Walking on promises # 5

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Ruby Cyclops Ulysses #14

The Barony of Rosendal with its famous renaissance maze rose garden.


Friday Gunnar, Serina and I drove for four hours to see the play The Merchant of Venice performed by English actors at the Barony of Rosendal (Rose-valley).The anti-hero of the play, Shylock, have much in common with Leopold Bloom, both Jews, fighting for their right to be accepted by society.

Serina posing on Friday's stage.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." — Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166) William Shakespeare

The fuchsia is called "Drop of Christ's blood" in Norwegian.I'll never forget the huge fuchsia hedges of Ireland.

"In a famous episode of Homer's Odyssey the hero Odysseus encounters the Cyclops Polyphemus , the son of Poseidon and a nereid, who lives with his fellow Cyclopes in a distant country." So far Wikipedia.
The one eyed giant, the cyclops Polyphemus held Odysseus and his crew prisoner in a cave.He threatened to kill and eat our hero, but was blinded by a burning pole, our cunning hero Odysseus brilliantly overpowering the enemy.

Leopold Bloom had to stand up against the "one eyed", meaning shallow, narrow sighted and judgmental citizen, in the bar. While the cyclops cast rocks after the fleeing Odysseus, the citizen threw an empty biscuit box after Bloom, as he made a narrow escape from the bar.


.The Cyclops ate in a cave. Leopold Bloom was in Barney Kiernan's pub.
We had coffee and pancakes in the rose-garden on Saturday, day after the play.

Gunnar, reddened by the sunset, will have to pose for Shylock/Bloom

"Mendelssohn was a Jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a Jew and his father was a Jew. Your God.
-- Whose God? says the citizen.
-- Well, his uncle was a Jew, says he. Your God was a Jew. Christ was a Jew like me." Leopold Bloom finally lost his temper after being bullied for a long time by the citizen and his drinking buddies. (James Joyce)
Gunnar outside the courtyard where the play was performed.Ruby behind.

"SHYLOCK To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. " William Shakespeare .


The Cyclops chapter is taking place between 5 p.m. and 8p.m.in Dublin, June 16th 1904. Perhaps a little early for sundown?
Nevertheless; while Bloom is trapped in the bar/cave, his rival, Boylan is seducing Bloom's wife Molly. (At the same time in Venice, Shylock's daughter Jessica is steeling her father's belongings and fleeing away with Lorenzo to convert to Christianity).


Like Odysseus on his way to the harbor, Gunnar is posing at the quay of our hotel. Serina being the cyclops trying to stop him from getting on board in his boat. The sundown gives them their golden color.

Originated by MaryT, check hers for today

Walking on promises # 4

Job 37:
14 Hearken unto this, O Job; stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God.

Walking on promises # 3

Psalm62
2 Only for God doth my soul wait in stillness; from Him cometh my salvation.
3 He only is my rock and my salvation, my high tower, I shall not be greatly moved.

Ruby Sirens. Ulysses #13

"A Home Rule Sun is rising in North - West", Joyce quotes.Here; our sun is sinking in the north west four days ago. Red sunset, morning wet, the saying goes. Turned out to be perfectly true.

According to Homer (and the Wikipedia), Odysseus had to pass a cliff with two singing sirens on his way back to Ithaca. "Odysseus was curious as to what the Sirens sounded like, so, on Circe's advice, he had all his sailors plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. He ordered his men to leave him tied to the mast, no matter how much he would beg. When he heard their beautiful song he ordered the sailors to untie him but they bound him tighter."

The Sirens of Leopold Bloom's Odyssey were called Miss Kennedy and Miss Douce. They earned their living as barmaids at the Ormond Hotel.
The Siren chapter is a feast to the ears.
Including alliteration, end rhymes, vocal rhythms and bits and pieces from known folk songs; it's a complete modern musicals.
Joyce managed to put a few more gray on my head by his "Bronze by Gold"play on words.
Bronzelydia by Minagold.
He's simply referring to the two ladies' hair color, in his special twisting and turning poetry.
Serina in both bronze and gold at the San Lorenzo market, Florence. Her red socks sadly disappeared on our way home, 4 years ago.

