BY Clay Larroy
Across the America
many couples are having wonderful wedding after months of planning. The bride
and groom will need a honeymoon to rest and recuperate. Vacations are so important, as it gives us a way to connect
with each other in a stress free relaxed environment. Couples that take
vacations together build memories that will last a lifetime. Couples vacations
and travel can be a most rewarding experience. When you want
to plan a vacation contact me!
The next time you find yourself in a European church or
cathedral, there is someone you should see. Forget "The DaVinci
Code". A real puzzle stares at you from the walls, architecture, and
furnishings throughout these old places of worship. The mysterious Green Man, a
carved foliate face from ancient times, appears in various guises and
apparently independently, all over the world. His best known and most
accessible incarnations are found - by the thousands - in the Medieval churches
of Europe and in England, France and Germany, in particular.
The title "Green Man" was given by Lady Raglan about
seventy years ago, when she was the first to identify the common concept in a
number of traditional strands, mythology, folklore, folk customs, traditional
imagery, in the ancient idea of the "wild man", and the English inn
name, "The Green Man", which she used as the title for this unifying
idea. The essential basis of the Green Man is that there is a unity between
humanity and nature, and that humanity thrives better when it lives in harmony
with nature, something which is explicitly understood at the present time. It
must be admitted that no direct link can be demonstrated between the various
strands embraced by the Green Man idea, other than that they are all driven by
an archetypal element in the human mentality.
The concept makes its earliest appearance in ancient mythology,
and then recurs throughout history, and is most conveniently examined in the
folk customs of England and mainland Europe, and in the images in the churches.
In England, the Green Man, in his guise known as "Jack-in-the-Green",
may be seen on the first Monday in May in folk celebrations in Hastings and
Rochester, as well as elsewhere, including in London, but also in the
"Garland Day" celebrated in Castleton in Derbyshire on May 29th. In
these, a man is encased in leaves (at Castleton, flowers) and plays out some
elements of a traditional sacrificial drama. The ancient association is with
the renewal of life in Spring, so here the Green Man is a symbol of
regeneration.
He is also associated with other strands of imagery found in
Medieval churches, the wild man, and the "sheela-na-gig", a female
fertility image given a mock Celtic name, probably in the demure Nineteenth
Century. The wild man is an image of primitive humanity, but in the churches symbolizes
also the primitive in all of us. The sheela-na-gig image is a large and
separate subject, but it is plainly also related to regeneration.
In all the traditions, the image is that of a man associated
with foliage - very, very, rarely that of a woman. This is seen as arising from
ancient mythology of the Mother Goddess sending her son, who is both divine and
human, to help humanity with what it needs (not what it wants!), and in many of
these myths, the son is in some way associated with a tree.
In the churches, the image is a face, almost always male, with
leaves: the leaves springing from it, or forming the face, or branching out
from the face, or surrounding the face as if it were the fruit of the tree.
There are a few which are clearly female, notably at Ulm in Germany and Brioude
in France, but otherwise they are all male. The source of the image in the
Medieval church was almost certainly foliate faces in Roman sculpture, of which
very fine examples survive in the archaeological museum in Trier, but the
Medieval Green Man soon outclassed his Roman ancestor. He survived the end of
the Middle Ages, and is found in the work of Michelangelo, in English Georgian houses,
in Mexican Baroque churches, and in New York brownstone facades.
In the churches, the Green Man is found in his thousands, almost
always just watching, and rarely participating in action, although there is one
group in York Minster where a wild man is apparently protecting a Green Man
from a demon, an image of fascinating psychological implications. There are a
few Green Man images that point to a didactic role, the Green Man helping us to
behave better, a role explicitly illustrated by four green men on a column
capital in the village of Woodbury, near Exeter.
REFERENCE SITES:
http://www.travelresearchonline.com/
“It is not the destination where you end up but
the mishaps and memories you create along the way!”
―
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