THE
AGE OF MEDACITY.
mendacity
– lying, untruthful.
the practising and the preaching have
long since set sail in opposite directions.
This is the opening
sentence of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’
by Charles Dickens:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – “
These words, encapsulate some of my own feelings
about the situation unfolding in the world at this moment in time, from
the events of March to April 2003.
Recently I saw the classical movie ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’, with Paul
Newman, Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives as Big Daddy. Based on the Tenessee
Williams play. Big Daddy uses an
interesting word: mendacity. And in the light of the lies and dishonesty
emerging from the highest places of power, I would say we could call this time
the Age of Mendacity.
We have someone like Silvio Berlusconi,
changing the legislation of Italy to make himself immune from prosecution.
And the mendacity of Tony Blair and George Bush defies description.
The
difference between today and say the past 3 or 4 decades, is that today the cat
is out of the bag. This does not mean that mass indoctrination is not taking
place through the media, but there
are cracks in the hegemony and they are growing at an alarming rate.
We have become used to seeing clusters of men in black suits at global conferences, G8, WTO, etc., at Seatlle, Genova, and recently in Geneva, contrasted to rioting in the streets outside, or in the vicinity.
A via negativa, which corresponds comfortably with my Scorpionic propensitites. That is to say, I have to use a negative critique to arrive at positive conclusions. I suppose it also includes the fact that I am living with the seed of dying within me. One has to be honest. No long term plans can be made, every day is weighed against how much time there is left, the great unknown question. But we are all living with the seed of death within us. It is, just a matter of time, Kronos, who is always shown in classical images with his hour glass and his scythe!
Nevertheless, we cannot give up, though we can and do, cover our ‘selves’ with a blanket of ash! It is as if the lens, the frame through which I am looking at life, is in itself, decayed. There should be a poem in here. Old mirrors!
Tim Berners-Lee inventor of
WWW. Born and raised in London, ruled by Gemini -
"...the
family was also respectful of spiders: Mary Berners-Lee hung cotton threads down
into the bath tub so fallen spiders could scale the smooth sides."
Scientific American, December 1997, Vol.
227 No.6. p.21.
The Washing of the Feet. PISCES.
The Woman with the Alabaster Jar.
There are no sides in a round
world.
The square, the triangle, have
sides. Surfaces, facets, planes, hard edges, corners, and so on.
But the roundness of the circle,
the sphere, the World, has no facets, planes, hard edges, corners and so on.
The sphere, globe, ball, can be
"felt". It is a tactile experience. Fruit and flesh, fabulous forms to
the touch.
Sculpture in the round.
The breasts, testicles, the
eyeballs, the buttocks, the skull and the knob of the penis, celebrate
roundness, curves, tactile and sensitive to the touch.
In phrenology, the head is felt
for descriptive surfaces; the breasts and penis are sucked for the white liquid
they release, the liquid of life; the Water of Life Itself.
SUB ROSA
Jung, M.C. p. 53
The left-handed contact and crosswise, union of the right hands— sub rosa — is a startlingly concrete and yet very subtle hint of the delicate situation in which "venerable nature" has placed the adept.
In German it appears as the symbol of silence. It was sculptured on the ceiling of the banquet hall to warn the guests against the repetition of what was heard beneath it. "The White Rose was especially sacred to silence. It was carved in the centre of the Refectory of the ancients for the same reason, " and the expression Sub Rosa, which was equivalent among the Romans to an inviolable pledge, originated in the ancient dedication of the flower to Aphrodite, and its reconsecration by Cupid to Harpocrates, the tutelary deity of Silence, to induce him to conceal the amours of the goddess of love.
A.E.Waite, INTRODUCTION, The Real History of the Rosicrucians, p. 18.
Bayley, Lost Language
sub rosâ,
p.7.
"...among the initiates of
Freemasony were numerous
working and wayfaring
men..." p.9.
itinerant apostles; wandering
minstrels...
"... keep alive the
smouldering embers..."
STORKS, p. 10.
She always wakes up in a bad
mood. But today it is raining and she enjoys the coolness. Birdsong and the
black and yellow beetles eating the green grapes. So much to tell, so little
time.
The "...various worlds that
he inhabited..." Julian David on Van der Post, "...and branches in
society..." "All shamanic healing is done by theatre..."
"By their fruits ye shall
know them."
"The white person nouroshed
on that great black breast..."
White South Africans.