A Most Ancient Spiral Galaxy

The "grand-design" spiral galaxy described as "the most ancient spiral galaxy...ever discovered" shouldn't exist because "Current wisdom holds that such 'grand-design' spiral galaxies simply didn’t exist at such an early time in the history of the universe," according to this website.

And commenting on the structure of this galaxy, UCLA astrophysicist Alice Shapley opines:

The vast majority of old galaxies look like train wrecks...Our first thought was, why is this one so different, and so beautiful?

And University of Toronto's David Law, who authored the study, comments:

The fact that this galaxy exists is astounding. Current wisdom holds that such ‘grand-design' spiral galaxies simply didn't exist at such an early time in the history of the universe.

At the View From the Right, the sentiments are different. Lawrence Auster writes:

What a dumb, vulgar thing to say [that vast majority of old galaxies look like train wrecks] about objects ten billion years old, a hundred thousand light-years across, and each containing hundreds of billions or even tens of trillions of stars. No scientist in 1950 or 1970 would have said it...

Far too often, scientists, like their fellow elites in contemporary liberated society who believe in nothing higher or truer than the disordered human self, seem to have no sense of appropriateness, no inherent respect for anything, for the isness of anything. They must drag everything down to the commonest level and make it appear to be as messy and meaningless as we ourselves—even objects that are infinitely vaster and older than anything we can conceive, and that express an order of which (notwithstanding scientific theories which claim to explain far more than than they really do explain) we have no idea.

I think that people, modern, liberal people (which is the majority of the West now) have no principles with which to guide their observations of the world around them.

The Good, the True and the Beautiful are no longer those solid principles with which we tried to understand the world around us. These principles were formed partly through religion (specifically Christianity) and partly through our cultural history and traditions. Society was thus constantly informed how to differentiate between good and evil, beautiful and the less beautiful, the true and the untruthful.

Now, since we have cast aside these traditions, and since religion is just something one harks back to on Christmas or a christening, we no longer have that to guide our understanding of the world.

So, the tremendous beauty, complexity, and mystery of the universe is smeared with the ugly words of a modern "scientist." Beauty, rather than bring things up to its level, is now dragged down to the putrid messes of the ugly. And this is just how modern people would have it, since bringing things down to the "equal" level of ugliness is much easier than bringing it up to the difficult hierarchical requirements of beauty.

If scientist are not in awe of what they're discovering, how can they enjoy their work? Why bother to spend hours, days and even years looking through a metal funnel if they are not impressed by what they see? Otherwise, they may as well spend their days looking at the crumbs on their desks, which is how the likes of David Law really do see their work, and hence their crass and crude comments on these celestial bodies.

I should add that pre-modern scientists had a much better sense of the mysterious, and were much more humble than their post-modern inheritors. As I've mentioned before, it was God who got discarded so that David Law and Alice Shapley can say (and believe) these things. Things are now measured in terms of man's limitations, rather than God's infinity.

Since my interest is beauty, I think what is going on is an elimination of beauty in our modern understanding of the world, which also leads to the elimination of the good and the true. I wrote here about beauty:

Ugliness rules. In clothing, in films, in art and even in our "representatives" of beauty. I don't think it is a lack of knowledge about beauty. We've developed standards and often unanimous agreement about what constitutes the beautiful. So I'm not going to into the beauty-hater's argument that beauty is relative; beauty can be objectively measured. What's going on is that people are hating beauty. It is a form of envy. If I cannot be beautiful, then why is she beautiful? It is like wealth, or intelligence, or a sense of entitlement to live anywhere one pleases. Spread the wealth, accept I.Q.ers of 91 into Harvard, let everyone from every corner of the world come into the prosperous West. Or youth. Why cannot I be as young (and attractive) as any fifteen-year-old, at my ripe old age of seventy? Such are the mantra of the equal-opportunity narcissists.

So, in order to fit in with their lowered standards, beauty magazines are (actually they have been, for decades now) publicizing ugliness in their fashion shoots, their models, and even with the "celebrities" and film actors they promote. There was a time when actresses like Elizabeth Taylor, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and many more appeared in immaculate clothing, looking ethereally beautiful, at any age. And we admired them.

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Flowers of the Unicorn Tapestry

The Unicorn in Captivity
South Netherlandish, 1495-1505
Wool warp with wool, silk, sliver, and gilt wefts
12ft. 7/18 in. x 8 ft. 3 in.
The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr., 1937

I had been wanting to see the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters for many years. I have blogged about them here, and even written about their floral designs in this article (posted on my blog) on plants in the decorative arts (the original pdf article is on pp 3-4 of the Summer 2007 issue of the Botanical Artists of Canada Newsletter). As I wrote in my blog post in 2010 (when I first wanted to see them):

I have never been to The Cloisters, but have always known that they house the beautiful tapestries The Hunt of the Unicorn. But, I was lucky to see another set of unicorn tapestries, The Lady and the Unicorn (La Dame à la Licorne), housed in the Musée de Cluny, in Paris.

And from my article:

One of the most enchanting mergers of scientific observation and religious symbolism are the tapestries of the Hunt of the Unicorn. These tapestries are covered with the late Medieval tradition of fields of millefleurs. When analyzed carefully, many of these flowers are clearly identifiable, in their correct environment. The Madonna Lily, depicted in The Unicorn in Captivity tapestry, is both a religious symbol of the purity of Mary and also a medicinal plant that treated burns, ulcers and ear infections, amongst other things.

Finally, I got to see them during my trip in New York this past August. I tried to take photos (without my flash, as instructed by the guards), but couldn't come up with any decent images, so I had to make do with a postcard of The Unicorn in Captivity from the gift shop.

Here is a link to the Met, which has details of the flowers on the tapestry:
The Unicorn Tapestries: Flowers, Plants and Trees

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At the Cloisters

Standing Virgin and Child
Attributed to Nikolaus Gerhaert von Leiden
(North Netherlandish, active in Strasbourg, 1460–1473)
Date: ca. 1470
Medium: Boxwood, tinted lips and eyes
Dimensions: 13 1/4 x 5 1/8 x 3 9/16 in.

