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thegreatcorpus · 4 years

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Leyte Normal University

College of Arts and Sciences

Language and Literature Unit

EVALUATION OF MEDIA CONTENT TRHOUGH LANGUAGE USE

A Concept Paper

Submitted by:

FRNZA MAE G. ARCEGA

JOSHUA D. DAGAMI

MARY JANE LABUTAP

BAEL AE2-1

Submitted to:

MR. ROGELIO TICOY, JR.

Instructor, Language and Media

July 15, 2020

DEFINITION OF TERMS

The term “media linguistics” has been formed based on the combination of two key components “media” and “linguistics”, the subject of this new discipline is the study of language functioning in the sphere of mass communication. In other words, media linguistics deals with overall complex research of a particular social field of language usage. (Luginbühl, 2015)

Language registers refer to the levels of formality are used in different situations and scenarios. It is important to be conscious on how we are going to use language appropriately in presenting our messages, when to use a specific register and in what type of media platform it should be used. Topic, audience, purpose and location should be taken into consideration when choosing a register. According to Nordquist (2019), “there are five existing language registers. It includes frozen/static register, formal register, consultative register, casual register and intimate register.

Language style also known as stylistics, is the study of style used in literary, and verbal language and the effect the writer/speaker wishes to communicate to the reader/hearer. It attempts to establish principles capable of explaining the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language. It strengthens the contact with the reader and heightens their awareness. (Lamichhane, 2017)

Grammar refers to the structural regulations and rules that govern the construction of phrases, sentences and words in any language. This is because they are extremely important for the communication that is desired. Although, some might argue that correct grammar and spelling does not really matter, especially in advertising, like what Paul Suggett (2010, as mentioned in Sommerfield, 2014) statement “A sentence that is structured beautifully, obeying all the laws, and bylaws, of the English language, is not what advertising is all about. In fact, in advertising you don’t even need to use real words, good sentence structure, and proper punctuation, or obey any of the rules that were drummed into you in school.” Indeed, using grammar seems like an uphill battle, but media content without it is a suicide.

Semiotics, also called semiology, is the study of signs and sign-using behavior. The Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, one of its founders, defined it as the study of “the life signs within the society”. On the other hand, American Philosopher Charles Sandres Pierce defined sign as “something which stands to somebody for something” and contributed its categorization into three namely: icon, index and symbol. He added that a sign can never have a definite meaning, for the meaning must be continuously qualified. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020)

Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specific events, the intentional acts of speakers at times and places, typically involving language. Logic and semantics traditionally deal with properties of types of expressions, and not with properties that differ from token to token, or use to use, or, as we shall say, from utterance to utterance, and vary with the particular properties that differentiate them. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019)

INTRODUCTION

Media is deeply rooted in our lives that it is significant in our personal lives, as well as in business, politics and society. Its importance has grown exponentially. It seems like the world is lifeless without it.

Rapid development of the print and the electronic media, quick growth of virtual communications and the Internet have enormously changed people’s lives, giving stimuli for the development of the whole range of information society theories. (Luginbühl, 2015) It creates an overwhelming feeling which made people to take every information that is served on the table. Oftentimes, it misleads people that is why it is important to critically think and evaluate media content.

Patton (1987) defined evaluation as “a process that critically examines something. It involves collecting and analyzing information which include its activities, characteristics and outcomes. It is done in order to make judgments and to ensure that they are as effective as they can be. It can help us identify media content.

This paper aims to provide criteria that will help media users in evaluating media content of different types of media through language use.

DICUSSION

Media content can be evaluated through representation, audience, institutions, language, ideology, narrative and genre, but we are only going to focus on how language is used in these media types. It is also called as media linguistics.

There are six different types of media: Print Media, Visual Media, Electronic Broadcasting Media, Outdoor Media, Transit Media and Digital Media. Each media type will be evaluated on how language is used, specifically language registers, language style, grammar, semiotics and pragmatics.

PRINT MEDIA

Print media represents the oldest and the most widespread type of mass media published on paper. It includes books, circulars, journals, lithographs, memos, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and periodicals. (Oxford Reference, 2020)

Evaluating print media content in terms of:

Registers: Papers with an international audience usually use formal register.

Stylistics: It follows formal type of writing. it also uses a hierarchy of information to guide the consumer’s attention towards the most important statement/topic. Claims or statements are supported with evidence either in text or figure. Author’s information is usually detailed to make it easy for prospects to contact them and it holds them accountable for any problems on their published article.

Grammar: In this type of media, correct grammar and spelling should be observed. Based on the study conducted by Appelman & Bolls (2011), grammatical errors can affect the credibility of news stories and the amount of time and effort required to read them. Such errors increases reading difficulty and lower readers’ perception of credibility.

Semiotics: Effective print media design is bold and clear. Fonts should be easy to read and high quality graphics should work together. A few prominent graphics will do a much better job that having numerous elements scattered throughout the page. Contrast is everything. It highlights the most important parts of the message to create some visual appeal. Monotone color palette or tones that are very similar to each other are refrained from using.

Pragmatics: The main function of headlines and titles is to inform the reader briefly about the text that follows. They also signal of the paper’s attitude to the facts reported. Also semantically, the headline can be interpreted due to its literal meaning and inferences that readers reach depending on their cognitive knowledge. In order to demonstrate the meaning in its full efficiency, pragmatic aspects are also helpful in specifying the purpose of the article by making appropriate sense. The writer can use different stylistic devices such as discourse markers and connectors, metaphors, rhetorical questions, and emotive words to facilitate the interpretation of the utterances and attract readers’ attention. (Ismail, 2016)

VISUAL MEDIA

Visual Media as defined by the International Visual Literacy Association is ‘a group of vision competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences. (Welsh & Wright, 2010) In addition to this, it is as a set of competencies that ‘enable a visually literate person to discriminate and interpret the visual actions, objects, and/or creative use of these competencies, we are able to communicate with others. (Debes, 1969) it includes images, paintings, videos and infographics.

Evaluating visual media content in terms of:

Registers: Papers with an international audience usually use formal or casual register to attract a wider scope of audience. Lasquite (n.d.) stated, that visual communication is a key component in visual content marketing. Every marketer understands the value of sending the right message to consumers.

Stylistics: Content of this type of media is not going to be plain and boring if they are full of interesting characters and places, if they are connected to themes like good vs. evil etc. and if they have engaging prose that the audience can appreciate.

Grammar: Bradley (2010) said that design elements are like letters and words. When we add design principles and apply them to our elements, our words, we form a visual grammar. As we learn to use both we enable ourselves to communicate visually. In life we can communicate through the spoken word or through gestures. In design we’re bound by a visual language. Even the words on the page are made up of characters of type which are abstract shapes. Written language itself is a visual representation of spoken language. Bradley also stated that the visual grammar, is the context within which we study design principles. When we learn to use girds or better understand typography or color we are doing so in order to communicate more effectively with our audience. The principles are the trees. Visual grammar is the forest.

Semiotics: Parsa (n.d.) stated that in visual semiotics iconic signs look like its object. They are more ‘motivated’ signs. The indexical signs draw attention to the thing to which it refers. The symbol signs, - e.g. a red rose is a symbol of ‘passion’ in Valentine’s Day and means ‘love’– are unmotivated or arbitrary. In a different culture this color of flower may not signify ‘passion’ or ‘love’. Also, any information, if not directly provided, is gained via a process of interpretation. Texts are not always produced recognizable codes in a communicative process. Usage of symbolic narratives, metaphors and metonymy may restrain the comprehension and signification of the text. In other words, in the exploration of the connotations and the associations, one requires to “make interpretations”. It also includes the material used, camera angles and color filters.

Pragmatics: David Lodge, writing in the Paradise News, says that pragmatics gives humans "a fuller, deeper, and generally more reasonable account of human language behavior." Without pragmatics, there is often no understanding of what language actually means, or what a person truly means when she is speaking. The context—the social signs, the image, body language, and tone of voice (the pragmatics)—is what makes utterances clear or unclear to the speaker and her listeners.

ELECTRONIC BROADCASTING MEDIA

Electronic media is the media that one can share on any electronic device for the audiences viewing, internet to transmit facts, skills, understanding, knowledge and appreciation with the aims of to attract general publics in general and marketers in particular. Popular examples of electronic media are television and radio. (Wikipedia, 2020)

Evaluating electronic broadcasting media content in terms of:

Registers: Electronic broadcasting media sometimes use formal register because less rigid but still constrained, where communication is expected to be respectful, uninterrupted, and restrained. Slang is never used and contractions are rare. However, it also uses consultative register. often in conversation when they are speaking with someone who has specialized knowledge or who is offering advice

Stylistics: Electronic broadcasting media is combined with a general negative view against excessive foul language has tempered electronic broadcasting into a much more “family friendly” media form. They use electromechanical energy or electronics for public to access the content. Main resources of electronic media are CD-ROM, online content, slide presentations, audio recordings, video recordings and multimedia presentations. Emotional appeal and repetition is highly observed.

Grammar: Electronic broadcasting media encompasses any form of media that is primarily consumed through listening. The grammars that they used in conveying the information to the audience are appealing and interested in the ears and eyes of the viewer.

Semiotics: Electronic broadcasting media uses connotation since they are designed to generate culturally-significant meanings. Iconic sign is usually used in advertisements of this media type. Advertisers do this, not only through repetition, but also through the combining of symbols, bringing words, images and music together into one meaningful and coherent composition.

Pragmatics: Its language contains plural codes, which interact to create new meanings or messages. Electronic broadcasting media uses the language without any opinion to the audience and convey the information just like they are interacting to the audience.

OUTDOOR MEDIA

Outdoor media is typically consisting of any advertising seen outside of the home, and is primarily grouped into a few specific categories such Billboards, posters and transit to name a few. Outdoor advertisements are the best medium to inform the moving population. Once an advertisement board is installed at a place, it usually remains there for a fairly longer period. What is best in outdoor media is that it can be displayed at a place where best impact can be created. (Nguyen, 2020)

Evaluating outdoor media content in terms of:

Registers: It uses casual register because it is probably use when you consider how you talk with other people, often in a group setting—marketers to be specific. Use of slang, contractions, and vernacular grammar is all common in Outdoor media. Also, Outdoor media uses the static register wherein it contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices.

Stylistics: Outdoor media often uses public notices in advertising to different locations. It also uses figurative languages to make their advertisement more reliable and catchier to the commuters or even to the tourists. Outdoor media uses visual techniques to make the viewers more attentive and languages are more powerful in visualizing their ads for the commuters and tourists to have a desirable view.

Grammar: Just like any advertising and marketing strategy, outdoor advertising requires research and preparation so that their use of grammar may not be mistaken because it can affect their viewer’s insight about their advertisement.

Semiotics: When it comes to branding and advertising, semiotics can provide some amazing insights. In some cases, the sign can be an exact representation of the thing being signified, while in other cases, it may be a symbol associated with it. In outdoor media, they use image to visualize the product being sold. They also use word to convey a message with the same effectiveness as an entire picture. It uses the Rule of Thirds and The Golden Mean.

Pragmatics: Outdoor media uses words and images to advertise their products and the words and pictures that they are using, connects to the understanding of the people. The words and images they used are more attractive, catchy and have a bigger size for their viewers to be more interested in their advertisement.

TRANSIT MEDIA

Transit media refers to advertising placed in, on, or around modes of public transportation: buses, subways, and taxis, as well as at bus, train, and subway stations. Transit media can be a great way to reach a really diverse audience: families traveling to daycares, professionals heading to work, tourists navigating a new town, or even students making their way to a local coffee shop. (Hendricks, 2020)

Evaluating transit media content in terms of:

Registers: Conversational register is often used in this type of media because of its target audience.

Stylistics: Placing a message outside targets a larger audience and is recognized by three quarters of passing individuals. It serves as a last minute reminder or as impulse motivator at pricely a time when real and potential consumers are on the move. Exterior bus posters, displayed on the front, back, and sides of the vehicle, offer advertisers high exposure, particularly in largeurban areas. There are commuters and tourists, or people in cabs, rental cars, and on foot who can see the rolling billboard go by. According to "The Complete Guide to Creative Out-Of-Home Media Forms," bus exteriors are available in 80 to 85 percent of the top 100 markets in the United States on more than 36,500 buses. The bus exteriors provide "mass audience exposures" that are repeated and reinforced as they follow the same routes every day. The more innovative, intriguing and humorous it is, the better.

Grammar: The message should be brief consisting of at least 3-5 words.

Semiotics: It also helps that nearly all transit ads are available at eye level with large graphics and text. The message should be legible. Colors are used to contrast each other. It builds a recognizable format or layout that catches the briefest eyes contact.

Pragmatics: Every transit agency that advertises has guidelines dealing with "objectionable" material. The problem comes in defining what might fall into that category. Seventy percent of the respondents indicated that they had formal, written guidelines addressing ad content. The restrictions differ throughout the transit industry, but generally include some variation of the following prohibited content: illegal, indecent, or immoral ads; political, alcohol, or tobacco ads; libelous, obscene, or profane ads; ads that ridicule individuals or groups of people; advocacy of or opposition to a religion, denomination, tenet, or belief; violent, criminal, or anti-social behavior; false, misleading, or deceptive ads; adult materials and services; explicit sexual material; pornography or businesses that traffic in pornography; and advertising that appears as graffiti, gang signs, or symbols.

DIGITAL MEDIA

Digital media are any media that are encoded in machine-readable formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified and preserved on digital electronics devices. Examples of digital media include software, digital images, digital video, video games, web pages and websites, social media, digital data and databases, digital audio such as MP3, electronic documents and electronic books. (Richard, 2013 as mentioned in Wikepedia, 2020).

Evaluating digital media content in terms of:

Registers: It uses casual register or consultative register because it is probably use when you consider how you talk with other people, often in a group setting—marketers to be specific.

Stylistics: User-generated content raises issues of privacy, credibility, civility and compensation for cultural, intellectual and artistic contributions. The spread of digital media, and the wide range of literacy and communications skills necessary to use it effectively, have deepened the digital divide between those who have access to digital media and those who don't. Each digital media network has its own intended purpose and audience. Understanding this and matching your content and tone to the proper social media outlet is imperative for success..

Grammar: Gumpart & Cathcart examined how new media develop their own grammars, the way individual acquire media literacy, and the effect of media literacy on ways people relate to the world and each other. It concludes that people develop different states of media consciousness based upon the… media grammars, and that particular consciousness produce media gaps which separate people.

Semiotics: When it comes to graphics, it uses color psychology. Photos and videos can boost your social media strategy. Tweets that feature images earn 150 percent more retweets are favorited 89 percent more and lead to 18 percent more clicks. Typing in all capital letters is visually alarming, they also communicate that you’re upset (and yelling) about something. It should be avoided. When used correctly, hashtags will increase your online visibility and followers. When used in excess, it looks spammy and becomes ineffective.

Pragmatics: Its language contains speech acts like constatives (assertive, concessives, suggestive, suppositive, responsive), directives (request, question & requirement), expressives (thank, accept, reject, negative opinion & positive opinion) and attachments (link, code & log).

CONCLUSION

Media has evolved rapidly over the last couple of centuries. These changes brought a lot of convenience in accessing different types of information, from typical newspapers to our smartphones. It provided an ocean of information these days, but “we need to be critical enough not to drown in hoaxes and misinformation.” Hence, it is our duty to be responsible consumers of information, regardless of media type, and to examine every small detail we see and hear on the media. Indeed, “media is a blessing for humans as it plays a vital role in our personal lives and many other walks of our lives.” It lies upon us who decide whether “media is a blessing or a curse.”

REFERENCES:

Gray, J. (2008). How to move into moving media: Transit Media. Journal of Marketing. Retrieved from https://journals.co.za/content/mfsa1/2008/04/EJC74350

Gumpert, G. & Cathcart, R. (2009). Media grammars, generations, and media gaps. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038509360059

Appelman, A. & Bolls, p. (2011). Article Recall, Credibility Lower with Grammar Errors. Newspaper Research Journal. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/073953291103200205

Herrmann, E. (2015). Language Register: What is it and why does it matter in education? Retrieved from https://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/language-register-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter/education

Nordquist, R. (2019). What is Register in Linguistics? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/register-language-style-1692038

Eilders,C. (2016). Print Media. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc193#accessDenialLayout

Wikipedia (2020). Digital Media. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/digital_media

Wikipedia (2020). Electronic Media. Retrieved fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_media

Oaks, D. (2011). Rethinking the role of grammar in advertising and marketing curriculum. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/073953291103200205?journalCode=nrja#:~:text=It%20was%20observed%20that%20grammar,retention%20and%20low%20perceived%20credibility.

Nguyen, G. (2020). Types of Outdoor Media. Retrieved from https://penji.co/types-of-outdoor-advertising/

Oxford Reference (2020). Print media. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100346392

Lewis, J. (2020). Semiotics in Advertising. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-semiotics-advertising-38593.html#:~:text=Semiotics%20are%20frequently%20used%20in,symbol%20that%20signifies%20something%20else.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2020). Semiotics. Retrieved from https://encyclopaediabritannica./semiotics

Authors:

Frenza Mae G. Arcega

Joshua D. Dagami

Mary Jane Labutap

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ansheofthevalley · 5 years

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Jenny of Oldstones, the Prince of the Dragonflies and Sansa Stark and Jonsa: parallels, symbolism and motifs.

(This is regarding this post and some kind of discourse that it brought, because apparently, drawing parallels bewteen them is a reach now)

@sansasnowstark, your defense of this parallel inspired me to write this.

First off, what’s a parallel?

A person or thing that is similar or analogous to another.

A similarity or comparison.

Something very similar to something else, or a similarity between two things

Parallelism, in rhetoric, component of literary style in both prose and poetry, in which coordinate ideas are arranged in phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that balance one element with another of equal importance and similar wording. The repetition of sounds, meanings, and structures serves to order, emphasize, and point out relations.

The Oxford dictionary uses the word analogy. Let’s see what an analogy is as a literary device:

A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

A story, play, poem, picture, or other work in which the characters and events represent particular qualities or ideas that relate to morals, religion, or politics

Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures, and events [...] Writers use allegory to add different layers of meanings to their works. Allegory makes their stories and characters multidimensional, so that they stand for something larger in meaning than what they literally stand for.

And since we’re on topic, let’s see what symbol mean:

A thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract.

A symbol, says the dictionary, is something that stands for something else or a sign used to represent something.

About symbolism:

Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities, by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense. [...] Symbolism can take different forms. Generally, it is an object representing another, to give an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more significant. Sometimes, however, an action, an event or a word spoken by someone may have a symbolic value.

So, with all these definitions in mind, let’s jump into Jenny of Oldstones and her story with Duncan Targaryen, the Prince of the Dragonflies.

As said in the post linked above, Michele Clapton uses the dragonfly motif on Sansa’s costumes throughout the series, whether it’s a pendant, embroidery (x) (x), fabric, or the shape of her costumes (x) (x).

But what’s a motif?:

A dominant or recurring idea in an artistic work.

An idea that is used many times in a piece of writing or music

Motif is an object or idea that repeats itself throughout a literary work. A motif can be seen as an image, sound, action, or other figure that has a symbolic significance, and contributes toward the development of a theme. Motif and theme are linked, but there’s a difference between them. A motif is a recurrent image, idea, or symbol that develops or explains a theme.

