Inside the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba

This heritage site is amazing the blending between Islam and Catholic art and architecture is so well blended that makes us forget everything outside and feel a true peace of mind. Makes one think what is going wrong with the world? For sure GOD as an entity of good, just want every one to coexists in peace and do good, no matter what any religion says.

Please, I don't intend to offend in any way any one's belief, or start any kind of ideological discussion, this is just my point of view.

"Il piccolo e anticonformista Gabbiano Jonathan riesce ad intravedere una nuova via da poter seguire, una via che allontana dalla banalità e dal vuoto del suo precedente stile di vita, e comprende che oltre che del cibo un gabbiano vive " della luce e del calore del sole, vive del soffio del vento, delle onde spumeggianti del mare e della freschezza dell'aria"

Il gabbiano Jonathan Livingston è un celebre romanzo breve di Richard Bach. Best seller in molti paesi del mondo negli anni settanta, diventato per molti un vero e proprio cult, Jonathan Livingston è essenzialmente una fiaba a contenuto morale e spirituale. La metafora principale del libro, ovvero il percorso di autoperfezionamento del gabbiano che impara a volare/vivere attraverso l'abnegazione, il sacrificio e la gioia di farlo è stata letta da diverse generazioni secondo diverse prospettive ideologiche, dal cattolicesimo al pensiero positivo, l'anarchismo cristiano e la New Age.

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

"The small and unconventional Seagull Jonathan manages to glimpse a new path to follow, a path that takes away from the banality and emptiness of his previous lifestyle, and understands that in addition to food, a seagull lives" of the light and warmth of the sun, lives on the breath of the wind, the foaming waves of the sea and the freshness of the air "

Seagull Jonathan Livingston is a famous short novel by Richard Bach. Best seller in many countries of the world in the seventies, which has become for many a real cult, Jonathan Livingston is essentially a fairy tale with a moral and spiritual content. The main metaphor of the book, or rather the self-improvement path of the seagull that learns to fly / live through self-sacrifice, sacrifice and the joy of doing it has been read by different generations according to different ideological perspectives, from Catholicism to positive thinking, the Christian anarchism and the New Age.

but they are in every newspaper that we pick up. Ideologies! Words! Faiths! Creeds!

For the sake of these words, and what they represent, bombs fall... flags are pulled down. New ones go up. Thrones totter, parliaments dissolve, leaders emerge. Songs and slogans... Oh, say can you see? Oh, say, does the Star-Spangled Banner yet wave? Yes, but it's getting increasingly hard to see. It is lost in a fog of isms :-(

Dorothy Thompson, 1938

j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, north carolina

You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a squirrel or a bird of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet - Hal Borland

A Blondie song lyric (Debbie's vocals are often in my head) and a few less rambling thoughts from me than usual. My brainwaves are going into lockdown mode, I have been sensing it for a few days. It is my mind telling my heart to recharge. Dreamer ideology.

Sending lots of love and hoping everyone is having an amazing, beautiful week! 💖

Jelacicev Plac Zagreb CROATIA

***

I could hear them howling from afar

I saw them rushing to your car

In a moment all went screaming wild

Until the darkness killed the light

I remember running to the sea

The burning houses and the trees

I remember running to the sea

Alone and blinded by the fear

And the river flows beneath your skin

Like savage horses kept within

And all is wasted in the sand

Like breaking diamonds with your hand

I remember running to the sea

Remember falling to my knees

I remember gliding off the shore

Until I touched the ocean floor…

Song by Röyksopp and Susanne Sundfør - Running To The Sea

***

"This song is about the shooting that took place at Utøya in Norway 22 juli 2011, where 77 people was deprived of their lives by an extreme nationalist (33 of the dead were under 18 years old). This is a sad reminder of what a distorted ideology can become in a twisted mind"

***

Link to youTube:

youtu.be/oIV2eb8jqu4?list=RDoIV2eb8jqu4

The Neptune Fountain in Nuremberg is the largest baroque fountain north of the Alps and is considered a monument to the Nuremberg Peace after the Thirty Years' War. The original fountain was created between 1660 and 1668 For financial reasons, the imperial city did not have the fountain built, but sold to Saint Petersburg in 1796.

The copied fountain was created in 1896–1902 by Ernst Lenz and Friedrich Wanderer for the Hauptmarkt, the founder was the Jewish-German merchant Ludwig Gerngros. For ideological reasons, the National Socialists had the fountain dismantled in 1934 and later built on the former Schlageterplatz, today's Willy-Brandt-Platz. In 1962, the fountain was moved to the city park.

