Radiant Daggers

Last night, halfway between sleep and sleeplessness, I decided to jot down whatever words that came to my mind without any wordsmithing or preconception, and capture a glimpse of my subconscious in the raw.  This poem is what I got:

A balloon, red and round, floated high above my head,
Like a dream long forgotten beneath the silver moon.

A mangled bird with a mangled beak appeared and popped my balloon.  Pop!

Pieces of it fell like lifeless wisps back down to the ground,

So I picked them up and stretched them over my skeleton along
The windswept tundra to catch dead dreams.

-Iliad Terra

Let’s for a moment leave the branding absurdities aside…

Let’s for a moment disregard whether you’re a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim.  For that matter let’s set aside whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican or a Socialist or a Communist; whether you’re black or white or red or yellow, old or young, gay or straight, or any mix therein.

Instead let’s show outrage that on the Inauguration day, having just elected a man who professed inclusiveness and unity, we are told and defined and reprimanded along so-called racial boundaries.

The darkness upon us is not the color of skin, for skin has no color since it is an irrelevant sheathing upon a vessel housing character; but this darkness is the color of charACTer seen as the outward ACTion of His soul.

This man, during a fairytale production, had in his grasp, were he not a puppet, the unique opportunity to use the popular mandate afforded him for the greater good; but alas, such expectations are indeed above
his “Pay Grade”: click on this link to find out more, then watch the video below, published recently.

Fifteen years ago, while painting in my studio, a random word came to my mind:  Apobathos.

Later that evening I looked the word up but discovered no such word existed.

A month later, in a similar fashion another word came to me: Latigos.  And shortly thereafter, in a dream, the third word, Soho, appeared to me.

Somehow I had a strong notion that these three words were related.

I had intended to research the words and extract their etymological relevance in hope of discovering some pattern or a nugget of unconscious gem, or perhaps peer into my own mind, but time passed and the memory faded under a pile of to-do lists that kept growing.

However, many years later, gnarled by twists and turns of fate, on a particularly dark moment I remembered two of the forgotten words.  Yet, for the life of me I could not remember the third, that is, until last week when the final word reemerged with a soft exclamation point.

I can’t explain the reason, but I felt, almost reverently, drawn to explore the meaning and nuance and connection between these three apparently random words.

This blog post and subsequent postings will be my brief journey, in a rickety boat constructed from the clapboards of my conscious mind, fishing three words from the dark ocean of the collective unconscious.

…The Bathos, an engraving by William Hogarth, 1764
click on the image to view larger detail

Apobathos

bathos
noun
(esp. in a work of literature) an effect of anticlimax created by an unintentional lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous.

ORIGIN mid 17th cent.(first recorded in the Greek sense): from Greek, literally ‘depth.’ The current sense was introduced by Alexander Pope in the early 18th cent.

Apo-
prefix
1 away from : apocrypha | apostrophe.
• separate : apocarpous.
2 Astronomy denoting the furthest point in the orbit of a body in relation to the primary : apolune. Compare with peri- .
ORIGIN from Greek apo ‘from, away, quite, un-.’

Incidentally, in the year 1697, in London, was born a William Hogarth who engraved his final work of art, aptly titled Tail Piece: The Bathos, etched and engraved.

Since I was born in 1967 in London, this odd bit of trivial coincidence is quite interesting, to say the least.  …Thought I’d throw that in for your amusement, hmm…

I should add that Hogarth engaged in political satire, and another of his paintings stands apropos to our current national drama vis-à-vis the Chicago Machinists and their influence in US Capitoline Hill, and now the Executive.  Hogarth called his piece An Election: Chairing the Member.

…An Election: Chairing the Member, 1754

But the word that was revealed to me — um, yeah, sounds like revelation doesn’t it? – had a prefix, Apo-, such that if one were to combine the two parts, a new word would be derived; thus:

Apo.bathos
noun
(esp. in a work of alchemical and metaphysical art with social and political objectives) a reversal of the effect of anticlimax created by an unintentional lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous.  A return to the sublime from the trivial.

ORIGIN early 21th cent.(compounded from two words in the Greek sense): from Greek, literally ‘away’ and ‘depth.’ The current sense is introduced by Iliad Alexander Terra on the eve of the 2012 paradigm shift.

…to be continued

-Iliad A. Terra

Did Justice Roberts intentionally preempt the Oath of Office so that the POTUS would be effectively rendered null?  Did a legal coup just occur right before our eyes?  Is this the beginning of the predicted civil unrest?

Why would a sitting SCOTUS judge do that?

The United States of America happens to be a Constitutional Republic, and the Inaugural Oath is intended for the defense of her Constitution.  Yet Roberts, an agent of justice, administered said Oath while he verily was aware of multiple cases for conference on High Court dockets across the land challenging the eligibility of Mr. Obama.  The mounting legal contention before the High Courts is the transparency of the new President’s status, his constitutional eligibility and allegiance to uphold the very document.

Is Justice Roberts an American hero, one who threw himself, in an act of defiance, in front of the framework of US Constitution, as would Secret Service agents in defense of the President?  It certainly seems epic in gesture that Roberts would sacrifice himself in this manner, perhaps a telltale sign of a coming dark and heroic chapter in the American saga…

In any case, Obama retook the Oath this morning, without the Lincoln Bible.

After an inaugural price tag of $150 million dollars, and the most draconian security apparatus suffocating a lackluster crowd of mere 800 thousand, we the people still failed to be granted a legitimate Oath on January 20th?

It can’t get more dramatic than this folks!

-IAT

Note:  A leader, trained as a Constitutional lawyer, who in the thick of battle capitulates and thus abdicates his Oath to the Constitution under a subversive maneuver from an adept opponent is perhaps not a leader after all, at least not one worthy to wield the helm of our nation’s destiny.

Man, with his immanent ignorance, blinded by the enormity of what he knows not, has yet the audacity of conceit to denounce that which he knows not.

If this man were to be told of a world beyond his ignorant reach, this very man would ridicule, like a mule, and be dragged kicking and screaming to accept.

This very man, pugnacious little collection of waste, now sits and ridicules those who speak of the imminent convergence of cosmic energy that is about to engender cataclysmic transformation through and beyond the axis of humanity.

The moment will come that a star will die, and another will come when a new star may be born.

The life of a child is not a woman’s choice. A fragile life, temporarily residing as tenant within the womb does not belong to the owner of the flesh womb.

Even as a child is to the womb, so is the soul to the flesh, a continuum of atomic gestation to ignite the radiant and evolved being.

Nor do failed patriarchies and cowardly men, including God of the Old Testament, deserve the honor of being called Fathers.

While the maternal archetype is the custodian of the corporal being, the paternal archetype is the custodian of the spiritual being.

This chapter of humanity’s saga is fast coming to a closure. The new POTUS is a small impediment in the path to radiance. The self is yet a greater challenge. The coil is nearly at an end.

Time to evolve!

-Iliad A. Terra

…Thanks D for sharing the vid