Love those connections!
So, here I am blathering on about T.S. Eliot (like who but me even thinks about that guy any more), and after I sign out to do some surfing, there on Tom Matrullo's blog today is a couple of quotes from another Eliot poem. Now, I'm sorry to admit that I had not gotten around to putting Matrullo on my blogroll. But I have taken care of that pardonable (I hope) sin of omission. I take these kinds of synchronistic connections very seriously. Indeed I do.
Tuesday, June 11, 2002
Cybill Sibyl Symbols
I am an old woman with a deck of cards
A witch, an Amazon, a Gorgon
A seer, a clairvoyant, a poet.
I have visions of becoming and
I dream in female
--(Barbara Starrett, 1974)
I adored the character that Cybill Shepherd played in her '90s sitcom. Raunchily relevant in menopausal splendor, she laughed a lot --mostly at herself -- loved largely, and dreamed in female. The Lady of Situations.
Sibyl is another gut-grabbing female, one I first encountered the first time I turned to the first page of T.S. Eliot's "Wastland." (I still have verses from that epic endlessly looping through my brain: Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyant/ had a bad cold nevertheless/ is known to be the wisest woman in Europe/ with a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, / is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor (those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) / Here is Belladonna, the Lady of Rocks, / the lady of situations.)
*****************
"For I once saw with my own eyes the Cumean Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she answered, 'I want to die.'"
The quote which prefaces T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland," "NAM Sibyllam quidem Cumis . . ." is taken from the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, a Roman of the first century B.C.E. The Sybil is a prophetic character who, when granted a wish by Apollo, asked to live for as many years as there are grains of sand in a handful. She forget to ask for eternel youth, however, and is confined to a bottle so as to prevent her body's disintegration..... The Sibyl, then, is a bit of a paradox: she strove to live eternally yet ended up in constant danger of decay and pain. Her quest for eternity was a failure that Eliot finds terribly important yet terribly dangerous. His goal is not to end up like the Sibyl, but to free her. (quoted from here)
Cybill and Sybil, symbols of women with strong voices -- strong with meaning, with intention, with visions of constant becoming -- with guts full of female dreams and hearts used to surviving great tides of sorrow. A lot like the many women bloggers I know and love.
But we still have to watch what we wish for.
I am an old woman with a deck of cards
A witch, an Amazon, a Gorgon
A seer, a clairvoyant, a poet.
I have visions of becoming and
I dream in female
--(Barbara Starrett, 1974)
I adored the character that Cybill Shepherd played in her '90s sitcom. Raunchily relevant in menopausal splendor, she laughed a lot --mostly at herself -- loved largely, and dreamed in female. The Lady of Situations.
Sibyl is another gut-grabbing female, one I first encountered the first time I turned to the first page of T.S. Eliot's "Wastland." (I still have verses from that epic endlessly looping through my brain: Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyant/ had a bad cold nevertheless/ is known to be the wisest woman in Europe/ with a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, / is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor (those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) / Here is Belladonna, the Lady of Rocks, / the lady of situations.)
*****************
"For I once saw with my own eyes the Cumean Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she answered, 'I want to die.'"
The quote which prefaces T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland," "NAM Sibyllam quidem Cumis . . ." is taken from the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, a Roman of the first century B.C.E. The Sybil is a prophetic character who, when granted a wish by Apollo, asked to live for as many years as there are grains of sand in a handful. She forget to ask for eternel youth, however, and is confined to a bottle so as to prevent her body's disintegration..... The Sibyl, then, is a bit of a paradox: she strove to live eternally yet ended up in constant danger of decay and pain. Her quest for eternity was a failure that Eliot finds terribly important yet terribly dangerous. His goal is not to end up like the Sibyl, but to free her. (quoted from here)
Cybill and Sybil, symbols of women with strong voices -- strong with meaning, with intention, with visions of constant becoming -- with guts full of female dreams and hearts used to surviving great tides of sorrow. A lot like the many women bloggers I know and love.
