WINTER SOLSTICE OFFERINGS

Here are two offerings to celebrate the
Winter Solstice, 2008.


*Chronicles d'Anu
A fractal fantasia.

*Anu Fractal Style
Have I created a "New Style" of fractal?
You be the judge.

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CHRONICLES D'ANU

Recently I've created a fantasia - a series of fractal images with attached brief fictions that link as the Chronicles d'Anu. Fantasy imaginings based on various episodes of my life's journey.

I posted the series on deviantART and some images are also on Flickr.


Chronicles d'Anu

SECRETS IN THE CAVE


ANCIENT MAGIC


WILDE EYE


MOONFLOWER


SCARLET PASSIONFLOWER


SPELLBOUND






SWAMP SECRETS


Hope like what you find as you browse these old Journals.

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ANU STYLE OF FRACTAL

DeviantART's cmptrwhz recently posted an Apophysis tutorial for the Julian Chain. I played with it and came up with heaps of images & posted the ones you see below. He calls them a new style of fractal. Read about all that here.

The below are the "new Style" fractal images.

What do you think?

Witchy Brew

Caldron of Troubled Bubbles

Are these below also included in the "New Style" category?

Buddha Bowl

The Cherry Bowl

Cmptrwhz says not, the "New Style" having the brew in the bowl being the difference.

What do you think?

Enjoy,

Anu.

PEAK OIL

Living in Interesting Times.

Image created by me in Apophysis

PEAK OIL

It's here, right now, and we are all faced with
Titanic-scale consequences.
Just how will it all play out?

Powerlessness.
An interesting concept.

We should have acted in the 70-80's,
but maybe nobody really believed
this scenario would come to pass.

The sudden awakening of the 00's
to the reality of the tsunami nature of the catastrophes
of over-population, inappropriate technology, profligate consumerism, greed,
power-hungry rulers who fiddle while Rome burns,
biosphere breakdown,
climate change, gross pollution on all levels,
(etc. etc., you know the litany),
is just too late.

Spaceship Earth has too many passengers,
is powered by polluting technologies
controlled by power mongers with agendas
that somehow don't include
the well-being of the passengers and crew.

But of course I/you/we know all this.

Now we reap the whirlwind.

Incoming!

Hold tight, it's going to be a bumpy ride folks.
Prepare for colateral damage.

FANTASTIC DIVERSIONS

RECENT DIVERSIONS IN APOPHYSIS

Ancient Magic

Migaloo Singing

Secrets of the Cave

Full Moonrise over Rainbow Falls

All the above can be seen, with production details and, in some cases, a bit of prose poetry, in my deviantArt Gallery


I have been so sad. The disasters of the past weeks in Myanmar and China have been so appalling I haven't been able to stop crying at what I've been seeing on the news. So I have been diverting my mind creating fantasy art in Apophysis. Feeling so helpless, unable to do a thing to help, what else can I do except try to occupy my mind with the beauty within and without. There is enough being said about it all by others, so I'm not going into either horror here.

So I give you my art.

Ancient Magic was created in response to ideviant's extraordinary recent works, Sanctum Sanctorum and Illuminati Tablet , evoking old stones and fantasy myths. Unfortunately my attempts lacks the expertise of his works, but I was able to express something of my own fantasy myths, based on the Bradshaws, which would horrify my old Prehistory Rock Art prof no doubt! All done in the spirit of fantasy Michael I assure you. No, I don't believe in that twaddle, science is science, but I can have a bit of fun fantasising, can't I?

Meanwhile the champagne weather of late Autumn here is giving us endless beautiful clear sunny days reaching the mid 20's round middle of day, but crisply chilly in mornings and nights. The full moon in the cold crystalline air fills me with the joy of being alive, thankfully happy to be safe here in my mountain idyll in this wonderful Land of Oz, as I gaze into the universe and ponder It All.

LAST DAZE BEFORE CLIMATE CHANGE RAVE PARTY

EVENT IN THE HATCHERY

............................



ANOTHER RANTING RAVE
FOR SUE

&
YOU

if you can bear it

!!

I'm afraid you wouldn't like me very much if I told you what I do with strays, but I do live on a wildlife reserve and domestic escapees wreak havoc. The wildlife has been seriously decimated by feral animals in the time I've lived here.

