Tag: Scarves
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The Peacock Bride

While the white color has become mainstream for wedding dresses across the modern world, it was not the only color considered historically. In fact, in numerous cultures, white has been the color reserved for funerals. Yet today, even societies using white traditionally to pay respect to the dead have embraced this color for their wedding…
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The Rainbow Bride

In the history of civilizations, there is but one record of fusion of two separate cultures: the Indo-Greek Kingdom, covering modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwestern India. During the two centuries of their rule, the Indo-Greek kings combined the Greek and Indian languages and symbols and blended Greek and Indian ideas. The diffusion of the Indo-Greek…
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The Black Gold Bride

“Who can find a good woman? She is precious beyond all things.” Prov. 31:10 A masterpiece of the world’s heritage, the Taj Mahal is considered the greatest achievement of Indo-Islamic architecture. Its rhythmic architectural combination of solids and voids, concave and complex, light and shadow is perfectly symmetrical and harmonious. Its elements of lush green…
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The Gold Leaf Bride

Tying the knot for love appears to be common sense today, but it has only been a mainstream concept within the last century. In the history of marriage, the focus is about collaboration – to join forces in order to improve one’s lot in life. In patriarchal societies where men largely inherit power and wealth,…
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The Tail of Spring

When April showers, the air smells warm, damp, and earthy. This particular wet earth scent is called geosmin, or petricor. It is excreted by soil bacteria to advertise food to springtail, an insect-like organism, who spreads the spores by carrying them along. But it’s not only attractive to the springtail, humans are extremely sensitive to…
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Portrait of A Lady

Your thighs are appletrees whose blossoms touch the sky. Which sky? The sky where Watteau hung a lady’s slipper. Your knees are a southern breeze — or a gust of snow. Agh! what sort of man was Fragonard? — As if that answered anything. — Ah, yes. Below the knees, since the tune drops that…
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The Tulip Folly

Of the abundance of financial crises around the world, most boil down to mismanaging money, such as debt and currency. More than enough come in bubbles, such as the 2008 U.S. housing bubble that burst into the Great Recession and then spread into a global financial crisis, the 1973 oil embargo during the Yom Kippur…
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The Ides of March

“Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March. Caesar: He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar In ancient Roman times, the ides marked the full moon of each month. Since their calendar began with March, it was the first full moon of the year. As the ides were sacred to…
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The Bloom of Spring

The flower garden bedazzles in springtime. First come snowdrops and daffodils in sparkling white and bright yellow. Then come a profusion of cherry blossoms and tulips in every brilliant hue. Finally Lady Banks’ roses arrive in thousands upon thousands of tiny bouquets, dangling like delicate wind-chimes. All is a gorgeous feast for the eyes, especially…
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Danaë

In 1898, the literary critic Hermann Bahr wrote in the journal Sacred Spring, “Our art is not a combat of modern artists against those of the past, but the promotion of the arts against the peddlers who pose as artists and who have a commercial interest in not letting art bloom. The choice between commerce…