Thread-Spirit: The Symbolism of Knotting and the Fiber Arts by Mark Siegeltuch
Written after years of studying both the textile arts and traditional symbolism, The Thread-Spirit is a compendium of the wisdom of both essential human exercises. Inasmuch as we express who we are through what we create and use, through our technologies, we are the human beings described in this book.
The technology of traditional societies is based on the application of metaphysical principles to practical ends. This is particularly clear in the case of the fiber arts— knotting, weaving, spinning, basketry, and the like—where a worldwide symbolism exists which appears to have its origins in Paleolithic times.
There is an underlying historical continuity to this symbolism that survives, but has been forced underground with the rise of rationalism. These traditions survived into the 20th century in more remote parts of the world, but they were generally no longer understood. The Thread-Spirit attempts to examine the traditions, as they existed and continue to exist, and reunite them with their ancient meanings.
The technology of traditional societies is based on the application of metaphysical principles to practical ends. This is particularly clear in the case of the fiber arts— knotting, weaving, spinning, basketry, and the like—where a worldwide symbolism exists which appears to have its origins in Paleolithic times. Dr. A. K. Coomaraswamy referred to this symbolic complex as the sutratman (thread-spirit) doctrine and it is well documented by the literary, artistic and archeological remains.
Using a consistent set of symbols, our ancient ancestors sought to explain the relations governing the social order, the workings of the cosmos, and the mysteries surrounding birth and rebirth. The eye of the needle, for example, was understood as the entrance to heaven while the thread was the Spirit that sought to return to its Source. Creation is a kind of sewing in this version of the story as God wields his solar, pneumatic needle. Man is conceived as a jointed creature similar to a marionette or puppet but held together by an invisible thread-spirit. When this thread is cut, a man dies, comes “unstrung,” and his bones separate at the joints.
It was the American art historian, Carl Schuster who first discovered the significance of body joints in this symbolism and he believed that it was based on an analogy with the plant world where regeneration is possible from a shoot or sprout. Body joints play a role in such diverse matters as labyrinths, continuous-line drawings, cat’s cradles, dismemberment and cannibalism, and various rituals meant to ensure rebirth and the continuity of the social order.
Joints were also conceived as the knots of the body. It was originally believed that the spirit of a specific ancestor inhabited each body joint. The body as a whole served as a map of the social order, and by extension, the cosmic order. Joints were later used for counting, an extension of their original role in identifying social relations. Joints were replaced or supplemented by bones or knots and by Neolithic times we find a widespread distribution of knot technologies for counting and record keeping. The Inca quipu is the best-known example. These technologies preceded and supported the growth of numbers. Knotted cords were also used for measurement and for teaching music.
Cosmologically, it was believed that the earth turned around a pole (axis mundi) and this provided a model that was applied to all devices or natural phenomena that rotated (spindle whorls, drills, mills, wheels, whirlpools, whirlwinds, etc.). Because the seasons were brought on by this rotation, these devices became models of birth and death, time and Eternity.
Interlacing and knotting were meant to signify marriage bonds within the group and an especially elaborate symbolism was worked out to specify these relations. It was Carl Schuster’s belief that this symbolism was derived from the use of tailored fur garments, man’s first clothing.
There is much more to this story but what is clear is that there is an underlying historical continuity to this symbolism that survived from the earliest times until it was weakened by writing and finally forced underground with the rise of rationalism, at least in the West. These traditions survived longer in the East and into the 20th century in more remote parts of the world, but they were generally no longer understood.
- The Thread-Spirit Doctrine : An Ancient Metaphor in Religion and Metaphysics with
Prehistoric Roots by Mark Siegeltuch - The symbolism connected with the fiber arts is remarkably consistent throughout the world and
contains a number of common themes of which the most important is the “Thread-Spirit” doctrine. The great expositor and interpreter of these matters was the art historian, folklorist, and metaphysician, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) who first identified the doctrine and who applied the Sanskrit term sutratman to the entire tradition.
Despite its name, which is derived from the Sanskrit words sutra (thread) and Atman (Spirit), the Thread-Spirit doctrine is found in many cultures—Hindu, Islamic, European, Chinese, Amer- Indian—suggesting great antiquity. The doctrine, once understood, gives meaning to the varied symbolism derived from the related arts of knotting, sewing, spinning and weaving. The doctrine is expressed both in language and art and appears in various forms in the folktales of the world as well as in the sacred writings of the world’s major religions.
- This paper will explain the doctrine and some related symbols and attempt to demonstrate its
antiquity and distribution. It’s Paleolithic origins will be the subject of a separate paper.
