www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4OF5tdIdV8

"Bird On The Wire"

Like a bird on the wire,

like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

Like a worm on a hook,

like a knight from some old fashioned book

I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

If I, if I have been unkind,

I hope that you can just let it go by.

If I, if I have been untrue

I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, stillborn,

like a beast with his horn

I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

But I swear by this song

and by all that I have done wrong

I will make it all up to thee.

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,

he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."

And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,

she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,

like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

The Chapel of the Holy Spirit in Ripon Cathedral is one of the few places where a sadly stillborn English Space Age Anglican tradition of church furnishings can be found. The whole chapel represents the Holy Trinity – the waveforms and tongues of flame on the gates represent the Holy Spirit. These are also on the altar rails in the chapel, behind me when I took this shot, as is the rocket-themed hanging pyx representing Christ, who is sacramentally present within it; the pyx is suspended from an orbit-and-sun form, which represents God the Father. This shot is, therefore, looking out the gates of the chapel along the south choir aisle. The design of the pyx is essentially copied from the reaction control thrusters for the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module. Very much of its time, and having long since passed through its groovy phase, is I think now finished its naff phase, and is becoming established as a the sort of quirky period piece that any great cathedral must have many of from many different eras.

These were made by Leslie Durbin in 1970, in honour of the Apollo moon landings which had taken place the previous year. Durbin also made the Sword of Stalingrad, which Churchill presented to Stalin in 1943 to congratulate him in victory in the megabattle for the city named for him; and Durbin also designed the first one pound coins in the 1980s, the ones with different floral motifs for each of the four constituent countries of the UK. Of course he did.

Ripon Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, is notable architecturally for its gothic west front in the Early English style, considered one of the best of its type, as well as the Geometric east window. Needless to say, it is a Grade I listed building.

Founded as a monastery by Scottish monks in the 660s, it was refounded as a Benedictine monastery by St Wilfrid in 672. The 7th Century crypt of Wilfrid’s Church still survives. The church became collegiate in the 10th Century, and acted as a mother church within the large Diocese of York for the remainder of the Middle Ages. The present church is the fourth, and was built between the 13th and 16th Centuries. In 1836 the church became the cathedral for the Diocese of Ripon, at that point the first new diocese created in the Church of England since the Reformation. Ripon was then in 2014 incorporated into the new Diocese of Leeds, and the church became one of three co-equal cathedrals of the Bishop of Leeds.

This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.

... "so where were we?"

... "love."

... "ah, yes."

... "always qualified by the word, 'true'."

... "that's the issue, isn't it?"

... "how so?"

... "what makes it true, as you say ... or not true?"

... "if moved by inclination, grace and command, then it's true."

... "but in the absence of such noble qualities?"

... "then perfect love is stillborn."

... "absurd. you're better off with lust."

... "well, at least you know where you stand."

a short storyish thing. please don't copy and paste this:

Somewhere, there is a house whose roof is alight with fireflies. Each insect pulses simultaneously, their tails like little flames, strings of forgotten Christmas lights engulfing every weathered tile. This is a place as similar to rural America as a place that is not America could possibly be. The grass hasn’t been cut in a decade, and twists up the porch in tendrils, like dancers’ legs. Cicadas shed their old skins and thread the air with their music; each stitch of wind sticks to passerby’s throats and fills them with the taste of newness, something just on the threshold of being reached and ineffable except for the taste of raw honey it leaves on their tongues as they turn the corner and the house disappears out of sight. There are nettles hidden in this yard, braided to the undergrowth and connected to the ground with a network of pincers.

The nettles only claimed their place after the yard became wild; perhaps the threat of being punctured by their thorns has kept the owners of the house from mowing the grass. Inevitably, this becomes a cycle, as the grass becomes longer, the nettles become more confident in their tangled hiding places, reaching out their spiked tendrils like a sleeper in bed who is looking for a cool place to lie on the sweat-stained sheets. We all look like starfishes sleeping, when we are truly in that black hole where there are no dreams and the air we breathe within that dream-that-is-not-a-dream is that absent gray snuff that rises off an extinguished candle.

Mold binds the seam of each wall together, forming the rooms and corridors and closets and gluing them into one house, rooms stacked straight above the other like a kingdom of paper cards. Sometimes, in heat waves, the floors look like they’re wobbling, succumbing to the breathless climate and melting like wax. But these are only the shimmers in the air that everyone has seen at one point, usually at barbecues when charcoal is burning.

On the top floor, the ceiling is so slanted that gangly teenagers searching for refuge have to bend at nearly perpendicular angles to avoid hitting their heads. They sit in circles, breathing violet-colored smoke from a pipe that they pass around; they numb themselves to their imminent deaths as children. They ignore the fact that soon they will be reborn as adults and they will not even stop to remember the baby, child, or teenager that once stood in their place. By the time we reach adulthood, we are made up of entirely different cells than the ones that we had at birth. Our dreams, along with our cells, have been completely replaced, and there is no reason to continue the ruse that we are still the same person we were ten years ago. Each second, someone dies and an older someone takes our place, one who looks exactly the same except for a broken blood vessel in their eye which has been brought on by tiredness. Right before they change forever, the teenagers in the attic are suddenly enlightened; they come to know all of this as they breathe out a puff of their violet-stained air.

Every morning, the Twilight children are still asleep, huddled behind cardboard boxes that have been left to rot in a room that no one cares about. They are asleep and so they never see that the single attic window is opaque and white, painted with mist that has been breathed onto the glass by stillborn babies at a time where everyone, even the cicada, are asleep. The attic is a place for things that don’t quite have a place. It is a room that is quite beautiful at 3:45 in the morning, when the light is gold and untouched by dust-motes. But half of the stuff in dust-motes is faerie dust that has seeped through the sacks tied around the willowy waists of a nymph. This is a fact that seems too clichéd and idyllic to be true, but is nonetheless as sure as the moon having empty seas called maria. In fact, there is a man looking through his telescope on the porch, and the great metal tube sends his eyes light-years into the universe. His pupils are thrust open by starlight, he sees the dust-filled oceans in perfect illumination. There is a house at the bottom of one, at latitude twenty-eight and longitude seventeen. The roof is covered with fireflies that look like Christmas lights, and he thinks that perhaps it is the house of a martian.

The birth of this bison calf was a near thing as the cow had a lengthy labor and when it finally emerged, it dropped lifeless to the ground. It stayed that way for what seemed an eternity. Even the farmer, on whose property we were standing and who had seen many births, thought the calf was stillborn. The animals were considered wild and there was nothing that could be done.

Finally, long minutes later, the calf stirred and eventually rose to it's feet. After falling over a few times, it stood nose to nose with it's mother as they got acquainted. The group from our camera club watching all this with a staccato of shutters, stopped for a moment and breathed a sigh of relief.

I've had a series of these photos for a couple of years now and was never happy with the way they came out in color. This winter, working more in black and white than I have in previous years, I gave it another try.

Hundreds of ancient-looking Jizo statues spring from the lush moss carpeting the slope. One of the most beloved of all Japanese divinities, Jizo intercedes to ease the suffering and shorten the sentence of those serving time in hell. In Japan, Jizo is popularly known as the guardian of unborn, aborted, miscarried, and stillborn babies, as well as patron saint of expectant mothers, children, firemen, travelers, and pilgrims.

One of the two most notable sculptures in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, and certainly the one with the most striking view of the Schuylkill River, this memorial bears the words of English poet Philip James Bailey, whose striking poem begins with, "We live in deeds - not years." Though difficult to spot at first, given that marble is notoriously subject to weathering, the sculpture includes two infants along with the mother. Legend has it that Polish sculptor Henry Dmochowski-Saunders carved the monument to honor his wife and small children after they perished in a tragic boating accident on the river below. But the likely truth is that one child was stillborn in 1855 and the mother and second child died as a result of a difficult birth two years later. The sculptor supposedly labored on the monument for a year and a half before moving to Europe, never to return to American again.

The Chapel of the Holy Spirit at the east end of the south choir aisle in Ripon Cathedral is one of the few places where a sadly stillborn English Space Age Anglican tradition of church furnishings can be found. The whole chapel represents the Holy Trinity – the waveforms and tongues of flame on the gates and rails represent the Holy Spirit; the rocket-themed hanging pyx represents Christ, who is sacramentally present within it; the pyx is suspended from an orbit-and-sun form, which represents God the Father. The latter is quite obscured in this shot (hidden by the gates) but is visible in other photos in this series.

These were made by Leslie Durbin in 1970, in honour of the Apollo moon landings which had taken place the previous year. Durbin also made the Sword of Stalingrad, which Churchill presented to Stalin in 1943 to congratulate him in victory in the megabattle for the city named for him; and Durbin also designed the first one pound coins in the 1980s, the ones with different floral motifs for each of the four constituent countries of the UK. Of course he did.

Ripon Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, is notable architecturally for its gothic west front in the Early English style, considered one of the best of its type, as well as the Geometric east window. Needless to say, it is a Grade I listed building.

Founded as a monastery by Scottish monks in the 660s, it was refounded as a Benedictine monastery by St Wilfrid in 672. The 7th Century crypt of Wilfrid’s Church still survives. The church became collegiate in the 10th Century, and acted as a mother church within the large Diocese of York for the remainder of the Middle Ages. The present church is the fourth, and was built between the 13th and 16th Centuries. In 1836 the church became the cathedral for the Diocese of Ripon, at that point the first new diocese created in the Church of England since the Reformation. Ripon was then in 2014 incorporated into the new Diocese of Leeds, and the church became one of three co-equal cathedrals of the Bishop of Leeds.

This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.

Immature Boa Constrictor (Boa constrictor) flourishes in a wide variety of environmental conditions, from tropical rainforests to arid semidesert country.[28] However, it prefers to live in rainforest due to the humidity and temperature, natural cover from predators, and vast amount of potential prey. It is commonly found in or along rivers and streams, as it is a very capable swimmer. Boa constrictors also occupy the burrows of medium-sized mammals, where they can hide from potential predators.

Boa constrictors generally live on their own and do not interact with any other snakes unless they want to mate. They are nocturnal, but they may bask during the day when night-time temperatures are too low. As semi-arboreal snakes, young boa constrictors may climb into trees and shrubs to forage; however, they become mostly terrestrial as they become older and heavier. Boa constrictors strike when they perceive a threat. Their bite can be painful, especially from large snakes, but is rarely dangerous to humans. Specimens from Central America are more irascible, hissing loudly and striking repeatedly when disturbed, while those from South America tame down more readily. Like all snakes, boa constrictors in a shed cycle are more unpredictable, because the substance that lubricates between the old skin and the new makes their eyes appear milky, blue, or opaque so that the snake cannot see very well, causing it to be more defensive than it might otherwise be.

Their prey includes a wide variety of small to medium-sized mammals and birds. The bulk of their diet consists of rodents (such as squirrels, mice, rats and agoutis), but frogs, larger lizards (such as ameivas, iguanas and tegus) and mammals as big as monkeys, marsupials (opossums), armadillos, wild pigs, young brocket deer and ocelots are also reported to have been consumed. Domestic animals such as dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks and chickens are frequently consumed. Young boa constrictors eat small mice, birds, bats, lizards, and amphibians. The size of the prey item increases as they get older and larger. Once a boa constrictor has caught its prey, it will wrap its coils around the animal and constrict it until it dies by asphyxiation. The boa's powerful muscles allow it to exert a great deal of pressure, and the prey is typically killed within a few minutes.

Boa constrictors are ambush predators, so they often lie in wait for an appropriate prey to come along, then they attack a moment before the prey can escape. However, they have also been known to actively hunt, particularly in regions with a low concentration of suitable prey, and this behaviour generally occurs at night. The boa first strikes at the prey, grabbing it with its teeth; it then proceeds to constrict the prey until death before consuming it whole. Unconsciousness and death likely result from shutting off vital blood flow to the heart and brain, causing asphyxiation, rather than suffocation as was previously believed; constriction can interfere with blood flow and overwhelm the prey's usual blood pressure and circulation. This would lead to unconsciousness and death very quickly. Their teeth also help force the animal down the throat while muscles then move it toward the stomach. It takes the snake about 4–6 days to fully digest the food, depending on the size of the prey and the local temperature. After this, the snake may not eat for a week to several months, due to its slow metabolism.

Boa constrictors are viviparous, giving birth to live young. They generally breed in the dry season—between April and August—and are polygynous; thus, males may mate with multiple females. Half of all females breed in a given year, and a larger percentage of males actively attempt to locate a mate. Due to their polygynous nature, many of these males will be unsuccessful. As such, female boas in inadequate physical condition are unlikely to attempt to mate, or to produce viable young if they do mate. Reproduction in boas is almost exclusively sexual. In 2010, a boa constrictor was shown to have reproduced asexually via parthenogenesis.

During the breeding season, the female boa constrictor emits pheromones from her cloaca to attract males, which may then wrestle to select one to breed with her. During breeding, the male curls his tail around the female's and the hemipenes (or male reproductive organs) are inserted. Copulation can last from a few minutes to several hours and may occur several times over a period of a few weeks. After this period, ovulation may not occur immediately, but the female can hold the sperm inside her for up to one year. When the female ovulates, a midbody swell can be noticed that appears similar to the snake having eaten a large meal. The female then sheds two to three weeks after ovulation, in what is known as a post-ovulation shed which lasts another 2–3 weeks, which is longer than a normal shed. The gestation period, which is counted from the post ovulation shed, is around 100–120 days. The female then gives birth to young that average 15–20 in (38–51 cm) in length. The litter size varies between females but can be between 10 and 65 young, with an average of 25, although some of the young may be stillborn or unfertilized eggs known as "slugs". The young are independent at birth and grow rapidly for the first few years, shedding regularly (once every one to two months). At 3–4 years, boa constrictors become sexually mature and reach the adult size of 6–10 feet (1.8–3.0 m), although they continue to grow at a slow rate for the rest of their lives. At this point, they shed less frequently, about every 2–4 months.

Studio photo by Nick Dobbs, 25-09-2025

Not long after I moved to town, I discovered this sight at Southern Pacific's engine terminal in Ashland, Oregon. Of the nine big road units there, five were painted for the stillborn SPSF merger.

Like a bird on the wire,

like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

Like a worm on a hook,

like a knight from some old fashioned book

I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

If I, if I have been unkind,

I hope that you can just let it go by.

If I, if I have been untrue

I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, stillborn,

like a beast with his horn

I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

But I swear by this song

and by all that I have done wrong

I will make it all up to thee.

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,

he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."

And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,

she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,

like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

Like a bird on the wire,

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

Like a fish on a hook,

Like a knight from some old fashioned book

I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

If i, if I have been unkind,

I hope that you can just let it go by.

If i, if I have been untrue

I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, stillborn,

Like a beast with his horn

I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

But I swear by this song

And by all that I have done wrong

I will make it all up to thee.

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,

He said to me, you must not ask for so much.

And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,

She cried to me, hey, why not ask for more?

Oh like a bird on the wire,

Like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free.

no rules, no limitations, no boundaries it's like an art

© All Rights Reserved by ajpscs

JIZO BODHISATTVA

One of the most beloved of all Japanese divinities, Jizo works to ease the suffering and shorten the sentence of those serving time in hell. Jizo can appear in many different forms to alleviate suffering. In modern Japan, Jizo is popularly known as the guardian of unborn, aborted, miscarried, and stillborn babies (Mizuko Jizo).

www.onmarkproductions.com/html/buddhism.shtml

Carrickfinn, County Donegal, Ireland

I have visited some strange places across Ireland throughout my years, although recently I was unexpectedly contacted by a gentleman with information regarding the strangest location I would ever visit…. "Oilean Na Marbh" an Island of the Dead. Initially I believed this may be a joke or an old urban legend tale or something. Although my doubts soon lifted & my heart broke into pieces when I started to research into this island’s almost unbelievable history.

