Saturday, February 18, 2006
"General Renewal"
2:03pm
In between work and sleep, it's been a flurry of watching the figure skating, studying from the new books that have arrived and doing a bit of art. Saturday, February 18, 2006
"General Renewal"
2:03pm
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I decided to try for a 'conventional' representation of Set slaying the Apep snake, loosely using ancient models as a guide. But I hope when depicting the 'unconventional' Set, that my results show some of that. Hopefully there is something of a primal strength about it. Meanwhile, there are so many excellent renditions out there that may serve to inspire me for future attempts.I found interesting tidbits about Set in Hornung's Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt:
| "In extreme cases god the helper of those in need can bring human beings as near as possible to immortality, but here he meets the absolute limit of existence to which the Egyptian gods, as powers of the existent world, are subject. They are neither immortal nor omnipotent, and this remains so until the end of Egyptian religion. The development I have sketched never, therefore, leads to an absolute control of events by the will of god; there is always room for human initiative, which in ancient Egypt is never subject to anything like the Islamic in sha allah "God willing." (page 212) |
They "bring the gods down to earth" (Asclepius 25 via Jan Assman) and their hopes "are based on becoming 'like a god', on assuming the role of one of the great gods and thus themselves affecting the course of the world"(Horning, page 207). He continues, "It is worth considering a little further the way in which the gods affect the world. Here our theme is power, energy, and efficacy"...(pg 207). The one most powerful, and often feared, is Set. In fact, the only god to whom is given immortality is Set. This shows his 'unnatural' nature, and his "invincibility"(pg 157), the immensity of his ferocious strength. To the Egyptians, man and the natural cycles of decay and regeneration remain the measure of all things, even the gods. But Set is different.
| "Are there any exceptions to this general rule; are any gods immortal? Hans Bonnet claimed that Seth - the murderer of Osirus - was immortal. He cited in support a passage in the Pyramid Texts in which the king wishes to evade his days of death as Seth did: "The King has evaded his day of death like Seth's evasion his day of death; the King has evaded his half-months of death like Seth's evasion of his half-months of death; the King has evaded his months of death like Seth's evasion of his months of death; the King has evaded his year of death like Seth's evasion of his year of death." (Pyr. 1453). Bonnet related this unambiguous example to the gods' prophecy to Queen Hatshepsut that in addition to the "share of Horus" she would receive the "years of Seth" - which are therefore an especially long stretch of time." (page 157) |
"The Eternal Set", indeed!I haven't just done studying and drawing, we did get out this morning to the Yuma Crossing Days Festival in Old Town. There were, according to the newsreport, eighty four booths of people selling stuff. We didn't buy anything, except a small bag of heated cashews. I enjoyed nibbling them while looking at the wares and watching the people go by.
Those are, after all, the 'picturesque' type of things many people like to hang on their walls. There is something, too, about the door and window as a 'medium of passage'. They suggest a mystery, which is always intriguing.
this artist loves doors and windows...
In addition to the wares, there was also a tiny petting zoo, pony rides and this old plane which figures in Yuma's history:
In 1949 Woody Jongeward and Bob Woodhouse flew the City of Yuma plane on a world record endurance flight of 1,124 hours in the air, an appeal to reopen the airfield in Yuma that is now Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. 
I thought of my mother and her love of planes when snapping the photo.
It was a pleasant outing. After fortifying ourselves with Italian sodas, we then headed off to Lowes for serious shopping. Last week, our microwave oven began making a very loud noise and a very nasty odor. The nearly ten year old thing was done for. Now we have a nifty stainless steel one that hopefully will last even longer.
This new purchase has inspired Julia to a general renewal of the kitchen. She's tossing the massive glass bottle collection she's amassed over the years and several other useless things. She's not usually this energized. She's declaring, "This will be changed, changed before our eyes!"
I appreciate her industry as our kitchen surely needs it.
And now, one last bit of weirdness before entry's end:
When I was doing this spontaneous picture, Julia looked at it, with a comment, "Left brain, right brain!" Yes, I think so.
