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Nigel Morgan Dec 2013
A Tale for the Mid-Winter Season after the Mural by Carl Larrson

On the shortest day I wake before our maids from the surrounding farms have converged on Sundborn. Greta lives with us so she will be asleep in that deep slumber only girls of her age seem to own. Her tiny room has barely more than a bed and a chest for her clothes. There is my first painting of her on the wall, little more a sketch, but she was entranced, at seeing herself so. To the household she is a maid who looks after me and my studio,  though she is a literate, intelligent girl, city-bred from Gamla Stan but from a poor home, a widowed mother, her late father a drunkard.  These were my roots, my beginning, exactly. But her eyes already see a world beyond Sundborn. She covets postcards from my distant friends: in Paris, London, Jean in South America, and will arrange them on my writing desk, sometimes take them to her room at night to dream in the candlelight. I think this summer I shall paint her, at my desk, reading my cards, or perhaps writing her own. The window will be open and a morning breeze will make the flowers on the desk tremble.

Karin sleeps too, a desperate sleep born of too much work and thought and interruption. These days before Christmas put a strain on her usually calm disposition. The responsibilities of our home, our life, the constant visitors, they weigh upon her, and dispel her private time. Time in her studio seems impossible. I often catch her poised to disappear from a family coming-together. She is here, and then gone, as if by magic. With the older children home from their distant schools, and Suzanne arrived from England just yesterday morning, they all cannot do without lengthy conferences. They know better than disturb me. Why do you think there is a window set into my studio door? So, if I am at my easel there should be no knock to disturb. There is another reason, but that is between Karin and I.

This was once a summer-only house, but over the years we have made it our whole-year home. There was much attention given to making it snug and warm. My architect replaced all the windows and all the doors and there is this straw insulation between the walls. Now, as I open the curtains around my bed, I can see my breath float out into the cool air. When, later, I descend to my studio, the stove, damped down against the night, when opened and raddled will soon warm the space. I shall draw back the heavy drapes and open the wooden shutters onto the dark land outside. Only then I will stand before my current painting: *Brita and the Sleigh
.

Current!? I have been working on this painting intermittently for five years, and Brita is no longer the Brita of this picture, though I remember her then as yesterday. It is a picture of a winter journey for a six-year-old, only that journey is just across the yard to the washhouse. Snow, frost, birds gathered in the leafless trees, a sun dog in the sky, Brita pushing her empty sledge, wearing fur boots, Lisbeth’s old coat, and that black knitted hat made by old Anna. It is the nearest I have come to suggesting the outer landscape of this place. I bring it out every year at this time so I can check the light and the shadows against what I see now, not what I remember seeing then. But there will be a more pressing concern for me today, this shortest day.

Since my first thoughts for the final mural in my cycle for the Nationalmuseum I have always put this day aside, whatever I might be doing, wherever I may be. I pull out my first sketches, that book of imaginary tableaux filled in a day and a night in my tiny garden studio in Grez, thinking of home, of snow, the mid-winter, feeling the extraordinary power and shake of Adam of Bremen’s description of 10th C pre-Christian Uppsala, written to describe how barbaric and immoral were the practices and religion of the pagans, to defend the fragile position of the Christian church in Sweden at the time. But as I gaze at these rough beginnings made during those strange winter days in my rooms at the Hotel Chevilon, I feel myself that twenty-five year old discovering my artistic vision, abandoning oils for the flow and smudge of watercolour, and then, of course, Karin. We were part of the Swedish colony at Grez-sur-Loing. Karin lived with the ladies in Pension Laurent, but was every minute beside me until we found our own place, to be alone and be together, in a cupboard of a house by the river, in Marlotte.

Everyone who painted en-plein-air, writers, composers, they all flocked to Grez just south of Fontainebleau, to visit, sometimes to stay. I recall Strindberg writing to Karin after his first visit: It was as if there were no pronounced shadows, no hard lines, the air with its violet complexion is almost always misty; and I painting constantly, and against the style and medium of the time. How the French scoffed at my watercolours, but my work sold immediately in Stockholm. . . and Karin, tall, slim, Karin, my muse, my lover, my model, her boy-like figure lying naked (but for a hat) in the long grass outside my studio. We learned each other there, the technique of bodies in intimate closeness, the way of no words, the sharing of silent thoughts, together on those soft, damp winter days when our thoughts were of home, of Karin’s childhood home at Sundborn. I had no childhood thoughts I wanted to return to, but Karin, yes. That is why we are here now.

