In a Field of Whispers (Ode to a Jack-o'-lantern)

 

One minute, you were there,

facing a moon enshrined by clouds.

Then, the lights went out.

And, the clouds came down in long, luminous spirals

clinging to your skin with cool, misty tendrils.

Ice silvers the rims of your darkened eyes and hollow mouth;

your last breath lost in a field of whispers...

where, slowly, you will coalesce, drop by crucial drop,

with those who creep upon the earth, and the hallowed grounds they cross.

- 2025, DS. Cloud timestamps: 1) October 7, 2025, 6:33 pm, 2) October 7, 2025, 6:33 pm, 3) June 25, 2025, 4:41 pm, 4) October 7, 2025, 6:32 pm, 5) July 31, 2025, 7:04 pm.

(More below the jump...)

Dark Eros & Gothic Dreams

Untitled painting, detail, 1960, Leonora Carrington. (Click to enlarge)
The full image can be found below the jump-break....

(From) Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allen Poe

"Thy soul shall find itself alone

'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tombstone;

Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

Into thine hour of secrecy.

Be silent in that solitude,

Which is not loneliness - for then

The spirits of the dead, who stood

In life before thee, are again..."

(From) Speak, God Of Visions by Emily Brontë

"So, with a ready heart I swore

To seek their altar-stone no more;

And gave my spirit to adore

Thee, ever-present, phantom thing—

My slave, my comrade, and my king.

A slave, because I rule thee still,

Incline thee to my changeful will,

And make thy influence good or ill;

A comrade, for by day and night

Thou art my intimate delight..."

(From) Elm by Sylvia Plath

"I am inhabited by a cry.   

Nightly it flaps out

Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing   

That sleeps in me;

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?   

Is it for such I agitate my heart?"

(From) Letter to Sainte-Beuve and a prose poem by Charles Baudelaire

"Poet, is it an insult, or a well-turned compliment?

For regarding you I’m like a lover, to all intent,

faced with a ghost whose gestures are caresses,

with hand, eye of unknown charms, who blesses,

in order to drain one’s strength. – All loved beings

are cups of venom one drinks with eyes unseeing,

and the heart that’s once transfixed, seduced by pain,

finds death, while still blessing the arrow, every day."

"Dreams! Always dreams! And the more aspiring and fastidious the soul, the more its dreams exceed the possible. Every man has within him his dose of natural opium, endlessly secreted and renewed, and how many hours do we count, from birth to death, that are filled with positive pleasure, by successful deliberate action? Shall we ever truly live, ever enter this picture my mind has painted, this picture that resembles you?"

***

No tricks, just treats. Have a great holiday... with hidden pleasures... and mysterious treasures.

(Below:  Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex with some clips from Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride.)

(continued below...)

It's Halloween...

Marble akroterion (Greece, 350-325 BC). Source: The Met. G: DS, 2023.

(the veil of time between this world and the next

is evaporating)

... connect with a spirit.

______________________________________________________________

Three ancient Egyptian "ka" or "false" doors sourced from this page.

"The term ‘false door’ is itself something of a misnomer, as, from the Egyptian’s perspective, these features were fully functional portals by which the spirit of the deceased might leave or enter the inner tomb to receive the offerings presented to them."

- Via the article: False Doors - The Physical Metaphysical Threshold.

***

I must say that the strange sculptural piece found at the beginning of this post is possibly the weirdest artifact I've ever seen. It's described as an akroterion which, in general, is merely an architectural detail. But, something about it brought the idea of an Egyptian "false door" to my mind... especially when I saw the first golden triangle (inset right).

There's another, similar one at the Met - found on this page - which happened to be found in a graveyard. It seems as if it was created by the same artist, and I wonder if the one I posted was found in a graveyard, too. Both have little knobs towards the top carved into 5-petaled roses, and extravagant, swirling leaves which are said to represent palm trees. The Egyptian Ka doors also featured cornices which are said to represent palm trees.

The Egyptian "false doors" were not actual doors, in the usual sense, as they were carved in stone - solid, seamless and physically impenetrable. These doors had a different purpose - through them one communicated with those "on the other side"; that is, deceased loved ones. One left offerings. The dead were also able to enter the physical world again through the Ka doors. Interestingly they were all designed along the lines of a similar geometry - similar to the golden rectangle but seemingly featuring a different ratio altogether.

