#Author Catherine Lyon

[thecatsreaderslibrary]

Cat Is Now Featured on All-Author! An In-Depth Interview About Being An Author, Writer, Recovery Expert, & A Book Marketing Guru. . .

Catherine Townsend-Lyon is an influential writer known for her gripping memoir, “Addicted To Dimes,” and her contributions to the recovery compilation book “Ten The Hard Way: Real Voices of Recovery.” A dynamic speaker, she shares her story through various platforms, including radio shows, podcasts, and speaking engagements. Catherine currently resides in Glendale/Phoenix, Arizona.** Interview…

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Harry and Prince William's wedding guest list differences are very telling by u/AdelaideSadieStark

Harry and Prince William's wedding guest list differences are very telling TLDR; William has closer connections with his family, not just first cousins or family who you're 'expected to invite' but also his mother's maternal side of the family and the Queen Mother's side of the family, he's also got a large social circle from his time at Uni and during the time him and Catherine were dating. He seemed to get along with people from Catherine's world. Harry on the other hand invited family you're expected to invite, like immediate aunts and uncles, first cousins. He also seems to aristocracy. I don't know if it's because he's a snob or the aristocracy were the only people who tolerated him. (guest list at the bottom) All of the Queen and Princess Margaret's decedents are invited, as expected.William invited more distant cousins he invited the Queen's cousins, his father's second cousins and in some cases his third cousins. Harry on the other hand invited a handful of his grandmother's cousins. Since they're working royals i guess the Queen invited them.From the Spencer side, Harry only invited his aunts and uncles and first cousins. William along with his aunts and first cousins, also invited Lady Anne Wake-Walker (nee Spencer), his great-aunt (Diana's aunt). Lady Anne's daughter and son-in-law Elizabeth Wake-Walker and Anthony Wake-Walker. He also invited his second cousin, Davina Duckworth-Chad and her husband Tom Barber.Harry had one member from the Bowes-Lyon family, one from the Mountbatten family, and from the Parker Bowles family he invited his two step-siblings and one of Tom and Laura's cousins. He also invited Catherine's immediate family. Meghan only had her mother at the wedding. William also invited the Roche family (Diana's maternal side of the family), Camilla's ex, Tom and Laura, Camilla's sister's family, and Camilla's bather's family as well as three members from the Bowes-Lyon family. Catherine had 22 members of her family, some of her second cousins were also there.In terms of friends, most of Harry's friends were friends from childhood or younger siblings of people who William was friends with (ex; Emilie van Cutsem, widow of the groom's father's friend, Hugh van Cutsem and Tom Inskip (friend of the groom from Eton College; son of Owen Inskip, a friend of the groom's father)). It honestly doesn't seem like Harry has a lot of friends who he made himself. Compare that to William and Catherine's wedding where they have friends from Uni, someone who worked at the grocery store they frequented, the Middleton family's butchers, neighbour of the couple's while at university, in some cases his friends parents were also invited.William's wedding also had a load foreign royals compared to Harry who only had Prince Seeiso of Lesotho and his wife, and The Hereditary Prince and Princess of Oettingen-Spielberg who aren't 'technically' royalty. But that's more to do with their positions in the line of succession than anything personal.https://ift.tt/3YfPEjw post link: https://ift.tt/mA6GuX4 author: AdelaideSadieStark submitted: September 12, 2024 at 01:53PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[xtruss]

The Amazing Tale of One of the World’s Most Prolific Art Thieves

Stéphane Breitwieser Stole Well Over 200 Works—With a Total Value of More Than $1Billion

— June 29th, 2023

Oil Painting on Wood of Madeleine of France By Corneille de Lyon. The Lady Vanishesimage: Image Bridgeman

He Called the Sensation a Coup de Cœur: a blow to the heart. When he stood in front of an artwork, Stéphane Breitwieser felt exhilarated. A tingling sensation would flood his body, starting in his hands, and before long he would get to work on the screws or seals that kept him from the object of his desire. Once liberated, the item would usually be sequestered inside his coat, down his trousers or in his girlfriend’s handbag. Mr Breitwieser would then transport his loot back to the attic of his mother’s house in Mulhouse, in eastern France, where he still lived.

That covetous compulsion struck him a lot. Between 1994 and 2001 he stole well over 200 items from museums in seven countries; Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, his girlfriend, often kept watch. Though his preference was for Flemish goods or art of the late Renaissance—such as Corneille de Lyon’s portrait of Madeleine de France (pictured)—Mr Breitwieser’s tastes ranged widely. As well as pieces by Boucher, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Cranach, Dürer and Watteau, his collection included ivory sculptures, tapestries, altarpieces, musical instruments, tobacco boxes and weaponry. Experts value the haul at somewhere between $1bn and $2bn.

As Michael Finkel recounts in “The Art Thief”, Mr Breitwieser was an extraordinary criminal, and not just because he was extremely prolific. (He managed, on average, a theft every 12 days for seven years.) His heists did not involve a squadron of marauders working under the cover of night. He did not prepare sophisticated plans months in advance. His art-stealing epiphanies “emerge from the spot where spontaneity and simplicity meet”, Mr Finkel writes. His larcenous philosophy was: “Don’t complicate things.”

Mr Breitwieser would walk into a museum or auction house, work out the security weaknesses and take advantage of opportunities presented to him. He knew how to slice deftly through the silicon glue that held display cases together and how to wriggle a painting out of its frame. It was important to behave normally while the deed was being done: lingering too long at a particular spot, or running out of a museum, would be bound to arouse suspicion. Sometimes he and Ms Kleinklaus would take a guided tour or stay for lunch after they swooped. This provided cover, for surely “a thief would never purposely remain inside a museum with stolen loot”, nor “pause a heist to dine”.

