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Birth of the mysterious Alchemical Sentinels
3 months working day and night with an exceptional “dream team"… a big thank you to ACS, Luc, my trusty Giant who could lift a juggernaut onto a balcony (QED Thierry Loir) Thomas Cart'1, Goin, and of course Marc for the paints.
I have managed to set up my installation of 99 raw steel sculptures with an incredibly demanding specification: none of the 3600 work on the DDC site were to be hidden… we had to think about power sources, water crossings, access for construction machinery including the telescopic booms (3m wide)… public safety, ERP museum standards, etc, ... constantly alternating between the visible and the invisible...
Are they inhabited? I don’t know. One thing is certain: each sentinel stands as a unique sculpture in terms of its alchemical elements and paintwork (either with anti-rust paint or voluntarily with paints that do not resist rust). This autumn, each sentinel will reveal – with the acid rain – different interpretations, depending on the paints and solvents used, making each one different, with stratifications that future archaeologists will decipher.
But my most perilous challenge was to create a giant (9000 m²) installation that envelops the Abode of Chaos with dozens of tons of steel, so that my visitors, from any angle, enter a dreamlike fantasy and where the world of the Abode of Chaos on the one hand and that of the 99 monumental sculptures (named "Alchemical Sentinels" during an extremely busy night ) intersect like the Inframince defined by Marcel Duchamp (or, how to build intensities by subtraction).
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are now the guardians of the Sanctuary that the Abode of Chaos has become. I designed them as veritable quantum energy wells that we placed with patience and wisdom at different spots all over the Abode of Chaos.
There are 99 in total, made of 10mm rough steel (50 tons), welded to form perfect equilateral triangles. Each of the three sides constituting an Alchemical Sentinel is itself cut to reveal a meurtrière, again in the shape of an equilateral triangle, presenting a superb Euclidean geometry to the visitor.
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are each placed at specific energy points on the 9000 m² of the Abode of Chaos. Some are hidden by vegetation or natural landforms or are placed in relation to existing works. Others are located in our private and professionals spaces.
In my alchemical work that began on 9 December 1999, the three gates arranged in an equilateral triangle with one vertex pointing upwards, form the luminous delta. They represent the three elements that alchemists work with. These three elements are sulphur, mercury and salt.
Note that the three elements found in the Prima Materia (or Alchemical Chaos) are very closely related. The point triangle is also the symbol of the fire philosophers.
The equilateral triangle resting on its base – like the three points – is the symbol of the fire element, one of the four elements that the alchemist works with in the laboratory.
The geometric properties of the equilateral triangle evoke absolute perfection by their spiritual strength and their age-old symbolism going back to ancient Egypt… strength, beauty and harmony.
They will remain for a thousand years as witnesses to a civilization lost through the folly of men.
thierry Ehrmann
-------------------------------------------------
3 mois de travail jour et nuit, une "dream team" hors du commun, un grand merci à ACS, Luc, mon fidèle Géant qui poserait un 38 T. sur un balcon (cqfd Thierry Loir) Thomas, Cart'1, Goin et bien sûr Marc pour les peintures.
Je suis arrivé à poser mon installation de 99 sculptures d'acier brut avec un cahier des charges de ouf, aucune des 3600 œuvres de la DDC ne devaient être occultées, penser aux sources électriques, les passages d'eau, les voies de transport pour engin de chantier, les nacelles télescopiques (3m de large), protéger le grand public, respecter les normes ERP muséales, etc… Alterner en permanence monstration et effacement…
Sont-elles habitées ? Je l'ignore. Une chose certaine est que chacune, par les éléments alchimiques et les codes peints soit à l'antirouille soit volontairement avec des peintures dégradables par la rouille avec le temps, rend chaque sentinelle comme une sculpture unique. Cet automne chaque sentinelle va laisser apparaître, avec les pluies acides, différents niveaux de lecture, selon les peintures et solvants utilisés, les rendant singulières avec des stratifications que les archéologues des temps futurs décrypteront...
Mais mon défi le plus périlleux, était de créer une installation géante de 9000 m2 qui enveloppe, par des dizaines de tonnes d'acier, la Demeure du Chaos pour que mes visiteurs sur 360 degrés, plongent dans un univers onirique et fantasmagorique où les deux univers que sont la Demeure du Chaos d'une part et d'autre part l'installation des 99 sculptures monumentales (baptisées par une nuit très agitée "Sentinelles Alchimiques") s'entrecroisent selon l'Inframince définit par Marcel Duchamp (ou comment construire des intensités par soustraction).
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont désormais les gardiennes du Sanctuaire que représente la Demeure du Chaos. Je les ai conçus comme de véritable puits d’énergie quantique que je pose avec patience et sagesse sur l’ensemble de la Demeure du Chaos.
Elles sont au nombre de 99, faites d’acier brut de 10 mm (50 tonnes) soudées pour former un triangle équilatéral parfait. Chacun des 3 pans constituant une Sentinelle Alchimique, est lui même découpé pour laisser entrevoir une mystérieuse meurtrière, elle même en forme de triangle équilatéral, donnant ainsi une géométrie Euclidienne au regard du visiteur.
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont chacune à des points d’énergie particuliers de la Demeure du Chaos sur 9000 m2. Certaines se dissimulent par la végétation ou les reliefs naturels ou bien en écho aux autres œuvres, d’autres sont dans les espaces privatifs ou professionnels.
Dans mon travail alchimique démarré le 9 décembre 1999, les trois portes disposées en triangle équilatéral, dont un sommet est dirigé vers le haut, forment le delta lumineux. Elle sont les trois corps sur lesquels l’alchimiste va œuvrer. Ces trois corps sont le soufre, le mercure et le sel.
Soulignons que les trois corps présents dans la Materia Prima ou Chaos alchimique sont étroitement mélangés. Le triangle de point est aussi la marque des philosophes par le feu.
Le triangle équilatéral reposant sur sa base, à la manière des trois points, est le symbole de l’élément feu, l’un des quatre éléments avec lequel l’alchimiste travaille au laboratoire.
Les propriétés géométriques du triangle équilatéral relèvent de la perfection absolue par sa force spirituelle, son symbolisme de la nuit des temps notamment dans l’ancienne Egypte, il est force, beauté et harmonie.
Elles resteront durant mille ans comme les témoins d’une civilisation disparue par la folie des hommes
thierry Ehrmann
Biographie interdite de thierry Ehrmann/ forbidden biography of thierry Ehrmann…
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
"999" English version with English subtitles is available >>>
HD movie - scenario thierry Ehrmann - filmed by Etienne Perrone
----------
voir les secrets de la Demeure du Chaos avec 112 pages très étranges (adult only)
999 : visite initiatique au coeur de la Demeure du Chaos insufflée par l'Esprit de la Salamandre
Film HD d'Etienne PERRONE selon un scénario original de thierry Ehrmann.
courtesy of Organ Museum
©2011 www.AbodeofChaos.org
Birth of the mysterious Alchemical Sentinels
3 months working day and night with an exceptional “dream team"… a big thank you to ACS, Luc, my trusty Giant who could lift a juggernaut onto a balcony (QED Thierry Loir) Thomas Cart'1, Goin, and of course Marc for the paints.
I have managed to set up my installation of 99 raw steel sculptures with an incredibly demanding specification: none of the 3600 work on the DDC site were to be hidden… we had to think about power sources, water crossings, access for construction machinery including the telescopic booms (3m wide)… public safety, ERP museum standards, etc, ... constantly alternating between the visible and the invisible...
Are they inhabited? I don’t know. One thing is certain: each sentinel stands as a unique sculpture in terms of its alchemical elements and paintwork (either with anti-rust paint or voluntarily with paints that do not resist rust). This autumn, each sentinel will reveal – with the acid rain – different interpretations, depending on the paints and solvents used, making each one different, with stratifications that future archaeologists will decipher.
But my most perilous challenge was to create a giant (9000 m²) installation that envelops the Abode of Chaos with dozens of tons of steel, so that my visitors, from any angle, enter a dreamlike fantasy and where the world of the Abode of Chaos on the one hand and that of the 99 monumental sculptures (named "Alchemical Sentinels" during an extremely busy night ) intersect like the Inframince defined by Marcel Duchamp (or, how to build intensities by subtraction).
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are now the guardians of the Sanctuary that the Abode of Chaos has become. I designed them as veritable quantum energy wells that we placed with patience and wisdom at different spots all over the Abode of Chaos.
There are 99 in total, made of 10mm rough steel (50 tons), welded to form perfect equilateral triangles. Each of the three sides constituting an Alchemical Sentinel is itself cut to reveal a meurtrière, again in the shape of an equilateral triangle, presenting a superb Euclidean geometry to the visitor.
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are each placed at specific energy points on the 9000 m² of the Abode of Chaos. Some are hidden by vegetation or natural landforms or are placed in relation to existing works. Others are located in our private and professionals spaces.
In my alchemical work that began on 9 December 1999, the three gates arranged in an equilateral triangle with one vertex pointing upwards, form the luminous delta. They represent the three elements that alchemists work with. These three elements are sulphur, mercury and salt.
Note that the three elements found in the Prima Materia (or Alchemical Chaos) are very closely related. The point triangle is also the symbol of the fire philosophers.
The equilateral triangle resting on its base – like the three points – is the symbol of the fire element, one of the four elements that the alchemist works with in the laboratory.
The geometric properties of the equilateral triangle evoke absolute perfection by their spiritual strength and their age-old symbolism going back to ancient Egypt… strength, beauty and harmony.
They will remain for a thousand years as witnesses to a civilization lost through the folly of men.
thierry Ehrmann
-------------------------------------------------
3 mois de travail jour et nuit, une "dream team" hors du commun, un grand merci à ACS, Luc, mon fidèle Géant qui poserait un 38 T. sur un balcon (cqfd Thierry Loir) Thomas, Cart'1, Goin et bien sûr Marc pour les peintures.
Je suis arrivé à poser mon installation de 99 sculptures d'acier brut avec un cahier des charges de ouf, aucune des 3600 œuvres de la DDC ne devaient être occultées, penser aux sources électriques, les passages d'eau, les voies de transport pour engin de chantier, les nacelles télescopiques (3m de large), protéger le grand public, respecter les normes ERP muséales, etc… Alterner en permanence monstration et effacement…
Sont-elles habitées ? Je l'ignore. Une chose certaine est que chacune, par les éléments alchimiques et les codes peints soit à l'antirouille soit volontairement avec des peintures dégradables par la rouille avec le temps, rend chaque sentinelle comme une sculpture unique. Cet automne chaque sentinelle va laisser apparaître, avec les pluies acides, différents niveaux de lecture, selon les peintures et solvants utilisés, les rendant singulières avec des stratifications que les archéologues des temps futurs décrypteront...
Mais mon défi le plus périlleux, était de créer une installation géante de 9000 m2 qui enveloppe, par des dizaines de tonnes d'acier, la Demeure du Chaos pour que mes visiteurs sur 360 degrés, plongent dans un univers onirique et fantasmagorique où les deux univers que sont la Demeure du Chaos d'une part et d'autre part l'installation des 99 sculptures monumentales (baptisées par une nuit très agitée "Sentinelles Alchimiques") s'entrecroisent selon l'Inframince définit par Marcel Duchamp (ou comment construire des intensités par soustraction).
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont désormais les gardiennes du Sanctuaire que représente la Demeure du Chaos. Je les ai conçus comme de véritable puits d’énergie quantique que je pose avec patience et sagesse sur l’ensemble de la Demeure du Chaos.
Elles sont au nombre de 99, faites d’acier brut de 10 mm (50 tonnes) soudées pour former un triangle équilatéral parfait. Chacun des 3 pans constituant une Sentinelle Alchimique, est lui même découpé pour laisser entrevoir une mystérieuse meurtrière, elle même en forme de triangle équilatéral, donnant ainsi une géométrie Euclidienne au regard du visiteur.
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont chacune à des points d’énergie particuliers de la Demeure du Chaos sur 9000 m2. Certaines se dissimulent par la végétation ou les reliefs naturels ou bien en écho aux autres œuvres, d’autres sont dans les espaces privatifs ou professionnels.
Dans mon travail alchimique démarré le 9 décembre 1999, les trois portes disposées en triangle équilatéral, dont un sommet est dirigé vers le haut, forment le delta lumineux. Elle sont les trois corps sur lesquels l’alchimiste va œuvrer. Ces trois corps sont le soufre, le mercure et le sel.
Soulignons que les trois corps présents dans la Materia Prima ou Chaos alchimique sont étroitement mélangés. Le triangle de point est aussi la marque des philosophes par le feu.
Le triangle équilatéral reposant sur sa base, à la manière des trois points, est le symbole de l’élément feu, l’un des quatre éléments avec lequel l’alchimiste travaille au laboratoire.
Les propriétés géométriques du triangle équilatéral relèvent de la perfection absolue par sa force spirituelle, son symbolisme de la nuit des temps notamment dans l’ancienne Egypte, il est force, beauté et harmonie.
Elles resteront durant mille ans comme les témoins d’une civilisation disparue par la folie des hommes
thierry Ehrmann
It became apparent that the site was well suited for another high-profile memorial since it sat directly south of the White House. By 1901 the Senate Park Commission, better known as the McMillan Commission, had proposed placing a pantheon-like structure on the site hosting "the statues of the illustrious men of the nation, or whether the memory of some individual shall be honored by a monument of the first rank may be left to the future"; no action was ever taken by Congress on this issue.[3]
The completion of the Tidal Basin Inlet Bridge in 1908 helped to facilitate the recreational usage of East and West Potomac Parks. In 1918, large liquid-chlorine dispensers were installed under the bridge to treat the water and make the Tidal Basin (also known as Twining Lake) suitable for swimming. The Tidal Basin Beach, on the site of the future Memorial, opened in May 1918 and operated as a "Whites Only" facility through 1925, when it was permanently closed to avoid the question of racial integration.[5]
A design competition was held for a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt in 1925. The winning design was submitted by John Russell Pope and consisted of a half-circle memorial situated next to a circular basin. The plan was never funded by Congress and was not built.[3]
Jefferson Memorial Side View
The Memorial's chance came in 1934 when President Franklin Roosevelt, an admirer of Jefferson himself, inquired to the Commission of Fine Arts about the possibility of erecting a memorial to Jefferson, including it in the plans for the Federal Triangle project, which was under construction at the time. Later the same year, Congressman John J. Boylan jumped off FDR's starting point and urged Congress to create the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission. Boylan was appointed the Commission's first chairman and Congress eventually appropriated $3 million for a memorial to Jefferson.[3]
Jefferson warns that a nation cannot be "ignorant and free."
The Commission chose John Russell Pope as the architect in 1935. Pope was also the architect of the National Archives Building and original (west) building of the National Gallery of Art. He prepared four different plans for the project, each on a different site. One was on the Anacostia River at the end of East Capitol Street; one at Lincoln Park; one on the south side of the National Mall across from the National Archives; and one situated on the Tidal Basin, directly south of the White House. The Commission preferred the site on the Tidal Basin mainly because it was the most prominent site and because it completed the four-point plan called for by the McMillan Commission (Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol; White House to the Tidal Basin site). Pope designed a very large pantheon-like structure, to sit on a square platform, and to be flanked by two smaller, rectangular, colonnaded buildings.[3]
[edit] Construction
Under construction in 1941, as seen from across the Tidal Basin
Construction began on December 15, 1938 and the cornerstone was laid on November 15, 1939, by president Franklin Roosevelt. By this point Pope had died (1937) and his surviving partners, Daniel P. Higgins and Otto R. Eggers, took over construction of the memorial. The design was modified at the request of the Commission of Fine Arts to a more conservative design.
Construction commenced amid significant opposition. The Commission of Fine Arts never actually approved any design for the Memorial and even published a pamphlet in 1939 opposing both the design and site of the Memorial. In addition, many Washingtonians opposed the site because it was not aligned with L'Enfant's original plan. Finally, many well established elm and cherry trees had to be removed for construction. Construction continued amid the opposition.[3]
In 1939, the Memorial Commission hosted a competition to select a sculptor for the planned statue in the center of the Memorial. They received 101 entries and chose six finalists. Of the six, Rudulph Evans was chosen as the main sculptor and Adolph A. Weinman was chosen to sculpt the pediment relief situated above the entrance.[3]
The Jefferson Memorial was officially dedicated by President Roosevelt on April 13, 1943, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birthday. At that time, Evans' statue had not yet been finished. Due to material shortages during World War II, the statue that was installed at the time was a plaster cast of Evans' work painted to look like bronze. The finished bronze statue was installed in 1947, having been cast by the Roman Bronze Company of New York.[3]
One of the last American public monuments in the Beaux-Arts tradition,[citation needed] the Memorial was severely criticized even as it was being built, by those who adhered to the modernist argument that dressing 20th century buildings like Greek and Roman ones constituted a "tired architectural lie."[citation needed] More than 60 years ago, Pope responded with silence to critics who dismissed him as part of an enervated architectural elite practicing "styles that are safely dead."[citation needed] As a National Memorial it was administratively listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.[1][6]
[edit] Description
The monument's marble steps, portico, and circular colonnade of Ionic order columns, and shallow dome.
Composed of circular marble steps, a portico, a circular colonnade of Ionic order columns, and a shallow dome, the building is open to the elements. Pope made references to the Roman Pantheon and Jefferson's own design for the Rotunda at the University of Virginia. It is situated in West Potomac Park, on the shore of the Tidal Basin of the Potomac River. The Jefferson Memorial, and the White House located directly north, form one of the main anchor points in the area of the National Mall in D.C. The Washington Monument, just east of the axis on the national Mall, was intended to be located at the intersection of the White House and the site for the Jefferson Memorial to the south, but soft swampy ground which defied 19th century engineering required it be sited to the east.[citation needed]
[edit] The interior
Rudulph Evans's statue of Thomas Jefferson with excerpts from the Declaration of Independence to the right
The interior of the memorial has a 19-foot (5.8 m) tall, 10,000 lb (4336 kg) bronze statue[7] of Jefferson by sculptor Rudulph Evans[7] showing Jefferson looking out toward the White House. This statue was added four years after the dedication. Most prominent are the words which are inscribed in a frieze below the dome: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."[8] This sentence is taken from a September 23, 1800, letter by Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush wherein he defends the constitutional refusal to recognize a state religion.
On the panel of the southwest interior wall are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, written in 1776:[9]
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We...solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states...And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.
Note that the inscription uses the word "inalienable", as in Jefferson's draft, rather than "unalienable", as in the published Declaration.[10]
On the panel of the northwest interior wall is an excerpt from "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1777", except for the last sentence, which is taken from a letter of August 28, 1789, to James Madison:[9][11]
Almighty God hath created the mind free...All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.
Detail of the statue
The quotes from the panel of the northeast interior wall are from multiple sources. The first sentence, beginning "God who gave...", is from "A Summary View of the Rights of British America".[12] The second, third and fourth sentences are from Notes on the State of Virginia.[13] The fifth sentence, beginning "Nothing is more...", is from Jefferson's autobiography.[14] The sixth sentence, beginning "Establish the law...", is from an August 13, 1790, letter to George Wythe.[15] The final sentence is from a letter of January 4, 1786, to George Washington[16]:[9]
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan.
The inscription on the panel of the southeast interior wall is redacted and excerpted from a letter July 12, 1816, to Samuel Kercheval:[17][9]
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
[edit] Criticism
Cato Institute Fellow and University of Alberta history professor emeritus Ronald Hamowy has called the inscriptions "[p]erhaps the most egregious examples of invoking Jefferson for purely transient political purposes." Hamowy argues that:
Planned and built during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the walls of the memorial are adorned with quotations from Jefferson’s writings, many of which suggest that Jefferson advocated positions consistent with the aims of the New Deal—with which he would, in fact, have had little sympathy. Thus, Jefferson’s admonition that an educated electorate was essential if liberty were to be preserved is transmuted into a call for universal public education. And his caution that man, as he advances in his understanding of the world, must accompany his greater enlightenment with changes in his social institutions becomes a justification for a new theory of government in keeping with the social-democratic principles that animated the New Deal.[18]
The excerpts chosen from the Declaration have been criticized because the first half alters Jefferson's prose (for the sake of saving space) and eliminates the right of revolution passage that Jefferson believed was the point of the Declaration, while much of the second half (from "solemnly publish" to "divine providence") was not written by Jefferson.[19]
The fifth sentence quoted on the northeast interior wall ("Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these people are to be free.") has been called "misleadingly truncated" by historian Garry Wills, because Jefferson's sentence continued with: "Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government."[20]
[edit] Location
Jefferson Memorial, with Potomac River in the background. Photographed from the top of the Washington Monument, January 1967
The site of the monument is in Washington D.C. West Potomac Park, on the shore of the Potomac River Tidal Basin, is enhanced with the massed planting of Japanese cherry trees, a gift from the people of Japan in 1912.[21]
The monument is not as prominent in popular culture as other Washington, D.C. buildings and monuments, possibly due to its location well removed from the National Mall and the Washington Metro. The Jefferson Memorial hosts many events and ceremonies each year, including memorial exercises, the Easter Sunrise Service, and the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival.[21]
The monument is open 24 hours a day but park rangers are there only until 11:30 p.m.;however, the monument is only a few hundred yards from the National Park Police D.C. Headquarters in East Potomac Park. (0330 UTC)[22]
---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----
---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----
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Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.
In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.
The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.
Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.
Ezio Famà.
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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.
Ezio Famà.
The Fourth Spirit is SAMIGINA or GAMIGIN, a Great Female Shaman of a Marchioness.
She can also take one unto the heights of Heaven via a Looking-Glass Pole-Star portal of a Vaginal Wormhole into other Parallel Universes whereby her Master is then enabled to walk Alternate Worlds to know of the Dead yet Alive for there is no Death, merely Transitions between Universes Parallel to ones own, and when to visit, one is a Ghost.
She will, sometimes manifest as a small horse that one can find in Mongolia or that of an eight-legged female centaur of an Unmarked, Marked State operator tethered to the Multiverse world tree upon whose back she will allow her Master to ride.
Vajrayogini is a Buddhist Goddess of initiation whom is also perceived as being a Dakini
One could equate Vajrayogini with ‘Samigina’ to imaginatively fuse with the character of ‘Alice’ in Wonderland into a singular Magickal personage of a Tulpa whose Psychonaut knowledge of Surreal Underworld Wonderlands Under-Bed would be on par with that of the female Nishan Shaman of Mongolian lore who specialised in the Dolbor-Ritual of Underworld journeying.
Vajrayogini guides one through the Hypnagogic Hymen veil of 'Rabbit Hole' Yoni portal into ones Dreams made Lucid of awareness
she is often described with the epithet Sarva-Buddha-Dakini, meaning ‘the Dakini who is the Essence of all Buddha's’. Vajrayogini’s Sadhana, or practice originated in India between the Tenth and Twelfth centuries whose prior practices were originally derived from Shamanistic techniques. Vajrayogini Sadhana evolved from the Chakrasamvara Sadhana, whose emphasis is upon the male deity who had control over the ‘Wheel of Time’ called Chakrasamvara where Vajrayogini appears as Chakrasamvara’s Yab-Yum consort, which became a stand-alone practice of Anuttarayoga Tantra in its own right.