Above is a photo I took of The Standing Virgin at the Cloisters Medieval Gallery in New York. She is enclosed in glass. I wasn't aware that I couldn't use my flash. The museum staff were quick to point that out to me, upon seeing the sudden flash of light. I apologized - I really don't want to participate in the destruction of these beautiful pieces. The damage was done, but I got the lovely photo above, with the light glowing on the faces of Mary and Jesus, and on the folds of Mary's robe. The stained glass window on the left, part of the collection in the Treasury, is reflected in the glass on the right.

Although it isn't that unusual to see a depiction of the Madonna and child in stained glass windows, it is still a little bit of a coincidence that the image in the glass behind The Standing Virgin also depicts the Madonna and Child. I instinctively included the whole of the stained glass background, although most photos I find of this sculpture crop off the background (as I show in the collage below - one even obstructs a stained glass with the sculpture). For example, this could have been a perfectly acceptable version, which focuses almost entirely on the sculpture (I cropped the image in photoshop, not in camera):


The stained glass is:


Virgin of the Apocalypse
Circle of the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet (active 1470-90)

Date: ca. 1480–90
Geography: Made in, Middle Rhine, Germany
Culture: German
Medium: Colorless glass, silver stain, and vitreous paint
Dimensions: 13 7/8 x 9 5/8in.

The imagery depicted on this panel derives from the Book of Revelation, which describes "a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (12:1). The Virgin standing on a crescent moon, surrounded by rays of light, is a specific iconographic type, of German origin, which became popular by the middle of the fifteenth century. Encircled by the rays of perfect light, the Virgin, Queen of Heaven, outshines the transitory and evanescent nature of all other realms, just as the sun dissipates the light of the moon.

The softness and delicacy of the figures, as well as the unmannered, free use of line, place this panel in the immediate circle of the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, arguably the greatest graphic artist active in northern Europe before Albrecht Dürer. [Source: Metropolitan Museum]

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I've written about the external beauty of the Cloisters here and here, but the Cloisters also house an expansive, and beautiful, collection of medieval art. The Standing Virgin is in the newly re-opened Treasury, which is:

an intimate gallery displaying some of the most precious small-scale works at The Cloisters, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages – has reopened to the public after two years of renovation. Originally constructed in 1988 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of The Cloisters, the Treasury houses small luxury objects acquired in the years subsequent to the branch museum's 1938 founding. [More on the Treasury here]

It was The Standing Virgin that caught my attention. I was taken in by the intricate carvings of her robe, her expression which is a mixture of alarm (she sees something in front of her) and expectancy, and her playful infant with his chubby cheeks and legs. Yet, this is clearly Jesus, who is blessing us. The guide who took us around said that the sideways view is as important (if not more important) than the view from the front, since Mary is holding her child sightly forward, so that his two-finger blessing is clearly visible from the side, and he is slightly ahead of Mary, making him more important then her. I found the back view also important, but in an artistic sense. The carver has not cut any corners with the back, giving us a detailed carving of her long locks, Jesus' curly hair, and the shawl on Mary's head which is draped forward leading us to Jesus' hand which is holding it at the front.

The Standing Virgin, images acquired from
various sources around the web.

In the bottom right of the collage is a reliquary arm.

Here's what the Metropolitan Museum's website says about this object:

Reliquary Arm, ca. 1230
South Netherlandish
Silver over oak; hand: bronze-gilt; appliqué plaques: silver-gilt, niello and cabochon stones
25 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 4 in.
The Cloisters Collection, 1947 (47.101.33)

Precious containers for relics—the bones of a holy person, or objects touched by that person—are among the most inventive and accomplished works of art in the Middle Ages. In this reliquary, a silver and gilded arm is bordered both by decorative filigree plaques set with gems and antique cameos, and figurative scenes crafted in niello on silver. These plaques include images of saints Peter and Paul, perhaps the patrons of the church from which this reliquary originally came. As a reliquary was thought to retain the power and holiness of the saintly person, clergy used arm reliquaries to bless people or heal the sick.

It is of course a larger, and more imposing (and truncated!) version of the blessing that Jesus is giving in the sculpture.

The wood used to sculpt The Standing Virgin is a rich, red wood. It is identified as "Boxwood" in the catalogs. Wikipedia says this about Boxwood:

Owing to its fine grain it is a good wood for fine wood carving, although this is limited by the small sizes available. It is also resistant to splitting and chipping, and thus useful for decorative or storage boxes. Formerly, it was used for wooden combs.

Owing to the relatively high density of the wood (it is one of the few woods that are denser than water), boxwood is often used for chess pieces, unstained boxwood for the white pieces and stained ('ebonized') boxwood for the black pieces, in lieu of ebony.

The extremely fine endgrain of box makes it suitable for woodblock printing.

And this about its use for musical instruments:

Due to its high density and resistance to chipping, boxwood is a relatively economical material used to make parts for various stringed instruments. It is mostly used to make tailpieces, chin rests and tuning pegs, but may be used for a variety of other parts as well. Other woods used for this purpose are rosewood and ebony.

Boxwood was a common material for the manufacture of recorders in the eighteenth century, and a large number of mid- to high-end instruments made today are produced from one or other species of boxwood. Boxwood was once a popular wood for other woodwind instruments, and was among the traditional woods for Great Highland bagpipes before tastes turned to imported dense tropical woods such as cocuswood, ebony, and African blackwood.

The Standing Virgin is attributed to Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leiden. She stands about 13 1/4 inches high, and was carved around 1470 [Source: MetMuseum.org].

Here is biographical information on the sculptor Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leiden:

Gerhaert is considered the most influential northern European sculptor of the 15th century. He was born in Leiden, Holland (present day Netherlands) sometime around 1420. Based on the location of his work, we know he spent most his working life in the Germanic areas of Trier, Straßburg, Baden, Konstanz, and Vienna. Much of his documented work is lost to history, but what has survived is characterized by elaborate drapery and extreme physical realism, both extraordinarily vivid and unconventional. His specialties were tombs, altarpieces and other religious pieces. Sandstone and limestone are among his most frequent mediums.

