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On Christmas Eve, we went to a Christmas party at Chris's parents' place. Everyone enjoyed food, chats, and a gift exchange. We had a great time!
"Can a mother forget her own baby, and not love the child she bore ?" A mother who was not able to let go of her child, even after it's death !!
Twin fawns showing some sibling affection. Shooting into the sun, but that is the way it goes with uncooperative models.
RAW, PS Elements.
A simpatia foi imediata entre meu neto, Miguel, e essa cadelinha - atropelada há dias atrás, perdeu o movimento das patas traseiras e o filhotinho que esperava...Adotada por uma amiga ,que adora animais e a trata com todos os mimos , agora usa fraldas e aparelho para se locomover. Final feliz !
Sympathy was immediate between my grandson, Michael, and this little dog - run over a few days ago, lost the movement of the hind paws and the puppy that was waiting... Adopted by a friend who loves animals and treats with all the flourishes, now uses diapers and equipment to get around. Happy End !
Directed by Roger Corman. Starring Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, David Weston, Patrick Magee, Nigel Green and Skip Martin.
Brief Synopsis
In 12th-century Italy Prospero, a Satan-worshiping prince, jails two peasants, Gino and Ludovico, for defying his authority to tax citizens. Francesca, Ludovico's daughter and Gino's fiancée, pleads for their lives, and the intrigued Prospero agrees to spare whichever one she chooses. Later, the prince sees evidence of the Red Death plague in the village and orders all houses in the infected area burned. The disease obliges Prospero to retreat to his castle, and he forces Francesca to accompany him, intending to dress her in courtly attire and have her watch him indulge in sadistic pleasures as part of her instruction in diabolism. Juliana, the prince's mistress, is jealous of Francesca but aids her attempt to help Gino and Ludovico escape. The plot is foiled, however, and at one of the events preceding Prospero's annual masked ball, the prince orders the men to cut themselves with five knives, one of which is poisoned. Ludovico is impaled on Prospero's sword when he attempts to kill the prince with one of the weapons, and Gino is banished to the burning village, promising to return. Juliana, meanwhile, sacrifices herself to Satan while Prospero watches unperturbed. On his way back to town, Gino meets a strange figure in red, who takes him back to the castle and instructs him to wait outside for Francesca. As the mysterious intruder enters the ball, Prospero and his guests die of the Red Death, but Gino and Francesca are permitted to survive.
“The Masque of the Red Death” was apparently the story that inspired Roger Corman to start making movies based on the works of Poe. You might ask why, in that case, his first crack at the subgenre was The Fall of the House of Usher, and I honestly couldn’t give you an answer. But for whatever reason, Corman didn’t get around to filming The Masque of the Red Death until 1964, when it was obvious to everyone except possibly the director himself that he was getting sick of Poe adaptations, and the result was a disjointed, muddled, and nearly lifeless movie that just barely squeaks by on the basis of excellent visual composition and a splendid performance from star Vincent Price.
This would have been a difficult movie to make under the best of circumstances, though, because the original story is scarcely five pages long, and is written like a campfire tale. Characterization is literally at the level of “there’s this guy, see, and one day he...”, while months’ worth of action is passed over in single sentences, and every other element of the story is utterly subordinated to the final shock in the last paragraph. As temptingly cool as the underlying premise is, it would be a challenge to turn “The Masque of the Red Death” into a fifteen minute short, let alone a feature film. So inevitably, screenwriter Charles Beaumont was forced to invent scenes, characters, and motivations wholesale, and even then, he felt compelled to splice in a second Poe story, “Hop Frog,” as a subplot in order to bulk up his script to the required length.
The film begins with an old peasant woman encountering a strange man in a hooded red robe, sitting beneath a tree and dealing himself a Tarot hand. The man flags the old lady down, and gives her something to take with her to her village. She is to be his messenger, the hooded man explains, and sends her on her way.
Just hours after her arrival back home, her village finds itself playing host to its lord, Prince Prospero (Price). The prince has come to announce the date of the annual feast he holds for the nobility at his castle, the leftovers from which he has traditionally given back to the peasantry in what could arguably be seen as the feudal equivalent of an income tax refund. But this year, the peasants are not so placid in their acceptance of Prospero’s “generosity.” As a young man named Gino (Witchcraft’s David Weston) explains, one of their women met a holy man in the woods that evening, who told her that their day of deliverance was at hand. With news like that, Gino and his people feel little inclination to kiss Prince Prospero’s ass, whatever his rank. The prince is enraged, and he orders his soldiers to kill Gino, as well as an older man named Ludovico (Nigel Green, from The Skull and Jason and the Argonauts), who makes the mistake of sticking up for Gino. And when a lovely young girl named Francesca (Jane Asher, who had a tiny role in The Creeping Unknown/The Quatermass Xperiment) sticks up for both condemned men (she’s Ludovico’s daughter and Gino’s fiancee), Prospero plays the sort of nasty trick on her that Vincent Price characters are justly famous for, “magnanimously” agreeing to spare one of the men, and insisting that Francesca choose which it will be.
But Prospero’s fun is soon interrupted by prolonged and hideous screaming coming from one of the village huts. When he sends one of his men to investigate, that man finds the old lady from the first scene, keeled over dead on the floor, her skin covered in hundreds of tiny hemorrhages. The symptoms are unmistakable— the dreaded Red Death has come to Prospero’s domain. When the prince hears that, he orders his soldiers to pack up Gino, Ludovico, and Francesca, and burn the village to the ground while he and a handful of men escort the prisoners to the castle. Prospero may fear the Red Death, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to let it spoil his fun.
Then again, Prospero is almost certainly damned anyway. It isn’t just that he’s an evil bastard, although he certainly is that; more importantly, Prince Prospero and his wife, Juliana (Hazel Court, from The Curse of Frankenstein and Dr. Blood’s Coffin), are practicing Satanists. That would go some way toward explaining all the evil, wouldn’t it? In the prince’s case, Satanism looks a lot like a combination of sadism and hedonism. Whether he’s torturing prisoners, trying to force Gino and Ludovico to fight a duel against each other, or romancing the captive Francesca, all Prospero is really interested in is his own pleasure. And so it is scarcely surprising that he takes advantage of the need to quarantine his estate against the Red Death to convert his planned banquet into a weeks-long debauch. The assembled nobility will be plied with all the food and drink they can keep down, and presented with amusements ranging from dancing midgets to a lethal game of chance involving Gino, Ludovico, and five daggers, one with a poisoned blade (think of it as a renaissance version of Russian roulette). And as the climax to the celebration, an all-night masquerade will be held in the great hall of the castle. All Prospero’s nobles need to do to get in on the excitement is follow a few simple directions in traveling to his estate: stay the hell away from any peasant villages where the Red Death might have broken out. The fate of one lord who disregards the prince’s instructions is enough to ensure that everyone else does exactly as they are told.
Meanwhile, Prospero has been working on Francesca, and the girl proves surprisingly susceptible to persuasion. Though she professes a firm belief in Christianity, her simple peasant’s faith has no answer for the thorny philosophical questions with which the prince bombards her— how, for example, does one reconcile an all-powerful, benevolent deity with the undeniable domination of the world by cruel and evil men? When Prospero asserts that if ever the universe was ruled by a god of love and mercy, that god is now long gone, Francesca can offer no reply. The prince’s interest in converting the girl makes Juliana very nervous, however. She, after all, has no desire to see her place at Prospero’s side taken by some low-born wench who just happens to be a better-than-average piece of ass. Unfortunately for Juliana, though, her strategy for shoring up her position yields results rather different from those she sought, and the scheming lady ends up with a whole new appreciation of the capabilities of hunting falcons.
Juliana’s fate is only slightly less grisly than that of Prospero’s friend, Alfredo (Patrick Magee, from And Now the Screaming Starts and Dementia 13). Alfredo has, over the course of his stay with Prospero, developed quite a letch for Esmeralda (Verina Greenlaw, who was all but invisible in The Haunting the year before), the beautiful midget dancer who performs at Prospero’s court. But given that Alfredo is one of the prince’s closest friends, it goes without saying that his affection for the girl doesn’t lead him to treat her any better than he would any other commoner, and his sustained nastiness toward her brings upon him the vengeance of Hop Toad (Skip Martin, from Vampire Circus and Horror Hospital), the male dwarf who works as Esmeralda’s partner in her act. Hop Toad gets his revenge by suggesting a costume for Alfredo to wear to the masquerade. The dwarf knows that Prospero owns (for no very good reason) a gorilla suit that should fit Alfredo nicely. Hop Toad contends that if Alfredo wears this costume to the masque, and makes a big scene by molesting all the women and generally causing a ruckus, he’ll be the life of the party. Hop Toad can then come in and pretend to bring him under control for further laughs and hilarity. Alfredo agrees that Hop Toad’s idea sounds like a hoot and a holler, but what the dwarf neglected to mention was that he would “bring Alfredo under control” by chaining him to the chandelier, hoisting him to the ceiling, and setting him on fire. But Prospero gets the joke, and when it’s all over, he orders Hop Toad rewarded with five pieces of gold.
And now, at last, we have arrived at the point of the movie, and the only part of it that has much to do with the story from which it takes its title— the masquerade. Gino breaks out of Prospero’s castle, and on his wanderings through the surrounding woods, he meets up with the same red-robed man as the woman in the first scene. After a short talk, in which Gino explains who he is and where he has come from, the hooded stranger has Gino lead him to the castle, and before sneaking in, the man in red promises his companion that he will see to Francesca’s safety. Now obviously, there can be little question at this point who the hooded man really is, though Prospero himself doesn’t get it at first. The prince’s initial assumption is that his unannounced guess is his long-awaited master, Beelzebub, or at the very least his emissary. But when his guests start hemorrhaging to death all around him, Prospero puts the pieces together, and he is stunned to learn that his life-long devotion to Satan is no protection against the Red Death.