The practice involved a Male practitioner identifying him self with Chakrasamvara via deep meditation in order to assume the guise of Chakrasamvara and hence then became unified with the Vajrayogini of consort. One could associate the Wheel of Time with the ‘Tenth’ Tarot Card of the Wheel of Fortune as well as with the Zodiac Star Signs ringed around a ‘Thirteenth’ sign at the midst of ‘Eight’ directions. The practice of Vajrayogini belongs to the Mother Tantras, Tibetan: Ma-rgyud, class of Anuttarayoga Tantra, along with the Tantras such as Chakrasamvara and Hevajra. According to Miranda Shaw, Vajrayogini is: "inarguably the supreme deity of the Tantric pantheon. No male Buddha, including her divine consort, Heruka-Cakrasa vara, approaches her in metaphysical or practical import."
Vajrayogini is visualized as a translucent, deep Red skinned nubile nymphet of a 16 year old Girl Lolita who is depicted naked with the third eye of wisdom set vertically upon her forehead. Vajrayogini is generally pictured with the traditional items, which a Dakini has in her possession; her consort Chakrasamvara is often shown as a spear upon Vajrayogini’s shoulder, when she is in ‘solitary heroine’ form like that of a Norse Valkyrie; such Valkyries are often depicted riding Horses across the sky like that of Void-Going Dakini's.
In her form as Vajravarahi, she is known as ‘the Vajra Sow’ for she is often pictured with a sow’s head upon the side of her own while in other depictions she has the head of a sow herself. Vajrayogini is often associated with the triumph over Ignorance; the Pig is usually associated with Ignorance in Buddhism of primary Sin. As for the deeper symbolism of the Pig, which stretches forth across into the Pagan lore of ancient pre-Christian Europe, the Pig and Boar symbolised the Underworld whose power was that of recurring (Karma) Cycles of Time, which required transformation by the internal Trance and engineered Lucid Dream ingress of a Shaman who was thereby enabled to untangle its weave. Such practice was often conducted at places of power, which were perceived to be at nexus points where the paths of the Spirits intersect of woven web across the globe of the Crystalline (Diamond) body of the Earth of found Cross-Roads; it was at the mid-point of the Cross-Roads that a Barrow-Mound portal into the Underworld can be found, but in order to access such a 'Rabbit Hole' of Time-Slip one had to first become as a Spirit via Trance ingress or Lucid Dreaming practice, whose technique was symbolised as a severed Head of Skull at the midst of Cross-Bones.
One will find such symbolism being portrayed in the severed-headed form of Vajrayogini whom is also very similar to the Indian Goddess Chinnamasta who is recognized by both Hindus and Buddhists.
Vajrayogini acts as a meditation deity, or the Yab-Yum consort of Time personified as deity in Vajrayana Buddhism. She appears within a Mandala, which is visualized by the practitioner according to a Sadhana describing a practice of a particular Anuttarayoga Tantra. There are several collections containing Sadhana associated with Vajrayogini but in one collection, the Guhyasamayasadhanamala, contains only Vajrayogini Sadhanas, which is comprised of forty-six works by various authors.
The Yidam, which a practitioner of meditation identifies with when practicing the Six Yogas of Naropa is that of Vajrayogini for she is a very important deity in Tantric initiation rites, especially for new initiates as Vajrayogini’s practice is said to be well-suited to those with strong desirous attachment to (Karma) habitual repeating patterns, and to those living in the current degenerate age, which has forgotten that Consciousness is indivisible from Time, one and the same of Chakrasamvara awareness, who is often depicted as a spear upon her shoulder.
Vajrayogini has a primary role in the advanced Tibetan Buddhist practice of Chöd, where she appears in her Kalika (Tibetan: Khros ma nag mo) or Vajravarahi (Tibetan:rDo rje phag mo) forms whom cuts away the shells of ones Ego fixation upon repeating cycles of phenomena ever recurring of habitual focus down to the core Diamond consciousness of ones Crystalline Skeletal form whereupon one becomes aware that one is generating the Cycles Of (Kala) ‘Time’ and that of the (Chakra) phenomena of Maya ‘Space’.
Vajrayogini also appears in versions of Guru Yoga within the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. In one popular system the Female practitioner worships their Male Guru in the form of Milarepa, whilst visualizing her self as Vajrayogini.
According to the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, each of the five main Tantric consorts of Padmasambhava is considered to be an emanation of 'Vajravarahi' whom bestows abilities:
Mandarava of Zahor: the emanation of Vajravarahi’s (Diamond) Body of Crystalline Earth perceived as a Dodecahedron, which also encompasses the Universe of a Dodecahedron amidst many another Dodecahedron Parallel Universe of Multiverse within which exists a myriad number of Alternate Realities. One comes to a realisation that the reality one is within is only one of many other realities. Socrates told his pupil Simmias: "My Dear Boy, the real Earth seen from above is supposed to look like Twelve pieces of skin sewed together." Some 2000yrs later, back in the 1960's three Russian scientists decided to test Socrates idea of a Dodecahedron Earth by re-examining the globe to see if any pattern should emerge linking significant places in History due to its formation of a Grid; it did. After several years of intensive research in Moscow, the scientists published their findings in Khimiyai Zhizn, the popular science journal of the then USSR Academy of Sciences, entitled: 'Is The Earth A Large Crystal?' Present Cosmologists have now determined that the Universe its self is of a Dodecahedron form.
Belwong Kalasiddhi of (North-West) India: the emanation of Vajravarahi’s Quality being that of Ecological Symbiosis and Interspecies Communication for everything is connected by a weave of web woven, which is that of the Bio-Photon Matrix of Light. One becomes aware of Auras and energy fields, which emanate from all forms whether organic or inorganic for everything is made of Light.
Belmo Sakya Devi of Nepal: the emanation of Vajravarahi’s Mind represents the Intelligence of all things, which communicates its self via a Symbolic language system of the Quantum Dream interface. When one recognises this one can become Conscious within the Dream in order to thence experience Lucid Dreaming, which can be taken further in regards to Trance ingress for both involves one capturing the Hypnagogic state between Waking and Sleeping whereby one becomes Amphibious of awareness.
Yeshe Tsogyal of Tibet: the emanation of Vajravarahi’s Speech via which one cane Evoke associated Symbols within the awakened Microcosmic Dream of Lucidity, which in turn affects ones Macrocosmic reality. One thereby becomes aware that ones habitual Internal Dialogue repetitively evokes external situations and when one changes the focus of ones Internal Dialogue one then experiences the phenomena of observable Synchronicity.
Mangala or Tashi Kyedren of "the Himalayas": the emanation of Vajravarahi’s Activity, which is that of ones experiential reality of one of many possibilities; however there be other Alternate Possibilities of a reality just beyond the veil of what one perceives to be real of Maya whereby one can leap from one perception of Reality into another Alternate Reality via portals of Synchronicity.
One can thereby perceive Alice in Wonderland of character fused with Vajrayogini who thence to become merged into Samigina of singular Succubae dancing as a Dakini into Wonderlands underground.
It is Underground of Crystalline Matrix Symmetry within ones deep Subconscious Mind of physiological Reptilian Brain-Stem drives that one will find the motivation for many of ones already formulated Actions; should one be unaware of such deep seated drives one will often repeat ones Actions over and over again especially when one has been imprinted of Program by an emotionally Traumatic episode in ones life. One can set up the necessary conditions to achieve ones dream job or to meet ones Soul-Mate but if one has an underlying childhood Trauma of being a failure or to be undesirable of love interest one will invariably find that one trips ones self up in order to validate how one perceives ones self deep down, whence to then lose ones Job and Love; in other words one ends up creating ones own personal Hell.
When one evokes Samigina it is for the purpose of transforming such underlying traits generating cyclic repeats of experience, which reflect back ones deeper psychological Programming; because of this Samigina is also that of Vajrayogini, hence one can combine the two as one. As for Alice, she has become the archetype of the Wonderlands found Underground of Under-World whereby one can thence fuse all three perspectives together for much of ones initial programming of imprinted neural net is derived from Childhood experiences especially in regards to ones Emotive Charge of Sexuality.
Vajrayogini takes the initial Goetia description of Samigina somewhere other of far more expansive explorations to thereby replace mundane ‘Sin’ with the Science of 'Karma;' however the word Sin was originally derived from the Sumerian-Babylonian Moon God Sin whose cult site was that of the Ziggurat of UR and as one to know the Moon marks out the Cycles of Time; this be more so in regards to the Feminine Menstrual Cycle whereby 'Sin' was originally a Female deity whom Cyclically bleeds while a Male does not; thereby when united with Alice-Samigina-Vajrayogini via Lucid Dreaming a Male practitioner can understand the Cyclic Wheel of Time and that of Eternal Recurrence, which is the (Habitual) Karma of Lead to transform into (Right Action) Dharma of Gold, should the practioner desire to engage him self in such Alchemy in order to transmute the ancestral (Karma) Reptile residing within him into a (Dharma) Dragon.
Aside from the traumatic conditions of an industrial Hell to which the Working-Classes were consigned to of Sinful underbelly belonging to the Victorian era whose prim and proper Christian morality was but a facade; the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has over time inspired numerous conjectures as to its Shamanic overtones and that of Hallucinogenic references to various substances being consumed by Alice in the story, which appear to induce Altered-States-of-Consciousness of growing small and large of Awareness. During the Psychedelic era of the Hippie 60's to 70’s Alice was very much of an Avatar of Surrealist Muse for the use of Mind-Altering substances in order to expand ones Consciousness into exploring 'Parallel-Universe' Wonderlands through Looking-Glass Wormholes of prior ‘Stargate’ traveller into the Multiverse 'Matrix' of the Quantum Dream.
---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----
---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----
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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.
In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.
The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.
Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.
Ezio Famà.
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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.
Ezio Famà.
FOR CENTURIES, alchemists have sought to change base metals into gold. But the transmutation of metals like lead into gold is symbolic of a higher and more noble alchemy -- the alchemy of self-transformation.
SELF-TRANSFORMATION was the goal of the most spiritual of alchemists. They sought a way to change the lead of negative human energy into the gold of divine energy, and some of them achieved this by using the violet flame. But first, let's explore what the violet flame is, what it does and how it works.
The violet flame (also called the violet fire) is a unique spiritual energy that can help you in all areas of your life. It can heal emotional and physical problems, improve your relationships, help you to grow spiritually, or just make life easier.
The flame is the essence of a unique spiritual light. Mystics of all ages have glimpsed a spiritual spectrum behind the physical spectrum. Radiant colors, more pure and rare than those found on earth, emanate from a brilliant, inner divine light. Just as a ray of sunlight passing through a prism refracts into seven colors, spiritual light splits into seven colors, or rays - each of which has specific divine qualities. The violet flame comes forth from the violet ray, which has the qualities of mercy, forgiveness, freedom and transmutation.
The color violet has long been associated with spirituality. Having the highest frequency in the visible spectrum, violet is at the point of transition to the next octave of light. To the ancients, this transcendental color was a spiritual rather than a physical phenomenon.
Saints and adepts throughout the ages have known how to use the violet flame, but it was only released to the public earlier this century by an Ascended Master called Saint Germain. Ascended Masters are enlightened spiritual beings who once walked the earth like you and me. They balanced their karma (paid their debts to life) and fulfilled their reason for being. They then ascended, or reunited with God. You probably already know the names of a few Ascended Masters - Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha and Krishna.
Saint Germain
The Ascended Master Saint Germain
What the Violet Flame Does
Ever wish there was a way you could wipe out your past mistakes?
While you can't go back in time, the violet flame has the power to erase, or transmute the cause, the effect, and even the memory of our past mistakes. Transmutation means to change - to alter in form, appearance or nature. The violet flame changes negative energy into positive energy, darkness into light, “fate” into opportunity. The flame also erases the resultant bad karma of our mistakes.
Our past actions - both good and bad - do come back to us. This is the law of karma. This impersonal cosmic law decrees that whatever we do comes full circle to our doorstep for resolution; simply, what goes around comes around.
In general, most people must pay their debt to life, or balance their karma, by selflessly reaching out and helping others, by working through misfortunes that come their way, or by passing through diseases or other forms of personal suffering. But it need not be so with the violet flame! The violet flame is able to transmute or mitigate our negative karma before it comes back to us.
On the physical level, the violet flame can help heal our bodies by removing the karma that makes us vulnerable to illness and disease. But the real cause of disease is often rooted in our mental, emotional and spiritual states.
Today, we are discovering more and more about how our thoughts and emotions can affect our health. Research has shown that hatred and other negative thoughts and feelings actually create excess amounts of acid in the body that it cannot assimilate. These negative thoughts and feelings often originate in emotional and psychological problems, which the violet flame can help to resolve. The scars of old hurts and painful memories may be healed and dissolved when the healing balm of the violet flame is applied.
How the Violet Flame Works
The violet flame works by changing “vibrations”. In physics, vibration is the speed of oscillation - the speed at which something moves back and forth. On the atomic level, vibration can be understood to be the speed at which electrons orbit around the nucleus of the atom. The violet flame works by changing vibrations on this level.
Atoms are mostly empty space. The empty space between the nucleus and the electrons is where negative energy and karma can become stuck. When the atoms in our bodies and auras become clogged with this negativity, the electrons whirl slower and slower, and we begin to resonate more with negativity, and less with light - we have a lower vibration, and become less spiritual.
The violet flame transmutes this negative energy. It does not simply surround and remove the energy, but transforms it into light. Because there is less density within the atom, the electrons whirl faster and faster, thereby raising your vibration.
When you have a higher vibration, there is more spiritual energy in your body. Acupuncturists and yogis know that optimum health comes when this spiritual energy flows freely throughout the body. The violet flame frees up this energy and re-establishes harmony and equilibrium, propelling you into a more spiritual state of being.
The Alchemist's Dream
The violet flame is a tool of self-transformation. Physical experiments in alchemy whereby base metals are transformed into gold are symbolic of what the violet flame does.
In medieval times, alchemists attempted to transmute base metals into gold, using heat to separate the “subtle” from the “gross”. While there have always been alchemists who sought to create wealth by transmuting base metals, this process of transmutation is symbolic of a higher and more noble alchemy - the alchemy of self-transformation.
Alchemists of the Spirit did not seek physical wealth, but spiritual wealth. They sought to transform themselves into more spiritual beings, by becoming more loving, wise and compassionate. The violet flame has the capacity to bring about this transformation by transmuting negative elements within ourselves. It has the unique ability to transform fear into courage, anxiety into peace and hatred into love.
Alchemists of all ages have sought the mystical philosophers' stone. Early alchemists pored over minutely ciphered texts in search of this stone. For them, it was worth a lifetime to decode the mystery of this “stone” which symbolized the transmutation of the lower animal nature into the highest and divine. The coveted philosophers' stone - “the stone which is no stone” - was not physical, but spiritual, and created out of fire.
Some alchemists did discover the secret of the violet flame. According to Neoplatonist alchemists, the philosophers' stone was a self-transforming fire that would lead their souls upward, by drawing up to the Spirit all qualities which dragged downward and opposed the spiritual essences. In the process, the "hard and refractory materials" in their bodies would be transmuted into a rare and more luminous material. In this sacred experiment, they said the alchemist would become "like the gods" pursuing "the gold of the wise and not the vulgar metal".
Transmutation, then, was not just a process which turned base metals into gold, but a spiritual process which raised the soul into a state of unity with the Divine.
How to Use the Violet Flame
The violet flame is practical and easy to use.
It is often a good idea to call for spiritual protection before invoking the violet flame. Then find a place where you won't be disturbed, and sit comfortably in a straight chair with your spine and head erect, legs and arms uncrossed and feet flat on the floor. Rest your hands on your upper legs, with palms facing upwards.
The violet flame is invoked through “decreeing” - a unique form of spoken prayer utilizing visualization and meditation. One of the simplest decrees to the violet flame is: “I AM a being of violet fire! I AM the purity God desires!” Take a few, slow deep breaths and center in your heart. Start out slowly, giving the decree with love, devotion and feeling. Repeat the decree three or nine times to begin with; you can gradually increase this to 36, 72 or even 144 repetitions. Repeating the decree strengthens its power and draws down more light.
Once you are familiar with the decree, you can close your eyes while giving it and concentrate on visualizing the violet flame. See yourself before a large bonfire, about nine feet high and six feet wide. Color it violet in your imagination, and see the flames pulsating and undulating in endless shades of violet with gradations of purple and pink. Then see yourself stepping into the flame, so the violet flame is where you physically are. See your body as transparent, with the flames curling up from beneath your feet, passing through and around your body, clear up over your head.
violet flame animation
Often the words of a violet flame decree invoke ideas for other violet flame visualizations - decreeing is meant to be fun so be creative and use your imagination!
To those who have developed their spiritual sight, the violet flame appears as a physical violet fire. You may also be able to “see” the violet flame at work with your inner eye, by concentrating on the spiritual center between your eyebrows.
You can also use the violet flame to help family and friends. Just visualize the violet flame around them while you give the decree, and add a prayer before you start. The violet flame can also help others that you might not be aware of. After you have finished decreeing, you can ask: “In the name of the Christ within me, I ask that this violet flame be multiplied and used to assist all souls on this planet who are in need. I thank you and accept it done according to the will of God.”
Even a few minutes of violet flame will produce results, but persistence is needed to penetrate age-old habits you would like to change. You can start out with just a few minutes of violet flame in the morning to help you through the day, and you can add the violet flame to whatever prayers or meditations you currently practice.
What Do Others Think of the Violet Flame?
Here's what people who have used the violet flame say:
“Well, I think a lot clearer. I feel lighter. I'm a lot more sensitive to vibrations. And I feel the movement of light almost physically rather than just at subtle levels.”
“My relations with people are lighter and more smooth. I don't have that sense of friction.”
“At one time I was heavy on drugs and I knew I'd gone too far. The violet flame has cleared up my memory so that now I can think clearly and creatively.”
“It gives me emotional control and the ability to be more sensitive to the thoughts of God.”
“The violet flame is amazing. It's opened up so many creative areas of my life. It's a science and a great gift from God. It has revolutionized my life in so many ways. It has allowed me to realize the real potential of my soul, by bringing me closer to God and my personal mission. On more than one occasion the violet flame has healed me of illnesses that have afflicted my body, especially chronic back problems.”
“As a surgeon for 10 years, I am humbled by learning about this science. Practicing this has brought amazing results in my life and my medical practice.”
You can use the violet flame and experience the healing, transformation and spiritual upliftment that alchemists of the Spirit have sought for centuries. But if you want the violet flame to help you, you have to work with it. Try it for yourself!
Decrees to the violet flame
I AM the violet flame
I AM the violet flame
In action in me now
I AM the violet flame
To Light alone I bow
I AM the violet flame
In mighty cosmic power
I AM the light of God
Shining every hour
I AM the violet flame
Blazing like a sun
I AM God's sacred power
Freeing every one
© The Summit Lighthouse
Violet flame decree for forgiveness
I AM Forgiveness acting here,
Casting out all doubt and fear,
Setting men forever free
With wings of cosmic Victory.
I AM calling in full power
For Forgiveness every hour;
To all life in every place
I flood forth forgiving Grace.
© The Summit Lighthouse
Violet flame forgiveness thoughtform
Radiant spiral violet flame
Radiant spiral violet flame,
Descend, now blaze through me
Radiant spiral violet flame,
Set free, set free, set free
Radiant violet flame, O come,
Expand and blaze thy light through me
Radiant violet flame, O come,
Reveal God's power for all to see
Radiant violet flame, O come,
Awake the earth and set it free
Radiance of the violet flame,
Expand and blaze through me
Radiance of the violet flame,
Expand for all to see
Radiance of the violet flame,
Establish Mercy's outpost here
Radiance of the violet flame,
Come, transmute now all fear
© The Summit Lighthouse
Violet Flame Is
Breath of God inside each cell
I AM the violet flame
Pulsing out the cosmic time
I AM the violet flame
Energizing mind and heart
I AM the violet flame
Sustaining God's creation now
I AM the violet flame
With all love, With all love, With all love
Shimmering in a crystal cave
I AM the violet flame
Searching out all hidden pain
I AM the violet flame
Consuming cause and core of fear
I AM the violet flame
Revealing now the inner name
I AM the violet flame
With all peace, With all peace, With all peace
Flashing like a lightning bolt
I AM the violet flame
Stretching through the galaxies
I AM the violet flame
Connecting soul and Spirit now
I AM the violet flame
Raising you to cosmic heights
I AM the violet flame
With all power, With all power, With all power
© The Temple of the Presence
The earth in violet flame
Violet flame decree for healing the Earth
O violet flame, come, violet flame
Now blaze and blaze and blaze
O violet flame, come, violet flame
To raise and raise and raise
The earth and all thereon
The earth and all thereon
The earth and all thereon
O violet flame, come, violet flame
Now blaze and blaze and blaze
O violet flame, come, violet flame
To raise and raise and raise
The plants and all God's creatures
The plants and all God's creatures
The plants and all God's creatures
O violet flame, come, violet flame
Now blaze and blaze and blaze
O violet flame, come, violet flame
To raise and raise and raise
The air, the sea, the land
The air, the sea, the land
The air, the sea, the land
© The Summit Lighthouse
Let Freedom Roll
Holy Christ/Buddha Self in me,
Hear me now, I do decree.
Let violet fire of freedom roll
’Round the world to make all whole.
Saturate the air, the sea, the land
At Saint Germain’s divine command.
Let wisdom reign, God-power grow,
Let love prevail and mercy flow.
Let war now cease and evil bind,
Reveal the truth to all mankind.
Compel all leaders to be just,
For liberty is now a must.
Defuse all plots, expose all lies,
Let Portia rule and justice rise.
Now Zadkiel and Amethyst,
Consume all darkness, East and West.
May anarchy and terror fail,
God-government and hope prevail.
O violet fire of Omri-Tas,
Now blaze with blest Oromasis.
O masters, angels, now appear,
We see perfection everywhere.
We pray with you, both near and far,
’Til earth becomes the Freedom Star.
© The Hearts Center
與一般喜慶舞獅不同，舞青獅文化獨特青獅有史以來就寄託著人們驅魔避邪、納福迎祥的美好願望。在佛教典籍中青獅乃文殊菩薩坐騎，故在各大祭典，都有舞青獅的習俗，祈求國泰民安，風調雨順。
青獅頭大而沈重，動作幅度大舞起來有一定難度，舞獅員必須經過一番苦功才能駕馭。
古代，青獅子被喻為“獅王”, 若路上相遇其他黑獅，紅獅隊應避讓, 讓青獅隊先行。
Unlike the regular lion dance during festive occasions, the green lion is deemed the ride for the Manju Buddha. It's white facial hair is the signature feature besides the lash green bodice. The Green Lion Dance is carried out during prayer ceremony, believed to bring upon peace and prosperity to the nation.
The green lion's head is much heavier then the regular ones, it takes the lion dancer years of training before he is able to bring it to life.
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The Ghost Festival, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Yu Lan is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in southern China).
In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.
Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.
On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.
Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors
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Follow my rediscovery of the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:
For my past visits to the Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival here:
Hungry Ghosts "Yu Lan" Festival
More Chinese Temples images here:
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西藏－江孜－白居寺－十万佛塔－无量光佛像
Statue of Amitabha (Buddha of Infinite Light) in one of the 76 chapels inside the Kumbum, the largest such structure in Tibet, situated in Palcho Monastery @ Gyantse County, Shigatse Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China.
