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This is based on a photo of some rocks at Schoodic Point, a part of Acadia National Park, Maine. EXPLORE
Just over from the barn (background) and wagon wheel was this fertilizer spreader of some vintage. It seems they were everywhere around the valley. The fertilizer spreaders have been converted to sheet metal long since but I thought that I would give you a shot at the complexity of this very old horse-drawn one. It is among the implements collected along the fence south of the old original Coffin sandstone house. I managed to capture a crisp shot with the monopod. I usually make another snap at the slow speeds like in the window, if I am not confident. I set my record for slow speed shots on this day. I shot extras for safety. Anyway I suppose there are some who are interested.
In the real world, manure hand a real different concept. The root of the word in man in Latin meant the hand or more accurately, manure meant to work with the hand. Perhaps you have seen that root word elsewhere: manna from heaven; manufacturing (something politicians don't think we need anymore); manuals; manuscript. manure spreaders. The lugged wheels drive the big gear which drives the chain, spins the rotary fingers, the top rake to bust clods and slide ridges across the bed to feed backward. The rotary fingers pitch the fertilizer against the rotating blades the fling it ofer an even surface. I expect that a dairy feeding operation had plenty of fertilizer to spread to enrich their pastures. Imagine working your lands with your hands. Chemical fertilizers can damage lands in the long run. Can you imagine rating farmers on what they are putting into their lands instead of removing from it. Sort of like cedars in Lebanon and trees on mud slide slopes in Afganistan when replanting could have happened over centuries. If you want better ecosystems, grow, not burn.
Coffin joined Chivington and participate in the Sand Creek Massacre, an event that some silt heads defend to this day. He was determined to eliminate the Indian threat if not the tribes themselves. I wonder how he would stand on the illegal immigration and if he would put up bronze bilingual plaques on his old barn. Eddie here is praising Chivington, he created his own tribute, in a his own fashion!
The farm/ranch/museum is really the eastern terminus of the St.Vrain Greenway Trail, on state highway #119 at Sandstone Park. Unfortunately, the floods scrubbed the south side of the pedestrian bridge over the river. and the path at Sunset Street so the trail is no longer continuous from the Vance Brand Airport, past Golden Ponds to the east end of town. For a while anyway. It will eventually be repaired but Longmont and Boulder County are self-insured so it will happen when it happens. On the up side, Wall Street doesn't make a dime on this setback. I created a Photo Set for the Coffin Farm/Ranch Agricultural Park.
The Thorn Disintegrator is old school fun... point it at something you don't want to be there and pull the trigger... a moment later it is NOT! The complexity of the internal workings used in order to get that deliciously final result does make it an unusual looking weapon, but, who cares!
Except for the tiny side decoration it's ALL wood baby!
It's finished in a bright silver metallic.
This creation is about 4" inches long by about 2" high (reminder there are 2 1/2 cm in an inch). Comes with metal hanging hardware / findings so you can use as jewelry or dangle it! When using as a pendant necklace just add it to any chain or cord you have. You are getting one item here; sometimes I display other items in the photos.
Made almost 100% from wood unless stated otherwise (I sometimes use tiny amounts of other things) I use paint and many finishes, often metallic, and make sure a lot of details shine through, often even the wood grain itself despite high tech themes. They maintain an often retro, sometimes even rustic look and feel to them, like an "olde worlde" toy or something (some more so than others ... I am told that surprisingly many do not even look like they are wood, but like metal or some manmade material... you can usually tell by the photos).
February Alphabet Fun Month
Around the World in Board Games
E is for Embarcadero
Designers: Adam Buckingham and Ed Marriott
Artist: Janos Orban
Publisher: Renegade Games (2021)
Players: 1-4
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes
Age: 12+
Complexity: 3.32/5
San Francisco, 1850 and the Gold Rush is in full swing. Ships stream steadily into San Francisco Bay, brimming with would-be treasure hunters. Anchored off the coast of the boomtown lies a flotilla of abandoned vessels, their crews long since taken by gold fever. A few business moguls stake their claims on these derelict ships, towing them into the harbour to house their growing empires. Over time, this wharf side district, known as the Embarcadero, would become the very heart of business enterprise in the thriving port city. In Embarcadero, players step into the shoes of those savvy entrepreneurs and build San Francisco on the hulls of these abandoned vessels, and carve out a foothold in the city council.
