Slavic Saturday

Lets put Christ back in Christmas, shall we? Christ is the reason for the season, after all! That’s why it’s called Christmas!

Whenever I hear this nonsense from American Christians, I am reminded how shallow and uninformed their view of the world is. They actually really think that English language is prescriptive of how reality works and that Christians invented solstice celebrations.

So lets today just briefly look at the Czech term Vánoce. It is not actually slavic word in origin. It comes from German word “Weihnachten”, which probably just means “holy nights”. We borrowed quite a few words from our neighbors over the centuries. The original Slavic word was possibly “god” or “gody”, which has nothing whatsoever to do with any deity, it is a word for a celebration, holiday and/or feast.

Like I mentioned, there are no written records from old Slavic cultures, but something can be ascertained from what others wrote about them, especially christians before and when they started converting Slavic pagans to Christianity around 800 A.D. From this it seems that on the night of solstice Slavs celebrated the death and rebirth of a god Dažbog (Daž – give, bog – god), who was the sun-god. The celebrations consisted of having a huge bonfire lasting from sunset to dawn and feasting (without meat foods) around it. The feasting has lasted for a few days, cookies ornated with crosses and swastikas were a part of it, as well as going around singing carols and receiving/giving gifts. Note that these were de-facto celebrations of a new year – old man Dažbog has died on the evening, and he was re-born in the morning to grow (spring), gain strength (summer) age (fall) and die again next solstice. Whilst Dažbog was alive, world was safe. But during the night he was dead the chaos and evil could enter the world – thus the bonfires to keep his strength in the world and people safe from chaos through the night.

I won’t go into details, because I do not know them – I am not an expert, just a guy who read something about these things now and then throughout his life. And even experts must rely a lot on extrapolations from linguistic and still living traditions. There might be mistakes in what I wrote and it by no mean is comprehensive. Whole books are written about it. However one thing is sure – these traditions were old, predated christianity (at least here) and many of them never died.

Similar traditions at this time of year were also held by Germanic (hence christmas trees) and Celtic (mistletoes) pagans.

Christian missionaries were fully aware that trying to eradicate such traditions is akin to pissing against a hurricane, so they co-opted them. Instead of re-birth of the sun-god, it was told Baby Jesus was born. You can keep your crosses and your feasts, but instead of holding a wake at a bonfire, go to a mass at midnight etc. etc. at bleeding nauseam.

Christ was never the “reason for the season”. The sun was.

Gingerbread Season – Part 2

Happy Solstice everyone. As far as I am concerned, Christmas can get stuffed, but I like the fact that from now on days will again be slowly getting longer. It will still take a month or so before it is really noticeable, but it is going there!

Anyroad, here are another two gingerbread houses my mom made this year. She made a lot.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

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Flowers for Friday

It’s going to be crazy busy this weekend with all those stressed and delirious Christmas shoppers clogging up the roads and the stores. I hope all of you are prepared for whatever your holiday season involves, but in case you’re among the stressed and delirious I thought I’d give you a moment of calm with some wonderful flowers sent in by Nightjar. These are all flowers that have survived in her garden until December and I am amazed at the variety. I’m also a bit envious, but not too much because we do get to share the life-affirming beauty of flowers in winter. Thanks, Nightjar.

Fire Rose, ©Nightjar, all rights reserved

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Macedonia 9.2 – Skopje at Night v2

So, I did go out! I made new colleague-friends and took some time for quiet walking around the city, and yes, I took some photos!

Christmas isn’t as big a deal here as elsewhere in Europe (because most of the christian population is orthodox, and the muslim population obviously doesn’t celebrate as such), but the one thing that is a big deal here? Lights! Strings of lights! Everywhere, and in large amounts. To the point where walking down some of the pedestrian streets feels like walking through a galaxy though not like us, out on the edge of the Milky Way, but in a far more densely starred area. You’d think it would be garish, but it is quite lovely.

This is one of the lesser lit streets…
©rq, all rights reserved.

Look up! Even the moon is overshadowed (overlit?).
©rq, all rights reserved.

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Soundtrack to your life: 4

Yesterday we talked about songs not actually suitable for weddings but played there.

When I got married, we carefully chose our song.

