WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY
Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell
(@RHCLambengolmo)
Vol. 3, No. 9: December 27, 2023
The Phoenix, the Prophet, and the Poet
Introduction
This week, in honor of the
Yuletide holidays, I’m sharing some old and new material about my favorite
fantastic beastie – the phoenix bird! Following an overview of the phoenix and
its manifold meanings, we have an account of an antediluvian prophet’s
encounters with the luminous firebirds, plus a poem by the ancient Christian
writer Lactantius about the phoenix and its legendary life cycle, interspersed
with some commentary from myself and a few references for further reading.
“The Phoenix Bird and the Winter
Solstice:
A Tale of Fire and Ice”
By Rob Chappell, M.A., J.S.H.C., E.F.M.
Adapted & Expanded from Articles
and Presentations by the Author Between 2008 and 2017
Each
year at the Winter Solstice (December 21/22), the Sun reaches its southernmost
point in the sky as seen from Earth. As this pivotal event approaches, the days
grow shorter and colder, and the Sun’s circular journey across the daytime sky
becomes far lower than it was at the Summer Solstice in June. To the
skywatchers of the ancient world, it appeared as if the Sun – the source of
growth, light, and warmth – was dying of old age. Then, shortly after the
Winter Solstice, which marked the shortest day and the longest night of the
year, something amazing happened! The Sun began to rejuvenate and started to
climb higher in the sky each day. Eventually, more daylight and warmth returned
to the world, and springtime would arrive three months later, at the Vernal
Equinox (March 19/20).
This
annual event – the metaphorical “death and rejuvenation” of the Sun at the Winter
Solstice – was definitely something worth celebrating! The cycle of the seasons
could continue to move forward because the Sun came back from the threshold of
oblivion. Light overcame darkness; warmth banished the cold; hope replaced
despair; and life defeated death. People celebrated the Winter Solstice because
it reminded them of the Sun’s rebirth and return, which made agriculture
possible. Hence we can understand why agriculture and astronomy are so closely
interrelated: We cannot have agriculture without a calendar, and we cannot have
a calendar without astronomy.
The
annual cycle of the seasons and its effects on our natural surroundings are
recurring themes throughout world mythology. The skywatchers and mythmakers of
long ago celebrated the changing of the seasons and the wonders of the natural
world in both poetry and prose. Using the storytelling techniques of their
prescientific age, they chose to personify the forces of Nature, the celestial
orbs, and abstract ideals in order to explain how and why the natural world and
the human social order function in the ways that they do. To explain what was
happening in the natural world around the time of the Winter Solstice,
skywatchers and mythmakers created many edutaining stories, but perhaps the
most famous tale related to the Winter Solstice is the story of the phoenix
bird.
From
Japan and China to Egypt and Greece, tales of this fabulous creature have been
spun for thousands of years. According to the most widespread tradition, there
was only one phoenix alive in the world at any given time. This legendary bird
was adorned with beautiful crimson, golden, and violet plumage, and it built
its nest of spices in a remote corner of East Asia (possibly in Japan, the Land
of the Rising Sun). It was also said that the phoenix had the most wonderful
song of all birds and that its tears could heal even mortal wounds. Since the
phoenix bird had originated on the Sun (where myriads of phoenixes were
supposed to dwell), it needed no earthly food; instead, it was nourished by
solar energy exclusively. (This might lead us to
wonder: Why wasn’t the phoenix green, since it was photosynthetic?). 😊
Every
500 years, the elderly phoenix would burst into flames and die in its nest of
rare spices – but from its ashes would hatch a rejuvenated young phoenix to
live for another five centuries. The newborn phoenix, as soon as it could fly,
would carry the bones and ashes of its former self to the Temple of the Sun in
Heliopolis, Egypt, where the priests would note in their chronicles that a new
“phoenix cycle” of 500 years had begun.
