Images or the Symbols. The magic of the Alchemy,

When I first saw these paintings, It suddenly reminded me of some old Persian (or oriental) style.

They are picturing the Myths with telling poems and, or the famous love stories, like Layla & Majnun.

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But I can’t decipher the writing on these paintings. I don’t know Latin! Once a friend told me that I’m so naive, and I unbosom or reveal my inner secrets easily. I just wanna tell you I don’t give a damn! I think I have nothing to lose to say “I don’t know” and believe that man never stop learning.

Though it is not so important, I’ll try to understand the symbols with a little help from Dr Jung. No wonder, It is Alchemy. And my alchemy was not always good at school! But anyway, the paintings tell their own stories, and that’s what I can understand.

First, I might explain that the word “Alchemy” comes from the Orient language, and it is Al-Shimi: Al is the Arabic article, and Shimi is the opposite word of Physic. Something which not material but soluble.

And as Master Dr Carl Gustav Jung means, it has the same substance as the soul.

Here are some interesting discoveries about manufacturing this painting. Let’s get some knowledge of these all about:

The Aurora Consurgens is an alchemical treatise of the 15th century famous for the rich illuminations that accompany it in some manuscripts. While in the last century, the text has been more commonly referred to as “Pseudo-Aquinas”, there are as well arguments in favour of Thomas Aquinas, to whom it has originally been attributed in some manuscripts. The translated title from Latin into English is “Rising dawn.”

Alchemical miniatures of the «Aurora Consurgens».

The images are from the s. XV and, the book is falsely attributed to Saint Thomas Aquinas. Edition Raimon Arola. The argument against the authorship of Thomas Aquinas is that the style of Aurora consurgens does not correspond to that of Thomas Aquinas (except in the Fourth Parable, which in style and content is similar to the “Expositio” in “Symbolum Apostolorum”, which is an oral lecture of Thomas of Aquin). According to von Franz; the following arguments support the hypothesis of Thomas Aquinas being the author of Aurora Consurgens: Its author knows both the Bible and liturgy intimately, he quotes rather little of classical alchemical texts and mentions neither chemical recipes nor technical instructions, which indicates a clergyman to be its author. His praising of the poor is typical for a Dominican or a Franciscan. The passionately style of being gripped could result from an intrusion of the unconscious which – as psychological experience tells – might have compensated a rather intellectual consciousness dominated by logic. The biography of Thomas Aquinas fits this, as, before his death, Thomas Aquinas is said to have had a disturbing vision, the content of which is not authenticated. But he is said to have interpreted the Song of Songs on his deathbed. Thus this treatise might well represent his last seminar or his last words.

Medieval alchemical texts reflected the “Christic” mystery and, in this sense, we would like to highlight the famous Aurora Consurgens, attributed to Saint Thomas Aquinas, although it is very unlikely that it was the work of the Italian theologian. The Aurora Consurgens owes its celebrity to a series of illustrations found in the oldest known manuscript, dating from the first decade of the 15th century, although everything seems to indicate that it was a text from the 13th century.

The discovery of the manuscript has a curious history. When C. G. Jung became interested in alchemy in 1930, he read a compilation of ancient texts, made in 1590 by Conrad Waldkirch and entitled Artis Auriferae. This compilation contained the Aurora Consurgens, but Waldkirch suppressed the first part arguing that the constant relations between the sacred Scriptures and alchemy discredited the sacredness of the revelation, Jung looked for the censored part and found it in manuscript form in the Zurich library. Thus, contrary to Waldkirch’s intention, the first part of the Aurora Consurgens has been extensively studied, while the second is practically unknown, although it is not without interest.

The first part consists of a small treatise in which the author weaves the biblical quotations together with the alchemical operations. The translation of the title would be ‘The rise of the dawn’ because, according to the author: “the dawn is like the golden hour; thus this science [alchemy] has an hour whose end is golden for those who operate according to the straight path », also because:« the dawn is called the end of the night and the beginning of the day or mother of the sun. Thus, in its extreme redness, our dawn is the end of all darkness and the flight of the night ». To argue his claim, the author uses various passages from the Psalms, such as: “And the night will be illuminated like the day” (Psalm 139, 12). The dawn is the mother of the philosophical sun as Mary is the mother of God.

[Excerpt from R. Arola’s book, The Kabbalah and Alchemy in the Western Spiritual Tradition] The book with the images we have presented is kept at the Glasgow University Library.

https://www.arsgravis.com/la-aurora-de-la-gran-obra-alquimica/

And here at the end, I wanted to present you an excellent video on a botanical mind or a thousand mellion-year WWW in Nature.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_consurgens#:~:text=The%20translated%20title%20from%20Latin%20into%20English%20is%20%22Rising%20dawn.%22

https://www.designboom.com/art/magical-spiritual-significance-plants-human-life-botanical-mind-02-26-2021/

Today is the beginning of Spring, accurately at 10.37 AM! I know it because at the same time begins the Persian new year. In the Islamic/Persian calendar, it is the year 1400. And in the old kingdom calendar, it is ca. 2570. The Islamic/Persian date begins with the Hijrat (move or escape) of Muhammad, the prophet, from Makkah to Madinah. And the only difference with the Arabic calendar ​is that the Arabs count their time lunar and not solar.

