the solitude of prime numbers

Or, The Aeon, Sophia. 

The original is sold, but prints are available in A1 (594 x 841 mm/23.4 x 33.1 in) for ZAR2,500 each, or A2 (420 x 594 mm/16.5 x 23.4 in) for ZAR1,250 each. 

This drawing illustrates the story of Gautama Buddha who sat under the Bo tree for his years, and when it began to rain the Earth Serpent Mucalinda came up out of the ground to protect him.  For the full analysis scroll to the bottom of the post beyond the drawing details.

 

THE AEON, SOPHIA or THE SOLITUDE OF PRIME NUMBERS

The Cosmic Goddess

The Drawing takes place inside the loving arms of our Cosmic Mother.

In the art of the Old Stone Age the female is represented in those now well-known little “Venus” figurines, as simply naked.  Her body is her magic: it is the vessel of all human life.

The beautiful animal forms on the rock walls of these earliest temples of humankind (wombs of the goddess Earth, as later the cathedrals were to be of Mother Church) are the seed forms of the animal herds above, on the surface of the upper-world animal plains. It is amazing, how, when one is down in those caves, in the absolute dark, with all sense of direction lost, the light world above is but a memory and, curiously, but a shadow world. The reality is down here. The herds and all the lives up there are secondary: it is from here that they derive, and to here that they will return.

(..Jump from) Mother Earth and her children to Mother Cosmos and the order of the universe, and mathematics is somehow the key to the nature of the Mother Goddess whose world this is. The concept of a mathematical cosmic order that encloses the whole world came to be held in the Goddess image… the Cosmic Goddess, the enclosing sphere or womb of the sky within whose bounds we dwell. 

The Mandala - when we are standing there regarding this symbol, which is that of the pouring of divine transcendent energy into the sphere of time and space within which we all dwell, we are… all within the womb of the Goddess beholding and appreciating the mystery of the continuous creation, the continuous pouring forth of the transcendent principle into the temporal sphere. It is within the sphere of time and space that we all dwelll, it is within the sphere of the pairs of opposites, the categories of thought that we all dwell.  The goddess of logic as well as the goddess of time and space limits us in our thinking and in our action.  And so even the names of god, even the forms of god, wherever god is worshipped, are those of Her children.  She is the primary divinity, the Mother, and Her womb encloses us.

We first saw Her in the old cave art as those earliest figurines, and we have Her now, in the early mythologies out of which all our traditions derive, as the Mother of the world within whom even the gods dwell. Beyond Her boundary you are beyond concept, you are beyond all categories, you are beyond even the category of being and non-being. She is the first thing that is. This is why, outside of the bounds of the Goddess in The Drawing we see formlessness in the shapes becoming and evaporating, the shapes that are sound and vibration but that lie outside of language and understanding.  They are the shapes that we encounter in shamanic journeying outside of consensual reality - the other dimensions, and the inorganic beings and entities we meet when we travel into dream or any other reality that is unknown.

The Number of The Goddess

Just above the left arm of the Goddess in The Drawing we see nine rings made up of triangles and squares.

This universe has an innate mathematics, and the number 9 becomes the number of the Goddess. Nine, the number of the Muses, is three times three, the triads of the Graces (which are) the three aspects of Aphrodite, and the rhythm of Her energy going forth into the world, coming back, and then Herself enclosing the two movements.

The number 432

In India the Puranas tell us that 43,200 is number of years in the Kali Yuga, the current, last, and shortest of the cycles that make up the still larger cycle, or mahayuga of 4,320,000 years. 

In the poetic Edda of Iceland - one of the great Norse sagas - it tells us that in the warrior hall Valhalla there are 580 doors and at the end of the cycle of time, when the world’s going to end and start all over again, 800 warriors go through each of those doors to give battle to the antigods in the mutual destruction of the universe. 800 x 540 = 432,000. 

In the second century B.C.,  a babylonian priest named Berosus described, in Greek, the Chaldean mythology of Babylon, and he pointed out that the period from when the first city (in that tradition the city of Kish) arose until the coming of the mythological flood that is the model for the flood for Noah, 432,000 years had elapsed. Here we’ve got the same number popping up in Iceland, India, and Babylon.  4 + 3 + 2 = 9.

According to a book on Aerobics a human in perfect physical shape at rest has a heartbeat of approx. one beat per second, sixty seconds. In twelve hours it is 43,200. So this number of the rhythm of the universe is the number of the rhythm of our own heart, the microcosm and the macrocosm for one cosmic order.

