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This garden aims to raise understanding and interest in plant breeding and genetics. The curving pathways in the Wallace Garden reflect the shape of the DNA double helix, and break the oval enclosure into a series of attractive themed beds. Planting blends the curious, the ornamental and the instructive. Here you’ll find examples of natural plant mutations, and every year there are fresh displays of food crops and garden plants that have been selectively bred by humans, like sweet peas and dahlias.
Along the south wall, plants refelct a geological timeline, from the first emergence of mosses and liverworts through horsetails to the tree ferns and conifers that dominate just before the evolution of flowering plants.
In the future we are hoping to use secure funding for this garden in order to demonstrate some of the scientific research the Garden is carrying out, particularly into the DNA of native Welsh plants.
This garden is named in honour of the Usk-born naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), whose own work on the theory of evolution by means of natural selection prompted Charles Darwin to publish his ‘On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection’. In 2008, we celebrated Wallace’s life with a specially commissioned play written by Gaynor Styles of Theatre Nanog and performed by Ioan Hefin (seen left) inside the Wallace Garden for both school groups and general visitors.
The National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW) is situated near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The garden is both a visitor attraction and a centre for botanical research and conservation, and features the world's largest single-span glasshouse measuring 110 m (360 ft) long by 60 m (200 ft) wide.
NBGW seeks "to develop a viable world-class national botanic garden dedicated to the research and conservation of biodiversity and its sustainable utilisation, to lifelong learning and to the enjoyment of the visitor." NBGW is a Registered Charity reliant upon funding from visitors, friends, grants and gifts. From 2008–2009 onwards, the garden will be receiving £550,000 revenue support per annum from the Welsh Assembly Government. Significant start-up costs were shared with the UK Millennium Fund.
The Middleton family from Oswestry built a mansion here in the early 17th century. In 1789 Sir William Paxton bought the estate for £40,000 to create a water park. He used his great wealth to employ some of the finest creative minds of his day, including the eminent architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell, whom he commissioned to design and build a new Middleton Hall, turning the original one into a farm. The new Middleton Hall became ‘one of the most splendid mansions in South Wales’ which ‘far eclipsed the proudest of the Cambrian mansions in Asiatic pomp and splendour’.
Paxton created an ingenious water park. Water flowed around the estate via a system of interconnecting lakes, ponds and streams linked by a network of dams, water sluices, bridges and cascades. Spring water was stored in elevated reservoirs that fed into a lead cistern on the mansion’s roof, allowing Paxton’s residence to enjoy piped running water and the very latest luxury, water closets.
In 1806, Saxton engaged Pepys Cockerell again to design and then oversee the construction of Paxton's Tower on the estate, which was completed in 1809. A Neo-Gothic folly erected in honour of Lord Nelson, it is situated on a hilltop near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley. Today the folly is now owned by the National Trust.
By the time of Paxton's death in 1824, Middleton Hall estate covered some 2,650 acres (1,070 ha). The sale agents engaged that year described the esate thus in their catalogue:
“Richly ornamented by nature, and greatly improved by art. A beautiful tower erected to the memory of the noble hero the late Lord Nelson, forming a grand and prominent feature in the Property and a Land Mark in the County, opposite to which are the Ruins of Dryslwyn Castle, and the Grongar Hills, With the Tower winding to a great extent, presenting a scenery that may vie with any County. As to local amenities, the Roads are excellent, a good Neighborhood, and Country abounding with highly Picturesque Scenery”
Middleton Hall estate was sold to Jamaican-born West India merchant, Edward Hamlin Adams, for £54,700. Neither a gardener nor a lover of water features, while adding buildings that aided his love of country sports, the bath houses quickly fell into disrepair, and only the gardens immediately visible from the house were maintained.
In 1842 the estate passed into the hands of his eccentric son Edward, who immediately changed his name from Adams into the Welsh form Abadam. Not loving the country or gardens, according to his estate manager Thomas Cooke, Edward was a social nightmare. As his son predeceased him, on his death in 1875 the estate passed to his daughter, who had married into the local Hughes family. In 1919 the estate changed hands again when Major William J. H. Hughes sold it to Colonel William N. Jones.
In 1931, the mansion was completely gutted by fire, leaving only the walls standing, themselves covered in globules of moulten lead from the melted roof. After this the estate fell into decline, and 20 years later the walls of the main house were pulled down. The site was then bought by Carmarthenshire County Council, and leased to young farmers hoping to make their way into an agricultural career.
In 1978, interest had been captured by local walkers, who were keen to revive the splendour of what they could see around them. Setting up a fund raising scheme, the little money raised led to the rediscovery of a number of historical features.
The idea for a National Botanic Garden of Wales originated from the Welsh artist, William Wilkins, whose aunt had described to him the ruins of an elaborate water features she had discovered while walking in the local woods at Pont Felin Gat. Under the guidance of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust, an application was made to the Millennium Commission to fund Britain’s first national botanic garden for 200 years.
Virtually on the site of Cockerell's mansion, the Great Glasshouse now forms the centrepiece. Much of the original water-scape has been restored, and extended by introducing cascades to the western approach to the Glasshouse. The extraordinary original view the east side of the mansion offered over the grounds has been restored, extending as originally to Paxton's Tower in the distance. Many experts have commented that this view gives visitors an ability to see and hence understand something of what the great landscape architects of the end of the eighteenth century understood by the word “Picturesque”.
The Garden was opened to the public for the first time on 24 May 2000, and was officially opened on 21 July by the Prince of Wales. In 2003, the garden ran into serious financial difficulties, and in 2004 it accepted a financial package from the Welsh Assembly Government, Carmarthenshire County Council and the Millennium Commission to secure its future.
The site extends to 568 acres (2.30 km2), and among the garden's rare and threatened plants is the whitebeam Sorbus leyana. 21st Century approaches to recycling and conservation have been used in the design of the centre: biomass recycling is used to provide heating for some of the facilities such as the visitor centre and glasshouses.
Placed virtually on the same site as Paxton's new but now demolished Middleton Hall, the Great Glasshouse, designed by Foster and Partners, is the largest structure of its kind in the world. The structure is 95 m (312 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide, with a roof containing 785 panes of glass. Housing plants from several Mediterranean climate regions, the plants are divided into sections from Chile, Western Australia, South Africa, California, the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean itself.
The Double Walled Garden has been rebuilt from the ruins, and is being developed to house a wide variety of plants, including a modern interpretation of a kitchen garden in one quarter, and ornamental beds to display the classification and evolution of all flowering plant families in the other three quarters.
In 2007, a new Tropical Glasshouse, designed by Welsh architect John Belle, was opened to continue the classification displays with tropical monocotyledons.
In 2015 a large collection of Welsh Apple varieties have been planted and a Welsh Pomona is forthcoming.
Perugino - Delivery of the keys to Petrus, detail central octogonal Building, the typical architecture of a medieval Baptistery, here probably an allusion to the temple of Jerusalem.
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[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]
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.
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santa_Maria_in_Aracoeli_C...
Source:
Christmas Day in San Francisco.
A number 1 brush working on a very large restaurant table paper sheet. After forgetting to get paper along, I resorted to the extremes - back of post cards on one hand and restaurant table covers on the other.
Despite lack of drawing and failing values, the study was instructive.
A Happy New Year to all of my Flickr contacts and friends. I have enjoyed sharing my photos and commenting on yours over the years.
As 2017 ends, I did something I rarely, if ever, do, and checked my stats page. I was amazed to find that, over the years, my Photostream has, one way or another, attracted over one and a half million views. I’ve had close to 60 photos in Explore, one of which actually made it to #1. I’ve painstakingly added over four thousand tags to my photos, and also over two thousand geotags. All in all, Flickr has been, and continues to be, a great way to share my love of photography with others who possess a similar passion.
All of that said, 2017 was a very long year. In addition to a number of personal challenges, the 365 Project meant that I was carrying my camera everywhere for the entire period. It was both a fun and instructive undertaking, but it has also left me feeling like a break is in order...
While I expect to post photos from time to time, I don't think I'll be anywhere near as active on Flickr in 2018 as I was in the year past. I'm going to take some time to do some woodwork, draw some pictures, and write some poems. I may even reacquaint myself with film photography. It’s a medium which demands a slower approach, but which, I feel, offers something truly magical in return. It is something uniquely human and tied to patience and uncertainly and chance that I have yet to fully feel in the digital realm.
So, I’m finishing off with a slightly blurred image of a Bohemian Waxwing taking flight. A hundred, or so of these visited my yard today and while I got some technically excellent shots, I found the blurred image of the bird in flight to be, perhaps, the best reflection of my inner thoughts at this time. With all that said, once again, Happy New Year, and good luck to all of you in the months ahead. I hope you continue to share your often excellent, insightful, creative and inspiring photos. Enjoy your days, and hopefully we will encounter each other on Flickr from time to time in the future.
Stained glass Masonic Square and Compasses hang at the foot of my bed.
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."
He’s not as universally known as Elvis Presley or the Blues, but William Eggleston is certainly the most famous photographer Memphis, TN has ever produced. Now aged well into his 80s, the German publisher Steidl has been cementing his legacy with a series of publications that aim to bring to a wider public his incredible body of work. This ranges from books of Flowers, Polaroids, Los Alamos, Chromes, to his most famous The Democratic Forest (the book which defined his aesthetic that EVERYTHING is photograph-able). Recently Steidl has published his most extensive collection yet, The Outlands in 3 volumes. www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8coO3s4Z78&t=3s
The Outlands is well out of the price range of most people, and so a selection of his work has recently been made available under the title, William Eggleston – Mystery of the Ordinary, including some of his early black and white photographs. In this video presentation I give you a look at what’s inside. The last photograph in the book is a self portrait taken with the very same floral garden swing on which one of his most famous photos of a woman was made that featured in the MOMA exhibition in 1976. www.standard.co.uk/culture/william-eggleston-review-much-...
The book also contains three short essays on the impact of Eggleston’s work in Europe.
The title of this book is instructive, and so is this quote from Eggleston himself:
“I am afraid that there are more people than I can imagine who can go no further appreciating a picture that is a rectangle with an object in the middle of it, which they can identify. They don’t care what is around the object as a long as nothing interferes with the object itself, right in the center.”
This is one photographer for whom everything in the frame matters equally, whether it be a beautiful flower, a person or a pile of trash by the road (see the cover shot). The point of this aesthetic is to make us re-examine our world. To really begin to see (in full colour) the wonder and horror of it all. A number of the photographs in this book are disturbing, especially since they reveal an American South that was still in the process of transition that the civil rights movement brought about. But document it we must, and Eggleston did (in glorious living colour). Eggleston shared this perspective with his lesser known contemporary and pioneer in colour photography, William Christenberry (1936-2016), who most significantly documented the shame and fear of the Ku Klux Klan. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/dec/04/william-chri...
You see the “mystery of the ordinary” is the result of the fact that we so often overlook it. Though I love nature photography and appreciate a good landscape or sunset as much as anyone, we are so often blinded by the beautiful. It’s known in psychology as the “attractiveness bias”. It is also understood in the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus staring at his reflection in a pond. We fall in love with beauty, especially anything that we can attach to our self. So we like the photos we wish we could take ourselves. But Eggleston is not like that. He wants us to look, really see and appreciate something, whether or not it is beautiful. Only by appreciating the ordinary everyday world around us, can we come to see ways in which it might be changed. Or, we might wish to leave it exactly as it is. That’s the democratic impulse. We get to choose.
I hope you enjoy this book. I encourage you to get a copy. I also hope that William Eggleston would appreciate my choice of music by the most famous Memphis citizen of all as a soundtrack on this video presentation.
iphf.org/inductees/william-eggleston/
* Video shot with the Leica D-Lux 7.
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 at Surgeons Hall, Edinburgh dates from 1699 when the Incorporation of Edinburgh Surgeons 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.
19th century expansion
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.
20th century developments
At the start of the 20th century the College’s need for a large meeting and ceremonial hall led to the conversion of about half of the museum space into what is now the main College hall. The 1907 minutes recorded the view that “it is essential to get rid of the Barclay collection which... has ceased to be of any value to the Fellows or to anyone visiting the museum.” This was overruled and the retained Barclay collection was relocated to a new home, created by the conversion and incorporation of an adjoining tenement building. Anatomical and pathological specimens in jars were seen as increasingly irrelevant as learning aids for trainee surgeons. The collections now began to focus on specialised areas, such as dentistry, histopathology, and radiology, whilst continuing the collection of surgical memorabilia - particularly instruments and equipment. In the 1950s much of the Barclay collection was given to other museums. For doctors the collections progressively became the realm of the researcher and the medical historian. While the museum had been open to the public since its earliest days, by the 1960s public access had become restricted to a few pre-booked tours.
Revival
In the latter decades of the 20th century the emphasis changed to make the collections more interesting to the lay public and more easily interpreted by them. In 1989 a grant from the Jules Thorn Charitable Trust resulted in a permanent exhibition entitled “500 Years of Surgery in Scotland”, which makes use of a wide variety of media including models, paintings, photographs, film loops, book, journal and newspaper displays and other memorabilia. This together with a regular series of temporary exhibitions and constant improvement of the interpretation has seen a progressive increase in visitor numbers.
21st century expansion
In February 2015, the college revealed their plans for a £1.5 million expansion which would provide a new conference and events centre. The expansion is to be achieved by the college taking over an adjacent three-floor building on Hill Place, which had formerly been a languages school.
The museum buildings
Surgeons' Hall Museum
The collections originally occupied the entire upper floor of Playfair’s Surgeons’ Hall, which was built to house them. About half of this floorspace was converted into the College main Hall in 1905, but the original Playfair pathology museum next to it retains the Playfair design, decor and display cabinets. A short display passageway connects this to the History of Surgery museum and the dental museum, which were originally part of the adjacent property at 9 Hill Square. The museum can be accessed both from within the College and by a separate doorway at 9 Hill Square.
Thursday morning, and all I had to do was get back to Kent. Hopefully before five so I could hand the hire car back, but getting back safe and sound would do, really.
I woke at six so I could be dressed for breakfast at half six when it started, and as usual when in a hotel, I had fruit followed by sausage and bacon sarnies. And lots of coffee.
Outside it had snowed. OK, it might only be an inch of the stuff, but that's more than an inch needed to cause chaos on the roads.
Back to the room to pack, one last look round and back to reception to check out, then out into the dawn to find that about a quarter of the cars were having snow and ice cleared off them before being able to be driven.
I joined them, scraping the soft snow then the ice. Bracing stuff at seven in the morning.
Now able to see out, I inched out of the car park and out to the exit and onto the untreated roads.
It was a picturesque scene, but not one I wanted to stop to snap. My first road south had only been gritted on one side, thankfully the side I was travelling down, but was still just compacted snow.
After negotiating two roundabouts, I was on the on ramp to the M6, and a 60 mile or so drive south. The motorway was clear of snow, but huge amounts of spray was thrown up, and the traffic was only doing 45mph, or the inside lane was, and that was quite fast and safe enough for me.
More snow fell as I neared Stoke, just to add to the danger of the journey, and then the rising sun glinted off the road, something which I had most of the drive home.
I went down the toll road, it costs eight quid, but is quick and easy. And safe too with so little traffic on it. I think for the first time, I didn't stop at the services, as it was only about half nine, and only three hours since breakfast.
And by the time I was on the old M6, there was just about no snow on the ground, and the road was beginning to dry out.
My phone played the tunes from my apple music store. Loudly. So the miles slipped by.
After posting some shots from Fotheringhay online, a friend, Simon, suggested others nearby that were worth a visit, and I also realised that I hadn't taken wide angle shots looking east and west, so I could drop in there, then go to the others suggested.
And stopping here was about the half way point in the journey so was a good break in the drive, and by then the clouds had thinned and a weak sin shone down.
Fotheringhay is as wonderful as always, it really is a fine church, easy to stop there first, where I had it to myself, and this time even climbed into the richly decorated pulpit to snap the details.
A short drive away was Apethorpe, where there was no monkey business. The village was built of all the same buttery yellow sandstone, looking fine in the weak sunshine.
Churches in this part of Northamptonshire are always open, Simon said.
Not at Apethorpe. So I made do with snapping the church and the village stocks and whipping post opposite.
A short drive up the hill was King's Cliffe. Another buttery yellow village and a fine church, which I guessed would be open.
Though it took some finding, as driving up the narrow high street I failed to find the church. I checked the sat nav and I had driven right past it, but being down a short lane it was partially hidden behind a row of houses.
The church was open, and was surrounded by hundreds of fine stone gravestones, some of designs I have not seen before, but it was the huge numbers of them that was impressive.
Inside the church was fine, if cold. I record what I could, but my compact camera's batter had died the day before, and I had no charger, so just with the nifty fifty and the wide angle, still did a good job of recording it.
There was time for one more church. Just.
For those of us who remember the seventies, Warmington means Dad's Army, or rather Warmington on Sea did. THat there is a real Warmington was a surprise to me, and it lay just a couple of miles the other side of Fotheringhay.
The church is large, mostly Victorian after it fell out of use and became derelict, if the leaflet I read inside was accurate. But the renovation was excellent, none more so than the wooden vaulted roof with bosses dating to either the 15th or 16th centuries.
Another stunning item was the pulpit, which looks as though it is decorated with panels taken from the Rood Screen. Very effective.
Back to the car, I program the sat nav for home, and set off back to Fotheringhay and the A14 beyond.
No messing around now, just press on trying to make good time so to be home before dark, and time to go home, drop my bags, feed the cats before returning the car.
No real pleasure, but I made good time, despite encountering several bad drivers, who were clearly out only to ruin my mood.
Even the M25 was clear, I raced to the bridge, over the river and into Kent.
Nearly home.
I drive back down the A2, stopping at Medway services for a sandwich and a huge coffee on the company's credit card.
And that was that, just a blast down to Faversham, round onto the A2 and past Canterbury and to home, getting back at just after three, time to fill up the bird feeders, feed the cats, unpack and have a brew before going out at just gone four to return the car.
Jools would rescue me from the White Horse on her way home, so after being told the car was fine, walked to the pub and ordered two pints of Harvey's Best.
There was a guy from Essex and his American girlfriend, who were asking about all sorts of questions about Dover's history, and I was the right person to answer them.
I was told by a guide from the Castle I did a good job.
Yay me.
Jools arrived, so I went out and she took me home. Where the cats insisted they had not been fed.
Lies, all lies.
Dinner was teriyaki coated salmon, roasted sprouts and back, defrosted from before Christmas, and noodles.
Yummy.
Not much else to tell, just lighting the fire, so Scully and I would be toast warm watch the exciting Citeh v Spurs game, where Spurs were very Spursy indeed.
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From Woodnewton I cycled north accompanied by drifting red kites to one of the real goals of my journey, the church at Apethorpe. One of the pleasures of this part of the world is that, like much of south Cambridgeshire, east Norfolk and pretty much all of Suffolk, you are never more than a couple of miles from the next village, and I soon reached my first proper spire of the day, the church sitting beside the manor house, a war memorial forming a village cross in the street, and entered the church of St Leonard, Apethorpe.
This is an excellent church, full of interest, tightly set in its stone-walled churchyard which accentuates the height of the spire, the inner door wedged open. Best known for the Mildmay monument, which I'll come to in a moment, the most striking thing on entry, for me at least, are two tremendous windows in the south aisle, both by Christopher Whall. Each depicts three saints and commemorates two brothers of the Brassey family killed in the First World War. There is one Christopher Whall window in the whole of Suffolk. There are two here at Apethorpe.
Turning east, a faded doom painting surmounts the chancel arch, but beyond you step across the Reformation divide, for everything here was richly provided in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The chancel aisle is wider than the nave aisle, and here is the early 17th Century Mildmay memorial, one of the biggest monuments I've ever seen in an English country church. It towers some twenty feet into the air, the Mildmays asleep in bed in the middle and life-size sculptures of women representing virtues at each corner of the bed. Extraordinary. Nearby is a 15th Century memorial to a knight with a near-unvandalised Annunciation the Blessed Virgin above his head, and a sweet 19th Century memorial to a child showing him asleep in bed. But the most remarkable thing about this place is the early 17th Century English glass in the aisle east window. A most unusual date, of course, and a spectacular response to Caroline and Laudian piety, depicting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Day of Judgement. It must be one of the finest of its kind outside of an Oxford or Cambridge college chapel.
The east window of the chancel is also unusual, an 18th Century English representation of the Last Supper, and this period must have provided most of the money for refurnishing this place. Unfortunately, the Victorians put in big ugly pews in the nave, but the lady doing the flowers told me they are raising money to have them removed and replaced by simple wooden chairs as at Yarwell. All in all a wonderful church. Quite how Simon Jenkins only gave it one star is beyond me.
Simon Knott, 2016.
www.flickr.com/photos/norfolkodyssey/26604559813/in/album...
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Apethorpe is one of those churches that are pleasant but unexceptional architecturally but which have furnishings and sculptures that make your visit very rewarding.
The present church was built as late (for a mediaeval English parish church) as 1485: the year that Henry VII overthrew Richard III at Bosworth Field. There is a twelfth century voussoir on display that is the single indicator of a Norman church that preceded the present one.
The floor plan is exactly what one would expect of a church of this period: clerestoried nave, chancel, west tower and two aisles. There are dozens of such churches in Northamptonshire and literally thousands in England. The difference at Apethorpe, however, is that the church was built that way from the start whereas most developed that way piecemeal.
Apethorpe also, however, has a south chapel adjacent to the chancel. It was built in 1621 to house the monument to Sir Anthony (d.1617) and Lady Grace Mildmay (d.1620). Really, they should have built a bigger chapel because the monument is absurdly large for a local parish church. I guarantee you that when you arrive it will be the first thing you notice. It is held to be possibly the finest of its period and possibly made by Maximilien Colt. More about it anon.Sir Anthony’s father had a very interesting history - see the footnote below.
There was also a crypt underneath the Mildmay tomb that housed the tombs of Fane family, the Earls of Westmorland. A bizarre thing for a fifteenth century parish church to have, you might think. It was sealed in 1900.
I am neither expert nor aficionado of stained glass – most of which is dreadful mass-produced stuff of Victorian vintage. Apethorpe, however, has exceptional examples of this art form. The south chapel has an exceptionally rare example of glass from 1621. It is instructive to compare it with the majority of stained glass in churches on this website. The east window is almost exactly a hundred year more recent, signed and dated by John Rowell of High Wycombe in 1732. The glass is a painted scene of the Last Supper. As the Church Guide explains, the stained glass industry was at a low ebb at the time. The artists of the time had not mastered the art of fixing the colours – those of you who are familiar with traditional film photography will understand this well – and so the colours faded badly. Many panes here were removed altogether while others had to be restored in 1994 “at huge expense”.
When we visited we met the octogenarian villager Mike Lee who was at work regulating the church clock. He told us that Apethorpe’s is the oldest working church clock in England.
...none of these are perfect. I think I've even taken better driving shots before, but this should still be instructive.
To prepare for the shot I strapped in the tripod in the back seat (see the pictures below). I set one leg on the floor and two in the back seat. Then I used all seat beats to secure the tripod to prevent movement and shake. In total I was able to use all four seat belts in the car (the three in the back seat as well as the front passenger's belt). Using more belts helps as you secure the tripod from different angles. A trick when dealing with seat belts is to extend them all the way first (this prevents them from locking and refusing to move any more). Don't jerk them as they will lock - and you'll have to put them all the way back again and start again.
Then I mounted the widest lens I had a 17-40mm on my full-frame Canon 5D Mark II. I centered it (not very well) and aimed to maximize how much I could see out the windows. I also opened the sun-roof (and cranked up the heat as it was chilly that night).
Finally I removed the passenger headrest and reclined both seats. You want all obstructions out of the way to maximize your viewing angle. Don't recline the driver's seat so much that you can't drive, but enough so you can lean back a little and lean against the door to avoid getting in the way of the wide angle.
You also need a remote cable or wireless release to activate the camera as you can't reach it while driving (well, you can but that would be dangerous and make it all much less fun). I started out with an 8 second exposure in Tv, but quickly moved to 20 seconds as I was not getting enough action. The downside of a long exposure is that you can hit bumps in the road which shakes the camera enough to ruin your shot. I recommend shooting when there are a lot of cars (not at 11 pm when everybody is watching TV at home like I did).
The shoot above is taken east bound on I-40 going at speeds around 60-65 mph. The shot is remarkably sharp for a 30 second exposure at those speeds. If you see this in original size you can read off the time, mileage, rpms and speed.
The problem with the interstate was that I was not getting anything interesting through the sunroof. The streak at the top left is the street lighting and the weak middle streak is a road sign. So I designed to explore downtown Oklahoma City instead. This gave me more fun streaks through the sunroof (neon signs, traffic lights etc.), but the downtown streets were bumpy and I had to make many turns to get the traffic lights. As a result the shots are less crisp (to see this you have to see the images in original size).
Things to improve:
1. Try shooting when there are more cars on the interstate.
2. Try shooting at dusk for more interesting lighting.
3. Center the lens better.
4. Use M instead of TV to set the exposure. It should be easy to calibrate this when the car is not moving.
5. Try the fisheye lens instead of the regular wide angle.
6. Try to find something with lots of lights above the car. Tollbooths worked well for me before on the New Jersey Turnpike. OKC has a tollroad, but the tollbooths are duller.
7. Get a convertible. This Honda Civic has decent size windows and a sunroof, but a convertible would be awesome (assuming the camera stays in the car).
Any tips are much appreciated!
Large version on black background
EF17-40mm f/4L USM | 20,0 sec | 17 mm | f/11 | ISO 100 | Shutter priority mode | 1/3 EV
Two things I'm loving these days, extreme light, and minimalism :)
the first one could be done with longer exposure and/or higher aperture, the second could be... anything actually, any lovely simple stuff would make a beautiful cute minimalism, as my dear friend Patricia asked for some explanation about my work, I will try here to write some tips from my humble experience, so this is for you dear Patricia!!!... Thank you so much for appreciating my work!! :)
- the first important thing we have to consider is the light, where it comes from, its direction, what the effect it will make on the subject, and how the subject shadow will look like.
- my favorite source of light is the sunlight, because it's simple, natural, stunning, and makes everything naturally glow, and my favorite time is the morning.
- now I have here the beautiful sunlight coming through my window, all I have to do is to put the subject in the position and angle I want, how I want it to face the light, considering the background and foreground, and the surface on which the subject is standing.
- I tried two different backgrounds, dark and light, the dark background can give me the concentration on the subject only and reduces the light source, the light background gives me a whole lightened area when I intentionally want the light to be the goal from the photo as well not only the subject, so my little friend here "Mini" and her puppy volunteered to demonstrate what I'm talking about :))
- my favorite mode is manual, it gives me full control on everything, choosing the exposure and aperture, then the so lovely white balance, different white balance values can give a whole new look in each time... also my favorite white balance adjustment is Color Temperature/Color Filter.
for this photo they're as follows:
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: 5.6
ISO: 100
White Balance: Color Temperature 5000K/ Color Filter M4
- now there is additional trick can be done in processing, the usual adjustments I use in Lightroom are just the basic ones when needed (some other times I make extreme changes as well but will explain it in other photos), and here is the thing: if you want more shallowness for depth of field and/or the area surrounding the subject, or you want the light to be smoother, or your lens doesn't give you the highest aperture you wish for and so the shallow DoF you want..... the "Clarity" adjustment can give you an appearance close to what you want, reducing the Clarity a little bit... and voila, here it is! :)
in my previous photo, the Clarity adjustment played a big part.
final note: I always capture in RAW.
I hope you will find this instructive and helpful! :))
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Versão "sem arames" da original aqui ("wireless" version of the original one at):
www.flickr.com/photos/59165737@N05/8840018675/in/photostr...
25/05/2013 - Pancas (Alcochete, Portugal)
Na sempre agradável e "instrutiva" ;-) companhia dos amigos Arlindo Fragoso e Mário Gomes. Obrigado e um abraço!
In the always pleasant and "instructive" ;-) companionship of friends Arlindo Fragoso e Mário Gomes. Many thanks!
[Obrigado pela visualização]
[Thanks for your visualization]
Due to the conflicting preferences regarding the two previous portraits of Zain, I'm further confusing things by uploading this monochrome version of the color one - a version I had held back from my prior upload. It's always interesting and instructive to compare everyone's reactions to my own choice. Feel free to comment.
Canonet GIII QL17 / Fuji Superia XTRA 400
This is my first foray with film and I must say the process is quite addictive and instructive. With digital, you can be as wanton as you can be since if you do not like the picture, you can just delete it and take another. With film, everything should be planned and deliberate. It seemed that every shot should count. I would also add here extra excitement from waiting on how your pictures turned out based on the interactions of several variables such as the type of film used, the camera used and the developing process. I love it! =)
Earlier this week I spent a fascinating and instructive morning with professional wildlife photographer Iain Green (GreenEye Wildlife Photography). The following set of images are the result of Iain getting me close enough to watch, study and photograph an iconic and, sadly, threatened species which I have hardly encountered since I used to walk beside a stream near my childhood home. The Water Vole is Europe’s largest native vole. It is only in the UK that water voles are dependent on living by water, so ours is a unique population. The Water Vole was once a common and familiar mammal, but its numbers have declined greatly over the last two decades. All of these pictures were taken at an undisclosed site in Gloucestershire on 23.04.2014.
Freeing God’s Slaves: The Emperor Wears No Clothes ~
“Is anything god’s work? God doesn’t do any work – he just gets his peasants to do it for him.”
- Wonder Boy, Aged 8
Humans (domesticated primates) have long been trained to worship externalised gods – a dangerous addiction humankind has carried forth from its primat-ive childhood; a merely imagined need that usually serves to only impede progressive change and unfolding evolution. Protective and instructive deities are nothing more nor less than the parent figures all children crave. All wise kids eventually learn that obeying the often arbitrary dictates of others who are actually just overblown, overgrown, adulterated children is a dumb idea.
Respect must be earned. Most elders in modern societies have far less of value to impart to subsequent generations than did their more ‘primitive’ tribal counterparts. Many older people are the same simpletons and ignoramuses they were when they were young. Those who claim to be today’s authority figures are almost all control freaks at best, and clinical psychopaths at worst. Almost all conspire to fatten themselves on poisonous excesses at the expense of the ecosystem that truly nourishes their children; mindlessly slaving away at tasks which destroy the planet and alienate them from their loved ones, with the idiot excuse that they’re ‘supporting their families’.
In the modern world ‘bosses’ are actually parasites, sucking life from the host of workers who labour under their dictates. CEOs are nothing more than common enemy overlords. The further up the ‘ladder of success’ one progresses, the more excesses and crimes of omission are committed. And everyone who toils on that ladder is equally culpable, supporting and maintaining a loathsome system with their precious time and effort.
Many ‘bosses’ earn fantastically higher wages than those who toil at much harder jobs – as intrinsically unfair, untrue and unjust as any racist dictate of classic caste or class systems. Those who crave power are those who deserve it the least. Anyone who sucks and arse-kisses their way up the totem pole is best pitied and avoided – not praised. Independent contractors and others who are their own bosses are the freest workers in the modern feudal wage slave era.
Those who remain inside institutions beyond their maturity are insecure timeservers who are happiest locked inside a comfortably familiar prison. Anyone with a PhD is automatically suspect as an institutionalised ignoramus. Most are overeducated buffoons who never realised that throwing away all the best years of their lives to conform and confirm the lies and misapprehensions of other fossilised brainwashed academics is a stupid idea. Most are just insecure kiddies afraid of stepping out into the great wide world – afraid of nature and their own unexamined nature; afraid of their own shadow.
Most people are carefully convinced by society to show more respect – and give more money – to a domesticated primate with the word ‘doctor’ (or some other aggrandising title) in front of their name than to anyone else. We’re trained to think that the work done by someone who has spent many years ‘studying’ is somehow more worthwhile – and worth more – than work that’s considered more ‘common’, such as planting and nurturing trees, growing organic food, building homes or educating young children. We’re entrained to believe that one person’s time can be worth more than another’s.
A cogent way to remove this classic conditioning can be to avoid calling anyone ‘sir’, ‘doctor’ or (heaven forfend) reverend. Such aggrandising titles are far too damaging for any egocentric wannabe leader to hear and only serve to establish subservience. If you always refer to so-called doctors as ‘docturds’, and discourage anyone from trusting the words of such moneygrubbing, authoritarian, self-inflating egotists, you can train yourself to stop supporting an intrinsically unethical system. Avoid using made-up titles entirely; why not simply call a person by their name?
Almost all docturds are only in it for the money – shamelessly rorting medical insurance systems to squeeze every drop from society. The rest is hopeful confabulation on the part of their desperate victims. In most cases, people actually heal themselves (there are exceptions – see below).
They target the most helpless and vulnerable groups of humankind above others, foisting their theoretical practices on women and children in particular. Female humans are thoroughly entrained to entrust their bodies (and minds) to paternalistic authority figures. From a very young age they’re taught to visit docturds regularly, and to trust them with every intimate detail of their lives. Women (in particular) are trained to have ‘regular tests’ for ‘abnormalities’ – tests which actually cause the very ‘abnormalities’ they purportedly search for – and to enrich the coffers of white coated professionals with ‘preventative’ and ‘elective’ surgery and toxic chemical intervention. Pap smears, mammography and the treatment of ‘abnormal’ cells produce more false positives (fake results) than accurate ones and the docturds and their pathological host of pathologists apologise all the way to the bank after each mistimed misstep and misanthropic mistake.
‘You know them by their fruits’ – and most of the fruits of ‘medical professionals’ are rotten and poisonous. More people die from medical (t)errors than from any other cause. Pill-pushing salesmen for chemical industries deserve the OPPOSITE to respect, as do ‘scientists’ who lend their time to the industrious military establishment, or to corporations of ignorant savages who randomly interfere with healthy biological processes to make money from poisoning the food chain and planetary ecosystem with pesticides or genetically modified ‘products’.
Surely we all know better than to show any respect to banksters by now. The most lame offenders of all are probably so-called ‘economists’ who peddle a pseudoscience that every taxpayer is brainwashed into believing, even though their ‘forecasts’ are even less accurate than those of the average 20th Century weatherman. So-called news reports overflow with their senseless, tedious effluvia, drowning out any meaningful news or information beneath their hazy bullshit and babble.
The biggest (and potentially most dangerous) liars of all are ‘religious’ people – conmen and women who peddle superstitious pernicious sexism, racism and utter bald faced balderdash to the most ignorant and insecure people on the planet, offering filthy lies to those suffering from the greatest terror on Earth – the fear of death; just like docturds.
Those who profit from other people’s misery deserve no respect whatsoever.
photo Motive is everything
This writer now observes the world from a remote forest, but once lived directly opposite the medical school of a major metropolitan university, with the opportunity to meet many up and coming young docturds. Whenever the chance arrived to converse with a medical student in private I asked each of them the same innocuous question; ‘Why did you decide to become a medical professional?’
Over the course of several years literally scores of these young professionals had the same opportunity to present their case. Not a single one replied; ‘Because I wanted to help the sick’ or ‘to be a healer.’ Not one claimed to have a particular interest in anatomy or biology. None even bothered to feign any real interest in medicine. Without exception their replies were almost identical; “Well, I was going to be a lawyer but my mother/father thought there’d be more money in medicine.’
When I asked if they’d taken the Hippocratic Oath (which simply requires medical practitioners to ‘do no harm’ and to help the sick and suffering regardless of payment), they all simply stared at me with an expression that seemed to say, ‘Are you really that naïve?” I never allow a docturd to come anywhere near me. I’ve set my own bones, healed internal bleeding and cancerous conditions without subjecting myself to their ignorant meddling (and am still alive and healthy as a result).
Surgeons who capably repair damaged individuals and those who genuinely care for and look after the sick and injured – like nurses – naturally deserve respect. But most docturds are self aggrandising arseholes at best, and outright dangerous nincompoops at worst. Few include things like diet and lifestyle in their diagnoses and routinely prescribe inappropriate but profitable poisons to desperate people.
Those who profit from people’s misery are nothing short of despicable.
Like many or most purveyors of ‘professionalism’ a large number cheated their way through school. They don’t deserve your trust or respect. Don’t take my word for it. Just ask virtually any nurse you happen to meet; they know what’s going on!
Those who can, do
‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.’ This old truism needs to be revived and spread far and wide. Very few ‘teachers’ are anything but institutionalized time servers who’ve been trained to brainwash others with gormless mind control served up as ‘education’. They have no life experience and know nothing but what they’ve been told to believe. All their textbooks were hopelessly outdated even when they were newly published.
The great technological and social advances of humankind have all been brought about by people without doctorates – in many cases without any formal ‘education’ at all. Tesla, Einstein, Edison and most celebrated creative thinkers achieved the improbable despite the ‘education’ institutions they were subjected to (and escaped while still young), not because of them.
Creative thinking suffers from regimentation. Authority poisons it. Once a child can read, write and understand basic mathematics they are capable of choosing their own path to knowledge and remain individual enough to have unique creative insights. As all teaching institutions are automatically outdated and operated by superannuated time servers, all a person can really expect to learn in ‘higher education’ institutions is conformity – and how to babble to other cocooned minds in obscurantist jargonese.
Don’t put off living your life until later! There’s no time BUT the present. What do you really want to do with your precious time? Do you really want to serve the obnoxious dweebs who are destroying the planet with their ‘efficient’ industries and ‘profitable’ pastimes? Start something new, fresh and original instead – away from their pernicious influence, where you can’t feed them with your efforts.
Around two generations ago people in advanced nations were informed that by the 21st Century they’d have to learn how to make use of their coming abundance of ‘leisure time’. Automation would ensure that fewer and fewer people would be able to ‘earn a living’ by toiling their lives away and an era of plenty and freedom was dawning. The need for anyone to work full time would soon be redundant. People were told they’d have to learn how to share the shrinking pool of jobs that remain – and to learn to share everything else as a result.
Everyone needed to learn how to best use their newfound freedoms. Guess what? It’s the 21st Century! Wake up and smell the flowers.
Me? This time of year I shovel clean dry horseshit by day to provide healthy, honest, wholesome food for myself and those around me. You can’t buy clean manure – almost all animals are filled with poisons and only the ones you feed and look after can be trusted to provide clean fertiliser. By night I shovel bullshit out of the way on the worldwideweb to make way for the growth of truth. The evolution of the internet is doing away with any need for the fossilized ivory towers of ‘education’ institutions.
Every time someone uses anything fuelled by poisonous fossil fuels – every time you turn on a light, drive in vehicle, borrow money, use anything made of plastic or almost anything created by this toxic civilisation – you are as culpable and destructive as any oil company executive or bankster. Every person who works in an office tower, factory or mine is as bad as the executive who squats atop the totem pole. Every worker who props up the totem deserves to go down in the tower along with their boss. Those who serve pain and death deserve it.
Changing the system is a good idea, in the long run. Yet in today’s world you can only do anything of real worth for yourself and your family by leaving the old workaday system behind and helping it to wither on the vine with your absence. The only real way to succeed is by abandoning the dominant paradigm and creating, living and loving a new way of life – preferably with likeminded change agents.
Turn off your TV and get rid of it (if you refuse to read much watch my Youtube channel instead)! The internet is a great alternative – if you use it for something other than supporting the system with your time and energy.
If you like to learn, become one of the New Illuminati in this new Enlightenment @ nexusilluminati.blogspot.com . Learn how to plant and nurture living things; learn about something worthwhile, such as Permaculture. Ally yourself with life through your thoughts and actions, and object out loud to slaves and bosses who want you to help them saw off the limb you’re perched on. Let them know what you really think of them!
If you want to actually save the world, join any group that’s actively stopping loggers or miners or chemical factories/farmers/poisoners or other corporate slaves from destroying the planet, and get out into the real living world, to experience its actual glorious splendour while you stop the moronic workers from filthying their own nests and yours. Stand in front of a bulldozer driver with other wise souls – and stop them in their tracks.
Above all, take time out to examine your mind and motives. Your thoughts create the world! See where your thoughts/programs/memes actually come from and decide whether you want to own them. Enjoy life (without shopping or spending money). That’s why you’re here. Don’t put it off. Do it now!
Turn on. Tune in. OPT OUT!
Time appears to flow onward…
- R. Ayana
“Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.”
