Edith Hamilton

 I took Latin in High School - even then I longed for a classical education. One of our textbooks was Edith Hamilton's "Mythology." I remember being mesmerized by it, by the complex interactions of the Greek and Roman gods, and the stories spun around them. 

I've kept the book ever since, and I recently pulled it out to re-read. For the first time, however, I thought, "Who was this Edith Hamilton, who gave the world such a compilation of ideas and stories?" I had a feeling there might be an empowering and inspiring story there, as well. I had an idea there might be a woman ahead of her time, paving the way for others.

I wasn't disappointed! She was born in Germany, but raised in Indiana. Her parents gave her and her siblings a classical education at home, and they all went on to achieve roles of distinction. 

Edith was head administrator at Byrn Mawr Shcool, a preparatory school, for many years before retiring - and in her fifties - starting her own quest to learn and write about the ancient world. 

She celebrated the mind - rising above oneself - being educated. "To be able to be caught up into the world of thought - that is being educated."

"A people's literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can."

"None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exultation by the alchemy of poetry."

For a list of her books: Books by Edith Hamilton (Author of Mythology) (goodreads.com)

Finding kindred

A new year is upon us, after a year of hibernation, self-protection, loss, gain, and growth. Now it is time for new adventures and finding kindred souls who are walking - or who have walked - the planet.

This year, as I prepare to step onto the soil of Scotland for the first time and commune with my ancestors, I have already found connections to the "homeland" that make me feel I will belong there. 

One of the first things I do, of course, when visiting some place new, is search out the artists and writers. Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Sir Walter Scott come to mind immediately, but then I found Nan Shepard. Ah, there's the like...

She walked the highlands, and made poetic observations on them, showing an intense connection to the land. 

"Shepard's first novel, The Quarry Wood, was published in 1928, with two more following in the 1930s. All three are set in the North-East with the country communities and harsh landscape as background. Her book The Living Mountain, a work of poetic prose exploring her close relationship with the hills, was written in the 1940s, though not published until 1977. Hill-walking was Shepard's great love; her single collection of poetry In the Cairngorms (1934) expresses an intensity of deep kinship with nature. They are poems written with the perception of one who has climbed the mountains and truly knows them."

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/nan-shepherd

So without sediment

Run the clear burns of my country,
Fiercely pure,
Transparent as light
Gathered into its own unity,
Lucent and without colour:
Or gree,
Like clear deeps of air,
Light massed upon itself,
Like the green pinions,
Cleaving the trouble of approaching night,
Shining in their own lucency...

I cannot wait to know this world myself. My upcoming journey is made to a writing retreat within the walls of a castle, to live bohemian for a glorious week. My goal is a book of poems and artwork to complete upon my return, if my ballad-singing ancestors will wake within me there. I call upon them like the willo-the-wisps I've already loved, since the first days of foxfire and fireflies on the farm.

That's kindred, after all.

Creatures of Time

Then there is the greatest first - the moment you hold your first published book in your hand. There comes a time when you realize you need to stop talking about dreams and start making them happen. I've made a movie short, acted in plays, had my own art show, and now there is the culmination. It came in part from a promise to my dad, to compile his poetry and share it with the world, because it needs to be shared. I realized there were paintings he and/or I had painted that corresponded well with the poems, and there were poems I'd written myself. It became an anthology of art and verse, of memories growing up on a farm, of Appalachia then and now. I t is beautiful, and I'll treasure it forever, because of what it is, and of the first milestone it marks.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/kendra-hinkle/creatures-of-time/paperback/product-23851803.html

This and that...

The latest litany of new stuff...but in an exciting way...

Had fun with Google Arts and Culture art comparisons...

Eaten at a French Market in Knoxville...

And tried petit fours. DIVINE...

Gotten a new stamp in my NPS passport book - to recognize the 150th anniversary of Andrew Johnson's impeachment...

And so it goes...