My hypothesis? The akroterion featured here served a similar purpose to the Ka doors. It is smaller, of course... a smaller sort of door... kind of like a laptop version of the psychic internet... the little rose promising encryption. 

Happy Haunting!

Cat-O-Lanterns - ceramic - 2023, BG Dodson.

The Season of the Witch (Revised 12/27/23)

 

"When I look out my window

Many sights to see

And when I look in my window

So many different people to be

That it's strange, so strange

You've got to pick up every stitch

You've got to pick up every stitch

You've got to pick up every stitch

Must be the season of the witch"

- Excerpt from Season of the Witch; Donovan Leitch, 1966

As we all know, the witching season commenced yesterday, the first day of October and will continue throughout the month until, at least, the second week of November. It was actually a day of epiphanies for me, and fairly positive. But, all the while a song was playing in the background of my mental arena, an old Donovan (website) tune: The Season of the Witch.

Naturally, I eventually turned to YouTube... finding the great video ( above) by Lana Del Ray animated with a... Betty Boop cartoon? Surprise, it was an absolutely brilliant match! Sadly, the owner took it down. I decided to stick with the Donovan's original.

Also included: a great vintage live cover by British performer Julie Driscoll, too, who now performs under the name of Julie Tippets.

 

Oh, and one more thing, I'd like to announce that Trans-D now has a new friend #12; a much nicer number than 11 (the number of chaos). Thanks, Julia and welcome!

Meanwhile, just in case I can't make it to the table on the actual witching day, the 31st, may you and yours have a wonderfully weird witching season!

PS  Joan Jett rocks it.

Samhain, 2022; Leonora Carrington and the Philosophic Egg

The Chair, Daghda Tuatha de Danaan, 1955, Leonora Carrington.
Incidentally, the Internet Archive link presented here is a great source for
Carrington images, starting with this page.

"The “Ovum Philosophicum,” which can be translated as the Philosophical or Alchemical Egg, is the principal vessel used in alchemical operations. During the alchemical process, the material, Hermetically sealed in the Egg, is put through a symbolic death and rebirth. When the Egg is cracked, a new mystical substance emerges capable of improving any substance with which it comes in contact."

- An explanation of the Philosophic Egg found here.

"Rather than trying to use this painting to psychoanalyze the artist, it is more productive to see how many symbolic elements are combined within. There are alchemical elements including the large egg on the table, which represents the “Philosophic Egg,” or alchemical vessel. While this term is often used in alchemical texts, visual representations in alchemical texts of a large egg are less frequent. One exception is an engraving that first appeared in Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens of a soldier, representing the planet Mars, standing by a furnace about to attack a large egg on a square table with his sword. This illustration was reprinted in Seligmann’s History of Magic, as were two images of the alchemical rose, which in Carrington’s painting floats above, dripping milky white drops to the table below.  Throughout the painting Carrington incorporated the colors of black, white and red, which relate to the three major stages of the alchemical work. Grillot de Givry had included a color plate representing these three colors on hybrid creatures - black eagle/serpents and white eagle/lions or griffins - placed in a landscape below a small hill that contains a tree with red fruit."

"Many of these symbols lent their traditional esoteric meanings to her paintings, but the freedom with which she transformed and blended these symbols in her paintings reveal her very personal adaptations and combinations of found imagery. In her complex combinations of esoteric symbolism, her paintings reflect the structure of esoteric publications during the mid-twentieth century, which likewise presented a multitude of esoteric traditions, while pointing to deeper spiritual powers that could be unlocked through their contemplation. Her use of these symbols stemmed from her own ritual practices and reveal the power she infused into her work to activate the unconscious."

"Many things contributed to the changes in her work from the late 1940s and into the 1960s... Many new publications on esoteric subjects became available in those years. Earlier in Paris, she would have known E. A. Grillot de Givry’s Le Musée des sorciers, mages & alchimistes, a text that inspired many surrealists and was one of the first publications to reproduce images drawn from a myriad of occult paths, including scenes of monstrous devils, demons, witchcraft, alchemy, astrology, physiognomy, tarot, chiromancy or palmistry, divining rods and diagrams of talismans and magic circles."

