The first video in the series says "Stone Woman Mystery?" in the thumbnail.
The supposed "mystery" (the question mark is amply justified!) turns out to be kind of dumb, and I gave up on the video, and the channel, about halfway through. Basically, the guy drives around the United States photographing stone carvings on buildings, and a lot of the carvings are of women. He lumps all of these together -- just being a carving of a woman on a building is enough (even the "stone" part isn't rigorously enforced) -- and takes each as another instance of "the" Stone Woman and as further evidence that "she," mysteriously, is everywhere.
He also repeatedly asserts that we have no idea what "she" means, that this is lost symbolism from a bygone era and is to us moderns a sealed book. Despite this, many of his examples of the Stone Woman are immediately recognizable and understandable. The reader will probably already have noticed that both the channel icon and the thumbnail show standard allegorical depictions of Justice, with her sword and scales. Several others were clearly depictions of the Greco-Roman goddess known variously as Athena, Minerva, or Pallas. I'm no expert on art history or iconography, and not every Stone Woman was recognizable to me, but those that were mostly fell into these two categories: Justice, and Pallas Athena.
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Speaking of art history, around the same time Frank Berger had been posting about the 19th-century German artist Franz von Stuck, publishing "That'll Turn You to Stone, For Sure" on June 12 and "The Vision of St. Hubert" on June 14. This was apparently occasioned by my own June 10 post "Quotable quotes from my commenters," which linked back to an older post of mine on which Frank had left a comment about the symbolism of the vision of St. Hubert (a stag with a cross or crucifix between its antlers). Nevertheless, the first Franz von Stuck painting he posted after that was not The Vision of St. Hubert but rather Head of Medusa, the woman whose face will turn you to stone. In the post he describes the Gorgon as if she herself were made of stone, with "a smooth, unblemished alabaster face."
The St. Hubert painting is also somewhat relevant. The scene is dark, and Frank writes that it expresses the notion of "following something to where you need to go."
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On June 19, I posted "I will follow you into the dark." The title is a reference to a Death Cab for Cutie song, and to a story in Mike Clelland's book about following an owl through the night, but the link to The Vision of St. Hubert is obvious. In that post, sculptural depictions of Pallas Athena come up again:
I thought the black crow made a nice complement to the white owl. I remembered that Edgar Allan Poe's famous Raven had originally been an owl, and that the bust of Pallas in the published poem is a holdover from that earlier imagery.
Then, looking up an old post of mine, I found two comments -- one mentioning the Death Cab for Cutie song that would become the title of my post, and the other quoting from "The Raven" and drawing particular attention to the bust of Pallas.
What had originally made me think of the bust of Pallas was the complementary pair of a black crow and a white owl. The next day, I posted "October 3 and 4, and white crows." Following the footnotes in Clelland's book, with a black owl on the cover, had led me to a book with a white crow on the cover: White Crows by Trish MacGregor. I downloaded it and found in the author bio on the first page a reference to the author's winning an Edgar Allan Poe award, reinforcing the bust of Pallas connection. The bio also repeatedly referred to the author's novels as "mysteries."
Not until this morning did I read beyond the author bio and the opening epigraph (from my namesake, William James). The first chapter of this novel -- classified as a "mystery" -- is titled "The Stone Woman." This is an obvious link to the We Zombi Rod of Iron video. While We Zombi's "stone woman mystery" is a nothingburger, the one in White Crows is about as mysterious as it gets: A woman in the Florida Keys literally turns to stone. As the cops examine the petrified body, they find on her shoulder an also-petrified sliver with a tiny inscription etched into it: "White Crow 1440 June '44." One of the cops says:
"It sounds like it could be a reference to William James's famous line: 'If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.' Turning to stone when you die is certainly unique."
(Sorry, no matter how famous William James's line may be, it's just not plausible that a cop could quote it verbatim off the top of his head.)
The cops then turn their attention to "June '44" and wonder what century it refers to, the idea being that perhaps the technology to turn someone to stone will exist in the future, and that the incident may involve a time traveler from 2044 or 2144 or 2244.
