View allAll Photos Tagged admixture
Common buzzard, +2cy, potential admixture with B. lagopus (note head and breast pattern and remiges with fine barring), W Slovakia, Feb 2021
Binomial name
Chlidonias hybrida
The sides of the neck are white; this sometimes continues across the nape. The collar is less sharply defined. All through the year the rump is pale grey. In the juvenile, the mantle (279 mm) has a variegated pattern. The feathers of the back and scapulars are dark brown, with prominent broad buff edgings and often subterminal buff bars or centers. There is usually an admixture of new gray feathers, especially on the mantle, quite early in the fall. The mantle is silvery-gray in the adult. The call is a characteristic krekk.
Turtuk is a Baltistan village , formerly part of Pakistan until 1971. Today, Turtuk is the last inhabited frontier by Balti Muslims before the border.
The Balti is an ethnic group of Tibetan descent with some Dardic admixture, who live in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, in addition, smaller populations also exist in Ladakh.
The angulate tortoise (Chersina angulata) is a species of tortoise found in dry areas and coastal scrub vegetation in South Africa.
A small, shy tortoise with a relatively variable shell, they can often be distinguished by their prominent "bowsprits", which are protrusions of the "gular" shields, from their plastrons under their chins. These are used by males to fight for territory or females.
Uniquely, this species has only one gular shield under its chin; all other southern African tortoises have a divided/double scaled gular. Angulate specimens have 5 claws on their front legs and 4 on each back leg. They also, like most other southern African tortoises, have a nuchal scute.
There is considerable regional variation in this species of tortoise. Angulates from the west coast of southern Africa tend to have a reddish colour, especially on the underside of their shell (from where their Afrikaans name of "Rooipens" or "red-belly" comes).
Inland specimens from the Karoo region are often darker, and some are known to be uniformly black. To the east of their range, individuals are typically smaller and have a lighter colour. Such tendencies can be diluted by admixture however, and in all populations individuals tend to assume a uniform brown colour in old age.
This image was taken at Die Kelders in the Western Cape of South Africa.
The Puget Sound garter snakes were fairly active with yesterday's warm weather. We have three main color variants in the area. Most common are ones with blue lateral and dorsal stripes, like the one with its tongue out. However, some degree of admixture with valley garter snakes produces variants with yellow stripes, while admixture with red-spotted garter snakes produces those with red dorsal stripes. The one above also has a lot of red pigment on its face, much more than I remember encountering on other specimens. Puget Sound garter snakes, Olympia, Washington.
Little angel from the Baltistan village of Turtuk, standing on the terrace of her house, where her parents grow a lot of kinds of flower and dry plenty of tomato and apricot. Turtuk was formerly part of Pakistan until 1971.
The Balti is an ethnic group of Tibetan descent with some Dardic admixture, who live in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, in addition, smaller populations also exist in Ladakh.
Dard people is an Indo-European minority. Their facial features, with their slender noses, Caucasian-looking eyes and relatively fair skin, do not share many similarities with Asian features.
INDIA. Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakh. Nubra Valley. 2014
Arkhangelsk region, Russia
Overmature boreal forest composed of pine and spruce with admixture of birches and aspen. The photo is taken the next day after a snowfall
The cap can be deer-brown, or light ochre-brown to dark brown, with a variable admixture of grey or black; very young mushrooms may have a totally brown cap
After our almost-tornado today ("rotation" over downtown), look what big mushrooms just sprouted in our backyard!
The famous German mycologist Paul Kummerin in 1871 gave the deer mushroom, Pluteus cervinus (deer shield, or fawn mushroom), its present scientific name. This wood-rotting mushroom is widespread and very common in Britain and Ireland, is also found throughout Europe, and also grows in North America.
Hope you enjoy this 41% of our 17 captures today!
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Cliche Canola Field Image, but you know they are cliche's because they have been proven to be very effective...
Australia’s unique environment, progressive breeding programs and innovative farming techniques combine to produce canola seed of the highest quality.
Australian canola is well recognised for its low levels of moisture, admixture and chlorophyll content, providing advantages to both the buyer and processor. The oil and protein content have been steadily increasing due to the selection of improved varieties and advanced planting techniques.
Australia has a reputation as one of the cleanest environments in the world. Australian growers deliver a clean, food-safe and contaminant-free product that has been grown using sustainable farming methods.
It may be winter here in Ottawa, but the Asian ladybeetles couldn't care less. We catch a few of them every other day here inside the house. They're a nuisance because they smell pretty bad and occasionally bite!
Harmonia axyridis, most commonly known as the harlequin, multicolored Asian, or simply Asian ladybeetle, is a large coccinellid beetle. This is one of the most variable species in the world, with an exceptionally wide range of color forms.
Worldwide routes of propagation of H. axyridis were described with genetic markers in 2010. The populations in eastern and western North America originated from two independent introductions from the native range. The South American and African populations both originated independently from eastern North America. The European population also originated from eastern North America, but with substantial genetic admixture with individuals of the European biocontrol strain (estimated at about 40%).
This species is widely considered to be one of the world’s most invasive insects, partly due to their tendency to overwinter indoors and the unpleasant odor and stain left by their bodily fluids when frightened or crushed, as well as their tendency to bite humans. In Europe it is currently increasing to the detriment of indigenous species, its voracious appetite enabling it to outcompete and even consume other ladybirds. The harlequin ladybird is also highly resistant to diseases that affect other ladybird species, and carries a microsporidian parasite to which it is immune, but that can infect and kill other species. Native ladybird species have experienced often dramatic declines in abundance in areas invaded by H. axyridis.
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Little angel from the Baltistan village of Turtuk, formerly part of Pakistan until 1971.
The Balti is an ethnic group of Tibetan descent with some Dardic admixture, who live in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, in addition, smaller populations also exist in Ladakh.
Dard people is an Indo-European minority. Their facial features, with their slender noses, Caucasian-looking eyes and relatively fair skin, do not share many similarities with Asian features.
INDIA. Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakh. Nubra Valley. 2014
From behind a famous pagoda (rurikouji in Japan)
Video intro to same pagoda. Shorter hammier younger version.
My interpretation of the effect of the pagoda from my Google Maps review
Go up around the Back! This is a beautiful pagoda that creates in its viewers a little bit of a Zen (or if you prefer, God's glory) experience. Why is this? Why do visitors say that it takes their breath away. My interpretation is that it looks like a lot of houses or temples stacked one on top of another. We are used to seeing the temple roof shape of each story of the pagoda. In the grounds of the temple there are similar roofs, of other similar temple structures but these are arranged horizontally with at most a slight vertical misalignment due to the temple structures and their roofs being built on a slope, which with the admixture of perspective, allows us to see when we view a temple complex or townscape a cascade of roofs stretching off into the distance. And so it is when we view this pagoda our brains attempt to interpret its form in the same familiar way, as smaller and smaller, more distant roofs, on the side of the mountain, but then, whammy, it is not perspective, it is not a slope, these roofs are stacked! And in that what-the-blazes moment of reappraisal, our analytical mind is stumped, stopped and dumbfounded. As a consequence, we are given a glimpse of that which a Zen scholar (Nishida) calls "the purity of experience" or perhaps, in Christian parlance, we see the light. In any event, it is a very beautiful pagoda. It contains a library of books that no one reads. And those in the know can go up around the back to stand at eye level with the middle of the pagoda and look down upon the temple sharing the same grounds. 案内すると感心してもらえますよ。
The Kipchaks were a tribal confederation that originally settled on the River Irtysh, possibly connected to the Kimäks. According to Ukrainian anthropologists, Kipchaks had racial characteristics of Caucasians and Mongoloids, namely a broad flat face and protruding nose. Researcher E. P. Alekseeva drew attention to the fact that European Kipchak stone images have both Mongoloid and Caucasoid faces. However, in her opinion, Kipchaks, who settled in Georgia in the first half of the 12th century, were predominantly Caucasoid in appearance with some admixture of Mongoloid traits. They were already joined by Cumans. In the course of the Turkic expansion they migrated into Siberia and further into the Trans-Volga region.
Eventually they occupied a vast territory in the Eurasian steppe, stretching from north of the Aral Sea westward to the region north of the Black Sea, establishing a state known as Desht-i Qipchaq.[citation needed]. Cumans expanded further westward, by the 11th century reaching Moldavia, Wallachia, and part of Transylvania.
In the late 11th and early 12th centuries, the Cumans and Kipchaks became involved in various conflicts with the Byzantines, Kievan Rus', Hungarians (Cuman involvement only), and the Pechenegs (Cuman involvement only), allying themselves with one or the other side at different times. In 1089, they were defeated by Ladislaus I of Hungary, and again by Knyaz Vladimir Monomakh of the Rus in the 12th century. They sacked Kiev in 1203.
They were finally crushed by the Mongols in 1241. During the Mongol empire, Kipchaks constituted a majority of the Kipchak Khanate comprising present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, and were called the Golden Horde – the westernmost division of the Mongol empire. After the fall of the Mongol Empire, the Golden Horde rulers continued to hold Saraj until 1502.
The Cumans fled to Hungary, and some of their warriors became mercenaries for the Latin crusaders and the Byzantines. Members of the Bahri dynasty, the first dynasty of Mamluks in Egypt, were Kipchaks/Cumans; one of the most prominent examples was Sultan Baybars, born in Solhat, Crimea. Some Kipchaks served in the Yuan dynasty and became the Kharchins.
"There is something about a mass-market Luxury Cruise that's unbearably sad. Like most unbearably sad things, it seems incredibly elusive and complex in its causes and simple in its effect: on board the Nadir -- especially at night, when all the ship's structured fun and reassurances and gaiety-noise cease -- I felt despair. The word's overused and banalified now, despair, but it's a serious word and I'm using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture -- a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death. It's maybe close to what people call dread or angst. But it's not these things, quite. It's more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I'm small and weak and selfish and going without any doubt at all to die. It's wanting to jump overboard."
- excerpted from "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Tonight however we have headed east of Cavendish Mews, down through St James’, past Trafalgar Square and down The Strand to one of London’s most luxurious and fashionable hotels, The Savoy*, where, surrounded by mahogany and rich red velvet, gilded paintings and extravagant floral displays, Lettice is having dinner with the son of the Duke of Walmsford, Selwyn Spencely. The pair have made valiant attempts to pursue a romantic relationship since meeting at Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie’s, Hunt Ball the previous year. Yet things haven’t been easy, their relationship moving in fits and starts, partially due to the invisible, yet very strong influence of Selwyn’s mother, Lady Zinnia, the current Duchess of Walmsford. Although Lettice has no solid proof of it, she is quite sure that Lady Zinnia does not think her a suitable match for her eldest son and heir. From what she has been told, Lettice also believes that Lady Zinnia is matchmaking Selwyn with his cousin Pamela Fox-Chavers. In an effort to see what her potential rival for Selwyn’s affections is like, Lettice organised an ‘accidental’ meeting of she, Pamela and Selwyn at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show** a few weeks ago. As a result of this meeting, Selwyn has finally agreed to explain to Lettice his evident reluctance to introduce her to his mother as a potentially suitable match. Yet as she walks beneath the grand new Art Deco portico of the Savoy and the front doors are opened for her by liveried doormen, Lettice is amazed that surrounded by so many fashionable people, Selwyn thinks the Savoy dining room is the place to have a discreet dinner, especially after they have been very discreet about their relationship for the past year.
Lettice is ushered into the grand dining room of the Savoy, a space brilliantly illuminated by dozens of glittering electrified chandeliers cascading down like fountains from the high ceiling above. Beneath the sparkling light, men in white waistcoats and women a-glitter with jewels and bugle bead embroidered frocks are ushered into the dining room where they are seated in high backed mahogany and red velvet chairs around tables dressed in crisp white tablecloths and set with sparkling silver and gilt china. The large room is very heavily populated with theatre patrons enjoying a meal before a show and London society out for an evening. The space is full of vociferous conversation, boisterous laughter, the clink of glasses and the scrape of cutlery against crockery as the diners enjoy the magnificent repast served to them from the hotel’s famous kitchens. Above it all, the notes of the latest dance music from the band can be heard as they entertain diners and dancers who fill the parquet dance floor.
A smartly uniformed waiter escorts Lettice to a table for two in the midst of the grand dining salon, where Selwyn, dressed in smart white tie stands and greets Lettice.
“My Angel!” he gasps, admiring her as she stands before him in a champagne coloured silk crepe gown decorated with sequins with a matching bandeau set amidst her Marcelled** hair. “Don’t you look ravishing!”
“Thank you, Selwyn.” Lettice purrs in pleasure as she allows the waiter to carefully slide the seat of the chair beneath her as she sits. “That’s very kind of you to say so.” She gracefully tugs at her elbow length white evening gloves.
Sparkling golden French champagne is poured into their crystal flutes from a bottle sitting in a silver cooler on the linen covered table by their obsequious waiter. The expansive menu is consulted with Lettice selecting Pied de Veau*** and Selwyn choosing Cambridge Sausages**** both dishes served with a light Salade Romaine*****. Polite conversation is exchanged between the two. Lettice is given congratulations on the great success of the publication of her article in ‘Country Life’******, which Selwyn has finally seen. Selwyn is asked how Pamela’s coming out ball went. The pair dance elegantly around the true reason they are there.
It is only when a large silver salver of cheeses is put down and they are served Vol-au-Vent de Volaille à la Royale******* on the stylish gilt edged white plates of the Savoy that Lettice finally plucks up the courage to start the conversation that they have been trying to avoid.
Cutting a small piece of flaky golden pastry and spearing it with a piece of tenderly cooked chicken and a head of mushroom Lettice inserts it into her mouth and sighs with delight.
“There is nothing nicer than dinner at the Savoy, is there my Angel?” Selwyn addresses his dinner partner.
“Indeed no,” Lettice agrees after swallowing her dainty mouthful. “However, I must confess that I was surprised that you chose the Savoy dining room for us to meet. It’s the most indiscreet place to have a discreet dinner.” She deposits her polished silver cutlery onto the slightly scalloped edge of her plate. “We’ve been so careful up until now, choosing places where we are less likely to garner attention. Here we sit amongst all the most fashionable people of London society. There are bound to be friends of both your parents and mine who will see us sitting here together at a table for two.” She glances around at the bejewel decorated ladies looking like exotic birds in their brightly coloured frocks and feathers and their smartly attired male companions. “There are even photographers here this evening.”
“I know my Angel.” Selwyn replies matter-of-factly before putting a small amount of his own vol-au-vent into his mouth.
“Whilst I know my mother won’t mind seeing my name associated with yours, or a picture of the two of us together at the Savoy,” She glances nervously at Selwyn as he serenely chews his second course. “I thought we were trying to avoid Zinnia’s attention.”
Selwyn finishes his mouthful and then takes a slip of champagne before elucidating somewhat mysteriously. “A change of plans, my Angel.”
“A change of plans, Selwyn?” Lettice queries, running her white evening glove clad fingers over the pearls at her throat as she worries them. “What does that mean? I don’t understand.”
“You and I have had some rather awkward conversations over my refusal to introduce you to Zinnia, haven’t we, Lettice?”
“We have, darling Selwyn. And I thought that was what we were going to talk about this evening.”
“And so we will, but I also want this evening to be a statement of intention.”
“A statement of intention?” Lettice’s heart suddenly starts to beat faster as she licks her lips.
“Yes. . I invited you here this evening because it is one of the most fashionably public places to be seen. I want people to see us together this evening, my darling, whether it be Zinnia’s spies amongst us, or just the general citizenry of society. I also thought that since there is a rather ripping band playing tonight, that you and I might cut a rug******** a bit later and that perhaps we might get photographed. Zinnia won’t want to meet you, unless your presence is waved in front of her like a red rag to a bull.”
“I’m not sure I like that term when used in conjunction with your mother, Selwyn darling.” Lettice says warily.
“But it’s true. For all her forthrightness and ferocity, Zinnia is very good at playing ostriches when she wishes, and pretending not to see things she doesn’t want to see.” Selwyn explains before taking another sip of champagne. “I should have done this earlier, like when we agreed that I would escort you to your friend Priscilla’s wedding in November last year. However, I wasn’t man enough to stand up to her. Now I want to make a statement about you, about us,” He reaches out and places his pale and elegant right hand bearing a small signet ring over Lettice’s evening glove clad left hand, staring Lettice directly in the eye. “And I need Zinnia to sit up and take notice.”