From
an astronomical perspective, we can see how the death, spontaneous combustion,
and rebirth of the phoenix symbolized the annual cycle of the seasons, in which
the Sun “dies” of old age at the Winter Solstice, only to rejuvenate and ascend
into the heavens once again with the approach of springtime. Drawing on such
mythological starlore, European Renaissance astronomers introduced a phoenix
into the sky as a constellation. The celestial phoenix can be seen just above
the southern horizon on early winter evenings from the American Midwest – a
starry witness to the changing seasons on the revolving wheel of the year.
The
phoenix can still hold many meanings for us today. For example, the phoenix
might represent the power that we have to begin again after a personal tragedy
or some other great loss. It may also remind us of Nature’s ability to recover
and renew herself after disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. On a more
metaphysical level, however, the phoenix was understood to represent human
immortality and the hope of a new Golden Age beyond the End of Days. This theme
is echoed in Erasmus Darwin’s [1731-1802] description of Nature’s
revivification after the Universe, in the far distant future, has “died”:
“Roll on, ye Stars! Exult
in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves
the printless steps of Time;
Near and more near your
beamy cars approach,
And lessening orbs on
lessening orbs encroach;
Flowers of the sky! Ye
too to age must yield,
Frail as your silken
sisters of the field!
Star after star from
Heaven’s high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and
systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one
dark center fall,
And Death and Night and
Chaos mingle all!
Till over the wreck,
emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her
changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral
pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines,
another and the same.”
Ã
The Botanic Garden (1789-1791)
As
the world awaits the beginning of the New Year, ten days after the Winter
Solstice, we would do well to remember these practical yet profound insights
from the skywatchers and mythmakers of long ago and far away. The core message
of all the Winter Solstice holidays – and the myth of the phoenix bird itself –
is summarized in this traditional Scottish poem:
“Welcome to the Sun”
Collected in Scotland (19th Century)
Editor’s Note:
In the Keltik languages – as well as in Japanese – the Sun is feminine and the
Moon is masculine.
Welcome to you, Sun of the
seasons’ turning,
In your circuit of the high
heavens;
Strong are your steps on
the unfurled heights,
Glad Mother are you to the
constellations.
You sink down into the
ocean of want,
Without defeat, without
scathe;
You rise up on the peaceful
wave
Like a Queen in her
maidenhood's flower.
Webliography
To
learn more about the phoenix bird and its myriad meanings, readers may consult
the following resources.
·
http://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/Phoinix.html à This illustrated reference page includes brief articles and
citations from ancient Greek and Roman authors about the phoenix.
·
https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-phoenix/ Ã “The Phoenix” is an Anglo-Saxon (Old English) poem about
the legendary firebird, preserved in the Exeter Book (10th
century CE).
·
https://archive.org/details/conference_of_the_birds-faridudin_attar à The Conference of the Birds is a classical
Persian poem by Attar of Nishapur (1151-1221 CE), in which the simurgh (the
Persian phoenix) plays a prominent role.
A
simurgh (Persian phoenix) hovers over an enthroned princess in this Persian
illustration from the 17th or 18th century CE. (Image
Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
Enoch
the Prophet and the Phoenix Bird
By
Rob Chappell, M.A.
Adapted & Condensed from Articles
and Presentations by the Author Between 2014 and 2016
Beginning with just a few verses
in Genesis (5:21-24), the
story of Enoch – the antediluvian prophet who was assumed into heaven without
dying – has sprouted and grown into a labyrinth of legends and lore, spanning
continents, millennia, and religions. Revered by “People of the Book”
(adherents of the Abrahamic religions) since antiquity, Enoch has appeared
under many names in different times and climes. Since the European Renaissance,
Enoch has been viewed as a unifying figure whose purported teachings (preserved
in esoteric books down through the centuries) have the potential to create
harmony and mutual understanding, both among and beyond the Abrahamic family of
faith.
