Open To Interpretation
Crotalus Durissus
Notes: there's a new movie coming out about Tolkein...author of The Lord of the Rings and other fantasy books...trailer shows a few WW1 combat scenes...Tolkein is of the same generation, and has the same career arc, as Robert Graves...curiously, they don't cross paths...
quote
I am neither disturbed (nor surprised) at the limitations of my 'fame'. There are lots of people in Oxford who have never heard of me, let alone of my books. But I can repay many of them with equal ignorance: neither wilful nor contemptuous, simply accidental. An amusing incident occurred in November, when I went as a courtesy to hear the last lecture of this series of his given by the Professor of Poetry: Robert Graves. (A remarkable creature, entertaining, likeable, odd, bonnet full of wild bees, half-German, half-Irish, very tall, must have looked like Siegfried/Sigurd in his youth, but an Ass.) It was the most ludicrously bad lecture I have ever heard. After it he introduced me to a pleasant young woman who had attended it: well but quietly dressed, easy and agreeable, and we got on quite well. But Graves started to laugh; and he said: 'it is obvious neither of you has ever heard of the other before'. Quite true. And I had not supposed that the lady would ever have heard of me. Her name was Ava Gardner, but it still meant nothing, till people more aware of the world informed me that she was a film-star of some magnitude, and that the press of pressmen and storm of flash-bulbs on the steps of the Schools were not directed at Graves (and cert. not at me) but at her. ....
http://alasnotme.blogspot.com/2017/07/ava-gardner-robert-graves-and-jrr.html
unquote
went to breakfast at Rubio's by the Orange AMTRAK depot, and two fellows asked me to take their photo together...and announced they were mountain climbers, one had gone up Everest...'record for oldest father son pairing', the other, Aconcagua...I just watched a clip of a father son pair going to Machu Pichu a couple days back...took the pic, and chimed in that I worked in Yosemite for ten years, 'knew lots of rock climbers'...kneeling for the pic, getting back up problematic, Everest climber game me a hand...they were both in terrific shape...had that lighter than air aura about them that rock climbers do...Graves did a little rock climbing with Hillary, I think...he was flattered he was thought capable...flattery is the coin of the realm for performers!...did Tolkein climb?...a no brainer question, given Frodo climbs and climbs and climbs up Mount Doom...brb...
quote
Even Oxford where he came up to after this trip was a city of black buildings – and rolling smog that came in from London for two thirds of the year. He came overland by train from Ostende – mostly through industrialised Europe – until he reached Innsbruk in Austria, and from there by train and on foot they made their way to Interlaken on into the mountains. The change must have been extreme. To see suddenly these pristine mountains and Alps (the Swiss name for the high meadows that are used as summer pasture for their cows), clear rivers and waterfalls, forests of pine and larch, he would have imagined himself in some kind of paradise on earth. Notions of Valinor and Tol Eressea would be natural enough to imagine – and perhaps the seeds for them were planted in that place in 1911.
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1120-alpenwild-tour-in-the-footsteps-of-tolkien.php
just so...Phaeton...posted mention of Phaeton a few posts back...and went to the index of Graves' White Goddess to looksee...
quote
For each year of the reign of this agricultural Hercules is prolonged he offers a child victim in his stead: which explains the Greek legends of his killing children by accident or in a fit of madness, and the destruction by fire, after a temporary investiture as king, of various unfortunate young princes, among them Gwern, nephew of Bran; Phaetheon, son of Helios; Icarus, son of Daedalus, ...
p122 The White Goddess
unquote
the list goes on, the common motif, a father and son, the son sacrificed so the father continues to rule...earlier, as Graves extensively explains, the father, the king, was sacrificed yearly, or at the least, had to defend their throne in combat or some such once a year...that is professional sports!...every year a new contest, every year a new champion...and, earlier before that, society was ruled by women, and that then the long dream time of the Neolithic, the stone age...or some such...it's complicated...the White Goddess is like 500 pages...on pages 120-121 is the whole ritual when Hercules was the sacrifice, and not the son...it's bloody, it's terrible, the drinking of blood, eating of heart and limbs...it's Aztec...Moche...Mesoamerican...Andean...what the Spanish stumbled on in the New World, it seems, are the self same rituals that were once performed in the Old World, but in the Old World, the savagery had softened...Abraham didn't have to sacrifice his son Isaac...lol...now it seems, the circumstance is just who will administer the tomb of Abraham, and over that looms nuclear war...with a lot of preliminary bloodletting among the tribes of the Middle East...it's not without reason one studies the old myths, enigmas, motifs...so, I happened on a book, part of bunch for sale on ebay, brb...
