This ‘Allegory of Spring‘ is brilliant and shows Maestro Botticelli at his best. Usually his crowd scenes look flat and confusing - but this one is almost like a modern comic panel.

The Scene is set in in the Garden of Venus - with the lovely Goddess in the center of it all.

The figures of the painting …

Venus

Mercury

Cupid

The Three Graces or Charites

The three Charites of the Greek Mythology: Aglaea ("Beauty"), Euphrosyne ("Mirth"), and Thalia ("Good Cheer").

Flora, Chloris and Zephyrus

More? Wikipedia has an most excellent article

This seems to be another freak season. Like last year we have no snow so far. It’s pretty cold and extremely foggy. I am wondering if January will be like last year: sunny and dry, so I can sit on my balcony in a t-shirt and enjoy "winter" …

To everybody else: keep shoveling!

Fuck Christmas - celebrate Winter Solstice! The longest night of the year is a real event, the return of the Sun is a really important event. No Sun - no warmth!  No sunshine - no plants! No plants no food! No food - no humans. No humans - no fucking consumerist xmas …

Make sure to read the Wikipedia entry and learn that almost all cultures and many religions celebrate this day. The religions always give it their ‘own’ holy meaning - but they are all based on one of the oldest scientific discoveries of ancient humans: that the sun follows a pattern and exact timing. That seasons come and go and that they can be calculated. The earliest farming communities learned that rhythm pretty fast, because it is of the utmost importance to know WHEN to plant your seeds, so they come out at the right time.

So this very Saturday - December the 22th of 2007 @ 18:06 UTC / GMT marks the solstice—the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

Happy Winter Solstice my friends and readers!