(Intrusive narration: J read Le nozze di Cadmo e Armonia by Roberto Calasso, and thought it rather unfortunate that metamorphosis is commonly discarded today. Calasso says, "[i]f, out of some perversity of tradition, only one version of some mythical event has come down to us, it is like a body without a shadow, and we must do our best to trace out that invisible shadow in our minds.")
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, New York, Knopf 1993, pp. 148.
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, New York, Knopf 1993, pp. 148.
Courtesy of Ana Juan
Plumbing the Depths of κατάδεσμος
Plumbing the Depths of κατάδεσμος The first inscription was love's magnifying shield, where the writer and the beloved were happily divided, staring into each other's aegis. At once abundant and grave, lead tablets, or katadesmos, have taunted the topsoil of our archeological record of the Greeks and Romans, which in the latter case, they are defixiones. Their crude fact of being lodged in wells, crawlspaces, among colonies of the then dead, then begs the question, why?
Why has anyone felt passionately, and felt moved to shed one's fixations in a material? For some love spells and curses have mattered since they were remnants of the ancients. Lead was selected oftentimes over wax or papyrus or pottery fragments for its dulling sheen that pours back into chrome over the fire, yet it is also electroforming, nerve-dampening. Liquids poured through lead are sweet, in as much as revenge, remission or absolute resignation is. Word is sent to the world, then it becomes the world, in which we are nobody, existing in the chthonic currents of the underworld. Leading to nowhere but the wayfaring Hermes, Hecate, and their restless spirits, these writings are made for the darkness, the undifferentiated, the place where hope is not hardening into the profiles of day-to-day reality.
13 comments:
The text on the obliterating force of memory:
"These things never happened, but always are."
http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/glossary.aspx?id=180
Interesting association:
http://www.constellationsofwords.com/stars/Antares.html
http://www.antarespharma.com/
http://www.antarestech.com/
Epigraph: "Imaginary gardens with real toads in them." —Marianne Moore
"'These organisms,' writes Franco Russoli, 'whose physical being is sometimes flabby and sometimes porous, at other times osseous but fragile, breaking open to display huge colonies of seeds or bulbs which grow and ferment in the blind hope of some vital metamorphosis, that seem to struggle against a soft but impenetrable skin—these abnormal creatures with pointed or horny protuberances, or petticoats, skirts and fringes of fibrils and pistils, articulations that are sometimes mucous and sometimes cartilaginous, might well belong to one of the great families of jungle flora, ambiguous, savage, and fascinating in their monstrous way. But they do not belong to any species in nature, nor would the most expert grafting ever succeed in bringing them into existence'"
Fig. I A vegetable-lamb or Barometz, from a sixteenth-century woodcut
http://books.google.com/books?id=tbhTdnZsqMUC&pg=PA658&dq=Parallel+Botany&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GH_yU9zsIYa6oQTui4GQDg&ved=0CFEQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Parallel%20Botany&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=D2cmHHAMrlEC&pg=PT16&dq=J.G.+Ballard+Prima+Belladonna&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uIHyU_uKHtD4oATW34GQAg&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=J.G.%20Ballard%20Prima%20Belladonna&f=false
http://orchidflowers.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/caring-for-spider-orchids/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gails_pictures/6431813527/
Exercise 20 will go here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3DfyJRIT4jyU2Z0ZURFOTNiYjA/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3DfyJRIT4jyU2Z0ZURFOTNiYjA/edit?usp=sharing
http://animals.io9.com/holy-crap-what-is-this-writhing-deep-sea-creature-1644520651/1644544623/+AnnaleeNewitz?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Via Karl Blossfeldt:
http://historyofourworld.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/joseph-beuys-and-the-celtic-world/
A later investigation.
Neptune conjunct Saturn in Scorpio (minus 8s)
Neptune-Saturn in Synastry
"The wounded Neptunian, resistant to incarnation but supported by another's strong Saturn, may find confidence in his or her ordinary humanity, and be willing to make the occasional foray outside Eden's gates. And the wounded Saturnian, cynical and mistrustful, may discover that it is possible, at least sometimes, to relinquish control and allow the healing waters to make the desert bloom."
Liz Greene's The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption
https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zva1NkGQUkXXK31ZvNN4iDCCXuw=/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2918080/New_Yorker_Charlie_Hebdo_1.0.jpg
"The single greatest explanation for all divorces is, in the end, defensiveness, the inability to listen with grace to what another person is telling us without resorting to stubborn pride and denial. There are no sexual problems too grave that they ever make it too hard to stay; there are no differences in social attitudes or interior design tastes too severe to doom a love affair. There are only ever terrible ways for our frustrations to be heard. The lover we desperately need isn’t the person who shares our every taste and interest; it’s the kindly soul who has learnt to negotiate differences in taste without defensiveness or impatience."
https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/the-real-reason-why-couples-break-up/
I am not giving up, but I can no longer place bids to have them go unanswered. I will edit the last card when I am able. I will come back to this.
In truth, besides the naive foray in friendship with Anthony, and the disastrous, ego-driven affair with Sandra, I have wisely kept to myself. I made two indiscretions, and lived to pay the price.
https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9#Fn7
I am trying to listen with grace. In this forum, I am garrulous; at least it appears that way.
My sphere requires a lot of humor, like a pizza party for staffing memes. I say, you cannot scream and yell when you are momentarily satiated, which works for me.
Extending this; I will take you to a nice place with appetizers to dessert, and the ask you, "What was it you wanted to discuss?
I had to modify it, since I cannot abide by idolatry.
Exercise 91.
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