bluespoon

“Blue Spoon Detective Agency We’re here to unravel events that might baffle We’ll figure it out and leave you no doubt.” Choosing to recreate my dream about the esoteric symbolism of Spoons is proving to be rather rewarding for me on several levels. Thanks to every one who is helping direct me in this process, even those of you who only do so subconsciously. The Spoon, as ViølatoRpoints out, is an Ankh without its crossbar, or the iconic Mirror of Venus, same thing, the ancient symbol of the Rose on the Cross. The Spoon of the Gods Where then is the Cross Bar? As a Virgo I’m compulsive about keeping things in Order. Unfortunately, as always really, I am far more the student here then the teacher and the larger pattern is still a bit unclear to me. So again I’m just going to take Spoon in hand and Dig in. There are two big areas which I overlooked in my post A Spoonful Weighs A Ton, the art of Spooning, act and emblem of intimacy and love, which was pointed out to me by Michael, and the illusion AND psychokinetic act of Spoon Bending, from Todd Campbell. A most pertinent demonstration of the symbolism of Spoon Bending is found in the first “Matrix” movie, and I was reminded of this by Viø again and by Ms. Hoi Polloi. I will return to these facets momentarily. First I want to continue down the pop-culture road of spoon associations. For my initial post on this subject I meant to mention, but lost track of, the band The Lovin’ Spoonful, not really one of my favorites, but important in the ’60s psychedelic music movement to be sure. And they did ask the important question “Do You Believe In Magic?”, which tells us “all the magic’s in the music and the music’s in me” which is absolutely true.

Amongst the band’s other noteworthy accomplishments was providing the soundtrack for Woody Allen’s first film, 1966’s “What’s Up, Tiger Lily”. The Lovin’ Spoonful, I have learned, derived their name from the lyrics of influential Blues artist Mississippi John Hurt’s “Coffee Blues”. I like that John Hurt was raised in a town called Avalon. Of course the musical genre The Blues is a huge and important cornerstone of modern culture far beyond my meager musical-understanding to encapsulate. But once again exploring the Spoon is providing me insight into places I hadn’t expected. According to Wikipedia the etymology of the term “The Blues” is derived from an idiom, “having a fit of the blue devils”. Sounds a lot like a case of the Blue Meanies. We’ve already met a few Blue Devils in our catalog of Blue People. Perhaps Bart Simpson is right when he states “All the best bands are affiliated with Satan”. Art by George Cruickshank, 1835 This term in itself seems to derive from the early 17th century and is related to “low spirits” and at times the hallucinations of delirium tremens, as displayed in the Cruikshank cartoon above. This gorgeously takes the symbolism of Blue People and Spoons back to the matters I discuss in The Chemicals Between Us. When I think about hallucinatory constants combined with esoteric symbolism, my mind instantly goes to what may very well be my favorite of all the great Occultists, the mysterious Hieronymous Bosch, who brings us a Blue Devil in appropriate action in the central panel of his c. 1485 triptych “The Haywain”, around 130 years before any etymology sources of “blue devils” will attribute. Hmm. Looked upon the right way Bosch’s Blue Devil looks rather Spoon-Headed, doesn’t he? There are many musical references to Spoons. The Dave Matthews Band’s 1998 album “Before These Crowded Streets” has a beautiful song called “Spo on” about the thoughts of Christ during His Crucifixion, but also bringing in the image of Spooning and coffee again for some reason. Here’s a sample of the lyrics: Spoon in spoon Stirring my coffee I thought of you And turned to the gate And on my way came up with the answers I scratched my head And the answers were gone From hand to hand, Wrist to the elbow Red blood sand Could Dad be God? Crosses cross hung out like a wet rag Forgive you? Why? You hung me out to dry And maybe I’m crazy But laughing out loud Makes the pain pass by And maybe you’re a little crazy But laughing out loud makes it all subside Holding, I’m holding I’m still