But we could have another date, namely from the beginning of the Persian empire, 550 BC. Therefore, I had added an astronomical year, may someone give any prize!

Actually, I don’t care much about it. It is the beginning of Spring, and it is the point! Although, by the way, I’m in a twilight feeling, at the same time, I have a funeral case behind me without “the four weddings”! The second brother of my wife’s family passed away because of the old known enemy: cancer. The relationship was not so strong, but a loss is a loss, and there is grief.

Yesterday, when I came home from the funeral, I felt absolutely empty. It was a strange feeling because I was not sad or missing something, just vacuum. Fortunately, it was my turn to cook the supper and, as I began, I got released my mind.

At night I had a dream. It’s stunning that I can keep my dreams lately because I forget them usually when I wake up.

In my dream, we were all living in a community, and we knew that we must keep being creative. There was a God! She/He had told us that we had to stay creative, and we did our best. There was a friend too, and she helped me to stay creative.

In the background, there were running Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata repeatedly. But, suddenly, many people stopped being creative, and I was much concern. Even my friend, as she has also, lost her interests. And there was God again and said: if you are not creative anymore, I will destroy you all! I said to my friend: come on! We must do something, and she had made a figure, a keynote and said: it must be enough!

I was afraid that it’s not enough. Therefore, I put every key from the Beethoven Moonlight Sonata, one after another, one by one, again and again. Then I woke up!

Anyway, that was a very odd dream. And now, back to the new year celebration. I have a beautiful song to present to you from a traditional, Armenian-Persian archive. It is not only a song about the beginning of Spring. It is a song for freedom, freedom all over the world.

Hppy New Year. 🤗💖🙏

This time, we will have a modern fashion in old Egypt. An Alexandrian/Roman pose from AD. It has its fineness for sure, but I may like the ancient masks a little more. Here I’d like to present another brilliant description by the wonderful Lady, Marie Grillot.

With the Macedonian dynasty of Alexander the Great, with the Lagids and their retinue of Ptolemies and Cleopatra, with the Roman emperors, Egypt became the “receptacle” of new populations … If they assimilated well to the country, they did not fail to import a new way of life, as well as traditions and customs …

Daily life, and of course culture and the arts, were impacted. This is felt on an important scale in architecture but also in a more “intimate” way in this perpetual quest for eternity which is reflected in particular in funeral rituals …

In “Ta Set Neferou” (volume 5), Christian Leblanc gives us his interesting reading: “What strikes the mind when we arrive precisely at this late period, it is this necessary need, not to say this will, of wanting to preserve the essence of Egyptian thought, as if one sensed its imminent disappearance “. And he adds: “For its part, the concept of immortality, which has lost none of its vitality, is perpetuated and the ‘Osirian becoming’ no longer affects only the elites of society. Now, as a kind of ‘ democratization ‘, any individual can claim an eternal life “…

If the new “masters” of the country have “adhered”, as a whole, to the practices of mummification, they have also modified certain aspects, adapting them to their own aesthetic canons.

Thus, after the sobriety and meditation of the masks of mummies or sarcophagi from the “pharaonic” period, we are faced with new representations of the deceased.

If the so-called Fayoum portraits fascinate us with their deep gaze and their presence sublimated by a true pictorial technique, we do not fail to be surprised by this type of mummy mask …

Eugène Grébaut expresses it very well as follows: “We know how much, from the first century before our era, the decoration of coffins and mummies changed under the influence of Alexandrian taste. While at Fayoum the traditional mask was replaced by a portrait, painted in wax on a wooden panel that was fixed above the place where the mummy’s head was located, elsewhere the use of relief was retained, but the Osirian representation of the dead his bust dressed in the ceremonial habit “.

Dated from the 2nd century AD, this female mummy mask is 52 cm high, 34 cm wide and, with its backsplash, 44 cm deep.

It is in canvas and painted plaster and its design is of a very particular style, as Mohamed Saleh and Hourig Sourouzian (Official Catalog Egyptian Museum of Cairo) translate: “The technique is curious. The whole portion as the head one or more layers of coarse cloth stretched over a light wooden frame, built in such a way as to generally represent the shape of the upper half of the mummy. A thin layer of fine plaster or earth was covered with whitewash. Two mediocre protrusions, raised symmetrically, simulated the breasts of women in a more than summary fashion, but the parts of the body which are usually uncovered. Hands and face were executed with real care. They were prepared separately and applied to the desired location, the left hand stretched out on the hollow of the chest, the right hand closed, a little above of the left hand; we gave the mask the resemblance of the living as much as possible, and, after having fixed it firmly in its place, we applied around it the accessories of hairdressing, toiletry, or crown that the model included.

Even if the expression of this portrait is difficult to qualify. There is no note of sadness in the gaze, nor the feeling of questioning relating to an unknown beyond.