If you ask me, I think what Corman should have done was get Richard Matheson to write a “Masque of the Red Death” segment into the script for Tales of Terror back in 1962. Then the story’s greatest strengths— its brevity and directness— could have been deployed in service of the film adaptation, rather than standing as the basis for an unfavorable comparison. Poe’s story just doesn’t have enough meat to it to support a feature-length treatment, and all the extraneous material Beaumont was forced to add mainly serves to bog the movie down in directionless subplots. But there is one thing Beaumont added to the story that I really did enjoy. After all the plot threads are tied up, and everything seems to be fully over, the camera returns to the Red Death, sitting, as is his wont, beneath a tree, playing with his Tarot deck. Suddenly, he is joined by a similarly garbed figure, but wearing a black robe, rather than red. That’s right, the Red Death and the Black Death have gotten together to compare notes! And before long, a veritable rainbow of multicolored Deaths have arrived on the scene; I gave up guessing which diseases they were supposed to represent after Yellow Fever put in his appearance. It’s a fun scene, and it makes a great ending to a mostly forgettable movie.
I don't know if this little dog was her pet or if they were two strangers who just felt drawn to each upon first sight. Helsinki, Finland (Suomi ): this photograph may not be reproduced. (26 August, 2019)
#AB_FAV_EMOTIONS_
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure.
An example of this range of meanings is that the love of a mother differs from the love of a spouse, which differs from the love for food.
Most commonly, love refers to a feeling of a strong attraction and emotional attachment.
From friendship, to filial, to romantic love, it fills our heart with warmth.
Just thinking about a sibling, a partner, a good friend or special friend it fills us with a good feeling when all is well, it can give you peace.
And I will show you that love and a kiss is NOT just for the young!
Thank you, M, (*_*)
For more: www.indigo2photography.com
IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN (BY LAW!!!) TO USE ANY OF MY image or TEXT on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
love, people, men, male, friends, couple, mature, kiss, , female, emotion, family, affection, natural, "Nikon", "Magda indigo"
It's a bit hard to tell, but we had mane nibbling going on from both parties. Given the burrs in the wild horse's manes.....they could use the help.
I was moved by the love and affection they shared. De$tiny and his son Chico they are great to photograph!
Denis Compton, who died on April 23, 1997, aged 78, was not just a great cricketer but a character who transcended the game and became what would now be called a national icon. In the years after the war, when the British were still finding the joys of victory elusive, the exuberance of Compton's batting and personality became a symbol of national renewal. Almost single-handed (though his pal Bill Edrich helped), he ensured that cricket returned to its pre-war place in the nation's affections. Only Ian Botham has ever come remotely close to matching this achievement.
Compton was a remarkable batsman: loose-limbed with broad shoulders and powerful forearms. He could play all the strokes, though he rarely straight-drove. What made him special was his audacity: he would take risks, standing outside the crease even to quickish bowlers, challenging them to bowl anything other than the length he wanted. He took 622 wickets, mostly with his chinamen, and any other player might have turned this skill into a career; Compton regarded them as a bit of a party trick. His running between the wickets was never good, but it seemed to get worse after he retired and became the source of a thousand after-dinner jokes. In reality, it was never a disastrous weakness.
Denis Compton was born in Hendon, on May 23, 1918, and described his childhood as both poorish and happy. His father was a self-employed decorator who became a lorry driver when his business foundered. He was also a keen cricketer, as was Leslie, Denis's elder brother. They played against the lamp-posts in Alexandra Road and at Bell Lane Elementary School, and Compton's talent was obvious at once. At 12, he was playing for his father's team, and North London Schools against South London Schools at Lord's. He made 88. Two years later, watched by Sir Pelham Warner, he made 114 at Lord's for the Elementary Schools against C. F. Tufnell's XI and led his team to a crushing victory. He joined the Lord's staff in 1933, and three years later got a game for the county, as an 18-year-old against Sussex in the Whitsun match. Compton batted at No. 11: he scored 14 in an important last-wicket stand with Gubby Allen that gave Middlesex first-innings points; the umpire Bill Bestwick supposedly said later that he only gave Compton lbw because he was desperate for a pee.
Next match he was No. 8 and facing Larwood with confidence. Then he was No. 7, scoring 87 against Northamptonshire. In one game, the captain Walter Robins came down the pitch after he had driven a fast bowler for two consecutive fours. You know what to look out for now, don't you? No, skipper. Well, he'll bounce one at you. If he does, I shall hook him. And he did - into the Mound Stand. Before June was out he scored a hundred, in an hour and three-quarters, at Northampton. By the time the season was over and he had passed a thousand runs, Warner, then chairman of the Test selectors, called him the best young batsman who has come out since Walter Hammond was a boy.
But Compton had no time to relax. In September he made his Football League debut for Arsenal on the left wing against Derby County, scored the opening goal in a 2-2 draw, and was called the success of the afternoon by the Daily Express. Soon he was being marked out as a future England footballer as well as cricketer, despite criticism, which Compton always accepted, that he was inclined to prefer pretty ball-play to anything else. In cricket, the golden youth's progress turned out to be stoppable only by the Germans. In 1937 he scored 1,980 runs and was picked by England against New Zealand at the Oval. He scored 65 and was run out, flukily, while backing up. That year, as Pasty Hendren retired, Bill Edrich qualified for Middlesex. Len Hutton also made his Test debut. Thus started both the great partnership and the great rivalry that were to dominate post-war cricket. The contrast between the serious-minded Hutton and the insouciant Compton would be the great divide in English cricket for years, and small boys of all ages invariably inclined to one or the other.
Next time Compton batted for England, against Australia at Trent Bridge in 1938, he made 102; then came a match-saving yet exuberant 76 not out at Lord's. But he contributed just a single when Hutton scored his 364 at The Oval. Compton preferred to play football rather than tour South Africa- the 10-day Test at Durban would not have suited him - but in 1939 was back to top cricketing form, scoring 2,468 runs, including 120 against West Indies at Lord's, when he put on 248 with Hutton in two hours 20 minutes. There is no telling what this generation of batsmen might have achieved had they not been so rudely interrupted. Possibly, in the absence of equally compelling bowlers, they might have got bored. They never had the chance to find out. Soon Compton was a special constable and then a member of the Royal Artillery, posted first to East Grinstead which still allowed the chance of weekend football. (He won 12 wartime and Victory match football caps for England, which did not officially count, but many contemporaries agreed that he was now the best outside-left in the country.) In 1944 he was sent to India as a sergeant-major supposedly in charge of getting men fit to defeat Japan; his lenient approach to this task enhanced his popularity with the men, and the Allies still won the war. He was able to fit in 17 first-class matches in India as well. His performances included a century for East Zone against the Australian Services, which was interrupted by rioters for several minutes when he was in the nineties. The line Mr. Compton, you very good player but the game must stop became one of the catch-phrases of his friendship with Keith Miller, which ended only with Compton's death. Compton also appeared, in the casual manner of that era, in the extraordinary Ranji Trophy final of 1944-45, then the highest-scoring match ever, between Holkar and Bombay.
Compton struggled at first in 1946, and his first 12 months of post-war cricket are sometimes thought of as a failure. He was still the leading scorer with 2,403 runs in 1946, and made a hundred in each innings at the Adelaide Test the following February.
Because Compton had been touring, he missed that icy, fuel-rationed winter which for many people in Britain was tougher than anything produced by the war. Thus the stage was set for the greatest cricket season any individual has ever had. Compton did not really hit form until the season was a month old, and did not emerge into his full glory until the sun came out, and the series against South Africa began. He scored 753 of his 3,816 runs that summer in the Tests. But somehow, in the mind's eye of a generation, he was always batting at Lord's in a county match: hair tousled, the ball racing past cover point or backward of square. An exile in Australia complained: I hardly expected him to score 18 hundreds in a season. I thought him too good a player for that sort of thing. He was assured that Compton had just played his natural game and the centuries - like his aggregate, a record for any season - had been almost incidental. Even more incidentally, Compton and Edrich took Middlesex to the Championship. The only cloud in that perfect summer came in the very last county match at Lord's: Compton had to retire to the pavilion because of knee trouble. He came out to make a second-innings century, another against the South Africans, and a further 246 - the knee strapped - for Middlesex against The Rest at The Oval.
But from then on the words Compton and knee were to go together almost as easily as Compton and Edrich. Apparently, it was first damaged in a collision with Charlton goalkeeper Sid Hobbins in 1938, but it now became increasingly troublesome to him, and a constant source of worry for the public too. There were still many great innings - two big Test hundreds in 1948 against Bradman's invincible Australians, an astounding 300 in three hours against an admittedly weak North-Eastern Transvaal team a few months later - but they came less certainly. As a cricketer his zenith had been so high that the only possible way was down. He was, however, now much more than a cricketer. On the 1948-49 tour of South Africa, he approached the journalist Reg Hayter with a suitcase full of unopened letters. Hayter started to go through them and found one from the News of the World offering £2,000 a year for a weekly column. Then he found another, written a few months later, withdrawing the offer because there had been no reply. Hayter introduced Compton to Bagenal Harvey, who became the first sportsman's agent, and did the famous deal in which Compton slicked down his hair and became forever identified with Brylcreem.
In the spring of 1950 he was still able to come out of footballing semi-retirement, get into the Arsenal team during their FA Cup run and get a winner's medal at Wembley, where they beat Liverpool 2-0. But in the Whitsun game against Sussex, his knee gave way and he missed much of that summer. He failed horribly in the Tests in Australia in the winter. In May 1951, after being appointed joint captain of Middlesex with Edrich, he scored 909 runs, more than in May 1947, but Compton's knee was by now entering national folklore, his appearances were becoming curtailed, and his ambition less intense. The runs still kept coming: he made the hit that won the Ashes in 1953, and in 1954, against Pakistan, there came both his highest Test score, 278 at Trent Bridge, and the innings he was inclined to regard as his best, 53 on a wet pitch at The Oval. He scored 492 in the 1955 Tests against South Africa. That November he had his right kneecap removed; his surgeon kept it as a souvenir, before giving it to MCC as part of the Lord's archive. Compton's biographer, Tim Heald, examined it and reported that it was like a medium-sized mushroom, honey-coloured and honey-combed.
