I just don’t know the way to words right now, so I am repeating the
description from another film and set of 9 pictures, “The Old Man
of Hoy Resplendent Rock and Shadow Face.”
The light is
splendid and the scene is full of splendour. Nature made it, stories
gave it threads enough to make a garment of imagination and
inspiration and here it is just a lens away from my camera. Glorious
natural Sun, Sea, Sky and Rock Stack all as one making a sight ready
to be engaged with and adored.
I have lived with
The Old Man of Hoy in my imagination and vision for several decades.
From monochrome TV images through to colour TV and eventually to maps
and to sight seeing. The good fortune to have bright light and rich
shadow made several faces and on the rock and in the shadows it cast.
The Man in the Sea Stack is seen with head and shoulders defining his
full all in one image. The other shapes are there bring complex chaos
to an otherwise single view.
Pareidolia is the
name given to the phenomenon of our seeing faces and making out
objects in what we see. We try to understand our world an our instant
responses and reactions can be very true for us. The passage of the
Sun through the year brings light from different angles to give us
new shapes, silhouettes and shadows to enjoy.
I started to think,
Yes Old,
No not a Man
Both off and of Hoy
and more
Yes to Hoy, Orkney
Scotland and pushing via circuitous routes other islands and even
mainlands too
*I am the S.A.D. compiler of this not S.A.A.D. Production
**The Sheep are not S.A.D.
***The only S.A.D. component is me
****S.A.A.D. Sheep At A Distance
I saw sheep looking picturesque in a field not all that far away. Through my phone I engaged full zoom. The results looked ready for an edit. I edited the picture. I lost the picture. I found the picture. I now edited edits and editing lead to collecting the pictures into collages and then into patterns. The musical accompaniment is set to give you an insight into experience of losing and finding the sheep that journeyed into several pictorial representations and a film.
In the many rooms and also with out people come and days, to weeks, to months, to years go on and on This life is set out on a table and taken at bursts and blasts Nothing ever holds and almost nothing ever lasts Sometimes the table is an altar and the song is mass
No one is ever talking that much about Michelangelo Everyone is talking so much about the world we know And that world beyond this one is sung of in wistful song There is a moment not yet made that is about to be played There is never too little left that we have somehow unsaid
Failings ravings ravelling rambling ravening revealing and revealing The seasons rolling on and on the threads tangling and holding on
[Just flickering and snickering notions set out in sometimes rhyming motions.]
“Here
be dragons” means dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation
of a medieval practice of putting illustrations of dragons, sea
monsters and other mythological creatures on uncharted areas of maps
where potential dangers were thought to exist.
It
may be that Medieval Map Makers wrote, “Here be dragons,” to
indicate untold dangers and to warn away some exploration, or at
least ask any such explorers to bring back a few line illustrations
to update maps, charts and guides. When I say Dirleton Castle Here Be
Dragons, I mean Dirleton Castle Here Be Dragons. The Dragon was
posing for pictures and stating that Photoshop was allowed to bring
out his armoured scale magnificence and to sparkle the light of
gentle soft slightly flaming snores illuminating sleepily tinkling
pillowed to perfection golden hoards of the past, the present and
those yet to come within his eyes.
I
saw the Dragon Eggs hatch and fly away for Winter and it is possible
that the Dragon, as pictured here, may have flown away til Spring
2023. Please do ask if you are looking to see either The Dragon, as
pictured here, or The Nest, either with, or without The Eggs. The
Dragon, The Nest, The Eggs and The Man at Arms Presentations are all
worth a visit for and along with them there is a Castle and Grounds
that are superb.
For
updates on The Dragon, The Nest, The Eggs and The Man at Arms
Presentations and for artistic recreations of Castles and Historic
Scenes I follow their creator on Twitter.
I
only add as it gives me a way to help work with the use as linked
above.
I
will gladly grant copyright for none profit use of my work and I am
not trying to make any profit from these images.
One
Dragon and
one
picture lead to edits and inclusions with different
arrows
running
through the numbers and letters of
70 Miles and then
text inserted into
an empty cartouche, “Lairs
of Dragons open for visitors,”
not to forget the two large above and below titles of, “Dirleton
Castle,” at the top and, “Here Be Dragons,” at the foot. I have
been consumed by Dragon, Maps and Text til I was nothing except
Dragon edits. I have not configured every version of Dragon, Maps and
Text possible and some of the completed designs have not made it to
Flickr, YouTube and Blogger. Now I have to recover from Dragon
consumption and find another focus once I am recovered. I have
footage of a Knight in armour firing his cannon from a crenelated
tower, the boom, boom is not yet filling the room, but like Mr. Toad
I have heard the Thunder of the Future and in a Retrace Lightening
Pathway I am accelerating aspects of The Past towards Fixations Of
The fHuture*.
