"World of Flying Fish and Falling Birds"
Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:08 am
I've been reading Tine Luk Meganck's fascinating book "Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Fall of the Rebel Angels". The writer spends about 200 pages in describing the details of Bruegels "Boschian" Renaissance masterpiece, "Fall of the Rebel Angels". There was one point in the book I would like to elaborate on. The writer says, that the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch and Bruegel the Elder depict "the world upside down, a world of falling birds and flying fish".
One of the most ancient depictions of the Spiritual Realm is an upside down world. For example, one of the early pagan concepts of the Otherworld held here in Finland is, that it is a land of plenty, where people live literally head down. Inversion and widershins ritual are perhaps the most fundamental shared element in Western and Eastern LHP. In corresponding fashion, going against the ways of the world is a universal and fundamental character of the RHP, where Maslow's Hierarchy of Need's is often found turned upside down. Just recently I was listening a Christian radio station on my way to work, and there was a discussion about why is it that so often a Christian finds it more tolerable to live the life of Faith in circumstances of lack or oppression, compared to living a life where one's basic needs are met, but practice of Faith denied. So, in a sense, the turning things upside down is also a meeting point of the LHP and the RHP.
This made me think about how accurate pair our two Argarizims are - one depicts the mystery of the falling bird (Fall of the winged Lucifer), and the other depicts the mystery of the elevated fish (ICHTYS on the Mountain). Together they seem to attempt the unification of the two paths where they both meet in the most common spiritual terms, both horizontally and vertically; that is, where not only Earth and Heaven come together, but, also, where East and West embrace.
One of the most ancient depictions of the Spiritual Realm is an upside down world. For example, one of the early pagan concepts of the Otherworld held here in Finland is, that it is a land of plenty, where people live literally head down. Inversion and widershins ritual are perhaps the most fundamental shared element in Western and Eastern LHP. In corresponding fashion, going against the ways of the world is a universal and fundamental character of the RHP, where Maslow's Hierarchy of Need's is often found turned upside down. Just recently I was listening a Christian radio station on my way to work, and there was a discussion about why is it that so often a Christian finds it more tolerable to live the life of Faith in circumstances of lack or oppression, compared to living a life where one's basic needs are met, but practice of Faith denied. So, in a sense, the turning things upside down is also a meeting point of the LHP and the RHP.
This made me think about how accurate pair our two Argarizims are - one depicts the mystery of the falling bird (Fall of the winged Lucifer), and the other depicts the mystery of the elevated fish (ICHTYS on the Mountain). Together they seem to attempt the unification of the two paths where they both meet in the most common spiritual terms, both horizontally and vertically; that is, where not only Earth and Heaven come together, but, also, where East and West embrace.