His motives were as unusual as his methods. Most thieves pinch artworks for money: they hope to sell them to a corrupt dealer, extort payment from a museum or insurance firm or take the piece underground to use as collateral in dodgy deals (trafficking art is one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises). Mr Breitwieser claimed he purloined only pieces he liked. In his telling he experienced Stendhal syndrome, a condition characterised by an intense physical response to beautiful art. Museums were lousy places to appreciate a work, he thought. He preferred to admire it from the velvet-draped four-poster bed in his mother’s attic.

Eventually museum officials and police grasped what was happening. Mr Breitwieser got sloppy. He was caught stealing a painting, then a gold-plated bugle. In 2002 he confessed to taking scores of objects. (Many had been dumped in a canal, probably by his mother, while he was in custody; she claimed to have burned his collection of paintings.) Mr Breitwieser was fined and sentenced to four years in prison. His mother spent a few months behind bars, Ms Kleinklaus a single night.

The author’s account of the skulduggery is thrilling; the description of the subsequent investigation less so. Mr Finkel is largely sympathetic to his subject, whom he interviewed at length, suggesting that the trauma of Mr Breitwieser’s parents’ divorce and his anti-social tendencies may have contributed to his behaviour. But he was also selfish in his pursuit of beauty, Mr Finkel argues. “Works of communal heritage, often suffused with spiritual significance and a sense of place, should be open and accessible to all,” he admonishes. Mr Breitwieser’s and Ms Kleinklaus’s actions were a “cancer on this public good”.

Mr Breitwieser was responsible for the needless destruction of priceless artworks; at the same time, and in his own eccentric way, he emerges from this astonishing tale as a tragic figure. After serving his sentence, he considered launching a career as a security consultant, but his light fingers took over once again. He lost his girlfriend and fell out with his mother. His passion for thieving became all-consuming. “I was a master of the universe,” Mr Breitwieser says. “Now I’m nothing.” ■

— This Article Appeared in the Culture Section of the Print Edition Under the Headline "Mine, All Mine!"

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

The Lyon’s Perfect Mate by Cerise DeLand

The Lyon’s Den Series

Mrs. Dove-Lyon does it again…she impresses me with her matchmaking acumen and the results are once again…perfection!

What I liked:

* Mrs. Dove-Lyon: Intriguing woman in disguise, manipulative, cunning, wise, and rather wonderful. I would LOVE to know her backstory

* Priscilla Catherine Taunton: survivor, difficult childhood, finally comes into her own after inheriting and setting things right, suffers from PTSD whether she knows it or not, even tempered, wise, giving, wealthy, and someone I would love to have as a friend

* Valerian Sanders Anderleigh, Viscount Mannington de Broke: came into title unexpectedly, Captain and fighting for 8 years, spent time away from home, returns to empty coffers and everything in disarray with hopes to put all right again

* The way Cilla dealt with her last stepmother…loved that!

* Val’s wisdom when it came to pleasing women even though his pride led to some difficult times for him

* The courtship honeymoon shared by Cilla and Val

* The communication between Val and Cilla

* Cilla’s ability to tame Val’s temper…usually

* The way Val’s family was “handled” in a wise and positive manner

* Evers: an extraordinary butler ;)

* All of it really…left me feeling good at the end of the story

What I didn’t like:

* Who and what I was meant not to like

* Thinking about what Cilla experienced growing up and what Val saw at war

Did I like this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Definitely

Thank you to NetGalley and Dragonblade Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

BLURB

Can two people who have learned how to fight for all they want and win push pride aside to save their love and their marriage ? Miss Priscilla Taunton has little to commend her. No looks, no titled family, no savoir faire. But her fortune can buy her a husband if she’s brave enough to use it. Cilla has struggled to make a new life for herself. Years of ridicule and suppression at the hands of her parents mean she has had to live down the scurrilous reputation her elders cast upon her. But after creating herself anew, Cilla needs a husband of good cheer and spotless reputation. To make that a reality, she’ll use her money, all of it, if necessary, to hire Mrs. Dove-Lyon—and ask for herself only one special reward. Captain Valerian Anderleigh has always won every battle. Hailed by his superiors as honorable, revered by his men as heroic, he is a legend. When Val returns home from the wars to assume his family’s title, he meets challenges for which no battlefield prepared him. His estate is flooded. His stepmother and her two daughters spend every penny. His younger brother runs wild. Val will do anything to resurrect his family’s pride. Even enter the Lyon’s Den and assume a terrible burden. Surprisingly, marrying a lovely, lonely woman becomes not a challenge but a greater joy than he anticipated. Losing the love of his life in defeat is not an option. Read Free in Kindle Unlimited!

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Sleep on Needles by Richard Lyons

ADVANCE ORDER: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/sleep-on-needles-by-richard-lyons/

The poems in Sleep on Needles disperse human consciousness beyond us vs. them tribalism to create fleeting bonds with any number of species: a garlic flower, some gibbons, a Greenland shark, a nautilus, a blue whale, a rat. Trying to leave room for the impossible, these poems crave experience outside of language. They eschew convenient certainties including homo sapiens’ historical claim of dominion over plants and animals. “Memory decants identity,” one poem claims, and, thus, within these poems, identity and persona are on the move and always about to change.

