smokingboot (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smokingboot) wrote2003-10-08 01:34 am
smokingboot) wrote2003-10-08 01:34 am
Bits, bobs, birthdays, pomegranates
Well, that was all rather nice. Very gentle evening, celebrating Amber Eyes' birthday with food, frothing and even (how appalling are we?) some tabletop Vampire. We stopped when we were all too tired to play on. My character's blues have been replaced by a genial bafflement,as everyone is convinced we are doomed and she doesn't get it. But then, she doesn't get much!
We're playing again on Thursday, which is cool, cos I can't get enough of this game.
But there was much frothing about other games as well, notably Amber Eyes' idea of a drow campaign, which might turn into an LT group. I love the idea, but I just don't know about drow, I have so seldom seen them played well, and if truth be told, I don't really know how to play them. Still I'm ready to try, and I trust Amber Eyes and Sweetest Smile to put something great together. Of course, none of this will happen until all our current LT characters are long gone. But it's an interesting idea to chew over.
I feel a lot better now. People have been really supportive about the whole doctor thing, and I'm sure it's going to be OK. In the meantime, I refuse to brood, there's too much else to think about.
Tonight is belly dancing night, and Can Do Anything will be joining us for dinner afterwards. I could really do with it being dinner without the dancing! This cold is driving me nuts, and the rain outside is driving me back to bed. But no, I must be good and get dressed!
I still haven't checked out my Mithraic bullfighting theory, and though I looked for Orihuela on the net, I haven't found much. Somehow, I'm not surprised.
But at least my brain kicked back into gear with regard to Granada and the Pomegranate. The link between them is bloody obvious. The word 'Granada' means 'Pomegranate.' But it's origins are very ancient.
My mother's favourite theory is that the city and its surrounds have always been very fertile, due to thawing snows from the surrounding mountain tops, and the pomegranate is a well known symbol of fertility in antiquity. Another theory says that the word Granada might have come from another phrase, which I can't remember, meaning 'Place of Jews.'
I have a similar problem with both theories: Place names tend to be quite direct. Al-hambra is the Red Palace, cos, well, it's the palace and it's red. If the place was going to be called 'Fertile Place,' or 'Hebrew City,' they'd have named it as such clearly and there's no evidence to suggest that the name would have changed, until the city's circumstances changed. Now, with the Jewish Settler theory, when the Reconquista finally took Granada and the Christian conquerors started their familiar treatment of the Jewish people, this surely would have been the time for the city's name to change...only it didn't. Granada had been the city of the pomegranate for long long centuries, and so it remained. The obvious assumption is that pomegranates have always grown there. But surely so have olive trees, vines, orange trees and lemon trees, onions, garlic etc.
I would like it to be pagan in origin, I freely admit! It all smacks of Persephone, the pomegranate, the underworld, Hades' domain.
Perhaps because Granada is surrounded by mountains, loads of old legends are about what goes on beneath them, including a beautiful trapped lady who plays a harp, the last army of the moors waiting to reclaim their kingdom, and an army of hobgoblins and halloween terrors who ride out over the hills every so often. Washington Irving recounted the rumour that once the whole hellish army was seen out on the peaks with the then Grand Inquisitor riding among them. That persecutor of the unworthy apparently died a few days later.
There is an arched gate on the way up to the Alhambra, with a hand on one arch and a key on the other. It is said that when the hand reaches out and takes the key, all the secrets hidden under the mountain will be revealed.
In the mystery play of Elx, it just doesn't make sense to treat the pomegranate as a fertility symbol. This enormous pomegranate descends from above with an angel in it. Now, a pomegranate has loads of seeds, so in terms of fertility, it's not that great a symbol for Mary, who is pure but has one divine seed put within her. Neither Mary nor Persephone do the sex thing. But they both have seed, one via God, one...well, one eats seed of the underworld and therefore has to become a god's bride. So the fertility thing is obvious, but it isn't necessarily appropriate in this case. Fertility and death could perhaps be paired in the mindset of the ancient world where giving birth was a life threatening experience.
The angel is coming to Mary as she is dying. Persephone eats the pomegranate in the underworld, and it keeps her there. Both have to surrender to death. Persephone becomes Queen of the Underworld and returns to the Earth in Spring, Mary is crowned Queen of Heaven. I just feel there's something about this interesting enough to pursue.
