Shining Hot, Blowing Cold

March:
In Like A Lion, Out a Lamb
or Vice Versa
or Both on the Same Day!
Just ask Emily Dickinson or Charles Dickens . . .

Summery

Wintry

Summery

Wintry

Reminders:
1. It is not yet sandal weather.
2. Don't forget to bring a jacket!
3. Light = Lamb; Shade = Lion

Eichenberg & Christopherson

A Sad Childhood
"in a barron, isolated place"
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1816 - 1855)
Illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg (1901 - 1990)

For these art prints and more
see my recent post

Grief & Relief

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

The Drip
by Eugene Christopherson (1939 - 2007)

This sweet little print came into my life
when my dear friend Vickie sent a vintage copy
of the above illustrated Jane Eyre
as a present for my little grand-daughter, Ellie
-- her first Bronte novel! Unbeknownst to Vickie,
a blank antique notecard was tucked inside the pages,
featuring this tiny tot by Christopherson.

"I read The Life of Charlotte Bronte
. . . and . . .
dreamed a nineteenth-century
sort of life, walks and studying, rectitude,
courtesy, maidenhood, peacefulness."

from Lives of Girls and Women (212)
~ by Alice Munro

Hue, Value, Intensity

Molton Silver
photo by Jay Beets

"The sun was sinking, a red ball which threw a copper glow over the pine - covered ridge of mountains, and edged that inky, ominous cloud with molten silver."

~ Willa Cather ~
Death Comes For the Archbishop, 119

Dazzling, Lambent
photo by Jay Beets

“The sea is not always blue. . . . In the evening a much more dazzling color may emerge. A wave that feels the bottom, crests and topples will release a phosphorescent surf of pale green or red hue. This glowing, advancing surf can be stunning, like lambent lightning across the sky or a rainbow on the horizon.”
~ Wesley Marx ~

What we learned in art class:
Hue, Value, Intensity

Calling on Spring

Sunset on the eve of the Vernal Equinox,
which arrives today, precisely at 5:24 p.m. Eastern Time

As seen through my living room curtains:
The Sunset Makes a Rainbow!

The Wheel

Through winter-time we call on spring,
And through the spring on summer call,
And when abounding hedges ring
Declare that winter's best of all;
And after that there's nothing good
Because the spring-time has not come —
Nor know that what disturbs our blood
Is but its longing for the tomb.

W. B. Yeats (1865 – 1939)

Personification of Spring

Spring
by Nicolae Grigorescu (1838 – 1907)

See my recent post
Magic Martisor

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

Où sont les neiges de mars?

"some unnecessary stars
fell quietly
from last night's
sky . . . "

MAGNOLIA

The bare shrub
unnoticed by me
in February

has snow clumps
still clinging to it
in late March

which, when examined,
are plum, purple - veined
buds.

A day later,
I blink:
it appears

some unnecessary stars
fell quietly
from last night's
sky

and settled lightly
lightly
among shivering
branches.

by Francine Tolf
in her book Prodigal

Many thanks
to Contemporary American writer Francine Tolf
for allowing me to share her poems on my blog:
on The Fortnightly
on The Quotidian Kit
on Kitti's List

************************
P.S.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Emeralds and More

For poetry by J. Milton Hayes, Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
Charles T. Carlstrom, and Jamie Fuller,
see my recent posts

For Mar 14 / 15
Confidence in Confidence

For Feb 28 / Mar 1
Magic Martisor

For Feb 14
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

For Jan 28
Emerald Eye

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

********************

Above: The Four Jewels ~ 1900
&
Below: The Four Seasons ~ 1896

Both series by
Alphonse Mucha (1860 – 1939)

The Long Nights of Lent

The Storm Moon

Gerry and I were recently inspired -- by Matthew Yglesias -- to read one of John le Carre's early novels, A Murder of Quality, which opens with a mysterious letter and this eerie, mystical phrase:

"I am so afraid of the long nights. . . . " (14)
The long nights? Hmmm? Halloween? The Winter Solstice? Turns out even the esteemed and knowledgeable George Smiley shared our question:

"Ah, the long nights, the long nights."

"What are the long nights?" Smiley asked . . .

"We have a proverb that it always snows at Carne [small fictional town and school in England] in the long nights. That is the traditional term here for the nights of Lent . . . Before the Reformation the monks of the Abbey kept a vigil during Lent between the Offices of Compline and Lauds. . . . We continue to observe it by the saying of Compline during Lent. Compline was the last of the Canonical Day Hours and was said before retiring for the night. . . . Prime was the dawn Office . . . Terce was the third hour of daylight -- that is to say 9:00 a.m. Thus we no longer refer to Morning Prayer, but to Terce. . . . Similarly, during Advent and Lent we say Sext at midday in the Abbey. (56 - 57)

I had to take a break from my reading to work out all the complicated terminology. I encountered numerous list and charts that I have attempted to condense into one straightforward reference guide.

Here in Virgina, the church bells next door to us ring out every hour from 9am - 9pm, with a brief hymn concert included at 3pm every day; the Angelus, at noon and 6pm; and another joyful clamor of bells at 5pm!