- Three separate quotes from M. E. Warlick's excellent article: Leonora Carrington’s Esoteric Symbols and their Sources. the first quote cites Carrington's painting with the golden egg, Ab Eo Quod (1956) - inset right - but, thematically, the observations can also apply to The Chair... with the silver egg. Both feature a large egg on a table, a symbolic rose and a color palette of predominately white, black and red.

Inset left above is the enigmatic set of symbols - Carrington's E=MC2, 1969, found on this page. Directly below is Carrington's take on standard alchemical imagery; found at the afore-mentioned Internet Archive.

Black sun/ Sol Niger, 1975, Leonora Carrington.

"Sol niger (black sun) can refer to the first stage of the alchemical magnum opus, the nigredo (blackening). In a text ascribed to Marsilio Ficino three suns are described: black, white, and red, corresponding to the three most used alchemical color stages. Of the sol niger he writes:

The body must be dissolved in the subtlest middle air: The body is also dissolved by its own heat and humidity; where the soul, the middle nature holds the principality in the colour of blackness all in the glass: which blackness of Nature the ancient Philosophers called the crows head, or the black sun."

- Marsilius Ficinus, Liber de Arte Chemica

"Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington painted narrative scenes inhabited by mysterious people and spirits participating in curious rituals. Samhain Skin references the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, held on October 31 to celebrate summer’s end. Painting on an actual animal skin, Carrington presents animals, human hybrids, and reverse-handwritten references to tribes and deities from Gaelic history. The imagery also alludes to the Sidhe, fairy people from whom Carrington’s grandmother claimed their family had descended."

- Leonora Carrington created several Samhain paintings. The one cited - Samhain Skin (inset right)- can be found in the NMWA collection.

You'll note the central motif of a mermaid figure in the painting... the mermaid (or siren) appearing often in Carrington's work. An excellent example is this stunning triptych found here, which I have never seen before. Speaking of Carrington objects not-seen-before, here's an another outstanding collection.

***

Yes, the witching hours are almost upon us and who better to accompany us to the Land of the Dead then a true expert in the field, surrealist artist, Leonora Carrington, whom I have called on before... on just such a day as this.

This Halloween, however, a tricky time to be sure, we're closing in on one of the most life-affirming shapes there are in this world: the egg. Ah, yes... but, then - and, wouldn't you know it - Leonora Carrington was there before us.

Well, sort of... let us explore...

Halloween 2021 - The White Fallow Deer

 

"They chase me through the forest green with hounds and hunting men,
and it is my own brother dear that rides with them.
Oh beg him now to stay his hand and hold his hounds at bay,
for I can break this curse if I can make midday.

Oh son , will you not stay inside and will you leash your hounds ?
For that white hind you hunt each night is your own blood.
I will ride the forest green and I will not stay my hand
and I will claim the finest hind that roams the land.

Three times they chased her down, three times she's run away.
The fourth time that they chased her down, the white hind they did slay.

Oh son of mine I beg of you , where's my daughter dear ?
I hear a young girls voice ring out sweet and clear.
My heart is on the table and my blood is on the floor.
My bones are roasting on the coals, I'll return no more."

- Lyrics from The White Hind... a ballad which is based upon the traditional French song, La Biche Blanche (a video appears after the jump) which tells the tale of a young girl who uncontrollably transforms into a white doe (or hind) - due to a curse - and is eventually slain (in deer form) by her brother. Versions of this story seem to have emerged world-wide over the centuries: For instance, here's one from North Carolina.   (Note: for a visual treat see The White Hind - on this page - by sculptor, Beth Cavner.)

"In Celtic cultures, the white stag traditionally symbolizes the world of the dead or the Otherworld. As a matter of fact, many other cultures also see the white stag in the same way.

In Arthurian mythology, pursuing the white stag was a symbol of our yearning for immortality or the next life."

- Via an article found here. 

 

" SIR – Something terrible will befall us if we shoot a white deer (report, March 9).

