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I don’t even know where to start to describe this photo! This was supposed to be a quick project but ended up being the most meaningful to me!
Have you ever came to pray but all you could do is cry? Have you ever opened the Word of God but the only book appealed to you was the Psalms because the cry of the psalmist heart is all that you could relate to? Have you ever cried out to God so deeply that you could not say a word? That all you could do is open your hands in surrender? Have you ever tried to hold your tears back until you reach home, go to your room, turned the music up so you could cry all you needed? Have you ever opened your eyes to read your Bible but couldn’t see it clearly because tears were filling your eyes?
Well this is what this photo is about. (I hope I conveyed the tears effect accurately.)
This photo is for those moments where faith in your Heavenly Father’s wisdom, love, and goodness is the only thing that is sustaining your emotional and spiritual being. Not blessings, not joy, not hope, not peace, not guidance, not comfort, not love, nor even His presence—just pure faith. Do I sound too extreme here? I think Job would have agreed with me. When all else is stripped away our faith appears, and shows its real worth. Even in testing our God is wise and just, because His purpose is to build up our faith not destroy it--He desires our best because we are His children.
I don’t know what else to say at this moment except that God is a good God, and He is just. Sometimes even when obeying Him it seems that we failed—and feel He failed us--but we can only see so much in comparison to His wisdom.
The only thing I can add are Jesus’ words when He was in anguish, Luke 22:42:
"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
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"Anything that drives you closer to God is good, even pain." Dr. Charles Stanley
"The closest distance between a problem and its solution is the distance between your knees and the floor [praying]." Dr. Charles Stanley
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(Toronto, ON; winter 2008.)
Every mother can relate to this.
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The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and other conflicts. The Mustang was conceived, designed and built by North American Aviation (NAA) in response to a specification issued directly to NAA by the British Purchasing Commission. The prototype NA-73X airframe was rolled out on 9 September 1940, 102 days after the contract was signed and, with an engine installed, first flew on 26 October. The Mustang was originally designed to use the Allison V-1710 engine, which had limited high-altitude performance. It was first flown operationally by the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a tactical-reconnaissance aircraft and fighter-bomber (Mustang Mk I). The addition of the Rolls-Royce Merlin to the P-51B/C model transformed the Mustang's performance at altitudes above 15,000 ft, matching or bettering that of the Luftwaffe's fighters. The definitive version, the P-51D, was powered by the Packard V-1650-7, a license-built version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin 60 series two-stage two-speed supercharged engine, and armed with six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns. From late 1943, P-51Bs (supplemented by P-51Ds from mid-1944) were used by the USAAF's Eighth Air Force to escort bombers in raids over Germany, while the RAF's 2 TAF and the USAAF's Ninth Air Force used the Merlin-powered Mustangs as fighter-bombers, roles in which the Mustang helped ensure Allied air superiority in 1944. The P-51 was also in service with Allied air forces in the North African, Mediterranean and Italian theaters, and saw limited service against the Japanese in the Pacific War. During World War II, Mustang pilots claimed 4,950 enemy aircraft shot down. At the start of the Korean War, the Mustang was the main fighter of the United Nations until jet fighters such as the F-86 took over this role; the Mustang then became a specialized fighter-bomber. Despite the advent of jet fighters, the Mustang remained in service with some air forces until the early 1980s. After World War II and the Korean War, many Mustangs were converted for civilian use, especially air racing, and increasingly, preserved and flown as historic warbird aircraft at airshows. In April 1938, shortly after the German Anschluss of Austria, the British government established a purchasing commission in the United States, headed by Sir Henry Self. Self was given overall responsibility for Royal Air Force (RAF) production and research and development, and also served with Sir Wilfrid Freeman, the "Air Member for Development and Production". Self also sat on the British Air Council Sub-committee on Supply (or "Supply Committee") and one of his tasks was to organize the manufacturing and supply of American fighter aircraft for the RAF. At the time, the choice was very limited, as no U.S. aircraft then in production or flying met European standards, with only the Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk coming close. The Curtiss-Wright plant was running at capacity, so P-40s were in short supply. North American Aviation (NAA) was already supplying its Harvard trainer to the RAF, but was otherwise underutilized. NAA President "Dutch" Kindelberger approached Self to sell a new medium bomber, the B-25 Mitchell. Instead, Self asked if NAA could manufacture the Tomahawk under license from Curtiss. Kindelberger said NAA could have a better aircraft with the same engine in the air sooner than establishing a production line for the P-40. The Commission stipulated armament of four .303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns, the Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled engine, a unit cost of no more than $40,000, and delivery of the first production aircraft by January 1941. In March 1940, 320 aircraft were ordered by Sir Wilfred Freeman who had become the executive head of Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP), and the contract was promulgated on 24 April. The NA-73X, which was designed by a team led by lead engineer Edgar Schmued, followed the best conventional practice of the era, but included several new features. One was a wing designed using laminar flow airfoils which were developed co-operatively by North American Aviation and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). These airfoils generated very low drag at high speeds. During the development of the NA-73X, a wind tunnel test of two wings, one using NACA 5-digit airfoils and the other using the new NAA/NACA 45–100 airfoils, was performed in the University of Washington Kirsten Wind Tunnel. The results of this test showed the superiority of the wing designed with the NAA/NACA 45–100 airfoils. The other feature was a new radiator design that exploited the "Meredith Effect", in which heated air exited the radiator as a slight amount of jet thrust. Because NAA lacked a suitable wind tunnel to test this feature, it used the GALCIT 10 ft (3.0 m) wind tunnel at Caltech. This led to some controversy over whether the Mustang's cooling system aerodynamics were developed by NAA's engineer Edgar Schmued or by Curtiss, although NAA had purchased the complete set of P-40 and XP-46 wind tunnel data and flight test reports for US$56,000. The NA-73X was also one of the first aircraft to have a fuselage lofted mathematically using conic sections; this resulted in the aircraft's fuselage having smooth, low drag surfaces. To aid production, the airframe was divided into five main sections—forward, center, rear fuselage and two wing halves — all of which were fitted with wiring and piping before being joined. The prototype NA-73X was rolled out in September 1940 and first flew on 26 October 1940, respectively 102 and 149 days after the order had been placed, an uncommonly short gestation period. The prototype handled well and accommodated an impressive fuel load. The aircraft's two-section, semi-monocoque fuselage was constructed entirely of aluminum to save weight. It was armed with four .30 in (7.62 mm) M1919 Browning machine guns, two in the wings and two mounted under the engine and firing through the propeller arc using gun synchronizing gear. While the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) could block any sales it considered detrimental to the interests of the US, the NA-73 was considered to be a special case because it had been designed at the behest of the British. In September 1940. a further 300 NA-73s were ordered by MAP. To ensure uninterrupted delivery Colonel Oliver P. Echols arranged with the Anglo-French Purchasing Commission to deliver the aircraft, and NAA gave two examples (41-038 and 41-039) to the USAAC for evaluation.
Visiting the Cemetery this evening a sliver of sun shone through the clouds and lit up this fine strong dominating tree that towers the external back wall of the graveyard, like a super trooper.
It caught my eye and provoked some thoughts of life after death, hence this capture, posting to Flickr to archive the moment and enjoy time and again.
Resurrection
Resurrection is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of ancient religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and resurrects. The death and resurrection of Jesus, an example of resurrection, is the central focus of Christianity.
As a religious concept, it is used in two distinct respects: a belief in the resurrection of individual souls that is current and ongoing (Christian idealism, realized eschatology), or else a belief in a singular resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. The resurrection of the dead is a standard eschatological belief in the Abrahamic religions.
Some believe the soul is the actual vehicle by which people are resurrected.
Christian theological debate ensues with regard to what kind of resurrection is factual – either a spiritual resurrection with a spirit body into Heaven, or a material resurrection with a restored human body. While most Christians believe Jesus' resurrection from the dead and ascension to Heaven was in a material body, a very small minority believe it was spiritual.
There are documented rare cases of the return to life of the clinically dead which are classified scientifically as examples of the Lazarus syndrome, a term originating from the Biblical story of the Resurrection of Lazarus.
Etymology
Resurrection, from the Latin noun resurrectio -onis, from the verb rego, "to make straight, rule" + preposition sub, "under", altered to subrigo and contracted to surgo, surrexi, surrectum + preposition re-, "again", thus literally "a straightening from under again".
Religion
Ancient religions in the Near East
See also: Dying-and-rising god
The concept of resurrection is found in the writings of some ancient non-Abrahamic religions in the Middle East. A few extant Egyptian and Canaanite writings allude to dying and rising gods such as Osiris and Baal. Sir James Frazer in his book The Golden Bough relates to these dying and rising gods, but many of his examples, according to various scholars, distort the sources. Taking a more positive position, Tryggve Mettinger argues in his recent book that the category of rise and return to life is significant for the following deities: Ugaritic Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Osiris and Dumuzi.
Ancient Greek religion
In ancient Greek religion a number of men and women were made physically immortal as they were resurrected from the dead. Asclepius was killed by Zeus, only to be resurrected and transformed into a major deity. Achilles, after being killed, was snatched from his funeral pyre by his divine mother Thetis and resurrected, brought to an immortal existence in either Leuce, Elysian plains or the Islands of the Blessed. Memnon, who was killed by Achilles, seems to have received a similar fate. Alcmene, Castor, Heracles, and Melicertes, were also among the figures sometimes considered to have been resurrected to physical immortality. According to Herodotus's Histories, the seventh century BC sage Aristeas of Proconnesus was first found dead, after which his body disappeared from a locked room. Later he found not only to have been resurrected but to have gained immortality.
Many other figures, like a great part of those who fought in the Trojan and Theban wars, Menelaus, and the historical pugilist Cleomedes of Astupalaea, were also believed to have been made physically immortal, but without having died in the first place. Indeed, in Greek religion, immortality originally always included an eternal union of body and soul. The philosophical idea of an immortal soul was a later invention, which, although influential, never had a breakthrough in the Greek world. As may be witnessed even into the Christian era, not least by the complaints of various philosophers over popular beliefs, traditional Greek believers maintained the conviction that certain individuals were resurrected from the dead and made physically immortal and that for the rest of us, we could only look forward to an existence as disembodied and dead souls.
This traditional religious belief in physical immortality was generally denied by the Greek philosophers. Writing his Lives of Illustrious Men (Parallel Lives) in the first century CE, the Middle Platonic philosopher Plutarch's chapter on Romulus gave an account of the mysterious disappearance and subsequent deification of this first king of Rome, comparing it to traditional Greek beliefs such as the resurrection and physical immortalization of Alcmene and Aristeas the Proconnesian, "for they say Aristeas died in a fuller's work-shop, and his friends coming to look for him, found his body vanished; and that some presently after, coming from abroad, said they met him traveling towards Croton." Plutarch openly scorned such beliefs held in traditional ancient Greek religion, writing, "many such improbabilities do your fabulous writers relate, deifying creatures naturally mortal."
The parallel between these traditional beliefs and the later resurrection of Jesus was not lost on the early Christians, as Justin Martyr argued: "when we say ... Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons of Zeus." (1 Apol. 21). There is, however, no belief in a general resurrection in ancient Greek religion, as the Greeks held that not even the gods were able to recreate flesh that had been lost to decay, fire or consumption.
The notion of a general resurrection of the dead was therefore apparently quite preposterous to the Greeks. This is made clear in Paul's Areopagus discourse. After having first told about the resurrection of Jesus, which makes the Athenians interested to hear more, Paul goes on, relating how this event relates to a general resurrection of the dead:
"Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, `We shall hear you again concerning this."
Christianity
Resurrection of Jesus
In Christianity, resurrection most critically concerns the Resurrection of Jesus, but also includes the resurrection of Judgment Day known as the Resurrection of the Dead by those Christians who subscribe to the Nicene Creed (which is the majority or Mainstream Christianity), as well as the resurrection miracles done by Jesus and the prophets of the Old Testament. Some churches distinguish between raising the dead (a resumption of mortal life) and a resurrection (the beginning of an immortal life).
Resurrection of Jesus
Christians regard the resurrection of Jesus as the central doctrine in Christianity. Others take the Incarnation of Jesus to be more central; however, it is the miracles – and particularly his Resurrection – which provide validation of his incarnation. According to Paul, the entire Christian faith hinges upon the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus and the hope for a life after death. The Apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians: If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Resurrection
Miracles of Jesus § Resurrection of the dead
During the Ministry of Jesus on earth, before his death, Jesus commissioned his Twelve Apostles to, among other things, raise the dead. In the New Testament, Jesus is said to have raised several persons from death. These resurrections included the daughter of Jairus shortly after death, a young man in the midst of his own funeral procession, and Lazarus, who had been buried for four days. According to the Gospel of Matthew, after Jesus's resurrection, many of those previously dead came out of their tombs and entered Jerusalem, where they appeared to many.
Similar resurrections are credited to Christian apostles and saints. Peter allegedly raised a woman named Dorcas (called Tabitha), and Paul the Apostle revived a man named Eutychus who had fallen asleep and fell from a window to his death, according to the book of Acts. Proceeding the apostolic era, many saints were said to resurrect the dead, as recorded in Orthodox Christian hagiographies.[citation needed] St Columba supposedly raised a boy from the dead in the land of Picts .
Most Christians understand these miraculous resurrections to be of a different nature than the resurrection of Jesus and the future resurrection of the dead. The raising of Lazarus and others from the dead could also be called "resuscitations" or "reanimations", since the life given to them is presumably temporary in nature—there is no suggestion in the Bible or hagiographic traditions that these people became truly immortal. In contrast, the resurrection of Jesus and the future resurrection of the dead will abolish death once and for all (see Isaiah 25:8, 1 Corinthians 15:26, 2 Timothy 1:10, Revelation 21:4).
Resurrection of the Dead
Christianity started as a religious movement within 1st-century Judaism (late Second Temple Judaism), and it retains what the New Testament itself claims was the Pharisaic belief in the afterlife and Resurrection of the Dead. Whereas this belief was only one of many beliefs held about the World to Come in Second Temple Judaism, and was notably rejected by both the Sadducees and, according to Josephus, the Pharisees, this belief became dominant within Early Christianity and already in the Gospels of Luke and John included an insistence on the resurrection of the flesh. This was later rejected by gnostic teachings, which instead continued the Pauline insistence that flesh and bones had no place in heaven.
Most modern Christian churches continue to uphold the belief that there will be a final Resurrection of the Dead and World to Come, perhaps as prophesied by the Apostle Paul when he said: "...he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world..." (Acts 17:31 KJV) and "...there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." (Acts 24:15 KJV).
Belief in the Resurrection of the Dead, and Jesus's role as judge, is codified in the Apostles' Creed, which is the fundamental creed of Christian baptismal faith. The Book of Revelation also makes many references about the Day of Judgment when the dead will be raised up.
Difference From Platonic philosophy
In Platonic philosophy and other Greek philosophical thought, at death the soul was said to leave the inferior body behind. The idea that Jesus was resurrected spiritually rather than physically even gained popularity among some Christian teachers, whom the author of 1 John declared to be antichrists. Similar beliefs appeared in the early church as Gnosticism. However, in Luke 24:39, the resurrected Jesus expressly states "behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."
Islam
Belief in the "Day of Resurrection", Yawm al-Qiyāmah (Arabic: يوم القيامة) is also crucial for Muslims. They believe the time of Qiyāmah is preordained by God but unknown to man. The trials and tribulations preceding and during the Qiyāmah are described in the Qur'an and the hadith, and also in the commentaries of scholars. The Qur'an emphasizes bodily resurrection, a break from the pre-Islamic Arabian understanding of death.
Judaism and Samaritanism
There are three explicit examples in the Hebrew Bible of people being resurrected from the dead:
* The prophet Elijah prays and God raises a young boy from death (1 Kings 17:17-24)
* Elisha raises the son of the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:32-37); this was the very same child whose birth he previously foretold (2 Kings 4:8-16)
* A dead man's body that was thrown into the dead Elisha's tomb is resurrected when the body touches Elisha's bones (2 Kings 13:21)
During the period of the Second Temple, there developed a diversity of beliefs concerning the resurrection. The concept of resurrection of the physical body is found in 2 Maccabees, according to which it will happen through recreation of the flesh.[17] Resurrection of the dead also appears in detail in the extra-canonical books of Enoch,[18] in Apocalypse of Baruch, and 2 Esdras. According to the British scholar in ancient Judaism Philip R. Davies, there is “little or no clear reference … either to immortality or to resurrection from the dead” in the Dead Sea scrolls texts.
Both Josephus and the New Testament record that the Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife, but the sources vary on the beliefs of the Pharisees. The New Testament claims that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but does not specify whether this included the flesh or not. According to Josephus, who himself was a Pharisee, the Pharisees held that only the soul was immortal and the souls of good people will be reincarnated and “pass into other bodies,” while “the souls of the wicked will suffer eternal punishment.” Paul, who also was a Pharisee, said that at the resurrection what is "sown as a natural body is raised a spiritual body." Jubilees seems to refer to the resurrection of the soul only, or to a more general idea of an immortal soul.
According to Herbert C. Brichto, writing in Reform Judaism's Hebrew Union College Annual, the family tomb is the central concept in understanding biblical views of the afterlife. Brichto states that it is "not mere sentimental respect for the physical remains that is...the motivation for the practice, but rather an assumed connection between proper sepulture and the condition of happiness of the deceased in the afterlife".
According to Brichto, the early Israelites apparently believed that the graves of family, or tribe, united into one, and that this unified collectivity is to what the Biblical Hebrew term Sheol refers, the common Grave of humans. Although not well defined in the Tanakh, Sheol in this view was a subterranean underworld where the souls of the dead went after the body died. The Babylonians had a similar underworld called Aralu, and the Greeks had one known as Hades. For biblical references to Sheol see Genesis 42:38, Isaiah 14:11, Psalm 141:7, Daniel 12:2, Proverbs 7:27 and Job 10:21,22, and 17:16, among others. According to Brichto, other Biblical names for Sheol were: Abaddon (ruin), found in Psalm 88:11, Job 28:22 and Proverbs 15:11; Bor (the pit), found in Isaiah 14:15, 24:22, Ezekiel 26:20; and Shakhat (corruption), found in Isaiah 38:17, Ezekiel 28:8.
Zen Buddhism
There are stories in Buddhism where the power of resurrection was allegedly demonstrated in Chan or Zen tradition. One is the legend of Bodhidharma, the Indian master who brought the Ekayana school of India to China that subsequently became Chan Buddhism.
The other is the passing of Chinese Chan master Puhua (J., Fuke) and is recounted in the Record of Linji (J., Rinzai). Puhua was known for his unusual behavior and teaching style so it is no wonder that he is associated with an event that breaks the usual prohibition on displaying such powers. Here is the account from Irmgard Schloegl's "The Zen Teaching of Rinzai".
"One day at the street market Fuke was begging all and sundry to give him a robe. Everybody offered him one, but he did not want any of them. The master [Linji] made the superior buy a coffin, and when Fuke returned, said to him: "There, I had this robe made for you." Fuke shouldered the coffin, and went back to the street market, calling loudly: "Rinzai had this robe made for me! I am off to the East Gate to enter transformation" (to die)." The people of the market crowded after him, eager to look. Fuke said: "No, not today. Tomorrow, I shall go to the South Gate to enter transformation." And so for three days. Nobody believed it any longer. On the fourth day, and now without any spectators, Fuke went alone outside the city walls, and laid himself into the coffin. He asked a traveler who chanced by to nail down the lid.
The news spread at once, and the people of the market rushed there. On opening the coffin, they found that the body had vanished, but from high up in the sky they heard the ring of his hand bell."
Technological resurrection
Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans who cannot be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryonics procedures ideally begin within minutes of cardiac arrest, and use cryoprotectants to prevent ice formation during cryopreservation.
However, the idea of cryonics also includes preservation of people long after death because of the possibility that brain encoding memory structure and personality may still persist or be inferable in the future. Whether sufficient brain information still exists for cryonics to successfully preserve may be intrinsically unprovable by present knowledge. Therefore, most proponents of cryonics see it as an intervention with prospects for success that vary widely depending on circumstances.
Russian Cosmist Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov advocated resurrection of the dead using scientific methods. Fedorov tried to plan specific actions for scientific research of the possibility of restoring life and making it infinite. His first project is connected with collecting and synthesizing decayed remains of dead based on "knowledge and control over all atoms and molecules of the world".
The second method described by Fedorov is genetic-hereditary. The revival could be done successively in the ancestral line: sons and daughters restore their fathers and mothers, they in turn restore their parents and so on. This means restoring the ancestors using the hereditary information that they passed on to their children. Using this genetic method it is only possible to create a genetic twin of the dead person. It is necessary to give back the revived person his old mind, his personality. Fedorov speculates about the idea of "radial images" that may contain the personalities of the people and survive after death. Nevertheless, Fedorov noted that even if a soul is destroyed after death, Man will learn to restore it whole by mastering the forces of decay and fragmentation.
In his 1994 book The Physics of Immortality, American physicist Frank J. Tipler, an expert on the general theory of relativity, presented his Omega Point Theory which outlines how a resurrection of the dead could take place at the end of the cosmos. He posits that humans will evolve into robots which will turn the entire cosmos into a supercomputer which will, shortly before the big crunch, perform the resurrection within its cyberspace, reconstructing formerly dead humans (from information captured by the supercomputer from the past light cone of the cosmos) as avatars within its metaverse.
David Deutsch, British physicist and pioneer in the field of quantum computing, agrees with Tipler's Omega Point cosmology and the idea of resurrecting deceased people with the help of quantum computer but he is critical of Tipler's theological views.
Italian physicist and computer scientist Giulio Prisco presents the idea of "quantum archaeology", "reconstructing the life, thoughts, memories, and feelings of any person in the past, up to any desired level of detail, and thus resurrecting the original person via 'copying to the future'".
In his book Mind Children, roboticist Hans Moravec proposed that a future supercomputer might be able to resurrect long-dead minds from the information that still survived. For example, this information can be in the form of memories, filmstrips, medical records, and DNA.
Ray Kurzweil, American inventor and futurist, believes that when his concept of singularity comes to pass, it will be possible to resurrect the dead by digital recreation.
In their science fiction novel The Light of Other Days, Sir Arthur Clarke and Stephen Baxter imagine a future civilization resurrecting the dead of past ages by reaching into the past, through micro wormholes and with nanorobots, to download full snapshots of brain states and memories.
Both the Church of Perpetual Life and the Terasem Movement consider themselves transreligions and advocate for the use of technology to indefinitely extend the human lifespan.
Zombies
A zombie (Haitian Creole: zonbi; North Mbundu: nzumbe) can be either a fictional undead monster or a person in an entranced state believed to be controlled by a bokor or wizard. These latter are the original zombies, occurring in the West African Vodun religion and its American offshoots Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo.
Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead and they have appeared as plot devices in various books, films and in television shows. Zombie fiction is now a sizable subgenre of horror, usually describing a breakdown of civilization occurring when most of the population become flesh-eating zombies – a zombie apocalypse. The monsters are usually hungry for human flesh, often specifically brains. Sometimes they are victims of a fictional pandemic illness causing the dead to reanimate or the living to behave this way, but often no cause is given in the story.
Disappearances (as distinct from resurrection)
As knowledge of different religions has grown, so have claims of bodily disappearance of some religious and mythological figures. In ancient Greek religion, this was a way the gods made some physically immortal, including such figures as Cleitus, Ganymede, Menelaus, and Tithonus. After his death, Cycnus was changed into a swan and vanished. In his chapter on Romulus from Parallel Lives, Plutarch criticises the continuous belief in such disappearances, referring to the allegedly miraculous disappearance of the historical figures Romulus, Cleomedes of Astypalaea, and Croesus. In ancient times, Greek and Roman pagan similarities were explained by the early Christian writers, such as Justin Martyr, as the work of demons, with the intention of leading Christians astray.
