TheCircleFoundationProject

A cross and a rectangle

A cross and a rectangle

Vision: End of March 1999. Early morning, say 5am, in bed in Paris, France. At first a voice saying "Everything will be allright by now"; Then two forms, floating in the air, at same height, shining red, like a ruby colour. On the right, a cross, bent to the right; on the left, a rectangle, bent symmetrically to the left.

"A vision - sound, pictures - does not mean at all that C.W. exists. It just means that you believe pretty deeply into something" - A close friend

C.W. : a code name for God. C.W. means "Christopher Walken", do not ask me why, and the code was coined inside a french Internet community close to a french comic book author, who publishes a superb series "The Rabbi's Cat", a story about a rabbi living in Algeria in the 1930s. The rabbi has a beautiful daughter and a cat, and C.W. suddenly gives this cat the ability to talk..

A segment is a (longer) segment is a square

If I take a segment, say AB, and I cut it into four sub segments: A-C1-C2-C3-B, then I can fold those segments into a square (A,B)-C1-C2-C3.

If I take a segment AB, and I paste two equal segments on the left and on the right of original AB: DA on its left and BC on its right, and then a fourth one on the right again of C: CE, I get four equal segments on a big segment DE. Bending those like above mentioned, I turn my segment AB to a square A-B-C-(D,E)

So with an original segment, I construct an unfolded square, then fold it to a square.

A square is a cross is a cube.. and beyond

If I take a square ABCD, and I paste on each four sides of the square: (AB - north),(BC - east),(CD - south),(DA - west) four equal squares, say on north, south, east and west. No if I paste a fifth equal square on south of the south pasted square, reproducing in two dimensions what I did in one with the segment before, I get five equal square representing a cross. Bending those squares like above mentioned, I turn my cross made of five squares into a cube. I like to consider a cross as an unfolded cube.

Rev. 21, 16: And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.

Why is 7 such an "important" number?

Why is 7 such an "important" number?

Why is 7 so important a number? Perhaps because the heptagon, a regular polygon within a circle with seven equal sides, is the first regular polygon that cannot be determinated with a rule and a compass, under greek geometric construction rules.

This was proved many years after by Gauss (1796AD).

Imprecision on Planet Earth

Imprecision on Planet Earth

And what is to be close, for a real number, to another real number? When CW seized Earth in his hand, and sent it rolling around the sun in the Beginning, his thumb pressed slightly on the north pole, so the Earth is not an exact sphere, by 0.33%

((6 378 137 - 6 356 752) / 6 356 752) * 100 = 0.336413942 - geoid WGS84

That is about 22kms, or 11.54 nautical miles, or 11' 33" meridian angle.

Why 22 letters in the oldest Alphabet from Religions of the Book?

Why are there 22 letters in the hebrew alphabet, or more likely alephbet? Perhaps because 22/7 = 3.142 857 142.., is so close to p = 3,141 592 653..

And 7 is *so* important.. 22/7 seems pretty close to p : 0.04%..

At those times, though, p had poor approximations, such as 3 + 1/8..

Table of computation of Pi from 2000 BC to now :

Babylonians 2000? BCE 1 3.125 = 3 + 1/8

Egyptians 2000? BCE   3.16045

China 1200? BCE    3

Bible (1 Kings 7:23) 550? BCE   3

Archimedes 250? BCE   3.1418 (ave.)

Many Internet sites on the subject!

Uninteresting numbers: an empty set

Uninteresting numbers: every integer number is interesting. If the set of uninteresting integer numbers was not empty, then there would be a smallest element. And being the smallest of uninteresting integer numbers is an interesting feature

How the Rivières Maze was born

As a kid, I always dreamed of raising a maze (perhaps after a trip with my parents in Italy, getting lost and very scared when I was 6 in the Villa d'Este Maze - Pic1). In 1962- I was 9 years old - , my parents decided to buy a countryside house, and they almost bought a first one (Pic2 - Artonges, 02330, France). But this house got sold before they could get it, and they bought another one.

Many years later (1988), I bought by the Loire river an old house (XVIIth and XVIIIth century basically - Pic 3 is likely from 1989), with a lot of repairs needed. My surprise was great when my father (Pic 4) gave me back the next year a kid's painting I had made back in 1962, representing a house (likely out of their "missed" house buy) with a maze in its garden; I was struck by the similarities between my painting and my real house, so I decided to grow a "real" maze, so that picture resemblance would be enhanced. My brother in law, Antoine B., a brilliant architect, gave me a lovely birthday present: a maze project (Pic 5). The maze was planted in 1990, with 660+ english yews.

Pic7 and Pic8 show the house as of today (Feb 2005), Pic6 was taken by a friend from his plane in 2003.

Pic9 and Pic10 shows the Maze, 2003-04 Winter and 2004 Fall

   

   

A cube is a hypercross is a hypercube (Dali)

Take a cube. Paste a similar cube on each of its 6 faces, and a last one under one of those six: you have now an unfolded (in 3D) 4D hypercube.

Dali (Cruxifiction - Corpus Hypercubus - 1954) very likely went through the same thought process. I hope that visitors will finally get to see the original painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.

The nice Tampa, FL, Dali museum sells little wood hypercrosses.. :=)

From a Maze to a Tetragrammaton

One day (1999?) I was discussing with one of my sons, who hobbied at the time as Dungeon Master for Dungeons and Dragons games. he said to me something like "now that you've stamped a big Tetragrammaton in your garden, you have to deal with it!". I said to him "what is a Tetragrammaton" ? And I started to do some research, thanks to the Internet.

A Tetragrammaton is a four letters word, representing the sacred name of C.W (see wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton).

"The Tetragrammaton (Greek: τετραγράμματον word with four letters) is the Hebrew name for God, which is spelled (in Hebrew); י (yod) ה (heh) ו (waw) ה (heh) or יהוה (YHWH), it is the distinctive personal name of the God of Israel."

The pic here shows an old fragment of the Septuagint: The Septuagint is a 3rd to 2nd Century BCE Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The below fragments are evidence that the Septuagint originally contained the name Yahweh. See: http://www.eliyah.com/lxx.html

The Maze map (see Pic) is made of six circles (one could say 9), a big one surrounding everything, and a smaller central one. North, West, East and South are 4 small circles. So one can indeed imagine 4 slots, around the central circle, and write a hebrew letter from the Tetragrammaton in each slot.

Now the hebrew language (and, I understand, the greek language) has a very original (and mind boggling) way to build a graph of relationships between words and their meanings, by using permutations of letters, or numerical values: there is an arc between two words-nodes, if those two words use the same letters, or have the same numerical value. Each of the 22 hebrew letters has a numerical value, and summing the word's letters values gives the word's numerical value.

See wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria)

"Gematria is numerology of the Hebrew language and Hebrew alphabet. Several forms can be identified: the "revealed" form and the "mystical form". The word itself comes from the Greek word 'geometry' and the concept or system is the same as the Greek isopsephy."

