Automastigwma - Ascension, Taming The Beast Within

Two Thousand Years Ago (1878) by John Atkinson Grimshaw

“I’m not sure which is worse: intense feeling, or the absence of it.”

— Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

One of my favorite historical tidbits is that Arab traders, for centuries, fooled Europeans into thinking cinnamon came from a rare, vicious and fearsome cinnamon bird.

The belief was so prevalent, in fact, that the mythical cinnamon bird shows up in the writings of Herodotus and Aristotle, all the way into medieval European manuscripts where it’s illustrated in all its fierce, cinnamony glory:

Pliny the Elder expressed skepticism of the bird in his writings, rightly assuming that it was a tale invented to keep control on the trade and prices by reducing competition, but the belief was already so widespread that it persisted in many areas into the early 1300’s.

Basket hilted sword. Hilt is English, blade is from Solingen, Germany. Circa 1610

from The Burrell Collection, Glasgow

Champion of the Sun.

Ancient burial site of  Bukit Buntu Ke’su, Indonesia - Paul Koudounaris

1967 Ferrari 330 P4

Death and Three of Wands

If you go now, you might get away just in time.