PS … in 1988 I visited San Francisco and I remember we went to Fisherman’s Wharf, which is very close to the Embarcadero, and I might even have walked through the area. But until I discovered this game, I didn’t know anything about the history of the place.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope photographed a nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189. The intricate structure of this bright gaseous nebula resembles a glass-blown holiday ornament with a glowing ribbon entwined. Planetary nebulae represent the final brief stage in the life of a medium-sized star like our Sun. While consuming the last of the fuel in its core, the dying star expels a large portion of its outer envelope. This material then becomes heated by the radiation from the stellar remnant and radiates, producing glowing clouds of gas that can show complex structures, as the ejection of mass from the star is uneven in both time and direction.
A spectacular example of this beautiful complexity is seen in the bluish lobes of NGC 5189. Most of the nebula is knotty and filamentary in its structure. As a result of the mass-loss process, the planetary nebula has been created with two nested structures, tilted with respect to each other, that expand away from the center in different directions.
This double bipolar or quadrupolar structure could be explained by the presence of a binary companion orbiting the central star and influencing the pattern of mass ejection during its nebula-producing death throes. The remnant of the central star, having lost much of its mass, now lives its final days as a white dwarf. However, there is no visual candidate for the possible companion. The bright golden ring that twists and tilts through the image is made up of a large collection of radial filaments and cometary knots. These are usually formed by the combined action of photo-ionizing radiation and stellar winds.
This image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on July 6, 2012, in filters tuned to the specific colors of fluorescing sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Broad filters in the visible and near-infrared were used to capture the star colors.
For more information, visit:
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2012/news-2012-49.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
copyright © Mim Eisenberg/mimbrava studio. All rights reserved.
This was the first Lenten rose of the season, and after the frigid winter I was afraid it would be the only one, but as temperatures moderated more buds opened, and now the patch is full of these lovely flowers.
Note that the "petals" are really sepals that encircle the nectaries, which are petals modified to hold nectar and which remain on the plant, sometimes for months.
See my shots on flickriver:
www.flickrriver.com/photos/mimbrava/
or
See my shots on fluidr:
www.fluidr.com/photos/mimbrava
I invite you to stroll through My Galleries.
Old growth temperate rainforest and montaine Eucalypt Forest in East Gippsland is ancient, magnificent, awe inspiring in its biological diversity and ecological complexity, and mind numbingly beautiful and humbling to behold.
While there has been, since first European settlement, moderate timber harvesting and clearing to open up farmland, widespread clearing ramped up from the 1970’s onward as our Govt decided this majestic old growth forest was best pulped and sent to Japan to make toilet paper.
I, as an environmental scientist, along with three colleagues from our State Govt Environmental Department decided to spend a weekend with the crusty protesters on the forest blockades in East Gippsland, to make up our own minds where we stood in relation to our employer, the Govt Department responsible for both environmental conservation and exploitation of forestry resources through licensing of logging coupes to private logging operators.
While initially we felt a little antagonistic to the law breaking, dreadlocked, crusties, who just seemed to be a parody of environmental protesters, within a very short time all four of us felt passionately, deeply, unequivocally, the magnificent old growth forest should not be logged, not for any reason, not now, not ever, and especially not for toilet paper.
These “Tripods” are built with rough sapling poles (dragged in from other logged areas) over the access roads into a logging coupe, one or two protesters will sit up top of the tripods, ladders removed and the idea is that the loggers, or authorities, or even police, cannot dismantle or remove the Tripods without endangering the people occupying them. And no amount of yelling or cajoling or threatening arrest and imprisonment will coax them down. It’s a waiting game, a delay tactic, overnight when no logging operations occur the occupant would be replaced by another.
It’s a gutsy, risky, desperate move, I love them for it, thank goodness they have the balls to do it. We all kept the vision front of mind when we returned to our pen pushing in the Environment and Conservation Dept.
We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.
