Unica Zürn...

Unica Zürn (6 July 1916 in Berlin-Grunewald – 1970 in Paris)

Las Dos Marias...

"To be invisible and your beloved
Near Atlantis
On the open seas of my dreams"

J Mansour

Birthday Boy... Jean Cocteau...

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963)

"An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture."

Spanish book covers...

The Afternoon of the Faun ...Stephane Mallarme

The Afternoon of a Faun

***************


These nymphs I would perpetuate.

So clear
Their light carnation, that it floats in the air
Heavy with tufted slumbers.

Was it a dream I loved?
My doubt, a heap of ancient night, is finishing
In many a subtle branch, which, left the true
Wood itself, proves, alas! that all alone I gave
Myself for triumph the ideal sin of roses.
Let me reflect...

if the girls of which you tell
Figure a wish of your fabulous senses!
Faun, the illusion escapes from the blue eyes
And cold, like a spring in tears, of the chaster one:
But, the other, all sighs, do you say she contrasts
Like a breeze of hot day in your fleece!
But no! through the still, weary faintness
Choking with heat the fresh morn if it strives,
No water murmurs but what my flute pours
On the chord sprinkled thicket; and the sole wind

Prompt to exhale from my two pipes, before
It scatters the sound in a waterless shower,
Is, on the horizon's unwrinkled space,
The visible serene artificial breath
Of inspiration, which regains the sky.

Oh you, Sicilian shores of a calm marsh
That more than the suns my vanity havocs,
Silent beneath the flowers
of sparks, RELATE
'That here I was cutting the hollow reeds tamed
By talent, when on the dull gold of the distant
Verdures dedicating their vines to the springs,

There waves an animal whiteness at rest:
And that to the prelude where the pipes first stir
This flight of swans, no! Naiads, flies
Or plunges...'



Inert, all burns in the fierce hour
Nor marks by what art all at once bolted
Too much hymen desired by who seeks the Ia:
Then shall I awake to the primitive fervour,
Straight and alone, 'neath antique floods of light,
Lilies and one of you all through my ingenuousness.

As well as this sweet nothing their lips purr,
The kiss, which a hush assures of the perfid ones,

My breast, though proofless, still attests a bite
Mysterious, due to some august tooth;
But enough! for confidant such mystery chose
The great double reed which one plays 'neath the blue:
Which, the cheek's trouble turning to itself
Dreams, in a solo long, we might amuse
Surrounding beauties by confusions false
Between themselves and our credulous song;
And to make, just as high as love modulates,
Die out of the everyday dream of a back
Or a pure flank followed by my curtained eyes,
An empty, sonorous, monotonous line.

Try then, instrument of flights, oh malign
Syrinx, to reflower by the lakes where you wait for me!
I, proud of my rumour, for long I will talk
Of goddesses; and by picturings idolatrous,
From their shades unloose yet more of their girdles:
So when of grapes the clearness I've sucked,
To banish regret by my ruse disavowed,
Laughing, I lift the empty bunch to the sky,
Blowing into its luminous skins and athirst
To be drunk, till the evening I keep looking through.

Oh nymphs, we diverse MEMORIES refill.
'My eye, piercing the reeds, shot at each immortal
Neck, which drowned its burning in the wave
With a cry of rage to the forest sky;
And the splendid bath of their hair disappears

In the shimmer and shuddering, oh diamonds!

I run, when, there at my feet, enlaced. Lie
(hurt by the languor they taste to be two)
Girls sleeping amid their own casual arms;
them I seize, and not disentangling them, fly
To this thicket, hated by the frivilous shade,
Of roses drying up their scent in the sun
Where our delight may be like the day sun-consumed.'
I adore it, the anger of virgins, the wild
Delight of the sacred nude burden which slips
To escape from my hot lips drinking, as lightning
Flashes! the secret terror of the flesh:
From the feet of the cruel one to the heart of the timid
Who together lose an innocence, humid
With wild tears or less sorrowful vapours.
'My crime is that I, gay at conquering the treacherous
Fears, the dishevelled tangle divided
Of kisses, the gods kept so well commingled;
For before I could stifle my fiery laughter
In the happy recesses of one (while I kept
With a finger alone, that her feathery whiteness
Should be dyed by her sister's kindling desire,
The younger one, naive and without a blush)
When from my arms, undone by vague failing,
This pities the sob wherewith I was still drunk.'



Ah well, towards happiness others will lead me
With their tresses knotted to the horns of my brow:
You know, my passion, that purple and just ripe,

The pomegranates burst and murmur with bees;
And our blood, aflame for her who will take it,
Flows for all the eternal swarm of desire.
At the hour when this wood's dyed with gold and with ashes
A festival glows in the leafage extinguished:
Etna! 'tis amid you, visited by Venus
On your lava fields placing her candid feet,
When a sad stillness thunders wherein the flame dies.
I hold the queen!

O penalty sure...

No, but the soul
Void of word and my body weighed down
Succumb in the end to midday's proud silence:
No more, I must sleep, forgetting the outrage,
On the thirsty sand lying, and as I delight
Open my mouth to wine's potent star!

Adieu, both! I shall see the shade you became.



Stephane Mallarme
Translation by Roger Fry

Desires numbs...

desire numbs our Number
burn not time
number Nine
rest in me
Bird of destiny

The Hymns of Orpheus

drawing by
Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule

TO PAN

THE FUMIGATION FROM VARIOUS ODOURS

I Call strong Pan, the substance of the whole,
Etherial, marine, earthly, general soul,
Immortal fire; for all the world is thine,
And all are parts of thee, O pow'r divine.



Come, blessed Pan, whom rural haunts delight,
Come, leaping, agile, wand'ring, starry light;
The Hours and Seasons, wait thy high command,
And round thy throne in graceful order stand.
Goat-footed, horned, Bacchanalian Pan,
Fanatic pow'r, from whom the world began,
Whose various parts by thee inspir'd, combine
In endless dance and melody divine.
In thee a refuge from our fears we find,
Those fears peculiar to the human kind.
Thee shepherds, streams of water, goats rejoice,
Thou. lov'st the chace, and Echo's secret voice:
The sportive nymphs, thy ev'ry step attend,
And all thy works fulfill their destin'd end.
O all-producing pow'r, much-fam'd, divine,
The world's great ruler, rich increase is thine.
All-fertile Pæan, heav'nly splendor pure,
In fruits rejoicing, and in caves obscure.



True serpent-horned Jove, whose dreadful rage
When rous'd, 'tis hard for mortals to asswage.
By thee the earth wide-bosom'd deep and long,
Stands on a basis permanent and strong.
Th' unwearied waters of the rolling sea,
Profoundly spreading, yield to thy decree.
Old Ocean too reveres thy high command,
Whose liquid arms begirt the solid land.
The spacious air, whose nutrimental fire,
And vivid blasts, the heat of life inspire
The lighter frame of fire, whose sparkling eye
Shines on the summit of the azure sky,
Submit alike to thee, whole general sway
All parts of matter, various form'd obey.



All nature's change thro' thy protecting care,
And all mankind thy lib'ral bounties share:
For these where'er dispers'd thro' boundless space,
Still find thy providence support their race.
Come, Bacchanalian, blessed power draw near,
Fanatic Pan, thy humble suppliant hear,
Propitious to these holy rites attend,
And grant my life may meet a prosp'rous end;
Drive panic Fury too, wherever found,
From human kind, to earth's remotest bound.

***

TO PROTOGONUS

O Mighty first-begotten, hear my pray'r,
Two-fold, egg-born, and wand'ring thro' the air,



Bull-roarer, glorying in thy golden wings,
From whom the race of Gods and mortals springs.



Ericapæus, celebrated pow'r,
Ineffable, occult, all shining flow'r.
From eyes obscure thou wip'st the gloom of night,
All-spreading splendour, pure and holy light
Hence Phanes call'd, the glory of the sky,
On waving pinions thro' the world you fly. 10
Priapus, dark-ey'd splendour, thee I sing,
Genial, all-prudent, ever-blessed king,



With joyful aspect on our rights divine
And holy sacrifice propitious shine.

***The Hymns of Orpheus

alterius non sit qui suus esse potest....Paracelsus

alterius non sit qui suus esse potest, "let no man belong to another that can belong to himself." Paracelsus

Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (1493-1541) - original name Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim

“Thoughts are free and are subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, and they tower above the light of nature. For thoughts give birth to a creative force that is neither elemental nor sidereal…. Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow…. When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him…. "

"He who is born in imagination discovers the latent forces of Nature. . . . Besides the stars that are established, there is yet another -- Imagination -- that begets a new star and a new heaven."

Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.

“Know that man makes great discoveries concerning future and hidden things, which are despised and scoffed at by the ignorant who do not realize what nature can accomplish by virtue of her spirit…. Thus, the uncertain arts are in such a state that a new generation must come, full of prophetic and sibylline spirit, which will awaken and direct the skills and arts. The arts of this kind…are quite old, and enjoyed great reputation among the ancient. They were kept secret and taught secretly. For the students of these arts devoted their time to inner contemplation and faith, and by such means they discovered and proved many great things. But the men of today have no longer such capacity for imagination and faith; today their minds are exclusively concerned with things that are pleasant to the flesh and the blood; only what the flesh and blood want and desire is being studied, that alone is still being practiced…. These arts are uncertain today because man is uncertain in himself. For he who is not certain of himself cannot be certain in his actions; a skeptic can never create anything enduring, nor can anyone who serves only the body accomplish true spiritual works.”

The character of Paracelsus has inspired several writers, among them Jung, Robert Browning, (1812-1889), Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), and Jorge Luis Borges (1889-1986).

In Borges's story 'The Rose of Paracelsus' the doctor prays to his God to send him a disciple. A young man (Johannes Grisebach) appears. He is ready to follow Paracelsus, if he can prove his skills as an alchemist by burning a rose to ashes and making it emerge again. Paracelsus says that the rose is eternal, and only its appearances may change. "The path is the Stone. The point of departure is the Stone. If these words are unclear to you, you have not yet begun to understand. Every step you take is the goal you seek." (from 'The Rose of Paracelsus' by Jorge Luis Borges) The man throws the rose into the flames. Paracelsus tells that all the other physicians call him a fraud - perhaps they are right. The young man says: "What I have done is unpardonable. I have lacked belief, which the Lord demands of all the faithful. Let me, then, continue to see ashes. I will come back again when I am stronger, and I will be your disciple, and at the end of the Path I will see the rose." He leaves, promising to come back, but they both know that they would not see each other again. Alone, Paracelsus whispers a single word and the rose appears again.

DAT ROSA MEL APIBUS "The Rose Gives The Bees Honey" engraving (possibly) by Johann Thedore deBry (d. 1598).

"Stop making gold," he taught, "instead find medicines."

August Natterer...in the Time of Apparition

My Eyes in the Time of Apparition

Anti christ

The miraculous shepherd

World Axis with Hare around 1911/17

August Natterer, given the pseudonym Neter by his psychiatrist to protect him and his family from the immense social stigma associated with mental illness at the time, was born in 1868 in Schornreute, near Ravensburg, Germany, the son of a clerk and the youngest of nine children. Natterer studied engineering, got married, traveled widely, and had a successful career as an electrician but was suddenly stricken with delusions and anxiety attacks. On April Fool's Day, 1907 he had a pivotal hallucination of the Last Judgment during which "10,000 images flashed by in half an hour." He described it as follows:

“I saw a white spot in the clouds absolutely close – all the clouds paused – then the white spot departed and stood all the time like a board in the sky. On the same board or the screen or stage now images as quick as a flash followed each other, about 10,000 in half an hour… God himself occurred, the witch, who created the world – in between worldly visions: images of war, continents, memorials, castles, beautiful castles, just the glory of the world – but all of this to see in supernal images. They were at least twenty meter big, clear to observe, almost without color like photographs… The images were epiphanies of the Last Judgment. Christ couldn't fulfill the salvation because he was crucified early... God revealed them to me to accomplish the salvation.”[1]

This ordeal led to a suicide attempt and committal to the first of what would be several mental asylums occupied during the remaining 26 years of his life. Natterer thereafter maintained that he was the illegitimate child of Emperor Napoleon I and "Redeemer of the World." The vision had inspired an intense production of drawings, all documenting images and ideas seen in the vision. Because of the intense and psychotic imagery, Netterer's work is more often studied scientifically than artistically. He died in 1933 in an asylum near Rottweil.

pioneers of abstract cinema....Franciszka and Stefan Themerson

1945, black and white, 11 mins

We Are Transmitters...

Painting by DH Lawrence

We Are Transmitters by D. H. Lawrence

As we live, we are transmitters of life.

And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow

through us.

That is part of the mystery of sex, it is a flow onwards,

Sexless people’ transmit nothing.

And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work,

life, still more life, rushes into us to compensate, to be ready

and we ripple with life through the days.

Even if it is a woman making an apple dumpling, or a

man a stool,

if life goes into the pudding, good is the pudding

good is the stool,

content is the woman, with fresh life rippling in to her,

content is the man.

Give, and it shall be given unto you

is still the truth about life.

But giving life is not so easy.

It doesn’t mean handing it out to some mean fool, or letting

the living dead eat you up.

It means kindling the life-quality where it was not,

even if it’s only in the whiteness of a washed pocket-handkerchief.

une nuit sur le Mont chauve...

Directed by Alexander Alexeieff & Claire Parker. 1933