where rainbows spangled the gilded air…

The bright sapphires slipped between his fingers and lay on the sequined grass behind him, illuminating his footprints as he entered the dark vaults of the forest.















With a cry Sanders raised his jewelled arm. In the sunlight the faint nodes of the gemstones he had stuffed into his cuff shone in the tissues of his arm like inlaid stars















Then he realised why Thorensen had brought the jewels to the young woman, and why she had seized on them so eagerly. By some optical or electromagnetic freak, the intense focus of light within the stones simultaneously produced a compression of time, so that the discharge of light from the surfaces reversed the processes of crystallization. Perhaps it was this gift of time which accounted for the eternal appeal of precious gems, as well as of all baroque painting and architecture. Their intricate crests and cartouches, occupying more than their own volume of space, so seemed to contain a greater ambient time, providing that unmistakable premonition of immortality sensed within St Peter's or the palace at Nymphenburg.


ballard / the crystal world























Here, wear this jewel for me, 'tis my picture
Twelfth Night / III iv 228

Le Sang d'un Poete

Every poem is a coat of arms which must be deciphered. How much blood and tears in exchange for those axes, those gules, those unicorns, those torches, those towers, those martlets, those scattered stars and those fields azure!

Free to choose the faces, the forms, the gestures, the sounds, the acts and the places which he likes, he composes with them a realistic documentary of unreal events. The musician will emphasize the sounds and the silences.

The author dedicates this film allegory to the memory of Pisanello, Paulo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Andrea del Castagno, painters of coats of arms and enigmas.

observo somnia

As a young man, Jerome had collected an extensive personal library of pagan literary works, which he believed conflicted with his Christian faith. This conflict surfaced in a dream in which, brought before the Throne of Judgment, he was told that he was a follower of Cicero rather than Christ. After being subjected to innumerable lashes, Jerome swore that he would never read such worldly books again. It is said that when he awakened his back bore the marks of the lash. Later Jerome dreamed about his own death, as well as about having the supernatural power to fly (a common dream theme, though Jerome might not have been aware of just how common it was).

It was perhaps these dream experiences that led Saint Jerome to mistranslate the Hebrew word for witchcraft, anan, as "observing dreams" (in Latin, observo somnia) when commissioned to translate the Bible by Pope Damasus L Anan appears ten times in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), but Jerome translates it as "observing dreams" only three times, in such statements as, "you shall not practice augury nor observe dreams," which more accurately reads, "you shall not practice augury or witchcraft." These simple changes, which made the Bible appear to discourage attending to one's dreams, significantly altered the course of how dreams were viewed for centuries.

holmleigh