One of the many brass candelabra in the aisles of St Mary's of Lubeck. The church was severely damaged during the bombing raids of WWII, but the design of the candlesticks may go back to the 14th century or so, That the dragon has been defeated by the cross and has now been included in the story of salvation, after all it is carrying the light, is of symbolic significance. It produces ontological certainty.

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Poster (Locandina):

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Does the afterlife exist? Mystics like Padre Pio, Natuzza Evolo spoke with the souls of the deceased, not knowing that they were “deceased”, they did not distinguish them from normal people (they understood it later). The Marian apparitions to Bernadette, to the three shepherds of Fatima, those of Medjugorje, were they real? And how much have they influenced the history of humanity? My profession has led me to meet people who have told me about their “uncommon experiences”. A few years ago, a young man of about 30 years old, reported his “near death” experience, hospitalized in very serious conditions in our intensive care unit, he told of when he saw doctors and paramedics from above, busy around his body, he then found himself inside a tunnel, at the end there was a light. Now “Francesco” is fine. A couple of months ago, still in intensive care, I talked with a patient of about 50 years old, who survived three almost consecutive cardiac arrests, after that event, he told me, he had unexpectedly discovered a deep faith; discharged, he is now in good health. A few days ago, again for professional reasons, I met a lady in her 60s, accompanied by her 26-year-old son, she told me that, in her troubled life, in addition to having undergone numerous surgical operations, she had been subjected to numerous cycles of chemotherapy, during one of these sessions, she had a cardiocirculatory arrest (probably caused by anaphylactic shock), at that moment she could clearly see the whole scene from above, everyone was doing their best to revive her, she saw a nurse pushing a trolley in the corridor, unable to enter the room where her body was, because half of the door was blocked by a latch, preventing the passage of the trolley, she kicked the door violently which opened thus managing to pass; she saw a doctor who, in the grip of excitement, was unable to put on her coat (these events, the lady told me, had a positive response); the story continued, she rose higher, light, as if floating on the waves of the sea, she saw a cone of light that fell on her like confetti, she felt a sensation of well-being, she saw her grandfather, who held her head and caressed her hair, she looked up and saw some figures, they seemed to have wings, she thought that perhaps they were angels, suddenly she felt herself being “sucked and banged” inside her body. Now the lady, after that experience, no longer fears death. She put her hand on mine, without touching it, just a few seconds, she began to talk about some of my personal facts, at that moment, they seemed to me to be a bit banal and obvious observations, but then, looking me in the eyes, she stated with certainty that in my family, there was a person called Angelo (in reality her name is Angela), she was not wrong. She told me that, months before Eros Ramazzotti's song "Un angelo disteso al sole" came out, she was singing that tune, including the lyrics. She showed me on her smartphone, a selfie of her taken in the car, on the windshield you could clearly see a “luminous face”, she said that her Guardian Angel, Saint Michael the Archangel, had appeared to her. (The lady was also hospitalized in the “La Maddalena” clinic in Palermo, she met the mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, she told me an anecdote of hers, but that’s another story). This story, like the one told by Francesco, are part of those numerous cases defined as “pre-death” or “NDE” acronym derived from the English, Near Death Experience. A scientific hypothesis interprets these phenomena as the result of chemical reactions that are triggered in the brain in moments of deep psycho-physical stress, in oxygen deficiency, with the release of endorphins (they generate sensations of euphoria and well-being) and other neurotransmitters, which can determine overall a hyperfunctioning and strengthening of the senses in the cerebral cortex. I am fascinated by the story of when the physicist Albert Einstein, while discussing with Gustavo Adolfo Rol (a famous Italian psychic), placed his hand between the lamp and the table, saying "you see, when matter manifests itself, it casts a dark shadow, because it is matter, whereas God, being pure spirit, when he materializes cannot manifest himself if not through light: light is nothing other than the shadow of God". I have posted a series of photographs taken in November and December of this year, the first part are shots taken according to the dictates of street / beach photography, some examples of earthly reality, to then enter into the "hypothesis of that otherworldly and parallel reality, not perceptible by our senses" accompanied by the presence of Angels, Beings of Light, who "should" always be close to us throughout our existence, after all the mystic Natuzza Evolo recognized the "plainclothes priests" by the presence of their Guardian Angel, because he was placed on their right.

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Esiste l’Aldilà? Mistici come Padre Pio, Natuzza Evolo parlavano con le anime dei defunti, non sapendo che erano dei “trapassati”, non li distinguevano dalle normali persone (lo capirono successivamente). Le apparizioni mariane a Bernadette, ai tre pastorelli di Fatima, quelle di Medugorje, erano reali ? E quanto hanno inciso nella storia dell’umanità? La mia professione mi ha portato a confrontarmi con persone che mi hanno raccontato di loro “esperienze non comuni”. Qualche anno fa, un giovane di circa 30 anni, riferì una sua esperienza di “premorte”, ricoverato in gravissime condizioni nella nostra terapia intensiva, raccontò di quando lui vide dall’alto medici e parasanitari, indaffarati attorno al suo corpo, si trovò poi dentro un tunnel, in fondo vi era una luce. Adesso “Francesco” sta bene. Un paio di mesi fa, sempre in terapia intensiva, ho conversato con un paziente di circa 50 anni, sopravvissuto a tre arresti cardiaci quasi consecutivi, dopo quell’evento, mi riferiva, aveva scoperto inaspettatamente, una profonda fede; dimesso, adesso è in buona salute. Pochi giorni fa, sempre per motivi professionali, ho conosciuto una signora sui 60 anni, accompagnata dal figlio di anni 26 anni, mi raccontò che, nella sua travagliata vita, oltre ad aver subito numerosi interventi chirurgici, è stata sottoposta a numerosi cicli di chemioterapia, durante una di questa sedute, è incorsa in un arresto cardiocircolatorio (probabilmente causato da uno shock anafilattico), in quel momento vedeva distintamente tutta la scena dall’alto, tutti si prodigavano per rianimarla, vide una infermiera spingere un carrello nel corridoio, non riuscendo ad entrare nella sala dove si trovava il suo corpo, poiché mezza anta della porta era bloccata da un chiavistello, impedendo il passaggio del carrello, lei diede un calcio violento all’anta che si aprì riuscendo così a passare; vide una dottoressa che in preda alla concitazione non riusciva a mettersi il camice (questi eventi, mi riferì la signora, ebbero un riscontro positivo); il racconto continuò, lei salì più in alto, leggera, come galleggiando sulle onde del mare, vide un cono di luce che scendeva su di lei come fossero coriandoli, lei percepiva una sensazione di benessere, vide suo nonno, che le teneva il capo e le accarezzava i capelli, guardò in alto e vide delle figure, sembrava avessero delle ali, pensò che forse erano gli angeli, improvvisamente si sentì “risucchiare e sbattere” dentro il suo corpo. Adesso la signora, dopo quella esperienza, non teme più la morte. Mise la sua mano sopra la mia, senza toccarla, solo qualche secondo, incominciò a parlare su alcuni miei fatti personali, in quel momento, mi sembrarono osservazioni un po’ banali e scontate, però poi, guardandomi negli occhi, affermò con certezza che nella mia famiglia, c’era una persona che si chiama Angelo (in realtà si chiama Angela), non si era sbagliata. Mi riferì che, mesi prima che uscisse la canzone di Eros Ramazzotti “Un angelo disteso al sole”, lei cantava quel motivo, incluse le parole. Mi mostrò sul suo smartphone, un suo selfie fatto in auto, sul parabrezza si vedeva distintamente un “volto luminoso”, lei disse che le era apparso il suo Angelo Custode, San Michele Arcangelo. (La signora fu ricoverata anche nella clinica “La Maddalena” di Palermo, fece la conoscenza del boss mafioso Matteo Messina Denaro, mi raccontò un suo aneddoto, ma questa è un’altra storia). Questa storia, come quella raccontata da Francesco, rientrano in quei numerosi casi definiti di “premorte” o “NDE” acronimo derivato dall’inglese, Near Death Experience. Una ipotesi scientifica interpreta tali fenomeni come il risultato di reazioni chimiche che si scatenano nel cervello in momenti di profondo stress psico-fisico, in carenza di ossigeno, con rilascio di endorfine (esse generano sensazioni di euforia e di benessere) ed altri neurotrasmettitori, potendo determinare nell’insieme un iperfunzionamento e potenziamento dei sensi nella corteccia cerebrale. Sono affascinato dalla vicenda, di quando il fisico Albert Einstein discutendo con Gustavo Adolfo Rol (famoso sensitivo italiano) frappose la sua mano tra lampada e tavolo, dicendo “vedi, quando la materia si manifesta, proietta una ombra scura, perché è materia, invece Dio essendo puro spirito, quando si materializza non può manifestarsi se non attraverso la luce: la luce non è altro, se non, l’ombra di Dio”. Posto una serie di fotografie eseguite nel novembre e dicembre di quest’anno, una prima parte sono scatti realizzati secondo i dettami della street /beach photography, qualche esempio di realtà terrena, per entrare poi nella “ipotesi di quella realtà ultraterrena e parallela, non percepibile dai nostri sensi” accompagnata dalla presenza degli Angeli, Esseri di Luce, che “dovrebbero” starci sempre accanto durante tutta la nostra esistenza, d'altronde la mistica Natuzza Evolo riconosceva i “sacerdoti in borghese” dalla presenza del loro Angelo Custode, perché messo alla loro destra.

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See, see, see...

so much has told us so

so much to have fought for

and still so much to save

a thought for your pennies

spent sheepishly over yore

now relax and swing

amazingly,

time is still on our side

a gift that lives

so please don't disinherit

what can be claimed

rightfully

before sunset

like birds heading home

a heartbeat away

a season in which comfort roosts

standing to sidereal applause

dizzying daydreams

held in thenar warmth

the quiet life comes alive

before nightfall.

by anglia24

10h35: 08/06/2007

my outline

without any impart

and yet, judgement is made

truth untold

we go without certainty

yet a dream is extold

where are we now

and what do we see?

the image is unclear

yet the heart is true by decree.

by anglia24

10h35: 07/06/2007

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© 2007anglia24

Cathedral's northern longside.

This realistic bronze sculpture is said to disguise a poor homeless, the artist herself has left it to the viewer to sort out. Inaugurated in 2009, by Bishop Martin Lind, the artist is Charlotte Gyllenhammar. To the installation there is a second important part, the little illuminated ladder that can be seen above the homeless, made ​​of silver and 628 facet cut deep red garnets. Here, too, the artist has chosen to let the viewer interpret the context itself. She gives a vague reference about Jacob's ladder, from the story of Genesis.

My and others' interpretation is probably that the time has come for the poor homeless and is thus welcome to step up to heaven ...........

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The Cathedral of Linköping is the second biggest church in Sweden, and is 110 m long and 107m in height.

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Year 1153 was the stone church with certainty completed, which emerges from the documents of the Church Council in the same year, it was then a Romanesque basilica and about half as large as today.

Sea level drop refers to the phenomenon in which melting glaciers cause the surrounding land to rise.. Between 1901 and 2018, the average global sea level rose by 15–25 cm (6–10 in), or an average of 1–2 mm per year. This rate accelerated to 4.62 mm/yr for the decade 2013–2022.[3] Climate change due to human activities is the main cause. Between 1993 and 2018, thermal expansion of water accounted for 42% of sea level rise. Melting temperate glaciers accounted for 21%, with Greenland accounting for 15% and Antarctica 8%.: 1576  Sea level rise lags changes in the Earth's temperature. So sea level rise will continue to accelerate between now and 2050 in response to warming that is already happening. What happens after that will depend on what happens with human greenhouse gas emissions. Sea level rise may slow down between 2050 and 2100 if there are deep cuts in emissions. It could then reach a little over 30 cm (1 ft) from now by 2100. With high emissions it may accelerate. It could rise by 1 m (3+1⁄2 ft) or even 2 m (6+1⁄2 ft) by then.[6][7] In the long run, sea level rise would amount to 2–3 m (7–10 ft) over the next 2000 years if warming amounts to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). It would be 19–22 metres (62–72 ft) if warming peaks at 5 °C (9.0 °F): 21  meters. Rising seas ultimately impact every coastal and island population on Earth. This can be through flooding, higher storm surges, king tides, and tsunamis. These have many knock-on effects. They lead to loss of coastal ecosystems like mangroves. Crop production falls because of salinization of irrigation water and damage to ports disrupts sea trade. The sea level rise projected by 2050 will expose places currently inhabited by tens of millions of people to annual flooding. Without a sharp reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, this may increase to hundreds of millions in the latter decades of the century. Areas not directly exposed to rising sea levels could be affected by large scale migrations and economic disruption. At the same time, local factors like tidal range or land subsidence, as well as the varying resilience and adaptive capacity of individual ecosystems, sectors, and countries will greatly affect the severity of impacts. For instance, sea level rise along the United States (particularly along the US East Coast) is already higher than the global average, and it is expected to be 2 to 3 times greater than the global average by the end of the century. Yet, out of the 20 countries with the greatest exposure to sea level rise, 12 are in Asia. Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam collectively account for 70% of the global population exposed to sea level rise and land subsidence. Finally, the greatest near-term impact on human populations will occur in the low-lying Caribbean and Pacific islands—many of those would be rendered uninhabitable by sea level rise later this century.

Societies can adapt to sea level rise in three ways: by managed retreat, by accommodating coastal change, or by protecting against sea level rise through hard-construction practices like seawalls or soft approaches such as dune rehabilitation and beach nourishment. Sometimes these adaptation strategies go hand in hand; at other times choices must be made among different strategies. A managed retreat strategy is difficult if an area's population is quickly increasing: this is a particularly acute problem for Africa, where the population of low-lying coastal areas is projected to increase by around 100 million people within the next 40 years. Poorer nations may also struggle to implement the same approaches to adapt to sea level rise as richer states, and sea level rise at some locations may be compounded by other environmental issues, such as subsidence in so-called sinking cities. Coastal ecosystems typically adapt to rising sea levels by moving inland; but may not always be able to do so, due to natural or artificial barriers. Between 1901 and 2018, the global mean sea level rose by about 20 cm (or 8 inches). More precise data gathered from satellite radar measurements found a rise of 7.5 cm (3 in) from 1993 to 2017 (average of 2.9 mm/yr), accelerating to 4.62 mm/yr for the decade 2013–2022.

Regional variations: Sea level rise is not uniform around the globe. Some land masses are moving up or down as a consequence of subsidence (land sinking or settling) or post-glacial rebound (land rising due to the loss of weight from ice melt). Therefore, local relative sea level rise may be higher or lower than the global average. Gravitational effects of changing ice masses also add to differences in the distribution of sea water around the globe. When a glacier or an ice sheet melts, the loss of mass reduces its gravitational pull. In some places near current and former glaciers and ice sheets, this has caused local water levels to drop, even as the water levels will increase more than average further away from the ice sheet. Consequently, ice loss in Greenland has a different fingerprint on regional sea level than the equivalent loss in Antarctica. On the other hand, the Atlantic is warming at a faster pace than the Pacific. This has consequences for Europe and the U.S. East Coast, which receives a sea level rise 3–4 times the global average. The downturn of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) has been also tied to extreme regional sea level rise on the US Northeast Coast. Many ports, urban conglomerations, and agricultural regions are built on river deltas, where subsidence of land contributes to a substantially increased relative sea level rise. This is caused by both unsustainable extraction of groundwater and oil and gas, as well as by levees and other flood management practices preventing the accumulation of sediments which otherwise compensates for the natural settling of deltaic soils, over 3 m (10 ft) in urban areas of the Mississippi River Delta (New Orleans), and over 9 m (30 ft) in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta.  On the other hand, post-glacial isostatic rebound causes relative sea level fall around the Hudson Bay in Canada and the northern Baltic.

