Eastern Redcedar - Juniperus virginiana
A long time ago when the Cherokee people were new upon the
earth, they thought that life would be much better if there was
never any night. They beseeched the Ouga (Creator) that it
might be day all the time and that there would be no darkness.
The Creator heard their voices and made the night cease and it
was day all the time. Soon, the forest was thick with heavy
growth. It became difficult to walk and to find the path. The
people toiled in the gardens many long hours trying to keep the
weeds pulled from among the corn and other food plants. It got
hot, very hot, and continued that way day after long day. The
people began to find it difficult to sleep and became short
tempered and argued among themselves.
Not many days had passed before the people realized they had
made a mistake and, once again, they beseeched the Creator.
"Please," they said, "we have made a mistake in asking that it
be day all the time. Now we think that it should be night all the
time." The Creator paused at this new request and thought that
perhaps the people may be right even though all things were
created in twos... representing to us day and night, life and
death, good and evil, times of plenty and those times of famine.
The Creator loved the people and decided to make it night all
the time as they had asked.
The day ceased and night fell upon the earth. Soon, the crops
stopped growing and it became very cold. The people spent
much of their time gathering wood for the fires. They could not
see to hunt meat and with no crops growing it was not long
before the people were cold, weak, and very hungry. Many of
the people died.
Those that remained still living gathered once again to beseech
the Creator. "Help us Creator," they cried! "We have made a
terrible mistake. You had made the day and the night perfect,
and as it should be, from the beginning. We ask that you forgive
us and make the day and night as it was before."
Once again the Creator listened to the request of the people.
The day and the night became, as the people had asked, as it
had been in the beginning. Each day was divided between light
and darkness. The weather became more pleasant, and the
crops began to grow again. Game was plentiful and the hunting
was good. The people had plenty to eat and there was not much
sickness. The people treated each other with compassion and
respect. It was good to be alive. The people thanked the Creator
for their life and for the food they had to eat.
The Creator accepted the gratitude of the people and was glad
to see them smiling again. However, during the time of the long
days of night, many of the people had died, and the Creator was
sorry that they had perished because of the night. The Creator
placed their spirits in a newly created tree. This tree was named
a-tsi-na tlu-gv {ah-see-na loo-guh} cedar tree.
When you smell the aroma of the cedar tree or gaze upon it
standing in the forest, remember that if you are Tsalagi
{Cherokee}, you are looking upon your ancestor.
Tradition holds that the wood of the cedar tree holds powerful
protective spirits for the Cherokee. Many carry a small piece of
cedar wood in their medicine bags worn around the neck. It is
also placed above the entrances to the house to protect against
the entry of evil spirits. A traditional drum would be made from
cedar wood.
Does the author believe this? Well, lets just say that there is a
piece of cedar in my medicine pouch and I wear it always. The
Creator did not make the people because of loneliness, but
because the Creator wanted to show generosity and love to the
people. Accept the blessings and the gifts given and always give
thanks for them
Big Blue
stopped to film the grand clouds at the 'old dredge hole' - long since turned into a marina area, restaurant destination etc - and this guy was there posing for me (but I didn't tip him)
Well The Sun Is Over The Yardarm, eh?
Over the yardarm
Q From Nora Kelly in Canada: Do you know the meaning and origin of the phrase when the sun has crossed over the yardarm? I have heard it said when it’s lunch time and okay to have an alcoholic beverage.
A That’s the usual meaning among landlubbers, though I’ve
heard of some who tend to use it for the early evening, after-work
period from about 5pm onwards. It turns up in various forms, of which the sun’s over the yardarm is probably the most common, but one also sees not till the sun’s over the yardarm as an injunction, or perhaps a warning.
The yardarms on a sailing ship are the horizontal timbers or spars
mounted on the masts, from which the square sails are hung. (The word yard
here is from an old Germanic word for a pointed stick, the source also
of our unit of measurement.) At certain times of year it will seem from
the deck that the sun has risen far enough up the sky that it is above
the topmost yardarm. In summer in the north Atlantic, where the phrase
seems to have originated, this would have been at about 11am. This was
by custom and rule the time of the first rum issue of the day to
officers and men (the officers had their tots neat, the men’s diluted).
It seems that officers in sailing ships adopted a custom, even when on
shore, of waiting until this time before taking their first alcoholic
drink of the day.Though the days of sail are far behind us, the expression has a surprisingly wide currency still, especially in North America. Despite its apparent antiquity, it wasn’t recorded in print until the end of the nineteenth century.
At The Moment
right this moment
United States
Germany
Ukraine
Brazil
Poland
France
Philippines
Canada
Portugal
United Kingdom
Indonesia
Canada
Portugal
United Kingdom
Indonesia
sorry I missed yesterday
Bolete - but not an edible I think - will do a check on this and update a little later
I believe that this is the:
Phylloporus rhodoxanthus: The "Gilled Bolete"
25Jun'17
using both my mushroom book and looking online - but as I've said before I am just an amateur so take care if you are thinking of eating this supposed 'edible'/
The Cardinal Eggs Have Hatched
sorry about the 'out-of-focus' but I was standing on a stool and still reaching above my head in order to shoot downward - not wanting to be a disturbance more than needed I took the two photos and then left - if there is a next time I will somewhat adjust 'focus' in advance at an estimated distance
Chinese Poetry
The earliest Chinese poetry begins with the Shih
Ching, a collection of 305 poems of varying length, drawn
from all ranks of Chinese society. The title Shih Ching
is usually translated in English as The Book of Songs
or sometimes as The Odes. Shih means "song-words."