In somewhat recent years it has been learned that Gesar, the Savior of Tibet, at the end, chants on a mountain top and his clothes fall empty to the ground. The body of the first Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Nanak Dev, is said to have disappeared and flowers were left in place of his dead body.
Lord Raglan's Hero Pattern lists many religious figures whose bodies disappear, or have more than one sepulchre. B. Traven, author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, wrote that the Inca Virococha arrived at Cusco (in modern-day Peru) and the Pacific seacoast where he walked across the water and vanished.[46] It has been thought that teachings regarding the purity and incorruptibility of the hero's human body are linked to this phenomenon. Perhaps, this is also to deter the practice of disturbing and collecting the hero's remains. They are safely protected if they have disappeared.
The first such case mentioned in the Bible is that of Enoch (son of Jared, great-grandfather of Noah, and father of Methuselah). Enoch is said to have lived a life where he "walked with God", after which "he was not, for God took him" (Genesis 5:1–18).
In Deuteronomy (34:6) Moses is secretly buried. Elijah vanishes in a whirlwind 2 Kings (2:11). After hundreds of years these two earlier Biblical heroes suddenly reappear, and are seen walking with Jesus, then again vanish. Mark (9:2–8), Matthew (17:1–8) and Luke (9:28–33). The last time he is seen, Luke (24:51) alone tells of Jesus leaving his disciples by ascending into the sky.
St Machar's Cathedral (or, more formally, the Cathedral Church of St Machar) is a Church of Scotland church in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is located to the north of the city centre, in the former burgh of Old Aberdeen. Technically, St Machar's is no longer a cathedral but rather a high kirk, as it has not been the seat of a bishopsince 1690.
St Machar is said to have been a companion of St Columba on his journey to Iona. A fourteenth-century legend tells how God (or St Columba) told Machar to establish a church where a river bends into the shape of a bishop's crosier before flowing into the sea.
The River Don bends in this way just below where the Cathedral now stands. According to legend, St Machar founded a site of worship in Old Aberdeen in about 580. Machar's church was superseded by a Norman cathedral in 1131, shortly after David I transferred the See from Mortlach to Aberdeen.
Almost nothing of that original cathedral survives; a lozenge-decorated base for a capital supporting one of the architraves can be seen in the Charter Room in the present church.
After the execution of William Wallace in 1305, his body was cut up and sent to different corners of the country to warn other dissenters. His left quarter ended up in Aberdeen and is buried in the walls of the cathedral.
At the end of the thirteenth century Bishop Henry Cheyne decided to extend the church, but the work was interrupted by the Scottish Wars of Independence. Cheyne's progress included piers for an extended choir at the transept crossing. These pillars, with decorated capitals of red sandstone, are still visible at the east end of the present church.
Though worn by exposure to the elements after the collapse of the cathedral's central tower, these capitals are among the finest stone carvings of their date to survive in Scotland.
Bishop Alexander Kininmund II demolished the Norman cathedral in the late 14th century, and began the nave, including the granite columns and the towers at the western end. Bishop Henry Lichtoun completed the nave, the west front and the northern transept, and made a start on the central tower.
Bishop Ingram Lindsay completed the roof and the paving stones in the later part of the fifteenth century. Further work was done over the next fifty years by Thomas Spens, William Elphinstone and Gavin Dunbar; Dunbar is responsible for the heraldic ceiling and the two western spires.
The chancel was demolished in 1560 during the Scottish Reformation. The bells and lead from the roof were sent to be sold in Holland, but the ship sank near Girdle Ness.
The central tower and spire collapsed in 1688, in a storm, and this destroyed the choir and transepts. The west arch of the crossing was then filled in, and worship carried on in the nave only; the current church consists only of the nave and aisles of the earlier building.
The ruined transepts and crossing are under the care of Historic Scotland, and contain an important group of late medieval bishops' tombs, protected from the weather by modern canopies. The Cathedral is chiefly built of outlayer granite. On the unique flat panelled ceiling of the nave (first half of the 16th Century) are the heraldic shields of the contemporary kings of Europe, and the chief earls and bishops of Scotland.
The Cathedral is a fine example of a fortified kirk, with twin towers built in the fashion of fourteenth-century tower houses. Their walls have the strength to hold spiral staircases to the upper floors and battlements. The spires which presently crown the
Though worn by exposure to the elements after the collapse of the cathedral's central tower, these capitals are among the finest stone carvings of their date to survive in Scotland.
Bishop Alexander Kininmund II demolished the Norman cathedral in the late 14th century, and began the nave, including the granite columns and the towers at the western end. Bishop Henry Lichtoun completed the nave, the west front and the northern transept, and made a start on the central tower.
Bishop Ingram Lindsay completed the roof and the paving stones in the later part of the fifteenth century. Further work was done over the next fifty years by Thomas Spens, William Elphinstone and Gavin Dunbar; Dunbar is responsible for the heraldic ceiling and the two western spires.
The chancel was demolished in 1560 during the Scottish Reformation. The bells and lead from the roof were sent to be sold in Holland, but the ship sank near Girdle Ness.
The central tower and spire collapsed in 1688, in a storm, and this destroyed the choir and transepts. The west arch of the crossing was then filled in, and worship carried on in the nave only; the current church consists only of the nave and aisles of the earlier building.
The ruined transepts and crossing are under the care of Historic Scotland, and contain an important group of late medieval bishops' tombs, protected from the weather by modern canopies. The Cathedral is chiefly built of outlayer granite. On the unique flat panelled ceiling of the nave (first half of the 16th Century) are the heraldic shields of the contemporary kings of Europe, and the chief earls and bishops of Scotland.
Bishops Gavin Dunbar and Alexander Galloway built the western towers and installed the heraldic ceiling, featuring 48 coats of arms in three rows of sixteen. Among those shown are:
* Pope Leo X's coat of arms in the centre, followed in order of importance by those of the Scottish archbishops and bishops.
* the Prior of St Andrews, representing other Church orders.
* King's College, the westernmost shield.
* Henry VIII of England, James V of Scotland and multiple instances for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was also King of Spain, Aragon, Navarre and Sicily at the time the ceiling was created.
* St Margaret of Scotland, possibly as a stand-in for Margaret Tudor, James V's mother, whose own arms would have been the marshalled arms of England and Scotland.
* the arms of Aberdeen and of the families Gordon, Lindsay, Hay and Keith.
The ceiling is set off by a frieze which starts at the north-west corner of the nave and lists the bishops of the see from Nechtan in 1131 to William Gordon at the Reformation in 1560. This is followed by the Scottish monarchs from Máel Coluim II to Mary, Queen of Scots.
Notable figures buried in the cathedral cemetery include the author J.J. Bell, Robert Brough, Gavin Dunbar, Robert Laws, a missionary to Malawi and William Ogilvie of Pittensear—the ‘rebel professor’.
There has been considerable investment in recent years in restoration work and the improvement of the display of historic artefacts at the Cathedral.
The battlements of the western towers, incomplete for several centuries, have been renewed to their original height and design, greatly improving the appearance of the exterior. Meanwhile, within the building, a number of important stone monuments have been displayed to advantage.
These include a possibly 7th-8th century cross-slab from Seaton (the only surviving evidence from Aberdeen of Christianity at such an early date); a rare 12th century sanctuary cross-head; and several well-preserved late medieval effigies of Cathedral clergy, valuable for their detailed representation of contemporary dress.
A notable modern addition to the Cathedral's artistic treasures is a carved wooden triptych commemorating John Barbour, archdeacon of Aberdeen (d. 1395), author of The Brus.
Old W.R. bashers will relate to this story.
So there you are trawling the depths of Cornwall desperately hoping to catch a photo of the last working Western needed to complete your collection - 1025 Western Guardsman.
You're tired and knackered after a long day's bashing and you've just hopped on to the up wakers sleeper in Cornwall hoping to grab a few hours kip in a Mark 1 compartment before you jump off at Bridgwater to catch the return working. You drift off to sleep....
Just east of Liskeard in the dark, you feel a sharp swing to the right - the train is going wrong line - why? A few minutes later, in your sleepy half awake state, you become aware of lights flashing past the window. You reach up from your prone position and wipe the (by now) damp window and scrub off a patch of condensation to see what's going on. A P.W. train - with wagons and workers on the track. What's on the front of it? Wagon after wagon passes your window, the light from your train briefly illuminates them - then suddenly something larger. A loco - what's that number? Darn, missed it. What about the nameplate? Wxxxx Guardsxxxx then another Westxxx Pxxxxfinder - what the heck? Then it is gone!
You wake from your deep slumbered state and shout out. Did I just dream that? Was that my wicked imagination? Your fellow basher on the seat opposite, agrees, it was 1025 in the pitch black darkness.
OK, so now what to do? How do I get back there for a photo in the middle of the night? Do I get off at Plymouth and wait for the PW train to come back to Laira? No, my accomplice convinces me that we can stick to our original plan - it will still be there in the morning with (importantly) some daylight. I spend the rest of the journey drifting in and out of sleep wondering if he is right.
At Bridgwater, we nearly get arrested by the local plod asking us why we are wandering around the town centre at 2am in the morning. 'Waiting for the down sleeper' charms the most confident one of our group. We're trying to stay awake by walking around, honest! Thankfully he believes us.
The rest is history. We took the down wakers with 1051 and in the early twilight, somewhere near Menheniot about 7am, the old Mark 1 stock squeels around a left hander (not the easiest of curves to capture a passing train) and then I see them. The left hand shot is 1001 Western Pathfinder as we approach it - then I turn and 'snap' 1025 Western Guardsman as we move away, the right hand shot.
And my collection is complete - every Western - if you include the various cab ends I shot in B&W around Swindon Works in '74! It remains the only double headed Western I ever saw in service.
Were we insane? Probably - but even though it was over 40 years ago, it still brings a wry smile - great days!
Ref: SL257/258
Edgar Degas French, 1834 -1917
Detail from: Frieze of Dancers ( Danseuses attachant leurs sandales) , ca. 1895
Oil on canvas
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Gift of the Hanna Fund.
This work encapsulates Dega’s interest in repetition and variation—lessons learned from his monotypes. One of the artist’s largest paintings, it shows four ballerinas in nearly identical poses, tying their toe shoes, depicted from different angles. But are we seeing four dancers? The two figures at left look like mirror images, recalling the reversals of printmaking. Or are we circling around a single dancer, following Degas as he carries out an instruction found in one of his own notebooks, to “study from all perspectives a figure or an object, it doesn’t matter which”? With that in mind, the painting may relate to contemporaneous time-motion studies by Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey, who tried to document action through successive still photographs. The filmstrip-like composition may also allude to cinema, newly emerging in Degas’s day. The ambiguous background, rendered in earthy tones, derives from his experiments with monotype.
From the placard Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
This is Aquamarine from the Goand Mine, Shigar Valley, Skardu, Pakistan,courtesy of Fine Art Minerals at the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquamarine_(gem)
Aquamarine is a pale-blue to light-green variety of the beryl family,[2] with its name relating to water and sea.[3] The color of aquamarine can be changed by heat, with a goal to enhance its physical appearance (though this practice is frowned upon by collectors and jewelers).[4] It is the birth stone of March.[5]
Aquamarine is a fairly common gemstone,[6] rendering it more accessible for purchase, compared to other gems in the beryl family.[7] Overall, its value is determined by weight, color,[5] cut, and clarity.[8]
It is transparent to translucent and possesses a hexagonal crystal system.[9] Aquamarine mainly forms in granite pegmatites and hydrothermal veins,[10] and it is a very lengthy process that can take millions of years to form.[9]
The Shigar is a tributary of the Indus River to which binds near the town of Skardu. The Basha and Braldu rivers are northern tributaries of the Shigar. Numerous complex granitic pegmatites and some alpine-type deposits are found in this area in an altitude ranging from 2,500 to 4,000 mosl. The Shigar Valley runs along the Main Karakoram Thrust separating the Asian plate at north (metasediments chlorite to amphibolite grade) from Kohistan-Ladakh plate at south (volcaniclastic rocks).
Specimens from Braldu and Basha valley localities are often labeled as "Shigar Valley".
North side of Shigar Valley share a pegmatite complex hosted in gneiss with Braldu Valley which is the source of excellent specimens of aquamarine, topaz and other pegmatite minerals.
www.visittucson.org/tucson-gem-mineral-fossil-showcase/
"Every year the world-renowned Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase is like a time portal, a trip around the world, and a treasure hunt all rolled into one. Every winter, more than 65,000 guests from around the globe descend upon Tucson, AZ, to buy, sell, trade, and bear witness to rare and enchanting gems, minerals, and fossils at more than 50 gem show locations across the city. If you're planning a winter visit to Tucson, you won't want to miss this three-week-long event filled with shows, related events, a free day at the gem & mineral museum, and much, much more!
"Whether you’re looking for a $5 shimmering crystal necklace or a show-stopping $200,000 crystallized rock from an exotic location, the Tucson Gem, Mineral, & Fossil Shows have something for everyone."
www.visittucson.org/blog/post/gems-and-minerals/
The theme this year was Shades of Green- Experience the Magic. The theme for next year's show will be Red, White, and Blue Celebrate the Spirit of Minerals
xpopress.com/news/article/783/shades-of-green-70th-annual...
TGMS 2025
Tucson Gem Show 2025
Look into my eyes
Outlandish
Look into my eyes
Tell me what you see
You don't see a damn thing
'cause you can't relate to me
You're blinded by our differences
My life makes no sense to you
I'm the persecuted one
You're the red, white and blue
Each day you wake in tranquility
No fears to cross your eyes
Each day I wake in gratitude
Thanking God He let me rise
You worry about your education
And the bills you have to pay
I worry about my vulnerable life
And if I'll survive another day
Your biggest fear is getting a ticket
As you cruise your Cadillac
My fear is that the tank that has just left
Will turn around and come back
Uses: Anything relating to insurance.
Free Creative Commons Finance Images... I created these images in my studio and have made them all available for personal or commercial use. Hope you like them and find them useful.
To see more of our CC by 2.0 finance images click here... see profile for attribution.
"The Star" branding in Portsmouth relates to routes 7 and 8. It is thus slightly unfortunate that the number 7 is given so much prominence on the bodyside wording. A batch of 2019 Alexander Dennis E20D buses with Enviro 200 MMC bodywork are in this livery for these routes, where they replaced StreetLites. 67265 is seen on 15 June 2021 opposite The Hard Interchange at Portsmouth Harbour where it will terminate. I think all buses terminating at The Hard now show Gunwharf Quays as the destination.
I have two psychological hang-ups relating to food and diet, and I can easily trace their origins to my father's participation in my upbringing.
The first is not only a love of - even a reverence for - food, but a belief that food is love. The importance of food in Chinese culture may be a cliche, but it's no less true for being one. In Cantonese, people ask one another "have you eaten yet?" in the same way as we ask "what's up?" or "how's it going?”, and then there’s this popular aphorism of Prince Philip’s:
“If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”
When I left home at the age of seventeen, Dad gave me a rice cooker, a wok and some recipes, but my passion for food took hold much earlier, in childhood. Typically for a Chinese man of his generation, Dad worked long hours: fourteen hours a day, six days a week. I missed him, and his weekly days off on which he prepared what seemed to me then to be vast banquets, were occasions for childish excitement comparable to Christmas. Also typically for a Chinese man of his generation, Dad was not effusive or demonstrative. Of course, Dad's devotion to his family was expressed in the fact that he worked so hard to provide for us, but I had no appreciation of that as a child. And so I found his love and affection in the food he cooked for us: in the effort and care that was put into the meals; in the way he would put the best pieces of meat or fish into our bowls rather than his own; in how damned good they tasted.
Food as love is a belief I have inherited, or perhaps just inferred, from my Dad. Unless I'm working away from Glasgow, I cook every single day, but rarely for other people. If I cook for someone, it's because I care about them very much (or maybe, in some shallower instances, because I want to impress them). And by "cook for someone" I don't mean "I was going to heat up some of this stew, do you want some too?" or "feel free to have some of the soup I made earlier" but rather "I'm going to prepare and cook a meal for you and I to sit down and eat together." I can't expect everyone to understand what it means for me to do that, of course: romantic partners in the past have been baffled by my anger when they arrived late for dinner, or been irritated by how much I interest I took in their diets.
This brings me to my second neurosis, an unusually enthusiastic and occasionally angsty concern with the nutritional or health-giving value of my diet. As a child, I wasn't allowed to go and play after dinner until I had eaten an apple and drunk what seemed to me as a child to be a huge glass of water (I have since I was a teenager had a particular compulsion about staying hydrated, and remember thinking it irrational and unjust that we weren't allowed to drink water in class in secondary school). This compulsiveness may seem incompatible with the fact that I regularly abuse my body variously with alcohol, cigarettes and, until recently, by indulging my sweet tooth, but perhaps it (along with exercise) was borne of these abuses: knowing that I do these things, I feel I must exercise, eat well and try my best to sleep well.
A few months ago, I read an article in The Guardian (it's a running joke among my friends how many of our conversations begin with this line) about Dr Robert Lustig, the man at the forefront of the anti-sugar movement in America. In it, he makes the alarming claim that sugar is as harmful to our bodies as tobacco and cocaine. In further reading about the subject, I kept coming across the paleo diet. When I sought the advice of friends and colleagues who I knew subscribed to it, they were unanimous in proclaiming its benefits. The diet is based around the food our ancestors ate tens of thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture, and permits meat, fruit and veg, fish, nuts and seeds. This means that coffee, booze, grains, legumes, starches, dairy and any kind of processed food are all out. There are variations of the diet that permit some of these food groups, but bread, pasta, rice, couscous and potatoes (except the sweet variety) are out.
I've been following the paleo diet for three months now. I'm not particularly strict about it: legumes and some dairy still form a (now smaller) part of my diet, my meat isn't necessarily grass-fed, I treat myself to the occasional dessert or pizza, and nobody is ever taking beer away from me. When I go to a restaurant or a friend's house for food, I'm no more picky than I used to be. Some friends and family members have expressed alarm that someone like me, who has spent his whole life underweight, should go on a diet. I wouldn't be surprised if, since adopting this "lifestyle" (as many of its adherents prefer to think of it), my daily intake of calories and fat has increased substantially, but that's part of the point: fat doesn't make you fat; sugar makes you fat. In any case, I stress to them that this is not about losing weight or about body image - although if you are keen to lose weight, a paleo diet will show dramatic results very quickly - but about general good health. And after only a couple of weeks, I felt the benefits. My energy levels are much more constant than they used to be: I get out of bed earlier, more easily, and don't feel tired after meals; indigestion and acid reflux are things of the past; bowel movements are, to use a respectfully vague adjective, better. I’ve enjoyed an excitement I haven’t felt for a long time at going into the kitchen to cook and knowing that I’m forced to be creative. The downside is that I'm almost always a little hungry, but nuts and fruit are never far away to snack on. The other principal drawback is that this diet is expensive, cutting out all the cheap staples such as rice and pasta in favour of more meat, fish and vegetables.
While I know that there are many challenges to the anthropological and evolutionary bases of the paleo diet, and that nutritionists continue to disagree on what constitutes the healthiest diet, the benefits of the paleo diet have for me been tangible, and I recommend it to anyone.
Glasgow, 2014.
The Symptoms of Kali-yuga
This chapter relates that, when the bad qualities of the Age of Kali will increase to an intolerable level, the Supreme Personality of Godhead will descend as Kalki to destroy those who are fixed in irreligion. After that, a new Satya-yuga will begin.
As the Age of Kali progresses, all good qualities of men diminish and all impure qualities increase. Atheistic systems of so-called religion become predominant, replacing the codes of Vedic law. The kings become just like highway bandits, the people in general become dedicated to low occupations, and all the social classes become just like śūdras. All cows become like goats, all spiritual hermitages become like materialistic homes, and family ties extend no further than the immediate relationship of marriage.
When the Age of Kali has almost ended, the Supreme Personality of Godhead will incarnate. He will appear in the village Śambhala, in the home of the exalted brāhmaṇa Viṣṇuyaśā, and will take the name Kalki. He will mount His horse Devadatta and, taking His sword in hand, will roam about the earth killing millions of bandits in the guise of kings. Then the signs of the next Satya-yuga will begin to appear. When the moon, sun and the planet Bṛhaspati enter simultaneously into one constellation and conjoin in the lunar mansion Puṣyā, Satya-yuga will begin. In the order of Satya, Tretā, Dvāpara and Kali, the cycle of four ages rotates in the society of living entities in this universe.
The chapter ends with a brief description of the future dynasties of the sun and moon coming from Vaivasvata Manu in the next Satya-yuga. Even now two saintly kṣatriyas are living who at the end of this Kali-yuga will reinitiate the pious dynasties of the sun-god, Vivasvān, and the moon-god, Candra. One of these kings is Devāpi, a brother of Mahārāja Śantanu, and the other is Maru, a descendant of Ikṣvāku. They are biding their time incognito in a village named Kalāpa.
SB 12.2.1 — Śukadeva Gosvāmī said: Then, O King, religion, truthfulness, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, duration of life, physical strength and memory will all diminish day by day because of the powerful influence of the Age of Kali.
SB 12.2.2 — In Kali-yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a man’s good birth, proper behavior and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only on the basis of one’s power.
SB 12.2.3 — Men and women will live together merely because of superficial attraction, and success in business will depend on deceit. Womanliness and manliness will be judged according to one’s expertise in sex, and a man will be known as a brāhmaṇa just by his wearing a thread.
SB 12.2.4 — A person’s spiritual position will be ascertained merely according to external symbols, and on that same basis people will change from one spiritual order to the next. A person’s propriety will be seriously questioned if he does not earn a good living. And one who is very clever at juggling words will be considered a learned scholar.
SB 12.2.5 — A person will be judged unholy if he does not have money, and hypocrisy will be accepted as virtue. Marriage will be arranged simply by verbal agreement, and a person will think he is fit to appear in public if he has merely taken a bath.
SB 12.2.6 — A sacred place will be taken to consist of no more than a reservoir of water located at a distance, and beauty will be thought to depend on one’s hairstyle. Filling the belly will become the goal of life, and one who is audacious will be accepted as truthful. He who can maintain a family will be regarded as an expert man, and the principles of religion will be observed only for the sake of reputation.
SB 12.2.7 — As the earth thus becomes crowded with a corrupt population, whoever among any of the social classes shows himself to be the strongest will gain political power.
SB 12.2.8 — Losing their wives and properties to such avaricious and merciless rulers, who will behave no better than ordinary thieves, the citizens will flee to the mountains and forests.
SB 12.2.9 — Harassed by famine and excessive taxes, people will resort to eating leaves, roots, flesh, wild honey, fruits, flowers and seeds. Struck by drought, they will become completely ruined.
SB 12.2.10 — The citizens will suffer greatly from cold, wind, heat, rain and snow. They will be further tormented by quarrels, hunger, thirst, disease and severe anxiety.
SB 12.2.11 — The maximum duration of life for human beings in Kali-yuga will become fifty years.
SB 12.2.12-16 — By the time the Age of Kali ends, the bodies of all creatures will be greatly reduced in size, and the religious principles of followers of varṇāśrama will be ruined. The path of the Vedas will be completely forgotten in human society, and so-called religion will be mostly atheistic. The kings will mostly be thieves, the occupations of men will be stealing, lying and needless violence, and all the social classes will be reduced to the lowest level of śūdras. Cows will be like goats, spiritual hermitages will be no different from mundane houses, and family ties will extend no further than the immediate bonds of marriage. Most plants and herbs will be tiny, and all trees will appear like dwarf śamī trees. Clouds will be full of lightning, homes will be devoid of piety, and all human beings will have become like asses. At that time, the Supreme Personality of Godhead will appear on the earth. Acting with the power of pure spiritual goodness, He will rescue eternal religion.
SB 12.2.17 — Lord Viṣṇu — the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the spiritual master of all moving and nonmoving living beings, and the Supreme Soul of all — takes birth to protect the principles of religion and to relieve His saintly devotees from the reactions of material work.