One of his most well known works currently resides in the Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame in Strasbourg (Alsace, present day France). Called the Buste d'homme accoudé (1467), it is an indisputed masterpiece, and is believed to be a self-portrait. Gerhaert died on 28 June 1473 in Wiener Neustadt (present day Austria)

Man Meditating (Buste d'homme accoudé),
an apparent self-portrait, c. 1467

Another source describes the stone as Red Sandstone. Gerhaert seems to like rich rose colored media, like the boxwood he used for The Standing Virgin and the reddish sandstone he used Man Meditating. The Cloisters also incorporate pink marble from the Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa Benedictine monastery, located at the foot of Mount Canigou in the northeast Pyrenees of France, into the architecture. More current areas of the building also retain that warm, pinkish hue.

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Madonna: Modern Day Cybele

Group Orgy with Madonna and her Homosexuals

I wrote about Madonna's homosexual stilettoed dancers and her new music video Girl Gone Wild here. The dance troupe is from the Ukraine and calls itself Kazaky or Boys in Heels. Wikipedia describes them thus:

Kazaky (also known as The Boys In Heels) is an all-male Ukrainian dance group. Assembled by choreographer Oleg Zhezhel, the group has released several songs which have garnered popularity on YouTube. The group confronts gender norms by fusing masculine and feminine attributes together, most notably by regularly wearing stiletto heels.

Strange cultural and artistic phenomena often have ancient and mythic precedences. Madonna's homosexual men are like the castrated dancers of the Greek goddess Cybele, who danced around their goddess into sexual frenzy. Here is more on the cult of Cybele:

The cult of Cybele was directed by eunuch priests called Corybantes, who led the faithful in orgiastic rites accompanied by wild cries and the frenzied music of flutes, drums, and cymbals. Her annual spring festival celebrated the death and resurrection of her beloved Attis.

And more on the word "eunuch":

[T]he word ‘eunuch’ has many meanings to modern scholars. It may...refer to transgendered individuals, and it has been used to refer to gay individuals... When a Galli, transgendered priestess of the Magna Mater, Cybele, was unearthed in York a few years ago, the skeleton was said to be of a eunuch; it was found surrounded by female accoutrements and clothing samples.

This site provides interesting and comprehensive information on Cybele and her followers, including the transgendered, sado-masochistic nature of the male eunuchs/homosexuals, and their frenzied, orgiastic rituals.


Fashion designer Anna Osmekhina designed Kazaky's "costumes." Her dress above (not used in Kazaky's performances) has ancient Greco-Roman goddess references, and it is snips and cuts suggest a sado-masochistic style, thus fitting well with her costume creations for the Kazakys.

Kasaky Fashion, by designer Anna Osmekhina
 
The stilettoed fashion of the blatantly homosexual Kazakys
 
The stilettoes of Madonna's dance troupe have multiple meanings. One obvious meaning is their evocation of penetration (through both the female sexual organs and the anus). Since this group of dancers is openly gay, penetration would clearly not be of the female anatomy.

Anal penetration, usually a homosexual sexual act, is a violent act. Here is what could/can happen:

Since the rectum doesn't produce natural lubrication like the vagina does, anal sex risks tearing the rectal walls or the sphincter...that presents a real chance of potentially lethal peritonitis due to leakage of fecal bacteria into the abdomen...A 2004 study by the American Cancer Association showed that women practicing anal sex had more than twice the risk of developing anal cancer...

Stilettoes also evoke sharp and dangerous weapons like knives. As I wrote here, one of the definitions for stiletto is "a small dagger with a slender, tapered blade," implying a covert and dangerous weapon. The homosexual movement is still, to a large extent, a hidden world (camouflaged as, say, fun pop dancers, or fashion-savvy commentators) but it is serious about changing, and destroying, our heterosexual society. However much homosexuals may praise females (or the female way of life), their ultimate purpose is to destroy the feminine and the female.

Christian history also figures in homosexual imagery. There is a clear analogy between Saint Sebastian and the convoluted body of one of Madonna's dancers (see image below). The dancer's body looks like it has been pierced with arrows, like the saint's body.

Left: Saint Sebastian
By: Il Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), 1525  
Right: A dancer from 
Madonna's 2012 video 
Girl Gone Wild
 
Perhaps the earliest, least ambiguous, homoerotic associations of St. Sebastian with homoeroticism occurred in the early sixteenth century:

In about 1525, Bronzino painted an unconventional Saint Sebastian with unmistakable homoerotic appeal...The arrows, moreover, are not abstracted symbols of his ordeal...but erotic emblems: one penetrated his body, the other is casually, but suggestively, held against the pink drapery, the saint's index curved around and almost touching the arrowhead...These characteristics...suggest that (the painting) may have been intended to have an ambiguous meaning - an image on the one hand religious, and on the other, homoerotic...

Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo) 
Saint Sebastian ca. 1533

Later on,

From the Renaissance on, Sebastian is most often depicted tied to a tree, sometimes by one arm, gazing heavenward as his flesh is pierced by arrows, which may number from just a couple to a dozen, depending on the artist's enthusiasm; his body is made porous and "feminized" by the experience. His reception to this penetration has obvious associations with male homosexuality.

In our gender-bending, brave new world, Madonna is the gay icon. Homoeroticsm has made it into the mainstream (or, better yet, the mainstream has homoerotisized itself). If there is any advancement in the homosexual, socio-cultural history of man, it is that woman (big girl gone wild) is now the icon of the gay male. And she needn't prove her sainthood either, since nothing can be more highly esteemed and more saint-like in our modern, feminist, world than woman.

Kazaky is making its pop culture rounds these days. Sean O'Pry, a male model described as "American" (some websites describe him as White/Caucasian) but who has Asiatic features (Russian/Ukrainian?) stars in the video advertizement for the new cologne Spicebomb by Viktor and Rolf. The cologne bottle is shaped like a grenade. The slick black and white video shows the grenade/bottle exploding orgasmically to Kazaky's song Love as O'Pry struts in homoerotic half-nudity to the pulsing beat. O'Pry is also featured in Madonna's Girl Gone Wild video.

It is a small, gay world after all.

Sean O'Pry, an "American" model, also 
described as White/Caucasian, with
Asiatic (Russian/Ukrainian?) features

At the end of the Spicebomb video, we are left with a blank, white screen, cleared of all signs of life.

