In one of my posts lately, in which the pharaoh Amenhotep II is standing between Horus and Thoth, purifying by deity water, could be a reference to a baptismal ceremony associated with his accession, is described as ‘the third at his accession. And now we have here another deity act, this time by Horus and Seth, crowning Ramses III. It should show the duality between Upper and Lower Egypt Gods.

Naydler explains:
“In a possible reference to a baptismal ceremony associated with his accession, the king is described as ‘the third at his accession.’ As a third, he would be between Horus and Seth (or Horus and Thoth), standing on either side of him and pouring baptismal water over him. The position of the king between the dual gods, receiving blessings from both, symbolizes his union of their opposing natures within himself.”(pages 305-306)

And Wilkinson means: Giving examples of when ‘two’ actually represents ‘four’, “in a classic study of the royal purification ritual, Sir Alan Gardiner showed that the two gods usually depicted performing the act of lustration – Horus and Thoth (ill. 124) – actually represented the four gods of the cardinal points Horus, Seth, Thoth, and Anti who transferred to the king a portion of their power as the divinities of the four quarters of the world. Private representations of funerary purifications (which were symbolically parallel) actually show four priests performing the rite. Still, the royal depictions of this ritual almost always depict only two of the deities, perhaps for purposes of symmetry and representational balance. Whatever the reason, once again, we see two representing four and thereby carrying the connotation of the extended number, though the use of the two deities Horus and Thoth (paralleling the common use of Horus and Seth) may also have connoted the dualism of Upper and Lower Egypt.” (from _Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art_, by Richard H. Wilkinson, page 139) Joanlansberry.com

Image from Dreemtime.com

Anyway, it remains (as usual) an unsolved riddle from this magic land. Though, we still have our brilliant Marie Grillot to read the description of all these fascinating discoveries.

via égyptophile

Horus and Seth crown Ramses III with the white crown

The founder of the XXth Dynasty, Pharaoh Sethnakht, died in 1184 BC. J.-C. – after a short reign (two to four years, according to the sources)… To succeed him, he designated his son: aged about forty, who will reign under the name of Ramses III. If he is in charge of state affairs upon his father’s death, his actual coronation will not occur until 200 days later…

Indeed, he must first observe the time necessary for the mummification of the deceased king, organize his grandiose funeral in the royal necropolis (KV 14) and finally respect a precise calendar ritual… Thus, it is “the day after the great feast of Sokar which marked, by the death and the symbolic resurrection of the god, the renewal of nature “that the sovereign came” to Karnak, near Amon, to seek this investiture… He was purified in the court which separated the VIIth and the VIIIth pylon: four priests playing the roles of the gods Horus, Thoth, Seth and Dounânouy, wielding ewers of precious metal, came to sprinkle his body with lustral water, pronouncing consecrated formulas” specifies Pierre Grandet in the work he devotes to the monarch.

The long protocol connects a series of rituals, of which the coronation is probably the climax: it is one of the phases of this ceremony that this red granite statuary group reproduces.

1.69 cm high – therefore almost “life-size” – it was discovered by Georges Daressy in 1895-1896 in the magnificent temple of millions of years that the king had built at Medinet Habou on the West Bank of Thebes.

On a rectangular base bearing the pharaoh’s cartouche on the left, the composition reserved for the three standing “characters” displays a perfect balance. Horus on the left and Seth on the right are in profile, while Ramses III, in the centre, is represented from the front. He is in the conventional attitude of walking, left leg forward. His body is that of a mature man. He is dressed in a pleated shendyt loincloth held at the waist by a beautifully crafted hanging belt. His arms are hanging along the body; his right hand squeezes the sign of life-ankh while the left firmly holds the “mekes” scroll (papyrus containing the “testament of the gods” or “testament of Geb”, text confiding Egypt to the king).

His face, perfectly symmetrical, is imbued with serenity. Finely arched fingertips surmount his almond-shaped eyes, his nose is well-proportioned, and his lips are delicately hemmed. His chin is adorned with a horizontally streaked false beard, and a large pectoral hangs from his neck. He majestically wears the white “hedjet” crown of Upper Egypt with the royal cobra coiled in the middle of the forehead, which has just been affixed to him.