A Tetragrammaton using by definition four letters, I came to think about S4, the permutation group (see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PermutationGroup.html) of four ordered elements.

S4 has 24 elements, its alternating sub-group, A4, has 12 elements, and there is also this nice A4 sub-group, the Klein group or Viergruppe. That was a good brush-up of my college algebra maths at the time.

Quite non suprinsingly, the specific permutations of those sets: 24 elements, 12 elements with positive signature +1 (here comes some maths again) and the final sub-set of 4 elements from Klein Group were spotted and used it seems in some mystical fraternities, some time ago (such as once shining The Golden Dawn Order, 1888, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dawn), there must have been some instinctive algebra going on there at the time!

Basically, if I remember, according to some litterature I browsed (eg. Israel Regardie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Regardie), the GDO belief goes that there is a (kind) angel attached to each of the 12 A4 permutations, including four archangels (Michael, Gabriel, Raphaël and mysterious Uriel) for those 4 permutations from the Klein Group (see below).

Geometrical representation: If we take the Maze map, and draw it centered in a plane, with two orthogonal axis Ox and Oy out of Maze center O, and if I look for those permutations that can be expressed by a simple plane transformation equivalent, ie would keep globally intact the 6 circles (but switch - permutations - the contents of the small circles, the four letters of the Tetragrammaton), there will be only 8 permutations and their according geoetrical plane transformation:

- 4 permutations with positive signature, equivalent to a sub-group of A4 named the Klein Group) that can be represented by a group of 4 plane transformations:

(1) Identity: I, 

(2) Symmetry related to a 45° line (equation: y=x): s{45},

(3) Symmetry related to a -45° line (equation: y=-x): s{-45} and,

(4) central symmetry to origin O: S{O}.

- 4 more plane transformations (5),(6),(7) and (8), with attached permutations of negative signature -1: rotation of 90°, rotation of -90°, line symmetry over Ox, line symmetry over Oy.

The 8 corresponding plane transformations constitute a subgroup of S4, and there are 8 possible maps of the Maze, that can be generated in the following way:

- take the original map: M, make a vertical symmetry out of axis Oy: here are two maps

- rotate the two figures by 90°, and do this three times : you get the six other maps

Now, are there 4 "good" maps, and four "bad" mirrored maps? who knows? ;=)

To end up with, I do not believe that CW would really trifle for a group theory math problem, from at most 1st college year level..

******** end of boring little mathematical games.. for now! -

Parallel Calendars: Passover and Easter, Pentecost and Shavuot

I have been impressed by the parallelism between judaism and christianism about passover/shavuot and easter/pentecost: both dates are distant by 50 days.

Both passvover and Last Supper calendar slot have to do, it seems, mainly with the first full moon after the day of the vernal equinox. Western Easter will fall on the first sunday following stricly that day, while Nisan 14, the day for passover, will be the full moon of a month that may change, if the jewish calendar needs to catch up the solar calendar with a Nisan II month, as in 2005.

See wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter#The_date_of_Easter

See also the jewish date calculator: http://www.ahavat-israel.com/ahavat/torat/calendar.asp

I can imagine the full moon shining while the hebrews were walking away from Egypt, and a similar almost (3 days before?) full moon shining in the sky at the time of The Last Supper.

50 days later, in both religions (Omer account in jewish tradition), something impottant happens: the Torah is given to Moses. In christian tradition, the Holy Spirit comes down in tongues of flame above the apostles, kicking off christianism into existence.

Towards the missing circle (1)

At very first "The" (crazy) idea was to find a global (earth size) geometrical scheme to extend the Maze map concept (its 4 small circles and their possible permutations). Through permutation group theory, the geometrical figure had to show 24 remarquable points (24 = 4! = 4x3x2x1), or may be 12 (nice symbolic number: 12 tribes of Israël, 12 apostles), or may be 8, or may be only four. We also wanted to stick to the original idea/vision: a (bended to the right) cross and a (bended to the left) rectangle.

There were a lot of dicussions in Paris with Antoine B., the Maze architect, those discussions occuring most of the time in two main nice places in Paris, France (Closerie des Lilas, Juvéniles).

One day Antoine came with a simple idea: "why don't we intersect an 3D-unfolded hypercube with a sphere, the volume of the sphere being equal to the total volume (8 similar little cubes) of the unfolded hypercube? (see Pic1). That will give 24 points. And the sphere could be Planet Earth".

When you look at the unfolded hypercube figure from top or sideways (fig1 and fig2 of Pic2), one can see that there is an angle (OH, OP) that describes precisely the location of those points, that can be computed out of simple trigonometry (see Pic3 for boring details).

For the unfolded hypercube, the according angle is 23°45'56.6" ~ 23°46'

One can do the same way the same analysis in 2D: an unfolded cube as a cross, and a circle, both having the same surface: the angle then is 23°20'56.8" ~ 23°21'

Both angles 23°21' and 23°46' semed to us interesting because they are close to the current axial tilt of our planet Earth: around 23°24' or 23°30' according to different sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt : "The Earth has an axial tilt of 23.5°.The Earth's axial tilt varies between 21.5° and 24.5° with a 41,000 year periodicity, while the direction of the tilt gradually undergoes precession, moving in a slow circle over a period of about 25,800 years. However, other factors may change the axial tilt of Earth (and of other planets)."

So, according to our "precision allowance", we may say that both figures (unfolded cube-circle) or (unfolded hypercube-sphere) can be related to the way that Earth rotates around the sun, as highest point of the sun in the sky, at solar midday, will rise and fall by 23.5° above and under the ecliptic plan, between solstices and equinoxes.

Though a simple coincidence, may be far too much Da Vinci Code style, in the New Testament Luk 23:21 relates to one of the main sources of defiance between jews and christians, and Dali's painting above mentioned "Corpus Hypercubus" gets a far deeper meaning when attached to Luk 23:46: http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Luk/Luk023.html   

Finding the Missing Circle (2)

One day Antoine came to our usual crazy meetings very excited: we had been looking for some time for those 12 or 24 points around the globe, without great success; What could only be seen is how mankind history made many, many places tremendously exciting. And many "strange" alignments show up as soon as you allow some imprecision (in our case, we had decided to allow 11', see first posts).

See all the alignment legends and sensational books about the Secrets of Pyramids of Egypt.. when you allow some limited imprecision, you open the gates for dreams, if you tell it at first, is it that bad?

Antoine showed me that somehow, some key capitals, religious cities or places (especially Mount Sinai), from religion of the book seemed to be not too badly in alignement into a grand geodesic circle, a diameter circle (you get an diameter circle when you intersect a sphere with a plane that contains its center).

Nothing being exact, we decided to settle with a simple geometrical definition, out of Greenwich Meridian (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_meridian) established in 1884.

To define such an intersect plane, we draw an hexagon around the equator circle, with one of its points being the Greenwich meridian point (0°N, 0°E). Two of the intersecting plane points will be two other opposite hexagon points on the equator:  A(0°N, 60°E) and B(0°N, 120°W).

