Asking Mister Saint Anthony To Help Me Find Myself

Forget-Me-Not

Saint Anthony by Raphael, circa 1502

After a trip to Mexico, my sister became enamored of Saint Anthony. This came as a surprise growing up in a family that made a point not to discuss religion at all. Outside of our immediate family though, everyone else I was related to was religious. They were either Church of England, Episcopalian (basically C of E), or Jewish converts to Christian Science, or, like my father, Agnostic. "Leaving the door open" he would on the rare occasion say with a wry smile. I had one English aunt who belonged to both the Catholic Church and the Episcopalian Church, something that came as a surprise to both her priests when she passed away and we organized a duo church funeral for her this last July. As far as I know she was the only Catholic in my family. Due to my unusual, Anglo American, deliberately non-religious upbringing, I therefore had no idea who Saint Anthony was. 

It turns out, for those of you who might not know, this Saint is the patron Saint of lost and stolen articles, a very practical Saint to become friends with (for someone like me who lose things with ever alarming frequency). If you get to know Saint Anthony, and I highly recommend you do, you will soon consider yourself extremely fortunate. 

The first time I lost something and I now forget what, my sister instructed me to ask Saint Anthony to help me find it. I wondered if she had lost her mind. She insisted, I raised my eyebrows and bit my lower lip, thought what the heck, and gave it a try. Little did I ever imagine he would become one of my dearest friends.

A few weeks ago I lost a set of every day Very Important Keys, containing my house key, my most important car key that also opens the boot of the car, the post office box key, the key to my 95-year-old auntie’s house, and that of my daughter’s flat, the sole key to my storage unit as I have recently moved, and there were a few other keys besides that I actually forget what they open but are significantly important for me to carry at all times. I only discovered this fact when I got home and was locked out of my house. By this time all the shops where I had previously been were closed.  How one loses a set of keys as important as these is irrelevant.

And then I began to cry. Not because of the lost keys, but because I felt and have been feeling so lost myself. I have been experiencing an unsettled-ness and ill at ease-ness, uncertain about where I am supposed to be and what I am meant to be doing - other than making tea cozies and pocket scarves and trying, in my own small way, to make a difference to the ever increasing harsher side of the world we live in. I donate art and help as much as I can with the Creative Collective For Refugee Relief but know it is one grain of sand in a very sad sea where a great many people are lost in ways I really cannot imagine. "Get a grip!" I said to myself, putting some perspective on my privileged feelings.

Lest I forget-me-not

I have spoken about memory before at Bluebell and the Fox, and what a trickster she can be! In my head I was sure those keys were one place when in fact they were elsewhere.

The next day I traced my steps and within the hour I had found my keys. I hugged them and thanked Saint Anthony with all my heart. I had taken for granted how important keys are. Without them you are shut out from places that even belong to yourself.

And then... later that night I thought perhaps I needed to ask Saint Anthony where had I gone? That I had lost myself in all the sadness I have been feeling, in all the out of place-ness I have been experiencing, a hovering grief engulfing me as though it were life, all of life that I am grieving for. One huge sense of loss is how I have felt and with it loneliness, in a funny almost comforting sort of way, a bit like how I feel when I have flu, if that makes any sense. I don’t often feel lonely, but right now I feel very much so and most of all it is because I have temporarily lost my self. I then knew I had to ask lost self how to find my other self. Immediate action was required to take care of this, and no one better than to put my faith in, much less my own disappearance, than into the lap of my beloved Saint A. And when I find myself perhaps I will be in an even better place to help others whose needs far exceed my own. That "giving back" and giving anyway is vital to my own sense of well-being-ness. So I wrote Anthony a letter in the quiet of the night, with the breeze gently caressing the wind chimes, the scent of pine whispering I am less alone than I think.