Projections: A comparison of SLR in six parts of the US. The Gulf Coast and East Coast see the most SLR, whereas the West Coast the least NOAA predicts different levels of sea level rise through 2050 for several US coastlines. There are two complementary ways of modeling sea level rise and making future projections. In the first approach, scientists use process-based modeling, where all relevant and well-understood physical processes are included in a global physical model. An ice-sheet model is used to calculate the contributions of ice sheets and a general circulation model is used to compute the rising sea temperature and its expansion. While some of the relevant processes may be insufficiently understood, this approach can predict non-linearities and long delays in the response, which studies of the recent past will miss. In the other approach, scientists employ semi-empirical techniques using historical geological data to determine likely sea level responses to a warming world, in addition to some basic physical modeling. These semi-empirical sea level models rely on statistical techniques, using relationships between observed past contributions to global mean sea level and global mean temperature. This type of modeling was partially motivated by most physical models in previous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) literature assessments having underestimated the amount of sea level rise compared to observations of the 20th century.

Projections for the 21st century: Historical sea level reconstruction and projections up to 2100 published in 2017 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.[35] RCPs are different scenarios for future concentrations of greenhouse gases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides multiple plausible scenarios of 21st century sea level rise in each report, starting from the IPCC First Assessment Report in 1990. The differences between scenarios are primarily due to the uncertainty about future greenhouse gas emissions, which are subject to hard to predict political action, as well as economic developments. The scenarios used in the 2013-2014 Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) were called Representative Concentration Pathways, or RCPs. An estimate for sea level rise is given with each RCP, presented as a range with a lower and upper limit, to reflect the unknowns. The RCP2.6 pathway would see GHG emissions kept low enough to meet the Paris climate agreement goal of limiting warming by 2100 to 2 °C. Estimated SLR by 2100 for RCP2.6 was about 44 cm (the range given was as 28–61 cm). For RCP8.5 the sea level would rise between 52 and 98 cm (20+1⁄2 and 38+1⁄2 in). A set of older estimates of sea level rise. Sources showed a wide range of estimates

Sea level rise projections for the years 2030, 2050 and 2100

The report did not estimate the possibility of global SLR being accelerated by the outright collapse of the marine-based parts of the Antarctic ice sheet, due to the lack of reliable information, only stating with medium confidence that if such a collapse occurred, it would not add more than several tens of centimeters to 21st century sea level rise. Since its publication, multiple papers have questioned this decision and presented higher estimates of SLR after attempting to better incorporate ice sheet processes in Antarctica and Greenland and to compare the current events with the paleoclimate data. For instance, a 2017 study from the University of Melbourne researchers estimated that ice sheet processes would increase AR5 sea level rise estimate for the low emission scenario by about one quarter, but they would add nearly half under the moderate scenario and practically double estimated sea level rise under the high emission scenario. The 2017 Fourth United States National Climate Assessment presented estimates comparable to the IPCC for the low emission scenarios, yet found that the SLR of up to 2.4 m (10 ft) by 2100 relative to 2000 is physically possible if the high emission scenario triggers Antarctic ice sheet instability, greatly increasing the 130 cm (5 ft) estimate for the same scenario but without instability. A 2016 study led by Jim Hansen presented a hypothesis of vulnerable ice sheet collapse leading to near-term exponential sea level rise acceleration, with a doubling time of 10, 20 or 40 years, thus leading to multi-meter sea level rise in 50, 100 or 200 years, respectively. However, it remains a minority view amongst the scientific community. For comparison, two expert elicitation papers were published in 2019 and 2020, both looking at low and high emission scenarios. The former combined the projections of 22 ice sheet experts to estimate the median SLR of 30 cm (12 in) by 2050 and 70 cm (27+1⁄2 in) by 2100 in the low emission scenario and the median of 34 cm (13+1⁄2 in) by 2050 and 110 cm (43+1⁄2 in) by 2100 in a high emission scenario. They also estimated a small chance of sea levels exceeding 1 meter by 2100 even in the low emission scenario and of going beyond 2 meters in the high emission scenario, with the latter causing the displacement of 187 million people. The other paper surveyed 106 experts, who had estimated a median of 45 cm (17+1⁄2 in) by 2100 for RCP2.6, with a 5%-95% range of 21–82 cm (8+1⁄2–32+1⁄2 in). For RCP8.5, the experts estimated a median of 93 cm (36+1⁄2 in) by 2100, with a 5%-95% range of 45–165 cm (17+1⁄2–65 in). By 2020, the observed ice-sheet losses in Greenland and Antarctica were found to track the upper-end range of the AR5 projections. Consequently, the updated SLR projections in the 2019 IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate were somewhat larger than in AR5, and they were far more plausible when compared to an extrapolation of observed sea level rise trends. The main set of sea level rise projections used in IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) was ultimately only slightly larger than the one in SROCC, with SSP1-2.6 resulting in a 17-83% range of 32–62 cm (12+1⁄2–24+1⁄2 in) by 2100, SSP2-4.5 resulting in a 44–76 cm (17+1⁄2–30 in) range by 2100 and SSP5-8.5 leading to 65–101 cm (25+1⁄2–40 in). The report also provided extended projections on both the lower and the upper end, adding SSP1-1.9 scenario which represents meeting the 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) goal and has the likely range of 28–55 cm (11–21+1⁄2 in), as well as "low-confidence" narrative involving processes like marine ice sheet and marine ice cliff instability under SSP5-8.5. For that scenario, it cautioned that the sea level rise of over 2 m (6+1⁄2 ft) by 2100 "cannot be ruled out".[7] And as of 2022, NOAA suggests 50% probability of 0.5 m (19+1⁄2 in) sea level rise by 2100 under 2 °C (3.6 °F), increasing to >80% to >99% under 3–5 °C (5.4–9.0 °F)." If countries cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly (lowest trace), the IPCC expects sea level rise by 2100 to be limited to 0.3 to 0.6 meters (1–2 feet).However, in a worst case scenario (top trace), sea levels could rise 5 meters (16 feet) by the year 2300. A map showing major SLR impact in south-east Asia, Northern Europe and the East Coast of the US

Map of the Earth with a long-term 6-metre (20 ft) sea level rise represented in red (uniform distribution, actual sea level rise will vary regionally and local adaptation measures will also have an effect on local sea levels). Models consistent with paleo records of sea level rise:  1189  indicate that substantial long-term SLR will continue for centuries even if the temperature stabilizes. After 500 years, sea level rise from thermal expansion alone may have reached only half of its eventual level, which models suggest may lie within ranges of 0.5–2 m (1+1⁄2–6+1⁄2 ft).[51] Additionally, tipping points of Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets are expected to play a larger role over such timescales, with very long-term SLR likely to be dominated by ice loss from Antarctica, especially if the warming exceeds 2 °C (3.6 °F). Continued carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel sources could cause additional tens of metres of sea level rise, over the next millennia. The available fossil fuel on Earth is enough to ultimately melt the entire Antarctic ice sheet, causing about 58 m (190 ft) of sea level rise. In the next 2,000 years the sea level is predicted to rise by 2–3 m (6+1⁄2–10 ft) if the temperature rise peaks at its current 1.5 °C (2.7 °F), by 2–6 m (6+1⁄2–19+1⁄2 ft) if it peaks at 2 °C (3.6 °F) and by 19–22 m (62+1⁄2–72 ft) if it peaks at 5 °C (9.0 °F).[6]: SPM-28  If temperature rise stops at 2 °C (3.6 °F) or at 5 °C (9.0 °F), the sea level would still continue to rise for about 10,000 years. In the first case it will reach 8–13 m (26–42+1⁄2 ft) above pre-industrial level, and in the second 28–37 m (92–121+1⁄2 ft). As both the models and observational records have improved, a range of studies has attempted to project SLR for the centuries immediately after 2100, which remains largely speculative. For instance, when the April 2019 expert elicitation asked its 22 experts about total sea level rise projections for the years 2200 and 2300 under its high, 5 °C warming scenario, it ended up with 90% confidence intervals of −10 cm (4 in) to 740 cm (24+1⁄2 ft) and −9 cm (3+1⁄2 in) to 970 cm (32 ft), respectively (negative values represent the extremely low probability of very large increases in the ice sheet surface mass balance due to climate change-induced increase in precipitation ). The elicitation of 106 experts led by Stefan Rahmstorf had also included 2300 for RCP2.6 and RCP 8.5: the former had the median of 118 cm (46+1⁄2 in), a 17%-83% range of 54–215 cm (21+1⁄2–84+1⁄2 in) and a 5%-95% range of 24–311 cm (9+1⁄2–122+1⁄2 in), while the latter had the median of 329 cm (129+1⁄2 in), a 17%-83% range of 167–561 cm (65+1⁄2–221 in) and a 5%-95% range of 88–783 cm (34+1⁄2–308+1⁄2 in). By 2021, AR6 was also able to provide estimates for year 2150 SLR alongside the 2100 estimates for the first time. According to it, keeping warming at 1.5 °C under the SSP1-1.9 scenario would result in sea level rise in the 17-83% range of 37–86 cm (14+1⁄2–34 in), SSP1-2.6 a range of 46–99 cm (18–39 in), SSP2-4.5 of 66–133 cm (26–52+1⁄2 in) range by 2100 and SSP5-8.5 leading to 98–188 cm (38+1⁄2–74 in). Moreover, it stated that if the "low-confidence" could result in over 2 m (6+1⁄2 ft) by 2100, it would then accelerate further to potentially approach 5 m (16+1⁄2 ft) by 2150. The report provided lower-confidence estimates for year 2300 sea level rise under SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5 as well: the former had a range between 0.5 m (1+1⁄2 ft) and 3.2 m (10+1⁄2 ft), while the latter ranged from just under 2 m (6+1⁄2 ft) to just under 7 m (23 ft). Finally, the version of SSP5-8.5 involving low-confidence processes has a chance of exceeding 15 m (49 ft) by then. In 2018, it was estimated that for every 5 years CO2 emissions are allowed to increase before finally peaking, the median 2300 SLR increases by the median of 20 cm (8 in), with a 5% likelihood of 1 m (3+1⁄2 ft) increase due to the same. The same estimate found that if the temperature stabilized below 2 °C (3.6 °F), 2300 sea level rise would still exceed 1.5 m (5 ft), while the early net zero and slowly falling temperatures could limit it to 70–120 cm (27+1⁄2–47 in). Measurements: Sea level changes can be driven by variations in the amount of water in the oceans, by changes in the volume of that water, or by varying land elevation compared to the sea surface. Over a consistent time period, assessments can source contributions to sea level rise and provide early indications of change in trajectory, which helps to inform adaptation plans. The different techniques used to measure changes in sea level do not measure exactly the same level. Tide gauges can only measure relative sea level, whilst satellites can also measure absolute sea level changes. To get precise measurements for sea level, researchers studying the ice and the oceans on our planet factor in ongoing deformations of the solid Earth, in particular due to landmasses still rising from past ice masses retreating, and also the Earth's gravity and rotation. Satellites: Jason-1 continued the sea surface measurements started by TOPEX/Poseidon. It was followed by the Ocean Surface Topography Mission on Jason-2, and by Jason-3. Since the launch of TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992, an overlapping series of altimetric satellites has been continuously recording the sea level and its changes. Those satellites can measure the hills and valleys in the sea caused by currents and detect trends in their height. To measure the distance to the sea surface, the satellites send a microwave pulse towards Earth and record the time it takes to return after reflecting off the ocean's surface. Microwave radiometers measure and correct the additional delay caused by water vapor in the atmosphere. Combining these data with the precisely known location of the spacecraft determines the sea-surface height to within a few centimetres (about one inch).[59] Rates of sea level rise for the period 1993–2017 have been estimated from satellite altimetry to be 3.0 ± 0.4 millimetres (1⁄8 ± 1⁄64 in) per year. Satellites are useful for measuring regional variations in sea level, such as the substantial rise between 1993 and 2012 in the western tropical Pacific. This sharp rise has been linked to increasing trade winds, which occur when the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) change from one state to the other.[61] The PDO is a basin-wide climate pattern consisting of two phases, each commonly lasting 10 to 30 years, while the ENSO has a shorter period of 2 to 7 years.Tide gauges: Between 1993 and 2018, the mean sea level has risen across most of the world ocean (blue colors). The global network of tide gauges is another important source of sea-level observations. Compared to the satellite record, this record has major spatial gaps but covers a much longer period of time. Coverage of tide gauges started primarily in the Northern Hemisphere, with data for the Southern Hemisphere remaining scarce up to the 1970s. The longest running sea-level measurements, NAP or Amsterdam Ordnance Datum established in 1675, are recorded in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In Australia, record collection is also quite extensive, including measurements by an amateur meteorologist beginning in 1837 and measurements taken from a sea-level benchmark struck on a small cliff on the Isle of the Dead near the Port Arthur convict settlement in 1841. This network was used, in combination with satellite altimeter data, to establish that global mean sea-level rose 19.5 cm (7.7 in) between 1870 and 2004 at an average rate of about 1.44 mm/yr (1.7 mm/yr during the 20th century). By 2018, data collected by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) had shown that the global mean sea level was rising by 3.2 mm (1⁄8 in) per year, at double the average 20th century rate,[68][69] while the 2023 World Meteorological Organization report found further acceleration to 4.62 mm/yr over the 2013–2022 period.[3] Thus, these observations help to check and verify predictions from climate change simulations. Regional differences are also visible in the tide gauge data. Some are caused by the local sea level differences, while others are due to vertical land movements. In Europe for instance, only some land areas are rising while the others are sinking. Since 1970, most tidal stations have measured higher seas, but sea levels along the northern Baltic Sea have dropped due to post-glacial rebound. Past sea level rise: Changes in sea levels since the end of the last glacial episode. An understanding of past sea level is an important guide to where current changes in sea level will end up once these processes conclude. In the recent geological past, thermal expansion from increased temperatures and changes in land ice are the dominant reasons of sea level rise. The last time that the Earth was 2 °C (3.6 °F) warmer than pre-industrial temperatures was 120,000 years ago, when warming due to Milankovitch cycles (changes in the amount of sunlight due to slow changes in the Earth's orbit) caused the Eemian interglacial; sea levels during that warmer interglacial were at least 5 m (16 ft) higher than now. The Eemian warming was sustained over a period of thousands of years, and the magnitude of the rise in sea level implies a large contribution from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets: 1139  According to Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide similar to today's ultimately increased temperature by over 2–3 °C (3.6–5.4 °F) around three million years ago. This temperature increase eventually melted one third of Antarctica's ice sheet, causing sea levels to rise 20 meters above the present values. Since the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago, sea level has risen by more than 125 metres (410 ft), with rates varying from less than 1 mm/year during the pre-industrial era to 40+ mm/year when major ice sheets over Canada and Eurasia melted. meltwater pulses are periods of fast sea level rise caused by the rapid disintegration of these ice sheets. The rate of sea level rise started to slow down about 8,200 years before present; sea level was almost constant for the last 2,500 years. The recent trend of rising sea level started at the end of the 19th century or at the beginning of the 20th.

