Mon Bel Ami

Image: The Leveret.

Hare of the Agave

The presence of hares in sacred and mythological contexts in Latin America is somewhat confusing and confused. One of the earliest interpreters of Mesoamerican culture, Bernardino de Sahagún, thought that the Mexican derived their very name from the god Mexitli or Mecitli, and that Mecitli means 'hare (citli) of the agave (metl).' Sahagún, a Franciscan missionary, arrived in Mexico less than a decade after the conquest of 1521, and it's possible that his interpretation was influenced by Christian animal symbolism. Modern scholars, at any rate, suggest as translations for Mexico 'Place of the Navel of the Moon' or 'Place of the Navel of the Agave.' Both hares and rabbits are associated with the moon in Mayan and Aztec iconography – no doubt because of the resemblance of the dark patches or maria of the moon to a lagomorph – but little clear distinction seems to have been made between the symbolic valences of the two creatures.

– Simon Carnell

Hare

p. 79

"Dreaming of Mexico and Dead Hare" by Suzy O'Mullane.

Bel Homme XIV

Image: The Leveret.

Totem Animal

Native American and Celtic shamanistic beliefs are strong on animal symbols. These symbols are referred to as "totem animals" or "power animals." You'll often hear the two referred to synonymously, but those that follow traditional Native beliefs explain that a totem animal is one that is with you for life, often an animal with whom you share a connection, either through interest in the animal or your resemblance to or shared characteristics of the animal in question. A power animal or spirit animal is a spirit in animal form that comes through with a specific lesson for you, and will change throughout the course of your life.

– Source

Hares are connected to both the earth element and to the lunar energies of the moon. The gestation period of a hare is 28 days, the same time as the moon.

Hares are quick with the ability to twist and turn. As a totem or power animal the hare teaches us to aim for our dreams and not let anything get in our path.

The hare is an independent, solitary animal that often lives alone. In modern society the loners of the world are often frowned upon, but history has proved these types of people to be invaluable and they should feel a sense of pride within themselves.

Unlike rabbits, hares cannot be tamed (although there is a domesticated rabbit which has the name hare, but is in fact a rabbit). They have a wild nature to them. They are the totem of people who like to run free.

Hares have been associated with magic and the ability to walk between worlds and connect to the other world. The hare is a totem of mystery and misunderstanding.

The hare is often seen as a trickster and to many people the trickster is seen as a negative trait. The trickster though may simply do things different to the norm. They may be the individual who stands out from the crowd and does things their way. The trickster is the one who will break rules and rebel; they are the sort of people that can create great changes within society. As with all attitude, the clue is how you use your power – the trickster archetypal can be cunning or foolish. They can be a power for good or a symbol of disruption. Tricksters often have two spirits that they present to the world. [They] can also be the hero. . . .

– Samantha Grayson

Image 1: "Cape Hare as Totem" by Moonvoice.
Image 2: "Hare Totem" by Christina Sargent.
Image 3: "Star Gazing Hare" by Anita Inverarity.

Morning Light XLV

Image: The Leveret.

Running Hare VIII

Image: “March Hare” by Anthony Vanderzweep.
 

The Great Hare

[The] 'Great Hare' or 'chimerical beast,' as one of the missionaries called it, figured centrally in the religion of the geographically widespread Algonquin tribes, including the Powhatans of Virginia, the Lenni Lenape of the Delaware, various tribes of New England, as well as western tribes and the Ottawa of the far north. In another early recorded testimony, as reported by one of the first French missionaries to arrive, the Ottawa were said to have been formed by three families, the first that of the Great Hare who, after forming the earth was inspired by a spider to invent fishing nets, and who set forth burial rights for his descendents. Other early and subsequent accounts expanded upon the Great Hare's role as both principal deity and culture hero, crediting him with the creation of habitable land from a grain of sand taken from the bottom of the ocean; the invention of picture-writing and of many charms and signs used in the hunt (and even of originally sorting game from non-game species), as well as founding the culturally important 'medicine society' or Meda.

– Simon Carnell

Hare

p. 82

Image: "Navabush! The Great Hare" by Puma Ghostcat.

Bel Homme XIII

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Boys Will Be Boys IV

Image: Subjects and photographer unknown.


See also the previous post:
Wrestling: : "The Heterosexually Acceptable Form of Homosexual Foreplay"

James Cameron's Titanic as a "Body-Guy" Film

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Today marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Earlier this year, James Cameron marked the occasion by releasing a 3-D version of his 1997 film Titanic.

In their book Lady Chatterley's Legacy in the Movies: Sex, Brains, and Body Guys, Peter Lehman and Susan Hunt note that Titanic is the most well-known film within what they call the "body-guy" genre – a genre that has "flourished virtually unnoticed for the past twenty years." Other films in this genre include Two Moon Junction (1988), The Piano (1993), Legends of the Fall (1994), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Lawn Dogs (1997), Fight Club (1999), Enemy at the Gates (2001), The Notebook (2004), and Australia (2008). Lehman and Hunt trace the genre's manifestation in the modern era to the 1928 publication of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, a novel that "pits an intellectual, paraplegic, impotent upper-class landowner against his virile gamekeeper for his wife's affections, with the latter winning out in all ways."