Dear Mister Saint Anthony,

I am asking you to help me find my self and help me to put me on my own right path. (I hear his voice immediately, telling me "You are on the path already you silly goose. Be patient!") Where did I go, Mister Saint Anthony? Why does the world feel so different? Did I fall out of my own pocket? Whatever foolish thing I did that has caused this occurrence, I am asking you to help me put me back inside of whatever it is I think of as my being. Is there a different Saint I need to turn to for the sadness in my heart? I suspect it is an accumulation of grief that is more than losing people I love as I seem to profoundly feel the suffering of others and it all feels like quite a lot for one person to bear. I know my Angels are there, as my friend, Simon has helped me become aware of, or my Spirit Guides, as my friend Katie describes them yet they are awfully quiet right now. I can't forget Lyn, another very special healer psychic friend you must know, who loves the world of Saints and who looked for a book about you for me. And I even have a friend named David, in Portsmouth, England, who reminds me a lot of you! There must be a reason that I am meant to feel and experience this suffering, do I need to know why? Or should I just let it be, perhaps? To sit with the uncomfortableness of it all for a while is truly uncomfortable but I can handle that, knowing it will pass, like the clouds pass in the sky, someone dear to me reminds me (and that is one small comfort).

"Meditation will lead you to yourself. The answers are all there inside you, where they have always been" Saint Anthony reminded me while I was writing to him. I have experienced that Saints, Angels and Spirit Guides can act instantly.

And if there is anything I can do for you Mr. Saint Anthony, please do not hesitate to ask, for your wish is my command. Thank you again for helping me find the lost keys. I feel quite confident, given your amazing track record that you will help me. 

And then he said to me a few days later, out of the blue, "Look at it this way. You had to let go of something very big even though right now you have not been aware of this fact. There are also many changes occurring all at once... There is always a void when something vanishes, even something you don't need to carry any longer. Voids need to be filled but I must caution you not to be too hasty in filling it. Take your time, all the time you need, and one day soon you will realize there no longer is a void at all. Continue to be true to yourself, that is all I ask and all I can tell you right now."

I've got to love the guy! He comes to my rescue like no one else.

I remind myself of the Bigger Picture: I am and will always be the center of my Universe

fin

&

saint |sānt|

noun

1 a person acknowledged as holy or virtuous and typically regarded as being in heaven after death.

• (in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches) a person formally recognized or canonized by the Church after death, who may be the object of veneration and prayers for intercession.

• a person who is admired or venerated because of their virtue: he was considered a living saint by recipients of his generosity.

• (in or alluding to biblical use) a Christian believer.

• (Saint)a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; a Mormon.

2 (Saint)(abbr.: St. or S.)used in titles of religious saints: the epistles of Saint Paul | St. John's Church.

• used in place names or other dedications: St. Louis | St. Lawrence River.

verb [ with obj. ]

formally recognize as a saint; canonize.

~Computer dictionary

Barn Burnt Down, Now I See The Moon

Mizuta Masahide, a seventeenth century Japanese Samurai poet, wrote the beautiful haiku poem that I have appropriated for today's entry title.

Large Old Sea Tortoise Shell

Thinking about the futility of attachment to permanence, when everything, according to Buddhist thinking, is Already Broken, has intrigued me in my quest for "acceptance". 

The Japanese will repair a damaged ceramic bowl with gold, increasing the preciousness of life in a powerful metaphoric expression. Everything will one day break, yet we hold on to things, to people, to houses, to the past, to suffering. The culture I was raised in strives for stability, ownership, permanence, yet the Buddhists believe the opposite. I have come to let go of so much in my life and I embrace "already broken" as much as I can. It's challenging and not the easiest thing to do, but perhaps the most freeing, in the end.

My broken beautiful Chinese dolls

Circumstances of my own life have taught me that I can treasure something that another can destroy in seconds. About thirty years ago, someone once broke every single thing I owned that they did not decide to keep for them self. These dolls were deliberately torn apart. I felt heart broken when I found them, knowing that person had wanted to do this to me. That person knew these dolls had been brought from China by my grandmother for me, even before I was born. Never much of a materialist, they were however, something I held dear. My grandmother had died when I was seventeen and I loved her very much. She understood and appreciated all things oriental and taught me a great deal about beauty. Her aesthetic sense was stunningly oriental.

While I let go of the very broken relationship, and everything else that had been destroyed, I kept these broken dolls that represent that whole time of my life. I find I treasure them all the more. From time to time I look at them and I think about all sorts of things. I do not need to keep them, but I do. I don't really hold on too hard to the memories, but sometimes it is an interesting reflection and reminder once again, of the Japanese principle Already Broken.