Her face is a smooth milky white with some traces of pink on her cheeks. “The eyes are of rather complicated construction. The globe is decorated with a line of a dark reddish-brown, which shows the free edge of the eyelids; beyond, the eyelid itself is thickened with broadband. Of a slate blue turning to black, and which simulates the ordinary kohol band. The cornea is a clear white; the pupil comes out in black red on the iris of a dark red-brown. The eyebrow is accentuated by three lines of a blue-black, two on the outside which specify the curvature, one in the middle which follows the ridge of the brow bone “analyzes Gaston Maspero with precision.

The eyebrows are thick, materialized by a wide black line and treated as if they were “brushed” with small crisscrossing strokes.

The nose is ordinary and the mouth is small. The thin lips are “made up” in pink and the corners show a curious fold of expression. The ears are well-drawn. As for the hairstyle, it suffered and fell apart… The hair, which hangs down on each side of the neck, was composed of vegetable fibre, painted black. There is a crown on the top of the head, made of thin twisted pieces of plaster (like rose petals) attached to a roll-shaped ledge, and tinted pink on top “(Edgar Campbell Cowan, Graeco-Egyptian coffins, masks and portraits).

The throat is adorned with two necklaces. The first is a two-row choker while the second is long and goes down between the breasts. It is made up of various round and elongated pearls of different colours, punctuated with green squares.

At the bottom of her garment, a red chiton decorated with black bands, are plated her two hands. The folds of the fingers and the outline of the nails are painted red. A snake-shaped bracelet is wrapped around each wrist. The left little finger and ring finger wear a ring. The jewellery is painted yellow to restore the appearance of gold.

What remained purely Egyptian, specify Mohamed Saleh and Hourig Sourouzian: “It is the decoration of the ‘cushion’ which supports the mask and encloses the head of the mummy. We see there protective deities such as Osiris, Isis and Horus, Anubis, Sokar and Nephthys and at the head, a falcon with outstretched wings “…

The provenance indicated for this mask from the Roman period is Nazali Ganoub, which is located about twenty kilometres from the necropolis of Meir, on the west bank of the Nile, in Middle Egypt. In “The Beautiful Burial in Roman Egypt: Art, Identity, and Funerary Religion”, Christina Riggs brings us these precious indications: “The site is especially known to Egyptologists for its tombs from the Old and Middle Kingdom, decorated in a lively way, carved into the stone escarpment that rises steeply from the desert plateau. Parts of the Meir necropolis continued to be used in Roman times, and between 1888 and 1914 several masks and mummies there were discovered. During the year 1888, ten mummy masks were sent from the nearest station, Nazali Ganoub, to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which was then located in Boulaq “.

No more precise indication is given on the place of the discovery, nor the identity of the deceased … This mask was registered in the General Catalog of the Cairo Museum under the reference CG 33130.

Marie Grillot

Sources:

Ta Set Neferou “(volume 5), Preface-introduction by Christian Leblanc – Authors: André Macke, Christiane Macke-Ribet and Jacques Connan, Ed. Dar Namatallah Press, Cairo, 2002 The Egyptian Museum. Collection of monuments and notes on excavations in Egypt, Eugène Grébaut, 1890-1907 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5808100r/f35.item.r=MASQUE

The Egyptian Museum – Collection of monuments and notes on excavations in Egypt, Ministry of Public Works, Gaston Maspero https://scholarship.rice.edu/jsp/xml/1911/9294/701/MusEgyp.tei-timea.html

Official catalogue Egyptian Museum of Cairo, Mohamed Saleh, Hourig Sourouzian, Verlag Philippe von Zabern, 1997 Graeco-Egyptian coffins, masks and portraits, Edgar, CC (Campbell Cowan), Egypt. Maslahat al-Athar, 1905, French Institute of Oriental Archeology https://archive.org/stream/graecoegyptianco00edga/graecoegyptianco00edga_djvu.txt

The Beautiful Burial in Roman Egypt: Art, Identity, and Funerary Religion, Christina Riggs https://books.google.fr/books?id=5pLX9rLqelQC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=Meir%2C%20Nazali%20Ganoub&source=bl&ots=RVwZsXPpYt&sig=ACfU3U2801t5sajfmaH4y8aGu35VmsfPiQ&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJg6KnxpvtAhUO2BoKHZpWB1QQ6AEwAHoECBAQAg&fbclid=IwAR3ik0x979L4iLGMS0Uq0mo1umwmAB__GDkxqTbUQXOZdkmFRLhVI2NxDTQ#v=onepage&q=Meir%2C%20Nazali%20Ganoub&f=false

Hi friends. I concede this is an extra sheet at an unusual time for me, but it is an old traditional Persian celebration, and as I believe, we must keep our traditions and cultures, not as rules but as our tribe, to learn the best of them.

It is the end of Winter, and Spring is approaching in our Northern Hemisphere. And in ancient Persia, it is the beginning of the new year. But what I want to share with you is the celebration of the latest Wednesday of the year, ( I am not sure if I did it once!?) in which the Persians, making fires, and jump over them singing: My jaundice for you, Your redness for me. It means somehow, to give all the disease up to the fire and take the health back.

This celebration might be similar to the Easter Feast because there is also an Easter fire. As in the Persian New Year feast, there are also colourful eggs as presents, but it is another story!

