Ne regardez pas
Le renard
Qui passe
C'est une
Fée.
Il faut,
Le suivre.

Ne regardez pas
Le renard
Qui passe
C'est une
Fée.
Il faut,
Le suivre.
Arthur Rackham, ‘Norns weaving destiny’, (1912)
“There is something about a dark room that turns me animal— clawing at the walls to learn what holds me in, licking the carpet to know where you have and haven’t been.”
— Meghan Privitello, “The Minotaur,” published in the Kenyon Review (via bostonpoetryslam)
Rosario Mazzeo, American, 1911–1997. Untitled (Vultures, Bahia di Los Angeles).
Eye see You.
Au premier soleil nous croyons qu'on sort de l'hiver comme d'une chemise... Cela vient que nous ne savons généralement pas jouir de ce qui est et que nous suspendons toujours notre bonheur à l'espérance du futur. Rien de plus beau cependant que ces orages, ces foudres qui ricochent dans l'azur, ces vents chargés de flottes dorées, ces ciels pleins de Babels qui s'écroulent et se reconstruisent. Vous attendiez le chaud, voila le froid? Goûtez le froid : s'il est là, c'est que votre bonheur doit se construire autour de lui.
Jean GIONO
C'était une nuit extraordinaire.
Il y avait eu du vent, il avait cessé, et les étoiles avaient éclaté comme de l'herbe. Elles étaient en touffes avec des racines d'or, épanouies, enfoncées dans les ténèbres et qui soulevaient des mottes luisantes de nuit.
Jourdan ne pouvait pas dormir. Il se tournait, il se retournait.
«Il fait un clair de toute beauté», se disait-il.
(...)
Il y avait tant de lumière qu'on voyait le monde dans sa vraie vérité, non plus décharné de jour mais engraissé d'ombre et d'une couleur bien plus fine. L'oeil s'en réjouissait. L'apparence des choses n'avait plus de cruauté mais tout racontait une histoire, tout parlait doucement aux sens.
Jean Giono
[Que ma joie demeure]
Giono 😭😭😭😭
Merci...!!!
1918 Two women sharpening an axe. From My Vintage Dreams, FB.
In the 19th century, the peasants of France still attributed magical properties to the Elderberry, and its wood was sometimes used to make sorcerer's staffs and divinatory wands.
In the legend, Judas, after having betrayed Christ, would have gone to hang himself from an Elderberry branch. Thus, it is said in Vienne, that the person who breaks an elderberry branch in the garden of his neighbors will betray this one in the year, even without wanting it and without knowing it.
It should also be noted that in certain regions, Elderberry served as a panacea : everything was good in Elderberry for healing, in the past. But that following the curse linked to Judas, its powers had been supposedly removed.
Protective Magic :
Magical Medicine:
Witchcraft :
The ice saints, likely to become the coldest days, especially at night or in the morning, are eight in number :
Saint George.…….. April 23 Saint Mark…………. April 25 Saint Eutropius….. April 30 Holy Cross ………… May 3rd
Are holy freezers and hailers and bud burners.*
Saint John …………. May 6th
Who -theoretically- closes the door of the cold.
But caution is still required when these great knights arrive:
Saint Mamet ………. May 11 Saint Pancrace……. May 12 Saint Gervais……….. May 13
Also saints of hail and nocturnal frosts.
So wait until May 14th for your plantations.
*(Selon Rabelais : « saints gresleurs, geleurs et gasteurs de bourgeons ».
(from something a friend of my mother's took out of his almanac.)
So I share my Walpurgis apple cake, incense, lights, devotion of pure waters, with the Little Neighbors,
and I was rewarded with a flight of crows (~ a real flight, not the usual jokes and tricks), then by a little green and gloomy viper which took the sun on a tomb, and finally by this young black snake which I disturbed in its sun-nap.
2 snakes ! 2 crows !
Also, I was authorized to pick up few umbels from Grandma to make a liquor which will be shared, precisely, between All of Us.
Georg Trakl, Surrender to Night: Collected Poems of Georg Trakl: Uncollected Poems and Prose; from 'An Evening', tr. Will Stone