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Bluelight weekly photography contest Round 51: Civilisation

SA

SA

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In deep space... Abandoned... "Any crew?" "Negat
Civilisation

RULES
1. Any photograph or variation of a photograph which has been previously submitted for one of the contest rounds cannot be used in subsequent rounds of the contest.

2. Photographs must be your original work and that has never been copyrighted or, if copyrighted, that you are the sole copyright owner of.
2a. No submitting pictures for other people, for friends, etc. Your OWN work, very simple.

3. Only one photograph may be entered per contest.

4. All photographs must be free of watermarks, signatures and borders

5. Photographs must be no wider than 700 and no higher than 700.

6. Deadline for entries is 12am Eastern (5am GMT) on the posted deadline date.

7. Voting ends at 12am Eastern (5am GMT) on the posted end date.

8. Post your images in the appropriate thread in the form of an image, not a link to click on.

9. Don't be a dummy and vote for your own photo, try and make it fun.

Be reminded that this is a photo contest and so images which have been heavily manipulated through an image editing software will not be accepted. To put everyone on a level playing field, editing should be restricted to cropping and resizing.

Images which are not relevant to the week's theme will be automatically removed.

If you have a problem with another contestant's entry adhering to the contest guidelines, please PM the forum moderators. Do not try to begin a debate about the issue within the contest submission or poll thread! There will be zero tolerance towards any attempts to devolve a contest thread into a bash-fest or witch hunt.

We will pick the next theme and post it the night a contest ends for the next round so people have a full 7 days to take pictures and submit them. After all the entries have been posted, a poll will be added on the last night, so people can vote. Voting will take place from midnight to midnight over the following 2 days (12am Sunday - 12am Tuesday).

Those who wish to participate in sharing full versions of their entries may do so by providing a link only to the full sized version in the same post as their entry.

Thank you and have fun!
 
Please submit your photos in this thread and a mod will re-post them when voting starts in a separate voting thread.

Submissions: November 11 - November 17
Voting: November 18 - November 19

Next theme: Fire [November 18 - November 24]
followed by Rust [November 25 - December 01]
followed by Graffiti [December 02 - December 08]
followed by Photographer's Choice [December 09 - December 15]
 
DSCN0346resize.jpg
 
sheepish where is that? I remember examining a very similiar photo in my art history class last year...different people, different clothes though.
 
^no it makes perfect sense, the smurfs lived in a mushroom town didnt they?:p

yes,sorry, i dont get the connection between the theme and your photo...
 
its a amanita muscaria mushroom and since im from north America they are more golden than red like the classic representation they usually gets :
seta.jpg

(its a psychoactive mushroom or a "magic" mushroom if you prefer)

And here is its connection to Civilization :)
Mushrooms and Man
by Paul Stamets
Humanity's use of mushrooms extends back to Paleolithic times. Few people - even anthropologists - comprehend how influential mushrooms have been in affecting the course of human evolution. Mushrooms have played pivotal roles in ancient Greece, India and Mesoamerica. True to their beguiling nature, fungi have always elicited deep emotional responses: from adulation by those who understand them to outright fear by those who do not.

The historical record reveals that mushrooms have been used for less than benign purposes. Claudius II and Pope Clement VII were both killed by enemies who poisoned them with deadly Amanitas. Buddha died, according to legend, from a mushroom that grew underground. Buddha was given the mushroom by a peasant who believed it to be a delicacy. In ancient verse, that Tassili mushroom shaman ala dimitri mushroom was linked to the phrase "pig's foot" but has never been identified. (Although truffles grow underground and pigs are used to find them, no deadly poisonous species are known.)

The oldest archaeological evidence of mushroom use discovered so far is probably a Tassili image from a cave which dates back 3,500 years before the birth of Christ. The artist's intent is clear. Mushrooms with electrified auras are depicted outlining a dancing shaman. The spiritual interpretation of the image transcends time and is obvious. No wonder that word "bemushroomed" has evolved to reflect the devout mushroom lover's state of mind.

In the winter of 1991, hikers in the Italian Alps came across the well preserved remains of a man who died over 5,300 years ago, approximately 200 years later than the Tassili cave artist. Dubbed the "Iceman" by the news media, he was well equipped with a knapsack, flint axe, a string of dried Birch Polypores (Piptoporus betulinus) and another yet unidentified mushroom. The polypores can be used as tinder for starting fires and as medicine for treating wounds. Further, a rich tea with immuno-enhancing properties can be prepared by boiling these mushrooms. Equipped for traversing the wilderness, this intrepid adventurer had discovered the value of the noble polypores. Even today, this knowledge can be life-saving for anyone astray in the wilderness.

