sacral photos on Flickr

The Depth of the Root Chakra, and how it goes deep, not only down, but lengthwise, constituting all of our soil - todo nuestro suelo, dado que todo el suelo que pisamos, lo constituye;

black, as the soil of the Earth, and Lengthwise, supporting all the Others with its Width;

the Sacral or Womb Chakra, all the sex organs being bathed by the Aquatic Element of Sex, and Pleasure: The Liquids of Life - Blood, for Women, Sperm, for Men, coming from this area, it is very truthful to give this Chakra the Water Element. Pleasure is Moving. Life comes from Water (like the Matricial Waters of the Womb), and Water - also - comes from Life, in the sense of: all that you authorize yourself to feel - begins to constitute - your Ocean, the Ocean in which you swim. What gives you pleasure, in Life; what you make out of pleasure, constitutes your Ocean, and that Ocean, the ocean of the Deep Placer de Existir, the Ocean of the Deep, is where we live.

Hence the blue, sky blue, watery blue of the cushion that is here representing it.

Finally, the Fire Chakra, the Solar Plexus one, here represented by the Shamanic Drum, done with Goat Skin and Real, Woven Wood. The Power that emanates from it - Masculine, Fiery, and yet even dark: even capable of taking you to darkness: capable of taking you to another world.

The Solar Plexus Chakra represents your possibility of carrying out things. The power of your will when it ignites, not with psychology or with willpower (as workplace psychologists wants us to believe), but when it ignites with the Will that Something Happens, that is a Will that Transcends Yourself and that Comes From Another World. All like the Spirits one sees in a Shamanic Trance come from another world.

"La volonté ne favorise en rien une réussite heureuse": Psychological Will does not assure a good outcome.

But Ignition, Deep and True, Burning, in Your Belly, the WANT of doing something and then REALIZING you have the POWER TO DO IT, that, is Power. That is Power.

Eso es Poder.

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And, the most ironic of it all, is that I arranged the physical, mandala representation of the chakras with this objects as they came sous ma main: it wasn't planned. Talking about what was I saying, about planning! - Planning Assures Nothing.

Just DOING, Does.

... So, I lifted the objects there were there, in my room, and started to constitute a line that would represent the chakras, along the spine - spine represented by the yoga mat, with its verticality and its reasonably wide but still not too wide width.

Death of the Virgin from Chrenovec, c 1520 by DeBeer

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property of the Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava

for educational purpose only

please do not use without permission

Rimavské Brezove - Church - Interior 03 by Radoslav Besenyi

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Rimavské Brezovo, like many other municipalities in the region, is associated with mining history. The originally early Gothic church, towering over the silhouette of low village houses, used to be dedicated to the Birth of the Virgin Mary before the Reformation. The name of the village was given according to the first written historical reference from the year 1334 as Brezou and, for some time, it was also the county seat of Malohont. The single-nave church was probably built in the first half of the 14th century with a square-ended chancel and a rib vault. Due to the population increase connected with the establishment of iron works facility in the village at the end of the 18th century, the church capacity was insufficient. Therefore, the largest reconstruction of the temple was undertaken in 1893. The original sacristy on the northern side was demolished, the entrance was walled and the nave was extended southwards. The older chancel thus lost its role and started to be used as a sitting space. Thanks to this reconstruction, medieval murals were found under layers of lime paint and their restoration was then devoted to I. Möller and I. Huszek. Unfortunately the work was not always done in the most sparing way. Quality interior paintings in the original Gothic section are probably the work of artists from the workshop of the Master of Ochtiná chancel. The most striking element is Christ in Glory, the figure of the blessing Christ in the shining circle with the Sun and the Moon, depicted in the eastern part of the vault. The winged lion and the golden-winged eagle on the sides symbolize the evangelists Mark and John. Opposite to them are an angel and a winged bull as Matthew and Luke. The Marian theme is elaborated in two bands around the perimeter of the entire chancel. The lower band of the northern wall belongs to the depiction of the Death of the Virgin Mary, above this composition we find a quite unique, for this region, Italian-Byzantine motif of the Assumption with the figure of Christ in the mandorla. A small child stands on his knees as the soul of the Virgin Mary, the whole scene is held by four stylized angels. Beneath the Marian cycle, the entire perimeter of the walls is painted with a template ornament, into which the strip of four-leaf-shaped medallions with heads of prophets is inserted. This part of the paintings appears to be the least affected by the re-paintings and is preserved in a very good condition and in the original colours. On the walls of the nave, due to various building modifications, the frescoes were preserved only in fragments. The most intact frescoes are on the southern part of the triumphal arch: the Christ in a mandorla, a blessing angel, or St. Bartholomew, who was skinned alive, he carries the skin on a stick. Remnants of the Christological Cycle, such as the Christ carrying the cross or the Crucifixion, were preserved on the northern wall of the nave. The southern wall was largely destroyed during the redevelopment. However, research has revealed a depiction of St. Anne as a madonna with a child in her arms, with women carrying gifts in baskets walking into her direction. They also carry young pigeons to prepare a traditional strengthening soup for the fresh mother. This scene is very likely utterly unique on the territory of Slovakia. Comprehensive restoration and research were carried out in successive stages from 2005 till 2019, and the original approximately 700-year-old paving in the chancel was a valuable discovery as well. The restoration of the chancel was awarded by the main prize of the Cultural monument of the year 2012, the artworks were renewed by M. Janšto and R. Boroš. The church logo symbolically depicts a fresco of a young maiden attacked by devils in the hell from the church nave

