Leyenda de San Jorge

San Jorge que en ese momento llegó a la ciudad se encontró con la bella joven a la que le preguntó que ocurría puesto que lloraba desconsolada. La doncella le respondió a sus preguntas como pudo. San Jorge le ofreció su ayuda y su protección. En ese momento, justamente, llegó el dragón enfurecido que salía del lago donde vivía. Rápidamente St. Jorge montó sobre su caballo y sacó su espada y con mucho coraje se le enfrentó.

Legend of St. George

St George at that time came to town he met the beautiful young woman who asked that occurred since sobbed uncontrollably. The maid answered his questions as he could. St George offered his help and protection. At that moment, precisely, the enraged dragon came out of the lake where he lived. St. George quickly mounted his horse and drew his sword and courageously confronted him.

This relatively newer palace cum luxury hotel looks stunning standing tall among the cotton candy clouds and angling sunlight. In fact what interested me more was that the clouds looks like coming out of the dome.

 

Human may believe that nature is being controlled by him. Nature on the other hand is eternal, uncontrollable and timeless.

 

©Saurabh's Reveries

Baffetta ran out in the garden to play with Bimbo, the white cat , she was uncontrollable...... I had to stay around against all dangers

Self-portrait January 2025 ⭐️ This self-portrait was created with a disco ball, illuminated with a spotlight flashlight. A smoke machine was also used. The light spectacle was unbelievable 😊

 

This one was a really tricky self-portrait, because I photographed myself from a slightly lower perspective than I would normally do. And the light that fell on the disco ball was almost uncontrollable (angle the light which falls on the glass plates, etc.). Maybe this is an absolute lucky snapshot 😊

 

When she opens her eyes, there is nothing but darkness, a weightless sensation, as if she were caught somewhere between waking and dreaming. Then — a beam of light. A thin, pale shimmer descending from above, touching her face. With the light comes a whisper. And an echo.

 

The light expands. It fractures, as if something had been trapped within it. New rays burst forth in every direction, like cracks in a mirror as it shatters. With each new glimmer, a voice follows. Fragments of her past, scattered in the darkness—now gathered in the light.

Echoes.

 

Visit me on instagram to see behind the scenes of my photos :)

 

© 2025 Sabine Fischer

find me elsewhere:

instagram: sabinefey

portfolio: www.phoenixstudios.de

The word "jungle" carries connotations of untamed and uncontrollable nature and isolation from civilisation, along with the emotions that evokes: threat, confusion, powerlessness, disorientation and immobilisation.

Girl please me

Be my soul bride

Every women

Has a piece of aphrodite

Copulate to create

A state of sexual light

Kissing her virginity

My affinity

Glorious euphoria

Is my must

Erotic shock

Is a function of lust

Temporarily blind

Dimensions to discover

In time

Each into the other

Uncontrollable notes

From her snowwhite throat

Fill a space

In which two bodies float

Operatic by voice

A fanatic by choice

Aromatic is the flower

Adoor in Kerala holds its famous Bull Races every year around the time of Onam. It is a celebration of agrarian existence and is carried on without any grants or aid from the Government. This is a spectacular fiesta of rural Kerala. There are 2-3 other such events that are held in Kerala.

 

Two racing bulls are hitched together and three men come into action. Two racers with lead ropes on either side of the bulls who try to control the direction and speed if possible and one often obscured by sprays of mud and water, a jockey who rides on a small flat strip of wood.

 

The bulls race ahead with the men keeping desperately abreast of the thundering hooves. At the end of the racing track there is a 4-6 feet embankment of earth which acts as a protection and a marker for the bulls. The embankment gets totally crowded with onlookers. The bull racers need to turn the bull around and do a 360 degree here but most times that effort fails as the bulls in their racing frenzy would be uncontrollable.

 

I have no idea on the current status of the bull races. There are enough organisations howling to stop such races but the Supreme Court of India in a judgement a few months ago allowed bull/bullock cart races to go on in Punjab. So chances are that the tradition may still live on.

 

Dates

Taken on August 15, 2007 at 1.16pm IST (edit)

Posted to Flickr September 15, 2012 at 4.50PM IST (edit)

Exif data

Camera Nikon D70

Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1000)

Aperture f/4.0

Focal Length 70 mm

ISO Speed 200

Exposure Bias 0 EV

Flash Off, Did not fire

DSC_0375 nef

    

Mixed Media oilgraph with acrylic, graphite and gunpowder on wooden panel // 12x16

 

Base image photographed with a Mamiya 645 on Tri-x and processed in Agfa Rodinal

 

From the new series ‘The Spirit of Ukraine’ Being over half Ukrainian and Russian I take the war in Ukraine personally. In this continuing series I hope to capture the both the strength and vulnerability of the Ukrainian people.

 

The textures were created by igniting gunpowder on the surface of the panel and burning into the print itself. It’s an uncontrollable process and the explosion chooses its own direction. Just like war itself.

 

Purchase options here:

www.kevissimo.com/so-warcry/kherson

This is a picture from the front of the house where we lived in Omaha.

 

The road is now known simply as "Childs Road," and technically it's in the suburb of Bellevue, which is in South Omaha. (I've geotagged this photo, so you can see exactly where it's located.)

 

One of my weekly chores was to mow the front lawn (and the side and back lawns too). It doesn't look very big, but we only had a manual lawnmower, and I was only 11; it seemed like an eternal amount of time to get it all cut. (Shortly after I went off to college, years later, Dad decided that it would be a great time to get a gas-powered lawnmower. C'est la vie.)

 

*********************************

 

Some of the photos in this album are “originals” from the year that my family spent in Omaha in 1955-56. But the final 10 color photos were taken nearly 40 years later, as part of some research that I was doing for a novel called Do-Overs, the beginning of which can be found here on my website

 

www.yourdon.com/personal/fiction/doovers/index.html

 

and the relevant chapter (concerning Omaha) can be found here:

 

www.yourdon.com/personal/fiction/doovers/chapters/ch9.html

 

Before I get into the details, let me make a strong request — if you’re looking at these photos, and if you are getting any enjoyment at all of this brief look at some mundane Americana from 60+ years ago: find a similar episode in your own life, and write it down. Gather the pictures, clean them up, and upload them somewhere on the Internet where they can be found. Trust me: there will come a day when the only person on the planet who actually experienced those events is you. Your own memories may be fuzzy and incomplete; but they will be invaluable to your friends and family members, and to many generations of your descendants.

 

So, what do I remember about the year that I spent in Omaha? Not much at the moment, though I’m sure more details will occur to me in the days to come — and I’ll add them to these notes, along with additional photos that I’m tweaking and editing now.

 

For now, here is a random list of things I remember:

 

1. I attended the last couple months of 6th grade, and all of 7th grade, in one school. My parents moved from Omaha to Long Island, NY in the spring of my 7th grade school year; but unlike previous years, they made arrangements for me to stay with a neighbor’s family, so that I could finish the school year before joining them in New York.

 

2. Our dog, Blackie, traveled with us from our previous home in Riverside, and was with us until my parents left Omaha for New York; at that point, they gave him to some other family. For some reason, this had almost no impact on me. It was a case of “out of sight, out of mind” — when Blackie was gone, I spent my final three months in Omaha without ever thinking about him again.

 

3. Most days, I rode my bike to school; but Omaha was the place where one of my sisters first started attending first grade — in the same school where I was attending 6th grade. I remember walking her to school along Bellevue Avenue on the first morning, which seemed to take forever: it was about a mile away.

 

4. As noted in a previous Flickr album about my year in Riverside, I was a year younger than my classmates; but I was tall for my age, and thus looked “normal” at a quick glance. But because I was a year younger, I was incredibly shy and awkward in the presence of girls. Omaha was certainly not “sin city,” but by 6th grade and 7th grade, puberty was beginning to hit, and the girls had grown to the point where they were occasionally interested in boys. The school tried to accommodate this social development by teaching us the square dance (and forbidding the playing of songs by Elvis Presley, whose music was just beginning to be heard on the radio). I was an awful dancer, and even more of a shy misfit than my classmates; I continue to be an awful dancer today.

 

5. My bike ride to school was uneventful most days; but the final part of the ride was a steep downhill stretch on Avery Road, lasting three or four blocks. My friends and I usually raced downhill as fast as we could; but one day, my front bicycle wheel began to wobble on the downhill run, and my bike drifted uncontrollably to the side of the road and then off into a ditch. I got banged up pretty badly.

 

6. But this accident was nothing compared to my worst mishap: a neighborhood friend and I enjoyed playing “cowboys and Indians” in the woods near his home (and his younger brother usually tagged along). I had a bow and a few arrows for our adventure, and we often shot at trees a hundred feet away. Unfortunately, the arrows often disappeared into the underbrush (because we were lousy shots) and were difficult to find. Consequently, one of us came up with the clever idea of standing behind the “target” tree, so that we could see where the randomly-shot arrows landed. Through a series of miscommunications, I poked my head out from behind the tree just as my friend shot one of the arrows … and it skipped off the side of the tree and into my face, impaling itself into my cheek bone about an inch below my eye. An inch higher, and I would not be typing these words … (meanwhile, my friend's younger brother grew up to be an officer in the U.S. Air Force, and he tracked me down on the Internet, decades later).

 

7. In the summer of 1956, my parents decided to spend their summer vacation prospecting for uranium (seriously!) in the remote hills of eastern Utah, where my dad had grown up on the Utah-Colorado border. This entailed a long, long drive from Omaha; and it involved leaving me and my two sisters with my grandparents near Vernal, UT. My grandparents lived in a very small mining village outside of Vernal; and while they had electricity and various other modern conveniences, they also had an outhouse in the back yard. Trips to the “bathroom” in the middle of the night were quite an adventure. On the way back to Omaha at the end of this vacation trip (with no uranium ore having been found), we stopped for a couple of days of camping somewhere in the mountains of Colorado; you’ll see a couple of photos from that camping trip in this album.

 

8. There were no lizards in Omaha, and thus no opportunity for lizard-hunting with my slingshot—which had been a significant hobby in my previous homes in Riverside and Roswell. Indeed, there was almost nothing to shoot at … and I couldn’t find anyone with whom I could play (and hopefully win) marbles, to use as slingshot ammunition. But for reasons I never questioned or investigated (but about which I’m very curious now), there was a small vineyard in the field behind our house, and I was able to climb over the fence and retrieve dozens of small, hard, green grapes. They turned out to be excellent ammunition … but I never did find any lizards.

 

9. A few months before my parents left for New York, I told them about the latest craze sweeping the neighborhood: “English bikes,” with three speeds, thin tires, and hand-brakes. I desperately wanted one, but Dad said it was far too expensive for him to buy as a frivolous gift for me: at the time, English bikes had an outrageous price tag of $25. I was told that I would have to earn the money myself if I wanted one … and the going rate for young, scrawny kids who shoveled sidewalks, pulled weeds from gardens, and did babysitting chores, was 25 cents per hour. That works out to 100 hours of work … but I did it, over the course of the next few months, and when I got to New York, the first thing I did was buy my English bike.

 

10. Toward the end of my 7th-grade school year, everyone in my class was subjected to a vision test: we were lined up in alphabetical order, and one-by-one read off a series of letters that we could barely see on a large placard taped onto the classroom blackboard. Because my surname starts with a “Y,” I was usually near the end of the line … and by the time I got to the front, I had usually memorized the letters (because they never bothered to change them, from one student to the next) without even realizing it consciously. But on this particular occasion in 7th grade, for some reason, they decided to line us up in reverse alphabetical order … and I was the first in line. For the first time in my life, I realized that I could not see anything of the letters, and that I was woefully near-sighted. When I got to New York, my parents took me to an optometrist to get my first set of glasses (and, yes, all of the neighborhood kids did begin taunting me immediately: “Four eyes! Four eyes!”) … and I’ve worn glasses ever since.

Three years after I arrived in New York, the glasses saved my vision when a home-brewed mix of gunpowder and powdered aluminum blew up in my face in the school chemistry lab (where I had an after-school volunteer job as a “lab assistant”). I suffered 2nd-degree burns on my face from the explosion, but the glasses protected my eyes. That, however, is a different story for a different time.

Nuclear energy remains uncontrollable and a deadly danger

 

Graffito eines guten Freundes

 

Graffito of a good friend of mine.

 

Voerde-Spellen 1988

edited-(sn 53-7786) (c/n 083-1001)-Location is Edwards AFB-Lockheed Chief Test Pilot Anthony "Tony" LeVier in the XF-104-LO cocpit. Sent to me by Tony in the late 1950s. On July 11, 1957, Lockheed engineering test pilot William C. “Bill” Park, Jr. was flying the first XF-104 as chase for F-104A flight tests when the prototype developed uncontrollable tail flutter. Pilot Bill Park was forced to eject when the entire tail group was ripped from the airplane.

Hello again all. This year, aside from a daily photo, I'm going to be working through a Stoicism book in the hope of ingesting some much needed wisdom. It conveniently has 366 meditations, ideal for a leap year such as this. Today's lesson is from Epictetus

 

"The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own..."

 

Makes sense...I think it basically means not worrying about things I can't control. Slightly easier said than done. 😂

May 2019

“100% tourist, 0% time space continuum integrity”

 

“After being fused with the Kanohi Olmak, Vezon went on his many (unintentional) interdimensional adventures. On these trips, he has the uncontrollable urge to hoard everything that looks remotely valuable, with all of the consequences of such actions. This is what led to him getting his hands on the story bible, which he now uses to complete his collection of non-cannon masks.”

 

This a bit of a joke build that I did based on some derailed conversations with friends. After reading the serials, I always jokingly imagined Vezon to be a Deadpool like character, a loose cannon with some comedy aspects (preferably voiced by Jack Black).

