Solstice peacock

Today was the shortest day, the longest night of the year up here in the northern hemisphere. And by this time next week we'll have gained a whole minute of daylight. Woo hoo!

Solstice peacock, looking back into the dark, forward into the light.

(Vintage double peacock vase, cast iron, possibly of Iranian origin. Hangs out around my house, keeping four eyes on things.)

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Hoy fue el dia más corto, la noche más larga del año para nosotros aquí en el hemisferio del norte. Y para fines de la semana, habremos ganado un minuto entero de luz. ¡Maravilloso!

La foto es de un pavo real que mira para  atrás hacia la oscuridad, para adelante hacia la luz. Es un pájaro doble antiguo (no sé si es una antigüedad o nada más viejo), hecho de hierro y posiblemente de origen en Irán. Anda por mi casa, con los cuatro ojos observándolo todo.

Peacocks on the roof

I love just getting in the car and following my whim; Laurie not so much. He likes to know where he's going. But today, he humoured me, and we wound through the twisty roads in the Oyster River valley, looking at farms and hoping for deer again.

No deer rewarded us, but passing a turnoff onto a gravel road, we were surprised to see a peacock, roaming free:

We stopped, of course. And while we took photos of this one, another jumped to the porch railing of an adjacent house, then to the roof.

He walked to the far end of the house, sweeping the roof with his folded tail, then flew away, into the trees. And another one followed his tracks, from porch to railing, to roof, and away.

The owner of the house told us that the peacocks "belong" (if belonging is the right word for wild things) to someone down the road, but that they are not penned and often visit him. In the spring, breeding time, they delight him with their flamboyant displays, but there's a down-side; they also keep him awake at night with raucous cries. The females, are probably in the trees somewhere now, sitting on nests.

They've been in the area for a couple of years. We are amazed that they have not been caught by the cougars that hunt in the woods by night, or by dogs or foxes. It's probably safer, their neighbour said, around (and on!) human habitations.

As we left, we looked down the road. Peacock # 1 was walking home:

Good luck, and keep safe, crested one!

In which I speculate wildly

I posted this photo yesterday: the double-headed bird we picked up at the antique fair.


Normally, Laurie collects antique Japanese porcelain and Chinese jade, and I look out for vintage salt-shakers and anything Mexican, especially Tonalá and Oaxaca pottery. But sometimes something else catches our eye. This was one of those "somethings".

It is a cast-iron vase, about 8 inches high, unpainted except for the red centres of the peacock feathers. The seller insisted that it came from Gibraltar; which means little, since sellers are frequently wrong.

It reminded me, in pattern and concept, of the designs I have often seen used in Mexican woven and embroidered textiles. But I know of no Mexican village that makes this type of cast iron.

In the fluidity of the lines, I saw hints of India. Where peacocks are common. But was it Indian? It didn't feel like it.

Are those central creatures dragons? Is this Asian? Or feathered serpents, from Latin America? I couldn't tell.

So, back at home, I headed for Google. Searched and searched and searched. I could find nothing similar. Not in Gibraltar, not in Latin America, not in India. There was mention of double-headed birds in Turkish rug patterns, in Chinese paintings, and all over North and South America. None were like this.

I found eagles (the Roman eagle), thunderbirds, quetzales, even double-headed chickens. No double-headed peacocks. Stylized bird-ish shapes, aggressive arrow-bearing raptors. Whimsical ducks.

I looked over my own collection:


A peacock, certainly. The "tree of life" from Metepec, Mexico. A very traditional design. Not double, except that it has 4 feet.


A Huichol gourd, from the north of Mexico. This is more like an eagle. Two heads, one body.

In Mayan textiles (like the huipil the new addition sits on), a double-header is common; from the Guatemalan Maya Centre (London), I picked up some sample designs.


Here there are three two-faced birds, eagles, probably. Definitely not peacocks.

So: a mystery bird.

In Mexican traditions, the double-headed birds speak of past and future; looking forward, looking back. The two are indivisible. Hope and memory, planting and harvest. Sometimes this looking back is associated with good and evil, or life and death.

In some Asian traditions, I learned, the birds reflect the story of Prometheus, whose liver, in punishment for giving humankind fire, is eaten daily by eagles, and regenerated every night. Japanese birds are similarly divided; one half lives; the second, eternally attached, eats at his companion, attempting to kill him.

The Turks used the double-headed eagle as,

"a sign of grandeur and magnificence and it was to support the claim of Turkish rulers over the Roman imperial inheritance."

But that's the eagle. A peacock is an entirely different story. Here's a take on it from Persia;

"The motif of two peacocks, one on each side of the Tree of Life, is a well-known feature of Persian decorative arts. A pair of peacocks stands for the "psychic duality of man" similar to the role played by the Gemini in western astrology, says Cirlot (A Dictionary of Symbols.)"

This interpretation resonates with the Mexican tribal view. It all makes me wonder how much mixing of stories and traditions there has been over the centuries.

And as for our new acquisition, since nowhere, so far, have I found its own story, I think I will give it the gentle one that most seems to fit its beauty; memory and hope.

Beacon Hill Park

(We are going through envelopes of Laurie's old photos, in the pre-blogging days, having good ones loaded onto my hard drive. Periodically, I will be posting some of these. Today, for example:)

These are from Victoria's Beacon Hill Park, around the year 2000.

I recognize the site, but it still looks to me like something out of a fantasy novel; no real place could look that stylized! Even the pigeons look posed.

That large, greyish bird across the stream is a white peacock. Here, I'll have him turn around for you:


I don't know if this is a breed, or if he's albino. (With a tint of pink. Some hanky-panky with flamingos back in his ancestry?)










It's hard work, keeping our enthusiastic B.C. vegetation cropped and shaven and orderly.

And everybody needs a nap sometime.

Tomorrow: back to the real world. Rainy days, mud and weeds. And hopefully, a duck or two.