Now to define the final plane, we need its angle with the equator plane: we pick an heptagon (angle 2*π/7) on meridian (30°W). One of the heptagon summits lies on the equator, and the next summit at C(2*π/7 N, 30°W), or C(51°25'42" N, 30°W), will define the Circle (A,B,C).

Such a grand geodesic Circle raises from the corner of Ethiopa, enters Middle East through Yemen, raises between Medina and Mecca, towards Mount Sinai, Alexandria in Egypt, Crete, Itaque in Greece, Italy (Sienna), Mount Cenis, crosses France as a line, gets out of France at Brest, then goes all the way (like a plane flight track, for obvious reasons) to the eastern coast of Canada, then enters United States, from Maine to Louisania, then plunges into Gulf of Mexico, back to land slightly south of Rio Grande, crosses the State of Mexico, and goes into the Pacific with no island in sight. (Now *that* list needs to be edited!).

And, very roughly, when you are standing somewhere in this circle, all main cities (Rome, Mecca, Mount Sinai, and, a little aside, but we shall come later to that, Jerusalem) seem to in an alignment.

After all, pointing a human finger to the horizon (8km, if I remember) leads to a huge 1.5° angle of vision.. 200+ meters width on the horizon line.

Maze, Circle and Greenwich Meridian

I have to confess a big Ego minute: les Rivières (and its Maze) are located close to really nice places, by the Loire river, including great wines (cabernet breton for reds, and chenin for whites) from Saumur, Chinon, Bourgueil and their surroundings.

To quote UNESCO who voted the environment as World Heritage in year 2000: http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31

"Justification for Inscription

Criterion (i): The Loire Valley is noteworthy for the quality of its architectural heritage, in its historic towns such as Blois, Chinon, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours, but in particular in its world-famous castles, such as the Château de Chambord.

Criterion (ii): The Loire Valley is an outstanding cultural landscape along a major river which bears witness to an interchange of human values and to a harmonious development of interactions between human beings and their environment over two millennia.

Criterion (iv): The landscape of the Loire Valley, and more particularly its many cultural monuments, illustrate to an exceptional degree the ideals of the Renaissance and the Age of the Enlightenment on western European thought and design."

The place breezes with memories from Renaissance times, and french writers such as Ronsard, Rabelais, or Perrault (Sleeping Beauty was inspired by a stay of the writer at Ussé Castle, as a legend goes).

The Maze location (according to GPS) is 47°13'44"N, 0°4'52"E. And that is very close (almost 5') to Greenwich Meridian.

May be this is why, when I dreamed with Antoine about taking the Maze project on a more global basis, we started looking for Earth-size geometrical figures, that would include Greenwich Meridian and the original Maze.

The Maze is 3' away from the Circle.

PS - Touristical minute: Pic 1 shows Château d'Ussé, Pic 2 shows Château de Saumur, Pic 3 shows Saumur by the Loire river, Pic 4 shows Château de Montsoreau.

Fontevraud and the mysterious Robert d'Arbrissel

  There is a monastery near by (4') south of Les Rivières, who was founded by a strange man, Robert d'Arbrissel. May be a little far from the Circle (9')..

As the comment goes on the back cover of a book that was written on those times lately:

"Contemporaries hailed the preacher and reformer Robert of Arbrissel (ca. 1045-1116) as a thunderclap of holy eloquence that lit up the Church—or they castigated him as a sponsor of sexu    al license. Robert has remained a controversial figure ever since, seen as a missionary to all manner of Christians, a heretic, a feminist, a founder of the ideal of courtly love, or a libertine. His preaching was so renowned that he was invited to speak before Pope Urban II; many were inspired to take up religious life after exposure to his charismatic asceticism and evangelical gifts. Best known as the founder of Fontevraud, a monastery for women and men in Western France that became the prosperous head of an order of nearly 100 religious houses, Robert of Arbrissel never became a saint"

(From: Robert of Arbrissel: A Medieval Religious Life (Medieval Texts in Translation) - by Robert (Editor), Bruce L. Venarde (Editor) - Publisher: Catholic University of America Press (November 1, 2003) - ISBN: 0813213541)

Robert d'Arbrissel had a very specific notion of ascetism: he was said by his detractors to sleep naked in the middle of women, and was to try to resist to temptation. But he was an immense orator, and built, whatever his may be rather specific ascetic views, one of the greatest monasteries of all Catholic Church, that lasted for centuries.

I had the chance to trace the history of Les Rivières, who was called La Rivière no longer than 100 years ago. Thanks to a generous neighbour who gave me all proper links to archives in Saumur, Tours and Angers, I had the chance to find the names of all La Rivière land owners up to 1084. To make a long story short, after browsing through old books, Indiana Jones type, and checking transcriptions from the abbey Cartulaire, I found that the owner of the then quite large land, Adelaide nomine Riviera, donated large amounts of her land, together with local neighbours (Guillaume de Montsoreau and the Duke of Anjou), to help raise Fontevraud. The last Lady of La Rivière, Florence, died in 1585. Her blason (La Rivière) can still be seen above a door of an old dependance.

So the land has some religious and mystical roots..!

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Touristical note:

Pic 1 and Pic 2: Fontevraud Abbey (was english territory when founded)

Pic 3: Alienor d'Aquitaine, was the wife of King Henri II, the mother of King Richard Lion Heart, and mother in law of Isabelle d'Angoulème. She was born in 1122, and died in 1204, at Fontevraud, aged 82.

Pic 4: Isabelle d'Angoulème, first wife of Jean sans Terre, himself brother of King Richard Lion Heart, and second son of King Henri II and Alienor. She died in 1246 after retiring to Fontevraud.

Pic 5: King Henri II Plantagenêt, had his coronation as king of England in 1154, died in Chinon in 1189, aged about 55.

Pic 6: King Richard Lion Heart was the son of King Henri II and Alienor d'Aquitaine, as well as brother in law of Isabelle d'Angoulème. Born in 1154, he had his coronation as King in 1189, and died in 1199.

An apple tree in the shape of ‘Shin’

As I was walking with a friend around the Maze, one early Sunday morning of 2000 Pentecost, just before a big party in the afternoon, someone showed me one of the very old apple trees of the garden that had been grown in espaliers, saying "your apple tree looks like ‘shin’".

‘Shin’ is a Hebrew letter, with the biggest numerical value (each of all 22 Hebrew letters has a numerical value, as do Greek and Arabic letters, and the numerical value of ‘Shin’ is 300).

The symbolism of ‘Shin’ is fire (1), and the sound it represents is a hissing sound: shhhh, or a chhhh, depending on the position  of the dot that stands above one of its three branches. See Pic2 (  sin, as in synagogue) and Pic3 (shin, as in shoe).

Now the apple tree was getting very old, and it died a few years later. So I pruned it to enhance the resemblance. Pic 1 shows the dead apple tree in year 2002, with the Maze in the background.