~Albert Einstein
This installation is titled Polyhedras. It looks really awesome at night.
"Geometry is universal across cultures and religions, across the globe, and even across the planets. "
dbg.org/events/light-bloom/2024-10-12/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFelgzzzQqg
LIGHT BLOOM by HYBYCOZO is a limited-time exhibit where nature and light converge. This mesmerizing display invites you to explore the Garden transformed by stunning geometric light installations that illuminate the beauty of the desert landscape in a new way. As the sun sets, LIGHT BLOOM comes to life, casting intricate shadows and vibrant hues across the Garden. Wander the trails and let the enchanting installations transport you to a magical realm where the natural world meets the abstract.
HYBYCOZO is the collaborative studio of artists Serge Beaulieu and Yelena Filipchuk. Based in Los Angeles, their work consists of larger than life geometric sculptures, often with pattern and texture that draw on inspirations from mathematics, science, and natural phenomena. Typically illuminated, the work celebrates the inherent beauty of form and pattern and represents their ongoing journey in exploring the myriad dimensions of geometry. HYBYCOZO is short for the Hyperspace Bypass Construction Zone, a nod to their favorite novel (The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) and was the title of their first installation in 2014. They continue to create under this name. In the novel earth was being destroyed to make way for a bypass. It lead Serge and Yelena to ask what it means to make art at a time where the earth’s hospitable time in the universe may be limited.
dbg.org/meet-the-artists-behind-light-bloom/
Q: Walk us through your creative process?
A: The focus of our creative process is to explore the intricate interplay between geometry, light, space and to inspire contemplation, wonder and a sense of place among our audiences. Geometry and pattern-making serve as the backbone of our creative expression. It is the framework through which we navigate the complexities of form, proportion and spatial relationships. Patterns, both simple and complex, have a profound impact on our perception and understanding of the world. They possess the ability to evoke a sense of order, balance and aesthetic pleasure. Pattern making and geometry offer us a means of storytelling and communication. These patterns serve as conduits for deeper exploration, provoking introspection and contemplation to uncover the underlying symbols embedded within the human psyche.
“In its complexity and sensuality, nature invites exploration, direct contact, and experience. But it also inspires a sense of awe, a glimpse of what is still "un-Googleable" . . . life's mystery and magnitude.” ~ Kim John Payne
Another view of a small slot canyon we happened across during a hike along the White Domes trail in Valley of Fire State Park.
Don't know about anyone else, but TGIF (well, almost)...it's been a long week, and I'm way behind with catching up on everyone's latest posts, but I hope to have some time over the next few days. Have a great Friday, and for those of you who celebrate, have a wonderful Easter weekend!!!! 6 weeks to go until we return to YNP/Tetons; woohoo :-)
© Darlene Bushue - All of my images are protected by copyright and may not be used on any site, blog, or forum without my permission.
My photographs are my private property and are copyright © by me, John Russell (aka “Zoom Lens”) and all my rights are reserved.
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My 5,000th upload! :)
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The photographs in my set, "Weed Flower Micros," may appear to be close-ups of regular-sized flowers – they are not!
These are micro (macro) photos of tiny little flowers which bloom on ordinary weeds found in my lawn.
How tiny? The largest weed flower in the set is only, when measured across its widest part from petal tip to petal tip, 3/4" in diameter (19mm)!
Some of these miniscule flowers are so small that the entire blossom you are looking at is 1/4" in diameter (6mm)…or smaller! Again, that’s measuring from petal tip to petal tip across the widest part of the bloom!
The smallest part of a weed flower that I have managed to successfully shoot and achieve good detail in is a photo I made of a bud that measured LESS than 1/32" in diameter (0.7mm) across its widest part!
For size references I have included a photo of certain flowers and buds next to the head of an ordinary paper match, which dwarfs the blooms and buds.
It’s delightful to discover the beauty, complexity, and variety in something so small that it’s easily ignored, taken for granted, dismissed as a pest, or just downright difficult to see with the naked eye.
And it’s an even greater delight to realize that this incredible beauty has been growing wild in my lawn, year after year, right under my un-seeing eyes as I’ve repeatedly mown them down with my lawn mower, never realizing the unseen beauty that I was trampling under my feet.
