TRANSMUTATION photos on Flickr

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Alchemy: A medieval chemical philosophy having as its asserted aims the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discovery of the panacea, and the preparation of the elixir of longevity.

An art of ancient origins, can be interpreted as an inquiry into man's relationship with the cosmos and the will of the Creator, manifested as either a devotional philosophy transforming sinful man into perfect being, or attempted transmutation of base metals into gold or silver. The catalyst required was the elixir of life, tincture, or philosophers' stone (Elixir of Life), the search for which long obsessed men of all ranks.

Alchemy posits an original unitary energy which separated in space-time into distinct physical elements, "falling apart" and differentiating in the four directions. Perceived as transmutable through shared qualities or correspondences, these elements could one day be reunited in a reconstituted wholeness.

What to see the transformation in real, forget turning the pages of ancient books, take a tour to Hunza and you will see how Quintessence is powering the process of Alchemy.

Monoatomic? Maybe. A superconductor? We hope to know soon. Is it real? Absolutely!

Taken: Gojal Area, Upper Hunza Valley, Northern Areas of Pakistan.

肅靜 @ 盂蘭節 | Silence @ Hungry Ghosts Festival by Cheryl Chan

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The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).

In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.

Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.

On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.

Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors

=====

More images of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:

Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival

More Chinese Temples images here:

Caves & Temples " Festival

=====

Photo shot with Nikon D600 + AF-S NIikkor 50mm f/1.8G

Processed with Photoshop CS5

=====

I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

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---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----

---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----

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click here - clicca qui

the slideshow

Qi Bo's photos on Fluidr

Qi Bo's photos on Flickriver

Qi Bo's photos on FlickeFlu

Qi Bo's photos on PICSSR

Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.

In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.

The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.

Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.

It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.

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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.

Muamba Grove / 1, 3 & 4 by Images George Rex

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'Muamba Grove 1, 3 & 4', 2019, by Vanessa da Silva (b.1976 São Paulo, Brazil). Steel and fibreglass "unrooted bodies". At the 2021 Frieze Sculpture exhibition in Regent's Park. London Borough of Camden.

(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

No_338 by David Hanes

8

Holographic Transmutation by Karthikeyan KC

1

Shot this to use in my article about holograms here - geekswipe.net/science/physics/how-holograms-work/.

一年一度盂蘭節 | The Annual Hungry Ghosts Festival by Cheryl Chan

6 1

Seen here is the big signage by the entrance, made out of paper with bamboo frames, this is one of the most traditional signage which is called the" 花牌 " or "Flower Board", often used during celebrations or praying ceremonies.

It's the Luner 7th month, which means it's the scariest month in the whole year according to Chinese believes.

As a child I was always warned to be extra cautious: avoid going out at night, never answer when I heard anyone call my name from behind, don't whistle and no mention the word "ghosts" are among the rules during the Ghost Month.

This year I decide to pay a visit to one of the remaining Ghost Month ( which is called "Yu Lan Festival" in the formal term ) to document some of its believes.

So here's the beginning of my first documentation of the Hungry Ghost Festival.

=====

The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).

In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.

Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.

On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.

Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors

=====

More images of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:

Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival

More Chinese Temples images here:

Caves & Temples " Festival

=====

transMUTATION by derek raugh

10 3

Transmutation #Oo #seamless #surrealism #instaart #instaartsy #instaartwork #instaartist #instaartpop #instaartoftheday #instaarte #instaarts #art #artwork #newartwork #myart #artnews #artinfo #illustration #artoninstagram #artists_community #artistso by Seamless.oO

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Transmutation de base. Elsinor. Click Festival. Denmark 2016 by °°°paula°°°

MageDuel by Lucia Cyr

8 2

-Two of the three looked amongst one another with barely concealed uncertainty. Attack the headmistress? /This/ was their graduation test? The third moved defiantly past her peers with arcane light already glowing in her silver iris'. Throwing up her arms, a scintillating arc of sharp electricity practically exploded from her palms as she curled her fingers into veritable claws to focus the ragged power into a more direct line of assault.

The headmistress raised a hand, the brunt of the student's raw spell being drawn into the ripping, azure shield forming around her body.

"Fool!" Barked out her sister in training, a gout of flame howling out of the crooked staff gripped tight in her hand. "Have you already forgotten your transmutation basics? Electricity is easily alte- "

Lifting off the ground beside her, silent as the wraith depicted on his craven mask- the third student hissed out in his hollow voice as he lunged forward. "Jussssstt fiiiight."

The headmistress smiled at his choice of aerial transportation. The electrified student in front of her screamed as her spell backfired into her. She had failed to notice the rising water around her feet. That one was full of potential, but still lacked focus.

Swiftly recovering, all three lunged forward again to renew their assault.-

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

Finally finished this set. Will have them on the shelves sometime soon. Had a blast working on this promo piece. Learned a few new tricks.

GIRABRA (7) by ERIC VIGIER

7

THE INTERSTELLAR PASSAGE

You're probably wondering how he can go back and forth between these two worlds as well?

Good question.

If I had to compare to simplify the thing: it's a bit similar to the Stargate, a kind of cosmic airlock between two worlds, invisible, imperceptible.

I do not really realize when it happens.

Sometimes an animal follows me without I realize it.

And when this happens, it happens then one of the most amazing things that we are the possibility of seeing in its life: the Zorgonaut transmutation, or how a Zorg animal arriving on your planet is undergoing mutagenic combination in another animal, its DNA is combined by the interstellar passage in else that would be your equivalent of an imaginary animal. For Zorgonauts there's no doubt that these are the animals that have combined Zorg via the passage. Today your lack of imagination makes you believe that mermaids, griffins dragons centaurs minotaurs etc ... are merely fabrications, and you bring to believe in evolution according to Darwin.

So my last visit and my last return through the "door", a Cobrafe followed me and the passage was born a GIRABRA

LE PASSAGE INTERSIDERAL

Vous vous demandez certainement comment peut il aller et venir entre ces 2 mondes ainsi ?

Bonne question.

Si je devais comparer pour vous simplifier la chose : c’est un peu comparable à la porte des étoiles, une sorte de sas cosmique entre les 2 univers, invisible, imperceptible.

Je ne me rends vraiment pas compte quand cela se produit.

Quelques fois un animal me suit sans que je ne m’en rende compte.

Et quand cela se produit il se passe alors une des choses les plus incroyables que l’on est la possibilité de voir dans sa vie : la transmutation Zorgonautienne, ou comment un animal de Zorg en arrivant sur votre planète se voit subir une combinaison mutagène en un autre animal, son ADN se combine de par le passage intersidéral en autre chose qui serait pour vous l’équivalent d’un animal imaginaire. Pour les Zorgonautes cela ne fait aucun doute que ce sont des animaux de Zorg qui se sont combinés en empruntant le passage . Aujourd hui votre manque d’imagination vous fait croire que les sirènes, les dragons les griffons les centaures les minotaures etc… ne sont qu’ affabulations , et vous a amenez à croire en l’ évolution selon Darwin.

Ainsi ma dernière visite et mon dernier retour par « la porte », un Cobrafe m’a suivi et le passage a vu naître un GIRABRA

This image is taken from United States Naval Medical Bulletin Vol. 8, Nos. 1-4, 1914 by Medical Heritage Library, Inc.

3

Go to the Book with image in the Internet Archive

Title: United States Naval Medical Bulletin Vol. 8, Nos. 1-4, 1914

Creator: U.S. Navy. Bureau of Medicine and Surgery

Publisher:

Sponsor:

Contributor:

Date: 1914

Language: eng

Table of Contents

Number 1

Preface v

Special articles:

The application of psychiatry to certain military problems, by W. A.

White, M. D 1

Schistosomiasis on the Yangtze River, with report of cases, by R. H.

Laning, assistant surgeon, United States Navy 16

A brief discussion of matters pertaining to health and sanitation,

observed on the summer practice cruise of 1913 for midshipmen of the third

class, by J. L. Neilson, surgeon, United States Navy 36

Technique of neosalvarsan administration, and a brief outline of the

treatment for syphilis used at the United States Naval Hospital, Norfolk, Va., by

W. Chambers, passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 45

Some notes on the disposal of wastes, by A. Farenholt, surgeon, United States

Navy 47

The medical department on expeditionary duty, by R. E. Hoyt, surgeon, United

States Navy 51

A new brigade medical outfit, by T. W. Richards, surgeon, United States

Navy 62

Early diagnosis of cerebrospinal meningitis; report of 10 cases, by G.

F. Cottle, passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 65

Comments on mistakes made with the Nomenclature, 1913, Abstract of patients

(Form F), and the Statistical report (Form K), by C. E. Alexander, pharmacist,

United States Navy 70

Classification of the United States Navy Nomenclature, 1913, by C. E. Alexander,

pharmacist, United States Navy 75

On the methods employed for the detection and determination of

disturbances in the sense of equilibrium of flyers. Translated by H. G. Beyer,

medical director, United States Navy, retired 87

United States Naval Medical School laboratories:

Additions to the pathological collection 107

Additions to the helminthological collection 107

Suggested devices:

A portable air sampling apparatus for use aboard ship, by E. W. Brown, passed

assistant surgeon, United States Navy 109

A new design for a sanitary pail 111

Clinical notes:

A case of paresis, with apparent remission, following neosalvarsan, by R.

F. Sheehan, passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 113

Case reports from Guam, by E. O. J. Eytinge, passed assistant surgeon, United

States Navy 116

Stab wound of ascending colon; suture; recovery, by H. C. Curl,

surgeon, United States Navy 123

Perforation of a duodenal ulcer, by H. F. Strine, surgeon, United

States Navy 124

Two cases of bone surgery, by R. Spear, surgeon, United States Navy 125

Editorial comment:

Brig. Gen. George II. Torney, Surgeon General United States Army 127

Medical ethics in the Navy 127

Medical officers in civil practice 128

Progress in medical sciences:

General medicine. —Some anatomic and physiologic principles concerning

pyloric ulcer. By H. C. Curl. Low-priced clinical thermometers; a warning. By.

L. W. Johnson. The value of X-ray examinations in the

diagnosis of ulcer of the stomach and duodenum. The primary cause of

rheumatoid arthritis. Strychnine in heart failure. On the treatment of

leukaemia with benzol. By A. W. Dunbar and G. B. Crow 131

Surgery. — Surgical aspects of furuncles and carbuncles. Iodine

idiosyncrasy. By L. W. Johnson. Rectus transplantation for deficiency of

internal oblique muscle in certain cases of inguinal hernia. The technic of

nephro- pyelo- and ureterolithotomy. Recurrence of inguinal hernia. By H. C.

Curl and R. A. Warner 138

Hygiene and sanitation. —Ozone: Its bactericidal, physiologic and

deodorizing action. The alleged purification of air by the ozone machine. By E.

W. Brown. The prevention of dental caries. Gun-running operations in the

Persian Gulf in 1909 and 1910. The croton bug (Ectobia germanica) as a factor

in bacterial dissemination. Fumigation of vessels for the destruction of rats.

Improved moist chamber for mosquito breeding. The necessity for international

reforms in the sanitation of crew spaces on

merchant vessels. By C. N. Fiske and R. C. Ransdell 143

Tropical medicine. —The transmissibility of the lepra bacillus by the

bite of the bedbug. By L. W. Johnson. A note on a case of loa loa. Cases of

syphilitic pyrexia simulating tropical fevers. Verruga peruviana, oroya fever

and uta. Ankylostomiasis in Nyasaland. Experimental entamoebic dysentery. By E.

R. Stitt ... 148

Pathology, bacteriology, and animal parasitology. —The relation of the spleen

to the blood destruction and regeneration and to hemolytic jaundice: 6, The

blood picture at various periods after splenectomy. The presence of tubercle

bacilli in the feces. By A. B. Clifford and G. F. Clark 157

Chemistry and pharmacy. —Detection of bile pigments in urine. Value of the

guaiacum test for bloodstains. New reagent for the detection of traces of

blood. Estimation of urea. Estimation of uric acid in urine. By E. W. Brown and

O. G. Ruge 158

Eye, ear, nose, and throat. —Probable deleterious effect of salvarsan

on the eye. Effect of salvarsan on the eye. Fate of patients with

parenchymatous keratitis due to hereditary lues. Trachoma, prevalence of, in

the United States. The exploratory needle puncture of the maxillary antrum in

100 tuberculous individuals. Auterobic organisms associated with acute

rhinitis. Toxicity of human tonsils. By E. J. Grow and G. B. Trible 160

Miscellaneous. —Yearbook of the medical association of

Frankfurt-am-Main. By R. C. Ransdell 163

Reports and letters:

Notes on the Clinical Congress of Surgeons. By G. F. Cottle, passed

assistant surgeon, United States Navy 167

Number 2

Preface v

Special articles:

Report of the fourteenth annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society,

by J. R. Phelps, passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy. 171

Typhoid perforation; five operations with three recoveries, by G. G.

Holladay, assistant surgeon, Medic al Reserve Corps, United States Navy 238

A satisfactory method for easily obtaining material from syphilitic

lesions, by E. R. Stitt, medical inspector, United States Navy 242

An epidemic of measles and mumps in Guam, by C. P. Kindleberger, surgeon,

United States Navy 243

The feeble-minded from a military standpoint, by A. R. Schier, acting assistant

surgeon, United States Navy 247

The Towne-Lambert elimination treatment of drug addictions, by W. M. Kerr,

passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 258

Medical experiences in the Amazonian Tropics, by C. C. Ammerman, assistant

surgeon, Medical Reserve Corps, United States Navy 270

United States Naval Medical School laboratories:

Additions to the pathological collection 281

Additions to the helminthologieal collection 281

Suggested devices:

An easy method for obtaining blood cultures and for preparing blood

agar, by E. R. Stitt, medical inspector, and G. F. Clark, passed assistant surgeon,

United States Navy 283

Humidity regulating device on a modern battleship, by R. C. Ransdell, passed

assistant surgeon, United States Navy 284

Clinical notes:

Lateral sinus thrombosis, report of case, by G. F. Cottle, passed

assistant surgeon. United States Navy 287

Twenty-two cases of poisoning by the seeds of Jatropha curcai, by J. A.

Randall, passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 290

Shellac bolus in the stomach in fatal case of poisoning by weed

alcohol, by H. F. Hull and O. J. Mink, passed assistant surgeons, United States

Navy 291

A case of pneumonia complicated by gangrenous endocarditis, by G. B. Crow,

passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 292

Progress in medical sciences:

General medicine. —On progressive paralysis in the imperial navy during

the years 1901-1911. By H. G. Beyer. An etiological study of Hodgkin's disease.

The etiology and vaccine treatment of Hodgkin's dis

ease. Coryncbacterium hodgkini in lymphatic leukemia and Hodgkin's disease.

Autointoxication and subinfection. Studies of syphilis. The treatment of the

pneumonias. Whooping cough: Etiolcgy, diagnosis, and vaccine treatment. A new

and logical treatment for alcoholism. Intraspinous injection of salvarsanized

serum in the treatment of syphilis of the nervous system, including tabes and

paresis. On the infective nature of certain cases of splenomegaly and Banti's

disease. The etiology and vaccine treatment of Hodgkin's disease. Cultural

results in Hodgkin's disease. By A. W. Dunbar and G. B. Crow 295

Surgery- Interesting cases of gunshot injury treated at Hankow during

the revolution of 1911 and 1912 in China. The fool's paradise stage in

appendicitis. By L. W. Johnson. The present status of bismuth paste treatment

of suppurative sinuses and empyema. The inguinal route operation for femoral

hernia; with supplementary note on Cooper's ligament. By R. Spear and R. A.

Warner 307

Hygiene and sanitation. — A contribution to the chemistry of

ventilation. The use of ozone in ventilation. By E. \V. Brown. Pulmonary

tuberculosis in the royal navy, with special reference to its detection and

prevention. An investigation into the keeping properties of condensed milks at

the temperature of tropical climates. By C. N. Fiske and R. C. Ransdell 313

Tropical medicine. —Seven days fever of the Indian ports. By L. W.

Johnson. Intestinal schistosomiasis in the Sudan. Disease carriers in our army

in India. Origin and present status of the emetin treatment of amebic

dysentery. The culture of leishmania from the finger blood of a case of Indian

kala-azar. By E. R. Stitt 315

Pathology, bacteriology, and animal parasitology. —The isolation of

typhoid bacilli from feces by means of brilliant green in fluid medium. By C.