I grew up with a dog called AspadelladouchByTheSea (Aspy for short), 2 cats called Pinkle & Purr & later another called Black Magic. Later I bred myself an Arab stallion called Banzai (from Banjo out of Ayesha). I came from that kind of 'normal'.

But my travels showed me our impacts on ecosystems and when I came here I dedicated my life to conservation and righting the land-use wrongs, as this land had been ravaged by logging, bananas, cattle, pigs & goats by various different owners over 150 years since Euro settlement.

Feral animals were abundant. A big management problem as being close to a National Park which some people seem to think is the place to dump unwanted pets, plus having a next door so-called Wildlife Reserve, which then had caged animals, both native and exotic, so it was actually a zoo in effect. The captives frequently escaped.

Worst of all were the packs of hounds the local dairy farmers fed milk slops to after the milking and then let loose to roam the mountains in marauding packs.The idea was the hounds became tick-infested as they moved thru the bush and they developed immunity (or died horribly). When they returned for their milk slops they were milked for serum which was then sold to vets who used it to save their client's tick-affected pets.

Obviously a pack of hungry dogs hunting in the wilderness ate any animals they could, including the koalas, wallabies, possums & etc etc etc.

Fortunately those practices ceased n 90's when environmental groups lobbied and prohibitive laws were finally passed that recognized the values of native ecosystems conservation. But much damage had been done by then.

The wild dogs, descendants of those packs and dumped pets, came around after my scraps and howl in packs, very unnerving. They have been known to attack people so I keep my doors closed at night. Fortunately they are fewer these days.

Every now & again well-meaning neighbors, or the Parks Service, put down 1080 poisons baits & that gets a few of them. A horrible death I also have to endure as they don't always die quietly & tidily in distant unseen places.

Then carrion eaters dispose of the carcass. So the quolls, bandicoots, possums, skinks & other native wildlife that eat carrion die too. And the poison goes all they way down to the dung beetles & worms.

Cats are as much of a problem and much harder to eradicate. I saw a feral cat here a few weeks ago that was the size of a bobcat, very scarey. That was no sweet pretty kitty can tell you.

Once there were possums, quolls, bandicoots, pademelons, skinks, frogs, koalas, echidnas, snakes and the full array of inhabitants one would find in a healthy wet to dry sclerophyll forests & rainforest montaine ecosystem.

In the wet we just had I saw ONE frog. In the 80's the roar of their mating numbers around the ephemeral pools made it impossible to sleep some nights.

Then came the cane toads.

Then went the frogs, the snakes, the skinks, the bandicoots & all that used to predate on frogs & ate canetoads instead. Deadly poisonous creatures. I have one frozen in my freezer as speak. The only way to dispose of them is to burn them they are so toxic.

Now I feed the kookaburra so she can breed, because her food chain is severed. I don't like feeding wildlife, but must say when she turned up with 2 emergent nestlings last week I nearly cried with relief. But now what will THEY eat? They are a species of giant kingfisher & rely on streams for fish & amphibians & snakes,lizards & skinks to survive.The streams have been depleted thru kids throwing stones & turning over the rocks & taking whatever they fancy might be fun in a bottle, till it dies. Plus pollution from Park visitor impacts & increased settlement impacts on the riparian zones.

My grass used to be grazed by a herd of about 20 macropds of various species, wallabies & pademelons mostly. Now ONE pademelon timidly grazes, keeping right close to the edges near the surrounding bush.

Now I have to employ a man to cut the grass. That means machinery and the noise disturbs what other creatures there are, plus inadvertently killing the odd legless lizard, of which very few are left.I haven't seen a skink in several years and I used to have about 20 scooting around the studio & outside, very friendly,. They controlled the insect that wanted to live with me too..

Possums are now totally absent...gone...I used to have about 20 of about 4 different species.

Quolls are GONE, haven't seen one or heard one in 10 years.