Take a lesson from the legend of Herne the Hunter, who was said to have saved Richard II from a white hart while the king was hunting in Windsor Forest. Mortally wounded, Herne had the deer's antlers bound to his head by a wizard to keep him alive. Herne was later found, hanging from an oak tree...

Clearly Herne is of much greater mythical antiquity than Richard II, but the king did bear a white hart as his heraldic badge. To kill a white deer is more foolhardy than brave."

- Excerpt from a letter via an article found here as was the source of the medieval painting above. 

 

"The tale comes from Kilmersdon, in the eastern Mendip Hills in Somerset. It concerns a lord who was weighed down with the woes of the world: there was a great pestilence among his people, and despite all his efforts, nothing the lord could do would stop the death and pain and sorrow from spreading across the land.

He was riding through the woods one evening with a heavy heart, when through the trees he saw a flash of pale fur, and a white hind bounded across the path in front of his horse. The lord followed the deer through the trees, picking his way through the ferns and brambles as quick as his horse would allow, but after a few minutes it had disappeared.

After that time, though, the lord was filled with inspiration and hope. His chance encounter with a white deer in the woods had refreshed his spirit, and allowed him to look at the situation in a new way. Following the lord’s directions, the people around him soon started to pull together, make plans, and work to improve the situation as best they could. Slowly at first, but then more and more under his lead, the community of that place found fresh energy to deal with the illness facing them, and to find a way through to the other side and renewal ahead."

- An excerpt from a folktale found here.

 

"A rare white deer was shot dead by police after it was spotted running through the streets of a town.

The RSPCA said it had advised police to 'leave the deer as it would make its own way back home' eventually.

But Merseyside Police said officers decided to euthanize the deer after growing concerns it might be dangerous for motorists and pedestrians.

A spokeswoman for the RSPCA said that while the deer could have been sedated 'this needs to be done with caution in a public area such as this one, as the deer could startle and run when hit by the dart'.

- From this BBC 2021 news article.

***

My Halloween post this year was inspired by an actual event that occurred in the UK recently (see article excerpt directly above). The sort of story - animal gets stranded in traffic and then is shot for the public good - that would quickly slip through the cracks and no one would be the wiser for it... but, I couldn't let that happen. Instead, I thought I'd honor the death of this particular white stag, although many of its kind continue to be slaughtered by hunters all over the world (despite its protection in some areas). Its head apparently makes a valuable trophy... although "trophy" for what I can't imagine. Surely it takes no real skill to kill an animal with a high-powered rifle. Worse still - and to highlight the depravity of this particular enterprise - one stag was stolen from a zoo in Germany and then beheaded (article link)!

Another disconcerting element of the BBC news article, however - along with the fact that all human parties involved were incompetent - was that there was no mention of the history of this particular animal. That a white deer is a relative anomaly never seemed to enter the equation, let alone the ancient folklore which surrounds it... which is odd; a great deal of white deer mythology originated in the UK!

Question: is actual progress being made when we lose touch with the roots of our narratives? Are we evolving when we subtract emotional content and mythological meaning from existential fact... or are we more profoundly floundering in the dark?

Every Day is Halloween...

A scanned-in pumpkin is given a narrative - digital - DS 2020.

... or Samhain, if you prefer. So, while I apologize for not coming to the table on the actual day, well, does it really matter?

Anyway, I've been camping out in a rabbit hole these days... and diligently trying to produce a post relative to the situation. As it was, the image appearing above was meant for my "other" blog... but after some careful consideration - and possibly some subliminal communication with the those on the "other" side - it was decided that the Famous Last Words on Post-Mac Blues would neither be my own nor Mac's, but, instead, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's.

I did read some good news today. In reference to a footnote in my previous post... the one about the "fat" lady singing, it seems like she's singing for Biden & Harris... as every artist, woman, and intelligent human should be. See: The Countdown: Lady Gaga gets drawn in as campaign heats up.

I hesitate to hope... but, maybe, this is a good omen!

Swan Bones Theater Presents...

Forest Sleep - oil on panel - 2010, Kelly Louise Judd.
(Click to enlarge.)

