Today, on the first of March, my youngest sister is celebrating her birthday. Congratulations, dear sister, and many happy returns! I am sending you this bunch of tulips and a poem by Victor Hugo.
Tout est lumière, tout est joie.
L’arraignée au pied diligent
Attache aux tulipes de soie
Ses rondes dentelles d’argent.
Victor Hugo (1802 - 1855)
This is a photo of my friend Lydia cooking one of her tasty Italian dishes. Lydia is an excellent cook, and a painter, too. She has a wonderful blog on which she shares her recipes, her artwork, and gives gardening tips during the summer.
It is called “Lydia’s Organic Gardening, Vegetarian Recipes and Art”. Please take a peek and leave a friendly comment, thank you.
http://thegypsybutterfly2.blogspot.com/
LYDIA’S ITALIAN CUISINE
The sun rose golden, to dispel night’s shadows
and the streets filled suddently with people.
The whole world seemed suddenly lavish with delight.
The animals, the houses, even the sky were filled
with pleasure and serenity.
Apuleius (125 AD - 18o AD): The Golden Ass
CLAUDE MONET (1840 - 1926): SOLEIL LEVANT / SUNRISE
The young French actress Marion Cotillard has won the Best Actress Academy Award 2008 for her portrayal of Édith Piaf in the film “La Vie En Rose”, a wonderful portrait of the legendary French icon who regretted nothing, singing “Non, je ne regrette rien”.
MARION COTILLARD RECEIVING HER ACADEMY AWARD FROM FOREST WHITAKER
Perhaps Édith Piaf’s nearest American analogues are such singers as Billie Holiday or Judy Garland. From the mean streets of the poor Belleville district of Paris to the dazzling limelight of New York’s most famous concert halls, her life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love.
“Piaf”, French for “sparrow”, was a little woman, but she had a formidable voice. Her singing reflects her tragic life, her specialty being the poignant ballad. Among her most famous songs are “La vie en rose” (1946), “Hymne à l’amour” (1949), “Milord” (1959), and “Non, je ne regrette rien” (1960).
Despite numerous published biographies, much of her life remains a mystery. Legend has it that she was born on the pavement of “Rue de Belleville” in Paris. Her mother was a café singer of Algerian - French - Italian origin, her father a street acrobat. Her parents abandoned her, so the girl went to live with its grandmother, Aicha Said ben Mohammed, a native of Algeria, running a brothel in Normandy. The prostitutes helped look after the little “sparrow”. From the age of three to seven, Édith was blind as a result of keratitis. According to one of her biographies, she recovered her sight on a pilgrimage honoring Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, a miraculous healing.
In 1935 Édith was discovered in the “Pigalle” of Paris, a famous nightclub in the red light district. Her nightclub gigs led to her first two records produced the same year. In 1940, Édith co-starred in Jean Cocteau’s one-act play “Le Bel Indifférant”. She began to befriend famous people such as Maurice Chevalier and Yves Montand.
During World War II she claimed to have been working for the French Résistance, helping a number of individuals to escape Nazi persecution. She dated a Jewish pianist during this time. After the war, she became internationally known, touring Europe, the United States, and South America. After a glowing review by a prominent New York critic, she appeared at Carnegie Hall twice, in 1956 and 1957. The legendary Paris Olympia concert hall is where she achieved lasting fame, giving a series of concerts between 1955 and 1962.
Her personal and love life remained troubled. Her great love, the married boxer Marcel Cerdan, died in a plane crash in October 1949, while flying from New York City to Paris, on the way to meeting her. Cerdan’s Air France flight went down in the Azores, killing everyone on board. Piaf’s and Cerdan’s affair made international headlines, as Cerdan was the middleweight world champion and a legend in France in his own right.
Piaf later married twice. Her first husband was Jacques Pills, a singer. They married in 1952 with Marlene Dietrich as maid of honor, and divorced in 1956. Her second husband, Théo Sarapo, was a Greek hairdresser turned singer and actor. He was 20 years younger than Piaf. They married in 1962 and sang together in some of her last engagements. During her last years she was addicted to morphium and alcohol.
Édith Piaf died of liver cancer on the French Riviera in 1963 and is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Her grave is one of the most visited. Her funeral procession drew thousands of mourners into the streets of Paris. The ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100.000 fans. Today she is still remembered and revered as one of the greatest singers of France.
“Try to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other.”
Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)
Felix Valloton (1865 - 1925): Woman Reading To A Small Girl
“Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.”
