The world cannot continue to wage war like physical giants and to seek peace like intellectual pygmies. —Basil O'Connor
While the Ancient Greeks did not like Ares, they did accept that there were “good” wars, or that is to say, wars that could be carried out with noble intentions. This concept was embodied by the blue-eyed daughter of wisdom, Athene.
Athene is the virgin goddess of intellect and invention. It was she—and not her step-brother Ares—who was chosen by Zeus to be the shield-bearer for all of Olympus. The shield is called Ægis, and is one of the most powerful objects in mythology. More than merely a defensive weapon, the Ægis is not only impregnable, but after the heroic quest of Perseus, the face of the shield displays the head of the slain Gorgon, Medusa. The sight of it can turn armies into stone. But Athene is also wise enough to carry with her the last gift of war. It is Athene which gave us the branches of the olive tree.
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. —Sir Winston Churchill
The Romans were very enamored of Mars, the god of war. This is to be expected, as they were a world-conquering empire. War was beneficial to the state both for control of the population and for the empire's growth.
The Greeks viewed him differently. To them he was a vain and bloodthirsty thug, always fighting, always killing, regardless of reason or sense. He loved the sights and smells of the battlefield, as long as he was protected by his impassible entourage. This horrible crew consisted of his sisters Erida, which means hate, and Eris, goddess of discord. Also there were Ares' sons Deimos, fear and Phobos, terror. The creatures Pain, Panic, Famine and Oblivion counted among their number as well. The last of them was Enyo, the Grae sister who was wrapped in hideousness.
And whenever Ares went into battle, Hades—the dark god of the dead—always followed, assessing the increase to his own empire under the earth.
And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. Genesis 4.8(KJV)Some of you may be wondering why this month is named Mars in French. While I am no scholar in this matter, that fact won't keep me from sharing a few thoughts with you.
During the dim prehistory of man, Mars—or in the Greek, Ares—was originally the god of agriculture. (If any of you were watching the final episodes of Xena-Warrior Princess, you may remember Ares settling down after he lost his godly powers and became a farmer.) In the spring it came time to plow the fields and sow the seeds to bring forth the crops. However, surrounding invaders unskilled in the art of cultivation may have attempted to steal the farmers' food. For starving nomads, food would have been worth fighting for.
And so, the have-nots would attack the haves. The farmers who prayed to Ares for a bountiful harvest began to pray for success in protecting their crops and themselves from the nomads. Keeping the crops safe became synonymous with battling outsiders. (If you'd like, try surmising the true origin of the scarecrow)
Of course, symbolism of the harvest also resonates with the symbolism of war which gives us another link between Ares the farmer and Ares the warrior. And the goddess of harvest and grains is named Ceres. The word ceres is where we get the word for cereal. The sound-alike names of Ceres and Ares may mean that at one time they were considered to be brother and sister, or possibly male and female personifications of the same idea.
March, as you have seen and heard from the television recently, is also strategically the best time to go to war. If the winter is bitterly cold, one runs the risk of low morale or even desertions if your army is cold and hungry. And best not to maintain an army in the sweltering heat of the summer, either. So the best time to start is in the spring. So…MARCH! 2,3,4…
Try this site for more on the month of Mars.
Though the weather has been cold and damp here at the Mercuriosity Shop, it is the weather that suits the shoreline. The cold and wet of the air caused me to start rereading a book by Alessandro Baricco called Ocean Sea.
Bartleboom had really been expecting a wave. Or something of that kind. He looked up and saw a woman, wrapped in an elegant purple cloak.“Bartleboom, yes…Professor Ismael Bartleboom.”
“Have you lost something?”
Bartleboom realized he was still bent over forward, a frozen contour of the optical instrument he had transformed himself into. He straightened up with all the ease he was capable of. Very little indeed.
“No. I am working.”
“Working?”
“Yes, I am… I am engaged in research, you see, research…”
“Ah.”
“Scientific research, I mean to say…”
“Scientific.”
“Yes.”
Silence. The woman drew her purple cloak closer around her.
“Shells, lichens, things of that kind?”
“No. Waves.”
Just like that: waves.
“That is…you see there, where the water arrives…runs up the beach, then stops…there, precisely that point, where it stops…it really lasts no more than an instant, look there, there for example, there… you see that it lasts only an instant, then it disappears, but if one were to succeed in suspending that instant…when the water stops, precisely that point, that curve…this is what I am studying. Where the water stops.”
“And what is there to study?”
“Well, it's an important point…sometimes you hardly notice it, but if you think about it, something extraordinary happens at that point, something…extraordinary.”
“Really?”
Bartleboom leaned slightly closer to the woman. One would have thought that he had a secret to tell when he said, “That is where the sea ends.”
The immense sea, the ocean sea, which runs infinitely beyond all sight, the huge omnipotent sea—there is a point where it ends, and an instant—the immense sea, the tiniest place and a split second. This is what Bartleboom wanted to say.
Translation copyright©1999 by Rizzoli Libri S.p.A.
