"We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us and we drown."

T.S. Eliot - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
A few weeks after Solstice and the Installation the Krew headed back to the Îlot des Mouettes on a blue and sunny day so that they could catch some reflections of the Shekhina. There were already sightings of strange lights or fires from the island and the locals were abuzz with stories of the Pirates being back at work on the Enchanted Isle. Slag told them, no, that Primalglimse, is a Shekhina - and here the locals look lost which gives Slag his opening for unpacking the Spike. The Manitou was sailing that day and we buzzed her to give the tourists a story to tell. There was another German Cruise Ship in port - you can see it under the bow - and some of the Deutsches were now aboard the sloop to daytrip the waters of the 45th Parallel North. We circled them withershins and Slag called over the water: Mengele Mengele! And some of them cupped their ears, straining to hear over the wind and the hum of our powerful gasoline engine, Slag pointed to the circling Gulls. "Mengele, Mengele," he called. "Yah," they grinned back. Jawold. Where was Yahweh at Auschwitz? we called. Why does god kill babies? We shouted! But they couldn't make us out and since we were smiling at them they must have thought we were friendly - a common mistake that men make with Mermaids and Gnomes. So they smiled back and waved and we sailed by each other until both of us looked to the other as if we had sailed over the horizon and fell off the curve of the world.
It was raining when we got back to Dublin. Pooler was off to Lisboa to catch up with Savitri Devi, who was named after a beautiful Nazi who took a Hindu name and wrote a book about the Aryan Myth of the Sun. Pooler and I made plans to meet in Barcelona for Winter Solstice & Christmas where Jayne Hill still lived and there were rumors that Both Kenny, himself, and Barber Perfect might tag along so that we could have a kind of Family Reunion. The street artist was gone and the Comely Bergerette was fading on the sidewalk, her face was losing outline and blending again with her medium. It was odd, though, because even now the Passers-By would do a skip step when they saw the image and try not to walk on it as if their Mirror Neurons were madly firing at the presence of some Other and they were fooled by the imitation. That is the problem with Masks - mistaking them for Faces and the things which are under the mask. Nature may have designed us to recognize and empathize with the Other but Nature has not trained us to tell the difference between the Container and the thing Contained. So we get fooled by the Surface easily and because of this Nietzsche knew that Western Man would not take lightly the loss of its Mask of god and for many, if not most, the world would become a Wasteland, dispirited, empty, washed away by the Eon's rain.
Martin Brennan, in his book on "Ancient Art and Astronomy in Ireland," called The Stars and the Stones, comments on the images of spirals, double-spirals, and the famous triple-spirals of the Boyne Valley: "The separation of a formless unity into 2 reciprocal principles which generate a third and form the multiplicity of creation is a universal and archaic cosmological ideal." Maria Prophetissa, aka - Maria the Jewess, or "Divine Maria," was the mythical sister of Moses as well as the inventor of such alchemical tools as the "balneum Mariae or the bain Marie" - what we call the double boiler. She is the source of one of the central axioms of Alchemy - "One becomes two; two becomes three; and, out of the 3rd, comes the 4th as the One." This rubric has also come down to us as: "One becomes 2; 2 becomes 3; and, by means of the 3rd and the 4th, achieves unity, thus 2 are but one." Maria also wrote: "Join the Male and the Female, and you will find what is sought." Steganographically speaking: "Marry gum with gum in true marriage." The 2 spoken of are of course the Cosmic Opposites in all their permutations: God/Devil, good/evil, male/female etcetera - but the 2 also refer to the Process of Alchemy itself. The Process of Transmutation, Transubstantiation, and Transfiguration are all governed by the same immutable principle: SOLVE ET COAGULA. So do you remember the stolen Mulmist which began the Spike Speculum Veeaye? It was Kenny's prototype for an apparatus which could take apart light and tap it to viewers in a code. We were going to bricolage 72 small mirrors around a county road which had been "improved" by girdling it with Rip Wrap. We hoped to beam the message SOLVE ET COAGULA across the waters of the 40 Mile Bay and we had wondered how many minds there were around the 45th Parallel North which could first, recognize the light reflections as a Code, then recognize it as Morse, then transliterate the dots and dashes into the Alphabetical message Solve et Coagula and then be able to translate Latin into English and get: Take Apart - Put Together. At which point they would be only one more Transmutation from the message's Meaning. Solve or `solutio' refers to the breaking down of elements in the Alchemical Athanor/Alembic while Coagula describes their subsequent coming back together. The famous Fuck, Fart, and Die motif. In Alchemy this formula has both literal and esoteric meaning. Solve et Coagula expresses transmutation from a base to a "finer" state, the perpetual goal of spiritual growth and human evolution. We move from the Lower to the Higher, from Matter to Spirit by sequential acts of Solve et Coagula. There are usually 7 on the Scale. Brennan comments: "The infinite diversity of the objective world evolves from the union of opposites - the male and female principles - plus a 3rd force which is like a positive-negative charge continuously attracting the two. These 3 forces constitute nature, a continuous interplay of creation, preservation, and annihilation." Womb, Teat, and Tomb. Brú. Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Father, Son, Shekhina. Solve et Coagula is the process of giving Birth to new life forms and beliefs. It's the formula for Creation and the way both God and Man have used to make each other up.
