Beltane, 2026 (Revised May 11, 2026)

 

(May 2, 2026 - I always associate Beltane with the symbol of the rose pentacle now. I would've liked to post a photo of a cast piece of my own design here, and I would have, if one existed. Alas, no. That project has been stalled for, at least, 2 years.

However, I did find the GIF above - with a pentagram inside a circle, accented with a spray of five roses - which we can consider an interpretation of the more traditional rose pentacle symbol.

It was found in this collection. I am unsure of it's maker but, it goes without saying, it's very nice!)

(5/15: Note the tension between the pentagram and the roughly pentagonal spray of flowers. Doesn't it feel like they're straining to come together?)

•

"Also known as Cétshamhain ('first of summer'), it marked the beginning of summer and was when cattle were driven out to the summer pastures. Rituals were performed to protect cattle, people and crops, and to encourage growth. Special bonfires were kindled, whose flames, smoke and ashes were believed to have protective powers."

- From the Wiki entry for Beltane, it would seem that for the early Celts and Germanic people, the first of May and the beginning of summer was a very beautiful and, yet, vulnerable time of the year. The world had come back to life and rituals were performed, not only to celebrate that life but to nourish and protect that life from harm.

•

“In the face of so much destruction of the natural world and so much disregard for life, Beltane is also an act of rebellion against the status quo. It says about us–as simple people, as a growing community–that we don’t give in to the death cycles imposed on us from Away, not in this season. We plant and know that the harvest comes – not in the stately march from Lughnasadh to Samhain but bit by bit and day by day."

- Byron Ballard, from Summer is Come, sourced from the wonderful Beltane page at Wild Hunt, as is the following quote and the Walter Crane illustration below, inset left.

•

"The flesh is understood to be the place where evil resides and from which torment wreaks havoc upon the mind. The flesh is temporary, so it must be trivial. The flesh will not remain, so we must not give it credence. The flesh will pass unto the earth, rot in the ground, turn into dust. We are told again and again to dismiss the flesh. But Whitman says, ‘And your very flesh shall be a great poem.’ Yes. Our very flesh shall be a great poem. That is the message I’d like to offer on Beltane.”

- From Beltane 2013: The Great Poetry of Flesh by Teo Bishop (Matthew Morris).

***

A very nice Wheel of the Year found (for sale) at Maine Corner.

(May 3, 2026)

I enjoy the Sabbats. There's, undeniably, a special energy in the air on those days; a kind of clarity. Time seems to savor these days; it moves more slowly, stretching just a fraction, but, enough to experience a sense of unity... with the Earth, with your past, and with the very long past we know as "tradition."

Maybe all holidays do that; act as milestones.

April 30th (May Eve) - May 1st (May Day) is a holiday that emerged in Celtic and Germanic Europe: the Celtic Beltane or the Germanic Walpurgisnacht. Apart from it's pagan, Earth-religion elements the holiday is, in the Christian tradition, marked by May devotions to the Virgin Mary and the Saint Walpurga.**

It is also an official holiday in Europe; similar to the American Labor Day. International Worker's Day in the States is celebrated by rallies held across the nation for working class Americans. As you might expect, the gatherings were massive this year. Inset left is a May Day tribute to "the workers" by English illustrator Walter Crane. Crane's work often is orchestrated with the movement of the pentagonal Golden Spiral. Can you find it in this image? (Hint: start with the triangle.)

The full "Flower" moon rose over the Sandias on the evening of May Day. It was a pale, lemony rose color... crisp and bright, before it was made spooky by a transparent plume of clouds. A second full moon will rise May 31st. The month of May is virtually bracketed by full moons. I think there's a message here: the time is ripe to banish our bogeymen and truly come back to life.*** We've got the whole month. Get moving. ;-)

Here's to a merry month of May! 💮

(Footnotes appear below the jump.)

The First of May

 

Rose Pentacle (Rose Detail) - clay pattern - 2025, DS.