The Solar Breath In the Rg Veda (1.115.1) we read: “The Sun is the Spirit (Atman) of all that is in motion or at rest” and that the Sun connects all things to Himself by means of a thread of spiritual light. It is important to understand that these are symbolic, not scientific statements. The Sun refers to God, and not the sun we see with our eyes. In all the contexts in which “Sun” has been capitalized the reference is, of course, to the “inward Sun” as distinguished from the “outward sun, which receives its power and lustre from the inward” The traditional distinction of intelligible from sensible, invisible from visible “suns” is essential to any adequate understanding of “solar mythologies” and “solar cults.” This “solar breath” is not to be identified with our physical breath that depends upon it. The invisible world of the Spirit can only be explained by analogies rooted in the world of the senses. Plotinus expresses the same vision in the Enneads (vi.4.3): But are we to think of this Authentic Being as, itself, present, or does it remain detached, omnipresent in the sense only that powers from it enter everywhere? Under the theory of presence of powers, souls are described as rays; the source remains self-locked and these are flung forth to impinge upon particular living things. God is connected to each of his own by a ray or thread of pneumatic light upon which life depends. This ray is bestowed at birth as a gift and revoked at death, while abiding eternally in divinis. All things under the Sun are in the power of death. In the Upanishads we find that the “Sun’s light has many rays (sons)” and that “He fills the world by a division of his essence.” More succinctly: “God is one in himself, many in his children” and “He divides himself while remaining undivided.” We alone experience the division. The solar ray is our guide to salvation, the road back to the Source. The generative power of the Sun is central to many traditions from the Pharaoh who “came forth from the Rays” to the French Sun King. Here the life-giving blessing of the Sun is extended like a hand toward Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family .
- Puppets of God
In an essay titled, “‘Spiritual Paternity’ and the ‘Puppet Complex,’” Coomaraswamy explains the
metaphysical ideas behind the symbolism of puppetry.
Puppets seem to move of themselves, but are really activated and controlled from within by the thread from which they are superseded from above, and only move intelligently in obedience to this leash: and it is in this automatism, or appearance of free will and self-motion, that the puppet most of all resembles man.
We are the puppets or toys of God, an image taken up by Plato in Laws where the Athenian explains true education.
Let us suppose that each of us living creatures is an ingenious puppet of the gods, whether contrived by way of a toy of theirs or for some serious purpose—for as to what we know nothing; but this we do know, that these inward affections of ours, like sinews or cords, drag us along and, being opposed to each other, pull one against the other to opposite actions; and herein lies the dividing line between goodness and badness. For, as our argument declares, there is one of these pulling forces which every man should always follow and nohow leave hold of, counteracting thereby the pull of the other sinews: it is the leading-string, golden and holy of “calculation,” entitled the [common law of the individual]; and whereas the other cords are hard and steely and of every possible shape and semblance, this one is flexible and
uniform, since it is of gold. With that most excellent leading-string of the law we must needs co-operate always; for since calculation is excellent, but gentle rather than forceful, its leading-string needs helpers to ensure that the golden kind within us may vanquish the other kinds.
If we are the puppets of God then we ought to act accordingly, following His direction and not our own urgings. We should avoid the disorder created by our desires that pull us where they will and instead, hang onto this “golden cord.”
Our powers of perception, expression, thought and action must be guided by Reason; not what we mean by reason—which Plato calls opinion and assigns a merely pragmatic value—but rather the Divinity within us. The Stoic Marcus Aurelius was of the same mind.
Become conscious at last that thou hast in thyself something better and more godlike than that which causes the bodily passions and turns thee into a mere marionette. What is my mind now occupied with? Fear? Suspicion? Concupiscence? Some other thing?
It is God who controls the central cord that guides the others.
Bear in mind that what pulls the strings is the Hidden thing within us: that makes our speech, that our life, that, one may say, makes the man Our goal is to identify with the true source of all perception and action and so become a witness to our own fate. This is accomplished through a kind of automatism, not of the mechanical kind, but through grace—both spiritual and physical — as in the case of the Balinese . It is by means of this automatism that an intelligent and spontaneous life may be lived; an active life in the moment, in preference to a passive subjection to one’s emotions. …..
Coomaraswamy comments on the symbolism associated with primitive looms: In weaving, the warp threads are the “rays” of the Intelligible Sun (in many primitive looms they proceed from a single point), and the woof is the Primary Matter of the cosmic “tissue .”
The tree or pole to which the warp threads are attached is conceived as a Sun Pillar, Shaft of Light, World Tree, or Sacrificial Post, and serves as the axis mundi through which the ethereal countercurrents flow from Heaven to earth and back. It is only appropriate that these currents or rays—the source of all being— are physically attached to the weaver, whose work becomes an act of creation in the fullest sense.
Vertical and horizontal looms vary in design but their construction is equally symbolic. Horizontal looms are often pegged into the ground while vertical ones are sometimes hung from trees. Both kinds may employ one or more beams to provide the necessary tension for the woof threads. It is no coincidence that the word “beam” refers both to a shaft of light and to a piece of wood, with the attendant notion that the fire is immanent in the wood.
