An unchanging scene. A sail and a river (the darker blue is the deep water channel).

B A R E

After a 4 am alarm and subsequent wasted trip to St Ives yesterday, I was keen to get out this morning despite the inclement weather!

Yesterday, I didn't even get the camera out of the bag. Partly due to being just too tired at that time in the morning. Partly because after taking ages to find somewhere to park I had little time to find compositions in the best light. And partly because although yesterday's weather was great for the beach, the clear sky caused strong light even just after sunrise - not as good as a recent visit. So I just wasn't feeling inspired. A long way to go to not take a photo!

Having checked the weather forecast the night before, I was confident that there would be no colourful sunrise, and thick cloud would give diffused, non-directional light in a fairly constant intensity all morning. Which meant I could lay in until 6.30!

A final check in the morning suggested drier conditions to the east - so that's where I headed. With thick cloud everywhere, I opted for a woodland setting to eliminate the uninteresting sky from my compositions.

Finding compositions in these conditions was on one hand tricky, but the unchanging light meant that I had hours to find one. And indeed it took a while to find this!

As Photoninja Photography​ quoted Thomas Heaton Photography​ - "When there is poor light and no colour, look for contrast" - that's what I did here! (The quote subject to Chinese whispers is probably more of a paraphrase by now, but I think I've retained it's meaning!)

This tree (and another group of bare trees) out in a field stood out to me. It took a while to find a suitable background that contrasted them well without dissecting the shot. I eventually found a slightly elevated position with some dense, dark foliage behind it. A long focal length compressed the perspective to eliminate the sky, and a -2 stop exposure bias darkened the background even more (with a little more tweaking in post editing).

Canon 6D MkII | 75-300mm lens at 155mm | ƒ/5.6 | 1/250 sec | ISO 100 | -2 Exposure Bias| Tripod | Taken 23-06-2019

**Photos available to buy**

Copyright Andrew Hocking 2019

www.hocking-photography.co.uk

Think of me, think of me fondly

When we've said goodbye

Remember me, once in a while

Please promise me you'll try

When you find that once again you long

To take your heart back and be free

If you ever find a moment

Spare a thought for me

We never said our love was evergreen

Or as unchanging as the sea

But if you can still remember

Stop and think of me

Think of all the things

We've shared and seen

Don't think about the way

Things might have been

Think of me, think of me waking

Silent and resigned

Imagine me trying too hard

To put you from my mind

Recall those days

Look back on all those times

Think of the things we'll never do

There will never be a day

When I won't think of you

Can it be, can it be Christine?

Bravo!

Long ago, it seems so long ago

How young and innocent we were

She may not remember me

But I remember her

Flowers fade, the fruits of summer fade

They have their season so do we

But please promise me that sometimes

You will think of me

Andrew Lloyd Webber / Charles Hart / Richard Stilgoe

Poem.

A steep, cobbled street.

Elegant half-timbered, Tudor houses

with overhanging upper storeys jostle

up and down this remarkable thoroughfare.

Medieval inns, hotels and boarding houses

crowd together from end to end.

A little imagination can remove the modern car

and fill this sharp gradient with locals,

merchants, visitors, smugglers, pilgrims and travellers.

For a thousand years wood-fired chimneys have

belched their smoke above and around the

oak timbers and pale wattle and daub panelled walls,

leaving their sooty signature.

With the sky grey and the atmosphere obscured,

this ancient road seems little changed from the 15th. century.

Its unchanging ambience seems to lock us in a time warp,

a reliable time-machine that

earns world-wide affection.

Sorry I don't have time to write anything right now.

Hope you all are doing well!

Dreams and Dust

The poet, they say, often dreams so deep that he loses track of his soul in the whereabouts of the universe. Often he chases her, only to find her haunting some strange planets.

They say that once they are together again, the poet sighs with relief and takes her to drink in the source of thoughts and reflexions, to calm her down.

Often she struggles and tries to drag him to her nightmare world,

…filled with somber characters who despise reason and seduce her to unbound places, where concepts such as peace and silence do not exist.

The poet is said to be weak, too fragile to resist these spells of unborn beings

…inevitably he finds himself in one of those places, arguing with dark ghosts of his future. Hopelessly trying to bring them back to godly endeavors.

Over and over again, he fails. This is a mission he will never accomplish, a quest he will never survive.

So he succumbs. Lays on the desert soil, unable to resist any further.

And the world, any world, all the worlds, keep their unchanging movement around each other.

Indifferent.

Images and text by: Summer W(ardhani)

Shot at The Tower and The Quest, temporary installation by Alpha Auer and Frigg Ragu for Burning Life '09

Commentary.

What charming but substantial cottages East Dean in East Sussex possesses.

The South Downs chalk like all areas of chalk contains

bands of black, grey and brown flint stone – hard, sharp and incredibly durable.

The “knappers” who split this stone to “face-off” the village dwellings needed to work hard to produce the thousands of tons required to finish the job.

The spirit and ambience of this place seems unchanging,

and with a flint frontage, I can see these cottages

surviving for another thousand years.

Me deslicé en una chalana a remos para tomar las fotos en el Pantano de Villa. Como no había remero recordé como lo hacía cuando iba de pesca con mi padre al alba. La vegetación del pantano es densa; me sorprendió su fuerza y lo inalterable de su naturaleza donde se "esfuman las fronteras entre lo terrestre y lo acuático".