Well, it's the witching season again and, in an effort to stay true to the spirit(s) of our various Days of the Dead, I thought I might feature a new artist whose work is unique, pleasantly spooky, darkly ethereal and the stuff of Old World dreams: the illustrations of Kansas City, Missouri artist, Kelly Louise Judd. (Inset right: Light of the Owls, 2012.)

"Swan Bones Theater" is the name she uses to describe the "fragile shadowland" from which her images emerge as well as the illustrations themselves. Which is perfect really - especially for today - because, if you've recall from the Swan People posts, the swan is the symbol of the psychopomp in many traditions. To repost a quote (found here):

"In the British Isles, Samhain is the time when we see the migratory swans returning for their winter break. Their arrival at their winter waters is far from shy. In full voice, the awesome, evocative sound of hundreds of powerful wings beating signals their presence. They have been guided by the stars of Cygnus, the swan constellation, the Northern Cross, that guards the gateway rift in the Milky Way. They represent the winged soul returning.

The swan is the psychopomp. She flies with the souls of the dead from the burial grounds, the charnel grounds, and the necropolis. She takes them, under the guidance of the Cailleach, to the realms of the spirits."

- Caroline Wise from The Swan, the Goddess, and Other Samhain Musings.

Inset left above is Three Swans (2015). All images in this post - including the one below - can be found on Judd's website.

The Mockingbird and the Hare - oil on panel - 2010, Kelly Louise Judd.

Blessed Be and have a (transdimensionally) magical day!

***

"All our times have come

Here but now they're gone

Seasons don't fear the reaper 

Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain; we can be like they are 

Come on baby, don't fear the reaper

Baby take my hand, don't fear the reaper

We'll be able to fly, don't fear the reaper

Baby I'm your man"

- First stanza of the love song, (Don't Fear) the Reaper, written by Donald Roeser

in 1976 and performed by the band, Blue Oyster Cult. (Lyrics) (Video)

Baudelaire, Rodin & the "Crouching Woman" (A Speculation)

Detail of Je suis belle (I am beautiful), a 1882 sculpture (plaster)
by Auguste Rodin housed in the Musée Rodin in Paris; it was
originally entitled L'Enlèvement (Rape and/or Abduction).

"Mystérieuse faculté que cette reine des facultés ! ...C’est l’imagination qui a enseigné à l’homme le sens moral de la couleur, du contour, du son et du parfum. Elle a créé, au commencement du monde, l’analogie et la métaphore. Elle décompose toute la création, et, avec les matériaux amassés et disposés suivant des règles dont on ne peut trouver l’origine que dans le plus profond de l’âme, elle crée un monde nouveau, elle produit la sensation du neuf. Comme elle a créé le monde (on peut bien dire cela, je crois, même dans un sens religieux), il est juste qu’elle le gouverne."

("How mysterious is Imagination, that queen of the faculties! ...It is Imagination that first taught man the moral meaning of colour, of contour, of sound and of scent. In the beginning of the world it created analogy and metaphor. It decomposes all creation, and with the raw materials accumulated and disposed in accordance with rules one cannot find save in the furthest depths of the soul, it creates a new world, it produces the sensation of newness. Since it has created the world, (so much can be said, I think, even in a religious sense) it is proper that it should govern it.")

- Excerpt from La Reine des Facultés, one of Baudelaire's critical essays from his Salon de 1859 (French only). Inset right is the cover page from an online illustrated edition of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal, 1857, a .pdf in both French and English. (Note: downloads immediately.) For views of the many different covers of Baudelaire's masterpiece published over the years, see this page (click on the arrows).

"Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière."

("I am beautiful, O mortals! as a dream of stone,
And my breast where each one in turn has bruised himself
Is made to inspire in the poet a love
As eternal and silent as matter.")

- The first 4 lines of Baudelaire's poem, "La Beauté," from Les Fleurs du mal inscribed at the base of Rodin's bronze sculpture Je suis belle (inset left). The original (1882) plaster was entitled L'Enlèvement (Rape, or Abduction), but when it was cast in bronze Rodin added the lines from Baudelaire's poem, and retitled the piece to Je suis belle. Mysteriously, he also altered the last line of Baudelaire's quatrain to read: "Etant alors muet ainsi que la matière," ("So being mute as matter"). (See here.)

