#the magi

[possible-streetwear]

Kevin “Geordie” Walker - Killing Joke, Murder Inc., So36, K-93, The Damage Manuel, The Magi

18 décembre 1958 - 26 novembre 2023

[majestativa]

I summon from the collective dream Symbols of the magian world To do my will under Venus’ sign: I summon salt and sulphur I summon mercury and gold I summon diamond and ruby I summon lymph and blood I summon serpent and lion I summon white tincture and red I summon the tree bearing moon and sun as fruit.

— Ithell Colquhoun, I Saw Water: An Occult Novel and Other Selected Writings, (2014)

[huariqueje]

.... Mafalda .... en The Magi from Middle East....

There is less than a month until the Three Magisians (Wise Men) arrive. hey mom?

That's how it is .

And tell me, they come from the Middle East, right?

Hey ... yes of course.

Zas!!! And what are they? Arabs or Israelis?

They always stayed above that issue, my child.

Well, it's good for you that they are magicians so you don't have to explain to me how they did it!! Hey?

Quino

[awigglycultist]

Matching profile pictures for you and you're besties perhaps?

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Some early thoughts on Orpheus from Antonio Cascelli in his essay “l’Orfeo: Memory, Recollection, and the Tragedy of Choosing Between Seeing and Hearing”

And I just gotta say, there are Ficinian implications and they are just piling atop each other. Especially given his love and dedication to music and the power of music, especially in its role between lovers and how it interfaces with sight/seeing as modes of knowing Love(r) and Truth/Divine

I just - thoughts~~~~

[apenitentialprayer]

Pope Francis's January 2024 Prayer Intention: For the Gift of Diversity in the Church

O Holy Spirit, who builds the unity of the Church and shows Your infinite creativity through the diversity of charisms, fill the Church with Your gifts according to the marvelous design of God's providence, so that we may learn to appreciate the gifts of others and work together for the good of all, placing those charisms at the service of the community. May diversity among Christians never be a cause of division, but of mutual enrichment, because diversity gives depth and richness to life. Do not allow us to fall into the temptation to consider our gifts as superior to those of others, or ourselves as superior to them. May there be room for all in the Church, and may we grow together in harmony, in faith, and in love, as one body; the Body of Christ. Amen

The Adoration of the Magi, by Georges Trubert, illuminated manuscript from Provence, circa. 1480-1490.

[commandernachos]

[weltato]

lean

iconic

also iconic is gruelle's face here

[peterkothe]

———-🎄MERRY CHRISTMAS🎄————-

A lone poor child, with only his beloved drum to play, joins with the Magi, the Wisemen of the East following a star, to find the Christ Child. While they presented their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, the drummer boy had only his song to play; a song that brought happiness to Child’s face! A with that, a great blessing to the Drummer Boy, for he gave all he could for the King of Kings!

“Blessed are the pure of heart: for they shall see God.”-Matthew 5:8

[megatherium-americanum]

Three Wise Men ; Joseph Christian Leyendecker

[possible-streetwear]

Kevin “Geordie” Walker - Killing Joke, Murder Inc., So36, K-93, The Damage Manuel, The Magi

18 décembre 1958 - 26 novembre 2023

[elceetheporcupine]

The Magi (WIP)

A festive WIP of my fellow sinners that I chose to reveal publicly for Epiphany as part of Three Kings' Day. I was so worried I wasn't gonna get the lineart done in time, but I did and I'm proud. My plan is to try to render it and insert a background, but I'm not sure. Enjoy Bomba Coco, Argea, and Mima. They won't give you anything except beats or bars.

Posted using PostyBirb

[artschoolglasses]

Journey of the Magi, Benozzo Gozzoli, 1459-62

[awigglycultist]

Bred, Gruelle, and Spektr: If I can't cause tiny bits of chaos every day, I think my body will shut down.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Wrote this weird little....thing? concerning my favourite letter from Marsilio to Giovanni. The famous "nothing is a feast without my Giovanni" letter.

(Shout out to @centaurianthropology for the pointing out that we know Giovanni because Marsilio loved him. 100% riffed that line from you)

-----

The Day After the Feast of San Cristoforo and San Giovanni

July 26, 1474

Centre us in the church of San Cristoforo a Novoli, the day after the feast of both San Cristoforo, the church’s namesake, and San Giovanni. Entre Marsilio who is busy missing Giovanni.

His Giovanni, to be precise.

He is writing as much, to Giovanni, his Giovanni, that yes there was a holy day, a holy act, a holy moment celebrated but can it be called a feast? By others, maybe. But the feast day of San Cristoforo and San Giovanni is no feast for Marsilio if his Giovanni is not present. His hero, his Achates, his sweet delight, his sacred one. See how dear Giovanni is to his Marsilio?

-

Sacred and secret – to be sacred is often to be secret. To be set aside, to be held quiet and close and in safety. The holy sacrament is the Mysterium, the great mystery, which should always bring a person to stillness which is, at the end of the day, who and what God is.  

Marsilio considered his and Giovanni’s love to be a sacred thing. Something to hold close, something that quite probably brought them to stillness. But secret? No, never that. That is not Marsilio.

Louder than grackles he’s banging on doors, hanging on bells, hollering as a crier about Giovanni. Everyone should know his name, should know that Marsilio loves him, that their love is something exciting, something new, something special. So special he will build into the framework of his philosophy, his theology, a sacred sedilia for them to sit together. Off to the side, holding hands, as if they were married.