“The statues of the gods, Horus and Seth, are in the same posture with the left leg forward; they each hold the sign of life-ankh and wear the Egyptian pectoral and the loincloth-shendyt. Each god has placed a hand on the crown of the king, performing the coronation of Ramses III,” specifies the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

This solemn act was repeated for the various crowns whose wearing had to be legitimized by the gods. Thus, Pierre Grandet specifies: “The king appeared several times at the door of the naos, wearing, in turn, the various crowns that we usually see him wearing on the reliefs of the monuments”.

For Abeer El-Shahawy (The Egyptian Museum in Cairo): “Seth, to the right of the king, and Horus, to the left, were the mythological representations of the two powers of the country who had settled their differences. Now reunited and reconciled, they crown the Seen together; they were believed to unite the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, thus enabling the king to rule over an orderly and peaceful land. In crowning the king, they symbolically gave him the two halves of their world”…

It should be noted, however, that when it was discovered, the statuary group was incomplete. Thus, in the catalogue he devotes to “Statuen und Statuetten von Königen und Privatleuten im Museum von Kairo”, Ludwig Borchardt presents it under n° 629 as “Remains of a group standing between two gods who crown it”. It indicates that: “The king stood in the middle on an elongated rectangular platform, on which only a few toes of the right foot remain and the beginning of a narrow dorsal pillar. To his right is Horus, with his head of a falcon, facing the king”… He also adds that “The statue of the king was later found in the store” (the place where the mission stored the discoveries). According to the photo published then, we note that the lower part of his face had suffered a lot (nose, right cheek, mouth, chin and beard)…

There is no mention of the god Seth… This fact does not fail to challenge Edwin C. Brock (“The Valley of the Kings”, Gründ): “This group from Medinet Habou presents an unusual composition where Horus and Seth crown the pharaoh. Preserved in the Cairo Museum, the statue has been restored. The presence of Seth is unusual, whereas Thoth, present in the coronation scenes, could logically have replaced him”.

Unless fragments of fingers have survived on the crown, the position of the hands of the deities (one is missing and the arms of the other are absent), and therefore the gesture they performed, cannot seem perhaps not clearly defined before the restoration… Thus in his “Visitor’s Guide to the Cairo Museum, 1902”, Gaston Maspero rather saw there a scene of purification by water: “King Ramses III standing between Horus and Typhon, received the effusion of life-giving water which they poured on him; Typhon disappeared, but Horus remained almost intact as well as the king”.

This recomposed “triad” is exhibited on the Tahrir Museum’s ground floor, registered in the Entry Journal JE 31628 and the General Catalog CG 629.

Marie Grillot

Sources:

Statue of Ramses III between Horus and Seth https://www.egyptianmuseumcairo.com/egyptian-museum-cairo/artefacts/statue-of-ramses-iii-between-horus-and-seth/ http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/detail.aspx?id=14750

Pierre Grandet, Ramses III. History of a reign, 1993 (Pygmalion editions) https://responsable-unige.ch/assets/files/Lettre%2039/grandet-vanoyeke.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1ZSLlYJWTnP4cW2vRQZBVGJteDhYd2dUoX_FtvCpOuRGIElsljQR21aOc

Abeer El-Shahawy, The Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Matḥaf al-Miṣrī

Kent Weeks, “The Valley of the Kings”, Gründ, 2001

General Catalog of Egyptian Antiquities in the Cairo Museum – Statuen und Statuetten von Königen und Privatleuten im Museum von Kairo, Nr. 1-1294, Borchardt Ludwig, Berlin Reichsdruckerei, 1925 http://www.gizapyramids.org/pdf_library/borchardt_statuen_2.pdf

Gaston Maspero, Visitor’s Guide to the Cairo Museum, 1902, French Institute (Cairo) https://archive.org/details/guidemuseecaire00masp/page/n6/mode/2up

Daressy Georges. The latest excavations in Egypt. In: Sphinx: critical review embracing the entire field of Egyptology, vol. 1, 1897. pp. 81-86; doi; https://doi.org/10.3406/sphin.1897.1915 https://www.persee.fr/doc/sphin_2003-170x_1897_num_1_1_1915

Florence Maurejol, Pharaons, the ABCdaires, IMA, Flammarion, 2004,

As I’m almost running to participate in my granddaughter’s fourth birthday, I present an interesting movie, Ginger & Rosa (You might have seen it already), about growing up and coming together to the age of two girls born after WWII, written and directed by Sally Potter. They become best friends until later; they find their feelings towards life differently. Of course, this topic may not be unique, although it was from the 60s when the generations underwent a turbulent change.

