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April is poetry month! Poetry allows us to say afresh things which need to be said (but which are not being heard properly because of popular conventions or dark political malfeasance). Yet once these truths are framed in sacred beautiful language and hung up in the great library of human endeavor, they take on an enduring character which the despots, brutes, and vulgarians of the past can no longer suppress (and which the despots, brutes, and vulgarians of the present do not understand).
Portrait of Swinburne (Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1861) Watercolor, chalk, pencil on paper
For example, here is a short poem by Alernon Charles Swinburne, a sort of half-forgotten poet who was so exceedingly popular during the Victorian era that his work was set aside during the subsequent anti-Victorian backlash (which seems like a pity, since his poetry is lyrical and beautiful…and has a haunting & desolate sadness beneath all of its rich, fulsome opulence).
Swinburne was fascinated by Christianity and by the great Christian art and literature of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Yet a comprehensive reading of his poems makes it fairly clear that he himself was not devout. He harbored particular reservations about the afterlife and his sophisticated contemporaries saw him as a sort of “poet laureate of atheism.” Despite this (or…because of it?) Swinburne wrote a poem about Christian persecution as anathema to Jesus. The poem was not about persecution of Christians, but persecution by Christians. Here it is:
On the Russian Persecution of the Jews
by Algernon Charles Swinburne
O SON of man, by lying tongues adored,
By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod
in carnage deep as ever Christian trod
Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred
And incense from the trembling tyrant’s horde,
Brute worshipers or wielders of the rod,
Most murderous even that ever called thee Lord;
Face loved of little children long ago,
Head hated of the priests and rulers then,
If thou see this, or hear these hounds of thine,
Run ravening as the Gadarene swine,
Say, was not this thy Passion, to foreknow
In death’s worst hour the works of Christian men?
Written in 1882, the poem is addressed to the “Son of Man,” which is Christ’s appellation in the gospels. Swinburne describes the savagery of contemporary Christians and poignantly asks whether the cruelty of Jesus’ followers towards Jews, foreigners, and outsiders would hurt Christ more than the physical agony of the passion. Since the apotheosis of compassion was the exact point of Christ’s ministry and his death, the answer is clearly a resounding yes. However, the poet (and, implicitly, his sophisticated reader) both recognize that contemporary Christians often overlook the meaning of Christ’s words and actions in their zeal to attain a piece of some imaginary paradise.
The poem is aimed directly at Russian Orthodox Christians, who were indeed guilty of terrible pogroms against the great Jewish communities within the Pale of Settlement. Since Russia was the hated national adversary of late Victorian England, the message would be roundly appreciated by Swinburne’s readers. Yet the poet perhaps casts a wider net upon the lord’s flock than it initially seems. The poem’s title aside, these lying tongues, slaughterous hands, and profane precants could almost be found anywhere in Christendom. Perhaps the eagerness of the reader to attribute such sins to other Christians is its own clue. Did not Christ ask his followers “Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?”
And like all great poetry, the message is hardly trapped within its time. A clear-sighted observer might be able to look at any Christian period or any puffed-up sanctimoniously “Christian” nation and find terrible cruelty to Jews and foreigners enacted by zealots incapable of grasping the fundamental message of the gospels. Such acts could even be encouraged by self-interested czars who not-very-convincingly pretend to be Christian! Great art lives in timeless modernity after all.
At any rate, I will leave you, dear reader, to contemplate Swinburne’s real meaning on your own (maybe after you peruse the news of the day). Oh, also the Gadarene swine were the herd of pigs which Christ cast the demons into as recounted in Matthew 8:28-34. It is worth remembering that the Gadarenes begged Jesus to leave after the incident…as though they preferred money and security to the actual Son of God! Shocking!
Astrophysicists have long speculated about the creation of the moon. Since the late twentieth century, the dominant theory has been “the giant impact hypothesis” which posits that a huge object about the size of Mars smashed into the newly coalesced Earth 4.5 billion years ago. Astronomers name this mysterious proto-planet “Theia” after the titan who was the mother of the moon is ancient Greek mythology. They speculate that the Earth and Theia melded together and the iron/heavy metal core of Theia sank into the molten Earth. A great deal of the light material was thrown into orbit around Earth where it coalesced into two moons (the smaller of which was unstable and pancaked into the dark side of the moon a few million years after formation).
