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copperwoman |
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i cannot even-stephanie pope |
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i cannot even
think her
but now and then
i drink her
in the amethyst
something about
the way she tilts her chin
and the long neck stretched
patiently thinned, wetting the dry
an unknown destiny fills her
while in some dreaming it seems she
fills without filling the raised crest
these eyes that taste
yet tongue in little sips the solitariness barely dressed
or how one copper breast that cups such
emptiness, still stains
in wine-dark light these concrete travelers
passing by
in a jet stream
when coppers green this methyein hill
& Dionysos dies again, too quickly spent
the mummy-fiction ficts anew the dry death
marking me in hushed foment
she will always have her sky here
and one slippery eye
as do
too few in the amethyst
and she will always lie here, too
for no one knows that truth
now that her abdomen has vexed
unrested like the rest of her
because such a-part will have always been
meat left behind in a sack of skin
long ago turned over
into use -it is no use
turning that over now
i can not even
try; just take my bones with you when you go
out into the world of Old Mother, Copper
& where I represent this let her make me more than I’ve
ever been to you in the white shell west of being here
for the body of that being (without being here)
eases the pain of it
when woundedness wets me again
& copper wind marks my flesh with fictive facts
sparking an action there, to act |
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First Woman
adapted creation story, Nuu-chah-nulth Nation, Vancouver Island
In the beginning there were four levels of
reality: earth, undertheearth, ocean, and underthesea. That which is
neither male nor female, man nor woman, but more than both and favoring
neither populates all four realities. This uncreated in being-so begins
making and takes from all four levels of creation in making. Being-So
makes, becoming a creator of being. From shell and rock and sea fluids
Being-So makes bone and blood. Creating further,
The Uncreated soils body. This body of being skins green and orders in odors of
copper a starry robe... form is given sense and senses.
In this way uncreated being will trap
aliveness in the very winds containing it; but also, in this way,
containing aliveness within the realities of its deepest being here. So being, the uncreated in
being-so announces the presence of First Woman. First Woman is not alone
in the four realities nor the worlds of their being here. She has her own being here and her friendship in this new creation with the
realities of the uncreated in being-so.
Amethyst
retold from the Greek myth of the origin of
amethyst
Amethyst's origin resides with the god
Dionysos (Roman, Bacchus), the god of wine, celebration, intoxication,
joviality and indestructible life, and the goddess Diana (alchemy, La
Luna).
Dionysos darkens when insulted by a mortal who refuses him honor. Enraged
with anger Dionysos vows to unleash his fury upon mortals who do not
partake in his gift of wine and drunkenness. He spies the young girl,
Amethyst who does not yet know about wine and drunkenness. Amethystus means not drunken or intoxicated (methystos, from methyein means intoxicated, methy = wine.)
The unsuspecting Amethyst, on her way to pay hommage to Diana, is detained
by the wrath of Dionysos who summons two fierce and voracious tigers to
devour the poor maiden while he settles back with his wine to watch.
Amethyst cries out to Diana. When Diana sees what is about to transpire
she instantly acts, transforming the mortal girl into a pure and radiant
white stone to protect her from the devastating Dionysian ripping apart
about to take place. Suddenly moved with pity, Dionysos realizes the
ruthlessness of his actions and begins to weep with sorrow. His tears drip
into his wine goblet mixing with the wine. The god collapses under the
weight of knowing such sorrow and the tear-tainted wine drenches the white
stone coloring it, forever amethyst.
Hephaestus
 sources: http://www.granta.demon.co.uk/arsm/jg/crafters.html
Pierre Grimal, Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Mass: Blackwell, 1998
The Greek god whose elemental image is fire is the
master of a certain kind of fire. In the Iliad, Hephaestus first appears
as a cupbearer for the gods (Il 1.596ff.), then as a master of metals and
talismans [metal & magic=alchemy] (Il 2.101; 18.369ff., 410ff.) and
finally as a master of fire, the element with which he is most identified
(Il 21.330ff.). Jeremiah
Genest notes Hephaestus is master of the
technical fire, the fire that is used to accomplish the tasks of artisans,
not the heart fire, which is the domain of Hestia, nor the celestial fire,
the lightning of Zeus.
The role of the artist/poet in culture today is guided by the hammered fire of Hephaestus.
(The poem link is to the poem by Dennis Patrick Slattery. The poem is published in the book, Just Below The Waterline.
Essentially this technical fire is that fire working through logical
realities ars poetica; working a space beneath or beyond the
reality surfaces we see 'as if' like
the first intelligent experiences human psyche expresses upon
encountering the phenomena logics of metallurgy & magic. The Iliad
describes this Hephastean work-space when Thetis steps there, a starry
vault, made in bronze and forged by the bandy-legged one himself (Il
18.369-71). From Genest we also learn
...the
early Greeks considered the sky to be made of metal: the poets say that the sky is made of bronze (chalkeos or poluchalkeos) or of iron (sidereos). That is why, in an Orphic context, Proclus can write: "Let us add to our traditions the convictions that we have received from the very first from the (Orphic)
theologians concerning Hephaestus. . . . They say that he is a smith,
because he is a worker and also because, since the sky is made of bronze in its
function as a symbol of the intelligible, he who made the sky is a smith" (Proclus,
In Platonis Timaeum [23d-e], 1.142.18ff. Diehl). The comparison is reinforced
by that fact that on certain illustrated documents Hephaestus's hair is
arranged in
a pilos, an egg-shaped cap, of dark blue, which Eusebius of Caesarea compares to the celestial vault (Praeparatio Evangelica 3.2.23).