There are many interpretations of this festival. Chaharshanbe Soori (Suri) means literally “Chaharshanbe: Wednesday, Soori: Red” and it is a Fire Festival. This feast festival history is going back to ancient Persia during the early Zoroastrian era. During that era, people believed that water, fire, soil, and air are sacred. These are also the four main elements of nature. The fire has been the most blessing among Zoroastrians because, fire is purifying and never gets polluted. Zoroastrians celebrated the last 5 days of the year in the honour of the spirits of the dead (Source: Wikipedia). Of course, this tradition has been changed a lot over time, and the reason is probably because of the various invasions Persia have had in the past, and the blending of various cultures that influenced the way we celebrate the fire festival.

But another version, which I’d prefer, is the Saga by Ferdowsi, the great Persian poet in his famous Shahnameh: Book of The King, and it is about a forbidden love between “Siavash and Sudabe”.

Siavash is one of the most oppressed figures of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (The King Book), whose stepmother, Sudabeh, fell in love with him but, he didn’t want to reciprocate her love.
Until this audacity, on another form, reached his father Kikavus and he became very angry with him.
Siavash asked his father to go through seven tunnels of fire, to prove his purity and innocence, and if he came out safe, the father must consider it the reason for his innocence.
This fire test ended on the last Tuesday of the year, and he came out victoriously.
It was ordered by the father to give it to all the people the next day, Wednesday, in the middle of the main square of the city, a great celebration with a big fire, which became Wednesday Fiesta. (Chaharshanbe Suri) This day was recognized as a national holiday. We celebrate the last Tuesday of the year, in memory of purity and humanity by jumping over the fire. The Wednesday Fiesta is in fact, a sign of purity.
It has a beautiful philosophy which means, taking the purity of fire into our soul.

Some compare this legend with Tristan and Izout” written by Joseph Bédier, the French writer. Though I think that the story of Tristan and Iseult is a two-way love story, and here, it is only a one-way love!

Anyway, I wish and hope that it will be a feast of health and happiness, and a long life freedom in the future.

Yes! There are again my old friends. They are to many’s old friends, for sure. And for us, Al and me, it was a lifelong companion.

This time, it is about a specific song which is sure a Masterpiece: The Bridge Over Troubled Water. Their songs all are Masterpieces, as we listen to its melodies and the lyrics, which are the ones that remain as such beautiful poems.

But now, let’s have a look at this very song. Honestly, there was a time that I couldn’t hear this song anymore! The reason, of course, was not because it might be a bad song. It is a great song. It just might because I’ve heard it too many times, I might say. And yet, after so many years, I have listened to it again, and I got know the making of. It takes my soul inside floating, hovering with the poem, the words of friendship and sorrow: what a wonderful feeling.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water”

When you’re weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all
I’m on your side
Oh when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When you’re down and out
When you’re on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you
I’ll take your part
Oh when darkness comes
And pain is all around

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Sail on, silver girl
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
Oh if you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind

So, let’s have a look at this making-of: Paul got some idea from J.S.Bach, isn’t it great?! And he took some more from a Gospel band, though, the song is not a gospel song at all. And how the Americans needed consolations those days.

It takes a certain amount of hubris to write a song like “Bridge Over Troubled Water”—to write, that is, a secular hymn, a non-religious gospel hit for burned-out sixties’ folkies. Maybe only a tragic flaw could inspire a composer “coming off the back of four hit albums and two number one singles in four years” to soothe the disaffection of down-and-out Americans who could see the bottom from where they stood in 1969, a year notorious for its cultural disaffection and political gloom.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s status as superstar hitmakers at the end of the decade perhaps made it harder for viewers of Songs of America—the television film in which “Bridge Over Troubled Water” debuted—to take them seriously.

When the duo first appears on screen in the musical documentary, of sorts, Garfunkel “brings up the subject of America’s imminent bicentennial,” writes Dorian Lynskey for the BBC, and “a camera-conscious Simon gazes into the distance and asks solemnly: ‘Think it’s gonna make it?

Directed by Charles Grodin with over half a million in CBS money, the film’s “mood of pensive pomposity comes to dominate.” It won few converts, despite the showstopper of a song. “The average CBS viewer didn’t want to see the world crumbling,” again, in Songs of America.

The heaviest sequence was a dark twist on the film’s travelogue theme, juxtaposing clips of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King on the campaign trail with footage of mourners watching Bobby Kennedy’s funeral train go by. The musical accompaniment was unfamiliar: a kind of white gospel song, stately and hymn-like, building to a shattering climax as the long black train sped through America’s broken heart. One million viewers responded by turning the dial and watching the figure skating on NBC instead. Some sent hate mail. Songs of America wouldn’t be seen again for over 40 years. 

While the movie failed, the song, and album, became instantly classic and rose to No. 1. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” also entered the cultural lexicon as though it had emerged from the misty pre-recording history of the 19th century, when songs were written and rewritten by anonymous folk claiming divine inspiration. “The celebrated New Orleans musician Allen Toussaint liked to say: ‘That song had two writers: Paul Simon and God.