But we still have to watch what we wish for.
It's All in the Timing
Since the announcement of the New Moon ritual to bend the universe a little in favor of the Golbys, lots has been going on with Mike, including his belated Viking-type burial of his father's ashes. As Andrea stirred up her memories and turned around to catch an unexpected rainbow, on the other side of the planet, Mike was unknowingly mirroring her experiences. Some might say the magic is working. Others might simply note in passing that I have uncanny ability for insinuating myself into the destinies of others just at opportune moments. Personally, I have no idea how all of this happens -- something about the Flow, or quantum physics, or maybe it is just my surprisingly accurate sense of timing, my own destiny as a perennial catalyst --sort of like being always the maid-of-honor and never the bride. (Well, OK, not never; I was a bride once. Once is enough.)
The worrisome thing is that now Andrea's getting sick. That's what happened to Jeneane after she gave her all to the RageBoy ritual. Either I have to figure out how to protect my cronies (pun intended) from totally depleting their not-insignificant energies, or I'm going to have to become a Lone Crone.
Just as whatever was put into motion for RageBoy has not yet played out, so is the Golby saga continuing. It will be another couple of days or so before the ritual artifacts are complete enough to send over to Mike in South Africa. So, the magic energy is still out there, homing in on the Golby hearts and hearth. Pay attention. It's all in the timing. And the connected destinies.
Since the announcement of the New Moon ritual to bend the universe a little in favor of the Golbys, lots has been going on with Mike, including his belated Viking-type burial of his father's ashes. As Andrea stirred up her memories and turned around to catch an unexpected rainbow, on the other side of the planet, Mike was unknowingly mirroring her experiences. Some might say the magic is working. Others might simply note in passing that I have uncanny ability for insinuating myself into the destinies of others just at opportune moments. Personally, I have no idea how all of this happens -- something about the Flow, or quantum physics, or maybe it is just my surprisingly accurate sense of timing, my own destiny as a perennial catalyst --sort of like being always the maid-of-honor and never the bride. (Well, OK, not never; I was a bride once. Once is enough.)
The worrisome thing is that now Andrea's getting sick. That's what happened to Jeneane after she gave her all to the RageBoy ritual. Either I have to figure out how to protect my cronies (pun intended) from totally depleting their not-insignificant energies, or I'm going to have to become a Lone Crone.
Just as whatever was put into motion for RageBoy has not yet played out, so is the Golby saga continuing. It will be another couple of days or so before the ritual artifacts are complete enough to send over to Mike in South Africa. So, the magic energy is still out there, homing in on the Golby hearts and hearth. Pay attention. It's all in the timing. And the connected destinies.
E-writer Reveals (Almost) All
As a pre-eminent blogger, Jeneane Sessum tends to be magnificently forthright and open in what she writes. But if you think her blog has revealed all there is to Jeneane -- well, read her interview with Frank Paynter and find out what she hasn't told until now. Once again, Paynter reveals his own artistry in getting to the good stuff.
It's interesting that, as b!X keeps track of our government's plans to make sure we keep nothing secret from them, we bloggers are keeping nothing secret from any one. (Well, almost.) I wonder what would happen to the world if there were no more secrets, if everyone revealed everything. It seems to me that it would pretty much level out the playing field. Actually, we'd probably have to call off the stupid game completely. Heh.
As a pre-eminent blogger, Jeneane Sessum tends to be magnificently forthright and open in what she writes. But if you think her blog has revealed all there is to Jeneane -- well, read her interview with Frank Paynter and find out what she hasn't told until now. Once again, Paynter reveals his own artistry in getting to the good stuff.
It's interesting that, as b!X keeps track of our government's plans to make sure we keep nothing secret from them, we bloggers are keeping nothing secret from any one. (Well, almost.) I wonder what would happen to the world if there were no more secrets, if everyone revealed everything. It seems to me that it would pretty much level out the playing field. Actually, we'd probably have to call off the stupid game completely. Heh.
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