Richard Lyons is the author of Heart House (Emrys Press 2019), Un Poco Loco (Iris Books, 2016), Fleur Carnivore, winner of 2005 Washington Prize (Word Works, 2006), Hours of the Cardinal (University of South Carolina Press, 2000) and These Modern Nights (University of Missouri, 1988). He has been a recipient of a Nation “Discovery” Award and is Emeritus Professor of English and Creative Writing at Mississippi State University. He lives outside of Memphis with his wife.

PRAISE FOR Sleep on Needles by Richard Lyons

To read a Richard Lyons poem is to be ushered into a dreamscape by a skilled and trustworthy guide. In this arresting book, a nautilus hums, a man paints with the oil from an oil spill. Worlds and lifetimes ripple through these spare, muscular poems, and even the most clear-eyed view of suffering is accompanied by some element of comfort. “There’s no time left,” writes Lyons, just before offering a glimmer of hope for something still to come: “I am waiting.” These are urgent and utterly moving poems.

–Catherine Pierce

Sleep on Needles, Richard Lyons’s sixth poetry collection, is testament to a poet of keen observation whose language provides a context for poignant perceptions that needle one’s psyche with hauntings of lost loved ones, aging, and the passage of time. His reveries provide a nexus for self-awareness within a world of persistent complexity and inevitable change. Lyons states, “Reverie insists on its own / concept of time taking me out to its edges, / sun and water in short supply.” But his poems are not of the dream world, per se. Instead, they eloquently explore transient realities that together remind us of our inextricable connections to nature, to experience, and to one another. These poems are generous in what they offer and inclusive in what they provide. Lyons’s gift of embracing existence within language makes it possible for us to share in his hope that “… language will lift the shadows / as easy as cedar waxwings relay a berry / down a line of birds….”

–Gary Myers, author of Planet Auschwitz

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems #nature #aging #loss #hope #healing

[bbcumbercutey]

Queen Consorts crowned in Westminster Abbey - portraits include:

Eleanor of Castile, consort of Edward I Isabella of France, consort of Edward II Anne Neville, consort of Richard III Catherine of Aragon, consort of Henry VIII Anne of Denmark, consort of James I Mary of Modena, consort of James II Mary II, joint sovereign with William III Caroline of Ansbach, consort of George II Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, consort of George III Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, consort of William IV Alexandra of Denmark, consort of Edward VII  Mary of Teck, consort of George V Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, consort of George VI 

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew

NOT until the day of universal restitution will the infamous atrocity perpetrated on the eve of St. Bartholomew, 1572, by the Roman Catholics on the unoffending Huguenots or Protestants of France, cease to be remembered with the most intense horror. The coolness of the proceedings which instigated such a carnage, and the devilish passions which led Catholic nobles and statesmen to burst the bounds of humanity by heading the massacre, make the event unparalleled in the history of gigantic crimes. There is no shadow of doubt as to who the originators of the plot were. The Roman Catholics had conceived the bitterest hatred to the Huguenots, and were determined that the land should be rid of them. Catherine de Medicis, whose furious enmity to Protestantism made her an admirable mover in the dreadful design, controlled her son, Charles IX sufficiently to make him a mere puppet in her hands. Admiral Coligny, one of the most prominent advisers of the King of Navarre, who was then at the head of the Huguenots, was invited to attend the Parisian court. Coligny was the especial object of the Catholics’ resentment, and an unsuccessful attempt was therefore made upon his life. The Queen-mother, finding that this part of her scheme had failed, represented to the king that the Huguenots were clamorous for revenge upon the nobles of the court for the attack upon Coligny. These representations had the effect of frightening the weak-minded king, who at once authorized the massacre of the offending Protestants.

Our illustration represents the first attack of the murderous Catholics in the streets of Paris. Charles IX. is in the act of giving the first signal by firing a gun from the window of his palace. Coligny with his household was murdered, and his body thrown out to the mob. Everywhere the cry was heard, “Kill every man of them! Kill the Huguenots!” The streets were reeking with the blood of men, women, and children. Not an individual suspected of a leaning towards the Reformed religion was suffered to escape. While this scene was going on, the Protestants of Lyons, Rouen, and other cities, fell victims to the savage fury of the Catholics. The massacre was carefully planned so as to break out at the same hour in various cities and in their suburbs. By some it is supposed that at least 100,000 persons suffered death. The estimate given by Sully at 70,000, has, however, been adopted. It is pretty certain that at least 10,000 were destroyed in Paris alone, and this estimate does not include the 500 who belonged to the higher orders. It is said that “the roads were rendered almost impassable from the corpses of men, women, and children,—a new and appalling barricade.”

