Orrey

Orrey

When I came home from work, and turned the TV on (first thing I do…news tonight had it watching TV raises blood sugar, and this found studying diabetic kids!) and the movie Tomb Raider was on towards the very end. It has a time travel scene, and Laura Croft goes back in time to see her Dad….shades of Dr. Who Episode 8 last night!

Well, I wanted to study the plot, so I google that up and a site explains that the contraption spinning around in the final scenes is an orrey.

Didn’t know what that was, and googled that! It’s a mechainical solar system model, and that got me to reading again about that ancient Greek astrolab, who's story is here:



http://www.viewzone.com/firstcomputer.html

Which then leads to a bit on the Mayan Doomesday, December 21, 2012. Which is here:

http://www.viewzone.com/endtime.html

Whole problem seems to be the solar system is passing through the plane of the Milky Way galaxy!

Illustration is by old artist James Wright, A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrey.

Horry stole the series from the Suns…

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door
May 25, 2007

Dangers of Meddling with Time

Dangers of Meddling with Time

Watching Dr, Who tonight, a strange episode of time travel, and fantastic creatures that appear when time is altered, and they’ve eaten the whole world almost, except for Dr. Who’s friend and a wedding party holed up in a church. She only tried to go back in time and stop her Dad from being run down in a car accident. They’re refuge is a cathedral and bat like creatures fly about and crawl trying to get in. I don’t watch the show often enough to know the characters. I wont give the end away, but it is a both sad and happy ending.

The cold has me worn out, and I wanted to work on a St. Francis post. I have an illustration of one of his visions of thrones. Regular thrones it seems, not the angel thrones, but I have to research it out.

Sheesh, now PBS has a show about the show, how it was made and all. “Somethings are not meant to be meddled with…” And that’s the opinion of the Dr. Who actor!!

Movie Anaconda gave me nightmares…this one will too!!

Well, here I found the story of the vision of the thrones (Catholic encyclopedia on web):

quote

"When the morning came, Francis' companion returned to the church and found him prostrate before the altar, so he waited for him outside the choir and then also began to pray devoutly before the cross. And behold he went into ecstasy and saw among the many thrones in heaven one that was more honorable than all the rest, ornamented with precious stones and radiant with glory. He wondered at this noble throne and whose it might be, and while he was thinking about these things, he heard a voice saying to him: 'This throne belonged to one of the fallen angels but now it is reserved for humble Francis.'
"At length, coming back to himself, the brother saw Francis returning from his prayers. He quickly prostrated himself at Francis' feet and spoke to him, not as one living but as one already reigning in heaven: 'Father, pray to the Son of God for me that He will not impute my sins to me.' Francis stretched out his hand and raised him up, recognizing that he must have been shown something in his prayers.
"As they began to leave that place, the brother asked blessed Francis, "Father, what is your opinion of yourself?' And Francis replied, 'It seems to me that I am the greatest of sinners, for if God had treated any criminal with such mercy as he has shown to me, that man would have been ten times more spiritual than myself.' But the Holy Spirit said in the heart of the brother, 'Know that the vision you saw was in fact true, for humility will raise this humble man to the throne that was lost through pride.'" Thomas of Celano, Second Life 123

unquote

Things to consider tomorrow....

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door
May 24, 2009

Uriel and The Feast of Trumpets

Uriel and The Feast of Trumpets

It gets curioser and curioser…

I thought to google up Uriel…I’ve been wanting to work angelology into the blog, as I find it charming! A bit ago in a discussion I put forth the notion that all nations, regardless of their political make up, have a throne. Sort of like every Major League Baseball team has a stadium. When the crowd is in the stadium the playing field comes “alive”, and the game and players take on aspects that just aren’t there when the seats are empty. And fans are loyal to their team, win or lose, much as the people of a nation are patriotic. Oh, it’s just the same thing exactly.

But, but anyway, having expressed all this on a whim I thought to fill it out with a google search of “thrones”…see if yet again, as usually happens, my inventive thought had a precedent, as in ‘there’s nothing new under the sun". And anyway, anyway, I google ‘thrones’ and discover something I hadn’t suspected, that there is a class of angels called “thrones”! I didn’t know angels were classified…though watching Charmed should have clued me to that!!