Indeed, Hephaestus is the
crafter god of Greek culture and by way of soul- logical inheritances, belongs to that domain in our own cultural expression today. He
fires the making of the people's story and transposes those logical
positivisms belonging to the literal fires that burn the
earth, this being reserved mainly for Prometheus, probably because (as Genest indicates) Prometheus is a Titan, a name deriving from the term
titanos, the quicklime formed from an earthy element and from fire
(Aristotle, Meteorologica 4.11.389a28).
The mythology of Hephaestus belongs to a shaping-field always busy
re-shaping and dissolving a dead past in ways that continue to renew us
and bind us together in living heritage. Furthermore, such suckling so
signified makes way today its first appearances in the new discipline of
cultural mythology and new presences take up thoughtful residence here in
the form of the cultural mythologist. For more regarding cultural
mythology see the essay Poetic Mind: A Lense Into The Imaginal by Maggie Macary.
Copper 
image of liquid copper at desert.net gallery of images
The Latin word for copper is 'cuprum', which
is derived directly from Cyprus' mines, but the only word the Greeks used
was 'chalkos', which originally meant copper (especially when
specified as red chalkos), yet also signifies bronze. It may be the
general use of bronze as a superior material rendered the original word
"copper" obsolete, but it may also be that the bronze casting guild kept
their formulae for the processing of bronze from copper secret, and the
public only knew the finished product as 'chalkos", whether soft like
copper or hard like true bronze. Both hard and soft copper are austenitic,
that is they harden under working, bending or hammering, marking part of
our difference with cultures of yore since our use of copper preferences the soft or
annealed state as in electrical wire and tubing. The ancients would have been
mainly interested in work-hardened copper and especially in bronze for tools
and weapons.
Copper Scroll for more
about 3Q15 & Dead Sea Scrolls click here
 Copper,
especially in its alloy bronze, as noted above, along with iron, is a
metal useful for making tools and weapons, while gold and silver are the
"decorative " metals. All these metals have high value in themselves for
early culture,
SCROLL 3Q15 whether for use or
show and they raise questions regarding the value-levels of civilized societies
mightily, not only since their purchasing power is high in comparison with
other kinds of things necessary to a community's survival (things
like pottery-making, for instance) but because we washed our weapons in
seas of blood and sweat to achieve absolute authority over their powers.
As above, in daily life, so below in our soul-makings.
The Dead Sea Copper Scroll 3Q15 above was found in 1952 in Wadi Qumran.
It's contents are neither doctrinal nor inspirational in nature as were
other scrolls written on papyrus and leather and found between 1952 and
1956 within this vicinity. The copper casing suggests greater care was
taken to preserve this particular scroll indicating its contents may have
been of greater significance than the others. 3Q15 contains a list of
treasures and where they are buried and, when found, this scroll was in
two parts. The scroll, once translated, suggests there is another like it
and that one must possess both to find these highly regarded treasured
things. Truly, this fragment of content continues to story another more
mysterious one - an imaginal story...of a treasuring that is buried
and hard to attain.
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CopperWoman
the
photo, taken of the McDowell Mts. foothills marks the pass between Scotsdale, Arizona and Fountain Hills, Arizona.
It has been washed in copper and amethyst colors and the
colors were merged to achieve the cloudy stain. The artist also notes that the sun sets
down the center of the highway running along side this foothill at spring equinox. For another turning
regarding myths of color and light see To All My Relations. For an insight into color symbolism in Egyptian mythology
click here. For a
turning of the use of the color blue in art see Caeruleum.
source University of Southern Maine Yolanda Theunissen Curator, Osher Map
Library and Smith Center of Cartographic Education the following
narrative quotes excerpts from the writings of Donald Johnson on-line at
http://usm.maine.edu/maps/exhibit8/nrcredits.html
Poseidon's Realm
 Winds,
and the place from which they blew, were the earliest means of dividing
the horizon into named parts in order to express direction. The ancients
used various forms of wind systems: Homer described four winds, consisting
of the four cardinal points we now call north, south, east, and west;
Pliny and Posidonius recognized eight winds, whereas Aristotle enumerated
twelve.
Mediterranean mariners named winds after the lands from which they
originated, such as Greco (from Greece) to designate the northeast, or
Africus for southwest. Other directions were named after the gods who
reigned in that region. Astronomical positions, as well, were used to
indicate wind direction. Septentrio designated north, since that wind blew
from the direction of the seven stars in the constellation of Ursa
Major--the north pointing big dipper. Sunset and sunrise at the summer and
winter solstices filled in the intermediate points between the four
cardinal directions, corresponding roughly to northeast, southeast,
southwest, and northwest. Some wind names had no set bearing, but were
identified and personified according to the weather they brought with
them. |
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