The monstrous deed received the high approval of the Pope and his Cardinals, and thanks were impiously made to Heaven for the distinguished favour that had been rendered to the Church. The then head of the English Church by law established (Queen Elizabeth) seemed to take the matter equally well; for we find her immediately afterwards receiving the French Ambassador, and accepting thankfully a love-letter from the Duke of Alengon; and, in a few months, standing at the font as godmother to the child of the murderous King of France. By the side of these facts we ought to place a few computations which will show that the unexampled outrage on St. Bartholomew’s Eve is only a part of a line of policy which the Church on the Seven Hills has carried out during the twelve hundred years of its existence. Mr. D. A. Doudney, the incumbent of Bedminster, near Bristol, recently mentioned at a public meeting that at least fifty millions have been put to death by the Romish Church. That estimate gives us the number of martyrs annually at 40,000, or more than 100 a day for the last twelve hundred years. Spain especially has had her share in the responsibility of this iniquity, for under forty-five Inquisition trials, between the years 1481 and 1808, 31,658 were burnt alive, 18,049 were burnt in effigy, and 225,214 were condemned to galleys or imprisonment. It must not be supposed that in consequence of the respectable appearance which Catholicism is now necessitated to put on that the nature of Popery is changed. It is, and from its organization must continue to be, ambitious of supremacy. Even the Times, which looks upon the proselytising schemes of the Romanists with cynical indifference, believes that it is impossible not to recognise in the recent complaints of English priests and dignitaries “something of that perverse ambition which has always been the bane of Roman Catholicism. A purely religious power the Roman Catholic Church never has been, is not now, and it seems to have made up its mind that it never will be. Though it still embraces half Europe in its spiritual sway, it laments the loss of a few petty provinces in Italy with a bitterness far keener than that of the exiled dukes.” That this ever-increasing ambition will not rest satisfied until England shall bow before the Beast may be readily believed; and that all the efforts now being put forth to weaken the progress of Protestantism in this country have as their central object the humiliation of a liberty-loving people is too plain a fact to withstand. To obtain its ends Popery would not despise the most atrocious and abominable means. If our Saviour’s words, “By their fruits shall ye know them,” have any significance whatever, they may be appropriately used in reference to this insidious Church. What have been the fruits of this fearful heresy during the period of its almost unlimited sway, but spiritual and political oppression as well as persecution in its grossest and most multifarious forms?

Looking at the atrocities of this Church, one would feel tempted to question whether its character of being “Drunken with the blood of the saints” is not too mildly drawn. The only defence of God’s true Church is in God. By the constant preaching of his Word, and by the uplifting of the cross, we hope the day will come when no invectives will be required to denounce the gross imposture which has for so long a time “made the people to sin.”

- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

[inexpensiveprogress]

Bernard Gay

Bernard Gay, was born at Exmouth, Devon on 11 April 1921, son of Ernest Garfield Gay and his wife Marguerite née Allen, who married at Newton Abbot, Devon in 1916. He grew up with a 'baby farmer' called Miss Wellaway an early type of foster family because his parents were poor and they sent him away. Miss Wellaway was an abusive woman who kept the children on bread and Margarine.

When I was 16 and I eventually went home, I went to London to find my mother; I then discovered I had two sisters which I had never known about. One was two years younger than myself and was quite nice, and one was two years older who wasn’t very nice actually, though I mean I hardly knew them. I stayed there for about a year and a half and then I left, I went away and never went back. There was nothing to hold me there, there was no...no family feeling really.

Bernard left school at the age of 14 and after various jobs, just before the Second World War joined the merchant navy and travelled the world being introduced to art by Muriel Hannah in New York.

It was not until 1947 that he returned to education, when he studied textile part-time at the Willesden School of Art 1947-1952 and changed course to fine-art under Maurice de Sausmarez (1915-1969) and Eric Taylor (1909-1999) and began drawing classes at St Martins School of Art and quickly established himself as a painter.

While at Willesden School of Art Gay got involved with the drawing club:

Stanley Spencer came to do a criticism, and I remember him looking at an absolutely pathetically awful little painting and he turned to me and said you know, ‘Oh I do wish I could do something like that’. It was just ghastly. And I remember saying to him, ‘By the way, how do you do those huge paintings of yours?’ And he told ...he painted in the kitchen, and he said, ‘What I do, I have the roll of canvas and I square up my drawings and I start from the top left-hand corner and I work my way across the canvas, rolling it up as I go, and when I get to the other end I finish the painting’. And, it meant that he never ever saw, those huge Crucifixions and things, he never saw the paintings until they were stretched and framed. He just started from the top left-hand corner and worked his way across. And I remembered him saying to me, ‘Of course, the real difficulty is that I have an oil heater in the kitchen, and quite often the tops of my canvases get rather black with the smoke from the heater.’ But I thought it was lovely that he worked in this strange way, from left to right, right across his canvas... Stanley Spencer came. William Coldstream came, Minton came, Colquhoun and MacBryde came, they all came to give crits of our little sketch club events, and they happened every month. And it was marvellous, one met in that little art school on top of the technical college... Edward Bawden came I remember. So that was a wonderful thing really, that that little school could do all that.

Gay worked in setting up the Lisle Street Gallery, building shelving for them and went on to work for the Artists International Association. He moved to Hampstead and became involved with the Hampstead Artists Council. Then went on to give lectures for the Design Council.

During this time Gay was exhibiting London's top galleries: Gimpel Fils, Rowland Browse & Delbanco, Leicester, Redfern, Wildenstein and Piccadilly Gallery.

It was at this time that the Hertfordshire Collection of Pictures for Schools bought his painting of an Ivy Still life from the Pictures for Schools exhibition: 23 January – 14 February 1954? I acquired it when the Council sold off their collection.The fact that he was chosen to be in the Pictures for Schools scheme so early means a great deal as many of his contemporaries at the time are incredibly famous. 

In 1957 Jack Beddington was asked by The Studio Magazine to write a book on Young Artists of Promise. Beddington was the Art Director at Shell from 1928 until the late 40s and also was instrumental in setting up the Lyons Lithograph series of prints due to his working with new and young artists. In Young Artists of Promise Beddington selected Bernard Gay for one of the books colour plates (most of the works were in black and white) and when the Studio Magazine promoted their book they used one of Gay's pictures The Gate in the Hedegrow, 1955 on the cover of the magazine (It is also the same edition that features a report on the Great Bardfield open-house exhibitions).

A parallel career in arts education led him to become principal of the London College of Furniture and a member of Her Majesty's Inspectorate. An artistic all-rounder, author of 'Botticelli' (1961), co-founded the Camden Arts Centre, where he was chairman for 25 years and joined the council of the British School in Rome.