In Grez-sur-Loing, on a sullen December day, mist lying on the river, our garden dead to winter, we received a visitor, a Swedish writer and journalist travelling with a very young Italian, Mariano Fortuny, a painter living in Paris, and his mentor the Spaniard Egusquiza. There was a woman too who Karin took away, a Parisienne seamstress I think, Fortuny’s lover. Bayreuth and Wagner, Wagner, Wagner was all they could talk about. Of course Sweden has its own Nordic Mythology I ventured. But where is it? What is it? they cried, and there was laughter and more mulled wine, and then talk again of Wagner.

When the party left I realized there was something deep in my soul that had been woken by talk of the grandeur and scale of Wagner’s cocktail of German and Scandinavian myths and folk tales. For a day and night I sketched relentlessly, ransacking my memory for those old tales, drawing strong men and stalwart, flaxen-haired women in Nordic dress and ornament. But as a new day presented itself I closed my sketch book and let the matter drop until, years later, in a Stockholm bookshop I chanced upon a volume in Latin by Adam of Bremen, his Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, the most famous source to pagan ritual practice in Sweden. That cold winter afternoon in Grez returned to me and I felt, as I had then, something stir within me, something missing from my comfortable world of images of home and farm, family and the country life.

Back in Sundborn this little volume printed in the 18th C lay on my desk like a question mark without a sentence. My Latin was only sufficient to get a gist, but the gist was enough. Here was the story of the palace of Uppsala, the great centre of the pre-Christian pagan cults that brought us Odin and Freyr. I sought out our village priest Dag Sandahl, a good Lutheran but who regularly tagged Latin in his sermons. Yes, he knew the book, and from his study bookshelf brought down an even earlier copy than my own. And there and then we sat down together and read. After an hour I was impatient to be back in my studio and draw, draw these extraordinary images this text brought to life unbidden in my imagination. But I did not leave until I had persuaded Pastor Sandahl to agree to translate the Uppsala section of the Adam of Bremen’s book, and just before Christmas that year, on the day before the Shortest Day, he delivered his translation to my studio. He would not stay, but said I should read the passages about King Domalde and his sacrifice at the Winter Solstice. And so, on the day of the Winter Solstice, I did.

This people have a widely renowned sanctuary called Uppsala.

By this temple is a very large tree with extending branches. It is always green, both in winter and in summer. No one knows what kind of tree this is. There is also a spring there, where the heathens usually perform their sacrificial rites. They throw a live human being into the spring. If he does not resurface, the wishes of the people will come true.

The Temple is girdled by a chain of gold that hangs above the roof of the building and shines from afar, so that people may see it from a distance when they approach there. The sanctuary itself is situated on a plain, surrounded by mountains, so that the form a theatre.

It is not far from the town of Sigtuna. This sanctuary is completely covered with golden ornaments. There, people worship the carved idols of three gods: Thor, the most powerful of them, has his throne in the middle of the hall, on either side of him, Odin and Freyr have their seats. They have these functions: “Thor,” they say, “rules the air, he rules thunder and lightning, wind and rain, good weather and harvests. The other, Odin, he who rages, he rules the war and give courage to people in their battle against enemies. The third is Freyr, he offers to mortals lust and peace and happiness.” And his image they make with a very large phallus. Odin they present armed, the way we usually present Mars, while Thor with the scepter seems to resemble Jupiter. As gods they also worship some that have earlier been human. They give them immortality for the sake of their great deeds, as we may read in Vita sancti Ansgarii that they did with King Eirik.

For all these gods have particular persons who are to bring forward the sacrificial gifts of the people. If plague and famine threatens, they offer to the image of Thor, if the matter is about war, they offer to Odin, but if a wedding is to be celebrated, they offer to Freyr. And every ninth year in Uppsala a great religious ceremony is held that is common to people from all parts of Sweden.”
Snorri also relates how human sacrifice began in Uppsala, with the sacrifice of a king.

Domalde took the heritage after his father Visbur, and ruled over the land. As in his time there was great famine and distress, the Swedes made great offerings of sacrifice at Upsal. The first autumn they sacrificed oxen, but the succeeding season was not improved thereby. The following autumn they sacrificed men, but the succeeding year was rather worse. The third autumn, when the offer of sacrifices should begin, a great multitude of Swedes came to Upsal; and now the chiefs held consultations with each other, and all agreed that the times of scarcity were on account of their king Domalde, and they resolved to offer him for good seasons, and to assault and **** him, and sprinkle the stall of the gods with his blood. And they did so.


