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“The worst trouble is precisely to not know why, without love and without hatred, my heart feel so much sorrow!” (It’s crying upon my heart.)
Paris, boulevard Saint-Germain, January 2013.
I took precisely 500 photos today, it was so awesome … fog everywhere. I will upload many more later, but I am too tired right now. This photo is only cropped (original photo below), everything else is untouched.
This photo is my first to hit explore, thank you very much. =)
Explore #500
Photograph taken at an altitude of Seven metres, in the magic of the Golden hour around sunrise at 05:31am, (sunrise was at precisely 06.15am) on Saturday 6th September 2014 off the Patricia Bay Highway 17, on Lochside Drive close to Frost Avenue and the Lochside Waterfront Park, in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Here, I am standing beside the wooden decked viewing platform, looking over towards Mt Baker in Washington State, USA from beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Also known as Koma Kulshan, she is an active glaciated andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington State in the United States, standing 3,286 metres tall and was first ascended in 1868, her last eruption recorded in 1880.
These Canada Geese, along with many other small groups, fly across the lake from East to West every morning and back again every evening at Sunset, and I love to watch the classic Vee formations and listen to the honking as they pass me by. In flight, a group of Geese are called, a Skein.
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Nikon D800 116mm 1/500s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED IF VRII. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 15.80s
LONGITUDE: W 123d 24m 12.85s
ALTITUDE: 7.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 15.02MB
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Processing power:
HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
This was my first time photographing snow with my brand new Nikon 70-200VRII and for some unknown reasons, first time publishing this picture, in Black and White.
Maybe because it has been precisely one year since this picture has been taken, but most importantly it is the journey that I've taken and everything that happen in 2012.
To resume, I lost job, found a new one, my (first child) daughter was born in July, lost job again, made some miracles to travel to Brazil for Christmas and back here, 2013.
Last year I had to take some “time out” pretty much to dedicate to the new born. It is not every day you are a first time father, but the reason for a picture of snow when it is not actually snowing is: change.
Like the season, we all change to time, learn new things, forget others and if you are luckily, you get rid of bad things, specially what haunts you. And I did that, changed.
Anyway, talking about this pic. It was quite early in the morning, just a few brave souls walking in the park. The snow was really high and with not a proper boots, it was quite challenging. I decided to take the entire sessions of pictures with the 70-200. Something I learn in photography is that you need to adapt, trust your instincts and learn to use what you have at the moment. I normally do that. Snow is quite tricky for the camera auto balance. I did use ExpoDisc auto balance and made the final adjustments in LightRoom and CS6 so the snow looks like snow and played around with adjustments to get the tress kind black.
Nikon D7000 & Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II
Post Production with Lightroom 4.1 and Nik Software
©2012, byVini photography
The Rendille people, living in the Northern part of Kenia.
Living in the harsh regions of the Kaisut Desert, the Rendille tribe is a nomad and pastoralist group. They are really only semi-nomadic and tend to only move 2 or 3 times each year. The Rendille are member of the Cushitic family of tribes. The Rendille are closely aligned with the Samburu and have often adopted much of their language as well. Many years of drought have made life difficult if not impossible for traditional Rendille people, meaning many of them have had to leave their nomadic patterns behind and settle more permanently in various towns and aid depots. The town of Korr is one of the largest towns made up mainly of the Rendille.
Their original home was farther north, in Ethiopia and Somalia. It's likely that both the Rendille tribe and the Somali tribe have common ancestors. Oromo-speaking tribes of Ethiopia drove them out, and forced their migration southward into Kenya. The colonial occupation of Kenya had little or no effect on the Rendille people, since their lands are very harsh and not desired at all by the Europeans.
Unlike some other pastoral tribes, the Rendille tribe tend to favour camels for their herds rather than cattle. Likely because their lands are very dry and the camel is simply better suited to the environment. They are milked just like cows, providing the staple of the Rendille diet. This is particularly the case for northern Rendille, whereas the southern groups are more similar to the Samburu and keep cows because the environment is less dry. Their settlements are quite large, which is different from other nomadic tribes that live in separate extended family groups. An entire clan might live together, with a population of many hundreds. The tribal movements are not random, but follow a specific pattern to allow access to for all clans to the water sources and pasturing areas. It is a very fair system of land management.
Men are responsible for caring for the large herds of animals, as well as protecting them from predators and other tribes. All the household and childcare duties fall on the women of the tribe. It is the unmarried men who are required to travel the furthest from the camps with the herds. Age-sets are the main component of Rendille society. Initiation rituals take place precisely every 7 or 14 years, creating a series of generational age-sets, each with its own role in society. In the common Kenyan practice, the first initiation is circumcision. Men have many stages of warrior-hood, but women are simply married or unmarried. Marriages are usually arranged by parents, since it is not permitted to marry within one's own clan and contact with other clans is minimal for younger people. A bride price in livestock is always part of the negotiations.
Because men cannot marry until they have completed their warrior phase, there is usually a sizable age difference between man and his wife. It's fairly common for a 30-year old man to marry a girl only 14 or 15 years old.
Many tribes in Kenya have given up their old beliefs in the face of oncoming Christianity, but the Rendille tribe have not. The Rendille god is called Wakh, or Ngai. The fortune-tellers of the village cast stone or bones to predict the future, and to perform sacrifices for rain.
Win a TV here! Unfortunately I don't precisely know where here actually is - despite a lot of time searching I've been unable to work out where this was - anyone familiar with the Stoke area in this era? Edit Thanks to Martyn, see comments below, the location is now known - here's the same view in the present day - it's been a hand car wash since the start of Streetview www.google.com/maps/@53.015838,-2.190783,3a,75y,29.51h,85...
Yes an out-of-time band of Pirates or freebooter scum in the medieval Kingdom world…
They have the superior of a blasting powder more commonly known as gunpowder in the modern world…
But how did this anachronism happen?
Well actually it is all the work of a band of scientists in the Classic Space timeline, more precisely insane scientist funded by the federation on the Capital planet…
Their work was to “prove” anything scientifically that the Ruling board of companies decided, as long as they complied with their authority’s wishes the would be rewarded with huge amounts of funding, but because of them being scared of inventing something the powerful board disliked of they would invent very few new things…
Well, then they did some hobby projects just for fun, one night the discovered that they invented a trans time-machine when they used a minor white connected to a universal-sized black hole to access the power of a brown hole and the so called God-particle also known as the OMG-inverted boson…
Let’s just skip the technical ticky-tacky details and Zig-zag in to the story of the displaced pirates, in other worlds lets make the long story short…
First they summoned Cowboys and Indians from a nearer past, to hide their unauthorized experimentation they had to kill them of and sell their bodied to urban-sentient-bush-meat traders affiliated to the local mafia…
Their second experiment with the time-space bending machine brought them this very band of pirates together with a schooner equipped with high-tech gunpowder canons…
As these involuntary time-travelers appeared a member of the ruling board made a surprise visit…
The Scientists had to think fast, the reversed the brown hole and spun the age-gauge needle to a random position and *poff* they were sent to a medieval timeline…
…in the medieval world they soon discovered their superior power of Their high-tech, but often did not help them in their pirating because of medieval ignorance…
The band of salted seamen is nominally lead by the Captain known as Eddie Rackham Teach…
But all real thinking and strategic decisions are made by Quartermaster Granny Grandma’ Teach also known as: “the Ripe Sea Hag” she is actually as her name implies Eddie’s maternal Grandmother… she is always seen with her trusty blunderbuss named: Nose-poker Sue… no one have ever seen her fire it, but she often use it to beat her descendant Eddie or any one else that opposes her, but when she use it in what she calls: “friendly fire” that is just a mild beating that only result in nosebleeds and bumps…
Less fortunate are those who receive a Bashing of this blunt but deadly instrument in combat, her strengt and violent manner in combat is well known among foes at both the buccaneer seas of the Caribbean and later on the medieval kingdoms ancient oceans!
Rumer has it that she once bashed the flying dutchman ghost-ship in to submission (and almost Sub mission) The ghost captain told her: I am a ghost, you can’t kill me! Oh did he regret those worlds… Granny replied: I might not be able to kill you, but let’s see if you can feel pain…
Later that evening the ghost-captain set sails for the burning sulfur seas in hell to escape Granny’s painful bashing…
The Captain said before vanishing in a dimensional ghost-portal: Dear Beelzebub, I want you protection in the incinerating hell rather than to suffer under that blunt melee of this satanic lady…
His unholiness had pity on the captain and agreed to his travel to hell, but quickly closed the portal after his descent in to hell… he would’t risk having this lady-terrorist knocking the fanged toots out of his lean jaw…
Other notable pirates in the band was:
Bulging-Belly Bill the only man who could dodge a cannon ball by his corpulent belly…
Double patched Sneaky: a blind pirate that was more likely to fire his antique pistol on friends rather than foe
Jolly Raleigh: a depressed pirate that always tried to commit suicide in battle but by his uncanny luck always ended up surviving and mistakenly kill off a bunch of enemies
And last but not least: the hook-nosed parrot: and the quad-peg-legged sea-horse ( not a fishy seahorse but a invalid horse )
It was sent by Manannan to return Cliodhna (the goddess of the underworld and beauty) back to the land of the dead.37 It is thought likely that Tonn Cliodhna represents the bursting of Llyn Llion. In some versions that same flood kills a visitor as he sleeps in Glandore harbour, which probably lay on dry land south of Cork....Several Ancient Egyptian solar ships and boat pits were found in many Ancient Egyptian sites. The most famous is the Khufu ship now preserved in the Giza Solar boat museum beside the Great pyramid at Giza. The full-sized ships or boats were buried near Ancient Egyptians' Pyramids or Temples at many sites. The history and function of the ships are not precisely known. They might be of the type known as a "solar barge", a ritual vessel to carry the resurrected king with the sun god Ra across the heavens. However, some ships bear signs of being used in water, and it is possible that these ships were a funerary "barge".
Almost all of Judaeo-Christianity can be traced to Egyptian origins, which has been noticed by many scholars reluctant to accept it. That versions of the Book of the Dead have Thoth ordering the Flood as occurred in Scripture is a fact so obscure not many Egyptologists know itThe Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BCE) to around 50 BCE.The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as Book of Coming Forth by Day.Another translation would be Book of Emerging Forth into the Light. "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife and written by many priests over a period of about 1000 years.
The Book of the Dead was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not papyrus. Some of the spells included were drawn from these older works and date to the 3rd millennium BCE. Other spells were composed later in Egyptian history, dating to the Third Intermediate Period (11th to 7th centuries BCE). A number of the spells which made up the Book continued to be inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as had always been the spells from which they originated. The Book of the Dead was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased.
There was no single or canonical Book of the Dead. The surviving papyri contain a varying selection of religious and magical texts and vary considerably in their illustration. Some people seem to have commissioned their own copies of the Book of the Dead, perhaps choosing the spells they thought most vital in their own progression to the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was most commonly written in hieroglyphic or hieratic script on a papyrus scroll, and often illustrated with vignettes depicting the deceased and their journey into the afterlife.The Book of the Dead developed from a tradition of funerary manuscripts dating back to the Egyptian Old Kingdom. The first funerary texts were the Pyramid Texts, first used in the Pyramid of King Unas of the 5th dynasty, around 2400 BCE.[5] These texts were written on the walls of the burial chambers within pyramids, and were exclusively for the use of the Pharaoh (and, from the 6th dynasty, the Queen). The Pyramid Texts were written in an unusual hieroglyphic style; many of the hieroglyphs representing humans or animals were left incomplete or drawn mutilated, most likely to prevent them causing any harm to the dead pharaoh.The purpose of the Pyramid Texts was to help the dead King take his place amongst the gods, in particular to reunite him with his divine father Ra; at this period the afterlife was seen as being in the sky, rather than the underworld described in the Book of the Dead.Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts ceased to be an exclusively royal privilege, and were adopted by regional governors and other high-ranking officials.
In the Middle Kingdom, a new funerary text emerged, the Coffin Texts. The Coffin Texts used a newer version of the language, new spells, and included illustrations for the first time. The Coffin Texts were most commonly written on the inner surfaces of coffins, though they are occasionally found on tomb walls or on papyri. The Coffin Texts were available to wealthy private individuals, vastly increasing the number of people who could expect to participate in the afterlife; a process which has been described as the "democratization of the afterlife".
The Book of the Dead first developed in Thebes toward the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period, around 1700 BCE. The earliest known occurrence of the spells included in the Book of the Dead is from the coffin of Queen Mentuhotep, of the 13th dynasty, where the new spells were included amongst older texts known from the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts. Some of the spells introduced at this time claim an older provenance; for instance the rubric to spell 30B states that it was discovered by the Prince Hordjedef in the reign of King Menkaure, many hundreds of years before it is attested in the archaeological record.
By the 17th dynasty, the Book of the Dead had become widespread not only for members of the royal family, but courtiers and other officials as well. At this stage, the spells were typically inscribed on linen shrouds wrapped around the dead, though occasionally they are found written on coffins or on papyrus.
The New Kingdom saw the Book of the Dead develop and spread further. The famous Spell 125, the 'Weighing of the Heart', is first known from the reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, c.1475 BCE. From this period onward the Book of the Dead was typically written on a papyrus scroll, and the text illustrated with vignettes. During the 19th dynasty in particular, the vignettes tended to be lavish, sometimes at the expense of the surrounding text.
In the Third Intermediate Period, the Book of the Dead started to appear in hieratic script, as well as in the traditional hieroglyphics. The hieratic scrolls were a cheaper version, lacking illustration apart from a single vignette at the beginning, and were produced on smaller papyri. At the same time, many burials used additional funerary texts, for instance the Amduat.
During the 25th and 26th dynasties, the Book of the Dead was updated, revised and standardised. Spells were consistently ordered and numbered for the first time. This standardised version is known today as the 'Saite recension', after the Saite (26th) dynasty. In the Late period and Ptolemaic period, the Book of the Dead remained based on the Saite recension, though increasingly abbreviated towards the end of the Ptolemaic period. New funerary texts appeared, including the Book of Breathing and Book of Traversing Eternity. The last use of the Book of the Dead was in the 1st century BCE, though some artistic motifs drawn from it were still in use in Roman times.The Book of the Dead is made up of a number of individual texts and their accompanying illustrations. Most sub-texts begin with the word ro, which can mean "mouth," "speech," "spell," "utterance," "incantation," or "a chapter of a book." This ambiguity reflects the similarity in Egyptian thought between ritual speech and magical power. In the context of the Book of the Dead, it is typically translated as either "chapter" or "spell." In this article, the word "spell" is used.
At present, some 192 spells are known,though no single manuscript contains them all. They served a range of purposes. Some are intended to give the deceased mystical knowledge in the afterlife, or perhaps to identify them with the gods: for instance, Spell 17 is an obscure and lengthy description of the god Atum. Others are incantations to ensure the different elements of the dead person's being were preserved and reunited, and to give the deceased control over the world around him. Still others protect the deceased from various hostile forces or guide him through the underworld past various obstacles. Famously, two spells also deal with the judgement of the deceased in the Weighing of the Heart ritual.
Such spells as 26 - 30, and sometimes spells 6 and 126, relate to the heart and were inscribed on scarabs.