In keeping up the quest to ever strive to welcome newness and growth into life I have:

• Powered through the upper notes in a classical piece of piano music
• Celebrated Burn's Night with poetry and new foods with names like lamb croquette and cock-a-leeky stew
                                  

                                             

• Changed the server memory card at work
• Upgraded to a modern record-able tv system
• Taken a new road home from work
• Learned about Orangeburg tile 
• Eaten at the Choo-Choo Cafe in Erwin
• Tried a new coffee flavor at the Steel Rails Coffee House
• Added tobiko and eel sauce sides with sushi - I'm a fan of both!
• Scanned a negative to recreate a long-lost photo

                                               

• Visited Fort Negley in Nashville, TN - commissioned by Military Governor Andrew Johnson

And, today is a big deal, because I'm working through a self-publishing site, and I got my first ISBN number of my very own, for my very own first book. The book is still in the works, as I learn to maneuver things like formatting and embedded fonts. The voyage of discovery is thrilling, as is the fulfillment of my life-long heart's desire.

Fahrvergnugen

Today's first - a foray into a new language. German is something outside of anything I ever thought I'd consider learning, but here goes! A new person in your life can spark new interests and desires, literally and figuratively. 

Unfortunately or fortunately, my sister and I have had a terrible amount of fun with it already...When I asked her the first phrase from the book, "Was ist los?" she looked at me and replied very seriously, "Fahrvergnugen." We dissolved into hysterics for a bit, then she said, "No really, what does it mean?" I said, "It means, 'What is wrong?'" 

"The first phrase they teach you is 'What is wrong?'" Insert hysterical laughter again. 

I'll straighten up soon, I promise, and I'll be very proud when I can order some mulled wine from the Christmas markets in Germany. That is also on the list of desired firsts.

In the meantime, we've learned that "Fahrvergnügen was an advertising slogan used by the German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen in a 1990 U.S. ad campaign that included a stick figure driving a Volkswagen car...'Fahrvergnügen' means 'driving enjoyment' in English (from fahren, 'to drive,' and Vergnügen, 'enjoyment'). The term itself is not standard German but a neologism (compound noun) created especially for this advertising campaign."

One new thing...

One of the main principles of "The Artist's Way" is synchronicity - that mysterious and miraculous intertwining of events. I've found it true in my own life an uncountable number of times. That's why I wasn't surprised when, after making a New Year's Resolution to learn at least one new thing a day, a friend gave me the book, "I Dare Me." It's a challenge to DO one new thing a day. That ups the ante.
Upping the ante. Let's use that as an example - the Spanish word ante means before. So you raise the bets before a game of poker starts - a forced bet for higher stakes.

Okay. So far I've learned it's easier to learn something new each day than do something new each day. I have to admit I love the ease with which we can find out anything we want to know in this technological era. I heard a quote once that we have the wealth of human knowledge available in our pockets, and we use it to watch cat videos and argue about politics. We need to be more than that. We need to be grateful for the resources at our grasp.

So far my goal has been an amalgam (a mixture or blend), but I'm dedicated. Do you know how long it takes to jot down 1-365 in a small, shiny blue notebook? I can tell you it covers 15 pages of imposing yet exciting possibilities.

Examples thus far:

1. Eat at the Melting Pot - It was simple yet fascinating to sit down at a table with a hot eye and shiny silver pot in the center, then see the mixtures of rich cheeses and wines and broths appear before you. There are four courses, all in manageable sizes. Cheese and bread/fruit/vegetables start the feast; salad of choice appears next; then, heady broth with vegetables into which you drop your skewers of chosen tender meats to cook yourself, given the proper amount of time. Then comes dessert! We chose a pot of dark chocolate with sea salt, and the smorgasbord of fruit, cake, marshmallows, Rice Krispy tasties thrilled us like school children.

2. In progress: Read all the biographies in the young adult section of the library. I started this when I was a child, but the prickly library staff was so akin to the Gestapo that I vowed never to darken the doorway again. With a new staff, I've picked up the quest again, and am tearing through the books with childish gusto and zeal.

Louis Braille - whose grave I'd seen in the Pantheon in Paris this summer - died so disappointed that his system of writing for the blind hadn't been adopted made me wonder if his interment in the hallowed structured had come later. Indeed it had - his re-interment had been attended by Helen Keller herself.

Guiseppe Verdi - did you know that in addition to being a prodigious musician, he was an amazing philanthropist?