Causes: A graph showing ice loss sea ice, ice shelves and land ice. Land ice loss contributetes to SLR. Earth lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994 and 2017: ice sheets and glaciers raised the global sea level by 34.6 ± 3.1 mm. The rate of ice loss has risen by 57% since the 1990s−from 0.8 to 1.2 trillion tonnes per year. The three main reasons warming causes global sea level to rise are the expansion of oceans due to heating, along with water inflow from melting ice sheets and glaciers. Sea level rise since the start of the 20th century has been dominated by retreat of glaciers and expansion of the ocean, but the contributions of the two large ice sheets (Greenland and Antarctica) are expected to increase in the 21st century. The ice sheets store most of the land ice (~99.5%), with a sea-level equivalent (SLE) of 7.4 m (24 ft 3 in) for Greenland and 58.3 m (191 ft 3 in) for Antarctica. Each year about 8 mm (5⁄16 in) of precipitation (liquid equivalent) falls on the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, mostly as snow, which accumulates and over time forms glacial ice. Much of this precipitation began as water vapor evaporated from the ocean surface. Some of the snow is blown away by wind or disappears from the ice sheet by melt or by sublimation (directly changing into water vapor). The rest of the snow slowly changes into ice. This ice can flow to the edges of the ice sheet and return to the ocean by melting at the edge or in the form of icebergs. If precipitation, surface processes and ice loss at the edge balance each other, sea level remains the same. However scientists have found that ice is being lost, and at an accelerating rate. Ocean heating: There has been an increase in ocean heat content during recent decades as the oceans absorb most of the excess heat created by human-induced global warming. The oceans store more than 90% of the extra heat added to Earth's climate system by climate change and act as a buffer against its effects. The amount of heat needed to increase average temperature of the entire world ocean by 0.01 °C (0.018 °F) would increase atmospheric temperature by approximately 10 °C (18 °F): a small change in the mean temperature of the ocean represents a very large change in the total heat content of the climate system. When the ocean gains heat, the water expands and sea level rises. The amount of expansion varies with both water temperature and pressure. For each degree, warmer water and water under great pressure (due to depth) expand more than cooler water and water under less pressure : 1161  Consequently cold Arctic Ocean water will expand less than warm tropical water. Because different climate models present slightly different patterns of ocean heating, their predictions do not agree fully on the contribution of ocean heating to SLR. Heat gets transported into deeper parts of the ocean by winds and currents, and some of it reaches depths of more than 2,000 m (6,600 ft). Antarctic ice loss: The large volume of ice on the Antarctic continent stores around 70% of the world's fresh water. There is constant ice discharge along the periphery, yet also constant accumulation of snow atop the ice sheet: together, these processes form Antarctic ice sheet mass balance. Warming increases melting at the base of the ice sheet, but it is likely to increase snowfall, helping offset the periphery melt even if greater weight on the surface also accelerates ice flow into the ocean. While snowfall increased over the last two centuries, no increase was found in the interior of Antarctica over the last four decades. Further, sea ice, particularly in the form of ice shelves, blocks warmer waters around the continent from coming into direct contact with the ice sheet, so any loss of ice shelves substantially increases melt raises and instability. The Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica's largest, is about the size of France and up to several hundred metres thick. Different satellite methods for measuring ice mass and change are in good agreement, and combining methods leads to more certainty about how the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and the Antarctic Peninsula evolve. A 2018 systematic review study estimated that the average annual ice loss across the entire continent was 43 gigatons (Gt) during the period from 1992 to 2002, acceletating to an annual average of 220 Gt from 2012 to 2017.[85] The sea level rise due to Antarctica has been estimated to be 0.25 mm per year from 1993 to 2005, and 0.42 mm per year from 2005 to 2015, although there are significant year-to-year variations. In 2021, limiting global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) was projected to reduce all land ice contribution to sea level rise by 2100 from 25 cm to 13 cm (from 10 to 6 in.) compared to current mitigation pledges, with mountain glaciers responsible for half the sea level rise contribution,[86] and the fate of Antarctica the source of the largest uncertainty.[86] By 2019, several studies have attempted to estimate 2300 sea level rise caused by ice loss in Antarctica alone: they suggest 16 cm (6+1⁄2 in) median and 37 cm (14+1⁄2 in) maximum values under the low-emission scenario but a median of 1.46 m (5 ft) metres (with a minimum of 60 cm (2 ft) and a maximum of 2.89 m (9+1⁄2 ft)) under the highest-emission scenario. East Antarctica: The world's largest potential source of sea level rise is the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS). It holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 53.3 m (174 ft 10 in)[87] Historically, it was less studied than the West Antarctica as it had been considered relatively stable, an impression that was backed up by satellite observations and modelling of its surface mass balance. However, a 2019 study employed different methodology and concluded that East Antarctica is already losing ice mass overall. All methods agree that the Totten Glacier has lost ice in recent decades in response to ocean warming and possibly a reduction in local sea ice cover. Totten Glacier is the primary outlet of the Aurora Subglacial Basin, a major ice reservoir in East Antarctica that could rapidly retreat due to hydrological processes. The global sea level potential of 3.5 m (11 ft 6 in) flowing through Totten Glacier alone is of similar magnitude to the entire probable contribution of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The other major ice reservoir on East Antarctica that might rapidly retreat is the Wilkes Basin which is subject to marine ice sheet instability. Ice loss from these outlet glaciers is possibly compensated by accumulation gains in other parts of Antarctica. In 2022, it was estimated that the Wilkes Basin, Aurora Basin and other nearby subglacial basins are likely to have a collective tipping point around 3 °C (5.4 °F) of global warming, although it may be as high as 6 °C (11 °F), or as low as 2 °C (3.6 °F). Once this tipping point is crossed, the collapse of these subglacial basins could take place as little as 500 or as much as 10,000 years: the median timeline is 2000 years. On the other hand, the entirety of the EAIS would not be committed to collapse until global warming reaches 7.5 °C (13.5 °F) (range between 5 °C (9.0 °F) and 10 °C (18 °F)), and would take at least 10,000 years to disappear.[92][93] It is also suggested that the loss of two-thirds of its volume may require at least 6 °C (11 °F) of warming. West Antarctica: Even though East Antarctica contains the largest potential source of sea level rise, West Antarctica ice sheet (WAIS) is substantially more vulnerable. In contrast to East Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, temperatures on West Antarctica have increased significantly with a trend between 0.08 °C (0.14 °F) per decade and 0.96 °C (1.73 °F) per decade between 1976 and 2012. Consequently, satellite observations recorded a substantial increase in WAIS melting from 1992 to 2017, resulting in 7.6 ± 3.9 mm (19⁄64 ± 5⁄32 in) of Antarctica sea level rise, with a disproportionate role played by outflow glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment. In 2021, AR6 estimated that while the median increase in sea level rise from the West Antarctic ice sheet melt by 2100 is ~11 cm (5 in) under all emission scenarios (since the increased warming would intensify the water cycle and increase snowfall accumulation over the ice sheet at about the same rate as it would increase ice loss), it can conceivably contribute as much as 41 cm (16 in) by 2100 under the low-emission scenario and 57 cm (22 in) under the highest-emission one. This is because WAIS is vulnerable to several types of instability whose role remains difficult to model. These include hydrofracturing (meltwater collecting atop the ice sheet pools into fractures and forces them open), increased contact of warm ocean water with ice shelves due to climate-change induced ocean circulation changes, marine ice sheet instability (warm water entering between the seafloor and the base of the ice sheet once it is no longer heavy enough to displace the flow, causing accelerated melting and collapse) and even marine ice cliff instability (ice cliffs with heights greater than 100 m (330 ft) collapsing under their own weight once they are no longer buttressed by ice shelves). These processes do not have equal influence and are not all equally likely to happen: for instance, marine ice cliff instability has never been observed and was ruled out by some of the more detailed modelling. Thwaites Glacier, with its vulnerable bedrock topography visible.

The Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers are considered the most prone to ice sheet instability processes. Both glaciers' bedrock topography gets deeper farther inland, exposing them to more warm water intrusion into the grounding zone. Their contribution to global sea levels has already accelerated since the beginning of the 21st century, with the Thwaites Glacier now amounting to 4% of the global sea level rise. At the end of 2021, it was estimated that the Thwaites Ice Shelf can collapse in three to five years, which would then make the destabilization of the entire Thwaites glacier inevitable. The Thwaites glacier itself will cause a rise of sea level by 65 cm (25+1⁄2 in) if it will completely collapse,[107][102] although this process is estimated to unfold over several centuries. Since most of the bedrock underlying the West Antarctic Ice Sheet lies well below sea level, it is currently buttressed by Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers, meaning that their loss would likely destabilize the entire ice sheet.[38][108] This possibility was first proposed back in the 1970s,[37] when a 1978 study predicted that anthropogenic CO2 emissions doubling by 2050 would cause 5 m (15 ft) of SLR from the rapid WAIS loss alone. Since then, improved modelling concluded that the ice within WAIS would raise the sea level by 3.3 m (10 ft 10 in). In 2022, the collapse of the entire West Antarctica was estimated to unfold over a period of about 2000 years, with the absolute minimum of 500 years (and a potential maximum of 13,000 years). At the same time, this collapse was considered likely to be triggered at around 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) of global warming and would become unavoidable at 3 °C (5.4 °F). At worst, it may have even been triggered already: subsequent (2023) research had made that possibility more likely, suggesting that the temperatures in the Amundsen Sea are likely to increase at triple the historical rate even with low or "medium" atmospheric warming and even faster with high warming. Without unexpected strong negative feedbacks emerging, the collapse of the ice sheet would become inevitable. While it would take a very long time from start to end for the ice sheet to disappear, it has been suggested that the only way to stop it once triggered is by lowering the global temperature to 1 °C (1.8 °F) below the preindustrial level; i.e. 2 °C (3.6 °F) below the temperature of 2020. Other researchers suggested that a climate engineering intervention aiming to stabilize the ice sheet's glaciers may delay its loss by centuries and give more time to adapt, although it's an uncertain proposal, and would necessarily end up as one of the most expensive projects ever attempted by humanity. Greenland ice sheet loss: Greenland 2007 melt, measured as the difference between the number of days on which melting occurred in 2007 compared to the average annual melting days from 1988 to 2006. Most ice on Greenland is part of the Greenland ice sheet which is 3 km (10,000 ft) at its thickest. Other Greenland ice forms isolated glaciers and ice caps. The sources contributing to sea level rise from Greenland are from ice sheet melting (70%) and from glacier calving (30%). Average annual ice loss in Greenland more than doubled in the early 21st century compared to the 20th century,[117] and there was a corresponding increase in SLR contribution from 0.07 mm per year between 1992 and 1997 to 0.68 mm per year between 2012 and 2017. Total ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet between 1992 and 2018 amounted to 3,902 gigatons (Gt) of ice, which is equivalent to the SLR of 10.8 mm.[118] The contribution for the 2012–2016 period was equivalent to 37% of sea level rise from land ice sources (excluding thermal expansion).[119] This rate of ice sheet melting is also associated with the higher end of predictions from the past IPCC assessment reports. In 2021, AR6 estimated that under the SSP1-2.6 emission scenario which largely fulfils the Paris Agreement goals, Greenland ice sheet melt adds around 6 cm (2+1⁄2 in) to global sea level rise by the end of the century, with a plausible maximum of 15 cm (6 in) (and even a very small chance of the ice sheet reducing the sea levels by around 2 cm (1 in) due to gaining mass through surface mass balance feedback). The scenario associated with the highest global warming, SSP5-8.5, would see Greenland add a minimum of 5 cm (2 in) to sea level rise, a likely median of 13 cm (5 in) cm and a plausible maximum of 23 cm (9 in). Certain parts of the Greenland ice sheet are already known to be committed to unstoppable sea level rise. Greenland's peripheral glaciers and ice caps crossed an irreversible tipping point around 1997, and will continue to melt. A subsequent study had found that the climate of the past 20 years (2000–2019) would already result of the loss of ~3.3% volume in this manner in the future, committing the ice sheet to an eventual 27 cm (10+1⁄2 in) of SLR, independent of any future temperature change.[126] There is also a global warming threshold beyond which a near-complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet occurs. Earlier research has put this threshold value as low as 1 °C (1.8 °F), and definitely no higher than 4 °C (7.2 °F) above pre-industrial temperatures.[128][26]: 1170  A 2021 analysis of sub-glacial sediment at the bottom of a 1.4 km Greenland ice core finds that the Greenland ice sheet melted away at least once during the last million years, even though the temperatures have never been higher than 2.5 °C (4.5 °F) greater than today over that period.[129][130] In 2022, it was estimated that the tipping point of the Greenland Ice Sheet may have been as low as 0.8 °C (1.4 °F) and is certainly no higher than 3 °C (5.4 °F) : there is a high chance that it will be crossed around 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). Once crossed, it would take between 1000 and 15,000 years for the ice sheet to disintegrate entirely, with the most likely estimate of 10,000 years. Mountain glacier loss: Based on national pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global mean temperature is projected to increase by 2.7 °C (4.9 °F), which would cause loss of about half of Earth's glaciers by 2100—causing a sea level rise of 115±40 millimeters. There are roughly 200,000 glaciers on Earth, which are spread out across all continents. Less than 1% of glacier ice is in mountain glaciers, compared to 99% in Greenland and Antarctica. However, this small size also makes mountain glaciers more vulnerable to melting than the larger ice sheets. This means they have had a disproportionate contribution to historical sea level rise and are set to contribute a smaller, but still significant fraction of sea level rise in the 21st century. Observational and modelling studies of mass loss from glaciers and ice caps indicate a contribution to sea level rise of 0.2-0.4 mm per year, averaged over the 20th century. The contribution for the 2012–2016 period was nearly as large as that of Greenland: 0.63 mm of sea level rise per year, equivalent to 34% of sea level rise from land ice sources. Glaciers contributed around 40% to sea level rise during the 20th century, with estimates for the 21st century of around 30%.[4] The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report estimated that glaciers contributing 7–24 cm (3–9+1⁄2 in) to global sea levels: 1165 . In 2023, a Science paper estimated that at 1.5 °C (2.7 °F), one quarter of mountain glacier mass would be lost by 2100 and nearly half would be lost at 4 °C (7.2 °F), contributing ~9 cm (3+1⁄2 in) and ~15 cm (6 in) to sea level rise, respectively. Because glacier mass is disproportionately concentrated in the most resilient glaciers, this would in practice remove between 49% and 83% of glacier formations. It had further estimated that the current likely trajectory of 2.7 °C (4.9 °F) would result in the SLR contribution of ~11 cm (4+1⁄2 in) by 2100. Mountain glaciers are even more vulnerable over the longer term. In 2022, another Science paper estimated that almost no mountain glaciers can be expected to survive once the warming crosses 2 °C (3.6 °F), and their complete loss largely inevitable around 3 °C (5.4 °F): there is even a possibility of complete loss after 2100 at just 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). This could happen as early as 50 years after the tipping point is crossed, although 200 years is the most likely value, and the maximum is around 1000 years. Sea ice loss: Sea ice loss contributes very slightly to global sea level rise. If the melt water from ice floating in the sea was exactly the same as sea water then, according to Archimedes' principle, no rise would occur. However melted sea ice contains less dissolved salt than sea water and is therefore less dense, with a slightly greater volume per unit of mass. If all floating ice shelves and icebergs were to melt sea level would only rise by about 4 cm (1+1⁄2 in). Changes to land water storage: Human activity impacts how much water is stored on land. Dams retain large quantities of water, which is stored on land rather than flowing into the sea (even though the total quantity stored will vary somewhat from time to time). On the other hand, humans extract water from lakes, wetlands and underground reservoirs for food production, which often causes subsidence. Furthermore, the hydrological cycle is influenced by climate change and deforestation, which can lead to further positive and negative contributions to sea level rise. In the 20th century, these processes roughly balanced, but dam building has slowed down and is expected to stay low for the 21st century: 1155 . Water redistribution caused by irrigation from 1993 to 2010 caused a drift of Earth's rotational pole by 78.48 centimetres (30.90 in), causing an amount of groundwater depletion equivalent to a global sea level rise of 6.24 millimetres (0.246 in). Impacts: High tide flooding, also called tidal flooding, has become much more common in the past seven decades.[ The impacts of sea level rise include higher and more frequent high-tide and storm-surge flooding, increased coastal erosion, inhibition of primary production processes, more extensive coastal inundation, along with changes in surface water quality and groundwater. These can lead to a greater loss of property and coastal habitats, loss of life during floods and loss of cultural resources. Agriculture and aquaculture can also be impacted. There can also be loss of tourism, recreation, and transport related functions.[10]: 356  Coastal flooding impacts are exacerbated by land use changes such as urbanisation or deforestation of low-lying coastal zones. Regions that are already vulnerable to the rising sea level also struggle with coastal flooding washing away land and altering the landscape.

