Here's a beautiful C19 Kerman carpet with a tree of life.

The Pleiades seem to be on my mind and in my life a lot recently. One of my students, who's Ojibwe, is studying First Nations stories about the Pleiades, and she's discovered some wonderfully varied myths that explain them - as there are in just about every culture around the world. I think these are stories that people tell to each other in order to humanize the immensity of the heavens.

And the car that I drive all winter through the Ontario snowstorms is my trusty Subaru. I only realised recently that Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades. There are six stars in the company logo (the six most visible). But more mundanely it refers to the five Japanese companies that joined together to form the sixth and largest - Fuji Heavy Industries.

Enough mythology. Happy Christmas!

Will