This little Island you see in my photo may look like a normal lump of rocky ground on a beach in Donegal. Little do we know that this island is resting ground to over 500 stillborn & famine babies! All buried here in what was once a very secret burial ground 😞 These children were born between the 18th and 19th centuries. These poor little souls could not be buried on consecrated ground simply because they had not been baptised before passing away. This was common practice across Ireland for hundreds of years & many children were buried just outside of consecrated grounds such as graveyards & churches etc. The closer to holy ground the better because those children were not allowed within the actual boundary walls.

However, the community of Carrickfinn instead chose this now sacred island for their unbaptised burials right up until its last burial in 1912. It has been kept this small communities secret until only recent times. The poor parents would have carried their child in a small wooden box across this beach at low tide to this island during the cover of night. They buried the children here & left this island forever in hope that nobody would ever find out. Back in those times it was seen as a shameful deed here in Ireland to have given birth outside of marriage or if your child had passed away before being baptised. In my personal opinion this was an utter disgrace 😡 I’m pleased that religion has stopped these dated practices & finally moved forward with the times.

On a final note my friends, I have not travelled here in one earn to simply take a photo & tell the world about Donegal’s best kept secret. No! I would never share this without good reason. I have only captured this photo & told you the truth about this island because the local community from Carrickfinn nowadays want everyone to know about this secret island’s burials. As only through people knowing about the souls of these 500 children can they start being remembered & prayed for aiding towards their eternal rest in heaven, not outside it’s gates like we were once led to believe!

As Séamus Peter Boyle, one of the founding campaigners to have a plaque erected on the island in honour of the dead said - “This was so important for our community to remember those on the island and to pass our knowledge on. It is part of our heritage and it is a good thing that it is not forgotten. Now there is a memorial cross and a commemorative stone to show that they will never be forgotten. The memorial stone reads “In memory of the stillborn babies, Famine children and sailors buried here in Oileán na Marbh (Isle of the Dead) up until the early 1900s. Erected and dedicated by the community. ‘Is e an Tiarna m’aoire’

RIP to all these once lost but now found souls on "Oilean Na Marbh"….

Hope you enjoy! Please Favourite & Follow to view my newest upcoming works, Thank you

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British Railways Castle Class 4-6-0 5043 "Earl of Mount Edgcumbe" approaches Birmingham Moor Street with the 13:36/13:45 13:38/13:50 1T51 Stratford Upon Avon to Birmingham Snow Hill "Shakespeare Express". In the background can be seen the stillborn Duddeston viaduct that was built in 1846 but rendered surplus when the GWR took over the Oxford to Snow Hill line.

Nottingham City Transport bought two small batches of the underfloor-engined Leyland Lion double-decker during its brief production, taking ten examples of the 32 supplied to British customers. From the second tranche, East Lancs-bodied 389 (F389KVO) is seen entering Old Market Place, passing the characterful Bell Inn - a place of frequent pilgrimage in my Nottingham visits. These were the final buses delivered to Nottingham’s own bodywork specification: subsequent vehicle orders were to off-the-peg designs.

One must rue the near-stillborn nature of the Leyland Lion. It had the potential to be a market contender, gaining a niche as did its direct competitor, the Volvo B10M Citybus. Leyland Bus fell victim to two factors, however: firstly, the impact of the 1985 Transport Act all but stifled the market for new full-size vehicles, a result of the big bus market being flooded by nearly-new vehicles made redundant as the old Passenger Transport Executives were forced to contract. Secondly, Leyland Bus was chronically under-capitalised after it had been bought by its management in the break-up of the British Leyland empire. In such dire circumstances, Leyland Bus fell into the hands of Volvo, which wasted no time in whittling down the Leyland model range.

September 1990

Rollei 35 camera

Kodak Ektachrome 100 film.

Every day in the UK, 17 babies are stillborn or die shortly after birth, why?

Today 17 babies will die, the tragic victims of stillbirth or neonatal death. This is a statistic that is seeing no signs of decreasing, and behind each number is a family rocked to the foundations by the death of their baby.

This shocking figure, the loss of 6,500 babies every year, is something the public is not generally aware of. Most people think stillbirths don’t happen in the 21st century. Yet stillbirth in the UK is 10 times more common than cot death.

Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, feels that this number of deaths is totally unacceptable. They have launched the Why17? campaign to raise awareness of this devastating loss and to ask the question:

“Why are 17 babies a day dying and what can be done to halt this national tragedy?”

Through the Why17? campaign Sands hopes to raise awareness of the issues surrounding baby loss and to initiate a public debate about stillbirth and neonatal death.

What can you do to help?

1) Follow this link, fill in your details to email your MP to make them aware of the parliamentary launch of Why17? on March 4th 2009: www.why17.org/Get-Involved/Contact-your-MP.html

2) Add your name to the list of supporters (petition) : www.why17.org/Pledge-Your-Support.html

3) Make a contribution: donate online; buy a window sticker / wristband / balloon; or plan a sponsored event. More ideas here: www.why17.org/Get-Involved.html

This is the cardigan my son wore when we left hospital 91/2 years ago.

Some cold, hard facts:

• 17 babies die every day in the UK (10 are stillbirths, 7 are neonatal deaths) totalling almost 6,500 baby deaths a year - the equivalent of 16 jumbo jets crashing every year with no survivors

• This is four times the number of people who die every year of MRSA

• This is double the number of adults who lose their lives on Britain’s roads every year

• Ten times more babies are stillborn than die of cot death every year in the UK.

• The stillbirth rate has remained almost unchanged for the past 10 years. (CEMACH)

• 1 in every 200 babies are stillborn in the UK

• 1 in every 300 babies born in the UK die in the first four weeks of life

• In half of all stillbirths the cause remains unexplained, although in more than half of these pregnancies the baby is smaller than it should be

• Many of these babies are born perfectly formed, with no clear reason why they died. We need to understand what is causing these deaths and take action to prevent avoidable losses

• The majority of unexplained stillbirths are in pregnancies that were previously considered low risk

Sands is the UK’s Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity, an organisation which offers support to everyone affected by the death of a baby during pregnancy or after birth.

Sands’ core aims are to:

• Support anyone affected by the death of a baby;

• To work in partnership with health professionals to improve the quality of care and services offered to bereaved families; and

• To promote research and changes in practice that could help to reduce the loss of babies' lives

The death of a baby is a devastating experience. The effects of grief can be overwhelming and parents, their families and friends can be left feeling dazed, disorientated, isolated and exhausted.

The death of a baby can happen to any one of us. It has happened to too many of us.

What brings people together through Sands is the common experience of this painful loss.

June is the national awareness month; with this photograph I hope to do something to raise awareness of the work of this charity. What can you do?

www.uk-sands.org

Today 17 babies will die, the tragic victims of stillbirth or neonatal death. This is a statistic that is seeing no signs of decreasing, and behind each number is a family rocked to the foundations by the death of their baby.

This shocking figure, the loss of 6,500 babies every year, is something the public is not generally aware of. Most people think stillbirths don’t happen in the 21st century. Yet stillbirth in the UK is 10 times more common than cot death.

At Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, we feel this number of deaths is totally unacceptable. We have launched the Why17? campaign to raise awareness of this devastating loss and to ask the question:

“Why are 17 babies a day dying and what can be done to halt this national tragedy?”

“I just want to raise awareness of stillbirth. I had no idea that this could happen to me

1) Follow this link, fill in your details to email your MP to make them aware of the parliamentary launch of Why17? on March 4th 2009: www.why17.org/Get-Involved/Contact-your-MP.html

2) Add your name to the list of supporters (petition) : www.why17.org/Pledge-Your-Support.html

3) Make a contribution: donate online; buy a window sticker / wristband / balloon; or plan a sponsored event. More ideas here: www.why17.org/Get-Involved.html

In memory of my nephew Austin, who was stillborn on 24th September 2005, and we still don't know why.

One of Daughter's favorite historical figures. Kennedy Onassis died on this day 24 years ago and is buried beside her husband, John F Kennedy, and stillborn daughter, Arabella. One the other side of JFK is buried their 2 day old son, Patrick, who died only a few months before his father was killed. In the background is Arlington House where Robert E Lee once lived.

Lights of Love 2017 will be held at venues across the UK at 7:30pm on 8 December. Sands annual Lights of Love services are held in December at venues across the UK. The services are family friendly evenings of traditional carols, reading and musical performances.

I feel me currently ,like a "Bird on the Wire"...)))

........................................

wish all a good start in the week !!

_____________________________

mizuko jizo (who comforts dead fetuses, stillborn babies or killed babies)

An awful lot of time and effort was taken by GM North to complete the thorough refurbishment of 4760. However, the project to resurrect and refresh further Atlanteans beyond 4446 and 4721 would remain stillborn.

G M Buses North 4760 (A760 NNA). Manchester, Piccadilly Bus Station, 30/12/1994.

First published in 1797, The Coquette is an epistolary novel penned by Hannah Webster Foster. One of the bestselling titles of the 18th Century, this is a fictionalised account of the story of Elizabeth Whitman, the daughter of a clergyman who died after giving birth to a stillborn, illegitimate child at a roadside tavern.

Writers and preachers of the day blamed her demise on the fact that she read romance novels, which gave her improper ideas and turned her into a coquette (what the ???). Foster responded with The Coquette, which provided a more sympathetic portrayal of Whitman and described the difficulties faced by middle class women. You go, Hannah!

What I like MOST about The Coquette is its intelligent portrayal of the contrast between individualism vs social conformity and passion vs reason.

Thus The Coquette cuff was born.

Elephants display complex social and emotional behavior, and are said to value their families more than most animals.

1. Females are the bosses.

Elephant families have a matriarchal head, meaning that an older, experienced female elephant leads the herd. A family usually consist of a mother, her sisters, daughters their babies (calves).

2. They babysit

Female elephants (cows) help each look after each other’s calves. Babysitting other female’s calves is important for elephant development; young females learn how to look after the young, and the calves are shown how it’s done. The survival rate of a calf greatly increases when more females are present and willing takes care of it.

3. They bond

Elephants are known to develop strong, intimate bonds between friends and family members. There have been reports of elephants forming lifelong friendships with each other, and they even mourn the death of their loved ones. Mother elephants have been seen grieving over stillborn calves, and some elephants have even been spotted returning to, and lingering near, spots where their friends and family members died.

4. They walk in a single file

Disney wasn’t lying in The Jungle Book – elephants actually do actually walk in single file when they on the move, for instance while in search of food and water. The calves will sometimes hold on to their mother’s tails with their trunks to keep up, while other female elephants surround them to protect them from danger.

5. Males hang out in groups, too

Adult male elephants live a predominantly nomadic and solitary life. When a male elephant (bull) reaches puberty, around 12 to 15 years of age, he will gradually become more independent of his family until he breaks away completely, to either roam alone or find a loosely knit group of male elephants to join. (Source: Helena Williams: www.independent.co.uk/)

This is another case where the sorrow of loss transcends time. This stone is as mournful and forlorn now as it must have been to the grieving parents back in the 19th century. I stand here on this windswept hilltop over 150 years later and I am still saddened. When I see the word 'infant' on a stone I can only imagine the child was stillborn and had never been named.

Tonight's sunset here in LaGrange, TX reminded me of my time as a young boy in West Texas. I lived in Merkel, TX a town of four major paved streets and on the other side of the train tracks, most of the others were gravel. It was a land of dry high plains weather, horny toads, and tumbleweeds on a windy day and rattlesnakes. It was where many of my boyhood adventures took place.

At 9 years old, I made it a point to know everybody I could and made friends with the local veterinarian. He took me with him to all the ranches within a 25-50 mile radius of town tending to cattle and horses mostly. I wore a beat up, dusty, sweaty old straw hat that I'd thrown-up into at one time, a pair of ragged, faded jean shorts, sometimes no shirt and, of course, my cowboy boots. I was rail thin and had dirty blond hair. I'd never known my Mother or Father, but had a foster family who loved me and they were all I knew and Loved. Wish I had a picture of that little boy. He was hard-scrabble, unafraid, not the least bit shy and a sponge for life.

On one particular trip to help a farmer with a horse needing medical attention, I met a ranch hand who was an old cowboy. He was one of those guys that Hollywood tries to make up, but they never quite get it right. He was tall, skinny and sinewy with long gray hair, intense blue eyes and weathered leathery skin that seemingly hovered loosely above his bones. His name was Skeet, and he had a smile as wide as the Brazos River and a nature as sweet and jovial as Santa Claus. He gave me a rope to hold up my short-britches which always seemed droopy. He smilingly held barbed wire for me so I could get my little frame through the fences without losing skin or blood. I liked Skeet a lot. We were buddies.

Late one evening months later, Skeet, me and the Veterinarian had just finished helping a Momma cow deliver her breech calf. The calf was stillborn. I was sad to have seen two sides of nature - imminent life and ultimate death - in just a couple hours. Afterward, I sat exhausted with Skeet on the edge of the cattle water trough marveling at the splendor of the setting sun and clouds, searching for solace and wiping away tear tracks that marked my dusty face. I remarked how pretty the sunset was. However as a young boy, try as I might, I didn't have the words to fully describe the majesty of it all. I was stumped, in mid-sentence, in a verbal stupor when in a short, but memorable statement Skeet said, "Well boy... that there is a Cowboy's Chandelier..." I had no idea what a Chandelier was, but I have subsequently always marveled at beautiful sunsets. And the most stunningly beautiful Chandelier I've ever seen in my world travels, pales in comparison to “Skeet's Chandelier”.

Explored February 28, 2013, #267

Surprisingly, because the metals are such perfect expressions of archetypal energies, we can actually learn quite a bit about people by studying the properties of metals and the behavior of planets. That same correspondence exists in the human temperament. For instance, the leaden person is someone who has, like Saturn, lost their bid to become a star. They have accepted a mere physical existence and believe the created world is all that counts. The positive characteristics of the saturnine person are patience, responsibility, somberness, structure and realism, true knowledge of history and karma. The black messenger crows of Chronos bring black moods, depression and despair to us, but they also alert us to illusion and fakeness in our lives.

While we have already discussed the planetary archetypes, it is worth reminding ourselves at this point exactly how the alchemists looked on the relationship between the planet and its metal. They believed that the metals had the same “virtue” as the corresponding planet, that a single spirit infuses both the planet and the metal. In other words, the planet was a celestial manifestation and the metal a terrestrial manifestation of the same universal force. Therefore, the metals are the purest expression of the planetary energies in the mineral kingdom, which is the basis for material reality on earth. The next stage of evolution on our planet is the plant kingdom, and the alchemists assigned a metal and its corresponding planet to describe the characteristics of every known herb, flower, and plant. Similarly, on the next level in the evolution of matter in the animal kingdom, all creatures carry their own metallic or planetary signatures, which are expressed in their behavior. In human beings, the alchemists referred to the sum total of the cosmic signatures of the metals as a person’s “temperament.” Originally, that word referred to the metallurgical process of “tempering” or mixing different metals to produce certain characteristics in an alloy. Although the alchemists considered lead the lowest of the base metals, they treated it with a great deal of respect, as they did its corresponding planet Saturn. Lead was said to carry all the energy of its own transformation, and it was that hidden energy that the alchemists sought to free. To the alchemists, the ancient metal was a powerful “sleeping giant” with a dark and secret nature that encompassed both the beginning and end of the Great Work.