It’s one of the most wonderful tunes I know, soft, with lyrics that are evocative, holding the promise of a future. The information leaflet of the civil registration office said “you can bring music on a CD and hand it to the clerk”. It didn’t say “make sure there’s only that one song on the CD, because our clerk is completely unable to play a specific track, despite it being 2007.” So the lady who conducted the ceremony simply put in the CD and pressed play so instead of getting married to  “Fields of Gold” (track #5) I got married to track #1:

 

I almost fell of the chair trying to suppress laughter, because holy shit, I was getting married to the lines “I send an SOS to the world, I hope that someone finds my message in a bottle”.  “Fields of Gold” is forever the song I didn’t get married to, but not in the sense all other songs carry that label.

 

But, it could have been worse. Because I wanted to play Queen “Don’t stop me now” at the end.

Track #1 on that CD?

Mama, just killed a maaaaaaaan!

Bonsai Tree – Humble Beginning

Well, hopefully. This won’t be easy to pull off and it may fail at any time even before it really takes off. Plants sometimes fail to take root, and even when they do, they fail at becoming a bonsai tree, and even if they do, they sometimes just die after decades of work for causes unavoidable or unknown – like my most precious cypress tree did last fall and many others this spring.

But I hope this takes off. Last month I had encountered a very rare thing – a seed in a store-bought persimmon, fruit of Diospyros kaki. This was a first seed ever I have found and I have bitten into it and damaged it a bit because I did not se it originally. Luckily for years I am always cutting the fruit lengthwise in crescents and never across, because I have been actively looking for a seed. But the variety is mostly seedless and usually all that can be found are tiny under 5 mm unfertilized seeds, which are useless. This was clearly living one, it was over 20 mm in length, with the shape of a plum seed and consistency and hardness of an apple seed.

I have washed it carefully and thoroughly in luke warm water so it does not mould and my mother (because I had to work overtime and did not have time to do it myself and also I am a bit superstitious about my mom’s touch – she could make a broom blossom if she planted it) had planted it in a bit of heat-sterilized porous substrate immediately the next day.  The pot stood near a heat radiator for the last month and I splashed in a bit of water whenever I remembered to, which was about twice a week. I was actually just beginning to worry that I underwatered it, which is just as bad as overwatering when…

A seedling Diospyros kaki popping out.

…today I found out that the seed started to come out of the ground, which was a rare moment of joy for me (I try not to drag you down with me, but you know those are small and far between). I will keep you posted on its progress. I hope for many infrequent updates for years, but you will get the info even if it fails.

Jack’s Walk

Thin Ice, ©voyager, all rights reserved

The sun is trying to shine today, but it’s weak and can’t quite overcome the gloomy clouds that fill the sky. Nonetheless, we had a pleasant walk down by the river this morning. We saw a few ducks, heard a lot of crows, found some mud and even saw a few shards of blueish sky. Jack really wanted to go swimming, but I didn’t think it was a good idea so soon after surgery so I kept him on dry(ish) land with the help of a few liver treats. He’s a good boy and does what he’s told, but he really wanted to get wet. Oh well, I did let him hunt for mice (he won’t ever catch one) and get some mud between his toes (fun!) so he was happy enough.

Still Life?

Or, how to bring classic paintings to life. Or to stillness. Or something. Anyway, for a bit of fun:

It all started in 2006, when the Malatheatre company’s founder Ludovica Rambelli — passed away in April 2017 — gave a lecture at the University of Naples, on Caravaggio’s way of working. That’s when Ludovica realised that the best way to explain it was through a theatrical performance. “He used actors to build the scenes he painted, in fact we did not reproduce his work, but recreated what happened in his studio,” said current company director, Dora De Maio, referring to what for a few years has become a real play entitled La conversione di un cavallo. 23 Tableaux Vivants dalle opere di Caravaggio, or simply, Tableaux Vivants.

Inspired, among others, by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s short film La Ricotta, the intention of this show is to achieve “a great visual impact” with a minimalist scenography, baroque melodies — by composers such as Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi — and a focus located on one side, which emulates the suggestive light effect of the Italian master’s paintings.

Watch them at work here, too:

I think it would be fun to try at home (or with a dedicated group of amateurs), but I also think it would be incredibly difficult to pull off their wonderful level of ‘casual movements of (un)dress PERFECT POSE’. Excellent co-ordination and execution. And such perfect expressions.

Now, nobody beats the original, but k.d. lang does a pretty fine job, if you ask me.

Another must-listen version.

Jack’s Walk

Bottoms up. ©voyager, all rights reserved

I think this sad little group of mushrooms looks like Can Can dancers who’ve fallen and can’t get up. Or maybe ballerinas in tutus twirling on their heads. Or even quite possibly like the petticoats of fairies bent over to touch their toes. Whatever the case, Jack and I stopped to say a cheerful “hello” before continuing on our way.