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vandyke print done during a nice and instructive afternoon with vernon trent
shot with rolleiflex 2.8e on trix @200
printed with moersch vandyke emulsion on hahnemühle quattro
go and book a workshop with vernon at pirmasenser fototage here
not the best twofer shot but instructive as a size XREF, aptly demonstrating how much bigger a Canvasback is & reads as compared with / than RNDU etc
Left to Right
Canvasback CANV (Aythya valisineria)
Male
Female
Bufflehead BUFF (Bucephala albeola)
& 2 female type plumage
Ring-necked Duck RNDU (Aythya collaris)
McBig Reservoir. :: Private Access
E of Garcia’s Nursery
Martindale Flats
Greater Victoria
ebird.org/view/checklist/S49553362
Distant but diagnostic
head shapes and body colours for the 2 on the right
cropped pix
just a tie-in on duck ID diagnosis
Canvasback Bufflehead and 2 Female RNDU
Chance More Satisfaction, you will LARGE.
_________________
"Is it for God that you speak falsehood?
Is it for Him that you utter deceit?
Is it for Him that you show partiality?
Do you play advocate on behalf of God?
Will it be well when he shall search you out?
Would you impose on Him as one does on men?
He will openly rebuke you if even in secret you show partiality.
Surely will His majesty affright you and the dread of Him fall upon you."
Job 13:7-11
__________
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/simone_weil.html
Simone Weil, French Philosopher Quotes
Birth: Feb. 3, 1909 and Aug. 24, 1943 Died
Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison.
Nothing is less instructive than a machine.
today our first photoshoot outdoor with 3 (!) very atractive ladies at 6 AM, and i must tell
you, this was quite an experience but most of all very instructively and entertaining ;-)
Pietro Perugino
Christ handing the keys to Saint Peter [1481-82]
Vatican, Sistine Chapel, North wall
*********************************************************************
Description
The scene, part of the series of the Stories of Jesus on the chapel's northern wall, is a reference to Matthew 16[2] in which Jesus says he will give "the keys of the kingdom of heaven" to Saint Peter.[3] These keys represent the power to forgive and to share the word of God thereby giving them the power to allow others into heaven. The main figures are organized in a frieze in two tightly compressed rows close to the surface of the picture and well below the horizon.[4] The principal group, showing Christ handing the silver and gold keys to the kneeling St. Peter, is surrounded by the other Apostles, including Judas (fifth figure to the left of Christ), all with halos, together with portraits of contemporaries, including one said to be a self-portrait (fifth from the right edge). The flat, open square is divided by coloured stones into large foreshortened rectangles. In the center of the background is a temple resembling the ideal church of Leon Battista Alberti's On architecture; on either side are triumphal arches with inscriptions aligning Sixtus IV to Solomon, recalling the latter's porticoed temple.[5] Scattered in the middle distance are two scenes from the life of Christ, including the Tribute Money on the left and the stoning of Christ on the right.[5]
Detail of the central building
The style of the figures is inspired by Andrea del Verrocchio.[6] The active drapery, with its massive complexity, and the figures, particularly several apostles, including St. John the Evangelist, with beautiful features, long flowing hair, elegant demeanour, and refinement recall St Thomas from Verrocchio's bronze group in Orsanmichele. The poses of the actors fall into a small number of basic attitudes that are consistently repeated, usually in reverse from one side to the other, signifying the use of the same cartoon. They are graceful and elegant figures who tend to stand firmly on the earth. Their heads are smallish in proportion to the rest of their bodies, and their features are delicately distilled with considerable attention to minor detail.
The octagonal temple of Jerusalem and its porches that dominates the central axis must have had behind it a project created by an architect, but Perugino's treatment is like the rendering of a wooden model, painted with exactitude. The building with its arches serves as a backdrop in front of which the action unfolds. Perugino has made a significant contribution in rendering the landscape. The sense of an infinite world that stretches across the horizon is stronger than in almost any other work of his contemporaries, and the feathery trees against the cloud-filled sky with the bluish-gray hills in the distance represent a solution that later painters would find instructive, especially Raphael.
The building in the center is similar to that in Marriage of the Virgin by Perugino, as well as that painted by Perugino's pupil Pinturicchio in his Stories of St. Bernardino in the Bufalini Chapel of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.
Source:
Seen while exploring the farming landscape of the Gila River Valley east of Yuma on the final day of a 1600-mile drive from Renton to Maricopa. It was a pleasant and instructive diversion from Interstate 8.
Op 9 juli 2011 was er een open dag in de bijenstal van Bijenhoudersgilde St. Ambrosius in het Brabantse dorp Made. Het is al sinds 9 november 1714 (!) een echt gilde.
Het was heel interessant en leerzaam om alle kennis over 'de bloemetjes en de bijtjes' weer eens op te halen en uit te breiden. Wist je bijvoorbeeld dat werkbijen maar een werkzame periode hebben van drie weken? Daarna sterven ze, uitgeput als ze dan zijn van het verzamelen en transporteren van de honing...
On July 9, 2011, there was an open day at the apiary Beekeepers Guild of St. Ambrose (since November 9, 1714 a real guild) in the Dutch village of Made.
It was very interesting and instructive to pick up and expand my know how about 'the flowers and the bees'. Did you know that worker bees have only an active period of three weeks? Then they die, exhausted as they are due to collecting and transporting the honey...
© All of my photos are unconditional copyrighted unless explicitly stated otherwise. Therefore it is legally forbidden to use my pictures on websites, in commercial and/or editorial prints or in other media without my explicit permission.
Some of my photos are sold at reasonable prices through various stock photo agencies.
For example look here for my images on Nationale Beeldbank (Dutch language):
For the presentation of a landscape that is uniquely distinguishable for its absence of geographical topography, as well as its uniquely indulgent color palette, perhaps it is most fitting to end on the structure that ranks at the top of the artificial topography of Forbidden City and is matchless in its unsparingly applied ornament and filigree: the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Every other building in the landscape is a derivative of the design vernacular put forth in this hall; from the symbolism of the balustrade parts usage, to necessarily overcoming my aversion to cut-to-fit flex tubes as visual elements, and the use of countless organic-inspired elements. Just as well, the color selection played a critical role in imbuing the piece with a sense of vitality and timelessness; with dark red and bright light orange helping to convey the strict hierarchy of the imperial architecture, and my heretofore unprecedented and liberal use of bright blues, saturated greens, and glistering gold giving the piece a life of its own among my body of work. Finally, and probably most instructive to myself and perhaps others during this time of uncertainty, are a particular few words of a famous proverb by Laozi which kept me looking forward during this four-month undertaking:
“千里之行, 始於足下”
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Abraxas or Abrasax (Gnostic, from Greek Αβραξας) From the Theosophical Glossary: "A mystical term used by the Gnostics to indicate the supreme entity of our cosmic hierarchy or its manifestation in the human being they called the Christos. Abraxas has the value of 365, based on numerical equivalents in the Greek alphabet. Since 365 represents the cycle of one revolution of our planet around the sun, they argued that Abraxas mystically contained the total number of families of entities making up a hierarchy. Illuminator, Abraxas, the streams of life and inspiration that govern their existence, Abraxas is therefore the supreme cosmic soul, Brahma, the Creator or Third Logos. The Basilidian Gnostics [see: Basilides] taught that from this supreme God was created noûs (mind). Abraxas was also identified with the Hebrew Adonai, the Egyptian Horus and the Hindu Prajapati. The Gnostic amulets known as the Abraxas gems described the god as a pantheos (all-god), with the head of a rooster, herald of the sun, representing foresight and vigilance; a human body clad in armor evoking a guardian power; legs in the form of sacred asps. In his right hand is a flail, emblem of authority; on his left arm, a shield decorated with a word of power. This pantheos invariably bears its proper name, IAO, and its epithets Abraxas and Sabaoth, and is often accompanied by invocations such as SEMES EILAM, the eternal sun (The Gnostics and Their Remnants 246), whom Blavatsky equates with the "central spiritual sun" of the Qabbalists (SD 2: 214). Although written in Greek characters, the words SEMES EILAM ABRASAX are probably of Semitic origin: shemesh sun; `olam secret, occult, hidden, eternity, world; Abrasax Abraxas. Therefore, in combination, the phrase can be rendered "the eternal sun Abraxax".
gnosticpublishing.org/apprendre/glossaire/glossaire-a/abr...
C. G. Jung possessed an intense and sympathetic interest in the early alternative Christian tradition now known as Gnosticism. Both in his published writings and in his private reminiscences one finds frequent and insightful comments about Gnostic tradition, although during much of Jung’s life the subject of Gnosticism was virtually unknown to all but a few scholars of religion.
One of the key documents bearing early testimony to Jung’s vital Gnostic interest was his finely designed book, Septem Sermones ad Mortuos—“Seven Sermons to the Dead.” Jung had the work privately printed in 1916 and over subsequent decades gave copies of it to a select number of friends and associates. With Jung’s approval, H. G. Baynes translated the text of the Sermons into English and this edition was privately printed in 1925. Again, Jung distributed the English edition only to persons whom he felt to be properly prepared for its message.
What remained generally unknown was that around 1917 Jung also transcribed a much-expanded version of the Septem Sermones into the third and final portion of his draft manuscript of Liber Novus, the section entitled “Scrutinies.” There the Sermons appear as the summary revelation of Liber Novus. Jung never publicly revealed the existence of this longer form of the Sermons, and until the publication in 2009 of Liber Novus: The Red Book this version of the Sermons remained entirely inaccessible.
Those who were fortunate enough to become acquainted with Septem Sermones ad Mortuos usually found it intriguing, but they were often somewhat puzzled by its contents. Authorship of the book was attributed not to Jung, but to a historical Gnostic teacher named Basilides. And its place of composition was stated to be “Alexandria, the city where East and West meet.” Over ensuing years, those who had read the book sometimes referred to it as Jung’s Gnostic revelation. But of course, during Jung’s life few people knew much about Gnosticism, nor understood what really made this little book “Gnostic.” Nonetheless, following the publication of Liber Novus, it has become evident that the Sermons are indeed the revelation of C. G. Jung’s Gnostic myth. The Sermons might even be seen as the heart of his New Book—The Red Book: Liber Novus.
Since Jung’s death in 1961, a great deal more information regarding Gnosticism has become available, and it has become a subject of wide popular and academic interest. A major impetus to this awakened attention was the publication in 1977 of the Nag Hammadi library of Gnostic scriptures, the most extensive collection of original writings of the ancient Gnostics discovered thus far. The Nag Hammadi texts have shed new light on many details of the Gnostic mythos that were previously obscure. They also help place Jung’s Gnostic tract into a broader context.
The Septem Sermones ad Mortuos has proved over past years to be a difficult book to categorize. Some writers have termed it a “cosmology,” but that remains an inadequate formulation. The document might perhaps more accurately be termed a “psycho-cosmology.” Since Gnostic scriptures typically approached their psycho-spiritual themes in the form of myths, one might propose that the Septem Sermones exemplify the contemporary formulation of a Gnostic myth. Though Jung's text is not identical with any pre-existing Gnostic myth, it is nonetheless related in form to many ancient Gnostic texts that have come to light over the last century.
The Gnostic themes in the Septem Sermones are further amplified by another document created by Jung during the period in which he recorded the Sermons. In early 1916 Jung constructed a detailed and artistically impressive image—or mandala—that diagrammatically represented many of the elements discussed subsequently in the Sermons. He titled it Systema Munditotius, “the system of the entire world.” Jung did not include this image among the many illustrations within his Red Book. Much later in life he did, however, allow it to be published—it appeared in a 1955 issue of the German periodical Du that was dedicated to the Eranos conferences (Jung did not, however, allow his name to be given explicitly as the image’s creator). The illustration was subsequently included as a full-page plate in C. G. Jung: Word and Image. The Systema Munditotius is now reproduced beautifully in The Red Book: Liber Novus, where it appears in Appendix A. The amplified text of the Sermons present in Liber Novus and the diagram of Systema Munditotius together provide a foundation for the following discussion.
Statements substantiating Jung’s affinity with Gnostic tradition run throughout his published writings. Jung held the view that during much of the history of Western culture the reality of the psyche and its role in the transformation of the human being had received scant recognition. In contrast, the Gnostics of old and their later covert progeny—which in Jung’s view included the alchemists and other alternative spiritual movements—affirmed the revelatory importance of the psyche. Jung plainly stated: “For the Gnostics—and this is their real secret—the psyche existed as a source of knowledge.” In response to the recurrent question of whether or not Jung was a Gnostic, one must reply: “Certainly he was, for ‘Gnostic’ means ‘knower,’ and by his own statements Jung was one who knew.” The visions, myths, and metaphors of the Gnostics confirmed Jung’s own experiences recorded in Liber Novus, and this circumstance created a bond that joined him with Gnostics of all ages and places.
Myth of the Demiurge
The myth of the demiurge originated with Plato. In his Timaeus, Plato postulated the existence of a creator deity or “demiurge” who fashioned the material universe. The term demiurge is derived from the Greek word meaning “craftsman.” Although a craftsman and fashioner, it must be understood that the demiurge was not identical with the monotheistic creator figure; the demiurge and the material from which the demiurge fashioned the universe were both secondary consequences of another primary factor. The demiurge is thus an intermediate architect, not a supreme source.
In ancient times, Plato was regarded as the paragon of all wisdom, and his model of a demiurge or cosmic fashioner was further elaborated and adapted within many subsequent schools of thought, including in the myths of the Gnostics. Gnostics envisioned the demiurge as a subordinate supernatural power that was not identical with the true, ultimate, and transcendent godhead. The presence of a myth about this demiurge became a signal characteristic of Gnostic systems. Taking note of the sometimes distasteful character and conduct of the Old Testament deity, Gnostics frequently identified the latter as the demiurge—a being that was not evil, but still of questionable moral stature and limited wisdom.
It has long been apparent to some students of Jung that in Answer to Job he characterized the divine tyrant who tormented Job as a classic Gnostic demiurge. This divinity, as described by Jung, was a being who lacked wisdom due to having lost or forgotten his feminine side—his Sophia (“wisdom”). Notwithstanding this and other evidence, some readers of Jung previously argued that his mythos in the Septem Sermones did not include the controversial Gnostic figure of the demiurge, and therefore it should not be properly called Gnostic. Publication of the Red Book: Liber Novus now makes it abundantly clear that the demiurge is present in Jung’s myth. Indeed, Answer to Job is unmistakably a reformulation of the Gnostic myth disclosed to Jung in Liber Novus and within the Septem Sermones.
Prior to the availability of the expanded version of the Sermons found in Liber Novus, the figure of Abraxas—as portrayed in the published 1916 edition of the Sermons—remained ambiguous. In my book, The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, first published in 1982, I offered an initial commentary on the locus of Abraxas in Jung’s myth. With the long-sequestered text of Liber Novus finally available, I now wish to amend and expand those prior comments composed nearly four decades ago. Based on documentation in Liber Novus, the figure Jung identified as “Abraxas” has finally and indisputably been divulged as a classic Gnostic demiurge.
The mysterious being called “Abraxas” first appears in Septem Sermones in the latter part of the Second Sermon; passages describing him continue throughout the Third Sermon and into the Fourth Sermon. Initially, he is there characterized as “a god about whom you know nothing, because men have forgotten him.” This statement can certainly be taken to apply to an intermediate deity, as is ubiquitous in a large number of Gnostic scriptures.
For some two thousand years Western and Middle Eastern cultures have been dominated by the monotheistic god-image familiar to us today. Prior to the first several centuries of the current era, however, many Mediterranean cultures accommodated religions of a pluralistic nature wherein the image of an ultimate, impersonal divine reality coexisted with a number of lesser or intermediate deities. In such ancient pluralistic systems, the image of a materially powerful but morally and spiritually impaired demiurge often played an important role.
Scholars now widely affirm that the incipient Christian religion harbored various alternative forms; those movements in early Christianity that included a myth of the demiurge are usually categorized collectively as “Gnostic.” While the name Abraxas does occur in a few ancient Gnostic texts (where he is usually identified as a great archon), no evidence exists that the demiurge of classical Gnosticism was specifically called Abraxas. Jung’s assignation of the ancient name Abraxas to the demiurge was thus his own imaginative appropriation.
Abraxas and the Demiurge
So, was Abraxas the demiurge in Jung’s myth? Jung’s Black Book journal entry dated January 16, 1916, and reproduced as Appendix C in Liber Novus, removes all question about this issue: Abraxas was the demiurge in Jung’s myth. As Dr. Lance Owens has previously noted, this journal entry—written around the same time Jung sketched the Systema Munidtotius, and about two weeks before he scribed his initial journal version of the Septem Sermones—records the following words spoken to Jung by the Soul, who assumed the voice of the Gnostic Sophia. Her address to Jung is inarguably a rendition of the primal Gnostic myth of the demiurge, here named Abraxas:
You should worship only one God. The other Gods are unimportant. Abraxas is to be feared. Therefore it was a deliverance when he separated himself from me.
Note that the separation of the demiurge from Sophia—“when he separated himself from me”—is a key element of the classic Gnostic myth of Sophia and the Demiurge. She then exhorts,
You do not need to seek him. He will find you, just like Eros. He is the God of the cosmos, extremely powerful and fearful. He is the creative drive, he is form and formation, just as much as matter and force, therefore he is above all the light and dark Gods. He tears away souls and casts them into procreation. He is the creative and created. He is the God who always renews himself in days, in months, in years, in human life, in ages, in peoples, in the living, in heavenly bodies. He compels, he is unsparing. If you worship him, you increase his power over you. Thereby it becomes unbearable. You will have dreadful trouble getting clear of him. … So remember him, do not worship him, but also do not imagine that you can flee him since he is all around you. You must be in the middle of life, surrounded by death on all sides. Stretched out, like one crucified, you hang in him, the fearful, the overpowering.
This journal entry unambiguously identifies the figure of Abraxas, who a few weeks thereafter appeared in Jung’s initial journal version of the Sermons, as the demiurge of classical Gnostic mythology. The identification of Abraxas with the demiurge is further established in the draft manuscript of Liber Novus, where in several passages Jung substituted the term “ruler of this world” for the name “Abraxas” that was originally recorded in his Black Book journal.
At its beginning, Jung’s Gnostic theogony in the Sermons describes an ultimate, utterly transcendental source called the Pleroma, and then a number of intermediate deities, including God-the-Sun, the Devil, Eros, and The Tree of Life. In addition to these figures, the entire Third Sermon is devoted to introducing the demiurgic figure of Abraxas. In the Fourth Sermon Jung summarizes:
Immeasurable, like the host of stars, is the number of gods and devils. Every star is a god, and every space occupied by a star is a devil. And the emptiness of the whole is the Pleroma. The activity of the whole is Abraxas; only the unreal opposes him.
The version of the Sermons included in Liber Novus contains several crucially important additions to the original text that was printed in 1916. In this expanded 1917 manuscript version, Philemon is identified as the speaker presenting the Sermons to the dead (Basilides was the speaker of the Sermons in the printed version). The text incorporates questions that Jung asks Philemon about each sermon, along with Philemon’s answers. Philemon also adds extended homiletic commentary upon the content of his sermons. All of this additional material enriches and further explicates the meaning of the Sermons.
