Sticks united, lazy Leonard, and Eldridge Street Synagogue

On Tuesday night (April 1-2), I had a dream in which Claire was giving some sort of presentation in English. She was explaining a general principle, which I can no longer remember, and used the specific example of "records" symbolized by long sticks to illustrate the concept. These sticks were about two meters long, made of very white wood, and somewhat wider at one end than the other. They reminded me of the suit of Batons from the Sola Busca Tarot (engraved on metal plates in the 15th century) and also of the quarterstaves used by Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

"For example," said Claire, "let's take records. We have the Two Bibles --"

At this point, two men came forward, each with a white staff. They faced each other and held their staves out in front of them, angled downward, so that they met the tips.

"-- the Book of Mormon --"

A third man came forward. The three arranged themselves at equal angles and again put out their staves so that they met in the center.

"-- and the Revelations."

A fourth man joined the group, and there were now four staves. The overall effect reminded me of the "Swords United" meme:

Since there were only four men and no Round Table, it reminded me even more of certain depictions of the Three Musketeers (who are actually four, including d'Artagnan). Usually the Musketeers are shown with raised swords, but some artists show them with their swords lowered, as in the meme:

Given that I was searching for images like the above because of a dream about Mormon scripture, I was surprised to see that one of the image search results for my prompt (all for one and one for all three musketeers) was from "The Church of Jesus Christ" -- which is currently the only shorter name used by the Great and Unabbreviable Church.

I noticed that the picture had a "depositphotos" watermark on it, which seemed impossible. The CJCLDS is nothing if not professional and certainly wouldn't be using stolen watermarked images on their official website. Clicking through confirmed that the image was not from churchofjesuschrist.org (the CJCLDS) but rather thechurchofjesuschrist.org (the much smaller Bickertonite branch of Mormonism).

I wasn't sure what to make of the "Two Bibles" reference. At first I thought it might mean the Old and New Testaments, but I think it's more likely a reference to the prophesied "words [that] shall hiss forth," which will be perceived as a second Bible in competition with the Bible we have (see 2 Nephi 29). That chapter mentions scriptures coming from the four points of the compass, matching the imagery of the four men and their staves:

Wherefore, because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written. For I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them (2 Ne. 29:10-11).

The use of sticks to represent sacred books is quite conventional in Mormonism, where the "stick of Joseph" and "stick of Judah" mentioned in Ezekiel, which "shall be one in mine hand" (Ezek. 37:16-20) are almost universally understood to be the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

Ezekiel even has a hint of the Musketeers' motto:

Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions (Ezek. 37:16).

"One" stick is made to stand "for all" the house of Israel.

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The laziness vs. work theme is still going in the syncs. Last night I put on YouTube Music, letting the algorithm choose the songs. First of all, though, it served up this ad:

This made me kek. People who don't let a computer do their thinking and writing and drawing for them are the lazy ones? (Yes, I realize I just confessed to lazily letting an algorithm choose music for me, so I guess I can't throw stones.)

As soon as I'd skipped the ad, the first song came on -- one of Leonard Cohen's that I'd never heard before:

The opening lines of the lyrics are:

I was always workin' steady but I never called it art

I got my shit together meeting Christ and reading Marx

Right after the question -- "Still too lazy?" -- the answer: "I was always workin' steady."

I heard that last bit not as a reference to the Jewish economist but as "reading marks" -- as in reading the marks on a cicada's back, making the toothpicks sing.

I had actually thought of Leonard Cohen before in connection with the "lazy lions." In "Going Home" (discussed previously in "Inspiration as bondage, inspiration as freedom"), Cohen, speaking in the voice of God, calls himself -- Leonard, "strong as a lion" -- a "lazy bastard":

I love to speak with Leonard

He's a sportsman and a shepherd

He's a lazy bastard

Living in a suit

Interestingly, the music video for "Happens to the Heart" begins with a man in a suit and trilby (Cohen's trademark outfit) walking through the woods. As the song progresses, he takes off his suit, is clothed in the robes of a monk, and meditates. In the final shot, we see that he is levitating. (Cohen spent five years as a Buddhist monk in real life.) In "Going Home," too, Cohen takes off the suit, "going home without the costume that I wore." If the suit is the uniform of the "lazy bastard," the life of a contemplative if lazier still -- so lazy it's hard work.

That phrase "so boring it's stimulating" crossed my mind this morning as I was meditating on the Miracle at Cana, in which Jesus made water more intoxicating than wine.

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This morning I was reading Alma and came across a reference to the people of Ammonihah having "synagogues, which were built after the manner of the Jews." I thought that this was probably an anachronism, since synagogues didn't really exist until the Hellenistic period, and I also thought it was strange that they would be described as "built after the manner of the Jews," given that this part of the Book of Mormon takes place more than 500 years after these people's ancestors left Jerusalem and lost all contact with the Jews. What concept could anyone at that time have had of Jewish architecture?

These thoughts led me to the Wikipedia article for "Synagogue." The first photo included in the article is this one:

So that's another eldritch/Eldridge sync. Incidentally, one of the things I noticed in Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice (cf. that very "icy" stained-glass window) was how his ideas about "White people" are almost entirely based on Jews. The quintessential White guy, for him, is Norman Mailer, while the White woman is typified by his Jewish lawyer Beverly Axelrod.

There's an Eldridge Cleaver link in Cohen's "Happens to the Heart," too, where he mentions "a panther in the yard."