Excerpt of printed English text quoting Padmasambhava on the past, the future and responsibility for one's actions.

Faith · The East · Observations

Padmasambhava advises judging one's future by one's present actions

If you want to know your past, look at your present form and condition. If you want to know your future, look at your actions in the present. Padmasambhava, the eighth-century Indian teacher of Buddhist tantra.

NB! · Moscow · Observations · Humour

A miniature entitled: Heat of +25 Opposes Cold of -2 in Moscow, May 2024

A miniature entitled: Heat of +25 Opposes Cold of -2 in Moscow, May 2024. We understand, of course, on whose side the sun stands

Art · Science

Magritte used the Schuster trident effect in his painting “The Obstacle of the Void”

Magritte's "The Obstacle of the Void", 1965, and Schuster's Impossible Trident, 1964. Magritte, who preferred to call his art magic realism rather than surrealism, used the recently discovered effect of Schuster's trident in his painting "The Obstacle of the Void"

NB! · Architecture · Paris

View of the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais from Above

Art · Museums · Heritage · Education

Gustav Klimt's painting "Medicine", 1901

The painting was destroyed by the Germans in 1945; this reconstruction was made in 2021 by the Leopold Museum in Vienna.

Books · Monarchies · Mores · Ethnography

Engelhardt, in his book A Complete School of Hunting Fur and Feather in All Zones of Russia, notes that the Grand Dukes went hunting in bast shoes, since there is no handier or more practical footwear for the forest in winter: snow gets into them as easil

NB! · London · Observations · Society · Humour

The Royal Arms Vanish from the British Prime Minister's Lectern

The royal arms have vanished from the lectern of the British Prime Minister. What might this mean?

NB! · Cinema · Books · People

Bertolucci, asked about reincarnation, recalled a poem by Borges: "the fish lives in the ocean, and a man remembers that he was once a fish"

Art · Books · Observations

Andrey Bely’s 1915 poem “Dedication”, which recalls Dante

Bartolomeo di Fruosino, Illustration to Dante's "Inferno" There is a poem by Andrei Bely called "Dedication", written in 1915. And it reminds me of Dante. I asked you for bread, and was given molten stone, And at once, scorched through, my palm smokes foully.

Art · Museums

Young Woman Warming Her Hands over a Brazier: An Allegory of Winter

Caesar Pietersz van Everdingen, c. 1644 – c. 1648. Rijksmuseum collection

Old postcard of a tiered brick church with a large dome and tent-roofed turrets, small figures near the entrance. Captions in Russian and French.

NB!

Church at Borki near Kharkov on an old postcard

Architecture · Faith · Monarchies · Heritage · Saint Petersburg

Church at Borki near Kharkiv built in memory of the rescue of Alexander III's family in 1888

Near Kharkiv, at the site of the terrorist derailment of Emperor Alexander III's train, returning from the Crimea on 17 October 1888, from which he escaped with his entire family, a hermitage was founded, and in 1894 a magnificent church was built. The Church of Christ the Saviour

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