*FOTH
- Fixations Of The fHuture are thoughts that flutter like moths til
instead of them flying towards a source of illumination they have the
light seek the person experiencing FOTH is the source of their
illumination and the light travels towards the, at first small not
too distant, FOTH and the intense focus of the person generates a
metamorphosis to the friendly FOTH that expands and transmutes til is
comfort blanket and furnace of inspiration with keys to unlock
engaging experiences galore.
Squaredly
Squared – a process of squaring I think,
Bi-Half-Squaredly
– possibly a reflection, or repetition in extension.
Squardles
– same square of four, (or more), in opposite internal reflection
to all of the other parts of the square-ish pattern.
Squarish
– not quite a square created out of four elements that came
together nicely.
Squared
Sight Squarish Seeing Squardles and Squaredly Sites EVERYWHERE
-SSSSSaSSE – SAsse is shortish term slight infection and by
definition the apparent pixel printed grids and lined up light shines
on envisioned 90 degrees that are part projection as you seek
repetition and reflection.
A
new box opened, a fresh foil rent asunder and a cassette revealed
ready to bring a record of an instant to life from light.
Not
every day is a Polaroid Day, today was not. Today was a chance to
take a picture of an opened box with a phone camera that with digital
uploads can have a photograph available to the world quicker than the
Polaroid chemicals bring an image to life on the light sensitive
photograph paper.
Polaroid
have nearly vanished and have been resurrected.
I
tried not take these cheese pictures and I failed to hold back my
shutter rush
Battered
Truckle in Colour to Smooth Heart in Mono
When
buying this cheese some months ago I looked upon it as sustenance for
a photography idea. It was also edible. Then as the maturing process
continued with the long life truckle I wavered between taking
pictures, thinking that they would never be processed and only ever
be virtual compositions in my sight and not taking pictures for a
victory of life lived beyond digital recording. Had it been a film
project a different focus would have been generated. After cutting
into the cheese I virtually caved in and took pictures. I edited two
pictures together to have two areas in focus one from each image and
removed the scars from the wax and added a reflection on the knife.
None of the edits were completed, they are intimations towards a
better image that I attempted and now shared. Had it been a film
project a different focus would have been generated. Digital gives us
instant potential to record a moment as it happens, or as it matures
for months, a moment decided upon without taking photographs and then
yet another change of mind and suddenly something to share. The
cheese was superb and it cut into three sections without any decision
to cause the division that created another object that was another
potential for either photography, or life without recording. We have
a new perception and completion available in our current digital and
virtual worlds.
The
green and brown heart often flowered with colour and brilliance once
held green routes and always held runs and pathways and those routes
brought more traffic to open up the forest and to field and stockade
farm the valleys. Today the modern roads take us exactly where we
wish with digital precision on our phones directing our feet and our
vehicles. The roads take us on journeys over the land and through
history opening up access to the modern and to the ancient and we
have had more freedom of movement for every reason we have from trade
and tourism to refuge to and escape from what the roads have brought
into our lives. We had travel to broaden our perspective and flight
to reach across the globe and technology to virtually bring our home
and our individual life onto each of the screens all over the world
sharing emotion and making fantastic new versions and aversions of
living. Our routes to reach each other have stretched from nomadic
paths and star guided voyages to much of the world being only a
search away on any of our modern devices all connected via routes
like roots that become popular and well traced as well as little
utilised and left to dwindle. We have greater access to humanity than
ever before and we take the routes we wish to connect us as we will.
Our new virtual routes following our expressed emotions are filled
with animal inspired pathways, we still search for tracks and traces
following the paths of animals across an electronic terrain. Many
human take time to view remote natural wonders and we have our
intense interactive focus on food for the mind and the body and for
the soul. Paths once through the natural green and brown and
multicoloured heart of the land and now across globe spanning
highways brought me here and now you too.
Not a knot at the joint when
reflected at St. Abbs and not a Temple of Sabazios
With
a touch of editing here is a Gordian Knot with a join not knots
between the images.
Alexander
the Great when either presented, or confronted a challenge he was
often able to approach with directed focus that brought him success
against all odds. When shown the knot of King Gordias
that
was said waited to be undone by the next ruler of Asia Alexander is
said to have looked at the problem which might have been a knot of
shrunken and matted fibres and
decided not to let the impossible stand in his way to conquering Asia
and either cut the knot, or removed a lynch pin. His approach is
given different emphasis through the retelling with some telling of
his impetuous and head strong charge to a quick victory with no
limitations from rules and expectation, or he could be seen as
successfully assessing the problem and correctly realising the answer
had nothing to do with knot work, but rather creating a situation in
which the knot no longer worked.