I hope you enjoy viewing these as much as I do. I have a lot of fun making them for us to look at!
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See more of these incredible, tiny jewels in my set, "Weed Flower Micros:"
In the cattle market when I told him I want to photograph him, he said my cows are just as black as me!
Some of these people think being dark can never be beautiful, which is so wrong since I found him quite photogenic.
Bibir Haat/Chittagong
There is an impressive complexity of paper and pattern that
constitute the work of artist Glen Clarke. As a heady cocktail of
politics, economics and aesthetics are neatly folded into each of the
origami styled cannon of his works; in order to create these
symmetrical configurations of banknotes and thread. That when
pinned together, layer upon layer, note upon note; become the
intricate detail for a much larger mosaic styled image. Which from a
measured distance prove utterly compelling. And when given to
examining Clarke’s works with a forensic eye, they read like the DNA
for a coded reality of a greater set of truths. That are as destabilising
as they might well appear decorativse.
For Clarke detail is as much about the universe, as it is the anatomical
elements holding all things together. Which he explains as acalculated
appraisal of the “spaces once occupied” by material form. “I was trying
to determine and promote an awareness of our physical relationship
to objects in space.” As he seeks “to understand the relationship
between objects.” And of how such architectonic details can be
unsettled entirely by the intervention of uncivilised wars. Permitting
the devastation and damage of landscapes under occupation. Where
we might all concentrate entirely on the actions of the populous, as
they seek to defend themselves from the bombardment of battle;
Clarke draws attention to how such devastation can transform the
solemnity and silence of a landscape beyond repair.
Unearthing details in the dirt, that act as the catalyst for his work;
Clarke is interested in a lunar landscape of man-made ‘voids’, ‘craters’
and ‘explosions’, that have been fashioned by internal and external
wars historically. As Clarke is absorbed by how such critical conditions
come to alter space entirely. Domestic, social, political; space is the
favoured currency of conflict. In which countries create their own
refugees, and a growing state of unease allows for a temporary infra-
structure that serves to promote one set of ideas over another. Thus
such a history of violence, regional and international, constitutes an
archive of misshapen memories that alters the lives of the living.
Significantly for Venice, Clarke envisages introducing a work born of
Project Renew that he has been actively involved with since 2000.
Based in Vietnam, Project Renew is dedicated entirely to educating
the populous of ‘mine risk awareness’, and of the consequences of
the ignorance of living with such explosives for many years thereafter.
As new generations seek to cultivate and culture the unsettled
landscape for their own purposes, Clarke sees the collateral creativity
of his new works for Venice are an emotional reflection of his “distain
for cluster bombs”, and the media’s “lack of interest in a conflict not
determined by an interest in oil”.
Artist as humanitarian, Clarke intends to draw attention to the
impossible politics of conflict and of its repercussions upon the lives
of the individual; and for Venice he talks entirely of the space,
negotiating everything in terms of his forensic interest in the situation
and circumstances that have allowed him to transpose a critical and
well researched work onto the biennale stage
Here are the close-ups which might help you better appreciate the complexity of a Harvestmen's moulting process. Observe how it uses its chelicerae and pedipalps to carefully hold and guide the freshly emerging limbs, all 8 of them!
As sea levels rose since the last ice age, they flooded the valleys in the Sydney region. Wind and wave erosion then formed cliffs and rock platforms. This headland would once have been a ridge top 20 km inland and 150 m above sea level.
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The rites of Holy Week are present in Sicily with complexity of content and symbologies due to numerous influences, very present those due to the Spanish culture, dominating the island between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; in the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, it is attended by a popular culture, referring to ancient pre-Byzantine rites that originated long before those of Mediterranean Christian culture.
These ancient rituals represent the most significant moments of the Passion of Jesus Christ, described in the Gospels, from his arrest by the Romans to the Resurrection and are part of the Holy Week celebrations, together with the normal religious functions.
