epidemics, such social distancing can result in benefits but with an economic cost. Research indicates that measures must be applied rigorously and immediately in order to be effective. Several social distancing measures are used to control the spread of contagious illnesses. And why aren’t there more medical masks to begin with? Here’s a guide to some of the most common questions. Avoiding physical contact: Social distancing includes eliminating the physical contact that occurs with the typical handshake, hug, or hongi; this illustration offers eight alternatives. Keeping at least two-metre (six-foot) distance from each other and avoiding hugs and gestures that involve direct physical contact, reduce the risk of becoming infected during flu pandemics and the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. These distances of separation, in addition to personal hygiene measures, are also recommended at places of work.Where possible it may be recommended to work from home. Various alternatives have been proposed for the tradition of handshaking. The gesture of namaste, placing one's palms together, fingers pointing upwards, drawing the hands to the heart, is one non-touch alternative. During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom, this gesture was used by Prince Charles upon greeting reception guests, and has been recommended by the Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Other alternatives include the wave, the shaka (or "hang loose") sign, and placing a palm on your heart, as practiced in parts of Iran.

 

1) When should I wear a mask?

According to the CDC, you should wear a mask in public, particularly while in “settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies)” and “especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.” Think of circumstances where it’s going to be harder to keep at least 6 feet away from other people, especially in closed, poorly ventilated places. It’s in those kinds of situations that coronavirus-containing droplets are more likely to spread by air or surfaces. There are some exceptions to the mask guidance, the CDC stated: “Cloth face coverings should not be placed on young children under age 2, anyone who has trouble breathing, or is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance.” The evidence for everyone wearing masks, explained. And be warned: If you use a mask incorrectly, or start acting recklessly because you’re wearing a mask, it could actually hurt you more than it helps.

If you fidget with your mask, and especially if you touch your face in the process, you can infect yourself with virus-containing droplets your mask caught. If you reuse a mask without cleaning it, you can breathe in or otherwise expose yourself to droplets the mask captured last time. If you generally ease up on good hygiene or social distancing because you’re wearing a mask, you’re putting yourself — and your community — at greater risk.

The CDC offers some tips for how to properly use a mask. Above all, don’t touch the mask and then touch other parts of your face, especially your eyes, mouth, and nose. The entire point of this fabric is to shield you from outside germs. So you don’t want to touch the part of the mask doing the shielding and then the parts of your face that are vulnerable to infection. You should also wash your hands before and after taking off a mask — before to avoid getting anything on your face and mask, and after to get rid of anything that was on your mask. Remove the mask with the loops, not by touching the front. If possible, throw away disposable masks after using them. And if you can’t throw a mask away, make sure to thoroughly disinfect it with ultraviolet light sterilizers — not something most people have around — or, if using a cloth product, throw it in the wash or clean it with soap and water. For some people, it might make sense to have multiple masks around if you have to go out multiple times on a particular day. The important thing, though, is to throw a recently used mask in the laundry or in the wash as soon as possible and avoid touching it at all until it’s clean. Do not keep dirty masks around your house, where people can easily touch them and potentially infect themselves.

 

2) What kind of mask should I use? The CDC recommends a cloth mask or face covering, whether a professionally made mask or a homemade variant. The CDC explicitly advises against the general public using a surgical mask, which is the standard mask you’ve probably seen doctors and nurses wear. It also advises against the public using N95 respirators, which are more complex, expensive masks meant to fit more tightly on the face.

Surgical masks and N95 respirators, the agency noted, “are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.” New York City nurses and health workers gather to demand safer working conditions, more personal protective equipment (PPE), and free virus testing during the Covid-19 outbreak on April 6. Giles Clarke/Getty Images As it stands, there is a serious shortage of PPE, including masks, for health care workers. There are reports of doctors, nurses, and other health care workers using bandanas and scarves for masks and trash bags for gowns. Hospitals are considering do-not-resuscitate orders for dying Covid-19 patients out of fear that such intensive, close-up procedures could get doctors and nurses without PPE infected with the virus. The CDC, acknowledging the shortage, previously recommended homemade masks for health care workers when no other options are available. “I am worried that telling people to wear masks will strain already weak supplies that are needed by doctors and nurses,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, told me. “If we are able to fix that supply chain, I’d feel less worried about this. But some of the shortages initially were due to members of public and medical staff raiding medical offices’ and hospitals’ supplies for home use.” Private companies and public officials are racing to fix the PPE shortage. But until it’s fixed, it’s critical that the existing supplies of surgical masks and N95 respirators are left for health care workers who are literally saving people from this pandemic.

 

3) Will a mask protect me from getting Covid-19? The CDC’s guidance — and the best argument for wearing a mask, according to the experts I spoke with — is primarily to stop the wearer from infecting other people. That’s especially important for Covid-19, since at least some spread happens when people are asymptomatic, when they have few symptoms, or before they develop symptoms. Universal mask use could stop these asymptomatic carriers, many of whom might not even know they’re sick, from inadvertently infecting other people. Masks also can offer some protection from others by putting a physical barrier between them and your mouth and nose. But we don’t know how much, because it’s unclear how much the virus spreads through airborne droplets or aerosols. Masks can’t replace all the other approaches needed to fight the coronavirus, like washing your hands, not touching your face, and social distancing. Still, when paired with all these other tactics — and when used correctly — masks offer an extra layer of protection.

The quality of the research on this topic is weak, with a lot of small, underpowered studies. But the studies that do exist generally favor more people wearing masks. A 2008 systematic review, published in BMJ, found medical masks halted the spread of respiratory viruses from likely infected patients. In particular, studies on the 2003 outbreak of SARS — a cousin to the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 — found that masks alone were 68 percent effective at preventing the virus. By comparison, washing hands more than 10 times a day was 55 percent effective. A combination of measures such as hand-washing, masks, gloves, and gowns was 91 percent effective.

A 2015 review, also published in BMJ, looked at mask use among people in community settings, specifically households and colleges. Some studies produced unclear results, but the findings overall indicated that wearing a mask protected people from infections compared to not wearing a mask, especially when paired with hand-washing. A big issue was adherence; people were often bad at actually wearing masks, which, unsurprisingly, diminished their effectiveness. But if masks were used early and consistently, the authors concluded, they seemed to work. MASKS CAN’T REPLACE ALL THE OTHER APPROACHES NEEDED TO FIGHT THE CORONAVIRUS, LIKE WASHING YOUR HANDS, NOT TOUCHING YOUR FACE, AND SOCIAL DISTANCING A more recent study published in Nature Medicine found that surgical masks appear to block droplets and aerosols containing some viruses, including the flu and coronavirus. Other studies have produced similar results, typically finding at least some protective value from masks as long as they’re used consistently and properly. The results vary depending on the mask. N95 respirators are, in theory, the best possible masks. But they require a bit of skill and fitting to use — to the point that a 2016 review in CMAJ couldn’t find a difference among health care workers using N95 respirators versus surgical masks for respiratory infection, likely due to poor fitting. That’s another reason these masks should be reserved for the professionals. Cloth masks, meanwhile, are much less effective than surgical masks or N95 respirators, as a 2015 study in BMJ found. And they can be extra risky, since they can trap and hold virus-containing droplets that wearers can then breathe in. But they still, in general, offer more protection than no mask at all, several studies concluded. There’s no good research on how wearing a mask could affect people’s behaviors, but the experience of some Asian countries suggests it’s possible to adopt social distancing, good hygiene, and masks in the midst of an outbreak. Taiwan and South Korea, for example, have done a better job containing Covid-19 than the US while embracing masks and all the other evidence-based measures. To emphasize: Yes, masks can help. But they’re not an excuse to ease up on social distancing, good hygiene, and all the other things public health officials are recommending right now. Do all of those things too.

 

4) Do I need a mask if I’m walking or running in the open air?

Probably not — but if used properly, wearing a mask probably can’t hurt, and might help encourage others to wear one too.

The CDC specifies that it’s recommending cloth face coverings where social distancing isn’t possible. A solitary walk or run outside is typically not going to fall into one of those categories.

In general, masks become more helpful as the risk of infection increases. If you’re having closer, more prolonged contact with potentially sick people, using a mask is more likely to protect you. And if you’re potentially sick and having closer, more prolonged contact with others, a mask is more likely to protect them from your germs as well. “Are people having those prolonged, close-contact interactions with people?” Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist focused on hospital preparedness, told me. “Because that’s what’s more considered high-risk. … It’s that face-to-face for a significant chunk of time.” That’s why the CDC had already recommended masks for people who know they’re sick or interacting with someone who’s sick. People who frequently interact with others as part of their jobs, like a first responder or a grocery store clerk, are more likely to get good use out of masks too. That especially includes health care workers, who spend more time with sick people than anyone else — which is why they need masks and other PPE more.

Certain populations also may want to especially consider masks in less risky environments, such as people who are older or have underlying health issues, like a compromised immune system, that put them at greater risk if they’re infected. Besides the health benefits, there’s also a potential social value to wearing a mask everywhere: It could push more people to do so as well. If more people are out in public wearing face coverings, that could help remove the stigma that only sick people wear masks. So if you go out with a mask in more situations, it could not only help you and those around you, but it might help instill a healthier norm for the rest of society too.

 

5) How do I make a mask? There are a lot of options! But keep in mind guidance, from the CDC, about a proper mask: It should fit snugly but comfortably around the face, be secured around the ears with ties or loops, include multiple layers of fabric, allow for breathing without restriction, and be readily washable without damage. If you have the time and can sew, the CDC recommends a face covering that can be made with two 10-inch by 6-inch rectangles of cotton fabric, two 6-inch pieces of elastic or rubber bands, string, cloth strips, or hair ties, a needle and thread or bobby pin, scissors, and a sewing machine. Here’s the agency’s four-step tutorial: If you’re like me and the idea of sewing anything sounds like a total nightmare, the CDC offers a non-sewing option. It just requires a T-shirt and a pair of scissors. Here’s the three-step tutorial: A three-step tutorial for a mask made from a T-shirt. If you’re even more like me and that mask is still too much, the surgeon general posted a 45-second video guide on Twitter for an even easier mask that can be made solely with a T-shirt or just about any other cloth fabric and two rubber bands: Chances are the less skill-intensive, less time-consuming masks will be, at the very least, less comfortable, and maybe harder to wear for long. But if you’re in a pinch, or if you’re unable to do more complicated tailoring, the easier alternatives offer more protection than nothing.

 

6) Why aren’t more medical masks available? The simple answer is that supply hasn’t kept up with demand. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, China made half the world’s face masks. When the outbreak took off there, China started to use its supply and hoard what remained. This problem has only spread since, as more and more countries hoard whatever medical supplies they can get — with some, like Germany, even banning most PPE exports. So as demand increased due to Covid-19 — not just from health care workers but from a general public increasingly scared of infection — there was less supply to go around. On a deeper level, though, the shortage in masks and other PPE reflects America’s — and, really, the rest of the world’s — poor preparedness for a pandemic. The mask and broader PPE shortage, in fact, was well-known to the US government before the Covid-19 outbreak, yet the US did not prepare. “When we have done exercises in the past for pandemic preparedness, supply chain issues were a well-documented challenge,” Popescu said. “This is something we’ve known about — maybe not to this extent, but this isn’t a shocker. It’s more surprising that we let it get this bad.” One of those simulations held by the federal government, as the New York Times reported, covered a pandemic that looked a lot like the one we’re facing now: a respiratory virus that started in China and made its way to the US and the rest of the world. Among the many problems, the Times found, were “deficiencies ‘in personal protective equipment use.’” The exercise found that the US didn’t have the means to quickly produce more PPE. When states turned to the federal government for help in the exercise, there was “confusion” and “bureaucratic chaos” as requests and submissions hit multiple agencies at once. This was far from the only simulation to produce these results, experts told me. Jeremy Konyndyk, senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, argued a previous outbreak should have acted as a warning for the world: the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak. While working in President Barack Obama’s administration at the time, Konyndyk quickly realized that the US — and much of the world — was simply not ready for a major disease outbreak. “I came away from that experience just completely horrified at how unready we would be for something more dangerous than Ebola,” he said, noting Ebola was, thankfully, relatively hard to transmit. Indeed, experts and advocates argue that the US generally underfunds disease outbreak preparedness and public health programs more broadly. It’s these concerns that led the Obama administration, after the Ebola outbreak, to attempt to scale up preparedness by establishing a White House office dedicated solely to the issue and producing a 69-page playbook in case of an outbreak. But President Donald Trump’s administration neglected and rolled back these efforts, eventually disbanding the White House office.

We’ve seen the results in the botched rollout of coronavirus testing, but PPE offers another example. America could have shored up its supplies of PPE in its strategic stockpile. It could have ensured that there would be surge capacity to boost production in case of emergency. And it should have been doing this all before the coronavirus pandemic. But it didn’t, even after it became clearer, around January and February, that the coronavirus was a looming threat. By early March, federal officials acknowledged the Strategic National Stockpile had just 1 percent of the medical masks the country needed in a full-blown pandemic. “The US … was not prepared,” Jen Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told me. “A good preparedness plan would have helped address this and had things in place to allow for that increased need to be met.” So the US is playing catch-up with different public and private interventions to boost PPE production. Until that’s fixed, we simply don’t have enough medical masks to go around.

 

7) If medical masks are better, why shouldn’t I get some for myself? Because health care workers need them more, since they’re constantly in contact with those who are sick — in a way not many other people, if any, in the general public are. And even if you take a totally selfish perspective on this, there are good reasons to want health care workers to get these medical masks first. As coronavirus has spread, experts have talked up “flattening the curve.” The idea is to spread out the number of coronavirus cases — through social distancing, testing, contact tracing, and other protective measures — to avoid overwhelming the health care system. Here’s what that looks like in chart form:

An infographic that shows the goals of mitigation during an outbreak with two curves. The X-axis represents the number of daily cases and they Y-axis represents the amount of time since the first case. The first curve represents the number of cases when no protective measures during an outbreak are implemented and displays a large peak. The second curve is much lower, representing a much smaller rise in the number of cases if protective measures are implemented. Christina Animashaun/Vox

The PPE shortage could make it harder to flatten the curve of new cases if doctors and nurses get sick. But the line representing health care system capacity also isn’t a constant. If we develop more capacity, it can handle more cases at once. If capacity falls — if doctors and nurses get sick because of a lack of protective equipment, or refuse to work without conditions that can ensure their safety — even a flatter curve will be hard for the system to handle. That’s why experts, even those who acknowledge that the public would benefit from using masks, say that doctors and nurses should get priority: This isn’t just about keeping people on the front lines safe; it’s about keeping all of us safe. To put it in selfish terms: If you do get sick with the coronavirus or anything else during this pandemic, and you want to make sure that there are doctors and nurses available to treat you, you should let them get the masks they need first.

It’s true that we might all be better off wearing surgical masks in an ideal world. But that’s not the world we live in right now. For all our sakes, we should act accordingly.

 

8) If masks are so great, why is the CDC just telling us this now?

Officially, the CDC has said it changed its stance with the changing evidence. As it became clearer that asymptomatic transmission was happening with the coronavirus, the CDC argued, the benefits of everyone wearing a mask increased, since they could help stop transmission from people who don’t even know they’re sick. Unofficially, the answer is a little more complicated. In my discussions with public health officials and experts before the CDC changed its guidance, it seemed many people were afraid of saying anything that could exacerbate the PPE shortage for health care workers or get members of the general public to think — incorrectly — that they could ease social distancing measures if they just wear a mask. “I fear that if we tell everyone they should go out and buy masks, it will not only contribute to the PPE shortage,” Jaimie Meyer, an infectious disease expert at Yale University, told me, “but it will give a false sense of a ‘quick fix’ for protection, whereas people still need to be practicing social distancing strategies that are much more effective, though perhaps socially, psychologically, [and] logistically challenging.” Trump ordered more N95 masks. 3M says his tactics could make the shortage worse. Part of the issue is the CDC also operates on a different evidence level than a lot of the public. The agency tends to follow the best reviews of the scientific evidence with very rigorous standards for what’s a good study and what’s not. So what may sound like good enough evidence and reasoning to you and me may not be good enough for the CDC. Since the scientific evidence for public mask use isn’t great — even if it’s generally positive — the CDC, as an agency filled with scientists, was just more skeptical of taking a leap than many laypeople were. Regardless of the reasoning, the CDC’s messaging backfired. As health care workers clamored for masks, it became increasingly harder to tell the public that masks wouldn’t benefit everyone else. By obfuscating and failing to fully explain the issue, officials likely sowed distrust toward their guidance. And the public rushed to buy masks anyway.

 

9) How can I donate masks to health care workers?

The dire shortage of masks and other PPE has led to several options for donations: If you want to make and donate cloth masks, WeNeedMasks.org provides options for most states and Puerto Rico. If you have surgical masks, N95 respirators, and other PPE around, #GetUsPPE is another option. (Although note that many places will only take unopened supplies.)

If you’re a manufacturer or supplier, the N95 Project is trying to connect companies that make or have masks with the hospitals and clinics that need them. At this point in the pandemic, health care workers and facilities all over the country will gladly accept the help they can take. Some places, like New York and Louisiana, are dealing with much worse coronavirus outbreaks right now and really need the supplies today. But it’s also worth being realistic about just how far donations can go. Given the research, cloth masks are simply not suitable replacements for actual medical masks. With medical masks, N95 respirators are widely regarded as more effective than conventional surgical masks when properly fitted. So even with donations, it’s on the federal government to set up more production and coordination of supply lines to make sure places in need get PPE. It’s on private producers to step up and do what they can. (Some car, clothing, and pillow companies, among others, have already done so.) And it’s on us — to make sure that the existing supplies of masks and other PPE are made available to health care workers. Americans can accomplish that, in part, with donations, but we can also do that by not buying surgical masks or N95 respirators until the shortage is fixed, and instead relying on cloth and homemade coverings. So, yes, health experts recommend wearing a mask in public. Just don’t take one from health care workers. And keep doing all the other things public health officials recommend, like social distancing and washing your hands, as we deal with this pandemic. Support Vox’s explanatory journalism Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today. Since the beginning of March and the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe, Chinese companies have sold nearly 4 billion face masks overseas, according to authorities. For Beijing, this is a perfect way to change the narrative: China is now offering its assistance to virus-hit countries while trying to leave the mistakes of the early outbreak in the past. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, face masks have become a hot commodity and international competition is fierce. Last week, a number of French politicians accused the US of buying up Chinese face masks ordered by France. In one case, the Americans allegedly outbid the French on the airport tarmac in China. China is the biggest producer of masks on the planet and is getting orders from around the world. With the Covid-19 pandemic now under control in the country, factories have been mobilised to boost production. Since early April, China has been able to produce 200 million masks a day. In the case of a second wave of infections, will China continue to send masks to the entire planet? With a population of 1.5 billion inhabitants, the country would need to protect itself too. Mathematical modeling has shown that transmission of an outbreak may be delayed by closing schools. However, effectiveness depends on the contacts children maintain outside of school. Often, one parent has to take time off work, and prolonged closures may be required. These factors could result in social and economic disruption. Modeling and simulation studies based on U.S. data suggest that if 10% of affected workplaces are closed, the overall infection transmission rate is around 11.9% and the epidemic peak time is slightly delayed. In contrast, if 33% of affected workplaces are closed, the attack rate decreases to 4.9%, and the peak time is delayed by one week. Workplace closures include closure of "non-essential" businesses and social services ("non-essential" means those facilities that do not maintain primary functions in the community, as opposed to essential services). Cancellation of mass gatherings includes sports events, films or musical shows. Evidence suggesting that mass gatherings increase the potential for infectious disease transmission is inconclusive.[30] Anecdotal evidence suggests certain types of mass gatherings may be associated with increased risk of influenza transmission, and may also "seed" new strains into an area, instigating community transmission in a pandemic. During the 1918 influenza pandemic, military parades in Philadelphia and Bostonmay have been responsible for spreading the disease by mixing infected sailors with crowds of civilians. Restricting mass gatherings, in combination with other social distancing interventions, may help reduce transmission.Border restrictions or internal travel restrictions are unlikely to delay an epidemic by more than two to three weeks unless implemented with over 99% coverage.Airport screening was found to be ineffective in preventing viral transmission during the 2003 SARS outbreak in Canada[35] and the U.S.[36] Strict border controls between Austria and the Ottoman Empire, imposed from 1770 until 1871 to prevent persons infected with the bubonic plague from entering Austria, were reportedly effective, as there were no major outbreaks of plague in Austrian territory after they were established, whereas the Ottoman Empire continued to suffer frequent epidemics of plague until the mid-nineteenth century. A Northeastern University study published in March 2020 found that "travel restrictions to and from China only slow down the international spread of COVID-19 [when] combined with efforts to reduce transmission on a community and an individual level. [...] Travel restrictions aren't enough unless we couple it with social distancing."[39] The study found that the travel ban in Wuhan delayed the spread of the disease to other parts of mainland China only by three to five days, although it did reduce the spread of international cases by as much as 80 percent. A primary reason travel restrictions were less effective is that many people with COVID-19 do not show symptoms during the early stages of infection.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_distancing

The Ankh represents the first key to the Mysteries “The Creation of Everything”. The Ankh means more than Life – it is the most ancient symbol of a code of sounds and primordial deities. The Ankh is actually the Names of the so called “chaos” Deities of the Khemnu or Ogdoad: Amen/Amenet, Nun/Nunet,Ku/Kukhet,Heh/Hehet. – This resolves itself to ANKH. The Ankh itself has four distinct sides and one of them is the Loop Nun/Nunet. These four pairs in were thought to be the Children of Tehuti and Maat. Both Tehuti (Vibration), Maat (Order) and the four pairs themselves have their own forces. Amen/Amenet is the hidden spark of life and its opposite , Nun/Nunet – is the primordial unformed mass and its opposite, Ku/Kukhet is the qualities of Light and its opposite, and Heh/Het is the qualities of infinity and its opposite. At some point the Eight fuse themselves together bounded by Maat and Tehuti and a Deity Ptah is formed out of this chaos – (the God Particle), he steps on a mound, Aton is formed and lands on his shoulder then The Ennead is created or the 9 deities. This is called the “First Time” or Sp Tepii, Zep Tepi, Sep Tepii, Sep Tepi. Ancient Kemet is both Scientific and Spiritual. The Mysteries System of Egypt is also both Scientific and Spiritual. To begin self mastery one must understand how everything began. A child in Ancient Egypt would be told the creation stories, I described and grow up understanding Science and Spirituality. An African Child in the Diaspora would be taught one of the Major Western Religions and grow up with religion and later learn science and have to juggle between the two. Here is the beginning key to re-orientating African Thought, Practice, Spirituality, Redemption and Self Mastery.Here we see the most common usage of the Ankh – Here is the Symbol, the N – water ripple and the KH – Placenta?. The N can be pronounced, and the KH is pronounced. The sound of its symbol begins with the A similar the extend arm glyph. This I have to check. At any rate, the ripple water identifies it with possibly water, or wave. The Placenta has obvious meanings of birth. I am currently attempting to find out why the KH symbol is the placenta. It does not look like a Placenta at all. I have found that the KH sound is used in the Mdu Ntr of the placenta so that is why the symbol is referred to as a placenta. Obviously, the Ancient Egyptians knew about the placenta and knew how to draw it – it is found in the Narmer Pallete and the Wepwawet Standard in the Step pyramid. The symbol that is known as the sieve or placenta obviously has a meaning that contributes to the placenta, but may not necessarily be the placenta.

 

Sekou Fortune who helped me discover the Secret of the Ankh and our new researcher Alfred “Djehuti” Thompson II – Bro. Al, made an amazing contribution while we were at the ASCAC conference in Washington in August. They discarded Gardiner’s and Budge naming of the KH sound as Placenta. They said that it could not be a Placenta for the following reasons: 1) the symbol is in equal parts 2) The people of Kemet knew how to draw a placenta 3) Cosmologically the placenta would have no place in the creation of everything – women and man were not created. 4) They challenged that symbols in relationship to the Ankh have cosmological references and the KH symbol may very well be Matter itself.

 

www.secretoftheankh.com/

  

The ankh (/æŋk, ɑːŋk/; Egyptian ˁnḫ), also known as "crux ansata" (the Latin for "cross with a handle") is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic ideograph symbolizing "life".The ankh is an oval or point-down teardrop set atop a T shape. The origin of this image is highly debated. Some have suggested that it represents a sandal strap, although the reasoning behind such a use is not obvious. Others point out the similarity with another shape known as a knot of Isis (or a tyet), the meaning of which is also obscure.The Secret of the Ankh is a pathway into the Mystery Systems. The Secret of the Ankh leads to the what is called called the God Particle or what is alled the Higgs Particle but told in mythos by the Ancient People of the Nile. The Secret of the Ankh also is in line with the Infinity Puzzle of Frank Close this where infinity (Heh) and its opposite nothingness (hehet) and Nwn (Dark Radition) and its opposite Nwnt (anti-matter) or and the resultant matter is analyzed in creation . I believe that I have decoded the Symbol of the Ankh. My findings are that the Ankh can no longer be viewed as just meaning life, but the creation of Life itself. The Cosmological Origin was first discovered by myself and my friend Sekou Fortune. I later expanded the base findings into a Blog that can be shared and read.

To summarize the concept in Part I

(1)The Ogdoad Primordial Eight are the elements that created the Divine Creator according to the Egyptians. This is taken from one of the oldest cosmologies -of Hermopolis or Khmnu.

(2) Aspects of this story are used in the creation of Ptah, Ra, Amen, Aten in the other creations stories. These all deal with just the creation of the Creator not with what existed before creation.