René Guénon investigated the manifold but consistent symbolism of weaving in the Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist and Taoist traditions in an article entitled “The Symbolism of Weaving.” He noted the close relationship between sacred books (texts) and cloth (textiles). The Indian sacred books are composed of sutras (threads) and the same may be said for the Koran where the Arabic word sûrat refers to the chapters. A book is formed of threads in the same way a cloth is. These ideas derive from a more ancient tradition in which knotted cords were used for mnemonic purposes.
Continuing the analogy, the Chinese associate the warp threads (king) with a fundamental text and the weft (wei) with the commentaries on it. In Hindu terminology the shruti or fruit of direct
inspiration is associated with the warp and the smriti, the product of reflection and commentary on the text, is associated with the weft. More generally, the warp threads represent the divine,
immutable element and the weft threads the human and contingent. It is the coming and going of the shuttle that makes possible the application of eternal principles to given conditions.
[The symbolism of weaving] is also used to represent the world, or more precisely, the aggregate of all the worlds, that is, the indefinite multitude of the states or degrees that constitute universal Existence.
What begins as an ideal pattern unextended in time and space, becomes fabric by the actions of the weaver, who creates a reflection of the divine prototype. Weaving, like all the traditional arts, has both a spiritual and material component and represents the re-creation of things as they were in the beginning. The intersection of a warp thread with a woof thread forms a cross, representing the juncture of the Universal Spirit—which links all possible states of being—with a particular state of existence. Each human existence results from the intersection of these two threads.
The warp thread also represents the active or masculine principle (Purusha in the Hindu tradition) while the weft represents the passive or feminine (Prakriti). Or astronomically, the warp threads may be conceived as solar (direct) light and the weft lunar (reflected) light. In either case, what is stressed is creation from complementary or contrary forces. One interesting application of this symbolism is found in the field of number theory, formulated in ancien times and bequeathed to the Middle Ages through the quadrivium.
By definition the square is four equal straight lines joined at right angles. But a more important definition is that the square is the fact that any number [sic], when multiplied by itself, becomes a square. Multiplication is symbolized by a cross, and this graphic symbol itself is an accurate definition of multiplication. When we cross a vertical with a horizontal giving these line-movements equal units of length, say 4 for example, we say that this crossing generates a square surface: a tangible, measurable entity coming into existence as a result of crossing. The principle can be transferred symbolically to the crossing of any contraries such as the crossing of the male and female which gives birth to the individual being, or the crossing of a warp and weft which gives birth to a cloth surface, or the crossing of darkness and light which gives birth to tangible, visible form, or the crossing of matter and spirit which gives birth to life itself. So the crossing is an action-principle which the square perfectly represents.
Carl Schuster was interested in crossed figures and collected examples from many cultures and time periods . He believed such figures represented the first Man and Woman of the
tribe or group—like Adam and Eve—and their crossing signified the act of creation .
The same symbols ares used by the Dogon here few examples:
The point of crossing was the center or navel of the world where creation began. In later periods, a square or checkerboard was placed at this point and used for divination or gambling .
Crossed male and female figures would appear to be the root of the idea that all creation comes from contraries. It is at heart, a social idea, describing the generation of society and the cosmos from a First Man and a First Woman. Time does not permit an expansion of this important idea which is addressed in a separate paper, “Crossed Figures.”
If the intersection of each warp and weft thread represents a human existence then we need only recall the Njals Saga to understand the significance of loom weights, used to provide tension for warp threads in some vertical looms. ….
The lingam of the Shaivism tradition is a short cylindrical pillar-like symbol of Shiva, made of stone, metal, gem, wood, clay or precious stones.[ According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the lingam is a votary aniconic object found in the sanctum of Shiva temples and private shrines that symbolizes Shiva and is “revered as an emblem of generative power”. It often is found within a lipped, disked structure that is an emblem of goddess Shakti and this is called the yoni. Together they symbolize the union of the feminine and the masculine principles, and “the totality of all existence”, states Encyclopædia Britannica.[
According to Alex Wayman, given the Shaiva philosophical texts and spiritual interpretations, various works on Shaivism by some Indian authors “deny that the linga is a phallus”.[] To the Shaivites, a linga is neither a phallus nor do they practice the worship of erotic penis-vulva, rather the linga-yoni is a symbol of cosmic mysteries, the creative powers and the metaphor for the spiritual truths of their faith. For example, according to Swami Sivananda, the corelation of the linga and phallus is wrong; the Lingam is only the external symbol of Lord Shiva’s formless being. He further states that it is the light or power of consciousness, manifesting from Sadashiva.]
The popular belief is that the Siva Lingam represents the phallus or the virile organ, the emblem of the generative power or principle in nature. This is not only a serious mistake but a grave blunder. In the post-Vedic period, the Linga has become symbolic of the generative power of Lord Siva. Linga is the differentiating mark. It is certainly not the sex mark.[34]
According to Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, the lingam signifies three perfections of Shiva.The upper oval part of the Shivalingam represents Parashiva and lower part of the Shivalingam, called the pitha, represents Parashakti.[35] In Parashiva perfection, Shiva is the absolute reality, the timeless, formless and spaceless. In Parashakti perfection, Shiva is all-pervasive, pure consciousness, power and primal substance of all that exists and it has form unlike Parashiva which is formless. According to Rohit Dasgupta, the lingam symbolizes Shiva in Hinduism, and it is also a phallic symbol. Since the 19th century, states Dasgupta, the popular literature has represented the lingam as the male sex organ. This view contrasts with the traditional abstract values they represent in Shaivism wherein the lingam-yoni connote the masculine and feminine principles in the entirety of creation and all existence.