The Good Friday procession at Bronte has its roots far beyond the characters received by Spanish domination, realizing itself as one of the most complex and archaic in absolute, a procession impregnated with prayer, penance and symbolism. The protagonists are the city confraternities that give a reconstruction of the Scenes of the Passion, featuring the apostles, the pious women, the Roman soldiers and Christ, and the statues of Our Lady of Sorrows, Christ the Column, Christ Crucified and Dead Christ, decorated with fresh beans, led by the faithful invoking grace in brontese dialect.
The porters of Dead Christ are in silence because Christ is dead, while the bearers of Our Lady of Sorrows intonate the songs of the adoration of the Cross of Christ.
It is a sequence of scenes that live along the winding streets of Bronte, which on Holy Friday become a great stage in which the Passion and Death of Christ is recited.
Since the morning everywhere is silent, it is not sung and does not laugh, the bells do not ring because they were "tied up" on Thursday. In a sign of sadness you can only hear the woody sound of "troccola" and drums.
The three "pious women" (with large black dresses, the face is hidden by long natural hair, grown and cared for by vote) in religious silence; there are clerics and childre veiled and dressed in white; each of them is entrusted with an object that finds precise references to the symbols of passion (a palm, chalice, cross, hammer and nails, sponge, ladder, spear, sheet of shroud, and other objects); there is Saint Michael the Archangel, who is traditionally a seven-eight-year-old child dressed in classic iconography, slowly goes along with an angel-girl who carries the "chalice of the Passion," with a cadence-step marked by the rhythm of a drum to make them a mimic with a movement that recalls that of Sicilian puppets.
The Christ is tied up and dragged by the violence of the Roman soldiers, and the Christ, curved that carries the cross helped by the little Cireneo.
The two figures of Christ are members of two families who pass the vote and devotion from father to son and carry their covered face and bare feet in the sign of penance.
All the statues, except that of the Dead Christ, are adorned with flowers and with the first fruits of the earth, especially beans and peas, as a sign of God's offering of the first fruits of this period, are carried on the shoulder of devotees: the rituals of Easter Jewish Christian period recall a symbolic pre-Christian ritual .
This is a short and long report on the procession of Bronte's Holy Friday of this year, 2017.
I riti della Settimana Santa presentano in Sicilia una complessità di contenuti e di simbologie dovute a numerosi influssi, molto presenti quelli dovuti alla cultura spagnola, dominante nell’isola tra il XVI ed il XVII secolo; nel mistero della morte e della resurrezione di Cristo, si assiste nella cultura popolare, a riferimenti risalenti da antichi riti pre-bizantini che originano da molto prima di quelli della cultura cristiana mediterranea.
Questi antichi riti rappresentano i momenti più significativi della Passione di Gesù Cristo, descritti nei Vangeli, dal suo arresto da parte dei romani alla Resurrezione e fanno parte, insieme alle normali funzioni religiose, delle celebrazioni della Settimana Santa.
La processione del Venerdì Santo a Bronte affonda le sue radici ben oltre i caratteri ricevuti dalla dominazione spagnola, realizzandosi come una delle più complesse ed arcaiche in assoluto, processione impregnata di preghiera, di penitenza e di simbolismo. Protagoniste sono le confraternite cittadine che danno vita ad una ricostruzione delle scene della Passione, con figuranti che fanno rivivere gli apostoli, le pie donne, i soldati romani ed il Cristo, insieme ad essi le statue della Madonna Addolorata, del Cristo alla Colonna, del Cristo Crocifisso e del Cristo Morto, addobbate con le fave fresche, condotte dai fedeli che invocano la grazia in dialetto brontese.
I portatori del Cristo Morto restano in silenzio perché il Cristo è morto, mentre i portatori della Madonna Addolorata intonano i canti dell’adorazione della Croce del Cristo.
E’ una sequenza di scene che prendono vita lungo le tortuose strade di Bronte, le quali durante il Venerdì santo diventano un grande palcoscenico, nelle quali si recita la Passione e la Morte del Cristo.
Già dal mattino dappertutto è silenzio, non si canta e non si ride, le campane non suonano perchè sono state «legate» il giovedì. In segno di tristezza si può ascoltare solo il suono legnoso della “troccola” e dei tamburi.
Sfilano in religioso silenzio le tre "pie donne" (con grandi abiti neri, il volto è nascosto da lunghi capelli naturali, fatti crescere e curati per voto); ci sono i chierichetti e le giovinette velate e vestite di bianco; a ciascuna di esse è affidato un oggetto che trova preciso riferimento ai simboli della passione (una palma, il calice, la croce, il martello e i chiodi, la spugna, la scala, la lancia, il lenzuolo della Sindone, ed altri oggetti); ecco san Michele Arcangelo, tradizionalmente è un bambino di sette-otto anni, vestito secondo la classica iconografia, procede lentamente insieme ad una bimba-angelo che reca il “calice della Passione”, con un cadenzato passo scandito dal ritmo di un tamburo, tale da far loro mimare una sorta di movimento che richiama quello dei pupi Siciliani.
Vengono rappresentati il Cristo legato e trascinato dalla violenza dei soldati romani, ed il Cristo, curvo che porta la croce aiutato dal piccolo cireneo.
Le due figure del Cristo sono membri di due famiglie che si tramandano il voto e la devozione da padre in figlio e portano la faccia coperta ed i piedi nudi, in segno di penitenza.
Tutte le statue, tranne quella del Cristo Morto, sono adornate con fiori e con le primizie della terra (fave e piselli soprattutto, in segno d’offerta a Dio delle primizie di questo pe¬rio¬do sono portate a spalla da centi¬naia di devoti: i rituali della Pasqua giudaico cri¬stia¬na, richiamano una ritualità simbolica precri¬stiana dove la pa-rola pasqua, dall'ebraico pesah = passaggio, è sintesi di rinno¬va¬mento, di transito da una fase di morte della natu-ra (l'inver¬no) ad una fase di vita e di risveglio (la primavera), si ha così la sovrap¬po¬sizione dei rituali reli-giosi con le cele¬brazioni arcaiche legate al risveglio della na¬tura. Si innesca una disarmonia este¬tica sulle vare fra la ricca infiorata ed poveri baccelli di fave, le quali finiscono col possedere uno o più significati sim¬bolici,
come essere portatrici di un omaggio alla divinità con fine propiziatorio che discende da motivazioni antiche, legate alla vita dei pastori che nel Brontese hanno avuto ed ancor hanno larga importanza, dalla pianura proprio nel periodo pasquale, essi ritorna¬va¬no ai pascoli montani dopo aver concluso la transu¬manza e, nella occasione, portavano alle divinità il dono di una primi¬zia costituita proprio dalle faviane. A margine di questa usanza religiosa vi è un'altra ap¬pen¬dice devozionale:a lla fine della processione i por¬ta-tori del¬le vare manifestano l'antichissima credenza ma¬gico religiosa della legge del contatto secondo la quale ciò che è stato vicino al divino diventa elemento di pro¬tezione contro ogni avversità e apportatore di be¬nes¬sere spirituale e materiale, essi allora cercano di impossessarsi dei baccelli che sono stati ap¬pe¬si alle vare.
Queso è un report breve e lungo sulla processione del Venerdi Santo di Bronte di quest’anno, 2017.
Going back home after a long, exhausting day.
Dreaming of a quiet evening.
Queuing cars, traffic jam, city lights, rusty infrastructures, tired faces beyond car windows.
The world is tired, the world needs a rest. Still, that marvelous light makes everything unique, special for an instant.
A matter of seconds...An extraordinary matter of seconds..
An extraordinary, undescrivable complexity for a matter of seconds...
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The rites of Holy Week are present in Sicily with complexity of content and symbologies due to numerous influences, very present those due to the Spanish culture, dominating the island between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; in the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, it is attended by a popular culture, referring to ancient pre-Byzantine rites that originated long before those of Mediterranean Christian culture.
These ancient rituals represent the most significant moments of the Passion of Jesus Christ, described in the Gospels, from his arrest by the Romans to the Resurrection and are part of the Holy Week celebrations, together with the normal religious functions.
