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The latest in a series of shots featuring my actress friend Cassie Bradley, taken during a very productive studio shoot in Manchester recently.
This was a four hour shoot...and the time just whizzed past. It was a lot of fun. :-)
Cassie was appearing in 'Husbands and Sons', a co-production between the National Theatre and the Royal Exchange Theatre (which has now ended its run).
You can see more of my pics of Cassie in my Cassie Bradley set.
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Let the #hometikibar transformation commence!
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Previous owner left behind a bamboo lanai table, a traffic light, and an actual neon “parrot head” lighted sign. As my original plan was to screen in the small lanai area anyway, it is now evolving in to creating a tiki-riffic tropical escape space.
🌴
#lanai #tikibar #hometikibarbuild #its5oclocksomewhere
Big Spring Hollow Falls
Hocking Hills State Forest
Ohio
5 Image HDR
I was tired and reluctant to visit this wonderful scene, but my good friend Chris Morris talked me into it and boy would I have been kicking myself in the head for not hiking to see this beauty. Imagine my surprise as I was visiting this falls for the first time, a towering waterfall as tall as, or taller than the 100 ft. Falls At Ash Cave. Big Spring Hollow Falls although not flowing very strong here has the potential to be one of the most awesome falls in the area and I seriously can not wait to return here and check this beauty out after a good rain.
The eggs from this gigantic chicken may form into stars. The featured emission nebula, shown in scientifically assigned colors, is cataloged as IC 2944 but known as the Running Chicken Nebula for the shape of its greater appearance. Seen toward the top of the image are small, dark molecular clouds rich in obscuring cosmic dust. Called Thackeray's Globules for their discoverer, these "eggs" are potential sites for the gravitational condensation of new stars, although their fates are uncertain as they are also being rapidly eroded away by the intense radiation from nearby young stars. Together with patchy glowing gas and complex regions of reflecting dust, these massive and energetic stars form the open cluster Collinder 249. This gorgeous skyscape spans about 60 light-years at the nebula's estimated 6,000 light-year distance. via NASA ift.tt/1JY6edP
Dwarf Moore Park apricot.
One picture per day during Melbourne's 6th lockdown until it ends
Number 12
In Portuguese: Sibipiruna, sebipira, coracão-de-negro
Picture taken in the Santa Rosa Farm, Tabajara, Lavinia-SP, Brazil
SN/NC: Caesalpinia Pluviosa Var. peltophoroides, Fabaceae Family
This tree is popularly known as sibipiruna or false brazilwood, is an ornamental species with wood potential and with great distribution in Brazil. The genus Caesalpinia has more than five hundred species, most of which have not yet been studied for their pharmacological potential. Several species of the genus are known for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Therefore, it was possible to verify that sibipiruna did not present antimutagenic activity, but a plant with possible mutagenic action in the concentrations used.
Conhecida popularmente como Sibipiruna, Coração-de-negro, Sebipira, Sibipira é uma árvore ornamental da Família das Fabáceaes. É nativa do Brasil e está presente em toda a América do Sul e outras áreas. Muito usada na jardinagem e no urbanismo brasileiro pode atingir mais de 20m de altura. A sibipiruna é uma árvore semidecídua, de rápido crescimento e florescimento ornamental. Nativa da mata atlântica, ela é uma espécie pioneira ou secundária inicial, ou seja é uma das primeiras espécies a surgir em uma área degradada. Seu porte é alto, podendo atingir de 8 a 25 m de altura. O tronco é cinzento e se torna escamoso com o tempo, seu diâmetro é de 30 a 40 cm. A copa é arredondada, ampla, com cerca de 15 m de diâmetro. Suas folhas são compostas, bipinadas, com folíolos elípticos e verdes. No inverno ocorre uma queda quase total das folhas, que voltam a brotar na primavera. A floração ocorre de setembro a novembro, despontando inflorescências eretas e cônicas, do tipo espiga e com numerosas flores amarelas que abrem gradativamente da base em direção ao ápice. Os frutos que se seguem são do tipo legume, achatados, pretos quando maduros e contêm cerca de 3 a 5 sementes beges, também achatadas, em forma de gota ou elípticas. A dispersão ocorre pela ação do vento.
Caesalpinia pluviosa, sebipira es una especie botánica de árbol leguminosa de la familia de las Fabaceae. Se halla endémico de Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia. Está amenazado por pérdida de hábita. Muy usada en las calles de ciudades brasileñas por ser muy bellas en su floreada. Tiene las hojas son bipinnadas con el eje central de 20-25 cm de largo, con 8-9 pares de pinnas, cada una con alrededor de 11 a 13 pares de foliolos de 10-12 mm. La floración ocurre entre de agosto y se extiende hasta el final del verano, produciendo inflorescencias cónicas en racimos erectos de flores amarillas. Las vainas de las frutas da lugar a dos válvas compuestas leñosa seca larga y correosa, con 7,6 a 12,0 cm de largo por 2.7 a 3.1 cm de ancho. Cuando están maduras, las vainas se abren girando en una explosiva dehiscencia expulsando 1-5 semillas. Estas son comprimidas, irregularmente circulares, transversales, ovato-obovadas o orbiculares a subglobosas con un frente muy duro y rígido, claro, espesa o sin albúmina, provisto de una boquilla en el hilio y con margen. Pueden vivir más de cien años. Caesalpinia pluviosa fue descrito por Augustin Pyrame de Candolle y publicado en Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis Caesalpinia: nombre genérico que fue otorgado en honor del botánico italiano Andrea Cesalpino (1519-1603). pluviosa: epíteto latino que significa "lluviosa". Sin. caesalpinia parensis, caesalpinia peltophoroides. Conocida por Momoqui, sebipira o sepipiruna.
Deze boom staat in de volksmond bekend als sibipiruna of vals brazilwood, is een siersoort met houtpotentieel en met een grote verspreiding in Brazilië. Het geslacht Caesalpinia heeft meer dan vijfhonderd soorten, waarvan de meeste nog niet zijn onderzocht op hun farmacologische potentieel. Verschillende soorten van het geslacht staan bekend om hun antioxiderende en ontstekingsremmende activiteiten. Daarom was het mogelijk om te verifiëren dat sibipiruna geen antimutagene activiteit vertoonde, maar een plant met mogelijk mutagene werking in de gebruikte concentraties.
Cet arbre, communément connu sous le nom de sibipiruna ou faux bois du Brésil, est une espèce ornementale avec un potentiel ligneux et une grande distribution au Brésil. Le genre Caesalpinia compte plus de cinq cents espèces, dont la plupart n’ont pas encore été étudiées pour leur potentiel pharmacologique. Plusieurs espèces du genre sont connues pour leurs activités antioxydantes et anti-inflammatoires. Ainsi, il a été possible de vérifier que la sibipiruna ne présentait pas d'activité antimutagène, mais une plante avec une possible action mutagène dans les concentrations utilisées.
Questo albero è popolarmente conosciuto come sibipiruna o falso legno brasiliano, è una specie ornamentale con potenziale legnoso e con grande distribuzione in Brasile. Il genere Caesalpinia comprende più di cinquecento specie, la maggior parte delle quali non sono state ancora studiate per il loro potenziale farmacologico. Diverse specie del genere sono note per le loro attività antiossidanti e antinfiammatorie. È stato quindi possibile verificare che la sibipiruna non presentava attività antimutagena, ma una pianta con possibile azione mutagena nelle concentrazioni utilizzate.
Dieser Baum ist im Volksmund als Sibipiruna oder falscher Brasilholzbaum bekannt und eine Zierart mit Holzpotenzial, die in Brasilien weit verbreitet ist. Die Gattung Caesalpinia umfasst mehr als fünfhundert Arten, von denen die meisten noch nicht auf ihr pharmakologisches Potenzial untersucht wurden. Mehrere Arten dieser Gattung sind für ihre antioxidative und entzündungshemmende Wirkung bekannt. Daher konnte nachgewiesen werden, dass Sibipiruna keine antimutagene Wirkung aufweist, sondern dass es sich bei der Pflanze um eine Pflanze mit möglicher mutagener Wirkung in den verwendeten Konzentrationen handelt.
تُعرف هذه الشجرة شعبيًا باسم Sibipiruna أو شجرة خشب البرازيل الزائفة وهي من أنواع الزينة ذات إمكانات الأخشاب المنتشرة على نطاق واسع في البرازيل. يشمل جنس Caesalpinia أكثر من خمسمائة نوع، معظمها لم تتم دراستها بعد لمعرفة إمكاناتها الدوائية. العديد من الأنواع في هذا الجنس معروفة بتأثيراتها المضادة للأكسدة والمضادة للالتهابات. ولذلك كان من الممكن إثبات أن سيبيبيرونا ليس له تأثير مضاد للطفرات، بل أن النبات نبات له تأثيرات مطفرة محتملة في التركيزات المستخدمة.
この木はシビピルナまたは偽ブラジルウッドとして一般に知られており、木材としての可能性を秘めた観賞用の種であり、ブラジルに広く分布しています。 Caesalpinia 属には 500 以上の種があり、そのほとんどはその薬理学的可能性についてまだ研究されていません。この属のいくつかの種は、抗酸化作用と抗炎症作用で知られています。したがって、シビピルナは抗変異原性活性を示さないが、使用した濃度において変異原性作用を示す可能性のある植物であることを検証することができた。
Due to being ridiculously busy with stuff over the past few months I havn't posted much, however I just thought I'd share a few potential ideas with you for the next images to keep you interested! ^_^
Anticipation . . . for the golden sunrise light.
Days earlier I had found this location which had potential if the conditions were right at sunrise. The alarm rang early prodding me out of bed to look out the window where the skies looked promising. I was out the door as quickly as possible, but as it was only a 10 minute walk I wasn't pressured to hurry.
The morning was quite cold . . . only slightly above freezing. As I approached the shore to set up, I could see the mist rising off of the mirror like surface of Brothers Water due to the cold temperature. Once set up, I relaxed with the cable release in hand, and enjoyed the beginning of the new day. This image was one of the first from this morning. Fortunately, the clouds began to drift over the fells to add some interest to the sky and the reflections a few moments later.
Beyond Brothers Water on the left is High Hartsop Dodd with the sunlit ridgeline leading to Harts Crag hidden behind Hartsop above How. It was a serene quiet morning along the shore of Brothers Water that day. Even though I was there for almost an hour, only one vehicle travelled by on the A592 in that time. Apparently, most people sleep in while in the Lake District . . . this is what they all missed!
Anticipation . . . for returning to the Lake District in a matter of days!
The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area is situated south of Elphinstone Creek and to the west of School Street and Kerr Street, in the town of Ravenswood, about 85km south of Townsville and 65km east of Charters Towers. The Ravenswood goldfield was the fifth largest producer of gold in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main mining periods, prior to modern open cut operations (1987 onwards), were: alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868 - 1872); attempts to extract gold from sulphide ores below the water table (1872 - 1898); the New Ravenswood Company era (1899 - 1917); and small scale mining and re-treatment of old mullock heaps and tailings dumps (1919 - 1960s). In 2016 the Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area contains surface structures from eight mines: the Grand Junction, Little Grand Junction, Sunset No. 1 and Sunset No. 2, Deep, General Grant, Duke of Edinburgh, and Grant and Sunset Extended mines, as well as the mill associated with the Deep mine, and the Mabel Mill tailings treatment plant (most structures dating from the New Ravenswood Company era). It also includes remnants of two treatment plants (Partridge and Ralston’s Mill, and Judge’s Mill) from the 1930s; and the Chinese settlement area (1870s to the early 20th century, covering the first three mining periods at Ravenswood).