The real story involves no supernatural intervention—it does involve a kind of “love and theft” (as Bob Dylan admitted, alluding to a book on blackface minstrelsy), through the influence of the Swan Silvertones’ recording of the 19th-century spiritual, “Oh Mary Don’t You Weep.” Simon listened to the record “over and over again in his Upper East Side apartment… thunderstruck by a line improvised by lead singer Claude Jeter: ‘I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in my name.’” (When Simon met Jeter two years later, he apparently “wrote him a cheque on the spot.”)

Inspiration flowed through him. “I have no idea where it came from… It just came, all of a sudden,” he remembers in the clip further up from the 2011 documentary The Harmony Game. “I remember thinking this is considerably better than I usually write.” He recognized right away that he had penned what he would call “my greatest song”… “my ‘Yesterday.’” The comparison is notable for its contrast of attitudes.

Paul McCartney’s mega-ballad extols the virtues of nostalgia and pines for simpler times; Simon’s channels Black American gospel, looking beyond personal pain to the plight of others. It also takes its chord progression from a Bach chorale adapted by 19th-century hymn writers. That’s not to say “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” doesn’t evoke the personal. The lyrics “Sail on silver girl” speak directly to his soon-to-be wife Peggy Harper, “who had recently fretted about finding her first grey hairs.” The rest came from traditions of religious music.

Simon gave the vocal to Garfunkel because he thought “only Artie’s choirboy voice could do justice to the song,” Lynskey writes. Garfunkel felt intimidated by the song and “liked the sound of Paul’s falsetto.” Simon took his hesitation as an affront. “Such was the state of their partnership in 1969.” It’s clear in the opening minutes of Simon’s solo 1970 interview with Dick Cavett at the top that the iconic folk team would soon be parting ways, for a time at least. Cavett has some fun with Simon about the authenticity of his songwriting. “Maybe I lied… a couple of times,” he answers, some good-natured Queens defiance arising in his voice. “I was pretending to be someone else.”

Cavett then (at 5:25) asks the “impossible question”—how does one write a song like “Bridge Over Troubled Water”? Simon pulls out his guitar and obliges, showing how the chords first came from Bach. He gets big laughs and applause for his definition of feeling “stuck” before he discovered the Swan Silvertones. “Everywhere I went led me to where I didn’t want to go.” It’s maybe as universal a feeling as has ever been put in song.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water” turned 50 in January of 2020, a month or so before so the nation Simon eulogized prematurely in Songs of America fell into seriously troubled waters. In our stuckness, maybe his classic ballad, and especially its call to reach beyond ourselves, can help get us over like nothing else. See Simon and Garfunkel play it live just above in their first Central Park reunion concert in 1981.

And now, I’ll reveal the artist’s secret: we learn from our past melodies to continue to beautify life. Enjoy 😉🤗💖

Related Content: 

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

https://www.openculture.com/2021/02/paul-simon-tells-the-story-of-how-he-wrote-bridge-over-troubled-water-1970.html

(Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (Persian: جلال‌الدین محمد رومی‎), also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī (جلال‌الدین محمد بلخى), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā (مولانا, “our master”), Mevlevî/Mawlawī (مولوی, “my master”), and more popularly simply as Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran.) http://Wikipedia

You may say; Oh! Of course, Rumi… I know that he is famous enough but, I thought I, as a Persian, might tell some new about him, or at least, his poetry is so orphic that it worth dropping a line about him.

Oh yes, Orphic, Orphan, عرفانی This word actually comes from Orient: has been used as Mystical, Gnostic. Though, Iknow that Orphan is an English word that means a parentless child. I might be still wrong, as I must remember Orpheus in ancient Greece. But, I know that those days, after the Arabs spread their dominance in the East, the intellectuals and artists withdrew to their own world: Orph or Orphan, only to do their works in peace. The most famous among others: Attar, Rumi, Omar Khayyam. And of course, there are many other great poets, like Hafez Shiraz Rūdakī, Daqiqi, Ferdowsi, Sanai, Saadi, Nizami. For more see here.

They have (may unwillingly) had made a social class: The Sufis and the pioneer was Shams-i-Tabrizi whom Rumi, met in 1244 CE and becoming the most famous mystical poet of his time. And as we read his or other’s poems of this sort, we can see that they are not only poems, but they are also science.

Now let’s back to Rumi and his poets, accompanied by Persian words. And also a video clip with a beautiful reading-out voice in Persian.

For sure, I am not jealous, but even proud, to see so many Rumi lovers all around the world.

Rumi’s poems are designed “both aware and unaware,”

as he admits, to bend the intellect of anyone

who tries to read them.

Via https://lithub.com/rumi-priestly-poet-of-love-and-master-of-the-one-liner/

Also another one: How a Persian Mystic Poet Changed My Life, By Melody Moezzi click here

Always yours 🙏💖🙏

Is the truth in the orient? Instinctively it seems to be. Although the truth can be anywhere, even in the stars or even within us. We might just be honest to ourselves! There are a lot of reasons to think so, the newest Jean Raffa’s contribution has deeply touched me ( https://jeanbenedictraffa.com/2021/03/02/reviews-of-two-books-with-heart/ ), and I was overwhelmed as I read it. One of these two books is known worthy to us (The Shepherd’s Daughter, by Deborah Gregory http://www.theliberatedsheep.com/). And the other one is Heart of a Sufi, by http://Rahima Milburn, Ashen Venema http://Ashen Venema (I think we know Ashen well), Zohra Sharp, and both books are about the love and the wisdom of its curing. And also, I must not forget to remind the latest book by Jean Raffa: The Soul’s Twins, http://The Soul’s Twins , highly recommended.

