She had rings on her fingers, bracelets on her arm...

She had rings on her fingers
Bracelets on her arm

Vanessa Paradis & Jeanne Moreau in "Le Tourbillon De La Vie"
French actress Jeanne Moreau was singing le Tourbillon de la vie in François Truffaut's film 'Jules et Jim'.
Lyrics written by Cyrus Bassiak

Chacun pour soi est reparti.
Dans l'tourbillon de la vie

Lyrics:

She had rings on her fingers,bracelets on her arm
And she sang in a voice, that soon wove its charm

Bewitched was I, by her pale opal eyes
And her pale oval face, seemed to hypnotize

We met, we knew, we lost each other from view
We met, we restarted,then once again parted

Each blown their way,by the whirwind of life
I saw her again one evening,now ages ago

She smiled once more,to the sound of banjos
I got drunk as I listened,moved more and more

Alcohol makes one forget, what happened before
I woke to her kisses,on my burning brow

We met, we knew, we lost each other from view
We met, we restarted, then once again parted

Each blown their way, by the whirwind of life
I saw her again, and she fell into my arms

When one has met,why lose each other from view?
When one has started again,why separate?

So we were blown together, in the whirlwind of life
In each other’ s arms, we continued to turn


Photos:

http://www.astronomy.ie/images/saturn_family1.jpg
http://www.astronoross.info/Images/galaxie_tourbillon.jpg

Posted by: Poly Hatjimanolaki

The Journal Poesia e Spiritualita joins Urania's Gardens

First issue of "Poesia e Spiritualita" with Polyxene's Kasda work ANTHROPOS appearing on the cover

The Journal Poesia e Spiritualità joins Urania’ s Gardens http://rivistapoesiaespiritualita.blogspot.com/

This journal, which is issued every six months, was founded in 2007 by the Italian poet and writer Donatella Bisutti, along with a considerable group of poets, philosophers, psychoanalysts, anthropologists, writers and artists, with the purpose of exploring, in a broad sense, new spiritual values of life and to fill a gap in this materialistic age. It is a multidisciplinary approach with an aim to propose poetry as a privileged instrument of knowledge, keeping in sight the historical review founded by Henry Michaux, Hermès, in XXc France
Even though, Poesia e Spiritualità, is highly scientific, it addresses itself not only to professional readers but to all those who are interested in cultural subjects and are looking for the development of their own personal spiritual life.The first two issues of the journal were presented at a Round Table in the annual meeting of Torino e Spiritualità, last September in Turin, represented, besides the Editor, by famous poets like Franco Loi, who are among the regular contributors of Poesia e Spiritualita.
The journal has also been presented in December 08, in Paris at the Maison de l’Italie, with the participation of poets Bernard Noël and Guy Goffette, Its coming presentations are scheduled, for next February, at the Columbia University in NewYork, at the Lisbon University and the Isitituto Italiano di Cultura next April, to be followed by a presentation at the Parliament House Library of Roma, the Bulgarian Embassy and the Istituti Italiani di Cultura in Stockholm and other places of our world.The journal has appealed to many important cultural representatives from all over the world such as Unesco member Pietro Laureano, poet Adonis, the founder of Agroecology Pierre Rabhi, the historians Franco Cardini, Michel Roquebert and Francesco Zambon, the psychiatrist Eugenio Borgna, the writer Avraham Burg, the theologian Leonardo Boff.and has established links with many Countries through their Cultural Associations, Foundations and Reviews as:TorinoSpiritualità, ItalyAssociation Culturelle Les Fioretti, Saorge, FranceRivista Amastra-N-Gallat, Galizia, SpainMaison des Ecrivains, Rabat, MaroccoDipartimento Educazione Castello di Rivoli, Torino, ItalyFondazione per il Libro, la Musica e la Cultura, Settore Istruzione, Fiera del libro, TorinoArtooth, Independent Artists Network, GreeceEvery issue contains a Dossier on a particular subject to be explored by essayists , poets and artists. On the occasion of the World Year of Astronomy, the Journal Poesia e Spiritualità has planned to join the project Urania’ Gardens, proposed by its contributor writer and artist Polyxene Kasda and by writer and physicist Poly Hatjimanolaki and to dedicate its next issue to astronomy with contributions from the Italian area with special regard to the Italian famous scientist Galileo Galilei, a large choice of whose private correspondence has just been published in Italy.

