100 Fildzana - 36 Revisited

The Night they Burned Dixie Down

It's Sunday and it is time to announce the tittle of cup #36 which thanks to jk, Susan E, susan g and Steve V has now been christened. I looked at all of your comments and went through my own history of images and immediate impressions I received when looking at this little beauty and found that really, we were all on the 'same page'. While jk saw a woman dancing in the shadow of smoke, Steve and susan saw an even more dramatic version of the same dance reflected in the lyrics of Robbie Robertson's 'The Night They Burned Old Dixie Down' and dear Susan had a visit from the Sacred Owl, protector of the Ancient Trees of the Forest.
In the end, and you will see why, I chose Steve's title 'The Night they Burned Old Dixie Down' as it encompassed so many historical roads in one pert image of a popular song and touched each of us in some similar way.

At first glance into the cup I was definitely  immediately struck by the dancing woman. What she evoked in me was the image of a Can Can singer in Paris, maybe from a painting that I had seen by Lautrec in a museum, maybe just popular culture impressions about Impressionist painting. Below the dancing woman though is the Shaman, the Medicine Woman looking up at the dancer(you can see her profile looking into the dancers feet/skirt), keeping time with one hand and the other hand up to her mouth to express 'shhhhhhh' . This is so in tune with Susan's Night Hunter, stealth, Indian folklore and so on.

Shhhhhh

These two images together made no sense to me and no matter how I tried I could not reconcile them which is why I asked for help in naming it. I looked up the meaning of Old Dixie and of course the most common explanation is that this is the name of the Southern Confederate States during the Civil War, which is also what the song is about.

A string of interesting impressions continued to come up: American Indians and the mixture of cultures:

Indian Riding Horse w Bow & Arrow

During that time in New Orleans $10 dollar notes were issued  called 'Dix', the French word for Ten. Suddenly with this information I felt that there was a connection between the Shamanistic vision at the bottom of the cup and the energy and urgency of the Dancer on top. 

Of course,  I became a little over fascinated with  New Orleans, it's Indian Tribes and the mixture of Cultures that came about  through the centuries.

I could go on forever, every cup is truly like a painting, symbolism abounds, if you look deep enough the story is there for the taking. ( to the left of the dancer, Steve, is a confederate soldier holding up a flag -of victory or submission I don't know...

Confederate Soldier

You all have inspired me so much, I didn't really even realize how much deeper the stories spilled from the cups could become and so I thank you and hope that we can collaborate again sometime! S