I'm in a mood for a bit of a rant tonight. You are forewarned. Sunday, February 19, 2006 A
"A Lesson from History"
5:20pm
Last night, I decided to allievate my curiousity. I'd been wondering what the film NARNIA was like. I'd heard it has Christian elements, "Lord of the Rings and Passion of the Christ integrated into one movie", as one reviewer declared. But I was curious about the possibly mythic elements it might contain, and how the themes would be handled. The first half of the movie is charming. Actually, it begins in a shocking fashion, with a war scene. I was puzzled, had we somehow entered the wrong movie theater? But then it becomes apparent, the four Pevensee children are being evacuated from a war torn area of Britain to one less dangerous in the countryside. While playing hide and seek at the home of 'The Professor', the littlest finds an entire world just beyond the back of a wardrobe. Up until this point, the movie is charming. The actress playing Lucy Pevensee conveys an endearing innocence and wonder that is captivating.
However, not everything in this other world that she discovers is all as it should be. And this is where the movie turns a sour note, the not so subtle Christian message to the movie, lots of them, actually. I noticed, too, the making of the wolves evil, and thought how northern Europe lost its wolf populations to Christian persecution. Not only that, the clear message is that witches are 'evil', that all workings from the Will only support 'Power Over' and not 'Power to Do'. The White Witch is a hideous creature.
It's a simplistic view of things and not really good for kids who are so easily confused.
It seems a synchronistic thing that I am reading about another's simplistic view of things, Akhenaten of ancient Egypt. It's been a thought provoking time reading Hornung's Akhenaten and the Religion of Light. Hornung describes this Egyptian pharoah who tried to establish his own monotheistic religion, replacing all others, as the "first fundamentalist in human history"(page 126). Fundamentalists strive to reduce everything in the world to a single principle. I remember one of my philosophy teachers in college calling a type of this, a 'radical critique', namely, all the fault in the world is attributable to only one cause. ( I did my paper on radical feminism, as this sort of feminist blames all the world's ills on the actions of men).
Meanwhile, back to Hornung, who explains part of the results of Akenaten's fundamentalism:
| "But with light, he committed himself to the visible and was constrained to deny everything that did not belong to the visible world: darkness, the afterlife, and the deities of the pantheon, especially Amun, the 'Hidden One'!" (pg93) |
He decribes what Akhenaten did:
| "Now there would be no god but Aten, and the physical existence of the old deities would be obliterated by the erasure of their names and sometimes of their representations as well....In some instances, Akhenaten even had his own original personal name Amenophis mutilated in his effort to do harm to the hated Amun. This ferocity was surely aimed not only at the heretofore predominant state god but at the 'refuge of the poor,' which Amun had increasingly become - in the Ramesside Period, he would become a special focus of personal piety, thus occupying the very position claimed by Akhenaten." (pg 87-88) |
Instead of the various old 'holy trinities', he established a new one, the Aten, his wife Nefertiti and himself! Akhenation wanted to be venerated as peoples' "personal god"(pg 76)!!!This is 'the there can be only one' at its most ugly. Akhenaten wanted all the people's devotion to go only to him and his favored deity, for he was sole 'god' to the people', and sole representative of his sole god on earth. Talk about 'Power Over'!!!!
The relation between a person and their deity is a private one, in the heart he prepares his temple, and none can truly inspect it but that person himself.
I may, by my words and actions, give evidence that I am 'of Set', but the nature of this exact relationship, the forms it takes is known only to me.
This is one amazing Egomaniac to declare he wants this sort of adoration by the whole of Egypt all to himself!!!
Fortunately, his rule did not last long. Also, there was evidence people still stayed by their favorite deities, in private. As soon as Akhenaten died, they went public. Then Amun, Ptah and the others were again restored to their temples. It is a lesson for today's time.