(3) The symbol for the Ankh is the symbol with the Circle on top of the cross hairs – followed by the Mdu Ntr sounds of N and KH.

(4) From the breakthroughs of translations we know the symbol was pronounced NKH or ANKH. The A is disputed and may have been added for convenience of pronunciation. Even if the Ankh is a triliteral – at this point there is no definitive way to show how it was pronounced.

(5) If we return to the Ogdoad, the eight pairs are Amen Amenet, Nun, Nunuet, Kek, Kekhet, and Heh, Hehet. My theory is that the symbol took the names of the Ogdoad into consideration for its pronunciation. One must remember first that the Mdu Ntr is in fact the Sacred Words of the Ntrs. So there must be some root words are sounds that were used in the beginning and will continue to be used for words describing creation.

(6) The Ankh not only is a symbol of Life but the elements that create life. These elements are the Ogdoad and the Odgoad is essential for Life. The symbol Ankh is connected to the Ogdoad and I believe it gets its name from the Odoad. This is the secret of the Ankh.

(7) I understand that there is controversy of me creating the mnemonic ANKH to represent the Khemennu (The Primordial Eight). However, in Nile Valley Cosmology it is in fact the Eight that created life. So the mnemonics do not take away from this concept even though their is no prove that the Nile Valley Africans thought this way but we can be sure the Ankh symbol is written with the water sign (N) and the (KH) – whether this meant waves and particles is another thing. This is my Theory.

 

Let us continue.

 

I want to pause here so that I can correct three important points that may come up as a criticism. First, in order to help the reader find relevant source material, I use the work Ogdoad. However, the Nile Valley Mdu Ntr term with the most primary information is Khemenu and that a scholar looking for primary resources should always look for primary material first and secondary material second. The information on the Khemenu is should ultimately be referenced from what it means in the Original Language. Here is an example, Egypt is referred to the Land of the Ancient People in which we are talking about. However, the name of the land referred in text by the people is Kemet, Ta Seti, Ta Mery. We could call the people Egyptians but they call themselves the Rmt or Kmtw.

 

Two – I will say that the Ankh must be re-translated to the Khemenu (The Eight, 4 pairs). and I may get criticism from those unfamiliar with primary text and say that Amun is never first because Nun was. One should always stand from a position of being well researched. At anytime, that I have to defend the order of the Khemenu, I can do so with primary sources. I will say at this time that Amun/Amunet was the primordial Wave by themselves and they created NUN. Amun/Amunet exist in at least two dimensions and their later reality becomes Eight as they now split tow Amun/Amunet, Nun/Nunet, Kek,Keket and then HeH.HeHet.

 

Third, I will say the symbol the Ankh is actually the Eight, the Khemenu or the European name Ogdoad and will have again criticism. I have included a letter from Dr. Mario Beatty which I use as constructive criticism. However, Amun is always hidden and we do not know if the Symbol was actually pronounced as Ankh or Nkh – So Since Amun is hidden let us make that sound invisible and pronounce the symbol NKH for these purposes. NKH is a formula that includes the Khemenu for several reasons. The reaction of the Eight creates the Light that Created Life. In addition, the Khemenu are seen holding the Symbol sometimes all Eight or sometimes just 4 or the Eight. In Addition as I will show that the Mdu Ntr of the Symbol contains the N (Wave) and the KH (particle/seive) and these are quantum physic properties of the duality of Waves and Particles. Lastly, the Khemenu appears in Precreation, Creation, Life, and Afterlife scenes in Text and in Plates.

 

At this time – I will not touch my original theses until I publish my work – I hope that these satisfies initial criticism and those that want to criticize I find have not read enough primary sources to rule out anything that I am saying for the Nile Valley African often renews or make better their thoughts in later text to cure what was hidden in earlier text. So the Khemenu Cosmology was made better later.

 

Wherever the Ankh is translated in Ancient Egypt Literature it must be re-translated with the following insight: The Ankh is the Life Code; The Egyptian’s so-called “Infinities or Chaos” Gods: Amen/Amenet, Nun/Nunet,Kuk,Kukhet, Heh/Hehet – the Ogdoad.; The Meaning of Life is no longer just a flat definition but a multi-dimensional definition of the scientific and possibly spiritual definition of how life was created itself.

 

First though it may appear my work is not about phonetics, not about linguistics but linguistics have some bearing. The Secret of the Ankh can be approached two ways that lead to the same result.

 

First I will look at the Ogdoad – the Primordial Eight and how these elements resolve themselves into Life.

 

Second, I will look the Mdu Ntru symbol for the sound N which is a Wave and the Mdu Ntr symbol for the sound KH which Gardiner says incorrectly is a placenta but probably matter – are key elements of the symbol ANKH or NKH – Wave plus Matter produces the elements of Life or the God Particle. This is essentially a well proven theory of Dr. Oyiboe, as part of his GAGUT -Grand Unifying Theorem. I will use Dr. Oyiboe’s expression but expand on it.

The Egyptian gods are often portrayed carrying it by its loop, or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their chest. The ankh appears in hand or in proximity of almost every deity in the Egyptian pantheon (including Pharaohs).There are also images of gods pouring water over the head of the pharaoh as part of a purification ritual, with the water being represented by chains of ankhs and was (representing power and dominion) symbols. It reinforces the close connection the pharaohs had with the gods in whose name he ruled and to whom he returned after death.

 

The ankh symbol was so prevalent that it has been found in digs as far as Mesopotamia and Persia, and even on the seal of the biblical king Hezekiah.

 

The symbol became popular in New Age mysticism in the 1960s.

 

Unicode has two characters encoding the symbol: U+2625 ☥ in the widely-supported Miscellaneous Symbols block and U+132F9 in the more recent Egyptian Hieroglyphs block.

  

There have been many suggestions and theories as to the origin of the ankh symbol.Pharaoh Akhenaten embraced a monotheistic religion centered on the worship of the sun disk, known as the Aten. Artwork from the time of his rule, known as the Amarna period, always includes the Aten in images of the pharaoh. This image is a circular disk with rays terminating in hands reaching down toward the royal family. Sometimes, although not always, the hands clutch ankhs.

 

Again, the meaning is clear: eternal life is a gift of the gods meant most specifically for the pharaoh and perhaps his family. (Akhenaten emphasized the role of his family much more than other pharaohs. More often, pharaohs are depicted alone or with the gods.

 

Alan Gardiner (1957) explains the hieroglyph as a depiction of a sandal-strap (ˁnḫ) which came to be read phonetically and could be used (as "rebus writing") for the similar word ˁnḫ "live", a triliteral root probably pronounced /ʕánax/ in Old and Middle Egyptian.This verb and its derivatives are likely ancestral to the Coptic words ⲱⲛϩ ōnh "to live, life" and ⲉⲛⲉϩ eneh "eternity".

 

One of the earliest proposals was that of Thomas Inman, first published in 1869, according to which the symbol combines "the male triad and the female unit".[6] E. A. Wallis Budge (1904) postulated that the symbol originated as the belt buckle of the mother goddess Isis.

 

Andrew Hunt Gordon and Calvin Schwabe, in their 2004 book The Quick and the Dead, speculated that the ankh, djed, and was symbols have a basis in "cattle culture" and with semen (thought to originate in the spine) being equated with “life”, with the ankh representing the thoracic vertebra of a bull (seen in cross section), the djed representing the sacrum of a bull's spine, and the was representing a staff made from a bull’s penis.

  

Crux ansata in Codex Glazier

The ankh appears frequently in Egyptian tomb paintings and other art, often at the fingertips of a god or goddess in images that represent the deities of the afterlife conferring the gift of life on the dead person's mummy; this is thought to symbolize the act of conception.[citation needed] Additionally, an ankh was often carried by Egyptians as an amulet, either alone, or in connection with two other hieroglyphs that mean "strength" and "health" (see explication of djed and was, above).[citation needed] Mirrors of beaten metal were also often made in the shape of an ankh, either for decorative reasons or to symbolize a perceived view into another world.[citation needed]

 

A symbol similar to the ankh appears frequently in Minoan and Mycenaean sites.[where?] This is a combination of the sacral knot (symbol of holiness) with the double-edged axe (symbol of matriarchy) but it can be better compared with the Egyptian tyet which is similar. This symbol can be recognized on the two famous figurines of the chthonian Snake Goddess discovered in the palace of Knossos. Both snake goddesses have a knot with a projecting loop cord between their breasts. In the Linear B (Mycenean Greek) script, ankh is the phonetic sign za.

 

The ankh also appeared frequently in coins from ancient Cyprus and Asia Minor (particularly the city of Mallus in Cilicia).[12] In some cases, especially with the early coinage of King Euelthon of Salamis, the letter ku, from the Cypriot syllabary, appeared within the circle ankh, representing Ku(prion) (Cypriots). To this day, the ankh is also used to represent the planet Venus (the namesake of which, the goddess Venus or Aphrodite, was chiefly worshipped on the island) and the metal copper (the heavy mining of which gave Cyprus its name).

 

Coptic Christians preserved the shape of the ankh by sometimes representing the Christian cross with a circle in place of the upper bar. This is known as the Coptic ankh or crux ansata.

 

The most commonly repeated explanation is that it is a union of a female symbol (the oval, representing the vagina or uterus) with a male symbol (the phallic upright line), but there's no actual evidence supporting that interpretation.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh

 

Sex, and specifically the orgasm, is more that just something that feels good and allows procreation. There are many other functions, such as the release of dysfunctional energy within the body, which can help to keep one from becoming diseased. There is the function that opens the higher chakras, and under the right conditions allows a person to begin the process of enlightenment. And further, if two people, lovers, practice sacred sex, the entire experience can lead them together into higher consciousness and into worlds beyond this plane.

 

In relationships, a simple sexual principle, as taught by the ancient Egyptians, can change the energy level within your body and help to bring strength and vitality into your bodies and your relationship.

 

The full subject in detail of Egyptian Tantra is incredibly complex, and cannot be completed in an article of this scope. But we can speak of the heart of the matter — the human ankhing experience as practiced by the ancient Egyptians.

 

And so, adapted for our readers from The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life, Volume II, I offer this insight to assist two lovers — or even yourself, alone — to begin to find the higher path. This practice will not directly show you the true path. But it will increase your life-force energy, making you stronger, more alive, and more conscious. And perhaps — if you believe the Ancient Egyptians — it may lead you into eternal life.

 

—Drunvalo

 

Egyptian Sexual Energy and the Orgasm

 

It was believed in ancient Egypt that the orgasm was the key to eternal life, and that it was intimately connected with the chakra system. A chakra is an energy vortex connected to the entire human energy field, and the Universal Heart Chakra is the fifth of thirteen chakras. (There is also a system of eight chakras; in that system, the heart chakra is number four.) The Egyptian system held that the orgasm was intimately connected to this fifth, or Universal Heart Chakra.

 

First, we will explain the connection to eternal life.

 

Most people in the world are ignorant about what happens to their sexual energy after they have an orgasm. Usually, the energy moves up the spine and out the top of the head directly into the eighth or thirteenth chakra (same chakra, different system). In a few rare cases, the sexual energy is released down the spine into the hidden center below the feet, the point opposite the one above the head. In either case, the sexual energy — the concentrated life-force energy called prana in Hinduism — is dissipated and lost. It is similar to discharging a battery into a ground wire. It is no longer in the battery and so it is gone forever. This is what all the world's Tantric systems that I am aware of believe, that orgasm brings one a little closer to death because a person loses his or her life-force energy in the orgasm and is made weaker. But the Egyptians found long ago that it does not have to be this way.

 

It is for this reason that the Hindu and Tibetan Tantra systems ask the male to avoid ejaculating. Instead, they speak of these tiny invisible tubes where, when a student learns to control the orgasm and the flow of their sexual energy, the sperm migrates up to the higher centers.

 

Both of these systems, and also the Chinese Taoist Tantra system, are all primarily concerned with the sexual energy flow, sometimes referred to as ''sexual currents.'' They are primarily concerned with what happens as the sexual energy is moved before the orgasm, but they all have entirely different views of this energy compared to the Egyptians.

 

The Egyptians believed that orgasm is healthy and necessary, including the release of sperm in males, but that the sexual energy currents must be controlled in a deeply esoteric procedure that is unlike any other system. They believed that if this energy is controlled, the human orgasm becomes a source of infinite pranic energy that is not lost. They believe that the entire Mer-Ka-Ba or lightbody (the field of energy surrounding and interpenetrating the body) benefits from this sexual release. They even believe that under the right conditions the orgasm will directly lead to eternal life, and that the ankh is the key.

 

Egyptian ankhWhat is the ankh, and what has the ankh to do with sexual energy? It is complicated to explain, but we will simplify. First the ankh itself is a shape that looks like the figure at right.

 

In order to see and understand what took thousands of years for the Egyptians to grasp, we will begin with the fifth, Universal Heart Chakra. This lower heart chakra, the chakra of Unconditional Universal Love, is the first place where the energy completes itself. Each chakra has a ''direction'' associated with it, as the life-force energy rotates its way up the body in a pattern similar to the DNA molecule. In the lower heart chakra, the fifth place of a thirteen chakra system, the energy is facing the same direction as it began, and thus the circle is complete.

 

Energy Flow Diagrams

 

In the three views above, you can see how the rotation of energy either around the body, as in (a), around a circle, as in (b), or in a sine wave, as in (c), all complete themselves in five steps.

 

Ankh ViewsThe fifth or heart chakra is the first chakra that completes itself and has the energies of both front-to-back and left-to-right. If you could see these energies — and the Egyptians could — from above the head, as in (a), at left, they would appear as this symbol. It needs to be understood that these are actual energy lines around the body coming from the fifth chakra.

 

If you were to see these energies from the front view of a human, they would appear as in (b) at left. In the center of the cross there is a hidden energy line coming straight off the page and also moving in the opposite direction away from the reader.

 

Notice that both of the above examples are Christian symbols that come from the heart chakra. However, if you could see the same energies from the side of a human being, they would appear different than you would expect. There is another energy-flow ''tube'' there (in Chinese medicine it's called a ''meridian'') that the Egyptians discovered long ago. It looks like (c).

 

I find it very interesting that the Christians must have understood what we are talking about here, for on the robes of many Christian priests, at certain times of the year that are usually associated with resurrection, you will see the following symbol.

 

This symbol (d) shows all three views — the top, front, and side simultaneously. I believe the Christians omitted the complete loop of the ankh so that they would not directly show a connection with the old Egyptian religion, since they were breaking away from that tradition. But it is obvious that they knew.

 

Now that you know that this ankh energy conduit is located in the human energy field and where, you will be able to understand the reason for the Egyptians' sexual conduct, which we are about to explain.

 

First let me explain something about the ankh before I speak about its relationship to sexual energy. When I toured the museums in Egypt, I personally observed over 200 Egyptian rods.

 

Egyptian rodThese rods (pictured at right) were mostly made of wood, although other materials were sometimes used. They had a tuning fork on the bottom end, and the top end had four different types of devices that could be attached. One of these devices was in the shape of the ankh. What we found is that if you put the ankh on the top of the rod, which is like the human spine, the vibration from the tuning fork lasts a great deal longer. The energy seems to wrap around back into the rod along the curve of the ankh, moving downward as it returns, thereby sustaining the energy.

 

I was in Holland a couple of years ago, and there some people had made some rods out of copper with a high-quality tuning fork at the bottom and a threaded end at the top, so that different end pieces could be screwed on. I experimented with this rod. Using it without a top piece, I struck the tuning fork and timed how long it would vibrate. Then I screwed on the ankh and struck the tuning fork again. With the ankh on top, the rod vibrated almost three times longer. If you apply this idea to the human spine, you can see why the energy of the orgasm enhances the entire human system and the energy wraps itself back around and back into the human meridians.

 

This is the key to why the Egyptians performed the particular sexual practices we are about to explain. They found that if they had an orgasm and let it go out the top or bottom of the spine, the sexual energy was lost. But if the sexual energy was guided by consciousness to move into the ankh conduit, it would come back into the spine and continue to resonate and vibrate. The life-force energy was not lost. In actual experience, it seems to increase the energy. One does not feel depleted after sex, but rather recharged.

 

You can talk about it all day, but if you try it one time, you will understand. However, it is not easy to do in one test. For the first few times, the sexual energy will often shoot past the point of the fifth chakra and continue on up and out of the body. So it takes practice. Once it is learned, I doubt seriously if you would ever have an orgasm any other way. It's too powerful and feels too good. Once your body remembers this experience, it is not likely to revert back to the old way.

 

Instructions for the Egyptian Orgasm

 

Here is exactly how to achiever the ankhing associated with the human orgasm. Whatever you do sexually before the orgasm is completely up to you. I am not here to judge you — and definitely the Egyptians would not, since they believe in knowing all sixty-four sexual modes before you enter the King's Chamber to ascend to the next level of consciousness. This is their idea, but it is important to know that it is not necessary. You can reach the next level of consciousness without knowing this information. However, from their point of view, the idea of ankhing is of paramount importance in achieving eternal life. You will have to decide for yourself if it is something you wish to practice.

 

The moment you feel the sexual energy about to rise up your spine, take a very deep breath, filling your lungs about 9/10th full, then hold your breath.

Allow the sexual energy of the orgasm to come up your spine. But at the moment it reaches the fifth chakra (located just a couple of finger-widths above the sternum), with your willpower you must turn the flow of sexual energy 90 degrees out the back of the body. It will then automatically continue inside the ankh tube. It will slowly turn until it passes exactly through the eighth (or thirteenth) chakra, one hand-length above the head at 90 degrees to the vertical. It will then continue to curve around until it returns to the fifth chakra, where it began, only this time in the front of the body.

 

Even if you don't understand what was just said, it will happen automatically if you get it started out the back of the body at the fifth chakra, and it will automatically come back around to the front of the body and reconnect at the fifth chakra. You just have to make it turn 90 degrees so that it begins.

It will often slow down as it approaches its point of origin, the fifth chakra. If you can see the energy, it comes to a sharp point. When it approaches the fifth chakra from the front of the body, there is sometimes a tremendous jolt as it reconnects with this chakra again. All this takes place while you are holding your first breath.

The instant the sexual energy reconnects with its source, the fifth chakra, take in the full breath. You had filled your lungs only 9/10th full, so now you fill your lungs as completely as you can.

Now exhale very, very slowly. The sexual energy will continue on around the ankh channel as long as you are exhaling. When you reach the bottom of this breath, you will continue to breathe very deeply, but a change happens here.

It is here that, if you know the Lightbody work of the Mer-Ka-Ba, you would begin to breathe from the two poles using Mer-Ka-Ba breathing. But if you are like most people and don't know this work, then continue to breathe deeply until you feel the relaxation begin to spread throughout your body. Then relax your breath to your normal rate. Feel every cell becoming rejuvenated by this life-force energy. Let this energy reach down into the deepest physical levels of your body structure even past the cellular level. Feel how this beautiful energy surrounds your very being and brings health to your body, mind and heart.

Once the relaxation begins, slow your breath down to a normal shallow breathing.

If possible, allow yourself to completely relax or even sleep for a while afterward.

If you practice this for even one week, I believe you will more than understand. If you practice it continually, it will begin to give health and strength to your mental, emotional, and physical bodies. It will give great strength and power to your Lightbody, as well.

 

If for any reason this practice does not feel right, stop and return to normal. It just is not time.

 

It was this discovery of the secret tube that fostered the Ancient Egyptians' belief that eternal life was intimately connected to this particular energy-flow. It is this ankhing of their sexual energy through this tube, in an extremely deliberate procedure, that I have been taught to emulate.

 

www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/apr1/ankhing.htm

ENG: I'll tell you that I'm happy at times, but also the misery is in my life. I would lose my cordiality and my little reasoning without them.

ES: Te diré que a veces soy feliz, pero también la miseria está en mi vida. Perdería mi cordialidad y mi pequeño razonamiento sin ellos.

This is not a new MOC. I mean, just take a look at the dust on it.

 

This ship started out as one of two identical ships. I forget the exact reasoning now, but at some point I decided to make this one all rusty and decrepit. I had planned on using it for my FEZ webcomic, but that has kinda stalled.....

architects' own house, sydhavnen, copenhagen

katrine west kristensen & ulrik fenger mathiasson, architects

 

two former colleagues from vandkunsten built this house for themselves in one of copenhagen's less known christiania-like areas in the south harbour.

 

the facade cladding is made from recycled ventilation pipes salvaged from a nearby demolition and was, along with the timber frame, chosen for its minimal carbon footprint.

 

even the most well-meaning green ideas matter little when it comes to architectural quality, in fact they often appear to offer architects a kind of false respite from the difficulties of design.

 

katrine and ulrik, however, have drawn poetry from their recycled materials, and their house is done with such wit and warmth and talent that you never need technical reasoning to appreciate it.

 

seen through the lens of carbon footprint or energy use over time, sustainability still begins with buildings people want to live in and take care of, like this one.

 

/iphone

One cannot just play the guitar. One must feel the guitar and feel the music that it makes.

 

A friend of mine pointed out that he felt that I should have been playing the guitar. But my reasoning behind not doing so is that today was the first time in ages that I played it. So, in a way, it was like I needed to get familiar with the guitar again. Which is what I attempted to do here.

 

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Not an original idea by any means...I kind of stole...err...umm, i mean borrowed this idea from she.plays.guitar. She defiantly did a better job than I did so I don't feel so bad about stealing (borrowing) it.

 

Texture from Irma Weber.

 

The one thing I may consider changing is making the texture a tad more transparent. We'll see. It is the slightest bit over exposed on my left arm and part of my face. I intended to do this to try to bring a little more feeling to the photo.

 

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Actually played my guitar for the first time in months today :) Twas great fun and I will have to keep it up so my fingers don't hurt when I play :P

8.5x11" handmade collage. (23/30 works created for the 'GIFC' traveling exhibitions in British Columbia, Denmark, and Norway this Summer and Fall.)

General

Cupid and Psyche Is a marble sculpture by Canova Antonio, made in 1800-1803.

The sculpture was entered in Hermitage back in 1815 and it was previously part of the collection of Josephine de Beauharnais in the castle of Malmaison near Paris.

It is now part of the collection of European Fine Art, in Hermitage Museum.

P/S The photo was captured in a temporary exhibition at the Byzantine and Christian museum, Athens Greece.

Name of the exhibition: The State Hermitage Museum Gateway to History.

 

About The Sculpture

 

Italy, 1800-1803

 

By the end of the 18th century, Canova was a leading figure in the Neoclassical movement, the theories of which were first formulated in the works of the German scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Antique art, according to Winckelmann, achieved the very heights of ideal beauty and should be imitated in modern works. Seeking to embody his concept of ideal beauty, Canova repeatedly depicted Cupid and his beloved, Psyche. This standing group was seen as the embodiment of innocence, forming a pair with a group of Cupid with the Reclining Psyche, symbolizing voluptuousness. The young Psyche, whose name in Greek means "soul", holds Cupid's hand as he leans his head on her shoulder. She gently passes him a butterfly - symbol of the soul to the Ancient Greeks and thus suggesting that she is giving her whole soul to her beloved. Canova magnificently captured the young lovers' contemplative calm, their graceful movements, the soft folds of drapery and the smooth silhouette of the whole group. Canova was described as "the sculptor of grace and youth" by contemporaries, who saw in his work the embodiment of their perceptions of beauty.

 

Cupid and Psyche -Myth

 

A certain king and queen had three daughters. The charms of the two elder were more than common, but the beauty of the youngest was so wonderful that the poverty of language is unable to express its due praise. The fame of her beauty was so great that strangers from neighboring countries came in crowds to enjoy the sight, and looked on her with amazement, paying her that homage which is due only to Venus herself. In fact Venus found her altars deserted, while men turned their devotion to this young virgin. As she passed along, the people sang her praises, and strewed her way with chaplets and flowers.

This homage to the exaltation of a mortal gave great offense to the real Venus. Shaking her ambrosial locks with indignation, she exclaimed, "Am I then to be eclipsed in my honors by a mortal girl? In vain then did that royal shepherd, whose judgment was approved by Jove himself, give me the palm of beauty over my illustrious rivals, Pallas and Juno. But she shall not so quietly usurp my honors. I will give her cause to repent of so unlawful a beauty."

Thereupon she calls her winged son Cupid, mischievous enough in his own nature, and rouses and provokes him yet more by her complaints. She points out Psyche to him and says, "My dear son, punish that contumacious beauty; give your mother a revenge as sweet as her injuries are great; infuse into the bosom of that haughty girl a passion for some low, mean, unworthy being, so that she may reap a mortification as great as her present exultation and triumph."

Cupid prepared to obey the commands of his mother. There are two fountains in Venus's garden, one of sweet waters, the other of bitter. Cupid filled two amber vases, one from each fountain, and suspending them from the top of his quiver, hastened to the chamber of Psyche, whom he found asleep. He shed a few drops from the bitter fountain over her lips, though the sight of her almost moved him to pity; then touched her side with the point of his arrow. At the touch she awoke, and opened eyes upon Cupid (himself invisible), which so startled him that in his confusion he wounded himself with his own arrow. Heedless of his wound, his whole thought now was to repair the mischief he had done, and he poured the balmy drops of joy over all her silken ringlets.

Psyche, henceforth frowned upon by Venus, derived no benefit from all her charms. True, all eyes were cast eagerly upon her, and every mouth spoke her praises; but neither king, royal youth, nor plebeian presented himself to demand her in marriage. Her two elder sisters of moderate charms had now long been married to two royal princes; but Psyche, in her lonely apartment, deplored her solitude, sick of that beauty which, while it procured abundance of flattery, had failed to awaken love.