Maybe one of the best things about Rivello is the view of the town itself from the highway that passes it by, the highway climbs through the hills and offers many attractive shots of the city but morning lights is certainly favorable to its appearance and worth the drive to capture it washing over the town. The city is spread amongst three hills Motta, Serra and Poggio with a backdrop of the peaks of Mount Sirino and the river at its feet with all its houses cozily draped across it like a warm bedding on a cold day.

The city enjoyed a long prosperous period even though occupied since its beginnings with competitive factions each with different ideologies and religious beliefs but it somehow worked until its golden period in the 18th century that was cut short by the arrival of the French troops. The city suffered under French rule and saw steady decline from this point on and did not fare much better under the reunification of Italy resulting in a mass diaspora to North and South America early on in the 20th century and after WWII .

For those that have a little billy goat in their blood a wander from one end of the village to the other is in order with narrow lanes and steep stairs making arterial connections that move you from one jaw dropping scene to the next a town frozen in amber for the observer. While you are here make sure you try the village specialty soppressata locally soperzata made for over 300 years in the authentic method of finely chopped naturally fed pork seasoned with salt & pepper pressed then cured for at least 3 months which produces a culinary treat well worth the detour for.

I took this on Sept 26, 2018 with my D750 and Nikon 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 Lens at 52mm 1/25s f`11 ISO 100 processed in LR, PS +Lumenzia, Topaz , and DXO

Disclaimer: My style is a study of romantic realism as well as a work in progress

What luck that the days are gone when even cockroaches could be spies in unusual disguises.

But then, how different is it really today?

To this day I still have dreams of rooms like this. Always looking for a lighted, lockable, clean cabin with a clean toilet.

What a waste of precious dream time!

NOT SQUARE nekonuko Nakamori @ Itakos Art Gallery

November 28 Saturday 2020

Opening party 10:00AM SLT "TONIGHT!!"

I always feel nervous before an exhibition starts.

I don't know how you feel about it, especially since this time the work is different.

Religion, ideology, race, gender, economy, global warming and Covid.

In this crazy world, art may be helpless and there is too little I can do.

My work, my ideals, it may be a pipe dream.

But if I make something, if you feel it, maybe it will make the world a little better.

If you look at my work and smile, maybe tomorrow will be a better day than yesterday.

I hope and believe it.

I say Hello to you tonight, rubbing my sleepy eyes.

It could be the beginning of a new story.

Let's dance.

Hugs and Meow =(^.^)=

at the Black Pavilion of Itakos Art Gallery

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/ATL/179/170/1009

Paris - Rue Saint-Jacques

Copyright - All images are copyright © protected. All Rights Reserved. Copying, altering, displaying or redistribution of any of these images without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited.

Colourfully painted exterior of the main hall of Sro Loun Temple.

Carvings on the pillars at the entrance are very Vietnamese. Yellow flowers are also Vietnamese favourite. The temple complex as a whole looks like a departure from the traditional Khmer architecture.

The Fall of Saigon in 1975 resulted in the communist takeover of Cambodia. Khmer Rouge, as named by King Sihanouk, was backed by China and advocated the Maoist ideology and a fanatic Khmer nationalism. Influenced by the Cultural Revolution, they wanted to annihilate the bourgeoisie and killed a quarter of Cambodia’s population, in particular, intellectuals, Buddhist monks, ethnic minorities including Vietnamese, during their rule from 1975 to 1979.

They tried to get popular supports by fanning an anti-Vietnamese sentiment among Cambodians quoting Vietnam's occupation of Mekong Delta. They even invaded Mekong Delta and massacred 3,157 Vietnamese civilians in Ba Chuc village in 1978.

The Museum of the Future is an exhibition space for innovative and futuristic ideologies, services, and products. Located in the Financial District of Dubai, UAE, the Museum of the Future has three main elements: green hill, building, and void. Founded by the Dubai Future Foundation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dunKAwRN3P8

feel this spirit of Christmas climb up in your minds

hold on to it.

Wash it clean from all of our ideologies, relegions and false believes.

Try to calm and feel the spirits of all those who surround you.

Enemy and friend

See

We all are the same.

Missleaded, confused and lost in possibilities.

Our capacity of Love, care and empathy can rise above.

It only needs the will to change.

Think through. Feel and have trust in yourself.

We are animals.

But we have the gift of intelligence.

Lets use it for a better tomorrow.

