The Duality of the Shout

This is part of a statue in Turin's University district. Now for preference, I don't bother with iron sculptures. I feel they are clunky and often out of keeping with their environment - then they rust and look dreadful! But this one made me stop to have a look. In in this case I didn't feel impelled to melt it down to make something more useful. What is symbolic about the figure - man, hands, mouth or shout?  In this shot he does look like he's made from Lego pieces. So there are overtones of construction and, by the same token, deconstruction. Let's go for shout, because it's unusual for a symbol. A shout has some kind of formal association (often unwelcome) in all traditions. There's the Town Crier in England and Night Criers and Night Whistlers in France. The Greeks and Trojans gave shouts of halala as they charged into battle. For Romans it was the clamour!  But in the Koran the shout is all about disaster, perhaps a whirlwind to punish the unjust. As is the way with symbols, the opposite can apply. In the procession along the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis, shouts of celebration accompany the Hiera (holy mysteries).  One god in particular, Iacchos, personified the shout. In this case, his association with Demeter means fecundity, love and life. When a new born baby is born what's the first thing it does? A lot of shouting!

Squares and Chairs

St Peter's is in my neighbourhood in Rome, so I cross this square frequently. There's often opportunities for good photos that are a little different. This was taken when the new Pope was about to appear officially for the first time, and all the chairs were formally laid out. I took many shots but liked this the best. Many areas set aside for particular functions are in the form of a square. A square is created and earthly as opposed to heavenly (which is round). A square, like the setting of the chairs, is formal and intellectual - a product of human engagement with the universe. To be on the square is to be honest and to square up with someone is to balance a debt. I am uncertain why the recent term "square", denoting a dull and regimented person, came into being. I guess it's because each side of the square is the same. The chair of course denotes some kind of privilege - and these seats were reserved for the ticket holders, the invited few. Chairs always have four legs for stability, so the picture is all about the number four. Again this is earthly - the created and the revealed. That's why there are four corners of the globe - something that used to confuse me as a child. In some cities, particular areas are know as quarters. There's no mystery really, because these places are solid and knowable - just like St Peter's Square for me, accessible and on my beat.

Nemo me impune lacessit

I think I've featured thistles before, but I came across this picture lurking in a file I hadn't used for a while. The file comprised my photos of the gardens attached to the Madama Palazza in Turin - one of my favourite spots to hide away. Visitors are quite likely to miss these gardens in favour of palace exhibits, so it can be very peaceful there. You can see how closely related are thistles and artichokes. In fact, the artichoke is derived from a variety of thistle. They are prickly plants and central to the legend of the Scottish army being fortuitously disturbed by advancing Norse invaders - who stood on them. I don't know if that's true, but it would certainly be a painful experience. Symbolically, the thistle defends the heart. Nemo me impune lacessit - no-one touches me unharmed! It set me wondering about conflict - and the tendency these days to discourage critical expression. We just don't want to allow the prickles to prick us, so anything we say must pass through a neutralising filter. And if we don't do it for ourselves, then surely someone will do it for us. I had the privilege of hearing Augusta Boal, founder of the Theatre of the Oppressed, before he passed on. In a riveting lecture in London's ICA, he elaborated the concept of the "cop in the head". We are all encouraged to have this censor, he argued. In maintaining it, we immunise ourselves against exclusion and injustice. So I think we need our critical prickles so that we may better stay aware. If it moves, prick it. 

Woolly Thought and the Implicate Order

This is old rope on the beach - no more no less. I ventured to the sea one fine Thursday with the expressed intention of looking for texture - and this was the very first shot of the day. Perhaps it's truly remarkable only when enlarged because the detail is most intricate. Thrown away things often make the best shots and reminded me that it's easy in everyday life to lose track of detail. Our eyes skim over things, because if we fully appreciated the texture of everyday objects we'd do little else. It made me think of the implicate order - and quantum physics may yet reveal to us this order of which Jung and the quantum scientists speak. We see the explicate order with no difficulty, but the weft and weave of the implicate order is something else again. If we concentrated on it too much, we might never throw anything away and disappear under a mound of kept objects - including our unconscious and conscious processes.  David Bohm is one of my science heroes and he would appreciate this picture. He realised that the whole encompasses all things, including structures, abstractions, and processes, Things may be physical but also abstract entities. Thought would be included in this - and that of course is anathema to the many scientists who live in a world of material certainty. So let look at the image again and consider it as a representation of actual thought. Does it look a little woolly to you? 