In the Renaissance times there lived a man, Johannes Reuchlin (1455 - 1522) (2), who became one the key figures of a kind of syncretic movement, the Christian Kabbalists from Renaissance. "Christian Kabbalism began in the 15th century with the Italian humanist Pico della Mirandola, who was captivated by the secrets of Kabbalah and intrigued by the possibility of using them to demonstrate the truths of Christianity" (3).

Reuchlin, carrying on the effort of Pico della Mirandola to Christianize the Kabbalah, dedicated his key book "De Arte Kabbalistica - On The Art Of The Kabbalah" to Medicis Pope Leon X, and was likely involved into teaching hebrew to Luther. Safe to say, his theories were rejected by the Catholic Church.

One of Reuchlin main demonstrations adds a fifth misssing letter, a shin, to the sacred Tetragram - remember, not to be pronounced . With some twisting, he shows finally that the 5 letters can be used to bring the name of Jesus, a name that finally can be pronounced.

More symbolic perhaps, for Reuchlin, the hebrew word berahamim, which means in hebrew misericordia (forgiveness?), has the numerical value 300, which is the numerical value of the shin itself.

I like the symbolism of the apple tree as The Tree of Knowledge: the Tree of Knowledge in Eden was unlikely to have been an apple tree, notably for climatic reasons during those times : some say it is a Latin pun by St Jerome, translator of the Bible into latin as the Vulgate: malus (apple) and malum (sin)). See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_knowledge

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(1) as for any symbolic interpretation of Hebrew letters, I have stayed as close as I could to the exceptional comments of Gershom Sholem, in "Les origines de la Kabbale", Collection Pardes, Ed Aubier-Montaigne, 1966 (translated from german)

(2) REUCHLIN, Johannes, De Arte Cabalistica Libri Tres Hagenau Thomas Anselm 1517
A rare first edition and fine copy of Reuchlin’s cabalistic studies, ‘la Bible de la Kabbale Chrétienne’ (Secret, Les Kabbales Chrétiennes de la Renaissance, p. 57). The work is written in the form of a conversation between the Jew Simon, the Muslim Marranus, and the Pythagorean Philolaus, who gather at Simon’s home in Frankfurt.

(3) Mystical Encounters, The Harvard University Gazette, Mar 14th, 1996 http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1996/03.14/MysticalEncount.html

Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel and The Abbey Of Thélème

François Rabelais (ca.1493 - April 9, 1553) was a Renaissance writer, born in Chinon, Indre-et-Loire, France.

"As a doctor, he used his spare time to write and publish humorous pamphlets which were critical of established authority and stressed his own perception of individual liberty. His revolutionary works, although satirical, revealed an astute observer of the social and political events unfolding during the first half of the sixteenth century.

Using a pseudonym, in 1532 he published his first book, Pantagruel, that would be the start of his Gargantua series (see Gargantua and Pantagruel). In his book, Rabelais sang the praises of the wines from his hometown of Chinon through vivid descriptions of the eat, drink and be merry lifestyle. Despite the great popularity of his book, both it and his follow-up book were condemned by the academics at the Sorbonne for their unorthodox ideas and by the Roman Catholic Church for its derision of certain religious practices. Rabelais's third book, published under his own name, was also banned." (1)

One of the most beautiful themes of the Gargantua series, for me, is the "anti-utopia" project of the Abbey of Thélème, which motto "Do as thou wilt" has inspired so many projects afterwards, including rather strange ones such as british occultist Alexander Crowley's [1875 - 1947] Thelema (2).

Back to Chinon and its great solid wines, I cannot resist to reproduce the main Rabelais mission statement for Theleme, an enlighted inscription that was set upon the great gate of Theleme (3):

Here enter not vile bigots, hypocrites,

Externally devoted apes, base snites,

Puffed-up, wry-necked beasts, worse than the Huns,

Or Ostrogoths, forerunners of baboons:

Cursed snakes, dissembled varlets, seeming sancts,

Slipshod caffards, beggars pretending wants,

Fat chuffcats, smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls,

Out-strouting cluster-fists, contentious bulls,

Fomenters of divisions and debates,

Elsewhere, not here, make sale of your deceits.

--- (see full inscription text in (3) )

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(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%E7ois_Rabelais

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

(3) http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/theleme.html

Pic 1: portrait of Rabelais,

Pic 2: Illustration of Gargantua, Thélème, by Gustave Doré

Pic 3: extract from local Michelin map (taken from EDF website ;=))

Pic 4: Chinon as of today, across the Vienne river. Chinon is 8 miles away from Les Rivières

A Circle is a Rainbow is a Covenant

I have always wondered how to give a meaning to a big circle rounding the Earth, that would shine as a round-up tolerance scheme for religions, those religions that are called religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianism and Islam.

Syncretism, I mean picking from side to side what sounds "good" or even "best", to build out of such pieces what one would feel best for all to hear, this sounds to me extremely dangerous.

Hermetism, I mean hiding, amongst a closed circle of friends, some set of "special revelations", at a time when so many knowledge becomes available, printed offline or gathered online, seems so much outdated.

Now, one of the best images I can find of a circle around earth  is the rainbow that C.W. sets as a covenant token between Him and Noah, on behalf of all mankind.

Gen 8:11 - And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth [was] an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

Gen 9:8 - And C.W. spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

Gen 9:9 - And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you,

Gen 9:13 - I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

Gen 9:14 - And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

Gen 9:15 - And I will remember my covenant, which [is] between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Gen 9:16 - And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between C.W. and every living creature of all flesh that [is] upon the earth.

Gen 9:17 - And C.W.said unto Noah, This [is] the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that [is] upon the earth.

Our days are days of so much fight and so much misunderstanding between branches of this Tree of religions of the Book, our days may be experiencing in the very near term a global climate change event, perhaps triggered by human reasons, perhaps not (1). This global climate change event, that could be similar if not greater in size to what happened at the times of Noah, would be similar very likely in social consequences, mutatis mutandis, to those brought by such a sudden flooding of lands, that some say was to originate Caspian Sea..

May be it is time to set up the "rainbow sign" up in our current cloudy skies! (sounds a little like the Batman's sign, does not it?)

(1) see Michael Crighton's book, State Of Fear, for a (tough) discussion of human causes on current Global Warming

Pic 1: a most famous painting by Picasso!

Pic 2: Christian perspective: from Palatine Chapel in Palermo, Sicilia

http://www.palermo-sicilia.it/english/monreale.htm

http://www.univ-montp3.fr/~pictura/GenerateurNotice.php?numnotice=A2705 

The Night The Appletree_Shin Fell

It was a night of July, 2003. The heat wave. A huge storm was running over the area, lightnings after lightnings made the sky white, pretty unusual for Loire River summer weather, and the wind was blowing above 60 miles an a hour. At 2am we were all sleeping as lightning struck loudly in the garden, breaking a branch of an old acacia.

The next day, I had to fly to the US, so I left on early morning, without noticing anything. But when I came back to Les Rivieres two weeks later, I noticed that my Appletree-Shin had disappeared! The gardener had found my wood sculpture fallen into the grass (for him it was just an old apple tree, rotten after all those years, that had to such fall one day inevitabily). He calmly got the house chain-saw running, and cut the dead tree into 11 parts.. no, 12 :=), as out of one of the parts broke a little 5 inches piece, when he piled the wood close to the kitchen door, ready to aliment a good fire when needed.