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Yes! I am from Orient and, even if I was grown up free, with a touch of western culture, I have kept all the acknowledgement of their wisdom in my heart. It is always interesting how the genius in the West is fascinated by the wisdom of the East. Like Dr Jung, and as I avouch myself as a Jungian and have happily been obliged to these adorable Ladies as friends.

Here is a magnificent poem by Tao Tzu which I’d like to share with you, enjoy 🙏🤗💖

“Man follows the earth. The earth follows the sky. The sky follows the tao. The tao follows what is natural. ”~ Lao Tzu

By SearchingTheMeaningOfLife

photo by DesPin

TWENTY-FIVE
Something formed enigmatically, Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the vacuum,
It stands alone unchanged,
Always moving here.
Maybe she is the mother of myriad things.
I do not know its name.
Let’s call it tao.
Not finding a better description, I say great.

Being great, it rolls.
Roll away.
He walks away, he comes back.

That is why “the tao is great”
The sky is great “
The earth is great; the
lord is also great”.
These are the four great forces of the universe,

Man follows the earth.
The earth follows the sky.
The sky follows the tao.
The tao follows what is natural.

[Notes from the book “Tao Te Qing” by Lao Tzu]

by SearchingTheMeaningOfLife

In case anyone missed it: (The Tao Te Ching, along with the Zhuangzi, is a fundamental text for both philosophical and religious Taoism. It also strongly influenced other schools of Chinese philosophy and religion, including Legalism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which was largely interpreted through the use of Taoist words and concepts when it was originally introduced to China. Many artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and gardeners, have used the Tao Te Ching as a source of inspiration. Its influence has spread widely outside East Asia and it is among the most translated works in world literature.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching

It is always good news to see a reopening of a Tomb in Egypt because there had been a lot closed, for any reason, in the last decades. And of course, in these Corona-related times, reopening makes good sense!

And yet, let’s have a look at what we’d see of such magic. With forever thanks to Marie Grillot. http://Marie Grillot

via https://egyptophile.blogspot.com/

At the beginning of the year 2021, on January 2 precisely, Khaled el-Anani, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities and Mostafa Waziri “reopened” the tomb of Ramses I to the public. Referenced KV 16, it is located in the south-eastern wadi of the Valley of the Kings and it is, with that of Tutankhamun, one of the smallest in the necropolis. As Ali Reda Mohamed, inspector in charge of the site told us, it had been closed since 2008 for restoration by an Egyptian team.

On the Ministry’s page, Mostafa Waziri presented the work done: “The floors have been restored and the walls have been cleaned of bird and bat droppings”. He added that: “The existing inscriptions have been restored and cleaned up and the soot has been removed.”

The sarcophagus has also benefited from the care of restorers, and the lighting system has been improved. This hypogeum was discovered on October 11, 1817 (a week before that of Sethi I), by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, who was then working on behalf of Consul Henry Salt. He had instructed a team of about twenty fellahs to carry out surveys in the Valley… “Around noon, I was told that the entrance to the tomb discovered the day before, and had been widened enough so that we could enter it… I entered first, in the opening which had just been drilled to see if the way was passable. After having traversed a passage, thirty-two feet long and eight wide, I descended a staircase of thirty-eight feet and arrived in a fairly large room, adorned with beautiful paintings “. The key for reading the hieroglyphs is not yet known. Its “owner” will only be identified afterwards.

The tomb is of a simple, rectilinear architectural plan, with a stepped entrance followed by a sloping corridor that leads to a second staircase directly serving the burial chamber.

The walls are decorated with scenes from the “Book of Doors”. The high-quality paintings stand out against a grey-blue background. The decorative style is reminiscent of that of the tomb of his predecessor, Horembeb.

“The entrance to the sepulchral chamber, guarded by two figures of the goddess Maât, who welcome the deceased, the king is represented in the presence of the Memphite gods Ptah and Nefertum, and the deities of Abydos, represented by the djed pillar of Osiris and the Knot of Isis. On the sidewalls, several scenes from the Book of Door evoke the nocturnal journey of the Sun. The back wall combines an Osirian scene on the right, and a solar scene, on the left. On the left, the king is shown in a position of jubilation, surrounded by the Souls of Pe and Nekhen. The mythical ancestors of royalty: “This, analyzes Claude Obsomer in his Ramses II “.

The bedroom has three small “annexe” rooms. In the one dug in the southwest wall, there is a very beautiful scene representing Osiris standing between a divinity with the head of a ram and the serpent goddess Neseret.

We note, in height, the presence of four small niches intended to accommodate the “magic bricks”. Most of the room is occupied by an imposing red granite sarcophagus, which still has its lid, and which is decorated with hieroglyphs and figures, including a very touching protective Isis.