Because the projected extent of sea level rise by 2050 will be only slightly affected by any changes in emissions,[5] there is confidence that 2050 levels of SLR combined with the 2010 population distribution (i.e. absent the effects of population growth and human migration) would result in ~150 million people under the water line during high tide and ~300 million in places which are flooded every year—an increase of 40 and 50 million people relative to 2010 values for the same.[13][141] By 2100, there would be another 40 million people under the water line during high tide if sea level rise remains low, and 80 million for a high estimate of the median sea level rise.[13] If ice sheet processes under the highest emission scenario result in sea level rise of well over one metre (3+1⁄4 ft) by 2100, with a chance of levels over two metres (6+1⁄2 ft),[16][6]: TS-45  then as many as 520 million additional people would end up under the water line during high tide and 640 million in places which are flooded every year, when compared to the 2010 population distribution.

Major cities threatened by sea level rise. The cities indicated are under threat of even a small sea level rise (of 1.6 feet/49 cm) compared to the level in 2010. Even moderate projections indicate that such a rise will have occurred by 2060.[142][143]

Over the longer term, coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, changes in the frequency and intensity of storms, increased precipitation, and rising ocean temperatures. Ten percent of the world's population live in coastal areas that are less than 10 metres (33 ft) above sea level. Furthermore, two-thirds of the world's cities with over five million people are located in these low-lying coastal areas.[144] In total, approximately 600 million people live directly on the coast around the world.[145] Cities such as Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Osaka and Shanghai will be especially vulnerable later in the century under the warming of 3 °C (5.4 °F), which is close to the current trajectory.[12][36] Altogether, LiDAR-based research had established in 2021 that 267 million people worldwide lived on land less than 2 m (6+1⁄2 ft) above sea level and that with a 1 m (3+1⁄2 ft) sea level rise and zero population growth, that number could increase to 410 million people. Even populations who live further inland may be impacted by a potential disruption of sea trade, and by migrations. In 2023, United Nations secretary general António Guterres warned that sea level rises risk causing human migrations on a "biblical scale". Sea level rise will inevitably affect ports, but the current research into this subject is limited. Not enough is known about the investments required to protect the ports currently in use, and for how they may be protected before it becomes more reasonable to build new port facilities elsewhere. Moreover, some coastal regions are rich agricultural lands, whose loss to the sea can result in food shortages elsewhere. This is a particularly acute issue for river deltas such as Nile Delta in Egypt and Red River and Mekong Deltas in Vietnam, which are disproportionately affected by saltwater intrusion into the soil and irrigation water. Ecosystems:

When seawater reaches inland, coastal plants, birds, and freshwater/estuarine fish are threatened with habitat loss due to flooding and soil/water salinization.[153] So-called ghost forests emerge when coastal forest areas become inundated with saltwater to the point no trees can survive. Starting around 2050, some nesting sites in Florida, Cuba, Ecuador and the island of Sint Eustatius for leatherback, loggerhead, hawksbill, green and olive ridley turtles are expected to be flooded, and the proportion would only increase over time. And in 2016, Bramble Cay islet in the Great Barrier Reef was inundated, flooding the habitat of a rodent named Bramble Cay melomys.[157] In 2019, it was officially declared extinct. While some ecosystems can move land inward with the high-water mark, many are prevented from migrating due to natural or artificial barriers. This coastal narrowing, sometimes called 'coastal squeeze' when considering human-made barriers, could result in the loss of habitats such as mudflats and tidal marshes. Mangrove ecosystems on the mudflats of tropical coasts nurture high biodiversity, yet they are particularly vulnerable due to mangrove plants' reliance on breathing roots or pneumatophores, which might grow to be half a metre tall.[ While mangroves can adjust to rising sea levels by migrating inland and building vertically using accumulated sediment and organic matter, they will be submerged if the rate is too rapid, resulting in the loss of an ecosystem. Both mangroves and tidal marshes protect against storm surges, waves and tsunamis, so their loss makes the effects of sea level rise worse. Human activities, such as dam building, may restrict sediment supplies to wetlands, and thereby prevent natural adaptation processes. The loss of some tidal marshes is unavoidable as a consequence. Likewise, corals, important for bird and fish life, need to grow vertically to remain close to the sea surface in order to get enough energy from sunlight. The corals have so far been able to keep up the vertical growth with the rising seas, but might not be able to do so in the future.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_drop

Tidal range is the difference in height between high tide and low tide. Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and Sun, by Earth's rotation and by centrifugal force caused by Earth's progression around the Earth-Moon barycenter. Tidal range depends on time and location. Larger tidal range occur during spring tides (spring range), when the gravitational forces of both the Moon and Sun are aligned (at syzygy), reinforcing each other in the same direction (new moon) or in opposite directions (full moon). The largest annual tidal range can be expected around the time of the equinox if it coincides with a spring tide. Spring tides occur at the second and fourth (last) quarters of the lunar phases. By contrast, during neap tides, when the Moon and Sun's gravitational force vectors act in quadrature (making a right angle to the Earth's orbit), the difference between high and low tides (neap range) is smallest. Neap tides occur at the first and third quarters of the lunar phases. Tidal data for coastal areas is published by national hydrographic offices. The data is based on astronomical phenomena and is predictable. Sustained storm-force winds blowing from one direction combined with low barometric pressure can increase the tidal range, particularly in narrow bays. Such weather-related effects on the tide can cause ranges in excess of predicted values and can cause localized flooding. These weather-related effects are not calculable in advance. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_range

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnU0K5HlR2s

love this song, wish the video was something different.

i hope you will have time to view large,(especially the third shot). today some of my storefront friends graduate!!! I am going to see five of my treasured students start their next life. I will miss these ones, as always, the miracles of everyday are the ones that leave me in awe and with certainty that the world is a wonderous place. acts of everyday faith, miracles in motion, Dan, Jerrica, Michelle, Jamie, Elle. Dream big dreams, live big lives.

- www.kevin-palmer.com - If you have never seen the aurora, you should definitely make it a goal. This was a once in a lifetime show for me as I have never seen a better geomagnetic storm. I was only in Wisconsin but it felt like I was in Alaska. The aurora was pulsating, moving rapidly and it covered much of the sky. Most of my pictures were taken with a 10mm lens which tells you just how much of the sky was filled with color.

I thought if I got very lucky I might have been able to see a tornado and aurora in the same day. But with the storms forming later and further south than predicted, eventually I realized I couldn't see both. At 4:30 I had to make a decision to go after the storms or head north to get out of the clouds and see the aurora. I chose the latter because it seemed like more of a certainty. Blue Mound State Park is the highest point in Southern Wisconsin and the lookout tower was the perfect place to watch the aurora dance across the sky all night.

A 16x20 C-Print from "Certainty Principle" an exhibition of photography, video, and installation by Michael David Murphy. Sept. 23rd, 2010 through Oct. 30th, 2010 at Spruill Gallery in Atlanta.

certaintyprinciple.tumblr.com

White dazzles my inner divide,

Black thrown in with my unruly side,

My parents wave me a lingering goodbye,

They have always nurtured my childlike soul,

As I try to fly from my warm nest,

To accomplish and try to be the best,

In a world full of colour so bold,

I'm painted black and white,

Standing out for all the wrong reasons,

I dare to fight,

I always daydream in multicolour scenes of joy,

Living is a struggle with silent screams of turmoil,

Stirring the concoction to the boil,

As i listen to remarks that stick permanently,

I try and climb to a great height,

To discover a view, that I can never see,

I bounce back into a fantasy of nature holding my hand,

Accepting my limitations,

Tasting the sweet prospect of finding words a sensation,

Black and white finds the curious light,

That shimmers with substance and dances across the page in ink,

I cross a a wide bridge that is my link,

To dissolving the empty divide,

Like the certainty of the incoming tide.

Hazel Durham

Monastery and Cave of Saint Andrew the Apostle

Few things are known about the cave of Saint Andrew the Apostle. One of those things that can be said with certainty is that it was discovered in 1918 by Jean Dinu, a lawyer. After dreaming one night, he came in this area to find the cave in an advanced state of degradation. After cleaning it of the vegetation inside, he built a couple of cells and the first monks came in a short time.

It was sanctified in 1943 by the bishop Chesarie Paunescu but during the communist period it was destroyed and turned into a shelter for animals.

Only in 1990, with the blessing of IPS Lucian, father Nicodim Dinca, the monarch of Sihastria Monastery, along with the hieromonarch father Victorin Ghindaoanu, started to restore the cave and to build the monastery.

The cave shelters the icon of Saint Andrew, known as the apostle who christianized the lands at the North of the Danube. There is a bed carved in stone in a niche of the pronaos. It is said that that was used as a resting place by Andrew the Apostle. In the course of time this has been a place to light candles, and now it is used by those in need of comfort from disease. Here, the priests also read prayers for sick people and the Mass of Saint Basil the Great.

Today the monastery has a smaller church built during the years of 1994 – 1995, sanctified with the Holy Virgin’s Protection as its dedication day and the third bigger church was built during the years of 1998 – 2002.

In the small church are kept the relics of Saint Andrew. A cross in the shape of “X” can be found, on the left, in front of the altar of the smaller church. In the center of this cross is placed a part of the finger belonging to Saint Andrew. The finger was brought from the Trifiliei Metropolitan Church of Greece. On the four extremities of the cross there are the relics of the martyr saints of Niculitel from Dobrogea: Zoticos, Attalos, Kamasis and Filippos, Epictet the priest and Astion the monk.

Near the cave there is a spring about which the legend tells that it appeared after Saint Andrew struck the rock with his staff in search of water.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims come each year to the Cave of Saint Andrew and this made this place to be rightfully named the Bethlehem of Romanian people.

To get here, the pilgrims must first reach Cernavoda, afterwards head south to Ostrov. In the locality Ion Corvin, an indicator points them to a side road that takes them to the monastery in a forest, after 3 – 4 km.

Short biography

The Saint Apostle Andrew was the brother of Saint Apostle Petre. At first he and Saint Apostle and Evangelist John were apprentices of Saint John the Baptist. After the Resurrection and the Ascension of Jesus Christ and the Descent of the Holly Spirit, the apostles drew the chances on where to go to preach this faith, and Saint Apostle Andrew reached the area of the Black Sea, including Scythia Minor of the time or today’s Dobrogea. He secluded in that cave with two apprentices and he started to preach. He then went to the region of Kiev, and returned to Dobrogea. Because all went well, he headed to Patras in Greece where he was crucified on a cross in the shape of “X”.

This morning I find myself in an introspective mood and as I so often do, thinking about my transvestism. I think it is fair to say in my own case I find my transgender side moves in circles. By that I mean my thoughts and desires in regard to my cross-dressing as a woman can feel very certain and I believe in them yet they fade and move onto other certainties. These can at times conflict with each other and add to my confusion.

That paragraph itself may lead to confusion after reading it so let me try and explain what occurs. My situation is I am transgender however, I live full time as a man as my birth certificate and my body state very clearly I am male. A lot of the time I am okay with being male and I have typical male traits and male desires and I’m not uncomfortable with it. Despite knowing that and recognising that is how I feel most of the time I have an aspect that causes inner conflict yet has the potential to bring me such inner joy and emotional reward it causes me to doubt my male life. That aspect is a strong desire to be female.

This desire to be female is at odds with my male self but it exists very powerfully within me. I will freely admit there are times I yearn for breasts and female genitals; this is not a man’s normal reaction to his body! Seeing my flat chest, male genitalia and hairy body can cause me upset.

The obvious conclusion if one were to believe that life is simply black and white is I want to be female so I must be a transsexual. Am I transsexual? I believe I am but not completely. I’ve just moved from a black and white world into an area of grey!

The grey exists, nothing is black and white, the feelings manifest themselves in too many and at times paradoxical ways. I am aware a times I desire to be a woman one hundred percent, to be male is distressing. At times I also am very content to be male and so the paradox is exposed. How can I want to be both woman and man? All I know is that’s exactly what I want.

My narratives that accompany my Flickr photo posts are my outlet for self expression as I am a secret transvestite and I rarely get an opportunity to communicate with other transgender people so I open up in my stream of consciousness thoughts in my narratives. I am aware these narratives are an indulgence and I’m frequently told how dull and turgid they are but I continue as I really do need that outlet for my own sake; nobody has to read them. I’m always surprised my pictures even get looked at as I have to yet to take one I feel captures the woman I like to try and become.

Should anyone have read my previous photo narratives or listened to my video musings they will maybe notice I do contradict myself rather a lot. I wanted to expose this as I think it surely must be a scenario others who cross-dress may encounter?

Besides the big one I regularly encounter, that of I’m okay as a man yet at times I’m not and desire to be a woman forever, I acknowledge sometimes the cross-dressing has different motivations. I do call myself a transvestite as I am only dressing up as a woman, I am not transitioning full time. I do at times want to but I have far more I enjoy in my current life to embark on such a journey. Also, certain things bring me down to earth. There are other factors at play that influence my choices on my transsexual aspects. I do think one has to really be as realistic as possible in their decision making and endeavour to take a long term view and weigh things up. I am fairly certain left to my own devices I would be consumed by my desire to be a female and embrace it. However, I know that is fantasy as I simply do not have what it takes to be that woman. I lack the physicality to pass as a woman in the real world. I am fortunate I am not very tall (1.7 meters in height) but I have large hands for my size and large feet as well, both impact on my confidence to look realistic as a woman. My voice, despite trying to work on it is a failure, it’s not that masculine but it’s definitely not female sounding. My movements, again despite my best efforts, are male, it’s all very distressing to me to fail in these attributes that create the perception one is female. I am still far too obviously a man in a dress, I will never be perceived as a woman, that is crushing to realise.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons I would never transition is I am a bald headed male and I require a wig when I cross-dress. The prospect of having to wear a wig for everyday of my life is so utterly dreadful it keeps the lid on my desire to be a full time woman.

