The Phoenix: “a bird of perpetual Renaissance”

The Phoenix ["fenix"] bird is a magical bird, known for his ability to rise from his ashes, once after he had burnt in his flames. I call him a bird of perpetual renaissance. He is therefore mostly depicted in a body of flames, colored of golden yellow, orange & red. He glimmers & shines, he moves without any pause, reminding me sometimes of an eagle: who is graceful – a chaser – always having the overview of all the good and bad things that are going on…

The Phoenix has his origins in the Greek mythology and in the Egyptian times…, being compared to the Sun and integrated as well into the early Christianity for his rebirth and regeneration.
At the end of the Phoenix life-cycle, he builds himself a nest. Then: both nest & bird burn fiercely. What remains are his ashes, from which a new, young phoenix arises. The new phoenix embalms the ashes of the old one in an egg & deposits it in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis. Moreover it is said that the phoenix bird can regenerate when he is hurt or wounded by a foe. Thus he is almost immortal & invincible — a symbol of fire and divinity.

Phoenix: depiction out of an Aberdeen Bestiary manuscript (c. 1200)

The Hague, Museum Meermanno, MMW, 10 B 25, ca. 1450, Folio 31r (Physiologus)

The magical feathers of a Phoenix–>
Shakespeare’s Phoenix feather:
During the 16th century, Romeo & Juliet “submitted” a kind of time loop when Shakespeare wrote down their love story with a quill from a Phoenix feather.
Therefore the loving couple would meet, marry, & die in an endless cycle, which was going on for more than four hundred years, however, being married by a Charmed One broke the curse at last.

Out of a children book (1790-1830)

Shortly – the Phoenix was everywhere:)
As you saw, he appeared in all different cultures: from Greek, to Latin, to Egypt, to Chinese, etc…
Mainly he was really used in the Christianity as a symbol of resurrection.
Pythagoras named him 1st, then Herodotus, then came Pliny, as well as Ovid, and he earns a place in the 2nd century Physiologus. In Jewish folklore, the Phoenix was the only creature not to follow into exile. In traditional Russian tales he is simply the Firebird.
In China he is called “Fengshuan”: guard of the entrance to the Forbidden City.
As you saw further up in the next that also Shakespeare got his “face to face” moment with the Phoenix… and finally today, well Harry Potter is coming back to it!
…so the Phoenix myth will still live on…

Australian Street Artist:Meggs

Comic Art: Marvel Comics

Glass Art Phoenix by Iryna Suprun

#renaissance
#within you
#end & new beginning
#resurrection
#inner force

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“The Phoenix Bird”
by Hans Christian Andersen:

“In the Garden of Paradise, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, bloomed a rose bush. Here, in the first rose, a bird was born. His flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song ravishing. But when Eve plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, when she and Adam were driven from Paradise, there fell from the flaming sword of the cherub a spark into the nest of the bird, which blazed up forthwith. The bird perished in the flames; but from the red egg in the nest there fluttered aloft a new one—the one solitary Phoenix bird. The fable tells that he dwells in Arabia, and that every hundred years, he burns himself to death in his nest; but each time a new Phoenix, the only one in the world, rises up from the red egg.
The bird flutters round us, swift as light, beauteous in color, charming in song. When a mother sits by her infant’s cradle, he stands on the pillow, and, with his wings, forms a glory around the infant’s head. He flies through the chamber of content, and brings sunshine into it, and the violets on the humble table smell doubly sweet.
But the Phoenix is not the bird of Arabia alone. He wings his way in the glimmer of the Northern Lights over the plains of Lapland, and hops among the yellow flowers in the short Greenland summer. Beneath the copper mountains of Fablun, and England’s coal mines, he flies, in the shape of a dusty moth, over the hymnbook that rests on the knees of the pious miner. On a lotus leaf he floats down the sacred waters of the Ganges, and the eye of the Hindoo maid gleams bright when she beholds him.
The Phoenix bird, dost thou not know him? The Bird of Paradise, the holy swan of song! On the car of Thespis he sat in the guise of a chattering raven, and flapped his black wings, smeared with the lees of wine; over the sounding harp of Iceland swept the swan’s red beak; on Shakspeare’s shoulder he sat in the guise of Odin’s raven, and whispered in the poet’s ear “Immortality!” and at the minstrels’ feast he fluttered through the halls of the Wartburg.
The Phoenix bird, dost thou not know him? He sang to thee the Marseillaise, and thou kissedst the pen that fell from his wing; he came in the radiance of Paradise, and perchance thou didst turn away from him towards the sparrow who sat with tinsel on his wings.
The Bird of Paradise—renewed each century—born in flame, ending in flame! Thy picture, in a golden frame, hangs in the halls of the rich, but thou thyself often fliest around, lonely and disregarded, a myth—“The Phoenix of Arabia.”
In Paradise, when thou wert born in the first rose, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, thou receivedst a kiss, and thy right name was given thee—thy name, Poetry.”