All the pebbles I have seenPrecious stones for Colleen
I began to hear it in my head as a round, with two voices repeating the two lines endlessly, but staggered, so that one voice sang "All the pebbles I have seen" while the other sang "Precious stones for Colleen." The effect was quite hypnotic.
After I finished my contemplation, I looked up the song. It's "The Summer Day Reflection Song" (1965) by Donovan:
As I read through the lyrics, the second verse caught my eye:
Dragon kite in the skyWheel and turn, spin and flyAttacked by rooks and never failsTo cry the sound of fairy talesThe cat is walkin' in the sun
The "kite" reference got my attention because Garuda is a kite, and in "Ahab at Ezion-Geber" I had just revisited "Flight of the Gargoyle," which discusses Garuda. The line about the cat "walkin' in the sun" also stood out because last night, in between Blue Öyster Cult and the Pixies, the YouTube Music algorithm had randomly served up that ridiculous "Monkey Brother" song:
The lyrics begin thus:
Monkey Brother, Monkey BrotherYou are so grea-tuhThe Mountains of Five Elements can't hold you downPopped up a Sun walker
That's the Chinese surname Sun, meaning Sun Wukong, the titular Monkey Brother, but it still seems synchronistically connected to "walkin' in the sun."
Later, I read this in Words of the Faithful:
And he cast before the boy, as in mockery, a handful of gems, and of crystals, and stones, scooped forth from a cauldron near him, until it was emptied, and about the boy the floor glittered.
This seemed relevant to "All the pebbles I have seen / Precious stones for Colleen." Here's the next paragraph:
The boy bent and reached for one resting before him, and held it; holding it to eye, and looking upon the king, raised high upon dais, and a golden bench, lain as one dead, and mourned by funeral-criers. As in vision, flames arose and consumed the halls, the pillars, the furniture, and all that sat or stood there, and being burned away, a behind-scene was revealed; wherein rested upon a bed stacked high with flowers, Taurin; wilted then the flowers crumbled, and the girl was suspended aloft, then her body dropped, and she dangled from a rope braided with golden threads.
And here's the fourth verse of the Donovan song:
Jeweled castles I have builtWith freak feelings of guiltAnd the words stab to the hiltPick the flower and it will wiltCat is shifting in the sun
I note also the description of a visionary experience in which "a behind-scene was revealed." As I wrote in "Visions as irruptions of dreaming consciousness into waking life":
There is a sense that the visual field "opens up," as if one is seeing behind a backdrop, and when I read Smith and Cowdery's language about a veil being taken away and the heavens opening, it seemed to me that they had to be describing the same kind of experience.
11 comments:
Sometimes when checking your blog on my phone, the browser does a weird thing where embedded Youtube videos display in the wrong order, even mixing them up between blog posts. Earlier today this glitch created a small sync, moving the Donkey Kong Bananza song ("Sync bananza", last post on the front page as of this writing) into this post.
files.catbox.moe/pz2a1h.png
Kek, I guess it would have been more of a sync if it had put DK in the "Monkey Brother" position.
When I read the line about "precious stones for Colleen", the image that actually came to my mind was Ungoliant. Specifically, the scene in which, after she and Melkor kill the Two Trees, Melkor is forced to give Ungoliant all of the Elvish gems and precious stones he stole from Formenos. It was based on an agreement Melkor was forced to make in order to recruit Ungoliant's help. She made him give her all of his stones, except the Silmarils, which he refused and almost was destroyed by her over it.
Anyway, so I associated this Colleen with Ungoliant, and I then tried to see if there was a name connection that could help explain the instant association. Colleen simply means "woman, young girl", so not super specific or helpful. However, I then remembered a word game I had done with Ungoliant some time ago, and it seemed to make sense.
As you know, both roots of Ungoliant's name - Ungol and Liante means "Spider", which seems strange to have Spider-Spider as the name. Ungol, however, can refer to something else. I actually tied it to Uncle Jay (my Ungol - Unkle game), and thus also Ahab at the time (which means Uncle).
Ungol, in one Elvish language, can mean "Darkness", primarily from Ung- but we can get after it from a different angle looking at the root "Gol". We see this root in Thingol, and it means a "Cloak", which is an apt part of Ungoliant's name meaning in that she is specifically mentioned as being able to cloak herself and others in a cloud of darkness that allowed them to evade detection. So, Ungol (Ung-gol) literally means "dark cloak", and thus Ungoliant "Dark Cloak Spider". At least that is what one version of her name I've arrived at.
