Moon River: Myth

The Tree of Life

Tue, 30 May 2006 08:23:58 GMT

i wonder, once people need to describe what is greater then them - they get back to visualisation methods such as this:

Many people are studying the Kabbalah now as they search for their roots - the origins and greater understaning of creation - and the messages of God. (i'm not one of them..)

The Kabala is presented, symbolically in the form of The Tree of Life.

Cabbala, Yeats's normal spelling, is also spelt Cabala, Kabbalah, or Qabalah, along with other variant transliterations of the Hebrew (American Heritage cites more than two dozen). It means 'tradition', 'received doctrine', 'received teaching', or 'received wisdom'

for a larger view of the image above.

A modern style:

a large view

ship of fools

Sun, 21 May 2006 20:47:07 GMT

From a lecture by Terence McKenna:

"My thing is to be amazed at the world as given by nature, but ever more, as we approach this millennial speedbump in our cultural highway, to be amazed at people, and about the direction that mass psychology seems to be taking. the thing which lies at the end of any epistemic investigation of what reality is, is surprise, astonishment. Not religious awe, not that kind of astonishment, but actually like pie-in-the-face hysteria, foodfights and falling anvils, explosions! This is what lies at the end of the epistemic enterprise.

Ship of Fools

"...WHY is that? Well I think it has something to do with the fact that we are simply loaded monkeys, that our belief that we were proceeding as God's messengers, or his research assistants, was somehow ill-contrived, misbegotten. What we've shipped for is not a voyage of discovery, it's more like a ship of fools. "

Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools

" ...So I exist in this matrix, as you exist in this matrix, making our way through our lives, our affairs, our careers, our disasters...

We're really at a very terminal point on the process of our historical unfoldment, in the same way that our hunter-gatherer phase led into agriculture and advanced role specialization and urbanization and all that. Now we're ready to make another leap. But this time it's going to be done in the light of consciousness, because consciousness is what was garnered in the last leap. How this is done depends essentially on the collective state of mind -- how malleable it is, how phobic of closure it is, how open it is to the Logos, to the downloading of universal intent into Human understanding (which is what I would call the Logos), and finally, how deeply it operates in the light of Eros. How much love is there in this culture? How much love has been carried intact from the plains of Africa through the Minoan civilization and the Medieval period and the spread of people around the planet? How much of what we call true Human-ness made the journey with us to this new time? We're going to find out. We're going to find out by pooling the love that is in each of us, in a form in which it is coextensively shared by all of us. There may be many ways to talk about what this will feel like, what it will look like -- but what it will BE, if it works, is Love. If it isn't Love, than it's less than a perfect sublimation of the alchemical purpose -- and less-than-perfect is now off the menu. So the only way up is out. Up and out!"

{*}

couldn't help my self add this wonderful cartoone:

The idea of 'the ship of fools' is concerned to give a reason for the wayward behavior of human beings in a fallen world. The causes are related to foolishness, wherein foolishness, depending on circumstances, is another word for ungodliness. This lead to the prospect of divine damnation. The initial moral allegory was by the distinguished humanist Sebastian Brant was published in Latin as Sultifera Navis in 1494 and it contained a number of woodcuts thast are judged to be a early examples of intentionally comic illustration in the printed book. via junkforcode

Full moon creation

Mon, 08 May 2006 20:35:10 GMT

I don't know much about wizards and magic, this site offer tool for all healers and shaman, magicians and so on.
many of the object were created on full moon (i can only vision what it makes them carry), but, looking at this beautiful craftsman ship makes me only want to decorate my self with this phallic beauties, i have no intentions of using those for putting a spell on some one, on second thought, looking on those pieces of beauty, i wouldn't mind waving one, and calling on a huge ancient Ginni to come and visit me :)

"The wand workshop specialises in creating hand crafted Selenite (Satin Spar), live wood, and crystal wands.
The Wands are used by healers, Reiki Practitioners, Shaman, metaphysicians, Earth Magick Practitioners, Kinesologists, and energy workers all over the world". wandhome

This wand was co-created early on the May full moon just before the lunar eclipse. The wand features a Septarian Sphere set on a copper band into which has been set a large citrine cabochon. Tigers eye cabochons sit above and below the citrine on on the copper and one in the selenite.