The place contains important surviving evidence of: ore extraction (from underground shafts) and metallurgical extraction (separation of gold from the ore) conducted on and near the Ravenswood goldfield’s most productive reefs during the boom period of the town’s prosperity (1900 - 1908); later attempts to re-treat the mullock heaps and tailings dumps from these mines; and Ravenswood’s early Chinese community, which made an important contribution to the viability of the isolated settlement and was located along Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek. The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area also has the potential to reveal evidence of early alluvial and shallow reef mining, as well as domestic living arrangements on the Ravenswood goldfield. It is an evocative reminder of the precarious and short-lived nature of North Queensland’s mining booms, and has a special association with Archibald Lawrence Wilson, who established the New Ravenswood Company and improved both ore and metallurgical extraction processes on the goldfield.
Settlement and mining in North Queensland:
European settlement of the Kennedy Land District in North Queensland commenced with the founding of Bowen in 1861, and the spread of pastoralists through the hinterland. Pastoral stations were established up the valley of the Burdekin River, including ‘Ravenswood’ and ‘Merri Merriwa’. Townsville and Cardwell were both established north of Bowen in 1864.
However, mining, not pastoralism, proved to be the main catalyst for European settlement of North Queensland. In 1865 the founders of Townsville offered a reward for the discovery of a payable goldfield, and gold rushes occurred in the region from 1866. Mining employed 19.8% of the North Queensland population in 1868, and 50% by 1876, before dropping to 15% in 1911. Although gold mining attracted people to North Queensland, alluvial finds of gold usually led to temporary townships, whereas underground reef mining held the promise of more stable and permanent settlements.
Alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868 - 1872):
Alluvial gold was discovered south of the later site of Ravenswood, in tributaries of Connolly Creek on Merri Merriwa Station, north of the Burdekin River, in late 1868. Prospectors soon established ‘Middle Camp’ (later Donnybrook) on Tucker’s Creek, and ‘Lower Camp’ on Trieste Creek, with about 700 miners on the field by early 1869. Further north, in April 1869, the goldfield’s richest alluvial discoveries were made in three dry creek beds close to the site of Ravenswood: Nolan’s, Jessop’s, and Buchanan’s gullies. Despite these finds, many miners soon left for the rush to the Gilbert River (over 300km west of Townsville).
The parent reefs of the alluvial gold found in April were located about the same time as the exodus to the Gilbert – the General Grant being discovered first, followed by the Sunset. Both were visible above ground level, and both reefs would play an important part in the future prosperity of Ravenswood. In the next 40 years, nearly £3 million of gold would come from the reefs ‘in the little triangle between Buchanan’s Gully, just east of Macrossan Street, Jessop’s Gully, southwest of the town, and Elphinstone Creek’.
Other reefs were soon found north of Elphinstone Creek, and in Nolan’s Gully; and meanwhile, reefs had been discovered at Middle Camp. However, a lack of water meant that miners did not establish ‘Upper Camp’ (later Ravenswood) near the General Grant and Sunset reefs until October 1869, after a storm temporarily resolved the water issue. By this time, most miners had returned from the Gilbert. The three camps on the goldfield had a population of 600 by January 1870, most in Upper Camp. Work was slowed by a lack of water, until rains in February 1870 enabled panning and sluicing, the results of which confirmed that Ravenswood was the first significant reef mining goldfield in the northern half of Australia.
However, the miners needed to crush the quartz ore to extract gold. The first machinery for this purpose, WO Hodkinson’s five stamp crushing battery, the Lady Marion (or Lady Marian) Mill, was operational at Burnt Point (south of Upper Camp) from the 18th of April 1870. The first month’s crushing results caused ‘an even greater “rush” than that … caused by the discovery of the alluvial gold’. A second battery was operational in Upper Camp in August 1870, when the goldfield’s population was about 1200.
Official recognition of the goldfield and settlement soon followed. Government Geologist Richard Daintree visited Upper Camp in August 1870, and the Ravenswood goldfield (about 300 square miles) was proclaimed on the 3rd of November 1870. By this time, the goldfield had a population of about 2000, and Upper Camp had 10 ‘public houses’, with six public houses in Middle Camp.
The Government Surveyor, John von Stieglitz, arrived in November 1870, but was too late to impose a regular grid pattern on the settlement. Instead he formalised the existing plan, which was centred on the crossing of Elphinstone Creek by the main road (Macrossan Street), with tracks radiating out to the various diggings. Most commercial buildings were located along Macrossan Street. The resulting juxtaposition of mining, habitation and commerce gave the town its distinctive character.
The town was proclaimed on the 19th of May 1871, with an area of one square mile (259ha). This was later expanded to four square miles (1036ha) on the 13th of July 1883. Although gold had been discovered on Merri Merriwa Station, the name Ravenswood, after the run located further southeast, downstream on the Burdekin River, was preferred.
In 1871 the population of the goldfield was 900, with over half being in Upper Camp/Ravenswood, and by the end of 1871 there were five machines in Ravenswood. Hodgkinson’s mill had been moved into town, to a site just north of Elphinstone Creek, and was renamed the Mabel Mill. In 1871 the town had 30 licensed hotels, although these were referred to as ‘shanties’ and did not offer accommodation.
By this time Ravenswood also had a Chinese population, due to an influx of Chinese miners who had been forcefully evicted from the Western Creek diggings near Gilberton in mid-1871. At least three of the hotels of 1871 had Chinese licensees. The first Chinese had arrived in North Queensland in 1867, during the rush to the Cape River, and there were 200 Chinese looking for alluvial gold at Ravenswood in 1871. In January 1872 it was estimated that there were about 1500 Chinese present on the Ravenswood goldfield, and a matching number of Europeans. As the Chinese focussed on alluvial gold, and also provided other services, they were tolerated at Ravenswood, because the Europeans were now focusing on reef mining. The quartz reefs were originally worked at shallow depths by means of a windlass (hand-wound rope and bucket), or a horse-powered whip or whim (using poles, ropes and pulleys) raising the ore from shallow shafts.
Extracting gold from sulphide ores (1872 - 1898):
Despite its promising start, in 1872 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a ‘period of depression’, as its most important mines reached the water table at about 70ft (21m) deep – starting with the Sunset in 1871, followed by the General Grant, Black Jack, and Melaneur in 1872. Although the oxidised quartz (‘red stone’ or ‘brown stone’ quartz) close to the surface yielded its gold to traditional methods of mechanical crushing, below the water table the gold was in fine particles, which was not easily recovered by mechanical means. It was also mixed with sulphide ores; mainly iron sulphide (pyrite, or ‘mundic’ ore) but also sulphides containing lead, copper, zinc, arsenic, and antimony, which interfered with chemical treatments such as amalgamation (amalgamating the gold with mercury; then heating the resulting amalgam in a retort to vaporise the mercury) and chlorination (exposing roasted, concentrated ore to chlorine gas, and then precipitating gold out of the chloride solution). A process that worked on the ore from one reef might not work for an adjacent reef, due to a varying distribution of different types of sulphides. In addition, even if a process worked on a small scale, it could be uneconomical on a larger scale, given the price of transporting fuel to Ravenswood for smelting, or transporting concentrates for smelting elsewhere.
Once the mundic had been struck, ‘mining was "worse than dull" as the field grappled with the realisation that to break below the waterline, the days of the individual miner were over and the time of companies was looming’. The 1870s was a decade of major gold discoveries in Queensland, and miners keen on quick profits had plenty of new goldfields from which to choose. Many miners joined the rushes to Charters Towers (1872) and the Palmer River (1873). Charters Towers soon overtook Ravenswood as the most important inland town in north Queensland; and the Hodgkinson rush (southwest of Port Douglas) in 1876 also drew away miners.
However, Ravenswood grew during the 1870s and 1880s, despite the goldfield’s ‘refractory’ ores, and ‘mundic problem’. The goldfield had a population of 950 in 1877 (with 50 Chinese), rising to 1100 in 1880 (including 250 Chinese), and 2000 in 1883 (including 300 Chinese; with 190 working the alluvial, and 10 quartz miners).
The 1877 Pugh’s Almanac listed one Chinese hotelkeeper (out of seven hotelkeepers) in Ravenswood, and one Chinese storekeeper. The Chinese, as well as working alluvial claims and operating hotels and stores, were employed as wage labour in some mines; worked as roasters and chlorinators at the Mabel Mill; and operated 24 licensed gardens on the Ravenswood goldfield in 1883. Chinese gardens were vital in providing fresh vegetables to North Queensland’s goldfield populations.
For 19th Century diasporic Chinese communities such as Ravenswood’s, the establishment of specific cultural settlement areas, or ‘Chinatowns’, that ‘provided a range of sacred and secular services, including temples, stores, and accommodation’, was an important aspect of community building. Deighton Street, west of Macrossan Street, was the centre of Chinese life in Ravenswood. There were two eating houses close to Macrossan Street’s bridge across Elphinstone Creek, in the 1870s; and market gardens were located between Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek, as well as north of Elphinstone Creek, interspersed amongst several crushing machine operations. There was also a temple south of Deighton Street. Temples were not just places of religious worship; rather, they were an integral part of a Chinese village. ‘They were places to meet, to check one's horoscope before embarking on a new venture and places where ancestors were venerated’. As well as being a place where the community could worship at any time, major gatherings were held at temples on festival days, with feasts and processions. The Ravenswood temple appears on an 1874 survey plan, making it the earliest known Chinese temple in Queensland. The nearby pig roasting oven is also a rare example of its type, and demonstrates the usual spatial arrangement of temple and oven, for community feasts.
Ravenswood continued to develop during the 1880s. By 1885, the Ravenswood goldfield had an estimated population of 2294 Europeans and 227 Chinese, with 1490 Europeans and 148 Chinese located in Ravenswood itself. Ravenswood at this time had four Chinese storekeepers, and two Chinese produce merchants, but all six hotel licensees were European. The Ravenswood National School, which began in late 1873, had an average attendance of 110 students in 1878, and reached its peak enrolment of 390 by 1889.
The 1880s were also a period of experimentation in metallurgical (gold extraction) technology. In 1883, the only method for dealing with sulphide ores was stamper mills and rotary buddles (which used water and gravity to separate and concentrate the crushed ores), but later Ravenswood ‘was the first place where the chlorination process and Wilfley tables, developed in 1896, to shake the ore and separate out different sized particles, and were used in Queensland, and probably the first place where the cyanide process (dissolving fine gold in a cyanide solution, and later precipitating the gold out of the solution) for extracting gold was used in Australia’. Other techniques attempted included fine grinding (using ball mills), roasting (burning off the sulphides), and smelting (prohibitively expensive, as it required high temperatures and thus a lot of fuel). By 1888 a new company at One Mile Creek, formed by Duncan and Peter Macintyre, had adapted an abandoned Cassell’s patent plant (a version of the chlorination process which was applied and failed in Ravenswood in 1886), to work on a ‘secret process’ (cyaniding).
Ravenswood mining continued to be viable, although only a (fluctuating) percentage of the gold was being recovered from the ore. In the mid-1880s there was even a temporary increase in the goldfield’s production, due to good returns from the Sandy Creek mines on the John Bull reef. For the next eight years, the principal producers of the district were the General Grant, Sunset, New England, Wild Irish Girl, Melaneur, and John Bull reefs, plus the silver lodes of the One Mile (at Totley).
