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Tonight is the last night of Carnival…tomorrow is Ash Wednesday which begins the ritual austerities of Lent (which means spring is now truly on the way). I grew up reading eye-popping tales set in Venice during Carnival (or in Medieval France, or New Orleans, or Rio de Janeiro), yet somehow I always miss out on carnival’s over-the-top pageantry and mad frolics. I blame this on my Methodist upbringing: Protestants conceive of Lent very differently than Catholics! (even fallen Methodists) but maybe I should blame the weird schedule. I am sure there are carnival festivities going on somewhere in Brooklyn right now, but, come on, it is Tuesday night. I just got home from work: there is no time to put on 50,000 beads and learn a samba routine.
\Anyway, to capture this strange mixture of temptation, wariness, sin, redemption, and multi-color ultra-spectacle (and as a call-back to yesterday’s rainbow serpent post), I have decided to post pictures of some snake themed carnival floats from around the world/internet.
The snake is obviously an important carnival animal, and I can see no other interpretation of the reptile other than in its Biblical role as a representative of temptation and sin (which are obviously themselves major components of carnival). Perhaps the snake’s ribbon morphology is a secondary component (since this is a great shape for floats). It is worth noting though the the West African religions which syncretized with Christianity to create the vodou faiths of the New World are very snake oriented. One of the most august Vodou loas is the great fertility/father figure Dumballah, who is represented as a great serene river serpent. I wonder if he might be an influence on some of these displays.
Hopefully these ARE carnival snakes. As I was looking for them, I kept finding Chinese “Year of the Snake” floats and Saint Patrick’s Day “Get these snakes out of Ireland” snakes (to say nothing of Hindu cobras and Australian snakes of some unknown provenance). Maybe parade-goers simply love snakes because all parades kind of are snakes at some level. Or perhaps there is a deeper cultural connection which eludes me on Tuesday night and must be looked into further in snake-themed posts of the future. In the meantime Happy Shrove Tuesday! Go eat some colorful cake and start getting ready for a new season!
Lovecraft’s Nightmare (Painting by Michael Whelan)
Even among modern folk with our science, technology and networked thinking machines, dreams possess an unearthly and overwhelming power. To state this bluntly: nightmares can be terrifying to a degree unrivaled by anything save the most terrible moments of trauma or devastating personal loss.
In nightmares I have watched our lovely world of nitrogen skies, teaming oceans, and green forests snuffed out in an instant by ghastly void. As a ghost, I have swum through oceans of plague skeletons each of which glittered with unwholesome light. Worst of all, with mine own hands I have poured oil on my chanting followers and touched the torch to them and exalted as together we burned like fat in a fire.
And it was all just dreams, of course it was. But, oh! it seemed so horribly real…
「菌類学者Hの誤算」 パネルにテンペラ、油彩 1988年 1621x970mm
Awaking from such visions, it is difficult not to see the hand of providence writing out the dire warnings of destiny. In ancient times, when science did not exist to explain the world, people thought exactly that—that the gods communicated through dreams.
Dream augury is mentioned in the most ancient Mesopotamian texts as well as throughout ancient Egyptian writings. In both the Iliad and Odyssey, the gods communicate with mortals through dreams (in the Iliad, beautifully, false dreams fly to the world from a gate of ivory, but real ones go through the gate of horn). Even the first book of the Bible has the following story, where the reader goes into Pharaoh’s dreams with him.
And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. And he slept and dreamed the second time: and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good. And, behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them. And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh.
Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day: Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in ward in the captain of the guard’s house, both me and the chief baker: And we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream. And there was there with us a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream he did interpret. And it came to pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged.
Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh.
Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams as an omen of coming climate change: the seven fat cows are seven years of plentiful harvest while the seven starving cows represent a terrible drought. Only by long-term planning can the political leadership of Egypt avert humanitarian crisis (coincidentally, it is a story which makes me wonder if the most stridently religious folk have even paused to think about their favorite text).
Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dream
Dreams are the most numinous experience we are likely to have. It is very hard not to be like Pharaoh and see portents of the future in the strange imagery of dreams. However for all of the time that dreams are filled with apocalyptic farm animals or oracular produce, they are just as often filled with the Flintstones, sailboards, toothpaste, the girl from algebra class, Honda hatchbacks and suchlike detritus of one’s personal experience and/or contemporary mass culture.
Sigmund Freud, the doyenne of dream interpretation in the contemporary(ish) world, believed that our dreams and nightmares revealed truths hidden by the conscious mind. In the symbolic language of dream imagery, we are able to put together patterns which are obscure (or distasteful or forbidden)—at least according to Freud.
Naturally I am an adherent of science and reason. I hold no truck with imaginary supernatural beings such as ghosts and gods. Yet dreams constitute phenomena which I have experienced—which we have all experienced-which can and do stand outside the ordinary mundane frame of reference. Even if they are not sent by Hypnos or Yahweh, it seems wise to allow dreams to influence what you create and desire…and what you are afraid of.