N. Fiske. An efficient and convenient stain for use in the eeneral examination

of blood films. By 0. B. Crow. A contribution to the epidemiology of

poliomyelitis. A contribution to the pathology of epidemic poliomyelitis. A

note on the etiology of epidemic

oliomyelitis. Transmutations within the streptococcus-pneumococcus

group. The etiology of acute rheumatism, articular and muscular. By A. B.

Clifford and G. F. Clark 320

Chemistry and pharmacy.— Centrifugal method for estimating albumin in

urine. Detection of albumin in urine. New indican reaction A report on the

chemistry, technology, and pharmacology of and the legislation pertaining to

methyl alcohol. By E. W. Brown and O. O. Ruge. . 325

Eye, ear, nose, and throat. —The use of local anesthesia in

exenteration of the orbit. Salvarsan in

ophthalmic practice. The effect of salvarsan on the eye. Total blindness

from the toxic action of wood alcohol, with recovery of vision under negative

galvanism. Furunculosis of the external auditory canal; the use of alcohol as a

valuable aid in treatment. Local treatment of Vincent's angina with salvarsan.

Perforated ear drum may be responsible for sudden death in water. The indications

for operating in acute mastoiditis. Turbinotomy. Why is nasal catarrh so

prevalent in the United States? By E. J. Grow and G. B. Trible 330

Miscellaneous. — The organization and work of the hospital ship Re d’

Italia. ByG. B. Trible 333

Reports and letters:

Correspondence concerning the article "Some aspects of the

prophylaxis of typhoid fever by injection of killed cultures," by Surg. C.

S. Butler, United States Navy, which appeared in the Bulletin, October, 1913

339

Malaria on the U. S. S. Tacoma from February, 1913, to February, 1914.

by I. S. K. Reeves, passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 344

Extracts from annual sanitary reports for 1913 345

Number 3

Preface vii

Special articles:

Economy and waste in naval hospitals, by E. M. Shipp, surgeon, and P.

J. Waldner, chief pharmacist, United States Navy 357

The new method of physical training in the United States Navy, by J. A.

Murphy, surgeon, United States Navy 368

A study of the etiology of gangosa in Guam, by C. P. Kindleberger,

surgeon, United States Navy 381

Unreliability of Wassermann tests using unheated serum, by E. R. Stitt,

medical inspector, and G. F. Clark, passed assistant surgeon, United States

Navy 410

Laboratory note on antigens, by G. F. Clark, pasted assistant surgeon,

United States Navy 411

Prevention of mouth infection, by Joseph Head, M. D., D. D. S 411

The Medical Department at general quarters and preparations for battle,

by A. Farenholt, surgeon, United States Navy 421

A bacteriological index for dirt in milk, by J. J. Kinyoun, assistant

surgeon, Medical Reserve Corps, United States Navy 435

Brief description of proposed plan of a fleet hospital ship, based upon

the type auxiliary hull, by E. M. Blackwell, surgeon, United States Navy.. 442

The diagnostic value of the cutaneous tuberculin test in recruiting, by

E. M. Brown, passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy, retired 448

United States Naval Medical School laboratories:

Additions to the pathological collection 453

Suggested devices:

A sanitary mess table for hospitals, by F. M. Bogan, surgeon, United

States Navy 455

A suggested improvement of the Navy scuttle butt, by E. M. Blackwell,

surgeon, United States Navy 455

Clinical notes:

Malaria cured by neosalvarsan, by F. M. Bogan, surgeon, United States

Navy 457

A case of rupture of the bladder with fracture of the pelvis, by H. F.

Strine, surgeon, and M. E. Higgins, passed assistant surgeon, United States

Navy. 458

Clinical observations on the use of succinimid of mercury, by T. W.

Reed, passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 459

Points in the post-mortem ligation of the lingual artery, by O. J.

Mink, passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 462

Notes on the wounded at Vera Cruz, by H. F. Strine, surgeon, and M. E.

Higgins, passed assistant surgeon. United States Navy 464

Case reports from the Naval Hospital, Portsmouth, N. H., by F. M.

Bogan, surgeon, United States Navy 469

Progress in medical sciences:

General medicine. —The mouth in the etiology and symptomatology of

general systemic disturbances. Statistique m£dicale de la marine, 1909. By L.

W. Johnson. Antityphoid inoculation. Vaccines from the standpoint of the

physician. The treatment of sciatica. Chronic gastric ulcer and its relation to

gastric carcinoma. The nonprotein nitrogenous constituents of the blood in

chronic vascular nephritis

(arteriosclero-iis) as influenced by the level of protein metabolism.

The influence of diet on hepatic necrosis and toxicity of chloroform. The

rational treatment of tetanus. The comparative value of cardiac remedies. By A.

W. Dunbar and G. B. Crow

Psychiatry. —Abderhalden's method. Precis de psychiatric Constitutional

immorality. Nine years' experience with manic-depressive insanity. The pupil

and its reflexes in insanity. By R. F. Sheehan.

Surgery. —On the occurrence of traumatic dislocations (luxationen) in

the Imperial German Navy during the last 20 years. By H. G. Beyer. The wounding

effects of the Turkish sharp-pointed bullet. By T. W. Richards. Intestinal

obstruction: formation and absorption of toxin. By G. B. Crow

Hygiene and sanitation. —Relation of oysters to the transmission of

infectious diseases. The proper diet in the Tropics, with some pertinent remarks

on the use of alcohol. By E. W. Brown. Report of committee

upon period of isolation and exclusion from school in cases of

communicable disease. Resultats d'une enquete relative a la morbidity venerienne

dans la division navale d'Extreme-Orient et aux moyens susceptibles de la

restreindre. Ship's hygiene in the middle of the seventeenth century- Progress in

ship's hygiene during the nineteenth century. The origin of some of the

streptococci found in milk. On the further perfecting of mosquito spraying. By

C. N. Fiske and R. C. Ransdell

Tropical medicine. — Le transport, colloidal de medicaments dans le cholera.

By T. W. Richards. Cholera in the Turkish Army. A supposed case of yellow fever

in Jamaica. By L. W. Johnson. Note on a new geographic locality for balantidiosis.

Brief note on Toxoplasma pyroqenes. Note on certain protozoalike bodies in a

case of protracted fever with splenomegaly. The emetine and other treatment of

amebic dysentery and hepatitis, including liver abscess. A study of epidemic dysentery

in the Fiji Islands. By E. R. Stitt

Pathology, bacteriology, and animal parasitology. — The best method of staining

Treponema pallidum. By C. N. Fiske. Bacteriological methods of meat analysis.

By R. C. Ransdell. Primary tissue lesions in the heart produced by Spirochete

pallida. Ten tests by which a physician may determine when p patient is cured

of gonorrhea. Diagnostic value of percutaneous tuberculin test (Moro). Some

causes of failure of vaccine therapy. A method of increasing the accuracy and

delicacy of the Wassermann reaction: By A. B. Clifford and G. F. Clark

Chemistry and pharmacy. —Quantitative test of pancreatic function. A comparison

of various preservatives of urine. A clinical method for the rapid estimation

of the quantity of dextrose in urine. By E. W. Brown and O. G. Ruge

Eye, ear, nose, and throat. —Intraocular pressure. Strauma as an

important factor in diseases of the eye. Carbonic cauterization "in the

treatment of granular ophthalmia. Ocular and other complications of syphilis treated

by salvarsan. Some notes on hay fever. A radiographic study of the mastoid. Ear

complications during typhoid fever. Su di un caso di piccola sanguisuga

cavallina nel bronco destro e su 7 casi di grosse sanguisughe cavalline in

laringe in trachea e rino-faringe. By E. J. Grow and G. B. Trible

Reports and letters:

American medico-psychological association, by R. F. Sheehan, passed assistant

surgeon, United States Navy 517

Report of 11 cases of asphyxiation from coal gas, by L. C. Whiteside,

passed assistant surgeon, United States Navy 522

Extracts from annual sanitary reports for 1913 — United States Naval

Academy, Annapolis, Md., by A. M. D. McCormick, medical director, United States

Navy 523

U. S. S. Arkansas, by W. B. Grove, surgeon, United States Navy 524

Marine barracks, Camp Elliott, Canal Zone, Panama, by B. H. Dorsey, passed

assistant surgeon, United States Navy 525

U. S. S. Cincinnati, by J. B. Mears, passed assistant surgeon. United States

Navy 526

U. S. S. Florida, by M. S. Elliott, surgeon, United States Navy 527

Naval training station, Great Lakes, Ill., by J. S. Taylor, surgeon, United

States Navy 527

Naval station, Guam, by C. P. Kindleberger, surgeon, United States Navy

528

Naval Hospital, Las Animas, Colo., by G. H. Barber, medical inspector, United

States Navy 532

U. S. S. Nebraska, by E. H. H. Old, passed assistant surgeon, United States

Navy 533

U. S. S. North Dakota, by J. C. Pryor, surgeon, United States Navy. .

534

Navy yard, Olongapo, P. L, by J. S. Woodward, passed assistant surgeon,

United States Navy 536

U. S. S. San Francisco, by T. W. Reed, passed assistant surgeon, United

States Navy 537

U. S. S. Saratoga, by H. R. Hermesch, assistant surgeon, United States Navy

538

U. S. S. Scorpion, by E. P. Huff, passed assistant surgeon, United States

Navy 538

U. S. S. West Virginia, by O. J. Mink, passed assistant surgeon, United

States Navy 539

Number 4

Preface V

Special articles:

Some prevailing ideas regarding the treatment of tuberculosis, by

Passed Asst. Surg. G. B. Crow 541

The Training School for the Hospital Corps of the Navy, by Surg. F. E. McCullough

and Passed Asst. Surg. J. B. Kaufman 555

Khaki dye for white uniforms, by Passed Asst. Surg. W. E. Eaton 561

Some facts and some fancies regarding the unity of yaws and syphilis,

by Surg. C. S. Butler 561

Quinine prophylaxis of malaria, by Passed Asst. Surg. L. W. McGuire 571

The nervous system and naval warfare, translated by Surg. T. W.

Richards. 576

Measles, by Surg. G. F. Freeman 586

Smallpox and vaccination, by Passed Asst. Surg. T. W. Raison 589

Rabies; methods of diagnosis and immunization, by Passed Asst. Surg. F.

X. Koltes 597

Syphilis aboard ship, by Passed Asst. Surg. G. F. Cottle 605

Systematic recording and treatment of syphilis, by Surg. A. M.

Fauntleroy and Passed Asst. Surg. E. H. H. Old 620

Organization and station bills of the U. S. naval hospital ship Solace,

by Surg. W. M. Garton 624

United States Naval Medical School laboratories:

Additions to the pathological collection 647

Additions to the helminthological collection 647

Clinical notes:

Succinimid of mercury in pyorrhea alveolaris, by Acting Asst. Dental Surg.

P. G. White 649

A case of pityriasis rosea, by Surg. R. E. Ledbetter 651

Emetin in the treatment of amebic abscess of the liver, by Surg. H. F. Strine

and Passed Asst. Surg. L. Sheldon, jr 653

Salvarsan in a case of amebic dysentery, by Passed Asst. Surg. O. J.

Mink. . 653

Laceration of the subclavian artery and complete severing of brachial plexus,

by Surg. H. C. Curl and Passed Asst. Surg. C. B. Camerer 654

Malarial infection complicating splenectomy, by Surg. H. F. Strine 655

A case of gastric hemorrhage; operative interference impossible, by

Passed Arst. Surg. G. E. Robertson 656

Operation for strangulated hernia, by Passed Asst. Surg. W. S. Pugh 657

A case of bronchiectasis with hypertrophic pulmonary osteoarthropathy,

by Passed Asst. Surg. L. C. Whiteside 658

Editorial comment:

Systematic recording and treatment of syphilis 665

Progress in medical sciences:

General medicine. —A note of three cases of enteric fever inoculated

during the incubation period. By T. W. Richards. The modern treatment of

chancroids. The treatment of burns. By W. E. Eaton. Experiments on the curative

value of the intraspinal administration of tetanus antitoxin. Hexamethylenamin.

Hexamethylenamin as an internal

antiseptic in other fluids of the body than urine. Lumbar puncture as a special

procedure for controlling headache in the course of infectious diseases.

Cardiospasm. Acromion auscultation; a new and delicate test in the early

diagnosis of incipient pulmonary tuberculosis.

Diabetes mellitus and its differentiation from alimentary glycosuria.

The complement fixation test in typhoid fever; its comparison with the

agglutination test and blood culture method. By C. B. Crow.. 671

Mental and nervous diseases. —A voice sign in chorea. By G. B. Crow.

Wassermann reaction and its application to neurology. Epilepsy: a theory of

causation founded upon the clinical manifestations and the therapeutic and

pathological data. Salvarsanized serum (Swift-Ellis treatment) in syphilitic diseases

of the central nervous system. Mental manifestations in tumors of the brain.

Some of the broader issues of the psycho-analytic n movement. Mental disease

and defect in United States troops. By R. Sheehan 6S1

Surgery. — Infiltration anesthesia. War surgery. Tenoplasty; tendon transplantation;

tendon substitution; neuroplasty. Carcinoma of the male breast. Visceral

pleureotomy for chronic empyema. By A. M. Fauntleroy and E. H. H. Old 6S8

Hygiene and sanitation. — Further experiences with the Berkefold filter

in the purifying of lead-contaminated water. By T. W. Richards. Experiments in

the destruction of fly larvae in horse manure. By A. B. Clifford. Investigation

relative to the life cycle, brooding, and tome practical moans of reducing the

multiplication of flies in camp. By W. E. Eaton, Humidity and heat stroke;

further observations on an analysis of

50 cases. By C. N. Fiske 693

Tropical medicine. — The treatment of aneylostoma anemia. Latent dysentery

or dysentery carriers. Naphthalone for the destruction of mosquitoes. Emetin in

amebic dysentery. By E. R. Stitt 704

Pathology, bacteriology, and animal parasitology. —Meningitis by

injection of pyogenic microbes in the peripheral nerves. The growth of pathogenic

intestinal bacteria in bread. Present status of the complement fixation test in

the diagnosis of gonorrheal infections. Practical application of the luetin

test. By A. B. Clifford and G. F. Clark 707

Eye, ear, nose, and throat. — Misting of eyeglasses. By E. L. Sleeth.

The treatment of ocular syphilis by salvarsan and neo salvarsan. The moving

picture and the eye. Treatment of various forms of ocular syphilis with

salvarsan. Rapid, painless, and bloodless method for removing the inferior

turbinate. Hemorrhage from the superior petrosal sinus. The frequency of

laryngeal tuberculosis in Massachusetts.

Intrinsic cancer of larynx. Treatment of hematoma of the auricle. By E.

J. Grow and G. B. Trible 709

Reports and letters:

Care of wounded at Mazatlan and at Villa Union, by Medical Inspector S.

G. Evans 713

Medico-military reports of the occupation of Vera Cruz 715

If you have questions concerning reproductions, please contact the Contributing Library.

Note: The colors, contrast and appearance of these illustrations are unlikely to be true to life. They are derived from scanned images that have been enhanced for machine interpretation and have been altered from their originals.

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Transmute by robep

3 5

St John's College, Cambridge

酬神祭品 ii @ 盂蘭節 | Offerings for the God Goddess of Spirits ii by Cheryl Chan

6 1

At the altar, offerings for the God & Goddess who will be the guardian of spirits include tea, rice wine, pickle, types of grains ( ie. glutenous rice, forbidden rice), nuts and fresh fruits

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** Origin and facts of the Hungry Ghost Festival:

The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).

In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.

Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.

On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.

Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors

=====

More images of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:

Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival

More Chinese Temples images here:

Caves & Temples " Festival

=====

Photo shot with Nikon D600 + AF-S NIikkor 50mm f/1.8G

=====

Annunciation (Surinder Warboys, 1995) by Simon Knott

5 2

St Peter, Palgrave, Suffolk

Palgrave sits just on the edge of the lovely town of Diss, but Diss is in Norfolk, and as you head over the railway line and the infant Waveney you enter Suffolk. The countryside soon opens out into flat fields under a wide sky.