Enoch
is referred to several times in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the deuterocanonical
books, in the Christian Testament, and in the Qur’an. Within
these sacred texts, and also within the Enochian corpus of writings (1
Enoch, 2 Enoch, 3 Enoch, and the Book of Giants), Enoch
is presented as a visionary who predicted the downfall of evil tyrants and the
triumph of peace and justice at the consummation of human history. He is also
portrayed as an immortal sage whose knowledge and wisdom can guide humanity
into a new Golden Age as the future continues to unfold before us.
The Phoenix in Enoch’s Heavenly
Journey:
Excerpts from the (Old Slavonic) Book of the Secrets of Enoch (2 Enoch – 1st Century CE)
In
these passages from 2 Enoch, we can read of the ancient prophet Enoch’s legendary
journey through the ten heavens, as envisioned by an unknown Judean author
writing in the Holy Land under Roman occupation. Enoch learns that there are
myriads of phoenixes living on, near, or in the Sun – along with mysterious reptilian
creatures known as the Khalkydri.
Chapter
11
Here they took Enoch up on to the
fourth heaven, where is the course of Sun and Moon.
Those
men took me, and led me up on to the fourth heaven, and showed me all the successive
goings, and all the rays of the light of Sun and Moon. And I measured their
goings and compared their light, and saw that the Sun’s light is greater than
the Moon’s. Its circle and the wheels on which it goes always, like a wind
going past with very marvelous speed, and day and night it has no rest. Its
passage and return are accompanied by four great stars, and each star has under
it a thousand stars, to the right of the Sun’s wheel, and by four to the left,
each having under it a thousand stars, altogether eight thousand, issuing with
the Sun continually. And by day fifteen myriads of angels attend it, and by
night a thousand. And six-winged ones issue with the angels before the Sun’s
wheel into the fiery flames, and a hundred angels kindle the Sun and set it
alight.
Chapter
12
Of the very marvelous elements of
the Sun.
And
I looked and saw other flying elements of the Sun, whose names are Phoenixes
and Khalkydri, marvelous and wonderful, with feet and tails in the form of a
lion, and a crocodile’s head, their appearance is empurpled, like the rainbow;
their size is nine hundred measures, their wings are like those of angels, each
has twelve, and they attend and accompany the Sun, bearing heat and dew, as it
is ordered them from God. Thus the Sun revolves and goes, and rises under the
heaven, and its course goes under the Earth with the light of its rays
incessantly.
Chapter 13
The angels took Enoch and placed him in the east at the
Sun's gates.
Those
men bore me away to the east, and placed me at the Sun's gates, where the Sun
goes forth according to the regulation of the seasons and the circuit of the
months of the whole year, and the number of the hours day and night, And I saw
six gates open, each gate having sixty-one stadia and a quarter of one stadium,
and I measured them truly, and understood their size to be so much, through
which the Sun goes forth, and goes to the west, and is made even, and rises
throughout all the months, and turns back again from the six gates according to
the succession of the seasons; thus the period of the whole year is finished
after the returns of the four seasons,
Chapter 14
They took Enoch to the West.
And
again those men led me away to the western parts, and showed me six great gates
open corresponding to the eastern gates, opposite to where the Sun sets,
according to the number of the days three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter.
Thus again it goes down to the western gates, and draws away its light, the
greatness of its brightness, under the Earth; for since the crown of its
shining is in heaven with the Lord, and guarded by four hundred angels, while
the Sun goes round on wheel under the Earth, and stands seven great hours in
night, and spends half its course under the Earth, when it comes to the eastern
approach in the eighth hour of the night, it brings its lights, and the crown
of shining, and the Sun flames forth more than fire.
Chapter
15
The elements of the Sun, the
Phoenixes and Khalkydri, broke into song.
Then
the elements of the Sun, called Phoenixes and Khalkydri break into song,
therefore every bird flutters with its wings, rejoicing at the giver of light,
and they broke into song at the command of the Lord. The giver of light comes
to give brightness to the whole world, and the morning guard takes shape, which
is the rays of the Sun, and the Sun of the Earth goes out, and receives its
brightness to light up the whole face of the Earth, and they showed me this
calculation of the Sun’s going. And the gates which it enters, these are the
great gates of the computation of the hours of the year; for this reason the
Sun is a great creation, whose circuit lasts twenty-eight years, and begins
again from the beginning.