- Buddhist Saying
For more by R. Ayana see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/r.%20ayana
Adolphia californica—California prickbush. The business end of an extremely sharp spine, showing the reason for one of Adolphia californica's common names. Included in the CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants on list 2.1 (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA; common elsewhere). Distribution limited to San Diego county and northern Baja California. "In contrast to its cousin Ceanothus, A. californica produces flowers that are simple and also very instructive. In this family the flower typically has a disk- or cup-like extension around the ovary, called an hypanthium, and thereon sepals and petals are attached. Sepals are triangular. Petals are clawed (each petal has a stalk)... . These important and diagnosed features are very easily observed and understood in the flowers of Adolphia, which has white sepals and white petals. The ovary has three styles and stigmas and later may form a spherical capsular fruit. At MEMBG, I have not observed mature fruits, although various insects visit the flowers to drink the nectar, which collects on the hypanthium."—ARTHUR C. GIBSON, UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden (MEMBG) Director. Photographed at Regional Parks Botanic Garden located in Tilden Regional Park near Berkeley, CA.
At the Elizabeth Board of Education meeting of May 10 at Juan Pablo Duarte - José Julián Martí School No. 28, Taneka Bowles presented Elizabeth Public Schools with a very generous donation of $25,000 on behalf of Taneka and Todd Bowles for Elizabeth’s Special Olympics program. This marks the fourth straight year the Bowles family has supported the district’s Special Olympics program, raising the total to $100,000 in donations.
The evening also took on a multicultural theme as the Board recognized the Cuban, Haitian, and Portuguese heritages.
In honor of Cuban heritage, Juan Pablo Duarte - José Julián Martí School No. 28 Kindergarten students performed “Mambo numero 8” by Damaso Perez and “Mi Tierra” by Gloria Estefan and community members Julio Sabater, Miguel Socarras, and Marita De Varona were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the community.
In honor of Haitian heritage, John E. Dwyer Technology Academy student Kerline Francois performed a lyrical solo to "Human" Written by Christine Perry and the Dwyer Technology Academy Haitian Club was recognized for its commitment to promoting the beauty of the Haitian culture through educational and social opportunities available within the school environment.
In honor of Portuguese heritage, Alexander Hamilton Preparatory Academy students Karina Almeida and Tiago Matos performed “Vira do Minho”, Danca E Cantares De Portugal from the Portuguese Instructive Social Club performed a Portuguese folklore dance, Portuguese world language teachers were recognized for their outstanding efforts to instill the passion of the Portuguese culture into our students, and the Elizabeth Portugal Day Pageant 2018-2019 Royal Family was recognized for their contributions to the Elizabeth community.
Juan Pablo Duarte - José Julián Martí School No. 28 Principal Evelyn Rodriguez-Salcedo presented to the Board the approach she has taken to be able to address various issues that resulted in School No. 28 being designated a Focus School by the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE). In April 2012, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s administration announced the final list of Priority, Focus, and Reward Schools as part of its new statewide accountability system, which included 183 Focus Schools. A Focus School is a school that has room for improvement in areas that are specific to the school. As part of the process, Focus Schools receive targeted and tailored solutions to meet the school’s unique needs. The types of Focus schools include those with low graduation rates, largest within-school gaps, and lowest subgroup performance.
As a result of this approach by Rodriguez-Salcedo and the team members of School No. 28, the NJDOE has announced that School No. 28 will be exiting Focus School status in June 2018.
During the meeting, the Board celebrated and recognized excellent achievements of members of the Elizabeth Public Schools Professional Learning Community and the greater Elizabeth community.
A view of the Itararé hill with its cable car station on top from the Alemao hill.
The Morro do Alemao offers a 200° toward south from which you can see the Tijuca peak as well as the Corcovado in the distance.
"It is going to be a beautiful World Cup, but it won't be the World cup of the Brazilian people, because they won't be able to afford tickets. The richer will attend the games, will see nice modern stadiums ... but the whole people will pay the bill."
Those words of Romario, now a member of federal parliament resonate as the 2014 World Cup is about to start. I decided to release a few pictures I shot in 2013 in one of Rio's biggest favela. This set will take you to the "Complexo do Alemao", literally the "Complex of the German" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexo_do_Alem%C3%A3o). It is an aggregate of several favelas on a few hills and the home of about 70000 people in the northern area of Rio de Janeiro.
The Complex used to host some drug trafficking gangs until it was pacified by the military police and the Brazilian army back in 2010. The pacification process unfortunately did not occur without civilian losses and if security improved since then, the nature of the danger for its inhabitants changed.
The Complex is famous for many reasons among which is the recently built cable car. After the pacification, the police built police stations within the favela for military police units which mission consists in maintaining the "pacified order". Their presence and action are sometimes source of some scandals such as the disappearance of Amarildo in 2013 in the favela of Rocinha (www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-24362311). Along with the police stations came an usual infrastructure supposed to improve the daily life of local inhabitants : a cable car linking the top of the hills to the nearest suburban train station. As an member of the residents association said, the cable car was a not negotiable project for the authorities. Despite its very expensive construction and maintenance prices and the fact that most of the favela did not benefit from basic infrastructures such as basic sanitation. If the cable car now enable some people to save time on their daily journeys, it remains used by a mere 12% of the residents although they are given free tickets (ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/brasil/rj/construido-por-r-210-mi...). The presence of this infrastructure thus raises questions about its relevancy.
Unfortunately, this very ambitious project must feel very lonely in Rio's metropolitan area. Indeed, most of the public transportation projects once set for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics were purely abandoned in the last years. It is again instructive to dig into Romario's outspoken words : "FIFA got what it came for: money," he told the New York Times. "Things like transportation that affect the public after the tournament is over? They don’t care. They don’t care about what is going to be left behind. They found a way to get rich on the World Cup and they robbed the people instead. This is the real shame."
streak // I'm very much enjoying the lively discussion here. Who here is gettin' paid for their mobile photog skills? So far, I've seen corp. account guest shooters, product promos and selling of prints. Art, expression and community is the heart of why we do it but wouldn't it be cool to do this full time and pay the bills?! -------------- Some ladies at church suggested I teach them how to shoot and edit on their smartphones. Instructive mobile photo walk (for food) anyone? instagr.am/p/VdOm_hSZxb/
I went to this photo shoot at Scott Sneddon's DIY Studio (Clearfield, UT) advertised as "Snakes, spiders, and lizards", thinking it was going to be an opportunity to shoot macros. Instead, there was a couple of herpetologists with a pile of trunks and a bunch of skimpily-clad models. This shot gives you the picture. All the other photographers were seasoned studio flash guys who kind of grumbled about me taking so long, fooling around changing manual focus primes. Their cadence was a shot every three seconds, using autofocus and zooms. Rather than hold them up, after trying a couple different lenses with flash, I just shot ambient light the rest of the night. I was a fun and instructive night. I got a ration of crap from my wife and some of her friends after I posted some of the following shots on Facebook, but I don't think the flickr crowd will mind.
because the day after our wedding, 53 years ago, we drove West from Cambridge heading towards Ireland, and encountered Adlestrop in the way. My new husband was not aware of the significance of Adlestrop, but he had the grace to say that travelling with me would be instructive.
I loved the poem when I read it at school, not for the First World War associations, but because it perfectly evoked memories of just such rustic stops on the railway in Hertfordshire when I was a small child.
Yes. I remember Adlestrop
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat, the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Edward Thomas
uploaded with Uploader for Flickr for Android
I thought I would let you all know the deeply interesting and exciting truth about a postgraduate masters by research.
This image shows most things you need for an MSc by Research, in this case on the work of Scottish poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. View this large if you want the instructive detail.
Maker: Ludwig Belitski (1830-1902)
Born: Germany
Active: Germany
Medium: salted paper print from a wet plate negative
Size: 8 5/8 in x 6 3/4 in
Location:
Object No. 2021.210a
Shelf: N-26
Publication: Vorbilder für Handwerker und Fabrikanten aus den Sammlungen des Minutolischen Instituts....von Alex. Freihern v. Minutoli Dr., Liegnitz: Verlag des Verfassers, 1855
Other Collections:
Provenance: Marc and Brigitte Pagneux collection; Pierre Berge, via Vintage Works
Rank: 500
Notes: Plate number in ink on the mount. Minutoli blindstamp is on the image. From a large series depicting objects in the collection of the Prussian civil servant Baron Alexander von Minutoli. This private collection formed the basis of the Minutolisches Institut in Liegnitz (now Legnica, Poland), which opened to the public in 1845 with the purpose of improving the quality of locally made goods through the study of decorative arts. Beginning in 1842, Baron von Minutoli hired a local photographer to produce daguerreotypes of his collection, which were then lent to local craftsmen, manufacturers, and members of trade guilds. After several years in circulation, the one-of-a-kind daguerreotype plates were worn, so Baron von Minutoli hired the photographer Ludwig Belitski to make new photographs of the collection using wet collodion on glass negatives. This process offered a high level of descriptive detail, as well as the ability to print in multiple, and thus to publish and distribute more widely images of the collection. In 1855, 150 of Belitski’s photographs of textiles, glass, metalwork, wood carving, and ceramics were published as tipped in salted paper prints in the instructive tome Vorbilder für Handwerker und Fabrikanten aus den Sammlungen des Minutolischen Instituts zur Veredelung der Gewerbe und Befoerderung der Künste zu Liegnitz [Examples for Craftsmen and Fabricators from the Collections of the Minutoli Institute for the refinement of trade materials and the Advancement of the Arts in Liegnitz.] (source: MET)
To view our archive organized by themes and subjects, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE
“We are fated to love one another; we hardly exist outside our love, we are just animals without it, with a birth and a death and constant fear between. Our love has lifted us up, out of the dreadfulness of merely living. ” ― John Updike, Brazil
"Please" by Jeppe Hein
Do not steal, smoke, or eat..
Piece of contemporary wall art seen at the MFA's (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) new $12.5 million Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, opened on September, 19, 2011.
"Jeppe Hein activates the visitor’s relationship to space – turning the spectator into a participant. The viewer sees her/himself reflected in the surface of a neon piece which invites them to ‘PLEASE ENJOY RELAX STEAL DANCE TOUCH FLIRT SMOKE WONDER FEEL MUSE EAT SING LISTEN TALK ASK TOUCH NEON LOOK COMMUNICATE TOUCH EACH OTHER USE CAMERA FLASH.' The dialectical opposition catalyzed by language is echoed in the dissociative sensation of seeing one's own reflection behind instructive "rules" created for our own heeding."
-303gallery
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.
A portrait of Iker, an inhabitant of the Morro do Alemao. Hanging out with a few friends, he lets me shoot a portrait of him. His friends politely refuse invoking safety reasons.
Iker is old enough to have very well known the days when the favela was controlled by drug cartels. We speak about the impact of violence in the day-to-day lives of inhabitants. He says he has lost quite a lot of his childhood friends in gunfights involving the cartels or the police or both in the last twenty years. Today there is no more cartels so the situation improved but new security problems have risen such as robbery, small delinquency or the attempts of militias to take over the favela.
"It is going to be a beautiful World Cup, but it won't be the World cup of the Brazilian people, because they won't be able to afford tickets. The richer will attend the games, will see nice modern stadiums ... but the whole people will pay the bill."
Those words of Romario, now a member of federal parliament resonate as the 2014 World Cup is about to start. I decided to release a few pictures I shot in 2013 in one of Rio's biggest favela. This set will take you to the "Complexo do Alemao", literally the "Complex of the German" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexo_do_Alem%C3%A3o). It is an aggregate of several favelas on a few hills and the home of about 70000 people in the northern area of Rio de Janeiro.
The Complex used to host some drug trafficking gangs until it was pacified by the military police and the Brazilian army back in 2010. The pacification process unfortunately did not occur without civilian losses and if security improved since then, the nature of the danger for its inhabitants changed.
The Complex is famous for many reasons among which is the recently built cable car. After the pacification, the police built police stations within the favela for military police units which mission consists in maintaining the "pacified order". Their presence and action are sometimes source of some scandals such as the disappearance of Amarildo in 2013 in the favela of Rocinha (www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-24362311). Along with the police stations came an usual infrastructure supposed to improve the daily life of local inhabitants : a cable car linking the top of the hills to the nearest suburban train station. As an member of the residents association said, the cable car was a not negotiable project for the authorities. Despite its very expensive construction and maintenance prices and the fact that most of the favela did not benefit from basic infrastructures such as basic sanitation. If the cable car now enable some people to save time on their daily journeys, it remains used by a mere 12% of the residents although they are given free tickets (ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/brasil/rj/construido-por-r-210-mi...). The presence of this infrastructure thus raises questions about its relevancy.
Unfortunately, this very ambitious project must feel very lonely in Rio's metropolitan area. Indeed, most of the public transportation projects once set for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics were purely abandoned in the last years. It is again instructive to dig into Romario's outspoken words : "FIFA got what it came for: money," he told the New York Times. "Things like transportation that affect the public after the tournament is over? They don’t care. They don’t care about what is going to be left behind. They found a way to get rich on the World Cup and they robbed the people instead. This is the real shame."
April 1982.
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Leica M4-2, 50mm Summicron f/2.
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Kodachrome 25.
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I have two versions of this and thought a 35mm Kodachrome vs 4x5 Ektachrome comparison might be instructive. This is a companion piece to the 4x5 Ektachrome version taken at nearly the same time..
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Scanned with Pacific Image PrimeFilm XE at 3600 ppi to print approx 10" x 15" at 300dpi.