 

The Society was never officially present on Ra’un. Forces were dispatched from sympathetic imperial remnants, or as ex-imperial mercenaries. Society leaders saw this campaign as an opportunity to get rid of uncontrollable experimental forces.

 

Unofficially however, the Society had sent a handful of elite agents. Rumors of a several force sensitive children in the local population, warranted sending in agents to secure and “evacuate” these individuals. The participation in the battle, and the heaps of expendable forces, was just a cover for the real operation. Operation Harvester.

 

///

 

The AT-ST was inspired by the concept art by Shane Molina (www.artstation.com/artwork/bzywv), and the head of the AT-ST is based on GolPlaysWithLego's AT-ST. Not a super stable build, but I'm happy with the result.

 

Something green today?

 

During the experimental detonation of a gamma bomb, scientist Robert Bruce Banner saves teenager Rick Jones who has driven onto the testing field; Banner pushes Jones into a trench to save him, but is hit with the blast, absorbing massive amounts of gamma radiation.

 

He awakens later seemingly unscathed, but that night transforms into a lumbering grey form. A pursuing soldier dubs the creature a "hulk". Originally, it was believed that Banner's transformations into the Hulk were caused by sunset and undone at sunrise, but later, after Rick witnessed Banner turn into Hulk at daytime following a failed attempt by Ross' men to shoot the Hulk into space, it was discovered to be caused by anger. Banner was cured, but chose to restore Hulk's powers with Banner's intelligence.

 

The gamma-ray machine needed to affect the transformation-induced side effects that made Banner temporarily sick and weak when returned to his normal state.

 

In September 1963, the Hulk became a founding member of the the Avengers, who would go on to become the premiere superhero team in the Marvel universe.

 

Soon, however, overuse of the gamma-ray machine rendered the Hulk as an uncontrollable, rampaging monster, subject to spontaneous changing.

 

In September 1964 the Hulk appeared as an antagonist for Giant-Man. It was established that stress was the trigger for Banner turning into the Hulk and vice versa.

 

It was during this time that the Hulk developed a more savage and childlike identity, shifting away from his original portrayal as a brutish but not entirely unintelligent figure.

 

Also, his memory, both long-term and short-term, would now become markedly impaired in his Hulk state. Tales to Astonish #64 (February 1965) was the last Hulk story to feature him speaking in complete sentences. In Tales to Astonish #77 (March 1966), Banner's and the Hulk's dual identity became publicly known when Rick Jones, mistakenly convinced that Banner was dead (when he actually had been catapulted into the future), told Major Glenn Talbot, a rival to Banner for the affections of Betsy Ross, the truth.

 

Consequently, Glenn informed his superiors and that turned Banner into a wanted fugitive upon returning to the present.

 

The 1970s saw Banner and Betty nearly marry in The Incredible Hulk #124 (February 1970). Betty ultimately married Talbot in issue #158 (Dec. 1972). The Hulk also traveled to other dimensions, one of which had him meet empress Jarella, who used magic to bring Banner's intelligence to the Hulk, and came to love him. The Hulk helped to form the Defenders.

 

In the 1980s, Banner once again gained control over the Hulk, and gained amnesty for his past rampages; however, due to the manipulations of supernatural character Nightmare, Banner eventually lost control over the Hulk.

 

It was also established that Banner had serious mental problems even before he became the Hulk, having suffered childhood traumas that engendered Bruce's repressed rage.

 

Banner comes to terms with his issues for a time, and the Hulk and Banner were physically separated by Doc Samson.

 

Banner is recruited by the U.S. government to create the Hulkbusters, a government team dedicated to catching the Hulk. Banner finally married Betty in The Incredible Hulk #319 (May 1986) following Talbot's death in 1981.

 

Banner and the Hulk were reunited in The Incredible Hulk #323 (Sep. 1986) and with issue #324, returned the Hulk to his grey coloration, with his transformations once again occurring at night, regardless of Banner's emotional state.

 

In issue #347 the grey Hulk persona "Joe Fixit" was introduced, a morally ambiguous Las Vegas enforcer and tough guy. Banner remained repressed in the Hulk's mind for months, but slowly began to reappear.

 

The 1990s saw the Green Hulk return. In issue #377 (Jan. 1991), the Hulk was revamped in a storyline that saw the various dissociative identities of Banner, Fixit, and Savage confront Banner's past abuse at the hands of his father Brian and a new "Guilt" identity.

 

Overcoming the trauma, the intelligent Banner, cunning Fixit, and powerful Savage identities merge into a new single entity possessing the traits of all three.

 

The Hulk also joined the Pantheon, a secretive organization of superpowered individuals. His tenure with the organization brought the Hulk into conflict with a tyrannical alternate future version of himself called the Maestro in the 1993 Future Imperfect miniseries, who rules over a world where many heroes are dead.

 

In 2000, Banner and the three Hulks (Savage, Fixit, and the "Merged Hulk", now considered a separate identity and referred to as the Professor) become able to mentally interact with one another, each identity taking over the shared body as Banner began to weaken due to his suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease.

 

During this, the four identities (including Banner) confronted yet another submerged identity, a sadistic "Devil" intent on attacking the world and attempting to break out of Banner's fracturing psyche, but the Devil was eventually locked away again when the Leader was able to devise a cure for the disease using genes taken from the corpse of Brian Banner.

 

In 2005, it is revealed that the Nightmare has manipulated the Hulk for years, and it is implied that some or all of the Hulk's adventures written by Bruce Jones may have been just an illusion.

 

In 2006, the Illuminati decide the Hulk is too dangerous to remain on Earth and send him away by rocket ship which crashes on Planet Sakaar ushering in the "Planet Hulk" storyline that saw the Hulk find allies in the Warbound, and marry alien queen Caiera, a relationship that was later revealed to have born him two sons: Skaar and Hiro-Kala.

 

After the Illuminati's ship explodes and kills Caiera, the Hulk returns to Earth with his superhero group Warbound and declares war on the planet in World War Hulk (2007).

 

However, after learning that Miek, one of the Warbound, had actually been responsible for the destruction, the Hulk allows himself to be defeated, with Banner subsequently redeeming himself as a hero as he works with and against the new Red Hulk to defeat the new supervillain team the Intelligencia.

 

In the 2010s, Hiro-Kala traveled to Earth to destroy the OldStrong Power wielded by Skaar, forcing Skaar and the Hulk to defeat and imprison him within his home planet.

 

During the 2011 Fear Itself storyline, the Hulk finds one of the Serpent's magical hammers associated with the Worthy and becomes Nul: Breaker of Worlds. As he starts to transform, the Hulk tells the Red She-Hulk to run far away from him.

 

Rampaging through South and Central America, Nul was eventually transported to New York City where he began battling Thor, with aid of the Thing, who was transformed into Angrir: Breaker of Souls.

 

After defeating the Thing, Thor stated that he never could beat the Hulk, and instead removed him from the battle by launching him into Earth orbit, after which Thor collapsed from exhaustion.

 

Landing in Romania, Nul immediately began heading for the base of the vampire-king Dracula. Opposed by Dracula's forces, including a legion of monsters, Nul was seemingly unstoppable.

 

Only after the intervention of Raizo Kodo's Forgiven was Nul briefly slowed. Ultimately, Nul makes his way to Dracula's castle where the timely arrival of Kodo and Forgiven member Inka, disguised as Betty Ross, is able to throw off the effects of the Nul possession. Throwing aside the hammer, the Hulk regains control, and promptly leaves upon realizing "Betty's" true nature.

 

With the crisis concluded, the Hulk contacted Doctor Doom for help separating him and Banner for good in return for an unspecified favor. Doom proceeded to perform brain surgery on the Hulk, extracting the uniquely Banner elements from the Hulk's brain and cloning a new body for Banner.

 

When Doctor Doom demands to keep Banner for his own purposes, the Hulk reneges on the deal and flees with Banner's body, leaving his alter ego in the desert where he was created to ensure that Doctor Doom cannot use Banner's intellect.

 

When Banner goes insane due to his separation from the Hulk, irradiating an entire tropical island trying to recreate his transformation- something he cannot do as the cloned body lacks the genetic elements of Banner that allowed him to process the gamma radiation- the Hulk is forced to destroy his other side by letting him be disintegrated by a gamma bomb, prompting the Hulk to accuse Doom of tampering with Banner's mind, only for Doom to observe that what was witnessed was simply Banner without the Hulk to use as a scapegoat for his problems.

 

Initially assuming that Banner is dead, the Hulk soon realizes that Banner was somehow "re-combined" with him when the gamma bomb disintegrated Banner's body, resulting in the Hulk finding himself waking up in various strange locations, including helping the Punisher confront a drug cartel run by a mutated dog, hunting sasquatches with Kraven the Hunter, and being forced to face Wolverine and the Thing in an old SHIELD base.

 

Banner eventually leaves a video message for the Hulk in which he apologizes for his actions while they were separate, having come to recognize that he is a better person with the Hulk than without, the two joining forces to thwart the Doombots' attempt to use the animals on Banner's irradiated island as the basis for a new gamma army using a one-of-a-kind gamma cure Banner had created to turn all the animals back to normal.

 

Following this, Bruce willingly joined the spy organization S.H.I.E.L.D., allowing them to use the Hulk as a weapon in exchange for providing him with the means and funding to create a lasting legacy for himself.

 

After the Hulk had suffered brain damage upon being shot in the head by the Order of the Shield- the assassin having been carefully trained to target Bruce at just the right part of the brain to incapacitate him without triggering a transformation- Iron Man used the Extremis to cure the Hulk.

 

This procedure also increased Banner's mental capacity, which gave him the intelligence to tweak the Extremis virus within him and unleash a new persona for the Hulk: the super-intelligent Doc Green.

 

During the 2014 "Original Sin" storyline, Bruce Banner confronted by the eye of the murdered Uatu the Watcher. Bruce temporarily experienced some of Tony Stark's memories of their first meeting before either of them became the Hulk or Iron Man. During this vision, Bruce witnessed Tony modifying the gamma bomb to be more effective prompting Bruce to realize that Tony was essentially responsible for him becoming the Hulk in the first place.

 

Subsequent research reveals that Tony's tampering had actually refined the bomb's explosive potential so that it would not disintegrate everyone within the blast radius, with the result that Tony's actions had actually saved Bruce's life.

 

In the 2014 "AXIS" storyline, when a mistake made by the Scarlet Witch causes various heroes and villains to experience a moral inversion, Bruce Banner attended a meeting between Nick Fury Jr. and Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers who refused to turn over Red Skull.

 

Later when he sided with Edwin Jarvis and tried to prevent his teammates from executing the Red Skull, the Hulk was thrown aside by Luke Cage.

 

The Hulk's sorrow at his friends' betrayal awakened a new persona known as the bloodthirsty Kluh (described as the Hulk's Hulk, being the ruthless part of himself that even the Hulk repressed) with this new version easily defeating the Avengers, sneering that the Hulk they knew was nothing more than a "sad piece of 'Doc Green's' ID." Kluh then leaves to wreak havoc, with Nova attempting to stop him after witnessing his rampage with the remaining good heroes.

 

As with the other inverted Avengers and X-Men, Kluh was restored to Hulk when Brother Voodoo was summoned back to life by Doctor Doom so that Daniel Drumm's ghost can possess the Scarlet Witch and undo the inversion.

 

With his newfound intellect, Doc Green came to the conclusion that the world was in danger by Gamma Mutates and thus needed to be depowered. He developed a serum made from Adamantium nanobites that absorbed gamma energy.

 

He used these to depower Red Leader, Red She-Hulk, Red Hulk, Skaar, Gamma Corps, and A-Bomb, but decided to 'spare' She-Hulk as he concluded that she was the one gamma mutation whose life had been legitimately improved by her mutation. At the close of the storyline, Doc Green discovered that he was beginning to disappear as the result of the Extremis serum wearing off. He ultimately allowed himself to fade away, returning to his normal Hulk form, as he feared that remaining at his current intellectual level would lead to him becoming the Maestro.

 

During the 2015 "Secret Wars" storyline, the Hulk took part in the incursion between Earth-616 and Earth-1610. The Hulk used the "Fastball Special" with Colossus to destroy the Triskelion.

 

As part of the 2015–2018 All-New, All-Different Marvel branding, Amadeus Cho becomes the new Hulk. Flashbacks reveal that the Hulk had absorbed a dangerous new type of radiation while helping Iron Man and the Black Panther deal with a massive accident on Kiber Island. Fearing the Hulk's meltdown would kill countless innocents, Cho was able to use special nanites to absorb the Hulk from Banner and take it into himself to become his own version of the Hulk, leaving Banner normal and free from the Hulk.

 

He is then rescued from a bar fight by Amadeus, who tells him that he is cured. Having confirmed that he can no longer transform or sense the Hulk, Bruce spends some time traveling across America taking various risks such as driving at high speeds, running away from a bear, or gambling in Las Vegas, until he is confronted by Tony Stark out of concern that Bruce has a death wish. Bruce instead acknowledges that he still harbors guilt and rage over how so many of the Hulk's rampages were provoked by various agencies refusing to leave him alone.

 

During the 2016 "Civil War II" storyline, the vision of the Inhuman Ulysses shows a rampaging Hulk standing over the corpses of the superheroes. Meanwhile, Bruce Banner is shown to have set up a laboratory in Alpine, Utah, where he is approached by Captain Marvel, followed by Tony Stark, the rest of the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Inhumans.

 

The confrontation leads to the Beast hacking into Banner's work servers and the revelation that he had been injecting himself with dead gamma-irradiated cells. S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill places him under arrest. Banner gets infuriated at all these events, when suddenly, Hawkeye shoots Banner with an arrow to the head and then to the heart, apparently killing him, much to the dismay and horror of the superheroes, especially Tony Stark.

