dance of the korybante

the story of how i transmute my day-to-day experience from mundane to ecstatic

July 13, 2008

∞
via mills “And in that summer evening’s fading lightI saw his angels gather in the wheat:Like beaten gold their beauty smote the airAnd tongues of flame were streaming in their hair.” ”(As I’ve mentioned before, I find there are some wonderful religious artists. A metaphysical system is not useful to an artist based on its rational accuracy, and the poetry and entrenched iconography of religious art can be extremely moving in the credential context of the believing painter).” I couldn’t figure out how to directly reblog this image, since it was posted as a subimage (I just made up a word) to another image (of creepy crucifixions framed by nuclear cooling towers) which I didn’t want to reblog. But I sat in the shade of the orchard yesterday and read a chapter from James Frazier’s The Golden Bough about European harvest traditions of catching the “corn-mother”, the “corn-maiden” or “the old man” (depending on the locale), the Asian “rice-mother” traditions, and the native American maize-mother”. The spirit that drives the growing and fruiting of the fields is/was believed to be caught up the the last sheaf of grain that was harvested, which was bound up, often in the shape of a person, and sometimes with a real person inside it) and honored at the harvest dance as the embodiment of the natural force that makes the grain grow. There was alot more about it; I am summarizing. This picture reminds me of that, but with a weird creepy subtext of the harvest as a metaphor for “God’s” harvesting of human souls at the end of the world, based on how well they adhered to some code of morality. I much prefer the pagan pastoralist version. The growing of the grain is something to celebrate indeed. The end of the world - I don’t have time to worry about that. I am too busy living. “God’s” judgment - I feel that if I am to be judged, it will be not only on how I treated others, but also on how well I lived, how deeply I loved, and how devotedly I celebrated life and the force that creates and sustains it.

via mills

“And in that summer evening’s fading light
I saw his angels gather in the wheat:
Like beaten gold their beauty smote the air
And tongues of flame were streaming in their hair.”

”(As I’ve mentioned before, I find there are some wonderful religious artists. A metaphysical system is not useful to an artist based on its rational accuracy, and the poetry and entrenched iconography of religious art can be extremely moving in the credential context of the believing painter).”

I couldn’t figure out how to directly reblog this image, since it was posted as a subimage (I just made up a word) to another image (of creepy crucifixions framed by nuclear cooling towers) which I didn’t want to reblog. But I sat in the shade of the orchard yesterday and read a chapter from James Frazier’s The Golden Bough about European harvest traditions of catching the “corn-mother”, the “corn-maiden” or “the old man” (depending on the locale), the Asian “rice-mother” traditions, and the native American maize-mother”. The spirit that drives the growing and fruiting of the fields is/was believed to be caught up the the last sheaf of grain that was harvested, which was bound up, often in the shape of a person, and sometimes with a real person inside it) and honored at the harvest dance as the embodiment of the natural force that makes the grain grow. There was alot more about it; I am summarizing. This picture reminds me of that, but with a weird creepy subtext of the harvest as a metaphor for “God’s” harvesting of human souls at the end of the world, based on how well they adhered to some code of morality. I much prefer the pagan pastoralist version. The growing of the grain is something to celebrate indeed. The end of the world - I don’t have time to worry about that. I am too busy living. “God’s” judgment - I feel that if I am to be judged, it will be not only on how I treated others, but also on how well I lived, how deeply I loved, and how devotedly I celebrated life and the force that creates and sustains it.

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