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Biblical Marriage: Correction

In my previous post "Biblical Marriage" I wrote:

...the Bible does leave room for divorce, if its tenets are not, will not, or cannot be met by the married couple.

It should read:

...the Bible does leave room for divorce, if the tenets of marriage are not, will not, or cannot be met by the married couple.

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Biblical Marriage

I wrote recently about the cross-bearing (actually it's less burdensome than that, they are merely cross-wearing) "strong" women and their husbands/"partners"(posts are here and here):

Elderly statesmen, youngish virile world leaders, live-in boyfriends, and faithful, eunuchized husbands pose next to these women. Taken aback by their femaleness, they often stand next to (and by) them, showing their natural, masculine, respectful deferment towards them, the same protective instinct that lets them open doors for women. Yet, this deferment, when stretched to its limit, becomes acquiescence, and ultimately capitulation.

Yet, despite all this deferment, acquiescence and capitulation, it seems to me that men cannot be the kind of "men" these modern women want them to be, who seem to want it all, including feminist freedom, careers, beautiful feminine gifts for birthdays and anniversaries (and flowers once in a while), their husbands'/ partners' unpaid baby sitter services, and dinner on a schedule. This must be an exhausting way to live for the men.

Mark Richardson, over at Oz Conservative, has a post about marital happiness, and writes:

[T]he percentage of very happy marriages declined from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s and there has been no recovery since then.

So despite things being made easier for women to divorce their husbands, women are no more happier in their marriages - they are on average less so.

Nor do the statistics support the idea that women were made unhappy by the traditional family and had to be "liberated" from it. There were more very happy marriages back in 1973 than there are today.

I think that women file for divorce because of the behaviors of their husbands, who stop being attentive, who are away often, who immerse themselves in work, who don't buy those special gifts, who "forget" anniversaries, etc. And the women cosequently become "unhappy" wives.

And the husbands are often reacting to "unwifely" women.

There is a Biblical role for wives:

Titus 2:3-5

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

1 Timothy 5:14

I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house

Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord

And a Biblical role for husbands:

1 Peter 3:7

Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

1 Cor 11:3

"But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ."

I think this kind of unwifely behavior by their wives unleashes a set of unattractive behavior in the husbands, including neglecting their wives and family through all kinds of pretexts, from undue time spent away from their family at "work" to forgetting special anniversaries and occasions. This passive aggressive behavior by men further unleashes the fury of the neglected wives, whose masculinized strength is no longer useful in the world of marriage, where female and male roles are subtly different.

Ultimately, though, I think the only strength men can acquire to bring their families together, and not to bail out on them, is to behave like strong heads of families.

Ephesians 5:23-31

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

And as controversial as this may sound, the Bible does leave room for divorce, if its tenets are not, will not, or cannot be met by the married couple.

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Happy Easter

The Rose Trellis Fabergé Egg was acquired by

American businessman Henry Walters in 1930,

and is now at theWalters Art Museum in Baltimore.

I have re-posted below a post from last Easter Sunday. Even though Fabergé eggs are a Russian Orthodox tradition (Orthodox churches celebrate Easter next Sunday), the tradition of the egg is relevant in all Easter celebrations. I remember visiting my grandparents as a young girl on Easter day, and the best part of visit were the "chicken and egg" stews which were especially made for the day.

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Fabergé eggs were made between 1885 and 1917, and:

[W]ere designed primarily at the behest of Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II as annual Easter gifts for Tsarinas Maria and Alexandra.

This is the Easter gift that Tzar Alexander III gave Tzarina Maria Fedorovna in 1885, which also marked their twentieth wedding anniversary:

Easter is the most joyful celebration of the Orthodox faith in Russia. After the devout church services, families gather to exchange gifts of decorated eggs, symbols of renewed life and hope. The Easter of 1885 also marks the twentieth anniversary of Czar Alexander III and Czarina Maria Fedorovna, and the Czar needs an exceptional gift for his wife.

So he places an order with a young jeweler, Peter Carl Fabergé, whose beautiful creations have recently caught Maria's eye.

On Easter morning, Fabergé delivers to the palace what appears to be a simple enameled egg. But to the delight of the Empress, inside is a golden yolk; within the yolk is a golden hen; and concealed within the hen is a diamond miniature of the royal crown and a tiny ruby egg – both now lost to history.

Here is what the Walters Art Museum says about the (above) Rose Trellis egg:

On April 22, 1907 [on Easter], Tsar Nicholas II presented this egg to his wife, Alexandra Fedorovna, to commemorate the birth of the tsarevich, Alexei Nicholaievich, three years earlier. Because of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, no Imperial Easter eggs had been produced for two years. The egg contained as a surprise a diamond necklace and an ivory miniature portrait of the tsarevich framed in diamonds (now lost). Fabergé's invoice, dated April 21, 1907, listed the egg at 8,300 rubles.

Many Fabergé eggs were either sold or taken out of Russia during the Russian revolution. Eight eggs are lost. Ten are now on display in the Kermlin Armory Museum. Sotheby's put up nine eggs for auction in 2004, and the entire collection went (back) to Russia, purchased by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

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Part of Our Easter Story

Prophet, 1912
Emil Nolde

Below is a post I wrote last Easter. I have reproduced it below:

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There is a timely discussion going on at the View From the Right (VFR). The topic on Rand and conservatism weaves through race, Athena and Zeus, Christianity, American Protestantism, the nature of individuality, heroes, the objective good, God, and ends with this comment by Lawrence Auster quoting Nietzsche's madman from The Gay Science:

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers....

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?... Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"

Nietzsche's ambiguous, ambivalent relationship with the God he perceives as greater than anything he can conceive of, yet deigns to have him killed to supplant him, is surely part of our Easter story.

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Madonna Lily

Madonna Lily (circa 1802)
Pierre-Joseph Redouté


I cannot find any Easter lilies by botanical artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté, but I have found instead his Madonna Lily.

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Ichthys

Happy April Fool's

This used to be a day to be careful. Small pranks (some actually larger for the receiver than the giver) were expected all day, mostly from friends and family, but also from strangers. It was a fun and festive day, in its own right. Yet, it has diminished in importance.