Her parents, afraid that they had unwittingly incurred the anger of the gods, consulted the oracle of Apollo, and received this answer, "The virgin is destined for the bride of no mortal lover. Her future husband awaits her on the top of the mountain. He is a monster whom neither gods nor men can resist."

This dreadful decree of the oracle filled all the people with dismay, and her parents abandoned themselves to grief. But Psyche said, "Why, my dear parents, do you now lament me? You should rather have grieved when the people showered upon me undeserved honors, and with one voice called me a Venus. I now perceive that I am a victim to that name. I submit. Lead me to that rock to which my unhappy fate has destined me."

Accordingly, all things being prepared, the royal maid took her place in the procession, which more resembled a funeral than a nuptial pomp, and with her parents, amid the lamentations of the people, ascended the mountain, on the summit of which they left her alone, and with sorrowful hearts returned home.

While Psyche stood on the ridge of the mountain, panting with fear and with eyes full of tears, the gentle Zephyr raised her from the earth and bore her with an easy motion into a flowery dale. By degrees her mind became composed, and she laid herself down on the grassy bank to sleep.

When she awoke refreshed with sleep, she looked round and beheld near a pleasant grove of tall and stately trees. She entered it, and in the midst discovered a fountain, sending forth clear and crystal waters, and fast by, a magnificent palace whose august front impressed the spectator that it was not the work of mortal hands, but the happy retreat of some god. Drawn by admiration and wonder, she approached the building and ventured to enter.

Every object she met filled her with pleasure and amazement. Golden pillars supported the vaulted roof, and the walls were enriched with carvings and paintings representing beasts of the chase and rural scenes, adapted to delight the eye of the beholder. Proceeding onward, she perceived that besides the apartments of state there were others filled with all manner of treasures, and beautiful and precious productions of nature and art.

While her eyes were thus occupied, a voice addressed her, though she saw no one, uttering these words, "Sovereign lady, all that you see is yours. We whose voices you hear are your servants and shall obey all your commands with our utmost care and diligence. Retire, therefore, to your chamber and repose on your bed of down, and when you see fit, repair to the bath. Supper awaits you in the adjoining alcove when it pleases you to take your seat there."

Psyche gave ear to the admonitions of her vocal attendants, and after repose and the refreshment of the bath, seated herself in the alcove, where a table immediately presented itself, without any visible aid from waiters or servants, and covered with the greatest delicacies of food and the most nectareous wines. Her ears too were feasted with music from invisible performers; of whom one sang, another played on the lute, and all closed in the wonderful harmony of a full chorus.

She had not yet seen her destined husband. He came only in the hours of darkness and fled before the dawn of morning, but his accents were full of love, and inspired a like passion in her. She often begged him to stay and let her behold him, but he would not consent. On the contrary he charged her to make no attempt to see him, for it was his pleasure, for the best of reasons, to keep concealed.

"Why should you wish to behold me?" he said. "Have you any doubt of my love? Have you any wish ungratified? If you saw me, perhaps you would fear me, perhaps adore me, but all I ask of you is to love me. I would rather you would love me as an equal than adore me as a god."

This reasoning somewhat quieted Psyche for a time, and while the novelty lasted she felt quite happy. But at length the thought of her parents, left in ignorance of her fate, and of her sisters, precluded from sharing with her the delights of her situation, preyed on her mind and made her begin to feel her palace as but a splendid prison. When her husband came one night, she told him her distress, and at last drew from him an unwilling consent that her sisters should be brought to see her.

So, calling Zephyr, she acquainted him with her husband's commands, and he, promptly obedient, soon brought them across the mountain down to their sister's valley. They embraced her and she returned their caresses.

"Come," said Psyche, "enter with me my house and refresh yourselves with whatever your sister has to offer."

Then taking their hands she led them into her golden palace, and committed them to the care of her numerous train of attendant voices, to refresh them in her baths and at her table, and to show them all her treasures. The view of these celestial delights caused envy to enter their bosoms, at seeing their young sister possessed of such state and splendor, so much exceeding their own.

They asked her numberless questions, among others what sort of a person her husband was. Psyche replied that he was a beautiful youth, who generally spent the daytime in hunting upon the mountains.

The sisters, not satisfied with this reply, soon made her confess that she had never seen him. Then they proceeded to fill her bosom with dark suspicions. "Call to mind," they said, "the Pythian oracle that declared you destined to marry a direful and tremendous monster. The inhabitants of this valley say that your husband is a terrible and monstrous serpent, who nourishes you for a while with dainties that he may by and by devour you. Take our advice. Provide yourself with a lamp and a sharp knife; put them in concealment that your husband may not discover them, and when he is sound asleep, slip out of bed, bring forth your lamp, and see for yourself whether what they say is true or not. If it is, hesitate not to cut off the monster's head, and thereby recover your liberty."

Psyche resisted these persuasions as well as she could, but they did not fail to have their effect on her mind, and when her sisters were gone, their words and her own curiosity were too strong for her to resist. So she prepared her lamp and a sharp knife, and hid them out of sight of her husband. When he had fallen into his first sleep, she silently rose and uncovering her lamp beheld not a hideous monster, but the most beautiful and charming of the gods, with his golden ringlets wandering over his snowy neck and crimson cheek, with two dewy wings on his shoulders, whiter than snow, and with shining feathers like the tender blossoms of spring.

As she leaned the lamp over to have a better view of his face, a drop of burning oil fell on the shoulder of the god. Startled, he opened his eyes and fixed them upon her. Then, without saying a word, he spread his white wings and flew out of the window. Psyche, in vain endeavoring to follow him, fell from the window to the ground.

Cupid, beholding her as she lay in the dust, stopped his flight for an instant and said, "Oh foolish Psyche, is it thus you repay my love? After I disobeyed my mother's commands and made you my wife, will you think me a monster and cut off my head? But go; return to your sisters, whose advice you seem to think preferable to mine. I inflict no other punishment on you than to leave you for ever. Love cannot dwell with suspicion." So saying, he fled away, leaving poor Psyche prostrate on the ground, filling the place with mournful lamentations.

When she had recovered some degree of composure she looked around her, but the palace and gardens had vanished, and she found herself in the open field not far from the city where her sisters dwelt. She repaired thither and told them the whole story of her misfortunes, at which, pretending to grieve, those spiteful creatures inwardly rejoiced.

"For now," said they, "he will perhaps choose one of us." With this idea, without saying a word of her intentions, each of them rose early the next morning and ascended the mountain, and having reached the top, called upon Zephyr to receive her and bear her to his lord; then leaping up, and not being sustained by Zephyr, fell down the precipice and was dashed to pieces.

Psyche meanwhile wandered day and night, without food or repose, in search of her husband. Casting her eyes on a lofty mountain having on its brow a magnificent temple, she sighed and said to herself, "Perhaps my love, my lord, inhabits there," and directed her steps thither.

She had no sooner entered than she saw heaps of corn, some in loose ears and some in sheaves, with mingled ears of barley. Scattered about, lay sickles and rakes, and all the instruments of harvest, without order, as if thrown carelessly out of the weary reapers' hands in the sultry hours of the day.

This unseemly confusion the pious Psyche put an end to, by separating and sorting everything to its proper place and kind, believing that she ought to neglect none of the gods, but endeavor by her piety to engage them all in her behalf. The holy Ceres, whose temple it was, finding her so religiously employed, thus spoke to her, "Oh Psyche, truly worthy of our pity, though I cannot shield you from the frowns of Venus, yet I can teach you how best to allay her displeasure. Go, then, and voluntarily surrender yourself to your lady and sovereign, and try by modesty and submission to win her forgiveness, and perhaps her favor will restore you the husband you have lost."

Psyche obeyed the commands of Ceres and took her way to the temple of Venus, endeavoring to fortify her mind and ruminating on what she should say and how best propitiate the angry goddess, feeling that the issue was doubtful and perhaps fatal.

Venus received her with angry countenance. "Most undutiful and faithless of servants," said she, "do you at last remember that you really have a mistress? Or have you rather come to see your sick husband, yet laid up of the wound given him by his loving wife? You are so ill favored and disagreeable that the only way you can merit your lover must be by dint of industry and diligence. I will make trial of your housewifery." Then she ordered Psyche to be led to the storehouse of her temple, where was laid up a great quantity of wheat, barley, millet, vetches, beans, and lentils prepared for food for her pigeons, and said, "Take and separate all these grains, putting all of the same kind in a parcel by themselves, and see that you get it done before evening." Then Venus departed and left her to her task.

But Psyche, in a perfect consternation at the enormous work, sat stupid and silent, without moving a finger to the inextricable heap.

While she sat despairing, Cupid stirred up the little ant, a native of the fields, to take compassion on her. The leader of the anthill, followed by whole hosts of his six-legged subjects, approached the heap, and with the utmost diligence taking grain by grain, they separated the pile, sorting each kind to its parcel; and when it was all done, they vanished out of sight in a moment.

Venus at the approach of twilight returned from the banquet of the gods, breathing odors and crowned with roses. Seeing the task done, she exclaimed, "This is no work of yours, wicked one, but his, whom to your own and his misfortune you have enticed." So saying, she threw her a piece of black bread for her supper and went away.

Next morning Venus ordered Psyche to be called and said to her, "Behold yonder grove which stretches along the margin of the water. There you will find sheep feeding without a shepherd, with golden-shining fleeces on their backs. Go, fetch me a sample of that precious wool gathered from every one of their fleeces."

Psyche obediently went to the riverside, prepared to do her best to execute the command. But the river god inspired the reeds with harmonious murmurs, which seemed to say, "Oh maiden, severely tried, tempt not the dangerous flood, nor venture among the formidable rams on the other side, for as long as they are under the influence of the rising sun, they burn with a cruel rage to destroy mortals with their sharp horns or rude teeth. But when the noontide sun has driven the cattle to the shade, and the serene spirit of the flood has lulled them to rest, you may then cross in safety, and you will find the woolly gold sticking to the bushes and the trunks of the trees."

Thus the compassionate river god gave Psyche instructions how to accomplish her task, and by observing his directions she soon returned to Venus with her arms full of the golden fleece; but she received not the approbation of her implacable mistress, who said, "I know very well it is by none of your own doings that you have succeeded in this task, and I am not satisfied yet that you have any capacity to make yourself useful. But I have another task for you. Here, take this box and go your way to the infernal shades, and give this box to Proserpine and say, 'My mistress Venus desires you to send her a little of your beauty, for in tending her sick son she has lost some of her own.' Be not too long on your errand, for I must paint myself with it to appear at the circle of the gods and goddesses this evening."

Psyche was now satisfied that her destruction was at hand, being obliged to go with her own feet directly down to Erebus. Wherefore, to make no delay of what was not to be avoided, she goes to the top of a high tower to precipitate herself headlong, thus to descend the shortest way to the shades below. But a voice from the tower said to her, "Why, poor unlucky girl, do you design to put an end to your days in so dreadful a manner? And what cowardice makes you sink under this last danger who have been so miraculously supported in all your former?" Then the voice told her how by a certain cave she might reach the realms of Pluto, and how to avoid all the dangers of the road, to pass by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and prevail on Charon, the ferryman, to take her across the black river and bring her back again. But the voice added, "When Proserpine has given you the box filled with her beauty, of all things this is chiefly to be observed by you, that you never once open or look into the box nor allow your curiosity to pry into the treasure of the beauty of the goddesses."

Psyche, encouraged by this advice, obeyed it in all things, and taking heed to her ways traveled safely to the kingdom of Pluto. She was admitted to the palace of Proserpine, and without accepting the delicate seat or delicious banquet that was offered her, but contented with coarse bread for her food, she delivered her message from Venus. Presently the box was returned to her, shut and filled with the precious commodity. Then she returned the way she came, and glad was she to come out once more into the light of day.

But having got so far successfully through her dangerous task a longing desire seized her to examine the contents of the box. "What," said she, "shall I, the carrier of this divine beauty, not take the least bit to put on my cheeks to appear to more advantage in the eyes of my beloved husband!" So she carefully opened the box, but found nothing there of any beauty at all, but an infernal and truly Stygian sleep, which being thus set free from its prison, took possession of her, and she fell down in the midst of the road, a sleepy corpse without sense or motion.

But Cupid, being now recovered from his wound, and not able longer to bear the absence of his beloved Psyche, slipping through the smallest crack of the window of his chamber which happened to be left open, flew to the spot where Psyche lay, and gathering up the sleep from her body closed it again in the box, and waked Psyche with a light touch of one of his arrows. "Again," said he, "have you almost perished by the same curiosity. But now perform exactly the task imposed on you by my mother, and I will take care of the rest."

Then Cupid, as swift as lightning penetrating the heights of heaven, presented himself before Jupiter with his supplication. Jupiter lent a favoring ear, and pleaded the cause of the lovers so earnestly with Venus that he won her consent. On this he sent Mercury to bring Psyche up to the heavenly assembly, and when she arrived, handing her a cup of ambrosia, he said, "Drink this, Psyche, and be immortal; nor shall Cupid ever break away from the knot in which he is tied, but these nuptials shall be perpetual."

Thus Psyche became at last united to Cupid, and in due time they had a daughter born to them whose name was Pleasure.

  

An inbound RE83 from Luebeck arrives in the big hall of the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. Up to the 1970's there were no wires here and the hall was full of steam and diesel departures but today diesel is a somewhat rare sight. I still don't understand the reasoning for these diesel moves as a electric was always directly behind but not running. A big thanks to Andreas Herold for letting me know about these diesel workings.

I really loved my Bandit and Lockon squads, but I felt like I needed to consolidate to save space on my (very tiny) storage/display area, so I mooshed them together reasoning that a group of pirates would have a diverse collection of frames that have been "acquired" from various sources. Rounding things out, I've added a Luna-tick (thanks, Mark!) as a dedicated spot-bot (which still needs SSRs, but I'm out of time for today, so it'll have to wait).

 

Bandit (by Aardvark) - Brawler - shoulder armor x2, twin fusion Pike

Lockon (by Vitor Faria) - Charger - Shoulder Armor, Thruster Pack, Rifle, Hook

Luna-tick (by Mark Sakura) - watchtower YYBB - Rangefinder x2, Plasma Chaff Pod x2

 

Check out the rear-view on my stream, and please please please leave comments and critiques! ^^

Steam Tug Cervia was built in 1946 as a seagoing tug for use as a fleet auxiliary by Alexandra Hall & Company Ltd of Aberdeen, Scotland. Today she is a floating Museum still undergoing restoration in Ramsgate, Kent.

The Cervia design closely followed an early designed steam tug class called Foremost which had been conceived in 1923. The reasoning behind the recycling of this old design was due to Britain’s need to quickly replace losses, and because of the government’s rapid rebuilding programme. Using the best of pre-war tried and tested tug designs would avoid the need for new designs, and get round any delays to the Admiralties rebuild plans. Empire Raymond, as the Cervia was originally named, was part of the revised building programme ordered for operation dynamo the invasion of Europe on D-Day. In the event she was not completed until after the end of the Second World War. The tug was finished with many of the design features intended for the invasion. She had an armoured wheelhouse and gun emplacements installed. She weighed over 350 tons and was powered by a 1,000 horsepower (750 kW) triple-expansion steam engine. Her boiler had been installed with oil burners but the design allowed for rapidly reverted to coal firing. All the ships that were ordered by the British government during the War period were given the prefix Empire which was the equivalent of the "Liberty Ship" building programme in the United States of America. The Cervia is thought to be last Empire Ship surviving in the United Kingdom.

 

History

The Cervia was launched from the yard of Alexander Hall and Co. Ltd in Aberdeen, Scotland, on the 21 January 1946 and was handed to the Ministry of War Transport. In December 1946 she was sold on to the maritime towing business of William Watkins Ltd for the sum of £36,000. The business had purchased the tug using compensation it received for the vessels it lost on War service such as the tugs "Napia" and "Muria", which were sunk after collisions with mines near Ramsgate in 1939 and 1940.

In 1947 the Empire Raymond name was changed to Cervia after the Italian Adriatic resort where the Watkins family owned a holiday villa. The name had previously been used on an earlier tug owned by William Watkins which taken part in the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 returning from there with 230 troops.

 

Working life

Whilst still known as the Empire Raymond the tug was employed with other tugs in the refurbishment of the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth from her role as troop ship back to a passenger liner. During the working life of Cervia the main role that she was deployed in was as a towing and salvage tug between ports in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. When based in Ramsgate "Cervia" helped free several vessels that had run aground on the Goodwin Sand Banks off of the East-Kent coast in the vicinity of Ramsgate and Deal. Her association with the port would continue for 60 years right up to the present time.

 

Ramsgate

The Cervia, along with other ships owned by Watkins, were regularly maintained and repaired at the workshops and slipways of Claxton’s Ltd in Ramsgate. Claxton’s was subsidiary of William Watkins. In 1950 William Watkins Ltd was merged with other companies to form Ship Towage Ltd of London. As part of this company’s fleet the Cervia was involved in a serious incident. On the 25 October 1954 the Cervia was employed at Tilbury docks in London. Cervia was involved in the undocking of the P&O liner Arcadia, towing the liner stern first away from her landing stage. During this manoeuvre, the Arcadia had gone full ahead to avoid collision with liner P&O liner Orcades. The resulting wash caused Cervia to be dragged over and capsize and sink. Despite their valiant efforts to release the towing hawser the Cervia Captain Russell, MBE and five of her crew died. Another Watkins owned tug, Challenge, managed to rescue three of the crew. The subsequent court of enquiry into the case, recorded that the deaths were accidental, and the sinking was caused by the failure of a quick release pin on her towing hook. On the 28 October the Cervia herself became subject of a salvage operation. The tug was raised from the Thames riverbed and she was taken to Claxton’s Ltd in Ramsgate for a refit and then returning to service. On the 27 January 1969 Cervia was at work on the Thames when her owners merged with W.H.J. Alexander & Company Ltd to form the London Tug Company. The London Tug Company was to have a policy to phase out steam tugs in favour of more modern diesel vessels. The modernization of the fleet went ahead at speed and by 1971 the Cervia was laid up at Sheerness. It was hoped a buyer could be found or the tug would go to the breakers. The Cervia was offered to a Michael List-Brain a potential buyer who wished to preserve her. The Board of London Tugs agreed to her sale "as is, where lies", for the sum of £3,500. Mr List-Brain purchased the ‘‘Cervia’’ in April 1973 and took possession at Poplar Docks, London where she had been laid up. The tug then was given a refit and was back in steam by the summer.

  

She was used on the River Medway for both for pleasure trips and for her new owner to familiarize himself with her. It was envisaged that Cervia would become a part of a new organisation to be called "The Medway Maritime Museum" This was the idea of the United Kingdoms foremost ship preservationists, Martin Stevens. Unfortunately by 1974, the plans faltered when the Medway Council proved to be unable to provide sufficient funding for the project and with having neither premises nor any money the original museum project looked very precarious. With the fledgling museum’s lack of income, List-Brain and Stevens decided that one solution was to put the Cervia back to work in the towing business. At this time exploration in the North sea for gas and oil was begging to pick up in pace. This provided an ideal opportunity for the Cervia to earn her keep again. The Cervia was contracted to a construction firm based on the Medway. The construction firm of Howard Doris needed all manner of craft to assist with oil rig construction projects. In November 1974 Cervia to towed a crane barge to the Humber. She completed the contract with no problems, but with the cost of a very rapid re-equipping and complete lack of understanding as to the economics of marine towage meant the nett profit from this first towing contract was only £7.00. Following the contract with Howard Doris and the small profit, List-Brain and Stevens decided to put the fledgling business on a more professional business footing. A professional crew was employed and throughout 1975 several more successful towing contracts were undertaken by the Cervia all around the coast of the United Kingdom. During this time Cervia continued to prove her reliability working solidly for this twelve-month period except for a small period of time spent on essential boiler cleaning and maintenance. So successful was the business and the increasing demands placed on it, a proper company was set up which was called International Towing Ltd. ITL, as the company was abbreviated to, added three more steam tugs to her books to keep up with demand. These’s tugs were ST Hercules, ST Hero and ST Goliath.

Like Watkins before them, International Towing Ltd. decided to choose Ramsgate as their home port. The knock on effect of these decisions gave a welcome boost to the local economy of Ramsgate which saw a resurgence of commercial ship repairing in the harbour. Cervia and the three other tugs were kept very busy with a variety of jobs both in the North Sea and with coastal towage contracts. In early 1977two of the tugs of ITL, ST Hercules and ST Hero were taken out of service and returned to the Medway Maritime Trust, under the guidance of Martin Stevens. Nonetheless, ITL saw its business rapidly expand becoming an international operation all thanks to the reliability and hard work of Cervia and her sister tugs. To meet customer demands, Cervia and Goliath were joined further modern deep sea diesel powered tugs in 1978 by the 1980s, ITL’s fleet had grown to include the two most powerful tugs in the northern hemisphere and the business was sold off to the Far East. Cervia carried on working for ITL until 1983. Her last contract was to act as port tug for the new cross-channel ferry service at Ramsgate. The contract was terminated when the ferry service failed to operate a regular service due to the difficult economic climate of the early 1980s. Cervia was mothballed alongside the East Pier at Ramsgate Royal Harbour.

 

It was after this time that Cervia fulfilled a different role as a film location in an episode of the BBC comedy series Ripping Yarns called The Curse of the Claw with Michael Palin. Cervia had also been used in BBC production of Rogue Male starring Peter O'Toole in the mid-seventies. She was also the subject of a 1986 children's book, Cervia the Steam Tug, written and illustrated by Roger Ian Sacks in support of the East Kent Maritime Trust's Ramsgate Maritime Museum. After negotiations between Cervia’s owners and Thanet District Council's Harbour Master and his deputy, the tug was loaned and placed in the care of Ramsgate Maritime Museum, run by the East Kent Maritime Trust in July 1985. Later in July she was taken to moorings in John Smeaton's Historic Dry Dock. Funding was then secured for restoration work to be carried out on the Cervia. She was repainted to her original working livery of William Watkins days. A new mast was also fitted and her crew accommodation was refurbished to provide areas for museum displays. In 1986 Cervia was visited by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. To mark Cervia's 50th birthday a specialist engineer John Veneer oversaw restoration of the tugs 1,000 horsepower engine to full working order. Cervia became the centre point of the 'Historic Harbour' initiative and was joined by other vessels from the maritime museum's collection and privately owned classic boats. The ST Cervia now is moored in Ramsgate harbour, a rare survivor of steam ship development. She is the last seagoing steam tug to survive in UK waters, and she was also the last to work commercially.

 

Sorry about the long explanation but thought it worth the tale!

 

MY THANKS FOR ALL YOUR VISITS

   

Wooh boy, this has been a crazy building process. What started as a moc for BS01's contest turned into a passion project, that has really challenged what I'm used to building. It likely would have been done sooner, but the legs really stumped me for sometime. I tried so hard to keep it in the style of G1 titans, but I decided to eventually scrap that idea and went with what you see now, likely for the better. Nearly depleted my stock of ball pieces.

 

But regardless this is perhaps the favorite Moc I've built to date, given just how fun/challenging it was to build.

 

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Now I posted multiple preview pictures of this moc, some during the building process, and one of the comments I saw often was folks noticing I was removing lime green from Nocturn's color scheme. And of course I always told them I had a canon/lore reason that I would explain when the moc was completed. So about time I explain that.

 

In the story, we know Nocturn is able to regrow limbs, and that strangely Nocturn's tentacle was silver... Would this not imply that the more organic parts of Nocturn are silver naturally? Perhaps the green was merely armor added to signify his place in Ehlek's army? I don't know for sure, but I decided to take the organic=silver theory and run with it.

 

As such in my headcanon for this version of Nocturn, the blue sections of Nocturn are suppose to be parts of his body that have aged, with the carapace growing over segments of his body, with the silver sections being more fleshy and less armored.

 

This also explains why his upper right arm is all silver, as in canon he lost it in a fight with Pridak, which still works for my version, and given his species is able to regrow limbs it makes sense that it grew back silver, as it's not had the time to regrow the carapace. Hence why it also wields a small dagger, as it's weaker currently in it's current stage of growth.

 

Totally didn't come up with that excuse last minute when I ran out of Takadox armor.

 

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You might ask what the heck is going on with Nocturn's head, and that is a valid question that doesn't have a valid answer. I never liked Nocturn's set head, so instead I sought to give him a better head that still kept the "bestial" appearance. I like to think I succeeded in that goal. Also you might notice a bit of red "inside" the mouth in some pics, and that is there just to give some realism. Maybe it's a tongue, or maybe it's the inside? I don't know.

 

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The theme of BS01's contest originally was to take a character that is normally good or bad and flip it. So that is what I tried to do with Nocturn. While this version of Nocturn was still banished to the pit for destroying his homeland, his imprisonment saw self-reflection, and a desire to change, to do good. To protect.

 

Fast forward to mahri-nui sinking, and after the Barraki started harassing the Matoran, you saw Nocturn become an ally, a protector of Mahri-nui, seeing it as a way to redeem himself.

 

He's still not the brightest of light bulbs, but he's more of a gentle giant at this point. If canonically he's smart enough to realize he isn't wanted in the Matoran Universe, he's smart enough to redeem himself.

 

Also you might ask why dual axes? Well personally I find an axe to be a noble weapon, a weapon meant to protect versus attack. What I mean by this, is let's take knights for example. Those knights wielding swords and spears would go off to fight the evil, thus seeking it down, whereas the Knights wielding the axes would remain home, ready to defend against the evil when it comes to them.