Merry Christmas to all of you

Approaching the philosophy where "less is more", this shot puts a young man completely dressed in black at the centre of the scene, perfectly perpendicular to the black and white lines of the wall behind him. The young man walks with a confident and slow step, with a well-upright posture, as if to underline his confident presence, immersed in probably listening to his favourite music, as can be seen from the headphones on his ears, and intent on continuing his walk towards a destination unknown to the observer. A minimalist scene that nevertheless seeks strength in the contrast of lines, the horizontal ones of the wall and the vertical ideological one represented by the young man.

The  Museum of the Future (Arabic: متحف المستقبل)[1]  is an exhibition space for innovative and futuristic ideologies, services, and products. Located in the Financial District of Dubai, UAE, the Museum of the Future has three main elements: green hill, building, and void.

We have exhausted this ideology on social media, we make memes about it and we even take pics promoting it and pop them on our Flickr pages! We're all talking about being kind but are we really being the kind of people who practice it? It is our actions that matter, kindness is measured in the way we treat others. Not when we feel like it, when it suits us or when we think the person is deserving. We are all faced everyday with choices in how we interact with others, those choices impact others in ways way beyond our comprehension which is why kindness should be the default in how we treat others in every situation, even when no one is watching.

Be the kind of person who heals not harms 💛💛

Holocaust Memorial Berlin (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe).

www.stiftung-denkmal.de/memorials/memorial-to-the-murdere...

Peter Eisenmanns field of stelae reminds to the up to six million Jewish victims of racist Nazi ideology.

Last picture of the series

I'm sorry I made the decision to delete my paper. That's because normally, as I do in my novel, I write from, I would say, a literary license. Some things are simply thoughts that my ideology leads me to not support people who are at the antipodes of my way of seeing life. I didn't want to extend this idea to politics or people who have done harm to my country, so I centralized the idea as I do with my characters in my novel, or many times, I would say, always, I invent names and the image of my avatar accompanies it, he was the one who inspired me in his physical action to such a story. I am not someone who has not been hit by some character in life that almost all of us have had close to us. I simply believe that many of you have been distressed to feel that I am currently affected by some situation. To all of you, my infinite gratitude. But it didn't seem good to me, to make anyone feel bad. Well I imagine that many will have their stories of some damage of those who make our souls tremble. To all I will respond. But I do not think it is right that a general thought, from past experiences, is interpreted as a situation, current to which I am supposedly living. It is not so and I think many of you felt that way. Personalize and it is not my habit, I hope that no one will be offended by what I am saying. As always, I rescue all those who empathize with my writing. That's finally what I think of our society. But I'm lucky to be surrounded by good people. And I add to all of you in this smaller world that is our world where art unites us. Finally I will answer each of you in private.

Lamento haber tomado la decisión de borrar mi escrito. Eso se debe a que normalmente, como hago en mi novela, escribo desde, diría una licencia literaria. Algunas cosas simplemente son pensamientos que mi ideología me lleva a no soportar a personas que están en las antípodas de mi forma de ver la vida. No quería hacer extensiva esa idea a la política ni a personas que han hecho daño a mi país, por eso centralice la idea como lo hago con mis personajes de mi novela, o muchas veces ,diría, siempre, invento nombres y lo acompaña la imagen de mi avatar , él fue quien me inspiro en su acción física a semejante relato. No soy alguien que en la vida no haya sido golpeado por algún personaje de los que casi todos, hemos tenido cerca. Simplemente creo que muchos de ustedes se han angustiado, por sentir que estoy afectado actualmente por alguna situación. A todos mi infinito agradecimiento. Pero no me pareció bueno, hacer sentir mal a nadie. Pues me imagino que muchos tendrán sus historias de algún daño de esos que hacen temblar nuestras almas. A todos les responderé. Pero no me parece bien que un pensamiento de índole general, por experiencias del pasado, se interprete como una situación, actual a la que supuestamente se interpretó que estoy viviendo. No es así y creo que muchos de ustedes lo sintieron de esa forma. Personalice y no es mi costumbre, espero que nadie se sienta ofendido por lo que estoy contando. Como siempre rescato a todos los que empatiizaron con mi escrito. Finalmente es lo que opino de nuestra sociedad. Pero tengo la suerte de estar rodeado de buenas personas. Y agrego a todos ustedes en este mundo mas pequeño que es nuestro mundo donde el arte nos une. Por ultimo les respondere a cada uno en privado.

Buzludzha is a communist monument - build in Bulgaria in the 70s and abbandoned in 1989.

Unluckely I couldn't manage to take picture outside to the strange UFO shape of the building due to the tremndous fog and wind

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzludzha

4:52 Abandoned – Capture an image of that which others have forgotten.