 

At an Avengers-presided tribunal, Hawkeye states that Bruce Banner had approached him and ordered him to kill him if he ever showed signs of turning into the Hulk again. At the funeral, Korg of the Warbound stated how Hulk wanted to be left alone and how his allies that he made along the way have become his family. In his video will, Bruce leaves various items to other heroes and his allies including leaving Doctor Strange his notes on the Hulk's ability to perceive ghosts and an egg-timer for the various former/current other Hulks (based on one of Bruce's more successful attempts to control himself as he would sit down for three minutes doing nothing before making a particularly big decision and then decide if he still wanted to do it).

 

Following the funeral of Bruce Banner, the Hand in allegiance with Daniel Drumm's ghost steal Bruce Banner's body in order to use the dead to bolster their ranks. When the reassembled Uncanny Avengers went to Japan and attempted to enlist Elektra for help in stopping the Hand, the ritual that the Hand performed has been completed as the Uncanny Avengers are attacked by a revived Hulk who is wearing samurai armor.

 

The Uncanny Avengers were able to contain Hulk's rampage and sever his mystical link to the Beast of the Hand. Afterward, Hulk regressed back to Bruce Banner and returned to the dead.[93]

 

During the 2017 "Secret Empire" storyline, Arnim Zola used an unknown method to temporarily revive Bruce Banner, and the Hydra Supreme version of Captain America persuades his Hulk side to attack the Underground's hideout called the Vault. He fought Thing and Giant-Man's A.I.Vengers until the temporary revival started to wear off and caused Hulk to die again.

 

During the "No Surrender" arc, the exiled Elder of the Universe Challenger revives Hulk to be his ace in the hole during a contest between his Black Order and Grandmaster's Lethal Legion.

 

Hulk participated since he knew that Earth will be destroyed either way while his Bruce Banner suspects that Hulk's revivals were a manifestation of Hulk's immortality. While defeating Cannonball and Living Lightning, breaking Vision, and draining the gamma energy out of Robert Maverick's Hulk Plug-In, Wonder Man successfully reasoned with him as Hulk destroyed the Pyarmoid in Voyager's possession. After feeling remorse for what happened, Bruce Banner became Hulk and faced off against Challenger. After Challenger sent Hulk into Earth's orbit, Hulk was pleased that he managed to hurt Challenger.

 

While maintaining a low profile, Bruce Banner was shot by Tommy Hill of the Dogs of Hell biker gang during a robbery that also claimed the lives of Sandy Brockhurst and Josh Alfaro. He came back to life and turned into Hulk where he badly beat up Tommy Hill. The witnesses in the Dogs of Hell told Detective Gloria Mayes of the attacker as she and reporter Jackie McGee have a suspicion that it was Hulk even though Banner is believed to be dead.

 

During the events of "Absolute Carnage," the Venom Symbiote takes Bruce as its host to fight Carnage. Inside of Bruce's mind, Bruce converses with the Venom Symbiote as the other Hulk identities such as Joe Fixit and Savage add their opinions about their current situation.

 

Devil (in his more traditional-looking reptilian form) is against the symbiote's presence in Bruce and says it should be removed immediately, saying they have more important matters to deal with. In the end, Bruce, Fixit, and Savage agree to collaborate with the Venom Symbiote and Devil storms off, saying they are making a mistake. As Bruce states that the vote is three to one with two abstentions, he welcomes the Venom symbiote to the family.

 

Powers and abilities

 

Bruce Banner

 

Considered to be one of the greatest scientific minds on Earth, Banner possesses "a mind so brilliant it cannot be measured on any known intelligence test."

 

Norman Osborn estimates that he is the fourth most-intelligent person on Earth. Banner holds expertise in biology, chemistry, engineering, medicine, physiology, and nuclear physics.

 

Using this knowledge, he creates advanced technology dubbed "Bannertech", which is on par with technological development from Tony Stark or Doctor Doom. Some of these technologies include a force field that can protect him from the attacks of Hulk-level entities, and a teleporter.

 

After becoming a fugitive from the law, Banner is forced to go on the run and over the years learns various skills in order to both survive and remain under radar of those who are hunting him.

 

Banner’s most frequent method of travel includes hitchhiking, train hopping or simply just walking as he is unable to travel legally via planes, passenger ships or buses due to being in several travel watchlists.

 

Banner is generally on the move and rarely ever stays in one place for very long and only does so if there’s a possibility of curing himself. He will only ever stay in one place for an extended period of time if it provides him with complete solitude and privacy where the Hulk can do little to no harm.

 

To avoid being tracked, Banner does not use cell phones, debit or credit cards and will only use payphone’s or cash. He will often use fake identities when staying at motels or working jobs that require identification.

 

Having been on the run for years, Banner can normally tell when he is being followed and will generally make a run for it when he is discovered. Having traveled across the globe, Banner is able to sneak over borders without being detected and can get by, by either knowing or learning the local language. Often traveling light, Banner has little to no possessions that he carries in either a satchel or backpack.

 

Often losing everything he owns after transforming into the Hulk, Banner avoids keeping anything of personal value to him so that he can easily replace the items and clothes that were lost or destroyed.

 

To support himself financially, Banner will work quick part time jobs and will only accept payments in cash. These jobs have varied from simply working in low pay diners to working as local doctor.

 

Banner’s work ethic as well as his vast knowledge and skillset in science, medicine and engineering often help him get hired rather quickly. Unless desperate, Banner will generally avoid jobs that are high stress due to the potential danger of transforming into the Hulk.

 

During his travels, Banner has developed several different techniques to help suppress or control his transformations when he becomes a little angry or upset.

 

Among the techniques he’s learned over the years include meditation and hypnotherapy. While they have helped him to better understand and suppress his transformations, none of techniques Banner has learned have helped him to gain full control over the Hulk.

 

The Hulk possesses the potential for seemingly limitless physical strength that is influenced by his emotional state, particularly his anger.

 

This has been reflected in the repeated comment "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets." The cosmically powerful entity known as the Beyonder once analyzed the Hulk's physiology, and claimed that the Hulk's potential strength had "no finite element inside."

 

Hulk's strength has been depicted as sometimes limited by Banner's subconscious influence; when Jean Grey psionically "shut Banner off", Hulk became strong enough to overpower and destroy the physical form of the villain Onslaught.

 

Writer Greg Pak described the Worldbreaker Hulk shown during World War Hulk as having a level of physical power where "Hulk was stronger than any mortal—and most immortals—who ever walked the Earth" and depicted the character as powerful enough to completely destroy entire planets.

 

His strength allows him to leap into lower Earth orbit or across continents, and he has displayed superhuman speed.

 

Exposure to radiation has also been shown to make the Hulk stronger. It is unknown how he gains biomass during transformation but it may be linked to subatomic black matter.

 

His durability, regeneration, and endurance also increase in proportion to his temper. Hulk is resistant to injury or damage, though the degree to which varies between interpretations, but he has withstood the equivalent of solar temperatures, nuclear explosions, and planet-shattering impacts.

 

Despite his remarkable resiliency, continuous barrages of high-caliber gunfire can hinder his movement to some degree while he can be temporarily subdued by intense attacks with chemical weapons such as anesthetic gases, although any interruption of such dosages will allow him to quickly recover.

 

He has been shown to have both regenerative and adaptive healing abilities, including growing tissues to allow him to breathe underwater, surviving unprotected in space for extended periods, and when injured, healing from most wounds within seconds, including, on one occasion, the complete destruction of most of his body mass.

 

His future self, the "Maestro", was even eventually able to recover from being blown to pieces. As an effect, he has an extremely prolonged lifespan.

 

He also possesses less commonly described powers, including abilities allowing him to "home in" to his place of origin in New Mexico; resist psychic control, or unwilling transformation; grow stronger from radiation or dark magic; punch his way between separate temporal or spatial dimensions; and to see and interact with astral forms.

 

Some of these abilities were in later years explained as being related; his ability to home in on the New Mexico bomb site was due to his latent ability to sense astral forms and spirits, since the bomb site was also the place where the Maestro's skeleton was and the Maestro's spirit was calling out to him in order to absorb his radiation.

 

He is also shown to have a separate memory to Bruce Banner - when Spider-Man has the knowledge of his secret identity erased during Spider-Man: One More Day, the Hulk later asks how Peter is doing, not Spider-Man; upon questioning, he enigmatically states "Banner forgot. But I don't forget."

 

⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽

_____________________________

A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.

 

Secret Identity: Robert Bruce Banner

 

Publisher: Marvel

 

First appearance: The Incredible Hulk #1 (May 1962)

 

Created by: Stan Lee (Writer)

Jack Kirby (Artist)

 

“I used to believe, although I don't now, that growing and growing up are analogous, that both are inevitable and uncontrollable processes. Now it seems to me that growing up is governed by the will, that one can choose to become an adult, but only at given moments...”

― Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch

Esta es la primera de una serie de fotos tomadas desde el Coffee Costa, en New Oxford St., Londres. Había varias limitaciones que fueron un aliciente. Utilicé el agujero del respaldo de una de las sillas como marco, en el cristal había una estrella navideña, y un cartón entraba y salía de campo movido por el viento. El azar, ese elemento incontrolable y mágico, puso el resto. Tomé 253 imágenes entre sorbo y sorbo de un buen café. A Miriam, gracias por su amor y paciencia.

En esta colección de Los pasos perdidos iré mostrando algunas de esas imágenes.

 

This is the first of a photos serial taken from the Coffee Costa in New Oxford St., London. There were several limitations which became an incentive. I used the hole in of one of the chairs as a framework, the glass had a Christmas star sticked on it, and a cardboard entered and left the frame moved by the wind. Fate, uncontrollable and magical element, put the rest.

I took 253 pictures from sip to sip of coffee.

In this collection called "The lost steps" ("Los pasos perdidos"), I'll be showing some of those images.

To Miriam, thank you for your love and patience.

 

500px / Twitter

it totally goes with this song. really. bwahaha!!!

 

and how funny when a couple comes traipsing by and the man gives me Thee most horrified look when they find out I'm taking a self portrait...

and I was actually in a friendly chatty mood that evening but explanations just seemed to make it worse which cracked me up no end. Pretty sure they were telepathically telling each other to "make sure not to make eye contact with her. Remember what we've heard about Californian's..."

free o' charge folks! I make random appearances all around these parts. muahahaha!!!

 

oh and when it came to editing the light on the rock/cave entrance? Agony! I'm still unsure as to what exactly I did wrong but I suspect I might've (totally a word!) overexposed it. Yeah okay thinking about it a little harder that makes sense. SOB though!!!

 

love y'all

and a very lovely good night :)

xo

Yes, I'm afraid it's another Flight shot...!!!

 

As you know, Pied Stilts are not big birds, and nor is their wing span especially large. So how did this bird manage to remain in the air with its wings in this configuration???

 

And how, seconds after this shot was taken, did she or he manage to land without cartwheeling uncontrollably into the tidal pond it was aiming for???

 

All too often, we tend to look at the birds and creatures around us, and think that we're the smarter ones... But are we???

  

Thanks for visiting Folks, and thanks for taking the time and trouble to leave a Comment. It's always nice to hear from you...!

  

Night falling.... on another day.

Some wonderfully crisp cumulus cloud builds in the late afternoon. I thought this shot fit right in with the rest of my photos as I seem to have an uncontrollable urge to photograph the skies above!

 

Please view large by pressing "L" on your keyboard

Involuntary and uncontrollable

 

Did you know you cannot make yourself blush? I wish I could make myself NOT blush.

 

Although I have years of public speaking and performing experience, I still find myself blushing when unexpectedly asked to speak up in a group. I only make it worse by blushing about blushing. There’s no hiding the pink on my pale skin.

 

Blazer, Caslon (thrifted). Tank, Gembera. Skirt, Topshop. Loafers, Doc Marten. Earrings and scarf, gifts. Bag, Pom Pom London.

 

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

 

This shot has a lot of meaning to me. I took this in the morning of July, 1994, in Yosemite National Park. We had spent the night camped out here, at about 10,000 feet, but it had not been a good night for me. Having hiked nearly 30 miles over the previous couple of days, I was suffering from a combination of altitude sickness and exhaustion.

 

In the middle of the night, I woke up shaking uncontrollably (shivering); I could not stop. I viewed this as a very bad sign, health-wise, and needed to get to a lower elevation.

 

The next morning, feeling awful and unable to drink the iodine-infused water, I got this picture (on 35mm color film) before hiking down to Tanaka Lake.

 

The memory is unforgettable; I had wondered if I would make it out of there at all. Fortunately, I did. My memories of Yosemite will always include this perilous experience, as well as the beautiful scenes.

 

(This image was scanned from the 4x6 photo and then edited to reduce noise. If 1994 qualifies as "vintage", then this is vintage!)

 

Dark Souls (2011)

 

Parasitic Headgear. An egg implanted on the head by a type of parasite bearing eggs on its back. The nightmare begins with a slight itch on the head, and soon the parasite will be siphoning the souls of slain enemies.

 

Black Knight Halberd

 

DSfix

HD Textures

 

Hit L then F11 to view

  

Don Juan was about to start his explanation of the mastery of awareness, but he changed his mind and stood up. We had been sitting in the big room, observing a moment of quiet.

 

“I want you to try seeing the Eagle’s emanations,” he said. “For that you must first move your assemblage point until you see the cocoon of man.”

 

We walked from the house to the center of town. We sat down on an empty, worn park bench in front of the church, it was early afternoon; a sunny, windy day with lots of people milling around.

 

He repeated, as if he were trying to drill it into me, that alignment is a unique force because it either helps the assemblage point shift, or it keeps it glued to its customary position. The aspect of alignment that keeps the point stationary, he said, is will; and the aspect that makes it shift is intent. He remarked that one of the most haunting mysteries is how will, the impersonal force of alignment, changes into intent, the personalized force, which is at the service of each individual.