On the Jewish calendar Tu B'Av is the 15th day of the month Av. Today it is marked with no special observances but is known for its celebratory character. Tachanun, a penitentiary prayer after the morning and afternoon services, is omitted on Tu B'Av and for most Jews this is enough to give the day its air of puzzling joy. During the days of the Temple in Jerusalem it was a major festive day - a Mirror Image of Yom Kippur. On this day unmarried girls would lend each other simple clothes so that the visual lines between the rich and the poor would dissolve and there followed singing and dancing and probably some occasional mixings in the vineyards around the earthly city which was the Mirror of the Heavenly Jerusalem where Yahweh and his Shekhina were also expected to loosen up and party down. The day was considered Auspicious for Marriage and today, in the secular culture of Israel, it is considered a Festival of Love, like Valentine's day. Of the 18 Holy Days and Festivals of the Shekhina which spread thru the year, Tu B'Av is the time when She rises from the Underworld and immerses herself in the Waters of Rebirth. "Forty days before the creation of the world, She becomes pregnant with the world and with Herself. She promises that She will return into the earth to begin the cycle once more." Fetal Incest is a Rock & Roll band but also a means of Parthenogenesis - Virgin Birth. It's a way of Knowing Yourself. Isis and Osiris were lovers and King and Queen, but they were also Brother and Sister and Twins who Knew each other in the Womb. From that fruitful union all the rest of the Opposites were born. Under the Covertext in these myths is this message: Monad.
You can see three Mirror Neurons firing from the Miskan/Schmird of the Spike Speculum Veeaye. When the Sun or the Moon is reflected on the Sea, the Reflection is Omni-Omni and no matter how long you sail towards it you cannot ever reach it. This was the Mask of the Gods of our Fathers. But when you use a Mirror and reflect the Sun or the Moon on the waters of the Sea, the Reflection stands in one spot and Dwells among us. You can wash in the reflected glory of the Shekhina. You can dive in her and be in her. And since the atoms in your body are also composed of light, then you can intercourse, and like the Chi during the Divine Nuptials, you can run back and forth within each other, becoming one. Fetal Incest. Quantum Mechanics, the Captain will tell you, draws the same image of you and the universe. You make each other up and like the Double-Spirals at Newgrange - both of you wax and wane. What the story of Job tells us about reality is that God needs Us just as much as We need God - the old Alchemical truth. First Man, who is both God and Man - in order to Know Himself, pours himself out into Creation. Some of the light holds in 3 Spiritual Containers, all the rest of it bursts thru the lower Material 7 Jars and rushing out creates Time and Space, the Universe, Mr. Spock, Savitri Devi with her lush and fleshy secret parts, Pooler Jones, Kenny La Roche, Raccoons, Gulls & Cormorants, and Elephants who can recognize themselves in Mirrors. At least some of them. Redemption is the process of Solve et Coagula, the refinement of the World of Matter, back into its Spiritual Tent. The Alchemical Opus is Transubstantiation. Satan is the World, and also god's drinking buddy at the Café Mélusina out on Highway 61 and he must be Redeemed. This is the Mask of the Gods of our Future.
Skippy notes an article in a newspaper called: "Can a robot be your friend? Maybe soon." The Artificial Intelligence [AI] Shamans at M.I.T. and at The Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence are working on 5th Generation Software and Hardware meant to provide Robots with a literal Human Face with twinkling blue eyes and facial muscles which can Mirror human emotions and expressions. They're giving it sophisticated speech algorithms and 60 embedded lip muscles to mimic verbal articulation. The goal is an Android like creation with which humans will willingly interact and suspend their disbelief. They see these Robots working in Care Facilities like old-timer homes and Mental institutions, and recovery wards doing "personalized services" for the infirmed. They are especially excited about the Robot's use with Autistic Children.
"The Religious need longs for wholeness, and therefore lays hold of the images of wholeness offered by the unconscious, which, independently of the conscious mind, rise up from the depths of our psychic nature."

Jung - Answer to Job
"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Nietzsche - from the Brú
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