Ravenswood’s economy survived the 1880s due to the development of silver mines at Totley, a township established about 2km north of Ravenswood. The silver mines opened circa 1879 - 1880, and Richard King floated the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company Ltd in 1882 – the year of Ravenswood’s lowest gold production between 1878 and 1898. Silver prices were high during the 1880s, and the Totley mines encouraged the Queensland Government to approve a branch railway line (off the Northern Railway between Townsville and Charters Towers) to Ravenswood in 1882, completed in 1884. The railway meant that some gold ores could be crushed, concentrated and sent for treatment at the Aldershot works just north of Maryborough or overseas to Swansea, in Wales. However, all silver mining had stopped by 1891, due to falling silver prices and over-expenditure on treatment plants.
Gold mining at Ravenswood continued during the 1880s and 1890s. Hugh Hawthorne Barton, who had operated Brothers Mill on Elphinstone Creek from the late 1870s, took over the General Grant, Sunset, and Black Jack mines, and the Mabel Mill (and later the Melaneur and Duke of Edinburgh mines), and floated the Ravenswood Gold Mining Company in 1887, with £100,000 in capital. From 1884 to 1896 Barton’s group was the largest and most successful operation in Ravenswood, its profitability assisted by the railway, economies of scale, and flexibility in ore-treatment methods. Barton utilised roasting, chlorination (by 1889), and smelting, and employed Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill. Along with their market gardens along Elphinstone Creek, Chinese employment at the Mabel Mill also influenced the location of the Chinese settlement area in Ravenswood. Meanwhile, the landscape was being altered by mining. The need for timber for boilers and for timbering-up mine shafts led to the loss of native trees in the locality, and goats also helped shape the landscape by eating regrowth.
By the mid-1890s, Barton was in debt to the Queensland National Bank, and his properties were seized in 1896, with the General Grant, Black Jack, and Mabel Mill being let on tribute (where a party of miners worked a mine, while giving the mine owner a percentage of any results) in 1897. The tributers refused to employ Barton’s experienced Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill, leading to disastrous attempts at chlorination. However, the goldfield’s production was boosted in the late 1890s when work resumed on the Donnybrook reefs for the first time in 20 years, and the Hillsborough (Eight Mile) reefs were taken up.
The New Ravenswood Company era (1899 - 1917):
Ravenswood’s boom period of gold production (1900 - 1908, with 1905 the year of highest production) is reflected in the town’s surviving mining infrastructure and commercial and public buildings. This boom occurred due to the efforts of Archibald Laurence Wilson (1852 - 1935). After gaining a diploma in mining engineering in Edinburgh, and working in New Zealand and on the Palmer River, Wilson arrived in Ravenswood in 1878. He was publican of the Silver King Hotel in Totley in the 1880s. As manager of the John Bull mine at Sandy Creek in the mid-1890s, he raised capital in London and installed a cyanide plant.
Wilson later travelled to London in 1898, where he floated both the Donnybrook Blocks Mining Syndicate and the New Ravenswood Company in 1899. Wilson was the General Manager of both companies, under their London directorates. Until 1917, the New Ravenswood Company was the largest mining operation on the Ravenswood goldfield. Registered with a capital of £50,000, the company purchased the General Grant, Sunset, Black Jack, Melaneur, and Shelmalier mines, and the Mabel Mill, from the Queensland National Bank (and later obtained the Saratoga, Duke of Edinburgh and London North mines), and initiated a new era in ore and metallurgical extraction. Using British capital, Wilson introduced modern machinery to work the mines, and effectively reshaped Ravenswood’s landscape. Wilson was known as ‘the uncrowned king of Ravenswood’. He was also Chairman of the Ravenswood Shire Council for some years, and was later on the Dalrymple Shire Council, until he resigned from poor health in 1934.
From 1900, both the Sunset and General Grant (also known as the Grant) mines were redeveloped by Wilson. These became the key earners for the New Ravenswood Company; by 1903 the two mines employed about 205 men, and were ‘the “backbone” of the town’.
The Sunset reef, which runs roughly northwest-southeast through the Ravenswood Mining Landscape, was the largest producer on the goldfield (almost a quarter of the total). It produced 14,722oz of gold from 1870 - 1894, and by 1900 it was worked from an underlie (an inclined shaft, following the dip of a reef) branching off from a vertical shaft 130ft (40m) deep. It was stated at this time that the reef had ‘much the same history as the General Grant, the two being generally worked together’. By 1903 the New Ravenswood Company had extended the underlie shaft right up to the surface, where a headframe was constructed to haul ore directly up the slope. The Sunset’s yield of ‘free gold’ (pure gold not combined with other minerals), which could be extracted at the Mabel Mill, peaked in 1904, then fell slowly. In 1905 an average of 170 men were employed at the mine. In 1908 the reef was being worked by the main underlie shaft, 900ft (274m) deep (Sunset No. 1); and a vertical shaft, 556ft (169m) deep (Sunset No. 2). As the Sunset reef was worked in conjunction with the General Grant and the Duke of Edinburgh reefs in the New Ravenswood Company era, its exact total production of gold is hard to calculate; but from 1876 to 1912 the reef probably produced about 177,000oz of gold; and probably most of the 22, 000oz that the company extracted from 1912 - 1917.
The General Grant, one of the most productive reefs on the goldfield, running roughly north-south just east of the Sunset reef, was worked almost continuously to the late 1880s, and periodically thereafter. By 1895 returns had diminished, due to the small size of the reef and its highly refractory ore. In 1900, the General Grant had a vertical shaft to 110ft (34m), and then an underlie of 610ft (186m), the bottom of the latter being 450ft (137m) below the level of the shaft mouth; but operations were ‘almost completely suspended’ as the New Ravenswood Company concentrated on the Sunset reef. To 1900 the General Grant had produced 23, 651oz of gold; and after crushing of ore from the mine resumed at the beginning of 1903, it was treated with ore from the Sunset. On average, 40 men were employed on the mine in 1905. In 1908 the powerhouse for both the Sunset and the General Grant mines was situated on the General Grant lease, with three Cornish boilers. By 1912 the General Grant had produced about 36,000oz of gold.
To the east of the General Grant was the Duke of Edinburgh reef, running roughly northwest-southeast. This was one of the early reefs discovered on the goldfield; and in 1872 it was identified by Warden TR Hackett as one of the 28 principal reefs. It was worked in several episodes prior to the 1890s, and was re-opened in 1891, producing 1286oz of gold during 1891 - 1895. In 1908 the mine was taken over by the New Ravenswood Company, and was reorganised as an underlie shaft with haulage machinery from the Golden Hill mine, being worked in conjunction with the General Grant until 1917.
Along with his modernisation of the goldfield’s best mines, Wilson also abandoned chlorination at the Mabel Mill, increased the mill’s crushing capacity to 30 stamps (by 1904), and introduced the first Wilfley tables to Queensland. Crushing resumed in January 1900. Wilson improved metallurgical extraction by ‘postponing amalgamation of the free gold till the great bulk of the sulphides had been removed by concentration’. The ore was crushed in stampers without using mercury. Then, using the Wilfley tables, the heavier Galena (lead sulphide ore) and free gold was separated from the lighter sulphides. The free gold and galena was then ground in Berdan pans with mercury, while the remaining sulphides (containing iron, zinc and copper) were dispatched to the Aldershot works (near Maryborough) for smelting. In 1902 - 1903, a raff wheel, 14.5m in diameter, was built at the Mabel Mill to lift tailings (post-treatment residue) up to a flume, which carried them over to the south side of Elphinstone Creek, where they could be treated with cyanide. The cyanide works (of which remnants still remain south of Elphinstone Creek) was erected circa 1904. A 21m long girder bridge was constructed across the creek to carry steam water pipes and electric cable from the Mabel Mill to the new works, which eventually comprised two Krupp ball mills and 12 Wilfley’s tables.
Due to the New Ravenswood Company’s efforts, the goldfield’s production increased between 1899 and 1905. Gold recovery increased from 18, 016oz in 1899 to 24, 832oz in 1900 and to 42, 465oz in 1905. The New Ravenswood Company paid impressive 50% dividends to its shareholders in 1901, 1902, and 1904; and 75% in 1903.
The productivity of Ravenswood’s mines during the New Ravenswood Company era was also reflected in the goldfield’s population, which rose from 3420 in 1901 to its peak of 4707 in 1903. The 1903 population included 215 Chinese, 89 of these being alluvial miners. In 1905 two Chinese were listed as ‘storekeepers and grocers’.
The population increase led to a building boom in the first decade of the 20th Century. Hundreds of new houses, the town’s first two brick hotels – the Imperial hotel (1901) and the Railway Hotel (1902) – as well as brick shops such as Thorp’s Building (1903), and the brick Ravenswood Ambulance Station (1904) were constructed in this period; the use of brick being spurred by the threat of fire. The New Ravenswood Company also rebuilt the mining landscape in and around the town, with expansion of the Mabel Mill, and new headframes and winders, magazines, boilers, and brick smokestacks erected beside all the principal shafts.
However, not all Wilson’s ventures in this period were successful. In 1902 he floated Deep Mines Ltd, with a capital of £100, 000, to sink a shaft east of the New Ravenswood Company’s leases. This mine (also within the Ravenswood Mining Landscape) was an ambitious attempt to reach a presumed intersection of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth. Using the capital raised, Wilson built a model mine and mill. The shaft was started in late 1902-early 1903, and construction work on the buildings and machinery was completed later in 1903. The mine reached 512m, the deepest on the goldfield, with extensive crosscutting and driving, but only about 240oz of gold was recovered. No ore was crushed at all in 1908. By 1910 a new shaft was being sunk ‘near the western boundary’; but the mine was abandoned in 1911, and never worked again. Wilson’s London investors lost at least £65,000.
The Deep’s mill, built nearby and operational by 1906, was a smaller version of the Mabel Mill, with gravity stamps, Wilfley tables, and a cyanide plant. Its site, adjacent to the mine, ran counter to the normal practice of siting mills near water courses. With the failure of the Deep mine, it milled ore from other mines until about 1917.
Another mine, the Grand Junction, was located north of the New Ravenswood Company’s most productive mines, in the Ravenswood Mining Landscape. The Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company was formed in 1900, and a shaft was sunk in 1901 (probably the No. 1 shaft on the Grand Junction Lease No. 520). In 1902 another exploration ‘deep shaft’ (No. 2) was sunk at the southwest boundary of the Grand Junction Lease No.503. The Grand Junction mine was another failed attempt to locate a presumed junction of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth; by 1908 it was owned by the New Ravenswood Company. Total production was about 425oz of gold.
Slightly more successful was the Grant and Sunset Extended mine, at the southern end of the Ravenswood Mining landscape. This was a deep shaft sunk by the Grant and Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, a Charters Towers-owned company with Wilson as its local director. During the 19th Century, small mines had been operated in the Rob Roy reef, to the southeast. The Grant and Sunset Extended was floated in 1902, the intent being to locate the General Grant and Sunset reefs south of Buck Reef. The plant and buildings of the Yellow Jack mine, southeast of Ravenswood, were re-erected on the site. The shaft was down 70ft (21m) in 1902 and 930ft (283m) by 1908, with 50 men employed at the mine by the later date. The mine closed by 1910, but was worked on tribute until 1917, with about 15,000oz of gold obtained over 1904 - 1918.