A day with my Mom by Rare Disease Day

In December, my mom was diagnosed with a large Tarlov Cyst in her sacral spine. The cyst makes it difficult for her to stand for long periods of time and she has to use a wheelchair if we go out for a long time. Not much is known about Tarlov Cysts and this makes it hard for my mom to find the doctors and treatments that can help her. She still tries to put a smile on her face and do fun things with us, even though it is painful for her to do so.

Elisabethen-Kirche by Dominik

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Church of Elisabeth

In this church I was baptized :-)

Meine Taufkirche :-)

The Elisabethenkirche is a church building in the centre of Basel, next to the Theater Basel. The best known neo Gothic building in Switzerland, its 72 metre high tower is taller than those of the city's minster church and can be climbed.

Angel of Angel Dessous - September by Bodza Mubble

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Model and photographer - Bodza Blackadder (Bodza Mubble)

Stock: Background, Leaves, Butterflies, Fan

Soul by Luis Gustavo Cousseiro

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Lébény - Saint James Church - Interior 04 by Radoslav Besenyi

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The Monastery at Lébény was established between 1199 and 1203, by a nobleman, for private worship. The complex was dedicated to the Apostle Saint James the Great. Though the existing charter for approving the donations and construction was signed by Andreas II (1208), one of the walls of the church had “1206” engraved in them, which may indicate that the church was already built at that time. It is also mentioned in the RegestrumVaradiense (an important language memorial), which was made in the late cathedral chapter of the present Oradea (Nagyvárad) in the 13th century. The monastery of Lébény was attacked and burnt down several times; the first by Mongols, then the second by King Ottokar I of Bohemia; and thereafter by the Turks, which was probably in 1529 and definitely in 1683. The monastery was taken back from the Turks by the arch-abbot of Pannonhalma in 1540. He named a new abbot, though the title only existed on paper for a little bit longer than two decades. In 1563 the monastery was burnt down again for the third time and was left devoured. Presently, the only part of the complex that is still standing is the iconic three-nave Romanesque church in the middle of Lébény village. This church is one of the most important Romanesque style buildings of Hungary, which was most probably restored in the 17th century by the Jesuits, and it was the first ever Hungarian monument that was restored in the second half of the 19th century. In addition, the Romanesque church is also operating as a parish of the village.

www.viabenedictina.eu/sk/monastery-p43

Joachim Patinir, circle of, St Christopher in a Landscape, early 16th century by DeBeer

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location: Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

(please do not use without permission)

Sara Guberti by Associazione Mirada

Galleria d'arte Mirada

Via Mazzini n.83, Ravenna

Dal 22 dicembre 2006 al 14 gennaio 2007

L'apertura della nuova sede dell'ufficio giovani artisti in via Mazzini 83 a Ravenna ha costituito di certo un salto di qualità nella promozione dell'arte giovane in città. La creazione di uno spazio espositivo in pieno centro, in una strada che potrebbe diventare grazie alla presenza di ben quattro luoghi espositivi dedicati ai collezionisti d'arte, la via artistica della nostra città, è un ulteriore passo per valorizzare la vocazione culturale di Ravenna.

La mostra dell'artista ravennate Sara Guberti, che inaugura il 22 dicembre alle 18 , costituisce il primo appuntamento volto a presentare i migliori artisti vincitori e selezionati dal concorso RAM nei suoi anni di attività. L'artista è stata difatti selezionata nella prima edizione del concorso giovani artisti del Comune di Ravenna nel 1999.

Nata nel 1971, si è ugualmente dedicata in questi anni di attività artistica sia al mosaico che alla pittura. Per la visionarietà delle sue creazioni e grazie anche al substrato di ricerca quasi mistica sui materiali, ha collaborato con le compagnie Fanny e Alexander e Teatrino Clandestino nella realizzazione di scenografie teatrali.

Ma il suo lavoro indubbiamente più importante è l'opera eseguita negli ultimi anni per la Sacred World Foundation di New Delhi, ovvero il Time Line Mural per il Gandhi Multimedia Museum. Per la medesima istituzione pubblica indiana ha inoltre eseguito due mosaici sull'iconizzazione di Gandhi, realizzati per il museo itinerante.

Si tratta di due importantissime commissioni per uno dei più grandi Paesi asiatici e del mondo, al quale l'artista ravennate è fortemente legata: la sua ricerca pittorica e visiva, della quale presenterà un saggio nella mostra in Galleria Mirada, trae spunto dai numerosi viaggi da lei compiuti in questo Paese. Il progetto pittorico, la cui analisi è affidata alla critica d'arte Sabina Ghinassi , è la naturale continuazione del tema con il quale si è diplomata all'Accademia d'Arte di Bologna con Concetto Pozzati, ovvero la ripetitività della preghiera e la condensazione del suono in simbolo visivo. Affrancata da qualsiasi aura catechizzatrice, la pittrice Guberti ricerca l'unitarietà, i punti di incontro e gli incroci tra le forme di credo maggiormente seguite nel mondo (Cristianesimo, Islam, Ebraismo, Induismo...), affidandosi nella ricerca di materiali simbolici alla guida dei maestri spirituali delle varie confessioni e agli artigiani locali. L'attenta valutazione e scelta dei materiali, tratti da sostanze naturali e da colorazioni tradizionali, rendono i quadri di notevole impatto visivo e particolarmente suggestivi.

Una ricerca artistica che acquista un significato particolare in un momento di crisi e profonda lacerazione quale quella attuale, in cui sembrano prevalere le differenze e non le somiglianze: un modo intenso per interpretare le ricorrenze festive.

Sara Guberti

Opere Recenti

La presenza del Sacro nell'arte attuale si manifesta più attraverso un'assenza o, a volte una nostalgia, che attraverso un'immanenza o un palesamento. Nella sua ricognizione dell'essere umano contemporaneo la comunicazione artistica registra le cifre più intime di una crisi che con un respiro più ampio e definito segna il culmine della secolarizzazione contemporanea. Questo avviene soprattutto in Occidente, dove, al di là di richiami all'ordine e a radici cristiane, ciò che resta è una confusa, dogmatica e banalizzata religione da mass media, che siede in prima fila, banalmente, nel salotto televisivo di turno. Per questo appare un po' controcorrente la scelta poetica di un'artista come Sara Guberti, che sceglie deliberatamente per la sua pittura un'indagine iconografica sulla sacralità, nella quale, grazie ad uno sguardo che annulla le distanze, si percepisce un approccio sincretico, altamente simbolico e, in ultima analisi, assai " religioso". Se con religioso intendiamo la vera accezione, cioè qualcosa che evoca il carattere sacro, cioè la potenza, ed insieme lo scrupolo e la separazione, la profondità.

Per cui Sara, già forte di trascorsi pittorici arcaicizzanti, si è orientata sul filo di una fascinazione tutta personale sulle orme dei miti, dei simboli e delle leggende che collegano ad un'unica radice Oriente ed Occidente: le Madonne nere, oggetto di culti molto diffusi anche nella nostra Europa informatizzata.

"Nigra sum sed formosa" diceva la Sposa del Cantico dei Cantici, il meraviglioso poema sacrale-erotico dell'antichità cristiana, e sulla nigritudo della Madonna si è, nel corso dei secoli steso ufficialmente un velo iconografico, interrotto soltanto dalla devozione alle centinaia(solo in Italia ci sono più di quaranta Santuari) di Madonne Nere sparse per l'Europa.

Sara con le sue ultime opere parte di qui, da un'immagine che si ricollega al mito femminile della Grande Madre Terra, passando dalle stratificazioni che uniscono in una sola immagine Iside, Kali, Ishtar, Cibele, Maria, contaminando di nessi simbolici le varie iconografie: le stelle e il manto azzurro di Iside Faria che passano in Maria Stella Maris, e il bimbo in braccio, Horus-Gesù, Kali che unisce l'aspetto sanguinario di purificatrice a quello di fecondità e insieme Cibele, l'altra Dea nera, dolcissima e crudele.

Così la sua pittura racconta questa avventura interiore, fatta di curiosità, di affetto, sentimentale forse, avventura che racconta un eterno femminino Porta d'Oriente e insieme d'Occidente, filo invisibile che riannoda il sangue ed il passato, che permette di individuare e fors'anche raccontare il presente.

Così insieme alle Marie Nere si aprono la strada altre immagini che allo stesso modo delle precedenti si contaminano ed arrivano a comprendere i segni dei quattro evangelisti, raccolti da un bassorilievo medievale o da un incisore indiano: buoi, leoni, aquile, agnelli.

Sara usa timbri che fa costruire appositamente da artigiani su suo progetto. E intende la sua pittura come una sorta di tatuaggio sulla pelle della tela che, se da una parte evoca l'astrazione del rituale, dall'altra si apre alla fisicità corporea, ad una materia cromatica che non è rarefatta, ma carnea, luminosa e preziosa.