I now have ONE koala where in 80's there were 20+, in the 90's there were 8 or so... now only ONE!! I heard it crying the other night, so sad, no reply to it's mating call this year when normally the screams of ecstasy would make yr hair stand on end for hours at a time. I called this place Koala Mountain Sanctuary & dedicated it to the conservation of the core population of koalas it then supported. It seems it will be a sad epitaph, not a statement of success. There will be no new generations. The dogs got them all except this last solitary male.

All this because of people letting their cats & dogs stray or dumping them.
It's not the animal's fault. It's people.

So I'm afraid I'm seriously unsentimental when I see the plight of these uncontrolled domestic ex-pets. Cats and dogs are very efficient hunters and because Australia's major large carnivorous predator is the introduced dingo, which only arrived around 4,000 years ago, most of the wildlife species don't have that necessary instinct to combat them, so they are just sitting ducks, so to speak.

I had a friend who worked in Diplomatic Corps & had just come back from a stint in Martinique,some years back now. She told me the wildlife on those Caribbean islands has been so decimated as to be reduced to very few species. It is the same world over.

Wherever we go with our baggage & friends, we destroy the very base of the systems that have evolved only by the full compliment of their native inhabitants. Take links from the chain and it all falls apart. We are a very uncomfortable species to be a part of.

I thought I was part of the solution, but find I am a very definite part of the problem.

So, sorry to rain on yr parade, but it would be hypocritical of me to nod, smile & wave when I feel so very much otherwise on this issue of saving strays.

Please don't take it personally, because I respect you and where you are coming from. I thought if I spelled out clearly what has happened here you could understand why I am of that opinion.

My brand of green is very deep ecology green.

I am beyond being aghast at what we do and have done, so now I just try to live as lightly on the planet as I possibly can and watch the movie.
I can't combat The Greater, the damage is done and we are now reaping the consequences of our mass stupidity.

Maybe we should write messages on the cave walls now...

Control our numbers,

Respect the life supporting resource base & its component working parts

Use appropriate non-polluting technology

So if there are any survivors they can at least have a few guidelines to a more successful sustainable management plan for our species' survival in its' next manifestation.

The weather has suddenly become full-blown beautiful diamond days summer.

Butterflies everywhere. At least they are still in abundance. Maybe because there are fewer birds to eat them!

I will try not to think of these things and return to fractalising to divert my mind in the creation of useless ephemeral images that are total self indulgence so I can post them on DA & Flickr & have 3 or 4 Commenters say cool or WOW or some such ego booster.

Ho Hum

STARSHIP HANGAR

Readying for the Voyage to next Goldilocks Planet

as

if

..............

THE GIFT OF WATER

Flooded in as 16 weeks of grey wetness culminates in a cloudburst that dumps 185 mm (mostly in 2 hours). Roaring rushing waters surround me in this studio as I write.The gift of life. Very frightening tho, as the storm was in the middle of the night and lightning crashing far too close followed by deafening and numbing thunderclaps that left me stiff with shock. Petrified of landslides in such deluges, as I live on a scree slope which turns to one big waterfall after a couple of inches. House sized boulders perch uphill from studio. They rocked when I climbed them (years ago) so they are not exactly embedded & secure.

The following fractals, created in Apophysis, as per, have been inspired by all this water coming to us at last after such a long drought.

THE BIG SPLASH

WATER WORLD

WEB PORTAL

TWISTED TUBE STAR

All the above evolved from the one Tube-star-Twist script. Go here for all the production details.

Cool

WIRED FLOWER

It floats.

Other Universes in Apophysis

Been in a fanciful surreal mood today so had a day of Photoshop and assembled these Apophysis flames I created from randoms, overlaid with scripts from various DeviantART artists (go there for production details).

Cybervers Swarming

Arcturus here We Come

Spideyverses Far Far Away

Well, it's what I call FUN.

..and we're climbing the stairway to Kevin....
4 days to Anu Oz

Apophysis

I've never been addicted to anything before. Suddenly I'm finding myself possessed by Apophysis, something so irresistible, so all devouring, pure fascinatio.

The following are some of my recent attempts to understand how Apophysis works.
The dog is still walking me.

These images only evolved via me due to various generous genius , mostly to be found on the DeviantART site. Cabin Tom, Claire Jones, Halcyon83, Ali, x-seraphin, Rozrr, shrapnlHunter, shortgreenpigg, shaun_rules_4eva, Sya, Saisao, exper, being just a few I owe more than I can say - scripts, flames, tutorials, gradients, tips and the art they produce themselves - all so inspirational.

