액어스서 문디

"Axis mundi" roughly translated to Konglish. (Koratin?)

The N Seoul Tower is probably the tallest building in the Seoul skyline, 777 (symoblism!) feet from base to top. Situated on the top of the mountain in Namsan Park, it stands over 1,500 feet above sea level and dominates the surrounding landscape:





Koreans seem to have an innate appreciation for the connection between the mundane and the mystical here. The Tower has, over the years, become a requisite date destination for any serious Korean couple. The base of the tower features a sit-down candlelit sort of restaurant, "couples' benches" that bend in the middle so that lovers can cuddle with ease, and a stand where you can buy locks.

Wait, what, locks? Just so. Check this out:



Those are all padlocks attached to the cyclone fencing around the base that keeps you from falling into the wilderness of Namsan Park below. As a token of their undying love, Korean couples come here and write their names on padlocks and attach them to the fence, as if attaching a symbol of themselves to the axis mundi will bestow upon their love some of the eternal nature of the heavens to which the axis points and connects.

Axis Monday: The System of the World in a Cartoon

(The above cartoon is by Alex Gregory and first appeared in the New Yorker on 18 February 2002. You can order merchandise here)

According to the explanation on the linked website, the people are Hollywood types in a hot tub.

Allow me to explain this obfuscated cartoon for you. Yup, this essay will be a rather unartistic ekphrasis on wonder. Haven't had one of those from me in a while, despite the promise in the header.

Unsurprisingly, the cartoon's obfuscation comes from its imagery, which is so terribly simple that you dismiss it outright.


All the human elements of the picture, both the people and the objects of their design, are crowded into less than a quarter of the image. The rest is dominated by three objects: the palm tree, the distant mountain, and the endless sky.

The quick and simple lines of these three carefully chosen objects reveal the meaning of the cartoon's captions. Mr. Gregory cleverly tears down the dichotomous wall between the two seemingly far-flung demes of Hollywood Glamour and those Muslims who see the world through a purely religious lens.

The religious see the world in terms of archetypes and revelations of the Sacred. They understand that man and his material world is just a tiny corner of all that Is. Hence the wise relegation of earthly things to the corner of the cartoon.

But although Hollywood does not see the world in the same way, the stories film tells accept that view of the world as though it were true. Campbell explained how the ubiquitous quest narrative is composed of equally ubiquitous archetypes. Hollywood's most traditional--and successful--tales all are versions of this one story, the same story which is shared to some extent or another by all the truly religious of the world.

Thus, the human element of the cartoon is by far the least important. Consider each of the other three images in turn.

First we have the endless sky, which takes up well over half the cartoon. It is self-evident, and corroborated in the literature of every culture which has yet come up in the course of Axis Monday, that the sky is the Sacred Realm, and it is either the emanation of all holy things or that from which they emanate. The world of the Sacred cannot in any way be understood by man; hence the seeming blankness, the pure white, of the inimitable sky in the cartoon. It is only natural that Mr. Gregory's cartoon juxtaposes the incredible force and power of the sacred with the smallness of man.

But Mr. Gregory spoons out the irony in droves, because despite the words of these moguls, only one of them truly understands all the implications of what they say. Only the third figure (of course it is the third. There are three sacred objects, three profane humans, and one prophet, who is third in the line of humans) looks skyward, and because this character faces away from us, we know nothing of her. All we can presume is that she does not speak. She alone stares upwards at the endless sky and understands that she is miniscule in comparison. The others are absorbed in their material objects and their banter. The others look at each other. She looks at Heaven.

The second symbol, of course, is the Holy Mountain. The Mountain is that natural point, the horizon, where the sacred meets the profane. It is vastly distant and vastly high, as evident in the picture. Humans can perceive it but, by and large, they cannot reach it. It is that liminal threshold between the worlds. Once in an aeon a man may stand upon the Mountain (few mortals indeed summited Olympus, by far the most obvious example; even today few humans have seen the heights of Ararat, next week's signature topic). Moses spoke to God upon Sinai's height but he ventured there alone. Innumerable other examples available on request. All great religious acts occur on or in the shadow of the Mountain. Thus it is ineffably remote from the conspicuous consumers, who tell stories in accord with the Mountain even as they themselves deny its veracity and efficacy.

But it is, of course, the palm tree which brings the entire piece together.
So many small elements here:

The palm is the symbol of many of the countries of the Middle East, notably Arabia and its city Mecca where Islam was born.

None of the four people in the picture look at the palm. Not even the fourth woman: her level gaze makes clear that she has eyes only for her compatriots. None of them have room for it in their lives.


Most important of all, note that the palm reaches from level ground, past the line of the Holy Mountain into the Endless Sky. It alone, of all the objects in the picture, reaches both the Sacred and the Profane.