These are pretty intense ideas, however they explain many of the features of the moon and Earth (you can look at a comprehensive list on Wikipedia if you like). Yet astrophysicists have not been completely satisfied by the current model of the giant impact hypothesis. The composition of the moon is suspiciously identical to that of Earth (whereas, computer models seem to indicate that it should contain more of Theia).
This week, a scientific paper suggests that the collision was somewhat different than envisioned in the giant impact hypothesis. The paper’s main author is Natsuki Hosono, and he has a revised version of how Theia hit Earth. According to this new hypothesis, the freshly formed Earth was still piping hot and its surface was covered with a lava ocean. Theia banged into Earth and careened off into space like a pool ball but the impact knocked the liquid ocean of lava into space, where it coalesced into one or two moons (which then ultimately amalgamated together). The new hypothesis answers critical questions about lunar composition (and about the ratios of volatile elements on the moon). Yet it does tend to beg questions such as what happened to Theia and what the nature of the Earth’s lava ocean was.
I guess we’ll keep watching the sky and the news to see how the world astronomy community reacts to the revised hypothesis. In the mean time I will see what I can dig up concerning Theia (the goddess or the proto-planet). That seems like the most intriguing part of the story yet details are weirdly exiguous.
![20190425_081423[1].jpg](https://ferrebeekeeper.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/20190425_0814231.jpg?w=490)
It is blossom season in the garden, and I have been out there sitting beneath the petals and stars rather than in here writing about it (although you can read posts from years gone by, like my favorite post about the larger meaning of blossom aesthetics). Fortunately I managed to take my camera outside before the squirrels beheaded all of my tulips (although they certainly got a lot already).
The tree with the white blossoms is a flowering dogwood. The tree with the fuchsia blossoms is an ornamental crabapple, and the tree with the pink blossoms is of course a Kwanzan flowering cherry…how I love it. I will try to take some more pictures, but right now I think I am going to go out and sit under the tree and reflect on life.
Look! A garden visitor!
I still think the prettiest of all the different crowns we have encountered are the Iranian ones. This is the Sunburst tiara of Princess Fatimeh, and, although there is not much to say about it (other than a physical description), it is certainly stunningly beautiful. The centerpiece of the little crown is a 25-carat cushion shaped pink spinel, which is as lovely as any ruby, but you could probably buy the equivalent on ebay for less than a used Jeep. The spinel is surrounded diamond sunbursts which are surmounted by teardrop emeralds (the largest of which is 20 carats).
The dazzling pink, dark green, and white come together perfectly like a magical fountain made of otherworldly spring flowers. The piece is a real triumph (which is good, since I am afraid this post is largely visual, and sadly devoid of meaningful historical context).
Happy Earth Day! I am afraid I am a bit under the weather (which seems appropriate, since our beautiful blue planet is catching a fever too). However it is worth devoting some time today to thinking about our planet and the entwined webs of ecosystems which support all living things (very much including human beings).
The great masters of global capitalism claim that the Earth is inexhaustible and made solely for human delights. To hear them tell it, only if ever more people consume ever more consumer rubbish will we all thrive. However that claim always seemed suspect, and the notably swift decline of entire ecosystems within even my lifetime suggests that fundamental aspects of our way of life and our long-term goals need to be rethought. It is a formidable problem because the nations of Earth are facing a near-universal political crisis where authoritarians are flourishing and democracies are faltering. So far, the authoritarians don’t seem substantially concerned with a sustainable future for living things (or with any laudatory goal, really). This trend could get worse in the future as agricultural failures, invasive blights, and extreme weather events cause people to panic and flee to “safe” arms of the dictators (this would be a stupid choice since strongmen, despots, and tyrants are anything but safe in a any context).
These frightening projections of doom are hardly a foregone conclusion though. A great many people of all political and ideological stripes are worried about the future and are working hard to ensure that humankind and all of our beautiful extended family on the tree of life make it into the future. Part of this is going to involve engineering and biomedical breakthroughs, but political and cultural breakthroughs will be needed as well.
I am ill-prepared to write out my proposals at length (since I would really like to lie down with some ginger ale), but fortunately I am a visual artist and I spent the winter of 2018 preparing a dramatic planetary image to capture my own anxiety for the world and its living things without necessarily giving in utterly to my fears and anxieties. I was going to introduce it later, but EarthDay is a good time to give you a sneak peak (plus it goes rather well with my Maundy Thursday blog post).