The operation enabled him to carry on playing for another two seasons, and to tour South Africa in 1956-57. He left county cricket as triumphantly as he entered it, hitting 143 in three hours in his final match as a professional for Middlesex in 1957. Thereafter he made occasional appearances as an amateur, scored his 123rd first-class hundred for the Cavaliers on a sociable trip to Jamaica in January 1964, and finally bowed out with a fifty for MCC against Lancashire later that year.
By then, he had become a thoroughly successful ex-cricketer, commentating for the BBC, writing pieces for the Sunday Express that were usually absurdly optimistic about the talents of iffy young cricketers, and using his natural readiness to have a drink and a chat with anyone to win accounts (successfully) for advertising agencies, first Royds then McCanns. He remained a bit of a roisterer into old age and maintained the friendships of his playing days until death. Edrich and Miller were at the top of this list; but it extended to all the South Africans he had found such chivalrous opponents and generous hosts. This led him to take the pro-white South Africa side in the disputes that followed his retirement and to be used on occasion - such as the 1983 debate over sending an MCC team to South Africa - by those with dubious motives. He never lost the slightly chaotic ingenuousness that was responsible for the suitcase of letters: he was always unpunctual and would arrive, as Michael Parkinson put it, in a cloud of dust even when he was walking with a stick. His home life was successful only serially, but his third and last wife provided two daughters to add to his earlier families, which helped keep him young. He was always young at heart, even towards the end when the pain from his hip merged with the pain from his knee. He died in hospital at Windsor on St. George's Day, following complications from his third hip operation. His memorial service at Westminster Abbey created more applications for tickets than any in 30 years. Cricket was hugely fortunate that such a gifted sportsman graced the game with his presence. It was doubly blessed that he was a man of modesty, charm and good nature.
Continued from: www.flickr.com/photos/42093313@N00/51871571321/in/datepos...
Uzair: “Then Allah does that even with the faiths that went headlong against His Tauheed, One-ness. The Christians who made the Prophet Isa (as), Jesus, His son. Many times, in about 30 some verses at least, He admonishes them. But then He also says:
مَّ قَفَّيْنَا عَلَىٰٓ ءَاثَرِهِم بِرُسُلِنَا وَقَفَّيْنَا بِعِيسَى ٱبْنِ مَرْيَمَ وَءَاتَيْنَهُ ٱلْإِنجِيلَ وَجَعَلْنَا فِى قُلُوبِ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّبَعُوهُ رَأْفَةًۭ وَرَحْمَةًۭ وَرَهْبَانِيَّةً ٱبْتَدَعُوهَا مَا كَتَبْنَهَا عَلَيْهِمْ إِلَّا ٱبْتِغَآءَ رِضْوَنِ ٱللَّهِ فَمَا رَعَوْهَا حَقَّ رِعَايَتِهَا ۖ
فَـَٔاتَيْنَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ أَجْرَهُمْ ۖ
وَكَثِيرٌۭ مِّنْهُمْ فَسِقُونَ
And We followed with Isa, son of Maryam, and We gave him the Injeel.
And We placed in the hearts of those who followed him compassion and mercy.
But monasticism they innovated - not that We prescribed it for them – they invented it themselves only seeking the Pleasure of Allah,
but then they did not observe with right observance.
So We gave those who believed among them their reward, but most of them are defiantly disobediently.
Surah Al Hadeed, Verse 27
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa: And after We caused them to be followed by…
Bi Isa ibn e Maryam: with the Prophet Isa (as) son of Maryam and we gave him the Injeel (Bible) and succored him with the Holy Spirit (Hazrat Gibrael (as))…
Wa: with perfected cleansing of him and nobility in his family and his behaviour…
Ja’alna fi quloobi illadina attaba’uhu: and We placed in their hearts, of those who followed him and believed in him and practiced his religion…
Rafa’tan: softness, affection and kindness, to the extent that they forgave murderers and did not fight with the ones who cursed them and those who were physically violent…
Wa rahmatan: and mercy, so they were merciful because of it with all of Allah’s Servants.
Wa: And because the intensity of their love and attachment with Allah by their connection with Him, they invented…
Rahbaaniatan: monasticism and transgressed the limits of worship to the extent that they wouldn’t eat and they wouldn’t drink for days at a time and never married and did not meet people and instead made their abodes in the heights of mountains and in caves and indeed…
Ibtadauha: they introduced it making it up from their own selves without any approval from Our Side because…
Ma katabnaha: We didn’t prescribe monasticism for them and We did not make it obligatory and We did not compel them towards it…
Alaihim: upon them in their religion and in their books but they didn’t choose it…
Illa abtigha’a ridwan illahe: except that they were seeking Allah’s Pleasure and were desiring of acquiring it and despite this…
Fama rauha haqqa ri’ayatiha: the monasticism did not match with their religion and their books because they disbelieved Muhammad (peace be upon him) even though he was the greatest credence in their religion and their books so they left that belief and didn’t recognize him knowingly with ignorance and obstinacy…
Fa’atayna alladina aamano: so We gave those who believed in Muhammad (peace be upon him)…
Minhum ajrahum: the reward of their faith and of their deeds multiplying them many times which they deserved because of those deeds…
Wa katheerum minhum fasiqoon: and most of them were defiantly disobedient, the ones who left the demand of their religion and their books by the denial of Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Uzair: “So Allah says about the Christians, not only do they feel empathy, the followers of the Prophet Jesus (as), they do something about it. Even in His Anger He points out the kindness they possess. Then He says they become ascetics which He did not oblige upon them. Then again even in that criticism, He says they did it thinking they could gain My Pleasure. But then they could not carry the burden of the act.
So coming back to the essence of the verses. forgive people and their mistakes, their shortcomings. Don’t just accept the goodness of their nature, highlight it.”
Subhan Allah!
The point Uzair wanted to make finally came;
“So if Allah has this approach for worship and deeds, giving the best ajr, reward, looking for the best of them, then will it not be the case that if we attach our beings, our own selves to those considered best by him, then by the blessings bestowed upon them, we will also become better and then best? If most mediocre deeds can be made perfect, then why won’t ordinary people be rendered extraordinary?”
The lecture had motivated me to contact those who had been acting crazy. We had been out of touch without animosity but weeks had gone by. In my usual haste, I made contact only to be rebuffed. Again! I felt bad. Iblis whispered words that made me feel slighted. My nafs felt wounded. It had been a while since that happened so I was taken aback by the emotions. They were all negative and draining.
For two nights I suffered. But then I came out of it because of the attempt to remind myself that they were my loved ones. And I was theirs. What I didn’t control so well was my tongue if I spoke about them. I would use sarcasm and berate them. They were just words not really my feelings. But that was exactly what made me insincere. I would know that as I saw them coming out of my mouth and entering my ears. It was pure reaction that was entirely habitual.
And then I came upon these words in the Tafseer e Tustari;
[6:152] …And if you speak, be just...
وَإِذَا قُلْتُمْ فَٱعْدِلُوا۟
And when you speak then be just.
Surah Al An’am, Verse 152
Hazrat Sahel (ra) said: “The people of veracity (ṣidq) speak in four ways: they speak in God, through God, for God or with God. There are other people who speak to themselves and for themselves, and so they are preserved from the evil of speech.
Yet other people speak about others and forget themselves, and so they innovate and go astray. Wretched is that which they have produced for themselves!
So abandon speech for knowledge, and then only speak when it is necessary, and you will be preserved from the ills of speech. What is meant [by ‘when it is necessary’] is that you should not speak unless you are afraid that you will otherwise fall into sin.
Then he said: Whoever makes a [false] assumption (ẓann) will be deprived of certainty, and whoever speaks about that which does not concern him will be deprived of veracity.”
That’s where I was landing more than anything. I found that badgumani, feeling mistrust towards others, almost always wrongly, was the most major bane of my nafs. That was the downside of being sensitive. I guess that is how I was depriving myself of certainty.
The narration I chose for my video to mark Imam Ali’s (as) birth is recorded in every tafseer of any merit; The blessed Imam (as) gives a silver ring he is wearing to a person asking for alms in the Masjid e Nabawi. He is mid-prayer in the position of ruku’, when one bends at right angles to the hip, touching their hands upon their knees. The verse that marks his gesture and the incident ends with the identifier of who it is revealed for; wa hum ra’kioon – they are the ones who give charity while they bow in prayer in ruku.’
The closing line of the video was a quote by the Imam (as) about his condition in every prayer;
لم اعبد ربا لم اره
“Never did I pray before The Lord who raised me
without seeing Him.”
I couldn’t stop marveling about what he said and how it connected to the giving of his alms precisely in the moment that he was seeing God. Then diverting himself from that seeing to loosen a ring and drop it from his finger for someone seeking charity. Because the ask was in His Name.
Was it any wonder that the act was purifying, that the Quran states to be the means of gaining forgiveness through the prayer of The Beloved (peace be upon him) which brought with it cleansing and purification, dignity, inner peace, calmness, tranquility for the heart, steadfastness in Tauheed and imaan. It’s true, there is no Bestower like Allah when He is Al Wahhab!
In one of my recent Quran classes at my cousins’ place, Danoo had told us all something that blew everyone away. As best as I can recall it, she said that they were those amongst Mankind who were bestowed the nazar, gaze of The Beloved (peace be upon him) such that Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) allowed them to see him in certain moments of his life.
Time travel has already been confirmed by many Spiritual Masters of the day as the miracle of the awaited last Imam, Mehdi (ra), but it always existed for all the Friends of God.
“So someone was able to see Huzoor (peace be upon him) in a sitting with his companions or perhaps in a signing of a treaty or in a state of travel or anything. It was Huzoor’s (peace be upon him) gift to them.”
Almost everyone in the room had let out a cry of the deepest envy. It was beyond anyone’s imagination that such a thing could occur. I had been thinking about what I would have liked to have seen. The list was long. High on it for me was the splitting of the moon. I was taken by the incident even though I didn’t want to see or hear the infidels backtracking on their word and denying its happening while it unfolded in front of their eyes.