After the First Sermon, Jung’s initial question addressed to Philemon voices concern that the teachings in the Sermons might be regarded as “reprehensible heresy.” (This query bears the characteristic of a rhetorical question.) Philemon replies that the audience to whom the Sermons are addressed—“the dead”—are Christians whose now-abandoned faith long ago declared these teachings to be heresies. This commentary might be interpreted to further imply that a large number of people in our culture are now abandoning their traditional religion and are thus prepared to listen to ancient heresies, wherein they may find answers to their own portentous questions. Philemon’s statement is clear and to the point:
Why do I impart this teaching of the ancients? I teach in this way because their Christian faith once discarded and persecuted precisely this teaching. But they repudiated Christian belief and hence were rejected by that faith. They do not know this and therefore I must teach them…
Philemon’s words are eminently applicable to the problem of religion in contemporary Western culture. Religion in much of Europe has reached an unprecedented low point in its history, and allegiance to the Christian tradition in the U.S.A. appears to be diminishing. Jung frequently pointed out that the god image in a religion and culture is of crucial importance to the well-being of the collective psyche, and therefore also to the well-being of the individual. A major factor inducing the decline of the Christian religion in the West is unquestionably the disappointment people have come to feel with the traditional monotheistic god.
Prophecy of a New Age and a New God Image
Jung’s epochal Liber Novus is, in the consensus view of informed readers, a book of prophecy. On the initial folio of Liber Novus Jung presents an image of a complex landscape surmounted by a zodiac and showing forth the aeonial passage of the sun from the sign of Pisces into that of Aquarius. This image points forward to his title, The Way of What is to Come. The reader then encounters several prophetic quotations from the writings of the prophet Isaiah, and from the prologue to the Gospel of John. Jung’s Liber Novus thus sets the stage for disclosure of its new prophecy.
Throughout both Liber Primus and Liber Secundus of Liber Novus we find recurring references to the coming of the new age of Aquarius. In an impressive section that Jung titled “The Three Prophecies,” his Soul reveals to him three periods in the forthcoming age: War, Magic, and Religion. In commentary on this vision, Jung wrote,
These three mean the unleashing of chaos and its power, just as they also mean the binding of chaos. War is obvious and everybody sees it. Magic is dark and no one sees it. Religion is still to come, but it will become evident. … I felt the burden of the most terrible work of the times ahead. I saw where and how, but no word can grasp it, no will can conquer it. … But I saw it and my memory will not leave me alone.
Examining the numerous prophetic passages in Liber Novus, it becomes clear that at the heart of Jung’s experience there abides a vision of the formation of a new god image. But what indications did Jung give regarding the nature of this new god image and, moreover, how may contemporary persons facilitate the arising of a new god image in their own natures and in the new religion that is to come?
Liber Novus offers several statements that refer to the coming god image. The tone is set in the early part of Liber Primus; Jung there recounts several visions that he experienced which foretold of the time when “the great war broke out between the peoples of Europe.” He then declares,
Within us is the way, the truth, and the life. … The signposts have fallen, unblazed trails lie before us. Do not be greedy to gobble up the fruits of foreign fields. Do you not know that you yourselves are the fertile acre which bears everything that avails you?
It is clear from the beginning of Jung’s mysterious prophetic book that the future god image is none other than the divine essential Selfhood indwelling in the human soul. Here, again, we must turn to the expanded version of the Sermons for a clarifying commentary. At the conclusion of the First Sermon, Philemon instructs his audience to strive for what he calls their essences. He continues,
At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely the striving for one's own essence. If you had this striving, you would not need to know anything about the Pleroma and its qualities, and yet you would attain the right goal by virtue of your own essence. Since, however, thought alienates us from our essence, I must teach you that knowledge with which you can bridle your thoughts.
Many Gnostic writings explicitly state that the essence of the human is the fragment of the ultimate reality residing at the center of its being. When it is possible for the human to gain access to this essence, all other religious or spiritual endeavors are redundant. It is largely the fault of the demiurge—or so Jung’s old friends, the Gnostics, believed—that this access is so fraught with difficulty. In the Sermons, Jung’s spirit mentor Philemon offers advice regarding the judicious way in which humans may free themselves from the yoke of the demiurge. Unlike some of the more radical Gnostics of old, Philemon advises us to neither flee from the demiurge Abraxas, nor to seek him. In one passage in the Sermons, Philemon says about Abraxas, “to resist him not is liberation.”
The Gnostic demiurge, by whatever name he may be called, is omnipresent in the outer world. While humans are in terrestrial embodiment they must both accept the demiurge’s presence, and equally endeavor to counterbalance his influence by contacting their own indwelling essence. This indwelling essence is described in the Seventh Sermon as the “solitary star” in the heavens. This statement is supplemented by the revelation Jung recorded in his Black Book journal on January 16, 1916, wherein his Soul admonished him:
You have in you the one God, the wonderfully beautiful and kind, the solitary, starlike, unmoving, he who is older and wiser than the father, he who has a safe hand, who leads you among all the darknesses and death scares of dreadful Abraxas. He gives joy and peace, since he is beyond death and beyond what is subject to change. He is no servant and no friend of Abraxas.
What then is the principal deficiency in the god of the old Aeon, the god who is to be overcome? Employing the nomenclature of the Sermons and other statements by Jung, we might say that the god of the monotheistic religions is a compound in which the ultimate god (called the Pleroma in the Septem Sermones) is unconsciously combined with the demiurge, named by Jung as Abraxas.
Based on the numerous paradoxical and even downright evil deeds and utterances of the Old Testament deity, and the fact that this deity was carried forward into orthodox Christianity, one is tempted to conclude (as Jung did in Answer to Job) that the Judeo-Christian god is at best a being who embodies both arrogance and unconsciousness. It seems quite impossible to believe that this god is both almighty and good—for his goodness would thus have to be combined with impotence, or alternatively, his omnipotence would be joined to his absence of goodness. A considerable portion of humanity has thus reached the point where it can no longer endure the unconscious tension embodied by a blind belief in an utterly enigmatic and derisory god image. This circumstance is causing an unprecedented upsurge of atheism and secularism in Western culture.
Throughout the twentieth century humanity has experienced a multitude of terrible events; these have undermined many people’s ability to have faith in a benevolent god. The medieval brutality of modern-day terrorists motivated by commitment to a monotheistic god has only reinforced the rejection of such traditional god images in secular society. Our age cries out for a new understanding of divinity, and a new god image. This was Jung’s prophesy in Liber Novus. As he also noted, this development may take centuries. Until a new god image constellates, we will pass through an epoch of chaos and violence.
When Christendom cast out the salvific myth of Gnosis in favor of an unimaginative literalism, it became spiritually impoverished. Our impoverishment has now reached its terminus. We await the formation of our new myth—a myth that rediscovers the primordial images and myth of Gnosis. As Jung declared,
I hope the reader will not be offended if my exposition sounds like a Gnostic myth. We are moving in those psychological regions where, as a matter of fact, Gnosis is rooted. The message of the Christian symbol is Gnosis, and the [response to it] by the unconscious is Gnosis in even higher degree. Myth is the primordial language natural to these psychic processes, and no intellectual formulation comes anywhere near the richness and expressiveness of mythical imagery. Such processes are concerned with the primordial images, and these are best and most succinctly reproduced by figurative language.
The Self, the Demiurge, and the New God Image
The issue of the coming god image has captured the attention of several of Jung's students in recent decades. Edward Edinger made perhaps the most complete statement concerning Jung’s declaration in his pioneering book, The New God-Image. As Edinger noted, Jung avowed an ancient and esoteric image of a deific consciousness dwelling in the soul. This affirmation is present in Liber Novus, and is restated in various ways throughout all of Jung’s subsequent writings. In Liber Novus Jung offered a startling prophecy: the long neglected indwelling god image would eventually become the orienting god image of the future. On the first page of Liber Novus he made it plain that this prediction was coordinated with the synchronous passing of the world from the astrological age of Pisces into that of Aquarius.
It is now evident that the essential foundation of Jung’s science and psychological language reposed in his long-concealed Liber Novus. A key revelation present within Liber Novus that later emerged as a core affirmation in his psychology—and as a spiritual and archetypal declaration—was the assertion of the presence within the human psyche of a central archetype, around which other archetypes constellate. He called this central principle or archetype the “Self.” In Psychology and Alchemy—published in 1944, and based on lectures given in 1935—Jung stated:
I have found myself obliged to give [this] archetype the psychological name of the “self”—a term on the one hand definite enough to convey the essence of human wholeness and on the other hand indefinite enough to express the indescribable and indeterminable nature of this wholeness. … Hence in its scientific usage the term “self” refers neither to Christ nor to the Buddha but to the totality of the figures that are its equivalent, and each of these figures is a symbol of the self. This mode of expression is an intellectual necessity in scientific psychology and in no sense denotes a transcendental prejudice. On the contrary … this objective attitude enables one man to decide in favour of the determinant Christ, another in favour of the Buddha, and so on.
While the existence of a divine image internal to the psyche, termed by Jung the “Self,” is widely accepted among followers of Jung, the opposing archetype of the demiurge is far less known. Jung claimed that at the heart of early Christianity there existed the insight of Gnosis; he himself had met this Gnosis in the experiences recorded in his Black Book journals, and thence in Liber Novus and in the Septem Sermones. An essential part of the archetypal mythos of Gnosis is the presence of a duality both inwardly in the soul, and outwardly in the cosmos. This duality is composed of a divine spark within the deepest recesses of the soul, and of an outer demiurgic power. Self and Demiurge stand in opposition.
This symbolic opposition is illustrated clearly in Jung’s 1916 mandala, Systema Munditotius. At the lowest point of the circular mandala, seated on the exterior circle, is a being with the lower body of a large serpent, surmounted by a light-colored torso, and topped by the golden head of a lion crowned with a ten-rayed golden halo. On the opposite pole of the mandala, at the apex of the design, we find a winged egg within which stands the figure of the child-god Phanes. The serpent-lion is described as abraxas dominus mundi (Abraxas, Lord of the World). This powerful demiurge dominates the lower creation, while the child-god Phanes above is about to attain to his full stature. The undifferentiated, primitive god-image is about to be replaced by the still developing child-god of promise.
The Systema Munditotius is further populated by images of archetypal beings that arrange themselves in pairs of opposites on the poles of the mandala. These include deus sol (god the sun) and deus luna satanus (god the moon, Satan). We also find paired a winged rodent identified as scientia (science), and a winged worm named ars (art). Despite the abundance of these symbolic images—many of which later appear as figures in the text of the Septem Sermones—the two principal focal points of the diagram are clearly Abraxas and Phanes.
A picture compensates for many words and Jung’s images here illuminate the nature and role of the archetypes depicted, particularly of the primordial demiurge Abraxas, and of Phanes, the new god-image awaiting birth. Of course, in conjunction with this image, the verbal descriptions of Abraxas in the Septem Sermones are also instructive:
Abraxas is the god whom it is difficult to know. His power is the very greatest, because man does not perceive it at all. He is magnificent even as the lion at the very moment when he strikes his prey down. His beauty is like the beauty of a spring morn.
To see him means blindness; To know him is sickness; To worship him is death; To fear him is wisdom; Not to resist him means liberation … Such is the terrible Abraxas … He is both the radiance and the dark shadow of man. He is deceitful reality.
As Jung noted in the Second Sermon, people know nothing about the demiurge because they have forgotten him. This forgetting was aided by the self-declared architects of the early Christian centuries: the heresiologist Church Fathers of orthodoxy. The very thought of a demiurge thereafter became a heretical abomination to orthodox Christendom. Jung’s insights recorded in the Liber Novus, and particularly in the Sermons, declared that in order to move toward greater wholeness we must look to the coming new god image. But to do this, we need also recognize the forgotten demiurge, the god whom Jung declared “difficult to know.”
Present-day humanity is gradually becoming aware of an inner psychic reality, a centering fact Jung identified as the salvific archetype of the Self. In Liber Novus he prophetically proclaimed that a new god image is developing in humanity—and perhaps a new god image has already awakened in some individuals of our age, as it did in Jung. This incipient aeonial development demands further conscious awareness and a conscious union of the opposites. Using the language of Liber Novus and the Systema Munditotius, we might proclaim that Phanes is now stirring and is about to break out of the egg. For this to happen, however, human beings must also consciously recognize the reality of his opposite entity, the demiurge Abraxas.
Western culture has suffered too long from a ruinous one-sidedness. A powerful element in this one-sided perspective is a militant unwillingness to acknowledge the effective reality of the demiurge. With singular symbolic insight, the ancient Gnostics noted how the human spirit is confined on earth by a prison constructed of perplexing opposites. A demiurgic reality has placed us behind these prison bars, which alternatingly assume form in the inexorable struggle of light and dark, good and evil, or wise and unwise components. Denying the reality of this fact merely continues our confinement.
Our extraverted immersion in the world, both in its natural and cultural aspects, perpetuates servitude to the forgotten Abraxas. His fiery, mesmerizing, and infinitely creative powers enthrall us. We worship the terrible Abraxas in the baleful political ideologies of our epoch. Ever increasingly, he holds us captive in the magically scintillating web of modern technology. Only an increase of psychological awareness, leading to the individuation of our psyches, offers a path to liberation from the domination of the internal complexes and external fascinations that are the essence of Abraxas. It is incumbent upon us to accept the reality of this archetypal force, for in the words of the Sermons, “to worship him is death; to fear him is wisdom, not to resist him means liberation.”
The time has come when we must incorporate Jung’s epochal insights into our lives. The teachings of Liber Novus must be met as a form of spiritual discipline. A few months before his death in 1960, Jung wrote to an acquaintance,
I was unable to make the people see what I am after. I am practically alone. There are a few who understand this and that, but almost nobody sees the whole... I have failed in my foremost task: to open people’s eyes to the fact that man has a soul and there is a buried treasure in the field and that our religion and philosophy are in a lamentable state.
Today, after the publication of his monumental spiritual classic, Liber Novus, we may be able to finally reply to Jung that he has not failed at all; that inspired now by his visionary message, we too are ready “to give birth to the ancient in a new time.” In some mysterious archetypal locale, the sage Dr. C. G. Jung awaits such a response to his great work.
gnosis.org/gnostic-jung/Abraxas-Jungs-Demiurge.html
Abraxas by Samael Aun Weor
Abraxasor Abrasax (Gnostic, from the Greek Αβραξας) From The Theosophical Glossary: "Mystical term used by the Gnostics to indicate the supreme entity of our cosmic hierarchy or its manifestation in the human being which they called the Christos. Abraxas has the value of 365, based on numerical equivalents of the Greek alphabet. Because 365 represents the cycle of one revolution of our planet around the sun, they held that in Abraxas were mystically contained the full number of families of entities composing a hierarchy. These entities received from their supreme illuminator, Abraxas, the streams of life and inspiration governing their existence. Thus in a sense Abraxas is the cosmic Oversoul, the creative or Third Logos, Brahma. The Basilidean Gnostics [see: Basilides] taught that from this supreme God was created nous (mind). Abraxas also was identified with the Hebrew 'Adonai, the Egyptian Horus, and the Hindu Prajapati. Gnostic amulets known as Abraxas gems depicted the god as a pantheos (all-god), with the head of a cock, herald of the sun, representing foresight and vigilance; a human body clothed in armor, suggestive of guardian power; legs in the form of sacred asps. In his right hand is a scourge, emblem of authority; on his left arm a shield emblazoned with a word of power. This pantheos is invariably inscribed with his proper name IAO and his epithets Abraxas and Sabaoth, and often accompanied with invocations such as SEMES EILAM, the eternal sun ( Gnostics and Their Remains 246), which Blavatsky equates with "the central spiritual sun" of the Qabbalists (SD 2:214). Though written in Greek characters, the words SEMES EILAM ABRASAX are probably Semitic in origin: shemesh sun; `olam secret, occult, hid, eternity, world; Abrasax Abraxas. Hence in combination the phrase may be rendered "the eternal sun Abraxax." "Remember, beloved devotee, the double tail of the serpent that forms the legs of the solar rooster of Abraxas. The entire process of the Great Work consists of releasing oneself from the enchanted rings of the tempting serpent..." - Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message
Giles Flat in the County of Hindmarsh is the name of a tract of flat agricultural country lying 2 miles to the east of Finnis Flat. It is inhabited by a scattered farming population. Ref: Bailliere’s South Australian Gazetteer and Road Guide of 1866.
Giles Flat school, in the Hundred of Kondoparinga, west of Strathalbyn, was opened by Henry P Ashton in 1963. Ref: Manning’s Place Names of South Australia.
November 5
The anniversary of the Primitive Methodist Church was held on November 2 and 3.
Sunday sermons were preached. On Monday a tea meeting was held.
The chapel was decorated by Misses Keeling, Lily and others. As the chapel was not large enough to accommodate the assembly it was decided to hold the meeting in the open air. The whole affair was a success, and the proceeds amounted to £13 3s 2d. Mr Lily and his daughters rendered good service in repairing and cleaning the chapel. Ref: South Australian Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide) 15-11-1884.
Giles Flat October 23
On Sunday and Monday October 20 and 21 the Primitive Methodists celebrated the anniversary of their church. Sermons were preached in the open air. Monday tea and public meetings were held, Mr H Waters, of Belvidere, presiding at the latter. Singing was led by friends from Bull’s Creek.
During the afternoon a photograph of the church and the visitors was taken. Ref: South Australian Chronicle (Adelaide) 26-10-1889.
The opening services in connection with the new Primitive Methodist Church, Giles Flat, were held on October 19 and 20. There were crowded congregations and two instructive sermons were preached.
On Monday tea was provided of which upwards of 250 took part.
The beautiful service of song “The babes in the basket” was well given by the Woodchester choir.
Votes of thanks were proposed and seconded to all friends assisting and especially Mr and Mrs Sissons to whose untiring efforts the success of the services are mainly due.
At the close of the meeting a supper was held. Receipts over £20. Cost of building £117 19s 6d. Total receipts £81 3s 6d. Deficiency £36 16s 0d. Ref: Christian Colonist (SA) 7-11-1890.
Church anniversary was held on October 28 and 29. On Sunday two services were conducted by Rev C E Taylor. On Monday the usual tea and concert were held, the concert proving a great success, and many thanks are due to the Strathalbyn Methodist choir and other friends who so kindly assisted with the programme: also to Mr Collett who acted as chairman. The proceeds amounted to about £9. Ref: Australian Christian Commonwealth (SA) 23-11-1917.
Female
Mandarin duck MADU (Aix galericulata)
Beacon Hill Park
near "Warren Island"
Goodacre Lake
Victoria BC
DSCN3624
Field Mark Cues ^i^
Photo Doc.
Comparison WODU & MADU
Although not the greatest shots they are instructive
Side View on Land
Here moreso than in other shots we get a sense that this bird (WODU) is structurally heavier than the more dainty MADU
Other features are noted below::
WODU has a more substantial crest feature ,noticeably thicker at the back of head
MADU has a noticible striping pattern of feathering of lower cheeks
Similar white around eyes however MADU has less
,WODU head has feathers that may show iridescence (overall substantially more apparently)
MADU has larger 'spots' on side
This exercise is not meant to be an exhaustive/absolute ....and some review of photos online seem to show that "our" MADU female is still transitioning her plumage somewhat
Keep in mind :: Each individual duck species varies within stages of season moulting,and here we have different individual WODU females & only one WODU individual.
Having said all that -- it is still a beneficial exercise
:)
AS one clicks (twice) to enlarge view it apparently shows that this(adult or sub-adult) female WODU has an obvious Orange Orbital Ring
Orbital Ring (fleshy area around the eye)
Orbital Ring for female MADU looks to be typically grey.
