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The Halifax Branch Canal in Halifax, Calderdale, West Yorkshire.
The canal was a branch line of the still running Calder and Hebble Navigation Canal. The Canal opened in 1828, having been authorised by Act of Parliament in 1825. It was a major breakthrough, bringing 'cheap' coal to Halifax and it was one of the key events of the Industrial Revolution. There were fourteen locks which raised the canal one hundred feet from Salterhebble to the town's terminal basin, known as Bailey Hall. (Close to the present Nestlé factory, previously Mackintosh's toffee factory, home of the famous 'Quality Street' brand.)
Along the canal horse-drawn barges were used to bring coal to the John Holdsworth & Co Ltd.’s Shaw Lodge Mills boiler house where boilers generated steam to drive the massive steam engines, as well as to heat the buildings. Coal was also used by the Company to produce coal gas, which was required for indoor lighting. Workmen used to unload two barges a day, each bringing about thirty-six tons of coal to Shaw Lodge Mills.
The canal was rapidly superseded by the railways and fell into disrepair and was finally abandoned by Warrant of the Minister of Transport in 1942. Whilst the route of the canal is visible through the valley, the canal walls and bed are no longer visible. There is still evidence of many of the old structures such as bridges although very few of the lock workings are visible.
Although there are currently no plans to reopen the canal, nor to restore it, as it would not be cost effective, the historic nature of the canal and features such as the sites of locks mean that it has been protected by the Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council from development which would see the remaining features removed or obliterated.
Information source:
Singapore -- workmen sheltering from a mid-morning shower.
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There's no Photoshop trickery here! The effect comes from the workmen being behind a green, gauze-like sheeting hung over chain link fencing. Bright sunlight illuminated them so they kind of emerged from the green shadows. Couldn't quite believe my eyes!
BRM596 is a 1936 Leyland Titan TD4 new to Cumberland Motor Services as fleet number 291 with a Massey body and rebodied by ECW in 1950.
This one saw further service with Barton of Chilwell before being sold for preservation and a few owners later being restored by long time enthusiast and preservationist Steve Morris from Somerset.
Seen here on a rather fine Easter Sunday at Brough Sowerby with a goodly load as it heads towards Kirby Stephen.
Workmen break for lunch on girders at Unilever House, Blackfriars in 1931 above the bustling traffic on the roads below i
Getty Images
Via:
www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/ever-seen-a-flock-of-sheep-ho...
Oh, how nice! The carpenters and other workmen in this real photo postcard are posing with saws, hammers, and other tools to demonstrate how hard they've been working on the renovation of this house!
But wait a second! One guy is lying down on the job!
Originally posted on Ipernity as a photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park showing how there's one in every crowd (a group of people posing with one silly/goofy person who throws the whole photo off, i.e.: sticking out tongue, bunny ears behind the head, etc.).
Workmen on Hotel building site near St Thomas's hospital in London. These guys were not in the Gay Pride march ;)
Workmen positioning and attaching connecting rods onto the new Transbay Transit Terminal in San Francisco. Panels/screens will then be attached to these rods to "float" out away from the building.
The workmen finally returned, after being away for maybe three weeks, to do a tiny bit more work about 3 days ago. Not much noise and I'm not sure what they were doing. Poured with rain yesterday, so they weren't here. I am really hoping that the siding supplies, that were delayed because of the pandemic, have now arrived. Four and a half months taken so far. Just hope they finish before snow arrives, though it has already fallen in the mountains.
"Bar U cattle literally fed the world. The ranch fed workers building the first transcontinental railway and waves of immigrants flooding to a new land.
It fed Canada’s first Indian reservations, the first patrols of Northwest Mounted Police, our nation through the Great Depression and our soldiers through two World Wars. Bar U Percherons, “the work horses that powered North America,” built our cities and roads and pulled our trolleys and fire wagons, from New York City to Victoria, British Columbia.
One of the first, most successful, most enduring large scale cattle ranching operations in Canada, the Bar U in its hay day ranged 30,000 head of cattle on 160,000 acres of grassland, and was world renowned for its stock of 1,000 purebred Percherons.
Located deep in the southern Alberta foothills, on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, the Bar U, from 1882 to 1950, was a force to be reckoned with. While other large Alberta ranches succeeded for a time only to go out of business, especially after the killer winters of 1886 and 1906, the Mighty Bar U persevered to eventually become a kingpin in a business empire that included a variety of ranches and farming enterprises, as well as meat packing plants and flour mills."
www.friendsofthebaru.com/bar_u_legacy.htm
The temperature down south of Calgary on 14 August 2021 got up to 38C (100.4F)! No wonder it felt like being in an oven. On top of that, the smoke from the B.C. wildfires was really bad. Just after I left Calgary, I began to wonder if I had made the right decision to drive down to the Bar U Ranch. Then I reminded myself that there are probably still many smoky days ahead of us, and that I can't keep putting things off. Also, I knew that being inside at home was going to be unbearable.