But I did want to see the moon separate from itself at his beckon. I wanted to see him step away from the pulpit to take Imam Hassan (as) and Imam Hussain (as) into his arms when they entered the Mosque while he was giving a sermon. I wanted to see him sit with his friends, the four of them, around the well in Medina to tell them they would all have houses near his in Paradise. I would be mesmerized by the way he greeted his most beloved child, Bibi Fatima (as), when she came to see him. I would have loved to see him enter Mecca, 13 years after being made to flee the city under threat to his life, the heads of all his enemies bowed in fear and trepidation, his own head bowed as well despite being the victor, out of pure humility to his Lord for granting him such a victory.
My list was endless indeed.
From Imam Ali’s (as) life, I would have liked to have seen, again amongst many things, the incident of the ring. The tafseer of the verse was this for the video from the Tafseer e Jilani was superb;
إِنَّمَا وَلِيُّكُمُ اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا الَّذِينَ يُقِيمُونَ الصَّلَاةَ
وَيُؤْتُونَ الزَّكَاةَ وَهُمْ رَاكِعُونَ
Innama walliyyukum Allah: Only Allah is your Friend, The One who is in charge of your matters as related to all kinds of ordinary love…
Wa Rasooluhu: and so is His Messenger (peace be upon him), who is His Vice-regent second to Him, also in charge of your matters…
Walladina aamano: and those who brought faith in Allah with a love made special because of their following the Prophet (peace be upon him) and they…
Alladina yuqeemoona: are the ones who are forever…
As salata: in prayer that brings one close to Allah’s Essence…
And yu’toona az zakata: and they give charity which cleanses their hearts from focus on anything other than Allah…
Wa: in the state of…
Hum rak’ioon: ruku,’ bowing in their prayers, with humility.
Surah Al Maidah, Verse 55
The line made me look up something I had read months ago in the Tafseer e Tustari and no doubt quoted in a piece along the way;
Hazrat Sahl (ra) was asked about the words of the Prophet , ‘Seeking knowledge is an obligation (farīḍa) for every Muslim’.
He said, ‘This refers to the knowledge of [one’s]state (ḥāl).’
He was asked, ‘What is the knowledge of [one’s] state?’
Sahl (ra) replied: Inwardly it is sincerity (ikhlāṣ) and outwardly it is emulation (iqtidāʾ). Moreover, unless a person’s outward [self] (ẓāhir) is leading his inner [self] (bāṭin), and his inner self is the perfection (kamāl) of his outward self, he will merely be fatiguing his body.
Mālik b. Anas alluded to this point when he said, ‘Knowledge is not just about how much you can relate [from memory] (riwāya) but rather knowledge is a light that God places within the heart.’
He [Sahl] was asked, ‘How can a man recognise his state (ḥāl) and act upon it?’
He replied: “When you speak, your state is that of speech, and when you observe silence, your state is that of silence. When you stand your state is that of standing, and when you sit your state is that of sitting. [To have] knowledge of your state you should see whether it is for God or for other than Him. If it is for God you may settle in it, but if it is for other than Him you should abandon it.
This is the act of taking account of oneself (muḥāsaba) which ʿUmar enjoined when he said, ‘Call yourselves to account before you are called to account, and weigh yourselves up before you are weighed up…’ Indeed, ʿUmar used to beat his chest while calling himself to account.’”
The day I decided to end the piece was extraordinary. It was a Sunday. I was taking a friend visiting from the States for the best doughnuts in town and a street food lunch called a Bun Plaster. Towards the end she said she wanted to go by Daata Sahib’s (ra). It was the oldest and most revered shrine of the city and the Sub-continent, almost a 1,000 in existence. Her niece was driving the car and my first thought was, “Without a driver?”
The shrine is located in the inner city of Lahore and the place is always densely crowded. “Why not,” everyone else said. I knew Shaan had been dying to go there since I met him. He was wearing a baseball cap, black jeans that were always sliding down his waist, a shirt and jacket. The other thought that entered my mind was “How will we get Shaan to wear a veil to go inside?”
When we reached the entrance of the shrine, we basically breezed through security. One woman came running after us as if she had had an afterthought that a boy was coming into the women’s section. “Boy or girl?” she said pointing at Shaan. I was only too familiar with the question personally.
“Girl,” I said confidently. Shaan unzipped his jacket and let him pat her down. That was it. No one cared about the veil. He didn’t even take his hat off the whole time. We went in, placed flowers and prayed Maghrib with the congregation. I listened intently to the verses the Qari recited in the first two raka’t. Both were most beautiful.
The first ended with one of the most ma’roof lines of the Quran;
وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِّلْعَالَمِين
And did We not send you (O Beloved saw) except as a mercy for the Universe
and all that exists within it
Surah Al-Anbiya, Verse 107
My heart soared. The verse read aloud in the second raka’t had the same effect.
ٱرْجِعِىٓ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةًۭ مَّرْضِيَّةًۭ
فَٱدْخُلِى فِى عِبَدِى
وَٱدْخُلِى جَنَّتِى
Return to your Lord well pleased, and pleasing.
so enter then together with My Servants
and enter My Paradise.
Surah Al Fajr, Verse 89
We distributed cauldrons of food on our way to the car. We did everything one is meant to do! As we drove back, I told the younger kids about the verse`s we had prayed to. They listened silently. Shaan was quiet. When he did speak, he broke into extemporaneous poetry in Urdu. He always did that when he was excited. It never made sense to anyone except me who now knew him.
The first Coke Studio track in a year and a half had been released that morning. It was phenomenal; a beautiful duet by Naseebo Lal and Abeda Parveen. A woman who was unknown and supposedly from the humblest of backgrounds in Lahore, dirt poor, paired with the most important female Sufi artist of the continent, if not the world. All of us in the car from age 21 to 55 were moved by the sound of the music. It was one of those rare tracks that make the eyes cry and the heart soar.
The best thing about being cut off from the world, literally, because of the absence of being perpetually connected to the internet, is missing out on the bad news. And then the detail of the bad news. Many, including children, had recently died because of being stuck in snow in a hill station families had driven to just to see the snowfall. People kept talking about photos they couldn’t get out of their minds and the behaviour of hotel owners who had raised tariffs so much overnight that people had opted to sleep in their cars and therefore frozen to death.
I only knew about the incident because I saw a headline in Yahoo when I exited my mail. Luckily all I was thinking about was how the Person of the Shrine was the only one who decided what happened to those who came to him because there was a bulawa, invite, for them. Shaan, a 47 year old female, dressed like a 14 year old boy, had been welcomed with just a single question that had been posed to me my whole life. And not just in Lahore!
It made me think of the verse that all Honour belongs to Allah.
مَن كَانَ يُرِيدُ ٱلْعِزَّةَ فَلِلَّهِ ٱلْعِزَّةُ جَمِيعًاۚ إِلَيْهِ يَصْعَدُ ٱلْكَلِمُ ٱلطَّيِّبُ وَٱلْعَمَلُ ٱلصَّلِحُ يَرْفَعُهُۚۥ
Whoever desires for himself honor, (should know) then for Allah (alone) is all the Honor.
To Him ascends the good words, and righteous deeds raises it.
Surah Fatir, Verse 10
Tafseer e Jilani:
Man kana yureed ul izzata: The one who wants honour, endless, after which never comes humiliation ever, then he should turn towards Allah and makes his focus His One-ness.
Fa lillahe izzatu: For only Allah is the True Owner of Honour, which includes control, eternal majesty and all kingdoms…
Jami-an: overt (zahiri) and inner (batini). And the one who desires that Allah bestow upon him honour and control and absolute kingdoms and abundance that remains forever, then he should, in his initial stages toward Allah, praise Him by way of His Perfect Names and Exalted Attributes till his remembrance reaches the stages of their reflection in him.
This (the reflection) is the last effort and then he becomes a reflector of Allah’s Being, wanting to unveil the Veils of His Omnipotence, till he becomes present before Him, able to unveil Him and witness the Signs of His Names and Attributes on the surface of the Universe without the distortion created by others.
And overall (in summary), the one who seeks honour should be occupied in the Remembrance by Allah in the early stages because
Ilayhi yasadu alkalm at tayyabu: towards Him ascend good words which are the Prefect Names of Allah and His Exalted Attributes, increasing in frequency from the tongues of The Sincere and The Ones who Reflect in Allah’s Blessings and His Bounty…
Wal al amal as saleh: and (they should be occupied) in good deeds joined with ikhlas, sincerity and tabbatul, devotion to Him (also ascending towards Him)…
Yarfa’uhu: (which will be why) He then raises that deed founded upon sincerity and those good words allowing them to reach towards the stages of Closeness with Allah. So for the one whose sincerity in his deed is perfect, then the ranks of his words, which are raised towards Allah Subhanahu, are the highest and the most supreme to Him.
It was astonishing that link; the sincerity of my deeds being behind my tasbeeh of His Names reaching Him.
Just a few days after the visit to Daata Sahib (ra) I realized that Shaan was just a human being. Not perfected spirituality (albeit only in certain aspects) that I had made him out to be because he lived in a park. Because he had been homeless. Because he was alone. Because he possessed exactly nothing. Because he was attached to nothing. Because no one except God cared about him. He was simply human. He possessed the duality in his nature like everyone else. He felt anger and fear. He expressed resentment and envy.
The issue that unmasked his fragility was one that everyone faces. When his behaviour changed I discussed it with Qari Sahib. He said it was natural and it had to be waited out.
“Everyone needs time to heal,” he said. “From an old wound or a new one. Give it time.”
It was my fault anyway as usual. I had made Shaan out to be super human. He was not. His being alone had just made his idiosyncrasies more intense than other people’s. Being on the spectrum added its own layer on top of that. It had to be borne to see where he might land. Wherever that was, I would have to deal with it then.
In the beginning though when all options pointed towards him having to leave, I felt a deep anguish. I prayed and prayed and cried in those prayers. “Please God,” I begged, “Let Shaan become the way he was. Let him be happy and let his heart be calm and devoid of that which makes him now different.” I don’t believe I prayed that hard for a reversal in someone’s nature in my entire life. Even though he was not blood, he was not a friend.
