The Lamp of Learning

In the Wadi 'Amd this family remained, and gathered in their hands and guarded through many vicissitudes all civilisation that the valley contained. Just so, in the Dark Ages of Europe, the lamp of learning was fed--a feeble flicker, yet sufficient to light a greater flame when the general illumination of the Renaissance ushered in the modern world.

How many obscure heroisms, what invincible patience and hope must have gone to carry through those blood stained ages the the mild treasure of wisdom!

Psychologists tell us that the impulse of sex is the fundamental mover of this world, and we are perhaps getting a little tired of hearing it so often. But there are two impulses stronger than desire, deeper than love of man or woman, and independent of it--the human hunger for truth and liberty. For these two greater sacrifices are made than for any love of person; against them nothing can prevail, since love and life itself have proved themselves light in the balance; and the creature man is ever ready to refute the Matter-of-fact Realist and his statistics by sacrificing all he has for some abstract idea of wisdom or freedom, unprofitable in every mercenary scale.

What with popular lecture, compulsory instruction and the belief that one is educated if one can read and write, we sometimes forget that this hunger of our soul exists: but in the Wadi 'Amd it is difficult to satisfy, adn therefore more easily recognised for what it is, ...

Quotation: The Southern Gates of Arabia by Freya Stark, 1936.

A Decent Shape

I've discovered people I've never really met before: natural simple people.  People who've made a decent shape out of their lives.  And I'm coming to think they get their values straighter than people like us ever will have.  Oh, I know we can talk more ingeniously, and we can out-argue them every time; and we can read books written by people like ourselves and make-believe that what we think of life, and what our writers think of life, is all life is.

Quotation from  The Search by C.P. Snow

Woodland Walk

A woodland walk on a Saturday autumn afternoon, well its early winter I suppose.

Hard to think it had a snowed on Tuesday, sufficient to bring the city to a full stop.

The temperature high then was a mere 2degrees, brrrr very chilly. But temperatures since then have been balmy, and today we had a high of 14, yesterday was 16 which meant I was decidedly overdressed with anorak and jumper!


These bracket fungi were growing on an earth bank and well hidden from most passers-by. Not surprising really as the mountain bikers who frequent these woods are too intent on keeping upright and generally move at a quicker pace than I do.

With the low sunshine, however, my attention was caught by the straight larch tree trunks. Its clearly a planting of european larch trees, my guess is it was about 70 or 80 years ago when the area was included as part of Dunedin's water-catchment.

Several trees, near the vehicle track, were felled some years ago and their stumps are steadily rotting. providing a habitat for lichens, mosses, and fungi.

To The Bus-stop

A rather soggy day ... no week!

But there's plenty of colour.

The bus-stop is about 25m from my front door.

But up a steep bank with a set of steps, which can be slippery when wet!

Hot Pied Shag

One recent hot day I found this pied shag keeping its feet and tail cool in the murky waters of the lower Leith.

Before it detected my presence, or rather, that of some noisy builders on the other side of the channel and flew off. Neat plumage though I thought.

Knowledge

Knowledge, it is rightly said, does not stand outside of practical activity: it is made and sustained through situated practical activity.

Yet, despite the chorus of modern voices commending detailed study of the particularities by which knowledge is made, protected, and transmitted, advocacy largely remains at a programmatic and abstract level.

A view about knowledge and practical activity which seems to demand the historian's finest microscope is largely fobbed off with traditional philosopher's toy-examples and socail theorist's impenetrably airy generalities. This is both odd and deeply unsatisfactory.

Quotation from: A Social History of Truth: Civility & Science in Seventeenth-century England. by Steven Shapin, 1994, University of Chicago Press.

Christmas Preparations 1881 Style

Nearly all of the Dunedin shops had on Friday night assumed their gala dress in preparation for the Christmas festivities, and, as a natural consequence, the streets were crowded until a tolerably late hour. Everyone appeared to have turned out for a preliminary glance at what would, on the morrow, be a scene of inextricable bustle and confusion.

The shops, of course, which offered the most brilliant display were the butchers, greengrocers, and grocers, in short, all those whose particular mission it is to minister to the more substantial needs of the festive season. All appeared, however, fully alive to the fact that if Christmas had not actually arrived it was close at hand, and might drop in unexpectedly at any moment, and all had accordingly bestirred themselves in some slight measure to do homage to the occasion. Among the butchers shops, all of which were more or less tastefully decorated, we must especially single out for mention those of Messrs Shand and Worth. The piece de resistance of the whole was the carcase of an enormous prize beast,… which weighed no less than 13cwt [660kgs]. The extended length of this leviathan almost occupied the space from floor to ceiling. …

Mr Vezey had devoted his energies most towards elaboration of detail, and… his windows were filled with carcases hanging in close rows, and tastefully decorated for the sacrifice whilst beneath this, on one side figures the head of a magnificent beast, rendered harmless for ill by the judicious impalement of an orange on either horn. Various other decorations of flowers and fruit were lavished upon the headpiece of this favoured animal, and the same profusion was observable in many other instances.

The grocery establishments were equally well to the fore, having as a rule crowded, one side of their windows with substantial goods— hams, sides of bacon, and devoted the other side to the display of lighter articles. … Messrs Bardsley and Co. also went out of their way to do honour to the season [and] enlivened their windows with several mechanical figures, which were the cause of wonder and delight to juvenile passers-by and the arrangement of fancy soaps, and groceries was highly artistic!

… The greengrocers also showed themselves unwilling to be left behind in the race, and in most instances, besides their ordinary commodities, laid in bountiful supplies of poultry of all sorts and sizes.

Quotation from: Otago Witness, 31 December 1881, p12.

Images of southern rata, Metrosideros umbellata flowering in Knox Church gardens, George Street, Dunedin, 19 December 2012.

Merry Christmas!