“Half a million young people can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music”

~ Max Yasgur

Seems to me the world could use one of these right now.

Protected with PIXSY

#sliderssunday

Explored November 15, 2020

Before I continue my casual series of the Berlin Olympic Stadium, here's another photo from my visit to the Olympic Village of 1936 with 3-day-beard / 3-tage-bart, bananahh, and magritknapp.

Heavily (over-)processed for Sliders Sunday. It shows the Olympic Village's gym. I wish it were possible to re-visit the Olympic Village (or what is left of it) with a tripod and a wider lens, but guided tours have been discontinued in 2020 – not because of the Corona/Covid-19 situation, but because the site of the Olympic Village is under (re-)construction as a housing area called "G.O.L.D. Gartenstadt Olympisches Dorf von 1936®" ("Gold Garden City Olympic Village of 1936"). So actually we were very, very lucky to still have gotten hold of a tour back in September 2018 – a once-in-a-lifetime photographic opportunity. It also means that I have to make do with the photographic yield achieved mostly with my little Lumix LX100 (and without a tripod, because I thought that I couldn't bring one – a stupid mistake).

In 2018 the Lumix had still been new and I hadn't figured out all the functions properly, yet (well, I still haven't); this image would have definitely benefited from the use of the HDR bracketing mode, but it simply hadn't been on my radar back then. So this image also was the ultimate test for the new DxO Photo Lab 4: an image with obvious flaws such as lots of noise and mushy details. DxO PL 4 has a new AI de-noising technology called "Deep Prime" (which only works with RAW files, so make sure to process the file in DxO first before you export it to LR). And I must say that I'm quite impressed. Since this image is obviously more about atmosphere than image quality I also added a subtle HDR look in HDR Efex (preset "End of the road" tweaked to my liking and blended in with the original file in PS at 79 % opacity); I like the soft glow and slightly painterly look HDR Efex added to it. I hope you like it, too, and that you can forgive the poor all-over image quality :)

And speaking of atmosphere: The photo board in the background displays original images from the Olympic Summer Games of 1936 – and the image on the far right is a portrait of Jesse Owens, the athlete who dominated the games of '36. This, the lifetime friendship he had built with German long jumper Luz Long (Long was fatally injured during WWII in 1943, but the Owens and Long families have stayed in contact to this day), and the fact Jesse Owens also was the undisputed crowd favourite, publicly reduced the ugly racist ideology of the Nazi regime to absurdity – alas, as we all know, only for those two summer weeks of 1936...

Happy Sliders Sunday, Everyone, have a safe and healthy new week ahead, dear Flickr friends, and take care!

Bevor es mit meiner losen Serie von Berliner Olympiastadion weitergeht, streue ich für den Sliders Sunday ein weiteres Foto vom Olympischen Dorf in Elstal ein. Da die (geführten) Touren dort leider eingestellt wurden (nicht etwa wegen der Corona-Situation, sondern weil mittlerweile die Bauarbeiten für die neue Wohnanlage "G.O.L.D. Gartenstadt Olympisches Dorf von 1936®" weiter fortgeschritten sind), war der Besuch dort (zusammen mit 3-day-beard / 3-tage-bart, bananahh, and magritknapp) tatsächlich eine einmalige fotografische Gelegenheit – und das bedeutet auch, dass ich mit den Fotos vorliebnehmen muss, die ich damals überwiegend mit meiner kleinen Lumix LX100 (und blöderweise ohne Stativ, weil ich dachte, ich dürfte keins mitbringen) gemacht habe.

Insbesondere diese Aufnahme hätte sicher von der Verwendung des HDR-Belichtungsreihen-Modus profitiert, aber da die Kamera damals noch recht neu war, hatte ich diese Feinheiten noch nicht auf dem Schirm gehabt. Das Resultat ist, insbesondere hier, sicher eindeutig mehr unter Atmosphäre denn unter Bildqualität einzuordnen. Eine Einzelaufnahme, bei der aufgrund der schwierigen Lichtverhältnisse in der Turnhalle des Olympischen Dorfes die dunklen Bereiche nach dem Aufhellen reichlich verrauscht sowie nur noch mit spärlichen Details versehen waren. Da konnte sich dann gleich mal das gerade erschienene DxO Photo Lab 4 beweisen. Und ich finde, das Resultat kann sich durchaus sehen lassen, wenn man ein Auge zudrückt ;) DxO hat das brandneue KI-Entrauschungstool "Deep Prime" an Bord, das tatsächlich mit zu dem Besten zählt, was es momentan in diesem Bereich gibt (wie z.B. Topaz DeNoise AI, das auch hervorragende Arbeit leistet, aber DxO legt hier noch einmal eine Schippe drauf). "Deep Prime" funktioniert übrigens nur mit den originalen RAW-Dateien, sodass man den Workflow entsprechend anpassen muss: Die (Vor-)Entwicklung in DxO muss der erste Schritt sein, erst danach kann man z.B. in LR oder anderen Programmen weitermachen.