SB 12.2.18 — Lord Kalki will appear in the home of the most eminent brāhmaṇa of Śambhala village, the great soul Viṣṇuyaśā.
SB 12.2.19-20 — Lord Kalki, the Lord of the universe, will mount His swift horse Devadatta and, sword in hand, travel over the earth exhibiting His eight mystic opulences and eight special qualities of Godhead. Displaying His unequaled effulgence and riding with great speed, He will kill by the millions those thieves who have dared dress as kings.
SB 12.2.21 — After all the impostor kings have been killed, the residents of the cities and towns will feel the breezes carrying the most sacred fragrance of the sandalwood paste and other decorations of Lord Vāsudeva, and their minds will thereby become transcendentally pure.
SB 12.2.22 — When Lord Vāsudeva, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, appears in their hearts in His transcendental form of goodness, the remaining citizens will abundantly repopulate the earth.
SB 12.2.23 — When the Supreme Lord has appeared on earth as Kalki, the maintainer of religion, Satya-yuga will begin, and human society will bring forth progeny in the mode of goodness.
SB 12.2.24 — When the moon, the sun and Bṛhaspatī are together in the constellation Karkaṭa, and all three enter simultaneously into the lunar mansion Puṣyā — at that exact moment the age of Satya, or Kṛta, will begin.
SB 12.2.25 — Thus I have described all the kings — past, present and future — who belong to the dynasties of the sun and the moon.
SB 12.2.26 — From your birth up to the coronation of King Nanda, 1,150 years will pass.
SB 12.2.27-28 — Of the seven stars forming the constellation of the seven sages, Pulaha and Kratu are the first to rise in the night sky. If a line running north and south were drawn through their midpoint, whichever of the lunar mansions this line passes through is said to be the ruling asterism of the constellation for that time. The Seven Sages will remain connected with that particular lunar mansion for one hundred human years. Currently, during your lifetime, they are situated in the nakṣatra called Maghā.
SB 12.2.29 — The Supreme Lord, Viṣṇu, is brilliant like the sun and is known as Kṛṣṇa. When He returned to the spiritual sky, Kali entered this world, and people then began to take pleasure in sinful activities.
SB 12.2.30 — As long as Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the husband of the goddess of fortune, touched the earth with His lotus feet, Kali was powerless to subdue this planet.
SB 12.2.31 — When the constellation of the seven sages is passing through the lunar mansion Maghā, the Age of Kali begins. It comprises twelve hundred years of the demigods.
SB 12.2.32 — When the great sages of the Saptarṣi constellation pass from Maghā to Pūrvāsāḍhā, Kali will have his full strength, beginning from King Nanda and his dynasty.
SB 12.2.33 — Those who scientifically understand the past declare that on the very day that Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa departed for the spiritual world, the influence of the Age of Kali began.
SB 12.2.34 — After the one thousand celestial years of Kali-yuga, the Satya-yuga will manifest again. At that time the minds of all men will become self-effulgent.
SB 12.2.35 — Thus I have described the royal dynasty of Manu, as it is known on this earth. One can similarly study the history of the vaiśyas, śūdras and brāhmaṇas living in the various ages.
SB 12.2.36 — These personalities, who were great souls, are now known only by their names. They exist only in accounts from the past, and only their fame remains on the earth.
SB 12.2.37 — Devāpi, the brother of Mahārāja Śāntanu, and Maru, the descendant of Ikṣvāku, both possess great mystic strength and are living even now in the village of Kalāpa.
SB 12.2.38 — At the end of the Age of Kali, these two kings, having received instruction directly from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vāsudeva, will return to human society and reestablish the eternal religion of man, characterized by the divisions of varṇa and āśrama, just as it was before.
SB 12.2.39 — The cycle of four ages — Satya, Tretā, Dvāpara and Kali — continues perpetually among living beings on this earth, repeating the same general sequence of events.
SB 12.2.40 — My dear King Parīkṣit, all these kings I have described, as well as all other human beings, come to this earth and stake their claims, but ultimately they all must give up this world and meet their destruction.
SB 12.2.41 — Even though a person’s body may now have the designation “king,” in the end its name will be “worms,” “stool” or “ashes.” What can a person who injures other living beings for the sake of his body know about his own self-interest, since his activities are simply leading him to hell?
SB 12.2.42 — [The materialistic king thinks:] “This unbounded earth was held by my predecessors and is now under my sovereignty. How can I arrange for it to remain in the hands of my sons, grandsons and other descendants?”
SB 12.2.43 — Although the foolish accept the body made of earth, water and fire as “me” and this earth as “mine,” in every case they have ultimately abandoned both their body and the earth and passed away into oblivion.
SB 12.2.44 — My dear King Parīkṣit, all these kings who tried to enjoy the earth by their strength were reduced by the force of time to nothing more than historical accounts.
~ Srimad Bhagavatam, canto 12, chapter 2
#InternationalRebellionWeek #srimadbhagavatam
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Oxford Circus, London 🇬🇧
18th April, 2019
Etchingham Village Sign.
A lot of the villages in this area have decorative village signs, usually depicting images relating to the village history.
I have made this my monthly project on the group 365/2025 - Still the Wheel Turns , each month will feature a different village sign, starting with my own village of Etchingham.
The sign depicts the arms of the de Etchingham family, the design can also be seen on the Church Weathervane and has been adopted by other village organissations including the School and Parish Council, for their badges.
Sir William de Etchingham was responsible for the construction of the 14th century Church in the village.
The name Etchingham is probably derived from Old English, and roughly translates as “The homestead or enclosure of family and followers of a man called Ecci“. ‘inga’ in a place name usually refers to ‘people of’ or ‘dwellers at’, and ‘ham’ refers to a homestead or settlement, so this explanation seems the most probable. There is a second less likely derivation of the name, it could come from the Anglo Saxon ‘ECEN’, meaning great + ‘HAM’ (homestead), but the former explanation is the most likely.
GRAF, N. Gerhard (1987). Portugal Roman. Le Nord du Portugal. Zodiaque - La Nuit des Temps 67.
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The Monastery of Rates (Portuguese: Mosteiro de Rates) was a Benedictine monastery located in the parish of Rates in the municipality of Póvoa de Varzim, in Portugal. The part of the monastery that has survived to this day is the bell-tower and, most importantly, the Church dedicated to St Peter of Rates (Igreja Paroquial de São Pedro de Rates), mostly known as Romanesque Church of Rates (Portuguese: Igreja Românica de Rates), which is a national monument since 1910. Reconstruction of the church began at the turn of the 11th to the 12th century, turning it into one of the oldest extant Romanesque churches in Portugal.
The medieval period of the monastery of Rates was one of the most important in the Romanesque art in Portugal, by the relations it established with the governing powers, the relevance of its architecture and sculptures with diverse influences make this temple a case study that is reflected in the production of the Romanesque art of the nascent kingdom of Portugal. The origin of the temple, that relate to the church itself, is dated to the Suebi-Visigothic period, although it incorporates older elements dating to the Roman period. Other elements also relate it to Asturian-Leonese period, prior to the prevailing Romanesque reconstruction (Wikipedia).
Leabrook Resthaven.
The history of the Queen Anne style house at Leabrook relates to the rising fortunes of Mr F.C Catt. The Catt family resided from early days in the 1870s in Gladstone in the Mid North of South Australia. Mr Catt senior was a state politician, a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Synod and a strong community worker. His son F. C catt moved to Adelaide and worked in the drapery trade for some years before opening his own Adelaide Speciality Stores in 1905 at 70 Rundle Street almost next door to Balfours bakery and café. He expanded quickly and opened an Adelaide Specialty Store in Gladstone in 1906 and a further one in Balaklava some years later. He eventually had his city stores based from 64 to 72 Rundle Street. As a successful drapers and store operator he built a fine Queen Anne villa on Glynburn Road Leabrook in 1910. Around the time he closed his Balaklava and other stores he sold the villa to the Cooper brewing family of Leabrook. They owned the house until it was sold to the Methodist Church in 1944. The Methodist Church had founded a home for elderly ladies in 1935 at Brighton. In the same year the Methodist Church opened another rest home at Payneham. The homes were known as Methodist Homes for Ladies and later for the Elderly as they began to accept male residents. The villa at Leabrook was purchased in 1944 and it became the first Resthaven in 1947 when the Methodist Church adopted the name of Resthaven Homes. With many additions the Queen Anne villa still operates as a Resthaven Aged Care Facility.
Muncaster Castle near Ravenglass, Lake District, Cumbria
Some background information:
Muncaster Castle is located on the right bank of the River Esk, about a mile south of the west-coastal town of Ravenglass. The estate is situated in sparsely populated and scenic countryside between the Irish Sea and Hardknott Pass, near England's tallest mountain, Scafell Pike. It is still owned by the noble Pennington family, who has lived there for at least 800 years.
In 1208 Muncaster estate was granted to Alan de Penitone. The oldest parts of the castle include the great hall and the 14th century pele tower, a type of watch-tower fortification unique to the English-Scottish border region, which were erected by wealthy English families to protect themselves and their estates against Scottish invaders.
It is suspected that the site of the castle lies on foundations dating to the Roman era, which may relate to the nearby Roman fort of Glannoventa at Ravenglass. An indication for this suspicion is the name "Muncaster", which contains the Latin word "castra", meaning "encampment" or "fort".
After the battle of Towton in 1461, Henry VI fled to Muncaster Castle where Sir John Pennington sheltered him. Henry gave Sir John a glass drinking bowl with a prayer that they might prosper for as long as the glass remained unbroken. The glass is known as "The Luck of Muncaster" and remains unbroken to this day.
Over the course of the centuries Muncaster Castle was extended and enlarged on a number of occasions. Recent historical research has uncovered records which indicate that in 1678 the castle had 14 chimneys, while a document relating to payment of window tax in 1746 recorded that it had 103 windows as well as 55 rooms and corridors at that date.
However, by the time of the ownership of Sir Joseph Pennington in the 1770s, the castle had fallen into serious decay. His son, Sir John Pennington, arriving to live at the castle after his wedding in 1778, wrote with despair of how a part of the building collapsed even as he was inspecting it. The preservation of the castle to this day is due to the efforts of Sir John Pennington to rebuild and restore it, which costed him some six thousand pounds, an enormous sum of money in the late 18th century.
In August 2005 an archaeological investigation was conducted in the castle grounds and an architectural heritage peport was produced. This investigation revealed that the castle's north tower was constructed in the 1830s. Previous literature on the north tower mistakenly attributed its construction to the architect Anthony Salvin, who was engaged to refurbish the castle by the fourth Lord Muncaster in 1862. The north tower complements the pele tower to provide a symmetry to the castle's appearance.
Muncaster Castle estate in the early 20th century was around 23,000 acres (93 km²) in size. Today the castle is surrounded by "only" 77 acres (310,000 m²) of woodland gardens in a park of some 1,800 acres (7.3 km²). The gardens contain many rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas, and the castle's Plant Centre offers the largest collection of rhododendrons in the north of England.
In common with many such ancient estates in the British Isles Muncaster Castle is open to the public. But unfortunately visitors are not allowed to photograph the interiors. The castle also operates as a site where civil weddings may be held, has bookable accommodation for 24 guests, shows bird of prey demonstrations and is the location of the headquarters of the World Owl Trust, a registered UK charity dedicated to the preservation of owls and their habitats.
Muncaster Castle and its hauntings:
Muncaster Castle has acquired a reputation for being one of the most haunted castles in England, perhaps even the most haunted one. It only competes with Hampton Court Palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and Chillingham Castle in Northhumberland, which can come up with a similar number of hauntings.
The two most famous ghosts of Muncaster are the ones of Thomas Skelton, reputedly the last court jester in English history, and Mary Bragg, a local girl who was most likely murdered on the castle grounds by two young men in the 19th century after they'd kidnapped her on behalf of her rival in love. But let’s take one thing at a time:
Tom Fool:
At the end of the 16th century Thomas Skelton, better known as Tom Fool, acted as as jester on Muncaster Castle. Although a friend of William Shakespeare, he was by all accounts a dark character responsible for a number of deaths during his time at Muncaster. One of his ideas of a "joke" was directing anyone asking him for directions to Ravenglass towards the hidden quicksand and bog marsh by the River Esk rather than the ford – some realised in time, many did not and were never seen again.
Despite Thomas Skelton being a jester, the local carpenter certainly wasn't laughing about him. Under the orders of Sir Ferdinand Pennington, Thomas chopped the carpenter's head off as a punishment for falling in love with Helwise, Sir Pennington's daughter. Skelton died around 1600, according to legend in the very marshes where he'd sent so many to their deaths when trying to return to the castle whilst drunk.
His portrait hangs in the castle, which contains his will to this day and the Pennington family still believes, that Thomas Skelton keeps a watchful eye on the castle and occasionally gets up to more sinister mischief. Therefore most of the ghostly goings on are attributed to this fiendish fool. Every evening the current owners Phyllida and Patrick Gordon-Duff-Pennington place a dram of whisky on the commode under his picture, because already during his life he enjoyed having a wee dram. Nowadays Muncaster castle also hosts the special annual event "Tom Fool's day", which is a family fun day with various attractions.
Mary Bragg:
Mary Bragg, whose ghost also haunts the castle, was a housekeeper in the nearby town of Ravenglass. In 1805 she met with a violent and untimely end. Mary was in love with the footman at Muncaster Castle. Unfortunately for Mary, so was one of the housemaids, and she was not keen on competition. It is said that the house maid plotted to rid herself of this love rival, and she may have been ultimately responsible for Mary's death.
Mary Bragg's mother was the last person to see her alive. After Mary’s death she reported how two men called, claiming her lover was seriously ill. Mary told her mum that the two men were taking her to his bedside, but she was never seen alive again. Mary's body was found some weeks later, floating in the River Esk. It was hardly recognizable because of the horrendous injuries. The body had also been partially eaten by eels and the coroner could not say for certain how she died and no one was charged with her murder.
The ghost of Mary Bragg can often be seen wandering the grounds of the Castle and along the local roads. Mary's ghost is mostly dressed in white. Her form however varies: Occasionally she's a misty figure, but other witnesses have reported a solid form or a darting figure sometimes jumping out in front of cars before vanishing. Some wood workers also swear black and blue that the tree, where Mary is said to have met with her untimely death on the site of Muncaster Castle, was bleeding briskly when they were cutting it down.
Margaret Pennington:
The most haunted room at Muncaster Castle and hence the focal point of the paranormal activity there is the Tapestry Room. Visitors often report feeling an unwelcoming presence in the room. Guests who have stayed the night in the Tapestry Room, have reported the sound of babies crying or children singing softly. Black figures have been seen leaning over alarmed guests, whilst others have experienced a heavy weight falling on top of them in the antique four poster bed. A paranormal investigation team reported seeing a black, featureless figure walk into the Tapestry Room and vanish. James Cartland, archivist and friend of the Pennington family, was invited to stay at the castle during the early 1980s and was put up in the Tapestry Room. In the morning he reported: "I heard this sort of strange muttering sound as if someone was talking. I stuck my head up the chimney because I thought it could have been the sound of the wind, but it was a very still and frosty night. I was the only person in the wing of the castle that night, so there was nobody else around to make a noise. Everybody else was at the other end. I walked around a little and out into the corridor. When I returned to my room, the noise was still going on and was more audible by then. It was definitely the sound of a child crying. I got back into bed - I never slept a wink that night. It was a terrible night!"
A teenage girl had stayed at the castle with her mother a year earlier. The girl, now a trainee lawyer, has spoken how she heard footsteps along the corridor outside her room when, suddenly, the door of her room opened, and the sound of a crying child filled the room.
The late Lord Carlisle had a similar experience which he recounted to an ex-curator of the castle, Philip Denham-Cookes: "Lord Carlisle told me that he had only stayed once in Muncaster and that was in the Tapestry Room. He had been woken up during the middle of the night by the sound of a young child crying. He admitted he had never been more terrified in his life. Lord Carlisle was awarded the MC in the last war so he wasn't a man easily frightened, but he has said that nothing would ever get him to stay at Muncaster again."
Recent investigations revealed that in the Tapestry Room had previously been a children's nursery. During the castles long history there have been a number of deaths. Several of these have been children and some of these were buried in the castle grounds. But there was even one girl, Margaret Susan Elizabeth Pennington, who died of screaming fits in 1871 at the age of eleven.
Of course there are also several other lost souls, who haunt the castle, like the one of the carpenter beheaded by Tom Fool, who is reported to haunt several rooms whilst carrying his head under his arm, and the one of a lion, whose skull was brought as a trophy to the castle by the last Lord Muncaster, after he had shot the lion in Kenya.
By the way the Pennington family makes a special offer to those visitors, who are skeptical: Guests are allowed to spend a night at the Tapestry Room. But once settled for the night, the alarms are set and there's no escaping. So don’t say, that you haven’t been warned. :-)
This text is spread over three Gobate II images, and is a complement to the 'Peña Hueca' text (see below, for those reading from a computer). The texts look at issues relating to a potential local architectural response to amber deposits. I propose that these early architectures have the potential to be early human examples of building structures outside of functions such as habitat or issues such as ancestors and the dead. They would sit in a chronology aside a second early speciality late Neolithic structure I call the 'Boat Haven' and indeed in keeping, I name this class of Upper Ebro troglodytic structures 'Amber Havens'.
A scattered line of sites can be seen from the north east within the Basque region's piedmont, through the amber deposits aside Las Yurdinas 2, the Peñacerrada and other Urizaharra deposits, and down to the feathered edges of the great River Ebro's valley. The distance between Gobate and the Chalcolithic villages associated with the physical extraction of the amber mineral deposits is as low as five straight kilometres. Gobat is at an altitude of 650m and a sharp rise to around 1000m provides a qualitative ridge for the amber deposits to hide behind. Whilst the ridge climbs just 300m, it is steep enough to take the zest from hasty gaits - a natural pause for thought.
Along this scattered 'line', and towards its southern end, are the close-by Gobate and La Llana sites in addition to occasional dolmen and necropolis of monolithic sarcophagi in a range of styles including of those witnessed in and around the Gobate and La Llana sites. [I will later argue that these sarcophagi can be reappropriated, and that their origins need to be stretched back in chronology].
Carved stone spaces are cleaned and swept and the archaeological record may not be as laminated as it is for non-ritual family fed rock abris. Ploughing has also occurred up to the edges of many sites.
This diagonal of artificial caves runs out from the plane of the upper Ebro and is a potential subset of the Upper Ebro group of troglodytic ritual sites. Understanding this subset is a task that will require hypothesis, and the hypothesis I use for Gobate and La Llana is one that develops from ideas I presented for Peña Hueca up on the plateau and equally buffered on the other side of the amber deposits.
Before looking at the line of artificial caves and late prehistoric sites, it is important to see that there are striking similarities between the La Llana sites and the potentially slightly older Gobate sites. Each loci may consist of two separated elements, the first element a 'hubub' around at least three different 'warm water forms' and the second, a 'quiet' site with little space for more than a handful of people. For each site, the 'warm water form' clusters are within shouting distance (drum distance) but not within sight (111m and 250m apart respectively). Were it not for the artificial cave under the 'warm water forms' of the 'Gobate I' site, the similar 'footprint' of the adjacent sites would be blatant and indubitable. Accepting that the La Llana sight is slightly younger, It may seem that La Llana was either an improved and newer version of an aged Gobate cluster, or that La Llana was a second example of a function, i.e. there was an activity that required a combination of 'quietness' and 'hubub' that was locally successful, and thus could sustain a second example (a town with one big biscuit factory attracts a second...). For either scenario, it is worth trying to imagine what sort of activity could thrive and sustain over time from a duality between calm and hubub.
Exposed rock surfaces melt away with weathering and any forms added by man are today shrunk by the constant tick of ablation's clock. If Gobate was the first version, then its carved 'warm water forms' should be less edgy and worn out, and indeed this is the case.
Happenstance can cause the most wonderful links, but here we have two sites between the River Ebro 'highway' and a low mountain zone rich in amber and I think that before the face of happenstance is called upon to reply, an attempt should be made to see how the exact configuration might have helped man key into landscape from an optic of 5000 years before present.
'Warm water forms' might be used for many procedures from detanning acorns to softening fibres before weave, and from vegetal dying and cleaning to perfume production. A group of visitors who arrive from the River Ebro highway - keen to trade for stones of amber - might be taken to the 'warm water forms' to relax and chat in friendly states of semi nudity. Each 'warm water form' would have had a deeper shallow pool, and stretching out in a warm 'paddling pool' of perfumed water would occupy, as would plunging into the deeper 'collection pool'. It is safe to say that a visiting trade party from between 12 people and 24 people might here be soothed after days of walking, welcomed by the 'warm water form' facilities of La Llana and Gobate. All tools that might double for weapons have thus been pacified by this memorable moment and even rite. Once an ambience of mutual trust and common heath is assured, then a 'bigman' might ask the visiting group's 'leader/negotiator' to come aside for 'talks' and barters over amber. Walking 1 or 2 hundred metres to the smaller artificial cave, be it La Llana or Gobat I, and the pacified party has been 'diffused' as a potential threat to amber resources via Epicurian pleasure, goodwill and trust. Implicit with this visualisation is the cultural detail that the water in the 'warm water forms' must have been kept to a standard of cleanliness for it to keep its status and allure. If the water is a perfume of, lets imagine, local lavender and rosemary, then giving the water a symbolic status, and asking that people leave for a change of perfumed waters, would be a cultural detail and imply roles for specific individuals. The implication of location specific protocols and roles associated with a category of monument being a potentially interesting aside.
Amber as a mineral was highly desired and traded throughout the Neolithic and Chalcolithic. Here our group leader must leave behind his travelling companions - and we will imagine a self contained group with selected people from crofts and villages associated with a far-off valley cluster. Our visiting negotiator is 300m below a protective ridge that hides the actual deposits, and is told that were his group to venture to try to see the actual quarries, the worst would be guaranteed !(and indeed skeletons with arrow damage from the Chalcolithic period have been discovered in this upper amber quarry zone). Here the amber quarries are sites protected by cultural design.
Any transformed or raw amber held down in La Llana or Gobat II, on its approximative level with the Ebro plane, is also relatively secure and disassociated from the dynamic potential power of the visiting group. Tucked onto their 'warm water forms' and inside the rare musky fragrances, the rest of the visiting group cannot see the place or even direction of the place of negotiation and exchange. They are in a perfect hubub.
One representative man steps inside a small man-made cave on a cusp of a slight ridge, sits down on a stone chair (above left?) in a corner shade, and waits to see the mythical amber stones they have all travelled so far to acquire. The different sizes of stone will be taken to him and an exchange will be negotiated. He is alone fixed to a stone or carved chair, and representatives from the La Llana site or the Gobat site are slipping in and out of the low doorway. Stones of amber appear in hands and leather wraps as if from nowhere.
The goods the group carried to be exchanged are with the main party aside the 'warm water forms' - perhaps pots of grain, textiles, early metal tools, bags of nuts, wooden tools and other ways that might help the local region escape some elements of the domesticated Neolithic revolution. The goods are held in the artificial cave of the 'Gobate II' site, or in a temporary building long gone that was central in a waiting space in the 'warm water form' cluster of La Llana.
Today the 'warm water forms' of La Llana are disassociated from the La Llana 'amber haven' by a small road. The impact of modern roads on prehistoric landscapes can deeply effect the reading and 'living' of a vista, and I think that hiding roads in tunnels may seem expensive or even destructive, but is a vital way to return man's deeper appreciations to landscape. The La Llana road is quiet with infrequent traffic, and landscaping and ochre coloured surfacing and even a short section of cobble strip may be enough - elsewhere, where traffic noise, colour and pollution is ever present, deeper tunnels must be welcomed and 'pseudo' pseudo-druids challenged.
On the above image it is possible to see examples of modern petroglyphs next to a space apt for taking a negotiator to wait between amber stone samples.
As with the Gobate I site, the monolithic sarcophagi do not systematically respect E/W orientations common with dolmen openings and early Christian burial.