I glided in a small boat to take my pictures at Villaʹs Swamp. Since there was no rower, I remembered how to row as when I used to go fishing with my father at dawn. The swamp’s vegetation is dense and I was surprised by its strength and unchanging nature "blurring the boundaries between land and water."

Actually, Domo-kun's unchanging expression here conceals a bittersweet sadness that usually comes after the blossoms have fallen. For all the season's beauty, the ground under the cherry trees is a patchwork of blue tarpaulins that persists 24 hours a day as the next day's visitors turn up late in the evening to claim (stain) their hanami real estate.

Poem.

A steep, cobbled street.

Elegant half-timbered, Tudor houses

with overhanging upper storeys jostle

up and down this remarkable thoroughfare.

Medieval inns, hotels and boarding houses

crowd together from end to end.

A little imagination can remove the modern car

and fill this sharp gradient with locals,

merchants, visitors, smugglers, pilgrims and travellers.

For a thousand years wood-fired chimneys have

belched their smoke above and around the

oak timbers and pale wattle and daub panelled walls,

leaving their sooty signature.

With the sky grey and the atmosphere obscured,

this ancient road seems little changed from the 15th. century.

Its unchanging ambience seems to lock us in a time warp,

a reliable time-machine that

earns world-wide affection.

The Forget-me-not

There is a sweet, a lovely flower,

Tinged deep with faith’s unchanging hue,

Pure as the ether in its hour

Of loveliest and serenest blue.

~ Author unknown.

It is always a delight to see pretty blue blossoms on the perennial Forget-me-nots.

Unshakable in storms, Unstoppable in purpose.

Happy Birthday to Me.

Another year of grace, growth, and God’s unchanging favor.

I’m grateful for the love, the lessons, my family, my children, my real ones who ride for me & even the haters who can’t stand me but can’t tune out even if they tried!

Blessed to be walking in purpose, power, and peace for as long as I have & here’s to many more years of prosperity.

View large on black

Sunset at the stupa of 11th century monastery at Thöling or Tholding.

The Tibetan word is Chorten, which means "the basis of offering".

It is a symbol of enlightened mind, (the awakened mind, universal divinity) and the path to its realisation.

If you had to use just two words, the best definition I have seen is "Spiritual Monument"

The stupa represents the Buddha's body, his speech and his mind, but most especially his mind and every part shows the path to Enlightenment

"The visual impact of the stupa on the observer brings a direct experience of inherent wakefulness and dignity. Stupas continue to be built because of their ability to liberate one simply upon seeing their structure" - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Every stupa contains at the very least a life tree and holy relics:

"When a great teacher passes away, his body is no more, but to indicate that his mind is dwelling forever in an unchanging way in the dharmakaya, one will erect a stupa as a symbol of the mind of the buddhas" - HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

youtu.be/cm5F0HTKBtc

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, of all the trees most lovely

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, of all the trees most lovely

Each year you bring to me delight, meaning in the christmas night

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, of all the trees most lovely

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, with faithful leaves unchanging

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, with faithful leaves unchanging

Your boughs are green, in sommers glow and do not fade in winters snow

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, with faithful leaves unchanging

Each year you bring to me delight, meaning in the christmas night

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, of all the trees most lovely

In the sterile hum of his lab,

he worked beneath the cold eye of fluorescence.

Wires curled like ivy over steel frames,

cogs turned in precise obedience,

and the machine whispered promises

of order, peace,

perfect little smiles.

He called it The Harmoniser.

A name soft as lullabies,

meant to calm the fears of the weary —

parents who dreamt of quiet dinners,

of laughter without tantrums.

The machine would smooth the rough edges of youth,

polish them into something manageable,

something pristine.

The first test was small: a boy

with a cowlick defying gravity,

a defiant fire in his eyes.

The machine hummed, lights flickered,

and when the boy stepped out,

his hair lay flat,

his gaze hollow.

He said "yes, sir" and "no, ma’am"

in tones drained of spirit.

The scientist marveled at his success.

The parents wept with joy.

But the boy did not laugh.

His jokes, once absurd and sprawling like weeds,

withered into silence.

More children came: wild and loud,

spilling with questions and wonder.

They left the machine

still,

obedient,

perfectly behaved.

The scientist never noticed

how the laughter dimmed in his town,

how chalk drawings disappeared from sidewalks,

how parents whispered about

dreams their children no longer had.

It wasn’t until he saw a little girl,

sitting beneath an oak tree,

staring at her hands

as if they were foreign things,

that he began to wonder.

Her fingers traced shapes in the dirt,

and then she stopped,

as though creativity itself

were a sin too great to bear.

He went home that night

and stared at his blueprints.

He had wanted perfection,

but perfection, it seemed,

had teeth.

By dawn, the townsfolk found the machine

its wires torn, its frame shattered,

its creator gone.

But the children stayed quiet,

their hollow eyes unchanging,

their perfect smiles

etched into the silence.

Midjourney, Photoshop, ChatGPT

"Nosotros en cambio, vivimos las frias

mansiones del éter cuajado de mil claridades,

sin horas ni dias

sin sexos ni edades....

Es nuestra existencia serena, inmutable;

nuestra eterna risa, serena y astral".

"We above you ever more residing

in the ether´star transilumined ice

know nor day nor night nor time`s dividing.

Wear not age nor sex as our device.