Now, having better understanding of what a motif is, we can all agree that the dragonfly (image) is linked to Sansa throughout the seasons. The dragonfly motif on Sansa works as symbolism of Jenny of Oldstones and the Prince of the Dragonflies. It has symbolic significance. But why?

First of all, we have to understand that a symbol’s meaning can change throughout the story. It evolves, same as a character.

At first, during S1, the dragonfly as symbol are meant to represent Sansa’s idealism and love for songs and knightly valor. We know the story of Jenny and Duncan is one of her favorites (as is the story of Aemon the Dragonknight and Naerys, but I’ll talk about later). In S1, the dragonflies represent her naiveté. But as the seasons come and go, the dragonflies are still present but their symbolic value are not the same: the embroidery is gone, but we still catch glimpses of dragonfly motif in her pendant, her circle and needle necklace and her dresses’ clasps:

While in King’s Landing, the dragonflies are still tied to her idealism and romanticism, as she befriends Margaery and expects to marry Loras. So, even though her previous idealism and worldview are shattered the moment her father is executed, she still holds on to those things, as they give her a sense of security and normality. But the meaning of the symbol changed: it doesn’t represent the idealism and naiveté of before, now it represents her longing for freedom.

While in the Vale, she goes under a rather radical transformation. She debuts the feather dress, which is a direct contrast to the dragonfly symbolism of season 1: she’s no longer that “sweet summer child”; she has seen how terrible the world can be, that “life is not a song”. So she shows the world, through her costume, how the world made her tougher. The “needle” of the circular necklace, while paralleling Arya’s sword and being her own kind of weapon, is also an evolution of the dragonfly necklace: it represents how she had her wings cut off.

The dragonfly motif comes back to her costume in the form of clasps, while she escapes Ramsay and while she’s at the Wall. But again, the meaning of the symbol is not the same as it was during her stay in King’s Landing. Now, she’s reclaiming her freedom, she’s growing back her wings: she’s ready to fight; for Winterfell, against Ramsay and anyone who wants to harm her.

The most recent appereance of the dragonfly motif, even if it’s subtle, is in her leather armor from 8x02, as pointed out by @castaliareed (x):

As castaliareed said “she isn’t wearing a dragonfly anymore, she is the dragonfly”. Again, the meaning of the symbol changes: on one hand, you’ve got a fully grown and independent Sansa, one that has wings. After years of being caged and having her wings cut off, she’s finally free; but on the other hand, if she’s becoming a dragonfly, that means the dragonfly is not just a symbol and a motif, now Sansa herself is a symbol, at the same time she starts antagonizing Dænerys, and thus bringing back the Dragonfly/Dragon dilemma Duncan had to face: there is a parallel between her and the story of Jenny of Oldstones and Duncan, the Prince of the Dragonflies.

So, why is it important that Sansa “becomes” a dragonfly, clearly evoking the story of Jenny and Duncan, in season 8? What does this parallel mean? Why is it important for the narrative?

First, let’s remember the story of Jenny and Duncan Targaryen:

Duncan Targaryen, the Prince of Dragonstone, met Jenny while traveling the riverlands in 239 AC. The prince loved Jenny so much he married her against the wishes of his father, King Aegon V Targaryen, breaking his betrothal to the daughter of Lyonel Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End. King Aegon tried to have the marriage undone, but Duncan refused to give Jenny up, ultimately relinquishing his rights to the Iron Throne for her. The outraged Lyonel led a short-lived rebellion. With his younger brother Jaehaerys becoming Prince of Dragonstone and the new heir, Duncan came to be called Prince of Dragonflies. (x)

At first sight, their story resembles the one of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Both were princes, in both cases there is a scorned Baratheon betrothed, there’s a rebellion against the Targaryens. The story of Jenny of Oldstones and Duncan Targaryen is extremely similar to what happens between Lyanna and Rhaegar but it’s not a direct parallel, Lyanna and Rhaegar’s story is more of a tragic retelling of the story of Jenny of Oldstones and the Prince of the Dragonflies.

But elements of this story are present in both Sansa and Jon’s respective arcs.

As remarked above, the motifs and symbolism is fairly easy to identify in Sansa’s character. So what are the parallels between Sansa and Jenny?:

Connected to the Riverlands

Descendants of the First Men

Both considered strange: some villagers thought Jenny was a witch; after Joffrey’s murder, some talked about how she killed Joffrey with a spell and flew the scene turning into a winged wolf

But what are the parallels between Jon and Duncan?:

Both are dark-haired Targaryens, something that was unusual: Duncan favored his mother, Betha Blackwood; Jon favored his mother, Lyanna Stark

Both are the heirs to the Iron Throne

Duncan chose love over duty when abdicating the crown in order to stay with Jenny; part of Jon’s arc is the dichotomy of duty/love, so far he’s chosen duty over love, but there will come a time in which he will choose love over duty

Both are linked to Baratheon rebellions, one started one, the other “ended” it: Duncan’s marriage to Jenny led to a short-lived rebellion, in which Lyonel Baratheon declared himself the Storm King; Jon was born at the end of Robert’s rebellion, one of the reasons Robert rose his banners against the Mad King was the abduction of Lyanna Stark by Rhaegar Targaryen

The main connections between Jonsa and Jenny/Duncan:

A marriage for love: Duncan and Jenny married for love. In Sansa’s case, in GOT, she’s been married twice, neither of them of her choosing and neither had any love. Following the Rule of Three, her third marriage must be different, it has to be one of her choosing and one that will bring her love.

The choosing of love over duty: Jon’s arc has been marked by the duty/love dichotomy. From his time at the Wall, while he infiltrated the Wildling camp, to when he gave up his crown so he could secure a military alliance, Jon has always chosen duty. It will come a time when he will put love first.

The choosing of Dragonflies over Dragons: this has strictly to do with Jon rejecting his Targaryen heritage, while favoring the Starks (through a marriage with Sansa).

#Sansa Stark #Jon Snow #Jonsa #Jenny of Oldstones #Duncan Targaryen #The Prince of the Dragonflies #got #game of thrones #got meta #game of thrones meta #costume analysis #character analysis #character arcs #sansa stark x jenny of oldstones parallels #jenny of oldstones and the prince of the dragonflies #my meta #my thoughts #my stuff

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trinuviel · 5 years

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A Lady’s Armour - Some thoughts on Sansa Stark’s season 8 black dress (part 2)

The final season of Game of Thrones is airing next month and promo season is upon us, which means a first look at the new costumes. A few weeks back Sophie Turner caused a bit of a stir when she told Entertainment Weekly that Sansa Stark would be wearing jet-black leather armour in the final season of the show. Promotional photos revealed this be more of a warrior dress than actual armour. Turner was photographed wearing what looks to become a show-stopping blue-black leather dress composed of innumerable tiny leather flaps composed in an overlapping pattern.

It is a dress that has caused much speculation online - what is that overlapping pattern supposed to represent? Are they supposed to represent feathers, dragon scales or fish scales? In my previous essay on this costume, I considered various possibilities and found that the most likely answer is that the dress is supposed to evoke fish scales as the texture of the costume is extremely similar to the leather armour of House Tully, the family that Sansa’s mother was born into and while Sansa’s costumes has included subtle references to her mother’s House in the past, those references have always been connected to her mother’s style and never to the clothes of the male members of House Tully.

However, Sansa’s new dress not only evokes elements from her previous costumes, it also is a bit similar to a costume worn by Cersei Lannister, which is what I intend to discuss in this essay.

DARK SANSA

Besides fish scales, the texture of Sansa’s new costume also evokes feathers. I want to return to the feathers because it is an element that has appeared in some Sansa’s previous costumes and the question remains what these feathered costumes mean in relation to her story on the show. The use of actual feather as a costume element that is unique to Sansa’s character - and they appear in two costumes that have been worn in seasons 4-5 and 6.

The black dress with the collar of raven feathers that she dons at the end of season 4 as well as the dark grey dress with the feathered panel on her bodice that she wears in season 7.

The black colour and the iridescence of the leather dress primarily brings the raven dress to mind. It was a costume that caused quite a bit of attention both in the fandom and in the press, where it is often referred to Sansa’s Maleficent-dress (x).

David Benioff about that moment in the season 4 finale when Sansa appears in her new black dress: “We call it Dark Sansa” (Silk, Leather and Chainmail: Costumes of Season 4). It is a sort in-joke between the crew and Michele Clapton also uses this term once (x). But this dress is generally interpreted as an expression of Sansa stepping onto a darker path by the audience (x).

Sansa Stark only started wearing black when she came under the influence of Petyr Baelish - so does a return to the colour black indicate that Sansa will go dark in season 8? That she’ll plot against Daenerys who comes to Winterfell expecting to be hailed as their new Queen? That she’ll plot against Jon because he allied with Daenerys and bent the knee? Well, one of Sophie’s new interviews can certainly be read that way - if you are entrenched in the idea of Dark Sansa.

“Sansa this season is very much enjoying becoming a leader in her own right, and this year there are certain challenges by people who threaten that.” (Sophie Turner, EW)

Personally, I very much doubt that Sansa will turn dark in the final season of the show - that narrative of her being tempted by power and Baelish’s ambitions was resolved in season 7. However, it is worth keeping in mind that the showrunners like to tease Dark Sansa very much as part of their game of misdirection since they value surprising narrative twists to shock the audience. Fx the promise of Sansa becoming a dark femme fatale that the black raven dress teased in the finale of season 4 never materialized. Instead, we saw Sansa put in another, even more abusive situation in season 5.

In season 7, the showrunners teased Dark Sansa once more because they wanted to mislead the audience regarding the conflict between Sansa and Arya. This is an excerpt from the script:

However, the scripts are written in terms of audience perspective, i.e. what the showrunners want the audience to think at the various moments of the narrative. Shortly afterwards, the show revealed that there was no Dark Sansa - the whole thing was a ruse to trick Baelish - and the audience.

So despite the Dark Sansa nickname, the black raven feathered costume never signified Sansa turning to the dark side in the game of thrones. In this context, it is actually very important that Sansa wears her dress with the feathered panel, which refers back to the raven dress, when she pronounces the sentence of death on Baelish - because the feathers refer to her time under his tutelage:

“There’s feathers again from her time in the Eyrie.” (Michele Clapton, UpRoxx)

This particular costume is also a sort of deconstruction of the black raven dress as @lostlittlesatellites points out (x). It is, in fact, a repudiation of Baelish and his ambitions since the feathers represent her time under his tutelage.

Despite people thinking that the black raven dress signifies a darker turn for Sansa with her becoming some kind of evil femme fatale, this aspect was actually never mentioned when costumier Michele Clapton discussed this particular costume:

“We’ve always known that Sansa makes her own clothes, so it was a very deliberate decision of hers, to change and say, ‘I’m not going to be pushed around. I’m going to take charge.’ […] “When she comes down the stairs, she’s playing with it like, ‘This is me, taking control of this situation.’” (Michele Clapton, The Cut)

David and Dan came to me with the idea of a transformation for Sansa. They wanted her to be her own woman rather than this victim. […] It’s meant to be as if she is somewhat reborn while mourning for all that she has lost. […] The metal piece is really a miniature of Arya’s sword, Needle, and the idea is that there’s a ring that you stitch through and then that’s her weapon. I like that she carries it when she descends the stairs, now she’s armed and it’s a link to her family.

It’s so easy to make someone look strong, but if you don’t think about the story, it’s kind of a wasted gesture. She could have probably looked even more amazing if I had put the reasoned arguments of where it could have come from aside, but ultimately, it makes it a stronger look if it’s a more believable transition. (Michele Clapton, Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones season 3 and 4)

When Clapton speaks of this costume it is solely within the context of transformation, strength and mourning. People have tendency to equate black with “evil” because it is an age-old symbolic connection in Western culture - but when it comes to the costumes in Game of Thrones we have to compare how Clapton uses the colour, both in relation to other characters as well as within the narrative arc of the individual character.

Mourning

When it comes to the colour black, Clapton primarily uses it as a sign of mourning. Cersei and Margaery don black dresses after the death of Joffrey and while Cersei’s grief is genuine, Margery’s is performative yet she still wears black because she’s now a Dowager Queen like Cersei. Olenna also wears black after the deaths of her son and her grand-children in season 6. At the end of season 4, Sansa has lost her father, her mother and her eldest brother - and had been forced to witness her enemies mock those deaths - and while she knows that Arya is alive, she believes Bran and Rickon to be dead. In King’s Landing she couldn’t mourn her dead family openly so it makes sense for her to adopt the colour black when she’s finally free of King’s Landing and the Lannisters. This is actually the first time that she can express her grief openly.

Transformation

The raven dress also marks a complete change of style for Sansa - one that she authors herself as we actually see her making this costume.

“We’ve always known that Sansa makes her own clothes, so it was a very deliberate decision of hers, to change” (Michele Clapton, The Cut)

The raven dress thus signals a sort of rebirth, of Sansa trying to forge a new way ahead, reinventing herself.

One thing that is noteworthy about the raven dress is the plunging neckline, which is a completely new element because Sansa’s costumes have never been sexualized, even when when sex is explicitly brought up in her scenes (x) or when she’s made the object of other people's desire, like Tyrion’s in season 3 (x) and Baelish’ in season 4. At this point in the story, Sansa is still a virgin and really very innocent about sex - so the plunging neckline and the somewhat seductive poise she attempts in the scene when she debuts her raven dress feels like an uneasy fit. It is meant to entice, inviting the Male Gaze in a way that her costumes have never done before (or since). Sansa’s raven dress also represents her entry into the game as well as her attempt to play Baelish since she thinks that she has identified what he wants (her). She puts on an identity that doesn’t fit her because she isn’t a seductive femme fatale, she’s still an innocent who is attempting to enter a game she hasn’t mastered yet.

Strength

Clapton also talks about the raven dress in terms of strength. Sansa has created this dress as a way to to express her wish not to be a victim anymore:

“When she comes down the stairs, she’s playing with it like, ‘This is me, taking control of this situation.’” (Michele Clapton, The Cut)

David and Dan came to me with the idea of a transformation for Sansa. They wanted her to be her own woman rather than this victim. (Michele Clapton, Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones season 3 and 4)

So while the raven dress is, in a sense, Sansa trying on an identity that doesn’t quite fit her (seductive femme fatale), it also serves as an attempt to project strength.

When it comes to the connection between the raven dress and the season 8 leather dress, we have to try to determine which of these aspects (mourning, transformation, strength) of the raven are applicable to the new season 8 costume. In my opinion, Sansa’s new costume is first and foremost an image of strength - but whereas the raven dress was Sansa’s way of trying to make herself feel strong, her season 8 battle dress is not just about herself. She is now a leader, the Lady of Winterfell and the head of House Stark - when she takes pains to project an image of strength through her clothes it is not just for herself but also for her people.

A dire situation

Sansa’s battle dress is black and Clapton primarily uses black as a colour of mourning - so does Sansa’s new costume indicate that she’s in mourning? She still grieves her lost family members but I don’t think that this new dress indicates a new loss. Rather, it is much more likely that it is connected to the dire situation all the characters find themselves in, which is reflected in the costumes of the three ruling women.

When talking about her plans for season 7, Clapton emphasized the use of darker colours:

The situation is becoming very serious and in some ways the darker colours sort of tell that story better ... everything is just slowly closing down and I think it makes it more oppressive. That’s the idea anyway.” (Michele Clapton, IGN Live SDCC 2016)

In season 8, the Long Night is finally upon Westeros. The situation could not be more oppressive since it is the very survival of mankind that is at stake. In that sense it is perfectly appropriate that Sansa wears a costume that is jet-black, the deepest and darkest black in the spectrum of colour. However, jet-black is a glossy colour and it is clear that Sansa’s costume reflects light. This choice is probably partly due to practical reasons so that Sansa won’t disappear in any night scenes. However, I do find the use of a glossy black that reflects light interesting because in terms of colour theory black is an achromatic colour that absorbs light.

Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, literally a color without hue, like white and gray. (Wikipedia)

In this context, using a glossy black that reflects light instead of completely absorbing it is a very interesting and suggestive choice.

LIKE CERSEI?

Many people have pointed out that Sansa’s new leather dress seem similar to Cersei’s infamous coronation gown, which is also made of black leather.

Whenever there are similarities in style between Sansa and Cersei both the fandom and the press jump to the conclusion that Sansa is becoming Cersei 2.0 and that she’ll turn against her family (x). I find this incredibly annoying because:

Sansa’s style in the later seasons is about incorporating everything that has happened to her, which also includes the people she has learnt from - and while she has learned from them, she never adopts their ambitions or their toxic “wisdom”.

Michele Clapton deliberately plays with the similarities and differences between the three ruling women in season 7 - a trend that I’m sure will continue in season 8 as well.

It is a lazy argument that doesn’t take the narrative arcs of these two characters into account.

There are certain visual similarities between some of Cersei’s seasons 6 and 7 costumes and Sansa’s new season 8 costume in that they all are black, have high collars and sport textured surfaces.

There are, however, also significant differences. Let’s begin with Cersei’s coronation dress, which she debuted in the finale of season 6 where she took the Iron Throne in her own right. While April Ferry took over as costume designer for season 6, Clapton was hired to design four costumes for the season finale (two for Daenerys and two for Cersei).

Like Sansa’s new season 8 costume, Cersei’s coronation dress is made from light-weight black leather - and it has a textured surface.

To mark the character’s triumphant milestone, the show’s Emmy-winning costume designer Michele Clapton returned to the series to create the episode’s badass costume centerpiece—a coronation gown made from lightweight Italian-cut leather (from D’Alessio Galliano) and silver and black textured brocade (from London’s Altfield). (Michele Clapton, Vanity Fair)

However, just as the similarities are important so are the differences - and there are marked differences between Cersei’s season 7 costumes and Sansa’s new season 8 gown.

Firstly, the silhouette and construction are different. Sansa’s costume is side-laced and it doesn’t have a slit to display an underskirt like Cersei’s coronation gown. Furthermore, while Sansa’s gown evokes the leather armour of the Tullys (x), she doesn’t wear actual pieces of armour like Cersei does with her steel pauldrons.

Another significant aspect is the fact that Cersei’s season 7 costumes are made of heavier fabrics that Sansa’s new leather dress. If you look at how Sansa’s new dress drapes compared to how Cersei’s season 7 dresses drape, you can see that Sansa’s dress drapes softly in a way that indicates that the material isn’t stiff or heavy. When we look at Cersei’s costumes we see the opposite, they all drape rather stiffly - even the coronation dress because while it is made of light-weight leather, this thin material is placed over textured brocade, which is a heavier fabric.

Cersei’s season 7 costumes are all stiff and heavy, which combined with the armour and the high and tight collars indicate that she is in a defensive position. She may be Queen but she is surrounded by enemies: “Enemies to the east, enemies to the west, enemies to the south, enemies to the north.”

So while Sansa’s black leather dress does have a superficial similarity with Cersei’s black leather coronation dress, that doesn’t mean that she’s turned into a mini Cersei because there are also significant differences.