This number can be found elsewhere: the Jewish Assyriologist Julius Oppert writes about this number in his paper “The Dates of Genesis” in 1872; it is evident in the maths describing the precession of the equinoxes; the number of the names of the Goddess in India; the number of earthly desires in Buddhist thought; the number of times the Angelus bell rings every day in European countries.

Out of Her comes our spiral galaxy, our home and the symbol of the perfection of imperfection inherent in all life. 

She is The Aeon, Sophia, the central pivot of creation and represents the feminine aspect in all things. She is Wisdom Incarnate, the Goddess of all those who are wise. The Judeo-Christian God's female soul, source of His true power is Sophia. As Goddess of wisdom and fate, Her faces are many: Black Goddess, Divine Feminine, Mother of God. To the Gnostic Christians, Sophia was the Mother of Creation. Her sacred shrine, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, is one of the seven wonders of the world. Sophia is found throughout the wisdom books of the Bible. There are references to Her in the book of Proverbs, and in the apocryphal books of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon (accepted by Catholics and Orthodox, found in the Greek Septuagint of the early Church).

She is Shakti in Sanskrit, the powerful Hindu personification of feminine wisdom, and the personal and collective linking soul as atman, realized in the transcendent state of samadhi (Gnosis). She is the compassionate boddhisatva (Avalokiteshvara) in Buddhism, returning to light the path to nirvana (Gnosis); personified by the deity Guanyin. She is both Mother Mary, in Her ascendant form, and Mary Magdalene, as the earthly companion of the Christ potential in Christian Gnosticism. In Jungian psychology, She is the unifying power (“individuation”) of both the feminine and masculine archetypes, anima and animus, and of the lower self of the psyche with the higher spiritual self (Gnosis).

An Aeon: in Greek αιών 'aion' literally, "a duration of time."

"An interval denoting time." – Theodoret (A.D. 300-400). In Gnosticism, the Greek term aion refers to a class of being. It can also refer to (sometimes simultaneously) the title of a Master of the Great Day, or a region or dimension.  Any of these regions or dimensions are  spaces outside of and inside our bodies that are cosmic mirrors for each other: "as above, so below". Whatever we do ripples out into Creation.  That which is self-realised automatically heals the related dimension or an aspect of it in the cosmos. The Aeon, Sophia is at once the Feminine principle of the universe as well as Gaia, the feminine principle of our earthly body, our planetary home.

The Seven Bangles of the Goddess, and The Tetrahedron

The seven bangles on the Goddess’ left arm represent the days of the moon’s four quarters (7 x 4), which divide into the two waxing and waning halves of the cycle (or 14 + 14).

On Her right arm She wears a bangle with the lemniscus infinitorum - the infinity symbol, representing the endless continuum of Her existence, Her boundlessness. There are also tiny ants coming out of Her, walking along the edge of Her ‘egg’ and returning into Her on the other side, representing the (Buddhist) adage on the flow of life - “before enlightenment - fetch the water and carry the wood. After enlightenment - fetch the water and carry the wood”: enlightenment being a sobering and silent individual experience anchoring us in the mundane everyday of mortal life, and ants representing not only the work involved in attaining this enlightenment, but also the simplicity and nobility of work itself, in all its various forms.

The number seven also appears in the formation of the star tetrahedron above the solar lion. A tetrahedron is formed when a central circle separates into two, then three, four, and so on, until an array of identical circles surround this central one and complete a ‘sacred flower of life’ pattern.  In The Drawing we see two star tetrahedrons - one pointing up to the heavens, channeling energy down from the Universe to the earth plain, and one pointing downwards, drawing energy up from the earth beneath. The top, or upward pointing tetrahedron is male and rotates clockwise, with the bottom or downwards pointing one being female, which rotates counterclockwise. 

We see this symbol most famously represented in the Star of David. In an 18th dynasty Egyptian translation the word for the star tetrahedron translates as “rotating fields of light” + “spirit” + “soul” (and in Hebrew it means 'chariot').  The star tetrahedron therefore represents the spirit or energy body surrounded by counter-rotating fields of light, or spirals of energy (as with a strand of DNA), which transport spirit or consciousness from one dimension to another, and in the alchemical schools the tetrahedron is the symbol of the fire element.

Seven appears again in the coils of the Cosmic Serpent - see below.

The Solar Lion

The animal generally symbolic of the power of the sun is the lion. In many traditions the lion is also the king of the beasts, the most powerful symbol of the masculine, and hence the equating of solar energy with the male aspect (warm, light, active). The Lion is grizzled and possibly aged - full of experience and knowing, facing us without fear, but not challenging either. Ravaged with time and life, yet content.  This is opposed to the more common and popular practice in our current culture of only highlighting that which is young and virile (in the masculine) - our fetishisation of youth.  The Lion is the inner light in us all, that which appears when the clouds of distraction and illusion break and clear. It is knowing; it is inner wisdom.