There it was, at the end of Adam of Bremen’s description of Uppsala, this description of King Domalde upon which my mural would be based. It is not difficult to imagine, or rather the event itself can be richly embroidered, as I have over the years made my painting so. Karin and I have the books of William Morris on our shelves and I see little difference between his fixation on the legends of the Arthur and the Grail. We are on the cusp here between the pagan and the Christian.  What was Christ’s Crucifixion but a self sacrifice: as God in man he could have saved himself but chose to die for Redemption’s sake. His blood was not scattered to the fields as was Domalde’s, but his body and blood remains a continuing symbol in our right of Communion.

I unroll the latest watercolour cartoon of my mural. It is almost the length of this studio. Later I will ask Greta to collect the other easels we have in the house and barn and then I shall view it properly. But for now, as it unrolls, my drama of the Winter Solstice comes alive. It begins on from the right with body of warriors, bronze shields and helmets, long shafted spears, all set against the side of Uppsala Temple and more distant frost-hoared trees. Then we see the King himself, standing on a sled hauled by temple slaves. He is naked as he removes the furs in which he has travelled, a circuit of the temple to display himself to his starving people. In the centre, back to the viewer, a priest-like figure in a red cloak, a dagger held for us to see behind his back. Facing him, in druidic white, a high priest holds above his head a gold pagan monstrance. To his left there are white cloaked players of long, straight horns, blue cloaked players of the curled horns, and guiding the shaft of the sled a grizzled shaman dressed in the skins and furs of animals. The final quarter of my one- day-to-be-a-mural unfolds to show the women of temple and palace writhing in gestures of grief and hysteria whilst their queen kneels prostate on the ground, her head to the earth, her ladies ***** behind her. Above them all stands the forever-green tree whose origin no one knows.

Greta has entered the studio in her practiced, silent way carrying coffee and rolls from the kitchen. She has seen Midvinterblot many times, but I sense her gaze of fascination, yet again, at the figure of the naked king. She remembers the model, the sailor who came to stay at Kartbacken three summers ago. He was like the harpooner Queequeg in Moby ****. A tattooed man who was to be seen swimming in Toftan Lake and walking bare-chested in our woods. A tall, well-muscled, almost silent man, whom I patiently courted to be my model for King Dolmade. I have a book of sketches of him striding purposefully through the trees, the tattooed lines on his shoulders and chest like deep cuts into his body. This striding figure I hid from the children for some time, but from Greta that was impossible. She whispered to me once that when she could not have my substantial chest against her she would imagine the sailor’s, imagine touching and following his tattooed lines. This way, she said, helped her have respite from those stirrings she would so often feel for me. My painting, she knew, had stirred her fellow maids Clara and Solveig. Surely you know this, she had said, in her resolute and direct city manner. I have to remember she is the age of my eldest, who too must hold such thoughts and feelings. Karin dislikes my sailor king and wishes I would not hide the face of his distraught queen.

Today the sunrise is at 9.0, just a half hour away, and it will set before 3.0pm. So, after this coffee I will put on my boots and fur coat, be well scarfed and hatted (as my son Pontus would say) and walk out onto my estate. I will walk east across the fields towards Spardasvvägen. The sky is already waiting for the sun, but waits without colour, hardly even a tinge of red one might expect.

I have given Greta her orders to collect every easel she can find so we can take Midvinterblot off the floor and see it in all its vivid colour and form. In February I shall begin again to persuade the Nationalmuseum to accept this work. We have a moratorium just now. I will not accept their reasoning that there is no historical premise for such a subject, that such a scene has no place in a public gallery. A suggestion has been made that the Historiska museet might house it. But I shall not think of this today.

Karin is here, her face at the studio window beckons entry. My Darling, yes, it is midwinter’s day and I am dressing to greet the solstice. I will dress, she says, to see Edgar who will be here in half an hour to discuss my designs for this new furniture. We will be lunching at noon. Know you are welcome. Suzanne is talking constantly of England, England, and of course Oxford, this place of dreaming spires and good looking boys. We touch hands and kiss. I sense the perfume of sleep, of her bed.

Outside I must walk quickly to be quite alone, quite apart from the house, in the fields, alone. It is on its way: this light that will bathe the snowed-over land and will be my promise of the year’s turn towards new life.

As I walk the drama of Midvinterblot unfolds in a confusion of noise, the weeping of women, the physical exertions of the temple slaves, the priests’ incantations, the riot of horns, and then suddenly, as I stand in this frozen field, there is silence. The sun rises. It stagge
To see images of the world of Sundborn and Carl Larrson (including Mitvinterblot) see http://www.clg.se/encarl.aspx
tangshunzi Jun 2014
Questa storia d'amore che è iniziato con un incontro casuale .è cresciuto nel corso lettera per lettera scritta abiti da sposa 2014 a mano e culminata in un matrimonio costruito per dueèè uscito da un film .Un buon pazzo.romantico come vengono flick .E la fuga risultante con immagini di Fotografia Brita .altrettanto romantico.Vedere l'intera giornata svolgersi nella galleria e ancora di più su vestiti da sposa questo amore da favola .hanno un ascolto qui .

