Archives for June 2018

Symbols of sexuality – 2. Deer hunt

June 29, 2018 by Aynura Maye

Here comes the second most classic symbol of sexuality – the Deer Hunt.

Heads up to everybody! From now on when you see a hunting scene, especially in the artworks from middle ages (especially, miniature paintings), do not be fooled. Many times it is not really about a hunting scene. Well, not in a sense that we generally understand it. It actually talks about the intercourse! Well, you can call it a different kind of hunting.

The subtle difference of this symbol is in its reference to qualities rather than an action – a hunter obviously stands for the male principle, which conquers the female principle in the form of a deer. The deer here symbolizes the feminine grace and shyness.

Click to decipher another symbols of sexuality
The cup and the spoon
The ax and the door

To put it in another way, this variation has more romantic air than the first one. While the cup-spoon makes direct reference to the act, this one talks more about feelings and emotions.

In fact, I ca’t get rid of my prejudice about this expression. In my native language there is a “teenagerish” expression that is a perfect sample (Jeyran ovuna cixmag). I shivered out of disgust every time I heard it. I literally hated that expression and found it very low. During my studies I was astonished to find out that this “lowness” was in fact a universal and classic symbol. I can’t say I like it now. Yet this was one of the very first things that made me wonder more about the dark alleys of our psyche and look for more similarities in the unconscious images and expressions.

Click to decipher another symbols of sexuality
The cup and the spoon
The ax and the door

Symbols of sexuality – 1. Cup and spoon

June 27, 2018 by Aynura Maye

The topic of this week is the Symbols of sexuality. During the week I’ll publish four very short, kind of fun posts, each dedicated to one symbol. The first symbol will be the Cup and spoon. I am most definitely not the one to pick this example as it comes from Russian and I don’t speak it well. But I assure you I understand this example quite well.

The Cup and Spoon is one of the classic symbols of sexual act. This is a common expression in spoken Russian and refers to a “romance with probable sexuality involved”. When one thinks hard about its meaning, it may not even come to mind. But this “folk” metaphor definitely pops up in casual talks (definitely in Russian). If it occurs in dreams, it has the same meaning. Because metaphoric expressions in our spoken language and dreams originate in the same “land”.

Click to decipher another symbols of sexuality
The deer hunt
The ax and the door

Now, back to the Chashka-Lojka (cup-spoon) – now wondering why this kind of cheesy expression has a sexual connotation? Funny enough, here is a very short answer – any object that is sharp and can penetrate obtains phallic nature in our psyche. Any object that is affected by penetration or is recipient symbolizes female genital organs.

Here we’ve solved the mystery of Chashka-Lojka (cup and spoon) – the symbol of sexual act with the Chashka taking up a feminine and the lojka a masculine nature.

Click to decipher another symbols of sexuality
The deer hunt
The ax and the door

The “A La Gucci” Great Hermaphrodite and Why We Hit Mid-Life Crisis

June 19, 2018 by Aynura Maye

What is in there for me: What is behind the mid-life crisis? Why suicides and divorces surge in the second half of life? What keeps us from being happy? Ultimately, are we all hermaphrodites? Too many questions for a short post, but believe me, you’ll at least get a hint.

The full post starts here.

A year ago Alessandro Michele dressed The “A la Gucci Great Hermaphrodite” with a red Gucci T-shirt for GucciCuise18. As usual, the reactions were everything from revulsion to admiration. I am not about that. What I want to talk about is how Gucci, unknowingly or maybe knowingly tapped on a symbol that holds so much for our mental well-being – The Great Hermaphrodite.

The Great Hermaphrodite. We are psychologically wired to recognize and integrate the “opposite gender” within. Only then we tend to find meaning in our lives. This process is symbolized as the Great Hermaphrodite in alchemy. Photo: The Internet

Read about Why sexuality and spirituality in fact are two sides of the coin in the depth of our mind
Read about Yayoi Kusama’s overly sexual art and how her uncontrollable energies took her on this journey

Ops, We all are hermaphrodites…but without Gucci

It is a rather complex symbol. I’ll start from where we all know. Everybody knows that due to our biological structure, men carry small amount of female hormones, and women small amount of male hormones.

Now, let’s look at the psychological side of it. As usual, the resonance goes very far in the depth of our mind – it means in every man there is a small, hidden woman and in each woman some hidden man. That small woman inside man is called Anima (man’s soul). It is one of the unconscious forces of very strong power because it is deeply hidden. Animus is on the contrary the man inside woman.

“The other side” within

Attention, now we are not talking strictly about genders now. Below the threshold of the consciousness, there is no duality. Now we are talking about the qualities that are ascribed to the feminine nature (receptivity, passivity, sentimentality etc) and the masculine nature (reasoning, action, penetration etc). The Anima is responsible for all of the female tendencies in man’s psyche and is an aspect of personality that normally is concealed from everybody, even the owner himself.