Lead is the heaviest of the seven metals; it is very tied to gravity, form, and manifested reality. It is also a very stubborn metal known for its durability and resistance to change. Lead products dating from 7000 BC are still intact, and lead water pipes installed by the Romans 1,500 years ago are still in use today. Alchemists depicted lead in their drawings as the god Saturn (a crippled old man with a sickle), Father Time, or a skeleton representing death itself. Any of these symbols in their manuscripts meant the alchemist was working with the metal lead in the laboratory or a leaden attitude in his accompanying meditation.Lead is a boundary of heaviness for matter. Metals of greater atomic weight are too heavy and disintegrate over time (by radioactive decay) to turn back into lead. So radioactive decay is really a Saturnic process that introduces a new characteristic in the metals – that of time. All the hyper-energetic metals beyond lead are trapped in time to inexorably return to lead. There is no natural process more unalterably exact than radioactive decay. Atomic clocks, the most precise timekeeping devices we have, are based on this leaden process. Geologists measure the age of radioactive rocks by how much lead they contain, and the age of the earth is estimated by taking lead isotope measurements. In many ways, lead carries the signature of Father Time.Native lead, which is lead metal found in a chemically uncombined state, is actually extremely rare. It is found in the earth's crust in a concentration of only about 13 parts per billion. Lead does not form crystals easily, and thus the pure mineral form is very rare and extremely valuable as rock specimens. Such elemental lead can also be found in very unusual “metamorphosed” limestone and marble formations that are equally rare.Surprisingly, lead is in the same group in the Periodic Table as gold, and when it occurs in nature, it is always found with gold and silver. In fact, the chemical symbol for lead (Pb) is from the Latin word plumbum, which means “liquid silver.” We derive our words “plumbing” and “plumb bob” from the use of lead in those applications. In the smelting of silver, lead plays an important role by forming a layer over the emerging molten silver and protecting it from combining with the air and splattering out. The volatile molten lead covering is gradually burnt away, until only the pure silver metal “peeks out” (in the smelter’s terminology) in a stabilized form. Thus, lead protects and even sacrifices itself for the nobler metals.The planet Saturn and its metal and the planet have the same symbol (L) in alchemy. The Hermetic interpretation is that the symbol is basically the cross of the elements that depicts the division between the Above and Below or spirit and matter. The lunar crescent of the soul is below the cross, representing the manifestation (or entrapment) of soul below in matter. Despite these associations with the noble metals, lead itself never makes it to such heights among the metals. The silvery luster of fresh cut lead quickly fades, as if it were “dying” before your eyes. Furthermore, alchemists considered lead to be “hydrophobic” or against the life nourishing archetype of water. Lead ores lack the slightest water content and tend to form machine-like structures.The most common ore of lead is galena, which also contains the noble metals silver and gold. Galena is lead sulfide, a favorite of rock collectors because of its distinctive cubic shapes, characteristic cleavage, and high density. In fact, the structure of galena is identical to that of natural table salt. The two minerals have exactly the same crystal shapes, symmetry and cleavage, although galena crystals are thousands of times larger. Some galena may contain up to 1% silver and often contains trace amounts of gold. The large volume of galena that is processed for lead produces enough silver as a by product to make galena the leading ore of silver as well Galena definitely has the signature of lead. Its color is silver gray with a bluish tint. The luster ranges from metallic to dull in the weathered faces, and the isometric crystals are opaque to light. The massive crystals of galena almost always take the form of a cube or octahedron, and the cleavage is perfect in four direction always forming cubes. Because of the perfect cleavage, fractures are rarely seen and the dark crystalline structure is nearly perfect.Lead is also found in other sulfuric minerals like calcite and dolomite, as well as lead oxidation minerals such as and anglesite and cerussite, which is found in the oxidation zone of lead deposits usually associated with galena. Some formations show cerussite crusts around a galena core as if the act of oxidation was frozen in time. Cerrussite is lead carbonate and also a favorite of rock hounds. Its very high luster is due mostly to the metallic lead content, and just as leaded crystal glass sparkles more brilliantly because of its lead content, so too does cerussite. Cerussite has one of the highest densities for a transparent mineral. It is over six and a half times as dense as water. Most rocks and minerals average only around three times the density of water. Cerussite is famous for its great sparkle and density, and its amazing twinned (or double) crystals. The mineral forms geometrically intricate structures and star shapes that simply amazing to behold – sometimes the twinned crystals form star shapes with six "rays" extending out from the star.When freed from its ores, lead metal has a bluish-white color and is very soft – capable of being scratched by a fingernail. With its dull metallic luster and high density, lead cannot easily be confused with any other metal. It is also malleable, ductile, and sectile – meaning it can be pounded into other shapes, stretched into a wire, and cut into slices. However, lead is a dark, sluggish, base metal. Of the seven metals, it is the slowest conductor of electricity and heat, the least lustrous or resonant. Its Saturnic signature of heaviness is expressed not only in its being the heaviest metal but also in its tendency to form inert and insoluble compounds. No other metal forms as many. Although it tarnishes upon exposure to air like silver, lead is extremely resistant to corrosion over time and seems to last forever. Lead pipes bearing the insignia of Roman emperors, used as drains from the baths, are still in service. The surface of lead is protected by a thin layer of lead oxide, and it does not react with water. The same process protects lead from the traditional “liquid fire” of the alchemists – sulfuric acid. In fact, lead bottles are still used to store the highly corrosive acid. Lead is so inalterable, that half of all the lead in the world today is simply recovered from scrap and formed directly into bullion for reuse.Lead is truly a destroyer of light. It is added to high-quality glassware (lead crystal) to absorb light reflections and make the glass clearer. Lead salts in glass are not changed by light but change light itself by absorbing it. Incoming light in lead crystal meets with high resistance, but once it is within the glass, light is immediately absorbed or dispersed without any reflected light escaping. Sheets of lead are also impermeable to all forms of light, even high energy X-rays and gamma rays, which makes lead the perfect shield against any form of radiation and is why it is used to transport and store radioactive materials.Lead is an extremely poor conductor of electricity and blocks all kinds of energy transmission. Indeed, one of the signatures of lead is its ability to “dampen” or absorb energy. Unlike other metals, when lead is struck, the vibrations are immediately absorbed and any tone is smothered in dullness. Lead is an effective sound proofing medium and tetraethyl lead is still used in some grades of gasoline as an antiknock compound to “quiet” the combustion of gasoline.Thin lead sheets are used extensively in the walls of high-rise buildings to block the transmission of sound, and thick pads of lead are used in the foundations to absorb the vibrations of street traffic and even minor earthquakes. Lead sheets are widely used in roofing to block solar rays, and lead foil is used to form lightproof enclosures in laboratory work. Ultimately, lead corresponds to the galactic Black Hole that absorbs all forms of radiation and light.Lead reacts with more chemicals than any other metal, however, instead of producing something new and useful, lead “kills” the combining substance by making it inert, insoluble and unable to enter into further chemical reactions. Its salts precipitate out of solutions heavily and copiously. Lead has the same effect in the plant kingdom. It accumulates in the roots and slows down the “breathing” process in plants. Young plants are adversely affected by even the smallest amount of lead in the soil.Lead is poisonous and accumulates over time in the bones of the human body, where it cannot be flushed out. It has also been found in high concentrations in gallstones and kidney stones. The old alchemical graphic for lead – a skeleton – was grotesquely appropriate. The symptoms of lead poisoning (known as “Saturnism”) are lack of energy, depression, blindness, dizziness, severe headaches at the back of the head, brain damage, attention deficit disorder, learning disabilities and mental retardation, antisocial behavior and anger, atrophy of muscular tissue and cramping, excess growth of connective tissue resulting in a rigid appearance, rapid aging, coma, and early death. Rats fed only 5 parts per million of lead had a lifespan 25% shorter than normal rats. Children are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, and it is believed to be an important factor in stillborn fetuses. Children with more than just 0.3 parts per million of lead in their blood suffer a significant slowing of brain function and corresponding drop in IQ. Lead in paint has caused mental retardation and premature aging in hundreds of children who ingested old flaking paint from the walls of their homes. Lead paint was used extensively until the poisonous effects were documented in the 1960s. Because of its lasting durability, lead paint is still used outdoors in advertising and the yellow lines on highways and curbs. The subtly controlling aspect of those applications is another signature of lead and of “leaden” persons in general.Not surprisingly, lead has found use as an insecticide and was even once considered for use as a military weapon. Lead metal reacts violently with fluorine and chlorine to form the highly poisonous gases, lead fluoride and lead chloride. Lead is also used in all kinds of ammunition – another appropriate application of lead’s esoteric signature as Father Time and the Grim Reaper. There are many research studies linking lead exposure to anger and violence, especially in adolescents. One recent study of all counties in the United States conducted by Colorado State University revealed that the murder rate in counties with the highest lead levels were four times higher than in counties with the lowest levels of lead.More benevolent uses of lead are in storage batteries, covering for underground and transoceanic cables, waste plumbing, shielding around X-ray equipment and nuclear reactors, solder, pewter, fine lead crystal glass, and flint glass with a high refractive index for achromatic lenses.Even the elemental metal carries the seed of its own redemption. The alchemists knew that Fire is lord over lead, for the metal has a low melting point and is easily separated from its ore by roasting in an open flame, and the metal itself melts in a candle flame. Lead expands on heating and contracts on cooling more than any other solid heavy metal. (Silver is the opposite and is considered an antidote to lead.)Perhaps owing to its dual nature, lead carries deeply hidden within its structure the fire of its own transformation. Many lead salts reveal a whole rainbow of brilliant colors, with the solar colors of yellow, orange, and red predominating. This is why lead has been used in paints for so many centuries. Finely divided lead powder is pyrophoric (“fire containing”) and easily catches fire or erupts spontaneously in flames. When made into a fine powder, lead metal must be kept in a vacuum to keep from catching fire. Otherwise, it ignites and burns down to a bright yellow ash, revealing its deeply hidden solar signature. So, the wonder of lead is that hidden deep inside the gray, dead metal is a tiny, eternal spark that is the seed of its own resurrection. In the eyes of alchemists, this makes lead the most important metal despite its unattractive darkness. For dull lead and gleaming gold are really the same things, only at different stages of growth or maturity.The Secret Fire inside lead is really the alchemical basis for transforming lead into gold, and correspondingly, gives mankind hope for its own spiritual transformation. That tiny spark of light in the darkest part of matter makes resurrection part of the structure of the universe. So, deep down inside, the metal lead also yearns to be transformed. It wants to rise in the air and fly, leave matter and form behind, and be free as Fire. Lead unites two contrasting forces: rigid heaviness and revivifying inner fire. Archetypically, the lead process is concerned with death and resurrection. Greek myth says that after death our soul is put on a scale, and the weights of the scale are made from lead, the metal that carries Saturn's signature.Lead is used in magical rituals, spells, and amulets to promote contact with deep unconscious levels (the underworld), deep meditation, controlling negativity, breaking bad habits and addictions, protection, stability, grounding, solidity, perseverance, decisiveness, concentration, conservation, and material constructions (buildings). Pick up a hunk of lead and the first thing you notice is its weight – its connection to gravity. It is that connection to something beyond matter and light, the very form of the universe that is the physical basis for this experiment. During the winter months, preferably on some clear night in late January or early February, go outside and find the planet Saturn in the northern sky. Relax and try to focus all your attention on the golden sphere. Relax completely with an open and quiet mind. Become empty and let the planet influence you. Do this until you feel a real connection with the distant planet. Continue gazing upon Saturn and place a piece of lead metal in your hand. You should be able to feel a strange resonance building. That eerie, cold vibration is not your imagination. It is what alchemists refer to as the “call of lead.” You are experiencing the metal’s true signature or living correspondence with its planetary twin.The strange connection between lead and Saturn has been documented by modern scientists, who have shown that lead compounds react differently depending on Saturn’s position in the sky. For instance, solutions of lead nitrate produce the greatest weight of crystallization (or manifestation) during February, when Saturn rules the sky, and the least during June, when Saturn is barely visible. Lead compounds also exhibit different properties when Saturn aligns with other planets. For example, lead sulfate solution rises 60% higher on strips of filter paper during conjunctions of Saturn with Mars than at other times. It is also known that the ease of making lead solutions (the “solubility coefficient” of lead) varies with the position of Saturn relative to the other planets. NASA is even considering a series of astrochemical experiments to see if the Saturn-lead effects become more pronounced in outer space.Surprisingly, because the metals are such perfect expressions of archetypal energies, we can actually learn quite a bit about people by studying the properties of metals and the behavior of planets. That same correspondence exists in the human temperament. For instance, the leaden person is someone who has, like Saturn, lost their bid to become a star. They have accepted a mere physical existence and believe the created world is all that counts. The positive characteristics of the saturnine person are patience, responsibility, somberness, structure and realism, true knowledge of history and karma. The black messenger crows of Chronos bring black moods, depression and despair to us, but they also alert us to illusion and fakeness in our lives. Surprisingly, because the metals are such perfect expressions of archetypal energies, we can actually learn quite a bit about people by studying the properties of metals and the behavior of planets. That same correspondence exists in the human temperament. For instance, the leaden person is someone who has, like Saturn, lost their bid to become a star. They have accepted a mere physical existence and believe the created world is all that counts. The positive characteristics of the saturnine person are patience, responsibility, somberness, structure and realism, true knowledge of history and karma. The black messenger crows of Chronos bring black moods, depression and despair to us, but they also alert us to illusion and fakeness in our lives. Surprisingly, because the metals are such perfect expressions of archetypal energies, we can actually learn quite a bit about people by studying the properties of metals and the behavior of planets. That same correspondence exists in the human temperament. For instance, the leaden person is someone who has, like Saturn, lost their bid to become a star. They have accepted a mere physical existence and believe the created world is all that counts. The positive characteristics of the saturnine person are patience, responsibility, somberness, structure and realism, true knowledge of history and karma. The black messenger crows of Chronos bring black moods, depression and despair to us, but they also alert us to illusion and fakeness in our lives. Because the lusterless metal is so “dead” and resists interaction with other substances, it is used as containers for acids, like automobile batteries, and is used as a lining in pipes that carry corrosive substances. Similarly, the lead tempered person is like an acid-proof container that stores up caustic feelings and anger. Phrases like “acid tongued” and “vitriolic” have their origins in this alchemical process of storing negative emotional energy.On the psychological level, lead is symbolic of a person’s inertness and unwillingness to change. There is a denial of all higher or spiritual energies, and the alchemists often portrayed the leaden person as lying in an open grave or hopelessly chained to matter in some way. A feeling of being trapped in material reality is symptomatic of a leaden attitude. Leaden people are stubborn, unyielding, and often control other people by making them wait. They must always be right, rarely accept blame or admit to being in error, and have no real regard for the truth of a situation. They may be religious but not spiritual. They tend to be suspicious of genius and inspiration, which they will often attribute to fantasy, They feel threatened by freedom of thought and expression, and sometimes use ridicule or try to “push people’s buttons” to control it. They tend to be very uncreative, judgmental, and smug.On the other hand, leaden people are grounded, earthy, and practical. They are good friends during times of bereavement – a rock of support at funerals and deathbeds. Such people secretly crave stimulation, excitement, and new ideas. They gravitate to people who supply energy and entertainment in their lives. This craving for stimulation often makes them focus on nervous energy instead of higher inspiration. Therefore, Saturn’s children can be very reactive and excitable instead of lethargic, as they try to escape from their prison of matter.As soon as bright, fresh lead metal is exposed to air, it forms a dull-gray oxide layer called the “litharge” that resists any further chemical interaction. In alchemy, air is associated with spiritual energy, and lead reacts to it by instantly forming a barrier or blocking it. Likewise, one of the distinguishing characteristics of someone with a lead temperament is their lack of interest in spiritual ideas. There is also a general lack of interest in life in general, and leaden people often seem lazy, lethargic, or unresponsive.In the individual, lead absorbs the inner light or insight necessary for personal growth and blocks all outside “radiations,” such as attempts at spiritual instruction by others. Because psychological lead absorbs both the deeper vibrations of intuition and higher spiritual energies and aspirations, the person with a lead temperament is uninspired, unimaginative, and lacks that creative spark so necessary for positive change. Before long the lead person starts to feel trapped in his or her dull environment and seeks out excitement, death-defying feats, lively people, and challenging conversation. Their favorite color is often red, and unconsciously, they are seeking the alchemical element of Fire. Fire is one of the Four Elements that represents activity, energy, creative thinking, and transformation. Fire is the tool alchemists use to begin the transmutation of lead into gold as well as transform leaden consciousness into a golden awareness of higher reality. In the laboratory, the changes in the metal and in the alchemist take place simultaneously. Otherwise, there can be no real transformation. The alchemists transmuted the Lead temperament using the Fire operation of Calcination. Physically, lead and Saturn rule the bones, teeth, spleen, and slow chronic processes such as aging. The therapeutic effects are contracting, coagulating, drying, and mineralizing. Saturn-ruled plants enhance the structures of life. They give a sobriety of disposition, en-abling one to see limitations. These plants give steadiness, solidity of pur-pose, subtlety, diplomacy, patience, and an ability to work on the physical plane better.Saturnic or leaden energies are needed for those who have a hard time finishing pro-jects or for those with plenty of ideas but never realize them. Alchemists seeking to produce physical effects found in saturnine elixirs the essential vibratory rate that enabled materialization. Alchemists seeking to produce physical effects found in saturnine elixirs the essential vibratory rate that enabled materialization. Generally speaking, any other elixir mixed with a Saturn elixir will be earthed, which makes them of great value when working on physical plane phenomenon. Their physical therapeutic properties become refrigerant, anti-pyretic, sedative, styptic, and astringent.For instance, if one mixes a saturnine elixir with a mercurial one, the alchemists believed it would release knowledge contained in secret magical manuscripts or in ancient hermetic traditions, because the Saturn-Mercury vibration contains all hidden knowledge of an esoteric nature within it. Alchemical oils were mixed in the same way. For example, to treat leukemia, alchemists would prescribe an equal mixture of lead oil and gold oil. The alchemists made an Oil of Lead that was good for “growth of bones after breaking, strengthening the skeleton, osteoporosis and atrophy of the bones, stimulation of the spleen, drying tissue, reducing secretions and discharges, stopping bleeding, reducing fever, increasing patience, and stopping visions and an overactive imagination.” They also suggested it for hallucinations due to neurological disorders that have delirious after-effects such as encephalitis and post-traumatic stress syndrome. In the “like cures like” philosophy of homeopathy, lead is used to treat sclerosis, the hardening of bones and arteries, which is the hallmark of old age and signature of lead. The homeopathic name of lead is Plumbum metallicum. Native tin is known as stannum, which is the Latin word for tin and also gives the metal its chemical symbol (Sn). The alchemical symbol is K, which shows the lunar principle of soul above the cross of the elements or emerging from the darkness of matter.

