Reading The Red Book (39) – Seven Sermons to the Dead
We are still focusing on The Seven Sermons to the Dead, which are part of Scrutinies, the final section of The Red Book. In my previous posts, I looked at sermons one and two while this one is...
View ArticleBlack Madonna: An Icon of Mystery
“There is a grave aura about many of the Black Virgins, an expression of utter solitude so intense that the child on her knees or in the embrace of her left arm seems strangely appended. She sits,...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (40) – The Seven Sermons to the Dead
“One, two, three, but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth?” Plato, “Timaeus” We have now reached the fourth Sermon to the Dead, in which the dead demand of Philemon: “Speak to us about Gods and...
View ArticleFrida Kahlo’s Symbolism of Life
Frida Kahlo stands today for much more than art; she is a symbol and an icon of feminism, a heroine of the disability rights movement, anti-racism movements and LGBT communities. Her boundless...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (41) – Seven Sermons to the Dead
We have now reached the fifth Sermon to the Dead, which you will find in the third section of The Red Book called Scrutinies. At the dawn of civilization Greece was inhabited by Pelasgians, who are...
View ArticleWheat and War
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, еxcept a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”(John 12: 24) Out of the numberless reasons why we...
View ArticleDurga
I. “Salutations to Thee, O giver of blessings! Dark Virgin, observant of the vow of chastity, Whose form is beauteous as that of the rising sun, And Thy face as that of the full moon; … Thy body is...
View ArticleSymbolism of Walls
“Our love was born outside the walls, in the wind, in the night, in the earth, and that’s why the clay and the flower, the mud and the roots know your name” Pablo Neruda, “Epithalamium”, translated by...
View ArticleThe Three Black Madonnas of the Basque Country
In the north of Spain lies a mysterious Basque country with its language Euskera, which has no relation to any other language in the world. The people of that region are descendants of the oldest...
View ArticleThe Spellbinding Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao
“The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, looked like something out of an alien hallucination—a swirling collage of warped metallic forms that appeared to have been propped up against one another in an...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (42) – Seven Sermons to the Dead
“… what they rejected will be most valuable to them.” Philemon’s words uttered after the sixth sermon to the dead We have now reached the sixth Sermon to the Dead, which you will find in the third...
View ArticleMatar Kubileya (Cybele)
I. “Numinous sites of the preorganic life, which were experienced in participation mystique with the Great Mother, are mountain, cave, stone, pillar, and rock – including the childbearing rock – as...
View ArticlePainting the Sun
I. “Turner’s favourite colour was yellow. He spent hours studying its myriad iterations, using more yellow pigments than any other … … Turner admired yellow’s optical power. Bright and warm, it jumps...
View ArticleBetween Hermes and Mnemosyne: Jung and Warburg
In the part of Homeric Hymn to Hermes, in which Hermes and Apollo exchange gifts, Hermes sings about the origins of the gods: “And the first of the gods that he commemorated with his song was...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (43) – Seven Sermons to the Dead
We have now reached the seventh and final Sermon to the Dead, which you will find in the third section of The Red Book called Scrutinies. The dead come to Philemon and ask him to “teach us about men.”...
View ArticleLyon
You may have heard of two magical triangles, one of black, the other of white magic. The origins of that legend are impossible to fathom. The white magic triangle is said to include Lyon, Prague and...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (44)
“Don’t be afraid to suffer – take your heaviness and give it back to the earth’s own weight.” R.M.Rilke, “Sonnets to Orpheus” We have almost reached the end of our journey through The Red Book. This...
View ArticleNumber Three and Its Mysteries
Three is intimately connected with the myth of the goddess and with the three main phases of the moon – waxing, full and waning, corresponding to the three phases of a woman’s life – maiden, mother and...
View ArticleShiva and Parvati: the Birth of Kali
I have across a fascinating version of the birth of goddess Kali. In this myth she came to the world as a result of Parvati’s anger, which she shed and transformed during her spiritual practice. Lake...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (45)
“The one God, to whom worship is due, is in the middle.” C.G. Jung, Black Book 5 “I knew how frightfully inadequate this undertaking was, but despite much work and many distractions I remained true to...
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