Palm Stone This palm stone was co-created on the full moon September 2002. The Utah selenite has been carved with a mayan rune.

Lemurian Lazer Point Wand The wand features a huge quartz generator which flows into a substantial piece of selenite. A charolite, amethyst, lapis, rhodonite, blue lace agate, tigers-eye and malachite are set into the upper part of the selenite. the handle section has an eleven turn spiral augmented with gold plated wire. Below this is a large lemurian lazer point.

dreaming architecture

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:56:35 GMT

Luke Chandresinghe: Successfully dreaming architecture - Institute of Ideas

top perspective A2 of the Insitute of Ideas

"There are three key words that we use to bring students into the vocabulary of architectural representation: drawing a plan = looking from above, drawing an elevation = looking from the side, and drawing a section= a cut through something. "

Currently the UK government is giving money to universities right now to build centers for excellence in teaching and learning CETL’s. We are working on a project for Sussex University in Brighton for a new CETL in Creativity. It is a completely adaptable, flexible, fully immersive interactive environment. If you are a scientist and study clouds, you can actually make steam and study a huge cloud in this room. There are tens of projectors, a programmable computer controlled LED ceiling lighting system, movable revolving screens, rooms, walls, floors and work stations, a stage area, and dividing curtain cycloramas and much more to allow students and teachers to create their own learning and teaching environments. It’s a prototype for future CETL explorations and a very exciting project to be working on both at a professional and personal level."

view through a tower at the Institute of Ideas

*Institute of Ideas: it is a proposal of 60 drawings for a patent office which you propose to be built on a site in East London (which has just been chosen for the 2012 Olympics). This was originally your thesis and you won a couple of prices with it, amongst them one from the RIBA!

1.500 part plan

"Through a series of drawings and re-drawings the Institute came about as an idea of a place, a governing body where ideas were being patented. A patent - meaning: a good idea, that gets kept and stored for 20 years in the UK. The interesting part about this proposal was the question as to how those papers were being stored and what would happen to those papers after 20 years."

detail of two tower elevation

Expiration Day

* once the time is up and the patent runs out, A guard opens up the containers and puts all the paper in a paper-bird-folding-machine. They come out as paper-birds and end up in this middle section. Then all the fans get turned on and then blow all the papers across into this big silo. They get pulled through those fans and can then be finally blown and dispersed across the terrain.
Its more about the poetry of what happens to these expired inventions. All these forgotten old ideas! Rather than be forgotten, there could be a place, a market place, a junk yard, a car boot sale - where people can exchange ideas, re-cycle ideas, have a conversation and promote better ideas. If inventors, scientists, intellectuals, whoever - come together and occupy that land - what would happen? What kind of community would start to live there? I like to call them intellectual scavengers, people who just start to look for new things and recycle old ideas into new invention.

looking up through one of the silos
read all inteview

Photos and citations from interview by and from Ping Mag - An Amzing site

Allah - the Moon God

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 10:46:10 GMT

"Eclipses are revered in Islam as proof of God's control over the Moon and Sun." (via)

And the recent Sun Eclipse that took place on March 29, is a perfect timing to have a look at the origins of Allah.

more photos from the recent Eclipse

Currently, there is an ongoing debate as to whether the Allah of the Qur'an is in fact a pagan Arab moon god of pre-Islamic times. The idea has been mentioned in literature for more than a century, but only recently has the theory been seriously promoted. The theory is briefly presented in some of Dr. Robert Morey's books and pamphlets written since 1991.

Some say that Historical evidences, impartial logic, well versed references and all available circumstantial judgments can very well prove that—(a) Allah name of deity was pre-existed much before the arrival of Islam, (b) Pre-Islamic Pagan peoples worshipped Allah as their supreme deity (moon-god). Allah’s name existed in pre-Islamic Arab. In ancient Arab the Allah was considered to be the supreme God/deity (as Moon-God) and Arab Pagans worshipped Allah before Islam arrived.

