Bloodroot (pauson, red puccoon, Indian paint, red paint) Papaveraceae Sanguinaria Canadensis, April 18, 2005, Hiram, Maine, John Bonanno photograph

Bloodroot, a hardy perennial, is a member of the poppy family and as such, it requires respect. It is a favorite spring plant in my garden and I recommend it as an essential plant in any Goth themed garden. The flowers come and go quickly. Its name (scientific and common) comes from the sticky red/orange sap which flows through the plant. Applied in sufficient quantity it is said to have the ability to destroy flesh! Bloodroot is poisonous in large doses, causing convulsions, vomiting, reduced blood pressure, profuse salivation, and, finally, respiratory failure. If you expand the photograph you can see the orange tint of the sap in the flower stems. Lately it has attracted attention for supposed anti-cancer effects; for what it's worth, it is FDA approved for use in toothpastes for gingivitis. Traditionally, native Americans drank the root tea as a remedy for fever, laryngitis and various lung ailments; also the root was employed as a love charm and the juice as skin paint. It makes an attractive natural dye. I have found that bloodroot will tolerate a surprising amount of sun (but not full sun) for a woodland plant. It is native, but not plentiful in my area of Maine and is grateful for copious organic material and a moist, light soil. It spreads when happy but will never become a nuisance. What a useful and beautiful ornament to the garden!

"My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect."-D.H. Lawrence 'The Letters of D.H. Lawrence', edited by Aldous Huxley, 1957

RIP Sky Saxon (Richard Elvern Marsh) born August 20, 1937, in Salt Lake City, Utah, died June 25, 2009 in Austin, Texas

Of all the high profile celebrity deaths last week, this passing of an obscure garage rocker was most significant to me.
This obituary in the Telegraph.uk tells the tale. I loved the Seeds when I was of that age when you could love bands with wonderful energy, a quirky lead singer, one fantastic mysterioso hypnotic riff which could come in myriad variations and a minimal technical competence which was totally appropriate.
In this video Bettie Page becomes a beautiful angel, dancing to 'I Can't Seem to Make You Mine' in an enchanting tribute to the man, and what I imagine as a sublime welcome to the afterlife.


Love and Peace to you Sky.

"The educated man tries to repress the inferior man in himself, not realizing that by so doing he forces the latter into revolt."-C.G. Jung

"I'm Cracking Up" Photobooth Polaroid Photograph, 1977, John Bonanno

I wish I could remember what was going through my head then. How many photobooths are still around? These cameras produced a unique color tone. But it does looks like I hunger for blood after rising from my coffin. Note the artifacts of time and the artifacts of photography left on the print. Yet I remain remarkably youthful.

"Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there."- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State of Mind'

Graveyard, Hiram, Maine, John Bonanno photo
It was in this cemetery that I recorded, on a Halloween, an EVP (electronic voice phenomena) faintly but clearly and unmistakably, in an archaic accent demanding: "Live well."

"O.E. græf "grave, ditch," from P.Gmc. *graban (cf. O.S. graf, O.Fris. gref, O.H.G. grab "grave, tomb;" O.N. gröf "cave," Goth. graba "ditch"), from PIE base *ghrebh-/*ghrobh- "to dig, to scratch, to scrape" (cf. O.C.S. grobu "grave, tomb"); related to grafan "to dig" (see grave (v.)). From Middle Ages to 17c., they were temporary, crudely marked repositories from which the bones were removed to ossuaries after some years and the grave used for a fresh burial. "Perpetual graves" became common from c.1650. To make (someone) turn in his grave "behave in some way that would have offended the dead person" is first recorded 1888. Graveyard shift "late-night work" is c.1907, from earlier nautical term, in reference to the loneliness of after-hours work."- Online Etymology Dictionary

“Mr Bloom admired the caretaker’s prosperous bulk. All want to be on good terms with him. Decent fellow, John O’Connell, real good sort. Keys: like Keyes’s ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passout checks. _Habeas corpus_. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha? Hope it’s not chucked in the dead letter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That’s the first sign when the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting death... Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O’Connell must be a descendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o’ the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at all. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they’d kiss all right if properly keyed up. Whores in Turkish graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You might pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones.” Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving. Gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to do it at the window. Eight children he has anyway.”-James Joyce, Ulysses

"Good Friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."-Shakespeare's gravestone

"Or to take another eminent example, in which not Puritanism only, but, one may say, the whole religious world, by their mechanical use of St. Paul's writings, can be shown to miss or change his real meaning. The whole religious world, one may say, use now the word resurrection,--a word which is so often in their thoughts and on their lips, and which they find so often in St. Paul's writings,--in one sense only. They use it to mean a rising again after the physical death of the body. Now it is quite true that St. Paul speaks of resurrection in this sense, that he tries to describe and explain it, and that he condemns those who doubt and deny it. But it is true, also, that in nine cases out of ten where St. Paul thinks and speaks of resurrection, he thinks and speaks of it in a sense different from this; in the sense of a rising to a new life before the physical death of the body, and not after it. The idea on which we have already touched, the profound idea of being baptized into the death of the great exemplar of self-devotion and self- annulment, of repeating in our own person, by virtue of identification with our exemplar, his course of self-devotion and self-annulment, and of thus coming, within the limits of our present life, to a new life, in which, as in the death going before it, we are identified with our exemplar,--this is the fruitful and original conception of being risen with Christ which possesses the mind of St. Paul, and this is the central point round which, with such incomparable emotion and eloquence, all his teaching moves. For him, the life after our physical death is really in the main but a consequence and continuation of the inexhaustible energy of the new life thus originated on this side the grave."-Matthew Arnold, Culture And Anarchy

"Gloved Dance" John Bonanno, watercolor, 1990, $150

"Glove-O.E. glof "covering for the hand," also "palm of the hand," from P.Gmc. *galofo (cf. O.N. glofi), probably from *ga- collective prefix + *lofi "hand" (cf. O.N. lofi, M.E. love, Goth. lofa "flat of the hand"). Ger. Handschuh, the usual word for "glove," lit. "hand-shoe" (O.H.G. hantscuoh; also Dan., Swed. hantsche) is represented by O.E. Handscio, but this is only attested as a proper name. To fit like a glove is first recorded 1771."-Online Etymology Dictionary

"A pure hand needs no glove to cover it." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

“See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!”-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

"It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so gently, tiptapping her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and smiled tinily, sweetly."-James Joyce, Ulysses

The following glove references, in this order, appear in Ulysses:

"I want puce gloves and green boots."
puce gloves
kid gloves
gloved hand
rich gloved hand
"Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove, shoulders and hips."
canary gloves
"one plump kid glove"
"his other plump glovepalm"
small gloved fist
small gloved fist
"Father Conmee drew off his gloves"
violet gloves
"It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns."
kid gloves
"Cigary gloves long John had on his desk the other day."
"Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track."
"elbowlength ivory gloves"
glovers
"doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet"
"fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc"
warmgloved
"lovely ladies saling gloves"
canary gloves
"Clipclaps glovesilent hands"
"a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves"
"the present of Byron's poems and the three pairs of gloves"
"touch him with my veil and gloves on going out I kiss then would send them all spinning"
"I did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind"
"he kissed me in the eye of my glove and I had to take it off"
"he pestered me to say yes till I took off my glove slowly watching him"
"when I put on my gloves and hat at the window to show I was going out"
"when I put the chair against the door just as I was washing myself there below with the glove"

“It's a pretty sure thing that the player's bat is what speaks loudest when it's contract time, but there are moments when the glove has the last word.”-Brooks Robinson

"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."-Johnnie Cochran

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14

A Door To Huxley
Tonight Keith Hansen (Vyzygoth) and I had a free ranging discussion (Part II) on Aldous Huxley. We covered the Orwell/Huxley dialectic, our early exposures to Orwell and Huxley, where we are in the predictive programming scenarios of the two, Crowley and Huxley, Huxley on drugs and lots more. When the show is posted it will be available here: Think Or Be Eaten Radio . Here is the Link.

Quotes of interest:

Who is the real enemy?

"The people who make wars, the people who reduce their fellows to slavery, the people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, the really evil people in a word—these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they're the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals." -Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

Huxley was skeptical about the religion of progress and the belief in the inevitable benefits deriving from science.

"Science has 'explained' nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness." -Aldous Huxley, Views of Holland, 1925

Huxley on Beer:

Yes!... if you stop before it's too late.

"From the nonverbal world of culturally uncontaminated consciousness we pass to the subverbal world of physiology and biochemistry. A human being is a temperament and a product of cultural conditioning; he is also, and primarily, an extremely complex and delicate biochemical system, whose inwardness, as the system changes from one state of equilibrium to another, is changing consciousness. It is because each one of us is a biochemical system that (according to Housman)

Malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.

