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Too close. Skippy and Pooler Jones asked one question too many and what had been a friendly encounter between otherwise military minds turned suddenly edgy. Rifles come slowly to port-arms. Portuguese soldiers are highly professional but that's just a way of saying that they often hit what they're aiming at. Pooler poured on the charm right after I took this picture and once again we got to walk away. Still, you should not ask too many questions about the Ordem Christo. You just know Mel Gibson would love the Order of Christ. As far as the Pope's Military Orders go, only the Ordem Christo in Portugal has kept its public face. The Knights Templar, the Spanish Knights of Santiago, the Italian Cavalieri de Santo Stephano all have - for the most part - gone private, gone underground, or changed their name to the Elks. The Ordem Christo sits in Tomar as of they were still running the world.
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After priming we sprayed color. We want the bright red to outline both the cruciform of the 4 cardinal petals and the large circular center of the Rose. The Red Cross is many things: Maltese, Templar, and in a Mandala it is indicative of the 4 functions and directions of consciousness, as well as their divisions. Kenny La Roche does not hide from the Crusader origins of many of these warrior crosses & we often find it ironic that so many Christians have so conveniently forgotten about the nature of the Christian Military Orders. The Captain used automobile paint for our colors so the Gold came out with great depth. We tried very hard to pick the same shade of Gold as Elvis' famous suit coat from the 60s.
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This is our first mock-up hang. We bolted the two halves of the Rose together, attached the galvanized monkey, hung the athanor with its alembic and then stood back. We learned that the Rose gets lost in its own shadows if you hang it too close to a wall. You can see below that we have finally decided that within the wooden athanor we are going to hang a metal alembic with a very nicely shaped stone in its center. So there will be either 12 or 13 stones on the piece depending or not on whether you understand the implied narrative of the monkey and the "missing stone" behind him.
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"In Jung's philosophy the process of individuation is achieved by balancing four energies, symbolized in mandala form. . . . the four elements present themselves as a quaternity which reflects the ordered state of the universe or macrocosm. Within the mind the elements become qualities of consciousness: thought (air), emotion (water), intuition (fire), and sensation (earth). When all four are held in balance within the psychological viewfinder of meaning, then life is enjoyed in its fullness."
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In another life the Captain used to work in Auto Body Paint & Repair. These days, besides his duties with Kenny La Roche, he makes fine furniture & turns wood into graceful lines & pleasing things. He's a Bohunk by blood and an Artist by soul. He lives off the grid in a house he designed and built himself. He and IwoJima do the carving and the wood butchering for Kenny. He also reads Nietzsche & Julian Jaynes & wants to know why god uses Republicans to poison the world's relationships to Nature.
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