the switch

fortune telling card, my collection

aretalogy

from recent journey, self- portraits at abandoned house

the book of the heart

The heart can be opened, read and interpreted like a book. For Clare of Montefalco, her "spiritual sisters came to believe so intensely that Christ had painted his cross in her heart that at her death in 1308 they threw themselves upon her body, tore out her heart, and found incised upon it the insignia of the Passion." Or, after the death of Ignatius of Antioch, "they took the heart out of his body, split it down the middle, and found there the name of Jesus Christ inscribed in gold letters ..."
see: Eric Jager, "The Book of the Heart: Reading and Writing the Medieval Subject"


Master of the View of Sainte Gudule, Young Man Holding a Book, ca. 1480

"This is what I want to do in my heart, in front of you, in my confession, and with my pen before many witnesses."
--St. Augustine, Confessions

a desperate light

Today when the sun began with its shafts
to tell the story, so clear, so old,
the slanting rain fell like a sword,
the rain my hard heart welcomes.



I must renew my bones in your kingdom,
I must still uncloud my earthly duties.

(words from Pablo Neruda's "The Separate Rose: I")

When You Imagine, You Compel the Stone to Put Forth Its Hidden Nature

"Meditation: the name of an Internal Talk of one person with another who is invisible, as in the invocation of the Deity, or communion with one's self, or with one's good angel."
--Martin Rulandus, Lexicon of Alchemy, 1612


Giovanni di Paolo, St. Catherine of Siena Exchanges Hearts with Jesus

"It appeared to her that her Heavenly Bridegroom came to her as usual, opened her left side, took out her heart, and then went away."
--Raymond of Capua, Life of St. Catherine of Siena

here, two eyes have once more become one

medieval alchemical texts, reworked + collage + drawings

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beating the bounds

Bartholomeo Eustachi (1500-1574), Tabulae Anatomicae


"In order that the boundaries of the parishes might be indelibly impressed on the minds of the younger portion of the community, it was deemed advisable to bump some promising boy painfully against the boundary stones; or better still, to publicly whip him while he strove to impress on his memory the exact position of the same landmarks."
--William Andews, Curiosities of the Church, 1895

"Children were originally the chief boundary-beaters thrashing away with their sticks on the relevant stone, tree, or other landmark which marked the edge of a town or parish. And the children were, in turn, beaten themselves, receiving a coin for their pains. Boys were pummelled with the sticks, ducked in waymarking ponds, dragged through intruding hedges, and even had to climb over building that straddled the boundary. This instilled in them a sense of place, with a wound for every landmark."
--Quentin Cooper, Maypoles, Martyrs & Mayhem: A Diverse and Diverting Guide to 366 Days of British Myths, Customs & Eccentricities

"... The outskirts are felt to be infected zones, where all kinds of monstrosities are possible, and where a different man is born, an aberrant from the prototype who inhabits the centre of things."
--Piero Camporesi, The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Modification and Mortification in Religion and Folklore

EIGHT:::

"[The Christian's] fundamental belief in the efficacy of baptism led him to find this mystical symbol everywhere and imbue it with Christian meaning. The Lord rose on the eighth day: on an Easter Sunday, the liturgical eighth day, the Christian received baptism; and this is the day on which the 'Spirit moved upon the face of the waters.' Eight persons rode the ark over the waters, and this wooden structure by which man was saved is a symbol of the Cross."
--Hugo Rahner, Greek Myths and Christian Mysteries

"For Christ, the first born of all creation, is become the beginning of a new race, the race of those who by virtue of the mystery of the cross are born again of him by water and faith and the wood."
--Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum Tryphone, 2nd century

Early Christians tended to build their baptisteries in octagonal form, with an eight-cornered rail.

"The holy temple has eight niches,
octagonal is the font, worthy of its sacred work.
The house of our baptism must be built in the mystical eight."
-- from a Latin inscription by St. Ambrose on the baptistery of St. Thecla at Milan, 4th century



"... the ogdoad is understood frequently as the dual four, which is identical with the below and above, the boundless infinite, from whom emanated the Logos, or Word."
--Marie L Farrington, Facing the Sphinx, 1889


"The Ogdoad was a company of eight creator-gods a Hermopolis (ancient name Khmnu, 'City of the Eight'), one of the oldest religious centers in Egypt. The eight gods comprised four male-and-female couples, who each personified aspects of primeal chaos: Nun and Nunet (the waters), Heh and Hehet (the flood), Kek and Keket (the darkness), and Amun and Amaunet (invisible wind). [...] The Ogdoad are thus called 'the fathers and mothers who made the light', 'the men and women who created the light', or 'the waters that made the light'."
--Alan F. Alford, The Midnight Sun: The Death and Rebirth of God in Ancient Egypt

collection:

cards "printed" from fortune telling vending machines, my collection

nature is red in tooth & claw

Some animals I live with, a zoological study

10/17/08

the little side cave

"It was in the mid-eighteenth century, when Moravians questioned the gender of the Trinity, attributed maternal characteristics to Jesus, and celebrated a sensual, mystical personal relationship with their Savior, that Moravian iconography began assigning erotic qualities to the side wound of Christ itself. This included inscribing sensual, colored expressions about Christ and the side wound on hundreds of small cards, many of which contained striking water colors depicting the side wound [...] and/or showing daily activities – eating, sleeping, going for a walk, etc. – inside the wound." -- from Jesus Is Female: The Moravian Challenge in the German Communities of British North America, Aaron Fogleman


"Deep Inside! Deep inside! Deep inside the little side!"