The boom period at Ravenswood did not last. As well as losing money on the Deep and Grand Junction mines, the New Ravenswood Company faced the closure of the Aldershot works in 1906, and declining yields from 1908 to 1912. Although Wilson experimented with flotation (agitating crushed ore in oil and water, and extracting fine gold particles on the surface of air bubbles) and cyanide processes at the Mabel Mill, it was too late to save his company. The Shelmalier had closed by 1904, the Black Jack in 1909, and the Melaneur in 1910. By that year, the General Grant, Sunset, Duke of Edinburgh, and London North (obtained 1910) were the New Ravenswood Company’s only producing mines.
Few new buildings were constructed in Ravenswood after 1905. The hospital closed in 1908. That year the goldfield’s population consisted of 4141 Europeans (including 2625 women and children) and 181 Chinese (including 94 alluvial miners). This dropped to 2581, including 92 Chinese, by 1914.
Increased costs and industrial disputes in the 1910s hastened the end of the New Ravenswood Company era. During a miner’s strike between December 1912 and July 1913, over lay-offs, the fresh vegetables and business loans provided by Ravenswood’s Chinese community helped keep the town going. Although the miners won, it was a hollow victory, as the company could only afford to re-employ a few of the men. World War I (1914 - 1918) then increased labour and material costs for the New Ravenswood Company. The London North mine closed in 1915, and on the 24th of March 1917 the New Ravenswood Company ceased operations; ending large-scale mining in Ravenswood for the next 70 years.
By 1917, the Ravenswood goldfield had produced over 850, 000oz of gold (nearly a quarter coming from the Sunset mine), and 1, 000, 000oz of silver; making it the fifth largest gold producer in Queensland, after Charters Towers, Mount Morgan, Gympie, and the Palmer Goldfield. Ravenswood was also the second largest producer of reef gold in north Queensland, after Charters Towers.
Small scale mining and re-treatment (1919 - 1960s):
After 1917 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a period of hibernation, with intermittent small-scale attempts at mining. In 1919, Ravenswood Gold Mines Ltd took over some of Wilson’s leases and renovated the Deep mine’s mill, but obtained poor returns. Ravenswood Gold Mines also worked the Duke of Edinburgh from 1919 to 1930, with good returns reported in 1924. The General Grant and Sunset were also worked on a small scale from 1919 - 1921, while the Mabel Mill continued to provide crushing services for the limited local mining.
Consequently, Ravenswood’s population declined and the town shrank physically. In 1921 the town’s population fell below 1000, and by 1923 there were 530 people left, including 8 Chinese. During the 1920s, prior to the closure of the railway branch line to Ravenswood in 1930, hundreds of the town’s timber buildings were dismantled and railed away. By 1927, only the two brick hotels remained operating as hotels. The Ravenswood Shire was abolished in 1929, and by 1934 only 357 people remained in the town.
Despite this decline, some gold was still being extracted. There was a small increase in gold production between 1923 and 1927, and due to the gold price rise of the 1930s, some mines were re-worked and efforts were also made to treat the old mullock heaps (waste rock from mining) and tailings dumps with improved cyanide processes. Between 1931 and 1942, 12, 253oz of gold was obtained from the goldfield, the peak year being 1940.
A number of companies were active in Ravenswood in the 1930s-early 1940s. In 1933, the North Queensland Gold Mining Development Company took up leases along Buck Reef and reopened the Golden Hill mine, and the following year their operations were taken over by Gold Mines of Australia Ltd. The 1870s Eureka mine (near the Imperial Hotel) was revived by James Judge in 1934. In 1935 the Ravenswood Concentrates Syndicate began re-treating the Grant mullock heaps in the remaining stampers at the Mabel Mill, and dewatering the Sunset No. 2 shaft; while the Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, with James Judge as manager, dewatered the Grant and Sunset Extended shafts (which connected to the Sunset, General Grant and Duke of Edinburgh shafts), and re-timbered the Grant and Sunset Extended, General Grant, and Sunset underlie (No. 1) shafts. The London North mine was reopened by R J Hedlefs in 1937, and Basque miners were working the Sunset No. 2 shaft at this time.
The Little Grand Junction mine, located at the intersection of Siggers Street and School Street, on the old Grand Junction Lease No. 520, was operated from 1937 - 1942 by local miners Henry John Bowrey and John Thomas Blackmore. Five men were employed at the mine in 1940. The shaft had apparently been sunk previously by the Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company; and Bowrey and Party reconditioned it and extended the existing workings.
In 1938, Archibald and Heuir set up a mill on the bank of One Mile Creek to treat mullock dumps, and the Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate (formed 1937, with James Judge as manager) began treating the mullock dumps of the Sunset mine in late 1938. The same syndicate also dewatered and reopened part of the Grant and Sunset Extended; and the Grand Junction mine was reopened by Judge circa 1939 - 1942.
The Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate’s (Judge’s) mill initially consisted of 10 head of stamps obtained from the Mother Lode Mill at Mount Wright (northwest of Ravenswood), powered by a diesel engine. The ore was crushed by the stamper battery, concentrated with Wilfley tables, and then either treated with cyanide or sent to the Chillagoe smelters. Initial success with some rich ore led to enlargement of the mill to 30 stamps in 1939 - 40. A Stirling boiler and a 250hp engine were also obtained from the Burdekin meatworks (Sellheim), and a rock breaker, elevator, and conveyor were installed. However, the upgraded mill proved to be overpowered and required a lot of timber fuel; the brick foundations used for the machinery were not strong enough; and the best ore from the Sunset had already been treated, so the mill closed early in 1942 and the plant was moved to Cloncurry.
Also in 1938, Maxwell Partridge and William Ralston installed a new plant south of Elphinstone Creek, to the immediate west of the Mabel Mill’s old cyanide works, to re-treat the old tailings with cyanide. A ball mill, filter, and other plant were purchased from the Golden Mile, Cracow in 1939, while later that year a suction gas engine and flotation machine were also installed. This operation closed circa 1942, and the coloured sands on the site today are residues from the flotation process: the yellow sand is from the floatation of iron pyrites; the grey sands are copper tailings; and the black material is zinc tailings.
There was limited activity on the goldfield in the late 1940s to early 1960s. The Empire Gold Mining Syndicate treated mullock dumps from The Irish Girl, London, and Sunset mines from 1946 to 1949, as well as some of the dumps from the Grand Junction (1947). The Duke of Edinburgh mine was briefly reopened by Cuevas and Wilson in 1947, and the Cornish boilers on the site (one with the maker’s mark ‘John Danks & Son Pty Ltd makers Melbourne) may relate to this (unsuccessful) operation. Percy Kean reopened the Great Extended mine at Totley in 1947, and later purchased Partridge’s mill in 1951 to use it as a flotation plant to treat the silver-lead ore from Totley, adding a diesel engine, stonebreaker, Wilfley tables, and classifier. The Totley mines closed in 1954, although the Great Extended mine was briefly sub-leased by Silver Horizons No Liability, in 1964. Partridge’s mill was closed circa 1965.
Other attempts were made in the early 1950s to rework old sites. A Townsville syndicate led by Leslie Cook and George Blackmore reopened the Grand Junction mine in 1951, but it soon closed. James Judge also recommenced gold mining at Donnybrook, but closed in 1954; while 900 tons of tailings from the Deep mine’s mill site were taken for re-treatment at Heuir’s cyanide plant in the early 1950s.
A new industry:
In the 1960 and 1970s, Ravenswood’s population shrank to its nadir of about 70 people. At the same time, there was a growing nostalgic interest in old towns in Australia. In 1968 the landscape of Ravenswood was described in romantic terms: ‘Mute testimonials are the numerous mullock heaps which dot the countryside; the rusty remains of steam engines; stampers which were used to crush stone; and collapsed cyanide vats… Derelict poppet-heads…stand above deep, abandoned shafts. Colossal columns of chimney stacks rise majestically from the entanglement of rubber vines and Chinese apple trees.’ Some locals realised that preserving the town’s surviving historic buildings and structures was necessary to attract tourists and create a new local industry.
From this time onwards the town’s mining heritage was seen as an asset. The National Trust of Queensland met with locals in 1974, and a conservation plan for the town was published in 1975. Later, the town sites of Totley and Ravenswood were both entered into the National Trust of Queensland Register. Comments from an International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) trip to northern Australia in 1978 included ‘Ravenswood…is one of the most evocative (gold towns of Australia) and this must be preserved. A policy of “all that is necessary but as little as possible” must be strongly pursued’. The increased population of North Queensland, longer paid holidays, improved roads, and the rise of car ownership after World War II, all increased visitation to Ravenswood, as did the completion of a road past Ravenswood to the Burdekin Dam, in the 1980s. As a result, the town and its mining landscape have been represented in brochures, art, and photography. In particular, the landmark qualities of the tall brick chimneys are a distinctive feature in representations of Ravenswood.
Modern operations:
However, gold mining recommenced at Ravenswood in the 1980s, due to a rise in the gold price and the efficiencies gained from open cut mining and modern cyanide metallurgical extraction processes. From 1983 - 1986 the Northern Queensland Gold Company Ltd conducted agglomeration heap-leaching (spraying a sodium cyanide solution on previously mined material heaped on a plastic membrane), in the process removing a landmark tailings dump at King’s mine in Totley, and mullock heaps from the Grant and Sunset mines. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold commenced open cut mining of the Buck reef (the Buck Reef West pit) near the old Grant and Sunset mines on the south side of the town. Later, pits were dug further east along the reef. Some underground mining was also undertaken from the Buck Reef West pit until 1993, which broke into the old workings of the General Grant, Sunset, and Duke of Edinburgh mines. The old headframe at the Grant and Sunset Extended was demolished in 1988, and replaced with a new steel headframe, which was used until 1993 and then removed. The Melaneur-Shelmalier-Black Jack-Overlander reef complex, on the north side of the town, was mined as an open cut 1990 - 1991, before being backfilled as a golf course. The Nolan’s Gully open cut commenced in 1993.
Although modern mining revived the economy of the town, it did not replicate the building boom of the early 20th century.
The heritage significance of Ravenswood’s surviving mining infrastructure was recognised in a 1996 Queensland Mining Heritage Places Study by Jane Lennon & Associates and Howard Pearce; and a 2000 Conservation Management Plan by Peter Bell. In 2006, the population of Ravenswood, the oldest surviving inland town in north Queensland, was 191.
By the mid-2010s the population of Ravenswood stood at 255 people.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register & Australian Bureau of Statistics.
High potential? Parents want to know
Psychological examinations are increasingly common to identify gifted children. It’s a trend that hides a complex reality, as gifted children can also be prone to failure.
Enéa gets good marks. But she disturbs the class, talks a lot and complains often. This situation surprises her mother, Stéphanie Laurent. At home, this seven-year old schoolgirl from Lausanne is quiet, responsible and not the type to bother others. What’s wrong? School. Enéa is bored. A teacher friend advised Stéphanie Laurent to enter her daughter for tests to determine whether she was “high potential”. And the result came back positive.
High potential (HP) children are referred to as gifted or precocious. They are sometimes compared with child prodigies, which is one reason for the increase in requests for psychological examinations. “Interest in these tests is growing,” states Pierre Fumeaux, a child psychiatrist at Lausanne University Hospital who is currently conducting a study on the subject. “A few years ago when parents or teachers had to deal with a difficult student, they would ask the doctor if the child was hyperactive. Now the term ‘high potential’ has taken centre stage in the media.” Contrary to popular belief, gifted is not always synonymous with success. High potential children can also be prone to failure.