In medieval times, Palgrave was actually two parishes. The westerly one, Palgrave St John, was subsumed into this one, and that church has completely disappeared. However, St Peter is walled neatly into its graveyard at the heart of the village, which spreads neatly around it. Seen from the Diss road, St Peter looks a rather simple, unelaborated structure, the twin lights of the east window about as plain as it is possible to be, but as you come closer the magnificent 15th Century flushwork porch appears from behind a yew tree. St Michael and a dragon contended in the spandrels, and there are characterful heads carved in the entrance arch.

You step through into a surprisingly wide nave under a delightfully painted late medieval roof. Marian monograms and symbols punctuate the whitewash. Once, many small Suffolk churches must have been like this. Ahead of you is the font, unlike anything else in Suffolk. Clearly Norman, but much more elaborate than most, its most intriguing features are the faces in each corner. Again, this is a more intimate experience of the faces we normally see as corbels, but Palgrave has these too, medieval characters along the lines of the arcades. The jewel-like light of the nave is thanks to the work of the stained glass artist Surinder Warboys, who has her studio nearby at Mellis. Here is one of her familiar abstract windows in the south aisle, the light flooding through it, transmuted.

Back outside, there stands to the south of the chancel the grave of the common stage waggoner John Catchpole, with a relief at the top depicting his waggon pulled by a train of six horses. He died in 1787 at the age of 75, and his inscription tells us that My Horses have done running, My Waggon is decay'd, And now in the Dust my Body is lay'd. My whip is worn out & my work it is done And now I'm brought here to my last home.

I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

2

---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----

---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----

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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.

In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.

The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.

Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.

Ezio Famà.

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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.

Ezio Famà.

香火 iii @ 盂蘭節 | Incense offerings iii by Cheryl Chan

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Origin and facts of the Hungry Ghost Festival:

The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).

In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.

Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.

On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.

Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors

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More images of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:

Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival

More Chinese Temples images here:

Caves & Temples " Festival

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If you are interested in purchasing this image, please visit Getty Images page at:

Cheryl Chan @ Getty Images

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Women Torsos hanging on Tree of Transmutation by Kevin Christman by Dust to Ashes

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Burning Man Festival 2012 in Nevada. The theme was "Fertility 2"

To see more images from 2012 and other years of Burning Man festival go to: www.dusttoashes.com

I hope you enjoyed the images and thank you for visiting.

香火 @ 盂蘭節 | Incense offerings iI by Cheryl Chan

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The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).

In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.

Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.

On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.

Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors

=====

More images of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:

Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival

More Chinese Temples images here:

Caves & Temples " Festival

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I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

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---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----

---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----

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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.

In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.

The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.

Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.

Ezio Famà.

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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.

Ezio Famà.

How Not to Square the Circle** If you try , you try to do something that is very difficult or impossible.**Liu Hui**Zu Chongzhi by Hughes Songe

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How Not to Square the Circle

Nicholas of Cusa was attacking a problem dating back to the ancient Greeks. The solution would have made him famous forever...

Tony Phillips

Stony Brook University

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Introduction

In 1965 my late friend and colleague John Stallings wrote "How not to prove the Poincaré conjecture." This work appeared in the Proceedings of the Wisconsin Topology Seminar and is still available on John's Berkeley website. It begins with the declaration: "I have committed the sin of falsely proving Poincaré's Conjecture. But that was in another country; and besides, until now no one has known about it." It continues with the exposition of the main ideas relating the conjecture to statements in algebra, and is certainly what Stephen Miller had in mind when he wrote, in the AMS Notices, after John's death, "His 1960s papers on the 3-dimensional Poincaré Conjecture are both brilliant and hilarious at the same time."

In 1445 Nicholas of Cusa wrote De Geometricis Transmutationibus (On Geometric Transmutations); my account is based on a recent translation into French of all of Nicholas' mathematical works: Nicolas de Cues, Les Écrits mathématiques by Jean-Marie Nicolle (Honoré Champion, Paris, 2007). This was the first of Cusa's writings in which he addressed the problem of squaring the circle. Literally, squaring the circle means devising the straightedge-and-compass construction of a square whose area equals that of a given circle. This means a construction relating a segment of length 1 (the radius of the circle) to a segment of length π√ (the side of the square). Nicholas's plan was start from an equilateral triangle and construct an isoperimetric circle; this is the content of the First Premise in De Geometricis Transmutationibus. If the triangle had perimeter 1, the circle would have diameter 1/π. Then the composition of two more standard straightedge and compass constructions could start from that diameter and generate first a segment of length 1/π−−−√, and from that one a segment of the reciprocal length π√.

Examples of straight-edge and compass arithmetic:

Left: square root. A segment AB of length x is extended by a segment BC of length 1. Choose one of the points D where the (green) circle with diameter AC intersects the perpendicular through B. Then by plane geometry DB2=AB⋅BC=AB, so DB has length x√.

Right: reciprocal. The construction starts with a segment EF of length 2 extended by FG of length 12. A circle (green) is constructed with EG as diameter. For any x between 1/2 and 2, for example 1/π−−−√, a circle (blue) of radius x is drawn with center F. Choose one of the intersection points X of the two circles and draw the line through X and F. It will intersect the green circle at a second point Y; the length y of the segment FY will be the reciprocal of x, since by standard plane geometry XF⋅FY=EF⋅FG=1.

Other circles, lines and points used in the constructions are shown in black.

Nicholas of Cusa

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) was one of the leading intellectual figures in early 15th-century Europe. He is often described as a transitional figure between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and in fact he was personally involved in one of the great events that mark that transition: Pope Eugene IV sent him to Constantinople in 1437 as part of a delegation to negotiate the participation of the Eastern Orthodox hierarchy in the Council of Florence. They came, with an entourage of distinguished Greek scholars who stayed, and lectured, in Florence; contributing to the surge of interest in humanistic learning which led to the new age.

Nicholas' principal occupations were ecclesiastical politics and administration (he was named Cardinal in 1449) and, relatedly, theology/philosophy. Those were tumultuous times for the Church; Nicholas was at the center both of bitter jurisdictional controversies and of intense disputation about the exact wording of dogmatic texts, where the placement of a comma could assume cosmic importance. In those days philosophy, theology and natural science were closely linked: the physical structure of the universe had deep theological implications. Nicholas' energetic and erudite mind, in a priori meditation, led him to scientific insights that turned out to be prophetic. For example, he understood that the earth, the sun and the moon were objects moving through space; and he rejected the idea that all orbits had to be circular or even that the universe had a center (De Docta Ignorantia, Book II). Here he was a predecessor of Kepler (who referred to him as "divine") and of Giordano Bruno.

Nicholas' interest in mathematics seems to have been its status as an impregnable logical system. He believed that by testing his philosophical theories in mathematics he could produce convincing evidence of their validity. He outlines the parallelism between geometry and theology in De Circuli Quadratura, dated July 1450. "Transport yourself by assimilation from these mathematics to theology. ... Just as the circle is perfection in a figure, since any perfection of figures is worked into it, its surface contains all the surface of all figures and has nothing in common with all the other figures, but is absolutely one and simple in itself; likewise absolute eternity is the form of all forms ... having nothing in common with any other form. And whatever the figure of the circle therein may be, since it has neither beginning nor end, it has resemblance with eternity ... . ... Likewise, if a triangle wanted to triangulate the circle, or a square to square it and so forth for the other polygons, thus also intellectual nature wants to understand [God]."

The First Premise and its "proof"

Nicholas of Cusa's First Premise: a is the center of the equilateral triangle bcd. "You divide the side bc into four equal parts which you mark e,f,g: I assert that, if one extends the line drawn from a to e by its fourth, which gives ah, this will be the radius of the circle whose circumference is equal to the three sides of the triangle."

One of the thought schemata Nicholas devised for use in theology was the "concidence of opposites." Here is how he applied the principle to the proof of his First Premise. The construction involves a parameter, namely the position of the point e on the line cb. Nicholas observes that when e is at the midpoint f the length of the segment ah is smaller than the desired radius, and that when e is at b the length is larger. He applies the principle: ubi est dare magis et minis, quod ibi sit dare aequale (where one can give a greater and a lesser, one can also give an equal; essentially the Intermediate Value Theorem) and concludes correctly that for some intermediate position x the length ah must be exactly equal to that radius, "and that is the point e equidistant between b and f." The last statement made with no justification.

The construction is in fact plausible: suppose the sides of the triangle have length 1. Then ef=14; similarity of triangle abf with a half-equilateral triangle, and the Pythagorean theorem, yield af=123√; so ae=748−−√, and ah=(5/4)748−−√; the First Premise states that 2π⋅ah=3, which implies π=65487−−√=3.1423... . This value, which Nicholas could have calculated but never mentions explicitly, was within the bounds [22371,227]=[3.14084...,3.14285...] established by Archimedes. Therefore, until better approximations to π were available, there was no way to prove Nicholas's construction wrong, even though there were obvious gaps in his proof.

Later developments: Things get worse

Nicholas circulated copies of his work among his friends, who included Paolo Toscanelli (1397-1482), a Florentine astronomer and physician. He had been Nicholas' classmate, and they remained good friends for life. Toscanelli wrote back with objections. To us, now, it is clear that there was no way the argument could be repaired. Nicholas' solution was to devise a different, and considerably more complicated, construction.

The diagram for Nicholas of Cusa's second quadrature construction, from Quadratura Circuli, 1450. The construction starts from a triangle cde, superimposes an isoperimetric square ilkm and yields rq as the radius of the isoperimetric circle.

Nicholas would have done better to stay with his first construction. The new one was reprinted and minutely analyzed by Regiomontanus (Johannes Müller, 1436-1476) who showed that the implied value for π was outside the Archimedean bounds (Nicolle calculates it as 3.154); this is part of a 60-odd page appendix to his De triangulis omnimodis, dated 1464, published in 1533. There Regiomontanus takes up all of Nicholas' constructions one by one and "does the math" (Nunc ad numeros descendendum), using his knowledge of trigonometry to show "that Nicholas' approximations to π were --except one-- not even within the limits established by Archimedes," according to Menso Folkerts, who characterizes Regiomontanus as "a gifted student of Archimedes," and Nicholas of Cusa as "an amateur in mathematics." The one exception is presumably the First Premise above.

The moral of the story

Nicholas of Cusa was attacking a problem dating back to the ancient Greeks. The solution would have made him famous forever, and might even have helped bolster his side in theological disputations. No one knew at the time that squaring the circle is impossible: the proof requires calculus, which was 200 years away; and even then it was not discovered until 1882.

John Stallings was also attacking a famous problem: 50 years old, a very long time in modern mathematics. In this case the problem was not impossible, but the methods that led to its solution lay far in the future. Richard Hamilton's introduction of the Ricci flow, which led to Gregory Perelman's ultimate victory, came out in 1982, some 17 years after Stallings wrote "How not to prove the Poincaré Conjecture." But Stallings discovered his error by himself, before publishing, whereas Nicholas seems to have believed until the end that he had squared the circle, but perhaps had not been able to find the right argument to substantiate his claim.

Here is how Stallings ends his story: "... I was unable to find flaws in my 'proof' for quite a while, even though the error is very obvious. It was a psychological problem, a blindness, an excitement, an inhibition of reasoning by an underlying fear of being wrong. Techniques leading to the abandonment of such inhibitions should be cultivated by every honest mathematician."

Why circle-squaring is impossible

We will see that any length occurring in a compass and straightedge construction starting from length one must be an algebraic number, i.e. it must be a root of a polynomial with integer coefficients. Considerably more intricate is the proof that π, and therefore π√, is transcendental, i.e. not algebraic. Some references are given here.

A random compass-straightedge construction: all the coordinates of the vertices produced by the construction are of a special form: they are obtained from 1 by composing a finite number of operations, which can be arithmetic (sum, product, quotient, etc.) or the extraction of a square root. For future use, let's call the set of these numbers S. In this example, the construction starts with the vertices O=(0,0) and A=(1,0); the line they span is the x-axis. The circle of center O and of radius OA intersects the circle of center A and of radius OA at B=(12,3√2), the x-axis at C=(−1,0) and the y-axis (the perpendicular bisector of AC, constructed as usual by two circles and a line) at E=(0,1). The circle of center E and radius EA intersects the line through O and B at D=(3√ 7√4,3 21√4). The circle of center A and radius AD intersects the x-axis at F=(1 AD,0)=(1 127 21−−√−3√−7√−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−√,0). As the construction continues, the number of embeddings of radicals into radicals tends to rise, but the numbers always have this general form. They are clearly algebraic, since the radicals can be peeled off by continued squaring and rearranging. In fact these constructible numbers form a special class of algebraic numbers: those that can be reached from the rational numbers by a finite number of quadratic extensions, i.e. by arithmetic operations and taking square roots a finite number of times. To show squaring the circle is impossible, "algebraic" is sufficient; but other impossibilities (duplicating the cube, trisecting the angle) require this additional information.

To see why this works in general, note first that if points P and P′ have their coordinates in S, then by the Pythagorean theorem their distance PP′ = r must also belong to S. So the circle of radius PP′ about P, say, has the equation (x−p1)2 (y−p2)2=r2. Another circle constructed from two points with coordinates in S will have a similar equation, say (x−q1)2 (y−q2)2=s2. All these coefficients lie in S. The coordinates of the intersection points of the two circles (if they intersect) will be the pairs (x,y) satisfying both equations. From the first equation we can write y=±r2−(x−p1)2−−−−−−−−−−−√ p2. Substituting this value in the second equation yields a polynomial equation in x; it looks like it might have degree 4, but the higher powers cancel and it is a quadratic equation with coefficients in S. The quadratic formula involves arithmetic and a square root, so the solutions it produces will again belong to S. For intersections of a circle and a line no cancellation is needed; the equation is quadratic; and for the intersection of two lines it is linear.

Squaring the circle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Square the Circle.

Squaring the circle: the areas of this square and this circle are equal. In 1882, it was proven that this figure cannot be constructed in a finite number of steps with an idealized compass and straightedge.

Impossibility[edit]

The solution of the problem of squaring the circle by compass and straightedge demands construction of the number , and the impossibility of this undertaking follows from the fact that pi is a transcendental (non-algebraic and therefore non-constructible) number. If the problem of the quadrature of the circle is solved using only compass and straightedge, then an algebraic value of pi would be found, which is impossible. Johann Heinrich Lambert conjectured that pi was transcendental in 1768 in the same paper in which he proved its irrationality, even before the existence of transcendental numbers was proven. It was not until 1882 that Ferdinand von Lindemann proved its transcendence.

The transcendence of pi implies the impossibility of exactly "circling" the square, as well as of squaring the circle.

It is possible to construct a square with an area arbitrarily close to that of a given circle. If a rational number is used as an approximation of pi, then squaring the circle becomes possible, depending on the values chosen. However, this is only an approximation and does not meet the constraints of the ancient rules for solving the problem. Several mathematicians have demonstrated workable procedures based on a variety of approximations.

Bending the rules by allowing an infinite number of compass-and-straightedge operations or by performing the operations on certain non-Euclidean spaces also makes squaring the circle possible. For example, although the circle cannot be squared in Euclidean space, it can be in Gauss–Bolyai–Lobachevsky space. Indeed, even the preceding phrase is overoptimistic.[7][8] There are no squares as such in the hyperbolic plane, although there are regular quadrilaterals, meaning quadrilaterals with all sides congruent and all angles congruent (but these angles are strictly smaller than right angles). There exist, in the hyperbolic plane, (countably) infinitely many pairs of constructible circles and constructible regular quadrilaterals of equal area. However, there is no method for starting with a regular quadrilateral and constructing the circle of equal area, and there is no method for starting with a circle and constructing a regular quadrilateral of equal area (even when the circle has small enough radius such that a regular quadrilateral of equal area exists).

Some apparent partial solutions gave false hope for a long time. In this figure, the shaded figure is the Lune of Hippocrates. Its area is equal to the area of the triangle ABC (found by Hippocrates of Chios).

Archimedes Liu Hui Zu Chongzhi Madhava of Sangamagrama William Jones John Machin John Wrench Ludolph van Ceulen Aryabhata

History

Chronology Book

In culture

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Related topics

Squaring the circle Basel problem Feynman point Other topics related to π

v t e

Squaring the circle is a problem proposed by ancient geometers. It is the challenge of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge. More abstractly and more precisely, it may be taken to ask whether specified axioms of Euclidean geometry concerning the existence of lines and circles entail the existence of such a square.