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Uncropped; Yellow added to color balance to bring closer to the 4 x 5 Ektachrome version using PS Elements/ Viveza.
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I dedicate this one to Leopold Godowsky and Leopold Mannes, inventers of Kodachrome..
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Its a wonderful thing... rooming around in Flickr.. Meeting new people .. seeing new photos and techniques. Its all a lot of fun and very instructive. But none of it beats nailing a shot. This is a sourwood blossom and leaf. Honey bees here collect nectar from the small flowers you see. This is there full bloom size. The resulting honey is great! But there are so few stands and bees working those trees the volumn of honey is small. Here is what I come back to. Nature shots reflecting the beauty of our world.
Adolphia californica—California prickbush. The "clawed petals" mentioned below are shown in this photo. Included in the CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants on list 2.1 (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA; common elsewhere). Distribution limited to San Diego county and northern Baja California. "In contrast to its cousin Ceanothus, A. californica produces flowers that are simple and also very instructive. In this family the flower typically has a disk- or cup-like extension around the ovary, called an hypanthium, and thereon sepals and petals are attached. Sepals are triangular. Petals are clawed (each petal has a stalk)... . These important and diagnosed features are very easily observed and understood in the flowers of Adolphia, which has white sepals and white petals. The ovary has three styles and stigmas and later may form a spherical capsular fruit. At MEMBG, I have not observed mature fruits, although various insects visit the flowers to drink the nectar, which collects on the hypanthium."—ARTHUR C. GIBSON, UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden (MEMBG) Director. Photographed at Regional Parks Botanic Garden located in Tilden Regional Park near Berkeley, CA.
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
"Lets see what you do with this!" a friend exclaimed as she placed a bucket of slate cutoffs at my feet. It was fun and instructive experimenting with the slate's multi faceted structure, and using it to create a variety of textures within this work. Other materials include dinnerware, handmade pottery, ceramic, stones and glass.
"The Burbler" 's grown several inches since I last posted it a few months ago - 4.5 feet tall and 18 inch diameter.
I just love the soft sound of the water burbling.
although this is not a good video
it brings attention to how one should be aware of food sources , especially if somewhat unique.
In this case an
an escaped/introduced species of plant which flowers at an unusual time of year.
This means that ivy will attract insects and birds to these " flora islands " of off-season blossomings.
Anna's Hummingbird ANHU (Calypte anna)
working through
English Ivy
(Hedera helix) [an invasive]
beginning to flower
not sure if the ANHU is gleaning small insects or finding some 'sap-like" liquid that happens as/when plant goes into flowering mode.
Warrior Point
North Saanich BC
DSCN6785
then i tried to show context of site.. then noticed Surf Scoters flyby...
yeah you can see the white spot on the back of the male's head.. but pretty bad vid. doc.
still instructive
Warrior Point has some "juicy looking" Ivy colonies that face south and could be attractive to a late warbler or some such seasonal vagrant/rarity
but this spot is not really regularly checked .
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.
Our place around the decision makers table is critical for the proper representation of women at work. Many times the light is in us and not in a specific position or workplace. A structured career path is important for smart management in the new world of work. A world of uncertainty and constant renewal that requires innovation.
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.
Official list entry
Heritage Category: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number: 1020922
Date first listed: 10-Nov-1950
Date of most recent amendment: 06-Dec-2002
Location
County: Devon
District: North Devon (District Authority)
Parish: Barnstaple
National Grid Reference: SS 55572 33337
Reasons for Designation
Motte and bailey castles are medieval fortifications introduced into Britain by the Normans. They comprised a large conical mound of earth or rubble, the motte, surmounted by a palisade and a stone or timber tower. In a majority of examples an embanked enclosure containing additional buildings, the bailey, adjoined the motte. Motte castles and motte-and-bailey castles acted as garrison forts during offensive military operations, as strongholds, and, in many cases, as aristocratic residences and as centres of local or royal administration. Built in towns, villages and open countryside, motte and bailey castles generally occupied strategic positions dominating their immediate locality and, as a result, are the most visually impressive monuments of the early post-Conquest period surviving in the modern landscape. Over 600 motte castles or motte-and-bailey castles are recorded nationally, with examples known from most regions. As one of a restricted range of recognised early post-Conquest monuments, they are particularly important for the study of Norman Britain and the development of the feudal system. Although many were occupied for only a short period of time, motte castles continued to be built and occupied from the 11th to the 13th centuries, after which they were superseded by other types of castle.
Although it was landscaped in the 19th century, Barnstaple Castle still retains the basic features of a medieval motte and bailey castle and its motte in particular survives in excellent condition as a well known and dominant feature in the western part of the town. The monument will retain archaeological information about the Saxon population of the town from unexcavated burials. The monument will also be instructive about Norman fortification techniques, in particular with regard to moat construction. The location of the castle on a Saxon burial site indicates something of the relationship between the Norman rulers and the population of the Saxon burh which preceded it. Artifacts and organic remains lying within the moat, some of which may survive well due to waterlogging, will shed light on the lives of the inhabitants of the castle, and their surrounding contemporary landscape. The extant motte provides a visual reminder of the steps which were necessary to establish Norman rule in England by the construction of impressive and strongly defended motte and bailey castles, in this case not only within the recognised boundaries of the Anglo-Saxon town itself, but overlying the earlier Saxon cemetery.
Details
The monument includes Barnstaple Castle, a Norman motte and bailey, part of which overlies a Saxon cemetery. The castle, which has a surviving motte, stands on the east bank of the River Taw at its confluence with the River Yeo just upstream from where the Taw broadens out on its journey to the Bristol Channel. It thus protected the lowest point at which the Taw could be forded in medieval times. The castle was sited within the western corner of an earlier Anglo-Saxon defended town or burh and was probably under construction by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, although it is not recorded in documents until the 12th century. Excavations conducted by Trevor Miles within the castle grounds in 1972-75 on the north west side of the motte in the area thought to encompass the bailey and its defences, revealed the presence of 105 graves forming part of a Saxon cemetery which was in use at the time of the Norman Conquest. All of the excavated burials were extended inhumations orientated east-west and all lacked grave goods. The cemetery was therefore deemed to be Christian and it may date to about 900, but would have ceased to be used as such when the moat and rampart of the Norman castle were constructed across the site. The results of the excavations were published in 1986. Further burials are expected to lie in those undisturbed areas within the castle grounds which were not subject to archaeological investigation. Barnstaple Castle itself comprises a courtyard or bailey area originally enclosed by a bank and moat, which stood on the north west side of a motte that was equipped with its own associated set of defences, thus creating a stronghold within the castle. The bailey would have held some of the working buildings of the castle constructed either in timber or in stone. The earth and stone-built motte, which stands about 14m high with a diameter of just over 60m, retains masonry fragments of a stone defensive wall and an inner circular tower known as a donjon or shell keep with wing walls descending the slopes of the motte. In plan it was roughly circular and comprised two concentric walls. Another wall, 1m thick, bounded the edge of the flat top of the motte. A document of 1274 indicates the presence of a hall, chamber, and kitchen on the motte. The structure is considered to be a shell keep with enclosed tower similar to contemporary Norman castle architecture at Launceston in Cornwall and Plympton in Devon. The rampart and ditch which defended the bailey were part-excavated in 1972-75 and from these excavations it was suggested that the bailey rampart was about 10m wide and probably revetted with vertical timbers, although its height remains unknown. It was fronted by a berm 4m-5m wide and then a ditch which, because its depth has been demonstrated to be well below the high water mark, may be more correctly termed as a moat fed by channels connected to the River Yeo. The full width of the bailey moat has not yet been established although it appears to exceed 5m. A flat-bottomed trench located between the rampart and the ditch is considered to be a robber-trench of a stone wall about 1m thick which was added to the front of the rampart in the late medieval period. As with the bailey, the motte mound was surrounded by an encircling moat found in an excavation of 1927 to be about 16m wide and 4.5m deep. The motte must have been connected to the bailey by some means, probably by a drawbridge. A moat of this size is also likely to have utilised river water by the linking of the nearby Rivers Taw and Yeo, although it was not until the 13th century that castle defences made extensive use of water-filled moats, and Barnstaple Castle appears to have been in decline by then. Although an early Norman castle might be expected at Barnstaple, as was the case at Exeter and Totnes, there is no documentary evidence of such a castle until the early 12th century. Records suggest that by the reign of Stephen, in 1136, Barnstaple Castle was abandoned as being too weak to defend, but it was rebuilt after 1139 by Henry Tracy and his descendants. In 1228 the defences were reduced in height on the orders of Henry III and the castle was in disrepair by the end of the 13th century. The whole site is recorded as utterly ruinous by the time of John Leland's visit in 1540 during the reign of Henry VIII. A mansion, known as Castle House, was built on the area of the bailey in the 19th century and the surrounding area, including the motte, was landscaped and planted with trees. A spiral path up the mound was also created in this period. The mansion was demolished in 1976. A number of features are excluded from the scheduling. These are: all breeze-block and other modern buildings in the former cattle market, where these lie within the area of protection, the post-medieval boundary wall of the telephone exchange which separates this property from the cattle market car park, all modern fencing, lamp posts, path surfaces and paving, tarmac surfaces and their make-up, all fixed benches and seating, bicycle stands and all signs and signposts. The ground beneath all these features is, however, included. Specifically included in the scheduling is the retaining wall at the base of the motte.
© Historic England 2022
There was never any doubt I would go to Rob's funeral. Rob was born just two weeks before me, and in our many meetings, we found we had so much in common.
A drive to Ipswich should be something like only two and a half hours, but with the Dartford Crossing that could balloon to four or more.
My choice was to leave early, soon after Jools left for work, or wait to near nine once rush hour was over. If I was up early, I'd leave early, I said.
Which is what happened.
So, after coffee and Jools leaving, I loaded my camera stuff in the car, not bothering to program in a destination, as I knew the route to Suffolk so well.
Checking the internet I found the M2 was closed, so that meant taking the M20, which I like as it runs beside HS2, although over the years, vegetation growth now hides most of it, and with Eurostar cutting services due to Brexit, you're lucky to see a train on the line now.
I had a phone loaded with podcasts, so time flew by, even if travelling through the endless roadworks at 50mph seemed to take forever.
Dartford was jammed. But we inched forward, until as the bridge came in sight, traffic moved smoothly, and I followed the traffic down into the east bore of the tunnel.
Another glorious morning for travel, the sun shone from a clear blue sky, even if traffic was heavy, but I had time, so not pressing on like I usually do, making the drive a pleasant one.
Up through Essex, where most other traffic turned off at Stanstead, then up to the A11 junction, with it being not yet nine, I had several hours to fill before the ceremony.
I stopped at Cambridge services for breakfast, then programmed the first church in: Gazeley, which is just in Suffolk on the border with Cambridgeshire.
I took the next junction off, took two further turnings brought be to the village, which is divided by one of the widest village streets I have ever seen.
It was five past nine: would the church be open?
I parked on the opposite side of the road, grabbed my bag and camera, limped over, passing a warden putting new notices in the parish notice board. We exchange good mornings, and I walk to the porch.
The inner door was unlocked, and the heavy door swung after turning the metal ring handle.
I had made a list of four churches from Simon's list of the top 60 Suffolk churches, picking those on or near my route to Ipswich and which piqued my interest.
Here, it was the reset mediaeval glass.
Needless to say, I had the church to myself, the centuries hanging heavy inside as sunlight flooded in filling the Chancel with warm golden light.
Windows had several devotional dials carved in the surrounding stone, and a huge and "stunningly beautiful piscina, and beside it are sedilia that end in an arm rest carved in the shape of a beast" which caught my eye.
A display in the Chancel was of the decoration of the wooden roof above where panels contained carved beats, some actual and some mythical.
I photographed them all.
I programmed in the next church, a 45 minute drive away just on the outskirts of Ipswich, or so I thought.
The A14 was plagued by roadworks, then most trunk roads and motorways are this time of year, but it was a fine summer morning, I was eating a chocolate bar as I drove, and I wasn't in a hurry.
I turned off at Claydon, and soon lost in a maze of narrow lanes, which brought be to a dog leg in the road, with St Mary nestling in a clearing.
I pulled up, got out and found the air full of birdsong, and was greeted by a friendly spaniel being taken for a walk from the hamlet which the church serves.
There was never any doubt that this would be open, so I went through the fine brick porch, pushed another heavy wooden door and entered the coolness of the church.
I decided to come here for the font, which as you can read below has quite the story: wounded by enemy action no less!
There seems to be a hagioscope (squint) in a window of the south wall, makes one think or an anchorite, but of this there is little evidence.
Samuel and Thomasina Sayer now reside high on the north wall of the Chancel, a stone skull between them, moved here too because of bomb damage in the last war.
I drove a few miles to the next church: Flowton.
Not so much a village as a house on a crossroads. And the church.
Nothing so grand as a formal board outside, just a handwritten sign say "welcome to Flowton church". Again, I had little doubt it would be open.
And it was.
The lychgate still stands, but a fence around the churchyard is good, so serves little practical purpose, other than to be there and hold the signs for the church and forthcoming services.
Inside it is simple: octagonal font with the floor being of brick, so as rustic as can be.
I did read Simon's account (below) when back outside, so went back in to record the tomb of Captain William Boggas and his family, even if part of the stone is hidden by pews now.
-------------------------------------------------
The landscape to the west of Ipswich rises to hills above the gentle valley of what will become the Belstead Brook before it empties itself into the River Orwell. The large villages of Somersham and Offton nestle below, but in the lonely lanes above are small, isolated settlements, and Flowton is one of them. I often cycle out this way from Ipswich through busy Bramford and then leave the modern world behind at Little Blakenham, up towards Nettlestead on a narrow and steep lane, down into Somersham and back up the other side to Flowton. It is unusual to pass a vehicle, or even see another human being, except in the valley bottom. In summer the only sound is of birdsong, the hedgerows alive in the deep heat. In winter the fields are dead, the crows in possession.
