Fruit grown from a ruby in a cup (with a turtle)

I had another brief vision or waking dream today, while praying the Rosary and contemplating the Descent of the Holy Ghost.

I saw a large golden goblet, and a big ruby -- about the size of a large walnut -- was put inside it. I couldn't see who was putting it there. I just saw the ruby move through the air and down into the cup, but slowly and deliberately, not as if it were falling or being thrown. My impression was that it was being placed in the cup carefully by an invisible hand.

A few seconds later, a box turtle walked up to the goblet. It stood up on its hind legs and put its forefeet on the rim of the cup, trying to peer inside. As soon as it did this, all kinds of fruit started bubbling up from the goblet until it was full almost to overflowing. There were bananas, grapes, a pineapple, and lots of other fruits whose individual identities didn't register. The whole thing reminded me of Carmen Miranda's fruit hat. It was just a lot of fruit -- no plant or tree from which it was growing -- but my impression was nevertheless that it had all grown very rapidly from the ruby, and that the turtle's attempt to look into the cup was what had triggered it.

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I have no clear interpretation of this, just a few hints at possible connections. One thing I immediately thought of was the Rider-Waite Ace of Cups card:

Here, too, we have something being put into a golden goblet. The imagery of the descending dove ties in with the context of the vision (I had been contemplating the Descent of the Holy Ghost), and of course turtle is a word that can refer either to a shelled reptile or to a dove.

I also thought of "This episode is brought to you by the letters G and L," where a gorilla seems to be about to put a bunch of grapes into the Holy Grail.

The ruby in the cup made me think of one of Debbie's dreams, where she was given a cup with a crystal in it, and the whole thing had something to do with Heaven's Gate. Since comments aren't searchable, I can't find that dream, so Debbie, I'll have to ask you to post it again. (You might consider starting your own blog so that these things are searchable.)

I also thought of William Wright's "Herbie the Hamster: A Short Story." The story is about a seed, and the ruby in my vision functions as a seed. Hamsters and box turtles play similar roles as low-maintenance pets often kept by small children, and the turtle's standing up on its hind legs to look into the cup reminded be of Herbie's efforts to get over the wall and see what is outside.

The purpose of plates: A hypothesis

Over at my Book of Mormon blog, I take a stab at the perplexing question of why the Book of Mormon peoples engraved their sacred records on metal plates. This feels like a bit of a breakthrough; we'll see how it pans out.

Pushed to Zion with songs of everlasting joy

The bovine symbolism associated with the House of Joseph comes from this verse in Deuteronomy:

[Joseph's] glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh (Deut. 33:17).

As I have noted before, the unicorns of the King James Version is a rhinoceros in the Vulgate and a wild ox in most modern English translations. The classic wild ox, the aurochs, is now extinct, but one of its closest relatives, the wild yak (Bos mutus) still lives in the wild. As noted in "The horrible hairy homeward-hurrying hogs of Hieronymus," these three animals -- the unicorn, the rhinoceros, and the yak -- appear together on the cover of Animalia.

Note that in Deuteronomy, Joseph uses his figurative "horns" to "push the people together to the ends of the earth." This is curious phrasing -- how can they be "together" at "the ends of the earth"? -- and has been variously interpreted. The most common reading seems to be that Joseph will "push" (i.e., gore) all the nations, including even those at the ends of the earth, and that he will attack them all at once, or "together."

Today, in my regular daily scripture study, I read an allusion to this imagery in one of the revelations of Joseph Smith:

Keep these sayings, for they are true and faithful; and thou shalt magnify thine office, and push many people to Zion with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads (D&C 66:11).

Here, pushing people together means driving them together and causing them to gather in a group, as a sheepdog would do. That the "pushing" is not a violent attack is evident in the "songs of everlasting joy" upon the heads of those pushed. If the first part of the verse alludes to Deuteronomy, the second part borrows a turn of phrase from Isaiah:

Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (Isa. 35:6-10).