Happy New Year

When the island of Delos was erring under the sea it was called Asteria

Happy New Year

Posted by: Polyxene Kasda

Les jardins d' Uranie, K- Droz France

Cadran solaire Clando


Urania’s Gardens

Terra Incognita Leyzour

K-Droz, our association of artists, organized a meeting on December 20 with the following agenda :

- to present the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and the Urania’s Gardens initiative,
- to awaken the interest of the audience (15 members present) and to encourage them to produce ideas – on the spot or later - that could be included in the Urania’s Gardens project.

Bir - touilon

1/ Presentation
The UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is part of the U.N. The UNESCO has been designated to be the lead agency of the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

See website:
http://portal.unesco.org/fr/ev.phpURL_ID=41550&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html Under the theme “The Universe, yours to discover”, the Year aims at stimulating worldwide interest in astronomy and science. By encouraging the spirit of discovery and sharing of fundamental knowledge about the Universe and our place in its midst, it will provide an ongoing platform for international cooperation beyond all barriers including age, race, gender, status, time, place, and space.

tele - scoop

The group Urania’s Gardens is based in Athens, and was set up to produce objects or artistic events based on astronomy.

See blog: http://uraniasgardens.blogspot.com/
A reminder: do not mistake astronomy for astrology

2/ Astronomical objects
The following links give an idea of certain aspects of astronomy:

Object
Site
Astrolabe
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrolabe
Sundial
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/blateyron/sundials/fr/index.html
Jaïpur, India
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Jantar%20Mantar_at_Jaipur.jpg
Dark matter
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mati%C3%A8re_noire
Eclipses
http://homepage.oma.be/eclips/Photo7b_fr.html
Comets
http://www.astro.ulg.ac.be/~demoulin/cometes.htm
Eros 433
http://www.nineplanets.org/eros.html
Titan, satellite of Saturn
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x48kyp_rencontre-avec-titan_tech
Europa, satellite of Saturn
http://www.cite-sciences.fr/francais/ala_cite/expositions/vie-extraterrestre/dossier-cnes-exobiologie/la-vie-dans-le-systeme-solaire/vie-autour-de-jupiter-et-saturne-1.php
Andromeda or M31
http://jcboulay.free.fr/astro/sommaire/image_jour/andromede/page_andromede.htm
Collision between Milky Way and Andromeda
http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/merger/bigmerger.html Cliquer here to see film

But … SUBLIMATION


Works of art cannot be based on straight representation of objects. The artist must sublimate the subjects he wishes to share through his own vision and mind.
During a short exercise, the participants were asked to come up with words related to astronomy. Here is a list of words:
Projects – K-droz, France 2008-12-20
Pierre will communicate the list of projects invented in the K-droz group in early January.








Posted by: Pierre Chirouse

Pierre Chirouze

An electrical engineer by education, versed in photography as of the 70’s, I have turned to « enhanced photos » also called imaphotos, creaphotos, pictophotos in 2001. In January of 2006, I have founded
K-droz, a non-profit association that now includes 56 members, creators and art amateurs.

Creators
Confirmed and emerging artists will find help and understanding within K-droz, that facilitates their creation and enhances their visibility.
K-droz accepts artists comitted to their art, producing works in which one will find true creativity and subtle execution : painters, sculptors, photographers and other artists in visual techniques.

Art amateurs
Those members who are art amateurs have privileged access to our artists' production and contribute to developing their work.

K-droz collaborates to the Urania’s Gardens initiative.

For more details click here: brush up your French !

Dvorak - 9th Symphony 2nd Movement - Largo

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle Discovery in April 1990. It is named for the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, the Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.[3] Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope Posted by: Poly Hatjimanolaki

