Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

Dark sun…

Posted on January 27, 2021 by Sue Vincent

Eternity flowering a morning,

Liquid life dances her desires

Healing dark secrets

Embracing the broken smile

Devoured by night.

Sad ghosts, haunting her coffee,

Melt into magic

Joy is born in laughter

As the sky awakes.

Posted in Photography, Poetry | Tagged magnetic poem, magnetic poetry | 16 Comments

Vicarious #midnighhaiku

Posted on January 27, 2021 by Sue Vincent

Watching the hares run

Feeling freedom in their feet

Knowing no constraint

Imagination

Entering into the seen

Vicarious joy

Posted in Photography, Poetry | Tagged haiku, hares, imagination, magic | 17 Comments

Return ~ Michele Jones #writephoto

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Sue Vincent

This story is prompted by Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo Thursday photo prompt: #writephoto.

Jadis yanked Emme’s arm forward. “We’ve got to get to the next escape passage.”

Emme bent over and put her hands on her knees breathing in fast and hard. After catching her breath, she stood.

He was there. On the hill in the distance. The man with the staff. But he looked–different. He wasn’t thin and frail. He’d changed, but she knew it was him. The man that vowed to kill her. A chill went down her spine. She shivered.

Continue reading at Michele Jones

Posted in #writephoto, fantasy | 4 Comments

Winter walks with Camera (7) : panorama ~ Steve Tanham

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Sue Vincent

The modern mobile phone puts an arsenal of photographic tools at our disposal. One of the strangest and most difficult to master is the panorama… yet the results can be wonderful.

(Above: a single shot encompasses the edge of the forest – curving right up to the viewer; the bank of the river; and the churning water, below. The whole allows the textures and curves to be incorporated into a composite which would have been impossible with a normal shot)

The panorama is not a gimmick. It’s a wide-angled shot in which the correct proportions are retained, rather than the treatment of a ‘fish-eye’ lens, where the extremes are increasingly compressed as you approach the edge of the image. We can look on it as a short piece of video, panning left to right, where all the shot is retained and formed into a wider picture.

Continue reading at Sun in Gemini

Posted in reblog | Tagged mobile phone photography | Leave a comment

Discovering Albion – day 10: Selby Abbey – A Final Blaze…

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Sue Vincent

The Jesse window c.1330
(Click image to enlarge)

There is a final jewel at Selby Abbey; the great East Window. I told how the great fire of 1906 had put it in imminent danger of shattering and how a dedicated fire crew had protected the fragile panes with water. Of course, there has been damage over the years and subsequent restoration, but even so, the window is thought to be one of the finest medieval survivals in the country, second only to the West Window at York Minster.

West Window, York Minster. Image: DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Personally, although the tracery of stone in the upper reaches of the York window may be finer with the heart shaped centrepiece, I have to say I prefer the one at Selby… as much, perhaps, for its history as anything else. Somehow it seems more approachable and human, but then it is not set so far out of reach.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:England_YorkMinster_JesseTree_c1170.JPG#mediaviewer/File:England_YorkMinster_JesseTree_c1170.JPG

York Minster fragment of JesseTree c1170 Image: by Unknown

It is known as the Jesse window and dates from c.1330 AD. There are a number of medieval Jesse windows, or fragments of them, that survive through the country. A few small panes survive of the Jesse window from York Minster, dating back to around 1170AD, which is thought to be the oldest surviving stained glass in England. The Selby window, however, is thought to be the most complete and finest of its period. In later centuries, with the Gothic revival, the subject once more became popular and we have seen some fabulous Victorian examples. But nothing as old as this.

The seventy panels of the main window are arranged over seven vertical lights. These panels trace the royal line of the kings of Israel, leading eventually to Mary and Jesus, thus establishing the claim that He was King of the Jews, of the Royal House of David. The inspiration for this motif, common in manuscripts in the medieval period, is a line in the Book of Isaiah:

“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots” (King James Version).

The image of a tree in this window grows from the heart of a sleeping Jesse. Lineage and hereditary position were of more importance in medieval times, especially to the nobility and clergy perhaps.

Continue reading at France & Vincent

Posted in adventure, Photography, scotland road trip, travel | Tagged Doom, genealogy of Jesus, Last Judgement, stained glass, tree of Jesse | Leave a comment

Sleipnir…

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Sue Vincent

Image result for solomon's seal symbol

The next morning when the horseman led Svadilfari

to the stone quarry he knew that the wall of Asgard

would be completed on time and that

the Goddess Freyja was to be his.

He took to humming a meaningless tune to himself

and in the gloomy copse about the quarry

a young mare pricked up her ears.

Continue reading at France and Vincent

Posted in Mythology, philosophy, psychology, Stuart France, symbolism | Tagged esoteric, interpretation, story, Trickster, writing | Leave a comment

Get This…

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Sue Vincent

It matters

Not a jot

What one has

Or has not got.

Continue reading at France & Vincent

Posted in Photography, Poetry, The Silent Eye | Tagged esoteric, interpretation, meaning, philosophy, psychology | Leave a comment

Returning ~ Willow #writephoto

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Sue Vincent

Transitions are special, be it dawn or dusk things change, it’s true in many senses. They can also herald a return.

Light
And dark
Shades of grey
What promises

Continue reading at willowdot21

Posted in #writephoto, Poetry | 2 Comments

Standing out…

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Sue Vincent

I was researching someone online and came across a so-called motivational site urging young people to get up and do something… to make something of themselves… to stand out from the crowd or risk sinking into obscurity… fate that appeared to be almost ‘worse than death’ to the site’s author.

For a motivational piece, I found it rather counterproductive. All that I could see that it was doing was reinforcing, in the minds of the young and as yet uncertain, that they obviously were not good enough as they were. In order to have value within their society, they were being told, they would need to change… become something ‘other’ than they are. Different… and by implication, better.

That we are all works in progress, no matter what our age, and that we all need to continue to learn from our lives should go without saying. I doubt we would be here were there not that opportunity to grow from our experiences and how we face the events through which we live. But such growth should be a natural progression… like the fruit that follows the flower and the bud… not some enforced and calculated action taken to make us ‘look good’ in the eyes of others. Being allowed to be ourselves should matter far more than that.

I see nothing wrong with being ‘ordinary’. The word, in spite of its negative connotations comes from the same root as ‘order’… and without order, what would exist or function?

Most of us are ‘ordinary’. Our own kind of ordinary… because it is the only kind we know. Other people are extraordinary in our eyes. They do things we have never done, achieve things we have never even attempted, go places we will never go. We look at those who have done these marvellous things, not with envy, but with both respect and appreciation. ‘Ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’ will mean different things to each of us.

Continue reading at The Silent Eye