AJM 28.01.21
British WW2 era Heavy Infantry tank
With a total production of around 1,400, the Churchill Mk.VII was larger overall than previous marks and 2 tonnes heavier. It also had 6 inches of frontal armour, 50% more than a Tiger I, and introduced the QF 75mm gun.
This example was built in 1944 by Vauxhall Motors in Luton. It currently wears the identity T173250, which actually relates to a Churchill Mk.V operated by the 1st Australian Armoured Regiment and named ‘The Stork’.
It was previously on display at the Lambeth ‘IWM London’ but has recently returned to Duxford where it is seen on display in Hangar 5.
Duxford Airfield, Cambridgeshire, UK
30th May 2021
Commentary.
As its name suggests this village refers to a real forest, namely Ashdown Forest, an upland heathland in East Sussex.
Along with places like the New Forest, Great Windsor Park and Richmond Park it was one of many areas used by medieval Royals and landed gentry as a hunting ground, particularly for deer, wild boar and game birds.
Several other local villages have names linking to their forested/heathland hinterland.
These include Chelwood Gate, Hartfield (“hart” relating to a male deer or stag), Ashurst Wood (“hurst” referring to a woodland clearing), Withyham ( “withy”) referring to willow trees) and Coleman’s Hatch (“hatch” referring to a woodland gate) because “forests” or hunting grounds were often fenced off with six-foot fences to prevent deer from eating farm produce and sapling trees.
As for Forest Row itself, it is a village south-east of East Grinstead where the modern A.22 turns from south-east to south towards Eastbourne.
In this image Holy Trinity Church is on the left.
Just right of centre is the colourful and elaborate frontage of the Village Hall.
A turning to the right of this image connects to Ashdown Forest and Hartfield.
For me and countless others, these two places will always be the land of Winnie the Pooh.
A.A. Milne, the writer of Pooh stories, lived at Cotchford Farm, near Hartfield, with his son Christopher Robin from 1925 to 1956 when Milne died.
Thousands of people every year visit the “real” sites of the inspired fictitious locations including:
Pooh Sticks Bridge, Galleons Lap, The Enchanted Place and (Five) Hundred Acre Wood and many others.
I have visited these places myself and found them so “real” that I half expected Tigger to bounce from behind a tree at any moment.
Such is the power of the well written word!
San Gimignano is a small walled medieval hill town in the province of Siena, Tuscany, north-central Italy. Known as the Town of Fine Towers, San Gimignano is famous for its medieval architecture, unique in the preservation of about a dozen of its tower houses, which, with its hilltop setting and encircling walls form "an unforgettable skyline". Within the walls, the well-preserved buildings include notable examples of both Romanesque and Gothic architecture, with outstanding examples of secular buildings as well as churches. The Palazzo Comunale, the Collegiate Church and Church of Sant' Agostino contain frescos, including cycles dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. The "Historic Centre of San Gimignano", is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In the 3rd century BC a small Etruscan village stood on the site of San Gimignano. Chroniclers Lupi, Coppi and Pecori relate that during Catiline conspiracy against the Roman Republic in the 1st century, two patrician brothers, Muzio and Silvio, fled Rome for Valdelsa and built two castles, Mucchio and Silvia (now San Gimignano). The name of Silvia was changed to San Gimignano in 450 AD after the Saint of Modena, Bishop Geminianus intervened to spare the castle from destruction by the followers of Attila the Hun. As a result, a church was dedicated to the Saint and in the 6th and 7th centuries a walled village grew up around it, subsequently called the "Castle of San Gimignano" or Castle of the Forest because of the extensive woodland surrounding it. From 929 the town was ruled by the bishops of Volterra.
The city is on the ridge of a hill with its main axis being north/south. It is encircled by three walls and has at its highest point, to the west, the ruins of a fortress dismantled in the 16th century. There are eight entrances into the city, set into the second wall, which dates from the 12th and 13th centuries.
The town of San Gimignano has many fine examples of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. As well as churches and medieval fortifications, there are notable examples of Romanesque secular and domestic architecture which may be distinguished from each other by their round and pointed arches, respectively. A particular feature which is typical of the region of Siena is that the arches of openings are depressed, with doorways often having a second low arch set beneath a semi-circular or pointed arch. Both Romanesque and Gothic windows sometimes have a bifurcate form, with two openings divided by a stone mullion under a single arch.
(Wikipedia)
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I returned to Tuscany after several years during a prolonged August weekend to explore famous hilltop settlements and enjoy Chianti & Montepulciano red wines.
We stayed in San Gimignano overnight for three days and enjoyed its evening and night magic quite intensively - it is really a charming place, especially when daily tourist buses and crowds leave. A must see when visiting Tuscany!
Kinetic Photograph made with one single long exposure shot (hand held camera movement).
Kinetic Photograph made with one single long exposure shot, printed straight out of camera.
If you’d like to read more details about how the shot is made see below. And for more of my kinetic photographs here’s my set, "Drawing with Light"
www.flickr.com/photos/motorpsiclist/albums/72157652166665058
Copyright © by John Russell – All Rights Reserved
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Kinetic: Relating to, caused by, or producing motion.
These are called “Kinetic” photographs because there is motion, energy, and movement involved, specifically my and the camera’s movements.
I choose a light source and/or subject, set my camera for a long exposure (typically around 4 seconds), focus on my subject and push the shutter button. When the shutter opens I move the camera around with my hands...large, sweeping, dramatic movements. And then I will literally throw the camera several feet up into the air, most times imparting a spinning or whirling motion to it as I hurl it upward. I may throw the camera several times and also utilize hand-held motion several times in one photo. None of these are Photoshopped, layered, or a composite photo...what you see occurs in one shot, one take.
Aren’t I afraid that I will drop and break my camera? For regular followers of my photostream and this series you will know that I have already done so. This little camera has been dropped many times, and broken once when dropped on concrete outside. It still functions...not so well for regular photographs, but superbly for more kinetic work.
I can relate photography to very good experiences in my life.
It has given me so much!! It´s been an escape to problems, it´s been a source of great peace. It´s been creativity and a reason to conect myself with the land, but the main reason is that has allowed me to share.
It´s been kind of difficult to find people who i can share a time of photography. I normally go out alone to take photos because i loose my mind and the sense of time when i´m doing it, People who is not into this would not understand.
In the last months i´ve been lucky to find friends who enjoy this as much as i do so i´m very grateful for this. Sharing with people and see their experiences through photography is something that i love. Thanks to photography, here on flickr, i have found very valuable friends and this is the main reason for me to be here. I´m not much interested in getting views and awards for my photos. I find my satisfaction when i learn new techniques, and thanks to that i feel myself satisfied with my work and in addition i find friends to share this whole process.
This is a collague i did of my last travel to the andes. I was able to camp in the middle of the mountains with some very nice friends that love photography as much as i do. A fabulous moment that will last in my mind, i hope forever.
PS: Most of this photos belong to my friends, so the credits also go to Karla Ramos, Luis Perez and John Pictures.
Julia. Settled 1865.
The district creek which flows into the Light River was named by early explorer John Hill in 1838 after the daughter of Governor Gawler (1838-41). To the north of Julia Smith Hill the highest peak in this region at 615 metres high (Mt Lofty is 720 metres high). The Hundred of Julia was declared in 1851 when some of the Anlaby leasehold land was resumed but most was only surveyed around 1865 when the Duttons of Anlaby purchased most of sections in the Hundred to add to their growing freehold estate. The district was only opened up to closer settlement when the expansive Anlaby estates were resumed by the government for closer settlement. This began in 1895 when Duttons sold 2,000 acres for closer settlement. In 1905 a further 24,000 acres was surveyed for sale by the government followed by a further 7,000 acres in 1911. Thus most of the district was settled by farmers from 1906 onwards. This land stretched from the Anlaby homestead across the hills to Hampden (subdivided from Anlaby estate in 1910 with a railway station from 1912), Julia, Point Pass, and Robertstown. A Lutheran Church opened in 1911 with additions made in 1928 when a further 19 pews were added to it. The church closed in 1996. It is now a private homestead. The cemetery opened around 1910 with the earliest burials in 1913. The main family names listed for the cemetery are Obst, Schutz, Henschke, Schubert, Schultz and Thiele. The school at Julia opened in 1910 and closed in 1950. The parents of noted author Colin Thiele are buried in Julia cemetery and Colin Thiele attended this primary school at Julia from 1926 to 1933. He then attended Kapunda High School and caught morning train at 7 am to school from Hampden station returning on the evening train at 8:00 pm. It was a long day for a school boy. Colin Thiele became an author and educator. Thiele wrote more than 80 books and several of them have been made into successful films like Storm Boy. Thiele was born at Julia in 1920 to German speaking parents. He did not speak English until he went to school. His books relate his childhood experiences in the Eudunda district including Sun on the Stubble, The Valley Between and The Shadow of the Hills. Thiele went on to become the principal of Wattle Park Teachers College as well as an author.
The District Council of Julia was formed in 1874 with the first council meetings being held in Anlaby homestead. Eventually a Council Camber was built in Hampden in 1920. That chamber became the Hampden state school in 1925 as well. Hampden School closed in 1951. The settlement of Julia had a timber and iron hall completed in 1909 until replaced in 1926. After World War Two it became known as the Julia District Memorial Hall. In 1958 this second hall was replaced with a new Besser brick hall. It still remains the social centre of the district.
Another shot of the Wool-carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum) that I photographed yesterday. These bees are very active and never seem to keep still for more than a second or so. Of the dozens of shots I took, only a few were in focus.
The bee's common name relates to the female bee's behaviour. She shaves hairs off of plant stems and leaves, to use in nest construction.
Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: γνωστικός gnostikos, "having knowledge", from γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge) is a modern name for a variety of ancient religious ideas and systems, originating in Jewish Christian milieux in the first and second century AD. These systems believed that the material world is created by an emanation or 'works' of a lower god (demiurge), trapping the divine spark within the human body. This divine spark could be liberated by gnosis, spiritual knowledge acquired through direct experience. Some of the core teachings include the following:
All matter is evil, and the non-material, spirit-realm is good.
There is an unknowable God, who gave rise to many lesser spirit beings called Aeons.
The creator of the (material) universe is not the supreme god, but an inferior spirit (the Demiurge).
Gnosticism does not deal with "sin," only ignorance.
To achieve salvation, one needs gnosis (knowledge).
The Gnostic ideas and systems flourished in the Mediterranean world in the second century AD, in conjunction with and influenced by the early Christian movements and Middle Platonism. After the second century, a decline set in. In the Persian Empire, Gnosticism in the form of Manicheism spread as far as China, while Mandaeism is still alive in Iraq.
A major question in scholarly research is the qualification of Gnosticism, based on the study of its texts, as either an interreligious phenomenon or as an independent religion.
Gnosis refers to knowledge based on personal experience or perception. In a religious context, gnosis is mystical or esoteric knowledge based on direct participation with the divine. In most Gnostic systems, the sufficient cause of salvation is this "knowledge of" ("acquaintance with") the divine. It is an inward "knowing", comparable to that encouraged by Plotinus (neoplatonism), and differs from proto-orthodox Christian views.[1] Gnostics are "those who are oriented toward knowledge and understanding – or perception and learning – as a particular modality for living".
The usual meaning of gnostikos in Classical Greek texts is "learned" or "intellectual", such as used by Plato in the comparison of "practical" (praktikos) and "intellectual" (gnostikos). Plato's use of "learned" is fairly typical of Classical texts.
By the Hellenistic period, it began to also be associated with Greco-Roman mysteries, becoming synonymous with the Greek term musterion. The adjective is not used in the New Testament, but Clement of Alexandria[note 3] speaks of the "learned" (gnostikos) Christian in complimentary terms. The use of gnostikos in relation to heresy originates with interpreters of Irenaeus. Some scholars[note consider that Irenaeus sometimes uses gnostikos to simply mean "intellectual",[note 5] whereas his mention of "the intellectual sect" is a specific designation.
The term "Gnosticism" does not appear in ancient sources,[note 10] and was first coined in the 17th century by Henry More in a commentary on the seven letters of the Book of Revelation, where More used the term "Gnosticisme" to describe the heresy in Thyatira. The term Gnosticism was derived from the use of the Greek adjective gnostikos (Greek γνωστικός, "learned", "intellectual") by St. Irenaeus (c. 185 AD) to describe the school of Valentinus as he legomene gnostike haeresis "the heresy called Learned (gnostic)."
Origins
The earliest origins of Gnosticism are obscure and still disputed. The proto-orthodox Christian groups called Gnostics a heresy of Christianity,] but according to the modern scholars the theology's origin is closely related to Jewish sectarian milieus and early Christian sects. Scholars debate Gnosticism's origins as having roots in Neoplatonism and Buddhism, due to similarities in beliefs, but ultimately, its origins are currently unknown. As Christianity developed and became more popular, so did Gnosticism, with both proto-orthodox Christian and Gnostic Christian groups often existing in the same places. The Gnostic belief was widespread within Christianity until the proto-orthodox Christian communities expelled the group in the second and third centuries (C.E.). Gnosticism became the first group to be declared heretical.
Some scholars prefer to speak of "gnosis" when referring to first-century ideas that later developed into gnosticism, and to reserve the term "gnosticism" for the synthesis of these ideas into a coherent movement in the second century.No gnostic texts have been discovered that pre-date Christianity,and "pre-Christian Gnosticism as such is hardly attested in a way to settle the debate once and for all."
Jewish Christian origins
Contemporary scholarship largely agrees that Gnosticism has Jewish Christian origins, originating in the late first century AD in non rabbinical Jewish sects and early Christian sects.
Many heads of gnostic schools were identified as Jewish Christians by Church Fathers, and Hebrew words and names of God were applied in some gnostic systems. The cosmogonic speculations among Christian Gnostics had partial origins in Maaseh Bereshit and Maaseh Merkabah. This thesis is most notably put forward by Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) and Gilles Quispel (1916–2006). Scholem detected Jewish gnosis in the imagery of the merkavah, which can also be found in "Christian" Gnostic documents, for example the being "caught away" to the third heaven mentioned by Paul the Apostle. Quispel sees Gnosticism as an independent Jewish development, tracing its origins to Alexandrian Jews, to which group Valentinus was also connected.
Many of the Nag Hammadi texts make reference to Judaism, in some cases with a violent rejection of the Jewish God. Gershom Scholem once described Gnosticism as "the Greatest case of metaphysical anti-Semitism". Professor Steven Bayme said gnosticism would be better characterized as anti-Judaism. Recent research into the origins of Gnosticism shows a strong Jewish influence, particularly from Hekhalot literature.
Within early Christianity, the teachings of Paul and John may have been a starting point for Gnostic ideas, with a growing emphasis on the opposition between flesh and spirit, the value of charisma, and the disqualification of the Jewish law. The mortal body belonged to the world of inferior, worldly powers (the archons), and only the spirit or soul could be saved. The term gnostikos may have acquired a deeper significance here.
Alexandria was of central importance for the birth of Gnosticism. The Christian ecclesia (i. e. congregation, church) was of Jewish–Christian origin, but also attracted Greek members, and various strand of thought were available, such as "Judaic apocalypticism, speculation on divine wisdom, Greek philosophy, and Hellenistic mystery religions."
Regarding the angel Christology of some early Christians, Darrell Hannah notes:
[Some] early Christians understood the pre-incarnate Christ, ontologically, as an angel. This "true" angel Christology took many forms and may have appeared as early as the late First Century, if indeed this is the view opposed in the early chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Elchasaites, or at least Christians influenced by them, paired the male Christ with the female Holy Spirit, envisioning both as two gigantic angels. Some Valentinian Gnostics supposed that Christ took on an angelic nature and that he might be the Saviour of angels. The author of the Testament of Solomon held Christ to be a particularly effective "thwarting" angel in the exorcism of demons. The author of De Centesima and Epiphanius’ "Ebionites" held Christ to have been the highest and most important of the first created archangels, a view similar in many respects to Hermas’ equation of Christ with Michael. Finally, a possible exegetical tradition behind the Ascension of Isaiah and attested by Origen's Hebrew master, may witness to yet another angel Christology, as well as an angel Pneumatology.
The pseudepigraphical Christian text Ascension of Isaiah identifies Jesus with angel Christology:
[The Lord Christ is commissioned by the Father] And I heard the voice of the Most High, the father of my LORD as he said to my LORD Christ who will be called Jesus, ‘Go out and descend through all the heavens...
The Shepherd of Hermas is a Christian literary work considered as canonical scripture by some of the early Church fathers such as Irenaeus. Jesus is identified with angel Christology in parable 5, when the author mentions a Son of God, as a virtuous man filled with a Holy "pre-existent spirit".
Neoplatonic influences
See also: Platonic Academy, Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism and Christianity
In the 1880s Gnostic connections with neo-Platonism were proposed.Ugo Bianchi, who organised the Congress of Messina of 1966 on the origins of Gnosticism, also argued for Orphic and Platonic origins.Gnostics borrowed significant ideas and terms from Platonism, using Greek philosophical concepts throughout their text, including such concepts as hypostasis (reality, existence), ousia (essence, substance, being), and demiurge (creator God). Both Sethian Gnostics and Valentinian Gnostics seem to have been influenced by Plato, Middle Platonism, and Neo-Pythagoreanism academies or schools of thought. Both schools attempted "an effort towards conciliation, even affiliation" with late antique philosophy, and were rebuffed by some Neoplatonists, including Plotinus.
Persian origins or influences
Early research into the origins of Gnosticism proposed Persian origins or influences, spreading to Europe and incorporating Jewish elements. According to Wilhelm Bousset (1865–1920), Gnosticism was a form of Iranian and Mesopotamian syncretism,[29] and Richard August Reitzenstein (1861–1931) most famously situated the origins of Gnosticism in Persia.
Carsten Colpe (b. 1929) has analyzed and criticised the Iranian hypothesis of Reitzenstein, showing that many of his hypotheses are untenable. Nevertheless, Geo Widengren (1907–1996) argued for the origin of (Mandaean) Gnosticism in Mazdean (Zoroastrianism) Zurvanism, in conjunction with ideas from the Aramaic Mesopotamian world.
Buddhist parallels
In 1966, at the Congress of Median, Buddhologist Edward Conze noted phenomenological commonalities between Mahayana Buddhism and Gnosticism, in his paper Buddhism and Gnosis, following an early suggestion put forward by Isaac Jacob Schmidt. The influence of Buddhism in any sense on either the gnostikos Valentinus (c. 170) or the Nag Hammadi texts (3rd century) is not supported by modern scholarship, although Elaine Pagels (1979) called it a "possibility".
Characteristics
Cosmology
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The Syrian–Egyptian traditions postulate a remote, supreme Godhead, the Monad. From this highest divinity emanate lower divine beings, known as Aeons. The Demiurge, one of those Aeons, creates the physical world. Divine elements "fall" into the material realm, and are locked within human beings. This divine element returns to the divine realm when Gnosis, esoteric or intuitive knowledge of the divine element within, is obtained.
Dualism and monism
Gnostic systems postulate a dualism between God and the world, varying from the "radical dualist" systems of Manichaeism to the "mitigated dualism" of classic gnostic movements. Radical dualism, or absolute dualism, posits two co-equal divine forces, while in mitigated dualism one of the two principles is in some way inferior to the other. In qualified monism the second entity may be divine or semi-divine. Valentinian Gnosticism is a form of monism, expressed in terms previously used in a dualistic manner.
Moral and ritual practice
Gnostics tended toward asceticism, especially in their sexual and dietary practice. In other areas of morality, Gnostics were less rigorously ascetic, and took a more moderate approach to correct behaviour. In normative early Christianity the Church administered and prescribed the correct behaviour for Christians, while in Gnosticism it was the internalised motivation that was important. Ritualistic behaviour was not important unless it was based on a personal, internal motivation. Ptolemy's Epistle to Flora describes a general asceticism, based on the moral inclination of the individual.
Concepts
Monad
In many Gnostic systems, God is known as the Monad, the One. God is the high source of the pleroma, the region of light. The various emanations of God are called æons. According to Hippolytus, this view was inspired by the Pythagoreans, who called the first thing that came into existence the Monad, which begat the dyad, which begat the numbers, which begat the point, begetting lines, etc.
The Sethian cosmogony as most famously contained in the Apocryphon ("Secret book") of John describes an unknown God, very similar to the orthodox apophatic theology, but different from the orthodox teachings that this God is the creator of heaven and earth. Orthodox theologians often attempt to define God through a series of explicit positive statements: he is omniscient, omnipotent, and truly benevolent. The Sethian hidden transcendent God is, by contrast, defined through negative theology: he is immovable, invisible, intangible, ineffable; commonly, "he" is seen as being hermaphroditic, a potent symbol for being, as it were, "all-containing". In the Apocryphon of John, this god is good in that it bestows goodness. After the apophatic statements, the process of the Divine in action is used to describe the effect of such a god.
Pleroma
Pleroma (Greek πλήρωμα, "fullness") refers to the totality of God's powers. The heavenly pleroma is the center of divine life, a region of light "above" (the term is not to be understood spatially) our world, occupied by spiritual beings such as aeons (eternal beings) and sometimes archons. Jesus is interpreted as an intermediary aeon who was sent from the pleroma, with whose aid humanity can recover the lost knowledge of the divine origins of humanity. The term is thus a central element of Gnostic cosmology.
Pleroma is also used in the general Greek language, and is used by the Greek Orthodox church in this general form, since the word appears in the Epistle to the Colossians. Proponents of the view that Paul was actually a gnostic, such as Elaine Pagels, view the reference in Colossians as a term that has to be interpreted in a gnostic sense.
Emanation
The Supreme Light or Consciousness descends through a series of stages, gradations, worlds, or hypostases, becoming progressively more material and embodied. In time it will turn around to return to the One (epistrophe), retracing its steps through spiritual knowledge and contemplation.
Aeon
In many Gnostic systems, the aeons are the various emanations of the superior God or Monad. From this first being, also an æon, a series of different emanations occur, beginning in certain Gnostic texts with the hermaphroditic Barbelo, from which successive pairs of aeons emanate, often in male–female pairings called syzygies. The numbers of these pairings varied from text to text, though some identify their number as being thirty. The aeons as a totality constitute the pleroma, the "region of light". The lowest regions of the pleroma are closest to the darkness; that is, the physical world.
Two of the most commonly paired æons were Christ and Sophia (Greek: "Wisdom"); the latter refers to Christ as her "consort" in A Valentinian Exposition.
Sophia
In Gnostic tradition, the term Sophia (Σoφíα, Greek for "wisdom") refers to the final and lowest emanation of God. In most if not all versions of the gnostic myth, Sophia births the demiurge, who in turn brings about the creation of materiality. The positive or negative depiction of materiality thus resides a great deal on mythic depictions of Sophia's actions. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamoth (this is a feature of Ptolemy's version of the Valentinian gnostic myth). Jewish Gnosticism with a focus on Sophia was active by 90 AD.[citation needed]
Sophia, emanating without her partner, resulted in the production of the Demiurge (Greek: lit. "public builder"),[50] who is also referred to as Yaldabaoth and variations thereof in some Gnostic texts.[43] This creature is concealed outside the pleroma;[43] in isolation, and thinking itself alone, it creates materiality and a host of co-actors, referred to as archons. The demiurge is responsible for the creation of mankind; trapping elements of the pleroma stolen from Sophia inside human bodies.[43][51] In response, the Godhead emanates two savior aeons, Christ and the Holy Spirit; Christ then embodies itself in the form of Jesus, in order to be able to teach man how to achieve gnosis, by which they may return to the pleroma.[52]
Demiurge[edit]
A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures may be a depiction of Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge; however, cf. Mithraic Zervan Akarana[53]
Main article: Demiurge
The term demiurge derives from the Latinized form of the Greek term dēmiourgos, δημιουργός, literally "public or skilled worker".[note 20] This figure is also called "Yaldabaoth",[43] Samael (Aramaic: sæmʻa-ʼel, "blind god"), or "Saklas" (Syriac: sækla, "the foolish one"), who is sometimes ignorant of the superior god, and sometimes opposed to it; thus in the latter case he is correspondingly malevolent. Other names or identifications are Ahriman, El, Satan, and Yahweh.