quote
https://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Maya-Their-Rattlesnake-Art/dp/B000JPZ3R6
quote
noted it before I did post just a few back about diamond back rattlesnakes, the diamond motif they have being similar to chacanas...saw book cover again in a 'this site recommended' thing, and looked again, and thought, 'oh oh' and ordered the book...meanwhile waiting its arrival, I can note some things on web by author...first, like Graves, he has a long reach, an over arcing notion, a guess, guesses...first guess for anyone is, 'is the diamond on the snake the diamond on the Mesoamerican's art'?...and my guess, 'it's like the chacana'...crotalemetry....
quote
The Crotalus Durissus are a special species of rattlesnakes, the only ones which are represented in pre-columbian indigenous civilizations from Mesoamerica.
In his books ‘The Feathered Serpent, Axis of Cultures’ and ‘The Geometry of the Maya and their Rattlesnake Art’, the writer, poet and musician Jose-Diaz Bolio extensively demonstrates that the reason lies in the unique pattern shown on the viper’s skin.
Called ‘Canamayte’, which translates as ‘the square of the serpent’, this pattern owes the Crotalus Durissus the reverent title of Ahau Can – the great or lordly serpent – whereas the general term tsab-can is used to designate rattlesnake.
https://mayancalendar.net/mayan-calendar-crotalometry/#.XNsWCGfsbIU
for sometime the snake's patterns and the calendar...like when the book comes...last season I had thought to find a snake skin pattern that was being lifted by the Andeans, and happened on the Rainbow Boa, which I thought the Mayan's liked too, their hieroglyphs look like the Boa's skin...but I couldn't see if the Boa was in North and South...same wonder with the rattlesnake, Crotalus Durissus...finding it in notation about Mesoamerica, I wondered if it's range includes South America...hmmph...
quote
Crotalus durissus is a venomous pit viper species found in South America. The most widely distributed member of its genus,[2] this species poses a serious medical problem in many parts of its range.[2] Currently, nine subspecies are recognized, including the nominate subspecies described here.[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crotalus_durissus
unquote
so, so 'axis of cultures' could be Pan-American cultures...Mesoamericans, Andeans, North Americans...everywhere that dry, heart stopping rattle is heard...oh...came to the thought that the little triangle in the step fret triangle motif is a snake's forked tongue...so, those particular step frets symbolize a coiled rattlesnake, in my latest whimsy!...
quote
The designs that were incorporated into the designs reflected the symbols and shapes of the secular and ceremonial art of the pre-Hispanic Zapotec civilization and this has been continued until the present day. The predominant motifs visible in weavings from El tono de la Cochinilla are, the ‘Greca’ (A stepped fret – which is the symbol of the ‘Step of Life’), the Zapotec Diamond (The symbol of the sun), and the ‘Caracol’ (‘Snail’ in English, and is the symbol for life and nature). All of these motifs can be seen in the stonework of the Zapotec temples of Monte Alban and Mitla, and even in some of the stones behind the Church in the village.
http://eltonodelacochinilla.com/the-history-of-teotitlan/
unquote
snail could be too for the triangle...things being OTI...lol...anyway, in this post some long quotes for long thoughts!...one more:
quote
As one of the primordial forms in Creation, the Canamayte and its elemental Euclidian geometry rule the human body proportions which the Greek Pythagoras later drew in his famous ‘Ad quadratum’ diagram.
This pattern is also found in ‘xocbichuy’, the traditional Maya embroidery which expresses their cosmic art and connections. Indeed they have a ceremony in which they pass their hands over a rattlesnake to master the art of embroidering. In Guatemala, needlework must have thirteen points or else ‘it comes out wrong’.
Thus the Crotalus Durissus is a unique serpent which shows the natural wisdom of creation, used magnificently by the ancient Maya.
same site above about rattlesnake
unquote
see site for import of 'thirteen'...I'll go on more about that in the calendar post...I've been reaching for the 'calendar' post since like 1998!...ral...this a personal reference back to my Panay Project blog about the USS Panay...anyway, game on this afternoon, Angels and Twins...bbk thenabout...
:)
DavidDavid
No comments:
Post a Comment