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Sept 3, 2013 6:33:37 GMT
Post by ayraman on Sept 3, 2013 6:33:37 GMT
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Sept 3, 2013 6:43:30 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Sept 3, 2013 6:43:30 GMT
Wow... that's pretty awesome, all right. And one more good reason why I'm pretty thrilled to have you posting here... You'll have to give me some time to really read that, and look it over, in order to make a fair response, but I have to say... that's a great way to start a thread. This is going to be a lot of fun... what a great 'playhouse.'
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Sept 3, 2013 6:57:01 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Sept 3, 2013 6:57:01 GMT
It does seem to tie in quite nicely (lol) to the von Flue material...
Through a meditative process [dhyana], Buddhist Tantrism also endeavors to construct the two principles of creative cognition (prajna) and active compassion (karuna). Clearly, the Eros and Logos principles are to be constructed with the aid of meditation. This meditation refers to the "drive energies" that the Tantrist wants neither to unite nor to negate, but rather seeks "to purify and transform in the fire of cognition so that they become forces of enlightenment." Buddhism also structures these drive energies as a lower trinity, the introverted aspect of which is visualized as the three lower chakras, muladhara, svadhisthana, and manipura. Moreover, there is the idea that the sushumna, the central channel in the spine that links the chakras, penetrates the chakras. It is apparent that here, too, the energies in the exploratory, the sexual, and the aggressive drives are first of all channeled into the anahata chakra which in turn is penetrated by the sushumna.
If then, proceeding from anahata, the three upper principles are developed through a further transformation, a unification of prajna and karuna takes place, and this "is the perfect path of enlightenment." That is to say, when prajna, "the still, all-embracing, all-receiving and all-generating Eternal Feminine is joined with the dynamic-masculine principle of active compassion (karuna), the all-pervading force of active love . . ., then perfect Buddhahood has been attained. For understanding without feeling, knowledge without love, cognition without compassion leads to pure negation, to petrifaction, to spiritual death, to nothing but vacuum; whereas feeling without reason, love without cognition (blind love), compassion without knowledge leads to vagueness and complete disintegration. But where both strands are joined, where the great synthesis of heart and head, feeling and reason, highest love and deepest knowledge has come to pass, there wholeness is created, perfect enlightenment attained."
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Sept 3, 2013 7:46:26 GMT
Post by ayraman on Sept 3, 2013 7:46:26 GMT
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Sept 3, 2013 15:38:52 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Sept 3, 2013 15:38:52 GMT
And... your illustration also reminds me of a few others, that have been mentioned in other threads... And this one... notice that she is 'double-tailed'... And, of course, the famous alchemical Rebus... Serendipitously, of course...
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Sept 3, 2013 19:59:20 GMT
Post by ayraman on Sept 3, 2013 19:59:20 GMT
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Sept 5, 2013 4:42:16 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Sept 5, 2013 4:42:16 GMT
As much as anything else, I have to say that I like the fact that she gets to use the tools... And don't try to tell me that she's just handing him the wrench... They were 'fixers,' and here is a a similar 'healer' symbol:
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Oct 27, 2013 3:00:28 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Oct 27, 2013 3:00:28 GMT
And, along those lines... lol... I have something for you... Compass and Square, Hebrew-stylie... Jeremiah 31: 21 Set thee up signs: make thee heaps: set thine heart toward the path and way, that thou hast walked: turn again, O virgin of Israel: turn again to these thy cities.
22 How long wilt thou go astray, O thou rebellious daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth: A WOMAN shall compass a man.
23 Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, Yet shall they say this thing in the land of Judah, and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity, The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice and holy mountain.
24 And Judah shall dwell in it, and all the cities thereof together, the husbandmen and they that go forth with the flock.
25 For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.
26 Therefore I awaked and beheld, and my sleep was sweet unto me.Great picture...
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Jul 22, 2014 7:16:37 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Jul 22, 2014 7:16:37 GMT
Oh... you're going to love this one; I couldn't help thinking of you when I saw it, and I couldn't wait to add it to my post on "Square and Compass Hebrew-style." While I don't suppose that I need to re-iterate, since the thread isn't so long that you can't find it, I could add a little something on that subject from the Sefer Yetzirah and the mysterious 'Teli.' I probably will... but not tonight, since I will type the quote myself from my copy of the book, and that might take some time; mostly, because I can't help expanding on it... it's actually quite illuminating (I really do like that word). Now... how do you like this? It's that 'Lady in Red' again, and... There's a sky full of stars... Perfect.