Here is the Great Flounder–the allegorical embodiment of how Earth life if everywhere under our feet and around us, but we can’t necessarily fathom it easily, because of our scale. Speaking of scale (in multiple ways I guess), I continue to have trouble with WordPress’ image tool, so I am afraid that you will have to make due with this small image until I learn about computers…or until posters get printed up (dangit…why do we have to sell ourselves all of the time?). In the meantime here is a teaser detail to help you in your own contemplation of if/how we can make Earth a paradise for ourselves without destroying it for the other inhabitants.
We will talk more about this soon, but in the meantime happy Earth Day. We will work together to save our giant blue friend, I know it! Let’s just collaborate to do so before we lose African elephants, numbats, mysterious siphonophores, or any of our beloved fellow lifeforms on this spherical island hurtling through space.
Please accept my apologies for not publishing the promised Good Friday post when I said I would. I am afraid I had a spring cold, and was just struggling to get through the day. Now that it is Easter Sunday, we can put any sort of Jesus-themed artwork we want, though and we don’t have to have a ghastly crucifixion scene. So behold: this is “Triptych with the Miracles of Christ” by the Master of the Legend of St. Catherine and his (?) workshop.
The piece is a superb vision of the life and miracles of Jesus…and of day-to-day life in late Medieval Flanders. It was completed sometime between 1491 and 1495 (and it is worth imagining some team of earnest painters toiling over it at the exact time that Columbus and his crew were making their way across the Atlantic. There are nearly endless things to see in the picture (like all the endearing and strangely modern pet dogs in the foreground) but I am afraid I could not download a high-res image, so you will have to visit this link if you wish to pore over the composition (and you really should wish for that). The background is as interesting as the foreground! Look at this exquisite Flemish city (which also looks strangely modern).
It is Maundy Thursday–the day before Good Friday (when the Last Supper took place in the Passion of Christ). To celebrate, I have drawn a picture in the little moleskine sketchbook which I carry with me during my workday). Based on some comments and feedback, it is not completely clear that everybody sees the plight of my allegorical flounder in the desired light. Perhaps this tiny spiritual drawing will clarify the symbolic meaning somewhat.
“Take, eat: this is my body” (Wayne Ferrebee, 2019) colored pencil and ink on paper
Jesus was a fisherman too…as were the first four disciples–that is why his first symbol was a fish. Anyway, Happy Easter! We will be back tomorrow with the annual Good Friday post!
There is an exciting new development in the world of aerospace! This weekend, the world’s largest plane flew for the first time. The plane is a colossal megajet with six engines and a 117 meter wingspan longer than a football field (or a soccer pitch). For years the start-up aerospace firm Stratolaunch has been out in the Mojave Desert working on a giant plane to use as an orbital launch platform. On Saturday (April 13, 2019), the Stratolaunch carrier aircraft successfully left the ground and cruised up to an altitude of 4500 meters (15000 feet) before returning safely to the ground and back to its immense hangar.
The plane is designed to serve as a flying launchpad for firing satellites into low Earth orbit. By carrying the satellites and their rockets to the edge of the atmosphere, the Stratolaunch will eliminate costly and resource-hungry rocket stages. The company was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. It is one of the few examples I have seen of billionaires squandering their money in an appropriate fashion (come to think of it, Bill Gates’ humanitarian foundation is another of those rare examples…maybe those guys did know something).
When I was growing up, every picture of a newly developed airplane filled me with covetous awe; yet, for the last decade, that feeling has been missing. Every new plane has looked like a blander (albeit more fuel efficient) version of a previous model. Even the budget-devouring F35 looks kind of like an uninspired GIJoe toy and lacks the hot lines of an F14 or even an F111 (although, admittedly, the F35 has thoroughly demonstrated its awe-inspiring ability to destroy money more quickly and effectively than any other warplane). Yet the Stratolaunch changes all of that. For the first ime in a long time, this plane is weird and exciting. Just look at the tiny twin cockpits like angry little prairie falcon heads, or cast your eye on the hunched up fuselage and the sequential rows of landing gear. I would be proud to run through the neighborhood waving a plastic model of this plane over my head and screaming until I tripped on my shoelace. Additionally, the plane finally shattered an aerospace record which has stood since 1947. The wings of the Stratolaunch are longer than the wings of the Spruce Goose, the magnificent flying white elephant which Howard Hughes built out of wood (in order to work around a wartime aluminum shortage).