Tin is a shiny, silvery-white metal that is malleable, somewhat ductile and sectile, and seems like a perfected form of lead to the casual observer. In fact, the Romans called tin Plumbum album or “white lead.” Tin resists weathering and does not oxidize, and tin utensils buried underground or lost at sea in sunken ships shone like new when rediscovered after hundreds of years. “Tinkers” were gypsy craftsmen who wandered from neighborhood to neighborhood in Europe repairing tin kettles and utensils or melting them down and recasting them. Native or elemental tin is extremely rare in nature and is found with gold and copper deposits. The metal was considered “semi-noble” in ancient times and was used for jewelry in Babylonia and Egypt. The Romans used it to make mirrors, and it was used as coinage in Europe at one time.

Tin has a highly crystalline structure, and due to the breaking of these crystals, a "cry" is heard when a tin bar is bent. Unlike lead, tin has pleasing acoustic effects and is used in the making of bells. The crystals in common grey tin have a cubic structure, but when heated or frozen it changes into white tin, which has a tetragonal structure. After further heating or freezing, white tin disintegrates into a powdery substance. This powder has the ability to “infect” other tin surfaces it comes in contact with by forming blisters that spread until all the metal “sickens” and disintegrates. This transformation is encouraged by impurities such as zinc and aluminum and can be prevented by adding small amounts of antimony or bismuth to the metal. The sickness of tin was called the “tin plague” and was the scourge of tin roofs during Europe’s frigid winters. The mysterious effect was first was first noticed as “growths” on organ pipes in European cathedrals, where it was thought to be the work of the devil to disfigure god’s work.Tin metal has only a few practical uses and most tin is used in alloys. Bronze is an alloy of 5% tin and 95% copper, and the development of bronze by humans marked a new age of advancement known as the Bronze Age. Most solder is a combination of tin and lead; pewter is also an alloy of tin and lead. Other tin alloys are used to make tin cans and tin roofs, and tin has significant use as a corrosion fighter in the protection of other metals. Tin resists distilled, sea and soft tap water, but is attacked by strong acids, alkalis, and acid salts. When heated in air, tin forms tin oxide, which is used to plate steel and make tin cans. Other uses are in type metal, fusible metal, Babbitt metal, and die casting alloys. Tin chloride is used as a reducing agent and mordant in calico printing. Tin salts sprayed onto glass are used to produce electrically conductive coatings, which are used for panel lighting and for frost-free windshields. Window glass is made by floating molten glass on molten tin to produce a flat surface. A crystalline tin-niobium alloy is superconductive at very low temperatures, and shoebox-sized electromagnets made of the wire produce magnetic fields comparable to conventional electromagnets weighing hundreds of tons.The distribution of tin on earth follows an ecliptic at an angle of 23.5 º to the equator that is an exact track of the orbit of Jupiter slicing through the planet. Even stranger, these jovian forces seem to form tin veins that zigzag through the rocks in a lightening bolt pattern. This is no haphazard effect, but an astonishing confirmation of Jupiter freeing the metals from their Saturnic prison on earth. Goethe was just one great alchemical philosopher who believed this. “A remarkable influence proceeds from the metal tin,” he wrote. “This has a differentiating influence, and opens a door through which a way is provided for different metals to be formed from primeval rocks.”Tin ore minerals include oxide minerals like cassiterite and a few sulfides such as franckerite. By far the most tin comes from cassiterite or tin oxide. Reduction of this ore in burning coal results in tin metal and was probably how tin was made by the ancients. Cassiterite is a black or reddish brown mineral that has ornately faceted specimens with a greasy, high luster. It is generally opaque, but its luster and multiple crystal faces cause a sparkling surface. Cassiterite has been an important ore of tin for thousands of years and is still the greatest source of tin today. Most aggregate specimens of cassiterite show crystal twins, with the typical twin bent at a near-60-degree angle to form a distinctive "Elbow Twin." Other crystalline forms include eight-sided prisms and four-sided pyramids. Cassiterite is sometimes found in nature associated with topaz and fluorite gemstones.Tin has a surprising affinity for silica and shares its crystalline structure. In the jovian ring on our planet where native tin is found, the metal lies in silica veins of quartz and granite. In the body, high concentrations of tin and silica are found in the boundary layer of the skin, and tin reacts with silica acid in many of the “shaping” processes of growth. In the Middle Ages, sick people were served food on a tin plate and drinks in a tin vessel to help them regenerate and recover their strength. Today, we know that tin acts as a bactericide and pesticide.Native tin is known as stannum, which is the Latin word for tin and also gives the metal its chemical symbol (Sn). The alchemical symbol is K, which shows the lunar principle of soul above the cross of the elements or emerging from the darkness of matter.

Tin is a shiny, silvery-white metal that is malleable, somewhat ductile and sectile, and seems like a perfected form of lead to the casual observer. In fact, the Romans called tin Plumbum album or “white lead.” Tin resists weathering and does not oxidize, and tin utensils buried underground or lost at sea in sunken ships shone like new when rediscovered after hundreds of years. “Tinkers” were gypsy craftsmen who wandered from neighborhood to neighborhood in Europe repairing tin kettles and utensils or melting them down and recasting them. Native or elemental tin is extremely rare in nature and is found with gold and copper deposits. The metal was considered “semi-noble” in ancient times and was used for jewelry in Babylonia and Egypt. The Romans used it to make mirrors, and it was used as coinage in Europe at one time.

Tin has a highly crystalline structure, and due to the breaking of these crystals, a "cry" is heard when a tin bar is bent. Unlike lead, tin has pleasing acoustic effects and is used in the making of bells. The crystals in common grey tin have a cubic structure, but when heated or frozen it changes into white tin, which has a tetragonal structure. After further heating or freezing, white tin disintegrates into a powdery substance. This powder has the ability to “infect” other tin surfaces it comes in contact with by forming blisters that spread until all the metal “sickens” and disintegrates. This transformation is encouraged by impurities such as zinc and aluminum and can be prevented by adding small amounts of antimony or bismuth to the metal. The sickness of tin was called the “tin plague” and was the scourge of tin roofs during Europe’s frigid winters. The mysterious effect was first was first noticed as “growths” on organ pipes in European cathedrals, where it was thought to be the work of the devil to disfigure god’s work.Tin metal has only a few practical uses and most tin is used in alloys. Bronze is an alloy of 5% tin and 95% copper, and the development of bronze by humans marked a new age of advancement known as the Bronze Age. Most solder is a combination of tin and lead; pewter is also an alloy of tin and lead. Other tin alloys are used to make tin cans and tin roofs, and tin has significant use as a corrosion fighter in the protection of other metals. Tin resists distilled, sea and soft tap water, but is attacked by strong acids, alkalis, and acid salts. When heated in air, tin forms tin oxide, which is used to plate steel and make tin cans. Other uses are in type metal, fusible metal, Babbitt metal, and die casting alloys. Tin chloride is used as a reducing agent and mordant in calico printing. Tin salts sprayed onto glass are used to produce electrically conductive coatings, which are used for panel lighting and for frost-free windshields. Window glass is made by floating molten glass on molten tin to produce a flat surface. A crystalline tin-niobium alloy is superconductive at very low temperatures, and shoebox-sized electromagnets made of the wire produce magnetic fields comparable to conventional electromagnets weighing hundreds of tons.The distribution of tin on earth follows an ecliptic at an angle of 23.5 º to the equator that is an exact track of the orbit of Jupiter slicing through the planet. Even stranger, these jovian forces seem to form tin veins that zigzag through the rocks in a lightening bolt pattern. This is no haphazard effect, but an astonishing confirmation of Jupiter freeing the metals from their Saturnic prison on earth. Goethe was just one great alchemical philosopher who believed this. “A remarkable influence proceeds from the metal tin,” he wrote. “This has a differentiating influence, and opens a door through which a way is provided for different metals to be formed from primeval rocks.”Tin ore minerals include oxide minerals like cassiterite and a few sulfides such as franckerite. By far the most tin comes from cassiterite or tin oxide. Reduction of this ore in burning coal results in tin metal and was probably how tin was made by the ancients. Cassiterite is a black or reddish brown mineral that has ornately faceted specimens with a greasy, high luster. It is generally opaque, but its luster and multiple crystal faces cause a sparkling surface. Cassiterite has been an important ore of tin for thousands of years and is still the greatest source of tin today. Most aggregate specimens of cassiterite show crystal twins, with the typical twin bent at a near-60-degree angle to form a distinctive "Elbow Twin." Other crystalline forms include eight-sided prisms and four-sided pyramids. Cassiterite is sometimes found in nature associated with topaz and fluorite gemstones.Tin has a surprising affinity for silica and shares its crystalline structure. In the jovian ring on our planet where native tin is found, the metal lies in silica veins of quartz and granite. In the body, high concentrations of tin and silica are found in the boundary layer of the skin, and tin reacts with silica acid in many of the “shaping” processes of growth. In the Middle Ages, sick people were served food on a tin plate and drinks in a tin vessel to help them regenerate and recover their strength. Today, we know that tin acts as a bactericide and pesticide.