Cool and unchanging is our eternal being.

Cool and star bright is our eternal laughter"

El lobo estepario (1927)

Hermann Hesse

La música, mejor con auriculares._ Music, best with earphones.

Symphony for Isabelle (part.01)

Autor: Graig Armstrong

Del Album: Kiss of the dragon (2001).

♫Enlace a la música♫

© pinoyphotog 2009 all rights reserved

Unauthorized use or reproduction for any reason is prohibited.

.

- FILL THE WORLD WITH LOVE -

(Chorus)

===================================================

Listen to Richard Harris sing "Fill The World With Love"

.

Howto:

1) Wait for a cloudlness, moonless night. Or do it after moonset or before moonrise. The moon is really really bright and it washes out the stars.

2) Set camera to continuous shooting mode. This is the mode where if you hold down the shutter release, it will just take picture after picture after picture... Set the shutter speed as long as it will go without BULB -- This is probably 30 seconds. You can experiment with different ISO and F/numbers, but generally you're going to want low F/number and high ISO. These were F/3.5 and ISO 1600.

3) put it on a tripod.

4) Focus. I've found that racking the focus all the way toward infinity doesn't quite work -- it focuses PAST infinity. So I have to focus it all the way out and then bring it back just a smidge.

5) use something to hold the shutter release button down. I used a wire wrapped around the camera with a piece of paper wadded up over the shutter release button. That keeps the button down so the camera takes picture after picture after picture...

(I'd recommend using RAW mode if you know how to process raw images. That way, you don't have to worry about white balance, and you can stretch the images appropriately without causing too much degradation.)

6) Wait a few hours. Now you've got 200 photos where the stars are slightly offset and the foreground stays relatively stationary.

(If you've used RAW images, then you now load em into your RAW processing program, set the white balance so the sky is not red, adjust for noise, etc, etc... You can process them all simultaneously with Adobe Camera RAW, and other programs probably have that same functionality...)

7) Get www.startrails.de/html/software.html and load up those images. Now it'll do two things. First it will combine all the images to smooth out the unchanging parts, getting rid of noise. Use a large number of frames to smooth it out more. Then it will essentially do a brighten command with each frame, painting the stars over the smoothed background.

Voila!

I forget exactly how many images are combined here but I think it's a bit over 200.

Other things:

Stars move fastest around the celestial equator and slowest near the celestial poles. The North Star is at the North celestial pole. If you took 200 pictures of it, it'd hardly move at all. If the camera is pointed west or east, the stars will trail faster.

Stars circle around the celestial poles, so towards the celestial equator, the trails will be fairly straight, but near the North star, they will make more pronounced circles. This image is wide angle and looking east, so the North Star is towards the top left. The effect is quite noticable.

Higher focal lengths (more zoomed in) will make stars trail faster, but I think wide angle shots usually work better. This one is at 18mm on a 1.6x crop camera.

Those weird straight lines are airplanes. There are two in this image. You may also catch sattelites and shooting stars.

Walking around in a salt flat can feel like visiting an alien world. In Death Valley, it often feels that way. On this particular day I ventured out into a familiar section of the salt flat which, while it might be the same place I've visited before, it never looks the same. The casual drive-through experience might lead one to think that Death Valley is a static and unchanging desert world but close examination and repeat visits will show you how much change occurs here on a very human time scale. Out here in the mud on this day water had collected into small circular bowls from perhaps a relatively recent rain. The ground is surprisingly saturated here. It is always mud, the kind that tries to hitch a ride with you as your shoes swell to comical mud proportions. The salty mud glistened with specular reflections of the blue sunny sky but the lack of white crystals suggested the concentration was much smaller here. The scene works as a black and white study of this brown world, emphasizing the textures and cracks and abrupt contrast of the water.

Villa Cavrois, Croix, France, 1932

Architect Robert Mallet Stevens (1886-1945)

Built between 1929 and 1932, the villa was the result of an order placed by Paul Cavrois with the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens to house his family of seven children and his domestic servants. Covered in yellow facing bricks set on a concrete frame and double brick walls, the villa was thought out as a total work of art comprising an exemplary case of homogenous construction between architecture, decoration and furniture. It is the architect’s technical and aesthetic manifesto in terms of the care given to its materials and equipment. Clear guidelines governed the design of the building: “air, light, work, sports, hygiene, comfort and efficiency”.

