<just
as some writers allegedly know the colour of their characters pyjamas even if
they never go to bed during the novel, I made detailed studies of the deities
in invocation. Despite or perhaps because of the time constraints I had
to work within, I felt it was critical to have a firm grasp on the symbolic
significance of the essential elements.../>
<two
elements in the structure were personally more important to me: the concept
of invoking the past and using it to recreate the future and exploring the
duality of profane and sacred time.../>
original
notes (in blue)
in
Hesiod's theogony, chaos is a 'gap' which comes into being..it
is not 'chaotic' in the modern sense of the word but more 'entropic' an
'even, indifferent distribution of energy' therefore to create (or have
in creation) either process or object, means to emerge from chaos, which
is nothing but a certain untapped potential.
<modern
man tends to think of the passage of time being a linear progression from
past to future in one direction but the ancients had other mental models.
The idea of time being circular reflects the turning and returning of the
seasons and the cycles of the sun and the moon. But there was also the idea
of time swinging like a great pendulum, creating variable speeds at different
points on its curve.
The concept underlying many creation myths is the desire to connect with the
infinite time of the gods, before entropy and decay brought death to mankind.../>
"the
distinction made in Pythagorean/Orphic thought between the principle behind
the cosmos and the causes obtaining within it: number, the cosmic
'law', is seen as the interface between...infinite and finite"..for
number read interval=space/time in tension to create events.
<essential
reading for insights into the ancient religions is The Golden Bough,
A Study in Magic and Religion by JD Frazer. Frazer draws strong comparisons
between Dionysus and Osiris, both gods of vegetation, 'dying' gods who
are torn apart and whose restoration is associated both with the fertility of
the land and man's spiritual ascension.../>