Other contradict this concept all together.

Babylonian Moon God Sin, Often depicted as a wise old man with a long beard, the moon god Sin was one of the most important Babylonian gods.

Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the Moon-god throughout the Middle East. From the mountains of Turkey to the banks of the Nile, the most wide-spread religion of the ancient world was the worship of the Moon-god. In the first literate civilization, the Sumerians have left us thousands of clay tablets in which they described their religious beliefs. The ancient Sumerians worshipped a Moon-god who was called many different names. The most popular names were Nanna and Suen. His symbol was the crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts concerning the worship of this Moon-god, it is clear that this was the dominant religion in Sumeria. The cult of the Moon-god was the most popular religion throughout ancient Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Akkadians took the word Suen and transformed it into the word Sin as their favorite name for the Moon-god.

Penelope's web

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:00:27 GMT

One more Mythological WEB story, and how it relates now days

Penelope (her name literally means Weaver),is the beautiful wife of a Greek hero, King Odysseus. When he went to fight the Trojans, Penelope stayed on the island of Ithaca. waiting For 20 yearsfor his return. A number of suitors descended on Ithaca to marry her and with her to gain Odysseus's crown. The ever-faithful Penelope devised an ingenious way of delaying having to make a decision on re-marrying. She announced that she would remarry after the completion of a funeral canopy of Laertes, Odysseus's father. During the day she worked at the robe, but in the night she undid the work of the day. The above myth is the origin of the famous Penelope's web - a proverbial expression denoting anything which is perpetually doing but never done,a constantly changing order - like the raveling and unraveling of Penelope's web.

Kirk Richards. PENELOPE'S WEB, 2003 Oil on canvas

"One of the online Odyssey study guides says: "What does this weaving and unraveling symbolize? It parallels the conditions in the Ithacan state. It holds together precariously and yet is falling apart."

"It also occurs to me that the Web as the Internet is capturing many of us, and that we spend endless hours here, sometimes very actively, but without really getting much done in our real lives. For some, lives become unravelled as a result of our "weaving" on the Web."

".. Spinning and weaving are critical components of a well functioning society, and women are as vital to a complete civilization as men. The reader is thus given a third and final description of Penelope's web in the last Book. At the end, the weave is finally seen: "the big loom woven tight from beam to beam with cloth. She washed the shrouding clean as sun or moonlight." The same web, which once symbolized Penelope's cunning and then her stasis, now indicates her resumption of her divine place as weaver.. " More

Black magic charm

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:48:47 GMT

Malay black magic (Ilmu Sihir) is still practised and feared in modern Malay society. With its origins deeply rooted in the obscure animistic past of the Malay archipelago, Ilmu Sihir is inflicted in various shapes and forms by its practitioners. This diagram is an example of a black magic charm intended to curse its recipient with fatal illness. The Arabic letters surrounding the human figure are incantations and spells written in the language of djinns and shaitan (demonic spirits).

Malay; c.19th century.

more..

The geography of hell

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 13:53:38 GMT

"... but who art thou
That hast inquir'd of us?" To whom my guide:
"One that descend with this man, who yet lives,
From rock to rock, and show him hell's abyss."
Dante (Inferno XXIX, 89–92, trans. Cary))

Map of the earth, showing Hell and Mount Purgatory.

For Dante, Hell was a real place, located inside the earth beneath Jerusalem. It was cone-shaped, made up of a vestibule housing the cowardly and nine layered concentric circles representing nine levels of sin, whose circumference and depth could be measured. Dante's journey takes place both in space and time: he enters Hell on Good Friday and reemerges at the foot of Mount Purgatory early on Easter Sunday morning, having travelled through the centre of the earth and come out the other side.

Frontispiece of Hell (Venice: Pietro da Fino, 1568).