The demiurge creates the physical universe and the physical aspect of humanity.[55] The demiurge typically creates a group of co-actors named archons who preside over the material realm and, in some cases, present obstacles to the soul seeking ascent from it.[43] The inferiority of the demiurge's creation may be compared to the technical inferiority of a work of art, painting, sculpture, etc. to the thing the art represents. In other cases it takes on a more ascetic tendency to view material existence negatively, which then becomes more extreme when materiality, including the human body, is perceived as evil and constrictive, a deliberate prison for its inhabitants.
Moral judgements of the demiurge vary from group to group within the broad category of Gnosticism, viewing materiality as being inherently evil, or as merely flawed and as good as its passive constituent matter allows.[56]
Archon[edit]
Main article: Archon (Gnosticism)
In late antiquity some variants of Gnosticism used the term archon to refer to several servants of the demiurge.[51] In this context they may be seen as having the roles of the angels and demons of the Old Testament.[citation needed]
According to Origen's Contra Celsum, a sect called the Ophites posited the existence of seven archons, beginning with Iadabaoth or Ialdabaoth, who created the six that follow: Iao, Sabaoth, Adonaios, Elaios, Astaphanos, and Horaios.[57] Similarly to the Mithraic Kronos and Vedic Narasimha, a form of Vishnu, Ialdabaoth had a head of a lion.[43][58][59]
Other concepts[edit]
Other Gnostic concepts are:[60]
sarkic – earthly, hidebound, ignorant, uninitiated. The lowest level of human thought; the fleshly, instinctive level of thinking.
hylic – lowest order of the three types of human. Unable to be saved since their thinking is entirely material, incapable of understanding the gnosis.
psychic – "soulful", partially initiated. Matter-dwelling spirits
pneumatic – "spiritual", fully initiated, immaterial souls escaping the doom of the material world via gnosis.
kenoma – the visible or manifest cosmos, "lower" than the pleroma
charisma – gift, or energy, bestowed by pneumatics through oral teaching and personal encounters
logos – the divine ordering principle of the cosmos; personified as Christ. See also Odic force.
hypostasis – literally "that which stands beneath" the inner reality, emanation (appearance) of God, known to psychics
ousia – essence of God, known to pneumatics. Specific individual things or being.
Jesus as Gnostic saviour[edit]
Jesus is identified by some Gnostics as an embodiment of the supreme being who became incarnate to bring gnōsis to the earth,[61][52] while others adamantly denied that the supreme being came in the flesh, claiming Jesus to be merely a human who attained divinity through gnosis and taught his disciples to do the same.[citation needed] Among the Mandaeans, Jesus was considered a mšiha kdaba or "false messiah" who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John the Baptist.[62] Still other traditions identify Mani and Seth – third son of Adam and Eve – as salvific figures.
Development[edit]
Three periods can be discerned in the development of Gnosticism:[63]
Late first century and early second century: development of Gnostic ideas, contemporaneous with the writing of the New Testament;
mid-second century to early third century: high point of the classical Gnostic teachers and their systems, "who claimed that their systems represented the inner truth revealed by Jesus";[63]
end of second century to fourth century: reaction by the proto-orthodox church and condemnation as heresy, and subsequent decline.
During the first period, three types of tradition developed:[63]
Genesis was reinterpreted in Jewish milieus, viewing Jahweh as a jealous God who enslaved people; freedom was to be obtained from this jealous God;
A wisdom tradition developed, in which Jesus' sayings were interpreted as pointers to an esoteric wisdom, in which the soul could be divinized through identification with wisdom.[63][note 21] Some of Jesus' sayings may have been incorporated into the gospels to put a limit on this development. The conflicts described in 1 Corinthians may have been inspired by a clash between this wisdom tradition and Paul's gospel of crucifixion and arising;[63]
A mythical story developed about the descent of a heavenly creature to reveal the Divine world as the true home of human beings.[63] Jewish Christianity saw the Messiah, or Christ, as "an eternal aspect of God's hidden nature, his "spirit" and "truth", who revealed himself throughout sacred history".[25]
The movement spread in areas controlled by the Roman Empire and Arian Goths,[65] and the Persian Empire. It continued to develop in the Mediterranean and Middle East before and during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, but decline also set in during the third century, due to a growing aversion from the Catholic Church, and the economic and cultural deterioration of the Roman Empire.[66] Conversion to Islam, and the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229), greatly reduced the remaining number of Gnostics throughout the Middle Ages, though a few Mandaean communities still exist. Gnostic and pseudo-gnostic ideas became influential in some of the philosophies of various esoteric mystical movements of the 19th and 20th centuries in Europe and North America, including some that explicitly identify themselves as revivals or even continuations of earlier gnostic groups.
Relation with early Christianity[edit]
Dillon notes that Gnosticism raises questions about the development of early Christianity.[67]
Orthodoxy and heresy[edit]
See also: Diversity in early Christian theology
The Christian heresiologists, most notably Irenaeus, regarded Gnosticism as a Christian heresy. Modern scholarship notes that early Christianity was very diverse, and Christian orthodoxy only settled in the 4th century, when the Roman Empire declined and Gnosticism lost its influence.[68][66][69][67] Gnostics and proto-orthodox Christians shared some terminology. Initially, they were hard to distinguish from each other.[70]
According to Walter Bauer, "heresies" may well have been the original form of Christianity in many regions.[71] This theme was further developed by Elaine Pagels,[72] who argues that "the proto-orthodox church found itself in debates with gnostic Christians that helped them to stabilize their own beliefs."[67] According to Gilles Quispel, Catholicism arose in response to Gnosticism, establishing safeguards in the form of the monarchic episcopate, the creed, and the canon of holy books.[73]
Historical Jesus[edit]
See also: Jesus in comparative mythology and Christ myth theory
The Gnostic movements may contain information about the historical Jesus, since some texts preserve sayings which show similarities with canonical sayings.[74] Especially the Gospel of Thomas has a significant amount of parallel sayings.[74] Yet, a striking difference is that the canonical sayings center on the coming endtime, while the Thomas-sayings center on a kingdom of heaven that is already here, and not a future event.[75] According to Helmut Koester, this is because the Thomas-sayings are older, implying that in the earliest forms of Christianity Jesus was regarded as a wisdom-teacher.[75] An alternative hypothesis states that the Thomas authors wrote in the second century, changing existing sayings and eliminating the apocalyptic concerns.[75] According to April DeConick, such a change occurred when the endtime did not come, and the Thomasine tradition turned toward a "new theology of mysticism" and a "theological commitment to a fully-present kingdom of heaven here and now, where their church had attained Adam and Eve's divine status before the Fall."[75]
Johannine literature[edit]
The prologue of the Gospel of John describes the incarnated Logos, the light that came to earth, in the person of Jesus.[76] The Apocryphon of John contains a scheme of three descendants from the heavenly realm, the third one being Jesus, just as in the Gospel of John. The similarities probably point to a relationship between gnostic ideas and the Johannine community.[76] According to Raymond Brown, the Gospel of John shows "the development of certain gnostic ideas, especially Christ as heavenly revealer, the emphasis on light versus darkness, and anti-Jewish animus."[76] The Johannine material reveals debates about the redeemer myth.[63] The Johannine letters show that there were different interpretations of the gospel story, and the Johannine images may have contributed to second-century Gnostic ideas about Jesus as a redeemer who descended from heaven.[63] According to DeConick, the Gospel of John shows a "transitional system from early Christianity to gnostic beliefs in a God who transcends our world."[76] According to DeConick, John may show a bifurcation of the idea of the Jewish God into Jesus' Father in Heaven and the Jews' father, "the Father of the Devil" (most translations say "of [your] father the Devil"), which may have developed into the gnostic idea of the Monad and the Demiurge.[76]
Paul and Gnosticism[edit]
Tertullian calls Paul "the apostle of the heretics",[77] because Paul's writings were attractive to gnostics, and interpreted in a gnostic way, while Jewish Christians found him to stray from the Jewish roots of Christianity.[78] In I Corinthians Paul refers to some church members as "having knowledge" (Greek: τὸν ἔχοντα γνῶσιν, ton echonta gnosin).[79] James Dunn claims that in some cases, Paul affirmed views that were closer to gnosticism than to proto-orthodox Christianity.[80]
According to Clement of Alexandria, the disciples of Valentinus said that Valentinus was a student of a certain Theudas, who was a student of Paul,[80] and Elaine Pagels notes that Paul's epistles were interpreted by Valentinus in a gnostic way, and Paul could be considered a proto-gnostic as well as a proto-Catholic.[60] Many Nag Hammadi texts, including, for example, the Prayer of Paul and the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul, consider Paul to be "the great apostle".[80] The fact that he claimed to have received his gospel directly by revelation from God appealed to the gnostics, who claimed gnosis from the risen Christ.[81] The Naassenes, Cainites, and Valentinians referred to Paul's epistles.[82] Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy have expanded upon this idea of Paul as a gnostic teacher;[83] although their premise that Jesus was invented by early Christians based on an alleged Greco-Roman mystery cult has been dismissed by scholars.[84][note 22] However, his revelation was different from the gnostic revelations.[85]
Major movements[edit]
Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism[edit]
Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism includes Sethianism, Valentinianism, Basilideans, Thomasine traditions, and Serpent Gnostics, as well as a number of other minor groups and writers.[86] Hermeticism is also a western Gnostic tradition,[66] though it differs in some respects from these other groups.[87] The Syrian–Egyptian school derives much of its outlook from Platonist influences. It depicts creation in a series of emanations from a primal monadic source, finally resulting in the creation of the material universe. These schools tend to view evil in terms of matter that is markedly inferior to goodness and lacking spiritual insight and goodness rather than as an equal force.
Many of these movements used texts related to Christianity, with some identifying themselves as specifically Christian, though quite different from the Orthodox or Roman Catholic forms. Jesus and several of his apostles, such as Thomas the Apostle, claimed as the founder of the Thomasine form of Gnosticism, figure in many Gnostic texts. Mary Magdalene is respected as a Gnostic leader, and is considered superior to the twelve apostles by some gnostic texts, such as the Gospel of Mary. John the Evangelist is claimed as a Gnostic by some Gnostic interpreters,[88] as is even St. Paul.[60] Most of the literature from this category is known to us through the Nag Hammadi Library.
Sethite-Barbeloite[edit]
Main article: Sethianism
Sethianism was one of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd to 3rd centuries, and the prototype of Gnosticism as condemned by Irenaeus.[89] Sethianism attributed its gnosis to Seth, third son of Adam and Eve and Norea, wife of Noah, who also plays a role in Mandeanism and Manicheanism. Their main text is the Apocryphon of John, which does not contain Christian elements,[89] and is an amalgam of two earlier myths.[90] Earlier texts such as Apocalypse of Adam show signs of being pre-Christian and focus on the Seth, third son of Adam and Eve.[91] Later Sethian texts continue to interact with Platonism. Sethian texts such as Zostrianos and Allogenes draw on the imagery of older Sethian texts, but utilize "a large fund of philosophical conceptuality derived from contemporary Platonism, (that is, late middle Platonism) with no traces of Christian content."[31][note 23]
According to John D. Turner, German and American scholarship views Sethianism as "a distinctly inner-Jewish, albeit syncretistic and heterodox, phenomenon", while British and French scholarship tends to see Sethianism as "a form of heterodox Christian speculation".[92] Roelof van den Broek notes that "Sethianism" may never have been a separate religious movement, and that the term refers rather to a set of mythological themes which occur in various texts.[93]
According to Smith, Sethianism may have begun as a pre-Christian tradition, possibly a syncretic cult that incorporated elements of Christianity and Platonism as it grew.[94] According to Temporini, Vogt, and Haase, early Sethians may be identical to or related to the Nazarenes (sect), the Ophites, or the sectarian group called heretics by Philo.[91]
According to Turner, Sethianism was influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism, and originated in the second century as a fusion of a Jewish baptizing group of possibly priestly lineage, the so-called Barbeloites,[95] named after Barbelo, the first emanation of the Highest God, and a group of Biblical exegetes, the Sethites, the "seed of Seth".[96] At the end of the second century, Sethianism grew apart from the developing Christian orthodoxy, which rejected the docetian view of the Sethians on Christ.[97] In the early third century, Sethianism was fully rejected by Christian heresiologists, as Sethianism shifted toward the contemplative practices of Platonism while losing interest in their own origins.[98] In the late third century, Sethianism was attacked by neo-Platonists like Plotinus, and Sethianism became alienated from Platonism. In the early- to mid-fourth century, Sethianism fragmented into various sectarian Gnostic groups such as the Archontics, Audians, Borborites, and Phibionites, and perhaps Stratiotici, and Secundians.[99][31] Some of these groups existed into the Middle Ages.[99]
Samaritan Baptist sects[edit]
According to Magris, Samaritan Baptist sects were an offshoot of John the Baptist.[100] One offshoot was in turn headed by Dositheus, Simon Magus, and Menander. It was in this milieu that the idea emerged that the world was created by ignorant angels. Their baptismal ritual removed the consequences of sin, and led to a regeneration by which natural death, which was caused by these angels, was overcome.[100] The Samaritan leaders were viewed as "the embodiment of God's power, spirit, or wisdom, and as the redeemer and revealer of 'true knowledge'".[100]
The Simonians were centered on Simon Magus, the magician baptised by Philip and rebuked by Peter in Acts 8, who became in early Christianity the archetypal false teacher. The ascription by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and others of a connection between schools in their time and the individual in Acts 8 may be as legendary as the stories attached to him in various apocryphal books. Justin Martyr identifies Menander of Antioch as Simon Magus' pupil. According to Hippolytus, Simonianism is an earlier form of the Valentinian doctrine.[101]
The Basilidians or Basilideans were founded by Basilides of Alexandria in the second century. Basilides claimed to have been taught his doctrines by Glaucus, a disciple of St. Peter, but could also have been a pupil of Menander.[102] Basilidianism survived until the end of the 4th century as Epiphanius knew of Basilidians living in the Nile Delta. It was, however, almost exclusively limited to Egypt, though according to Sulpicius Severus it seems to have found an entrance into Spain through a certain Mark from Memphis. St. Jerome states that the Priscillianists were infected with it.
Valentinianism[edit]
Main article: Valentinianism
Valentinianism was named after its founder Valentinus (c. 100 – 180), who was a candidate for bishop of Rome but started his own group when another was chosen.[103] Valentinianism flourished after the middle of the 2nd century. The school was popular, spreading to Northwest Africa and Egypt, and through to Asia Minor and Syria in the east,[104] and Valentinus is specifically named as gnostikos by Irenaeus. It was an intellectually vibrant tradition,[105] with an elaborate and philosophically "dense" form of Gnosticism. Valentinus' students elaborated on his teachings and materials, and several varieties of their central myth are known.
Valentinian Gnosticism may have been monistic rather than dualistic.[note 24] In the Valentinian myths, the creation of a flawed materiality is not due to any moral failing on the part of the Demiurge, but due to the fact that he is less perfect than the superior entities from which he emanated.[108] Valentinians treat physical reality with less contempt than other Gnostic groups, and conceive of materiality not as a separate substance from the divine, but as attributable to an error of perception which becomes symbolized mythopoetically as the act of material creation.[108]
The followers of Valentinius attempted to systematically decode the Epistles, claiming that most Christians made the mistake of reading the Epistles literally rather than allegorically. Valentinians understood the conflict between Jews and Gentiles in Romans to be a coded reference to the differences between Psychics (people who are partly spiritual but have not yet achieved separation from carnality) and Pneumatics (totally spiritual people). The Valentinians argued that such codes were intrinsic in gnosticism, secrecy being important to ensuring proper progression to true inner understanding.[note 25]
According to Bentley Layton "Classical Gnosticism" and "The School of Thomas" antedated and influenced the development of Valentinus, whom Layton called "the great [Gnostic] reformer" and "the focal point" of Gnostic development. While in Alexandria, where he was born, Valentinus probably would have had contact with the Gnostic teacher Basilides, and may have been influenced by him.[109] Simone Petrement, while arguing for a Christian origin of Gnosticism, places Valentinus after Basilides, but before the Sethians. According to Petrement, Valentinus represented a moderation of the anti-Judaism of the earlier Hellenized teachers; the demiurge, widely regarded as a mythological depiction of the Old Testament God of the Hebrews, is depicted as more ignorant than evil.[110]
Thomasine traditions[edit]
The Thomasine Traditions refers to a group of texts which are attributed to the apostle Thomas.[111][note 26] Karen L. King notes that "Thomasine Gnosticism" as a separate category is being criticised, and may "not stand the test of scholarly scrutiny".[112]
Marcion[edit]
Marcion was a Church leader from Sinope (present-day Turkey), who preached in Rome around 150 CE,[113] but was expelled and started his own congregation, which spread throughout the Mediterranean. He rejected the Old Testament, and followed a limited Christian canon, which included only a redacted version of Luke, and ten edited letters of Paul.[114] Some scholars do not consider him to be a gnostic,[115][note 27] but his teachings clearly resemble some Gnostic teachings.[113] He preached a radical difference between the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge, the "evil creator of the material universe", and the highest God, the "loving, spiritual God who is the father of Jesus", who had sent Jesus to the earth to free mankind from the tyranny of the Jewish Law.[113][2] Like the Gnostics, Marcion argued that Jesus was essentially a divine spirit appearing to men in the shape of a human form, and not someone in a true physical body.[116] Marcion held that the heavenly Father (the father of Jesus Christ) was an utterly alien god; he had no part in making the world, nor any connection with it.[116]
Hermeticism[edit]
Hermeticism is closely related to Gnosticism, but its orientation is more positive.[66][87]
Other Gnostic groups[edit]
Serpent Gnostics. The Naassenes, Ophites and the Serpentarians gave prominence to snake symbolism, and snake handling played a role in their ceremonies.[113]
Cerinthus (c. 100), the founder of a heretical school with gnostic elements. Like a Gnostic, Cerinthus depicted Christ as a heavenly spirit separate from the man Jesus, and he cited the demiurge as creating the material world. Unlike the Gnostics, Cerinthus taught Christians to observe the Jewish law; his demiurge was holy, not lowly; and he taught the Second Coming. His gnosis was a secret teaching attributed to an apostle. Some scholars believe that the First Epistle of John was written as a response to Cerinthus.[117]
The Cainites are so-named since Hippolytus of Rome claims that they worshiped Cain, as well as Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites. There is little evidence concerning the nature of this group. Hippolytus claims that they believed that indulgence in sin was the key to salvation because since the body is evil, one must defile it through immoral activity (see libertinism). The name Cainite is used as the name of a religious movement, and not in the usual Biblical sense of people descended from Cain.
The Carpocratians, a libertine sect following only the Gospel according to the Hebrews
The school of Justin, which combined gnostic elements with the ancient Greek religion.
The Borborites, a libertine Gnostic sect, said to be descended from the Nicolaitans[118]
Persian Gnosticism[edit]
The Persian Schools, which appeared in the western Persian province of Babylonia (in particular, within the Sassanid province of Asuristan), and whose writings were originally produced in the Aramaic dialects spoken in Babylonia at the time, are representative of what is believed to be among the oldest of the Gnostic thought forms. These movements are considered by most to be religions in their own right, and are not emanations from Christianity or Judaism.
Manichaeism[edit]
Manicheanism priests writing at their desks, with panel inscription in Sogdian. Manuscript from Khocho, Tarim Basin.
Main article: Manichaeism
Manichaeism was founded by the Prophet Mani (216–276). Mani's father was a member of the Jewish-Christian sect of the Elcesaites, a subgroup of the Gnostic Ebionites. At ages 12 and 24, Mani had visionary experiences of a "heavenly twin" of his, calling him to leave his father's sect and preach the true message of Christ. In 240–41, Mani travelled to the Indo-Greek Kingdom of the Sakhas in modern-day Afghanistan, where he studied Hinduism and its various extant philosophies. Returning in 242, he joined the court of Shapur I, to whom he dedicated his only work written in Persian, known as the Shabuhragan. The original writings were written in Syriac Aramaic, in a unique Manichaean script.
Manichaeism conceives of two coexistent realms of light and darkness that become embroiled in conflict. Certain elements of the light became entrapped within darkness, and the purpose of material creation is to engage in the slow process of extraction of these individual elements. In the end the kingdom of light will prevail over darkness. Manicheanism inherits this dualistic mythology from Zurvanist Zoroastrianism,[119] in which the eternal spirit Ahura Mazda is opposed by his antithesis, Angra Mainyu. This dualistic teaching embodied an elaborate cosmological myth that included the defeat of a primal man by the powers of darkness that devoured and imprisoned the particles of light.[120]
According to Kurt Rudolph, the decline of Manichaeism that occurred in Persia in the 5th century was too late to prevent the spread of the movement into the east and the west.[121] In the west, the teachings of the school moved into Syria, Northern Arabia, Egypt and North Africa.[note 28] There is evidence for Manicheans in Rome and Dalmatia in the 4th century, and also in Gaul and Spain. From Syria it progressed still farther, into Palestine, Asia Minor and Armenia. The influence of Manicheanism was attacked by imperial elects and polemical writings, but the religion remained prevalent until the 6th century, and still exerted influence in the emergence of the Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathari in the Middle Ages, until it was ultimately stamped out by the Catholic Church.[121]
In the east, Rudolph relates, Manicheanism was able to bloom, because the religious monopoly position previously held by Christianity and Zoroastrianism had been broken by nascent Islam. In the early years of the Arab conquest, Manicheanism again found followers in Persia (mostly amongst educated circles), but flourished most in Central Asia, to which it had spread through Iran. Here, in 762, Manicheanism became the state religion of the Uyghur Empire.[121]
Mandaeanism[edit]
Main article: Mandaeanism
Mandaean house of worship in Nasiriya, Iraq
The Mandaeans are Semites and speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. Their religion has been practised primarily around the lower Karun, Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran. Mandaeanism is still practiced in small numbers, in parts of southern Iraq and the Iranian province of Khuzestan, and there are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide.[124]
The name of the group derives from the term Mandā d-Heyyi, which roughly means "Knowledge of Life". Although the exact chronological origins of this movement are not known, John the Baptist eventually came to be a key figure in the religion, as an emphasis on baptism is part of their core beliefs. As with Manichaeism, despite certain ties with Christianity,[125] Mandaeans do not believe in Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed. Their beliefs and practices likewise have little overlap with the religions that manifested from those religious figures and the two should not be confused. Significant amounts of original Mandaean Scripture, written in Mandaean Aramaic, survive in the modern era. The primary source text is known as the Genzā Rabbā and has portions identified by some scholars as being copied as early as the 3rd century. There is also the Qolastā, or Canonical Book of Prayer and The Book of John the Baptist (sidra ḏ-iahia).
Middle Ages[edit]
After its demise in the Mediterranean world, Gnosticism lived on in the periphery of the Byzantine Empire, and resurfaced in the western world. The Paulicians, an Adoptionist group which flourished between 650 and 872 in Armenia and the Eastern Themes of the Byzantine Empire, were accused by orthodox medieval sources of being Gnostic and quasi Manichaean Christian. The Bogomils, emerged in Bulgaria between 927 and 970 and spread throughout Europe. It was as synthesis of Armenian Paulicianism and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church reform movement.