"These lines might not seem fitting for a piece originally exhibited as The Rape in 1900. But this past title, the sculpture's current title and the poem inscribed on its base all speak to an ambiguity that characterizes much of the installation. I am Beautiful presents two figures—a more masculine standing figure and one that is more feminine grasped in the former’s arms. Are the two locked in an embrace, the female figure having leapt into her lover’s arms just moments before? Or is it darker, showing a scene of abduction?"

- Excerpt from Love and Lust at the Rodin Museum, a review of an 2017 exhibition at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA).

"This two-figure group appeared in 1880 at the top of the righthand pilaster of The Gates of Hell. It is a combination of Crouching Woman  and Falling Man, whose back seems to arch under the strain of holding her in his outstretched arms. Also known as The Abduction, Carnal Love or The Cat, the group began its life as an independent sculpture circa 1882...

It illustrates Rodin’s use of assemblages, which became one of the characteristic features of his working method. The sculptor thus profoundly altered the meaning of Crouching Woman, a very open female figure whose posture may appear either obscene or erotic, by turning her over and folding her up into a closed ball, which the man lifts into the air like Atlas..."

- From the Musée Rodin page describing Je suis belle.  Inset right (above) is allegedly the first incarnation of the "Crouching Woman" Rodin created in 1880 for his Gates of Hell. (Note: I have also seen this same figure referred to as Andromeda.) There is also a second crouching female figure at the top of the left-hand pilaster (not shown). Lastly, there is a third figure: a separate piece Rodin created and actually entitled La Femme Accroupie (The Crouching Woman) in 1882 (inset right below), the same year he created L'Enlèvement (Je suis belle). Inset left is the "Falling Man," located directly beneath the female figure on the Gates of Hell. Rodin recycled the Falling Man again, as well, in 1882.

"Rodin had illustrated this poem with an image of a reclining woman encircled in the halo of her hair, presenting a much more serene interpretation of the poem. In the sculpture, however, the original title of The Rape as well as the opposition between masculine and feminine, vertical and horizontal, and round and erect shapes suggest a vision of the “rêve de pierre” as tainted by a certain violence and conveys a message that is more difficult to decipher."

- A reference to the poem "La Beauté," from the 1857 edition of Les Fleurs du mal Rodin illuminated with some of his own drawings in late 1887 and 1888.

"Have pity, cruel girl, I can’t go on, I can’t spend another day without seeing you. Otherwise the atrocious madness. It is over, I don’t work anymore, malevolent goddess, and yet I love furiously. My Camille be assured that I feel love for no other woman, and that my soul belongs to you. … Ah! Divine beauty, flower who speaks and loves, intelligent flower, my darling. My dear one, I am on my knees facing your beautiful body which I embrace."

- A reposted quote, taken from a 1886 letter Rodin wrote to Camille Claudell in the early days of their affair, currently at the Musée Rodin.

***

Well, my friends, It appears I'm continuing to embrace the inevitable online distractions I've (continuously) been presented with all month... while researching - and attempting to finish - the post-that-shall-not-be-named (again). But, I couldn't resist posting my latest "find" as it relates so deeply to my previous find.

Once again we are presented with a sculpture... this time a creation by Auguste Rodin (Fr) (inset left, as a dapper young dude), Camille Claudel's lover. I confess, when I first set eyes on the full version of Je suis belle (see photos above) I was appalled. Especially as the first example I discovered online was entitled "The Rape." In ways, I suppose, I'm still appalled, but, in trying to solve the mystery of Rodin's (possibly) most bizarre creation and, at the same time, coming across its connection to poète maudit, Charles Baudelaire, well, I am compelled to elucidate.

As it stands, it appears many critics find Je suis belle disturbing, but, none seem to grasp just exactly why. While they might admit the odd coupling seems "tainted by a certain violence" or, conveys "a message that is difficult to decipher," or, resort to adjectives like "darker," one gets the impression the critics are lost at sea. My favorite understatement: it "embodies a difficult notion of beauty."