Bloom's rival, Boylan, is entertaining both friends and the Sirens, by making them sing along melodies from the popular opera Martha.

"Bronzedouce, communing with her rose that sank and rose, sought Blazes Boylan's flower and eyes."James Joyce
Picture:Rose by midnight, caught in red sundown four days ago.

Meanwhile Leopold Bloom , lost and bewildered, is shut off from the merry party in the dining room at the same hotel.
Very aware of Boylan's whereabouts and evil intentions to seduce his wife,
Mr. Bloom finally realize that he loves and wants his wife Molly.
Even so, he finishes writing a letter to Martha, the woman he just might want to have an affair with.

Being a firm believer in the value of happy endings, I still haven't given up hoping. I'm after all only halfway through the novel.

Originated by MaryT, check hers for today

Walking on promises # 2

1 Peter 5:⁷
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

Ruby Wandering Rocks # 12

In Greek mythology the Wandering Rocks were a group of rocks, between which the sea was mercilessly violent. In the Odyssey of Homer, the sorceress Circe tells Odysseus of the "Wandering Rocks" or "Roving Rocks" that have only been successfully passed by the Argo when he was homeward bound. These rocks smash ships and the remaining timbers are scattered by the sea or destroyed by flames. The rocks lie on one of two potential routes to Ithaca; the alternative, which is taken by Odysseus, leads to Scylla and Charybdis.(Previous chapter) Furthermore, in the Odyssey of Homer, it was Hera, for her love of Jason, who sped the Argo through the Wandering Rocks safely.

This chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses is said to be an interlude between to two main parts of the novel. An Odyssey within the Odyssey.

Briefly; about 20 characters are walking around in Dublin, also using the tram, now and then. Seemingly occupied doing ordinary things, but mostly with a hidden agendas. Boyle planning to seduce Bloom's wife, the sympathetic Father Conmee (con me?) traveling far to exchange secret information, the jovial Buck Mulligan backstabbing his friend young Stephen Dedalous, a one legged sailor begging "For England", Dedalous sr. selling his son's books for booze and horses, while his daughters are starving, e.t.c.

All characters end up watching the Vice-regent on his way to open a great humanitarian event. They all react individually watching the cortege.Friday Gunnar, Serina and I had the pleasure once more attending a concert with the unique Dubliners. A group named after a James Joyce novel, still singing their heart and soul out for "Dear,Old Ireland". We sung, clapped and danced for an hour, we could hardly walk or talk afterward.

I'll let the Dubliners be a symbol of the positive strength of Wandering Rocks. For almost five decades have done so much to spread knowledge about Ireland, her troubles, sufferings, but also of her beauty and joy. They were at the Roots Festival ten years ago, and promised to come back in yet another decade.

I'll be there to greet and honor them.

Photos for this post by Gunnar, Serina and Felsiol

Originated by MaryT, check hers for today

Walking on promises #1

^{2 Chor. 9:
8}And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Scylla and Charybdis in Sepia #11

Shakespeare in love?


Scylla and Charybdis are two sea monsters of Greek mythology noted by Homer; later Greek tradition sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and mainland Magna Graecia (southern Italy). They were said to be located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too closely to Scylla and vice versa.



In this chapter young Stephen Dedalous and his friends are discussing literature in general and William Shakespeare in particular, in what was also James Joyce's favorite hang out; The National Library of Ireland.
Themes from Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice are analyzed with great skill.
Shakespeare seems to have been an author highly respected by James Joyce. In Hades he let Leopold Bloom say, "He was a good man,just like Shakespeare, had a friendly word to everyone." Both Stephen Dedalous and Leopold Bloom (Images of Joyce as a young and a grown man) did not have so much positive to say about contemporary authors, they were either too romantic or out of time national.