A different brain
To be diagnosed as “HP”, an individual has to obtain a score of at least 130 on IQ tests. “But the score isn’t enough,” explains Claudia Jankech, a psychotherapist in Lausanne specialised in child and teenager psychology. “We also need to understand their family and social context and their personality.”
Surprisingly, a high number of HP children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.” These difficulties are partly due to what specialists call arborescent thinking. “Normal people develop logical reasoning through linear, sequential thinking. However, the thought process in HP children is like fireworks exploding with ideas and impressive intuition. They can solve complex equations but will have difficulty explaining how they came up with the answer,” explains Pierre Fumeaux.
Surprisingly, a high number of HP children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.”
Studies suggest that HP children’s brains function differently. Information moves better between the two cerebral hemispheres. “We assume that they use both their left and right brains easily and have excellent abilities in both logic and creativity,” says the child psychiatrist. “Other work has shown that HP children can more easily juggle with concepts and think in the abstract, such as performing mental calculations. “In a functional MRI, a dye is injected to highlight the areas of the brain with the highest blood flow.
Using a scanner, we can then see which areas are activated,” Pierre Fumeaux explains. “A stimulus or given task will activate certain areas of the brain in normal individuals. In HP children, sometimes several larger areas are activated at the same time,” he adds. These indicators help doctors understand how an HP mind works. “But our knowledge in neuroscience remains limited,” the researcher admits. “Being high potential is not an illness, but a special cognitive ability. And that’s not a priority for researchers.”
INTERVIEW: “The methods of diagnosis are debatable”
In a survey conducted on gifted children, the French sociologist Wilfried Lignier noted that specialists do not agree about the tests designed to diagnose giftedness.
In Vivo You observe that most gifted children don’t have difficulty in school or psychological problems. Why then do parents have them take tests?
Wilfried Lignier These parents are very concerned that their children will face difficulties, whereas they actually have every chance of success. They think that the school’s assessment is not enough. Psychology offers greater legitimacy for their concerns.
IV You approach giftedness as a “debated and debatable” issue. Why?
WL Many psychologists don’t recognise giftedness mainly because they doubt the credibility of IQ tests. These tests are meant to assess something other than academic skills, but in form they are quite similar to the exercises performed in school. Furthermore, children also have this impression. After the test is over, some say that they did well in the “maths” section, referring to the logical reasoning, or the “language” section, referring to the vocabulary. Being so similar to exercises done in school, these tests contradict the idea that intelligence isn’t the same as academic performance. Yet most of the social repercussions expected from test results are based on the idea that they tell a truth that school does not.
IV You show that the diagnosis swings in favour of one gender. How do you explain that high potential is more often diagnosed in boys?
WL Parents tend to express greater concern about their future, as it more readily carries their hopes of upward social mobility. The fact that boys have greater chances of having “symptoms”, such as openly expressing their boredom or not being able to stay still, also plays a role.
Hyper-sensitivity
HP children also typically have emotional characteristics featuring high sensitivity or a high level of empathy. Stéphanie Laurent’s two other children, boys, have also been diagnosed as high potential. “Nathael, age six, cries at Christmas because poor people are cold and have nothing to eat.” His hyper-sensitivity distresses him. “It can take on huge proportions. At one point, Mathys, age eight, felt unreasonable fear because he knew that there was a core on fire at the centre of the earth.” Myriam Bickle Graz, a developmental paediatrician at Lausanne University Hospital who wrote a thesis on the subject, says, “The children seen at consultations were often overwhelmed by their emotions. For some, it was incredibly difficult; they have no filter,” she explains. “The fear of death, for example, comes very early.” They develop symptoms such as anxiety, sleep disorders, strained relationships with other children and aggression.
THE HAPPIEST HP CHILDREN ARE THOSE WHO ARE NOT IDENTIFIED AS SUCH AND MANAGE TO ADAPT.
As in the Laurent family, there are often several gifted siblings. “Not all siblings are necessarily going to be HP, but there is a certain degree of genetic heritage. However, that hasn’t been proven scientifically,” explains Myriam Bickle Graz. “It remains a clinical observation.”
Although some high potential children suffer, the majority of them lead normal lives. As summed up by Pierre Fumeaux, “the happiest HP children are those who are not identified as such and manage to adapt.”
Arborescent thinking deploying in several directions, simultaneously, extremely fast and without boundaries. While it is a important source of creativity, it also implies: Difficulties to identify relevant information; all these thoughts in all directions may be confusing when the child is faced with a question, a problem or a task at school, An absolute need to organise these thoughts within a sturdy frame so that the child feels affectively, emotionally and socially secure. A “global” information processing system, with analogic and intuitive thinking. While it enables a very rich and deep understanding, with photographic memory, it also implies: Serious difficulties to adapt to the traditional schooling systems which treat information in details and sequentially (one thing after the other), An inability to develop arguments or justify their reasoning. Gifted children usually can’t explain their results, they consider the answers obvious, they know intuitively. The necessity to use in parallel the traditional school learning methods and their own knowledge aquisition systems; they do not want to feel useless, rejected or stupid. A thinking mode that needs meaning to function and complexity to develop and bloom. While it is an endless source of information data stored in an exceptional memory, it also implies: Difficulties or even refusal to acquire skills or information which they consider useless, too simple or not exciting enough to justify their attention and efforts, Constant challenges of established rules and norms, to satisfy their needs for meaning, To “learn how to learn” while taming their impatience through inventive and stimulating methodologies, with deep enrichment on all subjects. A way of thinking constantly integrating affective aspects of its environment. While it is a rich incentive to learning, it also implies: Frustration, even rejection of some teachers whom they see as incompetent in their teaching methods or behaviours, Excessive, even pathological reactions if these children, who try to master their environment and their variations, cannot find reassurance. They are scared by what they do not understand and they know, from a very young age, many things that they cannot put in perspective due to their short life experience. A need for constant reassurance on their learning progress, with a learning methodology adapted to their needs and offering a long-term continuity and homogeneity, thus reducing affective disruptions as much as possible.
anhugar.wifeo.com/arborescent-way-of-thinking.php A difficulty encountered by many gifed children is the fact that they think in an arborescent way instead of a linear one. The usual teaching methods are linear - when forced to learn in that mode, gifted children need to make a lot of efforts to voluntarily slow-down their “processing” thinking pace.
Arborescent thinking is very adequate for gifted people; it allows them to use all their mental capacities and their knowledge simultaneously. However, it needs to be guided and framed otherwise their thinking takes them far away from the subject of that day.
Here is an example from Jeanne Siaud-Fachin: The teacher gives a spelling test. He dictates “the boat sails on the sea”. The gifted child will initially visualize an image of a boat on the sea before seeing the sentence made of 6 words. Following the image, her thoughts will go in all directions: well, it is not a good idea to sail today because there is a lot of wind are there any people on that boat? my friend Frank owns a boat, he’s lucky but his parents are divorced, that is not fun I hope my parents will never get divorced yet, Frank has twice as many presents for Christmas now that he has 2 homes which reminds me, I have not yet prepared a wish-list for Christmas etc. While the other children have finished writing the initial sentance, the gifted child does not remember it at all and if she’s pressed, she may write the last sentence that went through her head “ I have not yet prepared a wish-list for Christmas ”.
Also
www.talentdifferent.com/la-pensee-en-arborescence-901.htm...
www.asep-suisse.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_docman&am... (pdf) How to help such children overcome their ‘handicap’
From the main link in the title (translated from the French by Google Chrome, I think): Surprisingly, a high number of high potential children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.” These difficulties are partly due to what specialists call arborescent thinking. “Normal people develop logical reasoning through linear, sequential thinking. However, the thought process in HP children is like fireworks exploding with ideas and impressive intuition. They can solve complex equations but will have difficulty explaining how they came up with the answer,” explains Pierre Fumeaux.
Surprisingly, a high number of HP children have trouble in school. “When it’s too easy for them, they get used to being on autopilot,” says the psychologist. “They’ve never learnt how to learn.”
Studies suggest that HP children’s brains function differently. Information moves better between the two cerebral hemispheres. “We assume that they use both their left and right brains easily and have excellent abilities in both logic and creativity,” says the child psychiatrist. “Other work has shown that HP children can more easily juggle with concepts and think in the abstract, such as performing mental calculations. “In a functional MRI, a dye is injected to highlight the areas of the brain with the highest blood flow.
With today’s potential East Yorkshire interest being snatched away from us in the no-show of the York Parcels Siding and Knottingley STP L/Es, that just left the Tilcon and the Gypsum to entertain us. I was going to head West, but even the Knottingley-Sudforth Lane-Drax branch is a desert today, railway speaking with bustitution on Goole-Knottingley and nothing in or out of Drax.
GBRf 66752 “The Hoosier State” passes with the Hull Dairycoates Tilcon to Rylstone empty aggregates.
Gilberdyke. 3 Sep 2021
Flat, depressing grey overcast.
The area around Butternut, Wisconsin has a lot of milkweed that is a primary host for Monarch larvae. I have seen plenty of Monarchs here and there but this is my first larvae. As far as worms, larvae and caterpillars go this one is fairly dramatic. I believe the alkaloids in this milkweed and consequently the larvae are toxic to birds and would be predators.
The first thing I noticed about Francesca from quite a distance, was her pretty red hair. As a 100 Strangers photographer, I now have the 'disease' or 'blessing' of viewing everyone as a potential portrait, so her hair caught my attention, but I was busy doing some experimental shots of butterflies. A little bit later, as I turned my attention away from the close up shots, I noticed the two young women walking in my direction, quite close, so before over-thinking myself, I moved towards them. They both said "sure" simultaneously, so I photographed them both. See Francesca's friend, Shelbie: www.flickr.com/photos/unmetfriend/9375491422/
I photographed and talked with Shelbie first, then turned to Francesca. While she had been waiting 'her turn', at one point she had readjusted her black sweater, and I had a quick glimpse of some beautiful tattoos, so the first thing I did was to ask her if she would mind having her sweater off for her portrait, so we could see them. Got her in position for the light and the breeze that I wanted, and we began to take a few shots. They looked great through the viewfinder, but when I showed them to her on the back screen, I could see her black hair disappeared into the dark background, (ooops), so she was happy to move to a light colored background. She made several comments about 'not being a model' and not 'knowing how to do this', but in my experience she seemed very comfortable and natural, taking my directions with grace & ease. When the breeze brushed a couple strands of her hair onto her cheek, I was happy and felt like that was the perfect shot for me, so I told her we were done with the photo shoot part! (I do have a portrait just like this, without the hair across her cheek, in case she wants it. It looks more 'formal', but I am a sucker for the breezey hair shots)
Francesca is 21 years old, born and raised in San Diego. Her mother is Mexican, and her father is Native American from the Texas band of Yaqui Indians. Because Francesca was born into the tribe, she gets free schooling. She will be going back to college to study to be a veterinary technician, and plans to eventually own & operate an animal shelter. She is currently a free-lance makeup artist for M.A.C. Cosmetics. All of her makeup was stolen, so for now, she has to do all of her clients in the store at Fashion Valley. Her favorite style of makeup to do is a more natural, subtle look. She especially likes doing wedding makeup (vs. prom).
Francesca & Shelbie met through Tumblr, about 2 years ago. They both have blogs, and they began to notice more & more often, how much they had in common, so they decided to meet! Shelbie went to Francesca's house, and they just spent the evening hanging out and getting to know each other 'in real life'. It seems to have worked out very well, from what I saw; their friendship and similarities are very apparent.
