Filling Peter's shoes

In the dream recounted in "Joseph the Tirielist," someone called Peter "gave me a comically large pair of black hiking boots and said, 'Now you have to put these on!'" As I thought about this later, in waking life, this idea of being asked to put on much-too-large footwear made me think of the expression about being "unable to fill someone's shoes." Bill Wright at one point entertained the idea that I was the reincarnation of St. Peter, and the idea that I would ever be able to "fill the shoes" of the Prince of the Apostles is of course laughable. Another of his past-life proposals for me was the Tolkien character Ingwë, who "was ever held the High King of all the Elves," so the dream could involve a pun on "High-King" boots. (Now, of course, Bill's preferred theory is that I am some sort of malevolent shapeshifting cockroach. What can I say? "Fame is a fickle food / Upon a shifting plate.")

This idea of being unable to fill the shoes of one's own past self also syncs with the lines from Tennyson's Ulysses which I quoted earlier today in "Ulysses, dark horses, seer stones, Ki-Ab, Elbereth, the Eye of Horus, leaves of gold, and Cherubim":

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Ulysses is of course yet another of my proposed alter egos -- though I think only symbolically and not as a literal reincarnation -- and if I were as delusional as this present post clearly shows me to be, I might take the liberty of capitalizing Tennyson's will and taking it as a reference to myself.

There is one reference to black (in the blacksmith's sense) footwear in the Bible, in Moses' final blessing to the Tribe of Asher:

Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be (Deut. 33:25).

Asher is also enjoined to wash his feet in olive oil (v. 24), and in the Fourth Gospel much is made of the washing of Peter's feet (John 13:6-10).

The second part of v. 25 means "you will be strong for as long as you live." This is clearly relevant to Tennyson's elderly Ulysses, who laments that he has "not now that strength which in old days / Moved earth and heaven" but reassures himself that he is still "strong in will" -- or, if the conceit be granted, "in Will."

Bill will be champing at the bit to say this, and I wouldn't want to tempt him to break his vow of silence, so I'll point it out myself: Ar-Pharazôn -- yes, another of my alter egos, currently the main one as far as Bill is concerned -- pretty literally "moved earth and heaven," as his actions directly resulted in a radical rearrangement of the world's geography. And in Daymon Smith's writings, Pharazôn is associated with iron footwear: When he invaded Tol Eressëa, as Daymon has it, he was accompanied by "the Nazgul Three," who "for feet . . . wore helmets of iron." (Helmet is of course as much a reference to my name as will is.)