summer haiku d'été - the white crane = la grue blanche = la gru bianca = er weiße KranichEnglish the white crane flickers in the sun - ripples of mist français la grue blanche scintille au soleil - les ondes brumeuses italiano la gru bianca brilla al sole - onde di nebbia Deutsch der weiße Kranich scheint in der Sonne - Nebelwellen Richard Vallance © by Richard Vallance 2020 photo public domain/ domaine public Pixabay
Tag: sun
winter haiku d’hiver – the drowsy gopher = la marmotte somnolente
winter haiku d'hiver – the drowsy gopher = la marmotte somnolentethe drowsy gopher peers at his shadow – off to beddie bye la marmotte somnolente voit sa silhouette – zut ! il faut cuver Richard Vallance photo public domain
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autumn haiku – maple leaves = les feuilles d’érable
autumn haiku – maple leaves = les feuilles d'érablemaple leaves disperse the sun in rainbows les feuilles d'érable dispersent le soleil en arcs-en-ciel Richard Vallance
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summer haiku d’été – the periwinkle = la pervenche cligne
summer haiku d’été – the periwinkle = la pervenche cligne the periwinkle winks at her leaves – my lover’s the sun!la pervenche cligne de l’oeil à ses feuilles – soleil, mon amant ! Richard Vallance
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summer haiku d’été – the summer sun plays = le soleil d’été
summer haiku d’été – the summer sun plays = le soleil d’été the summer sun plays on the waves of the sky – cloud boats float byle soleil d’été survole les ondes du ciel – bateaux-nuages passent Richard Vallance
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summer haiku d’été – your fluffy fur = ton poil pelucheux
summer haiku d’été – your fluffy fur = ton poil pelucheux your fluffy white fur soaking in the sun – whose kitty are you?ton poil pelucheux absorbant le soleil – à qui es-tu ? Richard Vallance
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late winter haiku de la fin de l’hiver – late winter sun = soleil, fin d’hiver
late winter haiku de la fin de l’hiver – late winter sun = soleil, fin d’hiver late winter sun streaming through linen– amber mandalasoleil, fin de l’hiver illuminant le lin – mandala ambrée Richard Vallance
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spring haiku de printemps – equinox sunlight = soleil d’équinoxe
spring haiku de printemps - equinox sunlight = soleil d’équinoxe equinox sunlight pouring down on snow- snowdrops... peekaboo!soleil d’équinoxe qui fond la neige si vite - perce-neige... coucou ! Richard Vallance
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summer haiku d’été – our rescued cat = notre chat sauvé
summer haiku d’été – our rescued cat = notre chat sauvé our rescued cat, eyes forever sealed, basks in the sunnotre chat sauvé, les yeux à jamais scellés, se prélasse au soleil Richard Vallance
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winter haiku d’hiver – pine and spruce forest = les pins et sapins
winter haiku d’hiver – pine and spruce forest = les pins et sapins the ice-encrusted pine and spruce forest silvered by sunlightla glace argentée sur les pins et sapins en plein soleil Richard Vallance It should be obvious by now that one of my favourite winter season words or kigo is “silver”, which in not a Japanese kigo at all. But I have firmly established it as a Canadian winter kigo. It est enfin bien évident que l’un des mots-saisons ou mots d’hiver que j’utilise souvent, c’est le mot « argent », qui n’est guère un kigo japonais. Mais je l’ai nettement établi comme kigo canadien d’hiver.
