I could take only one photo of this creature, at a Blackwater Refuge festival, before having to turn away from him and leave the place. He was unable to fly and part of an educational program. His gaze, though, astounded me, gave me strange nourishment, for life, and still does.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Horned_Owl/overview
Then, this week came the archangelic war delights, posted on Facebook by image curator Stephen Ellcock. “Archangels with Harquebuses; Gabriel, Letiel, Laeiel and Uriel, from the Iglesia Santa María de las Nieves in Calamarca, Bolivia. Probably by the 'Master of Calamarca', José López de los Ríos, circa 1635-1640.”
When in high school, I studied baroque art and worked as a bilingual interpreter for foreign tourists visiting local ‘colonial” catholic churches. I learned to discover and recognize some of the hidden symbols of religious and cultural resistance, the war signs, but I have never seen archangels so lovingly dressed to kill like these archangels from Calamarca1. They mean business with their harquebuses, in defense of their sacred texts.
The Baroque… endlessly produces folds. It does not invent things: there are all kinds of folds coming from the East, Greek, Roman, Romanesque, Gothic, Classical folds…..Yet the Baroque trait twists and turns its folds, pushing them to infinity, fold over fold, one upon the other.”
The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, Gilles Deleuze
They make me wonder why this particular culture where I live is so blind (or biased) in not recognizing its own internal warfare signs… Today’s headline in the New York Times 2 says “Good morning. With 2024 about to begin, we’re looking back at predictions before big years in history.” And guess what? All the predictions are about war in the world, in the politics of power and nothing much is about the increase in profits in the makings of weaponry, or in the investments we all make in support of the gears of war…
Next comes a dream about owls:3
sexta-feira, 6 de março de 2015
WHITE OWLS
DREAMS OF OWLS
“Do you want to see an owl? It is behind the mirror”, I ask my mother. But she does not want to see it. It is a lovely, small white owl…looking right at us.
…
Then I go blind. My vision goes black and white, and slowly a veil descends. I lose my vision, like a shade being pulled down. So I become like all the others. Because before I was the only one who saw.
This afternoon, in the snow, I glimpsed a large bird in flight, white and speckled underneath. It felt to me like it was an owl…
March 6, 2015
Glossing over Silly romantic notions that my depression will lift like a cloud. That all will be better tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep. That all will work out, like in the gyms. As expected, all will remain the same, all limbs will become slim, all slim limbs will fatten up, all eye sights will improve, once I learn to be blind.
My wish for the new year is that wealth be used to teach us all more about our respective visions and hearings in all the wars. It’s the year to check out the emperor(esses), once again, with yet finer tooth combs!
Calamarca, a corruption of Qala Marka, from the Aymara language, the place of stone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/briefing/new-years-predictions.html?mwgrp=c-mbar&unlocked_article_code=1.KE0.m6OT.pGfvb_hFzB1e&smid=url-share
For the entire dream check White Owls
Great place to put away an old year! Thank you!
this is amazing stuff... OWLS. Yes. and those archangels are just amazing.... everyone should see those!