The following I'd especially like to thank:

Mark Townsend for Apophysis
Erik Reckase for FLAM3
Joel Faber for tutorials and variations
Michael Faber for tutorials
Peter "Zueuk" Sdobnov for 3D and other variations
Piotr Borys for his 2.06 work
Elizabeth Tomchek for her scripts
Thomas Desloges for his scripts
Claire Jones for her tutorials
shaun_rules_4eva for his scripts, his art & just being the crazy spirit he is.

Thanks all of you.

I can't call these my own work, they all owe too much to the sources they evolved from. It's rather like saying you grew the fruit on a tree, when the tree grew the fruit , someone else planted & tended the tree for many years and you just harvested the latest crop

So I dedicate these to you, (above), the Wizards of Apophysis.


virginBlu




Eggs.
I ran the shortgreenpigg's Jelly Bean script over a random flame & twitched it.



Some Of All Fears.


Sun Star
Having fun in the sun of Valcali's flames.

If you want to see the work of the real Wizards of Apophysis, click on the deviantART link on sidebar on right.

Flaming Arrow

FU 2


Another shaft thru what once was my heart, now polymorfd to the above holey bowl...
so yr arrow goes thru & on anon thru multiverses to maybe land on some lifeless alien asteroid & fizzle to extinction.
FU 2 is my response.

Fractal art needs no defense, no apology. It speaks to those with the intelligence to grok its amazement, its wonder, its magic. Those who think it's boring, samesamesame are just dodos. Move on into Anu World. Have some fun.

Fractal Art

Endless hours of delight as I learn new programs and techniques to create these fractal kaleidoscopes. The Fractal Links on side bar take you to some of my program and tutorial sources.





Mind Blowing Fractals




Comic Capers

Fortress City

Satellites Above

This week APEC has taken over Sydney CBD. Sydney is in Lock Down.

Most of the citizens have exited, gone bush, upcountry, to the beach, the snow, or are just laying low at home waiting for it all to return to normal.

What we are observing, that is what we are permitted to see via the media, is very sobering. Why the nation's most populous city has to be shut down for this event is beyond me. Surely the whole shebang could have been staged elsewhere, away from population centers, so as not to incur the huge expense we all have to bear eventually.

Why not create a secure fortress in a remote outback conference center/resort, where the APEC leaders could be brought in & out by air. Where their every need could be catered for, where the main conference could be carried out in safety, well away from demonstrators, terrorists & other persons of interest that are attracted like flies to its' meat. For $300 million they could have built such a venue. It seems to me the whole thing is an exercise in stupidity. It knocks at least a week out of Sydney's economy on so many levels.

Just to remind us that the problems are right here in our own precincts, local towns are now getting CCTV street surveillance security cams.

Hello the Brave New World. Keep smiling, it's all for your benefit, blame the terrorists - you know, those who would destroy the fabric of our beautiful society. Do you see where all this is going?

I see sleepwalkers going like lambs to the slaughter. The trap is sprung, there is no way out. Protest and you are branded - one of Them. Either/Or. Yes/No. It's all so binary, no rainbows of options , all black or white.

So I just stay out of it all. It's all so harsh. A world of pain, of bullies, of violence , of people enslaved by debt and bureaucratic rat runs.

Kamertaj brings Anu to the Springs of the Muses.

For the last months I have been learning fractal art . It's my world, a world of beauty, peace, color and sweet harmony. A world of light and laughter.

So here I share with you some of my recent creations. You can see more on my Flickr site, just press on the link on right to go there.

The very good news is that the last week here has been gentle soft rain. A great start to Spring.

Stay safe, laugh a lot, be happy and make a better world, it's the only planet we've got.

Art

This beautiful 12-13 footer curled up under my window all night after I evicted it from treehouse bed. Strangely I did sleep well. It seemed quite obliging to move when nudged. It's living art.

This is Tony Armstrong's great sculpture of a Black bean pod & seed with fungi. It sits outside the Chillingham Community Center, in the north west of the caldera. He does such beautiful work.