Musings

 I have always loved the Greek myths, this is my interpretation of Persephone and the pomegranate seeds. At the moment I am reading, 'Mythos' by Stephen Fry,  but I also have  'The Greek Myths' by Robert Graves on my desk. Stephen Fry is much easier to read and is quite fun. Anyone interested but not after a degree would be wise to choose Fry.

I actually painted this picture a long time ago and I still like looking at it, which is unusual for me as I am prone to 'improve' my art work which is sometimes a good idea and sometimes not, for some reason Persephone has remained original. At the moment Persephone is 'above ground' and thoroughly enjoying herself with her mother, Demeter. The six pomegranate seeds in the painting represent the six months of the year that are spring and summer, or the six months of the year that are autumn and winter. You'll have to read up on Greek mythology for the full story.

Maybe it's my love of the myths that keeps my imagination flying all over the place. At times this becomes a bit of a problem, sometimes I seem to be away with the fairies and other times I find myself gravely worried about the world and the people in it, sometimes I find myself to be seriously psychic, the veil seems tenuous, I'll have incredible dreams and my brain will be filled with multiple thoughts, impressions, ideas and conceptions, yet at other times I feel that I must be immature or silly.  Surely grown-ups are meant to have a hold on these feelings?

I can give an example of how my mind meanders:

At the moment I am finding myself absolutely baffled by what is going on in the middle east. I wrote a post on here about it and immediately thought I shouild take it down as it was controversial, but I didn't, I thought about it and decided that that is what my thought process was and I was voicing my opinion. All well and good but then yesterday I was out on a riverbank with my grandson and his dad, it was a lovely day and the riverbank and the river was full of laughing children and their families, the river flowed fast, the sun was shining and we were all having great fun. Next to me a family spread their blanket on the ground and prepared to play in the water. A man stayed on the blanket to watch over the mobile phones and wallets but I could see that he was itching to get in the water, he looked up at me and asked if I would watch over their things. The man had very straight black hair and skin the colour of a not quite ready conker, he wore beaded bracelets around his wrists and ankles, he had lively eyes and an open face. For some reason I thought he looked Israeli. 

I liked this man, a psychic connection, a good vibration, I don't know. 

Then my thoughts flew to my post about Netanyahu, my feelings about Gaza, my anxiety over what is going on, my feeling that something horribly sinister and bad beyond belief is happening, that history is creeping around and is about to envelop its prey.

All these thoughts on the riverbank while the water rushed and the children splashed.

I watched as the man tentatively placed his flip-flopped feet into the stony riverbed, he looked at me and smiled shyly. A flash of an image careered across my brain, the man dressed in combat uniform, a gun slung across his shoulder, a warm haze covering a dusty road, the frightened faces of little children, pregnant ladies cradling toddlers, dust, destruction and so much death.

I shook myself back to the present. Why should I superimpose this vision onto the smiling, almost ready conker coloured, flip-flopped man in the river?

I feel troubled. I woke up this morning and there was a 'long article' to read on my tablet. It was  by Omer Bartov who is the Samuel Pisar professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. It was in The Guardian, August 13th 2024.

I really hope I am wrong about the man in the river.

On a happier note, this is a photograph of my sunflower, with a busy bee.

The Greek Myth:

Clytie is a water nymph from Greek mythology who fell in love with Apollo and never took her eyes off him as he flew across the sky. Eventually she became a sunflower, forever turning her face with the course of the sun.

Sunflowers bring joy and positivity, strength, good fortune, admiration and loyalty. They remind us of hope and optimism in difficult times.