In a drive for simplicity, some pictures that are related to the realism that goes beyond words and facts.
Smith's print is somewhat mysterious, not least because the lore of the priests and priestesses of Samothrace (notably in Talbot Mundy's Tros) has been lost to the ages.
Our own mystery in the modern era has to do with light (electromagnetism), so I choose that interpretation. The book is burning, representing the mystery of fire.
Many may not be aware that long-living Vesta matches were invented by Newton, and named after the eternal flame of Rome. My interpretation starts with the observation that flame is not fire.
Fire is an abstract concept that is represented by the sun and is, technically-speaking, electromagnetism. A flame, by contrast, has psyche, moral and physical attributes.
The galleries and chambers were illuminated by artificial light. Globes of cold white fire hovered motionless in midair near the ceilings of the rooms.. The Valkarthan could not guess how this strange art was accomplished; neither could he imagine how they were hung motionless in the air; nevertheless, they were there, and provided uncanny light that did not flicker nor burn low. (Thongor in the City of Magicians, Lin Carter, page 99.) The city resembles Howard's reptilian Khemi but with a more direct science-sorcerer parallel.
The main reason for this is that the flame consumes matter. In the case of the Roman Vesta, it may have consumed wax or possibly pig fat (lard) in a drum. The process is fairly simple in that fat (COOH) is metamorphosed into CO2 and H2O, using oxygen (O2) from air.
Meanwhile, a log fire burns carbon to produce charcoal. As was described previously in The Northern Shaman, staring into a log fire's flickering, sinuous flames prompts ruminations of the human.psyche.
A fire in those far-off days (circa 15,000 BC) thus had a moral significance in the flame of wisdom. When one speaks of fire in ancient days, one tends to mean flame, which is how it was perceived.
If flame is a physical metamorphosis, what is fire by contradistinction? According to Newton it is light, and light is reflection in the mirror of illusions (inductive reason). The mirror of illusions is geometrical-space, which is where we are today (numbers and algorithms).
In other words, since Newton fire has become the logic of mathematics. In previous eras, fire was flame with psyche, moral and physical powers (Vestal).
The modern order is extremely convincing in terms of words and facts, but what it doesn't have is the eternally balancing flame that swirls with living tongues. One can observe these light-effects in candlelit vistas.
The cold-light of western education is an.illusion that does not have the realism of physical lighting - by tapers or wax.
Stories told round a fire can be playful lies, and have psyche and moral truths (that instruct children).
Flames, with their intricate whirls, prompt a niche for narrative, an intricate balance of embers that reflects the cosmos.
The cosmos has a type of curvilinear sameness that is strong and fertile and allows differences. Western education, by contradistinction, occupies a universe of fact (inductive reason) where everything becomes the same.
What I really mean is the swirling nature of the reality where kids in Iran or Afghanistan or Pakistan are educated is a big part of their education (see Addis Ababa, P173).
Things seen under the bright stars or by candlelight are psychically secure; the psyche is part of the physical reality. The fact that the milieux can.be somewhat squalid and nor entirely hygienic is also to advantage.
Modern education is a type of tidiness that occupies tidy minds; it's an.illusion of the mirror. Asfa Yemiru, of Addis Ababa, taught the 3 "Rs", plus the pragmatic skills of farming. By contrast, Malala studied P,P and E at Oxford, which is what prospective politicians do!
It's philosophy, politics and economics, or the cold-light of reason. The cold-light does not include a psychic vista that is associated to physical reality (pigs and hens and camels amid the stars above.)
I mean, teachers do their best but they are up against a straight-line order that paves-over anything haphazard that impinges positively on the flaming psyche (see rustic harmony and grace in-thr-field, HB205).
As Liza Minnelli says of Charles Aznavour, his songs are stories with a beginning, middle and end. Fire has heat but flame has passion.
Minnelli is the complete performer whose flame has ceremonial timing and flashes of exuberance
STEPPING OUT (sequence where Liza becomes Lizard)
The cosmic-balance is reflected in a flame that curls and blossoms. Human culture is a development from natural strength and the fertile substance (wax, wood).
In antique days, these would be harvested from places of power, in ceremonies of Dionysian passion. Empirical tradition in antique societies is related to places of power where things grow and are harvested.
Man's labours in the field and wood instigate empirical traditions of dirt and cleanliness. An active society is by necessity psychically and physically balanced.
This meaning is really the opposite to the cold-light of induction, or empirical reason. The one convinces the head (ego of reptilian acolytes), while the other convinces by timing and execution.
Watching Minnelli, you're totally convinced by her moves, and in the seductive realism of the flame. Ancient rituals flame with passion and ceremonial timing.
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The stories and myths of the ancient world are the product of ceremonial timing and balance; the graceful actions of the body (Salome, Helene of Rome, the swordwoman socialite in Tros), versus the inert ego that is convinced by "facts" of an illusory reality (geometry, numbers).
Realism to the citizens of flame was the perpetual balance of the human psyche. To the citizen of fire, there is neither a psychic nor a physical reality.
Instead, acolytes of sorcerers create the space for an imagined reality. This is the geometrical world of electromagnetism and relativity (Minkowski, CERN prev.)
Their pursuit of mathematical nothingness is a game of the ego that has no unthinking realism of the places of power on Earth, where fertility and strength exist.
If a flame is physical balance, the Noto-esque underworld (Red Sonja, prev) is the eternal realism that stores carbon and decayed matter (see carbon- cycle, prev) in the land and seas and lakes.
Realism is not necessarily visible, but it has psyche and moral strength as well as a physical reality that the likes of Baloroso cannot sustain.
"The Bolsonaro government is trying to legalise the exploitation of the Amazon at all costs, causing irreparable damage to our land, people and life on this planet," said Alberto Terena, of the Articulation of Indigenous People in Brazil activist group.(DT)
"To find a connection to the universe, hold onto one of your favorite rocks." (Britney Spears)