From age 15 to 18 years old, Francesca thought she wanted to be a homicide detective for her career, so she actually trained with sheriffs & homicide investigators, even going on ride-alongs with them to crime scenes. She saw some pretty horrific things, and decided after 3 years that she didn't want this to be her lifelong work.
Francesca likes to be outdoors, and also does a lot of writing ~ journaling & poetry, mostly. She has a huge love for music, and it's very important in her life. Her grandfather (maternal), shared his music tastes and passion with her when she was young, and it has stayed with her dearly. Her favorite type of music? The Rolling Stones, C.C.&R, The Doors, etc. !! She was naming all of my favorite music that I listened to growing up! On her right, upper leg she has a large tattoo for her grandpa, including his birth and death dates.
Neither of her parents were supportive of or happy about her getting tattoos, which she began when she was 18. Francesca isn't close to her dad, so her mom is the stronger opposition. Being traditional Mexican, she thinks the tattoo art takes away from Francesca's femininity. As a mom, I suppose I can imagine how she feels, but the tattoos are gorgeous, and I think compliment who Francesca is. The roses you see on her left arm represent Francesca & her two sisters, Ruby & Jessica, as all 3 are very close with each other. The "Forever Faithful" across her collar bone is how she relates to and loves her family and friends. On her inner left arm, she has an altered Minnie Mouse, merging The Crimson Ghost (a 1946 film & television series), and The Misfits (a current science-fiction comedy-drama t.v. show), with one of her favorite Disney characters (Minnie).
I can't tell you how lovely it was to get to know a bit about Francesca. She's very intelligent, kind, and seems to have a strong sense of who she is.
Francesca: thank you very much for being so generous with your evening, to share some of it with me. I enjoyed it very much, and hope to volunteer at your animal shelter in the near future. Email me, or leave a message here, if you or Shelbie would like copies of any of these photos.
We tried the gold & the white reflector on both girls, but it seemed too bright, so this is just natural light, on a bright, overcast evening, the sun to their left. I was so intent about framing to include her left arm tattoo & still be as close up as possible, I didn't see until I looked on the computer screen, I wish I would have been to the left a bit, so as not to cut into "Forever". This was also the first day (beginning with Shelbie) that I really took my time with their portraits, trying to slow down to think of everything I could, taking great care in the process & result. I usually feel I am 'taking from' their time and imposing a bit with the photos, so I hurry. But yesterday a switch flipped for me: I need to think of it as I am creating a portrait "for" them. I want it to be the best I can achieve (obviously: as long as they are seemingly happy with the process). I enjoyed it immensely, and hope I can keep that in mind as I continue forward.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers in our 100 Strangers Group at www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/pool/
In Part 2, I discussed how the Serpent was used as a symbol for not only initiation into the mysteries and immortality but also a symbol for sexuality, generation, death and rebirth due to the creature’s ability to shed its skin of the old to reveal a shiny new skin underneath. The mythologized Serpent, of course, does appear in almost every culture around the world over. Genesis 3 relays how the Serpent offers knowledge in the form of a fruit grown from the Tree of Knowledge (the “Good ” and “Evil” part may have have been added later as a gloss.) Like the Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge is sometimes considered to be a phallic symbol. This Fruit along with the Tree also were used to signify the result or effect of some cause, having both a positive and a negative effect and origin.
The Two Trees.
The Tree of Knowledge and digesting the forbidden fruit in Genesis according to Jewish tradition represented the primeval mixture or intermingling of good and evil, light and darkness in an almost Manichean fashion. Eating the fruit forbidden set off a chain reaction where humanity developed a “yeitzer hara” or “evil inclination.” Unlike the earlier Hebrews, who blamed themselves for their woes, the Jewish Rabbis believed God had implanted in the ‘heart’, the Hebrew place of the unconscious of each individual, at his birth or conception. The yezer was not hereditary. It was intrinsically good and the source of creative energy, but had a strong potential for evil through appetite or greed. Only strict observance of the Law could keep the strong, irrational passions it engendered under control. To the commentators in the five centuries before Christ, Adam’s death was due to his own “sinful actions”, and not to the Augustine-authored “original sin nature” or “ancestral sin” inherent in the DNA in the race of man because of the disobedience of the primal parents. The Zohar claims that Adam and Eve lost their immortality by ingesting the fruit which is ironically enough compared to the occult:
Hear what saith scripture when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree by which death entered into their souls or lower nature, ‘And when they heard the voice of the Lord of the Alhim walking in the garden’ (Gen. iii-8), or, as it ought to be rendered, had walked (mithhalech). Note further that whilst Adam had not fallen, he was a recipient of divine wisdom (hochma) and heavenly light and derived his continuous existence from the Tree of Life to which he had free access, but as soon as he allowed himself to be seduced and deluded with the desire of occult knowledge, he lost everything, heavenly light and life through the disjunction of his higher and lower self, and, the loss of that harmony that should always exist between them, in short, he then first knew what evil was and what it entailed, and, therefore, it is written, ‘Thou art not a God that approveth wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee’ (Is. v-5); or, in other words, he who implicitly and blindly follows the dictates of his lower nature or self shall not come near the Tree of Life.
According to the Babylonian Talmud, Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden for just twelve hours before being unceremoniously thrown out. This is half a day in Paradise. That snake sure was a fast worker! Yahweh gave Adam and Eve the tour round Eden, told them what they could or couldn’t do and had no sooner turned his back than they were disobeying him and he had to expel them and sentence them, and the whole human race to come, to hell-fire for all eternity. Is that not the biggest (pardon this author’s french) fuck up of all time? It takes a spectacular degree of incompetence to screw things up that badly, so quickly. And yet the source who engineered this monumental disaster is supposed to be the Creator of the Universe, all-knowing and all-powerful, incapable of error! It is any wonder why the Gnostics called the creator god of Genesis as a dark and brutal god who was also given names such as: Samael (Blind One) and Saklas (idiot-retard)?
The Catholic Church Father Irenaeus mentions in Adv. Hear. 1, 29, 3, that the Barbelognostics revered the classic Qabalistic symbol of the “Tree, which itself they call Knowledge (gnosis).” This Tree is generated by two more primordial entities or “Aeons” called “Man” and “Knowledge.” It is hard to know just what his source for this passage may have been, for the kabbalistic symbol of the Tree does not figure in any of the surviving versions of the Apocryphon of John. There is, however, a passage in the Church Father Origen’s description in Contra Celsum of the diagrams of the cosmos envisaged by the Ophites:
And everywhere there, the Tree of Life, and the resurrection of flesh from the Tree …
This passage suggests that the form of the Tree had been imposed on the whole diagram. The Church Father Origen also gives a number of “ten circles”, the traditional number of the emanations or “sefiroth” associated with the cosmic spheres in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life – though roughly only seven of them can have planetary names. This image of the spiritual powers circling in the heavenly spheres, which the Jewish scholar, Gershom Scholem has suggested entered Jewish esoteric teaching from Hellenistic-Egyptian traditions in the centuries before Christianity (or at least Christian gnosticism) arose bears also upon the enigma of the seven-headed form of Iao in the fourth sphere (as discussed in the Apocryphon of John), that of the Sun.
This idea of the Archons situated upon the astral “aerial toll houses” of Eastern Orthodoxy (and of course Gnosticism, especially in the First Apocalypse of James) does indeed seem to originate in ancient Egypt where the the Book of the Dead lists protective spells learned by initiates to guard against the dangerous “judges” during the post-mortem journey of the soul. Speculation in Christian and in Gnostic circles concerning the order of the celestial hierarchy hinged upon a few passages in the Pauline literature, which seem to imply, however, different sequences as Colassians 1:16 states:
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
The names of the authorities are as follows, featured and listed in the Ophite doctrine, refuted by Celsus in Contra Celsum:
Michael – lion, Souriel – bull, Raphael – serpent, Gabriel – eagle, Thauthabaoth – bear, Erathaoth – dog, Taphabaoth/Onoel – ass.
The sequence was composed using the figures of four biblical Cherubim, to whom three new personages were added. The animal forms are derived from the biblical story of the famous vision of Ezekiel as is the iconography of the four evangelists. Ezekiel had seen four monstrous beings in the shape of winged men with four faces: of a man, a lion, a bull and an eagle, on each of the four sides. Jerome connects this tetramorph with the Four Evangelists, being Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
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In the Trimorphic Protennoia, the Archons claim that they also were derived from a tree:
For as for our tree from which we grew, a fruit of ignorance is what it has; and also its leaves, it is death that dwells in them, and darkness dwells under the shadow of its boughs. And it was in deceit and lust that we harvested it, this (tree) through which ignorant Chaos became for us a dwelling place.
As mentioned in Part 1, the Gospel of John 15, 1-2 equates Christ with the vines and fruit of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, which also sounds vaguely Dionysian. Dionysus was also called the surname Dendritês, the god of the tree, which has the same import as Dasyllius, the giver of foliage.
The Gospel of Truth also equates the cross to the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden:
He was nailed to a tree (and) he became fruit of the knowledge of the Father. It did not, however, cause destruction because it was eaten, but to those who ate it, it (cause) to become glad in the discovery, and he discovered them in himself, and they discovered him in themselves.
The Gospel of Philip also makes the connection between the Tree of Life, the resurrection via the chrism (anointing) and Jesus Christ, explicit:
Philip the apostle said, “Joseph the carpenter planted a garden because he needed wood for his trade. It was he who made the cross from the trees which he planted. His own offspring hung on that which he planted. His offspring was Jesus, and the planting was the cross.” But the Tree of Life is in the middle of the Garden. However, it is from the olive tree that we got the chrism, and from the chrism, the resurrection.
Elsewhere in the Gospel of Philip, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is identified with the flesh and the Law (the lower natures as opposed to the pnuematic one). Using a riff from the Epistle to the Romans 7:7-11, the author says:
“It has the power to give knowledge of good and evil. It neither removed him from evil, nor did it set him in the good. Instead it created death for those who ate of it. For when it said, ‘Eat this. Do not eat that.’ it became the beginning of death.”
The pseudepigraphic Jewish-apocalypse Book of Enoch 31:4, describes this tree of knowledge in the midst of the “Garden of Righteousness”:
It was like a species of the Tamarind tree, bearing fruit which resembled grapes extremely fine; and its fragrance extended to a considerable distance. I exclaimed, How beautiful is this tree, and how delightful is its appearance!
Irenaeus’ pupil, Hippolytus would write in Against All Heresies (VI, 27) on how the Valentinians compared the Logos to the fruit of the Tree of Life:
This (one) is styled among them Joint Fruit of the Pleroma. These (matters), then, took place within the Pleroma in this way. And the Joint Fruit of the Pleroma was projected, (that is,) Jesus,— for this is his name—the great High Priest. Sophia, however, who was outside the Pleroma in search of Christ, who had given her form, and of the Holy Spirit, became involved in great terror that she would perish, if he should separate from her, who had given her form and consistency.
He also writes that the Father projected a warrior Aeon as a defense mechanism to protect the Aeonic realm of the Pleroma from the shapeless void created by the fallen Sophia, who is often shaped in a Cross:
Now this (Aeon) is styled Horos, because he separates from the Pleroma the Hysterema that is outside. And (he is called) Metocheus, because he shares also in the Hysterema. And (he is denominated) Staurus, because he is fixed inflexibly and inexorably, so that nothing of the Hysterema can come near the Aeons who are within the Pleroma.