Cecil B. De Mille (1881 - 1959)
Felix Valloton (1865 - 1925): Editor At Work
“Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts.”
Rita Mae Brown (born 1944)
This post is in honor of the German painter Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, who was murdered by the Nazi fascists in their euthanasia program.
ELFRIEDE LOHSE - WÄCHTLER (1931): BOTTE WITH TULIP
Elfriede Wächtler was born 1899 in Dresden, attended Art School from 1915 to 1918. In 1921 she married the painter and opera singer Karl Lohse with whom she moved to Hamburg, but later they separated again. In 1929 she had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. Elfriede returned to her parents’ home because of financial problems and was sent to a mental ward by her father, where she was treated for schizophrenia. In 1935 the Nazis had her sterilized, and in 1937 most of her artwork was destroyed as “Denaturated Art”. In 1940 she was deported to the mental hospital of Pirna-Sonnenstein and killed in the fascist euthanasia program.
ELFRIEDE LOHSE - WÄCHTLER (1930): SELF-PORTRAIT
Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist, writes in the New York Times:
“The air is a medium, not a dwelling place. Or - is it? Clouds. I’ve always liked to think of clouds as aquatic environments in the sky. Yet despite their comfortable white fluffy look, they’re not hospitable places. The water there is often super-cooled (liquid below the freezing point), acidic, and often contains poison such as formaldehyde. Levels of ultra-violet light may also be extremely high.”
FEODOR VASILYEV (1850 - 1873): STUDY OF CLOUDS I
Whether aquatic or acidic, I like to look at the clouds wandering above my head when I take walks outside. I find clouds comforting, hospitable places for the soul.
FEODOR VASILYEV: STUDY OF CLOUDS II
The olive tree (Olea europea) is the Greek goddess Athene’s sacred plant, native to coastal areas around the Mediterranean Sea. Its fruit, the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the Mediterranean region as source of olive oil.
OLIVES
The olive is an evergreen tree, rather short and squat, with silvery leaves of oblong shape. In Greece the olive leaf is a symbol of abundance, glory, and peace.
In the writings of Homer and Horace the olive tree is venerated, and Pliny the Elder writes of a sacred olive tree 1.600 years old.
VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853 - 1890):
LES OLIVIERS / THE OLIVE TREES
The Welsh physician Dr. Edward Bach prescribed OLIVE as one of his BACH FLOWER REMEDIES, homoeopathically prepared from the plant’s flower extract:
“For those in a state of complete exhaustion, who have been suffering and in pain for a long time, Olive is the remedy of rejuvenation as it brings a sense of being filled with energy and inspiration from a deep place inside. Olive is a lubricating remedy and is beneficial for joints that need ‘oiling’. It restores calmness, peace and harmony, and energy put back into one’s life again.”
The owl as Athene’s sacred bird was the emblem of the city of Athens. ‘There flies an owl’ indicated that Athene had brought victory. The Greeks attributed magical properties to owls’ eggs. In medieval times, owls were associated with witchcraft and sorcery.
ARYBALLOS:
GREEK OWL POTTERY (630 BC)
Owl as a shamanistic bird teaches magic, being associated with the witching time of dusk, the death of the day whose somber light is called ‘owl light’.
If Owl appears in vision, she may be telling us to accept both, light and dark. Owl teaches us to look at our fears creeping out of the subconscious into light. They are blocking our progress and holding us back. We must deal with them before they can be dissolved.
BURROWING OWL (ATHENE CUNICULARIA)
The owl is the goddess Athene’s sacred bird, associated with clever tactics, far-sightedness, and wisdom. Owls are birds of prey, solitary and nocturnal hunters. Much of their hunting strategies depend on stealth and surprise, just like Athene’s tactics of warfare.
The serrated edges of the owl’s remiges muffle the wingbeats, allowing its flight to be practically silent, thus approaching its prey with stealth, by surprise.
TETRADRACHM
GREEK SILVER COIN WITH ATHENE’S HELMETED PROFILE ON ONE SIDE AND HER SACRED OWL ON THE OTHER SIDE
With their forward-facing eyes owls have binocular vision and are far-sighted. In low light their far vision is exceptionally good. Thus the goddess Athene’s wisdom was said to depend on her far-sightedness.
The Little Owl (Athene noctua) is small, with brown speckles, yellow eyes and white eyebrows.
LITTLE OWL (ATHENE NOCTUA)