If Belzoni indicates that this sarcophagus contained two mummies, it was not there the royal remains. “Pa-Ramessou”, a soldier from the Delta, was chosen to succeed Horemheb. He became pharaoh, under the name of Ramses I, around 1306-1307 BC He was then about fifty years old and his reign was short: 1 year 4 months according to Manetho (which would explain partly the small size of his grave and the fact that it was not completed).

His mummy was found in the hiding place of the royal mummies (DB 320), where he had been sheltered, along with others, during the XXIst Dynasty, by the high priest Herihor who then ruled the Theban region. This collective tomb was unearthed near Deir el-Bahari by the Abd el-Rassoul family in 1871, then by the Antiquities Service in July 1881. All the mummies were then transported to the Boulaq Museum.

But the mummy of Ramses I had not yet found rest. It seems that afterwards, it was sold to an American, then passed through an Ontario museum before being exhibited at the Michael Carlos Museum in ‘Atlanta …

It was not until 2003 that the mummy of the founder of the 19th dynasty and the long line of Ramessides will finally be returned to Egypt. Since March 2004, it has been exhibited at the Louqsor Museum, in the hall to the glory of ancient Thebes.

Marie Grillot

sources : 

Voyage to Egypt and Nubia, G. Belzoni, Pygmalion, 1979

Luxor Illustrated Guide, Tombs, Temples & Museum, Kent Weeks

The Valley of the Kings, a guide to the best sites, Alberto Siliotti, Gründ

Ramses II, Claude Obsomer, Pygmalion, 2012

Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, reliefs and paintings, Porter & Moss, Second Edition, Tome II, p. 534-535, Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1994

The complete valley of the kings, Nicholas Reeves, Richard H. Wilkinson: Thames and Hudson, 1997

Theban mapping project

https://thebanmappingproject.com/tombs/kv-16-rameses-i

Ramses I – KV 16 – Thierry Benderitter, osirisnet.net

https://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/pharaons/ramses1/ramses1_01.htm

The Finding of Deir-el-Bahari. Twenty photographs, by ME Brugsch. Text by G. Maspero

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8626666s/f1.item?fbclid=IwAR2kq2S6I6J4p5Sgs1J__8cR1XKUhIsnOFeTohkBxXme-lg1UEr9NZs4hSs#

Or, The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one… But still, they come!

Yes! It might not look like as usual, but I want in the sixth chapter of my memories, to share one of our unforgettable period of time. Honestly, I have to thank two of my adorable friends Lin & Deborah Gregory http://Deborah Gregory ,https://theliberatedsheep.com for awakening this memory in me, and I say unforgettable, because it was shortly after changing the regime in Iran, ca. Summer 79. After Khomeini sent his rogues into the streets to close, amongst the newspapers, the vinyl record stores with force, and we had no chance to get our regular music-shopping.

But, I must tell you that Iran has at least a positive side, and it is that in any condition under every dictatorship, you can find everything in the market that you want, forbidden or not! So there we were; Al and I went to the market, for the search of the newest, for example, Moody Blues, as we didn’t hear of them lately. And our connection knew it, told us that there’s something new with Justin Hayward (the frontman by MB) and there is a lot of Moody Blues style there. His offer, of course, was in the form of a recorded MC (the old Music Cassette, if some can remember it), with no information, only the cover photo. And thanks to the imaginary power, we try to phantasy the scenes in this musical.

Of course, the title: The War of the Worlds was known by us, literature, as it is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, http://H. G. Wells and it was most memorably dramatised in a 1938 radio programme http://1938 radio programme directed by and starring Orson Welles that allegedly caused public panic among listeners who did not know the Martian invasion was fictional. In 1953 came the first theatrical film of The War of the Worlds, produced by George Pal, directed by Byron Haskin, and starring Gene Barry which we had watched on TV.

But now, there’s a fascinating musical version by Jeff Wayne http://Jeff Wayne – Wikipedia, especially with the using of Tar (a Persian instrument), which I didn’t know.

You know, Al and I were both interested in such issues, Aliens. As we had some introductions: The Encounter of the First to the Second kind (in the Summer of 1978). (I am not sure about the Third!). Now finally, I found the real visual of this musical from our imagination. What a pity that Al is not here to watch it with me.

Just a purpose: what if the story of the Bible, or in all the other holy books, are somehow true, and we all are damned in our form (the soul in a packet: Boddy) to suffer and learn what we had NOT learned.

Just put it bluntly, I will never believe that we, in this Earthling form, can ever get out of our space… out of our home Earth.

In any case, this musical is a Masterwork. When we just hear the voice of Richard Burton at the beginning, it is a privilege.

No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinised as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us…

I don’t know, but the human in somehow much colder and solitude.

I’m not wondering if the priest’s name would be Netanyahu!! Just let enjoy this brilliant musical work. Here is a wonderful and complete version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds

Or, How The CIA Overthrew Iran’s Democracy In 4 Days.

An old story but, still current surely!

I wish we had never had Oil under our soil! I think that if it would be so, we, as the Persian folk, could have more chance to find our autonomy and own freedom.