Amitabha (Tibetan: Opame) is the fourth and most ancient of the five Transcendental Buddhas that embody the five primordial wisdoms meditation. He presides over the Buddha realm Sukavati (Tibetan: Dewachen), a Pure Land which is the expression of his own field of pure expression and nothing else. Amitaba is the Lord of the Padma or Lotus family and is the pure expression of the wisdom of discriminating awareness, which transmutes the poison of attachment and desire. He and the other Lotus family members support the gradual unfolding of one’s spiritual petals into enlightenment. Amitaba is red in color, sits in the full-lotus posture with his two hands resting on his lap in the mudra of meditative equipoise. He is most often depicted in thangkas flanked by two eminent bodhisattvas, Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and Vajrapani, the Bodhisattva of Power. It is the special vow of Amitaba that to benefit beings who are caught in the realm of their own confusion and suffering, that if they remember his name with faith at the time of their death they will take rebirth in Sukatavi. Through this they will achieve enlightenment and not again fall into a realm of suffering. This is due to the power of the merit of Buddha Amitaba’s virtuous activities accumulated throughout his countless lives as a bodhisattva. Because of this, meditation upon Amitaba is widespread and very popular. He is the particular focus of the faith of the Pureland Schools of Buddhism and of the meditative training of Powas or Transference of Consciousness that enables one to transfer their consciousness into the field of pure perception of Sukhavati, the Realm of Great Bliss at the time of their death. In some mandalas, Amitaba is depicted in union with his Wisdom Consort Gokarmo, who embodies the pure element of fire.
© All rights reserved. You may not use this photo in website, blog or any other media without my explicit permission.
St Lawrence Jewry, Gresham Street, London
If a Martian came down to the City and was shown around the churches of the Square Mile, there is no doubt that he would think St Lawrence Jewry quite the most important. This wouldn't be just because of its perfect setting facing down Gresham Street across the square from the Guildhall, although of course that would contribute. And it certainly isn't the biggest of the City churches. But you step into an interior which is without parallel in the City for dark-wooded, serious-windowed gravitas. There is a palpable sense of patronage, of the power of conservative institutions transformed and transmuted into brass and banners, into solemn words and ethereal music. This is a place where the Church of England knows its friends, draws a line, and stands firm.
And yet, it is all an illusion, for on the night of 29th December 1940 St Lawrence was comletely gutted by German incendiaries and high explosive bombs. Nothing survived except for the lower part of the tower and walls. It was, in its way, the perfect firestorm. It was a Sunday evening. The churches had been locked after the services that morning in direct contravention of the request of the City authorities for buildings to be left accessible to firefighters. Because it was Christmas week there were hardly any firewatchers on duty in the area north of Cheapside. There was a strong wind blowing, to fan the flames. And as the fires joined together covering an area of almost fifty acres, the rising heat began to draw in air from below the flames from all sides. The air drawn into the furnace was running at more than fifty miles an hour, and the result was the largest bomb site in the whole of the British Isles - although nothing to compare with anything in almost any large German city, of course.
The medieval church had been gutted in the Great Fire, and the rebuilding was one of the most expensive of all the Wren churches. As Simon Bradley points out, St Lawrence was unusual in that its walls were exposed on all sides, it wasn't jammed in among other buildings, and so attention had to be paid to the exterior. The facing in Portland stone added to its grandeur.
The architect chosen for the post-war rebuilding was Cecil Brown, with a brief to provide a church fitting for pomp and circumstance, for ceremony and seriousness. St Lawrence therefore has none of the light-wooded Festival of Britain jollity you find at Lawrence King's St Mary le Bow, or the quiet candle-lit introspection of Dykes Bowers' St Vedast. This is church as theatre. Instead of the uplifting thrill of the John Hayward and Brian Thomas glass at St Mary le Bow and St Vedast, here Christopher Webb contributed a scheme which Simon Bradley rightly describes as unobtrusive. But it all works. There is a great harmony, and a sense of a church much greater than its individual parts.
Have I made this church sound unwelcoming? It isn't. Almost every time I've been here I've found stewards inside, and they are always pleased to see visitors. And, of course, they have a lot to be pleased about.
(c) Simon Knott, December 2015
---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----
---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----
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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.
In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.
The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.
Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.
It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.
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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.
---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----
---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----
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www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.
In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.
The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.
Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.
Ezio Famà.
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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.
Ezio Famà.
---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----
---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----
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Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.
In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.
The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.
Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.
Ezio Famà.
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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.
Ezio Famà.
Seems like a slow news day, so let me share the fascinating highlights of my most recent read: Meteorites and Their Parent Planets. I typed up my favorite parts to help me remember them, as the 1999 book appears to be out of print.
“We have a curious need to understand our origin and our cosmic surroundings, and meteorites provide otherwise unobtainable information to help us in this quest.” (280)
“The Earth sweeps up 78 million kg of extraterrestrial material, most of which consists of micrometeorites, each year as it orbits about the sun.” (11)
“Twice as many fireballs are reported in the hours after midnight. This bias in time occurs because more meteoroids are encountered in the direction in which the Earth moves in its orbit, and the morning side faces the direction of the planet’s motion.” (15)
“Meteorites striking the ground may excavate small cavities, but typically they penetrate to depths nearly equal to their diameters. In fact, many meteorites are found practically sitting on the surface. This is, of course, due to the appreciable deceleration produced by atmospheric friction.” (19)
“Typical relative velocities for asteroids encountering other asteroids are of the order of 5km/s.” (233)
“Such accidental collisions liberate meteoroids from their parent bodies. As much as 10% of the original energy in cratering events is transmuted into energy of motion for the resulting debris.” (234)
“Many meteorite parent bodies are reaccreted piles of rubble produced during large impacts.” (234)
“The difference in destructibility may explain why meter-sized fragments of irons can persist in space for as long as a billion years, but only recently broken small pieces of stones complete the trip to Earth.” (247)
Near Earth Objects (NEO): “Many meteorites are undoubtedly derived from NEOs. However, NEOs are efficiently removed from the solar system by collisions or gravitational interactions with the planets on time scales of 10-100 million years, only a tiny fraction of the age of meteorites. We thus infer that today’s temporary NEO population must be continually resupplied from other sources. These sources are the parent bodies of the meteorites.” (33)
“The parent isotopes decay at fixed rates, allowing the age of any sample to be determined from analysis of the amount of parent isotope that has decayed or the new radiogenic isotope that has formed. Unfortunately, these radioactive clocks can be reset by any geologic events that cause heating.” (41) like volcanism
•Chondrites – pristine time capsules from our Solar System’s formation
“Chondrites are actually a kind of cosmic sediment, composed of diverse materials with varying origins. The clumping together of these dissimilar materials is called accretion, and it is a very important process about which we know very little. Tiny grains probably stuck together initially because of electrical charges on their surfaces, but the sticking agent for larger entities like chondrules is unknown. Each of the accreted components of chondrites contains a fossil record of some early solar system processes, but none are completely understood.” (51)
“Chondrites are the most thoroughly and accurately analyzed natural materials, and the list of precisely analyzed elements encompasses the entire Periodic table. Chondrites can be considered a sort of solar sludge, with compositions equivalent to the non-volatile portion of the Sun.” (47)
“Lithium and boron are utilized in fusion reactions that power the Sun. Their solar abundances have been reduced over the past 4.56 billion years, so in this way, the chondrites actually record the chemistry of the ancient Sun (hence the primeval solar system) even better than the present day Sun.” (48)
“There may have been a continuum of chondrite compositions in the early solar system, with different temperatures of formation and the resulting depletion patterns of volatile elements controlled by distance from the Sun. In this view, enstatite formed closest to the Sun, ordinary chondrites formed at intermediate distances, and carbonaceous chondrites formed farthest away.” (50)
“All of the asteroids taken together have only a fraction of the mass of the Moon.” (81)
‘The swarm of asteroids could never have accreted into a planet size body because of the perturbing effects of the planet Jupiter. The massive gravitational field of this giant neighbor would have ripped apart any larger planet within its sphere of influence as quickly as it formed.” (82)
“By preventing asteroids from assembling into a larger planet capable of geologic processes, Jupiter may have preserved chondrites in their present, relatively pristine states. However, the irregular shapes and the highly cratered surfaces of the few asteroids that have been examined at close range indicate that such bodies have been shaped and modified by repeated collisions.” (91)
“The organic compounds in chondrites are typically complexly branched hydrocarbons, probably crafted in asteroids from the deuterium-enriched materials originally made in molecular clouds.” (262)
Their amino acids have “a slight preference for left-handed molecules. Organic molecules formed in interstellar space might result from exposure to circularly polarized light emitted from neutron stars. If this is correct, these organic compounds were inherited directly from molecular clouds, without processing in meteorite parent bodies. These molecules would thus qualify as intact interstellar matter.” (265)
“Carbonaceous chondrites contain as much as 20% water, so a late-accreting veneer of such material might account for some fraction of our planet’s oceans” (274)
“The H chondrite parent asteroid appears to have been destroyed by a massive impact and then gravitationally reassembled from the resulting fragments. This conclusion comes from a study of a cooling rate speedometer based on metal grains.” (107)
“The thermal model predicts an asteroid diameter of 175km, which is in good agreement with the 185km size of 6 Hebe, a possible H-chondrite parent body.” (103) 6 Hebe is also close to a secular resonance with Jupiter, that its ejecta could become Earth crossing.
“The L-chondrite parent body was apparently also catastrophically disrupted by impact, but unlike the H-chondrite asteroid, it probably did not reaccrete. All heavily shocked L-chondrites have gas retention ages of approximately 340 million years, marking the time of this event. Asteroid 3628 Boznemkova, which has a spectral signature similar to that of L6 chondrites, may be a relatively small fragment surviving from this collision.” (109)
“The H and LL chondrites show ranges of isotope ages, implying a series of smaller, less disruptive impacts extending to recent times. These events may have liberated chondritic samples from their asteroidal sources.” (235)
• Achondrites (sourced from planets and planetoids)
“Meteorites that form by crystallization of magma are called achondrites and those that are residues from partial melting are termed primitive achondrites.” (118)
“Achondrites elicit wonder (at least in those who know what they are), because they also are the geologic products of other worlds.” (149)
“Rocks consist of mixtures of minerals that melt over a range of temperatures, generally a few hundred degrees. Partial melting produces most magmas, and complete melting is rarely achieved. Magmas form by melting only a modest fraction (commonly less than 25%) of the mantle source materials. Only a small fraction of magmas actually erupt; most stall within the crust and solidify as plutons.” (121)
• Bang your HED, from asteroid Vesta
“Eucrites, like the other members of the HED clan, contain no water, whereas terrestrial basalts contain minor amounts of hydrated minerals or dissolved water in glass. Eucrites have basaltic compositions, indicating they were once liquids and thus could have erupted onto the surface of their parent body. These are fine-grained rocks, sometimes with small, interlocking crystals that resemble those in terrestrial volcanic flows.” (128)
“In contrast, diogenites consist of larger, interlocking crystals, as appropriate to plutonic rocks.” (129)
“Achondrite regolith breccias containing both eucrite and diogenite clasts are called howardites.” (129)
• MARS
+ Earlier post on my collection of Martian rocks
Basaltic shergottites “are relatively fine grained and apparently formed as volcanic flows or shallow intrusions on their parent body. Their elongated pyroxene crystals commonly have preferred orientations, probably aligned by magma flow.” (131)
“Shergottite magmas contain at least a small amount of water.” (131)
“Lherzolitic shergottites are related to the basaltic shergottites, but their coarse grain sizes mark them as plutonic rocks.” (131)
“The SNC parent body must be a geologically complex body, characterized by multiple periods of igneous activity. Isotopic data indicate it was differentiated 4.5 billion years ago, and the mantle thus formed had a nonchondritic composition. This source region was remelted approximately 1.3 billion years ago and again more recently to produce shergottite magmas.” (136)
Mg/Si and Al/Si “element ratios illustrate that the peculiar compositions of SNC meteorites are also seen in rocks and soils analyzed by the Viking landers and the Mars Pathfinder rover.” (178)
“Trapped gasses in the EET79001 Antarctic shergottite link the SNC meteorites to Mars. Pockets and veins of shock melt in this meteorite formed by impact, which also implanted atmospheric gasses in the liquid before it solidified as glass. The abundance of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and various nonradiogenic isotopes of gaseous argon, neon, krypton, and xenon in the glass are identical to those measured in the Martian atmosphere by Viking spacecraft.” (179)
“The ancient highlands of Mars were once scoured by torrents of running water, producing branching networks of valleys and huge outflow channels like that onto which the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft landed. Today, however, liquid water is not stable anywhere on the Martian surface.
Models of the bulk composition of Mars based on the SNC meteorites curiously indicate a planet with a low water abundance but high concentrations of other volatile elements. This might be explained by reaction of water and metallic iron in accreted materials, stripping the oxygen from water to form iron oxide with the resultant loss of hydrogen from the planet. The interior of Mars would thus be dry and highly oxidized. Partial melting of the Martian mantle produced the magmas that crystallized to form SNC meteorites. These magmas were rich in oxidized iron but poor in water. Consequently, the amount of water outgassed from the Martian interior over time has probably been modest. Expressed as a global ocean of uniform depth, the outgassed water on Mars may amount to no more than a few hundred meters, compared to 2.7 km for the Earth.” (274)
“Rocks launched from Mars take significantly longer to reach the Earth than do lunar rocks, simply because their orbits do not initially cross that of our planet. These objects, like those in the asteroid belt, are subject to resonances related to other planets, and over a few millions of years, their orbits are perturbed so as to become Earth crossing. Most that fall to Earth will do so within 10 million years or so, with much of the remainder eventually being driven into the sun.” (244)
• Moon
+ Earlier post on my moon rocks
“Calculations suggest that more than a billion grams of impact ejecta might be lost from the Moon each year and possibly a hundredth of that should be swept up by the Earth.” (137)
“Iron-rich anorthosites form a crustal layer that is of the order of 50km thick on the near side and as much as 86km thick on the far side. This crust formed when the Moon was extensively melted to form a magma ocean in its earliest history. This global magma body experienced fractional crystallization as less dense plagioclase crystals floated to the top and solidified to form the feldspar-rich highlands. The difference in thickness of the anorthosite crust on the near and far sides may be related to the gravitational pull of the Earth acting continuously on one face. The magma ocean stage of lunar history had ended by approximately 4.4 billion years ago. Soon thereafter, another suite of plutons invaded the anorthosite crust. Samples of these rocks, called the magnesian suite, vary in age from 4.4 to 4.2 billion years. They too are cumulate rocks, but they contain appreciable quantities of olivine or pyroxene, producing rocks called troctolite and norite, respectively.” (156)
“It is rare to find well-preserved pieces of the ancient lunar crust in the rock collections brought back from the Moon, because meteorite bombardment has broken most of them into tiny fragments.” (157)
“The lunar surface area bounded by all of the Apollo and Luna landing sites is only a small fraction, less than 9%, of the total lunar surface. Odds are high that the lunar achondrites sampled regions outside this limited area and they probably were derived from the far side. “ (161)
“The highlands sampled by Apollo are atypical of the entire moon’s crust. The average Iron composition of the lunar highlands meteorites provides a closer match to the crustal composition than does the average of the Apollo samples” (161)
“From approximately 4.0 to 3.2 billion years ago, and perhaps even later, the gigantic basins were filled with vast outpourings of basaltic magma that crystallized to form the maria. These mare basalts contain no water and were formed under highly reducing conditions. Mare basalt magmas are thought to have formed by partial melting of the olivine and pyroxene-rich cumulate that settled from the magma ocean as a complement to the anorthosite crust. The evidence for this assertion comes from the measured rare-earth-element patterns for these rocks.” (158)
“Low-titanium mare basalts formed by melting at deeper levels than their high-titanium relatives.” (160)
“The Apollo samples are strongly biased toward high-titanium basalts, whereas most orbital measurements and the few known lunar basaltic achondrites are low-titanium varieties.” (162)
“The absence of mare basalts on the lunar far side probably reflects the greater thickness of the anorthosite crust that had to be traversed.” (160)
“Rocks from the moon and Mars are ejected as small objects that make the journey to Earth in relatively short periods. Lunar meteorites generally have ages of less than a million years (often far less), and Martian meteorites fall into groups with cosmic-ray exposure ages of approximately 3 million and 12 million years, with a few older stones.” (247)
• Aubrites – huge white crystals of ejected magma
“The aubrites are achondrites composed primarily of iron-free magnesium pyroxene (enstatite), in contrast to the pyroxene compositions in other igneous meteorites. They also contain a variety of exotic minerals formed under extremely reducing conditions. These minerals decompose rapidly by reacting with oxygen in water or even air. Most aubrites are marred by brownish spots that result from oxidation of sulfides during their residence on our planet.” (141)
“Clasts within the breccias are commonly composed of enormous enstatite crystals, some as long as 10cm” (141)
“Basaltic magmas may have erupted explosively as sprays of droplets accelerated by expanding volatiles. If the volatile content was high enough, most of the erupted droplets would have escaped the gravitational hold of the aubrite parent body and have been lost to space.” (141) … and arriving here as meteorites.
Cosmic-ray exposure ages of “aubrites are old as compared to chondrites and other achondrite classes. Derivation from a long-lived source body, perhaps the near-Earth asteroid 3103 that is spectrally similar to aubrites, can explain their longevity. The orbit of this particular asteroid has high inclination, so it may experience less-frequent collisions with other bodies that lie mostly within the elliptic plane. Impact-derived fragments from this asteroid would presumably inherit the same highly inclined orbit and thus last longer in space.” (247)
• Ureilites — a banger from bizarro world
“The ureilites are arguably the most bizarre and perplexing of all meteorites. Filling the spaces between the larger silicate grains is a matrix of graphite or diamond. The coarse-grained size of the ureilites suggest they formed in the deep interior of their parent body. These crystals typically meet in triple junctions and have curved boundaries. They also show preferred orientations” (145)
“One of the most interesting characteristics of ureilites is that they have experienced variable but typically intense shock metamorphism… 4.0 billion years ago.” (147)
• Angrites — ancients enriched in calcium
“The textures of angrites are variable, but all indicate crystallization from basaltic magmas. They have very ancient ages, approximately 4.56 billion years.” (148)
• Messy Mesosiderites
“Mesosiderites can be viewed as mixtures of core and crustal materials , but without samples of the intervening mantle that would have separated these components in any plausible parent body.” (211)
“An obvious way to accomplish mixing is by a collision between two already differentiated asteroids, allowing the still liquid core of one body to mix with the solidified crust of the other.” (212)
“The mixing of metal with silicates seems almost accidental in mesosiderites and likely occurred when iron meteorite collided with a Vesta-like surface.” (225)
“The cooling rates for mesosiderites measured from nickel profiles in taenite are exceptionally slow, less than a half degree per million years. No satisfactory explanation for how these meteorites could have cooled so slowly has been offered, unless they formed within a very large asteroid.” (212)
• BIG IRONS — the exposed molten core of busted asteroids
“The cooling-rate data suggest that iron meteorites must have formed as cores in relatively small bodies or near the surfaces of relatively large bodies.” (217)
“Powdered regolith is an effective insulator, holding in the heat. It may cool as much as 10 times slower than a body without a regolith.” (217)
“Most irons and pallasites formed within bodies that had diameters of less than 100km.” (218)
“Each iron group represents a distinct chemical system, presumably the core of a different asteroid.” (218) There are 13 groups. “Anomalous irons that are unique or have only a few recognized members expand the number of possible parent bodies to sixty.” (221)
“M-type asteroids, such as 16 Psyche, are characterized by sloping spectra that resemble those of iron meteorites.” (224)
Canyon Diablo: “Meteorite specimens found on the crater rim contain small diamonds, whereas those collected farther from the crater do not. The diamonds were produced from graphite by shock in fragments that may have been spalled off the rear of the impacting projectile.” (28)
• Ataxites
“The finest octahedrites are graded into meteorites with no obvious structure. These irons, which have the highest nickel contents, are called ataxites. Such meteorites consist almost entirely of taenite.” (196)
• Pallasites – the prettiest of them all
“Similarities in metal composition suggest that the IIIAB iron core was rimmed by main group pallasites.” (219)
“The tendency for metal and silicate to separate is demonstrated by the fact that most differentiated meteorites contain either less than 1% or greater than 99% metal by weight. Pallasites are unstable mixtures frozen in place.” (220)
“Potential parent bodies for pallasites have been identified as A-type asteroids, like 246 Asporina” (225)
The Body is to be decomposed, that is one shifts one's awareness to the inner self. The planets are both stages of the process and energies in the body to be transmuted.Vitriol is symbolized alchemically as the “green lion,” a poisonous substance that appears when metal is degraded by acid. Sulfuric acid, or oil of vitriol
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio), Mailand 1571? - Porto Ercole 1610
Hl. Franziskus von Assisi in Ekstase - Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy - San Francesco d'Assisi in estasi (ca. 1595)
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn., USA
This is one of the artist's first works. It has a perfectly Lombard air: the broad lines of the composition recall mannerist motives. But Caravaggio's characteristic approach to reality is already at work, and his brushstroke shows a magic that could be obtained only by a thorough analysis of Venetian painting.
The angel comes from the same repertoire as the early pictures of boys. As Cupid, he is familiar from the New York Musicians. In the St Francis scene he forms part of an arrangement set against an almost black background, which may well have been painted direct from life and transmutes the spirit of pictures of boys into the sphere of sacred art.
Source: Web Gallery of Art
---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----
---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----
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Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.
In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.
The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.
Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.
Ezio Famà.
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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.
Ezio Famà.
Armour detail. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
"I have already told you that there are no documents to bind together the two parts of this life so strangely divided, but in what I have been narrating you can pick out some of the threads of the duality. To be precise, this man [Gilles de Rais], as I have just had you observe, was a true mystic. He witnessed the most extraordinary events which history has ever shown. Association with Jeanne d'Arc certainly stimulated his desires for the divine. Now from lofty Mysticism to base Satanism there is but one step. In the Beyond all things touch. He carried his zeal for prayer into the territory of blasphemy. He was guided and controlled by that troop of sacrilegious priests, transmuters of metals, and evokers of demons, by whom he was surrounded at Tiffauges."
From La-Bas (Down There) by Joris Karl Huysmans. 1891
Book 2 - Latex Empress Shimmerah Full book
Chapter 1 - The barren lands
Chapter 2 - The shiny sisters
Chapter 3 - The ring of change
Chapter 4 - The cave of greed
Chapter 5 - The stone of seeing
Chapter 6 - The ring of Blindsight
Chapter 7 - The dungeons
Chapter 8 - The forgotten queen
Chapter 9 - A new world
Chapter 10 The Lost fogotton queen of Neonlexia
Chapter 11 - Mass Manipulation
Intro
Latex Empress Shimmerah is a formidable sorceress from the planet Dommalex, renowned for her immense power, striking beauty, and insatiable ambition for world domination. She is the current ruler of Shimmerathia, a realm she established after conquering the twelve kingdoms and queendoms that previously comprised her continent.
She is known as the "hottest girl of all her realm" and maintains her extraordinary beauty through the consumption of "Liquid Youth" from the "Goblet of Youth." Each sip from this goblet is said to make her "ten times more physically perfect," solidifying her status as an object of desire. Her preferred fashion consists of "sexy shiny latex clothing, mostly black," including "very dominant latex outfits, short-skirts, skin-tight catsuits, corsets, and thigh high boots.