That seems to be supported in a quick review of other pix online
Photo taken for Scavenge Challenge #24 The Education Center topic for this month emphasizes VISUAL LINE (not physical lines). In order to understand this term as it relates to photography, please read the instructive material and create a shot showing a strong horizonal line.
And 100 Possibilities Project Mt Hood
2 Species North American Swans
Adult Tundra Swan TUSW (Cygnus columbianus)
at back of other 2
Front 2 are
Trumpeter Swan TRUS* (Cygnus buccinator)
Adults
Martindale Flats
Central Saanich BC
DSCN4514 - Cropped
Our regular over-wintering swan are Trumpeters with occasionally the odd Tundra perhaps staying around until spring.
Often its a stray immature or two, but in this phot doc. is an adult
Most Tundra Swans just rest over a bit , maybe a night, or a day - and continue to migrate south, especially the family groups and larger flocks.
When XREFing just the head and neck aspects between these species in this shot even just the size and thickness comparison "seals the deal" as far as ID goes
Field Mark Cues ^i^
This individual had classic yellow in lores -- "
Size is a good indicator if it is applicable/discernible.
in this photo doc. we can see the Trumpeters are obviously larger however it is the other structural and proportional aspects which makes it instructive.
Note profile of belly - in TRUS is so bulging as to be looking like 2 sides of a shallow triangle. I.E. bulge looking to come to an appearance of a "top of pyramid" point
The proportion of neck thickness and head size.
This one takes practice but TUSW neck in flight reads daintier , more goose like , while TRUS reads Ropey and heavy.
When relying on size difference only ,these 2 aspects will usually sort out runty TRUS because head size and neck thickness will be comparable to other TRUS despite size disparity.
Ein lehrreicher Workshop ist vorbei, übrig bleiben die Erinnerungen an nette Kolleginnen und einer reizenden Enkhe und Tuya und vielen neuen Inspirationen.
An instructive workshop is over, leaving only memories of nice fellows an s lovely Enkhe and Tuya and many new inspirations.
Radial Pin
Dan: What are three words you would use to describe your inspiration pin?
Noelia: "Perfection, contrast, balance"
D: What are three words you would use to describe your pin?
Noelia: "Fresh, radial, balance"
D: What were the elements in the inspiration pin that you carried forward in your pin?
Noelia: "Contrast of color, break the piece in two parts, the zigzag or chevron design, the radial pattern."
D: What was it like for you to make a pin inspired by the work of another artist?
Noelia: "It was a very interesting challenge to work on some ideas inspired by another design."
D: Did you enjoy your experience of being a part of The Broken Internet Project?
Noelia: "Yes! It has been interesting and instructive."
The Dalai Lama was asked what surprised him most, he said "Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."
RIGHT AND LEFT (right: Heb. יָמִין; Akk. imnu, imittu; Ugaritic, ymn; left: Heb. שְׂמֹאל; Akk. šumēlu; Ugaritic, (u)šmʾal; and common Semitic). The biblical usages of "right" and "left" are basically fourfold: right as opposed to left; directions (cardinal points); strength and weakness; merism. As is the case in many cultures, right is favored over left in various contexts. Examples for each of these usages will be presented below, as well as Ancient Near Eastern parallels wherever appropriate.
Right as Opposed to Left
Right and left play an important role in Jacob's final blessing to his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen. 48: 12–20), whom Joseph places at the left and right sides of Jacob, respectively (verse 13), expecting his father to place his right hand on Manasseh (the firstborn) and his left on Ephraim, and then bless them. But Jacob crosses his hands, placing his right hand on Ephraim (verse 14) and his left on Manasseh, despite Joseph's objections (verse 18). Jacob explains his actions by stating that Ephraim will be greater than Manasseh (verse 19). Right and left parts of the body also play an important role in sacrifices as may be seen from the following phrases which occur many times in the Book of Leviticus and elsewhere: "the right thigh" (Ex. 29:22; Lev. 7:32, 33; 8:25, 26; Num. 18:18, etc.); "the right ear and the right thumb [or big toe]" (Ex. 29:20; Lev. 8:23, 24; 14:14, 17, 25, 28, etc.). Two Ancient Near Eastern parallels to this usage in sacrifice have been found at Ugarit. In one (RŠ 24.253; Ugaritica, 5 (1955), no. 13), in a sacrificial context, the phrase Žṣb šmʾal dalpm appears which may be provisionally translated: "the left protuberances [?] of two bulls." In another (RŠ 261.247; not yet published but quoted by C.H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (1965), Glossary, nos. 1107, 2393a), the phrase šq ymn occurs, which is the same as the Hebrew shoq ha-yamin, שׁוֹק הַיָּמִין, "right thigh," quoted above. Finally, the right side (of the throne) is usually the side on which the king's or God's associates sit (I Kings 2:19, the queen; Zech. 3:1, Satan; Ps. 109:6, Satan, etc.). This is paralleled in Ugaritic literature by the following passage: tʿdb ksu wyṯṯb lymn aliyn Bʿl, "A throne is placed and he is seated to the right of Puissant Baʾal" (II AB 5:108–10; Pritchard, Texts, 134).
Direction (Cardinal Points)
Because the Hebrews – like others – oriented themselves by the place where the sun rises, in many biblical passages "right" means "south" and "left" means "north." In Abraham's separation from Lot (Gen. 13:9ff.), Abraham says (according to one interpretation): "If [you go] north [הַשְּׂמֹאל], I will go south [וְאֵימִנָה]; And if you go south [הַיָּמִין],I will go north [וְאַשְׂמְאִילָה]." The southern border of Manasseh is described in the Book of Joshua as ha-gevulʾel ha-yamin (הַגְּבוּל אֶל־הַיָּמִין, Josh. 17:7) "the boundary of the right," while "north of Damascus" is expressed as mi-semoʾl le-Dammeseq (מִשְּׂמֹאל לְדַמָּשֶׂק), "to the left of Damascus" (Gen. 14:15). Perhaps the most instructive passages for this usage are those which use right and left together with the regular words for the other directions: "North and south [צָפוֹן וְיָמִין] You [God] have created them" (Ps. 89:13); "Then it [the border] turns eastward [מִזְרַח הַשֶּמֶשׁ]… and touches… northward [צָפוֹנָה], then it continues northward [מִשְּׂמֹאל ; lit. "left"]…" Josh. 19:27). Finally, the tribe *Benjamin (ben-yamin, "son of the right") was the most southern tribe in "the House of Joseph" (II Sam. 19:17–21), and this usage has a direct parallel in the Mari letters where both the DUMU-Iamīna, "southern tribe," and the DUMU-Simal, "northern tribe," are often mentioned (e.g., Archives royales de Mari, 1 (1950), 60:9, p. 116). Semantically, DUMU-Iamīna (probably to read mārē-yamīna) is exactly parallel to Benjamin, though there is no valid evidence for any historical connection between the two.
Strength and Weakness
It is clear from several biblical verses that "right [hand]" was often a symbol for strength. The "right hand of God" was that which overcame Israel's enemies (Ex. 15:6, 12; Isa. 62:8; Ps. 17:7; 44:4, etc.) and which was worthy of the Psalmists' praises (Ps. 98:1; 118:15, 16, etc.). The "right eye" was considered the more valuable (Zech. 11:17) and it was the putting out of "every right eye" which Nahash the Ammonite demanded in return for making a nonaggresion pact with the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead (I Sam. 11:2). Conversely, that left-handedness was conceived of as a weakness, even a malady, is seen from the description of Ehud (Judg. 3:15), where the latter is called ʾishʾiṭṭer yad yemino (אִישׁ אִטֵּר יַד יְמִינוֹ), "a man obstructed [in the use of] his right hand." The word used for "obstructed" is of the nominal construction that is usually utilized for physical defects–e.g., "blind" (עִוֵּר), "dumb" (אִלֵּם), and "deaf " (חֵרֵשׁ). Left-handed men are mentioned elsewhere in Judges 20:16, where it is stated that (despite their left-handedness) they never missed the target, and in I Chronicles 12:2, where both right-handed and left-handed men are mentioned. The right side of a man is the side on which God "marches" when assisting him in battle (Isa. 63:12; Ps. 109:31; 110:1, 5) and it is the right hand which God grasps as a symbol of election (Isa. 41:13; 45:1; Ps. 73:23). Finally, the pair "hand//right hand" is often used in synonymous parallelism to evoke the image of the might of God (Ps. 21:9; 74:11; 89:14; 91:7 (emended); 138:7; 139:10), the brave deeds of Israel's war heroes (Judg. 5:26), or God's power of creation (Isa. 48:13). In extra-biblical sources, the Ugaritic parallel pair yd//ymn, "hand//right hand," is often found conjuring up the same image of power as its biblical counterpart (e.g., II 76:6–7): qšthn aḥd bydh wqṣʿth bm ymḥ, "His bow he has taken in his hand, also his darts in his right hand." The Akkadian creation epic, Enūma eliš, yields an interesting parallel to the use of "the right hand of God" iššīma miṭṭa imnašu ušāḥiz, "He [Marduk] lifted the mace, grasped it in his right hand" (Enūma eliš 4:37; Pritchard, Texts, 66). Finally, the Epilogue of the Code of Hammurapi has a parallel to God's proceeding on the right side when helping someone in battle: Zababa… āliku imniya ašar tamḥārim kakkīšu lišbir, "May Zababa … who goes at my right side break his weapons on the battlefield" (27:81–87; Pritchard, Texts, 179; cf. Isa. 63:12). Related to the opposition strengthweakness is the opposition good luck-bad luck, which seems to be represented in Ecclesiastes 10:2; as interpreted in the (Hebrew) commentary of H.L. Ginsberg: "The wise man's mind (tends) to his right (i.e., to what brings him good luck), and the fool's to his left." The belief that omens that appear on the right side are lucky and such as appear on the left unlucky is implied by Ezekiel 21:27. Parallels from other cultures are very numerous. In Arabic, for example, šimāl means both "left hand" and "bad omen" (see also the Arabic dictionary on the verbs šaʿama and yamana and their derivatives).
Merism
Perhaps the most common usage of right and left in the Bible is as a merism meaning "everywhere, in any direction." The phrase "to deviate from the path in any direction" (Num. 20:17; 22:26; Deut. 2:27; 5:29; 17:11; I Sam. 6:12, etc.) is so common that it had probably reached the level of a cliché in early biblical times. Aside from "path," "instructions" (e.g., Josh. 1:7; 23:6), "commandment" (e.g., Deut. 17:20), and "commandments" (e.g., Deut. 28:14) may also be the object of deviation. In the same way, the verbal forms "to go right" and "to go left" are used together meaning "to depart from in any way" (II Sam. 14:19; Isa. 30:21). The meaning "everywhere" is also very common for this merism (I Kings 22:19; Isa. 9:19; Zech. 12:6, etc.). In extra-biblical sources, right and left are often used as a merism which may be seen from the following Akkadian and Ugaritic passages: panukki Šēdu arkātuk Lamassu imnuk mešrû(!) šumēlukki dumqu, "Before you is the protective spirit, behind you is the protective goddess, at your right riches, at your left prosperity" (E. Ebeling, Die akkadische Gebetsserie Šu-ilu "Handerhebung"… (1953), 60:16–17); yʿdb uymn ušmal bphm "[things] are placed in their mouths 'on right and on left'" (C.H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (1965), 52:63–64; cf. Isa. 9:19).
[Chayim Cohen]
In Talmudic Literature
Although there does exist some evidence that the left was regarded as "sinister" in the Talmud, the general opinion, both in halakhah and aggadah, is merely that the right is more important and significant than the left. The word yad ("hand"), without qualification, was taken to refer always to the right hand, as the word eẓba ("finger") to the index finger of the right hand (Zev. 24a). All religious duties had normally to be performed with the right hand (or foot, see below). The only exception is the laying of tefillin which are laid (except in the case of a left-handed person) on the left hand. The reasons given are, firstly, that the plene spelling ידכה ("thy hand") in Exodus 13:16 is taken to indicate יד כהה ("the feeble hand"), and also that since the injunction is "and ye shall bind" (Deut. 6:8) and not "and ye shall place," the essential commandment is the binding, which must therefore be done with the right hand (Men. 36b, 37a). Thus it is stated, "the right hand controls all the precepts except for the tefillin" (Mid. Ps. 17). As a result, particularly because "one uses the right hand to point to the cantillation of the Torah," it was not to be used for unclean or unseemly purposes (Ber. 62a). Added to that was the statement, based on Deuteronomy 33:2, that the Torah was given with the right hand of God.
The right was the position of honor. All the turns of the high priest in the Temple as he encircled the altar to perform the sprinkling of the blood had to be to the right (Yoma 15b). It was regarded as a boorish lack of etiquette to walk on the right of one's teacher; but when he was accompanied by two, he walked in the middle and the greater of his companions walked on the right (Yoma 37a).
Left-handedness was not regarded as a disability, but it was naturally assumed that a person was right-handed. Nevertheless, it was regarded as so essential that ḥaliẓah be performed on the right foot of the levir (Yev. 12:2) it was stated that in the case of a left-footed person the ceremony had to be performed twice, once on each foot, and there is even one opinion that it cannot be performed at all (Sh. Ar., EH 169:25).
Since the *etrog was regarded as the most important element of the *Four Species, it had to be taken in the right hand and the lulav and the other two in the left. Nevertheless, there is one statement to the effect that it is the lulav which is to be taken in the right (Yal. Ps. 670).
In rabbinic theology, God's right hand represents the Attribute of Mercy, his left hand, the Attribute of Judgment (MRY, p. 134). Similarly the question of the Midrash on the verse I Kings 22:19, "I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the Host of Heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left," namely, "Is there then a left on high? Is it not all right there?… (Song. R. to 1:9, no. 1) indicates that in the upper realm there is only mercy, and no judgment. This reflects an abstraction of the identification of right with mercy, even where there is no spatial or physical opposition to any "left." To give more encouragement than discouragement was expressed in the words, "Let thy left hand repulse and thy right attract" (Sot. 47a). Solomon ibn Gabirol says: "A man without a companion is like the left without the right" (Mivḥar ha-Peninim 20:11; cf. Meiri to Prov. 17:17).
[Louis Isaac Rabinowitz
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_00...
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TOUSIMAGESVIDÉOSACTUALITÉSMAPSSHOPPINGLIVRESVOLSAPPSOUTILS DE RECHERCHE
Hamsa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki › Hamsa
Site mobile - Other symbols of divine protection based around the hand include the Hand-of- Venus (or Aphrodite), the Hand-of-Mary, that was used to ... Another meaning of this symbol relates to the sky god, Horus.
Evil eye - Mudra - Khamsa - Hamsa (disambiguation)
Symbolism in Jewelry - Jewelry Info ...
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Site mobile - Hamsa symbol The Hamsa Hand is an ancient Middle Eastern amulet symbolizing the Hand of God. In all faiths it is a ...
What is the heart symbol origin? - What is the peace sign meaning?
The hands of women, (the power of organizations and infancy education) hold the power to change reality, reaching out to every woman wherever she is, we need to choose the right path for us and make sure to embark on this journey strong and determined.
Equality and adequate representation in the work world is possible, rewarding, and is worth fighting for. This book is an invitation to a journey through (via) authentic life stories of 111 women in the Israeli society who have not given up, fell and rose up over and over again. They made their voices heard, progressed and made a personal breakthrough.
The writing in the book is about real life and career. A Women and Career Book -A Leading Influential Presence - A fascinating, instructive and transformative journey which transforms business discourse about leadership.
"Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland, is the headquarters of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSED). It houses the Surgeons' Hall Museum, and the library and archive of the RCSED. The present Surgeons' Hall was designed by William Henry Playfair and completed in 1832, and is a category A listed building.
Surgeons' Hall Museum is the major medical museum in Scotland, and one of Edinburgh's many tourist attractions. The museum is recognised as a collection of national significance by the Scottish Government.
The museum reopened in September 2015, after being closed for an eighteen-month period of redevelopment.
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh was incorporated in 1505, when it received its Seal of Cause or charter and became styled as 'The Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh'. The Museum at Surgeons Hall, Edinburgh dates from 1699 when the Incorporation announced that they were making a collection of ‘natural and artificial curiosities’. and advertised for these in the first edition of a local paper, the Edinburgh Gazette. Daniel Defoe, an early visitor in 1726, wrote in his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain that the 'chamber of rarities' contained many curious things too numerous for him to describe. Much of this early collection was given to the University of Edinburgh in the 1760s.
By the early years of the 19th Century, the Incorporation had received a Royal Charter to become the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. The College saw its primary role as the teaching of anatomy and surgery, the training of surgeons, and examination of their acquired knowledge. Anatomy and pathology specimens were crucial to that function. The museum expanded dramatically with the acquisition of two large collections. John Barclay, a successful anatomy demonstrator in the extramural school of medicine donated his collection, while Sir Charles Bell, Professor of Surgery in the University of London and latterly in the University of Edinburgh sold his collection to the museum. These collections were much too large to be housed in the original 1697 Surgeons' Hall, and so the surgeons commissioned the leading Edinburgh architect William Playfair to build the present day Surgeons Hall, which opened in 1832. At first the entire upper floor of the building was devoted to the museum collections, which were open to the public and attracted large visitor numbers. Throughout the 19th and early 20th century the collection expanded as it became customary for surgeons and pathologists to donate not only specimens which they regarded as interesting or instructive, but surgical instruments and equipment. With the great scientific and technical advances of the time, the museum began to acquire anaesthetic equipment, histology slides, X-rays and photographs.
Edinburgh (/ˈɛdɪnbərə/; Scots: Edinburgh; Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann [ˈt̪uːn ˈeːtʲən̪ˠ]) is the capital of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.
Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the supreme courts of Scotland. The city's Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, philosophy, the sciences and engineering. It is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom (after London) and the city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most visited tourist destination attracting 4.9 million visits including 2.4 million from overseas in 2018.
Edinburgh is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The official population estimates are 488,050 (2016) for the Locality of Edinburgh (Edinburgh pre 1975 regionalisation plus Currie and Balerno), 518,500 (2018) for the City of Edinburgh, and 1,339,380 (2014) for the city region. Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region comprising East Lothian, Edinburgh, Fife, Midlothian, Scottish Borders and West Lothian.
The city is the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It is home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, is placed 20th in the QS World University Rankings for 2020. The city is also known for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, and the extensive Georgian New Town built in the 18th/19th centuries. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
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This is my Stargate Anubis costume, based on the chief alien guard character from the 1994 movie. I built it in '94 or '95 and wore it to several costume balls and conventions throughout that decade.
Rather than use fibreglass or plastic, as the movie's costumers did, I thought it would be instructive to make the major components out of more 'period' materials, which is to say, copper, brass and leather.
The plates are all hand cut. I took the temper out of the copper so I could raise and emboss quite elaborate designs into their surfaces, and also so I could use a propane torch to create a 'peacock' bloom on some of the plates.
I built large red L.E.Ds into the eye section, as well a speaker so I could more effectively opress the masses....
I'll be posting other pictures in this sequence where I'll go into further detail about the construction of the costume.
I don't recall who took the original photo that this reworking is based on. But, ta!
Some of the background elements came from local Melbourne buildings. Sandstone bricks from the Old Law Courts, and a handy obelisk from some other building.
atelier ying, nyc
A sequel to my previous design no. 250 is an adaption of the historic 1942 limousine built for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, known as the Cadillac "Duchess", which had custom compartments for Wallis Simpson's jewelry and Edward VIII's pipes and tobacco.