 

“The strangest part of this mystery is that the change is so easy to accomplish,” he went on. “But what is not so easy is to convince ourselves that it is possible. There, right there, is our safety catch. We have to be convinced. And none of us wants to be.”

 

He told me then that I was in my keenest state of awareness, and that it was possible for me to intend my assemblage point to shift deeper into my left side, to a dreaming position. He said that warriors should never attempt seeing unless they are aided by dreaming. I argued that to fall asleep in public was not one of my fortés. He clarified his statement, saying that to move the assemblage point away from its natural setting and to keep it fixed at a new location is to be asleep; with practice, seers learn to be asleep and yet behave as if nothing is happening to them.

 

After a moment’s pause he added that for purposes of seeing the cocoon of man, one has to gaze at people from behind, as they walk away. It is useless to gaze at people face to face, because the front of the egglike cocoon of man has a protective shield, which seers call the front plate, it is an almost impregnable, unyielding shield that protects us throughout our lives against the onslaught of a peculiar force that stems from the emanations themselves.

 

He also told me not to be surprised if my body was stiff, as though it were frozen; he said that I was going to feel very much like someone standing in the middle of a room looking at the street through a window, and that speed was of the essence, as people were going to move extremely fast by my seeing window. He told me then to relax my muscles, shut off my internal dialogue, and let my assemblage point drift away under the spell of inner silence. He urged me to smack myself gently but firmly on my right side, between my hipbone and my ribcage.

 

I did that three times and I was sound asleep. It was a most peculiar state of sleep. My body was dormant, but I was perfectly aware of everything that was taking place. I could hear don Juan talking to me and I could follow every one of his statements as if I were awake, yet I could not move my body at all.

 

Don Juan said that a man was going to walk by my seeing window and that I should try to see him. I unsuccessfully attempted to move my head and then a shiny egglike shape appeared, it was resplendent. I was awed by the sight and before I could recover from my surprise, it was gone. It floated away, bobbing up and down.

 

Everything had been so sudden and fast that it made me feel frustrated and impatient. I felt that I was beginning to wake up. Don Juan talked to me again and urged me to relax. He said that I had no right and no time to be impatient. Suddenly, another luminous being appeared and moved away. It seemed to be made of a white fluorescent shag.

 

Don Juan whispered in my ear that if I wanted to, my eyes were capable of slowing down everything they focused on. Then he warned me that another man was coming. I realized at that instant that there were two voices. The one I had just heard was the same one that had admonished me to be patient. That was don Juan’s. The other, the one that told me to use my eyes to slow down movement, was the voice of seeing.

 

That afternoon, I saw ten luminous beings in slow motion. The voice of seeing guided me to witness in them everything don Juan had told me about the glow of awareness. There was a vertical band with a stronger amber glow on the right side of those egglike luminous creatures, perhaps one-tenth of the total volume of the cocoon. The voice said that that was man’s band of awareness. The voice pointed out a dot on man’s band, a dot with an intense shine; it was high on the oblong shapes, almost on the crest of them, on the surface of the cocoon; the voice said that it was the assemblage point.

 

When I saw each luminous creature in profile, from the point of view of its body, its egglike shape was like a gigantic asymmetrical yoyo that was standing edgewise, or like an almost round pot that was resting on its side with its lid on. The part that looked like a lid was the front plate; it was perhaps one-fifth the thickness of the total cocoon.

 

I would have gone on seeing those creatures, but don Juan said that I should now gaze at people face to face and sustain my gaze until I had broken the barrier and I was seeing the emanations.

 

I followed his command. Almost instantaneously, I saw a most brilliant array of live, compelling fibers of light. It was a dazzling sight that immediately shattered my balance. I fell down on the cement walk on my side. From there, I saw the compelling fibers of light multiply themselves. They burst open and myriads of other fibers came out of them. But the fibers, compelling as they were, somehow did not interfere with my ordinary view. There were scores of people going into church. I was no longer seeing them. There were quite a few women and men just around the bench. I wanted to focus my eyes on them, but instead I noticed how one of those fibers of light bulged suddenly. It became like a ball of fire that was perhaps seven feet in diameter, it rolled on me. My first impulse was to roll out of its way. Before I could even move a muscle the ball had hit me. I felt it as clearly as if someone had punched me gently in the stomach. An instant later another ball of fire hit me, this time with considerably more strength, and then don Juan whacked me really hard on the cheek with his open hand. I jumped up involuntarily and lost sight of the fibers of light and the balloons that were hitting me.

 

Don Juan said that I had successfully endured my first brief encounter with the Eagle’s emanations, but that a couple of shoves from the tumbler had dangerously opened up my gap. He added that the balls that had hit me were called the rolling force, or the tumbler.

 

We had returned to his house, although I did not remember how or when. I had spent hours in a sort of semi-sleeping state. Don Juan and the other seers of his group had given me large amounts of water to drink. They had also submerged me in an ice-cold tub of water for short periods of time.

 

“Were those fibers I saw the Eagle’s emanations?” I asked don Juan.

 

“Yes. But you didn’t really see them,” he replied. “No sooner had you begun to see than the tumbler stopped you. If you had remained a moment longer it would have blasted you.”

 

“What exactly is the tumbler?” I asked.

 

“It is a force from the Eagle’s emanations,” he said. “A ceaseless force that strikes us every instant of our lives, it is lethal when seen, but otherwise we are oblivious to it, in our ordinary lives, because we have protective shields. We have consuming interests that engage all our awareness. We are permanently worried about our station, our possessions. These shields, however, do not keep the tumbler away, they simply keep us from seeing it directly, protecting us in this way from getting hurt by the fright of seeing the balls of fire hitting us. Shields are a great help and a great hindrance to us. They pacify us and at the same time fool us. They give us a false sense of security.”

 

He warned me that a moment would come in my life when I would be without any shields, uninterruptedly at the mercy of the tumbler. He said that it is an obligatory stage in the life of a warrior, known as losing the human form.

 

I asked him to explain to me once and for all what the human form is and what it means to lose it.

 

He replied that seers describe the human form as the compelling force of alignment of the emanations lit by the glow of awareness on the precise spot on which normally man’s assemblage point is fixated. It is the force that makes us into persons. Thus, to be a person is to be compelled to affiliate with that force of alignment and consequently to be affiliated with the precise spot where it originates.

 

By reason of their activities, at a given moment the assemblage points of warriors drift toward the left. It is a permanent move, which results in an uncommon sense of aloofness, or control, or even abandon. That drift of the assemblage point entails a new alignment of emanations. It is the beginning of a series of greater shifts. Seers very aptly called this initial shift losing the human form, because it marks an inexorable movement of the assemblage point away from its original setting, resulting in the irreversible loss of our affiliation to the force that makes us persons.

 

He asked me then to describe all the details I could remember about the balls of fire. I told him that I had seen them so briefly I was not sure I could describe them in detail.

 

He pointed out that seeing is an euphemism for moving the assemblage point, and that if I moved mine a fraction more to the left I would have a clear picture of the balls of fire, a picture which I could interpret then as having remembered them.

 

I tried to have a clear picture, but I couldn’t, so I described what I remembered.

 

He listened attentively and then urged me to recall if they were balls or circles of fire. I told him I didn’t remember.

 

He explained that those balls of fire are of crucial importance to human beings because they are the expression of a force that pertains to all details of life and death, something that the new seers call the rolling force.

 

I asked him to clarify what he meant by all the details of life and death.

 

“The rolling force is the means through which the Eagle distributes life and awareness for safekeeping,” he said. “But it also is the force that, let’s say, collects the rent. It makes all living beings die. What you saw today was called by the ancient seers the tumbler.”

 

He said that seers describe it as an eternal line of iridescent rings, or balls of fire, that roll onto living beings ceaselessly. Luminous organic beings meet the rolling force head on, until the day when the force proves to be too much for them and the creatures finally collapse. The old seers were mesmerized by seeing how the tumbler then tumbles them into the beak of the Eagle to be devoured. That was the reason they called it the tumbler.

 

“You said that it is a mesmerizing sight. Have you yourself seen it rolling human beings?” I asked.

 

“Certainly I’ve seen it,” he replied, and after a pause he added, “You and I saw it only a short while ago in Mexico City.”

 

His assertion was so farfetched that I felt obliged to tell him that this time he was wrong. He laughed and reminded me that on that occasion, while both of us were sitting on a bench in the Alameda Park in Mexico City, we had witnessed the death of a man. He said that I had recorded the event in my everyday-life memory as well as in my left-side emanations.

 

As don Juan spoke to me I had the sensation of something inside me becoming lucid by degrees, and I could visualize with uncanny clarity the whole scene in the park. The man was lying on the grass with three policemen standing by him to keep onlookers away. I distinctly remembered don Juan hitting me on my back to make me change levels of awareness. And then I saw. My seeing was imperfect. I was unable to shake off the sight of the world of everyday life.

 

What I ended up with was a composite of filaments of the most gorgeous colors superimposed on the buildings and the traffic. The filaments were actually lines of colored light that came from above. They had inner life; they were bright and bursting with energy.

 

When I looked at the dying man, I saw what don Juan was talking about; something that was at once like circles of fire, or iridescent tumbleweeds, was rolling everywhere I focused my eyes. The circles were rolling on people, on don Juan, on me. I felt them in my stomach and became ill.

 

Don Juan told me to focus my eyes on the dying man. I saw him at one moment curling up, just as a sowbug curls itself up upon being touched. The incandescent circles pushed him away, as if they were casting him aside, out of their majestic, inalterable path.

 

I had not liked the feeling. The circles of fire had not scared me; they were not awesome, or sinister. I did not feel morbid or somber. The circles rather had nauseated me. I’d felt them in the pit of my stomach. It was a revulsion that I’d felt that day.

 

Remembering them conjured up again the total feeling of discomfort I had experienced on that occasion. As I got ill, don Juan laughed until he was out of breath.

 

“You’re such an exaggerated fellow.” he said. “The rolling force is not that bad. It’s lovely, in fact. The new seers recommend that we open ourselves to it. The old seers also opened themselves to it, but for reasons and purposes guided mostly by self-importance and obsession.”

 

“The new seers, on the other hand, make friends with it. They become familiar with that force by handling it without any self-importance. The result is staggering in its consequences.”

 

He said that a shift of the assemblage point is all that is needed to open oneself to the rolling force. He added that if the force is seen in a deliberate manner, there is minimal danger. A situation that is extremely dangerous, however, is an involuntary shift of the assemblage point owing, perhaps, to physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion, disease, or simply a minor emotional or physical crisis, such as being frightened or being drunk.

 

“When the assemblage point shifts involuntarily, the rolling force cracks the cocoon,” he went on. “I’ve talked many times about a gap that man has below his navel. It’s not really below the navel itself, but in the cocoon, at the height of the navel. The gap is more like a dent, a natural flaw in the otherwise smooth cocoon. It is there where the tumbler hits us ceaselessly and where the cocoon cracks.”

 

He went on to explain that if it is a minor shift of the assemblage point, the crack is very small, the cocoon quickly repairs itself, and people experience what everybody has at one time or another: blotches of color and contorted shapes, which remain even if the eyes are closed.

 

If the shift is considerable, the crack also is extensive and it takes time for the cocoon to repair itself, as in the case of warriors who purposely use power plants to elicit that shift or people who take drugs and unwittingly do the same. In these cases men feel numb and cold; they have difficulty talking or even thinking; it is as if they have been frozen from inside.

 

Don Juan said that in cases in which the assemblage point shifts drastically because of the effects of trauma or of a mortal disease, the rolling force produces a crack the length of the cocoon; the cocoon collapses and curls in on itself, and the individual dies.

 

“Can a voluntary shift also produce a gap of that nature?” I asked.

 

“Sometimes,” he replied. “We’re really frail. As the tumbler hits us over and over, death comes to us through the gap. Death is the rolling force. When it finds weakness in the gap of a luminous being it automatically cracks it open and makes it collapse.”

 

“Does every living being have a gap?” I asked.

 

“Of course,” he replied. “If it didn’t have one it wouldn’t die. The gaps are different, however, in size and configuration. Man’s gap is a bowl-like depression the size of a fist, a very frail vulnerable configuration. The gaps of other organic creatures are very much like man’s; some are stronger than ours and others are weaker. But the gap of inorganic beings is really different. It’s more like a long thread, a hair of luminosity; consequently, inorganic beings are infinitely more durable than we are.”

 

“There is something hauntingly appealing about the long life of those creatures, and the old seers could not resist being carried away by that appeal.”

 

He said that the same force can produce two effects that are diametrically opposed. The old seers were imprisoned by the rolling force, and the new seers are rewarded for their toils with the gift of freedom. By becoming familiar with the rolling force through the mastery of intent, the new seers, at a given moment, open their own cocoons and the force floods them rather than rolling them up like a curled-up sowbug. The final result is their total and instantaneous disintegration.

 

I asked him a lot of questions about the survival of awareness after the luminous being is consumed by the fire from within. He did not answer. He simply chuckled, shrugged his shoulders, and went on to say that the old seers’ obsession with the tumbler blinded them to the other side of that force. The new seers, with their usual thoroughness in refusing tradition, went to the other extreme. They were at first totally averse to focusing their seeing on the tumbler; they argued that they needed to understand the force of the emanations at large in its aspect of lifegiver and enhancer of awareness.

 

“They realized that it is infinitely easier to destroy something,” don Juan went on, “than it is to build it and maintain it. To roll life away is nothing compared to giving it and nourishing it. Of course, the new seers were wrong on this count, but in due course they corrected their mistake.”

 

“How were they wrong, don Juan?”