The experience taught me something extremely important one day at Fajr when I lay in bed holding my tasbeeh, about to spin its beads. Every single thing and every single person in one’s life is an amanat of Allah. Everything is a bestowing, therefore it is only in a safe-keeping. There is no possession as such of anything. Nothing and no one belongs to anyone, except God.
It was like the second line in the video from the kalam. It was part of the tarana and everyone assumed it was just sounds that had no meaning. But they had meaning and it was the deepest meaning ever;
ہم تم تا نا نا نا، تا نانا رے
I reflect You,
I am yours,
I belong to You.
That night when I prayed Isha’ a thought came into my mind. Knowledge is a city, Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) says. He is that city, Madinat ul Ilm. But entrance into any city is through its door. And the Imam (as), he said, is that Bab oha, its Door. My learning about the faith before going to him in Iraq was like watching things from a drone; flying above but never being inside it.
It wasn’t until I arrived at that Door that my learning changed from the reading and listening and writing of words and edged somewhat slightly towards deed. Which incidentally is the third cure for a heart being shred to pieces from the onslaught of doubt and paranoia. For deed, says Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) is the path from which Satan, when he sees it, leaves. Deed, said the Imam (as), was what would bear witness to his faith. And faith, as I was made to learn in no uncertain terms, imaan, was nothing except the prize for the emulation of Allah’s Beloved (peace be upon him).
Hence for every act there was really only one deed. Just like for every path that lead to spirituality, there was only one door.
In the Tafseer e Jilani, Ghaus Pak (ra) writes again and again about the the verses of Paradise under which flow rivers. Those rivers are of ma’raifat, the Recognition of Allah Subhanahu, specifically three; Ilm ul Yaqeen, the Knowledge of Certainty, Ayn ul Yaqeen, the Witnessing of Certainty, Haq ul Yaqeen, the Truth of Knowledge.
إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّلِحَتِ يَهْدِيهِمْ رَبُّهُم بِإِيمَنِهِمْ ۖ
تَجْرِى مِن تَحْتِهِمُ ٱلْأَنْهَرُ فِى جَنَّتِ ٱلنَّعِيمِ
Indeed, those who believed and did good deeds, Allah will guide them by that faith.
Underneath them will flow the rivers in Gardens of Delight.
Surah Yunus, Verse 9
Tafseer e Jilani
Then said Allah Subhanahu, Exalted is He, according to His Way as it is always, when comes after admonishment glad tidings and vice versa…
Innalladina aamino: indeed, they who attained to faith in Allah and His Tauheed, One-ness…
Wa amilo salihaat: and they did good deeds as commanded by Him to better their states…
Yahdihim Rabbohum: their Lord will guide them towards the cosmos of His Tauheed…
Bi imaanihim: by their faith and their Ilm Yaqeeni, certainty of the Divine, that comes from knowledge…
Tajri min tahtahi mul anhaar: from rivers that flow beneath their feet i.e. streams of Ma’arif, Recognition of God and sprouting purls of the Truth of His Reality from the Ocean of His One-ness, with the colours of Ayn al Yaqeen, The Witnessing of Divine Certainty and Al Haq, the Truth of Divine Certainty…
Fi Jannaatin Naeem: i.e. they will be forever placed in the realm of these spiritual pleasures.
I started celebrating the month of Rajab at its advent. Like I do with Rabul Awwal, the month of the blessed birth of Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) and the month of Rabbu Thani, the month of the birth of Ghaus Pak (ra). This year a bunch of my friends sent money to partake in the distribution of food with me mostly because they were deeply affected by the verse about charity bringing them the prayer of Allah’s Beloved (peace be upon him).
Then I started a prayer I have only said once before in my life. When I secluded myself for three days in Ramadan, also only once in my life. It was a prayer favoured by the Imam (as), two nafal reading Surak Ikhlas a 100 times in each rak’at. It was not lost on me, the name of the Surah, sincerity, that it was the Surah of Tauheed, One-ness.
It was a distracted utterance, except for the beginning but it was joyous. Before I started I said a prayer for myself that I had just learnt from the Hazrat Yousuf (as), the Prophet Joseph.
رَبِّ قَدْ ءَاتَيْتَنِى مِنَ ٱلْمُلْكِ وَعَلَّمْتَنِى مِن تَأْوِيلِ ٱلْأَحَادِيثِ ۚ
فَاطِرَ ٱلسَّمَوَتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ أَنتَ وَلِىِّۦ
فِى ٱلدُّنْيَا وَٱلْءَاخِرَةِ ۖ
تَوَفَّنِى مُسْلِمًۭا وَأَلْحِقْنِى بِٱلصَّلِحِينَ
My Lord, indeed, you have given of the sovereignty and taught me of the interpretation of the events.
Creator of the heavens and the earth, You are my Protector, in the world and the Hereafter. Cause me to die as a Muslim, and join me with the righteous."
Hazrat Yusuf, Verse 101
Tafseer e Jilani
Then prayed Hazrat Yousuf (as) for himself and he said softly to his Lord, a prayer, that uttered from him only with wisdom, intellect and reasoning, with his invocation:
Rabbi: O my Lord who raises me, by Your Unmerited Affection and Your Bounty, with different kinds of guidance and favour that you have granted me…
Qad Aataytani: indeed You bestowed upon me and blessed me…
Min al mulk: from the Overt Kingdom i.e. the Kingship which is concerned with the realm of the existing world…
Wa allamtani min taaweel il hadeeth: and You taught me the interpretation of matters i.e. extracting conclusions from the events which happen in this world to what is in the Realm of the Unseen and its true explanation.
Faatir is samawat e wal ard: O One who created the heavens and the Earth i.e. the Realm of Allah’s Names, the reflection of which are the disappearing shadows apparent…
Anta: You are by Your Own Self, after you made me steadfast in Your One-ness and You disclosed to me Your Tauheed, that One-ness, and lifted the veils between me and it…
Walliya: You are my Supporter and The Controller of my affairs and The One who keeps my secrets…
Fi duniya wal akhira: in this world and the Hereafter i.e. in this life and the Afterlife…
Tawwafini: make me die and take my soul…
Muslim-an: surrendering, entrusting all my matters to you…
Walhiqni: and join me, with Your Special Favour…
Bi saliheen: with the righteous ones who are the ones who reformed their selves in this life and the Hereafter until they achieved success from You with the honour of meeting You.
For the second time I noted how the word salih was connected to reforming of one’s state, bettering it. It was markedly prominent in a line from the namaz which Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) uttered after Allah Subhanahu sends Salam upon him, thus bringing others into the Peace that Allah was bestowing upon him alone:
As-Salamu 'Alayna wa 'Ala 'Ibad-Allah-is-Saliheen
Peace be upon us and on the Righteous Servant of Allah.
It was almost always translated as righteous but Ghaus Pak (ra) was saying that the Saliheen were those who were in a perpetual state of reforming. Hazrat Yousuf’s (as), a Prophet’s invocation, was about being made to die in surrender and being joined with the ones who continue to reform themselves.
At sunset when the month started I was googling different things to gain more information on Rajab to preface my first email to my friends. Then I came across this:
The Imam Abdul Qadir Jilani (ra) said:
رجب شھر الزرع و شعبان شھر السقی و رمضان شھر الحصاد
و کل یحصد ما زرع و یجزی ما صنع
و من ضیع الزراعۃ ندم یوم حصادہ و احلف ظنہ مع سوء معادہ
Rajab is the month for sowing seeds, Sha’ban is the month for watering, and Ramadan is the month for reaping.
And all reap what they sow
and will be rewarded for what they did.
And the one who wasted the (season of) planting regretted it on the day of harvest
and found it to be against what he thought would be the result.
I was blown away by his words. That the cycle bore fruit in just 90 days!
For two nights I thought and thought about what seeds to plant and could not figure out what I should choose. Scholars had a singular take on what that seed should be; of worship. But worship was a function of ability granted. Meanwhile, my nafs only steered me in one direction; towards those I knew who were willfully absent. Because their hearts were shredded.
“Plant seeds of love for them,” it said to me earnestly, not with deceit. “Maybe they will come back.” I could almost hear the hope it felt, the need it was feeling for that return. I didn’t say anything. Then I started asking my Lord who raises me to choose my seeds for me.
The next day I went to the shrine of Hazrat Pir Turat Murad Shah (ra) in the park. I sat next to his blessed grave reading the Names of Allah and Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) that had just been put up inside it in a recent renovation.
Those Names of theirs that were His Manifestations in the Universe, His Signs and what paved the way towards Him.
I thought about my youth and how my seeds of love burst forth with the most gorgeous bloom in my early life when I was a seed myself. For decades we only flourished and grew more beautiful. In one decade alone everything began to wilt. No one knew that it was what became the state of the soul when it felt lonely. Or was it the nafs? It was as if the sun disappeared and water vanished.
I prayed and in the prayer I had a thought and in the thought I saw the seeds I wanted to sow. A seed for steadfastness in Tauheed, a seed of the deepest love for The Beloved (peace be upon him), a seed of wishing to be informed of the beings of who were the Saliheen who had been informed of Allah Subhanahu’s Essence by Him as the success granted to them for reforming themselves. And then, lastly, a seed for the ones I loved in the world. This time without names and faces and memories of a past that would never return. Not pegged with desire for reigniting what had turned to cold ashes. Just seeds, just love.
Then after weeks of not even opening Ghaus Pak’s (ra) Al Fath Ar Rabbani, the next night I lay in bed unable to sleep. I decided to read a line. The line that came was very familiar to me. It was a well known, hadith of Nabi Pak (peace be upon him):
قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ
الدُّنْيَا سِجْنُ الْمُؤْمِنِ
“The world is a prison for the believer.”
As someone who feels entrapped in the world, I felt like the hadith made me a Mo’min sometimes. But then came the explanation of the words;
Al Fath Ar Rabbani: “The world is a prison for the Mo’min. Thus when he will forget that prison, only then will he gain freedom for it.”
