The Catacombs in San Callisto
~ Rolf Jacobsen
Translated from the Norwegian by Roger Greenwald

A city in death with the streets caved in and the traffic lights still.

A city seen in a broken mirror we have to rub the darkness from with our hands.

Beneath the stars and the beneath the earth, a city like a laugh behind a closed door.

A Venice of night, bridges reflected in dust.

The world’s pride, a city with its forehead split and its face overgrown with slime.

Thin shreds of roots like fingers and feet, hands and shoulder blades of skeletons.

Roots and branches of roots, daed that bend their fingers around the dark as around a stone.

A tree up from our broken reality, with its root planted in humiliation.

A tree that stretches out over the earth and reaches almost to the stars, Arcturus, Capella.

A tree from the earth’s heart. Wondrous. Keeping faith.

Tree Roots from The Tree Center Dot Com

I was recently in London for business, and was fortunate to visit the Scythians: Warriors of Ancient Siberia exhibit at the British Museum, organized in cooperation with the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia (another place I am hoping to visit in this lifetime).

A nomadic people, the Scythians flourished roughly 900 BCE – 200 BCE, traversing the steppes and plains of Siberia. Through formal cultural exchange and pillage, they both absorbed and influenced the Greek, Assyrian, and Persian civilizations of their time. Much of what we know is from the recorded histories of those cultures (as the Scythians did not have written records of their own) and from burial mounds. You can read the museum’s introduction to the exhibit on its blog.

The exhibit is large, and well-organized. I spent rather a lot of time in the jewelry and precious objects display, because, well, jewelry. I have no photos of my own (no photography permitted in the exhibit), so I am relying on the museum photos.

Gold torc with turquoise inlays. © The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 2017. Photo: V Terebenin.

Scythians with horses under a tree. Gold belt plaque. Siberia, 4th–3rd century BC. © The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 2017. Photo: V Terebenin.

The Scythians were fierce warriors, tattoed, attired in wool and tall hats, and rode like the wind, striking fear into the hearts of their opponents.

Artist’s impression of a Scythian on a horse. Reconstruction by D V Pozdnjakov.

Their horses were also fitted with leather armor and tall headpieces, creating an even more impressive and frightening appearance.

Horse headgear. Mound 1, Pazyryk, Altai. Late 4th–early 3rd century BC. © The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 2017. Photo- V Terebenin

They drank for fun (to excess, according to the Greeks and Persians) and used hemp as a pain reliever. Which is important when you’ve been riding all day, and doing battle.

The image that struck me, and stayed with me, is The Golden Beast:

Scythian Golden Beast, Image by British Museum, London, UK.

Two dragons face each other, with a Tree of Life in the center. It wasn’t available as an art print, so I ended up with a tea towel, as that was the only option for capturing the image among the gift shop goods.

Scythian Dragons with Tree of Life tea towel – my photo

If you look closely at the borders, you will also see rams, stags, and panthers. It’s now part of my altar set up.

I also indulged in this hand-carved horn comb, ornamented with a phoenix. (No, it’s not an original artifact, merely a copy!)

Scythian-Style Carved Horn Comb with Phoenix – my photo

A nomadic, fierce warrior people, known for fighting and drinking, and fond of shiny objects, with favored mythical beasts of dragons and wolves, and a Tree of Life as the center of their mythology.

Hm. This sounds so familiar. If only I could figure out what this reminds me of . . . .

The exhibit is on through January 14, 2018. If you have the chance to see it, I recommend it highly! If not, you can always order the exhibit catalog from the British Museum online gift shop.

2017-2018 Calendar from CalendarPedia

The Year You Thought You Were Dying
~ Mindy Nettifee

was a really great year.

You ate licorice on the beach in January,
swam rum sauced in the icy Pacific
wearing only blue rubber flippers
and your grandfather’s dog tags
and for the first time, it felt good to be cold,
it felt good to be so cold it hurt.

You doted on pigeons and stray cats.
You ate honey peanuts in the park
and re-watched every movie that ever made you
cry, including Steve Martin’s The Jerk.
You tattooed your entire body in Pablo Neruda
translations and cherry blossoms.

You blew all your money on comfortable shoes
and one of those mattresses made from NASA space foam.
You slept the sleep of assassins and kings—remorseless.

You bought chocolate bars from all the kids who came
to your door and stock-piled them in your broom closet.
You left them in your will to THE SECRETARIES,
every last one of them.

You volunteered at the local senior center playing bingo.
When you won you forced to whole room to take shots of
Welch’s grape juice and sing the national anthem.

And you spent time with your favorite lover.
You let him get close.
Secret suicide note, nonsense alibi close.
shampoo scent dissection close.

Close enough to memorize your tells,
hand you your ass at pillow poker,
make your defenses look like the silly decoupage
of paper angels and Victorian roses that they were.
Close enough that your laughter
punched him with mint gum puffs.
Close enough that his sighs drove circles
in the parking lots of your sighs,
close enough to measure your ribcage
in wrists, your palms in lips.

So close, you didn’t even notice
your heart speed up, then stop,
when he kissed you so hard,
when the New Year’s ball dropped down.

My note: We spend so much time not living, merely going through the day. Live as if this were your last day—why wait to enjoy your life?

You Loved Me
~ Marina Tsvetaeva

You loved me. And your lies had their own probity.
There was a truth in every falsehood.
Your love went far beyond any possible
boundary as no one else’s could.

Your love seemed to last even longer
than time itself. Now you wave your hand—
and suddenly your love for me is over!
That is the truth in five words.

Three of Swords from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, art by Pamela Colman Smith

Count
~ Paul Celan

Count the almonds,
count what was bitter and kept you awake,
count me in:

I looked for your eye when you opened it, no one was looking at
you,
I spun that secret thread
on which the dew you were thinking
slid down to the jugs
guarded by words that to no one’s heart found their way.

Only there did you wholly enter the name that is yours,
sure-footed stepped into yourself,
freely the hammers swung in the bell frame of your silence,
the listened for reached you,
what is dead put its arm round you also
and the three of you walked through the evening.

Make me bitter.
Count me among the almonds.