giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Jul 4, 2005 9:41:49 GMT
I have a carpet. I looked it many times and I think that it conceals a message. Here is the picture: As you may see there is: a fence made by roses and thorns, two trees, equal and opposite to each other; a four-square, an octagon, a cross, a circle a point. Any comments, Brethren?
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Jul 4, 2005 14:04:57 GMT
"Clean me!"
No, seriously, carpet design is totally indebted to Islamic art for its formal vocabulary. The carpet itself was originally a ground-covering for use in tents, and then came to be used, in a smaller format, for personal use at prayer, obedient to the command of Mohamed that the kneeling Faithful not soil their clothes while praying. This use distinguished the entire craft of carpetmaking, so that even large pieces were a concentration of skill and beauty, and even an expression of the Islamic worldview.
First, consider the shape: it is an oblong, which the most ancient sources tell us was the supposed shape of the Earth. It is generally, as here, subdivided into two fields, the inner and the outer, the latter having the form of a band or border: this represents the surrounding sea or Ocean, as the inner is the summited pile of the world continent. And, of course, it has a centre: the Arabic word for The Centre is al-Quds, or Jerusalem.
For a desert people, the colour and repose of the carpet represented what they most loved, and most wished they could carry with them at all times: the oasis and, even more so, the garden. The Arabic word for garden is djanna - the same word means Paradise, the Muslim heaven. "Gardens underneath which rivers flow" is an expression that occurs more than thirty times in the Qur'an, and the culture of the garden so permeated their civilisation as to give rise to a genre of Arabic poetry known as the rawdiya, the garden poem, meant to conflate the earthly pleasures of garden recreation with those of the Garden of Paradise.
As the depiction of living things is against Islam, no people or animals appear, as a rule, in Islamic art. Flowers are not considered to be alive, and so in the schematic language of this art, flowers are the chief furniture of the Earth. They are used to cover every available surface, and are drawn much as children draw them in our culture, without stems and often leafless also. But as the flower is to the Earth, so the star is to heaven, and in the profusion of flowers is reckoned to suggested that same stellar profusion which adorns the bowers of Paradise. They fill heaven with Light, al-Nur, the title of the 24th Sura of the Qur'an, the Eulogy of Light. There is in Islamic culture also, as in our Cabala, a Tree of Life: but this extends downwards so that its roots are in heaven, and the stars are its ripe, hanging fruit, glistening with a stardust dew.
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Jul 4, 2005 14:45:50 GMT
That's just the shadow! Fraticello mio, shame on you!
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Jul 4, 2005 16:09:16 GMT
I beg your pardon, Ruff!
In my opinion the carpet illustrates a journey from external to internal.
let' start from the first 2 symbols. the rose and the thorn. The rose is symbol of the new consciousness (this flower opens itself progressively), whilst the thorn is symbol of the difficulties that man will come across, taking this journey.
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Jul 4, 2005 18:01:04 GMT
Carpets always suggest a journey, for in the Arabian Nights they are enchanted. The legend goes back, as all Arabian legends of magic seem to go back, to King Solomon: for in Islamic lore, the one they call Suleyman was, in addition to being the mightiest king and the wisest of the wise, the most powerful sorceror in the ancient world.
According to those tales, his carpet was made of green silk and was so vast that an entire army could alight upon it and be immediately and effortlessly transported anywhere in the world. This amazing device was over time split up or worn to pieces until only the scattered rugs of legend were left.
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Post by maat on Jul 6, 2005 0:22:12 GMT
Ruffashlar -
Re Suleyman's carpet - green is a very interesting colour.
First off - in the mundane world it is the colour of the fog that sailors and aircraft experience before they 'disappear' off the radar....Bermuda Triangle et al.
Second - it is reputed to be the basic colour of the world immediately higher than the one we are now experiencing. I was at a Catholic Healing Mass once, where some of the congretation were speaking in tongues (fascinating) and the alter area was enveloped in a green haze - I don't think anyone else saw it.
And if my memory serves me well it was the colour that featured in the Philadelphia experiment - where they were experimenting with energy waves trying to make ships invisible to radar (was during the war). Apparently they got something right - wrong(?) because the ship really disappeared and reappeared many miles away....with some devastating outcomes for a lot of the sailors.
So just maybe Suleyman was a bit wiser that the US Navy - he knew all the rules and could transport his army vast distances with no bad results. (Either that or he had a nice green space-ship - joke, joke.)
Ain't Life Grand (and infinitely interesting)!!!
Maat
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Jul 6, 2005 1:42:15 GMT
I think, with respect, that the carpet is green in the legend because in Muslim culture, as everyone knows, green was the Prophet Mohamed's favourite colour. It has ever afterwards been associated with the Qurayshi tribe, that which was the Prophet's own, and hence by extension it has become the royal colour. When Arabs picture royalty, they instinctively see them in green, much as we would see them clad in royal blue, or imperial Roman purple.