I am never too old to play with dolls

And converse with the wind

fin  

&

per•ma•nent |ˈpərmənənt|

adjective

lasting or intended to last or remain unchanged indefinitely : a permanent ban on the dumping of radioactive waste at sea | damage was not thought to be permanent | some temporary workers did not want a permanent job.

• lasting or continuing without interruption : he's in a permanent state of rage.

Origin: late Middle English : from Latin permanent- ‘remaining to the end’ (perhaps via Old French), from per- ‘through’ + manere ‘remain.’

                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                              ~ Computer dictionary

I am dedicating this entry to Sarah Darer, who lost her mother suddenly a few days ago, as did I many years ago. She wrote a beautiful Eulogy on her blog that moved me to tears and perpetuated this post. 

Dream Coming True: Living Like A Japanese Tea House

"Life is an expression, our unconscious actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thoughts"

                                                                                                     `Okakura Kakuzo

Dreams Come True Parasols   by myself

There is something extraordinary about the process of dreaming. It means different things to different people and cultures...and yet there is an ethereal quality of a sense of possibility omnipresent within all the fluctuations of the dreaming process, I think.

Recently, in an earlier entry, I took back my girlhood dream of how I was going to live my life with a vision for a future that is long since already in the past; it was a dream that never came into fruition, though I was once on its threshold, perhaps.

Looking For Something by Julian Cocnran, circa 1903

Though I sat with the vacancy for some weeks, curiously that particular void allowed for the imagination to wander. This is something I have since learned is part of who I am and what I desire - making room for imagination that is.

So. I want to build an old fashioned, Japanese Tea House in the Eastern tradition. The early houses were modeled after Zen Monasteries, where monks would drink tea from a shared bowl, the tea working as an elixir to keep the monks from falling asleep during meditation. The tea house was simply yet beautifully constructed, representing an environment of contemplation and quiet, of reflection and of "being", a place of poetic beauty, with a touch of melancholy and yet balanced through the acceptance and appreciation of imperfection.

This recent dream of mine, the building of this teahouse, is metaphoric. I want to personally reflect the principles upon which the tea house came to be. I want my life to be clean, and yet offering space for the wind to blow in the pine needles that can stay upon the floor for a time. I can remind myself with their presence of the passing of time in anticipation of the oncoming winter, for example, that being the aging process.

Wouldn't a tea house be splendid in a Pine Forest? ~ by myself

I am, therefore, re-inventing my concept of home, which is an ephemeral and in my case, mercurial existence resembling more a river winding and bending, traveling some distance without any real purpose of place, though aesthetics of that place, where ever it is, has always been of paramount importance to me. It must incorporate a sense of beauty. Okakura Kakuzo, quoted in the opening of this entry, wrote in his exquisite treatise, The Book of Tea, that the kettle in a tea house would sit upon a brazier, boiling water. It contained some little scraps of iron inside so that the water would make a strange, eerie sound, referencing the sound of wind, or running water. This somewhat resembles myself, I thought with some delight, embracing my own futile existence for once.

One of my Favorite Books

It has taken a long road to reach this apex of ease in giving away a lifetime's acquisitions, mental as well as material. Once I was free of the original dream it was suddenly quite simple, yet the process was a complex one. I had to slowly find the courage to pull away layers of thoughtless consumption as well as an assumption about what life was supposed to be. Shedding slowly, as I have been ready, and with patience at times and impatience at others until an almost nothingness appeared in my mental horizon. It was a place uncluttered, yet filled with light and breeze. 

Geisha by Kasakabe Kimbei, circa 1880's

Something inexplicable has been pulling me towards a very different approach to living for nearly three decades. It feels like this: when I am in a connected place with the forces of what I call life, I can clearly see the futility of fighting against it. And fight I did, for a very long time, trying to will my life to be different to what it was. It all began when I was a young, single mother living like many other single mothers: in intolerable circumtances of interminable threat and fear. But then, in letting go the struggle and disbelief that this was truly my plight, and accepting this really was it, the struggle ended. As one lets fall layers upon layers of weight that one carries voluntarily and yet feels involuntarily, there is a passing moment of clarity and one can feel the smallness of oneself, a coagulation of particles in a vast expanse. That small moment is worth all the effort, as one settles briefly in newly created mental space. I think perhaps it is getting a bird's eye perspective of one's own existence. One can ride the wave for a fleeting moment, for one is that very wave, something that is gone in the fraction of a second, dissolved once again into the sea itself.