In the following excerpt from Lady Chatterley's Legacy, Lehman and Hunt define the "body-guy" genre and discuss the ways in which it is exemplified in James Cameron's Titanic.

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For his epic [Titanic], writer-producer-director James Cameron masterfully intertwines a broad array of genres: romance, action, adventure, and historical drama. The film belongs to yet another category, which has flourished virtually unnoticed for the past twenty years: the "body-guy" genre, as we call it. In the genre's classic form, a beautiful, intelligent, but discontented woman is engaged or married to a cultured, intellectual, upper-class male. The woman's discontent is quelled when a working-class man, often tied closely to the land, awakens her sexuality and energizes her life. The body guy's masculinity and sexuality are so compelling that he rescues the woman from the stultifying world of the successful "mind guy," who is boring, controlling, and, significantly, a poorer lover who fails to recognize, let alone fulfill, her sexual needs.

Titanic contains many of the genre's key conventions. From the ship's lower tier, Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), a penniless itinerant worker, sights the beautiful, well-dressed Rose (Kate Winslet), above him on a deck reserved for the far-from-penniless. He knows in an instant that her beauty is tinged with melancholy. With equal immediacy he knows that he has the right stuff to fix whatever is haunting her. The two meet when Jask prevents Rose from committing suicide. Soon, he is whisking her away from the upper-deck dining room and her cultured but arrogant fiance, Cal (Billy Zane), to show her a good time at a "real party" in steerage. Cal quietly sips his cognac over conversation about politics and business while inarticulate men in steerage happily fall down drunk. The fun continues for Jack and Rose when they have first-time sex in the back of a car in the ship's frigid cargo hold. Even though they have just fled from Cal's assistant, who pursued them with a gun, Jack's sexual performance is perfect. In a graphic image, we see Rose's hand slap against the rear window and trace a pattern in the steamy condensation, the PG-13 signal of intense orgasm from vigorous penetration sex. To confirm our imagination, the next shot shows Jack and Rose in afterglow, their bodies glistening with sweat. At this point, there's no going back for Rose. She risks her own death to be with Jack, who, as she says, "saved her in every way a person could be saved."

. . . Typical of body guys in the pattern, Jack is a manual laborer, but he is somewhat unusual in that he's also an aspiring artist. He is, however, far from intellectual. Jack lived in Paris at the height of the modernist movement, a time when artistic style and political action coalesced, but he seems untouched by the innovative milieu, sketching instead in a highly conventional, realist style against which the philosophical artists rebelled. Perhaps most key to his body-guy status. Jack sketches female nudes and body parts, and his models are prostitutes. His art is that of the sexed body and the working-class street. In one of the film's integral scenes, he sketches Rose nude in what becomes a type of foreplay. His art, his sexuality, and body-guy persona are fused.

Jack's masculinity is dramatically privileged over Cal's, so emotion reigns over intellect. In establishing the mind/body opposition in this manner, Cameron plugs firmly into an anti-intellectual ideology so familiar to American culture. He reinforces the popular myth that the mind is a boring place – a site that could never be stimulating, erotic, or even fun. Those qualities are attached instead to the party in steerage. When Jack urges Rose to dance, she says, "I don't know the steps," to which he replies, "Neither do I. Go with it. Don't think." When Rose tells Jack that she will go with him when the ship docks, he says, "That's crazy," to which Rose responds, "I know. It doesn't make sense. That's why I trust it."

The world of the mind represented by Cal and other "real-life" men on the Titanic such as Benjamin Guggenheim and John Jacob Astor is dismissed as the "snake pit" by the loveable nouveau-riche but social pariah, Molly Brown (Kathy Bates). Obviously, the first-class world of cigars, cognac, and conversation could be presented as one of pleasurable vitality rather than deadly boredom, and just as obviously, Rose could find erotic fulfillment with a man from that world. And, indeed, the film potentially contains such a man in the character of Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber), the designer of the Titanic.

. . . Perhaps the most compelling similarity between Andrews and Jack is that they both "see something" in Rose. Although Andrews may seem to be a type of father figure, he appears barely middle-aged, and his place within the narrative structure makes it clear that Cameron could just as easily have made him a potential lover for Rose – one who attractively represents the world of the mind. Although Jack and Andrews are linked, the relationship between Rose and Andrews functions ultimately to emphasize the impotence of the educated, upper-class man as compared to working-class potency. Jack is able to motivate Rose and effect her survival in a way that Andrews cannot. As the ship is sinking, Andrews' parting words to Rose are, "I'm sorry that I didn't build you a stronger ship." Not surprisingly, the most iconic image from the film celebrates the liberating bodily experience Jack provides as and Rose stand on the ship's prow, sensuously feeling the rush of the wind; the "king of the world" moment.

– Peter Lehman and Susan Hunt
Lady Chatterley's Legacy in the Movies: Sex, Brains, and Body Guys
pp. 1-4

Related Off-site Links:
Prayers and Silence Mark Titanic Centenary – Jill Lawless and Lefteris Pitarkis (Associated Press, April 15, 2012).
Titanic Anniversary: Ship's Gay Passengers Revealed in New Research – The Huffington Post (April 13, 2012).

Dancing Hares II

Image: "Dancing Hares" by Sophie Ryder (Ballantrae Park, Dublin, Ohio). Photo by Tim Perdue.

Boys Will Be Boys III

Image: Subjects and photographer unknown.