This book, by Stephen Kinzler, http://Stephen Kinzer is a heart-breaking tell for the people who love democracy. And it also calms my heart because there will be found such great people in the USA, (a country with one of the best constitutions in human rights history) who has such compassion with our tragedy. Oh yes! I believe that it was a tragedy. Because it has destroyed all the hope of a free Iran in the future. From that time, the western powers planned to control all the uprising acts of every kind. As we have seen, the Islamic Revolution of the year 1979 in Iran with its Charlatans as leaders and good faith naive intellectuals who have been massacred at the end!

It must be not wondering that I write something about political issues because as far as I began to think autonomic, got active, along with my brother Al, in such political events in Iran. I mean: with activating the brain, one begins to create, which means to be an artist, and Art and Freedom are inseparable.

Anyway, the CIA had finally released their documents on the coup against Mossadegh and his government, which was, of course, something obvious for all the true intellectuals. But it is good for the world to understand how it had gone.

In the political history of Iran, there occurred more than one revolution for democracy but, what happened in the time of Dr Mossadegh, was an uprising against the interest of the mighty western countries and their predominance. Shah was an inexperienced young prince and had great respect for Mossadegh, though his Ego and his lust to be on the top, forced him to sell his country. Dr Mossadegh was unique, not only as a politician but also as a human. We will never find a duplicate.

Mohammad Mosaddegh (Persian: محمد مصدق‎;  16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran, holding office from 1951 until 1953, when his government was overthrown in the 1953 Iranian coup d’état orchestrated by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency and the United Kingdom’s MI6.

An author, administrator, lawyer and prominent parliamentarian, his administration introduced a range of social and political measures such as social security, land reforms and higher taxes including the introduction of taxation of the rent on land. His government’s most significant policy, however, was the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been built by the British on Persian lands since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC/AIOC), later known as British Petroleum (BP) … more; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

Al and I got know Dr Mossadegh through our mother’s saying, who told us about our father’s sympathise with him and told us about how father was against a coalition with Mullahs, and he was unfortunately right because they had a great deal in Mossadegh’s overthrown. Now, let’s have a look at the declaration on this operation: PS: I have to add here that Mossadegh, after fruitless negotiations with Great Britain, took the case to court (to The Hague, Holland) and won.

On Aug. 19, 2013, the CIA publicly admitted for the first time its involvement in the 1953 coup against Iran’s elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.

Mosaddegh became aware of the plots against him and grew increasingly wary of conspirators acting within his government.  According to Dr. Donald N. Wilber, who was involved in the plot to remove Mossadegh from power, in early August, Iranian CIA operatives pretending to be socialists and nationalists threatened Muslim leaders with “savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh,” thereby giving the impression that Mossadegh was cracking down on dissent earlier than planned, and stirring anti-Mossadegh sentiments within the religious community. A referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law was submitted to voters, and it passed with 99 percent approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against. According to Mark J. Gasiorowski, “There were separate polling stations for yes and no votes, producing sharp criticism of Mosaddeq” and that the “controversial referendum…gave the CIA’s precoup propaganda campaign to show up Mosaddeq as an anti-democratic dictator an easy target”. On or around 16 August, Parliament was suspended indefinitely, and Mosaddeq’s emergency powers were extended.

Declassified documents released by the CIA in 2017 revealed that – after the Shah had fled to Italy – CIA headquarters believed the coup to have failed. They sent a cable calling off operations to Roosevelt on 18 August 1953, but Roosevelt ignored it.

Mossadegh thought he was in the clear, but Roosevelt hadn’t given up. He orchestrated a second coup, which succeeded. Mossadegh was placed on trial and spent his life under house arrest. The shah returned to power and ruled for another 25 years until the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The 1953 coup was later invoked by students and the political class in Iran as a justification for overthrowing the shah.

On 21 December 1953, Mossadegh was sentenced to three years’ solitary confinement in a military prison, well short of the death sentence requested by prosecutors. After hearing the sentence, Mossadegh was reported to have said with a calm voice of sarcasm: “The verdict of this court has increased my historical glories. I am extremely grateful you convicted me. Truly tonight the Iranian nation understood the meaning of constitutionalism.”

Mossadegh was kept under house arrest at his Ahmadabad residence, until his death on 5 March 1967. He was denied a funeral and was buried in his living room, despite his request to be buried in the public graveyard, beside the victims of the political violence on 30 Tir 1331 (21 July 1952). http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/biography/30-tir/

With his end, the democracy and all the will of the few intelligent people who had fought for freedom for an autonomous Iran had ended. The betrayal of the Shah, who had preferred to stay on his glamourous thrown, had disappointed and dispersed all the good-willing comrades. I can only share my sadness with this Masterwork by Barber’s Adagio (http://Samuel Barber) for Strings, Op.11. You might also know it in Oliver Stone’s movie: Platoon. http://Oliver Stone

If you would like to read more on the 1953 coup, here’s a list:

• All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer
• Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran by Kermit Roosevelt Jr.
• “Secrets of History: The C.I.A. in Iran” from The New York Times (a timeline of events leading up to and immediately following the coup)
• “CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup” from The National Security Archive (CIA documents on the Iran operation)
• “64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup” from Foreign Policy magazine
• Also, the history of the good relationship between two countries (Iran & America) https://theconversation.com/before-coup-53-the-us-and-iran-were-old-friends-144770