Swallow the Sea

Today's Animal of the Week is a sea slug

glaucus atlanticus

Also called the Sea Swallow.

It's pelagic, which means it lives anywhere there's an ocean, except for the deep or sandy or cold parts.

It's hermaphroditic, hence the neutral pronoun ("morphodite", as the locals say).

It has counter-shading, which means when you look up from beneath, it's light to match the sky, but when you look down, it's blue to match the ocean. The up-side is the creature's belly; it floats relaxedly in the surface tension.

They get about as big as your hand (depending on the size of your hand) and eat jellyfish, saving the stingy bits for later use.

Saradwyn Does Dali

To Be Carried All Unwilling Into A Nameless Future

 ...by way of Edward Bullmore, googleworthy NZ Artist, who also liked using amorphous human figures.

Dali has always been one of my favorites, and not just for the moustache.  He imported many of his paintings from the faraway land of Hypnagogia, summoning dreams into wakefulness with the chime of a falling spoon.
He was utterly and unapologetically absurd and made a living at it. Quite a talent in itself.

Those are definitely my feet, solid and earthen, though my toes are less mandragorean.
Those are my toothbrush-splatter stars, which find their way into damnear everything lately.
Those are my snapping pennants, because the future is a grand place.

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work

and when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey."

Wendell Berry

...which I found at another favorite blog, Donna Watson's Layers

Animal of the Day

An eight-legged bear dressed in a painter's tarp and sporting a gas mask,
shrunk down to itty-bitty size and sprinkled liberally over the Earth's surface
(especially the wetter parts)

He or She is a Tardigrade, which is fun to say.
It means "slow walker"; Also known as Water Bears, go figure.

Resistant to heat, cold, toxins, dehydration, radiation, pressurization and Outer Space.
Tough little buggers. 

Here is Fastitocalon

His tale is much longer than it appears.

I first found him in Tolkien

Look, there is Fastitocalon!
An island good to land upon,
Although 'tis rather bare.
Come, leave the sea, And let us run,
Or dance, or lie down in the sun!
See, gulls are sitting there!
Beware!


But he's in an even earlier Bestiary, 2nd century, under the name of Aspidochelon.
(there seems to be some confusion as to whether he is a turtle or a fish)

William Blake even painted him!

Yep Yep

also the Internets haz a new thing, an emoticon of a tumbling tumbleweed. Not sure if intended to evoke western-showdown-scene music or express that whiny anthem of our generation, "I'm bored, entertain meee"; suspect the latter.

it's amazing how many languages
 you can learn from the internets

 also, "Hottentot apron" is a racially offensive name for a rather unique style of lady parts. The Wikipedia can tell you about it.

*I hereby affirm certify and swear that I am above the age of 18 and not offended by the sight of lady parts*

Coiled Baskets

I learned these spiral forms when I was 10, at a summer program that I whined atrociously about having to attend. It seems to have stuck in the mind-crannies as a useful Skill.

There's a lovely how-to here



These baskets go well with mexican hot chocolate,
probably because chocolate and
making things are both good for the soul.



The link says cotton clothesline for a core, but fat macrame yarn works for a soft feel, or discarded phone line for a tough rigid form.

The stitch is a figure-eight around adjacent coils of core, with wraps between stiches to cover the core as it's added.

Big tapestry needle, legs crossed "indian style" as they used to say.

Aleph

The beginning part is always tricky. Expect some fumbles and swears.
The first attempt will likely be a bulging lopsided omphalos; that's OK, the first time's just for practice.
Any shape begins with a spiral.
The first thing I made was a mini fire hydrant. To my ten-year-old mind it looked just like one, though it probably wouldn't now ; )

Finish the end by tapering it & lashing it down. End it well.


A Sacred Vessel

A short fat Caldera, singing to the sky.

An empty vessel, to be filled with as much of Life as it may hold.

Aren't we all.

and also this.

My mind can form no proper adjective for Die Antwoord, but they are certainly very much so.

The Coolest Thing I've Seen Lately

It's called an eccentric flint. Somebody made it from a rock, by chipping pieces off with another rock.

The mind boggles.

Recent Doings

MUSE

Our Lady Elation, the Joy of Creation.

She rises from a bright Horizon, into Dark that is palpable, but not tangible,

on her gaudy gauzy Wings

another Chrysalis motif, from a sketch i did maybe a year ago

in the Moleskine which has become one of my favorite things

sketch



around-the-housecoat

Flannel and fleece and those little coins as buttons. Surely a prosperity charm will work better if i wear it.

