An old post from another of my blogs, that should be here!
The wings of the sun ship sang as the beads of light danced through its sails, riding on the waves of sky we flew the song of the sky path into the night.
I think I mixed it too loud, but the indistinctness isn't too wrong. Imagine yourself in the cockpit (of the sun ship), the whole ship vibrates with the drones, the machinery is loud and too close for comfort, and the sails, bombarded by beads of light - a million million golden photons- wail as they slice through the air.
I have a fascination for the solar-ship it is true; Sunshine (the film) was simply the generic (FPS) storyline from Event Horizon...except for the ship. The black-hole drive is something else, I have no desire to ever see a black-hole drive!
The metaphor of the solar ship and journey the sun takes through the hours of night is the first 'Book of the Dead' hence -and I don't wish to spoil the plot but you really should have seen the film by now- no one is going to make it back to Earth, alive in -directed by Danny Boyle and written by- Alex Garland's story.
My visualised ship (of the music) isn't heading into doom, the sun-ship has another meaning, it is perfectly possible to cross the impossible but only within the protection of the sun-ship. The solar-ship had two meanings; it is a metaphor for death, but it is also a symbol of infinity -the boat of a million years- but on the other hand, even though it is one of my favorite symbols, I'm not too sure what it means to me yet.
Walter Berkert continues to depress me, perhaps that's why I'm thinking of the sun-ship!
See I hate to have to agree with him, Berkert I mean. But on the other hand his thesis does make sense and fits in with another insight, this time from Peter Bishop (Dreams of Power:Tibetan Buddhism and the Western Imagination) about 'the missing father'. I think that one of the mythic strands that binds people to Tibetan Buddhism is the Lama as an ideal(ized) father figure. Nothing amazing there, after all priests are addressed as father. The difference between a priest of the Christian religion and a Lama is that the symbol of the Lama has not been corrupted by too much information (crusades, massacres of the Cathars, the Inquisition, pedophilia...) and Tibetan Buddhism is a practical religion with very obscure texts. Obscure texts help, the religious education we got at school and the banality of church services were eclipsed by the brilliance of common sense!
Tibetan Buddhism does of course have a book of the Dead, but it isn't half as interesting as the Egyptian one IMO! The Tibetan Book of the Dead (as far as I can remember is basically, 'Oh child of a noble family now the dawning of the something-or-other Bardo is upon you...er...don't go into the nice and dim lights, wait for the biggest and baddest!' It is based on an alchemical concept of physiology in which the elements of earth, air, fire, water and aethyr dissolve one into the other and how that is perceived by the mind as it becomes free of its fleshy prison.
Meanwhile, where is the missing father?
The missing father is busy, away but no longer hunting; his son is learning things that do not fit into his father's world, and nothing the father may say to his son will have any relevance to his son; the lineage is broken.
He may as well not be there.
Oh there may be football games, or a shared love of Top Gear, but fundamentally the possibility of induction into the world of adults for a son by his father has gone.
That's the theory anyway!