Latex Empress Shimmerah having conquered and renamed the twelve kingdoms and queendoms to Shimmerathia, Shimmerah's ambition now extends beyond her current realm. She has learned of other worlds through the Mirror of Knowing. Her immediate focus has shifted to the "Lost Lands," ruled by her sister, Shellyana, who is also a powerful Latex Empress. Shimmerah is aware of Staff Island, where powerful sorceresses and wizards, including her former magic teacher Mistress Virella, have gathered to protect their powers and staffs from her. She also knows about the Cave of Greed, which is home to the evil goddess Goldglossin. The cave offers unlimited wishes but at the cost of eternal entrapment, turning individuals into "evil queens" who embody lust. Goldglossin requires ten such queens to break free and rule the realm and beyond. Shimmerah, however, does not wish for Goldglossin to escape, as it would challenge her own ultimate goal of absolute dominion. Her next step, after consolidating power in Shimmerathia, was to teleport to Terrubagron in the Lost Lands, specifically to the golden city where Shellyana resides, indicating a direct confrontation or assimilation of her sister's territory.
Chapter 1 - The barren lands
Shimmerah now aged 29 had taken all the powers from all the 12 lands she now named Shimmerathia She was very powerfully psychic and could make cities feel as if they were within a dream. She could control people like puppets, change the weather and rise up city’s into the sky. She could make a faded ghost form of her sexy self appear in the sky looking down on all as if she was a goddess. She could disappear and teleport, move anything of any size with her mind, open portals summon demons and much more. All both feared her while having a big crush to her beauty and she was far to sexy perfect that all wanted to worship her when they saw her. She not wanted any to be above her as she wanted all below her. With her mirror of knowing she asked about her sister, the mirror told that she had become very powerful but not as powerful. She was the Latex Empress of all of the lost lands also known as the golden beauty. Her powers were object transmutation, Telekinesis, and Meta magic and her powerful items where the Staff of wealth, the Ring of Chrysopoeia, the Ring of change, the Ring of movement, and the Stone of life. The mirror showed Shellyana beautiful and clad in shiny gold latex with a shiny gold crown and staff upon a shiny gold throne in a vast hall made of gold and while lots and lots of shiny gold coins and items. Shimmerah asked the mirror who is the hottest one of all, the mirror said it is you my Shiny beautiful Shimmerah. But Shimmerah was not happy still and asked who has the most wealth? The mirror told her that as for the Staff of wealth it is Shellyana. Shimmerah looked into her crystal ball of seeing and could no longer see Shellyana, so with a time turn back spell she put upon the crystal ball she saw that the powerful sorceresses along with her former magic teacher Mistress Virella had put up a powerful spell shield to block her gaze. This made her unhappy so she got her Staff of dominance and teleported to the spell shield saying to herself, nothing will stop me from where I want to go and have in my world. She was going to use her Ring of the 4 Elements to take it down but when looking at it saw it was not an Elemental spell. So she used her Staff of dominance which gives her the power to walk through any spell shield, When of the other said she smiled knowing she was the most powerful.
Chapter 2 - The shiny sisters
The kinghts and giants Shimmerah walking towards the wards the palace of Shellyana. When the Kinghts came there found Shimmerah was cat-walking in a sexy way and was hovering with each step above the sand so her high heels would not sunk into the sand sand. Shimmerah did not fear them. A giant 30 feet tal came can with her telekinesis she pushed him a miles away. The knights week in lust she Shimmerahs beauty not knew what to say "Never seen a hottie as sexy as me before,' she said while a sexy cute smile and seductive pose. "I've just come to see my sister is all, you know the not as hot one. ... You know its rude to keep a latex lady waiting, especially one a pretty as me." So the kights took her to the gates and let her in.
Shimmerah tossed aside the magical grids with her powers some of the mages and witches walked with her into the royal room where Shellyana stood by. 'What are you doing here, you have your land across the sea." said Shellyana. Shimmerah walked pass Shellyana saying 'Come to see my little latex shiny sister is all." said Shimmerah who then sat on Shellyana's golden latex throne in a very dominant alluring pose. "thats not your throne!" said Mistress Celeste of the dark arts whos shadow grew bigger, then she had no shadow as Shimmerah cast it away with a girly giggle. Shimmerah seeing 3 rings of power on Shellyana's hand made her want them, Ring of Chrysopoeia this ring was initially used for gold transmutation but was later altered by Shellyana to transmute items into latex, Ring of change for Object Transformation: Beyond just latex or gold, it can allow for the alteration of an material to change into another. Looking at all the shiny gold which she knew had come from both the Staff of wealth and Ring of Chrysopoeia she made her feel very greedy. But she knew she was soo sexy that even these latex ladys along with her sister where attractived to her alluring beauty. With her pretty voice she said to Shellyana, "Maybe as you've not seen me for such a long time, what about a gift." Mistress Celeste looked to the floor. "Like what?" said Shellyana. 'Your rings of power?" said Shimmerah. She looked to them and her sexy sister on the throne saying nothing. Shimmerah summoned the Goblet of youth and within it filled with liquid youth. They all knew what she had knew each drop she drank made her 10 times more beautifuly perfect and every way. Shimmerah grin and then drank a bit. 'No don't!" said Mistress Virella, using a powerful wind to try and blow the goblet out of her hand, but Shimmerah stopped the wind while saying "but the heat of the desert made me thirsty" so Shimmerah drank more giggling. Shellyana looking away making it rain gold coins to try and block Shimmerah, but none hit her. She try to fill the gobet with gold but none went in as Shimmerah blocked them. Mistress Celeste now drowning in lust to Shimmerah cast a shadow spell where her shadow took up all the room to all was a black void. But Shimmerah become part of that void till she pulled a shadow being out of the darkness to pull Mistress Celeste out of the room. Then Shimmerah took the Staff of wealth from Shellyana and her crown which she put upon her head. She was now standing with the shadow gone telling them all to bow to her as there empress. Her staff transformed into a shiny black latex whip as she whipped Shellyana saying to where the stone of seeing was, but Shellyana and the others not knew where it was. She got Shellyana to give her the rings of power and told them that the lost lands are now hers to rule. She then took the power out of the Staff of wealth and added that power to her Staff of dominance. Then she made it rain gold making gold coins appear out of nothing as all the so now wanted was all hers for the taken. The others tryed getting out of the room as she was filling it up with her power and greed evily laughing as her eyes glowed with avarice.
All knew within the lost lands that all the most powerful beings of the realm where now nothing to Shimmerahs still growing power. Many saw you as a goddess ruling the two large land mass's of Dommalex, but many deemed she would not stop to all of Dommalex was under her controll. Shimmerah still wanted the stone of seeing inorder the rule over more worlds.
Chapter 3 - The ring of change
Now with the rings from her powerful sister Shellyana. Ring of Chrysopoeia, Ring of change, Ring of movement. She knew the ring of change had the power to change anything she wants into what ever material and compound she wants. Shellyana had changed the rules of the Ring of Chrysopoeia with the ring of change to not turn all she touches into gold but into shiny glossy latex. Shimmerah now where the rings along with her Ring of the 4 Elements she got from Gemrock when she took the throne from King Rockhard 4 years ago. Now back in her dark crystal palace within the now barren Wealthold city where Shimmerah had rased up magical crystals from deep below the ground to channel her power. Many of the people of Wealthold city have now moved one to other towns within Gonzzal and to other lands. The only ones who stayed where Shimmerahs royal knights and loyal slaves who wished to worship her and do her bidding. No plants grew there as the crystals sucked in all power.
Within her palace was mostly all black shiny latex. Her black shiny Inflatable throne was of pure latex. She had always been very provocative sexually arousing all her look upon her. She not let the knight have sex with her, but she would play with all kinds of sex toys making it loud and clear that the only one who turn her on was her sexy shiny self. She know she could get away with anything and do and have all and what ever she wanted. With her ring of change she now crafted and transforms her latex dildo into any shape she could think of. Some smooth and thick, some bumpy and some with floppy rubbery lobes on them. She made vibrators, clitoral stimulators, anal toys, and dual-stimulation toys. She made them move within her from her telekinesis. Her knights stood by the doorway of her royal hall watching there stunning shiny latex beauty in her enjoyment.
After her 8 hour long pleasure time having waves of orgasms over and over. she went out of her palace and with her ring of change transformed the ruins of Wealthold city into shiny black latex forming towers which she made part of her palace and then raised up more magical red crystals to support them.
Chapter 4 - the cave of greed
As Shimmerah could not find the stone of seeing as she had looked for it with all her magic. She know about the cave of greed and knew she could only have one wish, if she stayed within the cave she could have as many wishes as she wants but then could never leave the cave. Shimmerah knew the gods and goddess's made it that none and no powerful spell could get to the cave, unless you went on a sail boat alone with two glossy compass-eels, as these magic eels where the only ones which knew the way. So She unhappy about the idea telported to Poilshvil town in Wallfort and took somes boat. A few people of Poilshvil town Saw what the Latex Empress was doing knowing where she was going. Many deemed her greed would have her trapped within the cave for all time. When some feard that if she only took one wish what would it be.
The eels pulled her boat within a powerful storm which she could not stop knowing if she did the eels would let go and swim away. She got the the island and jumped into the sea and made her way onto a shiny gold beach made of shiny gold coins and crystals. She want them all. When finding the caveof greed Shimmerah entered into with the wish to rule all, possess everything, be all-powerful, perfectly beautiful, and universally worshipped. She was aware of the goddess within and the rules of the cave, specifically seeking to avoid eternal entrapment while pursuing her goals.
Upon entering, Shimmerah found all of made of shiny gold and gold itrms. Within the cave had other caves some filled with endless world of glowing crystals. One cave she found its was all shiny black latex and there she saw Queen Sliverleaf who went missing 13 years ago. Sliverleaf was known for her greedy love of latex being known the queen of rubber, and her greedy never ending lust for sex also being called the queen of lust. within this part of the cave being made of shiny black latex, surrounded by black latex and gold, Sliverleaf embodying and moaning in lust with glowing pink eyes and seemingly experiencing never-ending sexual pleasure and ecstasy. Shimmerah, however, did not desire endless sex but sought power, beauty, and universal rule.
Shimmerah called upon Goldglossin who at 1st did not come knowing what Shimmerah wanted and not wanting to give it her. Then Shimmerah said if I don't get what I want, I will take away your lust demoness. Then Goldglossin came as a shiny golden latex teen girl. Shimmerah then saw it started the rain gold and she was within another part of the cave. She found there was 10 caves within the cave of greed.
Shimmerah wished for the stone of seeing and left the cave of greed. This made Goldglossin very unhappy as she had the power to grant the wish to an item she had longed for, the same item she tried to get that trapped her within the cave of Greed 10.000 years ago. Shimmerah knowing this did a sassy lustful pose with and evil smile to Goldglossin before catwalking away evilly giggling.
Chapter 5 - The stone of seeing
Shimmer being the most powerful sorceress knew all about The Stone of Seeing and of its power. She knew it was created by Latexshinex, the Goddess of Power, for Aeon, the God of Time. Its primary function was to allow its wielder to perceive events across different timelines and dimensions, offering a comprehensive view of past, present, and potential future occurrences. Aeon's ability to manage and manipulate time, providing him with the necessary insight to understand the intricate of causality. The Stone of Seeing is not merely a scrying tool; it is an extension of Aeon's divine capabilities, enabling him to observe the multiverse. Its creation by Latexshinex underscores her immense power as a creator and her collaborative relationship with other deities. Shimmerah not knew about the multiverse only of the universe but not what of its size. She knew about Latexshinex, Aeon and the others deities which where worshipped within her world.
She not knew how to use the stone of seeing as there was no info within her books on its use, only of its history and power. She teleported to Toweron where she set her sights on a significant spiritual magical site: the tower of Starsun. Starsun was revered as the god of the cosmos and gateways. Before Shimmerah took over the land when she was 26, the towers of Toweron held powerful spirit stones that amplified Evocation magic. At that time 3 years ago she enslaved the monks worshipping there declaring that they should only worship her. This cemented her religious and spiritual control but also allowed her to confiscate all the spirit stones.
Present day: When she teleported to Toweron There were still monks in worship. The monks who meet her 3 years ago where still in worship to her beauty, but the ones who had not seen her where still in worship to Starsun. The skys like they had always been were still open to the view and power of the cosmos. The monks no longer had their spirit stones, but there was still high levels of magic around. Shimmerah psychically read the minds of all to see who knew about the stone of seeing. Only a small few know. She asked them of how to use it but they not knew, This made Shimmerah angry. When she was done asking she turned them into Shiny gold statue's. Many feared being turned to gold and also feared what power the stone of seeing would give her.
A being hooded in dark-purple and black came with a twisted black stuff and wand. He was the uncrowned king Eldrin of Hexonu who had escaped from Shimmerah's dark crystal palace dungeons in Wealthold City not long ago. Shimmerah knew of his escape and read his mind knowing where he had been and who he had meet. "Seems I'm for too sexy is why you’ve come back to me." Said Shimmerah grinning. Eldrin was in-love with her beauty like all who saw her was. "I have not come for you" said Eldrin trying with all his might to fight his over-flowing lust for her. "I've come for the stone as it should not even be in this world" said Eldrin on the floor with something growing within his pants. Shimmerah gigged knowing her sexyness had turned him on so much that he could not get up. She was about to cast him into a void when Eldrin slowed time and moved with speed, So Shimmerah used a time spells to turned back time and took his staff and wand. She turn Eldrin into gold while saying "Everythings better when its smooth and shiny."
She then Summoning Mistress Luna who was confuse to where she was but then looked up to Shimmerah. Mistress Luna had a crush on Shimmerah for many years and she knew about the stone of seeing. Luna had wanted Shimmerah to become the ruler of everything as Luna was also known as latex-Luna having a big latex fetish. Within she knew she was as lustful as the trapped queen Sliverleaf. Luna was one of the spy’s of Shimmerah and one of the Mistress’s of Hexonu. She was the youngest of the magical Mistress’s but she was sly and all deemed she was helping to try and stop Shimmerah. For this she knew that Shimmerah would like her. Luna bowed low in worship to show her loyalty. 'Get up slave' said Shimmerah to Luna, 'Yes, .. yes my beautiful shininess' said Luna. 'I want the power of the stone of seeing' said Shimmerah 'You just need to hold it and it will flow into her my prettiness, ... but the power is said to be too much for any being other then the ones who made it.' 'nothing is too much for me' said Shimmerah 'I just not want your perfectness to get hurt' said Luna bowing low again.
Shimmerah held the stone feeling it power flowing into her but after some time she had to stop. She opened a portal to her dark crystal palace in Wealthold City where she took Luna. There came into her magical hall, she drunk more Liquid youth. She had on the Ring of the 4 Elements. But she took a invulnerability potion which she knew would not last long as the more power you use the fast the potion ware’s off. Then she took hold the stone again. A very strong wind was felt as green mist of power came from the stone within her shiny latex gloved hand. Luna ran to hind behind her throne. The widows of her hall smashed and the cosmos was seen within the hall. Shimmerah evilly giggled as she could see all over her world without a seeing crystal ball. She could see into space and looked down onto her world, She could see a stars from afar and with her sight zoom in to see their planets, and look into the planet at the rulers and people who walked there. She zoomed out and looked at the galaxy she was in. Luna could also see the map of the cosmos as images of what she could see was being projected into the room. Shimmerah’s eyes where glowing with power. Till the stone turned to ash as all its power was now Shimmerah’s. Luna came out from behind the throne seeing Shimmerah’s eyes which glowed red to show her wickedness, and then her eyes want back to normal.
Chapter 6 - The ring of Blindsight
Latex Empress Shimmerah, at 29 years old, has achieved significant power and territorial control, primarily through her acquisition of Omniscience from the Stone of Seeing. This newfound ability allows her to perceive beyond her immediate world, granting her a comprehensive understanding of the fallen cities of the once 12 kingdoms she has conquered. Her dominion extends over the vast sandy lands of Terrubagron, which she seized from her younger sister, Latex Empress Shellyana.
Shimmerah's influence is further bolstered by her loyal follower, Mistress Luna, a latex sorceress from Hexonu. Luna, who possesses high intellect and mastery of cosmic and other forms of magic, was initially a spy for Shimmerah, gathering crucial information. Her devotion to Shimmerah evolved into a profound, lust-driven worship, making her a willing instrument in Shimmerah's ambitions. Shimmerah, being psychic, is aware of Luna's unwavering loyalty and trusts her implicitly. Shimmerah also possesses the Mirror of Knowing, an artifact that provides answers to any question, revealing locations and methods for acquisition, though it cannot directly retrieve items. Her personal abilities include teleportation and portal creation, limited to known or previously visited locations, a limitation now overcome by her Omniscience.
Shimmerah's base of operations is her dark crystal palace in Wealthold City, which continuously draws power from potent crystals. From this vantage point, her Omniscience allows her to survey vast distances. Having secured Terrubagron within the Lost Lands, she recognized the existence of two more territories: the Woodland of Elves and The land of Fortess Fortress ruled by Dwarfs. She then teleported to the Dwarf Fortress, a land Shellyana had conquered three years prior after a significant war. King Ore, the Dwarf King, had submitted to Shellyana, acknowledging her as Empress of the Lost Lands. Shellyana, in turn, allowed King Ore to retain his rule and, using her Staff of Wealth, Ring of Chrysopoeia, and Ring of Change, enriched the dwarf kingdom.
Upon Shimmerah's arrival at King Ore's palace, he was already aware of her widespread conquests across Dommalex and her overwhelming beauty and power. He recognized her most formidable ability: Lustful Temptation, amplified by the Liquid Youth, which enables her to enthrall others into submission through her beauty and voice. King Ore, anticipating his fate, Ore bowing low saying “yes my Empress all is yours.” The second Ore saw her his lust took him as he forgot his people and fell in worship to her beauty looking to her shiny perfect latex black and gold outfit. Her sultry sexy smooth voice and the sound of her high-heel boots as she catwalked in. She claimed his throne, declaring all thrones and lands as hers. Overwhelmed by lust upon seeing her, he forgot his people and succumbed to worship, captivated by her shiny black and gold latex outfit, sultry voice, and the sound of her high-heeled boots. Shimmerah then transformed the entire palace into shiny gold, and changing her outfit to more gold to show her power reiterating her claim of ownership. She subsequently teleported King Ore to the dungeons of her dark crystal palace in Wealthold City before departing. Knights who heard her goddess-like voice proclaiming her rule over the land were left in awe.
Next, Shimmerah change her outfit back to black and gold and teleported to the mines north of the now golden palace. She extracted all the gold, crystals, rubies, and rare gems from the mining caves, teleporting them away and causing the land above to collapse into the caves. Her journey continued to the Gold Plains, where she entered the Temple of the Unseen. This temple housed monks of dark and light who, unless accompanied by an unseen warrior, could not look upon non-monks. These monks possessed knowledge of both good and evil and guarded the Ring of Blindsight, which concealed their activities from higher beings. Some monks had been observing Fetishiah, the succubus of lust, and her wicked practice of luring lustful girls to the Cave of Greed. Despite Fetishiah's allure in her red latex outfits, the monks had never encountered a presence as captivating as Shimmerah. The Temple of the Unseen was, as its name suggests, hidden and unheard of, known to Shimmerah only through her Mirror of Knowing, as she wished to keep her ambitions secret from the six known deities. The monks were astonished by Shimmerah's appearance, and many were overcome with lust, finding her even more alluring than Fetishiah. Shimmerah, pleased by this validation of her superior allure, took the Ring of Blindsight and transformed the entire temple into shiny gold, making it visible to all, while she was now unseen to the 6 deities.
Chapter 7 - The dungeons
Now knowing the 6 deities could not see her she went back to her dark red crystal latex palcae tower and under was a dungeon where in the cells where all the old kings, queens and princess's where trapped. After seeing sliverleaf within the cave of greed lusting in high levels of sexual gratification withing pools of lust. Shimmerah had long loved latex and the pleasure it gave her having even her sex toys made of rubber. Shimmer knew about pink lust which would form when extreme levels of pleasure where present. She read that demons of lust make pink lust from the lust from the most lustful in pleasure. It's said when a demoness of lust comes so dose a pink fog called pink lust. The pink lust can come in the form of a mist or can flow as a liquid. if your around pink lust you will be forever lustful.
Shimmerah summoned gobins to work in the dungeon to craft her latex sex toys of all kinds. She then with her powers bound the kings in latex catsuit, gloved and hoods and made to stand in what ever pose Shimmerah wanted them to be in. Shen then transfromed the queens in to shiny rubberdolls covering them in black latex, catsuit, gloves, stockings, and face hood. She put some of the princess and queens in latex Vac-beds some as shiny rubberdolls, all covered in black latex in a BDSM way and bound with latex sex toys vibrating in the groins. Moans of sexual arousal filled the halls as they were kept horny but could not orgasum, But Shimmer could orgasum all she wanted. She told the gobins totest out her new toys on them 1st, She told the the queens and princess when they become as lustful as queen Silverleaf was when she ruled Latxrubbero then they can orgasum. She told the gobins to keep there for ever and when pink lust forms to bottle it as she wants it for her own fun and power. The gobins said only succubus drink pink-lust. To get that much sexaul pleasure then you may turn into a demon also. Shimmerah said to them, Shiny demon horns and tail would look hot on me, now get back to work." she telported out.
Chapter 8 - The forgotten queen
As Shimmerah had now taken over all of the lost land and the 12 kingdoms and queens having many powerful items to fuel her high level of powers the world was under her domination as She had always wished it to be. All that was left was a few islands which had no rulers. With the power of the stone of seeing she saw that Queen Shiny had returned from over world from a portal. Queen Shiny lived in Magicalu before Shimmerah was born. Shiny had a girlfriend named Glossy who Shiny made into a 2rd queen, but there where both cast from the land after they we’re found to of had a plan that was met with public disapproval. Princess Crystal Shiny’s daughter was left in the care of King Hardice. Shiny and Glossy lived in Hexonu and became powerful in the art of witch craft. Shimmerah knew that what she was crowned queen and age 17 that Shiny and Glossy went into an unknown portal and was not seen again.
Shimmerah turned her gaze to the Sky-tower of Magicalu which was now made of Shiny gold from Shimmerah’s power and not of ice crystals as it once was. She saw that Queen Shiny was sitting upon the throne alone in the royal hall of the now Golden Sky-tower. So Shimmerah teleported to the Magicalu and walked into the royal hall saying, “All thrones and crowns are mine and min e only, knee to me the only queen and ruler of all.” Queen Shiny age 75 but looked 25 due to aging spells sat in a royal-black latex skin-tight catsuit showing off her perfect body. She wore a royal-blue latex hooded long cape, and had shiny gold latex corset, bra, stockings and wore blue latex gloves. Shiny using a spell barrier said this is the land and home of my family and people.” Shimmerah giggled saying “What family? You and your girlfriend was unwanted and cast way to another kingdom, You not even got to see your daughter Crystal grow up, but I did and she had a daughter named Glacier who later on in her life had a daughter named Icestal, but don’t worry Icestal is fine as she now one of my slaves, along with all the other kings, queens, princes. And princess of the world.” Shimmer giggled evilly. Queen Shiny then said “If your all powerful and all knowing then why had you not taken over the temple of time? I’m sure The Unyielding Knights of the fort of time would fall in lust to your beauty, as around 3,500 years ago there fell to the beauty of Queen Shinenee of the crystal lands. With the power of time the god of time Aeon could become your slave.’ As Queen Shiny had given her a plan to rule over everything She let her stay upon her old throne for the time being. Shimmerah not knew why she had given her such an idea as the spell barrier was very powerful but this power was not coming from Queen Shiny.
When Shimmerah came to Fortress of Time in the south west of Latxrubbero the Unyielding Knights came but did not bow to her there stood in a line blocking her way. This ancient structure, dedicated to the god Aeon, was constructed 7,000 years prior and is believed to possess the power to manipulate time. The temple is strategically located on a jungle-less peninsula between Sea-weed Bay and Green-glow Bay, with high cliffs leading up to its highest point. The Unyielding Knights," who, 3,500 years prior, had been the royal knights of the northern crystal lands. After their service to Queen Shinenee, they cast a powerful spell upon themselves to remain impervious to the allure of any woman, dedicating themselves solely to guarding the Temple of Time. But as Shimmerah had for years been drinking liquid youth her allure was well beyond anyone. Even with the magic cast upon the kights Shimmerah could feel there lust for her. The knights Tried to look away from the shiny sexy beauty who stood in such a stunning pose before them in her skin-tight latex outfit glimmering in the light. She told them “how dare you look away from me” the one who looked away turned to dust. Then a light from the heavens came forth saying “Time is the power of me, and Your time her is done. I am Aeon and I am time it’s self, you not have the time to understand its power.” A cosmic hand was seen in the sky which was now night Aeon took the power from the stone of seeing then cast Shimmerah into another realm far beyond her own.
Chapter 9 - A new world
Shimmerah, a powerful sorceress and former ruler of Dommalex, found herself unexpectedly transported to a new world known as Neonlexia. This transition occurred after the god of time, Aeon, cast her out of Dommalex due to her perceived evil reign as a "latex empress.
Upon her arrival in Neonlexia, Shimmerah retained her distinctive appearance, clad in a shiny black latex outfit, including a catsuit, corset, thigh-high boots, and gloves. She immediately noticed the stark contrast of her new surroundings: a tall, science-fiction-inspired city, aptly named White-light City, illuminated by LED and neon white lights. This environment further accentuated the shininess of her attire. The inhabitants of White-light City were captivated by her beauty, with Shimmerah perceiving their reactions as lustful admiration, noting she was the sole "latex lady" present.
A significant change for Shimmerah in Neonlexia was the loss of her Staff of Dominance and her powers of Omniscience. Despite these losses, she still possessed a formidable array of magical abilities. Her initial interaction with a local, a shop lady named Lacey, revealed that magic and sorceresses had been absent from Neonlexia for approximately 2,000 years, with any mention of magic relegated to a temple on the other side of the planet. Shimmerah, unfamiliar with the concept of "cosplay," learned her new location was White-light City within Neonlexia.
Undeterred by her altered circumstances, Shimmerah quickly adapted. She used her remaining magical powers to amass wealth and establish a grand residence in White-light City. Within her new home, she cast a spell to transform its interior with shiny latex and gold, indulging in the creation of numerous latex clothing items and sex toys for her personal enjoyment. She also recognized that while she could no longer access "liquid-youth," her inherent beauty ensured she remained the "fairest in all of Neonlexia as well as Dommalex.
Shimmerah's ambitions remained undiminished. She recalled a brief glimpse into Aeon's mind before her banishment, understanding that Aeon viewed her as a malevolent ruler. This insight also revealed Aeon's fear of her and the potential for Shimmerah to rule over the six gods and goddesses of Dommalex. Furthermore, Shimmerah deduced that Aeon had not killed her because her wickedness destined her for hell, an outcome she saw as an opportunity to claim the "throne of hell." This prospect, combined with the idea of ruling both heaven and hell, brought a smile to her face. Her immediate goals were clear: conquer Neonlexia and then find a way to return to Dommalex.
Chapter 10 The Lost fogotton queen of Neonlexia
In the narrative, Shimmerah finds herself in Neonlexia, a world where magic has been absent for approximately 2,000 years. Neonlexia is a technologically advanced society maintained by "peace-bots" and controlled by a "tall cyborg tower" that uses advanced technology waves to "brain-wash the city" and limit its inhabitants' knowledge. Shimmerah's presence in Neonlexia is attributed to Aeon, who allegedly sent her there to trap her and prevent her evil deeds, making it difficult for her to return to Dommalex.
During her time in Neonlexia, Shimmerah learns about a "lost queen" through a taxi driver named Hugo and further details from Gastson, the leader of Outback City, a less brain-washed area. This forgotten queen is described as having "long jet black hair" and wearing "full shiny red latex clothing," possessing powers "beyond the monks," and being considered the most beautiful woman ever. There are temples where male monks reside, forbidden to look upon any woman except this lost queen, and a second temple of witches who worship her. Gastson believes Shimmerah might be this lost queen due to her beauty and wishes to help her return home. However, Shimmerah, driven by her narcissistic personality, sees this as an opportunity to seize the throne and crown for herself, believing she is even more beautiful than the lost queen.
She still had the Ring of Blindsight from the Temple of the Unseen, which made her unseen to the six deities so she knew what ever she was to do that Aeon could not see her. Shimmerah hot Hugo to take her to the temple of witches which was a hugh worn green emerald palace she wore a full red latex outfit, catsuit, corset, gloves and boots. She cat-walked into the temple to find latex ladys within. Magical things where within. The ladys when seeing her asked who she was Shimmerah told them she was the latex queen named Shimmerah. A latex lady camed to her name Lunanaia and told that there was a lady long ago who worshipped the latex queen, This queen took over all the world and wanted more. A powerful witch named Luna worshipped her and one day The latex queen was taken buy one of the powerful deities. After the world was taken by another evil pretty queen and then the rule of powerful latex girls was put to an end and magic was not alound. The world had moved on alot from then, but we kept the magic going in the name what who we call the shiny beauty. We know the shiny beauty was evil but we loving latex and loving her wished to look upon her again. The monks wish to trap the shiny beauty as there have advanced technology, they made the peace-bots so the people of the world would forget the shiny beauty to stop her evil from ever coming back. The monks long ago where known as the Unyielding Knights who looked after the temple of time which had now been removed and put into the city of the deities. The temple was removed 2,000 years ago 500 years after the shiny beauty was taken. Powerful ghosty being told it was at this time the cave of greed was also removed but where to is unknown. Shimmerah now found that Neonlexia was Dommalex but had been renamed, and that Aeon the god of time had not put her on an other planet but moved her 2,500 years into the future, and the witches where from the treeline of the magical Mistress from Hexonu. Lunanaia also told that of the advanced technology of the monks that there have is Mass Manipulation powers to change the size and space of things and the powers of gateways, and the waves they send out to make you forget.
Shimmerah still possesses the Ring of Blindsight from the Temple of the Unseen, which renders her invisible to the six deities, including Aeon, the god of time. This artifact is crucial to her ability to act without divine interference. She sought out the temple of witches, described as a "huge worn green emerald palace," dressed in a full red latex outfit. Upon entering, she encountered other "latex ladies" and declared herself the "latex queen named Shimmerah"
A witch named Lunanaia revealed to Shimmerah a significant historical account. Long ago, a "latex queen" who was worshipped by a powerful witch named Luna, took over the world and desired more power. This original latex queen was eventually captured by one of the powerful deities. Following her capture, another "evil pretty queen" seized control, leading to the end of the powerful latex girls' rule and the prohibition of magic. Despite this, a group of witches continued to practice magic in the name of what they called the "shiny beauty," acknowledging her evil nature but wishing for her return due to their love for latex.
The narrative further reveals that the monks, formerly known as the Unyielding Knights, possess advanced technology. They created "peace-bots" to make the world's population forget the "shiny beauty" and prevent her evil from resurfacing. These monks also have "Mass Manipulation powers" to alter the size and space of objects, control gateways, and emit waves that induce forgetfulness. The Unyielding Knights were once guardians of the Temple of Time, which was removed 2,000 years ago, 500 years after the "shiny beauty" was taken, and relocated to the city of the deities. A "ghosty being" also indicated that the Cave of Greed was removed around the same time, though its current location is unknown.
Shimmerah discovered that Neonlexia was a renamed Dommalex, and that Aeon, the god of time, had not transported her to another planet but rather moved her 2,500 years into the future. The witches she encountered are descendants from the treeline of the magical Mistress from Hexonu. This intricate backstory suggests a world where ancient magical conflicts, divine intervention, and advanced technological countermeasures are deeply intertwined, with Shimmerah now positioned within this complex historical and magical landscape.
Powers and Abilities
Shimmerah possesses a vast array of magical abilities, which she has cultivated and amplified over time:
1) Telekinesis: The ability to manipulate objects with her mind.
2) Teleportation: Instantaneous travel from one location to another.
3) Telepathy: The power to read and transmit thoughts.
4) Elemental Manipulation: Control over natural elements, enhanced by the Ring of the 4 Elements.
5) Weather Manipulation: The ability to control weather patterns.
6) Outfit Manipulation: The power to change or create clothing.
7) Intangibility: The ability to pass through solid objects.
8) Umbrakinesis: Manipulation of shadows and darkness, granted by the Ring of Shadows, allowing for stealth and offensive use.
9) Evocation Magic: The summoning of entities or forces.
10) Absorbing Magic: A powerful ability, learned from the Book of Forbidden Knowledge, allowing her to absorb magical energy and power from sources like crystals and entire lands. This power was instrumental in her conquest of the twelve kingdoms and queendoms, where she absorbed the power from all magic crystals in the Queendom of Glossu and subsequently from all lands, making kings and queens her slaves.
11) Lustful Temptation: Her most potent form of seduction, amplified by the Liquid Youth, allowing her to entice others into submission through her beauty and voice.
12) Object Transmutation
13) Meta magic
14) power to bring back the dead
15) Omniscience
16) Sorcery
More about Shimmerah
Name: Shimmerah
Her parents: Queen Veloria and King Zorath
Her sister: Shellyana
Her magic teacher: Mistress Virella
Birthplace: Wealthold city - Capital of Gonzzul
Her queendom: Gonzzul
Continent - The 12 kingdoms and queendoms - when Shimmerah took over it all she renamed it to Shimmerathia
Planet: Dommalex
Height : 5, 11
Age: 29
Hair colour: black
Eye colour: light blue - but glow with power
Favourite colours: Black
Sexually: autosexual
Libido: Medium - High
Personality: narcissistic, vanity, self centered, selfish, greedy, avarice, mean, very dominant, power-hungry, Sly, naughty, gold digger,
How she see's herself, pretty, sexy, hot, perfect, attractive lustful, beautifully alluring, seductress, divine, powerful, dominant, villainous sexy girl, naughty, provocative.
Favourite fashion: Sexy shiny latex clothing, mostly black.
Favourite clothing, very dominant latex outfits, short-skirts, skin-tight catsuits, corsets, and thigh high boots
Wish in life: To rule all have all, to be all powerful, and all beautiful, perfectly stunning in everyway,
Obsessions: World domination, higher beauty, and all power.
and should have been already on the other side.
Alchemists have also left indications of how this could be worked. As they were only able to describe the transmutation of the human forces by means of symbols, they therefore spoke of one substance being transmuted into another. All they related concerning the transmutation of matter, referred to what the human soul-life developed within itself at a higher stage, when it became transmuted spiritually. All that the great Spirits have disclosed about the Spiritual Realms to those men who are still bound to the life of every day, was taken by them as referring to the transmutation of substances and metals in the retorts, and they took great trouble to try and discover by what mysterious methods the transmutation of substances could be brought about.
Goethe, in one part of his “Faust,” shows us what he himself understood as to such things. In the first part of “Faust,” in the walk in front of the garden, he points clearly to the false, wrong and petty material conceptions that are held as to Alchemy. He makes fun of those who strive with such feverish efforts to discover these secrets, and who pour forth the lower substances, according to numberless receipts, in company of the Adepts.
“There a Red Lion, with the Lily wedded,
“A wooer bold, within the tepid bath,
“From bridal-bower to bridal-bower was speeded
“Racked by the naked fire's flaming wrath.”
The union with the Lily, which is made fun of by Goethe is what he wished to illustrate in his Fairy Tale, of the Green Serpent and the beautiful Lily.
The highest transmutation which man can accomplish is illustrated by Goethe in the symbol of the Lily. It is of like significance with what we call the Highest freedom. When a man follows the primal and eternal laws, in accordance with which we have to complete the primal and eternal circuit of our existence, and if he also recognises the primal and eternal evolution of his freedom, he will then find himself at a certain stage of his development which is accomplished by a disposition of the soul, which may be described by the symbol of the Lily. The highest forces of the soul, the highest state of consciousness, in which a man may be free because he will then not misuse his freedom, and will never create a disturbance in the circle of freedom, — this state of soul, which was communicated to the Mystics in the Mysteries, in which they were collectively transmuted, — this was from all time described as the “Lily.”
That which Spinoza expresses at the end of his “Ethics,” (dry and mathematical as he was in his other writings) — when he says that man ascended into the higher spheres of existence and penetrated them by means of the laws of nature, — this state of mind may also be described as the Lily, Spinoza describes it as the realm of Divine Love in the human soul, the realm in which man does nothing under compulsion, but in which everything belonging to the domain of human development takes place in freedom, devotion and utter Love, where everything arbitrary is transmuted by that Spiritual Alchemy in which every activity flows into the stream of freedom.
Goethe has described that Love as the highest state of Freedom, as the being free from all desires and wishes of our every-day life. He says, “Self-seeking and Self-will are not permanent, they are driven out by the Ego. Here we must be good.” The Divine Love, which is referred to by Spinoza, and which he wishes to attain through Spiritual Alchemy, — that it is with which man should unite himself, that it is with which man should unite his will. Human will active at every stage, is that which in all ages was known as the “Lion,” the creature in which the Will is most strongly developed, and that is why the Mystics have always called the will of man: the “Lion.” In the Persian Mysteries there were seven Initiations; there were the following: first the Raven, then the Occultist, then the Fighter; at the fourth grade the student was already able to look back at his life from the other side, and had really become Man, hence the Persians called one who had overcome the Lion stage a Persian. That was the fifth stage, and a man who had got so far that his actions flowed quickly along, just as the Sun runs its course in the Heavens above, was called a Sun-runner. But he who accomplished all his actions out of absolute and ceaseless love, was looked upon by the Persians as belonging to the grade of the “Father.” At the fourth grade, a man stood at the parting of the ways; he had then, besides his physical body, his etheric double, and that body which is subject to the laws of passions and desires, wishes and instincts; he was now organized for a higher life. These three bodies form, according to Theosophy, the lower part of man. From these the lower man is born. When a man was initiated into this grade and could see this connection the Persians called him a “Lion.” He then stands at the parting of the ways, and that which compelled him to act according to the laws of nature is transmuted into a free gift of Love. When he reaches the eighth stage of Initiation, when he has evolved himself into a free man, one who can allow himself to do, out of free love, what he was formerly driven to do by his own nature, this connection between the Lion and the free loving being, is described in Alchemy as “the mystery of human development.” This is the mystery Goethe represented in his Fairy Tale. First of all he shows us how this man of will stands there, drawn down to the physical world from higher spheres, from spheres of which he himself knows nothing. Goethe is conscious of the fact that man, in so far as his spiritual nature is concerned, comes originally from higher spheres; that he was led into this which Goethe represents as the world of matter, the world of sense-existence, this is the Land on the bank of the River.
The making of the Madonna & Child Or Re-parenting My Inner Child, Series 3.
An art film by Mary Bogdan.
click here to see the video,
or click here to see it on my blog
Getting ready for The 9th International Collage Exhibition and Exchange, New Zealand, April 2007.
This is my process. I will be working on these 13 in the next couple of weeks and will be posting the transitions, or should I say transformations, or should I say transmutations, or, dare I say... transcendence.
See last years exhibit: 8th International Collage Exhibition & Exchange
See details on how to take part: 9th International Collage Exhibition & Exchange
madonna & child or re-parenting my inner child, a film by mary bogdan www.lulu.tv/?p=7650
Photo : Kurt Ehrmann
Birth of the mysterious Alchemical Sentinels
3 months working day and night with an exceptional “dream team"… a big thank you to ACS, Luc, my trusty Giant who could lift a juggernaut onto a balcony (QED Thierry Loir) Thomas Cart'1, Goin, and of course Marc for the paints.
I have managed to set up my installation of 99 raw steel sculptures with an incredibly demanding specification: none of the 3600 work on the DDC site were to be hidden… we had to think about power sources, water crossings, access for construction machinery including the telescopic booms (3m wide)… public safety, ERP museum standards, etc, ... constantly alternating between the visible and the invisible...
Are they inhabited? I don’t know. One thing is certain: each sentinel stands as a unique sculpture in terms of its alchemical elements and paintwork (either with anti-rust paint or voluntarily with paints that do not resist rust). This autumn, each sentinel will reveal – with the acid rain – different interpretations, depending on the paints and solvents used, making each one different, with stratifications that future archaeologists will decipher.
But my most perilous challenge was to create a giant (9000 m²) installation that envelops the Abode of Chaos with dozens of tons of steel, so that my visitors, from any angle, enter a dreamlike fantasy and where the world of the Abode of Chaos on the one hand and that of the 99 monumental sculptures (named "Alchemical Sentinels" during an extremely busy night ) intersect like the Inframince defined by Marcel Duchamp (or, how to build intensities by subtraction).
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are now the guardians of the Sanctuary that the Abode of Chaos has become. I designed them as veritable quantum energy wells that we placed with patience and wisdom at different spots all over the Abode of Chaos.
There are 99 in total, made of 10mm rough steel (50 tons), welded to form perfect equilateral triangles. Each of the three sides constituting an Alchemical Sentinel is itself cut to reveal a meurtrière, again in the shape of an equilateral triangle, presenting a superb Euclidean geometry to the visitor.
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are each placed at specific energy points on the 9000 m² of the Abode of Chaos. Some are hidden by vegetation or natural landforms or are placed in relation to existing works. Others are located in our private and professionals spaces.
In my alchemical work that began on 9 December 1999, the three gates arranged in an equilateral triangle with one vertex pointing upwards, form the luminous delta. They represent the three elements that alchemists work with. These three elements are sulphur, mercury and salt.
Note that the three elements found in the Prima Materia (or Alchemical Chaos) are very closely related. The point triangle is also the symbol of the fire philosophers.
The equilateral triangle resting on its base – like the three points – is the symbol of the fire element, one of the four elements that the alchemist works with in the laboratory.
The geometric properties of the equilateral triangle evoke absolute perfection by their spiritual strength and their age-old symbolism going back to ancient Egypt… strength, beauty and harmony.
They will remain for a thousand years as witnesses to a civilization lost through the folly of men.
thierry Ehrmann
-------------------------------------------------
3 mois de travail jour et nuit, une "dream team" hors du commun, un grand merci à ACS, Luc, mon fidèle Géant qui poserait un 38 T. sur un balcon (cqfd Thierry Loir) Thomas, Cart'1, Goin et bien sûr Marc pour les peintures.
Je suis arrivé à poser mon installation de 99 sculptures d'acier brut avec un cahier des charges de ouf, aucune des 3600 œuvres de la DDC ne devaient être occultées, penser aux sources électriques, les passages d'eau, les voies de transport pour engin de chantier, les nacelles télescopiques (3m de large), protéger le grand public, respecter les normes ERP muséales, etc… Alterner en permanence monstration et effacement…
Sont-elles habitées ? Je l'ignore. Une chose certaine est que chacune, par les éléments alchimiques et les codes peints soit à l'antirouille soit volontairement avec des peintures dégradables par la rouille avec le temps, rend chaque sentinelle comme une sculpture unique. Cet automne chaque sentinelle va laisser apparaître, avec les pluies acides, différents niveaux de lecture, selon les peintures et solvants utilisés, les rendant singulières avec des stratifications que les archéologues des temps futurs décrypteront...
Mais mon défi le plus périlleux, était de créer une installation géante de 9000 m2 qui enveloppe, par des dizaines de tonnes d'acier, la Demeure du Chaos pour que mes visiteurs sur 360 degrés, plongent dans un univers onirique et fantasmagorique où les deux univers que sont la Demeure du Chaos d'une part et d'autre part l'installation des 99 sculptures monumentales (baptisées par une nuit très agitée "Sentinelles Alchimiques") s'entrecroisent selon l'Inframince définit par Marcel Duchamp (ou comment construire des intensités par soustraction).
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont désormais les gardiennes du Sanctuaire que représente la Demeure du Chaos. Je les ai conçus comme de véritable puits d’énergie quantique que je pose avec patience et sagesse sur l’ensemble de la Demeure du Chaos.
Elles sont au nombre de 99, faites d’acier brut de 10 mm (50 tonnes) soudées pour former un triangle équilatéral parfait. Chacun des 3 pans constituant une Sentinelle Alchimique, est lui même découpé pour laisser entrevoir une mystérieuse meurtrière, elle même en forme de triangle équilatéral, donnant ainsi une géométrie Euclidienne au regard du visiteur.
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont chacune à des points d’énergie particuliers de la Demeure du Chaos sur 9000 m2. Certaines se dissimulent par la végétation ou les reliefs naturels ou bien en écho aux autres œuvres, d’autres sont dans les espaces privatifs ou professionnels.
Dans mon travail alchimique démarré le 9 décembre 1999, les trois portes disposées en triangle équilatéral, dont un sommet est dirigé vers le haut, forment le delta lumineux. Elle sont les trois corps sur lesquels l’alchimiste va œuvrer. Ces trois corps sont le soufre, le mercure et le sel.
Soulignons que les trois corps présents dans la Materia Prima ou Chaos alchimique sont étroitement mélangés. Le triangle de point est aussi la marque des philosophes par le feu.
Le triangle équilatéral reposant sur sa base, à la manière des trois points, est le symbole de l’élément feu, l’un des quatre éléments avec lequel l’alchimiste travaille au laboratoire.
Les propriétés géométriques du triangle équilatéral relèvent de la perfection absolue par sa force spirituelle, son symbolisme de la nuit des temps notamment dans l’ancienne Egypte, il est force, beauté et harmonie.
Elles resteront durant mille ans comme les témoins d’une civilisation disparue par la folie des hommes
thierry Ehrmann
Birth of the mysterious Alchemical Sentinels
3 months working day and night with an exceptional “dream team"… a big thank you to ACS, Luc, my trusty Giant who could lift a juggernaut onto a balcony (QED Thierry Loir) Thomas Cart'1, Goin, and of course Marc for the paints.
I have managed to set up my installation of 99 raw steel sculptures with an incredibly demanding specification: none of the 3600 work on the DDC site were to be hidden… we had to think about power sources, water crossings, access for construction machinery including the telescopic booms (3m wide)… public safety, ERP museum standards, etc, ... constantly alternating between the visible and the invisible...
Are they inhabited? I don’t know. One thing is certain: each sentinel stands as a unique sculpture in terms of its alchemical elements and paintwork (either with anti-rust paint or voluntarily with paints that do not resist rust). This autumn, each sentinel will reveal – with the acid rain – different interpretations, depending on the paints and solvents used, making each one different, with stratifications that future archaeologists will decipher.
But my most perilous challenge was to create a giant (9000 m²) installation that envelops the Abode of Chaos with dozens of tons of steel, so that my visitors, from any angle, enter a dreamlike fantasy and where the world of the Abode of Chaos on the one hand and that of the 99 monumental sculptures (named "Alchemical Sentinels" during an extremely busy night ) intersect like the Inframince defined by Marcel Duchamp (or, how to build intensities by subtraction).
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are now the guardians of the Sanctuary that the Abode of Chaos has become. I designed them as veritable quantum energy wells that we placed with patience and wisdom at different spots all over the Abode of Chaos.
There are 99 in total, made of 10mm rough steel (50 tons), welded to form perfect equilateral triangles. Each of the three sides constituting an Alchemical Sentinel is itself cut to reveal a meurtrière, again in the shape of an equilateral triangle, presenting a superb Euclidean geometry to the visitor.
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are each placed at specific energy points on the 9000 m² of the Abode of Chaos. Some are hidden by vegetation or natural landforms or are placed in relation to existing works. Others are located in our private and professionals spaces.
In my alchemical work that began on 9 December 1999, the three gates arranged in an equilateral triangle with one vertex pointing upwards, form the luminous delta. They represent the three elements that alchemists work with. These three elements are sulphur, mercury and salt.
Note that the three elements found in the Prima Materia (or Alchemical Chaos) are very closely related. The point triangle is also the symbol of the fire philosophers.
The equilateral triangle resting on its base – like the three points – is the symbol of the fire element, one of the four elements that the alchemist works with in the laboratory.
The geometric properties of the equilateral triangle evoke absolute perfection by their spiritual strength and their age-old symbolism going back to ancient Egypt… strength, beauty and harmony.
They will remain for a thousand years as witnesses to a civilization lost through the folly of men.
thierry Ehrmann
-------------------------------------------------
3 mois de travail jour et nuit, une "dream team" hors du commun, un grand merci à ACS, Luc, mon fidèle Géant qui poserait un 38 T. sur un balcon (cqfd Thierry Loir) Thomas, Cart'1, Goin et bien sûr Marc pour les peintures.
Je suis arrivé à poser mon installation de 99 sculptures d'acier brut avec un cahier des charges de ouf, aucune des 3600 œuvres de la DDC ne devaient être occultées, penser aux sources électriques, les passages d'eau, les voies de transport pour engin de chantier, les nacelles télescopiques (3m de large), protéger le grand public, respecter les normes ERP muséales, etc… Alterner en permanence monstration et effacement…
Sont-elles habitées ? Je l'ignore. Une chose certaine est que chacune, par les éléments alchimiques et les codes peints soit à l'antirouille soit volontairement avec des peintures dégradables par la rouille avec le temps, rend chaque sentinelle comme une sculpture unique. Cet automne chaque sentinelle va laisser apparaître, avec les pluies acides, différents niveaux de lecture, selon les peintures et solvants utilisés, les rendant singulières avec des stratifications que les archéologues des temps futurs décrypteront...
Mais mon défi le plus périlleux, était de créer une installation géante de 9000 m2 qui enveloppe, par des dizaines de tonnes d'acier, la Demeure du Chaos pour que mes visiteurs sur 360 degrés, plongent dans un univers onirique et fantasmagorique où les deux univers que sont la Demeure du Chaos d'une part et d'autre part l'installation des 99 sculptures monumentales (baptisées par une nuit très agitée "Sentinelles Alchimiques") s'entrecroisent selon l'Inframince définit par Marcel Duchamp (ou comment construire des intensités par soustraction).
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont désormais les gardiennes du Sanctuaire que représente la Demeure du Chaos. Je les ai conçus comme de véritable puits d’énergie quantique que je pose avec patience et sagesse sur l’ensemble de la Demeure du Chaos.
Elles sont au nombre de 99, faites d’acier brut de 10 mm (50 tonnes) soudées pour former un triangle équilatéral parfait. Chacun des 3 pans constituant une Sentinelle Alchimique, est lui même découpé pour laisser entrevoir une mystérieuse meurtrière, elle même en forme de triangle équilatéral, donnant ainsi une géométrie Euclidienne au regard du visiteur.
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont chacune à des points d’énergie particuliers de la Demeure du Chaos sur 9000 m2. Certaines se dissimulent par la végétation ou les reliefs naturels ou bien en écho aux autres œuvres, d’autres sont dans les espaces privatifs ou professionnels.
Dans mon travail alchimique démarré le 9 décembre 1999, les trois portes disposées en triangle équilatéral, dont un sommet est dirigé vers le haut, forment le delta lumineux. Elle sont les trois corps sur lesquels l’alchimiste va œuvrer. Ces trois corps sont le soufre, le mercure et le sel.
Soulignons que les trois corps présents dans la Materia Prima ou Chaos alchimique sont étroitement mélangés. Le triangle de point est aussi la marque des philosophes par le feu.
Le triangle équilatéral reposant sur sa base, à la manière des trois points, est le symbole de l’élément feu, l’un des quatre éléments avec lequel l’alchimiste travaille au laboratoire.
Les propriétés géométriques du triangle équilatéral relèvent de la perfection absolue par sa force spirituelle, son symbolisme de la nuit des temps notamment dans l’ancienne Egypte, il est force, beauté et harmonie.
Elles resteront durant mille ans comme les témoins d’une civilisation disparue par la folie des hommes
thierry Ehrmann
Click here for my Facebook
SOOC
And from time to time we get to see things that we associate with ideas and feelings, some other times, we just want to see things we believe in or we are just that crazy, hahaha, I don't know but well, this was actually a tree, an illuminated tree but once I started to play with the long exposure and the zoom effect, well, I got to see this kind of man-angel-allien or all the three at the same time, I don't know but I think it is more probable that my mind is already damage hahahaha.
What do you see here?
Birth of the mysterious Alchemical Sentinels
3 months working day and night with an exceptional “dream team"… a big thank you to ACS, Luc, my trusty Giant who could lift a juggernaut onto a balcony (QED Thierry Loir) Thomas Cart'1, Goin, and of course Marc for the paints.
I have managed to set up my installation of 99 raw steel sculptures with an incredibly demanding specification: none of the 3600 work on the DDC site were to be hidden… we had to think about power sources, water crossings, access for construction machinery including the telescopic booms (3m wide)… public safety, ERP museum standards, etc, ... constantly alternating between the visible and the invisible...
Are they inhabited? I don’t know. One thing is certain: each sentinel stands as a unique sculpture in terms of its alchemical elements and paintwork (either with anti-rust paint or voluntarily with paints that do not resist rust). This autumn, each sentinel will reveal – with the acid rain – different interpretations, depending on the paints and solvents used, making each one different, with stratifications that future archaeologists will decipher.
But my most perilous challenge was to create a giant (9000 m²) installation that envelops the Abode of Chaos with dozens of tons of steel, so that my visitors, from any angle, enter a dreamlike fantasy and where the world of the Abode of Chaos on the one hand and that of the 99 monumental sculptures (named "Alchemical Sentinels" during an extremely busy night ) intersect like the Inframince defined by Marcel Duchamp (or, how to build intensities by subtraction).
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are now the guardians of the Sanctuary that the Abode of Chaos has become. I designed them as veritable quantum energy wells that we placed with patience and wisdom at different spots all over the Abode of Chaos.
There are 99 in total, made of 10mm rough steel (50 tons), welded to form perfect equilateral triangles. Each of the three sides constituting an Alchemical Sentinel is itself cut to reveal a meurtrière, again in the shape of an equilateral triangle, presenting a superb Euclidean geometry to the visitor.
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are each placed at specific energy points on the 9000 m² of the Abode of Chaos. Some are hidden by vegetation or natural landforms or are placed in relation to existing works. Others are located in our private and professionals spaces.
In my alchemical work that began on 9 December 1999, the three gates arranged in an equilateral triangle with one vertex pointing upwards, form the luminous delta. They represent the three elements that alchemists work with. These three elements are sulphur, mercury and salt.
Note that the three elements found in the Prima Materia (or Alchemical Chaos) are very closely related. The point triangle is also the symbol of the fire philosophers.
The equilateral triangle resting on its base – like the three points – is the symbol of the fire element, one of the four elements that the alchemist works with in the laboratory.
The geometric properties of the equilateral triangle evoke absolute perfection by their spiritual strength and their age-old symbolism going back to ancient Egypt… strength, beauty and harmony.
They will remain for a thousand years as witnesses to a civilization lost through the folly of men.
thierry Ehrmann
-------------------------------------------------
3 mois de travail jour et nuit, une "dream team" hors du commun, un grand merci à ACS, Luc, mon fidèle Géant qui poserait un 38 T. sur un balcon (cqfd Thierry Loir) Thomas, Cart'1, Goin et bien sûr Marc pour les peintures.
Je suis arrivé à poser mon installation de 99 sculptures d'acier brut avec un cahier des charges de ouf, aucune des 3600 œuvres de la DDC ne devaient être occultées, penser aux sources électriques, les passages d'eau, les voies de transport pour engin de chantier, les nacelles télescopiques (3m de large), protéger le grand public, respecter les normes ERP muséales, etc… Alterner en permanence monstration et effacement…
Sont-elles habitées ? Je l'ignore. Une chose certaine est que chacune, par les éléments alchimiques et les codes peints soit à l'antirouille soit volontairement avec des peintures dégradables par la rouille avec le temps, rend chaque sentinelle comme une sculpture unique. Cet automne chaque sentinelle va laisser apparaître, avec les pluies acides, différents niveaux de lecture, selon les peintures et solvants utilisés, les rendant singulières avec des stratifications que les archéologues des temps futurs décrypteront...
Mais mon défi le plus périlleux, était de créer une installation géante de 9000 m2 qui enveloppe, par des dizaines de tonnes d'acier, la Demeure du Chaos pour que mes visiteurs sur 360 degrés, plongent dans un univers onirique et fantasmagorique où les deux univers que sont la Demeure du Chaos d'une part et d'autre part l'installation des 99 sculptures monumentales (baptisées par une nuit très agitée "Sentinelles Alchimiques") s'entrecroisent selon l'Inframince définit par Marcel Duchamp (ou comment construire des intensités par soustraction).
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont désormais les gardiennes du Sanctuaire que représente la Demeure du Chaos. Je les ai conçus comme de véritable puits d’énergie quantique que je pose avec patience et sagesse sur l’ensemble de la Demeure du Chaos.
Elles sont au nombre de 99, faites d’acier brut de 10 mm (50 tonnes) soudées pour former un triangle équilatéral parfait. Chacun des 3 pans constituant une Sentinelle Alchimique, est lui même découpé pour laisser entrevoir une mystérieuse meurtrière, elle même en forme de triangle équilatéral, donnant ainsi une géométrie Euclidienne au regard du visiteur.
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont chacune à des points d’énergie particuliers de la Demeure du Chaos sur 9000 m2. Certaines se dissimulent par la végétation ou les reliefs naturels ou bien en écho aux autres œuvres, d’autres sont dans les espaces privatifs ou professionnels.
Dans mon travail alchimique démarré le 9 décembre 1999, les trois portes disposées en triangle équilatéral, dont un sommet est dirigé vers le haut, forment le delta lumineux. Elle sont les trois corps sur lesquels l’alchimiste va œuvrer. Ces trois corps sont le soufre, le mercure et le sel.
Soulignons que les trois corps présents dans la Materia Prima ou Chaos alchimique sont étroitement mélangés. Le triangle de point est aussi la marque des philosophes par le feu.
Le triangle équilatéral reposant sur sa base, à la manière des trois points, est le symbole de l’élément feu, l’un des quatre éléments avec lequel l’alchimiste travaille au laboratoire.
Les propriétés géométriques du triangle équilatéral relèvent de la perfection absolue par sa force spirituelle, son symbolisme de la nuit des temps notamment dans l’ancienne Egypte, il est force, beauté et harmonie.
Elles resteront durant mille ans comme les témoins d’une civilisation disparue par la folie des hommes
thierry Ehrmann
Birth of the mysterious Alchemical Sentinels
3 months working day and night with an exceptional “dream team"… a big thank you to ACS, Luc, my trusty Giant who could lift a juggernaut onto a balcony (QED Thierry Loir) Thomas Cart'1, Goin, and of course Marc for the paints.
I have managed to set up my installation of 99 raw steel sculptures with an incredibly demanding specification: none of the 3600 work on the DDC site were to be hidden… we had to think about power sources, water crossings, access for construction machinery including the telescopic booms (3m wide)… public safety, ERP museum standards, etc, ... constantly alternating between the visible and the invisible...
Are they inhabited? I don’t know. One thing is certain: each sentinel stands as a unique sculpture in terms of its alchemical elements and paintwork (either with anti-rust paint or voluntarily with paints that do not resist rust). This autumn, each sentinel will reveal – with the acid rain – different interpretations, depending on the paints and solvents used, making each one different, with stratifications that future archaeologists will decipher.
But my most perilous challenge was to create a giant (9000 m²) installation that envelops the Abode of Chaos with dozens of tons of steel, so that my visitors, from any angle, enter a dreamlike fantasy and where the world of the Abode of Chaos on the one hand and that of the 99 monumental sculptures (named "Alchemical Sentinels" during an extremely busy night ) intersect like the Inframince defined by Marcel Duchamp (or, how to build intensities by subtraction).
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are now the guardians of the Sanctuary that the Abode of Chaos has become. I designed them as veritable quantum energy wells that we placed with patience and wisdom at different spots all over the Abode of Chaos.
There are 99 in total, made of 10mm rough steel (50 tons), welded to form perfect equilateral triangles. Each of the three sides constituting an Alchemical Sentinel is itself cut to reveal a meurtrière, again in the shape of an equilateral triangle, presenting a superb Euclidean geometry to the visitor.
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are each placed at specific energy points on the 9000 m² of the Abode of Chaos. Some are hidden by vegetation or natural landforms or are placed in relation to existing works. Others are located in our private and professionals spaces.
In my alchemical work that began on 9 December 1999, the three gates arranged in an equilateral triangle with one vertex pointing upwards, form the luminous delta. They represent the three elements that alchemists work with. These three elements are sulphur, mercury and salt.
Note that the three elements found in the Prima Materia (or Alchemical Chaos) are very closely related. The point triangle is also the symbol of the fire philosophers.
The equilateral triangle resting on its base – like the three points – is the symbol of the fire element, one of the four elements that the alchemist works with in the laboratory.
The geometric properties of the equilateral triangle evoke absolute perfection by their spiritual strength and their age-old symbolism going back to ancient Egypt… strength, beauty and harmony.
They will remain for a thousand years as witnesses to a civilization lost through the folly of men.
thierry Ehrmann
-------------------------------------------------
3 mois de travail jour et nuit, une "dream team" hors du commun, un grand merci à ACS, Luc, mon fidèle Géant qui poserait un 38 T. sur un balcon (cqfd Thierry Loir) Thomas, Cart'1, Goin et bien sûr Marc pour les peintures.
Je suis arrivé à poser mon installation de 99 sculptures d'acier brut avec un cahier des charges de ouf, aucune des 3600 œuvres de la DDC ne devaient être occultées, penser aux sources électriques, les passages d'eau, les voies de transport pour engin de chantier, les nacelles télescopiques (3m de large), protéger le grand public, respecter les normes ERP muséales, etc… Alterner en permanence monstration et effacement…
Sont-elles habitées ? Je l'ignore. Une chose certaine est que chacune, par les éléments alchimiques et les codes peints soit à l'antirouille soit volontairement avec des peintures dégradables par la rouille avec le temps, rend chaque sentinelle comme une sculpture unique. Cet automne chaque sentinelle va laisser apparaître, avec les pluies acides, différents niveaux de lecture, selon les peintures et solvants utilisés, les rendant singulières avec des stratifications que les archéologues des temps futurs décrypteront...
Mais mon défi le plus périlleux, était de créer une installation géante de 9000 m2 qui enveloppe, par des dizaines de tonnes d'acier, la Demeure du Chaos pour que mes visiteurs sur 360 degrés, plongent dans un univers onirique et fantasmagorique où les deux univers que sont la Demeure du Chaos d'une part et d'autre part l'installation des 99 sculptures monumentales (baptisées par une nuit très agitée "Sentinelles Alchimiques") s'entrecroisent selon l'Inframince définit par Marcel Duchamp (ou comment construire des intensités par soustraction).
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont désormais les gardiennes du Sanctuaire que représente la Demeure du Chaos. Je les ai conçus comme de véritable puits d’énergie quantique que je pose avec patience et sagesse sur l’ensemble de la Demeure du Chaos.
Elles sont au nombre de 99, faites d’acier brut de 10 mm (50 tonnes) soudées pour former un triangle équilatéral parfait. Chacun des 3 pans constituant une Sentinelle Alchimique, est lui même découpé pour laisser entrevoir une mystérieuse meurtrière, elle même en forme de triangle équilatéral, donnant ainsi une géométrie Euclidienne au regard du visiteur.
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont chacune à des points d’énergie particuliers de la Demeure du Chaos sur 9000 m2. Certaines se dissimulent par la végétation ou les reliefs naturels ou bien en écho aux autres œuvres, d’autres sont dans les espaces privatifs ou professionnels.
Dans mon travail alchimique démarré le 9 décembre 1999, les trois portes disposées en triangle équilatéral, dont un sommet est dirigé vers le haut, forment le delta lumineux. Elle sont les trois corps sur lesquels l’alchimiste va œuvrer. Ces trois corps sont le soufre, le mercure et le sel.
Soulignons que les trois corps présents dans la Materia Prima ou Chaos alchimique sont étroitement mélangés. Le triangle de point est aussi la marque des philosophes par le feu.
Le triangle équilatéral reposant sur sa base, à la manière des trois points, est le symbole de l’élément feu, l’un des quatre éléments avec lequel l’alchimiste travaille au laboratoire.
Les propriétés géométriques du triangle équilatéral relèvent de la perfection absolue par sa force spirituelle, son symbolisme de la nuit des temps notamment dans l’ancienne Egypte, il est force, beauté et harmonie.
Elles resteront durant mille ans comme les témoins d’une civilisation disparue par la folie des hommes
thierry Ehrmann
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
"999" English version with English subtitles is available >>>
HD movie - scenario thierry Ehrmann - filmed by Etienne Perrone
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voir les secrets de la Demeure du Chaos avec 112 pages très étranges (adult only)
999 : visite initiatique au coeur de la Demeure du Chaos insufflée par l'Esprit de la Salamandre
Film HD d'Etienne PERRONE selon un scénario original de thierry Ehrmann.
courtesy of Organ Museum
©2011 www.AbodeofChaos.org
“Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world. Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.”
red is the color of powerful rituals and deeds. it is the color of passion, transmuted to discriminating wisdom. another dimension regarding the color red is the belief surrounding coral; coral teaches us form, also flow and flexibility within form. it is one of the five sacred stones of the tibetan buddhists, and symbolizes the energy of life force. it is often believed to be a protection against the evil eye.
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
- William Shenstone, poet (18 Nov 1714-1763)
---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----
---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----
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Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
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www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.
In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.
The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.
Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.
Ezio Famà.
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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.
Ezio Famà.
Saraswati (Sanskrit: सरस्वती, Sarasvatī) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, arts, wisdom and learning. She is a part of the trinity of Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati. All the three forms help the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva to create, maintain and regenerate-recycle the Universe respectively.
The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a goddess is in Rigveda. She has remained significant as a goddess from the Vedic age through modern times of Hindu traditions. Some Hindus celebrate the festival of Vasant Panchami (the fifth day of spring) in her honour, and mark the day by helping young children learn how to write alphabets on that day. The Goddess is also revered by believers of the Jain religion of west and central India, as well as some Buddhist sects.
Saraswati as a goddess of knowledge, music and arts is also found outside India, such as in Japan, Vietnam, Bali (Indonesia) and Myanmar.
ETYMOLOGY
Saraswati, sometimes spelled Sarasvati, is a Sanskrit fusion word of Sara (सार) which means essence, and Sva (स्व) which means one self, the fused word meaning "essence of one self", and Saraswati meaning "one who leads to essence of self knowledge". It is also a Sanskrit composite word of surasa-vati (सुरस-वति) which means "one with plenty of water".
The word Saraswati appears both as a reference to a river and as a significant deity in the Rigveda. In initial passages, the word refers to Sarasvati River and mentioned with other northwestern Indian rivers such as Drishadvati. Saraswati then connotes a river deity. In Book 2, Rigveda calls Saraswati as the best of mothers, of rivers, of goddesses.
अम्बितमे नदीतमे देवितमे सरस्वति |
– Rigveda 2.41.16
Saraswati is celebrated as a feminine deity with healing, purifying powers of abundant, flowing waters in Book 10 of Rigveda, as follows:
अपो अस्मान मातरः शुन्धयन्तु घर्तेन नो घर्तप्वः पुनन्तु |
विश्वं हि रिप्रं परवहन्ति देविरुदिदाभ्यः शुचिरापूत एमि ||
– Rigveda 10.17
May the waters, the mothers, cleanse us,
may they who purify with butter, purify us with butter,
for these goddesses bear away defilement,
I come up out of them pure and cleansed.
–Translated by John Muir
In Vedic literature, Saraswati gains the same significance to early Indians, states John Muir, as Ganges river became to their descendants. In hymns of Book 10 of Rigveda, she is already declared to be the "possessor of knowledge". Her importance grows in Vedas composed after Rigveda and in Brahmanas, and the word evolves in its meaning from "waters that purify", to "that which purifies", to "vach (speech) that purifies", to "knowledge that purifies", and ultimately into a spiritual concept of a goddess that embodies knowledge, arts, music, melody, muse, language, rhetoric, eloquence, creative work and anything whose flow purifies the essence and self of a person. In Upanishads and Dharma Sastras, Saraswati is invoked to remind the reader to meditate on virtue, virtuous emoluments, the meaning and the very essence of one's activity, one's action.
Saraswati is known by many names in ancient Hindu literature. Some examples of synonyms for Saraswati include Brahmani (goddess of sciences), Brahmi (from being wife of Brahma), Bharadi (goddess of history), Vani and Vachi (both referring to the flow of music/song, melodious speech, eloquent speaking respectively), Varnesvari (goddess of letters), Kavijihvagravasini (one who dwells on the tongue of poets).
NOMENCLATURE
In the Telugu language, Sarasvati is also known as Chaduvula Thalli (చదువుల తల్లి), Sharada (శారద). In Konkani, she is referred to as Sharada, Veenapani, Pustaka dharini, Vidyadayini. In Kannada, variants of her name include Sharade, Sharadamba, Vani, Veenapani in the famous Sringeri temple. In Tamil, she is also known as Kalaimagal (கலைமகள்), Kalaivaani (கலைவாணி), Vaani (வாணி), Bharathi. She is also addressed as Sharada (the one who loves the autumn season), Veena pustaka dharani (the one holding books and a Veena), Vaakdevi, Vagdevi, Vani (all meaning "speech"), Varadhanayagi (the one bestowing boons).
Within India, she is locally spelled as Bengali: সরস্বতী, Saraswati ?, Malayalam: സരസ്വതി, Saraswathy ?, and Tamil: சரஸ்வதி, Sarasvatī ?.
Outside India, she is known in Burmese as Thurathadi (သူရဿတီ, pronounced: [θùja̰ðədì] or [θùɹa̰ðədì]) or Tipitaka Medaw (တိပိဋကမယ်တော်, pronounced: [tḭpḭtəka̰ mɛ̀dɔ̀]), in Chinese as Biàncáitiān (辯才天), in Japanese as Benzaiten (弁才天/弁財天) and in Thai as Suratsawadi (สุรัสวดี) or Saratsawadi (สรัสวดี).