Condividi questa splendida galleria ColorsSeasonsWinterSettingsOutdoorStylesElopement

Kate ha incontrato Brad durante una tappa .Avevano chimica immediata .ma lei gli disse che se voleva continuare a crescere quello che avevano .avrebbe dovuto farloè? Ia lettera scritta a mano .Così ha fatto .Ha ottenuto la prima lettera di San Valentino 'Day .e nel corso di un movimento vestiti da sposa ( lui per la sua città ) e una quarantina di lettere .che cosa è stato messo a punto una proposta .nascosto nel codice scrittoè' Dal giorno del nostro primo incontro sono stato affascinato dala tua bellezza



.la personalità e la vostra fede .Sono stato benedetto per arrivare a sapere che in tal modo divertente e unico .** veramente sentito come l'uomo più fortunato a causa del vostro sforzo e il desiderio di conoscere me.Sono onorato che si vorrebbe perseguire vicenda mentre ancora tiene fedele a te stesso e la tua promessa.C'è stato qualcosa che ** pensato per molto tempo .Katherine Anne . "Allora .ha proposto !
Mi dà i brividi ogni volta che l'** letto !Le parole non possono nemmeno cominciare a descrivere quanto sia speciale Kate \u0026Giorno delle nozze Brad ' stato per noi .E ' stata un'esperienza incredibile .Nick e io eravamo gli unici ospiti e ci siamo chiesti in tutto centro di Savannah e Tybee Island.E 'stata una giornata perfetta

Fotografia : Brita Fotografia | Abito da sposa : ! Wedding Angels | Cerimonia : Troup Square.Savannah | Hair \u0026 Makeup : Heather Ferguson | Bridal Shoes : Kelly e Katie | Radio Show : The Bert MostraFotografia Brita è un membro del nostro Little Black Book .Scopri come i membri sono scelti visitando la nostra pagina delle FAQ .Fotografia Brita VIEW
Eleganza tradizionale a Battery Gardens_vestiti da sposa
Mike Bergeron Sep 2012
You know how when
You put a kettle on a stove,
Maybe for tea
Or something else maybe
You get the kettle
To put on the stove
And you put water in it
From the tap
Or if you're in
The inner city
Then maybe from
A jug
From cvs
Or rite aid
I don't know which is closer
To your kettle
That you're putting the
Water in
To put on the stove
But the tap smells funny
And tastes like minerals
And artificiality
So if you have a bit of money, Maybe an on-tap
Filter or brita
You turn the little
**** on the front
Of the oven
And you hear
The distressed, hurried
Sound of a component
Desperately trying
To do its job
It seems like forever
But it's just a couple
Seconds
The spark catches
The gas
And glorious blue
Energy leaps out
And causes
Instant condensation
On the side of the
Kettle you've filled
With water
And put on the stove
And then
Primordial chemistry
As old as old
Changes ****
Around inside
No time
For a chem lesson
Just listen
And then after a few minutes
A blast of
Piping hot
Shrill
Pure energy
Explodes out of the top
In an earsplitting
Harried call
To you to let you
Know the kettle
You put on the stove
Is now ready
For you.
All that pressure,
From so much activity,
Before you even
Turned the heat on
You walked around
Gathering materials
And moving about
And all the calories
You burn thinking
About it
And then the
Thermal activity
Which is breathtaking
In its simple
But ever so complicated
Perfect order
And predictability
And all of this simply
Amazing process
Culminates
In one constant,
High energy geyser
Of released pressure.
This is equivalent
To the results
Of one thought
About you.
What a life
As a kettle.
Yea.
Cullen Donohue Feb 2015
A gray-haired professor
Once harped on us about our titles.
I was sitting to the left of a cute brunette,
Brita.
We'd ****** the previous night.
And now, we analyzed stories --
Dripping in analogy and pretentiousness.
Our backpacks smelled of coffee,
They got a second-hand kick off the aromas
Of our hangovers and homework,
Completed in the coffee shop just off Harvard St.
I smiled over Janet's essay about a dead lover;
It was called, "Till Death,"
Which was apparently too revealing.
So was Brita's blouse.
My essay was "Black hoodies and blind intersections"
And it tackled grief, fate and the dangers of running at night.
It, too, was too revealing.
Unlike the hoodie it discussed.
I never got the titular lesson,
But figured I was more of a poet anyway.
This was based on a Writing Prompt from Reddit:(http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2um1yo/wp_you_are_approached_by_a_man_who_offers_you/)
Laurel Stone Dec 2013
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Jake and Brita were searching for not just a mouse.
Their stockings were hung by the fridge with care,
In hopes that mom Laurel would willingly share.