This description also matches with Irenaeus’ account (Against Heresies 1.3.5) on how the Valentinian Christians viewed the hidden, metaphysical meaning and nature of the Cross:
“They show, further, that that Horos of theirs, whom they call by a variety of names, has two faculties,-the one of supporting, and the other of separating; and in so far as he supports and sustains, he is Stauros, while in so far as he divides and separates, he is Horos. They then represent the Saviour as having indicated this twofold faculty: first, the sustaining power, when He said, “Whosoever doth not bear his cross (Stauros), and follow after me, cannot be my disciple; ” and again, “Taking up the cross follow me; ” but the separating power when He said, “I came not to send peace, but a word.” They also maintain that John indicated the same thing when he said, “The fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge the floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner; but the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable.” By this declaration He set forth the faculty of Horos. For that fan they explain to be the cross (Stauros), which consumes, no doubt, all material objects, as fire does chaff, but it purifies all them that are saved, as a fan does wheat. Moreover, they affirm that the Apostle Paul himself made mention of this cross in the following words: “The doctrine of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us who are saved it is the power of God.” And again: “God forbid that I should glory in anything save in the cross of Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.”
In the above paragraph, Horos or Stauros (the cross of John) is the limit (X) of Plato’s Timaeus. Simon Magus taught this same exact thing as we will see below. The cross symbolizes the separation of powers and realms. It represents the apokatastasis, the Stoic conflagration, the baptism by fire. Paul the Apostle speaks of this fire that purifies and tries men’s works in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. To be crucified to the world is to bear the symbol of the cross which is a flat-out denial of YHWH and the Elohim archons’ creation. It is to spit in the face of the Greek gods of fate like Socrates. It is hemlock to the flesh and to the spirit it is immortality.
It is the Cross of Christ, which in the Gnostic interpretation separates God from the manifest world, the uncreated, transcendent World of Forms from the Creator and the created realm, constituting a Separate and Hidden God. This limit in essence separates the “wheat from the tares”. At the same time, it also serves as a bridge between the saved sparks of light into the realm above. The extremely esoteric Sethian text, Allogenes, mentions a power or aeon by the name of “Kalyptos”, which can mean either “hidden” or “that which covers,” which may derive from the conception of the veil parting the higher from the lower realm. This power derives from the Aeon of Barbelo, which is also a state of being in which a spiritual power descends into matter. The position of Kalyptos comes very close to that of the Valentinian Horos, Stauros or Limit that separates the highest deity Bythos (Depth or Abyss) from the other Aeons that derive from him. This limit also functions though a second barrier between the “hysterema” of the material cosmos and the realm of the Aeons. Sophia also functions as a veil in On the Origin of the World.
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All of these concepts are also reflected in Origen’s Contra Celsum (6, 33) in which he states that that on the diameter of one of the circles a sword of fire was depicted, the same one that had driven Adam and Eve from the earthly Paradise. This flaming sword guarded the Tree of knowledge (gnosis) and of life (zoe). If the sword was above the black line of Tartarus, then the tree of knowledge and of life has to be the series of circles starting from Gnosis and Sophia and leading through the circle of Life to the Father. This could be similar to the Kabbalistic number of 777 being the sum the paths that the Lightening Path of Creation travels down through the Tree of Life. It is through this channel that the Luciferian motif of bringing the light of heaven to the World of Action becomes apparent.
In Contra Celsum, Origen reports Celsus’ comments on the Christians (the Ophite-Sethian Gnostics in reality), who called their baptismal rite “seal” (recalling the Five Seals of the Sethians); the person who placed the seal was called “father”; the one who received it was called “son” and “young man”, answering: “I am anointed with the white chrism of the tree of life”. Celsus further down describes the Christian belief of “tree of life” being both synonymous with Christ and the resurrection in 6:34:
And in all their writings (is mention made) of the ‘tree of life’ (τό της ζωης ξύλον), and a resurrection of the flesh by means of the ‘tree’ (από ξύλου), because, I imagine, their teacher was nailed to a cross (σταυρω ένηλώθη), and was a carpenter by craft (τέκτων τήν τεχνην)…
Celsus connects a so-called “tree of life,” and a resurrection by means of the “tree,” to Jesus’ execution: that he was nailed to an execution pole and his trade being carpenter, joiner. The relevant point Celsus is making here is that Jesus was suspended on some kind of pole, and secured to it with nails. Clearly, the parallels between the Ophite diagram and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, with the circles shown to have numerical values, are there.
The Trimorphic Protennoia and the hermetic Discourse on Eighth and Ninth in the Nag Hammadi library pre-suppose numerical values for the manifestations of God, as does the system of Valentinus as described by his enemy, Irenaeus, which envisioned the theoretical attainment of 10 divine Aeons. He also develops a system consisting of about thirty Aeons, which would suggest that he had taken the simpler Ophite system and expanded it until it was almost uncontrollable. Even more interesting is in the Sethian text, Melchizedek, it portrays Adam and Eve defeating the guardians of the Tree of Life with their own weapon!
For when they ate of the tree of knowledge, they trampled the Cherubim and the Seraphim with the flaming sword.
Fludd Sephirothic Tree web
The Sephirothic Tree by Robert Fludd
The Qabalah or Kabbalah itself has many similarities with Gnosticism in their closely related teachings of the hidden God and hypostatization of God’s attributes. The Sephirot (or Enumerations, which also means “book” in Hebrew) are the ten emanations of God (or infinite light: Ein Sof Aur) into the universe. These emanations manifest not only in the physical part of the universe, but also in the metaphysical one. Kabbalah distinguish four different worlds or planes: Atziluth, or World of Emanations, where the Divine Archetypes live; Beri’ah or World of Creations, where Highest Ranking Angels are; Yetzirah or World of Formations is the astral world; and Asiyah or World of Actions, is the physical plane and “low astral” plane. Each of these worlds are progressively grosser and denser (one can see the strong Kabbalistic influence on Neo-Platonic thought here as well), but the ten Sephiroth manifest in all of them.
The Kabbalah is rooted in the Merkavah and Assyrian traditions, and the Kabbalah defines Sefirot is also based on the great visions described by Ezekiel. The Sephiroth constitutes the “Tree of Life”, and is aligned in three columns, each headed by a Supernal. The names of the Sephirot are: Kether (Crown), Chochman (Wisdom), Binah (Understanding), Chesed (Mercy), Gevurah (Severity), Tiphareth (Redeemer), Netzach (Victory), Hod (Majesty), Yesod (Foundation), Malkhuth (Kingdom). Some clear Christian and Gnostic associations on the Tree of Life is down the middle path, with Keter relating to the Father, which emanates into Tipharet relating to the Holy Ghost, and Christ as the Solar Logos and Savior, which emanates to Yesod, relating to the Son. This being the path by which God emanates into Malkut, the physical world
The Manichean Psalm CCXX illustrates the theme of matter receiving the spiritual Light rather well by using Tree imagery:
They rose, that they belong to Matter, the children of Error, desiring to uproot thy unshakable tree and plant it in their land. Matter and her sons divided me up amongst them, they burnt me in their fire, they gave me a bitter likeness.” … “I am the sweet water that is beneath the sons of Matter.
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Alchemical image of the Divine Sophia as a Tree of Learning and source of the Elixir of Life.
In Jewish Wisdom literature, it was Khokhmah who personified the female Divine. She is understood as an emanation of God, yet she resonates with the Hebrew Goddess who is otherwise assailed in the Old Testament, by Jehovah especially Asherah, the Queen of Heaven. Proverbs 3:18 calls up an image of Khokhmah that originates in the oldest core of Jewish culture: “She is a Tree of Life to all who lay hold of her.” In the same book, Khokhmah sings, “The one who finds me, finds life.” A similar aretalogy can be found in the Sethian text, Thunder-Perfect Mind. The creation story of the 2nd, Century Gnostic, Valentinus of Alexandria, the greatest of Sophia’s devotees, describes the origin and essence of the matter composing this world as emotionally and psychically consubstantial with Sophia as indicated by Irenaeus in Against Heresies, 5, 4:
This mother they also call Ogdoad, Sophia, Terra (Gaia), Jerusalem (cf. Gal. 4:26), Holy Spirit, and, with a masculine reference, Lord. Their mother dwells in that place which is above the heavens, that is, in the intermediate abode; the Demiurge in the heavenly place, that is, in the hebdomad; but the Cosmocrator in this our world. The corporeal elements of the world, again, sprang, as we before remarked, from bewilderment and perplexity, as from a more ignoble source. Thus the earth arose from her state of stupor; water from the agitation caused by her fear; air from the consolidation of her grief; while fire, producing death and corruption, was inherent in all these elements, even as they teach that ignorance also lay concealed in these three passions.
Furthermore, she knows:
the beginning and end and middle of times, the alternations of the solstices and the changes of the seasons, the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars, the nature of animals and the tempers of wild animals, the powers of spirits and the thoughts of human beings, the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots… (Wisdom 7:15-22)
The imagery of the tree is also included in Simon Magus’s cosmology, as reported by Hippolytus of Rome, is a powerful model that describing some rare concepts that Simononians in the early third century work described in the Philosophumena, as the “Great Declaration” or “Great Announcement”. Simon very much describes a tree of fire that consumes itself. This is a third century Simonian document, positing that the root of all existence is infinite, and abides in man, who serves as its dwelling-house. The Logos or the Word is projected down by the luciferian Lightening Flash through the Aeons and into the manifest world and man. From the original root, the hidden principle, spring three pairs of manifestations of: Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reasoning and Reflection.
The Father is, moreover, “He that hath stood” in relation to premundane existence; “He that standeth” in relation to present being; and “He that shall stand” in relation to the final consummation. Man is simply the realization of “boundless power,” the ultimate end of the cosmic process in which the godhead attains self-consciousness. This infinite power works in all of the aeons as a compound name: He who stands, has stood, and will stand; a term alluded to in the Clementine Homilies and Recognition’s which say, that Simon Magus considered himself as the “Standing One” along with the “that power of God which is called Great”.
The Simonian author employs very Stoic language in describing what is hidden and revealed in the divine Fire, the original Boundless Power that is the stuff that the original Ineffable God is made of—the equivalent of the Qabalistic Ein Sof or Kether—the Crown. In this above entry (linked above) by Hippolytus, he refers to Simon’s theology of the “fruit from the Tree” as being the quintessential product of the human incarnation. The tripartite division of spirit, psyche and matter are simply manifest expressions of the original Stoic-like Divine Fire. This concealed fruit or “Hidden Power” which is another term that he used, requires a key in the conscious process of imagining or beholding a power to form mental images.
The Simonian author interestingly uses the term “imagining” as a reference of becoming divinized or be initiated into the mysteries. But this can only be manifested “if its imagining has been perfected and it takes the shape of itself.” Later, the text mentions a “storehouse” which is a room, located adjacent to a royal chamber within a palace where the gold, jewels and other wealth are stored. Here, the Simonian author is referring to the treasure-house and the storehouse, both concepts that are found within the Pistis Sophia that refer to a location within the “House of Many Mansions” of John 14:2.
Simon Magus also appealed to Matthew 12:33, as Hippolytus writes in Refutations of All Heresies VI, 11:
If, however, a tree continues alone, not producing fruit fully formed, it is utterly destroyed. For somewhere near, he says, is the axe (which is laid) at the roots of the tree. Every tree, he says, which does not produce good fruit, is hewn down and cast into fire.