A hundred years ago these lanes were full of people, for in those days the villagers were enslaved to the land. But a farm that might support fifty workers then needs barely two now, and the countryside has emptied, villages reduced to half their size. Most of rural Suffolk is quieter now than at any time since before the Saxons arrived, and nature is returning to it.
In the early spring of 1644, a solemn procession came this way. The body of Captain William Boggas was brought back from the Midlands, where he had been killed in some skirmish or other, possibly in connection with the siege of Newark. The cart stumbled over the ruts and mud hollows, and it is easy to imagine the watching farmworkers pausing in a solemn gesture, standing upright for a brief moment, perhaps removing a hat, as it passed them by. But no sign of the cross, for this was Puritan Suffolk. Even the Church of England had been suppressed, and the local Priest replaced by a Minister chosen by, and possibly from within, the congregation.
William Boggas was laid to rest in the nave of the church, beside the body of his infant daughter who had died a year earlier. His heavily pregnant widow would have stood by on the cold brick floor, and the little church would have been full, for he was a landowner, and a Captain too.
The antiquarian David Davy came this way in a bad mood in May 1829, with his friend John Darby on their way to record the memorials and inscriptions of the church: ...we ascended a rather steep hill, on which we travelled thro' very indifferent roads to Flowton; here the kind of country I had anticipated for the whole of the present day's excursion was completely realised. A more flat, wet, unpleasant soil and country I have not often passed over, & we found some difficulty in getting along with safety & comfort.
But today it would be hard to arrive in Flowton in spring today and not be pleased to be there. By May, the trees in the hedgerows gather, and the early leaves send shadows dappling across the lane, for of course the roads have changed here since Darby and Davy came this way, but perhaps Flowton church hasn't much. James Bettley, revising the Buildings of England volumes for Suffolk, observed that it is a church with individuality in various details, which is about right. Much of what we see is of the early 14th Century, but there was money being spent here right on the eve of the Reformation. Peter Northeast and Simon Cotton transcribed a bequest of 1510 which pleasingly tells us the medieval dedication of the church, for Alice Plome asked that my body to be buried in the churchyard of the nativitie of our lady in fflowton. The same year, John Rever left a noble to painting the candlebeam, which is to say the beam which ran across the top of the rood loft and screen on which candles were placed. This is interesting because, as James Bettley points out, the large early 16th Century window on the south side of the nave was clearly intended to light the rood, and so was probably part of the same campaign. The candlebeam has not survived, and nor has any part of the rood screen. In 1526 John Rever (perhaps the son of the earlier man of the same name) left two nobles toward the making of a new rouff in the said church of ffloweton. The idiosyncratic tower top came in the 18th Century, and the weather vane with its elephants is of the early 21st Century, remembering a travelling circus that used to overwinter in the fields nearby.
The west face of the tower still has its niches, which once contained the images of the saints who watched over the travellers passing by. Another thing curious about the tower is that it has no west doorway. Instead, the doorway is set into the south side of the tower. There must be a reason for this, for it exists nowhere else in Suffolk. Perhaps there was once another building to the west of the tower. Several churches in this area have towers to the south of their naves, and the entrance through a south doorway into a porch formed beneath the tower, but it is hard to see how that could have been the intention here.
The Victorians were kind to Flowton church. It has a delicious atmosphere, that of an archetypal English country church. The narrow green sleeve of the graveyard enfolds it, leading eastwards to a moat-like ditch. The south porch is simple, and you step through it into a sweetly ancient space. The brick floor is uneven but lovely, lending an organic quality to the font, a Purbeck marble survival of the late 13th Century which seems to grow out of it. The bricks spread eastwards, past Munro Cautley's pulpit of the 1920s, and up beyond the chancel arch into the chancel itself. On the south side of the sanctuary the piscina that formerly served the altar here still retains its original wooden credence shelf. On the opposite wall is a corbel of what is perhaps a green man, or merely a madly grinning devil.
But to reach all these you must step across the ledger stone of Captain William Boggas, a pool of dark slate in the soft sea of bricks. It reads Here lyes waiting for the second coming of Jesus Christ the body of William Boggas gent, deere to his Countrey, by whoes free choyce he was called to be Captayne of their vountaries raysed for their defence: pious towards God, meeke & juste towards men & being about 40 yeeres of age departed this life March 18: 1643. To the north of it lie two smaller ledgers, the easterly one to his young daughter, which records the date of her birth and her death in the next ensuing month. To the west of that is one to William, his son, who was born on April 11th 1644.
At first sight it might seem odd that his son could have been born in April 1644 if William senior had died in March 1643, but in those days of course the New Year was counted not from January 1st, but from March 25th, a quarter day usually referred to as Lady Day, in an echoing memory of the pre-Reformation Feast of the Annunciation. So William Boggas died one month before his son was born, not thirteen. It would be nice to think that William Junior would have led a similarly exciting and possibly even longer life than his father. But this was not to be, for he died at the age of just two years old in 1645. As he was given his father's name, we may assume that he was his father's first and only son.
A further point of interest is that both Williams' stones have space ready for further names. But there are none. There would be no more children for him, for how could there be? But William's wife does not appear to be buried or even remembered here. Did she move away? Did she marry again, and does she lie in some other similarly remote English graveyard? Actually, it is possible that she doesn't. Boggas's wife was probably Flowton girl Mary Branston, and she had been married before, to Robert Woodward of Dedham in Essex. Between the time of William Boggas's death in 1644 and the 1647 accounting of the Colony, Mary's daughter and nephews by her first marriage had been transported to the Virginia Colony in the modern United States. Is it possible that Mary went to join them?
And finally, one last visitor. Four months after the birth of the younger William, when the cement on his father's ledger stone was barely dry, the Puritan iconoclast William Dowsing visited this remote place. It was 22 August 1644. The day had been a busy one for Dowsing, for Flowton was one of seven churches he visited that day, and he would likely have already known them well, because he had a house at nearby Baylham. There was little for him to take issue with apart from the piscina in the chancel which was probably filled in and then restored by the Victorians two hundred years later.
Dowsing had arrived here in the late afternoon on what was probably a fine summer's day, since the travelling was so easy. I imagined the graveyard that day, full of dense greenery. He came on horseback, and he was not alone.With him came, as an assistant, a man called Jacob Caley. Caley, a Portman of Ipswich, was well-known to the people of Flowton. He was the government's official collector of taxes for this part of Suffolk. Probably, he was not a popular man. What the villagers couldn't know was that Caley was actually hiding away a goodly proportion of the money he collected. In 1662, two years after the Commonwealth ended, he was found guilty of the theft of three thousand pounds, about a million pounds in today's money. He had collected one hundred and eighteen pounds of this from the people of Flowton alone, and the late John Blatchly writing in Trevor Cooper's edition of the Dowsing Journals thought that the amount he was found guilty of stealing was probably understated, although of course we will never know.
I revisit this church every few months, and it always feels welcoming and well cared for, with fresh flowers on display, tidy ranks of books for sale, and a feeling that there is always someone popping in, every day. The signs by the lychgate say Welcome to Flowton Church, and on my most recent visit in November 2021 a car stopped behind me while I was taking a photograph of the elephants at the top of the tower. "Do go inside, the church is open", the driver urged cheerily, "we've even got a toilet!" As with Nettlestead across the valley, the church tried to stay open throughout the Church of England's Covid panic of 2020 and 2021, whatever much of the rest of the Church might have been doing. And there was no absurd cordoning off of areas or imposition of the one-way systems beloved by busybodies in many other English churches. Instead, a simple reminder to ask you to be careful, and when I came this way in the late summer of 2020 there were, at the back of the church, tall vases of rosemary, myrtle, thyme and other fragrant herbs. Beside them was a notice, which read Covid-19 causes anosmia (losing sense of smell). Here are some herbs to smell! which I thought was not only useful and instructive, but rather lovely.
Simon Knott, November 2021
Thanks to all of you, especially J Caldwell and Photonsoup for their instructive videos
Just for reference:
Camera: ICA Dresden Reflex + Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 180mm f4.5 @ 4.5 (dating back to around 1926)
Film: Instax Wide (after exposure with ICA returned into and developed in Instax 210)
There are obvious lightleaks: could be my handling in (not so) dark room, or in-camera, or leaky film holder. Need more experimenting. Any opinion welcome!
Wall monument in the chancel to Thomas William Coke 1842, by Robert Hall of Derby with bust by Joseph Francis of London, It cost 300 guineas which was raised by subscription.
"To the revered memory of Thomas William Coke, Earl of Leicester; Born May 6th 1754; Died at Longford June 3rd 1842
His pubic conduct as representative for 57 years of the County of Norfolk was conspicuous for its decision. disinterested zeal,and unimpeachable integrity. Preeminent no less for his generosity as a landlord, than for his skill and enterprise as a agriculturist. He secured the deep affection of an attached and prosperous tenantry, while by his exertion and influence, he extended in a most remarkable degree the cultivation and rural improvement of the country.
In his domestic relations he was affectionate, kind and hospitable. His charity was munificent without ostentation,and his piety, simple and unaffected, but warm and sincere.
This monument is erected by persons of various classes and opinions centered in this county, as some record of an example to excellent and instructive"
Thomas William Coke 1st Earl of Leicester of Holkham, son of Elizabeth flic.kr/p/BasiH1 daughter of George Chamberlayne and Wenman Roberts (who took his mother's maiden name of Coke and in 1759 succeeded to Holkham Hall and substantial estates of his uncle Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9678994363/
He m1 (his cousin) Jane 1753- 1800 flic.kr/p/fKixTD daughter of James Lenox Dutton 1776 flic.kr/p/i6Pte4 & 2nd wife Jane daughter of Christopher Bond and Jane Whorwood buried at Tittleshall
Children
1. Lady Jane Elizabeth Coke (1777–1863) flic.kr/p/2aRv6VV m1 Charles Nevinson Viscount Andover (1775–1800); m2 Admiral Sir Henry Digby (1770–1842). flic.kr/p/E5wMah (parents of Edward Digby husband of Theresa Anna Maria Fox Strangeways / Strangways daughter of Henry 3rd Earl of Ilchester by Caroline Leonora Murray www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/51UK1N7vNR )
2. Lady Anne Margaret Coke (1779–1843), m Thomas 1st Viscount Anson.
3. Lady Elizabeth Wilhelmina Coke (1795–1873), m John Spencer Stanhope.
Thomas m2 (his God daughter) Anne daughter of William Keppel 4th Earl of Albemarle, by Elizabeth Southwell,
Thomas and his friend and neighbour William Earl of Albermarle were both widowers of long standing and 2 marriage settlements were agreed ; Albermarle was to marry his niece Lady Susannah Hunloke, and Albermarle's daughter Anne to marry Cokes nephew. When the first marriage took place early in 1822, Lady Anne spoke up and declared she would marry Thomas Coke or no-one. She was seventeen and he sixty-eight. His unmarried daughter Elizabeth who was 10 years older than Anne and her father's housekeeper walked out. The marriage met with bemusement and described as "absurd", but despite opposition took place on 26 February 1822 . Soon after the wedding Anne became pregnant with a son and heir who was followed by 3 more sons and a daughter, the last born when Thomas was 75 .
Children
1. Thomas William 2nd Earl 1822 -1909 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Coke,_2nd_Earl_of_Leicester m1 Juliana d1870 flic.kr/p/fLJm4y daughter of Samuel Charles Whitbread by Juliana Brand (nee Trevor) of Cardington
2 Edward Keppel Wentworth Coke 1824 - 1889 m Diana
daughter of George James Welborne Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron of Dover and Georgiana Howard
3. Henry John 1827 - 1916 m Katherine daughter of Thomas Grosvenor Egerton 2nd Earl of Wilton by Mary Stanley
4. Wenman Coke 1828 - 1907 unmarried
1. Margaret Sophia 1832 - 1868 m Archibald MacDonald 3rd Bart, son of Sir James Macdonald at Bramshott flic.kr/p/29bZF4
Thomas died at Longford o the 30th June 1842 and was interred in the family vault at Tittershall Norfolk
Anne m2 m2 (October 1843) Rt Hon Edward Ellice flic.kr/p/876MUp merchant & MP 1783 - 1863 son of Alexander Ellice and Ann Russell
Edward was a partner in Inglis Ellice,a major slave-owning and mortgagee firm until its collapse in 1821 ; Edward was co-owner of 8 sugar estates in Grenada, British Guiana, Tobago and Antigua. In the 1830s, after the British government emancipated the slaves, he received compensation of c£35,000 for the liberation of over 300 slaves.
Edward was the widower of Lady Hannah Altheah Bettesworth 1832 youngest daughter of Gen. Charles 1st Earl Grey & Elisabeth Petry Grey
Anne died 23rd July 1844 aged 40 not long after the birth of a son who lived only a few days and is buried with her www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/67D19S
His and Anne's funeral hatchments hang nearby www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/048W03
- Church of St Chad, Longford Derbyshire
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Coke,_1st_Earl_of_Leicester_(seventh_creation)
www.northernvicar.co.uk/2018/11/17/longford-derbyshire-st...
I noticed that I've hit the 100,000 views mark!
Woo Hoo!
I really want to thank all my flickr friends. You have given me a wonderful gift. Being on flickr has changed my life so much, and enriched me in so manys ways I cannot list them all here.