He set up the Committee for Higher Education in Art and Design and in the early 1970s, helped expand art and design programmes in many of the polytechnics, that later became universities. In 1974, Bernard was living at Church Cottage, Cookley, near Halesworth, Suffolk and married secondly at Islington in 1984, Catherine Ann Wilson (1952-1995) and in the late 1980s, they moved to Herefordshire where he became a board director at Hereford College of Arts. He died, after a short illness, on 15 March 2010 being survived by four children.

[maximumphilosopheranchor]

Immediately after the duke’s murder, Henry went to his mother’s chamber, situated immediately beneath his own. He found her in bed with her doctor, Filippo Cavriana, in attendance. The king asked how his mother was. Cavriana replied that she was well and had taken medicine. Approaching her bed, Henry said with a firm voice: ‘Good day Madam. Please forgive me. Monsieur de Guise is dead. He will not be spoken of again. I have had him killed. I have done to him what he was going to do to me.’ He then recalled the injuries he had received since 13 May, adding that he had endured them so as not to soil his hands with the rebel’s blood, but had now decided to act since Guise was threatening his authority, life and state. After much hesitation on his part, God had inspired and helped him and he was about to give Him thanks. Henry went on to explain that he intended no harm to Madame de Nemours or other members of the Guise family, whom he knew to be loyal. ‘But I do want to be king’, he said, ‘and no longer a prisoner and a slave …’ He disclosed that the Cardinals of Bourbon and Guise as well as the archbishop of Lyon were under arrest. The king then left the chamber with a determined look on his face.

R. J. Knecht, Catherine de’ Medici

[pamphletstoinspire]

The oldest Byzantine icon of Mary, c. 600, encaustic, at Saint Catherine's Monastery retains much of Greek realist style.

Meet Mary: Mary In The Early Church

The authors of the New Testament focus the overwhelming majority of their attention on Jesus and his ministry, not on his mother. The reasons for this are obvious: Jesus is God, Mary is not. If Christ’s divine nature and primacy were not clearly and solidly established, devotion to his mother would make no sense; worse, it could morph into the type of goddess worship so common in the ancient Near East.

The same principle held true for the early Church. Establishing Christ’s primacy had to come first; otherwise their claims to be the very Body of Christ, would sound like lunacy. Yet even so, we still find acknowledgment of and devotion to the mother of Jesus from apostolic times.

The oldest historical evidence we have of Marian devotion among early Christians comes from the catacombs. These tombs of the Christian dead, scattered throughout the Mediterranean world, bear witness to their affection for Mary, their hope in her intercession, and their confidence in her place in heaven. As early as the end of the first century after Christ, they began including Mary in frescoes on the walls of the Roman catacombs. At times she is shown with her son; at other times she appears alone. Common images include Mary as the model of virginity and Mary as the orans — the woman at prayer. Scenes of Mary at the Annunciation and the Nativity are also on the walls.

One of the most significant frescoes is in the catacombs of St. Agnes in Rome. There, Mary stands between Peter and Paul, her arms outstretched to both. Dating back to the first years of Christianity, whenever Peter and Paul appear together in religious imagery, they are symbolizing the one Church of Christ, a Church of authority and of evangelization, a Church for both Jew and Gentile. Mary’s prominent position between the two illustrates the Apostolic Church’s understanding of her as “Mother of the Church.”

The many images of Mary, and their location within the catacombs, also make it clear that the early Christians saw Mary not simply as a historical person, but as a source of protection and intercession. This symbolic use of her image points to the reality of their relationship with her. In seeing her as the Mother of the Church, they saw her relating to them, to all Christians, as any good mother would: protecting them, teaching them, and helping them by her prayers.

Then, within about a hundred years of Jesus’ death, the leaders and teachers in the early Church had come to describe Mary as “the New Eve.” What did they mean by this?

In Genesis, when Adam sinned, he did not sin alone. His wife disobeyed God before he did and then tempted him to disobedience as well. Man fell from grace, and Original Sin entered his nature because of Adam’s sin, but Eve had played an instrumental role in that Fall.

So, too, with man’s redemption. When man was given the possibility of being restored to grace and cleansed of Original Sin, that possibility came about through Christ’s saving death on the Cross. But at the foot of that Cross was a woman, a woman who had made Jesus’ death possible by making his life possible. With her yes to the angel Gabriel, Mary, like Eve, played an instrumental, albeit secondary role, in man’s redemption.

St. Justin Martyr (d. 165), the early Church’s first great defender of Christian teaching, made much use of this metaphor, describing Mary as the “obedient virgin” in contrast to Eve, “the disobedient virgin”:

[The son of God] became man through the Virgin [so] that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same way in which it had originated. For Eve, while a virgin incorrupt, conceived the word that proceeded from the serpent, and brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary was filled with faith and joy when the angel Gabriel told her the glad tidings . . . And through her he was born . . .]

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (d. 202), another great defender of Christian orthodoxy, also wrote about Mary as the New Eve who participated in Christ’s work of salvation:

[Just as Eve, wife of Adam, yet still a virgin, became, by herdisobedience, the cause of death for herself and the wholehuman race, so, too, Mary, espoused but yet a virgin, became,by her obedience, the cause of salvation for herselfand the whole human race . . . And so it was that the knotof Eve’s disobedience was loosed by Mary’s obedience. Forwhat the virgin Eve bound fast by her refusal to believe, thisthe Virgin Mary unbound by her belief.]