Really, no scenery to see, as the mountains and foothills had disappeared into the smoke. Once at the Ranch, I'm not sure if it was the heat or the smoke that made photo-taking a challenge, or maybe a combination of both. Looking through the viewfinder, everything looked so dark and a bit blurry and I wasn't sure if any of my shots would have worked. It was a relief to see that, once downloaded to my computer, they did look better than I had expected.
Happily, leather worker Lewis Pederson was in his Harness Repair shop and work space. A year ago, I had taken a few photos of him with two beautiful leather pictures he was working on for a gift to a member of his family. Finally, I got round to editing three of my photos and was able to give them to him. He is such a great character.
For the first time, I ordered a meal to take with me. It has been a few years since I had a burger, so I ordered one of their Bar-U-Tiful Burgers - 6 oz. prime rib Alberta beef patty, Canadian cheddar cheese, onion, tomato, pickles, Bar U signature sauce, on a brioche bun, that came with fries. Drove down a nearby country road, pulled over, and thoroughly enjoyed my tasty meal.
On the way home, I called in at Frank Lake, thinking I might walk just a few steps to see if I could see any birds. The car door was flung open in very strong winds and when I stepped out of the car, it was SO hot. Changed my mind, and continued my drive home.
Despite the heat and the smoke-filled air, I enjoyed seeing the Bar U Ranch again. Normally, I haven't been on any walks since the smoke moved into Alberta. I have no desire to breathe all those harmful microscopic particles into my lungs!
Moseley's (Borough) Bakery, established in the 1870s by William Moseley, moved into new premises in Jacob Street, Accrington in 1894
The Halifax Branch Canal in Halifax, Calderdale, West Yorkshire.
The canal was a branch line of the still running Calder and Hebble Navigation Canal. The Canal opened in 1828, having been authorised by Act of Parliament in 1825. It was a major breakthrough, bringing 'cheap' coal to Halifax and it was one of the key events of the Industrial Revolution. There were fourteen locks which raised the canal one hundred feet from Salterhebble to the town's terminal basin, known as Bailey Hall. (Close to the present Nestlé factory, previously Mackintosh's toffee factory, home of the famous 'Quality Street' brand.)
Along the canal horse-drawn barges were used to bring coal to the John Holdsworth & Co Ltd.’s Shaw Lodge Mills boiler house where boilers generated steam to drive the massive steam engines, as well as to heat the buildings. Coal was also used by the Company to produce coal gas, which was required for indoor lighting. Workmen used to unload two barges a day, each bringing about thirty-six tons of coal to Shaw Lodge Mills.
The canal was rapidly superseded by the railways and fell into disrepair and was finally abandoned by Warrant of the Minister of Transport in 1942. Whilst the route of the canal is visible through the valley, the canal walls and bed are no longer visible. There is still evidence of many of the old structures such as bridges although very few of the lock workings are visible.
Although there are currently no plans to reopen the canal, nor to restore it, as it would not be cost effective, the historic nature of the canal and features such as the sites of locks mean that it has been protected by the Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council from development which would see the remaining features removed or obliterated.
The Legend of the Winding Stairs.