The Cathars (Cathari, Albigenses or Albigensians) were also accused by their enemies of the traits of Gnosticism; though whether or not the Cathari possessed direct historical influence from ancient Gnosticism is disputed. If their critics are reliable the basic conceptions of Gnostic cosmology are to be found in Cathar beliefs (most distinctly in their notion of a lesser, Satanic, creator god), though they did not apparently place any special relevance upon knowledge (gnosis) as an effective salvific force.[verification needed]
Islam[edit]
The message of the Islamic prophet Muhammad shows close similarities to many Gnostic ideas. The Quran, like Gnostic cosmology, makes a sharp distinction between this world and the afterlife. The notion of four rivers in heaven, as mentioned in the Quran, separating this world from the other , also appears frequently in Mandaean literature. God is commonly thought of as being beyond human comprehension. In some Islamic schools of thought, somehow identifiable with the Gnostic Monad.[126][127] However, according to Islam and unlike most Gnostic sects, not rejection of this world, but performing good deeds leads to the heaven. And according to the Islamic belief in strict Oneness of God, there was no room for a lower deity; such as the demiurge.[128] According to Islam, both good and evil come from one God, a position especially opposed by the Manichaeans. Ibn al-Muqaffa depicted the Islamic deity as a demonic entity who "fights with humans and boasts about His victories" and "sitting on a throne, from which He can descend". It would be impossible that both light and darkness were created from one source, since they were regarded as two different eternal principles.[129] Muslim theologists countered this accusation by the example of a repeating sinner, who says: "I laid, and I repent";[130] this would prove that good can also result out of evil.
Islam also integrated traces of an entity given authority over the lower world in some early writings: Iblis is regarded by some Sufis as the owner of this world, and humans must avoid the treasures of this world, since they would belong to him.[131] In the Isma'ili Shia work Umm al Kitab, Azazil's role resembles whose of the Gnostic demiurge.[132] Like the demiurge, he is endowed with the ability to create his own world and seeks to imprison humans in the material world, but here, his power is limited and depends on the higher God.[133] Such Gnostic anthropogenic can be found frequently among Isma'ili traditions.[134] However, Ismailism were often criticised as non-Islamic. Ghazali characterized them as a group who are outwardly Shias but were actually adherence of a dualistic and philosophical religion. Further traces of Gnostic ideas can be found in Sufi anthropogenic.[135] Like the gnostic conception of human beings imprisoned in matter, Sufi-traditions acknowledges the human soul is an accomplice of the material world and subject to bodily desires similar to the way archontic spheres envelop the pneuma.[136] The Ruh must therefore gain victory over the lower and material-bound psyche, to overcome his animal nature. A human being captured by his animal desires, mistakenly claims autonomy and independence from the "higher God", thus resembling the lower deity in classical gnostic traditions. However, since the goal is not to abandon the created world, but just to free oneself from ones own lower desires, it can be disputed whether this can still be Gnostic, but rather a completion of the message of Muhammad.[129] It seems that Gnostic ideas were an influential part of early Islamic development but later lost its influence. However the Gnostic light metaphorics and the idea of unity of existence still prevailed in later Islamic thought.[127]
Kabbalah[edit]
Gnostic ideas found a Jewish variation in the mystical study of Kabbalah. Many core Gnostic ideas reappear in Kabbalah, where they are used for dramatically reinterpreting earlier Jewish sources according to this new system.[137] The Kabbalists originated in 13th-century Provence,[note 29] which was at that time also the center of the Gnostic Cathars. While some scholars in the middle of the 20th century tried to assume an influence between the Cathar "gnostics" and the origins of the Kabbalah, this assumption has proved to be an incorrect generalization not substantiated by any original texts.[139] On the other hand, other scholars, such as Scholem, have postulated that there was originally a "Jewish gnosticism", which influenced the early origins of gnosticism.[140]
Kabbalah does not employ the terminology or labels of non-Jewish Gnosticism, but grounds the same or similar concepts in the language of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible).[141] The 13th-century Zohar ("Splendor"), a foundational text in Kabbalah, is written in the style of a Jewish Aramaic Midrash, clarifying the five books of the Torah with a new Kabbalistic system that uses completely Jewish terms.[142]
Modern times[edit]
Main article: Gnosticism in modern times
The Mandaeans are an ancient Gnostic sect that have survived to this day and are found today in Iraq.[143] Their namesake owes to their following John the Baptist and in that country, they have about five thousand followers.[143] A number of ecclesiastical bodies that think of themselves as Gnostic have set up or re-founded since World War II, including the Ecclesia Gnostica, Apostolic Johannite Church, Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the Gnostic Church of France, the Thomasine Church, the Alexandrian Gnostic Church, the North American College of Gnostic Bishops,[144] and the Universal Gnosticism of Samael Aun Weor.[145]
A number of 19th-century thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer,[146] Albert Pike and Madame Blavatsky studied Gnostic thought extensively and were influenced by it, and even figures like Herman Melville and W. B. Yeats were more tangentially influenced.[147] Jules Doinel "re-established" a Gnostic church in France in 1890, which altered its form as it passed through various direct successors (Fabre des Essarts as Tau Synésius and Joanny Bricaud as Tau Jean II most notably), and, though small, is still active today.[148]
Early 20th-century thinkers who heavily studied and were influenced by Gnosticism include Carl Jung (who supported Gnosticism), Eric Voegelin (who opposed it), Jorge Luis Borges (who included it in many of his short stories), and Aleister Crowley, with figures such as Hermann Hesse being more moderately influenced. René Guénon founded the gnostic review, La Gnose in 1909, before moving to a more Perennialist position, and founding his Traditionalist School. Gnostic Thelemite organizations, such as Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica and Ordo Templi Orientis, trace themselves to Crowley's thought.
The discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi library after 1945 has had a huge effect on Gnosticism since World War II. Intellectuals who were heavily influenced by Gnosticism in this period include Lawrence Durrell, Hans Jonas, Philip K. Dick and Harold Bloom, with Albert Camus and Allen Ginsberg being more moderately influenced.[147] Celia Green has written on Gnostic Christianity in relation to her own philosophy.[149]
Alfred North Whitehead was aware of the existence of the newly discovered Gnostic scrolls. Accordingly, Michel Weber has proposed a Gnostic interpretation of his late metaphysics.[150]
Sources[edit]
Heresiologists[edit]
Prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945 Gnosticism was known primarily through the works of heresiologists, Church Fathers who opposed those movements. These writings had an antagonistic bias towards gnostic teachings, and were incomplete. Several heresiological writers, such as Hippolytus, made little effort to exactly record the nature of the sects they reported on, or transcribe their sacred texts. Reconstructions of incomplete Gnostic texts were attempted in modern times, but research on Gnosticism was coloured by the orthodox views of those heresiologists.
Justin Martyr (c. 100/114 – c. 162/168) wrote the First Apology, addressed to Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, which criticising Simon Magus, Menander and Marcion. Since this time, both Simon and Menander have been considered as 'proto-Gnostic'.[151] Irenaeus (died c. 202) wrote Against Heresies (c. 180–185), which identifies Simon Magus from Flavia Neapolis in Samaria as the inceptor of Gnosticism. From Samaria he charted an apparent spread of the teachings of Simon through the ancient "knowers" into the teachings of Valentinus and other, contemporary Gnostic sects.[note 30] Hippolytus (170–235) wrote the ten-volume Refutation Against all Heresies, of which eight have been unearthed. It also focuses on the connection between pre-Socratic (and therefore Pre-Incantation of Christ) ideas and the false beliefs of early gnostic heretical leaders. Thirty-three of the groups he reported on are considered Gnostic by modern scholars, including 'the foreigners' and 'the Seth people'. Hippolytus further presents individual teachers such as Simon, Valentinus, Secundus, Ptolemy, Heracleon, Marcus and Colorbasus. Tertullian (c. 155–230) from Carthage wrote Adversus Valentinianos ('Against the Valentinians'), c. 206, as well as five books around 207–208 chronicling and refuting the teachings of Marcion.
Gnostic texts[edit]
See also: Gnostic texts and Nag Hammadi library
Prior to the discovery at Nag Hammadi, a limited number of texts were available to students of Gnosticism. Reconstructions were attempted from the records of the heresiologists, but these were necessarily coloured by the motivation behind the source accounts.
The Nag Hammadi library [note 31] is a collection of Gnostic texts discovered in 1945 near Nag Hammadi, Upper Egypt. Twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman.[152] The writings in these codices comprised fifty-two mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration of Plato's Republic. These codices may have belonged to a nearby Pachomian monastery, and buried after Bishop Athanasius condemned the use of non-canonical books in his Festal Letter of 367.[153] Though the original language of composition was probably Greek, the various codices contained in the collection were written in Coptic. A 1st- or 2nd-century date of composition for the lost Greek originals has been proposed, though this is disputed; the manuscripts themselves date from the 3rd and 4th centuries. The Nag Hammadi texts demonstrated the fluidity of early Christian scripture and early Christianity itself.[note 32]
Academic studies[edit]
Development[edit]
Prior to the discovery of Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic movements were largely perceived through the lens of the early church heresiologists. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694–1755) proposed that Gnosticism developed on its own in Greece and Mesopotamia, spreading to the west and incorporating Jewish elements. According to Mosheim, Jewish thought took Gnostic elements and used them against Greek philosophy.[33] J. Horn and Ernest Anton Lewald proposed Persian and Zoroastrian origins, while Jacques Matter described Gnosticism as an intrusion of eastern cosmological and theosophical speculation into Christianity.[33]
In the 1880s Gnosticism was placed within Greek philosophy, especially neo-Platonism.[29] Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), who belonged to the School of the History of Dogma and proposed a Kirchengeschichtliches Ursprungsmodell, saw gnosticism as an internal development within the church under the influence of Greek philosophy.[29][155] According to Harnack, Gnosticism was the "acute Hellenization of Christianity."[29]
The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule ("history of religions school", 19th century) had a profound influence on the study of Gnosticism.[29] The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule saw Gnosticism as a pre-Christian phenomenon, and Christian gnosis as only one, and even marginal instance of this phenomenon.[29] According to Wilhelm Bousset (1865–1920), Gnosticism was a form of Iranian and Mesopotamian syncretism,[29] and Eduard Norden (1868–1941) also proposed pre-Christian origins,[29] while Richard August Reitzenstein (1861–1931), and Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) also situated the origins of Gnosticism in Persia.[29] Hans Heinrich Schaeder (1896–1957) and Hans Leisegang saw Gnosticism as an amalgam of eastern thought in a Greek form.[29]
Hans Jonas (1903–1993) took an intermediate approach, using both the comparative approach of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule and the existentialist hermeneutics of Bultmann. Jonas emphasized the duality between God and the world, and concluded that Gnosticism cannot be derived from Platonism.[19]
Contemporary scholarship largely agrees that Gnosticism has Jewish or Judeo-Christian origins;[19] this theses is most notably put forward by Gershom G. Scholem (1897–1982) and Gilles Quispel (1916–2006).[156]
The study of Gnosticism and of early Alexandrian Christianity received a strong impetus from the discovery of the Coptic Nag Hammadi Library in 1945.[157][158] A great number of translations have been published, and the works of Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, especially The Gnostic Gospels, which detailed the suppression of some of the writings found at Nag Hammadi by early bishops of the Christian church, has popularized Gnosticism in mainstream culture,[web 3][web 4] but also incited strong responses and condemnations from clergical writers.[159]
Definitions of Gnosticism[edit]
According to Matthew J. Dillon, six trends can be discerned in the definitions of Gnosticism:[160]
Typologies, "a catalogue of shared characteristics that are used to classify a group of objects together."[160]
Traditional approaches, viewing Gnosticism as a Christian heresy[161]
Phenomenological approaches, most notably Hans Jonas[162]
Restricting Gnosticism, "identifying which groups were explicitly called gnostics",[163] or which groups were clearly sectarian[163]
Deconstructing Gnosticism, abandoning the category of "Gnosticism"[164]
Psychology and cognitive science of religion, approaching Gnosticism as a psychological phenomena[165]
Typologies[edit]
The 1966 Messina conference on the origins of gnosis and Gnosticism proposed to designate
... a particular group of systems of the second century after Christ" as gnosticism, and to use gnosis to define a conception of knowledge that transcends the times, which was described as "knowledge of divine mysteries for an élite.[166]
This definition has now been abandoned.[160] It created a religion, "Gnosticism", from the "gnosis" which was a widespread element of ancient religions,[note 33] suggesting a homogeneous conception of gnosis by these Gnostic religions, which did not exist at the time.[167]
According to Dillon, the texts from Nag Hammadi made clear that this definition was limited, and that they are "better classified by movements (such as Valentinian), mythological similarity (Sethian), or similar tropes (presence of a Demiurge)."[160] Dillon further notes that the Messian-definition "also excluded pre-Christian Gnosticism and later developments, such as the Mandaeans and the Manichaeans."[160]
Hans Jonas discerned two main currents of Gnosticism, namely Syrian-Egyptian, and Persian, which includes Manicheanism and Mandaeanism.[19] Among the Syrian-Egyptian schools and the movements they spawned are a typically more Monist view. Persian Gnosticism possesses more dualist tendencies, reflecting a strong influence from the beliefs of the Persian Zurvanist Zoroastrians. Those of the medieval Cathars, Bogomils, and Carpocratians seem to include elements of both categories.
Gilles Quispel divided Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism further into Jewish Gnosticism (the Apocryphon of John)[89] and Christian Gnosis (Marcion, Basilides, Valentinus). This "Christian Gnosticism" was Christocentric, and influenced by Christian writings such as the Gospel of John and the Pauline epistles.[168] Other authors speak rather of "Gnostic Christians", noting that Gnostics were a prominent substream in the early church.[169]
Traditional approaches – Gnosticism as Christian heresy[edit]
The best known example of this approach is Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), who stated that "Gnosticism is the acute Hellenization of Christianity."[161] According to Dillon, "many scholars today continue in the vein of Harnack in reading gnosticism as a late and contaminated version of Christianity", notably Darrell Block, who criticises Elaine Pagels for her view that early Christianity was wildly diverse.[162]
Phenomenological approaches[edit]
Hans Jonas (1903–1993) t
Story by my Twin Sister
Pict by me
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2023 A New Year's Eve Soliloquy
I was asked recently by a friend if I would ever be likely to teach someone what
he/she felt were my skills at pickpocketing.
Extremely flattering as the question was, I had never thought of what we do as a skill. Rather than just role play, or taking advantage of a friend’s condition ( like Pissed drunk, or compellingly overwhelmed emotionally) that makes them vulnerable.
We had a discussion over this with my brother and our group of friends, concluding that since non of us would ever try to do a lift on a stranger for keeps, the topic of this being an actual skill is pretty much mute.
That all being said, if there are professional pickpockets that are adept enough to actively lift jewelry from a victim, then either they are incredibly skilled, or just know how to spot an advantage brewing that would cook up into a victim’s concocting condition as described above.
For a clearer example of a concocting condition, let me relate my own experience this past New Year’s Eve.
As is our habit, my friends and I celebrated New Year's Eve at our local “The Poet & Peasant Pub”.
I was on the decorations committee, so I was there to observe most of the guests coming in.
I was at the top of the stairs leading to the upper rooms, placing a party hat on Erik, the skull of the medieval poet who is the pub’s namesake. The macabrely grinning thing sits high on a ledge of the stairs overlooking the pub and its guests (peasants).
So I had a great vantage point to take an early drink and watch.
A friend(and he knows of whom I speak) had sorta challenged me to make a lift this evening. So it was with a thief’s eye that I tried to look innocent as I watched the partiers coming in.
The pub proper is not large, but it has two larger first-floor rooms, one for dance, the other for dart competitions. Since we usually can expect a crowd of two hundred, all three areas come into play.
The upstairs rooms are old bedrooms used for various pub-related antics.
Now, It’s not supposed to be a dressy affair at this party, but the guests, regulars, and visitors make it one.
The gents in suits, and tuxes, the lady’s getting a second chance to show off by wearing an old gown or dress they’ve only worn once.
Rhinestones and pearls are the majority of jewels worn with splashy brilliance.
This year was no exception.
Once it was in full swing one would have thought it was an after-party at a actors' awards show.
Use that thought to picture in your mind a quick visual without me going into boring paragraphs of detail.
But for a brief idea, I’ll describe what my clique was wearing…
Which, since it was one(or more)of us girls that became a victim that evening, it appears appropriate to do so.
So, In my role-play thief's mind I observed:
First off, myself.
I had on a smart ocean blue coloured satin dress with a below-knee length skirt and a slick solid top with a mock turtleneck collar. The sleeves flared out just below my elbows. I was wearing my gold necklace set with diamond Sapphire rhinestones with matching long earrings. Also being worn was my rhinestone cuff bracelet. The same one my brother once nicked from me at the very pub we were now partying at.
I also added two of my real cocktail rings to complete the glittery effect.
As far as the type of mark I’d be for a thief? Well if being a twit came in degrees, and I was in my monthly period, I would be certified as a solid brown belt. If I was wearing real jewels, thieves would be able to have a field day lifting the bloody things, as did actually happen to me in a very similar situation as this evening. But it was not done by a real thief, just by an opportunist who took advantage of a victim who had been having herself a pisser.
But then, this is not that story.
My friend Byrne was wearing an old-fashioned black tux, black vest, black shirt, and blue bow tie, topped off by a black bowler. He had to work late at the Dyfed station that day and said he was wearing the suit he had on. So it was a pleasant surprise to see him dressed up, and I let him know it in no uncertain terms.
My brother was dapper in his tawny-colored herringbone vest suit, brown silk shirt, and gold satin necktie. A gold satin handkerchief stuck jauntily out from a vest pocket.
Ginny had again poured her lithe figure into the sleek satin Japanese-style Qipao sheath dress she had bought to wear in a play she acted in last spring. It was midnight black with a brite lime green inner lining and tight lime green Lycra pants. The only decoration on the elegant dress was a glittery silver rhinestone Dragon, with green slanted eyes and a red fiery tongue. It was embroidered crawling up one side of the dress, reaching around up towards her bosom.
Ginny was wearing a bib-style necklace of rhinestone emeralds with matching earrings.
The necklace she usually wore was still in a police evidence locker at Dyfed ( see my tea party story).
Her hair was held up on one side by a glittery clip. She wore no gloves, so her diamond rhinestone cuff bracelet lay on bare skin, as were the 3 cocktail rings she was wearing.
Ginny would be a tougher nut for thieves to crack. For she is logical to a fault and witty. She is also a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu.
But one really after her jewels, would just have to follow her around to see she is on the wee bit clumsy side. I immediately thought how useful a satin handkerchief could be if employed along the high, partially exposed neckline of her gown to acquire her necklace. And I happened to now know where to obtain one ….
Two other two close friends (members of our role-playing troupe) also eventually showed up.
Merrick was dashing in a James Bond-styled black tux. The vest he wore had a gold and black calico silk pattern.
His Heather enticingly was wearing a very shiny black satin, slightly off shoulders gown with long white lace frills hanging down from the neckline and the gown’s puffy elbow-length sleeves.
Her jewellery was a ruby rhinestone necklace with matching earrings. Like Ginny, one side of her hair was pulled back and held by one of her real diamond chip hair clips. She wore black satin gloves, and around one wrist was the wide tennis bracelet Merrick had given her last Valentine’s Day. It was a beauty, two rows of diamonds and a centre row of round rock rubies. She also wore twin ruby cocktail rings.
Heather is a timid meek little thing who blushed easily and turn her head away whenever complimented(think of Actress Alison Pill ). Also, those black satin gloves of hers would hinder feelings of lifting from her skin.
Mum and Auntie were also in attendance.
Mum was wearing a shimmering dress of silvery metallic material. She was wearing a necklace of round diamond rhinestones, with matching earrings and bracelets. They were ones I first “borrowed “, sneaking them out of mum’s day jewel case and started wearing as my twin and I began first exploring our games of thievery.
Her personality and looks matched the actress Haley Mills. Her eyes getting delightfully large as she was surprised by something. It would be worth trying for her necklace just to witness that reaction.
Father was working the Dyfed station this evening, so my bodyguard-built uncle was the escort of both ladies.
Uncle(or the man from U.N.C.L.E . As I thought of him) was a rugby player in his youth and still had the physic for it. The tight tux he wore looked like it was bursting from the seams over his muscular build. But for all his looks he was a pussycat. Though a fierce darts competitor.
Auntie was very elegant in a long white silk dress with a red and green flowery print. She was wearing her gleaming set of pearls.
Our Aunt reminded me of the actress Janine Duvitski, in looks, and the way she was insecure, like Janine’s character in the Telly series” Waiting for God.” She was a foil to far too many things in her life and would offer no challenge to a proper thief, which may be her saving grace.
Then there was our cousin Michelle(Micke)
She has come there with a group of her coworkers but divided her time with us.
Micke was enticingly wearing a very sleek, slick brown satin fully off-shoulder number that nicely outlined her petite figure as it poured along it down to her silver high heels.
Her Jewels were a sparkling collection that consisted of a wide V-shaped necklace that looked like a falling river of rhinestones, amazingly sparkling chandelier earnings, her favorite diamond-appearing bracelet, and several enticing rings.
But the real showpiece was the eye-grabbing broach she had pinned to the gown just at her waistband. It had a sparrow egg-sized diamond at its centre.
Now blonde Micke just wears her heart upon her sleeve. Just as gullible as her mum, she has fallen victim to many of our pranks. Micke was easy prey to a compliment or falling into a tight, searching hug.
And by now most of the rest of the crowd had entered.
I tapped Erick’s boney jaw open so the poor sod of a poet was grinning, then came down from my perch to begin mugging, er, mingling.
^^^^^^^^
And so the party rambled on, properly behaving like most pub-held New Year’s Eve affairs.
I highly recommend going to one if you have never been.
Plenty to drink, and eat, games to play dancing to music( ours was live this year) camaraderie, storytelling and jokes, attempts to lite the cigar someone had stuck in Erik’s mouth, etc
Oh, And did I mention games?
Especially the one I was playing on my own, pretending to be a thief on the prowl.
I did miss one early opportunity on me mum’s necklace when I stood behind her in the snack line. She had literally backed into me and was reaching down to snag a small pork pie, exposing her throat and necklaces' clasp. But uncle was in front of her and turned to look as she asked him if he had one for himself.
Victims 1 Thief 0
But then as the night went by quickly and since I’m not a real thief, I found myself having so much fun I almost forgot I was looking for a further lifting opportunity.
Almost…
End Acte 1
^^^^^^^^^^^^*
Acte 2
Almost forgot I had been dared to do a lift, that is until I had l came out of the loo around 11:00 and realized I was on my own.
For the first time that evening.
Everyone I had been with was split up into small groups now doing their own thing
I could either join in, watch, or….
And now I thought licking my freshly touched-up lips, time to do something on my own.
So like my pretend thief, I decided to have a walk around and seek an opportunity amongst my chosen potential victims.
Byrne, Merrick, Uncle, and my brother Craig were we’re still playing darts with another group of men. I had been watching before slipping away to freshen up.
Micke and one of her co-workers ( in green taffeta) were amongst a group dancing. I thought of cutting in as a possibility to make a score, for that glittering broach of hers was an enticing calling card.
I watched for a minute or so when suddenly an opening appeared that paved my way in. A man had cut in and was dancing with Micke’s girlfriend. His back to Micke. I curled my fingers while licking my lips ready to plunge in and make a lift of a glittery broach.
I got no more than two steps in when the music stopped and the dancers headed off the floor in the opposite direction, including my Cousin.
I walked away, my heart pounding.
Victims 2 Thief 0
Our Mum and Auntie were sitting at a side table of the long mahogany bar, chatting away. Mum has an almost empty glass, so I surmised she may need to be making a trip to the ladies' room. I stored away that tidbit.
But there, in an opposite corner, underneath Erik’s perch, a makeshift stage was set up. With guests coming up to tell jokes and stories.
It was at one of the tables, chairs backed against the stairway, Ginny and Heather sat listening to an Irishman telling one of his drinking stories.
Both, in my thief’s eye, were a royal treat to be observed. Two enticingly dressed and deliciously jeweled prospects, very distracted, sitting in a rather vulnerable location.
It was all far too tempting, and I felt an overwhelming urge to acquire a piece of jewellery and strted to excitedly tingle from deep within.
Ginny’s necklace was beckoning with a flashy invitation. Heather's elegantly gloved hands with the inviting jewelry she wore, also called out to my inner thief with a fiery blazing hot lure.