Since
late antiquity, scholars from the Abrahamic family of religions have identified
Enoch with Hermes Trismegistus, a prehistoric Egyptian sage, who is pictured
above in this anonymous French painting from the 17th century. The
writings attributed to Hermes therefore came to be seen as genuine Enochian
literature in the European Renaissance and proved highly influential in the
developments leading to the Scientific Revolution. (Image Credit: Public Domain
via Wikimedia Commons)
The
Phoenix Cycle: An Interlude by the Editor
Ÿ The Phoenix Cycle is a historical era that lasts for 500
years; it derives its name from the 500-year lifespan of the mythical firebird.
Every 500 years, Western civilization has to reinvent itself. Old ways die, and
new ways are born.
Ÿ The year 2034 marks the start of another Phoenix Cycle. The
last Phoenix Cycle began in 1534, in the midst of the Renaissance, the Reformations,
and the Age of Discovery. Before that, Phoenix Cycles began in 1034, 534, 34 CE
(see below), 467 BCE, etc.
Ÿ The advent of a new Phoenix Cycle is why we appear to have
so much chaos – and progress -- in the world right now.
Ÿ This is why we also have so many “rising stars” among our
young people today. They are here for a reason – to light our way into a better
future during the new Phoenix Cycle that is dawning right before our very eyes.
Ÿ What we do today will have repercussions for the next 500
years (and beyond) – what an opportunity we have to change the world for the
better! J
The Start of a Phoenix Cycle:
Excerpted from Book 6 of Tacitus’
(56-120 CE) Annals
During
the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius [January-June, 34 CE], the
bird called the phoenix, after a long succession of ages,
appeared in Egypt and furnished the most learned men of that
country and of Greece with abundant matter for the discussion
of the marvelous phenomenon. It is my wish to make known all on
which they agree with several things, questionable enough indeed,
but not too absurd to be noticed.
That it is a creature sacred to the sun, differing
from all other birds in its beak and in the tints of its
plumage, is held unanimously by those who have described its
nature. As to the number of years it lives, there are various
accounts. The general tradition says five hundred years. Some
maintain that it is seen at intervals of fourteen hundred and sixty-one years, and that the former birds flew into the city called
Heliopolis successively in the reigns of Sesostris, Amasis, and
Ptolemy, the third king of the Macedonian dynasty, with a
multitude of companion birds marveling at the novelty of the
appearance. But all antiquity is of course obscure. From Ptolemy
to Tiberius was a period of less than five hundred years. Consequently some have supposed that this was a spurious phoenix, not from the
regions of Arabia, and with none of the instincts which ancient
tradition has attributed to the bird. For when the number of
years is completed and death is near, the phoenix, it is said,
builds a nest in the land of its birth and infuses into it a
germ of life from which an offspring arises, whose first care, when
fledged, is to bury its father. This is not rashly done, but taking up a load of myrrh and having tried its strength by a long flight,
as soon as it is equal to the burden and to the journey, it
carries its father's body, bears it to the altar of the Sun,
and leaves it to the flames. All this is full of doubt and
legendary exaggeration. Still, there is no question that the
bird is occasionally seen in Egypt.
“The
Phoenix Bird”
By
Lactantius (ca. 250-325 CE)
(A
19th-Century Translation from the Original Latin, Slightly
Modernized by the Editor)
There
is a happy spot, retired in the first East, where the great gate of the eternal
pole lies open. It is not, however, situated near to his rising in summer or in
winter, but where the sun pours the day from his vernal chariot. There a plain
spreads its open tracts; nor does any mound rise, nor hollow valley open
itself. But through twice six ells that place rises above the mountains, whose
tops are thought to be lofty among us. Here is the grove of the Sun; a wood
stands planted with many a tree, blooming with the honor of perpetual foliage.