Hier habe ich das Foto nach den grundlegenden Anpassungen nur noch in HDR Efex nachberabeitet, ausgehend vom Preset "Ende der Straße" (zu finden unter "Surreal"), das ich noch angepasst habe und anschließend mit dem Originalbild in PS mit 79 % Deckkraft überblendet habe. Also, wie gesagt, seid bitte bzgl. Bildqualität / Details / Schärfe dieses Mal nicht ganz so streng :)

Apropos Atmosphäre: Die Fotowand im Hintergrund zeigt Originalbilder der Spiele von 1936 – und ganz rechts seht Ihr ein Portrait von Jesse Owens, dem unangefochtenen Star der Spiele. Die sportliche Überlegenheit Jesse Owens', die Freundschaft mit dem deutschen Weitsprung-Star Luz Long (die übrigens bis heute von beiden Familien gepflegt wird, auch wenn Long bereits 1943 im Krieg tödlich verwundet wurde) sowie die Tatsache, dass Owens der absolute Publikumsliebling war, führten damals die hässliche Nazi-Rassentheorie öffentlich ad absurdum. Aber, wie wir alle wissen, leider nur während jener zwei Wochen im Sommer 1936...

Ich wünsche Euch einen guten Start in die neue Woche, passt auf Euch auf und bleibt gesund!

Unfortunately, such appeals are unlikely to persuade the belligerent Russian fascists to end the criminal war against Ukraine.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_fascism_(ideology) marjorie-wiki.de/wiki/Raschismus

Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. ~Carl Sagan

Street photography

Itapevi, SP, BRASIL - 2022

Every photographic image has a story behind it. If, as a document, it is an instrument of memory fixation and, in this sense, it shows us what the objects, the faces, the streets, the world were like, at the same time, as a representation, it makes us imagine the implicit secrets, the enigmas it hides, the unmanifest, the emotion and the ideology of the photographer.

Source: The Hiroshima clock: reflections on the dialogues and silences of images, by Boris Kossoy, 2005

Histórias secretas dos objetos e dos seres

Toda imagem fotográfica tem atrás de si uma história. Se, enquanto documento, ela é um instrumento de fixação da memória e, neste sentido, nos mostra como eram os objetos, os rostos, as ruas, o mundo, ao mesmo tempo, enquanto representação, ela nos faz imaginar os segredos implícitos, os enigmas que esconde, o não manifesto, a emoção e a ideologia do fotógrafo.

Fonte: O relógio de Hiroshima: reflexões sobre os diálogose silêncios das imagens, por Boris Kossoy, 2005

If your voice and your expressions are forbidden by the old ideology, then leave, walking away to start a new revolution, to start a new journey and let your voice to be heard!

Im Jahr 1860 verurteilte Abraham Lincoln die Sklaverei in den Vereinigten Staaten mit den Worten: "Wer anderen die Freiheit verweigert, verdient sie nicht für sich selbst."

Heute 164 Jahr später, muss diese Konsequenz auch für die völlig wahnsinnigen Despoten auf dem ganzen Erdball gelten, die mit ihren irren Ideologien oder auch mit ihrer falschen Interpretation von Religion, ihre Völker tyrannisieren und dabei Europa, bzw. die Welt in Brand stecken.

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln condemned slavery in the United States, saying, "He who denies freedom to others does not deserve it for himself."

Today, 164 years later, this consequence must also apply to the completely insane despots all over the world who, with their crazy ideologies or their false interpretation of religion, tyrannize their peoples and in the process set Europe and the world on fire.

I see a world filled with judgement and a lack of real love, for self and for others.

Most humans are totally lost in this crazy new ideology full of racism, division and hate for anyone who does not fit the narrative of the times..

It wasn't so long ago everyone was coming together as one race .There used to be a sense of spirituality and cohesion amongst human kind.

Now its just brain washed humans living in war and fear an abundance of it in fact, like a bad science fiction movie playing out right before our eyes .

I don't fear anything i just feel sad sometimes as though its all a dream and one day soon everyone will wake up and see what they are manifesting before its too late

am i wrong ? i love this world regardless i always will .. after all it is only what we choose to make it at the end of the day..