Lettice picks up her champagne flute in her right hand and quickly sips as small amount of the effervescent beverage to whet her suddenly dry throat. She considers what Selwyn has just said along with other things people have said to her about Selwyn and Lady Zinnia over the last year since she reacquainted herself with Selwyn.
“The day I attended Priscilla’s wedding without you,” Lettice begins. “I met Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.”
“Sir John!” Selwyn scoffs, releasing Lettice’s hand, leaving a warm patch that Lettice can still feel through the thin fabric of her white glove. “He’s one of Zinnia’s cronies. I’m quite sure that they had,” Selwyn pauses whilst he finds the right word. “An understanding, shall we say, when they were both younger.” He looks at Lettice again. “I hope I didn’t shock you, my Angel.”
“Not at all, Selwyn darling.” Lettice assures him. “After all, I am twenty-three now, and a lady who has set forth into the world.”
“I’m glad my Angel. I’d never want to shock you with something like that.”
“It doesn’t shock me, Selwyn darling, but it would explain some things he said to me that day when I was cornered by him.”
“Cornered?”
“Yes. I now think he deliberately sought me out and cornered me so he could tell me what he did.”
“What did Sir John say?” Selwyn queries.
“I didn’t really pay that much attention to it,” Lettice begins, glancing down at her partially eaten vol-au-vent. “At least not at first. I thought he was just spitting venom at me because I spurned his affections the evening of Mater’s Hunt Ball when I met you.”
“What did he say?” Selwyn presses anxiously.
“When I explained your absence as my escort – he only knew because he is related to Cilla’s mother and she had been crowing to him about your attendance at the wedding – he laughed when I said that you were at Clendon********* meeting Pamela. He said it was not a coincidence that you were forced to cancel your own plans in preference for spending time with your cousin. He said that your mother had orchestrated it.”
“And so she had, my Angel.” Selwyn conforms. “And that is why I said that I should have been more of a man and stood up to Zinnia at that time. However,” He releases a pent up breath which he exhales shudderingly. “Zinnia is not someone to cross, especially when she is determined, or in a foul mood, of which she was both.”
“Sir John said that even though we had been discreet about spending time together, that your mother already knew about our assignations.”
“I would imagine him to be quite correct.”
“I accused him of telling her, but he denied it.”
“I would doubt that even as a crony of Zinnia, he would have had the pleasure of breaking the news of your existence as a potential future daughter-in-law to her. Zinnia’s talons reach far and wide, and her spies exist in some of the most unlikely places. What else did Sir John have to say?”
“He said that your mother is the one who would undoubtedly arrange your marriage to suit her own wishes. He implied that I ought not tip my cap at you since you were not free to make your own decision when it came to the subject of marriage. He said that even your father wouldn’t cross your mother on that front.”
Selwyn chuckles sadly. “Sir John is well informed.”
“So it’s true then?”
“What is, darling?”
“That you aren’t free to marry.”
“No, of course not. Not even Zinnia with all her bluster can force me to marry someone I don’t want to.”
Lettice releases a breath she didn’t even realise she was holding in her chest beneath the silk crepe and sparkling beading of her gown.
“However, Zinnia and my Uncle Bertrand have their own plans as regards Pammy and her relationship to me, and they are both applying pressure to both of us.”
“Sir John said that too.” Lettice utters deflatedly.
“I should like to point out, my Angel, that I was not aware as to the plans and plotting afoot for Pammy and I when I met you again at your mother’s ball.” Selwyn assures Lettice. “I didn’t even know about it in the lead up to Priscilla’s wedding. It was only that weekend at Clendon when I was first reintroduced to Pammy and I inadvertently overheard snippets of private conversations Zinnia and my uncle that I realised that they had been hatching their plot to bind us into a marriage of convenience to bind our families closer together for almost as long as Pammy has been alive.”
“So this wasn’t something new, then?”
“It was to me, Lettice darling, but not to them. Do you remember I told you at the Great Spring Show that my real aunt, Bertrand’s first wife, Miranda, was a bolter**********?”
“Yes Selwyn.”
“And that he fled to America and that was where he met Rosalind?”
“Yes Selwyn.”
“Well, the reason why he fled to New York was because the failure of his marriage to Miranda and her desertion of him led to quite a scandal. The scandal clung to Pammy, long after Miranda was gone, and I think after a he married Rosalind, being connected to an element of scandal herself, being a divorcée, she hatched the plan with Uncle Bertrand and Zinnia with Pammy’s social well being at heart.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean that from the outside, there is nothing unusual or untoward about two distant cousins marrying. The fact that the Spencely and Fox-Chavers happen to be two very distinguished and wealthy old families who would doubtless look to intermarry across the generations also throws off any whiff of scandal.”
“Are you saying they planned to marry you two so that Pamela would be untarnished by her mother’s actions?”
“Yes.”
“But how is the child responsible for her mother’s sins, Selwyn?”
“You know as well as I do, coming from a family as old and well established as your own, Lettice, that scandal sticks like glue.”
“Then why throw a ball for Pamela? Why introduce her to society?”
“Because as the next Duke of Walmsford, it is only fitting that I should marry a suitable girl from a suitable family who has been presented in society. Certain families won’t allow their daughters to socialise with poor Pammy, and I’m quite sure that whilst they send their eligible sons, just as many would never countenance a marriage between them and Pammy.”
“So if Pamela marries well, into a family who would welcome her, she is absolved of any wrongdoings of her mother. There is no whiff of scandal and she rises above reproach.”
“Exactly.” Selwyn sighs. “Clever girl.”
Lettice takes a larger than usual gulp of champagne as she allows the thoughts just formed from their conversation to sink in. “And how does Pamela feel about this? Does she even know that she is being matched with you, Selwyn?”
“Yes she does,” Selwyn explains. “Although I was the one who told her. However, like me, she has no desire to see us to get married. She barely knows me, and both of us treat each other like siblings rather than potential romantic marriage prospects.”
“Does she know why your mother, aunt and uncle hatched this plan?”
“Well,” Selwyn replies uncertainly. “She knows her mother deserted Uncle Bertrand, but I don’t think she realises that Miranda’s legacy to her is a tainted one, and I’m quite sure she doesn’t know about some of the other debutante’s families attitudes towards her because of Miranda’s actions.”
“So what is she to do, if no decent bachelor will have her, and you won’t marry her?”
“I didn’t say that no eligible bachelors would consider marriage with Pammy, Angel, only some.” Selwyn says with a smile. “And half of those who won’t marry her would only have wanted to marry her for her money.”
“You sound as if you know something.” Lettice remarks, giving her dinner partner a perplexed look.
“Oh I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, my Angel.” he replies mysteriously.
“So, what would you say then, Selwyn darling?” Lettice prods.
“I’d go so far as to say that being the happy and pretty young thing that she is, Pammy is in no short supply of admirers whose families would overlook her mother’s status as a bolter.”
“Because they want to marry her for her Fox-Chavers money?”
“Well, there are a few of those, I’ll admit,” Selwyn agrees. “But that is why her dear cousin Selwyn is escorting her to all these rather tedious London Season occasions. I can keep those wolves away. However even if we discount them, there are still a few rather decent chaps who are vying for Pammy’s attentions.”
“Are there any that Pamela is interested in?” Lettice asks hopefully.
“As a matter of fact there are two young prospects whom she is quite keen on, or so she confides in me.”
“Oh that’s wonderful, Selwyn!” Lettice deposits her glass on the linen covered surface of the table and claps her hands in delight, beaming with a smile of happy relief. The her face falls. “But then, what are we all to do? Hasn’t your mother charged you with chaperoning Pamela throughout the Season?”
“Well, that was the other reason why I decided to bring you to the Savoy, my Angel.” Selwyn remarks. “We need to be seen together about town, and the best way to do that is to be seen at the functions and places that will be popular because they are part of the London Season, like cricket matches at Lords, and the Henley Regatta************.”
“And the Goodwood races!” adds Lettice with enthusiasm. “And Cowes week************!”
“That’s the spirit, my Angel!” Selwyn encourages her with equal enthusiasm. “Zinnia has charged me with chaperoning Pammy for her own end, but we will use the Season to thwart her with our own ends in mind.”
“Oh Selwyn, how clever you are! What a darling you are!”
Just at that time, the waiter who served them their vol-au-vents and player of cheese approaches the table. Noticing their half eaten meals and their cutlery sitting idle, he tentatively asks, “Shall I clear now, Your Grace?”
“If you would fetch us clean plates and cutlery for the cheese.” Selwyn replies. “Which I think we shall enjoy after a turn on the dancefloor. Don’t you agree, my Angel?” He stands up, pushing his chair back and offering Lettice his hand.
“I do indeed, Selwyn darling!” Lettice pulls her napkin from her lap and drops it on the tabletop.
The waiter pulls out Lettice’s chair, and taking Selwyn’s hand, Lettice allows him to lead her proudly across the dining room of the Savoy. Pairs of eyes note the handsome young couple and lips whisper behind glove clad hands and fans as remarks are made as to who they are and that they appear to be together as a couple, yet for the first time since the night of her mother’s Hunt ball, Lettice doesn’t care what people are thinking or saying. She feels light, as though floating on a cloud, and as she falls comfortably into Selwyn’s strong arms and they begin to sway to the music, she feels proud to be with Selwyn: the man she is falling in love with, and who intends to marry her.
*The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.
**May 20 1913 saw the first Royal Horticultural Society flower show at Chelsea. What we know today as the Chelsea Flower Show was originally known as the Great Spring Show. The first shows were three day events held within a single marquee. The King and Queen did not attend in 1913, but the King's Mother, Queen Alexandra, attended with two of her children. The only garden to win a gold medal before the war was also in 1913 and was awarded to a rock garden created by John Wood of Boston Spa. In 1919, the Government demanded that the Royal Horticultural Society pay an entertainment tax for the show – with resources already strained, it threatened the future of the Chelsea Flower Show. Thankfully, this was wavered once the Royal Horticultural Society convinced the Government that the show had educational benefit and in 1920 a special tent was erected to house scientific exhibits. Whilst the original shows were housed within one tent, the provision of tents increased after the Great War ended. A tent for roses appeared and between 1920 and 1934, there was a tent for pictures, scientific exhibits and displays of garden design. Society garden parties began to be held, and soon the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show became a fixture of the London social calendar in May, attended by society ladies and their debutante daughters, the occasion used to parade the latter by the former. The Chelsea Flower Show, though not so exclusive today, is still a part of the London Season.
***Pied de Veau is a dish of calves feet served in a thick creamy chicken sauce, often served with carrots and onions.
****Cambridge Sausages are made from coarse ground lean and fatty pork with binder (rice in some receipts) and a heavy admixture of sweet spices such as mace, ginger and nutmeg, linked, in medium skins.
*****Salade Romaine is a salad made of Romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, parmesan cheese, and a delicious olive garden dressing.
******Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
*******Vol-au-Vent de Volaille à la Royale is a dish of sliced chicken with mushroom and quenelles cooked in a cream sauce served in a puff pastry casing. The Savoy’s kitchens were famous for their deliciously light and tasty vol-au-vent selections, with 1920s menus often containing a selection of four to six varieties as plats du jour.
********The term “cutting a rug” emerged in the 1920s from American culture and became common parlance on both sides of the Atlantic by the 1930s. It came about because of African American couples doing the Lindy Hop (also known as the Jitterbug). This was vigorous, highly athletic dancing that when done continuously in one area made the carpet appear as though it was “cut” or “gashed”. Selwyn using this language would have been at the front of the latest fashion for exciting youthful language from America.
*********Clendon is the family seat of the Duke and Duchess of Walmsford in Buckinghamshire.
**********A Bolter is old British slang for a woman who ended her marriage by running away with another man.
***********The Henley Royal regatta is a leisurely “river carnival” on the Thames. It was at heart a rowing race, first staged in 1839 for amateur oarsmen, but soon became another fixture on the London social calendar. Boating clubs competed, and were not exclusively British, and the event was well known for its American element. Evenings were capped by boat parties and punts, the air filled with military brass bands and illuminated by Chinese lanterns. Dress codes were very strict: men in collars, ties and jackets (garishly bright ties and socks were de rigueur in the 1920s) and crisp summer frocks, matching hats and parasols for the ladies.
************Cowes Week is one of the longest-running regular regattas in the world, and a fixture of the London Season. With forty daily sailing races, up to one thousand boats, and eight thousand competitors ranging from Olympic and world-class professionals to weekend sailors, it is the largest sailing regatta of its kind in the world. Having started in 1826, the event is held in August each year on the Solent (the area of water between southern England and the Isle of Wight made tricky by strong double tides). It is focussed on the small town of Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
This splendid array of cheeses on the table would doubtless be enough to please anyone, but I suspect that even if you ate each cheese and biscuit on this silver tray, you would still come away hungry. This is because they, like everything in this scene, are in reality 1:12 size miniatures from my miniatures collection, including pieces from my childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau:
The silver tray of biscuits have been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The cheeses and the vol-au-vents come from Beautifully handmade Miniatures in Kettering, as do the two slightly scalloped white gilt plates and the wonderful golden yellow roses in the vase on the table. The cutlery I acquired through Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The silver champagne cooler on the table is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The bottle of champagne itself is hand made from glass and is an artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The bottle is De Rochegré champagne, identified by the careful attention paid to recreating the label in 1:12 scale. The two glasses of sparkling champagne are made of real glass and were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
The two red velvet upholstered high back chairs I have had since I was six years old. They were a birthday present given to me by my grandparents.
The painting in the background in its gilded frame is a 1:12 artisan piece made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States.
The red wallpaper is beautiful artisan paper given to me by a friend, who has encouraged me to use a selection of papers she has given me throughout the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
Little angel from the Baltistan village of Turtuk, formerly part of Pakistan until 1971.
The Balti is an ethnic group of Tibetan descent with some Dardic admixture, who live in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, in addition, smaller populations also exist in Ladakh.
Dard people is an Indo-European minority. Their facial features, with their slender noses, Caucasian-looking eyes and relatively fair skin, do not share many similarities with Asian features.
INDIA. Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakh. Nubra Valley. 2014
According to neurologist Lauren Riters of the University of Wisconsin, starlings have among the longest and most complex songs of any birds in North America. They continually incorporate new sounds into their vocal arrangements, often mimicking frogs, goats, cats and even other birds. The result is an admixture: warbles, creaks, squeaks, whistles, throaty chirrups, twitters and raspy trills.
While singing, the starling syrinx vibrates in two separate parts, which allow one bird to sing harmonizing duets with itself. "Starlings sing because it makes them feel good," Riters explains.
"Most other birds only sing in spring, but starlings sing all year."
The Virgin who occupies the center of the apse semidome is represented enthroned with the Child seated in her lap. She rests her right hand on the Child's right shoulder, and her left, which holds a handkerchief, on the Child's left knee. The figure is complete except for an area of loss (roughly o.80 m. high and 0.70 wide) on the Virgin's left side corresponding to her left forearm and elbow, the Child's left hand, and part of the upper cushion placed on the throne. There is, furthermore, a fissure, caused by a structural crack in the shell of the semidome, which runs down the middle of the figure to the apex of the central window. It is clear that the mosaic was executed at a time when the semidome had already undergone the deformations it exhibits today.
The Child's Halo is outlined with three rows of red glass tesserae. The arms of the cross, which are nearly straight, are in white Proconnesian marble. The field of the halo is in gold, set concentrically. There is no admixture of silver cubes in the gold.
Narzans have a high iron content, which is why the stones around them have a peculiar rusty-orange color and look very picturesque against the background of bright greenery.
The melting glaciers of Elbrus give rise to many mountain streams and rivers that carry their turbulent flows into the valleys. All year round, the water of melting snow and heavy rains passes through the thickness of the rocks, being purified and saturated with carbon dioxide, absorbing various salts, metals and microelements. Then the water accumulates in underground lakes and comes to the surface as springs of amazing healing power. Scientists have calculated that the path of a drop of water from a glacier to a source is 6 years. This is how the famous narzans are born. From the local language, Narzan (Nart-Sane) is translated as a hero - water. According to legend, the water from the springs strengthened the strength of warriors, healed fatal wounds, and raised the hopelessly ill to their feet. Narzan is a water of low mineralization with an admixture of microelements, in particular, the narzans of Elbrus are rich in iron, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium. Magnesium reduces nervous strain and stress, improves memory. Due to the presence of sodium and potassium in the water, water-salt metabolism in the body is regulated.
The Cretan greyhound is one of the oldest hunting breeds in Europe. One of the best hunting dogs in the world, but also a unique breed of primitive greyhound, which still lives and develops in Crete.
