14 July (Fire) Liber LXV, 4:7-8
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7. As the bezoar-stone that is found in the belly of the cow, so is my lover among lovers.
8. O honey boy! Bring me Thy cool limbs hither! Let us sit awhile in the orchard, until the sun go down! Let us feast on the cool grass! Bring wine, ye slaves, that the cheeks of my boy may flush red. -
"7. As the bezoar-stone that is found in the belly of the cow, so is my lover among lovers."
Hmm...this is interesting. It was once believed that the bezoar-stone was able to cure people that were poisoned, until some random dude got caught stealing and the theory was debunked when he was used as a guinesa pig to see if the stone really does cure all poisons. It's didn't. But that's not the point.
The reference to the belly of the cow brings to mind Hathor, Venus, Netzach and Mother Nature with the Adept being smack dab in the middle of her, totally subject her whims, tricks, mood swings and such. But is the Adept really subject to all of that?
Also, chucking it down a little more, the belly, or the stomach in general is attributed to Virgo. The Hermit. The secret seed. The Yod, which we are now hearing from.
What is it about Man that would cause the Angel to liken him to a stone that supposedly is immune to poison? Could this poison be a reference to death? Or something that would cause death? Can this stone be a reference to immortality of Man?
"8. O honey boy! Bring me Thy cool limbs hither! Let us sit awhile in the orchard, until the sun go down! Let us feast on the cool grass! Bring wine, ye slaves, that the cheeks of my boy may flush red."
Aww sookie sookie! The Angel's pimp game sure is strong. I'm working on this but man it's gettin' hot in here!
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7. As the bezoar-stone that is found in the belly of the cow, so is my lover among lovers.
A stone with the ability to neutralize all poisons. This and a number of other benefits are indicated in the previous versus, so we also get the abilities to purify water of salt, and more generally, fire, which is normally hot and violent, is made cool and refreshing, like water.
The sense of what is being described is not as a shield against unpleasantness, but rather as something within the experiences of the world that changes the aspect of things. After all, this stone is found in the belly of a cow. Along these lines there is the obvious reference here to Netzach in so far as Hathoor is associated with this sphere, and she is often depicted as a Cow. She is also the goddess of Love and Beauty: so is my lover among lovers.
In the next line reference is made to drinking wine, and I would assume this wine is normally poisoned. This poison has no effect to poison because of the mystic ability of the stone to soothe this torment.
As one among many, this lover is described as unique. This is a wonderful thought, dangerous also. Like wine it is apt to go to ones head. At least until the sun goes down.
8. O honey boy! Bring me Thy cool limbs hither! Let us sit awhile in the orchard, until the sun go down! Let us feast on the cool grass! Bring wine, ye slaves, that the cheeks of my boy may flush red.
Like the bezoar-stone honey is a byproduct of nature (Hathoor, Netzach...). Coolness is the antithesis to burning fire. There is no rush in this line, no attempt to consummate anything, at least until night falls; but instead there is a slow preparation—a delightful feasting and a drinking of wine. The reference to a boy, as well as the location in an orchard recalls the garden of Eden and a time of innocence—the instinctual life of the Aeon of Isis.
But the flushing of the cheeks red and the time signature of the setting sun, like a burning fuse suggests an event is being anticipated, or at least prepared for. The last act of lovers drinking wine is usually love-making. The death of the sun is the eclipse of the self, and the redness is the action of blood and suggests passion, and that necessary violence when innocence is lost. The whole is serene, yet I sense the rumblings of a great storm.
Love and Will
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"7. As the bezoar-stone that is found in the belly of the cow, so is my lover among lovers."
Truly one of the quaintest metaphors in the whole book. A bezoar is essentially a hairball. But this isn't quite, "O, you sweet little hairball, you!"
Crowley's thoughts around the matter (that surely affected the image choice) centered around the fact that a bezoar is a tightly compact sphere composed of innumerable strands essentially unrelated except that they've become knotted together and bound up with each other - in short, a rather unique (but rather dead-on!) description of the Ruach!So, this is more like, "Ah, my sweet little bundle of sankharas, you're just the cutest!"
I intuit a link to memory function here as well, but the exact form escapes me. A cow is a ruminant. Anything in a cow's stomach will be ruminated. But a bezoar is resistant to that process, and just sits in the stomach. The parallel (analytically) is to something present in memory (stored) but not subject to recollection (it doesn't regurgitate from memory). This, too, is strangely reminiscent of the Ruach viewed from outside it (but it gets way too complicated, and perhaps ultimately fruitless, to start writing out that chain of thought).
But the simple meaning seems to be, "This precious, magical, strange accident of nature, swallowed up by love and being held deeply within the belly of love, is my most beloved, my 'lover among lovers.'"
