Noise vs. Signal

Jupiter Painting Butterflies

“The butterflies are a symbol of the volatility of thought, while the rainbow denotes the evanescence of ideas.

Jupiter, portrayed while painting, alludes to the notion that each ordering principle needs a source of inspiration from the realm of ideas.

Mercury's gesture points to inspiration and to the initiatory silence that precedes spiritual, natural, or artistic creation.

Mercury mediates between the dimension of manifested things and that of the unmanifested. Quicksilver, the shape-shifting liquid metal that is named for him in English, is the element that best characterizes his changing, elusive nature.

The golden caduceus denotes the esoteric role of this god, endowed with the power of putting living men and women to sleep or reawakening them.”

Text from “Astrology, Magic, and Alchemy in Art” by Matilde Battistini (2004).

Image: “Jupiter Painting Butterflies, or Mercury and Virtue” by Dosso Dossi (1524).

“Superposition #2 and #5” by Damiano Bertoli (2019).

The Artist

The Wand is the symbol of the Spirit, the Will and elemental Fire.

Another form of the wand is the pen, whether wielded by an artist, writer, composer, scientist or any other person creating something new in the world.

All of the four elemental symbols in the Tarot can be held in the hand, which implies some form of control over them. Here the wand (or pen) is active and transmitting, while the cup (water, soul) is passive and receiving.

The sword (air, mind) is the discriminating and balancing force. Finally the coin (earth, body) is the result of the interaction of the active, passive and neutral forces.

The Magician is the Great Artist, and embodying this archetype requires conscious control of the elements of our being.

Image: “Painting” by Alex Grey (1998).

“The Light Heretical” by Daniel A. Schulke.

“Ulysses et les sirènes” by Picasso (1946)

“The Sabbath” by Mitchell Nolte (2016)

“The Fall of Man” by William Blake (1807)

The Sea of Space and Time

“At the top left of the picture, we see the cause of the great cosmic disorder: when Urizen, reason, falls asleep, drunk at the wheel of the sun-chariot, Luvah, passion, takes control of the vehicle. The result of this reversal is the dark "sea of time and space" with the cycle of incarnations.

In the Politeia, Plato speaks of the "thousand-year wandering of the soul", defined by the "spindle of necessity", and by the three Fates who decide on birth, life and death (bottom left). At the right, with a bucket of water from the source of life in his hand, the soul rises into the vegetable hollow of the body, which is woven by women at the "womb-spinning-wheels of generation".

The figure in the red robe at the left may be Odysseus, "who symbolizes man on his way via the dark and stormy sea of the Generatio". (Thomas Taylor, Plotinus, Concerning the Beautiful, London, 1787)

“The Arlington Court Picture” by William Blake (1827).

“I rest not from my great task! To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought; Into eternity, ever expanding” - From “Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion“.

“The Reunion of the Soul and the Body” by William Blake (1808).

“The Great Wave off Dublin”, (after Hokusai) by Shane Gavin (2014).

Different views (facets) of the same place, Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong.

The still, silent, timeless world of Vermeer.

Portions of Eternity.

“The Landscape of Time” (2023)