I'll say it does! Because, if you look very closely at the women's face, she's obviously insensible. And, if you take into consideration the position of her body - her dangling limbs, and a compression unlikely to be achieved by a living body - she may, In fact, be a true homage to Baudelaire (and/or the Symbolists in general): that is, a fresh corpse...

A Little Holiday Cheer...

“Be silent in that solitude,

Which is not loneliness—for then

The spirits of the dead, who stood

In life before thee, are again

In death around thee, and their will

Shall overshadow thee; be still.”

- From Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allan Poe

"This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary

The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.

The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God

Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility

Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.

Separated from my house by a row of headstones.

I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

... I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering

Blue and mystical over the face of the stars

Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,

Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,

Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.

The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.

And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence."

- From The Moon and the Yew Tree by Sylvia Plath.

... from Remedios, Edgar, Sylvia (and I).  ;-)

The Witches

Maria Germanova of the Moscow Arts Theatre, costumed for her role [as the fairy] in the 1908 premiere of Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird, produced by Stanislavsky. From: Lost Marvels of Revolution-Era Russian Theater.

"Shall I see tonight sister, bathed in magic greet?

Shall we meet on the hilltop where the two roads meet?

We will form the circle, hold our hands and chant

Let the great one know what it is we want

Danger is great joy, dark is bright as fire

Happy is our family, lonely is the ward."

 

- From "Witches' Song" by Marianne Faithfull, Joe Mavety, Stephen York, Barry Reynolds, and Terence Stannard, introduced on Faithfull's 1979 album, Broken English.

 

"I think that all women are witches, in the sense that a witch is a magical being. And a wizard, which is a male version of a witch, is kind of revered, and people respect wizards. But a witch, my god, we have to burn them. It’s the male chauvinistic society that we’re living in for the longest time, 3,000 years or whatever. And so I just wanted to point out the fact that men and women are magical beings. We are very blessed that way, so I’m just bringing that out. Don’t be scared of witches, because we are good witches, and you should appreciate our magical power." 

- A quote from Yoko Ono found here.

“Witches never existed, except in people’s minds. All there was in the olden days was women and some men who believed in herbal cures and in folklore and in the wish to fly. Witches? We’re all witches in one way or another. Witches was the invention of mankind, son. We’re all witches beneath the skin.”

- A quote from The Flood, by Ian Rankin, found here.

"I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too!"

- The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) from The Wizard of Oz (film clip).

***

I had a much different post planned for this day, featuring my latest digital image. Alas, this was not meant to be. I also had a very different sort of post intended for "The Witches", but it was, by no means, holiday fare. 

Witches, witches... so much to say, so little time. "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?" the ethereal Glinda asks Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz film clip (linked to above). Now, there's a loaded question... perhaps one we should be asking our potential candidates for higher office... all of them.

In the end, I decided this Halloween post is for fun... think: "Samantha" in Bewitched. Or, better yet, the delightful Kim Novak in my all-time favorite vintage flick: Bell, Book and Candle (clip below)...

... and have yourself a Happy Halloween! ;-)

PS...

Just A Little Witchery...

Painting by Remedios Varo

... in celebration of Halloween, Samhain and the Celtic New Year.

Painting by Leonora Carrington

Originally, I had planned to do an in-depth Halloween exploration of two important artists, and favorite Surrealists of mine, Patron Saint #7: Remedios Varos, and Patron Saint #8: Leonora Carrington. Fate intervened in the form of Hurricane Sandy, however, and power returned to my neck of the woods only about an hour ago. It could be worse - last I knew, New Jersey was still under water, and NYC was still in the dark.

Best I could do.

Blessed Be.

***

Note: More links regarding Leonora Carrington can be found in Patron Saint #9: Kay Sage - "I Walk Without Echo"

Regarding Remedios Varo, Patron Saint #7: of all the Patron Saints on this blog, she is the only woman to be included in WikiPaintings. (Correction! As of this note, November 2013, Carrington has found her place on Wikpaintings, as well.)

In view of my regretfully truncated post for these two phenomenal artists, I am including YouTube videos for both of them here. My advice is view them full-screen.

Seasons Greetings!

Halloween card - digital - DS 2005

And have a happy and healthy Celtic New Year!