 

It's weird mental imaging of such, but eh I like my reasoning. Plus axes are typically slower weapons than say swords, making them better for reactionary fighting, aka protecting.

 

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Also credit to Logan for the lower arm design, which is based off the design he used on his Hydraxon moc.

Uma idéia é uma forma (como um pensamento) formado pela consciência (incluindo mente), através do processo de ideação. Capacidade humana para contemplar idéias está associado com a capacidade de raciocínio, a auto-reflexão, e da capacidade de adquirir e aplicar intelecto, intuição, inspiração, etc.

 

An idea is a form (such as a thought) formed by consciousness (including mind) through the process of ideation. Human capability to contemplate ideas is associated with the ability of reasoning, self-reflection, and of the ability to acquire and apply intellect, intuition, inspiration, etc.

 

Fonte/Font: Wikipedia

 

Explored February 08, 2009

 

Veja em 3D / See on 3D

 

A westbound BNSF mixed manifest cuts the strangely tall ex-ATSF Searchlights at Atwood, Ca on the San Bernardino Subdivision. As with all old things, these searchlights are surely bound to be replaced soon as almost all other non-bridge mounted searchlights in the area have been replaced. These particular searchlights are unique due to their height and I have not seen signals this tall anywhere else other than yards. If anyone knows the reasoning/story behind them please share!

First things first, HBW!

 

This is a roll of Kodak Verichrome Pan 120, a black and white 120 roll film for medium format cameras. It had been sat in the Yashica D that I recently acquired from eBay. Both the film and the camera were introduced in the 1950's so it is anyone's guess as to how long it's been in there. Going by the old style Kodak logo, I am going to guess the 70's but feel free to add your guess/informed reasoning in the comments :)

 

It was unexposed and loaded into the camera without being wound to the first frame. I wound it to the first frame testing the workings of the camera and then opened the camera exposing the first frame. I shut it back up reasonably quickly and am hoping I only borked the first three or so frames. At this point, I didn't know what the film was or its rated speed. I gambled and exposed it as a 100 ISO film. Turns out it is rated at 125. Hoping to drop it off to a developer tomorrow and see what happens, should be interesting.

 

Update: The results were only a couple of usable frames towards the end of the roll, here and here

An eastbound CO/CP stock train for Upminster arrives. I'm reasoning it's Becontree because there's a train indicator (which rules out Hornchurch) and there's no bay platform (which rules out Dagenham East. A class 302 LT&S line train is passing on the left.

 

I think it was late in the afternoon, and thus pretty gloomy under the canopies - note the lights are on. Arguably not worth taking the photograph, but I think I've just about made the best of it lol.

Wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land?

 

Here is a divination tool: the water mirror. It makes it possible to see, through our third eye, images of the future, but also, even if this use is less popular, past or future lives, entities... and many other things that you will discover during your practice if you try the experiment. To limit the mirror of water to a mere divinatory tool would be to amputate it from much of its use and mystery. However, as with any esoteric practice, you must feel ready to use it, it is not a question of going blindly, as this experience can be shocking for some people depending on how the session unfolds. You don't need a particular water level, no, you just have to feel ready and approach this tool and this experience with a lot of respect.

The Aztec god of night, Tzcatlipoca, is even supposed to have carried a magic mirror that enveloped his enemies in clouds of smoke. ... The first recorded case of mirror divination (known as catoptromancy) can be traced back to ancient China, India, Persia and Roma, where small metal mirrors were used to predict the life expectancy of the sick.CATOPTROMANCY. AND. THE. MAGIC. MIRROR. Cataptromancy is a form of divination using reflective surfaces, such as a mirror, water or some other suitable surface. Both the Magic Mirror and the Mandala may be used individually, by themselves as separate tools for externalising the consciousness.

 

Practice: To begin with, you need to find a water mirror, or if you don't have one, a normal mirror that you will use in the half-light, lit by one or two candles if you wish, or nothing at all if you see enough, it's up to you to judge when the time comes. Anyway, you will only have to use this mirror ONLY for this practice, it is extremely important (whether you dedicate it or not). And when you don't use it I advise you to cover it with a cloth, because once it has been used it becomes a kind of door, a link, and you will see, you will feel its power, the energy that will come out of it. Sit in front of your mirror, comfortably, and meditate for a few minutes on what you are going to do, your goal... When you feel ready, fix your third eye, or your eyes, through the mirror. After a while your eyes will sting you, which is normal, over time this sensation will fade. You can burn incense and arrange some crystals to help you during this exercise. Of course the crystals will vary according to your purpose and your affinities with them. Then the first phase will slowly set in place, you will see your orbits become black and your face unravel to become a skull before disappearing. This step can be frightening if you're not ready enough and I think it may be partly done to push some back, but not just that of course. When your skull disappears from the mirror everything can begin, take your time and observe! You have been able to read various experiments on the Internet, some of them do not fix their reflection, and therefore do not go through the "skull"stage. It's up to you to see what appeals to you the most, and therefore, what's best for you. As with all esoteric practices, there are always several ways to achieve the same result:) This is Catoptromancy (Gk. κάτοπτρον, katoptron, "mirror," and μαντεία, manteia, "divination"), also known as captromancy or enoptromancy, is divination using a mirror.Catoptromancy is a word you do not hear very often. Its meaning, however, is something which just about everyone knows about. Catoptromancy is a word derived from Greek which basically means “Mirrors in Divination”. The Evil Queen in Snow White asking for information by saying “Mirror, mirror on the wall” and old folk games of looking into a mirror to see the image of a future spouse are two example of catoptromancy. Another example – albeit a rather indirect one –is the mirror in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott: this mirror is not magical from the standpoint that it, like any other mirror, simply reflects what is happening. However, the mirror crack’d from side to side the moment the Lady of Shalott fell under the curse, thus foretelling her imminent death. Therefore, this can be considered an example of catoptromancy or the use of a magical mirror.

 

An ancient Mesoamerican artifact is seen along its own reflection in an ancient Mesoamerican mirror with a carved wooden frame. While authorities on the subject of ancient Mesoamerican culture don't yet acknowledge these things, they are in no way restrained, ironically, from offering every praise short of it. Regarding the mirrors in general, Valliant, in "The Aztecs of Mexico, writes (pg. 116): "The making of the mirrors called much ingenuity into play... Blocks of obsidian were sometimes polished to produce an eerie and mysterious reflection. However, iron pyrites, burnished and shaped, were more common; and rarer examples had thin pyrite flakes laid in a mosaic and glued to a background of wood or shell. In another technique used on the coast the artisan detached a surface of pyrites in its matrix of slate, burnishing one side and carving the other to fashion a mirror with a carved back. One example, at least, is known of a mirror with marcasite with its surface ground as to produce a magnified reflection". Such praise reveals at the very least mundane sophistication like that which is also freely given regarding the optics marvels of the ancient orient. Similarly, Michael D. Coe, in "Mexico", writes: Certain Olmec sculptures and figurines show persons wearing pectorals of concave shape around the neck, and such have actually come to light in offerings, These oddly enough turned out to be concave mirrors of magnetite and ilmenite, the reflecting surfaces polished to optical specifications. What were they used for? Experiments have shown that they can not only start fires, but also throw images on flat surfaces like a camera lucida. They were pierced for suspension, and one can imagine the hocus-pocus which some mighty Olmec preist was able to perform with one of these. Imagine, indeed. Whether or not the priest could have impressed anyone, however, when the underlying principles are captured by every artist and given away to every citizen with nearly every gesture of the cultures in question, every artwork or every holiday, is another story altogether. Still, these fabulous optical properties, while certainly making solid testimony that these ancient people had a remarkably advanced grasp of sophisticated optics, may only be ideographic markers- outward superficial properties acting as labels for the even more incredible powers that these devices were made to possess. Tezcatlipoca, an Aztec deity whose name literally means, "Smoking Mirror", may be a fictitious contrivance used to label literature that allegorically describes the making, use, and principles of these mirrors. While the phrase "smoking mirrors" has even found its way into modern politics, no one seems to have a substantial clue to its origin. In the case of Tezcatlipoca, the "smoke" may have been a smudge or incense used to activate the mirrors; Mexican mugwort or a closely related specie is very probable.

This may yet prove to be another viable alternative to Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific crossing to explaining the extreme degree of cultural parallels between peoples normally spoken of as isolated from one another; with the aid of such devices, they may have in fact been in constant communication. Here's another twist or two: ancient Egyptian mirrors often contain the same familiar birds as magick mirrors of Greece and elsewhere (left), but sometimes they don't (right), which remarkably either evokes the crescent as a magnetic symbols, or reduces the symbol of artificial intelligence to the universal feature of a face of a body of a human, rather suggestive of the artificial intelligence labeling of Crystal Skulls and Skull Oracles.The symbols are simple, but the rules do tend to vary somewhat.

This picture above in Alsace remain, "Sobek, god of a city called Crocodilopolis" (Lionel Casson, "Ancient Egypt", pg. 73), has strong elements of both magick mirrors and oracular skulls and points in the direction of the Egyptian and Vedic "mystical" Solar science .It also shows another variation on the frog symbol that remains within the reptilian.;The peculiar details of the window to other worlds may also encode details about the harmonic physics used in its creation or operation, like the designs on the Celtic magick mirrors, above. The harmonic science of magick mirrors and time cameras (the counter magnetic amplifier, shown below, could easily classify as a harmonic device, perhaps a magnetic harmonic resonator) brings us to an interesting place in the burgeoning science of hyperdimensional physics because we have all the pieces of how the ancients would have utilized the harmonic energy grid of the earth, but we may not yet be able to account for the absence of hundreds of pages of equations governing every detail and alignment of the ancient landmarks that appear on the predicted nodal points of world grid maps. The harmonic markings and symbols on many magick mirror devices may be telling us that these devices not only run on the same principles that are relevant to this planetary grid science, but implying they had a purpose as tools to abbreviate hard work of calculating such incredible aspects. One other trend or common denominator in various literature on the subject resembles what may be equivalent applications of Howard Wachpress' Unpaired Magnetic Pole Levitation design, comprised of odd/even poles made when irregular carvings or geometries are magnetized (The actual example on the cover of Tyson's book is one example, although he does not seem to be aware that this principle may be at work; other examples might be found in Lewis Spence's "Encyclopedia of Occultism"; the subject is also treated in De Givry's book). This design for a magnetic ship by Hughes can be found in George Frederick Kunz, "Curious Lore of Precious Stones", pg. 53. It originates from Valentini, "Museum Museorum," pt. III, Franckfurt am Mayn, 1714, pg. 35. Kunz's caption tells us that coral-agates were to be set in the network above the pilot, which was "supposed to possess such magnetic powers as to keep the craft aloft". Magnetic levitation designs have beeen, and remain contemporary with magnetic magic mirrors. The cover of Tyson's remarkable book. Whether or not the author is consciously aware of it, the mirror which is shown and which the book contains instructions for making, is one of a class of a great many of at least the last five centuries, whose number of engravings or the number of characters in cardinal points recalls the odd-even magnetic polar pairing of Howard Wachpress' magnetic levitation design. While the exact mechanism may be difficult to ascertain, mostly because the possibilities are particular numerous and some are inevitably complex, the connection in both form and function is immediately obvious. There may be little difference in many applications between the unpaired magnetic pole levitation system and the counter magnetic amplifier of Active Reseach and Development's time camera, or between the methods that Ernetti uses. Here, astrological glyphs are set against sides of the mirror frame. It is likewise a trend to use Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) with crystal balls and magic mirrors; Mugwort is also known as "Compass Plant" or here on the picture like a "Compass Boat" because it is one of those plants which aligns its leaves along a north/south magnetic axis as if it were magnetized. It may also affect human endocrine systems which interact with magnetism and or gravity. At left is Howard Wachpress' invention depicted in it's patent diagram. At right below, the counter magnetic amplifier in the Time Cameras offered by Active Research and Development. Note that the latter, intriguingly, is said to rely on Hieronymous' "Eloptics", and energy he named that has both the properties of ELectricity and OPTIC energy, or light.

Descriptions of superconducted electricity accelerating to light-like velocities certainly comes to mind; the device might also rely on various principles of symmetry as well as its magnetic attributes. The actual tuning system of one of ARD's more advanced models relies on skin electricity translating thought patterns for its tuning mode. Rather than being preposterous, this may be both a logical extension of the latest in physics and biology when the two fields are effectively joined, and such technology could become part of an amazing genera of devices. Whatever the individual believes about the artifacts gathered from the "Roswell Crash", the footage shows technology that may be astonishingly similar. This principle of translation may be intrinsic to how a great deal of true magick that involves mental processes is accomplished. Also helping to render plausibility is the fact that certain superconducting magnetic devices, known as SQUIDs, are said to amongst, if not the only, devices thus known capable of imaging energies that come from the hands of physic healers who perform "laying on of hands". If such technologies can interact with such forces, they can perhaps also modulate or even simulate them. Such technology, besides having tremendous potential in medical diagnostics, also has potentials in even more futuristic medicine and biology. Time cameras may be employed to retrieve biological pattern data for varied applications from identifying and reconstituting lost and even unknown species, to providing data about structure prior to disease states for reconstruction of biological systems. Such far-flung notions are precisely what some of the markings on the ancient Mesoamerican mirrors directly imply. Not at all surprisingly, T.G. Hieronymous' scientific achievements not only include his eloptics technology and patents, but his amazing Cosmiculture" wherein he succeeded in growing plants without sunlight, but rather with some mysterious force carried by electrical conductors from a solar plate. Robert Pavlita's amazing "Psychotronic" motor or generator (left), featured in Ostrander and Schroeder's classic, "Handbook of Psychic Discoveries" (Photo 28), created with a five part structure which may pit against two energetic poles, may turn out to be largely motivated by the same effect of unpaired poles as Howard Wachpress' levitator. Its structure perhaps not coincidentally recalls the features of hyperdimensional signatures on planetary magnetic poles in the solar system (see above).

At right, the well-known levitating stone raised by 11 people chanting "Qamar Ali Dervish", noted in Andrew Tomas' "We Are Not the First" and by many others, including KeelyNet files, may inevitably be primarily accomplished the same way, through the Wachpressian technology that may simply be another spin on the familiar theme of unipolar or homopolar dynamos, since the singular pole, real or contrived, most likely also serves as an "odd pole out". The Vimaanika-Shastra, an ancient Sanskrit text which describes in detail the making and operation of flying machine or "flying saucers", details the construction and use of a number of mirrors with unusual properties. While any of the many formulas in this vast collection whose ingredients can be successfully translated and identified could be thusly explained, or by following the instructions and analyzing the results, any eventual similarity between the workings of these mirrors and other ancient magick mirrors could help serve as a bridge toward linking the peculiar and complex science of this ancient Vedic text to the appropriate modern, if unusual, concepts and terminology.

From the Vimaanika-Shastra, found in 1908 in the Royal Baroda Library, translated by G. R. Joyser, and found in its entirety in "Vimana Aircraft of Ancient India and Atlantis" by David Hatcher Childress: "Darpanaadhikaranam: Mirrors and Lenses Mahrishi Bharadwaaja: "Darpanaashcha" Sootra 1

"Lenses": Bodhaananda Vritti: This chapter deals with the mirrors and lenses which are required to be installed in the vimaana. There are seven different ones. Their names are given by Lalla in "Mukura-kalpa" as Vishwakriyaa darpanana, or television mirror, Shaktyaakarshana darpana or power-capturing-mirror, Vyroopya darpana or appearance changing mirror, Kuntinee darpana, Pinjulaa darpana, Guhaagarbha darpana, and Rowdree darpana or terrifying darpana. Vishwakriyaa darpana is to be fixed on a revolving stand near the pilot so that he cold observe whatever is happening outside on all sides. Its manufacture is thus described in Kriyaasaara: Two parts of stava, 2 parts of shundilaka, one part of eagle bone, 5 parts of mercury, 2 parts of the foot-nails of the sinchoranee, 6 parts of mica, 5 parts of red lead, 8 parts of pearl dust, 18 parts of the eyeballs of sowmyaka fish, one part burning coal, 8 parts of snake’s slough, 3 parts of eye pigment, 6 parts of maatrunna, 10 parts of granite sand, 8 parts of salt, 4 of lead, 2 parts of sea foam, 3 parts white throated eagle’s skin, 7 parts of bamboo salt, 5 parts of vyraajya or white keg tree bark, these ingreedients should be purified, and weighed, and filled in a beaked crucible and placed in the furnace called chandodara and subjected to a 800 degree heat, and when duly liquified, should be poured into the funnel of the kara-darpana yantra or hand-mirror mold. The result will be an excellent mirror in which will be reproduced minature details of the world outside." Those familiar with ancient formulas, however peculiar their ingredients, know far better than to dismiss them. Information in "The Curious Lore of Precious Stones" by George Frederick Kunz gives more instances of applying minerals containing iron being applied to such magickal contrivances. (interestingly, this book makes detailed mention of a design for a flying craft by a Brazilian priest in the 1700's that may be also very much in essence like Wachpress's design mentioned above!). (Magic Screens of Ancient Asia are also mentioned in some of the above texts, a possibly closely related principle, where screens were made that show images inside the human body, probably equal to or greater than out own modern medical imaging.) What doesn't tie in to this topic? This photo, also appearing on Richard Hoagland's "Enterprise Mission" site on his pages on Hyperdimesional Physics , of one of Saturn's magnetic poles shows the hexagonal polar region that has been found on planets throughout the solar system, including Uranus and Mars, and most recently, the sun itself. Note that there's not only a hexagon (6 sides) but a 5-armed "star" shape, our familiar unpaired numerical matching, occurring on the magnetic poles of celestial bodies. (It certainly thereby makes some implications about the nature and purposes of pentagrams as well; they could scarcely be Satan's playthings and yet God's own signature as creator!)

Just as Hoagland implies how hyperdimensional physics was encoded by ancient peoples on earth and possibly elsewhere, the method of sending information through hyperspace may already be at work in magick mirrors, possibly due to angular momentum effects of the magnetic fields rotating due to unpaired pole effects. The theory behind magick mirrors may not just be a communications utility, it may shed light on celestial mechanics, and the same technology may provide sane amounts of free energy for human use. And that may only be the beginning... As to the traditions of Ancient Wisdom... amongst the other enlightenment that can be found amongst them, as meaning layers over meaning, upheld and facilitated by the science of Correspondences, we might find significant details of these devices and rites labeled with allusions that fall under the motif of reflection: Echo and Narcissus, Perseus and Medusa... just as we may find them under the theme of closeness to the waterside, since it is part of Pausanius' account of Catoptromancy: Romulus and Remus, Temperance in the Tarot, The Star in the Tarot, Echo and Narcissus once again, etc., etc.... Someday, even if the phone company has shut you off, you may be able to summon help in an emergency, "As the crow flies", and never be obstructed from communion with those whom you love... but the technology also promises to be of inestimable value in medicine and healing as well.

Catoptromancy should not be confused with crystal gazing, although both divinatory methods fall under the category of “scrying” – looking into water, a mirror, a crystal or any other transparent object in order to see the future or contact a supernatural entity.Pausanias, an ancient Greek traveler, described as follows: Before the Temple of Ceres at Patras, there was a fountain, separated from the temple by a wall, and there was an oracle, very truthful, not for all events, but for the sick only. The sick person let down a mirror, suspended by a thread till its base touched the surface of the water, having first prayed to the goddess and offered incense. Then looking in the mirror, he saw the presage of death or recovery, according as the face appeared fresh and healthy, or of a ghastly aspect.This method of divination has been frequently used in various forms since ancient times on mirrors made of polished metal: copper, bronze, iron, silver or gold. There are traces of it in Chaldea and Mesopotamia. Of course, the surface of water or any other reflective surface was also suitable2. The Sagas of Thessaly traced on mirrors their sibylline formulas with blood: immediately the moon - another mirror - reflected these bloody characters, then the answer was imprinted on its silver crescent. This is how the oracle was rendered "3. In his Description of Greece (around 174) Pausanias le Périégète writes in his Description of Greece:

In front of this temple there is a fountain which on the side of the temple itself is closed by a wall of dry stones; outside there is a path that goes down. It is claimed that this fountain makes oracles that never deceive; it is consulted not on all kinds of affairs, but only on the state of the sick. A mirror is attached to the end of a string and held suspended above the fountain so that only the end touches the water. Then prayers are made to the Goddess, perfumes are burned in her honour, and as soon as we look in the mirror we see if the sick person will return to health or die; this kind of divination does not extend further. ».The Roman Emperor Didius Julianus (193) had similar practices as Spartianus relates: Julianus even resorted to this kind of divination, which is done with the help of a mirror, in which, it is said, children see the future, after their eyes and heads have been subjected to certain enchantments. It is claimed that, in this circumstance, the child lives in the mirror when Severus arrives and Julianus leaves.

The Renaissance also had its share of divinations by mirrors, the doctor Jean Fernel 1497-1558 relates: The gestures of these figures were so expressive that each of the assistants, who saw like him in the mirror, could well understand their mimicry. One evening in 1559, Cosme Ruggieri, the magician of Catherine de Médicis, used it at the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire to predict to the Queen Mother Queen the duration of the reign of her sons, who had to make as many turns on themselves as they had spent years on the throne. Francis II made a tour, Charles IX fourteen, Henry III fifteen and the Prince of Navarre (the future Henry IV) twenty-one8. In November 1582 John Dee, the Magician of Elizabeth I of England, saw the Uriel Angel appear at his window one evening. He gave her a polished black stone which, when fixed with insistence, showed up beings capable of telling the future. This strange dark mirror is currently on display in the British Museum. Catoptromancy is quite common in the folk magic of nearly every country. For centuries, mirrors were considered powerful tools: if they could capture physical images of the world, perhaps they could also capture the supernatural. To this day, it is not uncommon in many Eastern European countries for surviving family members to cover the mirrors or turn them to face the wall after a person in the household has died, for fear the recently released soul may become caught inside the mirror. Mirrors have often been used as a tool in folk magic. One of the most common applications of catoptromancy is the old ritual, which every culture seems to have a variation of, that involves a young woman looking into a mirror in the hopes that the face of her future husband will be revealed. Sometimes, this game would be taken quite seriously and there would be other rules regarding the age of the girl and what she may or may not have been wearing, as well as what day of the year was the best for performing the ritual.

 

Many young women may have been scared away from playing this game by the possibility that she may in fact see an image of the Golden House in the mirror. This would mean that manor would be full kindness to accept holistic's students. Frederick II was the first Germanic and Italian Emperor, he had brought the divinatory sciences back to Alsace and his Sicilian doctors who of course spoke Arabic. The Egyptians' divination and secrets were part of the Moorish culture, they had assimilated the Persian culture with Zarathustra as well as the Greek culture with Plato, or the Egyptians with Hermes-Thot. The golden manor is reflected in this boat asleep in the waves of a regenerating winter, it reminds us of the memory of the last Germanic Emperor William II and his golden eagle floating between two waters in the gable which traces its extended wings, we are ready for a flight to the hidden dimension of a reversible World. Wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land?

Nearer to us, J. T Reinaud (1795-1867), Orientalist commenting at the beginning of the 19th century on the museum of the Duke of Blacas, writes: The Orientals also have magical mirrors in which they imagine themselves to be able to reveal the angels, the archangels; by perfuming the mirror, by fasting for seven days and keeping the most severe retreat, one becomes able to see, either with one's own eyes or those of a virgin or a child, the angels that one desires to evoke.

Today, catoptromancery is still widely used in sub-Saharan Africa.Interpretations[edit | modify code] One can give two kinds of interpretations to visions obtained in mirrors. First of all, these visions are of dreamlike, hypnotic or hallucinatory nature, provoked by the atmosphere and rituals frequently involving semi-darkness, a long period of concentration sometimes preceded by fasting and the use of fumigations that can be hallucinogenic (see above). As psychologist Pierre Janet writes: People who have seen in these mirrors will certainly say,"I knew nothing of all this. Well, I have to tell you that your statement is inaccurate. You knew very well what you saw appearing. They are memories acquired, at fixed dates, recorded knowledge, daydreams and reasoning already done. » From the Renaissance onwards, the use of techniques to obtain all sorts of illusions using semitransparent or judiciously arranged mirrors was added to this, and Jean-Baptiste Porta, like this one, described in great detail at that time: How can we make a mirror out of several full mirrors, to which, at the same time, several effigies will appear "12, techniques still used today by illusionists.

 

Vision of her future husband on Halloween night. According to Anglo-Saxon tradition, a young girl presenting herself in front of a mirror with a candle lit by hand during Halloween night would see the face of her future husband pass by... or a skull if she had to die before her marriage! A legend has it that by performing a certain ritual in front of a mirror on the night of Epiphany we could see ourselves as we were at the time of his death. There is also the urban legend of Bloody-Mary, which has many variations. If you place yourself in front of a mirror in a dark room (a bathroom for example), lit only by a candle, and you pronounce thirteen times in a row the name "Bloody Mary" it appears the bloody face of a woman who attacks you...With the exception of the Magic Mirror in Snow White, the best example of catoptromancy is the old Halloween party game “Bloody Mary”. The tradition developed out of the old fashioned attempt to see the face of your future spouse. The idea of calling on “Bloody Mary” started during the Elizabethan Era: A young, Protestant woman, hopeful for a good life with a future husband and lots of children, would look into the mirror and taunt the ghost of the Catholic queen Bloody Mary, a woman who had been physically unable to produce an heir. As the years went by, the religious tensions which created the Bloody Mary game were forgotten. Eventually, the game was somehow combined with the urban legend of Bloody Mary, a horrifying and perhaps vengeful specter (again, with variations from different eras and cultures). After this happened, the idea of it being a ritual for the discovery your future spouse was jettisoned as well. Anytime Bloody Mary is called on now, it is just a simple dare or Halloween prank, usually played by young children, in order to cause a good scare.