Flowers last longer in tin vases, and food has been preserved in the tin cans (actually a thin layer of tin on iron) for over a century. Beer (ruled by the jovial Jupiter) is said to taste best from a tin mug. Jupiter rules growth, the metabolic system, the liver, and the enrichment of the blood from food. Jupiter therapeutic effects are anti-spasmodic and hepatic. Jupiter-ruled plants preserve the body and promote healthy growth and are the natural healing herbs of the planetary system. They af-fect the mind in such a way as to promote an understanding of ritual form from the highest point of view, and religious leaders, doctors, lawyers, etc. will find great benefit from jovian herb remedies. They also attune one to the wealth vibration and open up channels for growth and expansion, materi-ally as well as spiritually.Jupiter controls the circulation of blood in the human body. If mixed with a solar herbal eider, it will give the alchemist access to the highest plane. Jupiter-Mercury combinations produce insight into the philosophical principles of any system and their part in the cosmic scheme and provide an intuitive understanding of the great spiritual masters. This particular herbal mixture also produces a lightheartedness and gaiety, which can be very useful to those with a predisposition to depression or gloominess. The physical properties of such a mixture are anabolic and antispasmodic.The alchemists made an Oil of Tin that was used to treat the liver (jaundice, hepatitis, cirrhosis), certain types of eczema, liquid ovarian cysts, inflammatory effusions, pleurisies, acne, water retention, and certain types of obesity. This oil was said to be excellent for someone "loosing shape." The oil was also used as a sweat inducer, wormer, antispasmodic, cathartic, and laxative.The polar (opposite) metal to tin is mercury, and Oil of Tin was said to be an excellent antidote for mercury poisoning, and likewise mercury was said to balance the bad effects of tin. Tin and mercury oil combined are said to provide deep insight and cure lightheadedness and certain phases of manic-depressive syndrome.The homeopathic form of tin is called Stannum, a remedy which is said to strengthen and regenerate muscle and brain tissue. It is also a remedy for the joints and connective tissue of ligaments and cartilage. Stannum is allegedly beneficial in liver disease and is used for congestion, hardening, encephalitis, and other illnesses where the fluid balance is upset.During the early Spring, preferably sometime in March, go outside and find the red planet Mars in the night sky. Relax and try to focus all your attention on the tiny red sphere. Relax completely with an open and quiet mind. Become empty and let the planet influence you. Do this until you feel a real connection with the distant planet. Continue gazing upon Mars and place a piece of iron in your hand or a small cast iron pot or other object but not something of made of steel or chromed. You should be able to feel a resonance building. It is what alchemists refer to as the “call of iron.” You are experiencing the metal’s true signature or living correspondence with its planetary twin. See how your feelings compare to how the alchemists felt about this powerful metal.When mixed with solar herbs, iron herbs increase energy and activate the energetic potentials of other herbs. Martian elixirs release the action poten-tial of the soul of something. When mixed with other herbs, martian herbs acti-vate the potentialities of the other herbs to a great degree making them more forceful in applica-tion and generally more active. Mars herbs are wonderful tonics when mixed with Sun herbs. The combination gives great physical energy, tones the muscles, and increases sexual potency. They also provoke self-reliance, spontaneity, and indepen-dence of attitude. If the alchemist is involved in magical evocation, a mixture of a mars, moon, and mercurial elixirs will help produce the physical plane vehicle of manifestation.Copper is a reddish-brown metal with a bright metallic luster. It is in the same group in the Periodic Table as gold, and like gold, it is remarkably ductile. It is also very malleable and sectile (it can be pounded into other shapes and cut into slices) and is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. Molten copper is a sea green color, and copper tarnishes with a green color and burns with a blue-green flame with flashes of red, and the alchemists sometimes described Venus, the metal’s archetypal planetary source, as dressed in a blue cloak over a red gown.Pick up a piece of copper and the first thing you notice is its surprising feeling of warmth and moisture. It is that connection to something archetypal and nourishing that makes up the signature of this metal. It is easy to connect with copper, just as its planet (Venus) is easy to see in the sky. It is so brilliant it is often mistaken for a bright star or even a UFO. The best time to see it is in the early evening or morning when it is close to the horizon. In fact, Venus has been called both the “Morning Star” and the “Evening Star” and is associated with magical energies. It is the “first star I see tonight” upon you make you wish that will come true with the sympathetic venusian energies. On some clear night or morning, go outside and find the planet Venus. Relax and try to focus all your attention on the brilliant white sphere. Relax completely with an open and quiet mind. Become empty and let the planet influence you. Do this until you feel a real connection with the distant planet. Continue gazing upon the planet and grab a piece of copper, a fistful of pennies, or even a copper cooking utensil. You should be able to feel a warm resonance building. That deep and soothing vibration is not your imagination. It is what alchemists refer to as the “call of copper.” You are experiencing the metal’s true signature or living correspondence with its planetary twin.The venusian signature gives refinement of senses and the ability to appreciate beauty. Artists, actors, and others in the public eye will find these elixirs a great aid to performing their work. Venus herbs also enhance the taste perceptions, promote affection, give an amiable disposition, and make one more psychically sensitive to astral influences. For those who feel a lack of charm, or some of the softer human qualities, a venusian elixir will stimulate the right vibration in your aura. Venusian elixirs also promote harmony and balance within our being and in our dealings with others. Venusian elixirs are said to give access to that realm of the astral that is intimately connected with the working and forces of the most intimate magic of nature. They are a great aid to alchemists who wish to make herbal alchemy their life work, as they open up the human consciousness to the secrets of the plant kingdom. Naturalists will find these elixirs most illuminating, as they will give conscious con-tact with the various “deities” of long past nature religions.Mercury is truly unique. It is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature and the heaviest natural liquid on the planet. According to alchemical theory, all the metals began in the liquid state on deep in the earth, but only mercury was able to retain it original innocence and life force and resist taking on a final form, and for that reason, the ancients called it Mercurius vivens (the “living mercury”). This silvery liquid metal (also known as “Quicksilver”) was known to ancient Chinese and Hindus before 2000 BC and has been found in sacred tubes in Egyptian tombs dated from 1500 BC. It was first used to form alloys with other metals around 500 BC. The Greeks applied germ-killing ability of mercury in healing ointments (to the benefit of those afflicted with wounds and skin infections), and in the Middle Ages, Paracelsus used it successfully to treat syphilis. However, the ancient Romans applied mercury compounds for long-term use in cosmetics, and many beautiful women eventually died of its cumulative poisonous effects. Today, many popular brands of eye makeup still contain low levels of mercury.In the East, metallic mercury was the main ingredient in most Tantric medicinal preparations. In his travels through India, Marco Polo observed that many people drank a concoction of mercury and sulfur twice monthly from early childhood with no observable ill effects. They believed the drink gave them longevity. Tantric alchemists in India still take metallic mercury in place of food as an elixir of life, although they caution that the body must be perfectly attuned and strengthened to tolerate the intense cosmic infusion of life force. In Indian alchemy, mercury is called rasa, which refers to the subtle essence that is the origin of all forms of matter. The cosmic chaos from which the universe sprang is called the Rasasara or “Sea of Mercury.” The craft of alchemy is referred to as Rasayana or “Knowledge of Mercury.” Go outside on the night of the full moon and gaze up at the silver orb. Relax and try to focus all your attention on the surface of the moon. Relax completely with an open and quiet mind. Become empty and let our closest planetary body influence you. Do this until you feel a real connection. Now, pick up piece of silver jewelry or dinnerware, and hold it in your left hand until it gets warm. You should be able to feel a liquid-like sensation of cool metallic energy. This is what alchemists refer to as the “call of silver.” You are experiencing the metal’s true signature or living correspondence with the moon itself. Try to remember how this feels in your body. Has the taste in your mouth changed? Has your eyesight altered? How does your skin feel.The alchemists prepared an Oil of Silver they used to treat disorders of the brain and cerebellum, reduce stress, balance emotions, improve memory, treat nervous disorders and epilepsy, improve both melancholia and mania. It was also used as a physical purgative and mental purifier. It was said to affect the subconscious mind, see into the past clearly, remove fears and blockages, allow one to unwind, produce “homey” feelings, give a feeling of grace and sensitivity, and enhanced imagination.Using elaborate mixing and heating techniques, Egyptian alchemists tried making gold by changing the proportions of the Four Elements in the base metals or by attempting to speed up natural growth of lesser metals into gold. Around 100 AD, Egyptian alchemist Maria Prophetissa used mercury and sulfur to try to make gold. Around 300 AD, the alchemist Zosimos, whose recipes often came to him in dreams, was working to transmute copper. “The soul of copper,” he wrote must be purified until it receives the sheen of gold and turns into the royal metal of the Sun." A technique known as "diplosis" (“doubling”) of gold became popular. One such recipe called for heating a mixture of two parts gold with one part each of silver and copper. After appropriate alchemical charging that brought the seed of gold alive, twice as much of a gold as originally added was produced. Egyptian alchemists believed that the gold acted as a seed in metals, especially copper and silver. According to their view, the seed of gold grew, eating the copper and silver as food, until the whole mixture was transformed into pure gold.Gold is a stubbornly pure metal when it comes to reacting or even associating with “lesser” elements. That signature explains a lot of the chemical characteristics of gold. Unlike nearly every other metal, there are no plants that contain even trace amounts of metallic gold. There are very few gold ores, because the noblest metal never alloys with the baser metals, but does alloy with the noble metal silver and makes an amalgam with mercury.Gold is extremely ductile, malleable, and sectile, and so soft it can be cut with a knife, which makes gold impractical to use for tools. It is also very heavy. A gold bar is twice as heavy as an equal-sized bar of lead. Furthermore, gold embodies an inner equilibrium of forces that make it pretty much indestructible. Gold never tarnishes like copper or silver or rust like iron and, whether found buried in the ground, at the bottom of the ocean, in an ancient tomb, or in the ring on your finger, it always looks the same. It cannot be damaged by heat and was considered completely inalterable until around 1100 AD, when alchemists concocted a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids known as Agua Regia (“Royal Water”) that could dissolve gold. The immortal metal is endlessly recycled, and all the gold known today is very nearly equal to all the gold that has ever been mined. One ounce of gold can be stretched into a single wire 35 miles long, or it can be beaten to just a few atoms thick. It is the most flexible, enduring, and beautiful of all metals.

Gold shows a distinct affinity for sulfur and forms an ore with a rare element called tellurium. It is one of the few elements gold easily bonds with. In fact, telluride is rarely found without gold. Gold also appears in minerals that are part of a group of tellurium sulfides called the tellurides. However, the amount of gold in these minerals is really miniscule next to the amount of gold found in its native metallic state. Native gold seems to like the company of the purest white quartz and is also found mixed with deposits of pyrite and a few other sulfide minerals. Gold is six times rarer than silver, and it takes about three tons of gold ore to extract an ounce of gold metal.Around the world, nearly every culture associated their supreme god or goddess with gold. For many centuries only the images of gods graced gold coins, until Alexander the Great began the trend of rulers’ images appearing on gold coins around 30 BC. Even the most primitive societies recognize the sacred properties of gold. For example, the Makuna tribes of modern Brazil believe that gold contains “the light of the sun and stars." The chemical symbol for gold (Au) comes from the Latin word aurum meaning "gold.” The alchemical cipher for gold is a rendition of the sun (A), and gold was considered a kind of congealed light. Sol is the King of alchemy, and his royal purple-red color is revealed in gold colloidal solutions, and red is his symbolic color. Sol Philosophorum was the name the alchemists gave to this living spirit of gold, which they saw as the refined essence of heat and fire. Gold was known and considered sacred from earliest times. Gold became popular because it reminded people of the sun with its warm, life-giving properties. Because of its imperishability, the ancient Chinese thought that gold conveyed immortality to its owners. Egyptian inscriptions dating back to 2600 BC describe these same associations with gold. Gold replaced bartering around 3500 BC when the people of Mesopotamia started using it as a kind of money because of it eternal value. By 2800 BC, gold was being fashioned into standardized weights in the form of rings. People started carried black stones called “touchstones” onto which they scraped a piece of gold to leave a streak. Depending on the brightness of the streak, one could estimate how much gold was in the sample. Around 1500 BC, Mesopotamian alchemists discovered a process for purifying gold known as "cuppellation," which involved heating impure gold in a porcelain cup called a “cuppel.” Impurities were absorbed by the porcelain, leaving a button of pure gold behind. Later alchemists used cuppels to test the quality of their transmutations.Using elaborate mixing and heating techniques, Egyptian alchemists tried making gold by changing the proportions of the Four Elements in the base metals or by attempting to speed up natural growth of lesser metals into gold. Around 100 AD, Egyptian alchemist Maria Prophetissa used mercury and sulfur to try to make gold. Around 300 AD, the alchemist Zosimos, whose recipes often came to him in dreams, was working to transmute copper. “The soul of copper,” he wrote must be purified until it receives the sheen of gold and turns into the royal metal of the Sun." A technique known as "diplosis" (“doubling”) of gold became popular. One such recipe called for heating a mixture of two parts gold with one part each of silver and copper. After appropriate alchemical charging that brought the seed of gold alive, twice as much of a gold as originally added was produced. Egyptian alchemists believed that the gold acted as a seed in metals, especially copper and silver. According to their view, the seed of gold grew, eating the copper and silver as food, until the whole mixture was transformed into pure gold.According to the medieval alchemists, Nature sought continually to create the perfection achieved in gold, and they looked at every metal as gold in the making. Alchemists also thought that the objective of every metal was to become gold, and every metal was tested for corrosion and strength and ranked as to how far it was from gold. Many alchemists felt that mercury was the closest metal to gold and that it could be transmuted directly into gold. Their intuition was correct, for mercury can indeed be turned into gold. Gold and mercury are next to each other on the Periodic Table. Mercury is element 80 (has 80 protons) and gold is element 79 (has 79 protons). In the 1960s, physicists were able to knock out a proton in mercury atoms using neutron particle accelerators, and thereby create minute quantities of gold.Gold is at the head of the metals, paired with what in the medieval mind was the strongest planet, the Sun. The alchemists were obsessed with gold’s signature of perfection. Medieval Italian alchemist Bernard Trevisan speculated, "Is not gold merely the Sun’s beams condensed into a solid yellow?" Seventeenth-century alchemist John French asked fervently: “Is there no sperm in gold? Is it not possible to exalt it for multiplication? Is there no universal spirit in the world? Is it not possible to find that collected in One Thing which is dispersed in all things? What is that which makes gold incorruptible? What induced the philosophers to examine gold for the matter of their medicine? Was not all gold once living? Is there none of this living gold, the matter of philosophers, to be had anymore?”Gold is highly valued in the everyday world too. It is used as coinage and is a standard for monetary systems in many countries. It is used to make jewelry and artwork, and also in dentistry, electronics, and plating. Since it is an excellent reflector of infrared energy (such as emerges from the sun), the metal is used to coat space satellites and interstellar probes. Chlorauric acid is used in photography for toning the silver image. It is also used in medicine to treat degenerative diseases such as arthritis and cancer.Chemist Lilly Kolisko performed experiments with gold chloride and showed its chemical behavior coincided with events that altered the strength of the sun, such as the weakening in solar forces during solar eclipses or their increase during the summer solstice. Moreover, she found that both silver and gold salts seemed to be equally influenced by the sun. In the case of silver, it was the forms or patterns that changed, whereas in the gold, it was the colors that changed. Silver shapes moved from jagged spikes to smooth rolling forms but the colors remained hues of grey, while the basic shape of gold patterns remained the same but the colors changed from brilliant yellows through violet to reddish-purple hues. This work presents an amazing confirmation of how the King and Queen, Sol and Luna, work together in creation, with the female principle representing soul and form and the male principle representing spirit and energy. Kolisko’s innovative work with the metals is presented in the Appendix. Her work has been duplicated by dozens of other chemists and has been confirmed many times.The signatures of gold are invoked in rituals, magical spells, and talismans concerning solar deities, the male force, authority, self-confidence, creativity, financial riches, investments, fortune, hope, health, and worldly and magical power. Gold talismans can be very expensive, but you can make one of gold colored cardboard or write the symbols on it with gold paint or plate an object with gold. Gold jewelry is said to improve self-confidence and inner strength. To charge water with the signature of gold, put a gold object in a glass of water and let sit in the sunlight for 6-10 hours.During sunrise or sunset, face the sun and try to feel it archetypal presence. If not too bright, gaze into the rising or setting sun and try to see the metallic solar disk of which the Egyptian alchemists spoke. Relax and try to focus all your attention on the golden sphere. Relax completely with an open and quiet mind. Become empty and let the presence at the center of our solar system influence you. Do this until you feel a real connection with the distant sun. Continue facing the sun as you pick up a piece of gold jewelry or a vial of pure gold flakes (such as sold in some novelty shops) into your right palm. You should be able to feel a electric warmth building. That eerie, warm vibration is not your imagination. It is what alchemists refer to as the “call of gold” – the resonation of the metal with its “planet.” You are experiencing the metal’s true signature or living correspondence, and for gold, this is the most perfect expression of all materials. If you can connect with this archetype, you will realize that it a very personal as well as divine presence. As Above, so Below. This is perfection on all levels of your mind, body, and soul resonating with the perfection inherent in the Whole Universe.For those with weaker wills or loss of contact with the divine presence, gold represents a psychological cure. The solar essences gives great ambition, courage, self-re-liance, dignity, authority, and the ability to manage oneself and others. The creative principle, no matter how small and insignificant it is within us can be enhanced to a great degree by tapping into the solar archetype. Just as the Sun represents the di-vine creative force in our immediate solar system, gold represents the same thing in our inner temperament. For lasting manifestation, the golden temperament needs to be firmly grounded in the world, and the danger at this phase of transformation is that the individual become too focused on the workings Above and forget his or her connection to the real world. Gold and the blazing Sun correspond to personal ambition, courage, and creative energy and vitality, but without a constant effort to remain pure and alive in the real world, the golden temperament can quickly transmute into the leaden qualities of despair, poor self esteem, lack of confidence, and impurity. Most important for the golden temperament, however, is to realize that once having reached this plateau, one has certain personal and karmic obligations. The golden attitude of this temperament is what brings the rewards of health, wealth, and happiness through synchonistic responses from the universe. Go against these archetypal powers at this level of achievement and even the slightest deviation from the golden path of righteousness and personal integrity can have disastrous and immediate consequences. The alchemists transmuted the Gold temperament using the operation of Coagulation.Chrysotherapy is the name given to healing with gold. The mystical metal has been used for both spiritual and medical purposes as far back as ancient Egypt. Over 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians used gold in dentistry and ingested it for mental, bodily, and spiritual purification. The ancients believed that gold in the body worked by stimulating the life force and raising the level of vibration on all levels. In Alexandria, alchemists developed a powerful elixir known as “liquid gold,” which reportedly had the ability to restore youth and perfect health. In ancient Rome, gold salves were used for the treatment of skin ulcers, and today, gold leaf plays an important role in the treatment of chronic skin ulcers. The great alchemist and founder of modern medicine, Paracelsus, developed many highly successful medicines from metallic minerals including gold. In medieval Europe, gold-coated pills and “gold waters” were extremely popular. Alchemists mixed powdered gold into drinks to "comfort sore limbs," and today, it is widely used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. In the 1900s, surgeons implanted a $5.00 gold piece under the skin near an inflamed joint, such as a knee or elbow. In China, peasants still cook their rice with a gold coin in order to help replenish gold in their bodies, and fancy Chinese restaurants put 24-karat gold-leaf in their food preparations.The alchemists believed that gold represented the perfection of matter, and that its presence in the body would enliven, rejuvenate, and cure a multitude of “dis-eases.” Gold is never corrodes or even tarnishes, is completely non-toxic, and exhibits no interactions with other drugs. Gold is the only heavy metal that has a right-hand atomic spin and is therefore easily tolerated by the body.The alchemists believed that gold represented the perfection of matter, and that its presence in the body would enliven, rejuvenate, and cure a multitude of “dis-eases.” Gold is never corrodes or even tarnishes, is completely non-toxic, and exhibits no interactions with other drugs. Gold is the only heavy metal that has a right-hand atomic spin and is therefore easily tolerated by the body.Sun-ruled plants affect the soul in its positive phase of manifestation, which manifests on the personal level as our idea of ourselves as a progressive unified entity. Solar herbs help us realize our evolutionary epoch as an individual among many other individuals, helping to synthesize and synchronize our goals with those of the macrocosm. In this sense they are ego fortifiers, but with a divine purpose.Solar herbs heal inferiority complexes, bolstering people and giving them a sense of purpose beyond the norm. The Sun represents the Christ and Osiris consciousness in man, as well as Hercules in his monumental strength. For those with weaker wills, Sun ruled herbs will provide the springboard for more posi-tive action; they also bestow the quality of generosity to our souls. Solar plants, when alchemically charged, will reveal the divine purpose of our solar system, and will let you be-come aware of the will of God in manifestation. Solar essences give great ambition.

www.azothalchemy.org/metals.htm

Lounge & Service/Staff Car no. 61 70 89-90 001-8.