However, what focused my attention was the character of Roland, the father of Ginger. He is a kind of “I don’t care, it is the way I feel, and nothing else matters”! A type of Dadaism? He breaks all the moral rules of society which I don’t mind as it was common at that time, but what I mean is, where stays the conscience? I just believe he goes too far!

He reminded me of a friend in our wildlife in the early 70s in Iran. After our mother’s death, we were deeply submerged in arts and paintings, intoxicated by various drugs. In between, we got to know a new friend, addicted like us, a great painter, and gay. I said before that I was a complete hippy and follower of “don’t worry, be happy”, but this new friend was more than that. He was often with us; we drew one or two paintings, took opium all through the night and talked about arts, people and politics. One day after he left, I noticed that an expensive camera belonging to our father-in-law had vanished. We were trying to solve this mystery when a close and mutual friend informed us that our artist friend had stolen and sold it!

Of course, our mutual friend complained about his actions and found it very cowardly to us, but he raised his shoulder and said; take what you get; that is life! I have often thought about it and tried to analyse the difference between our carefulness and negligence. I concluded that we were both against social morals, but I always wanted to handle it with my inner moral, which I call “conscience”, and he seemed to have nothing of the kind.

This Roland is a phenomenon, and honestly, I prefer these crazy types from the 60’s more than the youths now! At least they have tried a new way to challenge, but today’s young people are almost useless and too fearful of taking any risks.

Now I must leave to congratulate my lovely granddaughter, Mila, for the fourth winter in her young life. (Where has the time gone!) I wish you all a beautiful and leisurely weekend.💖🤗🙏🌹

I have no intention of starting a political debate here. What I want to talk about is present in our environment, our social situation, and our life. I don’t mean the people who never care what is happening worldwide, even in their neighbour’s or private life. I am talking to writers, artists, and anybody who uses the mind and thinks twice! I try to keep my ears and eyes open and observe the happening worldwide. I know many artists have made or are making art like movies, writing books, or even composing a song and painting a picture in the sense of future predictions, which are primarily negative! Still, I come back again and again to these two writers.

George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, these genii, have stunningly prophesied a future which might have seemed like science fiction in those days. Still, as we consider it deeply, it seems to become real! Although their observations differed, Orwell’s is gloomy, and Huxley’s is bright, the concepts were the same: to keep everything under control! Am I right, or am I right?!

Aldous Huxley was an English writer and philosopher, and visioner. He frequently wrote about Hindu and Buddhist spiritual ideas, pacifism, and mysticism and renounced all wars. George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism. In 1917, as the two had a time together, he was one of the students as Huxley briefly worked as a teacher at Eton, the esteemed boarding school in England. His childhood was not as joyful as Huxley’s, what he described as a “lower-upper-middle class” family.

If we really look around us, we have some parts of Orwell’s vision, and some others are of Huxley’s. Thank goodness Orwell’s vision is not widespread, although the temptation from potentates has been palpable throughout history. Nevertheless, Huxley’s vision is soft, gentler, and practical. I compare it to what the Americans did against the ever-increasing USSR’s communism after WWII; They simplified capitalism, and every family could own something. Of course, if they didn’t have any money, no problem, pay in instalments or take out a loan! It could be a nice start, and it worked.

Of course, both visions are unpleasant and frightening, though, in a letter (from 1949) that Huxley wrote to Orwell, his former high school French student, he said that his “hellish” vision of the future is much better than Orwell’s! Huxley starts the letter by praising the book, describing it as “profoundly important.” He continues, “The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it.”