"8. O honey boy! Bring me Thy cool limbs hither! Let us sit awhile in the orchard, until the sun go down! Let us feast on the cool grass! Bring wine, ye slaves, that the cheeks of my boy may flush red."
Do i sense a seduction here?
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@Jim Eshelman said
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Do i sense a seduction here?"I was thinking a lot about the use of sexual imagery and it's innate sympathy with mystical experience, and just wondering if this was a more or less male-fantasy driven tendency, or is it something more. And instantly I thought: of course it is a male-fantasy, at least for me it is because it speaks directly to my fantasies, especially the text from yesterday. In support of this is Berninis' famous sculpture of St Theresa in the throws of mystical/sexual rapture—It was this male, Italian artists interpretation of what happened to Theresa, and very sexual it is.
And yet, her own description is the source for this fantasy. From one of her visions, very appropriate to the theme of the this chapter, imo:
"I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it..."
I guess I am still ruminating on the reaction to yesterdays selection by Dar and Shadonis, as opposed to my reaction. It made me feel very adolescent, and well, I began to wonder if I am being too male-centric in my approach to the text. And yet, today the imagery shifts and we are confronted by a young male lover with beautiful proportions who is being wined up, and this reference did not seem to be so vague or difficult.
So here is another male fantasy: I am aware that the gender of the angel, just recently described as a willful woman of sorts, has not been re-imagined for this latest transformation. I mean, there is no reason to assume the seduction is a homosexual seduction. It could just as easily be a sexual initiation of a young boy by an older woman—a singularly appropriate notion for Netzach, imho.
On one level, the gender and sexual options are of no account, just convenient symbols in which to relate an exalted experience. But on the other hand, the text has been frightfully specific about gender, which leads me to believe that it is being used with precision, that it is more than haphazard sexuality.
It's just curious. Maybe I will be able to present a clearer proposition after some more thought. For the time being I will just note that I have no problem being an adolescent male. After all, it is a very exciting male fantasy—drinking wine with an older woman and thinking about the night to come!
Love and Will
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@RobertAllen said
"After all, it is a very exciting male fantasy—drinking wine with an older woman and thinking about the night to come!"
Hear Hear...
For me it is all appropriate to the Element of the Chapter and I see it being romanced and reiterated in each verse. I find it interesting that the "bezoar-stone" throws me off as the term and imagery doesn't readily kindle anything. However, the following verse is visualized by no effort of mine own. An orchard, sun going down, romantic language, wine, etc.
I find it interesting that the "slaves" fetch the wine so that the lovers can relax and enjoy the sunset. Our personality and mundane selves serve our higher faculties. It takes care of all the fetching and errands so that sitting up on a perch our inherent Divinity can realize itself and bask in that level of consciousness. Alas, we can't watch the sunset for all eternity...there must be a "next step"...but perhaps I just grow impatient and should just enjoy.
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"it is a very exciting male fantasy—drinking wine with an older woman and thinking about the night to come!
"Funny you should mention this. I find myself wanting my Angel to be feminine or a female. Pretty much for the same reasons you outlined Robert.
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"there must be a "next step"...but perhaps I just grow impatient and should just enjoy."
Well, we do have one more chapter to go after this one but damn this one is good!
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I always picture this verse being read in a Truman Capote voice.
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The back and forth between imagery - a ball of hairs in the pit of a stomach of a cow TO "hey baby" bow chicka bow wow... verse 7 starts with A, and 8 begins with O... Alpha and Omega... depths to heights.... I was just reading some Liber Tzaddi (because I'm forever going back and forth between the Tzaddi switch and reasons for and against - the symbols just seem to work well from both points of view - but that's a seemingly endless conversation housed elsewhere), and it mentions the ol' "Get with Heaven and get with Hell - pick the side that has the weaker pull and balance, but both" message. It probably has me fishing for some hook that isn't there... A... O.
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@Shadonis said
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"it is a very exciting male fantasy—drinking wine with an older woman and thinking about the night to come!
"Funny you should mention this. I find myself wanting my Angel to be feminine or a female. Pretty much for the same reasons you outlined Robert."
Interestingly enough, I'm 95% straight (and I only pursue girls), but I've always thought about my Angel in a masculine sense, and that has never weirded me out, even when I include all of the sexual content. I read these verses the same way - I just assumed it was homosexual without really thinking about it. (That probably says a lot.)
93, 93/93.
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"I read these verses the same way - I just assumed it was homosexual without really thinking about it"
Crowley refers to the Angel as being masculine in his commentaries. And from what I understand about polarity on the planes, males are feminine and females are masculine. There have been moments when I felt the presence of what felt like "a Man's MAN" and my reaction to that presence was akin to a giddy girl losing her composure in the presence of her crush.