Partly, I think this is because it doesn't have the commercial clout of a holiday like Halloween. Partly it is because its religious and Christian origins have been forgotten (unlike Halloween, which still retains some of its Christian and religious significance). Who cares about fish, and what amount of money can be made from cheap fish-shaped candies, and paper cut-outs sold to lazy people who cannot make their own "April Fool's Day" cardboard fish?

Yet, Jesus fed the multitude with a couple of lowly fish.

The fish was an important symbol (and sign) in early Christian history. Below is information on how the early Christians recognized each other through Ichthys:

According to tradition, ancient Christians, during their persecution by the Roman Empire in the first few centuries after Christ, used the fish symbol to mark meeting places and tombs, or to distinguish friends from foes...

...when a Christian met a stranger in the road, the Christian sometimes drew one arc of the simple fish outline in the dirt. If the stranger drew the other arc, both believers knew they were in good company. Current bumper-sticker and business-card uses of the fish hearken back to this practice. The symbol is still used today to show that the bearer is a practicing Christian. [Christianity Today, Elesha Coffman, "Ask the Editors" October 26, 2001 - Ask the Editors - Christian History].

Jesus' fishermen disciples were preceded in various Old Testament stories:

Jeremiah 16:16:
Behold, I am sending for many fishers, says the Lord, and they shall catch them.

Ezekiel 49:10:
Fishermen will stand beside the sea; from En-gedi to En-eglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea.

And their analogous stories in the New Testament:

John 21:11:
So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and although there were so many, the net was not torn.

These fishermen were also "fishers of men" or saviors of men:

Jeramiah 16:14-16:
"Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, 'As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,' but 'As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.' For I will bring them back to their own land which I gave to their fathers."

Luke 5:7-11:
After bringing the boats back to the shore, Peter, Andrew, James, and John responded to the call to follow Jesus.

Fish are also used in many Biblical stories, Old and New Testament, from the giant fish which housed and saved Jonah, to Jesus comparing his disciples to fishermen. They are also recommended as food, which includes instructions on how to clean them and make them edible:

Fish were a favorite food and a chief source of protein (Numbers 11:5; Nehemiah 13:16). The law regarded all fish with fins and scales as clean. Water animals that did not have fins and scales were unclean (Leviticus 11:9-12)...

Fish provided food for the common people (Matthew 14:17; Matthew 15:34). The risen Lord ate fish with the disciples in Jerusalem (Luke 24:42) and by the Sea of Galilee (John 21:13). The primary method of preparing fish was broiling (John 21:9). The most famous New Testament fish was the one used to pay the Temple tax for Jesus and Peter (Matthew 17:27).
[Source]

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St. Michael on Bond Street

Bond Street entrance of St. Michael's hospital
with a relief sculpture of the sword and shield
wielding saint.

Archway above the door with filigree lattice work

[Photos by KPA]

Here is a historical plaque on the hospital building:

St. Michael's Hospital opened on this site in 1892 in a Baptist church which had been converted into a women's boarding house by the Sisters of St. Joseph. The hospital opened with 26 beds, six doctors and five nurses. In 1893 the sisters opened the first Catholic nursing school in Canada and in 1910 the hospital became formally affiliated with the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. Many Canadian "Firsts" took place during the hospital's first century including the first blood transfusion (1917), the most successful Canadian heart transplant (1968), the first muscle transplant in North America (1973) and the world's first sciatic nerve transplant (1988). In addition, numerous medical procedures and technological innovations were developed at the hospital. By its centenary in 1992, St. Michael's Hospital, still owned by the Sisters of St. Joseph, had become a 500 bed tertiary care hospital.

Nearby, there's a brand new addition to St. Michael's hospital, designed by Canadian architect Jack Diamond and built with donations from Hong Kong billionaire La Ki Shing. This new building stands as a legacy of our contemporary society, where the transcendental glory of God that forms a concrete society has been replaced by a spiritless worship of money from disconnected global sources. La Ki Shing's money comes from across the oceans, from a man who has no personal or historical ties to Canada. His only motive for his grandiose donation is to expediently own a piece of Canada, and to enlarge his global acquisitions. It is not surprising, therefore, that Jack Diamond is the architect. Diamond designed the latest version of Toronto's Opera house. I compare his unimaginative atrocity to Le Corbusier's vertically stacked structures. And I link Le Corbusier's buildings with the highrises that surround the French suburbs, and in which foments the anger of disconnected immigrant youth, who started the famous "banlieue" riots a few years ago.

Facade or St. Michael's Choir School

[Photo by KPA]

The photos above show St. Michael's Choir School for boys and the back entrance to St. Michael's hospital, both on Bond Street. St. Michael's Cathedral is not far down from the school. Fine carvings and filigree lattice work adorn these buildings. But, neither these beautifying elements nor St. Michael's sword and shield were enough to ward off the ugliness of Jack Diamond's revolt-inciting glass panes, or the disconnected alien presence of a Chinese (war)lord.

Art is a testament of God. The new hospital addition discards God through the bland, expressionless, spiritless flat glass panes. Since God is not important, then man takes on a different dimension, whose importance is gauged not by his spirituality and his goodness, but by his acquisitions and his power. And money is rootless, so it can come from the highest bidder, from any corner of the world. Shing won this time around, but it could have been anyone. Anyone, that is, who could come up with extra zeros on the donation check.

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Going to the Other Side

Going to the Other Side
(Lanvin's Spring/Summer fashion ad)

[Notice that the image on the right looks like a mirror image of that on the left (or vice versa)], but it isn't. I tried to do a mirror image match of the woman in pink with photoshop, but couldn't. And the light reflecting on the snake's head on the right isn't on the snake's head on the left.

Lanvin is literally taking us to the "other side," the alternate reality, where things look the same, but aren't.]

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Eve seems to be a recurring theme in fashion magazines (and fashion) these days. Recently, I blogged about the fashion house Blumarine, and its use of a female model in close association with a snake, from the snake skin attire that she was wearing to a strange conversion of her persona into that of a snake.

Lanvin seems to be on a zealous mission to bring Eve and the snake to the forefront, even more so than Blumarine. The March 2012 Vogue issue has a three-page Lanvin fashion ad where snakes are everywhere. Some (a few) are cleverly incorporated into the women's clothing and accessories, not as patterns nor their skin as the material for the clothing, but as sculpted three dimensional forms, almost alive in their sinewy presence. Most of the snakes, though, are crawling through the pages.