The Lion is balanced on either side by two sickle moons representing the first phase of going into the new moon and first phase of going into the waxing moon, symbolised respectively by the downturned triangle (feminine, dark, passive/receptive) and upturned triangle (masculine, light, active): new beginnings.

The Honeycomb

The ‘hexagramma mysticum’ or the shapes between which no gaps exist, the honeycomb hexagon is by now well known as a shape that is most stable yet flexible at the same time. Bees are revered for many reasons, among them their taste for flowers of any kind, where most insects are highly specialised for only one or two specific flowers. They therefore represent bio-diversity and the ability to transcend boundaries.  Their honey has countless potent medicinal properties, and of course they are ruled by a matriarch.  To shamanic traditions that have Bee as their teacher, being stung on major meridians of the body will lead to a trance state that, experienced by the initiate from within a six-sided basket, allows communion with the hidden universe. 

The Seated Figure & The Cosmic Serpent

So it is told that when the prince Gautama Sakyamuni, in the thirtieth year of his age, was seated on the Immovable Spot, beneath the Bo Tree of Enlightenment, he was approached by the Lord of the Illusion of Life, whose magic moves the world and whose name is Kama (Desire), Mara (Death; the Fear of Death), and Dharma (Duty and the Law). As Kama he displayed the forms of his three voluptuous dautghters, but Gautama was unmoved.  As Mara he flung at the prince all the weaponry of his demonic host, but Gautama was unmoved.  Then as Dharma he challenged the one there absorbed in meditation to prove his right to the Immovable Spot; whereupon the yogi simply touched the Earth with the fingers of his right hand, calling the Great Goddess to witness his right, and with a sound as of thunder, a universe of thunder, with a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand roars, a voice testified (and the elephant upon which Dharma rode bowed in reverence to the Buddha.) This hand gesture or Mudra is known as ‘Earth Witness’.

Then the Cosmic Serpent, Mucalinda, who lived beneath the Bo Tree in a vast hollow among the roots, came up to worship. And when a prodigious thunderstorm arose with a freezing gale and terrible darkness, to protect the one there sitting in absorption, the great serpent wrapped his coils seven times around the body, spreading his giant cobra hood above the head, and for seven days so remained, until the sky had cleared.

The sword above the sitter’s head represents the mind, and the ‘crucifixion’ of the sitting process.

Hawk and Jackal and Death’s Heads

In The Drawing the hawk and jackal respectively represent the ancient Egyptian protector gods Horus and Anubis, but they have been rendered as their animal selves, removed from their usual anthropomorphic context, freed from their ceremonial headdresses and lifted off the carved stones and painted papyrus of their enshrined stories. 

Horus, protector of The Living: the ancient Egyptians had many different beliefs about the god Horus. One of the most common beliefs was that Horus was the son of Isis and Osiris. After Osiris was murdered by his brother Seth, Horus fought with Seth for the throne of Egypt. In this battle, Horus lost one of his eyes. The eye was restored to him and it became a symbol of protection for the ancient Egyptians. After this battle, Horus was chosen to be the ruler of the world of the living.

Anubis, protector of The Dead: Anubis is the Greek version of the jackal-headed god’s name; the ancient Egyptians knew him as Anpu (or Inpu). Anubis was an extremely ancient deity whose name appears in the oldest mastabas of the Old Kingdom and the Pyramid Texts as a guardian and protector of the dead. He was originally a god of the underworld, but became associated specifically with the embalming process and funeral rites. He was initially related to the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, as the god of the underworld. In the Pyramid Texts of Unas, Anubis is associated with the Eye of Horus who acted as a guide to the dead and helped them find Osiris. In other myths Anubis and Wepwawet (Upuaut) led the deceased to the halls of Ma´at where they would be judged. Anubis watched over the whole process and ensured that the weighing of the heart was conducted correctly. He then led the innocent on to a heavenly existence and abandoned the guilty to Ammit.

The death’s heads around the bottom edge of The Drawing represent the inevitable process of death and decay, the working ants walking into their fate, but rising once more out of it on the other side to continue the round of life-death-life. Death of the body is the only certainty of existence, and therefore also a source of comfort. It is also the one thing that we all have in common, and the body stripped of flesh reveals this truth: we all ‘look’ the same on the inside, and death is not to be feared. 

References:

Campbell, Joseph - The Hero With A Thousand Faces and Goddesses: Mysteries of The Feminine Divine

Buxton, Simon - The Shamanic Way of the Bee: Ancient Wisdom and Healing Practices of the Bee Masters