The Villa Cavrois is a masterpiece of modern architecture and a unique example in the North of France. The villa is 60 meters long, it has 3.800 m² including 1.840 m² habitables and 830 m² of terraces and a garden of 17.600 m² (originally 5 ha). The Villa Cavrois is a testimony to the modernist vision of the 1920s as it was conceived by designers such as Le Corbusier, Pierre Chareau and the Bauhaus school. Luminosity, hygiene and comfort are the keywords that underlie such buildings. Villa Cavrois illustrates this concept with simplicity and elegance. The large modern mansion was organized to offer the best possible lifestyle to the nine members of the family and to facilitate the daily work of the household staff. Mallet-Stevens' work was not limited to the design of the building. He also designed the interior decoration and the gardens which surround the house. The choice of materials, concrete ceiling, metal, steel, glass, green Swedish marble in the main dining room, yellow Sienna marble in the fireplace alcove of the hall-salon, parquets of oak, iroko, zebrawood, Cuban mahogany, and the furniture of the rooms echoed the hierarchy of space: everything was conceived and adapted for use in place. Simplicity and functionality of the furniture prevail in all parts. The luxury of this house does not lie in carved detailing or gilding, it unfolds in the richness of the materials used, such as unadorned marble, metal and wood. The Villa Cavrois provided for its occupants a large number of amenities especially rare for the time, even in luxury houses. Use of the latest modern technology, especially electricity meant each room was provided with electric lighting, a radio loudspeaker, an electric clock and telephones enabled people to communicate between rooms or with the outside world. The villa was equipped with a modern boiler room and a wine cellar. The water system provided hot and cold water, as well as softened water for cooking and drinking. Lighting was the object of special care. The lighting, both direct and indirect, is very delicate and elegant. In collaboration with the lighting engineer André Salomon, Mallet-Stevens conceived an indirect lighting which fit in the architecture and he has provided most of the rooms of the villa of a lighting device system which direct the light towards the ceiling to obtain an unchanging light closer at the natural one. Hygiene was very important in the conception of the Villa Cavrois, as it is shown by the clinical aspect of the kitchen of metal and white paint and also by the presence of a swimming pool of 27 metres long and 4 metres depth at the diving boards.

The villa was occupied by German troops between 1940 and 1944 and was damaged at the end of the war. When he returned in 1947, Paul Cavrois called upon architect Pierre Barbe to add two apartments for his elder sons. The family lived in the villa until 1985. The following year, it was sold to a real estate firm that wanted to subdivide the park. Despite its automatic classification as a historic monument in 1990, the villa was no longer maintained by its owner. The State bought the property, which was in serious danger, in 2001, and undertook a major restoration project to its original historic condition as when it was inaugurated in 1932. The lighting, the furnishings attached to the decorations, as well as the bookcases and benches have all been restored using the original materials. The parquet floorings, metal doorframes and marbles have been restored or returned. The restoration of the park has returned it to the original land’s very subtle gradient with the precise layout of the alleyways, while replanting plant species identified from old photographs. The reflecting pool, which had been filled in during the war, and the swimming pool have been restored to their original state. The restoration was carried out between 2009 and 2015. Since 2012, the villa has been part of a worldwide conservation programme for emblematic houses of the 20th century, “Iconic Houses”.

Commentary.

What charming but substantial cottages Hambleden possesses.

The Chiltern chalk like all areas of chalk contains

bands of black, grey and brown flint stone – hard, sharp and incredibly durable.

The “knappers” who split this stone to “face-off” the village dwellings needed to work hard to produce the thousands of tons required to finish the job.

The spirit and ambience of this place seems unchanging,

and with a flint frontage, I can see these cottages

surviving for another thousand years.

"I was in the blue horizon between heaven and earth. The days were unchanging and every night I dream the same dream. The smell of damp earth. The scream no one heard. The sound of my heart beating like a hammer against cloth and I would hear them calling, the voices of the dead."

5th installment to my Lovely Bones series: The In-Between

.

.

The editing has been done like this on purpose.

Please, don't question me on the blending.

There is a reason behind it.

M: Pain and pleasure are both ananda (bliss). Here I am sitting in front of you and telling you -- from my own immediate and unchanging experience -- pain and pleasure are the crests and valleys of the waves in the ocean of bliss. Deep down there is utter fullness.

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

Excerpt from I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj

letters are flying... from france to ohio, from nathanael.archer to conceptvessel, comes this graceful drala, a blessing...

nathanael includes this translation in his letter to me:

~

in order to join heaven and earth

may the ultimate, unchanging warrior

always protect you.

may you have a long life,

freedom from sickness

and glory.

may your primordial

confidence always flourish.

may the virtuous mark

of excellent wind horse

always be uplifted.

~

i embrace this beautiful correspondence. i embrace this auspicious wind horse.

love and best wishes, jeanne

nathanael.archer's image of the letter

letter's lives group on flickr

~

By all accounts it was a choppy old morning on the third of March. As a south westerly gale drove sleet and snow across an angry Bristol Channel, the crew of the SS Nornen, a Norwegian barque, fought with every sinew to keep her afloat, but gradually she was being dragged along the water towards a sorry end upon the muddy sandbanks of Berrow’s seafront. A clearing through the fog was enough for the stricken ship, whose sails were by now little more than shreds, to be spotted from the shore, and the stout hearted men of the Burnham lifeboat set a course through the furious waters in the hopes of saving the occupants of the stricken ship. As the SS Nornen was on the verge of being driven aground, the lifeboat crew managed to come alongside her and rescue the entire crew of ten, plus the ship’s dog into the bargain. On the way back to the safety of Burnham on Sea they passed a trio of top hat wearing togs wearing oilskin trench coats, furiously pumping their bellows and disappearing under black sheets armed with fistfuls of big silvery plates to focus their box brownies on the lighthouse. Or whatever model of camera was in vogue in 1897. Later the weary Norwegians were treated to a slap up fish and chip dinner and a couple of pitchers of spiced rum at the local Wetherspoon’s, where they reflected upon their luck at having been rescued by such a brave band of heroes as were those men of the Burnham lifeboat.