The writhing snakes are always in close proximity to a woman, and their relation to the males seems to be dictated by the women. For example, the complete version of the Eve/Snake shoots, available online here, has a sado-masochistic bondage scene. A man is lying down with his hand tied down with a snake while a woman threateningly brings a snake close to his face, as though to release the snake's poison on the man.


Where the man is holding a snake, he seems to have less control over it. Some snakes wrap themselves around a man's wrist or arm, acting as handcuffs or ropes to tie him down. Others slither across men's bodies (shoulders, arms, legs).


The women are sinewy and active, while the men are sitting or standing stiffly, like lifeless mannequins (a role reversal, since we are used to seeing female mannequins). And the men are often positioned lower than the women, reinforcing the female dominance.

The women's faces in all the photos are fully exposed. And despite their similar looks, with sleeked back hair (to resemble the snake), they still have distinct, strong personalities. The men have stunned expressions, and their hardened features are not as strong or as confident as the women's. In the image at the beginning of the post, the men are anonymous, their faces covered with masks to erase their identity and individuality.

[Close-up of the top image, showing men's masked faces]

The women are not interested in seducing the men, despite their provocative, aggressively female dress and posture, but in subduing them.


The sinewy, domineering women seem to have become snakes themselves. And having stunned the men into wooden passivity, they crawl all over them at their pleasure.

The snake has made woman his ultimate accomplice. And she has taken her complicity to the final level, where she is renouncing herself to become like, or be one with, the snake.


The Lanvin ads, with their clever associations, have made woman the protagonist in their images. This is easy to accept since women are always dominant in fashion shoots, fashion is about women. In the imagination of fashion photography, and in women’s fashion fantasies, modern sex relations can resume where the Garden of Eden ended. Eve finally does take over.

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Rihanna Sings to the Anti-Christ

Rihanna's crosses. I've circled the inverted cross in red

Rihanna, the pop star, was sporting some kind of leather jacket with crosses printed on it at a recent event. That's nothing unusual in pop fashion. Madonna made the cross into some kind of pop fashion statement, and many follow her example.

But Rihanna's cross is a new evolution. I can only see two imprinted on her jacket. One is right-side-up, the other is upside-down.

I recently posted on Charlize Theron's Christian Dior perfume ad where her video is accompanied by singer Beth Ditto from the group Gossip. Other than her freakish appearance, there's nothing worth commenting on Ditto. But, as I looked for the song, it turns out that it is called "Heavy Cross" and the album cover has a cross turned on its head, about which I write,

[the album cover] cover features a cross turned on its head, some heavy cross for those who turn to the devil to alleviate its powers (or so they think).

This, as I said, is a new development, at least in the mainstream pop world. It is one thing to "ironically" wear an exaggerated cross as part of a fashion statement. That still leaves some room for true belief. But it is another to unashamedly display an inverted cross, because its meaning is nothing but demonic.

The original meaning of the inverted cross is related to St. Peter's humility. But, it has been appropriated by Satanists. Here is a brief explanation:

An inverted cross is the cross of St. Peter, who, according to tradition, was crucified upside down because he felt unworthy to die the same way as Christ. As Catholics believe the pope to be a successor of St. Peter, the inverted cross is frequently used in connection with the papacy, such as on the papal throne and in papal tombs [photo]. It also symbolizes humility because of the story of Peter. The inverted cross has more recently been appropriated by Satanists as a symbol meant to oppose or invert Christianity. [Source: Religionfacts.com]

I doubt the freakish Ditto and the perverse Rihanna are thinking of their salvation when they sport this symbol. Their intentions are much more nefarious.


Once again, it is my belief that the world is turning more and more toward evil. I'm not sure what that signifies (the Apocalypse?), but it is incumbent on us to call out these anti-Christ figures and events, to distance ourselves from them, and to prepare ourselves to fight them for a deserved place by God.

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Heardening of the Heart

Bruce Charlton over at Bruce Charlton's Miscellany has a post up titled: "Hard and Soft Hearts - and Toughness". He writes:

We must make tough decisions - that is decisions that are right but which lead to upfront, immediate costs.

For those with a soft, warm heart - these decisions are a cause of pain; but we must not harden our hearts to make tough decisions.

At some level, it sounds a little like a sanctimonious "love thy neighbor" type of advice. I think that must be one of the most difficult of the New Testament's messages to understand, and possibly one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted.

Since I don't have the theological capacity to untangle the meaning of this message, other than how it might affect my ordinary days, I think it means that one should aim for good (love) rather than evil (hate) as much as one can. But I don't think this message explain what to do in extraordinary times.

I think we are now in a time of spiritual war, in extraordinary times. Different "neighbors" are around us, with different agendas, and often with non-Christian, or anti-love intentions. Are we to love those neighbors, or more precisely, those false neighbors?

I think the Christian way, to avoid the evil of hate, is to distance oneself from such pseudo-neighbors, and to try hard to find like-minded neighbors, however much geographically distant they may be. I think we should prepare for the battle by strengthening (Charleton might call this hardening) our spiritual heart. With conflicting "neighborly" love that is constantly undermining and weakening this spiritual heart, we have to remove ourselves (psychologically, geographically, spiritually) from such false neighbors, and find our true neighbors who will go on the battlefield by our side. Thus can we strengthen our spiritual heart, without hardening it. And be ready for the battle when the time comes.

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Sacredness of Art?

Many times, it is during these holy days that we contemplate the images that depict our sacred Biblical characters.

There is a discussion going on at Larry Auster's View From the Right about the recent image of Mary holding a pregnancy test which was cut to shreds by Catholic traditionalists in New Zealand.

A VFR reader writes, "I'm surprised by the fact that you cherished what can only be considered an act of barbarism."

Auster succinctly replies: "...you are sure that people who properly take action against intolerable things are morally backward."

That is just it. Non-Christians love to quote, or allude to, the "turn the other cheek" line in the the New Testament:

But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Matthew 5:39]

I think they do this so that they can get away with their ultimate purpose, which is to destroy Christianity, and to have no retaliation in the process, having turned these "devout" Christians into inert bystanders.

When someone (or some people, or a whole society) starts the systematic destruction of our religion, standing by passively (and "piously") is actually sinful. We are allowing the message and word of God to go to ruin, destroyed by forces that hate it.

The other part of this story is of course that cultural items like paintings are more sacred than or equal to God. Therefore destroying them becomes worse than upholding God's name.

The poster itself is more than a poster. The artist has clearly spent time trying to make a pretty good painting of the Virgin Mary, using classic drawing and painting techniques. He isn't merely using a "poster" as a propaganda tool, but a work of art that mocks all other religious art which depict Mary in a true, holy manner. This ugly (not aesthetically, but morally) painting of Mary fools people into thinking it is the erudite, well-thought out, submission of an artist, when in fact it is mocking everything Mary, and God, stand for.

Therefore, the right reaction for this ugly work is to cut it to shreds with scissors, just as the Christians in New Zealand instinctively and confidently did.

The "reason" given for putting up this poster by the Anglican church St. Matthew-in-the-City is the usual "Christianity as a vehicle for social change" where:

Mary was unmarried, young, and poor. This pregnancy would shape her future. She was certainly not the first woman in this situation or the last.

As in the past it is our intention to avoid the sentimental, trite and expected to spark thought and conversation in the community. This year we hope to do so with an image and no words. We invite you to wonder what your caption might be.

Although the make-believe of Christmas is enjoyable - with tinsel, Santa, reindeer, and carols - there are also some realities. Many in our society are suffering: some through the lack of money, some through poor health, some through violence, and some through other hardships. The joy of Christmas is muted by anxiety.

In this season we encourage one another to be generous to those who suffer, to give to strangers, and to care for all – especially those who have the least. Like the first Santa, St Nicholas did. [From the St. Matthew-in-the-City website]

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Christmas Tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Christmas Tree with Neapolitan Baroque Crèche
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

(Detail) Neapolitan Baroque Crèche at the base of Christmas Tree

Infant Jesus by Guiseppe Sammartino (1720-1793)
From the Crèche

[All images from the Met website]

Each of the figurines under the tree is apparently created by a different artist. The baby Jesus above is by Giuseppe Sammartino (1720–1793). He is with Mary, who is under the pillars (with the cherub flying in between). Joseph is standing behind Mary.

The Metropolitan Museum website has images of 233 artworks of the tree and the crèche, which includes the figurines and some of the designs that went in their creations. The very first page has descriptions of the figurines of the holy family.

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It is the Christmas season, and Christmas trees are everywhere, so I cannot help but comment on them.

Despite their name change (Eaton Centre calls theirs a "Wish Tree") and odd shapes (Dundas Square - across from the Eaton Centre - has mounds of snow made of wire that make a tree), they still give a festive air to these days.

Above is a tree I saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which seems to be a long-standing tradition at the museum.

It is hard to see all the pieces from the images above, but in front of the pillars are Joseph and Mary with the infant Jesus, and the various wise men (on horseback, camel, and elephant) are on either side of the family. Shepherds are there too, as well as angels. And many "ordinary folk" including "a man with bagpipes" and "girl carrying a basket of onions" amongst many others.

Here is more on the tree and the crèche from the Met's website:

The annual Christmas display is the result of the generosity, enthusiasm, and dedication of the late Loretta Hines Howard, who began collecting crèche figures in 1925 and soon after conceived the idea of combining the Roman Catholic custom of elaborate Nativity scenes with the tradition of decorated Christmas trees that had developed among the largely Protestant people of northern Europe. This unusual combination first was presented to the public in 1957, when the Metropolitan Museum initially exhibited Mrs. Howard's collection. More than two hundred eighteenth-century Neapolitan crèche figures were given to the Museum by Loretta Hines Howard starting in 1964, and they have been displayed each holiday season for nearly forty years. Linn Howard, Mrs. Howard's daughter, worked with her mother for many years on the annual installation. Since her mother's death in 1982, she has continued to create new settings for the Museum's ensemble and additional figures that she has been lending to the collection. In keeping with family tradition, Linn Howard's daughter, artist Andrea Selby Rossi, now joins her mother each year in creating the display.

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Women of the Cross

I've had two interactions with women bearing (wearing) large and distinct crosses. The first one was on a manager at Laura's, who told me she was wearing it as a fashion statement.

The other one was on a manager at the Art Gallery of Ontario, who made my simple refusal to give out personal information (name and address) at the purchase of a ticket into some gargantuan problem.

I wonder what this means, in my small world, and, if I may pompously add, in the bigger picture of crosses, religion and Christianity?

I wrote a few weeks ago about a family wedding to which I was invited, and which I declined, where the wedding was to take place with no Christian religious ceremony. Yet, the couple chose an important (quasi-religious) holiday - the Canadian Thanksgiving - to "celebrate" their day.

I think people cannot do without some form of higher, transcendental order. Some will wear the only religious symbols they know, but give them different, or non-Christian significance. Others will be enticed by religious rituals and ceremonies, but restructure them to suit their requirements.

As with the "Wish Tree" which resplendently sits in the Eaton Centre, Christian symbols are around, but they are not used in their true sense.

I think it a sign, which we have to pay attention to. Idolatry is an integral part of our culture now.

We have to stay strong, and faithful. I think the Armageddon is not far ahead.

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"Out of our selves and into Christ we must go"

C. S. Lewis
By Lawrence Reid Bechtel
Bronze mounted on polished stone base

My co-bloggers What's Wrong With the World from James Kalb's "Other Trads" site discuss a speech by C. S. Lewis. They've also provided a link to the speech.

At the final third of the speech, Lewis articulates many of the things I've been clumsily trying to write about in the past few days:

"Social service ends in red tape of officialdom"
"Good intentions going wrong"
" People trying to do good things, but somehow something goes wrong."

(These are not my words, by quotes from Lewis's speech I've partly transcribed below.)

Near the end of the excerpt, Lewis says:

...the real cure lies far deeper. Out of our selves and into Christ we must go.

Here is the transcript of the latter part of the speech, which you can also listen to here:

The Christian life is simply a process of having your natural self change into a Christ self, and that this process goes on very far inside. One's most private wishes, one's point of view, are the things that have to be changed. That's why unbelievers complain that Christianity is a very selfish religion. "Isn't it very selfish, even morbid," they say "to be always bothering about the inside of your own soul, instead of thinking about humanity?"

Now what would an NCO say to a soldier who had a dirty rifle, and when told to clean it, reply "But Sergeant, isn't it very selfish, even morbid, to be always bothering about the inside of your own rifle, instead of thinking of the United Nations?" Well, we needn't bother about what the NCO would actually say. You see the point. The man isn't going to be much use to the United Nations if his rifle isn't fit to shoot with.

In the same way, people who are still acting from their old natural selves wont do much real permanent good to other people. Let me explain that. History isn't just the story of bad people doing bad things. It's quite as much a story of people trying to do good things, but somehow something goes wrong. Think the common expression "cold as charity." How did we come to say that? From experience. We've learned how unsympathetic and patronizing and conceited charitable people often are. And yet, hundreds and thousands of the started out really anxious to do good. And when they'd done it, somehow, it just wasn't as good as it ought to have been. The old story. What you are comes out in what you do. A crab apple tree can't produce eating apple. As long as the old self is there, its taint will be over all we do. We try to be religious, and become Pharisees. We try to be kind, and become patronizing. Social service ends in red tape of officialdom. Unselfishness becomes a form of showing off.

I don't mean of course to put a stop trying to be good. We've got to do the best we can. If the soldier is fool enough to go into battle with a dirty rifle, he mustn't run away. But I do mean that the real cure lies far deeper. Out of our selves and into Christ we must go. The change wont for most of us happen suddenly. And I must admit, that for most Christians it will on be beginning to the very end of our present lives. But there are some in whom it goes further, even before then. Far enough for you to see it. Their very faces and voices are different. When you meet them, you know you're up against something which, so to speak, begins where you leave off. Something stronger, quieter, happier, more alive than ordinary humanity.

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"What Do You Wish For?"

[Photo by KPA]

Last year's Sears Canada's billboard advertizement for its Christmas catalog (right by the Baubles Tree at Dundas Square) was "Holiday Wish." The word "Christmas" was carefully omitted, but there was a clear reference to it.

This year, it is "What do you wish for?" The reference to Christmas is now vague and indirect, with a question which was designed to elicit a materialistic response, as in "I wish/want a fur coat for Christmas," not something like "I wish/want world peace for Christmas." The holiday (the holy day) is gone, but the shopping spirit still lives on.

The fine print on the online catalog version of this year's sign elaborates:

If you were wishing for a little help with your Christmas shopping, check out these inspired gift ideas. There's something for everyone and every budget.

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Wedding Baubles

"Mounds of Chiffon"
Vera Wang's wedding dress
from her 2010 collection

I wrote recently about a wedding I was invited to which involved not having a religious (Christian) ceremony.

I recently saw the photographs of this wedding, and was surprised at the formality of it all. The groom was in a tuxedo, and the bride chose a frilly, fluffy, long, white wedding dress.

People want their important days to be memorable. One way we show their importance is by the rituals and traditions that surround these occasions, which are often serious and beautiful. Also, these serious and beautiful celebrations are recognizable, and to deviate (too much) from these well-known practices would confuse the attendees, and thus diminish the seriousness of the celebrations.

So, rather than do away with these beautiful traditions and rituals, many keep their materialistic aspects, but remove their spiritual dimensions.

It is the same with Christmas. As I showed in my previous post, Christmas trees are still around, replete with Victorian baubles and decorations. Yet, calling them "Christmas Trees" and following the traditions that would evoke the real Christmas, the religious Christmas, with angels and stars and gifts, all alluding to the birth of Christ, is unacceptable. So Christmas is erased even from the vocabulary of the holiday, and a tree becomes a Wish Tree, and Santa's gifts get siphoned to children's charities, preferably charities for those really sick children to whom we can make a difference out of our kindness and and generosity. We have become Santas, after all.

In the wedding described above, God is discarded, yet all the other gravitas - the dress, the formal dinner, the mother of the bride, the specially hired photographer to take those pictures to be viewed by several generations - are present. But, as I wrote in my Christmas tree post:

I wonder when there finally will be no "Wish Tree" since it has too strong a resemblance to Christmas? Perhaps next year, we will just be left with the ungainly reindeer that are hanging over the banisters, with Santa still conspicuously absent.

Of course, many rituals surrounding weddings have already been discarded. And couples live in common law arrangements without going through these rituals. Yet, they speak of their "partnership" with sombre, serious voices, giving it the importance of a marriage, and some do in fact get "married" the common law way. But, without the religious and traditional elements, common law marriage is a mere shadow of the real thing. Common law marriage is simply a technical (legal) condition which helps two people living together as some kind of unit (and not roommates) to maneuver legal and procedural elements. In Canada, merely living together for three years constitutes a common law marriage.

Marriage and Christmas, and other formal elements of culture, have been reduced to their celebrations and festivities, or their legal definitions. Yet these celebrations are tightly linked to their religious components. We can have the glamorous wedding dress and the glittering Christmas tree without their deeper meanings and symbolisms, but how long can this last? Why have a Christmas tree, or a Santa, when Christmas is no longer on the calendar, and is called some name like "Season's Holiday" or better yet "A Celebration of Wishes" that gets rid of the Christmas that "Season's Holiday" alludes to? Why have a full wedding ritual, with its serious religious component, when a couple can say its own vows, and use the occasion to have an elaborate party (which, along with the wedding dress, every bride dreams of)?

Eventually, all the beauty and festivities that these hangers-on clamor for in these religious occasions will be destroyed together with the religion that they have discarded. A beautiful tree without Christmas becomes absurd. An elaborate party to celebrate a couple living together, which is already living together, becomes a joke. A beautifully crafted wedding dress becomes too traditional, and some mound of chiffon is a better substitute.

Soon, we (they) will be living in a godless world which is also devoid of beauty.

The square right in front of the Eaton Center has the ultimate, treeless Christmas tree, made of a stack of baubles.

The ultimate Christmas Baubles at Dundas Square
(in front of the Eaton Centre),
sending out "Holiday Wishes"

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