These coaches were designed to be marshalled between the sleeing cars and the reclining seat cars in a train formation and contained a disabled persons sleeper berth with accomodation for a companion, train managers office, border control staff office, parcels room and a louge with bar for sleeper passengers.

Possibly the largest 'white elephant' to ever grace the UK rail network in recent times. NIGHTSTAR the overnight passenger services arm of Eurostar UK never went into service despite over half of the £139million coaching stock fleet being completed before the project was put on hold in 1997.

The failure of Nightstar was attributed to the rapid rise of the 'bucket price' cheap airlines and a slump in overnight train use within mainland Europe. It was further compounded by the UK rail network being privatised at the same time thus shunting Nightstar into the 'too difficult box'. By the end of 1996 LCR (London & Continental Railway) knew Nightstar was dead in the water with only one route of the original four still considered viable. The autumn of 1996 saw the plug pulled on the final train namely a Waterloo to Frankfurt option with portions for Amsterdam or Dortmund. Before the demise the new services even appeared in the Working Timetable for 1996-7. They were:

1O62 18.39 Plymouth to Paris Nord (with portion ex Swansea).

1I62 19.53 London Waterloo to Frankfurt (Main) Hbf (and portion for Dortmund).

1I68 21.23 London Waterloo to Amsterdam CS.

1I72 22.23 London Waterloo to Amsterdam CS.

1074 20.00 Glasgow Central to Paris Nord (with portion ex Manchester).

The myth Nightstar might still run to save political face was maintained until 2003 when the Rail Regulator finally cancelled the overnight train paths but by then the stock had already been sold to VIA-Rail in Canada at a knock down price. All that was left of the project were the EPS owned class 92's and class 37/6's along with 5 Mk3 generator cars. The 37's ended up sold to DRS in the UK and the class 92's after some initial common user use with EWS went into storage to eventually be sold to Eurotunnel some 10 years later after prolonged storage at Crewe.

Elephant (Loxodonta africana) herd gathered in mourning for one of its own, stillborn during the night. The afterbirth is seen in the lower right. The mother would nudge it with her trunk, then probably in nervousness, rub her trunk on her head and onto her back causing the color of the road where the baby lay to be carried over to her. This was very sad to see. She stayed with the carcass for two, three days before accepting that it was stillborn and slowly moved off. Image taken in Tarangire National Park of Tanzania.

Spanish postcard by Sobe / Soberanas, Barcelona, no. 312.

Ella Raines (1920-1988) was an American film and television actress with green eyes and high cheekbones. She appeared in many A-pictures very quickly. In the early 1950s, she had her own TV series, Janet Dean, Registered Nurse (1954), and also had a short-lived recording career during that period.

Ella Raines was born Ella Wallace Raubes in 1920 near Snoqualmie Falls, Washington. She was the youngest of eight children, and her parents, Ernest N. Raines and Bird Zachary Raines owned a general store in the small town. Raines was interested in acting from a young age and appeared in school plays and local theatre productions. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the University of Washington as a drama student and participated in many plays. In 1942, a few days after her graduation from the University of Washington, Raines married her high school sweetheart, United States Army Air Forces Major Kenneth William Trout. The couple divorced in 1945. Ella was appearing in a play when she was seen by film director Howard Hawks. She achieved stardom almost overnight in Hollywood when she was made the sole contract star of a $1-million new production company director Howard Hawks had formed in 1943 with the actor Charles Boyer, B-H Productions. She made her film debut in Corvette K-225 (Richard Rosson, Howard Hawks, 1943) as the love interest of Randolph Scott. Immediately following her debut, Raines was cast in the all-female war film Cry "Havoc" (Richard Thorpe, 1943) with Margaret Sullavan and Ann Sothern. Raines received critical acclaim for her work in Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak,1944), which is now considered a classic Film Noir. Next, she played in another classic, the Preston Sturges satire Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) with Eddie Bracken. Very quickly, she appeared in more A pictures including the Western Tall in the Saddle (Edwin L. Marin, 1944) opposite John Wayne. Raines was now known for her talent, beauty, and versatility as an actress. She went on to star in two more thrillers with Siodmak, The Suspect (Robert Siodmak, 1944) starring Charles Laughton, and The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (Robert Siodmak, 1945) with George Sanders.

Ella Raines often played strong-willed and intelligent women, and her performances were praised for their depth and complexity. After the war, she starred in a series of interesting Film Noirs, including Time Out of Mind (Robert Siodmak, 1947), The Web (Michael Gordon, 1947), Brute Force (Jules Dassin, 1947) starring Burt Lancaster, and the underrated Impact (Arthur Lubin, 1948) with Brian Donlevy and Charles Coburn. In 1948, Raines married Robin Olds, a famous fighter pilot, who eventually became promoted to United States Air Force Brigadier General. The couple had three children - their son, Robert Ernest Olds, was stillborn in 1958. Raines continued to work in film and television throughout the 1950s, appearing in several popular TV shows, including Climax! and Wagon Train. In 1954 and 1955, Ella Raines starred in the television series Janet Dean, Registered Nurse. None of her later pictures was nearly as successful as her earlier movies and her film career began to decline. She retired in 1956 after filming the British-made thriller The Man in the Road (Lance Comfort, 1956). She focused on her family and philanthropy work. She was actively involved in numerous charitable organisations, including the National Mental Health Association and the March of Dimes. She and her husband separated in 1975 and were divorced in 1976. In the mid-1970s, she returned to her alma mater to teach drama at the University of Washington in Seattle. Ella moved back to Hollywood and lived in Sherman Oaks until her death. She returned once to the screen for a guest role in the crime television series Matt Houston in 1984. Ella Raines passed away in 1988, in Sherman Oaks, California, from throat cancer. She was 67 years old. She was survived by two daughters, Christina Eloise Olds and Susan Olds Scott-Risner, and a granddaughter, Jennifer Newman. Raines left behind a legacy as a talented and versatile actress who made a significant contribution to the film industry during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Sources: Bill Hafker (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Streamlined Hudson built for the stillborn "Chessie" streamliner. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

Dutch postcard by Film Freak Productions, Zoetermeer, no. FA 344, 1992. Photo: Columbia Pictures. Keanu Reeves, Michaela Bercu, Monica Bellucci and Florina Kendrick in Dracula (Francis Coppola, 1992).

Keanu Reeves (1964) is a Canadian actor, producer, director and musician. Though Reeves often faced criticism for his deadpan delivery and perceived limited range as an actor, he nonetheless took on roles in a variety of genres, doing everything from introspective art-house fare to action-packed thrillers. His films include My Own Private Idaho (1991), the European drama Little Buddha (1993), Speed (1994), The Matrix (1999) and John Wick (2014).

Keanu Charles Reeves was born in 1964, in Beirut, Lebanon. His first name means ‘cool breeze over the mountains’ in Hawaiian. His father, Samuel Nowlin Reeves, Jr., was a geologist of Chinese-Hawaiian heritage, and his mother, Patricia Bond (née Taylor), was a British showgirl and later a costume designer for rock stars such as Alice Cooper. Reeves's mother was working in Beirut when she met his father. Upon his parents’ split in 1966, Keanu moved with his mother and younger sister Kim Reeves to Sydney, to New York and then to Toronto. As a child, he lived with various stepfathers, including stage and film director Paul Aaron. Keanu developed an ardor for hockey, though he would eventually turn to acting. At 15, he played Mercutio in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet at the Leah Posluns Theatre. Reeves dropped out of high school when he was 17. His film debut was the Canadian feature One Step Away (Robert Fortier, 1985). After a part in the teen movie Youngblood (Peter Markle, 1986), starring Rob Lowe, he obtained a green card through stepfather Paul Aaron and moved to Los Angeles. After a few minor roles, he gained attention for his performance in the dark drama River's Edge (Tim Hunter, 1986), which depicted how a murder affected a group of adolescents. Reeves landed a supporting role in the Oscar-nominated period drama Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears, 1988), starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich. Reeves joined the casts of Ron Howard's comedy Parenthood (1989), and Lawrence Kasdan's I Love You to Death (1990). Unexpectedly successful was the wacky comedy Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek, 1989) which followed two high school students (Reeves and Alex Winter) and their time-traveling high jinks. The success lead to a TV series and a sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (Pete Hewitt, 1991). From then on, audiences often confused Reeves's real-life persona with that of his doofy on-screen counterpart.

In the following years, Keanu Reeves tried to shake the Ted stigma. He developed an eclectic film roster that included high-budget action films like the surf thriller Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991) for which he won MTV's ‘Most Desirable Male’ award in 1992, but also lower-budget art-house films. My Own Private Idaho (1991), directed by Gus Van Sant and co-starring River Phoenix, chronicled the lives of two young hustlers living on the streets. In Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Reeves embodied the calm resolute lawyer Jonathan Harker who stumbles into the lair of Gary Oldman’s Count Dracula. In Europe, he played prince Siddharta who becomes the Buddha in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Italian-French-British drama Little Buddha (1993). His career reached a new high when he starred opposite Sandra Bullock in the hit action film Speed (Jan de Bont, 1994). It was followed by the romantic drama A Walk in the Clouds (Alfonso Arau, 1995) and the supernatural thriller Devil’s Advocate (Taylor Hackford, 1997), co-starring Al Pacino and Charlize Theron. At the close of the decade, Reeves starred in a Sci-fi film that would become a genre game changer, The Matrix (Andy and Lana Wachowski, 1999). Reeves played the prophetic figure Neo, slated to lead humanity to freedom from an all-consuming simulated world. Known for its innovative fight sequences, avant-garde special effects and gorgeous fashion, The Matrix was an international hit. Two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded (Andy and Lana Wachowski, 1999) and The Matrix Revolutions (Andy and Lana Wachowski, 1999) followed and The Matrix Reloaded was even a bigger financial blockbuster than its predecessor.

Now a major, bonafide box office star, Keanu Reeves continued to work in different genres and both in bid-budget as in small independent films. He played an abusive man in the supernatural thriller The Gift (Sam Raimi, 2000), starring Cate Blanchett, a smitten doctor in the romantic comedy Something’s Gotta Give (Nancy Meyers, 2003) opposite Diane Keaton, and a Brit demon hunter in American-German occult detective action film Constantine (Francis Lawrence, 2005). His appearance in the animated science fiction thriller A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006), based on the novel by Philip K. Dick, received favourable reviews, and The Lake House (Alejandro Agresti, 2006) , his romantic outing with Sandra Bullock, was a success at the box office. Reeves returned to Sci-fi as alien Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still (Scott Derrickson, 2008), the remake of the 1951 classic. Then he played a supporting part in Rebecca Miller's The Private Life of Pippa Lee (2009), which starred Robin Wright and premiered at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival. Reeves co-founded a production company, Company Films. The company helped produce Henry's Crime (Malcolm Venville, 2010), in which Reeves also starred. The actor made his directorial debut with the Chinese-American Martial arts film Man of Tai Chi (2013), partly inspired by the life of Reeves' friend, stuntman Tiger Chen. Martial arts–based themes continued in Reeves's next feature, 47 Ronin (Carl Rinsch, 2013), about a real-life group of masterless samurai in 18th-century Japan who avenged the death of their lord. Variety magazine listed 47 Ronin as one of "Hollywood's biggest box office bombs of 2013". Reeves returned as a retired hitman in the neo-noir action thriller John Wick (Chad Stahelski, David Leitch, 2014). The film opened to positive reviews and performed well at the box office. There were two sequels, John Wick: Chapter Two2 (Chad Stahelski, 2017) with Riccardo Scamarcio, and John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (Chad Stahelski, 2019) with Halle Berry. He could also be seen in the psychological horror film The Neon Demon is (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016), the romantic horror-thriller Bad Batch (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2016) and Bill & Ted Face the Music (Dean Parisot, 2020), in which he reunited with Alex Winter. Reeves’ artistic aspirations are not limited to film. In the early 1990s, he co-founded the grunge band Dogstar, which released two albums. He later played bass for a band called Becky. Reeves is also a longtime motorcycle enthusiast. After asking designer Gard Hollinger to create a custom-built bike for him, the two went into business together with the formation of Arch Motorcycle Company LLC in 2011. Reported to be one of the more generous actors in Hollywood, Reeves helped care for his sister during her lengthy battle with leukemia, and has supported such organizations as Stand Up To Cancer and PETA. In January 2000, Reeves's girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, gave birth eight months into her pregnancy to Ava Archer Syme-Reeves, who was stillborn. The strain put on their relationship by their grief resulted in Reeves and Syme's breakup several weeks later. In 2001, Syme died after a car accident.

Sources: Biography.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

An aerial photo shows a small section of the atoll that has slipped beneath the water line only showing a small pile of rocks at low tide on Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands on Nov. 8, 2015. For decades, the tiny Marshall Islands has been a stalwart American ally. Its location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has made it a key strategic outpost for the U.S. military. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File)

___________

AP NEWS

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — For decades, the tiny Marshall Islands has been a stalwart American ally. Its location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has made it a key strategic outpost for the U.S. military.

But that loyalty is being tested amid a dispute with Washington over the terms of its “Compact of Free Association” agreement, which expires soon. The U.S. is refusing to engage the Marshallese on claims for environmental and health damage caused by dozens of nuclear tests it carried out in the 1940s and ’50s, including a huge thermonuclear blast on Bikini Atoll.

The dispute has some U.S. lawmakers worried that China might be willing to step into the breach, adding to a bruising competition for geopolitical dominance between the two superpowers.

Since World War II, the U.S. has treated the Marshall Islands, along with Micronesia and Palau, much like territories. On the Marshall Islands, the U.S. has developed military, intelligence and aerospace facilities in a region where China is particularly active.

In turn, U.S. money and jobs have benefited the Marshall Islands’ economy. And many Marshallese have taken advantage of their ability to live and work in the U.S., moving in the thousands to Arkansas, Hawaii and Oklahoma.

But this month, 10 Democratic and Republican members of the House of Representatives wrote to President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, about the U.S. compact talks with the Marshalls, Micronesia and Palau.

“It is distressing that these negotiations do not appear to be a priority — there have been no formal meetings since this Administration began — even as our international focus continues shifting to the Indo-Pacific,” they wrote.

The lawmakers said the delays were putting the U.S. in a weaker position, and “China is all too ready to step in and provide the desperately needed infrastructure and climate resiliency investment that is sought by these long-time partners.”

China’s Foreign Ministry said the U.S. should face up to its responsibility to restore the environmental damage it caused with its nuclear tests. It said China was willing to engage with the Marshall Islands and other Pacific island nations on the basis of mutual respect and cooperation under the “One China Principle,” in which Taiwan is viewed as part of China.

“We welcome efforts to boost economic relations and improve the quality of life between the sides,” the ministry said in a statement.

China has steadily poached allies from Taiwan in the Pacific, including Kiribati and the Solomon Islands in 2019. Just this week, angry protesters in the Solomons set fire to buildings and looted stores in unrest that some have linked to the China switch.

James Matayoshi, the mayor of Rongelap Atoll on the Marshall Islands, said he and hundreds of others have remained displaced from their atoll since the nuclear tests and want to see it revitalized. He said officials have been talking with potential investors from Asia, after a previous proposal by a Chinese-Marshallese businessman fell through.

“It would be a business transaction. We don’t advocate for war or any superpower influence,” Matayoshi said. “But we want to be able to live in our backyard, and enjoy life here.”