The tongue of the dumb shall sing. The wild yak, as mentioned above, is Bos mutus ("mute ox"), in contrast to its domestic cousin Bos grunniens ("grunting ox"). Repeated references to water -- "waters break out," "a pool," "springs of water" -- suggest that the "highway" by which the pushed-together ransomed will return is the one the Vikings called the "whale-road."

Which brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Animalia:

According to Etymonline, yodel is "from German jodeln, from dialectal German jo, an exclamation of joy." Songs of everlasting joy.

The sails of the yaks' yachts are decorated with various things beginning with Y: a Yeoman Warder in a yin-yang symbol, a yeti, an egg with a yolk, a yoke, and even another little yacht. There's also a poker hand -- Two of Hearts, Three of Diamonds, Two of Clubs, Ace of Clubs, Ace of Hearts -- whose connection to the letter Y is a mystery to me. I've looked through glossaries of poker terms and lists of card games but can't find anything beginning with that letter.

Notice that if you go straight down from the egg, you will find a yo-yo. In "Leo, Egbert, Peter," I posted this photo of the shoe shelves at my school.

I was focused on the three names in the post title, but a commenter (whose name happens to be extremely close to Leo Egbert) asked about the lower shelf. Only one name is visible there but isn't very legible in the photo. He thought it might be Sarah, but in fact it's Ivan. The name directly below Egbert is obscured by a pair of slippers, but it's this:

Quite a few kids in Taiwan use Yoyo as their "English" name; I blame that cellist. In the William Wright post that led to my posting photos of shoe shelves in the first place, he interpreted Egbert as meaning "famous egg" and connected it with Humpty Dumpty -- famous as a broken egg that can't be put back together. On the Y page, we have a broken egg above a yo-yo. I suppose the yoke between them even suggests the heel ends of a pair of slippers.

Besides the poker hand, one other element in the picture puzzled me because of its lack of any obvious connection to the letter Y:

This is a reference back to "The Gospel of Luke on lobsterback," keeping in mind that the Gospel of Luke is symbolized by the ox or bull (or yak, same difference). The Beefeater on the sail, dressed in red, is a link to the other meaning of lobsterback, a red-coated British soldier.

Valhalla, I am coming!

In "Zinc Zeppelin," I connected the Z page from Graeme Base's Animalia with Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." The song is about Vikings, and one of the lines is, "Valhalla, I am coming!"

The V page in Animalia depicts the Valhalla Variety Venue, with a picture of a Viking visible near the top of the picture:

This page was actually one of the main reasons I bought Animalia in the first place. My May 1 post "Armored vultures and Cherubim" discusses a cartoon character called Victor the Vulture and connects him with the Cherubim.

Up in the corner, next to the vicar and the Viking, we have the five black stripes in the form of a vent:

Victor wears a badge with a picture of a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, on a sky-blue background as if it is flying through the air:

This is a link to "Hinbad the Hailer traveled far / By riding in a yellow car." In "Just how far did Hinbad and Rinbad travel?" I connect this yellow car with Elijah's chariot of fire, in which he traveled all the way to Heaven -- or, translated into Viking terms, to Valhalla.

The Beetle is located just below Victor's blue butterfly-shaped bow tie. This same juxtaposition appears on the B page:

No more a roving

On June 25, I did a Tarot read in which I asked about the roles various people have to play, and I drew this card with reference to myself:

There is a pretty obvious sense in which this is "my" card. My surname means "son of Tychon," a name which ultimately derives from Tyche, the Greek counterpart to the Roman goddess Fortuna, making me "Will of Fortune." When I drew it on June 25, I was struck by the central brass-colored disc covered with engravings, and by the four Cherubic creatures in the corners, each with its book. This ties in very neatly with the Round Book of Brass Plates and with the book called the Cherubim from the vision recounted in "Étude brute?" Thinking about it today, after posting about the zebra-striped flag of Brittany in "Dreaming in black and white," I noticed the zebra-striped headdress worn by the sphinx at the top of the wheel.

It was then that I realized a possible link between "Étude brute?" and the Brittany theme. I had previously taken it as a reference to the Ides of March, my birthday, but Caesar's assassin was not the only Brutus. According to a very old legend, the name Britain derives from that of the island's first king, Brutus of Troy. Since Brittany derives from the same root as Britain, it would also thus be named after this Brutus.