The
unfathomable knot had been dedicated to the Phrygian God
Sabazios. Alexander and his fellow Greeks recognised aspects of
Sabazios that for them connected him to
their God Zeus. Zeus
was the all father and chief of the Greek Gods on Mount Olympus. In
resolving the Gordian Knot that had been held sacred and guarded by
the Priest of Sabazios,
Alexander who became known as, “The Great,” showed that he would
let nothing stand in his way, that he was determined to defeat any
problem and to be victorious winning and so bringing the blessings of
Priests and Gods with him on his vast military campaign. Other
interpretations are made of this recorded incident and the Gordian
Knot is a legendary feat that is taken as
evidence of many
different problems and solutions leading
to the retelling being
set to reveal almost whatever each tale teller wants you
to see in their
version of the story.
Here my Gordian Knot has been the joining of the ropes in Photoshop
to present loops at the harbour where the sea never stills and rather
it rolls around in seasonal tides and so readily presents
whatever aspect of the sea you wish to see.
“To
the Glory of God and in loving memory of MARION ROBERTSHAW MacLEAN
formerly sister Q.A.I.M.N.S.(R). who died 30th, August, 1956.”
This
stained glass window to the memory of Marion Robertshaw MacLean who
died 1956 is at the end of the western arm of the church. The
information on the window has been researched and information on the
Church and the local area is available in the Church at opening times
and through those still continuing the gathering and presenting of
the history. I was on a trip between Megalithic Standing Stones and
to the Witches' Stone just outside the village of Spott.
We
were very fortunate to find the Church open and I used available
light to catch what I could of the interior. We were greeted and made
welcome and shown some of the history of the area from the fantastic
records that were in the Church. Some of these pictures might be
further edited as I have not been well and editing the healing
message and symbology has been all too saturated with richly coloured
stained glass strength perceptions trying to work a way into my
everyday vision. The over emphasis on scrutinising images as you edit
can bring about strange views, nothing that a cup of tea and time
away from the screen cannot cure. I feel that I need to make a return
visit and ask about using a tripod to bring out the light better.
When
is a Gull Too Far away and beyond the light? Distance and light will
vary for when too far is too far. These images show four pictures
attempted. Here is a full zoom in followed up by editing in to frame
the subject that here is this Gull. The detail never recorded in the
original soft dull exposures and then the further detail lost in the
crop are here noticeable by their absence. The gull and the harbour
had everything required for the picture that I could imagine was
present. I knew that I was too far away, yet I took the photographs
to see what the extent of the zoom and the light would be able to
create for me and for the gull on the day and now for you to see.
Sun,
sand, Seagull and Seagill all together make for more of the same. The
waves roll out to sea and return back to the shore that they left
from, but everything has changed and changed and changed again each
tide each new sea on each new shore and so the cycle seems set to run
for evermore. In amongst the rolling waves are both life and death
each arriving and departing all along the coast that is the fertile
belt stretched and wrapped all around the land.
Warning
Fast Changing Flashing Images - Look out Seagull
Gulls
watch us with their all round vision and decide if it safe to either
stay on a perch, or time to move on. The movement here is created
with two images, one of which is out focus around this gull’s head.
We make images up in our perception and add and subtract them to make
sense of what we are seeing. This is just an example of reality
pictured and altered in the edit and through our own perception.
Pencraig
Hill or Pencraig Brae is a Standing Stone that is a stunning marker
still in a prominent place and so regarded by thousands of users of
the A199 road that is named Pencraig Brae. The large well set stone
stands beside just North of the road between East Linton and
Haddington in East Lothian near Edinburgh Scotland. This stone fits
into the remains of the historic landscape much of which is not
easily visible, in contract this stone that might have acted as a
marker for many in finding their ways across the landscape is still
very prominent to travellers today even though the main road of the
A1 the early established route for traffic from Edinburgh to London
has now been sent away from East Linton on a modern bypass.
When
taking the pictures seen here I stood so as to hide a modern power
line post. In hiding the power line post behind the megalith I have
created an image of the stone that reminds me, at least, of the
iconic Forth Road bridges with their spectacular suspension cables.
The cables are both shown and edited out in these pictures.
Pencraig
Hill, or Pencraig Brae
3
metre tall standing stone in a field to the north of A199 named
Pencraig Brae.
Three
sided megalithic marker
Has
a clear Ordnance Survey Benchmark that seems not to be recorded.
