The details shown of the images representative of the figures visualized as the sign of Aquarius (Figure 6) and of Gemini (Figure 7) suggest the fundamentally imaginative character of the Zodiacal associations. The potential for suggesting different possibilities of interpretation, or, even none at all, demonstrated by the spatial distribution of the geographical forms that constitute these shapes suggest that the interpretive process favored by the landscape Zodiac theorists is one in which the mind is encouraged to create images out of imaginatively congenial aspects of landscape formations. This suggests not only the imaginative dimension that Cornelius describes as the essence of divinatory interpretation but the notion, that, even if these associations are most controversial in terms of their objective significance (another problematic expression) they are nevertheless valid as imaginative exercises that may inspire an intuitive experience in the spirit of the imaginative interpretation of such heroic journeys as the quest for the Grail, in which “the journey [is] interpreted as a metaphor for the process of individual spiritual development, in which the varied landscapes traversed by the heroic figures stand for different aspects of the human psyche” (Molyneaux and Vitebsky,2000,p.35). The Zodiacal signs then become stations in a rite of passage, in which like in a conventional mandala, they could be seen as suggesting aspects of the quest for the grail. The Zodiacal signs could either symbolize the qualities cultivated by the knights in their quest or the constellation of qualities necessary for the finding of the grail. These interpretations of the Round Table as representative of the qualities that either constituted the constellation of the Knights of the Round table or those qualities necessary for the finding of the grail becomes even more striking in relation to ideas that describe the Knights of the Round Table as actually queen Guinevere’s knights, thereby suggesting correlations between the Queen and the powers of the earth represented by the terrerestial/lized Zodiac.In sum, Pennick’s description of the significance of the Glastonbury Zodiac could be seen as inclusive of its various levels of significance: “A synthesis of divination, survey and landscape engineering subtly links the natural forms of the earth’s surface with the artificial forms of the human consciousness to create a total geomantic landscape-the aim of geomancers throughout the world” (p.74). The powerfully evocative quality of the Glastonbury landscape is suggested by Figures 8 and 9 (Deveroux, 2000,10;Griffin, 2000,136-137) incarnating as they do a sense of the Sublime and Other which illuminates graphically the tendency of particular landscapes to stimulate the mind to imaginative associations with the sacred.
Sunday, 28 October 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment