Have you ever come upon a paint­ing or a statue that imme­di­ately strikes your core? That embod­ies an essence that you can’t put into words but seems to lay bare your entire soul that you look around to see if every­one is star­ing at you?

I have. The Nike of Samoth­race.

I don’t for one minute imag­ine myself that pow­er­ful, that beau­ti­ful, that majes­tic — on the out­side. On the inside?  Maybe I do.

The Nike (née-kee) is the God­dess of Vic­tory. She’s not some cool name that a clever run­ning shoe com­pany came up with — although that was their inspi­ra­tion. It was renamed from The Blue Rib­bon Run­ning Com­pany to Nike. Good choice?

The Winged Vic­tory of Samoth­race, also called the Nike of Samoth­race, is a third cen­tury B.C. mar­ble sculp­ture. Since 1884, it has been promi­nently dis­played at top of the grand stair­case in the Lou­vre Museum in Paris. She’s an excel­lent exam­ple of the expres­sive Hel­lenis­tic style and is one of the most cel­e­brated sculp­tures in the world.

The winged god­dess Nike (vic­tory) was the daugh­ter of the Titans, Pal­las and Styx; her sib­lings included Zelos (rivalry), Kratos (strength), and Bia (force). After help­ing Zeus ban­ish the Titans from Mt. Olym­pus, the supreme god hon­ored Nike, and she then earned her title as the god­dess of victory.

The image of Nike is promi­nent through­out Greek art and was tra­di­tion­ally asso­ci­ated with vic­tory in war, ath­let­ics, and even poetry con­tests. Her pres­ence invoked a spirit of cel­e­bra­tion and com­mem­o­rated the arête (phys­i­cal and moral excel­lence) of gods and men.

The Nike of Samoth­race orig­i­nally stood on the mar­ble bow of a sculpted war­ship, a mon­u­ment that com­mem­o­rated a naval victory.

The Nike is designed to seem as if she is just land­ing in a fierce head­wind, her great wings still aloft. The body twists slightly as if to main­tain its bal­ance, while the sheer chi­ton, heavy with sea spray, both clings and bil­lows dramatically.

Pic­tures do not do her jus­tice. As you are com­ing out of Greek Antiq­ui­ties, you arrive at the land­ing of the Grand Stair­case and there she is. Alight­ing on the prow of a ship.  Even though her head and arms are miss­ing, the drama is no less powerful.

Going to Paris often on busi­ness, I would some­time pay admis­sion just to “visit” her.

See­ing her per­son was not the first time I was aware of Nike. As a child and even today, one of my favorite movies was Funny Face with Audrey Hep­burn. In it, she plays a book clerk, Jo Stock­ton, dis­cov­ered and thrust into the fash­ion scene as a model. One of my favorite scenes is when Jo is run­ning down the stair­case with the Nike in the back­ground. I had no idea it was such a famous statue. I also had no clue I would ever see it in person.

The first time I saw the statue at the Lou­vre, I thought of the movie and how sub­con­sciously the image was always at the back my mind.

Was the Uni­verse guid­ing me to it? Maybe. I’m kinda flakey that way.

Through­out my life I’ve been attracted to winged-beings and I never really real­ized it. I say “winged-beings” because I’m not really an “angel” kind of girl.

I like the pow­er­ful imagery of  God­desses and Archangels. I think it has more to do with the style/period of art than the actual “rank” of angel. I’m sure there are every­day angels doing very nice things.

So, why am I telling you all of this now? Well, I went to Shecky’s  Girl’s Night Out (when will you ever see a ref­er­ence to Shecky’s and a famous Hellines­tic sculp­ture men­tioned in the same arti­cle again? Never), and I pur­chased a piece of jew­elry from a friend I met in a busi­ness group called Savor The Suc­cess. Her name is Jana of Jana­ra­tion; Yoga Inspired Jewelry.

Well, her jew­elry may be yoga inspired but it has a beauty and sim­plis­tic aes­thetic that is so appeal­ing that it has a far­ther reach that just those who prac­tice yoga.

My eyes fell on this Angel Wing neck­lace and I knew I had to have it.

To most, wings rep­re­sent free­dom. In fact, to Jana, the wing rep­re­sents, free­dom, purity and hope.

But, that’s not why I bought it. I liked it because my first thought was of the Nike. All angels or winged objects don’t bring her to mind. This one did.

Per­haps the  most pre­scient sym­bol­ism of the Nike God­dess is the very thing I love most about her. Nike is seen with wings, in most stat­ues and paint­ings, to remind peo­ple that vic­tory is fleeting.

Sim­ple and del­i­cate. Yet, to me, it meant I could carry the essence of the Nike with me. Her power, beauty, tri­umph, endurance and majesty. A lot for a lit­tle neck­lace to handle.

Objects only have the mean­ing WE attach to them, but isn’t that one of the sweet­est parts of life?

UPDATE: See the Video of Jana at Shecky’s being inter­viewed by our local sta­tion.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0