The texts and images of the Book of the Dead were magical as well as religious. Magic was as legitimate an activity as praying to the gods, even when the magic was aimed at controlling the gods themselves.Indeed, there was little distinction for the Ancient Egyptians between magical and religious practice. The concept of magic (heka) was also intimately linked with the spoken and written word. The act of speaking a ritual formula was an act of creation; there is a sense in which action and speech were one and the same thing. The magical power of words extended to the written word. Hieroglyphic script was held to have been invented by the god Thoth, and the hieroglyphs themselves were powerful. Written words conveyed the full force of a spell.This was even true when the text was abbreviated or omitted, as often occurred in later Book of the Dead scrolls, particularly if the accompanying images were present. The Egyptians also believed that knowing the name of something gave power over it; thus, the Book of the Dead equips its owner with the mystical names of many of the entities he would encounter in the afterlife, giving him power over them.
The spells of the Book of the Dead made use of several magical techniques which can also be seen in other areas of Egyptian life. A number of spells are for magical amulets, which would protect the deceased from harm. In addition to being represented on a Book of the Dead papyrus, these spells appeared on amulets wound into the wrappings of a mummy. Everyday magic made use of amulets in huge numbers. Other items in direct contact with the body in the tomb, such as headrests, were also considered to have amuletic value. A number of spells also refer to Egyptian beliefs about the magical healing power of saliva.
Organization
Almost every Book of the Dead was unique, containing a different mixture of spells drawn from the corpus of texts available. For most of the history of the Book of the Dead there was no defined order or structure. In fact, until Paul Barguet's 1967 "pioneering study" of common themes between texts,Egyptologists concluded there was no internal structure at all. It is only from the Saite period (26th dynasty) onwards that there is a defined order.
The Books of the Dead from the Saite period tend to organize the Chapters into four sections:
Chapters 1–16* The deceased enters the tomb and descends to the underworld, and the body regains its powers of movement and speech.
Chapters 17–63 Explanation of the mythic origin of the gods and places. The deceased is made to live again so that he may arise, reborn, with the morning sun.
Chapters 64–129 The deceased travels across the sky in the sun ark as one of the blessed dead. In the evening, the deceased travels to the underworld to appear before Osiris.
Chapters 130–189 Having been vindicated, the deceased assumes power in the universe as one of the gods. This section also includes assorted chapters on protective amulets, provision of food, and important places.
Egyptian concepts of death and afterlife
A vignette in The Papyrus of Ani, from Spell 30B: Spell For Not Letting Ani's Heart Create Opposition Against Him, in the Gods' Domain, which contains a depiction of the ba of the deceased
The spells in the Book of the Dead depict Egyptian beliefs about the nature of death and the afterlife. The Book of the Dead is a vital source of information about Egyptian beliefs in this area.
Preservation
One aspect of death was the disintegration of the various kheperu, or modes of existence.Funerary rituals served to re-integrate these different aspects of being. Mummification served to preserve and transform the physical body into sah, an idealised form with divine aspects;the Book of the Dead contained spells aimed at preserving the body of the deceased, which may have been recited during the process of mummification.The heart, which was regarded as the aspect of being which included intelligence and memory, was also protected with spells, and in case anything happened to the physical heart, it was common to bury jewelled heart scarabs with a body to provide a replacement. The ka, or life-force, remained in the tomb with the dead body, and required sustenance from offerings of food, water and incense. In case priests or relatives failed to provide these offerings, Spell 105 ensured the ka was satisfied.The name of the dead person, which constituted their individuality and was required for their continued existence, was written in many places throughout the Book, and spell 25 ensured the deceased would remember their own name.The ba was a free-ranging spirit aspect of the deceased. It was the ba, depicted as a human-headed bird, which could "go forth by day" from the tomb into the world; spells 61 and 89 acted to preserve it.[33] Finally, the shut, or shadow of the deceased, was preserved by spells 91, 92 and 188. If all these aspects of the person could be variously preserved, remembered, and satiated, then the dead person would live on in the form of an akh. An akh was a blessed spirit with magical powers who would dwell among the gods.
Afterlife
The nature of the afterlife which the dead person enjoyed is difficult to define, because of the differing traditions within Ancient Egyptian religion. In the Book of the Dead, the dead were taken into the presence of the god Osiris, who was confined to the subterranean Duat. There are also spells to enable the ba or akh of the dead to join Ra as he travelled the sky in his sun-barque, and help him fight off Apep. As well as joining the Gods, the Book of the Dead also depicts the dead living on in the 'Field of Reeds', a paradisiac likeness of the real world.The Field of Reeds is depicted as a lush, plentiful version of the Egypt of the living. There are fields, crops, oxen, people and waterways. The deceased person is shown encountering the Great Ennead, a group of gods, as well as his or her own parents. While the depiction of the Field of Reeds is pleasant and plentiful, it is also clear that manual labour is required. For this reason burials included a number of statuettes named shabti, or later ushebti. These statuettes were inscribed with a spell, also included in the Book of the Dead, requiring them to undertake any manual labour that might be the owner's duty in the afterlife. It is also clear that the dead not only went to a place where the gods lived, but that they acquired divine characteristics themselves. In many occasions, the deceased is mentioned as "The Osiris – [Name]" in the Book of the Dead.
Two 'gate spells'. On the top register, Ani and his wife face the 'seven gates of the House of Osiris'. Below, they encounter ten of the 21 'mysterious portals of the House of Osiris in the Field of Reeds'. All are guarded by unpleasant protectors.
The path to the afterlife as laid out in the Book of the Dead was a difficult one. The deceased was required to pass a series of gates, caverns and mounds guarded by supernatural creatures.These terrifying entities were armed with enormous knives and are illustrated in grotesque forms, typically as human figures with the heads of animals or combinations of different ferocious beasts. Their names—for instance, "He who lives on snakes" or "He who dances in blood"—are equally grotesque. These creatures had to be pacified by reciting the appropriate spells included in the Book of the Dead; once pacified they posed no further threat, and could even extend their protection to the dead person. Another breed of supernatural creatures was 'slaughterers' who killed the unrighteous on behalf of Osiris; the Book of the Dead equipped its owner to escape their attentions. As well as these supernatural entities, there were also threats from natural or supernatural animals, including crocodiles, snakes, and beetles.
Judgment
The Weighing of the Heart ritual, shown in the Book of the Dead of Sesostris
If all the obstacles of the Duat could be negotiated, the deceased would be judged in the "Weighing of the Heart" ritual, depicted in Spell 125. The deceased was led by the god Anubis into the presence of Osiris. There, the dead person swore that he had not committed any sin from a list of 42 sins,[44] reciting a text known as the "Negative Confession". Then the dead person's heart was weighed on a pair of scales, against the goddess Maat, who embodied truth and justice. Maat was often represented by an ostrich feather, the hieroglyphic sign for her name.At this point, there was a risk that the deceased's heart would bear witness, owning up to sins committed in life; Spell 30B guarded against this eventuality. If the scales balanced, this meant the deceased had led a good life. Anubis would take them to Osiris and they would find their place in the afterlife, becoming maa-kheru, meaning "vindicated" or "true of voice".If the heart was out of balance with Maat, then another fearsome beast called Ammit, the Devourer, stood ready to eat it and put the dead person's afterlife to an early and unpleasant end.
This scene is remarkable not only for its vividness but as one of the few parts of the Book of the Dead with any explicit moral content. The judgment of the dead and the Negative Confession were a representation of the conventional moral code which governed Egyptian society. For every "I have not..." in the Negative Confession, it is possible to read an unexpressed "Thou shalt not".While the Ten Commandments of Judeo-Christian ethics are rules of conduct laid down by a perceived divine revelation, the Negative Confession is more a divine enforcement of everyday morality.[49] Views differ among Egyptologists about how far the Negative Confession represents a moral absolute, with ethical purity being necessary for progress to the Afterlife. John Taylor points out the wording of Spells 30B and 125 suggests a pragmatic approach to morality; by preventing the heart from contradicting him with any inconvenient truths, it seems that the deceased could enter the afterlife even if their life had not been entirely pure.Ogden Goelet says "without an exemplary and moral existence, there was no hope for a successful afterlife",while Geraldine Pinch suggests that the Negative Confession is essentially similar to the spells protecting from demons, and that the success of the Weighing of the Heart depended on the mystical knowledge of the true names of the judges rather than on the deceased's moral behaviour.
Producing a Book of the Dead
Part of the Book of the Dead of Pinedjem II. The text is hieratic, except for hieroglyphics in the vignette. The use of red pigment, and the joins between papyrus sheets, are also visible.
A close-up of the Papyrus of Ani, showing the cursive hieroglyphs of the text
A Book of the Dead papyrus was produced to order by scribes. They were commissioned by people in preparation for their own funeral, or by the relatives of someone recently deceased. They were expensive items; one source gives the price of a Book of the Dead scroll as one deben of silver,[51] perhaps half the annual pay of a labourer.Papyrus itself was evidently costly, as there are many instances of its re-use in everyday documents, creating palimpsests. In one case, a Book of the Dead was written on second-hand papyrus.
Most owners of the Book of the Dead were evidently part of the social elite; they were initially reserved for the royal family, but later papyri are found in the tombs of scribes, priests and officials. Most owners were men, and generally the vignettes included the owner's wife as well. Towards the beginning of the history of the Book of the Dead, there are roughly 10 copies belonging to men for every one for a woman. However, during the Third Intermediate Period, 2/3 were for women; and women owned roughly a third of the hieratic paypri from the Late and Ptolemaic Periods.
The dimensions of a Book of the Dead could vary widely; the longest is 40m long while some are as short as 1m. They are composed of sheets of papyrus joined together, the individual papyri varying in width from 15 cm to 45 cm. The scribes working on Book of the Dead papyri took more care over their work than those working on more mundane texts; care was taken to frame the text within margins, and to avoid writing on the joints between sheets. The words peret em heru, or 'coming forth by day' sometimes appear on the reverse of the outer margin, perhaps acting as a label.
Books were often prefabricated in funerary workshops, with spaces being left for the name of the deceased to be written in later.For instance, in the Papyrus of Ani, the name "Ani" appears at the top or bottom of a column, or immediately following a rubric introducing him as the speaker of a block of text; the name appears in a different handwriting to the rest of the manuscript, and in some places is mis-spelt or omitted entirely.
The text of a New Kingdom Book of the Dead was typically written in cursive hieroglyphs, most often from left to right, but also sometimes from right to left. The hieroglyphs were in columns, which were separated by black lines – a similar arrangement to that used when hieroglyphs were carved on tomb walls or monuments. Illustrations were put in frames above, below, or between the columns of text. The largest illustrations took up a full page of papyrus.
From the 21st Dynasty onward, more copies of the Book of the Dead are found in hieratic script. The calligraphy is similar to that of other hieratic manuscripts of the New Kingdom; the text is written in horizontal lines across wide columns (often the column size corresponds to the size of the papyrus sheets of which a scroll is made up). Occasionally a hieratic Book of the Dead contains captions in hieroglyphic.
The text of a Book of the Dead was written in both black and red ink, regardless of whether it was in hieroglyphic or hieratic script. Most of the text was in black, with red ink used for the titles of spells, opening and closing sections of spells, the instructions to perform spells correctly in rituals, and also for the names of dangerous creatures such as the demon Apep. The black ink used was based on carbon, and the red ink on ochre, in both cases mixed with water.
The style and nature of the vignettes used to illustrate a Book of the Dead varies widely. Some contain lavish colour illustrations, even making use of gold leaf. Others contain only line drawings, or one simple illustration at the opening.
Book of the Dead papyri were often the work of several different scribes and artists whose work was literally pasted together. It is usually possible to identify the style of more than one scribe used on a given manuscript, even when the manuscript is a shorter one.The text and illustrations were produced by different scribes; there are a number of Books where the text was completed but the illustrations were left empty.
" ...the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are." [Pessoa]
IP again, actually.
At precisely 06:30am on 2nd September 1982 the signal is pulled off and very shortly the March Whitemoor Yard to Norwich wagonload freight service rounds the curve over the level crossing and through Brandon station, on the edge of the Thetford Forest. On this splendid late summer's morning, Toton-allocated 'Peak' class 45 No.45005 was in charge, with the second man in the process of enjoying his brew.
© Gordon Edgar - All rights reserved. Please do not use my images without my explicit permission
Photograph taken at an altitude of Seven metres, in the magic of the Golden hour around sunrise at 05:31am, (sunrise was at precisely 06.15am) on Saturday 6th September 2014 off the Patricia Bay Highway 17, on Lochside Drive close to Frost Avenue and the Lochside Waterfront Park, in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Here, I am standing beside the wooden decked viewing platform, looking over towards Mt Baker in Washington State, USA from beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Also known as Koma Kulshan, she is an active glaciated andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington State in the United States, standing 3,286 metres tall and was first ascended in 1868, her last eruption recorded in 1880.
These Canada Geese, along with many other small groups (known as a Skein of geese), fly across the lake from East to West every morning and back again every evening at Sunset, and I love to watch the classic Vee formations and listen to the honking as they pass me by.
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Nikon D800 116mm 1/500s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED IF VRII. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 15.80s
LONGITUDE: W 123d 24m 12.85s
ALTITUDE: 7.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 14.65MB
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Processing power:
HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
Precisely on time, Amtrak's Los Angeles-bound Southwest Chief leaves the Chicago skyline behind as it departs from Union Station. Oh, to have been here during the glory years!
October 13, 2013
I probably would have seriously considered SRS surgery though if I was 25 years younger! And I definitely would have pursued it more aggressively in high school if things were like they are now.
Nothing brings tranquility better than satisfaction. Nothing brings satisfaction than getting precisely what you want. Nothing gets what you want but hard work. Hard work cant produce results unless its fun doing that. Which is precisely what i did all day today. A fantastic shoot with two friends. Too much fun was had and lots of pictures shot.
I'll be uploading a few good ones shortly...
Canon EOS 400D with the Canon EF 50Mm F/1.4 USM. Manual, F/2.8 at 1/80th of a Sec, ISO100.
All Rights Reserved. Owner and Usage Rights belongs to Dilip Muralidaran. Any use of this work in hard or soft copy or transfer must be done with the expressed consent of Dilip Muralidaran in written. Failing to do so will result in violation as per Section 63 of the Indian Copyrights Act, 1957 & Forgery, Fraud, Misrepresentation and Misinformation as per the Indian Penal Code Section 420 leading to severe legal consequences.
Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty three metres, in the thick blanket of mist prior to the magic of the Golden Hour around sunrise (Sunrise was at precisely 04:42am), at 03:28am on Thursday 19th June 2014 off Lullingstone Lane beside the Lullingstone Roman Villa, looking towards Eynsford Viaduct in the village of Eynsford, Kent, England.
Just to the right you can see the Eynsford Viaduct. This impressive nine-arched red-brick viaduct is a prominent feature on the line to the 'Bat & Ball' station. The structure was built by the independent ''Sevenoaks Railway'', incorporated in 1859 to link the ''Chatham'' main line with the market town of Sevenoaks. And first services began on 2nd June 1862. The viaduct has nine arches of 30-foot span, and rises to a height of 75-feet above the valley and the River Darent.