This exhibition celebrates the ways in which Dante has been interpreted in text and image in the seven centuries of book production since the poet's death.

via plep

Atlantis

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 19:55:27 GMT

For 2,500 years, the human race has been fascinated by the question "Did the legendary Atlantis really exist, and if so, where was it located?". In his Timaeus and Critias, Plato (428/27-348/47 BC) provides a description of Atlantis which, according to tradition, was supposed to have been a great empire with a highly developed and powerful civilization, located on a paradisiacal island in the Atlantic Ocean beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" (i.e. the Straits of Gibraltar). Besides a great variety of flora and fauna, the island also was covered with densely populated settlements. The capital was built around a citadel in the shape of several concentric rings of land and water, connected by bridges. There were busy harbours, splendid palaces, temples covered with precious metals, fertile fields and gardens.

The inhabitants owed this enormous prosperity to the island's natural riches and to foreign trade. Their urge to conquest was also considerable, and many Mediterranean people became their subjects. The depravity of the Atlantis dwellers aroused the wrath of the gods, however, and not long after their fleet was defeated by the Athenian forces (which, according to Plato, occurred 9,600 years before his time), a series of earthquakes and floods occurred which caused the island to sink under the waves.
Since the time of Plato, many books (both fiction and nonfiction), musical works and films have been devoted to the lost continent. Several researchers claimed to have located Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean (A Kircher, NF Zhirov and I Donnelly, among others), but others have traced it to America (F Bacon), northern Europe (A Schulten in Tartessos, Spain; AG Galanopoulos and S Marinatos in Thera, present-day Santorini), and even Africa (A Herrmann in Tunisia and L Frobenius in West Africa) and Antarctica (R and R Flem-Ath). Many scholars doubt that Atlantis ever existed, however, and relegate it to the realm of fiction. go here..

Land of Cockaigne

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 23:43:53 GMT

Land of Cockaigne, after 1570(?)
Attributed to Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Land of Cockaigne, known in Dutch literature as Luilekkerland
(country of the lazy and gluttonous), was described in very popular
stories as a mythical place where there is no need to work,
and where food and drink are so abundant that we need only open
our mouths to take in what we desire. via

The Dreamy Winter, I never had

Thu, 29 Dec 2005 20:04:32 GMT

http://www.hunkabutta.com/

A Garden For Moonlight

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:01:28 GMT

A moonlight garden is best built above the sea, for the moon never shines so brightly as on salt water; and although the moon's scintillations filter pleasantly enough through fresh water, there seems to be on the surface of the sea an oily, resilient patina that amplifies her rays, and sends them rebounding upwards, like rain on slate.

Fresh water, as it appears, absorbs light; salt water, in sparkling regurgitations, refracts it; and there may be a still more deeply rooted affinity between the moon and the sea than is generally guessed at, for an oceanic vastness alone hardly explains why lunar tides swing the ocean, yet cause no rhythmic flux, no ebb and flow, of inland seas, or freshwater lakes, or rivers. Below the sea we know lies an unknown, a stranger sea, as black as coal, as dense as rock, as cold as ice, where the fish, supporting on their fins the weight of half the world, move like arc lights.This submerged ocean is the mercury backing the sea's glass; this is the culet of a diamond which has for girdle the earth's immeasurable seashores, and for table the moon's disk. Its facets intensify the radiance of moonlight on salt water.

That our vision shows us but one such nexus to the moon is a disadvantage that may be alleviated somewhat by the plan of the garden, which should have a central path running due north to facilitate the enjoyment of the zenith or lunar noon, a path going eastwards to greet the rising moon, and a third traveling westward toward its setting.

All dipping finally into the sea, these paths should be proportioned as was a Crusader's sword, the east- and west-going paths cut short, like the cross on the hilt, the northern path long, like the sword blade. The pommel would give the hint, dimensionally, for a fourth path, having at its tip the doorway into the garden; it should have but a little gate.

A basin to hold the stars should be put where the four pathways meet. Their dark foliage pitted by the Pleiades, or by wheeling Orion, with tiny sequins of light, four magnolia trees, placed so that they do not overshadow it, may flank the basin. While the walks in a moonlight garden are best made of light colored granite (marble, unless it be liberally clouded over with pink, is too white), the star basin should be lined with malachite or black marble, or some other dark substance, so that Betelgeuse or Aldebaran lost nothing in the reflecting.

For this reason the water should be sunk, lest the winds ruffle it,
below the rim of the platter. Yet it should not be set down so deep that a hand may not reach the stars.

Since lotus buds in the moonlight open so quickly that it is possible to hear the plop the petals make in sundering, as if they kissed at parting, since the yellow water lilies of the Euphrates or the dim Asian kinds blossom only at night, it is a temptation, to some, to mix lilies in with the stars in the basin. But it is better to limit oneself to the galaxy. For lilies, unlike violets, have no legendary association with the sea. White violets may be scattered lightly over the rocks, well above the inrush of spray at high tide. But lilies are landlubbers.

It is not known how souls are begotten. That they may grow on the human mind, parasites of experience, gives life but a tame climax. That they are in reality begotten in mystic intercourse with a Divine Consonance, that those who are, in the body, childless may yet be the foremost breeders of souls, is a theory not without appeal; and as a breeding ground for souls a moonlight garden may have its uses, particularly if it harbors a crooked acacia, whose tarnished, off-white blossoms may brush the moon with silver, may stir the senses with exhalations so sweet, so faint, so fleeting, that only souls can catch them.

A moon bow, though among the rarest is not the least brilliant of the diadems of night. Snaring within its triple arches humid cerulean, veiled rose, saffron, purple, lime-green smeared with maize, it echoes palely a rainbow's hardier chromatics. A moon bow is never so rare that it may not be hoped for; in rainy weather, with a full moon moving in puffs of light through a piebald sky, a moonlight gardener may expect to see one.

It is wisest to let unserried waves of fringed hydrangeas break, whiter than arctic snows, against the edges of all the granite paths, lines of moonflowers, their milky pendants brilliant as candelabra, linked with them as seventh waves. Beyond the moonflowers stone pilasters must lift up feathery cascades of white wistarias, some fifty or sixty vines spreading out into fans of ebullient foam. White azaleas, and acacias, and oleanders must fringe the limits of the garden, the flash of surf in the shelving bays beneath them always glittering through their exquisite intricacies of branch and bough.

When in silver flocks the sea birds troop home across this silent,lovely promontory, some sea eagle or migrant white owl may stay to rest in the acacia boughs, or some deft osprey fish from the granite steps that dip into the sea, or a white, languid peacock may be cajoled to walk here. But if the moonlight garden is to be kept, as it should be, primarily as a hatchery for souls, it should be kept solitary.

None but sea voices should be heard by those who frequent this garden of the moon and sea; no sound but the hesitant sibilants of the waves, and the whisper of the sea winds.

By Ethel Anderson
August, 1936.

Conscious Death - Every Night

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 20:24:19 GMT

Some one asked me tonight, why am i so passionate by Virtual Worlds, and How the Future world will be like.

The First thing that came to my Fogged mind's DREAMS, it's because of my dreams. i have such realistic and vivid dreams of places I've never been to, and of people I've never seen, I'm going by, interesting "other" dimension experiences, and it is so strong, stronger then reality. maybe for me, living virtual experience is reliving (with certain control) my dream world.

but i found someone who described it better then me:

" Every night I die. Causation departs the wide eyed experience, inner motions shuffle mental chaos into a semblance of order. A flash of colours, a distant homogeny of previous selves relate in the stasis of dreams my memories and realities. Consciousness wanes, the urge I feel to have identity becomes fluid, I am a thousand burning suns, I channel forgotten childhoods, I taste the heavens, drink sensate imagery, chaos becomes truth, fiction is motion, memory bubbles liquid.

Sensation amassed in living memory reorders tonally. That scrap of awareness or inch of inner narrative, each breath of daily routine become all one, in melody and dynamic visual harmony. I become all, and all I in these timeless spaces, futureless voids of zero dimension, infinite distinction. Outside there is sense, emotion, reality, fiction, hope, desire, belief - all distinct. Yet here, in conscious death they merge as one, metamorphosise beyond what each to each can be.