 

“It’s an error to isolate anything for seeing. At the beginning, the new seers did exactly the opposite from what their predecessors did. They focused with equal attention on the other side of the tumbler. What happened to them was as terrible as, if not worse than, what happened to the old seers. They died stupid deaths, just as the average man does. They didn’t have the mystery or the malignancy of the ancient seers, nor had they the quest for freedom of the seers of today.”

 

“Those first new seers served everybody. Because they were focusing their seeing on the lifegiving side of the emanations, they were filled with love and kindness. But that didn’t keep them from being tumbled. They were vulnerable, just as were the old seers who were filled with morbidity.”

 

He said that for the modern-day new seers, to be left stranded after a life of discipline and toil, just like men who have never had a purposeful moment in their lives, was intolerable. Don Juan said that these new seers realized, after they had readopted their tradition, that the old seers’ knowledge of the rolling force had been complete; at one point the old seers had concluded that there were, in effect, two different aspects of the same force. The tumbling aspect relates exclusively to destruction and death. The circular aspect, on the other hand, is what maintains life and awareness, fulfillment and purpose. They had chosen, however, to deal exclusively with the tumbling aspect.

 

“Gazing in teams, the new seers were able to see the separation between the tumbling and the circular aspects,” he explained. “They saw that both forces are fused, but are not the same. The circular force comes to us just before the tumbling force; they are so close to each other that they seem the same.”

 

“The reason it’s called the circular force is that it comes in rings, threadlike hoops of iridescence – a very delicate affair indeed. And just like the tumbling force, it strikes all living beings ceaselessly, but for a different purpose. It strikes them to give them strength, direction, awareness; to give them life.”

 

“What the new seers discovered is that the balance of the two forces in every living being is a very delicate one,” he continued, “if at any given time an individual feels that the tumbling force strikes harder than the circular one, that means the balance is upset; the tumbling force strikes harder and harder from then on, until it cracks the living being’s gap and makes it die.”

 

He added that out of what I had called balls of fire comes an iridescent hoop exactly the size of living beings, whether men, trees, microbes, or allies.

 

“Are there different-size circles?” I asked.

 

“Don’t take me so literally,” he protested. “There are no circles to speak of, just a circular force that gives seers, who are dreaming it, the feeling of rings. And there are no different sizes either. It’s one indivisible force that fits all living beings, organic and inorganic.”

 

“Why did the old seers focus on the tumbling aspect?” I asked.

 

“Because they believed that their lives depended on seeing it,” he replied. “They were sure that their seeing was going to give them answers to age-old questions. You see, they figured that if they unraveled the secrets of the rolling force they would be invulnerable and immortal. The sad part is that in one way or another, they did unravel the secrets and yet they were neither invulnerable nor immortal.”

 

“The new seers changed it all by realizing that there is no way to aspire to immortality as long as man has a cocoon.”

 

Don Juan explained that the old seers apparently never realized that the human cocoon is a receptacle and cannot sustain the onslaught of the rolling force forever. In spite of all the knowledge that they had accumulated, they were in the end certainly no better, and perhaps much worse, off than the average man.

 

“In what way were they left worse off than the average man?” I asked.

 

“Their tremendous knowledge forced them to take it for granted that their choices were infallible,” he said. “So they chose to live at any cost.”

 

Don Juan looked at me and smiled. With his theatrical pause he was telling me something I could not fathom.

 

“They chose to live,” he repeated. “Just as they chose to become trees in order to assemble worlds with those nearly unreachable great bands.”

 

“What do you mean by that, don Juan?”

 

“I mean that they used the rolling force to shift their assemblage points to unimaginable dreaming positions, instead of letting it roll them to the beak of the Eagle to be devoured.”

 

The Death Defiers

 

I arrived at Genaro’s house around 2:00 p. m. Don Juan and I became involved in conversation, and then don Juan made me shift into heightened awareness.

 

“Here we are again, the three of us, just as we were the day we went to that flat rock,” don Juan said. “And tonight we’re going to make another trip to that area.”

 

“You have enough knowledge now to draw very serious conclusions about that place and its effects on awareness.”

 

“What is it with that place, don Juan?”

 

“Tonight you’re going to find out some gruesome facts that the old seers collected about the rolling force; and you’re going to see what I meant when I told you that the old seers chose to live at any cost.”

 

Don Juan turned to Genaro, who was about to fall asleep. He nudged him.

 

“Wouldn’t you say, Genaro, that the old seers-were dreadful men?” don Juan asked.

 

“Absolutely,” Genaro said in a crisp tone and then seemed to succumb to fatigue.

 

He began to nod noticeably. In an instant he was sound asleep, his head resting on his chest with his chin tucked in. He snored.

 

I wanted to laugh out loud. But then I noticed that Genaro was staring at me, as if he were sleeping with his eyes open.

 

“They were such dreadful men that they even defied death,” Genaro added between snores.

 

“Aren’t you curious to know how those gruesome men defied death?” don Juan asked me.

 

He seemed to be urging me to ask for an example of their gruesomeness. He paused and looked at me with what I thought was a glint of expectation in his eyes.

 

“You’re waiting for me to ask for an example, aren’t you?” I said.

 

“This is a great moment,” he said, patting me on the back and laughing. “My benefactor had me on the edge of my seat at this point. I asked him to give me an example, and he did; now I’m going to give you one whether you ask for it or not.”

 

“What are you going to do?” I asked, so frightened that my stomach was tied in knots and my voice cracked.

 

It took quite a while for don Juan to stop laughing. Every time he started to speak, he’d get an attack of coughing laughter.

 

“As Genaro told you, the old seers were dreadful men,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “There was something they tried to avoid at all costs: they didn’t want to die. You may say that the average man doesn’t want to die either, but the advantage that the old seers had over the average man was that they had the concentration and the discipline to intend things away; and they actually intended death away.”

 

He paused and looked at me with raised eyebrows. He said that I was falling behind, that I was not asking my usual questions. I remarked that it was plain to me that he was leading me to ask if the old seers had succeeded in intending death away, but he himself had already told me that their knowledge about the tumbler had not saved them from dying.

 

“They succeeded in intending death away,” he said, pronouncing his words with extra care. “But they still had to die.”

 

“How did they intend death away?” I asked.

 

“They observed their allies,” he said, “and seeing that they were living beings with a much greater resilience to the rolling force, the seers patterned themselves on their allies.”

 

“The old seers realized,” don Juan explained, “that only organic beings have a gap that resembles a bowl. Its size and shape and its brittleness make it the ideal configuration to hasten the cracking and collapsing of the luminous shell under the onslaughts of the tumbling force. The allies, on the other hand, who have only a line for a gap, present such a small surface to the rolling force as to be practically immortal. Their cocoons can sustain the onslaughts of the tumbler indefinitely, because hairline gaps offer no ideal configuration to it.”

 

“The old seers developed the most bizarre techniques for closing their gaps,” don Juan continued. “They were essentially correct in assuming that a hairline gap is more durable than a bowl-like one.”

 

“Are those techniques still in existence?” I asked.

 

“No, they are not,” he said. “But some of the seers who practiced them are.”

 

For reasons unknown to me, his statement caused a reaction of sheer terror in me. My breathing was altered instantly, and I couldn’t control its rapid pace.

 

“They’re still alive to this day, isn’t that so, Genaro?” don Juan asked.

 

“Absolutely,” Genaro muttered from an apparent state of deep sleep.

 

I asked don Juan if he knew the reason for my being so frightened. He reminded me about a previous occasion in that very room when they had asked me if I had noticed the weird creatures that had come in the moment Genaro opened the door.

 

“That day your assemblage point went very deep into the left side and assembled a frightening world,” he went on. “But I have already said that to you; what you don’t remember is that you went directly to a very remote world and scared yourself pissless there.”

 

Don Juan turned to Genaro, who was snoring peacefully with his legs stretched out in front of him.

 

“Wasn’t he scared pissless, Genaro?” he asked.

 

“Absolutely pissless,” Genaro muttered, and don Juan laughed.

 

“I want you to know that we don’t blame you for being scared,” don Juan continued. “We, ourselves, are revolted by some of the actions of the old seers. I’m sure that you have realized by now that what you can’t remember about that night is that you saw the old seers who are still alive.”

 

I wanted to protest that I had realized nothing, but I could not voice my words. I had to clear my throat over and over before I could articulate a word. Genaro had stood up and was gently patting my upper back, by my neck, as if I were choking.

 

“You have a frog in your throat,” he said.

 

I thanked him in a high squeaky voice.

 

“No, I think you have a chicken there,” he added and sat down to sleep.

 

Don Juan said that the new seers had rebelled against all the bizarre practices of the old seers and declared them not only useless but injurious to our total being. They even went so far as to ban those techniques from whatever was taught to new warriors; and for generations there was no mention of those practices at all.

 

It was in the early part of the eighteenth century that the nagual Sebastian, a member of don Juan’s direct line of naguals, rediscovered the existence of those techniques.

 

“How did he rediscover them?” I asked.

 

“He was a superb stalker, and because of his impeccability he got a chance to learn marvels,” don Juan replied.

 

He said that one day as the nagual Sebastian was about to start his daily routines – he was the sexton at the cathedral in the city where he lived – he found a middle-aged Indian man who seemed to be in a quandary at the door of the church.

 

The nagual Sebastian went to the man’s side and asked him if he needed help.

 

“I need a bit of energy to close my gap,” the man said to him in a loud clear voice. “Would you give me some of your energy?”

 

Don Juan said that according to the story, the nagual Sebastian was dumbfounded. He did not know what the man was talking about. He offered to take the Indian to see the parish priest. The man lost his patience and angrily accused the nagual Sebastian of stalling.

 

“I need your energy because you’re a nagual,” he said. “Let’s go quietly.”

 

The nagual Sebastian succumbed to the magnetic power of the stranger and meekly went with him into the mountains. He was gone for many days. When he came back he not only had a new outlook about the ancient seers, but detailed knowledge of their techniques. The stranger was an ancient Toltec. One of the last survivors.

 

“The nagual Sebastian found out marvels about the old seers,” don Juan went on. “He was the one who first knew how grotesque and aberrant they really were. Before him, that knowledge was only hearsay.”

 

“One night my benefactor and the nagual Elias gave me a sample of those aberrations. They really showed it to Genaro and me together, so it’s only proper that we both show you the same sample.”

 

I wanted to talk in order to stall; I needed time to calm down, to think things out. But before I could say anything, don Juan and Genaro were practically dragging me out of the house. They headed for the same eroded hills we had visited before.

 

We stopped at the bottom of a large barren hill. Don Juan pointed toward some distant mountains to the south, and said that between the place where we stood and a natural cut in one of those mountains, a cut that looked like an open mouth, there were at least seven sites where the ancient seers had focused all the power of their awareness.

 

Don Juan said that those seers had not only been knowledgeable and daring but downright successful. He added that his benefactor had showed him and Genaro a site where the old seers, driven by their love for life, had buried themselves alive and actually intended the rolling force away.

 

“There is nothing that would catch the eye in those places,” he went on. “The old seers were careful not to leave marks. It is just a landscape. One has to see to know where those places are.”

 

He said that he did not want to walk to the faraway sites, but would take me to the one that was nearest. I insisted on knowing what we were after. He said that we were going to see the buried seers, and that for that we had to stay until it got dark under the cover of some green bushes. He pointed them out; they were perhaps half a mile away, up a steep slope.

 

We reached the patch of bushes and sat down as comfortably as we could. He began then to explain in a very low voice that in order to get energy from the earth, ancient seers used to bury themselves for periods of time, depending on what they wanted to accomplish. The more difficult their task, the longer their burial period.

 

Don Juan stood up and in a melodramatic way showed me a spot a few yards from where we were.

 

“Two old seers are buried there,” he said. “They buried themselves about two thousand years ago to escape death, not in the spirit of running away from it but in the spirit of defying it.”

 

Don Juan asked Genaro to show me the exact spot where the old seers were buried. I turned to look at Genaro and realized that he was sitting by my side sound asleep again. But to my utter amazement, he jumped up and barked like a dog and ran on all fours to the spot don Juan was pointing out. There he ran around the place in a perfect mime of a small dog.

 

I found his performance hilarious. Don Juan was nearly on the ground laughing.

 

“Genaro has shown you something extraordinary,” don Juan said, after Genaro had returned to where we were and had gone back to sleep. “He has shown you something about the assemblage point and dreaming. He’s dreaming now, but he can act as if he were fully awake and he can hear everything you say. From that position he can do more than if he were awake.”

 

He was silent for a moment as if assessing what to say next. Genaro snored rhythmically. Don Juan remarked how easy it was for him to find flaws with what the old seers had done, yet, in all fairness, he never tired of repeating how wonderful their accomplishments were. He said that they understood the earth to perfection. Not only did they discover and use the boost from the earth, but they also discovered that if they remained buried, their assemblage points aligned emanations that were ordinarily inaccessible, and that such an alignment engaged the earth’s strange, inexplicable capacity to deflect the ceaseless strikes of the rolling force.

 

Consequently, they developed the most astounding and complex techniques for burying themselves for extremely long periods of time without any detriment to themselves. In their fight against death, they learned how to elongate those periods to cover millennia.

 

It was a cloudy day, and night fell quickly. In no time at all, everything was in darkness. Don Juan stood up and guided me and the sleepwalker Genaro to an enormous flat oval rock that had caught my eye the moment we got to that place. It was similar to the flat rock we had visited before, but bigger. It occurred to me that the rock, enormous as it was, had deliberately been placed there.

 

“This is another site,” don Juan said. “This huge rock was placed here as a trap, to attract people. Soon you’ll know why.”