Hornung concludes:
| "The fundamentalism rearing its head everywhere today has no future. For Akhenaten has taught us, as has history, which is the most infallible of all oracles, that to be human is to be holistic, and that bigotry leads to nothingness and to ineluctable failure." (page 127) |
I will continue to hope that people the world over learn this lesson.
I'm ready for a bit of a 'lighter' subject. So this week's 52 Figments theme seemed an amusing lark: Sunday, February 19, 2006 B
"Free Bird"
10:58pm
2.19.06 :: The world needs a new bird! What should it look like and what should it be called?
It COULD be an amusing 'lark'. But I chose not to do a brownish songbird. I'm calling this a FREE BIRD!
(Yay! Americans Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto are in second place so far!)
Yes, influenced a bit by all the figure skating I've been watching!
Yay! Americans Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto have the Silver medal!! Monday, February 19, 2006
"Yay!"
11:03pm
In both the original and the free program, I loved the way Agosto looked straight at the camera, 'look of eagles' in his eyes. Belbin looked confident, too, and wonderfully they skated! This is the first time USA has gotten a medal in the ice dancing in thirty years!
I've been playing with a drawing of Set: Wednesday, February 22, 2006
"Set's Dark Gift"
11:13pm
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In case it is hard to tell the details, the original drawing is behind the picture.Forward...
I got the thumbnail done for the picture. This takes a while, for many details are lost when the picture is reduced, and I have to work with it to get a feel of the original. It was especially important for this one, as it is kinda chaotic to begin with. Thursday, February 23, 2006
"Set's Dark Gift - Maybe a Bit Chaotic"
11:13pm
A very toothy rendition by 'Herisheft' was my inspiration: "Chaos is what I want." She has such great bone structure and musculature in her image. Mine kind of loses that, as it's only hinted at. Also, Herisheft's Set looks more chaotic in a fierce way, whereas mine looks chaotic in a playful way. It looks like he's having a paintball fight, that the thing in his hands is a gob of paint he's throwing around. But he's having fun.
This morning's chill is being eased by heat flowing out from a vent diagonal to me. I wake in a pensive mood, a mood for self appraisal. Inspired by another artist's 'underwear' drawing, I thought, "Why not?" Saturday, February 25, 2006 A
"A Bit Pensive"
7:40am
I'll let this go without further commentary. And maybe I'll skip the second helping of cookies more often!
stern appraisal...
Ah, such frustrations there, and a cease less yearning for a me-that-used-to-be. Enough to engage the willpower? Hmmmm-m-m. Meanwhile, if I could send a message to the me twenty years ago, reversal of the 52 Figment question last month, I'd tell her, "Cheese is NOT your friend!" I remember the many greasy cheese crisps Laura and I ate, the frequent heaping bowls of ice cream...
...Oh, I miss Laura. Today would have been our nineteenth anniversary. I also remember all the fun we had, how Laura loved to take spontaneous trips. She loved deciding out of the blue to get up real early and head off to where ever. We went to the Chiracaua mountains south east of Tucson. We went to Zuni land in New Mexico. She thought nothing of going from Tucson to San Diego.
Those were fun days. Sadly, I have few pictures to show of those early visits. Julia and I are not as adventurous as far as day trips go. So we tend to stay in Yuma. But we haven't quite explored all the nooks and crannies here, yet. And I do have a camera, now.
And actually, it isn't so much as WHERE I'm at, it's what I see where I'm at, and that lies in my vision, for the view to a good picture starts first in my eye, then I arrange camera frame around it. So what I'm craving is beautiful things in my view finder, but it is ME that is doing the finding.
So perhaps from me, some interesting photos this weekend. The camera batteries are being charged.
Meanwhile, here are some possibly interesting drawings:
I enjoyed the last of the Olympic figure skating last night. It was the exhibition skating, and all the skaters were so delightfully free in the exhibition, none with worries of being graded. Shizuka Arakawa's surefooted 'easy' strength, Sasha Cohen's artistic grace, and Johnny Weir, who did it 'His Way', I will remember them.
Weird drawing from last night...
Shizuka Arakawa earning her gold...
© Joan Lansberry