When comes the infinite edge of this void no I will be aware and yet time meanders the basin of my life, the harmony of my mind to emerge, re-born, as repetitive morning tones hack my dream world into formless pieces. A thousand suns implode, motion tip-toes from its hiding place. I am one again, waking life is that conscious urge to be. My world, again, is me."

The Fates, (or Moirae), and destiny

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 15:10:50 GMT

" The ancient Europeans knew the secrets of communicating with the three sisters who preside over our daily lives, but such arcane knowledge has been lost in modern times." (from the book's dust jacket)

They were:

Clotho the spinner, who spun the thread of a person's life,

Lachesis, the apportioner, who decided how much time was to be allowed each person, and

Atropos, the inevitable, who cut the thread when you were supposed to die.

Clotho is usually portrayed with a spindle, Lachesis with a scroll or a globe, and Atropos with scissors, a pair of scales, or a bowl for drawing lots.

When they are in good spirits, these same Fates become the three Graces. You may have seen them represented in Botticelli's Primavera . When the Fates are angered, they are called the Furies; they are pursue like ill winds blowing and can punish with insanity. Then their names are Alecto, Tisiphone, and Magaera. They cannot be avoided.

http://www.matrifocus.com/BEL02/myturn-Z.htm

http://www.thanasis.com/fates.htm

Talking about Orpheus

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 15:08:39 GMT

The mythical Orpheus is believed to have lived in the Rodophes mountain. Orpheus grave was unearthed in Bulgaria in the summer of 2004, but still, there is controversial information whether he lived in the Bulgarian or the Greek part of the mountain chain.

Bulgarian archaeologists have renewed Tuesday (july 2005) excavations at the Tatul village, where they believe that a unique temple of mythical royal descendant and artist Orpheus is located.

The team, led by renowned Professor Nikolay Ovcharov, will work at the site until the end of July.

It is thought that the temple has been used around the 5th century B.C.

Orpheus is looked upon as one of the chief poets and musicians of antiquity, whose lyre mastery could charm the wild beasts and even draw trees and rocks from their places and stop rivers from flowing.

He has also become a key figure of Greek legend, although various sources mention that Orpheus was borrowed by the Greeks from their Thracian neighbours.

read more:

http://archeonet.nl/engels.php?itemid=2468&catid=50

Orpheus

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 04:39:52 GMT

Son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope, Orpheus was a wonderful musician from Thrace who was married to the beautiful Eurydice. He played the lyre and sang so well that the wild animals were tamed and the rivers stopped to listen. He was believed to have invented the hexameter.

During early Christianity Orpheus surrounded by the wild animals was a symbol for Christ, and this motif was often used in the catacombs.

The most famous story about Orpheus is about his wife's death. Eurydice was bit by a snake and descended into Hades. Orpheus then followed her to the kingdom of death, and managed to soften Hades heart with his beautiful music. Hades agreed to let Eurydice go, if Orpheus promised not to look at her until they had reached daylight. When they were almost there, Orpheus thought he could no longer hear his wife's footsteps, and looked back, only to see the screaming Eurydice being pulled back into the underworld.

Shattered by grief, Orpheus wandered the forests of Thrace, singing his wife's lament, and was attacked by the maenads (Dionysus orgiastic women) who tore him to pieces. His singing head floated down the river, and all was lost. Eventually the head floated ashore on Lesbos, and that's how the island became the centre of poetry.

Orpheus was also one of the Argonauts in Jason's expedition for the Golden Fleece. He manage to save the crew from the terrible Sirens by singing more beautifully than them.

When he died, his lyre was turned into the star constellation the Lyre. One of the great mystery-cults of Ancient Greece was the Orphic one, where its followers believed in purification and reincarnation. They worshipped Dionysus-Zagreus, and thought humans consisted of equal portions of good and evil. They saw the soul as immortal and that one would either live in bliss or torment after death depending on one's acts on earth. For this reason, they thought it very important to lead an ascetic life with many cleansing rituals as well as not eating meat or sacrificing animals. This cult was to become popular in the south of Italy as well.