I choose love i always have .

THE POLAR BOYS - NOTHING HAS CHANGED

Nothing Has Changed

The Polar Boys

Nothing's quite the same

As it has been on those familiar days

I dream about an old familiar face

Then wake up and you're gone without a trace

And though you're away, nothing has changed

We always made it out

Even when I'm old and blue

I think about our time

Wandering the sleepless streets

Until there's nothing left to see

We tried our luck with regularity

And find what we were never meant to be

Grab me by the hand

With nothing but the i-rrogance of man

This dying type of ideology

Is more than we could ever really need

And though you're away, nothing has changed

We always made it out, 'cause

Even when I'm old and blue

I think about my time with you

No more of the same innocent ways

We always made it out, 'cause

Even when I'm old and blue

I think about my time with you

St. Vitus Cathedral is the main church of Prague. Situated on a hill Hradcany castle, it is the third church on this place (after the pre-Romanesque rotunda and Romanesque basilica), is the dominant feature of the historical and current panorama of the Czech capital.

Built in several phases, it was built over several centuries. Construction Began November 21, 1344 in the presence of King John of Luxembourg and his son Charles (future King Charles IV). The intention had rich ideological program. It is a shrine of the patron saints of the Czech Republic (Vitus, Wenceslas, Adalbert, Sigismund and John of Nepomuk). It is a historical church, coronation and burial of Czech kings. Over the so-called Golden Gate (adorned with a mosaic with a scene of the Last Judgment from the 14th century) are stored crown jewels of Czech kings and the crown of St. Wenceslas.

Works related to the construction of the cathedral finally completed in 1929.

-

Katedra Świętych Wita, Wacława i Wojciecha to główny kościół Pragi. Usytuowany jest na wzgórzu zamkowym Hradczany, jest trzecim kościołem na tym miejscu (po przedromańskiej rotundzie i romańskiej bazylice), stanowi dominantę historycznej i obecnej panoramy stolicy Czech.

Budowana w kilku fazach, była budowana przez kilka stuleci. Budowę rozpoczęto 21 listopada 1344 w obecności króla Jana Luksemburskiego i jego syna Karola (przyszłego króla Karola IV). Zamierzenie posiadało bogaty program ideowy. Jest to sanktuarium świętych patronów czeskich (Wita, Wacława, Wojciecha, Zygmunta oraz Jana Nepomucena). Jest historycznym kościołem grzebalnym i koronacyjnym królów czeskich, ponad tzw. Złotą Bramą (ozdobioną mozaiką ze sceną Sądu Ostatecznego z XIV w.) przechowywane są insygnia koronacyjne królów czeskich, w tym korona św. Wacława.

Prace związane z budową katedry ostatecznie ukończono w roku 1929.

Picture taken with a Canon T50, Kodak Gold 200

Palmyra, eine Oase in der syrischen Wüste nordöstlich von Damaskus, beherbergt monumentale Ruinen einer grossen Stadt, die eines der wichtigsten kulturellen Zentren der Antike war. Dort, wo mehrere Zivilisationen aufeinander trafen, verbanden sich vom 1. bis zum 2. Jahrhundert Kunst und Architektur griechisch-römischer Techniken mit lokalen Traditionen und persischen Einflüssen. Seit 1980 ist das Ruinengelände UNESCO-Weltkulturerbe. Im Bürgerkrieg nahm die Terrororganisation Islamischer Staat (IS), der aus ideologischen Gründen Kulturgut zerstört (Ikonophobie), im Mai 2015 Palmyra ein und sprengte in der Folgezeit bedeutende historische Bauwerke; zudem wurde die Stätte geplündert. Die UNESCO hat die Ruinenstadt auf die rote Liste des gefährdeten Welterbes gesetzt (whc.unesco.org/Wikipedia).

Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world. From the 1st to the 2nd century, the art and architecture of Palmyra, standing at the crossroads of several civilizations, married Graeco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences. Since 1980 the ruins have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. During the civil war the militant organization Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which destroys cultural assets for ideological reasons (iconophobia), took control of Palmyra in May 2015 and subsequently blew up important historical buildings; the site was also looted. UNESCO has placed it on the red list of endangered world heritage sites (whc.unesco.org/Wikipedia).

a wonderful friend sent it to me this morning ...

"Photographers' closest cousins are architects, as I have discovered through Lélia's studies. Like us, they navigate between fullness and emptiness, issues of light, line and movement, in the quest for consistency between their way of life, their ideology, their history. In the end, all of this is related. That is the magic of architecture, like photography."

