AVALON MENTORS

The conclusion of the novel and of this series. Why a stage? Is it actors we are? Or is this stages as in "egg stage; larval stage; chrysalis stage; imago stage"? Journeys home - the nature of "home" - where is that place, anyway?

"Not in entire forgetfulness,
          And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
               From God, who is our home..."

Wordsworth writes.

Perhaps he is correct.

Were all the adventures in order to get there? Were all the prophecies for the sole benefit of getting us there? "Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?" Perhaps we don't. Perhaps we have to remember that they were for other reasons to. And if the way to get home is to remember that we are a very fine person, but "are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!" then perhaps that is for the best.

Everything That Rises Must Converge is the main story in a collection of short stories written by Flannery O'Connor during the final decade of her life. The collection was published posthumously in 1965 and contains an introduction by Robert Fitzgerald.

The short story that lends its name to the 1965 short story collection was first published in the 1961 issue of New World Writing. The story won O'Connor her second O. Henry Award in 1963.

"Hament died when he was eleven years old, in August 1596, due to unknown causes., It’s thought that he possibly died from the bubonic plague that killed around one-third of all children below the age of twelve in Elizabethan England."

https://nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/family/hamnet-shakespeare/

The name Hamlet occurs in the form Amleth in a 13th-century book of Danish History written by Saxo Grammaticus, popularised by François de Belleforest as L'histoire tragique d'Hamlet, and appearing in the English translation as "Hamblet". The story of Amleth is assumed to originate in Old Norse or Icelandic poetry from several centuries earlier. Saxo has it as Amlethus, the Latin form of the old Jutish Amlethæ. In terms of etymology the Old Icelandic name Amlóði comes from the Icelandic noun amlóði, meaning ‘fool,’ suggestive of the way that Hamlet acts in the play. Later these names were incorporated into Irish as Amlodhe. As phonetic laws took their course the name’s spelling changed eventually leaving it as Amlaidhe. This Irish name was given to a hero in a common folk story. The root of this name is ‘furious, raging, wild’.

Much thanks to Neil Oliver for his recent youtube video on witches and the hunt for witches.  This discussion is about the mania that swept through England in the 15th, 16th, and 17th century.  How does collective madness occur?  How does Shakespeare mollify that madness?  Could Shakespeare be suggesting that our own actions and choices, not witchcraft or fate, determine our lives?

As Banquo says to Macbeth;

oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence.

or as Cassius says to Brutus in "Julius Caesar"

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves

Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics

Cicero: de Amicitia

C.S.Lewis: The Four Loves

"Flies & Spiders" chapter 8 in the Hobbit

The escape from the webs of the spiders is reminiscent of the escape from sin and slavery that we all long for.

Surely he will save you     from the fowler’s snare     and from the deadly pestilence. - Psalm 91:3

Perhaps that white deer is sent partly as a sign of the glory in the midst of the darkness (like the candle returning to the church at the Easter Vigil); perhaps it is sent to increase the desire for freedom, light, and cleanness - a hunger transcending the hunger of the belly that drives them off the path.  Shooting at the gift, then, is like the Mariner in Coleridge's poem shooting at the albatross, isn't it?  The result is a tremendous weight around the neck of the Mariner, like the penitential weight Robert DeNiro's character bears in "The Mission", or like Bombur sleeping through the rest of the journey.  Surviving that weight, enduring the dark mirk of the soul, seems to create in Bilbo a resilient defiance that transforms him and grants him the strength not only to fight the arachnoid demons of darkness but to lead the dwarves through Mirkwood and beyond.

Did Tolkien read Dostoevsky? The protagonist in Dostoevsky's “The Double” is a fellow named Golyadkin (Голядкин); a neurotic individual on the verge of a nervous breakdown who has conversations with himself very similar to Gollum/Smeagol in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings".  Coincidence?  Golyadkin debaters with himself,

Everything, apparently, and even nature itself, seemed up in arms against Mr. Golyadkin; but he was still on his legs and unconquered; he felt that he was unconquered. He was ready to struggle. he rubbed his hands with such feeling and such energy when he recovered from his first amazement that it could be deduced from his very air that he would not give in. yet the danger was imminent; it was evident; Mr. Golyadkin felt it; but how to grapple with it, with this danger? - that was the question. the thought even flashed through Mr. Golyadkin's mind for a moment, "After all, why not leave it so, simply give up? Why, what is it? Why, it's nothing. I'll keep apart as though it were not I," thought Mr. Golyadkin. "I'll let it all pass; it's not I, and that's all about it; he's separate too, maybe he'll give it up too; he'll hang about, the rascal, he'll hang about. He'll come back and give it up again. Than's how it will be! I'll take it meekly. And, indeed, where is the danger? Come, what danger is there? I should like any one to tell me where the danger lies in this business. It is a trivial affair. An everyday affair. . . ."

Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist by Oronzo Cilli might give answer to this if the good professor had the Russian novel on his shelf (either in Russian or in translation as Tolkien new the Slavic language well).

More likely, though is that It is from Old Norse.

In The Annotated Hobbit with annotations by Douglas Anderson, Anderson claims that Gollum is from the Old Norse gull meaning Gold, and an inflected form of this is gollum meaning; gold, treasure or something precious. In the oldest manuscripts it is spelled goll. One inflected form would be gollum, 'gold, treasure, something precious.' It can also mean 'ring,' as is found in the compound word fingr-gull, 'finger-ring.'"

As for Beorn, Tolkien's original name for this character was “Medwed” (Russian/Slavic: “medved” = “bear”) - which indicates Tolkien knew Slavic.

So the question is still up for debate: did Tolkien read Dostoevsky?

Brightburn 

Mob Psycho 100 

One Punch Man 

Chronicle

Republic Book II 

General Zod 

Bizarro 

Michael Daugherty's "Bizarro" 

- Chapter VIII of "My Antonia" by Willa Cather

As for eagles, Tennyson wrote,

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Eagles have always been a symbol of power, nobility, far-seeing wisdom, and the courage to act.  They here constitute the escapism from certain peril which we are offered by Divine Providence.  Some might call the literature that professes a Providential God "escapist" - but of such escapist literature Professor Tolkien wrote

“Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using Escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter. just so a Party-spokesman might have labeled departure from the misery of the Fuhrer's or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery .... Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the "quisling" to the resistance of the patriot.”

• the Ouroboros
• the SAMPO in Kalevala (w/Vainamoinen) 
• the ring imagery in Nibelung
• the Gyges’ Ring story in Plato’s “Republic”

We know that it is

1. Golden (like a mini sun)
2. Continuous (like the Ouroboros)
3. a Treasure that Makes one invisible
4. fits on the finger (not the neck or chest like a hauberk)
5. formed by The Dark Lord Sauron (deception is involved & power)

Is it then

• Related to  Time?
• A metaphor for Seeing behind the curtain? 
• An image of the artistic ability?
• Something that binds together?

Perhaps an answer can be approached by asking

What is The World of Gollum?

· It is like the world of Grendel’s dam in Beowulf

· Which itself is based on the mythical world of Midgard and Yggdrasil the World Tree in Norse mythology

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1305/nine-realms-of-norse-cosmology/

https://theheart756621753.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/the-9-worlds-in-mythology.jpg

• He is “The Swallower”
• His name reflects The Kabbalistic “golem” of Prague

o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem

• He is a miniature of Sauron

What is the nature of the Riddle Game?

• It is Time honored
• Rooted in Norse culture

o https://medium.com/@erin.nord87/the-influence-of-norse-mythology-in-riddles-in-the-dark-19acb167b47b

• Strategic
• An existential test
• Even the Question mark is a riddle; a dragon

What is The escape (the “birthday”) - from danger and from this world?

• Ring signifies a “seeing differently”
• “Born again” – “Bless us and splash us”

Great good brought about after but there is the risk of the Shadow self taking over (the dragon; Sauron)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit

The text online

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit

The text online

"When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts. ... Only the right name gives beings and things their reality. A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do.” - Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

“…but nasturtians was deliberate and represented a final triumph over the high-handed printers. They had corrected his English without reference to him and he had been put to the trouble of proving to the chief proof-reader his own ignorance and rebuking him for his impertinence. He had dug in about nasturtians, which he had always said. It was an Anglicization after the "Indian Cress" was naturalized in the 18th century. Tolkien had consulted the college gardener: "What do you call these things?" "Tropaeolum, sir." "But when just talking to the dons?" "I says nasturtians, sir." "Not nasturtium?" "No, sir; that’s watercress." - Tolkien, letter 148

In his essay "BEOWULF: THE MONSTERS AND THE CRITICS" (1936), J.R.R. TOLKIEN wrote that 

"In the epoch of Beowulf (produced between 975 and 1025) a Heroic Age more wild and primitive than that of Greece is brought into touch with Christendom, with the Sermon on the Mount, with Catholic theology and ideas of Heaven and Hell."

This "fusion-point of imagination", as Tolkien calls it, which united the Norse heroic ideal with the Christian idea of sainthood found its inception in the baptism of Clovis I in 506.

And yet the ideals of the Norse hero and the Christian saint are NOT the same.  While Christianity acknowledges the violence of the world it suggests that one must return violence with love, greed with poverty, power with humility.  Christians were, from early on, encouraged to "turn the other cheek," "sell all they have and give it to the poor," "take up their cross" and follow Christ who, himself, "suffered death, even death on the cross" as Paul wrote.  

The Norse idea is framed by the knowledge of Ragnarok, or the "inevitable overthrow in Time."  Yet in the face of known defeat the warrior professes "the exaltation of undefeated will", an "indomitability" of spirit, "man at war with the hostile world."  Those forces opposed to the gods, therefore, "are identified with the foes of God. Grendel and the dragon are constantly referred to in language which is meant to recall the powers of darkness with which Christian men felt themselves to be encompassed. They are the 'inmates of Hell', 'adversaries of God', 'offspring of Cain', 'enemies of mankind'," as R.W. Chambers wrote.

When these two ideals of heroism were united, says Tolkien, "The monsters remained the enemies of mankind, the infantry of the old war, and became inevitably the enemies of the one God, ece Dryhten, the eternal Captain of the new. Even so the vision of the war changes."

Clovis was baptized on Christmas Day in 508. The adoption by Clovis of Catholicism led to widespread conversion among the Frankish peoples; to religious unification across what is now modern-day France, the Low Countries and Germany; three centuries later, to Charlemagne's alliance with the Bishop of Rome; and in the middle of the 10th century under Otto I the Great, to the consequent birth of the early Holy Roman Empire.  

Consequently the fusion of the Norse heroic ideal with Christian Sainthood became the image of European heroism culminating in the sine qua non of Saint Louis, the struggle with Islam, and the framing of much of European culture leading up even into our own era.

A commentary on the human artistic endeavor.  Helga Thoene proposes in her essay that Johann Sebastian Bach embedded into the ciaccona (Partita in D minor for solo violin (BWV 1004) numerous mathematical and musical references making the work a memorial, or trombeau, to his deceased wife, Maria Barbara Bach, who died in 1720.

Check out a recording of the Partita here

The album Morimur by the Hilliard Ensemble can be found here

More about the research by Thoene can be found here, here, and here.

The Norwegian Explorers

The Dark Knight Returns

Watchmen

The Marchese di Carabas

You can also find his observations and ideas at the website

A Human Way of Life

or at his professional website

Dr. Cameron M. Thompson

Saint Benedict of Nursia (c. 2 March 480 – c. 21 March 547 AD) wrote "The Rule of Saint Benedict" in 516 which became the standard rule for monasticism in Europe.  It is the basis for Alisdair MacIntyre's proposal in "After Virtue" that came to be referred to as "The Benedict Option".

Brit's Pub can be found here.

Tolkien writes in Letter 89,

"I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary 'truth' on the second plane (....) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love."

Most commonly the Eucatastrophe is equated with felix culpa; or a happy fault (paradoxically) – a bringing good out of evil. But it is more than that. The word “Catastrophe” signifies a “sudden and widespread disaster”; from Grk kata (over) and strophe (turning). Most everyone would see catastrophe, esp. the catastrophes of failure and death, as insurmountable.

Tolkien held it as a great truth that our self-mastery, our Kingship comes from facing the Eucatastrophe, going through it, and eventually experiencing the joy of the Resurrection.

This echoes the ancient Greek phrase:

“Drasanta pathos; pathei mathos”

The experience brings suffering; the suffering brings wisdom.”

Only by embracing the suffering can we eventually come to the wisdom of knowing ourselves, and thus to the self-mastery of kingship.

There exists (even in Tolkien's mind) a bit of confusion about which towers the title of the work is referencing.