A type of divination with a mirror which the second century AD Greek traveler Pausanius described as follows: "Before the Temple of Ceres at Patras, there was a fountain, separated from the temple by a wall, and there was an oracle, very truthful, not for all events, but for the sick only. The sick person let down a mirror, suspended by a thread till its based touched the surface of the water, having first prayed to the goddess and offered incense. Then looking in the mirror, he saw the presage of death or recovery, according as the face appeared fresh and healthy, or of a ghastly aspect." Another divinatory method of using a mirror was to place it at the back of a boy's or girl's head when their eyes were bandaged shut. In Thessaly the responses appeared in characters of blood on the face of the moon, probably projected in the mirror. This practiced was derived by the Thessalian sorceresses from the Persians who wanted to establish their religion and mystical rituals in the countries which they invaded. A.G.H.

 

Catoptromancy is the technique used by Snow White's evil mother-in-law in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's famous tale:"Little mirror, little mirror on the wall, which is the most beautiful of the whole country? ». In Lewis Carol's tale, Alice in Wonderland passes through the fantastic universe on the other side of the mirror.Grimms’ Schneewittchen or Snow White is one of the oldest and most famous stories in the world. Catoptromancy is a very important part of this tale – in fact, one could easily say that the entire story centers around catptromancy. The action all starts when the Evil Queen asks “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

The Mirror or the Queen’s use of catoptromancy in the story is what causes her to want to kill Snow White. And, in turn, it is what leads the heroine into home of the Seven Dwarfs. The Mirror carries the story further by refusing to answer the Queen’s question – “Who is the fairest of them all?” – in a way she would like. Through the Mirror, the Queen knows that her first two attempts to murder Snow White have failed, and she eventually uses the seemingly effective poisoned apple to rid herself of her rival.Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand,- The Evil Queen’s invocation of the mirror in the Grimms’ original German. A magical mirror, in some form, has played a part in probably every adaptation of Snow White that has ever been made. This is not only because of the importance of catoptromancy in folklore, but also because this story expounds on the difference between vanity and beauty.

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catoptromancy

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FBTB are once again running an extremely cool competition with generous prizes. This one is to build a Hybrid fighter (or ugly) from two vehicles appearing in the Star Wars universe... the rules can be found here

 

Here's the reasoning/story behind my entry:

 

After the battle of Hoth, there was one stranded survivor* left on the ice planet - a Rebel pilot, Squash E. Starbar.

 

Starbar awoke from a minor concussion amongst some wreckage a day after the Rebellion had fled (the Empire had left their debris and dead behind without much care for them or the environmental impact).

 

Luckily and more important, conveniently, Starbar's T-47 Rebel Snowspeeder had crashed into the collapsed body of an AT-AT. Insulated from the cold, and well kitted out with an 'A' Team style 'garage' of tools, Starbar was able to salvage the wings from his snowspeeder. He needed a new cockpit though, one with viable controls, as the snowspeeder was burnt out. Starbar ventured out onto the ice to find something usable and lucked upon a decapitated AT-ST. Using the winch cable from his Snowspeeder, he managed to haul the AT-ST head close enough to his AT-AT base to work during the day.

 

Once his hybrid fighter was complete structure-wise Starbar encounter one final problem preventing him from leaving the sub-zero planet... lubrication for the air brakes and also, fuel!

 

As it turned out, there were rather a large number of dead Tauntauns in the vicinity too and Starbar discovered that the Tauntaun's natural oils (that smelled so bad), in larger quantities were actually a phenomenally effective lubricant... The blubber, guts and other assorted offal once purified and refined down also created a particularly potent rocket fuel!

 

A disappointing consequence however of this was the smell - which also refined and increased in potency...

 

So, Starbar's ST-Speeder hybrid is not only ugly, but it stinks too... and you thought it just looked bad on the outside.

     

*I don't care if there's some cruddy expanded universe twaddle that I'm contradicting with this.

Ok... I'm not actually in Austria right now, geez. I wish!!!!!

 

Here's the lowdown, I've been tagged by none other than my good buddy, Sergio.

(Thanks a lot!)

The rules are:

 

1. Sit down.

2. take a picture of yourself

3. Upload it.

 

Since being tagged kind of interferes with the theme I'm going for on my stream I have uploaded a picture of me with my beautiful girlfriend Laurie in Austria. I guess it's about time you guys finally saw the two professional travelers! By this point we were getting a little weathered, but still cute nonetheless, especially Laurie! Isn't she adorable?! As for me I look exactly like my buddy icon, haha, just more tired.

 

Travel Check List

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

Black Hoodies to hide the dirt ✓

Hair tied in a bun and a shaved head to save money on haircuts ✓

A month in to our last run around Eastern Europe after being overseas for over a year and still having the time of our lives ✓

 

This means today you get two pictures of me for the price of one! Because I want to still play by the rules.

 

The moment I was tagged I was at work and I didn't have a camera or my laptop with me. So I waited till the next day brought in my laptop and took my picture. The picture in the comments is me exactly how I would have looked if I took the picture the moment I was tagged. (Confusing?) I may have a bit more stubble and be more awake in this one, haha. Not the best quality because I took it on my mac, but I think you get the just.

 

I will not be tagging anyone, once again, and here's the reasoning. If I tagged, say for instance Rob Cherry and he posted a picture of himself and he didn't look like a cherry on legs, then I might be disappointed. If I tagged Dave and he posted a picture of himself and he didn't have the sexiest eyebrows ever seen on a man, then I might be disappointed. If I tagged Ryan and he didn't have a Nikon camera where his mouth is suppose to be, again I might be disappointed! ; - )

 

So the game ends here with me well us, in the flesh....Oh and if you're wondering who took the photo of Laurie and I, it was my tripod.

 

And please....If you haven't yet seen my start to Austria, Salzburg, go here

 

________________________________________

See exactly where this picture was taken [?]

“AND THE BUILDING BECOMES MAN”: MEANING AND AESTHETICS IN RUDOLF STEINER’S GOETHEANUM

Carole M. Cusack

Introduction

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder of the Anthroposophical Society, is renowned for his work in widely varied fields including education, biodynamic agriculture, politics, banking, poetry, and drama (Hammer 2009: 209). His accomplishments in architecture are among his less well-understood cultural productions. His two greatest achievements – the buildings known as Goetheanum I and Goetheanum II (the latter built after the destruction by fire on 31 December 1922 of the former structure), in the small town of Dornach near Basel in the canton of Jura, Switzerland – have been described as “sculptural architecture,” of a kind similar in Expressionist form to works by his contemporaries Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926), Hermann Obrist (1863-1927), and the younger Hermann Finsterlin (1887-1973) (Sharp 1966). The focus of this chapter, Goetheanum II, is a giant sculpted concrete form four stories high, with sweeping lines that give the effect of a monolith. It is headquarters to the Anthroposophical movement, and contains a one-thousand seat auditorium in which religio-spiritual performances of Eurythmy (Steiner’s movement art, which he initiated in 1912) take place. Contributors to a 1960 issue of the Swiss architectural magazine

Werk featuring the building agreed that its design required “a uniform worldview and lifestyle” (quoted in Steinberg 1976: 4). This is the case: to understand both incarnations of the Goetheanum, built as “Schools for Spiritual Science,” requires an understanding of Anthroposophy and of Steiner himself. Richard A. Peterson has posited that the main “symbol-creating domains most often identified [are] art, science, and religion” (Peterson 1976: 673). Anthroposophy, as developed by Steiner, is a philosophy that integrated all three of these domains, and which formed the basis for an enthusiastic programme of cultural production. This chapter considers the meanings embedded in the aesthetic choices of Steiner in the design and construction of both Goetheanum I and Goetheanum II. Steiner thought that Western Europe needed to re-orientate its Weltanschauung

as a spiritual priority and that art was a crucial part of this regenerative process. David Brain’s argument that cultural production creates society itself is relevant here. Brain states that “[t]he social construction of cultural artefacts entails the production of practices which, in turn, enact their own status in broader social contexts by inscribing both the boundaries of cultural domains and the social status of the author in qualities of the artefact” (Brain 1994: 193). Expressionist artists, some of whom (for example the Russian Wassily Kandinsky) shared Steiner’s Theosophical background, shared his vision for the spiritual renewal of Europe. Steiner could not have been unaware of a range of significant Expressionist philosophies and artistic forms present in Europe during his lifetime, and particularly at the time he was developing Anthroposophy. As a lecturer he travelled extensively, and came into contact with many artists and writers who shared mystical ideas about art. His vision for the headquarters of Anthroposophy was grandiose, like that of many other Expressionists, though unlike most of them he had the opportunity to construct his vision himself. Goetheanum II has also been referred to as a

Gesamtkunstwerk (‘total work of art’), a term associated with Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and with architects such as Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, who influenced the interiors as well as the exteriors of their buildings (Adams 1992: 182). Yet Steiner wanted something specific for his group; “[n]ot to build in a style born out of our spiritual world view, would mean to deny Anthroposophy in her own house” (quoted in Steinberg 1976: 82). The Goetheanum embodies Anthroposophical ideals, and Anthroposophy inhabited the entire cultural life of its adherents. For Steiner this came in the form of cosmological insights, which could best be achieved in the sculptural shapes and organic forms, derived from the natural world, of the Goetheanum (in both its first and second incarnations). This chapter first considers Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual quest, Anthroposophy, the teaching he developed, and the place of art and cultural production in his vision for a transformed humanity. The creation of seventeen buildings between 1908 and 1925 in Dornach, which in the twenty-first century is a community of approximately six thousand, was a major achievement in embodying the Anthroposophical ideal of revealing a “logic of life” deriving from Goethe’s writings on the natural sciences and esoteric Christianity, in physical forms, and transformed Dornach into something of a pilgrimage centre for Anthroposophists and spiritual seekers (Reese 1965: 146). The meaning and construction of Goetheanum I is explained, then the chapter’s focus shifts to the realised Anthroposophical theology of Goetheanum II, which was designed by Steiner in 1923 but not completed until 1928, three years after his death. This magnificent building is a magnet for tourists and architecture enthusiasts, as quite apart from its Anthroposophical significance, it is a remarkable and beautiful example of Expressionist architecture.

Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was born in Donji Kraljevec, a village in what is now Croatia but was then Hungary, in the Austrian Empire. He was educated by his father, the provincial stationmaster at Pottschach in Lower Austria, and at the local school. In his uncompleted autobiography, Steiner claimed that by the time he turned eight “the reality of the spiritual world was to me as certain as that of the physical,” and that he was able to communicate with the spirits (Davy 1975a: 12). He was heartened to discover that geometry (and mathematics more generally) was about invisible realities that had been discovered by humans. From 1879 to 1883 he studied mathematics and physics at the Technische Hochschule (Institute of Technology) in Vienna. Steiner funded his studies by working as a tutor, chiefly in philosophy, classics, and literature. During this time he met two people who would significantly affect his development; “an old peasant herb-gatherer … [who] possessed faculties of spiritual perception which allowed him to see deep into the secrets of nature and know, for example, the curative properties of herbs” and “Professor Karl Julius Schroer, the great Goethe scholar” (Davy 1975a: 14). After graduation he was employed at the Goethe Archive in Weimar, where he worked on Goethe’s scientific writings under the direction of Joseph Kürschner, who was preparing a new edition of Goethe’s works (Landau 1935: 50). In 1891 Steiner received his doctorate in philosophy from Rostock University and the next phase of his intellectual and spiritual quest began. This was concerned to relate the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) to that of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1742-1832). From 1897 to 1900 Steiner resided in Berlin, where he edited the

Magazin für Literatur

, “visited Nietzsche, [and] wrote introductions to the works of Schopenhauer” (Schwarz 1983: 11). During this period

he became deeply interested in Theosophy and was a key player in the establishment of the Nietzsche Archive. In 1902 Steiner became head of the Theosophical Society in Germany. Yet, his orientation shifted in the first decade of the twentieth century as he embraced a combination of natural science and esoteric Christianity, partly through the influence of Marie von Sivers, an actress and artist of Russian extraction (Davy 1975a: 20). Von Sivers became his second wife in 1914 after the death of Anna Eunicke, whom he had married in 1899 and separated from a few years later. In 1901 von Sivers had asked Steiner “[w]ould it be possible to create a spiritual movement based on European tradition and the impetus of Christ?”

 

The Theosophical Society had always looked to Hinduism and Buddhism, to the East, for spiritual inspiration; Madame Blavatsky’s “Masters” were Tibetan lamas, and Annie Besant, her successor, and her colleague Charles Webster Leadbeater promoted Jiddu Krishnamurti as the next World Teacher (

Maitreya in Buddhism, also known as the “Cosmic Christ”). It was Theosophy’s endorsement of Krishnamurti that caused Steiner to leave the movement, and to form the Anthroposophical Society late in 1912. The first meeting was convened on 13 February 1913. Steiner was convinced of the crucial and unrepeatable nature of the “Christ impulse,” which was introduced into the human soul through the “Mystery of Golgotha” (Steiner 1976: 63). Christ, for Steiner, was the paradigmatic Being, and a human being at that. Anthroposophy means “the wisdom of man,” and is therefore explicitly contrasted with Theosophy, “the wisdom of God.” Steiner thought that modern

spiritual knowledge should depend, not upon external revelations, but rather upon the development of human mental powers … He claimed to teach nothing he had not himself known through … methods of “spiritual scientific” research … Until his death in 1925, he worked … to develop examples of practical applications of anthroposophy in diverse fields, including education, agriculture, economics, medicine – and architecture (Adams 1992: 185).

Steiner taught that modern humans, influenced by empirical science and logical reasoning, had lost the consciousness possessed by ancient humans, in which the individual was understood to be a microcosm of the universe, and life had meaning accordingly. He advocated the gaining of “Initiation knowledge” of “Mysteries,” which involved developing the human will; and cultivating active thinking, which becomes “an organ of touch for the soul, so that we may feel ourselves thinking in the same way that we walk, grasp or touch; so that we know that we are living in a real being” (Steiner 1991; 13-14). Steiner continued to employ Theosophical concepts, including: the notions that human beings have an etheric body beyond the physical, and an astral body beyond the etheric; the existence of higher beings,

karma

and reincarnation, and the essential unity of religion and science. He placed great emphasis on the cultivation of Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition, which are creative capacities in ordinary human life. Yet Steiner argued that, like the capacity for love, quotidian experiences of imagination, inspiration, and intuition were only “dim promptings,” a “shadow- picture[s]” of highest cognition, the attainment of which humans must strive toward (Steiner 1991: 25). Like his near contemporary G. I. Gurdjieff (1866?-1949), Steiner spoke of the radical discontinuity between subjective human states, and “objective”

love, art, and so on. Both men, following Madame Blavatsky’s lead, presented their esoteric teachings as occult science, a comprehensive system that restored to modern humans their ancient spiritual birthright, and which had the capacity to create a true self, delivering moderns from the splintered identity they customarily experienced. Both systems were cosmological in orientation, presented the physical world as alive, and engaged in processes of transformation. Steiner argued that sleep and dreams were access points to the supersensible world, where spiritual beings could be encountered, and that these beings could waken dead matter, transforming it into living nature:

[a]ll … in those hills, is expecting that one day it will be able to dream, and so with dream- consciousness to take hold of lifeless matter, and from these rocks and hills to conjure forth once more as embryos, seeds, living plants. It is indeed these beings who bring before our souls a wonderful magic of nature, a creating from out of the spirit (Steiner 1991: 77).

Anthroposophy understands all within the physical world to be evolving into higher forms, and in humans the development of spiritual senses enables the “digestion” of experiences by the soul. With this digestion, certain cosmological realisations are possible; for example, recognition of the interrelatedness of the human being with the whole of creation will lead to the person “becom[ing] a living Zodiac” or absorbing the wisdom of the dead (Steiner 1975: 37). It is crucial that humans learn that “the world [is] a book which the Hierarchies have written for us, in order that we may read in it, then only do we become Man in the full sense of the word” (Steiner 1975: 77). For Steiner, becoming “Man” fully involved the realisation that the human was a microcosm of the macrocosmic cosmos. The logical consequence of this is that the human being is the model for everything; the system that offers the key to all other systems. In 1911, Steiner wrote a poem for Marie von Sivers, which began, “Shaping the world in the self/ Seeing the self in the world/ Is the breath of the soul” (Steiner and Steiner-Von Sivers 1988: 121). The centrality of Christ in Anthroposophy follows from this teaching, and Steiner’s teaching contained many examples of this “fractal” structure in which each component is broken down into components that are smaller models of the whole. The layering of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and Ego is similar, though the underlying principle is not one of size but spiritual development (King 1987 [1986]: 360). Anthroposophists often use homeopathy, a form of holistic treatment developed by Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), which operates on the same principles of intensification through breaking down to minute quantities, reflecting the occult teaching of the

Emerald Tablet

of Thoth (or Hermes), “as above, so below” (Shumaker 1972: 165). Hahnemann believed that like substance should be employed to cure like ailment, and Francis King states that, “[h]ighly dynamized or potentized medicaments are possessed of qualities pertaining to non-material modes of being” (King 1987 [1986]: 64). The cosmological dimension is not neglected either; cosmic data, such as planetary events, are also factored into the process of making remedies within Anthroposophy. Steiner’s debt to his master, Goethe, is everywhere apparent; Goethe had spoken of coming to understanding through “the inner sense” and had asserted that, “every living thing is not an isolated being, but a majority” (quoted in Pehnt 1991: 9). He was notably influenced by Goethe’s notion of metamorphosis; if the archetype of a plant was located, “out of that conceptual archetypal plant one could think out countless numbers of special forms” (Steiner 1938: 3). Chapters in this

volume by Liselotte Frisk and Alex Norman treat other aspects of Steiner’s Anthroposophical teachings.

Steiner’s Teachings on Art

Due to his concentration on the human development of Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition, Steiner accorded a prime place to artistic endeavours within his system of esoteric development. He understood that the imaginative capacity was engaged when human consciousness was clear of physical “pictorial impressions” and filled with “etherically pictorial impressions.” When these were cleared from consciousness and the person was aware of the void, “into that state of voidness pour astral impressions” (King 1987 [1986]: 37). This signalled that the inspirational capacity was engaged. When the intuitive capacity was engaged, Steiner claimed that the spiritual has been “brought to full consciousness and has been born to a new life in which he or she is a spirit being dwelling amongst other spirit beings” (King 1987 [1986]: 38). Steiner himself worked in a wide range of creative arts with notable success; he was a poet, sculptor, painter, and architect, “the creator of a new art of movement,” Eurythmy, and a dramatist (Klingborg 1975: 48). Steiner himself allied the arts very closely with true religion, saying “Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is from the beginning so placed, that it flows as one stream from a source out of which both art and religion in their origins can also flow” (Steiner 1938: 7). Steiner’s ideas on the spiritual function of art reflected a wider concern in European society just prior to the outbreak of World War I; for example, the Theosophically-inclined Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), a member of the art movement

Der Blaue Reiter

(“the blue rider”) published the hugely influential

On the Spiritual in Art

(1912), which called for a return to the spiritual as the fundamental inspiration for art and the principal aim of artistic production (Fant, Klingborg and Wilkes et al 1975: 9-10). Steiner commenced writing a series of Mystery Plays in 1909 with Marie von Sivers, who as mentioned above, was an actress. The four resulting plays were pictorial scenes intended to convey spiritual truths, and were performed in theatres. The four titles were “The Portal of Initiation: A Rosicrucian Mystery” (1910), “The Soul’d Probation: A Life Tableau in Dramatic Scenes” (1911), “The Guardian of the Threshold: A Series of Soul Events in Dramatic Pictures” (1912), and “The Soul’s Awakening: A Drama of the Soul and Spirit” (1913) (Steiner 2007). Drama is an embodied art, and in Steiner’s lecture series

The Arts and Their Mission

(1923) he placed great emphasis on the fact that ancient peoples in Greece, Rome, India, and other countries were at harmony with their bodies and did not suffer from the mind- body dualism that plagues modern people. As important as the unity of the mind and body, Steiner asserted, was the “unity of spiritual life and art,” which Goethe deeply apprehended but which is no longer experienced (Steiner 1964: 15). Unsurprisingly, Steiner was critical of mimetic art, claiming that it could only reproduce things in nature, whereas true art could express “kinship with the spiritual world” (Steiner 1964: 16), and was experiential; it was not sufficient to see the colour red but it was necessary to experience “red or blue in the spiritual world” (Steiner 1991: 21). In art, as in spiritual exercises and authentic life experiences, humans were enabled to be truly themselves. Therefore Steiner paid close attention to the body, teaching on food and diet, clothing and costume, and art forms that partook of bodily experience.

The movement art of Eurythmy shared certain qualities with the Mystery Plays, in that both art forms were externalisations of “innermost laws” that were perceived through bodily actions. The first Eurythmy classes were taught in 1912, and by 1919 two courses of training had been developed and Steiner’s eurythmists had toured Europe giving public demonstrations. Marie von Sivers and Lory Smits, an early teacher of the art, contributed significantly to its development. The esoteric meaning of Eurythmy was emphasised by Steiner:

[w]e are setting the human organism in motion; we are making its limbs move. The limbs, more than any other part of the human body, are what pass over into the life of the next incarnation. They point to the future, to what comes after death. But how do we shape the limb movements we bring forth in eurythmy. In the sense realm and in the supersensory realm we study how the larynx and all the speech organs have been brought over from the previous life and shaped by the intellectual potentials of the head and the feeling potentials of the chest. We directly link what precedes birth with what follows death. In a certain sense, we take from earthly life only the physical medium, the actual human being who is the tool or instrument of eurythmy. But we allow this human being to make manifest what we study inwardly … Eurythmy shapes and moves the human organism in a way that furnishes direct external proof of our participation in the supersensory world. In having people do eurythmy, we link them directly to the supersensory world (Steiner 2006: 17).

Eurythmy is thus explicitly cosmological and anthropological, linking the human person’s body as it manifests in this lifetime with their previous and future lives and with the universe of which the person is a microcosm. In Anthroposophical circles Eurythmy has been referred to as the speech of the soul. Steiner wrote extensively on literature, music, and painting, but for the purpose of this chapter his remarks architecture are most relevant. He stated, “[o]h soul, if you wish to leave the physical body in order to regain a relationship with the cosmos, what aspect will you take on? – this was the question. The forms of architecture were, so to speak, answers” (Steiner 1964: 23-24). From the perspective of the production of culture, “the symbolic elements of culture are shaped by the systems within which they are created, distribute, evaluated, taught, and preserved” (Peterson and Anand 2004: 311). In the case of Steiner’s buildings in Dornach, the ‘system’ is Anthroposophy. For Steiner, buildings (like all art forms) should not slavishly imitate forms witnessed in nature, but should rather exhibit organic forms like living nature, and stand in the same mirror relation to nature as the human body does to the macrocosmic universe. For Steiner, in a very real sense, buildings were alive. His application of Goethe’s notion of metamorphosis to architecture meant that, to quote Rex Raab, “the transformation of mass and shape according with a recognisable motive or theme appropriate to the task, creates ‘the appearance of consciousness’” (Raab 1975: 70). For Steiner, the building and its natural setting created “landscape,” which was creative and active, and spiritual power (for example, from the cardinal directions or the heavenly bodies) could be tapped through the strategic design of buildings (Bockemühl 1981: 42). This made environments like Dornach able to facilitate the spiritual development of those people who lived there and interacted with the architecture. In short, human creativity was intimately connected to divine creativity.

Goetheanum I at Dornach .…

During World War I, Steiner and his followers began constructing Goetheanum I on a hill in Dornach. Wolfgang Pehnt observes that, at that time, the Birs valley was open country, “half cultivated nature and half a little world of buildings” (Pehnt 1991: 7). Steiner’s architectural ambition for the Anthroposophical headquarters was initially to erect a twin-domed meeting hall, provisionally called the Johannesbau, in Munich. This was conceived as a Theosophical structure, as he had decorated the interior of the Tonhalle in Munich for the 1907 European Theosophical Congress, and there was enthusiasm for a building in which Steiner’s Mystery Plays, discussed above, could be performed in (Schwarz 1983: 14-26). Architect Carl Schmid-Curtius was engaged to realise Steiner’s design concept. But in May 1913, after Steiner broke with the Theosophical Society, his friend Dr Emil Grosheintz donated land in Dornach to be the site of the building, now to be called the ‘Goetheanum’. There was only one structure on the hill at the time, in which Steiner resided. The foundation stone, which was aligned east-west, was laid with great ceremony (in which Steiner invoked spirit guides and protectors, and noted the stone’s formation “in accordance with the cosmic picture of the human soul”) on 30 September 1913 (Schwarz 1983: 36). Nearly two hundred of Steiner’s pupils, from seventeen different countries, worked on Goetheanum I in 1913 and 1914. The building was 272 feet long, 243 feet wide, and 111 feet high, with a sixty-five thousand cubic metre interior space. It was oriented east-west, with the stage beneath the smaller of the two domes and the seating area beneath the larger. Rex Raab notes the “domes were clad in Norwegian slate, which shone silvery in the Jura landscape” (Raab 1975: 63). A major sculpture,

The Representative of Humanity

, nine metres high and sculpted of wood, by Steiner and his collaborator Edith Maryon, depicted the dark and light aspects of being (which he named for Ahriman, the Zoroastrian “Evil Spirit” and Lucifer, the Biblical angel and “Light Bearer”), stood in the Goetheanum. These figures represented the closed self and the open self, and were united by the central figure of Christ, “The Representative of the Human” (Klingborg 1975: 50). The acoustic qualities of the structure were important in that it was intended for performances. Goetheanum I was built of wood; Rom Landau says that, “Steiner used for its construction the same seven different kinds of wood which are used for the construction of a violin, and the ceiling of the main hall was as buoyant as the walls of a violin” (Landau 1935: 71). In a 1921 lecture, Rudolf Steiner repudiated the idea that Goetheanum I should be read symbolically, rather asserting that it was built according to laws that made possible the “revelation of the supersensible world in the sensible” (Steiner 1938: 9). He further claimed that the organic forms of the structure were an attempt to explore creation itself, in the manner of Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis. The macrocosmic-microcosmic principle described above was present in the first Goetheanum; at one point Steiner, describing the stair-hall, says;

I arrived, through feeling, at the development of these three semi-circular canals standing in the three directions of space at right-angles. If you go up this staircase, you have this calming sensation. It is not copied – that it certainly is not – but afterwards I remembered that the three semi-circular canals of the ear also stand in these three directions of space. When they are injured, man falls down in a faint: they are therefore closely connected to the laws of balance. It did not arise out of a naturalistic desire to copy, but from experiencing the same element by which the aural canals are arranged (Steiner 1938: 12).

