I just discovered this cool new online product that looks like a toy we might have to try out. Go to Visual Thesaurus. It is a crazy cool way to wordmap your way into new names (for products, companies etc.) plus (they don't say this) have a pretty entertaining time of it. Kind of "Six Degrees of Separation". Was working on my bird paper and learned a lot about the symbology of eagles, ravens, chickens and doves. I was thinking of playing it out further in the paper, but just with eagles alone, I hit a veritable jackpot--and could actually write the paper just on that topic. Phew! Eagles are all over the place with Garuda, the Hindu/Buddist God, with John the Evangelist represented by an eagle to the Greeks using an eagle linking with Jupiter--representing the god of moral law and order, protector of suppliants and punisher of the guilty. The eagle was the symbol of their Supreme Being. Okay. Now we have the big God involved, do we need to go any further?
I do like this stuff:
For the Central Asian Turks, the eagle was regarded as a holy bird, a protective spirit and the guardian of heaven. It was a symbol of potency and fertility. Eagles on tombstones reflected the Shamanistic belief that the souls of the dead rose up to Heaven in the form of birds or were accompanied and protected by the eagle while traveling in the underworld and the sky. Eagle also was believed to be a carrier of prayers to the sky.
Carriers of prayers, guides to heaven. Love it.
Then we have all the American power and glory stuff. Learned this:
Since June 20, 1782 The Bald Eagle was adopted as the national emblem of the United States.
Pretty new on the scene for a symbol, that is. But on everything from pudding mixes to our money...with tanks and federal buildings and lunar landers, eagles are american personified.
I surfed around and learned a lot about Ravens. Yep, they are pals with Saint Benedict and the Norse myths have quite a few, but to my delight, the Inuit have the raven as a big god--a trickster god--who has all sorts of amusing, almost fable type stories about him.
So, I did run into some inuit art...
Attached is:
Curious Owl
Mikkigak, Oqutaq
Cape Dorset, 2003
Stonecut/ Stencil
The quote/entry headline is from Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize Winner, Chemistry.