"Have you noticed she's got blood on the breast spikes?"

[incandescens]

Now that I have your full attention . . . no, no, really, that came up over lunch today. I was showing a friend a couple of graphic novels (the last two in the 666 series by Froideval and Tacito, evil and irreverent and rather funny and with a lot of anatomy on display) and she pointed out that Lilith's very, ah, drastic combat armour had bloodstains in some rather unusual places after Lilith had hacked and slashed her way through most of the Vatican.

It's an amusing series, and one really cannot take it seriously. And then there's the teddybear. The fluffy green demonic teddybear with cyborg add-ons of various sorts. I'm going to use that in a game somewhere, I swear.

My mother's off for a couple of days on a course. She informed us happily that the hotel she's ended up in has a sauna and other similar attachments. I went suitably green with envy. Mmm. What a nice thought.

New idea; in letters-from-mages-in-1230 section of current writing, see how many archaic swearwords I can sneak past wielder of red pen. It's in character! Really!

---

"Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about him."

-- The Great Divorce, CS Lewis

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

You always quote such interesting books. That one happens to be one of my favorites of Lewis's, at that. Studied it in class, read it on my own, read it for a discussion group... I continue to be impressed by how much he could pack into a simple, short tale.

666

[space-parasite.livejournal.com]

Your descriptions of these are far too amusing. Are they available for the American language-impaired?

Re: 666

[incandescens]

Only available in French to the best of my knowledge, I'm afraid.

[(Anonymous)]

Had a bad case of convertitis, Jacky did. You see it in that pervasive hint of moral superiority to, and mild disapproval of, most people he meets. Ego loses itself in contemplating the Beloved, fine; but if Ego doesn't remember at some point that it *is* Ego and ought to assert some selfish artistic control over what it says, it'll never produce anything worth reading. Close attention to what Ego says is necessary to describe the Beloved properly, because ideally in the end there *is* no difference between the Beloved and the I and the words I so carefully choose to describe the Beloved. God is everywhere. Se is in the process. Se is in the me thinking about what words to use to describe hir, as much if not more than se is out there somewhere waiting for me to describe hir and grumbling with the drip in Gigi 'But she's not thinking about me!' Of course I am. *Se* is thinking about *me*, and even more so, se is me thinking. (snorts) Any Buddhist knows that.
-mjj

[incandescens]

I wonder if CS Lewis ever did seriously read about Buddhism? In his earlier Pilgrim's Regress he goes through a number of philosophies and heresies (you will doubtless be astonished to hear that he agrees with very few of them, if any) but other religions are generally left thoroughly alone. (Though there is that nod towards virtuous Muslims in Last Battle -- and, presumably, other faiths. Hm.

And if Ego does need to remember that it is Ego (and presumably that such a thing as Ego exists) does this also mean that ultimately there is no such thing as anything worth reading, since there is no such thing as Ego? Or that everything is?

[(Anonymous)]

Doubtless he didn't, and anyway Buddhism isn't something to be understood with the mind. The oddity is that though he wrote a pretty good description of someone realizing that all is one, in The Four Loves, he didn't IIRC think that was the highest form of love there is. He's a Christian but a pretty Old Testament Christian in his reflexes. He needs to believe that one really can be divorced from God- separate oneself from Hir completely- and he won't listen to other people, like Christian mystics, who tell him it just ain't possible. It *has* to be possible or there's no point in having Christ the Redeemer at all.

If we're talking about art, as Lewis was, that speaks the other- then Ego must remember it exists (or must cling to the illusion it exists) for the speaking to be done in the first place. Otherwise there is no-one there to do it. Perfect enlightenment does not write War and Peace. Doesn't have to, one, and wouldn't anyway, two. However, for those of us who live as if the illusions before us are indeed as real as they feel- pretend there is indeed an I who has a body and a brain and a computer- and decide to say something about the Other that we think we see before us, whether it be Tenpou or God-- well, I'd say it's up in the air as to whether the results are worth reading. It's all error, whatever; equally, it's pleasant error. And understanding and satori are usually found through the medium of error. You don't get knocked off horses on the road to Damascus in this one; you suddenly see the transience of the world while screwing a prostitute. So continue to screw that prostitute/ write those dragons. Satori may be just around the corner.
Is my take.
-mjj

[incandescens]

Yes, to the first paragraph; that's part of the whole theme of Great Divorce, that Hell is the concept of complete separation from God, which -- according to him -- is done through wilful choice. Though even then, he declares that Christ the Redeemer descended into Hell, and is there in a way that goes beyond temporal measurement, which would argue that there is no place which is separated, and it's only illusion that makes one think one can be separated, and that Hell is that illusion -- hm, I think I'm going round in circles here.

I'd wish for satori, but I believe that's counter-productive. :)

[archangelbeth]

Trauma Teddies. Make me dig it out of the archives. A Liber Reliquarum item that didn't make the cut. I think they may have been green, too... o.O