And I agree with Huxley; however, Orwell’s 1984 has been more proven through new tech and media, the cameras all over the world. “Big Brother Is Watching You” is now confirmed! But this is not by force and brutality, as Orwell meant to say; it is like a worthy present for our safety! It is always a good feeling, for sure, that we do not have to take so much care. That is almost the American way of life which tries to extend worldwide, and it goes back to what I said: the more you own, the more protection you will need and the more conservative you become.

Friends. You must have known me by now and know I am not one of those leftists who want to promote the Plutarian government here! My political point of view is only the democratic reign, which includes proper education and open-minded and open-hearted aspects, and not a wishing life all-inclusive.

Anyway, I built my hopes on the power of art and am convinced that the spirit of art will solve all problems in our society. I’m counting on you, my artist friends.
In the second part, I will write more about the two and the power of imagination.
I appreciate your interest.

The pic above; The Vintage News /

Anima means Soul. It is actually borrowed from the Latin Anima (“a current of air, wind, air, breath, the vital principle, life, soul”), sometimes equivalent to animus (“mind”), both from Proto-Indo-European (“to breathe, blow”).
And the Latin term for the “animating principle” and the Latin translation of the Greek psyche: On the Soul (De anima, Aristotle’s treatise on the Soul). Soul the incorporeal essence of a living being in many religious, philosophical, and mythological traditions.

Then, as we see, the Anima (the Soul) can not have gender, and if we comprehend that we, women and also men, have the Anima in us, as we have the Soul in us, there might be many problems be solved in our every day of life.

Today, I share a piece of Dr Jung’s works from his overview of the most important basic concepts and connections of his analytical psychology. Here is the definition of Anima and Animus and their influence on human beings. That is, in my believe, very helpful for us to know these hidden developments of the unconscious on the reactions and behaviour of humans. Especially for us men! Of course, I partition it not to be too long and tedious for you. I have already written some articles: here, here, here.

First, let’s read what Jung means by Individuation:

Definitions: Individuation is… a process of differentiation that aims to develop the individual personality… Since the individual is not only an individual being but also requires a collective relationship to his existence, the process of Individuation does not lead to isolation but a more intensive and general collective context.

Of course, we might need to be careful about the term; “collective“, which Dr Jung doesn’t mean a gathering mass with that. It relates to our individualities and personalities and our past. (I have an eye to translate his explanation on Collective Unconscious if the time gives me a chance!)

Anyway, he says:

The Persona, the ideal image of the man as he should be, is internally compensated by female weakness. Through the individual playing the strong man on the outside, he becomes a woman, an Anima (for the definition of this term, see Definitions, in Psychological Types, GW 6, §§ 877-890), because it is the Anima that opposes the Persona. But because the inside is dark and invisible to the extraverted consciousness, and because one can think of one’s weaknesses the less, the more one is identical with the Persona, the counterpart of the Persona, the Anima, also remains entirely in the dark and is therefore initially projected, causing the hero to come under his wife’s slippers. If her increase in power is considerable, she bears it badly. She becomes inferior, and the man needs the welcome proof that it is not he, the hero, who is inferior in “private life” but his wife. On the other hand, the woman has that illusion, which is so attractive to many, that she has married at least one hero, unconcerned about her own uselessness. This game of illusions was often called the “content of life”.

Just as it is essential for the purpose of Individuation, of self-realization, that one knows how to distinguish oneself from what one appears to be to oneself and others, so it is also necessary for the same purpose that one recognizes one’s invisible system of relationships with the unconscious, viz the Anima becomes conscious of being able to distinguish oneself from her. One cannot distinguish oneself from something unconscious. Of course, when it comes to Persona, it’s easy to make someone understand that they and their position are two different things. On the other hand, it is difficult to distinguish oneself from the Anima, and that is so difficult because it is invisible. Yes, one even initially has the prejudice that everything that comes from within stems from the most fundamental of beings. The “strong man” will perhaps admit to us that he is actually seriously lacking in the discipline in “private life”, but that is precisely his weakness, with which he declares his solidarity. In this tendency, there is, of course, a cultural heritage that should not be despised. For if he recognizes that his ideal Persona is responsible for the nothing less than ideal Anima, his ideals are shaken, the world becomes ambiguous, and he himself becomes ambiguous. A doubt about the good overcomes him, and worse still, a doubt about his good intentions. Suppose one considers with what powerful historical assumptions our most private idea of a good intention is linked. In that case, one will understand that, in the sense of our previous worldview, it is more pleasant to accuse oneself of personal weakness than to shake ideals.