The fog comesAs I awoke this morning, a diffuse light glowed from the outside. A lovely fog had enveloped the Mercuriosity Shop. Trees could dimly be seen shuffling around, as trees are wont to do when they think they are unseen. The mourning doves were heard cooing, and the dry skeletons of autumn's leaves crunched under the paws of foraging squirrels. I convinced our visiting fog to let me photograph her. She was shy at first, but beautiful creatures cannot resist being adored. When I eventually got her to peel off the last of her wispy veils, I was treated to a dewy, sunkissed morning. If she returns, perhaps I'll offer her a permanent room in the Columbary.
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
—Carl Sandburg
A fog is an ephemeral creature—milky as a jellyfish, soft as a moth, and silent as the wings of a thousand owls. They arrive when their mood suits them, and eventually dissipate back to their secret hiding places. There are many different kinds of fogs, and and they sport a variety of colors. Some are as delicate as the whorling bones of the inner ear, and others are as resilient as Thanksgiving Jell-o in January. I don't believe anyone has attempted to catalog them, and I am no fogologist. But I will share some of my observations with you, if you wish.
Night fogs are the most feared, and for good reason. Tales about the supernatural are replete with them. Of the fogs, night fogs are the most unsettling. They tend to be contrary at best, and insidiously evil at worst. They aren't the most colorful fogs, so they compensate by forming a symbiotic relationship with colorful characters. Night fogs enjoy the company of ghosts, murderers, or even demonic dogs. Their mysterious nature beckons most to the world-weary poet or the subtle adventurer. Say what you will about them, night fogs happen to be excellent storytellers.
Cold fogs generally arrive on sunless afternoons. They have wet noses, and often like to give travellers one as well. Cold fogs are durable, and can survive a freezing rain that would shred most other fogs. They are blue and morose and gravitate toward the lovelorn and the griefstricken. They also have a fondness for following under-dressed adolescents home from middle school.
Sea fogs are the most dangerous of the species, even more so than night fogs. Most of the time they congregate in the desolate regions of the oceans, in secret unmapped areas where sailors have never been found. An interesting fact about sea fogs is that they can't swim, which is fine by them because they walk on water like people walk on land. They are generally greenish in hue, but other colors have been spotted. A unique red variety of sea fog seems to have taken up permanent residence around the Flying Dutchman's ship. In the Bermuda Triangle, some seafarers lucky to have escaped with their lives reported seeing strange multi-colored lights in the fog. Other sea fogs of the non-colored variety tend to be solitary creatures, and seem to be attracted to lighthouses.
The most famous fog is, of course, the London Fog. Truly, has anyone ever heard of the New York Fog, or the Berlin Fog, or the Prague Fog? Certainly not! She is a stately old dame and has become something of a genius loci to the city. And while her closest cousins have a thing for moors, London Fog is quite happy to stay with the Londoners. She would never stray too far from her namesake city, which is a good thing. You see, if she ever travelled too far, she might not remember how to return. She is a very old fog, the poor dear, and is as thick as pea soup.
Morning fogs are the sweetest of all the fogs, and may draw some of their inspiration from the misty sunlight of waking dreams. They are dewy, and crisp smelling, like fresh linen. Their colors are white or sunlit-yellowish. They are hazy and delicate, and are most often seen in the spring or summer months.
Other notable fogs or related are the Velvet Fog, Phileas Fogg, the Awful Dynne, and Purple Haze.
Or should I say, very futuristic art. At least this is what everybody thought back in the late 1950s. An associate of mine, one Martin Johns, once proclaimed to me that flying cars and robot manservants were his birthright. But somewhere between Tom Swift and the Jetsons lay a dream of tomorrow never realized.
So take a trip to the future through the lens of the past. See what now looked like then—compliments of illustrator A. C. Radebaugh.
Who doesn’t enjoy looking at very old art? Let me restate that. I enjoy looking at very old art. And besides that, one could purchase high-end prints of said very old art. All right, I could purchase high-end prints of said very old art. But if one were interested, one could visit Vedo. And if one were intrigued by such things, one could see a timeline made up of never-before-seen works of art from the vaults of the Vatican! (You’ll need to scroll down to find it, but it’s there.)
Ha! And you thought there might not be a big finish.
Anonymous Q ©2002 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana/©2002 Vedo
Feed your head. —Jefferson AirplaneMarch is here, and spring will be springing up soon at the Mercuriosity Shop! To kick off March, Chip Simons has graciously allowed me to hang one of his photographs in the Shop. This photo is from his ongoing Bunnies series. If you’d like to read more about Chip and his bunnies, there is an excellent article about them in the March/April issue of STEP Inside Design magazine. His bunnies even made the cover! If you love the bunnies as much as I do, I’m told by Chip’s charming wife Cyndy that they are currently pricing Giclee prints and will probably start a print run/edition set this spring. She has promised to inform me when those become available, and I’ll pass that information along to you!
The photograph Dig Carrots has been posted with the kind permission of Chip and Cyndy Simons.