According to Sivananda Saraswati, Siva Lingam speaks unmistakable language of silence: “I am one without a second, I am formless”.Siva Lingam is only the outward symbol of formless being, Lord Siva, who is eternal, ever-pure, immortal essence of this vast universe, who is your innermost Self or Atman, and who is identical with the Supreme Brahman, states Sivananda Saraswati.
See also the thread of life as explained in Tibetan Buddhism in The inner Kalachakra
Kalachakra is a system of highest tantra practice for overcoming the limitations imposed by historical, astrological, and biological cycles so as to become a Buddha for the benefit of all. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other great Tibetan teachers have been conferring the Kalachakra initiation in the West, empowering prepared practitioners to engage in its meditations. Large numbers of people also attend this initiation as interested observers and gain inspiration for their spiritual growth. Introduction to the Kalachakra Initiation explains on a practical level and in everyday language the theory of tantra, the vows, commitments, and their implications, the factors to consider in deciding if one is ready to attend a Kalachakra initiation as a participant, how to visualize during the initiation, and the most important thoughts and feelings for participants and observers at each step of the empowerment. In preparing this guidebook, Alexander Berzin has done a great service to everyone interested in the Kalachakra initiation. It will help people to prepare for the ceremony and understand the essential points of each step of the procedure. Read here
Or the kunalinini principles used also in Alchemy in the West or the Kareeza practices used in Europe in 17th century but were corrupted by elites of Western Secret societies in 18th and 19th century till now.
This can be expained by the double meaning of androgyny and as the work with Mercury in alchemy …etc. This is the path as Titus Burckardt explains to The Ascent of the Soul through the spheres
These practices can be resumed very clearly by the path which dante takes in the Purgatorio climbing the mountain of Virtues
This is also expain by Hildegard of Bingen with Viriditas and Ordo Virtutum
In Sufism and Islam, Rumi explains this principle in the Body is like Mary
Look also: Metaphysical Order in Sufism
Note 2: The Cross of St Brigid
At the birth of Saint Aid, his head had hit a stone, creating a hole that collected rainwater that cured all ailments and because of this, the stone was identified with the tradition of bullaun stones. In Irish it is a bullán or bollán. The name is related to the word bowl and French bol. Bullaun stones have depressions that are often filled with water.
Local folklore often attaches religious or magical significance to bullaun stones, such as the belief that the rainwater that collects in a stone’s cavity has healing properties. Bullaun stones are found in Ireland. Two bullauns have also been found in Scotland. They later became known as Butterlumps.
Dromagorteen’s bullaun is directly adjacent to a Fulacht Fia. A Fulacht Fia can be translated as “burnt mound”, in England also known as Burnt Mound and in Scandinavia these structures are known as Skärvstenshögar. Fulacht Fias are interpreted as the remains of breweries, cooking places, textile production facilities or saunas.
The original purpose of the bullauns is unknown, but they have an undeniable connection with water and the worship of Brigid or Brigit: a goddess of pre-Christian Ireland and member of the Tuatha Dé Danann (the people of the goddess Danu). Her name is interpreted as “the bright one”, “the shining one” or “the warrior”.
Imbolc is dedicated to this goddess of light. It is one of the four major festivals of the pre-Christian Celtic calendar associated with the fertility of the earth. Imbolc means ‘in the belly’, which refers to pregnancy or conception (birth occurs at a different time, during the festival of Beltane). Imbolc is traditionally celebrated on the eve of February 1.
Brigid is associated with wisdom, poetry, healing, protection, blacksmithing and domesticated animals. Cormac’s glossary, written in the 9th century by Christian monks, says that Brigid was “the goddess worshiped by poets” and that she had two sisters: Brigid the healer and Brigid the blacksmith.
This suggests that she was a triple deity. Also called Bríg, Bríde or Brighde, she is associated with the British Celtic goddess Brigantia.
Decorating the well or well, tying strips of cloth around trees at healing springs, and other methods of beseeching or honoring Brigid are still prevalent in Celtic areas. In Scotland these wells are known as ‘Clootie Wells’, sometimes dedicated to saints other than Saint Brigid and in pre-Christian times to a goddess or local nature spirit. There is almost always a tree next to the source, the Clootie Tree. The sites were historically visited before sunrise and on holy festival days.
As one of the most popular goddesses worshiped by Celtic peoples, including the Druids, many of Brigid’s stories and symbols survive in the character of Saint Brigid.
