Wednesday, December 27, 2023

#WingedWordsWindsday: 2023/12/27 -- The Phoenix, the Prophet, & the Poet

 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.”

à 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/ à “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 phœnix, 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)

 



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