some diamonds of turkey

Mosaic of Ananeosis (Awakening), from Antakya, 5th Century AD. In the Mosaic Museum of Hatay.


Ceramics Studio, Cappadocia.


Graves, outside Mevlana Rumi Mausoleum and Museum, Konya.


Stadium of Myra, present day Demre.


Aphrodisias Archaeological Site, near Geyre.


Ephesus Archeological Site.


Ephesus Archeological Site.


Ephesus Archeological Site.


Basilica of St John, Ephesus.


Basilica of St John, Ephesus.


Basilica of St John, Ephesus.


Altar of the Domitian Temple. Ephesus Museum.


The Obelisk of Theodosius, Istanbul.


House in Fener/Phanar, Istanbul.


outside the Little Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.


Istanbul Archeological Museums.


Istanbul Archeological Museums.


Istanbul Archeological Museums.

two fingers

The Ladder, #86, The Two-Fingers, #82. William Thomas and Kate Pavitt, The Book Of Talismans, Amulets And Zodiacal Gems, 1922.

[The two-fingers amulet] was intended to take the place of the two fingers of the god who helped Osiris to ascend the Ladder of Ra. [...] The Ladder amulet, provided the deceased with the means of ascending from earth to the floor of heaven, i.e. the sky. An ancient legend says that Osiris wished to ascend to heaven, but had not sufficient strength to do so. Ra seeing his difficulty provided the ladder, and he and Horus standing, one of each side of Osiris, helped him to ascend. [...] The legend is referred to in the text in the Pyramid of Pepi I, lines 192 f, 472 and 473, and in it we are told that it was the "two fingers of the Lord of the Ladder" which helped Osiris to ascend to the sky. The Egyptians presumed that the deceased might not be able to obtain the assistance of the "two finger," and they made the amulet [...] to take their place.
--E.A. Wallis Budge, Amulets and Superstitions, 1930.


British Museum, Obsidian amulet in the shape of two fingers. From Egypt, Late Period, after 600 BC.

The 'two-finger' amulet shows the index and middle fingers, with the nails and joints clearly indicated. They were placed on the mummy near the incision by which the internal organs were removed before embalming. This may suggest that the amulet was intended to reaffirm the embalming process, the fingers representing those of Anubis, the god of embalming. However, the amulet could also have been intended to 'hold' the incision sealed, to prevent malign forces from entering the body, like the plaques sometimes placed over the wound.


Brooklyn Museum, Amulet Representing Two Fingers. Egypt, said to be from the area of Memphis. Ptolemaic Period, 332–30 B.C.E.

lately

Five Things About the Mutation of Fortune at HTMLGiant

Fiction Review of The Mutation of Fortune at Newcity Lit

+++

I also recently had the honor to read for the Neverwhere Literature Contest, sponsored by Depaul University and One Book, One Chicago.


imagined landscape, collage, 2009

the mutation of fortune

"THE MUTATION OF FORTUNE documents the parallel fortunes of one protagonist living multiple lives. As she navigates her Märchen landscape, she goes through varied transformations, becoming at times a wolf, a thief, an amputee, a hunter, a rabbit and a runaway. She sleeps with swans and suffers a sister that bites the back of her knees. The world of this book is unstable, delicious and carries with it an inexplicit sense of danger."

available at the paper cave and quimby's in chicago (online & store).

& an interview about the book, wherein i speak of psychic inheritance, 2nd grade science teachers, and magic.

diamond fingers

something made many moons ago

bleeding trees

blood as a sign of wounding:::


--William Tell,Friedrich Schiller, 1804.

"Down to 1859 there stood a sacred larch-tree at Nauders in the Tyrol which was thought to bleed when it was cut; moreover people fancied that the steel pierced the woodman's body to the same depth that is pierced the tree, and that the wound on his body would not heal until the bark closed over the scar on the trunk."
--The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, Sir James George Frazer


Codex Borgia (c. 1497, Mixtec-Puebla Culture. A Mesoamerican ritual and divinatory manuscript) plate 66, blood gushing from trunk

There is, in the churchyard at Nevern, an ancient tree known as Yr Ywen Waedlyd, 'The Bleeding Yew'. A blood red sap flows from its trunk.
Some say it bleeds because a monk was hung to death there, and the blood is a sign of his innocence. Others believe Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross made from the yew tree, and that the tree bleeds in sympathy. Another legend proclaims that the tree will continue to bleed “until there is a Welsh prince on the seat at Nevern Castle.”


The Bleeding Yew

The tree in this distinct pictoria [folio 13r of Codex Telleriano-Remensis] is laden with flowers; its trunk is split in half, and its roots are fully exposed, and bleeding. The accompanying text says: Tamoanchan xochitlycacan, meaning: "Tamoanchan, (where) the flowers are in its house." The broken Flowery Tree here definitely symbolizes the breaking away from Paradise - from the primordial state of things, and from the House of the Gods from which, as the text explains, men had been expelled by orders of the male and female gods, for having harmed both trees and flowers there.
--Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica, Amos Megged


Codex Telleriano-Remensis (Mexico, 16th century), folio 13r

"There is a story that tells how, when a musician cut a piece of wood from a tree into which a girl had been metamorphosed by her angry mother, he was startled to see blood oozing from the wood."
--Plant lore, legends, and lyrics: Embracing the myths, traditions, superstitions, and folk-lore of the plant kingdom, Richard Folkard, 1884