Another factor in not wanting to transition is I enjoy the transvestism. I love knowing I’m a man dressing up and trying to create the illusion of being a woman. I also like performance and acting and it appeals me to engage in female impersonation, it is a huge and exciting thrill. At times this is stronger than my transsexual feelings! I love the idea of one day actually passing convincingly as a woman and men believe I am female. It would be a true thrill and adventure to carry off this portrayal and they never realise I am a man. It may involve having to respond as a woman towards a man but that’s all part of the fun and the acting challenge. Imagine a man wants to kiss you because he desires you as a woman, to go through with the kiss is at odds with my own sexuality but to be the woman I am presenting as could I respond convincingly as a female? I do often mull this scenario over and the adventure and daring in succeeding in the role overrides the sexuality of it, so maybe I would, I don’t really know. As a man the idea makes me feel a bit queasy but to know my female alter-ego is working is a powerful and exciting scenario to dare engage with.

The paradoxes continue with that one, how can you be a straight male yet dress up as a woman and act as if you are one? Reality is I do dress up as a woman but I’m not very experienced as a transvestite or an actor so I’ve yet to test myself out by remaining in character as Helene. As I mentioned I am not confident in my female portrayal so I doubt I’ll ever get out of the house.

I do love me-up and enjoy wearing it, it makes me feel amazing. I also love shaving my legs, chest and arms and being hairless and I genuinely adore plucking and shaping my eyebrows. Again, this is al a collision with my male self yet I feel a deep contentment after these physical alterations. I also love seeing dresses and high heel shoes and knowing I could actually wear them, not many men think that, cross-dressers though can maybe relate to that one.

I know for sure I love to be in full make-up, wig, painted nails, smooth hairless body, shaped eyebrows, perfumed, genitals tucked, breasts added and to wear a dress and the heels…it is such a magnificent, amazing and gorgeous feeling to attempt t pass oneself off as a woman. On a deep level I feel the real me is free but I won’t deny the male I am is thrilled by doing this and I can become sexually aroused by the experience. I am daring myself to throw away the man and become the woman. Unfortunately, despite a motivation to do this I fail to get there, the man still exerts control over me yet I’m desperate to get rid of him and let my female self take over for a few hours.

I would love, absolutely love to be a woman…but, do I really want to be a woman? I do get a real buzz from the illusion, pretending to be a woman and knowing I can return to being a man. I think for me transvestism is the best choice as I get to engage in my desires and it is an opportunity for self expression and freeing aspects of my persona I suppress. The truth is I am quite excited to call myself a transvestite, as a man it it feels really daring to be one yet it is driven at a deeper level by transsexualism that exists within me but tempered by the reality of knowing I can never truly be what I desire. I ant to enjoy myself as Helene and I want to push my abilities to free this aspect of myself and I want the freedom to exist as both man and woman, I want it all!

I will never have it all, my life is not just about me. I have responsibilities to others whom I cherish, I need to remain grounded and not let my own wishes dominate and consume me. It will be 2016 tomorrow, a new year that offers me very little prospect of spending time as Helene as other factors affecting my family, health and work take priority. If all goes well I have a emote possibility of becoming Helene once more in November. Just thinking about that brings a smile to my face and already the anticipation is quietly generating excitement within me.

Happy New Year!

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My health company, every three months, for three days, sends me to cover a shortage of staff, in the Lipari hospital, (and so do my colleagues), in the little free time I have available, I dedicate myself to my photographic passion.

Lipari is the largest island of the Aeolian Islands (they are located north of Sicily, one hour by hydrofoil from Milazzo); Lipari, under the fascist dictatorship, was the seat of forced confinement for political opponents, it was considered "a Sicilian Alcatraz", among all the islands of confinement, Lipari was most likely the most liveable, both for its considerable size that favored the relations of the confined with the inhabitants, both because, to a greater extent than elsewhere, in Lipari, confined persons were allowed to live in private residences, together with their families or other companions. I found written: "Being on an island that belongs to another island means feeling doubly foreign, tied to the will of the gods and nature, where every certainty can be swept away by the waves of that sea that laps it in every intimate part, but it is a sensation that lasts for a few minutes, the Liparoti (the inhabitants of Lipari, ed) know it well (as all Sicilians know), the Greek concept of Xenia, hospitality, is inherent in them, a written rule, is a duty that provides sanctity and protection for the guest ".

Lipari has a long history as a place of detention. It is the island where the common criminals were initially confined, then with the law of November 6, 1926 (the twenty-year fascist period begins with the seizure of power by fascism and Mussolini, officially occurred on October 31, 1922), Lipari thus became the a place to isolate and confine opponents; the life of the confined began immediately after disembarkation, with lodging in the dormitories of the Castle, under the strict surveillance of the police and the fascist militia, every morning, the confined were subjected to the appeal and they received a daily pay of 10 lire; they could move freely in the town, without however exceeding the demarcation line that surrounded the inhabited center; walking was the main activity, the saddest and most melancholy ones pushed to the limit allowed, to see the ferries arrive from Milazzo, aware that the sea was guarded by motorboats armed with machine guns. A situation that will not prevent Nitti, Rosselli and Lussu from fleeing the island, on a moonless night, between 27 and 28 July 1929.

I made some photo-portraits of people I didn't know, I thank them very much for their sympathy and their availability; I tried to capture the essence of minimal photographic stories, collected walking along the streets of Lipari ... in search of fleeting moments ...I used a particular photographic technique for some photographs at the time of shooting, which in addition to capturing the surrounding space, also "inserted" a temporal dimension, with photos characterized by being moved because the exposure times were deliberately lengthened, they are confused -focused-imprecise-undecided ... the Anglo-Saxon term that encloses this photographic genre with a single word is "blur", these images were thus created during the shooting phase, and not as an effect created subsequently, in retrospect, in the post-production

La mia azienda sanitaria, ogni tre mesi, per tre giorni, mi manda a ricoprire una carenza di organico, nell’ospedale di Lipari, (e così anche i miei colleghi), nel poco tempo libero che mi resta a disposizione, mi dedico alla mia passione fotografica.

Lipari è l’isola più grande delle isole Eolie (si trovano a nord della Sicilia, ad un’ora di aliscafo da Milazzo); Lipari , sotto la dittatura fascista, fu sede di confino coatto per gli oppositori politici, essa era considerata “un’Alcatraz siciliana”, fra tutte le isole di confino, Lipari fu molto probabilmente quella più vivibile, sia per le sue notevoli dimensioni che favorivano i rapporti dei confinati con gli abitanti, sia perché, in misura maggiore che altrove, a Lipari veniva consentito ai confinati di abitare in residenze private, insieme ai propri familiari o ad altri compagni. Ho trovato scritto: “Trovarsi su un Isola che appartiene a un’altra Isola, vuol dire sentirsi doppiamente straniero, legato al volere degli dei e della natura, dove ogni certezza può essere spazzata via dalle onde di quel mare che la lambisce in ogni intima parte, ma è una sensazione che dura solo per qualche minuto, i Liparoti (gli abitanti di lipari, n.d.r.)lo sanno bene (come lo sanno tutti i siciliani), è connaturato in loro il concetto greco della Xenia, l'ospitalità, non è una norma scritta, è un atto dovuto che prevede sacralità e protezione per l’ospite”.

Lipari ha una lunga storia come luogo di detenzione. È l’isola dove all’inizio erano confinati i delinquenti comuni, poi con la legge del 6 novembre 1926 (il ventennio fascista inizia con la presa del potere del fascismo e di Mussolini, ufficialmente avvenuta il 31 ottobre 1922), Lipari divenne così il luogo dove isolare e confinare gli oppositori; la vita del confinato iniziava subito dopo lo sbarco, con l’alloggio nelle camerate del Castello, sotto la rigida sorveglianza della polizia e della milizia fascista, ogni mattina, i confinati erano sottoposti all’appello e alla consegna della "mazzetta", ossia la paga giornaliera di 10 lire; potevano circolare liberamente nel paese, senza però superare la linea di demarcazione che circondava il centro abitato; passeggiare era la principale attività, i più tristi e malinconici si spingevano fino al limite consentito per vedere arrivare i traghetti da Milazzo, consapevoli che il mare era sorvegliato da motoscafi armati di mitragliatrici. Situazione che non impedirà a Nitti, Rosselli e Lussu di fuggire dall’isola, in una notte senza luna, tra il 27 e il 28 luglio del 1929.

Ho realizzato dei foto-ritratti di persone che non conoscevo, le ringrazio veramente tanto per la loro simpatia e la loro disponibilità; ho cercato di cogliere al volo l’essenza di storie fotografiche minime, raccolte camminando per le strade di Lipari... alla ricerca di attimi fugaci s-fuggenti ...

Ho utilizzato per alcune fotografie una tecnica fotografica particolare al momento dello scatto, che oltre a catturare lo spazio circostante, ha "inserito" anche una dimensione temporale, con foto caratterizzate dall’essere mosse poiché volutamente sono stati allungati i tempi di esposizione, sono confuse-sfocate-imprecise-indecise...il termine anglosassone che racchiude con una sola parola questo genere fotografico è "blur", queste immagini sono state così realizzate in fase di scatto, e non come un effetto creato successivamente, a posteriori, in fase di post-produzione.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Still I'll rise.

-- Excerpt from Maya Angelou

When the maelstrom of life swirls around us and the very foundations and certainties which we have been our guide seem shaken to the core many people find solace and calm in their spiritual faith.

Whoops. Sorry - I must have been in a poetic mood when I penned that paragraph. This image wasn’t taken to say that, but it seems an appropriate caption for it.

It’s a picture of Uley, the village where I live. Pronounced yewly, the name is thought to come from yew woods in the area, long since gone.

There is a Uley in Australia too, near Adelaide, and that was named by emigrants from here when the woollen industry collapsed I guess (or they may have been dastardly criminals of course!).

The flat hill you see behind the village is Uley Bury, an iron age fort dating from 300BC. There is a place called Uleybury near Adelaide too… spot the connection ;)

There is also a Uley in Russia too, but I think they just stole the name and have yet to pay royalties.

The church was built in Victorian times replacing an earlier, less grand church on the same site - a rocky outcrop at the wealthier, upper end of the village (that’s because the water was cleaner higher up!).

Needless to say I don’t live that end :)

This is another wobbly camera shot for my 100x Motion project this year (I'm currently 2.49 images behind according to Andrew's spreadsheet). It uses the advanced swirlywobbles technique which I seem to have made my own.

I haven’t seen anyone else try it which puzzles me as it’s quite easy (just point the camera at something and spin around its lens axis - or go from portrait to landscape if that makes more sense). Perhaps it’s simply that no one else likes the effect…

It does need a lot of attempts to get a good shot. The main problem is making the rotation smooth (hold out your arms) and getting the sweet spot pointed at the right place. Just takes lots and you’ll get something.

As with most ICMs you need to bump the saturation and contrast in processing (don't be shy), and probably sharpen it too, to counter the camera’s natural inclination to expose everything to mid-grey. But you can use Flickr’s inbuilt editor to do that easily enough.

Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy 100x

Hello to my flickr friends, it's been a long time since my last post and one hell of a year so far.

As some of you will know my mum had Alzheimers and vascular dementia. By the end of last year she was in the late stages of the disease, unfortunately, she caught Covid-19 a couple of weeks before Christmas, and that, together with Alzheimers, was more than her poor frail body could take and she died on Christmas Eve morning.

Fortunately, my sister and I were able to be with her at the end, bearing witness as she took her very last breath. For two hours prior to that we sat with her, holding her hand and stroking her hair, and even though she wasn't conscious we spoke to her, telling her how much we loved her, how thankful we were for everything she'd done for us and all the sacrifices she'd made to ensure we'd had a healthy, happy upbringing and a loving home... we said so much, trying to cram in as much as we could before Death's clock wound down on mum's life but, eventually, we just sat in silence and then, with her last, gentle breath, we watched as she passed on peacefully, pain free and in her sleep.

To say being with my mum was a momentous, earth-shaking moment in my life as she died right in front of me, her face inches from mine as I watched and heard her take her very last breath in this world, would be a massive, massive understatement. It was without doubt the most profoundly sad and yet most profoundly sacred experience I've ever had. I consider it an honour and a privilege to have been with her at that moment, I feel blessed and deeply grateful for being with her at the end.

To watch someone die, and not just someone you love deeply but your own mum, radically alters you, it forever changes your perspective on yourself and life in general. Grief is a strange thing, it breaks you, tears you apart and then remakes you. I've heard some people say that eventually you get over the grief but you don't, instead you learn to live with it, it becomes a part of you. My grief resides in an unlocked box deep inside of my soul, occasionally making appearances when I smell a scent, hear some music or see something that reminds me of the person I've loved and lost. And it can happen so suddenly and with such unstoppable power that I will drop to my knees, trying to catch my breath as a vast tsunami of tears and sadness overwhelms me. Other times it will rise up like a gentle spring allowing me the chance to find a private space outside and inside to experience the full weight of sadness and the pain of loss.

Since that Christmas Eve morning my outside life is pretty much as it always was, there have been changes, nothing dramatic just small important things that are making a difference to the bigger picture of my life but it's inside that the real changes have taken place. Our lives are consumed, overwhelmed, by the trivial, the petty and the irrelevant, we fill our lives with things to distract us, more input and yet more input to fill the emptiness we feel within when in reality we, and the world around us, are filled with mystery, wonder and astonishing beauty which we could see and feel if we would just stop and be silent. Our lives are too precious, too short to waste, any day could be your last day, any breath your last breath. To think we will have the time in the future to do the things we'd like to do but don't because we have other more 'important' things or reasons not to do it now is pure folly. There are only two certainties, you are alive and you will die, so in the words of the poet Mary Oliver from her poem 'The Summer Day';

'Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?'

# 098 / 365 ... I've managed to find numerous places online of this home. It adorns the pages & portfolios of many Wisconsin photographers to the point where it's almost cliche. Some refer to it as The Mansion on County Road A. Some have dubbed it as The Gingerbread House. Some refer to it as the Crivitz Homestead. I have searched high and lo for some solid, concrete information on this old residence and for the life of me, I cannot find anything that exists. I even went so far as to e-mail the Marinette County Clerk asking to assist with my research, but without an address - they could not be of much assistance. I e-mailed them this photo and the person I corresponded with said she knew of this old home, but did not have any information in their database. I guess it truly is abandoned.

The old Ford that I posted in yesterday's photograph lies decaying in the backyard of this home. Despite not being able to share any solid data about this residence, I can say with absolute certainty this was quite the home back in the day. There are windows everywhere and the long front porch that stretches from one end of the home to the other was spectacular... aside from the fact that it wasn't safe to stand on.

I don't typically frame my photos in this manner, but in this case - I really like the way this shot of the exterior was captured. Since it's only April, I'm glad the leaves and foliage of the brush and trees were still bare otherwise, this shot would look quite different. I've been attempting to keep a certain 'theme' with my Project 365 and with everything still dead and bare from winter, this fits the bill perfectly. :)

Thanks to my buddy Gary for accompanying me and carting us around on our photo adventures!

Divers artistes.