Max Vandemeer, acted by the wonderful Robert Morley, tours Europe as an arch villain food editor (a guest villain to the 1966 Batman series would be near perfection) with an entourage of kitchen henchmen and a decoy getaway vehicle when chased by the police. For this, the excessive, modern Falstaff simply must have two limousines; one to dine in and a second for smoking.
The Pullman Cigar car has a fold-down lap desk to reveal a sizable cigar cabinet to sample cigars from various boxes in Vandermeer's collection as they age in his home cabinet. This allows a minimum evaporation of the oleoresins. The Pullman's humidity is slightly higher for this reason.
Morley's henchmen and guests sit slightly lower in the cabin on "benches". The original Pullman of 1967 was more of a passenger car, whereas this redesign takes a feature of Lyndon Johnson's legendary Air Force One, where his desk was electronically elevated so he could appear more commanding (an strategic architectural feature originally conceived for the Capitol building) to his guests and staff. In this smoking car, Morley's elevated seat allows for easy cigar meditation as he can view outside the windows and can pontificate at ease over the guests.
The pull out lap desk is for reading and making notes (or tiny instructive atelier drawings) inside cookbooks. A library of favorite historical opera singers on cassettes, forty of them, each bound in red leather, is located in both car doors, commemorating Morley's early musical career aspirations.
An espresso machine and scotch bar allows Vandermeer time to relax from his life as editor and arch criminal, as described in my previous design for his Rolls Royce Dining car.
Please also see my related designs nos. 180a and 180b, dedicated to the Duke of Windsor.
Design, concepts, text and drawing are copyright 2015 by David Lo.
A l'esquerra podeu veure el "carregador" interior d'aquesta càmara, tot ell de cartró i fusta, excepte uns pocs elements de llautó. I fa unes fotos precioses!!!
La Kodak Brownie fou durant décades la camara amateur més popular del món. Es tracta d'una humil capsa amb una lent i obturador els més senzills possibles. Els materials primer foren cartró i fusta i a partir dels anys 30, alumini i baquelita. De fet les Brownie començaren a produir-se cap al 1900 i en la forma bàsica de caixa continuaren fins els anys 60!!
Aquesta és una de les càmeres més antigues que tinc, i funciona! És una Nr. 2 Brownie model D del 1914-15 i per tant algunes d'elles potser arribaren a les trinxeres de la Primera Guerra Mundial. El més bo de tot és que excepte la lent i uns pocs elements metal·lics, tota la estructura és de cartró i fusta.
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Brownie
Aquí teniu el model en concret (en anglès):
www.brownie.camera/no_2_brownie_model_d.htm
Un video molt il·lustratiu:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT1epnCyg78&t=187s
==============================================
To the left, the "holder" for the film in this box Brownie camera from 1914-15. It's only cardboard, wood and a few metallic elements, but it worsk! Is returns the magic to taking photos...
This is my Kodak Nr. 2 Brownie model D, made in 1914-15 in the USA. It's a really humble camera, made of cartboard, wood and just a few metallic elements (and the lens). But it works, and takes 120 medium format film. In fact this format was created for this camera by Kodak back in 1900!
Kodak Brownies were the most popular entry level cameras of the early XX Century, when you could buy them for a 1$.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_(camera)
And here this specific model of Brownie:
www.brownie.camera/no_2_brownie_model_d.htm
A very instructive video:
Endlich habe ich auch die Arbeiten fertig, die aus 2 tollen Tagen mit Ariane entstanden sind. Es hat wahnsinnig viel Spaß gemacht und es war auch sehr lehrreich für mich!! Danke!!
Den Armreif haben wir nach dem Tutorial von Anja Overdijk gemacht.
(From Polymer To Art - Edition 4- 2012 - This is not Gold)
Finally I have finished the work which are originated in two great days with Ariane. There was a lot of fun and it was also highly instructive for me! Thank you! The bracelet was made after the tutorial by Anja Overdijk.(From Polymer To Art - Edition 4 - 2012 - This is not gold)
Well, not so many now. Actually none. 64? Hard to imagine and certainly not in my thoughts when I first heard Sir Paul's cheerful little ditty. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCss0kZXeyE But we're only as old as we feel, right? I am certain there are many wise and instructive quotes on aging, but I think I'll go with the following interchange from one of my favorite movies which has stuck with me for 40 years...
Bear Claw Chris Lapp: You've come far, pilgrim.
Jeremiah Johnson: Feels like far.
Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Were it worth the trouble?
Jeremiah Johnson: What trouble?
Amen, Jeremiah, amen...
As much as the subsequent stage involving educational technology is anxious, it was some time of ‘electronic revolution' while using hardware along with software. On this stage we've got started employing projectors, television set, tape-recorder which uses a commendable change within this field. instructive invention idea ended up being taken as much as these sophisticated instruments and varieties of gear pertaining to powerful business presentation of easy-guide materials.Visit here occupytechnology
The relationship between the American police and the public they serve alters somewhat cyclically over the years, but it's true to say that sometimes they are in favour of one another, and sometimes they are not.
During one particular nadir in the difficult sixties, the Californian police took it upon themselves to produce a series of posters that would, they felt, endear themselves to residents.
Thus was born the notion of "Cop Art".
Each week, at an evening class, large uniformed gentlemen who during the day would haul people out of their cars, hurl scallywags to the ground and practice overt belligerence would come together in a Church hall and paint instructive posters.
At the time, there was growing unease about sea pollution, concerns over whale hunting as a trade, and of course, safety for surfers.
This poster - entitled simply Swim'n'Think, was placed in various strategic locations along the coast.
There are no statistics to show how many swimmers were influenced to stop eating whale meat and take care that their effluent didn't reach the sea. It has to be said, though that the poster, and others of the short-lived Cop Art movement, is striking.
Which of course, rather ironically, the Californian police cannot do themselves.
"Truth" is the sort of painting that was popular a decade after Baudelaire wrote that photography, incapable itself of becoming an art, threatened the "divine art of painting" (see www.flickr.com/photos/frame_maker/4891173069). In 1870, when the impressionists were just emerging and their works were unwelcome at the salon, this painting was all the rage in Paris, earning its creator the Legion of Honor award. It is instructive to contrast this painting with impressionism, expressionism, and the emergence of photography as an art form.
To us, "Truth" looks the height of artificiality. A nude woman posing as if she were a statue holds a shining mirror up over her head, the symbol of Truth (indeed she resembles the well-clothed Statue of Liberty -- see www.flickr.com/photos/frame_maker/5196723179/). No ordinary woman ever stood in this position in the course of her everyday life (and unclothed to boot), only a model assuming a pose imagined by a nineteenth century male artist with an Idealist aesthetic.
The painting was obviously done in a studio despite the hints of foliage. There is hardly a sign of a brush stroke, only a fine, glossy surface. While the model may have felt a bit off-balance with her right foot raised at an angle and most of her weight on her left leg, the image itself is very balanced. The model's left hand holding a rope nicely balances her raised right foot, the light shining on her torso balances the shining mirror. While the model with her mirror represents a Platonic ideal, she does so very sensuously, her curvaceous torso highlighted by a very strong studio light coming into the frame from the upper left.
The model's body is idealized, possessed of a universal sensuality, but her face is individualized and quite expressive. The model was in fact a well-known actress of the time, Sophie Croizette. When the connoisseurs at the salon looked at this painting, they probably knew who they were looking at. Nudity in art was nothing new, but it could be said that this painting legitimized its soft pornography by clothing it in an abstract Ideal. The artist, Jules Lefebvre, soon moved on from this sort of painting and produced portraits that emphasized the individuality of his subjects, who now represented not ideals but personalities.
Simultaneously, the impressionists emerged. Instead of painting models in artists' studios posed artificially in timeless, almost abstract space under artificial light, they went outside to paint real life in the streets and parks and fields. (The recently developed paint tube made this possible.) Natural light was their preference and rendering it in new ways under diverse conditions, using impasto and other visible brush techniques, was their passion. Instead of timeless images, they gave us momentary "impressions," the precursor of "decisive moments." The eternal shining mirror of Truth was replaced by momentary glitter from an earring (see Degas' "Dancing Lesson," www.flickr.com/photos/frame_maker/4835655383/in/set-72157...). An idealist aesthetic was replaced by an aesthetic of perception. Rather than being a product of the artist's imagination, the painting became a creative rendition of what the artist saw.
Put the emphasis on "creative rendition." In the end, it turns out that "what one sees" is not purely "objective" and not independent of the imagination. Impressionism morphed into Expressionism via Van Gogh's very creative renditions of what he saw. Van Gogh wrote his brother, "This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big." Then he rendered this as "The Starry Night," of which The New York Museum of Modern Art writes: "The painting...is rooted in imagination and memory. Leaving behind the Impressionist doctrine of truth to nature in favor of restless feeling and intense color, as in this highly charged picture, van Gogh made his work a touchstone for all subsequent Expressionist painting." In a sense, Expressionism was the "truth" of Impressionism, the realization that what one sees is not objective, but subjective.
See The Starry Night at:
www.flickr.com/photos/nycandre/3072052829/in/set-72157603...
(Thanks to the "Birth of Impressionism" exhibit at the San Francisco De Young Museum for the idea of using "Truth" as a foil for understanding the innovations of impressionism.)
"Rouge Angel"
Model: Angel Dela Torre
Makeup by: Ryle Young
Photography by: Rae Cabradilla
Special thanks to Fritz Cañedo for letting us use his place for the shoot! :)
Photo manipulation shots of this set will be posted soon. For now, here's a photo of the beautiful Angel ;)
During my birthday, I attended a 1-on-1 workshop with Anne Lorraine Tiu Uy :) I figured after all that's happened in my life, I wanted to start a new year with what I love doing the most --Photography! It was a few months ago when Anne and I were introduced to each other by my close friend. I knew of Anne's works about two years ago and was really fascinated by it. And just a month ago, I found out that she was doing 1-on-1 workshops for those interested in learning how she works behind the camera. I signed up, of course, and messaged her right away. :) And with frequent messaging, I got to know Anne personally as well. Not only does she have a unique talent in photography, but she also has a unique heart. During the workshop, she breezed through it by teaching me the stuff I wanted to learn, and that was advanced photoshop/editing skills. She was very patient and instructive. I love how she's very open to teach me even her secret styles without hesitation. I learned a lot from the workshop and I can't wait to have a collaboration with Anne again! She's an artist with a great passion in photography. :) So if you want to learn a different style of photography, join her workshop! I'm sure you won't regret it. :)
If you'd like to join her workshop or see her lovely works, just visit her blog at blog.anneuy.com/
and when he does this seems to be the essentials.
My daily pill organizer pretty much expresses what everyone of a certain age thinks about requiring a daily pill organizer.
The vintage aluminum "Eagle Eyes" spare eyeglass holder I found on eBay a few years ago. Both lighter and a little more sturdy than most, it's sitting next to...
... a front pocket wallet from Rogue. To foil the pickpockets, naturally. A few years ago in a touristy public square in Italy I watched a couple of very professional dudes work the crowd before they -- almost literally - melted away. Very instructive.
Just above that, my Tip Clip. Instead of having to deal with that wallet in your front pocket, it's much easier to nonchalantly pull a predetermined small denomination bill from the clip to tip a bellhop or whatnot. Also - and this is the Voice of Experience addressing you now - when a nice young man confronts you with a large knife and demands your money, THIS is what you hand him. And everyone goes away happy and unharmed and all you've lost is some tip money.
My trusty iPhone 4s, which is rapidly gaining obsolescence thanks to Apple's continual updates which push it ever further into the barely functioning category nearly every day. C'mon 7!!
On the other hand, my elderly iPod, dressed up in an age appropriate Steampunk skin remains useful. Stifle your snickering, children, this bad boy holds 164 gigs, has a battery life north of 16 hours and (some say) has superior audio quality than any iPhone...
...and from which flows the sweet soothing syrup through Bose 20 Noise Cancelling ear buds. Surprisingly, these things actually work. In fact, I like them so much that I've been calling them my "Ear Buddies", which for some reason really annoys some people, especially my wife.
Then there's that teeny flashlight, which so far hasn't aroused the ire of the TSA. Handy in an unfamiliar hotel room or a darkened airliner when you're desperately rummaging for the FunYuns snacks crushed at the bottom of your carry-on. I can't quite remember where I got it, but it sez Smith & Wesson on it, which makes me wonder how it hasn't aroused the ire of the TSA yet.
That black brick is actually a really great charger An Anker "2nd Gen Astro E5" is what it informs us about itself in tiny type on the back and it'll top off all your chargeables many times. Highly rated on gear rating websites. Heavy but recommended.
Moving smartly back into the world of analog is the Seiko SNK809 self winding mechanical watch which I've modified with a Worn n' Wound leather strap. Here's a situation where the strap cost more than the watch (admittedly the Seiko was on big time sale on Amazon). It has everything I need for traveling: light weight, luminous dial which doesn't overwhelm my diminutive wrists (only 31mm diameter -- the watch, not the wrists), a long "reserve", which is watch-geek speak for how long it keeps running once you take it off and it just lays there chuffing away by itself. And there's a nifty window on the back side so in times of profound boredom you can amuse yourself by observing the works.
And, oh yeah, it displays the correct time and day and date too! (Spanish or English your choice. Español o Inglés su elección) .
Which it's sitting on my Generation iDunno iPad, which has more than a few travel, weather, and news apps along with a whole lotta books tucked into the Kindle app. Wrapped up in a fully functional Kavaj leather cover which you would also stroke appreciatively while enduring severe turbulence.
And finally, over the years I've learned never to travel with anything you'd be reluctant to leave behind. Not including people of course.
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)
The Venus of Urbino (1538) is an oil painting by the Italian master Titian. It depicts a nude young woman, identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. It hangs in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. The figure's pose is based on Giorgione's Sleeping Venus (c. 1510); however, Titian uses more sensuality in comparison to Giorgione's remoteness. Devoid as it is of any classical or allegorical trappings ('Venus' displays none of the attributes of the goddess she is supposed to represent), the painting is unapologetically erotic.
The frankness of Venus' expression is often noted; she stares straight at the viewer, unconcerned with her nudity. In her right hand she holds a posy of flowers whilst her left covers her vulva, provocatively placed in the centre of the composition. In the near background a dog, symbolizing fidelity, is asleep.The image of a dog usually symbolizes faithfulness, and the fact that it is asleep hints that the woman portrayed is unfaithful.
The painting was commissioned by Guidobaldo II della Rovere, the Duke of Urbino. It would originally have decorated a cassone, a chest traditionally given in Italy as a wedding present. The maids in the background are shown rummaging through a similar chest, apparently in search of the Venus's clothes. Curiously, given its overtly erotic content, the painting was intended as an instructive 'model' for Giulia Varano, the Duke's extremely young bride. The argument for the painting's didacticism was made by the late art historian Rona Goffen in 1997's “Sex, Space, and Social History in Titian’s Venus of Urbino".
In his 1880 travelogue A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain called the Venus of Urbino "the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses". He proposed that "it was painted for a bagnio, and it was probably refused because it was a trifle too strong", adding humorously that "in truth, it is a trifle too strong for any place but a public art gallery".
Venus of Urbino inspired the later painting Olympia by Édouard Manet, in which the figure of Venus was replaced with a woman who is often falsely referred to as a prostitute.
This work of art was an inspiration for the character Fiammetta Bianchini in the book In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant. It is also referenced in Bernard Malamud's short story Naked Nude, where the main character is blackmailed into painting a forgery of it.
I invite you to discover in some images the last tea tasting realized with Lydia Gautier, author of international fame and tea expert.
We tasted about twenty teas (white, green and oolong tea) by using a comparative technique. We also tested ancient oolong… A very instructive moment!
www.nikosan.com/2011/02/14/degustation-de-the-avec-lydia-...
National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen: knives and forks are at the ready, gazes are smouldering and fierce. This is one of Bloch's most popular genre images and typifies his seductive ability to depict details with striking realism. His technical skill and color schemes link him to the artists who, opposing the dominant movements in Denmark, looked to contemporary Europe for inspiration. Even so, Bloch was regarded as Denmark's greatest painter. His virtuoso skill and penchant for compelling narratives ensured his position.
Genre paintings offered a breathing space in between the numerous commissions for instructive historical paintings and altarpieces. Coarse fisherwomen and monks suffering from toothaches were favorite motifs. Amusing, yet also eerie images, they very much leave themselves open to interpretation.
"Fun with Dry Batteries. Price 10¢. For the Amateur Electrician. "
Title page: Fun with Dry Batteries: A Handbook of Things to Make and Things to Do with Dry Batteries. Published by the manufacturers of Eveready Long Life Batteries.
From an ad for the book in Popular Mechanics, Dec. 1933, advertising section, p. 6A: "Electricity. Get this 96-page book. Boys--and grown-ups, too--will find 'Fun with Dry Batteries' a most instructive and entertaining little book. Make electro-magnets, bells, buzzers, signals, lights, secret locks, electro-plating outfits, telegraph instruments, and numerous amusing electric toys. Has simple, illustrated description of principles of electricity--and of dry batteries in particular."
A historic church on the western fringe of Herefordshire's Golden Valley, in the foothills of the Black Mountains of Wales, the parish church of St Margaret gives its name to the village.
The church dates to the Norman era and contains a beautiful oak rood screen and loft described by Nikolaus Pevsner as one of the wonders of Herefordshire. The screen dates to around 1520. It really should not exist at all, as a law of 1547 decreed that all such screens be destroyed. St Margaret's was not, and that gives us a chance to appreciate the wonderful craftsmanship today.
The front of the screen is divided into 20 small panels by moulded muntins. The rails at the top and bottom are covered with a running foliage design of quite stunning intricacy and beauty.
The underside of the loft, or soffit, is decorated with a profusion of small bosses, decorated with a variety of designs, most of them on a floral theme. Mixed in amongst the floral bosses are several depicting human faces, some very humorous.
To be pedantic, there is no 'screen' to the screen at all, just fantastically carved and gilded posts supporting the rood loft. There are beautifully embellished niches in each post. These would originally have held figures of the Virgin Mary and St John.
When I visited they were being used to hold simple vases of fresh flowers. As far as we know there are only 5 or 6 rood lofts remaining in England, of which St Margaret's is perhaps the finest.
Amazingly, you can actually access the loft. A set of very steep stairs is set inside the thickness of the wall in the north-west corner of the chancel. The stairs lead up to the rood loft, giving you a good view out over the nave, and a close look at the 16th-century nave roof.
The building itself is simple, with a low nave and chancel, with a pyramidal bellcote tower and a small south porch. The interior boasts a number of restored wall paintings of Biblical texts. The most amusing - or instructive of these, depending on your state of mind - is directly over the south door, so that as you leave the church you can read the admonition to 'Go and Sin no more'.
On the west jamb of the south door is a small carved cross. Crosses like these were often carved by pilgrims to give thanks for their safe return from a trip to a holy place. In the churchyard is a medieval preaching cross on a stone base.
At the west end of the church is a simple octagonal font, probably 14th century in date. Also in the nave, set into the south wall, is a tomb recess, probably 14th century in date. This may, in fact, be an Easter Sepulchre. The oldest part of the church, however, is the chancel arch, which is hidden from view by the rood screen from the nave, but can be seen clearly from the chancel. The arch is probably 12th century, but may date to as early as the late 11th century.