Others so far - Louis Armstrong, Crispus Attucks, Jim Bridger, Noah Webster, Lew Wallace, Harry Truman, Queen Victoria...

3. Listen to Les Eolides, music inspired by poetry: http://classicalwcrb.org/post/music-inspired-poetry-les-eolides#stream/0 It's about the winds, from Greek mythology.

4. Learn music theory - this is the part of childhood piano lessons I "tuned out." Also doing all those awful finger exercises.

5. Speaking of music - the difference between a Sonata and a Sonatina. "A sonatina is literally a small sonata. As a musical term, sonatina has no single strict definition; it is rather a title applied by the composer to a piece that is in basic sonata form, but is shorter and lighter in character, or technically more elementary, than a typical sonata." I'll leave the Sonatas to Rhonda.

6. Learn about Marie Bashkirtseff - a woman artist who broke the rules of Victorian culture by getting out and wandering about Paris - a "flaneuse." She captured scenes of every day life, even including a single girl walking by herself - or not? - in her painting, The Meeting. The girl is on the edge the painting and it's impossible to tell if someone is beside her.

There are many more ideas and thoughts to come! Some days I'll have a set goal. Some days will be an exciting adventure. But it's nice to have something to feel eager about for the new year.

The Prisoner of Chillon

Who was the prisoner of Chillon? One would think by the tone of Lord Byron's lyric poem that he was a heroic, romantic, chivalrous figure...perhaps that and then some. To give him even more of an historic appeal, he was a bit of a libertine.

Francois Bonivard.

His uncle was prior of a monastery outside of Geneva, and Bonivard received an early education from the monks. His later education in Italy was marked more by amusement. After the Duke of Savoy captured his family lands, he began a life of political activism and became a partisan of the Protestant Reformation.

These actions landed him in prison several times, once in the famed dungeon of Chillon, where he was immortalized by Byron.

He was also married four times, threw extravagant parties, and scandalized the neighbors.

Amid all this, he wrote a history of Geneva up to 1530.

Quite a figure to immortalize, after all.

Lord Byron's Daughter

I knew of Medora, one of Byron's daughters. But I didn't know of the other one - Ada. Nor did I know she was a mathematical genius, of sorts. That came from her mother, Annabella. Anabella and Bryon were married only a short time, but from their union came Byron's only legitimate child. Ada called herself a "poetical scientist," which is perhaps the best blending of the two. Perhaps it's what gave her such an incredible legacy, even if I am just now learning about it.

Working with Charles Babbage, a mathematician and inventor who had come up with the idea of an "analytical engine," she came up with her own ideas for codes of letters and numbers and looping ~ things that current computers use today! For her thoughts she is known as one of the first computer "programmers." All this in the mid 1800s!

A child's book about her has been beautifully illustrated:

And a science fiction independent film of her life took several awards from film festivals. It's in my queue.

Baudelaire, Rimbaud, or Verlaine

I hate to admit I know all their names, but who they are as individuals somehow blends together under the amalgam "French poet." I discovered there is a book with all three of their works combined (so maybe I'm not alone in this phenomenon). The synopsis on Goodreads gives a wonderful initial orientation to their styles...

"Here, for the first time, the work of three of Frances greatest poets has been published in a single volume: the sensual and passionate glow of Charles Baudelaire, the desperate intensity and challenge of Arthur Rimbaud, and the absinthe-tinted symbolist songs of Paul Verlaine."

Joseph Bernstein, translator and interpreter of note, says, "Not to know these three poets, is to deprive oneself of a pleasure as rare as it is indispensable to any real understanding of the aims and direction of modern literature."

Their lives overlapped, not all quite so intensely and stormily as Rimbaud and Verlaine, but they all lived between 1821 - 1896. Baudelaire was oldest, and the one whose work inspired the others. Rimbaud has been credited with influencing modern literature.

"To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art -- that is, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts." Baudelaire

"The poet is a madman lost in adventure." Verlaine

"I saw that all beings are fated to happiness: action is not life, but a way of wasting some force, an enervation." Rimbaud

The Postman

I just heard of the bride from Il Postino referred to as "a classical figure of femininity." What is this "El Postino" I wondered? It looks like an artistic and endearing movie I need to see!