Paris, 1931 – après une évolution de la tendance générale vers l’art figuratif dans les années 1920 finissantes, Theo van Doesburg, Auguste Herbin, Jean Hélion et Georges Vantongerloo fondent le groupe Abstraction-Création, comptant ainsi contrer l’influence des surréalistes menés par André Breton.

La situation est similaire aujourd’hui. L’abstraction dans la peinture peut-elle révéler une nouvelle manière d’aborder l’art ? Constitue-t-elle une réponse plus adaptée aux questions émergentes, loin des sujets, récits et autres thèmes de l’art figuratif ?

L’histoire du Consortium Museum est profondément enracinée dans l’abstraction et le minimalisme, qui ont enrichi notre jeunesse et alimenté nos rêves utopiques d’un monde meilleur imaginé par des artistes et architectes progressistes – principalement des hommes...

Heureusement, dans les années 1980, les modernismes non-occidentaux, les récits non binaires et le pouvoir des femmes ont remis en question nos certitudes, ouvrant la voie à un monde plus équilibré dans lequel passion et avidité, opportunisme et engagement authentique, talent et compétence coexistaient, et coexistent toujours pour l’instant. Mais rien n’est encore complètement figé.

L’exposition que nous organisons met en lumière ces stratégies formelles, suscitant un lyrisme renouvelé à travers un sentiment de distance et de confort.

Le titre 20 under 40 peut sonner comme un énième slogan, mais l’âge de 40 ans marque une frontière intangible et subjective entre le statut de jeune artiste et celui d’artiste au mi-temps de sa carrière. Nous avons porté notre regard sur les plus jeunes car ils-elles ont généralement leur propre logique et une approche non conventionnelle de l’art abstrait, surtout quand il s’agit de peinture. Gestuelle vs narration, expressivité vs construction, non-représentation vs personnages et paysages, ornemental vs descriptif, et ainsi de suite – une génération éclectique qui relève le défi moderne de se mesurer à la longue histoire de la peinture abstraite – son avenir se trouve entre leurs jeunes mains. Ce qui ne veut pas dire qu’ils-elles se voient non-figuratif pour toujours !

— Franck Gautherot & Seungduk Kim

Various artists.

Paris, 1931 – after a shift in the general trend towards figurative art in the late 1920s, Theo van Doesburg, Auguste Herbin, Jean Hélion and Georges Vantongerloo founded the Abstraction-Création group, hoping to counter the influence of the surrealists led by André Breton.

The situation is similar today. Can abstraction in painting reveal a new way of approaching art? Is it a more appropriate response to emerging questions, far from the subjects, narratives and other themes of figurative art?

The Consortium Museum’s history is deeply rooted in abstraction and minimalism, which enriched our youth and fueled our utopian dreams of a better world imagined by progressive artists and architects – mostly men…

Fortunately, in the 1980s, non-Western modernisms, non-binary narratives, and the power of women challenged our certainties, paving the way for a more balanced world in which passion and greed, opportunism and genuine commitment, talent and skill coexisted, and still do for now. But nothing is completely fixed yet.

The exhibition we are organizing highlights these formal strategies, eliciting a renewed lyricism through a sense of distance and comfort.

The title 20 under 40 may sound like yet another slogan, but the age of 40 marks an intangible and subjective boundary between being a young artist and being a mid-career artist. We focused on the younger generation because they usually have their own logic and an unconventional approach to abstract art, especially when it comes to painting. Gesture vs. narrative, expressiveness vs. construction, non-representation vs. figures and landscapes, ornamental vs. descriptive, and so on—an eclectic generation that is taking on the modern challenge of measuring itself against the long history of abstract painting—its future lies in their young hands. Which is not to say that they see themselves as non-figurative forever! — Franck Gautherot & Seungduk Kim

Shop doorway

I like the certainty this conveys. Of course it's a different business now.

Vandrar till lusthuset

___________________________________

I love the times when I stumble across a secret part of a garden. A hidden gem in the center of Stockholm. This is a place I normally go to each year and I have with absolut certainty walked pass this several times in my life. But never take a longer look than "aa its just a little house" and walked past it. This time I took the time to really investigate it and this is how it turned out. Hope you'll like it ♥

Sunset Crater Volcano

National Monument

The Sunset Crater eruption produced a blanket of ash and lapilli covering an area of more than 2,100 square kilometers (810 sq mi) and forced the temporary abandonment of settlements of the local Sinagua people.[3] The volcano has partially revegetated, with pines and wildflowers. The crater is the namesake for the Sunset Crater Beardtongue (Penstemon clutei). While the volcano is considered extinct, despite its young geologic age, due to the short-lived nature of cinder cones, the San Francisco volcanic field is still considered active, and a future eruption elsewhere in the area is a statistical certainty. (Wikipedia)

Happy celebrating the fourth anniversary together, on a day like today I was amazed by the Nikon d850, a reflex that allows you to see reality directly, a solid and professional body for off-road and weather adversities. Its image quality allows me since then to capture my art with the certainty that everything will go well and look spectacular just as my eyes see it ... I am passionate and enjoy photography because I can portray in a very good way the reality and beauty of nature that surprises me and gives me energy to go further and further... Beauty must go viral again, beauty must be the purpose of art, and beauty must fill every space on the planet.

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

- Maya Angelou

Westbound MARC Train No. 263 departs Point of Rocks, MD on CSX on Oct. 11, 1989 behind NJ Transit GP40FH-2 No. 4131. I can't speak with any certainty why the NJ Transit unit was there, except possibly for testing before MARC purchased its GP40WH-2s.

I need to be set free

this, I've long felt a certainty

not wishing to allow what once was

disappear altogether due to a hurt that gnaws

away at all I presently represent

beneath a hazel here I repent

at sunrise for serendipity

to make amends is most worthy

as if nature rejuvinated our veins

a true call to one of all domains

here lies my space on earth

a golden treasure for health suffers such dearth

now I'm not doing so well

the joints debate on a mobility that befell,

sitting for hours until the order of the day

minutes pass a motion for this summer's ave

upon which I call out to each and all

my fading light may still beam at nightfall

in nature's munificence, walk with me

before these steps leave a trace so wintery

by anglia24

16h20: 10/07/2007

written below this hazel, in my garden.

♪

●●●●●●●●●●●●

© 2007anglia24

El Palacio de Pimentel es un palacio ubicado en la ciudad de Valladolid (Castilla y León, España). Se encuentra situado en la Plaza de San Pablo. Fue el lugar de nacimiento de Felipe II. El edificio, ejemplo de arquitectura palaciega en Valladolid, sirve actualmente de sede para la Diputación Provincial de Valladolid.

El palacio que ha llegado a nuestras manos está muy alterado debido a las grandes transformaciones que ha sufrido a lo largo del tiempo. Se organiza en torno a un patio, como es natural en la arquitectura doméstica vallisoletana de su época. Al patio se accede mediante un zaguán, que comunica con la calle mediante una portada tardogótica de arco rebajado. Por el exterior, lo más importante es su famosa ventana plateresca, de comienzos del siglo XVI, que se encuentra en la esquina. Precisamente, esta ventana y el torreón que se eleva en este punto, potencian la esquina, fuente de perspectivas. La ventana posee un atrevido arco y una decoración de grutescos siguiendo los modelos de las pinturas de la Domus Aurea.

El palacio consta de dos alturas en el cuerpo principal y tres en el torreón. Los materiales utilizados son el ladrillo excepto en el remate de las esquinas, la portada y el zócalo, que fueron realizados en piedra. A partir de 1985 el palacio se sometió a una profunda restauración según proyecto del arquitecto Ángel Ríos.

Desde la inauguración de la Sala de Exposiciones, tras la restauración del palacio en 1990, con una extensión aproximada de 260 metros cuadrados, ha desarrollado una línea expositiva en la que se conjuga la difusión de artistas locales con los de otras comunidades.

La leyenda cuenta que por una de las ventanas del palacio, de la que cuelga una cadena, fue sacado el rey Felipe II al nacer para que fuera bautizado en la Iglesia de San Pablo, pues de salir por la puerta del palacio debería haber sido bautizado en la cercana Parroquia de San Martín. Sin embargo, parece ser que la leyenda es una deformación de los hechos reales: para el bautizo de Felipe II se construyó un pasadizo elevado entre la iglesia de San Pablo y el palacio para que la familia real discurriese por él sin pisar la calle. Al estar elevado el pasadizo, se usó como salida del palacio una de las ventanas, sin que sepamos con certeza cuál pudo ser.

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palacio_de_Pimentel

The Palacio de Pimentel is a palace located in the city of Valladolid (Castilla y León, Spain). It is located in the Plaza de San Pablo. It was the birthplace of Felipe II. The building, an example of palatial architecture in Valladolid, currently serves as the headquarters for the Valladolid Provincial Council.

The palace that has come to our hands is very altered due to the great transformations it has undergone over time. It is organized around a patio, as is natural in the Valladolid domestic architecture of its time. The patio is accessed through a hallway, which communicates with the street through a late Gothic doorway with a lowered arch. On the outside, the most important thing is its famous Plateresque window, from the beginning of the 16th century, which is located on the corner. Precisely, this window and the tower that rises at this point, enhance the corner, source of perspectives. The window has a daring arch and a decoration of grotesques following the models of the paintings of the Domus Aurea.

The palace has two heights in the main body and three in the tower. The materials used are brick, except for the corner finials, the front and the base, which were made of stone. Starting in 1985, the palace underwent a deep restoration according to a project by the architect Ángel Ríos.

Since the inauguration of the Exhibition Hall, after the restoration of the palace in 1990, with an approximate area of 260 square meters, it has developed an exhibition line in which the diffusion of local artists is combined with those of other communities.

Legend has it that through one of the windows of the palace, from which a chain hangs, King Philip II was taken out at birth to be baptized in the Church of San Pablo, because if he left through the door of the palace he should have been baptized in the nearby Parroquia de San Martín. However, it seems that the legend is a deformation of the real events: for the baptism of Felipe II a raised passageway was built between the church of San Pablo and the palace so that the royal family could walk through it without stepping on the street. As the passageway was elevated, one of the windows was used as an exit from the palace, without knowing with certainty what it could be.

Present certainty

Condition fluctuating

Time period transition

The Creed. But that cry, “Creo en Diós!” It was loud, and bright, and sudden and glad and triumphant. . . . Then, as sudden as the shout and as definite, and a thousand times more bright, there formed in my mind an awareness, an understanding, a realization of what had just taken place on the altar, at the Consecration: a realization of God made present by the words of Consecration in a way that made Him belong to me. . . . It was the light of faith deepened and reduced to an extreme and sudden obviousness. It was as if I had been suddenly illuminated by being blinded by the manifestation of God’s presence.

-Thomas Merton

“. . . the unshakable certainty, the clear and immediate knowledge that heaven was right in front of me, struck me like a thunderbolt and went through me like a flash of lightning and seemed to lift me clean up off the earth.”

-Thomas Merton, The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1959), 76–77.

Pasadena, California

Caltech is home to the 1.7-ton, 130-year-old Fleming cannon. The origins and exact age of the Fleming cannon are not known with certainty. It is believed to have been cast during the Franco-Prussian War era, but completed in 1878 after the war was over.

Ludovisi Battle sarcophagus - (3rd century AD) - marble dimensions 153 × 273 × 137 cm - Roman National Museum Palazzo Altemps, Rome

La lettura della scena inizia da sinistra, dove è possibile riconoscere i soldati romani che dominano dall’alto la battaglia, vincendo e sconfiggendo i barbari calpestati dai vincitori. In alto e al centro, si trova il defunto raffigurato a cavallo, l’unico che non combatte, ma anzi ha il braccio alzato, quasi a dirigere e incitare i soldati a proseguire nello scontro, un gesto di comando che porta ad identificarlo come un generale. L’uomo appare forte, vincente, ma giovane di età, è ritratto con la barba corta e una sorta di sigillo a forma di croce sulla fronte, in cui è possibile riconoscere il simbolo di iniziazione mitraica, un culto misterico di origine orientale assai diffuso tra i soldati in questi anni. Non è possibile stabilire con certezza se il defunto fosse un membro della famiglia imperiale oppure un parente di un importante generale dell’epoca. Secondo alcuni studiosi la presenza di cavalieri identificabili con i protectores dell’imperatore, dei portainsegna e dei suonatori di flauto, farebbe supporre che il defunto fosse proprio un membro della famiglia imperiale, probabilmente da riconoscere in Erennio Etrusco, figlio di Decio, entrambi morti nel 251 d.C. durante la Battaglia di Abritto contro i Goti.

The reading of the scene starts from the left, where it is possible to recognize from above the Roman soldiers who dominate the battle, winning and defeating the barbarians trampled by the winners. Above and in the center is the deceased depicted on horseback, the only one who does not fight, but rather he has his arm raised, as if to direct and incite the soldiers to continue the fight, a gesture of command that leads to identifying him as a general. The man appears strong, winning, but young of age, he is portrayed with a short beard and a sort of cross-shaped seal on the forehead, in which it is possible to recognize the symbol of Mithraic initiation, a mystery cult of widespread oriental origin among the soldiers in these years. It is not possible to establish with certainty whether the deceased was a member of the imperial family or a relative of an important general of the time. According to some scholars, the presence of knights identifiable with the protector of the emperor, the sign holders and the flute players, would suggest that the deceased was indeed a member of the imperial family, probably to be recognized in Erennio Etrusco, son of Decius, both dead in the 251 AD during the Battle of Abritto against the Goths.

Actualization of the consciousness of the Absolute (the "remembrance of God" or "prayer" in so far as it brings about a fundamental confrontation of creature and Creator) is already a death and a meeting with God and it places us already in Eternity; it is already something of Paradise and even, in its mysterious and "uncreated" quintessence, something of God.

Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity. Likewise in this center, this Divine point which I am free to choose in the face of this boundless and multiple world, I am already in invisible Reality.

----

Human life is studded with uncertainties; man loses himself in what is uncertain instead of holding on to what is absolutely certain in his destiny, namely death, Judgement and Eternity. (But besides these there is a fourth certainty, immediately accessible moreover to human experience, and this is the present moment, in which man is free to choose either the Real or the illusory, and thus to ascertain for himself the value of the three great eschatological certainties. )

The consciousness of the sage is founded upon these three points of reference, whether directly or in an indirect and implicit manner through "remembrance of God".

Besides the dimension of succession, however, one must also consider that of simultaneity, which is based on spatial symbolism: the world around us is full of possibilities presented to our choice, whether we wish it or not; thus it is full of uncertainties, not successive as in the flux of life, but simultaneous like the things offered to us by space.

Here too whoever wishes to resolve these uncertainties must hold on to what is absolutely certain and this is what stands above us, namely God and our immortality in God.

But even here below there is something which is absolutely certain when we are confronted with the multitudinous and bewildering possibilities of the world, something of which sacred forms represent so many exteriorizations, and this is metaphysical truth and the "remembrance of God", that center which is within us and which places us, to the extent that we participate in it, beneath the "vertical" axis of Heaven, of God, of the Self.

Man finds himself in space and in time, in the world and in life, and these two situations imply two eschatological and spiritual axes, the one static and "vertical", the other dynamic and "horizontal" and more or less temporal; thus it is that contingency, in the mind of the contemplative man, is conceived in terms of the Absolute, is attached to it and leads back to it. But these various points of reference, in effect, only enter into consideration to the extent that the sage is necessarily conscious of contingent situations; they characterize his manner of taking account of his own relativity.