It is, as I said, a lazy argument, especially since Sansa’s new warrior look references the traditional Tully armour far more than Cersei Lannister’s coronation dress. We should also bear in mind that Cersei debuts an entirely new look in season 8. Interestingly, Clapton says that Cersei’s season 7 look is in a sense a transitional look:

“With Cersei, at this point, she’s attained the throne and there’s a strength in her embroidery. It’s actually quite ornate and over the top and that’s a precursor in a funny way — it’s the last gasp before something else, in my sense.” (Michele Clapton, Insider)

We actually see the sartorial change in the very last episode of season 7 where Cersei attends the meeting in the Dragonpit wearing a dress that looks like finely wrought chain-mail under a black coat with a slashed pattern on the back.

For the stand-out dragonpit outfit in Episode 7 however, Clapton used a chain-mail style dress and a black molded coat, with one telling design ‒ a slashed pattern on the back of the queen’s coat. “I knew she was lying,” Clapton explains what inspired the look. “Something about the slashing and the twisting told you a lot about her character, a contradiction of the costume from the front. It’s almost like a sting in the tail, something on edge as you see her walk away: there’s something really disturbing about this woman.” (Michele Clapton, Making Game of Thrones)

From the promotional photos and the trailer we can see that Clapton has built Cersei’s new look around this slashed pattern. @lostlittlesatellites has written a very interesting essay on this new style of Cersei’s, arguing that the slashed pattern, which Clapton calls a “stinger”, could refer to a scorpion and that it represents an aggressive stance on Cersei’s part.

If we compare Sansa’s leather dress with Cersei’s new look, we can see that there are actually not many similarities, hardly any, in fact. They both wear a chain of some sort and there’s an symbolic “armour” aspect to both costumes but that is pretty much it.

Sansa and Cersei have unfinished business and I very much hope that we’ll get a final confrontation between the two characters - but since we only have pictures of just one of Sansa’s new costumes, we’ll have to wait to see how Sansa’s and Cersei’s differences are expressed sartorially in the final season of Game of Thrones.

To be continued...

(GIF not mine)

#game of thrones #costume design #sansa stark #cersei lannister #michele clapton #gotcostumes #gameofcostumes

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perkwunos · 5 years

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Writing is an extension of the act of conversation. It has as its fundamental starting point our performances of our personality through the codes that have been collectively developed. No one opens their mouth to speak without some notion of an audience to speak to, and we only start speaking to ourselves once we’ve already learned to speak to others. We gain a self, a coherent personality that each distinct mental act flows into and works to maintain, by facing other selves and being recognized by them. When we speak to ourselves we speak to the echoes and refractions of all the other people that have contributed to the creation of this personality, and--most importantly--we speak to the future audience that our personality will be recognized by. We quietly and privately develop ourselves as a performance for others. Writing explores this space, this virtual reality, in the interstices between our becoming and being, our becoming a subject and being an object.

Words have a certain expected weight to them that can leave the end-products of our writing disappointing. When I first anticipate what I can write about, it feels like everything can be rationally connected together, the disparate sources capable of being aligned into coherent paragraphs of argument. But then I refrain from doing the full work of plotting it out, remaining content with the abstract possibility and putting off the real action. When I finally do try to write it out, I’m left unsatisfied, knowing that there is far more to what could be expressed. This gap in our movements, in what’s left unsaid and remains as a promise, is always present, haunting. I often leave statements unfinished and hope that the other person can fill it in. This hope may be a fundamental ground for any communication--or at least any communication through something as flimsy and arbitrary as words. We want to reach out to one another, we want to form analogies between our experiences and share in expectations, connecting the stories that play such an important role in our deciding how to act. This takes a faith, or--to put it in more precise language--an immersion of ourselves in our desire.

Our acts of communication are acts of desire, guided by a purpose that presents itself to us in a virtual space: a presence in an absence, a general, a type of thing that we may like to experience. In expressing ourselves we leave some residue of this generality behind, which exceeds beyond any finite, concrete accomplishment we might have made, so that in any act one can always find some spark of life beyond the current life. We offer this super-living of our meanings beyond ourselves to be interpreted by others--and in doing so we surrender ourselves to the attractive power of the type or general and hope its attraction is felt in others. We have faith in the presence of what’s absent--not just for us, but for others, for the entire fabric of the material universe we work with. This is the sense in which the supersensible really does exist immanent in any becoming, the supernature of desire’s pull towards potential.

But our responsibility must include not acquiescing in what’s only abstract and general; we cannot stay content with a meaning that is a pure beyond of any given moment. There is no beyond just on its own, but only in the dynamism of the living present that can carry it. We are disingenuous about the sources of our meanings and why they become objects of our desires when we focus on abstractions without a concrete context for them. What we signify and hold up to others as potential futures captivates us because they are potential futures we might share with those others. We learn to desire what we do, first of all through the habits we inherit in our bodily continuity, and then, conceptually, in our relations to the others it will affect. And yet the creativity of our intersubjective encounters is the promise that these meanings are never just housed in these particulars: there are always new events. The forms are in the facts but the possible forms exceed the given facts and haunt over them. We reach out to the infinite, the supernatural existence of this potential--so that it can be brought down to earth.

We and the others we stand in relation to are a dynamic combination of what is actual and potential. We base our expectations on our memories of concrete encounters with others, but our expectations then reach out into the future and thus have abstract generalities as their object. Our personhood is such a general, a mask that we hold up and that channels the multiplicity of our desires into a coherent structure, into a promise that allows for certain expectations to be held about our behavior. Each person is a vortex that, through their particular expressions of energy, connects them to the entire universe, but also at each moment expresses that there is more to come. When we interact with others we are interpreting what they will do, the directions they point to in the future--and we invest in some outcomes we see emanating from specific people. Personhood is our way to facilitate and intensify this interpretation, and in doing so intensify our investment and thus our capacity for satisfaction. We are our value-experiences, our intensities, and all our culture is a means, as meaning, to enhance how we encounter the world intensely.

Sometimes our interpretations fail us. We lose the energy to hold up the entire scheme, and the momentary high of intuiting the coherence is gone, leaving us with only fragments. In the same way, our real encounters with others can be remote from the possibilities we imagined they held, so that the person we found in the contingent happenings becomes disjointed. The romance of life is in maintaining the beyond of our current moment as a real, coherent lure: in propositions that we really believe in and find connections to in our lives. This lure then suffuses everything and is not just a promise for us but an energy that flowed into us and overflows into everything else. Someone who’s in love finds themselves wandering through scenes, enchanted by them, appreciating every small thing. The particular is appreciated insofar as our valuative energies are fully engaged in generals. Take this valuative engagement with the general away, and the particulars themselves will also disappear--or, at least, they will no longer feel real. The real present is full of the lure of the future. Dejection comes in the draining away of these meanings. The lure no longer engages us as fully as it did; the world seems lacking, a transparent window through which the given environment simply moves on. Nothing is new under the sun--or so it seems--and possibilities feel excluded from the world we confront as an already-formed, alien block.

Maybe we’ve allowed our writing to continue on under a misguided pretension, seeing it as too much its own self-sufficient product. The letters that make up a sentence, or a paragraph or a verse, are only a small element of the work: there is the living interpretation of them that forms in a singular performance, even just the performance of someone reading them to themselves. Every word is not just a purely arbitrary, abstract meaning, but also dependent on certain existential relations in which memories, particular investments, real people flow into the whirlpools and become enmeshed with the abstract: a narrative process. There is no reproduction pure and simple of what really matters here, only the reproduction of a certain abstract rhythm or template into which our lives can flow. We, in our bodies and with our imaginations, retain all the power--and all the responsibility.

In the middle of the summer, the evenings can grow into a dark pale green with thunder clouds, all of our expectations get stilled until the rain comes. There’s a continuous energy between our moods and the environment; what we are ends up being what’s outside of us; we can all experience moments when our words no longer feel like arbitrary things detached from nature, but instead like connecting points to the generative power of the world. Just as the rain creates a pattern in running across the streets, our lives in their unceasing movement participate in a presentational space: we are an imaginary, haunting presence that overwhelms the influx of our given environment and bends it into one perspective--and we do this again and again in every moment that we live. The vitality can never really end. Even as it’s always new and different it remains the expression of the same infinite source of meanings, feeding into the whirl of experience.

#well this ended up longer than I thought it would be but I'm still gonna post it

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serenamorningstar33-blog · 5 years

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Black Moon Lilith Interpretations