In a letter to Rayner Unwin (the publisher) from Aug 17, 1953 (Letters #140), Tolkien wrote:
"The Two Towers" gets as near as possible to finding a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 and 4; and can be left ambiguous - it might refer to Isengard and Barad-dûr, or to Minas Tirith and Barad-dur; or Isengard and Cirith Ungol."

I opt for the relationship between Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul (Barad-dur).

Nota Bene: The poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge introduced the term "suspension of disbelief" in 1817 and suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgement concerning the implausibility of the narrative.

Also, Plato uses the term "Thaumatapoioi" (wondrous creations, "shadow puppets") in his great dialogue, "The Republic".  Tolkien's image of the Ring has much in common with Plato's Thaumatapoioi and with the Ring of Gyges which makes one invisible.  For Plato, as for Tolkien, the images must lead us to see the really real, the Good, Illuvatar - but taken in themselves they are like Lothlorien in their beauty but must be allowed to fade away.

Lastly, wrt names in the novel - this from Behind the Name:

Frodo: Derived from Old English froda meaning "wise".

Samwise Gamgee: Means "simple, half wise" from Old English sam "half" and wis "wise".

Meriadoc (Merry): From an old Breton name composed of the elements mer "sea" and iatoc "forehead". Conan Meriadeg was the legendary founder of Brittany.

Peregrine (Pippin): From the Late Latin name Peregrinus, which meant "traveller". (Frankish name of unknown meaning. It possibly means "awe-inspiring" from Frankish bib- "to tremble". This was the name of three majordomos of Austrasia including Pépin III the Short, who became the first Carolingian king of the Franks. He was the father of Charlemagne.)

Outlined by Dante Alighieri in his Letter to Cangrande the 4 levels trace their roots back to Jewish interpretation and perhaps further. Though they are normally done by a reader intuitively and automatically, it is helpful to interpret consciously using the method.

For me be able to present what I am going to say, you must know that the sense of this work is not simple, rather it may be called polysemantic, that is, of many senses; the first sense is that which comes from the letter, the second is that of that which is signified by the letter. And the first is called the literal, the second allegorical or moral or anagogical.

The levels consist of

1. Literal level

a. What do the words (litera) mean in the work?

2. Allegorical level 1 (Allegorical)

a. How do the images connect to other images in the text?

b. How do the images connect or make reference to images in other works?

3. Allegorical level 2 (Tropological / Moral)

a. What do the images mean for the human race?

b. What is the moral of the story? (i.e. “it is not good for men to be alone”)

4. Allegorical level 3 (Anagogical)

a. What do the images mean to me personally? (i.e. “this means X for the human race; I am a member of the human race; what does this mean in my life?”)

NATURAL & CONVENTIONAL SYMBOLISM

Natural Symbolism – greater of the two; symbol by its nature embodies that which it seeks to convey; symbol and meaning are inseparable and universal for all mankind.

i.e. water; darkness; the color red; the forest (primeval)

Conventional Symbolism – lesser of the two; symbol is agreed upon by a culture to represent something else; symbol and meaning are not intuitively connected; knowledge of culture is necessary to understand the symbol

i.e. A STOP sign; the letters that make up the word “STOP”; the edict against eating pork; a phrase such as “Talitha cumi” (Mark 5:41)

This episode is a recording of a talk I gave recently on JRR Tolkien's "Silmarillion".   Begun even before the Great War, this work was considered by Tolkien to be the work the closest to his heart; his magnum opus.  Yet the work wasn't even published until 1977, four years after Tolkien's death.  Why is it a significant work?  Would it be significant without the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings?  What is Tolkien saying about the nature of evil?  Hope?  Friendship? and the power of words to convey a vision of the world?

The Oath of the Silmarils, as given in Morgoth's Ring:

“Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean
Brood of Morgoth or bright Vala,
Elda or Maia or Aftercomer,
Man yet unborn upon Middle-earth,
Neither law, nor love, nor league of swords,
Dread nor danger, not Doom itself
Shall defend him from Fëanáro, and Fëanáro’s kin,
Whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh,
Finding keepeth or afar casteth
A Silmaril. This swear we all…
Death we will deal him ere Day’s ending,
Woe unto world’s end! Our word hear thou,
Eru Allfather! To the everlasting
Darkness doom us if our deed faileth…
On the holy mountain hear in witness
and our vow remember,
Manwë and Varda!"

