Award

This is an award I gave to myself. I have another blog Terra Del Sole that is my main blog. It is the place I share my personal life with all my followers. I comment to my followers, and ask if you are a follower here...please follow me at Terra Del Sole so I can come and see you on a more regular basis. If you are in my ten blog post your top ten things and your ten blogs.
so here goes...
These giant dogs are my 2 Cane Corso's (villa dogs or "courtyard") These dogs are Italian Mastiffs. They are so loving and super gentle. They rub against you like cats. They are super quiet when they are in the house. I have lost lots of beautiful pots on my patio. They play with my Terra cotta saucers like they are sleds. (we don't have snow). They take the saucer, and slide down the hill. These two are sisters, and we could not break them up so they have their own room in our home.
I love my art collection. I also have made several friends buying art, and this is why I review their work. I hope they can make a sell, and continue to do what they love to do. It is their passion, and I like to help any way I am able to do so.
I love getting closer to realizing our family dream of having a Tuscan House. This is a photo I took of a house in Northern California, but it looks Italian doesn't it?!
Grapes. I really don't eat grapes or rasins. YUCK! I do love WINE! I want to grow wine grapes and olives on our ranch. We want chickens, sheep, goats, and horses. I also have "red wiggler worms" (they eat garbage). We can have our museum on the ranch and have ag tours. Later when our museum has more visitors we can maybe donate some of our property to the museum itself. I would love to employ all kinds of people, and help promote farm life and Italian American influence on our way of life today.
Being close to the Ocean. I love living close to the Ocean and the mountains. This is a photo I took while we were on PCH 1. I hated the drive, but I love it that I never have to go this way again. Once in a lifetime was enough for me. I swear it was like riding a roller coaster you could not get off of for 2 hours.
I love researching my family history. What does a Water Mill have to do with it? Well, my great, gr, gr, gr grandfather took the rocks out of a river to build his house. He also built an Inn. I kid you not...he once had a lady named Mary that was pregnant come to stay at the Inn. This Mary did not have a husband, and the baby was a girl. My grgrgrgr grandfather took her into the house, and she became a member of the house. She worked as a maid, but her daughter grew up with the other children. He even built his own mill, and the saw mill became the center of town. He milled the grain, but he also made the cradles, and the coffins. As well as most of the other furniture for homes in the area.
I love my 2 little dogs. The white one is a Maltese, and the Yorkie is Gucci. Gucci is the one with the most personality, and she will boss around the Italian Mastiffs. She is only 5 lbs, and she puts her tiny paw up to their mouth. They are 95lbs and the other one is 92lbs.
This is my son. He is much older now, and I don't share any photo's of them at their current age just because I don't want people that don't know them to come up to them and act like they know them. In this photo he has his paper crown on his head. He wore his paper crown everyday for months. I had to make a new one if anything happened to the original. I am sure we went through at least 25. Everywhere we go people come up to us and tell my husband and I how great our children behave. We go to antique stores, art galleries, museums, special invitations to farms, vineyards, and orchards. We enjoy being with our children because it is so much fun for us. They are the sweetest! Thanks be to God for giving us such wonderful children!
This is my daughter. She is a little beauty queen. She is smart and just so filled with joy. I just love spending special moments with her. We take photos of her dolls, scrapbook, and enjoy making funny music videos of our own. We sing to popular music, and she sings lead. We make a video to send to my family back east. They are more often than not very funny! She is very girlie, and I just love that. Her birthday is coming up, and this is the first year she opted out of a party with her friends and just wants to spend time with the family. We have to go to build a bear workshop, Barnes and Nobel (always a must), and California Pizza Kitchen. I could not have imagined a better baby girl for me.

What I love more than anything is my marriage to my wonderful husband. We have been through so much in our marriage. His mother tried to dominate our marriage. We lived with her being right across the street from us for seven years. We rebuilt our house from the foundation up, and with small children. All of living in a house that was being remodeled. His mother got cancer, and she would not allow anyone but me to take care of her. She lived for a year after she had her stomach removed. We then had to pay the IRS loads of cash we did not have. We sold, sold sold so much. Finally as we are started to level out we now have a grand opportunity to have the dreams of our whole family come true. We are following our bliss, passion, and density. Living in San Luis Obispo is our dream. It will become our new LOVE as a family.