The Philosopher's Rose

Why is it that some of us must fight

to create (in) this world?

Why is it that some of us must fight

to stay alive?

Therein lies the Logos of

a Dying God.

But, then, I wonder:

why is it that the Rose

continues to unfold so

magnificently?

- May 2, 2025, DS.

Amo, ergo sum.
(I love, therefore I am.)

Summer Solstice (Litha) 2023

Rose Pentacle - clay body in progress - 2023, DS.
 The photo at the bottom of the post was taken
during a slightly earlier stage of its development.

 

Glenys Livingstone of PaGaian Cosmology writes:

“As it says in the tradition, this is the time of the rose, blossom and thorn, fragrance and blood. The story of Old tells that on this day Goddess and God embrace, in a love so complete, that all dissolves, into the single Song of ecstasy that moves the worlds. Our bliss, fully matured, given over, feeds the Universe and turns the wheel. We join the Beloved and Lover in the Great Give-Away

of our Creativity, our Fullness of Being.”

•

(Áine Órga of HeartStory.org writes:)

    “I often conceive of life as being a wild and dangerous dance. It starts slow, speeds over time, careening wildly, until it gradually slows from exhaustion, and finally dies. This pattern is visible in human and animal life, but also in the changing seasons on Earth, and throughout Cosmos as stars and planets are born, collide, and die...

    “The Summer Solstice is the peak of the dance. It is that time in your time, that moment on Earth, those millennia in the life of a star, when performance and creativity are at their most prolific. It is the time when dreams are manifested, art created, offspring born.

    “Beyond it is the inevitable spiral back down. But right now is the time to dance.”

- Both of the lucid quotes above can be found on this Naturalistic Paganism page regarding the Summer Solstice (or Litha)... which takes place today. Other articles of interest on the same theme are on the following pages: Heart of England Forest... We Moon... Ex Pat Explore... The Guardian.

***

(Blog note: As of later today, Trans-D Digital Art can only be accessed from https://. The USA link is embedded in the egg/stone logo in the first side-bar image to your right. This was necessary as I've noted inexplicable fluctuations in traffic and traffic sources in the past few months which lead me to conclude that all is not as it should be in Blogger Land. Well, at least in my miniscule portion of it.

I'm sure everyone realizes (or should) that blogging has been a precarious venture since its very early days. But, as the entire "information highway" has become a virtual mine-field, well, it is in ones interests to tread very carefully. Case in point: whom, after all, am I addressing? I've no idea. It's this lack, among others, that has given me such a writer's block, that Trans-D has become more of a YouTube channel than a meaningful conversation. I am very sorry for this.*

In the event that this is or is not the last post on Trans-D depends upon a number of factors. One factor is the inevitability (and necessity) of creating a future venue - a website - that will explore the object disclosed above: the Rose Pentacle (or, Rose Pentagram) and its related artwork. Superstition informs me, however, that discretion on my part is the wisest course of action. That being said, I've posted some excerpts from my note files below to establish a starting point... a preview.)

* This block emerged around the time of the Hygeia post... my first unfinished post. A lingering sense of doubt paralyzed me for months thereafter... that is, until this day.

***

The Rose and the Pentagram conjoined within a circle is a code formation describing a collection of emotional and physical states that can never be entirely (logically) explained. At the same time, its geometry requires that it must continuously refer to itself and describe its own anatomy... and, in doing so, intimate truths it can never fully disclose; truths which are implicate in its geometry but, of  which we cannot wholly decipher.

Allegedly, there can be no perpetual motion... but the conundrum is that the properties inherent in 5 expresses just that possibility. 5 is a dynamo... not merely as a "number" but as an implicate expression of a living force. Within its domain, living structures are set in motion. Expression, motion: emotion. The dynamo does not stop expressing itself at any given point in time or space.

If we are alive, we are alive in the expression of five... and that's the good news.

***

What force is Love? Better, yet, what force is Emotion? Perhaps, we first have to define "force." Obviously we are not discussing the well-known physical forces... and, yet, it is the force of emotion which essentially drives the physical world.