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Nikon D800 70mm 1/25s f/5.6 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Mirror up. Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering.Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED IF VRII. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 21m 52.13s
LONGITUDE: E 0d 11m 48.60s
ALTITUDE: 53.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED FILE: 9.77MB
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Processing power:
HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.90 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
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EXPLORE # 318
Good conditions this morning created interesting reflections and light patterns around Steven Proud's wonderful and very fast ocean racing yacht "Swish" as it rested at its mooring in the placid early morning waters of Sydney Harbour.
I've sailed long ocean races on Swish with Steve, and his boat is as much a joy to sail as it is to photograph.
Nikon d80, Nikon 300mm lens, ISO 100, 1/1000@f7.1
Just as explained earlier by John, here's something with regard to the Telluric Energy : THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCATION OF YOUR BED OF YOUR DESKTOP OR YOUR FAVORITE CHAIR
Have ever heard about the checkerboard that covers the entire Earth surface? this checkerboard is composed of multiple different invisible walls. When two of these walls intersect, resulting in a disruptive effect on EVERYTHING that is in its path.
So, if you are sleeping just below one of these crosses, you gradually drain your energy while you sleep rather than refuel. The same is true if you work or if you are watching TV for long hours, precisely the spot where find such crossings called "KNOTS HARTMANN." NŒUDS HARTMANN in French.
Thus, when the position of one of these nodes is juxtaposed with the location of your bed, it is possible to detect the exact location of this cross touches your body. It can be located on your lungs, your throat, your pool or any other place. It therefore follows that a particular organ in directly affected.
Sacred places and ancient temples harness natural forces.
The Earth is one giant magnet. Flux lines enter through the north pole, flow down the spinal cord of the planet, exiting out the south pole and returning to the north. This perpetual loop resembles an invisible apple, the Earth its core. But observed from further afield the magnetosphere encircling the Earth gives the overall appearance of a giant spider. Interestingly, many ancient cultures associate the spider with creation myths, as it seems to have the ability to create its own world, and its symbol has been used in ancient art, from pottery to petroglyphs.
That's the bigger picture. But when magnetic lines of energy float along the face of the Earth they acquire a new and practical purpose.
Back in the days when humans were closer to nature, they possessed the ability to see such subtle forces. Aboriginal cultures still practise this art, and it is not uncommon for the people of Australia to see and walk these cosmic conveyor belts as though they are visible to the naked eye. They call them ‘song lines’ because the Aborigenes sing melodies as they walk the lines. And just like a strip of cassette tape, their song is recorded, and heard by the next person who comes along. This technique, which is tens of thousands of years old, allows the pathways to be remembered and recharged.
That is an important idea thegroup has pointed out. Yes indeed, it is very essential to place the bed or the favourite chair at an position which optimizes the flow of energy within a room. It is a bad idea to place the bed at a corner of a room because that angle (90 degree) creates energy lock, and this can have adverse effect on the health. It is best to the bed is somewhere in the middle of a wall. Some people also put a glass beneath their bed in order to deflect malignant energies that may be coming from the ground where their bedroom is located, but I see this as an unnecessary undertaking. Better change places than going through such procedures.
At the end of the day, I think that the best thing to do is to make sure that your house, your work place or any other place where you regularly spend a significant amount of your daily time is not situated at an unhealthy energy spot in the first place. If you feel like it is, then you may want to consider moving out of that place, or taking appropriate protective measures, without however being overly obsessed by (or resonate with) fear. Just do what you can, and let nature take care of the rest.
It may also be important to avoid doing certain types of jobs such as working in a coal mine, or in a nuclear facility for instance, as those places concentrate large amount of unhealthy energies which negatively affect the physical/mental/emotional fabric of all the people working around it. Above all, allow your common sense indicate to you places that may appear to be healthy and others that are unhealthy. This is why you need to listen to your gut feeling about the state of your environment and take appropriate actions.
The song lines are known by many other names around the world. To the Chinese they are Lung Mei, the dragon lines; to the Celts they are the fairy paths, and many other cultures refer to them as serpent lines or spirit roads. And where these terrestrial currents interact with geomagnetism, scientists call these hotspots 'conductivity discontinuities. The Sioux call them by a more memorable name, skan.
Throughout the world, the serpent as the fertilizing energy of the earth is a symbol as old as language, perhaps older. The eternal relationship between the telluric forces of the Earth, which seek to work in harmony with humans, and vice versa, is immortalized in the tale of Adam and Eve when they meet the serpent at a location where perfection exists, the garden of Eden — paradise.
Like all myths, the story is a metaphor. When Adam and Eve come to ‘eat the apple' they come to understand the inner workings of nature, they become as gods.
When it banished the sacred feminine from its paternal monopoly, the Catholic church turned this concept upside down: the serpent become synonymous with evil, and eating the apple of wisdom— that is, gaining knowledge of the mechanics of the Universe— brought with it expulsion from the goodness of God.
The repercussions of this negation of natural laws are only too easy to see today, in the wanton destruction of the environment. For nearly two thousand years the human mind has been so conditioned as to work against the very body from which it was born, like a tree chopping off its own limbs.
The serpent is rather an apt description of the behaviour of electro-magnetic forces, because these invisible rivers do meander along the landscape. Neolithic peoples had no trouble following the course of the dragon lines, and they would harness their subtle forces for accessing more refined states of awareness. But as people began to lose that connection so the need grew for remembering these hotspots.
So began the era of standing stones, stone circles, dolmens and other edifices of stone. According to French archaeologists Merle and Diot “all such sacred sites are located at intersecting lines of magnetic energy”. In essence, Neolithic architects were performing a kind of Earth acupuncture, rooting the serpentine lines to the spot. Today, these places are not just potent in electro-magnetism, they are also still places of veneration, because the effect on the human energy field is profound.
This relationship remains at the core of esoteric and pagan practices (a pagan is 'someone who lives in the country'). Visiting such places when one is sick or in need of rejuvenation is a tradition that still endures, despite attempts by the emerging church to ban such practices. At one time, women caught facilitating childbirth at sacred sites, even enhancing their menstrual cycles, would be made to fast for three years. Some were not as lucky: after torture and rape, they were burned alive.
However, despite such extreme measures, sacred sites were deemed essential to the proper flow of life that their veneration was never successfully outlawed. Even by the Victorian era, many doctors would send patients to ancient temples, particularly holy wells, because of their inherent curative properties.
This was not lost on the modern medical world. The Egyptian symbol of the winged serpents wrapped around a standing stone is today the logo of the medical industry.
www.invisibletemple.com/telluric-currents-and-the-earth-f...
As I said in The Summoning I think that rituals and secret practices are often the expressions of the hidden forces at a certain place. It is an interesting thought that these gods are an expression of a psychic and telluric force rather than universal beings, which are usually imagined as celestial beings. However, if we look at ancient and even Christian tradition it makes sense. There are many saints which are special and have some sort of “local identity”.
The most interesting thought by Evan-Wentz is that not only the locals but the visitors, the new settlers, the intruder comes under influence of these gods.
Evan-Wentz writes in Masked Gods: “They had confronted here that great psychic entity which was the spirit-of-place, the heart of a new continent. It shattered them completely. But each succumbed in a different way”.
I believe that is what often also folk horror stories are about. It’s not only a potential confrontation with the locals but the visitor comes under influence of the landscape and its psychic forces. These forces find expression in paranormal phenomena but not necessarily.
Evan-Wentz reported that he heard about “shining beings”, which appeared to the Indians in California on sacred mountains which were very similar like the encounter the founder of the “Church Of Latter-Day”, Joseph Smith, had. It seems that in the new world resides a powerful psychic force, which triggers people to change in a certain way. It tends to create its own kind of belief-system. The otherworldliness of the new world is a different one as in Europe or Asia.
Sometimes it is all about atmosphere and a sort of hidden influence felt by visitors or by inhabitants. Often we can’t lay our finger on it. It’s difficult to describe what it exactly is, but we know it is there. Imagining these psychic forces as gods is a logical way to give these forces some face. In stories, it’s a challenge because if you want to stick true to otherworldy realities you might not have a Bigfoot-like monster or an ax-swinging madman as an antagonist. Therefore it’s sometimes difficult to explain the story.
Often we deal with’s what left of paranormal events a long time ago. Some supernatural-god-like force left its footprint on the landscape and the local population. Wonders and unexplainable mind-shattering events lead to weird belief-systems. Maybe the spiritual entity is already gone for a long time. But what happened is alive in a tribal memory.
If we look deeper into this, we are confronted with more mind-boggling questions: How could it be the place, the landscape? Why does it happen? My opinion is it even we not necessarily find a paranormal element either in a true story or legend or a fictional story it always tells us that there must be some sort of otherworld. It means there is an otherworld even more powerful than we think: our literal world, the landscapes, the forests, the mountains are more or less the surface on a windows-screen. The real world lies beneath. The otherworld carries our world.
And why? Maybe there is a spiritual control system. One favorite theory of Valleé and other ufologists is that men are the object of a control system engaged by invisible gods.
In the same chapter in “Dimensions” Jacques Valleé mentions a former Jesuit priest who implied in conversations with Vallee that “the “phenomenon originates with entities that manipulate our reality and our destiny for their own purposes”(Dimensions).
But what do we know? We can only develop our models or speculate what’s going on but the enormous impact both of real stories and fiction dealing with “the local gods” make us sure of the underlying truth.
In fairy tales the trap is a very prominently motive. Writers were fascinated by these folclore stories. There are famous works particularly in the period of romanticism. An example which was described earlier is the “Runenberg“.
Another well-known trap is the court of venus, “Venusberg”. These traps lure the wanderer into another realm. The man who can’t resist will finally lose everything.
These kind of “erotic traps” use temptation. Of course, this is something which works very well in a number of stories.
However it’s indeed primary a literal motive not a very realistic one.
We don’t expect a beautiful fairy queen tempting us to walk straight into a rift in time and space when we enter the woods.
Otherworldly traps are perhaps something which works in a more subtle way. Nevertheless these kind of traps could be very powerful and dangerous.
It seems that there are places in this world were people lose their orientation or get depressed. The perfect description of this kind of otherworldly trap could be found in Algernoon Blackwood’s “The Willows” where two wanderers get maddened by a supernatural force and one of them is close to committing suicide.
“The Willows” is also a fictional supernatural tale but what happens could be closer to what’s really going on. Every year a number of hikers vanish mysteriously. In most cases there are very rational explanations for what has happened with these persons, but some cases remain unsolved. There are areas which have a reputation for this like “The Bennington Triangle”. According to the Indians the woods are cursed in this territory in Vermont.
I think there are two ways to make you losing your wits. If there are forces which could look deeply into the soul of a person these forces will find the weak spot. They will hit you on the most personal level. The other way is showing you disturbing things, things which are somehow not right, something like H.P. Lovecraft’s “Color From Outer Space”.
These kind of phenomena exist. There were described for example in “Dangerous Lights”. Obviously, they act more on a psychological level. They are happen in a realm somewhere in-between the physical world and the inner-life of a person.
Getting into the mind of a person is the most efficient way how a trap could work. The purpose of the trap it to break somebody’s will. Without a strong will we are an easy prey for whatever lurks in the forest. As soon as we are depressed and disoriented we’re lost. Sometimes the victim returns but is changed forever.
Peter Weir’s famous movie “Picnic at Hanging Rock” describes the mysterious disappearance of a group of girls in the Australian outback. One of the victims returns but cannot describe what happened. The girl is changed and cannot remember anything.
The movie is based on a novel which is fiction but played around with the “based on a true story” pattern. The ending was left open for interpretation but the otherworldy quality of the “Hanging rock”, which exists, is a dominant motive. There are hints that it is the special quality or power of place itself which is responsible for the events.
Photograph taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise (Sunrise was at precisely 07:46am), at an altitude of One metres, at 07:53am on Tuesday December 9th 2014 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.
I have come to Botany Bay ever since I was a child, and I love the fact that every visit is different, with the tide depositing and collecting chalk stones, debris and seaweed to offer a new experience each time. The cave is a favourite place, big enough to sit and watch the world go by, and often featuring a plethora of items, driftwood and stones that the tide has a care to offer.
A very chilly morning on the beach, around One degree, and a bracing wind that pounded flesh and bones, but well worth the one and a half hour journey there to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.
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Nikon D800 14mm 1/5s f/10.0 iso100 RAW (14Bit) Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED IF. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 15.49s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 29.95s
ALTITUDE: 1.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 18.57MB
Processing power:
HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
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A BIG THANK YOU AND A MUCH NEEDED BREAK
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Time for a recharge of heart and soul as I head Four thousand five hundred miles, one ten hour flight followed by a two hour ferry journey, back to my beloved Canada, and more precisely, the location you see in this photograph, where my family live in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
I will hopefully be extending myself photographically speaking and trying to capture the natural beauty of the location with twilight and sunrise shoots, sunsets and all that's in between. There will be time spent at Adams Lake, Chase, Whistler Blackcomb and the Twin peak exploration, nanoose Bay, Island view beach, Patricia Bay, Victoria & Vancouver along the way and so I won't be posting until I touch down again in the UK.
It's been an incredible experience since joining Flickr for me, winning several major photographic competitions and prizes, appearing Five times in print in Ecoideare Magazine (Italy), the RSC magazine (UK) and Photography week magazine (UK) and Jessops magazine twice, having a photograph exhibited in the Sydney museum, being picked up by Getty Images and Yahoo project weather, having photographs used on Italian, German and Russian lens choosing websites, selling a bunch of photographs along the way, featuring on Flickr Explore Fifty five times, and receiving in excess of Six Million visitors to my site.... something of a surprise to a man so insular and content to follow his own happy pathway, and one has now begun to tail off his exploits and slowly hang up his camera and lenses for good.
So, a huge thank you goes to everyone who has visited me, everyone who has contributed to my enjoyment with comments and support, constructive criticism and tech talk (which I always enjoy). So, friends have taken over my house (hope there will not be too many impromptu raves whilst I'm gone), as British Airways whisk me from Terminal five to be in the land that is my spiritual home... Canada.
Thank you all again, I will be dipping in and out on the computer whilst in Canada but will be in some remote locations with little contact with the outside world (just how I like it) a lot of the time, so I will see you all again in a short while. And if our paths do not meet again, once again, a huge and heartfelt THANK YOU for dropping by, have fun and enjoy life behind the lens as I have for almost five decades now.
Paul
DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES
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Photograph taken at an altitude of Seven metres, in the magic of the Golden hour around sunrise at 06:26am on Friday 27th August 2011 off 1st Street and Bevan Avenue, at the end of the Bevan Avenue Fishing Pier, looking over towards Mt Baker in Washington State, USA from beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Also known as Koma Kulshan, she is an active glaciated andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington State in the United States, standing 3,286 metres tall and was first ascended in 1868, her last eruption recorded in 1880.