Text copied from "Britain Express" website
Cheap toys from the 1950s and 60s were generally made of injected Polystyrene plastic, a cheap material ideal for mass production that reached the markets in huge volumes after WWII. This brittle plastic made toys short-lived and it is great to find some in great shape like this washing tub. This American design was made by the Brazilian branch of the famous Louis Marx and Co. and came complete with a carousel-like clothes line (not shown here) in it's original box (see below), where we can read it was considered "an ideal instructive toy for girls". It brings the proud MARX logo, what makes it ideal for puns involving young proletarians.
The tub is 17 cm in diameter.
Community reaps benefits by learning more about human and plant. Our histories, their relationships––it's fascinating, and instructive.
www.cnpsmarin.org/media/com_netsukii/MarinCnps2008OctDec.pdf
The Truth is in Here!
I think that the structure of my self is rather like that of "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" (Trailer,Trailer #2). I think I contain a fantasy of a controlled, hollow, abused Lisbeth/Nikita woman who works as the medium, or intermediary for a man with super-sight, who is trying to be a detective. The most horrible thing about the structure is that since these roles take place inside me (no wonder Lisbeth looks pissed off), it is also auto-erotic transsexualism, and then some. For this reason I think that the super duo of Lisbeth and Cal Lighthouse in the above photo, are generally accompanied by a sex criminal in many of the detective series in which detectives and their intermediaries feature. [Why is it that about 10 million Americans watch sex criminals get their come-uppance a week on one series, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, alone?]
First to recap, there are many US mystery series featuring men, and more frequently recently women, who are in contact with supernatural phenomena (The Dead Zone, The Listener, , The X-Files, Seeing Things, The Medium, Tru Calling, Ghost Whisperer), of women that act as intermediaries for men whose power of perception is almost supernatural (Lie to Me, Monk, The Mentalist, Millenium, The X-Files), and there are recently an increasing number of Nikita type violent, abused, hollow women controlled by men (Nikita, Nikita, Dark Angel, Alias, Dollhouse, etc). Many of these heroes kill or put greedy, especially sexually greedy, criminals behind bars.
In the USA there are many more types of television series. Here in Japan, these three genres stand out as being particularly well represented. I am of the opinion that these genres are well represented because they are the most popular in the US, rather than their being particularly popular in Japan.
The reason why I think that these television series may have something to do with the structure of myself is because I have seen them both. The structure of myself was far more horrifying and icky that even the nasties scenes in The Girl with a Dragon Tatoo, so I will try and be theoretical first.
The Self in Social Psychology
Factoring in William James, George Herbert Mead explains how the human self is formed, from three parts: the I or consciousness, the me, the idea we have of ourselves with whom we identify, and the internalised "generalised other" from which perspective we see the "me."
The first and second of these elements (consciousness, and my idea of me) are fairly easy to confirm. Mead's "generalised other" (Freud's "super ego", Bakhtin's "super adressee", Lacan's "Other," Adam Smith's "Invisible hand" and "impartial observer") is much more contraversial.
That there is consciousness, even if I can say nothing about it, seems pretty clear. When I am awake there is not nothing. When I dream, the lights come on as it were. I may be able to say very little about this "great blooming, buzzing confusion,” but I feel that I can not deny it. Generally speaking I am more inclined to think of consciousness as the world, or evidence of the world -- the lights, sounds, hot and cold -- but at the same time perhaps, especially but not only, as a child, "consciousness"may also be said to be who "I" really am.
And at the same time I have notions of who I am very separate from consciousness - a bald old Englishman living in Japan, which a certain age, family, house, and face. That is "me."
What is the "generalised other," and where is it hiding?
First of all Mead argues that in order to gain an idea who "me" is then I need to take an objective view point upon myself. Mead argues that unless we are carrying a mirror, or permanently in front of an audience, our ability to gain an objective idea of ourselves depends upon our ability to express who we are in language and understand our language from the point of view of other listeners.This ability to hear ones own self-referential, self addressed language, such as "I am bald" as said to myself, and to know when one has not said the truth, allows us to form a linguistic model of who we are. Language, Mead presumes, provides us with a mirror of internalised other. Mead argues, as do Hermans and Kempen (who base their analysis on the Bakhtin's linguistics), that we are always speaking to others in our heads. People talk to their friends, their family, their workmates, and all those that they are likely to meet, in their heads all the time. And we are able to judge when these our imaginary friends would not agree with what we are saying. In the complete absence of any audience, real or imagined, I could claim that "I have loads of hair", or anything, even that "I am Elvis Presley," and it would not matter because there would be no one there to disagree with me. But since we do speak to others even if they are imaginary others, we imagine our audience's understanding of our words, their reaction, and know when we are speaking bullshit.
But while many of us may accept that we often imagine that we are speaking to, or thinking to other people, what of the *generalised* other. As far as I am aware Mead only explains the need for a generalised as a cognitive requirement. If we see ourselves only from the viewpoints of our friends, then we will see ourselves as rather nicer than we are from the point of view of our enemies. If we see ourselves from the point of view of our enemies, we see ourselves rather more negatively than our friends see us, and rather more negatively than we in fact are, because presumably we are that person at the intersection of these various viewpoints rather than as understood from any one subjective position.
So far so good. We may be able to accept that we address ourselves to a variety of imaginary friends. And that unless we understand our self speech from the point of view of a view from an objective, generalised position then we will not have an ongoing objective understanding of ourselves. However this explanation would not prevent us from "generalising" after the fact, or "off line". In other words we might model the understanding of our friends and family, our detractors and various people in the street, and perform some sort of averaging only afterward. Is it clear that we need to model a generalised other, in real time?
Bakhtin argues that even as we are speaking to real or imaginary friends and all manner of second person addressees, we also imagine that there is another person listening to what we have to say, since otherwise our meaning would be limited by the understanding of our real or imagined listener. Being so limited to specific others (be they real or imagined) would be, he argues, hellish. We would be trapped in web of relationships unable to be anyone but that which our others understand us to be. To escape from this hell, which is other people, we continually model a super-addressee (Bakhtin, 1986. p126) which corresponds I believe to Mead's generalized other.
Bakhtin's "hell" starts to sound more persuasive but all the same, phenomenologically where is the generalized other in my head? I can feel myself simulating my friends. Why can't I feel myself simulating a generalised other?
I think that theists may find the answer to this question very easy. Theists typically feel that they are addressing a generalised other, who sees them from an objective viewpoint, in the form of their God. Of course for a theist it is not a question of simulating a generalised listener, but rather that there is one, and as such perhaps theists are always conscious of the meaning of their words, truthfully and honestly in the understanding of an ever present "impartial spectator." This latter term was that used by the economist (of Lutheran upbringing) Adam Smith. This is all very well for theists but, when I am not dabbling in theism, and even when I do, I do not find myself aware, or strikingly aware, of a God as generalised other, impartial spectator, or super-addressee. If this super-addressee was felt ever present, then for instance, would there be so many atheists and agnostics, and would they be so militant in their denial of God? If a super-addressee were clearly ever present in our psyche then the atheists among us would be more likely to say "Oh, yeah, that. (S)he is only my simulation of a generalised other, not any supernatural being." Calling that entity God or a mental simulation would become almost a question of nomenclature. It seems to me however that most atheists are not aware of any such "super-addressee," listening in on their thoughts, modelled by themselves, far less directly and supernaturally bugging their brain.
To Bakhtin's "hell", and Mead's need for objective self awareness, I think that there are a couple of other reasons why we need a generalised other and why it should be something that we are commonly unaware of it.
First of all applying Arimasa Mori's cultural theory, it may become clear that a generalised other is a requirement for my identification with my "me". That we should identify (and it is not clear what "identify" means) which any idea or conception that we have of ourselves is strange. Why would anyone identify with a self-concept if they are aware that it is a conceptualisation?
This kind of question has been asked for instance by philosophers and psychologists in the field of narrative psychology. It is clear that we do narrate ourselves, do think to and narrate ourselves, about who we are and what we are doing, but why should we, or do we, identify with that which is described in the narrative? Why does our self-cognition not remain on the level of self-hypothesis, a fiction about ourselves that may or not be correct. Why do we believe in that our self0narration, or the me therein described is ourselves? Or why do we believe that there is a underlying, ongoing entity that conforms to some static linguistic cognition of self?
Arimasa Mori argues the way in which first person pronouns and first person self-representations depend on the second person of Japanese speech - that there is no "third person" (Mori's word for the generalised other), results in an absence of self on ongoing and independent self among Japanese. IF being is to be understood, and self-understanding is dependent upon other understanding, then in the radical absence of others would, not our ability to identify with an ongoing independent self be switching on and off. Hence, if we believe in an ongoing self independent of social situation, then this may imply the presumed presence of a "third person perspective."
Here ends my attempt at theoretical analysis.
Finally, while the connection is somewhat tenuous, the structure of the television series outlined above remind me of my experience of the structure of my self, which fell apart and became visible about a quarter of a century ago when I felt (and I think I did) go mad. I have written this before, but I think that it is a good idea to write it again.
My experience was momentary and my memory is not as good as it used to be, but I still find it instructive. I think that I should have tried harder to share the experience with other people. The reason why I have not blogged or otherwise written about the experience is because I found the experience particularly disgusting. As I said above, and this is the first part of the analogy between "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and the structure of myself, they both appeared to have very harrowing elements. The movie was stressful, but watching the movie was a walk in the park by comparison to my experience of the parts of myself. After that fleeting experience 25 years aog, I found myself traumatised for about 6 months afterwards, and indeed for the rest of my life. Here I am an old man, still talking about an experience I had when I was about 22. And at the same time, the reason why I am still talking about the experience was because it was, and to an extent remains, so difficult, so disgusting as to make it difficult to talk about.
Of course, my experience may have been of only the structure of my particular self, but as I see these often extremely violent, and sexually twisted television series and movies proliferate I wonder if, at last, my experience was more universalisable than I had initially thought. I thought I was just simply a mad **** at the time. But here lies, the most important thing about what I have to say: it is possible that the self appears to be a unity to most people, and its structure indivisible, and invisible, because that structure is, or would be, to most people, so utterly disgusting. Far more so than the worst scenes in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."
So here is my experience again. I find it easiest to explain my experience with the analogy of a ventriloquist since in retrospect it seems very similar. When my self fell apart, into its parts, I felt that I was experiencing a ventriloquism act with the following parts: (1) an enormous consciousness of proportion so vast as to be other-worldly (2) a listening persona (2) A speaking persona.
I felt the enormous consciousness, for a flash of an instant, to be my true self. It seemed that this enormous consciousness was engaging in something similar to a ventriloquism act in that he was throwing his voice and pretending to hear that voice from the perspective of a third person.
When looking at a ventriloquist's stage act we can forget that ventriloquists are pretending to be two people. ventriloquists fabulate two people. We notice that they are "throwing their voice" and giving their dummy a life of its own. We may forget however, even as we are watching a ventriloquist, that the real stage performer is usually pretending to be not only the dummy, but also pretending to be another persona by putting on feigned belief in the dummy, and fabulating or feigning a character that listens to and banters with the dummy's remarks.
The experience thus far can largely be understood by reference to one of Nina Conti's ventriloquism acts, where she makes it clear that one need not use a dummy to perform ventriloquism, and even suggests that the dummy-less-dummy or voice, is as real as the listener.
And so it was with my experience. It was *not* that I became aware of the "dummy". The "dummy" or rather just my interior narrative was myself, the self that I generally (these days and then) thought myself to be. I heard myself speak/think in much the same way as I always speak/think. The difference was that I suddenly realised who I was speaking to and why. I became aware of the act that the massive ventriloquists putting on, the listener that feigns interest. The worst part about it was the act that I was performing, for myself, "in my head", was auto-erotic, transsexual, and then some -- it was also incestuous.
"The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo," stopped short of portraying real incest and of course the incest that I discovered in my head (my soul/psyche/self) was not real. Lisbeth was a ward of the state and she was raped by her guardian. The Lisbeth-gardian parent-child relationship was in name only, but their sex was real. I found that I was chatting up a woman, not unlike a Listbeth or Nikita, that I was simulated in my head who was clearly based upon my own mother. I was cross-dressing as it were mentally and feigning a female listener to my self-narrative. While this listener never spoke, her (my) unspoken reaction to my self speak was clearly sympathetic, loving, in a mother-child and at the same time romantic way. I felt like the murderer in the famous Hitchcock movie, Psycho except that instead of dressing up as my mother, I was creating her in my brain.
The enormous consciousness that was witnessing the whole event was entirely aware of what was going on and he was disgusted, with me the speaker that I guess he was also inventing. Somehow, strangely, in that experience the blame fell on the narratival voice (me) despite the fact that, presumably, it was the consciousness that was pulling all the strings, and behind all the parts. Nonetheless that enormity was disgusted and angry with the nasty little voice and the hollow woman that he had in his mind.
That was most of my experience. Does my experience have anything other than one warped individual, or does it bear any similarity with the structure of the programs I am analysing, other than the fact that popular television series often have sexually twisted antagonists?
The greatest similarity for me between my experience and the television series is not the detectives but the women as mediums, intermediaries and Nikitas. The woman that I was fabulating, as my internal listener, was disgusting only because she turned out to be myself. I loved that fantasy with an expectant longing brighter and purer than the sun. It was only when she turned out to be myself that the passion and purity of my love, precisely because it was felt to be so passionate and pure, that the whole thing became so disgusting. My internal doll, my cranial perfect woman, had a distinct similarity to the characters portrayed in my previous blog posts -- to the Lisbeth's and Nikita's of modern fiction. It may help a little, perhaps, that I remembered my mother as a young woman as a rather spiky, depressive, and in some senses dark individual. The important point is not the reality but how I fabulated my mother. I think to a large extent I fabulated her as a Nikita, killa, wild, abused, fighting girl. In my experienced I realised that my listener was a fantasy and in that sense, hollow, programmed, a sort of doll, or robot, or alias, like many of the Nikita types that are seen on TV.
It seems to me that I have identified in my experience of 1/4 of a century ago, a sort of sex criminal and a hollow, programmed intermediary of a Nikita type figure.
Finally what of the super-sighed genius "Monk," or "Patrick Jane." To an extent the giant person that I discovered was a bit like that, the all seeing consciousness, the supernatural being (supernatural only in so far as he was not a voice-puppet) upon which Nikita was superimposed upon as a mask, that Nikita acted as a "Medium" for that entity which Nikita hid, just as she alone saw.
So I wonder if anyone else has a psyche as disgusting as mine, or whether I am just seeing coincidences where there aren't any.
Addendum
Having reread it seems to me that there is no way that I am going to persuade anyone that my self-structure is anything but an anomaly unless I give more reasons as to why it should be universal for theoretical reasons and or by seeking links between the genres of video that I am analysing.
There are several things that do not match up.
My female fantasy listened rather than spoke, but the female Medium or intermediary is often the spokesperson for the super or supernatural male.
The sex-criminal in my self-fantasy was felt to by speech (made human) or perhaps my giant consciousness self. The criminals in US television series do not necessarily speak, the Monk-like all seeing consciousness like detectives do not involve themselves in sex at all.
The other thing is, that my experience of the breakdown of myself was accompanied by my realisation that I was gay. I assumed therefore that non-gay persons would have different persona in their selves. I thought that heterosexual men might be modelling their father rather than their young, Nikita-like fantasy mother. The fact that I felt myself to be gay at the time I had my falling apart experience may reduce the applicability of the structure that I became aware of. I am not sure how.
The take-home conclusion of this post is, imho, we watch so many TV series about hollowed out abused girls, who are mediums and intermediaries for super savant males, that kill sex criminals because The Truth is in Here.
I have had another idea about why the woman is a murderer based upon Graham Swift's novel "The Light of Day," another book in this genre. Obvious really.
Images are copyright their respective copyright holders. Please please comment below or contact me via nihonbunka.com to have my remove any of these images.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. (V. W. McGee, Trans., C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.) (Second Printing.). University of Texas Press. pubpages.unh.edu/~jds/BAKHTINSG.htm
Addendum (Big Mistake)
"My head" is inside my narrative and field of view, not the other way around! This is a very important point and the danger of the scientific worldview. The scientific world is a product of our narration as even some scientists a vow (Wheeler, Mach). Our head is also something we see in our field of view in mirrors, or our nose and brow directly. Our perceptions (including of our whispers) are not inside "me" or my body. To think so would be double death.
(gelijkheid / billijkheid)
In other words Jono Hey's weekly sketch from 19-5-2024
I am following Jono Hey for several years now. His weekly drawings are often surprising, on point, and even instructive.
And this week, finally, with a bicycle again. ;-)
He also recently released an interesting book full of drawings: Big Ideas Little Pictures.
You can find more info here. sketchplanations.com/big-ideas-little-pictures?utm_id=big...
Drawing posted with permission from Jono Hey.
1298
This is not a happy image, but it is an instructive one. Just a few days before I saw this fly, a friend on Facebook had described the phenomenon--an insect becoming fatally stuck to a milkweed plant. Seen in Frear Park, Troy, New York, USA on June 28, 2022.
"Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland, is the headquarters of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSED). It houses the Surgeons' Hall Museum, and the library and archive of the RCSED. The present Surgeons' Hall was designed by William Henry Playfair and completed in 1832, and is a category A listed building.
Surgeons' Hall Museum is the major medical museum in Scotland, and one of Edinburgh's many tourist attractions. The museum is recognised as a collection of national significance by the Scottish Government.
The museum reopened in September 2015, after being closed for an eighteen-month period of redevelopment.
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh was incorporated in 1505, when it received its Seal of Cause or charter and became styled as 'The Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh'. The Museum at Surgeons Hall, Edinburgh dates from 1699 when the Incorporation announced that they were making a collection of ‘natural and artificial curiosities’. and advertised for these in the first edition of a local paper, the Edinburgh Gazette. Daniel Defoe, an early visitor in 1726, wrote in his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain that the 'chamber of rarities' contained many curious things too numerous for him to describe. Much of this early collection was given to the University of Edinburgh in the 1760s.
By the early years of the 19th Century, the Incorporation had received a Royal Charter to become the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. The College saw its primary role as the teaching of anatomy and surgery, the training of surgeons, and examination of their acquired knowledge. Anatomy and pathology specimens were crucial to that function. The museum expanded dramatically with the acquisition of two large collections. John Barclay, a successful anatomy demonstrator in the extramural school of medicine donated his collection, while Sir Charles Bell, Professor of Surgery in the University of London and latterly in the University of Edinburgh sold his collection to the museum. These collections were much too large to be housed in the original 1697 Surgeons' Hall, and so the surgeons commissioned the leading Edinburgh architect William Playfair to build the present day Surgeons Hall, which opened in 1832. At first the entire upper floor of the building was devoted to the museum collections, which were open to the public and attracted large visitor numbers. Throughout the 19th and early 20th century the collection expanded as it became customary for surgeons and pathologists to donate not only specimens which they regarded as interesting or instructive, but surgical instruments and equipment. With the great scientific and technical advances of the time, the museum began to acquire anaesthetic equipment, histology slides, X-rays and photographs.
Edinburgh (/ˈɛdɪnbərə/; Scots: Edinburgh; Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann [ˈt̪uːn ˈeːtʲən̪ˠ]) is the capital of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.
Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the supreme courts of Scotland. The city's Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, philosophy, the sciences and engineering. It is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom (after London) and the city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most visited tourist destination attracting 4.9 million visits including 2.4 million from overseas in 2018.
