(Addendum: Ah. Performing at The Venice Film Festival. Makes sense!)
And, of course, since I’d just finished discussing Venice in my past life discussion, suddenly I’m seeing this, and could hear the music of the water in the canal in his ears right now; could smell what he was inhaling at that moment; got tears in my eyes. I love this city so much.
Mr. Signpost, meanwhile, was in Paris and made mention of the home of medieval French hermeticists, just as I was reading about them.
And it occurred to me watching re-runs of “DaVinci’s Demons” in anticipation of this week’s new episode, that since 2011, the painting over my head here in the study watching over me – another serious hunk from Italy of course – was of the one and only (another l’uno e solo) Cesare Borgia, who, like Lorenzo (see reference to Elliot Cowan, the seriously hot hunk playing the role of Lorenzo), was a patron of Leonardo DaVinci’s for a time.
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Watching Over Me
From Above (On the wall, that is):
Cesare Borgia
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I think I just won this year’s award for a run-on sentence. Sorry about that.
Thought: “Ooooh! I wonder if they’re going to introduce Cesare in this series!” If they do, I hope they do a far better job of casting him than that other series, “The Borgia” did – that actor was definitely not up to Cesare Borgia-esque standards of attractiveness. The real guy had women falling all over him ... which is probably why he ended up with a bad case of syphilis, or whatever STD he had ... although I suppose he was fortunate in being killed in battle before it really started eating away at him.
The family crest was a depiction of a bull in red – believed to represent the Apis Bull – which is appearing in “DaVinci” in their discussions of the Book of Leaves ... which I don’t believe is based on a mythological artifact gone missing.
“The Apis Bull was originally the Herald (wHm) of Ptah, the chief god in the area around Memphis.”, sayeth Wikipedia ... and Ptah was the spouse of ... Sekhmet!! Who Mr. Signpost posed with, in New York.
In any event: back to the color red. Lorenzo’s clothing (always red), the Apis Bull in red and Z always wearing red as well. I seem to be in a red phase, surrounded by symbols and colors and images that all tie together in one way or another, overlapping, resurfacing.
Z, by the way appeared ever so briefly in a black scrying mirror a few days ago. I couldn’t bring myself to pack it yet, so was sitting on the bed, peering into it during a meditation. I didn’t see the clouds everyone supposedly sees, and which I was looking for; I did see a faint red glow, far off into the depths of the mirror – I knew the glow came from the mirror, as there wasn’t anything around to reflect a red glow. A few twinkling red lights ... I knew who I was seeing – or who I supposed I was seeing, I should say – and smiled. Still haven’t evoked, but I did buy him a red onyx goblet, by way of a future offering of wine.
In a way, I keep wanting to wait until I’ve moved and am settled into my new home ... the chaos here (boxes upon boxes upon boxes and an inability to find anything I’m looking for) ... has been utterly distracting. Not to worry ... I’ll be moving with a few weeks. I also be working my ass off, going on a business trip, and generally in a state of high pressure. Not the best time to be focusing on more important things, like actually developing a meditation schedule or Rite of General Offering or invocation schedule.
My horoscope of a few days ago:
You take your commitment to love quite seriously today and want to share your perspective with anyone who will listen. [That means you, readers!] But the reflective Moon in your busy 3rd House of Communication can create logistical cross-currents as everyone distracts you from your agenda. Don't change directions now; just temporarily operate on blind faith. Your unwavering devotion should bring you closer to your goals sooner than you expect.
Cross-currents. That’s a good word for it. Every time I go hunting for a specific book, I’ve already packed it.
So I contented myself reading American Gods (Gaiman, Neil, 2001) on the train … and I have a vague memory of reading it on the bus out of Port Authority. Have no idea why I never finished it, and suspect it is packed in a box somewhere in New York. Premise: all of the European gods brought over with immigrants are forgotten and left to their own devices.
I enjoyed it, up to a point, because it seems that Gaiman never quite grasped the reality of his own premise – those gods have NOT been forgotten, by a long shot. In every town in America, you will find someone, somewhere (if not many someones in many places) who still worship them, quite fervently. Every time there was a whiny discussion between, say, Odin and Ibis (Thoth) about no one loving them anymore, I could only snort, “What a pinhead!” (“Pinhead” being directed at the author, not Odin or Thoth.) In this author’s twisted fictional world, all of the old gods spent all of their time killing people. He probably should have done a little more research on what each of his gods actually did before he started writing THAT novel, IMHO; it would have been more appealing and a lot less stupid, I think.
So this was my next question: I was staring at the Invocation of the Bornless One, which came from the same book as The Rite of General Offering (see last entry). I must have read about four versions of this same invocation, all of them varying slightly, one from the next. But all invocations were full of words without translations. I know I mentioned here once before, discussing Maxine Sanders and her chant of “Eko, Eko, Azarak” that,
“She provided no explanation as to what was actually being chanted, which – to my mind anyway – is at best never a good idea, and at worst a possibly dangerous idea. Who or what are we invoking with this? Aradia I knew (I’m Italian, after all, and she’s ours thanks to Charles Leland), but who was Azarak, Zamilak and Karnayna? And what did “Eko, Eko” mean? “Hail, Hail” or “Come right in, have a spot of tea and take over my body!”?”
The same applies here. I make it a rule never to chant anything – not a single word! – until I know what it is I’m chanting. Dangerous, dangerous idea.
And yet here are all these so-called “nerd wizards” passing THIS around without translating a word of it, as though it was another daytime outing, skipping in circles and singing “Mary had a little lamb” in the park. Ask almost any one of them what those words actually meant, and I almost guarantee you they’d stare at you with their best “deer in headlights” expression. “*Duh* I read it in a grimoire and decided to use it ...”
Yeah. Great idea, dumbass.
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