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Nikon D700 75mm 1/200s f/11.0 iso200 RAW (14 bit) AF-C continuous focus mode. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF 75-300mm f/4/5-5.6 (1989 35mm film lens). Jessops 62mm UV filter. Hoodman soft viewfinder eyecup. Nikon MB-D10 battery grip. Two EN-EL15 batteries. Manfrotto 055XPro carbon fibre tripod & Manfrotto 327 magnesium pistol grip ball head. Mymemory 32GB class 10 SDHC card. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release.Nikon GP-1 GPS unit
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LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 51.55s
LONGITUDE: W 123d 23m 29.61s
ALTITUDE: 7.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE: 34.60MB
PROCESSED FILE: 6.33MB
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Processing power:
HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.
Photograph taken at an altitude of Seven metres, in the magic of the Golden hour around sunrise at 05:31am, (sunrise was at precisely 06.15am) on Saturday 6th September 2014 off the Patricia Bay Highway 17, on Lochside Drive close to Frost Avenue and the Lochside Waterfront Park, in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Here, I am standing beside the wooden decked viewing platform, looking over towards Mt Baker in Washington State, USA from beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Also known as Koma Kulshan, she is an active glaciated andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington State in the United States, standing 3,286 metres tall and was first ascended in 1868, her last eruption recorded in 1880.
These Canada Geese, along with many other small groups, fly across the lake from East to West every morning and back again every evening at Sunset, and I love to watch the classic Vee formations and listen to the honking as they pass me by. In flight, a group of Geese are called, a Skein.
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Nikon D800 116mm 1/500s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED IF VRII. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 15.80s
LONGITUDE: W 123d 24m 12.85s
ALTITUDE: 7.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 13.80MB
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Processing power:
HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
Photograph taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise (Sunrise was at precisely 07:46am), at an altitude of Zero metres, at 07:35am on Tuesday December 9th 2014 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.
A very chilly morning on the beach, around One degree, and a bracing wind that pounded flesh and bones, but well worth the one and a half hour journey there to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.
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Nikon D800 18mm 1/1.6S f/14.0 iso100 RAW (14Bit) AF-S single point focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED IF. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 15.44s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 30.85s
ALTITUDE: 0.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 23.99MB
Processing power:
HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
Photograph taken at an altitude of Sixty five metres, during the first vestiges of dawn light prior to the magic of the Golden Hour around sunrise (Sunrise was at precisely 04:38am), at 03:54am on Thursday 12th June 2014 off Lullingstone Lane and Eagle Heights in the poppy field beside the Eynsford Viaduct in the village of Eynsford, Kent, England.
This impressive nine-arched red-brick viaduct is a prominent feature on the line to the 'Bat & Ball' station. The structure was built by the independent ''Sevenoaks Railway'', incorporated in 1859 to link the ''Chatham'' main line with the market town of Sevenoaks. And first services began on 2nd June 1862. The viaduct has nine arches of 30-foot span, and rises to a height of 75-feet above the valley and the River Darent.
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Nikon D800 38mm 1/160s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Nikon RC-DC2 remote shutter release. Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering.
Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 22m 4.54s
LONGITUDE: E 0d 11m 51.89s
ALTITUDE: 65.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED FILE: 19.72MB
Processing power:
HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.90 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Church,_Berlin
St. Mary's Church, known in German as the Marienkirche, is a church in Berlin, Germany. It is located on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße (formerly Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße) in central Berlin, near Alexanderplatz. The exact age of the original church site and structure is not precisely known, but it was first mentioned in German chronicles in 1292. It is presumed to date from earlier in the 13th century. The architecture of the building is now largely composed of comparatively modern restoration work which took place in the late 19th century and in the post-war period. The church was originally a Roman Catholic church, but has been a Lutheran Protestant church since the Protestant Reformation and a united Protestant church since the Prussian Union of churches in 1817.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin
Berlin is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3,723,914 (2018) inhabitants make it the second most populous city proper of the European Union after London. The city is one of Germany's 16 federal states. It is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and contiguous with its capital, Potsdam. The two cities are at the center of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which is, with 6,004,857 (2015) inhabitants and an area of 30,370 square km, Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions.
Berlin straddles the banks of the River Spree, which flows into the River Havel (a tributary of the River Elbe) in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree, Havel, and Dahme rivers (the largest of which is Lake Müggelsee). Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. About one-third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers, canals and lakes. The city lies in the Central German dialect area, the Berlin dialect being a variant of the Lusatian-New Marchian dialects.
First documented in the 13th century and situated at the crossing of two important historic trade routes, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417–1701), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), and the Third Reich (1933–1945). Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world. After World War II and its subsequent occupation by the victorious countries, the city was divided; West Berlin became a de facto West German exclave, surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989) and East German territory. East Berlin was declared capital of East Germany, while Bonn became the West German capital. Following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all of Germany.
Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media and science. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations and convention venues. Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination. Significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics.
Berlin is home to world-renowned universities, orchestras, museums, and entertainment venues, and is host to many sporting events. Its Zoological Garden is the most visited zoo in Europe and one of the most popular worldwide. With the world's oldest large-scale movie studio complex, Berlin is an increasingly popular location for international film productions. The city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts and a very high quality of living. Since the 2000s Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernsehturm_Berlin
The Fernsehturm (English: Television Tower) is a television tower in central Berlin, Germany.
Close to Alexanderplatz in Berlin-Mitte, the tower was constructed between 1965-69 by the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It was intended to be both a symbol of Communist power and of Berlin. It remains the latter today, as it is easily visible throughout the central and some suburban districts of Berlin. With its height of 368 metres (including antenna) it is the tallest structure in Germany, and the third-tallest structure in the European Union. Of four tallest structures in Europe, it is 2 m shorter than the Torreta de Guardamar, 0.5 m shorter than the Riga Radio and TV Tower, and 8 m taller than the Trbovlje Power Station in 2017. The structure is also more than 220 metres higher than the old Berlin Radio Tower in the western part of the city, which was built in the 1920s.
In addition to its main function as the location of several radio and television broadcasting stations, the building – internally known as "Fernmeldeturm 32" – serves as a viewing tower with observation deck including a bar at a height of 203 metres, as well as a rotating restaurant. Also, the Berlin TV Tower can be booked as a venue for events. The distinctive city landmark has undergone a radical, symbolic transformation: After German reunification, it changed from a politically charged, national symbol of the GDR into a citywide symbol of a reunited Berlin. Due to its universal and timeless design, it has increasingly been used as a trademark and is identified worldwide with Berlin and Germany. In 1979, the Berlin TV Tower received monument status by the GDR, a status which was perpetuated after the German reunification.
The tower has become one of the most prominent symbols of the country and is often in the establishing shot of films set in Berlin, alongside monuments such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Victory Column and the Reichstag building. It is also one of the ten most popular attractions in Germany with more than 1,000,000 visitors every year. Due to its location near Alexanderplatz, it is occasionally called Alex Tower.
Photograph taken at an altitude of Five metres, in the magic prior to the Golden hour around sunrise at 05:29am, (sunrise was at precisely 06.15am) on Saturday 6th September 2014 off the Patricia Bay Highway 17, on Lochside Drive close to Frost Avenue and the Lochside Waterfront Park, in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Here, I am standing beside the wooden decked viewing platform, looking over from beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
The Great Blue Heron (Ardea Herodias) is a wading bird in the Heron family Ardeidae and found in North America, Central Ameria, the Caribean and Galapagos Islands. One of the largest of Herons, it has a head to tail length of 01-137 centimtres (36-54 inches) and a wingspan of 187-201 centimtres (66-79 inches). They are found where my family live, and naturally very wary of mankind, flying off as soon as you are within fifty to one hundred yards of them.
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Nikon D800 200mm 1/125s f/4.5 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Manual focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED IF VRII. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 15.77s
LONGITUDE: W 123d 24m 12.92s
ALTITUDE: 5.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 11.39MB
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Processing power:
HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
James Stewart ( James Maitland Stewart ) 1908 – 1997)
James Stewart was the movies' quintessential Everyman, a uniquely all-American performer who parlayed his easygoing persona into one of the most successful and enduring careers in film history. On paper, he was anything but the typical Hollywood star: Gawky and tentative, with a pronounced stammer and a folksy "aw-shucks" charm, he lacked the dashing sophistication and swashbuckling heroism endemic among the other major actors of the era. Yet it's precisely the absence of affectation which made Stewart so popular; while so many other great stars seemed remote and larger than life, he never lost touch with his humanity, projecting an uncommon sense of goodness and decency which made him immensely likable and endearing to successive generations of moviegoers....
by Jason Ankeny
*
American Feuillage.
by Walt Whitman
AMERICA always!
Always our own feuillage!
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the
cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas!
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New
Mexico!
Always soft-breath’d Cuba!
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes
drain’d
by the Eastern and Western Seas;
The area the eighty-third year of These States—the three and a half millions of
square
miles;
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main—the thirty
thousand
miles of
river navigation,
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—Always
these,
and
more, branching forth into numberless branches;
Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of Democracy!
Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows;
Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge
oval
lakes;
Always the West, with strong native persons—the increasing density there—the
habitans,
friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;
All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times,
All characters, movements, growths—a few noticed, myriads unnoticed,
Through Mannahatta’s streets I walking, these things gathering;
On interior rivers, by night, in the glare of pine knots, steamboats wooding up;
Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys of the Potomac and
Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke and Delaware;
In their northerly wilds, beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks, the hills—or
lapping
the
Saginaw waters to drink;
In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock, sitting on the water, rocking
silently;
In farmers’ barns, oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done—they rest
standing—they are too tired;
Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play around;
The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail’d—the farthest polar sea, ripply,
crystalline, open, beyond the floes;
White drift spooning ahead, where the ship in the tempest dashes;
On solid land, what is done in cities, as the bells all strike midnight together;
In primitive woods, the sounds there also sounding—the howl of the wolf, the scream
of the
panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk;
In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake—in summer visible through the
clear
waters, the great trout swimming;
In lower latitudes, in warmer air, in the Carolinas, the large black buzzard floating
slowly,
high
beyond the tree tops,
Below, the red cedar, festoon’d with tylandria—the pines and cypresses, growing
out
of the
white sand that spreads far and flat;
Rude boats descending the big Pedee—climbing plants, parasites, with color’d
flowers
and
berries, enveloping huge trees,
The waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the wind;
The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark—the supper-fires, and the cooking and
eating
by
whites and negroes,
Thirty or forty great wagons—the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs,
The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees—the
flames—with
the
black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising;
Southern fishermen fishing—the sounds and inlets of North Carolina’s
coast—the
shad-fishery and the herring-fishery—the large sweep-seines—the windlasses on
shore
work’d by horses—the clearing, curing, and packing-houses;
Deep in the forest, in piney woods, turpentine dropping from the incisions in the
trees—There
are the turpentine works,
There are the negroes at work, in good health—the ground in all directions is
cover’d
with
pine straw:
—In Tennessee and Kentucky, slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by the
furnace-blaze, or
at the corn-shucking;
In Virginia, the planter’s son returning after a long absence, joyfully welcom’d
and
kiss’d by the aged mulatto nurse;
On rivers, boatmen safely moor’d at night-fall, in their boats, under shelter of high
banks,
Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle—others sit on the
gunwale,
smoking and talking;
Late in the afternoon, the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal
Swamp—there are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the
cypress
tree,
and the juniper tree;
—Northward, young men of Mannahatta—the target company from an excursion
returning
home at
evening—the musket-muzzles all bear bunches of flowers presented by women;
Children at play—or on his father’s lap a young boy fallen asleep, (how his lips
move! how
he smiles in his sleep!)
The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the Mississippi—he ascends a
knoll
and
sweeps his eye around;
California life—the miner, bearded, dress’d in his rude costume—the stanch
California
friendship—the sweet air—the graves one, in passing, meets, solitary, just
aside the
horsepath;
Down in Texas, the cotton-field, the negro-cabins—drivers driving mules or oxen
before
rude
carts—cotton bales piled on banks and wharves;
Encircling all, vast-darting, up and wide, the American Soul, with equal
hemispheres—one
Love,
one Dilation or Pride;
—In arriere, the peace-talk with the Iroquois, the aborigines—the calumet, the
pipe
of
good-will, arbitration, and indorsement,
The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward the earth,
The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and guttural exclamations,
The setting out of the war-party—the long and stealthy march,
The single-file—the swinging hatchets—the surprise and slaughter of enemies;
—All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of These States—reminiscences,
all
institutions,
All These States, compact—Every square mile of These States, without excepting a
particle—you also—me also,
Me pleas’d, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok’s fields,
Me, observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies, shuffling between each
other,
ascending high in the air;
The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects—the fall traveler southward, but
returning
northward early in the spring;
The country boy at the close of the day, driving the herd of cows, and shouting to them as
they
loiter to browse by the road-side;
The city wharf—Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, San
Francisco,
The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan;
—Evening—me in my room—the setting sun,
The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the swarm of flies, suspended,
balancing
in the air in the centre of the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift shadows
in
specks
on the opposite wall, where the shine is;
The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners;
Males, females, immigrants, combinations—the copiousness—the individuality of
The
States,
each for itself—the money-makers;
Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces—the windlass, lever, pulley—All
certainties,
The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,
In space, the sporades, the scatter’d islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the
lands, my
lands;
O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whatever it is,) I become a part of that,
whatever it
is;
Southward there, I screaming, with wings slowly flapping, with the myriads of gulls
wintering
along
the coasts of Florida—or in Louisiana, with pelicans breeding;
Otherways, there, atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the
Brazos, the
Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchawan, or the Osage, I with the spring waters
laughing
and
skipping and running;
Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I, with parties of snowy herons
wading in
the wet to seek worms and aquatic plants;
Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the crow with its bill,
for
amusement—And I triumphantly twittering;
The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh themselves—the body
of
the
flock feed—the sentinels outside move around with erect heads watching, and are from
time
to
time reliev’d by other sentinels—And I feeding and taking turns with the rest;
In Kanadian forests, the moose, large as an ox, corner’d by hunters, rising
desperately on
his
hind-feet, and plunging with his fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives—And I,
plunging
at the
hunters, corner’d and desperate;
In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the countless workmen
working in
the
shops,
And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof—and no less in myself than the whole of
the
Mannahatta in itself,
Singing the song of These, my ever united lands—my body no more inevitably united,
part to
part, and made one identity, any more than my lands are inevitably united, and made ONE
IDENTITY;
Nativities, climates, the grass of the great Pastoral Plains;
Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil—these me,
These affording, in all their particulars, endless feuillage to me and to America, how can
I do
less
than pass the clew of the union of them, to afford the like to you?
Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am?
How can I but, as here, chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the
incomparable
feuillage of These States?
_____________________________________________
( manipulated by me, using an original photo of my private colection)
The Temple of Artemis or Artemision (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον; Turkish: Artemis Tapınağı), also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to an ancient, local form of the goddess Artemis. It was located in Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey). It was completely rebuilt three times, and in its final form was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. By 401 AD it had been ruined or destroyed.[1] Only foundations and fragments of the last temple remain at the site.
