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.

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(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.

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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.

The Golden Smokey Robinson

 

"William Robinson Jr. was born to an African-American father and a mother of African-American and French descent in a poor family in the North End area of Detroit, Michigan. Robinson's ancestry is also part Nigerian, Scandinavian, Portuguese, and Cherokee. His uncle Claude gave him the nickname "Smokey Joe" when he was a child. In 2012, Robinson explained:

'My Uncle Claude was my favorite uncle, he was also my godfather. He and I were really, really close. He used to take me to see cowboy movies all the time when I was a little boy because I loved cowboy movies. He got a cowboy name for me, which was Smokey Joe. So from the time I was three years old if people asked me what my name was I didn't tell them my name was William, I told them my name was Smokey Joe. That's what everyone called me until I was about 12 and then I dropped the Joe part. I've heard that story about him giving it to me because I'm a light skinned black man but that's not true.'"

- Via the Wiki entry for Smokey Robinson. (Above) is Smokey Robinson and the Miracles performing one of their greatest hits (circa 1962) You Really got a Hold on Me.

Smokey Robinson was golden, is golden and forever will be golden (from 2018)!

(A belated happy & healthy Juneteenth to one and all.)

Later note:  Those 4 amazing boys from Liverpool didn't do too badly with this tune either... and they wasted no time in snagging it! Smokey's hit went to the top of the charts in 1962... the Beatles covered it in 1963. And, to their credit, they covered it authentically (the BBC recording). (Hopefully, this was to Smokey's financial advantage.)

Vale, O Queen!

 

Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock & Roll, died yesterday. She was a one-off and another powerful feminine force to be reckoned with. And, her voice - I can't imagine a world without that incredible voice. Rock on, Tina!

Tina & Bowie? Sublime.

"She and Bowie always had one of the most endearing rock-star friendships — they always brought out the weird in each other. They duetted on his strange Pepsi commercial, starring David as Dr. Frankenstein and Tina as the rock goddess in his laboratory, both singing on “Modern Love.” They also duetted on a weirdly touching synth-reggae version of “Tonight” in 1984, about lovers separated by death, their voices meshing for the payoff lines “I will love you till I die/I will see you in the sky/Tonight.”

- Via the Rolling Stone tribute: We’ll Never Live in a World Without Tina Turner. The Pepsi commercial can be found here.

Ne Me Quitte Pas

(5/4/23 Update: Erivo link has been repaired.)

Most activity seems to be winding down on this blog, but the music continues. I was first introduced to the song (in its original French version)  Ne Me Quitte Pas (Do Not Leave Me) by American artist, Nina Simone, and have loved it ever since. Occasionally I do a YouTube search for newer covers by different artists and sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised... as in the case of the video (above) starring Brazilian artist, Maria Gadú. Love it.

Also, Cynthia Erivo performs a pretty cover (partially) found here, and I'm happy to report I found an early (and possibly the best) live Nina Simone video of the song. Beautiful.

For a French/English lyric translation, try this page.

No Ordinary Love

 

Smooth as silk. Sade Adu from 1993. (YouTube channel)

Conjuring up David (#2) (New: 2/27/23)

 

"I will sit right down

Waiting for the gift of sound and vision

And I will sing

Waiting for the gift of sound and vision

Drifting into my solitude

Over my head

Don't you wonder sometimes

About sound and vision?"

-  Lyrics from Sound and Vision, 1977, David Bowie from his ground-breaking album, Low.

(The video above replaces this live version of I'm Afraid of Americans. Original video with Trent Reznor.)

Hygeia & the Pentalpha

Medicine (as the goddess Hygeia), 1901, Gustav Klimt.

"In 1894, Klimt was commissioned to create three paintings to decorate the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna. Not completed until the turn of the century, his three paintings, Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence were criticized for their radical themes and material, and were called "pornographic". Klimt had transformed traditional allegory and symbolism into a new language that was more overtly sexual and hence more disturbing to some. The public outcry came from all quarters—political, aesthetic and religious. As a result, the paintings (seen in gallery below) were not displayed on the ceiling of the Great Hall. This was to be the last public commission accepted by the artist. All three paintings were destroyed when retreating German forces burned Schloss Immendorf in May 1945."

- Quote and photo (inset left) was sourced from the Wike entry for Gustav Klimt.

 

Regarding Klimt's ill-fated "pornographic" painting, Medicine, one explanation for his controversial portrayal of the goddess Hygeia (above) - possibly the most powerful depiction of a goddess ever - was his decision to transport a pagan deity into the 20th century. His goddess is a modern goddess; she is a formidable feminine force, and not merely the femme fatale archetype she is generally mistaken for, an archetype associated with the Symbolist movement in art and literature. And Klimt is considered a Symbolist... 

"The Symbolist position in painting was authoritatively defined by the young critic Albert Aurier, an enthusiastic admirer of Paul Gauguin, in an article in the Mercure de France (1891). He elaborated on Moréas’s contention that the purpose of art “is to clothe the idea in sensuous form” and stressed the subjective, symbolical, and decorative functions of an art that would give visual expression to the inner life. Symbolist painters turned to the mystical and even the occult in an attempt to evoke subjective states of mind by visual forms."

But, Klimt's Medicine is important in another way; whether intentional or unconsciously realized, there is some evidence of (what might be referred to as) a "Hygeian" pentagonal tradition... a tradition which began at least as far back as the first Pythagoreans and their pentalpha, so-named for the five-fold alphas (the capital "A") incorporated in its design. Importantly, the Greek word ὑγίεια also appears, which, along with the corresponding goddess, translates into "health." I'm assuming the graphic (inset right, see Wiki's Hygeia) is a facsimile of the ancient symbol but, as of this writing, I am not sure.

In any case, Klimt embedded a very bold spiral in the sinuous windings of Hygeia's golden reptile. While (most likely) not a perfect golden spiral, it is similar enough to satisfy the pentagonal muse and (what some might imagine to describe) the Pythagorean philosophy.

Below the jump: more spirals by Klimt...

Vale, Jeff Beck!

 

It seems a little ominous that my first post of the year should report (yet) another passing... but, I just learned today that we've lost another legend: guitarist Jeff Beck, whose 2014 performance (in Paris) of one of his signature tunes is above.

Honestly, I've yet to get a handle on 2023 - and, it looks like Jeff Beck didn't bother - but, if it means anything, he was performing right up till his final curtain (see BBC article). Somehow, I don't believe even death can really stop him.

For a vintage performance, see the Yardbirds video in Heart Full of Soul.

The Song of the Golden Dragon

For the holiday, a brilliant, impassioned performance by Estas Tonne. Born in the Soviet Ukraine - along with, quite possibly, a guitar in his arms - he is (as of this century) a traveler, a troubadour and a street-musician (as can be seen in his video above).

For further information regarding Estas Tonne: his website and YouTube page.

(A special thanks to John for the heads-up!)

(Note 1/10/23: the accompanying article - regarding the goddess Hygeia - which originally appeared here is being revised and given a new post URL).

Google Celebrates Judith Leyster

 

Today's Google Doodle celebrates Judith Leyster... a lovely surprise to find on a Monday morning. It's kind of like, Judith Leyster Saves the Day... again!