Edinburgh is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The official population estimates are 488,050 (2016) for the Locality of Edinburgh (Edinburgh pre 1975 regionalisation plus Currie and Balerno), 518,500 (2018) for the City of Edinburgh, and 1,339,380 (2014) for the city region. Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region comprising East Lothian, Edinburgh, Fife, Midlothian, Scottish Borders and West Lothian.
The city is the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It is home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, is placed 20th in the QS World University Rankings for 2020. The city is also known for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, and the extensive Georgian New Town built in the 18th/19th centuries. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.
The Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, is a concept in medieval and ancient philosophy referring to the capricious nature of Fate. The wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna, who spins it at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel - some suffer great misfortune, others gain windfalls. Fortune appears on all paintings as a woman, sometimes blindfolded, "puppeteering" a wheel.Origins[edit]
The origin of the word is from the "wheel of fortune" - the zodiac, referring to the Celestial spheres of which the 8th holds the stars, and the 9th is where the signs of the zodiac are placed. The concept was first invented in Babylon and later developed by the ancient Greeks. The concept somewhat resembles the Bhavacakra, or Wheel of Becoming, depicted throughout Ancient Indian art and literature, except that the earliest conceptions in the Roman and Greek world involve not a two-dimensional wheel but a three-dimensional sphere, a metaphor for the world. It was widely used in the Ptolemaic perception of the universe as the zodiac being a wheel with its "signs" constantly turning throughout the year and having effect on the world's fate (or fortune). Ptolemaic model of the spheres for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn with epicycle, eccentric deferent and equant point. Georg von Peuerbach, Theoricae novae planetarum, 1474.
Vettius Valens, a second century BC astronomer and astrologer, wrote. There are many wheels, most moving from west to east, but some move from east to west.
Seven wheels, each hold one heavenly object, the first holds the moon... Then the eighth wheel holds all the stars that we see... And the ninth wheel, the wheel of fortunes, moves from east to west, and includes each of the twelve signs of fortune, the twelve signs of the zodiac. Each wheel is inside the other, like an onion's peel sits inside another peel, and there is no empty space between them.[this quote needs a citation] In the same century, the Roman tragedian Pacuvius wrote: Fortunam insanam esse et caecam et brutam perhibent philosophical, Saxoque instare in globoso praedicant volubili: Id quo saxum inpulerit fors, eo cadere Fortunam autumant. Caecam ob eam rem esse iterant, quia nihil cernat, quo sese adplicet; Insanam autem esse aiunt, quia atrox, incerta instabilisque sit; Brutam, quia dignum atque indignum nequeat internoscere. Philosophers say that Fortune is insane and blind and stupid, and they teach that she stands on a rolling, spherical rock: they affirm that, wherever chance pushes that rock, Fortuna falls in that direction. They repeat that she is blind for this reason: that she does not see where she's heading; they say she's insane, because she is cruel, flaky and unstable; stupid, because she can't distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy.
—Pacuvius, Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta. Vol. 1, ed. O. Ribbeck, 1897
The idea of the rolling ball of fortune became a literary topos and was used frequently in declamation. In fact, the Rota Fortunae became a prime example of a trite topos or meme for Tacitus, who mentions its rhetorical overuse in the Dialogus de oratoribus. Fortuna eventually became Christianized: the Roman philosopher Boethius (d. 524) was a major source for the medieval view of the Wheel, writing about it in his Consolatio Philosophiae - "I know how Fortune is ever most friendly and alluring to those whom she strives to deceive, until she overwhelms them with grief beyond bearing, by deserting them when least expected. … Are you trying to stay the force of her turning wheel? Ah! dull-witted mortal, if Fortune begin to stay still, she is no longer Fortune."
The Wheel was widely used as an allegory in medieval literature and art to aid religious instruction. Though classically Fortune's Wheel could be favourable and disadvantageous, medieval writers preferred to concentrate on the tragic aspect, dwelling on downfall of the mighty - serving to remind people of the temporality of earthly things. In the morality play Everyman (c. 1495), for instance, Death comes unexpectedly to claim the protagonist. Fortune's Wheel has spun Everyman low, and Good Deeds, which he previously neglected, are needed to secure his passage to heaven. Geoffrey Chaucer used the concept of the tragic Wheel of Fortune a great deal. It forms the basis for the Monk's Tale, which recounts stories of the great brought low throughout history, including Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Nero, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and, in the following passage, Peter I of Cyprus. O noble Peter, Cyprus' lord and king,
Which Alexander won by mastery, To many a heathen ruin did'st thou bring; For this thy lords had so much jealousy,
That, for no crime save thy high chivalry, All in thy bed they slew thee on a morrow. And thus does Fortune's wheel turn treacherously And out of happiness bring men to sorrow.
~ Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Monk's Fortune's Wheel often turns up in medieval art, from manuscripts to the great Rose windows in many medieval cathedrals, which are based on the Wheel. Characteristically, it has four shelves, or stages of life, with four human figures, usually labeled on the left regnabo (I shall reign), on the top regno (I reign) and is usually crowned, descending on the right regnavi (I have reigned) and the lowly figure on the bottom is marked sum sine regno (I am without a kingdom). Dante employed the Wheel in the Inferno and a "Wheel of Fortune" trump-card appeared in the Tarot deck (circa 1440, Italy). The wheel of fortune from the Burana Codex; The figures are labelled "Regno, Regnavi, Sum sine regno, Regnabo": I reign, I reigned, My reign is finished, I shall reign
In the medieval and renaissance period, a popular genre of writing was "Mirrors for Princes", which set out advice for the ruling classes on how to wield power (the most famous being The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli). Such political treatises could use the concept of the Wheel of Fortune as an instructive guide to their readers. John Lydgate's Fall of Princes, written for his patron Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester is a noteworthy example. Many Arthurian romances of the era also use the concept of the Wheel in this manner, often placing the Nine Worthies on it at various points....fortune is so variant, and the wheel so moveable, there nis none constant abiding, and that may be proved by many old chronicles, of noble Hector, and Troilus, and Alisander, the mighty conqueror, and many mo other; when they were most in their royalty, they alighted lowest. ~ Lancelot in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Chapter XVII.[3] Like the Mirrors for Princes, this could be used to convey advice to readers. For instance, in most romances, Arthur's greatest military achievement - the conquest of the Roman Empire - is placed late on in the overall story. However in Malory's work the Roman conquest and high point of King Arthur's reign is established very early on. Thus, everything that follows is something of a decline. Arthur, Lancelot and the other Knights of the Round Table are meant to be the paragons of chivalry, yet in Malory's telling of the story they are doomed to failure. In medieval thinking, only God was perfect, and even a great figure like King Arthur had to be brought low. For the noble reader of the tale in the Middle Ages, this moral could serve as a warning, but also as something to aspire to. Malory could be using the concept of Fortune's Wheel to imply that if even the greatest of chivalric knights made mistakes, then a normal fifteenth-century noble didn't have to be a paragon of virtue in order to be a good knight. The Wheel of Fortune motif appears significantly in the Carmina Burana (or Burana Codex), albeit with a postclassical phonetic spelling of the genitive form Fortunae. Excerpts from two of the collection's better known poems, "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World)" and "Fortune Plango Vulnera (I Bemoan the Wounds of Fortune)," read: Sors immanis et inanis, rota tu volubilis, status malus,
vana salus semper dissolubilis, obumbrata et velata michi quoque niteris; nunc per ludum dorsum nudum fero tui sceleris. Fortune rota volvitur; descendo minoratus; alter in altum tollitur; nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice caveat ruinam! nam sub axe legimus Hecubam reginam.Fate - monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, status is bad,
well-being is vain always may melt away, shadowy
and veiled you plague me too; now through the game
bare backed I bear your villainy. The wheel of Fortune turns;
I go down, demeaned; another is carried to the height;
far too high up sits the king at the summit - let him beware ruin! for under the axis we read: Queen Hecuba. Later usage:
Fortune and her Wheel have remained an enduring image throughout history. Fortune's wheel can also be found in Thomas More's Utopia. Wheel of fortune in Sebastian Brant`s Narrenschiff, woodcut by A. Dürer William Shakespeare in Hamlet wrote of the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and, of fortune personified, to "break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel." And in Henry V, Act 3 Scene VI[4] are the lines: Bardolph, a soldier who is loyal and stout-hearted and full of valour, has, by a cruel trick of fate and a turn of silly Fortune's wildly spinning wheel, that blind goddess who stands upon an ever-rolling stone—
Fluellen: Now, now, Ensign Pistol. Fortune is depicted as blind, with a scarf over her eyes, to signify that she is blind. And she is depicted with a wheel to signify—this is the point—that she is turning and inconstant, and all about change and variation. And her foot, see, is planted on a spherical stone that rolls and rolls and rolls. Shakespeare also references this Wheel in King Lear.[5] The Earl of Kent, who was once held dear by the King, has been banished, only to return in disguise. This disguised character is placed in the stocks for an overnight and laments this turn of events at the end of Act II, Scene 2:Fortune, good night, smile once more; turn thy wheel! In Act IV, scene vii, King Lear also contrasts his misery on the "wheel of fire" to Cordelia's "soul in bliss". Shakespeare also made reference to this in "Macbeth" throughout the whole play. Macbeth starts off halfway up the wheel when a Thane, but moves higher and higher until he becomes king, but falls right down again towards the end as his wife dies, and he in turn dies.
In Anthony Trollope's novel The Way We Live Now, the character Lady Carbury writes a novel entitled "The Wheel of Fortune" about a heroine who suffers great financial hardships.
Selections from the Carmina Burana, including the two poems quoted above, were set to new music by twentieth-century classical composer Carl Orff, whose well-known "O Fortuna" is based on the poem Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi.
Jerry Garcia recorded a song entitled "The Wheel" (co-written with Robert Hunter and Bill Kreutzmann) for his 1972 solo album Garcia, and performed the song regularly with the Grateful Dead from 1976 onward. The song "Wheel in the Sky" by Journey from their 1978 release Infinity also touches on the concept through the lyrics "Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin' / I don't know where I'll be tomorrow". The song "Throw Your Hatred Down" by Neil Young on his 1995 album Mirror Ball, recorded with Pearl Jam, has the verse "The wheel of fortune / Keeps on rollin' down". The term has found its way into modern popular culture through the Wheel of Fortune game show, where contestants win or lose money determined by the random spin of a wheel. Also, the video game series character Kain (Legacy of Kain) used the wheel of fate. Fortuna does occasionally turn up in modern literature, although these days she has become more or less synonymous with Lady Luck. Her Wheel is less widely used as a symbol, and has been replaced largely by a reputation for fickleness. She is often associated with gamblers, and dice could also be said to have replaced the Wheel as the primary metaphor for uncertain fortune. The Hudsucker Proxy, a film by the Coen Brothers, also uses the Rota Fortunae concept and in the TV series Firefly (2002) the main character, Malcolm Reynolds, says "The Wheel never stops turning, Badger" to which Badger replies "That only matters to the people on the rim". Likewise, a physical version of the Wheel of Fortune is used in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, a film by George Miller and George Ogilvie. In the movie, the title character reneges on a contract and is told "bust a deal, face the wheel." In the science fiction TV series Farscape, the fourth episode of the fourth season has main character Crichton mention that his grandmother told him that fate was like a wheel, alternately bringing fortunes up and down, and the episode's title also references this. Unlike many other instances of the wheel of fortune analogy, which focus on tragic falls from good fortune, Crichton's version is notably more positive, and meant as a message of endurance: those suffering from bad fortune must remain strong and "wait for the wheel" of fortune to turn back to eventually turn back to good fortune again. Ignatius J. Reilly, the central character from John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces, states that he believes the Rota Fortunae to be the source of all man's fate. In the Fable video game series, the wheel of fortune appears twice, somehow perverted. The Wheel of Unholy Misfortune is a torture device in Fable II. It is found in the Temple of Shadows in Rookridge. The Hero can use the wheel to sacrifice followers to the shadows. In Fable III, Reaver's Wheel of Misfortune is a device that, once activated, sends to The Hero a round of random monsters. The Wheel of Fortune is featured in a Magic: the Gathering card by that name that forces all players to discard their hands and draw new ones.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rota_Fortunae
Wheel of Fortune is R.O.T.A or TARO and TORA all 3 are born in same meaning :the workings of a social engine ROTARY'S WHEEL EMBLEM
A wheel has been the symbol of Rotary since our earliest days. The first design was made by Chicago Rotarian Montague Bear, an engraver who drew a simple wagon wheel, with a few lines to show dust and motion. The wheel was said to illustrate "Civilization and Movement." Most of the early clubs had some form of wagon wheel on their publications and letterheads. Finally, in 1922, it was decided that all Rotary clubs should adopt a single design as the exclusive emblem of Rotarians. Thus, in 1923, the present gear wheel, with 24 cogs and six spokes was adopted by the "Rotary International Association." A group of engineers advised that the geared wheel was mechanically unsound and would not work without a "keyway" in the center of the gear to attach it to a power shaft. So, in 1923 the keyway was added and the design which we now know was formally adopted as the official Rotary International emblem. www.icufr.org/abc/abc01.htm
www.rotaryfirst100.org/history/history/wheel/
The most popular symbol is the All seeing eye, and most popular hand signs are the Horn and the 666. Any study of Music and ... Circle (Rotary symbol)
[These are the symbols used by the Reptilian proxy group, the Reptoids (Illuminati, & Freemasons), collectively are known as Satanists or Luciferians. The signs of Evil. The most popular symbol is the All seeing eye, and most popular hand signs are the Horn and the 666. Any study of Music and Movies will find all the usual suspects (proving Satanic control), along with some symbols for mind control. If you want a symbol to use stick with the heart, the exact opposite of Evil. They like to cut them out and offer them to Lucifer, see Blood sacrifice. All the worshiped 'Gods' are a few Anunnaki/Reptilians going under various names down the years such as: Nimrod/Anubis/Horus/Osiris/Baal/Shamash/Janus/Quetzalcoatl/Baphomet/Lucifer/Moloch etc, hence all the snake and horn symbols. The symbols are their secret language, and you can see the connections down the years by the use of the same symbols, e.g. Freemasonry, the US Government, and Communism with the Hidden hand, the hidden hand of history.]
Perpetual motion is motion of bodies that continues indefinitely. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work indefinitely without an energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, as it would violate the first or second law of thermodynamics.These laws of thermodynamics apply even at very grand scales. For example, the motions and rotations of celestial bodies such as planets may appear perpetual, but are actually subject to many processes that slowly dissipate their kinetic energy, such as solar wind, interstellar medium resistance, gravitational radiation and thermal radiation, so they will not keep moving forever.Thus, machines that extract energy from finite sources will not operate indefinitely, because they are driven by the energy stored in the source, which will eventually be exhausted. A common example is devices powered by ocean currents, whose energy is ultimately derived from the Sun, which itself will eventually burn out. Machines powered by more obscure sources have been proposed, but are subject to the same inescapable laws, and will eventually wind down.The laws of thermodynamics apply to closed linear systems. In 2017 new states of matter, time crystals, were discovered which may allow for perpetual motion by bypassing the laws of thermodynamics. The history of perpetual motion machines dates back to the Middle Ages. For millennia, it was not clear whether perpetual motion devices were possible or not, but the development of modern theories of thermodynamics has shown that they are impossible. Despite this, many attempts have been made to construct such machines, continuing into modern times. Modern designers and proponents often use other terms, such as "over unity", to describe their inventions. Oh ye seekers after perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have you pursued? Go and take your place with the alchemists.
There is a scientific consensus that perpetual motion in an isolated system violates either the first law of thermodynamics, the second law of thermodynamics, or both. The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy. The second law can be phrased in several different ways, the most intuitive of which is that heat flows spontaneously from hotter to colder places; relevant here is that the law observes that in every macroscopic process, there is friction or something close to it; another statement is that no heat engine (an engine which produces work while moving heat from a high temperature to a low temperature) can be more efficient than a Carnot heat engine.
In any isolated system, one cannot create new energy (law of conservation of energy) The output work power of heat engines is always smaller than the input heating power. The rest of the heat energy supplied is wasted as heat to the ambient surroundings. The efficiency (this is the produced work power divided by the input heating power) has a maximum, given by the Carnot efficiency. It is always lower than one. The efficiency of real heat engines is even lower than the Carnot efficiency due to irreversibility arising from the speed of processes, including friction. Statements 2 and 3 apply to heat engines. Other types of engines which convert e.g. mechanical into electromagnetic energy, cannot operate with 100% efficiency, because it is impossible to design any system that is free of energy dissipation. Machines which comply with both laws of thermodynamics by accessing energy from unconventional sources are sometimes referred to as perpetual motion machines, although they do not meet the standard criteria for the name. By way of example, clocks and other low-power machines, such as Cox's timepiece, have been designed to run on the differences in barometric pressure or temperature between night and day. These machines have a source of energy, albeit one which is not readily apparent so that they only seem to violate the laws of thermodynamics. Even machines which extract energy from long-lived sources - such as ocean currents - will run down when their energy sources inevitably do. They are not perpetual motion machines because they are consuming energy from an external source and are not isolated systems.
One classification of perpetual motion machines refers to the particular law of thermodynamics the machines purport to violate: A perpetual motion machine of the first kind produces work without the input of energy. It thus violates the first law of thermodynamics: the law of conservation of energy.
A perpetual motion machine of the second kind is a machine which spontaneously converts thermal energy into mechanical work. When the thermal energy is equivalent to the work done, this does not violate the law of conservation of energy. However, it does violate the more subtle second law of thermodynamics (see also entropy). The signature of a perpetual motion machine of the second kind is that there is only one heat reservoir involved, which is being spontaneously cooled without involving a transfer of heat to a cooler reservoir. This conversion of heat into useful work, without any side effect, is impossible, according to the second law of thermodynamics. A perpetual motion machine of the third kind is usually (but not always) defined as one that completely eliminates friction and other dissipative forces, to maintain motion forever (due to its mass inertia). (Third in this case refers solely to the position in the above classification scheme, not the third law of thermodynamics.) It is impossible to make such a machine,[15][16] as dissipation can never be completely eliminated in a mechanical system, no matter how close a system gets to this ideal (see examples in the Low Friction section). October 1920 issue of Popular Science magazine, on perpetual motion. Although scientists have established them to be impossible under the laws of physics, perpetual motion continues to capture the imagination of inventors. The device shown is a "mass leverage" device, where the spherical weights on the right have more leverage than those on the left, supposedly creating a perpetual rotation. However, there are a greater number of weights on the left, balancing the device. "Epistemic impossibility" describes things which absolutely cannot occur within our current formulation of the physical laws. This interpretation of the word "impossible" is what is intended in discussions of the impossibility of perpetual motion in a closed system. The conservation laws are particularly robust from a mathematical perspective. Noether's theorem, which was proven mathematically in 1915, states that any conservation law can be derived from a corresponding continuous symmetry of the action of a physical system.For example, if the true laws of physics remain invariant over time then the conservation of energy follows. On the other hand, if the conservation laws are invalid, then the foundations of physics would need to change.Scientific investigations as to whether the laws of physics are invariant over time use telescopes to examine the universe in the distant past to discover, to the limits of our measurements, whether ancient stars were identical to stars today. Combining different measurements such as spectroscopy, direct measurement of the speed of light in the past and similar measurements demonstrates that physics has remained substantially the same, if not identical, for all of observable time spanning billions of years. The principles of thermodynamics are so well established, both theoretically and experimentally, that proposals for perpetual motion machines are universally met with disbelief on the part of physicists. Any proposed perpetual motion design offers a potentially instructive challenge to physicists: one is certain that it cannot work, so one must explain how it fails to work. The difficulty (and the value) of such an exercise depends on the subtlety of the proposal; the best ones tend to arise from physicists' own thought experiments and often shed light upon certain aspects of physics. So, for example, the thought experiment of a Brownian ratchet as a perpetual motion machine was first discussed by Gabriel Lippmann in 1900 but it was not until 1912 that Marian Smoluchowski gave an adequate explanation for why it cannot work. However, during that twelve-year period scientists did not believe that the machine was possible. They were merely unaware of the exact mechanism by which it would inevitably fail. The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. In the mid 19th-century Henry Dircks investigated the history of perpetual motion experiments, writing a vitriolic attack on those who continued to attempt what he believed to be impossible:
"There is something lamentable, degrading, and almost insane in pursuing the visionary schemes of past ages with dogged determination, in paths of learning which have been investigated by superior minds, and with which such adventurous persons are totally unacquainted. The history of Perpetual Motion is a history of the fool-hardiness of either half-learned, or totally ignorant persons." This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
See also: History of perpetual motion machines
“One day man will connect his apparatus to the very wheelwork of the universe [...] and the very forces that motivate the planets in their orbits and cause them to rotate will rotate his own machinery.”