The Cycle of Life – sexuality and “the other”

Accept or not, during the first half of life sexuality is central to our being. Strictly talking about men, at this period, they keep polishing their “manly characters”, ego, thirst for power etc. But as we step into the second half of our lives and slowly leave sexuality behind, our nature changes. A spontaneous desire is born inside for spiritual growth and maturity. The female aspects within are what guide the man to learn to control his animalistic instincts and lead him to maturity. The same tendencies happen with women too, but everything reversed.

Divorce, suicide and more – even Gucci can’t help

At this period, when internal tendencies change towards spirituality and maturity, we still like to cling on to our previous life style and desires. That’s when a separation in our psyche starts to take place. Dressed in Gucci, or no Gucci, we constantly feel something is missing. That’s when, instead of opening up to the hidden tendencies, we start to blame our partners. The wider this psychological divergence, the more serious are the consequences (anything from depression to divorce to suicide).

In short, we are psychologically wired to recognize and integrate the “opposite gender” within. Only then we tend to find meaning in our lives. This process of integration of the psychic polar opposites is what symbolized as the Great Hermaphrodite in alchemy. In many other cultures it is also known as the Sacred Union or Sacred Marriage.

Instagram – Friend or Enemy of Fashion?

June 5, 2018 by Aynura Maye

The Barren Land and the Phenomenon of Alessandro Michele –
My thoughts upon seeing GucciCruise19.

Sometimes things touch us so deeply. They stir certain inexplicable emotions to the point we feel our hair stood on end yet we can’t explain why, like Promenade Des Alyscamps as venue of the GucciCruise19. Because the choice of venue talks about something that is known, yet unknown. Something that we knew once, but have forgotten long ago – the wisdom that once upon a time death wasn’t the end of life, it was the way of receding of the old for the new life to bloom. Life cycle was considered circular not linear, the concept behind the Ouroboros – recurring symbol in Gucci design. That is why the birth of a new collection in the land of death was so fascinating to many. But it takes quite some effort to make this connection to realize why such a choice unconsciously hits the “soft spot” and triggers such deep emotions.

GucciCruise19 - death as inspiration for new collection. Photo. Internet — GucciCruise19 – death as an inspiration for new collection. Photo: Internet

I intend neither to describe nor to analyze another much-debated, much-intriguing and much-putwhateveryouwant show of Gucci for Cruise19. First, people talked enough about it in just one day. Secondly, a thorough analysis of all the concepts and all the symbols would take days and days (which actually I am doing slowly). On the contrary, I’d like to share my opinion on what kind of paradox the Instaeuphoria created for the world of fashion and how his genius Alessandro Michele “reversed the flow” tapping this paradox online and on the runway.

Promenade Des Alyscamps - Cemetery turned into a Promonade. Venue for GucciCruise19. Photo: Gucci.com — Promenade Des Alyscamps – Cemetery turned into a Promenade. Venue for GucciCruise19. Photo: Gucci.com

Two faces of Instagram

The day Instagram went viral it paved a way to a paradox for the world of fashion that has been ripening silently. Precisely, the obsession of our eyes for ephemeral beauty and the cry of our souls for eternal grace.

Captivating the world with the spell of picture-perfect ephemeral beauty was the main card for the world of fashion in those good old paper days. But when ‘gram made picture-perfect beauty so mundane, the internet got inundated with beautiful images without depth. Instahype broke the “beauty” spell of the fashion world. Fashion started to feel like sex without love. It felt good right at that moment, but nothing to remember couple of minutes afterwards. Minds bloated with another “barren” beautiful image started to look for something more meaningful than just good looks. Something that could stir deep emotions within and leave some traces in the memory. This was the paradox. While the whole fashion herd rushed to Instagram to harness fame and awareness, they exhausted the bullets of the strongest weapon they had – captivating power of ephemeral beauty.

Disarmed beauty, bloated minds, inundated Instagram

No matter how much one loves ephemeral beauty there is a limit to which point one can stomach. After hitting the saturation point, we start to search for something that talks of depth. Something that doesn’t talk about egoistic and snobby individualism (that was and still is central to modern beauty), but something that goes farther. Something that talks about continuity of life, participation in society, courage to experiment, embracing identity – all of which give sublime messages of hope. Here enters the stage Alessandro Michele.

Thousand faces of beauty

This is exactly what he does resiliently and persistently. The looks he runs through the runway can hardly be called beautiful by the modern standards instilled in us. Yet, every show hails like a storm in the Internet. He questions the ephemerality of the very concept of beauty by re-creating thousand faces of beauty across ages and cultures. In the same time, the core concept for his creations goes beyond the ephemerality of physical look. The imagery always offers depth and refers to symbols that are impossible to comprehend with rational thinking. They in a sense talk about inexplicable hope. Hope for regenerating capacity of our nature – something new, yet something was once known but forgotten, the Ouroboros.

In times when we feel like lost souls in the ocean of information with no horizon in sight, deep inside we are desperately looking for some clues to navigate our way. When something resonates with us so deeply, we realize that is the clue we’ve been looking for. The clue is the in conventional wisdom that lies in our memory deposit. That is where we feel at home, recharge and make our way back into the future.

Gucci sends fashion back to roots – RTW Fall/Winter 2018

Symbols of sexuality – 2. Deer hunt

Symbols of sexuality – 1. Cup and spoon