AtDtDA (5): Candlebrow

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Well, you can thank Z. Budapest for this one:

http://www.zbudapest.com/index.shtml

http://www.zbudapest.com/about.shtml

I did a series of programs for radio station KPFA (the apotheosis of Berkeley) 
concerning the Pagan sources of such Holidays as Christmas and Easter. Z 
contributed her charming interpratation of the story of the Swedish 
representation of Lucina. In Z's take, Lucina represented the original, 
uncorrupted aspect of that elemental later designated Lucifer, and the first 
bringer of light into the world, combining elements of Sophia and Prometheus. 
Compare to "A character named Adam was put into the story later, to help make 
men look more legitimate, but in fact the first man was not Adam---it was the 
Serpent." from Vineland (166, great little passage, very, very akin to the way Z 
talks, almost phonographic if you can dig where I'm coming from.) In the pagan 
world-view Z adopts, it is very easy to see the tight connection of Pagan 
sources to Christian traditions, particularly those of the Catholic Church with its 
mini-pantheon of Saints. Compare:

"We are safely past the days of the Eis-Heilgen---St. Pancratius, St. 
Servattius, St. Bonifacius, die kalte Sophie . . . " from GR (285) to Pynchon's 
placing of Ginnungagap, Ymir and other Norse sources of the myth systems in AtD 
very close to that region of the Vormance Expedition, a magically charged and 
sentient part of the world that has something taken from it, something very near 
the "end of the world", at least that part of the far north seas where Viking 
sailors spoke of falling off the edge of the earth into some abyss outside of 
time, Northern European systems of myth that eventally mutated into the 
ice-saints: "this rear-guard who preserve winter against the revolutionaries of 
May?."


http://www.pagannews.com/z.shtml

WIE: It is sometimes said that the paths are many but the goal is one. But 
recently I've heard people saying that while men seek enlightenment, women's 
wisdom is about something altogether different—which has even been called 
"endarkenment."

ZB: Oh, that's bullshit. That's total bullshit and enlightenment is bullshit 
too. There's no such thing as enlightenment. Transcendence and 
enlightenment—these are buzzwords for new goals that are hard to achieve. Like 
it takes you fourteen million years to learn how to levitate, if ever. This is 
all hierarchy. It's setting up hierarchy and I already smell something funny 
here: if the women are "endarkening," it's relegating us to the negative. That's 
just another way of disempowering women after we have worked twenty-five years 
to get our power, and I reject that totally. It's dualistic, linear thinking 
pushed into the spiritual realm—and that this is being listened to by someone 
like you is astonishing to me. How hard they try to disempower women even here 
where we reign supreme! It's ridiculous.

http://www.wie.org/j10/budapest.asp?page=2

Mark Kohut:
was this a great discovery or what?
It was.
Thanks.
 

Mark Kohut:
My thought when I first read Candlebrow was it 
was a "low-brow' play on highbrow....

Ya Sam:
'Dr. Vormance was on sabbatical from Candlebrow 
University, where he ordinarily headed the 
Department of Mineralogy.' (130)

Why is the university called 'Candlebrow'. Maybe 
it's a reference to a skull candle with all the ensuing 
symbolism?

I believe it's in reference to Lucina/Santa Lucia, a light bearing Goddess
originally from Rome, transplanted to Sweden:

Juno Lucina, Mother of Lights, was a goddess of childbirth 
whose festival was celebrated with torchlights and bonfires 
in Rome in early December.
As midwife of the miraculous Sun Child born at Winter 
Solstice, it was said she brought children to light. Later 
converted to Christianity as St. Lucy, she found a home in 
Sweden, where Yuletide celebrations today still include 
the procession of the Lussibruden (Lucy Bride), led by
a young girl wearing a crown of candles.

http://www.crystalforest3.homestead.com/Yulelore.html

So, on one level, "Candlebrow" references a midwife to the light.


http://tinyurl.com/3ex559

http://tinyurl.com/2qzdzn

http://tinyurl.com/27pcca