Now (I think) I know what I've been hearing from across the way:

Noon = Sext (& the Angelus: traditional Death Knell)
3pm = Nones
5pm = an approximation of the Ave Maria Bell
6pm = Vespers (& the Angelus: the chiming of 3 gap 3 gap 3)


As Willa Cather explains:

". . . six a.m., when he heard the Angelus ringing.  He recovered consciousness slowly, unwilling to let go of a pleasing delusion that he was in Rome. . . . marvelling to hear it rung correctly (nine quick strokes in all, divided into threes, with an interval between); and from a bell with a beautiful tone.  Full, clear, with something bland and suave, each note floated through the air like a globe of silver.  Before the nine strokes were done Rome faded, and behind it he sensed something Eastern, with palm trees, — Jerusalem, perhaps, though he had never been there.”

Death Comes for the Archbishop
42 - 43, emphasis added


Canonical Hours,
going back to the 9th Century:
6pm - 6am = Vigil

divided into four 3 - hour segments or nighttime "watches":
6 - 9pm
9pm - Midnight
Midnight - 3am
3am - 6am

3am - 6am = Matins (last portion of Vigil, beginning of dawn)

5am = Lauds (sunrise, varies seasonally)

6am = Prime (first hour of early morning daylight)

9am = Terce (third hour after 6am)

Noon = Sext (sixth hour after 6am)

3pm = Nones (ninth hour 6am)

6pm = Vespers (sunset, evening)

7pm = Compline (end of the day, before retiring)

the major hours were Matins, Lauds, and Vespers
the minor hours were Terce, Sext, Nones, and Compline

Need a snack during the Long Nights?
Here's a welcoming spot for a Lenten Vigil.
No pancakes during Lent?
But what about waffles?

P.S. Couldn't Resist:

Also Halloween

Thanks Molly!

Facebook

Don't Mess With Esther

Just in time for both
Purim & International Women's Day
[& Easter 2024]

I was so pleased to come across this poem, because it answers the question that is always on my mind when reading the story of Esther: "What about Vashti?" The poem appears without a title, but the subtitle underneath the Bible Story Book illustration is perfect for the poem as well:

Sisters unite:
the revenge of Vashti and Esther!

When few could distinguish
Mordecai from Haman
(and the two gentlemen, themselves,
were passed out, arm in arm,
under the King’s throne),
Esther tied King Ahashverosh
to the horse’s royal tail
and dragged him through Persian streets
to the graveyard. There she swapped him
for his dead Queen and these two
cantered back to the palace,
where Vashti danced a wild tarantella
and stripped off her funeral shroud.
While the noblemen gaped and gangled
at the reawakened beauty,
Esther raced through the feast,
nailing each tongue to the table,
still flapping.
And she flaunted her Jewishness,
despite her drunken cousin,
and canted bentchlicht
for all the Jewish mothers,
while balancing Haman’s hat
on the King’s gold sceptre.
Then, the two ladies painted
on the soles of their sandals
and hopscotched
‘til they had stamped out
the names of Ahashverosh, and Mordecai,
and all those
who would have women
bury their souls in flesh.

Susan Charles Groth (b 1965)

Here's a more complete version
of the illustration . . .

The inhumane treatment of Vashti (through no fault of Esther's)
is often glossed over when the story is told to children,
as in this drawing from my mother's Bible Story Book:

My grandmother's writing (below).
My mom would have been 5 years old at the time.

My mother's writing
on the next page.

The two queens as depicted by British artist
Edwin Longsden Long (1829 – 1891)

Queen Esther, 1878

Vashti Refuses the King's Summons, 1879

Should you need a refresher course
on Esther's complicated dilemma,
click here for a helpful retelling.
In addition, you may want to memorize this little poem that I learned in Sunday School as a child, and have never been able to forget. You know how it is: put those little rhymes inside a kid's head and they are there to stay forever. Not to mention that Evangelical Protestants love a good revenge story:
"When Haman built a gallows high
For Mordecai's head,
God turned the tables and we find
That Haman hanged, instead."
Esther Denouncing Haman, 1888
by British artist
Ernest Normand (1857–1923)

P.S.
Happy Purim & Hamantaschen Season to my friend Igor!

P.P.S.
See also Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
standing up for Vashti since way back in 1911!
See poem in comments below . . .

More Sleep Memes

Barely 3AM

Bonus: JEOPARDY!

Happy Martisor Day!

Tile Mosaic
~ at the Venetian / Palazzo, Las Vegas ~

Celebrating ~ Mărțișor ~ Little March

With the passing years
My years grow old upon me
yet when I see
this lovely flower of spring
I forget age and time.

~ Sei Shonagon ~
The Pillow Book

Previous March First Posts

2010: Kiss Me & Kiss Today & Dear March

2011: My Vegetable Love

2012: Love However Brief

2013: Beyond Ideas

2014: The First [Mild] Day of March

2015: Wind from a Leaf

2016: Reading the Obituaries

2017: Piano Bar

2018: The Sweetheart Tree

2019: Flora or Fish?

2020: The Once and Future Guenever

2021: Felix Anno Novo

2022: March Begins: The Heart's Desire

2023: Happy Martisor Day!

2024: Present ~ Past ~ Future

Waterfall