Later, St. Ambrose (d. 397) further developed the Christian understanding of the New Eve:

[It was through a man and a woman that flesh was cast fromParadise; it was through a virgin that flesh was linked toGod . . . Eve is called mother of the human race, but Marywas mother of salvation.]

St. Jerome (d. 420) neatly summarized the parallel when he wrote, “Death through Eve, life through Mary.”

In addition to this understanding of Mary’s role in salvation history, the first centuries of Christianity also provide us with numerous examples of direct prayer to Mary as a means of intercession for the graces and protection of her son.

St. Irenaeus referred to Mary as Eve’s special “advocate,” interceding through prayer for her foremother’s forgiveness and salvation, while St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (d. 350) wrote of Mary in heaven praying for those still on Earth.

St. Ephraem (d. 373), one of the great Eastern preachers, prayed to Mary directly in several of his sermons, as did St. Gregory Nanzianzen (d. 389).

From the latter half of the fourth century on, such examples of Marian prayers simply abound, from the sermons of St. Ambrose to those of the Eastern Father St. Epiphanius. The most complete ancient prayer to Mary, however, dates back to an even earlier time, 250 AD. It is called the Sub Tuum:

[We fly to your patronage,O holy Mother of God.Despise not our petitionsin our necessities,but deliver us from all dangers,O ever glorious and blessed Virgin.]

The early Christians knew that the same woman who had rocked the infant Jesus to sleep, picked him up when he fell, and held his broken body in her arms could also be trusted to help them through their own trials, both spiritual and temporal. Their trust in and love for Mary was more than evident by 431 AD, when the Council of Ephesus — an authoritative meeting of Church leaders — formally defended her title as “Mother of God.” Already, there were cathedrals dedicated to her in Rome, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, and after the council, devotion to Mary flourished even more in both the East and the West. Marian prayers, Marian liturgical feasts, Marian icons, and Marian paintings were soon everywhere in the Christian world.

The son’s place had been secured, his Church established and fortified. And now, the seeds of truth about his mother, seeds foreshadowed in the Old Testament, planted in the New Testament, and cultivated in the early Church, could finally come to fruition. Nothing that came forth would or could in any way diminish the truth and glory of Christ. Rather, the fruits of authentic Marian devotion could only show more clearly, more beautifully, the possibilities offered to man by Christ’s saving grace.

BY: CHARLIE MCKINNEY

[fatehbaz]

Just ordered a copy of Not Extinct - Keeping the Sinixt Way (2018). Sinixt storytellers Marilyn James and Taress Alexis, a mother and daughter from interior British Columbia, compiled this book of traditional Sinixt stories to both celebrate Sinixt culture and to translate concepts of Sinixt culture for a non-Indigenous audience. James is a relatively well-known and bold activist, and a vocal advocate for decolonization. The book also features art from 17 local artists. The authors, through Maa Press, have also provided online audio files so that each story can be heard, for the full oral storytelling experience. The book’s title is partially a reference to the 60-year-long struggle of the Sinixt to regain formal land rights from both Washington State and the Canadian government, the latter of which had declared the Sinixt “extinct” in 1956, despite the fact that Sinixt traditionally occupy a relatively large area of the inland temperate rainforest region of interior BC’s Kootenay area and northeastern Washington.

Authors Taress Alexis and Marilyn James at the Vallican Whole Community Centre, March 2018. Photo by Moe Lyons.

A comment from local activist and scholar Paula Pryce:

Not Extinct: Keeping the Sinixt Way throws off the invisibility cloak. A Sinixt mother-and-daughter team, Marilyn James and Taress Alexis have followed in the footsteps of the late Elders Eva Orr and Alvina Lum to work as matrilineal representatives attempting to restore knowledge of their people’s presence in their ancestral territory, to repatriate and rebury exhumed ancestral remains, and to act as environmental stewards of the land. Combining classic Interior Salish oratory and a playful multimedia approach, the book offers stories to teach others about Sinixt laws, culture, language, history, and responsibility to the land.

Not Extinct is a project that conveys generosity and trust. Invisibility and diaspora were a way of survival for Sinixt people during the violence of earlier colonial times. Today, believing that the well-being of their people and their land now depends on being seen and heard, Marilyn James and Taress Alexis have worked with a group of settlers called the Blood of Life Collective to re-introduce their people to non-Sinixt through story. [End quote.]

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Art by Taylor Scheckeveld for the Sinixt story “Coyote Juggles His Eyes.”

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A map of traditional Sinixt land, from the Sinixt Nation website:

Spokane is located just a little to the south of this area; Kelowna is not far west.

Here’s a view of Sinixt land with vegetation and modern-day cities for reference.

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Some further notes from Paula Pryce’s review:

Stories are the heart of the book. Everywhere around the world, oral myths and stories point to life’s deeper meanings. However, the significance of stories relies on an audience’s understanding of specific cultural contexts. They do not always translate easily. Marilyn James and Taress Alexis use symbolic aspects of oratory to explore their culture’s riches, supporting their listeners by explicating Sinixt history and social norms that might not be clear to other peoples. The online audio versions are augmented with book chapters that fill out associated meanings and ideas. So while “How the Sturgeon-Nosed Canoe Came to Be” is itself an engaging story about Sturgeon seducing the bumbling Mrs. Goose and Mrs. Duck to assist in his abduction of Mrs. Fox, the written chapter elaborates implicit aspects, such as the nature of Sinixt waterscapes, river animals, and watercraft technologies, as well as Sinixt views on jealousy, deceit, matrilineal responsibility, and the importance of community.