But since the unconscious factors are as determining facts as the entities that regulate the life of society, and the former as collective as the latter, I may as well learn to make a distinction between what I want and what I wish to be imposed by the unconscious, how I can see what my authority requires of me and what I desire. At first, however, only the incompatible demands from outside and inside are tangible, and the ego stands in between, like between the hammer and the anvil. Compared to this ego, which is usually nothing more than a mere plaything of external and internal demands, some entity is difficult to define, and I would under no circumstances want to give the insidious name “conscience”, despite the word itself in its best understood that instance would probably designate aptly. Spitteler described with unsurpassable humour what has become of our “conscience”. (Cf. Spitteler: Prometheus and Epimetheus, 1915; and Jung: Psychological Types, GW 6, §§ 261 ff.). The proximity of this meaning should therefore be avoided as far as possible. It is probably better to realize that this tragic game of opposition between inside and outside (represented in ‘Job‘ and ‘Faust‘ as God’s wager; Götterdämmerung) is basically the energizing of the life process, that tension of opposites which is incessant in self-regulation. Differing in appearance and purpose, these Opposing Powers actually signify and will the individual’s life; they oscillate around this as the middle of the scales. Precisely because they are related to each other, they also agree in a middle sense, which is, so to say, necessarily born out of the individual voluntarily or involuntarily and is therefore also sensed by him. One has a sense of what should be and what could be. Deviating from this hunch means going astray, error and disease.

It is probably no coincidence that our modern concepts of “personal” and “personality” derive from the word “persona”. As much as I can say of my ego that it is personal or a personality, I can just as well speak of my Persona that it is a personality with which I more or less identical. The fact that I have two personalities is not strange insofar as every autonomous or relatively autonomous complex has the peculiarity of appearing as a personality or personified. This is probably most easily observed in the so-called spiritistic manifestations of automatic writing and the like. The sentences produced are always personal statements and are presented in a personal form in the first person as if there were a personality behind every sentence fragment uttered. The naive mind, therefore, must immediately think of ghosts. As is well known, something similar can also be observed in the hallucinations of the insane. However, the latter are often even more precise than the former, merely thoughts or fragments of such, whose connection with the conscious personality can often be readily seen by everyone.

Let’s finish this part at this place, and for taking a break, watch a compatible challenge between Alfred Hitchcock and Carl Jung, including analyses on the matter of Anima.

Thank you all, and have a lovely weekend. (The illustration on the top: Michael Cheval’s art

Here, if one is interested, is the visual audio from Jung’s written words on Carl Spitteler’s Prometheus And Epimetheus:

The Egyptians believed that individuals were made up of five parts: the ba, the ka, the name, the shadow and the physical body. According to Žabkar, there is no exact equivalent of the term ba in English. It is similar to our concept of personality but also refers to power and was extended to the gods. However, Ba is represented as a human-headed bird that leaves the body and only becomes manifest after the person has died.

Anyway, let’s stay in Egypt with this fascinating golden bird, The Ba! It was often shown as a bird whose duty was to feed the deceased. The Ba was so closely linked with the physical body that it needed food and drink. The Ba depended upon the corpse with which it had to be reunited each night. Here is a brilliant report by Marie Grillot about the Ba Amulet and its discovery.💖🙏

via égyptophile

Tutankhamun’s Ba-Bird Amulet

“Between the open wings, the head of Tutankhamun, modelled in relief, is silhouetted in left profile. Despite the short tuft of a stylized beard under the chin, which is only a royal insignia, the portrait is that of a child. The elongated eye, the little upturned nose, the smiling mouth with full lips, and the roundness of the cheek make up an amiable and lively physiognomy. The slightly acute facial angle lends itself to replacing the profile of a bird, and the rows of the necklace provide a transition between the neck of the child and the ocellated body. A striated diadem, adorned with the uraeus on the forehead, is tied at the back of the head under a lotus flower, from which the two free ends of the ribbon fall on the shoulder, consolidating, like the beard, the implantation of the head above the wings “… Here is an extract of the description, all in sensitivity, that makes of this artefact, Pierre Gilbert in “The Reign of the Sun Akhnaton and Nefertiti.”