In any case, it is interesting because a form of Gol is Coll/ Kol, meaning the same thing (which also gets back to the Unkle-Unkol word game). And Coll- is obviously right there as a root in Colleen
Seemed to fit, at least backing into it.
The Dark Cloak Spider also fits well with the Octopus symbolism. The Octopus evades detection by use of its dark cloud of "ink".
The ink, to me, is also highly symbolic since Ungoliant has and will use "ink" - as in the things that are written - to take away light and truth, as in with the Book of the Lamb.
The singer/songwriter of the song you feature here "The Summer Day Reflections", also seems to tie into this theme.
Donovan Leitch.
Donovan means "Dark/ Black".
Leitch is an interesting pairing. At first, it looked like it simply meant "Doctor", but even that is more complicated as it can refer to sorcery, per Etymonline, with words like "Enchanter, Conjurer" or "one who speaks magic words". So, something like a Wizard, perhaps. The Dark Wizard.
But, it turns out the name has a folk etymology that connects this name with Leeches, which seems natural. Some argue it came about because doctors use to be the ones who would apply leeches to suck people's blood, and thus the bloodsuckers got the name Leech/ Leitch from the doctors themselves. Who knows.
But it is interesting to have this reference to a Leech, or "Bloodsucking aquatic worm". Ungoliant has been directly compared to a Vampire in other interesting symbols and songs (e.g., Vampire Weekend), the most famous kind of bloodsuckers.
So, an aquatic Dark Bloodsucker is what Donovan Leitch can give us.
Which then makes the title of the song also interesting in looking up various meanings of "reflections".
And I have a good solve for the full name Colleen now looking at the back half of the name, so this is looking pretty solid.
As mentioned, Coll- in Elvish is "Cloak".
"Line" (the "Lin" would be said just like the Leen in Colleen, then add the "a" sound at the end thanks to the e), can mean "Cobweb", it turns out. In the discussion on Eldamo for this word, it was said to derive from the earlier, primitive "sligne", which meant "spider, spider’s web, cobweb".
So, Colleen understood in the form of the Elvish Coll-Line can mean "Cloak Spider". I should have seen it earlier, actually, because if you take off the "Ung" part of Ung-Gol, which gives you the "Dark/ Black" definition, you are left with Goliante for her name, or Koliante. You can hear Colleen in that name, particularly as you leave off the -te, which gets you back to something similar to that original "Line" form.
"Precious stones for Coll-line"
As this post makes connections to a passage involving Joseph of Dreams, and those song lines came about through the Three of Pentacles -- its meanings including learning, growth and collaboration -- I'm inclined to think there's a much more positive connotation to "Colleen" than Ungoliant, of all entities.
I've been thinking more on the Three of Pentacles/ Coins here and its role in that phrase the came to William's mind and the tie in to my hypothesis regarding Ungoliant.
The card features a Stonemason, which is interesting given some of the recent LDS temple endowment symbolism (the endowment is said to be based on Freemasonry rites, which trace back to the stonemasons guilds).
This could be a tipoff to what the Book of Mormon calls Secret Combinations. When the Book of Mormon was first published, that term was so tied to Freemasonry in the US, many assumed the book itself was anti-Masonic and thus a product of its day, particularly given how the book's Combinations had secret signs and oaths they gave.
William, you recently brought up Cain again, interestingly, citing Moses 5, which has some interesting things to say about Secret Combinations, and that Cain first instituted them among men. In that chapter, the author speaks of those combinations working in the dark:
"For, from the days of Cain, there was a secret combination, and their works were in the dark, and they knew every man his brother."
The Three of Pentacles shows these men working literally in the dark - the men are juxtaposed against a completely black background and environment while they discuss their plans. As WG notes, the card can refer to collaboration, which is a synonym for or same meaning as combination, in that you have a group of people united and working toward some end. In the case of the Secret Combination, this collaboration was held together via oaths and signs, and with the ultimate objective to "get gain".
The LDS endowment prior to 1990 had penalties associated with breaking the oaths, which involved hand motions where recipients would slit their own throats and disembowel themselves, in that they would die in those ways if they broke the oath. This gets right at how Satan first sets up the Secret Combinations with Cain, who is forced to promise "by his throat" and die if he revealed Satan's secret:
"And Satan said unto Cain: Swear unto me by thy throat, and if thou tell it thou shalt die; and swear thy brethren by their heads, and by the living God, that they tell it not; for if they tell it, they shall surely die"
Again, these types of penalties are found both in Freemasonry and in earlier versions of the LDS endowment, so the presence of a Stone Mason in the Three of Pentacles, and them all working in the dark, at least teases at the possibility that this 'collaboration' is not necessarily ultimately good.
