firemaiden
Bejeezus, Buster ... that was a rolicking kickass post. I'm on the story rug now, and I'm all ears.
Alchemy of the Human Spirit
Baroli
Ohhhh, tis good to see Umbrae tell that Dan guy he doesn't know schmatz,....
Makes me think of the good 'ol days,...What?!
Do tell more Umbrae,...*passes a bowl of popcorn to Firemaiden.*
Makes me think of the good 'ol days,...What?!
Do tell more Umbrae,...*passes a bowl of popcorn to Firemaiden.*
Mateo06
What does the number five mean? I would love to know.
Curtis Penfold
Mateo06 said:
5 elements. The four physical elements and Spirit.
Sometimes represented as the pentagram, with the upward point representing Spirit. Sometimes as the cross, with the point in the center representing Spirit.
---------------
It's just basically completeness. 5 elements, 5 fingers, 5 directions (North, South, East, West, Center), and 1/2 of 10 (another symbol of completeness--therefore a whole half...I made that one up, but it makes sense to me).
Umbrae
Dan wandered back in dripping, he looked like he'd been doused with a bucket of some kind of odd fluid. “Dude, what the hell happened?”
“Don't ask.”
“Seriously, what happened”
“I didn't realize she was protected by scorpion ejaculate.” He began wiping is face off with a dry bar towel.
A few at the bar nodded to him as he tidied himself up, straightened his bow-tie in the back-bar mirror.
“So tell me about...”
I stopped him mid-sentence, “All I'm talking about are suits. What they really mean, taking them out of some theoretical pie in the sky concept and...
“We know what suits mean.”
“That's the problem.”
“What?”
“The problem is, we know what they mean. So we don't think about them. We don't dig beneath the surface. The suits themselves are heavier than we think – we ignore the gold under our feet – and our spirit gets stuck in the suit of swords and we wonder why our lives are 'stuck'. We 'hourglass' and think more information will free us.”
“More information never set me free. But I've spent my life amongst sword wielders. I always wondered about that 'Live by the sword die by the sword', and 'beating swords into plowshares' thing.”
“Dude, that's precious. You can read all the books you want. You can buy a book from amazon dot bomb, but until you get wet cold and miserable, you're never find real gold.”
“Fools gold.” Dan played with the ring of moisture on the bar top.
“You're startin' to catch on. Like getting' hung up on the shape of yer pans. Its marketing hogwash. Square, round, octagonal it's all the same. It's the lips that work as riffles to catch the gold. Not the shape.”
“Wait a sec – so it's the riffles that make 'the current abate' inside your pan?” he asked?
“Bingo”
“Its the road bumps in life that make us...”
“Whole – which rhymes with gold.”
“I really need to sit on that one a bit...but how does Crowley fit into this?”
“Crowley wrote that fives are what happens when motion is introduced into the stability of the four elements.”
“Whoa, that's cool. Like gravity. I know Robert Place once said that fives are what occurs when you move spirit into the stability of the four elements.”
“Dude – I want to know what you think.”
“Well” he finished off his glass of amber goodness and signaled the bartender for another round “I think that fives are about what occurs when you bring consciousness into the stability of the four elements.”
“May be the coolest thing ever come out of your mouth my brother....”
“I think I may be catching something here. For years, folks talk alchemy and we end up heading off the the library to read read read.”
“And we get nowhere. Mankind is no wiser than we were two thousand years ago. We're just as barbaric, with nifty tools.”
“When in reality we should just stop. Go out into the woods, and learn how nature acts – for ourselves – that alchemy should be experiential. When you're cold wet and hungry standing waist deep in muck looking at a pan full of sludge – you begin to set aside the book learning and feel the inward search for truth”
“Sing it.” The bartender dropped off two glasses of golden fluid in front of us.
“You don't find gold in a library.”
“Sometimes you hear someone talk about 'Tarot is a language' or some such crap. Tarot is to be lived, experienced – and fully – or it becomes just another exercise in futility. Finding the gold within begins with swords but it doesn't stop there. And where some talk of wands being passion, they stop with ardor and never move past it. To find the gold within, you must follow the same paths to find gold in situ in the real world.”
“That's about it. Thanks for the beer by the way."
I grabbed my glass and wandered off to the pool table where I watched Newtonian principals of refraction at work.
“Don't ask.”
“Seriously, what happened”
“I didn't realize she was protected by scorpion ejaculate.” He began wiping is face off with a dry bar towel.
A few at the bar nodded to him as he tidied himself up, straightened his bow-tie in the back-bar mirror.
“So tell me about...”
I stopped him mid-sentence, “All I'm talking about are suits. What they really mean, taking them out of some theoretical pie in the sky concept and...
“We know what suits mean.”
“That's the problem.”
“What?”
“The problem is, we know what they mean. So we don't think about them. We don't dig beneath the surface. The suits themselves are heavier than we think – we ignore the gold under our feet – and our spirit gets stuck in the suit of swords and we wonder why our lives are 'stuck'. We 'hourglass' and think more information will free us.”
“More information never set me free. But I've spent my life amongst sword wielders. I always wondered about that 'Live by the sword die by the sword', and 'beating swords into plowshares' thing.”
“Dude, that's precious. You can read all the books you want. You can buy a book from amazon dot bomb, but until you get wet cold and miserable, you're never find real gold.”
“Fools gold.” Dan played with the ring of moisture on the bar top.
“You're startin' to catch on. Like getting' hung up on the shape of yer pans. Its marketing hogwash. Square, round, octagonal it's all the same. It's the lips that work as riffles to catch the gold. Not the shape.”
“Wait a sec – so it's the riffles that make 'the current abate' inside your pan?” he asked?
“Bingo”
“Its the road bumps in life that make us...”
“Whole – which rhymes with gold.”
“I really need to sit on that one a bit...but how does Crowley fit into this?”
“Crowley wrote that fives are what happens when motion is introduced into the stability of the four elements.”
“Whoa, that's cool. Like gravity. I know Robert Place once said that fives are what occurs when you move spirit into the stability of the four elements.”
“Dude – I want to know what you think.”
“Well” he finished off his glass of amber goodness and signaled the bartender for another round “I think that fives are about what occurs when you bring consciousness into the stability of the four elements.”
“May be the coolest thing ever come out of your mouth my brother....”
“I think I may be catching something here. For years, folks talk alchemy and we end up heading off the the library to read read read.”
“And we get nowhere. Mankind is no wiser than we were two thousand years ago. We're just as barbaric, with nifty tools.”
“When in reality we should just stop. Go out into the woods, and learn how nature acts – for ourselves – that alchemy should be experiential. When you're cold wet and hungry standing waist deep in muck looking at a pan full of sludge – you begin to set aside the book learning and feel the inward search for truth”
“Sing it.” The bartender dropped off two glasses of golden fluid in front of us.
“You don't find gold in a library.”
“Sometimes you hear someone talk about 'Tarot is a language' or some such crap. Tarot is to be lived, experienced – and fully – or it becomes just another exercise in futility. Finding the gold within begins with swords but it doesn't stop there. And where some talk of wands being passion, they stop with ardor and never move past it. To find the gold within, you must follow the same paths to find gold in situ in the real world.”
“That's about it. Thanks for the beer by the way."
I grabbed my glass and wandered off to the pool table where I watched Newtonian principals of refraction at work.
KafkasGhost
Saddhu, saddhu, saddhu!!!
firemaiden
That Dan Guy and Umbrae, I'm so glad the two of you have finally started sharing your material. When you first mentioned suits, I got the image of a bunch of guys sitting at the bar in pinstripes and really shiny shoes. The Guys in Suits were wearing gold watches and gold chains and at least one of them had a gold tooth.
I asked them why you and That Dan Guy were all wrapped up in panning fer gold all of a sudden, and what was this new focus on suits, and one of them whipped round with an awful funny smile. It was the guy with the gold tooth. The gold caught the light, and went "ping" like in those toothpaste ads. He said, 'Howdy fer-mitten, the name's AL."
'Al, Al... I've known a few Al's in my day, you got a last name ?'
"Yessir, I do, Miss Fer-mitten, it's Chemy -- Al Chemy. We're the folks who turn the dross into Gold."
"Dross ?"
"Dunno what it means either, just a funny word but it sounds good."
"Did you mean mud ?" I know a French poet named Baudelaire, who ..."
"Bow-de-layer ?
"He'd be the guy. Baudelaire was obsessed with turning MUD into gold, mud, see that was the dark and dirty experiences of human life, and grotesque images, you know, like a maggot on a rotting cadaver, or maybe just a rainy day ... the idea was to take the dark images none of the other poets wanted and spin it into the finest poetic gold, beauty."