A point in the discussion is William Shakespeare's long absence from his wife Ann, born Hath-a-way, who in Shakespeare's will only was given his "next best bed". Penelope is her pendant, staying home, waiting for the wayward Odysseus.
How deep was their love, really?
The biography of James Joyce also reveals, that the author had long and mysterious trips away from his Nora and the rest of the family.
I'll let this be the theme with a question hanging in the air, from my outtake from the Scylla and Charybdis chapter.

Teach Mary is the host of Sepia Scenes,visit her.

From Jeremiah with love

I have not got the gift of preaching.
I feel humble and unworthy, when I talk about our Lord.
Those who know me, will assure you; I have got much to be humble about.
I have got a gift, though, to find a comforting word in the Bible, when I need it.
Today I found these words from Jeremiah 29, and felt it right to share them:
"11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 And ye shall call upon Me, and go, and pray unto Me, and I will hearken unto you. 13 And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart. "

Ruby dripping Laestrogians # 10

The Laestrygonians (or Laestrygones, Laistrygones, Laistrygonians, Lestrygonians; Greek: Λαιστρυγόνες) are a tribe of giant cannibals from ancient Greek mythology. Odysseus, the main character of Homer's Odyssey, visited them during his journey back home to Ithaca. The giants ate many of Odysseus' men and destroyed eleven of his twelve ships by launching rocks from high cliffs. Odysseus' ship was not destroyed as it was hidden in a cove near shore. Everyone on Odysseus' ship survived.

This chapter is about the wandering Leopold Bloom trying to get himself some descent lunch at the hour from 12 to 1.
All the time he is philosophizing about Irish politics, various Christian Churches and Judaism.
Bloom is painfully obsering how lust for power is corrupting the good intentions both in politics and religion..
"In aid of funds for Mercer's hospital. The Messiah was first given for that. Yes Handel. "(James Joyce) Here: Gunnar ans Serina in the St. Mary
Church.


Bloom is analyzing the life in various social layers from the outcast whores and beggars, and their contradiction; the noble upper-class.
He chuckles at the memory about the time he sneaked in to a royal dinner at Dublin Castle and mingled with vice king and his court.
My mom is also a bit bewildered about her seven course Chinese dinner...


He's jealous of a man, Boyle, who he suspects his wife might have had a one night affair with.
This does not prevent him from keeping fantasizing about the woman Marta, who he just might like to have a more intimate relationship with ...
A man of contradictions and knife sharp observations.

He's using money to feed the seagulls, but cannot seem to find an appropriate place to have his own lunch.
Lamb at sundown, in two months; lamb chops."No fear. No brains. "(James Joyce)
He is disgusted by the over eaters as well as the poor, literally eating from the street.
Bloom would have hated this. Potato cake, shrimp salad, sausage, bacon and smoked ham.From hiker ladies last day out.
Finally he ends up in a vegetarian restaurant, very pleased and relieved.
A posh place and very up to 2010 standards. I don't think we even have a restaurant like this neither in our town nor on the island.
Fish eaters after sundown July thrid.
All the time his reflects on various sides of the theme advertising.
Some of his ideas are simply brilliant. The Leopold Bloom of 2010 would own his own firm and probably run a multi million pound business.
"Wouldn't have it of course because he didn't think of it himself first. " (James Joyce)
It has never been profitable to be ahead of ones time (read:equals).


"Heart to heart talks.

Bloo... Me? No.

Blood of the Lamb.

His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen, martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering, druid's altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie, restorer of the church in Zion, is coming.

Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!!
All heartily welcome. "(James Joyce)
A druid grave from with triangles of standing stones. The old St. Olavs Church and a third standing stone across the strait.Midnight shot July forth.