Beer achieves its theological triumphs because, in William James' words, "Drunkenness is the great exciter of the Yes function in man." And he adds that "It is part of the deeper mystery and tragedy of life that whiffs and gleams of something that we immediately recognize as excellent should be vouchsafed to so many of us only in the fleeting earlier phases of what, in its totality, is so degrading a poisoning." The tree is known by its fruits, and the fruits of too much reliance upon ethyl alcohol as an exciter of the Yes function are bitter indeed. No less bitter are the fruits of reliance upon such habit-forming sedatives, hallucinogens and mood elevators as opium and its derivatives, as cocaine (once so blithely recommended to his friends and patients by Dr. Freud), as the barbiturates and amphetamine. But in recent years the pharmacologists have extracted or synthesized several compounds that powerfully affect the mind without doing any harm to the body, either at the time of ingestion or, through addiction, later on. Through these new psychedelics, the subject's normal waking consciousness may be modified in many different ways. It is as though, for each individual, his deeper self decides which kind of experience will be most advantageous."- Aldous Huxley, Culture and the Individual, originally published in Playboy Magazine, 1963

Huxley felt it was important that some, if not all, people learn to look at the universe as if looking at it anew, for the first time. It is essential to the artist or any seeker to escape the cultural prison which has been our dwelling place since birth. This selective filter through which we process reality has been the primary weapon of human ascendance. Where would we be without language, written and oral? How valuable is the transmission of knowledge necessary to the making of a sword; or a plow? Disputes are controlled by myriad rules surrounding such human activities as courtship, food sharing, and religious practices. Yet the inherently conservative nature of culture can stifle necessary change and stunt the ability to adapt to new conditions. Yes, knowledge may be transmitted through culture but understanding and the wisdom which flows from it may not. Huxley's proposed solution to free us from the blinding effect of culture involved training youth in what he called a "methodology of non-verbal education." This would prepare them for the use of drugs and other methods, which "tear a hole" in the curtain of culture and allow them to experience truth directly. The most commonly accepted drugs in our society operate via front brain sedation and lead to addiction. LSD, a drug that requires training to use, in fact has no physically negative effects and does not lead to addiction. Any negative effects are the result of the lack of "non-verbal methodological" skills on the part of the untrained individual.
LSD's argument is NON-VERBAL. LSD is profoundly Non-ironic. It means what it (non-verbally) says. Huxley's LSD progression of consciousness goes through these stages: Normal [or perhaps more accurately, cultural consciousness] *!Ingestion of LSD!*~Aesthetic consciousness (Beauty)~Visionary consciousness (Infinity)~Mystical consciousness (Unity).

"It was quite an experience, but it did make one feel extraordinarily clean." Aldous Huxley to Anita Loos after a fire destroyed his home, library, letters, and manuscripts in 1961.

Antiglobalism?

"It is at this point [when food and natural resources become scarce with the industrialization of the third world-JB] that internationally organized scientists and technicians might contribute greatly to the cause of peace by planning a world-wide campaign, not merely for greater food production, but also (and this is the really important point) for regional self-sufficiency in food production."-Aldous Huxley, The Scientist's Role

Here we infer Huxley's animus for the politically powerful.

[After discussing the desirablility of the advent of efficient solar power-JB] "For the peoples of such tropical countries as India and Africa the new device for directly harnessing solar power should be of enormous and enduring benefit-unless, of course, those at present possessing economic and political power should choose to build mass-producing factories around enormous mirrors, thus perverting the invention to their own centralistic purposes, instead of encouraging its small scale use for the benefit of individuals and village communities. The technicians of solar power will be confronted with a clear-cut choice. They can work either for the completer enslavement of the industrially backward peoples of the tropics, or for their progressive liberation from the twin curses of poverty and servitude to political and economic bosses."-Aldous Huxley, The Scientist's Role

“After the Age of Utopias came what we may call the American Age, lasting as long as the Boom. Men like Ford or Mond seemed to many to have solved the social riddle and made capitalism the common good. But it was not native to us; it went with a buoyant, not to say blatant optimism, which is not our negligent or negative optimism. Much more than Victorian righteousness, or even Victorian self-righteousness, that optimism has driven people into pessimism. For the Slump brought even more disillusionment than the War. A new bitterness, and a new bewilderment, ran through all social life, and was reflected in all literature and art. It was contemptuous, not only of the old Capitalism, but of the old Socialism. Brave New World is more of a revolt against Utopia than against Victoria.”-G.K. Chesterton

Goya, Inquisition Scene, 1816

"Si bene calculum ponas, ubique naufragium est."-Petronius (All in all, an objective consideration of life leads one to conclude that shipwreck is everywhere. -My translation)

"Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it."-- John Adams, letter to his son, John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816

Real Rules of the Inquisition

...a list I prepared mostly using the article "The Inquisition", from the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 edition

1. The Inquisition is not bound by ordinary rules.
2. Acts of piety and professions of faith have no value as evidence.
3. Suspicion is enough for imprisonment.
4. The accuser is the judge.
5. The accused are presumed guilty.
6. Contumacy is expressed by flight and increases presumption of guilt.
   