Similarly, “Coyote and Chickadee,” a complex tale of how Trickster Coyote tried to steal Chickadee’s powerful bow, becomes a springboard to discuss covetousness and the importance of feeling at ease with the variety of personal power (sumíx) one bears, whether it seems impressive or humble to others: “You truly have power when you master your own sumíx, and you’re comfortable in your own skin,” says Marilyn James. [End quote.]

“A Sinixt man in a Kootenay (or sturgeon-nosed) canoe, circa 1910.”

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Read the rest of this review, here.

Read more about Sinixt people living in Washington State and their struggle for land rights, in a 2018 story from Northwest Public Broadcasting here.

Order the book from Maa Press here.

Here’s Marilyn James doing her thing at the courthouse in Nelson, 2016, in a photo by Catherine Fisher.

[thecatsreaderslibrary]

A Special Message For Those Maintaining Recovery From Gambling Addiction. Never Underestimate Your Strength, Wisdom, and Worth. . .

YOU ARE VALUED HERE! Always Know and Build Your Worth. No Need To Count The Days If You Live A Recovery Lifestyle! Catherine Townsend LyonGambling Recovery Expert & Advocate

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Harrys cousin Princess Eugénie on Table Manners podcast by u/WorthSpecialist1066

Harry’s cousin Princess Eugénie on « Table Manners « podcast You can listen to it here Apple podcast link (you’ll have to ignore the clanking cutlery and munching. The podcast should be called « lack of table mannners »)I’m amazed at how unsophisticated Eugenie is. On the trailer on Instagram she said she never eats curry. Which is extremely unusual for a Brit. She can’t cook, despite going to cookery school.I’m just shocked at how Basic she is. Didn’t know that her great-grandmother was a fisherwoman at Balmoral. I can totally see why King Charles wanted to slim down the monarchy. I think that Princess Beatrice could still be an asset. But Eugénie, no chance. Thank god for Catherine, injecting looks, brains, grace into the Royal family. The York branch is a lost cause. A young Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later the Queen Mother) post link: https://ift.tt/eVUwGIA author: WorthSpecialist1066 submitted: November 23, 2023 at 01:26AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[brokehorrorfan]

Shout Factory has revealed the specs for Space: 1999: The Complete Series, which will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on July 16 via Shout Factory. The classic British science-fiction television show ran for two seasons from 1975 to 1977.

The set features all 48 episodes (presented in original production order), plus a disc of bonus features. The first 500 Blu-ray orders placed from Shout Factory ($109.99) will receive a limited edition Eagle Transporter snow globe.

Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (Thunderbirds), Space: 1999 stars Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Nick Tate, Zienia Merton, Barry Morse, Catherine Schell, Anton Phillips, Prentis Hancock, Clifton Jones, and Tony Anholt.

Each episode features both 5.1 and mono audio options. Read on for a list of special features.

Special features:

Audio commentary by author Anthony Taylor on "Dragon's Domain" and "The Metamorph" (new)

Audio commentary by Space:1999 expert Scott Michael Bosco on "Ring Around the Moon" (new)

Audio commentary by co-creator Gerry Anderson on "Breakaway" And "Dragon's Domain"

Interview with actress Barbara Bain (new)

Interview with actor Nick Tate (new)

Interview with director Kevin Connor (new)

Moonbase Merch: A Tour of Space: 1999 Ephemera with author John Muir (new)

These Episodes – Nearly 100 minutes of reflections on some of Space: 1999's iconic episodes from the people who made them

Interview with co-creator Sylvia Anderson

Guardian of Piri Remembered with actress Catherine Schell

Vintage interview with special effects artist Brian Johnson

Vintage Year Two interviews

Behind-the-scenes footage with commentary by special effects artist Brian Johnson

Memories of Space featurette

Concept and Creation featurette

Special Effects and Design featurette

Martin Landau and Barbara Bain TV promos

Year One and Year Two promos

Destination Moonbase Alpha and Alien Attack traielrs

Blackpool "Space City" exhibition advert

Lyons Maid Ice Lolly advert

Photo galleries

16-page episode guide

September 1999: A nuclear waste dump on the lunar surface unexpectedly detonates, blasting the moon out of Earth’s orbit and taking the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha on an unbelievable voyage of discovery and adventure. Under the command of John Koenig (Martin Landau), the Alphans hurtle through the stars, encountering fantastic worlds and beings in a universe where peril awaits at every turn. Together, Koenig and the Alphans face the ultimate challenge in the farthest reaches of space: survive…and find home.

[chicot-premier]

More durable [than Henri III's hobbies] was the passion of the last Valois for small dogs, of which he had veritable collections: at least 300 were cared for in his household in 1586. Truly many of his contemporaries shared this taste: the chancellor of Birague, the first president of the Parlement of Paris, the chronicler de Thou, a grave man, loved 'Maltese dogs or dogs from Lyon often nicknamed bichons.' Catherine de' Medici had them purchased at Venice. The king received them as gifts, but gave them as well: six to Mme. de Cipierre, widow of the tutor of Charles IX at the start of his reign. Certainly, in this regard as in others, the tastes of Henri III contrasted with those of his brother and predecessor: during his short life, Charles IX employed more than 5,000 hunting dogs and was known to have loved working in the forge, where he produced arms and corselets. Likewise, Henri III did not appreciate animal fights, while his brother organized them in the courtyard of the Louvre and had an arena built at Vincennes for that purpose. Enamored with less brutal distractions, the last Valois bought monkeys and parrots during one of his voyages to Dieppe and reserved for himself those that arrived from other Atlantic ports. He kept them in his apartments or gave them as gifts. High Parisian society did the same, these animals representing the exoticism of the voyages of the Age of Discovery. The king, however, was criticized, and when Parisians were outraged that one of his parrots had pronounced heretical words, he responded mockingly that he did not concern himself with the consciences of parrots. All these pastimes were of lesser importance and likely would not have attracted such harsh criticism had royal authority been as strong as it had been in the mid-sixteenth century and became again in the seventeenth. Caught between Catholic and Protestant extremism while trying to make his mutually very hostile subjects coexist peacefully with each other, Henri III attracted the fury of all. His distractions and all his behavior was censured, indeed caricatured, his opponents obscuring the king's true personality, more apt than many of his predecessors at conceiving the problems of his time as Étienne Pasquier recognized, regretting his frivolous distractions.