Donatella Bisutti

Donatella Bisutti is a well known Italian poet, novelist and essayist. She practised for many years zen meditation and her literary work is deeply influenced by oriental philosophy. She is also known as a "zen poet". Through her bestseller essays The Words Tree 1979, Poetry may save your life 1992 and The Magic Words 2008 she introduces readers to a new revolutionary vision of Poetry considered not only from a literary point of view, but, as something that all men owe to have access to in order to be able to reach a deeper knowledge of themselves and a more human approach to life. This is also intended to help the young readers to be aware of the effects of globalisation, the dangers of media manipulation and to develop their Creative Mind. For nearly 30 years she has held workshops, creative writing courses and lectures which highly contributed to modify the way of teaching poetry in Italian schools. Her spiritual and poetical research was best represented in her poem He who comes written in the island of Patmos in Greece, published in Italy in 2003 and translated into Dutch, Spanish, English and French. This poem has inspired composers, painters and video makers. She also wrote poetry against violence and many articles on civil rights. Anthologies of her poems are published in France USA and Spain. She took part in many international poetry festivals in Europe, USA and North Africa. She is also a cultural operator and has recently founded the interdisciplinary review Poetry and Spirituality with international contributions by poets, artists and essayists. This review was presented in the international meeting Torino Spiritualità in Turin, Italy, in 2008 .

Click here to visit Donatella's website:

Professor John Kontos

Professor Kontos has obtained a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Strathclyde University in Glasgow, a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Birmingham in Birmingham and a Post Doctorate Degree in Computer Science from the National Technical University of Athens. He has served as Director of the Computer Science Department of the National Research Centre “Demokritos” in Athens and as Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Computer Science Department of the Athens University of Economics and Business and at the Department of Philosophy and History of Science of the University of Athens. He has published Over 90 journal and conference papers and two books on the subjects of Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Language Technology, Machine Learning, Text Mining, Question Answering, Knowledge Discovery from Texts and Meta-cognitive Systems.

Poly Hatjimanolaki

Poly Hatjimanolaki was born ιn Kalymnos, island of Greece and was brought up in Kalymnos and in Rhodes. She studied Physics at the University of Athens and holds a PhD in Statistical Mechanics from the Free University of Brussels (Prof. Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize).
She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Texas at Austin and has taught Physics within the I. B. program. She is a member of the Network for Educational Innovation; She creates educational multimedia presentations and is the chair person of the organizing committee of a book reading contest for children.
She is the author of the novel «Kalvos’s bees had gone about the plains of Lincolnshire».{International Frankfurt Bookfair, 2009}

She is currently involved in the creation of texts that function as wax moulds hosting memory images. She finds her material in human gestures, in historical moments, in buildings, in places remote in space and time, in map imprints, in real or symbolic labels.
In her http://waxtablets.blogspot.com personal accounts and testimonies sneak into literary texts as well as encounters with remarkable minds. She is an obstinate collector of peculiar memory devices. Memory, as a creation and a presence in the margins of time, confronts an actuality inhumed in the foam of oblivion.

Polyxene Kasda

Her main work is Myth/Network {1990-2009}, initiated in the Meeting of the Worlds in Joensu, Finland’90, an innovative project characterized by research, experimentation and world interactive installations:
- The Chrysalis world installation {1990-1994} in 27 countries, with simultaneous cultural events, like the parallel happening in the State University of Cleveland, Ohio, USA and the Municipality of Athens, in 1991.
- The Maps of the Hidden Treasure (1994-1996) linking Greek mythological sites with contemporary consciousness, under the auspices of the European Network of Poetry {Belgium} and the Municipal Radio of Athens.
- Fugue (1996-1998) which consists of variations of a monumental Fibonacci structure in 5 places of the world: the Castro di Piovera in Italy, the University of Lucian Blaga in Sibiu Romania, the Lykaion Mountain in Arcadia, the Aegean Foundation in the island of Paros, Greece…
At the closure of her 18 years long project is her PXK ROUTE world installation {2004-2008} dedicated to the Olympic principle of regeneration, which links her Olympic Chrysalis monument 2004 in Athens, with many countries of the world like Italy {Βiennale di Poesia I Alessandria 05}, Cyprus
{ N. Leucosia 05}, China {2nd Biennale of Beijing 05}, Syria { FMC 06}, Uzbekistan {4rth Biennale of Tashkent 07}, France {Nuit Blanche, Anvers-aux-Abesses, Paris 07} to close in the Olympic Fine Arts 2008 in Beijing
In 2008 she started her project Doodling in the World in the 3rd Biennale of Beijing and several European countries like Belgium {Stedelijke Akademie, Harelbeke} and Italy { Biennale di poesia di Alessandria, Genoa Arie Del Tempo and Sardinia Arte Fiera}.
Her telecommunications team project { Artooth } for the European Capitals of Europe 2007 was selected by the French association Arscenic to be realized in Greece, Luxemburg and Romania simultaneously.
She is a poet and an author of interdisciplinary articles and essays. She wrote documentaries for Greek national TV, worked for the Greek national radio and has participated in several conferences all over the world. The latest were the conference of the Third Biennale of Beijing 9/6/08 and the 14th Biennale of Poetry of Alexandria, Italy 17/10/08.
Her last poetic essay was PAI written in French, translated by Eugene Van Itterbeek in Flemish and Mirca Ivanescu in Romanian, published in all three languages by Seven Sleepers, coed University Press Lucian Blaga ’97. PAI has participated in the Frankfurt International Book fair ’97 and was published in Greek, in 2004, by Tyflomyga ed.
She is member of IAA UNESCO and curator of international events of the artistic association Artooth in Athens.