This, of course, was also Marcion’s (and much later in Mani’s theological two principle system) main scriptural justification for his radical dualism in Christ’s maxim that a good tree does not bear evil fruit, nor does an evil tree bear bad fruit. So if we also interpret that in terms of origins, then the evil god could not possibly have originated from the good god, because good things do not produce evil things, and vice versa. The Gospel of Thomas says something very similar:
(45) Jesus said, “Grapes are not harvested from thorns, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they do not produce fruit. A good man brings forth good from his storehouse; an evil man brings forth evil things from his evil storehouse, which is in his heart, and says evil things. For out of the abundance of the heart he brings forth evil things.”
The fact is Simon had a similar doctrine that condemned false religion and predicted a final dissolution of the cosmos, presumably dissolved in fire, so that Simon’s elect can be redeemed, viz. the Great Announcement; Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 6:14; Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1.23.3.
These words from Simon and John resonate with a key saying of Jesus in Matthew 7:17-20,
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
This was a key saying used by the Gnostics and Marcionites. Could it be that this metaphor originated from John the Baptist, from whom Simon also learned this same metaphor?
Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, that you have Abraham for your father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” (Cf. John 8:39, 44; 1:17-18)
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In the text On the Origin of the World, it states that the tree of life and the tree of gnosis are situated “to the north of Paradise” and is identified as Epinoia. The Greek name Epinoia carries the meaning of “understanding” or “thought” or “purpose”. She is sent to dwell within Adam, her role being to give him consciousness of his divine origins and the way to return to the Pleroma. The author of On the Origin of the World makes a positive evaluation of the Garden of Eden:
And the tree of eternal life is as it appeared by God’s will, to the north of Paradise, so that it might make eternal the souls of the pure, who shall come forth from the modelled forms of poverty at the consummation of the age. Now the color of the tree of life is like the sun. And its branches are beautiful. Its leaves are like those of the cypress. Its fruit is like a bunch of grapes when it is white. Its height goes as far as heaven. And next to it (is) the tree of knowledge (gnosis), having the strength of God. Its glory is like the moon when fully radiant. And its branches are beautiful. Its leaves are like fig leaves. Its fruit is like a good appetizing date. And this tree is to the north of Paradise, so that it might arouse the souls from the torpor of the demons, in order that they might approach the tree of life and eat of its fruit, and so condemn the authorities and their angels.
This depiction is in stark contrast with how the the Apocryphon of John depicts Eden as more of a zoo-like prison of the authorities:
And the archons took him and placed him in paradise. And they said to him, ‘Eat, that is at leisure,’ for their luxury is bitter and their beauty is depraved. And their luxury is deception and their trees are godlessness and their fruit is deadly poison and their promise is death. And the tree of their life they had placed in the midst of paradise.
The Apocalypse of Moses is primarily an account about Adam’s death, its cause and cure. Seth is procured along with Adam’s many other children which leads Adam to recount briefly the story of the temptation, the fall, and the the first parents’ punishment in chapters 7-8. Adam’s narrative explains the reason for his present plight. Adam then subsequently sends his wife Eve and son Seth to paradise in search of the oil of mercy that will bring him relief. (9:3) On the way to the garden, Seth is attacked by a beast (in chapters 10-12) which seems to be evidence that God’s curse in Genesis 3:15 is in effect. Adam’s request to be saved is subsequently denied.
(The oil of Mercy) will not be yours now, but at the ends of the times. Then will arise all flesh from Adam to the great day …. , and then all the joy of paradise will be given to them. … (13:2-4)
Adam knows he is going to die and later on in Chapters 22-29, God appears in paradise on his chariot while accompanied by his angels. His throne is fixed, and he indicts and sentences his creatures from the consequences of the fall being spelled out in detail in chapters 24-26. Adam seeks the oil of mercy but God commands the angels to get on with the expulsion (27:4-28:1). Again Adam pleads, this time for access to the Tree of Life (28:2). God’s response to Adam’s plea is met with a reproof:
You shall not take from it now … if you keep yourself from all evil, as one about to die, when again the resurrection comes to pass, I shall raise you up. And then there shall be given to you from the tree of life. (28:3-4)
Another time, Adam pleads with God for herbs from Eden to offer incense and seeds to grow food. God is kind enough to grant this request before Adam and Eve are kicked out from the garden in Chapter 29. The text concludes on a solemn yet promising note which expands on Genesis 3:19:
I told you that you are dust, and to dust you will return. Again I promise you the resurrection. I shall raise you up to the last day, in the resurrection, with every man who is of your seed. (41:2-3)
In the concluding portion of the book, it describes Eve’s death and her burial by Seth, who is commanded to bury in this fashion everyone who dies until the day of the resurrection. These ideas are also reflected in the apocryphal the Book of the Cave of Treasures, where the dying Adam assembles his sons, including Seth for a request to embalm him with myrrh, cassia and balsam and to leave his body in the Cave of Treasures, situated at a side of a high mountain but below paradise.
Seth himself was also considered to be the archetypal father and savior of the Gnostics, resulting from the Jewish exegesis and combination of various biblical themes: (1) that of “the sons of God” in Gen 6:4 (LXX), (2) that of Seth as “another seed” appointed by God in place of the slain Abel in Gen 4:25, who (3) was fathered by Adam as a son in his own likeness and image according to Gen 5:3.
These themes, in combination with Gen 1:26, concerning the god “Man” created in the image and likeness of God, implied the divine nature of Seth, the “planter” of the heavenly seed (Gen 4:25). Seth would recover from “the great aeons” the glory that had left Adam and Eve at their Fall, caused by the Ialdabaoth. Seth would preserve his seed against the repeated attempts of Ialdabaoth to steal it by keeping it separate from the lustful seed of Cain which came from the Archons. At the end of time, Seth (or Sophia in On the Origin of the World) would destroy Ialdabaoth and his followers in a Revelations-styled apocalypse and reinstate his seed, the part of mankind untainted by lust, into its original glory. The strongest instant that we see Seth as a Gnostic Savior is in the Apocalypse of Adam, where Adam tells his son Seth:
And the glory in our hearts left us, me and your mother Eve, along with the first knowledge that breathed within us.
Later, Adam called his son “by the name of that man who is the seed of the great generation as a planter of the righteous seed”, recalling 1 Corinthians 15: 35-49 by Paul the Apostle, who compared the resurrection to a seed. Paul states that when a plant sprouts forth from the seed, and the remnants of the seed whither away. The plant came from the seed, but the plant isn’t the seed, and the seed isn’t the plant. They’re two distinct things, and the plant doesn’t come to life until the seed dies. So what Paul is saying is that spirit is deposited as a seed in the body, and it remains a seed until the body dies and decomposes. Then the spirit sprouts forth from the body, and the body is transmuted into a spiritual body, which also recalls the Parable of the Sower in Matthew, Mark and Thomas. It isn’t reanimation of a corpse at all as Catholic Church Fathers such as Irenaeus and especially Tertullian, have maintained (Against Heresies, 5.12.1, De Resurrectione Carnis). Paul’s theology concerning the spiritual resurrection isn’t so far removed from the ideas expressed in the Great Announcement:
…the manifested side corresponds to the trunk, limbs, leaves, and encasing bark. All these members of the tree are set ablaze from the all-consuming flame of the fire and destroyed. But as for the fruit of the tree, if it’s for is perfect and it assumes the true shape, it is gathered into the storehouse, not thrown into the fire.
Here, the vegetation and tree motifs are evident. Returning to the Gnostics—is it from Seth’s descendants who would possess the Gnosis. The Apocryphon of John suggests that Sophia prepared a place for the souls in heaven, where Jesus, the incarnation of the aeon Christ would disclose the true knowledge of how to return to their true home in with the Spirit (in Pleroma), where they would ascend past the rulers (archons) and their astral spheres and be healed of all deficiency and become holy and faultless. To gain these higher realms, one must ascend above the Seven Heavens of Chaos into the Aeons as stated in the Gospel of the Egyptians:
Then there came forth from the great aeons four hundred ethereal angels, accompanied by the great Aerosiel and the great Selmechel, to guard the great, incorruptible race, its fruit, and the great men of the great Seth, from the time and the moment of Truth and Justice, until the consummation of the aeon and its archons, those whom the great judges have condemned to death.
The Apocryphon of John spells it out in a more concise manner:
And he placed seven kings – each corresponding to the firmaments of heaven – over the seven heavens, and five over the depth of the abyss, that they may reign. And he shared his fire with them, but he did not send forth from the power of the light which he had taken from his mother, for he is ignorant darkness.
Origen, despite being one of the Church Fathers (and theological enemies of the Gnostics), he actually had a doctrine very much influenced by Platonism (but stood firmly against groups like the Valentinians and Marcionites). Origen also did not accept the historicity of the Bible nor did he interpret it literally. One example of this can be taken from De Prinicipiis, 4.1.16, where he discusses the Genesis creation myth more as an allegory:
No one, I think, can doubt that the statement that God walked in the afternoon in paradise, and that Adam lay hid under a tree is related figuratively in Scripture, that some mystical meaning may be indicated by it.” And “those who are not altogether blind can collect countless instances of a similar kind recorded as having occurred, but which did not literally take place? Nay, the Gospels themselves are filled with the same kind of narratives; for example, the devil leading Jesus up into a high mountain, in order to show him from thence the kingdoms of the whole world, and the glory of them.
Likewise, the Valentinians viewed scripture as allegorical on three different levels that corresponded to the three natures. The earlier Gnostics viewed the Old Testament as a symbolic record of the struggle between Yaldabaoth-Jehovah and Sophia as testified in Irenaeus’ account in Against Heresies, VII, 3:
They maintain, moreover, that those souls which possess the seed of Achamoth are superior to the rest, and are more dearly loved by the Demiurge than others, while he knows not the true cause thereof, but imagines that they are what they are through his favour towards them. Wherefore, also, they say he distributed them to prophets, priests, and kings; and they declare that many things were spoken (7) by this seed through the prophets, inasmuch as it was endowed with a transcendently lofty nature. Themother also, they say, spake much about things above, and that both through him and through the souls which were formed by him. Then, again, they divide the prophecies [into different classes], maintaining that one portion was uttered by the mother, a second by her seed, and a third by the Demiurge. In like manner, they hold that Jesus uttered some things under the influence of the Saviour, others under that of the mother, and others still under that of the Demiurge, as we shall show further on in our work.
As we can see, the Tree was an important universal symbol for not only the Gnostics, Simonians, Valentinians, etc, but to groups like the Jewish-Kabbalists, alchemists and many occult groups throughout the ages. The Tree is highly associative with the idea of the descent and crucifixion (and eventual ascent and resurrection) of spirit into and from matter as seen in Sophia-Achamoth’s fall from the celestial world and into the prima materia which parallels the Genesis account of the fall of Eve, the “mother of the living”. In Plato’s Timaeus, do we find the account of the Fall of Atlantis, (as strange as it might sound) which could be read as symbolic of the Divine tragedy and catastrophe so predominant in Gnostic cosmology and theology.
In Part 4, we will investigate a possible Gnostic exegesis of the Atlantis myth and other Greek tales, the Gnostic science of human physiology and the mind relating to Genesis, where and how exactly Orthodox theology developed from and ultimately became victorious as a common religious Christian doctrine, along with some concluding final thoughts on this series.
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A hyperbolic tiling created using the Fractal Science Kit fractal generator. See www.fractalsciencekit.com/ for details.
A Hyperbolic Tiling replicates a polygon over the hyperbolic plane represented by the Poincare disk in such a way as to form a hyperbolic tiling pattern. The Poincare disk is a model for hyperbolic geometry that maps the hyperbolic plane onto the unit disk.
With recent news that the MNNR will get some eco-units, is that the end of the line for these Dash 7s? May 2024.