One line is all I had read and I had to pause. So it wasn’t about being attached to the world, being drawn to it, attracted to it, that made it a prison. It was the same entrapment for the one thinking everything about it was torment. For that meant that one was not forgetting it at all. Thus it was not freedom from it.
I realized how exactly the notion applied to people and attachment to them. Not one iota of any association lessened because of thinking badly of them or feeling unhappy because of them. It seemed to appear to be worse than being connected to them with happiness. At least that was not negative. For the tongue or the heart. The world was a prison for anyone aware of it.
My sighs just kept getting deeper!
Al Fath Ar Rabbani: “Those who attain to faith are in that prison (of the world) while those who gain ma’rifa, Recognition of Allah Subhanahu, are in a state of intoxication. Therefore they are entirely unaware of that prison because indeed, their Lord has made them sip the Drink of His Love for Him, and the Drink of His Affection for Him, and the Drink of His Desire for Him and the Drink of obliviousness from Creation and are only mindful of Him so they became detached from the prison and its inmates.”
Subhan Allah!
And once again my perception of myself, where I was at, what I thought, was turned upside down. The most massive revelation it bore for me what my usage of the word that meant the most to me all of my life; “love.” In the blooming decades I had used it rarely and therefore only sincerely with unquestionable devotion. It took me years for my tongue to utter it for the first time to anyone. I think I must have been well into my 20s. I don’t think I ever said it face to face to my mother or sister who died or my brother who is alive.
But in this decade of wilting, I overused it constantly. Mostly I echoed others until I started copying them and initiating it. Sometimes I thought it might make a bridge between those and myself who felt so far apart. But it was no longer true except in its desire to be true. It became just another word without meaning.
The Sufis say that the first movement of the Universe was love. Because Allah loved to be known.
كُنتُ كنزاً مَخفياً فأحببتُ أن أُعْرَف فخَلَقتُ الخَلْقَ لكي أُعرف
I, Allah, was a Treasure Hidden so I loved to be known
Therefore I created Creation so that I will be known.
Ahbabtu – “Loved”, not wanted to be known!
In my translation of another verse from Surah Yunus, I had learnt about the metaphysics of Creation and in it again was the word, love.
Hazrat Najmuddin Kubra (ra): So Allah called His Servants from Divine Knowledge (al ilm) towards existence (al wujood) by blowing His Breath and it is His saying:
فَإِذَا سَوَّيْتُهُۥ وَنَفَخْتُ فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِى
So, when I have fashioned him and I breathed into him of My Spirit.
Surah Al Hijr, Verse 29
And He invites them from existence (al wujood) towards nothingness (al adam) and Divine Knowledge with love and it His saying:
ٱرْجِعِىٓ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةًۭ
Return to your Lord well pleased,
Surah Al Fajr, Verse 28
Qari Sahib was the one who had pointed it out: “Do you see how from nothingness to existence the impetus is the Breath of Allah and in the end of time, from existence to nothingness, the impetus is Allah’s Jazba, His Love.”
It was strange. So much about the Day of Judgement was about fear and loud trumpets and the skies rolling as if wrapping up a stage. And here it was said, Allah invited the nafs back to it with love.
And at 51 I no longer knew nothing about it!
So on the 2nd of Rabaj, I changed my fourth seed. I didn’t know how to plant seeds of love. I didn’t know what that meant in the ever changing context of life. So I decided to take a step back. I went to Nabi Kareem’s (peace be upon him) hadith;
عن جابر بن عبد الله قال : لما نزلت سورة "براءة" قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم :
بعثت بمداراة الناس
From Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh (may God be pleased with them all), that he reported that when Sūrat Barāʾa (Tauba) was sent down, the Messenger of God said,
“I was sent to treat people with affability (mudārāt).”
In another hadith though he had used the word love and it was in relation to imaan, faith.
“The Momin is the one who loves and is loved.
And there is no goodness for the one who does not give love and receive love. The best amongst people is the one who gives others benefit.”
Then I was jumping up and down about how I had perceived it. Everyone wanted to love and be loved. Therefore everyone must be a Mo’min. Now it revealed to me that the state of being Mo’min was fluid. I loved and was loved intensely in my youth. I gave and received love happily. With sincerely, with certainty. I wasn’t praying much but was I a Mo’min then?
Rajab makes every single deed a seed. And makes mindfulness not a word but an existence in constancy. As much as I focus on what I do want to sow, I became aware of what I do not. For that too would end up bearing fruit. Bitter! I was being made aware of seeds planted from ages ago that were now just weeds taking up space and nutrients, taking up what plants needed in terms of light and water. I now knew it was the love that they sucked out first. That’s what caused them to begin to wither and die. Rajab was indeed a game-changer!
I even asked Qari Sahib about the last line of Ghaus Pak (ra), what it meant to have the opposite result.
“If you sow seeds of ingratitude, knowingly or unknowingly, or of being angry or being heedless, or uncharitable then what will happen come Ramadan is that you will have no desire to worship, or you will waste the chance to give to others, which is what the month is only and only for.”
It was decided; affability would be my fourth seed. Strangely enough the one seed that had to do with Creation might be the one that bears the least results. For I would not be taking initiatives. But when moments appeared, and they were already starting to, I could practice patience and gentleness, friendliness and warmth. For those were prerequisites. There wasn’t any need for gestures behind which lay murky intentions, convoluted. The need for pursuit was eliminated.
As the days progressed, on the 7th of Rajab, I found that my mindfulness, which always and only always emerged after the fact, after I had wronged, after I had erred, changed the timing of its appearance. For the first time I saw myself before I did something. The interactions were repetitive as was my behaviour in them despite everything. And suddenly, I paused before I spoke so as to not regret it immediately after.
And this was how I began, yet again, the process of entrusting my matters, all of them, as they related to ordinary love, to the ones who were in reality my only friends; Allah Subhanahu wa Rusooluhu (peace be upon him) and those who give charity, which cleanses the heart from focus on anything except Him, in the state of bowing in their prayers with humility.
This was such a spontanteous shot, I didn't have time to properly compose or focus it. But when I pulled it off my card today, it made my heart skip a beat.
From C's first t-ball practice, after he was done, A went running up to him and he grabbed her face like he was going to kiss her. It was so sweet.
On the way back from Oxfordshire, I thought about stopping off somewhere to take some church shots.
I'm sure Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Sussex have fine churches just off the motorway, but one had stuck in my head, back in Kent, and that Hever.
What I didn't realise is how hard it was to get too.
I followed the sat nav, taking me off the motorway whilst still in Sussex, then along narrow and twisting main roads along the edge of the north downs, through some very fine villages, but were in Sussex.
Would I see the sign marking my return to the Garden of England?
Yes, yes I would.
Edenbridge seemed quite an unexpectedly urban place, despite its name, so I didn't stop to search for an older centre, just pressing un until I was able to turn down Hever Road.
It had taken half an hour to get here.
St Peter stands by the gate to the famous castle, a place we have yet to visit, and even on a showery Saturday in March, there was a constant stream of visitors arriving.
I asked a nice young man who was directing traffic, where I could park to visit the church. He directed me to the staff car park, meaning I was able to get this shot before going in.
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Near the grounds of Hever Castle, medieval home of the Bullen family. Sandstone construction with a nice west tower and spire. There is a prominent chimney to the north chapel, although this is not the usual Victorian addition, but a Tudor feature, whose little fireplace may be seen inside! The church contains much of interest including a nineteenth-century painting of Christ before Caiphas by Reuben Sayers and another from the school of Tintoretto. The stained glass is all nineteenth and twentieth century and includes a wonderfully evocative east window (1898) by Burlisson and Grylls with quite the most theatrical sheep! The south chancel window of St Peter is by Hardman and dated 1877. In the north chapel is a fine tomb chest which displays the memorial brass of Sir Thomas Bullen (d. 1538), father of Queen Anne Boleyn. Just around the corner is a typical, though rather insubstantial, seventeenth-century pulpit with sounding board.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Hever
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HEVER.
SOUTH-EASTWARD from Eatonbridge lies Hever, called in the Textus Roffensis, and some antient records, Heure, and in others, Evere.
This parish lies below the sand hill, and is consequently in that district of this county called The Weald.
There is a small part of it, called the Borough of Linckbill, comprehending a part of this parish, Chidingstone, and Hever, which is within the hundred of Ruxley, and being part of the manor of Great Orpington, the manerial rights of it belong to Sir John Dixon Dyke, bart. the owner of that manor.
THE PARISH of Hever is long, and narrow from north to south. It lies wholly below the sand hills, and consequently in the district of the Weald; the soil and face of the country is the same as that of Eatonbridge, last described, the oak trees in it being in great plently, and in general growing to a very large size. The river Eden directs its course across it, towards Penshurst and the Medway, flowing near the walls of Hever castle, about a quarter of a mile southward from which is the village of Hever and the parsonage; near the northern side of the river is the seat of Polebrooke, late Douglass's, now Mrs. Susannah Payne's; and a little farther, the hamlets of Howgreen and Bowbeach; part of Linckhill borough, which is in the hundred of Ruxley, extends into this parish. There is a strange odd saying here, very frequent among the common people, which is this:
Jesus Christ never was but once at Hever.
And then he fell into the river.
Which can only be accounted for, by supposing that it alluded to a priest, who was carrying the bost to a sick person, and passing in his way over a bridge, sell with it into the river.
Hever was once the capital seat and manor of a family of the same name, whose still more antient possessions lay at Hever, near Northfleet, in this county, who bore for their arms, Gules, a cross argent. These arms, with a lable of three points azure, still remained in the late Mote-house, in Maidstone, and are quartered in this manner by the earl of Thanet, one of whose ancestors, Nicholas Tuston, esq. of Northiam, married Margaret, daughter and heir of John Hever of this county. (fn. 1)
William de Heure. possessed a moiety of this place in the reign of king Edward I. in the 2d of which he was was sheriff of this county, and in the 9th of it obtained a grant of free warren within his demesne lands in Heure, Chidingstone, and Lingefield.