The SS Nornen was slightly less fortunate than her crew, left floundering on the perilous sands of Berrow beach; later sold for salvage. All that remains one hundred and twenty-five years later is the skeleton of that once proud ship, seemingly destined to rest forever on the treacherous coast where the tides race in and out across broad stretches of sand at a frightening speed. It’s not a place you want to hang around for long when the water is rising. The local advice is very firm – stay away from the mud if you want to complete your visit with a return journey. Otherwise, you might just end up being a curiosity for a trowel wielding archaeologist in the year 3000. We were here in February, just a couple of days before another late winter storm going by the seemingly peaceable name Eunice was due to cause carnage across the land. Dave, Lee and I (and I thank the gods my name isn’t Travis) had arrived in North Somerset after a leisurely drive up from Cornwall via an impromptu foray among the shelves of a well stocked Aldi at the edge of town, and checked into our digs, a compact yet well situated garage conversion behind the dunes. We wasted no time as we made straight for the beach after dumping our cases unceremoniously in the living room and dragging out our tripods and camera bags. With little more than an hour of daylight to go we didn’t have any time to linger over cups of tea or a sneaky early holiday beer. We were on a mission. Not as dangerous as the one undertaken by that courageous Victorian lifeboat crew, but at least an adventure with a sense of purpose.

Although that purpose changed quite quickly after cresting the dunes down onto the beach. You see we’d intended to make for the lighthouse, a five minute stroll to the left. But Dave had been looking rather more closely at the map than Lee or I had, and was already striding off to the right, muttering something about groynes and a shipwreck. We shrugged and went with the flow; but what none of us were quite certain of, was exactly how much flow there would be to go with. Seemingly forever, we marched in a north-easterly direction along the unchanging landscape of the long strip of beach, ever scanning the shoreline for signs of our bounty, passing and being passed by a succession of dog walkers and joggers as we went. Was that shipwreck really here? Why couldn’t we see the groynes yet?

We saw the latter first; two distant rows of little dark studs leading from the dunes right down to the water’s edge across the sand, separated by two hundred yards or more of empty sand. We knew that the wreck was somewhere before them, and with the tide on the way in we had no idea whether or not we’d be too late. The groynes in themselves had much promise as a subject but they could be photographed wherever the tide happened to be, while the opportunity to shoot the bones of the SS Nornen might be missed if it turned out that we’d lingered too long over our beer selections an hour earlier. Their new range of craft ales makes it much more difficult to choose you know.

And then we spotted the carcass, a criss-cross collection of still connected planks wallowing in the shallows, while spiky little crests of white water raced in along the fast rising tide. There was just about time to grab a handful of unprepared shots before she was gone below the muddy grey and brown waters for another night. With another big storm not far away the sea was far more strident than I’d ever seen it in this part of the world. Not like the enormous winter tempests at home in Cornwall of course, but there was enough going on to remind the visitor just how tricky the currents are around here. For a moment I imagined what it must have been like on that fateful day one hundred and twenty-five years earlier. Visions of a big swell coursing across that flat expanse of sand and mud and a broken ship careering helplessly out of control on a surge of filthy brown foam. Those sailors must have been terrified for their lives, even though they were so close to the shore. It wasn’t long before the incoming waves were surrounding my wellies and chasing yards along the beach beyond me. Time to move on and take photographs of groynes with what remained of the light, before making the two mile hike back across the sand by torchlight.

Sometimes there’s no chance to plan at all. You just have to arrive prepared for immediate action and at least have half an idea what you’re hoping to go away with. Not so easy in a place you’ve never visited before. At least that long walk gave me time to think. What struck me immediately was the way the water moved, almost as if from right to left and back again, creating a zigzag of textures in a greyish blue landscape that looked a little like a chaotic parquet floor, interrupted only by the uppermost sections of what remains of the SS Nornen poking up through the surface like a row of jagged teeth. Had we arrived ten minutes later, the teeth would have been underwater, so it was a good job we were less fussy about the wine we’d chosen for dinner. Hmm dinner – hungry now. Fish and chips anyone?

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY n PROSPEROUS DIWALI..!!! :o))

May this festive season bring you peace, love n happiness!

These shots were taken at a Diwali party I attended last night. Btw Diwali is my fav festival :o))

Deepavali, or Diwali is a major Indian holiday, and a significant festival in Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Many legends are associated with Diwali. Today it is celebrated by Hindus, Jains and Sikhs across the globe as the "Festival of Lights," where the lights or lamps signify victory of good over the evil within every human being. Diwali is celebrated on the first day of the lunar Kartika month, which comes in the month of October or November.

In many parts of India, it is the homecoming of King Rama of Ayodhya after a 14-year exile in the forest, after he defeated the evil Ravana. The people of Ayodhya (the capital of his kingdom) welcomed Rama by lighting rows (avali) of lamps (deepa), thus its name: Deepavali. This word, in due course, became Diwali in Hindi.

Spiritual Significance

While Deepavali is popularly known as the "festival of lights", a more appropriate significance is "the new year of luck and wealth".

Central to Hindu philosophy is the assertion that there is something beyond the physical body and mind which is pure, infinite, and eternal, called the Atman. Just as we celebrate the birth of our physical being, Deepavali is the celebration of this Inner Light, in particular the knowing of which outshines all darkness (removes all obstacles and dispels all ignorance), awakening the individual to one's true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality. With the realization of the Atman comes universal compassion, love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). This brings Ananda (Inner Joy or Peace).