Thus spoke Maedhros and Maglor and Celegorm, Curufin and Caranthir, Amrod and Amras, princes of the Noldor; and many quailed to hear the dread words.

The inscription inside the Ring of Power:

"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

— The Lord of the Rings

Hail, Earendil!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3wuI-bOSo8

In this episode I discuss with my sister, Dr. Helen Freeh, the nature of the great epic The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.  Dr. Freeh illustrates how, amidst the numerous depressing works of the 20th century, Tolkien stands as a literary beacon of hope and a prophet of the coming age of struggle in the latter part of the century and the beginning of our own era.

Dr. Helen Freeh received her B.A. in Politics and Masters in American Studies from the University of Dallas. After working in the business world, she entered Baylor University’s graduate program and earned her Ph.D. in English, writing her dissertation on fate, providence and free will in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.  She has worked at Baylor University Press, taught at Baylor University, McClennan County Community College, Hillsdale Academy and Hillsdale College where she met her husband, Dr. John Freeh.  She is a contributor to Tolkien Among the Moderns, edited by Ralph Wood, an occasional contributor to The Catholic Thing, and a Senior Fellow at Albertus Magnus Institute.  She and John are co-founders of Kateri College of the Liberal and Practical Art in Gallup, NM, and are traveling around the country in their missionary motor home, “Tekakwitha,” promoting and fundraising for the College while fulfilling their primary vocation of raising and educating their three children, Theresa, Joseph and John Paul.

We reference numerous works including Tolkien's Letters

#131 https://www.tolkienestate.com/en/writing/letters/letter-milton-waldman.html

and #186 https://clarifyingcatholicism.org/2020/10/27/tolkien-and-immortality/

as well as talking about Tolkien's own life and his time in the trenches including the loss of his friends, The Immortal Four.

Check out Dr. Freeh's newly minted college, Kateri college of the liberal and practical arts, here: 

https://katericollege.org/

And her series of talks at Albertus Magnus Institute here: 

https://magnusinstitute.org/

& check out this great art of the Valar at Etsy: 

https://i.etsystatic.com/11513997/r/il/f2d568/1507004795/il_794xN.1507004795_u9g5.jpg

https://www.etsy.com/listing/588711888/the-valar?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_b-art_and_collectibles-prints-giclee&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQjw_8mHBhClARIsABfFgpjgrBV_jVI75clS_nsQoudh7ahBOzcjDbyNLfXtoQm9gI_tyaF4YmEaAt0jEALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_1844702583_72372896360_346428993098_pla-354814757658_c__588711888_12768591&utm_custom2=1844702583&gclid=Cj0KCQjw_8mHBhClARIsABfFgpjgrBV_jVI75clS_nsQoudh7ahBOzcjDbyNLfXtoQm9gI_tyaF4YmEaAt0jEALw_wcB

"Revelation" was written during the last year of the author's life, a time she knew she was dying from her fourteen-year battle with lupus.  The work was first published in the Spring 1964 issue of The Sewanee Review. The author was notified shortly before her death in August 1964 that her work won the O. Henry Award first prize for 1965, and the story was subsequently reprinted in Prize Stories 1965: The O. Henry Awards published that year. It was her third O'Henry Award first prize.

O'Connor's Southern Gothic style of writing was an attempt to get through to the generally self-satisfied culture of the southern United States.  O'Connor wrote in an essay that

“The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”

This deaf & blind tendency to feel "right with the LORD", however, seems to be an ubiquitous trait of humanity - the very definition of the first deadly sin, pride.

The tune referenced in "Revelation" is "You go to your church (and I'll go to mine)" written in 1931 by Philips H. Lord; recorded by Lulu Belle and Scotty in 1949, and by Bill Clifton & his Dixie Mountain Boys in 1959.  The episode uses the Bill Clifton version.  Here is the Bill Clifton recording of that tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnXaub0tUHs

The tune is originally a positive affirmation that all Christians are doing "the work of the Lord" and should get along in spiritual harmony with each other despite ecumenical differences.  I think O'Connor probably uses the tune ironically to symbolize the separation that we create between our (sanctified) self and the (perdition bound) other.

O'Connor also drew satirical comics and was from this visual medium that she probably gained her keen sense of observation that served her so well in writing.

https://www.themarysue.com/flannery-oconnors-comics/