Like many others on the Marshall Islands, Matayoshi believes a U.S. settlement of $150 million agreed to in the 1980s fell well short of addressing the nuclear legacy. He said his late mother was pregnant at the time of one massive nuclear blast and got exposed to radiation that was the equivalent of 25,000 X-rays before giving birth to a stillborn baby.

But the U.S. position has remained static for more than 20 years, the last time the compact came up for renegotiation. The U.S. maintains that nuclear compensation was dealt with in a “full and final settlement” and cannot be reopened.

Marshallese Senator David Paul — who is on the islands’ negotiating committee and also represents Kwajalein Atoll, which is home to a major U.S. military base — said continuing high cancer rates and the displacement of people remain huge issues.

“Everyone knows the negotiations at that time were not fair or equitable,” Paul said. “When you look at the total cost of property damage and the ongoing health issues to date, it’s a drop in the bucket. It’s an insult.”

Various estimates put the true cost of the damage at about $3 billion, including for repairs to a massive nuclear waste facility known as the Cactus Dome which environmentalists say is leaking toxic waste into the ocean.

A report to Congress last year from the U.S. Department of Energy said the dome contains over 100,000 cubic yards (76,000 cubic meters) of radioactively contaminated soil and debris but the structure wasn’t in any immediate danger of failing. The report concluded that any contaminated groundwater flowing beneath the structure was not measurably impacting the environment.

As it did in earlier compact negotiations, the U.S. has stonewalled discussions on the nuclear legacy, something that American officials acknowledge.

“We know that’s important, but there is a full and final settlement, and both sides agreed to it,” said a senior U.S. official who wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the issue and spoke on condition of anonymity. “So, that issue is just not subject to being reopened. But, we’re still quite willing to work with the (Marshallese) on the broader issues that are important to us and that’s what we hope to do.”

The U.S. State Department said the Indo-Pacific is central to U.S. foreign policy.

“We are prioritizing achieving success in the negotiations related to the Compacts with the Freely Associated States as a regional foreign policy objective,” the department said.

The frustrations of the Marshallese were apparent in a letter sent last month by Foreign Minister Casten Nemra to Rep. Katie Porter, a California Democrat who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee’s oversight and investigations panel.

“The State and Interior Department officials involved have been unwilling to discuss an agenda for the talks and tried to confine the discussion to their own limited proposals,” Nemra wrote. “The nuclear issue clearly was one reason. All issues raised by the Marshall Islands were met with assertions that they did not have authority to discuss the matters without any indication that they would seek it.”

Sen. Paul said the American approach needs to change.

“I believe the U.S. has the legal and moral obligation to make sure they clean up this debris,” Paul said. “We want to make sure we get a better deal this time around. As they say, the third time is a charm.”

Italian postcard by C.C.M., no. 8. Photo: Universal International.

Ella Raines (1920-1988) was an American film and television actress with green eyes and high cheekbones. She appeared in many A-pictures very quickly. In the early 1950s, she had her own TV series, Janet Dean, Registered Nurse (1954), and also had a short-lived recording career during that period.

Ella Raines was born Ella Wallace Raubes in 1920 near Snoqualmie Falls, Washington. She was the youngest of eight children, and her parents, Ernest N. Raines and Bird Zachary Raines owned a general store in the small town. Raines was interested in acting from a young age and appeared in school plays and local theatre productions. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the University of Washington as a drama student and participated in many plays. In 1942, a few days after her graduation from the University of Washington, Raines married her high school sweetheart, United States Army Air Forces Major Kenneth William Trout. The couple divorced in 1945. Ella was appearing in a play when she was seen by film director Howard Hawks. She achieved stardom almost overnight in Hollywood when she was made the sole contract star of a $1-million new production company director Howard Hawks had formed in 1943 with the actor Charles Boyer, B-H Productions. She made her film debut in Corvette K-225 (Richard Rosson, Howard Hawks, 1943) as the love interest of Randolph Scott. Immediately following her debut, Raines was cast in the all-female war film Cry "Havoc" (Richard Thorpe, 1943) with Margaret Sullavan and Ann Sothern. Raines received critical acclaim for her work in Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak,1944), which is now considered a classic Film Noir. Next, she played in another classic, the Preston Sturges satire Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) with Eddie Bracken. Very quickly, she appeared in more A pictures including the Western Tall in the Saddle (Edwin L. Marin, 1944) opposite John Wayne. Raines was now known for her talent, beauty, and versatility as an actress. She went on to star in two more thrillers with Siodmak, The Suspect (Robert Siodmak, 1944) starring Charles Laughton, and The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (Robert Siodmak, 1945) with George Sanders.

Ella Raines often played strong-willed and intelligent women, and her performances were praised for their depth and complexity. After the war, she starred in a series of interesting Film Noirs, including Time Out of Mind (Robert Siodmak, 1947), The Web (Michael Gordon, 1947), Brute Force (Jules Dassin, 1947) starring Burt Lancaster, and the underrated Impact (Arthur Lubin, 1948) with Brian Donlevy and Charles Coburn. In 1948, Raines married Robin Olds, a famous fighter pilot, who eventually became promoted to United States Air Force Brigadier General. The couple had three children - their son, Robert Ernest Olds, was stillborn in 1958. Raines continued to work in film and television throughout the 1950s, appearing in several popular TV shows, including Climax! and Wagon Train. In 1954 and 1955, Ella Raines starred in the television series Janet Dean, Registered Nurse. None of her later pictures was nearly as successful as her earlier movies and her film career began to decline. She retired in 1956 after filming the British-made thriller The Man in the Road (Lance Comfort, 1956). She focused on her family and philanthropy work. She was actively involved in numerous charitable organisations, including the National Mental Health Association and the March of Dimes. She and her husband separated in 1975 and were divorced in 1976. In the mid-1970s, she returned to her alma mater to teach drama at the University of Washington in Seattle. Ella moved back to Hollywood and lived in Sherman Oaks until her death. She returned once to the screen for a guest role in the crime television series Matt Houston in 1984. Ella Raines passed away in 1988, in Sherman Oaks, California, from throat cancer. She was 67 years old. She was survived by two daughters, Christina Eloise Olds and Susan Olds Scott-Risner, and a granddaughter, Jennifer Newman. Raines left behind a legacy as a talented and versatile actress who made a significant contribution to the film industry during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Sources: Bill Hafker (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

The loss of a new baby is a tragedy of such awful magnitude that we do not speak of it. But it's thankfully a rare occurrence these days, right?

Wrong.

17 babies die every day in the UK (10 are stillbirths, 7 are neonatal deaths) totalling almost 6,500 baby deaths a year - the equivalent of 16 jumbo jets crashing every year with no survivors

•This is four times the number of people who die every year of MRSA

•This is double the number of adults who lose their lives on Britain’s roads every year

•Ten times more babies are stillborn than die of cot death every year in the UK.

•The stillbirth rate has remained almost unchanged for the past 10 years. (CEMACH)

•1 in every 200 babies are stillborn in the UK

•1 in every 300 babies born in the UK die in the first four weeks of life

•In half of all stillbirths the cause remains unexplained, although in more than half of these pregnancies the baby is smaller than it should be

•Many of these babies are born perfectly formed, with no clear reason why they died. We need to understand what is causing these deaths and take action to prevent avoidable losses

•The majority of unexplained stillbirths are in pregnancies that were previously considered low risk

Sands is the UK’s Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity, an organisation which offers support to everyone affected by the death of a baby during pregnancy or after birth.

Sands’ core aims are to:

•Support anyone affected by the death of a baby;

•To work in partnership with health professionals to improve the quality of care and services offered to bereaved families; and

•To promote research and changes in practice that could help to reduce the loss of babies' lives

The death of a baby is a devastating experience. The effects of grief can be overwhelming and parents, their families and friends can be left feeling dazed, disorientated, isolated and exhausted.

The death of a baby can happen to any one of us. It has happened to too many.

What brings people together through Sands is the common experience of this painful loss.

June is the national awareness month; with this photograph I hope to do something to raise awareness of the work of this charity. What can you do?

www.uk-sands.org/

(The box in my photo contains momentoes from my first pregnancy, which ended in miscarriage at 16 weeks. I can only imagine the pain of losing a baby at or near term.)

Suiriri, Tropical Kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus)

Like a bird on the wire,

like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

Like a worm on a hook,

like a knight from some old fashioned book

I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

If I, if I have been unkind,

I hope that you can just let it go by.

If I, if I have been untrue

I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, stillborn,

like a beast with his horn

I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

But I swear by this song

and by all that I have done wrong

I will make it all up to thee.

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,

he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."

And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,

she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,

like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

Leonard Cohen

Listen to it

.

Chassis n° 8436

Coachwork by Bertone

- One of 575 Series II Espadas built

- Delivered new via Lamborghini GB

- In Italy since 2006

• Present ownership since circa 2012

- Professionally restored in Italy 2012-2016

- Registered in Italy

Bonhams : The Zoute Sale

Important Collectors' Motor Cars

The Zoute Grand Prix Gallery

Estimated : € 140.000 - 180.000

Sold for € 143.750

Zoute Grand Prix Car Week 2025

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2025

"Carrozzeria Bertone unveiled one of its motor show sensations at the 1967 Geneva event, the Marzal. This dramatic concept car was seen as an approach to a four-seat Lamborghini... and it turned out to be a forerunner of the Espada, a genuine four-seater and a distinctive 1960s supercar." – David Hodges, Lamborghini – The Legend.

Ferruccio Lamborghini's first production car, the Touring-styled 350 GT, had debuted at the 1964 Geneva Motor Show. The work of two of Italy's most illustrious automobile engineers, the 350 GT featured a glorious 3.5-litre, four-cam V12 designed by Giotto Bizzarrini, housed in a chassis penned by Gianpaolo Dallara. The 350 GT's four camshafts and all-independent suspension meant that it upstaged the best that Ferrari offered at the time; but to compete with his Maranello rival's larger models Lamborghini needed a nominal four-seater, and the 4.0-litre 400 GT 2+2 duly appeared in 1966. Despite its novice status as an automobile manufacturer, Lamborghini had quickly dispelled any lingering doubts about its ability to compete with the world's best Gran Turismos.

Named after a matador's sword and unveiled at the 1968 Geneva Motor Show, the Espada was styled by Bertone's Marcello Gandini - creator of the incomparable Miura - along lines similar to those of the stillborn, rear-engined, six-cylinder Marzal but carried its 4.0-litre, four-cam V12 up front. The latter - first seen in the 400 GT and used also by the contemporary Islero - produced 325bhp, an output sufficient to propel the distinctive coupé to 150mph. Islero running gear was employed but wedded to a platform-type, semi-monocoque chassis rather than the former's tubular frame.

Introduced in January 1970, the Series II cars came with an extra 25bhp, 155mph (249km/h) top speed, an improved dashboard layout, and the option of power assisted steering. The dashboard was revised yet again in late 1972 for the Series III, which also incorporated power steering as standard, up-rated brakes, minor suspension improvements, and a restyled front grille. Espada production ceased in 1978 after 1,217 of these imposing cars had been built, of which 575 were Series II examples. Even today there are few cars that can match the on-road presence of the Espada.

According to data supplied by the International Lamborghini Registry, this stunning Espada was originally finished in Verde Pallido with a Verde Scuro leather interior and delivered to its first owner via Lamborghini GB on 10th August 1971. The body number was (and is) 'X750X0529X'.

Little is known about the car's subsequent history before it was purchased by our vendor circa 2012. The car had been in Italy since 2006. Upon his purchase, the vendor embarked on a thorough restoration, entrusting the body to a specialist in Northern Italy. A handwritten receipt lists the work done, which included stripping the body back to bare metal; replacing corroded body panels where necessary; replacing suspension and brake parts; overhauling the engine, including the carburettors; and fitting a new clutch. The car was then repainted and the interior expertly reupholstered with new leather. The work was undertaken between circa 2012 and 2014, and the Espada was then awarded the ASI Certificato d'Identita with Grade Tipo A, Gruppo 3: the correct classification for a car restored to original condition without any major deviations from correct factory specification. In addition to the aforementioned receipt and ASI certificate, the car also comes with Italian registration documents. Having seen regular but sparing use since restoration, this stunning Lamborghini Espada presents beautifully and is worthy of the closest inspection.

San'en-zan Zōjō-ji (三縁山増上寺) is a Jōdo-shū Buddhist temple in Tokyo, Japan. It is the main temple of the Jōdo-shū ("Pure Land") Chinzei sect of Buddhism in the Kantō region,.

Zōjō-ji is notable for its relationship with the Tokugawa clan, the rulers of Japan during the Edo period, with six of the Tokugawa shōguns being buried in the Taitoku-in Mausoleum in the temple grounds. Also, the temple's Sangadetsumon (main gate) is the oldest wooden building in Tokyo, dating from 1622. The original buildings, temples, mausoleums and the cathedral were destroyed by fire, natural disasters or air raids during World War II.

It is located in the Shiba neighborhood of Minato. The Shiba Park is built around the temple, with the Tokyo Tower standing beside it. In 2015 a Treasure Gallery was opened on the underground level of the Daiden (great hall), and it currently houses paintings of Kanō Kazunobu and a model of the Taitoku-in Mausoleum.

Sentai Kosodate Jizō (Unborn Children Garden)

In one particular garden at the cemetery, rows of stone statues of children represent unborn children, including miscarried, aborted, and stillborn children. Parents can choose a statue in the garden and decorate it with small clothing and toys. Usually the statues are accompanied by a small gift for Jizō, the guardian of unborn children, to ensure that they are brought to the afterlife. Occasionally stones are piled by the statue; this is meant to ease the journey to the afterlife.

There is no admission fee for visitors to enter the temple complex. For the Treasure Gallery museum the access fee is (as of 2017, 700 yen).

The entrance is at a 10-minute walk from Hamamatsucho Station on the JR Yamanote and Keihin-Tōhoku Lines, a 6-minute walk from Daimon Station on the Toei Asakusa and Toei Oedo Lines, a 3-minute walk from Onarimon and Shibakoen Stations on the Toei Mita Line, and about 500 meters from the Shibakoen exit of the Shuto Expressway.

While not immediately obvious, the temple grounds are somewhat wheelchair accessible if entering from the side street instead of the main gate.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C5%8Dj%C5%8D-ji

San'en-zan Zōjō-ji (三 縁 山 増 上 寺) es un templo budista Jōdo-shū en Tokio, Japón. Es el templo principal de la secta del budismo Jōdo-shū ("Tierra pura") Chinzei en la región de Kantō,

Zōjō-ji es notable por su relación con el clan Tokugawa, los gobernantes de Japón durante el período Edo, con seis de los shōguns Tokugawa enterrados en el Mausoleo Taitoku-in en los terrenos del templo. Además, el Sangadetsumon (puerta principal) del templo es el edificio de madera más antiguo de Tokio, que data de 1622. Los edificios originales, templos, mausoleos y la catedral fueron destruidos por incendios, desastres naturales o ataques aéreos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Está ubicado en el barrio Shiba de Minato. El Parque Shiba está construido alrededor del templo, con la Torre de Tokio al lado. En 2015 se abrió una Galería del Tesoro en el nivel subterráneo del Daiden (gran salón), y actualmente alberga pinturas de Kanō Kazunobu y un modelo del Mausoleo Taitoku-in.

Sentai Kosodate Jizō (Jardín de niños por nacer)

En un jardín en particular en el cementerio, filas de estatuas de piedra de niños representan a los niños por nacer, incluidos los niños abortados, abortados y nacidos muertos. Los padres pueden elegir una estatua en el jardín y decorarla con ropa y juguetes pequeños. Por lo general, las estatuas van acompañadas de un pequeño obsequio para Jizō, el guardián de los niños por nacer, para asegurarse de que sean llevados al más allá. Ocasionalmente, la estatua amontona piedras; esto está destinado a facilitar el viaje a la otra vida.