One might say that emotion is a force in the realm of consciousness... but what is consciousness? We tend to place intellect at the top of the hierarchy, but, as it works out, emotion and intellect are ultimately (and intimately) connected. Nothing is so emotionally gratifying to many people as a good idea. The "good idea" is, of course, a creative act... and the creative act inevitably defines us, pools our resources, moves us. It unites the fields of consciousness and, by rote, effects the physical world as well.

So, emotion moves us. Emotion is consciousness in motion, but, unlike motion in the physical world, it is diffuse, organic, independent of direction... and often hidden. We are not always privy to its manipulative properties. We are not always consciously aware of what we refer to as "our consciousness." Memories influence us, but they are not always consciously remembered... nor, when remembered, accurate. We seem to have some kind of internal threshold protecting us - limiting  us - from certain elements of knowledge and, most importantly, self-knowledge. At some point, we seem to reach the perpetually existent border of the "unknown." We may know many things but, inevitably, we cannot know all things... and, apparently, nothing before its time. Reason fails us. The door is hidden, the key misplaced - we don't know where "to turn."

Hence, the inevitable creation of a symbol... and our reliance on kismet... or magic.

At their very cores, the rose and the pentagram are interchangeable; they operate as one force:

I love, therefore, I am.

Chasing Ancient Pentagrams Part III: The Quintessence - The Fellowship of Pentalpha

A floor mosaic - featuring a stellated dodecahedron - in St Mark's Basilica, Venice by Paolo Uccello circa 1430.

Featured in the center of the image (above) and in center of the image inset left is the geometrical figure known as the small stellated dodechahedron.

I don't know that this polyhedron has any specific esoterica attached to it - apart from it's obvious relationship with the pentagram and the regular dodecahedron - and, yet, its presence in the mosaic  and the print seem to hold a special significance for both artists... in spite of the fact that more than 400 years and several countries separated them.

Maurits Cornelis (M.C.) Escher (1898-1972), was a Dutch graphic artist especially known for the mathematical figures and motifs in his work, while Italian painter, Paolo Uccello, was not. Uccello accomplished amazing feats of perspective in his paintings, but his online oeuvre contains only one other example of a geometric solid. And, yet, it's his polyhedron which is unquestionably the "star" of the mosaic at St. Mark's basilica... surrounded by what looks like a string of... well, sliced zucchini (but don't quote me). In any case, regardless of the vegetables, his dodecahedron is a powerful icon.

In M.C. Escher's still-life, however, the same stellated polyhedron has become an illuminated life form... or a small, extraterrestrial vehicle which has landed in a patch of earthly refuse... a broken egg, bottle, pipe, discarded tin can, etc. It seems as if the two images could not be less alike.

But, there is one continuum between Uccello's mosaic and Escher's drawing.  Both images glorify the stellated dodecahedron while, at the same time, revealing its fundamental source: the pentagram.

Inset left is a great shot of Escher inking in a most amazing spiral. The full image - Sphere Surface with Fish - is below the jump.

The Power of Love

Diagramming a Force: the Rose Pentagram - 2022, DS

“The transformative power of love is not fully embraced in our society because we often wrongly believe that torment and anguish are our ‘natural’ condition.”

“When angels speak of love they tell us it is only by loving that we enter an earthly paradise. They tell us paradise is our home and love our true destiny.” 

 “Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”

 “If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I’m a seeker on the path. I think of feminism, and I think of anti-racist struggles as part of it. But where I stand spiritually is, steadfastly, on a path about love.”

- Four quotes by the great feminist writer, bell hooks, who passed away recently but whose insight and lucidity regarding the world and its people has, in my opinion, not been matched by anyone in the past 50 years. For more of bell's wisdom see this Trans-D post, or this Goodreads page.

Vale, bell hooks. You are not alone on your path. We wish you well.