I carefully stored the 12 pieces, by chance untouched, into a secure room!

Pic 1 to 18: the twelves pieces, and some of the puzzle (terrible camera phone quality) - the blue numbers show the right way to re-a ssemble the tree.

613 = 248 + 365

613 is a very special number, related to judaism, a sort of complex development of the Ten Commandments, those given by CW to Moses on Mount Sinaï.

According to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_mitzvot

"In Jusaism there is a tradition that the Torah contains 613 mitzvot (Hebrew for commandments, from mitzvah - מצוה - precept, plural mitzvot; from צוה, tzavah- command).

According to the main source, of these 613, 248 are mitzvot aseh (positive commandments) and 365 mitzvot lo taaseh (negative commandments)."

"613" seems to have been coined by Rabbi Simlai, "who was a talmudic sage from the early third century who lived in Palestine. He was a student of Rabbi Yehudah Nesiah I, the grandson of the author of the Mishnah, and a colleague of Rabbi Yehudah Nesiah II." http://www.aishdas.org/student/action.htm

Maimonides in his book Sefer Hamitzvot ("Book of Commandments") gives a masterpiece lecture on those 613 commandments.

I have been impressed by the interpretation of "613" from the book (Sefer) Ha-Bahir, "The Book Of Illumination", that are commented on in a brilliant manner by Gershom Scholem.

Here is the quote (section IV, 124):

124. Why are the hands lifted when they are blessed in this manner?

It is because the hands have ten fingers, alluding to the Ten Sephiroth with which heaven and earth were sealed.  These parallel the Ten Commandments.  In these Ten are included the 613 Commandments. If you count the letters in the Ten Commandments, you will find that there are 613 letters.  They contain all 22 letters except Teth, which is missing in them. What is the reason for this? This teaches us that Teth is the belly – and is not included among the Sephiroth.

There are 2 places in the Torah where the Ten Commandments are mentioned :

Exd 20:2 to 20:17, and Deu 5:6 to 5:21.

Now for a little count, based on http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Exd/Exd020.html#top)

Ex 20:2 -> 41;

Exd 20:2 I [am] the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

42 would be a perfect count, but there are only 41 letters ;=). Perhaps one could say that Moses was punished by not being revealed the real true sacred name of CW, with its 42 letters..

Now for the following verses:

Ex 20:3 -> 25, 20:4 -> 63, 20:5 -> 78, 20:6 -> 29, 20:7 -> 55, 20:8 -> 19, 20:9 -> 25, 20:10 -> 78, 20:11 -> 96, 20:12 -> 56, 20:13 -> 6, 20:14 -> 6, 20:15 -> 6, 20:16 -> 16, 20:17 -> 55

25+63+78+29+55+19+25+78+96+56+6+6+6+16+55 = 613

It does not "work" for the second layout of the Ten Commandments (695 letters!)

Now according to Bahir (section I, verse 8), "The numerical value of Abraham is 248, the number of parts in man's body".

Perhaps this is why 613 was split into 248 ("positive", "do") and 365 ("negative", "do not do"). 365 can be easily related to the number of days in a year!

There is an easy way to put into representation for everyone to understand the way the Earth revolves around the sun in about 365 days: It is called a meridian, a line that the sun crosses every day at a different point (a famous one is in Santa Maria dei Angeli in Rome, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_degli_Angeli_e_dei_Martiri)

So I thought that any symbolic representation of a Tree Of Knowledge might include a meridian into it.

May 1st: I have found some comments that might explain why the 613 should be split between 248 "do" and 365 "don't".

According to Babylonian Talmud [Nedarim - I hope my quotations, out of an selected Aggadoth quotations book (1), are right, I learned that in the jewish religion, no one is supposed to study the Talmud alone, nor read the Torah seated], the numerical value of Ha-Satan is 364 (Nedarim 32b, R. Ami b. Abba).

Then R. Ami b. Abba says also: There is written Abram, and there is written Abram; the same [is] Abraham (1 Ch 1,27 - or 28 ??). "this means that CW started to give Abraham power over 243 of his [body] organs, then, afterwards, CW gave him additional power on five more organs, which are his two eyes, his two ears and his sex" value of Abram is 243, the value of Abraham (add a missing He, value 5) is 248.

So, for 364 days Ha-Satan is allowed to do his evil, and for one day, the Day of Expiation, he loses all his powers. So, perhaps all those 365 "don't" days are mentioned to block him day by day..

(1) Aggadoth du Talmud de Babylone, Ed Verdier, 1982

Bahir: a Shin is a root of a Tree, a shin includes all the world

    Those miscelleanous comments that follow are just hints, insights, comments that I found doing research on this project of bringing again up the Appletree-Shin that fell, so it would stand again on the east of the Maze.

The Bahir gives beautiful insights on the Shin letter:

- Shin as a "root of a tree" : (Bahir 81)

"Take the word for root – Shoresh (Shin – Resh – Shin).  The letter Shin looks like the roots of a tree. [Resh is bent, since] the root of every tree is bent. And what is the function of the final Shin? This teaches us that if you take a branch and plant it, it will root again."

- Shin as including all the world (Bahir 1- 26)

"Shin includes all the world.  Why does Shin include all the world? Because with it one writes an answer (T'shuvah)."

- A Shin has a small circular point on top of one of its branches (left or right). The Bahir (115-116) comments on those circular signs (the vowel points) that stand (or not) around the square hebrew letters :

"115. What are the things that are circular?  They are the vowel points in the Torah of Moses, for these are all round. They are to the letters like the soul, which lives in the body of man. It is impossible for [man] to come [into this world] unless [the soul] endures within him. It is impossible for him to speak anything, great or small, without it. In a similar manner, it is impossible to speak a word, great or small, without the vowel points.

116. Every vowel point is round, and every letter is square.  The vowel points are the life of the letters, and through them, the letters endure.  These vowel points come through the pipes to the letters through the fragrance of a sacrifice, which immediately descends. It is therefore called “A descending (pleasant) fragrance to God” – indicating that it descends to God. This is the meaning of the verse (Deuteronomy 6:4), “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”

Pic1: letter Shin;  Pic 2: the original Appletree-Shin;

Some pictures from a "Tree of Life" (not the Tree of Knowledge, but what a Tree altogether ;=) ):

Pic 3: http://estampedechaville.online.fr/Francais/Galerie/Julien/Arbre%20de%20vie.jpg

Pic 4: http://univerval.free.fr/terre2.htm#kenya

Pic 5: http://www.foyerspa.be/vitraux/arbredevie.jpg

Towards setting the missing Rainbow : a sphere on top the Appletree-Shin

   Here are again some insights - without a specific order - that I feel blended together in this project, when I place, as the Shin circular point, a sphere that represents all the Missing Circle/Rainbow proje ct. (See Pic 3)

- (New Covenant) Lumen de Lumine: from Nicene Creed (312 AD), Light of Light : to represent this idea, I compare it to the fact that no human can watch the sun directly without danger, but that a lentilla can be seen as an intermediary, that creates a light "born" from the original light, a light that he can see (http://www.sspx.co.uk/prayers.php?id=125)

- (Old Covenant)  Pro 6:23 For the commandment [is] a lamp; and the law [is] light; and reproofs of instruction [are] the way of life:

The sphere on top of the branch will represent the lamp, that everyday at midday - a meridian concept - will remind of the commandments, by striking, with a tiny spot of light, a plaque blended with the right branch of the appletree, thus representing one of the "negative" 365 (out of 613) mitzvoth (see Pic3).

