Pensive.

Firchau, Amsterdam, 2007

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,

Where China’s gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow;

Demurest of the tabby kind,

The pensive Selima, reclined,

Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;

The fair round face, the snowy beard,

The velvet of her paws,

Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,

Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,

She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide

Two angel forms were seen to glide,

The genii of the stream;

Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue

Through richest purple to the view

Betrayed a golden gleam ...

Thomas Gray, from "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes"

Thanks, Buff.

Traditions.

The Field on the ancient traditions of Christmas ...

In the hall of the rambling Elizabethan farmhouse of my childhood was a wide, inglenook fireplace. Every Christmas Eve, the gardener drag-ged in an enormous Yule log, balancing it with much heaving and grunting across the fire dogs. This would be lit by the remaining piece of the previous year’s log and the fire had to burn for the 12 days of Christmas. A roaring log fire when outside all is in the grip of bleak mid-winter and the wind thunders in the chimney is as much a part of Christmas Eve as the tree, the decorations and the holly, ivy and mistletoe. And as with so many of our Christmas traditions, its origins predate Christianity by at least a millennium.

The winter solstice, the shortest day and the longest night, occurs around 21 December and for a period of about a fortnight, our Neolithic ancestors and the Iron Age Celts lit huge bonfires to conquer the darkness and held sacrifices in a desperate plea for the sun to be reborn, bringing its promise of light, warmth, regrowth and fecundity. The tradition of burning a Yule log came to these islands after the collapse of the Roman Empire and the influx of tribes from Scandinavia. An entire tree trunk of oak or ash with the branches lopped off was dragged into the great halls of tribal Saxon chiefs and one end placed in the open fires. The halls were decorated with evergreens, holly, ivy and mistletoe, a custom inherited from the Roman mid-winter festival of Saturnalia, and during the 12 days of feasting to celebrate the return of the sun, the trunk was gradually fed into the fire so that it burnt continuously.

Endless superstitions were attached to it: the sparks spiralling upwards were believed to represent the successful birth of different species of livestock; the ash protected the house from natural disasters and if mixed with water, was a general cure-all for both humans and animals. Difficulty in lighting the Yule log was considered ominous; if the flames cast a person’s shadow without the head, it presaged their death in the coming year and it was a complete calamity for everyone if the fire went out.

Thanks, Buff. 

Adventure.

I'm proud to say that my sis has had an article published in Guy Harvey magazine detailing the efforts of the American Zoological Association's Florida Reef Tract Rescue Project.  

The article begins on page 42 of THIS link.

The Aquarium of the Pacific's "Florida Coral Rescue: A Great Adventure Story", a panel discussion my sister was a part of last year ...

Thanks, Mum.

Happy Birthday, Firchau

My sister's birthday is today!  Happy birthday, Buff!

Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.

Mark Twain

Excellent.

An excellent condiment ...

Thanks, Buff.