The world is a mask that hides the real world.
Thatâs what everybody suspects, though the world we see wonât let us dwell on it long.
The world has ways - more masks - of getting our attention.
The suspicion sneaks in now and again, between the cracks of everyday existenceâ¦the bird song dips, rises, dips, trails off into blue sky silence before the note that would reveal the shape of a melody that, somehow, would tie everything together, on the verge of unmasking the hidden armature that frames this sky, this tree, this bird, this quivering green leaf, jewels in a crown.â¦
As the song dies, the secret withdraws.
The tree is a mask.
The sky is a mask.
The quivering green leaf is a mask.
The song is a mask.
The singing bird is a mask.
Friday, April 29, 2005
heresy?
Well?
The challenge confronted me on the antique palm-top screen.
"OK," I replied. "Why would ChurchØne® be concerned to keep this document a secret? Blasphemous content, for starters. The references to eagles being eaten alone would get it banned. And, it's safe to assume the scholar is a follower of the evolution heresy. More than enough reasons to re-groove just about anybody, seems to me."
That's good as far as it goes, wrote Mystery Interlocutor. But, go back to this passage:
He can't see it. He can see part of it. The birds of prey - all of them - are there for religious reasons.
Falcon remains are rare in these ancient settlements because the falcon was the deity. The other birds of prey were brought in to worship and serve as sacrifices offered by the people to the falcon deity.
There won't be as many falcon remains at these sites because these people weren't sacrificing falcons, they were worshipping falcons, feeding falcons the bloody and still-quivering organs of the larger raptors that in nature would prey on the falcon. They probably released the falcons into the wild after their temple service, let the peregrines return to their peregrinations, the way that falconers have always done with birds of passage trapped for a season of hunting then release back into the wild...
We know from the archeological remains that the falcon is established as a deity in Egyptian religion from the earliest period, indicating uncounted pre-historic ages in which falcon spirituality and ritual would have evolved prior to the written record.
But that's not the picture this article is slanted to support. This author suggests that larger raptors - eagles, vultures - were the object of worship, dominant at a time when the relatively fewer traces of the falcon appear at these sites.
I thought about that for a minute.
"The servers I've catalogued contain all kinds of stuff about falcons and falconry, all the way back to ancient Egypt – that stuff's no secret," I thumbed. "Every school kid knows the story of the Hebrews and ancient Egypt in the story of Christianity's rise and ChurchØne®'s consolidation of power under Christ's Eagle in the spread of the Congregation throughout the Western Hemisphere (Americas: North, South, Central). Any competition between falcon and eagle was over centuries ago, by the time Christ was born. Falcon's just another bird with a history."
You've read about the remains of eagles used as food 12,000 years ago? Published in some format available to the public?"
"No. But, I haven't been looking for that kind of material, either."
OK. I figured you'd take some persuading. I'll get back to you.
Before I could thumb, "Why me?" the screen scrambled again.
The challenge confronted me on the antique palm-top screen.
"OK," I replied. "Why would ChurchØne® be concerned to keep this document a secret? Blasphemous content, for starters. The references to eagles being eaten alone would get it banned. And, it's safe to assume the scholar is a follower of the evolution heresy. More than enough reasons to re-groove just about anybody, seems to me."
That's good as far as it goes, wrote Mystery Interlocutor. But, go back to this passage:
"....many archaeologists think that the birds of prey were brought into the settlements for religious reasons, independently of the carcasses of other species which were part of the food supply.
But we can gain extra clues from an examination of the different kinds of birds of prey found among the remains. A first analysis seems to indicate a serious flaw in the hypothesis that birds of prey were used for hunting: the majority of the bones belong to the larger birds of prey, such as eagles, buzzards, vultures and eagle owl, while falcons are much less common.
The problem is that most of the larger birds of prey are unsuitable for hunting – at least, according to purists in the world of falconry."
He can't see it. He can see part of it. The birds of prey - all of them - are there for religious reasons.
Falcon remains are rare in these ancient settlements because the falcon was the deity. The other birds of prey were brought in to worship and serve as sacrifices offered by the people to the falcon deity.
There won't be as many falcon remains at these sites because these people weren't sacrificing falcons, they were worshipping falcons, feeding falcons the bloody and still-quivering organs of the larger raptors that in nature would prey on the falcon. They probably released the falcons into the wild after their temple service, let the peregrines return to their peregrinations, the way that falconers have always done with birds of passage trapped for a season of hunting then release back into the wild...
We know from the archeological remains that the falcon is established as a deity in Egyptian religion from the earliest period, indicating uncounted pre-historic ages in which falcon spirituality and ritual would have evolved prior to the written record.
But that's not the picture this article is slanted to support. This author suggests that larger raptors - eagles, vultures - were the object of worship, dominant at a time when the relatively fewer traces of the falcon appear at these sites.
I thought about that for a minute.
"The servers I've catalogued contain all kinds of stuff about falcons and falconry, all the way back to ancient Egypt – that stuff's no secret," I thumbed. "Every school kid knows the story of the Hebrews and ancient Egypt in the story of Christianity's rise and ChurchØne®'s consolidation of power under Christ's Eagle in the spread of the Congregation throughout the Western Hemisphere (Americas: North, South, Central). Any competition between falcon and eagle was over centuries ago, by the time Christ was born. Falcon's just another bird with a history."
You've read about the remains of eagles used as food 12,000 years ago? Published in some format available to the public?"
"No. But, I haven't been looking for that kind of material, either."
OK. I figured you'd take some persuading. I'll get back to you.
Before I could thumb, "Why me?" the screen scrambled again.