 

I felt a shiver run through my body. I thought I was going to faint. I knew that I was definitely overreacting and wanted to say something about it, but don Juan kept on talking in a hoarse whisper. He said that Genaro, since he was dreaming, had enough control over his assemblage point to move it until he could reach the specific emanations that would wake up whatever was around that rock. He recommended that I try to move my assemblage point, and follow Genaro’s.

 

He said that I could do it, first by setting up my unbending intent to move it, and second by letting the context of the situation dictate where it should move.

 

After a moment’s thought he whispered in my ear not to worry about procedures, because most of the really unusual things that happen to seers, or to the average man for that matter, happen by themselves, with only the intervention of intent.

 

He was silent for a moment and then added that the danger for me was going to be the buried seers’ inevitable attempt to scare me to death. He exhorted me to keep myself calm and not to succumb to fear, but follow Genaro’s movements.

 

I fought desperately not to be sick. Don Juan patted me on the back and said that I was an old pro at playing an innocent bystander. He assured me that I was not consciously refusing to let my assemblage point move, but that every human being does it automatically.

 

“Something is going to scare the living daylights out of you,” he whispered. “Don’t give up, because if you do, you’ll die and the old vultures around here are going to feast on your energy.”

 

“Let’s get out of here,” I pleaded. “I really don’t give a damn about getting an example of the old seers’ grotesqueness.”

 

“It’s too late,” Genaro said, fully awake now, standing by my side. “Even if we try to get away, the two seers and their allies on the other spot will cut you down. They have already made a circle around us. There are as many as sixteen awarenesses focused on you right now.”

 

“Who are they?” I whispered in Genaro’s ear.

 

“The four seers and their court,” he replied. “They’ve been aware of us since we got here.”

 

I wanted to turn tail and run for dear life, but don Juan held my arm and pointed to the sky. I noticed that a remarkable change in visibility had taken place. Instead of the pitch-black darkness that had prevailed, there was a pleasant dawn twilight. I made a quick assessment of the cardinal points. The sky was definitely lighter toward the east.

 

I felt a strange pressure around my head. My ears were buzzing. I felt cold and feverish at the same time. I was scared as I had never been before, but what bothered me was a nagging sensation of defeat, of being a coward. I felt nauseated and miserable.

 

Don Juan whispered in my ear. He said that I had to be on the alert, that the onslaught of the old seers would be felt by all three of us at any moment.

 

“You can grab on to me if you want to,” Genaro said in a fast whisper as if something were prodding him.

 

I hesitated for an instant. I did not want don Juan to believe that I was so scared I needed to hold on to Genaro.

 

“Here they come!” Genaro said in a loud whisper.

 

The world turned upside down instantaneously for me when something gripped me by my left ankle. I felt the coldness of death on my entire body. I knew I had stepped on an iron clamp, maybe a bear trap. That all flashed through my mind before I let out a piercing scream, as intense as my fright.

 

Don Juan and Genaro laughed out loud. They were flanking me no more than three feet away, but I was so terrified I did not even notice them.

 

“Sing! Sing for dear life!” I heard don Juan ordering me under his breath.

 

I tried to pull my foot loose. I felt then a sting, as if needles were piercing my skin. Don Juan insisted over and over that I sing. He and Genaro started to sing a popular song. Genaro spoke the lyrics as he looked at me from hardly two inches away. They sang off-key in raspy voices, getting so completely out of breath and so high out of the range of their voices that I ended up laughing.

 

“Sing, or you’re going to perish,” don Juan said to me.

 

“Let’s make a trio,” Genaro said, “We’ll sing a bolero.”

 

I joined them in an off-key trio. We sang for quite a while at the top of our voices, like drunkards. I felt that the iron grip on my leg was gradually letting go of me. I had not dared to look down at my ankle. At one moment I did and I realized then that there was no trap clutching me. A dark, headlike shape was biting me!

 

Only a supreme effort kept me from fainting. I felt I was getting sick and automatically tried to bend over, but somebody with superhuman strength grabbed me painlessly by the elbows and the nape of my neck and did not let me move. I got sick all over my clothes.

 

My revulsion was so complete that I began to fall in a faint. Don Juan sprinkled my face with some water from the small gourd he always carried when we went into the mountains. The water slid under my collar. The coldness restored my physical balance, but it did not affect the force that was holding me by my elbows and neck.

 

“I think you are going too far with your fright,” don Juan said loudly and in such a matter-of fact tone that he created an immediate feeling of order.

 

“Let’s sing again,” he added. “Let’s sing a song with substance – I don’t want any more boleros.”

 

I silently thanked him for his sobriety and for his grand style. I was so moved as I heard them singing “La Valentina” that I began to weep.

 

Because of my passion, they say

 

that ill fortune is on my way.

 

It doesn’t matter

 

that it might be the devil himself.

 

I do know how to die

 

Valentina, Valentina.

 

I throw myself in your way.

 

If I am going to die tomorrow,

 

why not, once and for all, today?

 

All of my being staggered under the impact of that inconceivable juxtaposition of values. Never had a song meant so much to me. As I heard them sing those lyrics, which I ordinarily considered reeking with cheap sentimentalism, I thought I understood the ethos of the warrior.

 

Don Juan had drilled into me that warriors live with death at their side, and from the knowledge that death is with them they draw the courage to face anything. Don Juan had said that the worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who have lost everything no longer have anything to fear.

 

I walked to don Juan and Genaro and embraced them to express my boundless gratitude and admiration for them.

 

Then I realized that nothing was holding me any longer. Without a word don Juan took my arm and guided me to sit on the flat rock.

 

“The show is just about to begin now,” Genaro said in a jovial tone as he tried to find a comfortable position to sit. “You’ve just paid your admission ticket. It’s all over your chest.”

 

He looked at me, and both of them began to laugh.

 

“Don’t sit too close to me,” Genaro said. “I don’t appreciate pukers. But don’t go too far, either. The old seers are not yet through with their tricks.”

 

I moved as close to them as politeness permitted. I was concerned about my fate for an instant, and then all my qualms became nonsense, for I noticed that some people were coming toward us. I could not make out their shapes clearly but I distinguished a mass of human figures moving in the semidarkness. They did not carry lanterns or flashlights with them, which at that hour they would still have needed. Somehow that detail worried me. I did not want to focus on it and I deliberately began to think rationally. I figured that we must have attracted attention with our loud singing and they were coming to investigate. Don Juan tapped me on the shoulder. He pointed with a movement of his chin to the men in front of the group of others.

 

“Those four are the old seers,” he said. “The rest are their allies.”

 

Before I could remark that they were just local peasants, I heard a swishing sound right behind me. I quickly turned around in a state of total alarm. My movement was so sudden that don Juan’s warning came too late.

 

“Don’t turn around!” I heard him yell.

 

His words were only background; they did not mean anything to me. On turning around, I saw that three grotesquely deformed men had climbed up on the rock right behind me; they were crawling toward me, with their mouths open in a nightmarish grimace and their arms outstretched to grab me.

 

I intended to scream at the top of my lungs, but what came out was an agonizing croak, as if something were obstructing my windpipe. I automatically rolled out of their reach and onto the ground.

 

As I stood up, don Juan jumped to my side, at the very same moment that a horde of men, led by those don Juan had pointed out, descended on me like vultures. They were actually squeaking like bats or rats. I yelled in terror. This time I was able to let out a piercing cry.

 

Don Juan, as nimbly as an athlete in top form, pulled me out of their clutches onto the rock. He told me in a stern voice not to turn around to look, no matter how scared I was. He said that the allies cannot push at all, but that they certainly could scare me and make me fall to the ground. On the ground, however, the allies could hold anybody down. If I were to fall on the ground by the place where the seers were buried, I would be at their mercy. They would rip me apart while their allies held me. He added that he had not told me all that before because he had hoped I would be forced to see and understand it by myself. His decision had nearly cost me my life. The sensation that the grotesque men were just behind me was nearly unbearable. Don Juan forcefully ordered me to keep calm and focus my attention on four men at the head of a crowd of perhaps ten or twelve. The instant I focused my eyes on them, as if on cue, they all advanced to the edge of the flat rock. They stopped there and began hissing like serpents. They walked back and forth. Their movement seemed to be synchronized. It was so consistent and orderly that it seemed to be mechanical. It was as if they were following a repetitive pattern, aimed at mesmerizing me.

 

“Don’t gaze at them, dear,” Genaro said to me as if he were talking to a child.

 

The laughter that followed was as hysterical as my fear. I laughed so hard that the sound reverberated on the surrounding hills.

 

The men stopped at once and seemed to be perplexed. I could distinguish the shapes of their heads bobbing up and down as if they were talking, deliberating among themselves. Then one of them jumped onto the rock.

 

“Watch out! That one is a seer!” Genaro exclaimed.

 

“What are we going to do?” I shouted.

 

“We could start singing again,” don Juan replied matter-of-factly.

 

My fear reached its apex then. I began to jump up and down and to roar like an animal. The man jumped down to the ground.

 

“Don’t pay any more attention to those clowns,” don Juan said. “Let’s talk as usual.”

 

He said that we had gone there for my enlightenment, and that I was failing miserably. I had to reorganize myself. The first thing to do was to realize that my assemblage point had moved and was now making obscure emanations glow. To carry the feelings from my usual state of awareness into the world I had assembled was indeed a travesty, for fear is only prevalent among the emanations of daily life.

 

I told him that if my assemblage point had shifted as he was saying it had, I had news for him. My fear was infinitely greater and more devastating than anything I had ever experienced in my daily life.

 

“You’re wrong,” he said. “Your first attention is confused and doesn’t want to give up control, that’s all. I have the feeling that you could walk right up to those creatures and face them and they wouldn’t do a thing to you.”

 

I insisted that I was definitely in no condition to test such a preposterous thing as that.

 

He laughed at me. He said that sooner or later I had to cure myself of my madness, and that to take the initiative and face up to those four seers was infinitely less preposterous than the idea that I was seeing them at all. He said that to him madness was to be confronted by men who had been buried for two thousand years and were still alive, and not to think that that was the epitome of preposterousness.

 

I heard everything he said with clarity, but I was not really paying attention to him. I was terrified of the men around the rock. They seemed to be preparing to jump us, to jump me really. They were fixed on me. My right arm began to shake as if I were stricken by some muscular disorder. Then I became aware that the light in the sky had changed. I had not noticed before that it was already dawn. The strange thing was that an uncontrollable urge made me stand up and run to the group of men.

 

I had at that moment two completely different feelings about the same event. The minor one was of sheer terror. The other, the major one, was of total indifference. I could not have cared less. When I reached the group I realized that don Juan was right; they were not really men. Only four of them had any resemblance to men, but they were not men either; they were strange creatures with huge yellow eyes. The others were just shapes that were propelled by the four that resembled men.

 

I felt extraordinarily sad for those creatures with yellow eyes. I tried to touch them, but I could not find them. Some sort of wind scooped them away.

 

I looked for don Juan and Genaro. They were not there. It was pitch-black again. I called out their names over and over again. I thrashed around in darkness for a few minutes. Don Juan came to my side and startled me. I did not see Genaro.

 

“Let’s go home,” he said. “We have a long walk.”

 

Don Juan commented on how well I had performed at the site of the buried seers, especially during the last part of our encounter with them. He said that a shift of the assemblage point is marked by a change in light. In the daytime, light becomes very dark; at night, darkness becomes twilight. He added that I had performed two shifts by myself, aided only by animal fright. The only thing he found objectionable was my indulging in fear, especially after I had realized that warriors have nothing to fear.

 

“How do you know I had realized that?” I asked.

 

“Because you were free. When fear disappears all the ties that bind us dissolve,” he said. “An ally was gripping your foot because it was attracted by your animal terror.”

 

I told him how sorry I was for not being able to uphold my realizations.

 

“Don’t concern yourself with that.” He laughed. “You know that such realizations are a dime a dozen; they don’t amount to anything in the life of warriors, because they are canceled out as the assemblage point shifts.”

 

“What Genaro and I wanted to do was to make you shift very deeply. This time Genaro was there simply to entice the old seers. He did it once already, and you went so far into the left side that it will take quite a while for you to remember it. Your fright tonight was just as intense as it was that first time when the seers and their allies followed you to this very room, but your sturdy first attention wouldn’t let you be aware of them.”

 

“Explain to me what happened at the site of the seers,” I asked.

 

“The allies came out to see you,” he replied. “Since they have very low energy, they always need the help of men. The four seers have collected twelve allies.

 

“The countryside in Mexico and also certain cities are dangerous. What happened to you can happen to any man or woman. If they bump into that tomb, they may even see the seers and their allies, if they are pliable enough to let their fear make their assemblage points shift; but one thing is for sure: they can die of fright.”

 

“But do you honestly believe that those Toltec seers are still alive?” I asked.

 

He laughed and shook his head in disbelief.

 

“It’s time for you to shift that assemblage point of yours just a bit,” he said. “I can’t talk to you when you are in your idiot’s stage.”

 

He smacked me with the palm of his hand on three spots: right on the crest of my right hipbone, on the center of my back below my shoulder blades, and on the upper part of my right pectoral muscle.

 

My ears immediately began to buzz. A trickle of blood ran out of my right nostril, and something inside me became unplugged. It was as if some flow of energy had been blocked and suddenly began to move again.

 

“What were those seers and their allies after?” I asked.

 

“Nothing,” he replied. “We were the ones who were after them. The seers, of course, had already noticed your field of energy the first time you saw them; when you came back, they were set to feast on you.”

 

“You claim that they are alive, don Juan,” I said. “You must mean that they are alive as allies are alive, is that so?”

 

“That’s exactly right,” he said. “They cannot possibly be alive as you and I are. That would be preposterous.”

 

He went on to explain that the ancient seers’ concern with death made them look into the most bizarre possibilities. The ones who opted for the allies’ pattern had in mind, doubtless, a desire for a haven. And they found it, at a fixed position in one of the seven bands of inorganic awareness.