^^^^^
The Irishman telling the joke was holding a long cigar as he started, his accent and mannerisms adding much embellishment to the story.
(Look up on Utube Mike Dunafon. An Irish drinking joke)
“Irishman Paddy O'Brien has moved to a small city in Wales. And as men are won’t to do, looks for a new local. He walks into the first pub he finds, and tells the bartender, "Give me three pints of Guinness."
The bartender obediently brings him three pints…..
As the story started I had circled over to the empty staircase and snuck up it till I was level with Heather and Ginny’s chairs. Then I sat down.
I earlier decided that my game would be to lift a piece and make it outside to the victim’s car and write gotcha on it, for my thief to win, if I was caught or stopped by anyone, then I lost.
The Irishman took a long puff of his cigar and carried on.
Paddy proceeds to alternately sip one, then the other, then the third until they're gone. Then he rose, threw coins on the table, winked at the bar mistress, and left.
Meanwhile, I was leaning against the rails, my hands reaching out to the back of Ginny’s throat, aiming for the clasp of her emerald-laden necklace. Figuring once the punchline was given, the laughing (if it was as funny as I hoped) would provide the perfect opportunity.
The Irishman continues…
The next Saturday evening Paddy walks in, hanging his cap, taking a seat, he walks again and orders three more pints.
The bartender brings them over, and says, "Sir, you don't have to order three pints at a time. I can keep an eye on one and when you get low, I'll bring you a fresh pint."
Paddy responds, "You don't understand. I just moved to wales and I have two brothers, one in Australia and one Canada. We made a vow to each other that every Saturday night we'd still drink together. So right now, me brothers are having three Guinness Stouts and we're drinking together.
The bartender thought that it was a wonderful tradition and said as much.
Both Ginny and Heather were now leaning back in their chairs. My fingers had been slowly working on pulling Ginny’s necklace down lower on her back so it would dangle. Just then Heather put her arms behind her chair. Her bracelet danced with rippling sparks that just cried out to the thief in me to be taken.
So, as the Irishman took a sip of his drink, I moved my hands from Ginny, and moving down a stair reached for Heather’s ruby bracelet. As the next part of the joke was told, I delicately worked at removing it.
Now, every week for several years Paddy came in and ordered three pints at a time.
Then one Saturday week he came in and ordered only two pints.
He solemnly drank them, rose. Put on his cap and went over to pay his tab.
The bartender, who had worriedly been watching, said to Paddy, "I know your tradition, and I'd just like to say that I'm sorry that one of your brothers died."
Paddy responded, “oh no, both my brothers are just fine Dontchay knows now.”
The Bartender, puzzled asked, “then why only two beers now? laddie?”
But I never heard the answer, for as Paddy was still drinking his two beers, I had fiendishly slipped off Heather’s glittering ruby bracelet from around her sleekly gloved wrist and had snuck off the staircase and was heading towards the back door.
Victims 3 Thief 1
I managed to slip past the table where my Aunt sat( mum was gone).
Behind me, I hear vigorous laughter and applause at the ending of the Irishman’s joke.
I would have to ask later what it was.
Then, by the entrance to the dart room, I waited until everyone was watching a dart being thrown before walking past the room.
The dance floor was again packed. But I couldn’t spy Micke, so I took a chance and scurried past.
I made it to the door, excitedly letting out my breath as I pulled it open and slipped through into the chilly night.
A couple was walking in the parking lot, so I ducked into a shadowy side alley and skirted around a fence. Kneeling, I peeked through the pickets.
I did not know the couple, but they obviously had been having a great time, though I wondered why they were leaving so soon. The lady was dressed in a blue taffeta gown with prickling rhinestone adornments. Her jewelry also prickled fire in the moonlit evening.
In my thief’s eyes, I saw them being approached and held up. The lady is forced to hand over her jewels to a masked female thief. Not me though, the thief I was picturing had bigger boobs.
Of course, that would be something only I would find to be that amusing, and let out a giggle.
They both heard it and looked around as I slinked back into the shadows.
They shrugged it off and got inside the car.
I took my eyes off them and soon spotted Merrill and Heather’s black sports car.
I rose.
Suddenly a male voice snarled sinisterly from behind me...
“Who let you out all dressed up looking like a mugger's dream?”
I let out a shriek as I jumped up and turned around.
Byrne stood there grinning.
I playfully pounded his shoulder, my heart thumping as I scolded him between breaths that gave off wisps of vapor into the cold night.
“Byrne you rotter. Scared the Jesus out of me you did, and almost peed my undies. And how would that have looked I ask you?!”
Byrne held onto my shoulders and laughed.
“Sorry, you looked so mischievous as I saw in the corner of my eye you sneaking out. I followed, then lost you until I heard the giggle. So tell me what you are up to now?”
I explained to him my game, that upon the thief’s success, I had come out to write “gotcha” on the car door.
“Then what were you gonna after that Ms. Cadence?”
“Follow Heather out when she left and give it back …?”
Byrne looked thoughtfully at Merrick’s car.
“I have got a better idea. She won’t know who did it.”
He led me over to his auto. Goes to the back and pulls a long slender bar from what I call his cop box, in the trunk.
We go over to Merrick’s black sports car and Byrne, looking around first, uses the tool to lift the latch on the passenger side.
“Now lay her bracelet out on the seat.
I did so letting it curl up on the black leather, where it lay sparkling. Then I locked and shut the door.
With a smirk, Byrne reminded me not to forget what else I was going to do
I nodded and in the dirty side of the door, I traced the word “Gotcha” as Byrne went over to put back his tool.
Arm in arm, with a co-conspirator's air, we walked onto the sidewalk, making our way to the front of the pub and went back inside. Innocent as a sparrow…
Another gent was getting up on the stage telling a story so we went and joined Ginny and Heather with an air of innocence as we began laughing along with them.
An old Irishman, Paddy, is about to go to his eternal reward. He looks at his grieving friend, Mike, and says, "Michael, I have one last request."
Ginny’s necklace was still lifted and the backside hanging down. She hadn’t noticed that fact. Nor had giggling Heather noticed her flashy bracelet was now missing.
"Anything, Paddy," Mike says. "What is it?"
"In me kitchen pantry lad, you'll find a bottle of whiskey from the year I was born. When they put me in the ground will you pour it over me grave as a final salute?"
"I will, Paddy," Mike says.
“Thank you Michael, you have been a true and thoughtful lad.”
I nudged Byrne and pointed to my wrist. He looked over and saw that Heather had her hand on the table, with her other gloves hand over it. I was tingling with excitement over how my game had played out.
Byrne nudged me back and I shook my head in agreement. He was loving the fact that we had pulled it off. So like a man to take the whole credit now that he had contributed a wee bit to my game.
We both turned back to listen to the stories finish.
"But Paddy?”
Mike asks earnestly ….
“Would you be minding if I be passing it through me kidneys first?"
The whole room erupted into laughter as the gent merrily raised his glass.
It was then announced that we were only ten minutes away from midnight and everyone should take their places.
I gasped inwardly. Blimey had not been keeping track of the time.
Byrne helped us out of our chairs, and we followed Ginny and Heather to where my brother was standing next to Merrick.
Lights soon dim as the countdown begins
10,9,8,
Everyone behind us is prancing around
7,6,5
We go around hugging. I lift my brother's satin handkerchief from his pocket as I hug him.
4,3,2
I hug Ginny
Wrapping the handkerchief around Ginny’s throat as we hug. Feeling the clasp of her necklace. Oh so tempting.
Victims 4 Thief 1
Then 1 was called out at the stroke of midnight.
“Happy new years everybody!!!”
Lights flicker horns are honked, crackers exploded, and drinks were toasted.
As Ginny turns to hug my brother, I grab and hug Heather, seeing Merrick and Byrne hugging.
I then pull Bryne from his man crush on Merrick and hug him.
Then we spilt up to wish others a Happy New Years.
^^^^^^^^^
We party for another hour before Merrick and Heather say they must leave.
We say our goodbyes and as Byrne and I watch Heather being helped on with her wrap we smirk at each other knowing what she will be finding on her car seat. Love to be a fly on the wall for that.
The music was still playing. A series of slow dances now that the party was winding down.
As we dance, Byrne, looking over at Ginny, commented:
“Damn if Ginny’s necklace isn’t a corker. If I’d been playing your game, I would have had a go for it, though I may have needed a bit of good luck to pull it off.”
I smirked and explained I had originally been attempting to lift it but had gone for the bracelet instead…and that in his case luck may have been needed, but it would not have been good.”
Then, as we both were watching Ginny, with that lovely necklace just sparking away around her throat, I purred into his ear…
“Say the word, and I’ll get for you, my love.”
He shook his head no…
“The scary part is if I said yes you would do it.”
I giggled:
“And wear it until she noticed.”
Byrne smiled:
“You will play nice here the rest of the party won’t you now?”
I nodded as a delighted thought crept into my head.
“So if Ginny had been skulking outside would you have snuck up on her luv, maybe had her hand it over?”
“And have my arse thrown over the fence. No, think I’ll stick to the easily distracted ones who meltdown in my arms.”
“Dream on mister.” I chide him happily.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Early the next morning as the last of us were kicked out long after the party was officially over, Byrne bundled me into his car, knowing I was too wasted to drive my own self home. I sat there in a mute stupor, hornily replaying the evening's fun.
Suddenly Byrne spoke into the windshield.
“Let’s go to the playground.”
I perked up, for ideas like that usually came from me.
“Your drunk.” I teases
“Well, So are you Lass.”
“But it’s too cold. Let’s go to your flat and play at burglars…”
Byrne, sensing my hot flashy feelings, nudged me…
“I knew you would like to role-play since you were playing your games this evening.”
I poked him
“You were the one to mention muggers. Steal my jewelry and strip me naked, is that what’s in your head me lad?”
“Something like that.”
“Do you have your cuffs?”
That perked him up royally.
“Do you want me to use them?”
I giggled with a burgeoned horny appetite.
“Yes, laddie. On yourself. So you can do the thieving and stripping of my easily distracted person without using your hands.”
I do so enjoy it when one can score by making my Byrne speechless.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So I would like to think that in real life, once upon a time, there may have been an actual pickpocket attending an actors' award show after a party, with real jewellery being worn, that may have seen what I saw, made observations as I did. and lurked, and waited to take advantage of the situation once it developed.
As I did.
Food for thought
Fini
Mike Dunafon. An Irish drinking joke
With various murals painted on the side relating to the Afghans, NSU60 has been preserved outside the Marree railway station as seen here on 28-8-19.
NSU60 was introduced to traffic on 18-2-1955 being used on the narrow gauge line to Alice Springs until the line closed in 1980. It was one of 4 NSU class used by Goss Brothers contractors to pull up the line between Marree and Oodnadatta until 1983 before being left at Marree and passing on to the Marree Progress association for preservation
I don't often relate what went into taking a photo that I've posted but this time I feel inclined to give you a bit of background.
Back on July 25th of this year Sharon and I headed up to the Bonnyville (Alberta) area to look for some of the more remote Ukrainian churches NE of Edmonton. I had packed the Yashica TLR loaded with infrared film in hopes that I would come across a good tract of boreal forest. I had yet to photograph that type of terrain but had a hunch that it would make for a fascinating infrared subject. It's not a short drive up to that area, plus if you toss in all the stops we made it was fairly late in the afternoon before we hit the northern edges of the parkland zone. The heavy late afternoon clouds were forming and the sun was not in the best part of the sky for shooting so I had pretty much given up thinking of shooting infrared………….until we were starting to cross the Beaver River that is……..POW!……there it was and it was beyond my wildest expectations.
I hit the binders and pulled over halfway into the ditch. Sharon and Jack waited patiently while I grabbed my IR gear and ran (I don't run well) back to the bridge. I just got the point on the bridge that I wanted to shoot from when a huge cloud drifted across the sun suppressing the effects the infrared spectrum that would have highlighted the foliage of the surrounding forest…..damn! As any dedicated photographer would do I waited out the cloud, but this one was big……and slow moving.
The bridge I was on was thankfully paved, but unfortunately it was a heavily used by logging trucks. Now if anyone has been subjected to the debris peeling off of a logging truck when it's doing 100+ kph you'll have a pretty good idea what I experienced. There I was on this two lane bridge sucked up to the guardrail waiting for the sun to make an appearance when these 18-wheeled monsters would roar past spitting out small bits of bark at me. Not only was I in a self-induced precarious position catching all sorts of tree debris, BUT every time one of those monsters hit the bridge it would shake like it was being subjected to an earthquake that would easily register 7.8 on the Richter Scale.
That was almost 5 months ago and I'm still traumatized……but I stuck it out and I did manage to get some decent photos. On this particular shot I waited until the cloud was only partway out of the view so I could catch the different intensities of light on the leaves of the trees.
Yashica Mat 124G
Efke IR820 Infrared Film
Hoya RM72 Infrared filter
Photo shoot with Sarah at a laundromat in Beaver Falls, PA on February 21, 2009. Theme was that of a red neck house wife at the local hole in the wall laundromat.
Used a AB800 with standard reflector to camera right as a rim light on the model. AB800 as main light just to camera left.
From Sarah's official profile:
Known by many as the Season 6 American Idol auditioner whose father didn't know she had snuck out to New York, Sarah Burgess was one of 173 out of 120,000 awarded Idol's Golden Ticket to Hollywood. In the months that followed, Burgess was interviewed on almost 100 radio and TV stations to relate her resonant story.
Aircraft movements relating to the end of the State Visit to the UK by the President of the United States, bringing Trump back from Chequers prior to boarding Air Force One.
The formation consisted of three US Army Chinook helicopters, US Marine Corps VH-3 Sea King (Marine One) and the National Police Air Service H-145 helicopter.
Air Force One and two C-32 jets departed Stansted.
Photos taken off Belmer Road, Stansted Airport.
... de l'empereur Ferdinand III de Habsbourg. Cependant, Both ne relate pas la cérémonie officielle ou les feux d'artifices, mais le moment où la fête dégénère.
LES COMMENTAIRES NE SONT PAS DE MOI, JE LES AI COPIES SUR LES PETITS PANNEAUX QUI ACCOMPAGNAIENT LES TABLEAUX
ENGLISH :
Jan Both (Utrecht, towards 1618-1652) Party and brawl on the outskirts of the Spanish Embassy, 1637-1638 The painting evokes a real event: the festivities organized in 1637 by the Spanish Ambassador in Rome piazza di Spagna, in honor of the election of Emperor Ferdinand III of Habsburg. However, Both does not state the official ceremony or the fireworks, but the moment the party degenerates.
"relating to the motion of material bodies and the forces and energy associated therewith"
A creative outing with my photo club - Inland Empire Photo Club - where we played with light and motion and long exposures to create kinetic art. It was a wonderful, creative evening.
brown relates to decay, growth and aging.
this was an amazing panorama but my computer crashed twice today and corrupted everything (y), i i started from scratch.
fantastic.
Colonial Williamsburg is the historic district of the independent city of Williamsburg, Virginia. It consists of many of the buildings that, from 1699 to 1780, formed colonial Virginia's capital. The capital straddled the boundary of two of the original shires of Virginia, James City Shire (now James City County), and Charles River Shire (now York County). For most of the 18th century, Williamsburg was the center of government, education and culture in the Colony of Virginia.
Colonial Williamsburg is meant to be an interpretation of a Colonial American city, with exhibits including dozens of authentic or accurately-recreated colonial houses and relating to American Revolutionary War history. Prominent buildings in Colonial Williamsburg include the Raleigh Tavern, the Capitol, The Governor's Palace, and Bruton Parish Church. However, rather than simply an effort to preserve antiquity, the combination of extensive restoration and thoughtful recreation of the entire colonial town facilitates envisioning the atmosphere and understanding the ideals of 18th century American revolutionary leaders. It was here that Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Monroe, James Madison, George Wythe, Peyton Randolph, and dozens more helped mold democracy in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States.
The Historic Area is located just east of the College of William and Mary, founded at Middle Plantation in 1693, just prior to the establishment of the town as capital of Virginia and its renaming. The university's historic Wren Building stands at the west end of Duke of Gloucester Street.
Colonial Williamsburg is a major source of tourism to Williamsburg, as well as a touchstone for many world leaders and heads of state, including U.S. Presidents. The United States hosted the first World Economic Conference at Colonial Williamsburg in 1983. It is the centerpiece of the surrounding Historic Triangle of Virginia area, which has become a popular tourist destination for visitors domestic and foreign. The other two points of the Historic Triangle are Jamestown and Yorktown.
Contents
Early in the 20th century, the restoration and recreation of Colonial Williamsburg, one of the largest historic restorations ever undertaken, was championed by the Reverend Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin and the patriarch of the Rockefeller family, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., along with the active participation of his wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, who wanted to celebrate the patriots and the early history of the United States.
Many of the missing Colonial structures were reconstructed on their original sites during the 1930s. Other structures were restored to the best estimates of how they would have looked during the eighteenth century, with all traces of later buildings and improvements removed. Dependency structures and animals help complete the ambiance. Most buildings are open for tourists to look through, with the exception of several buildings that serve as residences for Colonial Williamsburg employees.
Notable structures include the large Capitol and the Governor's Palace, each carefully recreated and landscaped as closely as possible to original 18th century specifications, as well as Bruton Parish Church and the Raleigh Tavern.
The major goal of the Restoration was not to merely preserve or recreate the physical environment of the colonial period, but to facilitate education about the origins of the idea of America, which was conceived during many decades before the American Revolution.
In this environment, Colonial Williamsburg strives to tell the story of how diverse peoples, having different and sometimes conflicting ambitions, evolved into a society that valued liberty and equality.
Olivier listens intently as the historian Brother tells us all about this ancient holy place! Oliver is also doing simultaneous translating!
He was the Group Leader of one of our two groups. Olivier, himself, lives in Normandy and specializes in the history of this fascinating and unique region of France! He had so much to share with us! Well-done, Olivier, et merci beaucoup!
Abbey at Saint-Wandrille.
Worth Enlarging!
Guilherme II e Maria Stuart
Anthony van Dyck
Frederik Hendrik, com a intenção de garantir o poder a seus decendentes, usou todos os meios à sua disposição para aumentar o prestígio dos Orange, incluindo a busca de uma aliança entre seu filho Gilherme II e a filha de uma casa real simpática. A aliança foi alcançada em 1641 com o casamento de Guilherme, 14 anos de idade, com a princesa inglesa Maria Stuart, na época com apenas nove anos de idade, em Londres. Um retrato dos jovens noivos foi encomendado a Anthony van Dyck, um pintor flamengo popular em Londres. No vestido da noiva, Van Dyck mostra o presente de casamento de Guilherme: um valioso broche de diamantes.
Óleo sobre tela, 1641
A 182 x L 142 CM
SK-A-102
William II, Prince of Orange, and his Bride, Mary Stuart, Anthony van Dyck, 1641
olieverf op doek, h 182.5cm × w 142cm. More details
The boy is fourteen and the girl only nine. William’s father, Frederick Henry, commissioned the celebrated Flemish painter Van Dyck to portray the young Dutch prince and English princess on the occasion of their marriage in London. The union with the daughter of the English king enhanced the status of the House of Orange. On her gown, Mary wears a gift from William, a large diamond brooch.
Rijks Museum - National Museum of Netherlands
Vision:
The Rijksmuseum links individuals with art and history.
Mission:
At the Rijksmuseum, art and history take on new meaning for a broad-based, contemporary national and international audience.
As a national institute, the Rijksmuseum offers a representative overview of Dutch art and history from the Middle Ages onwards, and of major aspects of European and Asian art.
The Rijksmuseum keeps, manages, conserves, restores, researches, prepares, collects, publishes, and presents artistic and historical objects, both on its own premises and elsewhere.
From 1800 to 2013
The Rijksmuseum first opened its doors in 1800 under the name ‘Nationale Kunstgalerij’. At the time, it was housed in Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. The collection mainly comprised paintings and historical objects. In 1808, the museum moved to the new capital city of Amsterdam, where it was based in the Royal Palace on Dam Square.
After King Willem I’s accession to the throne, the paintings and national print collection were moved to the Trippenhuis on Kloveniersburgwal, while the other objects were returned to The Hague. The current building was put into use in 1885. The Netherlands Museum for History and Art based in The Hague moved into the same premises, forming what would later become the departments of Dutch History and Sculpture & Applied Art.
The beginning
On 19 November 1798, more than three years after the birth of the Batavian Republic, the government decided to honour a suggestion put forward by Isaac Gogel by following the French example of setting up a national museum. The museum initially housed the remains of the viceregal collections and a variety of objects originating from state institutions. When the Nationale Kunstgalerij first opened its doors on 31 May 1800, it had more than 200 paintings and historical objects on display. In the years that followed, Gogel and the first director, C.S. Roos, made countless acquisitions. Their first purchase, The Swan by Jan Asselijn, cost 100 Dutch guilders and is still one of the Rijksmuseum’s top pieces.
Move to Amsterdam
In 1808, the new King Louis Napoleon ordered the collections to be moved to Amsterdam, which was to be made the capital of the Kingdom of Holland. The works of art and objects were taken to the Royal Palace on Dam Square, the former city hall of Amsterdam, where they were united with the city’s foremost paintings, including the Night Watch by Rembrandt. In 1809, the Koninklijk Museum opened its doors on the top floor of the palace.
A few years after Willem I returned to the Netherlands as the new king in 1813, the ‘Rijks Museum’ and the national print collection from The Hague relocated to the Trippenhuis, a 17th-century town-palace on Kloveniersburgwal, home to what would later become the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Much to the regret of the director, Cornelis Apostool, in 1820 many objects including pieces of great historical interest were assigned to the Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden [Royal Gallery of Rare Objects], which had been founded in The Hague. In 1838, a separate museum for modern 19th-century art was established in Paviljoen Welgelegen in Haarlem. Contrary to the days of Louis Napoleon, very few large acquisitions were made during this period.
Cuypers Cathedral
The Trippenhuis proved unsuitable as a museum. Furthermore, many people thought it time to establish a dedicated national museum building in the Netherlands. Work on a new building did not commence until 1876, after many years of debate. The architect, Pierre Cuypers, had drawn up a historic design for the Rijksmuseum, which combined the Gothic and the Renaissance styles. The design was not generally well-received; people considered it too mediaeval and not Dutch enough. The official opening took place in 1885.
Nearly all the older paintings belonging to the City of Amsterdam were hung in the Rijksmuseum alongside paintings and prints from the Trippenhuis, including paintings such as Rembrandt’s Jewish Bride, which had been bequeathed to the city by the banker A. van der Hoop. The collection of 19th-century art from Haarlem was also added to the museum’s collection. Finally, a significant part of the Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden, which had by then been incorporated into the new Netherlands Museum for History and Art, was returned to Amsterdam.
Renovations
Over the years, collections continued to grow and museum insight continued to expand, and so the Rijksmuseum building underwent many changes. Rooms were added to the south-west side of the building between 1904 and 1916 (now the Philips wing) to house the collection of 19th-century paintings donated to the museum by Mr and Mrs Drucker-Fraser. In the 1950s and 1960s, the two original courtyards were covered and renovated to create more rooms.
In 1927, while Schmidt-Degener was Managing Director, the Netherlands Museum was split to form the departments of Dutch History and Sculpture & Applied Art. These departments were moved to separate parts of the building after 1945. The arrival of a collection donated by the Association of Friends of Asian Art in the 1950s resulted in the creation of the Asian Art department.
The 1970s saw record numbers of visitors of almost one-and-a-half million per year, and the building gradually started to fall short of modern requirements.
‘Verder met Cuypers'
The current renovation reinstates the original Cuypers structure. The building work in the courtyards are removed. Paintings, applied art and history are no longer displayed in separate parts of the building, but form a single chronological circuit that tells the story of Dutch art and history.
