Hyborian Bridge 75

'The mind, the ego, the essence of the god-dream..that is real, that is immortal' - Tuzun Thune's quote on the destiny of Man (prev.)
If you can say there are two types of destiny – mental and physical – one of them is illusory because mind cannot exist without body. This is Aristotelian teleology; that a body exists not because it is meat, but because the psyche (soul) uses it for human ends (I got this from watching Macross Plus anime). Taking that as a given (or just watch the anime and Sharon Apple’s fatal AI rebellion), one can assume the psyche emanates from the physical world.

Taking that further, the physical world according to Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy is above all the planets, each one exemplifying some aspect of psyche.

We’re now in an area of fate and destiny that has to be both physical and psychic; both are connected by the planets. It’s not the perspective order of rectilinear towns, but a type of cosmic symmetry.

I’ve nothing against rectilinear townscapes, let me assure you, but a town should be thought of as existing in a land/lake-scape under the stars above. A town is “a” reality (order), not “the” reality (cosmos).

MY WORLD

For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that that order is more of an Anglo point of view. I can’t be sure of that, but got to thinking this from reading Pirate Queen, a graphic novel on 16^th century Irishwoman Grace O’Malley.

She was the original pirate who battled Henry VIII, and met Queen Elizabeth with spirited defiance. I guess she is the original model for Howard’s views of piratical women. The graphic novel is one of those worthy historical efforts, not exactly scintillating, but not bad.

 

(c) Lee and Hart 2019

Usually – see HB70 – the ordered head wins out in that civilization tends towards order. However, as noted of Rome and Greece, odder was one side of their universe; the other was pantheistic worship, sacred shrines associated with elaborate baths (HB2). The disorder of nature was sanctified and left alone.

The ancient world never knew anything like “pure order”, only urban order (linked by Roman roads, natch.) This only really changed with the rise of the Anglo-world and modern civilization. The fight between the two worlds is probably well illustrated by the history of Ireland, starting with Henry VIII’s colonisation and going through to Cromwell’s massacres, the Republic and finally the Stormont power sharing

 in Ulster (NI).

 

Grace is laying it on a bit thick here. English rule was always a precarious garrison-mentality.The phrase “beyond the pale” refers to the “Pale” (fence) of Eastern Ireland run by the English, which the Tudors fortified. Nevertheless, Normans assimilated and intermarried with Gaelic lords.

In any case, the notion of “order” in those days didn’t extend to agriculture, which was still Virgilian (the Georgics) and emphasised the natural state of Man (not unlike Milton). This state of affairs was widespread right up to the 18^th century and the swirling country estates of Capability Brown. At about that time, though, Jethro Tull was revolutionizing agriculture, paving the way for modernity (intentional pun).

To the Tudors order meant only political governance and urban centres (Dublin, Kildare). It’s only when order starts to apply to natural origins that the mind leaves the physical universe and starts to drift in uncharted waters. You probably notice yourselves that people who believe most in science know least about it? To me, that makes it seem like they are living inside the head – a mental universe of “tongues” (words and facts, prev.) – and not in the real, physical universe.

Isn’t it likely, then, that we (and especially “they”) are living in a logical fallacy that supposes the universe to be ordered? This is the exact opposite of Virgilian ideals of agriculture, which is the creation of order out of disorder. By that, the Roman meant a universe of naïve symmetry between Earth, sun, moon and planets; the world of antiquity (and Theosophy).

In rustic landscapes, doing nothing is a sign of action because nature is active. The rustic ethic that nature is sacrosanct and is left to rot or – as Buffy says Hyborian Bridge 70 – to “dry out” abd be useful. Drying out is a good way of describing the creation of order from disorder, revival from decay, the essence of the huntsman, the Virgilian husbandsman.

The Georgics are very close to the natural origin of species, not with competition but with disorder, strength of lifedeath. Meaning the physical order that replaces life from blood – the wild hunt, the scavenger, raven on the wing (see Noto “Red Lace”).

If our destiny is physical, it is restored by sacrificial blood, as where Noto’s roc spills its heart’s blood. The blood of a wild hunt is also the theme of Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend, which ends with “analytical man”, Roland, sacrificed to the hunter ethic of the hippy-cannibal savages.

 “Pas mal” is the verdict of Corrine (still from Speaking About Godard, Silverman/Farocki)

If the universe is actually ordered, as science supposes, then it is Apollonian – Apollo being associated with urban society in antiquity. Therefore, the ordered universe is not associated with the rustic revelry and revival of Dionysus, the gay god and opposite tendency to Apollo (Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy)

But the Greeks were aware that Apollo was appearance, not reality. They would never have dreamt of living in towns without the majestic steeps of olive-groved hills and the glory of mount Olympus itself. The ancient world is much more geographical and much less political/scientific (ie precise).

  C12

This is where confusion can set in, as ancient maps are vague, whereas modern maps are precise. Scientists know all about geology and epochs in Earth’s history, which the ancients had no knowledge of. Yes, that’s because Apollonian science is precise. So there’s no surprise about that. Exactly the same applies to Katie Bouman’s black hole (HB65) - the building-up of a cosmic image from trace-data.

The real question is: is an Apollonian universe of precise data real, or an illusion? How can one say geographical facts are an illusion? Because it’s one side of life, the factual one. One lives in one’s body, and that is symmetrical and undulates like a landscape.

This takes us back to Greek line, because without line there is no style.

Line is tied in Greek art to the undulating body, so is that not reality? The reality of expression. All Greek sculptures have the expression of line, however realistically depicted. That balance or tension.

Modern science is a factual illusion, whether it’s Katie Bouman or DNA. Because we are not DNA, we are undulating line. Where does the line come from? From the primeval serpent, primitive rhythm. From the physical universe of Earth, sun, moon and planets.