 Girl in Heavy Storm by Kasakabe Kimbei, circa 1880's



Fin

&

beau•ty |ˈbyoōtē| noun ( pl. -ties)

1 a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, esp. the sight : I was struck by her beauty | an area of outstanding natural beauty.

• a combination of qualities that pleases the intellect or moral sense.

• [as adj. ] denoting something intended to make a woman more attractive : beauty products | beauty treatment.

2 a beautiful or pleasing thing or person, in particular

• a beautiful woman.

• an excellent specimen or example of something : the fish was a beauty, around 14 pounds.

• ( the beauties of) the pleasing or attractive features of something : the beauties of the Pennsylvania mountains.

• [in sing. ] the best feature or advantage of something : the beauty of keeping cats is that they don't tie you down.

PHRASES

beauty is in the eye of the beholder proverb beauty cannot be judged objectively, for what one person finds beautiful or admirable may not appeal to another.

beauty is only skin-deep proverb a pleasing appearance is not a guide to character.

ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French beaute, based on Latin bellus ‘beautiful, fine.’

                                                                                                                                      `Computer dictionary

The Anomaly of Memory

A book I love

Memory is so seductive, elusive, uncanny, frustrating, useful, amazing, deceptive, unreliable (and yet essential. We can't live without it). And then it haunts us when we sleep, so it is cautionary, foreboding, forthcoming and forecasting, suspicious, unavoidable, insistent, maddening, manipulative, imaginative, frightening and soothing, provocative, satisfying and so much more.

As a P
      T
       S
        D sufferer, (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), I can safely say I have a love hate relationship with my own memory. When PTSD kicks in its hard to tame not only the trigger memory but everything else of a challenging nature, a kind of tail spin mind racing at 100 mph. The flip side is that I am mostly extremely sensitive to others, a kind of hyper awareness that is generally helpful (and not always).

In a more general day to day existence, I've come to the conclusion that open-mindedness to my own error factor is useful. I think I have remembered something correctly but I haven't. Like... Here's a hypothetical example of something I am perfectly capable of: I left my keys on the table. They are no where to be found. I might have blamed someone I love for moving them (sorry Melissa). In the end, I discover I left them under a pile of laundry on an armchair. Some people have a very hard time accepting that memory has tricked them and they are wrong about facts they thought were correct. I used to be one of those people. But I've learned my lessons. I'm often wrong (and that's OK), though more often than wrong I am right (I think). I am toying with the idea of joining the tattoo circuit. Really its a fantasy. I want a wristwatch tattooed on my left wrist, so that I always know exactly what time it is.

My clock is always right

For a really comprehensive, fascinating exploration into the study of memory, The Art of Memory (photo at the top of this entry), is the book to read. It's nothing less than extraordinary. Frances Yates (1899-1981), spent her life researching esoteric history, teaching at the Warburg Institute in London. I discovered her through researching the life of the Renaissance philosopher, astrologer, mathematician and Dominican friar, Giordano Bruno and his incredible memory boxes. This is a fantastic book that will lead you on a never ending journey of discovery. Her equally brilliant sister was responsible for The Globe Theatre's eventual reconstruction.

Fin

&

a•nom•a•ly |əˈnäməlē|

noun ( pl. -lies)

1 something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected : there are a number of anomalies in the present system | a legal anomaly | [with clause ] the apparent anomaly that those who produced the wealth were the poorest | the position abounds in anomaly.

2 Astronomy the angular distance of a planet or satellite from its last perihelion or perigee.

ORIGIN late 16th cent.: via Latin from Greek anōmalia, from anōmalos (see anomalous ).

mem•or•y |ˈmem(ə)rē|

noun ( pl. -ries)

1 a person's power to remember things : I've a great memory for faces | my grandmother is losing her memory.

• the power of the mind to remember things : the brain regions responsible for memory.

• the mind regarded as a store of things remembered : he searched his memory frantically for an answer.

• the capacity of a substance to return to a previous state or condition after having been altered or deformed. See also shape memory .

2 something remembered from the past; a recollection : one of my earliest memories is of sitting on his knee | the mind can bury all memory of traumatic abuse.

• the remembering or recollection of a dead person, esp. one who was popular or respected : clubs devoted to the memory of Sherlock Holmes.