 ***

I'm having an almost impossible time writing these days. Pictures and music - specifically those involving Phi and the pentagram (snails & stars) - are the best I could do.

Meaning: my original plan for a golden ratio series has stalled. And, whatever appears on this blog from this point on is... well, is whatever appears on this blog from this point on.

Call it: metaphysical, existential overload.

Meanwhile, I hope you've had a Love-ly day.💕

And, failing that - and you are allowed to fail, you know - there is always the power of love... and the power of love - which costs nothing - takes (only) one heart and not necessarily (or physically) two (or more).

 

For your listening pleasure: a Phi-based tune... brought to you by Michael Blake:

Reflections on Water

 

 

 “'I’m touched by your impatience over the Images. What happened was this: the first piece, ‘Reflets dans l’eau,’ doesn’t satisfy me at all so I decided to write another based on different ideas and in accordance with the most recent discoveries of harmonic chemistry…My apologies for this slight delay—which in any case won’t last beyond the end of the week. I’m starting to see things clearly again in my imagination and my thinking machine is gradually getting back into gear.'

Nothing in the composition of the piece has been written without consideration for phi and Debussy is unconcerned whether or not anyone, aside from himself and Durand, listens for the ratio unpacking, building itself, and then deconstructing itself over 94 measures and 375 beats. The new Reflets dans l’eau is an andantino molto that is almost as quiet as a droplet of water falling into a silvery lake. The piece divides asymmetrically into a beginning that stretches to the climax at the fifty-eighth measure and a smaller stretch that ends the piece. The climax, marked double fortissimo, is at the exact point of phi in the song, the mathematical equivalent of the golden ratio."

- Excerpt of an article found here regarding Debussy's use of the Golden Ratio (Phi) in Reflets dans l'eau,

The video is a re-mix of Reflets dans L'eau, (Reflections on Water) from Images I by the French composer, Claude DeBussy. It was created for electronic media by CJ Images and designed by CJ (Christopher John) for the game Flowscape. I chose this video (from numerous others) because some of its electrical sounds actually bring to (my) mind the golden spiral. To your right is the pentagonal golden spiral constructed by its 2 golden triangles.

"Among the mysteries of the irrationals, one number holds a special place: the so-called golden ratio. The golden ratio’s value is about 1.618 (but not exactly 1.618, since then it would be the ratio 1,618/1,000, and therefore not irrational) and it’s also referred to by the Greek letter φ, which is pronounced “fee” if you’re a mathematician and “fie” if you are in a fraternity. If you want an exact description, the golden ratio can be expressed as (1/2)(1+√5.)

People have been making a fuss over this number for centuries. In Euclid, the proportion goes by the more mundane name of “division into the extreme and mean.” He needed it to construct a regular pentagon, since the golden ratio is the proportion between the diagonal of such a pentagon and its side. A golden rectangle is one whose length is φ times its width; it has the agreeable quality that if you cut it crosswise so that one of the two pieces is a square, the other one is a smaller golden rectangle."

- Via the Slate article: The Most Irrational Number. Inset left is a beautiful photograph (found online) of the chambered nautilus, featuring a spiral similar to the golden spiral.

 ***

Well, it took me long enough to write this post (!), but, then, I was somewhat intimidated by it. In terms of this blog, it's an important one; revealing just exactly where I've been at (creatively) for the past 2 years. Never mind that the past 2 years have been for myself and, I imagine, most people, a regular mind-f*ck. (After all, who amongst us did not in some fashion get sick?) However, the show must go on. And, for an artist, to create is to live... and to live is to create. Nothing changes this equation.

My creative journey began during 2019 and was referred to in this April interlude, upon the creation of the Rose Pentacle graphic. Later that year I began sculpting a 3-dimensional version of that image in clay for a ceramic casting (which is still in progress). I also began to envision a series of paintings which might bring the Night Garden to life while, at the same time developing a mythology relative to both the garden, the Rose Pentacle and the inherent mysteries I sensed were involved.  It's a big project.

