Aristasia and the World Axis Monday, May 21 2007

Miss Alice Trent wrote:

At the heart of the question of what Aristasia actually is lies the concept of the World Axis, common to all traditions and integral to the most fundamental traditional symbols, such as the wheel, the pyramid, the fireplace and chimney, the bridge and so forth.

The World Axis passes through all levels of being, linking the lower levels to the higher and eventually all to the Divine. In Telluria human beings are the central or Axial beings. Because they are on the Axis, they are capable of rising above their human state or of falling below it. Animals, fairies and other non-axial beings - including “titans” - the inhabitants of temporal paradises - cannot rise or fall; they can only conform to the laws of their particular being.

My argument has essentially been that Aristasians, like humans, are Axial beings. Therefore their world is a higher plane of being than ours, situated upwards on the World-Axis. Its superiority is evidenced in the various points brought forward by Miss Lovatt.

Telluria, since the patriarchal revolutions of the Iron Age (I use this term as meaning the fourth and lowest point of an Historical Cycle, not in the modern archaeological sense), has been increasingly governed by the masculine principle, traditionally symbolised by the planet Mars. In other words, conflict and discord, as opposed to concord and harmony. Aristasia continues to be governed by the feminine principle, symbolised by Venus - love and concord.

Of course, all seven “planetary” principles exist in all worlds and all are necessary - though obviously in Aristasia the Martial or Vikhelic principle is not associated with masculinity, since masculinity does not exist there.

This in our view is a greater perfection than that of Telluria. While war and violence have been at the centre of most Tellurian history in its Iron Age, this has not been the case in Aristasia.

Aristasia is nonetheless in its own Iron Age, and is less perfect than it was in earlier times, though still much more perfect than Telluria.

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More Temples Wednesday, Apr 25 2007

Following on from the previous post on the symbolism of temples, here are two more examples of the tiered temple, the first from India, the second from Mexico. Tellurian scholars usually consider such cultural similarity at widely diverse places as evidence of an ancient connection between the two areas - but rather it is evidence of the universality of true traditional symbolism!

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The Symbolism of the Temple Wednesday, Apr 25 2007

The Temple shares the symbolism of the mountain as Centre and axis of the world. Many ancient temple forms represent the mountain with its stages of ascent — Babylonian and Sumerian ziggurats, the tiered, pyramidial Indian temple and the multiple-roofed pagoda are examples. All these forms go back to matriarchal times. This is an image of the cosmos, ascending through higher and higher levels of reality to the pure and absolute Reality. Often there would be seven levels, ruled by the seven planetary principles or the seven colours of the spectrum, and therefore by the seven great Janyati.

The ritual founding of a Temple re-enacts the Sacrifice of the Daughter, for the spiritual fruits of the Temple, like the the apples of the Tree of Life, have their roots in this Act. An image of the hanged Inanna was sometimes built into the altar itself. In patriarchal times, this degenerated into an actual blood-sacrifice — either human or animal — at the founding of a temple. This symbolism is also important when the Temple or Mountain is seen as a microcosm of the universe, for it is the Daughter’s sacrifice which makes possible the existence of the world in separation from the Absolute; and also opens the Way by which we may transcend it.

See also
The Apple and the Mountain

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How Many Miles to Abolan? Wednesday, Apr 18 2007

How many miles to Abolan?
Three score and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
If thy heels be fleet and light
You’Il be there by candle-light.
(Open the gates as wide as you may
And let the Rayin’s horses pass through on their way.)

In many Tellurian versions, the Holy City of Abolan appears as the somewhat-assonant Babylon (though in other versions it is Edinburgh or some other city). This use of the Wicked City is a rather ironic, since it obscures the whole point of the rhyme. In Aristasia Abolan was the capital of the old Western Empire (Abolrai), and the name is related to Avala, the Western paradise or Isles of the Blest. Abolan is a type of the Holy City, and as such, the Heart, Centre and Temple of the surrounding land. The Journey to Abolan is, therefore, maid’s spiritual pilgrimage to the true Centre. Three score and ten, of course, is not a number picked at random, but is a symbolic length in folk-tradition for a human life.

Many of the critical junctures of life occur at the multiples of seven years: the attainment of reason at seven, temple-entry in the East at fourteen, adulthood at twenty-one, the Grand Climacteric at 49 etc. 7×10 links human life to the historical cycle (symbolised by 10). The light of a candle is a traditional image of a single human life. Thus the road to Abolan is the spiritual journey of a maid’s earthly life; a life lived in thamë, whose every activity, however apparently ‘worldly’, is related to the Centre, and whose reward is a coming-to-the-Centre. It is not, however, a reward won lightly, for she must exercise skill and speed in order to attain the Goal.

