Autumn migration of souls - Minna Louhelainen , 2023.
Finnish , b. 1984 -
Mixed media , 23 x 30.5 cm.
Sade Olutola

blake kathryn
i don't do bad sauce passes
cherry valley forever

Andulka
will byers stan first human second

tannertan36

Discoholic 🪩
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
NASA
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Mike Driver

Janaina Medeiros
trying on a metaphor

@theartofmadeline
DEAR READER

titsay
dirt enthusiast
noise dept.
Three Goblin Art

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@mosommelier
Autumn migration of souls - Minna Louhelainen , 2023.
Finnish , b. 1984 -
Mixed media , 23 x 30.5 cm.
Bruno Miniati • Paola Borboni, 1925
Dinka Man Imitating Horns
Location: South Sudan
Photographer: Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher
At puberty a Dinka male receives a namesake ox after which he is named. He believes that he and the animal are one being. He trains the ox’s horns from calf-hood into beautiful lyre shapes, and emulates these shapes with his arms as he walks alongside his beloved personality ox.
Suad Al-Attar (Iraqi, 1942) - Eternal Love (1996)
Creatures from the Kennicott Bible, an illuminated manuscript copy of the Hebrew Bible, copied in A Coruña, Spain in 1476 by the calligrapher Moses ibn Zabarah and illuminated by Joseph ibn Hayyim 🔮🦇👼🏼🐉🐻🐊🐒🦚🪞
It is regarded as one of the most exquisite illuminated manuscripts in Hebrew and one of the most lavishly illuminated Sephardic manuscript of the 15th century. According to the historian Cecil Roth, one of the most outstanding aspects of this copy is the close collaboration it shows between the calligrapher and the illuminator, rare in this type of work.
In 1476, Isaac, a Jewish silversmith from Coruña, son of Salomón de Braga, commissioned an illuminated Bible from the scribe Moses ibn Zabarah who lived in Coruña with his family on behalf of his patron. He spent ten months to scribe the Bible, writing two folios on a daily basis. Illumination of the manuscript was the responsibility of Joseph ibn Hayyim, who is remembered thanks to this work.
The first documentation of the Jewish presence dates to 1375. Jewish population in A Coruña grew rapidly throughout the Late Middle Ages. It is thought that after the persecution of Jews in Castile, a large number of Jewish people took refuge in Galicia. The Jewish community in Coruña traded with Castile and Aragon, and in 1451 they contributed to the rescue of the Murcian Jews with a large sum of money, which could demonstrate the prosperity of the community.
See the whole thing on the Internet Archive! (With plenty of info and a link to the record at the Bodleian Library, where the Kennicott Bible lives now. You can also download a PDF)
Outer coffin of Queen Ahmose-Meritamun
New Kingdom, early 18th Dynasty, ca. 1525-1504 BC. Tomb of Ahmose-Meritamun (TT358), Deir el-Bahari, Thebes. Now in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC), Cairo. CG 61052
The outer coffin is over 10 ft in size and is made from cedar planks which are joined and carved to a uniform thickness throughout the coffin. The eyes and eyebrows are inlaid with glass.
The body is carefully carved with chevrons painted in blue to create the illusion of feathers. The coffin was covered in gold which had been stripped in antiquity. The inner coffin was smaller, but still over 6 ft tall. The inner coffin had also been covered in gold but stripped of this precious metal.
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Nakht receives libation from the tree goddess, c. 1400 B.C.
▫️Worship of the Lady of the Sycamore flourished especially during the New Kingdom, when images of the tree goddess were painted on tomb walls, and prayers were offered to her for fertility, healing, and protection. Tree goddesses might also appear in the likeness of Isis or Nut, each embodying the maternal and life-giving aspects of the natural world.
In the spiritual landscape of Ancient Egypt, the sycamore tree (“nehet” in the Ancient Egyptian tongue) held a place of deep reverence. More than a mere provider of shade in the searing sun, the sycamore was seen as the Tree of Life, a sacred conduit between the earthly and the divine. It was believed to offer protection, nourishment, and even the breath of life to the deceased in the afterworld.
At the heart of this veneration stood the Lady of the Sycamore, a nurturing goddess often portrayed emerging from or standing beneath the branches of the tree, arms extended in a gesture of blessing. She is most commonly associated with Hathor, the radiant goddess of love, music, motherhood, and the afterlife. In this gentle, arboreal form, Hathor was believed to extend water and sustenance to souls journeying through the Duat; the Ancient Egyptian underworld.
The Book of the Dead of Nakht is now at the British Museum. EA10471,8