But, as the Pandemic fell into place, I lost my place in the journey. The dream went on hold, and I turned, instead, to the one component of the Rose Pentacle that could be investigated in two dimensions on a computer monitor: the pentagram, its history, but, most importantly, its geometry... from which a series of diagrams eventually emerged (a few of which appear in this post.)*

(More after the jump...)

Once Possessed - The "Madness" of Vaslav Nijinsky

Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky in his 1911 role as the "Rose Ghost"
from the ballet "Le Spectre de la Rose." (Also here, and another related article in French).
Click all images in this post to enlarge.

"Ô toi qui de ma mort fus cause,

Sans que tu puisses le chasser

Toute la nuit mon spectre rose

A ton chevet viendra danser.

Mais ne crains rien, je ne réclame

Ni messe, ni De Profundis;

Ce léger parfum est mon âme

Et j’arrive du paradis."

("O you, who caused my death

Without the power to dispel,

All night long my fragrant specter

Will dance at your bedside.

But fear nothing, I require

Neither psalms nor sacred rites;

This delicate scent is my soul

And I’ve come from paradise.")

- From the poem Le Spectre de la Rose by Théophile Gautier which inspired Michel Fokine's ballet about a young woman haunted by the spirit of a rose she had received at her debut. Later that night, while she dozes in a chair, the spirit of the wilted rose visits her in a dream. (Note: So much tends to be lost in mere word translations of French poetry... specifically: the poetry! I've seen several translations of this particular stanza but found myself dissatisfied with all of them. So, I tweaked it. In other words, if this translation is also problematic, the fault is mine.)

The rose (inset right) is named for a man... as many roses are. Did you know that? It's name is Fantin Latour, named for the French artist who was known for his elegant paintings of flowers... especially his roses. More of his work can be found here. There might, in actuality, be a variety of rose named Nijinsky - well, there ought to be - but, if so, I haven't found it.

"His dancing has the unbroken quality of music, the balance of a great painting, the meaning of fine literature, and the emotion inherent in all these arts. There is something of transmutation in his performances; he becomes an alembic, transforming movement into a finely wrought and beautiful work of art. The dancing of Nijinsky is first an imaginative triumph, and the spectator, perhaps, should not be interested in further dissection of it..."

- From "The Russian Ballet and Nijinsky" by Carl van Vechten found in Nijinsky, an illustrated Monograph edited by Paul Magriel, 1946. Also found within the pages of the book are the 3 b/w photos of Nijinsky as the Rose found inset left, inset right (below) and below the jump.

"In December 1917, Vaslav Nijinsky, the most famous male dancer in the Western world, moved into a Swiss villa with his wife and three-year-old daughter and started to go insane. This diary, which he kept in four notebooks over six weeks, is the only sustained, on-the-spot account we have by a major artist of the experience of entering psychosis. Nijinsky's diary was first published in 1936, in a heavily bowdlerized version that omitted almost half of his text. The present edition, translated by Kyril FitzLyon, is the first complete version in English, and the first version in any language to include the fourth notebook, written at the very edge of psychosis. It contains Nijinsky's last lucid thoughts - on God, sex, war, and the nature of the universe, as well as on his own broken life."

- A description of The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky. The New York Times has archived a small portion of the newer translation of the diary here.

"Nijinsky's Diary was written during the six weeks he spent in Switzerland before being committed to the asylum, combining elements of autobiography with appeals for compassion toward the less fortunate, and for vegetarianism and animal rights. Nijinsky writes of the importance of feeling, as opposed to reliance on reason and logic alone, and he denounces the practice of art criticism as being nothing more than a way for those who practice it to indulge their own egos rather than focusing on what the artist was trying to say. The diary also contains bitter and conflicted thoughts regarding his relationship with Diaghilev."

- Excerpt from the Wiki entry for Nijinsky.


"The man who is right is the one who feels but does not understand."

- A quote from Nijinsky's Diary found here.