Within this whole context, but completely independent of it and not in any sense "localized", resides that mystery where knowing is being and being is knowing; in other words, these certainties of "succession" and "simultaneity", of "life" and "world", form the necessary framework of contemplation, representing points of reference which serve to free us from the world and from life, or which facilitate that liberation.

Indeed exoterism, which is the necessary basis of esoterism, is in the last analysis centered upon these elements which concern our final ends, namely Heaven and God, or death, Judgement and Eternity, and our own terrestrial attitudes as conforming to these realities.

The important thing to grasp here is that actualization of the consciousness of the Absolute (the "remembrance of God" or "prayer" in so far as it brings about a fundamental confrontation of creature and Creator) anticipates every station on the two axes: it is already a death and a meeting with God and it places us already in Eternity; it is already something of Paradise and even, in its mysterious and "uncreated" quintessence, something of God.

Quintessential prayer brings about an escape from the world and from life, and thereby confers a new and Divine sap upon the veil of appearances and the current of forms, and a fresh meaning to our presence amidst the play of phenomena.

Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity. Likewise in this center, this Divine point which I am free to choose in the face of this boundless and multiple world, I am already in invisible Reality.

-----

Frithjof Schuon

-----

Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)

-----

image: Jain votive plate, Kankali Tila, Mathura

Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty--some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.

Richard P. Feynman

Available as Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints, Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints, Framed Prints and Posters

www.redbubble.com/people/jhueilee/art/5223163-1-uncertain...

www.redbubble.com/people/jhueilee/art/5226170-1-lightning...

jhueilee.redbubble.com/

Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (Persian: ابوالقاسم فردوسی توسی‎; c. 940–1020), or just Ferdowsi (فردوسی)[1] was a Persian poet[2][3] and the author of Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poems created by a single poet, and the national epic of Greater Iran. Ferdowsi is celebrated as the most influential figure in Persian literature and one of the greatest in the history of literature.[4]

Contents

Name

Except for his kunya (ابوالقاسم – Abu'l-Qāsim) and his laqab (فِردَوسی – Ferdowsī, meaning 'paradisic'), nothing is known with any certainty about his full name. From an early period on, he has been referred to by different additional names and titles, the most common one being حکیم / Ḥakīm ("philosopher").[5] Based on this, his full name is given in Persian sources as حکیم ابوالقاسم فردوسی توسی / Ḥakīm Abu'l-Qāsim Firdowsī Țusī. Due to the non-standardized transliteration from Persian into English, different spellings of his name are used in English works, including Firdawsi, Firdusi, Firdosi, Firdausi, etc. The Encyclopaedia of Islam uses the spelling Firdawsī, based on the standardized transliteration method of the German Oriental Society.[1] The Encyclopædia Iranica, which uses a modified version of the same method (with a stronger emphasis on Persian intonations), gives the spelling Ferdowsī.[5] In both cases, the -ow and -aw are to be pronounced as a diphthong ([aʊ̯]), reflecting the original Arabic and the early New Persian pronunciation of the name. The modern Tajik transliteration of his name in Cyrillic script is Ҳаким Абулқосим Фирдавсӣ Тӯсӣ.

Life

Family

Ferdowsi was born into a family of Iranian landowners (dehqans) in 940 in the village of Paj, near the city of Tus, in the Khorasan region of the Samanid Empire, which is located in the present-day Razavi Khorasan Province of northeastern Iran.[6] Little is known about Ferdowsi's early life. The poet had a wife, who was probably literate and came from the same dehqan class. He had a son, who died at the age of 37, and was mourned by the poet in an elegy which he inserted into the Shahnameh.[5]

Background

Ferdowsi belonged to the class of dehqans. These were landowning Iranian aristocrats who had flourished under the Sassanid dynasty (the last pre-Islamic dynasty to rule Iran) and whose power, though diminished, had survived into the Islamic era which followed the Islamic conquests of the 7th century. The dehqans were attached to the pre-Islamic literary heritage, as their status was associated with it (so much so that dehqan is sometimes used as a synonym for "Iranian" in the Shahnameh). Thus they saw it as their task to preserve the pre-Islamic cultural traditions, including tales of legendary kings.[5][6]

The Islamic conquests of the 7th century brought gradual linguistic and cultural changes to the Iranian Plateau. By the late 9th century, as the power of the caliphate had weakened, several local dynasties emerged in Greater Iran.[6] Ferdowsi grew up in Tus, a city under the control of one of these dynasties, the Samanids, who claimed descent from the Sassanid general Bahram Chobin[citation needed] (whose story Ferdowsi recounts in one of the later sections of the Shahnameh).[7] The Samanid bureaucracy used the New Persian language, which had been used to bring Islam to the Eastern regions of the Iranian world and supplanted local languages, and commissioned translations of Pahlavi texts into New Persian. Abu Mansur Muhammad, a dehqan and governor of Tus, had ordered his minister Abu Mansur Mamari to invite several local scholars to compile a prose Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), which was completed in 1010.[8] Although it no longer survives, Ferdowsi used it as one of the sources of his epic. Samanid rulers were patrons of such important Persian poets as Rudaki and Daqiqi, and Ferdowsi followed in the footsteps of these writers.[9]

Details about Ferdowsi's education are lacking. Judging by the Shahnameh, there is no evidence he knew either Arabic or Pahlavi.[5]

Life as a poet

Ferdowsi and the three Ghaznavid court poets

It is possible that Ferdowsi wrote some early poems which have not survived. He began work on the Shahnameh around 977, intending it as a continuation of the work of his fellow poet Daqiqi, who had been assassinated by his slave. Like Daqiqi, Ferdowsi employed the prose Shahnameh of ʿAbd-al-Razzāq as a source. He received generous patronage from the Samanid prince Mansur and completed the first version of the Shahnameh in 994.[5] When the Turkic Ghaznavids overthrew the Samanids in the late 990s, Ferdowsi continued to work on the poem, rewriting sections to praise the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud. Mahmud's attitude to Ferdowsi and how well he rewarded the poet are matters which have long been subject to dispute and have formed the basis of legends about the poet and his patron (see below). The Turkic Mahmud may have been less interested in tales from Iranian history than the Samanids.[6] The later sections of the Shahnameh have passages which reveal Ferdowsi's fluctuating moods: in some he complains about old age, poverty, illness and the death of his son; in others, he appears happier. Ferdowsi finally completed his epic on 8 March 1010. Virtually nothing is known with any certainty about the last decade of his life.[5]

Tomb

Ferdowsi tomb

Main article: Tomb of Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi was buried in his own garden, burial in the cemetery of Tus having been forbidden by a local cleric. A Ghaznavid governor of Khorasan constructed a mausoleum over the grave and it became a revered site. The tomb, which had fallen into decay, was rebuilt between 1928 and 1934 by the Society for the National Heritage of Iran on the orders of Rezā Shāh, and has now become the equivalent of a national shrine.[10]

Legend

According to legend, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni offered Ferdowsi a gold piece for every couplet of the Shahnameh he wrote. The poet agreed to receive the money as a lump sum when he had completed the epic. He planned to use it to rebuild the dykes in his native Tus. After thirty years of work, Ferdowsi finished his masterpiece. The sultan prepared to give him 60,000 gold pieces, one for every couplet, as agreed. However, the courtier whom Mahmud had entrusted with the money despised Ferdowsi, regarding him as a heretic, and he replaced the gold coins with silver. Ferdowsi was in the bath house when he received the reward. Finding it was silver and not gold, he gave the money away to the bathkeeper, a refreshment seller, and the slave who had carried the coins. When the courtier told the sultan about Ferdowsi's behaviour, he was furious and threatened to execute him. Ferdowsi fled Khorasan, having first written a satire on Mahmud, and spent most of the remainder of his life in exile. Mahmud eventually learned the truth about the courtier's deception and had him either banished or executed. By this time, the aged Ferdowsi had returned to Tus. The sultan sent him a new gift of 60,000 gold pieces, but just as the caravan bearing the money entered the gates of Tus, a funeral procession exited the gates on the opposite side: the poet had died from a heart attack.[11]

Works

Main article: Shahnameh

Scenes from the Shahnameh carved into reliefs at Ferdowsi's mausoleum in Tus, Iran

Ferdowsi's Shahnameh is the most popular and influential national epic in Iran and other Persian-speaking nations. The Shahnameh is the only surviving work by Ferdowsi regarded as indisputably genuine. He may have written poems earlier in his life but they no longer exist. A narrative poem, Yūsof o Zolaykā (Joseph and Zuleika), was once attributed to him, but scholarly consensus now rejects the idea it is his.[5] There has also been speculation about the satire Ferdowsi allegedly wrote about Mahmud of Ghazni after the sultan failed to reward him sufficiently. Nezami Aruzi, Ferdowsi's early biographer, claimed that all but six lines had been destroyed by a well-wisher who had paid Ferdowsi a thousand dirhams for the poem. Introductions to some manuscripts of the Shahnameh include verses purporting to be the satire. Some scholars have viewed them as fabricated; others are more inclined to believe in their authenticity.[12]

Gallery

There's one thing, That I know

With utmost certainty...

I can be having the crappiest... Feel sorry for myself...

Want to beat up the world... Kind of day

And all it takes...Is one little signal ....From my body...The loss of vision in one eye...

To make me sit down and take notice! !

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

i b u scout

DNA

The radiated tortoise (Astrochelys radiata) is a species in the family Testudinidae. Although this species is native to and most abundant in southern Madagascar, it can be also be found in the rest of this island, and has been introduced to the islands of Réunion and Mauritius.

Growing to a carapace length of up to 16 in (41 cm) and weighing up to 35 lb (16 kg), the radiated tortoise is considered to be one of the world's most beautiful tortoises.

This tortoise has the basic "tortoise" body shape, which consists of the high-domed carapace, a blunt head, and elephantine feet. The legs, feet, and head are yellow except for a variably sized black patch on top of the head.

The carapace of the radiated tortoise is brilliantly marked with yellow lines radiating from the center of each dark plate of the shell, hence its name.

There is slight sexual dimorphism. Compared to females, male radiated tortoises usually have longer tails and the notches beneath their tails are more noticeable.

As the radiated tortoises are herbivores, grazing constitutes 80-90% of their diets, while they also eat fruits and succulent plants. A favorite food in the wild is the Opuntia.

The species is very long-lived. The oldest radiated tortoise ever recorded with certainty was Tu'i Malila, which died at an estimated age of 188. A tortoise named Adwaita is widely believed to have been even older at its death in 2006.

Males first mate upon attaining lengths of about 12 in (31 cm); females may need to be a few inches longer. Females lay from three to 12 eggs in a previously excavated hole 6-8 in (15–20 cm) deep, and then depart. Incubation is quite long in this species, lasting usually between 5 and 8 months. Juveniles are between 1.2 and 1.6 inches (3.2 and 4 cm) upon hatching. Unlike the yellow coloration of the adults, the juveniles are a white to an off-white shade. Juveniles attain the high-domed carapace soon after hatching.

These tortoises are critically endangered due to habitat loss, being poached for food, and being over exploited in the pet trade. It is listed on CITES Appendix I, commercial trade in wild-caught specimens is illegal (permitted only in exceptional licensed circumstances). However, due to the poor economic conditions of Madagascar, many of the laws are largely ignored.

It was three men of Indostan

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the animal,

And happening to take

The squirming trunk within his hands,

Thus boldly up and spake:

"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant

Is very like a snake!"

The next approached the Elephant,

And happening to fall

Against his broad and sturdy side,

At once began to bawl:

"God bless me! but the Elephant

Is very like a wall!"

The third no sooner had begun

About the beast to grope,

Then, seizing on the swinging tail

That fell within his scope,

"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant

Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong!

So oft in theologic wars,

The disputants, I ween,

Rail on in utter ignorance

Of what each other mean,

And prate about an Elephant

Not one of them has seen!

We're Here! : Elephants

Running out of ideas for your 365 project? Join We're Here!

( Defensive )

View On White

it.youtube.com/watch?v=vbCZAknTyBY&NR=1

1973 - Rome, Mercato Campo de' Fiori ( Explore )

Il caffè al vetro ( ed anche il cappuccino…) è una tipica tradizione popolare romana ormai quasi scomparsa. Rimane ancora oggi nei piccoli bar di quartieri popolari ,ma spesso non viene servito nel bicchiere di vetro di giusta forma e dimensione. Spieghiamo un po’ meglio questa tradizione da dove nasce. In tutti quei lavori che iniziavano all’alba o giù di lì, (operai, lavoratori dei mercati generali, persone che vivevano distanti dal posto di lavoro) specie nei mesi freddi invernali si aveva bisogno di un buon caffè per svegliarsi, ma meglio era se si poteva tenere stretto tra le mani un piccolo bicchiere di vetro che scaldasse un pochino. Inoltre si dice (ma non so se sia leggenda…) che avesse un sapore diverso, più buono. Questo era sicuramente vero per il cappuccino poiché essendo il bicchiere più piccolo della tazza entrava meno latte ed il sapore dominante era di caffè. Nella foto si vede un barista che in mattinata inoltrata porta caffè e cornetto ai banchi del mercato di Campo de' Fiori come gratificazione dopo aver iniziato la dura giornata ben prima dell’alba. Da considerare che non esistevano i cellulari e quindi il barista sapeva di venire sempre ,dai diversi clienti dei banchi del mercato,con le ordinazioni concordate all’alba,nella prima visita al bar. Un mondo totalmente svanito…

The coffee in the glass (and also the cappuccino ...) is a typical Roman popular tradition almost disappeared. Still remains in the small bar in the popular neighborhoods, but often not served in a glass beaker right size and shape. We explain a bit 'better where does this tradition. In all those jobs that began at dawn or thereabouts, (workers, employees of the general markets, people living far away from the workplace) species in wintertime you needed a good coffee to wake up, but better was if you could hold tight in his hands a small glass beaker that warm up a bit. It is also said (but did not know if it is legend ...) that had a different flavor, as good. This was certainly true for cappuccino cup as being the smallest cup less milk and entered the dominant flavor was coffee. In the picture you see a bartender in late morning coffee and croissant brings to the market stalls of Campo de' Fiori as a reward after a hard day started well before dawn. Consider that there were no cell phones and then the bartender knew to always come from various customers of the market stalls, with an order agreed upon at dawn on the first visit to the bar. A world gone totally ...

2011 Rome (Piazza Campo de' Fiori)

Nella Roma in bianco e nero, assediata dalla guerra di liberazione dal nazifascismo, alcune piazze erano vivaci mercati popolati di “pesciaroli” e “piazzaroli” urlanti al banco della frutta e della verdura. Campo de’ Fiori era molto vivace già all’epoca, oggi vivace centro della vita notturna, ma anche rappresentazione tra le più fedeli dello spirito popolare romanesco.

Una delle scene più iconiche del film “Campo de’ Fiori”, diretto nel 1943 da Mario Bonnard, mostra Anna Magnani nei panni di una verace fruttivendola mentre battibecca con i clienti. Attorno a lei si anima tutto il folklore romano tipico di questa piazza. Ma perché si chiama così? Se lo domandano in tanti, compresi i turisti attratti da quel richiamo floreale nel nome. Per rispondere, dobbiamo rispolverare un po’ di storia e di leggende che nella Capitale non mancano.