 

The seers felt that they were relatively safe there. After all, they were separated from the daily world by a nearly insurmountable barrier, the barrier of perception set by the assemblage point.

 

“When the four seers saw that you could shift your assemblage point they took off like bats out of hell,” he said and laughed.

 

“Do you mean that I assembled one of the seven worlds?” I asked.

 

“No, you didn’t,” he replied. “But you have done it before, when the seers and their allies chased you. That day you went all the way to their world. The problem is that you love to act stupid, so you can’t remember it at all.

 

“I’m sure that it is the nagual’s presence,” he continued, “that sometimes makes people act dumb. When the nagual Julian was still around, I was dumber than I am now. I am convinced that when I’m no longer here, you’ll be capable of remembering everything.”

 

Don Juan explained that since he needed to show me the death defiers, he and Genaro had lured them to the outskirts of our world. What I had done at first was a deep lateral shift, which allowed me to see them as people, but at the end I had correctly made the shift that allowed me to see the death defiers and their allies as they are.

 

Very early the next morning, at Silvio Manuel’s house, don Juan called me to the big room to discuss the events of the previous night. I felt exhausted and wanted to rest, to sleep, but don Juan was pressed for time. He immediately started his explanation. He said that the old seers had found out a way to utilize the rolling force and be propelled by it. Instead of succumbing to the onslaughts of the tumbler they rode with it and let it move their assemblage points to the confines of human possibilities.

 

Don Juan expressed unbiased admiration for such an accomplishment. He admitted that nothing else could give the assemblage point the boost that the tumbler gives.

 

I asked him about the difference between the earth’s boost and the tumbler’s boost. He explained that the earth’s boost is the force of alignment of only the amber emanations, it is a boost that heightens awareness to unthinkable degrees. To the new seers it is a blast of unlimited consciousness, which they call total freedom.

 

He said that the tumbler’s boost, on the other hand, is the force of death. Under the impact of the tumbler, the assemblage point moves to new, unpredictable positions. Thus, the old seers were always alone in their journeys, although the enterprise they were involved in was always communal. The company of other seers on their journeys was fortuitous and usually meant struggle for supremacy.

 

I confessed to don Juan that the concerns of the old seers, whatever they may have been, were worse than morbid horror tales to me. He laughed uproariously. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

 

“You have to admit, no matter how disgusted you feel, that those devils were very daring,” he went on. “I never liked them myself, as you know, but I can’t help admiring them. Their love for life is truly beyond me.”

 

“How can that be love for life, don Juan? It’s something nauseating,” I said.

 

“What else could push a man to those extremes if it is not love for life?” he asked. “They loved life so intensely that they were not willing to give it up. That’s the way I have seen it. My benefactor saw something else. He believed that they were afraid to die, which is not the same as loving life. I say that they were afraid to die because they loved life and because they had seen marvels, and not because they were greedy little monsters. No. They were aberrant because nobody ever challenged them and they were spoiled like rotten children, but their daring was impeccable and so was their courage.”

 

“Would you venture into the unknown out of greed? No way. Greed works only in the world of ordinary affairs. To venture into that terrifying loneliness one must have something greater than greed. Love, one needs love for life, for intrigue, for mystery. One needs unquenching curiosity and guts galore. So don’t give me this nonsense about your being revolted. It’s embarrassing!”

 

Don Juan’s eyes were shining with contained laughter. He was putting me in my place, but he was laughing at it.

 

Don Juan left me alone in the room for perhaps an hour. I wanted to organize my thoughts and feelings. I had no way to do that. I knew without any doubt that my assemblage point was at a position where reasoning does not prevail, yet I was moved by reasonable concerns. Don Juan had said that technically, as soon as the assemblage point shifts, we are asleep. I wondered, for instance, if I was sound asleep from the stand of an onlooker, just as Genaro had been asleep to me.

 

I asked don Juan about it as soon as he returned.

 

“You are absolutely asleep without having to be stretched out,” he replied. “If people in a normal state of awareness saw you now, you would appear to them to be a bit dizzy, even drunk.”

 

He explained that during normal sleep, the shift of the assemblage point runs along either edge of man’s band. Such shifts are always coupled with slumber. Shifts that are induced by practice occur along the midsection of man’s band and are not coupled with slumber, yet a dreamer is asleep.

 

“Right at this juncture is where the new and the old seers made their separate bids for power,” he went on. “The old seers wanted a replica of the body, but with more physical strength, so they made their assemblage points slide along the right edge of man’s band. The deeper they moved along the right edge the more bizarre their dreaming body became. You, yourself, witnessed last night the monstrous result of a deep shift along the right edge.”

 

He said that the new seers were completely different, that they maintain their assemblage points along the midsection of man’s band. If the shift is a shallow one, like the shift into heightened awareness, the dreamer is almost like anyone else in the street, except for a slight vulnerability to emotions, such as fear and doubt. But at a certain degree of depth, the dreamer who is shifting along the midsection becomes a blob of light. A blob of light is the dreaming body of the new seers.

 

He also said that such an impersonal dreaming body is more conducive to understanding and examination, which are the basis of all the new seers do. The intensely humanized dreaming body of the old seers drove them to look for answers that were equally personal, humanized.

 

Don Juan suddenly seemed to be groping for words.

 

“There is another death defier,” he said curtly, “so unlike the four you’ve seen that he’s indistinguishable from the average man in the street. He’s accomplished this unique feat by being able to open and close his gap whenever he wants.”

 

He played with his fingers almost nervously.

 

“The ancient seer that the nagual Sebastian found in 1723 is that death defier,” he went on. “We count that day as the beginning of our line, the second beginning. That death defier, who’s been on the earth for hundreds of years, has changed the lives of every nagual he met, some more profoundly than others. And he has met every single nagual of our line since that day in 1723.”

 

Don Juan looked fixedly at me. I got strangely embarrassed. I thought my embarrassment was the result of a dilemma. I had very serious doubts about the content of the story, and at the same time I had the most disconcerting trust that everything he had said was true. I expressed my quandary to him.

 

“The problem of rational disbelief is not yours alone,” don Juan said. “My benefactor was at first plagued by the same question. Of course, later on he remembered everything. But it took him a long time to do so. When I met him he had already recollected everything, so I never witnessed his doubts. I only heard about them.”

 

“The weird part is that people who have never set eyes on the man have less difficulty accepting that he’s one of the original seers. My benefactor said that his quandaries stemmed from the fact that the shock of meeting such a creature had lumped together a number of emanations. It takes time for those emanations to separate themselves.”

 

Don Juan went on to explain that as my assemblage point kept on shifting, a moment would come when it would hit the proper combination of emanations; at that moment the proof of the existence of that man would become overwhelmingly evident to me.

 

I felt compelled to talk again about my ambivalence.

 

“We’re deviating from our subject,” he said. “It may seem that I’m trying to convince you of the existence of that man; and what I meant to talk about is the fact that the old seer knows how to handle the rolling force. Whether or not you believe that he exists is not important. Someday you’ll know for a fact that he certainly succeeded in closing his gap. The energy that he borrows from the nagual every generation he uses exclusively to close his gap.”

 

“How did he succeed in closing it?” I asked.

 

“There is no way of knowing that,” he replied. “I’ve talked to two other naguals who saw that man face to face, the nagual Julian and the nagual Elias. Neither of them knew how. The man never revealed how he closes that opening, which I suppose begins to expand after a time. The nagual Sebastian said that when he first saw the old seer, the man was very weak, actually dying. But my benefactor found him prancing vigorously, like a young man.”

 

Don Juan said that the nagual Sebastian nicknamed that nameless man “the tenant,” for they struck an arrangement by which the man was given energy, lodging so to speak, and he paid rent in the form of favors and knowledge.

 

“Did anybody ever get hurt in the exchange?” I asked.

 

“None of the naguals who exchanged energy with him was injured,” he replied. “The man’s commitment was that he’d only take a bit of superfluous energy from the nagual in exchange for gifts, for extraordinary abilities. For instance, the nagual Julian got the gait of power. With it, he could activate or make dormant the emanations inside his cocoon in order to look young or old at will.”

 

Don Juan explained that the death defiers in general went as far as rendering dormant all the emanations inside their cocoons, except those that matched the emanations of the allies. In this fashion they were able to imitate the allies in some form.

 

Each of the death defiers we had encountered at the rock, don Juan said, had been able to move his assemblage point to a precise spot on his cocoon in order to emphasize the emanations shared with the allies and to interact with them. But they were all unable to move it back to its usual position and interact with people. The tenant, on the other hand, is capable of shifting his assemblage point to assemble the everyday world as if nothing had ever happened.

 

Don Juan also said that his benefactor was convinced – and he fully agreed with him – that what takes place during the borrowing of energy is that the old sorcerer moves the nagual’s assemblage point to emphasize the ally’s emanations inside the nagual’s cocoon. He then uses the great jolt of energy produced by those emanations that suddenly become aligned after being so deeply dormant.

 

He said that the energy locked within us, in the dormant emanations, has a tremendous force and an incalculable scope. We can only vaguely assess the scope of that tremendous force, if we consider that the energy involved in perceiving and acting in the world of everyday life is a product of the alignment of hardly one-tenth of the emanations encased in man’s cocoon.

 

“What happens at the moment of death is that all that energy is released at once,” he continued. “Living beings at that moment become flooded by the most inconceivable force. It is not the rolling force that has cracked their gaps, because that force never enters inside the cocoon; it only makes it collapse. What floods them is the force of all the emanations that are suddenly aligned after being dormant for a lifetime. There is no outlet for such a giant force except to escape through the gap.”

 

He added that the old sorcerer

When I was looking for some new textures today (always looking!!), I came across this postcard on SophieG* www.flickr.com/photos/-smallfish-/ site and I just loved it.

 

I've only included a small part of the text on the photo but what was important to me was the CHERIE AMIE.

 

So this is for all my darling friends who:

 

Bring me Protea's

 

Who make me laugh uncontrollably

 

Who are incredibly generous

 

Who share my pain and sorrow

 

Who let me talk on and on and on !!!!!

 

Who let ME be ME

 

Where would I be without you all!!!!!

 

SNEAKED INTO EXPLORE #490 12TH SEPTEMBER

When we last left Mark of Falworth he was facing off against a horde of loathsome Outlaws!

 

The first warriors who came within reach of Mark's sword were speedily cut down. Mark charged furiously into the great mass of men!

Mark slashed and chopped and parried and stabbed in an uncontrollable surge of adrenaline and rage!

After a dozen had fallen before his sword, the Outlaws paused in sheer disbelief. Fighting 12 opponents at a time, he still drove them back and held his own!

The respite was momentary, as the Outlaws were burning for vengeance against years of disastrous crusades (Some instigated by Mark). More and more fell, and Mark was thought to have fallen dead more then once, but then he would erupt from a pile of struggling bandits and rain down his deadly blows faster then ever!

For 7 long hours the carnage raged, and nigh a hundred Outlaws had died trying to bring down the knight of the everlasting smile and perfect hair (which still remained perfect despite the intense action).

 

But even the bravest cannot fight beyond his own strength, and each wave of opponents was getting harder and harder for Mark to drive back...

The Outlaws gathered together shoulder to shoulder for a final rush towards their target. Their war-cries grew stronger as Mark's strength faded.

 

But just before they could deliver the death blows, a tremendous, eardrum-bursting roar shook the entire battlefield!

 

Every warrior stopped and looked to the heavens from whence the rumble came.

 

Lo and behold, a colossal black creature descended on the mass of men. Fangs glistening, enormous wings spreading forth in terrible glory. It was none other then the fearsome dragon Cyricus the Mighty!

 

The great host of Outlaws fled like mice before a lion.

 

The Dragon landed with immense impact, feet away from the exhausted Mark.

 

He had no energy left to run, or even to raise his weapon. His voice had long since dissipated.

 

He looked straight into the jaws of death, and smiled. At last his time had come.

 

The massive claws and teeth shrieked towards him as he fell senseless to the ground...

 

To be Continued...

NEXT YEAR!! :D

 

_____________________

 

Be sure to check out the Part 2 Video!

 

This is really just a test to see how many cliffhangers you guys can take. But don't worry! You'll find out what happens sometime next year. ;)

 

I've actually been planing this story line since before BFVA the Iron Builder really put us in for a loop and I haven't got around to it until now.

 

Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed my last build for the year.

TFVAHAGD!

Thanks for viewing and have a great day! :)

I rarely eat ice cream but I had this uncontrollable craving for it today...it was da bomb : )

The most complex object in mathematics, the Mandelbrot Set ... is so complex as to be uncontrollable by mankind and describable as 'chaos'.

 

— Benoit Mandelbrot

 

Second one from yesterday.

 

Starblitz 3000 BTS on minimum power fired at 'fractal' background from around 20cm. Background 20 cm from water droplets, A3 size with A4 Mandelbrot in the middle.

 

Tiger Tiger Fading Bright Part 5

The Hunter in the Red PVC Cap is still giving an impromptu rock and roll guitar rendition on his knee. Don't miss that.

 

the situation on the Tiger front has been grim for quite sometime. The Planet Earth is slowly relinquising its flora and fauna as humankind expands in uncontrollable numbers and fritters away Nature and its resources in a headlong dive to extinction for almost all.

 

Continuing the series

 

Tiger Tiger, Fading Bright !

The tigers in India are facing the toughest odds and are on the brink of being wiped out. There is a big industry based on tiger claws and bones etc that drives up the demand for the killing of this beautiful beast.

 

Men will buy a enlargement (is enhancement the right choice of word ?) of libido anytime anywhere but Chinese men will pay top dollars for tiger remains to increase theirs.

