A paragraph from 'The History of Many Memorable Things Lost', by Guido Pancirollus (originally in Latin), 1715.
"Athenaeus writes that there were taverns at Rome, wherein they kept snow all the year ..."

A public space in Shenzhen, #China .This is the sprawling city in which - so it seems - perhaps 5% of all goods sold in the #USA is manufactured. (2015 photo)

Two cyclones in #Asia - one in the Arabian Sea, the other in the Philippine Sea.
They are about 6,660 km apart.
The living #planet

May I invite you to read 'Voice of the Elements'?
https://mithraeum.substack.com/p/voice-of-the-elements-fugue

Such an immediately arresting preface:
"The world today is devoid of mystery: the rational conception claims to illuminate and understand everything; it strives to give a positive and logical explanation of all things, and extends its fatal determinism to the moral world .. the entire material universe is claimed by science, and no one dares to resist this claim any longer."
Image: The first page of the preface to 'Les Origines de L'Alchemie' by M. Berthelot, 1885
#alchemy #science #magic

Streetside in Cebu, Philippines, 2017.

A post box on the riverine island of Chorao, Goa, India.

A fascinating portrait (image) of Paracelsus, from the Zentralbibliothek Zürich, by Matthias Quad, probably circa1606. Note the 'magic' squares and the title of the book.
The full image can be had at
Persistent Link: https://doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-46573
#alchemy

In June 2017 I was travelling to the #philippines and as the aircraft was descending I spotted this islet. Just look at the blue hues!

During 2012 to 2019 I visited #china a number of times. What struck me every time, every visit, and every city was the sense of #urban vastness and how desolate it could look from certain spots. Like this one, on the outskirts of Shanghai.