Una materia fatta di terra insomma, di immancabile e seduttiva assenza di rigore.

E nel far questo la sua deliberata serialità scandisce un ritmo ed evoca il suono ipnotico di una preghiera.

"Il timbro sta alla visione come il mantra sta al suono", spiega l'artista.

E se la sua operazione di partenza si pone in un'ottica concettuale di ripetizione, il punto di arrivo disegna un'affascinante imperfezione, nella delicata e amorosa sbavatura sulla superficie pittorica, animata da un gesto fluido e percorsa da grafie e arabeschi: una parola ripetuta che contiene le impercettibili modificazioni del respiro, le pause, le sospensioni, i sussurri e li traduce per lo sguardo.

Ogni immagine così diventa diversa da quella precedenti, esattamente come ogni istante è diverso da quello che l'ha preceduto: non basta il profilo a segnare una definizione che forse esiste solo per essere superata, oltrepassata gentilmente.

La sua è una metodologia formale che acquista una valenza tutta interiore e diventa altro da sé, diventa un rosario cristiano, un Japa Mala induista, un Misbaha musulmano di visioni che si rincorrono in echi sempre differenti, raccolti da un gesto che da pittorico si fa affettivo e svela, dolcemente, il sentimento e la vastità bellissima del nostro mondo.

Sabina Ghinassi

Ravenna, dicembre

www.mirada.it

fe6gZQpdLPU by Gorbunov Yaroslav

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Pannonhalma - Cathedral - Interior - Chapel - Altar - Detail 01 by Radoslav Besenyi

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The monastery of the Benedictine Order at Pannonhalma was founded in 996 in Western Hungary and had a major role in the diffusion of Christianity in medieval Central Europe. The monastery shows a stratification of different architectural styles and various buildings.

Among these buildings: a school (the first ever school founded in the country), the monastic complex – home to the monks whose life is still based on St. Benedict’s Rule ‘Ora et labora’ -, the tourist welcome points and hospitality facilities, the Chapel of Our Lady, the Millennium Chapel and the botanical and herbal gardens.

www.comece.eu/christian-artworks-benedictine-archabbey-of...

St. Bartholomew's Church, Kolín, Bohemia, Czechia by Billy Wilson

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Looking southeast along Brandlova.

"The Church of St. Bartholomew, also called St. Bartholomew's Church, is an important Gothic sacral building located in Kolín. It was built in the second half of the thirteenth century in early Gothic style. A nave with a pair of octagonal western towers survived from this construction phase. In the fourteenth century, a completely new, tall, "cathedral" choir with a crown of chapels was built by Petr Parléř. At the beginning of the 16th century, a bell tower was added. The church is on the list of national cultural monuments.

Kolín (German: Kolin, Köllein, Collin) is a city in the Kolín district in the east of the Central Bohemian Region, located on the Elbe River. It is also a municipality with extended jurisdiction. It has approximately 33 thousand inhabitants and has an area of 35 km² with an average altitude of 220 meters. It lies about 60 km east of Prague on both banks of the Elbe.

Kolín was probably founded before 1261 by Přemysl Otakar II, the well-preserved historic core is protected as a city monument reserve. In 1845, Kolín was connected to an important railway between Prague and Olomouc, this fact is very important for the further prosperity of the city, and from the second half of the 19th century the city underwent rapid industrialization.

Kolín is an important railway junction. The chemical, automotive, engineering, food, printing and metallurgical industries are represented here.

In honor of the local music composer František Kmoch, the Kmochův Kolín International Brass Music Festival takes place in Kolín, and the work of the photographer Jaromír Funke is commemorated by the Funke Kolín Photography Festival.

Bohemia (Latin Bohemia, German Böhmen, Polish Czechy) is a region in the west of the Czech Republic. Previously, as a kingdom, they were the center of the Czech Crown. The root of the word Czech probably corresponds to the meaning of man. The Latin equivalent of Bohemia, originally Boiohaemum (literally "land of Battles"), which over time also influenced the names in other languages, is derived from the Celtic tribe of the Boios, who lived in this area from the 4th to the 1st century BC Bohemia on it borders Germany in the west, Austria in the south, Moravia in the east and Poland in the north. Geographically, they are bounded from the north, west and south by a chain of mountains, the highest of which are the Krkonoše Mountains, in which the highest mountain of Bohemia, Sněžka, is also located. The most important rivers are the Elbe and the Vltava, with the fertile Polabean Plain extending around the Elbe. The capital and largest city of Bohemia is Prague, other important cities include, for example, Pilsen, Karlovy Vary, Kladno, Ústí nad Labem, Liberec, Hradec Králové, Pardubice and České Budějovice, Jihlava also lies partly on the historical territory of Bohemia." - info from Wikipedia.

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

Now on Instagram.

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