Pic 2 shows one of the most famous meridians (a spot of light driven by a far away lentilla crosses a copper rail on the ground), Santa Maria Degli Angeli in Rome, that was used to synchronise all Rome church bells at midday, until 1836 AD. http://www.exseminarians.com/rome/Churches/smariaangeli.htm

- (Old Covenant) Gen 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Here the turning flaming sword blade is suggested by the cone of light (2m long..)driven by the sun out of the lentilla.

- (Bahir) 149. Rabbi Rahumai said: This teaches us that Israel had light. Torah is light, as it is written (Proverbs 6:23), “For a commandment is a lamp, Torah is light, [and the way of life is the rebuke of admonition].” And we say that a lamp is a commandment, illumination (Orah) Oral Torah, and light (Or) is the written Torah. [How can we then say that the Oral Torah is light (Or)?]  Because this light has already been kept, it is called light.  What is this like? A room was hidden at the end of a house. Even though it is day, and there is bright light in the world, one cannot see in this room unless he brings along a lamp.  The same is true of the Oral Torah. Even though it is a light, it needs the written Torah to answer its questions and explain its mysteries.

- (New Covenant) Jhn 1 to 14, such as

Jhn 1:1 : In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jhn 1:9 : [That] was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

Jhn 1:14 : And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth

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Now we use the fact that the Appletree-shin has an almost circular shape (see Pic3)

To rebuild the Appletree, I shall use the 12 original pieces, melted in bronze. the 11 "big" ones will rebuild the original form, the small n°12 piece will be sticked to the sphere, allowing it to plug into the tree on the 11th piece (top of lef arm).

Symbolism:

12 pieces suggests: 12 Tribes (Old Covenant), 12 Apostles (New Covenant) - the 12th piece stuck to the sphere: the Levites tribe (Judaism), St John (Christianism)

They also suggest the great altar built by Elias, perhaps the greatest prophet of all three religions, when he challenges the priests of Baal:

1Ki 18:31: And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be thy name

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The little sphere (kind of armillary type), suggesting the shin circular point, will stand on top of the left branch of the Appletree-Shin, and holds in its center a lentilla. See again Pic3.

Design of the sphere: 3 diameter circles of the small sphere represent the Equator, the Greenwich meridian, and the 30°W-150°E meridian. The Circle, the Covenant Rainbow project we want to represent by the fourth circle (a little yellow spot can be seen on this circle on Pic 1)

By construction, at the time of spring (and autumn) equinox, the axis of the lentilla will be in the ecliptic plane, so the corresponding cross (the unfolded cube, remember the angle coincidence in a previous post?) will be exactly vertical and perpendicular to the ecliptic plane (Pic4)

A bended plaque will be fixed on the right arm of the appletree-shin, so that the sun spot derived from the lentilla will hit the plaque at midday (may be with a small few minutes analemna correction), giving the day of the year. Lentilla focal length is 2m, the sun spot is about 3cm.

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To summarize symbolisms:

A shin, the missing fifth letter to the holy name, according to this Pic de la Mirandole/Reichlin thesis, a Renaissance conclusion (and now legend).

Psa 118:26:  Blessed [be] he that cometh in the name of the LORD: we have blessed you out of the house of the LORD.

The shin letter is also a symbol of fire, according to an older (supposed around 2nd century AD) mystical jewish book, the Sepher Yetsira (3:9): it may be related to the symbol of Pentecost, both Jewish and Christian, and reminds us how parallel these two religions can be. Eastern/Pessah (to over-simplify: first full moon after spring equinox) and Shavuot/Pentecost (50 days later)

- the fire that was on mount Sinaï as CW descended upon it in fire (Exd 19:18), when he gave the Torah to Moses, 50 days after CW led the Hebrews get out of Egypt, setting them free from slavery

- kind of parallel, the tongues of fire that came upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Christ resurrection (the Apostles were likely together by then to celebrate Shavuot, the jewish pentecost, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavuot) - Act 2:1 -> 2:5

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So, Pic 4 represents my understanding and project proposal, from the right side of my 1999 vision: a cross, bended to the right.

News from the Apple Tree Shin

Those pictures are from the last three months, and shows the lost wax process going on, to build 11 pieces out of the original 11 wood pieces (plus the tiny 12th one... see below)

Pic 1: representing the apple tree on the floor, out on the 11 large pieces re-bent together (a tough puzzle it was, even with the marks)

Pic 2: making a first mold by covering each of the pieces, separately, with some plastic material

Pic 3: an example of first generations mold

Pic 4: one of the eleven pieces, made of yellow (inside) and black (outside) wax

Pic 5: showing how the yellow and the black wax get together

Pic 6: melted black wax..

To end up with this post, 11 (not twelve) is not an unknown number in the Bible, as shows the second dream of Joseph.. Gen 37:9 - And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.      

Apple Tree Shin: the first bronzes

Pic1, taken last month, shows one of the eleven pieces in wood, and its wax copycat. Behind, stands sculptor Stephane Baldelli, who happened to pass by that day, and told me he     not understand why the original tree was not "reinterpreted" much further. On his right, stands Candide Ribeiro, the Bronzier in charge of the project.

Pic2 shows the same piece in bronze, without any final surface treatment

Pic3 shows another 7 of the eleven "large" pieces. They do like "munitions", I hope they will stand so, when assembled, against ignorance and fear of each other's beliefs

Pic 4 shows one of the Bronzier's workers, cleaning one of the pieces from its foundry imperfections.

Apple Tree Shin: 3 days to go

Today was a review for the assembly of the Apple Tree, of the sphere (some details were wrong), and some decisions on the meridian-tree basis plate aspect.

Here are some latest pictures, the final assembly should be made on May, Friday 13th, where the original tree had grown.

Pic 1: the two spheres, model and final, representing the small Earth model of the Circle Rainbow Project, and holding the lentilla for the meridian with the exact proper angle (by definition of the Circle, see March 08, 2005 post).   

Pic 2: José and Candide working on setting the Apple Tree on a vertical plane

Pic 3 and Pic  4: two other views of the Apple Tree Shin

A Covenant with Two Kind Of Bloods

A Covenant with two kind of bloods

At first I want to repeat my view that syncretism can be an extremely dangerous approach, how seductive it may appear, and that one should stick, when studying religions in a comparative manner, to each of those religions as a whole

This being said, I shall kind of transgress this rule here: some parallelisms (here Judaism and Christianism) may appear productive when deploying comments for a mystical concept.