And, as one thing leads to another, the trailer made me wonder about the poet Pablo Neruda. I've learned he was a Chilean poet, known most for his highly romantic verses. They ranged from surreal to historic, and he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971 ~ the year I was born! He always wrote in green ink, to symbolize hope.

I noticed even an excerpt of one of his poems is "trending" today.

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”

― Pablo Neruda

Indeed.

Georges Braque

I came across Georges Braque's name today in A Moveable Feast. Not knowing who he was, I went off on a search. It turns out he was a major 20th century artist - impressionist turned fauvist turned founder of cubism along with Picasso! While fauvism favored strong, lurid color, many of Braque's cubism paintings seem to favor browns and siennas, a fact which made Hemingway compare Paris's sanitary horse-drawn wagons to his work.

A screenshot from the Google search for "Braque"

"The tank wagons were painted brown and saffron color and in the moonlight when they worked the rue Cardinal Lemoine their wheeled, horse-drawn cylinders looked like Braque paintings."

I suppose the take-away is that this is a good lesson on "place." Even the seemingly basest or non-descript parts of life can add to knowing the nuances of a time. Even the mundane can be elevated by the artistic eye.

Quince

Quince. Have you heard of it? I've heard of the flowering quince, a beautiful bright red blooming bush that shocks our senses in early spring with its burst of color. But research just "quince" and you get an explosive panoply of yellow fruit ~ 

It turns out, the flowering quince is an ornamental, fruitless variety ~ a hybrid to please gardeners. The fruited quince is a cousin of the apple and pear, and part of the pome fruit family. According to HomeGuides SFGate website, "This 'golden apple' of Greek mythology, and perhaps the apple of Adam and Eve, grows well in a Mediterranean climate." Now that's a discovery indeed...

A bright screen-shot from a Google search for Quince

Adelaide Crapsey

The sad yet moving and fascinating story of the woman who invented the Cinquain style of poetry...because things like that just seemed synonymous with the Victorian era:

 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/adelaide-crapsey

Winter

I've been snowed in since last Wednesday, and I've learned something about myself. I could be a hermit. Easy. The full-fledged Walden pond variety. I've walked through suspended snowflakes and deep drifts, realizing I could never return to work and never miss it. No false pretenses for caring about anything I don't care about. 

I'm happy with nature, with paper, with paint, with my animals. I've  learned that you can trust Daphne out of doors all day, but she can't be alone with the cats, no telling what her terror of them might cause. Piper could be inside with the cats all day, but let her outside and she's off to the coyote strewn hills like a shot. 

The goats have full woolly coats, and the rabbits are huddled under the lights keeping their water bottles thawed. 

As for me...flannels, fire, wine, wonder. And no desire for it to end. 

The Witching Season

I'm ready for autumn to be here, as well as Halloween!

Empress Josephine

Did you know that Empress Josephine of France was
an avid horticulturist and had a rose named after her?

Marie Antoinette

In my love of gardens that is growing, I am drawn to films and to women that also share this love...this beauty of the ephemeral and natural. Sometimes it comes in surprising places...

Spring cometh...

As Spring creeps to life this year, I have many new plans for my land. I just watched the Secret Garden, and I'm inspired to create a place to qualify for kinship of any in Mistlethwaite Manor or Avonlea. I've taken "before" pictures, so I'll post again as things come to life. I worked in the chill of winter and was glad when I was able to transplant roses and willows. Today I planted forsythia, rhododendron, phlox, ivy, and raspberries... There's been burning and clearing and pruning that is satisfying to the soul.

The upper end of the pond - rhododendron went here. This area is to be white and green. Ferns will follow soon, and perhaps some water lilies...

The lane...the hoodoos have been created. Ferns here...ivy and bulbs.

Sunflowers, perhaps? Hollyhocks?

I can't believe I haven't posted the Cove. Perhaps it will warrant a post to itself. It is all a hibernating mess right now, but there will be glory to come...

The smoke followed me
And shone in slanted rays;
The ash fell all around me
Like a snowy springtime day;
I'll wait for petal blossoms
To fall around me still,
And I'll let the yellow sunshine
Make me wholly healed.

Quilt Project

Honoring my grandmother's handiwork: