Part two – the Journey
On the cold stone stairs of Wikidom, Umbrae rolled a fresh cigarette, "We've a lot of ground to cover – many places to go in order to 'splain this so it makes sense." He licked the paper. Whoa! For a second there his tongue looked forked – must have been a trick of the light. He lit a match, cupping with his hands, shook out the flame and exhaled. "Ready?"
"Ready for what?"
"To journey." He waved his hands in the air a bit, took a drag on the fag and blew a puff of smoke in my face. I coughed instinctively though there was no aroma. The sun seemed to shift in the sky. It was hot, and there was a strange scent in the air.
"So this is the Golden Gate."
"No that's in San Francisco, we're in Berkeley." I felt silly as soon as I said it.
"Sheesh, girl… Stop looking at me and look around, and don't worry, you're ethereal."
Somehow someway -- I don't know, we were standing on an old wall. I almost fell when over to my right I saw a golden glittering dome, "Uh are we in…."
"Jerusalem, Al Quds…the bloodiest bit of real estate one can find. And where we stand, is atop the Golden Gate, on the east side of the Temple Mount. I was tossed off of it back in '93 by the Waif, and escorted out of the Temple Mount complex."
“The Waif?”
“Those are the Muslim guards of the Temple Mount
“They kicked you out? Why? What’s the big deal? What is the Temple Mount anyway, and what’s this Golden Gate?”
“Hoo boy” said the ethereal body of Umbrae, poised as he was in his spectral Stetson. “I think I need me another ciggie” He took a long drag, and we sat mutely, listening to the cooing of doves. Finally he looked up. “The Golden Gate is the antique Eastern Gate to the city. Directly underneath this gate, is ostensibly the original Eastern Gate dating from Solomon’s time.”
The Christians believe that when Jesus returns to Jerusalem (the Second Coming) it will be through this very Gate. The Jews believe the Messiah, will also arrive…through the Golden Gate. And the Muslims believe that Mohammad will return to Al Quds, through…"
“Perhaps I’m the Messiah” I said, “… if I pass through the gate.”
“You go ahead and try.”
I swooped down, and was disappointed. “What’s with the wall?”
“Ah, well, you see Muslims walled up the gate in the year 810 to prevent the return of the wrong messiah.”
“Hmmm. Well, as far as I can tell it seems to be working”
“Now look east, away from the temple mount” he said. "Mount Olives is over that way, the Garden of Gethsemane is just over there. Now if you look west, you are looking at the Temple Mount Complex. We are as ghosts – the Waif will not see us. Take my hand."
I took his hand and we floated over into the Dome of the Rock. "See that rock through the lattice work?"
"Yeah."
"That rock is where Abraham …(who started out as Abram, but God added a ham onto the end and said, "you can't eat one but you can be one" which is why Jews are such great comedians)…"
"Stop it."
"Sorry…So Abraham could not bear a child with his wife Sarah. So she asked him to sleep with her handmaiden Hagar and she bore Ishmael. Then Sarah became preggers and bore Isaac. So the Jews and Christians will tell you that on this rock, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his firstborn. Isaac. The Muslims will tell you it was his firstborn Ishmael. But the Jews and Christians don't respect bastards, and neither did Abraham cuz he tossed them out into the desert. Legend tells us that the Arab peoples are descended from Ishmael and the Jewish from Isaac, both of the blood of Abraham. It is also from this very same rock that Mohammad ascended into heaven"
"This is that same rock??? Okay, I’m impressed. But what's this got to do with the High Priestess?"
"Everything! This is the Temple Mount! Just over there is where Solomon's Temple stood! The First and Second Temples! But I need to show you something else first. Take my hand…"
We floated back and regained our perches atop the Golden Gate.
"Okay my impatient one…You're in Jerusalem. Note the orientation? From the east. The sun comes from the east, the messiah comes from the east, a mason is said to be 'traveling east to west (for the sake of the widows son)…"
“Crikey, Umbrae will you stop talking in riddles?”
“You’ve never read Kipling?”
“Sure -- Jungle Boy?”
“No! How about The Man Who Would be King?” Umbrae groaned. “In practically all mythologies the West is the Land of the Dead, a man travels with the sun from east to west, it’s a metaphor for life.”
Suddenly, he grabbed my hand. I noticed that a couple of the Waif were coming towards us. We floated over the mount and I noted that some folks were looking upwards. "Can they see us?"
“Oh crap on toast, we're starting to corporalize. Come this way, we'll be safe."
In our fleet astral envelopes, we careened and circled, finally landing, before a huge expanse of wall, constructed out of huge huge stones. Swallows swooped in the evening light, over the heads of hundreds and hundreds of people, men on one side, women on another, dovening, kind of bobbing and weaving as they prayed.
"The Wall…Oh my god…you've brought me to The Wall."
"Some call this the Wailing Wall. But it is correctly called, the Western Wall."
“The Western Wall…. Western Wall… western wall of what, Mr. Draco, Sir?”
"Geez what do they teach in school these days… it’s the only remaining portion of the Temple."
“Oh God! Okay. So what does it tell us?”
"Just think about it, Firemaiden – it’s not the Western Porch, it's not the Western Door. It's a friggin' wall….”
“Oh! I see, right, so the door cannot have been on the West side of the temple! So where was the door?”
“The porch to King Solomon's Temple was on the East side.”
“Ahhhh, finally”
“Now in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, volume 3, page whatever we learn that the Hebrews, like most Semitic peoples, oriented themselves by facing east, toward the rising sun. So you'll find that some versions of the Bible, they'll tell you that Boaz was to the left, and Jachin was to the right, this is correct; in this orientation left is North and right is South."
"But if we're facing east, we could not be facing the porch, the Ulam of the Temple."
.............................(W).................. ...
............Jachin (S).................Boaz (N)
...........................porch............................
.............................(E)........................
"Unless you're inside looking out."
"Yes, I know, don’t say it…. at the EGRESS. So do you think Waite knew this or made a mistake? You don’t think he was dyslexic?”
"I think Waite knew it well! Come Firemaiden, I have something more to show you….”
The scene dissolved. We stood outside a door marked with a square and compass. It was guarded by a man with a sword. He wore an apron. Umbrae pulled me through the door into a room with a black and white checkered floor. A man sat in a chair upon a dais on the east wall. Another to the south and one behind us on the west. We stopped in front of the altar surrounded by men in aprons.
"One enters a Masonic Hall from the west, past the guards. Turn around now. See the pillars? Yup, Jachin and Boaz. You're looking west now. If we go to the door and look east, then it's Boaz and Jachin."
"Wow! There now! That’s exactly the way it is on the Tarot Card!”
"But now we know that's not the way it was in Solomon’s temple. That's the way that modern Christians look at the world, and they think its right…now think on this carefully, remember I said before 'a mason is said to be 'traveling east to west, for the sake of the widows son…' The metaphor is not backwards."
Umbrae stopped speaking as men began to move about. He turned and faced the man in the east, looked down at the open Bible on the altar that was open to Amos, briefly posed as le Bateleur, then blew a puff of tobacco, and we were…
"Ahh back in Jerusalem. We're just inside the Jaffa gate. This is Abu Saif and Sons, we'll have coffee with cardamom." Umbrae began to roll another cigarette, "try your coffee, it's delicious." He slid the cigarette over his right ear.
He was right, it was heavenly. "I want a pastry with my coffee Umbrae, can you order me order a pastry? Do they do baqlawa?
"The finest in the world."
We ate the dripping baqlawa and sipped our coffee in the waning light of Jerusalem.
"Waite was a meticulous plagiarizer and writer, he was really good. I don't think he missed much at all. It's my belief that his depiction of the High Priestess was how he viewed her though his Victorian Freemasonic point of view...I think he got it right, but he mislead us."
"You really think he mislead us? Or did he purposely choose to represent a Masonic temple, rather than Solomon’s original temple? Don’t you think he wanted to work in the Masonic angle somehow? I do think it is obvious he meant to show the priestess outside the temple, on the porch, guarding the entrance ” I spoke flatly to shut him up, but I guess I'd already put my nickel in and wound him up.
"We travel from east to west, Waite knew the metaphor well."
“So you think he misled us on purpose? I disagree, Umbrae, I think he wanted to include the Masonic angle.
“Maybe so,
“But you are saying the Masonic Temple is not Solomon’s Temple, whereas the temple in the High priestess Card is, or should be?”
“Yes, and most authors who came after Waite, simply accept this little twist without comment. Does a lie that’s a thousand years old have more credibility than a lie that's twenty minutes old? It's still a lie. Pull out the old lie that whites are the supreme race and we correctly shout it down as hogwash… (Speaking of hogwash this coffee's better than I remember it.) A lie is a lie is a lie. That's the problem with not doing your homework like so many of the modern tarot hacks…"
"Shhh that's harsh. And rude. You can't just call them hacks…"
"What do you call a journalist who prints a story that later turns out to be a complete fabrication? Is there a term for it?"
"A hack."
"As I was saying, a lie is a lie is a lie. You can dress a pig up in a tuxedo. You can take it out dancing. But sooner or later…it'll squeal. It's still a pig."
"Ayayay, can we get over the pigs already, and get on with the High Priestess!"
"Pigs, Hams…I think Abram was a bit of a pig for the way he treated Hagar."
"Allahu Wakbar" came a cry from a nearby minaret. "Allahu Wakbar" came from another. Call after answering call spread across the skies of Jerusalem, calling the faithful to prayer. The hairs on my neck stood on end.
Umbrae pulled the cigarette from above his ear and lit it. "So…the High Priestess huh…Are you sure?" I nodded, "Okay…take my hand…"