10 Blogs I Love

http://youmusttakeyourchance.blogspot.com/

http://abbyandizzysmom.blogspot.com/

http://www.amomwithaview.com/

http://www.martinisordiapergenies.com/

http://rookno17.blogspot.com/

http://www.middayescapades.com

http://jennymayandswede.blogspot.com/

http://www.spotonyourpants.com/

http://ablogbykittyvalerie.blogspot.com/

http://twenty-firstcenturyhousewife.blogspot.com/

Son over the Sun

This is from the House of the Holy Sepulche. I can't help to point out that the sun is on the floor, and the Sun of God is over the sun. The pagans are no longer the dominate religion. God gave his Son for man, and he alone is the light of the world.

Oh I love how the play on words just shook things up. Images are what the "common" people knew. Most people did not know how to read, so images drove the point home. Even today we are very visual people. Art is very emotional for us. Some things we just love or hate. It illicits a response in us to our core. We still make snap judgements about people in an instant and don't even realize it. There is an unconscious judgement that we make and don't even realize it.

Images are powerful even today!

The Sun

Let me first say that I am a Catholic. Most Catholics I know already know that Christ was not born on what we deem "Christmas" Christmas comes from "The Mass of (for) Christ" It is more about the celebration of a season that we remember when a special child was born. A time and season that Jesus was a gift to this world, and we share meaningful gifts with each other. I do understand that for some people it has become more about how much more we can give to each other. The commercialization of Christmas has taken away from the simplicity that once defined Christmas. Capitalism and Christmas go hand in hand now, stores bet on what they will sell and what will not. The season can either make or break the stores we shop. What does all of this have to do with the sun? Let me tell you...

At one time Saturnalia was the festival that the Romans celebrated. It was the religion that revolved around the sun. The festival started on Dec., 17th and ended on 24th. The 25th was the longest day, and was known as the birthday of the unconquered sun. Or Sol Invictus. The early pagans gave presents to each other because the sun again rose and fell as they had hoped it would.

Is all of this to say that I am a pagan? No, in fact I believe that early Christians made this move and really saw Christ as the one that conquered the sun god. Christianity was a small fringe religion competing in a society that allowed for other religions. Christianity really did conquered the sun god...it did so politically, intellectually, and through all powerful images. Politically once it had taken over the holiday it basically had the pagans switching from their holiday to Christianity. Christianity had a great hold on people. We are seeing people willing to stand up, and be eaten by lions in the Colosseum. We see that people can are all equal in the eyes of God. God does not see you as a pauper or an aristocrat. He sees you as you are. Jesus has a real message of love to share with all people and he does so peacefully. (Yes, I understand that the "church" does not always do as Jesus did, but we are not perfect). Images, are everywhere. If you can't read, and you see Jesus over the sun. He is the Son of God. There is a great play on words too.

I think that so many other branches of Christianity get the wrong idea about Catholicism. Catholics were establishing Christianity when it was at it's infancy. I understand and accept that a pagan holiday was on December 25th first, but like so many other great civilisations one is built on another. It does not make me any less Catholic or Christian to admit this fact. It only makes me appreciate the tradition even more. I like knowing all the facts, and being an historian makes things that mush more interesting to me. I think the sun representation is more iconographic more than anything else. Our eyes are drawn to it, we look, we think.

I read recently that some Christians are trying to get away from saying anything about how the two religions are connected. I think this is a mistake. Why can't we just embrace our history, and just get on with it? My son goes to a Catholic school and they studied how the two are connected, and I thought it was great. Why sweep any of it under the rug? The rug only grows larger, and someone is going to fall and get hurt. These are my thoughts about it...What about you?

Mayan Sun Calendar

Mayan Sun Calendar. South America must be on my mind. This is an image of the Mayan Calendar. As you can see the ray of the sun on the outside, and the face in the middle. The Mayan had a very complicated system (complicated for me since it involves so much math). These people really understood the celestial heavens. They made maps, and recorded in detail the stars and planets they saw each day. What (if anything) happened that was relevant.