"Yes, miss Fer-mitten, that be the idea -- dross, poop, mud... I reckon your Dan fellow is talking about finding poetic gold from the dross of human life. It's a life work."
"You don't say. Alrighty, then, Al, so that's why we're panning here panning for gold. But why the fancy suits ? "
Al grinned and his tooth went "ping" ... but then all of a sudden, I got the picture, and the big guys with their gold chains went POOF, leaving just a few piles of tarot cards dribbling off their barstools.
Too bad, I liked Al, he reminded me of another Al I once knew.
So suits, eh? Suits ? Wow, that Dan Guy, and the Umbrae, sure know how to get a gal all riled up ... thinking. I see so, tell me if I have this right .. if each suit represents an aristotelian "element" we ought to be thinking about how the "elements" combine to create the different building blocks of life, and/or gold, and what they tell us about how to turn vast expanses of misery into nuggets of priceless treasure ?
And why the five ... hmmmm. If the five introduces movement into the stability of the four ... hmmm and there are four suits. The five would then be -- the "fifth" thing -- the spark of light that makes the four building blocks explode into life ... the chemical reaction, the DNA in motion, the hand of God ... hmmmmm.
Okay I like where this is going. Bartender ? May you have a glass of Volnay ?
I asked them why you and That Dan Guy were all wrapped up in panning fer gold all of a sudden, and what was this new focus on suits, and one of them whipped round with an awful funny smile. It was the guy with the gold tooth. The gold caught the light, and went "ping" like in those toothpaste ads. He said, 'Howdy fer-mitten, the name's AL."
'Al, Al... I've known a few Al's in my day, you got a last name ?'
"Yessir, I do, Miss Fer-mitten, it's Chemy -- Al Chemy. We're the folks who turn the dross into Gold."
"Dross ?"
"Dunno what it means either, just a funny word but it sounds good."
"Did you mean mud ?" I know a French poet named Baudelaire, who ..."
"Bow-de-layer ?
"He'd be the guy. Baudelaire was obsessed with turning MUD into gold, mud, see that was the dark and dirty experiences of human life, and grotesque images, you know, like a maggot on a rotting cadaver, or maybe just a rainy day ... the idea was to take the dark images none of the other poets wanted and spin it into the finest poetic gold, beauty."
"Yes, miss Fer-mitten, that be the idea -- dross, poop, mud... I reckon your Dan fellow is talking about finding poetic gold from the dross of human life. It's a life work."
"You don't say. Alrighty, then, Al, so that's why we're panning here panning for gold. But why the fancy suits ? "
Al grinned and his tooth went "ping" ... but then all of a sudden, I got the picture, and the big guys with their gold chains went POOF, leaving just a few piles of tarot cards dribbling off their barstools.
Too bad, I liked Al, he reminded me of another Al I once knew.
So suits, eh? Suits ? Wow, that Dan Guy, and the Umbrae, sure know how to get a gal all riled up ... thinking. I see so, tell me if I have this right .. if each suit represents an aristotelian "element" we ought to be thinking about how the "elements" combine to create the different building blocks of life, and/or gold, and what they tell us about how to turn vast expanses of misery into nuggets of priceless treasure ?
And why the five ... hmmmm. If the five introduces movement into the stability of the four ... hmmm and there are four suits. The five would then be -- the "fifth" thing -- the spark of light that makes the four building blocks explode into life ... the chemical reaction, the DNA in motion, the hand of God ... hmmmmm.
Okay I like where this is going. Bartender ? May you have a glass of Volnay ?
canid
Hmmmm. Some of the nuggets end up on moss, some stay put because, well, they just do, some move a bit, yet they're all washed with the same waters.
Baroli
canid said:
Ahhhhhh, but nuggets they are.
*Baroli is smiling as she had to screw her lightbulb located over her head back in cuz it was loose. She is smiling and understanding. *
Tee Hee
LotusSong
Every time I think I have finally learned something, finally captured a tiny grain I can describe and call my own, I find something like this. All I can do is sit back and shake my head and go, "I don't get it..." It makes me feel very stupid to see everyone else nodding their heads going, "Yeah, that makes perfect sense!" I guess I've just been in the classroom too long; I'm expecting a quiz to be handed out and be the only one in the class who fails.
I wonder how I can get past that feeling... Hn.
I wonder how I can get past that feeling... Hn.