For instance, from the Christian side, there is no doubt (REF) that the Last Supper was a jewish Seder for Pessah, where one of the most important parts happen with this glass of wine, taken by Jesus (was this glass the special untouched cup that is spared at each Seder for Elias?). This glass “becomes” a glass of Jesus blood (becomes for real on the Catholic side, this is seen as a symbol on the Reformed side

Our present days are also times where the Catholic Church takes huge steps – looking at them from the scale of two thousand years of history -  towards jewish religion, where a catholic is now asked to call a jew an “older brother” (REF), and where repentance declarations have been put into wrinting and issued by the Vatican (REF). Catholics study now Talmud in many places.

Back to the blood, I have tried to see how the jewish culture relates to this concept of blood, and I will try to show how I hint that it can give a special light to the Christian side, especially with the Last Supper moments.

I personally feel very uncomfortable by the restriction of christianism to a huge ball of suffering, pain, death and resurrection of Jesus, as regularly shown by some movies from Hollywood. As I said, I like to see a cross, not only as a torture instrument, but also as a deployed cube (see oldest posts)

1)      from the jewish side

Jewish mysticism suggests a very impressive model of "layers" of mystical abstraction. Maimonide (Middle Ages - A Guide For The Perplexed – REF) comments on language used by prophets, explaining how "higher insight" language can be incomprehensible from lower layers, thus making interpretation and comments very difficult. I think that “blood” is one of those "higher insight" words that need this approach!

The very first covenant between CW and Noah does not mention any circumcision. It has to do with a rainbow. However, Talmud (VERIFY) suggests that Noah was also circumcised.

The second covenant, between CW and Moses, is very specific:

Gen 17:11 - And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

But, together with the blood from circumcision, there is a second type of blood, which is the blood of sacrifice from animals to CW. Moses sprays this second sacrifice blood to the altar, to the audience, etc.

Exd 24:8 - And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled [it] on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.

Deu 12:23 - Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood [is] the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh.

Deu 12:24 - Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water.

In the Middle Ages, Rabbi Eliezer comments in his Pirque (REF) on those two bloods, quoting Ezechiel 16:6, pointing to the fact that “blood for life” is mentioned twice: he interprets it as one from circumcision, one from animal sacrifice.

Eze 16:6 - And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee [when thou wast] in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee [when thou wast] in thy blood, Live.

I have also read (and lost the REF) an interesting comment (Middle Ages again?) suggesting that the Temple rises and lives from the blood of circumcision spread on the floor. Blood (from sacrifices) is taken in Deu 12:16 as a kind of water to help grow a seed:

Deu 12:16 - Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water

2)      from the Christian side

I suggest to apply this view to a huge christian Mystery, the wine from the mass cup, to remember one of the wine cups of Pessah Seder.

One could say that the wine that is inside the cup, during a christian mass, at the moment of elevation, becomes the real blood from Jesus (hey, check the DNA)

Now, if one uses Maimonide cautious approach (“don’t try to use a prophet’s words as everyday words”), this wine/blood stuff should not have been a subject of huge slaughters (in the past) between Reformed and Catholic christian churches.

Checking the cup contents DNA looks very much like a “lowest” layer approach (Saint Thomas type, I want to check for real). That wine becomes blood, as a concept, is clearly a much upper layer. Last, from an higher mystical side, that wine becomes identical to Jesus-Christ blood makes sense, “identical” is a word used in the semantic sense of this upper layer.

Blood mysticism can also be used to enlighten a comment for Jesus words on the Temple being destroyed and raised again in three days (which was one of the main causes of his being arrested, taken to trial and condemned to his final death):

Jhn 2:19 - Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Jesus himself says "raised" in Jhn, witnesses say "built".

Mat 26:60- But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, [yet] found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,

Mat 26:61 - And said, This [fellow] said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

From the Christian side, I think that one could consider Jesus death, and His blood spreading, as a kind of CW “circumcising” Himself, for a new (and third) covenant. I think that one could see then the “CW circumcision” blood flowing on the floor, and a new Temple arising from it.

It is interesting to note that in some modern jewish traditions, one buries the piece of flesh from a circumcised boy after three days, as a seed for a new rise.

So Jesus appears to me (from the Christian side), as mentioning those two bloods: the blood from “CW circumcision”, which is similar to the blood of the Covenant (REF), and the blood of the lamb, the second blood spread from animal sacrifice, the two bloods mentioned by Ezechiel.

This “token in return” for a new “double blood” Covenant from CW is very close to Saint Paul approach, where classical jewish circumcision is replaced by the faith in Jesus being the Christ/Messiah, etc.. (REF)

Please note: this was for me  an extremely difficult post, I hope that comments and further references will be posted, and I shall myself post the exact references for quotations in the near future.

Pic 1: artist Faytene Kryskow

Apple Tree Shin - First Light - Pentecost Monday, May 16th

       Here are some pics taken between 1pm and 3pm; GMT+2 time: start, getting closer, on the rail,  and after.

The sun was kind enough to show up just in time, in a rather cloudy day.

The rose tree is a young "Dance Of The Fire", the favourite rose tree for my father.

And the bigger picture show the motto "Cum Misecordia - 300", to remind the mystical approach of the missing fith letter, the shin, in the Tetragram, and Hosea 2:19 on berahamim, the power of mercy

Mission Statement and Apologies

Mission Statement

What my dream is: to organize in the next years, as a challenge, 12 peaceful lunches around the Circle, taken as a Rainbow, a memory of the first Covenant made by CW to Noah.

Together with those lunches - compliant with the local countries food and drinks restrictions, I think that a good roasted lamb would be appropriate averywhere, but wine could be not - one could imagine organizing a conference, with published Transcriptions/Acts.

Conference themes would run on the inter-religion problem, why not localized, but with an open mind, keeping an utopist approach, to try to open gateways, to explain and teach a reliable history of each branch of the Tree to others, not to spot red-iron irreconciable differences. The Christ blood/wine example was source of many hates and pains, at it can be handled so nicely by Maimonide's approach, as I suggested. I am sure that there are many other examples.

Conferences places could be around the Circle, chosen between places such as Fontevraud/France, Tuscany (Sienna/Italy), Itaque/Grece, Crete, Alexandria/Egypt, Mount Sinai-St Catherine Monastery. I thought also of a place between Medina and Mecca in Saudi Arabia, perhaps inYemen, and on the other side, many places in East Canada, US (I found Stockbridge, MA), and Mexico, and why not Australia. 12 is a small number!

Apologies

At this point, I would like to make some apologies to those branches of the Tree religions I have not been mentioning much since this blog began.

As christian Apostle John says:

Jhn 14:2  In my Father's house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

Othodox Church comes first in mind, and I know so little about it, except the filioque discussion, and the final decision of Charles the Great to add this latin word to the Nicene Creed, leading thus to the great schism between Eastern and Western christianism.