And Secret Combinations bring us right back to The Great and Abominable Church, and its Mother Ungoliant, who is also called the "Mother of Abominations". In that story in Moses 5, Cain's works were specifically called abominations. And on the Three of Pentacles, the men are working on/ in a Cathedral or Church.
I am going to attempt to even name the 3 characters from early mormon history as represented in the Three of Pentacles. I think you will find this interesting - there are some threads to pull here.
I concluded the earlier comment tying the card to the Great and Abominable Church, with these 3 characters as part of that organization - the Mormon church, and its offshoot movements, I place squarely in that Church, along with other denominations, after the murders of Joseph and Hyrum, and Brigham's rise to power.
The Temple Endowment is a product of Brigham Young - we can only guess at whatever Joseph Smith was getting at what the endowment in his mind was meant to be with the Nauvoo temple and what he actually introduced in 1842, but whatever that was, it was Brigham who was apparently responsible to create the actual ceremonies, which he did not actually write down until 1877. So, I think it fitting to give Brigham the role of the Stonemason here in this image, since it is the Freemason rituals that Brigham bundled into the endowment ceremony. And, quite frankly, the Mormon church we have today is based on what he built, so another reason to put the tools in his hands.
The next individual is the one with the yellow robe with red roses. It took me a little while to recognize where a yellow and red robe or coat has come up before: the Pied Piper. In Browning's poem, which oddly placed the Pied Piper leading children away on my birthday, July 22, he gave a description of the Piper's coat:
"His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red"
Later in the poem, it is mentioned the coat was "checked", which gives sort of that alternating checkerboard look as striped interlock with each other.
The man's coat in the card not strictly checked, but the rose pattern does alternate roughly with the yellow background, giving a rough checked impression. Further, the Rose symbol (via the Rose Stone) has been associated with the Piper, and the Joseph himself via his Coat of Many Colors (a Pied Coat).
So, could be tempted to think this is Joseph, but since this is in my imagination conspirators and pretenders, I think this actually gets to the one who literally dressed up like him from Daymon's writings - Pharazon. He dressed up like the Sun in his gold attire, and so I see that symbolized in this card.
Interestingly, this man in traditional Tarot interpretations, from what I gather, is often called the Architect. We have seen that title recently in another setting: Neil Patrick Harris' character in The Matrix, complete with his blue glasses, and who dished out the Blue Pills.
In the past, I've linked Pharazon to James Strang, and I think that may hold here if that guess has any merit, and thus give us the second of the the three men who attempted to take over for Joseph Smith. And I think that point is important - 3 men ultimately inherited the Mormon movement from Joseph, and we have 3 men in this card building, in my view, a Abominable Church.
The third in a quick follow up comment since this one is probably getting to the limit...
Sidney Rigdon is the third man who gave it a go at the outset for the Mormon leadership. It is no secret that Joseph was done with Sidney by the end, and I think for good reason.
Anyway, Sidney was an ordained Baptist minister before becoming a preacher for Campbellism, and that is probably the best link (probably a poor one) to the third character, who is called a Priest or Monk... someone in the Ministry.
Identifying the Three in this way gives us the foundational splinter groups after Joseph's death, with each man claiming to be the rightful inheritor of Joseph's role.
It would seem to be just as easy to imagine these Three as the Three Chip Monks, for example, and thus the "Good Guys" working together, and not evil collaborators, and so look for different identities for them This would seem even more so since Brigham, Strang, and Rigdon were anything but collaborators in life... they were competitors for the top job.
I went down that path, but ultimately the way in which those hypnotic voices were working on you, and what they were referencing, had me go down this other, less happy path, and I think it is more promising in terms of a narrative, and it gets back to another angle on those precious stones, which is looking at them as the Jewels, or people, which Jesus promised he would gather home, but remain currently trapped in Ungoliant's lies and unreality.
So, I think these 3 are pretenders or counterfeits, basically, whose efforts only served to support and build a part of Ungoliant's church. On the "collaboration" part, or lack thereof among these three, we don't know what form that might have taken at a time long, long before this age, and we also don't have to have them consciously working together to note that their combined effort did undermine Joseph's work in their own unique ways, some of them we still deal with today.
Very interesting, Bill. I've been pursuing my own line of thought on the Three of Pentacles and will be posting on it shortly inshalla.
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