HISTORY
Saraswati is found in almost every major ancient and medieval Indian literature between 1000 BC to 1500 AD. She has remained significant as a goddess from the Vedic age through modern times of Hindu traditions. In Shanti Parva of the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Saraswati is called the mother of the Vedas, and later as the celestial creative symphony who appeared when Brahma created the universe. In Book 2 of Taittiriya Brahmana, she is called the mother of eloquent speech and melodious music. Saraswati is the active energy and power of Brahma. She is also mentioned in many minor Sanskrit publications such as Sarada Tilaka of 8th century AD as follows, May the goddess of speech enable us to attain all possible eloquence,
she who wears on her locks a young moon,
who shines with exquisite lustre,
who sits reclined on a white lotus,
and from the crimson cusp of whose hands pours,
radiance on the implements of writing, and books produced by her favour.
– On Saraswati, Sarada TilakaSaraswati became a prominent deity in Buddhist iconography – the consort of Manjushri in 1st millennium AD. In some instances such as in the Sadhanamala of Buddhist pantheon, she has been symbolically represented similar to regional Hindu iconography, but unlike the more well known depictions of Saraswati.
SYMBOLISM AND ICONOGRAPHY
The goddess Saraswati is often depicted as a beautiful woman dressed in pure white, often seated on a white lotus, which symbolizes light, knowledge and truth. She not only embodies knowledge but also the experience of the highest reality. Her iconography is typically in white themes from dress to flowers to swan – the colour symbolizing Sattwa Guna or purity, discrimination for true knowledge, insight and wisdom.
She is generally shown to have four arms, but sometimes just two. When shown with four hands, those hands symbolically mirror her husband Brahma's four heads, representing manas (mind, sense), buddhi (intellect, reasoning), citta (imagination, creativity) and ahamkara (self consciousness, ego). Brahma represents the abstract, she action and reality.
The four hands hold items with symbolic meaning — a pustaka (book or script), a mala (rosary, garland), a water pot and a musical instrument (lute or vina). The book she holds symbolizes the Vedas representing the universal, divine, eternal, and true knowledge as well as all forms of learning. A mālā of crystals, representing the power of meditation, inner reflection and spirituality. A pot of water represents powers to purify the right from wrong, the clean from unclean, and the essence from the misleading. In some texts, the pot of water is symbolism for soma - the drink that liberates and leads to knowledge. The musical instrument, typically a veena, represents all creative arts and sciences, and her holding it symbolizes expressing knowledge that creates harmony. Saraswati is also associated with anurāga, the love for and rhythm of music, which represents all emotions and feelings expressed in speech or music.
A hansa / hans or swan is often located next to her feet. In Hindu mythology, hans is a sacred bird, which if offered a mixture of milk and water, is said to be able to drink the milk alone. It thus symbolizes discrimination between the good from the bad, the essence from the superficial, the eternal from the evanescent. Due to her association with the swan, Saraswati is also referred to as Hansvahini, which means "she who has a hansa / hans as her vehicle". The swan is also a symbolism for spiritual perfection, transcendence and moksha.
Sometimes a citramekhala (also called mayura, peacock) is shown beside the goddess. The peacock symbolizes colorful splendor, celebration of dance, and peacock's ability to eat poison (snakes) yet transmute from it a beautiful plumage.
She is usually depicted near a flowing river or near a water body, which may be related to her early history as a river goddess
REGIONAL MANIFESTATIONS OF SARASWATI
MAHA SARASWATI
In some regions of India, such as Vindhya, Odisha, West Bengal and Assam, as well as east Nepal, Saraswati is part of the Devi Mahatmya mythology, in the trinity of Maha Kali, Maha Lakshmi and Maha Saraswati. This is one of many different Hindu legends that attempt to explain how Hindu trinity of gods (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) and goddesses (Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati) came into being. Various Purana texts offer alternate legends for Maha Saraswati.
Maha Saraswati is depicted as eight-armed and is often portrayed holding a Veena whilst sitting on a white lotus flower.
Her dhyāna shloka given at the beginning of the fifth chapter of Devi Mahatmya is:
Wielding in her lotus-hands the bell, trident, ploughshare, conch, pestle, discus, bow, and arrow, her lustre is like that of a moon shining in the autumn sky. She is born from the body of Gowri and is the sustaining base of the three worlds. That Mahasaraswati I worship here who destroyed Sumbha and other asuras.
Mahasaraswati is also part of another legend, the Navdurgas, or nine forms of Durga, revered as powerful and dangerous goddesses in eastern India. They have special significance on Navaratri in these regions. All of these are seen ultimately as aspects of a single great Hindu goddess, with Maha Saraswati as one of those nine.
MAHAVIDYA NILA SARASWATI
In Tibet and parts of India, Nilasaraswati is a form of Mahavidya Tara. Nila Saraswati is a different deity than traditional Saraswati, yet subsumes her knowledge and creative energy in tantric literature. Nila Sarasvati is the ugra (angry, violent, destructive) manifestation in a one school of Hinduism, while the more common Saraswati is the saumya (calm, compassionate, productive) manifestation found in most schools of Hinduism. In tantric literature of the former, Nilasaraswati has a 100 names. There are separate dhyana shlokas and mantras for her worship in Tantrasara.
WORSHIP
TEMPLES
There are many temples, dedicated to Saraswati around the world. Some notable temples include the Gnana Saraswati Temple in Basar, on the banks of the River Godavari, the Wargal Saraswati and Shri Saraswati Kshetramu temples in Medak, Telangana. In Karnataka, one of many Saraswati/Sharada pilgrimage spots is Shringeri Sharadamba Temple. In Ernakulam district of Kerala, there is a famous Saraswati temple in North Paravur, namely Dakshina Mookambika Temple North Paravur. In Tamil Nadu, Koothanur hosts a Saraswati temples about 25 kilometres from Tiruvarur.
FESTIVALS
Saraswati's is remembered on – Vasant Panchami – is a Hindu festival celebrated every year on the 5th day in the Hindu calendar month of Magha (about February). Hindus celebrate this festival in temples, homes and educational institutes alike.
In Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka, Saraswati Puja starts with Saraswati Avahan on Maha Saptami and ends on Vijayadashami with Saraswati Udasan or Visarjan.
SARASWATI PUJA CALENDAR
Saraswati Puja Avahan – Maha Saptami – Triratna vratam starts in Andhra Pradesh.
Saraswati Puja (main puja) – Durga Ashtami
Saraswati Uttara Puja – Mahanavami
Saraswati Visarjan or Udasan – Vijaya Dashami
Saraswati Kartik Purnima on (Sristhal) siddhpur of Gujaratis ancient festival since Solanki ruling of Patan state.
SARASWATI PUJA IN SOUTH INDIA
In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the last three days of the Navaratri festival, i.e., Ashtami, Navami, and Dashami, are celebrated as Sarasvati Puja. The celebrations start with the Puja Vypu (Placing for Worship). It consists of placing the books for puja on the Ashtami day. It may be in one's own house, in the local nursery school run by traditional teachers, or in the local temple. The books will be taken out for reading, after worship, only on the morning of the third day (Vijaya Dashami). It is called Puja Eduppu (Taking [from] Puja). Children are happy, since they are not expected to study on these days. On the Vijaya Dashami day, Kerala celebrates the Ezhuthiniruthu or Initiation of Writing for the little children before they are admitted to nursery schools. This is also called Vidyarambham. The child is made to write for the first time on the rice spread in a plate with the index finger, guided by an elder of the family or by a teacher.
SARASWATI OUTSIDE INDIA
SARASWATI IN MYANMAR
In Burma, the Shwezigon Mon Inscription dated to be of 1084 AD, near Bagan, recites the name Saraswati as follows,
"The wisdom of eloquence called Saraswati shall dwell in mouth of King Sri Tribhuwanadityadhammaraja at all times". – Translated by Than Tun
Statue of Thurathadi at Kyauktawgyi Buddha Temple (Yangon)
In Buddhist arts of Myanmar, she is called Thurathadi (or Thayéthadi).: 215 Students in Myanmar pray for her blessings before their exams. :327 She is also believed to be, in Mahayana pantheon of Myanmar, the protector of Buddhist scriptures.
SARASWATI IN JAPAN
The concept of Saraswati migrated from India, through China to Japan, where she appears as Benzaiten (弁財天). Worship of Benzaiten arrived in Japan during the 6th through 8th centuries. She is often depicted holding a biwa, a traditional Japanese lute musical instrument. She is enshrined on numerous locations throughout Japan such as the Kamakura's Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine or Nagoya's Kawahara Shrine; the three biggest shrines in Japan in her honour are at the Enoshima Island in Sagami Bay, the Chikubu Island in Lake Biwa, and the Itsukushima Island in Seto Inland Sea.
SARASWATI IN CAMBODIA
Saraswati was honoured with invocations among Hindus of Angkorian Cambodia, suggests a tenth-century and another eleventh-century inscription. She and Brahma are referred to in Cambodian epigraphy from the 7th century onwards, and she is praised by Khmer poets for being goddess of eloquence, writing and music. More offerings were made to her than to her husband Brahma. She is also referred to as Vagisvari and Bharati in Yasovarman era Khmer literature.
SARASWATI IN THAILAND
In ancient Thai literature, Saraswati (Thai: สุรัสวดี; rtgs: Suratsawadi) is the goddess of speech and learning, and consort of Brahma. Over time, Hindu and Buddhist concepts on deities merged in Thailand. Icons of Saraswati with other deities of India are found in old Thai wats. Amulets with Saraswati and a peacock are also found in Thailand.
SARASWATI IN INDONESIA
Saraswati is an important goddess in Balinese Hinduism. She shares the same attributes and iconography as Saraswati in Hindu literature of India - in both places, she is the goddess of knowledge, creative arts, wisdom, language, learning and purity. In Bali, she is celebrated on Saraswati day, one of the main festivals for Hindus in Indonesia. The day marks the close of 210-day year in the Pawukon calendar.
On Saraswati day, people make offerings in the form of flowers in temples and to sacred texts. The day after Saraswati day, is Banyu Pinaruh, a day of cleansing. On this day, Hindus of Bali go to the sea, sacred waterfalls or river spots, offer prayers to Saraswati, and then rinse themselves in that water in the morning. Then they prepare a feast, such as the traditional bebek betutu and nasi kuning, that they share.
The Saraswati Day festival has a long history in Bali. It has become more widespread in Hindu community of Indonesia in recent decades, and it is celebrated with theatre and dance performance.
WIKIPEDIA
Chinese alchemy is an ancient Chinese scientific and technological approach to alchemy, a part of the larger tradition of Taoist body-spirit cultivation developed from the traditional Chinese understanding of medicine and the body. According to original texts such as the Cantong qi, the body is understood as the focus of cosmological processes summarized in the five agents, or wu xing, the observation and cultivation of which leads the practitioner into greater alignment with the operation of the Tao, the great cosmological principle of everything. Therefore, the traditional view in China is that alchemy focuses mainly on the purification of one's spirit and body in the hopes of gaining immortality through the practice of Qigong and/or consumption and use of various concoctions known as alchemical medicines or elixirs, each of which having different purposes.
Pao zhi (Pao chi) cites the pharmacological processing (of Chinese materia medica) as used in the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine, such as honey or wine frying and roasting with toxic metals such as mercury, lead, and arsenic.[1]
According to J.C. Cooper's Chinese Alchemy: The Taoist Quest for Immortality, Taoism had two distinct parts, the classical Tao Chia, which was mystical and stemmed primarily from Laozi and Zhuangzi, and the more popular Tao Chiao, which was the popular, magical and alchemical side of Taoism. Cooper states that a common viewpoint is that "classical Taoism [Daoism] was the original but was too austere and rarefied for the general populace ... [but] Tao Chiao fulfilled the day-to-day needs of the people."
Process and purpose
By refining bases into gold, the alchemist believed that immortal life would be delivered if the "fake" or synthetic gold was ingested. The idea that fake gold was superior to real gold arose because the alchemists believed the combination of a variety of substances (and the transformation of these substances through roasting or burning) gave the final substance a spiritual value. It possesses a superior essence when compared to natural gold. (Cooper, 1990. Pg. 65) Gold and cinnabar (Jindan in Chinese) were the most sought-after substances to manipulate and ingest. They were believed to have longevity and could elongate the life of the consumer. Cinnabar is a mineral with a reddish-brown colour and is the most common source of mercury in nature.[2] It was used in the search for immortality because of the special significance of its colour, and the difficulty with which it was refined.
The colour of the cinnabar is significant to symbolic belief as well. The colour red in Chinese culture is considered to be the "zenith of the colour representing the sun, fire, royalty and energy." (Cooper, 1990. Pg 70) Cinnabar could also be roasted which produced a liquid form of silver known as quicksilver, which we know to be mercury. This substance was ingested but it could also be combined with sulphur and burned again to return to its natural form of cinnabar. "Cinnabar was the yang to quicksilver's yin" (Cooper, 1990. Pg 70). In China gold was quite rare, so it was usually imported from other surrounding countries. However, cinnabar could be refined in the mountains of Szechuan and Hunan Provinces in central China.
Although the majority of hsien (immortality) elixirs were combinations of jindan, many other elixirs were formed by combining metallic bases with natural herbs or animals bi-products. The rhinoceros' horn was commonly used in medicines and elixirs and was held to have fertility-increasing abilities. Elixirs were composed of metallic compounds such as gold and silver, but they could also be made of more lethal components like arsenic, and sulphur.
Eastern vs Western views
Further information: Alchemy
Both the Eastern practice of alchemy and the later Western practice are remarkably similar in their methods and ultimate purpose. To be sure, the desire to create an elixir of immortality was more appealing to the Taoists, but European alchemists were not averse to seeking out formulas for various longevity-boosting substances. The secret of transmuting one element into another, specifically base metals into gold or silver, was equally explored by both schools for obvious reasons.
In the European outlook, the ability to turn relatively worthless materials into gold was attractive enough to allow medieval alchemy to enjoy extensive practice long after the Chinese form had been forgotten. Alternatively, transmutation was also a means of accruing the precious metals that were key in making life-extending elixirs, and were otherwise expensive and difficult to obtain. Alchemical knowledge in the East and West favor different opinions of the true form of alchemy due to different theological views and cultural biases, however these disputes do not lessen the integrity of alchemy's canonical nature.
Chinese alchemy specifically was consistent in its practice from the beginning, and there was relatively little controversy among its practitioners. Definition amongst alchemists varied only in their medical prescription for the elixir of immortality or perhaps only over their names for it, of which sinology has counted about 1,000. Because the Chinese approach was through the fundamental doctrine of Yin and Yang, the influence of the I Ching, and the teachings of the Five Elements, Chinese alchemy had its roots considerably more in obtaining a higher mental-spiritual level.
In the West there were conflicts between advocates of herbal and "chemical" (mineral pharmacy), but in China, mineral remedies were always accepted. In Europe there were conflicts between alchemists who favored gold-making and those who thought medicine the proper goal, but the Chinese always favored the latter. Since alchemy rarely achieved any of these goals, it was an advantage to the Western alchemist to have the situation obscured, and the art survived in Europe long after Chinese alchemy had simply faded away.
Origins
Despite much research, many scholars are still unable to marshal conflicting evidence in order to determine when exactly Chinese alchemy started. It was thought that China was making gold about one thousand years before Confucius' time, but this is contradicted by other academics stating that during the 5th century BCE there was no word for gold and that it was an unknown metal in China (Sivin 1968. Pg. 21.)
However, despite the uncertain origins, there are enough similarities in the ideas of practices of Chinese alchemy and the Daoist tradition so that one can conclude that Laozi and Chang Tao Ling are the creators of this tradition. In her article, Radcliffe tells that Chang Tao Ling rejected serving the Emperor and retreated to live in the mountains. At this time, he met Laozi and together they created (or attempted to create) the Elixir of Life (Radcliffe, 2001), by creating the theory that would be used in order to achieve the making of such an elixir. This is the starting point to the Chinese tradition of alchemy, whose purpose was to achieve immortality.
One of the first evidence of Chinese alchemy being openly discussed in history is during the Ch'in's First Emperor's period when Huan K'uan (73-49BC) states how modifying forms of nature and ingesting them will bring immortality to the person who drinks them (Pregadio. 1995.) Before Huan K'uan, the idea of alchemy was to turn base metals into gold. Conflicting research on the origins of alchemy are further demonstrated by Cooper, who claims that alchemy "flourished well before 144 BCE, for at that date the Emperor issued an edict which ordered public execution for anyone found making counterfeit gold" (Cooper, 1991). This suggests that people were well aware of how to heat the metals in order to change them into a desired form. A further counter to Pregadio from Cooper is the latter's contention that an emperor in 60 BCE had hired "a well-known scholar, Liu Hsiang, as Master of the Recipes so that he could make alchemical gold and prolong the Emperor's life." All of these conflicting origins considered, it is nearly impossible to claim any absolute knowledge on the origins of Chinese alchemy. Today, if one looks at the teachings in Daoism one can find alchemical practices in these texts. Most of which posit the existence of an elixir or the Golden Elixir that when ingested gives the drinker eternal life. Since one can make a direct and certain connection between Daoism and Laozi, it is a fair statement to suggest that he played a major role in the creation of Chinese alchemy.
Tsau Yen is said to have written many of the alchemical books although none of them have ever been found, nor have the existing ones been credited to him (Sivin 1968. Pg. 22.) The likeliest proponents of Chinese alchemy are as previously stated, Laozi, and Chang Tao Ling as well as Zhuangzi. Each of these men are major icons in Daoist teachings. Although these three are credited with the creation of alchemy, there is no definitive proof to suggest or dispute that they were responsible for its creation.
Chinese women alchemists
With the rise of alchemy in the Chinese civilization, it was seen as an art. Among many practitioners, there were a significant number of women who mastered this art. The earliest recorded woman alchemist had the family name of Fang (Chinese: 方), and she lived about around the first century B.C.[3] Being raised in a scholarly family who were skilled in the alchemical arts, she was able to have studied alchemy with one of the Emperor Han Wu Ti's spouses, and therefore had access to the highest levels of society. Fang was credited with the discovery of how to turn mercury into silver. It was believed that she may have used the technique of silver extraction from ores using mercury, the pure silver residue is left behind from the boiled mercury. Fang's husband, Chheng Wei (simplified Chinese: 程伟; traditional Chinese: 程偉), physically abused her, because he was trying to obtain the secret procedure from Fang, but she refused to give it to him. With the constant abuse and torture, Fang eventually went insane and killed herself. It was noted that there were detail of Fang's life through the writing of Ge Hong, an author and alchemist.[3]
Moving on to A.D. 975, Keng Hsien-Seng[4] is another female figure who according to the science writing of Wu Shu "mastered the art of the yellow and white [alchemy] with many other strong transformations, mysterious and incomprehensible".[3] The science writing of Wu Shu also described Keng as being acquainted with Taoist techniques and could control the spirits. Some of the chemical transformation skills that Keng was able to transformed was mercury to silver, mercury and "snow" into silver, probably using the technique of mercury for the extraction of silver from its ores.[3] As well as using a primitive type of Soxlet process to continuously extract camphor into alcohol.[3][3]
Some of the other women alchemists that have been recognized in Chinese literature are Pao Ku Ko (3rd century A.D.), Li Shao Yun (11th century),[5] Thai Hsuan Nu[6] (uncertain), Sun Pu-Eh (12th century), and Shen Yu Hsiu (15th century).
Yin and Yang
See also: Yin and yang
Yin-Yang is an important concept in the ideas of Chinese alchemy. Cooper points out that the idea is pervasive throughout alchemical theory, as the metals were categorized as being male or female, and mercury and sulphur especially were thought to have powers relating to lunar and solar respectively.
Davis posits that, prior to the Taoist tradition, the Chinese already had very definitive notions of the natural world, especially involving the Five Elements, which were Water, Fire, Earth, Metal and Wood. These were commonly thought to be interchangeable with one another; each were capable of becoming another element. The concept is integral, as the belief in outer alchemy necessitates the belief in natural elements being able to change into others. The cyclical balance of the elements relates to the binary opposition of yin-yang, and so it appears quite frequently.
Outer and inner alchemy
Chinese woodblock illustration of a waidan alchemical refining furnace, 1856 Waike tushuo (外科圖説, Illustrated Manual of External Medicine)
Chinese woodblock illustration of neidan "Cleansing the heart-mind and retiring into concealment", 1615 Xingming guizhi 性命圭旨 (Pointers on Spiritual Nature and Bodily Life)
Chinese alchemy can be divided into two methods of practice which are waidan or "external alchemy" and neidan or "internal alchemy". Doctrine can be accessed to describe these methods in greater detail; the majority of Chinese alchemical sources can be found in the Taozang, the "Taoist Canon".
Outer alchemy (Waidan)
The meaning of waidan derives from wai (outside, exterior) and dan referring to alchemical operations, such as the preparation of chemical elixirs, made from cinnabar, realgar, and other substances generally involving mercury, sulfur, lead, and arsenic or else the animal and botanical products which are found in Chinese herbology and Traditional Chinese medicine. Waidan refers to practices relating to the process of making an elixir often containing herbal or chemical substances found outside of the body. This process involves esoteric oral instructions, building a laboratory, kindling and sustaining the special fires used in the production process, rules of seclusion and purification for the alchemist to follow, and various practices including the performance of ceremonies to protect the self and the ritual area. Waidan can also include following a dietary regimen which prescribes or proscribes certain foods. Preparing medicines and elixirs can be referred to as outer practices or waidan as these practices occur outside of the body until they are verified by the ingestion of medicines, herbs, and pills to bring about physical changes within the body, separate to the soul.
Inner alchemy (Neidan)
Main article: Neidan
The term Neidan can be divided into two parts: Nei, meaning inner, and Dan, which refers to alchemy, elixir, and cinnabar (mercury). Neidan uses techniques such as: composed meditation techniques, visualization, breathing and bodily posture exercises. Breathing exercises were used to preserve jing or "life essence" and bodily postures were used to improve qi or "energy" flow in the body. Neidan comprises the elixir from the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the cultivation of substances already present in the body, in particular the manipulation of three substances in the body known as the "Three Treasures".
The three treasures are:
Jing which can be translated as "life essence". A person is born with Jing and it governs the developmental growth processes in the body. Since people are born with a certain amount of Jing, it is taught that a person can increase their Jing through dietary and lifestyle practices.
Ch'i which can be translated as "energy" or "vital energy". Ch'i energy results from the interaction of yin and yang. A healthy body is constantly circulating Ch'i.
Shen can be translated as "spirit" or "mind". Shen is the energy used in mental, spiritual and creative functioning (Lu, 30).
The three treasures are also associated with locations in the body where the alchemical firing process can take place, known as the three dantians (Lu, 10):
Jing or "life essence" is found in the Kidneys and possibly the adrenal glands; the Lower dantien is also associated with Jing
Qi or "vital energy: elixir field is the heart
Shen or "spiritual energy" is found in the upper dantien located between the eyebrows, also known as the Third eye (Jefferson (1982)).
