EYE IN THE SKY

From: e

Friends and Listers, wishing you a Good year,

h, you have written:

The two moves I am thinking of are Sun and Moon -- and I would emphasize that it is their appearance *in our field of vision* which constitutes the play... (snip)

• From a human point of view, these two bodies serve the same function, nicely expressed in the Upanishads (I believe) in terms of lamps: the sun is our lamp by day, the moon our lamp by night. Less poetically, Sun and Moon can be thought of as defining day and night for us, being the characteristic lights of each -- and again, it is the fact that each appears to us as a disc of the same size which gives force to this sort of *pars pro toto* definition: if Sun and Moon were not, so to say, a matched pair, they would hardly serve this purpose.

To which I comment:

In ancient Egyptian symbology, the Sun and Moon. are termed the two luminaries and are symbolized by the two eyes of Ra. The right eye is the Sun and the left eye is the Moon.

Further contemplation of this link would lead to the consideration of synchronicity (apparently fortuitous connections), and also of the difference between "fact" and "appearance" -- which at least in this instance correlates with the difference between a human- or perceptually-based view of the world and an "objective" one... and here we are on the verge of the distinction between a painterly view of reality and a scientific one, or between the mythic and modern worldviews.

Each hieroglyphic eye (udjat) is composed of six parts: the pupil, the two triangles (inner and outer part) of the white of the eye surrounding the pupil; an eyebrow; a spiral thread that falls on the cheek and a small rod shown beneath the eye in the form of a post with a protruding ridge. (Sorry no picture, but if you have the Alan Parsons Project album Eye in the Sky you can see the picture on the album cover).

Each of the six parts is assigned a fraction and is an example of a symbolic play on numbers.

• The inner white triangle represents 1/2
• The pupil 1/4
• The eyebrow 1/8
• The outer triangle 1/16
• The spiral thread 1/32
• The small post (qd) 1/64.
• The addition of all these fractions come to 63/64
• 1/64 less than the total

It is interesting that the smallest fraction (qd) roughly interprets as

configuration
character
and
to build

and that it also expresses the whole, completeness. It is as if the missing 1/64th represented the minute seed that in every created thing is the least significant part yet completes the whole. The interpretation of the hieroglyphic eye is "to create" or "to make." Much in the manner of the eyes creating forms out of light waves.

DON'T YOU SEE! (pun intended)

Heichelheim, the authority on ancient economics, concurs on the essentially magico-religious nature of the value placed on gold and silver in the Ancient Near East. Laum states that the value ratio of gold to silver remained stable throughout classical antiquity and into the Middle Ages and even modern times at 1 : 13. It is obvious that such a stability in the ratio cannot be explained in terms of rational supply and demand. The explanation, says Laum, lies in the astrological ratio of the cycles of their divine counterparts, the Sun and Moon. The solar year and lunar month, then, direct not only the poet's fancy, but also the fluctuations of the marketplace in metals.

The number six is the first Pythagorean perfect number.
A number whose fractional parts equal to itself.

Example:
1/2 of 6 = 3
1/3 = 2
1/6 = 1
1+2+3 = 6
Six, in Pythagorean numbers, is also called the number of creation.

The second perfect number is 28.
28 = 14+7+4+2+1
28 being the accepted duration of the phasing of the moon.
Based on this cycle of 28 days then, 13 lunations are equivalent to one solar year.
(13x28 = 364 ~= 1 solar year).

I could go on, as this subject is a literal gold mine. (again a pun). But will wrap it up, to make a point.

The apparent is the bridge to the real.

By linking

the objective and the subjective
quantity with quality
the scientific and the mystic
the universal with the particular
the king with the queen

I submit this (Charles, your link) to be the opening to a universal game of PROFOUND PROPORTIONS!

Thank you for your insight,