Sir Ralph de Heure seems at this time to have possessed the other moiety of this parish, between whose son and heir, Ralph, and Nicholas, abbot of St. Augustine's, there had been, as appears by the register of that abbey, several disputes concerning lands in Hever, which was settled in the 4th year of king Edward I. by the abbot's granting to him and his heirs for ever, the land which he held of him in Hever, to hold by the service of the fourth part of a knight's fee.
William de Hever, in the reign of king Edward III. became possessed of the whole of this manor, and new built the mansion here, and had licence to embattle it; soon after which he died, leaving two daughters his coheirs; one of whom, Joane, carried one moiety of this estate in marriage to Reginald Cobham, a younger son of the Cobhams of Cobham, in this county; (fn. 2) whence this part of Hever, to distinguish it from the other, acquired the name of Hever Cobham.
His son, Reginald lord Cobham, in the 14th year of that reign, obtained a charter for free warren within his demesne lands in Hever. (fn. 3) He was succeeded in this manor by his son, Reginald lord Cobham, who was of Sterborough castle, in Surry, whence this branch was stiled Cobhams of Sterborough.
The other moiety of Hever, by Margaret, the other daughter and coheir, went in marriage to Sir Oliver Brocas, and thence gained the name of Hever Brocas. One of his descendants alienated it to Reginald lord Cobham, of Sterborough, last mentioned, who died possessed of both these manors in the 6th year of king Henry IV.
His grandson, Sir Thomas Cobham, sold these manors to Sir Geoffry Bulleyn, a wealthy mercer of London, who had been lord mayor in the 37th year of king Henry VI. He died possessed of both Hever Cobham and Hever Brocas, in the 3d year of king Edward IV. leaving by Anne, his wife, eldest sister of Thomas, lord Hoo and Hastings, Sir William Bulleyn, of Blickling, in Norfolk, who married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Thomas Boteler, earl of Ormond, by whom he had a son and heir, Thomas, who became a man of eminent note in the reign of king Henry VIII. and by reason of the king's great affection to the lady Anne Bulleyn, his daughter, was in the 17th year of that reign, created viscount Rochford; and in the 21st year of it, being then a knight of the Garter, to that of earl of Wiltshire and Ormond; viz. Wiltshire to his heirs male, and Ormond to his heirs general.
He resided here, and added greatly to those buildings, which his grandfather, Sir Geoffry Bulleyn, began in his life time, all which he completely finished, and from this time this seat seems to have been constantly called HEVER-CASTLE.
He died in the 30th of the same reign, possessed of this castle, with the two manors of Hever Cobham and Brocas, having had by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, one sonGeorge, executed in his life time; and two daughters, Anne, wife to king Henry VIII. and Mary, wife of William Carey, esquire of the body, and ancestor of the lords Hunsdon and the earls of Dover and Monmouth.
On the death of the earl of Wiltshire, without issue male, who lies buried in this church, under an altar tomb of black marble, on which is his figure, as large as the life, in brass, dressed in the robes of the Garter, the king seised on this castle and these manors, in right of his late wife, the unfortunate Anne Bulleyn, the earl's daughter, who resided at Hever-castle whilst the king courted her, there being letters of both extant, written by them from and to this place, and her chamber in it is still called by her name; and they remained in his hands till the 32d year of his reign, when he granted to the lady Anne of Cleves, his repudiated wife, his manors of Hever, Seale, and Kemsing, among others, and his park of Hever, with its rights, members, and appurtenances, then in the king's hands; and all other estates in Hever, Seale, and Kemsing, lately purchased by him of Sir William Bulleyn and William Bulleyn, clerk, to hold to her during life, so long as she should stay within the realm, and not depart out of it without his licence, at the yearly rent of 931. 13s. 3½d. payable at the court of augmention. She died possessed of the castle, manors, and estates of Hever, in the 4th and 5th year of king Philip and queen Mary, when they reverted again to the crown, where they continued but a short time, for they were sold that year, by commissioners authorised for this purpose, to Sir Edward Waldegrave and dame Frances his wife; soon after which the park seems to have have been disparked.
This family of Waldegrave, antiently written Walgrave, is so named from a place, called Walgrave, in the county of Northampton, at which one of them was resident in the reign of king John, whose descendants afterwards settled in Essex, and bore for their arms, Per pale argent and gules. Warine de Walgrave is the first of them mentioned, whose son, John de Walgrave, was sheriff of London, in the 7th year of king John's reign, whose direct descendant was Sir Edward Waldegrave, who purchased this estate, as before mentioned. (fn. 5) He had been a principal officer of the household to the princess Mary; at the latter end of the reign of king Edward VI. he incurred the king's displeasure much by his attachment to her interest, and was closely imprisoned in the Tower; but the king's death happening soon afterwards, queen Mary amply recompensed his sufferings by the continued marks of her favour and bounty, which she conferred on him; and in the 4th and 5th years of that reign, he obtained, as above mentioned, on very easy terms, the castle and manors of Hever Cobham and Brocas; and besides being employed by the queen continually in commissions of trust and importance, had many grants of lands and other favours bestowed on him. But on the death of queen Mary, in 1558, he was divested of all his employments, and committed prisoner to the Tower, (fn. 6) where he died in the 3d year of queen Elizabeth. He left two sons, Charles, his heir; and Nicholas, ancestor to those of Boreley, in Essex; and several daughters.
Charles Waldegrave succeeded his father in his estates in this parish; whose son Edward received the honour of knighthood at Greenwich, in 1607, and though upwards of seventy years of age, at the breaking out of the civil wars, yet he nobly took arms in the king's defence, and having the command of a regiment of horse, behaved so bravely, that he had conferred on him the dignity of a baronet, in 1643; after which he continued to act with great courage in the several attacks against the parliamentary forces, in which time he lost two of his sons, and suffered in his estate to the value of fifty thousand pounds.
His great grandson, Sir Henry Waldegrave, in 1686, in the 1st year of king James II. was created a peer, by the title of baron Waldegrave of Chewton, in Somersetshire, and had several offices of trust conferred on him; but on the Revolution he retired into France, and died at Paris, in 1689. (fn. 7) He married Henrietta, natural daughter of king James II. by Arabella Churchill, sister of John duke of Marlborough, by whom he had James, created earl of Waldegrave in the 3d year of king George II. who, in the year 1715, conveyed the castle and these manors to Sir William Humfreys, bart. who that year was lord mayor of the city of London. He was of Barking, in Essex, and had been created a baronet in 1714. He was descended from Nathaniel Humfreys, citizen of London, the second son of William ap Humfrey, of Montgomery, in North Wales, and bore for his arms two coats, Quarterly, 1st and 4th, sable, two nags heads erased argent; 2d and 3d, per pale or and gules, two lions rampant endorsed, counterchanged.
He died in 1735, leaving by his first wife, Margaret, daughter of William Wintour, of Gloucestershire, an only son and heir, Sir Orlando Humfreys, bart. who died in 1737, having had by Ellen, his wife, only child of colonel Robert Lancashire, three sons and two daughters; two of the sons died young; Robert, the second and only surviving son, had the castle and manors of Hever Cobham and Brocas, and died before his father possessed of them, as appears by his epitaph, in 1736, ætat. 28.
On Sir Orlando's death his two daughters became his, as well as their brother's, coheirs, of whom Mary, the eldest, had three husbands; first, William Ball Waring, of Dunston, in Berkshire, who died in 1746, without issue; secondly, John Honywood, esq. second brother of Richard, of Mark's-hall, who likewife died without issue, in 1748; and lastly, Thomas Gore, esq. uncle to Charles Gore, esq. M.P. for Hertfordshire; which latter had married, in 1741, Ellen Wintour, the only daughter of Sir Orlando Humfreys, above mentioned.
They, with their husbands, in 1745, joined in the sale of Hever-castle and the manors of Hever Cobham and Hever Brocas, to Timothy Waldo. He was descended from Thomas Waldo, of Lyons, in France, one of the first who publicly opposed the doctrines of the church of Rome, of whom there is a full account in the Atlas Geograph. vol. ii. and in Moreland's History of the Evangelical Churches of Piedmont. One of his descendants, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, to escape the persecution of the duke D'Alva, came over to England, where he and his descendants afterwards settled, who bore for their arms, Argent a bend azure, between three leopards heads of the second; of whom, in king Charles II.'s reign, there were three brothers, the eldest of whom, Edward, was knighted, and died without male issue, leaving two daughters his coheirs; the eldest of whom, Grace, married first Sir Nicholas Wolstenholme, bart. and secondly, William lord Hunsdon, but died without issue by either of them, in 1729. The second brother was of Harrow, in Middlesex; and Timothy, the third, was an eminent merchant of London, whose grandsons were Edward, who was of South Lambeth, esq. and died in 1783, leaving only one daughter; and Timothy, of Clapham, esquire, the purchaser of this estate, as above mentioned, who was afterwards knighted, and died possessed of it, with near thirteen hundred acres of land round it, in 1786; he married, in 1736, Miss Catherine Wakefield, by whom he left an only daughter and heir, married to George Medley, esq. of Sussex, lady Waldo surviving him is at this time intitled to it.
The castle is entire, and in good condition; it has a moat round it, formed by the river Eden, over which there is a draw bridge, leading to the grand entrance, in the gate of which there is yet a port cullis, within is a quadrangle, round which are the offices, and a great hall; at the upper end of which, above a step, is a large oak table, as usual in former times. The great stair case leads up to several chambers and to the long gallery, the cieling of which is much ornamented with soliage in stucco; the rooms are all wainscotted with small oaken pannels, unpainted. On one side of the gallery is a recess, with an ascent of two steps, and one seat in it, with two returns, capable of holding ten or twelve persons, which, by tradition, was used as a throne, when king Henry VIII. visited the castle. At the upper end of the gallery, on one side of a large window, there is in the floor a kind of trap door, which, when opened, discovers a narrow and dark deep descent, which is said to reach as far as the moat, and at this day is still called the dungeon. In a closet, in one of the towers, the window of which is now stopped up, there is an adjoining chamber, in which queen Anne Bulleyn is said to have been consined after her dis grace. The entrance to this closet, from the chamber, is now by a small door, which at that time was a secret sliding pannel, and is yet called Anne Bulleyn's pannel.