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Jul 22, 2014 8:07:27 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Jul 22, 2014 8:07:27 GMT
As much as anything else, I have to say that I like the fact that she gets to use the tools... And don't try to tell me that she's just handing him the wrench... They were 'fixers,' and here is a a similar 'healer' symbol: They say that 'healing' is the highest form of Magick that you can undertake... I should say that that would be true. After all, 'the Sun (Sonne?) of Righteousness will rise, with healing in its wings,' yes? Yes... And as to the 'Abraxas,' the Herald of a New Day, symbolized by the rooster, well everybody knows that's magic... Abracadabra...
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Jul 22, 2014 8:43:22 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Jul 22, 2014 8:43:22 GMT
Oooh... Abraxas in Red... Fetching, don't you think...? Lol... But, believe it or not, not everybody is as excited as you might think to see this 'New Dawn,' or 'Golden Dawn,' maybe; after all, they kind of had other plans, let's say... big plans... Which brings us to this, I guess. The good news...? It's too late.
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Jul 23, 2014 0:50:11 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Jul 23, 2014 0:50:11 GMT
Hugh Nibley gave a lecture in 1975 on “Sacred Vestments” which was later transcribed and included in the collected works volume Temple and Cosmos (pgs. 91-132). The entire paper is fascinating, and highly recommended reading. One of the things he wrote about were certain Chinese artifacts which had been found depicting two mythological gods, Nüwa and Fuxi, and the tools they hold:
Most challenging are the veils from Taoist-Buddhist tombs at Astana, in Central Asia, originally Nestorian (Christian) country, discovered by Sir Aurel Stein in 1925… We see the king and queen embracing at their wedding, the king holding the square on high, the queen a compass. As it is explained, the instruments are taking the measurements of the universe, at the founding of a new world and a new age. Above the couple’s head is the sun surrounded by twelve disks, meaning the circle of the year or the navel of the universe. Among the stars depicted, Stein and his assistant identified the Big Dipper alone as clearly discernable. As noted above, the garment draped over the coffin and the veil hung on the wall had the same marks; they were placed on the garment as reminders of personal commitment, while on the veil they represent man’s place in the cosmos. (pg. 111-12) Nibley included drawings of this depiction found on veils in the Astana Tombs in Xinjiang, China, with a caption that reads:
In the underground tomb of Fan Yen-Shih, d. A.D. 689, two painted silk veils show the First Ancestors of the Chinese, their entwined serpect bodies rotating around the invisible vertical axis mundi. Fu Hsi holds the set-square and plumb bob … as he rules the four-cornered earth, while his sister-wife Nü-wa holds the compass pointing up, as she rules the circling heavens. The phrase kuci chü is used by modern Chinese to signify “the way things should be, the moral standard”; it literally means the compass and the square. (pg. 115)
Wikipedia notes, “Nüwa and Fuxi were pictured as having snake like tails interlocked in an Eastern Han dynasty (206 – 220 A.D.) mural in the Wuliang Temple in Jiaxiang county, Shandong province.” It also notes the various roles of Nüwa (and sometimes with Fuxi) in Chinese mythology: ■Creator ■Woman/Man ■Mother ■Goddess ■Wife ■Sister ■Tribal leader (emperor) ■Maintainer ■Repairer ■Sun god/moon god ■Adam and Eve Some have even suggested that “Nüwa” might be related to “Noah” from the Genesis account, with some parallels between the accounts, such as Nüwa’s sealing of the sky with five colored stones connected with Noah’s rainbow. Another description of Nüwa and Fuxi and their tools is found in a book entitled The Magic Square: Cities in Ancient China by Alfred Schinz:
It appears from these legends that civilization, i.e. ordered human life, begins with two personages, both portrayed as being semi-human and with mermaid tails. Nüwa and Fuxi, originally sister and brother, later became wife and husband after they had invented proper marriage procedures and family names to prevent marriages between people from the same family. Nüwa, in her own legend, had restored order between heaven and earth after a horrible catastrophe had caused heaven to tilt to the north so that it no longer covered all of the earth. This may refer to the first observation of the oblique elliptic and the angle of the pole star. Nüwa found it necessary to reestablish the four cardinal points, which she did, thereby creating the prerequisites for further observations. In the oldest pictures of her she carries a compass, the instrument related to heavenly observations. Her brother Fuxi became the first legendary emperor, which also implies the establishment of government, of law and order… On another, more practical level he is said to have invented axes for splitting wood, the carpenter’s square, ropes for hunting and fishing nets. It is worthy of special attention that the two words for compass and square, gui ju, used together denote -the rule, custom, usage- and -good behavior-, i.e., keeping order. Furthermore, it should be observed that the male-female system, the yang-yin philosophy, is expressed here in a complex manner, first as Fuxi and Nüwa, second as compass (male) and square (female), and third as Nüwa (female) with compass (male) and Fuxi (male) with square (female). The compass-square dichotomy is similar to the heaven-earth, yang-yin, relationship, which in this case means that man (Fuxi) establishes harmonious order between heaven and earth. This is also expressed in the Chinese character for king, wang, the upper and lower line indicating heaven and earth and the middle line man, all three connected by the vertical line. This represents the position and function of the ruler; it is he who establishes and keeps order by placing himself in a balanced and harmonious position between heaven and earth, so that yang and yin cooperate in a beneficial way. [Caption] Fuxi and his sister Nüwa, he with the carpenter’s square and she with the pair of compasses. From the decoration incised in the wall of the Wu Lang tombs in Jiaxiang, Shandong, second century AD. The Chinese words for carpenter’s square, ju, and a pair of compasses, gui, together form the expression to establish order. This is what, according to their legends, Fuxi and Nüwa did. The carpenter’s square also stands for the square that is the symbol of the earth, while the pair of compasses represent the circle, the symbol of heaven. Fuxi, the male (yang), gives order to the earth (yin), and Nüwa, the female (yin), gives order to the heaven (yang).1
......