7. Names of witnesses against the accused are withheld from him. (Bulls of Innocent IV: Cumnegocium & Licet Sicut Accepimus)
8. The accused is kept in ignorance of who denounced him.
9. Heretics or infames are admitted as witnesses.
10. Women, children & slaves could be witnesses.
11. If a witness retracted hostile evidence he could be punished for false witness, but his evidence should be retained with full effect.
12. A witness who refuses to give evidence is guilty of heresy.
    
13. Prosecution is carried out in secrecy.
14. The accused must swear to tell the truth and denounce all partners in heresy or any other heretics known to him. [I would denounce my Inquisitor.]
15. The accused may be "reconciled" to the Church only by so denouncing others.
16. Further "examination" is continued by various methods including moral subterfuge. (The Dominican Bernardus Guidonis enumerates weakening physical strength, perhaps through withholding water or food, and as a last resort, torture.)
17. Canon Law condemned torture but Innocent IV in his Bull, Ad Extirpanda, May 15, 1252, allowed its use to discover heresy. (This was later confirmed by Urban IV. Remember, the Inquisition is not bound by ordinary rules.)
18. At the discretion of the Inquisitor, torture of witnesses is allowed.
19. All evidence or confessions obtained in the torture chamber must be freely confirmed. (How liberal! But one would remember that the torture chamber is still there.)
20. Any lawyer defending the accused is guilty of heresy.
21. The inquiry may last as long as necessary.
22. Those who confess as minor heretics are punished by penance, fasting, scourges, markings or fines, but full acquittal should never be allowed. More serious punishments are imprisonments of various degrees of severity. Obstinate heretics are turned over to the secular arm for punishment debita animadversione usually death by fire. Such property of heretics so remanded is turned over to the ecclesiastic and secular authorities. (In Spain all went to the Church, in France, Italy and Germany church and state divided the spoils.)
23. Sorcery and magic as well as doctrinal heresy are objects of inquisition.
24. Confiscation of the property of an 'enemy of the state' (hostis) was found in ancient Roman Law. The dictator Sulla, his early mentor and later opponent Marius, and the Second Triumvirate were infamous for long proscription lists. Julius Caesar famously disapproved proscription, perhaps to his ultimate regret. The Church and the Princes of the Inquisition could not resist the temptation to apply the precedent of this law to enemies of God. Today, enemies of the state in the "War On Drugs" can expect to lose their property in a modern variation of proscription. I predict that the state will find new innovations implementing this concept as its various forms tumble into bankruptcy in our brave new world.
    
25. Thus church and state happily colluded to rid the world of "heretics" and pocket their wealth and property.
    

"Glamour", John Bonanno, 1999, 4" X 6", acrylic on card paper, $150

Some Simple Suggestions to Instantly Reform Government

If I were in a position to issue the ukaz (указ, any proclamation of the tsar in imperial Russia had the force of law) these would be my first:

1. Henceforth, all representatives to Congress will be chosen by lot.

Candidates would have to apply. Only adult citizens may apply. Convicted felons may not apply.
I am certain we would end up with a more honest and representative Congress.

2. The Size of Congress shall be increased to 7,000 members.

A large Congress would ensure a costly effort to buy it; and it would be impossible to keep such a project secret. Punishment would be harsh if discovered. (See ukaz 6) And each congressman would represent less than 50,000 people. I would entertain the notion of more, not fewer representatives than this. But in no way shall a congressman represent more than 50,000 people.

3. The Term of a Representative to Congress shall be increased to four years.

It takes a while to learn a job.

4. Half of the standing members of Congress shall be chosen by lot to remain in Congress at the end of each term.

No representative should be assured of tenure. But, institutional memory is a good thing. And, new blood is a good thing. We shall have half and half. With this many representatives a few lucky ones may remain a long time.

5. Congress must abolish an old law before a new law may be passed. All old laws shall be reviewed by a committee of all the new Representatives at the beginning of each term who shall produce a list of at least a hundred laws to be presented to Congress for a vote on abolition.

This, my most brilliant innovation will eventually limit the great waste of human talent that goes into lawyering.

6. Corruption of a Member of Congress shall be punishable by death to all guilty parties involved.

7. Only legal residents of the district of a member of Congress shall be allowed to lobby that member.

Violation is evidence of corruption. See ukaz 6.

Some Quotes of the Bloomsbury Group

"At its simplest, the Bloomsbury Group was the circle round Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. When the Victorian man of letters Sir Leslie Stephen died in 1904, his daughters, Virginia and Vanessa, being determined to put their constrained middle-class girlhoods behind them, set up house at 46 Gordon Square in the then-shabby district of Bloomsbury with their two brothers, Thoby and Adrian. Thoby brought home his Cambridge friends Leonard Woolf, Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey and Saxon Sydney-Turner, inviting them for social evenings with his sisters, the scene being set of earnest youths sitting around the room sipping cocoa and whisky and discussing intently such matters as the ‘meaning of truth’. Most of these young men had been elected to the Apostles, a secret society of intellectually notable undergraduates from Trinity and King’s Colleges. Through the link with the Apostles the Group widened to include E.M. Forster, Roger Fry, Desmond MacCarthy and John Maynard Keynes who had left Cambridge earlier. The Group also included Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey’s cousin.

Apart from Saxon Sydney-Turner, who remained an obscure Treasury official, all of the Bloomsbury Group made a very significant contribution to British intellectual and artistic life in the first part of the twentieth century. The two giants, famed internationally, are Virginia Woolf, who broke new ground with her ‘stream of consciousness’ writing; and the economist, Maynard Keynes, whose revolutionary economic theories and significant efforts to build new economic orders after the traumas of two world wars remain an abiding legacy."- Tony Bradshaw, Introduction, "A Bloomsbury Canvas"

Do I have to say this? I do not necessarily endorse or condemn any of these quotes or the activities of these people. But, familiarity with the works and ideas of these undeniably brilliant men and women is essential to understanding the early twentieth century; their influence persists.

"A rose is the visible result of an infinitude of complicated goings on in the bosom of the earth and in the air above, and similarly a work of art is the product of strange activities in the human mind."- Clive Bell (art critic, husband in a very open marriage of Vanessa Stephen Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf)

"As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world."-Virginia (Stephen) Woolf (writer, a suicide)

"I read the book of Job last night, I don't think God comes out well in it." -Virginia Woolf

"The older one grows, the more one likes indecency." -Virginia Woolf


"Capitalism did not arise because capitalists stole the land or the workmen's tools but because it was more efficient than feudalism. It will perish because it is not merely less efficient than socialism, but actually self-destructive." J.B.S. Haldane (biochemist, geneticist)

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."- John Maynard Keynes (economist)

"Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent."- John Maynard Keynes

"I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal."- John Maynard Keynes

"But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."- John Maynard Keynes

“The whole of art is an appeal to a reality which is not without us but in our minds”-Desmond MacCarthy (journalist, editor)

''Relations we may be: have them, we may not''- Duncan Grant, artist, to his older cousin Lytton Strachey in the midst of an ultimately unsuccessful effort to rebuff multiple attempts at seduction, later, Grant became a lover of John Maynard Keynes

"Discretion is not the better part of biography." - Lytton Strachey, historian, (and friend of Thoby Stephen, "the Goth", brother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell; Thoby died at 26 of typhoid) Strachey loved Ralph Partridge who married Dora Carrington; Dora loved Lytton Strachey and performed a suicide after Strachey died

"Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well-deceived."- Lytton Strachey

Jack-In-The-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum, Hiram, Maine
John Bonanno photo, June 21,2009

"When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees."-Abraham Lincoln

It has been much more than less damp and gray for weeks in Maine so it was a perfect time for a wet walk in the woods. These plants had to grow through over two feet of the packed twigs from heaped branches left after logging three years ago.
Euell Gibbons, in Stalking the Healthful Herbs, informs us that the root (or more accurately, the corm) is full of burning calcium oxalate crystals when fresh, but becomes pleasingly palatable after slicing and leaving it to dry for at least five months to break down the poison. Perhaps in a prolonged period of want I would give it a try; but for now I'll just enjoy the beauty of these arums and let those corms lie beneath the forest trash.

Broken plate found in an old farm midden, Hiram, Maine
John Bonanno photo, June 21, 2009

Midden: "dung hill," c.1340, of Scand. origin, cf. Dan. mødding, from møg "muck" + dynge "heap, dung." Modern archaeological sense of "kitchen midden" is from Danish excavations.-Online Etymology Dictionary

"What is the ape to man? A ridicule, or a grievous shame. And that is just what man is to be to the Superman- a ridicule, or a grievous shame."-Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"- George Taylor, The Planet of the Apes

"Mrs. Briggs, I've known and respected your husband Alky for many years. And what's good enough for him is good enough for me." [He suddenly grabs her and pulls her down onto a couch] -Groucho, Monkey Business, 1931

"Astrum Perpetuum" John Bonanno, 1996, acrylic, paper card, 4 1/4" X 6 3/8", $200

"Varium et mutabile semper
Femina."

Virgil, The Aeneid, (Orator per Mercurius)

The Larch, photo by John Bonanno, Hiram, Maine 2003

Clouds Without Water III/IX

As one entranced by dint of cannabis,
Whose sense of time is changed past recognition,
Whether he suffer woe or taste of bliss,
He loses both his reason and volition.
He says one word -- what countless ages pass !
He walks across the room -- a voyage as far
As the astronomer's who turns his glass
On faintest star-webs past the farthest star
And travels thither in the spirit. So
It seems impossible to me that ever
The sands of our ill luck should run so low
That splendidly success should match endeavour ;
Yet it must be, and very soon must be :
For I believe in you, and you in me.-Rev. C. Verey (Aleister Crowley)

This sonnet is from Crowley's collection, Clouds Without Water. Crowley wrote to Israel Regardie, his personal secretary in 1930 as follows:

"Please send a copy of "Clouds Without Water" to Aldous Huxley Esq., Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall (with prospectuses etc.) with my compliments-we had a gorgeous 3 days with him in Berlin. Also please set up a figure [astrological chart] for him. Goldalming 4 A.M., July 26 '94"

In my Think Or Be Eaten Radio discussion with Vyzygoth on Huxley I stated that I could find no evidence that Huxley and Crowley had met. The above quote is from Richard Kaczynski's formidable biography of Crowley, Perdurabo, The Life of Aleister Crowley, New Falcon, 2002. AC may have been exaggerating his association with Huxley to polish the apple for Regardie, but this is indeed evidence that they had been in contact. If anyone can provide citations from Huxley's works mentioning Crowley, I would appreciate the information.

"Partition in the Air" (scanned detail), acrylic on 16 1/2" x 13 1/2" paper, relatively early work by John Bonanno, 1986, $500

This painting illustrates some of the distractions a soul encounters on its sojourn to Earth.

"What then is the evil Soul?
It is, we read, the Soul that has entered into the service of that in which soul-evil is implanted by nature, in whose service the unreasoning phase of the Soul accepts evil unmeasure, excess and shortcoming, which brings forth licentiousness, cowardice and all other flaws of the Soul, all the states, foreign to the true nature, which set up false judgements, so that the Soul comes to name things good or evil not by their true value but by the mere test of like and dislike."-Plotinus, the Ethical Treatises

"The Culling" John Bonanno, Acrylic on watercolor paper, 10" X 14" circa 2000, substantial portion scanned. $500

This painting is concerned with human sacrifice.

An Historic Sonic Document!

Here is an unedited reading of Liber Al Vel Legis Sub Figura CCXX performed by yours truly in 1986. It was done in a single take. There are a few slips but all in all, it is not a bad reading. The music in the background was playing during the recital. I believe it is a César Franck organ composition. I found this cassette in a box in a closet yesterday. I thought it had been lost. In a certain sense I wish it had been lost. I created a slight portentious echo with Audacity before converting to mp3.
You may fear the Book of the Law or you may despise it, and perhaps you should. But it is important to be aware of it.
Listen!
It is worth a few laughs.

"Cupid In Chaos" John Bonanno, about 2000, acrylic on paper, about 9" X 12", $400

"The First Meaning" John Bonanno, 1999, Acrylic on Paper, 2 3/8" X 4 1/4", $100

"The Red Robe" John Bonanno, 1999, acrylic on card paper, 4 1/4" X 6 1/2", $200

On Interpretation of Scripture and the Limits of a Literal Reading
(Or, Using Kabbalah to Clarify the Way to Understanding)

Rabbi Shim'on said,
"Woe to the human being who says
that Torah presents mere stories and ordinary words!
If so, we could compose a Torah right now with ordinary words
and better than all of them!
To present matters of the world?
Even rulers of the world possess words more sublime.
If so, let us follow them and make a Torah out of them!
Ah, but all the words of Torah are sublime words, sublime secrets!

"Come and see:
The world above and the world below are perfectly balanced:
Israel below, the angels above.
Of the angels it is written:
'He makes His angels spirits'
(Psalms 104:4).
But when they descend, they put on the garment of this world.
If they did not put on a garment befitting this world
they could not endure in this world
and the world could not endure them.

If this is so with the angels, how much more so with Torah
who created them and all the worlds
and for whose sake they all exist!
In descending to this world,
if she did not put on the garments of this world
the world could not endure.

"So this story of Torah is the garment of Torah.
Whoever thinks that the garment is the real Torah
and not something else—
may his spirit deflate!
He will have no portion in the world that is coming.
That is why David said:
'Open my eyes, so I can see wonders out of your Torah,'
what is under the garment of Torah.

"Come and see: There is a garment visible to all.
When those fools see someone in a good-looking garment
they look no further.
But the essence of the garment is the body;
the essence of the body is the soul.

"So it is with Torah.
She has a body: the commandments of Torah,
called 'the embodiment of Torah.'
This body is clothed in garments: the stories of this world.
Fools of the world look only at that garment, the story of Torah;
they know nothing more.
The do not look at what is under that garment.
Those who know more do not look at the garment,
but rather at the body under that garment,
The wise ones, servants of the King on high,
those who stood at Mount Sinai,
look only at the soul, root of all, real Torah.
In the time to come, they are destined to look at the soul of the soul of Torah.

"Come and see: So it is above.
There is garment, body, soul, and soul of soul.
The heavens and their host are the garment.
The Communion of Israel is the body,
who receives the soul, Beauty of Israel.
So she is the body of the soul.
The soul we have mentioned is Beauty fo Israel, real Torah.
The soul of the soul is the Holy Ancient One.
All is connected, this one to that one.

"Woe to the wicked who say that Torah is merely a story!
They look at this garment and no further.
Happy are the righteous who look at Torah properly!
As wine must sit in a jar, so Torah must sit in this garment.
So look only at what is under the garment.
All those words and all those stories are garments."-Zohar 3:152a

PaRDeS "Paradise"

"...Moses de Leon employed this highly suggestive term, so rich in shades of meaning, as a cipher for the four levels of interpretation. Each consonant of the word PaRDeS denotes one of the levels: P stands for peshat, the literal meaning, R for remez, the allegorical meaning, D for derasha, the Talmudic and Aggadic interpretation, S for sod, the mystical meaning."-Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism

"..the Bible must be understood on many different levels simultaneously. Certainly one level can be taught as simple stories to children. But many other levels exist at the same time. Jewish mystics have long regarded the Bible as manifesting four different yet simultaneous levels of meaning. These are the plain meaning, the symbolic meaning, the allegorical meaning, and the esoteric meaning. For example, the Bible's opening phrase, "In the beginning", must be understood on each of these four levels to fully comprehend its divine message. Interestingly, some Kabbalists have said that only through understanding the deepest, esoteric strata of the Bible can we come to an accurate understanding of even its plain level-that we must "work backwards", in a sense, in biblical interpretation."-David Sheinkin, M.D., Path of the Kabbalah

Tomorrow my daughter Dominica marries Chris. I wish them all the blessings of marriage and as little of the travail as necessary. L'Chaim!
Short video record Here!
The second chapter of the Song of Songs:

א אֲנִי חֲבַצֶּלֶת הַשָּׁרוֹן, שׁוֹשַׁנַּת הָעֲמָקִים.	I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.
ב כְּשׁוֹשַׁנָּה בֵּין הַחוֹחִים, כֵּן רַעְיָתִי בֵּין הַבָּנוֹת.	As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
ג כְּתַפּוּחַ בַּעֲצֵי הַיַּעַר, כֵּן דּוֹדִי בֵּין הַבָּנִים; בְּצִלּוֹ חִמַּדְתִּי וְיָשַׁבְתִּי, וּפִרְיוֹ מָתוֹק לְחִכִּי.	As an apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. Under its shadow I delighted to sit, and its fruit was sweet to my taste.
ד הֱבִיאַנִי אֶל-בֵּית הַיָּיִן, וְדִגְלוֹ עָלַי אַהֲבָה.	He hath brought me to the banqueting-house, and his banner over me is love.
ה סַמְּכוּנִי, בָּאֲשִׁישׁוֹת--רַפְּדוּנִי, בַּתַּפּוּחִים: כִּי-חוֹלַת אַהֲבָה, אָנִי.	'Stay ye me with dainties, refresh me with apples; for I am love-sick.'
ו שְׂמֹאלוֹ תַּחַת לְרֹאשִׁי, וִימִינוֹ תְּחַבְּקֵנִי.	Let his left hand be under my head, and his right hand embrace me.
ז הִשְׁבַּעְתִּי אֶתְכֶם בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַם, בִּצְבָאוֹת, אוֹ, בְּאַיְלוֹת הַשָּׂדֶה: אִם-תָּעִירוּ וְאִם-תְּעוֹרְרוּ אֶת-הָאַהֲבָה, עַד שֶׁתֶּחְפָּץ. {ס}	'I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field, that ye awaken not, nor stir up love, until it please.'
ח קוֹל דּוֹדִי, הִנֵּה-זֶה בָּא; מְדַלֵּג, עַל-הֶהָרִים--מְקַפֵּץ, עַל-הַגְּבָעוֹת.	Hark! my beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.
ט דּוֹמֶה דוֹדִי לִצְבִי, אוֹ לְעֹפֶר הָאַיָּלִים; הִנֵּה-זֶה עוֹמֵד, אַחַר כָּתְלֵנוּ--מַשְׁגִּיחַ מִן-הַחַלֹּנוֹת, מֵצִיץ מִן-הַחֲרַכִּים.	My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart; behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh in through the windows, he peereth through the lattice.
י עָנָה דוֹדִי, וְאָמַר לִי: קוּמִי לָךְ רַעְיָתִי יָפָתִי, וּלְכִי-לָךְ.	My beloved spoke, and said unto me: 'Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
יא כִּי-הִנֵּה הַסְּתָו, עָבָר; הַגֶּשֶׁם, חָלַף הָלַךְ לוֹ.	For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
יב הַנִּצָּנִים נִרְאוּ בָאָרֶץ, עֵת הַזָּמִיר הִגִּיעַ; וְקוֹל הַתּוֹר, נִשְׁמַע בְּאַרְצֵנוּ.	The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
יג הַתְּאֵנָה חָנְטָה פַגֶּיהָ, וְהַגְּפָנִים סְמָדַר נָתְנוּ רֵיחַ; קוּמִי לכי (לָךְ) רַעְיָתִי יָפָתִי, וּלְכִי-לָךְ. {ס}	The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines in blossom give forth their fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
יד יוֹנָתִי בְּחַגְוֵי הַסֶּלַע, בְּסֵתֶר הַמַּדְרֵגָה, הַרְאִינִי אֶת-מַרְאַיִךְ, הַשְׁמִיעִנִי אֶת-קוֹלֵךְ: כִּי-קוֹלֵךְ עָרֵב, וּמַרְאֵיךְ נָאוֶה. {ס}	O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.'
טו אֶחֱזוּ-לָנוּ, שֻׁעָלִים--שֻׁעָלִים קְטַנִּים, מְחַבְּלִים כְּרָמִים; וּכְרָמֵינוּ, סְמָדַר.	'Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vineyards; for our vineyards are in blossom.'
טז דּוֹדִי לִי וַאֲנִי לוֹ, הָרֹעֶה בַּשּׁוֹשַׁנִּים.	My beloved is mine, and I am his, that feedeth among the lilies.
יז עַד שֶׁיָּפוּחַ הַיּוֹם, וְנָסוּ הַצְּלָלִים: סֹב דְּמֵה-לְךָ דוֹדִי לִצְבִי, אוֹ לְעֹפֶר הָאַיָּלִים--עַל-הָרֵי בָתֶר. {ס}	Until the day breathe, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a gazelle or a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

Copper engraving by Cornelius Huyberts from Fredericus Ruysch's Thesaurus anatomicus, Amsterdam, 1710

"Ruysch made about a dozen tableaux, constructed of human fetal skeletons with backgrounds of other body parts, on allegorical themes of death and the transiency of life...Ruysch built the 'geological' landscapes of these tableaux from gallstones and kidneystones, and 'botanical' backgrounds from injected and hardened major veins and arteries for "trees," and more ramified tissue of lungs and smaller vessels for 'bushes' and 'grass.' The fetal skeletons, several per tableau, were ornamented with symbols of death and short life - hands may hold mayflies (which live but a day in their adult state); skulls bemoan their fate by weeping into 'handkerchiefs' made of elegantly injected mesentery or brain meninges; 'snakes' and 'worms,' symbols of corruption made of intestine, wind around pelvis and rib cage. Quotations and moral exhortations, emphasizing the brevity of life and the vanity of earthly riches, festooned the compositions. One fetal skeleton holding a string of pearls in its hand proclaims, 'Why should I long for the things of this world?' Another, playing a violin with a bow made of a dried artery, sings, 'Ah fate, ah bitter fate.'"

-- Stephen Jay Gould in Finders, Keepers: Eight Collectors
Quote and illustration found here.

In the seventeenth century science began to document the diffences between modern observation and accepted belief ranging from Scripture to Aristotle. Sir Walter Raleigh, while locked up in the tower of London wrote a memoir recounting his expeditions to the new world and in it, he addressed the serious question of how Noah had been able to transport all of the beasts of the world in his Ark, taking into account the astounding number previously unknown species found in the New World and not in the Old, and why they strayed so far from Ararat while leaving no descendants behind. Raleigh concluded that familiar animals had changed in adapting to the New World thus satisfying many theologians previously perplexed by the mystery. However, this introduction of the concept of changeability of species, began a process that would overthrow the Aristotelean notion of the immutability of nature and lead finally to Darwin and the theory of evolution, an outcome that would trouble later generations of theologians and cast doubt not only on the story of Noah, but the literal reading of Berashith itself.

"Passions are likened best to floods and streams, The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb."-Raleigh, The Silent Lover

Ironically the first paleontogists of this era were creationists, seeking evidence of the flood.
The interest they stirred in the field led to the work of those who would discredit them.
This mysterious world is so full of evidence that anything, through selective collection of that evidence, may be compellingly asserted.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."-Hamlet to Horatio before the Ghost, Hamlet, I:5, William Shakespeare