Now, this was a few weeks ago and has been rattling about in my head, but the blog posts have brought me to Uriel, who is of the angel class Cherubim. So I’ve come to Angels by two “threads”, Uriel, and Thrones.

And googling Uriel tonight I latched onto Uriel being the angel with the flaming sword that guards the Garden of Eden, Paradise, ever since Adam and Eve were kicked out.

One of the first sites I visited has it that the Flaming Sword is a euphemism for a comet or comets . And along with that, has it that this comet, a harbinger of the “end times”, is to arrive at the Feast of Trumpets in 2007.

I didn’t know what day this Feast falls on, and hoping it had come and gone, I googled Feast of Trumpets. It’s in October. So it’ll be a wait and see!

I had been thinking to discuss the imagery in the Book of Revelations as referring to astronomical catastrophes like comets and meteors striking the earth. That gets done a lot, but not so much as war. The “War in Heaven” is a popular preoccupation!!

The elaboration of these subjects is so extensive, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and all the other religions too, that it makes no sense for me to add much. I doubt if I could!!

But on reading about the Feast of Trumpets, which includes the tale of seven trumpets announcing the end times, I recalled King Tut’s trumpet….

And while I read about this trumpet long before the web, I’m not surprised that just googling “king tut’s trumpet” brings up the tale. And even a recording!

Here’s one site:

http://www.npr.org/programs/pt/features/2003/jun/trumpet.html

It’ll give you goose bumps….

An addenda...

I did some more word searches, and here's a site that looks to cover the same ground as the book "Uriel's Machine"...and it has at the end of the page links to old Irish Welsh tales like the Madness of Suibhne, many of which I've read. They are culling them for possible imagery, euphemisms, of comets of meteor strikes.

Taurid meteor shower

http://www.morien-institute.org/taurid.html

I'll have to hunt up the Pygmy story, there was an author who wrote about Pygmies that had all this comets and tsunamis and upheavels...

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door
May 23, 2007

Whart Suibhne sees...

What Suibhne sees...

Well, on the tube is a National Geographic show Secret Yosemite, so this post is a special Ekphrasis.

It's all about Souvenirs....

But back to Suibhne.

Buile Shuibhne

http://www.answers.com/topic/buile-shuibhne#after_ad1

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T302018/index.html

I found these sites, ansewers.com, and a 1910 text, trying to source Patricia Monaghan's version of a scene:

quote

I was on a small hill in the center of the storm. Men fell around me like rain. I
heard something like thunder. I looked up.
Five heads flew out of the sky at me. Faces twisted in anger and death. Mouths
open in the small circle of death. Blood streaming from their severed
necks, streaming like clouds at sunset.

Soldier's Heart: The Book Of Sweeney by Patricia Monaghan

Unquote

Now, these heads could be comets, or a vision of modern weaponery, and here’s another curio from yesterday…

Quote

The theory of Uriel's Machine is postulated in a book of the same name by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas.[1]


The book supposes that ancient (pre-historic) European (and by extension British) astronomers developed a stellar calendar. The author then suggests that the Book of Enoch records that an archangel by the name of Uriel warned Enoch about the impending flood and gave him instructions for building a form of calendar so that crops could be re-planted. This is then compared with the early roots of religion and archaeoastronomy in Britain and suggests that Uriel was in fact a mortal 'astronomer priest' from Britain who sought to spread his knowledge.
Skip
In masonic mythology there are many references to seven, which could refer to seven cometary fragments, although it is not clear why masons should have any relevance to supposed events in prehistory, apart from the fact the Freemasonry claims a mythical history which began before the Biblical Flood. These seven cometary fragements are described in the book as hitting the earth in prehistory causing tsunamis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriel%27s_Machine

unquote

Seven sleepers, seven comets…the number seven is a favorite…the senses have seven holes in our heads…hence sleepers could mean senses asleep.

a poem

Euphemisms

I’ve yet to figure out what to do in the High Country
When the thunder clouds move in…
I awake in my tent and hope the aluminum stays don’t attract a bolt,
Or cuddel in my poncho deep in the forest listening to the raindrops,
Or hurry to come down from a peak watching the clouds materialize and marching towards me.
A souvenir: A bolt striking Cathedral
Seen from where I camped by the lake in ignorance of the no camping sign!!