Squaring up

The photo was taken some years ago from the top of the Mole Antonelliana in Turin and it hid in my files for that time! Frankly I can't recall taking it! Because the building is mostly squares it reminded me of this rhyme. "A graduate student at Trinity.Computed the square of infinity.But it gave him the fidgets.To put down the digits, So he dropped maths - and took up divinity." For Jung, a square is a “quaternity”and such a symbol might be “in the form of a cross, a star, a square, an octagon". Jung famously conceived of the human personality as having four sides and sought balance in each. The square is a  symbol of wholeness and when it appears in dreams, it could be about self realisation. When the circle is squared it becomes a mandala, a symbol of the transcendental. Yet even though there are many squares I couldn't imagine anything spiritual about what looks like a battery farm. Why should we want to live or work in little cubes? They are strong of course. Would you rather stand on a chair with with four legs or a stool with three? It's a fundamentally stable structure and everything holds everything else up. If you could remove a single cube from this structure it's unlikely it would collapse. Functional yet boring - something a lot of people seem to strive for. But we are more than four sides. We need to square up to being multi-dimensional.

Crocodiles, Aggression & the Collective Unconscious

I saw this in Brussels a while ago and forgot about it. But at the time I took the shot, I thought that crocodiles had a good symbolic existence! This art is part of a current penchant for outsize creature statues in impossible colours, but I do like some very much. This crocodile doesn't look like a creature of the underworld, yet that is how crocodiles often appear. In Ancient Egypt, Crocodile Sobek weighed souls. He was called the Devourer - and when souls were unable to give a good account of themselves he would eat them and they would would become excrement in his bowels. The Egyptians had a refreshing way of looking at things. There were temples dedicated to crocodiles and a town called Crocodilopolis. Yet elsewhere in Egypt, crocodiles were feared. Eyes were dawn, jaws were murder. And its tail brought brought darkness and death. In the West, crocodiles were held to be primeval creature and they may represent the aggressiveness of the collective unconscious. So if you dream of crocodiles, there could be some collective aggression of which you feel part. Excrement is another symbol for another day. But despite excrement's association with strength and gold, I wouldn't like to be excrement in the bowels of the crocodile!

Wine of life - freeing the spirit.

I found these flasks lying at the side of the local wine co-op in Casorzo, Piedmont. I'm at the limit for distortion on the wide angle lens but I didn't feel like cropping the image too much. The flasks looked a useful size for taking home. Here, you can roll along to your local co-op, buy wine in bulk then bottle it yourself. It's a civilised approach to wine. The symbolism of wine is very much about intoxication - not the general drunkenness that bedevils cities of northern Europe on a Friday night, but the sacred intoxication of the Gods. Blake said that the path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. I believe that's a knowledge and wisdom, imparted through the sacred aspects of wine. As usual symbolism is uneven and even contradictory. Wine in most cultures represents strength and life but sometimes it can represent God's wrath. "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword." And wine is also a symbol in Islam with many references in the Koran. "Choice wine shall be given to them to quaff." [76:21]. In general, wine is a positive life-giving symbol, The Sufi believe in the pre-existence of souls and moreover that "these souls we intoxicated with immortal wine." (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī). We arrive with the natural mysticism of the drink! But not the Gods of the Underworld. They are disallowed wine - as are the Muses, who rely on memory. And dreams of wine? It all depends. It could be a very positive pointer to transformation. Wine liberates the earthly and frees the spirit.