Sebastião Salgado

ƒ/5.6 24.0 mm 1/80 6400

FV0A8689_pt2

Crail Parish Church is an ancient church building in Crail, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It is Category A listed, its oldest part dating to the 12th century. The walls and gravestones of its kirkyard are also Category A listed.

In its first form, the church building consisted of an unaisled rectangular nave and chancel of Romanesque design. In the early 13th century, a western tower with small spire was added, and a double arcade of round pillars of variegated red sandstone in the nave. It was in this form, in 1243, that the church was dedicated to St Maelrubha by the Bishop of St Andrews. The side walls were rebuilt in Regency times, and the large pointed windows, filled with panes of clear glass held by astragals, rather than leads, allow light to flood into the interior. The church retains some 17th-century woodwork. The early Christian cross-slab is on display in the church: it is of unusual form (perhaps 10th century), formerly set in the floor.

John Knox, visiting Crail on his way to St Andrews in 1559, was moved to deliver a sermon in the church. Afterwards, protesters went through the church and forcefully removed images which were put in place by previous generations but were now considered ideologically unsound.

view of sheep grazing in an enclosure in the Romantic Park in Arkadia

Arkadia (Polish pronunciation: [arˈkadja]) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Nieborów, within Łowicz County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It lies approximately 6 km east of Łowicz and 50 km north-east of the regional capital Łódź.

The village has an approximate population of 250. Arkadia is famous for its English Garden Park set up by Helena Radziwiłł in 1779 with the designers Szymon Bogumil Zug and Henryk Ittar.

In the 70s of the 18th century a new style in gardening called English style appeared in Poland. It originated at the beginning of the century in England and then was gradually spreading across the other European countries. The English style definitely opposed artificiality and regularity of baroque gardens. It promoted unrestricted and emotional compositions of sentimental or symbolic forms and architectural constructions referring to ancient and medieval works of arts as well as to the everyday life in the country, often also to the overseas exotic forms. The style had been transformed together with philosophic, ideological and esthetical changes of the epoch from sentimental forms to the vision of romantic garden.

Picture taken with a Canon T50, Kodak Gold 200

Palmyra, eine Oase in der syrischen Wüste nordöstlich von Damaskus, beherbergt monumentale Ruinen einer grossen Stadt, die eines der wichtigsten kulturellen Zentren der Antike war. Dort, wo mehrere Zivilisationen aufeinander trafen, verbanden sich vom 1. bis zum 2. Jahrhundert Kunst und Architektur griechisch-römischer Techniken mit lokalen Traditionen und persischen Einflüssen. Seit 1980 ist das Ruinengelände UNESCO-Weltkulturerbe. Im Bürgerkrieg nahm die Terrororganisation Islamischer Staat Islamischen (IS), der aus ideologischen Gründen Kulturgut zerstört (Ikonophobie), im Mai 2015 Palmyra ein und sprengte in der Folgezeit bedeutende historische Bauwerke; zudem wurde die Stätte geplündert. Die UNESCO hat die Ruinenstadt auf die rote Liste des gefährdeten Welterbes gesetzt (whc.unesco.org/Wikipedia).

Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world. From the 1st to the 2nd century, the art and architecture of Palmyra, standing at the crossroads of several civilizations, married Graeco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences. Since 1980 the ruins have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. During the civil war the militant organization Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which destroys cultural assets for ideological reasons (iconophobia), took control of Palmyra in May 2015 and subsequently blew up important historical buildings; the site was also looted. UNESCO has placed it on the red list of endangered world heritage sites (whc.unesco.org/Wikipedia).

Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu (柳沢吉保) was the No.1 favourite of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (徳川綱吉), the fifth Shougun (shogun). They were friends since childhood, and the Shougun often visited Rikugi'en to meet Yoshiyasu.

Tsunayoshi was an annoying idealist. He is remembered for issuing the Ordinance Prohibiting Cruelty against Living Creatures (生類憐みの令), which was an extreme animal protectionism based on Buddhist ideology of Nonkilling (Ahimsa).

He ordered to improve the treatment of prisoners and domesticated animals, in particular, dog, to impose the restriction on the use and possession of firearms, to discourage the use of leather, to ban falconry, hunting and angling, animal husbandry and aquaculture, keeping birds and fish as pet, training animals like dogs and monkeys to do tricks, etc.

Offenders were often exiled to Hachijoujima island, and some were even killed.

The ordinance had remained valid for 20 years until he died in 1709. The ordinance was lifted immediately after his death even before his funeral, which testifies how the people and government officials including his life-long friend Yoshiyasu felt about the ordinance.