The Palm Tree is the AXIS MUNDI.

The Sky is purely sacred. The Holy Mountain is the unapproachable barrier between the worlds. But the AXIS MUNDI, here represented aptly by the palm tree, which through its connotations with Araby evokes the MASJID AL-HARAM, is the only force capable of connecting the worlds. It is the hierophany, the divine revelation of the sacred to the human world, the vibrant and living proof that something exists that is greater than humanity. The Axis Mundi is the very center of the System of the World.

Every religion person knows this, in not so many words. At some point in the history of every religion, a great event has happened which revealed the sacred to man. This hierophany unveils the Axis Mundi, eternal, unchanging, hitherto invisible. And two worlds, at that one holiest place, become one.

Here it is the palm. The "Islamic fundamentalists" of the caption understand implicitly that the world of the Sacred is vast compared to the Earth. The Hollywood folks think they understand this, and thus think the fundamentalists should like them. They think they must be kin.

But all of the figures in the cartoon, save the one who is clearly silent, turn their backs on all three indicators of the sacred: the Mountain. The Sky. The Axis.

It's a great punchline. These earthly moguls truly do not understand why the most extreme among the Islamic faithful do not like them. They think they know the sacred, but all they see are dancing shadows on a cave wall, even though Truth surrounds them.

Complex Flags

Before Christmas we chatted about the Swiss flag, and how its colors and dimensions are not rigidly defined. Can you imagine that in America?

The American flag is more complexly symbolic than the Swiss flag, but American schoolchildren all learn its meaning early in life. And Betsy Ross is venerated like a Catholic saint (with similarly dubious miracles). Consider also the host of proscriptions around the American flag. Rules for its proper use and care, how high it may be raised, how to dispose of it, etc. are all codified in the official U.S. Flag Code.

Keep in mind that, according to flag etiquette, the American flag must never be stepped upon; not only that, it may not even touch the ground. The flag is reserved for the heavens alone; the sublunar earth disgraces it, even though that ground is part of the nation the flag represents. Could the Flag Code state any more clearly that the flag is the symbol of a nation composed not of people and land but foremost of the symbolic and the sacred?

Ponder also that the latest attempt to pass a constitutional amendment against flag burning failed in the 2006 Senate by one vote. It passed the House by a large margin. Many state and local organizations have requested such an amendment, despite repeated Supreme Court rulings against similar local statutes. The logic for such an amendment makes sense in its way; in a textbook case of metonymy, schoolchildren (and, more sporadically, adults) pledge allegiance to the nation by pledging allegiance to the flag. The flag is the nation; burning it, argue the proponents of the amendment, is tantamount to treason. To those who believe this, burning the flag is a direct assault on the nation--and therefore transcends the guarantees of free speech.

All of these complex rules and regulations, and the strong emotions the American flag engenders, proves one thing beyond all doubt:

It is that rarest of cases where symbolism is so powerful that it fully actualizes in the earthly realm.

A Whimsy On Magic

What comes to mind when the word “magic” is heard? Merlin putting the sword in the stone? Harry Potter waving his wand? David Blaine tricking stupid people into thinking he can levitate? Magic, noun-the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation, gesture, or other means. When we hear “magic” we think of the seemingly supernatural effects we are incapable of, not the seemingly supernatural effects we deal with on a day-to-day basis. Magic is alive and well and integrated into our everyday lives.

A young man has met with an elusive old hermit on the streets of London. This hermit, a bearded and disheveled beggar, is supposedly going to train him in the arts of the occult. He says to the hermit, “teach me some magic.” The hermit asks for a fiver. The young man rolls his eyes and gives him a five-pound note, which the hermit uses to buy fish and chips. The now-angry young man exclaims “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me something?” to which the hermit, contentedly munching on his fish and chips, replies, “I just traded a piece of paper for vital sustenance. How is that not magic?”

But, you say, currency has an agreed-upon value. There’s nothing magic about that. Wrong. That is the very definition of magic. Magic is evoking physical actions from people via shared belief using seemingly inert materials. There are actual cases of people being condemned to death by local priests/witch-doctors/shamans and subsequently dying. Much in the same way that the communal belief in the power of a curse can kill someone, it is our communal belief in the strength of our economy that helps make it strong. Why should I provide you vital sustenance for that piece of paper? Because I know I can trade it to someone else. Alright, I'll accept that, but why should I put my pieces of paper in the local bank? At any given time a bank owns, at most, 10% of its assets in hard currency. It is the belief in the strength of the bank that allows it to exist, if we didn’t believe our money was safe we would withdraw it en masse only to find it wasn’t there (which happened during the Great Depression).