As I was thinking about this and making these connections,  my attention was suddenly drawn to one of the books in my study, a 1000-plus-page compilation of the major works of Byron, with the edge of a bookmark sticking out above the pages. I had a very strong impression that I should take the book down and see which page was bookmarked.

The bookmark was between pages 314 and 315. Page 314 is the last page of Manfred, which I last read in 2014. Since then, the only works I've read from that book have been short poems which didn't require moving the bookmark around, so there it still was.

Page 315 -- the page corresponding to the Ides of March, my birthday -- has this short and fairly well-known poem:

So, we'll go no more a roving
    So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
    And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
    And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
    And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
    And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
    By the light of the moon.

Note the immediate context: I had just been thinking about "Étude brute?" as, among other things, an Ides of March reference, and about the Wheel of Fortune Tarot card in connection with myself. Do you know how the word "wheel" is written on old French cards? ROVE.

"The sword outwears its sheath" also fits the Tarot card, on which a sphinx holds an unsheathed sword. It's also a link to "Makmahod in France?" and "This sword will never be sheathed again." In the Rider-Waite version of the card, where the wheel is a Brass Plate, it stands to reason that the unsheathed sword would be that of Laban.

Then there are those moonlight references. I looked up a French translation, and sure enough:

Ainsi, nous n'irons plus vagabonder
Si tard dans la nuit,
Même si nos coeurs restent accordés
et que la lune toujours luit.

Car telle l'épée usant son fourreau,
l'âme use la poitrine à respirer.
Le coeur doit pouvoir ėtre au repos
et même l'amour se délasser.

Bien que la nuit soit faite pour s'aimer
et que l'aube ne soit qu'infortune,
Pourtant, nous n'irons plus vagabonder
La nuit, au clair de lune.

When I was searching for a French translation, autocomplete thought I might be looking for Leonard Cohen's rendition of the poem. I didn't know he had done one:

The album cover art -- a black-and-white portrait of a young woman -- caught my eye, and I wondered if there was a story behind it. Searching for that led me to this thread. Early on, one person mentions that the woman's expression reminds him of Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar, and everyone picks this up and runs with it. "Joan" -- with no surname except in the first reference -- is mentioned a whopping 36 times in the thread.

After I'd played Cohen's take on Byron, YouTube queued up the next song automatically: "New Slang (When You Notice The Stripes)" by the Chins. I posted "When you notice the stripes" on May 9, connecting that line from the song with the idea of using the stars and stripes on the US flag to create a constellation. The syncs in this present post began with my noticing the stripes on the Wheel of Fortune card and connecting them with stripes on a flag.

What is being communicated by drawing my attention to that Byron poem? Is this Claire/Joan saying goodbye, or at least announcing a hiatus? Time will tell.

Leo, Egbert, Peter

On May 29, William Wright published a post with the title “Leon Eggbert, Pharazon, and Sun-Moon Time.” In that post he mentioned his idea of “Peter being the same Being that had played the role of Pharazon.”

Today I was cleaning out the photos folder on my phone.

At my school, students have to change into slippers before going upstairs to the classroom. At the foot of the stairs is a “shoe room” with shelves for their shoes and slippers, and each shelf is labeled with a student’s name. (They use English names when studying English.) These labels have to be updated as old students leave and new students enroll.

On June 25, I noticed that the staff had neglected to do this, that there was a shelf still labeled with the name of a student who had left some months ago. I took a photo of the offending label and sent it to the staff group, with a reminder to keep the labels up to date.

Today I was about to delete that photo when I noticed something:

Three labels are visible on the central shelf in the photo: from left to right, Leo, Egbert, Peter. Keeping in mind that Pharazon and Peter are considered by William to be the same person, these are the same three names, in the same order, as in the title of his post.

I had no role in this. I didn’t give any of these students his English name, and my staff applied the labels and decided which shelf to give to which student.

Quite a coincidence, I thought, especially considering what an unusual name Egbert is.