In 1882, the task was proven to be impossible, as a consequence of the Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem which proves that pi (π) is a transcendental, rather than an algebraic irrational number; that is, it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients. It had been known for some decades before then that the construction would be impossible if pi were transcendental, but pi was not proven transcendental until 1882. Approximate squaring to any given non-perfect accuracy, in contrast, is possible in a finite number of steps, since there are rational numbers arbitrarily close to π.

The expression "squaring the circle" is sometimes used as a metaphor for trying to do the impossible.[1]

The term quadrature of the circle is sometimes used synonymously or may refer to approximate or numerical methods for finding the area of a circle.

Liu Hui

Mathematical work[edit]

Along with Zu Chongzhi (429–500), Liu Hui was known as one of the greatest mathematicians of ancient China.[1] Liu Hui expressed all of his mathematical results in the form of decimal fractions (using metrological units), yet the later Yang Hui (c. 1238-1298 AD) expressed his mathematical results in full decimal expressions.[2][3]

Liu provided commentary on a mathematical proof identical to the Pythagorean theorem.[4] Liu called the figure of the drawn diagram for the theorem the "diagram giving the relations between the hypotenuse and the sum and difference of the other two sides whereby one can find the unknown from the known".[5]

In the field of plane areas and solid figures, Liu Hui was one of the greatest contributors to empirical solid geometry. For example, he found that a wedge with rectangular base and both sides sloping could be broken down into a pyramid and a tetrahedral wedge.[6] He also found that a wedge with trapezoid base and both sides sloping could be made to give two tetrahedral wedges separated by a pyramid. In his commentaries on the Nine Chapters, he presented:

An algorithm for calculation of pi (π) in the comments to chapter 1.[7] He calculated pi to with a 192 (= 64 × 3) sided polygon. Archimedes used a circumscribed 96-polygon to obtain the inequality , and then used an inscribed 96-gon to obtain the inequality . Liu Hui used only one inscribed 96-gon to obtain his π inequalily, and his results were a bit more accurate than Archimedes'.[8] But he commented that 3.142074 was too large, and picked the first three digits of π = 3.141024 ~3.14 and put it in fraction form . He later invented a quick method and obtained , which he checked with a 3072-gon(3072 = 512 × 6). Nine Chapters had used the value 3 for π, but Zhang Heng (78-139 AD) had previously estimated pi to the square root of 10.

Gaussian elimination.

Cavalieri's principle to find the volume of a cylinder,[9] although this work was only finished by Zu Gengzhi. Liu's commentaries often include explanations why some methods work and why others do not. Although his commentary was a great contribution, some answers had slight errors which was later corrected by the Tang mathematician and Taoist believer Li Chunfeng.

Survey of sea island

Liu Hui also presented, in a separate appendix of 263 AD called Haidao suanjing or The Sea Island Mathematical Manual, several problems related to surveying. This book contained many practical problems of geometry, including the measurement of the heights of Chinese pagoda towers.[10] This smaller work outlined instructions on how to measure distances and heights with "tall surveyor's poles and horizontal bars fixed at right angles to them".[11] With this, the following cases are considered in his work:

The measurement of the height of an island opposed to its sea level and viewed from the sea

The height of a tree on a hill

The size of a city wall viewed at a long distance

The depth of a ravine (using hence-forward cross-bars)

The height of a tower on a plain seen from a hill

The breadth of a river-mouth seen from a distance on land

The depth of a transparent pool

The width of a river as seen from a hill

The size of a city seen from a mountain.

Liu Hui's information about surveying was known to his contemporaries as well. The cartographer and state minister Pei Xiu (224–271) outlined the advancements of cartography, surveying, and mathematics up until his time. This included the first use of a rectangular grid and graduated scale for accurate measurement of distances on representative terrain maps.[12] Liu Hui provided commentary on the Nine Chapter's problems involving building canal and river dykes, giving results for total amount of materials used, the amount of labor needed, the amount of time needed for construction, etc.[13]

Although translated into English long beforehand, Liu's work was translated into French by Guo Shuchun, a professor from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who began in 1985 and took twenty years to complete his translation.

Zu Chongzhi

The majority of Zu's great mathematical works are recorded in his lost text the Zhui Shu. Most scholars argue about his complexity since traditionally the Chinese had developed mathematics as algebraic and equational. Logically, scholars assume that the Zhui Shu yields methods of cubic equations. His works on the accurate value of pi describe the lengthy calculations involved. Zu used the Liu Hui's π algorithm described earlier by Liu Hui to inscribe a 12,288-gon. Zu's value of pi is precise to six decimal places and for a thousand years thereafter no subsequent mathematician computed a value this precise. Zu also worked on deducing the formula for the volume of a sphere.

Hunterian Gallery Glasgow by dvdbramhall

Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow.

"The Entombment"

After RAPHAEL, Raffaello Santi; (Italian; 1483-1520)

oil on canvas 174.6 x 170.0 .This is a full-scale copy, by an unknown artist, of one of Raphael's major panel pictures, finished in 1507 (Galleria Borghese, Rome). A fine painting, it was bought by the Foulis brothers for their Academy of Fine Arts, Glasgow's first art academy, so that students could learn from an important example of the master's work. This picture was rescued by the Friends of College in 1776 from the Foulis bankruptcy sale in London. It was finally sold to the University of Glasgow in 1779. The work is an accomplished copy, by an unknown hand, of Raphael's dymanic response to Atalanta Baglioni's 1505 commission for an altar piece for San Francesco del Prato in Perugia. Robert Foulis, who inaugurated the Academy in 1754, made copious purchases of casts and 'Old Masters' - genuine or not - to support the teaching role of the school. Raphael seems to have been held in dutiful regard by the Academy, which possessed a few good copies of the master, and which issued sets of engravings after certain of his most celebrated works. Yet Raphael's position was equivocal within the fledgling Academies of Britain - he represented the epitome of 'high taste', yet could be lampooned mercilessly for that very rigidity : witness Joshua Reynolds' caricature of the 'School of Athens' of 1751, now in the National Gallery of Ireland. It indeed transpired that the Foulis Raphaels had little role in the formation of subsequent trends in Scottish art. Genre, portraiture and landscape were too important to the Scots, as was the desirability of evolving a distinctive personal style. Nevertheless, the average Foulis student may have gained from the 'Entombment' an insight into the mechanics of high art, namely, the absorption of great example transmuted by highly developed personal taste. For has not Raphael himself, in this composition, adapted, in the most cunningly surreptitious way, both the Christ figure of Michelangelo's 'Pieta' of 1497-1500 and the Virgin of Michelangelo's Doni Tondo (1503-4) for the figure supporting the swooning Virgin on the right? The Scottish artist doubtless acknowledged this complexity, but resolved ultimately to resist its convolutions. After the dissolution of the Foulis Academy, this fine copy was rescued by the 'Friends of College', who purchased it at sale in London in 1776. It was finally sold to the University of Glasgow in 1779, and remains as memorial to Glasgow's precocious artistic life in the latter half of the 18th century. Text Copyright : Marion Lawson, History of Art Department, University of Glasgow, 1984. Our painting was among the works acquired by the Glasgow University Printer Robert Foulis to hang in the Academy of painting and used by students for copying. For another of the paintings formerly in the Foulis collection see 43521, the Martyrdom of St Catherine by Cossiers. In 1768 Robert Paul, a Foulis Academy pupil, engraved a Raphael drawing for the picture then owned by Crozat. Oil copies of the heads of Saint Mary Magdalen and of Nicidemus appear in p. 3 of A Catalogue of Pictures, Drawings, Prints, Statues and Busts in Plaster of Paris done at the Academy in Glasgow, c.1763 (Duncan p.113). Another same size copy, attributed to Cavaliere d'Arpino, is in the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia. Purchased, 1779.

www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/foxweb/huntsearch/Detail...

Moleman's Epic Rap Battles #43-D: Sonic Vs. Star Wars, Part 4 by Moleman NineThousand

3

VIDEO: (Coming when it's done)

••• SCRIPT/LYRICS: •••

(Continued from: www.deviantart.com/molemanninethousand/art/MERB-43-C-Palp...)

Scourge the Hedgehog:

I'm a heartless hardass of a 'hog who's here to rattle you,

And who no other holds so much as a Shard of a Shadow to!

My deadbeat dad preached peace, the pussy, but you'll find I'm nothing like him;

Baby, fail to hail this king, and be reduced to nothing, like him!

I'm no faking poser, and I make my cohorts follow suit;

These battle scars you see? Authentic!

Patch: Aye… he speaks the awful truth!

Scourge: Conceived as but a Trek satire, I've since seen to our divergence;

Got more than a beard by which to be discerned from lesser versions!

Chaos flows through Scourge's person, making haters green with envy:

No Zone holds this multiversal menace long; no being can end me,

Nor can mutinies or parallel-plane prisons worse than Hell,

And once I claim the Beryl's power, know it's highly personnel.

Grand Admiral Thrawn:

Seeing, Snot-nose, as it's apparent you're a copycat-Bizarro,

Why don't you make like the O.G. did in Moore's Man of Tomorrow?

I need not research this uncultured cretin to get him reeling;

You'll take no pride in the scars sustained from what blows I'll be dealing.

Scourge the Hedgehog:

My breakout with the Destructix stuck it to those prim, snide cops,

And it reminds me of your final fate: both deals were Inside Jobs,

And that's no wingnut theory, yo; I ain't that kind of Anarchist!

Man, no one in your galaxy alive today could handle this!

Darth Revan:

…Then step into an even longer time ago in history,

And face a wartime Star equipped for Forging lyrics endlessly!

This time, it's I who gives the wake-up call: you're under an attack;

I've got the route to the destruction of this sucker fully-mapped,

No Rakatan relics required for this Knight to knock a knave!

Call me a Krayt; no tricks can trounce me once you've stepped inside my cave!

I saved the first Sith from the grave, expelled the darkness from my lover,

And took down an Empire built up by, spoiler alert: none other

Than myself, surpassing Anakin in plot twists and atonement,

While as character development goes, Teethree outdoes this rodent!

Like a twenty-one Pazaak roll, you'll go bust against me, fool;

While Malachor was sacrificed, I'll save the puny world you rule,

Freeing it as I did Star Wars' first lesbian from slavery,

And good luck trying to reclaim it: Revanchism's named for me!

Though Calo Nord came back for more, here, there won't be another round;

I've seen same-hued hedgehogs of greater worth in Sonic Underground!

Scourge the Hedgehog:

You should go now, Grey Warden Shepard: time has left you worse for 'Ware;

Like your exploits on Taris, your doomed efforts here ain't worth the care!

Watch this Archie cross-cosmos-Hopper hammer-smash your buddy Carth,

Bombardments blowing your mind worse than your own understudy Darth!

Darth Revan:

Once I take you to Trask, you'll last about as long as Ulgo, punk;

Your only friends in your whole wretched world sold you out for a skunk!

This Old Republican's no John McCain; the only hammer dropping

Is your skanky psycho girlfriend's mallet on your rotten noggin!

Scourge the Hedgehog:

You think Rosy is my love interest?! That's every bit as true

As the identity they tricked the player into giving you,

While I'm a different kind of "player" altogether with the ladies,

Though one foxy chick outshines the rest: come out and take it, baby…

Fiona Fox:

It's Fiona, in the flesh for real; no wack automaton:

Nicking this track like Rouge's would-be steals, and that's a promise, son!

I'm coming at you with a mighty Bark, though don't look for a bite;

Why would I need the latter when the former's paired with Dynamite?

Left lost in my own world with naught, I now co-rule a new dimension;

Talk about a tale of immigrant success, and not to mention:

No princess is here to shut me up!

Sally Acorn: Well, actually, I-

Fiona Fox: Silence!

As the queen here, I'll be first to deal gut-punches, starting violence!

Best not bother if to bring me back to light is what you're after:

I'm beyond redemption, though I pulled a Shawshank on my captors!

Sonic had his chance to save me long before the darkness took me;

Now, I'm proud to be at Scourge's side, and it's true: we have cookies!

I blindsidingly betrayed like Terra did the Titans way back,

Though with my beast boy, I stayed, and now, for dissing him, it's Payback:

Your whole soul will split in two, erasing every memory;

As vicious to you with one verse as Vitiate's three centuries!

Darth Revan:

For loving this green brute, to be a monster is Fiona's fate,

But in contrast to Shrek, what these no-stars embody's death and hate!

If psychopathy turns on this degenerate and vile vixen,

Let me boot an old friend back up; demonstrate its definition…

HK-47:

Query: what the fuck did you just say about my owner, son?!

I'll have you know: my Jedi-purging prowess predates Order One!

I'm unit HK-47; battle-rapping is my mission:

No unwieldy superweapon, I take action with precision!

If a new droid army's what you covet, mine's the G0-T0 model;

It's the big one for this red fox when I come at her full-throttle,

And without the confrontation cut from uploads of this content, nary

A furball-meatbag's life functions left continued. Commentary:

Though repurchased for purposes of Tusken-translation,

I was made for raiding, specializing in assassination!

Statement: no bolt of restraint could stop my sick shit-spouting here;

My personality's prevailed through passage of four thousand years!

Releasing rapid rhymes like bullets from my namesake rifle's mags,

Awaiting master's signal to assault with more than verbal jabs,

This Hunter-Killer is High-King among mechanical emcees,

And miles past all rivals, while your Miles wrecked your regency!

Fiona Fox:

Those bare-Bones bars don't faze me, Mister, and our victory is imminent:

We'll leave less of you than your plans for Sith Empire citizens!

Scourge the Hedgehog: With spitting as acidic as the Tomb of Naga Sadow,

Watch us make an HK jetpack and fly out of Revan's Shadow!

HK-47:

Mockery: you literally just announced your own retreat;

You call me bare-bones, yet you're more like douchebags for your lack of meat!

Darth Revan: Ask my apprentice how I treat smart-Aleks mouthing off to me;

They may have messed up my brain, but I'll give you both lobotomies!

Ixis Naugus:

My mind's come back from damage just as bad, so don't expect you'll stump me

Once this triple threat takes to the ring, and things get extra-Ugly!

I'm four fifths of Captain Planet with the powers that I harness:

Water, Earth and Wind, plus Fire, all combined, although I'm Heartless!

I won't fall back into Silence as my magic joins this war:

I'd no hand in its instigation, and discern no threat from yours!

Though it's not Sat A.M.'s third season, Moleman's fourth should do just fine:

I'll make you fear your very shadow as I catch you from behind!

Born out of flying into the sun like an Icarian inversion,

Now I'm knocking icky nig-nogs; it's my lyrical Resurgence!

No time-travelled intervention will avert my rise to dominance,

Crowned fairly by the populace; they revel in my opulence!

While much mystic manipulation brought my robo-rival's fall,

Assassinating this 'bot's character should take no tricks at all!

You're more than one-third bats if you'd attempt to fight this awesome mage;

It's no Smash tournament, but still I'll send you flying off the stage!

My dear apprentice knows too well the full extent of my dark influence,

And by the bones of Vale, I'll see yours shattered into crystal bits!

This ancient menace kickstarted the whole lore of a series:

There'd be no Robotnik otherwise; no conflict-source comes near me!

?????????:

Three hundred sixty-five trillion sentient people…

Three hundred sixty-five trillion men, women and kids…

Three hundred sixty-five trillion lives lost to evil…

THAT'S how you measure all the shit my kind did!

Nom Anor:

…And if there's one to thank for starting up the whole campaign, it's me:

The vanguard of the Forceless force that harrowed Orders heinously!

I buried the Empire's Council, planted seeds of planet-feuds,

And for the days of Palpatine, inspired newfound gratitude,

Such was the magnitude of what intergalactic terror we wrought,

Just as the intent of this event-shaping Intendant had sought!

Now, reemerging from the shadows, scouting time is at an end,

As the Yuuzhan Vong rap-invasion fleet upon you now descends!

The eighth cortex contains more knowledge than your world entire's chances;

While you hide away in Voids, our ships traverse their vast expanses.

Piercing my crab-armor, think your giant lobster-claw can manage?

Try to find a weak point here, and get attacked for massive damage!

Escalating to the tops of charts, I'll tear you limb from limb

As I confront your lot head-on, no masquerades nor pseudonyms,

And here's an honest prophecy: it's this whole planet's transmutation;

Remade by my flows' sheer sickness via verbal Vongformation!