Fear of mushroom poisoning pervades every culture, sometimes reaching phobic extremes. The term mycophobic describes those individuals and cultures where fungi are looked upon with fear and loathing. Mycophobic cultures are epitomized by the English and Irish. In contrast, mycophilic societies can be found throughout Asia and eastern Europe, especially amongst Polish, Russian and Italian peoples. These societies have enjoyed a long history of mushroom use, with as many as a hundred common names to describe the mushroom varieties they loved.

The use of mushrooms by diverse cultures was intensively studied by an investment banker named R. Gordon Wasson. His studies concentrated on the use of mushrooms by Mesoamerican, Russian, English, and Indian cultures. With the French mycologist, Dr. Roger Heim, Wasson published research on Psilocybe mushrooms in Mesoamerica, and on Amanita mushrooms in Euro-Asia/Siberia. Wasson's studies spanned a lifetime marked by a passionate love for fungi. His publications include: Mushrooms, Russia, & History; The Wondrous Mushroom; Mycolatry in Mesoamerica; Maria Sabina and her Mazatec Mushroom Velada; and Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. More than any other individual of the 20th century, Wasson kindled interest in ethnomycology to its present state of intense study. Wasson died on Christmas Day in 1986.

amanita muscaria One of Wasson's most provocative findings can be found in Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1976) where he postulated that the mysterious SOMA in the Vedic literature, a red fruit leading to spontaneous enlightenment for those who ingested it, was actually a mushroom. The Vedic symbolism carefully disguised its true identity: Amanita muscaria, the hallucinogenic Fly Agaric. Many cultures portray Amanita muscaria as the archetypal mushroom. Although some Vedic scholars disagree with his interpretation, Wasson's exhaustive research still stands. (See Brough (1971) and Wasson (1972)).

Aristotle, Plato, and Sophocles all participated in religious ceremonies at Eleusis where an unusual temple honored Demeter, the Goddess of Earth. For over two millennia, thousands of pilgrims journeyed fourteen miles from Athens to Eleusis, paying the equivalent of a month's wage for the privilege of attending the annual ceremony. The pilgrims were ritually harassed on their journey to the temple, apparently in good humor.

Upon arriving at the temple, they gathered in the initiation hall, a great telestrion. Inside the temple, pilgrims sat in rows that descended step-wise to a hidden, central chamber from which a fungal concoction was served. An odd feature was an array of columns, beyond any apparent structural need, whose designed purpose escaped archaeologists. The pilgrims spend the night together and reportedly came away forever changed. In this pavilion crowded with pillars, ceremonies occurred, known by historians as the Eleusian Mysteries. No revelation of the ceremony's secrets could be mentioned under the punishment of imprisonment or death. These ceremonies continued until repressed in the early centuries of the Christian era.

In 1977, at a mushroom conference on the Olympic Peninsula, R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hoffman, and Carl Ruck first postulated, that the Eleusinian mysteries centered on the use of psychoactive fungi. Their papers were later published in a book entitled The Road the Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (1978 ). That Aristotle and other founders of western philosophy undertook such intellectual adventures, and that this secret ceremony persisted for nearly 2,000 years, underscores the profound impact that fungal rites have had on the evolution of western consciousness.

From GROWING GOURMET & MEDICINAL MUSHROOMS, Paul Stamets: [A work not centered on Psychoactives, but in order to have the most complete compendium of mycological knowledge included a little chapter]
Click to expand...
http://deoxy.org/mushman.htm

oh and gargamel is a shaman and alchemist

and here is another link if you care : The Ancient Legacy of Sacred Use
 
Last edited:
L2R said:
wow!
you took that? where was it?
Click to expand...

it was in Taipei, Taiwan in 2003 at the C.K.S. Memorial Hall. They were trying to have the largest Tai-qi demonstration ever. I think it was 10,000 people.

It was wicked to see, a lady was yelling instructions over a loudspeaker, and 10,000 people moving in unison. Craaaazzyyyyy


hahaha IAmThoughts, i wish they were doing the macarena. that'd be so rad. so rad.
 
Since I won't get my new camera until after this ends this is the only pic I could find to include..though I do really dig nonnihilnitoris's entry!
P1010859e-1.jpg
 
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