I will say this:
Flickr inspired me artistically, probably more than any one single thing in my life. Looking at other people's work and getting feedback on mine has been incredibly instructive and affirming.
My flickr friends have given me so much comfort, and helped me feel far less lonely than I might have.
Flickr has filled me with hope for the world because I see how a diverse community can find peace and harmony through artistic expression and open communication. If we can do it, then the world at large can do it!
Flickr has given me so many new friends and contacts that I feel as if the whole world has grown smaller and become closer to my heart.
So believe me when I tell you that I love you, I love you all for being just as you are, real humans with real hearts.
Many many hugs and virtual blessings on you all,
Andrea Daerice
In a quiet nook, toward the back of the children's section, sits a perfect place to enjoy a moment of solitude accompanied only by the characters of a favorite book. This pint-sized window seat overlooks the Enchanted Garden at Howard County Library System's Miller Branch. Framed by a quilt that celebrates Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar and a wide array of picture books, it provides the perfect place to curl up and exercise a young imagination. Children flock to this spot and sit for hours reading piles of their favorite books. / / The Miller Branch matches the caliber of the curriculum Howard County Library System (HCLS) delivers under its three pillars: Self-Directed Education, Research Assistance & Instruction, and Instructive & Enlightening Experiences. A welcoming destination, the venue’s array of spaces are conducive to studying, reading, conducting research, attending classes and events—and enjoyment. / / A major component of Howard County's (Maryland) strong education system, HCLS delivers high-quality public education for all ages. A nationally recognized leader among the great public libraries, HCLS takes great pride in having been named the 2013 Library of the Year by Gale/Library Journal. / / HCLS concluded the 2013 fiscal year with record-setting statistics. In addition to borrowing 7.4 million items, customers visited HCLS’ six branches 3.2 million times, attendance at classes and events broke the quarter of a million mark, and research assistance interactions totaled nearly two million.
Strobist Info:
Nikon D800 on RRS Tripod
Four foot scrim gaffed to outside of window, sunlight.
One exposure for blown out highlight in window at about +2
One base exposure for interior of - 3
Nikon SB-800 in a small Chimera softbox with 40' grid and full cut CTO. Nano stand for boom.
Multiple pops at about 1/2 power throughout the scene and on model.
Triggered by PW's
Layered and merged in Photoshop.
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.
Praktina 35mm SLR with shutter speeds B, 1-1000, Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar f=2.8/50mm lens made by K.W. Germany c1952
Because I'm a big fan of abstract color, shape and reflections, I've started playing with photographing glassware. It's very instructive, and, at least for me, very humbling. Because it's so reflective, it's very difficult to control, and it shows every smudge, fingerprint, scratch or flaw. The people that do this for a living have my respect. There is a lot to learn. That being said, that which makes it difficult also results in some unusual shapes, distortions and color. Fun stuff.
The light from the left is a large Chinese globe paper lantern, with a flash gun inside which has a white plastic diffusing hood on it inside a white translucent plastic shopping bag, inside the globe. All that diffusion is necessary to give an even white diffuse light from the paper surface of the globe without any hot spots.
Behind my head and to the right is a hair rim light direct flash to provide background separation on that side. From above and little to the right and front is a direct flash firing through a CTO (standard tungsten orange) gel. I hoped that colour would add to the 3D modelling effect without looking unnatural.
Those two extra strobes are not in optimum positions, but I'm here using a kitchen as a makeshift studio and am restricted by the positions of available bits of furniture I can mount flashes on. Nevertheless an interesting and instructive experiment.
The black background is some black cloth hanging from a propped up broom handle about 1.5 metres behind.
The flash guns used and their power settings are shown in this photograph. The Chinese ball lantern can be seen in this photograph.
Flash guns triggered by Cactus V2s's.
Original DSC03838RWX
The Museum of Economic Botany is on the Register of the National Estate, Register of State Heritage Items, Register of the City of Adelaide Heritage Items and classified by the National Trust.
A sponsorship which sees Santos supporting the Museum and its exhibition program. The Santos Museum of Economic Botany is one of Adelaide’s treasures sitting in the Adelaide Botanic Garden.
Notes from the Adelaide Botanic Garden
The terraces about the new Museum of Economic Botany are now made and clothed with turf, and a number of beautiful specimens of the Palms and Conifers have been planted on the grass lawns in front. The steps are ready, and when the statues are in place the outside will be completed. Inside the building the carpenters are getting on rapidly with the tables and exhibition cases, and the place begins to look as though it were furnished. It will take some time probably to put up the exhibits but when this is done it is probable that no part of the Garden will be more attractive. [Ref: Evening Journal (Adelaide)13 November 1880]
MUSEUM OF ECONOMIC BOTANY
Through the courtesy of Dr. R. Schomburgk we have had an opportunity of inspecting this addition to the Botanical Gardens, and of examining the many objects of interest contained in it. As the museum is certain to be largely visited the following particulars will doubtless be read with interest:—
The building is 104 feet long by 40 feet wide, and the room is 30 feet high, The entrance is by a portico and a flight of six steps. There are sixteen windows, 8 feet high six on each side, three on the western end one on the eastern end, so that ample provision is made for lighting the room. Between the windows, and at right angles with them the show cases (twelve in number) are fixed, which are 8 feet high. These afford increased accommodation, as both sides of the cases are made use of: this plan is adopted in the Kew and Kensington museums, London, and is an admirable one, as it provides both effective light and room for twice as many objects as if the cases were placed in one continuous line alongside the walls. Under the windows and recesses other glass cases (fourteen in number), in the form of tables, have been placed, whilst in the middle of the room two rows of show cases on tables occupy the whole length of the room. At the east end of the building, a separate room is entirely devoted to the Herbarium. The plants are contained in portfolios, the orders arranged on shelves according to Hooker's and Bentham's Genera Plantarum. The genera each portfolio contains are marked on the front, so that any particular genus wanted can be found without much searching. The artistical decorations of the interior, viz, painting the ceiling, walls, showcases &c, have been carried out by Mr W J Williams, decorative artist, who has shown the most refined taste in his work — especially in the Greek design of the ceiling, which is admirably executed. The whole of the decoration is stencil work, and done in a manner that reflects the greatest credit on the artist.
The upright show cases that surround the room are filled with most interesting specimens. They contain samples of corn, grasses, seed, palms, spices, flowers, pods, and other products from every quarter of the globe, each case in itself being an interesting study. In one we noticed some Tapa cloth, manufactured into robes and dresses by the Polynesian Islanders from the fibrous bark of the paper mulberry. One of these garments possesses a most singular pattern. The manufacturer, wishing to impress a pattern on his robe, and having no better means of doing so, has accomplished this object by dipping his hands in red paint and then daubing them over the cloth, leaving unmistakable imprints of the five fingers in many places the effect being more striking than elegant. Another case contains a natural sack extracted from the inner bark of the Antiaris saccidea.
In another we find specimens of the different grasses, corn, &c, growing in all parts of the world. The large round cone in which the 21 Brazil nuts germinate is also shown. The different kinds of tea, tobacco, silks, paper, acids, gums, and every other kind of natural product grown in this and other countries may here be seen. There is also a large and interesting collection of artificial fungi: the names of the eatable ones the names are printed on blue, the poisonous on red, and the harmless on white labels.
The Commissioner of the Japanese Court at the Sydney Exhibition, Mr. Harns Sakato, forwarded, at the close of the Exhibition, three large cases containing about 200 of the most interesting objects of Japan, of their commercial, food-providing, and other agricultural products, contained in glass jars. But the most important and instructive point is that the analysis of the object contained in the jar is written on the label, which has been made in the Imperial chemical laboratories of the College of Agriculture, Komaba-Tokis, Japan. This instructive collection is shown in a separate glass case by itself, and will doubtless prove an object of considerable attraction to visitors.
The thousand and one objects of interest contained in the various cases will well repay many a visit, and as every specimen is clearly labelled no difficulty will be experienced in finding out what each one is. The cases under the windows are mostly filled with the economical and commercial plants in their raw state, side by side with the different stages of manufacture by which they have been converted by the skill of man, so that the museum ought to be both instructive to and popular with all classes.
Printed labels are invariably used in place of written ones— an improved though expensive method — which renders them more legible, and at the same time materially adds to the appearance of the collection. The labels so far as possible. give not alone the popular and botanical name, but also a condensed description of the properties and uses of each object. We consider this plan both important an[d] instructive.
The cost of the museum, viz, building, fixtures, glazing, and decorative painting, was £2,900: but it must be mentioned, the rough pointing, glazing, and most of the fixtures, were executed by the carpenters and painters employed in the garden.
Dr Schomburgk has spent a very large amount of time, and put himself to a deal of trouble to perfect the arrangements throughout, and the evident care that has been bestowed on them reflect the greatest credit on his work, and should gain for him the warmest thanks of the community. [Ref: South Australian Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide) Saturday 21 May 1881]
ADELAIDE, WEDNSDAY
The Governor attended at the Botanic gardens today, and in the Museum of Economic Botany, in the presence of the Chief Secretary and the Speaker of the Assembly, presented Dr Schomburgk with a portrait of himself, to be placed in the museum. The portrait has been subscribed for by the friends of the doctor, and was executed by Herr Tannert, master of the School of Design.
An album containing the autographs of the subscribers, and an address was also presented to Dr Schomburgk, who read in reply, in which, after thanking the donors, he credited Mr Geo Francis, the late curator, with having displayed much care and taste in laying out the grounds. [Ref: Argus (Melbourne) 31-1-1884]
In 1987 I dreamt of this sculpture with a concave propeller to send the pressure to the center and then lock it in a glass cylinder. The movement of the crank makes a typhoon like the legs of the Greek god or Set's movements to leave the mineral world and give life to the vegetable world and represent the transmutation of a man who frees himself from real life to finally become a Light Body.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
Set /sɛt/ or Seth /sɛθ/ (Egyptian: stẖ; also transliterated Setesh, Sutekh[1], Setekh, or Suty) is a god of the desert, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion. In Ancient Greek, the god's name is given as Sēth (Σήθ). Set had a positive role where he accompanies Ra on his solar boat to repel Apep, the serpent of Chaos. Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant. He was lord of the red (desert) land where he was the balance to Horus' role as lord of the black (soil) land.
The term typhoon is the regional name in the northwest Pacific for a severe (or mature) tropical cyclone, whereas hurricane is the regional term in the northeast Pacific and northern Atlantic. Elsewhere this is called a tropical cyclone, severe tropical cyclone, or severe cyclonic storm.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites Urdu ṭūfān and Chinese tai fung giving rise to several early forms in English. The earliest forms -- "touffon", later "tufan", "tuffon", and others -- derive from Urdu ṭūfān, with citations as early as 1588. From 1699 appears "tuffoon", later "tiffoon", derived from Chinese with spelling influenced by the older Urdu-derived forms. The modern spelling "typhoon" dates to 1820, preceded by "tay-fun" in 1771 and "ty-foong", all derived from the Chinese tai fung.
The Urdu source word توفان ṭūfān ("violent storm"; cognate to Hindi तूफ़ान (tūfān))[7] comes via Persian from Arabic طوفان (ṭūfān), which may derive from the verb tūfīdan (Persian: توفیدن/طوفیدن, "to roar, to blow furiously")[citation needed] or Arabic ṭāfa, to turn round.
The Chinese source is the word tai fung (simplified Chinese: 台风; traditional Chinese: 颱風; pinyin: táifēng), cited as a common dialect form of Mandarin dà "big" and fēng "wind". In Mandarin the word for the windstorm is 大风 (dàfēng, "big wind") and in Cantonese 大風 (daai6 fung1, "big wind"). The modern Japanese word, 台風 (たいふう, taifuu), is also derived from Chinese. The first character is normally used to mean "pedestal" or "stand", but is actually a simplification of the older kanji 颱, which means "typhoon"; thus the word originally meant "typhoon wind".
The Ancient Greek Τυφῶν (Tuphôn, Typhon) is not unrelated and has secondarily contaminated the word. The Persian and Chinese terms may have been originated by the Greek word in the first place.
SET, OR SETH, whom the Greeks called Typhon, the nefarious demon of death and evil in Egyptian mythology, is characterised as "a strong god (a-pahuti), whose anger is to be feared." The inscriptions call him "the powerful one of Thebes," and "Ruler of the South." He is conceived as the sun that kills with the arrows of heat; he is the slayer, and iron is called the bones of Typhon. The hunted animals are consecrated to him; and his symbols are the griffin (akhekh), the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the swine, the tortoise, and, above all the serpent âpapi (in Greek "apophis") who was thought to await the dying man in the domain of the god Atmu (also called Tmu or Tum), who represents the sun below the western horizon.
According to Herman te Velde, the demonization of Set took place after Egypt's conquest by several foreign nations in the Third Intermediate and Late Periods. Set, who had traditionally been the god of foreigners, thus also became associated with foreign oppressors, including the Assyrian and Persian empires.[31] It was during this time that Set was particularly vilified, and his defeat by Horus widely celebrated.
Set's negative aspects were emphasized during this period. Set was the killer of Osiris, having hacked Osiris' body into pieces and dispersed it so that he could not be resurrected. The Greeks would later associate Set with Typhon, a monstrous and evil force of raging nature. Both were sons of deities representing the Earth (Gaia and Geb) who attacked the principal deities (Osiris for Set, Zeus for Typhon).
Nevertheless, throughout this period, in some outlying regions of Egypt, Set was still regarded as the heroic chief deity.
Set has also been classed as a trickster deity who, as a god of disorder, resorts to deception to achieve bad ends.