The earliest version of the temple (a temenos) antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, and dates to the Bronze Age. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed it to the Amazons. In the 7th century BC, it was destroyed by a flood. Its reconstruction, in more grandiose form, began around 550 BC, under the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes. The project was funded by Croesus of Lydia, and took 10 years to complete. This version of the temple was destroyed in 356 BC by Herostratus in an act of arson. The next, greatest and last form of the temple, funded by the Ephesians themselves, is described in Antipater of Sidon's list of the world's
Photograph taken at an altitude of Three metres, in the magic of the Golden hour around sunrise at 05:41am (Sunrise was at precisely 06:12am), on Friday 5th September 2014 off 1st Street, between Bevan Avenue and Beacon Avenue, above the shoreline in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
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Nikon D800 38mm 1/500s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14 bit) Mirror up. AF-S Single point focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF. Jessops 77mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 53.06s
LONGITUDE: W 123d 23m 36.29s
ALTITUDE: 3.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 15.77MB
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Processing power:
HP Pavillion Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. HD graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
Think "Holland" and you've probably already conjured the iconic images of tulips and windmills. More precisely, the very specific windmills you're envisioning right now are that of Kinderdijk.
Though it may sound odd for how technical and pragmatic the region proved to be, the name Kinderdijk translates in Dutch to mean "children's dike." According to local legend, after a particularly terrible flood in the 15th century, a lone basket was left floating in an inundated canal. Upon closer inspection, a cat was found bounding from one side of the basket to the other in an effort to keep it balanced, for inside rested an orphaned baby. The cat had kept the babe afloat, safe and sound during its journey… Thus giving the world the folktale "The Cat and the Cradle" in addition to the village of Kinderdijk its name.
Back in the modern day, visitors will find 19 historically authentic windmills scattered across Kinderdijk's canal-riddled landscape. With their sails raised to the skies (coming to rest in formations that communicate across the bogs in a language of semafors), one could be forgiven for believing these are creatures beholden to the air. What history reveals, in fact, is that the Netherlands' famous windmills are well-disguised creatures of the sea, without which the nation's famously innovative water management system would not have been possible.
Sometime in the 13th century, Zuid-Holland's peat rivers ceased to drain as they had been, creating a pattern of flooding that devastated the beautiful landscape at Alblasserwaard, which already existed below sea level. Berms were built to prevent flooding, but pumping stations needed to be constructed to continue water flow from low to high areas; hence, the 19th windmills still seen today.
Nowhere else in the world offers a complete portrait of early water management like that of Kinderdijk, which accounts for UNESCO's inclusion of the site among its World Heritage as of 1997 for its "unique character." Thanks to its truly groundbreaking unification of sea and sky, plus the added bonus of a world-renowned folktale, a visit to Kinderdijk is the sort of treasure that offers something for dreamers and pragmatists alike. www.atlasobscura.com/places/windmills-of-kinderdijk
"The portal of the former Jesuit college with sculptural decoration by Jan Kašpar Pröbstl. A piece of Baroque architecture, valuable in both architectural and artistic terms.
The portal was transferred to the chancel of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary from its original location - the second, so-called cardinal's courtyard of the Jesuit college. The architecture of the portal was probably created in the 1670s, more precisely after 1673, when Jan Křtitel Ern was recommended to the administrator of the foundation of Countess Johanna Františka Priska Magnisová for the establishment of an educational and training institute for noble girls - Prince Ferdinand Josef Dietrichstein. The prince commissioned Ern with the construction of the institute for noble girls (1674 - 1679) and also, in the role of donor, with the design and implementation of the portal of the Jesuit college. The implementation took place in the years 1687 - 1690, the portal was simultaneously supplemented with sculptural decoration by Jan Kašpar Pröbstl. The cartouche with the Dietrichstein emblems commemorates both one of the greatest supporters of the Brno Jesuits - Cardinal František Dietrichstein (1570–1636), and the donor of, among other things, the portal of the Jesuit college - Prince Ferdinand Josef Dietrichstein (1636–1698). After the abolition of the Jesuit order by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the college premises initially housed an orphanage, and in 1778 the Ferdinand and Tiefenbach Academy, which had been merged the previous year from the former Olomouc Jesuit boarding school, moved here - the "collegium nobilium" ("estate academy"), which is reminiscent of the inscription and the year on the middle cartouche. The name Ferdinand refers to Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg, who in 1624 founded a foundation with its headquarters in the Jesuit boarding school in Olomouc, financed from the income of the Nový Jičín estate. The name Teifeenbach commemorates the personality of Rudolf, the free lord of Teufenbach (Tiefenbach), who in his will of 24 July 1650 stipulated, among other things, that if the holders of the Drnholec estate substituted by him or their male successors by the sword died out, a foundation – a noble knight's school – would be established in Moravia from the estate's income. In April 1762, the owner of the Drnholec estate, František Adam, Count of Trautmannsdorf, died without successors and specific steps regarding the establishment of a noble school began to be discussed. In October 1763, Empress Maria Theresa ordered that the inmates supported by the Drnholec income be divided into several Viennese academies or colleges (Theresianum, Savoy Academy, Military Academy and Löwenburg Convent). The foundation operated in this form until 1777. By a decree of the court office of 18 October 1776, it was decided that the 16 Teufenbach foundation places would be transferred from Vienna to the Olomouc noble boarding school and merged with the Ferdinand Foundation. By a court decree of 2 May 1778, the merged noble academy was transferred to Brno, see the date on the cartouche. A decree of the court office of 5 April 1782 ordered the relocation of the Brno academy to Vienna and its connection with Theresian. After 1782, the premises of the Brno Jesuit college served as barracks and a riding school. In 1904–1906, the entire premises, except for the church, were renovated and the portal was relocated. The resulting area was subsequently built up to its present form.
Portal with a semicircular arched entrance opening with a profiled lintel and acanthus vault, with winged angel heads in the beets. The entrance opening is closed with a wrought iron grille with a motif of scrolls and monograms MRA, IHS and IPH. On both sides, on a plinth decorated with diamond-shaped decoration and provided with an inlaid profiled cornice, there are associated pilasters with a strip bossage. The pilasters are topped with a cornice capital carrying a twisted entablature with a frieze decorated with garlands of flowers and fruit, in the middle a cartouche in an acanthus frame with an angel head at the top, bearing the gilded capital inscription COLLEGIUM / NOBILIUM / FERDINANDEO / TEIFEENBACHIA / NUM / MDCCLXXVIII. Above the cartouche an Austrian double-headed eagle with gilded scepters and a label with the letters MT ("Maria Theresa") on its chest. Above the frieze, a profiled cornice with the gilded date A. MDCXC is inlaid, carrying a segmental pediment that has been bent several times. At the top of the pediment, on a pedestal, stands the archangel Michael dressed in Roman armor, on both sides of the pedestal are cartouches with acanthus frames and the Dietrichstein emblems. The archangel holds the jewels of these emblems in his hands - a cardinal's hat in his right, a princely crown in his left. On the sides, statues of two saints on pedestals - viewed from the left, St. Ignatius of Loyola dressed in a chasuble decorated with a rich floral ornament and the IHS monogram, in his left hand he holds an open book with the gilded inscription AD / MAIO / REM / DEI / GLO / RIAM. Viewed from the right, a statue of St. Francis Xavier dressed in a clerical robe, a rochet and a pluvial with a stole around his neck, in his left hand he holds lilies." - info from the National Heritage Institute.
"The Jesuit Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is located in the Brno-střed district of Brno in the cadastral area of the City of Brno. It is protected as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic.
In the Middle Ages, a nunnery called Cella Sanctae Mariae, professing the order of St. Augustine, stood on this site, which was founded in 1240 by the town wall by the burgher Oldřich Niger and which was called the Herburg Monastery after the first prioress of Herburga. Its Gothic church of the Virgin Mary burned down during construction and was rebuilt in 1280. The monastery ceased to exist in 1578, when the remaining nuns left for Pustiměř and the buildings were handed over to the Jesuits. They created a Jesuit college from the area and began to rebuild the complex. In 1599, they began construction of a new church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the Mannerist style and four years later it was consecrated.
Between 1662 and 1668, the Jesuits who were active there at the time had the church rebuilt and expanded according to the design of Jan Křtitel Erna. In 1732–1733, the church was renovated by another prominent Brno architect, Mořic Grimm, and then the interior was renovated.
The Jesuits abandoned the church and the college after the abolition of the order in 1773. The monastery then served as a barracks and the church as a military church. As part of the renovation of old Brno, the entire area of the Jesuit college was demolished in 1904, leaving only its entrance portal and the entire church. Like many other Brno churches, this one was seriously damaged during the bombing of the city during World War II. However, it was repaired again in the following years.
Brno (/ˈbɜːrnoʊ/ BUR-noh, Czech pronunciation: [ˈbr̩no]; German: Brünn [bʁʏn]) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic after the capital, Prague, and one of the 100 largest cities in the European Union. The Brno metropolitan area has approximately 730,000 inhabitants.
Brno served as the capital of Moravia from the Middle Ages until 1948, and remains the political and cultural hub of the South Moravian Region. Brno is an important centre of the Czech judiciary. The Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office, as well as state authorities, such as the Ombudsman and the Office for the Protection of Competition, are all located here. Brno is also an important centre of learning and higher education, with 10 universities, 29 faculties and a student population of over 65,000, as well as more than 60 secondary schools throughout the city.
The Brno Exhibition Centre is one of the largest in Europe. The complex opened in 1928 and has a long history of hosting international trade fairs and expositions. The Masaryk Circuit has been hosting motorsport events since 1930, including the Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix. Another local tradition is the international fireworks competition and drone show Ignis Brunensis, which attracts over a million visitors annually.
Two medieval landmarks, the historic Špilberk Castle and its fortifications, as well as the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul on Petrov Hill, dominate the cityscape and are seen as Brno's traditional symbols. Another historic landmark is the Veveří Castle near the Brno Reservoir. The Villa Tugendhat, a seminal example of functionalist architecture, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites List in 2001. One of the natural sights outside the city is the Moravian Karst. Brno is a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and was designated a "City of Music" in 2017.
Moravia (Czech: Morava [ˈmorava]; German: Mähren) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The medieval and early modern Margraviate of Moravia was a crown land of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown from 1348 to 1918, an imperial state of the Holy Roman Empire from 1004 to 1806, a crown land of the Austrian Empire from 1804 to 1867, and a part of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. Moravia was one of the five lands of Czechoslovakia founded in 1918. In 1928 it was merged with Czech Silesia, and then dissolved in 1948 during the abolition of the land system following the communist coup d'état.
Its area of 22,623.41 km2 is home to about 3.2 million of the Czech Republic's 10.8 million inhabitants. The people are historically named Moravians, a subgroup of Czechs, the other group being called Bohemians. The land takes its name from the Morava river, which runs from its north to south, being its principal watercourse. Moravia's largest city and historical capital is Brno. Before being sacked by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War, Olomouc served as the Moravian capital, and it is still the seat of the Archdiocese of Olomouc. Until the expulsions after 1945, significant parts of Moravia were German speaking." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis or precisely, the remains of it in its modern appearance.
Built between 447-438 BC (decoration extended until 432) and dedicated to Athene, also Pallas Athene and/or Athene Parthenos, as thanks to the goddess for the Hellenic victory over the Persian Invaders.
The Parthenon was commissioned by the Athenian politician Pericles as a part of a wider building program on the Acropolis to resemble the power and ambitions of Athens within the Delian League and Greece as a whole.
It is considered the most important surviving building of Classical Greece and as the zenith of the Doric order. The Parthenon was further richly ornate with highly detailed Metopes and Pediments as well as the famous Frieze.
Since 1975 the Greek government initiated the restoration of the over 2.500 years old monument. The efforts to restore and conserve this site are a continuing process to the present day.
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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin
Dublin (Irish: Baile Átha Cliath) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. It is on the east coast of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, at the mouth of the River Liffey, and is bordered on the south by the Wicklow Mountains. It has an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the Dublin Region (formerly County Dublin), as of 2016, was 1,347,359, and the population of the Greater Dublin area was 1,904,806.
There is archaeological debate regarding precisely where Dublin was established by the Gaels in or before the 7th century AD. Later expanded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin, the city became Ireland's principal settlement following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800. Following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland.
Dublin is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration and industry. As of 2018 the city was listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as a global city, with a ranking of "Alpha −", which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Guinness
Arthur Guinness (24 September 1725 – 23 January 1803) was an Irish brewer and the founder of the Guinness brewery business and family. He was also an entrepreneur and philanthropist.
At 27, in 1752, Guinness's godfather Arthur Price, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Cashel, bequeathed him £100 in his will. Guinness invested the money and in 1755 had a brewery at Leixlip, just 17 km from Dublin. In 1759, Guinness went to the city and set up his own business. He took a 9,000-year lease on the 4-acre (16,000 m2) brewery at St. James's Gate from the descendants of Sir Mark Rainsford for an annual rent of £45.
Guinness's flowery red signature is still copied on every label of bottled Guinness.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_Storehouse
Guinness Storehouse is a tourist attraction at St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. Since opening in 2000, it has received over four million visitors.
The Storehouse covers seven floors surrounding a glass atrium shaped in the form of a pint of Guinness. The ground floor introduces the beer's four ingredients (water, barley, hops and yeast), and the brewery's founder, Arthur Guinness. Other floors feature the history of Guinness advertising and include an interactive exhibit on responsible drinking. The seventh floor houses the Gravity Bar with views of Dublin and where visitors may drink a pint of Guinness included in the price of admission, which was €18.50 on 15 October 2018 with discounts depending on dates and times, described as "overpriced" by Condé Nast Traveler. In 2006, a new wing opened incorporating a live installation of the present-day brewing process.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_Brewery
St. James's Gate Brewery (Irish: Grúdlann Gheata Naomh Séamuis) is a brewery founded in 1759 in Dublin, Ireland, by Arthur Guinness. The company is now a part of Diageo, a British company formed from the merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan in 1997. The main product of the brewery is Guinness Draught.
Originally leased in 1759 to Arthur Guinness at IR£45 (Irish pounds) per year for 9,000 years, the St. James's Gate area has been the home of Guinness ever since. It became the largest brewery in Ireland in 1838, and the largest in the world by 1886, with an annual output of 1.2 million barrels. Although no longer the largest brewery in the world, it remains as the largest brewer of stout. The company has since bought out the originally leased property, and during the 19th and early 20th centuries the brewery owned most of the buildings in the surrounding area, including many streets of housing for brewery employees, and offices associated with the brewery. The brewery also made all of its own power using its own power plant.
There is an attached exhibition on the 250-year-old history of Guinness, called the Guinness Storehouse.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness
Guinness is a dark Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in 1759. It is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost 50 countries, and available in over 120. Sales in 2011 amounted to 850 million litres (220,000,000 US gal). It is popular with the Irish, both in Ireland and abroad. In spite of declining consumption since 2001, it is still the best-selling alcoholic drink in Ireland where Guinness & Co. Brewery makes almost €2 billion worth annually.
Guinness' burnt flavour derives from malted barley and roasted unmalted barley, a relatively modern development, not becoming part of the grist until the mid-20th century. For many years, a portion of aged brew was blended with freshly brewed beer to give a sharp lactic acid flavour. Although Guinness's palate still features a characteristic "tang", the company has refused to confirm whether this type of blending still occurs. The draught beer's thick, creamy head comes from mixing the beer with nitrogen and carbon dioxide.[6]
The company moved its headquarters to London at the beginning of the Anglo-Irish Trade War in 1932. In 1997, Guinness Plc merged with Grand Metropolitan to form the multinational alcoholic-drinks producer Diageo plc, based out of London.
