The Writing Wolf

Aquamarine, the gem of the sea, is named with the Greek word for sea water.  Aqua sparkles like the sea and its color is pale to medium blue, sometimes with a slight hint of green. Aquamarine is a member of the Beryl family (which includes emeralds). Its blue / blue-green color comes from ferrous iron - a double refraction of light from different angles within the stone causes it to reflect the two different colors. Aquamarine is the birthstone for March and legends say that it is the treasure of mermaids coming from their tears; with the power to keep sailors safe at sea. Aquamarine is said to be a particularly strong charm when immersed in water - which is a good thing, since that is when its power is most needed! Aquamarine was also said to have a soothing influence on land, also on married couples. Its power is supposed to help husbands and wives work out their differences and ensure a long and happy marriage, which makes it a good anniversary gift. Traditionally, it has been held ...

The Old Testament Trinity subject is best known from this famous icon painted by St Andrey Rublev (created sometime between 1408 and 1425). The icon is actually more properly called the "Hospitality of Abraham" (see Genesis 18). The appearance of the three angels to Abraham at Mamre was a type of the Holy Trinity, not an appearance of the Holy Trinity itself as represented here.   Icons themselves have been and continue to be controversial but it is difficult to ignore the empathy that is in this picture and the sheer love of the painter/saint for his subjects.

Thunder Thunder Little Brother Do you hear them Drumming deeply They are coming Little Brother To reclaim Their holy land Thunder Thunder Little Brother Ancient herds Are drumming deeply And your gentle Feathered Brother Leads them onward Take my hand You can follow Little Brother Herd and tribe Are one again Thunder Thunder Little Brother Heart of beast And soul of man

Buddhist monks in the mountains of south-east China have long cultivated gingko trees in the courtyards of their monasteries. Some trees planted at temples are believed to be over 1,500 years old. The gingko trees were valued for their medicinal uses, edible seeds, and perhaps their beauty.  In about 800 AD, the monks brought the gingko with them to Japan where many years later the tree was first seen by a European, the German botanist Engelbert Kaempfer. Also known as maidenhair tree, the Gingko is the oldest species of tree on earth today; it’s been around since the days of the dinosaur. The Gingko is immune to the effects of most diseases and parasites For thousands of years the Chinese have used ginkgo leaves to treat disorders associated with aging. Today numerous scientific studies appear to have shown that Ginkgo does indeed help to slow memory loss in those suffering from Alzheimer’s, multi-infarct dementia (MID), and age-associated memory impairment (AAMI). Some studies sugge...

For thousands of years, most seawater pearls were retrieved by divers working in the Indian Ocean  in areas like the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and in the Gulf of Mannar. Starting in the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD), the Chinese hunted extensively for seawater pearls in the South China Sea. When Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Americas, they discovered that around the islands of Cubagua and Margarita, some 200 km north of the Venezuelan coast, was an extensive pearl bed. One discovered and named pearl, La Peregrina, was offered to the Spanish queen.   According to Garcilasso de la Vega, who says that he saw La Peregrina at Seville in 1507,  it was found at Panama in 1560 by a black slve who was rewarded with his liberty, and his owner with the office of alcalde of Panama. Black pearls, frequently referred to as Black Tahitian Pearls, are highly valued because of their rarity; the culturing process for them dictates a smaller volume output and can never be mass produced. This is ...

Renoir's intriguing painting 'Umbrellas' , painted about about 1881-6, shows a bustling Paris street in the rain. The composition of the painting does not focus on the centre of the picture which is a tangle of hands. It even cuts off figures at either edge like a photographic snapshot. This kind of unconventional arrangement was something that several of the Impressionists, including Renoir and Degas, enjoyed experimenting with. Although it looks naturalistically haphazard, the composition is actually carefully considered. Look at the pattern of angles and shapes made by the umbrellas. The work is particularly intriguing in that it shows the artist at two separate points in his career, the second of which was a moment of crisis as he fundamentally reconsidered his painting style. Look at the difference between the way he has painted the woman on the left, and those on the right. During the early 1880s, he became increasingly disillusioned with the Impressionist technique. ...

Image courtesy of the Malta Tourist Board From megaliths to medieval dungeons and Calypso's Cave and a countryside dotted with the oldest known human structures in the world, the Maltese Islands are positively mythic. The narrow meandering streets of their towns and villages are crowded with Renaissance cathedrals and Baroque palaces. The Islands have rightly been described as an open-air museum. But the capital city, Valleta, the smallest capital city in the EU, is both beautiful and intriguing.  The back streets on a desert-hot summer day are redolent of all the smells of the Mediterranean – both good and bad! But you are surrounded by some of the most beautiful buildings in Europe! Valletta owes its existence to the Knights of St John, who planned the city as a refuge to care for injured soldiers and pilgrims during the Crusades in the 16th century. Until the arrival of the Knights, Mount Sceberras, on which Valletta stands, lying between two natural harbours, was an arid tongue...

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core. Innisfree is a small island at the eastern end of Lough Gill in County Sligo, Ireland.  Yeats spent part of nearly every year in Sligo while growing up. He often walked out from Sligo town to Lough Gill. First published in the collection The Rose in 1893, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” is an example of Yeat’s earlier lyric poems. The rhythm of the poem perfectly reflects...

There around 400 forms of Salix - deciduous trees and shrubs found on  moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.  The leaves and bark of the willow tree have been mentioned in ancient texts from Assyria, Sumer and Egypt as a remedy for aches and fever, and the Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates wrote about its medicinal properties in the 5th century BC.  Native Americans across the American continent relied on it as a staple of their medical treatments. This is because Willows contain salicylic acid, the precursor to aspirin.  Willows all have abundant watery sap; bark which is heavily charged with the salicylic acid; soft, usually pliant, tough wood; slender branches; and large, fibrous roots. Willow wood is also used in the manufacture of all kinds of things - boxes, brooms and particularly cricket bats!  But, it is also used for wands - Willow is one of the nine sacred trees mentioned in Wicca and witchcraft, with several magical uses. In the Wiccan Re...

Some people believe that to see a white peacock will bring eternal happiness.  Woven into the myths and belief systems of cultures worldwide, the peacock presents itself through the sciences of alchemy and Roman astrology, the religions of Islam and Christianity, as well as in Egyptian, Chinese, and Indian cultures. Through the peacock's 100 feathery eyes, the Chinese Goddess of Compassion, Kuan Yin, is able to watch over and guard all living things on Earth. "Peacocks are symbols of beauty, reminding us to take pleasure in life. The peacock is pure of heart." – Constantine The White Peacock is a creature of the light.  Blue Peacocks get most of their color from light reflection rather than a dye.  The feathers have barbs, which in turn have rods.  It is these rods that controls how light reflects and produces the green, golden yellow, brown and bright blue.  White peacocks have a slightly different arrangement of the rods thus don't develop the usual colors. The Whit...

Ophelia by John Everett Millais, completed in 1852 and currently held in the Tate Britain in London. The painting depicts the character from Shakespeare's play Hamlet , singing as she floats like a mermaid to her death by drowning. The scene is described in Act IV, Scene VII of the play in a speech by Queen Gertrude: There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come, Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up; Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indu'd Unto that element; bu...