My own thoughts turned instead to the past: June 1844 is when Joseph Smith was assassinated. I knew that Joseph Smith and Edgar Allan Poe were near-exact contemporaries, being born within a few years of each other and then both dying young. Is it possible that Poe wrote "The Raven" -- from which comes the bust of Pallas -- in June 1844? I looked it up. The poem was published in January 1845, but the Wikipedia article mentions "the summer of 1844, when the poem was likely written." I couldn't find anything more specific than that, but it would appear that June 1844 is a definite possibility.
I word-searched White Crows for any reference to Poe, ravens, Pallas, etc., but found nothing, so any connection is coincidental.
13 comments:
Many of the computer-generated thumbnails show the We Zombi guy wearing red over white, though he isn't dressed that way in the actual videos.
*The "stone woman" link strikes me as impressive. I'm inclined to think that the way syncs work is: the first sync is setting one up for the second-- it's usually the latter that really matters, while the former serves as a kind of indicator. I think we clearly see that here, with the "stone woman mystery" podcast pointing to the stone woman of Ms. MacGregor's novel.
*It may be the Gen-Xer in me, but when I think of "June '44", D-Day invariably comes to mind, but the idea that it points to the time when Poe wrote "The Raven" is interesting. In any case, it would seem that the sync-stream is emphasizing "The Raven".
*The Dioscuri mis-inform me that 24 x 60 = 1440, thus the number of minutes in a day. 1440 might also mean 2:40 p.m.
*Interesting that Frank (Francis) Berger is referenced. Oct. 4 is the feast day of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, who was famous for his ministry to animals, and especially birds.
*The Medusa painting: are we looking at a mythic villain, or might this be another human/animal hybrid? Are we looking at the face of evil; or, so to speak. into the face of the abyss? Is there a difference? (Yes.) On analogy with the hermit who merged with the hart, Medusa might just be a woman who has merged with the snake-- rather than merely being terrified by it, as custom dictates. Forms an interesting comparison with Vermeer's "Allegory of Faith", which shows a woman at her devotions having just killed a snake that had entered the chamber.
https://wp.harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/CUT-41-cropped-768x987.jpg
*"The Vision of St. Hubert": intriguing that the deer has been in our sights so much recently. In fact, speaking of "sights", the halo or whatever above the deer's head, resembles nothing so much as a telescopic sight on a rifle-- every redneck deer hunter would make the connection instantly. Are we to target the deer to lead us somewhere (out of the proverbial dark forest, perhaps)-- or to kill it, drink its blood and eat its flesh, and remain in place? (A legitimate, not a rhetorical, choice.)
Invoking Poe could be relevant in how he has also come up before via his name. Poe means "Peacock", and that had some interesting symbolic ties before.
Bill, the only peacock symbolism I can remember here is my description of the Hydra in my childhood dream. If you had something else in mind, you'll have to jog my memory.
Medusa shares with the Hydra the imagery of multiple snake heads. When I was very young, maybe third or fourth grade, I wrote an essay proposing that both the Hydra and the Gorgon (and Scylla, too) had been inspired by the giant octopus or squid, and that the ancient Greeks must have feared and venerated that animal. Cephalopods are known for their transfixing gaze (see Jules Verne, whom I was reading at the time, together with Jacques Cousteau), and "turning to stone" may originally have referred to terrified swimmers freezing up and sinking. A somewhat fanciful hypothesis, but I'm still rather partial to it.
By the way, my wife and I just watched the Netflix adaptation of the octopus novel Remarkably Bright Creatures last night. They did a decent job with it and didn't even race-swap anyone ("ethnically modified," I'm going to start saying), though they did make one character gay as a lazy way of making his close platonic relationship with a woman convincing.
On the link between following an owl into the dark and following a stag into the dark, this is from Clelland's book:
"Alan was well aware that owl and deer are often reported as screen memories, but why an owl in one sighting, and a deer in the other? Is there some deeper reason why these two different iconic animals arrived for these two different people on that same night?'
The Hydra was part of it, which seemed relevant in context of your recent writings about the White Tree. I had thought of the Hydra as a sort of false White Tree given the imagery.
But the Peacock has also come up in the form of the Panda Po(e) from Kung Fu Panda, and more specifically the character's actor, Jack Black. A Peacock can refer to a vain and prideful person, and one who adorns themselves in flashy clothes or displays, which I had explored as a Pharazonic reference. I do pay attention to intentional and unintentional choices of words and titles, which is why your recent post titled "I'm [inaudible], and I'm Proud" stood out to me for reasons completely detached from the actual content of the post itself.
