Thursday 26 September 2013

Chapter II : The sun.

"Pater eius est sol..."
Tabula Smaragdina   
Sun dog phenomenon depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicles.

   As the Emerald Tablet, a hermetic piece of text on the transformation of matter, implies the sun is the male element of 'the creation  towards the birth of the holy child', the philosophical stone, Hermaphroditus. The sun teams up (hieros gamos) with the female power of the moon, and the outcome of this coitus is unexpected, an infant stronger than anything else in the cosmic realm of syzygies,  not male nor female but sharing in equal parts the contradictive attributions of the parents, a unified being and a psychological metaphor of higher consciousness.
  Carl Gustav Jung evaluates that the sun is an archetype of the human concept of Self and since humanity seems to share the encodings of its common origins deep in a  collective unconscious the sun archetype (just like the moon one) is common in all civilizations. It is the face of the mother as the round face of the sun in the abstract drawings of the early chidhood, it is the nourishing beginning and warmth, funnily enough the apollonian light so representative of the sun is of male characteristics; the logic that takes people out of the darkness and prejudice and introduces them to the sobriety of scientific reasoning and revelations beyond the folklore and the mythical. As formulated in classical chinese philosophy it is the yang element, the light, warm, dry, masculine principle of creation and the chinese don't neglect to add within it a tiny seed of yin (the female element), showing more wisdom. Cause it is in the absolution of the sun element as solely manlike principle that lies the danger, the paternal figure of god commanding from up above reminding us the god of Old Testament, lacks the flexibility of compassion, it is a life giving entity but also an unforgiving one for those who dare to doubt the rules, the sun then burns without  remorse for the consequences (negative sun). On another side of the coin the sun symbolism demands our attention and thoughtfulness so we can avoid the fate of  Phaeton, the son of Helios, who in his attempt to bring the therapy of the light to humanity neglected to master his skills on driving the sun chariot and went down with it aflame...The sun is all seeing (pantepoptes), when asked he confesses to Demeter having witnessed the abduction of Persephone by Hades. The sun reveals the beauty of  the natural world as it really is, and self-awareness showing mercy to those who have faced the cold too long and have paralysed, the flowers bloom underneath the therapeutic sun, we enjoy the playfulness of the sun rays on our skin and something awakens inside of us, we long for the long summer days. The sun can be proven  ruthless at other times, showing also the decay and responsibilities, the gap or deprivation, it burns the uninitiated one...One cannot be forced to face the sun, but introduced to it slowly...provided material or spiritual sunglasses...The sun can open eyes, too much sun at once can blind...Jacques Derrida  in his "Memoirs of the blind" claims that "the sun resembles the eye, the most "helioform" of all sense organs to the intelligible sun, that is, to the Good." Derrida has in mind the image of the absolute father as the absolute good while writing this.
 The imago of the sun possibly has to pay the price of its monistic ('this way or no other way') impact, a way so obvious in political, economical and religious systems of today, for this world is still so full of conflict and spiritual blindness, that reason as Logos (meaning, plan) without an ethical context can be proven as much  delusional as Pathos, a brute force, a nuclear catastrophe. On a metaphysical and psychological level the sun expresses the individual Self in the center of the collective unconscious, just like the actual sun is the center of the solar system, a model that allows freedom of will no matter the social biases of any era, an archetype of order, organization and unity, in a alchemical sense a model where Sol meets Luna again, allowing to each other's elements to melt into one another mutually. As the sun rises and sets ever watching peoples and generations coming and go hope is in order †††.
YSL as the sun god.
flaming sun.

The towering inferno, 1974.
The fall of Phaeton by Peter Paul Rubens, 1605.

YSL campaign by Juergen Teller.
The alchemical sun (Pater), by Robert Fludd.
Marc Jacobs fall '13/'14.

Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh.
Greek cult film Girls in the Sun, 1968.
Apollo like, Roberto Bolle by Bruce Weber.

The positive sun.
photo: Hans Feurer.

Sun goddess, photo: Mert and Marcus.

Sun King, Nuba, photo: Leni Riefenstahl.
Coppertone vintage add.

Safe under the sun, photo: Hiro, 1963.
photo: Mario Testino, any objections book.
Apollo chasing Daphne by Theodore Chasseriau.
Gucci campaign by Mario Testino.

Panama hats vintage add.
  



Wednesday 18 September 2013

Chapter I (Part II): The elements (Earth).

Manhattan, N.Y.C.
The Himalayas.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
"Ozymandias" By Percy Bysshe Shelley.


Mask Of dead king, Mycenae, Greece.
File:Alchemy earth symbol.svg~Hail to the guardians of the North
                  Powers of Earth
                  Founding Stone of all Power,
                  We call upon you and summon you,
                   Black bull of Midnight
                   Northern Star,
                   Centre of the changing sky
                   Stone, Mountain, Fertile Field,
                   Through the soil that is Her body
                    Send us your power~
Earthly delights, 10 magazine SS '13.

Artwork by Borondo, Muro Festival.
   
photo: Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia.
Opal gemstone.
Hermes the psychopompos, ruler of the letters and mysteries, the trickster, was born inside a deep, shady cave.Here: Hermes of Praxiteles, Olympia Museum, Greece.
Madre Terra, photo :Juergen Teller for Flair magazine.
Full circle†††.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Chapter I (Part II) : The elements (Water).

The siren by Luis Loeb, 1904.
Liquid Fountain, Perrier drink.
All those men were there inside,
when she came in totally naked.
They had been drinking: they began to spit.
Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.
Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.
Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.
Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.
They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs,
and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor.
She did not speak because she had no speech.
Her eyes were the colour of distant love,
her twin arms were made of white topaz.
Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light,
and suddenly she went out by that door.
Entering the river she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back she swam again
swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.
"Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks" by Pablo Neruda.

                                   
photo: Nick Knight for Another magazine.
File:Alchemy water symbol.svg~Hail to the guardians of the West
                  Powers of Water!
                  We call upon you and summon you,
                   Snake of the watery abyss,
                   Rainmaker,
                   Star of the late night!
                   Through the waters of Her living womb,
                   Send us your flow~


                                       
Sasha Pivovarova by her husband Igor Vishnyakov.
photo: Julian Hibbard.
photo: Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia.
photo: Isabel Neumair for Tush magazine.

Ice.

Venus rising from the sea, pompeii.

Vogue Italia.

Black Sea.

Monday 16 September 2013

Chapter I ( Part II) : The elements (Fire).

The ancient of days by William Blake, 1794.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

"Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost.

"Hephaestus", photo: Sally Mann, 2008.
Salamander, the elemental of fire, from "The story of Alchemy and the beginnings of chemistry".
Electro duo Chris and Cosey on fire.
Rayo Multicolor by Paul Klee.
Neon, photo: Kid Smith.
photo: Hans Feurer, Pirelli Calendar, 1974.


File:Alchemy fire symbol.svg ~ Hail to the guardians of the South
                 Powers of fire!
                 We call upon you and summon you,
                 Red lion of the summer heat
                 Sparkle of life
                 Through the fire that is Her spirit
                 Send us your flame~

   
King Volcano.


                
photo: Mert and Marcus for Vogue Paris.