Saint Brigid is venerated in churches all over Ireland and she gives her name to many a village ‘Kilbride’, which literally means ‘Church of Brigid’. Imbolc was later incorporated into Irish Christianity as Saint Brigid’s Day with the highlight of the festival being the Roman Catholic Candlemas.
Saint Brigid was given land to set up her monastery in Kildare. The story goes that the local chieftain would only give her the land covered by her cloak. Then she spread her cloak on the floor. The shocked chieftain watched as the cloak miraculously began to spread. The chieftain begged her to stop it for fear of losing all his lands. She did so and the land under her cloak became the land for her monastery. Another story tells that the ground was leveled by her spreading mantle to form the Kildare plain known as the Curragh.
For centuries, pilgrims visit the Holy Well in the churchyard on Faughart Hill, believed to be the birthplace of Saint Brigid, and they also visit Saint Brigid’s Stream (where a series of penances are performed). The stones have signs associated with the story of Brigid. Like the way she tried to escape from a lover. She pulled out one of her eyes to make herself less attractive.
The stones have names that can be translated as the kneeling stone, the hoof stone, the waist stone, and the eye stone (the stone that healed the eye that took them out).
It is believed that the stones have the power to cure certain ailments. At the old stations, numbers 6 to 10, there are some very old-looking stones. Station 6 is called the Hoof Stone (Cloch na Crúibe or horseshoe stone), a horseshoe shape can be seen in it. Station 7, known as the Kneeling Stone, is actually a double bullaun stone. The stone at Station 8 (The Waist Stone) appears to be a mushroom stone, its shape being caused by water erosion and by the pilgrims rubbing it. Station 9 could cure eye problems and station 10 (Headstone) has a bowl with white circle around it.
Saint Brigid died on February 1, 525 and this date is still celebrated as Saint Brigid’s Day.
The holiday and eve of this day, Saint Brigid’s Eve, is surrounded by various customs and rituals. Sean O Suilleabhain, the archivist of the National Folklore Collection, recorded many pilgrimages to sacred springs, sacred streams and ruins for Saint Brigid.
The traditions of the feast are included in both the National Folklore Collection (NFC) and the Schools Collection.
For example, it is customary to hang a cloth or ribbon outside before sunrise to catch dew. It was especially useful for head pain such as headaches, earaches or toothaches. A symbolic extra place may be arranged for the visiting saint or a bed of straw may be prepared for her. These places are inspected in the morning to look for the traces of the bride’s wand or especially the woman’s footprints. This seems to point to Christian-Pagan synchronism
During the festivities, Brigid was usually represented by a doll, dressed in white, with a crystal on her chest. This doll, usually a Corn Dolly, was carried in procession by girls who were also dressed in white. Sometimes it involved dressing part of a churn (a household item used by our ancestors in the production of butter) as an effigy of the saint. Other materials are also used to make Brigid’s doll.
The most famous is Brigid’s Cross (also known as Cros Bríde, Crosóg Bríde or Bogha Bríde). These crosses are usually made of straw or rushes. Families gathered rushes on January 31, the eve of Brigid’s feast day. After an evening feast, the head of the household supervised the rest of the family as they wove crosses from the collected material. These crosses were left out at night to receive Brigid’s blessing and crosses were hung in the main residence, outbuildings and stables on February 1.
The exact shape of a Brigid’s Cross varies greatly. The National Museum of Ireland has identified seven basic categories of crosses: the diamond type (which is divided into single or multiple), the “swastika” type (with four or three arms), the wheel type, the interlaced type, the traditional Latin cross made of straw or rushes, bare wooden crosses in Latin or Greek style tied with straw and a category of “miscellaneous”.
The Biddy Boys are a group of men who dress up in straw hats and women’s clothes and go through houses with a straw doll or Brideog, also called Biddy. They demand entry into the house and entertain the residents with music and song, then demand a reward. A short documentary from 1965 can be seen here. A local man, Mr. O’Siochru, outlines the traditions related to the Biddy Boys, the dolls and costume and the Brideog are traditionally made here with their grandmothers’ hair. A Brideog is also formed by a carved turnip that is painted with soot or the doll is made of rags.
The tradition of the Biddy boys is largely confined to South Kerry, parts of County Cork, County Kildare and County Fermanagh.
More generally, children are going around the houses nowadays. Just as in the Netherlands children go around the houses and sing songs with Sint Maarten, there are also rhymes with St. Brigid’s Day:
“Here comes poor Brigid both deaf and blind,
Put your hand in your pocket and give her a coin
If you haven’t a penny, a half penny will do
If you haven’t a halfpenny god bless you”
Something for poor Biddy
Her Clothes are torn
Her shoes are worn
Something for poor Biddy
Here is Brigit dressed in white
Give her a penny for her tonight
She is deaf, she is dumb
She cannot talk without a tongue
For Gods sake, give her some”
Pancakes are traditionally eaten on Saint Brigid’s Eve. There was an abundance of butter and milk on the table and oats (or cake) thrown at the door. There used to be no ceilings in the houses so it was customary to fix the Brigid’s Cross to the inside of the reeds and new ones were added year after year. If they could no longer be preserved, they should not be thrown away under any circumstances. They had to either be buried (to give a blessing to the crops) or burned in the fire.
There was a tradition in parts of Antrim of the excess rushes being formed into a ring and hung on the spinning wheel to bring a blessing on the work for the coming year.
Sometimes you have to look for the place where Saint Brigid knelt and left imprints of her knees in the rock. There are many Saint Brigid wells and offerings are left here. This often involves rags and ribbons around the source. Traditionally, rags were used to wash the affected part of the body with water from the well and then tied to the tree or bush. As the patch worsened, the pain faded. In some parts of Ireland, if the rag is tied to the tree, the tree itself would take the pain of the pilgrim…
The ritual use of some bullaun stones continued well into the Christian period and many are found at early churches, such as the Deer Stone in Glendalough, County Wicklow. The ‘Deer Stone’ is located next to the main ecclesiastical settlement in Glendalough. It is located on the south side of the Glenealo River, directly across from the ruins of the Church of St. Ciarán.
- The Loom of Life
The sutratman doctrine has managed to survive among a few remote peoples like the Kogi of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Columbia. Weaving and spinning are spiritual activities and occupy a central role in the religious life of the Kogi. Men do the weaving, producing simple, course, cotton garments on an upright loom for themselves and their families.
The Kogi are well aware of this technical simplicity and soberness of their dress.
Almost all their material possessions, all the artifacts and utensils, are sturdy and
devoid of ornamentation. The pottery, the few household goods, and even the
houses themselves are bare and undifferentiated. And with an aloof expression their owners will say, “Yes, our things are simple, but they live.”
Despite this Shaker-like aesthetic, the objects of daily life are symbolically meaningful, acting as microcosmic models of the universe, the inner life, and the afterlife. …these objects or phenomena contain a mass of condensed information, a wealth of associations and meanings that make of each object a storehouse of detailed codes that are linked into interrelated concepts. These objects or phenomena, then, “speak” to the beholder; they can even answer his questions and guide his actions; they are his memory, his points of reference.
The spindle, the loom and the act of weaving itself are central symbols to the Kogi and contain
multiple meanings. This is in keeping with the nature of all traditional symbolism where, in the
words of Réne Guénon, “the same symbol is always applicable to different levels in virtue of the correspondences that exist between them.”
Among the Kogi, this symbolism is known to everyone but is understood in depth by only a few.
For this reason, a loom is kept in the temple and used for teaching purposes by Kogi priests. An examination of the symbolism of the spindle and loom reveals roots firmly within the ancient sutratman doctrine.
In the Kogi creation myth, it was the Great Mother who first taught men to weave. In the beginning she pushed an upright spindle into the newly created earth in the center of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This formed the central post or axis mundi. Then, drawing a length of yarn from the spindle she drew a circle around the spindle whorl and said, “this shall be the land of my children.”
The spindle serves as a model of the cosmos; the flat whorl is the earth on which rests a coneshaped body of white yarn wound around the world axis. The yarn, described as the “thought of
the sun,” represents life, light and the masculine seminal element of fertility and growth. The white cone is divided horizontally into four ascending levels that form the Upper World. Underneath the disk rests an invisible, inverted cone of black yarn also divided into four levels that forms the corresponding Lower World. The sun, by spiraling around the world, spins the Thread of Life and twists it around the cosmic axis: during the day a left-spun white thread and during the night a rightspun black one.The Kogi loom consists of a strong rectangular frame reinforced by two cross-poles .
The structure forms a Saint Andrew’s cross (or hourglass figure) within a four-sided square framework.
A number of meanings are associated with this design. Topographically, the loom is a map of certain features of the Sierra Nevada. The four corners of the square are the four Colombian cities in the region: Santa Marta, Riohacha, Fundación and
Valledupar. The center of the square where the cross-poles meet represents the snow peaks. Other geographical landmarks such as rivers can then be located within this conceptual framework.
Anatomically the loom is a model of the human body from the shoulders to the hips. The five points where the wooden pieces are lashed together represent, from the top, the left and right shoulders, the heart in the center, and the left and right hips at the bottom. To represent a loom, a man crosses his arms over his chest with the outstretched fingers of his right hand touching his left shoulder and his left hand touching his right shoulder . This is considered a ritual posture.
See more about Kogi : Message from The Heart Of The World:
The five cross-points are also identified with the five main ceremonial centers of the Kogi founded by the five principal sons of the Mother Goddess. It is these “Lords of the World-Quarters” who rule over the five points of the loom and the human body.
The progenitive power of the solar thread is reflected in the sexual symbolism associated with
spinning and weaving. The spindle combines a “male” shaft that pierces a perforated “female”
whorl. Further, the Kogi compare the act of weaving to copulation, with the warp thread conceived as the female element and the shuttle the male. Cosmically, Father Sun as Great Wr uses a beam of impregnating light to weave on the cosmic loom or Mother. Read full paper here
- Birth from the Knee
Most of the ideas presented here are based on a simple metaphor: the equation of human
reproduction, descent, and affinity with trees and plants. We would do well to remember that
before writing externalized knowledge, the image had a fundamental role in communicating ideas.
We think in images, at least in part, and this innate capacity was used in full by our ancestors. This enables art historians, with the aid of other disciplines such as linguistics and anthropology, to venture where no written records exist. When we do find literary evidence in later periods, it sometimes gives voice to these older ideas since they persisted, though often in confused or debased forms.
Birth from the Father
The original belief was that children are born from the right knee of their father. The seed or
perhaps small child (homunculus) travels by some mysterious process into the penis from whence it is “planted” in the woman. The metaphor is consistent with ideas about how heaven (male) and earth (female) were separated in the beginning and that the rain or dew from heaven fertilizes the earth. These are the kind of binary structures that interested Claude Levi Strauss and which he used as a basis for structuralism. Another anthropologist and theorist, Gregory Bateson, has some relevant comments in his discussion of totemism:
Their ideas about nature, however fantastic, are supported by their social systems; conversely, the social system is supported by their ideas of nature. It thus becomes very difficult for the people, so doubly guided, to change their view either of nature or of the social system. For the benefits of stability, they pay the price of rigidity, living as all human beings must, in an
enormously complex network of mutually supporting presuppositions.
Another reason for conceiving of the knee as a generative organ was the significance once attached to the body joints in early times, a matter we will summarize later. The articulation of bodies, both human and animal, was related to the nodes of plants, which can be cut and replanted to grow another plant. Many myths tell of children conceived from severed fingers and toes or from seeds or plants. The knee is the most prominent joint in the body and contains synovial fluid, which was equated with the sap in trees, the juice in plants, or the sperm in humans and animals.
Most significantly, both the knee and the head played a crucial role in an ancient system of
graphical representation developed by Paleolithic peoples to express their ideas about genealogy and descent. We will begin by summarizing the elements of this iconography. I will not attempt to justify Schuster’s ideas other than to show their connection to the other ideas discussed in this paper. Interested readers can consult the Wikipedia entry on Carl Schuster for further references. Read also Schuster 1958 Genealogical Patterns Old and NewWorlds
Genealogical Iconography
Carl Schuster believed that Paleolithic peoples developed a system for illustrating their ideas about genealogy. Not a kinship system — which depicts actual relations — but an idealized system linked to certain cosmological ideas. The resulting designs were used to decorate the body, clothing, and tools. Their function was to clothe the individual in his/her tribal ancestry. The basic units of the system were conventionalized human figures, linked like paper dolls, arm to arm to depict relation within the same generation, and leg to arm to depict descent. Linked together, these human bodies formed patterns, often of astonishing complexity . Read full paper here
- The Social Symbolism of Horns
There are so few people who pay any serious attention to design as a cultural document, in a deeper, more significant sense, with a historical view, that I feel my existence is justified—or will be eventually.
Carl Schuster
The antlers and horns of animals have served a symbolic function from the earliest times. I will
summarize the existing evidence and expand it using the researches of the American art historian, Carl Schuster (1904-1969), who collected and analyzed a number of related symbols, including Yposts, two-headed figures, and shaved sticks. In this way, I hope to get at the basic ideas that lie behind the various manifestations of the symbolism of horns. Read more here
- Knots and notes
John Cargill was a leading memorial designer for the Charles G. Blake Company in Chicago. A
student of Celtic culture and an expert stone carver. In the 1930s, he wrote a number of
monographs on the art of ancient Celtic crosses.
Cargill had made a study of Celtic stone crosses and reached the conclusion that their designers used “the intervals of the musical string to fix the outlines of monuments.” These rectilinear crosses exhibited the same regularities of proportion observed in Greek temple architecture, both having been derived from the numeric intervals of the diatonic scale (Step, step, step, half-step,step, step, step, half).
Take the stretched string for example. Everyone knows that the shorter the string the higher the pitch and each note requires its appropriate length and the differences between the various lengths are called intervals. If the full string measures 90 (inches, quarters or halves) then the intervals of the Diatonic scale would be 10, 8, 4 1/2, 7 1/2, 6, 6, and 3, and these sizes have
been used in the construction of rectangles These rectangles have been used in cross design to give the ratio of width to height of the shaft.
All of this “music in stone” was in keeping with the principles of Pythagoras, who saw numbers as the basic principle of order in the universe. How the Celts came into possession of these ideas is a matter of some debate, but it can be argued that the practical applications of geometry upon which Pythagorean speculation was based are older than the philosophy itself. John Burnett makes the point that the Greeks excelled at developing theories from the practices of others. …and we can see how far the Greeks soon surpassed their teachers from a remark by Demokritos. It runs (fr. 299): “I have listened to many learned men, but no one has yet surpassed me in the construction of figures out of lines accompanied by demonstrations, not even the Egyptian arpedonapts, as they call them.” Now the word αρπİįοναπIJηı is not Egyptian but Greek. It means “cord fastener,” and it is a striking coincidence that the oldest Indian geometrical treatise is called the Sulvasutras or “rules of the cord.Once knotted, a cord can be chalked, hung by a weight, and then snapped like a stringed instrument to mark a stone for cutting.
Certainly such practices were not common but it is worth noting that knotted cords were used in India and elsewhere as mnemonic devices to teach sacred music. Cargill’s findings might be considered as interesting, but of no particular importance, were it not for the deeper connections they reveal between knots and joints. In fact, his findings prove to be the tip
of a very large iceberg. The human hand was also used as an aid for teaching music in China, Japan, India, and among the Arabs and Jews. References to the practice in Europe date from classical times and numerous illustrations of the different techniques employed are preserved in manuscripts and early printed works. But one of the most ubiquitous images of the Middle Ages and Renaissance relating to memory and the learning of music is the so-called Guidonian
hand, associated with the eleventh-century music theorist and pedagogue, Guido of Arezzo, who is credited with developing modern staff notation where lines signify pitches a third apart and a method of sight-singing (solmization) that became associated with a hand that later bore his name.
A 17th century German manuscript, written in Latin, uses the joints as well as the tips of the fingers and thumb to depict the syllables used in solmization
Finger joints are probably man’s oldest memory aid. From an original association with ancestors and kinship, they ultimately externalized as knotted cords and used for a wide variety of purposes including accounting, geometry, and apparently, the encoding and teaching of music. Read full paper here
- Sex, Gender and the Androgyne:A Metaphysical, Linguistic and Anthropological View
This paper will examine the concept of androgyny from a metaphysical, linguistic and
anthropological perspective. Androgyny has often been represented by the figure of the
hermaphrodite, a human with both male and female physical characteristics. I hope to show that androgyny originated first as a social idea and later as a metaphysical explanation for cosmology, creation, and the relationship.
Androgyne and Hermaphrodite
The word “androgyne” is a combination of the Greek words for man (andro-) and woman (gyné). The word comes into English via the Latin word androgynus. The word “hermaphrodite” is derived from Greek god, Hermaphroditos, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, whose body was merged with the nymph Salmacis to achieve a more perfect form with both male and female attributes. Like many Greek myths the earliest forms are lost to us but we do have evidence that the idea of dual sexuality has some antiquity in Greece.
The oldest traces of the cult in Greek countries are found in Cyprus. Here, according to Macrobius (Saturnalia, iii. 8), there was a bearded statue of a male Aphrodite, called Aphroditus by Aristophanes. Philochorus in his Atthis (ap. Macrobius loc. cit.) further identified this divinity, at whose sacrifices men and women exchanged garments, with the Moon. A terracotta plaque from the 7th century BC depicting Aphroditos was found in Perachora, which suggests it was an archaic Greek cult.
Both the androgyne and the hermaphrodite represent a common idea expressed in medieval and Renaissance alchemy by the figure of the “Rebis” (from the Latin res bina, “double matter”), depicted as a double-headed figure . The Rebis was the end product of the “Great Work” in which opposing qualities were reunited. This “Chemical Wedding” was a union of opposites: hot and dry sulphur and cold and moist mercury where the color red represented the male and the color white represented the female parts. Another common element in the symbolism was the depiction of the Sun (male) and Moon (female) above, or in the hands of the figure.
…
The androgynous figure does represent a kind of marriage in religious, metaphysical and
alchemical thought but the idea is not a social one. It is an ontology or more properly, a
pneumatology, in which the psychic nature of the individual is represented as two “souls” which
are reflexions of the role of humans as mediators between the world of the senses and God. To
achieve salvation the lower soul must be subordinated to the higher thus revealinig the Divinity
within us. In the eastern traditions this is referred to as “non-attachment”.
The social ideas of early humans underwent a transformation in Neolithic times with the
emergence of writing and the breakdown of tribalism in certain parts of the world. What is
essentially a social identity becomes an individual one. Writing allowed a measure of detachment which made these older ideas conscious for the first time but which turned them into religious doctrines and practices which came to replace the older unselfconscious tribal values. The religion of the city state could serve as a new form of tribe with more explicit beliefs and written laws. Most of the ideas and artistic concerns of the world’s major religions have roots in the tribal world but the emphasis has been transferred to the individual who must achieve salvation (rather than rebirth) through the religious teachings. The older idea of rebirth via reconnection to the body of one’s ancestors is abandoned in favor of personal resurrection. Resurrection in God made sense to newly detribalized peoples, one of the reasons that the major religions were successful in converting people from a more ancient way of life. God the Father came to replace the First. Ancestor and the religious community (the body of Christ) replaced the social body. The image of the androgyne in later periods reflects these changes.
Path to the Maypole of Wisdom 