Diwali celebrates this through festive fireworks, lights, flowers, sharing of sweets, and worship. While the story behind Deepavali varies from region to region, the essence is the same - to rejoice in the Inner Light (Atman) or the underlying reality of all things (Brahman).

~Wikipedia

Commentary.

What charming but substantial cottages East Dean in East Sussex possesses.

The South Downs chalk like all areas of chalk contains

bands of black, grey and brown flint stone – hard, sharp and incredibly durable.

The “knappers” who split this stone to “face-off” the village dwellings needed to work hard to produce the thousands of tons required to finish the job.

The spirit and ambience of this place seems unchanging,

and with a flint frontage, I can see these cottages

surviving for another thousand years.

For thousands of years, comets were omens for diasters. To ancient Hindi, it signified disruption in the order of the world; to ancient Chinese, it meant famine and war; to medieval Europeans, it foretold upcoming diseases...

Our ancestors lived in a time before Internet, before television, before radio, before books. Back then the nighttime was simple. It was just them and the unchanging starry sky, signifying the divine creators' perfection. This is why the sudden appearance of comets disrupted the heavenly orders, and it brought them fear and guilt.

Today, we celebrate their arrival with overwhelming joy and curiosity. We look at them through telescopes with a sense of wonder and none of the fears. To me, it marked the happy ending of our millennia-long story with comets, a story of how we learned to use knowledge to conquer fear.

(This image is of the recently discovered ‘Comet Leonard’. The data was acquired from iTelescope, which I processed using pixinsight and photoshop)

The small unchanging village of Mapledurham consists of just a few houses, a watermill and row of almshouses clustered around the huge Elizabethan Mapledurham House and church by the River Thames. By road it is only accessible via a winding narrow lane that snakes downhill from the Chiltern woodlands that act as a backdrop to the north. The lane ends at the churchyard and mill.

The house and mill are normally open to the public, but are still closed due to Covid. On my visit on a glorious spring day I was the only visitor, in fact the only thing moving in the village. I felt as if I was in some strange sci-fi film like The Midwich Cuckoos or an old episode of the Avengers TV series. The only other sound apart from my walking boots was that of birdsong and the church bell.

Apart from appearing in the eponymous Midsomer Murders series, the village's main moment of stardom was in the 1976 film 'The Eagle has Landed' starring Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Jenny Agutter. Many of the houses and the pub in the film were a set, constructed over the grass verges and low walls of the village.

Poem.

A steep, cobbled street.

Elegant half-timbered, Tudor houses

with overhanging upper storeys jostle

up and down this remarkable thoroughfare.

Medieval inns, hotels and boarding houses

crowd together from end to end.

A little imagination can remove the modern car

and fill this sharp gradient with locals,

merchants, visitors, smugglers, pilgrims and travellers.

For a thousand years wood-fired chimneys have

belched their smoke above and around the

oak timbers and pale wattle and daub panelled walls,

leaving their sooty signature.

With the sky grey and the atmosphere obscured,

this ancient road seems little changed from the 15th. century.

Its unchanging ambience seems to lock us in a time warp,

a reliable time-machine that

earns world-wide affection.

What is most needed today!

(Arthur Pink)

It is my deepening conviction that what is most needed today is a wide proclamation of those Scripture truths which are the least acceptable to the flesh.

What is needed today, is a scriptural setting forth of the character of God:

His absolute sovereignty,

His ineffable holiness,

His inflexible justice,

His unchanging veracity.

What is needed today, is a scriptural setting forth of the condition of the natural man:

his total depravity,

his spiritual insensibility,

his inveterate hostility to God,

the fact that he is "condemned already," and

that the wrath of a sin-hating God is even now abiding upon him!

What is needed today, is a scriptural setting forth of the alarming danger which sinners are in--the indescribably awful doom which awaits them; and the fact that if they follow their present course only a little further, they shall most certainly suffer the due penalty of their iniquities!

What is needed today, is a scriptural setting forth of the nature of that dreadful punishment which awaits the lost:

the dreadfulness of it,

the hopelessness of it,

the unendurableness of it,

and the endlessness of it!

Taken from the top deck on the return 15.55 service down the dale from Cowshill to Stanhope we pass the roadside country pub the Cross Keys at Eastgate. The road off to the left takes you through Rookhope and the Allenheads.Nothing seems to have changed round here since I last visited in 2011. And part of Weardales timeless unchanging character.

Today (02/04/23) morning at Balaka falls Carlingford, Sydney, Australia.

I bless you that the unchanging love and grace of God eho gives miracles to life is abundant. Thank you.

Sus palabras se disolvían tras el resguardo de una manta. La neutralidad de su rostro era inmutable y las expresiones en sus ojos eran fugaces.

···

His words dissolved behind the of a blanket. The neutrality of his face was unchanging and the expressions in his eyes were fleeting.

Poem.

A steep, cobbled street.

Elegant half-timbered, Tudor houses

with overhanging upper storeys jostle

up and down this remarkable thoroughfare.

Medieval inns, hotels and boarding houses

crowd together from end to end.

A little imagination can remove the modern car

and fill this sharp gradient with locals,

merchants, visitors, smugglers, pilgrims and travellers.

For a thousand years wood-fired chimneys have

belched their smoke above and around the

oak timbers and pale wattle and daub panelled walls,

leaving their sooty signature.

With the sky grey and the atmosphere obscured,

this ancient road seems little changed from the 15th. century.