The sovereign’s bird-ba is 12.5 cm high and 33 cm wide, conferred by the span of its outstretched wings. Like the body and the tail, they are worked according to the cloisonné technique. The degree of excellence achieved by the goldsmiths of the 18th dynasty made it possible to combine inclusions of semi-precious stones, which perfectly render the texture and composition of the plumage. Gold, lapis lazuli, turquoise, carnelian, or even glass, realistically restore the location of the primary and secondary remiges, as well as the rectrices of the tail, in shimmering polychromy. The body is decorated with a pattern of drops, using the same tones. The legs, in solid gold, each hold a ‘shen’ sign. This symbol of eternity is made of carnelian surrounded by turquoise-coloured glass.

On October 28, 1925, Howard Carter discovered this magnificent jewel which rested on the chest of the young king. He indeed had to wait until the 4th season of excavation, after having dismantled the four chapels of gilded wood, opened the sarcophagus, then the three coffins, to finally find himself face to face with the mummy of Tutankhamen… He noted in his diary: “Below this mask, which extends to the hands, we see the linen envelope as well as the outer layers of strips, held in place by wide bands of gold, flexible, longitudinal and transverse, and a protective figure of Nekhbet in inlaid gold, very decorative. She has outstretched wings on either side of the body and a human head”.

If he likens it at first reading to the vulture goddess “Mistress of the sky, protective goddess of Upper Egypt and the Pharaoh”, he will refine his perception. Thus in his descriptive card, he will note, “Pectoral in gold Ba- (bird) in the form of the vulture Nekhbet”. He also specifies that this jewel was provided with “eyelets” at the back, which made it possible to sew it to the linen fabric…

His presence responds to chapter 89 of the Book of the Dead, which indicates the “Words to be spoken on a soul of gold, encrusted with jewels, placed on the neck of man”.

In “The bird-ba, second life in ancient Egypt”, Michèle Juret gives us the keys to better understand the importance of this ba entity that we “commonly translate by the word soul although the concept is much more complex. … The ba enjoys total freedom. She will be able to leave the tomb, climb into the bark of Ra, enjoy its rays, drink the regenerating water of the tree goddess, and take advantage of the food offerings… Each evening she will rejoin her deceased’s body; their reunion depends on survival….”

On the mummy of the young king, and between his bandages, the priests and embalmers had deposited one hundred and fifty jewels, amulets or other objects. Howard Carter will draw the exact location of each ornament and reference them individually in “group 256”. This bird-ba was thus recorded “Carter 256-b(2)”. It was later recorded in the Cairo Museum Entry Journal JE 61903. It’s been listed at the GEM (Grand Egyptian Museum) – soon to be opened in Giza – as GEM 759-A.J.

Marie Grillot

Sources:

Excavation journals and diaries made by Howard Carter and Arthur Mace

Howard Carter’s excavation diaries (transcripts and scans)

4th Season, September 28th 1925 to May 21st 1926 http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/discoveringTut/journals-and-diaries/season-4/journal.html

Gold pectoral ba-bird, Carter No. 256b(2) http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/carter/256b(2).html

The Griffith Institute – Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation – The Howard Carter Archives – Photographs by Harry Burton http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/carter/gallery/gal-038.html#

http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/carter/gallery/gal-039.html# http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/carter/gallery/gal-039.html#

Howard Carter, The tomb of Tutankhamun

T.G.H. James, Howard Carter, The path to Tutankhamun, TPP, 1992

Nicholas Reeves, Toutankhamon, vie, mort et découverte d’un pharaon, , Editions Errance

Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, Vie et mort d’un pharaon, Hachette, 1963

Zahi Hawass, Catalogue de l’exposition Toutankhamon, trésors du pharaon d’or, IMG Melcher Media, 2018

“Le Règne du Soleil Akhnaton et Nefertiti”, Catalogue de l’exposition organisée par les Ministres de la Culture aux Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Bruxelles, 17 janvier – 16 mars 1975

Michèle Juret, L’oiseau-ba, seconde vie dans l’Egypte antique”

188 pages – Éditeur : Books on Demand

I am still challenged with the Christmas holidays, work, and doing my best as a grandpa and a helpful companion to the Iranian freedom seekers. So I didn’t want to share any posts this weekend. Well, I wanted to give myself a break. It’s nice to sit in front of the computer and do something other than having to write. But I did think I could congratulate my friends on the New Year with a simple and heartfelt wish, with some words and some illustrations which may say more than the words.