BLACK MOON LILITH INTERPETATIONS

Black Moon in the 1st house: Strong influence of the values of the Black Moon in the native's personality. Intense passions - but they may be hidden in the depths of the unconscious mind (Pandora's box) . Extremely violent emotions at times. Rebellious nature, which can engage in fights against patriarchal authority. In a female chart, in particular, this can mean great difficulties and conflicts with the father. Profound connection with occult mysteries. Natural understanding of the hidden laws of nature. Having Black Moon in the first house is an invitation for the native to study the myth of Lilith and ponder on its implications. Black Moon in the 2nd house: Black Moon, symbol of anti-establishment and profound emotional intensity in the house of finances. Black Moon creates extremely strong fascinations which are not devoid of a certain degree of ambivalence. In the house of finances, this can mean a deeply conflictive relationship to money: on the one hand, hating it as a symbol of enslaving establishment; on the other hand, secretly desiring it with fiery intensity. Sometimes the native denies himself/herself money, by unconsciously making life choices which lead to situations of material scarcity. Even if the native is quite successful materially, Black Moon in the second house can indicate deep fears related to money and taxes - fear of losing everything, in particular. If they are not identified and worked through, these fears could lead to misjudgments and wrong decisions at critical times of their life. Black Moon in the 3rd house: Black Moon, symbol of the deepest inner passions in the house of brothers and sisters and communication. This position can manifest in several different ways. One of them is the death of a brother or sister during one's early years. If such death has taken place (even if only in the form of a miscarriage by the mother), it is likely to have left an extremely profound imprint in the native's psyche. It can be an ambivalent fascination-fear of death, or a deeply ingrained belief that one has no right to live. In any case it calls for a thorough work of self exploration - the long term consequences of the event are likely to be much deeper than you may think at first. Black Moon in the third house can also indicate that the native finds in writing (notes, a journal, or even stories or books) an outlet for the deep passions and emotions of his/her unconscious mind. Engaging in communication with others can be a way of touching and addressing profound issues inside oneself. Black Moon in the 4th house: Black Moon, which relates to the deepest emotions and passions, in the house of the deepest depth of the personality. 2 In the house of the home, Black Moon can indicate a bottomless wound related to the family environment in early years, such as death of the mother, separation from one's family, major trauma during infanthood - or even earlier, in the womb. Whether you had a family or not, it is likely to have left a heavy weight on your shoulders! Because of the ambivalence between fascination and abhorrence so intrinsically linked to the symbolism of the Black Moon, this position can also manifest as a burning need to cut one's family roots and disconnect from one's parents. If you find that you often change the place where you live, then you should ask yourself whether this has something to do with your Black Moon in the 4th house - never feeling really at home anywhere because of an unconscious wound, rather than with climate or real estate reasons. On the higher mode, Black Moon in the 4th can indicate a natural affinity and understanding of spiritual and occults laws, a profound intuition which can know the mysteries of the creation. This goes with an extraordinarily sharp perception of other people's emotions and fundamental motivations. Black Moon in the 5th house: Black Moon in the house of affairs, creativity, and children. In a female chart, this position can indicate a great ambivalence as far as having children is concerned: on the one hand, extremely intense desire (but Black Moon desires are like violent and hidden passions); on the other hand repulsion and deep fears (as in fear of delivery, for instance, or fear of hating one's child). If the these unconscious or semi-unconscious issues are not resolved, they can lead to difficulties in conception. Similar symbolism applies to creativity in general. The need for perfection can be extremely intense, making the native work hard and for long hours to realise his/her objectives. It can also become paralysing at times, as in not doing anything by fear of doing something that would not be good enough. If a harmonious relationship to one's unconscious mind can be established, then this position can lead to an outpouring of creativity, and also to great originality (as in the non-conformist nature of the rebellious Lilith.) Black Moon in the 6th house: Lilith in the workplace. In the house of daily routines and attitudes to work, Black Moon, symbol of rebellion and anti-establishment, can of course lead to unconventional activities in which one is not subjected to anyone and freed from enslaving routines. It can also lead to systematically challenging the authority of one's boss(es), and therefore to difficulties in securing a stable professional position. But the values of the Black Moon are deep and often unconscious, and so the rebellious tendencies may not even be perceived by the native. The result may simply be slumber - going from day to day without questioning one's role on the planet, or why one carries on with a particular job. The 6th house also relates to health. For the purpose of healing, it 3 may be extremely important to know that a person's Black Moon is located in the 6th. Disease can then take a highly symbolic significance, meaning that observed symptoms are not to be understood and treated for what they are by themselves, but for the profound emotional forces which reflect into them from the deepest of the psyche. More than ever, it is the whole person that must be treated, and not his/her symptoms. Black Moon in the 7th house: Super-charged relationships and quest for perfection. The Black Moon relates to the deepest and most hidden parts of the psyche; the 7th house relates to close relationships. This can make the native project extremely high emotional charges onto partners and close friends. Personal attractions (and repulsions) can be exceptionally intense. Relationships can thus bring profound healing and/or an exacerbation of the deepest psychological wounds. This position is an invitation for the native to take a close look at whether they do project violent emotions onto the people with whom they are closely associated. Black Moon - Lilith carries a profound longing for the absolute. Transposed to relationships this means you are likely to have high expectations of your partners, and thus be mortally disappointed when you realise they are not perfect like God. Withdrawing from relationships in such times of crisis can be a grave mistake, as these crises are often self-engineered to reveal profound aspects of yourself and allow resolution of your deeper conflicts, and healing. Black Moon in the 7th is also a factor to attract people of great independence and originality to you - people with the qualities of Lilith: full-on passions and emotions, rebellious nature, dislike of patriarchal establishment and a need for absolute perfection. With this position, returns of the Black Moon to the native Black Moon can bring upheavals in relationships. The more prepared the native is, the more these upheavals are likely to take the shape of healthy new beginnings, rather than painful crises. Black Moon in the 8th house: The chart's most metaphysical point in the house of sexuality, death, and occult magnetism. Black Moon in the 8th house can make sexuality awesome, sacred, magic - a ritual that puts you in touch with the deepest parts of your psyche. This position goes well with a need for extremes, and even a quest of the absolute in one's sexual experiences. But if the native is disconnected from the depth of his psyche, the result can be the opposite: an empty sexuality which does not create much satisfaction, or even a disinterest in sex. One step further and it can be a complete denial - Lilith is the one who says 'No!'. This denial is in reality a denial of one's inner conflicts. Through inner work, a complete turnaround can take place. With Black Moon in the 8th house, the death of relatives or acquaintances is likely to have a profound psychological impact on the native. It can trigger deep crises, but also realisations, and therefore changes. In the house of occult magnetism, Black Moon can signify a natural affinity with secret laws of nature and a great intuition of the 4 hidden things of life. Black Moon in the 9th house: Black Moon - Lilith, the power to reject all limitations, in the house of transcending limits. This position can give a great sense of the absolute, and an unabated idealism. It can thus lead to a rejection of conventional studies as being futile and failing to address the reality of life. On the higher mode, this can lead to a spiritual quest of a high level, fed by relentless aspiration and fascination with the goal, and devoid of any form of compromising. On a not so high mode, it can translate into a rejection of intellectuality, to which deep instinctual knowingness is preferred. In any case, there is likely to be a profound integration of instinct and knowledge; the native knows 'the inside of things', using his/her sharp intuition and capacity to penetrate the intimate nature of things and people. The returns of Black Moon on its native position can lead the native to a profound rethinking of his/her values, belief system, and position in the world. These are key times in life during which the native can feel the push to engage in a completely different path and start a new life. Black Moon in the 10th house: Great potential for originality and independence of mind, and the need to find a professional occupation where these may flourish. Black Moon Lilith, by nature, does not like rigid establishment or anything that resembles patriarchal authority. In the house of career, this may lead to avoiding conventional forms of profession, and seeking for unusual activity. The native can become marginal. Even if he/she is not, there are likely to be times with a huge pull to be self employed - and also times of open conflict with one's boss. (Anyone with the Black Moon in this position will be well inspired to practise deep breathing for a few minutes before engaging in any kind of potentially-heated discussion with their boss.) There is a deep potential for originality, which will blossom in creative occupations (where this originality can become an advantage, not a handicap). Black Moon in the 10th enhances the challenge of finding the right activity in life - the one in which you can blossom and fully express your individual nature. Look for the transits of Black Moon on Black Moon as times when major changes of direction and professional occupation may occur. Because the Black Moon is related to the deepest emotional strata of the psyche, it is essential to keep one's emotional clarity during these periods, so as to make right choices and decisions. Black Moon in the 11th house: Quest of perfection in friendship and need to match idealism with reality. Black Moon - Lilith's absolutism can lead the native to be extremely selective - and also demanding - when it comes to friendship. There is also a risk of projecting onto one's friends huge emotional demands, and of unconsciously using relationships with them to work 5 one's deep emotional conflicts. At times, this can lead to feeling betrayed by one's friends, especially when they find it difficult to cope with the pressure that placed on them. The need for absolute and perfection is also likely to bring the desire to make great contributions to the collectivity - doing something unique that would benefit humanity. This can lead to great realisations, but it also calls for the necessity to cultivate realism. Sometimes, by wanting to give only the best, one ends up giving nothing at all. Black Moon in the 12th house: An invitation to transcend all limitations and dive into cosmic existence. An invitation to dive into the unconscious and explore the depth of one's nature. Without such in-depth exploration, massive unresolved conflicts may completely block the native's expression in the world, and attract dramatic life circumstances. Black Moon in the 12th is like a wound, but a wound in the highest meaning of the term - a gateway into one's absolute depth. With it comes a challenge: find your essence and be yourself completely, or suffer the slings and arrows of (often self-inflicted) outrageous fortune - karma, samskaras... you name it! Black Moon - Lilith, like a powerful guardian angel, will not allow you to sleep blissfully through a life in which you could reach awakening. On the higher mode, this is an extremely powerful position. There is great wisdom and intuitive knowingness of hidden things associated with the Black Moon; and the 12th is the house of final maturity, where all aspects of life are recapitulated and realised in a higher spiritual unity. LILITH ASPECTS Sun-Black Moon conjunction: Being conjunct to the Sun makes the Black Moon extremely powerful. Especially (but not only) in a female chart, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun tends to create a 'Lilith character': strong-willed, stubborn, independent mind and lover of freedom, original, non-conformist, rebellious, passionately disliking routines and enslavement at large. Lilith was the woman who did not need Adam and left him - not a common thing to do in early biblical times - one reason being that she bluntly refused to lie under him during lovemaking. There is a profound need to go beyond limitations of all kinds. This, naturally, leads the native to challenge establishment. At times, it will create difficulties; a Lilith character does not hesitate to tell her/his boss what she/he thinks of him, and can't give a damn about consequences once she/he has made up her mind to do something. The eyes shine, at times defiantly. The personality is sharp, with a marked taste for intensity. This, in Clairvision language, corresponds to violent astrality - venom in large measure! There are strong likes and dislikes, and a tendency to know immediately whether one likes someone or not. 6 This may have to do with the profound insights into the psychological motivations of other people. Being herself/himself so well in touch with her/his shadow, the native has a fine understanding of other people's psyche. A Lilith character is often subtle, with a great sense of nuances, and an EXTREME sensitivity. Problems with the father: With this aspect, it is not rare to find that the native had major problems with the father (especially in the chart of a female). Either the father was absent, or perceived as absent, or was fought against. There is likely to be some deeply rooted wound in the psyche, relating to the father, with profound consequences on the whole organisation of the personality. In symbolical terms this conflict with the father goes far beyond childhood scenarios. It is the father image, in its widest meaning, which is involved here. Think of Lilith, angry at God for making her subjected to Adam's authority (and patriarchal establishment at large), and lamenting, "How could He [God the Father] do that to me?" It is the same wound that you are carrying. It was so deep that it never healed. When experienced on its highest level, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun can make the native quite psychic: premonitory dreams, intuition, natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and clairvoyance. Sun-Black Moon opposition: Especially (but not only) in a female chart, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun tends to create a 'Lilith character': strong-willed, stubborn, independent mind and lover of freedom, original, non-conformist, rebellious, passionately disliking routines and enslavement at large. Lilith was the woman who did not need Adam and left him - not a common thing to do in early biblical times - one reason being that she bluntly refused to lie under him during lovemaking. There is a profound need to go beyond limitations of all kinds. This, naturally, leads the native to challenge establishment. At times, it will create difficulties; a Lilith character does not hesitate to tell her/his boss what she/he thinks of him, and can't give a damn about consequences once she/he has made up her mind to do something. The eyes shine, at times defiantly. The personality is sharp, with a marked taste for intensity. This, in Clairvision language, corresponds to violent astrality - venom in large measure! There are strong likes and dislikes, and a tendency to know immediately whether one likes someone or not. This may have to do with the profound insights into the psychological motivations of other people. Being herself/himself so well in touch with her/his shadow, the native has a fine understanding of other people's psyche. A Lilith character is often subtle, with a great sense of nuances, and an EXTREME sensitivity. Problems with the father: With this aspect, it is not rare to find that the native had major problems with the father (especially in the chart of a female). Either the father was absent, or perceived as absent, or was fought 7 against. There is likely to be some deeply rooted wound in the psyche, relating to the father, with profound consequences on the whole organisation of the personality. In symbolical terms this conflict with the father goes far beyond childhood scenarios. It is the father image, in its widest meaning, which is involved here. Think of Lilith, angry at God for making her subjected to Adam's authority (and patriarchal establishment at large), and lamenting, "How could He [God the Father] do that to me?" It is the same wound that you are carrying. It was so deep that it never healed. When experienced on its highest level, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun can make the native quite psychic: premonitory dreams, intuition, natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and clairvoyance. Sun-Black Moon trine: Especially (but not only) in a female chart, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun tends to create a 'Lilith character': strong-willed, stubborn, independent mind and lover of freedom, original, non-conformist, rebellious, passionately disliking routines and enslavement at large. Lilith was the woman who did not need Adam and left him - not a common thing to do in early biblical times - one reason being that she bluntly refused to lie under him during lovemaking. There is a profound need to go beyond limitations of all kinds. This, naturally, leads the native to challenge establishment. At times, it will create difficulties; a Lilith character does not hesitate to tell her/his boss what she/he thinks of him, and can't give a damn about consequences once she/he has made up her mind to do something. The eyes shine, at times defiantly. The personality is sharp, with a marked taste for intensity. This, in Clairvision language, corresponds to violent astrality - venom in large measure! There are strong likes and dislikes, and a tendency to know immediately whether one likes someone or not. This may have to do with the profound insights into the psychological motivations of other people. Being herself/himself so well in touch with her/his shadow, the native has a fine understanding of other people's psyche. A Lilith character is often subtle, with a great sense of nuances, and an EXTREME sensitivity. When experienced on its highest level, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun can make the native quite psychic: premonitory dreams, intuition, natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and clairvoyance. Sun-Black Moon square: Especially (but not only) in a female chart, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun tends to create a 'Lilith character': strong-willed, stubborn, independent mind and lover of freedom, original, non-conformist, rebellious, passionately disliking routines and enslavement at large. Lilith was the woman who did not need Adam and left him - not a common thing to do in early biblical times - one reason being that she bluntly refused to lie under him during 8 lovemaking. There is a profound need to go beyond limitations of all kinds. This, naturally, leads the native to challenge establishment. At times, it will create difficulties; a Lilith character does not hesitate to tell her/his boss what she/he thinks of him, and can't give a damn about consequences once she/he has made up her mind to do something. The eyes shine, at times defiantly. The personality is sharp, with a marked taste for intensity. This, in Clairvision language, corresponds to violent astrality - venom in large measure! There are strong likes and dislikes, and a tendency to know immediately whether one likes someone or not. This may have to do with the profound insights into the psychological motivations of other people. Being herself/himself so well in touch with her/his shadow, the native has a fine understanding of other people's psyche. A Lilith character is often subtle, with a great sense of nuances, and an EXTREME sensitivity. Problems with the father: With this aspect, it is not rare to find that the native had major problems with the father (especially in the chart of a female). Either the father was absent, or perceived as absent, or was fought against. There is likely to be some deeply rooted wound in the psyche, relating to the father, with profound consequences on the whole organisation of the personality. In symbolical terms this conflict with the father goes far beyond childhood scenarios. It is the father image, in its widest meaning, which is involved here. Think of Lilith, angry at God for making her subjected to Adam's authority (and patriarchal establishment at large), and lamenting, "How could He [God the Father] do that to me?" It is the same wound that you are carrying. It was so deep that it never healed. When experienced on its highest level, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun can make the native quite psychic: premonitory dreams, intuition, natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and clairvoyance. Sun-Black Moon sextile: Especially (but not only) in a female chart, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun tends to create a 'Lilith character': strong-willed, stubborn, independent mind and lover of freedom, original, non-conformist, rebellious, passionately disliking routines and enslavement at large. Lilith was the woman who did not need Adam and left him - not a common thing to do in early biblical times - one reason being that she bluntly refused to lie under him during lovemaking. There is a profound need to go beyond limitations of all kinds. This, naturally, leads the native to challenge establishment. At times, it will create difficulties; a Lilith character does not hesitate to tell her/his boss what she/he thinks of him, and can't give a damn about consequences once she/he has made up her mind to do something. The eyes shine, at times defiantly. The personality is sharp, with a marked taste for intensity. This, in Clairvision language, 9 corresponds to violent astrality - venom in large measure! There are strong likes and dislikes, and a tendency to know immediately whether one likes someone or not. This may have to do with the profound insights into the psychological motivations of other people. Being herself/himself so well in touch with her/his shadow, the native has a fine understanding of other people's psyche. A Lilith character is often subtle, with a great sense of nuances, and an EXTREME sensitivity. When experienced on its highest level, a major aspect of Black Moon to the Sun can make the native quite psychic: premonitory dreams, intuition, natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and clairvoyance. Moon-Black Moon conjunction: A major aspect of the Black Moon to the Moon tends to add depth and stamina to it. The Moon, which by itself can be rather mellow, is reinforced by the qualities of independence and originality associated with the Black Moon, which many astrologers associate with Lilith the rebel, the woman who was created at the same time as Adam, not after him, and who separated from him because she could not bear to be subjected to his authority. The Moon and Black Moon are both related to the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. People with this aspect are likely to be quite in touch with the depth of themselves. Consequently, at times there will be extremely violent emotions - the monsters of the depth are not buried far away, as they are in most people; they tend to manifest more directly in the person's mind. But on the higher mode, the result of a Black Moon - Moon major aspect can be an exceptional intuition. In particular, the person can understand other people and feel what they feel as if they were inside them. There is also likely to be easy access to clairvoyance and higher aspects of spiritual Sight. With this aspect, it is likely that the transits of the Black Moon on the native Moon and Black Moon will be felt with great intensity. On the lower mode, they may cause periods of emotional instability. But on the higher mode (if the native has worked on himself/herself) they may be times when great inner insights can be achieved, as well as remarkable spiritual progress. Moon-Black Moon opposition: A major aspect of the Black Moon to the Moon tends to add depth and stamina to it. The Moon, which by itself can be rather mellow, is reinforced by the qualities of independence and originality associated with the Black Moon, which many astrologers associate with Lilith the rebel, the woman who was created at the same time as Adam, not after him, and who separated from him because she could not bear to be subjected to his authority. The Moon and Black Moon are both related to the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. People with this aspect are likely to be quite in touch with the depth of themselves. Consequently, at times there will be extremely violent emotions - 10 the monsters of the depth are not buried far away, as they are in most people; they tend to manifest more directly in the person's mind. But on the higher mode, the result of a Black Moon - Moon major aspect can be an exceptional intuition. In particular, the person can understand other people and feel what they feel as if they were inside them. There is also likely to be easy access to clairvoyance and higher aspects of spiritual Sight. With this aspect, it is likely that the transits of the Black Moon on the native Moon and Black Moon will be felt with great intensity. On the lower mode, they may cause periods of emotional instability. But on the higher mode (if the native has worked on himself/herself) they may be times when great inner insights can be achieved, as well as remarkable spiritual progress. Moon-Black Moon trine: A major aspect of the Black Moon to the Moon tends to add depth and stamina to it. The Moon, which by itself can be rather mellow, is reinforced by the qualities of independence and originality associated with the Black Moon, which many astrologers associate with Lilith the rebel, the woman who was created at the same time as Adam, not after him, and who separated from him because she could not bear to be subjected to his authority. The Moon and Black Moon are both related to the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. People with this aspect are likely to be quite in touch with the depth of themselves. Consequently, at times there will be extremely violent emotions - the monsters of the depth are not buried far away, as they are in most people; they tend to manifest more directly in the person's mind. But on the higher mode, the result of a Black Moon - Moon major aspect can be an exceptional intuition. In particular, the person can understand other people and feel what they feel as if they were inside them. There is also likely to be easy access to clairvoyance and higher aspects of spiritual Sight. Moon-Black Moon square: A major aspect of the Black Moon to the Moon tends to add depth and stamina to it. The Moon, which by itself can be rather mellow, is reinforced by the qualities of independence and originality associated with the Black Moon, which many astrologers associate with Lilith the rebel, the woman who was created at the same time as Adam, not after him, and who separated from him because she could not bear to be subjected to his authority. The Moon and Black Moon are both related to the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. People with this aspect are likely to be quite in touch with the depth of themselves. Consequently, at times there will be extremely violent emotions - the monsters of the depth are not buried far away, as they are in most people; they tend to manifest more directly in the person's mind. But on the higher mode, the result of a Black Moon - Moon major 11 aspect can be an exceptional intuition. In particular, the person can understand other people and feel what they feel as if they were inside them. There is also likely to be easy access to clairvoyance and higher aspects of spiritual Sight. Moon-Black Moon sextile: A major aspect of the Black Moon to the Moon tends to add depth and stamina to it. The Moon, which by itself can be rather mellow, is reinforced by the qualities of independence and originality associated with the Black Moon, which many astrologers associate with Lilith the rebel, the woman who was created at the same time as Adam, not after him, and who separated from him because she could not bear to be subjected to his authority. The Moon and Black Moon are both related to the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. People with this aspect are likely to be quite in touch with the depth of themselves. Consequently, at times there will be extremely violent emotions - the monsters of the depth are not buried far away, as they are in most people; they tend to manifest more directly in the person's mind. But on the higher mode, the result of a Black Moon - Moon major aspect can be an exceptional intuition. In particular, the person can understand other people and feel what they feel as if they were inside them. There is also likely to be easy access to clairvoyance and higher aspects of spiritual Sight. Mercury-Black Moon conjunction: Adds depth to Mercury, and connection between the conscious and subconscious levels of the mind. Mercury can only gain in depth from its association with the Black Moon. The Black Moon adds sharpness and wit. Mercury allows an expression of the profound values associated with the Black Moon (which signifies the unconscious levels of the psyche). The combination can bring wisdom, as well as intuition. On a simple level, this intuition will result in instant and extremely accurate insights into other people's emotions - knowing their nature from the inside, rather than judging them by their facade. The understanding of other people's psychology also has to do with the fact that the native's own inner life is quite sophisticated and complex. Mercury stands for the conscious mind, Black Moon for the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. The association of the two means that there are more bridges between the different levels of the psyche than in other individuals. This will not always be easy to bear. At times, this open communication between conscious and unconscious mind will trigger heavy emotions, crises, anxiety or even depression. Still, it is the foundation for a high degree of self knowledge. With this aspect, you will be well advised to watch the transits (passages) of Black Moon on the natal Mercury and Black Moon. These may be times when profound rearrangements of your thought patterns take place, and therefore golden opportunities to achieve a great amount of work on yourself. Conversely, the less you know yourself, 12 the more these transits may result in situations of inner crisis. On a higher level, this aspect of Mercury to the Black Moon can help you become quite psychic (Clairvision higher mode). For Lilith-Black Moon, a highly metaphysical point in the chart, is plugged directly into your Mercury-mental consciousness. This means a natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and a great capacity to fathom them. Mercury-Black Moon opposition: Adds depth to Mercury, and connection between the conscious and subconscious levels of the mind. Mercury can only gain in depth from its association with the Black Moon. The Black Moon adds sharpness and wit. Mercury allows an expression of the profound values associated with the Black Moon (which signifies the unconscious levels of the psyche). The combination can bring wisdom, as well as intuition. On a simple level, this intuition will result in instant and extremely accurate insights into other people's emotions - knowing their nature from the inside, rather than judging them by their facade. The understanding of other people's psychology also has to do with the fact that the native's own inner life is quite sophisticated and complex. Mercury stands for the conscious mind, Black Moon for the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. The association of the two means that there are more bridges between the different levels of the psyche than in other individuals. This will not always be easy to bear. At times, this open communication between conscious and unconscious mind will trigger heavy emotions, crises, anxiety or even depression. Still, it is the foundation for a high degree of self knowledge. With this aspect, you will be well advised to watch the transits (passages) of Black Moon on the natal Mercury and Black Moon. These may be times when profound rearrangements of your thought patterns take place, and therefore golden opportunities to achieve a great amount of work on yourself. Conversely, the less you know yourself, the more these transits may result in situations of inner crisis. On a higher level, this aspect of Mercury to the Black Moon can help you become quite psychic (Clairvision higher mode). For Lilith-Black Moon, a highly metaphysical point in the chart, is plugged directly into your Mercury-mental consciousness. This means a natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and a great capacity to fathom them. Mercury-Black Moon trine: Adds depth to Mercury, and connection between the conscious and subconscious levels of the mind. Mercury can only gain in depth from its association with the Black Moon. The Black Moon adds sharpness and wit. Mercury allows an expression of the profound values associated with the Black Moon (which signifies the unconscious levels of the psyche). The combination can bring wisdom, as well as intuition. On a simple level, this intuition will result in instant and extremely accurate insights into other people's emotions - knowing their nature from the inside, rather than judging them by their facade. The understanding of other people's psychology also has to do with 13 the fact that the native's own inner life is quite sophisticated and complex. Mercury stands for the conscious mind, Black Moon for the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. The association of the two means that there are more bridges between the different levels of the psyche than in other individuals. This will not always be easy to bear. At times, this open communication between conscious and unconscious mind will trigger heavy emotions, crises, anxiety or even depression. Still, it is the foundation for a high degree of self knowledge. On a higher level, this aspect of Mercury to the Black Moon can help you become quite psychic (Clairvision higher mode). For Lilith-Black Moon, a highly metaphysical point in the chart, is plugged directly into your Mercury-mental consciousness. This means a natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and a great capacity to fathom them. Mercury-Black Moon square: Adds depth to Mercury, and connection between the conscious and subconscious levels of the mind. Mercury can only gain in depth from its association with the Black Moon. The Black Moon adds sharpness and wit. Mercury allows an expression of the profound values associated with the Black Moon (which signifies the unconscious levels of the psyche). The combination can bring wisdom, as well as intuition. On a simple level, this intuition will result in instant and extremely accurate insights into other people's emotions - knowing their nature from the inside, rather than judging them by their facade. The understanding of other people's psychology also has to do with the fact that the native's own inner life is quite sophisticated and complex. Mercury stands for the conscious mind, Black Moon for the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. The association of the two means that there are more bridges between the different levels of the psyche than in other individuals. This will not always be easy to bear. At times, this open communication between conscious and unconscious mind will trigger heavy emotions, crises, anxiety or even depression. Still, it is the foundation for a high degree of self knowledge. On a higher level, this aspect of Mercury to the Black Moon can help you become quite psychic (Clairvision higher mode). For Lilith-Black Moon, a highly metaphysical point in the chart, is plugged directly into your Mercury-mental consciousness. This means a natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and a great capacity to fathom them. Mercury-Black Moon sextile: Adds depth to Mercury, and connection between the conscious and subconscious levels of the mind. Mercury can only gain in depth from its association with the Black Moon. The Black Moon adds sharpness and wit. Mercury allows an expression of the profound values associated with the Black Moon (which signifies the unconscious levels of the psyche). The combination can bring wisdom, as well as intuition. On a simple level, this intuition will result in instant and extremely accurate insights into other people's emotions - knowing their nature from 14 the inside, rather than judging them by their facade. The understanding of other people's psychology also has to do with the fact that the native's own inner life is quite sophisticated and complex. Mercury stands for the conscious mind, Black Moon for the subconscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. The association of the two means that there are more bridges between the different levels of the psyche than in other individuals. This will not always be easy to bear. At times, this open communication between conscious and unconscious mind will trigger heavy emotions, crises, anxiety or even depression. Still, it is the foundation for a high degree of self knowledge. On a higher level, this aspect of Mercury to the Black Moon can help you become quite psychic (Clairvision higher mode). For Lilith-Black Moon, a highly metaphysical point in the chart, is plugged directly into your Mercury-mental consciousness. This means a natural affinity with the hidden mysteries of life, and a great capacity to fathom them. Venus-Black Moon conjunction: Black Moon adds depth and originality to Venus. On one level, the combination can be excellent. Venus has several wonderful sides, but by itself can sometimes be superficial. From that point of view, it can only benefit from the exacting influence of Black Moon, and of its need for ideal, absolute and perfection. This can lead to powerful realisations, not only in the field of arts, but also in several other professional activities - provided they can be an outlet for your creativity. (Black Moon does enhance the creative side of Venus. In many cases, it also adds a metaphysical dimension to it.) Because the need for perfection can be extreme, you must make sure that it does not become paralysing (as in the case of people who prefer to refrain from relationships rather than being with someone who is not the absolute perfect match, or people who prefer to create nothing rather than run the risk of creating something imperfect). Venus, planet of desire, can also be taken deep down into the unconscious realms of Black Moon -Lilith. Thus Venus - Black Moon aspects have a