This quotation makes it clear that, for Steiner, mimetic art (that which seeks to copy nature and produce “life-like” artistic products) is an inferior, or perhaps entirely

illegitimate form of art. Spiritual art, which brings people into contact with the supersensible through the sensible, is, rather, the production of artworks that embody certain laws that resonate with the embodied viewer. He does allow that the first Goetheanum featured some occult symbolism (for example there were five pointed forms that could be interpreted as pentagrams, though they could also be seen as leaves), but in general the building’s effect was intended to be emotional rather than intellectual. The building’s interior featured just one inscribed word, “Ich.” Of this, Steiner said it referred to “Faust striving towards the fully-conscious ‘I’ – towards the ‘ICH’ embodying itself in the word. The older languages had ‘I’ incorporated in the verb; in this epoch it is right that a separate word for it should appear” (Steiner 1938: 16). The interior of the Goetheanum was flooded with symbolic colours, facilitated by huge red and yellow glass windows and “luminous wall paintings” that exemplified the colour theory of Goethe (Adams 1992: 200). By the time the Goetheanum I was finished, Schmid-Curtius was no longer involved, and the team of Ernst Aisenpreis (who also worked on the Goetheanum II) and Hermann Ratzenberger, assisted by Albert von Baravalle, oversaw the final stages of construction (Schwarz 1983: 51). Goetheanum I was sited among other early buildings at Dornach, including Haus Duldeck (now the archives), the Boiler House (with its dramatic “flame” chimney), and the Glashaus, all constructed between 1913 and 1916. The latter two also featured twin domes, and all exhibited an absence of straight lines and a preponderance of curves and organic forms (Adams 1992: 187-188). On 31 December 1922, New Year’s Eve, a Eurythmy performance was held in Goetheanum I at 5 PM, and at 8 PM Steiner delivered a lecture to the audience. At the close of the evening most people left; shortly after, the building was discovered to be on fire (Anon 1923). It was not possible to save it, and Goetheanum I was destroyed after eight brief years. Anna Samweber, in her memoir of life with Steiner and his wife, describes the rescue of the sculpture, “The Representative of Humanity,” from the flames. She also notes the fear that the nearby Schreinerei, a building “with the halls and Rudolf Steiner’s studio,” might also catch alight (Samweber 1991: 30). Although it was never proven, many Anthroposophists believed that the fire was arson; that “non-Anthroposophists could not bear the beauty that was created for such a unique spiritual group” (Steinberg 1976: 57). Steiner was deeply distressed by the destruction of Goetheanum I, and his health began to decline. He decided that the second Goetheanum would be built entirely in concrete to render it more durable.

Haus Duldeck. There was considerable opposition to the erection of Goetheanum II by the local council, probably motivated by hostility to Steiner and Anthroposophy, despite the movement’s considerable contribution to the local economy (Steinberg 1976: 61-62). Conformity to the building permit resulted in a reduction of height of the west front and a widening of the horizontal wings. The vital importance of the second Goetheanum is evident in the fact that nowadays Anthroposophists call it simply “the Building” (Sharp 1963: 377). Steiner’s considerable talent as an amateur architect is richly evident in the second Goetheanum. The exterior sculptural mass has a plain east end, almost a flat wall, and develops towards the west, with the west front as the “face” of the building opening onto the landscape. It is radically different from the earlier building; some Anthroposophists regard it as a poor substitute. This is partly because Goetheanum I had been funded through donations, whereas Goetheanum II was largely funded through an insurance payout. Additionally, the concrete structure, although larger, spelled “the relinquishment of detailed work by hand, the farewell to a vast sun of invested creativity” (Pehnt 1991: 21). Steiner and his wife acknowledged the tragic loss of Goetheanum I but stressed the need for a second School of Spiritual Science to be erected swiftly, and Steiner’s design for the concrete building utilised the same notion of metamorphosis and transformation from Goethe. Sharp describes it as “a piece of living sculpture” (Sharp 1963: 378) and Hans Hasler, in his discussion of the major conservation operation undertaken between 1993-1996, emphasises the plasticity and dynamism of concrete as a building material (Hasler 1999:9-11). Hagen Biesantz notes that the ground plan retains the cruciform shape of Goetheanum I, but the double space created by the two cupolas has given way to a threefold space, which relates to Steiner’s theory of the “threefold division of the social and human physical organisms” (Biesantz 1979: 59). Only the windows provide some indication of the function of the rooms concealed within the building; for example “the three high side windows tell us that the great hall is behind them” (Pehnt 1991: 7). Writers on the Goetheanum constantly stress its organic forms, and Wolfgang Pehnt argues that the group of Anthroposophical structures in Dornach exemplify Steiner’s theory, taken from Goethe, of “architecture and architectural ensembles as societies of biological species … a biotope” (Pehnt 1991: 9). Although Steiner did not design the interior of Goetheanum II in the same detail that he did for Goetheanum I, Anthroposophical teachings inform the general scheme. The Great Hall has four long windows, which are coloured “as in the first Goetheanum … green, blue, violet and pink” (Biesantz 1979: 69). The Great Hall was actually completed by Johannes Schöpfer, a Stuttgart architect, chosen by competition in 1957. Georg Hartmann’s study of the windows notes that Goetheanum I had nine coloured glass windows, two sets of the above-mentioned four colours, and the central red window over the west entrance. He claims that, “the motives of the coloured glass windows deal with the experiences of the human being, searching for spiritual knowledge” (Hartmann 1972: 17). In Goetheanum II, the huge red window in the west wall features the human face, the four evangelists’ symbols from the New Testament (the lion, bull, eagle, and the man), and occult symbols such as the lotus, the swastika, and planetary images, such as that of Saturn. Olav Hammer notes that when writing about the significance of colour, “Steiner informs us that purple is the color of mysticism, blue calms the soul, red gives a feeling of festivity, while green is associated with the earthly domain” (Hammer 2009: 214). Anthroposophical poet.

 

As Steiner had no formal training as an architect, Anthroposophists have been inclined to treat his achievements in the field as evidence of his extraordinary creativity and spiritual development. Within Anthroposophy it is not acceptable to speak of Steiner being influenced by other architecture of the period, although Dennis Sharp has made an excellent case for the inclusion of Steiner within the category of Expressionist architecture, a sub-field of the broader Expressionist movement in art

(Sharp 1963). Sharp argues that Steiner was influenced by the Art Nouveau style, the Belgian architect Henry van de Velde (1853-1957), and the exuberant Catalan Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926), whose own creations were inspired by his passionate though rather unorthodox Roman Catholicism. Sharp contextualises Goetheanum II with the works of Hermann Obrist (1863-1927) and Hermann Finsterlin (1887-1973) (Sharp 1963). The title of this chapter, “And the Building Becomes Man,” is a motto written over the south window of the model of Goetheanum II on display in Brodbeck House, a house that predated the second Goetheanum and which now has the Eurythmeum built as an addition to it (Turgeniev 2003: 61). It is a romantic notion, yet one that encapsulates the core of Steiner’s Anthroposophical teaching that the human being is the basic unit of the cosmos, the fractal model on which larger and smaller structures are based. Steiner’s architecture, though striking and beautiful and appreciated by architectural experts, casual tourists, and Anthroposophists alike, cannot really be understood without reference to the Anthroposophical worldview and Steiner’s “spiritual science.” Pehnt notes wryly that, “Steiner’s inspiration seems always to be productive in architects who apply his methods without feeling committed to the results achieved at the time” (Pehnt 1991: 39). Brain has argued that “the production of cultural objects can be more closely tied to the to the conditions of possibility for social action in general – not only at the level of meaning, but at the level of the capacity to conceive and enact strategic action” (Brain 1994: 218). Goetheanum II in Dornach is a structure of crucial significance for Anthroposophists the world over, and visiting it (whether to study Eurythmy or some other aspect of Steiner’s spiritual science, or simply to feel close to Steiner and the transformational philosophy of Anthroposophy) is a deeply meaningful experience. Brain continues that cultural objects such as Goetheanum II (and the practices that take place within it, including the visual arts and Euythmy) illuminate “the making of the social world that goes on in the practices through which culture producers inscribe intentions in artefacts, and social actors, generally, make sense

with

things” (Brain 1994: 218). Steiner, of all esoteric and new religious teachers of the early twentieth century, was acutely aware of the peculiar value of cultural production, an activity with which he engaged with tireless energy, and considerable (amateur and professional) skill and achievement. It is true that the majority of architects inspired by Steiner are not Anthroposophists, and have only a limited understanding of the underlying principles of Goetheanum II, being enamoured of its aesthetic qualities alone. This, however, still confirms Goetheanum II as a consummate cultural product of Anthroposophy, and one that continues to amaze and delight all those who are fortunate enough to visit Dornach.

 

www.academia.edu/738542/_And_the_Building_Becomes_Man_Mea...

 

The whole of the Gospel of St. John culminates in that event in human history which we call the “Mystery of Golgotha.” To comprehend this Mystery of Golgotha esoterically predicates also the ability to decipher the deep significance of this Gospel. If we turn our attention to what exists at the very central point of this Mystery and wish to express it in occult terms, we must contemplate the moment of the Crucifixion when the blood flowed from the wounds of the Saviour, and at the same time we must remember something which has often been said in the course of these lectures, that for one who knows the spiritual worlds, all material, substantial, physical objectivity is only the outer expression, the external manifestation of something spiritual. Now let us permit the physical event to arise before our souls: Christ-Jesus upon the Cross, the blood flowing from His wounds. What does this picture, the content of which is a physical event, express for those who are able to understand the Gospel of St. John?

 

This physical event — the occurrence on Golgotha — is the expression, the manifestation of a spiritual event which stands at the central point of all earthly happenings. Anyone interpreting these words according to the present materialistic world concept will not be able to make much out of them, for he will not be able to imagine that at that time something occurred in this unique Event of Golgotha which differs from some other like event, or from one perhaps physically similar. There is a very great difference between all the earthly occurrences which preceded this Event of Golgotha and those that succeed it.

 

If we wish to picture this in the soul in all its detail, we must say that not only has the individual human being, or for that matter any other individual creature, a physical, ether and astral body as we have described it from many aspects in the foregoing lectures, but that cosmic bodies likewise do not consist only of physical substance as they appear to the astronomer and to other physical researchers. A cosmic body has also an ether and an astral body. Our earth has its ether and astral vehicles. If our earth did not possess its own ether body, it would not be able to harbour the plants; if it did not possess its own individual astral body, it would not be able to shelter the animals. If we wish to visualize the earth's ether body, we must imagine its central point exactly at the center of the earth where the physical earth body also has its central point. This entire physical earth body is embedded in its own ether body and these two are again embedded in an astral body. If someone had observed clairvoyantly the astral body of the earth during the course of the earth's evolution, during the course of long epochs of time, he would have seen that, as a matter of fact, this astral body and ether body of the earth have not always remained the same, that they have changed. In order to represent the matter quite pictorially, let us in spirit transplant ourselves outside beyond the earth to some other star, and let us imagine a person with clairvoyant vision looking down upon the earth from this star. He would not only see the earth suspended there as a physical planet, but he would see an aura about it, he would see the earth surrounded by an aura of light, for he would be perceiving the earth's ether and astral bodies. If this clairvoyant person were to remain a long time on this distant star, long enough to have observed the pre-Christian periods of the earth pass by and the Event of Golgotha approaching, the following spectacle would have presented itself to him. Before the Event of Golgotha the aura of the earth, the astral and ether bodies offered a certain aspect of colour and form, but following a particular, definite moment of time, he would have seen the colour of the entire aura changing. What was this particular moment of time? It was the very moment when the blood flowed from the wounds of Christ-Jesus upon Golgotha. All spiritual earthly relationships, as such, changed from this moment.

 

It has been previously stated that what is called the Logos is the sum total of the six Elohim who, united with the sun, present the earth with their spiritual gifts, while externally the physical sunlight is falling upon the earth. Therefore the light of the sun appears to us like the outer physical body of the spirit and soul of the Elohim or of the Logos. At the moment of the Event of Golgotha, that force, that impulse which formerly could only stream down upon the earth as light began to unite with the earth itself. And because the Logos began to unite with the earth, the earth's aura became changed.

 

We shall now consider the Event of Golgotha from still another point of view. We have already reviewed the evolution of the human being and of the earth from various standpoints. We know that our Earth, before it became the Earth, passed through the three embodiments of Saturn, Sun and Moon. Therefore the embodiment just preceding that of our Earth was that of the ancient Moon. When a planet has attained the goal of its evolution, something happens to it similar to what happens to a human being who, in a certain incarnation, has attained his life's goal. The planet passes over into a different invisible existence, a state called a “Pralaya” and then after a time it embodies itself anew. Thus between the previous embodiment of our Earth, the Moon Evolution, and the Earth's present embodiment, there existed an intermediate state. Out of a sort of spiritual, self-animated, externally invisible existence, the Earth gleamed forth in its earliest state and out of this state developed those states which we described yesterday. At that time, in that early age when our Earth gleamed forth, it was still united with all that now belongs to our solar system. It was then so large, that it reached to the furthest planets of this solar system. All was unity, for only later individual planets became segregated. The present earth up to a certain point of time was united with our present sun and moon. Thus we see there was a time when sun, moon and earth were a single body. It was as though you were to take the present moon and sun and stir them together with the earth and thus make one large cosmic body. This was our Earth once upon a time when your astral body and your ego were floating about in a vapour-like form. Even earlier than this the sun, moon and earth were joined together. At that time the forces which are now in the sun — the spiritual and physical forces — were bound up with the earth. Then came a time when the sun separated from the earth; but not only did the physical sun with its physical light which can be seen with physical eyes depart, but with it all its spiritual and soul beings at whose head stood the Elohim, the real Spirits of Light, the denizens of the sun. What was left, was a mixture of the present moon and earth. Then for a time the earth, though separated from the sun, was still united with the moon. It was not until the Lemurian period that the moon separated from the earth, when, as a result, there arose that relationship between these three bodies, sun, moon and earth, that exists today. This relationship had to occur. The Elohim had to act from without. It was necessary for one of them to become Lord of the moon and from there reflect the powerful force of the other Elohim. We live at present upon our earth as though dwelling upon an island in cosmic space which has separated from the sun and moon. But the time will come when our earth will once more unite with the sun and again form one body with it. Then human beings will be so spiritualized that they will again be able to bear the stronger forces of the sun, able to receive them and unite them with themselves. They, together with the Elohim, will then occupy the same field of action.

 

You will ask, what is the force that will bring this about? Had the Event of Golgotha not occurred, the earth and the sun would never be able to reunite. For through the Event of Golgotha, which bound the force of the Elohim in the sun to the earth — in other words the force of the Logos — the impulse was given which will again eventually impel one Logos-force toward the other, and finally once more unite them — sun and earth — in one body. Since the Event of Golgotha, the earth, spiritually observed, is possessed of the force to draw the sun again into a unity with it. Therefore it can be said that through this great Event, the force of the Logos, which formerly radiated down upon the earth from without, was now taken up into its spiritual being. The question may be asked, what existed previously within the body of the earth? It was that force which streamed down upon it from the sun. But since that time, what exists there within the earth? The Logos itself which through Golgotha has become the spirit of the earth.

 

As truly as your soul and spirit dwell within your physical body, do also the soul and spirit of the earth dwell within the body of the earth — that earthly body which consists of stones, plants and animals and upon which you tread. This soul and spirit, this earth spirit is the Christ. Christ is the spirit of the earth. When the Christ spoke to His most trusted disciples on an occasion which can be numbered among the most intimate of such occasions, what did He say to them? With what mystery had He occasion to entrust them? He was able to say to them: “It is as though you can gaze into your own soul from your physical body. Your soul is within. It is the same when you observe the whole earth-sphere. That spirit which for a time now stands here before you in the flesh is also the spirit of the earth and will always continue as such.” He had occasion to point to the earth as to His real body and ask: “When you behold the cornfield and then eat the bread that nourishes you, what in reality is this bread which you are eating? You are eating My body. And when you drink of the plant sap, it is like the blood in your own body; it is the blood of the earth — My Blood!” — These were the very words that Christ- Jesus spoke to His most intimate disciples and we must take them very literally. Then when He called them together and expounded to them symbolically what we shall call the Christian Initiation, He uttered those extraordinary words which we find in the 18th verse of the 13th Chapter of the Gospel of St. John, where He announced that one among them would betray Him:

 

“He who eats My bread treads me under foot.”

 

These words must be taken literally. Men eat the bread of the earth and tread upon the earth with their feet. If the earth is the body of the Earth-Spirit, that is, of the Christ, then men tread with their feet the earth's body, the body whose bread they eat. An immense deepening of the idea of the Last Supper as presented in the Gospel of St. John is granted us, when we learn about the Christ, the Earth-Spirit, and about the bread which is taken from the body of the earth. Christ points to the earth and says: “This is My body!” Just as the muscular human flesh belongs to the human soul, so does bread belong to the body of the earth, that is to the body of the Christ. And the sap that flows through the plants, which pulsates through the vine stalk, is like the blood pulsating through the human body. Pointing to this, the Christ says: “This is my blood!” That this truthful explanation of the Last Supper can cause some of the sanctity to be lost which has always been associated with it can only be imagined by someone possessing no understanding of it or who has neither desire nor capacity for such an understanding. But anyone who wishes to understand will acknowledge that this does not cause it to lose in holiness, but that through it the whole of the earth-planet becomes sanctified. What powerful feelings can be engendered in our souls, if we can behold in the Last Supper the greatest mystery of the earth, the connection between the Event of Golgotha and the entire evolution of the earth; if we can learn to feel that in the Last Supper the flowing of the blood from the wounds of the Saviour had not only a human, but a cosmic significance, that is, it gave to the earth the force to carry forward its evolution.

 

Anyone who understands the profound meaning of the Gospel of St. John will feel not only united through his physical body with the physical body of the earth, but as a psycho-spiritual being will feel united with the psycho-spiritual being of the earth which is the Christ Himself, and then he will feel how the Christ, as the Spirit of the Earth, flows through his body. When we have this experience, we are able to ask: what illuminated the writer of the Gospel of St. John at that moment when he was able to behold the profound mysteries which have to do with Christ-Jesus? He beheld the forces, the impulses which are present in Christ-Jesus, and he perceived how these impulses must be active in mankind, if only mankind will receive them.

 

In order to understand this quite clearly, we must once more bring before our souls the way in which human evolution actually takes place. The human being consists of physical, ether and astral bodies and an ego. How does this evolution occur? By the ego gradually working through the other three members, purifying and strengthening them. The ego is called upon gradually to purify the astral body, to cleanse it and to raise it to a higher level. When the entire astral body has been purified and strengthened by the special forces of the ego, it becomes Manas or Spirit-Self. When the ether or life-body has been thoroughly worked over and strengthened by the force of the ego, it becomes Budhi, or Life-Spirit. When the physical body has been fully overcome and conquered by the ego, it becomes Atman or Spirit-Man. Then will the human being have reached the goal which above all lies in store for him. That, however, will be attained only in the far distant future. Moreover, we wish it to be quite clear that the ego acts in full consciousness in what has just been described; namely, that the human being consisting of the four members — physical, ether and astral bodies and ego — works by means of the ego upon the other three members, transforming them into Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man. For the most part this is not yet the case with present humanity which, as a matter of fact, is just beginning, fully conscious, to work a little of Manas into its astral body. The human being is doing this now. Through the help of higher beings he has already, although unconsciously, worked upon his three lower members during this Earth evolution. In ancient times he unconsciously worked over the astral body, and this then became permeated by the Sentient Soul. The ego unconsciously worked into the ether body and this unconsciously re-formed ether body is what you will find described in regular sequence in my book Theosophy as the Intellectual Soul, and that part of the physical body, unconsciously worked upon by the ego, you will find described there as the Consciousness Soul. The Consciousness Soul only came into being toward the end of the Atlantean period when the ether body — previously outside the physical body in the head region — gradually drew wholly within it. Through this the human being learned to utter the word “I.” Thus variously-membered, he gradually passed over into the post-Atlantean period. It is the task of our age to work Manas or Spirit-Self by degrees into what had previously been received unconsciously. The human being must, as it were, develop Manas within himself by means of all the forces he has acquired by virtue of possessing a physical, an ether and an astral body, a sentient, an intellectual and a consciousness soul; by means of all the forces which these various members can give him, he must develop Manas and also, although in a very small degree, the germ of a Life-Spirit or Budhi. Therefore our post-Atlantean age has the important task of helping the human being to develop consciously these higher members of his being (Manas or Spirit-Self, Budhi or Life-Spirit and Atman or Spirit-Man) in the distant future when he will at last have reached his goal. He must from now on, by degrees, develop within himself the force to evolve his higher members out of his lower.

 

Let us now ask: what has been the condition of the human being that has kept him from already developing these higher members, and what will be the difference in the future? How will the humanity of the future differ from that of the present?

 

When at last the whole of the higher man has been developed, the entire astral body will be so completely purified that it will simultaneously become Manas or Spirit-Self; the ether body so thoroughly purged that it will simultaneously become Life-Spirit or Budhi, and the physical body will be so greatly metamorphosed that it will, at the same time, be as actually a Spirit-Man, Atman, as it is now a physical body. The greatest force will be needed to conquer this lowest body, hence the conquest and transformation of the physical means the greatest victory for the human being. When mankind has fully perfected the physical body, this physical man will then become Spirit-Man or Atman. All this is at present only in germ within the human being, but a time will come when it will live in him in its fulness. And by lifting his gaze to the Christ Personality, to the Christ Impulse, by energizing and strengthening himself through this Christ Impulse, he draws into himself the force that can accomplish this transformation.

 

Since humanity of the present has not yet perfected this metamorphosis, what is the result? Spiritual Science makes this very clear. Because this katharsis of the astral body has not yet been accomplished, that is, the astral body has not yet transformed itself into Spirit-Self, selfishness or egotism is possible. Because the ether body has not yet been strengthened by the ego, lying and error are possible; and because the physical body has not yet been fortified by the ego, sickness and death are possible. In a once fully developed Spirit-Self, there will be no more selfishness; no sickness and death, but just health and salvation in the fully developed Spirit-Man, that is, in the fully evolved physical body. What does it mean for the human being to take the Christ into himself? It means that he has learned to understand the forces that are in the Christ, which if taken into himself make it possible for him to become master even of his physical body.

 

Imagine for example that someone could receive the Christ Impulse fully into himself, that it could completely pass over upon him. The Christ Himself might stand directly in the presence of this person and the Christ Impulse be transmitted to him. What does that signify? If the person were blind, he would yet be able to see by means of the direct influence of this Christ Impulse, for the final goal of evolution is the conquest of the forces of sickness and death. When the writer of the Gospel of St. John speaks of the healing of the man born blind, he is then speaking out of the depths of the Mysteries, he is demonstrating, by means of an example, that the force of the Christ is a healing force when it appears in full power. It may be asked: Where is this force? It is in the body of the Christ, in the earth! But this earth must, in truth, be fully permeated by the being of the Christ Spirit or of the Logos. Let us see if the writer of the Gospel recounts the story with this meaning. How does he relate it?

 

Standing there is the blind man. The Christ takes some earth, insalivates it and lays it upon the blind man's eyes. He lays His body, the earth, permeated with His spirit upon the blind man. In this description, the writer of the Gospel indicates a mystery which he very well understands. Now laying aside all prejudice, let us talk a little more in detail of this sign — one of the greatest performed by the Christ — in order that we may learn to know more exactly the nature of such a thing and not be disturbed because our very clever contemporaries will consider what has just been said to be sheer madness or folly! There are, however, in the world great and mighty mysteries which mankind is not yet entitled to know. Human beings of the present day, even though they may be sufficiently developed, are not yet strong enough to go through the great Mysteries. They can know of them, they can understand them when they are able to experience them spiritually; but our present humanity, so deeply immersed in matter, is not yet capable of converting them into their physical expression.