The time runs so fast that I wonder where it has gone. Some say that our beloved Earth has increased her speed; she might get rid of us as soon as possible! However, for my peace of mind, I keep my memories as they are the only things that will remain. And the only wish I’d have (Okay, maybe two or three!?) is peace not just for the whole world but also in everyone’s hearts, and most of all for the young women and men in Iran to overcome that horrible and inhuman regime.

I started as an amateur on the path of writing, but unfortunately, it was too late, as I am, right now, pretty much at the end of my own way. It could be nice if it had happened some decades ago; nevertheless, with your kindness, I enjoy sharing my littleness, and I learn a lot: one can never stop learning! Thank you and gratitude.

Anyway, let’s begin this new year with ambitions towards a peaceful and sensual world. As the Germans say: Es kann nur Besser werden!

Images; via Pinterest. / Kasia Derwinska Saatchi Art / Pinterest / DeviantArt

Honestly, I had never expected this John Lennon song to remain so current. May the war be over soon. 🤞✌💖🕊🌈🙏🤗🌹

As today is a special day and many people are busy with celebrations and presents, I thought that I shouldn’t make it so difficult and with one post make me, and hopefully you, a pleasure. And it couldn’t be better than to grab one of the best-ever Christmas stories by Charles Dickens: the master of hearts.

He explained: In this Ghostly little book, I have endeavoured to raise the Ghost of an Idea which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. – Charles Dickens

Here I present an Oscar-Winning Animation of Charles Dickens’ Classic Tale, A Christmas Carol (1971). I have seen many different versions of his masterwork. However, this animation is unique in itself.

Let’s read a contribution about this brilliant work and the making of.

Some twenty years before Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, another animated entertainment injected “the most wonderful time of the year” with a potent dose of horror.

The 25-minute short features a host of hair-raising images drawn directly from Dickens’ text, from a spectral hearse in Scrooge’s hallway and the Ghost of Marley’s gaping maw to a night sky populated with miserable, howling phantoms and the monstrous children lurking beneath the Ghost of Christmas Present’s skirts:

Indeed I’m not the only child of the 70s to have been equal parts mesmerized and stricken by director Richard Williams’ faithful, if highly condensed, interpretation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread… This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. 

Producer Chuck Jones, whose earlier animated holiday special, Dr Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, is in keeping with his classic work on Bugs Bunny and other Warner Bros. faves, insisted that this cartoon should mirror the look of the John Leech steel engravings illustrating Dickens’ 1843 original.

D.T. Nethery, a former Disney animation artist and fan of this Christmas Carol, explains that the desired Victorian look was achieved with a labour-intensive process involving drawing directly on cells with Mars Omnichrom grease pencil and then painting the backs and photographing them against detailed watercoloured backgrounds.

As director Williams recalls below, he and a team, including master animators Ken Harris and Abe Levitow, were racing against an impossibly tight deadline that left them pulling 14-hour days and 7-day work weeks. Reportedly, the final version was completed with just an hour to spare. (“We slept under our desks for this thing.”)

As Michael Lyons observes in Animation Scoop, the exhausted animators went above and beyond with Jones’ request for a pan over London’s rooftops, “making the entire twenty-five minutes of the short film take on the appearance of artwork that has come to life”:

…there are scenes that seem to involve camera pans, or sequences in which the camera seemingly circles around the characters. Much of this involved not just animating the characters, but the backgrounds as well and in different sizes as they move toward and away from the frame. The hand-crafted quality, coupled with a three-dimensional feel in these moments, is downright tactile.

Revered British character Alistair Sim (Scrooge) and Michael Hordern (Marley’s Ghost) lent some extra class, reprising their roles from the evergreen, black-and-white 1951 adaptation.