Not only this, but the physical presence of these pieces of paper has a nigh-supernatural effect have on our behavior. I think to Abbie Hoffman’s infamous 1973 prank of scattering hundreds of dollar bills on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. These wizards of finance, many of whom so wealthy they could bathe in such bills and set fire to them every day of the remainder of their lives, trampled one another to grab them. Trading was shut down, and visitors were not allowed into the NYSE again until a glass barrier had been installed.

And that is not the only form of magic that we encounter on a daily basis. Performance, too, is itself a form of magic. Think back to our earlier archetypes, Merlin and Harry Potter using their robes, incantations, and wand gesturings to effect change. Is this not precisely what a performer does? Performers put on their magic garments (costumes/uniforms), intone the magic words (sing poetry, speak rhetoric), and gesture appropriately with their magic wands (props, musical instruments) to effect enormous change within their audiences.


Think to the last concert you attended where the band managed to get the audience jumping and screaming. Think of the historical orators who could take ordinary docile men and women and whip them into a lynch mob or an army capable of conquering Europe. Think to the godlike power of theater* and its extension/enhancement, film, in its ability to evoke involuntary spasmic breathing (laughter) or involuntary tear-duct malfunction (people can be made to feel empathy for images on a screen!)

By moving and speaking the performer brings about a seemingly magical change in another. No, we cannot hit someone with an enormous blast of psychic power by putting our hands together and screaming “KAMEHAMEHA” (though this would be hilarious to witness in an actual fight), but most societies have at some point through oratory and nationalist rhetoric persuaded their citizens to needlessly endanger their lives by charging into battle against opponents they have no quarrel with to enrich a handful of people they will never meet. Which sounds more absurd to you?


*-a theme explored in plays as early as The Bacchae. The connection is made explicitly in The Tempest, where the magic of Prospero (seen below) is directly linked to the magic of the stage.

Armed Burglars Demand Man's Eggbeater

Via Yahoo:

TAMPA, Fla. – It really must have been a special item. According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, two men entered a man's home early Sunday and demanded his eggbeater. One suspect was holding a pistol while the other brandished a knife to the resident's neck.

Police caught the men outside the home and they are being held in Orient Road Jail. One suspect also faces a charge of aggravated assault.

Police found the eggbeater in the man's left pocket.

The first line sums it up. To us, this story just sounds odd, stupid even. But nobody breaks into a house just to be odd.

Somehow this eggbeater had powerful symbolic value to one or both of the robbers. The hardboiled detectives on the case have yet to figure out why, but it stood out to the criminals as an object of very special significance. It was sacred--worth risking their freedom over, even though it means nothing to the world at large. Perhaps the judge will go over easy if one of the robbers proves a Benedict Arnold.

They have seen a hierophany, the revelation of the sacred. We have not. The sacred is relative. What to us is scrambled to them is crystal clear.

No word from the victim on whether he's steamed that they almost poached something from him. I hope he looks at the sunny side of the situation: at least he got it back!

This story is so much better than it would be if the eggbeater had been made out of gold, or if it had belonged to Khrushchev. That sort of symbolism would be far too obvious.

No word on a possible sentence, but I don't think they'll fry.

Why do you think the eggbeater was special? Whip up your best story below!

Simple Flags

Consider the Swiss flag.

It is unusual in two respects. First of all, its simplicity; few flags except the maddeningly confusing and uninteresting tricolors are so unadorned. Second, it is square. Only two sovereign nations have square flags; the other is the Holy See.

You would think that the square, as a more perfect geometrical shape than the rectangle, would be predominant. Nations naturally wish to portray themselves as enduring (sometimes as immutable). The rectangle is not the shape that best portrays that. Note the perfect symmetry of the Swiss flag; rectangular flags lack such perfection.

I have found only one plausible answer to why nations do not use square flags, and even that is just a guess: square flags do not blow as well in the wind. Is this important for purely aesthetic reasons--the majesty of a waving flag--or for symbolic ones as well?

A barren flagpole in itself means nothing; however, a flagpole with a flag waving at the top of it becomes a localized Axis Mundi. Thus, a nation's waving flag asserts its control over the heavens. It lays official claim to the realm of the symbolic (and no nation shall long endure without vesting itself in symbolism, which builds loyalty).

I won't go into the symbolism of the Swiss flag (it should be obvious), but consider that the earliest known precursor to the current flag featured Jesus himself suffering on the cross. It is also worthy of note that although the dimensions of the current cross relative to itself are established by statute, the exact red hue is not so prescribed, so different flags vary.

It is extremely curious that the Swiss allow any variance in this matter. Flags are probably the single most visible symbol of a nation, both at home and abroad, and their symbolism or historical significance usually is very strong. The Swiss flag embodies not only its Christian roots but its origins as a federation of cantons; the flag is the nation's history. But you can fool around with the color a bit. A strange levity to grant; I will discuss it in more detail with regard to the American flag in a future post.