Sonic fought those who'd replace all living matter with machines,

But let's see how he fares against the polar-opposite extreme!

Bestowing blessed pain upon you, per my people's solemn creed,

I'm all-consuming on the mic like Grutchins, swarming; "Nom", indeed!

Ixis Naugus:

The voices in my head agree, for once, that yours is full of crap:

Your stupid ass got played by Ackbar, falling right into his trap!

My eldritch incantations, though, will take your further still Ebaq:

You weren't the big bad, even falsely; yo, get Kefka on this track!

Nom Anor:

I spit it hotter than our tripods, repping my gods; roasting rivals:

Though my spores were non-transmissible, this verse is going viral!

While I went down with my ship, you couldn't escape this if you tried,

For it's the end of your world as you know it when ours both collide!

Mammoth Mogul:

You wanna bet? I've been around since take two of prehistory;

Seen it survive despite my reigns of terror and Ixis wizardry!

I'm top contender for Mobian multiversal Mastery;

A stone-age-borne immortal, here to Vandalize you Savagely!

The mammoth's in the room; I'll state the obvious soon as I enter:

Wage a war against your "Knights of Life" that's sure to be remembered!

As for jacking energies, I'm without equal: ask Dimitri;

Knuckles, too, knows well the deathly gravity of trying to cheat me.

I've got something on my chest, but what I'm saying won't relieve it;

As the Fearsome Foursome's single sire, I do as I see fit!

I just can't be kept encased, and no one walks all over me,

While lesser Ancients who would try get taught their lessons mortally!

Watch me force foes into submission even from a cell, imprisoned;

I'll bring Shame your goddess of a thousand eyes couldn't see forgiven!

You'll know pain that's Shaied away from by your species' sickest breeds;

This Executor faces execution by my rap-stampede!

Nom Anor:

Though Sekot's coming caught me by surprise, I truly do expect it

That your heresy won't take two hundred years to be regretted!

It's long-due extinction for this mastodonic hunk of fail

Who lost his "omnipotence" to that idiotic Hulked-out Tails!

Mammoth Mogul:

I came back from that loss, one meant to leave me in eternal shambles,

Rising as Casino Kingpin; talk about a fruitful gamble!

While your jihads rage, I see the true True Way to victory,

Because I know no age; I'll just stay, waiting, 'til you're history!

Abeloth:

…Then try somebody history forgot, and yet who's still here, kicking,

Cheshire smile grinning ear-to-ear and tendril-fingers flicking!

Let the last One be the last one claiming this song for her taking,

For with all the chaos wrought here, it's high time I reawakened!

I'm the grossest hostess with the most host bodies out there, squirming;

One bad Mother, now engaging in a different sort of Serving!

The Jedi won't be the only wizards meeting gruesome Fates;

King of New Mobotropolis? I'm the Galactic Chief of State!

Beyond all shadows of a doubt, I walk the highest mental plane;

An Abel who was able to out-evil her own family's Cain!

Call me "Beloved Queen of Bars" as I win over fans in scores;

Breathe life into these beats, all while consuming every ounce of yours!

I'll drive you mad, instilling fears of all your loved ones being replaced,

Then bring exactly that to pass, and soon, I'll come to wear your face;

And I bet you thought those automatons were cause enough for worry!

I out-gambitted the Sith; what threat is this Lost Tribe of Furries?

Mammoth Mogul:

Who got Lovecraft in my Star Wars?! …Sonic's presence notwithstanding.

While you may have forced sides Light and Dark to work together, banding,

It'll take no dagger for my cutting words to do you in,

For I'm a monolith of power; yours is spread out far too thin!

Abeloth:

Across millennia, my containment was the end to which they saw,

But no black hole's as vastly empty as what spews out from your Maw!

Your so-called worldly wisdom's naught next to what Knowledge I've absorbed:

I gaze into the future, seeing myself, throne-seated and adored!

Alas, nobody here is close to fit to be my Son or Daughter;

Let you drink from my cup? Nah; methinks I'll simply have you slaughtered!

Luke Skywalker at his strongest failed to stop this permanently;

I'm the ghastliest galactic geist! What possibly could end me?

?????????:

No one in your galaxy, but look to one far, far away,

Or rather: one that yours is far, far away FROM, as I should say…

TO BE CONTINUED…

Transmutation by gerardclubfoto

5

Composition avec Photoshop et ACDSee Ultimate

Transmutation by Arturo Gonzales & Maru Izaguirre by jpotto

3

Between April - October 2022 Chatsworth parkland has played host to 12 sculptures from the USA Burning Man festival. This is normally held annually in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.

The UK exhibition features 8 original Burning Man sculptures and 4 new works created on site with the help of visitors, local community groups and a school over the course of the year. This process also happens in the U.S.

Transmutation is a large version of coloured Mexican folk art sculptures called Alebrijes. Alebrijes which traditionally feature mythical creatures. The skeleton is made of fibreglass and metal, adorned with traditional Mexican patterns, painted in acrylic and fluorescent paint.

The work combines elements of several different animals making us wonder what would happen if we brought back extinct species through genetic cloning.

Arturo Gonzales is from Mexico, and he received a Burning Man Honorarium grant in 2019. Maru Izaguirre is an architect also from Mexico.

www.chatsworth.org/news-media/news-blogs-press-releases/b...

No_228 by David Hanes

2

Alchemical Symbolism of the Nativity of Christ..Each year the Sun performs an elliptic journey that starts on the 25th of December, advancing and returning to the South Pole by Hughes Songe

3

It is clear that Christmas is a wonderful event upon which we must profoundly meditate.

Each year the Sun performs an elliptic journey that starts on the 25th of December, advancing and returning to the South Pole, towards the area where we find Antarctica. It is worthwhile to reflect precisely on the deep significance of this journey.

In the north on those days of Christmas, winter reaches its peak, precisely because the Sun has withdrawn. Thus, on December 24th, the journey of the Sun towards the south reaches its end. If from December 25th onwards the Sun did not move northward, we would die frozen; the whole earth would become a mass of ice, and every creature, everything that has life would actually perish. So, therefore it is worthwhile to reflect on the event of Christmas.

The journey of the Spiritual Sun, the Christ Sun, is symbolized by the journey of the physical Sun, which is nothing more than a symbol. Thus, when ancient mystics worshipped the Sun, when they rendered cult to the sun, they were not properly addressing the physical Sun, no! They worshipped the Spiritual Sun, the Sun of Midnight, the Christ Sun.

Unquestionably, it is the Christ Sun who must guide us in the superior worlds of cosmic consciousness. Any mystic who learns how to operate outside of the physical body by will is guided by the Sun of Midnight, by the Cosmic Christ.

It is necessary to learn, to know, the symbolic movements of the Sun of Midnight, since he is the one who always guides the initiate. He is the one who guides us. He is the one who tells us what we should and should not do. I am talking about this in the most profound, esoteric manner.

Taking into account that every initiate must exit his physical body by will (since those who do not know how to astral project by will are just beginners, people who are taking their first steps in these studies), when one is on the path, one has to know how to be guided by the Sun of Midnight, by the Christ Sun, to learn, to know the signals of his movements. If one sees, for example, a sunset, the sun sinking in the west, what is he telling us? Simply, that something must die in us. Yet, if one sees its rising in the east, what does it says to us? It says that something must be born within us. When we achieve success in all esoteric tests, he then shines in his fullness on the horizon. So, the Lord guides us in the superior worlds, thus one has to learn to know his signals.

Dubui and many others have studied this wonderful Christmas event. There is no doubt—and this is recognized by Dubui—that all ancient religions celebrated Christmas.

Thus, as the physical Sun advances towards the north in order to give life to all of creation, likewise the Sun of Midnight, the Spiritual Sun, the Christ Sun, gives us life if we learn how to fulfill his commandments.

Obviously, this solar event is addressed in the holy scriptures, yet one must know how to read that event between the lines. Each year, in the macrocosmos, this entire cosmic drama of the Sun is lived; I repeat, it is lived every year.

The fact has to be taken into account that each year the Christ Sun must be crucified in the world. The Sun has to live the entire drama of his life, passion, and death, to then resurrect in everything that is, in everything that has been, and shall be—that is to say, in all of creation. So, therefore, this is how all of us receive life from the Christ Sun.

It is also true that every year, when the Sun moves towards the southern region, he leaves us cold here in the North, because he goes to the southern regions to give life. Long winter nights are tough. In times of Christmas, the days are short and the nights are long. We are reflecting on all of this, thus it is appropriate that we study what the cosmic drama is, because it is necessary for the Christ Sun to also be born within us. He must be born in us.

The sacred scriptures clearly address Bethlehem and a stable where he is born. This stable of Bethlehem is within oneself, here and now. Precisely within this interior stable dwell the animals of desire—that is, all those passionate “I’s” that we carry in our psyche. This is obvious.

The Sun Christ must move forward in order to give us life. Thus, on the spring equinox, the Sun reaches its northernmost position. Then, the grapes and the wheat ripen. It is precisely in the spring when the Lord must go through his life, passion and death to then resurrect. Eastern Holy week is in spring.

Bethlehem is an esoteric name. The village of Bethlehem did not exist in those times when the great Kabir Jesus came into the world, so Bethlehem is entirely symbolic. Bethlehem in Chaldean language is Belen, and its root signifies "tower of fire." Therefore, Bethlehem is Belen, a Chaldean term that corresponds precisely to the tower of BEL, the tower of FIRE. Thus, Bethlehem is completely symbolic.

When the initiate works with the sacred fire, when the initiate completely eliminates his "psychic aggregates" from his intimate nature, when indeed he is performing the great work, he undoubtedly has pass through the Venustic initiation.

The descent of Christ into the heart is a cosmic and human event of an immense transcendence, which indeed corresponds to the Venustic initiation.

Unfortunately, what the Christ is has not been understood. Many assume that Christ was exclusively Jesus of Nazareth, yet they are wrong. Jesus of Nazareth as man, or better said, Jeshua Ben Pandira as man, received the Venustic initiation. Jesus incarnated Christ. Nonetheless, he is not the only one to receive that initiation. Hermes Trismegistus, the thrice-great God Ibis of Thoth, also incarnated Christ.

John the Baptist, whom many considered the CHRISTUS, as the anointed one [the Messiah], unquestionably received the Venustic initiation. John incarnated the universal Christ principle. The Nazarenes were known as Baptists, Sabians, and Christians of Saint John. Their belief was that the Messiah [Jesus] was not the Son of God, but simply a prophet who wanted to follow John. In those days, there were disputes among the Baptists, the Essenes, and others.

So, how should we understand what Christ is? Christ must not be understood as a person, nor as an individual, because Christ is beyond personality, the “I,” and individuality. Christ, in authentic esotericism, is the Solar Logos, represented by the Sun.

Bethlehem is an esoteric name. The village of Bethlehem did not exist in those times when the great Kabir Jesus came into the world, so Bethlehem is entirely symbolic. Bethlehem in Chaldean language is Belen, and its root signifies "tower of fire." Therefore, Bethlehem is Belen, a Chaldean term that corresponds precisely to the tower of BEL, the tower of FIRE. Thus, Bethlehem is completely symbolic.

When the initiate works with the sacred fire, when the initiate completely eliminates his "psychic aggregates" from his intimate nature, when indeed he is performing the great work, he undoubtedly has pass through the Venustic initiation.

The descent of Christ into the heart is a cosmic and human event of an immense transcendence, which indeed corresponds to the Venustic initiation.

Unfortunately, what the Christ is has not been understood. Many assume that Christ was exclusively Jesus of Nazareth, yet they are wrong. Jesus of Nazareth as man, or better said, Jeshua Ben Pandira as man, received the Venustic initiation. Jesus incarnated Christ. Nonetheless, he is not the only one to receive that initiation. Hermes Trismegistus, the thrice-great God Ibis of Thoth, also incarnated Christ.

John the Baptist, whom many considered the CHRISTUS, as the anointed one [the Messiah], unquestionably received the Venustic initiation. John incarnated the universal Christ principle. The Nazarenes were known as Baptists, Sabians, and Christians of Saint John. Their belief was that the Messiah [Jesus] was not the Son of God, but simply a prophet who wanted to follow John. In those days, there were disputes among the Baptists, the Essenes, and others.

So, how should we understand what Christ is? Christ must not be understood as a person, nor as an individual, because Christ is beyond personality, the “I,” and individuality. Christ, in authentic esotericism, is the Solar Logos, represented by the Sun.

As long as a human being has not incarnated Christ, we cannot say that he possesses eternal life. Only Christ can give us life, and give it to us in abundance. Therefore, we must be less dogmatic, and think about the intimate Christ.

The entire symbolism associated with the birth of Jesus is alchemical and kabbalistic. It is written that guided by a star, three wise kings came to worship him. That passage could not be frankly understood if alchemy is not known.

What is that star, and who are these three magi? I tell you that the star is none other than the seal of Solomon, the six pointed star, symbol of the Solar Logos. Obviously, the upper triangle represents sulfur, that is to say, the fire. And what does the lower triangle represent in alchemy? It represents mercury, the water. But, what kind of water do the alchemists refer to? It is the water—mercury, they say—that refines the metallic radical number, in other words, the Exiohehary, the sacred sperm. Undoubtedly, by means of the transmutation of our sexual secretions, that extraordinary water, that pure water, that mercury of the secret philosophy, is elaborated.

Well, it is worthwhile for us to meditate on the seal of Solomon. Behold the upper triangle, a vivid representation of sulfur, and the lower, vivid representation of mercury. I want to state with this that the sacred fire, the fire of the Holy Spirit, must fertilize in us our chaotic matter, the fire must fertilize the mercury of the secret philosophy, so that life can emerge. Undoubtedly, if we do not appeal to the seal of Solomon and to Alchemy, it will be a little difficult to understand this subject-matter of the star of Bethlehem.

I repeat: mercury is the "metallic soul" of the sacred sperm. The sulfur is the sacred fire of Kundalini in the human being. Once we understand this, we can clarify something more: the sulfur must fertilize the mercury [the metallic soul of the sacred sperm]; with this fertilized mercury we can manufacture the existential, superior bodies of the Being. So therefore if we do not understand this, we would not understand the seal of Solomon either, nor the star that appeared to the three magi kings.

Now, for a better explanation, let us address the three mercuries:

First: what the alchemists called "brute azoth" is the sacred sperm, properly said.

Second: the second mercury is precisely the metallic soul of the sperm. By means of transmutation, the sperm is transformed into energy. That sexual energy is what is called "metallic soul of the sperm."

Third: the third mercury is the most important. It is precisely the mercury fertilized by sulfur.

This subject-matter is a bit complicated and difficult to understand, but if you pay attention, you can at least have an idea about it. If you want me to explain what Christmas is, then I have to explain it as it is, or not explain it at all.

The first mercury is the brute azoth, the sacred sperm. The second mercury is sexual energy, the outcome of the transmutation of the sperm. The third mercury is the mercury fertilized by sulfur; in other words, it is the sexual energy already fecundated by the sacred fire, it is a mixture of energy and fire that rises along the dorsal spine in order to take us towards the inner realization of the being. This third mercury is the "Archeus" of the Greeks. Therefore, within the "Archeus" there is salt, there is sulfur, and there is mercury; this is obvious. The "Archeus" is up there in the macrocosmos, from where the cosmic units emerge, yet here below we also need to manufacture the "Archeus." How do we do it? We do it by means of transmutation. Thus, from that "Archeus," which will be a mixture of salt, sulfur and mercury, the existential, superior bodies of the being will be born.

If someone has the astral, mental and causal bodies, they become a true human being, this is obvious, and consequently receives the psychic and spiritual principles.

Let us clarify: in the beginning we have nothing more than the brute azoth that we have to transmute—that is to say, the sexual secretions must be transmuted, must be transformed into energy. That transmuted energy rises through the spermatic cords to the brain. Subsequently, that energy unites its positive and negative poles in the coccyx, near the Triveni, and as a consequence the fire emerges; this fire fertilizes the energy. Fire mixed with energy rises along the spinal cord to the brain. The surplus of this mercury fertilized by sulfur comes to crystallize in the existential bodies of the Being.