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winter haiku d’hiver – in the twilight = dans le crépuscule
winter haiku d’hiver – in the twilight = dans le crépuscule in the twilight someone slogging through snow – rusty sundans le crépuscule un quidam à pas lourd – soleil rouillé Richard Vallance
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summer haiku = haiku d’été = hieroglyphics – hieroglyphiques
hieroglyphics in the blazing sun burning my eyes outhieroglyphiques sous le soleil brûlant qui me brûlent les yeux Richard Vallance
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winter haiku d’hiver
winter haiku d’hiverwatery sun on the icy lake... whispering spruce soleil moiré sur le lac gêlé ... soupirs des sapins Richard Vallance
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The Antikythera mechanism is a 2,100-year-old computer
The Antikythera mechanism is a 2,100-year-old computer: Wikipedia116 years ago (1902), divers found a chunk of bronze off a Greek island. It has radically changed our understanding of human history. One hundred sixteen years ago, an archaeologist was sifting through objects found in the wreck of a 2,000-year-old vessel off the Greek island Antikythera. Among the wreck’s treasures, fine vases and pots, jewellery and, fittingly enough, a bronze statue of an ancient philosopher, he found a peculiar contraption, consisting of a series of brass gears and dials mounted in a case the size of a mantel clock. Archaeologists dubbed the instrument the Antikythera mechanism. The genius — and mystery — of this piece of ancient Greek technology is that arguably it is the world’s first computer. If we gaze inside the machine, we find clear evidence of at least two dozen gears, laid neatly on top of one another, calibrated with the precision of a master-crafted Swiss watch. This was a level of technology that archaeologists would usually date to the sixteenth century AD. But a mystery remained: What was this contraption used for? To archaeologists, it was immediately apparent that the mechanism was some sort of clock, calendar or calculating device. But they had no idea what it was for. For decades, they debated. Was the Antikythera a toy model of the planets or was it a kind of early astrolabe, a device which calculates latitude? IMAGE ancient At long last, in 1959, Princeton science historian Derek J. de Solla Price provided the most convincing scientific analysis of this amazing device to date. After a meticulous study of the gears, he deduced that the mechanism was used to predict the position of the planets and stars in the sky depending on the calendar month. The single primary gear would move to represent the calendar year, and would, in turn, activate many separate smaller gears to represent the motions of the planets, sun and moon. So you could set the main gear to the calendar date and get close approximations for where those celestial objects in the sky on that date. And Price declared in the pages of Scientific American that it was a computer: “The mechanism is like a great astronomical clock ... or like a modern analogue computer which uses mechanical parts to save tedious calculation.”
It was a computer in the sense that you, as a user, could input a few simple variables and it would yield a flurry of complicated mathematical calculations. Today the programming of computers is written in digital code, a series of ones and zeros. This ancient analog clock had its code written into the mathematical ratios of its gears. All the user had to do was enter the main date on one gear, and through a series of subsequent gear revolutions, the mechanism could calculate variables such as the angle of the sun crossing the sky. As a point of referencdee, mechanical calculators using gear ratios to add and subtract, didn’t surface in Europe until the 1600s. Since Price’s assessment, modern X-ray and 3D mapping technology have allowed scientists to peer deeper into the remains of the mechanism to learn even more of its secrets. In the early 2000s, researchers discovered text in the guise of an instruction manual that had never been seen before, inscribed on parts of the mechanism. The text, written in tiny typeface but legible ancient Greek, helped them bring closure to complete the puzzle of what the machine did and how it was operated. The mechanism had several dials and clock faces, each which served a different function for measuring movements of the sun, moon, stars, and planets, but they were all operated by just one main crank. Small stone or glass orbs moved across the machine’s face to show the motion of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter in the night sky and the position of the sun and moon relative to the 12 constellations of the zodiac. Another dial would forecast solar and lunar eclipses and even, amazingly enough, predictions about their colour. Today, researchers surmise that different coloured eclipses were considered omens of the future. After all, the ancient Greeks, like all ancients, were a little superstitious. The mechanism consisted of: - a solar calendar, charting the 365 days of the year - a lunar calendar, counting a 19 year lunar cycle - a tiny pearl-size ball that rotated to illustrate the phase of the moon, and another dial that counted down the days to regularly scheduled sporting events around the Greek isles, like the Olympics. The mechanics of this device are absurdly complicated. A 2006, in the journal Nature, a paper plotted out a highly complex schematic of the mechanics that connect all the gears. Researchers are still not sure who exactly used it. Did philosophers, scientists and even mariners build it to assist them in their calculations? Or was it a type of a teaching tool, to show students the math that held the cosmos together? Was it unique? Or are there more similar devices yet to be discovered? To date, none others have been found. Its assembly remains another mystery. How the ancient Greeks accomplished this astonishing feat is unknown to this day. Whatever it was used for and however it was built, we know this: its discovery has forever changed our understanding of human history, and reminds us that flashes of genius are possible in every human era. Nothing like this instrument is preserved elsewhere. Nothing comparable to it is known from any ancient scientific text or literary allusion,” Price wrote in 1959. “It is a bit frightening, to know that just before the fall of their great civilization the ancient Greeks had come so close to our age, not only in their thought, but also in their scientific technology.” There are amazing fully operational modern versions of the Antikythera Mechanism, such as these:
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Researcher Cites Ancient Minoan-era Computer
Researcher Cites Ancient Minoan-era Computer:
This Minoan object preceded the heralded Antikythera Mechanism. If we take the definition of a computer as being a device that can compute, even at the most basic level, then this computer meets the bottom line of the definition.