See: http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/general/greatschism.aspx and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque

All Reformed churches, the Anglican church of the Tree come also to mind, with all their deep insights and work. I think I remember that Reichlin was professor of hebrew for Luther. It is clear to me that all these Tree branches come from the same roots, especially when we boil it down to the message of berahamim, in latin cum misericordia.

Islam religion needs another apology from my side: as the actual Jesuits Superior General, Peter Hans Kolvenbach, puts it in his (french language) 2004 book, "Faubourg du St Esprit", hoping that I am not over-interpreting his words: Christians could today have a role as an arbitrage between judaism and islam on the question of Jerusalem. One should first understand deeper the importance of Sourat 17, "The Journey by Night", as commented in the Hadith, and the role it plays into making Jerusalem a holy place for Islam. As for Christians, they believe now, since the death and resurrection of Jesus-Christ, in a wait for another Jerusalem, the celestial one, so their role is now more of an arbitrage than of a demand on the earthly Jerusalem Holy Land.

To study Islam without knowing, besides of course the Quran, the role and importance of the Hadith (Prophet Muhammad (1) own sayings and deeds, related by a chain of reporters, and transcripted by famed authors such as Sahih Buqhari) would make no sense, as studying the Torah without knowing the existence of Talmud - see: http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/

The Rainbow/Circle of my Foundation Utopia dream goes from Yemen to Mexico (and, on the other side, a little piece of Australia, close to Sydney ;=) ), so I apologize for my lack of knowledge of Islam, which I intend to study and try to understand more and more in the years to come.

As for the other religions, I apologize also, I have limited at first step this project to the religions of the Tree. Other religions do exist, I respect and understand how they are also immensely important to the people who live and pray by them.

Actually, with Antoine, we thought of a second Circle-Rainbow, orthogonal to the first one and starting from the same diameter on the equator (0°N,60°E)-(0°N, 120°W). This second circle goes through India, Nepal, China, Japan, and back to South America (Uruguay), to name a few places..

(1) It is not very easy to mention sacred names from different religions at the same time: either you try to show respect, the best way you can, with all what you have understood in the usual way to address or refer such names (eg Jesus-Christ, or StPaul, or Prophet Muhammad (pbuh or saw)), and then you fall into some traps of syncretism, of you put nothing after, and may sound disrespectful, which is not my intention!

Pic 1: Mission Statement: Shin light and pilgrim's stick, May 16th, 2005

Pic 2: Haga Sophia in Istanbul, no longer a church nor a mosque  in service, but owned and managed by Turkish state, a quieter approach?

Pic 3: Luther's Augustinian Monastery

Pic 4: Calvin's (born in Noyon sur Seine, France) book: Ioannis Calvini in omnes D. Pauli epistolas, atque etia in epistola ad Hebraeos commentaria luculentissima
Geneva: John Gerardus, 1551.

Pic 5: Westminster Cathedral, London

Pic 6: Mecca by night

Pic 7: Sahih Buqhari mausolea in Samarcande, Ouzbekistan

12 conferences around the Circle/Rainbow: a first draft of themes

The area of a regular dodecagon inscribed in a unit circle with R = 1 is 3

(Kurschák's Theorem)

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As said before, the kick-off strategy of this Utopia is to organize 12 lunches around an imaginary line (see previous posts) running from Yemen to Mexico, through countries that will display the richness and complexity of this Tree of religions.

I think that it would be interesting to organize at the same time a conference, with published proceedings, for each of those lunches. Here are some themes I suggest as a first draft. There is no order, as there is no attachment from a specific theme to a specific place alongside the Circle, though some connections may spring to the mind easily.

- Theme number 1: berahamim, the hebrew word for "cum misericordia" includes the root rehem, the hebrew word for "maternal breast" (or "belly", "uterus"). In aramean, rahem means "love". Hence misericordia must be taken from a maternal side, and I thought that one of the themes might be Mary, alongside with some of the major women of the Books.

- Theme number 2: clear a path on the exact origins of texts: from what sources originate current published manuscripts, what are the existing editions evolutions, etc. A Tree of books. But also a description of the current state of the religions Tree, where do we stand today. What is included, what is not.

- Theme number 3 : the iconoclast/iconodules controversy. Some religions of the Tree demand that no image should be produced, others take images as a major method for explanation and/or limitation

- Theme number 4: Wine, which is such a major subject, positive or negative for all of those religions

- Theme number 5: Circumcision, Covenant, role of blood

- Theme number 6: I would suggest a whole conference on the subject of Surat 17, and the Nocturnal Journey of Prophet Muhamad, with all its implications, so that readers/attendees would know more about not only the Quran part, but its related Hadith.

- Theme number 7: Theophany - the way a human, a Prophet, a Messiah relates to  revelation by CW

- Theme number 8: Money, but also City and War

- Theme number 9: Geometry, Music, Astronomy (Plato), but also Architecture

(themes 8 and 9 relate to the immense influence of greek and roman culture to the Tree evolution)

- Theme number 10: Food rules, feast, manna, ..

- Theme number 11: Do's and Don'ts, Mitzvoth, rules, virtues and sins

- Theme number 12: Apocalypses, Merkaba, Death and Resurrection

Again, there is not a defined order, and this is a first suggestion.

Candidate Town: Lenox-Stockbridge, MA, USA

Lenox and Stockbridge ("Every Lenox has its Stockbridge", wrote Cleveland Amory) are located north of New York and west of Boston.

Lenox (42n21, 73w21, 0.94km) is almost on the Circle(*), Stockbridge is located south (42n17, 73w19, 8.68km). Based in a wonderful area named the Berkshire Hills, by the Housatonic river, those two small cities have marvelous histories:

"The Berkshires has been a famous summer resort for over a hundred years. It was the country seat of the very rich and powerful during the Gilded Age (~1880-1920, with the Carnegie, the Vanderbilt, etc.). Before that it was called the American Lake Districts - home of the great poets and authors. Remnants of the past are all around you" (The Berkshire Cottages, Carole Owans, Cottage Press 1984)

The Berkhsire hills are an incredibly peaceful and romantic place today, with the Tanglewood festival of music every summer. The fall season is blooming there like nowhere (see Pics), and there is in Stockbridge a charming very old hotel, the Red Lion Inn, that claims to be the oldest hotel of America in exercice non-stop.

I think that it is a good target for one of the conferences!

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Pic 1 : engraving of Lenox; Pic 2 : famous painting by american illustrator Norman Rockwell, "Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas" - http://www.nrm.org/eyeopener/eye_mainstreet.html; Pic 3 -4 -5 : fall season foliage in the Berkshires; Pic 6 : local map (Mapquest); Pic 7 : The Red Lion Inn front door.

See also: The Tanglewood Music festivals - http://www.bso.org/, a short history of Lenox: http://www.lenox.org/history.html, and Stockbridge official site: http://www.stockbridgechamber.org/

(*): see Finding The Missing Circle, March 08, 2005