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Post by whistler on Jul 6, 2005 1:49:59 GMT
I think, with respect, that the carpet is green in the legend because in Muslim culture, as everyone knows, green was the Prophet Mohamed's favourite colour. It has ever afterwards been associated with the Qurayshi tribe, that which was the Prophet's own, and hence by extension it has become the royal colour. When Arabs picture royalty, they instinctively see them in green, much as we would see them clad in royal blue, or imperial Roman purple. Now that is interesting have a look at Giovanni's apron, it is Green...I don't think he is an Arab ;D ;D
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Jul 6, 2005 8:08:46 GMT
And when Scots Masons ascend to the immortal mansions of GL The Living Dead (i.e., Edinburgh), they put on green-and-gold aprons ("green gear"). And not all of them are Arabs.
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Jul 6, 2005 8:36:46 GMT
Green is the colour of the putrefatio, rottenness. It means that the person is changing
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Post by sid on Jul 6, 2005 14:17:37 GMT
Well apart from the legend of Lucifer falling from Heaven when a green Emerald jewel fell from his crown & landed upon the Earth (Templar), I always thought that the colour green was associated with VENUS, together with the flaming (fire) sword made of copper? Green is the colour of the putrefatio, rottenness. It means that the person is changing The 'Green Man' is associated with the energy and source within Nature, and the bright fresh green Aura of a man or a woman is associated with the high ideals reflected by that person who is a 'novice' upon the path, and it is positive in nature.
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Jul 6, 2005 16:01:34 GMT
Nature means, literally, "that is going to be born", thus contains the idea of a perennial renewal.
Why 2 trees?
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Jul 9, 2005 2:45:25 GMT
Why 2 trees?
The Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, as found in the description of the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse (or Revelations) of St John the Divine.
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Post by hollandr on Jul 9, 2005 4:31:33 GMT
> I always thought that the colour green was associated with VENUS
Sid
You may recall the other meaning of "colour" as in "colour a judgement".
Esoterically, colour veils the reality - that is the colour does not give a simple interpretation of the reality.
But then as Masons we are right up with unveiling.
Cheers
Russell
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Jul 10, 2005 1:00:51 GMT
This exchange has been instructive in the metalanguage of symbol: a symbol, such as the colour green, only has meaning when we invest it with meaning, and if it is to be read successfully, it must be determined which system it is to be understood in terms of.
Green only signifies Venus in an astrological and Hermetic reading. In another it signifies life; in a third, putrefaction. In the Islamic system, it signifies royalty, and in general suggests the Islamic faith.
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Jul 11, 2005 10:06:04 GMT
let's come back to the trees. In the Bible is written
And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis, 2,9)
It is not possible that two different things are in the same portion of space at the same time. So, I think that we are considering two faces of the same coin.
In other words, I am saying that the knowledge of good and evil is the knowledge that let us gain the life. Plato wrote that the Sophia is the knowledge of good and evil, and it is the science of the initiates. It is also called the language of the birds, and let me remind the birds which are on the trees, as we are told by the gospel of Luke. The birds are the intermediate between us and the GAOTU; to speak their language means to find the lost word, he ability to talk with the GAOTU directly, to know him, what he/she is in essence, to be one with him/her.
How to achieve this aim? The subsequent symbols point the way out.
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Post by maat on Jul 13, 2005 0:05:11 GMT
Giovanni
Ever considered that the 'tree of life' could be the spinal column (the sushumna) around which the positive and negative energies (Ida and Pingala) play.
The 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil' would be the Ida and Pingala energies. From this analogy they are sharing the same trunk. These energies move in a serpentine fashion - the serpent? When the Kundalini, the Master energy, is raised we attain Cosmic or Godly Consciousness.... it all fits quite neatly with the Bible story when you think of it.
Think about the three columns in the Caballah the three columns in the Lodge, not to mention many of the unusual modes of dress and signs a Mason would come across - think of the third sign.....!
Maat
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giovanni
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Post by giovanni on Jul 14, 2005 4:39:21 GMT
Giovanni Think about the three columns in the Caballah the three columns in the Lodge, not to mention many of the unusual modes of dress and signs a Mason would come across - think of the third sign.....! In the Italian masonic tradition there's no third pillar, so I ask the Bren. to enlighten me.
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Post by taylorsman on Jul 14, 2005 5:09:37 GMT
Three Pillars? Ionic, Doric, Corinithan. Wisdom, Strength and Beauty. WM, SW, JW.
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Post by hollandr on Jul 14, 2005 5:17:47 GMT
Is it significant that Wisdom comes before Strength?
Does that not say that Love comes before Will?
Cheers
Russell
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