waning crescent/blue rose parallels
David Dalton
Campbell Foundation web site http://www.jcf.org but basically
here it is here as well though of course the "particularly in
Joseph Campbell's writing" does not apply as much here though
I would still welcome references to his writing and to any
searchable (of full book body text) online editions of any
of his writing. I add the other four newsgroups as well as
alt.mythology since many on those four newsgroups are interested
in comparative religion, but have set followups to alt.mythology .
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<snip>
But anyway basically I am looking for parallels to the waning crescent
inspirations mentioned on my web page in mythology and of course on here
particularly in Joseph Campbell's writing, and would also welcome
recommendations of Joseph Campbell book(s) which I might order after my
Jan. 27--28 geophysics Ph.D. comprehensive exam and proposal defense is out
of the way. I am also looking for mythological parallels to my blue rose
vision (late in my first waning crescent high), again particularly in
Joseph Campbell's writing.
As to parallels I have so far on my web page to waning crescent to new moon
inspirations, they include:
1. the inspirations of Cerridwen of Taliesin, where Cerridwen is a crone
associated some with waning crescent to new moon.
2. the thumb/thumbnail of Finn and the bread dough under the fingernails of
Amergin and maybe also Elffin
3. the Salmon of wisdom of Finn, where the waning crescent is shaped
somewhat like a salmon or other fish and where a salmon leap could be like
the transition from waning crescent to waxing crescent, or simply the leap
of inspiration during waning crescent
4. the waning horn of bull or buffalo, sometimes with associated clear sky
lightning as in my case. This I first noted from an ancient cave painting
in which the horns looked shaped and I bet tilted like the waning and
waxing crescents, but such correspondence of horns and waning and waxing
crescent is also noted in Volume 1 of F. Marian McNeill's The Silver
Bough.
5. related to number 4, the horn of oil used to annoint in the Old Testament
can be viewed as waning crescent inspiration where the horn is shaped like
the waning crescent and the oil is the inspiration. Christians call this
annointing/inspiration by the Holy Spirit.
6. the bow in the clouds mentioned late in the story of Noah in Genesis as a
symbol of the covenant involving all the species. A post by me to several
unmoderated major religion newsgroups about this was cancelled by a forged
cancel.
7. I think the bow that holds, of the Iowa Dakota Salmon youth, is also
waning crescent.
7. the missing eye of Odin and his raven associations maybe mean new moon
(where one sky eye is the sun and one sky eye the moon and dark moon is
raven associated) and hence again waning crescent to new moon inspiration,
and I think related to the Haida tale of Raven and the First Men depicted
in Bill Reid's massive sculpture at the UBC Museum of Anthropology in
Vancouver.
8. the waning crescent on Islamic flags and mosques. However I have been
told on newsgroups that this is more related to pre-Islamic Arabic paganism
or Byzantine paganism than to Mohammed but I have not yet researched that
further.
9. possibly some sky boat/ark and curved sacred knife traditions
10. Krishna is described as the butter thief and I relate that to waning
butter and hence waning crescent.
OK, I may have a few more but that is all I can remember for now and no
doubt you can shoot some of them down but I am also interested in other
waning crescent parallels in mythology including in Joseph Campbell's
writing.
Now the second thing I mentioned was the blue rose vision (also note there
were non-rose thorns associated with this) and some partial parallels I
have found for this are:
1. one web page that associates the blue rose with Mary Magdalene though
quite often the colour blue is associated with Mary the mother of Jesus
2. the rose(s) that formed when Adonis was pierced by I think the tusk of a
boar or a spear or perhaps thorns in some version
3. the roses that formed when the original German Sleeping Beauty hero
forced his way through a wall of thorns, according to Robert Graves The
White Goddess (which has some speculative stuff but his quoted material is
generally good)
4. on a gnostic site I found the story of Psyche and Eros and the rose that
sprouted from their love.
5. there is the I think Persian story of The Rose and the Nightingale but
also there are some Sufi and other poetic texts entitled or partially
entitled The Secret Rose Garden and it could be that the beloved in Sufi
poetry which can partially represent the divine may sometimes be
represented by a rose but Sufis have not commented to me on this.
6. Krishna and/or The Buddha were said to have seen a blue lotus (though
that may not be in all books). Krishna is also often depicted as blue.
Also in some meditative practices the holy grail is a blue pearl.
7. The past unorthodox Dalai Lama known as The Turquoise Bee I think from
his name saw a blue rose. Also one of his poems mentions the
dragon-demon's thorns (so like my thorn climb leading up to the blue rose
vision) and a sweet sugar apple (or maybe it is throbbing sugar apple) out
front which I relate to my earlier sun stare (though unlike the native
sundance the piercing [by thorns in this case] came a little later).
8. In Scottish tradition there are two versions of a blue ribbon joke. In
one two lovely lasses come on a man passed out in a ditch and lift his kilt
to verify that he indeed does not have any underwear on, and tie a blue
ribbon on his penis and he awakes to say "I don't know where you have been
but you've won first prize". But in another version it is The Queen of
the Fairies who ties the blue ribbon on him, and I relate that version to
my blue rose vision (which I relate to Gaia the blue planet earth). Also
Picts painted themselves with blue woad, druids cloaks were blue, and in a
Newfoundland version of the Irish song Foggy Dew (sung by Catherine Wright)
there is a line that goes ____ ____ ____ ____, ____ rose of Medb. In
Queen Mab and Constantia Percy Bysshe Shellye also makes allusions or
direct mention to a blue rose those his references may not be favourable
but more to the blue of death than the blue of blue sky/sea/living planet.
9. In Jimmy MacCarthy's song Bright Blue Rose, covered by Christy Moore on
The Voyage, he mentions a blue rose lasting two thousand years and still
going, but he did not reply to my e-mail of fall 2002.
OK, that is enough for now though there may be more on my web page but that
is a bit messy and in need of edits which I won't get to until the end of
the month at the earliest. Also I need to correct some names on my web
page a bit since it may be unlikely that Chango Ashe and Kama were rooted
in original human figures though I still think Herne and Quetzacoatl (from
D.H. Lawrences poems in The Serpent and the Plume) were, and I also have to
add Noah. (Also there may have been supposed incarnations of Kama.)
Some other questions I have are on parallels to clear sky lightning
inspiration (which I say on my web page in the Jewish Parallels section
that Isaac Asimov in his Guide to the Bible Vol. 1 says is personified in
the seraphim), and also I am looking for how long the hero's (fool's?)
wilderness/cremation ground/low/foresaken/ascetic years last in general.
From some mainly celtic sources I expected seven years but am now
approaching eight years since it will be eight years on Jan. 29, so though
for now the integer part is seven years and it rounds up to eight years,
soon the integer part will be eight years. (But it is now over twelve
years, so over an Asian astrology cycle, since my first waning crescent
high.) One other thing I am looking for parallels for include my practice
of not drinking during waxing moon. I have some other points that may be
related to Asian traditions (base chakra area muscle click divination
attempts, shakti buzz [river rush of fire], more) but will leave those for
a later post.
But again I am mainly looking for parallels of waning crescent inspiration
(where the waning crescent is not always mentioned as such but often
symbolized by something shaped like it) and blue rose (or even blue, or
blue flower, or blue lotus, or just rose) in Joseph Campbell's research and
in that of those influenced by him. (I know that the blue rose,
especially the glowing near sky blue colour at night like mine as opposed
to current genetic hybrid blue roses, may be considered an ancient symbol
of the impossible, and mine is described in the sunstare subsection of the
mystic bio subsection of the salmon subpage of my home page though I may
poeticize it a bit later without losing fact or adding untruth.)
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David Dalton http://www.nfld.com/~dalton