First, the astral body will be formed; second, the body of the mind will be formed; and third, the causal body will be formed. When someone has formed the astral, mental, and causal bodies, this one receives the psychic and spiritual principles—that is to say, this one becomes a human being, a true human. Therefore, all of this is essential in order to become a human being. Nonetheless, to create the existential superior bodies of the Being is one thing, and to take them to perfection is another, different thing.

Unquestionably, salt, sulfur, and mercury do it all. Wherever there is matter, there is salt. All matter is reduced to salt, and all salt can be converted into gold. Thus, the existential superior bodies of the Being are a mixture of salt, sulfur, and mercury. Through the combined action of sulfur and mercury, the salt, in any of those bodies, is transformed into gold. To transform those bodies into gold, into vehicles of pure gold, is the goal, and that is the great work. Nonetheless, such a product could not be elaborated if one did not have extra help. This wonderful aid consists of the nativity of the heart. Christ must be born in the heart of a human being so that he can perform such a gigantic task, which is to transform the existential bodies of the Being into vehicles of pure gold.

Now, let us focus our attention on any of these vehicles: the astral body, for example. Let us investigate a person who has a [solar] astral body. One knows that one has a [solar] astral body when one can use it, when one can move with it, consciously and positively, when one can travel with it from one planet to another. If we see someone who has the astral body, someone who is working on it in order to turn it into a vehicle of pure gold, in other words, someone who wants to perfect it, how does he do it? He does it if he eliminates the "dry Mercury," that is to say, the “arsenic sulfur,” the bloody, lustful atoms. Obviously, he needs help. Thus, if he manages to eliminate the "dry Mercury" and the “arsenic sulfur” or "poisonous sulfur," then his astral body will become a vehicle of pure gold. This is difficult. Fortunately, the inner Christ intervenes and helps to eliminate all that "dry Mercury" and all that "poisonous or arsenic sulfur ." Thus finally, as an outcome of these works, the vehicle becomes a golden body.

The salt, which comes to transform the astral body into a vehicle of precious gold, will necessarily have to undergo several stages.

The first is symbolized by the black color, the black crow, ruled by Saturn. Why? Because the initiate has to enter into infinitude of efforts. In these works he has to eliminate, destroy, disintegrate, all of the inhuman elements that he carries in his astral body—this is obvious—until attaining the white color, which is fundamental. Obviously, the white color is represented by the white dove. Egyptian initiates wear white linen garments to represent chastity, purity.

The third symbol is the yellow eagle, which is when the initiate receives the right to use yellow tunic.

In the fourth phase of the work, the initiate will receive the purple, when his astral body has been converted into a vehicle of pure gold of the highest quality.

The boss of this alchemical work is precisely the inner Christ.

The sages say that salt, sulfur, and mercury are passive instruments of the great work. The most important element, they say, is the "internal magnesium." This "magnesium," quoted by Paracelsus, is nothing other than the intimate Christ. Indeed, Christ must perform the great work.

I have cited as an example the astral body, but identical work needs to be performed with each of the superior existential bodies of the Being. Without the "inner magnesium" of alchemy, such work would be more than impossible. This is why, unquestionably, when one begins the great work, one must invoke the intimate Christ.

The Inner Christ is born in the stable of our body; inside it we have the animals of desire, our lower passions. Christ has to grow, to develop, through the ascension of grades until becoming a man among men, until taking possession of all our mental, sexual, emotional processes, to disguisedly pass as anyone among many, etc.

Being Christ, such a perfect being, a Seity without sin, nonetheless, he has to live as a man, as a sinner among sinners, a stranger among strangers; this is the harsh reality of the facts. Yet, he grows, he develops as the pace that he eliminates within himself the "undesirable elements" that we all carry within. That integration with ourselves is so great that he takes all responsibility upon his shoulders. Not being a sinner, he has become a sinner like us, living as anyone else, feeling the temptations in our flesh and blood. Thus, little by little, as he is eliminating the "undesirable elements" of our psyche, he develops and unfolds inside of oneself. That is precisely the marvel of Christ. If it were not so, it would be impossible for us to perform the great work.

Christ is the one who has to eliminate all the "dry mercury," all the "poisonous sulfur," so that the superior existential bodies of the Being can become vehicles of pure gold, vehicles of the best quality gold.

So, the three wise men who come to worship the child represent the colors of the great work.

The first color is black, symbolized by the black malachim, which is the color when we are perfecting the body—and again, this stage is also symbolized by the black crow of death, which relates to the black work of Saturn. Then, we are undergoing a death: the death of all our desires, passions, etc., in the astral world.

The white color emerges later, meaning it emerges in the moment when one has disintegrated all the "I's" in the astral world. Then, one has the right to use the white linen tunic. It is evident that this stage is symbolized by the white dove. Among the three kings, this is the second malachim, the white king.

If the initiate has advanced enough towards the perfection of the astral body, he will deserve the yellow color, meaning he has the right to use the yellow colored tunic. This is the stage where the yellow eagle appears. This reminds us of the third malachim of the three kings, who is the yellow king.

Finally, the crown of the work is the purple. When a body—whether the astral, the mental or the causal—is of pure gold, one receives the purple of the kings, because one has triumphed. The purple is the cape that the three wise kings carry upon their shoulders.

So lo and behold the three king magi, which are not three persons, as many people believe. No, sir! They represent the three fundamental colors of the great work, and even the very Jesus Christ who lives within each one of us [the malachim].

In Hebrew, Jesus is ישוע Yeshua, which means "savior." Thus as a savior, our particular Yeshua has to be born in the stable that we carry within, so that as a savior he can perform the great work. He is the "interior magnesium" of the alchemists laboratory. The great master must emerge from the very bottom of our soul, our spirit.

The hardest task for the intimate Christ when he is born within the heart of a human being is precisely his via crucis, the cosmic drama. In the gospel, the crowds appear asking for the crucifixion of the Lord. Those crowds are not from yesterday, or from a remote past, or as the people suppose that they relate to something that happened 1,976 years ago. No, ladies and gentlemen! Those crowds are within us, they represent our “infamous" “I’s.”

Listen, within each person live thousands of people—namely, the “I” of hatred, the “I” of jealousy, the “I have envy,” the “I am greedy.” That is to say, all the many defects that we carry within, and which are our "infamous I’s,” are those who shout “Crucifixia!, Crucifixia!”

Regarding the three traitors, we already know based on the gospel of Christ that these are Judas, Caiaphas, and Pilate. Who is Judas? He is the demon of desire. Who is Pilate? He is the demon of the mind. Who is Caiaphas? He is the demon of evil will. However, this must be clarified a bit, so let us specify this so that you will understand. Judas, the demon of desire, changes the intimate Christ for 30 pieces of silver: 3 plus zero equal 3; that is the Kabbalistic addition, meaning Judas changes Christ for material things, for coins, for liquors, luxury, animal pleasures, etc.

Regarding Pilate, he is the demon of the mind that always washes his hands; he is never to blame, he always finds an evasion, a justification, for everything. Indeed, every psychological defect that we possess within ourselves always lives justifying his deeds. Yes, we never believe ourselves to be guilty. There are some who have told me, "Sir, I believe that I am a good person. I do not kill. I do not steal. I am charitable. I am not envious.” In other words, “a paragon of virtues," “Mr. or Ms. Perfection,” according to them. So, therefore, let us see at things as they are, in their crude reality. Pilate always washes his hands; he never feels guilty.

Now, regarding Caiaphas, I frankly think that he is the most perverse of all. Think about Caiaphas, of what he is. The intimate Christ many times assigns a priest, a teacher, an initiate, to guide his sheep, so that he pastures them. The Christ places him in control and in front of a congregation. Yet, that priest, that teacher, that initiate, etc., instead of wisely guiding his people, he sells the sacraments, he prostitutes the altar, he fornicates with the female devotees, etc. In conclusion, he betrays the intimate Christ. So, that is what Caiaphas is. Is this painful? Indeed, it is! This is horrible. This is the dirtiest betrayal of all! There is no doubt that there are many religions that have been prostituted, this is obvious. There are many priests who have betrayed the intimate Christ. I am not addressing any sect in particular, no, but all religions of the world. It is possible that there are esoteric groups led by true initiates, and these initiates, often treacherous, have betrayed the intimate Christ. All of this is painful, infinitely painful. So, Caiaphas is the dirtiest that is.

These three traitors lead the intimate Christ to torment. Think for a moment of the intimate Christ abiding at the bottom of every one of you, and becoming owner of all your mental, emotional processes, etc., fighting in order to save any of you, suffering horribly. Meanwhile, your own “I’s” are protesting against him, placing a crown of thorns on his head, whipping him. Well, that is the harsh reality of the facts. This is the cosmic drama, internally lived.

Finally, this intimate Christ will rise to the Calvary, that is obvious, and will descend into the sepulcher, and with his death he kills death: that is the last task that he performs. Subsequently, he resurrects in the initiate, and the initiate resurrects in him, then the great work is done (consumatum est).

So this is how through the centuries resurrected masters have emerged. Let us think of Hermes Trismegistus, let us consider Morya (a great master of Jinn science). Let us think of Count Cagliostro, who is still alive. Saint Germain, who in 1999 will visit Europe again. Saint Germain was active during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, nevertheless he still exists physically; he is a resurrected master. Why are these masters resurrected? They are because, thanks to the intimate Christ, they succeeded in achieving resurrection.

So without the intimate Christ, resurrection would be impossible. Those who assume that because a person has died physically he or she has the right to the resurrection of the dead are indeed people worthy of compassion, because they not only ignore (speaking now in a Socratic language) but worse, they ignore that they ignore. The resurrection is something that must be worked on, and worked on here and now. Yes, it is necessary to resurrect in flesh and blood, but here, right now, personally, and this is how the entire Christic mystery should be considered.

The entire cosmic drama, in itself, is extraordinary, wonderful, and begins, indeed, with the nativity in the heart. What continues afterwards in relation with the Christic drama is the flight into Egypt, because Herod commands the killing of all of the children, thus, he has to flee. All this is symbolic, completely symbolic.

It is written in an apocryphal gospel that when Jesus, Joseph, and Mary had to flee to Egypt, they spent several days living under a fig tree, and that from that fig tree, a spring of pure water sprouted. This need to be understood: the fig tree always represents sex. That they ate of the fruit of the fig tree? Indeed, those are the fruits of the tree of the science of good and evil. The spring of pure water which flowed, sprouted out of the fig tree, is nothing less than the mercury of secret philosophy.

As for the slaughter of the innocent, much has been written about it. On the gates of the cemetery of Paris, Nicolas Flammel engraved scenes on the slaughter of the innocent.

Why this cruel slaughter of the innocent? Nevertheless, this is also very alchemical. Any initiate must pass through the slaughter. But, what does the intimate Christ have to slaughter in us? Simply put, Christ must slaughter the ego, the “I,” the “myself.” The blood that emanates from this slaughtering is the sacred fire, with which the initiate must be purified, cleaned, blanched. All of this is greatly esoteric. Nothing of it can be taken at the "dead letter."

Thereafter come the miraculous phenomena of the great master; namely, he walks on the waters. The intimate Christ must always walk on the waters of life, to open the sight of those who even when listening to the preached word cannot see its meaning, to open the ears of those who do not want to hear, so that they can hear the word. When the Lord has grown in the initiate, he has to take the word and explain it to others in order for them to understand what the path is. To clean the lepers: everyone in this world is leprous, there is not a single one who is not a leper; that leprosy is the "pluralized I." That is the plague that the whole world carries within, the leprosy of which we must be cleansed.

Those who are paralyzed, who do not walk yet on the path of the realization of the Self, must be healed by the Son of Man, so that they can walk towards the mountain of the Being.

The Christic drama must be understood in a most profound and intimate manner, since it does not correspond to a remote past. It is a drama to be lived within ourselves, here and now.

Yes, we must begin to mature a little bit. In this way we will better appreciate the message that the great Kabir Jesus brought to Earth.

In synthesis, we need to pass through three purifications, based on iron and fire. The three nails on the cross symbolize these three purifications. The very word "INRI" says a lot. We already know that INRI, esoterically, is fire. So before attaining the resurrection we need to pass through three purifications.

The one who resurrects is radically transformed and becomes a god-man, becomes a hierophant of the stature of Hermes, or Quetzalcoatl, etc. So, the great work has to be done.

The Importance of Kabbalah

Indeed, the four gospels cannot be understood if one does not study Alchemy and Kabbalah. We must be alchemists and kabbalists; this is obvious.

The Jews had three sacred books: the first is the body of doctrine, that is to say, the Bible. The second is the soul of the doctrine, the Talmud, where the national Jewish soul is. The third is the spirit of the doctrine, the Zohar, where the entire rabbinical Kabbalah is.

The Bible, the body of doctrine, is written in code. Thus, if we want to study the Bible by combining verses, we will proceed in an ignorant, empirical, and absurd manner. We find the key to interpret the Bible only in the third book, in the Zohar, written by Simon Ben Jochai, the great enlightened rabbi.

First of all, it is necessary to open the Zohar, because if we want to know something about the Son of Man, something about Christ, we must study the Tree of Life. How are we to know anything about the Son of Man if we do not study the Tree of Life? Without the Tree of Life? No! It is not possible. When one studies the Tree of Life, one has to delve into the ten sephiroth of the Hebraic Kabbalah.

This time I will talk about the ten sephiroth, yet not from top to bottom, but I will approach them from the bottom to the top, since on one occasion, the Count of Saint Germain said to me, "Now, in these times, it is our duty to work from the bottom to the top…” Indeed, it is true. We have no choice, because humanity is too materialized. Therefore, I will start talking to you about the Tree of Life from the bottom to the top, and not from the top to the bottom...

Thus, the first sephirah is Malkuth. Now this Malkuth, properly stated, is the physical world, this, where we live, the three-dimensional world of Euclid. This is obvious.

Scientists can learn the mechanics of phenomena, but what do they know about the vital depth? Absolutely nothing, indeed, nothing!

Let us examine an ordinary physical body. We discovered that it is formed by organs; this is why it is called an “organism.” Its organs, in turn, are composed of cells, its cells by molecules, its molecules by atoms, and if we disintegrate any atom, we liberate energy.

Scientists can play, we might say, with the biomechanics of phenomena, but they cannot create life — impossible! If we place on the table of a laboratory the chemical substances with which male and female gametes (i.e., spermatozoa and ova) are composed, and if we tell the scientists to manufacture such gametes, I do not deny that they might make, manufacture them. It is possible that they might make them with powerful microscopes. Nonetheless, we are indeed absolutely sure that they will never create a human organism from those artificial gametes.

Presently, they have created rockets that travel to the Moon, supersonic airplanes that have broken the sound barrier, yet scientists have not been able to create a simple artificial plant seed with the possibilities of germinating...

Mr. Alfonso L. Herrera, the great Mexican sage, who created the theory of plasmogenia, managed to manufacture an artificial cell, but it was a cell that never had life, it was a dead cell.

Farmers transplant seeds, e.g. coffee, from one land to another land. Right? Human seeds from one person to another can also be transplanted; scientists perform — we might say — artificial inseminations. All of this is possible, but they are playing around with what nature already made. But let us see if they, the scientists, are capable of manufacturing human seeds with the possibilities of becoming something alive. No, they cannot! This has never been seen, and it will never been seen.

Conclusion: Life is something different. To sustain it, the human body needs a nisus formativus — as Mr. Immanuel Kant, the philosopher of Königsberg said. That nisus formativus is the vital body or linga sarira of the Hindustani, the vital seat of any living cell, the Yesod [“foundation”] of the Hebrew Kabbalah.

Just as our physical body has its vital body for its maintenance, sustenance, conservation, so likewise plants and any organism that has life; thus, in general, the whole planet Earth has it. So all the terrestrial world has its own vitality, vital foundation, its Yesod. Yes, in that Yesod of this terrestrial world [fourth coordinate] is the life of our world.

Now, delving a little more, we could mention the issue of the fifth coordinate. Obviously, the astral world exists beyond the vital world. In the astral world live the disembodied souls after having left their physical bodies. In the astral world we find the columns of angels and demons…

The magician can learn — if that is what he wills — to work in the astral world. We teach systems by means of which it is possible to enter the astral world at will. The astral world is precisely the Kabbalistic Hod.

