Ancient

"Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus" by John William Waterhouse [1849-1917] is a great example of the classic power of ancient myth and legend. The paradigms, archetypes and lessons you must puzzle from them are as interesting as speculating what really happened, and why a legend grew out of something. Part of studying pagan religions and cults is looking at history, ancient culture and other ways of thinking. It is a new lens through which to see the beauty of nature, the sea and the simple, topmost pleasures of life.

Circe [Greek: Κίρκη] was an interesting ancient Greek sorceress, also called a goddess or nymph. She used liquid magic potions and her staff [like a long straight wand] to turn her enemies, and Ulysses and his men into animals. All this is recorded in the famous ancient Greek epic of Homer, the Odyssey [Greek: Ὀδύσσεια]. Read Butler's famous translation here. Here's a neat excerpt:

"'We went,' said he, 'as you told us, through the forest, and in the middle of it there was a fine house built with cut stones in a place that could be seen from far. There we found a woman, or else she was a goddess, working at her loom and singing sweetly; so the men shouted to her and called her, whereon she at once came down, opened the door, and invited us in. The others did not suspect any mischief so they followed her into the house, but I staid where I was, for I thought there might be some treachery. From that moment I saw them no more, for not one of them ever came out, though I sat a long time watching for them.'

"Then I took my sword of bronze and slung it over my shoulders; I also took my bow, and told Eurylochus to come back with me and shew me the way. But he laid hold of me with both his hands and spoke piteously, saying, 'Sir, do not force me to go with you, but let me stay here, for I know you will not bring one of them back with you, nor even return alive yourself; let us rather see if we cannot escape at any rate with the few that are left us, for we may still save our lives.'

"'Stay where you are, then,' answered I, 'eating and drinking at the ship, but I must go, for I am most urgently bound to do so.'

"With this I left the ship and went up inland. When I got through the charmed grove, and was near the great house of the enchantress Circe, I met Mercury with his golden wand, disguised as a young man in the hey-day of his youth and beauty with the down just coming upon his face. He came up to me and took my hand within his own, saying, 'My poor unhappy man, whither are you going over this mountain top, alone and without knowing the way? Your men are shut up in Circe's pigstyes, like so many wild boars in their lairs. You surely do not fancy that you can set them free? I can tell you that you will never get back and will have to stay there with the rest of them. But never mind, I will protect you and get you out of your difficulty. Take this herb, which is one of great virtue, and keep it about you when you go to Circe's house, it will be a talisman to you against every kind of mischief.

Music Rec

If you like Lana del Rey, whose song 'Young and beautiful' was on the recent The Great Gatsby soundtrack [I also liked 'A little party never killed nobody'], be sure to try Kyla La Grange--and if you prefer Lana's work to be mixed, like me, try these:

Kyla La Grange- Cut your Teeth [Kygo Remix]
Lana del Rey - Milltion Dollar Gold Digger [LdR vs. Kanye West]

Also make sure to hear Lana's take on 'Once Upon a Dream', which has a great creepy vibe. Turn the lights on first! I also liked Lana's 'Body electric', a Whitman quote. Be sure to check out some Whitman [1819-1892] as well, the famous American poet. You can read his famous Leaves of Grass right here. Here's a little excerpt from 'I sing the body electric':

     1
  I sing the body electric,
  The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
  They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
  And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

  Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
  And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
  And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
  And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

       2
  The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
      balks account,
  That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

 [...]

Wallace Stevens & Thomas Dewing

This painting is called "A garden, also known as Autumn" and is by Thomas Wilmer Dewing [1851-1938], an incredible American painter. It's up in Boston's Fine Arts Museum, and it's worth the trip. Recalling the ancients, the late neo-classist pre-Rapaelite John William Godward and Pound's Imagists, this painting has a really eerie quality to it. It somehow belongs in a Cocteau movie. 

A poem that always is somehow linked to it in my mind is a classic by Wallace Stevens. In his volume Harmonium, his poem "Domination of Black" is incredible. It's beyond multi-layered, and it's laser focused. It's excellent; for info look here. Read below:

Domination of Black

At night, by the fire,

 The colors of the bushes
 And of the fallen leaves,
 Repeating themselves,
 Turned in the room,
 Like the leaves themselves
 Turning in the wind.
 Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks
 Came striding.
 And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

 The colors of their tails
 Were like the leaves themselves
 Turning in the wind,
 In the twilight wind.
 They swept over the room,
 Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks
 Down to the ground.
 I heard them cry—the peacocks.
 Was it a cry against the twilight
 Or against the leaves themselves
 Turning in the wind,
 Turning as the flames
 Turned in the fire,
 Turning as the tails of the peacocks
 Turned in the loud fire,
 Loud as the hemlocks
 Full of the cry of the peacocks?
 Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?

 Out of the window,
 I saw how the planets gathered
 Like the leaves themselves
 Turning in the wind.
 I saw how the night came,
 Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks
 I felt afraid.
 And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.