Yule Like This Christmas Story!

As per the usual custom of Christianity expropriating Pagan rituals, the current celebration of the Christian holiday called Christmas was based primarily on "Yule", a mostly Germanic ritual which took place during the Winter Solstice. 

It was also celebrated by other northern peoples, including Norse, Scandanavian, Icelandic and Faroese cultures.  In the southern climates, the Romans, as well as Greeks, used to perform similar ceremonies with "Saturnalia", which occurred during that same time of year and celebrated the god of agriculture, Saturn.

Yule was celebrated well after the harvest, in and around the Winter Solstice

As Christianity and the church started to rise and gain power, they usurped the traditions that were already established and interjected their own ceremonies and rituals. Basically a hostile takeover of what was a very benign belief in nature, with the church labeling Pagans as "ungodly", "idolaters" or "infidels".

The definitions are still used in our modern day dictionaries, so this belief became well entrenched. Basically, Pagans were a threat to the power of the church and all it's factions as the latter worked in tandem with the monarchy to control the people.

Eventually, there were things like the Inquisition and wide spread witch hunts that used fear to eradicate those who opposed the churches and Christianity.

Certainly an influence for the character Santa Claus

Despite the Christian takeover, old customs such as the Yule Log were maintained

Paganism is alive and well in this modern era

This gives you an idea of how Paganism was tied to nature (also note Samhain, as discussed in my post about Hallowe'en) 

M.C. Escher

After posting about my silly little fascination with Rabbit Duck and using an Escher print as an extreme example of the illusion technique, I thought it would be good to write about Escher and show some of his work.
Maurits Cornelius Escher ( June 1898 – March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who was inspired by the mathematics of the world, including those found in architecture. Though he was not a mathematician, he did spend a lot of time with many notable ones, reading their books and papers and discussing theories. He travelled extensively, studying buildings and nature and recording his observations with many drawings and illustrations.
Though he was an excellent illustrator, much of his work was done on woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints, as a way of producing multiple images. I particularly like his impossible scenes, as in figure 5, "Waterfall", which depicts a canal and waterfall in a building that is, of course, impossible in nature.

Escher with his wife, Jetta, on their travels

Drawing on Paper

Who drew who?

Fowl or fish?

This has always been one of my favourite pieces

This would make an awesome tattoo if you could get that much detail on a person's skin

Escher Museum in The Hague, Netherlands

The tessellation which I used in my post titled "Rabbit Duck"

The P.M In The A.M.

BlueCircle is a member of the Calgary Chamber Of Commerce and believes that a united voice in the representation and advocacy for small business in this city is an important element in making positive change and bettering our city and the place where we live, work and play. With the recent economic downturn in our province, this is an increasingly important role that we feel has been handled well by the Chamber and we were pleased to hear that they had procured an audience with the Prime Minister and invited all Chamber members to attend. Needless to say, 1300 people responded immediately and the event was sold out.

As for the message, there are mixed reviews and certainly a fair share of naysayers when it comes to Liberal Party policy, but I am on board with making changes that protect our environment and optimistic about what the future holds for our younger generation and their families. The world is changing and maintaining the status quo just isn't going to cut it in my opinion. there is worry that we will have a disadvantage if we are doing something differently than our neighbours to the south but I am still in favour of long term thinking and want to support initiatives that don't pit capitalism against environmentalism, like they are mutually exclusive. We need energy, we need opportunity, we need growth, but we need a safe and clean planet for the future, so I am willing to work toward that on behalf of future generations.

Kelly and Gerry, along with our fellow guest Brian (r) enjoyed breakfast and the discussion 

Chamber Of Commerce President and CEO, Adam Legge, welcomed guests and started the discussions.

We were quite a ways back, so my apologies for a poor quality photo of the P.M. as he gave his initial speech.

Entrepreneur, Arlene Dickinson, hosted the Q&A 

Prime Minister Trudeau is well spoken and impressed me with his remarks 

Rabbit Duck

I always remember this funny little drawing, the first one in this series shown below, and I occasionally draw one up when there's some kids around, as it seems to amuse them. This is the rabbit/duck optical illusion, whereby you can look at the drawing two ways and get a different image for each perspective. Sort of like an M.C. Escher style drawing ( image two) except it's pretty much something most anyone could draw! haha! Just recently i saw a slightly more complicated version of the original concept and that got me looking on the internet to see if there were more. 

As you can see by the number of images below, there were plenty to be found and who knows how many more are out there. My favourite is still the original, mostly because i can draw it, but some of them are pretty cool and there's a style to suit everyone's taste.

As for M.C. Escher, he's one of my favourite artists and there will be something about him and his art in a future post.

"Sun Moon" by artist M.C. Escher

More lifelike than some of the drawings

Another lifelike rendering

This is just creepy! haha!

How about a modernized version

...or a cartoon version

Hyper realistic

An interesting variation on the theme

Absent

I've been away for awhile, not posting due to a death in the family. A difficult time to say the least, but things are settling down now. Just trying to get back in the groove and sometimes the best way to do that is with a bit of humour.
"Average Rob" is just the answer, as he uses his awesome PhotoShop skills to create some hilarious scenes with him and his "friends". On Instagram and Facebook @averagerob

All But One

In this photograph is every single human, alive or dead, except one!

That is correct. At the moment this photo was taken, all humans, living or dead, are contained in the frame of this photograph, except one. Think about it for a second. The spacecraft is the lunar landing module and contains the two astronauts who landed on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Earth, in the background, contains every person living and dead that existed up to that moment. The only person missing is the only other person not on the planet Earth and not in the spacecraft, that being Michael Collins, who remained on Apollo 11 and took the photo.

Veterans Food Bank

It's a shame to think anyone in this country would be going hungry on account of financial issues, and even worse of a shame to think that some of those people are veterans who served us and our country in the military. Times are even tougher these days, not just for cutting into donations to stock the shelves at The Veterans Food Bank and fill the hampers, but also to provide volunteers to build those hampers and deliver them to our veterans.

BlueCircle saw the need and stepped in to lend a hand. We held a little food drive with our staff and loaded it all into the back of the pickup for delivery. And, in his usual philanthropic fashion, our president, Gerry Baert, wrote them a check for $1000.oo,  enabling the good people at the Food Bank to do the shopping necessary to provide all the items that typically fill a hamper.

They're still in need of donations and still could use a helping hand with some of the work required to get our veterans these much needed hampers. Even if you can't afford to donate money, a gift of time is equally important.

Every bit helps

Marie is the one of the dedicated people who make things happen at the Food Bank

They never turn down any donations but, sadly, some people don't think and give stuff that is far, far outdated (Woodwards hasn't been in existance since 1980 for goodness sake!!) 

The Veterans Food Bank is part of The Poppy Fund

Nice to see that these shelves that were completely empty before have a bit of stuff on them now

The photo tells the story

Again, these shelves need to be full

The hampers have to get to those who can't get to the Food Bank on their own