Its unchanging ambience seems to lock us in a time warp,

a reliable time-machine that

earns world-wide affection.

Beneath a vault of boundless azure, where the clouds tumble and twist like restless spirits, New Zealand's Routeburn Valley unfolds—a land of such profound beauty it seems to pulse with the memory of creation itself. Set amidst the raw splendor of New Zealand’s Southern Alps, this realm feels ancient beyond reckoning, its features carved by the steady hand of time and the chaotic whim of the elements.

The forest at the valley’s edge surges forward in chaotic majesty, a riot of greens ranging from the soft, glowing emerald of mosses to the dark, brooding shades of towering trees. Each leaf and branch seems alive with whispered secrets, their stories carried by a breeze that snakes its way through the undergrowth, rustling and sighing like the ghosts of forgotten ages. Beneath the canopy, the ground is soft with decay and renewal, where every fallen twig and clump of lichen plays its part in the endless cycle of life.

Above it all, the mountains rise with an almost imperious indifference, their ridges serrated like the edges of a broken crown. Snow clings stubbornly to their highest peaks, glinting in the sun like shards of white fire, relics of a winter that refuses to yield entirely to the warmth below. One jagged peak commands the scene, thrusting upward with primal force. Its slopes are smothered in dense green forest that creeps upward as if trying to claim the summit for its own, while bare rock above seems to defy it, jagged and immovable. It looms with a quiet authority, a monolith that seems to regard the passage of time as little more than an afterthought.

In the valley’s heart, the rivers thread and twist with the grace of a dancer, their waters shimmering like liquid glass under the midday sun. They carve thin, silvery scars into the earth, a pattern so intricate it feels deliberate, like an ancient script left by the gods. The wide grassy plains, saturated with the vitality of untouched wilderness, seem to cradle these waters, offering them passage as they journey deeper into the unseen.

This place is alive with a stillness that hums with hidden energy, as if the air itself is charged with the memory of something vast and eternal. It is the kind of quiet that feels intentional, a silence that listens as much as it is heard. One might imagine Aragorn leading the Fellowship through such a land, his steps careful on the mossy ground, or Legolas pausing to gaze at the mountains with a glint of recognition in his ageless eyes. The air carries the faintest trace of something unnameable—a scent of rain-soaked stone, of blooming earth, and of the faintest echo of a melody, lost to time but lingering just enough to be felt.

The Routeburn Valley seems untouched by the corruption of the wider world, a sanctuary where the light of the Two Trees might yet flicker in some secret hollow. The mountains guard their secrets jealously, the rivers speak in riddles, and the forests feel as though they are watching. Standing here, with the sun casting its light across the valley in soft gold and sharp white, one cannot help but feel this is a place where the fabric of the world wears thin—where Middle-earth might still echo faintly, and where a weary traveler might look beyond the farthest peak and glimpse a glimmer of the West, eternal and unchanging.

Inspired by the song OUR GREAT GOD by Todd Agnew

Larger View On Black

Our Great God Lyrics

Eternal God, unchanging

Mysterious and unknown

Your boundless love, unfailing

In grace and mercy shown

Bright seraphim in ceaseless flight around Your glorious throne

They raise their voices day and night in praise to You alone

Hallelujah, Glory be to our great God

Lord, we are weak and frail

Helpless in the storm

Surround us with Your angels

Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com

Hold us in Your arms

Our cold and ruthless enemy, his pleasure is our harm

Rise up, O Lord, and he will flee before our sovereign God

Let every creature in the sea and every flying bird

Let every mountain, every field and valley of the earth

Let all the moons and all the stars in all the universe

Sing praises to the living God who rules them by His word

Copyright© 2008 Kamoteus/RonMiguel RN

This image is protected under the United States and International Copyright laws and may not be downloaded, reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without written permission.

Poem.

A steep, cobbled street.

Elegant half-timbered, Tudor houses

with overhanging upper storeys jostle

up and down this remarkable thoroughfare.

Medieval inns, hotels and boarding houses

crowd together from end to end.

A little imagination can remove the modern car

and fill this sharp gradient with locals,

merchants, visitors, smugglers, pilgrims and travellers.

For a thousand years wood-fired chimneys have

belched their smoke above and around the

oak timbers and pale wattle and daub panelled walls,

leaving their sooty signature.

With the sky grey and the atmosphere obscured,

this ancient road seems little changed from the 15th. century.

Its unchanging ambience seems to lock us in a time warp,

a reliable time-machine that

earns world-wide affection.

I will fill myself with the desert and the sky. I will be stone and stars, unchanging and strong and safe. The desert is complete; it is spare and alone, but perfect in its soltitude. I will be the desert.

-- Kiersten White

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona.

Life seems rather leisurely on the river that runs by Hoi An at least from the viewpoint of travellers. The people of the town make a living on the river by fishing and taking tourists for a ride. A scene from the river showing again the unchanging lives of some of the Vietnamese people. That is why Vietnam is such a charming place to visit.

Christian Song | Christian Music Video | Gospel hymn | "God's Will for Mankind Will Never Change" | The Love of God Is Unchanging

www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/God-s-will-never-change/

Introduction

I

God's been in this world for many years, but who knows Him? No wonder God chastises people. Seems God uses them as objects of His authority. Seems they're bullets in His gun, and once He's fired it, they'll all escape one by one. But this is not what is real, it's their imagination. God loves people like His treasure, since they're the "capital" of His management. He will not eliminate them. He won't change His will towards them. He won't change His will towards them.