It has been found on the island for more than 4000 years. The breed has roots that reach back to the Minoan era and due to the geographical isolation of Crete, the Hound evolved without any admixture, maintaining a particularly pure and stable genetic type.
In modern Greece, the breed was in danger of being lost, but thanks to the dedication of local hunters and breeders, it was saved. It is a living historical monument of Crete, and part of our own history.
Today, the Cretan greyhound is under national protection.
Red Wolves of Alligator River
The Red Wolf is the world’s most endangered Wolf. Once common throughout the Eastern and South-Central United States, Red Wolf populations were decimated by the early 20th century as a result of intensive predator control programs, as well as the degradation and alteration of the habitat that the species depends upon. When the Red Wolf was first designated as a species that was threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Preservation Act in 1967, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initiated efforts to conserve and recover the species. Today, about 15 to 17 red wolves roam their native habitats in eastern North Carolina as a nonessential experimental population, and approximately 241 Red Wolves are maintained in 45 captive breeding facilities throughout the United States.
For more Info: www.fws.gov/species/red-wolf-canis-rufus
The Red Wolf (Canis rufus) is a canine native to the Southeastern United States. Its size is intermediate between the coyote (Canis latrans) and Gray Wolf (Canis lupus).
The Red Wolf's taxonomic classification as being a separate species, a subspecies of the Gray Wolf Canis lupus rufus, or a Coywolf (a genetic admixture of Wolf and Coyote) has been contentious for nearly a century. Because of this, it is sometimes excluded from endangered species lists, despite its critically low numbers. Under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service currently recognizes the Red Wolf as an endangered species and grants protected status. Since 1996, the IUCN has listed the Red Wolf as a Critically Endangered Species; however, it is not listed in the CITES Appendices of Endangered Species.
For more Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_wolf
The whiskered tern (Chlidonias hybrida) is a tern in the family Laridae. The genus name is from Ancient Greek khelidonios, "swallow-like", from khelidon, "swallow".
This bird has a number of geographical races, differing mainly in size and minor plumage details.
C. h. hybrida breeds in warmer parts of Europe and the Palearctic (northwestern Africa and central and southern Europe to southeastern Siberia, eastern China and south to Pakistan and northern India). The smaller-billed and darker C. h. delalandii is found in east and south Africa, and the paler C. h. javanicus from Java to Australia.
The tropical forms are resident, but European and Asian birds winter south to Africa and the Indian Subcontinent.
This species breeds in colonies on inland marshes, sometimes amongst black-headed gulls, which provide some protection. The scientific name arises from the fact that this, the largest marsh tern, show similarities in appearance to both the white Sterna terns and to black tern.
The size, black cap, strong bill (29–34 mm in males, 25–27 mm and stubbier in females, with a pronounced gonys) and more positive flight recall common or Arctic tern, but the short, forked-looking tail and dark grey breeding plumage above and below are typically marsh tern characteristics. The summer adult has white cheeks and red legs and bill. The crown is flecked with white in the juvenile, and the hindcrown is more uniformly blackish, though in the winter adult this too is flecked with white. The black ear-coverts are joined to the black of the hindcrown, and the space above is mottled with white, causing the black to appear as a C-shaped band. The sides of the neck are white; this sometimes continues across the nape. The collar is less sharply defined. All through the year the rump is pale grey. In the juvenile, the mantle (279 mm) has a variegated pattern. The feathers of the back and scapulars are dark brown, with prominent broad buff edgings and often subterminal buff bars or centers. There is usually an admixture of new gray feathers, especially on the mantle, quite early in the fall. The mantle is silvery-gray in the adult. The call is a characteristic krekk.
In winter, the forehead becomes white and the body plumage a much paler grey. Juvenile whiskered terns have a ginger scaly back, and otherwise look much like winter adults. The first winter plumage is intermediate between juvenile and adult winter, with patchy ginger on the back.
The whiskered tern eats small fish, amphibians, insects and crustaceans.
For more information, please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskered_tern
Quinceañera
celebration
Alternate titles: quince, quinceaños
By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica • Edit History
Related Topics: coming-of-age rite
quinceañera, (Spanish: “15 years [feminine form]”) also called quinceaños or quince años or simply quince, the celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday, marking her passage from girlhood to womanhood; the term is also used for the celebrant herself. The quinceañera is both a religious and a social event that emphasizes the importance of family and society in the life of a young woman. It is celebrated in Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean, as well as in Latino communities in the United States and elsewhere.
The celebration begins with a mass attended by the girl and her family and godparents. Mass is followed by a reception, or party, to which friends and relatives are invited. The reception features food, music, and dancing, with the girl accompanied by her “court” of damas (“maids of honour”) and chambelánes (“chamberlains”). Symbolic actions may include the presentation of a doll to a younger sister, to show that the celebrant is giving up her childhood, and the placement of heeled shoes on her feet, to indicate that she is ready for womanhood. Traditionally, the dance portion of the quince includes a choreographed waltz-type dance that is prepared and is considered one of the main events of the evening. Toasts are often offered, and sometimes the cutting of a fancy cake is also involved. The celebration is generally as elaborate as the means of the family will allow. Although the quince observance originally signified that the girl was prepared for marriage, the modern celebration is more likely to signal the beginning of formal dating. Some girls choose a trip abroad rather than a party, and others now choose not to celebrate their 15th birthday in the traditional manner. Like many other rites and ceremonies, quinceañeras continue to evolve.
Because the Aztec and Maya also had such rite-of-passage customs, it is thought that the quinceañera may have originated in the admixture of Spanish culture (including Roman Catholicism) with that of the indigenous peoples the Spaniards colonized.
The white-footed fox (Vulpes vulpes pusilla), also known as the desert fox, is a small, Asiatic subspecies of red fox which occurs throughout most of northwestern Indian subcontinent, Pakistan's desert districts from Rawalpindi to Rajasthan and Kutch in India, Baluchistan, southern Iran, and Iraq. It is mostly found on sand-hills or in the broad sandy beds of semi-dry rivers, and only very rarely in fields, and then in the vicinity of sandy tracts.
It is similar in habits to the hill fox, but its diet is more carnivorous than that of other subspecies, and its prey is more restricted to gerbils and sand rats, due to the more barren habitat it occupies
Like the Turkmenian fox, the white-footed fox has a primitive, infantile skull compared to those of its northern cousins. It is smaller than the Afghan red and hill foxes, and never exhibits a red phase in its winter coat, nor the silvery, hoary phase of the Afghan red fox.It closely resembles the unrelated Bengal fox in size, but is distinguished by its longer tail and hind feet.As adults, their pelts are easily distinguished from other subspecies by the presence of a very distinct pale patch on each sides of the back behind the shoulders, which is overlapped by a dark, transverse stripe over the shoulders in front of the light patches. The colour on the back varies from brownish yellow to rusty red with slight admixture of white, while the flanks are whitish or greyish. The outer surface of the limbs are iron-grey or rufous, while the inner side of the forelegs and the whole front of the hind legs are white. The face is rufous, with dark markings around the eyes. The underparts are slaty in hue. The chin and the centre of the chest is white. The ear-tips are black or dark brown and paler at the base, lined with whitish hairs. The tail is almost the same colour as the back, but is less rufous on the sides and beneath. Most of the tail's hairs are black, and may form a dark ring at the end of the tail. The tip is white.
Turtuk is a Baltistan village , formerly part of Pakistan until 1971. Today, Turtuk is the last inhabited frontier by Balti Muslims before the border.
The Balti is an ethnic group of Tibetan descent with some Dardic admixture, who live in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, in addition, smaller populations also exist in Ladakh.
Higher output, faster acceleration and increased top speed plus the possibility of driving with only 1,5 % oil admixture instead of 3 % were the big news on the 1966 models. A triple carburettor raised the output to 42 bhp and top speed to 125 km/h. The three-speed gearbox had been phased out, but it was still possible to have the semi-automatic Saxomat clutch and a sunroof against a surcharge.
841 cc
3 Cylinder 2-stroke
42 bhp
Vmax : 125 km/h
Saab Car Museum
Åkerssjövägen 18
Trollhättan
Sverige - Sweden
July 2012
The Pilgrim Herb Garden - Abbey House
Heritage Category: Listed Building
Grade: II*
List Entry Number: 1141178
Date first listed: 07-Aug-1952
Date of most recent amendment: 30-Oct-1997
Statutory Address: ABBEY HOUSE, 30, ANGEL HILL
National Grid Reference: TL8555064176
Details
TL8564SE 639-1/8/182 07/08/52
BURY ST EDMUNDS ANGEL HILL (East side) No.30 Abbey House (Formerly Listed as: ANGEL HILL (East side) No.30 Abbey Flats)
GV II*
House, now offices. Late C16 core to part; late C18 rear range; facade of c1820; mid-C19 additions to south side and part of rear. Front range timber-framed in part and rendered; slate roof with parapet and cornice.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attics; cellar to part. Both front and rear parts of the house are built up against a section of the precinct wall of the former Abbey of St Edmund. 7 window range: small-paned sashes in deep reveals with eared and shouldered architraves and stone sills. Central doorway with panelled reveals and soffit and a 6-panel door within a projecting distyle Ionic porch. The C18 rear range is higher than the front and overlaps it on the north side. In random flint with an admixture of stone blocks and red brick; plaintiled mansard roof with a plain red brick parapet. 2 storeys and attics; gable-end chimney-stacks, one truncated. Venetian windows to the ground and 1st storeys face eastwards towards the Abbey Gardens; both have small-paned sash windows. 3 flat-headed dormers with sash windows in the lower slope of the roof. One 12-pane sash window in a flush cased frame in the north gable wall. Behind the south half of the front a 2-storey C19 extension in flint and red brick with a slate roof has segmental-arched window openings and C20 replacement windows. It links with an earlier C19 range, in flint and red brick with a hipped slate roof, which was formerly free-standing.
INTERIOR: the left half of the front range, including the doorway, has fragmentary remains of a jettied late C16 timber frame. Cellars (now used as offices) with original beam-and-joist ceilings. The walls were slightly raised and the roof replaced at a shallower pitch during extensive building work in the 1820s. A fine mid-to-late C18 stair, with enriched turned balusters and a plain handrail, rises from the rear of the central entrance hall. A similar stair, probably initially part of the main flight, is in the north-east corner of the front range. The C18 rear range was designed with impressive rooms on the ground and 1st storeys. The inside of the Venetian window is enriched with reeded Ionic pilasters and a moulded cornice above the lights; shutters with sunk panels. Moulded surrounds to the doorways and dentilled architraves; a heavy plaster modillion cornice to the ceiling. The walls have ornate plaster swags with bows, supported by lions' heads. A roundel containing a plaster head in profile is suspended from the swag over the rear door by a bow and cord. In the upper room later partitions until recently divided up the Venetian window and a low inserted ceiling cuts off the arch; some of the interior mouldings are missing and no ornamental plasterwork remains. The upper storeys of this rear range form a complex of small rooms and attics. The development of the building between c1770 and c1830 is shown in a series of C18 and early C19 prints and paintings of Bury St Edmunds. (BOE: Pevsner N: Radcliffe E: Suffolk: London: 1974-: 148).
Listing NGR: TL8555064176
Sources
Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Suffolk, (1974), 148
The whiskered Tern has a black cap, strong bill (29–34 mm in males, 25–27 mm and stubbier in females, with a pronounced gonys) and more positive flight recall common or Arctic tern, but the short, forked-looking tail and dark grey breeding plumage above and below are typically marsh tern characteristics. The summer adult has white cheeks and red legs and bill. The crown is flecked with white in the juvenile, and the hindcrown is more uniformly blackish, though in the winter adult this too is flecked with white. The black ear-coverts are joined to the black of the hindcrown, and the space above is mottled with white, causing the black to appear as a C-shaped band. The sides of the neck are white; this sometimes continues across the nape. The collar is less sharply defined. All through the year the rump is pale grey. In the juvenile, the mantle (279 mm) has a variegated pattern. The feathers of the back and scapulars are dark brown, with prominent broad buff edgings and often subterminal buff bars or centers. There is usually an admixture of new gray feathers, especially on the mantle, quite early in the fall. The mantle is silvery-gray in the adult. In winter, the forehead becomes white and the body plumage a much paler grey. Juvenile whiskered terns have a ginger scaly back, and otherwise look much like winter adults. The first winter plumage is intermediate between juvenile and adult winter, with patchy ginger on the back.
To continue from where one left it earlier. Here is another admixture of styles.
This is a red and navy blue dress embellished with paisley and floral Kashmiri style of embroidery in dull gold thread. All this in an Empire cut.
The hemline sports sequin work
This is what is known as an "Anarkali" and is widely popular in India now a days as wedding attire.
Puffed sleeves and a buttoned Chinese collar make a strong presence of cross influences in the design fraternity.
The original idea was to have the model in an exotic confused Alice in Indian wonderland.
Dates
Taken on September 14, 2013 at 11.43AM IST (edit)
Posted to Flickr November 3, 2013 at 10.50PM IST (edit)
Exif data
Camera Nikon D800
Exposure 0.003 sec (1/320)
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 38 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
_DSC1017 with brightness and effects plus sharpened and halo removed
The Kalash (Urdu: کیلاش ;Nuristani: Kasivo) or Kalasha, are indigenous people of the Hindu Kush mountain range, residing in the Chitral district of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. They speak the Kalash language, from the Dardic family of Indo-Iranic, and are considered a unique tribe among the Indo-Aryan stock
Etymology
According to the linguist Richard Strand, the people of Chitral apparently adopted the name of the former Kafiristan Kalasha, who at some unknown time extended their influence into Chitral.[2] A reference for this assumption could be the names kâsv'o respectively kâsi'o, used by the neighboring Nuristani Kata and Kom for the Kalash of Chitral. From these the earlier name kâs'ivo (instead Kalasha) could be derived
Culture
The culture of Kalash people is unique and differs drastically from the various ethnic groups surrounding them. They are polytheists and nature plays a highly significant and spiritual role in their daily life. As part of their religious tradition, sacrifices are offered and festivals held to give thanks for the abundant resources of their three valleys[3]. Kalash mythology and folklore has been compared to that of ancient Greece[4], but they are much closer to Indo-Iranian (Vedic and pre-Zoroastrian) traditions [5]
Language
The language of the Kalash is a Dardic language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian group; itself part of the larger Indo-European family. It is classified as a member of the Chitral sub-group, the only other member of that group being Khowar. The Norwegian Linguist Georg Morgenstierne who studied both languages wrote that in spite of similarities Kalasha is an independent language in its own right, not a mere dialect of Khowar.[6][7] Currently about 5,000 people speak Kalasha and it is considered critically endangered by UNESCO. [8] Badshah Munir Bukhari unicoded the Kalasha Language in 2005. Working in close collaboration with various international researchers and linguists, Kalash linguist Taj Khan Kalash organized first "Kalasha Orthography Conference 2000"in Islamabad Pakistan. In 2004 he was able to raise funds to publish first alphabet book of Kalasha language based on Roman script designed by an Australian linguist Gregory R. Cooper.
Customs
There is some controversy over what defines the ethnic characteristics of the Kalash. Although quite numerous before the 20th century, the non-Muslim minority has seen its numbers dwindle over the past century. A leader of the Kalash, Saifulla Jan, has stated, "If any Kalash converts to Islam, they can't live among us anymore. We keep our identity strong."[9] About three thousand have converted to Islam or are descendants of converts, yet still live nearby in the Kalash villages and maintain their language and many aspects of their ancient culture. By now, sheikhs, or converts to Islam, make up more than half of the total Kalasha-speaking population.[10]
Kalash women usually wear long black robes, often embroidered with cowrie shells. For this reason, they are known in Chitral as "The Black Kafirs". Men have adopted the Pakistani shalwar kameez, while children wear small versions of adult clothing after the age of four.
In contrast to the surrounding Pakistani culture, the Kalash do not in general separate males and females or frown on contact between the sexes. However, menstruating girls and women are sent to live in the "bashaleni", the village menstrual building, during their periods, until they regain their "purity". They are also required to give birth in the bashaleni. There is also a ritual restoring "purity" to a woman after childbirth which must be performed before a woman can return to her husband.[11] The husband is an active participant in this ritual.
Marriage by elopement is rather frequent, also involving women who are already married to another man. Indeed, wife-elopement is counted as one of the "great customs" (ghōna dastūr) together with the main festivals.
