I saw these photos of Hezbollah fighters saluting images of the Virgin Mary recently. They struck me because of their “otherworldly” lighting, and of course, the fact that these are images of battle-hardened Arab “Islamics”, not Catholics, who venerate Mary as the “Mother of God”.
The Latin root of Mary is “mare”, or the sea. The word appears in marina, marinara sauce, and is associated with all things maritime. Our Mother, the sea. It occurs to me that the Hezbollah soldiers are “Marines”.
Here in Port Townsend, the Catholic parish is named Saint Mary, the Star of the Sea. This is an ancient title that extends all the way back to Babylonian Ishtar. The "Star of the Sea" is also known as the Mariner’s Star: Venus.
Here in Port Townsend we also have a NW Maritime Center - the logo is an M with a five pointed star on the NW corner. The five pointed star, or the pentagram, is associated with Venus because the planet’s path inscribes a pentagram shape on the heavens when viewed from earth. 5 is the number associated with Mary.
The big buzz here lately has been a race sponsored by the NW Maritime Center - the Race to Alaska! The first to finish was the trident resonating trimaran Team Elsie Piddock, in the time of 5 days and 55 minutes.
The NW Maritime Center posts updates on the race, this one about the nature of the merciless sea:
On a boat at sea you are completely insignificant. Think of the forces involved. The liquid that makes up over 75% of the earth’s surface and a fair amount of our atmosphere isn’t just an impossibly large thing compared to a boat, but it’s an impossibly large thing that is affected by even impossibly larger forces… All of the quantum physics (or whatever) involved are too big for our pea brains to comprehend, we’re far more comfortable assigning human emotions to things. When you are in it, and it rages against you day after day, it’s easy to think it’s intentional. The truth is the sea doesn’t throw you gale after never ending gale like a wounded ex throws your clothes onto the lawn. The sea isn’t angry, the sea doesn’t give a damn.
2 comments:
Greetings Michael ... Speaking of the oceanic origins of Mary's name, my 33° Freemason paternal grandfather was a member of the (since deactivated) Diamond Thistle Lodge here in Yonkers (I reckon it was Scottish Rite in its derivation, praxis, and outlook). He was also a member of another oath-bound Lodge, Our Lady of the Shrine of the Sea, in whose Brothers of the Craft were all involved in businesses with a maritime theme. (I gno that I've s'mentioned all of this to you ages ago.) His? An antiques shoppe, <a href="http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/17104012/17-Madison-Street-Sag-Harbor-NY/>The Sea Chest</a>, based in Sag Harbor, Long Island, a former whaling capital on the East Coast. Just as well we sold the 1743 property, with our adjoining summer house. No good karma can come of that. Right? I mean, aren't cetaceans unfathomably intelligent? Therefore, they'd have to be sentient, self-aware, and have souls, imho. Even writer Lev Grossman depicts them as Nature's aquatic magicians in the 3rd installment of his Magicians series. Among their 'assignments' is keeping in check an inconceivable & unnamed antagonist. But I believe that that particular Our Lady was, indeed, Ma-Rey, the very same Divinity Whom <i>many</i> different faiths bow in obeisance to, even to the point of that seeming contradictory, as you've so well (of Wyrd) cited here. Thanks, man ~ Anadae
... sorry that i messed up the hyper-linkage :/
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