falling, I’m still falling Another Spoon and Coffee song I really like that you may recall is “Afternoons & Coffeespoons” off the Crash Test Dummies 1993 album “God Shuffled His Feet”. Interesting that, like the Flaming Lips, the Dummies also famously sang about Superman in “Superman’s Song”. The song is a eulogy for Superman, and also makes mention of the Lunar Solomon Grundy (born on Monday). The song “Afternoons & Coffeespoons” refers to“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock”, a 1915 stream of consciousness poem by T.S.Eliot. Eliot’s work was highly influential on novelist Stephen King, particularly Eliot’s 1922 “The Waste Land”, which largely informs King’s epic, and esoterically steeped “The Dark Tower” Series. “The Waste Land” is a reference to the Grail legend of The Fisher King. Stephen King also brings us the character John Coffey in “The Green Mile”, as pointed out by Steve Willner in his excellent video “Ophiuchus, The Burning Tower, and The Doppelgänger Universe”. The film version of “The Green Mile” is directed by Frank Darabont who also brought King’s wonderful “The Shawshank Redemption” (with Clancy “Justin Crowe” Brown) to the screen. With this track record we can expect the forthcoming King/Darabont collaboration “The Mist” to be pretty great. The novella it is based upon is awesome. The Waste Lands of Arthurian Legend relate to the withering of the landscape as Arthur succumbs to despair over Queen Guinevere’s betrayal. This necessitates the Round Table Knights’ Quest for the Holy Grail. Arthur is a solar deity and Guinevere is a Sovereignty Goddess. The kingdom, the land itself, is Guinevere, and the loss of Her Love equals Eternal Winter. Another pleasant musical discovery I made in this Quest for the Holy Spoon is the contemporary American indie band Spoon. I wasn’t familiar with the group, but I like what I hear so far. I think you’ll be able to quickly tell what I like about this Spoon video for the song “The Ghost Of You Lingers” off the band’s 2007 album “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”. The band Spoon took their name from German avant-garde rock legend Can’s song “Spoon” off the 1972 album “Ege Bamyasi”. Can’s personal record label is Spoon Records, named for their popular song. The cover of Can’s debut album, 1969’s “Monster Movie” is a tribute to Jack Kirby’s Saturnian Planet Eater Galactus. This machine Galactus is holding is his version of a Spoon. Art by Jack Kirby. The Spoon is an emblem of Love. One very lovely, traditional expression of this symbolism lies in the Welsh practice of carving a Love Spoon as part of the courtship process. The Spoon as a totem for humans at their best, behaving like Spoons. A rather lovely Celtic Knot if you ask me. Here’s an amusing use of Spooning as a metaphor from Kevin Smith’s highly underrated film “Mallrats”. Come to think of it, Smith had some interesting things to say about jealous angels and the Metatron in “Dogma” (for those of you following my “Heroes” posts). At this point it seems a rather major blind sight of mine to have missed Spoon Bending, emblem of modern psychic phenomena. This symbol has come about in part due to the publicity ofUri Geller. Whatever you may think about Geller, he’s certainly an interesting figure of popular culture. I suppose by this point I shouldn’t be surprised that Geller designed the boy band NSYNC’s seemingly simple logo. Truly it is amazing how I managed to dodge around Spoon Bending in my last post. And the fact that my casual references end up having greater significance then I realize continues to perplex me. Case in point, I mentioned the image of Pokeballs. I know very little about Pokemon but I did once see a cartoon episode with a character named Kad abra. Kadabra (name obviously based on the magic word Abracadabra) is a psychic species of Pokemon, a fact emblemized by the Spoon the creatures carry. Kadabra vs. the minature Thor/Zeus Pikachu Pokemon is all about evolution. The Kadabras evolve into a more powerful being called an Alakazam. In a great play of synchronicity, Pokemon protagonists Ash and Pikachu first encounter a Kadabra owned by a psychic girl named Sabrina. How neat. The author of “Sabrina’s Journey”, Hoi Polloi, reminded me of the Spoon Bending in “The Matrix”, as did ViølatoR. Hoi Polloi’s blog also introduced me to the amazing surreal anime “Paprika”, so there’s something very appropriate to me about this particular circle. Here’s the Spoon Bending scene from “The Matrix”, which occurs when Neo goes to see the Oracle.  “The Matrix” is perhaps one of the most important sources of modern mythological symbolism and the trilogy is highly deserving of the praise and attention it receives in the synchromystic realm. The sci-fi Zen Koan “There is no spoon” is a metaphysical notion of great importance and profundity. I was quite delighted in the comments of my last post to hear from the author of the blog Cosmic Zines. The site is dedicated to collecting links to blogs “-discussing cosmic consciousness or other reality shaking commentary”. I was very flattered to have my blog placed on the list. In Cosmic Zines’ comment they directed me to another blog they happened upon at the time they found mine. Amazingly it’s called Cosmic Spoon. Cosmic Spoon is the blog of Remote Viewer Daz Smith. Daz makes mention of the Spoon Bending from “The Matrix” as part of the inspiration for the name of his blog.

Intrigued I e-mailed to inquire further into Daz’s choice of Spoon as a symbol. Daz replied: “I liked and used the spoon part of my site because of both the matrix and the concept that the spoon didn’t exist – it was the reality of the observer of the spoon that could be bent. The second reason for using spoon was because of URI Geller and his spoon bending antics – which bought ESP or psychic to the world in general thru TV in the 70s and 80s. I used cosmic because we don’t really know what, why and how we are psychic beings, but we do know that something up and out there does affect our accuracy at certain times of the day (local Sidreal time – LST) and this seems to be a cosmic influence. Plus and I guess above all else – it’s a cool/funky name :)” If you are interested in psychic phenomena like I am, Daz’s blog and related website are fascinating places to explore. I’m amazed to find familiar terms and concepts turn up throughout the site in very unexpected places. Have you heard of the real world American Intelligence Services Remote Viewing project called “Proj ect Stargate”? I hadn’t. How freaking fantastic. Then I learned a bit about Mirror Neurons, neurons that fire when an individual observes another doing something within the realm of the observing individual’s experience. This fairly recent discovery is involved with research into the biological basis of psychic phenomena, empathy, intuitions, and Theory of Mind. A mirror neuron deficiency may be involved in autism. They appear to be highly important in the development of language. Interestingly they seem to exist in certain primates (like humans) and Birds. And this brings us to the last of my offerings for this installment, the lovely and amazing Spoonbill, close relative of the Ibises. A Roseate Spoonbill Spoonbill’s, it seems to me, are natural-born Dowsers. Amazing how things always come back to Thoth, isn’t it? The complex figure of Thoth (as we know the same entity as Hermes/Mercury/Odin) is a lunar god. Indeed we should not be surprised to find the symbolism turning to the night sky, where two very significant Spoons are amongst the easiest to locate constellations, the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper, who like King Arthur are also Bears. And as we all should know the Little Dipper includes Polaris, the North Star, and the current pinnacle of our Axis Mundi. Here’s a poem we all know about the night sky as presented in 1901 by William Wallace Denslow, the original Illuminator of Oz: “According to another theory, the rhyme is a lesson in astronomy, in which all, or nearly all “characters” in “Hey Diddle Diddle” are constellations visible only in the April night sky. Hey diddle diddle, the Cat (Leo – the Lion) and the Fiddle (Lyra – the Lyre), the Cow (Taurus – the Bull) jumped over the Moon (the Moon); the Little Dog (Canis Minor – the Lesser Dog) laughed to see such sport, and the Dish (Crater – a dish shaped constellation) ran after the Spoon (Ursa Major – the Big Dipper).” From Hey Diddle Diddle-Wikipedia