The building is thoroughly modernized, while at the same time restoring more of Cuypers original interior designs: the Rijksmuseum has dubbed the venture ‘Verder met Cuypers‘ [Continuing with Cuypers]. The Rijksmuseum will be a dazzling new museum able to satisfy the needs of its 21st-century visitors!
Every year, the Rijksmuseum compiles an annual report for the previous year. Annual reports dating back to 1998 can be found here (in Dutch only). Reports relating to the years before 1998 are available in the reading room of the library.
O Museu Rijks é um dos maiores e mais importantes museus da Europa.
É o maior dos Países Baixos, com acervo voltado quase todo aos artistas holandeses. As obras vão desde exemplares da arte sacra até a era dourada holandesa, além de uma substancial coleção de arte asiática.
Esse é o Rijksmuseum, o Museu Nacional dos Países Baixos. E aproveite, caro leitor, porque o Rijks esteve parcialmente fechado para reforma durante 10 anos – voltou a funcionar só em 2013. Ou seja, quem esteve em Amsterdam na última década não conheceu o Rijks, pelo menos não completamente.
Mas o quê tem lá? Muita coisa. Destaque para as coleções de arte e História holandesas. Os trabalhos dos pintores Frans Hals e Johannes Vermeer são alguns dos mais concorridos, mas imbatível mesmo é Rembrandt van Rijn, considerado um dos maiores pintores de todos os tempos. Se você não é um fã de museus de arte, mas faz questão de conhecer o trabalho desses grandes artistas, uma dica: assim que chegar ao Rijks, vá direto para a ala onde estão as obras-primas. Assim você vê o mais importante no início da visita, quando ainda está descansado e poderá dedicar o tempo necessário para essas obras.
A mais famosa delas é a “A Ronda Noturna”, de Rembrandt, uma obra que inspirou músicas, pinturas, filmes e até um flash mob. Quando o Rijks foi reaberto, artistas recriam a cena mostrada no quadro dentro de um shopping de Amsterdam. A ação está no vídeo abaixo e eu te garanto que vale a pena dar play.
Read more: www.360meridianos.com/2014/01/museus-de-amsterdam.html#ix...
Read more: www.360meridianos.com/2014/01/museus-de-amsterdam.html#ix...
Rijksmuseum, Museu Nacional
42 Stadhouderskade
Amsterdam
O museu Rijksmuseum de Amsterdã é o Museu Nacional da Holanda, onde você encontrará uma impressionante coleção permanente, formada por 5.000 pinturas e 30.000 obras de arte, além de 17.000 objetos históricos.
Esse museu nacional foi fundado em 1885 e está instalado em um edifício de estilo neogótico. A sua principal atração é a extensa coleção de quadros pintados por artistas holandeses, abrangendo um período que vai do séc. XV aos dias de hoje. A obra de arte mais famosa em exibição é o quadro A Ronda Noturna, de Rembrandt.
O museu Rijksmuseum está dividido em cinco departamentos: pintura, escultura, arte aplicada, arte oriental, história dos Países Baixos e gravuras. O núcleo da coleção é a pintura e suas obras mais representativas são as que pertencem ao Século de Ouro holandês, com quadros de artistas como Rembrandt, Vermeer ou Frans Hals.
Ver fonte: dreamguides.edreams.pt/holanda/amsterda/rijksmuseum
Museu Rijks, Amesterdão
O Museu Rijks (Museu Nacional) é um edifício histórico, sendo o maior museu nos Países Baixos. O Museu é o maior no numero relativamente às suas colecções, na área do edifício em si, no financiamento e no numero de funcionários empregados.
Cada ano, mais de um milhão de pessoas visitam o Museu Rijks. O Museu emprega cerca de 400 pessoas, incluindo 45 conservadores de museu que são especializados em todas as áreas.
O Museu Rijks é internacionalmente reconhecido pelas suas exibições e publicações, mas não só apenas por estes produtos de grande qualidade, mas também pelas áreas no museu em si que são fonte de inspiração e encorajam a criação de novas ideias.
O museu também tem recursos consideráveis para a educação, para a decoração e apresentação de exibições. Importantes designers são regularmente chamados a trabalharem em projectos no Museu Rijks.
O edifício principal do Museu Rijks está a ser renovado. A boa noticia é que a melhor parte da exposição está apresentada na redesenhada ala Philips. O nome desta exposição denomina-se "The Masterpieces'.
O museu abre diariamente das 10 da manhã até ás 5 da tarde.
A entrada é pela Stadhouderskade 42.
Rijksmuseum
Origem: Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre.
O Rijksmuseum é um museu nacional dos Países Baixos, localizada em Amsterdão na Praça do museu. O Rijksmuseum é dedicado à artes e história. Ele tem uma larga coleção de pinturas da idade de ouro neerlandesa e uma substancial coleção de arte asiática.
O museu foi fundado em 1800 na cidade da Haia para exibir a coleção do primeiro-ministro. Foi inspirado no exemplo francês. Pelos neerlandeses ficou conhecida como Galeria de Arte. Em 1808 o museu mudou-se para Amsterdã pelas ordens do rei Louis Napoleón, irmão de Napoleão Bonaparte. As pinturas daquela cidade, como A Ronda Nocturna de Rembrandt, tornaram-se parte da coleção.
Em 1885 o museu mudou-se para sua localização atual, construído pelo arquiteto neerlandês Pierre Cuypers. Ele combinou elementos góticos e renascentistas. O museu tem um posição proeminente na Praça do Museu, próximo ao Museu van Gogh e ao Museu Stedelijk. A construção é ricamente decorada com referências da história da arte neerlandesa. A Ronda Nocturna de Rembrandt tem seu próprio corredor no museu desde 1906. Desde 2003 o museu sofreu restaurações, mas as obras-primas são constatemente presentes para o público.
A coleção de pinturas inclui trabalhos de artistas como Jacob van Ruysdael, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer e Rembrandt e de alunos de Rembrandt.
Em 2005, 95% do museu está fechado para renovação, mas as pinturas da coleção permanente ainda estão em mostra em uma exibição especial chamada As Obras-primas.
Algumas das pinturas do museu:
Rembrandt van Rijn
A Ronda Nocturna
Os síndicos da guilda dos fabricantes de tecidos
A noiva judia
A lição de Anatomia do Dr. Deyman
Pedro negando Cristo
Saskia com um véu
Retrato de Titus em hábito de monge
Auto-retrato como Apóstolo Paulo
Tobias, Ana e o Bode
Johannes Vermeer:
A Leiteira
A Carta de Amor
Mulher de Azul a ler uma carta
A Rua pequena
Frans Hals:
Retrato de um jovem casal
A Companhia Reynier Real
O bebedor alegre
Retrato de Lucas De Clercq
Retrato de Nicolaes Hasselaer
Retrato de um homem
Página oficial do Rijksmuseum
Virtual Collection of Masterpieces (VCM)
O melhor museu de Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum
O Commons possui uma categoria contendo imagens e outros ficheiros sobre Rijksmuseum
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
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Se você visitar Amsterdam, precisará conhecer o Museu Nacional da Holanda: Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. O Museu Nacional fica na Praça do Museu, situada no centro de Amsterdam. O Museu Nacional, ou Rijksmuseum, possui uma maravilhosa coleção de arte e história holandesas. Após uma visita ao Rijksmuseum, você saberá mais sobre história e arte e terá visto alguns dos maiores marcos culturais da Holanda.
Obras-primas do Museu Nacional
Ao todo, a coleção do Rijksmuseum apresenta a história da Holanda em um contexto internacional, desde 1.100 até o presente. Há alguns ícones da história e cultura da Holanda que você não pode perder:
Ronda Noturna (de Nachtwacht) de Rembrandt é uma das mais famosas obras desse mestre holandês e é de tirar o fôlego.
O Rijksmuseum tem uma das melhores coleções de pinturas dos grandes mestres do século XVII, como Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Vermeer e Rembrandt.
Assim como o Museu Histórico de Haia, o Rijksmuseum apresenta lindas casas de bonecas, mobiliadas em detalhes, datando de 1676.
Se você não puder ir ao Delft Real, pode ainda apreciar algumas das melhores cerâmicas de Delft, de conjuntos de chá a vasos, no Museu Nacional.
Museu que é visita obrigatória em Amsterdam
Quer sua estadia em Amsterdam seja breve ou longa, você deve visitar o Rijksmuseum. Chegue cedo para evitar enfrentar filas. Combine a visita ao Rijksmuseum com várias outras atrações próximas, como o Museu Van Gogh, o Museu Stedelijk Amsterdam e a Coster Diamonds
Para obter mais informações sobre Amsterdam, retorne à página sobre Amsterdam ou à página sobre os museus de Amsterdam.
This photo relates to the 292 service that used to be operated by Selwyn Motors of Westgate. See previous posts relating to Selwyn's and Metrobus F810YLV.
Looking along Sandtoft Road towards Sandtoft, with F810YLV heading into Westgate to make its first pick up on its journey to Doncaster. This was the start of the 292 Saturday only service.
When the bus departed Selwyn's Saxon Lane premises, it turned left onto Westgate Road heading towards Sandtoft, and not right towards Belton.
The bus ran empty as far as Sandtoft airfield, were it turned around and from where it could be said, the service started. It's first actual pick up was just opposite to Saxon Lane in Westgate, although it could technically pick up before this point.
Saturday 01st October 2016
PADDY: "There we are Scout! Nice and safe on the ground again. Now it's my turn to hide."
SCOUT: "Paddy! Paddy?"
PADDY: "Yes Scout?"
SCOUT: "What does herbaceous mean? It sounds nasty!"
PADDY: "Oh no Scout. It's a very good word. It is denoting or relating to herbs. So where you've been hiding has been in a rosemary bush, which is a herb."
SCOUT: "So herbaceous border is just a fancy way of saying herb bush?"
PADDY: "I suppose so Scout, yes."
SCOUT: "Can we go put some of this herbaceous border onto a pizza. I have a grumbly tummy again Paddy. Grumbly tummy Daddy!"
DADDY: "Again Scout? You only just finished some scones with raspberry jam and cream!"
SCOUT: "Well, I suppose I could play hide-and-seek a bit longer. So come find me Paddy!" *Runs away giggling.*
PADDY: "But it was my turn to hide Daddy."
DADDY: "I know Paddy. Best get after him then!"
Paddy, Scout and I spent a delightful Saturday with the Famous Flickr Five+ Group in Blackwood at the Garden of St Erth. As our first Famous Flickr Five+ excursion, I was just delighted by how kind and welcoming everyone was to Paddy, Scout and myself. We look forward to trips to places we have never been before (such as the garden of St Erth) with the Famous Flickr Five+ Group in the future.
My Paddington Bear came to live with me in London when I was two years old (many, many years ago). He was hand made by my Great Aunt and he has a chocolate coloured felt hat, the brim of which had to be pinned up by a safety pin to stop it getting in his eyes. The collar of his Macintosh is made of the same felt. He wears wellington boots made from the same red leather used to make the toggles on his Macintosh.
He has travelled with me across the world and he and I have had many adventures together over the years. He is a very precious member of my small family.
Scout is a recent addition to our little family. He was a gift to Paddy from my friend. He is a Fair Trade Bear hand knitted in Africa. His name comes from the shop my friend found him in: Scout House. He tells me that life was very different where he came from, and Paddy is helping introduce him to many new experiences. Scout catches on quickly, and has proven to be a cheeky, but very lovable member of our closely knit family.
In 1854 a Cornish stonemason named Matthew Rogers decided to pursue his luck in the goldfields around Mount Blackwood in Victoria, so he packed up his life in Sydney and journeyed south. His venture proved successful, as he became one of the gold rush's most successful miners.
In the 1860s, Matthew built a modest sandstone cottage from stone quarried from around Bacchus Marsh behind a boot factory in an area known as Simmonds Reef, just outside what was then the very busy and thriving gold mining community of Blackwood which at the time had a population of some 13,000 people. He named it "St Erth" after his Cornwall birthplace. The original title was dated 1867, but it is believed the house was built before then.
The sandstone cottage is typical of Victorian architecture found in Australia at that time. Built in Victorian Georgian style. It features a symmetrical facade of exposed sandstone brick with sash windows either side of the front door, all of which are characteristics of Victorian Georgian architecture. The shady verandah, today covered in curling wisteria vine, features elegant, slender posts, which is also typical of the architectural style, as is the medium pitch corrugated iron roof.
Matthew attached a wooden building to the western end of his neat stone cottage which served as the Blackwood post office for a time, and also a general store; both essential parts of the burgeoning community.
The gold rush lasted for twenty eight years. Matthew's daughter Elizabeth and her husband Jim Terrill continued to maintain the store, but as gold ran out, the wooden buildings of the town were moved to Trentham. For a time the house lay empty and the bush moved back in. Eventually it was bought by a group of Melbourne businessmen who called themselves the Simmons Reef Shire Council.
Today, "St Erth" is the Garden of St Erth; a wonderful garden featuring fruit trees, an espalier orchard, heirloom vegetables, perennials, daffodils, tulips, flowering shrubs and a plant nursery. The Garden of St Erth is one of two main sites in Victoria for the Diggers Club, who specialise in growing and selling heirloom variety plants and old fashioned exotic plants. The homestead forms the entry to the beautiful garden, as well as a shop showcasing the heritage seeds, gardening equipment and myriad gardening products in line with the Diggers Club's commitment to sustainable gardening. Outside there's a plant nursery with a wonderful array of trees and plants for sale. A pretty cafe offers drinks, cakes and meals indoors or out featuring where possible local produce and some sourced from the garden.
Matthew Rogers was born at St. Erth, Cornwall, on 11th June 1824, he arrived in Victoria in 1854 with his wife Mary, and came to Blackwood about 1855. Matthew and Mary Rogers were the wealthiest people in Simmons Reef. Matthew did well from his mine called "Mount Rogers Big Hill Mine". He is stated to have made a fortune out of ore that yielded one and a half pennyweights to the ton. Mary Ann Rogers was born in Hayle in Cornwall 24th June 1828. She looked after the store and the Post Office attached to the house. The Rogers had no children, and adopted a girl born in 1872, called Elizabeth. Mary Ann Rogers died on the 27th of August 1896, aged 68 years. Matthew Rogers died on the 6th of January 1902.
Nestled against the Wombat State Forest, the township of Blackwood was originally founded in 1855 during the Victorian gold rush. The township's post office was opened in September 1855, and was known as Mount Blackwood until 1921. The township has shrunk significantly since the gold rush ended, and today many of its properties are weekenders for Melbourne professionals. The town still has a main street featuring a post office and general store, a pub, a cafe and an antique shop. It still retains some of its original miners cottages beyond "St Erth". It is a quiet, sleepy town, and is a delightful retreat for some peace and quiet. Blackwood is perhaps best known today for its music and culture festival held in November. It attracts artists from across the world.
(References:- K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab & The crumbling glory of Sheikhupura Fort by Aown Ali)
In West Punjab (now in Pakistan), the town of Sheikhupura (about 35 km west of Lahore) is hailed a center of historically significant architecture.
The Hiran Minar (Minaret of the Antelope) and the Sheikhupura Fort make this stop a focal point of interest.
The town, now a district headquarters and one of the major industrial cities of Punjab, has grown from a village, originally called “Jahangirpura” when it was settled during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, because of its proximity to Hiran Minar, a royal hunting resort.
The primary historical importance of the city relates to its Fort. It lays no claim to grandeur. Locally known as Qila Sheikhupura, it has gave its name to the town as well.
Construction of the fort began in the second year of Jahangir’s reign (1607). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (autobiography of Jahangir) mentions that the emperor assigned the job of constructing a fort at that location to Sikandar Moeen during a hunting trip to Hiran Minar.
The two centuries that followed were mostly uneventful for the Fort. Neither a seat of government nor a target for invaders, it remained but a halt for imperial entourages heading on pleasure trips to Kashmir in the north, or towards Kabul in the west.
The Fort’s political importance did not emerge until the establishment of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th century.
A veteran historian and archeologist, Ihsan H. Nadiem, tells us that immediately before the consolidation of Punjab under the Sikhs, the Fort served as a convenient place for robbers looting the countryside.
The Durrani king, Shah Zaman, during his invasion of Lahore in 1797, briefly besieged the Fort, but only to purge it of the robbers. Soon after his departure, the Fort was once again occupied by the highwaymen.
Shortly thereafter, Lehna Singh Majithia (who also served as the Governor of Lahore. The son of General Lehna Singh, Sardar Dyal Singh, was perhaps the most significant Punjabi of the late 19th century in the British Punjab. He was the main force behind the founding of Punjab University), an ally of Ranjit Singh, invaded the fort and took occupation. After him, its ownership passed on to Bhai Singh, followed by Sahib Singh and Sahai Singh in 1808, at which point Ranjit Singh marched upon it and caused its surrender.
This whole story of Sheikhupura raid wrote by Hindu writer K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab (Page 196-197) and it is as under:
“Mahraja Ranjeet was busy in handling state affairs, in the meantime a group of farmers belong to Sheikhpura came to his door, they wanted to seek help against brutal Sikh rulers Sardar Arbel Singh & Sardar Ameer Singh. These Sardars had occupied the Sheikhupura fort and land, there army looting common people up to that level that they were dying of hunger. That group of farmer said the people of Sheikhupura accepted the over lordship of the Maharaja and requested to take their territory under Mahraja rule and control to protect them from these two brutal Sardars.
Mahraja accepted the request and assigned his eldest son, the crown prince, Kharak Singh for Sheikhupura fort Campaign. He reached Sheikhupura; he has four thousand army troops and support of one Cannon artillery.
Sheikhupura fort was very well constructed with strong fortified walls, Mahraja himself selected best cannons from his cannon yard for this campaign and also assign one of his best army officer Sardar Hakma Singh for assisting Crown prince Kharak Singh in this campaign.
When this troop reached Sheikhupura, Crown Prince Kharak Singh called both the ruling Sardar’s to him, but instead of appearing in front of Prince they have further fortified the fort and get ready for war.
The Prince first sieges the fort and then orders Canon artillery to start fire on fort walls. The fort walls were strongly fortified and hold the Cannon artillery attack for days.
This result less campaign made Prince to think if he wanted to win this fight he has to reinforce his troops and artillery as well. For that purpose he wrote for help to his father Mahraja Ranjit Singh. When Maharaja saw this letter he got angry, he ordered to send biggest cannon of his artillery the Ahmad Shahi Gun. Which he forcefully took from Saheb Singh Guajarati)
(Ahmad Shahi Gun also known as zamzama gun…, The Zamzama Gun is a large bore cannon. It is also known as Kim’s Gun or Bhangianwali Taop. It was cast in 1757 in Lahore. At that time Lahore was a part of the Durrani Empire. The gun was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Panipat in 1761. In 1802, Ranjit Singh got hold of the gun and used it in the battles of Daska, Kasur, Sujanpur, Wazirabad and Multan. In the siege of Multan, the gun was badly damaged. It is currently on display in front of the Lahore Museum at The Mall Road, Lahore.)
The Maharaja also reached the Sheikhupura Fort with fresh troops and again the battle started.
After two days of fight, Maharaja ordered to place Ahmed Shah Gun in front of Main gate of Fort. It was tough task and took many lives of soldiers but at last it was placed there. Hundred rounds of guns were fired and main gate of fort completely destroyed. The Mahraja troops entered the fort and raise the winning flag on wall. Both Arbel & Ameer Singh were arrested.
Since the area of Sheikhupura won in name of Crown Prince Kharak Singh, the fort and “Jageer” of Sheikhupura bestowed to Prince by his father Mahraja Ranjeet Singh under the primacy of her mother Rani Datar Kaur (1801-1840), the mother of the crown prince, Kharak Singh. She was also known as Rani Raj Kaur or Mai Nakkain. She lived in the Fort till her death.”
She had a considerable role in the rehabilitation of this small, strategically unimportant and hitherto almost abandoned citadel. She built a wonderful haveli within it. The excellent frescoes in the distinctive Kangra style found in the parlour and in the two chambers on the first floor of this haveli, are attributed to Raj Kaur‘s excellent taste.
In mid-19th century, when the British invaded Punjab, they used the Fort to imprison the Sikh kingdom’s Regent, Rani Jind Kaur – “Jindaa(n)” - after taking her son, the child Emperor Duleep Singh, prisoner.
In a letter dated August 9, 1847 Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, the British Resident in Punjab suggested to the Governor General that the Queen be banished from Punjab, to prevent the populace from rising under banner.
The 8-year old Emperor was removed from his palace in the Lahore Fort on August 19, 1847, and taken to the Shalimar Gardens, while his mother, the Queen, was confined to the distant Sheikhupura Fort.
Historian Himadri Banerjee describes how Jindaan was forcibly removed from Lahore between 8 and 9 pm under a heavy military escort. Accompanied by Sardar Arjan Singh Rangharnanglia and Gurmukh Singh Lamma, she was lodged in Sheikhupura Fort in the early hours of Friday, August 20, 1847, under the charge of Sardar Boor Singh.
Soon after her arrival at Sheikhupura, she wrote the following letter to the Resident at Lahore, protesting the ruthless separation from her young eight-year old.
With the Grace of the Great Guru
From Bibi Sahib to Lawrence Sahib,
We have arrived safely at Sheikhupura, You should send our luggage with care, As I was sitting in the Samman (Burj - Palace in Lahore Fort), in the same way I am in Sheikhupura. Both the places are same to me; you have been very cruel to me. You have snatched my son from me … In the name of the God you worship and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation … I shall reside in Sheikhupura. I shall not go to Lahore. Send my son to me. I will come to you at Lahore only during the days when you hold darbar. On that day I will send him. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to me. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to my son also. You have accepted what other people have said. Put an end to it now. Too much has been done.
The Queen resided in the Sheikhupura Fort for nine months. On the afternoon of May 15, 1848, she was taken away, to be imprisoned in Chunar Fort, near Benares (in current day Uttar Pradesh, India). She made a dramatic escape from there and fled to Nepal, where she remained until, years later, almost blind and dying, was finally allowed to visit her son, who was by then exiled in England.
The Sheikhupura Fort was thus witness to a number of crucial turning points during the half-century of the Sikh Raj.
The Empire had held played a crucial role as a bulwark against ongoing invasions through the subcontinent’s porous western borders. At its peak, it held sway from Tibet in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north and to Sindh in the south. It also, while Ranjit Singh was alive, kept the British at bay, even though the rest of the subcontinent had collapsed under them like a row of dominoes.
After the annexation of Punjab, the Sheikhupura Fort was temporarily used as administrative headquarters of the Gujranwala district from 1849 to 1851. However, upon the transfer of the district headquarters to Gujranwala town, it was turned into a military outpost.
After a split of administration jurisdictions in 1918, a new district was created in Sheikhupura. The Fort then passed on to house the police headquarters of the newly created district.
After the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, it was briefly used by the immigrants from East Punjab (by then in the newly-created India) as shelter, and
later by encroachers, from whom it came into the possession of the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan in 1967.
Within the complex, no building from the Mughal period is left standing, except the main entrance façade. There are also some remains of sandstone columns depicting the history of the laying of the foundations of the Sheikhupura Fort.
Today, what we can see standing, although dilapidated, is a crumbling six-storey haveli, identical to the haveli of Naunihal Singh, which is situated inside Mori Gate in Lahore.
The most vibrant aspect of the beauty of the haveli in the Sheikhupura Fort is its frescoes.
Sadly, precious wooden doors, windows and parts of the roof have already been whisked away by raiders and the haveli has turned into a haunted house.
Inside the ruins and rooms occupied by bats, we can still find signs of the former lifestyle through colourful and thematic paintings and other art work in the Kangra style. Fresco art work in the haveli of Raj Kaur portrays almost all aspects of daily life – ranging from worship to romantic love to military life. Colors are still vivid, the art work is glittering, but the haveli is now, due to institutional neglect, close to the end of its physical life.
Despite its poor condition, no contractor or labourer agrees to work as it is believed the fort is haunted by ghosts of the queens which used to live there.
This fort is closed to the public due to its bad structural condition; it took me at least three years to take permission to visit this place.