This larger than life-size Greek bronze statue was found in 1885 on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, along with the ‘Terme Boxer’ bronze. It depicts a powerfully muscled naked young man with a light beard (closeup seen here), reclining on a spear in an intentional copy of Lysippos’ statue of Herakles. It was formerly referred to as the ‘Hellenistic Prince’ but is now thought to represent a Roman general, with Scipio Aemilianus (Scipio Africanus the Younger) being the prime candidate, as it was found very near the location of his villa.
It was February 1885 when the statue of the so-called Hellenistic Prince was unearthed in the foundation walls of an ancient building, at a depth of about six metres. The discovery was made on the western slopes of the Quirinal Hill, in the garden of the ex-Convent of San Silvestro al Quirinale, behind the church of the same name, during excavations on Via IV Novembre for the construction of the National Dramatic Theatre (demolished in 1929; the present building accommodates INAIL, the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work).
Just one month later, behind a second foundation wall of the same structure, the Boxer was extracted from the subsoil, buried under a blanket of sifted earth and resting on a Doric capital which had preserved its sitting position. The circumstances of these spectacular discoveries immediately seemed to suggest that the two Greek sculptures had been deliberately hidden, although their original location in Rome is still unknown, as are the reasons that led to their burial. According to a long tradition of studies, the bronzes once decorated the Baths of Constantine (circa 315 AD, southern slopes of the Quirinal Hill), a complex that is no longer preserved today. The statues are thought to have been removed from the Baths and carefully buried with the aim of safeguarding them from some imminent danger, presumably pillaging. The area of the discovery nonetheless lies several hundred metres from the site of the Baths of Constantine.
Meanwhile, literary sources, antiquity studies and inscriptions found in situ highlight that the area where the statues were found (near the Servian Walls and in a built-up area with urban residences) was also occupied by sacred buildings, including the temple of Semo Sancus, not far from Porta Sanqualis (Largo Magnanapoli), whose ruins lie a short distance from the ex-Convent of San Silvestro al Quirinale. Due to the substantial archaeological gaps existing precisely in the area of the Quirinal Hill where the discoveries were made, it is not possible to formulate a more precise hypothesis regarding the original location of the statues in the vicinity of their hiding places. Furthermore, mystery also surrounds the laying of the bronzes in foundation walls beneath the floor of an ancient building.
The bronze has patinated into a rainbow of colors, from deep green and red, to golden-brown. The latter color was how it looked when new, and there’s some speculation that the hair and other details may have been painted - see the Brinkmanns’ reconstruction for the Frankfurt Liebieghaus Polychromy Research Project (where they identify him as one of the Dioscures - Castor or Pollux). It no longer has its eyes, but they would have been fashioned out of stone and glass, most likely.
Greek, 2nd century BCE, bronze.
Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme
Well, foothills dog more precisely, but with mountains in the background.
As I left for the park yesterday at noon the sky was starting to clear and I was seeing spots of blue. By the time I got to the park clouds had taken over and everything was overcast.
I crancked up the ISO and we still made the best out of it.
Modern Solstice Celebrations at Stonehenge and Almendres by Daniel Arrhakis (2026)
I - Modern Solstice Celebrations at Stonehenge
Today, the English Heritage institution opens the monument to the public with free access on the Summer Solstice (night of June 20-21) and the Winter Solstice (December 21). This is the only time of year when visitors can freely walk around and touch the inside of the stone circle.
The ceremonies are led by neo-Druidic and pagan groups, operating under a very specific dynamic:
The Awakening Ritual: Modern Druids—dressed in their traditional white robes or Celtic cloaks—form concentric circles and play drums, conch shells, and wooden flutes before dawn.
Salutation to the Sun: The climax occurs precisely at the moment the sun rises aligned with the Heel Stone. Druids recite medieval Welsh poems, swear oaths of protection to Mother Earth, and share pomegranates and libations (symbols of rebirth).
Cultural Eclecticism: Although rooted in Druidic tradition, the event attracts a vibrant mix of shamans, yogis, New Age enthusiasts, tourists, and curious onlookers. The atmosphere oscillates between a solemn religious cult and a peaceful community celebration.
Strict Rules: To protect the animistic and archaeological space, the organization prohibits fire, tents, sound amplifiers, and alcohol consumption, keeping the experience focused on a pure connection with nature and the silence of dawn.
Recitations and Oaths
The recitations and oaths uttered by modern Druids at Stonehenge during the solstices are based on the reconstruction and adaptation of ancient Celtic texts, primarily Welsh and Irish.
Although original Druidism was purely oral, these contemporary rituals draw on medieval literature preserved by Christian monks from the 12th century onwards.
Below are the most commonly used practical examples in ceremonies at the Stonehenge stones:
The Cry for Peace (The Opening of the Ritual)
No Druidic ritual can begin without establishing an intention of peace with the spirits of nature and the sacred directions (North, South, East, West). The bard or ritual leader turns to each cardinal point, raises their arms, and proclaims in Welsh and English:
In Welsh: "Heddwch ym mhedwar ban y byd!" Translation: "Peace in the four corners of the world!"
Meaning: This appeal pacifies the spirits of the place (the Genii Locorum or Genius Loci) and ensures that the stone circle becomes a safe space for spiritual communion.
2. Recitation of the Medieval Poem: The Song of Amergin
This is undoubtedly the most iconic text recited during sunrise at Stonehenge. Although its origin is Irish mythology (attributed to the bard Amergin), the text is a pillar of universal Celtic animistic philosophy, where the druid affirms his total fusion with all the living elements of Mother Earth:
"I am the wind that blows over the sea,
I am the ocean wave,
I am the murmur of the waters,
I am the bull of seven battles,
I am the vulture on the rock,
I am a tear of the sun,
I am the most beautiful of plants,
I am the wild boar,
I am the salmon in the water,
I am the lake on the plain..."
Practical action: While these lines are recited in a trance-like state, the druids play a drum in a slow rhythm that mimics the Earth's heartbeat.
3. The Oath of Protection to Mother Earth (The Druid's Prayer)
Originally written in the 18th century by Iolo Morganwg (a central figure in the Welsh Druidic revival) based on medieval concepts, the Druid's Prayer (Gweddi'r Derwydd) is the formal oath sworn at Stonehenge to seal the alliance with nature:
The Traditional Text:
"Grant, O Goddess/God, Thy protection;
And in protection, strength;
And in strength, wisdom;
And in wisdom, knowledge;
And in knowledge, the knowledge of justice;
And in knowledge of justice, the love of it;
And in that love, the love of all existences;
And in love of all existences, the love of Mother Earth and all Creation."
4. The Invocation of Awen (The Sacred Essence)
The poetic and sonic climax occurs at the exact moment the first ray of sunlight touches the central stone of the monument. The entire Druidic congregation joins hands and chants the word AWEN (a medieval Welsh term meaning "divine inspiration" or "fluid breath").
How it is practiced: The word is chanted in a prolonged manner, divided into three distinct and harmonious syllables: Ah-Oh-Wen.
The Effect: The sound echoes among the megaliths of Stonehenge, functioning as a mantra vibration that the Druids believe aligns the energy of human bodies with the energetic frequency of the Earth itself and the cosmos.
II - The Solstice Celebrations in Almendres (Portugal)
The Specific Alignment of the Almendres Menhir
The Almendres Menhir was not erected in isolation in the landscape. It functions as an ancient astronomical "sight" in perfect harmony with the main cromlech.
The alignment is strict and purely solstitial:
The Visual Phenomenon: If an observer stands on top of the Almendres Cromlech enclosure and looks towards the northeast (where the menhir is about 1.4 km away), the imaginary line of sight coincides geometrically with the sunrise on the summer solstice.
The Practical and Spiritual Significance: This alignment transformed the complex into an authentic prehistoric agricultural calendar. On the longest day of the year, when the sun seemed to "rise from above" the menhir, the animist community knew that the earth's ripening cycle had reached its peak and that it was harvest time.
Modern Celebrations in Évora
Similar celebrations and dynamics exist in Évora, although they operate on a much more intimate scale and are markedly different from that of Stonehenge. Unlike the massive event in the United Kingdom, the Alentejo region focuses on two complementary aspects:
1. Spiritual Rituals and Alternative Community
On the dawn of the summer solstice (June 20-21), dozens of people spontaneously gather at the Almendres Cromlech.
The Atmosphere: Groups associated with New Age spirituality, shamanism, neopaganism, and meditation enthusiasts spread their mats among the monoliths to await the sunrise.
The Practices: Sun salutations, rituals with shamanic drums, and circles of silence are practiced to absorb the telluric energy of the monument. It is a peaceful, organic experience without formal stages.
2. Official Scientific and Cultural Initiatives
The Évora City Council and local archaeology associations usually organize the annual "Summer Megalithic Solstice" program.
Guided Tours: These are guided tours at dawn or dusk led by astronomers and archaeologists. The aim is to explain in the field how the stones functioned as real time markers.
Expansion to the Circuit: The initiatives are not limited to Almendres. They often extend to other neighboring stone temples that share the same cosmic orientation, such as the Megalithic Enclosure of Vale Maria do Meio or that of Portela de Mogos.
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I - As Celebrações Modernas do Solstício em Stonehenge
Hoje em dia, a instituição English Heritage abre o monumento ao público com acesso livre e gratuito no Solstício de Verão (noite de 20 para 21 de junho) e no Solstício de Inverno (21 de dezembro). É a única altura do ano em que os visitantes podem caminhar livremente e tocar no interior do círculo de pedras.
As cerimónias são lideradas por grupos neodruídicos e pagãos, funcionando sob uma dinâmica muito específica:
O Ritual do Despertar: Os Druidas modernos — vestidos com as suas tradicionais túnicas brancas ou capas celtas — formam círculos concêntricos e tocam tambores, búzios e flautas de madeira antes do amanhecer.
Saudação ao Sol: O clímax ocorre exatamente no instante em que o sol nasce alinhado com a Heel Stone (Pedra do Calcanhar). Os druidas recitam poemas galeses medievais, fazem juramentos de proteção à Mãe-Terra e partilham romãs e libações (símbolos de renascimento).
Ecletismo Cultural: Embora a raiz seja druídica, o evento atrai uma mistura vibrante de xamãs, iogues, entusiastas da New Age, turistas e curiosos. A atmosfera oscila entre um culto religioso solene e uma celebração comunitária pacífica.
Regras Estritas: Para proteger o espaço animista e arqueológico, a organização proíbe fogo, tendas, amplificadores de som e consumo de álcool, mantendo a experiência focada na ligação pura com a natureza e o silêncio da alvorada.
Recitações e Juramentos
As recitações e os juramentos proferidos pelos druidas modernos em Stonehenge durante os solstícios baseiam-se na reconstrução e adaptação de textos celtas antigos, sobretudo galeses e irlandeses.
Embora o Druidismo original fosse puramente oral, estes rituais contemporâneos recorrem à literatura medieval preservada por monges cristãos a partir do século XII.
Abaixo encontram-se os exemplos práticos mais utilizados nas cerimónias junto às pedras de Stonehenge:
1. O Grito de Paz (A Abertura do Ritual)
Nenhum ritual druídico pode começar sem estabelecer uma intenção de paz com os espíritos da natureza e as direções sagradas (Norte, Sul, Este, Oeste). O bardo ou líder do ritual vira-se para cada ponto cardeal, ergue os braços e proclama em galês e inglês:
Em galês: "Heddwch ym mhedwar ban y byd!"Tradução: "Paz nos quatro cantos do mundo!"
Significado: Este apelo pacifica os espíritos do local (os Genii Locorum ou Genius Loci) e garante que o círculo de pedras se transforma num espaço seguro para a comunhão espiritual.
2. Recitação do Poema Medieval: A Canção de Amergin
Este é, sem dúvida, o texto mais icónico recitado durante o nascer do sol em Stonehenge. Embora a sua origem seja mitológica irlandesa (atribuída ao bardo Amergin), o texto é um pilar da filosofia animista celta universal, onde o druida afirma a sua fusão total com todos os elementos vivos da Mãe-Terra:
"Eu sou o vento que sopra sobre o mar,
Eu sou a onda do oceano,
Eu sou o murmúrio das águas,
Eu sou o touro de sete combates,
Eu sou o abutre na rocha,
Eu sou uma lágrima do sol,
Eu sou a mais bela das plantas,
Eu sou o javali bravo,
Eu sou o salmão na água,
Eu sou o lago na planície..."
Ação prática: Enquanto estas linhas são recitadas em tom de transe, os druidas tocam um tambor num ritmo lento que mimetiza o bater do coração da Terra (Earth's heartbeat).
3. O Juramento de Proteção à Mãe-Terra (A Oração do Druida)
Escrita originalmente no século XVIII por Iolo Morganwg (uma figura central no renascimento druídico galês) com base em conceitos medievais, a Oração do Druida (Gweddi'r Derwydd) é o juramento formal proferido em Stonehenge para selar a aliança com a natureza:
O Texto Tradicional:
"Concede, ó Deusa/Deus, a Tua proteção;
E na proteção, a força;
E na força, a sabedoria;
E na sabedoria, o conhecimento;
E no conhecimento, o conhecimento da justiça;
E no conhecimento da justiça, o amor por ela;
E nesse amor, o amor por todas as existências;
E no amor por todas as existências, o amor pela Mãe-Terra e por toda a Criação."
4. A Invocação de Awen (A Essência Sagrada)
O clímax poético e sonoro acontece no momento exato em que o primeiro raio de sol toca a pedra central do monumento. Toda a congregação druídica une as mãos e entoa a palavra AWEN (um termo galês medieval que significa "inspiração divina" ou "sopro fluido").
Como é praticado: A palavra é cantada de forma prolongada, dividida em três sílabas distintas e harmoniosas: Ah-Oh-Wen.
O Efeito: O som ecoa por entre os megálitos de Stonehenge, funcionando como uma vibração mântrica que os druidas acreditam alinhar a energia dos corpos humanos com a frequência energética da própria Terra e do cosmos.
II - As Celebrações dos Solstícios Em Almendres
O Alinhamento Específico do Menir dos Almendres
O Menir dos Almendres não foi erguido de forma isolada na paisagem. Ele funciona como uma "mira" astronómica milenar em perfeita harmonia com o cromeleque principal.
O alinhamento é estrito e puramente solsticial:
O Fenómeno Visual: Se um observador se colocar no topo do recinto do Cromeleque dos Almendres e olhar em direção ao nordeste (onde o menir se encontra a cerca de 1,4 km de distância), a linha de vista imaginária coincide de forma geométrica com o nascer do sol no Solstício de Verão.
O Significado Prático e Espiritual: Este alinhamento transformava o complexo num autêntico calendário agrícola pré-histórico. No dia mais longo do ano, quando o sol parecia "nascer de cima" do menir, a comunidade animista sabia que o ciclo de maturação da terra tinha chegado ao topo e que era tempo de colheita.