number of points in common with Venus - Pluto aspects. At their maximum, they can lead to devouring desires and passions. They can also cause the native to be magnetically attracted to dangerous people or situations. In particular, carefully watch who enters your life at the time of a return of Lilith (transiting Black Moon conjunct to native Black Moon). The person is likely to move something deep in your unconscious mind and have a profound impact on your belief system and your values, which could result in significant changes in your life. Venus-Black Moon opposition: Black Moon adds depth and originality to Venus. On one level, the combination can be excellent. Venus has several wonderful sides, but by itself can sometimes be superficial. From that point of view, it can only benefit from the exacting influence 15 of Black Moon, and of its need for ideal, absolute and perfection. This can lead to powerful realisations, not only in the field of arts, but also in several other professional activities - provided they can be an outlet for your creativity. (Black Moon does enhance the creative side of Venus. In many cases, it also adds a metaphysical dimension to it.) Because the need for perfection can be extreme, you must make sure that it does not become paralysing (as in the case of people who prefer to refrain from relationships rather than being with someone who is not the absolute perfect match, or people who prefer to create nothing rather than run the risk of creating something imperfect). Venus, planet of desire, can also be taken deep down into the unconscious realms of Black Moon -Lilith. Thus Venus - Black Moon aspects have a number of points in common with Venus - Pluto aspects. At their maximum, they can lead to devouring desires and passions. They can also cause the native to be magnetically attracted to dangerous people or situations. With this opposition, carefully watch who enters your life at the time of a return of Lilith (transiting Black Moon conjunct to native Black Moon) or at the time of a transit of Black Moon on your native Venus. The person is likely to move something deep in your unconscious mind and have a profound impact on your belief system and your values, which could result in significant changes in your life. Venus-Black Moon trine: Black Moon adds depth and originality to Venus. On one level, the combination can be excellent. Venus has several wonderful sides, but by itself can sometimes be superficial. From that point of view, it can only benefit from the exacting influence of Black Moon, and of its need for ideal, absolute and perfection. This can lead to powerful realisations, not only in the field of arts, but also in several other professional activities - provided they can be an outlet for your creativity. (Black Moon does enhance the creative side of Venus. In many cases, it also adds a metaphysical dimension to it.) Because the need for perfection can be extreme, you must make sure that it does not become paralysing (as in the case of people who prefer to refrain from relationships rather than being with someone who is not the absolute perfect match, or people who prefer to create nothing rather than run the risk of creating something imperfect). Venus, planet of desire, can also be taken deep down into the unconscious realms of Black Moon -Lilith. Thus Venus - Black Moon aspects have a number of points in common with Venus - Pluto aspects. At their maximum, they can lead to devouring desires and passions. They can also cause the native to be magnetically attracted to dangerous people or situations. Venus-Black Moon square: Black Moon adds depth and originality to Venus. On one level, the combination can be excellent. Venus has several wonderful sides, but by itself can sometimes be superficial. From 16 that point of view, it can only benefit from the exacting influence of Black Moon, and of its need for ideal, absolute and perfection. This can lead to powerful realisations, not only in the field of arts, but also in several other professional activities - provided they can be an outlet for your creativity. (Black Moon does enhance the creative side of Venus. In many cases, it also adds a metaphysical dimension to it.) Because the need for perfection can be extreme, you must make sure that it does not become paralysing (as in the case of people who prefer to refrain from relationships rather than being with someone who is not the absolute perfect match, or people who prefer to create nothing rather than run the risk of creating something imperfect). Venus, planet of desire, can also be taken deep down into the unconscious realms of Black Moon -Lilith. Thus Venus - Black Moon aspects have a number of points in common with Venus - Pluto aspects. At their maximum, they can lead to devouring desires and passions. They can also cause the native to be magnetically attracted to dangerous people or situations. Venus-Black Moon sextile: Black Moon adds depth and originality to Venus. On one level, the combination can be excellent. Venus has several wonderful sides, but by itself can sometimes be superficial. From that point of view, it can only benefit from the exacting influence of Black Moon, and of its need for ideal, absolute and perfection. This can lead to powerful realisations, not only in the field of arts, but also in several other professional activities - provided they can be an outlet for your creativity. (Black Moon does enhance the creative side of Venus. In many cases, it also adds a metaphysical dimension to it.) Because the need for perfection can be extreme, you must make sure that it does not become paralysing (as in the case of people who prefer to refrain from relationships rather than being with someone who is not the absolute perfect match, or people who prefer to create nothing rather than run the risk of creating something imperfect). Mars-Black Moon conjunction: Key Words: the Mars stamina pulled towards the inner universe. The Black Moon, with its metaphysical depth and its intimate relationship to the deepest of the human psyche, can significantly modify the significance of Mars in a chart. It adds an occult dimension to it. It makes the native more likely to use his/her Mars energy to work on himself/herself and explore inner worlds rather than only being concerned with external things and the material world. It can give a strong need to follow a spiritual path and explore the hidden mysteries of existence rather than just being engaged in materialistic pursuits. The conjunction and the opposition, in particular, give sharp astral energy in plenty and are excellent aspects for becoming an ISIS practitioner, to explore the depth of the human subconscious, or to deal with occult matters. 17 But at times, the pull towards the depth of the psyche can also result in a paralysis of the Mars stamina, caused by deep unresolved conflicts. Profound inner upheavals can then make the native go through phases of an 'eclipsed Mars', losing their sense of direction and being unable to achieve in the world. This is a general characteristic about the Black Moon: to those who are in touch with the depth of themselves, it gives sharpness and adds even further depth. But to those who are disconnected from their own depth, it can creates crises of great magnitude. Mars-Black Moon opposition: Key Words: the Mars stamina pulled towards the inner universe. The Black Moon, with its metaphysical depth and its intimate relationship to the deepest of the human psyche, can significantly modify the significance of Mars in a chart. It adds an occult dimension to it. It makes the native more likely to use his/her Mars energy to work on himself/herself and explore inner worlds rather than only being concerned with external things and the material world. It can give a strong need to follow a spiritual path and explore the hidden mysteries of existence rather than just being engaged in materialistic pursuits. The conjunction and the opposition, in particular, give sharp astral energy in plenty and are excellent aspects for becoming an ISIS practitioner, to explore the depth of the human subconscious, or to deal with occult matters. But at times, the pull towards the depth of the psyche can also result in a paralysis of the Mars stamina, caused by deep unresolved conflicts. Profound inner upheavals can then make the native go through phases of an 'eclipsed Mars', losing their sense of direction and being unable to achieve in the world. This is a general characteristic about the Black Moon: to those who are in touch with the depth of themselves, it gives sharpness and adds even further depth. But to those who are disconnected from their own depth, it can creates crises of great magnitude. Mars-Black Moon trine: Key Words: the Mars stamina pulled towards the inner universe. The Black Moon, with its metaphysical depth and its intimate relationship to the deepest of the human psyche, can significantly modify the significance of Mars in a chart. It adds an occult dimension to it. It makes the native more likely to use his/her Mars energy to work on himself/herself and explore inner worlds rather than only being concerned with external things and the material world. It can give a strong need to follow a spiritual path and explore the hidden mysteries of existence rather than just being engaged in materialistic pursuits. But at times, the pull towards the depth of the psyche can also result in a paralysis of the Mars stamina, caused by deep unresolved conflicts. Profound inner upheavals can then make the native go through phases of an 'eclipsed Mars', losing their sense of direction and being unable to achieve in the world. This is a general characteristic about the Black Moon: to those who are in touch with the depth of themselves, it gives sharpness and adds even further depth. But to those who are disconnected from their own 18 depth, it can creates crises of great magnitude. Mars-Black Moon square: Key Words: the Mars stamina pulled towards the inner universe. The Black Moon, with its metaphysical depth and its intimate relationship to the deepest of the human psyche, can significantly modify the significance of Mars in a chart. It adds an occult dimension to it. It makes the native more likely to use his/her Mars energy to work on himself/herself and explore inner worlds rather than only being concerned with external things and the material world. It can give a strong need to follow a spiritual path and explore the hidden mysteries of existence rather than just being engaged in materialistic pursuits. But at times, the pull towards the depth of the psyche can also result in a paralysis of the Mars stamina, caused by deep unresolved conflicts. Profound inner upheavals can then make the native go through phases of an 'eclipsed Mars', losing their sense of direction and being unable to achieve in the world. This is a general characteristic about the Black Moon: to those who are in touch with the depth of themselves, it gives sharpness and adds even further depth. But to those who are disconnected from their own depth, it can creates crises of great magnitude. Mars-Black Moon sextile: Key Words: the Mars stamina pulled towards the inner universe. The Black Moon, with its metaphysical depth and its intimate relationship to the deepest of the human psyche, can significantly modify the significance of Mars in a chart. It adds an occult dimension to it. It makes the native more likely to use his/her Mars energy to work on himself/herself and explore inner worlds rather than only being concerned with external things and the material world. It can give a strong need to follow a spiritual path and explore the hidden mysteries of existence rather than just being engaged in materialistic pursuits. Jupiter-Black Moon conjunction: Key words: Jupiter sharpened by the Black Moon, or bogged in the shadow. Jupiter can greatly benefit from the sharp, exacting nature of the Black Moon. The need for perfection and the absolute, which is inherent to the Black Moon can give direction to Jupiter's values of expansion and growth, and thus help it gain momentum and achieve in the world. With this aspect, your Jupiterian power of material realisation depends a great deal on your clarity of purpose and your sense of integrity. If there is no truth for you in a project or a particular job, better not waste you time on it; your Jupiter enthusiasm would refuse to support you in it, and you would be likely to achieve but mediocre results. Conversely, when you feel that truth is on your side, you can find deep inner resources that make you unstoppable. Another possible scenario with this aspect is that the shadow side of the Black Moon, i.e. deep psychological conflicts buried in your 19 subconscious mind, obliterate the expansion power of Jupiter. Put in simple terms, this means that if you have difficulties achieving anything substantial in the material world, it could well be because the power of your subconscious and unconscious mind is in the way. This can mean that a thorough exploration is needed. But for some people, it can be the opposite: too much self-exploration renders the shadow more invalidating! Rather than a simple formula, what is needed here is the establishment of a harmonious relationship with the unconscious parts of your mind. This aspect suggests that you should watch the transits of the Black Moon on your native Black Moon and Jupiter. At these times, the question of the relationship between unconscious and power of action in the world are likely to be particularly acute. The more prepared you are for them, the more those crises are likely to result in positive readjustments of your activities and goals, rather than in 'bogs' in which you have no taste for action. Jupiter-Black Moon opposition: Key words: Jupiter sharpened by the Black Moon, or bogged in the shadow. Jupiter can greatly benefit from the sharp, exacting nature of the Black Moon. The need for perfection and the absolute, which is inherent to the Black Moon can give direction to Jupiter's values of expansion and growth, and thus help it gain momentum and achieve in the world. With this aspect, your Jupiterian power of material realisation depends a great deal on your clarity of purpose and your sense of integrity. If there is no truth for you in a project or a particular job, better not waste you time on it; your Jupiter enthusiasm would refuse to support you in it, and you would be likely to achieve but mediocre results. Conversely, when you feel that truth is on your side, you can find deep inner resources that make you unstoppable. Another possible scenario with this aspect is that the shadow side of the Black Moon, i.e. deep psychological conflicts buried in your subconscious mind, obliterate the expansion power of Jupiter. Put in simple terms, this means that if you have difficulties achieving anything substantial in the material world, it could well be because the power of your subconscious and unconscious mind is in the way. This can mean that a thorough exploration is needed. But for some people, it can be the opposite: too much self-exploration renders the shadow more invalidating! Rather than a simple formula, what is needed here is the establishment of a harmonious relationship with the unconscious parts of your mind. This aspect suggests that you should watch the transits of the Black Moon on your native Black Moon and Jupiter. At these times, the question of the relationship between unconscious and power of action in the world are likely to be particularly acute. The more prepared you are for them, the more those crises are likely to result in positive readjustments of your activities and goals, rather than in 'bogs' in which you have no taste for action. Jupiter-Black Moon trine: Key words: Jupiter sharpened by the Black Moon, or bogged in the shadow. 20 Jupiter can greatly benefit from the sharp, exacting nature of the Black Moon. The need for perfection and the absolute, which is inherent to the Black Moon can give direction to Jupiter's values of expansion and growth, and thus help it gain momentum and achieve in the world. With this aspect, your Jupiterian power of material realisation depends a great deal on your clarity of purpose and your sense of integrity. If there is no truth for you in a project or a particular job, better not waste you time on it; your Jupiter enthusiasm would refuse to support you in it, and you would be likely to achieve but mediocre results. Conversely, when you feel that truth is on your side, you can find deep inner resources that make you unstoppable. Another possible scenario with this aspect is that the shadow side of the Black Moon, i.e. deep psychological conflicts buried in your subconscious mind, obliterate the expansion power of Jupiter. Put in simple terms, this means that if you have difficulties achieving anything substantial in the material world, it could well be because the power of your subconscious and unconscious mind is in the way. This can mean that a thorough exploration is needed. But for some people, it can be the opposite: too much self-exploration renders the shadow more invalidating! Rather than a simple formula, what is needed here is the establishment of a harmonious relationship with the unconscious parts of your mind. Jupiter-Black Moon square: Key words: Jupiter sharpened by the Black Moon, or bogged in the shadow. Jupiter can greatly benefit from the sharp, exacting nature of the Black Moon. The need for perfection and the absolute, which is inherent to the Black Moon can give direction to Jupiter's values of expansion and growth, and thus help it gain momentum and achieve in the world. With this aspect, your Jupiterian power of material realisation depends a great deal on your clarity of purpose and your sense of integrity. If there is no truth for you in a project or a particular job, better not waste you time on it; your Jupiter enthusiasm would refuse to support you in it, and you would be likely to achieve but mediocre results. Conversely, when you feel that truth is on your side, you can find deep inner resources that make you unstoppable. Another possible scenario with this aspect is that the shadow side of the Black Moon, i.e. deep psychological conflicts buried in your subconscious mind, obliterate the expansion power of Jupiter. Put in simple terms, this means that if you have difficulties achieving anything substantial in the material world, it could well be because the power of your subconscious and unconscious mind is in the way. This can mean that a thorough exploration is needed. But for some people, it can be the opposite: too much self-exploration renders the shadow more invalidating! Rather than a simple formula, what is needed here is the establishment of a harmonious relationship with the unconscious parts of your mind. Jupiter-Black Moon sextile: Key words: Jupiter sharpened by the Black Moon, or bogged in the shadow. 21 Jupiter can greatly benefit from the sharp, exacting nature of the Black Moon. The need for perfection and the absolute, which is inherent to the Black Moon can give direction to Jupiter's values of expansion and growth, and thus help it gain momentum and achieve in the world. With this aspect, your Jupiterian power of material realisation depends a great deal on your clarity of purpose and your sense of integrity. If there is no truth for you in a project or a particular job, better not waste you time on it; your Jupiter enthusiasm would refuse to support you in it, and you would be likely to achieve but mediocre results. Conversely, when you feel that truth is on your side, you can find deep inner resources that make you unstoppable. Another possible scenario with this aspect is that the shadow side of the Black Moon, i.e. deep psychological conflicts buried in your subconscious mind, obliterate the expansion power of Jupiter. Put in simple terms, this means that if you have difficulties achieving anything substantial in the material world, it could well be because the power of your subconscious and unconscious mind is in the way. This can mean that a thorough exploration is needed. But for some people, it can be the opposite: too much self-exploration renders the shadow more invalidating! Rather than a simple formula, what is needed here is the establishment of a harmonious relationship with the unconscious parts of your mind. Saturn-Black Moon conjunction: Aspects between the Black Moon and Saturn are powerful, in particular because of the affinity of the two objects (in the Kabbalah, Lilith is related to the planet Saturn). The Black Moon's aspiration for perfection and the rigorous, exacting nature of Saturn reinforce each other. The combination can result in an extreme need for purity. If Saturn is strong in the chart, this is an aspect for brown rice and a carefully selected diet (not one mouthful in excess), and great cleanliness in general. There is a profound need for inner clarity. This also has to do with the fact that at times, Saturn can get locked in the shadow side of the Black Moon. Unless great inner clarity has been achieved, this may result in phases of gloomy depression. Watch in particular the periods when the Black Moon transits the natal Saturn and Black Moon. These are potential times of crisis. If unprepared, their intensity may take you by surprise. The more you know yourself and have explored the depth of your unconscious mind, the more these times of transits are likely to bring realisations and positive change in your life rather than depression. On the higher mode, both the Black Moon and Saturn are potentially very wise. They both have depth and reinforce each other in intensity. Combined with Saturn's inherent structuring power, the sharpness of Black Moon can flourish in intelligence and wit. The result is a N.B.Y. (Not Born Yesterday) person who cannot be fooled by appearances and knows how to respond to all situations. Saturn-Black Moon opposition: Aspects between the Black Moon and Saturn are powerful, in particular because of the affinity of the two objects (in the 22 Kabbalah, Lilith is related to the planet Saturn). The Black Moon's aspiration for perfection and the rigorous, exacting nature of Saturn reinforce each other. The combination can result in an extreme need for purity. If Saturn is strong in the chart, this is an aspect for brown rice and a carefully selected diet (not one mouthful in excess), and great cleanliness in general. There is a profound need for inner clarity. This also has to do with the fact that at times, Saturn can get locked in the shadow side of the Black Moon. Unless great inner clarity has been achieved, this may result in phases of gloomy depression. Watch in particular the periods when the Black Moon transits the natal Saturn and Black Moon. These are potential times of crisis. If unprepared, their intensity may take you by surprise. The more you know yourself and have explored the depth of your unconscious mind, the more these times of transits are likely to bring realisations and positive change in your life rather than depression. On the higher mode, both the Black Moon and Saturn are potentially very wise. They both have depth and reinforce each other in intensity. Combined with Saturn's inherent structuring power, the sharpness of Black Moon can flourish in intelligence and wit. The result is a N.B.Y. (Not Born Yesterday) person who cannot be fooled by appearances and knows how to respond to all situations. Saturn-Black Moon trine: Aspects between the Black Moon and Saturn are powerful, in particular because of the affinity of the two objects (in the Kabbalah, Lilith is related to the planet Saturn). The Black Moon's aspiration for perfection and the rigorous, exacting nature of Saturn reinforce each other. The combination can result in an extreme need for purity. If Saturn is strong in the chart, this is an aspect for brown rice and a carefully selected diet (not one mouthful in excess), and great cleanliness in general. There is a profound need for inner clarity. This also has to do with the fact that at times, Saturn can get locked in the shadow side of the Black Moon. Unless great inner clarity has been achieved, this may result in phases of gloomy depression. On the higher mode, both the Black Moon and Saturn are potentially very wise. They both have depth and reinforce each other in intensity. Combined with Saturn's inherent structuring power, the sharpness of Black Moon can flourish in intelligence and wit. The result is a N.B.Y. (Not Born Yesterday) person who cannot be fooled by appearances and knows how to respond to all situations. Saturn-Black Moon square: Aspects between the Black Moon and Saturn are powerful, in particular because of the affinity of the two objects (in the Kabbalah, Lilith is related to the planet Saturn). The Black Moon's aspiration for perfection and the rigorous, exacting nature of Saturn reinforce each other. The combination can result in an extreme need for purity. If Saturn is strong in the chart, this is an aspect for brown rice and a carefully selected diet (not one mouthful in excess), and great cleanliness in general. There is a profound need for inner clarity. This also has to do with the fact that at times, Saturn can get locked in the shadow side of 23 the Black Moon. Unless great inner clarity has been achieved, this may result in phases of gloomy depression. On the higher mode, both the Black Moon and Saturn are potentially very wise. They both have depth and reinforce each other in intensity. Combined with Saturn's inherent structuring power, the sharpness of Black Moon can flourish in intelligence and wit. The result is a N.B.Y. (Not Born Yesterday) person who cannot be fooled by appearances and knows how to respond to all situations. Saturn-Black Moon sextile: Aspects between the Black Moon and Saturn are powerful, in particular because of the affinity of the two objects (in the Kabbalah, Lilith is related to the planet Saturn). The Black Moon's aspiration for perfection and the rigorous, exacting nature of Saturn reinforce each other. The combination can result in an extreme need for purity. If Saturn is strong in the chart, this is an aspect for brown rice and a carefully selected diet (not one mouthful in excess), and great cleanliness in general. There is a profound need for inner clarity. This also has to do with the fact that at times, Saturn can get locked in the shadow side of the Black Moon. Unless great inner clarity has been achieved, this may result in phases of gloomy depression. On the higher mode, both the Black Moon and Saturn are potentially very wise. They both have depth and reinforce each other in intensity. Combined with Saturn's inherent structuring power, the sharpness of Black Moon can flourish in intelligence and wit. The result is a N.B.Y. (Not Born Yesterday) person who cannot be fooled by appearances and knows how to respond to all situations. Uranus-Black Moon conjunction: The Black Moon reinforces the independent and original nature of Uranus. If well aspected to the rest of the chart, it can be an extremely creative aspect. Black Moon - Lilith and Uranus have a number of features in common: taste for independence, dislike of routines and anything which can perceived as enslaving constraints, affinity with original things, and a rebel - if not rebellious - nature. (In Kabbalistic mythology, Lilith was Adam's first wife. She rebelled and left him because she did not want to be subjected to his control.) On the lower mode, this aspect can enhance the potential restlessness associated with Uranus and make it difficult for the native to stick to long term enterprises or follow any kind of discipline. On the higher mode, the sharpness and originality of Black Moon will reinforce the imagination and creativity of Uranus. On an even higher mode, the metaphysical depth of the Black Moon combines with Uranus in the chart of great visionaries such as Sri Aurobindo (Mars, Uranus, Black Moon conjunct in the 12th), or Edgar Cayce (opposition). Think also of the depth of vision of people such as John Kennedy (opposition), or Steven Spielberg (opposition). Uranus-Black Moon opposition: The Black Moon reinforces the independent and original nature of 24 Uranus. If well aspected to the rest of the chart, it can be an extremely creative aspect. Black Moon - Lilith and Uranus have a number of features in common: taste for independence, dislike of routines and anything which can perceived as enslaving constraints, affinity with original things, and a rebel - if not rebellious - nature. (In Kabbalistic mythology, Lilith was Adam's first wife. She rebelled and left him because she did not want to be subjected to his control.) On the lower mode, this aspect can enhance the potential restlessness associated with Uranus and make it difficult for the native to stick to long term enterprises or follow any kind of discipline. On the higher mode, the sharpness and originality of Black Moon will reinforce the imagination and creativity of Uranus. On an even higher mode, the metaphysical depth of the Black Moon combines with Uranus in the chart of great visionaries such as Sri Aurobindo (Mars, Uranus, Black Moon conjunct in the 12th), or Edgar Cayce (opposition). Think also of the depth of vision of people such as John Kennedy (opposition), or Steven Spielberg (opposition). Uranus-Black Moon trine: The Black Moon reinforces the independent and original nature of Uranus. If well aspected to the rest of the chart, it can be an extremely creative aspect. Black Moon - Lilith and Uranus have a number of features in common: taste for independence, dislike of routines and anything which can perceived as enslaving constraints, affinity with original things, and a rebel - if not rebellious - nature. (In Kabbalistic mythology, Lilith was Adam's first wife. She rebelled and left him because she did not want to be subjected to his control.) On the lower mode, this aspect can enhance the potential restlessness associated with Uranus and make it difficult for the native to stick to long term enterprises or follow any kind of discipline. On the higher mode, the sharpness and originality of Black Moon will reinforce the imagination and creativity of Uranus. On an even higher mode, the metaphysical depth of the Black Moon combines with Uranus in the chart of great visionaries such as Sri Aurobindo (Mars, Uranus, Black Moon conjunct in the 12th), or Edgar Cayce (opposition). Think also of the depth of vision of people such as John Kennedy (opposition), or Steven Spielberg (opposition). Uranus-Black Moon square: The Black Moon reinforces the independent and original nature of Uranus. If well aspected to the rest of the chart, it can be an extremely creative aspect. Black Moon - Lilith and Uranus have a number of features in common: taste for independence, dislike of routines and anything which can perceived as enslaving constraints, affinity with original things, and a rebel - if not rebellious - nature. (In Kabbalistic mythology, Lilith was Adam's first wife. She rebelled and left him because she did not want to be subjected to his control.) On the lower mode, this aspect can enhance the potential restlessness associated with Uranus and make it difficult for the 25 native to stick to long term enterprises or follow any kind of discipline. On the higher mode, the sharpness and originality of Black Moon will reinforce the imagination and creativity of Uranus. On an even higher mode, the metaphysical depth of the Black Moon combines with Uranus in the chart of great visionaries such as Sri Aurobindo (Mars, Uranus, Black Moon conjunct in the 12th), or Edgar Cayce (opposition). Think also of the depth of vision of people such as John Kennedy (opposition), or Steven Spielberg (opposition). Uranus-Black Moon sextile: The Black Moon reinforces the independent and original nature of Uranus. If well aspected to the rest of the chart, it can be an extremely creative aspect. Black Moon - Lilith and Uranus have a number of features in common: taste for independence, dislike of routines and anything which can perceived as enslaving constraints, affinity with original things, and a rebel - if not rebellious - nature. (In Kabbalistic mythology, Lilith was Adam's first wife. She rebelled and left him because she did not want to be subjected to his control.) On the lower mode, this aspect can enhance the potential restlessness associated with Uranus and make it difficult for the native to stick to long term enterprises or follow any kind of discipline. On the higher mode, the sharpness and originality of Black Moon will reinforce the imagination and creativity of Uranus. On an even higher mode, the metaphysical depth of the Black Moon combines with Uranus in the chart of great visionaries such as Sri Aurobindo (Mars, Uranus, Black Moon conjunct in the 12th), or Edgar Cayce (opposition). Think also of the depth of vision of people such as John Kennedy (opposition), or Steven Spielberg (opposition). Neptune-Black Moon conjunction, opposition, trine, square, sextile; An aspect which can strongly reinforce the mystical nature of Neptune, and add metaphysical dimension to its inspiration. The combination can be highly prophetic. But with Neptune, things always run the risks of remaining blurry - especially knowing that Black Moon relates to the depths of the unconscious. It is only when someone has done the inner work which allows them to realise the spiritual potential of Neptune that the support of this aspect to Black Moon can be experienced. If fully developed, this aspect can take cosmic proportions. Think for instance of the immense vision of Rudolf Steiner (conjunction Mercury - Black Moon - Neptune in the 5th house), or other famous teachers who had a Black Moon - Neptune opposition, such as Max Heindel or Paramahansa Yogananda. The more Neptune is aspected to other planets in the chart, the more this aspect will be significant, adding a Black Moon touch to the personality: sharpness, inner depth and need for perfection (which combines with Neptune's idealism). 26 Pluto-Black Moon conjunction, opposition; An aspect which can strongly reinforce the occult nature of Pluto, giving tremendous insight into the hidden mysteries of life and sharp astral energy in plenty. On the lower mode: rich, complex and tenacious sexual fantasies or on the contrary, fear of sexuality. On the higher mode, the need for purity, perfection and absolute can be extreme. There is also an immense potential of energy available to realise one's goals, but one needs to be able to go deep inside oneself to contact it and tap from it. In the conjunction and the opposition, the meeting of Hades and Lilith can make great esotericists, magicians - but also necromancers. Think of people such as Yogananda (Black Moon - Pluto opposition), Gurdjieff (trine), Ramdass (trine), Samuel Sagan (opposition), Rajnesh (square in the birth chart, opposed in the chart of death). But think also of Adolf Hitler (very significant conjunction in the 8th house), or Aleister Crowley (opposition). And, last but not least - Shirley MacLaine (in the midheaven). Pluto-Black Moon trine: An aspect which can strongly reinforce the occult nature of Pluto, giving tremendous insight into the hidden mysteries of life and sharp astral energy in plenty. On the lower mode: rich, complex and tenacious sexual fantasies or on the contrary, fear of sexuality. On the higher mode, the need for purity, perfection and absolute can be extreme. There is also an immense potential of energy available to realise one's goals, but one needs to be able to go deep inside oneself to contact it and tap from it. Pluto-Black Moon square: An aspect which can strongly reinforce the occult nature of Pluto, giving tremendous insight into the hidden mysteries of life and sharp astral energy in plenty. On the lower mode: rich, complex and tenacious sexual fantasies or on the contrary, fear of sexuality. On the higher mode, the need for purity, perfection and absolute can be extreme. There is also an immense potential of energy available to realise one's goals, but one needs to be able to go deep inside oneself to contact it and tap from it. Pluto-Black Moon sextile: On the lower mode: rich, complex and tenacious sexual fantasies or on the contrary, fear of sexuality. On the higher mode, the need for purity, perfection and absolute can be extreme. Nth Node-Black Moon conjunction, opposition: 27 Sth Node-Black Moon opposition. Conjunction; Black Moon - Lilith aspected to the axis of the Dragon (Nodes). Carefully watch for the returns of Black Moon (transiting Black Moon conjunct natal Black Moon) . These are times where profound life changes can take place, and when extreme inner clarity will be needed, so as to make choices which take you in a positive direction, rather than letting yourself be swayed by inner emotional waves. Notice also that the Nodes revolve in 18 years. Meaning that every nine years or so, one of the transiting Nodes becomes conjunct to one of the natal Nodes. Nine years is also the time it takes for Black Moon to operate a revolution. Hence combined returns of Black Moon and the Nodes, which can have a major impact in the life of the person. During these periods, there is a potential for great transformation (which are never completely easy), and for taking new life directions. These times of transits are precious opportunities which must not be wasted. Nth Node-Black Moon trine: Sth Node-Black Moon sextile: Black Moon - Lilith aspected to the axis of the Dragon (Nodes). Not a very powerful aspect, except when it is tight. An invitation to go inside and explore the depth of your psyche so as to find a meaningful direction in life. Nth Node-Black Moon square: Sth Node-Black Moon square: Black Moon - Lilith aspected to the axis of the Dragon (Nodes). Carefully watch for the returns of Black Moon (transiting Black Moon conjunct natal Black Moon) . These are times where profound life changes can take place, and when extreme inner clarity will be needed, so as to make choices which take you in a positive direction, rather than letting yourself be swayed by inner emotional waves. These times of transits are precious opportunities which must not be wasted. Nth Node-Black Moon sextile: Sth Node-Black Moon trine: Black Moon - Lilith aspected to the axis of the Dragon (Nodes). Not a very powerful aspect, except when it is tight. An invitation to go inside and explore the depth of your psyche so as to find a meaningful direction in life. Black Moon-Ascendant conjunction, opposition, trine, square, sextile: This position is found in people who have a major affinity with Black Moon - Lilith, the archetype of the rebel - the woman who was created at the same time as Adam (not after him like Eve), and who refused to be subjected to his authority. This aspect to the Black Moon is a factor of depth, and as such it 28 influences the whole astrological chart. The symbolism is one of great independence of mind, originality, and creativity. There is a profound dislike for the limitations imposed by patriarchal establishment, and for situations which are perceived as limiting personal freedom. Despite great inner strength, people who have an affinity with the Black Moon are often extremely sensitive. This is because they are in touch with deep values inside themselves and other people (the more people are connected to the depth of themselves, the less they are likely to be insensitive). The Black Moon also brings a taste for perfection and absolute. On the higher mode, this aspect indicates psychic abilities, and the capacity to perceive the hidden side of things. Black Moon-Midheaven conjunction, opposition, trine, square, sextile: The symbolism of the Black Moon is associated with Lilith, who, according to the Kabbalistic tradition, showed qualities of extreme independence. As she hated to be subjected to Adam's authority, she left him to lead her own life - not a common thing to do in biblical times! The import of this aspect is to be understood in the line of Lilith's myth. The qualities of independence can be extremely beneficial on the professional level, bringing a sense of direction and goals. (If the person lacks a sense of direction, then it is likely that they need to be more in touch with the values associated with the Black Moon.) But, if you are not cautious, the rebel nature of Lilith could work against you at times. The Black Moon is not particularly diplomatic! You may well find yourself involved in some heated disagreements with your boss or colleagues which may have detrimental effects on your promotions! People with a strong Black Moon often prefer to be self employed.