I
have listed just a few of the sites where further information can be
found about this remarkable stone that places such a prominent focus
on this landscape. For those either looking in from the roadside, or
following a path if there is one this site is full wonder at the way
our ancestors looked at and made markers upon the land that they have
left for us to ponder over and mull on other times and many change of
uses. With a quick look at an Ordnance Survey map you can see the
location of hilltop rings and of other stones that have been set in
and upon the landscape still brining our attention to their
conception and possibly sometimes their role in ceremonial
celebration.
So
you are in Fairy Glen and if you are not seeing Fairy Magic then it
is up to you to unlock it. I have had beautiful times with wonderful
people in glen. If you are relaxed and open to being happy then
fantastic places like Fairy Glen do not need to either do, or be
anything. The magic is in you and you are able to accept and project
it as much as you will. Tick Tock Fairy O’clock is a timeless key
made both of and for the Fairy Glen. The images move at speed and
their motion helps to unlock the magic in shape, sound and colour.
The six pictures move to reveal the potential that you can find at
Tick Tock Fairy O’clock in the Fairy Glen on The Isle of Skye
Scotland.
“In
recent years’ visitors have started to move the rocks to create
spirals on the ground. We have been told that some of the bus tour
guides have made up and encouraged some rituals involving walking the
spirals then leaving a coin or token in the centre as an offering to
the fairies for good luck.
The
locals on Skye have repeatedly removed these stone spirals in an
attempt to keep the Glen in its natural state.”
Earlier structures on the site of the castle are featured in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology as the stronghold and school of Scáthach the Shadow. This legendary Scottish warrior woman, sometimes referred to in recent times as a Druid and Priestess was renowned for her fighting skills and as a martial arts teacher. Scáthach trained the hero Cú Chulainn in the arts of combat giving him skills beyond all others including specialist moves and the secret of the Gáe Bulg, Gáe Bulga, Gáe Bolg, or Gáe Bolga. This is stated to be titled such meaning spear of mortal pain, or death, and also gapped, or notched spear, and further belly spear. The use of this weapon thrown from between the toes was a was believed to kill any opponent. Scáthach had the skill herself and could only pass on the technique to those of amazing skill and Cú Chulainn being the son and to some the incarnation of the God Lugh and Princess Deichtine.
The spear, or barb that Scáthach taught use of to Cú Chulainn is said to be a bone of a sea monster the Curruid. It is said that the Curruid died while fighting another sea monster the Coinchenn leading some to wonder if the spear could be made from parts of a Stingray, or be based on the Ray’s poisoned barbs. The Gáe Bulg spear is noted as being invariably fatal in use and maybe the spear was more than just a barbed weapon cast from between the toes and so launched off the feet from below to deliver a fatal injury from an unguarded angle. Scáthach prophesies about the fame and glory that await Cú Chulainn on his return to Ireland, but along with his charmed and enchanted life there will be many dangers in store from his demigod existence and his mortal life though famed is fated to be be short lived. From this moment on the bright life of Lugh that is evident in Cú Chulainn is seen as curse and charm that cannot be avoided and his triumph is set to be full of torment. The fort, or dun features as the place that the Irish Prince seeks out to improve his battle skills in the longest and most important tale in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology the epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, Cattle Raid of Cooley. The place name in Irish Dun Scathiag, is derived from Scáthach’s name.
The castle was the principal seat of the Clan MacDonald of Sleat, a branch of the Clan Donald, or MacDonald in the 15th century. Eventually after losing and regaining the castle the MacDonalds abandoned Dunscaith Castle in the early 17th century leaving the fortress to decline and fall into the ruins we now have today. The site is starkly beautiful with long stretched horizons around it that leave the ruin isolated bringing a sense of how vital this beacon once was in this landscape.
I cannot separate the physical place of Dun Scathiag from the site of legend spun stories that I have heard of Scáthach, her daughters and of Cú Chulainn the son and incarnation of Lugh. Somehow Dun Scathiag stands and Scáthach stays ready, yet Dunscaith Castle is also stood there and this one place is full of history and mystery all woven upon the proud rock that stands free of the cliffs and offers itself up as a place to defend and also a site to dwell on and so the tattered pages of legend lie upon the rocks and are cast off to the beach to be taken by tides, even as others are wonderfully wind embraced to carry on and on the red headed rubric into poem and in song, whilst others still are rooted in foundations and also created into walls and arches that show prosperity and hardship in the style of the stones still here and of the scope of the long gone wall tops and briefly built bold tall now much shortened fallen towers that held brilliant bright banners high into this balefully beautifully brooding stretched open sky.
