Smoke Rings
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Cerchi di fumo
Smoke circles
Rarely seen smoke rings at Mt Etna,
filmed by Geoff Mackley on 8th June 2000.
Author: chromotaxia
Work Without Hope
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Work Without Hope
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrighten’d, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.
Lavoro senza speranza
La Natura pare tutta all’opera. Lasciano la tana
i lumaconi, le api fremono, battono l’ala
gli uccelli e all’aria aperta l’Inverno assonnato
reca lieto in volto un sogno di primavera!
Solo io sono un essere inerte e non faccio
miele, né canto, m’accoppio o costruisco.
Eppure conosco le rive degli amaranti in fiore,
e le fonti da cui il loro nettare scorre.
Fiorite, amaranti! Fiorite per chi potete,
ma non per me! Scorrete via, gonfi ruscelli!
Con labbra smorte e privo di allori incedo.
Sai che incantesimo mi ottunde l’anima?
Senza speranza, il lavoro butta nettare nel setaccio
e la speranza non vive senza un oggetto.
@occa.me
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Tutto il mondo di ombre, traduzione e cura di Edoardo Zuccato, Elliot, Roma, 2018.Sand bubbler crab, Scopimera Globosa
Jupiter Blue
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Navighiamo in un mare incerto di colori e abbiamo a nostra disposizione buone mappe per orientarci. Ma fra le nostre mappe mentali e la realtà c’è la stessa distanza che fra le carte dei naviganti e la furia delle onde sulle rocce bianche delle scogliere dove volano i gabbiani.
Il fragile velo che è la nostra organizzazione mentale è poco più di uno strumento maldestro per navigare attraverso i misteri infiniti di questo caleidoscopio magico inondato di luce in cui stupiti ci troviamo ad esistere, e che chiamiamo il nostro mondo.
We navigate in an uncertain sea of colours and have at our disposal good maps with which to orientate ourselves. But between our mental maps and reality there is the same distance as between the charts of sailors and the fury of the waves crashing against the cliffs, where the gulls hover and cry.
That fragile web, our mental organization, is little more than a clumsy tool for navigating through the infinite mysteries of this magical light-flooded kaleidoscope in which we are amazed to exist and that we call our world.
Helgoland, Carlo Rovelli
Image credits: Jupiter Blues – Enhanced Image by Gerald Eichstädt and Sean Doran (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
nebulae
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remota erroris nebula
Dissipating the mist of error – Dissipando le tenebre dell’errore
Juvenal’s Tenth Satire 3-4
Image: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Resembling the hair in Botticelli’s famous portrait of the birth of Venus, an image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured softly glowing filaments streaming from hot young stars in a nearby nebula. These wispy clouds of glowing gas make up a nebula known as N44C. It is part of the larger N44 complex, which includes young, hot, massive stars, other nebulas, and a “superbubble” blown out by multiple supernova explosions.
Life in Lake
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Silently moving along, in a steady, continuous flow.
Image Credit: G.S.
Life in Lake, Species plures – Crustacea Copepoda, Larval stage Copepoda (nauplius), Pediastrum sp. (Chlorophyta)