The Good Friday procession at Bronte has its roots far beyond the characters received by Spanish domination, realizing itself as one of the most complex and archaic in absolute, a procession impregnated with prayer, penance and symbolism. The protagonists are the city confraternities that give a reconstruction of the Scenes of the Passion, featuring the apostles, the pious women, the Roman soldiers and Christ, and the statues of Our Lady of Sorrows, Christ the Column, Christ Crucified and Dead Christ, decorated with fresh beans, led by the faithful invoking grace in brontese dialect.
The porters of Dead Christ are in silence because Christ is dead, while the bearers of Our Lady of Sorrows intonate the songs of the adoration of the Cross of Christ.
It is a sequence of scenes that live along the winding streets of Bronte, which on Holy Friday become a great stage in which the Passion and Death of Christ is recited.
Since the morning everywhere is silent, it is not sung and does not laugh, the bells do not ring because they were "tied up" on Thursday. In a sign of sadness you can only hear the woody sound of "troccola" and drums.
The three "pious women" (with large black dresses, the face is hidden by long natural hair, grown and cared for by vote) in religious silence; there are clerics and childre veiled and dressed in white; each of them is entrusted with an object that finds precise references to the symbols of passion (a palm, chalice, cross, hammer and nails, sponge, ladder, spear, sheet of shroud, and other objects); there is Saint Michael the Archangel, who is traditionally a seven-eight-year-old child dressed in classic iconography, slowly goes along with an angel-girl who carries the "chalice of the Passion," with a cadence-step marked by the rhythm of a drum to make them a mimic with a movement that recalls that of Sicilian puppets.
The Christ is tied up and dragged by the violence of the Roman soldiers, and the Christ, curved that carries the cross helped by the little Cireneo.
The two figures of Christ are members of two families who pass the vote and devotion from father to son and carry their covered face and bare feet in the sign of penance.
All the statues, except that of the Dead Christ, are adorned with flowers and with the first fruits of the earth, especially beans and peas, as a sign of God's offering of the first fruits of this period, are carried on the shoulder of devotees: the rituals of Easter Jewish Christian period recall a symbolic pre-Christian ritual .
This is a short and long report on the procession of Bronte's Holy Friday of this year, 2017.
I riti della Settimana Santa presentano in Sicilia una complessità di contenuti e di simbologie dovute a numerosi influssi, molto presenti quelli dovuti alla cultura spagnola, dominante nell’isola tra il XVI ed il XVII secolo; nel mistero della morte e della resurrezione di Cristo, si assiste nella cultura popolare, a riferimenti risalenti da antichi riti pre-bizantini che originano da molto prima di quelli della cultura cristiana mediterranea.
Questi antichi riti rappresentano i momenti più significativi della Passione di Gesù Cristo, descritti nei Vangeli, dal suo arresto da parte dei romani alla Resurrezione e fanno parte, insieme alle normali funzioni religiose, delle celebrazioni della Settimana Santa.
La processione del Venerdì Santo a Bronte affonda le sue radici ben oltre i caratteri ricevuti dalla dominazione spagnola, realizzandosi come una delle più complesse ed arcaiche in assoluto, processione impregnata di preghiera, di penitenza e di simbolismo. Protagoniste sono le confraternite cittadine che danno vita ad una ricostruzione delle scene della Passione, con figuranti che fanno rivivere gli apostoli, le pie donne, i soldati romani ed il Cristo, insieme ad essi le statue della Madonna Addolorata, del Cristo alla Colonna, del Cristo Crocifisso e del Cristo Morto, addobbate con le fave fresche, condotte dai fedeli che invocano la grazia in dialetto brontese.
I portatori del Cristo Morto restano in silenzio perché il Cristo è morto, mentre i portatori della Madonna Addolorata intonano i canti dell’adorazione della Croce del Cristo.
E’ una sequenza di scene che prendono vita lungo le tortuose strade di Bronte, le quali durante il Venerdì santo diventano un grande palcoscenico, nelle quali si recita la Passione e la Morte del Cristo.
Già dal mattino dappertutto è silenzio, non si canta e non si ride, le campane non suonano perchè sono state «legate» il giovedì. In segno di tristezza si può ascoltare solo il suono legnoso della “troccola” e dei tamburi.