DavidDavid
DolphinWords
Tree in the Door
May 22, 2007



unquote

Double Spiral

Spirals
Quote from web:
According to Uriel's Machine by Knight and Lomas (2003) the triple spiral may represent the nine month period of human pregnancy, since the sun takes a fourth of a year to go from the celestial equator (an equinox) to extreme north or south declination (a solstice), and vice versa. During each three-month period, the sun's path across the sky appears to form a closely-wound quasi-helical shape, which can be likened to a spiral, so that three spirals could represent nine months, providing an explanation for a link between fertility and the triple-spiral symbol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_spiral

unquote

Well. My own explanation of the Celtic spirals is close to this. Sometimes there are two spirals and what I see is a representation of the waxing and waning seasons. As days get short they “spiral” inward, and and as they get longer they “spiral” outward. Spirals are a common motif all over the ancient world and in one sense I think they represent days getting longer and shorter.

In looking about the web, there is a lot out there about spirals (see turf maze), but one site’s take on them has caught my eye. In explaining the New Grange spirals it points to the snake like zig zag representations as being derived from a common snake in Europe. Well, snake’s coil, making a natural spiral, or maze. So, they would represent the passage of the year as well. And a zig zag can be night and day. Checkerboard patterns, running coils often use in Greek designs, also can do this.

The seated horned man holding the snake is holding the “year”. And the round neck torque, so common an ornament of the Celts, probably reiterates this.

I don’t know how close to the truth of things the spiral Sherlocks are, but its universal appeal is without a doubt.

The spiral can also represent the waxing and waning moon; all the planets too, their cycles.

And the most charming thing about spirals is they appear naturally in Nature. Clam shells are like joined spirals, a double spiral.

DavidDavid
May 21, 2007
Tree in the Door

Gundestrup Cauldron

Gundestrup cauldron

I was looking for a pic of Suibhne, but only could find that he is portrayed sometimes as having deer horns, like a Celtic horned god, and this led to the image on the Gundestrup cauldron of a seated man with deer horns, holding a torque and a ram headed snake, and surrounded by an assortment of animals.

Now, there all kinds of things said about this cauldron, but one site has a bit where the author explains that the images are astronomcal, that it is a kind of zodiac. Which makes sense to me. The telling point is that the figures have their arms raised, much like the figures in the famous zodiac of Dendera.

Nearly everything in anicient art is somehow tied into astronomy, the changing seasons, the calendar, and sequences living things go through in life. The book Hamlet’s Mill goes into this, but offers no explanation of how so many diverse ancient cultures come up with the same images and tales.

Suibhne Geilt. I didn’t know what “geilt” referred too, but it is a word that means a wild kindof nature poet, or something.

And I’m trying to make something of St. Francis that fits in all this. One site already has, calling itself the Fourth Order of St. Francis and Clare. Francis dreamt up three orders, and this site has added a fourth—geilts!

I have a genius for thinking up things only to find someone else already has!

I’d like to tie the Homeridae into this too!

Some of the sites I visited and recommend. I bought the Soldier’s Heart on Amazon.

quotes

Yes, Breddelwyn, the "Geilt" is indeed a separate classification of Celtic poet, apart from the standard and more formal categories of Fili, Ca'inte, and so forth. Some scholars believe that Merlin was a composite of several different figures, one of which may have been Suibhne Geilt (Mad Sweeney) or the Scottish Lailokin. The Geilt is a crazed hermit, usually driven mad by events connected with battle or war. They run wild in the forest, eat no meat but only plants (watercress, in Suibhne's case)and milk, and can move with supernatural grace through the treetops. The Geilt offers mainly nature poetry, of course, in keeping with his shamanic character.
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Post/256837