***

A Less Common Kind of Guy

If someone had told me years ago that one day in the far future I would fall in love with a man dressed as a flower, I would've probably just figured they (or I) had inhaled one flower too many. And, yet, that's just what I did one recent Pandemic night, as I gazed at a photo of the Russian dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky. The photo was found in a slim red book with the name "Nijinsky" written in a thin, black script on its spine; a book I might have easily overlooked had it not fallen under my creative radar earlier in the day. And what to my wondering eyes did appear, as I opened the book to a random page, but a photograph of Nijinsky in his role from the ballet "Le Spectre de la Rose"... that is, the ghost or spirit of the rose, which I learned had been inspired by a French poem of the same name.

Lovely, lovely, exquisitely lovely. As it so happens, roses (and spirits) figure prominently in a current art project of mine - a project devoted to the mysteries of the power of love - and, well, I'd be the last one to ignore the quirky habits of fate. Unfortunately, as I began reading the book (into the wee hours of the morning) it became apparent that I had another tragic artist on my hands and, worse still, another misunderstood "mad" artist. At which point I realized Nijinsky would eventually have to make his way to Trans-D... the home of the misunderstood "mad" artist.

As a young dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky (March 12, 1889 – April 8, 1950) was beautiful, graceful, luminous, beloved by both men and women, and considered the greatest dancer and most innovative choreographer of his time. This was during the latter years of the Fin de Siècle when all sorts of dark romanticism, spiritualism - and debauchery - transpired. Tragically, his life - and (allegedly) his mind - began to unravel around the age of 29 (apparently the shelf-life of many a brilliant flame). He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and was to spend his remaining 30 years in and out of mental institutions. Professionally, he would never dance again... reminding us (to our dismay), that, yes, for an artist, there are fates worse than death... and almost all of them are in some way related to institutions.

Nijinsky is and was most often referred to as gay: the stereotypical effeminate ballet dancer - and, while looking at his "Rose" photographs, you might've  thought so, too - as if grace and beauty (and some great eye-shadow) are exclusively found in feminine form. This a fairly modern misconception. The classical world entertained a broader, unbiased perspective, glorifying both their pretty boys and pretty girls equally in art and poetry. Then again, in ancient Greece and Rome, one's sexual orientation wasn't the socially definitive issue it became in the modern world. In fact, no precise Latin words for "homosexual" or "heterosexual" existed. As for Nijinsky, well, he married a woman, fathered two children and employed a number of female prostitutes, while his few documented relationships with men - specifically Sergei Diaghilev, the founder of the renowned Ballets Russes in which Nijinsky found his fame - seem to be based predominately on Nijinsky's artistic opportunism and his partner's egocentric, abusive indulgences. "Love" did not seem to have been the operative term in their relationship. But, for Nijinsky, love was all. And, his feeling was so strong, he believed he was love's personification. In a letter to Diaghilev, Nijinsky wrote:

"You are the one who wants death and destruction, although you are afraid of death.
I love love, but I am not the flesh and blood, I am the spirit, the soul. I am love..."

Ultimately, whether Nijinsky was gay, bi, straight - or some permutation thereof - doesn't really interest us here. I'm more inclined to agree with Dorothy Parker's remark:

“Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.”

 So, let's just accept that Nijinsky was a less common kind of guy and move on...

Sub Rosa (Another Interlude)

At the Garden Gate - digital - 2019, DS.
(Click-on post images for enlargements.)

"In the driest whitest stretch of pain's infinite desert, I lost my sanity and found this rose."

- Attributed to the Sufi mystic and poet Rumi.

“Mystery glows in the rose bed and the secret is hidden in the rose...”

- Attributed to the twelfth-century Persian poet and alchemist, Farid ud-din Attar, about whom Rumi once said: "Attar has traversed the seven cities of Love, We are still at the turn of one street."

"Le ciel clair de minuit, sous mes paupières closes,
Rayonne encor… Je suis ivre de tant de roses
Plus rouges que le vin.

