Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley celabrating a christmas issue of British Vogue.
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| Pomegranate: ancient symbol of lucky beginnings and fertility. |
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| Dazzling lights of the Christmas Tree. |
"THE CITY had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”
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| "Risate di gioia" 1960 italian film, a New Years Eve roman party. |
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| Festive mood inside the legendary Studio 54. |
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| A living discoball by Martin Margiela. |
The heart of the winter, the special season to reunite with the family values, the essence of our human origins...and family may mean more than the stereotypes obey, in this meta modern era, in this metaworld true family isn't about common genes within a close circle of people, family is where the emotions grow and miracles happen once one lets go off mental inhibitions and discriminations, our extended family is the human species, the original message of Christ, a validated Christmas time of sharing hopes and fears, misconceptions and failures so everything can be transformed inside the safety that only intimacy can provide, a divine grace to be born again inside humanity's primal infancy and redecide who you are and how you want to interact, what's your calling and mission on this earth.
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| Mother of the sun child Jesus,The Holy Mary. |
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| A masked ball by Vogue Paris. |
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| Roman Christmas, Panettone Gentillini vintage photo. |
“You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, “A thousand.”
“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”
He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”
Most people assume that Christmas time has always been connected with baby Jesus but that's not truly the case. The New Testament provides no actual date or year when it comes to Jesus' birth. If we want to detect the initial start of this celebration we have to go way back to our pagan anchestors and their beliefs towards the worship of the male divine element, that is the apparitions of the Sun. The key factor to comprehend the signifigance of these certain days of December is to look up, to investigate the sky, it is there that takes place the astronomical phenomenon of the Winter Solstice, for the Northern Hemisphere this occurs in the cold, rather barren days of December, you know the days that Persephone (fertlity) has gone missing in the underworld...But what does the Winter Solstice indicate? It is actually the moment when the Sun's elevation with respect to the North Pole is at its most negative value since the December of the previous year therefore the Hemisphere has its longest night and shortest day while the night within the Arctic is one of 24 hours long. Most of the times the Winter Solstice is settled around the 20 or 21 of December each year ( do you remember the date of the prophecy of the Mayan calendar the previous year? ), that's a date very close to the 25th of the Christian calendar of the birth of Jesus and we're surely have to deal with lots of darkness and freezing around those days, our anchestors had to overcome these uncertain conditions and still make it through and maintain a belief that the sunny days will return, that nature will bloom again providing for them, saving and resurrecting them, not to mention the dangers that human imagination and uncertainty finds lurking in the dark...That is more or less the basis of the need for a Sun worship that emerged inside the consciousness of our ancient anchestors, a need that resurfaced psychologically inside the christianity after a while, since as mentioned the first christians didn't celebrate the birth of Christ ( archetype of the divine enlightened child ), it is rather the old urge for the security of the light deprived in the long nights of the December winter that came back to life, that is the calling for the rebirth of light, Sol Invictus as ancient Romans would call it in their holiday of Saturnalia celebrated between 17-25 of December, it was actually in the 25th of December that they believed that the forces of darkness were being destroyed after a week of indulgence.
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| Nativity Byzantine icon. |
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| Glowing Daughter, Givenchy Spring/Summer '14 ad. |
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| Mithras with stars beneath his cape, detail of fresco from Mitraic temple in Marino, Italy. |
Mythologies and traditions around this colorful world do tend to pay their respects to the Sun deities, and those are most times of male characteristics but there are also some sun goddesses as well, a habit so deeply rooted inside our mentality cannot vanish easily; two are the hypotheses, the Sun deities represent our inner calling for growth, prosperity, sanctity, transcedence of our limitations so we can create a heaven on earth, so we can enjoy the company and advice of a Buddha, a Christ, a Mithras, a Apollo, the divine and exhilarating touch of an Avatar, the englightened one among us burning all of our doubts and leading us to the light here and now...or it is our subconscious understanding that the Sun existing in the sky, just like other planets, hides the secret of our human encoding and creation, no wonder that in most mythologies, sumerian, african, greek, native american, roman, egyptian, hinduistic, tibetan, norse, those sun gods are often found riding or driving a vessel across the sky, it can be a boat ( Προφήτης Ηλίας), a chariot or even a cup! Does that mean that the plan of our creation was speculated somewhere else in this vast universe?...Surely those common beliefs indicate something similar.
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| Jesus, bearer of the Light. |
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| A modern Jesus, toy boy of a material girl. |
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| The Christmas of the golden boys and dow jones stocks. |
Nowdays Christmas time is a period of popular customs and manners, lighted tress and ornaments made of synthetic stardust, christmas carols along with a great consumption of food and alcohol ( the spirits ), all night long parties and excursions to the malls along with transatlantic flights, flights and escapes to winter resorts around the world or even exotic destinations...childhood nostalgia and toys for adults...lots of chocolate and some melancholy for the lonely...nowdays christmas is a market of excess, an excuse to have some fun, but no fun is truly an initiation and psychagogy, it passes leaving no change inside the individual...Imago+ is all about poetry and meaningful love making ( of any kind ), the journey of transformation and decoding the unknown inside the image, making it one's own till no mystery exists and everything is mutually communed by driking the wine of knowledge ( Tree of Knowledge ) and liberation, by opening the chakra of the heart ( unlocking the Anahata) and living dreams to the fullest while paying attention to the lessons that aesthetics can teach, shining brightly like the most unique star. Everything is meaningful once the heart meets the mind in truthful harmony and participation, this Christmas we wish you the most beautiful YOU†††!
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas. "
"Christmas Trees" ( A Christmas Circular Letter ) by Robert Frost.