103. Cu Geilt ( Geilt; Irish, A Person Who Inhabits Woods ); His Son; A Quo O Caillte; Anglicised Kielty, Quilty, Galt, Wood, And Woods.
* Geilt; Thius Word, According To O Briens Dictionary, Originally Meant ( A Wild Man Or Woman, One That Inhabits Woods Or Deserts) Coill And Coillte; Irish, Woods. Welsh Guylht ( A Wild Man And Gelhtydh Wood ) Compare Both Irish Words Geilt And Coillte, And The Latin Celtae, And The Hebrew Work Celat, ( Refuge ); Fir Tge Caltae Frequented The Woods And Groves, Either For Their Places Of Refuge And Residence, Or To Perform Their Religious Rites And Other Ceremonies.
http://www.kieltyassociation.com/html/heremon_geneology.html

The Fourth Order of Francis and Clare
http://www.fourthorder.org/index.htm
As the world considers the path of war, poet Patricia Monaghan offers us the wisdom of Mad Sweeney, Suibhne Geilt, in these compelling new poems and translations of the famous twelfth century Middle Irish narrative.



http://www.fourthorder.org/id37.htm

Let us now ask which of the images on the Gundestrup Cauldron might be Lugh, and to what constellation he might correspond.The central image, the Horned One, is quite arresting. The other images on the panel are the neighboring constellations; subject to artistic license, they are in the right places. Ursa Major is turned around to face the Horned One to express his vassalship. Clockwise from the lower right, the following constellations can be recognized: Leo Major and Minor, Hydra, Boötes, Hercules / Ophiuchus (bearing horns), the Ass (an obsolete constellation), Ursa Minor, Delphinus, and Capricornus.On comparing the central Horned One with Boötes on the star chart, one sees a compelling likeness: the Buddhic position of the legs, and the torc on his right arm corresponding in position with Corona Borealis; this was also Lugh's sling or Mes Gegra's brain.Very anciently, the Horned One was resident in the constellation of Menat, which was Hercules plus Ophiuchus. As precession continued, the sky position of Menat ceased to signal the autumnal equinox, so the Horned One moved on into Boötes.As mentioned earlier, snakes were used to mark important circles on the celestial sphere; for instance, Hydra marked the equator. Around 7500 BC the colure (meridian) of the autumnal equinox was marked by Serpens Caput, the snake in the hand of Menat. By 5000 BC the colure had moved to the staff in the left hand of Boötes.The maker of the Gundestrup Cauldron depicted the staff as a mythical serpent; it is to be explained as an attribute transferred from Menat. The staff could also be imagined as the upwardly extended left arm. This sky figure was none other than Lugh Lamhfhada, of the Long Arm, who was similar to the Indian god Savitar, of the Wide Hand (Mac Cana 1970).In the story of How Finn Got His Name, the Long Arm became the fish fork. Therefore, Lugh was a manifestation of the ancient Cernunnos, formerly dwelling in Menat, but later in Boötes. By this time he was called Lugh or Finn.
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi85.htm

unquotes

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door
May 20, 2007

The Madness of Sweeny

It is my wont to gather in things from the web. The following continues yesterday’s curios….
quote

76 ‘Welcome in sooth is your coming here, Suibhne’, said Moling, ‘for it is destined for you to be here and to end your life here ; to leave here your history and adventures, and to be buried in a churchyard of righteous folk ; and I bind you,’ said Moling, ‘that however much of Ireland you may travel each day, you will come to me each evening so that I may write your history.’
77 Thereafter during that year the madman was visiting Moling. One day he would go to Innis Bo Finne in west Connacht, another day to delightful Eas Ruaidh, another day to smooth, beautiful Sliabh Mis, another day to ever-chilly Benn Boirche, but go where he would each day, he would attend at vespers each night at Teach Moling.
http://www.cyberscotia.com/ogmios/texts/suibhne/buile-suibne.html

unquote

Thinking about the time travel of Honi and the Seven Sleepers, I thought of Suibhne and this passage which refers to his traveling. He gets around.
In the UFO lore there are now some pictures from medieval times that have portrayals of strange aircraft in them. Another post I’ll locate those.

But in ancient literature there are instances of strange things which now can be possibly understood from the discoveries of modern science.

