Jul 19, 2008

In the Shadow of Giants

And I stood upon the sand of the sea... --Rev 13:1

This is the most ancient hand drawn porn from the 'sacred' archives. I was 19, a freshman at school. He's a muscular blonde with the Big Fella hanging out at the beach. My bronze god.

Driving back to Kirkland from Hood Canal (and a nice dinner of steamed clams) after the fourth, I crossed over the Narrows Bridge (twin bridges), which was the beginning of last year's Double H Ranch synch. I decided to get off the highway after 'crossing over' from the Olympic (hah!) Peninsula to Tacoma to find a viewpoint from which to ponder this remarkable construct. Unfortunately, no easy turnoff was to be had, and I found myself on the road to Pt. Defiance Park, which I hadn't visited since college, so I decided to continue on. The park includes a marina down at the shore, and I drove down to have lunch and stretch my legs. I walked and walked, down the rows of yachts, until I found a large sailing catamaran tied to an end pier - the Helios.

Helios is the God of the sun, the Greek equivalent of the Egyptian Ra. Helios was the God worshipped in the island kingdom of Rhodes, which built an enormous bronze monument to him in 292 BC after being saved from a Greek invasion - the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The giant stood 33m tall, lifted a torch in the air, and was crowned with the rays of the sun.
To you, o Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue reaching to Olympus, when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of freedom and independence. For to the descendants of Herakles belongs dominion over sea and land.

The similarity to the Colossus of Manhattan is obvious, especially to her modern makers, who strove to echo the giant in Rhodes, though veiling him/her in Isis drag. Seeing the Colossus unveiled, I see two pillars (and a third), the mighty legs of Helios planted in the sea, which reminds me of the Narrows Bridge, and the mighty H.
Herakles has some pillars of his own: the Pillars of Hercules in Gibraltar, source of many a synch over the past year, most revolving around the lost Madeleine.

The Pillars of Hercules was the phrase that was applied in Antiquity to the promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The northern Pillar is the Rock of Gibraltar. A corresponding North African peak not being predominant, the identity of the southern Pillar has been disputed through history, with the two most likely candidates being Monte Hacho in Ceuta and Jebel Musa in Morocco.

"the pillars which Pindar calls the 'gates of Gades' when he asserts that they are the farthermost limits reached by Heracles." According to Plato's account, the lost realm of Atlantis was situated beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
The pillars as portals (stargates), to Atlantis, the Golden Age. Legend has Hercules and Atlas as rulers of Atlantis, from which I infer that the southern pillar represents Atlas. Two pair of pillars/legs standing in the sea - the double H.

In my lifetime, I've spent most of my vacation money pursuing the sun on some sandy tropical beach, as do millions. Seems to be instinctual for humans to haul ourselves out on the shore like a sunning seal colony.

The Gibraltar promontory is made of limestone, which is made of calcite crystals - the exoskeletons of countless hard shell marine organisms, ground into chalk. It seems that the legs of Hercules are made of seafood! Which brings me around to another mythical creature, Melusine, the siren, or bifurcated mermaid - the Merovingian Maiden. Thanks to Anadae for the reference.

Melusine agreed to become the wife of a mortal, which the bifurcated tail implies, thus circumventing "the mermaid problem". 'The Little Mermaid' is the Disney version of the Melusine tail, and given my love of fish and chips, the archetype seems to runs deep.
Hood Canal was famous for its Dungeness crabs before it became the Dead Sea, and my mother adopted the crab as her symbol of the beach, she has at least six crab glyphs at the cabin. The bounty was astounding (only male crabs are taken). Crabs resonate the octagon, and here is Cancer, from the ceiling of that old Mythraic cave - Grand Central Station.

Starbucks Coffee of Seattle is the current Melusine standard bearer, and Cancer like, it has slowly grown itself into every city of the world. I ponder why Melusine and "shade grown" coffee are now indelibly intertwined.

Back to the catamaran named Helios: a catamaran is a twin hulled vessel, planting two "legs" in the sea, powered by the sun (wind, the result of solar warmth).
Reminding me of our modern Atlas/Hercules - powered by the sun.

And this is where it gets kind of weird, because I was doing a bit of hotel research today, looking up where I had stayed in Santa Margherita, Italy, way back in the day as a designer visiting the Genoa Boat Show. Margherita means daisy, a heliotropic flower and near perfect glyph for the sun. I won't go down the daisy synch chain today, but it looks to be highly promising.

The list of hotels in Santa Margherita includes the Hotel Helios - HH. Aferrismoon has another hotel sync today.

Kirkland (Sunnydale North) is having a little festival this weekend - "Kirkland Uncorked" - a snooty wine tasting event, AKA a Bacchanal. It's an open air festival on the beach, and what should be tied to the end pier, but a big Sunseeker yacht.

7 comments:

aferrismoon said...

Considering the size of Senor Hung , do u think Twins would make a fine TOWER BRIDGE - 'oooh look Sailors! All Rise'

Brilliant stuff on all the historiacl and heraldic pillars. Might be interesting to do some 'mapping' of these particular statues. Rhodes to Gibralter, could be a special route?
The 33 Liberty's a beaut.
A sports Catamaran has the name HOBEY CAT.
Hell and Helios??

Michael said...

Thanks Mr. Moon. Given my current thinking that the "bridging" of the left and right lobes of the brain are central to so-called "cosmic-consciousness", the bridge represents the Corpus Callosum, and the cock represents sexual ecstasy - the "boat/car/dirigible" in which to cross it.

Great catamaran sync. There was also a Sol Cat - from California.

Anadæ Quenyan Effro said...

uuwjiOogah-boogah! Ya've shore shown some Major draftsmanship prowess there, son! Any graphic novel plans? Rrruff! Anywho, Malibu, I've been drawn (yeah, pun intended) to Hellenic tales since I was a tad of seven years of age. There's that motto from the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, that goes, "Show me the child at seven, and I'll give you the man." Well, I'm still the mythologist, all right. Go here for a website headed "The World History of Male Love":

http://androphile.org/

If you're clever enough to wend your way through their menu upon docking there, then you'll find an entire recapitulation of the same-sex & tear-jerking (both kinds of 'em, winky-wink) romance between one Herakles & Hylas. Twas ever thus, bros, twas ever thus ( ;-)} And speaking of twinning, there has even been a video feed on You Tube of late immortalizing two seaborne water spouts twisting away in tandem. Pretty nifty sight, gents!

FilmNoir23 said...

CRAZY...this syncs so closely with much of the material I came across in my Maritime article (which I hope to have posted this evening or tomorrow evening...trying to finish off after work).

As always...GREAT stuff.

Missed you.

Michael said...

Anadae - no plans for a graphic novel, but thanks. I'm a one panel type of guy.

Todd - GREAT to hear from you! Missed you too.

Esperanto Grrl said...

I don't know how you did it, but you somehow managed to combine the Little Mermaid, the Merovingians, Superman and Starbucks into a single post.

Why is it every single nutty conspiracy theory reminds me of Matt Groening's old routine, "the Nation that Controls Magnesium Controls the Universe?"

Incidentally, that's one phrase that's going to stay with me: “the elite and esoteric undercurrents of tennis can hardly be underestimated.” (!)

Esperanto Grrl said...

By the way, I find it amusing to note that Helios and his sister Selene were, come Roman times, the victims of "downsizing." They were laid off, and their duties transferred to the already swamped Apollo and Artemis

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