Pentagram, Pentastar, and Starfish

My last post on my tree of thoughts  featured a picture of my great grandmother named Hadassah (aka Hattie.) I found her picture in some scans of my father’s old slides. I had gone through his slides and selected many to scan and copy onto a compact disc so he could view them as a slideshow. He was beginning to suffer from dementia, and I wanted him to remember his family as long as he could. I did this back in the fall of 2007. He passed away in June of 2013. I made other CDs for the rest of my family.

We had gone to the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair. I am not sure which year we attended. I had scanned slides of the Unisphere, the Rocket Thrower (which was a large bronze statue), and this picture which features my mother, brother, sister and myself. Behind us you can see part of the Chrysler exhibit featuring a pentagram inside a pentagon. They called this logo a Pentastar. Their marketing under this new logo was extremely successful.

 The Pentastar reminded me of a starfish. A five pointed star is everywhere in nature. Here is another example of humans profiting off of nature’s design. It happens all the time. And nature copies itself repeatedly. Written history claims that Pythagoras brought the five pointed star to the prominent position it holds today.

 The starfish you see here in this picture were inherited from my mother-in-law. I took this picture with my phone today. I wanted to show how when you turn the starfish over you can see the Chrysler star very clearly, and the only difference is the background is another star rather than a pentagon.

 Another example of a pentagram in nature is an apple. If you cut an apple in half along its equator then the patterns of the seeds is revealed… a perfect five-pointed star or pentagram.

The pentagram has been adopted by many different groups and given many different meaning.

Farmer’s Market

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Went to the farmer’s market today. Brought my old vegetable motif canvass bag.

Spotted the pastries first. Bought a round fresh ginger cake made by Grace.

Then, I found myself at the Lamb’s Quarter tent. The owner Jim is a farmer, writer, and speaker.

I was tempted to buy some lamb, specifically a half-leg and chops. Decided I didn’t want to heat the house with oven cooking. Ended up with a pound each of maple pork sausage and smoked pork bacon. These can be cooked stove top in a shorter period of time.

Can’t remember the last time I cooked sausage, or bacon for that matter. I think it was Thanksgiving, nine months ago.

The fresh local vegetables were all around. I bought some zucchini and yellow squash, and some purple peppers. My bag was getting full.

I stopped and talked to the master gardeners. They gave me some helpful literature on lawn care. My grass is my garden’s last frontier, sadly full of weeds.

Then I saw a young female entrepreneur with a selection of homemade soups. I was interested in the chilled mint cucumber. One of its ingredients is coconut buttermilk, made by adding apple cider vinegar. It has a cool refreshing taste.

I was sold on it. I took away a small container.

There was a tent for a local restaurant opening soon. I had a conversation with the chef about roasting beets. I picked up a recipe from him.

The county had a tent with a raffle drawing, local information, and free grocery bags. The nice young lady gave me an attractive green and white reusable bag with Virginia Grown written across the front.

All and all, it was very satisfactory. I do plan to go again next Thursday.