The short’s television premiere caused such a sensation that it was given a subsequent theatrical release, putting it in the running for an Oscar for Best Animated Short Subject. (It won, beating out Tup-Tup from Croatia and the NSFW-ish Kama Sutra Rides Again, Stanley Kubrick had handpicked to play before A Clockwork Orange in the UK.)

With theatres in Dallas, Los Angeles, Portland, Providence, Tallahassee and Vancouver cancelling planned live productions of A Christmas Carol out of concern for public health during this latest wave of the pandemic, we’re happy to get our Dickensian fix snuggled up on the couch with this animated 50-year-old artefact of our childhood….

I wish you all, my dear friends, a lovely and blessed celebration and merry Christmas. With a hope for a better world in tranquillity and a good-hearted mind. May peace and love fulfil your life. 🙏💖🤗

With the help of. Open Culture

Today is the Winter Solstice, and as you see, I am making an extra post, not only because of this but also for the shortest day (what a day, I have the light on!) and longest night. This night in Iran is traditionally called Yalda Night: Shabe-Yalda. On Yalda night, the whole family gathers around the fireplace in the warm room, and the grandmother tells old legends and fairytales while cracking many kinds of nuts. I once shared an article on this topic; here. However, on these days and nights in Iran, there is no time for any celebration but fighting for their right to live in freedom; I, nevertheless, share this short manifest to send my prayers to them and keep the hope it will be celebrated in the next year.

I wish you all a peaceful, blessed winter solstice and a happy season.🤗💖🦋🌹🙏💖

Prologue! 😁

I have found that I am the only retiree in the world who is busier than he was at work! It might sound strange but believe me, it is true. As I was working, I knew I was at a job and took my hobby for enjoyment on the weekend. But now, I have to divide myself into at least three persons; the one who is a retired grandpa has unlimited time to help family and household. The second one is still a working-class hero to refresh my miserably low passion! And the third is the famous amateur writer who tries to keep himself and the name of an esteemed family of artists. It is hard; I even have an “end of work time” every evening! Nevertheless, I prefer to keep myself engaged with stress than to be an ordinary pensioner. May force be with me!

That’s Why, for my second post, I use (steal!) one of my beloved FB posts about one of the most prized and fascinating women in the world, Marion Woodman, which I took from her book, The Pregnant Virgin.

These words are simply from the section; Introduction of that book, but what makes it so appealing is this statement: The word “feminine”, as I understand it, has very little to do with gender, nor is woman the custodian of feminity. This made me think a lot about what she wanted to utter with that. And I came on the purpose of the Feminine is the leading form of our existence! If we look at the famous holy books, which all come from three prominent religions from the same area and are so familiar, at the same time full of hatred for each other: it’s said that God made the woman from the left rip of man. Doubting these words is not new, as we can almost be sure that these books have been rewritten many times in favour of men, but the subject is more profound than we might imagine. Isn’t it possible that the creation and genesis have no gender at all, and it can be summed up in one word; Feminine? I think this word does nothing to do with female or womanly; we must think more expended, more expansive: The Whole.

{And then I read Carolyne (Gold) Heilbrun’s review of Lyndall Gordon’s biography of Virginia Woolf. Heilbrun points out that Woolf was, like all women, trained to silence that “the unlovable woman was always the woman who used words to effect. She was caricatured as a tattle, a scold, a shrew, a witch.” Women felt “the pressure to relinquish language, and “nice women” were quiet. She concludes that “muted by centuries of training, women writers especially have found that when they attempted truthfully to record their own lives, language failed.” If that is true of the artist, it is no less true of any woman attempting to speak with her own voice. It is also true of the man who dares to articulate his soul process. The word “feminine”, as I understand it, has very little to do with gender, nor is woman the custodian of feminity. Both men and women are searching for their pregnant virgin. She is the part of us who is outcast, the part who comes to consciousness through going into darkness, mining our leaden darkness, until we bring her silver out.}

Marion Woodman, The Pregnant Virgin (introduction)

In the end, I will be proudly happy about the new revolution in Iran under the motto: #Woman_Life_Freedom; there is the only way to save our future!

Art at the head of the post: by zgul-osr1113, deviantart.