 

All life is, in fact, made up of antitheses and extremes. Life and death are just such extremes. For the thought and feelings of the occultist, there is something very extraordinary in seeing, for example, a corpse and a living human being side by side. When we have a living, waking human being before us, we know that a soul and spirit dwell within him. But as far as consciousness is concerned, this soul and spirit are, as it were, cut off from any connection with the spiritual world; they cannot look into it. If we have a corpse before us, we have the feeling that the spirit and soul which once belonged to it are passing over into the spiritual worlds where consciousness, or the light of those worlds is flashing up within them. Thus the corpse becomes a symbol of what is taking place in the spiritual world. But in the physical world also, there are reflections of what is happening in the spiritual world, but they are of an extraordinary character. When a human being descends again into physical birth, his bodily part must be reconstructed; material substance must, so to say, rush together in order that a body be created for him. For the clairvoyant, this rushing together of physical substance represents the death of consciousness in the spirit world. There it dies — here it becomes alive. In the rushing together of substance to form a physical human body can be seen, in a certain sense, the dying of a spiritual consciousness; while on the other hand, at the moment of decomposition or of the burning of the physical body, when the parts disintegrate and dissolve, the opposite actually becomes manifest in the spiritual world, that is, the awakening of a spiritual consciousness occurs. Physical dissolution is spiritual birth. Therefore all processes of decay and dissolution mean something more than just decay and dissolution to the occultist. A churchyard, spiritually observed, where physical bodies are in the process of dissolution, is the scene of remarkable processes, the continuous flashing up and glistening of spiritual birth; (I am now speaking of what is taking place spiritually in the churchyard itself apart from the human beings there).

 

Let us imagine for example that a person were to give himself up physically to a certain training — naturally no one would recommend this, for the present physical body could not possibly endure it — to a schooling in which he would train his body to breathe in putrified air for a certain prescribed length of time with the conscious intent of taking in the spiritual processes which have just been described. If he does this in the proper way, then in his following incarnations — it cannot be done in one — he can be incarnated with that force which offers restorative and health-giving impulses. Breathing putrid air belongs to a schooling which gradually gives strength to the spittle, when mixed with the ordinary earth, to become the healing substance which the Christ rubbed upon the eyes of the blind man. This mystery through which a person consumes, eats or inhales death, by which he acquires the power to heal, is the mystery to which the writer of the Gospel refers when he describes such signs as the healing of the man born blind. Instead of declaring without cessation that such and such a thing should be interpreted to mean thus and so, it would be much better were people to learn that such a thing as is described in the healing of the blind man is literally true, that it exists, and that it is possible to have respect for such a personality as the writer of the Gospel and be able to say: “There was such a person who was thoroughly initiated into this mystery about which we must try to acquire an understanding.”

 

It was, moreover, necessary to call attention beforehand to the fact that we are here in an anthroposophical group in which many prejudices have been eliminated, thus making it possible to speak of such real mysteries as the insalivation of the earth's soil for healing purposes, and to say that such an incident has a literal significance.

 

However, let us now try to comprehend how, by knowing these facts, we unite with the idea that occupies us today namely, that the Christ is the Spirit of the earth and that the earth is His Body. We have seen the Christ spiritualizing the etheric element in one instance and have seen Him giving up something of Himself in order to perform the miracle we arc considering. Now let us consider something else. Besides what has been said today, let us take what the Christ Himself said: “The most profound mystery of My being is the I AM, and the true and eternal might of the I AM or of the Ego which has the force to permeate other bodies must flow into human beings. It dwells within the Earth Spirit.” Let us hold this clearly in mind and take very earnestly, quite seriously, the fact that, because the Christ wishes to bestow the true ego upon every human soul, He will awaken the God in it and gradually enkindle the Spirit of the Lord and King in everyone. What does this signify? We have here nothing more nor less than the fact that the Christ brings to expression, in the highest sense, the idea of Karma, the karmic law. For when anyone fully understands the idea of Karma, he will understand it in this Christian sense. It means that no man should set himself up as a judge of the inner soul of another human being. Unless the idea of Karma has been understood in this way, it has not been grasped in its deepest significance. When one man judges another, the one is always placing the other under the compulsion of his own ego. However, if a person really believes in the “I AM” in the Christian sense, he will not judge. He will say: “I know that Karma is the great adjuster. Whatever you may have done, I do not judge it!”

 

Let us suppose that a transgressor is brought before a person who really understands the Christ-Word. What will be his attitude toward the transgressor? Let us suppose that all those who would like to be Christians were to accuse him of a terrible sin. The real Christian would say to them: “Whether what you maintain has been done by him or not, makes no difference, the I AM must be respected; it must be left to Karma, to the great law which is the law of the Christ-Spirit Himself. Karma is fulfilled in the course of earthly evolution. We can leave it to this earthly evolution to determine what punishment Karma shall inflict upon a human being.” He would perhaps turn to the earth and say to the accusers: — “Pay heed to yourselves, it is the duty of the earth to inflict the punishment. Let us inscribe it then upon the earth where it has, moreover, been registered as Karma.”

 

Jesus went up to the Mount of Olives.

 

And early in the morning He came again into the temple and all the people came unto Him and He sat down and taught them.

 

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery; and they placed her in their midst.

 

They said unto Him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned; but what sayest Thou?

 

This they said, tempting Him, that they might accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.

 

So when they continued asking Him, He lifted Himself up and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

 

And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

 

But when they heard this, being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

 

When Jesus had lifted

I’m sorry, Angus. But it was boring. You bored me, my wife, and my children. And I say Angus specifically because your name is all over the movie’s credits, and you gave us such a grand group of LEGO sets and some really great looking spaceship designs.

 

But it just wasn’t enough.

 

Victoria said it should've never even been storyboarded in the state it was in. Zoe pointed out that young Buzz's reasoning didn't make any sense and wasn't heroic since he based it all on just one person. She also didn't like that the story completely switched from being about Buzz to being about the granddaughter. Caleb thought it was dumb that Zurg is Buzz. He also said none of it made any sense. I say it was too long, too repetitive, and had too many loose ends. Nothing about the movie was satisfying.

 

I just don't buy that THIS was the movie Andy saw in 1995 that made him want a Buzz Lightyear figure. I'm only 46, but I remember the decade well, since I've never done drugs.

 

And the only thing comparable to this movie that hit theaters in the 90s was, and I really hate to say it, but it's true, is Battlefield Earth.

 

I don't know if you'll get another shot, Angus. But if you do, PLEASE get some outside observers to help you out next time. Whoever you had surrounding you during this movie was about as helpful as the crew that got Kennedy to invade the Bay of Pigs.

And then if you are to understand me, you have to step into my realm and leave all of those things behind.

quote by C. JoyBell C.

C. JoyBell C. has authored books of poetry and literature that delve mainly into the mysterious, the philosophical and the esoteric. Many of her writings are considered nearly grimoires, being a source of inspiration to many. She's also an amateur astronomer and a student of astrobiology.

~

nightcafe/gimp/pixlr mixed apps AI manipulated

 

nightcafe/gimp

Art Week Gallery Theme: Intense Colors

www.flickr.com/groups/temporaryexhibitionsartgallery/

High potential? Parents want to know

Psychological examinations are increasingly common to identify gifted children. It’s a trend that hides a complex reality, as gifted children can also be prone to failure.

  

Enéa gets good marks. But she disturbs the class, talks a lot and complains often. This situation surprises her mother, Stéphanie Laurent. At home, this seven-year old schoolgirl from Lausanne is quiet, responsible and not the type to bother others. What’s wrong? School. Enéa is bored. A teacher friend advised Stéphanie Laurent to enter her daughter for tests to determine whether she was “high potential”. And the result came back positive.

 

High potential (HP) children are referred to as gifted or precocious. They are sometimes compared with child prodigies, which is one reason for the increase in requests for psychological examinations. “Interest in these tests is growing,” states Pierre Fumeaux, a child psychiatrist at Lausanne University Hospital who is currently conducting a study on the subject. “A few years ago when parents or teachers had to deal with a difficult student, they would ask the doctor if the child was hyperactive. Now the term ‘high potential’ has taken centre stage in the media.” Contrary to popular belief, gifted is not always synonymous with success. High potential children can also be prone to failure.

 

A different brain

 

To be diagnosed as “HP”, an individual has to obtain a score of at least 130 on IQ tests. “But the score isn’t enough,” explains Claudia Jankech, a psychotherapist in Lausanne specialised in child and teenager psychology. “We also need to understand their family and social context and their personality.”

 

Surprisingly, a high number of HP children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.” These difficulties are partly due to what specialists call arborescent thinking. “Normal people develop logical reasoning through linear, sequential thinking. However, the thought process in HP children is like fireworks exploding with ideas and impressive intuition. They can solve complex equations but will have difficulty explaining how they came up with the answer,” explains Pierre Fumeaux.

 

Surprisingly, a high number of HP children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.”

 

Studies suggest that HP children’s brains function differently. Information moves better between the two cerebral hemispheres. “We assume that they use both their left and right brains easily and have excellent abilities in both logic and creativity,” says the child psychiatrist. “Other work has shown that HP children can more easily juggle with concepts and think in the abstract, such as performing mental calculations. “In a functional MRI, a dye is injected to highlight the areas of the brain with the highest blood flow.

 

Using a scanner, we can then see which areas are activated,” Pierre Fumeaux explains. “A stimulus or given task will activate certain areas of the brain in normal individuals. In HP children, sometimes several larger areas are activated at the same time,” he adds. These indicators help doctors understand how an HP mind works. “But our knowledge in neuroscience remains limited,” the researcher admits. “Being high potential is not an illness, but a special cognitive ability. And that’s not a priority for researchers.”

 

INTERVIEW: “The methods of diagnosis are debatable”

 

In a survey conducted on gifted children, the French sociologist Wilfried Lignier noted that specialists do not agree about the tests designed to diagnose giftedness.

 

In Vivo You observe that most gifted children don’t have difficulty in school or psychological problems. Why then do parents have them take tests?

Wilfried Lignier These parents are very concerned that their children will face difficulties, whereas they actually have every chance of success. They think that the school’s assessment is not enough. Psychology offers greater legitimacy for their concerns.

  

IV You approach giftedness as a “debated and debatable” issue. Why?

WL Many psychologists don’t recognise giftedness mainly because they doubt the credibility of IQ tests. These tests are meant to assess something other than academic skills, but in form they are quite similar to the exercises performed in school. Furthermore, children also have this impression. After the test is over, some say that they did well in the “maths” section, referring to the logical reasoning, or the “language” section, referring to the vocabulary. Being so similar to exercises done in school, these tests contradict the idea that intelligence isn’t the same as academic performance. Yet most of the social repercussions expected from test results are based on the idea that they tell a truth that school does not.

 

IV You show that the diagnosis swings in favour of one gender. How do you explain that high potential is more often diagnosed in boys?

WL Parents tend to express greater concern about their future, as it more readily carries their hopes of upward social mobility. The fact that boys have greater chances of having “symptoms”, such as openly expressing their boredom or not being able to stay still, also plays a role.

 

Hyper-sensitivity

 

HP children also typically have emotional characteristics featuring high sensitivity or a high level of empathy. Stéphanie Laurent’s two other children, boys, have also been diagnosed as high potential. “Nathael, age six, cries at Christmas because poor people are cold and have nothing to eat.” His hyper-sensitivity distresses him. “It can take on huge proportions. At one point, Mathys, age eight, felt unreasonable fear because he knew that there was a core on fire at the centre of the earth.” Myriam Bickle Graz, a developmental paediatrician at Lausanne University Hospital who wrote a thesis on the subject, says, “The children seen at consultations were often overwhelmed by their emotions. For some, it was incredibly difficult; they have no filter,” she explains. “The fear of death, for example, comes very early.” They develop symptoms such as anxiety, sleep disorders, strained relationships with other children and aggression.

 

THE HAPPIEST HP CHILDREN ARE THOSE WHO ARE NOT IDENTIFIED AS SUCH AND MANAGE TO ADAPT.

As in the Laurent family, there are often several gifted siblings. “Not all siblings are necessarily going to be HP, but there is a certain degree of genetic heritage. However, that hasn’t been proven scientifically,” explains Myriam Bickle Graz. “It remains a clinical observation.”

 

Although some high potential children suffer, the majority of them lead normal lives. As summed up by Pierre Fumeaux, “the happiest HP children are those who are not identified as such and manage to adapt.”

 

Arborescent thinking deploying in several directions, simultaneously, extremely fast and without boundaries. While it is a important source of creativity, it also implies: Difficulties to identify relevant information; all these thoughts in all directions may be confusing when the child is faced with a question, a problem or a task at school, An absolute need to organise these thoughts within a sturdy frame so that the child feels affectively, emotionally and socially secure. A “global” information processing system, with analogic and intuitive thinking. While it enables a very rich and deep understanding, with photographic memory, it also implies: Serious difficulties to adapt to the traditional schooling systems which treat information in details and sequentially (one thing after the other), An inability to develop arguments or justify their reasoning. Gifted children usually can’t explain their results, they consider the answers obvious, they know intuitively. The necessity to use in parallel the traditional school learning methods and their own knowledge aquisition systems; they do not want to feel useless, rejected or stupid. A thinking mode that needs meaning to function and complexity to develop and bloom. While it is an endless source of information data stored in an exceptional memory, it also implies: Difficulties or even refusal to acquire skills or information which they consider useless, too simple or not exciting enough to justify their attention and efforts, Constant challenges of established rules and norms, to satisfy their needs for meaning, To “learn how to learn” while taming their impatience through inventive and stimulating methodologies, with deep enrichment on all subjects. A way of thinking constantly integrating affective aspects of its environment. While it is a rich incentive to learning, it also implies: Frustration, even rejection of some teachers whom they see as incompetent in their teaching methods or behaviours, Excessive, even pathological reactions if these children, who try to master their environment and their variations, cannot find reassurance. They are scared by what they do not understand and they know, from a very young age, many things that they cannot put in perspective due to their short life experience. A need for constant reassurance on their learning progress, with a learning methodology adapted to their needs and offering a long-term continuity and homogeneity, thus reducing affective disruptions as much as possible.

 

anhugar.wifeo.com/arborescent-way-of-thinking.php A difficulty encountered by many gifed children is the fact that they think in an arborescent way instead of a linear one. The usual teaching methods are linear - when forced to learn in that mode, gifted children need to make a lot of efforts to voluntarily slow-down their “processing” thinking pace.

 

Arborescent thinking is very adequate for gifted people; it allows them to use all their mental capacities and their knowledge simultaneously. However, it needs to be guided and framed otherwise their thinking takes them far away from the subject of that day.

 

Here is an example from Jeanne Siaud-Fachin: The teacher gives a spelling test. He dictates “the boat sails on the sea”. The gifted child will initially visualize an image of a boat on the sea before seeing the sentence made of 6 words. Following the image, her thoughts will go in all directions: well, it is not a good idea to sail today because there is a lot of wind are there any people on that boat? my friend Frank owns a boat, he’s lucky but his parents are divorced, that is not fun I hope my parents will never get divorced yet, Frank has twice as many presents for Christmas now that he has 2 homes which reminds me, I have not yet prepared a wish-list for Christmas etc. While the other children have finished writing the initial sentance, the gifted child does not remember it at all and if she’s pressed, she may write the last sentence that went through her head “ I have not yet prepared a wish-list for Christmas ”.

 

Also

 

www.talentdifferent.com/la-pensee-en-arborescence-901.htm...

 

www.asep-suisse.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_docman&am... (pdf) How to help such children overcome their ‘handicap’

 

From the main link in the title (translated from the French by Google Chrome, I think): Surprisingly, a high number of high potential children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.” These difficulties are partly due to what specialists call arborescent thinking. “Normal people develop logical reasoning through linear, sequential thinking. However, the thought process in HP children is like fireworks exploding with ideas and impressive intuition. They can solve complex equations but will have difficulty explaining how they came up with the answer,” explains Pierre Fumeaux.

 

Surprisingly, a high number of HP children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.”

 

Studies suggest that HP children’s brains function differently. Information moves better between the two cerebral hemispheres. “We assume that they use both their left and right brains easily and have excellent abilities in both logic and creativity,” says the child psychiatrist. “Other work has shown that HP children can more easily juggle with concepts and think in the abstract, such as performing mental calculations. “In a functional MRI, a dye is injected to highlight the areas of the brain with the highest blood flow.

My sight regained slowy. Soon I could see everything clearly. I was on a bed, I had stiches and bandades all over my body. I shot up out of the bed and got my gear on, but I had no guns. I walked to the corner the room towards a door. Carefully I edged it open, in the reflection of the window I could see what looked like, well me. I slammed the door and strutted towards my wanna-be. "Floyd, look I know your angry," I wasn't angry, I was furious "but if you just give me sometime I can explain" he tried reasoning with me, I had no time to reason. I swung my fist at his face, he fell over on to the table "You wanna reason do you?" I said picking him up of the floor. Although he had the mask on, I could tell he didn't want to reason with me anymore. He kicked my chest, I flew across the room and smacked my head against the window. My vision was blurred as he began to blow many puches to my stomach, I regained my sight and kneed him in the face. All the time we were fighting my thoughts were everywhere. Who is this guy? How did he get an exact replica of my old suit? Why is he doing this?

 

Hope you like it :D

Classic Deadshot inspired by Baricade :)

and if you leave, will I stay?

 

~

 

I'll be honest. I almost never do shots like this.

raw.

normal.

I don't know. I guess I always feel too....posey. Self indulgent.

Yet, when I look at photography, I love the raw, b&w shit I see.

I'm drawn to realism; raw, cold, candid, hardcore photography.

Not sure the reasoning in my head at all sometimes.

 

Bottom line. Just trying this out. I took heaps of them, and I have heaps of outtakes...yikes.

I hate posting them, so I'll wait on that. Just the one in the comments that I'm sure 90% of you will 'prefer'.

I'm wondering if that's really a mental trick, the outtake. ;-)

  

Random Fact du jour: My new favorite thing is Sobe lifewater.

Santa María la Blanca es un templo católico que está ubicado en la ciudad española de Toledo. Construida en el siglo XII como sinagoga, después de los pogromos del siglo XIV acabó transformada en una iglesia. En la actualidad el edificio pertenece a la Iglesia Católica, pero no se realiza culto en él. Se encuentra abierto al público y funciona como museo.

 

Arquitectura

 

Construido en 1180 (según testimonia la inscripción visible en una de sus vigas), este edificio mudéjar posee cinco naves separadas por pilares sobre los que descansan arcos de herradura. Si bien existe cierto contraste entre la sobriedad del exterior de la sinagoga y su elaborado interior, el edificio presenta no poca austeridad. Conforme a la tradición oriental, el mismo 'vive' hacia el interior. Esta sinagoga tuvo considerable influencia sobre otras sinagogas españolas; tal es el caso, por ejemplo, de la sinagoga de Segovia.

 

Estilo

 

Se trata de una construcción mudéjar, creada por canteros moros. Sus elementos de arquitectura incluyen paredes blancas y lisas, hechas de ladrillo, arcos de herradura y pilares octogonales, decoración geométrica en los frisos y vegetal en los capiteles de los pilares. Todas estas características y la distribución de los espacios, con sus naves formadas por la sucesión de arcos de herradura soportados por pilares, tienden a recordar la tipología propia de una mezquita. No obstante, en el siglo XIX, la articulación interior y estilo morisco de Santa María la Blanca han servido de modelo para importantes sinagogas europeas y americanas.

 

Los 32 pilares de este templo son de ladrillo recubierto por cemento y cal. Ornados de piñas y volutas, sus capiteles denotan influencia del arte románico. Por encima de los arcos de herradura prevalece la ornamentación abstracta en frisos horizontales que incluye molduras con delicados motivos basados en la interacción de líneas y medallones. Los entrelazados geométricos formados por las líneas son de origen almohade.

 

Historia

 

En 1260, la comunidad judía de Toledo obtuvo un permiso extraordinario del rey Alfonso X para reconstruir "la mayor y más hermosa sinagoga de España", siendo esto opuesto a una bula del papa Inocencio IV. El edificio fue erigido en territorio cristiano (Reino de Castilla) por constructores moros y tuvo como comitente y financista a la comunidad judía de Toledo, representada por don Yosef ben Shoshan.4 Una vez acabado, el edificio fue denominado "Sinagoga Mayor" pues era el principal centro de culto hebreo en Toledo. Ya desde sus inicios, ese templo formaba parte de las diez sinagogas toledanas consideras por Yehuda ben Shlomo al-Jarizi en sus escritos del siglo XII:

 

Vine a la extensa ciudad de Toledo, capital del reino, que está revestida del encanto de la dominación y ornada con las ciencias, mostrando a los pueblos y príncipes su belleza. [...] ¡Cuántas sinagogas hay en ella de belleza incomparable! Allí toda el alma alaba al Señor.5

  

Durante años los hebreos acudieron a la Sinagoga Mayor para orar y estudiar la Biblia, mas esto fue interrumpido por el asalto al barrio judío en 1355 y matanzas en 1391, ocasionados por los incendiarios discursos de Ferrán Martínez, Arcediano de Écija. En el contexto de la campaña de predicación de San Vicente Ferrer el edificio fue convertido en iglesia de la Orden de Calatrava bajo la advocación de la Virgen en 1411 y, desde entonces, se lo denominó "Iglesia de Santa María la Blanca". En 1550, el cardenal Siliceo la transformó en un beaterio para mujeres públicas arrepentidas. De entonces data el retablo de la escuela de Berruguete, obra de Juan Bautista Vázquez el Viejo y Nicolás Vergara el Viejo. Las transformaciones en la cabecera del edificio son de esta época y estuvieron a cargo del arquitecto Alonso de Covarrubias. Entre 1600 y 1701 el edificio permaneció desocupado. Durante el siglo XVIII fue cuartel de las tropas de la guarnición de Toledo. Con la invasión napoleónica de principios del siglo XIX fue convertido en depósito. A mediados del mismo siglo se lo declaró monumento nacional y, tras la guerra civil española, un real decreto del gobierno lo cedió a la Iglesia Católica. Con todo, no es para nada inusual referirse a dicho edificio como la "Sinagoga de Santa María la Blanca"

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Mar%C3%ADa_la_Blanca_%28Toled...

 

Santa María la Blanca (literally Saint Mary the White, originally known as the Ibn Shushan Synagogue, or commonly "The Congregational Synagogue of Toledo'") is a museum and former synagogue in Toledo, Spain. Erected in 1180,[1] it is disputably considered the oldest synagogue building in Europe still standing. It is now owned and preserved by the Catholic Church.

 

Its stylistic and cultural classification is unique as it was constructed under the Christian Kingdom of Castile by Islamic architects for Jewish use. It is considered a symbol of the cooperation that existed among the three cultures that populated the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages.

 

Style

 

The synagogue is a Mudéjar construction, created by Moorish architects on Christian soil for non-Islamic purposes. But it can also be considered one of the finest example of Almohad architecture because of its construction elements and style. The plain white interior walls as well as the use of brick and of pillars instead of columns are characteristics of Almohad architecture.[2] The typology also presents nuances in its classification, because although it was constructed as a synagogue, its hypostyle room, and the lack of a women's gallery, make it closer in character to a mosque. Though it does not have a women's gallery today, it did at one time have a women's gallery according to an early 20th century architect.[3]

 

It became a church in 1405 or 1411,[4] but no major reforms were done for the change. It took then the name of Santa María la Blanca (Saint Mary, the White), and today it is known by this name.

Location

 

The synagogue at Santa Maria la Blanca is located on the outskirts of Toledo situated between the Church of San Juan de los Reyes and the Synagogue of El Transito. Other well-preserved, pre-expulsion synagogues can be found in Híjar, Córdoba and Tomar.

Design

 

Santa Maria la Blanca was a wholly unusual synagogue, in both plan and elevation. The floor plan of the synagogue is an irregular quadrilateral divided into five aisles, with the central nave aisle slightly larger than the remaining four. The space runs between 26 and 28 meters long and between 19 and 23 meters wide. The interior features a series of arcades supported on a network of twenty-four octagonal piers and eight engaged piers. These octagonal supports line the central aisle of the synagogue and support the large arcade of horseshoe arches above. The arches rest on intricately detailed capitals with finely carved pinecones and other vegetal imagery. These capitals are Mudéjar in style and are derived from classical, Corinthian antecedents as well as Byzantine concepts.

Stylistic origins

 

The exact origins and original specifications of the synagogue prove difficult to place. Evidence points toward a construction date sometime in the late twelfth century or early thirteenth century. One commonly accepted opinion is that the temple was erected sometime around 1205, as documents from the time mention a "new", great synagogue located in Toledo. Another theory arises from a wooden tablet found in the area that describes a new structure saying, "Its ruins were raised up in the year 4940" [CE 1180]. This date is not irrational as the structure's style is closer to that of Moroccan monuments of the twelfth century such as Tinmal (1153) and Kuturbiyya (1150).[6] If this inscription indeed refers to Santa Maria la Blanca, then the synagogue may in fact be a refabrication of an existing building or a new building located on the same plot as a demolished one. Whether the synagogue's layout might have been lifted from a preexisting mosque located on the same site is still unclear and purely hypothetical.[7]

Patron

 

It is also somewhat unclear who might be the patron of the original synagogue, although evidence does prefer to identify Joseph ben Meir ben Shoshan, or Yusef Abenxuxen, as the original patron. Joseph was the son of a finance minister to King Alfonso VIII of Castile who, upon his death in 1205, recorded having built a synagogue. Some theories suggest Joseph rebuilt the temple after an uprising against Jews in Toledo. This reasoning may be the cause for the building's irregular floor plan and again points to a late-twelfth century construction. Other historians, such as L. Torres Balbas, note similarities between the plaster work in the aisles of Santa Maria la Blanca and the convent Las Huelgas de Burgos of a later date around 1275. However, the scale and proportion of the ornament, the nature of the ornamentation, the blank canvas against which the ornament is placed, as well as the way in which light is used in the space all correspond to structures contemporary with the earlier construction date.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Mar%C3%ADa_la_Blanca

  

I came a bit early and had time to kill before the big onslaught. There was just barely sufficient light inside for Portra 800 at f/2 and 1/30 s.