— Nikola Tesla
Some common ideas recur repeatedly in perpetual motion machine designs. Many ideas that continue to appear today were stated as early as 1670 by John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester and an official of the Royal Society. He outlined three potential sources of power for a perpetual motion machine, "Chymical [sic] Extractions", "Magnetical Virtues" and "the Natural Affection of Gravity". The seemingly mysterious ability of magnets to influence motion at a distance without any apparent energy source has long appealed to inventors. One of the earliest examples of a magnetic motor was proposed by Wilkins and has been widely copied since: it consists of a ramp with a magnet at the top, which pulled a metal ball up the ramp. Near the magnet was a small hole that was supposed to allow the ball to drop under the ramp and return to the bottom, where a flap allowed it to return to the top again. The device simply could not work. Faced with this problem, more modern versions typically use a series of ramps and magnets, positioned so the ball is to be handed off from one magnet to another as it moves. The problem remains the same.
Gravity also acts at a distance, without an apparent energy source, but to get energy out of a gravitational field (for instance, by dropping a heavy object, producing kinetic energy as it falls) one has to put energy in (for instance, by lifting the object up), and some energy is always dissipated in the process. A typical application of gravity in a perpetual motion machine is Bhaskara's wheel in the 12th century, whose key idea is itself a recurring theme, often called the overbalanced wheel: moving weights are attached to a wheel in such a way that they fall to a position further from the wheel's center for one half of the wheel's rotation, and closer to the center for the other half. Since weights further from the center apply a greater torque, it was thought that the wheel would rotate forever. However, since the side with weights further from the center has fewer weights than the other side, at that moment, the torque is balanced and perpetual movement is not achieved.The moving weights may be hammers on pivoted arms, or rolling balls, or mercury in tubes; the principle is the same. Perpetual motion wheels from a drawing of Leonardo da Vinci. Another theoretical machine involves a frictionless environment for motion. This involves the use of diamagnetic or electromagnetic levitation to float an object. This is done in a vacuum to eliminate air friction and friction from an axle. The levitated object is then free to rotate around its center of gravity without interference. However, this machine has no practical purpose because the rotated object cannot do any work as work requires the levitated object to cause motion in other objects, bringing friction into the problem. Furthermore, a perfect vacuum is an unattainable goal since both the container and the object itself would slowly vaporize, thereby degrading the vacuum.
To extract work from heat, thus producing a perpetual motion machine of the second kind, the most common approach (dating back at least to Maxwell's demon) is unidirectionality. Only molecules moving fast enough and in the right direction are allowed through the demon's trap door. In a Brownian ratchet, forces tending to turn the ratchet one way are able to do so while forces in the other direction are not. A diode in a heat bath allows through currents in one direction and not the other. These schemes typically fail in two ways: either maintaining the unidirectionality costs energy (requiring Maxwell's demon to perform more thermodynamic work to gauge the speed of the molecules than the amount of energy gained by the difference of temperature caused) or the unidirectionality is an illusion and occasional big violations make up for the frequent small non-violations (the Brownian ratchet will be subject to internal Brownian forces and therefore will sometimes turn the wrong way).
The "Float Belt". The yellow blocks indicate floaters. It was thought that the floaters would rise through the liquid and turn the belt. However, pushing the floaters into the water at the bottom takes as much energy as the floating generates, and some energy is dissipated.
Buoyancy is another frequently misunderstood phenomenon. Some proposed perpetual-motion machines miss the fact that to push a volume of air down in a fluid takes the same work as to raise a corresponding volume of fluid up against gravity. These types of machines may involve two chambers with pistons, and a mechanism to squeeze the air out of the top chamber into the bottom one, which then becomes buoyant and floats to the top. The squeezing mechanism in these designs would not be able to do enough work to move the air down, or would leave no excess work available to be extracted.
Proposals for such inoperable machines have become so common that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has made an official policy of refusing to grant patents for perpetual motion machines without a working model. The USPTO Manual of Patent Examining Practice states: With the exception of cases involving perpetual motion, a model is not ordinarily required by the Office to demonstrate the operability of a device. If operability of a device is questioned, the applicant must establish it to the satisfaction of the examiner, but he or she may choose his or her own way of so doing. And, further, that: A rejection [of a patent application] on the ground of lack of utility includes the more specific grounds of inoperativeness, involving perpetual motion. A rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 for lack of utility should not be based on grounds that the invention is frivolous, fraudulent or against public policy. The filing of a patent application is a clerical task, and the USPTO will not refuse filings for perpetual motion machines; the application will be filed and then most probably rejected by the patent examiner, after he has done a formal examination.Even if a patent is granted, it does not mean that the invention actually works, it just means that the examiner believes that it works, or was unable to figure out why it would not work.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion
An overbalanced wheel is one form of device that has been frequently attempted in the quest for a perpetual machine. This is impossible as it violates the laws of thermodynamics.
However, an unbalanced mass can respond to external energy inputs, which is therefore not the same as perpetual motion. Seismographs work by this principle, but the wheel becomes a horizontal pendulum having limited range of motion. One type of wave energy device utilizes this principle as well, achieving resonance when tuned to the body forces impinging on it (within a host vessel or buoy) from ocean waves. Excess energy is extracted via a generator attached to the rotating pendulum’s center of rotation or directly constructed around a periphery (making it look somewhat like an unbalanced wheel, but horizontally mounted). Control circuitry meters out the electrical current from the generator to the load to achieve optimal power output under different sea conditions.Both designs have been patented and successfully demonstrated at sea. Advantages of this approach include overall simplicity, intrinsic robustness under severe conditions, and isolation of components from seawater.
Steve Hench, Scientific Staff @ Los Alamos, Former Chief Scientist for Alt-Energy @ SAICCould we ever make a device that operates with absolutely no energy loss?
A perpetual motion machine is (as the name implies) a machine that moves perpetually; it never stops. Ever. So if you created one today and set it going, it would keep on going until the Big Freeze. Calling that “a long time” is an understatement of epic proportions. If you aren’t aware, the Big Freeze is the theoretical end of, well, everything. It is the point at which the universe has expanded so much that it reaches a state of zero thermodynamic free energy. In other words, it is the point at which the cosmos, as a whole, will be unable to sustain motion. All of spacetime will be at absolute zero (the coldest known temperature, where all movement stops). In short, the Big Freeze is essentially a time of eternal, unending, utterly still darkness. Fortunately, it’s not set to happen for another 100 trillion years or so. In any case, the important thing to remember is that a true perpetual motion machine would be able to run at least that long. There are many designs on the internet that claim to be working designs for perpetual motion machines. If you look at those designs, it’s not too farfetched to think that some of those machines could (if engineered correctly) move without stopping. And if we could do this, the implications would be staggering. We would essentially have an eternal source of energy. More than that, it would be free energy. Unfortunately, thanks to the fundamental physics of our universe, perpetual motion machines are impossible. Now, I know that there are probably a lot of people who are saying, “You should never say ‘never’ in science.” And fair enough. I admit that new knowledge could come along; however, in order for perpetual motion machines to be possible, this new knowledge would have to break physics as we know it. We’d be wrong about simply everything, and nearly none of our observations would make any sense. If this isn’t “impossible,” it is about as close as you can get in science. So let’s breakdown perpetual motion machines and why we’ll never be able to make oneCould we ever make a device that operates with absolutely no energy loss?
WHAT IS PERPETUAL MOTION?
A perpetual motion machine is (as the name implies) a machine that moves perpetually; it never stops. Ever. So if you created one today and set it going, it would keep on going until the Big Freeze. Calling that “a long time” is an understatement of epic proportions.
If you aren’t aware, the Big Freeze is the theoretical end of, well, everything. It is the point at which the universe has expanded so much that it reaches a state of zero thermodynamic free energy. In other words, it is the point at which the cosmos, as a whole, will be unable to sustain motion. All of spacetime will be at absolute zero (the coldest known temperature, where all movement stops).
In short, the Big Freeze is essentially a time of eternal, unending, utterly still darkness. Fortunately, it’s not set to happen for another 100 trillion years or so.
In any case, the important thing to remember is that a true perpetual motion machine would be able to run at least that long.
There are many designs on the internet that claim to be working designs for perpetual motion machines. If you look at those designs, it’s not too farfetched to think that some of those machines could (if engineered correctly) move without stopping. And if we could do this, the implications would be staggering. We would essentially have an eternal source of energy. More than that, it would be free energy.
Unfortunately, thanks to the fundamental physics of our universe, perpetual motion machines are impossible.
Now, I know that there are probably a lot of people who are saying, “You should never say ‘never’ in science.” And fair enough. I admit that new knowledge could come along; however, in order for perpetual motion machines to be possible, this new knowledge would have to break physics as we know it. We’d be wrong about simply everything, and nearly none of our observations would make any sense.
If this isn’t “impossible,” it is about as close as you can get in science. So let’s breakdown perpetual motion machines and why we’ll never be able to make one.
THE PHYSICS OF PERPETUAL MOTION
The first law of thermodynamics is the law of conservation of energy. It states that energy is always conserved. It means that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Instead, it simply changes from one form to another. To keep a machine moving, the energy applied should stay with the machine without any losses. Because of this fact alone, it is impossible to build perpetual motion machines.
Why? To build a perpetual motion machine we must accomplish many things:
1.) The machine should not have any “rubbing” parts: Any moving part must not touch other parts. This is because of friction that would be created between the two. This friction will ultimately cause the machine to lose its energy to heat. Making the surfaces smooth is not enough, as there is no perfectly smooth object. Heat will always be generated when two parts rub on each other (and that generation of heat is energy transference i.e, the motion machine losing energy).
2.) The machine must be operated inside a vacuum (no air): The reason for this has to do with the reason listed in number one. Operating the machine anywhere will cause the machine to lose energy due to the friction between the moving parts and air. Although the energy lost due to air friction is very small, remember, we are talking about perpetual motion machines here, if there is a loss mechanism, eventually, the machine will still lose its energy and run down (even if it takes a long, long time).
3.) The machine should not produce any sound: Sound is also a form of energy; if the machine is making any sound, that means that it is also losing energy.
For the sake of argument, let’s just say that somehow, we are able to build a perpetual motion machine. Will we be able to get energy from it? Yes, but only up to the energy that is used as an input to start the movement. A perpetual motion machine in real life will just be an energy storage. We must remember that the energy cannot be created; it always has to come from something. So, if you happen to be able to build one, you will need energy to start the motion. This is the only energy that you will be able to harvest, since, as stated previously, energy cannot be created. Kind of a pointless device, really.
by Jethro Andal.
Giles Flat in the County of Hindmarsh is the name of a tract of flat agricultural country lying 2 miles to the east of Finnis Flat. It is inhabited by a scattered farming population. Ref: Bailliere’s South Australian Gazetteer and Road Guide of 1866.
Giles Flat school, in the Hundred of Kondoparinga, west of Strathalbyn, was opened by Henry P Ashton in 1863. Ref: Manning’s Place Names of South Australia.
November 5
The anniversary of the Primitive Methodist Church was held on November 2 and 3.
Sunday sermons were preached. On Monday a tea meeting was held.
The chapel was decorated by Misses Keeling, Lily and others. As the chapel was not large enough to accommodate the assembly it was decided to hold the meeting in the open air. The whole affair was a success, and the proceeds amounted to £13 3s 2d. Mr Lily and his daughters rendered good service in repairing and cleaning the chapel. Ref: South Australian Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide) 15-11-1884.
Giles Flat October 23
On Sunday and Monday October 20 and 21 the Primitive Methodists celebrated the anniversary of their church. Sermons were preached in the open air. Monday tea and public meetings were held, Mr H Waters, of Belvidere, presiding at the latter. Singing was led by friends from Bull’s Creek.
During the afternoon a photograph of the church and the visitors was taken. Ref: South Australian Chronicle (Adelaide) 26-10-1889.
The opening services in connection with the new Primitive Methodist Church, Giles Flat, were held on October 19 and 20. There were crowded congregations and two instructive sermons were preached.
On Monday tea was provided of which upwards of 250 took part.
The beautiful service of song “The babes in the basket” was well given by the Woodchester choir.
Votes of thanks were proposed and seconded to all friends assisting and especially Mr and Mrs Sissons to whose untiring efforts the success of the services are mainly due.
At the close of the meeting a supper was held. Receipts over £20. Cost of building £117 19s 6d. Total receipts £81 3s 6d. Deficiency £36 16s 0d. Ref: Christian Colonist (SA) 7-11-1890.
Church anniversary was held on October 28 and 29. On Sunday two services were conducted by Rev C E Taylor. On Monday the usual tea and concert were held, the concert proving a great success, and many thanks are due to the Strathalbyn Methodist choir and other friends who so kindly assisted with the programme: also to Mr Collett who acted as chairman. The proceeds amounted to about £9. Ref: Australian Christian Commonwealth (SA) 23-11-1917.
Ein lehrreicher Workshop ist vorbei, übrig bleiben die Erinnerungen an nette Kolleginnen und einer reizenden Enkhe und Tuya und vielen neuen Inspirationen.
An instructive workshop is over, leaving only memories of nice fellows an s lovely Enkhe and Tuya and many new inspirations.
Square and Compasses stained glass window.
Masonic Square and Compasses:
The Square and Compasses (or, more correctly, a square and a set of compasses joined together) is the single most identifiable symbol of Freemasonry. Both the square and compasses are architect's tools and are used in Masonic ritual as emblems to teach symbolic lessons. Some Lodges and rituals explain these symbols as lessons in conduct: for example, Duncan's Masonic Monitor of 1866 explains them as: "The square, to square our actions; The compasses, to circumscribe and keep us within bounds with all mankind".
However, as Freemasonry is non-dogmatic, there is no general interpretation for these symbols (or any Masonic symbol) that is used by Freemasonry as a whole.
Square and Compasses:
Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
These two symbols have been so long and so universally combined — to teach us, as says an early instruction, "to square our actions and to keep them within due bounds," they are so seldom seen apart, but are so kept together, either as two Great Lights, or as a jewel worn once by the Master of the Lodge, now by the Past Master—that they have come at last to be recognized as the proper badge of a Master Mason, just as the Triple Tau is of a Royal Arch Mason or the Passion Cross of a Knight Templar.
So universally has this symbol been recognized, even by the profane world, as the peculiar characteristic of Freemasonry, that it has recently been made in the United States the subject of a legal decision. A manufacturer of flour having made, in 1873, an application to the Patent Office for permission to adopt the Square and Compasses as a trade-mark, the Commissioner of Patents, .J. M. Thatcher, refused the permission as the mark was a Masonic symbol.
If this emblem were something other than precisely what it is—either less known", less significant, or fully and universally understood—all this might readily be admitted. But, Considering its peculiar character and relation to the public, an anomalous question is presented. There can be no doubt that this device, so commonly worn and employed by Masons, has an established mystic significance, universally recognized as existing; whether comprehended by all or not, is not material to this issue. In view of the magnitude and extent of the Masonic organization, it is impossible to divest its symbols, or at least this particular symbol—perhaps the best known of all—of its ordinary signification, wherever displaced, either as an arbitrary character or otherwise.
It will be universally understood, or misunderstood, as having a Masonic significance; and, therefore, as a trade-mark, must constantly work deception. Nothing could be more mischievous than to create as a monopoly, and uphold by the poser of lacy anything so calculated. as applied to purposes of trade. to be misinterpreted, to mislead all classes, and to constantly foster suggestions of mystery in affairs of business (see Infringing upon Freemasonry, also Imitative Societies, and Clandestine).
In a religious work by John Davies, entitled Summa Totalis, or All in All and the Same Forever, printed in 1607, we find an allusion to the Square and Compasses by a profane in a really Masonic sense. The author, who proposes to describe mystically the form of the Deity, says in his dedication:
Yet I this forme of formelesse Deity,
Drewe by the Squire and Compasse of our Creed.
In Masonic symbolism the Square and Compasses refer to the Freemason's duty to the Craft and to himself; hence it is properly a symbol of brotherhood, and there significantly adopted as the badge or token of the Fraternity.
Berage, in his work on the higher Degrees, Les plus secrets Mystéres des Hauts Grades, or The Most Secret Mysteries of the High Grades, gives a new interpretation to the symbol. He says: "The Square and the Compasses represent the union of the Old and New Testaments. None of the high Degrees recognize this interpretation, although their symbolism of the two implements differs somewhat from that of Symbolic Freemasonry.
The Square is with them peculiarly appropriated to the lower Degrees, as founded on the Operative Art; while the Compasses, as an implement of higher character and uses, is attributed to the Decrees, which claim to have a more elevated and philosophical foundation. Thus they speak of the initiate, when he passes from the Blue Lodge to the Lodge of Perfection, as 'passing from the Square to the Compasses,' to indicate a progressive elevation in his studies. Yet even in the high Degrees, the square and compasses combined retain their primitive signification as a symbol of brotherhood and as a badge of the Order."
Square and Compass:
Source: The Builder October 1916
By Bro. B. C. Ward, Iowa
Worshipful Master and Brethren: Let us behold the glorious beauty that lies hidden beneath the symbolism of the Square and Compass; and first as to the Square. Geometry, the first and noblest of the sciences, is the basis on which the superstructure of Masonry has been erected. As you know, the word "Geometry" is derived from two Greek words which mean "to measure the earth," so that Geometry originated in measurement; and in those early days, when land first began to be measured, the Square, being a right angle, was the instrument used, so that in time the Square began to symbolize the Earth. And later it began to symbolize, Masonically, the earthly-in man, that is man's lower nature, and still later it began to symbolize man's duty in his earthly relations, or his moral obligations to his Fellowmen. The symbolism of the Square is as ancient as the Pyramids. The Egyptians used it in building the Pyramids. The base of every pyramid is a perfect square, and to the Egyptians the Square was their highest and most sacred emblem. Even the Chinese many, many centuries ago used the Square to represent Good, and Confucius in his writings speaks of the Square to represent a Just man.
As Masons we have adopted the 47th Problem of Euclid as the rule by which to determine or prove a perfect Square. Many of us remember with what interest we solved that problem in our school days. The Square has become our most significant Emblem. It rests upon the open Bible on this altar; it is one of the three great Lights; and it is the chief ornament of the Worshipful Master. There is a good reason why this distinction has been conferred upon the Square. There can be nothing truer than a perfect Square--a right angle. Hence the Square has become an emblem of Perfection.