Poe's The Raven sure is an interesting poem in some of this symbolism, as well, going all the way back to Eleanor/ El Anor. Poe's narrator is pining for his lost "Lenore", which is a shortened version of Eleanor and means Light (and Sun Star in Elvish). Looking at it from a different lens, The Raven might seem to be about Perdition and Eternal Judgment.
The rest of Poe's name is also interesting. Edgar referring to Fortune/ Wealth - a tie to a few things, including your last name - but also specifically to a spear and a person who wields it. The spear coming up most recently is the one you've mentioned from tradition that pierced Jesus' side, out of which rushed the blood and water. And Allen, which can refer to a little rock or stone, the same as the name Peter.
Probably nothing, but I thought I'd seen Edgar come up before, and it turns out it had been mentioned as part of Men in Black and the alien Bug - a cockroach which had been linked to Caterpillars and Plunderers.
Mention of Perdition reminds me of that book title in your other post: "What does it mean when a man falls from the sky". You linked that to Jesus' descending from Heaven, but it could just as easily be linked to Lucifer falling from Heaven as well, which is an event that is corroborated by Lehi's reading (presumably from the Brass Plates).
"And I, Lehi, according to the things which I have read, must needs suppose that an angel of God, according to that which is written, had fallen from heaven; wherefore, he became a devil, having sought that which was evil before God."
What stood out about that post title? Just "proud," or does "inaudible" also have some significance?
Both.
Inaudible usually means "unable to be heard", but apparently in Middle English its meaning was more around "unfit to be heard". This generally fits with the Voldemort name theme, as in a name that ought not to be spoken out loud (and thus should be kept inaudible because it is considered inaudible). The substitution of a name for something inaudible also has relevance to words back in 2020 when I was warned about someone whose name was blanked over or made inaudible:
"Clarify explanation: [inaudible] was always thinking of taking a ship", with the inaudible part clearly referring to a person, but also seemingly purposefully not spoken.
I guess the phrase can also be understood in another way, as someone saying they are unfit to be heard, and thus shouldn't be listened to.
In terms of Pride, I mean that is Pharazon's distinguishing characteristic. As Tolkien wrote in the LOTR appendix:
"Ar-Pharazôn the Golden was the proudest and most powerful of all the Kings, and no less than the kingship of the world was his desire."
My mention of Lucifer above as an example of a Man fallen from Heaven, and in the context of Poe's The Raven and Lenore, jogged a link between Pharazon and Lucifer.
Lucifer is a name having to do with Light, meaning "Morning Star" and "Light Bringer", etc. I had made a strange connection between the title of Morning Star and Pharoah from the Prince of Egypt movie (Pharoah kept referring to himself as the Morning and Evening Star in the script ... i.e., Lucifer). Pharoah was an interesting character given phonetic and symbolic similarities with Pharazon.
If Pharazon had taken his Elvish name, it would have been Tar-Calion, meaning "Son of Light", which has Luciferic similarities also, with their respective character arcs and resulting Falls adding weight to this tie.
Interestingly, tying Voldemort into all of this, my wife has never watched the Harry Potter movies, and so she is watching them this summer with my youngest son. So Voldemort has gotten some additional air time. I pop in occasionally to watch a few scenes. During one scene with Voldemort, I realized he is played by Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes was also the actor who played the Pharoah I quoted above.
Building on this with one additional name game, the traditional Pharoah in the Moses story is named Rameses, and it was also the same with the character Ralph Fiennes-Voldemort played. The meaning of Rameses is interesting given the connection of Lucifer and Tar-Calion above. Rameses means "Son of Ra". Ra refers to the Sun, or the source of Light. Thus, in this name game, Tar-Calion = Rameses, with both meaning "Son of Light".
Speaking of Lucifer as "Light Bringer", check out the Modern Library emblem which can be seen in the lower left-hand corner of the edition of Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" that William photographed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Library
Oh, huh. I don't know how the stag's cross in the St. Hubert painting passed me by before, when it so closely resembles something I see every day.
I missed that, too, WG. Obvious once you point it out.
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