Ching can mean "classic" or "traditional"
or in the context of literature, it means "writings"
or "scripture." Commentator Mao ordered the poems
and assigned each one a number, and his number is still used
as the primary means of refering to each poem in Chinese texts,
though I have chosen to list my samples
below by first lines and
titles.
Some of these poems may date back to 1000 BCE.
The oldest poem in this collection that can be pinpointed precisely
dates back to 621 BCE, the date of the death of Duke Mu of the
state of Ch'in. The various poems probably were compiled over
several centuries, most of them during the Zhou (also spelled
Chou) period around 600 BCE. This treasury of traditional songs
is the oldest collection of poems in world literature, and it
became one of the Five Confucian Classics.
In spite of the many centuries that the Shih
Ching embraces, there are several traits prevalent in the
poems that later became traits of Chinese poetry generally.
Traits of Classical Chinese poetry:
(1) Usually, the Chinese poem is fairly simple
on the surface. Western culture, which was influenced by
Shakespeare, Milton, and the Romantic poets, had a pronounced
tendency to think of poems as ornate, elaborate creations made
by a few men of genius. Chinese culture, influenced by the anonymity
of the Shih Ching, had a tendency to think of poems as
something written by common humanity for the eyes of other humans.
(2) Usually the poem deals with either
agrarian imagery, courtship and marriage, or dynastic concerns.
The Zhou (or Chou) dynasty was agrarian in its roots, and for
its people, "their sense of beauty and order is closely
related to the cycles and abundance of the agricultural year,"
as Stephen Owen suggests (xx). Likewise, the poems often revolve
around the sorrows and joys of romance, or dealt with the heroic
and legendary exploits of rulers and kings. Other poems, which
probably originated in folk-songs, deal with the everyday trials
and tribulations of love, life, and the family.
(3) Each poem is usually composed of lines
of four syllables, usually with rhymed endings in the original
Chinese. Often these four syllables appear as four pictograms.
The normal form of the courtship and marriage songs is three
verses of four lines each. Only a single non-fragmentary poem
consists of a single quatrain, the form that later became popular
in modern Chinese poetry.
(4) The poetic principle organizing
the poem is often one of contrast. Often Chinese poetry
will juxtapose a natural scene with a social or personal situation.
The reader of the poem sees the similarity in the natural description
and the human condition, and comes to a new awareness of each
by this contrast. In Chinese, this idea is embodied in the terms
fu, bi, and xing (pronounced "shing").
Fu refers to a straightforward narrative with a beginning,
middle, and conclusion, that stands by itself. Bi, literally
"against," implies a comparison or contrast, placing
two things side by side. When one takes two different fu,
and places them together, the two create a bi. This results
in xing, a mental stimulation or "lightning"
that pervades the mind of the reader, bringing new insight or
awareness into the nature of the individual fu that compose
the poem. Confucius stated that this xing is the purpose
of poetry, that the point of a poem was to make the mind contemplate
its subject deeply.
Like European poetry, Chinese poetry often relies
on alliteration, repetition, and onomatopoeia to create its
effects. Song #1 of
the Shih Ching (#87 in the Waley anthology) illustrates
this point when we contrast the original Chinese with the English
translation of the poem.
Additionally, the Shih Ching contains four
general subtypes of poems:
from:
- Feng, (folk-songs or aires, which I find the most beautiful of all the poems)
- Minor Odes
- Major Odes
- Dynastic Songs
ps://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/chinese_poetry.html
| The following poem was written by Li He in the ninth century CE. |
"Song
of the Bronze Statue "
Gone
that emperor of Maoling,
Rider
through the autumn wind,
Whose
horse neighs at night
And
has passed without trace by dawn.
The
fragrance of autumn lingers still
On
those cassia trees by painted galleries,
But
on every palace hall the green moss grows.
As
Wei's envoy sets out to drive a thousand li 1
The
keen wind at the East Gate stings the statue's eyes. . . .
From
the ruined palace he brings nothing forth
But
the moonshaped disk of Han, 2
True
to his lord, he sheds leaden tears, 3
And
withered orchids by the Xianyang Road
See
the traveler on his way.
Ah,
if Heaven had a feeling heart, it, too, must grow old!
4
He
bears the disk off alone
By
the light of the desolate moon,
The
town far behind him, muted its lapping waves.
Today's date in 2015 - the equipment is gone but the bridge is still in limbo
this is why the average person - myself included - dislikes the idea of government as problems seem to have no solution
Morning (5:30 pm) Moon
spent the day driving to Baltimore to visit my son and then home in drenching rain an hour or less ago so not many photographs today - did get these in bright and early
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)