#Blackmoonlilith #lilith #asteroidlilith #astrologicallilith

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humansofhds · 2 years

Text

Sravana Borkataky-Varma, Lecturer on Hindu Traditions

“Intention makes the whole difference. If you want to do something different, ask a different question. Explore a different path within your field or outside, and ask yourself, ‘What is my intention?’”

Sravana Borkataky-Varma is a historian, educator, and social entrepreneur. She studies Indian religions focusing on esoteric rituals and gender, particularly in Hinduism (Śākta Tantra). As a social entrepreneur, she invests in building communities with individuals from various faith backgrounds who believe in kindness, compassion, and fulfillment.

Developing My Clairvoyance in India

I come from a very middle-class background. In India, my dad was with the government service. He was the primary breadwinner. My mom was a homemaker. So, mine was the typical story of any middle-class Indian growing up, born in 1975.

Today, when I turn back and I look at my blessings, I think one of the blessings was my parents never shut down my—what I now understand as a portal—my clairvoyance. They never said, “Don't say these things because people will think weird about you.” At the same time, they did not highlight it either. So, I grew up with this believing it is normal.

You know, it is like you're born with a certain skin tone. That's normal. I appreciate the fact that my parents gave such a normative interpretation of what I would wake up and say or do at random. Until a very late age, almost late 20s, I did not realize that this clairvoyance was not happening to everybody. But none of this vocabulary was available to me until I studied religion.

The second thing which I feel very blessed about is because of that, I was never pushed to do or study anything in a particular format. In India back then, growing up, you either become an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer or took on a government job. That's the only way you could make a living. And there is no field of religious studies. Even today in India you cannot study comparative religion at an university. You can study philosophy and languages but not religion as studied in the United States.

China and the Corporate World

I went on with life. I wanted to become a nun for the longest period. I still believe I am one. It's just that I don't don the cloth. I do have lots of issues with the cloth. I find it challenging, problematic, particularly in the context of power and authority. But I have no issues with people who don the cloth. It's a personal choice. I haven't found the answer to how and why the cloth gets to signify my path, my allegiance to the path, my value systems, and what does that cloth signify when somebody is looking at you from the other side?

One thing led to the other and I decided to instead go on a corporate journey. I went to China with a business, having gotten my business degree. While I saw a lot of success in the corporate world—and I have no regrets whatsoever—I didn't like the human being I was becoming. The power of the corporate world was, or had, depleted a lot of compassion in me. If you're not happy, you can keep pursuing something outside of you, you can buy the fanciest bags and shoes, and jewelry, or homes. It's not like one versus the other, but ask what will make you happy. Seek that and the rest will follow.

While in China my interests in the academy, interest in teaching, interest in working with students, being around students, being a student myself again, was renewed. I think China brought that back. I realized this is the space that makes me happy. And it was my husband who said, why don't you go back to religion because that is where you were most happy.

My Journey

We moved to Houston after China where, fortuitously, Rice University is located. I thought I'd want to study Buddhism because that's what I was coming from. I had learned Tibetan, Pali, and Sanskrit, so I thought I'm going to study Buddhism in the northeast of India. At Rice, I started my Ph.D. coursework with Prof. Anne C. Klein and Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal. But at the end of two years of coursework, I realized what I wanted to do was kind of an auto-ethnography of my own journey, of my own tradition, of my own path, and I wanted to figure out what I was doing in life. It’s very unusual once you join a Ph.D. program to change everything. But that’s what I did. I changed advisor, I changed path, I changed everything.

I went on the path of Tantra, and now I am here at the Harvard Divinity School. Tantra is so misunderstood. If you're an initiate, you're sworn to secrecy. There are historic and spiritual reasons for the secrecy because not everyone is ready or would understand what you're saying and can take some of what you're saying and be in a much more dangerous situation. It's what I call responsible teaching. Even when we are in the classroom, we have to gauge what will we say, how will we say it, and at what point. Learning the tantric way is kind of a journey. So, one has to be much a hyper-tuned in person to say when someone is ready for what level of information.

I'm increasingly becoming comfortable saying that my job as a teacher, as a guru, is to bring my students relevant information. To provide different avenues and lenses that they can then explore. And it's the individual who gets to choose. It's the individual who gets to then say this is working for me or not working for me. This is a very different approach. In other words, I do not believe in a prescriptive method.

Finding Support at Harvard

You dream about Harvard. I call it the audacity of a dream. I'm borrowing it from Obama and not calling it “Audacity of Hope,” but the audacity of a dream. Harvard is a dream for many, especially when we come from the subcontinent, growing up you had only heard of Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge, so never in a million years did I think I would be here.

And now at the Harvard Divinity School I have found the most supportive and collaborative colleagues, especially within the new initiative called Transcendence and Transformation. There have been many blessings. But the two people I thank almost everyday in my prayers are: A big support person to me has been Prof. Janet Gyatso, Buddhist Studies, and Prof. Charles Stang, Early Christian Thought. The support we have at HDS is phenomenal and it is not just from faculty, but also administration, students, and so forth.

Scholar, Practitioner, Scholar-practitioner

I've said this in my classroom so many times. Studying religion is difficult work, and there is a price to pay. If you look at it historically, anybody who has been any kind of a change-maker had to sacrifice a lot personally and professionally, and I think that sometimes frustrates me a little in my work.

Students at Harvard are eager to see the change. We feel the pain of the change not happening, but we must ask, are we willing to walk the path, to pay the price? What are we willing to do? And not many are willing to do the work. They simply expect the change to appear on a platter. Not happening!

Words of Experience

Intention makes the whole difference. If you want to do something different, ask a different question. Explore a different path within your field or outside, ask yourself, “What is my intention?”

My one word of advice is to tell Harvard students to take in the the present moment. When you wake up in the morning, in the mirror and just say "I AM HERE." "I am here." And that in my mind is the beginning of a wonderful life filled with joy, fulfillment, and courage to deal with life's curve balls.

Interview conducted and edited by Denise Penizzotto; top image courtesy of Sravana Borkataky-Varma, second image by Denise Penizzotto

#Harvard #Harvard Divinity School #hinduism #Religious Studies #Religion #china #india #large

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doomedandstoned · 6 years

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Tripping Through the Void with SUNNATA

It's been four years since Doomed & Stoned visited SUNNATA and my how they've grown in the interim! Three successful independent releases, legendary live performances, an exponentially growing fanbase, and broad critical acclaim have shifted the spotlight on the Warsaw doomers. Long before they became the juggernaut of the heavy underground, we knew them as an exciting upstart called Satellite Beaver. This week, we give Sunnata’s latest collections of songs a thorough going over and speak with Szymon Ewertowski (guitar, vox), Adrian Gadomski (guitar), Michał Dobrzański (bass), and Robert Ruszczyk (drums) about what fuels their fire.

Heart of Storm

By Simon Howard

Polish loners Sunnata offer the melodic pilgrim a ritualistic, dark, heavy journey into the atmospheric Outlands, hypnotizing us with an eternal 48 minutes of tripping. Pineal glands will decalcify, doors of perception will be cleansed, and the listener will be enlightened.

Sunnata have been creating a musical Zenith in a blend of genres since 'Climbing the Colossus' (2014) and 'Zorya' (2016). This well-crafted album is hard to believe, in the fact that this band have only been around since 2014. Incorrect. Jump in the TARDIS of Tunes, and rewind ourselves back to 2008. Under the moniker of Satellite Beaver, they released two demos and one final EP in 2012, aptly named, The Last Bow. If the reader is not familiar with Satellite Beaver, then you have an amazing musical journey ahead of you.

Outlands by SUNNATA

'Outlands' (2018) was recorded at Monochrom Studio, mixed and mastered by Haldor Grunberg of Satanic Audio, and brilliantly saturated in the artwork by Maciej Kamuda.

I really cannot attest to what was in the Kool-Aid at Monochrom Studio, but the results are spiritually absorbed into the listener's soul. Mind expanding mantras like "Lucid Dream," "The Ascender," and the epically entrancing closing track "Hollow Kingdom" appeal to me on planes we can only experience ourselves. Outlands transitions from mellow meditational hymns to heavenly heavy riffs, blending this album into something transcendental for avid or new fans of Sunnata. This journey will be taken upon by many, and many times. Musical Mecca has been found. The void has been filled.

Soon It Will All Be Gone

A Conversation with Sunnata

Interview by Billy Goate | Photos by Justyna Kamińska

How would you characterize the evolution of sunnata from ‘Climbing the Colossus’ to ‘Zorya’ to your latest record, ‘Outlands’?

It’s been a long way. I would describe it as emotional trip from anger on our debut Climbing the Colossus, through spatial epicness and a need for air on Zorya to introverted melancholia you can dive into on Outlands. In general, we have always been the "sad guys" who were into kind of a gloomy, dark state of mind and soul and our approach towards the music evolved along with our skills of using instruments to express what we feel inside. That’s why I’d characterize our evolution as a path to greater complexity of emotions, where our debut was the simplest and our latest album the most complicated, emotion-wise.

Are there thematic motifs that the band finds attractive when writing songs? Which themes were most influential on 'Outlands’?

We definitely have become more lyrically confident since our previous album and even though we still consider the role of our lyrics as backing for the rest, I think we can finally admit that Sunnata actually has something to say! (laughs) It might not be your most positive answer ever, but our motifs on Outlands consist of loneliness, despair, the negative influence of religious fanaticism, helplessness, and development of the self and whatever conflict you have inside of you. We dig deep, reopen wounds, and push to get to the core. We prefer fighting yourself to fighting others, until you turn into none.

Are the songs on the new album connected in any way? Is this all a “Lucid Dream” that culminates in a journey into the “Outlands,” with “The Ascender” climbing some forbidden mountain of the gods? And what is the “Gordian Knot” -- an internal fight-or-flight struggle? At the end of the journey, is the prize the conquest of a “Hollow Kingdom”? So many questions!

Sure! Song order always comes last, so we have no intention in putting a story together in any way. However, this sort of lyrical consistency allows us to arrange one after another in a way that triggers certain emotions and impressions. Let’s get through the album piece by piece:

"Lucid Dream" encourages you to give, not to receive; to understand that if you separate your self-esteem from the external world and build value of self and the will to explore, you will grow as a human.

"Scars" is a story of being misled, lied to, cheated on, and abandoned on the one hand, but also a story of growing strength and power to end whatever harms you.

"Outlands" was actually inspired by some politically related events. It's all about sacrifice as a way to bring attention to an idea or social problem ignored before. Too deep to dig into it in a single interview.

"The Ascender" track is focused around any sort of radicalism giving an illusion of being permitted to force your point of view on others. We disagree with anyone’s feeling to be justified for actions that do harm. It’s an illusion that keeps you away from self.

"Gordian Knot" is exactly what you have interpreted: inner struggle -- one that can make you fall apart or disintegrate, in any way.

"Hollow Kingdom" has been chosen as climax, the ending song in praise of emptiness. Its structure, repetitive feeling, and overwhelming melancholia are the best ending of an album we could choose from this track list.

Tell us about the artwork, the artist you chose, and the layers of meaning behind this many-faced wraith?

The only constant is change to us. That’s why this time, instead of going with the magnificent Jeffrey Smith of Ascending Storm once again, we decided to go with another talented artist, Maciej Kamuda, who is also author of Weedpecker and Major Kong artwork. We felt a strong urge to do something different. Deity presented on the front cover is a variation on deep symbolism of Goddess Kali. We didn’t want her to look in a way she’s known from Hinduism. We were inspired more by deep, complex symbolism behind her various forms. If you read about her, you will instantly get it.

One consistent word that comes up in all the descriptions of your music -- live performances especially -- is “ritualistic.” Whether it is the careful setting of the stage, the lighting of the incense, or the hypnotic, trance-like rhythms of the music. What is the importance of ritual for the band and what does this bring to your compositions and performances.

Ritualism in our music comes from trance-inducing forms we create. Immersed in void and drugged with noise, we jam a lot in search of the desired emotion trigger -- we can’t name it, we just get the feeling. If we do, we proceed further. Our work routine and who we are as people actually doesn’t have much to do with dark shamanism, but everything changes once we take instruments and start playing together. It’s similar to being possessed with something. All other details you mentioned -- stage setting, light, clothes, and merch -- are secondary to this and their role is to create certain atmosphere to take people on the journey with us.

I've heard rumors of a music video in the works?

Videos are our curse. We’ve been working on them for every album, but for various reasons all these projects were abandoned. Right now, we are at the beginning of production process for video of "The Ascender" song and we really do hope that it will work out this time. I can’t tell much yet, but we would like the outcome to be something similar to our music -- '90s aesthetics in a psychedelic, doomy setting. We’ll see what time will tell.

Let’s close by giving our readers a peek at your touring plans for 2018 and beyond. What “Outlands” are you off to in the days and months ahead?

We can’t reveal many dates since they are not officially announced yet, but after the our spring tour of Scandinavia with the crazy lads of Boss Keloid, we have various festivals in the summertime confirmed and good perspectives on touring Europe with Dopethrone in October, plus an appearance at Gizzardfest in Rotherham, UK. I believe that best is yet about to come. We just need to follow our own path.

Ruling Land of Emptiness

By Shawn Gibson & Billy Goate

To understand the significance of Sunnata's musical achievements, we need at least a cursory understanding of the soil in which the band is planted. Poland's heavy music scene has been experiencing a surge of activity over the past decade or two, but its music roots are deep-seated and stretch back generations to the darkly complex oeuvre of composers like Frederic Chopin, Leopold Godowsky, Karol Szymanowski, Henryk Górecki, and so many others.

Sunnata's home base of Warsaw encompasses an impressive if turbulent history, evolving from a smattering of villages more than 1400 years ago to become one of the ten largest capital cities in Europe. Warsaw has had more than its share of doom to contend with, too, from disease and famine to regional and global wars -- including the devastating Nazi occupation, which spurred the great underground resistance movement known as the Warsaw Uprising.

Given this context, it's significant that Sunnata has adopted a name representing one of the fundamental principles of Buddhism. Śūnyatā is a transliteration of the Sanskrit word शून्यता (pronounced as "shoonyataa"), which signifies voidness. Think of it as a meditative state of "emptiness" in which the mind is devoid of desire, specifically the stubborn presence of that word we all learn by age two: mine. Śūnyatā involves the diminishing of one's ego, and the band that wears this name has dedicated the better part of a decade to exploring this philosophy through the medium of ritual heavy music.

Photo by Aleksandra Burska

"Hollow Kingdom," the closing track on Outlands, is one example of Sunnata's approach to voidness, with its droning ups and downs and subtle twists. Sunnata let this song be the pedals of a cherry blossom drifting in the breeze. Another highlight is "The Ascender" (my favorite of the record). It's the kind of vessel one imagines boarding to cross over to निर्वाण (nirvana). The backing vocals near the beginning of the song calls to mind prayers and mantras of Tibetan monks. Guitars buzz like propellers, shuttling you along to another plane of existence. The heavy psychedelic vibe and stirring chorus makes for an uplifting experience that is, one imagines, not unlike astral projection. Sunnata are your gurus fixed atop the mountain, lulling you ever closer on an ascendant journey skyward. Along the way, there's an avalanche of emotions.

One imagines the many plagues, fires, wars, and uprisings that might have influenced "Scars." The song strikes a thrash-like tempo, with jazzy cymbals and a psyched-out tambourine. Then, at the five-minute mark, all hell breaks loose with a thundering bassline, fuzzed-out guitars, and a pummeling drumbeat. Doom has come to claim its reign! Similarly, "Gordian Knot" attacks like a nest of pissed-off hornets. Still rocking hard by the two-minute mark, things lighten up for a spell as fuzzy desert riffs and reassuring chants (with those wonderful backing vocals) lull you to sanctuary. The aggressive pace returns, leading to a crescendo of screaming vox to chase every worry from your mind. Only the journey consumes you now.

youtube

Taken in sum, Outlands is an exhilarating magic carpet ride, albeit with some turbulence. Sunnata hone the powerful elements of rock and metal like master alchemists, dispensing measured doses of doom, sludge, psychedelic, and stoner, melding them seamlessly, and transcending boundaries only few conceived possible. The heavy doom passages are somehow made even heavier by this psychedelic blend, which brings one closer to a state of voidness.

High spiritual concept meets the earthy might of doom in Outlands. It is the enlightenment of the yogis, the ascension of gurus, a musical Kathmandu. I've visited the temple now multiple times over the course of weeks and months and it continues to be a cathartic experience for me. Outlands will make your heart flutter and embolden your spirit with its mesmerizing riffs and hypnotic rhythms. It will usher you down a river of feeling and bury you in a cascade of sonic desolation. The chants and mantras sent my spirit soaring heavenward. Returning to earth, I felt as if I have been everyplace in existence and at the same time perfectly still, third eye open -- mind, body, and spirit aligned. Awareness is the gift I received from this Outlands. Who knows? In listening, perhaps you will find your own Śūnyatā, as well.

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#D&S Reviews #D&S Interviews #sunnata #Warsaw #Poland #doom #sludge #metal #doom metal #Svempa Alveving #photography #Justyna Kamińska #Simon Howard #Shawn Gibson #Doomed & Stoned

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erelasirrelevantessays · 3 years

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Exegesis | “Against Interpretation” by Susan Sontag

Week 6 | Written July 30, 2021 for the midterm, modified August 14, 2021

“Transparence is the highest, most liberating value in art - and in criticism - today. Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are.”

Spending an entire essay arguing against interpretation, Susan Sontag finally arrives at what she is for instead of against: transparence. Transparence is the opposite of interpretation. It means doing away with all the opaque and unnecessary layers of interpretation. It is, as she says, "experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are.” But before we discuss transparence and luminousness, we must first discuss Sontag's definition of interpretation.

A close reading of her essay would suggest that her definition of interpretation is quite specific. This type of interpretation has two distinct characteristics. First, it has a set of rules that it must follow. Art must be seen through an interpretive framework based on references, whether they be biblical, Freudian, Marxist, etc. Therefore, it is prescriptive. Second, this type of interpretation is selective in what it perceives. The artwork is not seen as a whole, but as many pieces that hold different levels of potential for interpretation (according to whatever interpretive framework the critic feels the need to use). As a result, some elements of the artwork may be ignored when deemed unnecessary for a specific interpretation.

Interpretation therefore reduces artworks and "tames" the difficult emotions that they may evoke. Once boxed in by an interpretation, the artwork on its own no longer has the power to move us, because we now know it is meant to signify something other than itself, something we are already familiar with. The initial, enlightening sensory experience of the artwork, or its luminousness, is lost. It is only through transparence that this luminousness is able to remain. It is therefore fitting that Sontag calls transparence the "highest, most liberating value in art - and in criticism - today". It is indeed liberating in that it frees art from burdensome interpretations, but extending past that, it allows freedom from the monotonousness of interpretations that draw from the same references over and over again, which can reduce diverse works into the same old stories and symbols. Transparence also frees us from the burden of defending and justifying art, which started once people began to search for deeper meaning within works of art. From then on, art no longer sufficed as what it was; it now required explanations. The innocence from a time before art needed justification may never be recovered, Sontag laments, but transparence is a step towards that direction.

But, what exactly does transparence entail? It is a focus on form over content. Instead of a prescriptive approach, it uses a descriptive vocabulary to describe the sensory experiences of an artwork. For me, Sontag's standpoint is sensible up until this point. She goes on to say that all signs towards symbolism and social critique should be ignored, even if they were intentionally put there by the artist. When works do suggest these interpretations, they are "defective, false, contrived, lacking in conviction". She sees the value of these works mainly in their aesthetics, technicalities, and literal storylines.

At first glance, Sontag's thinking seems to be in line with Roland Barthes' "The Death of the Author", in that the author's original intentions are of less importance than what the work actually is and how the reader then responds to it. But the similarities end here, because Sontag firmly dismisses responses to the work that are interpretive, even if there are indicators in the actual work that encourage such responses. In a way, I think this can also be something that limits people's experiences of an artwork. Contrary to what Sontag believes, I think interpretation can potentially be something that enhances an artwork's luminousness when considered in addition to the sensory experience. Making connections between something within a piece of artwork and a literary reference can be an experience just as enlightening as seeing vibrant colors or intriguing shapes. Is interpretation really something so damaging that we ought to avoid it at all costs?

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gruby88 · 3 years

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The story clerks is kind of amazing. A lower-middle class kid from suburban New Jersey starts working at a video store, where he mets a guy heavily into movie. He broadens his horizons enough with some Independent Film Fair hangouts, a place where future classics like Linklater’s „Clacker” would appear. The kid, known as Kevin SMith, get so into it he ges to cheap canadian film school to make his own movies.

He drops out mid-semester, because school is boring and boring things are just not interesting. But he assembles a rudimentary crew of rpoducer Scott Mosier and cinematographer Klark, makes some credit card fraud for 30k dollars and starts making his debut movie - Clerks.

Shot over a month at a store Smith worked at - the movie is basically two dudes just having a weird day at work. They talk in a very verbose style, giving this sophistication to the most inane of topics while serving wacky customers and slowly bulding up to a broader lesson the love subplot signifies.

In spite of it’s blue collar setting of a convinience store, the movie appears to be ideologyless. IThe characters, or rather maybe SMith himself, seem to have no real thoughts about politics. There’s no big boss acting as villain. there’s no goals. A guy who sells chewing gum starts a riot in the store but that never gets any commentary, it’s just a gag. There’s just empty void of depression. And 90s kinda were like that. Reagan and Tatcher turned the world into a capitalist hellhole, everything seemed meaningless beyond monetary value, with no real way out of the system.

It still does btw.

And thus, the valued commodity of early 90s was realness. The was a market for what we believe to be real. Swearing, being drunk in public, greasy haired rockers were not the world finally manning up to some sick guitar riffs, it was an open craving for somethig real. Something raw. Or at least as raw as we can stomach, there’s a reason why pretty boy Eddie Vedder got famous, and shit-slinging rockers like GG Allin just remained too hot for tv.

And realness wasn’t just to be consumed, it gave us hope that we can too become recognizable for just being ourselves. And it times before reality tv, vlogs, instagram stories and facebook posts - to scratch that itch we had to look for people like us on the big screen. For validation that our averageness is significant in some way.

And Clerks was the perfect movie for the generation of directionless stoners, loners, geeks, nerds, outcasts, mclovins of their time. It was just two dudes being smartasses for 90 minutes.

So how does CLerks hold up in 2020?

Welp.

The movie itself is kinda good. Very funny still. It encapsulates early 90s attitude of not giving a fuck pretty flawlessy with worst attitued played up to maximum. There’s no stakes, characters hardly have an arc to follow, it just kind of is. It meanders with no purpose and that kind of is the point. It’s lack of effort seems to be intentional to signify the lack of effort in the characters. It’s as dull as your life, but also has all the things that make it bearable. The funny friend. The fact that low-paying jobs have the best stories because you mostly deal with other low-income people wh are usually insane from all the stress.

C A P I T A L I S M

One thing that caught my eye was contempt for store customers. You’d think Smith would find compassion for fellow low-classians, but no. I wroked commerce so I know, the best stories are the ones about people you don’t hold too dear to your heart and called names to their face because they just put you past the tipping point. But politics of clerks is basically - look at this dumb motherfuckers interrupting me doing fuck all at my job. There’s no hint of irony or self-awareness. Like, at some point the cool guy, Randall fucking GRAVES, just spits water at a guy point blank for being kinda stupid about tabloids. And is presented as the guy we want to be, the cold calculated friend with instant funny comment about anything.

I guess this is a display of Kev-dawgs immaturity. He is not aware, that what he perceives as cool carries a broader social commentary and a lesson that’s beyond a joke about customers being weird. Which is kinda part of the charm. That Smith doesn’t know, or simply doesn’t care that he shows us the worst people ever, which is why it’s so authentic. It’s brutal when put like that, but it is the voice of the part of america that gets the worst jobs. And this is what they think of you. That you’re assholes for making them work. ANd that speaks to countless generations of kids who would never have a voice in cinema. There was never a cool representation for chubsters with affection for superheroes. They want to believe that their lack of sex skills will result in a girl mistakenly fukcing a corpse in pursuit of them and not just straight rejection.

And it works like that because the movie is pretty consequenceless for our main characters. Randall has no stakes in anything and just spits onelines. He throws some food around which I guess is pretty dramatic, but that’s about his impact on the story.

The story centers around the main character of Dante. A guy who has unexplanedly two women fight for his affection even thouth his bed skills seem to be comparable to rigor mortis. And is just an asshole to both off them. He scolds his girlfriend for having broad sexual past, and then gets mad when he learns that his ex moved on. Lots of room for improvement as a person.

Anyways, his lesson? Ditch the ex who will most likely never recorver and is now useless as you can’t fuck, and go back to your main chick. This is actually the whole arc of the movie. Dante learns that his options are limited, and he should bank on girls that actually can stand him. And it’s not even my interpretation, the movie ends with the director, playing the iconic SIlnet Bob, explaining the movie to us via a monologue to the main character.

But all of this makes the movie work. Becuase it perfectly captures tht moment in life when you’re kinda too naive to figue out that having good taste in movies does not a good person make, but also old enough to not be dismissed or get in trouble for challanging the status quo.

Even after dogma, where peoles good will towards smith reached its peak and for a second he was about to enter the mainstream legit, not just as an indie wonder funny guy. He was not treated as seriously as after Clerks. And smith ate it up. He played into it. 90s Kevin is way more full of himself than his later laid back slacker persona of the public speaking era. Kevin loves the implication that he is this working class genious, the smartass philosopher of the gen x, taking popular culture and treating it like art. Big words. And he is not wrong, lthout his takes.. usually are.

Kevin is prominently featured as an intro interviewer for Josh petersen, indie distributor that wrote book about how he performs the most boring aspect of the movie making - selling the thing.

But seeing this movie now, being 10 years older than kevin when he made it. I can feel the excitement of voice emerging, and „that’s beautiful, man”.

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syzygyzip · 7 years

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The Myth and Meaning of MissingNo

A few notes about this essay: first, I have removed the period from the name “MissingNo.” for ease of transcription. I also refer to MissingNo’s sibling as Bar ‘M Bar or [][][][] ‘M [][][][] because its real name is irreproducible in Unicode:

Also, for the purposes of this essay it is helpful to think of Pokémon less as animals and more as a gamut of spectral entities: yokai, devas, fairies, sprites, genies, elemental intelligences, ghosts, servitors, unincorporated astral matter, etc. All those strange and elusive beings who populate world mythology and the collective imagination. In contrast to our world, however, people in Kanto are universally aware of these entities and their relation to ourselves. Much more can be said on this subject, but allow the basic premise to inform your reading when it feels appropriate. The subject before us is liminal by its nature.

Myths, Stories, and Suspicions

When we encounter a glitch in a game the temptation is to say that it broke our immersion. Maybe it’s because children are more easily entranced, but as a child my experience with MissingNo did not feel particularly incongruous with the narrative. The encounter, though strange, didn’t contradict the world of the game -- it expanded it in a psychedelic direction. When I met MissingNo, the battle played out more or less as normal. It was only the image of the creature, the arcane initiation, and the haunting after-effects that were atypical.

As soon as Pokémon Red & Blue came out, one fact of life became very clear: Kids love to spread tall tales about Pokémon. It was quite common to hear about Mew hiding under a truck or Togepi skulking around in the inaccessible wilderness behind Bill’s house. But the purported apparition of something called “MissingNo” or “Bar ‘M Bar” held an especially uncanny sway, because everyone believed it to be true. The basic story was that you talk to an old man, and then fly to an island where you meet bizarre and game-glitching Pokémon – but the many accounts which peppered the playground and Internet each held idiosyncratic details. Some said Mewtwo would turn up on the island, others said they found Pokémon native to the Safari Zone, or rogue trainers, or that you could multiply your items by 100. When I finally initiated what came to be known as the “Old Man Glitch”, I performed it in the prescribed manner:

Talk to the Old Man in the North of Viridian City. He will show you how to catch a Weedle.

As soon as the Old Man is finished, fly to Cinnabar Island.

On the island, walk over to the eastern edge and use Surf.

Surf the very edge of the water, moving up and down.

And sure enough, there appeared a fuzzy Tetris-looking rando named [][][][] ‘M [][][][]. Armed with a little background research, I succeeded in slaying this entity, and came away with 128 rare candies, a glitched out Hall of Fame record, and a whole lot of questions. The experience was so simple and tidy, and the performance of the glitch was just dreamlike enough that my young mind felt the thin silver light of meaning shining dimly from behind the supposedly arbitrary method of contact.

MissingNo and its glitch siblings became well known in the Pokémon community as reliable and functional game exploits, and stuck in the imagination for the peculiarity of their presentation. The programming quirks behind MissingNo’s operations are well understood, and the character has wormed its way into a sizable number of fan theories and creepypastas. Something about this strange little block of static resonates with players, and it seems to have surrounded itself with cryptic clues as to its true nature.

The Method of Contact

The first step to understanding a mysterious aberration in a game is to consider the events that lead up to it. What must the player do in order to find MissingNo? The trip begins by talking to an old man in Viridian City who shows the player how to catch Pokémon by snagging a wild Weedle in a brief scripted encounter. This is an interesting motif right off the bat, because we are meeting a teacher figure who shows us how to catch the worm. In dreams and in myth, the worm is often a symbolic representation of the Kundalini serpent, the principal driving force of life itself which coils at the base of the spine. The Old Man is found near the beginning of the game, and he will show you this tutorial as many times as you like. After all, he is teaching an essential lesson: catch the Pokémon around you to expand your team; or more abstractly: integrate the aspects of nature which complete you.

Viridian city itself is a special place, in that we begin and end our Pokémon journey there. It is the first town we come to after leaving home, and it is also host to the final gym and provides a road to the Pokémon League – the culmination of a trainer’s journey. The next step to MissingNo is to fly to volcanic Cinnabar Island, which is incidentally the last town a trainer discovers. So we have leapt from the site of our first lesson to the final city. Here on Cinnabar we walk straight east to the beach, and use surf to ride a Pokemon up and down the edge of the water. If we venture further out to sea, the ritual is forfeit and we must restart. So we glide up and down and up. Here along the crashing waves, apparitions greet us according to our name. The letters in the player’s name are the values that determine which Pokémon appear – and what form MissingNo takes. With this, contact is made. So let’s take a look at this setting. The island is a classic symbol of self-conception: a crystallization of identity emergent from the undifferentiated ocean. There happens to be a volcano on this island, which is also a timeless symbol: that of the eruption of unconscious content; hidden energy and power which has formerly lain dormant and unknown. We encounter MissingNo in a rather narrow area: a single column of tiles representing the edge of an island. We move up and down this coast attempting to trigger the event, swimming/surfing/pacing along the seashore. This is an incredibly profound detail, because the shore of the ocean signifies the mediation between the mundane terrestrial (the land) and the vast realm of the unconscious (the ocean). The fact that it is the Eastern coast is a bonus, as that is the place where the sun rises in its most prolonged glow, and gives birth to the new day. The island itself is named Cinnabar, home to a research facility that serves a major role in the game’s plot. As we discover through research notes littered about, Cinnabar Mansion was the site of a series of experiments to re-create Mew, which is thought to be a primordial Pokémon. Famously, this resulted in the creation of Mewtwo, an anthropomorphic “clone” of Mew who lacks the originator’s genetic purity (Mewtwo cannot learn any TM, as Mew can), but appears to have gained a humanlike awareness, a trait lengthily elaborated in the first Pokémon movie. Mew as Prima Materia

So what does Mew symbolize? It is known to resemble an embryo, and believed to be the ancestor of all other Pokémon. It is a light pink, which is interesting given that the alchemical prima materia – the formless substance that composes the primeval material of the universe – is said to be dually white and red. In the original games it is only attainable through the metatextual experience of an IRL promotional event, and was allegedly inserted into the game secretly. Mew is clearly meant to be a transcendent being, notoriously elusive and often depicted in space.

Mew is the only pokemon that learns Transform, except of course for Ditto. This has spawned a highly popular fan theory that Dittos are failed clones of Mew. There are some supporting reasons for this idea: they share the same coloration (in both common and shiny iterations), the same weight, the same stats, and Ditto is present at locations relevant to Mew’s story (notably the Pokémon Mansion and the Cerulean Cave, where Mewtwo is found). Unlike Mew, which cannot breed in game, Ditto can successfully mate with any non-Legendary Pokémon. But Mew, critically, is a psychic type. Ditto is “normal.” It is as though the scientists succeeded in recreating the prima materia, but only in a purely physicalist sense. Ditto contains the genetic potential of all current life, but it does not generate new forms. It does not even learn new moves by itself, it must be taught. Science has apparently replicated the form and fertility of immemorial cosmic life, but not its potentiating vitality, its breath of life, its pneuma. I wonder where that pneuma went. Mewtwo, though not having begat novel lifeforms of its own, nevertheless expresses the pneuma in its thoughts and deeds. But maybe pneuma, as a formless concept, could only be expressed allegorically to the player as the enigmatic and varying being known as MissingNo. Revealingly, MissingNo is a Bird/Normal type Pokémon, birds being classical symbols of the spirit. Its cry upon encounter is the default “blank cry”: an unaffected cry of the male Nidoran (the only gendered Pokémon in the original release). But when MissingNo is viewed in the Pokédex, it makes the sound of a Rhydon, the first Pokémon ever designed; we could interpret this therefore as a reference to the voice of creative impulse. There is a caveat to discovering this: the player can only view the Pokedex entry if they have not seen a Cubone. This is another mythic peculiarity, as Cubone’s defining characteristic is its knowledge of loneliness, and its desire for reconciliation with its ancestors. If this sense of separation has never been known, only then can we “read” Missingno’s information, understand its primal utterance, and order it in our Pokédex-pantheon (as #000)

Curiously, Cubone is also host to a popular fan theory: that its missing mother is Kangaskhan. This is believed mainly because Cubone always pines for its perpetually absent mother, and Kangaskhans bear their young in their pouch, but the young are never seen independently. It is therefore supposed that when Kangaskhans die, their young don the skulls of their mothers and become Cubone. I have no strong opinion about this story, but MissingNo closes the circuit thematically. Just as MissingNo has ties to Cubone, its sibling Bar ‘M Bar mysteriously evolves into Kanghaskhan. Additionally, one of the appearances MissingNo can take is the “Ghost” sprite. In the main game, this sprite is only used for the ghost of Cubone’s mother in a unique encounter. Until a special item is used, this ghost isn’t affected by the player; with this guise MissingNo tells us it cannot be grasped.

4 Visions of MissingNo

In addition to the L-shaped white noise and the ghost, MissingNo can appear in two more ways. It can take the form of the fossils glimpsed in the Pewter Museum: a skeleton of Kabutops or a skeleton of Aerodactyl. These constellations of bones further suggest that MissingNo is an ancestral spirit. Kabutops is a water dwelling primordial life-form, whose development name meant “Atlantis,” and who symbolizes the origin of physical life from the first primal waters. Aerodactyl resembles a dragon or wyvern, an intermediary of heaven and earth. These two beasts, like the ghost, are no longer embodied. Though all 3 are potential symbols of the dead, they embody that sentiment differently. Kabutops comes from the water, Aerodactyl from the sky, and the ghost, as a veiled Marowak, would be terrestrial, but its image taken independently refers to the realm of the etheric.

To see these alternative forms, the player must have a certain letter in the 5th, 7th, or 9th slot of their character name: W for Kabutops, X for Aerodactyl, and Y for the ghost. The natural form of MissingNo gives us 4 forms, an apparently timeless property of visionary and mystic experience, from Ezekiel to mandala art and the platonic elements. In fact, there are over 150 such amplifications found in Carl Jung’s General Index, so it’s rather difficult to catch them all. Like many mythological quaternaries, 1 among the 4 is qualitatively exceptional. In this case, of course, that is the so-called “Normal” form, the fuzzy L-block which appears as a result of a much greater variety of player names. Though this natural form is less definite in criteria and appearance, it is actually more definite in its character. The other three forms take their base stats and moves from the last Pokémon in the party (a dittolike effect!); and their sprites, when viewed from the back, are taken from whichever Pokémon’s data was most recently accessed. So when these entities are in use by the player, they resemble something else entirely; they are phenomenologically reordered to resemble a known quantity. The natural form however, has a constant square-shaped sprite when viewed from the back. Though this form is exceptional among the 4, it is reductive to say that this is its “true” image: each of the 4 is a different capitulation of the same idea which itself is formless. Though there is one more peculiarity about the natural form! MissingNo. and Its Twin MissingNo’s natural form is identical with Bar ‘M Bar, as is its Pokédex number, leading many to believe that they were the same creature. However, there are many differences between them. Their height, weight, and stats are different, and they learn slightly different moves. Bar ‘M Bar does not cry like a male Nidoran, but instead sings a pitched-up version of the Zapdos call. This sound resembles birdsong with a background buzz indicating electricity. This pitch-shifted voice tells us that Bar M’ Bar resides even higher in the heavens than the sky-streaking legendary bird of thunder. Its “height” is also coincidentally tied in value with that of Rayquaza, a sacred serpent whose name means “firmament” and is the canonical lord of the skies. Another difference previously mentioned is Bar ‘M Bar’s unique ability to evolve into Kangaskhan. This happens at level 0, but if you glitch it to level 128, it can also evolve into Clefairy. Clefairy is a symbolically rich Pokémon as well; it was the main character of the original manga, and originally slated to be the main character of the anime. It is strongly indicated to be of extraterrestrial origin and is also plainly representative of the fairy kingdom, as indicated by its name and type. Additionally, it happens to be the Pokémon that Bill, a famous internet architect, accidentally transforms into as he is playing with time and space in order to construct a teleporter. We therefore can surmise that Clefairy relates to that which is alien: the alienation of the creature from the franchise, the alien origin of the species within the narrative, and the truly alien experience of inhabiting another body. This changing of bodies is perhaps what Bar ‘M Bar does when pushed past the realm of possibility, into level 128. There is of course a practical programming reason for the number 128, but it also happens to be double the number of possible codons in DNA. The “clef” in Clefairy means “musical key,” or in French simply “key.” Clefairy’s trademark move is metronome, which replicates most other Pokémon moves through the magic of synchronization. What would the world be like if this memetic sprite succeeded in its role as mascot of Pokémon? Would the world be all the more entranced?

When it comes to seeking an audience, Bar ‘M Bar is even wider in its accommodation than its sibling MissingNo. It can be encountered with any name at all – besides the preset options! Bar ‘M Bar’s own actual name, [][][][]M’[][][][] is certainly its most obvious difference. The bars on either side of the ‘M are determined by the actions of the player – Bulbapedia sums it up nicely:

It is most commonly known as 'M, since these are the only typographical characters in its name—its real name is impossible to produce with text, and some tiles in its name are not constant. It is also called 'M Block due to either the glitchy blocks next to its name or the Pokémon's boxy shape.

The first two tiles in [][][][] ‘M [][][][][]'s name depend on which sprite is occupying the spot where the player's Pokémon appears. In battle, the tiles on the left of its name will copy part of the sprite in the bottom-left corner of the screen (the player's Pokémon), while the block on the right will copy part of the sprite in the upper-right corner of the screen (the opponent's Pokémon). Out of battle, the blocks in its name will change depending on the player's location.

We know that MissingNo’s name is constant, and its form is undefined, a result of the player’s bestowed name. On the other hand, Bar ‘M Bar is a definite outcome for any bestowed name, but its own name is defined by the player! Yet it always retains the ‘M in the middle, which is tempting to interpret as the conjunction n’ (and). It looks as though Bar ‘M Bar’s name is something like “This n’ That.” And indeed, that’s what the sprites which comprise the bars draw from: the player’s Pokémon and the opponent’s Pokémon. The fact that these two glitchy blocks are separated by something close to “and” is a beautiful detail. It takes these two oppositional beings and phrases them both, but does so with the separation intact. If it lacked the ‘M between the two samples it would give a different impression. It is the difference between hendiadys (good and ready) and a modified adjective (well ready). It acknowledges that the two things are distinct and in concert, yet they are termed by Bar ‘M Bar in a single body. There is an endless mystery surrounding the mythological motif of 2-in-1, but it is often explored in alchemy and Jungian psychology through the image of the coniunctio, the holy marriage, the reconciliation of opposites.

Can we even say that Bar ‘M Bar is a single entity? It certainly has the strong dual aspect of its twin, MissingNo. Are these two glitch Pokémon the same or not? In the coding of the game, they are not. None of MissingNo’s forms share the constitution of Bar ‘M Bar. Yet they are defined in the Pokédex – the pantheon of the player’s understanding – in the same place, #000, and therein utter the same cry (Rhydon’s). They share an identical sprite and learn nearly identical moves. They cause the same glitch effects to occur in game. The strongest evidence for seeing them as representations of the same essence is in popular conception: Bar ‘M Bar is frequently referred to as MissingNo, and was the first of many other glitch Pokémon subsumed under the generic description of “MissingNo.” It is almost technical trivia to separate them. And most tellingly for the sake of this investigation, they complete each other’s symbolism. So, they are discrete entities AND they aren’t. The mystery of the coniunctio is thus further embodied in this dual being. The Lingering Presence Now that we’ve outlined the taxonomy of MissingNo+, we can begin to look at the consequences. The two most well-known effects of meeting MissingNo are the Item Duplication Glitch and the Hall of Fame glitch. Item duplication occurs after any encounter with MissingNo or Bar ‘M Bar, regardless of whether the player has fled, caught the creature, or knocked it out. When examining the bag after the battle, the player will find that the 6th item in their inventory has been increased by 128 (although this does not occur if the value is already over 128). Given that a player can reorder their inventory at will, this was a famous exploit for getting hundreds of Rare Candies in order to quickly max out any Pokémon’s level, or generating 128 Master Balls ensuring the capture of any creature you meet from then on. Indeed, this is the most common reason for performing the old man glitch, and likely the critical factor in MissingNo’s renown. And what fuel for the legend: a bizarre seaside vision that grants a wish. Another popular exploit is duplicated fossils, normally given only once per game, so that you could resurrect 100 Kabuto, Omanyte, or Aerodactyl. But any item is fair game: you could effectively wish for infinite wealth, health, lives, moves, defense, speed, power, whatever. You hooked the magic fish, what you do with it is up to you.

The experience also corrupts your Hall of Fame data, replacing some of the images with blocks of static, and scrambling names and values of your champion Pokémon. This is a largely inconsequential effect, but it has symbolic weight. Each Pokémon that exists is a symbol of some kind, representing an attitude, or an attribute, and as you go along meeting them and incorporating them into yourself, they accumulate further personal meanings. So consciously or unconsciously, the Pokémon that accompany you to your final battle are in some sense a mirror of the player: they represent your priorities, values, and appreciations. These are the ones canonized by the game in the Hall of Fame. MissingNo then transforms this composite irreparably. This act can be seen a psychic realignment of the player-character.

Summary

Let’s imagine the story of meeting MissingNo as a fairly tale. The protagonist, Red, talks to an Old Man at the edge of town who shows him how to catch a worm. Next, Red flies through the skies to a volcanic island. There on the Eastern shore of the island, he swims the coast. Attracted by his name, some number of foreign beasts appear before him, culminating in the appearance of a totally unexpected entity which defies easy categorization (though there are partial physical descriptions in some versions of the story). He then defeats, captures, or flees from the apparition. Then looking in his bag, he finds some object or capacity of his has been magnified to a superhuman extent. Finally, we find that some of his major psychic precepts have been mysteriously and radically altered for evermore.

So what then what was the encounter? An alien? A deity or holy ghost? The pneuma which animates life? Is it an unconscious complex made manifest? A psychotic break? The disorienting eruption of the Real? Is it a highly coherent and synchronous glitch-experience, or a pareidoliac imprint in static? I don’t believe that any of these answers satisfy in themselves. Like the images of MissingNo, the interpretations are interdependent, forming points along the circumference of a subject whose middle cannot be approached by the intellect. What is easier to parse is the influence of MissingNo on the fanbase. MissingNo is so famous as a glitch that it has become the common shorthand for any glitch Pokémon throughout the series. MissingNo and Bar ‘M Bar have inspired not only countless tall tales, but tons of fiction, fanart, merch, and a featured article on Bulbapedia. Using our imagination, it is rather easy to place MissingNo into the narrative context of the game, conceptualizing it any of the above ways. As much as this being seems keen to disrupt our in-game immersion, it seems equally willing to stride across our imagination, as though it were walking a bridge leading into the world of Pokémon, or our own reality, or wherever its place of origin.

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