Inca Sun God

Here we see a depiction of the Sun God in the center. The Inca people believed they were direct descendants of the sun. See the small suns faces at the bottom of the relief?

June 21st was the biggest festivity Inti Raymi or the Sun Festival. The sun was the most important Deity to them. I am unclear if they believed as the Mayan people...A Goddess gave birth to all the Sun, Moon, and stars.

Once the party was started a bread that was made of maize (corn) was offered to the people. Much like Christian Communion. Real blood from a Llama was offered as well. Black and white Llamas were the prime choice.

The Sun Temple was rumored to have a street that was paved with gold.

The Inca people found lots of gold and silver. The gold was believed to be the sweat from the sun. Silver was called the tears from the moon.

In Honor of The Tudors

I have to tell you. I am a real History lover. I dual majored in History and Art History. Books about history are my favorites. I also like historical fiction. I appreciated real history woven into the story. I am not sure if it is because I am envious of the author doing the research in a beautiful library or what.

Genealogy is one of my hobbies and many lines I have gone back to the 1600's and some lines I have got back even further. I have found that I have ancestors from all over. Many of my people came over on the Mayflower, and a few years after it. I am going to print my ancestry tree, and do some comparisons. I am digressing...

This coat of arms is from the Cleves Family. Anne of Cleves was once married to Henry the 8Th. She was the fourth wife of Henry, and did not fight to stayed married to Henry when it was apparent that it was not going to be a happy marriage. Here we see the sun in the middle of the family coat of arms.

Egyptian Winged Sun

The Egyptian version of the winged sun. There are various renditions of the winged sun. The wings are those of Horus he is known as the Sun God or the Sky God. At one time Horus was both the God of the sun and the moon, but later he will only rein over the sun which is seen as superior over the moon.

Sometimes there is a depiction of the sun with an asp on each side of the sun. We will take a look at some of those images too.

You may recall that in other areas of the world people have created images of the sun "flying" across the sky in cart, carriages, and even barges. Isn't it all so interesting? It is to me.

Unique Sun Summerian

These images of the Ancient Middle East are the best I can do. I thought for sure Jordan would have had evidence of some sort of sun images, but I have so far not been able to find anything until there is an Italian influence in Petra.

This image is from the Ancient Middle East. As you can see it is a bird in full flight. In the center is the sun. A man is encapsulated in the center of the sun. I believe it looks like he is doing calculations about the stars. There are so many interpretations. He could also have his hands in a position of praise for the sun, or it could be he in a pose that is part of a ritual that would have been understood by someone of the time. We may never know, but it is so fun to speculate. There are just so many possibilities. I doubt that you would find a group of people that would concur with just one scenario. Go ahead and take a guess, and for those of you that are too clever to fool. Yes, this image is probably familiar. I will follow up tomorrow as to why it is so familiar.

Celtic Sun

Here is another Celtic sun with the inception of a cross. Each of the arms of the cross is very ornate. The whole cross is encircled with a wreath. Where have we seen this before? In the wheel motif. Round on the outside. The inside has 4 and 8 spokes. In the center is yet another decoration.

Sun Carriage

This is the next progression out of the wheel sun. You may notice that there are four spokes on the wheel. I am almost certain that there is another carriage that is in Russia depicting 8 spokes, and the horse is much more primitive. This horse is pulling the sun, and as you may know later we find that mythic figures (such as Helios) will be pulling the sun with the help of many horses.

Sumerian Sun

The Sumerian sun art is pretty prevalent. I will showcase some really great images of their people and the image of the sun. Since the Jordan area was one of the first "civilizations" as we understand them I thought for sure I would be able to find one, alas I was only able to find some in Petra. The ones in Petra are not as old as the ones the Sumerians portrayed.

In this relief we see a distinguished man stepping on the foot of the man he is slaying. His dress is different, so I would guess he is a foreigner. The prisoner is being stabbed by a huge dagger. The prisoner has his hands tied behind him. The sun watches on as the man is losing his life. Is the man unworthy of being shown with a head? The sun seems to have no real expression that we could definatly call sad, happy, or angry. It seems to be cold and distant. The sun does have a curious third eye(?). Is it an all seeing eye? Is it an early form of adding the triangle?