Girls are usually married at an early age. If a woman wants to change husbands, she will write a letter to her prospective husband offering herself in marriage and informing the would-be groom how much her current husband paid for her. This is because the new husband must pay double if he wants her. For example, if the current husband paid one cow for her, then the new husband must pay two cows to the original husband if he wants her.
Wife-elopement may lead in some rare cases to a quasi-feud between clans until peace is negotiated by mediators, in the form of the double bride-price paid by the new husband to the ex-husband. [12]
Kalash lineages (kam) separate as marriageable descendants have separated by over seven generations. A rite of "breaking agnation" (tatbře čhin) marks that previous agnates (tatbře) are now permissible affines (därak "clan partners).[12] Each kam has a separate shrine in the clan's Jēṣṭak-hān, the temple to lineal or familial goddess Jēṣṭak.
Festivals
The three main festivals (khawsáṅgaw) of the Kalash [13] are the Joshi festival in late May, the Uchau in autumn, and the Caumus in midwinter.[14]
The pastoral god Sorizan protects the herds in Fall and Winter and is thanked at the winter festival, while Goshidai does so until the Pul festival (pũ. from *pūrṇa, full moon in Sept.) and is thanked at the Joshi (joṣi, žōši) festival in spring.
Joshi is celebrated at the end of May each year. The first day of Joshi is "Milk Day", on which the Kalash offer libations of milk that have been saved for ten days prior to the festival.
The most important Kalash festival is the Chaumos (cawmōs, ghona chawmos yat, Khowar "chitrimas" from *cāturmāsya, CDIAL 4742), which is celebrated for two weeks at winter solstice (c. Dec. 7-22), at the beginning of the month chawmos mastruk. It marks the end of the year's fieldwork and harvest. It involves much music, dancing, and the sacrifice of many goats. It is dedicated to the god Balimain who is believed to visit from the mythical homeland of the Kalash, Tsyam (Tsiyam, tsíam), for the duration of the feast. Food sacrifices are offered at the clans' Jeshtak shrines, dedicated to the ancestors.
A Kalash man dances during the Uchau FestivalAt Chaumos, impure and uninitiated persons are not admitted; they must be purified by a waving a fire brand over women and children and by a special fire ritual for men, involving a shaman waving juniper brands over the men. The 'old rules' of the gods (Devalog, dewalōk) are no longer in force, as is typical for year-end and carnival-like rituals. The main Chaumos ritual takes place at a Tok tree, a place called Indra's place, "indrunkot", or "indréyin". Indrunkot is sometimes believed to belong to Balumain's brother, In(dr), lord of cattle. [15] Ancestors, impersonated by young boys (ōnjeṣṭa 'pure') are worshipped and offered bread; they hold on to each other and form a chain (cf. the Vedic anvārambhaṇa) and snake through the village.
The men must be divided into two parties: the pure ones have to sing the well-honored songs of the past, but the impure sing wild, passionate, and obscene songs, with an altogether different rhythm. This is accompanied by a 'sex change': men dress as women, women as men (Balumain also is partly seen as female and can change between both forms at will). [15]
This includes the Festival of the Budulak (buḍáḷak, the 'shepherd king'). In this festival, a strong prepubescent boy is sent up into the mountains to live with the goats for the summer. He is supposed to get fat and strong from the goat milk. When the festival comes he is allowed for a 24-hour period only to have sexual intercourse with any woman he wants, including even the wife of another man, or a young virgin or his own mother if he wants her. Any child born of this 24-hour rampage is considered to be blessed. The Kalash claim to have abolished this practice in recent years due to negative worldwide publicity.
At this crucial moment the pure get weaker, and the impure try to take hold of the (very pure) boys, pretend to mount them "like a hornless ram", and proceed in snake procession. At this point, the impure men resist and fight. When the "nagayrō" song with the response "han sarías" (from *samrīyate 'flows together', CDIAL 12995) is voiced, Balumain showers all his blessings and disappears. He gives his blessings to seven boys (representing the mythical seven of the eight Devalog who received him on arrival), and these pass the blessings on to all pure men. [15]
In myth, Mahandeu had cheated Balumain from superiority, when all the gods had slept together (a euphemism) in the Shawalo meadow; therefore, he went to the mythical home of the Kalash in Tsiyam (tsíam) , to come back next year like the Vedic Indra (Rigveda 10.86). If this had not happened, Balumain would have taught humans how to have sex as a sacred act. Instead, he could only teach them fertility songs used at the Chaumos ritual. He arrives from the west, the (Kati Kafir) Bashgal valley, in early December, before solstice, and leaves the day after. He was at first shunned by some people, who were annihilated. He was however, received by seven Devalog and they all went to several villages, such as Batrik village, where seven pure, young boys received him whom he took with him. Therefore, nowadays, one only sends men and older boys to receive him. Balumain is the typical culture hero. He told people about the sacred fire made from junipers, about the sowing ceremony for wheat that involved the blood of a small goat, and he asked for wheat tribute (hushak) for his horse. Finally, Balumain taught how to celebrate the winter festival. He was visible only during his first visit, now he is just felt to be present. [15]
[edit] Religion
Kalash culture and belief system differs from the various ethnic groups surrounding them but is similar to that of the neighboring Nuristanis in northeast Afghanistan, before their enforced Islamization in the last decade of the 19th century. The Kalash people are unique in their customs and religion.
There is a creator deity called Dezau (ḍezáw) whose name is derived from Indo-European *dheig'h 'to form' (cf. Vedic dih, Kati Nuristani dez 'to create', CDIAL 14621); he is also called by the Pashto term Khodai. There are a number of other deities, semi-gods and spirits. The Kalash pantheon is thus one of the last living representatives of Indo-European religion, along with Hinduism and Zoroastrianism.
There is the prominent Indr or Varendr (Warín, Werín from *aparendra); the rainbow (indré~ CDIAL 1577) is called "Indra's bow" as in Vedic; when it thunders, Indra plays Polo. Indra is attested both in Vedic and Avestan texts and goes back to Indo-Iranian deity Vṛtrahan the 'slayer of vṛtra' (resistance).
Indra appears in various form, such as Sajigor (Sajigōr), also called Shura Verin (Šúra Werín from *śūra *aparendra 'the hero, the unrivaled Indra'). Warén(dr-) or In Warīn is the mightiest and most dangerous god. The location of his shrine was assigned by bow shot, which recalls the Vedic Indra's Bunda bow [15]. Another one of his forms is the recently popular Balumain (Baḷimaín). Riding on a horse, comes to the Kalash valleys from the outside at winter solstice. Balumain is a culture hero who taught how to celebrate the Kalash winter festival (Chaumos). He is connected with Tsyam, the mythological homeland of the Kalash. Indra has a demon-like counterpart, Jeṣṭan (from *jyeṣṭha? 'the best'), who appears on earth as a dog; the gods (Devalog, Dewalók) are his enemies and throw stones at him, the shooting stars. [15]
Another god, Munjem Malik (munjem from *madhyama 'middle'; malék from Arab. malik 'king'), is the Lord of Middle Earth and killed, like the Vedic Indra, his father. Mahandeo (mahandéo, cf. the Nuristani Mon/Māndi, from *mahān deva), is the god of crops, and also the god of war and a negotiator with the highest deity. [15]
Jestak (jéṣṭak, from *jyeṣṭhā, or *deṣṭrī?) is the goddess of domestic life, family and marriage. Her lodge is the women's house (Jeṣṭak Han).
Dezalik (ḍizálik), the sister of "Dezau" is the goddess of childbirth, the hearth and of life force; she protects children and women. She is similar to the Kafiri Nirmali (Indo-Iranian *nirmalikā). She is also responsible for the Bashaleni lodge.
There also is a general pattern of belief in mountain fairies, Suchi (súči, now often called Peri), who help in hunting and killing enemies, and the Varōti (~ Sanskrit Vātaputra), their violent male partners (echoing the Vedic Apsaras and Gandharvas). They live in the high mountains, such as Tirich Mir (~ Vedic Meru, *devameru: Shina díamer, CDIAL 6533), but in late autumn they descend to the mountain meadows. The Jach (j.ac. from *yakṣ(inī), are a separate category of female spirits of the soil or of special places, fields and mountain pastures. [15]
There is some confusion regarding to the present status of the Kalash, as some sources are stating that Islamic fundamentalists have converted all the Kalash, while some other sources stating that there are still some pagan Kalash remaining. According to the latter source, during the seventies, when local Muslims forced a number of conversions upon the Kalash, their numbers shrank to just two thousand. However, with protection from the government, a decrease in voluntary conversion and a great reduction in the child mortality rate, the last two decades have seen their numbers double.[16] Recently there was some controversy when two Kalash girls converted to Islam.[17]
Ritual
These deities have shrines throughout the valleys, where they frequently receive goat sacrifices. In 1929, as Georg Morgenstierne testifies, such rituals were still carried out by Kalash priests, "ištikavan" 'priest' (from ištikhék 'to praise a god'). This institution has since disappeared but there still is the prominent one of shamans (dehar) [18] The deities are temporary visitors. Kalash shrines (dūr 'house', cf. Vedic dúr) are a wooden board or stone altar at juniper, oak, cedar trees, in 1929 still with the effigy of a human head inside holes in these shrines. Horses, cows, goats and sheep were sacrificed. Wine is a sacred drink of Indr, who owns a vineyard that he defends against invaders. Kalash ritual is of potlatch type; by organizing rituals and festivals (up to 12; the highest called biramōr) one gains fame and status. As in the Veda, the former local artisan class was excluded from public religious functions. [15]
However, there is a special role for prepubescent boys, who are treated with special awe, combining pre-sexual behavior and the purity of the high mountains, where they tend goats for the summer month. Purity is very much stressed and centered around altars, goat stables, the space between the hearth and the back wall of houses and in festival periods; the higher up in the valley, the more pure the location. [15]
By contrast, women (especially during menstruation and giving birth), as well as death and decomposition and the outside (Muslim) world are impure, and, just as in the Veda and Avesta, many cleansing ceremonies are required if impurity occurs. [15]
Crows represent the ancestors, and are frequently fed with the left hand (also at tombs), just as in the Veda. The dead are buried above ground in ornamented wooden coffins. Wooden effigies are erected at the graves of wealthy or honoured people.[15], [19][20]
History
The Kalash are known as indigenous people of Chitral, and their ancestors migrated to Chitral from Afghanistan in the 2nd century BC.[21] It is thought the Kalash descendants migrated to Afghanistan from a distant place in South Asia, which the Kalash call “Tsiyam” in their folk songs and epics.[21]
The Kalash were ruled by the Mehtar of Chitral from the 1700s onward. They have enjoyed a cordial relationship with the major ethnic group of Chitral, the Kho who are Sunni and Ismaili Muslims. The multi-ethnic and multi-religious State of Chitral ensured that the Kalash were able to live in peace and harmony and practice their culture and religion. The Nuristani, their neighbours in the region of former Kafiristan west of the border, were converted to Islam by Amir Abdur-Rahman of Afghanistan in the 1890s and their land was renamed Nuristan.
Prior to that event, the people of Kafiristan had paid tribute to the Mehtar of Chitral and accepted his suzerainty. This came to an end with the Durand Agreement when Kafiristan fell under the Afghan sphere of Influence. Recently, the Kalash have been able to stop their demographic and cultural spiral towards extinction and have, for the past 30 years, been on the rebound. Increased international awareness, a more tolerant government, and monetary assistance has allowed them to continue their way of life. Their numbers remain stable at around 3,000. Although many convert to Islam, the high birth rate replaces them, and with medical facilities (previously there were none) they live longer.
Allegations of "immorality" connected with their practices have led to the forcible conversion to Islam of several villages in the 1950s, which has led to heightened antagonism between the Kalash and the surrounding Muslims. Since the 1970s, schools and roads were built in some valleys.[22]
Rehman and Ali (2001) report that pressure of radical Muslim organizations is on the increase:
Ardent Muslims on self-imposed missions to eradicate idolatry regularly attack those engaged in traditional Kalash religious rituals, smashing their idols. The local Mullahs and the visiting Tableghi Jammaites remain determined to 'purify' the Kafirs.[23]
Location, climate and geography
Located in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, the Kalash people live in three isolated mountain valleys: Bumboret (Kalash: Mumret), Rumbur (Rukmu), and Birir (Biriu). These valleys are opening towards the Kunar River, some 20 km south (downstream) of Chitral,
The Bumboret and Rumbur valleys join at 35°44′20″N 71°43′40″E / 35.73889°N 71.72778°E / 35.73889; 71.72778 (1640 m), joining the Kunar at the village of Ayrun (35°42′52″N 71°46′40″E / 35.71444°N 71.77778°E / 35.71444; 71.77778, 1400 m) and they each rise to passes connecting to Afghanistan's Nuristan Province at about 4500 m.
The Birir valley opens towards the Kunar at the village of Gabhirat (35°40′8″N 71°45′15″E / 35.66889°N 71.75417°E / 35.66889; 71.75417, 1360 m). A pass connects the Birir and Bumboret valleys at about 3000 m. The Kalash villages in all three valleys are located at a height of approximately 1900 to 2200 m.
The region is extremely fertile, covering the mountainside in rich oak forests and allowing for intensive agriculture, despite the fact that most of the work is done not by machinery, but by hand. The powerful and dangerous rivers that flow through the valleys have been harnessed to power grinding mills and to water the farm fields through the use of ingenious irrigation channels. Wheat, maize, grapes (generally used for wine), apples, apricots and walnuts are among the many foodstuffs grown in the area, along with surplus fodder used for feeding the livestock.[24]
The climate is typical of high elevation regions without large bodies of water to regulate the temperature. The summers are mild and agreeable with average maximum temperatures between 23° and 27°C (73° - 81°F). Winters, on the other hand, can be very cold, with average minimum temperatures between 2° and 1°C (36° - 34°F). The average yearly precipitation is 700 to 800 mm (28 - 32 inches).
Genetic origins
Rosenberg et al. (2006) ran simulations dividing autosomal gene frequencies in selected populations into a given number of clusters. For 7 or more clusters, a cluster (yellow) appears which is nearly unique to the Kalash. Smaller amounts of Kalash gene frequencies join clusters associated with Europe and Middle East (blue) and with South Asia (red).Some in the academic community have speculated that the Kalash might be from ancient Middle Eastern populations[25], an indigenous population from South Asia[26], or members of Alexander the Great's army.[27] Though often overstated, instances of blond hair or light eyes are not uncommon.
In a 2005 study of ASPM gene variants, Mekel-Bobrov et al. found that the Kalash people of Pakistan have among the highest rate of the newly-evolved ASPM haplogroup D, at 60% occurrence of the approximately 6,000-year-old allele.[28].
The Kalash also have been shown to exhibit the exceedingly rare 19 allele value at autosomal marker D9S1120 at a frequency higher than the majority of other world populations which do have it.[29]
Firasat et al. (2006) conclude that the Kalash lack typical Greek haplogroups (e.g. haplogroup 21),[30] On the other hand, a study by Qamar et al. (2002) found that even though "no support for a Greek origin of their Y chromosomes was found" in the Kalash, Greek y-chromosome admixture could be as high as 20% to 40%.[31] Considering the apparent absence of haplogroup 21 in the local population, one of the possibilities suggested was because of genetic drift.[31] On the basis of Y chromosome allele frequency, some researchers describe the exact Greek contribution to Kalash as unclear. [32]
Another study with Qasim Ayub, and S. Qasim Mehdi, and led by Quintana-Murci claims that "the western Eurasian presence in the Kalash population reaches a frequency of 100%, the most prevalent [mtDNA] haplogroup being U4, (pre-HV)1, U2e, and J2," and that they show "no detectable East or South Asian lineages. The outlying genetic position is seen in all analyses. Moreover, although this population is composed of western Eurasian lineages, the most prevalent ... are rare or absent in the surrounding populations and usually characterize populations from Eastern Europe, the middle East and the Caucasus... All these observations bear witness to the strong effects of genetic drift of the Kalash population... However, a western Eurasian origin for this population is likely, in view of their maternal lineages, which can ultimately be traced back to the Middle East". [33]
The estimates by Qamar et al. of Greek admixture has been dismissed by Toomas Kivisild et al. (2003): “some admixture models and programs that exist are not always adequate and realistic estimators of gene flow between populations ... this is particularly the case when markers are used that do not have enough restrictive power to determine the source populations ... or when there are more than two parental populations. In that case, a simplistic model using two parental populations would show a bias towards overestimating admixture”.[34]
The study came to the conclusion that the Pakistani Kalash population estimate by (Qamar et al. 2002) “is unrealistic and is likely also driven by the low marker resolution that pooled southern and western Asian–specific Y-chromosome haplogroup H together with European-specific haplogroup I, into an uninformative polyphyletic cluster 2”.[34]
A study by Rosenberg et al. (2006) employing genetic testing among the Kalash population concluded that they are, in fact, a distinct (and perhaps aboriginal) population with only minor contributions from outside peoples. In one cluster analysis with (K = 7), the Kalash formed one cluster, the others being Africans, Europeans/Middle Easterners/South Asians, East Asians, Melanesians, and Native Americans. [35]
A genetic study published led by Firasat (2007) on Kalash individuals found high and diverse frequencies of :Haplogroup L3a (22.7%), H1* (20.5%), R1a (18.2%), G (18.2%), J2 (9.1%), R* (6.8%), R1* (2.3%), and L* (2.3%)[36]. Haplogroup L originates from prehistoric South Asia.
In the recent study: "Worldwide Human Relationships Inferred from Genome-Wide Patterns of Variation (2008)", geneticists using more than 650,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) samples from the Human Genome Diversity Panel, found deep rooted lineages that could be distinguished in the Kalash. The results showed them not only to be distinct, but perfectly clustered within the Central/South Asian populations at (K = 7). The study also showed the Kalash to be a separated group, with having no membership within European populations.[37]
Economy
Historically a goat herding and subsistence farming people, the Kalash are moving towards a cash-based economy whereas previously wealth was measured in livestock and crops. Tourism now makes up a large portion of the economic activities of the Kalash. To cater to these new visitors, small stores and guest houses have been erected, providing new luxury for visitors of the valleys.[38] People attempting to enter the valleys have to pay a toll to the Pakistani government, which is used to preserve and care for the Kalash people and their culture.
The cherry tomato is a type of small round tomato believed to be an intermediate genetic admixture between wild currant-type tomatoes and domesticated garden tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes range in size from a thumbtip up to the size of a golf ball, and can range from spherical to slightly oblong in shape. Although usually red, other varieties such as yellow, green, and black also exist.Those shaped like an oblong share characteristics with plum tomatoes and are known as grape tomatoes.
he cherry tomato is believed to be the direct ancestor of modern cultivated tomatoes and is the only wild tomato found outside South America. The tomato is thought to have been first domesticated in the Puebla-Veracruz area of Mexico and to have reached this area from South America in the form of a weedy cherry tomato.
The first direct reference to the cherry tomato has to appear in 1623, in a work called Pinax theatri botanici (“Illustrated exposition of plants”) by Swiss botanist Caspar Bauhin, which contains descriptions and classifications of approximately six thousand species. In a section on "Solanum" (nightshades), Bauhin wrote of a variety called “Solanum racemosum cerasoru[m] forma,” which translates to "Solanum [that is] full of clusters [racemosum], in the form (shape) of cherries".
Cherry tomatoes have been popular in the United States since at least 1919. Recipes using cherry tomatoes can be found in articles dating back to 1967.
The whiskered tern (Chlidonias hybrida) is a tern in the family Laridae. The genus name is from Ancient Greek khelidonios, "swallow-like", from khelidon, "swallow". The specific hybridus is Latin for hybrid; Pallas thought it might be a hybrid of white-winged black tern and common tern, writing "Sterna fissipes [Chlidonias leucopterus] et Hirundine [Sterna hirundo] natam”.
This bird has a number of geographical races, differing mainly in size and minor plumage details.
C. h. hybrida breeds in warmer parts of Europe and the Palearctic (northwestern Africa and central and southern Europe to southeastern Siberia, eastern China and south to Pakistan and northern India). The smaller-billed and darker C. h. delalandii is found in east and south Africa, and the paler C. h. javanicus from Java to Australia.
The tropical forms are resident, but European and Asian birds winter south to Africa and the Indian Subcontinent. A tagged whiskered tern was spotted at Manakudi Bird Sanctuary, Kanniyakumari District of Tamil Nadu, India in the month of April 2021.
This species breeds in colonies on inland marshes, sometimes amongst black-headed gulls, which provide some protection. The scientific name arises from the fact that this, the largest marsh tern, show similarities in appearance to both the white Sterna terns and to black tern.
The size, black cap, strong bill (29–34 mm in males, 25–27 mm and stubbier in females, with a pronounced gonys) and more positive flight recall common or Arctic tern, but the short, forked-looking tail and dark grey breeding plumage above and below are typically marsh tern characteristics. The summer adult has white cheeks and red legs and bill. The crown is flecked with white in the juvenile, and the hindcrown is more uniformly blackish, though in the winter adult this too is flecked with white. The black ear-coverts are joined to the black of the hindcrown, and the space above is mottled with white, causing the black to appear as a C-shaped band. The sides of the neck are white; this sometimes continues across the nape. The collar is less sharply defined. All through the year the rump is pale grey. In the juvenile, the mantle (279 mm) has a variegated pattern. The feathers of the back and scapulars are dark brown, with prominent broad buff edgings and often subterminal buff bars or centers. There is usually an admixture of new gray feathers, especially on the mantle, quite early in the fall. The mantle is silvery-gray in the adult. The call is a characteristic krekk.
In winter, the forehead becomes white and the body plumage a much paler grey. Juvenile whiskered terns have a ginger scaly back, and otherwise look much like winter adults. The first winter plumage is intermediate between juvenile and adult winter, with patchy ginger on the back.
The whiskered tern eats small fish, amphibians, insects and crustaceans.
For more information, please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskered_tern
I eventually found out what this mysterious place is, and that it is actually a 'scheduled monument' of historic importance. It's amazing how in less than 100 years an industrial site has been transformed by nature to become such a mysterious place. It's been hard enough to find any information on this, so it has made me wonder how difficult it is for archaeologists to establish the correct history of sites that might be thousands of years old.
See historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1450800
The standing and buried remains of a chemical plant of 1908 producing soda ash (sodium bicarbonate) by the Solvay method, and of 1915 for the experimental manufacture and then production of calcium nitrate as an ingredient of munitions explosives.
Reasons for Designation:
The former soda ash and calcium nitrate works at Plumley is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
Rarity: the site is a rare example of a surviving ammonia-soda works (a key element of the alkali industry, one of the most important chemical industries in England with many technological developments made here), in particular as a competitor to the pre-eminent Brunner Mond company;
Diversity: also including remains relating to calcium nitrate manufacture on an experimental and production basis, making a very significant national contribution to the manufacture of explosives for the First World War;
Survival: the remains of both works survive well and are readable as earthworks and upstanding structures, with some buried remains;
Potential: the surviving remains have strong potential to yield further information to specialist analysis and investigation, enhancing our understanding of both works.
History:
The alkali industry is defined as the harvesting or mining of sources of potassium and sodium, and the processing of these materials to produce carbonates or hydroxides of the metals (known as potash or soda, for potassium and sodium respectively). Alkali was mainly required for the production of soap and glass. The combustion of wood or bracken in a potash kiln (also known as an elling hearth) originally supplied the need for alkali. In the C17 the production of alkali from seaweed was introduced into this country, burning the dried seaweed in a kelp pit, commonly situated just above the shoreline. From 1795 the LeBlanc process was introduced on Tyneside from France, producing soda (in this case, sodium carbonate) from salt (sodium chloride); thereafter, making soda using salt was firmly the basis of bulk alkali production. In the C19 salt was largely provided by salt workings in Cheshire, although later in the century Teesside salt supplied the alkali industry in north-east England. The alkali industry soon became one of the most important chemical industries in this country and many technological developments were made here.
The ammonia-soda alkali industry was based on a process first discovered in 1810, and first made commercially successful by a Belgian - Ernest Solvay - in 1865. It was introduced to this country by John Brunner and Ludwig Mond (Brunner Mond) in 1872, with production starting at their Winnington (Cheshire) works in 1873. It was based in the Northwich area of Cheshire, with only three works established elsewhere. The Solvay process carbonated brine (which first had been saturated with ammonia), to give sodium bicarbonate and ammonium chloride, from which the ammonia was recovered, leaving calcium chloride and water. The key feature of Solvay-type ammonia-soda plants were the distinctive carbonation towers, between 70 and 90 feet tall.
AMMONIA-SODA PLANT Prior to 1926 (and the formation of the conglomerate ICI by the merger of Brunner Mond with three other companies), five other ammonia-soda works were built in addition to Winnington, Plumley being one of these. Most were short-lived, being either bought out by Brunner Mond, or closed down due to competition with them. The works at Plumley (also known as Plumbley) were established by the Ammonia Soda Company Ltd (Ascol) which was formed in 1908 by Ivan Levinstein, Arthur Chamberlain and others for that purpose. (It appears to be coincidence, given the later use of the site for manufacturing ingredients for explosives, that Chamberlain was the chairman of the Birmingham ammunition manufacturers G Kynoch & Co, as there is no known application for soda in the manufacture of ammunition propellant). In 1912 the firm became a public company. Brunner Mond bought out the land around this works, sank two brine shafts on the other side of the railway and pumped brine from there for their Lostock works, and also daily sampled the stream below the works in the hope of finding evidence of pollution. Possibly due to these activities, Ascol struggled and profits were disappointing.
CALCIUM NITRATE PLANT The production of nitric acid (used in producing TNT) required ammonium nitrate, which was also used directly as an admixture for finished TNT to create Amatol, a cheaper alternative. The outbreak of the First World War and demand for high explosives therefore dramatically increased the requirement for ammonium nitrate. The conversion of sodium nitrate (mainly from Chile) into ammonium nitrate became a primary aim. In 1910 Dr FA Freeth (chief chemist at Brunner Mond) had devised a method which combined sodium nitrate and ammonium sulphate to give ammonium nitrate plus sodium sulphate. This was difficult in unpredictable English temperatures, and although a plant at Swindon produced over 24,000 tons in 1918, the Americans produced much more by this method, which was freely granted to them.
An alternative was to use sodium nitrate and calcium chloride to create calcium nitrate. This could then be treated with ammonia (in which Britain was rich) and carbonic acid to give ammonium nitrate. The Solvay process created calcium chloride as a by-product, and an experimental plant to produce calcium nitrate was established in 1915 at Plumley, which had come under the control of the Ministry of Munitions. This was quickly followed, beginning in 1916, by large-scale production, which was also established at the Salt Union’s Victoria Works near Northwich (Cheshire). These plants supplied Brunner Mond’s ammonium nitrate production, mainly at Lostock-Gralam, near Plumley. Overall, Plumley produced slightly less calcium nitrate than Victoria, but was only overtaken in 1918.
The importance of the supply of explosives has led the First World War to be dubbed ‘a chemist’s war’. The skill of a nation’s scientists was now as important as the valour of its soldiers in determining the outcome of the war. The size and sophistication of its chemical industry and research facilities were as critical as the size of its armies. After the First World War, Lord Moulton (Director-General of Explosives Supply in the Ministry of Munitions) wrote to Brunner Mond’s chairman, 'We have been indebted to your Company for the manufacture of the bulk of the largest component of the high explosives used by this country in the war.' (Dick 1973, 35). In total 216,120 tons of ammonium nitrate were made during the war (almost 90 per cent of it by Brunner Mond). The calcium nitrate process was used to create just under 60 per cent of the national ammonium nitrate output. The Plumley works manufactured 43 per cent of the calcium nitrate used, and thus directly provided vital ingredients for 25 per cent of all the ammonium nitrate used by this country to manufacture high explosives for the war. The manufacture of calcium nitrate at the Victoria works was only possible due to the successful initial demonstration and then scaling-up of the process at Plumley.
LATER HISTORY The calcium nitrate plant was demolished immediately after the war, in 1919, but there was no attempt to level the site. Plumley continued in ammonia-soda production but Ascol was voluntarily liquidated in 1919 and Brunner Mond bought the site outright. Production continued until 1926, when much of the Solvay plant was probably demolished, again with no attempt to level the site. The railway sidings were removed between 1938 and the mid-1950s. From the mid-C20 the large warehouse which is the only standing building on the site was used by Associated Octel for storing sodium salts. This involved the demolition of the bagging plant in the southern extension. This use continued until the 1980s, since when the site has been disused.
Although annotated by the Ordnance Survey as a nature reserve, the site was never designated and the Cheshire Wildlife Trust never took over its management as was intended early in the C21. The eastern part of the industrial landholdings was used in the 1960s for dumping earth excavated in the construction of the M6. However, this is not thought to have affected the scheduled area, where the large pond that is still extant accords closely with that shown on the 1918 drainage plan and marked ‘effluent from ASC’. The soil tipping is thought to have been restricted to the easternmost part of the site which has since become agricultural land.
HISTORY OF INVESTIGATIONS The site was identified as a former soda plant in the Monuments Protection Programme Step 1 report for the chemical industry, as part of the alkali industry. The Plumley site’s role as a test-bed for a new process by which the raw ingredients for high explosives could be obtained, and then as a major producer of those materials, has been underplayed in accounts given by the chemists responsible for munitions supply. Consequently it is not fully elucidated in the principal text on the archaeology of gunpowder and explosives manufacture (Dangerous Energy, Cocroft 2000), although this did note that the site had been used for the production of calcium nitrate to supply high explosives manufacture. The growing diversity of linkages with commercial chemical-industrial activity is characteristic of this period and leaves few monumental remains that can be isolated as specifically relevant to explosives production.
An initial archaeological survey completed in December 2001 and a detailed survey of the calcium nitrate plant carried out in 2002 established the detailed character of the site. The remains of both plants accorded to a high degree with the buildings shown on historical mapping, including a plan drawn by AW Tangye and dated 1910-1914, and a drainage plan and sketch plan, both of 1918. These plans allow the layout of surviving earthworks and building remains to be clearly understood and the detailed character of the plant, if not the full detailed processes, to be appreciated.
The ammonia-soda works stood on the western part of the site, although brine was pumped from a shaft in the south-east corner. The main building housed saturators and finishing machines. A boiler house attached to the west provided the heat for the processes. Attached to the north was a range annotated on the Tangye plan as ‘distiller tower shed’, which was in turn abutted on its north side by a ‘blowing and vacuum engine house’. To the east of these, running north-south and attached to the main building at the south, were the four Solvay towers where the ammoniated brine was carbonated. Railway sidings to the east and west separated the main building complex from a repair shed to the west and a crystallisation plant to the north-east. These sidings also led to the beds to the north-east where residual waste was dumped. An office and dressing rooms/canteen were sited to the north and north-east of the main plant. A long, shallow reservoir approximately 40x5m is also associated with the Ascol plant although its exact purpose is unknown. An effluent pond was sited to the north of the brine shaft, probably draining the waste beds.
The calcium nitrate plant is largely sited to the south-east of the Ascol works. It principally comprised five or six linear buildings running north-south, annotated on the 1918 sketch plan. The westernmost housed boilers, mixers and salt pans. Here brine from boreholes, which had been pumped via six-inch pipes, was passed through a succession of salt pans. Settling and evaporation purified and concentrated the brine until it was rich in sodium nitrate. From here it passed eastwards to another salt-pans building, where it was treated with calcium chloride (presumably recovered from the waste of the ammonia-soda plant) to give a solution of calcium nitrate and sodium chloride. The brine, now rich in calcium nitrate, was pumped back westwards for further refinement. Here it might also have been preheated before being pumped into the crystalliser building, which also had workshops and a laboratory to its south. Heavier waste material was discharged during these processes into cross-ditches and thence into two large north-south ditches.
The large warehouse was built for storage of the calcium chloride that was required in large quantities for these reactions, and of the finished calcium nitrate. The external buttresses were added soon after construction due to the inadequate strength of the thin walls, and quickly followed by a southwards extension with a bagging plant. The railway sidings allowed for efficient delivery and movement around the plant of raw and waste materials, and despatching of finished products to other works via the main line.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: an ammonia-soda plant of the Solvay type, and First World War experimental and production plant for making calcium nitrate, surviving above and below ground as steel floor joists, concrete building beds, some upstanding concrete structures, banks and ditches of evaporation beds, and drainage structures, comprising most elements of both plants.
DESCRIPTION: now (2018) largely unmanaged woodland, the site is located approximately 1km east of Plumley village and 500m south of the A556, from which it is served by a road named Ascol Drive, named after the company which founded the factory. It is approximately 500 x 500m, thus occupying approximately 25ha. A railway line runs along the south side of the site, which originally had sidings running from this line. The majority of buildings and infrastructure are in the western part of the site.
The ammonia-soda works mostly comprises the tight group of buildings clustered around a main building approximately 75 x 52m, aligned roughly north-south. The northern edge of this group is approximately 80m to the south-east of the site entrance at the end of Ascol Drive. In addition the crystal plant, office and dressing rooms/canteen are approximately 40m to the north and north-east of the main plant while the repair shed and reservoir (approximately 40 x 5m) are approximately 80-100m to the south-west. Extensive remains of most of these structures survive in the woodland, primarily as concrete beds (some with holding-down bolts and arched passageways running through them), metal I beams or low brick structures, with some stone footings; many stand approximately 1m high, but some of the concrete structures are up to 4m high. The brine shaft stands approximately 300m to the east, topped by an L-shaped building footing approximately 11 x 7m and 1m high, with smaller buildings nearby. The lime waste forms a large kidney-shaped mound approximately 150 x 100m and 8-9m high immediately to the east of the crystal plant.
The calcium nitrate plant is largely sited to the east and south-east of the Ascol works, in an area approximately 150 x 100m, aligned roughly north-south. The layout of the five or six linear buildings annotated on the 1918 sketch plan can be recognised in the pattern of earth and concrete platforms, ditches and banks, and large concrete blocks up to 4.5m high with internal chambers and passageways. To the west the line of the former railway siding now forms a linear depression approximately 100m in length, with the large warehouse to its west at the southern end. The warehouse stands to its full height of approximately 15m.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: this is focused on the known surviving remains of the ammonia-soda and calcium nitrate plants including their railway sidings, ancillary buildings, waste tips and effluent ponds. The scheduled area is drawn to the local authority boundary in the south-west corner and follows the property boundary for most of the western and northern boundary. To the east the boundary follows the eastern edge of the path around the waste beds and the woodland boundary to the east of the effluent ponds, taking in an area of managed woodland at the south-east corner on the site of a former railway siding spur. The southern boundary follows the northern boundary of the railway line.
A Freak of Nature (Pinus sylvestris anomaly). The impressive pine tree occurs near a fisherman shanty on Lake Klosowskie. Forests cover about 50% of the area around Sierakow (mainly 80-year-old pinewoods on sandy soil); there are 32 significant lakes within a radius of 15 km. A larger concentration of gutter lakes (perpendicular to the Warta) is north of Sierakow.
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Cliche Canola Field Image, but you know they are cliche's because they have been proven to be very effective...
Australia’s unique environment, progressive breeding programs and innovative farming techniques combine to produce canola seed of the highest quality.
Australian canola is well recognised for its low levels of moisture, admixture and chlorophyll content, providing advantages to both the buyer and processor. The oil and protein content have been steadily increasing due to the selection of improved varieties and advanced planting techniques.
Australia has a reputation as one of the cleanest environments in the world. Australian growers deliver a clean, food-safe and contaminant-free product that has been grown using sustainable farming methods.
The whiskered Tern has a black cap, strong bill (29–34 mm in males, 25–27 mm and stubbier in females, with a pronounced gonys) and more positive flight recall common or Arctic tern, but the short, forked-looking tail and dark grey breeding plumage above and below are typically marsh tern characteristics. The summer adult has white cheeks and red legs and bill. The crown is flecked with white in the juvenile, and the hindcrown is more uniformly blackish, though in the winter adult this too is flecked with white. The black ear-coverts are joined to the black of the hindcrown, and the space above is mottled with white, causing the black to appear as a C-shaped band. The sides of the neck are white; this sometimes continues across the nape. The collar is less sharply defined. All through the year the rump is pale grey. In the juvenile, the mantle (279 mm) has a variegated pattern. The feathers of the back and scapulars are dark brown, with prominent broad buff edgings and often subterminal buff bars or centers. There is usually an admixture of new gray feathers, especially on the mantle, quite early in the fall. The mantle is silvery-gray in the adult. In winter, the forehead becomes white and the body plumage a much paler grey. Juvenile whiskered terns have a ginger scaly back, and otherwise look much like winter adults. The first winter plumage is intermediate between juvenile and adult winter, with patchy ginger on the back.
That harassed-looking elderly man, kneeling with a dustpan and brush, sweeping up grains of rice broadcast over his kitchen floor from a split bag for which he'd gone twice to Tesco, having forgotten it the first time, and wondering whether, if he could salvage some of it, what admixture of boiled fluff and old crumbs he was prepared to tolerate in future curries ...could it be me?
About 90% of earthly existence is made up of experience which, if not actually disagreeable, is certainly not particularly enjoyable either. If there could be a litmus test of happiness, I'd say most of life fell somewhere just the low side of neutral. I'm not complaining; one adjusts to it and, if we were happy all the time, life would lack moral significance. These ruminations occur to me as I see that huddle of people waiting under the inadequate canopy of Airdrie's modern yet somehow squalid bus station on Saturday 7th May 1977, in what might have been warm spring sunshine but was, in fact, a dismal afternoon of gloom and persistent rain. It's the fate of us all, each in his own way.
Standing on the greasy apron was an Alexander-bodied, Gardner-engined Bristol RELH belonging to the Eastern Scottish fleet. The few passengers haul themselves up from the littered platform and resentfully part with the fare to Thrashbush. If the driver got his full right-hand lock on he might just clear the sign and be able to pull away without reversing ...or not.
The children running through the narrow shadowy alleys of Turtuk village, Nubra Valley, Ladakh region, state Jammu & Kashmir, India.
Turtuk is a Baltistan village , formerly part of Pakistan until 1971. Today, Turtuk is the last inhabited frontier by Balti Muslims before the border.
The Balti is an ethnic group of Tibetan descent with some Dardic admixture, who live in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, in addition, smaller populations also exist in Ladakh.
The Islamic concept of himmah, as many Gülen scholars have noted, is central to the operation and growth of the Fethullah Gulen movement. This is the name for the regular local fundraising activities to finance its wide educational network or other cultural activities within Turkey or abroad. The concept of himmah (himmet in Turkish), a spiritual virtue in the Islamic Sufi tradition, also holds a key role in Fethullah Gülen‘s understanding of Islam and teaching on the moral education of an ideal Muslim. The Sufi connection should not be surprising as it is well recorded that Gülen’s understanding of Islam has been deeply shaped by the Sufi tradition, which has been an undercurrent of Turkish Islam since its beginning.Despite its significance for Gülen’s teaching, the conceptual meaning of himmah has been given little attention by Gülen scholars. A quick survey of the works conducted on Fethullah Gülen‘s thought or the movement he inspired delivers few results. This is understandable as apart from scholars studying the Sufi tradition, the conceptual meaning and significance of himmah is not well known even among students of Islamic thought. Compounding its relative obscurity among scholars is the challenge of translation. Frequently rendered as spiritual “aspiration,” “yearning,” or “resolve,” this richly suggestive concept is difficult to translate into English with one single word.
This paper attempts to clarify the conceptual meaning of himmah in the context of Gülen’s thought through a cross-cultural comparison with the more familiar Christian virtue of “charity.” This paper begins with a discussion of the contemporary meaning of himmah within the Gülen movement, and moves on to discuss its meaning within the Sufi tradition in the second section. The third section examines the Christian virtue of charity, and the fourth compares charity with himmah. The last and concluding part will raise some questions about the practice of the inter-faith dialogue in relation to this comparison of the two key concepts of Islam and Christianity.
I. The Role of Himmet in the Gülen Movement
It is widely known that the Gülen movement identifies itself as hizmet (hizmāt in Arabic), which means “service” in Turkish. Hizmet is the generic name for all the disinterested public activities conducted by the members of this community to fulfill their duties to religion and nation. Specific examples of hizmet are inter-faith dialogue initiatives and the educational network set up in Turkey and abroad. The term is also used more broadly for self-identification by the community members. Hence, a member of the Gülen movement often identifies himself or herself as a member of hizmet.Related to this concept and less known to the outsiders but perhaps more important in terms of Islamic history is the concept of himmet. It has been noted that the twin concepts of hizmet and himmet provide a general conceptual framework for all the economic, cultural, and religious activities of the Gülen community both inside and outside Turkey.[2] Himmet, as another student of this movement notes, is the technical name used for the fundraising gatherings of the community: “The meetings organized by the Gülen community to obtain financial support for its activities, especially its educational activities, are called himmet meetings.”The organizers of these meetings present the past achievements and future goals or projects of the community, and appeal to the religious sentiments of the participants to collect funds for their activities. The participants, mostly local affluent business owners, pledge to make donations for the cause.
The Turkish word himmet derives from the Arabic word al-himmah (in Persian himmat). The original Arabic word denotes several interrelated meanings. More commonly it is translated as spiritual “aspiration” or “resolve.” Its other renderings by contemporary translators and commentators include “diligence,” “power,” “will,” “yearning,” “desire,” “purpose,” “ambition,” “intention,” “concentration,” and “determination,” all of which are used with a spiritual connotation. Common to all these translations of himmah is the connotation of spiritual or mystical quest for the divine. This quest requires turning one’s attention and efforts from worldly business toward more noble and urgent matters.There are numerous phrases in the Islamic literature in which himmah appears with this connotation of rising above the affairs of the world. The phrase uluww-i himmat (lofty aspiration) was used by the Persian Sufi poet Farid al-Din Attar to mean “setting oneself high goals and not being satisfied with trivial things.”Another phrase in which himmat appears in relation to rulers is himmat-i buland which can be compared to the virtue known as high-mindedness or magnanimity in the Western tradition. For the first moralist of Islam, Miskawaih, izam alhimmah (composure) stands for “a virtue of the soul which causes it to sustain calmly both the happiness of good fortune and its opposites, including the distress which accompanies death.” Miskawaih defines himmah as a kind of courage.
In a short article entitled “Himmet: Teveccüh, İnfak ve Gayret,” (“Aspiration: Orientation, Charity, and Perseverance”), Gülen appeals to the theological roots of himmet in the Islamic tradition.Gülen puts great emphasis here on the fact that there is a deeper spiritual aspect of himmet beyond its popular aspect associated with spending one’s wealth in God’s path. Gülen particularly notes that himmet must be understood first and foremost in its tasawwufi sense. The common practical usage among public as charity (infak) and perseverance (gayret) is subordinate to this older theological meaning. Gülen further points out the connection between himmet and another tasawwufi term teveccüh (tawajjuh in Arabic). Translated as spiritual “concentration,” “orientation,” or “attentiveness,” tawajjuh literally means turning the face toward something.Tawajjuh is often used in the context of turning one’s face toward God or God’s disclosing itself to the Sufi wayfarer (salik) in return.It is also used in relation to the very personal relationship between the Sheikh (master) and the murid (disciple) in the Sufi orders.[9] In both senses it means the spiritual concentration or attention of the salik through which he hopes to receive the grace of God (either directly or indirectly through the sheikh). In relation to tawajjuh, himmet means orientation toward God with all one’s powers by opening one’s heart to God, and purifying oneself from all material or even spiritual interests and pleasures. One must even put aside the thought of heavenly rewards or spiritual powers, and commit his every deed for the sake of gaining Allah’s pleasure.Gülen also notes a second related sense of himmet in the context of social relationships. Himmet means doing a favor, helping one another, coming to the rescue of another, or reaching out to the needy. This social sense of himmet refers to committing oneself to benevolent action with sincerity on the one hand and God’s reciprocating the tawajjuh and sincerity (ikhlās) of his servant (kul) on the other. The servant’s inaba (turning to God with repentance) is reciprocated by God’s merciful tawajjuh toward the servant. God’s favors and care depends on servant’s constant orientation toward God (tawajjuh) as well as God’s reciprocal tawajjuh in mercy. It is this sense of himmet which bridges over the public meaning of doing good deeds through financial means and the tasawwufi sense conceived by sufis as “spiritual power,” which will be explored in the next section.Gülen stresses that contrary to the popular opinion that equates himmet merely with infaq (spending in the service of God) the latter must be understood only as one aspect of the former.Reminding us of the fact that himmet did not have this specific meaning in the past, Gülen points out that both the public calls for assistance and people’s response to these calls have come to be called himmet through time. The theological aspect of himmet, according to Gülen, subsumes the more practical religious virtues and duties of beneficence such as “infaq,” (charity) “sadaqa” (voluntary almsgiving), and “zakat” (obligatory almsgiving).
Gülen also notes that himmet (in the second restricted sense of beneficence) can be conducted not only through wealth but also knowledge, deeds, health, and intelligence. Combining its spiritual and practical sense, himmet can be construed to mean making efforts in the service of one’s religion and nation. Himmet in this sense carries the connotation of striving toward God through serving one’s fellow compatriots, co-religionists, and even all humanity. Gülen concludes his discussion of himmet by remembering Bediüzzaman Said Nursî’s words in the “The Damascus Sermon.” Here Nursî discusses the notion of himmet in the context of national solidarity or fraternity and laments how this notion was successfully applied at his time in the West and almost forgotten in the Islamic world. To quote the important passage on himmet from his sermon in full:
[B]ecause of the idea of nationhood which those foreigners obtained from us, an individual becomes as valuable as a nation. For a person’s value is relative to his endeavour [himmet]. If a person’s endeavour is his nation, that person forms a miniature nation on his own. Because of the heedlessness of some of us and the foreigners’ damaging characteristics that we have acquired, and, despite our strong and sacred Islamic nationhood, through everyone saying: “Me! Me!” and considering personal benefits and not the nation’s benefits, a thousand men have become like one man.Said Nursî goes on to emphasize the Aristotelian notion (incorporated later by Aquinas into the Catholic tradition) that man is a political or social being by nature and must act accordingly to become fully human:If a man’s endeavour is limited to himself, he is not a human being, for human beings are by nature social. Man is compelled to consider his fellow humans. His personal life continues through social life.
It can safely be claimed that Gülen is in agreement with the importance of the virtue of putting the service to others before oneself in the name of God. This virtue indeed constitutes the heart of Gülen’s teaching on the moral education of an ideal Muslim.
II. Himmah in the Sufi Tradition
As Gülen implies in his article, the concept of himmah holds a significant place in the Sufi tradition within Islam. Scholars of Sufism have noted that this is a technical term employed by greatest Sufis of history. Various late medieval Sufi masters such as Ibn Arabi, Suhrawardi, Najm al-Din Kubra, and Abdul-Karim al-Jili or Sufi poets such as Farid al-Din Attar employed this concept in their works.The spiritual powers of earlier mystics such as Hasan al-Basri and Rabi’a al-Adawiyya are also referred to as himmah in the hagiographical literature.This crucial term was often used by Sufis to signify the “determination of the heart to incline itself entirely to God.” Himmah in this sense is an essential quality to possess to be able to follow the arduous Sufi path. A contemporary scholar draws our attention to the significance of himmah to Sufism: “He who has no spiritual aspiration [himmah] or sincere will in seeking God in gratitude or in love cannot have an ambition to follow the path of Sufi walâya [authority].”
Various definitions of the term agree in their emphasis on the fact that himmah involves the spiritual quest for God, and this quest demands first and foremost the further qualities of purity, sincerity, and concentration. According to a contemporary scholar of Islam, himmah implies “total commitment to the goal of achieving spiritual perfection and closeness to God.”[18] In a classic work of Sufism Istilahat al-Sufiya (A Glossary of Sufi Technical Terms), himmah was defined as a term “applied to the freeing of the heart for the desired objects . . .; to the primal sincerity of the aspirant…; and to the concentration of the spiritual aspirations to insure the purity of inspirations.”[19] According to still another scholarly source, himmah is “the quality of perseverance or striving towards God” and “its opposite is al-hiss,” which means “distraction or inattention from concentration upon God.”
For the famous thirteenth century Andalusian Sufi Ibn al-Arabi, who exerted great influence on the course of Sufism after him, himmah is a pure force peculiar to the human being, which is either natural or acquired later in life.As an Ibn Arabi scholar notes, “The phenomenon of himmah is . . . something of much more than marginal significance in Ibn al-Arabi’s thought.”Ibn Arabi held that “it was only possible for human beings to come to a true understanding of the relationship that exists and should exist between creature and Creator if they were to become endowed with this power of himmah themselves.”
Ibn Arabi uses himmah in his major work al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Illuminations) especially in reference to the ideal of perfect man (al-insan al-kamil), which is characterized by “the inner condition of sidq [truthfulness] or pure spiritual intention (himma).” Himmah, according to Arabi, is the preserve of the spiritual elite as it is “one of the distinguishing signs of the highest forms of true faith in God” and the “natural effect of divine ‘victorious support’ (nasr).”[24] Nasr is a term that combines “the notions of divine assistance and the ‘victory’ resulting from that support.”Ibn Arabi’s coupling of himmah and nasr is especially important for the purposes of this paper as this relationship between the two roughly corresponds to the close connection between charity and grace in the Christian tradition.In Futuhat Ibn Arabi uses the phrase al-fi’l bi’l-himma to refer to the act of “producing effects . . . in the outside world through concentration.” This somewhat supernatural ability is closely related to the development of the faculty of imagination. The 20th century French orientalist Henry Corbin highlights this active (poetic) sense of himmah in Ibn Arabi’s work and uses the phrase “the creative power of the heart” to capture its richly suggestive meaning.[27] According to Corbin, this creative power is essentially “the very power with which God creates and sustains the cosmos, the power by means of which God brought all the cosmic domains, subtle, physical, and intellectual into existence,” but is also something that human beings can partake of.[28] The difference between the mystic’s himmah and the divine himmah is that “God exercises this creative power with perfect attentiveness and concentration whereas the mystic always exercises it with some admixture of inattentiveness.”
rumiforum.org/islamic-himmah-and-christian-charity-an-att...
INFO ON AIRAVATESVARA (RAJARAJESVARA TEMPLE):
The temple now known as the Airavatesvara at Darasuram is called Rajarajesvara in its inscriptions, and was built by Rajaraja II (A.D. 1146-1172).The name "Rajarajesvaram" was changed to Drasuram through an intermediate Tamilized "Raracuram" as seen from later Cola and Pandya inscriptions at the site.The earlier of these inscriptions date to the time of Rajadhiraja II (A.D. 1166-1180), but the temple exixted prior to A.D. 1175,as known from one donative inscription.
DAIVANAYAKI AMMAN SHRINE:
The Daivanayaki amman temple is an east facing ensemble of structures that stands separately from the prakara enclosing the Airavatesvara temple.It forms the tirukkamakottam to the Airavatesvara.Though the date of its founding is not stated in the inscriptions, it is evident that this structure followed soon after the completion of the main Airvatesvara,which is resembles in several essentials of its architectural makeup.Yet it possesses a distinct individuality,making it an ideal example of Kamakostha.
It has a large tritala sala vimana.The Upapitha with panjara niches.The simha mukha of nasis rise up to the prati;inside the nasis are miniature shrine models.The adhisthana is of two types: Padabandha for the bhadra and Padmabandha for salilantara and karna.
The Daivanayaki temple is interesting from architectural,sculptural and cultic points of view.The temple shares with the Airavatesvara the blend saiva and sakta doctrines that had come into vouge during these times.The association of these temples with the Takka-yaga-p-parani ( a martial saga on Daksayajna) of the court poet Ottakkuttar. to which Nagaswamy has drawn our attention,is pertinent.On the architectural side,besides its rathakara form,the bold admixture of two types of adhisthanas, the introduction of jalakas,the introduction of three types of karnakutas, and the incipient sukanasa make both temples unique.In the Daivanayaki temple , the truncated cross-paln produces perhaps the largest known sukanasa,in contrast to the shorter sukanasa of the Airvatesvara and those known from Calukya buildings.
The Daivanayaki Amman temple, therefore, is one of the very few Kamakottams extant as a complete temple-unit,with vimana,ardhamandapa, and mukhamandapa,conceived and bulit at one time, and in which the charecters of the unit as a whole are harmonious,unaltered and undistributed.The distribution and identification of the devi representation on the talas of the vimana would form a full and separate study
The whiskered Tern has a black cap, strong bill (29–34 mm in males, 25–27 mm and stubbier in females, with a pronounced gonys) and more positive flight recall common or Arctic tern, but the short, forked-looking tail and dark grey breeding plumage above and below are typically marsh tern characteristics. The summer adult has white cheeks and red legs and bill. The crown is flecked with white in the juvenile, and the hindcrown is more uniformly blackish, though in the winter adult this too is flecked with white. The black ear-coverts are joined to the black of the hindcrown, and the space above is mottled with white, causing the black to appear as a C-shaped band. The sides of the neck are white; this sometimes continues across the nape. The collar is less sharply defined. All through the year the rump is pale grey. In the juvenile, the mantle (279 mm) has a variegated pattern. The feathers of the back and scapulars are dark brown, with prominent broad buff edgings and often subterminal buff bars or centers. There is usually an admixture of new gray feathers, especially on the mantle, quite early in the fall. The mantle is silvery-gray in the adult. In winter, the forehead becomes white and the body plumage a much paler grey. Juvenile whiskered terns have a ginger scaly back, and otherwise look much like winter adults. The first winter plumage is intermediate between juvenile and adult winter, with patchy ginger on the back.
8275 . 20250723
This produced a something of a sound — an admixture of scratching and hissing...
“Rub away, Bob! as much like water as you can.”
ex “The Strolling Player” by “B. W. W.” in The Players (“A Dramatic and Literary Journal. Conducted by Wilfrid Wisgast, M. A.”), (Saturday, August 11th, 1860) / more
The Yorkshire Penny Bank’s headquarters building was erected in 1895 under architect James Ledingham on a prominent corner site between Manor Row and North Parade in Bradford. The official listing for this Grade II building positively gushes about this sandstone ashlar building’s “profusely decorated and richly modelled facades, an admixture of Franco-Flemish and Italian Renaissance details” and the “notable quality of carving and stone masonry”. The interior is also richly decorated.
This is not the most salubrious part of Bradford, a slightly down-at-heel cluster of streets between the Central Ring Road and the main shopping district, so this building has struggled for stable use in recent years, hosting a series of bars and restaurants.
Depicted here are two key figures in the bank’s early days, Peter Bent, General Manager of the Bank from 1858, and John Ward, Director of the Bank from 1873-80.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brugmansia_suaveolens
"Brugmansia suaveolens, Brazil's white angel trumpet, also known as angel's tears and snowy angel's trumpet,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the nightshade family Solanaceae, native to south eastern Brazil, but thought to be extinct in the wild. Like several other species of Brugmansia, it exists as an introduced species in areas outside its native range. It is a tender shrub or small tree with large semi-evergreen leaves and fragrant yellow or white trumpet-shaped flowers.
"Brugmansia suaveolens is a semi-woody shrub or small tree, growing up to 3–5 m (10–16 ft) tall, often with a many-branched trunk. The leaves are oval, to 25 cm (10 in) long by 15 cm (6 in) wide, and even larger when grown in the shade.
"The flowers, which tend to be white in colour, are sweetly scented at night and early morning, about 24–32 cm (9–13 in) long and shaped like trumpets. The corolla body is slightly recurved to 5 main points, but the very peaks in the true species are always curved outwards, never rolled back, and these peaks are short, only 1–2.5 cm (0.4–1.0 in) long. The flowers are usually white but may be yellow or pink and hang downward from fully pendulous up to nearly horizontal.[2]
"Many South American cultures have been noted to use Brugmansia suaveolens ritually. The Ingano and Siona in the Putumayo region both use it as an entheogen. It is also used by some Amazonian tribes as an admixture to increase the potency of Ayahuasca.[14] In some South American countries, it is known to be occasionally added to ayahuasca brews by malevolent sorcerers or bad shamans who wish to take advantage of unsuspecting tourists. Genuine shamans believe one of the purposes for this is to "steal one's energy and/or power", of which they believe every person has a limited stockpile.[15]
I took advantage of the reciprocity between Desert Botanical Garden and San Diego Botanic Garden for member admission. It is a relatively young and somewhat small botanic garden. It does have a lot of interesting specimina, especially for me coming from the desert.
300 Quail Gardens Drive (at Ecke Ranch Road), Encinitas, CA 92024
Welcome to our 37-acre urban oasis featuring 4 miles of meandering trails and ocean views, 5,000+ plant species and varieties, and 29 uniquely themed gardens that represent 15 different regions and many habitats of the world. Our natural wonderland is designed for children and adults, alike; explore your interests, learn about the plant world that surrounds us, and let nature fill you with a little wonder.
SDBG2024
The American Eskimo Dog is a breed of companion dog, originating in Germany. The American Eskimo Dog is a member of the Spitz family. It is considered an ancient dog breed due to its recent admixture with wolves. The breed's progenitors were German Spitz, but due to anti-German sentiment during the First World War, it was renamed "American Eskimo Dog."
An 16 year old girl, who kindly invited me to visit her house while her parents were on work, in the Baltistan village of Turtuk, formerly part of Pakistan until 1971. She insisted me to take a "passport" picture of her and send her when I come back to my country.
The Balti is an ethnic group of Tibetan descent with some Dardic admixture, who live in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, in addition, smaller populations also exist in Ladakh.
Dard people is an Indo-European minority. Their facial features, with their slender noses, Caucasian-looking eyes and relatively fair skin, do not share many similarities with Asian features.
INDIA. Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakh. Nubra Valley. 2014
The boy curiously overlooking the window to see us, foreigners, coming to his Baltistan village of Turtuk, formerly part of Pakistan until 1971.
The Balti is an ethnic group of Tibetan descent with some Dardic admixture, who live in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, in addition, smaller populations also exist in Ladakh.
Dard people is an Indo-European minority. Their facial features, with their slender noses, Caucasian-looking eyes and relatively fair skin, do not share many similarities with Asian features.
INDIA. Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakh. Nubra Valley. 2014
hearts′ empath ♥ brick-red ♥ brecciated jasper (aka poppy jasper) puffed in the shape of a heart-symbol was 'empathed', i.e. overdubbed & admixed with a 2nd tricolor broken - heart - festoon by means of the scanning process.
The object was scanned in the middle of the night with all lights switched off - nevertheless the 'empath' of the halogen - scanner - light glitched an interesting (but somehow embarassing) oranje-wit-blauw halo (aka the prince's flag in the Netherlands) festoon onto the grinded surface.
Obviously the macroscopic, black hematite-Schlieren became admixtures to the igneous extrusive jasper during the sublimation-process of the lava.
The Tricolour of The Netherlands is the oldest tricolour, first appearing in 1572 as the Prince's Flag in orange–white–blue. Soon the more famous red–white–blue began appearing — it is however unknown why, though many stories are known. After 1630 the red–white–blue was the most commonly seen flag. The Dutch Tricolour has inspired many flags but most notably those of Russia, India, New York City, and France, which spread the tricolour concept even further. The Flag of the Netherlands is also the only flag in the world that is adapted for some uses, when the occasion has a connection to the royal house of the Netherlands an orange ribbon is added.(wikipedia).
JASPER as a TRIGONAL crystal-system
► MINERAL Ein Mineral ist ein Element oder eine chemische Verbindung welche normal kristallin ist und welche als Resultat eines geologischen Prozesses gebildet wurde.
JASPIS als eine Varietät von Chalcedon (Varietät des Mineral Quarz [SiO2 = silicon dioxide, trigonales Kristallsystem in rhomboedrischer Aufstellung]) stellt kein eigenständiges Mineral dar, sondern ist eine dichte, lichtundurchlässige, mikrokristalline Varietät, normalerweise rot, braun oder gelb und durch Oxide des Eisens gefärbt.
► Silex (Roter Jaspis) - Farbe Ziegelrot bis Braunrot. Zu ihm zählt auch der rote Brekzien-Jaspis. Die Farbe entsteht hier durch Eisenoxid aus überwiegend dreiwertigem Eisen.
JASPER as a healing crystal
► JASPER (hardness: 6,5 - 7,0; density: 2,6 g/sm3)
The name of the stone goes back to the Greek word jaspis - "motley", "speckled". The coloration of Jasper can be red, dark blue, green, violet, white and even black.
Medical properties. In olden time jasper considered as means from an epilepsy and a fever. People believed that the jasper can improve sight, cure an epilepsy and remove a toothache. Famous Avitsenna advised to carry jasper on a stomach, to prevent illnesses of a stomach.
Magic properties. It is considered that ornaments from a jasper promote adjustment of relations and protect from ill fate. The jasper is capable to give to the owner determination and to make it more wisely.
Jaspis is crudely, in-blown up, in balls and Geschieben, rarely in grape/cluster or to shapes. It can contain up to 20%
admixtures of strange substances such as alumina, ferric oxide, iron hydroxide and manganese hydroxide. Since the quantity and distribution of these admixtures decided on the appearance, are extraordinarily large the color and Jaspis.
ancient times: Jaspis was in the antiquity with the Greeks and Romans a most outstanding mineral. In the course of the centuries the Jaspis at meaning and appreciation lost and at present to Siegelsteinen, doses, vases, desk tops, cans, mosaic, architectural work etc. was used.
Bible: That the Apostel Johannes revealed Himmli Jerusalem (revealing 21, 18-20) exhibited walls from Jaspis, as "the first reason", all other jewels follow only after it.
Middle Ages In the late Middle Ages famous natural scientists Konrad Gesner delivered: "The Jaspis is a sign before the chest, the sword in the hand and the queue under the feet. It protects against all diseases and renews spirit, heart and understanding."With the ancient Greeks one believed that the Jaspis gives internal harmony to its carrier and women have a harmonyful pregnancy by carrying the stone. In addition the red Jaspis helps best with nausea and excessive Esslust during the pregnancy and can facilitate relieving - a marvelous stone for all ranges of the abdomen.
► Brekzienjaspis @samaki.de
Heilwirkungen auf die Psyche: hilft körpereigene positive Energien zu sammeln und negative Energien abzubauen, durch diesen Ausgleich in der Seele verhilft er uns zu einem harmonievolleren, beschwingteren und glücklicheren Alltag, hilft neue Lebensenergien zu aktivieren; dieser Heilstein gilt als insgesamt sehr stärkend, hilft uns, in gutem Kontakt zur Erde zu bleiben, bzw uns zu erden; fördert den Sinn für Realität und wirkt dabei gleichzeitig unterstützend, seinen Lebensweg zu gehen; als Steinewasser, in Kombination mit Bergkristall, ein guter Begleiter durch einen aktiven (auch körperlich anstrengenden) Tag.
Heilwirkungen auf den Körper: hat eine stark blutstillende Wirkung, hilft bei Schlafstörungen durch Erdstrahlen und Wasserstrahlen (Stein körperfern unter das Bett legen), bewahrt vor einer Unterfunktionen der Schilddrüse, ist gut für Blut und Knochen (kräftigend).
Chakra: 3. Chakra, Solarplexus-Chakra, mit Themen wie "innerer Weisheit", sich selbst entdecken, und 1. Chakra, Wurzel-Chakra, hilft uns, am Boden der Tatsachen zu bleiben und von dort in die heilsame Mediation zu gehen, uns zu öffnen. Sternzeichen: alle Sternzeichen.
► Brecciated Jasper Hearts@healingcrystals
The Hematite within Brecciated Jasper acts as a deflector of negativity. While it is said that Brecciated Jasper can stimulate the rise of the Kundalini, it has a tendency to add stability to this energy. It is a stone of strength and vitality and can be used to help bring mental clarity and focus to a previously scattered life. It is also used for overcoming sexual guilt or shame, and can be helpful for those who are recovering from any kind of illness. You can use a Brecciated Jasper Heart as a "worry-stone" to take advantage of its calming and nurturing properties. These Brecciated Jasper Hearts can also be used during Meditations, held in your client's hand during a session, or just to carry in your pocket.
► poppy jasper @kosmix [_210810_]
Poppy Jasper is a poppy-patterned variety of orbicular jasper originating in South Africa. In medieval times, warriors often carried poppy jasper in belief it would bring them courage in the heat of oncoming battle. It belongs to the quartz group and is a brecciated jasper, composed of approximately 20% extraneous materials due to the gaps left between dry, iron enriched clay when the rock is first formed.
While poppy jasper is often multi-colored due to foreign deposits, it still is predominately red, black and gray in appearance. The black and gray often act to form a sort of background behind "blooms" of red-orange color that distinctly resemble that of a poppy plant, hence the name.
Residents of the U.S. may find this particular form of jasper in Morgan Hill, California. It is considered a rare stone and is well sought-after collectible by gem connoisseurs at a going rate of $20-30/lb.
► Brecciated Jasper Puffed Heart This jasper veined with hematite is an excellent aid to keeping your feet on the ground and attaining emotional stability. It also promotes mental clarity.