-

Which they are, Marsilio believes, in a manner of speaking. He is telling Giovanni right now, write now that it is God’s desire that they should live together on earth with a single will and similar way of life and in heaven under the same principle and in an equal degree of happiness. He is writing that love has many forms as there are lovers since all men, after all, love. If a man does not love, he is no man. That Marsilio is closer to Giovanni’s thoughts than Giovanni’s own tongue and hand therefore between their minds the ministry of tongue and hand cannot intervene. They are the sweetest of morsels. They are love and service. Their minds and souls were transfused into each other, in a single instance. A gentle pouring of grace and love. God forbid that what burns within should not be seen by others – it is only by being seen by others can they be understood. The world will witness, will be made to look and see and acknowledge that their love is beautiful. That God ordained that they should live their lives closely, that they should find each other, know each other (spiritually), place themselves (spiritually) inside one another (spiritually).

Since, as Marsilio says, there is to be no ministry of hands or mouths or tongues between them because their love is divine and not earthly.

Save for all the times that it is earthly.

Which has Marsilio explaining in his fervent, frenzied fashion that God made man and so understands how difficult and dangerous is the providence which He has given man to live in. And salvation requires trust in divine mercy, so trust. Trust. Plato, too, understands. And Marsilio has interpretated Plato in a manner to dictate that, well, since his soul and Giovanni’s soul remain oriented towards Love and Beauty, they do not fall too far down the ladder of Truth. Only a rung, maybe. They’re still on their way to becoming God, themselves. Sacred.

-

Marsilio as priest would know the importance of Secretum. That which is hidden, that which is a mystery, that which is set apart, withdrawn, private. The rite of Confession, after all, is an integral sacrament. Who took Marsilio’s? Or was he heretical and kept some secrets for God alone? A dangerous act, if he did. For himself, for the souls of his parishioners. A priest should be in a state of spiritual purity before he performs mass. Another sacred rite, sacred ritual, where the silence of the great mystery ahead of the elevation of the host is called secret.

-

Secret, too, is the wide swath of empty space in the history of Marsilio shaped tall and heroic as the man Giovanni was. Stings, doesn’t it? Like a wound gaping. Giovanni is a great mystery. He was a man who lived sixty-five to sixty-six years on this earth, beloved of Marsilio who lived sixty-five to sixty-six years on this earth dying as they did ten years apart from each other. To the day? To the month, at least? Unclear. Giovanni’s last will and testament is in Florence’s state archives: Notarile Antecosimano, 15790, Francesco di Ottaviano, notary, fols. 139r.–150r. Would it hold a date of death? Maybe not – but it would hold the idea of a date. More exactness would require a visit to his parish and that would require knowing where he lived when he died and who recorded his death. And that is his death, another sacred mystery, but not his life. His life with Marsilio, his life after Marsilio, his life outside of Marsilio.

There were daughters, possibly four of them. A wife. Brothers. A father named Nicolo and mother named question-mark. All the women in his life a question mark. They existed and were impactful, but their lives and names have been chased out of the historical record. Giovanni himself barely leaves a shadow of a whisper.

We know him because Marsilio loved him.

We know him because Marsilio loved him and Marsilio’s words were thought worthy of preservation because he happened to catch the attention of Cosimo de’ Medici one day who decided that it would be Marsilio who translated the corpus of Plato into clean, beautiful, orderly Latin.

We know him because Marsilio loved him and Marsilio caught Cosimo’s attention and translated Plato and managed to persuade men with surnamed like Valori and Pazzi and Medici to fund the printing of his manuscripts which helped ensure their survival.

Marsilio loved Giovanni and Marsilio loved Cosimo and Cosimo loved Marsilio and Marsilio and Cosimo loved Plato together and Marsilio and Cosimo loved each other because of Plato and Marsilio loved Giovanni because of a mutual friend named Domenico Galletti who Marsilio loved and who loved Marsilio.

But, fundamentally, yes, it comes down to the intensity with which Marsilio loved. Carving space for Giovanni into his beloved philosophy, into every possible reference where it would be applicable, and even times when it is not applicable.

Marsilio loved. Giovanni is remembered.  

But daughters and wife and mother all had names and people who loved them. Tangled webs of knowing and being known that did not withstand the test of time for reasons of sex and literacy and knowledge-making and luck and culture and faith and language and civility-making and time and acts of nature.

-

(1966, bad year, bad flood.)

-

But Giovanni was loved. Is loved, since books exist today where Marsilio is telling the world he loves Giovanni, telling Giovanni he loves Giovanni. Written once, the words crash forward into the future.

Could he have imagined it? Giovanni, standing at mass in Marsilio’s church, listening to his lover preach. Watching the hands that presumably had ministry with his body raise the body of Christ. Watching the mouth and tongue that presumably had ministry with his body, eat the body of Christ. Drink the blood of Christ. These heavenly things that held no value for Marsilio unless his Giovanni was there. Could Giovanni have imagined this? Marsilio certainly did. But did Giovanni?

Because of luck, time, acts of nature, acts of God, knowledge-making, history-making, culture, faith, sex, notions of civility, all we have for his answer is loudly oppressive silence.