A Mask

i made for a friend's altar to San Simon, or Maximon as he is called in the folk traditions;  a wooden deity, a troublemaker, a link between the underworld and Heaven. more here.

More on the St Matthews business, Sacred Cow Tipping

my comment on their page

"I recently heard aloud a saying that was already engraved on my heart - "What is truer than true? - the Story"
I love myths and stories; they inform me of a larger self that includes all of humanity. I think there's much grace in Rev Cardy's statement,(paraphrasing) none of us have all the truth, others who believe differently are not evil, WE NEED ALL THE STORIES to be complete as human souls.
Mary's story is not made untrue by considering its relevance.  There's rather a disconnect between that revered unwed mother and today's condemned ones; the fact that a Church is inviting thought and discussion on the subject is quite heartening.
My own opinion says the literal interpretation of a virgin birth is not the meat and bones of the story, more likely it was added in later years to establish divinity, just like many other myths. We all want our stories to be true, but why? Does the meaning vanish if Jesus was just a man who said, "Love one another"?
Does it remove the blessings we would give and receive? Can we not maintain faith in God, if we must seek out God for ourselves? We need the stories, but we need ALL the stories.
And as a woman, as a mother, I need the realism. Pregnancy doesn't *just happen*. Maybe it did for Mary, but not in the reality I live in. Women, mothers, daughters and Sons need to be mindful of our human reality and the roles we all play.
Bravo to this Church for speaking these truths. "

I'm not sure this will change anybody's opinion, nor even let in a crack of light.
I got fairly frustrated reading some of the commentary. Very narrow-minded, to my mind.
I get that people have Faith. I get it, I really do.
But the picture on the billboard is just that, a picture. It isn't the actual real Virgin Mary, you know. Not the one who appeared in Guadalupe, or on the grilled cheese sandwich, OR THE ACTUAL 12 YEAR OLD GIRL THAT GOD IMPREGNATED (link), If your faith-mixed-with-reality will allow you to wrap your mind around such things. It is a picture that presents an altered truth, for surely there were not pee-on pregnancy tests in those days. There weren't c-sections, or antibiotics, or epidurals. There weren't social programs to provide for unwed mothers, either. She's lucky Joseph stuck around. This altered truth allows for thoughtful analysis.

The unwritten reality of this Greatest Story Ever Told is an unrealistic one. The  Church has devoted vast tracts of dogma to explaining how Mary conceived without a penis (nother link), with dire consequences for any doubters (another other link). One wonders the spiritual value of these beliefs.  Faith in God? Promoting that suspension of disbelief which produces malleable followers?
Really, why do we NEED this story to be true? What good do we glean from it that couldn't otherwise be found? No, really, I'm asking. Anybody with an explanation, their own truth, is warmly invited to share it in a comment.

Teh comment thingy is not working

it won't let me comment on my own blog. LAME

Anyway, RE: the Harpy...

Hi Orlando! thanks for the links. i love Waterhouse so freakin much. Hadn't seen that particular work before.
Much of my recent birdly art is based on these fabulous creatures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vasnetsov_Sirin_Alkonost.jpg

Sirin being a form of Siren, and Alkonost (halcyon) the bird who rests on the Ocean's smooth surface - twin birds of Sorrow and Joy

Wow this is actually a thing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_of_the_Spheres

I thought it was merely a literary trope... Poe:

In a theory known as the Harmony of the Spheres, Pythagoras proposed that the Sun, Moon and planets all emit their own unique hum based on their orbital revolution,^[2] and that the quality of life on Earth reflects the tenor of celestial sounds which are physically imperceptible to the human ear.^[3] Subsequently, Plato described astronomy and music as "twinned" studies of sensual recognition: astronomy for the eyes, music for the ears, and both requiring knowledge of numerical proportions

Star Fort

Words cannot express my joy at discovering such things exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_fort

this is what my house is gonna look like.

The Birds

by Aristophanes, a play 414 BC. This is the chorus of the Nightingale and other birds.

 

Hear us, you who are no more than leaves always falling, you mortals benighted by nature,

You enfeebled and powerless creatures of earth always haunting a world of mere shadows,

Entities without wings, insubstantial as dreams, you ephemeral things, you human beings:

Turn your minds to our words, our etherial words, for the words of the birds last forever!

In the play, humans and birds agree to build a city in the sky to improve conditions for both: the humans will acquire flight and the birds will no longer be hunted, and by combining their strength, they will conquer the Gods dwelling on Mt Olympus and gain their Sovereignty. The birds' King is the Hoopoe and he looks like this:

His Latin name is Upupa epops which makes me giggle a bit.