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Aphrodíte riding a swan depicted on a tondo from an Attic white-ground kylix, painted by Pistóxenos around 460 BC, discovered in Tomb F43 at Kámeiros, Rhodes island.
Archaeologists Uncover Rare Roman-Era Fresco of Jesus in Turkey
Archaeologists in Turkey have uncovered one of the most important finds from Anatolia’s early Christian era: a fresco of a Roman-looking Jesus as the “Good Shepherd.”
The painting was discovered in August in an underground tomb near Iznik, a town in northwestern Turkey that secured its place in Christian history as the place where the Nicene Creed was adopted in A.D. 325. Pope Leo XIV recently visited the town as part of his first overseas trip.
At the time, the region was part of the Roman Empire, and the tomb in the village of Hisardere is believed to date to the 3rd century, a time when Christians still faced widespread persecution.
The Good Shepherd fresco depicts a youthful, clean-shaven Jesus dressed in a toga and carrying a goat across his shoulders. Researchers say it is one of the rare instances in Anatolia where Jesus is portrayed with distinctly Roman attributes.
Before the cross was widely adopted as Christianity ’s universal symbol, the Good Shepherd motif played a key role in expressing faith, indicating protection, salvation and divine guidance.
Despite its central role in early Christianity, however, only a few examples of the Good Shepherd have been found in Anatolia and the one in Hisardere is the best preserved.
Lead archaeologist Gulsen Kutbay described the artwork as possibly the “only example of its kind in Anatolia.”
The walls and ceiling of the cramped tomb are decorated with bird and plant motifs. Portraits of noble men and women, accompanied by slave attendants, also decorate the walls.
Eren Erten Ertem, an archaeologist from Iznik Museum, said the frescoes showed “a transition from late paganism to early Christianity, depicting the deceased being sent off to the afterlife in a positive and fitting manner.”
The excavation uncovered the skeletons of five individuals, anthropologist Ruken Zeynep Kose said. Because of poor preservation, it was impossible to determine the ages of two of them, but the others were two young adults and a 6-month-old infant.
By Mehmet Güzel and Andrew Wilks.
A dual perspective offers itself as a commentary on K. R. Eissler's Discourses on Hamlet and Hamlet: on the one hand, the cultural-historical classification of Hamlet as a figure on the threshold of two world orders; on the other hand, the philosophical interpretation of this transition as a necessarily tragic process that can only be accomplished through the death of the bearer himself. Eissler's psychoanalytically based reading provides a particularly fruitful set of tools for this, because it understands Hamlet not merely as an individual neurotic, but as a symptom and medium of an epochal upheaval.
Eissler's central insight can be summarised as follows: Hamlet is not a "hesitant hero" but a transitional figure: a subject who carries within himself two incompatible value systems. The old world is characterised by feudal honour, blood feuds, divinely legitimised rule and an ontological certainty about meaning and order. The new world, on the other hand, heralds an order of inwardness, conscience, reflection and moral self-examination. Hamlet stands precisely between these worlds and therefore cannot remain unscathed.
His father's ghost speaks the language of the old order: revenge is a duty, being a son means execution, time and justice are clearly structured. Hamlet, however, hears this call with an already modern consciousness. He thinks, doubts, analyses, not out of weakness, but out of a new form of responsibility. For him, revenge is no longer a matter of course, but an ethical problem. This is precisely where his historical significance lies: Hamlet destroys the self-evidence of the old values without yet being able to institutionalise the new ones.
Eissler interprets this "hesitation" not as incompetence, but as a necessary transitional tension. Hamlet must think because the world is no longer clear-cut, his thinking is already more modern than the order in which he lives, this makes him a character who is ahead of his time and must therefore die.
From a philosophical point of view, Hamlet's death is not merely a tragic end, but a structural necessity. Transitional people cannot survive because they have no stable world in which to exist. Hamlet must die in order to "bequeath" what he has realised to the world. Only through his death does space become available for Fortinbras, a character who does not share Hamlet's inner life, but who benefits from the order broken by Hamlet.