II

God has always respected humans. He hasn't once exploited or traded them like slaves. For He and man can't part. Thus a life and death bond is formed. Between man and God, God loves, cherishes humans. Though this isn't mutual, God still spends efforts on them, as to God they still look up. God loves people like His treasure, since they're the "capital" of His management. He will not eliminate them. He won't change His will towards them. He won't change His will towards them. He won't change His will towards them. He won't change His will towards them.

III

Can they truly trust God's oath? How can they satisfy God? This is the task for all man, the "homework" God left for all. It is God's hope that they will all work hard to complete it.

from Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs

Recommended for You: musical documentary

Image Source: The Church of Almighty God

Terms of Use: en.godfootsteps.org/disclaimer.html

The trees are barren when the summer's lost

But one tree keeps its goodness all the year.

Green pines , unchanging as the days go by.

Augusta Davies webster

Poem.

A steep, cobbled street.

Elegant half-timbered, Tudor houses

with overhanging upper storeys jostle

up and down this remarkable thoroughfare.

Medieval inns, hotels and boarding houses

crowd together from end to end.

A little imagination can remove the modern car

and fill this sharp gradient with locals,

merchants, visitors, smugglers, pilgrims and travellers.

For a thousand years wood-fired chimneys have

belched their smoke above and around the

oak timbers and pale wattle and daub panelled walls,

leaving their sooty signature.

With the sky grey and the atmosphere obscured,

this ancient road seems little changed from the 15th. century.

Its unchanging ambience seems to lock us in a time warp,

a reliable time-machine that

earns world-wide affection.

alanshapirophotography.com

What, at a first glance was strange and scary, became the best part of me.

for this... warmth desired the coldest part of me.

I was accepted and loved for who i am, not who i should be.

I embraced it back with everything i had and made it a part of who i am.

Before i knew how dependent i was on my sun, it abandonde me, hiding in a place no one can find.

Everywhere i look, i see the remnants of its touch... the remnants of my existance.

I search everywhere, wanting to breath again, only to realize the pain of its absence.

Like a cold fire, illusions and cheap imitations is all that remains.

Sometimes, dreams haunt our minds, invoking our deepest desires.

Even in deception, we long to never wake up.

Yet... when we do.... we dare not go back

for fear of experiencing what we cannot have.

Why can’t we have a moment of joy without facing its painful consequences?

Why can’t we relive the best part of our lives without knowing how it’s going to end.

It’s remarkable how it takes but a second to embrace a beautiful lie,

and an eternity to forget the ugly truth.

As i walk through time, you remain forever alone and unchanging.

So many times, i have considered leaving everything behind

just so i can hold you in my arms again...

both of us, timeless and never changing, together.

Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but what you do during that time, helps mend it, even just a little.

it’s better to have loved someone, and lost it, then never felt love at all.

i can live my life, in pain, knowing i’ve given you but a small moment of joy.

You can rest in peace, my dearest...

and before you know it, i will be beside you again.

The Unchanging World

Solo Show

19 January 2018 - 17 February 2018

Philobiblon Gallery

Rome - Italy

info@philobiblon.org

Photo Alessandro Sgarito

This photo is exclusively managed by Caters News. To license please contact laurenfruen@catersnews.com

Andøy Friluftssenter | Aurora Borealis 01/03/2013 22h05

The third night we were treated later at the evening once again with some beautiful aurora borealis at the Andøy Friluftssenter.

Aurora Borealis

An aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere (thermosphere). The charged particles originate in the magnetosphere and solar wind and, on Earth, are directed by the Earth's magnetic field into the atmosphere. Aurora is classified as diffuse or discrete aurora. Most aurorae occur in a band known as the auroral zone, which is typically 3° to 6° in latitudinal extent and at all local times or longitudes. The auroral zone is typically 10° to 20° from the magnetic pole defined by the axis of the Earth's magnetic dipole. During a geomagnetic storm, the auroral zone expands to lower latitudes.

The diffuse aurora is a featureless glow in the sky that may not be visible to the naked eye, even on a dark night. It defines the extent of the auroral zone. The discrete aurorae are sharply defined features within the diffuse aurora that vary in brightness from just barely visible to the naked eye, to bright enough to read a newspaper by at night. Discrete aurorae are usually seen only in the night sky, because they are not as bright as the sunlit sky. Aurorae occasionally occur poleward of the auroral zone as diffuse patches or arcs (polar cap arcs), which are generally invisible to the naked eye.

In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis (or the northern lights), named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621. Auroras seen near the magnetic pole may be high overhead, but from farther away, they illuminate the northern horizon as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red, as if the Sun were rising from an unusual direction. Discrete aurorae often display magnetic field lines or curtain-like structures, and can change within seconds or glow unchanging for hours, most often in fluorescent green. The aurora borealis most often occurs near the equinoctes. The northern lights have had a number of names throughout history. The Cree call this phenomenon the "Dance of the Spirits". In Europe, in the Middle Ages, the auroras were commonly believed a sign from God.

Its southern counterpart, this phenomen is called aurora australis (or the southern lights).

[ Source and much more: Aurora Borealis ]

Photo "Explored" on 25/05/2013 #190.

via Instagram www.instagram.com/p/BZZRcU9BiP-/

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