Congratulations to the Stratolaunch team and to the late Paul Allen. Ferrebeekeeper will be watching the skies over the Mojave with our fingers crossed to see how the next test missions go.
Anybody interested in Gothic art is mourning today, after a fire gutted Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris, one of the luminous cultural treasures of the world. The devastation is particularly cruel since it took place during Holy Week. As I write this, the fire has only just been extinguished and a comprehensive reckoning of what was lost in the flames has not yet emerged (and may not for some time). It seems likely that the giant ancient pipe organ is lost as is the wooden interior (much of it dating back to the 13th century), and a good deal of the large, immovable religious artwork. Additionally the mid-19th century spire was completely destroyed. Yet the crown of thorns (a medieval relic which may date back to late antiquity) survived, as did the great church itself. Like the Frauenkirche of Dresden, Notre Dame will be back. It will have some blackened stones and some new plaques about reproduction and restoration. It will be missing some irreplaceable artwork, yet it will be restored to full heart-lifting beauty.
The Seine and Notre Dame in Paris, (1864, Johann Jongkind) Oil on canvas
The cathedral sits on the site of two previous churches, which themselves were built over the ruins of a temple to Jupiter (which is a reminder that nothing is immutable). Commissioned in 1163 by King Louis VII, the great cathedral took nearly two centuries to build and it was not completely finished until 1345. Hopefully reconstruction will not take so long. 
Messier 87 (M87) Galaxy
Messier 87 is a strange and extraordinary galaxy. For one thing it was discovered and named in 1781…even though the nature of galaxies (and the fact that there are more than one such “island universes” was not understood until 1923). Messier 87 was discovered by the great Charles Messier who was cataloging weird celestial blobs that could confuse comet hunters. The galaxy lies near the center of the Virgo supercluster of which our own lovely (albeit provincial) galaxy, the Milky Way, is a part. Formed by the merger of multiple galaxies, M87 is huge and contains more than a trillion stars–4 times the number of stars in the Milky Way. Additionally M87 is surrounded by more than 12,000 globular clusters (the Milky Way has perhaps 200 of these miniature satellite galaxies). Whereas the spiral Milky Way is “blue and new” with ample quantities of hydrogen to form new stars, the globular Messier 87 is “red and dead”: new star formation has slowed and the great elipsoid mass of stars is slowly dying (insomuch as galaxies can be said to live to begin with). The stars visible now are mostly middle aged main sequence stars or tiny long-lived red dwarves (tiny for stars…still not something you could pick up and put in your hatchback).
47 million year old Adapidae fossil from Germany
Messier87 is approximately 53 million light years away. The light that we can observe from it today originated during the Eocene, when the first little primates evolved on Earth and those photons have been streaking toward us through the great emptiness at 300,000 kilometers per second since when our direct ancestors were anxious lemur-squirrel guys staring pensively up at the stars.
A artist’s conception of such a black hole
The center of this monstrous astronomical entity is a supermassive black hole 6.5 billion times the mass of the sun (for reference, the sun is 333,000 times the mass of Earth–so this black hole has the mass of 2,164,500,000,000,000 Earths). A horrifying & beautiful relativistic jet of ionised matter 1.5 kiloparsecs (5000 light years) long is emerging from the black hole.
Why do I bring this up? Because we photographed the black hole! This is the first time we have accomplished such a feat. You can read about the esoteric details of how astronomers achieved such a thing by clicking on today’s Google Doodle (so I guess today’s blog post will not be a completely original/unique subject), I suspect you have seen the picture already. Yet even the eye-of-Sauron glory of this image (which was taken by a pan-global network of radio telescopes) does not exactly capture the scale of the black hole. My imagination is equiped for may things, but is not really much good for processing numbers bigger than a few thousand. The diameter of this black hole is roughly approximate to the orbit of Uranus and it has the mass of a small galaxy. So I guess keep that in mind when looking at the little orange eye. Now I am going to go lie down and hold my pet cat.
ferrebeekeeper 