Originated by MaryT, check hers for today

Sepia Scenes. Aeolus # 9

Aeolus was a son of Hippotes who is mentioned in Odyssey book 10 as Keeper of the Winds who gives Odysseus a tightly closed bag full of the captured winds so he could sail easily home to Ithaca on the gentle West Wind. (Wikipedia) Odysseus' men were of a normal curios kind. They stole themselves to open the bag and let loose winds from every corner of the earth.The result was total confusion. They survived just accurately.
(Serina and myself opposite GPO)
IN THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS
Bloom and his friends arrive at the central point of Dublin's transport system, be it taxis or trams. Just outside the Genera Post Office, by the famous Nelson Column. (The GPO were the main scene of the Irish upraising in 1916, and Nelson "took a powder and he blew" helped by the IRA in 1966.)
Bloom's pendant to the terrible storms cause by opening the bag of Aeolus, takes place in a major News paper house containing three papers with same ownership just across the street. Wind may reflect on the emptiness of the journalism of the free press. Nothing much has changed for the last hundred years.
Bloom's main breadwinning task for the whole of June 16th, as an ad canvasser, is negotiating an advertisement for for Mr. Keyes (logo two crossed keys). This seemingly simple task, leads him all around the building from editors, business manager, (back then, like now business was more important than the content of the paper), to the cashier,the typographer and endless and meaningless meetings with acquaintances.
While seemingly fruitless, Leopold Bloom is all the time making sharp observations and reflections over insignificant details and important national and global issues.
(My granddad was a coachman in 1904)
EXIT BLOOM
The Aeolus chapter has a news paper like lay out . Lots of paragraphs with suitable head titles.
The editor waves Bloom off," Begone, he said. The world is before you . Back in no time Mr. Bloom said, hurrying out." (James Joyce)

Enter
Stephen Dedalus to deliver the somewhat dubious article about mouth and foot disease, from his headmaster.
He is also being treated impolitely.

Speach by J.F. Taylor to revive Gaelic culture:
"-- Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen; we are a mighty people. You have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise furrow the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a polity.

Nile.

Child, man, effigy.

By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple in combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone.

-- You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel is weak and few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles at our name.

A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it boldly:

-- But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will and bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage nor followed the pillar of the cloud by day. He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai's mountaintop nor ever have come down with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language of the outlaw.

He ceased and looked at them, enjoying silence. " (James Joyce)
And they say Joyce didn't care for Irish politics.
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Ruby Tuesday in Hades #8

Hades,
the reign of the death, and also the name of the place of the dead, is the Greek parable to Irish Glasnevin Cemetery. There Leopold Bloom's attending the funeral of a friend, Dignam.
The very same person, who was introduced in the first chapter as a floating corpse near the Tower in Sandycove.


Leopold Bloom is sharing a carriage with three friends, or acquaintances, among them Simon Dedalus, father of Stephen Dedalus, who again is Leopold Bloom as a young person.
While traveling to the graveyard, they actually pass Stephen Dedalus, who is leaving the tower and his exploiting friends for good. As if this is not complicated enough, Leopold Bloom's father, who committed suicide, hurting his son and leaving the family in ruins, is introduced.
A quadruple mix of father and son relations and deep, devastating problems.

One also, slowly, get under the skin of Leopold Bloom, the outsider and bystander as he is sharing thoughts of love and pain, bewilderment and understanding. About his father he thinks,"They used to drive a stake of wood through his,(the suicide's) heart in the grave. As if it wasn't broken already."
."Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me."(James Joyce)

No wonder Leopold Bloom has need for withdrawal, letting his mind wander about death, resurrection, the life within and outside the church.


"Love among the tombstones.. Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet."(James Joyce)

Originated by MaryT, check hers for today

POSTWAR HOUSEWIFE POETRY

My parents married in 1947.Due to five years of German occupation, there were a horrible shortage of everything.
No house had been built for five years, all materials and man power had been used to build fortresses all along the Norwegian coast. "Festung Norwegen", Fortress Norway, the occupants called our country.
My parents were lucky to let two rooms in the attic of a small cottage. Here my mother gave birth to two children, her only, in 15 months. The water had to be carried from a brook near by, and the cotton napkins were boiled on the kitchen stove.
My father worked 80 hours a week, and took mercantile education at nights (with straight A s).
Even so he took the time to take this poetic photo of my mother, hanging out laundry for dry.
It's so beautiful, love over love, makes me want to cry every time I see it.
Gunnar found the film and scanned it, I converted it with tint sepia.
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