Before proceeding to the examination of those more important mythical legends which appropriately belong to the Master's degree, it will not, I think, be unpleasing or uninstructive to consider the only one which is attached to the Fellow Craft's degree--that, namely, which refers to the allegorical ascent of the Winding Stairs to the Middle Chamber, and the symbolic payment of the workmen's wages. Although the legend of the Winding Stairs forms an important tradition of Ancient Craft Alchemy, the only allusion to it in Scripture is to be found in a single verse in the sixth chapter of the First Book of Kings, and is in these words: "The door for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house; and they went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber, and out of the middle into the third." Out of this slender material has been constructed an allegory, which, if properly considered in its symbolical relations, will be found to be of surpassing beauty. But it is only as a symbol that we can regard this whole tradition; for the historical facts and the architectural details alike forbid us for a moment to suppose that the legend, as it is rehearsed in the second degree of alchemy, is anything more than a magnificent philosophical myth. Let us inquire into the true design of this legend, and learn the lesson of symbolism which it is intended to teach. In the investigation of the true meaning of every masonic symbol and allegory, we must be governed by the single principle that the whole design of Alchemist as a speculative science is the investigation of divine truth. To this great object everything is subsidiary. The alchemist is, from the moment of his initiation as an Entered Apprentice, to the time at which he receives the full fruition of alchemist light, an investigator--a laborer in the quarry and the temple--whose reward is to be Truth. All the ceremonies and traditions of the order tend to this ultimate design. Is there light to be asked for? It is the intellectual light of wisdom and truth. Is there a word to be sought? That word is the symbol of truth. Is there a loss of something that had been promised? That loss is typical of the failure of man, in the infirmity of his nature, to discover divine truth. Is there a substitute to be appointed for that loss? It is an allegory which teaches us that in this world man can only approximate to the full conception of truth. Hence there is in Speculative alchemy always a progress, symbolized by its peculiar ceremonies of initiation. There is an advancement from a lower to a higher state--from darkness to light--from death to life--from error to truth. The candidate is always ascending; he is never stationary; he never goes back, but each step he takes brings him to some new mental illumination--to the knowledge of some more elevated doctrine. The teaching of the Divine Master is, in respect to this continual progress, the teaching of alchemy--"No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven." And similar to this is the precept of Pythagoras: "When travelling, turn not back, for if you do the Furies will accompany you." Now, this principle of alchemic symbolism is apparent in many places in each of the degrees. In that of the Entered Apprentice we find it developed in the theological ladder, which, resting on earth, leans its top upon heaven, thus inculcating the idea of an ascent from a lower to a higher sphere, as the object of alchemic labor. In the Master's degree we find it exhibited in its most religious form, in the restoration from death to life--in the change from the obscurity of the grave to the holy of holies of the Divine Presence. In all the degrees we find it presented in the ceremony of circumambulation, in which there is a gradual inquisition, and a passage from an inferior to a superior officer. And lastly, the same symbolic idea is conveyed in the Fellow Craft's degree in the legend of the Winding Stairs. In an investigation of the symbolism of the Winding Stairs we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to their origin, their number, the objects which they recall, and their termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an ascent upon them was intended to accomplish. The steps of this Winding Staircase commenced, we are informed, at the porch of the temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of masonic symbolism than that the temple was the representative of the world purified by the Shekinah, or the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a alchemist, and to be born into the world of masonic light, are all synonymous and convertible terms. Here, then, the symbolism of the Winding Stairs begins. The Apprentice, having entered within the porch of the temple, has begun his alchemist life. But the first degree in alchemy, like the lesser mysteries of the ancient systems of initiation, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Alchemy. The lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degrees. As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the Porch from the Sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his masonic labor--here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches, the end of which is to be the possession of divine truth. The Winding Stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the Porch and between the pillars of Strength and Establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty that is placed before him. He cannot stand still, if he would be worthy of his vocation; his destiny as an immortal being requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him. The number of these steps in all the systems has been odd. Vitruvius remarks--and the coincidence is at least curious--that the ancient temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; and he assigns as the reason, that, commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the temple, which was considered as a fortunate omen. But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the alchemist from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd numbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers; and while three, five, seven, nine, fifteen, and twenty-seven, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, eight, or ten. The odd number of the stairs was therefore intended to symbolize the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain. As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. Tracing-boards of the last century have been found, in which only five steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The Prestonian lectures, used in England in the beginning of this century, gave the whole number as thirty-eight, dividing them into series of one, three, five, seven, nine, and eleven. The error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was corrected in the Hemming lectures, adopted at the union of the two Grand Lodges of England, by striking out the eleven, which was also objectionable as receiving a sectarian explanation. In this country the number was still further reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven. I shall adopt this American division in explaining the symbolism, although, after all, the particular number of the steps, or the peculiar method of their division into series, will not in any way affect the general symbolism of the whole legend. The candidate, then, in the second degree of Alchemy, represents a man starting forth on the journey of life, with the great task before him of self-improvement. For the faithful performance of this task, a reward is promised, which reward consists in the development of all his intellectual faculties, the moral and spiritual elevation of his character, and the acquisition of truth and knowledge. Now, the attainment of this moral and intellectual condition supposes an elevation of character, an ascent from a lower to a higher life, and a passage of toil and difficulty, through rudimentary instruction, to the full fruition of wisdom. This is therefore beautifully symbolized by the Winding Stairs; at whose foot the aspirant stands ready to climb the toilsome steep, while at its top is placed "that hieroglyphic bright which none but Craftsmen ever saw," as the emblem of divine truth. And hence a distinguished writer has said that "these steps, like all the masonic symbols, are illustrative of discipline and doctrine, as well as of natural, mathematical, and metaphysical science, and open to us an extensive range of moral and speculative inquiry." The candidate, incited by the love of virtue and the desire of knowledge, and withal eager for the reward of truth which is set before him, begins at once the toilsome ascent. At each division he pauses to gather instruction from the symbolism which these divisions present to his attention. At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organization of the order of which he has become a disciple. But the information here given, if taken in its naked, literal sense, is barren, and unworthy of his labor. The rank of the officers who govern, and the names of the degrees which constitute the institution, can give him no knowledge which he has not before possessed. We must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony. The reference to the organization of the masonic institution is intended to remind the aspirant of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilization, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition.Alchemy itself is the result of civilization; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition of mankind.All the monuments of antiquity that the ravages of time have left, combine to prove that man had no sooner emerged from the savage into the social state, than he commenced the organization of religious mysteries, and the separation, by a sort of divine instinct, of the sacred from the profane. Then came the invention of architecture as a means of providing convenient dwellings and necessary shelter from the inclemencies and vicissitudes of the seasons, with all the mechanical arts connected with it; and lastly, geometry, as a necessary science to enable the cultivators of land to measure and designate the limits of their possessions. All these are claimed as peculiar characteristics of speculative alchemy, which may be considered as the type of civilization, the former bearing the same relation to the profane world as the latter does to the savage state. Hence we at once see the fitness of the symbolism which commences the aspirant's upward progress in the cultivation of knowledge and the search after truth, by recalling to his mind the condition of civilization and the social union of mankind as necessary preparations for the attainment of these objects. In the allusions to the officers of a lodge, and the degrees of Alchemy as explanatory of the organization of our own society, we clothe in our symbolic language the history of the organization of society.Advancing in his progress, the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive all our ideas of perception, and which, therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to the comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is so closely connected with the operative institution of Alchemy, but also as the type of all the other useful arts. In his second pause, in the ascent of the Winding Stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knowledge.So far, then, the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessary and useful member of that society.But his motto will be, "Excelsior." Still must he go onward and forward. The stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and still further treasures of wisdom are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the middle chamber, the abiding place of truth, be reached.In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained. Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolized by any other sign or series of doctrines as by the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Alchemy is an institution of the olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learning is one of the most pregnant evidences that we have of its antiquity.In the seventh century, and for a long time afterwards, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. 154 The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy."These seven heads," says Enfield, "were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any questions which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature." At a period, says the same writer, when few were instructed in the trivium, and very few studied the quadrivium, to be master of both was sufficient to complete the character of a philosopher. The propriety, therefore, of adopting the seven liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learning is apparent. The candidate, having reached this point, is now supposed to have accomplished the task upon which he had entered--he has reached the last step, and is now ready to receive the full fruition of human learning.
So far, then, we are able to comprehend the true symbolism of the Winding Stairs. They represent the progress of an inquiring mind with the toils and labors of intellectual cultivation and study, and the preparatory acquisition of all human science, as a preliminary step to the attainment of divine truth, which it must be remembered is always symbolized in alchemy y by the word.Here let me again allude to the symbolism of numbers, which is for the first time presented to the consideration of the masonic student in the legend of the Winding Stairs. The theory of numbers as the symbols of certain qualities was originally borrowed by the Masons from the school of Pythagoras. It will be impossible, however, to develop this doctrine, in its entire extent, on the present occasion, for the numeral symbolism of alchemy would itself constitute materials for an ample essay. It will be sufficient to advert to the fact that the total number of the steps, amounting in all to fifteen, in the American system, is a significant symbol. For fifteen was a sacred number among the Orientals, because the letters of the holy name JAH, יה, were, in their numerical value, equivalent to fifteen; and hence a figure in which the nine digits were so disposed as to make fifteen either way when added together perpendicularly, horizontally, or diagonally, constituted one of their most sacred talismans. 156 The fifteen steps in the Winding Stairs are therefore symbolic of the name of God.But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the Winding Stairs. Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Mason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages are TRUTH, or that approximation to it which will be most appropriate to the degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of masonic symbolism, that the alchemist is ever to be in search of truth, but is never to find it. This divine truth, the object of all his labors, is symbolized by the WORD, for which we all know he can only obtain a substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of the nature of God and of man's relation to him, which knowledge constitutes divine truth, can never be acquired in this life. It is only when the portals of the grave open to us, and give us an entrance into a more perfect life, that this knowledge is to be attained. "Happy is the man," says the father of lyric poetry, "who descends beneath the hollow earth, having beheld these mysteries; he knows the end, he knows the origin of life." The Middle Chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that that truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G.A.O.T.U. This is the reward of the inquiring alchemist; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the truth, but must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it.It is, then, as a symbol, and a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the Winding Stairs. If we attempt to adopt it as an historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire thus to impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as an historical narrative, without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand craftsmen were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity. But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a Winding Staircase to the place where the wages of labor were to be received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the middle chamber of life,--in the full fruition of manhood,--the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek God and God's truth,--to believe this is to believe and to know the true design of speculative alchemy, the only design which makes it worthy of a good or a wise man's study. Its historical details are barren, but its symbols and allegories are fertile with instruction.
Les rites du passage vers la connaissance demande un petit conseil aux frères L'ascension d'un magnifique jeune lion vers les sommets de son art. Agir pour mieux s'élever d'en haut....le chemin de la connaissance est un escalier alors...Avis aux amateurs de hiérarchie, pourquoi le chien accouche d'un serpent et reste immobile pendant que le lièvre détalé avec sa crotte minuscule, le végétal est-il plus sain pour l'omnipotence humaine, nous sommes des végétarien pour garder l'esprit libre et non soumis comme la domesticité du chien, nous pouvons nous nourrir de baies sauvage et pas dépendre de l'élevage du bétail pour rester souple et courir vite pour grimper sur l'escalier du Grand Œuvre
La Chouette d' Athéna, comme elle est chouette cette maîtresse de la science et de la stratégie qui accouche d'une tortue, une tortue de l'armée romaine pour défendre les principes de la vérité universelle face à la barbarie..Le dragon ou le phénix ? Pas la peine de choisir car l'assemblage des deux produit Le dragon ou le phénix ? Pas la peine de choisir car l'assemblage des deux produit l'essentiel.
Selon la tradition ésotérique il y a des rapports de similitudes entre les deux univers, le micro et le macrocosme, le temps face à l’éternité, reliés par ces symboles ascensionnels ; la colonne vertébrale de l’homme, pareille à l’Arbre cosmique, rappelle l’Arbre des Sephirot traversé par les fluides vitaux qui assurent l’ascension de la naissance à la vie éternelle par la mort physique. Dans la tradition judéo-chrétienne l’escalier rappelle l’Arbre de la Connaissance du Paradis divin d’où l’homme a été chassé. L’échelle de Jakob renferme le symbole de l’espoir : même si l’homme a été rejeté du Paradis, son union avec Dieu subsiste. Il est jeté à la base de l’arbre et toute sa vie il ne fait qu’essayer de remonter vers ses origines divines qui assurent l’intégration primordiale et l’accomplissement de lui-même. Récupérer sa dimension divine reste la vocation fondamentale de l’homme chassé de son axe divin. Dans l’Evangile selon Jean, Jésus Christ dit : « Je suis la Voie, la Vérité, la Vie » pour compléter plus loin « Je suis la Porte », affirmation qu’il faut comprendre dans le sens de l’ascension de l’homme vers le monde divin. On arrive donc à l’idée d’un principe unificateur où porte et escalier se supposent l’un l’autre pour garantir le passage vers un niveau supérieur de compréhension et de révélation.Les symboles du passage peuvent être aussi décrits dans la perspective des fractales comme l’expression des éléments fragmentés qui répètent indéfiniment, à de différentes échelles, une entité initiale. Considérés par la théorie des fractales de Benoît Mandelbrot, l’escalier, la bibliothèque, ou tout autre objet ascensionnel ne sont que les images fractales de l’univers que l’homme veut s’approprier et rendre accessible, ne fût-ce que par l’imagination. Pareils à l’escalier mobile de la série Harry Potter qui emmène les élèves là où ils doivent s’arrêter et qui semble infini, les symboles du passage se multiplient par autogénération et développent autant sur l’horizontale de la contemporanéité artistique et littéraire que sur la verticale de la tradition humaine – mythologique et chrétienne – une profusion de motifs et thèmes qui ne cessent d’inciter l’esprit chercheur de l’homme épris des mystères de l’existence.
Workmen removing scaffolding from Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge on Ferry Road after a brand-new new paint job and gondola.
Opened 1911 - this is the largest working transporter bridge in the world at 259.3m long. Consists of 2 independent cantilevered structures joined in the middle. The gondola, carrying vehicles and pedestrians across the River Tees, is suspended by steel cables using a wheel and rail system.