In just a short time they were snug in their beds,
While visions of chipmunks danced in their heads.
It wasn't just chipmunks they dreamed of that night,
But also the rabbits who they made take flight.

In a short time there arose such a clatter
They jumped from the couch to see what was the matter.
And there to their wondering eyes did appear
The spirits of others that used to live here.

First, there was Josie who made the most noise,
Chasing the others, especially the boys.
But Ari and Teddy would not let her run
Because they decided she'd stifle their fun.

Tori was circling to see what to do
When Kobie and Liver quickly ran through.
Then they ALL came together to join in a song
While Brita and Jake, wide eyed, looked on.

The message they brought on that night of a birth
Was of PEACE and GOOD WILL to all on the earth.
This message was clear to those who would listen,
As clear as the snow which often would glisten.

And then, in the distance, was the sound of a whistle
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But they were heard to exclaim as they flew out of sight,
"Peace to all of God's creatures, and to all a good-night!"
ChloKoo Nov 2010
A hot hot shower after a cold cold snow
Two arms holding you tightly and refusing to let you go
Be the be the be to bop the bop
Nuzzling with man's best friend and stirring up the trouble
It is quite fun living inside your very own bubble
Be the be the be to bop the bop
Filter with my Brita, lean with my shoulder
Let time pass you slow, as you grow older
Be the be the be to bop the bop
Watch the sun set, sleep when the sun rises
Beat the **** out of Mr. Piñata to win the colorful prizes
Be the be the be to bop the bop
Harry J Baxter May 2013
The morning is serene
sober shafts of light
filter through the trees
which were planted
lining the streets
to make the city seem
just a little less man made
and it isn't too hot
and there isn't too much wind
only a light breeze
and a gentle wash of
sunlight

Mornings are holy times
times of reflection
times of rekindling
the spark
of the spirit of humanity
and I'm not a morning person
so I'm graced with these moments
much too rarely
but they are my best moments
and my favorite moments
easy summer mornings
when the birds chirp their loudest
and the sky is the cool blue
of the pacific ocean
morning for the usually dreary
hydrates the brain
better than any cool
perspiring
glass of brita filter water
the morning is the birth
of a new day
I woke up on the couch again.
I've been sleeping there each night that he's out of town without cell signal.
Not that he even lives with me.
But sleeping in my own bed still feels lonely if there aren't texts from him to look forward to.
No matter how many new friends I make, I can't fill the empty spot.
And it's okay.
"Distance" makes the heart grow "fonder", but all I can hope is that it'll make the heart grow.
So much on our minds.
Choices to make and places to go and work to be done.
And the desire to just drop it all for a week and be together is always there.
Patience, I say, there will be a week for that.
So I will wait.
As much as it hurts for the present, it's worth it.

I got up off the couch once I'd written him a good morning text.
I was playing some of my old music and getting lost in the atmospheric melodies, and just pouring water into the coffee machine instead of waiting for the Brita pitcher to filter it, and then use that, was my method for breaking through the anxiety barrier today.
From there, coffee was followed by a desire for food (because coffee alone is just asking for a stomachache) so I thought of my pancake mix.
Here goes. I'm not measuring this out, my measuring cups are all in the ***** dishes pile. I've washed a bunch of glasses and this one will fit enough pancake batter for two or three small flapjacks.
Here I go.
journal
they look like crepes and not pancakes. but it's alright.
Ken Pepiton Mar 2020
For everhow long this is going on,
this March Madness,
this Ides of March B'ware Beta test
based on the Shemitic glyph for house,

But, I read, some where, the A is a bull, maybe with a broken neck,
like, once upon a time
A looked like
a bull and not like house in the hills
home-base kinda feeling
in word, like Aces!
one hand claps another's,

we made it.

But beta,
home formed from
the spoken Shemetic phoneme for dwelling place
Beth, Bethel of divine upload download demo fame, as house of El,

The symbol ranked by sequence second
where the trickster bro in the great test story
wrestled with El,
and witnessed messengers of the same
going up and down with word from some going to and fro

What if that is where the idea of beta testing began?

What if?
Did you ever wish you had a real Brita water filter?
Beta tested your pattern ecog.
gotcha.

 It is spelled βήτα in modern monotonic orthography and pronounced [ˈvita].
Testing
testing testing pro
fessing fessing fessing. Which makes more sense?
Changing filters

— The End —