As the poet said, “Learn from your dreams what you lack”
Since I am not much of a mathematician, I don’t generally write about numbers. I am afraid that if I do so, there will be a loud band and a flash and one of my disgruntled arithmetic teachers from secondary school will appear with a red pen to berate me (also numbers sort of squirm around like little spiders on the page in a deeply unsettling way). Nevertheless, today, for entirely obscure reasons, I thought I might dedicate a post to the natural number forty (40), a number which seemingly has great spiritual significance within the three Abrahamic faiths.
“No, we are not stopping for directions!”
In the Old Testament forty crops up again and again. The flood which rained out the sinful people off the world (which Noah escaped via zoological ark) lasted forty days and forty nights. Not only did Moses and the Hebrew people live in the Sinai desert for forty years, but most famous Israelite kings also had forty year reigns (examples include Eli (1 Samuel 4:18), Saul (Acts 13:21), David (2 Samuel 5:4), and Solomon (1 Kings 11:42)). The giant Goliath challenged the Israelites two times a day for forty days before they finally found a champion to defeat him.
The principal figures o Christianity with 40 holy virgins
Christ was a Jew and Christianity kept up the fascination with forty. Jesus fasted for forty days and night in the desert before he was tempted by the devil. When he returned from death, he lingered for forty days in the world before ascending bodily to heaven and the great beyond. Lent lasts for forty days before Easter.
Islam has even more references to forty (although unfortunately I am not nearly as familiar with Muslim traditions or theology). Mohammed was forty years old when he received his divine revelations. The evil false prophet Al-Masih ad-Dajjal roams (or will roam) the world for 40 day (40 year?) increments. The mourning period for devout Moslems is forty days. Perhaps most famously, righteous men will be rewarded in the afterlie with forty houri—beautiful black-eyed virgins who cater to every whim: although this tradition is riddled with textual difficulties—the number may be seventy-two instead of forty and houri may actually be a mistranslation or raisins. These are important distinctions and it would be good to sort them out, but, sadly, faith does not easily trade in ironclad certainties…
Seriously? Forty raisins?
So what is behind this obsession with forty? Is there some divine numerological secret which underlies the three great Monotheistic religions? Do the Pentateuch, the Bible, and the Koran all hint at profound number magic which would put endless power in our hands? Well, actually, scholars suggest that forty was such a large number that it just meant “a whole bunch” to the original authors Genesis. Additionally a forty year period was reckoned to be the Subsequent religious writers seemingly used the number to lend ancient gravitas to their own texts. Of course numbers sometimes confuse me (as does monotheism), so maybe I am missing something here. I anyone has a better idea, I am all ears.
According to astronomers, on Tuesday April 15th 2014 the heavens over North America will feature a rare and magnificent spectacle—a blood moon! The term “blood moon” refers to a full lunar eclipse in which the earth’s umbral shadow completely covers the surface of the full moon. The lunar surface will actually look red because of refracted light from around the earth’s edges. I’m not sure how the term “blood moon” has come to eclipse the more scientific sounding “full lunar eclipse” (probably through internet click-baiting, like everything else) but you have to admit it sounds cool and scary. The phenomena will be visible from the western hemisphere from 1:58 AM EST into the wee hours (peaking between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM) .
This is a pretty time of year and I am looking forward to sitting in the garden with some plum wine and honey cakes during the eclipse (assuming spring clouds do not intervene). Unfortunately some people have really gotten riled up by the “blood moon’s” dramatic Steven King rebranding. Pastor John Hagee of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas has written a book about how tonight’s lunar eclipse (the first of a series of consecutive total lunar eclipses known as a “tetrad) will usher in the biblical end times. Dragons and apocalyptic horsemen will roam the world’s strip malls and Jesus will run around biting people and gouging out eyes…or something like that (I might have sort have glossed over the Book of Revelations after slogging through all those tedious Paul chapters of the New Testament).
John Hagee…well, he certainly looks trustworthy…
Some things get old and wear away, but charlatans trying to scare people with bargain basement eschatology never go out of style. However if you still want some mythology to go along your astronomy (but you aren’t quite ready for the last judgment) there is a Mayan heroine whose name was Xquic, which means “Blood Moon”. She was the daughter of one of the lords of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld, which was filled with tenebrous monsters and cannibal gods. Xquic fell in love with the severed head of a human hero and gave birth to the hero twins whose exploits changed the nature of the Mayan cosmos. Perhaps you could spare lovely Xquic a thought as you watch the moon darken and turn incarnadine—but maybe you’ll be to busy eating honey cakes… or fighting with the mounted incarnation of pestilence!
Oh man, Tuesday is going to be a long day…
ferrebeekeeper 