When the pole had blazed with the fires of Phaethon, that place was uninjured
by the flames; and when the deluge had immersed the world in waves, it rose
above the waters of Deucalion. No enfeebling diseases, no sickly old age, nor
cruel death, nor harsh fear, approaches hither, nor dreadful crime, nor mad
desire of riches, nor Mars, nor fury, burning with the love of slaughter.
Bitter grief is absent, and want clothed in rags, and sleepless cares, and
violent hunger. No tempest rages there, nor dreadful violence of the wind; nor
does the hoar-frost cover the Earth with cold dew. No cloud extends its fleecy
covering above the plains, nor does the turbid moisture of water fall from on
high; but there is a fountain in the middle, which they call by the name of
"living;" it is clear, gentle, and abounding with sweet waters,
which, bursting forth once during the space of each month, twelve times
irrigates all the grove with waters. Here a species of tree, rising with lofty
stem, bears mellow fruits not about to fall on the ground.
This
grove, these woods, a single bird, the phÅ“nix, inhabits — single, but it lives
reproduced by its own death. It obeys and submits to Phoebus [Apollo], a
remarkable attendant. Its parent nature has given it to possess this office.
When at its first rising the saffron morn grows red, when it puts to flight the
stars with its rosy light, thrice and four times she plunges her body into the
sacred waves, thrice and four times she sips water from the living stream. She
is raised aloft, and takes her seat on the highest top of the lofty tree, which
alone looks down upon the whole grove; and turning herself to the fresh risings
of the nascent Phoebus, she awaits his rays and rising beam. And when the Sun
has thrown back the threshold of the shining gate, and the light gleam of the
first light has shone forth, she begins to pour strains of sacred song, and to
hail the new light with wondrous voice, which neither the notes of the
nightingale nor the flute of the Muses can equal with Cyrrhæan strains. But
neither is it thought that the dying swan can imitate it, nor the tuneful
strings of the lyre of Mercury. After that Phoebus has brought back his horses
to the open heaven, and continually advancing, has displayed his whole orb; she
applauds with thrice-repeated flapping of her wings, and having thrice adored
the fire-bearing head, is silent. And she also distinguishes the swift hours by
sounds not liable to error by day and night: an overseer of the groves, a
venerable priestess of the wood, and alone admitted to your secrets, O Phoebus.
And
when she has now accomplished the thousand years of her life, and length of
days has rendered her burdensome, in order that she may renew the age which has
glided by, the Fates pressing her, she flees from the beloved couch of the
accustomed grove. And when she has left the sacred places, through a desire of
being born again, then she seeks this world, where death reigns. Full of years,
she directs her swift flight into Syria, to which Venus herself has given the
name of Phoenicia; and through trackless deserts she seeks the retired groves
in the place, where a remote wood lies concealed through the glens. Then she
chooses a lofty palm, with top reaching to the heavens, which has the pleasing
name of phoenix from the bird, and where no hurtful living creature can break
through, or slimy serpent, or any bird of prey. Then Aeolus shuts in the winds
in hanging caverns, lest they should injure the bright air with their blasts,
or lest a cloud collected by the south wind through the empty sky should remove
the rays of the Sun, and be a hindrance to the bird. Afterwards she builds for
herself either a nest or a tomb, for she perishes that she may live; yet she
produces herself. Hence she collects juices and odors, which the Assyrian
gathers from the rich wood, which the wealthy Arabian gathers; which either the
Pygmaean nations, or India crops, or the Sabæan land produces from its soft
bosom. Hence she heaps together cinnamon and the odor of the far-scented
amomum, and balsams with mixed leaves. Neither the twig of the mild cassia nor
of the fragrant acanthus is absent, nor the tears and rich drop of
frankincense. To these she adds tender ears of flourishing spikenard, and joins
the too pleasing pastures of myrrh.