Comparison with Yoga
Cooper writes that "the aspirant neither renounces life in the world nor is caught up in the realm of the senses" essentially reiterating the yin and yang values of balance that Daoism and Chinese alchemy were originally derived from. [clarification needed] The name yoga means "yoke"; it uses practices that cultivate health of both the psyche and physical body. Drawing on Mircea Eliade, Cooper states that "yoga requires perfect discipline of body and mind, the object being to rouse the spiritual powers... and to attain realization or immortality." [clarification needed]
"Chinese alchemical yoga" depended on exercises, breathing techniques, and an ordered and balanced diet which was designed to increase longevity. The diet was often vegetarian, and some diets removed onion and garlic, others removed grains, and still other removed fish and other meat (Cooper, 109).
Associated risks
Main article: Chinese alchemical elixir poisoning
When ingested, these compounds did not always result in the desired outcome. Many individuals died or had psychological difficulties after taking certain elixirs. However, the loss of life may not have seemed a large risk, when compared with the promise of the afterlife. Although these elixirs were lethal or dangerous, there is some contention that these individuals were not ignorant of the fatality of some of the materials they were ingesting.
There were certain grades of immortality, so if the practiced alchemist died, the level of immortality they achieved was determined by their corpse. If their corpse was sweet-smelling, it was said that they had achieved immortality in an ephemeral state. Likewise, if their corpse disappeared, leaving behind only the clothes, such as in the death of an adept named Ko Hung, this was another form of immortality known as shih chieh hsien (corpse-free immortals) (Cooper, 14).
Conception of medicine
Main article: Traditional Chinese medicine
Medicines can be used to heal ailments on the exterior or interior of the body, to control the ageing of the body, or even to prevent death. The term medicine and elixir are virtually interchangeable because of the array of ailments they can influence. The difference between defining an elixir from a medicine was that many medicines were composed mainly of all natural products like herbs and animal products. Never the animals themselves, only their products, which could consist of dung or fur. Although metal compounds are more potent when curing ailments, herbs were used because they were easier to combine and more abundantly available. To make medicines one would use ingredients like: Kolo nuts, which would be used in famous longevity pills like "Fo-Ti-Ti"; Asparagus, which was used because it was known to increase strength; sesame, which prevents senility; and pine which has over 300 different uses. (Cooper, 1990. Pg. 62) Mushrooms were and still are very popular, they are known as the "magic fungus" (Ganoderma) and have thousands of purposes within Chinese alchemy.
'Floating Satellites' is an audiovisual interactive installation where position data of a series of artificial satellites orbiting around the planet earth is fed into the interactive system and used for graphic visualizations and sound control.
The orbits of the satellites around the planet earth act like a visual sequencer, and when the satellites cross specific coordinates events are triggered into the audiovisual generation system.
Made with Processing.More information, videos and code here: visiophone-lab.com/wp/?portfolio=floating-satellites
Concept/Programming/Visuals by Rodrigo Carvalho. Sound by André Sousa
Installation presented at ISEA 2014 / DUBAI.
Birth of the mysterious Alchemical Sentinels
3 months working day and night with an exceptional “dream team"… a big thank you to ACS, Luc, my trusty Giant who could lift a juggernaut onto a balcony (QED Thierry Loir) Thomas Cart'1, Goin, and of course Marc for the paints.
I have managed to set up my installation of 99 raw steel sculptures with an incredibly demanding specification: none of the 3600 work on the DDC site were to be hidden… we had to think about power sources, water crossings, access for construction machinery including the telescopic booms (3m wide)… public safety, ERP museum standards, etc, ... constantly alternating between the visible and the invisible...
Are they inhabited? I don’t know. One thing is certain: each sentinel stands as a unique sculpture in terms of its alchemical elements and paintwork (either with anti-rust paint or voluntarily with paints that do not resist rust). This autumn, each sentinel will reveal – with the acid rain – different interpretations, depending on the paints and solvents used, making each one different, with stratifications that future archaeologists will decipher.
But my most perilous challenge was to create a giant (9000 m²) installation that envelops the Abode of Chaos with dozens of tons of steel, so that my visitors, from any angle, enter a dreamlike fantasy and where the world of the Abode of Chaos on the one hand and that of the 99 monumental sculptures (named "Alchemical Sentinels" during an extremely busy night ) intersect like the Inframince defined by Marcel Duchamp (or, how to build intensities by subtraction).
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are now the guardians of the Sanctuary that the Abode of Chaos has become. I designed them as veritable quantum energy wells that we placed with patience and wisdom at different spots all over the Abode of Chaos.
There are 99 in total, made of 10mm rough steel (50 tons), welded to form perfect equilateral triangles. Each of the three sides constituting an Alchemical Sentinel is itself cut to reveal a meurtrière, again in the shape of an equilateral triangle, presenting a superb Euclidean geometry to the visitor.
These 99 Alchemical Sentinels are each placed at specific energy points on the 9000 m² of the Abode of Chaos. Some are hidden by vegetation or natural landforms or are placed in relation to existing works. Others are located in our private and professionals spaces.
In my alchemical work that began on 9 December 1999, the three gates arranged in an equilateral triangle with one vertex pointing upwards, form the luminous delta. They represent the three elements that alchemists work with. These three elements are sulphur, mercury and salt.
Note that the three elements found in the Prima Materia (or Alchemical Chaos) are very closely related. The point triangle is also the symbol of the fire philosophers.
The equilateral triangle resting on its base – like the three points – is the symbol of the fire element, one of the four elements that the alchemist works with in the laboratory.
The geometric properties of the equilateral triangle evoke absolute perfection by their spiritual strength and their age-old symbolism going back to ancient Egypt… strength, beauty and harmony.
They will remain for a thousand years as witnesses to a civilization lost through the folly of men.
thierry Ehrmann
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3 mois de travail jour et nuit, une "dream team" hors du commun, un grand merci à ACS, Luc, mon fidèle Géant qui poserait un 38 T. sur un balcon (cqfd Thierry Loir) Thomas, Cart'1, Goin et bien sûr Marc pour les peintures.
Je suis arrivé à poser mon installation de 99 sculptures d'acier brut avec un cahier des charges de ouf, aucune des 3600 œuvres de la DDC ne devaient être occultées, penser aux sources électriques, les passages d'eau, les voies de transport pour engin de chantier, les nacelles télescopiques (3m de large), protéger le grand public, respecter les normes ERP muséales, etc… Alterner en permanence monstration et effacement…
Sont-elles habitées ? Je l'ignore. Une chose certaine est que chacune, par les éléments alchimiques et les codes peints soit à l'antirouille soit volontairement avec des peintures dégradables par la rouille avec le temps, rend chaque sentinelle comme une sculpture unique. Cet automne chaque sentinelle va laisser apparaître, avec les pluies acides, différents niveaux de lecture, selon les peintures et solvants utilisés, les rendant singulières avec des stratifications que les archéologues des temps futurs décrypteront...
Mais mon défi le plus périlleux, était de créer une installation géante de 9000 m2 qui enveloppe, par des dizaines de tonnes d'acier, la Demeure du Chaos pour que mes visiteurs sur 360 degrés, plongent dans un univers onirique et fantasmagorique où les deux univers que sont la Demeure du Chaos d'une part et d'autre part l'installation des 99 sculptures monumentales (baptisées par une nuit très agitée "Sentinelles Alchimiques") s'entrecroisent selon l'Inframince définit par Marcel Duchamp (ou comment construire des intensités par soustraction).
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont désormais les gardiennes du Sanctuaire que représente la Demeure du Chaos. Je les ai conçus comme de véritable puits d’énergie quantique que je pose avec patience et sagesse sur l’ensemble de la Demeure du Chaos.
Elles sont au nombre de 99, faites d’acier brut de 10 mm (50 tonnes) soudées pour former un triangle équilatéral parfait. Chacun des 3 pans constituant une Sentinelle Alchimique, est lui même découpé pour laisser entrevoir une mystérieuse meurtrière, elle même en forme de triangle équilatéral, donnant ainsi une géométrie Euclidienne au regard du visiteur.
Ces 99 Sentinelles Alchimiques sont chacune à des points d’énergie particuliers de la Demeure du Chaos sur 9000 m2. Certaines se dissimulent par la végétation ou les reliefs naturels ou bien en écho aux autres œuvres, d’autres sont dans les espaces privatifs ou professionnels.
Dans mon travail alchimique démarré le 9 décembre 1999, les trois portes disposées en triangle équilatéral, dont un sommet est dirigé vers le haut, forment le delta lumineux. Elle sont les trois corps sur lesquels l’alchimiste va œuvrer. Ces trois corps sont le soufre, le mercure et le sel.
Soulignons que les trois corps présents dans la Materia Prima ou Chaos alchimique sont étroitement mélangés. Le triangle de point est aussi la marque des philosophes par le feu.
Le triangle équilatéral reposant sur sa base, à la manière des trois points, est le symbole de l’élément feu, l’un des quatre éléments avec lequel l’alchimiste travaille au laboratoire.
Les propriétés géométriques du triangle équilatéral relèvent de la perfection absolue par sa force spirituelle, son symbolisme de la nuit des temps notamment dans l’ancienne Egypte, il est force, beauté et harmonie.
Elles resteront durant mille ans comme les témoins d’une civilisation disparue par la folie des hommes
thierry Ehrmann
Book 2 - Latex Empress Shimmerah Full book
Chapter 1 - The barren lands
Chapter 2 - The shiny sisters
Chapter 3 - The ring of change
Chapter 4 - The cave of greed
Chapter 5 - The stone of seeing
Chapter 6 - The ring of Blindsight
Chapter 7 - The dungeons
Chapter 8 - The forgotten queen
Chapter 9 - A new world
Chapter 10 The Lost fogotton queen of Neonlexia
Chapter 11 - Mass Manipulation
Chapter 4 - the cave of greed
As Shimmerah could not find the stone of seeing as she had looked for it with all her magic. She know about the cave of greed and knew she could only have one wish, if she stayed within the cave she could have as many wishes as she wants but then could never leave the cave. Shimmerah knew the gods and goddess's made it that none and no powerful spell could get to the cave, unless you went on a sail boat alone with two glossy compass-eels, as these magic eels where the only ones which knew the way. So She unhappy about the idea telported to Poilshvil town in Wallfort and took somes boat. A few people of Poilshvil town Saw what the Latex Empress was doing knowing where she was going. Many deemed her greed would have her trapped within the cave for all time. When some feard that if she only took one wish what would it be.
The eels pulled her boat within a powerful storm which she could not stop knowing if she did the eels would let go and swim away. She got the the island and jumped into the sea and made her way onto a shiny gold beach made of shiny gold coins and crystals. She want them all. When finding the caveof greed Shimmerah entered into with the wish to rule all, possess everything, be all-powerful, perfectly beautiful, and universally worshipped. She was aware of the goddess within and the rules of the cave, specifically seeking to avoid eternal entrapment while pursuing her goals.
Upon entering, Shimmerah found all of made of shiny gold and gold itrms. Within the cave had other caves some filled with endless world of glowing crystals. One cave she found its was all shiny black latex and there she saw Queen Sliverleaf who went missing 13 years ago. Sliverleaf was know for her greedy love of latex being known the queen of rubber, and her greedy never ending lust for sex also being called the queen of lust. within this part of the cave being made of shiny black latex, surrounded by black latex and gold, Sliverleaf embodying and moaning in lust with glowing pink eyes and seemingly experiencing never-ending sexual pleasure and ecstasy. Shimmerah, however, did not desire endless sex but sought power, beauty, and universal rule.
Shimmerah called upon Goldglossin who at 1st did not come knowing what Shimmerah wanted and not wanting to give it her. Then Shimmerah said if I don't get what I want, I will take away your lust demoness. Then Goldglossin came as a shiny golden latex teen girl. Shimmerah then saw it started the rain gold and she was within another part of the cave. She found there was 10 caves within the cave of greed.
Shimmerah wished for the stone of seeing and left the cave of greed. This made Goldglossin very unhappy as she had the power to grant the wish to an item she had longed for, the same item she tried to get that trapped her within the cave of Greed 10.000 years ago. Shimmerah knowing this did a sassy lustful pose with and evil smile to Goldglossin before catwalking away evilly giggling.
Powers and Abilities
Shimmerah possesses a vast array of magical abilities, which she has cultivated and amplified over time:
1) Telekinesis: The ability to manipulate objects with her mind.
2) Teleportation: Instantaneous travel from one location to another.
3) Telepathy: The power to read and transmit thoughts.
4) Elemental Manipulation: Control over natural elements, enhanced by the Ring of the 4 Elements.
5) Weather Manipulation: The ability to control weather patterns.
6) Outfit Manipulation: The power to change or create clothing.
7) Intangibility: The ability to pass through solid objects.
8) Umbrakinesis: Manipulation of shadows and darkness, granted by the Ring of Shadows, allowing for stealth and offensive use.
9) Evocation Magic: The summoning of entities or forces.
10) Absorbing Magic: A powerful ability, learned from the Book of Forbidden Knowledge, allowing her to absorb magical energy and power from sources like crystals and entire lands. This power was instrumental in her conquest of the twelve kingdoms and queendoms, where she absorbed the power from all magic crystals in the Queendom of Glossu and subsequently from all lands, making kings and queens her slaves.
11) Lustful Temptation: Her most potent form of seduction, amplified by the Liquid Youth, allowing her to entice others into submission through her beauty and voice.
12) Object Transmutation
13) Meta magic
14) power to bring back the dead
More about Shimmerah
Name: Shimmerah
Her parents: Queen Veloria and King Zorath
Her sister: Shellyana
Her magic teacher: Mistress Virella
Birthplace: Wealthold city - Capital of Gonzzul
Her queendom: Gonzzul
Continent - The 12 kingdoms and queendoms - when Shimmerah took over it all she renamed it to Shimmerathia
Planet: Dommalex
Height : 5, 11
Age: 29
Hair colour: black
Eye colour: light blue - but glow with power
Favourite colours: Black
Sexually: autosexual
Libido: Medium - High
Personality: narcissistic, vanity, self centered, selfish, greedy, avarice, mean, very dominant, power-hungry, gold digger,
How she see's herself, pretty, sexy, hot, perfect, attractive lustful, beautifully alluring, seductress, divine, powerful, dominant, villainous sexy girl, naughty, provocative.
Favourite fashion: Sexy shiny latex clothing, mostly black.
Favourite clothing, very dominant latex outfits, short-skirts, skin-tight catsuits, corsets, and thigh high boots
Wish in life: To rule all have all, to be all powerful, and all beautiful, perfectly stunning in everyway,
Obsessions: World domination, higher beauty, and all power.
---- Angels & Demons (devil tries to tempt Saint Lucia, August 2018, Savoca - Sicily) ----
---- Angeli & Demoni (il demonio tenta Santa Lucia, agosto 2018, Savoca - Sicilia) ----
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this is a photographic narration that speaks of the eternal struggle that takes place between good and evil, which speaks of a dark period of history, speaks of the violence suffered by women but also by those who belonged to the poorest social classes, historical facts that have been handed down to us in the form of a story and associated-transmuted in the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this is what happens in the town of Savoca (Sicily). This is a short and long report, I did in Savoca on August 2018 about the living representation of the martyrdom of Saint Lucia (patron saint of the city of Savoca); the cult of the young Saint of Syracuse seems to date back to the fifteenth century, under the influence of Spanish traditions. The commemoration of the history of St. Lucia occurs in two consecutive days, Saturday and Sunday: here I try to tell some times of the day on Sunday, a day during which the festival is held at the height of her beauty. And 'This is a historical event which speaks of Demons and Angels: Saint Lucy refused to marry a rich and powerful suitor (Lucy declared She was married in Christ), which reported the Christian faith of Lucia to prefect Pascasio that ordered his Praetorian Guard to drag Lucia with a rope to a place of prostitution; legend has it that the Holy became heavy, they then tried to drag it with the help of oxen, but it was impossible to move it from where he stood; failing in this, it was then given the order to cavarle eyes, but the young martyr (native of Syracuse) her eyes reappeared.
In the village of Savoca a young girl, affectionately called the "Lucy" is carried on the shoulder of a porter along the streets of the country (sitting on a pillow tied on the shoulder of a man, but in fact men are two); the young Saint remains impassive in the face of demonic temptations: the Devil, called in Sicilian dialect "u Diavulazzu, shake, shakes, turns his pitchfork in an attempt to "distract" the Saint.
The first day of this representation, on Saturday, in an old church in Savoca, the two girls who impersonate the Lucia, of the current year and the previous year, meet with the delivery of palm; the traditional event which we witness on Saturday, has all the appearance of an important rehearsal for the next day, on Sunday when the traditional festival will take place in all its beauty.
Sunday: on top of the procession there are the "Jews" (the emissaries of the prefect Pascasio) along with some Angels, is located immediately after the wagon drawn by two cows from which branches off a rope that will arrive to Saint Lucia (a girl of six years); between her and the cows there are Roman soldiers, who make their way through the crowd squirming like crazy; to hold the rope there are also male figures; the job of Devil (his mask is made of wood, whose invoice is dated, it seems, of the 400') is to distract the little Saint with the help of a long stick equipped of curved points, called "u 'croccu": Lucia hardly is deceived by the promises of the evil one, she will not abandon the state of her property concentration, aided in this by staring, almost in a trance, a small palm branch in silver , she brings devoutly in her hands.
It's very important to mention the Baron Baldassarre (nicknamed Baron Altadonna), who applied without any hesitation the practice of Jus de seigneur: using this law the Baron obliged the young brides to spend the wedding night in his alcove. It 'very possible that in the representation of Saint Lucia of Savoca the character of the Devil tempting young Santa with his pitchfork, in reality is nothing but himself, Baron Altadonna, so allegorically described in this traditional Sicilian feast: the figure of the Devil if one takes into account what historians relate, does not belong more to the legend, but sadly to actual event happened. Post scriptum: the photographs, realized both on Saturday and Sunday, were organized and posted without taking into account the temporal chronology of what happened during the two days of the event; two photos of the mummy of Baron Altadonna have been included, which is located in the crypt of the Capuchin Fathers of Savoca; the portraits of two "Lucie" from previous editions, grandfather and great-grandfather of the "DIAVOLI" dynasty were included; the "silver palm" was delivered by Lucia of 2016 (Valentina), to the current Lucia (Miriana), in 2017 the event was not performed.
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questa è una narrazione fotografica che parla dell'eterna lotta che avviene tra il bene ed il male, che parla di un periodo buio della storia, che parla delle violenze subite dalle donne ma anche da coloro che appartenevano alle classi sociali più povere, fatti storici che sono stati tramandati fino a noi in forma di racconto ed associati-trasmutati nel martirio di Santa Lucia, questo è quanto accade nel paese di Savoca (Sicilia). Questo è un report corto e lungo, che ho realizzato in quel di Savoca lo scorso mese di Agosto 2018, su quella che è la rappresentazione vivente del martirio di Santa Lucia (Santa patrona della città di Savoca); il culto della giovane Santa di Siracusa sembra risalire al XV secolo, sotto l'influenza delle tradizioni spagnole. La rievocazione vivente della storia di S.Lucia avviene in due giornate consecutive, il sabato e la domenica: qui tento di raccontare alcuni momenti della giornata della domenica, giorno durante il quale la festa si svolge nel pieno della sua bellezza. E' questa una rievocazione storica che parla di Demoni ed Angeli: la storia rievoca di quando la Santa, si rifiutò di andare in sposa ad un suo ricco e potente pretendente (essendosi dichiarata Cristiana e sposa in Cristo), il quale per vendetta riferì della fede Cristiana di Lucia al prefetto Pascasio; costui diede ordine ai suoi pretoriani di trascinare Lucia con una corda fino ad un lupanare, un luogo di prostituzione; la leggenda narra che la Santa divenne pesantissima, si tentò allora di trascinarla con l'ausilio dei buoi, ma fu impossibile smuoverla da dove si trovava; non riuscendo in ciò, fu allora dato l'ordine di cavarle gli occhi, ma alla giovane martire (nativa di Siracusa) gli occhi le rispuntarono. Nel paese di Savoca una giovane ragazza, chiamata con affetto "la Lucia" viene portata in spalla lungo le vie del paese (seduta su di un cuscino legato sulla spalla di un uomo; in realtà gli uomini portatori sono due, dandosi il cambio l'un l'altro); la giovane Santa rimane impassibile di fronte alle tentazioni demoniache: il Diavolo, chiamato in dialetto siciliano "u Diavulazzu, agita, scuote, fa ruotare il suo forcone nel tentativo di "distrarre" la Santa ma, vani saranno i suoi tentativi. Il primo giorno di questa rappresentazione, il sabato, in una vecchia chiesa di Savoca, le due bambine che impersonano la Lucia, dell'anno in corso e dell'anno precedente, si incontrano con la consegna della palma da una bimba all'altra; l'evento tradizionale al quale si assiste il sabato, ha tutto l'aspetto di una importante prova generale per il giorno dopo, quando la domenica la festa tradizionale avverrà in tutta la sua bellezza.La domenica: in cima alla processione ci sono i "Giudei" (gli emissari del prefetto Pascasio) insieme ad alcuni Angeli, subito dopo si trova il carro tirato da due giumente dalle quali si diparte una corda che giungerà fino a cingere il fianco della bimba che impersona Santa Lucia (una bambina di sei anni); tra lei e le giumente ci sono i soldati Romani, che si fanno largo tra la folla dimenandosi a più non posso; a tenere la corda ci sono anche delle figure maschili che evitano che gli strattonamenti dei soldati romani possano giungere fino alla Santa (ricordiamolo, che è legata a quella corda); davanti alla Santa piroetta il diavolo tentatore, u' Diavulazzu (la maschera è in legno, la cui fattura è datata, sembra, del 400'), il cui compito è quello di distrarre la piccola Santa con l'aiuto di un lungo bastone dotato di punte ricurve, chiamto dialettalmente "u' croccu": Lucia difficilmente si lascerà ingannare dalle promesse del Maligno, non abbandonerà quel suo stato di immobile concentrazione, aiutata in ciò dal fissare, quasi in stato di trance, un piccolo ramo di palma in argento, che lei strige devotamente tra le sue mani. E’ fondamentale menzionare tra i vari personaggi storici della tradizione, il barone Baldassarre, vissuto in Savoca in epoca medioevale, soprannominato barone Altadonna, che applicava senza remora alcuna la pratica della Jus primae noctis: avvalendosi di questa legge il barone obbligava le giovani spose a trascorrere la prima notte di nozze nella sua alcova. E’ fortemente ipotizzabile che nella rappresentazione di Santa Lucia di Savoca il personaggio del Diavolo che tenta la giovane Santa col suo forcone, in realtà non sia altro che egli stesso, il barone Altadonna, così allegoricamente descritto nella festa tradizionale siciliana: la figura del Diavolo, se si tiene conto di quanto narrano gli storici, non apparterrebbe più alla leggenda, ma a questo tristo personaggio realmente vissuto, che usava quotidianamente la moneta della prepotenza. Post scriptum: le fotografie, realizzate sia il sabato che la domenica, sono state organizzate e postate senza tenere conto della cronologia temporale di quanto avvenuto nei due giorni della manifestazione; sono state inserite due foto della mummia del barone Altadonna, che si trova nella cripta dei Padri Cappuccini di Savoca; sono stati inseriti i ritratti di due "Lucie" delle precedenti edizioni, del nonno e del bisnonno della dinastia dei "DIAVOLI"; la "palma d'argento" è stata consegnata dalla Lucia del 2016 (Valentina), alla attuale Lucia (Miriana); nel 2017 la manifestazione non è stata eseguita.