This idea brings us to the final two lines. They are placed in brackets because they are used only when ‘Abolan’ is played as a game. The Rayin (queen) represents the human soul, and her horses are the various powers and tendencies of the soul which must be disciplined and harnessed in order to attain the Goal. Two players (they may or may not be children) choose the names of ‘opposites’ such as gold and silver, day and night, and then hold up their hands to form a gate. The other players form a ‘crocodile’ (the Rayin’s entourage) in front of the gate, and the rhyme is recited as an exchange between them and the gates. At the end the gates open and they pass through, but the gates come down in an attempt to trap the last player. This is the “perilous passage” motif so common in the fairy tales: the need to pass through all the dualities and oppositions of the world in order to attain the Absolute, the Oneness, which lies beyond them.

The necessity of swiftness represents spiritual skill; if the player is too slow, she will be caught, and even if she succeeds her tail may be docked by the gates (often the soul is represented by a hare or a bird). The rest of the game reinforces the concept of the conflict of opposites which creates the flux of the material world and of the perilous passage: each child, as she is caught, must choose in whispers one of the two secret names, and, having chosen, lines up behind the gate to which it belongs. When all the players have been caught there is a tug-of-war between the two sides, and sometimes the losers must run the gauntlet between the winners, who attempt to whip their legs with long grasses or thin sally (willow) switches as they pass through.

See also
Nursery Rhymes: The inner meaning

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The Heart of Dea Saturday, Apr 7 2007

Miss Sakura wrote:

I love Maria-sama na giteru more than any other. It is very pure and beautiful and it fills the soul with passion that is white and spotless, like the mountain lily. It has some Tellurian parts because it is made in Telluria, but to me it seems to be closer to our dear Motherland than any other Tellurian thing. It seems to breathe of home.

How precious it is that the school song of the Lilian Academy is a hymn to our Mother as Sai Thamë even as the whole anime is a hymn to order and comeliness and sweet, passionate innocence.

The hymn to Maria-sama’s heart also makes me want to know more about the heart of Dea. Is the Divine Heart an important thing in Aristasian thealogy?

Lhi Raya Chancandre Aquitaine responded:

In answer to Miss Sakura’s question: the heart in the human microcosm corresponds to the sun in the macrocosm. The sun incarnates for us the light-giving Spirit, the pure, radiant Centre of all being.

In each one of us, her spiritual Heart is ultimately one with Dea. That is why we greet each other with the salutation Rayati - “Hail to the sun in thee”, and why we make reverence to each other.

Yet for all this, we are imperfect beings, and we see the true Radiant Heart of the Universe in its glory and perfection only in the immaculate, loving Heart of our Mother Herself.

The term “Immaculate Heart” may be a Christian formulation, but it is entirely accurate from an Aristasian point of view, since the heart that is truly immaculate - free from any imperfection or taint - is, by definition that pure, Solar heart that we hail in each one of us, but which is occluded to a greater or lesser extent by our imperfections.

In other words, the Immaculate Heart is by definition the Divine Heart of Dea: the supernal Sun and Centre of all being: the Source of all light and all warmth; of all wisdom and all love; of all life and of existence itself.

It is in the Heart of Dea that we seek refuge, now and eternally.

Miss Sakura asked:

Most honoured Raya, thank you for answering my question. I have more questions if nobody will mind.

1. Is Mary or Maria a name of Dea in Aristasia?

2. If Maria-sama’s heart is like Sai Thame, why, although Her cloak is blue, is her inner robe and Her very heart red?

3. Why is there a flame from Her Heart?

4. Is Her heart surrounded by white roses?

Lhi Raya Chancandre Aquitaine responded:

These are very pertinent questions, Miss Sakura. I shall not take them one by one, as the issues they raise interweave and they require what might be called a compound answer.

The names Maria, Mari, Marya, Mari-Anna, and doubtless other forms are used in Aristasia for Dea the Mother; especially (but not exclusively) in Filianic contexts as meaning the Mother as opposed to the Daughter.

The Mother, Raya Marya, Dea Herself, is not Sai Thamë. Rather She is the pure untinted Light that may be seen through the seven refractions of the Great Janyati - so we may see Her in the light of Sai Thamë as this beautiful hymn does. Often She is also seen in the light of Sai Sushuri, partly because the rose is the flower both of the Mother and of Sai Sushuri. Naturally She may also be seen in the light of Sai Raya, being the Solar Mother, or of Sai Mati as the Heart-Intellect.

The use of red in the image I chose is indicative of warmth and love. The Supernal Heart, like the Sun (which it also is) has two outpourings - warmth (or Love) and light (or Intellect). The flame from the heart belongs clearly to the aspect of warmth or “burning love”, the radiance that surrounds the heart to the aspect of light.

The red robe in this particular image stresses the love, or warmth, aspect.

Let us consider another image:

Here, as you see, the cloak and veil are Thamë-blue and the robe white and gold. The heart is flaming with love, and the radiance is white and pure. This image is closer to the precise aspect of Maria-sama in our lovely hymn.

Also, you can see more clearly the white roses about Her heart. These represent love and purity, and may also represent the pure, loving souls gathered about Her loving heart. Why, after all, are we called White Roses? Interestingly Our Lady’s heart is also sometimes depicted as being surrounded by lilies.

Such images have become rare in the Tellurian West and are criticised even by believers for being “saccharine” and “sentimental”. For a critique of the debased sensibility that underlies this sort of thinking, please see the essay Groosh: that Dreadful Word.

Fortunately Japan seems relatively free from this sort of post-Eclipse perversity, and MariMite is wholly free from it, as, of course, is our beloved Motherland where the tenderest emotionality and the most profound intellectuality dwell side by side, and we are afraid of neither; where purity evokes not embarrassment and self-conscious coarseness, but reverence and love and open-hearted joy.

Lady Aquila added:

The Tellurian locus classicus for this particular heart-symbolism is M. René Guénon’s essay “Le coeur rayonnant et le coeur enflammé” ( “The radiant heart and the flaming heart” ) in Symboles fondamentaux de la Science sacrée (Fundamental Symbols of Sacred Science).

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The inwardness of Maria-sama Friday, Apr 6 2007

An episode of Maria-sama na giteru, an anime set in a Catholic girls’ school, prompted an interesting discussion.

Sushuri Madonna wrote:

I was struck by the lovely song that was sung in the closing scenes, as Sachiko-san told Yumi-san that she would certainly become her soeur: “Maria-sama no kokoro” (Lady Mary’s heart). Yumi-san comments on the fact that Maria-sama’s heart is compared to a sapphire. The other comparisons she can understand, but not this one.

In our discussion, I mentioned that the sapphire belongs to Sai Thamë. And that the love of Dea as Thamë - the Golden Order: the Azure Principle that binds each link in the Chain of Roses in love and obedience - is the great theme of the anime. The title sequence stresses the comeliness and orderliness of the “Garden of Maidens”, how neatness and harmony in dress, demeanour and movement are all-important.

Fascinated by this thought, I looked up the song and found a tentative translation of three of its five verses. I later found a score of the song and amended the translation and attempted a translation of my own of the remaining verses (three and four) - it is fortunately quite simple. Here it is:

I give it to you, with my transliteration and translation. If any of our Japanese-speakers have any corrections, please post them here! I have broken it into lines like a Western-style song-verse so that you can follow it more easily when you hear it sung in the show. Note that each syllable corresponds precisely to a beat of the tune, even when the syllables are adjacent vowels:

Maria-sama no kokoro
Sore(h)wa aozora
Watashitachi (w)o tsutsumu
Hiroi aozora

Maria-sama’s heart
That blue sky
We are enfolded
By the wide blue sky.

Maria-sama no kokoro
Sore(h)wa kashi no ki
Watashitachi (w)o mamoru
Tsuyoi kashi no ki

Maria-sama’s heart
That oak tree
We are protected
By the mighty oak.

Maria-sama no kokoro
Sore(h)wa uguisu
Watashitachi to utau
mori no uguisu

Maria-sama’s heart
That nightingale
We sing with
The woodland nightingale.

Maria-sama no kokoro
Sore(h)wa yamayuri
Watashitachi mo hoshii
Shiroi yamayuri

Maria-sama’s heart
That mountain-lily
We too desire
The white mountain lily.

Maria-sama no kokoro
Sore(h)wa safaia
Watashitachi (w)o kazaru
Hikaru safaia

Maria-sama’s heart
That sapphire
We are adorned by
The shining sapphire.

The translation is very literal and intended to help you appreciate the Japanese even if you do not know the language at all.

What struck me about this song (I am not sure if it was written for the show - I get the impression it is an independent Marian hymn) is the fact that each of the images, with the exception of the mountain-lily, is explicitly and archetypally one of the primary symbols of Sai Thamë. The canopy of the blue sky has been seen as the manifestation of the Thamë-stream since the dawn of history (in Aristasia it is especially associated with Sai Thamë in her ancient Ouranya form). The oak - the lightning-tree - is the tree of Sai Thamë par excellence. Singing and music are ruled by Sai Thamë, as is the nightingale, and the sapphire of course, is Sai Thamë’s jewel.

The lily belongs usually to the Daughter (and thus to Sai Candrë), though the mountain association gives it a Thamic element. The Council of Roses is called the Yamayurikai (Mountain Lily Society) and the school is the Lilian academy. The lily is taken in Japan as a symbol of love between girls, and in fact productions that feature feminine affection (like MariMite itself) are termed yuri (lily) as a genre.

It seems to me (though I am no thealogian) that there is no reason why an Aristasian should not sing this hymn in its entirety. It is a hymn to Dea as Sai Thamë and thus to the Eternal Harmony of the Golden Order that She rules.

And that - it seems to me - despite the fact that the protagonists are young and (as all humans are) fallible - is the deepest theme of this beautiful series.

Lieutenant Fiona Gregoire commented:

Quote:

Maria-sama no kokoro Sore(h)wa safaia Watashitachi (w)o kagiru Hikaru safaiaMaria-sama’s heart That sapphire We are adorned by The shining sapphire.

I think you meant ‘kazaru’ (to adore), rather than ‘kagiru’ (to limit).

Lady Mary’s heart, ’tis blue sky;
the blue sky that enfolds us.

Lady Mary’s heart, ’tis oak tree;
the mighty oak tree that defends us.

Lady Mary’s heart, ’tis uguisu; (1)
the forest uguisu that sings with us.

Lady Mary’s heart, ’tis mountain lily;
the white mountain lily that we long for.

Lady Mary’s heart, ’tis sapphire; (2)
the shining sapphire that adorns us.

1. A warbler, often mistaken for a nightingale. Unlike a nightingale, an uguisu does not sing at night.
2. It is worth noting that one of the ancient names of what is now Infraquirinelle (i.e. Lower Quirinelle, the island off the western Quirinelle coast) was Isle of Sapphire, though through a chain of sad incidents in a relative recent century caused the somewhat disparaging ‘infra’ to be in a preferred use by mainland dwellers.

Miss Sarah Newchurch commented:

Quote:

The lily belongs usually to the Daughter (and thus to Sai Candrë), though the mountain association gives it a Thamic element. The Council of Roses is called the Yamayurikai (Mountain Lily Society) and the school is the Lilian academy. The lily is taken in Japan as a symbol of love between girls, and in fact productions that feature feminine affection (like MariMite itself) are termed yuri (lily) as a genre

From a heraldic standpoint, a lily is often confused with (or interchangeable with) an iris. For example, the symbol of a fleur-de-lis (from French, lit. flower of lily; compare with the national emblem of Trent) was indeed a stylization of an iris. Traditionally, the three petals of an iris represented faith, valour and wisdom, and also being a symbol of a bridge between heaven and earth, or between this world and the other-world (as with rainbow), is a Thamic symbol as well as being Candric. Iris also represents the nexus between water and air elements.

Sushuri Madonna responded:

Thank you all so much for your help and corrections and for the finer translation.

Yes, of course it should have been kazaru “to adorn or ornament” and not kagiru “to limit”. It is clearly kazaru in the printed score above. I apologise for my silly mistranscription.

I noticed also that I somehow managed to edit out the “with” in my translation of the third verse. I originally wrote “We sing with the woodland nightingale”. But of course that was wrong. It is She who sings with us. Silly me again.

Just out of interest, I said “we too desire the white mountain lily”, and your better translation is “the white mountain lily that we long for”. My “too” was of course the “mo” in the original. What does the “mo” actually mean there? Is it just emphatic?

Miss Newchurch, thank you for your comments on the lily/iris. Of course this emblem on the Trentish flag is quintessentially Thamic, so it gives a strong Thamic element also to the mountain-lily reference. How fascinating.

Thank you so much, Honoured Lieutenant Fiona, for the information about the prehistory of Infraquirinelle. It is always wonderful to learn more about the Motherland’s history. “Infra” is a bit disparaging, but I always think of it as friendly. I know these things can annoy residents though - like the Westrennes who visit in Chen Avitsene and refer to it rather twee-ly as “Chen”, which annoys Westrenne-speaking Avitseneans like anything.

See also:

The Heart of Dea

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