Sfilano in religioso silenzio le tre "pie donne" (con grandi abiti neri, il volto è nascosto da lunghi capelli naturali, fatti crescere e curati per voto); ci sono i chierichetti e le giovinette velate e vestite di bianco; a ciascuna di esse è affidato un oggetto che trova preciso riferimento ai simboli della passione (una palma, il calice, la croce, il martello e i chiodi, la spugna, la scala, la lancia, il lenzuolo della Sindone, ed altri oggetti); ecco san Michele Arcangelo, tradizionalmente è un bambino di sette-otto anni, vestito secondo la classica iconografia, procede lentamente insieme ad una bimba-angelo che reca il “calice della Passione”, con un cadenzato passo scandito dal ritmo di un tamburo, tale da far loro mimare una sorta di movimento che richiama quello dei pupi Siciliani.
Vengono rappresentati il Cristo legato e trascinato dalla violenza dei soldati romani, ed il Cristo, curvo che porta la croce aiutato dal piccolo cireneo.
Le due figure del Cristo sono membri di due famiglie che si tramandano il voto e la devozione da padre in figlio e portano la faccia coperta ed i piedi nudi, in segno di penitenza.
Tutte le statue, tranne quella del Cristo Morto, sono adornate con fiori e con le primizie della terra (fave e piselli soprattutto, in segno d’offerta a Dio delle primizie di questo pe¬rio¬do sono portate a spalla da centi¬naia di devoti: i rituali della Pasqua giudaico cri¬stia¬na, richiamano una ritualità simbolica precri¬stiana dove la pa-rola pasqua, dall'ebraico pesah = passaggio, è sintesi di rinno¬va¬mento, di transito da una fase di morte della natu-ra (l'inver¬no) ad una fase di vita e di risveglio (la primavera), si ha così la sovrap¬po¬sizione dei rituali reli-giosi con le cele¬brazioni arcaiche legate al risveglio della na¬tura. Si innesca una disarmonia este¬tica sulle vare fra la ricca infiorata ed poveri baccelli di fave, le quali finiscono col possedere uno o più significati sim¬bolici,
come essere portatrici di un omaggio alla divinità con fine propiziatorio che discende da motivazioni antiche, legate alla vita dei pastori che nel Brontese hanno avuto ed ancor hanno larga importanza, dalla pianura proprio nel periodo pasquale, essi ritorna¬va¬no ai pascoli montani dopo aver concluso la transu¬manza e, nella occasione, portavano alle divinità il dono di una primi¬zia costituita proprio dalle faviane. A margine di questa usanza religiosa vi è un'altra ap¬pen¬dice devozionale:a lla fine della processione i por¬ta-tori del¬le vare manifestano l'antichissima credenza ma¬gico religiosa della legge del contatto secondo la quale ciò che è stato vicino al divino diventa elemento di pro¬tezione contro ogni avversità e apportatore di be¬nes¬sere spirituale e materiale, essi allora cercano di impossessarsi dei baccelli che sono stati ap¬pe¬si alle vare.
Queso è un report breve e lungo sulla processione del Venerdi Santo di Bronte di quest’anno, 2017.
Please check out my gallery for more photographic images -- photocherry.co.uk
These images have been photographed using #cymatics (visualising sound) to show the moment a liquid reacts to sound from a speaker.
The images are part of a 16 image series that I produced for my final exhibition at university.
#Context
The foundations of the universe can be defined by energy, mass and entropy, with vibration being the vessel that interlinks them all. Entropy is the measurement of disorder and this factor can help in the understanding of the irregularities and inconsistencies that occur in all aspects of our existence.
The primal instincts of Human nature are to progress and bring order to chaos. ‘Structured Entropy – Arrested Vibration’, is a photographic series that is been constructed to document the hidden formations that occur in reaction to the natural process of vibration. Using a speaker to provide vibration, I has placed a mixture of consumer grade anti -aging cream onto the speaker and photographed the event, in a manner that suspends the moment of implosion.
Following the principles of Conceptual art and Post-modernist theory, I endeavour to examine and question- temporality, absence, the human condition and our connections to the natural world, revealing the perpetuated tensions between order and complexity.