► Poppy aka Brecciated Jasper Metaphysically Poppy Jasper is the supreme nurturer. Brings tranquility and wholeness, protection and grounding. Aligns chakras, facilitates Shamanic journeys and dream recall. Rectifies unjust situations. Strengthens the circulatory system and is sometimes referred to as the "Stone of health". It has the qualities of enhancing organizational abilities, relaxation, and a sense of wholeness. It is occasionally used to assist when dowsing. It aligns the chakras and balances the yin-yang, physical, and emotional. It is a stone of protection, and is used in particular for protection during astral travel. It encourages attunement and communication with animals and can help with animal allergies, plus other allergies. It brings happiness and a good outlook on life and eases stress. It can help increase physical endurance and ward off dehydration. It is also a good stone for grounding oneself and is associated with the root chakra.
► Jasper @s a mineral
Jasper is an opaque variety of Chalcedony occurring in all colors. It is sometimes impure, containing organic material and iron oxides. Jasper is a favorite among amateur gem cutters, for its abundance and diversity is great. Some Jasper is banded, and these banded Jaspers are also Agates. When Jasper does not exhibit interesting colors or patterns, it is known as Chert. There are many types of Jasper, and many distinct names are given to each type. Most names are only used locally, and new names are made up every year. Below is a list of many of the Jasper names seen on the market. The second list contains Jasper types that are locally named for the area they occur in.
Brecciated Jasper: Red and black, with some white tracing:
► Support during times of stress - Facing problems - Courage - Energy
The colours are simply amazing with endless puzzle patterns of reds, whites, blacks and earthtones. Jasper is a very nurturing gemstone that helps to uplift you and support you during times of stress. It's beneficial in bringing tranquility and wholeness to you. Jasper helps to unite all aspects of your life and also helps others around you to open up to the idea of helping each other as well. It helps to protect you and ground your energy - if you work with Chakra it helps to absorb negative energy and in turn cleanse and align the Chakra and aura.
Jasper is also a stone of shamanic journeys and helping you to remember your dreams. It is a stone of balance for the yin and yang. If you dowse? This may be a wonderful tool to help you. Jasper also helps to clear electromagnetic and environmental pollution that includes radiation.
This gem also helps you to feel more determined and brings to you the courage to face problems. It helps you to be honest with yourself. Jasper also aids with quick thinking and organization. If you have projects on the go and need a little boost, Jasper can help stimulate your imagination and transform those ideas into great actions. Jasper also is beneficial with boosting your energy levels. In relationships, it can help pleasurable situations. If you have been feeling run down, this stone may help to lift and re-energize yourself.
Brecciated Jasper is also an excellent gemstone for helping you to keep your feet in the ground in a world full of turmoil. It can help to promote mental clarity.
► Poppy, or Brecciated, Jasper Heart (from mother earth to you) is beautiful not only for the colors and patterns it reveals, but also for its meaning. Jasper is a powerful healer, particularly of the physical body. It strengthens the gallbladder, liver, and bladder. A wonderful treat from Mother Earth for everyone you love (and don't forget yourself)!
► @phoenixorion Jasper is an opaque form of Chalcedony, and has been a stone for kings and shamans.
..., also spelled as hæmatite, is the mineral form of iron(III) oxide (α-Fe2O3), one of several iron oxides. It crystallizes in rhombohedral systems. Colors: black to steel or silver-gray, brown to reddish brown, or red.
Hematite (mineral information ... is rather variable in its appearence it can be in reddish brown, ocherous masses, dark silvery-grey scaled masses, silvery-grey crystals, and dark-grey masses, to name a few. What they all have in common is a rust-red streak. GEOLOGICAL SETTING: Large ore bodies of hematite are usually of sedimentary origin; also found in high-grade ore bodies in metamorphic rocks due to contact metasomatism, and occasionally as a sublimate on igneous extrusive rocks ("lavas") as a result of volcanic activity. It is also found coloring soils red all over the planet...
SILPHION & ARKESILAOS
► σίλφιον aus epichorisch σίλφι oder σίρφι, lat.: sirpe, laserpicium = lac +sirpicium; außerdem sind besondere griechische Namen für Teile der Pflanze überliefert.) Name einer in der Cyrenaica wachsenden Pflanze und besonders des aus dessen Stengel und Wurzel gewonnenen harzigen Milchsaftes, der vom 6.Jahrhundert v. Chr. eine sehr hochgeschätzte Droge war und als Ausfuhrartikel die Grundlage des Reichtums von --> Kyrene bildete. Auch in der hellenistischen Zeit war der S-Handel gewinnbringend (Plaut, Rud. 630 Catull. 7,4), aber vom Beginn der Kaiserzeit an war das echte S. vom Markt verschwunden, und man behalf sich mit minderwertigem S. aus dem Orient. Trotz erhaltener Beschreibungen bei Theophrast u.a. (s. bes. Plin. nat. 19, 38-46) und Abbildungen auf Münzen von Kyrene und auf der Pariser Arkesilaos-Schale (auf der er die Verpackung und Verschiffung von S. beaufsichtigt) und vieler Bemühungen von Historikern und Botanikern (eine ganze Literatur!) ist die sichere Bestimmung des S. nicht gelungen; doch scheint es sich um eine mit Scorodosma foetidum, welches Asa foetida liefert, nahe verwandte Pflanze zu handeln; obwohl S. einen zwar sehr intensiven, aber doch angenehmen Geruch und Geschmack gehabt haben soll. Über die Verwendung von S. sind die antiken Angaben spärlich. Stengel und Blätter wurden als Gemüse gegessen, und die Droge diente als Gewürz und medizinisch als Allheilmittel... {Hehn-Schrader Kulturpflanzen (8) 112. Steier, RE III A 103-114} Konrad Ziegler in (Der Kleine Pauly, dtv, Band 5)
► Arkesilaos 1. Sohn Battos I. (Hdt 4, 159), König von Kyrene 599-583 (?) 2. Aresilaos II. (565/60-555/50) war der Enkel von Arkesilaos I. Er vertrieb nach seiner Thronbesteigung seine Brüder, welche daraufhin die Libyer um Kyrene aufwiegelten, bei Leukon lockten sie ihn in einen Hinterhalt, wobei er 7000 Hopliten verlor. Kurz daraufhin verübte sein mit ihm verfehdeter Bruder Laarchos ein Attentat auf ihn; seine Witwe rächte ihn jedoch wenig später (Hdt. 4, 160, Plut.mul.virt. 260 E ff. S. Mazzarino Fra Oriente e Occidente 1947, 153, 313-317). Trotz seiner kurzen Herrschaft (565/60-555/50) haben Künstler und Dichter ihm gehuldigt: Eugammon von Kyrene widmete ihm sein Epos 'Telegonia', die Arkesilaos-Schale stellt ihn bei der Beaufsichtigung des Verladens Exportartikels Silphion dar.
► Silphium @wikipedia
Silphium (also known as silphion or laser) was a plant of the genus Ferula. Generally considered to be an extinct "giant fennel" (although some claim that the plant is really Ferula tingitana), it once formed the crux of trade from the ancient city of Cyrene for its use as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. It was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant.
Silphium was an important species as evidenced by the Egyptians and Knossos Minoans developing a specific glyph to represent the Silphium plant.
The valuable product was the resin (laser, laserpicium, or lasarpicium) of the plant. It was harvested in a manner similar to asafoetida, a plant with similar enough qualities to silphium that Romans, including the geographer Strabo, used the same word to describe both.
Aside from its uses in Greco-Roman cooking (as in recipes by Apicius), many medical uses were ascribed to the plant. It was said that it could be used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies. Chief among its medical uses, according to Pliny the Elder, was its role as an herbal contraceptive. Given that many species in the parsley family have estrogenic properties, and some (such as wild carrot) have been found to work as an abortifacient, it is quite possible that the plant was pharmacologically active in the prevention or termination of pregnancy. Legend said that it was a gift from the god Apollo. It was used widely by most ancient Mediterranean cultures; the Romans considered it "worth its weight in denarii."
Connection with the heart symbol
There has been some speculation about the connection between silphium and the traditional heart shape (♥). The symbol is remarkably similar to the Egyptian "heart soul" (ib). The sexual nature of that concept, combined with the widespread use of silphium in ancient Egypt for birth control, and the fact that the seeds of silphium are shaped like a heart as shown in the left illustration, leads to speculation that the character for ib may have been derived from the shape of the silphium seed.
Contemporaneous writings help tie silphium to sexuality and love, as laserpicium makes an appearance in a poem (Catullus 7) of Catullus to his lover Lesbia. As well as in Pausanias' Description of Greece in which he says "For it so happened that his maiden daughter was living in it. By the next day this maiden and all her girlish apparel had disappeared, and in the room were found images of the Dioscuri, a table, and silphium upon it."
► The Secret of the Heart @ heartsmith
There are a few ancient symbols that recur through the ages. One of these symbols - the heart - means many things to many people. Just how did the stylized heart shape become the icon for love and the human soul? Let's work our way back in history:
The heart symbol as we know it today, was popularized in the Victorian era over a hundred years ago. They loved the romantic heart shape and embellished it in many ways; but they didn't invent it. Where did it come from?
"Silphium has left its mark in modern society in a way that has not previously been recognized. Have you ever wondered why the human heart - the repository and the embodiment of romantic love - is always drawn stylized instead of in the natural shape of the human heart organ? The answer is rooted in the ancient function of Silphium! And the connection between this artistic convention and Silphium is found in the coinage of Cyrene, which features a seed pod of the revered plant." (Emilio N Favority and Kurt Baty. The Celator, Vol 9, No.2)
► Asafoetida (Pers. انگدان Angedan).
MEDICAL Apps: Asafoetida reduces the growth of indigenous microflora in the gut. fighting flu - Asafoetida was used in 1918 to fight the Spanish influenza pandemic. Scientists at the Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan report that the roots of Asafoetida produces natural antiviral drug compounds that kill the swine flu virus, H1N1. In an article published in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Natural Products, the researchers said the compounds "may serve as promising lead components for new drug development" against this type of flu. contraceptive/abortifacient - Asafoetida has also been reported to have contraceptive/abortifacient activity, and is related (and considered an inferior substitute to) the ancient Ferula species Silphium. antiepileptic - Asafoetida oleo-gum-resin has been reported to be antiepileptic in classical Unani as well as ethnobotanical literature.
HUNTING apps (bait): John C Duval reported in 1936 that the odor of asafoetida is attractive to the wolf, a matter of common knowledge, he says, along the Texas/Mexico border. It is also used as one of several possible scent baits, most notably for catfish and pike.
MAGICK apps: In Jamaica, asafoetida is traditionally applied to a baby's anterior fontanel (Jamaican patois "mole") in order to prevent spirits (Jamaican patois "duppies") from entering the baby through the fontanel. In the African-American Hoodoo tradition, asafoetida is used in magic spells as it is believed to have the power both to protect and to curse. In ceremonial magick especially from The Key of Solomon the King, it is used to protect the magus from daemonic forces and to evoke the same and bind them.
Asant (Ferula assa-foetida), auch bekannt als Stinkasant (hindi: हिंग Hing, urdu: Hei-ng) oder Teufelsdreck: Indikationen für die Anwendung waren a) verschiedene Angst- und Nervenstörungen (Nervosität, Hysterie, Hypochondrie), b) krampfartige Magen-, Leber- und Galleleiden, c) Impotenz und reduzierter sexueller Antrieb. Entsprechend war Asant vorwiegend als Nerven- und Beruhigungsmittel sowie als gastrointestinales Spasmolytikum verbreitet. Seit dem Altertum galt Asa foetida außerdem als Aphrodisiakum und wurde über Jahrhunderte in der Liebesmagie eingesetzt. ... Asant soll auch in Chanel Nº 5 enthalten sein.
► Did the ancient Romans use a natural herb for birth control? The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder described use of the resin "with soft wool as a pessary to promote the menstrual discharge." If taken as ancient writers claimed, silphium might have worked as a monthly morning-after pill. Other items touted as contraceptives in antiquity include wild carrot (a silphium relative also known as Queen Anne's lace), pennyroyal, and pomegranate. In small doses many of these are known to stimulate menstrual flow, just as silphium is supposed to have done.
Whether it was effective or not, silphium certainly was a popular plant. Almost impossible to cultivate, it became the main source of economic power for Cyrene, a Greek colony in what's now Libya, where it grew wild.
Nonetheless, by the end of the first century AD silphium was no more. The last pieces of this aphrodisiac plant were reputedly consumed by the dying emperor Nero: "Qualis artifex pereo!"
After silphium disappeared, asafetida was used as a replacement, imported from what are now Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Already used by the poor because it was cheaper and more plentiful than silphium, asafetida was considered inferior from both a culinary and medicinal standpoint.
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Protect Your Heart at Every Age
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EXPLANATIONS of WORDS
Schlieren (from German; singular "Schliere", meaning "streak") are optical inhomogeneities in transparent material not visible to the human eye. Schlieren physics developed out of the need to produce high-quality lenses void of these inhomogeneities. These inhomogeneities are localized differences in optical path length that cause light deviation. This light deviation is converted to shadow in a schlieren system.
dub 1. give an unofficial name or nickname to (someone or something), make someone a knight by the ritual touching of the shoulder with a sword. 3. smear (leather) with grease. ORIGIN: late Old English (in the sense 'make a knight'): from Old French adober 'equip with armour'.
overdub (verb) record (additional sounds) on an existing recording. (noun) an instance of overdubbing: a guitar overdub [_NODE_1321_]
empathy the ability to understand and share the feelings of another DERIVATIVES: empathize (verb), empathetic / empathic (adjectives), empath (noun). ORIGIN: In the early 20th century the german word Einfühlung was 're-translated' into the until then not existing greek word empatheia
empath (chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual.
[_NODE_604_]
PHOTOCREDITS {1280/1440/1530/1800/5260 results, 21082010 / 26092010 / 11112010 / 17112010 / 28022011}
@FLICKR
PHOTOS:
► box in shape of a silphium seed pod
► Temple d'Asclépios à Al-Bayda et motifs de silphium ... look at the stylized heart-symbols at the top of the temple-columns!
GALLERIES:
► hearts in the temple of love {♥-slideshow}
► heart
via flickr-API-POP-UP's:
► morning after pill@answerbag
► signs of pregnancy@answerbag
► Resources for those considering a career in healthcare Miriam Salpeter@facebook (Febr 10, 2010)
► Resources for those considering a career in healthcare Miriam Salpeter@keppie careers (Febr 10, 2010)
► post@tumblr
► 1280 x 1280 @ everystockphoto
► back-up@musicspot.fr
► pictures of impossible shapes @ the little Blog
► photos @ What's popular today?
► hearts ♥ brick-red ♥ brecciated jasper @ Dr Dave's My Alternative Healing & Health Blog {May, 8th, 2010}
► BACKUP: Lastest Critical Illness Claims News @ critical illness cover. Post by James on July 2nd, 2010.
► esoteric @ 24-tipp-de, Sept 22nd, 2010
► pictures of impossible shapes @ the little blog
BLOGS
► poppy jasper @kosmix (210810)
► ... the drive of service and compassion. These are the tools that we can give people to return to empathy without fear ... by Joy Eckstine, Topics: Homeless Health, 22 Sept 2010.
► Valentine’s Day – Love Yourself This Year @richardmaun - Tips & Stories to improve work and life (February 13, 2011)
► Love and Trash is a DIY blog for people who do things differently. (March 2011)
► High-risk hearts: a South Asian epidemic @University of Cambridge, June 30, 2011 Why is heart disease increasing at a greater rate in South Asia than in any other region globally? Large-scale population studies in Pakistan and Bangladesh aim to discover the basis of a little-studied public health problem of epidemic proportions. (MIRROR-ECHO @ medicalexpress-news)
► Having Sex Like It's Going Out of Style @ Medicinal Marzipan (body image & authentic living), July 22, 2011. Having Sex Like It's Going Out of Style (ECHO) @ dillarddario27 blog, July 24, 2011
► Content, The Heart and Soul of Your Online Brand by Jeff Bullas. Categories: Content, Social Media. November 21, 2011
28052010: 1578
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26092010: 2854
11112010: 3556
17112010: 3624
28012011: 4454
03022011: 4508
10022011: 4609
14022011: 4696
17022011: 4749
07032011: 4931
29032011: 5173
18042011: 5417
19082011: 6660
23102011: 7387
23112011: 7797
16082012: 9346
28112012: 9797
10072013: 10.979
29032014: 25.517
25072014: 37.511
30Jul2014: 37.938
08Dec2014: 51.506
2015
01 April ... 67,855, 35 faves
06 Juli ... 82,989
15 Nov ... 92,317
30Nov ....93,825