Dove si trova Campo de’ Fiori

Campo de’ Fiori è una piazza del centro di Roma, tra le mete più amate, soprattutto per il mercato mattutino aperto dal lunedì al sabato, e per la movida notturna. Unica tra le piazze monumentali del centro storico a non ospitare una chiesa. Il quartiere è un complesso residenziale appartenente al Municipio 8, situato tra Villapizzone e Ghisolfa, in particolare tra piazza Navona e piazza Farnese. È uno scorcio tipico della Roma più popolare, reso celebre nella modernità grazie al cinema neorealista e ai racconti tramandati nei secoli di storia, dalla sua costruzione fino ai giorni nostri.

Come nasce Campo de’ Fiori

La piazza ha origini antiche, infatti fu realizzata per ordine di Papa Calisto III nel 1456, in un’area che un tempo era un campo fiorito. La pavimentazione della piazza risale al 1440, momento in cui iniziarono a sorgere locande e alberghi per accogliere i pellegrini. Tuttavia, il famoso mercato sarà trasferito qui solo nel 1869, perché a quel tempo si svolgeva a piazza Navona. Tuttora, ogni mattina dal lunedì al sabato, la piazza si anima con bancarelle di fiori, frutta, carne e pesce fresco.

Perché Campo de’ Fiori si chiama così?

Tra incredibili leggende e qualche certezza storica, oggi sappiamo che il nome di Campo de’ Fiori deriva proprio da un campo di coloratissimi fiori che si trovava in questo luogo prima della costruzione della piazza. Questo vasto prato verde era ricco di erba, fiori e orti coltivati.

Oltre alla versione più accreditata sull’origine del nome, non mancano i racconti romantici, come quello che collega il nome “Campo dei Fiori” a una donna chiamata Flora, amata da Pompeo. In questo vivace quadrilatero della capitale non sono mancati i tragici eventi che l’hanno resa ancora più leggendaria nell’immaginario collettivo dei romani.

Perché è famosa Campo de’ Fiori?

La piazza è famosa per diversi motivi, perché la sua storia, complessa e avvincente, include momenti di grande vitalità e tragici eventi. Oltre ad aver rappresentato un luogo di mercato prospero, noto per la vendita di cavalli e prodotti artigianali, è stata teatro di esecuzioni capitali, tra cui quella del filosofo Giordano Bruno, arso sul rogo nel 1600. Oggi, la statua di Giordano Bruno domina il centro della piazza, per commemorare il filosofo e il suo sacrificio. ( Nicola Teofilo )

In black and white Rome, besieged by the war of liberation from Nazi-fascism, some squares were lively markets populated by “pesciaroli” and “piazzaroli” shouting at the fruit and vegetable stall. Campo de’ Fiori was already very lively at the time, today a lively center of nightlife, but also one of the most faithful representations of the Roman popular spirit.

One of the most iconic scenes from the film “Campo de’ Fiori”, directed in 1943 by Mario Bonnard, shows Anna Magnani in the role of a genuine greengrocer while she bickers with customers. All the Roman folklore typical of this square comes to life around her. But why is it called that? Many people ask themselves this question, including tourists attracted by that floral reference in the name. To answer, we need to dust off a bit of history and legends that are not lacking in the Capital.

Where is Campo de’ Fiori

Campo de’ Fiori is a square in the center of Rome, among the most popular destinations, especially for the morning market open from Monday to Saturday, and for the nightlife. It is the only monumental square in the historic center not to host a church. The neighborhood is a residential complex belonging to Municipio 8, located between Villapizzone and Ghisolfa, in particular between Piazza Navona and Piazza Farnese. It is a typical glimpse of the most popular Rome, made famous in modern times thanks to neorealist cinema and the stories handed down over the centuries of history, from its construction to the present day.

How Campo de’ Fiori was born

The square has ancient origins, in fact it was built by order of Pope Calixtus III in 1456, in an area that was once a flowery field. The paving of the square dates back to 1440, when inns and hotels began to arise to accommodate pilgrims. However, the famous market was only moved here in 1869, because at that time it was held in Piazza Navona. Even today, every morning from Monday to Saturday, the square comes alive with stalls selling flowers, fruit, meat and fresh fish.

Why is Campo de’ Fiori called that?

Between incredible legends and some historical certainties, today we know that the name Campo de’ Fiori derives from a field of colorful flowers that was in this place before the construction of the square. This vast green lawn was full of grass, flowers and cultivated vegetable gardens.

In addition to the most accredited version of the origin of the name, there is no shortage of romantic tales, such as the one that links the name “Campo dei Fiori” to a woman called Flora, loved by Pompey. In this lively quadrilateral of the capital there has been no shortage of tragic events that have made it even more legendary in the collective imagination of the Romans.

Why is Campo de’ Fiori famous?

The square is famous for several reasons, because its complex and compelling history includes moments of great vitality and tragic events. In addition to being a prosperous market place, known for the sale of horses and handicrafts, it was the scene of capital executions, including that of the philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in 1600. Today, the statue of Giordano Bruno dominates the center of the square, to commemorate the philosopher and his sacrifice.

( Nicola Teofilo )

EXPLORE

On EXPLORE

#76

December 14, 2008

Have a chillin' Sunday everyone! :p

“I am the light of the world says the Lord;

whoever follows me will have the light of life”

______________________________________

The Dreams

My mother read me poems before memory,

so maybe that’s when it began,

the certainty that seemed already in

place at the time of my first memory--

or at least the two coincided exactly:

the earnest sound of her voice reading

fell like rain on the unmoving

earth of my conviction that poetry

was the highest object of humanity.

It was shocking, how she allowed spaces to fall

between the living words--spaces that started small

but lengthened to such silent immensity

that a poem became the distance

between what we must say and what we can.

Found in “Floating City” (2007 Louisiana State University Press

www.lsu.edu/lsupress), a book of poems by

Anne Pierson Wiese,

the recipient of the 2006 Walt Whitman Award

from the Academy of American Poets

academy@poets.org

www.poets.org

EXPLORE # 162 on Monday, March 3, 2008; # 168 on 03-02-2008

Monastery and Cave of Saint Andrew the Apostle

Few things are known about the cave of Saint Andrew the Apostle. One of those things that can be said with certainty is that it was discovered in 1918 by Jean Dinu, a lawyer. After dreaming one night, he came in this area to find the cave in an advanced state of degradation. After cleaning it of the vegetation inside, he built a couple of cells and the first monks came in a short time.

It was sanctified in 1943 by the bishop Chesarie Paunescu but during the communist period it was destroyed and turned into a shelter for animals.

Only in 1990, with the blessing of IPS Lucian, father Nicodim Dinca, the monarch of Sihastria Monastery, along with the hieromonarch father Victorin Ghindaoanu, started to restore the cave and to build the monastery.

The cave shelters the icon of Saint Andrew, known as the apostle who christianized the lands at the North of the Danube. There is a bed carved in stone in a niche of the pronaos. It is said that that was used as a resting place by Andrew the Apostle. In the course of time this has been a place to light candles, and now it is used by those in need of comfort from disease. Here, the priests also read prayers for sick people and the Mass of Saint Basil the Great.

Today the monastery has a smaller church built during the years of 1994 – 1995, sanctified with the Holy Virgin’s Protection as its dedication day and the third bigger church was built during the years of 1998 – 2002.

In the small church are kept the relics of Saint Andrew. A cross in the shape of “X” can be found, on the left, in front of the altar of the smaller church. In the center of this cross is placed a part of the finger belonging to Saint Andrew. The finger was brought from the Trifiliei Metropolitan Church of Greece. On the four extremities of the cross there are the relics of the martyr saints of Niculitel from Dobrogea: Zoticos, Attalos, Kamasis and Filippos, Epictet the priest and Astion the monk.

Near the cave there is a spring about which the legend tells that it appeared after Saint Andrew struck the rock with his staff in search of water.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims come each year to the Cave of Saint Andrew and this made this place to be rightfully named the Bethlehem of Romanian people.

To get here, the pilgrims must first reach Cernavoda, afterwards head south to Ostrov. In the locality Ion Corvin, an indicator points them to a side road that takes them to the monastery in a forest, after 3 – 4 km.

Short biography

The Saint Apostle Andrew was the brother of Saint Apostle Petre. At first he and Saint Apostle and Evangelist John were apprentices of Saint John the Baptist. After the Resurrection and the Ascension of Jesus Christ and the Descent of the Holly Spirit, the apostles drew the chances on where to go to preach this faith, and Saint Apostle Andrew reached the area of the Black Sea, including Scythia Minor of the time or today’s Dobrogea. He secluded in that cave with two apprentices and he started to preach. He then went to the region of Kiev, and returned to Dobrogea. Because all went well, he headed to Patras in Greece where he was crucified on a cross in the shape of “X”.

digital art

One very important difference between color and monochromatic photography is this: in black and white you suggest; in color you state. Much can be implied by suggestion, but statement demands certainty… absolute certainty.

~ Paul Outerbridge - [Julia Scully, “Seeing pictures”, Modern Photography, Oct. 1976, p. 8]

Tahai, Rapa Nui, Easter Island, Chile.

The three ahu of Tahai

But without a doubt, the great focus of attention at Tahai are its three ahu or ceremonial platforms located on the small rocky cliff that rises above the sea. The altars form a visual line that stars in this magnificent setting. If you look straight at the platforms, the first group on the left with five moai statues is the Ahu Vai Uri, the next one is the Ahu Tahai and the last one with a single statue wearing a pukao or hat is the Ahu Ko Te Riku.

Ahu Vai Uri

The Ahu Vai Uri, whose name could be translated as dark water or green water, is the platform with the largest number of erected statues. Its construction dates from 1200 AD. and its five restored moai are a sample of the different styles of how they were carved.

The first one on the right is currently a piece of rock that is barely recognizable. However, the one that follows, much better preserved as such as the first on the left, has a lower and more robust body than the rest and shows a grim expression.

Ahu Tahai

Ahu Tahai has a single solitary moai about 4.5 meters high. The figure, which is very eroded, shows a thick torso and a wide neck, and rises on the oldest platform of the complex built around 700 AD.

Despite the enormous wear suffered by the moai over time, it still shows the greatness and pride of the ancestors they represent and, in some way, still transmits that mythical power called mana.

Ahu Ko Te Riku

Ahu Ko Te Riku is the last and singular platform located further north. Above it rises a single moai of 5.1 meters high that was restoredwith all the elements that adorned the old finished statues.

On his head it carries a pukao, a cylindrical piece carved in red scoria from the Puna Pau volcano. This form, which according to different opinions, represents a hat or a hair bun, was placed in the last phase of construction of the ahu. It is believed that the original pukaoof this moai was used to carve the Christian cross that is found in the nearby cemetery to Tahai, but there is not even the certainty that it had one. The other differentiating element of Ahu Ko Te Riku is that it supports the only moai that has eyes of the whole island.

For video, please visit youtu.be/b3LaCk0laBo

Volare è alzarsi verso il cielo, muoversi con consapevolezza e attenzione verso una destinazione.

La paura fa volare forte… la volontà fa librar le ali come in una danza.

Così possiamo fare anche noi, imparando nel percorso ad elevarci da terra verso il nostro cielo, staccandoci dalle nostre sicurezze e librandoci tra le nuvole, chiedendoci se stiamo ascoltando la paura o la nostra verità.

To fly is to rise toward the sky, moving with awareness and attention toward a destination.

Fear makes us fly fast… while will makes the wings soar like a dance.

So too can we, learning along the way to lift ourselves from the ground toward our own sky, letting go of our certainties and gliding among the clouds, asking ourselves whether we are listening to fear or to our truth.

This standing pose gives a better perspective about the shape of this print dress compared to the two (2) previous shared seated poses. I have heard and read more than once a certain misconception about converting US ladies dress sizes (Petite, Misses and Plus) expressed in even numbers (such as my Misses Size 6), to the US Junior’s sizes that are expressed in odd numbers (3, 5, 7, 9, etc.).

The US ladies to US Junior’s size conversion misconception is that to find your Junior’s dress size you merely add one (+1) to your ladies size (i.e. Misses Size 6 to Junior’s Size 7). In a few instances, I have even heard that the conversion is made by subtracting one (-1). However, I have found on me that Junior’s Size 7 dresses most often tend to run small and that I have had more success with dresses fitting properly to wear a Junior Size 9 (+3) dress.

In doing a bit of Internet research I found that there are no national or international standards for numerical clothing sizes. My own experience has shown a greater degree of comparative size precision in “numerical” dress sizes (i.e. 4, 6, 8, etc.) and less precision and less consistency with size “ranges” (i.e. Small, Medium, Large, etc.). So, if at all possible, the obvious best approach to ascertaining the certainty of any dress fitting properly is to try it on prior to purchase.

A 16x20 C-Print from "Certainty Principle" an exhibition of photography, video, and installation by Michael David Murphy. Sept. 23rd, 2010 through Oct. 30th, 2010 at Spruill Gallery in Atlanta.

certaintyprinciple.tumblr.com

Week 11, Wednesday

It's all kind of blurry and I'm not sure what happened before. I feel like I'm suffering from a mild memory loss, but I'm now back at the island. I've been here many times and it looks same as before. If you would ask about it, I could describe, not just the geographical character of the island, but also all the roads, houses and my earlier occasions there. It seems I've been living here quite some time already, but I can't never tell how I exactly came here in the first place. All I know is that sometimes I'm not here. I'm somewhere else, but can't recall what those other places are.

When I dream I often find myself at this same island. When I'm there I can also remember my earlier visits together with all incidents that has happened to me there before. Then I wake up and for some reason it all escape my mind in seconds. I only have some tid bits and a certainty that I knew it all just couple of minutes ago. It's like I'm living two different lives at the same time with different episodes of life. As weird as it sounds, it can only lead to one conclusion: there are in fact two different me's who are both unconscious about each other.

---

Today I'm starting my second season, Season of tilt, which will deal more with my dreams, memories and inner feelings. I'm trying to stray out of the objective reality and use photography to express something else. One could describe it as a psychologically tilted season which merges things from subconscious. I should also add that I'm sincerely grateful for Lensbaby which has been kind enough to support my second season with their most interesting lenses. For this season I'll be using exclusively Lensbaby Composer Pro with three different optics: Double Glass, Sweet 35 and Edge 80. Therefore Season of tilt will also concentrate on exploring the creative possibilities offered by Lensbaby products and you might want to follow it through just to learn more about them.

I understand that most of my readers might not be familiar with Lensbaby, so here is a short description for those of you who haven't yet heard of them. Lensbaby Composer Pro is foundation of Lensbaby system. It is not a lens, but a lens body which attaches directly with Sony E- and A-mounts (no electronic contacts) and can used with different interchangeable optics (lenses). Unlike traditional 'straight' lenses Composer Pro can be tilted to manipulate the focusing point and depth of field, and by using it in creative ways one can introduce different kind of effects. To make it work you need to install one of the interchangeable optic to it and once done you are ready to rock. Lensbaby offers many different optics to go with their system and each of them gives you access to different kind of optical effects. I'll be using three of them what seems to be the most favored ones: Double Glass, Sweet 35 and Edge 80. I also have couple of macro converters, which are essentially an extension tubes for fore mentioned lenses. I'll be describing each of the lenses more in upcoming posts while I'm also exploring new possibilities they offer (also be sure to check out Lensbaby website). When it comes to this kind of photography it's still very new to me and I hope I'm able to make my journey interesting to others as well.

Year of the Alpha – 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: www.yearofthealpha.com