In the windows of Hever-castle are these arms; Argent, three buckles gules, within the garter; a shield of four coasts, Howard, Brotherton, Warren, and Mowbray, argent three buckles gules; a shield of eight coats, viz. Bulleyn, Hoo, St. Omer, Malmains, Wickingham, St. Leger, Wallop, and Ormond; and one, per pale argent and gules, for Waldegrave. (fn. 8)
It is reported, that when Henry VIII. with his attendants, came to the top of the hill, within sight of the castle, he used to wind his bugle horn, to give notice of his approach.
There was a court baron constantly held for each of the above manors till within these forty years, but at present there is only one, both manors being now esteemed but as one, the circuit of which, over the neighbouring parishes, is very extensive.
SEYLIARDS is an estate here which extends itself into the parishes of Brasted and Eatonbridge, but the mansion of it is in this parish, and was the antient seat of the Seyliards, who afterwards branched out from hence into Brasted, Eatonbridge, Chidingstone, and Boxley, in this county.
The first of this name, who is recorded to have possessed this place, was Ralph de Seyliard, who resided here in the reign of king Stephen.
Almerick de Eureux, earl of Gloucester, who lived in the reign of king Henry III. demised lands to Martin at Seyliard, and other lands, called Hedinden, to Richard Seyliard, both of whom were sons of Ralph at Seyliard, and the latter of them was ancestor to those seated here and at Delaware, in Brasted. (fn. 9)
This place continued in his descendants till Sir Tho. Seyliard of Delaware, passed it away to John Petley, esq. who alienated it to Sir Multon Lambarde, of Sevenoke, and he died possessed of it in 1758; and it is now the property of his grandson, Multon Lambarde, of Sevenoke, esq.
Charities.
A PERSON gave, but who or when is unknown, but which has time out of mind been distributed among the poor of this parish, the sum of 10s. yearly, to be paid out of land vested in the churchwardens, and now of that annual produce.
The Rev. JOHN PETER gave by will, about 1661, the sum of 10s. yearly, to be paid for the benefit of poor farmers only, out of land vested in the rector, the heirs of Wm. Douglass, and the heirs of Francis Bowty, and now of that annual produce.
The Rev. GEORGE BORRASTON, rector, and several of the parishioners, as appears by a writing dated in 1693, purchased, with money arising from several bequests, the names of the donors unknown, except that of WILLIAM FALKNER, to which the parishioners added 15l. a piece of land, the rent to be distributed yearly among the poor of the parish, vested in the rector and churchwardens, and of the annual produce of 3l. 12s.
Rev. THOMAS LANCASTER, rector, gave by will in 1714, for buying good books for the poor, and in case books are not wanting for the schooling of poor children at the discretion of the mimister, part of a policy on lives, which was exchanged for a sum of money paid by his executor, being 20l. vested in the minister and churchwardens.
SIR TIMOTHY WALDO gave by will in 1786, 500l. consolidated 3 per cent. Bank Annuities, one moiety of the interest of which to be applied for the placing of some poor boy of the parish apprentice to a farmer, or some handicraft trade, or to the sea service, or in cloathing such poor boy during his apprenticeship, and in case no such poor boy can be found, this moiety to be distributed among such of the industrious poor who do not receive alms. The other moiety to be laid out in buying and distributing flannel waistcoats, or strong shoes, or warm stockings, among such of the industrious or aged poor persons inhabiting within this parish, as do not receive alms, vested in the Salters Company.
HEVER is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester, and being a peculiar of the archbishop, is as such within the deanry of Shoreham. The church, which stands at the east end of the village, is a small, but neat building, consisting of one isle and two chancels, having a handsome spire at the west end of it. It is dedicated to St. Peter.
Among other monuments and inscriptions in it are the following:—In the isle is a grave-stone, on which is the figure of a woman, and inscription in black letter in brass, for Margaret, wife of William Cheyne, obt. 1419, arms, a fess wavy between three crescents.—In the chancel, a memorial for Robert Humfreys, esq. lord of the manor of Heaver, only son and heir of Sir Orlando Humfreys, bart. of Jenkins, in Effex, obt. 1736. Against the wall is a brass plate, with the figure of a man kneeling at a desk, and inscription in black letter for William Todde, schoolmaster to Charles Waldegrave, esq. obt. 1585.—In the north chancel, an altar tomb, with the figure on it at large in brass, of Sir Thomas Bullen, knight of the garter, earl of Wilcher and earl of Ormunde, obt. 1538. A small slab with a brass plate, for ........ Bullayen, the son of Sir Thomas Bullayen.—In the belsry, a stone with a brass plate, and inscription in black letter in French, for John de Cobham, esquire, obt. 1399, and dame Johane, dame de Leukenore his wife, and Renaud their son; near the above is an antient altar tomb for another of that name, on which is a shield of arms in brass, or, on a chevron, three eagles displayed, a star in the dexter point. These were the arms of this branch of the Cobhams, of Sterborough-castle. (fn. 10)
This church is a rectory, the advowson of which belonged to the priory of Combwell, in Goudhurst, and came to the crown with the rest of its possessions at the time of the surrendry of it, in the 7th year of king Henry VIII. in consequence of the act passed that year for the surrendry of all religious houses, under the clear yearly revenue of two hundred pounds. Soon after which this advowson was granted, with the scite of the priory, to Thomas Colepeper, but he did not long possess it; and it appears, by the Escheat Rolls, to have come again into the hands of the crown, and was granted by the king, in his 34th year, to Sir John Gage, to hold in capite by knights service; who exchanged it again with Tho. Colepeper, to confirm which an act passed the year after. (fn. 11) His son and heir, Alexander Colepeper, had possession granted of sundry premises, among which was the advowson of Hever, held in capite by knights service, in the 3d and 4th years of king Philip and queen Mary; the year after which it was, among other premises, granted to Sir Edward Waldegrave, to hold by the like tenure.
Charles Waldegrave, esq. in the 12th year of queen Elizabeth, alienated this advowson to John Lennard, esq. of Chevening, and being entailed to his heirs male, by the last will of Sampson Lennard, esq. his eldest son, under the word hereditament possessed it, and it being an advowson in gross, was never disentailed by Henry, Richard, or Francis, lords Dacre, his descendants, so that it came to Thomas lord Dacre, son of the last mentioned Francis, lord Dacre, afterwards earl of Sussex, in 1673, and at length sole heir male of the descendants of John Lennard, esq. of Chevening, above mentioned; and the same trial was had for the claim of a moiety of it, at the Queen's-bench bar, as for the rest of the earl's estates, and a verdict then obtained in his favour, as has been already fully mentioned before, under Chevening.
The earl of Sussex died possessed of it in 1715, (fn. 12) whose two daughters, his coheirs, on their father's death became entitled to this advowson, and a few years afterwards alienated the same.
It then became the property of the Rev. Mr. Geo. Lewis, as it has since of the Rev. Mr. Hamlin, whose daughter marrying the Rev. Mr. Nott, of Little Horsted, in Sussex, he is now intitled to it.
In the 15th year of king Edward I. this church of Heure was valued at fifteen marcs.
By virtue of a commission of enquiry, taken by order of the state, in 1650, issuing out of chancery, it was returned, that Hever was a parsonage, with a house, and twelve acres of glebe land, which, with the tithes, were worth seventy-seven pounds per annum, master John Petter being then incumbent, and receiving the profits, and that Francis lord Dacre was donor of it. (fn. 13)
This rectory was valued, in 1747, at 1831. per annum, as appears by the particulars then made for the sale of it.
It is valued, in the king's books, at 15l. 17s. 3½d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 10s. 8¾d. It is now of the yearly value of about 200l.
¶The priory of Combwell, in Goudhurst, was endowed by Robert de Thurnham, the founder of that house, in the reign of king Henry II. with his tithe of Lincheshele and sundry premises in this parish, for which the religious received from the rector of this church the annual sum of 43s. 4d.
Mother and child sculpture (limestone c.1949) by Hermon Cawthra FRBS ARCA (1886-1957). Located in Bishop's Park, Fulham, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.
(CC BY-SA credit: Images George Rex.)
Lost in thought. Lost in Art. Kissing is a way of showing affection and love. Kissing is a good workout too as it involves at least 34 different muscles.
June 29, St.Louis Park, MN. See map.
Here are Daisy and Maisy in foster care. They are just helping to wash each other's face. They were adopted out together.
Identification :
Taille : 33 cm
Envergure : 40 à 42 cm.
Poids : 180 à 220 g
Longévité : 7 ans
Habitat : L'espèce affectionne les vergers, les bosquets, les haies avec des arbres, mais aussi les lisières des forêts et les bois clairs, situés à côté de prairies qui lui sont indispensables. On peut aussi les trouver dans les parcs et les grands jardins.
Comportements : Un ricanement sonore attire notre attention : le pic vert s'éloigne de son vol onduleux, caractéristique de la plupart des pics. Sa manifestation est le chant que l'on entend toute l'année. Ses cris dénotent une agressivité toujours latente et, aussi bruyant qu'il soit, cet oiseau ne tambourine pas. C'est un oiseau qui excelle dans l'art de grimper. Les pics accomplissent leurs ascensions en enfonçant leurs ongles recourbés dans l'écorce des arbres puis prenant appui sur leur queue, effectuent de petit sauts.
Vol : Le vol est lourd et onduleux. On a parfois l'impression que l'oiseau va s'écraser au sol.
Chant :A la période des amours, "gleuhgleuh gleuck gleuckleuck-leuck" ; l'appel de la femelle est plus court et moins sonore.
www.oiseaux.net/chant/jean.roche/pic.vert.1.mp3
www.oiseaux.net/chant/xeno-canto/pic.vert.41827.mp3
Cri d'alarme :
www.oiseaux.net/chant/xeno-canto/pic.vert.103160.mp3
Source : www.oiseaux.net