Etymology/meaning/onomatopoeic aspects of the word "Urth"

Lane Haygood · 01 May 2008, 20:19 · from 2008-May.txt.gz

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From: lhaygood at gmail.com (Lane Haygood)
Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 15:19:18 -0500
Subject: (urth) Etymology/meaning/onomatopoeic aspects of the word "Urth"
In-Reply-To: <BAY103-W4395799BFADBF3090FF3AED7DB0 at phx.gbl>
References: <BAY103-W4395799BFADBF3090FF3AED7DB0 at phx.gbl>
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I think it likely that Briah represents a more primal (spiritual)  
stage of existence, as you say.  Both names (Briah and Yesod) are  
taken from Kabbalah/Gnosticism. Briah is the second of the four  
cabalistic worlds, philosophically the one that relates to the  
instantiated Platonic forms, the world of creation and immanence.   
Yesod, however, is the penultimate stage of cabalistic spiritual  
development, only one step away from the godhead. It is also the means  
by which the manifestation of justice and mercy (Tiferet) seek to  
unite with the Kingdom of God. If I remember correctly, when I asked a  
classics scholar friend of mine what "madrigot" meant he told me it  
was "level" in Hebrew. So Severian traveling along the Madrigot  
represents him traveling through levels of spiritual development in  
existence as well as through his own subjective experience of time.   
He's the flowing back of spiritual completeness from beyond Yesod that  
bridges Briah with Malkhut.

Or as best I can recall from my cheap-and-easy study of Gnosticism  
while studying Neoplatonism.

Best,
Lane

On May 1, 2008, at 3:03 PM, b sharp wrote:
> >as it goes along with Wolfe's caginess about whether we are the  
> ancestors or the descendants of the people of Urth.<
>
> I think Dave Lebling is closest to being on track.  There are Wolfe  
> interviews and texual clues that make it clear
> that Urth is a twin to Earth, existing in the alternate universe of  
> Briah (I think Earth might be in Yesod). Our conception of
> normal time runs in each universe, starting with Big Bang and ending  
> with Big Gnab. But Big Gnab leads to another Big
> Bang so there is a more cosmic sense of time than what we can  
> measure with watches. Briah is the predecessor
> to Yesod and thus Urth is older and more spiritually primitive than  
> Earth. While Earth got its spiritual cleansing with the
> Biblical Flood and coming of Jesus, Urth had to wait millions of  
> years longer for the Christ-figure Severian to arrive.
> The name Urth conveys this primitive, pre-Christian condition, even  
> though in Severian's time, Urth science is far
> advanced to our own.
>
> -bsharp
>
> Spell a grand slam in this game where word skill meets World Series.  
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Best,
Lane

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