evil eye.
Sinhala: aes-vaha, literally, “eye-poison”, the malevolent and destructive gaze which has the power to make a victim sicken and die. Children in particular are instructed to avoid the presence of those who are believed to possess either aes-vaha or kata-vaha (literally, “mouth-poison” or “evil tongue”).
—Yasmine Gooneraine, 2005, in the newly revised and annotated publication, of The Village in the Jungle by Leonard Woolf, 1935.
the American Dream turned belly up, turned green
“Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. . . . Thus the American Dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.”
—Kurt Vonneget, Jr., from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, 1965.
Everything went black
“Everything went black . . . , as black as what lay beyond the ultimate rim of the universe.”
—Kurt Vonneget, Jr., from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, 1965.
the blackest of all human wishes
“My wife has been killed by a machine which should never have come into the hands of any human being. It is called a firearm. It makes the blackest of all human wishes come true at once, at a distance: that something die.”
—Kurt Vonneget, Jr., from Deadeye Dick, 1982.
that round red Coca-Cola sign
“If one says “Red” (the name of a color) and there are 50 people listening, it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.
Even when a certain color is specified which all listeners have seen innumerable times—such as the red of the Coca-Cola signs which is the same red all over country—they will still think of many different reds.
Even if all the listeners have hundreds of reds in front of them from which to choose the Coca-Cola red, they will again select quite different colors. And no one can be sure that he has found the precise red shade.
And even if that round red Coca-Cola sign with the white name in the middle is actually shown so that everyone focuses on the same red, each will receive the same projection on his retina, but no one can be sure whether each has the same perception.”
—Josef Albers, his great Interaction of Color, 1963. From the shiny new revised and expanded paperback edition, 2006.
preference for certain colors and prejudices against others
“As ‘gentlemen prefer blondes,’ so everyone has preference for certain colors and prejudices against others. This applies to color combinations as well. . . . We change, correct, or reverse our opinions about colors, and this change of opinion may shift forth and back.”
—Josef Albers, his great Interaction of Color, 1963. I found this in the shiny new revised and expanded paperback edition from Yale Press, 2006.
The shining water
“Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. . . . The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. Each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.”
—Chief Seattle, in 1855, as quoted by Joseph Campbell in The Way of the Animal Powers.
the galaxy that came to be called the Milky Way
“The flowing breast is the essential image of trust in the universe. Even the faintest pattern of stars was once seen as iridescent drops of milk streaming from the breast of the Mother Goddess: the galaxy that came to be called the Milky Way.”
—Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, from The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, 2005.
the Black Virgin
“Hieratic, majestic, austere, the Black Virgin gazes out from the windows of Chartres Cathedral, or sits enthroned in the crypt, holding her son in the manner of the goddess holding life, her child. So much interest surrounds her today that she is once again becoming the focus of pilgrimage. Her image is stolen from churches where she has sat for centuries undisturbed, and must now be hidden as a precaution against thieves. . . .
The symbolism of the Black Virgin returns us once again to the Song of Songs, to the bride who is “black but beautiful”. It returns us to Cybele, whose symbol was a black stone, a meteorite, and to the black images of Demeter, Artemis and Isis, and to the black-robed, exiled Shekhinah, the “Precious Stone”. It evokes the blackness of the night sky in which the moon and the evening star are the brightest luminaries, and the mystery of space as a mother who gives birth each night to the moon and stars and each morning to the sun. Above all, the Black Virgin holding her son, Christ, on ther lap, gives us the image of the light shining in darkness, and the esoteric, hidden teaching of Gnosticism and Alchemy.”
—Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, from The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, 2005.
the link between dog, dark moon, black night and goddess
“The dog is one of the most ancient animals belonging to the goddess as the guardian of her mysteries. In Greece dogs were sacred to Hecate, goddess of the dark phase of the moon and so of the crossroads and the underworld. The culture of Old Europe reveals the very ancient origin of the link between dog, dark moon, black night and goddess. The finest matierials—marble, rock-crystal and gold—were used to fashion dog figurines or vessels shaped as dogs. . . .
In later civilizations the dog guards the threshold between the realms of the living and the dead: in Egypt, the jackal god, Anubis, becomes the guide of the souls of the dead into the underworld and assists at their transformation; in Greece, the three-headed god, Cerberus, guards the entrance to the realm of the dead.”
—Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, from The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, 2005.