 

This is an old abattoir right in the downtown of Darmstadt which has been converted to a concert hall. I guess the reasoning was that most rock music does not differ much from the squealing of dying pigs.

 

That said, lots of really great concerts and other events take place there. I once wanted to go and see Joe Zawinul on stage there around 12 years ago, but I couldn't go on the day of his concert.

 

I had firmly planned on going to see the next concert of his, but then he unexpectedly died, back in 2007. :-(

 

Camera: Zeiss Ikon Contarex Special (built between 1960 and 1963)

Lens: Carl Zeiss Planar 1:2 50mm Contarex Mount

Kodak Portra 800 professional grade colour negative film

Developed and scanned by www.meinfilmlab.de

WEEK 6 – Southaven Gordmans Liquidates Again (III)

 

Here’s the money shot I was waiting for: take a look at how wide open and airy the men’s apparel department is!! As I discussed with y’all previously, arguably the biggest change Stage made to this store from a visual standpoint was removing Gordmans’ original tall white divider walls in the men’s and women’s apparel departments, considerably opening up the sightlines in those areas – and indeed, across the whole store as a result. And as I also discussed with y’all previously, the reasoning behind the move was probably less sightline-motivated than it was “we need to get rid of those walls so we can fit these long, straight clothing racks in here”-motivated… but hey, I’ll take what I can get XD

 

Although taken from within the department itself as opposed to out in the actionway, here's a pretty good comparison shot of this same area from before. Pretty major difference, right?!

 

(c) 2021 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

 

Joker: Insane Gotham City criminal with a sadistic sense of humor who is highly intelligent and skilled in the fields of chemistry and engineering.

 

Riddler: Clever Gotham City criminal with a genius-level IQ who is skilled at inductive and deductive reasoning, lateral thinking, and pattern recognition.

 

If they had to fight, who would win?

 

#309 in the Duel 365 series.

This monster snowflake was photographed this morning, on one of what is sure to be many nights of little sleep during this project. When the forecast calls for great snowfall conditions, I always set my alarm and venture out at very early hours to see if I can catch the best crystals. This morning’s snowflake hunt began at around 5AM and concluded when the snowfall stopped at roughly 10AM, and this crystal was one of many successfully photographed.

 

This crystal measures just over 7.5mm across, which is a “monster” snowflake. The largest crystals I have come across measure roughly 1cm, so this snowflake is on the upper end of the scale. It’s important to know that a snowflake of this size would still be difficult to capture using an ordinary macro lens. Even on an APS-C sensor with a 1:1 Lifesize capable macro lens, the snowflake would fill less than 20% of the frame. You can still crop in and get some great details, but stronger magnifications are required to fill the frame. This image was shot at about 3.4:1 magnification on a full-frame sensor to get the highest amount of detail possible.

 

I also encountered a problem with new (and expensive) flash equipment. I recently upgraded to the Canon MR-14EX II Ring Lite, and discovered a problem that did not exist in the previous Canon right flash unit. After a set number of exposures, the flash will simply shut itself off. This is due to software safety protocols designed to prevent the flash from overheating, and there is no way to turn off the feature by conventional means. With this feature, I can only shoot one or two crystals before the flash unit activates a “cool-down” mode and will not fire continuously. I understand the reasoning for this, but it’s not based on actual temperatures; when I’m shooting in sub-zero temps, overheating is not a problem.

 

I had to be slightly creative to overcome this new limitation. I had remembered that when changing batteries in the flash, it would not remember the flash mode and ratio that had previously been set. This information was lost when the main batteries were disconnected. Opening the battery cover also works to reset the temperature alarm “counter”, allowing me to continue shooting snowflakes. I have to open the battery cover and reset the flash software after every snowflake…. A real pain!

 

The rest of my photographic workflow is well documented in my book Sky Crystals: www.skycrystals.ca/ - check it out if you have any interest in photographing snowflakes this winter, or if you’re curious about the science behind these beautiful works of natural art.

Poppy: *clears throat* On behalf of the idiot boys and myself, we would like to register a complaint with the Flickr Authorities for the cruel and inhumane, err, inCATane, punishment that our mother has been inflicting on us! She has willfully kept us away from our Flickr friends and all attempts at reasoning with her have been met by mumbles that sound suspiciously like “drowning …go away…drowning”. We have Googled “drowning” and found out that it is something that only Fish do…we looked up pictures of Fish and found out that our mother is decidedly NOT a fish, and therefore cannot drown! We demand that the Flickr Authorities issue a suitable fine and force her to return us to our beloved community of friends!

 

Mishka: *whispering* Poppy, what if Flickr Aufotiries take her to jail…if she goes away, who’s going to feed us?

 

Bino: Idiot! Dad knows where the food is! Plus he’ll give us extra treats too!

 

Poppy: *excited* Or maybe the Authorities will take us to Grandma’s house! She’ll give us extra treats too!

 

Mishka: *sigh* I love my Daddy!

 

Bino: *sigh* I love Grandma!

 

Poppy: *sigh* I love extra treats!

 

Me: *muttering* Ungrateful BRATS!

 

WEEK 23 – Southaven Walmart, 2015 Remodel (II)

 

(cont.) In fact, I believe the tile flooring may well have been replaced every single time this store had a remodel… up until 2020, anyway. Though y’all probably already guessed where I was going with this, I must sadly report that this store eliminated its floor tile in the 2020 remodel, exposing the concrete underneath – and, like the Stateline Kroger we are also currently touring that did the exact same, that concrete looks pretty darn bad in a lot of places. Although I can understand most of the reasoning behind the move, it’s really such a shame that it leaves behind such unpleasant sights in many cases, when stores used to care so much more about the presentation of that aspect of their atmospherics.

 

(c) 2021 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

J&L Tunnel sees Daylight: On the CSX Pittsburgh Sub - a former P&LE line, J&L tunnel was built underneath the bustling industry of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Mill that once covered the land where I stand today, which is where the tunnel recieved its name from.

 

The tunnel was originally doubled tracked in the P&LE days, but for whatever reasoning it may be, CSX decided that the tunnel being double tracked was not going to work.

 

In the middle of 2010 work began on the tunnel to allow doublestacks to be ran through the tunnel and on the Pittsburgh Sub in general as part of the National Gateway Project. The first year was spent working on undercutting the railroad as much as they possibly could, then going and removing all the earth from atop on the tunnel and removing the concrete slabs on top.

 

There was once a little field here all nice and neatly decorated with various assortments of stuff. (for a god before and after comparison with how this scene in front of me looks, and with how it used to look; type in this address on google maps: Hofbräuhaus 2705 South Water Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203) (Best viewed with side by side tabs)

 

Once they removed the old concrete slabs work began on adding onto the former containing walls that made up the tunnel by pouring concrete a few feet high and then re-adding, newer and bigger concrete slabs on top to re-close the tunnel.

 

AFAIK - This very well could have been a once in a lifetime event to behold and see with this tunnel. But until that time comes, who knows when I'll see another train running through the J&L tunnel from above ground, and not at a portal exit.

 

The project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2013.

 

It definitely is some crazy stuff to see and behold, let alone document before the opportunity is gone.

 

But anywho - getting back to the perspective of trains, here's eastbound Auto Train CSX Q216 rolling eastbound through the J&L Tunnel as the 1st of 4 eastbounds we would tag and bag coming through here.

 

December 16th, 2012

 

Accepted to Railpictures.net:

 

www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=418395&nseq=0

I can`t take the credit for taking this picture as I`m in the cab!

It`s at Stoke Newington Common bus stand on 7 December 1980 and before we began fitting chrome light surrounds and wheel trims to all of our RM`s.

 

Mortlake only had eight buses on the 73`s on Sundays compared to around thirty from Tottenham Garage. Most Mortlake crews hated the northern end of the 73`s beyond Kings Cross as it was rather different territory from the western end that they were more used to on the fairly leisurely 33 route. And Stoke Newington to Hounslow was a long journey of around an hour and a half.

 

Prior to the legalisation of Sunday shopping many routes were lengthy on Sundays and the running times were quite tight reflecting, in theory, lesser traffic levels. That reasoning often fell apart due to road works and on the 73`s on Sundays in December the West End was often gridlocked due to Christmas lights traffic. Either of those scenarios might explain why a non-scheduled `turn` at East Sheen, Black Horse is the destination.

The story behind this almost top-of-a-rooster like art is that I had tag-itch something fierce in a top I like. I kept hesitating to cut it out because of the line of reasoning that I might want to buy one like it some day; and I would want to know what brand it was. I think this is the infancy of some types of hoarding.

 

I decided I could remember the brand name, well, probably pretty good anyway. So I got my scissors and I cut, trying to be very careful not to cut right into the top itself but just to get rid of the tag. When I pulled the cut tag away from the actual top (blouse) the threads separated out, sort of fan like or rooster like. I decided I would try to take some artistic pictures of the tag before I threw it way. I did, and I had fun.

 

That's it! That the *soul of this one.

  

(DSCN8929ArtFromThinkingatLooseEndsWacolShrpTuBOITflickr030121)

  

View On Black

 

One of several Mark Rothko pieces at the MOMA, NYC.

   

"The progression of a painter's work as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity.. toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea.. and the idea and the observer.. To achieve this clarity is inevitably to be understood."

  

- Mark Rothko (September 25, 1903–February 25, 1970), was a Latvian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist.

She is enchanting, isn’t she !!!! She was just staring at me sitting close to my feet in Corfu, this last summer. My son Nicholas was cuddling her ;…such a calm, lovely creature ; what was she….thinking? Just a stray , adorable cat, strolling around the tavern ….With such a great impact on my mind and soul !!

“….The great creativity of consciousness is your heritage. It does not belong to mankind alone, however. Each living being possesses it, and the living world consists of a spontaneous cooperation between the smallest and the highest, the greatest and the lowly, between the atoms and the molecules, and the conscious reasoning mind” (“The Nature of Personal Reality” :A Seth Book—Jane Roberts)

 

 

laboratorio de ying, nyc.

 

A twins lens reflex "street"camera (TLR) is an eccentric thing. It presents to the world its single vulnerability, that it has two separate eyes with two separate functions. Another oddity about it is the way that it sees the world, as a perfect square.

 

One could also feel upon first seeing this thing, that it is actually taking not one but two pictures of you, a daunting idea. Of course, following this line of reasoning, the antique multiplying camera of a century ago would make any photographic subject numb with confusion.

 

The doubled idea: two eyes, two lenses, two participants (a photographer and his camera), two lovers and twin souls prevails here.

 

The English Aptus is the camera that appears in my imagination for this design, for unexplainable reasons.

 

The Aptus was successful and efficient for its time. It deservedly became a workhorse. It was also extremely plain, even more than the infamous Fotron. That is what inspired me to deeply upgrade it.

 

My design alters the Aptus to become two towers, reminiscent of a twins lens reflex, and a walkway that connects them. The camera has a double bellows, of fixed length: a modern one with glass and greenery, the other a traditional one lined with an interior leather and a cool clay exterior shell. The Dark Tower has a chute in the back for a the plates to drop down to the developing tank disguised as, and underneath a shared walkway. The clear tower and its bellows extends out to the street, so the journey for the public is from the darkness to a more natural, open yet enclosed surrounding and then onto the outside street). This Valentine's Day "Street" Camera kit comes with figures of pets and children to place along the street recalling an unconventional Shanghai "Longtang" or communal alley.

 

The exterior graphic for this camera was adapted from a lovely embroidered painting of the artist Keiko Minami. I developed the camera interior and the main design theme from a single (yet crucial) line in her painting which poetically suggested a shared plinth and a shared bearing wall.

 

Design, text and drawing are copyright 2014 by David Lo.

 

The Trotwood Walmart closed its doors in October of 2007. The reasoning behind the closure was poor sales. This is one of the few Walmarts closed without a direct replacement.

WEEK 16 – Barnes & Noble Ole Miss: Reunionited and It Feels So Good (II)

 

(cont. from Thursday) – there’s also a second entrance right next to this entrance! Not quite sure what the reasoning behind this one was, but hey, at least it makes the place very easy to access :P Also, as you can see behind that second entrance, there’s an entirely separate additional, even larger café seating area to the left of the Starbucks, in addition to the seating area to the right that I already showed y’all earlier. Entrance doors and seating options are two things that this place certainly isn’t hurting for, haha!

 

Like I said, this seating area is much larger than the other one, and (as much as I liked the wall décor) has a much better view, with that full-size wall of windows looking out the front of the Union (where, by the way, I can also see a B&N Starbucks Café sign – aha, figured one had to be around here somewhere!). I also like how, if you look really closely, you can see that the little sliver of window between the two sets of doors on the right has a vertical “Thank you for shopping” message.

 

(c) 2021 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

 

Built in the same architectural style as Emerald and Mount Morgan stations, also in the Central Division of Queensland Railways, Archer Park was the next station north of Rockhampton's main Stanley Street station and is a long, covered station that was once busier than the main station. It sits beside the long straight section of North Coast line which runs down the middle of Denison Street in Rockhampton. It is now an excellent railway museum and something for this fine regional city to be proud of. If you are in the area, don't miss visiting it. Here is the rather long history.

 

Archer Park Railway Museum is a heritage-listed former railway station and now transport museum at Denison Street, Rockhampton, Rockhampton Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1897 to 1908. It was known as Archer Park railway station and Rockhampton Central railway station. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.

The Museum's main attraction is a rare French Purrey steam tram reconstructed using parts from the original fleet of steam trams operated by Rockhampton City Council.

 

Archer Park Railway Station, the former Rockhampton Central Railway Station, is situated on Denison Street and forms an important link with the social, cultural and transport history of Rockhampton and Central Queensland. It was the major railway station in Rockhampton from the turn of the century until the mid 1920s, and is an important element in the development of the railway network in Queensland, and the growth of the North Coast Railway in the early part of the twentieth century.

 

The Archer brothers had made a private expedition to the Rockhampton district in 1853, and were the first Europeans to record and chart the Fitzroy River. The Archers were also the first European pastoralists to arrive in the area. Their establishment of Gracemere Station led to further pastoral expansion into the area.

 

After the short lived Canoona gold rush of 1858, Rockhampton was proclaimed as a town and declared a port of entry in 1858. Following the gold rush the town of Rockhampton developed as an entry and export town for central Queensland. Rockhampton continued to eclipse its nearest rival Gladstone for nearly a century as the principal port for Central Queensland.

 

In 1863 the Parliament of Queensland passed the controversial Railway Bill, which committed Queensland to the use of a narrow gauge for the development of its Main Line railway in Queensland. Other colonies in Australia at this time had adopted broader gauges for use on their rail networks. The reasoning behind this decision was that a narrow gauge would have lower construction costs.

 

The first section of the Queensland railway network was opened between Ipswich and Bigges Camp (now Grandchester) on 31 July 1865, and later extended to link the towns of Warwick, Dalby and Toowoomba with Ipswich. At the time that the Railway Act had been passed, the 5000 citizens of Rockhampton objected to having no provision made for the construction of a railway to their hinterland, where copper was being exploited in the Peak Downs area. A railway was thought necessary to ensure development of the interior.

 

The first length of Central Western railway line was opened to Westwood some 30 miles (48 km) from Rockhampton in 1867. The line was extended beyond the coastal ranges in 1872, reaching Emerald in 1879. The Central Western Railway was progressively extended further west reaching Longreach in 1892, and remained an isolated railway system, with no connection to the southern division of Queensland railways until 1903.

 

In 1882 after Brisbane had acquired a railway to the seaside at Sandgate, Rockhampton clamoured for a similar connection to its resort at Emu Park. Construction of the Emu Park railway line was approved in 1885 and the line opened in 1888. The 1880s was a period of economic and civic expansion in Rockhampton as a result of the discovery and exploitation of the gold and ore body at Mount Morgan in the Dee Range forty kilometres from Rockhampton.

 

The line, similar to Bundaberg, featured a railway system divided by a major river. This consisted of a line running from a terminus in Stanley Street, Rockhampton to Gracemere and westwards, and the line at North Rockhampton to Emu Park with no physical connection. Two years after the opening of the Emu Park line, the Railway Department began investigating the possibility of linking Rockhampton's two separate railways. The bridging of the Fitzroy River and the cost of land resumptions to join the two terminus stations were to be major difficulties in connecting the two lines.

 

Trial surveys in 1890 investigated two routes, but the financial crisis of 1893 forestalled further work. The impetus for bridging the Fitzroy River came from the decision of the Queensland Government to construct a deepwater port at Broadmount (now Thompson Point) at the mouth of the Fitzroy River in 1894, and to link the Central Railway with North Rockhampton via a bridge across the Fitzroy and a line running via Denison Street. The original plan called for a single line down Denison Street and for a single track bridge, however the Rockhampton City Council protested against this decision. Following a visit to Rockhampton by railway engineer Henry Charles Stanley, the management of the Lakes Creek Meatworks at North Rockhampton convinced the Railway Department to construct a double line to North Rockhampton, as it was felt that developments in livestock and goods traffic would justify the initial outlay. In 1895 construction was approved for what was to be known as the Rockhampton Junction Railway. The new bridge and connecting line were the first examples of double lines outside of the Brisbane-Ipswich metropolitan area. The Rockhampton City Council gave half of Leichhardt Park (now Archer Park) and Denison Street which allowed for the construction of a central railway station. The Council approved this work in October 1896.

 

The future station at Archer Park was first sketched out in 1897 in Brisbane. The concept developed was for a station separate from the main line down Denison Street, but connected via a loop line crossing the southbound line by crossovers and slip points. A single platform was to be provided 300 feet (91 m) long and 20 feet (6.1 m) wide, with an arched carriage shade running full length of the platform. The track to the platform and the three track loop line left only a small strip of roadway available along Denison Street. The plan was subsequently altered to allow for a larger space for vehicular traffic on Denison Street.

 

An amended plan for the station building was prepared in late 1897. This incorporated a station building 140 feet (43 m) long, with a 10 feet (3.0 m) wide verandah running its full length along the street elevation. A cloak room was also added to the plan.

 

Final plans were produced in 1898 by architect Henrik Hansen (1843-?). Hansen had joined the Queensland Railways in 1877, and was responsible for the design of many utilitarian buildings and structures. He was also responsible for the design of the railway stations at Mount Morgan (1898), Cunnamulla (1898) and Winton (1898), the refreshment rooms at Toowoomba (1900), and Emerald railway station (1900). Hansen was also involved in the design of the new North Ipswich Railway Workshops (c.1901-13). Hansen was retrenched in 1904. Similar features of the stations designed by Hansen, particularly at Mount Morgan, Cunnamulla and Winton, included an all-over arch roof or carriage shade, designed to provide cover to passengers and goods being loaded at the platform.

 

The tender for construction of the Rockhampton Junction Railway was awarded to GC Willcocks in 1897. The contract involved the construction of the branch to Broadmount, the Denison Street line, and the Alexandra Railway Bridge. Construction was delayed until 1898 on the bridge due to flooding on the Fitzroy River.

 

Tenders were called in September 1897 for the construction of a residence for a station master for Archer Park. Thomas McWatters won the contract for £520, and the building was completed in sixteen weeks. In July 1898 tenders were called for the erection of a signal cabin at Archer Park, and one tender was received from Watson and McDonald for £168. The system of interlocking signalling and pointworks led to discussions between HC Stanley and Traffic Manager Thallon in 1898. Thallon had suggested to deviate the mainline so as to enter Archer Park railway station, to avoid running interlocking gear and signal wires along Denison Street. However the original plan to enable trains to run along Denison Street without entering Archer Park was retained.

 

Tenders were called for the Rockhampton Central Station in February 1899. Thomas Butterworth Renshaw and Harry Ricketts submitted a tender of £4,130. Electric lighting of the station was considered during construction; however gas was installed instead.

 

The Rockhampton Junction Railway was officially opened on 6 November 1899. With the completion of the Alexandra Railway Bridge, the Emu Park and Central Railway provided a unified rail link between the two halves of Rockhampton. The Archer Park station was not ready for the opening of the Junction Railway, and no official opening ceremony was held; however the station was opened for the use of the public from 11 December 1899. The official name Archer Park was adopted in October 1899, rather than Leichhardt Park, from which it was resumed.

 

Being the central station for Rockhampton, Archer Park superseded the Stanley Street station not long after its construction. Mail trains to Brisbane departed from Archer Park following completion of the Gladstone-Rockhampton link in 1903. Archer Park was designed as a passenger station, and did not handle goods traffic apart from parcels and mail. The station was also important as the departure and terminating point for services to Mount Morgan, Emu Park and the local suburban services to Lakes Creek at North Rockhampton. Excursions to the seaside at Emu Park and later Yeppoon were also extremely popular.

 

In 1906 plans were drawn up to extend the building to provide for a refreshment room. The refreshment room was to be provided at the northern end of the station building, and was to include a bar for patrons. The rooms opened in 1908, and were leased by private operators until the Government established the Railway Refreshment Room services in 1916.

 

Denison Street was to be a major problem for train operations within Rockhampton. As the route of the railway was along a major thoroughfare across several open level crossings, trains were limited to a maximum speed of 10 miles per hour (16 km/h). Trains were also required to provide an audible signal to warn motorists and pedestrians along Denison Street of their passage. The warning was given by the fireman on the engine ringing a brass hand bell.

 

The Central Western Line continued to expand throughout the early part of the twentieth century. Prior to 1922, up to twenty five daily departures and arrivals could be recorded at Archer Park. By 1922 the station layout at Archer Park was too restrictive to handle the increasing length of passenger and mail trains. With the completion of the North Coast Line from Rockhampton to Mackay in 1921, operational difficulties were increased as the length of mail trains frequently fouled the crossover, leading to the blocking of the main line. The length of trains also meant that vision between the signalman on duty and the driver of trains was obscured.

 

As the signal cabin for Archer Park was situated on the western side of the station loop lines, firemen looking back along the length of the train were unable to be given a proceed signal. To assist in the problem of observing passing trains on the main line in Denison Street, sheets of galvanised iron were removed to open up a view from the platform area.

 

The Stanley Street station was enlarged in 1923 to cater for longer trains, and two 600 feet (180 m) long platforms were provided. The station was further enlarged between 1924 and 1928, making it the major station in Rockhampton. The long distance mail and passenger trains all departed from the Stanley Street station leaving Archer Park to cater for more local services.

 

During the Second World War Archer Park station was again utilised for services to cope with the dispatch and transport of allied army troops stationed in the Rockhampton area.

 

The signal cabin on the Denison Street side of the station was moved into the station building in 1956. Prior to this the station had been downgraded in staffing in the early 1950s as an economy measure. The movement of the cabin had been protested by union representatives, as it would have also meant the loss of signalmen jobs. The move first proposed in 1922, and again in the early 1950s was accomplished by the end of 1956.

 

Further staff reductions took place in 1957. At the same time the General Manager for the Central Division recommended that only local passenger and railmotor services operate to and from Archer Park with all other services to by-pass the station. Summer traffic to Emu Park and Yeppoon maintained regular departures from the station as in the early part of the century. Most traffic was now generated from services to Mount Morgan, St Lawrence, and the Sunday-only train to Mackay.

 

Branch line closures in the Central Division further reduced train services from the station. The Emu Park line was closed in 1964 due to falling revenue, and with the withdrawal of the railmotor service from Archer Park to St Lawrence in 1968, the only trains to operate were Yeppoon services. The Yeppoon railmotor was withdrawn in 1969, and with no passenger services operating from the station, the decision was taken to close the station as of 2 February 1970. Tenders were invited in 1970 to attract a suitable lessee for Archer Park, but no offers were forthcoming. The station was then used as a freight terminal for a door to door service being developed by Queensland Railways. Every second post on the Denison Street side of the carriage shade was removed to facilitate vehicle access. Rooms in the station building were also used for storage. No maintenance was to be carried out on the building at the request of Queensland Railways.

 

Filling was placed at the northern end of the platform to allow motor vehicles access to the station area. In 1974 Queensland Railfast Express Pty Ltd were given a lease of the station area north of the entry vestibule. Partitions were removed in the refreshment rooms and the floor strengthened. Archer Park was the headquarters for QRX and its freight operations in Rockhampton from 1976 until 1989.

 

From 1982 until QRX vacated the site in 1989, local residents protested over noise and inconvenience generated from the freight activities on site. Rockhampton City Council made approaches to Queensland Railways for the station and yard to be developed as a museum complex. QRX found alternative accommodation at a location near Port Curtis Junction, and financed its move with assistance from Queensland Railways. Archer Park closed as a freight terminal and station on 14 January 1990. Mechanical and electric semaphore signalling was placed out of use, along with all points and crossovers leading into the station.

 

On 1 May 1990 Queensland Railways handed over the Archer Park station to the Rockhampton City Council as part of a plan to develop a museum on site. In 1996 conservation and refurbishment work was carried on the station building and carriage shed. The eastern or southbound main line along Denison Street was removed by Queensland Rail as part of its Main Line Upgrade programme. A section of the line two blocks in length was retained linking Archer Park station to its loop line; however all physical connection with the North Coast Line has now been removed.