It is a lesson of history for the Japanese, but I have an impression that the history is repeating itself on a global scale.

This path is clearly defined and quite simple to follow, yet most lose themselves in ideological fogs of their own making.

Lao Tzu (c.604 - 531 B.C.)

What happens when things get out of control! This started as a nice minimal bit of processing with the image in the first comment. Soon things began to escalate and before it could be stopped, 'Escalation" emerged. It only seemed fitting...

Happy Slider Sunday - HSS

Red Feathers 9/11 - Painful Memories by Daniel Arrhakis (2021)

With the music : Audiomachine - When It All Falls Down

Only unity, tolerance and cooperation among peoples will be able to overcome fear and mistrust through courage, knowledge and love.

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* For our Week Theme in Art Week Gallery Group - September 12 to September 18 :

Explored 15.03.2022

Look at his dishevelled hair, this ideologically blinkered gaze, and his semi-divine expression! This must be one of these Guardian Readers. For, when the gods want to know what goes really on, they read The Guardian!

Holocaust Memorial Berlin (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe).

www.stiftung-denkmal.de/memorials/memorial-to-the-murdere...

75 years ago - at the 8th May 1945 - the World War II ended in Europe with the surrender of Nazi Germany and the victory of the Allied Forces.

Peter Eisenmanns field of stelae reminds to the up to six million Jewish victims of racist Nazi ideology. The monument is located in the center of Berlin close to the government district.

One of my artworks from the Exhibition FRAGMENTS showed at our new Gallery THE EDGE.

The poem by Eli Medier makes it talk, ty Eli :)

"No more dreams

lead now I am

anchored to the ground

by gray children

of gray ideologies

of power and death

I live in a separate reality

spend my days

to count the days

I aspire to heaven

and sink into the abyss

Nothing more distinguishable

trapped now

in this semblance

deceptive of life

I float in hyperbolic spaces

negative geometries

the existence curve

on the infinite limit circle

I find a crack

and disperse in myriads

of subtle vibrations

Diaphanous strings

envelop me

in narrow universes

The heart dries up

with rigorous metrics

We are peripheral numbers

sobs of ancient gods

indifferent anthropophages

Inhuman tangential presences

mark the solitude

of incomprehensible absences

Forced into this garden

multitude of fools

we are in labels

of white coats

Imperfect mechanisms

aspirants to human

Our disease

is in a divine folder

an irrevocable judgment"

© Eli Medier

Thanks to our friends Inara and Oema for their kind attention :)

modemworld.me/2020/05/25/the-edge-a-new-home-in-second-life/

www.virtuality.blog/the---/

or challenge the ideology of a violet :-)

Hal Borland, "Spring Is for Laughter," 1954

HBW! Kindness Matters!

lilac daphne, j c raulston arboretum, ncsu raleigh, north carolina

© Leanne Boulton, All Rights Reserved

A Douglas DC-3 Dakota/C-47 Skytrain, with invasion stripes, sitting on the ramp at Prestwick Airport, Scotland, on a stopover for it's journey to the Daks Over Normandy commemoration in 2019.

79 years ago today Operation Overlord began with airborne troops from the US, Canada and the UK dropping behind enemy lines to secure vital infrastructure and destroy gun batteries. Their mission was vital in preparation for the pending beach landings.

Almost 160,000 troops would arrive in Normandy on D-Day and allied forces suffered at least 10,000 casualties in that first vital 24 hours.

Far right politics with nationalistic and fascist polices are rising in many countries around the world. Neo-Nazi groups are rising and brazenly waving swastika flags on the street. Minority groups are being abused, dehumanised, attacked and legislated against. Freedoms and rights to protest are being eroded. Freedoms of association and trade union powers are being eroded. LGBT communities are being scapegoated and the disabled are being dehumanised by mainstream media, and in politics. Germany in the 1930s was not dissimilar, have we learned nothing?

Millions died in sacrifice to fight the enemies of humanity and their fascist ideologies. Ideologies that saw the mass murder of millions of innocent people simply for being gay, trans, disabled, artists, writers, socialists, Jewish, Roma, Slavic.

Minorities that were scapegoated and dehumanised in order to facilitate their genocide.

Wake up. Remember. Learn. We must push back against the scapegoating and dehumanisation of minority groups by our press and politics.

We must not let the sacrifice of a generation and more be in vain.

They fought for a free and democratic world. That freedom and democracy is under threat.

Lest we forget...

First they came...

Buzludzha is a communist monument - build in Bulgaria in the 70s and abbandoned in 1989

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzludzha