In the Old Testament story of Genesis, God is clearly masculine and the waters, just as clearly, a regenerative feminine symbol, quickened by the spirit of God. In verses 20 : 22, God says, "...Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind; and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas and let fowl multiply in the earth." Later, when God created man in his own image, he went a step further. Verse 28 reads, "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This is, incidentally, an alternative meaning for the line from "The Fool." "At home on land, in sea or sky" can be read as "Man." Indeed, "The Fool" says, "I am Man." The problem is that Mankind has failed to live up to God's blessing. He's multiplied well enough and forced his will on most of all the other creatures, but he's fallen short in the replenishing department, and that shortfall is what Changeling's Return is all about. There is a "Stream of Consciousness" in Changeling's Return. Its mystical waters are used to make the stew, replenish the Cauldron of Inspiration, heal the flesh and restore the soul. Laura's underground grotto is part of that miraculous liquid continuum, her bath, an ancient rite of purification. Within the precincts of this most sacred grotto, Laura's pony is transformed into a unicorn, a transformation that in itself is symbolic of Laura's purity. Morgen's sacred pool in "the world without" is fed from the same mystical source, as is the chilly brook into which Morgen tumbled. These are the everlasting waters of creation, the well-spring of life, the source of the mysteries. I suspect Jung would say they represented the universal unconscious. But there is danger, here. These are the same waters that fed Artemis' sacred fountain, in which, during her annual bath, her virginity was restored. According to the myth, when Actaeon surprised Artemis, naked in her bath, she turned him into a stag and in that form he was hunted to death by his own hounds. This tale disguises the mystery of the annual king, whose sacrifice guarantees the fertility of the fields and the herds. "Horned gods" are dipicted in prehistoric cave paintings, but some of our earliest historical accounts suggest they were worshipped only for the year (or day), of their reign, after which they were ritually hunted down or slaughtered, sacrificed so that their people might find favor with the bloodthirsty spirits of the earth. Travis Edward Pike, 22 August 2021, Otherworld Cottage |
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