‘Isn’t most of nature a women’s secret and not only the forest’, we ask looking at stylist Leticia Riestra’s strong forest maiden/nymph Ymre Stiekema. Lensed by Gonzalo Machado in ‘Secreto en el bosque’ for the September 2011 issue of Harper’s Bazaar España, Ymre expresses a bit too much inner resolve for your average woodland feminine frolic girl.

Returning to Greek mythology as we always do at AOC, the word ‘nymph’ conjures up visions of divine spirits who animate nature and are usually depicted as beautiful, young and nubile artistic maidens who please humans with their dancing and singing.

Was it humans in Greece — or did these female creatures with the amorous freedom of earlier goddesses — now curtailed by the increasingly restricted and chaste lifestyles of the wives and daughters of the Greek polis — please men?

As Bob Dylan used to say (after Peter, Paul and Mary) “The answer my friendd, is blowin’ in the wind.” Scratch that because I bet you a thousand dollars the wind gods are all male. I will consult the great Sumerian god Enki, if I must go to a male source of wisdom.

Enki is a real piece of work, the more I read about him. Anne