Celebrações Modernas em Évora
Existem celebrações e dinâmicas semelhantes em Évora, embora funcionem a uma escala muito mais íntima e marcadamente diferente da de Stonehenge. Ao contrário do evento massivo no Reino Unido, o Alentejo aposta em duas vertentes complementares:
1. Rituais Espirituais e Comunidade Alternativa
Na madrugada do solstício de verão (20 para 21 de junho), dezenas de pessoas reúnem-se espontaneamente no Cromeleque dos Almendres.
A Atmosfera: Grupos associados à espiritualidade New Age, xamanismo, neopaganismo e entusiastas de meditação estendem os seus tapetes por entre os monólitos para aguardar a alvorada.
As Práticas: Praticam-se saudações ao sol, rituais com tambores xamânicos e círculos de silêncio para absorver a energia telúrica do monumento. É uma vivência pacífica, orgânica e sem palcos formais.
2. Iniciativas Científicas e Culturais Oficiais
A Câmara Municipal de Évora e associações locais de arqueologia costumam organizar o programa anual "Solstício Megalítico de Verão".
Visitas Comentadas: São visitas guiadas ao amanhecer ou ao entardecer conduzidas por astrónomos e arqueólogos. O objetivo é explicar no terreno como as pedras funcionavam como marcadores de tempo reais.
Alargamento ao Circuito: As iniciativas não se fecham apenas nos Almendres. Estendem-se muitas vezes a outros templos de pedras vizinhos que partilham a mesma orientação cósmica, como o Recinto Megalítico de Vale Maria do Meio ou o de Portela de Mogos.
These sculptures by Bernar Venet are precisely as described by the title: beams of steel rolled into 230.5 degree arcs. Throughout his career, Venet works to define art and to separate himself from the idea that art is the expression of the artist. For him the most important element in the work of art is the concept or idea involved. In his recent work, Venet creates works based on mathematical graphs and formulas. In mathematics, Venet discovered a language of symbols that satisfied his desire to create art that is non-expressive and not subject to personal interpretation.
Bernar Venet was born in Château-Arnoux, France, in 1941. In 1958, at 17, Venet moved to Nice to study at the Ville Thiole, the municipal art school. He immersed himself in the cultural life in Nice and became an assistant to the decorator at the Nice City Opera.
Over the course of the next two decades, he explored painting, poetry, film, and dance, and was attracted in particular to pure science as a subject for art. In 1979 Venet began a series of wood reliefs, Arcs, Angles, Diagonals, and created the first of his Indeterminate Lines. That same year, he was awarded an artist grant by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1984, he started working at the Atelier Marioni, a foundry and ironworks in the Vosges region of France. Five years later, he acquired a steel factory in Le Muy in the Var region of France, where he fabricated and installed his work on the surrounding property.
Venet's work can be seen in major museums and collections throughout the world, including the Denver Art Museum; Fondation Mourtala, Dakar, Senegal; Milwaukee Art Museum; He Xiangning Art Gallery, Shenzhen, China; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; Jumex Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
This photograph was taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 07:39am), at an altitude of Sixteen metres, at 06:59am on Thursday January 28th 2016 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.
I set off at 05:00am on a clear morning, the moon and the stars out to dazzle in temperatures around five degrees, on a pleasant hour and half long journey to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.
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Nikon D800 23mm One 1/1.3s f/2.8 iso100 RAW (14Bit) Nikon back focus button enabled. AF-C Continuous point focus with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED IF. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 19.80s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 11.93s
ALTITUDE: 16.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 10.09MB
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PROCESSING POWER:
Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)
HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
A point of view which is readily lost sight of - if one has even
thought of it - when defending those who refuse the celestial Messages, is precisely the very appearance of the Messengers; now, to paraphrase or to cite some well-known formulas, "he who has seen the Prophet has seen God"; "God became man in order that man might become God".
One has to have a very hardened heart not to be able to see this upon contact with such beings; and it is above all this hardness of heart that is culpable, far more than ideological
scruples.
The combination of holiness and beauty which characterizes
the Messengers of Heaven is, so to speak, transmitted from the human theophanies to the sacred art which perpetuates it: the essentially intelligent and profound beauty of this art testifies to the truth which inspires it; it could not in any case be reduced to a human invention as regards the essential of its message. Sacred art is Heaven descended to earth, rather than earth reaching towards Heaven.
A line of thought close to this one which we have just presented is the following, and we have made note of it more than once: if men were stupid enough to believe for millenia in the divine, the supernatural, immortality -assuming these are illusions- it is impossible that one fine day they became intelligent enough to be aware of their errors; that they became intelligent, no one knowing why, and without any decisive moral acquisition to corroborate this miracle. And likewise: if men like the Christ believed in the supernatural, it is impossible that men like the Encyclopedists were right not to believe in it.
Sceptical rationalism and titanesque naturalism are the two great abuses of intelligence, which violate pure intellectuality as well as a sense of the sacred; it is through this propensity that thinkers "are wise in their own eyes" and end by "calling evil good, and good evil" and by "putting darkness for light, and light for darkness" (Isaiah 5:20 and 21); they are also the ones who, on the plane of life or experience, "put bitter for sweet", namely the love of the eternal God, and "sweet for bitter", namely the illusion of the evanescent world.
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From the Divine to the Human by Frithjof Schuon
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Image: Meeting of the Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir in Moscow in 1395 icon
The Rendille people, living in the Northern part of Kenia.
Living in the harsh regions of the Kaisut Desert, the Rendille tribe is a nomad and pastoralist group. They are really only semi-nomadic and tend to only move 2 or 3 times each year. The Rendille are member of the Cushitic family of tribes. The Rendille are closely aligned with the Samburu and have often adopted much of their language as well. Many years of drought have made life difficult if not impossible for traditional Rendille people, meaning many of them have had to leave their nomadic patterns behind and settle more permanently in various towns and aid depots. The town of Korr is one of the largest towns made up mainly of the Rendille.
Their original home was farther north, in Ethiopia and Somalia. It's likely that both the Rendille tribe and the Somali tribe have common ancestors. Oromo-speaking tribes of Ethiopia drove them out, and forced their migration southward into Kenya. The colonial occupation of Kenya had little or no effect on the Rendille people, since their lands are very harsh and not desired at all by the Europeans.
Unlike some other pastoral tribes, the Rendille tribe tend to favour camels for their herds rather than cattle. Likely because their lands are very dry and the camel is simply better suited to the environment. They are milked just like cows, providing the staple of the Rendille diet. This is particularly the case for northern Rendille, whereas the southern groups are more similar to the Samburu and keep cows because the environment is less dry. Their settlements are quite large, which is different from other nomadic tribes that live in separate extended family groups. An entire clan might live together, with a population of many hundreds. The tribal movements are not random, but follow a specific pattern to allow access to for all clans to the water sources and pasturing areas. It is a very fair system of land management.
Men are responsible for caring for the large herds of animals, as well as protecting them from predators and other tribes. All the household and childcare duties fall on the women of the tribe. It is the unmarried men who are required to travel the furthest from the camps with the herds. Age-sets are the main component of Rendille society. Initiation rituals take place precisely every 7 or 14 years, creating a series of generational age-sets, each with its own role in society. In the common Kenyan practice, the first initiation is circumcision. Men have many stages of warrior-hood, but women are simply married or unmarried. Marriages are usually arranged by parents, since it is not permitted to marry within one's own clan and contact with other clans is minimal for younger people. A bride price in livestock is always part of the negotiations.
Because men cannot marry until they have completed their warrior phase, there is usually a sizable age difference between man and his wife. It's fairly common for a 30-year old man to marry a girl only 14 or 15 years old.
Many tribes in Kenya have given up their old beliefs in the face of oncoming Christianity, but the Rendille tribe have not. The Rendille god is called Wakh, or Ngai. The fortune-tellers of the village cast stone or bones to predict the future, and to perform sacrifices for rain.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah has endured much of the last twelve years in some of the worst prison conditions anywhere for his brave work in promoting democracy in Egypt. He was last arrested in September 2019 while attending Cairo's Dokki Police Station and in December last year was sentenced to five years imprisonment for "spreading false news undermining state security." More precisely, he had shared social media posts explaining the hell-hole reality of Egyptian prison conditions.
PROTEST OUTSIDE THE FOREIGN OFFICE
Alaa's two sisters, Mona and Sana'a Seif, are currently staging a protest in London's King Charles Street outside the British Foreign Office in the hope that the Egyptian government can be pressured to release him, as media attention begins to focus on the upcoming COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh on Egypt's Red Sea coast.
TORA PRISON - "A DAY HERE, IS LIKE A YEAR IN BELMARSH"
In April, Alaa began his hunger strike in a cell in one of the most secure sections of Cairo's sprawling and notorious Tora Prison - a maze of grim high concrete walls and watch towers, which strike fear into even the thousands of commuters who have to pass daily.
In 2012, one young Londoner confined to one of the least uncomfortable and most survivable wings of Tora prison, contrasted it with his own previous experience at Britain's high security Belmarsh. I can never forget his exact words. "A day here, is like a year at Belmarsh!" A little over 12 months later, he died of TB - the prison authorities had refused to listen to the pleas of his aunt, who fell on her knees during a rare visit, begging that he be admitted to the prison hospital.
ALAA'S HUNGER STRIKE CONTINUES AT WADI EL NATRUN PRISON
More than 200 days have passed since Alaa started his hunger strike. He has now been moved to the Wadi El Natrun prison complex in the desert north of Cairo, dubbed by inmates as the "Valley of Hell."
He may not survive much longer. However, as he holds British-Egyptian nationality, one would hope that the British government would be doing everything they could to secure his immediate release and it would be reasonable to suppose that the Foreign Office could get an immediate pledge in this regard, especially given that the British companies, including the likes of British Petroleum and BP, are the biggest investors in Egypt.
NO CONSULAR ACCESS
However, the British government have failed even to get him any consular access - think about that. That's an outrage. Even a convicted mass murderer, if British, would be entitled to consular access while in prison. That meeting would obviously not take place in his cell - but in a designated room in the prison or the highly supervised prison visiting area.
British men and women convicted of drug smuggling and other crimes in Egypt have received consular visits, so why not Alaa? The answer is because Alaa's crime is that he dared to tell the truth about Egypt, and the injustice both inside and outside its many prison walls. Nobody knows exactly how many political prisoners Egypt now has, but the number is estimated to be at least 60,000.
ALAA WAS ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN
Alaa Abd El-Fattah was one of the leaders of arguably the most inspirational democratic revolt the world has seen in the last hundred years. Although the first phase of the 2011 uprising in Egypt lasted just 18 days, and although it followed the toppling of the dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia - the streets and bridges around Tahrir Square became a deadly stage watched by the world, where protesters from every walk of life were pitted against Egypt's feared state security forces. Against all the odds, and at the cost of many lives, Egyptians refused to leave the square, sleeping in front of the tanks and fending off attacks from government militia.
The Egyptian people's initial success in toppling the dictator Mubarak led to further revolts not just across the Middle East (most notably in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria) - the highly organised Tahrir-Square sit-in provided the inspiration for strikes and workplace sit-ins against austerity across the United States and Europe and to the Occupy Movement of the same year. The people of Egypt showed that it does not matter how brutal, feared and authoritarian a government is, it can be toppled if people act collectively.
THE MILITARY BACKLASH
It's true that Egypt's flirtation with the path to greater freedom seemed to be only temporary - the Egyptian authorities deployed the usual divide and rule tactics - encouraging the less committed protesters to return home - and then rushed to elections without allowing time for genuinely democratic opposition parties to develop.
Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidential election in 2012 - the Brotherhood (contrary to the perception many people have here in the West) had genuinely progressive elements within it, but the chance for any transformative radical programme was prevented partly by the corruption and self-interest of some of the main political actors and partly by opposition to its democratic mandate from the deep state (the military, the Interior Ministry, State Security, the police etc.)
The army, seeing its chance, seized power in 2013, superficially in the name of the people, but in reality, to advance the interests of the generals. The new president, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, moved quickly to crush all opposition, and ordering his security forces to attack Muslim Brotherhood supporters who had gathered in eastern Cairo at Rabaa al-Adaweya Square, killing at least 800 people - the bloodiest massacre of civilians in Egypt's modern history.
DON'T ALLOW EGYPT TO USE COP27 TO GREENWASH ITS REGIME - AND PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO SAVE ALAA
Now COP27 is scheduled to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh and Sisi has been given a golden opportunity to greenwash his murderous regime, which has also seen ever increasing levels inequality and corruption. While British representatives at COP27 will be given accommodation in the most luxurious five star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and fall asleep listening to the sound of the waves, another British citizen, Alaa Abdel El-Fatah is near death, on a painful hunger strike in the darkest of places - his dimly lit cell. The only thing he might hear at night is the desperate cry from some prisoner in another cell appealing for medical help which most likely never comes.
If we care for freedom, real democracy and justice, we can't allow the British Foreign Office to forget Alaa - especially if it's simply not to upset the highly profitable relationship British multinationals have with one of the world's most authoritarian and corrupt regimes - a relationship which only benefits the wealthiest of Egyptians.
If you live in London, please show your support at the protest at King Charles Street - and wherever you live please sign the petition -
www.change.org/p/help-free-my-brother-before-it-s-too-lat...
The Temple of Artemis (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον, or Artemision) at Ephesus, Turkey also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple.
Greek goddess Artemis and the great Anatolian goddess Kybele were identified together as Artemis of Ephesus. The many-breasted "Lady of Ephesus", identified with Artemis, was venerated in the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and the largest building of the ancient world according to Pausanias (4.31.8).
Ephesus (Efes) in Turkey is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Please see more; Turkey, Ephesus, Kusadasi and Alanya.
It wasn't precisely a big night street market, but I even felt cosy there.
No es que este mercadillo nocturno fuera grande precisamente, pero lo encontré acogedor.
“It measures just 9 inches in circumference, weighs only about 5 ounces, and is made of cork wound with woolen yarn, covered with two layers of cowhide, and stitched by hand precisely 216 times.
“It travels 60 feet 6 inches from the pitcher’s mound to home -- and it can cover that distance at nearly 100 miles an hour. Along the way it can be made to twist, spin, curve, wobble, rise, or fall away.
“The bat is made of turned ash, less than 42 inches long, not more than 2-½ inches in diameter. The batter has only a few thousandths of a second to decide to hit the ball. And yet the men who fail seven times out of ten are considered the game’s greatest heroes.
“Baseball is played everywhere: in parks and playgrounds and prison yards, in back alleys and farmer’s fields, by small children and old men, by raw amateurs and millionaire professionals.
“It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed, and the only one in which the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.
“Americans have played baseball for more than 200 years, while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, struggled over labor and civil rights and the meaning of freedom.
“At the game’s heart lie mythic contradictions: a pastoral game, born in crowded cities; an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating and has excluded as many as it has included; a profoundly conservative game that somehow manages to be years ahead of its time.
“It is an American odyssey that links sons and daughters to fathers and grandfathers. And it reflects a host of age-old American traditions: between workers and owners, scandal and reform, the individual and the collective.
“It is a haunted game in which every player is measured against the ghosts of all who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope -- and coming home.”
-- Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, Baseball: An Illustrated History (1994)
I purchased this baseball glove in 1989, the year my son Colin was born. When he was growing up, I spent countless hours playing ball with him, many of them in a large meadow a short distance down the road from our home in Ohio. (We called that place the Elysian Fields.) The glove has also accompanied me to many baseball games over the years, in all of which I have been a spectator rather than a participant, because between a bad eye and a lack of coordination, I simply can't play the game. But that didn't stop me from being a fan.
The ball is one my son caught when it was hit into the stands during a rookie-league game in Zanesville, Ohio sometime in the mid-1990s. It was signed by a few members of the local team, the Zanesville Grays, which has since been disbanded.
I have not followed baseball much in recent years, owing to a considerable amount of personal hardship which has distracted much of my attention, coupled with a sense of revulsion at such developments as the steroid scandal, the ridiculous and still-skyrocketing players' salaries, and the changes, such as interleague play and the extra round of playoffs, which the powers-that-be have imposed on a game so deeply rooted in tradition. But in spite of all that, I know that my enthusiasm for the game is still there somewhere, waiting just below the surface for someone or something to come along and revive it.
The glove, unfortunately, has seen little use for some time, partly because Colin is no longer living with us, and partly because I have developed arthritis in my hands -- especially in my left, or glove, hand. But I will always hang on to it, as it has great sentimental value for me, and I will always associate it with good experiences, as well as a host of cherished memories.
For this colorful backdrop, I used one of my two Mexican blankets.
In 50+ years I'd seen precisely one 904 / GTS, if it wasn't a fake, and after 10 minutes in the paddock, here were TWO, and a third appeared not much later! These are pretty rare, the production run was about 100 with the factory keeping some for themselves. About 120 serial numbers were used for them. One was dropped vertically from a pole to satisfy US collision testing requirements, so only 119 ever made it to the road, in any sense.
I was stunned to realize, 3/5/14, that I'd actually seen 4 (FOUR) different Carrera GTS' at RennSport Reunion IV... 3 are silver, #18, #33, #12, and one is white with red rockers between the wheels. How cool is that?? so I've made sure each is tagged "Carrera GTS" and has "#12" or whatever in its tag too.
Most people call the GTS coupes "Porsche 904", which they might have started as... They were intended to get the 901 (we know it as 911) 6 cylinder motor and if they had, all, gotten the 901 motor, we'd all call them 904s and that would be the end of it.
But the 901 motor wasn't ready when the 904 chassis was ready to go as a customer racing car... so all the production coupes had the Carrera 4 4-cam, 4 cylinder engine. People had paid money and expected racing cars, and so 100+ (some say 120) were assembled and most were sold. One was dropped vertically (nose first) to simulate a front-end collision- a USA requirement I believe.
When the 2.0l 901 six was finally released for production, it was a brand new design making baby steps, with a single overhead cam for each bank of cylinders, whereas the Carerra 4 was a known and fully developed giant killer. The shaft-driven cams were a mechanical masterpiece or nightmare, depending on your prejudices, but it was light and powerful. The factory DID put the six into some 904s and muddied the water by calling them "906s". When they started working on the new engine, it was soon making good horsepower, and promising even more than that. Oops. Suddenly, the 904 buyer who had accepted a Carrera GTS had an obsolete racing car that was less than 18 months old.
The 901 motor would have fit just fine, but the cost of a retrofit wasn't in the cards. There had been enough customer interest to see a second set of wheels, hubs and suspension pieces ordered for a second batch of GTSs, but besides the engine issues, it was now clear that the machine-sprayed fiberglass bodies, made by Dornier Aerospace, were inconsistent in weight and strength. (The same issue just about killed Lotus's contemporary coupe - which is why the Elan roadster got a "backbone" steel frame that the drive train and all 4 wheels were attached to...)
Worse, even perfect bodies, bonded directly to the stamped steel rail frame, made the frame un-inspectable corrosion bait. It was time to retrench.
Family member Ferdinand Peitch (one of Ferry's nephews, a son of his sister), now head of VW, was put in charge of the racing / engineering effort and he cancelled the Carerra GTS second series. A new car, which we usually call a 906, was quickly schemed around the 901 six cyilinder motor and the Carrera GTS wheels and suspension parts now arriving. Peitch walked back Porsche's racing car technology to the tried and proven tube frame with unstressed bodies. Fiberglass bodies, removable so that the frame could be inspected. Well... he then decreed that Porsche would build new cars for each significant race, and sell them to customers after the race. As used racing cars, utility and maintenance issues were more clearly the owners problems, but the customer got the latest and greatest technology, no lag between factory and private owners.
All of this messed-up the name of these cars AND the "Carrera 6" which is usually (but incorrectly) called "906". , all the production "Carrera 6s" had the 6 cylinder 901 motor, but the factory raced GTS's with the six and the Carrera 6s with the 8 cylinder from the F2/F1 car.... Growing pains.
Very few people remember today that the 912 (nee 902) with the 4 cylinder, pushrod, Super 90 motor, outsold the 911 (nee 901) 2:1 in the first year they were available. 912s would be discontinued when the VW-Porsche 914 entered production. It was available with a VW-based 4 or a Porsche 901 6... and there were half-year 912E's (with the VW-based, Porsche-headed 914 4) between the 914 and 924... more growing pain.
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Sometimes you think the world is so full of conflict, near and far, that the only mechanism we have is to switch off and now with so much instant news we have become quite adept at switching off. It is precisely because we are now so exposed to information that the attention span has decreased so dramatically in the last twenty years. In the fifteen years from 2000 to 2015 our attention span has decreased from 12 seconds to 8.25 which is quite alarming, far more alarming than climate change as humans now have an attention span less than a goldfish. The result of this is we are more prone to be influenced by sound bites and snippets and this is being manipulated by extremists on both the right and left.
Back in 2005 I paid a visit to Dachau, the first German Concentration Camp and I was amazed to discover that originally the camps was set up in 1933 to house political opponents of the National Socialist Party – Nazi Party. These were mainly trade unionists, communists and socialists. In was later the Nazis developed a murderous hatred for the Jews with Kristallnacht in November 1938 and in 1942 The Final Solution to the Jewish Question resulted in the Holocaust killing 90% of Polish Jews and two thirds of all European Jews. In excess of six million men, women and children.
In 2011 we paid a visit to Krakow in Southern Poland and went Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz was very similar to Dachau and again it was originally used to suppress Polish opposition to the Nazis. Birkenau was built as a murder camp and is only 3 kilometres from the original camp.
Auschwitz- Birkenau Death Camp.
Auschwitz is probably one of the world’s most infamous places and no matter how much knowledge you may or may not have of history, nothing can prepare a person for the visit to such a place. The level of atrocities carried out are indescribable, the sadistic cruelty beyond comprehension by any reasonable individual. Initially established to house prisoners opposed to The Third Reich, Auschwitz was later the centre of the Nazis so called Final Solution of The Jewish Problem. At least one million, one hundred thousand people were murdered there, 90% were Jews from all over Europe. These people were herded together and transported in cattle wagons and shipped by rail to Auschwitz and Birkenau in the most inhumane conditions. Many never made it there.
Auschwitz was the original camp, a disused army barracks converted, this now houses the State Museum of Auschwitz with many harrowing exhibits of Nazi cruelty. It was here the SS tortured and starved prisoners and Dr Joseph Mengele carried out his experiments. Cyclone B was discovered here in an attempt to kill lice as this was becoming a problem as prisoners themselves and their conditions deteriorated. In experimenting with the chemical, it was developed as a very quick and efficient way of killing humans by suffocation
Birkenau is massive and was built as a killing factory. Seventy-five per cent of arrivals were instantly condemned to death, by the flick of the finger of the SS Officer. These were gassed in the gas chambers built specially for this purpose. All children under fourteen and the infirm or disabled were immediately disposed of. The other twenty-five per cent were the young and fit and they were put to work but three months was a long time to last. The diet had an intake of 1500 calories a day and the work was for fourteen hours a day, it didn’t take long just to starve to death, just three months for the young and strong.
No matter what a person’s political or religious views may be, nobody could be unaffected by a visit to Auschwitz- Birkenau and while it is important to pay respect to those who suffered, it is more important we never forget and insure this cannot happen again.
On a recent visit to Berlin I came across some brass cobbles in the pavement outside the apartment we were staying. They had the names and some details of parents and a child, some research unearthed the following. The cobbles are called a sett and are 10cms x 10cms and the brass memorial ones are called Solpersteine which is translated as stumbling stones. The Solpersteine Project is a work by the German artist Gunther Demnig in which he sets brass cobbles inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution.to commemorate outside the last place people they lived freely. Most of the Solpersteine are for Jews but also included are other victims of Nazi terror like gypsies and homosexuals.
From further research on the Solpersteine outside Weigandufer 30 in NeuKolln I discovered the occupants were a Jewish couple Kurt Bujakowsky, his wife Dina and their daughter Stephanie
Kurt was born in 1902 and Dina in 1904, both were Secular Jews. Kurt worked as an editorial assistant, they fled to Vienna in 1936 to escape the Nazis. Their daughter Stephanie was born the following year. In 1938 Germany annexed Austria forcing the couple to move again, this time with their daughter to France. The family enjoyed a happy life in France but shortly after France fell to the Nazis. In 1941, the first raids against Jews was ordered by the Nazis and conducted by the French police. The victims of these raids were transferred to Drancy. There is much evidence about the brutality of the French guards in Drancy. The Bujakowskys were rounded up and imprisoned in Drancy. The conditions of life were extremely difficult. From there the Bujakowskys were deported to Auschwitz with Transport 30 from Drancy on September 9, 1942. They were murdered in Auschwitz in 1942, Stephanie aged 5, like all other children, would have been killed immediately on arrival as would the parents unless they were very fit, then they would be put to work and worked to death. It seems like the Nazis followed them all over Europe
Back to Neukolln-Berlin and the Solpersteine Project at Weigandufer. The street is now a very leafy walk along the Neukokolln Ship Canal in what is becoming a very fashionable area. The canal is beautiful with lots of cafes and plenty of seating but the tranquillity was jolted when you realise that our daughter and son in law now live in the same apartment building as Kurt and Dina and we have a beautiful grand daughter who is just about the same age as Stephanie was when she was murdered in Auschwitz by the Nazis. Some times it takes a little sound bite or a snippet to remind you of past events and that is exactly what Gunther Deming had in mind when in 1962 he planted the first Solpersteine, now there are over 70,000.
November 2019
The Villa Poppaea is an ancient Roman seaside villa (villa maritima) situated between Naples and Sorrento, in southern Italy. It is also referred to as the Villa Oplontis, or more precisely as Villa A by modern archaeologists. The villa itself is a large structure situated in the ancient Roman town of Oplontis (the modern Torre Annunziata), about ten meters below the modern ground level. Evidence suggests that it was owned by the Emperor Nero, and believed to have been used by his second and rather notorious wife, Poppaea Sabina, as her main residence when she was not in Rome.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Poppaea
sites.google.com/site/ad79eruption/oplontis/villa-of-poppaea
When I came to Mississippi, in my head this was what I was looking for, though I had no real conception of precisely what it might be until I found it. And until you actually experience it you wouldn't ever really know. Robert plays authentic North Mississipi 'Hill Country Blues' as it has been played for something like 90 years or so since the days of Mississippi Fred McDowell. He grew up in the Mississippi hill country and primarily self taught according to his own words learnt his trade by watching and listening to older players such as Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker decades before they became internationally famous.
When I got to Red's juke joint in Clarksdale (see below) I was lucky enough to find a seat directly in front of the performing space. Robert played from 8.30 pm to well after midnight non stop except for a small break, regaling the audience with stories and anecdotes of his colourful life in between songs. During that break when I stood up to go and shake his hand and ask to buy a cd (personally autographed on the spot) and have a short chat with this blues legend I had to walk barely three paces across the floor and yet there have been times when I heard lesser music being performed in vast and grand auditoriums. But Robert has had his share of fame having appeared in various documentaries on the blues and having at least one of his songs on the soundtrack of a major feature film.
Below are a couple of his own compositions:
Photograph taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise (Sunrise was at precisely 07:46am), at an altitude of Two metres, at 07:38am on Tuesday December 9th 2014 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.
This view looks onwards towards Kingsgate Bay and the impressive architecture of Kingsgate Castle which was built in the 1760's.
A very chilly morning on the beach, around One degree, and a bracing wind that pounded flesh and bones, but well worth the one and a half hour journey there to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.
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Nikon D800 18mm 1/60S f/3.5 iso200 RAW (14Bit) AF-S single point focus. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.
Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED IF. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 15.47s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 31.26s
ALTITUDE: 2.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 16.70MB
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Processing power:
HP Pavillion P6-2388EA Desktop with AMD A10-5700 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics. 2TB with 8GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 8.1. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. Nikon VIEWNX2 Version 2.10.0 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
We must beware of converting needs into ends, interests into norms. The task is precisely the opposite: it is to convert ends into needs, to convert the divine commandment into a human concern. Religion is not a way of satisfying needs. It is an answer to the question: Who needs man? It is an awareness of being needed, of man being a need of God. It is a way of sanctifying the satisfaction of authentic needs.
-Insecurity of Freedom
by Abraham Joshua Heschel
My mother is and is not like any other mother to me, and the Bible is and is not like any other book to me. A pianist should study musicology but remain an artist. The words of the Bible are not made of paper. In order to know them I must submit them to my judgment; in order to understand them I must stand under their judgment. The Hebrew Bible is quoted in sermons but is absent from minds. Its intellectual relevance is ignored. Its way of thinking has not affected modern man and has remained, it seems, outside the intellectual concern of many present-day theologians. What we face is a profound alienation from the Bible. The prophets’ categories have become unknown and strange. To believe, we need God, a soul, and the Word. Having rejected the notion of the Bible as a paper pope, many are left with the Bible as a collection of ill-composed records on a mass of paper. The Bible is holiness in words. How are we to preserve within our involvement in critical studies the awareness of the holy; how are we to cultivate the understanding that the authority of the Bible is not merely an issue of either philology or chronology? More decisive than the dogmatic attempt to define the date and authorship of the biblical documents is the openness to the presence of God in the Bible. Such openness is not acquired offhand. It is the fruit of hard, constant care, of involvement; it is the result of praying, seeking, craving. Where and how is modern man guided to search for it today? The words are still with us. Scripture may have vanished from our hearts. Yet the miracle of re-engagement is possible.
- Insecurity of Freedom
by Abraham Joshua Heschel
Engineers Tom Huber (behind MIRI) and Mick Wilks (inside black ISIM Structure) check that MIRI is integrated precisely. The engineers have to make sure that MIRI, the only instrument on the Webb telescope that 'sees' mid-infrared light, is precisely positioned so that it and the other instruments can glimpse the formation of galaxies and see deeper into the universe than ever before.
Photo Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn; Text Credit: NASA/Laura Betz
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Engineers worked meticulously to implant the James Webb Space Telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument into the ISIM, or Integrated Science Instrument Module, in the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. As the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Webb telescope will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. It will observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around distant stars.
For more information, visit: www.jwst.nasa.gov
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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