 

If you wonder why all the grand conservation efforts to save the tiger are failing, go no further then the politics of funding tiger conservation. It has been known for years that it is allegedly a big sham with mega bucks and mega publicity but almost nil results.

 

If you have the time it would be interesting to read some interesting thoughts and the current day reality on the tigers in an exchange between Thatzme and Aditya Singh from Rajasthan.

 

One can only hope that one sees a tiger in the wild in one's life time as the future generation may not have that privilege anytime soon. So if you are young and in India, head out and go see the elusive tiger before it is too late.

 

India has only 1150 - 1600 tigers that are available in the wild as per the Minister of Environment Jairam Ramesh.

 

Pervez 183A in one of his earlier comments on this series had mentioned >>>

 

"why don't the Chinese just try Viagra...???...it might make them dance on one leg...!!!"

Will Viagra be the Saviour of the Indian Tiger ?

 

This is an enactment of the situation at a Kerala street show during Onam in Thrippunithra near Cochin on the Atthachamayam day.

  

DSC_0842 jpeg via ACR

When I came up with the idea of the Honor Locos, this is one of the things I had in mind. Reaching out to communities and attempting to gain support and understanding how a railroad works. One thing that always bothered me, and still does, is how communities view railroads. Of course, some things are uncontrollable, and the railroads don't help themselves some days. None the less, there is value in making something everyone can enjoy. Unfortunately, some people that lead CSX didn't see the value in it.

I brought the CSXT 1776 and 911 to Chicago for a presentation for the STB Members. (Which they all loved them). But the day prior I had to do some touch up work on the locos to get them ready. A nearby community, Crete, IL, is lead by their Mayor Michael Einhorn, and is a fan of railroads. And don't take that too mean he is a railfan. He understands the value railroads bring to the table. He heard about the locos being in town, and we decided to do an impromptu photo shoot with his truck and a couple of CSXT Policeman. Here they pose at Forrest Hill (75th Street) on July 31, 2019.

 

© Eric T. Hendrickson 2019 All Rights Reserved

C-GFBR, an Antonov An-2PD-5, not long after crashing at Greenbank Airport (CNP8) in Uxbridge, Ontario.

 

Soon after taking off at 0940 local, the aircraft experienced a serious oil leak that coated the cockpit windows and negated visibility. Thankfully, the sliding side windows in the cockpit were operable and allowed the highly skilled pilot to return the airplane to the 2,700-foot-long grass strip.

 

Upon landing at 0953, the aircraft slid uncontrollably (thanks to oil coated tires) off the runway and into a culvert before slamming against the embankment.

 

The 1,000 horsepower radial engine was separated from the big biplane's firewall.

 

Details about the accident are available here:

asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/408705

Do you ever get that moment when,after you have got dressed and applied your make up and take a good look at yourself in the mirror, you feel this uncontrollable rush of energy as though someone has pulled down a large switch and unleashed heavy voltage through your veins. It is very addictive.

Lots of PP. Very soft due to the uncontrollable shake of the camera in the hideous wind, despite my best efforts to shield it with my body.

The F-106 all-weather interceptor was developed from the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger. Deliveries to the Air Force began in July 1959. The F-106 used a Hughes MA-1 electronic guidance and fire control system. After takeoff, the MA-1 can be given control of the aircraft to fly it to the proper altitude and attack position. Then it can fire the Genie and Falcon missiles, break off the attack run and return the aircraft to the vicinity of its base. The pilot takes control again for the landing.

 

The aircraft on display was involved in an unusual incident. During a training mission from Malmstrom Air Force Base on Feb. 2, 1970, it suddenly entered an uncontrollable flat spin forcing the pilot to eject. Unpiloted, the aircraft recovered on its own, apparently due to the balance and configuration changes caused by the ejection, and miraculously made a gentle belly landing in a snow-covered field near Big Sandy, Mont. After minor repairs, the aircraft was returned to service. It last served with the 49th Fighter Interceptor Squadron before being brought to the museum in August 1986.

This is the 'go-to' destination for many photographers in the Roan Highlands, Grassy Ridge. It's a stout 3-mile hike with a lot of 'up' involved. I started the trail at just a little before 4:00 am. I had to "push it up", as former fighter pilot friend Rob Waldo Waldman is fond of expressing, so I could be here before sunrise. A 3-mile hike in the flatlands is one thing; here, about a mile up, and carrying about 40 pounds of gear on steeply rising terrain, this hike takes about two hours. I had to hurry to catch that sunrise, so I hoofed it nonstop from Carver's Gap all the way to this spot in under two hours... if only the sun would cooperate.

 

Prior to this image, the area was socked with clouds... shortly after this shot, they returned for the duration of my time there, along with a howling wind... and cold. I had an excellent raincoat/windbreaker on to retain some heat, as usually this time of year, it can start off cold here, then warm up exponentially as the sun rises... not on this day, however. After about an hour of it, having worked my way over to the peak of the ridge, that wind had hauled off with a good bit of my body heat... my teeth were chattering uncontrollably! Having worked the area as best I could with the camera, I reluctantly had to seek some warmer climes back down the trail. Certainly, sunset back on Jane Bald would make up for what I missed here.

 

Did I say "certainly"? Later that evening, all clouds gave way to clear blue skies, not exactly what I expected, but just as I've experienced here so many times in these mountains. Don't feel sorry for me though, as that provides so many reasons to come back. I'm back there in the area from tomorrow until Tuesday evening. Who's with me?

 

Of particular note on the hike back down, by the way, I ran across two kids, apparently brother and sister jabbering away with each other, near the high point of Grassy Knob, who were wearing short-sleeved shirts, no shoes, and were wet as I had been having been in contact with the wet foliage along the trail... and absolutely oblivious to the cold! Their parents, appearing every bit as old hippies, followed about two minutes behind them, dressed nearly the same, though wearing sandals... that's better than barefoot, though totally inappropriate for the steep rocky tails here. I found out later (as they had aroused the curiosity of many from these parts) that they were from Michigan. Apparently, they drink antifreeze up there.

'Boggart...'

on the Pendle Sculpture Trail, Aitken Wood, Barley, Lancashire UK

 

Boggart is one of numerous related terms used in English folklore for either a household spirit or a malevolent spirit inhabiting fields, marshes or other topographical features. In Northern England, at least, there was the belief that the boggart should never be named, for when the boggart was given a name, it would not be reasoned with nor persuaded, but would become uncontrollable and destructive. Within the folklore of North-West England, boggarts can cause mischief in homes but tend to live outdoors, in marshland, holes in the ground, under bridges and on dangerous sharp bends on roads.

Seeing the sculpture put me in mind of Gollum

 

©SWJuk (2019)

... the day I walked into a Life Drawing class in college and saw her sitting there. I remember the 1st time I shot photos of her before we were even dating. There was the time I laid down in bed, cracked my head on the headboard and she laughed uncontrollably for 15 minutes. I remember 8 years ago today, kicking the door open to our wedding reception while Fight for Your Right by the Beasty Boys blasted. Sitting here typing this I remember times it wasn't easy. The fact is I was lucky enough to marry one strong woman. I'm talking about someone who looks within for strength before asking for it. She's someone who influenced me more than she will ever know. Its been the best 8 years of my life. I say that with absolute conviction. I love this woman.

I've never studied physics. How light changes, the way it envelopes a subject, folds, morphs, expands and contracts, explodes and retreats. It's dynamic, uncontrollable as I use it, and it never fails to surprise. As I child I would watch car lights cross my bedroom wall, three stories above the street, and bend around the corner to continue to travel opposite to the direction of the moving vehicle. In photography I let light do it's own thing. Except for chasing certain colors I'll wait for the results to surprise me. At my age I have neither the time or the inclination to study why these things happen. They simply do, and they make me happy.Too old to care about the why now, only the joy in chasing the light remains. Helios 44.3 58mm reverse lens attachment.

As usual... there are too strong casualities with this superacid uncontrollable film...

 

Original shot taken with a Polaroid Spectra (Image) Procam on expired Polaroid 1200 film, pressed with a spoon during the developing time. Almost no post processing, just scanned.

Real Name: Roger Hayden

 

Current Alias: Psycho Pirate

 

Abilities: He uses his mask to change the emotions of anyone one he has eye contact with.

 

Attire: He wears a gold mask and a black and red costume with a cape.

 

Belle Reve Files: Patient 289675 Roger Hayden Aka Psycho Pirate was a convict who was given a multitude of masks by a fellow prisoner Charles Halstead who was a criminal who stole ancient artifacts. He told Hayden about a location of masks that he had found in Africa. Hayden escaped prison and recovered the masks, but he melded them into one mask, which gave him the power to control people’s emotions. This however has a side effect on the masks wearer and caused Hayden to crave emotion as he started to feed on the emotions of others as a new kind of addiction. He appeared working with a multitude of other villains, who wanted to take over the world. They like always failed and Hayden was arrested by the Justice Society, but was sent to Arkham Asylum for his usual psychological problems that the mask has inflicted on him. He believes that he is not in the right reality and that he was a part of another reality before this one, that was destroyed by a person he dubs as the Anti-Monitor. He eventually escaped and attempted to create a device to go back to that reality, but was defeated by a super powered individual who goes by Power Girl. He was pick up by the authorities and transferred to Belle Reve. He was assigned to a team of black ops operatives to find Doctor Hugo Strange in Gotham City. Strange was prepared and the entire team was slaughtered by his experimental creatures, but he kept Hayden and used him to brainwash Gotham, a super-powered individual who resided in Gotham City. Hayden changed his emotions to uncontrollable anger and fear, which caused him to fight anyone he came into contact with. Strange also implanted images into his visual and auditory systems into his brain to cause him to see only Strange. In the end he dropped dead due his high blood pressure and respiration. Strange did this to get to Batman, which he responded by defeating the two, Strange was captured, but Hayden Escaped. Hayden was later discovered in Santa Prisca with Bane who was using him to take away his emotional trauma that he felt as a child. Batman along with a group of his rogues Captured Hayden and used his mask to save Gotham’s sister who was under Heavy sedation due to Hayden messing with her mind. he is currently being held in Arkham Asylum being watched by one of agents stationed in the Asylum.

'Second four 2020 Calendar teatowels in a yard by Su_G' printed on Linen-Cotton Canvas by Spoonflower.

 

Really pleased with how well each of the colours printed. My fave is the orange - the dots remind me of toffee-apples. Others prefer the avocado...

 

A design for the budget-minded gift-giver who wants to give a lot of tea towels and is prepared to cut & hem (or zig zag) to finish them. Many of my friends get no choice about these gifts...

 

See 'Second four 2020 Calendar teatowels in a yard by Su_G' as fabric @ Spoonflower [although be warned that it needs to be set to the yard to confirm what you get - an uncontrollable Spoonflower innovation to keep you on your toes... :-(]

 

[Second four 2020 Calendar teatowels in a yard by Su_G_Linen-cottonCanvas]

 

"I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable."

-- Richard Avedon

 

Some people won't probably get what I mean (when I relate this photo to control), but I'm hoping you would.

 

For Day 165 of the 2009 Photo Challenge: Control

Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly,

kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably,

and never regret anything that made you smile.

youtu.be/V8wtZeVAa9I

On my summer roadtrip to Glacier and Yellowstone, my fiancee and I made it a point to speak to locals, explore some less traveled areas, and get something other than the everyday most popular shots. A ranger in Glacier had told us of an unmapped trail to the top of Mt Reynolds. He said to be careful but it wasn't to hard to traverse over there - Maybe not if your a mountain goat! Some places were much steeper than 45 degrees.The snowpack had turned to ice and one slip would have sent us flying uncontrollably down the very steep mountainside and into some pretty nasty boulders and ledges. In fact we took so long to get across the snowpack that I missed the sunset but I think this shot is as good as anything I would have got up there and much more memorable.

 

©2012 JTBaskinphoto ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

.44 cal. Magnum fan-fire capable revolver.

 

A cheap and easy to manufacture 'cowboy' revolver developed by the lesser known Jackal Combat Company. Its cheap price and light weight has found much favor with first-time criminals and gangs.

 

Built from various damaged firearm parts and urban city scraps, the FNE-44's form is largely inconsistent, but the power the .44 round it fires remains a constant. As such, some shorter iterations might be a tad uncontrollable when fan-fired.

 

Regardless of its fan-fire capability, it is still double-action, so users with weaker hands can still fire rapidly with relative ease.

 

Unfortunately, the miniscule amount of quality materials used negatively impacts its service life, only able to fire around 130 rounds before losing structural integrity, or worse, exploding in the user's hand. Perhaps, it is for this reason that the revolver has got the designation - the FNE-44, with the letter acronym standing for Friday Night Express.

Long Lake Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Spokane River, between Lincoln County and Stevens County about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Spokane in eastern Washington. It forms Long Lake (Washington), a 23.5 mi (37.8 km) long reservoir, and has a hydroelectric generating capacity of 71 megawatts. The dam was built by Washington Water Power (now Avista Utilities), which operates five other dams along the Spokane.

 

Upon its completion in 1915, Long Lake Dam completely blocked salmon migrations to the upper portions of the Spokane River watershed, although much larger Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River extirpated salmon from the entire Spokane basin by 1942. The power plant was entered onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

 

Photo of the Long Lake Dam captured via Minolta MD W.Rokkor-X 24mm F/2.8 Lens. Spokane River. At the Long Lake Dam Overlook. Selkirk Mountains Range. Western Okanogan Semiarid Foothills section within the Northern Rockies Region. Inland Northwest. Stevens County, Washington. Late February 2018.

 

Exposure Time: 1/125 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-100 * Aperture: F/11 * Bracketing: +1 / -1 * Color Temperature: 6400 K * Film Plug-In: Kodak Portra 160 VC

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