This reveals a profound dialectic: Hamlet does not actively establish a new world; rather, he renders the old one impossible. His death is the negative condition of the possibility of the future. In this sense, Hamlet resembles the great figures of intellectual history who stand at transitions, they all die not in spite of, but because of their historical function.
Eissler's psychoanalytical perspective deepens this idea by reading Hamlet as the bearer of insoluble inner conflicts that are at the same time collective conflicts. The individual breaks under a burden that actually concerns the epoch.
The cultural-historical dimension of Hamlet gains additional depth when Shakespeare's own life is taken into account, in particular the death of his son Hamnet in 1596. The similarity in names is hardly coincidental. Eissler interprets Hamlet as a work in which personal grief, fantasies of guilt and the confrontation with mortality are sublimated in literary form. Shakespeare loses his child: an experience that radically shatters his sense of meaning. Shortly afterwards, he writes a drama centred on a son who is haunted by his father's ghost. The direction of grief is reversed: it is not the father who mourns his son, but the son who is haunted by the demands of his dead father. This reversal can be read as an attempt to make death conceivable, to capture it in language, scene and reflection.
Against this backdrop, Hamlet's famous question "To be or not to be" appears less as abstract metaphysics than as an existential processing of real loss. Shakespeare writes here not only about a prince, but about the questionability of continuing to live after the death of a child, an experience that shatters old religious certainties and forces new, uncertain ways of thinking.
K. R. Eissler's Discourses on Hamlet and Hamlet is itself a child of the 20th century: influenced by psychoanalysis, depth hermeneutics and an awareness of historical ruptures. Eissler does not read Shakespeare ahistorically, but as an author on the threshold between the Middle Ages and modernity and Hamlet as the drama of this threshold. This makes the work a key text for understanding the early modern period: the transition from collectively binding systems of meaning to individual ethics of conscience.
Hamlet is the first modern man on stage, not because he acts, but because he observes himself thinking. This self-reflexivity is both progress and a curse. It makes freedom possible, but also paralysis, melancholy and guilt.
Several philosophical insights can be gained from reading Eissler: Progress is tragic, new values do not arise harmoniously, but through ruptures, losses and sacrifices. Transitional figures are necessary and mortal: those who destroy old orders without being able to stabilise new ones become victims of history themselves.
Subjectivity is ambivalent: Hamlet's inner life is the basis of modern freedom, but also of modern loneliness. Grief is productive: personal loss can become a source of cultural innovation, but at the price of existential turmoil.
Eissler's book invites us to read Hamlet not only as a psychological puzzle or theatrical masterpiece, but as a cultural-historical document of an epochal transition. Hamlet is the man who knows too much, feels too early and reflects too deeply to be able to live in his world. He dies so that something new can begin. From this perspective, Hamlet becomes not only the drama of an individual, but the tragedy of modernity itself.
„I learned silence, but the city roars. It roars even when no one is listening. Even when I no longer speak, it screams through forgotten throats. The asphalt pounds like a heart of steel. Car tires screech like tortured animals. And above it all lies a heavy carpet of restless music, advertising, snippets of news, voices, voices, voices each with an intention, none with an ear.“
A novella about silence amidst the noise, about dreams that shatter against reality, and about the rare happiness of being understood just once in a lifetime.
Fifteen photos accompany the story of a law student who suffers from the difficulties of city life.
toxic townie - Elvin Karda | story.one
The colouring book ‘I feel, therefore I live’ combines creative design with emotional education. It invites children to recognise, name and express different feelings in a playful way, supported by empathetic rhymes, loving illustrations and prompts for self-reflection.
Current findings in developmental psychology and neuroscience show that the conscious perception and regulation of feelings is a central foundation for mental health, social competence and self-efficacy. Those who learn to understand emotions early on, both their own and those of others, develop stable emotional intelligence.
This book places a special focus on what is known as heart intelligence, the ability to act empathetically, mindfully and compassionately from a place of inner balance. This quality helps children to stay in touch with themselves and their environment, even in challenging situations.