Much as I like the idea of a body of folklore having been built up around the local entrance to Hades' kingdom, and the inference of pagan classical influence on the Iberian peninsula, these are just theories and fancies, and I really need to pull myself together and check them out. But not now. Now I need coffee.
We're playing again on Thursday, which is cool, cos I can't get enough of this game.
But there was much frothing about other games as well, notably Amber Eyes' idea of a drow campaign, which might turn into an LT group. I love the idea, but I just don't know about drow, I have so seldom seen them played well, and if truth be told, I don't really know how to play them. Still I'm ready to try, and I trust Amber Eyes and Sweetest Smile to put something great together. Of course, none of this will happen until all our current LT characters are long gone. But it's an interesting idea to chew over.
I feel a lot better now. People have been really supportive about the whole doctor thing, and I'm sure it's going to be OK. In the meantime, I refuse to brood, there's too much else to think about.
Tonight is belly dancing night, and Can Do Anything will be joining us for dinner afterwards. I could really do with it being dinner without the dancing! This cold is driving me nuts, and the rain outside is driving me back to bed. But no, I must be good and get dressed!
I still haven't checked out my Mithraic bullfighting theory, and though I looked for Orihuela on the net, I haven't found much. Somehow, I'm not surprised.
But at least my brain kicked back into gear with regard to Granada and the Pomegranate. The link between them is bloody obvious. The word 'Granada' means 'Pomegranate.' But it's origins are very ancient.
My mother's favourite theory is that the city and its surrounds have always been very fertile, due to thawing snows from the surrounding mountain tops, and the pomegranate is a well known symbol of fertility in antiquity. Another theory says that the word Granada might have come from another phrase, which I can't remember, meaning 'Place of Jews.'
I have a similar problem with both theories: Place names tend to be quite direct. Al-hambra is the Red Palace, cos, well, it's the palace and it's red. If the place was going to be called 'Fertile Place,' or 'Hebrew City,' they'd have named it as such clearly and there's no evidence to suggest that the name would have changed, until the city's circumstances changed. Now, with the Jewish Settler theory, when the Reconquista finally took Granada and the Christian conquerors started their familiar treatment of the Jewish people, this surely would have been the time for the city's name to change...only it didn't. Granada had been the city of the pomegranate for long long centuries, and so it remained. The obvious assumption is that pomegranates have always grown there. But surely so have olive trees, vines, orange trees and lemon trees, onions, garlic etc.
I would like it to be pagan in origin, I freely admit! It all smacks of Persephone, the pomegranate, the underworld, Hades' domain.
Perhaps because Granada is surrounded by mountains, loads of old legends are about what goes on beneath them, including a beautiful trapped lady who plays a harp, the last army of the moors waiting to reclaim their kingdom, and an army of hobgoblins and halloween terrors who ride out over the hills every so often. Washington Irving recounted the rumour that once the whole hellish army was seen out on the peaks with the then Grand Inquisitor riding among them. That persecutor of the unworthy apparently died a few days later.
There is an arched gate on the way up to the Alhambra, with a hand on one arch and a key on the other. It is said that when the hand reaches out and takes the key, all the secrets hidden under the mountain will be revealed.
In the mystery play of Elx, it just doesn't make sense to treat the pomegranate as a fertility symbol. This enormous pomegranate descends from above with an angel in it. Now, a pomegranate has loads of seeds, so in terms of fertility, it's not that great a symbol for Mary, who is pure but has one divine seed put within her. Neither Mary nor Persephone do the sex thing. But they both have seed, one via God, one...well, one eats seed of the underworld and therefore has to become a god's bride. So the fertility thing is obvious, but it isn't necessarily appropriate in this case. Fertility and death could perhaps be paired in the mindset of the ancient world where giving birth was a life threatening experience.
The angel is coming to Mary as she is dying. Persephone eats the pomegranate in the underworld, and it keeps her there. Both have to surrender to death. Persephone becomes Queen of the Underworld and returns to the Earth in Spring, Mary is crowned Queen of Heaven. I just feel there's something about this interesting enough to pursue.
Much as I like the idea of a body of folklore having been built up around the local entrance to Hades' kingdom, and the inference of pagan classical influence on the Iberian peninsula, these are just theories and fancies, and I really need to pull myself together and check them out. But not now. Now I need coffee.