No hay tarifa de admisión para que los visitantes ingresen al complejo del templo. Para el museo Treasure Gallery, la tarifa de acceso es (a partir de 2017, 700 yenes).

La entrada se encuentra a 10 minutos a pie de la estación Hamamatsucho de las líneas JR Yamanote y Keihin-Tōhoku, a 6 minutos a pie de la estación Daimon de las líneas Toei Asakusa y Toei Oedo, a 3 minutos a pie de las estaciones Onarimon y Shibakoen en la línea Toei Mita, ya unos 500 metros de la salida Shibakoen de la autopista Shuto.

Si bien no es obvio de inmediato, los terrenos del templo son accesibles para sillas de ruedas si se ingresa desde la calle lateral en lugar de la puerta principal.

The horrific folklore about hell (Sai no Kawara legend, 14th-15th century), filled Japanese parents with a great need to do something to alleviate their dead child’s suffering and improve its chance of redemption. Thus the great cult of Jizō Bosatsu in Japan. Parents cloth Jizō statues in hopes that Jizō will dress and protect their dead child, as it awaits judgement in the underworld. Often, parents pile small pebbles around the Jizō statue, to help the soul of their dead child in performing his/her penance and climb out of limbo into Buddha’s paradise.

But the statues today are not merely the manifestation of parental grief for prematurely deceased children and miscarried or stillborn infants. Reasons to perform the Mizuko kuyō, the fetus memorial service, include guilt for an abortion, or even fear of retribution from a vengeful spirit (the malefic Mizuko (literally ‘water child’).

The paddies near Hanalei, Kaua'i, produce most of the taro used for poi in Hawai'i. These fields are also part of the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge and home to such endangered species as the āeʻo (Hawaiian stilt, Himantopus mexicanus knudseni), ʻalae kea (Hawaiian coot, Fulica alai), ʻalae ʻula (Hawaiian moorhean, Gallinula chloropus sandvicensis), koloa maoli (Hawaiian duck, Anas wyvilliana), and nēnē (Hawaiian goose, Branta sandvicensis).

Although most commonly known (even in Hawai'i) as "taro," the Hawaiian spelling is "kalo." Brought by the original settlers from Polynesia over a thousand years ago, taro is considered not just a plant, but an ancestor. It was considered an elder sibling to the Hawaiian race. In the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian creation story, taro originated as the stillborn first child of Wakea, the sky father, and his daughter Ho`ohokukalani (daughter to Papa, the earth mother). This child was buried near the house and grew into a taro plant they named Haloanaka, or long stalk trembling. The second son born to Wakea and Ho`ohokukalani took human form and was named Haloa after his elder brother. From this Haloa the human race descended.

Zoute Sale - Bonhams

Estimated : € 180.000 - 200.000

Sold for € 178.250

Zoute Grand Prix 2022

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2022

"Carrozzeria Bertone unveiled one of its motor show sensations at the 1967 Geneva event, the Marzal. This dramatic concept car was seen as an approach to a four-seat Lamborghini... and it turned out to be a forerunner of the Espada, a genuine four-seater and a distinctive 1960s supercar." – David Hodges, 'Lamborghini – The Legend'.

Ferruccio Lamborghini's first production car, the Touring-styled 350 GT, had debuted at the 1964 Geneva Motor Show. The work of two of Italy's most illustrious automobile engineers, the 350 GT featured a glorious 3.5-litre, four-cam V12 designed by Giotto Bizzarrini, housed in a chassis penned by Gianpaolo Dallara. The 350 GT's four camshafts and all-independent suspension meant that it upstaged the best that Ferrari offered at the time; but to compete with his Maranello rival's larger models Lamborghini needed a nominal four-seater, and the 4.0-litre 400 GT 2+2 duly appeared in 1966. Despite its novice status as an automobile manufacturer, Lamborghini had quickly dispelled any lingering doubts about its ability to compete with the world's best Gran Turismos.

Named after a matador's sword and unveiled at the 1968 Geneva Motor Show, the Espada was styled by Bertone's Marcello Gandini - creator of the incomparable Miura - along lines similar to those of the stillborn, rear-engined, six-cylinder Marzal but carried its 4.0-litre, four-cam V12 up front. The latter - first seen in the 400 GT and used also by the contemporary Islero - produced 325bhp, an output sufficient to propel the distinctive coupé to 150mph. Islero running gear was employed but wedded to a platform-type, semi-monocoque chassis rather than the former's tubular frame.

Introduced in January 1970, the Series II cars came with an extra 25bhp, 155mph (249km/h) top speed, an improved dashboard layout, and the option of power assisted steering. The dashboard was revised yet again in late 1972 for the Series III, which also incorporated power steering as standard, up-rated brakes, minor suspension improvements, and a restyled front grille. Espada production ceased in 1978 after 1,217 of these imposing cars had been built, of which 575 were Series II examples. Even today there are few cars that can match the on-road presence of the Espada.

Beautifully finished in light green metallic with dark brown leather interior, this Series II Espada was delivered new to Switzerland to a well-known (and still existing) textile manufacturer in the Appenzell area. In 1978 the Lamborghini was imported into France but remained in the same company's ownership until 1988, when it was sold to its first private owner in Buxy, Burgundy. A subsequent owner from Nantes kept the Espada from circa 2008 to late 2013 when it was purchased by the current vendor for his exclusive private collection in Germany via the well-respected Hamburg-based dealer, Eberhard Thiesen.

In total more than €77,000 has been spent on this Espada since 2011 and we recommend close inspection of the history file. A brief summary of the works carried out and documented by invoices (some with pictures) is as follows:

• Invoices (some of them for parts directly supplied by Lamborghini) in its early life

• Some correspondence from the factory in 1988 suggesting that the car might have gone back to the factory for a service

• Invoice from 2011 from a French carrosserie relating to the restoration of the car including a repaint of the inside and outside and engine compartment for a total of almost €22,000; restoration of the original leather interior with the WaterfloW system for circa €4,400 (also in 2011)

• While in the custody of the current owner: new tyres and sundry maintenance in October 2021 for circa €3,600; comprehensive carburettor and timing service in 2019 for more than €5,000

• In 2018 new air conditioning compressor, etc for €1,500; comprehensive mechanical service and repair for more than €32,000 in 2018 by well-respected Swiss specialists Graber Sportgarage in Toffen, Switzerland

• In 2016 new correct ANSA exhaust, etc for €5,700

• In 2014 further invoices for €3,100 and circa € 6,400 (including the installation of power-assisted steering)

The car is offered with German registration documents, copies of the aforementioned invoices and an owner's manual. With a comprehensive history file dating from its first years to the present day, and benefiting from a no-expense-spared approach with regard to its upkeep by the current and previous custodians, this Espada should not be compared to lesser examples and is worthy of the closest inspection.

Sweet Mama cat (aka Maizy) has found her new forever home with Frank. My boyfriend decided he simply could not part with her. After the kittens found homes, she continued to live on his porch and tried daily to get inside. He aleady has two rescues, but his heart couldn't turn Maizy away. We didn't know until she was amost due, that she was pregnant again.. The kittens were only 6 weeks old and she was still nursing. She wasn't getting enough nutrients, sadly, and the two new kittens were stillborn. She has had all her shots and is very healthy. (they figure she's about a year old). She was spayed last week, and is now resting in Frank's bedoom. Tomorrow, she will meet Molly and her brother Peach, Prayers that all goes well. She deserves a home. She is one of the sweetest cats I have ever met.

In one particular garden at the cemetery, rows of stone statues of children represent unborn children, including miscarried, aborted, and stillborn children. Parents can choose a statue in the garden and decorate it with small clothing and toys. Usually the statues are accompanied by a small gift for Jizō, the guardian of unborn children, to ensure that they are brought to the afterlife. Occasionally stones are piled by the statue; this is meant to ease the journey to the afterlife.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C5%8Dj%C5%8D-ji

En un jardín en particular en el cementerio, filas de estatuas de piedra de niños representan a los niños por nacer, incluidos los niños abortados, abortados y nacidos muertos. Los padres pueden elegir una estatua en el jardín y decorarla con ropa y juguetes pequeños. Por lo general, las estatuas van acompañadas de un pequeño obsequio para Jizō, el guardián de los niños por nacer, para asegurarse de que sean llevados al más allá. Ocasionalmente, la estatua amontona piedras; esto está destinado a facilitar el viaje a la otra vida.

Mizuko kuyo (水子供養 Mizuko kuyō, "servicio memorial para un feto abortado") es una ceremonia japonesa para las mujeres que han sufrido un aborto espontáneo, aborto inducido o mortinato. Esta práctica es más evidente desde la creación de santuarios en la década de 1970 para tal ritual, con el fin de la tranquilidad de la gestante, descanso del alma del feto y evitar la venganza del espíritu del bebé. Originalmente el mizuko kuyo fue usado para ofrendar a Jizo (Ksitigarbha), un Bodhisattva supuesto protector de los niños. Durante el Período Edo, cuando una embarazada era empujada a cometer aborto o infanticidio por su pobreza, la práctica era adaptada para satisfacer la situación. Hoy día, la práctica del mizuko kuyo continúa en Japón, aunque no es claro su autenticidad histórica en las prácticas del budismo en Japón. La ceremonia varía entre templos, escuelas e individuos. Es común que en los templos budistas se ofrezcan estatuillas de Jizo vestidas a lo largo de los pasillos para este propósito. Algunos de estos servicios han sido criticados por aprovecharse y abusar de las creencias que los japoneses tienen acerca de la posible venganza de los espíritus de los bebés abortados.

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizuko_kuy%C5%8D

www.kirainet.com/jizo/

Mizuko kuyō (水子供養) meaning "water child memorial service", is a Japanese ceremony for those who have had a miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. This practice has become particularly visible since the 1970s with the creation of shrines devoted solely to this ritual. Reasons for the performance of these rites can include parental grief, desire to comfort the soul of the fetus, guilt for an abortion, or even fear of retribution from a vengeful ghost.

Mizuko (水子), literally "water child", is a Japanese term for an aborted, stillborn or miscarried baby, and archaically for a dead baby or infant. Kuyō (供養) refers to a memorial service. Previously read suiji, the Sino-Japanese on'yomi reading of the same characters, the term was originally a kaimyō or dharma name given after death.The mizuko kuyō, typically performed by Buddhist priests, was used to make offerings to Jizō, a bodhisattva who is believed to protect children. In the Edo period, when famine sometimes led the poverty-stricken to infanticide and abortion, the practice was adapted to cover these situations as well.

Today, the practice of mizuko kuyō continues in Japan, although it is unclear whether it is a historically authentic Buddhist practice. Specific elements of the ceremony vary from temple to temple, school to school, and individual to individual. It is common for temples to offer Jizō statues for a fee, which are then dressed in red bibs and caps, and displayed in the temple yard. Though the practice has been performed since the 1970s, there are still doubts surrounding the ritual. Some view the memorial service as the temples' way of benefiting from the misfortune of women who have miscarried or had to abort a pregnancy. American religious scholars have criticized the temples for allegedly abusing the Japanese belief that the spirits of the dead retaliate for their mistreatment, but other scholars believe the temples are only answering the needs of the people.

The ceremony is attended by both parents or by one, not necessarily the mother. The service can vary from a single event to one that repeats monthly or annually. Though the service varies, common aspects resemble the ceremony for the recent dead, the senzo kuyō (先祖供養). The priest faces the altar and evokes the names of various Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Mantras, often the Heart Sutra and the 25th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, known as the "Avalokiteśvara Sutra", are performed, as are calls of praise to Jizō. Gifts are offered to the Buddha on behalf of the mourned, typically food, drink, incense or flowers. A kaimyō is given to the deceased, and a statue of Jizō is often placed on temple grounds upon completion of the ceremony.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizuko_kuy%C5%8D

Los seis Jizō es una antigua leyenda japonesa perteneciente al budismo, cuyo protagonista es el bodhisattva Jizō (地蔵) o Ksitigarbha (地蔵菩薩), tal como se le conoce en Japón. Jizō es el encargado de proteger las almas de los bebés que no han nacido y de los niños que han muerto siendo muy pequeños, a los que se les llama mizuko (水子) o niños del agua. Jizō es el protector de las mujeres embarazadas y de los niños, así como también de los bomberos y viajeros.

De acuerdo con la leyenda, una pareja de ancianos vivía en un hogar humilde y pasaban por muchas necesidades. Se ganaban la vida vendiendo sombreros de paja que fabricaban con sus propias manos. Sin embargo, eran tan pobres que al llegar el día de Fin de Año no tenían dinero para comprar algo especial para cenar y celebrar dicha fecha. El anciano entonces le prometió a su esposa que iría al pueblo, vendería los sombreros y le compraría algo para cenar. El anciano había llevado consigo cinco sombreros de paja, pero al no conseguir venderlos se propuso a regresar a su hogar. Una gran nevada le sorprendió durante el camino de vuelta y divisó a lo lejos seis estatuas de Jizō, de las cuales sintió pena al estar cubiertas de nieve. El anciano quitó la nieve de las estatuas y les ofreció los sombreros que venía cargando con él. A ver que faltaba un sombrero para una de las estatuas, el anciano se quitó su propio sombrero y se lo colocó al sexto Jizō. Más tarde esa noche, la pareja oyó ruidos fuera de su casa y al salir se encontraron con arroz, mochi, pescado y monedas de oro en su puerta. Posteriormente vieron a las estatuas de Jizō con los sombreros en sus cabezas, quienes agradecieron a la pareja por su bondad.

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_seis_Jiz%C5%8D

Kasa Jizō (笠地蔵) is a Japanese folk tale about an old couple whose generosity is rewarded by the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha, whose name is Jizō in Japanese. The story is commonly handed down by parents to their children in order to instill moral values, as it is grounded in Buddhist thought. An alternative title, Kasako Jizō can be found in Iwate and Fukushima Prefectures. Its origins belong in the Tōhoku and Niigata regions, with the oldest dispensations coming from Hokuriku, as well as areas of Western Japan such as Hiroshima and Kumamoto Prefectures. Its precise origin, however, remains unknown.

One day in the snowy country there lived an incredibly impoverished elderly couple. On New Year's Day, the couple realized that they were unable to afford mochi (a staple form of rice eaten during the New Year). The old man decided to go into town to sell his home-made kasa, but his endeavors proved unsuccessful. Due to the horrible weather conditions, the old man gave up the task and made his trek back home. In the blizzard, the old man came across a line of Jizō statues, to whom he decided to give his kasa as an offering, as well to keep their heads clear of snow. However, he only had enough kasa on hand to give to all but one statue. He gave the remaining statue his tenugui and went on his way. Upon returning home, he relayed the scenario to his wife, who praised him for his virtuous deed, without criticizing his inability to purchase any New Year mochi. That evening, while the couple was asleep, there came a heavy thumping sound from outside the house. They opened the door to find a great pile of treasures, consisting of such goods as rice, vegetables, gold coins, and mochi. The old couple watched on as the Jizō statues marched off into the snowy distance. Having repaid the old man for his selflessness, the couple was able to celebrate the New Year.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasa_Jiz%C5%8D

Time for an architectural shot again...

The old mausoleum in the Park Rosenhöhe was built between 1826 and 1831 and is the final resting place for (amongst others) Grand Duke Ludwig I (1753 - 1830), Grand Duchess Luise (1757 - 1830), Grand Duke Ludwig II (1777 - 1848), Grand Duchess Wilhelmine (1788 - 1836), Prince Emil of Hesse (1790 - 1856), Grand Duke Ludwig III (1806 - 1877), Princess Elisabeth of Hesse (1821 - 1826), Princess Elisabeth of Hesse (1815 - 1885), Prince Heinrich of Hesse (1830 - 1900), Prince Wilhelm of Hesse (1845 - 1900) and various stillborn babies.

The weather and lighting were perfect today to get this shot through the fence (this mausoleum is sadly not open to the public).

Please view in full size for the best regal/mortal effect.