Immediately
she places her body about to be changed on the strewed nest, and her quiet
limbs on such a couch. Then with her mouth she scatters juices around and upon
her limbs, about to die with her own funeral rites. Then amidst various odors
she yields up her life, nor fears the faith of so great a deposit. In the
meantime her body, destroyed by death, which proves the source of life, is hot,
and the heat itself produces a flame; and it conceives fire afar off from the
light of heaven: it blazes, and is dissolved into burnt ashes. And these ashes
collected in death it fuses, as it were, into a mass, and has an effect
resembling seed. From this an animal is said to arise without limbs, but the
worm is said to be of a milky color. And it suddenly increases vastly with an
imperfectly formed body, and collects itself into the appearance of a
well-rounded egg. After this it is formed again, such as its figure was before,
and the phoenix, having burst her shell, shoots forth, even as caterpillars in
the fields, when they are fastened by a thread to a stone, are wont to be
changed into a butterfly. No food is appointed for her in our world, nor does anyone
make it his business to feed her while unfledged. She sips the delicate
ambrosial dews of heavenly nectar which have fallen from the star-bearing pole.
She gathers these; with these the bird is nourished in the midst of odors,
until she bears a natural form.
But
when she begins to flourish with early youth, she flies forth now about to
return to her native abode. Previously, however, she encloses in an ointment of
balsam, and in myrrh and dissolved frankincense, all the remains of her own
body, and the bones or ashes, and relics of herself, and with pious mouth
brings it into a round form, and carrying this with her feet, she goes to the
rising of the Sun, and tarrying at the altar, she draws it forth in the sacred
temple. She shows and presents herself an object of admiration to the beholder;
such great beauty is there, such great honor abounds. In the first place, her
color is like the brilliancy of that which the seeds of the pomegranate when
ripe take under the smooth rind; such color as is contained in the leaves which
the poppy produces in the fields, when Flora spreads her garments beneath the
blushing sky. Her shoulders and beautiful breasts shine with this covering;
with this her head, with this her neck, and the upper parts of her back shine.
And her tail is extended, varied with yellow metal, in the spots of which
mingled purple blushes. Between her wings there is a bright mark above, as Tris
on high is wont to paint a cloud from above. She
gleams resplendent with a mingling of the green emerald, and a shining
beak of pure horn opens itself. Her eyes are large; you might believe that they
were two jacinths; from the middle of which a bright flame shines. An
irradiated crown is fitted to the whole of her head, resembling on high the
glory of the head of Phoebus. Scales cover her thighs spangled with yellow
metal, but a rosy color paints her claws with honor. Her form is seen to blend
the figure of the peacock with that of the painted bird of Phasis. The winged
creature which is produced in the lands of the Arabians, whether it be beast or
bird, can scarcely equal her magnitude. She is not, however, slow, as birds
which through the greatness of their body have sluggish motions, and a very
heavy weight. But she is light and swift, full of royal beauty. Such she always
shows herself in the sight of men. Egypt comes hither to such a wondrous sight,
and the exulting crowd salutes the rare bird. Immediately they carve her image
on the consecrated marble, and mark both the occurrence and the day with a new
title. Birds of every kind assemble together; none is mindful of prey, none of
fear. Attended by a chorus of birds, she flies through the heaven, and a crowd
accompanies her, exulting in the pious duty.
But
when she has arrived at the regions of pure aether, she presently returns;
afterwards she is concealed in her own regions. But, O bird of happy lot and
fate, to whom God himself granted to be born from herself! Whether it be
female, or male, or neither, or both, happy she, who enters into no compacts of
Venus. Death is Venus to her; her only pleasure is in death: that she may be
born, she desires previously to die. She is an offspring to herself, her own
father and heir, her own nurse, and always a foster-child to herself. She is
herself indeed, but not the same, since she is herself, and not herself, having
gained eternal life by the blessing of death.
A
depiction of a phoenix by Friedrich Justin Bertuch in 1806. (Image Credit:
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
