Re: Informants, Issytra, The Gospel of Bastet

----- Original Message -----
From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>

> LOL... you are an outcast _ke_, you are an outcast _ce_, you are an
> outcast _re_. That's just so Ebisedian :-)
Ke, ce, re, "one, two, three"?  Or ke, ce, re, "on the left hand, on the
right hand, on the third hand"? :)

Maybe the Teonim and the Ebisedi are neighbors.  Or have literary and
philosophic influence on each other.
The early Teonaht stuff is full of repetitions, and it seems to be creeping
into my writing.

> >A third meaning
> > is that your persecutor could become your victim if you just turn around
and
> > face him at full hiss--claws extended.  It also means something like "a
life
> > well-lived is the best revenge."  Those who deride you are so many mice
in
> > your cupboard, easily caught in mousetraps and fed to the hearth-cat.
>
> Rather vengeful philosophy, if I may say so.
"The gods bring you into the world and you take your chances."  Yeah, Bastet
is the goddess of practicality, not particularly vengeance, but certainly
not of the "turn the other cheek" philosophy.  She does, however, espouse a
philosophy of love and restraint.  "Even the gods have retractible claws."
It is nice to be loved, but it is better to love, for that puts a boomerang
into the world that will come back to you.  She's not the only god though!
My lands!  (Will get that page up).
BTW, the Teonim are mostly Christian (orthodox); there are some gnostics,
and some Zoroastrians.  Some muslims, too.  The old gods have become
emblems, mostly, of psychological forces.

> > > And what's with this repeated reference to being half-blind? It
certainly
> > > strikes one as stemming from a deeper idiom, but I'm at a loss to
divine
> > > what that may be.
> >
> > Eyes are an important part of early Teonaht belief--in vision,
> > understanding, blessing.  God Himself is often called an Eye, who sees
> > through your own closed eyes, even if you don't see Him.  God also has
you
> > in His Eye, which means He's thought of you before you've thought of
Him.
> > If you are blind, you have no power of Sight at all.  If you are
Half-blind,
> > you have no power to understand contradiction and subtleties.
>
> I see. I like your comparison of half-blind to lukewarm later (which is a
> term I can relate to better, being a Christian myself).
So'm I.  But a quirky one.  Yes, and God spits you out of His mouth if you
are lukewarm!

> > Go for it!  Vague, mushy, grey areas in Teonaht are terms like Felrreo,
> > which can mean "fairy," "false person," "invented person," "personal
demon,"
> > "second self," "wraith," and "alien."  Felrreoth, the adjective, means
> > "highly deceptive," "alien," "heretical," "not to be trusted,"
> > "paradoxical."
>
> Basically deriving from the fact that fairies are fictional, I suppose? Or
> perhaps related to  falsehood.
You got it.  Not your diminutive, butterfly-winged creatures of
nineteenth-century imagination.

> I believe it would be an understatement to say that the Ebisedi are
> obsessed with threeness. It's everywhere, and permeates every fibre of
> their language and culture. I have to leave soon, so I'll unfortunately
> have to elaborate on this another time.
We'll wait!

> the Ebisedi's view of the universe (or *their* universe)
> is that everything has an origin (white) and a destination (black), but
> it's the stuff in between (the 3 colors) that is interesting, that's where
> all the complexity happens, and that's where the journey (blue
> encapsulating the red/green/blue in a paradoxical way) is happening.
Additive color I see.  Very interesting.  All together they form white,
unlike the subtractive (or reflective?) colors which make gray or black if
mixed.  So one goes from the sun into the earth?  Additive into subtractive?
It's been a long time since art lessons.

> I really have to leave now, so I'll have to wait till another time to
> expound more on threeness in Ebisedi philosophy and language.
Have a good one!


Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."

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