• the length of time over which people continue to remember a person or event : the worst slump in recent memory.

3 the part of a computer in which data or program instructions can be stored for retrieval.

• capacity for storing information in this way : the module provides 16Mb of memory.

PHRASES

from memory without reading or referring to notes : each child was required to recite a verse from memory.

in memory of intended to remind people of, esp. to honor a dead person.

take a trip (or walk) down memory lane deliberately recall pleasant or sentimental memories.

ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French memorie, from Latin memoria, from memor ‘mindful, remembering.’

Post Card From New Hampshire On Resting: Living a Halcyon Summer's Day

Making hay while the sun shines

Learning to take care of oneself is a life time of work. When things feel intense and time feels as though there is not enough of it, the thing I love to do most is to come up to see my friends who live in the New Hampshire countryside. I cut these flowers in the garden and started to build a bouquet. Note the blueberries on the left hand side. I have mixed feelings about cut flowers, but none the less, here I am, enjoying them. 

Back to the grind soon enough, but I need this break. So I'm playing with my friend's five year old grandson, Torrin, and doing things like this:

Gone fishing, see you soon!


Fin

hal • cy • on |ˈhalsēən|

adjective

denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful : the halcyon days of the summer when my grandmother made scones and we sat under the shaded tree by the stream in Dorset. See note at calm .

noun

1 a tropical Asian and African kingfisher with brightly colored plumage. • Genus Halcyon, family Alcedinidae: many species.

2 a mythical bird said by ancient writers to breed in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm.

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the mythological sense): via Latin from Greek alkuōn ‘kingfisher’ (also halkuōn, by association with hals ‘sea’ and kuōn ‘conceiving’ ).

                                                                                               ~ On line Computer Dictionary with some imaginative help

Letting Go: On Being and Becoming

A Private Feather Collection

I remember being a young girl, dreaming of the house that would one day be mine. It was by the sea (of course), was small, white,had a fireplace and outside there were flower laden window boxes, a small garden and in it I was happy.

I started collecting things for that house when I was about seventeen. But the house has not yet materialized and I am far from young. It dawned on me not that long ago that that house was in all likelihood never going to materialize and that I had carted books, trinkets and piles of art made by friends across continents and countries that for decades have been packed tightly in boxes. They would never see the light of day until after my own demise. This realization woke me up.

Over my lifetime I have lived the full gamut. I have slept on African dirt with palm fronds, I have slept in a brothel for want of anywhere else that would take me and my Japanese lover on a 1972 pilgrimage to Charleville in the Ardennes of Belgium, to the birthplace of the poet Arthur Rimbaud; I have slept on train station benches, and under the stars and when I was married I lived in an historic castle in France where quite frankly I was not very happy at all. I need a place to lay my head of course and I would love to live in peace, without worry of such basic matters such as where exactly that head will lie next, the subject being of quite alarming and dubious question. The long and short of it is that I am lucky to have what I have, not in the material sense, but the lack of the need for much of anything at all and the knowledge that things always work out one way or another. Letting go of the need for things to be different was a huge relief. 

I have let go of the material world collected for that imaginary little cottage. I realized what I want in my house now is quite different to what I envisioned earlier in my life. The house is me, really being me where ever I am, and what I love having by my side is that which I find in the natural world. What could be more beautiful than this:

A broken winged cicada skeleton

In all the letting go, one might well ask, what do I want to keep or what am I taking with me on this journey? It is so simple. I am first and foremost taking with me an important life lesson that I learned from the English Romantic poet, John Keats.

His life haunts mine. One cannot pick up a handful of his poems and understand who he really was, and without an understanding of Romanticism they will mean little. One has to delve quite deeply to find his real treasure. 

No writer has affected me as profoundly as John Keats. He's played a pivotal role in my own letting go, for his letters guided me towards understanding what was really important in life. Aside from living it as acutely and sensitively as possible it was his dying wish that has brought me to my knees.

John Keats died from tuberculosis when he was barely twenty-five years of age. When Keats lay dying in Rome and had really and truly let go himself, in the deepest sense, he asked his friend, Joseph Severn, to have an epitaph written on his tombstone. And it is these last and most beautiful of all his words that both haunts and guides me:

Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ In Water.

by myself, inspired by his requiem

Fin

&

A sampling of some of the better bibliographical references about John Keats or 

the European Romantic Movement pertaining to him that I have read and loved, 

Sidney Colvin and Susan Wolfson the best:

Auerbach, Erich. Introduction to Romance Languages and Literature. NYC, 1961

Breckman, Warren. European romanticism, A Brief History with Documents. Boston,

2008

Colvin, Sidney. John Keats, His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics and After-Fame.