Délaissant leur jardin, les roses m’ont suivie…
Je bois leur souffle bref, je respire leur vie.
Toutes, elles sont là."

(The clear midnight sky, under my closed lids,
Still shines....I am drunk from so many roses
Redder than wine.

Leaving their garden, the roses have followed me....
I drink their brief breath, I breathe their life.
All of them are here.)

- From the poem Les roses sont entrées (Roses Rising) by Symbolist poète maudit, Renée Vivien. I've written more about Vivien here. Inset right is Pre-Raphaelite John Waterhouse's 1908 painting The Soul of the Rose.


"Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown, 
Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate alone; 
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 
And the musk of the rose is blown.

For a breeze of morning moves, 
And the planet of Love is on high, 
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves 
In a bed of daffodil sky, 
To faint in the light of the sun she loves, 
To faint in his light, and to die."

- From Alfred, Lord Tennyson's controversial 1854 "monodrama" Maud, which was eventually set to music. Part I of the poem can be found here, and Part II here. Inset left is the 1875 image Maud by the British photographer Julia Cameron.

"I am the dove whose wings are murder.

My name is love."

- From the short poem Au Revoir by the poet Charles Causley, the "most unfashionable poet alive." Like the symbol of the rose, the dove is also associated with Venus (Aphrodite), the goddess of love. The pentagram, on the other hand, is often associated with the planet Venus.

***

Spring is officially here, and, like most humans, my thoughts predictably turn to... well, love.   Suffice to say, while duty calls me back to my feminist artist series, my muse - who generally errs on the side of passion - has other intentions. And, for an artist, there is no dilemma involved. The answer is simple: follow the muse or be damned. Hence, another interlude.

Today's offering emerged from the image which introduces this post... an image which has haunted me this past month, inspired by a similar rose and pentagram motif on the ruined facade of a Templar church (found here). In my vision, it lies in shadow on the exterior of a garden wall flanking a wrought-iron gate. But, not just any garden, mind you; specifically a night garden... the garden of poets.

Inset left is another image I finished recently which had originally been intended for this post - a live scan of a bracelet - (added April 9).

Judging by his poem Maud, Tennyson would've known the night garden intimately... but, then, many critics and scholars came to regard his "monodrama" Maud as the work of deluded man with bipolar disorder. Meanwhile, Tennyson considered it his favorite and most successful composition. Inset right is an image of Tennyson reading Maud by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The moral to this story? For an artist or poet, attending to the opinions of critics and scholars is comparable to throwing ones body beneath a swiftly moving vehicle.

As it happens, my purpose of writing this post is not entirely clear to me. But, something about the relativity of love, roses... souls... and silence seems to be the underlying theme. Ultimately, it is silence which enables the ancient mystery of love to survive. For an artist, the allusion (and illusion) must suffice. And, yet, while I can't exactly elucidate, I can leave you with this: a definition of sub rosa I found in a book about Freemasonry:

"The rose, and especially the red rose had been from ancient times the symbol of Aphrodite or Venus, the goddess of love. It was symbolic of love, and making love was something private and not to be discussed openly. Cupid (Eros) therefore dedicated the rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence. Hence, the red rose of Aphrodite became the general symbol of silence and secrecy, and perhaps also of invisibility. Anything spoken sub rosa - under the rose - was confidential."

- From The Origins of Freemasonry, Scotlands Century 1590 - 1710  (via a discussion about the Rosicrucians) by David Stevenson, 1988.

On the other hand, from the Wiki article on Harpocrates we have: "One other tale relates the story about the Greek gods. Aphrodite gave a rose to her son Eros, the god of love; he, in turn, gave it to Harpocrates to ensure that his mother's indiscretions (or those of the gods in general, in other accounts) were kept under wraps. This gave roses the connotation of secrecy (a rose suspended from the ceiling of a council chamber pledged all present – sub rosa "under the rose"), which continued through the Middle Ages and through the modern era."