Eternity

Eternity

(Translated from Italian)

You will be the knife that buries itself
in the black fissure of sky.
I will be your silent night
until you can pierce
in the spaces of silent and kindle
an alphabet of sparks.
Sliced by the knife the coconut fruit
drips its dense milk.
An even moon enfolds both scythe and fruit,
but observes the knife’s own docility.
A similar docility unites
the humble tongue of the candle that chews up the dark
and the trusting spark.
Is it the sky that undresses for the moon
or the moon which strips naked for the sky?
Mast of my ship
your splintered tip is threading the wind.
In the darkness of the wood the flame climbs
to the cold, still light of the stars.
You won’t re-knot the thread
of pearls scattered by the night
to that eternal, that rarefied
light which orders the cosmos.
An unquiet whirr chews up each night
the over-ripe fruit of the moon.
Be both wood and wood-chopper.
From the tree’s circumcision
a whirl of syllables lifts up.

Closer – for this reason alone a more fiery alphabet
a sky more ephemeral
than that made of stars.
The only
eternity is docility consuming itself.


Note: this poem is inspired by zen philosophy and especially by a zen anecdote that says that the good butcher is the one who never consumes his knife because instead of cutting hard he succeeds in entering his knife through the narrow invisible space in between the bone and the meat of the animal: a metaphor to say that one has to harmonize with the cosmic energies and not to struggle against them..
The verse that says: “that eternal, that rarefied/light which orders the cosmos” I composed it while I was sleeping and dreaming and woke up to write it down: then I saw that it perfectly fit in this poem I was writing.




This poem contains an intuition I consider very important in my way of living and writing: the idea of a “Relative absolute”: this is our compromise to be accepted in between the limits of our experience and our aspiration to an Absolute. And it is also the manifestation of the Cosmic Energy (the Absolute – here the stars) through the reality of the Matter (here the sparks) But also the Cosmic Energy perishes and changes. The coexistence of Contradiction: this is the Mystery to which we can only approach a little, but it must stay there and remain a mystery as Lucien Blaga says. I consider this poem essential in my poetical work and vision


Photo: A Protected Night Sky Over Flagstaff, Astronomy picture of the Day April 16, 2008, from http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080416.html

Posted by: Donatella Bisutti

The inconceivable nature of nature

The Great Red Spot of Jupiter, just below the center, is a seemingly permanent circular storm 15,000 km long--although its color does vary in intensity

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?

Richard Feynman

Sources of photos:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/jupiter/jupiter-v1_640x542.jpg

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/image/jupiter_cassini.jpg
Posted by: Poly Kasda

Starry - Starry nights

Video presentation by Antony di Fatta

"Vincent" is a song by Don McLean written as a tribute to Vincent van Gogh. It is also known by its opening line, "Starry Starry Night", a reference to van Gogh's painting Starry Night


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_(song)

Posted by Poly Hatjimanolaki

O my sweet springtime...

Available on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A_Bop49q8g

"O Gliki Mou Ear" (O my sweet spring time) is a tribute to the sweetness of spring.
A Christian Orthodox hymn, a mourning song of the mother for the loss of her sweetest child.

«Heavenly powers
Stood still by their fear
Witnessing your death»


Posted by: Poly Hatjimanolaki

“The moon could have laid them…”: An Astronomical theory

“It’s lovely to live on a raft.
We had the sky up there, all speckled
with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them,
and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.

Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened;
I judged it would have took too long to MAKE so many.
Jim said the moon could a LAID them;
well, that looked kind of reasonable,
so I didn’t say nothing against it,
because I’ve seen a frog lay most as many,
so of course it could be done.

Frog's eggs

We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim
allowed they’d got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.”

Excerpt from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.

Selected by: Poly Hatjimanolaki


Pictures:
Frog’s eggs from http://roomcandy.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/frog-eggs.jpg
Huckleberry Finn, the novel:
http://www.hnet.uci.edu/mclark/HumCore/CoreF2005/WebCoreF05/Benton%20small.gif
"We turned in and slept"
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/76/76-h/images/c13-108.jpg

THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ASTRONOMY 2009, UNESCO

Collage III, Poly Kasda, Pierre Chirouze

On the 30th of October, a memorandum of understanding was signed between UNESCO and IAU (International Astronomical Union), in which, IAU was to be integrally involved in the process of developing UNESCO's Astronomy and World Heritage Initiative, promoting astronomical sites of “Outstanding Universal Value”.

The promotion of sites with astronomical, historical and symbolic value which are involved in the observation of celestial and astronomical phenomena has a particular significance in our era. Not only because, according to UNESCO, it relates to the “more fragile aspects” of our common human heritage, since, “every human culture has a sky and strives to interpret what people perceive in there”, but, because it opens the opportunity for a new understanding of Astronomy. Astronomy is appreciated as a fundamental tool for the knowledge of the place of human kind in the cosmos. This is an opportunity for the unfolding of a living human network in 130 countries; a network that connects the efforts of the scientists that strive to answer the fundamental questions that humanity has raised from the beginning of time.

Within this dynamic framework, we, a core group of people, being aware of the importance of this direction, which is in accord with our inherent tendency of understanding our position in the Universe-through the interpretation of celestial observations, the study of myths and sky related ceremonies, the artistic (fine arts and music) expression and reflections on the cosmic being, the celestial cartography, the study of the history and development of cosmological models in various civilisations, of the representations of the sky and the stars in poetry and literature- we have decided to unite our efforts, with those of UNESCO, for the development of actions and reflections that will forge a cultural promenade; a trailing/tracking into the Gardens of Urania. Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, one of the nine daughters of Mnemosene (Memory), expresses in a symbolic way our endeavour to relate the Science of Astronomy with its human component: inspiration, innovation, creativity, the Arts and cultural formation.

Collage I, Poly Kasda, Pierre Chirouze

The expression in UNESCO's document: “every culture has a sky” is inviting us to look for this sky in every “locus” where it has left imprints like the Antikythera Mechanism in the sea wreck, in Plato's texts, in Orpheus's poems, in the artistic representations of Urania holding the celestial globe and of Atlas carrying the universe, in the cosmic dance of the Solar and the Lunar deities of Knossos, in the archaeological site of the Academy of Plato, in Lucian's Icaromenippos - the first science fiction novel narrating a journey to the moon- in the stardew falling on the verses of the poets…

In Uranias’Gardens, the sky in space/ the sky in our soul is mapped as an undivided whole.
We will walk here/there. Our actions, texts, artefacts, discussions will develop during the year of astronomy and Peripatites {walkers}, from all over the world are invited to join us. The project will be presented on the web, in Art exhibits, drama and musical performances and in a Cultural Conference held in Athens.
Poly Hatjimanolaki
Polyxene Kasda

Core team of Urania’s Gardens
Poly Hatjimanolaki, Educator, Writer, PhD in Physics
Polyxene Kasda, Writer, Artist I.A.A UNESCO
Roula Anagnostou, Educator, Artist I.A.A. UNESCO
Yannis Almirantis, Research Director, Institute of Biology NRC Democritus
Yannis Kontos, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, University of Athens
Apostolis Apostolou , Open Freetime University Executive Committee, PhD political sciences
Pierre Chirouze, President of the artists association K-Droz in Paris
Donatella Bisutti, Poet,Writer, Editor of interdisciplinary magazine Poesia e Spritualita, Milan
D Udaiyan, Cambridge Stuckist, member of the indian artists network

Collage II, Poly Kasda, Pierre Chirouze