The sorcerer
(acolyte) lives in an articulate world of scripted routine (like DNA). These
are the product of an ordered universe, but what of the disordered universe of
yore? What of the woods, the fields, the Biblical threshing and larking around?
Several things
come to mind. The physical activity that accentuates the body, as in the
tradition of fulling (Hyborian Bridge 60). This closeness or overlap of work to pleasure is
typically traditional. Basically, because the body is involved in work.
The other idea
is the disordered world is not a hygienic one; there’s dirt and wet and cow
pats and those that work are exposed to microbes in dirt. These have a
strengthening effect on the immune system(Tales of Faith 10, Pictorial 14,44).
Once the work is over, one bathes the dirt away (Pictorial 21). The
ancient Greeks used to anoint with oil, which is another deep cleansing method.
Our view of
medieval times is often quite negative owing to this disordered universe. I’ve
been watching a Dutch medieval film called Floris which is a sequel to
the original Dutch TV series starring Rutger Hauer and his Indian accomplice.
However, Floris the film is much more of a parody, and I got some quite
interesting things off it.
There are some
quite good jokes though I think a lot of the Dutch bypassed me. At the start he
meets Pi, a travelling Chinawoman, who becomes his accomplice. He introduces
her to his father, Floris senior (the son of the original) with,
“Pa, Pi; Pi, Pa”
Since there are
quite a few druggy gags, I reckon that’s a reference to poppy.
Floris is a
travelling actor, and there’s quite a lot of tumbling; physical humour and
acrobatory. Apart from that, he and Pi have quite a lot of tramping through
mud, on the trail of a holy relic. There are horse ass gags, and Pi plays a
shadow-show on a white horses midriff that shows her stripping off, to distract
a couple of guards.
It did strike me
as quite medieval with a lot of turrets and bare stonework, moats (for falling
into), mud, birds and woods. Pi demonstrates her martial skills in a fight with
a pole, and it made me realize the similarity between ancient Chinese
philosophy and medievalism. Bruce Lee’s quote..
“Notice that
the stiffer tree is much easier cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by
bending with the wind.”
..applies to active
civilizations that use the body to fight or work (Biblical threshing). The act
of being active in the field creates an active universe of horses, hedgerows
and critters, mud and wet, straw, hay, compost, ploughing, crops and cattle.
The “field” meaning somewhere that is seeded side-by-side with wildness, where
there is give-and-take and no ungiving monoculture (of beef or crop).
There’s a
parallel here with biochemical science, which is based on detection of crystals
(X-ray diffraction, prev.) since a crystal is a rigid structure which is easy
to shatter. This is what happens to a hall of mirrors
Conan #20
Hyborian Bridge 20
Conan #20
Something that
is unbending, that is a scripted routine appeals to a society of the head. To a
society of the body, the flexibility of give-and-take is much more natural to
an active life on the range.
“I want to get
back in the dirt where I can feel clean!” says Vic in A Boy and His
Dog, going from Topeka to the disordered universe that cannot be shattered
because it bends and gives. Reality.
What a hall of
mirrors gives you is crystal medicine which is ultra-precise and very
compatible with DNA. But a living body is not inert DNA; it is water and air,
bone and sinew that reacts to the fire of the sun.
There are two
universes, and the disordered universe of action (body) is a creature of the
surroundings, of give-and-take. The ordered universe of the head is a creature
of acolytes of a hall of mirrors (angle of light C4) It’s a universe
that has no give-and-take of the surroundings that feed our needs.
I already
mentioned somewhere the ordering effect of intensive beef lots (Drama1 Pictorial
44) on what used to be cowboy country. The cattle are not given freedom to
graze on hay, which is a relaxed and humane (or cowmane) herd lifestyle.
It’s typical that
vegans complain of methane, which is a product of intensive breeding with oats,
which acidify the herbivore stomach. They are so ignorant they probably don’t
know the difference. They – along with the unfortunate cattle – are products of
an ordered universe that cannot bend in relaxed manner, and must be dosed with
various types of crystal medicine.
They, along with
the political classes – exist in articulate reality that cannot conceive of the
gay abandon of the forest groves of yore (I noticed Boris Johnson’s girlfriend,
Carrie Symonds, is not only vegan but a puffin-lover) and speak the language of
habitual order.
Meaning, not the
free range of give-and-take that bends with the wind, but the crystal medicine
of intensive lots, vegans and grouse moor clearances that only exist in
articulate reality. The laconic warriors of poetry speak a physical language of
strength and purity, of the expressive body and free range of yore. Yeehar!
BE YOUNG YOU (with Papa
John Creache)