A (Belated) Valentine's Day of the Dead Interlude (complete))

(March 4, 2025. No one is more sorry than I that this post has been so stalled this past week. In my defense, the Spade symbol is the heaviest and most complex I have ever encountered. More importantly, geometrically, the Spade is a pentagonal construction, and, come to find out, an important - although hidden - element of the Golden Meme. And, in the context of current events, a Key. Bear with me. Information will be posted continuously until completion. 🌺DS)

The White Rose & the Ace of Spades

A white rose ghosted over a darkened plane

is a sigil of love transformed.

Yes, even the darkest of shapes,

the Ace of Spades,

- a black heart impaled on a single thorn -

can't hide the light of its central, star-like eye

which, in the dead of night,

 opens and closes.

- 2026, DS. (revised March 2, 2026)

Rosa Mystica

***

"The story of St Valentine’s Day begins with some unknown medieval birdwatchers, probably in France rather than England, who reckoned that birds begin mating in mid-February, and decided to give this a precise date: 14 February. (They may have followed some folk tradition – in Slovenia this is still said to be the first day of spring, when plants start growing, and birds mate.) As was normal at that period, they expressed the date as the feast-day of a saint; in the Catholic Church every day in the year celebrates at least one saint, and for a public who had no printed calendars it was easier to remember dates by names than by figures. It happens that 14 February is dedicated to one or other of two early Roman martyrs, both named Valentinus, believed to have died on that date."

- Via an article from the Folklore Society.

 Possibly the sweetest thing about Valentine's Day is that it likely began with the recognized mating habits of birds... avian love... the kind of love everybody can celebrate. The martyrdom of saints, however, is an element we might want to dismiss. Well, most of us anyway.

February 26, 2026,

Perhaps, I should explain.

The poem, The White Rose & the Ace of Spades, was initiated days ago... specifically 13 days ago, on Friday the 13th... which, as it happened, fell on Valentine's Day Eve this year (2026). Apparently, the last time this "holiday" conjunction occured was in 2015. The next occurs in 2032.

I see now that it was extensively joked about on social media prior to the event with many mashups involving Jason from the slasher film franchise Friday the 13th, with a few Goth-inspired offerings announcing Darkwave raves. Somebody even made up a new holiday: Valloween! Gotta love it.

To add to our dark pleasures, the latest remake of Wuthering Heights premiered this Valentine's Day raking in billions of $$$. "Wuthering Heights" (with apostrophes) is (allegedly) heavily erotic... which could be a good thing. But, Catherine Earnshaw has been morphed into the requisite, vulnerable blonde and, being more or less a WH purist, I find this as problematic as I would a blond Heathcliff. Obviously, I've yet to see the movie though, so, no review is forthcoming. However, the review I linked to had this to say: "So essentially what we're getting at is that Wuthering Heights is a smutty fan fiction fever dream written by a 14-year-old."

In other words, it can't be all that bad! ;-)

In any case, something tells me that the darkly romantic Love-Beyond-Death meme is in full swing this year, so allow me to elucidate...

(Elucidation lies below the jump) ;-)

The Subtle Anarchy of Fuzz Culture

 

Interestingly, many of the creatively gifted individuals mentioned by the creatively gifted Arsh Sharma, a musician, during the course of his spot-on exposé were not merely artists, but what we can refer to as pathologically creative artists, thinkers and musicians. Van Gogh, Baudelaire, Poe, Nina Simone... men and women who were so consumed by their creative flames, that their attention to their own survival was compromised. In a sense, the pathologically "gifted" are often savants, unable to successfully maneuver through the maze of the official world while absorbed in exploring dimensions of experience outside of the official playbook. That their visionary explorations - dismissed in their own time - were eventually appreciated (and capitalized upon) by those of future generations is an ironic twist. While it lends the artists a kind of immortality, in societies in which commerce is king, money trumps all (pun inevitable). In other words, when money talks, the world listens. Well, that is, apart from the dead artists... who are unlikely to hear the "ka-ching," and,  like the anonymous meek, have inherited little more than a silent, earth-filled grave.

But, Arsh Sharma takes the tragic artist meme one step further, in that, he proposes the artist's plight arose from the subtle antagonism society felt towards those mad members of the creative sector. And, he makes a good point. He has certainly has created the nucleus of a more thorough investigation into this unfortunate element of art history and culture and the ways in which it effects us today.

Fuzz Culture features a number of unique, alternative essays in video form. This one - redefining the word delusional - is one of my favorites. But, don't miss The Real Reason Artists Create (And Can’t Stop).

Thank you, Fuzz Culture; your insight is most welcome in a world which has somehow lost its way - and is desperately trying to find it!

***

On a related note, we have more artist/madness material from Big Think:

Did Friedrich Nietzsche’s own philosophy drive him insane?

"A number of studies have shown that creative people are twice as likely to suffer from conditions like depression and anxiety compared to the general population. At the same time, the rate and intensity of these symptoms vary depending on outlet or discipline, with poets and writers proving more likely to suffer from disorders than, for example, scientists."

This is a very interesting article for the most part, but the paragraph above presents data that is fairly elementary. That poets should tend to suffer from anxiety and depression more than scientists is not terribly mysterious. Scientists generally work within established professional and academic structures, often funded by governments, the military, Big Pharma, and various medical institutions. Take that security away - and MAGA is doing it's very best - and I think you'll find many more depressed, anxiety-stricken scientists.