Santillana and Dechend offer more explanation for the figures of Nüwa and Fuxi:
The Chinese picture illustrates in true archaic spirit (which means that only hints are given, and the spectator has to work out for himself the significance of the details) the surveying of the universe. The two characters surrounded by constellations are Fu Hsi and Nu Kua, i.e., the craftsman god and his paredra, who measure the “squareness of the earth” and the “roundness of heaven” with their implements, the square with the plumb bob hanging from it, and the compass. The intertwined serpent-like bodies of the deities indicate clearly enough, although in a peculiar “projection,” circular orbits intersecting each other at regular intervals. 5 In another place some Chinese commentators have noted the uses of these tools in construction or building:
All “great instruments” were invented by the ancients to help lesser men “first rule the self and then rule others.” Although all are needed in construction, by no means do all these tools work in the same way. Level and line determine straight horizontal and vertical lines, while compass and square are needed to form perfect circles and corners. By analogy, each of the social institutions, including ritual, has its own function in building civilization, with each addressing a separate human need. It is characteristic of the sage-ruler that he always knows which tool to apply to the specific problem at hand.6www.templestudy.com/2008/09/17/nuwa-and-fuxi-in-chinese-mythology-compass-square/This was a really great quote, by the way, and well worth revisiting, under the circumstances; I'm afraid that some of this may have been passed over at first glance, and the Truth is, it's entirely relevant to the subjects at hand, wouldn't you say? Sometimes we hit the 'nail right on the head,' whether we mean to, or not... and speaking of 'tools,' about that last bolded part... I'd like to throw this in... (Duck... lol)
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Jul 23, 2014 1:28:20 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Jul 23, 2014 1:28:20 GMT
And you say that she has five colored stones...? I've got something like that... in fact, you could say that I've got your 'Skittles,' couldn't you? Or, in other words, your 'rainbow,' or 'Iris,' which is something else again... or is it? I'll tell you something else... Backwards, 'Iris' is 'Siri.' Od... Baaahahaha... This one has 7 stones... and seven horns... and it's laying on that 'storybook of my own' that I was telling you about, I think... How do you like that? Now, what do you suppose it means, eh, Ronnie James...? Lolol... And, on a lighter note... one of my own favorites... But we'll get back to that; I've got something else to cover today...
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Jul 23, 2014 5:26:52 GMT
Post by ayraman on Jul 23, 2014 5:26:52 GMT
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Jul 23, 2014 7:58:23 GMT
Post by Goldenfleeced on Jul 23, 2014 7:58:23 GMT
Yeah speaking of the proper tools, I always was in favor of using a hand saw to arbitrate a child custody case. Just split the child in two! Classic! Bawahahahahahahaha Oh, yes... Clever. Like a monkey... Baaahahaha... You may thank 'God' for those opposable thumbs, I suppose... otherwise, that saw thang might not turn out so well... you might not be as grateful in regard to the 'child custody' thang... how about I just concede? I mean... you're the 'wise one,' right? 'Father' knows best, and all...? I understand, Big Daddy... And... Good luck with that... really. For myself, I'll try to be grateful that the Monkees can sing; that way, I don't have to think about what they're going to do with those tools... or wings... or keyboards... Ah... turn that frown upside-down...
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