A stone-made matrix has carved symbols on the surface of this computer related with the Sun and the Moon, serving as a cast to build a mechanism that functioned as an analog computer to calculate solar and lunar eclipses. The mechanism was also used as sundial and as an instrument calculating the geographical latitude. In this sense, it predates the astrolabe, an instrument of some antiquity (i.e. since Minoan times).
Researcher Cites Ancient Minoan-era Computer:
Researcher Minas Tsikritsis who hails from Crete — where the Bronze Age Minoan civilization flourished from approximately 2700 BC to 1500 century BC — maintains that the Minoan Age object discovered in 1898 in Paleokastro site, in the Sitia district of western Crete, preceded the heralded “Antikythera Mechanism” by 1,400 years, and was the first analog and “portable computer” in history.
“While searching in the Archaeological Museum of Iraklion for Minoan Age findings with astronomical images on them we came across a stone-made matrix unearthed in the region of Paleokastro, Sitia. In the past, archaeologists had expressed the view that the carved symbols on its surface are related with the Sun and the Moon,” Tsikritsis said.
The Cretan researcher and university professor told ANA-MPA that after the relief image of a spoked disc on the right side of the matrix was analysed it was established that it served as a cast to build a mechanism that functioned as an analog computer to calculate solar and lunar eclipses. The mechanism was also used as sundial and as an instrument calculating the geographical latitude.
Source: Athens News Agency [April 06, 2011]
For the definition of the astrolabe, see
Persian models dating as far back as the eleventh century have been found, and Chaucer wrote a Treatise on it in the late 1300s. But different models of astrolabes date as far back as somewhere around 400 BCE, when Theodora of Alexandra wrote a detailed treatise on the astrolabe. Historically, many different versions of the astrolabe have arisen since then. For a full account of astrolabes, consult Wikipedia: Astrolabe. But the whole point is that the Minoan computer predates even the earliest of these (vide supra), by at least 1,000 years!
By the Elizabethan era it consisted of a large brass ring fitted with an alidade or sighting rule:
Notice the astonishing resemblance between the Minoan computer and the astrolabe from 1608 above.
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For the amazing Antikythera Mechanism, see the next post.
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Mandala and Mycenaean haiku: the sea, the circle of heaven, the sun
Mandala and Mycenaean haiku: the sea, the circle of heaven, the sun:
I found this astonishingly beautiful mandala on the Twitter account of my friend, Marie Marshall, who is an accomplished poet. I decided to write my own haiku in Mycenaean Greek, archaic Greek, English and French to complement it. For those of you who cannot read Greek, this is how the Greek sounds, thalassa/kuklos ouranoyo/heilios. Beautiful eh? I am sure Marie will love it! … and so will you! I Know I do.
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All new photos of the Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Santorini, by Thalassa Farkas, Canada, 2016: Part C – Theran/Minoan ship
All new photos of the Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Santorini, by Thalassa Farkas, Canada, 2016: Part C – Theran/Minoan ship Here are two photos of a lovely Theran/Minoan ship, the ultimate in luxury sailing, complete with a canopy and with a bowsprit sporting a sun and a gorgeous little butterfly. What exquisite taste these Therans and Minoans had!
Canadian Zen Haiku canadien ISSN 1705-4508 
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