One group fooled around with the color a bit more than usual. The globally known and aptly named Red Cross:

The Red Cross has officially stated (when they refused to recognize the lengthily named Red Star of David as an official Emblem of Red Stuff International) that the flag is not deliberately Christian, but a direct inversion of the Swiss flag.

This seems somewhat controversial. Wouldn't the inversion of a flag's colors imply the inversion of the symbols that flag stands for? And Switzerland stands for peace. Of course, the Red Cross does not concern itself with peace but with war (or rather of helping people who suffer because of it). Likewise, Switzerland is a nation of peace with one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world. Perhaps then the Red Cross (based in Switzerland) is onto something: the nation sponsors peace with militarization; the organization inverts it by accepting the reality of war and bringing peace into it.

Of course, even though the Red Cross denies that it has Christian roots, it still bears a cross on its flag, adopted from a country which itself bears a cross which in its earliest forms featured a dying Christ emblazoned. Symbolism, even buried and denied, never perishes. If it did, we would not have a Red Crescent (which could be argued to basically invert the flag of the Ottomans). Why not make a Red Star of David as a similar near-inversion of the flag of Israel (which does officially recognize the symbol)?

The Red Cross states that doing so would dilute the internationalism of their symbols, and that is certainly true. Perhaps the protests by certain nations, including Syria, against the Red Star had something to do with it. Why did they protest? Because nations know that symbols have power, and a symbol's meanings, whatever an organization may claim, never lose their original meaning. The Red Cross and the Red Crescent are both implicitly religious symbols and always will be. For that reason alone, the logical third member of the trio cannot join them, despite the very practical and beneficial nature of the organization in question. The sacred trumps the profane as nations fight wars solely over symbolism.

Never think those wars are not important.

Symbols in the Absolute Most Obvious Sense

[N.B. Per the name of this exploration, Axis Monday shall feature its lengthiest and most in-depth discussions on Mondays. Conveniently (and all unknowing) Demosthenes fulfilled this need for me with his labyrinthine Manifesto]




The most obvious symbols, in a very literal sense, are the letters of the alphabet. They are arbitrary drawings which our culture has imbued with meaning. This is no revelation to you, nor should it be. Naturally, we are so used to these symbols that they hold no great wonder for us anymore. See? Check it out:

XR

Totally uninteresting. Letters, nothing more. A morass of meaninglessness, a quagmire of the quotidian (I'm pretty pleased with that alliteration). Now reverse it.

Suddenly two letters, written in a somewhat stylized manner but still very clearly recognizable as letters, unlock a whole new world of meaning.

Every one of you knows that these two letters, written in this way, mean "prescription." I dare say most of you would make the same association (with less certainty) if I merely wrote

RX

Or more so for

Rx

?

I'm curious; let me know if I am wrong.

But I also bet that none of you could tell me why 'RX' means 'prescription.' Of course, this has no effect on your actual understanding of the symbol.

[For those interested: nobody seems to know exactly where RX acquired this connotation. In the absence of truth, I shall accept the most whimsical theory: that the symbol somehow looks like the Eye of Horus.
I enjoy such a spirit of imagination. Other theories involve Latin mumbo-jumbo and are much less interesting. All are dubious.]

Although the origins of the symbol are lost, it retains its meaning.

That covers the profane.

Onto the sacred.

Reverse the letters again. Superimpose them upon each other. And two mere letters, images which bring particular phonemes to mind, transmute into the most powerful image of Orthodox Christianity.

The Labarum!

In hoc signo vinces. En touto nika. In this sign you shall conquer.

Constantine the Great reputedly saw this sign in a dream before the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312. And, so the story goes, he adopted that very sign as his personal standard. And won the battle against Maxentius, and became Emperor, and ended Roman oppression of Christianity. Years later, on his deathbed, he converted.

Thus, the first two letters of Christ's name became the de facto battle standard of the late Roman and Byzantine Empire, and a powerful religious symbol as well. The symbol has two names: the labarum (etymology unclear), and more simply the Chi-Rho (the two letters; basically, the XR).

We could talk about semantics and semiotics and how symbols acquire meaning, and perhaps we shall in the comments, but my point is simpler.

Some of the symbols we often see are abstract, e.g. the American flag or the crescent moon and star(s) emblazoned on many Islamic flags. Others are more literal: the other great Christian symbol, the cross. A stylized picture of a man, indicating a men's restroom. The elements that compose these symbols are fairly obvious to those who know them.

But the fusion of two letters, symbols in themselves but related in an indirect or forgotten way to the new symbol, can merge to form a greater whole. From a convenient scribble to save ten letters, to a triumphant sigil embodying one of Christianity's greatest epiphanies.