Set's pictures are easily recognised by his long, erect, and square-tipped ears and his proboscis-like snout, which are said to indicate the head of a fabulous animal called Oryx. The consort and feminine counterpart of Set is called Taour or Taourt. The Greeks called her Theouris. She appears commonly as a hippopotamus in erect posture, her back covered with the skin and tail of a crocodile.
Set is often contrasted with Osiris. Set was the deity of the desert, of drought and feverish thirst, and of the sterile ocean; Osiris represents moisture, the Nile, the fertilising powers and life. Plutarch says:
"The moon (representing Osiris) is, with his fertilising and fecundative light, favorable to the produce of animals and growth of plants; the sun, however (representing Typhon), is determined, with its unmitigated fire, to overheat and parch animals; it renders by its blaze a great part of the earth uninhabitable and conquers frequently even the moon (viz., Osiris)."
As an enemy to life, Set is identified with all destruction. He is the waning of the moon, the decrease of the waters of the Nile, and the setting of the sun. Thus he was called the left or black eye of the decreasing sun, governing the year from the summer solstice to the winter solstice, which is contrasted with the right or bright eye of Hor, the increasing sun, which symbolises the growth of life and the spread of light from the winter solstice to the summer solstice.
Set was not always nor to all Egyptians alike a Satanic deity. He was officially worshipped in an unimportant province west of the Nile, but this was the natural starting-point of the road to the northern oasis. The inhabitants, who were mostly guides to desert caravans, had good reasons to remain on friendly terms with Set, the Lord of the desert.
Further, we know that a great temple was devoted to Set, as the god of war, in Tanis, near the swamps between the eastern branches of the Delta, an important town of the frontier, and during the time of invasion the probable seat of the foreign dominion of the Hyksos and
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the Hyttites, who identified their own god Sutech with the Egyptian Set. But even among the Hyksos, Set was revered as the awful God of irresistible power, of brute force, of war, and of destruction.
There is an old wall-picture of Karnak, belonging to the era of the eighteenth dynasty, in which the god Set appears as an instructor of King Thothmes III. in the science of archery.
Sety I., the second king of the nineteenth dynasty, the shepherd kings, derives his name from the god Seta sign of the high honor in which he was held among the shepherd kings; and indeed we are informed that they regarded Set, or Sutech, as the only true God, the sole deity, who alone was worthy of receiving divine honors.
If the time of the shepherd kings is to be identified with the settlement of Jacob's sons in Egypt, and if the
p. 19
monotheism of the Hyksos is the root of Moses's religion, what food for thought lies in the fact that the same awe of a fearful power that confronts us in life, changes among the Egyptians into the demonology of Set, and among the Israelites into the cult of Yahveh!
In spite of the terror which he inspired, Set was originally not merely an evil demon but one of the great deities, who, as such, was feared and propitiated.
Says Heinrich Brugsch (Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, p. 706):
"The Book of the Dead of the ancient Egyptians and the numerous inscriptions of the recently opened pyramids are, indeed, nothing but talismans against the imagined Seth and his associates. Such is also, I am sorry to say, the greater part of the ancient literature that has come down to us."
When a man dies, he passes the western horizon and descends through Atmu's abode into Amenti, the Nether World. The salvation of his personality depends, according to Egyptian belief, upon the preservation of his "double," or his "other self," which, remaining in the tomb, resides in the mummy or in any statue of his body.
The double, just as if it were alive, is supposed to be in need of food and drink, which is provided for by incantations. Magic formulas satisfy the hunger and thirst of the double in the tomb, and frustrate, through invocations of the good deities, all the evil intentions of Set and his host. We read in an inscription of Edfu (Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, p. 767):
p. 20
Hail Ra, thou art radiant in thy radiance,
While there is darkness in the eyes of Apophis!
Hail Ra, good is thy goodness,
While Apophis is bad in its badness!"
The dread of hunger, thirst, and other ills, or even of destruction which their double might suffer in the tomb, was a perpetual source of fearful anticipations to every pious Egyptian. The anxiety to escape the tortures of their future state led to the embalming of the dead and to the building of the pyramids. Yet, in spite of all superstitions and the ridiculous pomp bestowed upon the burial of the body we find passages in the inscriptions which give evidence that in the opinion of many thoughtful people the best and indeed the sole means of protection against the typhonic influences after death was a life of righteousness. This is forcibly expressed in the illustration of Chapter CXXV. of the Book of the Dead, which is here reproduced according to Lepsius's edition of the Turin papyrus. (Republished by Putnam, Book of the Dead).
The picture of the Hall of Truth as preserved in the Turin papyrus shows Osiris with the atef-crown on his head and the crook and whip in his hands. Above the beast of Amenti we see the two genii Shai and Ranen, which represent Misery and Happiness. The four funeral genii, called Amset, Hapi, Tuamutef, and Kebhsnauf, hover over an altar richly laden with offerings. The frieze shows twelve groups of uræus snakes, flames and feathers of truth; on both sides scales are poised by a baboon who is the sacred animal of Thoth, and in the middle Atmu stretches out his hands over the right and left eye, symbolising sunset and sunrise, death and resurrection.
Mâ, 1 the goddess of truth and "the directress of the gods," decorated with an erect feather which is her emblem, ushers the departed one into the Hall of Truth. Kneeling, the departed one invokes the forty-two assessors by name and disclaims having committed any one of the forty-two sins of the Egyptian moral code. Omitting the names of the assessors, we quote here an extract of the confession. The departed one says:
"I did not do evil.--I did not commit violence.--I did not torment any heart.--I did not steal. I did not cause any one to be treacherously killed.--I did not lessen the offerings.--I did not do any harm.--I did not utter a lie.--I did not make any one weep.--I did not commit acts of self-pollution. --I did not fornicate.--I did not trespass.--I did not commit any perfidy.--I did no damage to cultivated land.--I was no accuser.--I was never angry without sufficient reason.--I did not turn a deaf ear to the words of truth.--I did not commit witchcraft.--I did not blaspheme.--I did not cause a slave to be maltreated by his master.--I did not despise God in my heart."
Then the departed one places his heart on the balance of truth, where it is weighed by the hawk-headed Hor and the jackal-headed Anubis, "the director of the weight," the weight being shaped in the figure of the goddess of truth. Thoth, the ibis-headed scribe of the gods, reads Hor's report to Osiris, and if it announces that the weight of the heart is equal to truth, Thoth orders it to be placed back into the breast of the departed
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one, which act indicates his return to life. If the departed one escapes all the dangers that await him in his descent to Amenti, and if the weight of his heart is not found wanting, he is allowed to enter into "the boat of the sun,)' in which he is conducted to the Elysian fields of the blessed.
Should the evil deeds of the departed one outweigh his good deeds, he was sentenced to be devoured by Amemit (i. e., the devourer), which is also called "the beast of Amenti," or was sent back to the upper world in the shape of a pig.
While the double stays in the tomb, the soul, represented as a bird with a human head, soars to heaven where it becomes one with all the great gods. The liberated soul exclaims (Erman, ib., p. 343 et seq.):
"I am the god Atum, I who was alone,
"I am the god Ra at his first appearing,
"I am the great god who created himself, and created his name I Lord of the gods, who has not his equal.'
"I was yesterday, and I know the to-morrow. The battlefield of the gods -was made when I spoke.
"I come into my home, I come into my native city.
"I commune daily with my father Atum.
"My impurities are driven out, and the sin that was in me is conquered.
"Ye gods above, reach out your hands, I am like you, I have become one of you.
"I commune daily with my father Atum.
Having become one with the gods, the departed soul suffers the same fate as Osiris. Like him, it is slain by Set, and like Osiris, it is reborn in Hor who revenges the death of his father. At the same time the soul is supposed
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frequently to visit the double of the departed man in the tomb, as depicted in the tomb of the scribe Ani.
The Abode of Bliss (in Egyptian Sechnit aanru, also written aahlu), as depicted in the Turin papyrus of the Book of the Dead, shows us the departed one with his family, and Thoth, the scribe of the gods, behind them, in the act of sacrificing to three gods, the latter being decorated with the feather of truth. He then crosses the water. On the other side, he offers a perfuming pan to his soul which appears in the shape of a man-headed bird. There are also the three mummy-form gods of the horizon, with an altar of offerings before the hawk, symbolising Ra, "the master of heaven." In the middle part of the picture the departed one ploughs, sows, reaps, threshes, stores up the harvest, and celebrates a thanksgiving with offerings to the Nile. The lower part shows two barks, one for Ra Harmakhis, the other one for Unefru; and the three islands: the first is inhabited by Ra, the second is called the regenerating place of the gods, the third is the residence of Shu, Tefnut, and Seb.
A very instructive illustration of Egyptian belief is afforded us in the well-preserved tomb of Rekhmara, the prefect of Thebes under Thothmes III. of the eighteenth dynasty, the inscriptions of which have been translated into French by Ph. Virey and were published in 1889 by the Mission Archéologique Française.
The visitor to the tomb enters through a door on the eastern end; when proceeding westward, we see Rekhmara on the left wall pass from life to death. Here he attends to the affairs of the government, there he receives in the name of Pharaoh the homage of foreign princes;
p. 25
further on he organises the work of building magazines at Thebes. He superintends the artists engaged at the Temple of Ammon and is then buried in pomp. At last he assumes the appearance of the Osiris of the West and receives sacrifices in his capacity as a god. We are now confronted with a blind door through which Rekhmara-Osiris descends into the West and returns to life toward the East as the Osiris of the East. Through funeral sacrifices and incantations his double is again invested with the use of the various senses; he is honored at a festival and graciously received by Pharaoh; in a word, he acts as he did in life. When we return to the entrance where we started, Rekhmara receives the offerings of his family and inspects the progress of the works to which he attended in life.
In the tomb of Rekhmara, Set receives offerings like other great gods. The departed one is called the inheritor of Set (Suti), and is purified by both Hor and Set. As an impersonation of Osiris, the departed one is approached and slain by Set, who then is vanquished in the shape of sacrificial animals which are slaughtered. But when the departed one is restored to the use of his senses and mental powers, Set again plays an important part, and appears throughout as one of the four points of the compass, which are "Hor, Set, Thoth, and Seb." 1
According to the original legend, Set represented the death of the sun, and as a personality he is described as the murderer of Osiris, who was finally reconciled with Hor. He remained, however, a powerful god, and had important functions to perform for the souls of the dead.
p. 27
Above all, he must bind and conquer the serpent Apophis (Apap), as we read in the Book of The Dead (108, 4 and 5):
"They use Set to circumvent it [the serpent]; they use him to throw an iron chain around its neck, to make it vomit all that it has swallowed."
1n the measure that the allegorical meaning of the Osiris legend is obliterated, and that Osiris is conceived as a real person who as the representative of moral goodness, succumbs in his struggle with evil and dies, but is resurrected in his son Hor, Set is more and more deprived of his divinity and begins to be regarded as an evil demon.
The reign of Men-Kau-Ra, the builder of the third pyramid of Gizeh (according to Brugsch, 3633 B. C., and according to Mariette, 4100 B. C.), must have changed the character of the old Egyptian religion. "The prayer to Osiris on his coffin lid," says Rawlinson (Vol. II., p. 67), "marks a new religious development in the annals of Egypt. The absorption of the justified soul in Osiris, the cardinal doctrine of the Ritual of the Dead, makes its appearance here for the first time."
According to the older canon Set is always mentioned among the great deities, but later on he is no longer recognised as a god, and his name is replaced by that of some other god. The Egyptians of the twenty-second dynasty went so far as to erase Set's name from many of the older inscriptions and even to change the names of former kings that were compounds of Set, such as Set-nekht and others. The crocodile-headed Ceb (also called. Seb or Keb) and similar deities, in so far as their
p. 28
nature was suggestive of Set, suffered a similar degradation; and this, we must assume, was the natural consequence of an increased confidence in the final victory of the influence of the gods of goodness and virtue.
Plutarch, speaking of his own days, says (On Isis and Osiris, Chapter XXX.) that:
"The power of Typhon, although dimmed and crushed, is still in its last agonies and convulsions. The Egyptians occasionally humiliate and insult him at certain festivals. They nevertheless propitiate and soothe him by means of certain sacrifices."
Set, the great and strong god of prehistoric times, was converted into Satan with the rise of the worship of Osiris. Set was strong enough to slay Osiris, as night overcomes the light of the sun; but the sun is born again in the child-god Hor, who conquers Set and forces him to make the old serpent of death surrender its spoil. As the sun sets to rise again, so man dies to be reborn. The evil power is full of awe, but a righteous cause cannot be crushed, and, in spite of death, life is immortal.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(deity)
This spectacular sign over the PLANTERS PEANUT STORE on Broadway, New York City, contains 15,000 brilliantly lighted bulbs and an animated Mr. Peanut, 20 feet high, who magically brings various Planters Products into the magic ball. The Giant "PLANTERS PEANUTS" in neon flashes on and off and famous "PLANTERS PEANUTS" flow from the 5 cent bag at bottom of sign. 1560 Broadway, NEW YORK
When in New York, visit
THE PEANUT STORE the HOME of MR. PEANUT, where world-famous PLANTERS PEANUTS are sold. See PLANTERS PEANUTS roasted right before your eyes and mail them to your friends back home. See the beautiful and instructive scenes which show the progress of PLANTERS PEANUTS from the time they are planted until they reach you at your favorite store.
C.T. Art-Colortone by Curt Teich
7B-H746
CAPA-016399
Fun / instructive to compare this with the axial view from SW Moody in first comment below. More locations and tips for photographing the bridge. NB39145