My first book for children 💕
"What you give is yours, what you don't give is lost" -Rushtaweli
"No matter how much one may know about the world, no one can fathom its hidden secrets. Nothing is more secret than its heart. The world is old, and we are like dreams. Its appearance is manifold, and every thing seems different on the inside and different on the outside. Like a magician! Like through a crystal, all images glide through, but none can linger. Alas, it is like an archer in the night who does not know where his arrows will strike. And even if we escape, we are far from being saved. We live as if in a dream. Day follows day and is forgotten. This one is treacherously exalted and that one humbled." p. 189f
The Georgian version of Wis and Ramin is a remarkable medieval adaptation of a Persian romance that traversed linguistic and cultural boundaries in the broader Persianate and Caucasian worlds. While the best-known version of the tale was composed in Persian by Fakhr al-Din As'ad Gurgani in the 11th century, the story itself likely originated much earlier, during the Parthian era, and reflects an intricate tapestry of Zoroastrian, pre-Islamic, and Indo-Iranian motifs.
"Love is like the sea, without reason and boundless. It is easy to enter, but difficult to leave." p. 22
At the heart of the narrative lies the forbidden love between Wis, a noblewoman bound by duty to marry King Mobad, and Ramin, the king’s younger brother. Despite moral, social, and political constraints, the two fall into a deep and passionate love that defies convention and law. Their tumultuous relationship, marked by secret meetings, inner conflict, exile, and reconciliation, serves as both a timeless love story and a reflection on the boundaries of desire and duty.
“I have given myself away so completely that nothing remains. God's will has been fulfilled in me. What was meant to be has happened. No amount of regret can help. I love Ramin so much that I cannot be separated from him for all eternity. If you ask me: What do you prefer, Ramin or paradise? By the sun, I would answer 'Ramin'. For the sight of him is paradise to me." p. 62
The Georgian adaptation, possibly dating as far back as the 12th or 13th century, is more than a simple translation; it is a cultural reimagining. While the plot remains largely faithful to the Persian source, the Georgian retelling imbues the narrative with the tonal and stylistic qualities of Georgia’s own literary tradition. The text exhibits a strong sense of rhythm and formality, drawing from both oral and ecclesiastical literary conventions.
The Georgian language itself plays a central role in shaping the unique aesthetic of this version. As a South Caucasian (Kartvelian) language with no close relatives outside its linguistic family, Georgian stands apart for its rich consonant clusters, agglutinative verb structures, and its own ancient script, which lends the text a visual and cultural distinctiveness. The storytelling in Georgian often carries a ceremonial, almost liturgical tone, reflecting a literary culture that developed in close proximity to both Persian and Byzantine influences, yet retained a fiercely independent character.
“But if I am no longer to see him, take my life from me and give it to him, for it is better that I have none and he has two.” p. 152
By adopting Wis and Ramin into Georgian, medieval scribes not only preserved the emotional and moral complexity of the original but also contributed to the growth of secular love literature in the region. The tale thus serves as a testament to the permeability of cultural borders and the adaptability of storytelling across languages, religions, and empires.
“Take away the smoke! You stole my fire, now take away the smoke too!” p. 166
'I am the useless poet, lost in sick world.' - Du Fu
'It is customary to begin with an introduction, a preview, an appetiser before I start my story. But let's leave the polite pleasantries aside and be honest with each other: no one needs a reader and no one needs a writer. Basically, we are all useless. The reader wants to be validated and the writer wants to be validated.'
[excerpt from the novella: toxic townie]
A novella about silence amidst the noise, about dreams that shatter against reality, and about the rare happiness of being understood just once in a lifetime. Fifteen photographs accompany the life of the law student through the turbulence of the city and the search for peace.
Source details and larger version.
Connecting the dots: constellations in the skies of old.
Safwan Dahoul aka صفوان دحول (Syrian, b. 1961, Hama, Syria, based Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) - Untitled (From the Rêve Series), 2000, Paintings: Oil, Pencil on Canvas
figure of a fertility goddess | c. 3000 - 2500 BCE | cyprus, chalcolithic or bronze age
in the j. paul getty museum collection