Beyond the astral world, we find the world of the cosmic mind, the famous Netzach of the Hebrews. The Earth has its mind. The cosmic mind or the planetary mind abides in all that is, was, and will be. Our own mind is a fraction of the planetary mind, that is obvious. That the planetary mind or mental world is named in Hebrew Netzach is nothing strange, it just is a matter of language. Notwithstanding, the world of the mind has been extensively studied by all schools of regeneration.

Continuing then with this analysis of the Tree of Life, we enter into the world of natural causes, the causal world. Obviously, the causal world is indeed the temple of the fraternity of the interior light (never built by human hands). In the causal world, we find different currents of cosmic Causation:

"Every effect has its cause, and every cause its effect.” Every cause is transformed into an effect, and the effect, in turn, becomes the cause of a new effect. Thus, causes and effects are properly chained.

In the casual world, properly stated, is the principle of the human known as “Human Soul,” which has been denominated (in Hebrew) Tiphereth, and this is quite interesting. The Human Soul itself is male, the Spiritual Soul is female. Thus, in the world of Tiphereth we find the Human Soul, which is what we all have of human.

When Christ, the intimate Christ, comes to give us help, he obviously has to emerge in us from Tiphereth, from within the causal world, since the causal world is where the causes of our errors are, and he has to remove the causes of our errors.

In order for the Cosmic Christ to be born within us, he needs to humanize himself, since he is a cosmic, universal, latent force within every atom of the infinite. However, in order for Christ to be humanized, he has to enter within the womb of our Divine Mother Kundalini... in other words, how could we understand the meaning of this?

Listen: as our Father who is in secret is within us, likewise is our Divine Mother Kundalini. Therefore, the Divine Mother arises in us when the eternal divine masculine splits asunder into the eternal divine feminine, who later receives the Logos in her womb. Christ descends from his elevated sphere in order to be born from her; this is why it is stated that, "She is virginal before childbirth, during childbirth, and after childbirth.” Thus, it is from her that the child Jesus, the inner Jesus Christ, must be born. This is our particular Yeshua [Hebrew: “savior”] who has to descend in us through her in order to save us. After emerging from her, he descends in us, the Human Soul.

Therefore, when a Human Soul receives the Initiation of Tiphereth, Christ then descends into the causal world in order to express himself through that Human Soul. Christ emerges, in fact, from the causal world in order to eliminate the causes of our errors, which are there.

Far beyond the world of Tiphereth, or world of natural causes, is Geburah, which is the world (we may say) of the Spiritual Soul. In strict Buddhism, Geburah is called the Buddhic or intuitional world. This is why Geburah is also called Buddhi, the world of the Spiritual Soul. What, then, is Buddhi?

In the Buddhic world is Buddhi, our Spiritual Soul, the Valkyrie,Guinevere,the queen of the Jinn knights, she who poured wine for Lancelot into the initiatic cups of Sukra and Manti...

Let us remember Dante who speaks of two souls: the soul that works, and the other that contemplates herself in a mirror (who shines, and all)... So these are the two souls: one is masculine, and the other feminine. Geburah is also called the world of rigor, of the law, of justice.

Far beyond the Sephirah Geburah, we find Gedulah, the seventh of the Sephiroth. Gedulah is also called Chesed. The sephirah Chesed is the world of the Innermost, the world of Atman, the ineffable.

Ancient wisdom states in the Testament of Learning:

“Before the false dawn came over this earth, those who survived the hurricane and the storm gave praise to the Innermost, and to them appeared the heralds of the dawn.”

The Innermost is Atman, the ineffable: Chesed.

Therefore, these seven sephiroth are, we might say, the manifestation.

Far beyond these seven inferior sephiroth, we find Binah amongst the three superior sephiroth... But what is Binah? Binah is the Holy Spirit. Yes, Binah is the Holy Spirit in each one of us. The world of the Holy Spirit is formidable, wonderful, extraordinary.

Beyond the world of the Holy Ghost is the world of Chokmah, meaning the world of the Logos, the Cosmic Christ.

And much further beyond is the world of Kether, the world of the Ancient of Days, our Father who is in secret. Each one of us has his particular, individual Father. So, there are as many Fathers in heaven as people on Earth, and even more. So, each one of us has his own Father. Obviously, no one will be able to see the Father, nor to talk with him face to face, without having previously died – this is not the death of the body, but of our ego. In other worlds, first our ego has to die in order to have the joy of seeing the Father and to talk with him properly. Otherwise, this would not be possible. Or at least, if the initiate has not yet reached the complete psychological death, he should be dead about a 90% in order to have the joy of seeing the Father and to talk with him face to face, personally. He is the goodness of the goodness, the hidden of the hidden, the mercy of mercies...

So, this is what the Tree of Life is, meaning, what the ten Sephiroth of the Hebrew Kabbalah are.

The Son of Man is in the sephirah Tiphereth. Yes, it is in Tiphereth where the particular Yeshua, the Son of Man is.

If we look at Tiphereth from the bottom, we will see that amongst the ten sephiroth it is the fifth. In other words, Tiphereth is located between the Sephiroth from above and below, at the center of the middle pillar.

Since the Son of Man abides in it, Tiphereth has to express himself through the Human Soul. Thus, Christ as the Son of Man will have to gather the Sephiroth from below and the sephiroth from above. Christ as the Son of Man will have to integrate them within himself, in order to transform himself into Adam Kadmon, meaning, into the Heavenly Adam, the Solar Adam.

When this integration is done, we will then be perfect, turned into terrifically divine gods, beyond good and evil. But to reach such tremendous heights would not be possible without Christ, who descends in order to be manifested in Tiphereth as the Son of Man. The Lord is therefore fundamental for the Great Work. Christ is the Interior Magnes of Alchemy ...

By comprehending the Tree of Life, we also know what the Son of Man is, as it is figured in the Bibles. Thus, if we do not study the Tree of Life in the Zohar, we could not know what Yeshua, the Son of Man, is.

For example, in the sacred scriptures Luke speaks about Christ as the Son of Man — I do not remember exactly at what points, but when speaking about the Son of Man, John said:

“Who is a liar but he that denies that ישוע Yeshua is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denies the Father and the Son.” - 1 John 2:22

Obviously, this how it is. For whosoever denies the Son of Man denies Christ, who is here in Tiphereth expressing himself through the Human Soul. In other words, whosoever denies Christ in his expression as well as the Human Soul, that one is an antichrist.

Materialists deny the Human Soul. Materialists such as Karl Marx deprive human beings of the possibility of having human soul. Marx’s materialistic dialectics rob humanity of its eternal values. Obviously, the materialists are antichrists, because if Christ expresses himself through Tiphereth, whosoever manifests himself against Tiphereth, the Human Soul or causal principle, is antichristic. Conclusion: the materialists and whosoever denies the soul is antichristic.

Therefore, the antichrists of false science that presently live on the face of the Earth are all of those scientists, atheists, enemies of the Eternal One. They are antichrists 100%, because they deny the Son of Man...

So, my beloved brothers and sisters, let us reflect on all of these issues so that we can understand what the Inner Christ is, and what the nativity in the heart is...

Buddha and Christ

Buddha and Jesus, or Buddha and Christ, complement each other within us... On one occasion I narrated to you the case (an unusual case) when I went into a Buddhist temple in Japan, and before the congregation said something about Christ. Naturally, a rumor was produced there amongst all the monks.

I was in fact, in a Buddhist monastery. The monks addressed the master and told him that a man was there speaking on behalf of Christ. I expected that monk would come in a rage with sticks and who knows what else against me, right? But fortunately, nothing like that happened... He said, “How is it that you, here at a Buddhist temple, speak on behalf of Christ ...?”

And I answered, “With the deepest respect that this congregation deserves, I would say that Christ and Buddha complement each other...”

Then I saw with astonishment that the master nodded and said, “That is right. Christ and Buddha complement each other.” He affirmed this before all of the monks.

Then he indicated to me with a Koan, to let me know that Christ and Buddha are two intimate factors that one carries within. He brought a thread, with which he linked first my right thumb, and thereafter my left thumb. I understood the Koan, because I am used to the dialectic of the consciousness. He wanted to tell me with that Koan that Christ and Buddha are linked within us, since they are two aspects of our inner Being...

Now, I can explain this to you. Better said, I will precisely explain this to you under the light the Tree of Life:

Buddha is naturally formed by two principles: Chesed and Geburah. Yet, in a rigorously philosophical language, we would say: Atman-Buddhi form the Inner Buddha.

Regarding Christ, let us see him here in Chokmah. To that end, through Binah, through sexual alchemy, Christ becomes connected to the inner Buddha, who is Chesed / Geburah.

Thus, Christ and Buddha are two parts of our own Being.

Thus, without a doubt the esoteric and religious future for the humanity of tomorrow will have the best of the Christian esotericism and the best of the Buddhist esotericism. In other words, the Buddhist esotericism and the Christian esotericism have to be integrated, fused, since Christ and Buddha are two parts of our own Inner Being.

Indeed, Gautama, the Buddha Sakyamuni, came to teach the doctrine of Chesed and Geburah, that is to say, the doctrine of the Innermost, the doctrine of the inner Buddha.

Regarding Yeshua Ben Pandira, he came to teach the doctrine of Christ. Chokmah is the Christ. He came to teach the doctrine of the Human Soul, the doctrine of Tiphereth, the Doctrine of the intimate Christ, the doctrine of inner Chrestos.

Thus, Gautama brought the doctrine of the intimate Buddha, and Jesus of Nazareth brought the doctrine of the intimate Christ. Each of them brought a message from our own inner Being, thus Christ and Buddha complement each other. They are within us; this is obvious.

My dear brothers and sisters, when these esoteric matters are understood, it is therefore worthwhile for one to work in order to get, to attain, one day, the Venustic Initiation, meaning, the Initiation of Tiphereth, the nativity of the heart...

Now, I will answer questions. Each one of you with the most entire freedom can ask about what you did not understand, so, ask and I will explain.

gnosticteachings.org/lectures-by-samael-aun-weor/3204-alc...

I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

5

---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----

---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----

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

click here - clicca qui

the slideshow

Qi Bo's photos on Fluidr

Qi Bo's photos on Flickriver

Qi Bo's photos on FlickeFlu

Qi Bo's photos on PICSSR

Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

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

this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.

In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.

The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.

Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.

Ezio Famà.

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

questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.

Ezio Famà.

THE ORB TRANSMUTATION CIRCLE IS COMPLETE AND A SNAIL APPEARED FUCK YESSSSSSSS DUDES LOOK WHAT CAME IN THE MAIL LOOOOOKKK AT THEMMMMMMMMMMMMM ORBS! AND A VERY SNEAKY SNEAKY SNAIL OMGGG THANK YOU SO MUCH @fallendesigns QH Q !!!! ahhhhh i love these i will by bulgolgi

4

Apples and Atoms Sculpture - DSC_0704 by John Hickey - fotosbyjohnh

6 4

Apples and Atoms Sculpture in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

I took the sculpture from a position where I could not really be seen in the mirror like spheres.

The 'Apples and Atoms' Sculpture is by by Eilís O’Connell RHA and celebrates

Ernest T.S. Walton 1903-95, Nobel Laureate. It is polished stainless steel and erected in , 2013

Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin (1946-74)

Nobel Prize for Physics, 1951, jointly awarded with Sir John D. Cockcroft for their pioneering work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles

www.tcd.ie/artcollections/

七月的禁忌 | Superstitions @ Hungry Ghosts Month by Cheryl Chan

6 8

** Superstitions during Ghost Month:

During the 7th month of the Chinese calendar children are advised (usually by an elder in the family) to be home before dark, and not to wander the streets at night for fear a ghost might possess them. Swimming is thought to be dangerous as well, as spirits are believed to have drowned people. People will generally avoid driving at night, for fear of a "collision", or spiritual offence, which is any event leading to illness or misfortune.

While "ghost" is a commonly used term throughout the year, many people use the phrase "backdoor god" or "good brother" instead during the 7th month, so as not to anger the ghosts. Another thing to avoid is sampling any of the food placed on the offering table, as doing this can result in "mysterious illness".

=====

** Origin and facts of the Hungry Ghost Festival:

The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).

In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.

Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.

On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.

Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors

=====

More images of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:

Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival

More Chinese Temples images here:

Caves & Temples " Festival

=====

I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

2

---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----

---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----

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

click here - clicca qui

the slideshow

Qi Bo's photos on Fluidr

Qi Bo's photos on Flickriver

Qi Bo's photos on FlickeFlu

Qi Bo's photos on PICSSR

Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

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

this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.

In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.

The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.

Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.

Ezio Famà.

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

questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.

Ezio Famà.

I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

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---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----

---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----

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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.

In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.

The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.

Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.

Ezio Famà.

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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.

Ezio Famà.

Birth of the mysterious Alchemical Sentinels / Naissance de mystérieuses Sentinelles Alchimiques _1000254_0820 by thierry ehrmann

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Birth of the mysterious Alchemical Sentinels

3 months working day and night with an exceptional “dream team"… a big thank you to ACS, Luc, my trusty Giant who could lift a juggernaut onto a balcony (QED Thierry Loir) Thomas Cart'1, Goin, and of course Marc for the paints.

I have managed to set up my installation of 99 raw steel sculptures with an incredibly demanding specification: none of the 3600 work on the DDC site were to be hidden… we had to think about power sources, water crossings, access for construction machinery including the telescopic booms (3m wide)… public safety, ERP museum standards, etc, ... constantly alternating between the visible and the invisible...

Are they inhabited? I don’t know. One thing is certain: each sentinel stands as a unique sculpture in terms of its alchemical elements and paintwork (either with anti-rust paint or voluntarily with paints that do not resist rust). This autumn, each sentinel will reveal – with the acid rain – different interpretations, depending on the paints and solvents used, making each one different, with stratifications that future archaeologists will decipher.

But my most perilous challenge was to create a giant (9000 m²) installation that envelops the Abode of Chaos with dozens of tons of steel, so that my visitors, from any angle, enter a dreamlike fantasy and where the world of the Abode of Chaos on the one hand and that of the 99 monumental sculptures (named "Alchemical Sentinels" during an extremely busy night ) intersect like the Inframince defined by Marcel Duchamp (or, how to build intensities by subtraction).

These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are now the guardians of the Sanctuary that the Abode of Chaos has become. I designed them as veritable quantum energy wells that we placed with patience and wisdom at different spots all over the Abode of Chaos.

There are 99 in total, made of 10mm rough steel (50 tons), welded to form perfect equilateral triangles. Each of the three sides constituting an Alchemical Sentinel is itself cut to reveal a meurtrière, again in the shape of an equilateral triangle, presenting a superb Euclidean geometry to the visitor.

These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are each placed at specific energy points on the 9000 m² of the Abode of Chaos. Some are hidden by vegetation or natural landforms or are placed in relation to existing works. Others are located in our private and professionals spaces.

In my alchemical work that began on 9 December 1999, the three gates arranged in an equilateral triangle with one vertex pointing upwards, form the luminous delta. They represent the three elements that alchemists work with. These three elements are sulphur, mercury and salt.

Note that the three elements found in the Prima Materia (or Alchemical Chaos) are very closely related. The point triangle is also the symbol of the fire philosophers.

The equilateral triangle resting on its base – like the three points – is the symbol of the fire element, one of the four elements that the alchemist works with in the laboratory.

The geometric properties of the equilateral triangle evoke absolute perfection by their spiritual strength and their age-old symbolism going back to ancient Egypt… strength, beauty and harmony.

They will remain for a thousand years as witnesses to a civilization lost through the folly of men.

thierry Ehrmann

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3 mois de travail jour et nuit, une "dream team" hors du commun, un grand merci à ACS, Luc, mon fidèle Géant qui poserait un 38 T. sur un balcon (cqfd Thierry Loir) Thomas, Cart'1, Goin et bien sûr Marc pour les peintures.

Je suis arrivé à poser mon installation de 99 sculptures d'acier brut avec un cahier des charges de ouf, aucune des 3600 œuvres de la DDC ne devaient être occultées, penser aux sources électriques, les passages d'eau, les voies de transport pour engin de chantier, les nacelles télescopiques (3m de large), protéger le grand public, respecter les normes ERP muséales, etc… Alterner en permanence monstration et effacement…

Sont-elles habitées ? Je l'ignore. Une chose certaine est que chacune, par les éléments alchimiques et les codes peints soit à l'antirouille soit volontairement avec des peintures dégradables par la rouille avec le temps, rend chaque sentinelle comme une sculpture unique. Cet automne chaque sentinelle va laisser apparaître, avec les pluies acides, différents niveaux de lecture, selon les peintures et solvants utilisés, les rendant singulières avec des stratifications que les archéologues des temps futurs décrypteront...

Mais mon défi le plus périlleux, était de créer une installation géante de 9000 m2 qui enveloppe, par des dizaines de tonnes d'acier, la Demeure du Chaos pour que mes visiteurs sur 360 degrés, plongent dans un univers onirique et fantasmagorique où les deux univers que sont la Demeure du Chaos d'une part et d'autre part l'installation des 99 sculptures monumentales (baptisées par une nuit très agitée "Sentinelles Alchimiques") s'entrecroisent selon l'Inframince définit par Marcel Duchamp (ou comment construire des intensités par soustraction).

Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont désormais les gardiennes du Sanctuaire que représente la Demeure du Chaos. Je les ai conçus comme de véritable puits d’énergie quantique que je pose avec patience et sagesse sur l’ensemble de la Demeure du Chaos.

Elles sont au nombre de 99, faites d’acier brut de 10 mm (50 tonnes) soudées pour former un triangle équilatéral parfait. Chacun des 3 pans constituant une Sentinelle Alchimique, est lui même découpé pour laisser entrevoir une mystérieuse meurtrière, elle même en forme de triangle équilatéral, donnant ainsi une géométrie Euclidienne au regard du visiteur.

Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont chacune à des points d’énergie particuliers de la Demeure du Chaos sur 9000 m2. Certaines se dissimulent par la végétation ou les reliefs naturels ou bien en écho aux autres œuvres, d’autres sont dans les espaces privatifs ou professionnels.

Dans mon travail alchimique démarré le 9 décembre 1999, les trois portes disposées en triangle équilatéral, dont un sommet est dirigé vers le haut, forment le delta lumineux. Elle sont les trois corps sur lesquels l’alchimiste va œuvrer. Ces trois corps sont le soufre, le mercure et le sel.

Soulignons que les trois corps présents dans la Materia Prima ou Chaos alchimique sont étroitement mélangés. Le triangle de point est aussi la marque des philosophes par le feu.

Le triangle équilatéral reposant sur sa base, à la manière des trois points, est le symbole de l’élément feu, l’un des quatre éléments avec lequel l’alchimiste travaille au laboratoire.

Les propriétés géométriques du triangle équilatéral relèvent de la perfection absolue par sa force spirituelle, son symbolisme de la nuit des temps notamment dans l’ancienne Egypte, il est force, beauté et harmonie.

Elles resteront durant mille ans comme les témoins d’une civilisation disparue par la folie des hommes

thierry Ehrmann

Transmutation* House Light Painting by slworking2

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Some more fun inside this amazing art installation at Bombay Beach.

Photos and light painting by Katrina Brown. A little bit of post-processing by me.

An art installation by Jeff Frost, it's a tribute to two local artists that took their lives in 2021. The color palette is composed of their favorite colors.

Platonic love. by Madison Young Photography

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Platonic love (exp.):

1. A pure, spiritual affection, subsisting between persons of opposite sex, unmixed with carnal desires, and regarding the mind only and its excellences; -- a species of love for which Plato was a warm advocate.[Websters].

This interpretation is a misunderstanding of the nature of the Platonic ideal of love, however, which from its origin was that of a chaste but passionate love, based not on lack of erotic interest but on spiritual transmutation of the gender force, opening up vast expanses of subtler enjoyments than physically sexual ones.

The beautiful Carly Hildebrant, workin' her new dew. WhiPAH.

35 mm. Film

feast @ hungry ghosts festival by Cheryl Chan

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At the altar, offerings for the God & Goddess who will be the guardian of spirits include tea, rice wine, pickle, types of grains ( ie. glutenous rice, forbidden rice), nuts and fresh fruits.

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** Origin and facts of the Hungry Ghost Festival:

The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).

In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.

Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.

On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.

Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors

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More images of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:

Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival

More Chinese Temples images here:

Caves & Temples " Festival

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If you are interested in purchasing this image, please visit Getty Images page at:

Cheryl Chan @ Getty Images

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神功寶劍 @ 盂蘭節 | Treasures of Chinese Opera @ Hungry Ghosts Festival by Cheryl Chan

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Obviously the centre of all attention is the Center Stage made of bamboo structure with aluminium zinc roof.

During the first week of July, nightly performance of Chinese Opera dedicated to the Gods and spirits takes place at the Center Stage. It has also become a free entertainment for the public.

Not only does this podium provides entertainment for the visitors, it is believed the spiritual buddies enjoy it even more so. In fact, the front row is often vacant out and reserved for the spirits.

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The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).

In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.

Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.

On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.

Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors

=====

More images of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:

Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival

More Chinese Temples images here:

Caves & Temples " Festival

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Photo shot with Photo shot with Nikon D600 + AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED

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The shaft of Atmic fire which forms the core of the force which plays along the Sushumna is brought down to the densest physical level, or symbolically is cast upon the ground. by Hughes Songe

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Exodus 4 Moses told that the Israelites wouldn't believe that God had sent him to liberate them from Egypt. So Moses was given three miraculous signs to illustrate God's power. For the first, Moses was to cast his staff upon the ground. When he did When Moses grasped it by the tail it became a staff again. For the second sign Moses was told to put his hand on his chest beneath his cloak. When he took it out it was full of leprosy, but when he put it under the cloak and drew it out again the hand was healed. For the third sign, Moses was to take the river and pour it upon the dry ground, where it would turn to blood However, Moses was still troubled because he felt he wasn't an eloquent speaker. God grew angry at Moses' reluctance and appointed Aaron as Moses' spokesperson Having sought the permission of his father-in-law, Jethro, his wife and sons, put them upon an ass, and returned to Egypt with "the rod of God in his hand." However, God then told Moses that when he went to Egypt to liberate the Israelites, God would harden Pharaoh's against On the journey to Egypt, when Moses was at an inn, God met him and sought to kill him. Moses' wife Zipporah then circumcised her son, and told Moses that "a bloody husband thou art." As they traveled on, Aaron met them near the mountain of God, and Moses told him all that had happened In Egypt, Moses and Aaron met with the elders of Israel, and Aaron told them all that God had said to Moses. When Moses showed the people the signs, the people believed and they bowed down in worship.

The Staff and the Serpent In this chapter the symbol of the serpent is once more introduced narrative, in which it is made to play an entirely supernatural part. God the staff of Moses turn into a serpent, and then back again into a staff. A most deeply esoteric revelation, which in those days was completely confined to the sanctuaries, is made in this and later chapters; for the actual is revealed by which the Soul or noumenon of both universe and humanity is extricated from entrapment in matter The symbol of the serpent can be interpreted in many ways-both exoteric and esoteric. In general, it is the symbol both of wisdom and of the wise, who in the sacred language are frequently referred to as serpents. The (serpents) of Hindu literature are none other than the ancient rishis, liberated yogis, Adepts. The serpent is chosen as the symbol of wisdom for various reasons. It glides secretly and for the most part unseen on the surface of the globe, just as wisdom-whether revealed from God or inborn-is a concealed power potent to either illumine, if rightly employed, or destroy if misused. The smooth sinuosity of the snake and of its movements aptly portrays the harmonious and rhythmic self-expression of wisdom in both the universe and the human in whom it is awake and moving. This person is enlightened from within, or secretly The serpent regularly sloughs its skin. Despite this seasonal change the reptile itself is unchanged, but appears in a new and glistening covering. wisdom, while remaining ever the same in essence, is self-manifest in ever new forms, none being able to hold it permanently. The serpent's tongue is forked or bipolar. So also is wisdom, being capable of degradation into low cunning employed for meanest motives, or of elevation into lofty intuition according to unselfish ideals. Snake venom can destroy or heal according to its use and dosage; wisdom, when degraded, poisons the Soul, but when rightly used it an antidote for many ills. The eyes of the serpent compelling, hypnotic. Wisdom, once awake in an individual, brooks no resistance, breaks all bonds and ultimately rules with impelling power. The wise, also, are irresistible in their might, even though appearing to be lowly and making no claim to high regard. Nevertheless they live near to the source of life, just as the serpent lives near to the roots and seeds of living things. When the serpent's tail is in its mouth an endless circle is made, implying the eternity of wisdom, and even eternity itself. Esoterically, however, processes of cosmogenesis are indicated by the union of a symbolized positive and negative, or the entry of the tail into the mouth. All generative processes are, indeed, indicated in that form, which leads to the deeply esoteric significance of the serpent-namely as a symbol of the universal, divine, creative, ever-active life-force. This is Fohat in its dual polarity, sometimes symbolized not as one serpent with tail in mouth, but as two mutually intertwined. Here are indicated the laws of electricity, under which all formative processes occur The driving force from within which leads to inceptive activity in organic forms, and to chemical affinity in inorganic ones, is indeed bipolar. The aptness of the choice of the serpent as a symbol for this power would seem to be supported by the fact that its tongue is forked. A reference is thus made 'to the positive and negative currents of the great breath, continually breathed forth as Fohat into and through every atom of every world, to become omnipresent and perpetually active throughout the whole universe. This fact was both concealed and revealed in ancient allegories, in which Jupiter and other male creative deities changed themselves into snakes for the purpose of seducing goddesses. Their progeny were the demigods, many of whom later attained full deification. A serpent with tail in mouth, two serpents intertwined, or one encircling a rod, staff or pillar all symbolize the electric energy of Fohat in action in the material universe and therefore in humanity, the microcosmic temple of the In humans the rod or staff refers both to the spinal cord and to a canal or etheric and superphysical channel in its center, passing from the root of the cord in the sacrum along its whole length and into the medulla oblongata and brain. This canal is the vehicle for the primordial life-force, a measure of which plays down from above in the generative act. The current is unipolar, or evern of neutral polarity, since it plays upon and produces its effects in both the male and the female organism. The historic esoteric name for this canal is Sushumna, but generally that name is only used when by esoteric means the same neutral force is made to play not downwards, but upwards along the spinal cord. Before such reversal of the flow of originative energy can be achieved, the positive and negative currents must be aroused and must themselves, like twin serpents, flow upwards, intertwining as they flow to induce an ascent of the accompanying neutral energy Entering the brain, this triple power so illumines the human mind of that he or she becomes as a god (possessed of theurgic powers). As discussed earlier in this volume, this fact is revealed in Chapters Two and Three of Genesis, where a man and a woman, Adam and Eve, represent the oppositely polarized currents; the tree of knowledge of good and evil (especially the trunk) corresponds to the staff, and the tempting serpent to Sushumna. Thus Adam and Eve are forbidden to eat of the fruit of this tree, since by so doing they would become as gods. The intensely heightened vibrations of the brain, the glands, the cells and the substance in the ventricles cause the brain and cranium to be responsive to egoic and Monadic life and consciousness. Spirit then predominates in the individual; matter loses its power. Symbolically, through the agency of an interchangeable serpent and staff, the Israelites are freed from bondage in Egypt . In verse three of this chapter of Exodus the order given upon the ground, after which it became a serpent. The shaft of Atmic fire which forms the core of the force which plays along the Sushumna is brought down to the densest physical level, or symbolically is cast upon the ground. When that occurs the relatively dormant, positive-negative life-force resident in the sacrum is awakened into activity. Each polarity then pursues a mutually intertwining, serpentine path around the Sushumna canal. Symbolically stated the staff or rod becomes the serpent. Again as previously discussed, this process may produce a certain shock and some pain. The initiate momentarily shrinks from it, but persists. Moses is therefore made to flee before the serpent. When, however, he unites his own will with that of the hierophant and sublimates the creative force, compelling it to flow upwards from the pelvis, it becomes in his hand the magician's wand of wer. Symbolically, as in verse four, Moses takes the serpent by the tail and it becomes a staff again in his hand. As portrayed in Egyptian art in which serpents are intertwined around rods or pillars, the tail is at the foot of the pillar, meaning in the sacrum. The head of the serpent is at the upper end, where frequently a lotus flower is blooming. This, too, is a universally used symbol. The opening of the force-centers in the superphysical bodies, consequent upon the arousing and the upward flow of the serpent power, is depicted by such emblems. The historic esoteric names for the positive and negative currents are pingala and ida, and the triple upward flow is most perfectly revealed by the Greek symbol of the caduceus. The Greek god Hermes is the Moses of the Greeks, in that he is both messenger from God to humanity by virtue of holding in his hand the caduceus just as Moses held in his hand the rod-and deliverer of Persephone from Hades, just as Moses delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt. The holding of the caduceus (or staff or serpent) in the hand is itself a symbol implying mastery of a power, and the possession of knowledge and skill in its employment. Note that the transmutation of staff into serpent could only occur at the command of the Deity and by his or her magical power. Actually, the descent of the Monadic Atma through all the vehicles and down the spinal cord into the sacrum is essential to the premature full awakening of the triple creative fire, and its successful sublimation and use as a magical tool. To bring this power of Atma down is one part of the office of the hierophant of the greater Mysteries. Since after this transformation a new life is begun, the act has always been correctly termed initiation. The initiate is one in whom has been aroused the power to liberate herself or himself from the limitation of matter, desire, and self-separateness into the freedom of universal consciousness, life and power This is part of the inner meaning of the strange story of the magical power by which Moses overcame the resistance of Pharaoh to the departure of the Israelites. In the first three-and a half phases of all cycles this power drives life and consciousness downward into matter, into generation, and in organic life to generative activity. It is therefore presented as evil, or contrary to the highest good. Temporarily this is true, since pure Spirit, unsullied life and innocent consciousness become stained and aware of passion as a result of the serpent- inspired descent. Ultimately, however, the self-same force liberates Spirit, life and consciousness, individualized humans, from grip and stain of material life and physical generative processes. In the Garden of Eden, representing the period of the downward arc, the serpent is the devil and his temptations lead to the generative act, and to loss of innocence and banishment from Eden. In the initiate and the Adept (typified by Moses and Christ) the serpent force, transmuted and spiritually employed becomes the redeeming power. This, in part, is the revelation of the serpent symbol in the book of Exodus. It represents both the creative and the redeeming agencies (the dark and the light serpents of the caduceus) in nature and in humanity.

I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

4 1

---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----

---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----

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the slideshow

Qi Bo's photos on Fluidr

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Qi Bo's photos on FlickeFlu

Qi Bo's photos on PICSSR

Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.

In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.

The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.

Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.

Ezio Famà.

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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.

Ezio Famà.

Evil. Incarnate. by Kevin Clark Photography

7 2

The Mistress of All Evil: Maleficent

If you ever see photos of mine posted on blogs like in the link above, please notify me so I can do what I can to ensure all copyright laws are being upheld.

If you wish to blog any of my shots please ask me, and when blogging make sure to give me full credit.

Gold shows a distinct affinity for sulfur and forms an ore with a rare element called tellurium. by Hughes Songe

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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.

I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

2

---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----

---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----

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

click here - clicca qui

the slideshow

Qi Bo's photos on Fluidr

Qi Bo's photos on Flickriver

Qi Bo's photos on FlickeFlu

Qi Bo's photos on PICSSR

Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

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

this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.

In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.

The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.

Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.

Ezio Famà.

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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.

Ezio Famà.

Alchemy CI _DDC0005 by thierry ehrmann

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Free download of the entire Abode of Chaos' Opus IX (504 pages)

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courtesy of Organ Museum

I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

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---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----

---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----

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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.

In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.

The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.

Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.

Ezio Famà.

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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.

Ezio Famà.

365 dragons flying solo by palo

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Flying Solo Tip 092365 : Grief can be a healthy process when it transmutes buried anger, hurt and resentment into love, compassion and appreciation.

Cauda Pavonis by Greer

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Cauda Pavonis – the peacock tail

In the ancient arcane art of alchemy, the Magnum Opus (Great Work) was a process by which the Lapis Philosphicus, the fabled Philosopher’s Stone was made. The long and involved process was hidden in symbols, riddles and other methods of obscuration.

If the alchemist got the process right, the cauda pavonis, the peacock tail appeared in the flask. This was the name given to the part of the alchemical process where the material becomes iridescent just before the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone.

The possessor of the stone was able to, among other things, transmute base metal into silver and gold

I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced .... by Qi Bo (Ezio Famà)

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