Tag: Animals
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At home in Kumaon
A row of old village houses; the ground floor reserved for the animals, the people upstairs. All built, cut and painted true to tradition. But times have changed. In the background we see a glimpse of a new building, constructed with brick and cement. And so the charm and beauty of the old is gradually…
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Cow lifting game
What to do when a cow is lying down in the middle of the path, blocking the way through and in no way willing to get up and move? Such cow stubbornness is rare but here it happened. Only combined forces – and lots of fun – could bring help. And only then this patiently…
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The road herd, cushion-footed
This time, for a change, we were not obliged to dangerously zigzag between cows ruminating on the road; not pushed to the roadside by a train of Ambassador cars with flashing lights of some politician and his retinue; but, to our surprise, held up by a fleet of ships of the desert, quietly swaying forward…
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Got you!
Life is: eating and being eaten. In the last instance it means death, but death for one is life for the other. Such is the law of nature. Photos of the week: Vondelpark, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2009
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Crab art
While the termites in last week’s post impressed us with their grand architecture, here it is the drawing made on the beach by tiny crabs that pleases our aesthetic sensitivity. A sensitivity that’s probably alien to the dog that has walked right through it, although his or her footprints are a nice addition to the…
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Ant art
Ant hills can be impressive, but these termite structures in the north of Arnhem Land qualify as amazing works of art. Many a bird’s nest may leave us equally awe-struck because of its ingenuity, but it’s the sheer size of these termitariums that’s so amazing. More than man-sized, they evoke images of castles or cathedrals,…
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Floating fish
The fish in this ‘aquarium’ without water aren’t floating, just like the birds in last week’s post weren’t flying. They are artificial, man-made and suspended in the air. While the birds were flying through the world of advertising, the fish are floating in the world of art. The two worlds have in common that both are…
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Flying birds
The world of advertising isn’t the real world. The flying birds on the photo above in front of the big advertisement board of Giorgio Armani aren’t real birds. In that sense the two go well together. The beautiful woman and – sometimes – the handsome man on an advertisement photo are not available, no matter…
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Yak horns
The turning of prayer-wheels as in last week’s post, and prayer-flags in the wind in an earlier post, are efficient ways of multiplying and spreading the positive effects of the sacred texts they contain. Another very ancient custom is the use of engraved stone or animal skull and horn for spreading the mystic mantras over the face…
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Moloch horridus
This ‘grotesque Australian reptile’ – in the words of my Oxford Dictionary – is popularly called thorny devil or thorny dragon. I think its official name – Moloch horridus – sounds more horrid than the popular one. Here’s what I read in my friend Jane’s reptile book: “the Moloch horridus is the sole member of the Genus…
καιρός remembered 