I find the way the story of Suibhne is told really neat. There will be a passage in prose telling the story, then it breaks into a poem which often goes over the same thing, but extends it.

This following maybe the most famous part…

Quote
36 Loingseachan : ‘O Suibhne from lofty Sliabh na nEach, thou of the rough blade wert given to wounding ; for Christ’s sake, who hath put thee in bondage, grant converse with thy foster-brother.
Hearken to me if thou hearest me, O splendid king, O great prince, so that I may relate gently to thee tidings of thy good land.
There is life for none in thy land after thee ; it is to tell of it that I have come ; dead is thy renowned brother there, dead thy father and thy mother.
Suibhne : If my gentle mother be dead, harder is it for me to go to my land ; ’tis long since she has loved my body ; she has ceased to pity me.
Foolish the counsel of each wild youth whose elders live not ; like unto a branch bowed under nuts ; whoso is brotherless has a gaping side.
Loingseachan : There is another calamity there which is bewailed by the men of Erin, though uncouth be thy side and thy foot, dead is thy fair wife of grief for thee.
Suibhne : For a household to be without a wife is rowing a rudderless boat, ’tis a garb of feathers to the skin, ’tis kindling a single fire.
Loingseachan : I have heard a fearful and loud tale around which was a clear, fierce wail, ’tis a fist round smoke, however, thou art without sister, O Suibhne.
Suibhne : A proverb this, bitter the . . . —; it has no delight for me—; the mild son rests on every ditch, a sister loves though she be not loved.
Loingseachan : Calves are not let to cows amongst us in cold Araidhe since thy gentle daughter, who has loved thee, died, likewise thy sister’s son.
Suibhne : My sister’s son and my hound, they would not forsake me for wealth ’tis adding loss to sorrow ; the heart’s needle is an only daughter.
Loingseachan : There is another famous story—; loth am I to tell it—; meetly are the men of the Arada bewailing thy only son.
Suibhne : That is the renowned drop (?) which brings a man to the ground, that his little son who used to say ‘daddy’ should be without life.
It has called me to thee from the tree, scarce have I caused enmity, I cannot bear up against the blow since I heard the tidings of my only son.
Loingseachan : Since thou hast come, O splendid warrior, within Loingseachan’s hands, all thy folk are alive, O scion of Eochu Salbuidhe.
Be still, let thy sense come, in the east is thy house, not in the west, far from thy land thou hast come hither, this is the truth, O Suibhne.
More delightful deemest thou to be amongst deer in woods and forests than sleeping in thy stronghold in the east on a bed of down.
Better deemest thou to be on a holly-branch beside the swift mill’s pond than to be in choice company with young fellows about thee.
If thou wert to sleep in the bosom of hills to the soft strings of lutes, more sweet wouldst thou deem under the oak-wood the belling of the brown stag of the herd.
Thou art fleeter than the wind across the valley, thou art the famous madman of Erin, brilliant in thy beauty, come hither, O Suibhne, thou wast a noble champion.
Unquote

Where I got this…
http://www.cyberscotia.com/ogmios/texts/suibhne/buile-suibne.html

I never had the opportunity to read this whole story, but now can on the web. When I found this site I had been reading about St. Francis and have a wonder that the two stories might be related. More on that tomorrow…

And let me add this, which I found looking for a picture of Suibhne, as it gets at the pertinence of Suibhne’s story, and St. Francis…

Quote
Irish myth tells of two parallel figures who suffered from Soldier's Heart. One was Mis, a young woman of Kerry who saw her father struck down in battle as she watched. Running to his side, she found him still warm, his blood streaming from the last desperate pumps of his dying heart. She leaned over him and took his blood in her cupped palms and drank it. Then she ran, screaming, from the battlefield.
The other myth is set on the opposite side of the island, in northern Ulster. There the king, Suibhne (Sweeney), was leading his warriors in the battle of Mag Rath when the noise of the battle grew too much for his senses. He looked up and saw something dreadful in the sky and, his wits leaving him, raced from the battlefield and disappeared.
Unquote

http://www.matrifocus.com/BEL03/earth.htm
That’s something too. The “something” in the sky!

‘Till tomorrow…

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door
May 18, 2007