Now a few words as to the Compass: Astronomy was the second great science promulgated among men. In the process of Man's evolution there came a time when he began to look up to the stars and wonder at the vaulted Heavens above him. When he began to study the stars, he found that the Square was not adapted to the measurement of the Heavens. He must have circular measure; he needed to draw a circle from a central point, and so the Compass was employed. By the use of the Compass man began to study the starry Heavens, and as the Square primarily symbolized the Earth, the Compass began to symbolize the Heavens, the celestial canopy, the study of which has led men to think of God, and adore Him as the Supreme Architect of the Universe. In later times the Compass began to symbolize the spiritual or higher nature of man, and it is a significant fact that the circumference of a circle, which is a line without end, has become an emblem of Eternity and symbolizes Divinity; so the Compass, and the circle drawn by the Compass, both point men Heavenward and Godward.
The Masonic teaching concerning the two points of the Compass is very interesting and instructive. The novitiate in Masonry, as he kneels at this altar, and asks for Light sees the Square, which symbolizes his lower nature, he may well note the position of the Compass. As he takes another step, and asks for more Light, the position of the Compass is changed somewhat, symbolizing that his spiritual nature can, in some measure, overcome his evil tendencies. As he takes another step in Masonry, and asks for further Light, and hears the significant words, "and God said let there be Light, and there was Light," he sees the Compass in new light; and for the first time he sees the meaning, thus unmistakably alluding to the sacred and eternal truth that as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so the spiritual is higher than the material, and the spiritual in man must have its proper place, and should be above his lower nature, and dominate all his thoughts and actions. That eminent Philosopher, Edmund Burke, once said, "It is ordained that men of intemperate passions cannot be free. Their passions forge the chains which bind them, and make them slaves." Burke was right. Masonry, through the beautiful symbolism of the Compass, tells us how we can be free men, by permitting the spiritual within us to overcome our evil tendencies, and dominate all our thoughts and actions. Brethren, sometimes in the silent quiet hour, as we think of this conflict between our lower and higher natures, we sometimes say in the words of another, "Show me the way and let me bravely climb to where all conflicts with the flesh shall cease. Show me that way. Show me the way up to a higher plane where my body shall be servant of my Soul. Show me that way."
Brethren, if that prayer expresses desire of our hearts, let us take heed to the beautiful teachings of the Compass, which silently and persistently tells each one of us,
"You should not in the valley stay
While the great horizons stretch away
The very cliffs that wall you round
Are ladders up to higher ground.
And Heaven draws near as you ascend,
The Breeze invites, the Stars befriend.
All things are beckoning to the Best,
Then climb toward God and find sweet Rest.”
The secrets of Freemasonry are concerned with its traditional modes of recognition. It is not a secret society, since all members are free to acknowledge their membership and will do so in response to enquiries for respectable reasons. Its constitutions and rules are available to the public. There is no secret about any of its aims and principles. Like many other societies, it regards some of its internal affairs as private matters for its members. In history there have been times and places where promoting equality, freedom of thought or liberty of conscience was dangerous. Most importantly though is a question of perspective. Each aspect of the craft has a meaning. Freemasonry has been described as a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. Such characteristics as virtue, honour and mercy, such virtues as temperance, fortitude, prudence and justice are empty clichés and hollow words unless presented within an ordered and closed framework. The lessons are not secret but the presentation is kept private to promote a clearer understanding in good time. It is also possible to view Masonic secrecy not as secrecy in and of itself, but rather as a symbol of privacy and discretion. By not revealing Masonic secrets, or acknowledging the many published exposures, freemasons demonstrate that they are men of discretion, worthy of confidences, and that they place a high value on their word and bond.
Masonic Square and Compasses.
The Square and Compasses (or, more correctly, a square and a set of compasses joined together) is the single most identifiable symbol of Freemasonry. Both the square and compasses are architect's tools and are used in Masonic ritual as emblems to teach symbolic lessons. Some Lodges and rituals explain these symbols as lessons in conduct: for example, Duncan's Masonic Monitor of 1866 explains them as: "The square, to square our actions; The compasses, to circumscribe and keep us within bounds with all mankind".
However, as Freemasonry is non-dogmatic, there is no general interpretation for these symbols (or any Masonic symbol) that is used by Freemasonry as a whole.
Square and Compasses:
Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
These two symbols have been so long and so universally combined — to teach us, as says an early instruction, "to square our actions and to keep them within due bounds," they are so seldom seen apart, but are so kept together, either as two Great Lights, or as a jewel worn once by the Master of the Lodge, now by the Past Master—that they have come at last to be recognized as the proper badge of a Master Mason, just as the Triple Tau is of a Royal Arch Mason or the Passion Cross of a Knight Templar.
So universally has this symbol been recognized, even by the profane world, as the peculiar characteristic of Freemasonry, that it has recently been made in the United States the subject of a legal decision. A manufacturer of flour having made, in 1873, an application to the Patent Office for permission to adopt the Square and Compasses as a trade-mark, the Commissioner of Patents, .J. M. Thatcher, refused the permission as the mark was a Masonic symbol.
If this emblem were something other than precisely what it is—either less known", less significant, or fully and universally understood—all this might readily be admitted. But, Considering its peculiar character and relation to the public, an anomalous question is presented. There can be no doubt that this device, so commonly worn and employed by Masons, has an established mystic significance, universally recognized as existing; whether comprehended by all or not, is not material to this issue. In view of the magnitude and extent of the Masonic organization, it is impossible to divest its symbols, or at least this particular symbol—perhaps the best known of all—of its ordinary signification, wherever displaced, either as an arbitrary character or otherwise.
It will be universally understood, or misunderstood, as having a Masonic significance; and, therefore, as a trade-mark, must constantly work deception. Nothing could be more mischievous than to create as a monopoly, and uphold by the poser of lacy anything so calculated. as applied to purposes of trade. to be misinterpreted, to mislead all classes, and to constantly foster suggestions of mystery in affairs of business (see Infringing upon Freemasonry, also Imitative Societies, and Clandestine).
In a religious work by John Davies, entitled Summa Totalis, or All in All and the Same Forever, printed in 1607, we find an allusion to the Square and Compasses by a profane in a really Masonic sense. The author, who proposes to describe mystically the form of the Deity, says in his dedication:
Yet I this forme of formelesse Deity,
Drewe by the Squire and Compasse of our Creed.
In Masonic symbolism the Square and Compasses refer to the Freemason's duty to the Craft and to himself; hence it is properly a symbol of brotherhood, and there significantly adopted as the badge or token of the Fraternity.
Berage, in his work on the higher Degrees, Les plus secrets Mystéres des Hauts Grades, or The Most Secret Mysteries of the High Grades, gives a new interpretation to the symbol. He says: "The Square and the Compasses represent the union of the Old and New Testaments. None of the high Degrees recognize this interpretation, although their symbolism of the two implements differs somewhat from that of Symbolic Freemasonry.
The Square is with them peculiarly appropriated to the lower Degrees, as founded on the Operative Art; while the Compasses, as an implement of higher character and uses, is attributed to the Decrees, which claim to have a more elevated and philosophical foundation. Thus they speak of the initiate, when he passes from the Blue Lodge to the Lodge of Perfection, as 'passing from the Square to the Compasses,' to indicate a progressive elevation in his studies. Yet even in the high Degrees, the square and compasses combined retain their primitive signification as a symbol of brotherhood and as a badge of the Order."
Square and Compass:
Source: The Builder October 1916
By Bro. B. C. Ward, Iowa
Worshipful Master and Brethren: Let us behold the glorious beauty that lies hidden beneath the symbolism of the Square and Compass; and first as to the Square. Geometry, the first and noblest of the sciences, is the basis on which the superstructure of Masonry has been erected. As you know, the word "Geometry" is derived from two Greek words which mean "to measure the earth," so that Geometry originated in measurement; and in those early days, when land first began to be measured, the Square, being a right angle, was the instrument used, so that in time the Square began to symbolize the Earth. And later it began to symbolize, Masonically, the earthly-in man, that is man's lower nature, and still later it began to symbolize man's duty in his earthly relations, or his moral obligations to his Fellowmen. The symbolism of the Square is as ancient as the Pyramids. The Egyptians used it in building the Pyramids. The base of every pyramid is a perfect square, and to the Egyptians the Square was their highest and most sacred emblem. Even the Chinese many, many centuries ago used the Square to represent Good, and Confucius in his writings speaks of the Square to represent a Just man.
As Masons we have adopted the 47th Problem of Euclid as the rule by which to determine or prove a perfect Square. Many of us remember with what interest we solved that problem in our school days. The Square has become our most significant Emblem. It rests upon the open Bible on this altar; it is one of the three great Lights; and it is the chief ornament of the Worshipful Master. There is a good reason why this distinction has been conferred upon the Square. There can be nothing truer than a perfect Square--a right angle. Hence the Square has become an emblem of Perfection.
Now a few words as to the Compass: Astronomy was the second great science promulgated among men. In the process of Man's evolution there came a time when he began to look up to the stars and wonder at the vaulted Heavens above him. When he began to study the stars, he found that the Square was not adapted to the measurement of the Heavens. He must have circular measure; he needed to draw a circle from a central point, and so the Compass was employed. By the use of the Compass man began to study the starry Heavens, and as the Square primarily symbolized the Earth, the Compass began to symbolize the Heavens, the celestial canopy, the study of which has led men to think of God, and adore Him as the Supreme Architect of the Universe. In later times the Compass began to symbolize the spiritual or higher nature of man, and it is a significant fact that the circumference of a circle, which is a line without end, has become an emblem of Eternity and symbolizes Divinity; so the Compass, and the circle drawn by the Compass, both point men Heavenward and Godward.
The Masonic teaching concerning the two points of the Compass is very interesting and instructive. The novitiate in Masonry, as he kneels at this altar, and asks for Light sees the Square, which symbolizes his lower nature, he may well note the position of the Compass. As he takes another step, and asks for more Light, the position of the Compass is changed somewhat, symbolizing that his spiritual nature can, in some measure, overcome his evil tendencies. As he takes another step in Masonry, and asks for further Light, and hears the significant words, "and God said let there be Light, and there was Light," he sees the Compass in new light; and for the first time he sees the meaning, thus unmistakably alluding to the sacred and eternal truth that as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so the spiritual is higher than the material, and the spiritual in man must have its proper place, and should be above his lower nature, and dominate all his thoughts and actions. That eminent Philosopher, Edmund Burke, once said, "It is ordained that men of intemperate passions cannot be free. Their passions forge the chains which bind them, and make them slaves." Burke was right. Masonry, through the beautiful symbolism of the Compass, tells us how we can be free men, by permitting the spiritual within us to overcome our evil tendencies, and dominate all our thoughts and actions. Brethren, sometimes in the silent quiet hour, as we think of this conflict between our lower and higher natures, we sometimes say in the words of another, "Show me the way and let me bravely climb to where all conflicts with the flesh shall cease. Show me that way. Show me the way up to a higher plane where my body shall be servant of my Soul. Show me that way."
Brethren, if that prayer expresses desire of our hearts, let us take heed to the beautiful teachings of the Compass, which silently and persistently tells each one of us,
"You should not in the valley stay
While the great horizons stretch away
The very cliffs that wall you round
Are ladders up to higher ground.
And Heaven draws near as you ascend,
The Breeze invites, the Stars befriend.
All things are beckoning to the Best,
Then climb toward God and find sweet Rest."
The 500-seat bouleuterion or council chamber, one of the best-preserved parliamentary chambers from antiquity.
As in any Greek city, the agora was Priene’s commercial and political centre, and it is one of the most instructive examples of its kind
Priene, ancient city of Ionia about 6 miles (10 km) north of the Menderes (Maeander) River and 10 miles (16 km) inland from the Aegean Sea, in southwestern Turkey. Its well-preserved remains are a major source of information about ancient Greek town.
By the 8th century bc Priene was a member of the Ionian League, whose central shrine, the Panionion, lay within the city’s territory. Priene was sacked by Ardys of Lydia in the 7th century bc but regained its prosperity in the 8th. Captured by the generals of the Persian king Cyrus (c. 540), the city took part in several revolts against the Persians (499–494). Priene originally lay along the Maeander River’s mouth, but about 350 bc the citizens built a new city farther inland, on the present site. The new city’s main temple, of Athena Polias, was dedicated by Alexander the Great in 334. The little city grew slowly over the next two centuries and led a quiet existence; it prospered under the Romans and Byzantines but gradually declined, and after passing into Turkish hands in the 13th century ad, it was abandoned. Excavations of the site, which is occupied by the modern town of Samsun Kale, began in the 19th century.
Modern excavations have revealed one of the most beautiful examples of Greek town planning. The city’s remains lie on successive terraces that rise from a plain to a steep hill upon which stands the Temple of Athena Polias. Built by Pythius, probable architect of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the temple was recognized in ancient times as the classic example of the pure Ionic style. Priene is laid out on a grid plan, with 6 main streets running east-west and 15 streets crossing at right angles, all being evenly spaced. The town was thereby divided into about 80 blocks, or insulae, each averaging 150 by 110 feet (46 by 34 m). About 50 insulae are devoted to private houses; the better-class insulae had four houses apiece, but most were far more subdivided. In the centre of the town stand not only the Temple of Athena but an agora, a stoa, an assembly hall, and a theatre with well-preserved stage buildings. A gymnasium and stadium are in the lowest section. The private houses typically consisted of a rectangular courtyard enclosed by living quarters and storerooms and opening to the south onto the street by way of a small vestibule. planning.
www.britannica.com/place/Priene
T e m p l e o f A t h e n a P o l i a s
a t P r i e n e - The Temple of Athena
www.goddess-athena.org/Museum/Temples/Priene/index.htm
The Sanctuary of Athena Polias at Priene
The Temple of Athena
This Temple, located on the culminating point of the city, rose over a wide terrace of rocks and the defense walls, and was the oldest, the most important, the largest and the must magnificent building in Priene. It was oriented on an east-west axis in conformity with the city plan and faced east.
Map of Priene, the Acropolis, the Temples and the village.
It is believed that the construction of the Temple was begun at the same time as the founding of Priene (4th century BCE). The architect of the building was Pythius, who also constructed the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, counted as one of the seven wonders of the world. The Temple is accepted as being a classical example of the Anatolian-Ionian architectural style.
The building was destroyed completely in an earthquake in ancient times and the pieces were scattered over a large area. It also suffered great destruction in a later fire. However, the construction of the plan and the reconstruction of the building have been possible through the fragments found in the excavations.
Large-grained grey-blue local marble brought from Mycale was used as construction material.
The Temple, constructed in the Ionic style, consists of a pronaos (an entrance-hall), a naos (the sacred chamber where the statue of the cult was kept) and an opisthodomus (a porch at the rear). The pronaos is larger than in earlier examples. There was no opisthodomus in previous Temples; it is first seen here. Pythius has taken this characteristic from the Doric style and applied it to his plan, and has thus set a model for later Temples. The building, a combination of the Ionic and Doric architectural styles, emerges as a different architectural example.
Processed by: mavenimagery Lab, Universal Studios, Californa.
HDR PROCESSED with IRET (Iris Range Enhancement Technology)
IRET (Iris Range Enhancement Technology and MavenFilters are products of mavenimagery Labs Innovation)
Note: This image was taken for 'test' and 'review', purposely, under the worst lighting and weather conditions. Beside a colorless, overcast late afternoon, there was a gust of wind and movement such as shifting river floats and fast pacing clouds that cause ghosting in HDR images. None is visible here, but don't let the post-processing mislead you.
Those who missed the first impressions of the review can catch up here: www.flickr.com/photos/maven_imagery/5127045978/
Welcome back. HDR Efex Pro has been around enough now to assume that we've all have our share of experience. Before we continue to get with the program, I’d like to mention a few things about human [eye] perception. However, if you’re a student of human perception or have a Gestalt-ian (deliberately throwing a grand German name here to make this review look as intelligent as humanly possible, and, maybe, just maybe, to grab your attention so that you stay with me throughout this most important guiding principles for tonemapping) vision and an eye that would make Stephen Spielberg bite his lips with an overwhelming jealousy, causing him to maybe even swallow his tongue, please skip this section. Above and all: If your image(s) are free of the following inherent problems in any form of photography and sure that they will qualify for the ‘standard market’ requirements (since most of us would like seeing our works published), then, by all means STOP READING! (not recommended). Time is precious so use it for more productive labor. Here are the most overlooked fundamentals that will cripple your ambitions and prevents you from entering the professional world which luckily still has a little room for the talented:
Your image is free of the following problems:
- Artifact Problems: Noise/Grain/Chromatic or other artifacts due to low light, blue or purple fringing, high ISO, halos, over-sharpening/saturated or post processing techniques (mostly in HDR images).
- Low interest subject: Probably little demand/selling potential for this image. Try for more marketable shots.
-Blurry: Image is not very crisp or is blurred when viewed at full size. 1:1 or 100%
- Snapshot composition: This image is more of a snapshot than a marketable image. Overall problems can include poor lighting, poor composition, non-interesting subject matter, etc.
- There is enough of this subject already...sorry. More unique images will help your images stand out from the crowd. Not another sunset, flowers, your dog or flags which are easy to shoot
- Hard shadows: Caused by on-camera flash. Try not to use flash, use more fill light instead. Flash often creates hard ugly shadows
- Exposure problem: Image is too dark or too light, not properly exposed. You may be able to try using 'Levels' control in Photoshop to fix depending on how bad the issue is.
- Poor composition/Cropped subject: Chopping off part of subject makes photo harder to use
generally
There are hundreds of reasons more why your image wouldn’t work, but these should suffice since they are the ‘gate kipper’ to the ‘Declined’ and ‘Accepted’ of the Art World.
But, I’m staying and keeping my course along with those who do. Who knows, maybe I’ll read your book where you call HDR Technology “an art form” (as sum-fellah did and got away with it; the very same person who recently blessed us with Nik’s HDR Pro Efex exaltations and asserted that HDRI was splintering…breaking and disintegrating into the realms of abyss. Impressive statement, ha? To me, it’s nothing more than a plain Forest Gump’s “stupid as stupid does-kind of assertion”) and not “a tool to combine artistry and technology to create High Dynamic Range Images”. That’s HDR-ly confused and messy…
Confused and messy? That’s right. HDR and tonemapping allow us, given the right set of exposure, to reproduce any tone and any color in an image in any way we choose. This may sound great and unlimited freedom in producing the ultimate image as close to human’s eye perception as possible, right? Wrong! This is exactly where one can face confusion with all of them sliders and stray away long from true-perception.
Are you still with me? Hope you are, Skipper. Because, I want this review to be as much a fun as instructive.
Perception. Seeing. Why is it so important?
When an artist looks at a tree, he or she sees details, light, shadow and reflected light as opposed to a normal individual who sees three as a whole. But, an artists who are born with innate talent and an eye sees more: If it’s Spring, he or she sees is green and pinkish blooms, contrast, structure, shade and details that make each leaf and the light that falls on them in three values: Direct light, diffused light (reflectance) and shadow (Luminance=3D form). But,
Confused, already? I don’t blame you. That’s only natural. We’ll stretch and flex underneath this phenomena.
Due to large files accompanied by also large text, they will not be posted on Flickr. To view the images and read more, you'll have to request a link which will be provided by mavenimagery. Thus, we will know who's really interested in this review seriously which will save us all the 'uselessly spent time and effort'.
Thank you