Harry Potter, Gandalf, the Wizard of Oz, Mickey Mouse, Luke Skywalker, Ebenezer Scrooge—all iconic names that any lover of fiction recognizes, each name bringing up a thousand memories of joy and tears for these characters. Yet just how, and maybe more importantly, why are they so iconic to us? Yes, of course, it’s because of their stories that we have journeyed along with them, but why have their names become such a huge part of our culture today? And how did their creators

Can we love like skeletons do? Intertwined within the grave, No nerves, no flesh, no skin, Just us at our very cores? Can we love like ghosts do? Waltzing in mid-November, Quiet as the dead leaves falling free, Gentle as grass and dew? Can we love like zombies do? Roaming in the vast wilderness, Nowhere particular planned ahead, Yet walking together on the stony path? Can we love like the dead do? Soft passion bound in softer darkness, Silence birthing new life, Bound i

Ghosts are not creatures in white sheets. They are horrors. Rotting bodies, festering flesh, bug-eaten bone. Things that stalk and wail no matter light or night. Things that scream and entrap and whisper and growl into unsuspecting ears. Freaks, I tell you. And now you wonder why I know them so well. Quite honestly, I wish I didn’t. But I had the misfortune of being nearly forced into one. Metaphysical. Neither spirit nor flesh, yet both at once. They’ve no need

They make you say you visited. A statue from Mirabell Gardens in Salzburh, Austria. But did you really?… You do it for status. You become better and more human and more qualified than the rest of the world when you visit a country, twice if two, immense if more, and a god if a dozen. But all you did was glance at it like something interesting, before snapping your selfie. Did you learn anything? Did you culture yourself? Did you feel the life around you? Did you pause an

Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. The sunset, one of the many examples of true beauty. It is the reflection of the objective and purest Truth. A Truth that echoes continuously in the hidden corner of our souls that perhaps we will never understand, in all of history. It is the reflection of the Creator, who made Truth, and made Beauty is ornate mirror. That is what we recognize to be beautiful, and what draws humanity in. When we see something that speaks out, calls

There is something very strange about seeing Brunelleschi’s dome out of the airplane window. Brunelleschi's Il Duomo from an airplane window Please, I just want to get off. The thought repeated monotonously through my head as our plane flew slowly over Britain. I was curled up, scrunched, and twisted in my seat. My classmate in front of me had her seat leaned down back into my knees. Cheap pasta sat cold on my tray along with a full cup of orange…something—thinking of food

L’arte non è mai finita, solo abbandonata. Those are the truest words. We lost the right to finish created works, long ago. The Fall and The Temptation, opposite of each other in the chapel, high above, reminded me of that. That is why the background of the Temptation is blank—we could no longer see divine beauty. But still, we remain somehow close to it: the angel casting out Adam and Eve said that much. Massacio's Brancacci Chapel (1425-27) “You’re at the feet of your ma

I swayed on the bench, hunching forward to stare at the plain, sand-colored wood floor. Nausea both from exhaustion of having gotten lost last night—not getting to our apartments till one in the morning—and from rushing to hurry to the Vatican—that would not even let us in properly (it is a pdf, guard!)—were taking their toll. Fifteen of us crowded the white bench before the staircase to the chapel. The most infamous one. The Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel (15

My brain was murdered in that room. I had been looking forward to this most, since I missed the second visit to the Uffizi Gallery because of that stupid illness. Smiling at the banner above our heads, covering the construction and restoration of the front of one of the Medici’s seven old villas in Florence, I swung side to side, waiting for two more classmates to join us. Gozzoli's Chapel of the Magi (1459-1463) We pushed ourselves up a flight of stairs. Then another set.

I was more ready to go back home, than to go home. I sulked at the pillar at the other side of the terminal, waiting for the Flyaway Bus. As much as I did not really want to go back to home, with tasteless cement boxes for houses and food with more fluff than filling, at least I was no longer on seven hours of dehydration in a plane bouncing on air. Yet it felt like I had left a home at the same time. LAX I was not the only with the same sentiment. The bus came. Luggage wa

A poem and a prayer, inspired as I sat crying over the meaning of Michelangelo's lesser known pieta, featuring a portrait of himself holding the body of Christ.

I’m not entirely sure what happened when I walked into that room. Maybe I drowned. Maybe I ascended. Maybe a part of me died. Maybe all of me lived. Botticelli's Birth of Venus (1482-86) I can’t tell anyone what to expect when you see it. There’s nothing you can expect, because there’s nothing you can do to expect it. It’s sudden and slow. Like the rush of adrenaline of seeing a tidal wave, but the time slows so the magnitude does not hit till you are too far under the wave