Jacqueline Boucher, La cour de Henri III (p. 20)

[dustedmagazine]

Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes — N°2 / Ame Debout / Paix (Anthology Records)

These are most uncommon records. Let's get the common points of reference out of the way: Nico, Can. The career of Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes took shape and peaked in the same years as those artists. They were all working on the edge of possibility in the early 1970s. What they were making was part of the rock scene, though none were invested in rock as a sector of pop. They summoned chaos and surrendered to it. Ribeiro had, like Nico, been a mod 1960s model and peripheral actress (Goddard and Fellini respectively). And like Nico and Damo Suzuki, her singing pushes past the boundaries of reason. Her collaborator Patrice Moullet, like John Cale and Holger Czukay, came from conservatory training. Each made records with a forbidding throb that still sounds modern, though perhaps it is impossible to ever catch up when these kinds of spirits are unleashed.

If these albums are timeless, it's taken a while for their reputation to spread enough to warrant an American release. The lyrics are French, with a few dips into Portuguese, Ribeiro being the daughter of immigrants who settled in Lyon. The language barrier and distribution have been limiting factors. The mp3 blog era helped immeasurably, along with the rising interest in folky drone. Ribeiro and Moullet could make pretty music, dotting these albums with classical guitar interludes and cafe chanson. At their core, though, Alpes were about exploration, finding shapes and pacing songs that remain striking. Blots of noise erupt, tearing open the slowly boiling verses, with the bits of folky pop providing incomplete relief.  

The spirits unleashed do a lot to carry the listener past the barriers. Ribeiro comes at the songs through a variety of strategies, from reminiscence to shrieks. Her emotion, or lack of it, rides past linguistic comprehension. She can sing conventionally well, with a guttural lilt akin to Lotte Lenya or Edith Piaf. But lines delivered smoothly sit alongside experiments in what voice can do as an instrument and as a character. Over the 18 minutes of "Poem Non Epique" she devolves from simple distress into straight-jacket babbling. In "Paix ," she announces benedictions to the underdogs and afflicted. Talking more than singing, her delivery offers authority more than empathy, as if reading a scroll from the Vatican. Her stoicism is a presentation of resolve, reaching out to the retreating forces of 1960s optimism.  

Moullet, in charge of the arrangements, is equally radical, mixing freedom with discipline. A musical instrument designer, his textures sound just off enough from rock to become uncanny. The lead figure for "Paix" is a descending single-string scale with tone that sometimes feels like a bass guitar, sometimes like a Stratocaster. Sitting on the edge of amp distortion, it fizzes up to blend with an organ shifting between the ecclesiastical and acid rock improv. The driving rhythm doesn't come from a drummer behind traps. Moullet constructed motor-driven beat boxes that sound like bicycle derailleurs tapping congas. The effect is both regimented and alien. Rhythm machines appear intermittently across these albums. Many tracks lack percussion altogether, with beats derived from flamenco strums. There's ample use of wide stereo separation, but more than most of their progressive peers, it's worked into the melodic ideas, making higher and lower frequencies criss-cross space.  

Paix, the album, is their best-sequenced creation. Opener "Roc Alpin" hews close to the conventions of prog in 1972 — keyboard fanfares, mellotron-like orchestral washes, soaring vocals, and a plain 'ol drum kit bashing away. By closing 25-minute suite "Un jour...la mort" we are in a very different place: lonely guitar landscapes, proto-techno whorls, drone, caws of panic. 

Structure distinguishes all three albums in this reissue project, and the juxtaposing of the sublime with the ugly can be as fascinating as the sounds themselves. N°2 is partitioned with unaccompanied Spanish guitar and closes with a traditionally-styled Portuguese ballad. This austere classicism frames shocks and jolts. "Silen Von Kathy" thunders with kettle drums and Sabbathy doom. The shifts are like being lifted out of the water and dunked back in, taken from placid air to nearly drowning. Ame Debout launches right into the percussion engines and rabid growling. Lighter moments are fleeting, the classical guitar an aside to Ribeiro's most brusque eruptions — as in the two-part "Alpes," where a galloping rave-up ends with the sounds of riders trampled by horses.  

In the context of the 1970s, this music feels tucked away, distant within the Francophone world and hidden from the Anglo, as if lying in wait for our own time. It's similar to how Alice Coltrane's mystic yearning resonates now that it is free of the expectations of mid-century jazz. The last ten years have made the mixing of medieval and the motorized seem natural with the haunts of Demdike Stare and Shackleton. Circuit des Yeux walks the same line between composition and instinct, the pastoral and industrial. She produced a cover of a Ribeiro number to promote these releases. The long suites played on hand-constructed instruments matches the methods of Steven R. Smith, who turns out cult rock while hidden from the touring world. Ribeiro and Moullet's operations don't feel like footnotes to hippy outsiderism anymore. They are the work of guerrillas who have just come down from the hills, ready to ambush our senses. 

Ben Donnelly