1917. http://englishhistory.net/keats/colvinkeats.html. No other information available

Eberle-Sinatra, Michael. Leigh Hunt and The London Literary Scene: A Reception

History of his Major Works, 1805-1828 (Routledge Studies in Romanticism)

Farmer, Alan. Hampstead Heath. Hong Kong, 1984

Hirsch, Edward. Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats, NYC, 2001

Kandl, John. Private Lyrics in the Public Sphere: Leigh Hunt’s “Examiner” and the

Construction of a public “John Keats”, Keats Shelley Journal, Vol. 44, pp. 84-101

(article 18 pages) Keats-Shelley Association of America, Inc. Stable URL:

http;www.jstor.org/stable/30212994, 1995

Keats, John. The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, Cambridge, MA,

1899. No other information available

Rodriguez, Andres. Book of the Heart, the Poetics, Letters, and Life of John Keats,

Hudson, NY, 1993

Rosetti, William Michael. Life of John Keats. Memphis, 2010

Vaughan, William. Romantic Art, Oxford, 1978

Wolfson, Susan J. The Cambridge Companion to Keats, Cambridge, UK, 2001

The National Gallery. “The Enchanted Castle.”

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/claude-the-enchanted-castle. No date

Cuny College. “John Keats.”

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/keats.html. September 21, 2010

The Poetic Ekphrasis of Trees

Study no 1

The Archetypal Forest (Point Lobos, California)

There are things in nature that captivate my imagination with such a sense of wonderment that I can feel in a state of enchantment, so much so that my mind becomes quite still and I feel transported into the realm of nature's core. It is the same place I do believe, where myths come from. 

Ekphrasis is a word I had been unfamiliar with until I did an in depth investigation into the Romantic poet, John Keats, who lived a fascinating, but very short life. More will be said on Keats at a later time, for I hold great tenderness towards him and he continually gives me much to contemplate. 

I was very interested in discovering the roots of this curious word. Ekphrasis stems from the Greek ekphrazein.  It is generally an elaborately detailed description of an object, real or imagined. Ek translates as "out" and phrassein means "to speak". In classical Greek rhetoric this word became associated with the words fantasia as well as enargeia, another rhetorical term for a visually powerful description recreating an entitity, object or a person.  With such acute vividness the description can be so successful as to cause it to become alive in the mind of the reader or viewer. It is also a word that is linked to "sister arts", a rivalry between the visual and the verbal art forms tracing back to the Roman poet, Horace (65-8 BC), who stated that poetry is a speaking picture while painting is silent poetry. Jean Hagstrum writes that ekphrasis "gives voice and language to the otherwise mute object" (Hagstrum, Sister Arts: The Tradition of Literary Pictorialism and English Poetry from Dryden to Gray, 18 note).

Point Lobos

What I find so fascinating about the mysterious tree is its own ability to evoke an ethereal* lyricism in which an inner voice leads me by the hand to a place of allegory that is mythical, feminine, dark, brooding, dangerous, ecstatic, beautiful and archetypal**. 

Homage to John Keats: The Winking Owl Tree

Fin.

&

ek•phra•sis (ˈekfrəsɪs)

noun

(rhetoric) a description of a visual work of art

~ Collins on line Dictionary


&

e•the• re• al |iˈθi(ə)rēəl|

adjective

1 extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect for this world : her ethereal beauty | a singer who has a weirdly ethereal voice.

• heavenly or spiritual : ethereal, otherworldly visions.

2 Chemistry (of a solution) having diethyl ether as a solvent.

~ On line Computer Dictionary

&

ar•ch•etype |ˈärk(i)ˌtīp|

noun

a very typical example of a certain person or thing : the book is a perfect archetype of the genre.

• an original that has been imitated : the archetype of faith is Abraham.

• a recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology : mythological archetypes of good and evil.

• Psychoanalysis (in Jungian psychology) a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.

~ On line Computer Dictionary