Sapphire Star

David Stockhoff · 30 Dec 2008, 02:46 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:46:55 -0500
Subject: (urth)  Sapphire Star
In-Reply-To: <mailman.13880.1230595964.16269.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
References: <mailman.13880.1230595964.16269.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <49598B9F.5070109 at verizon.net>

That does point up something germane, however. The Claw's colors are blue and white on the outside (sky, sun) and red and black (green??) on the inside (thorn, blood). None of these has anything to do with Severian's iconography (black). And indeed Severian believes the Claw is separate from himself until he is shown otherwise.

Presumably sapphire is connected to healing in some reality-based tradition. But I don't find any evidence of it. I did find the following:

" Symbolic precious stones by the early Christian artists have been alluded to by several ancient writers. Conspicuous among these was Marbodeus, Bishop of Rennes, who wrote (as before mentioned) at the commencement of the twelfth century.

The blue-coloured Sapphire is an emblem of heaven, virtue, truth, 
constancy, heavenly love, and contemplation. [NOT HEALING!!!]

"The azure light of Sapphire's stone

Resembles that celestial throne,

A symbol of each simple heart

That grasps in hope the better part,

Whose life each holy deed combines,

And in the light of virtue shines."

In his "Commentary," Marbodeus says, "The Sapphire is of the colour of 
the sky. It signifies, then, that while they be yet on earth, set their 
affections on things above, and despise things terrestrial." "

Makes sense for the New Sun, don't it? And Wolfe, who must have done at least a little research into Byzantine icons and early Christian art, hid Severian's blood inside a blue stone rather than go for the obvious carbuncle (blood of christ) or the imperial "sardius":

"The Sardius, with its purple red,

Sets forth their merit who have bled,

The martyr-band, now blest above,

That agoniz'd for Jesu's love."

Eesh.

I wonder, has anyone considered that Severian's iconic color is literally the color of a black hole?

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:12:43 -0800
From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Subject: (urth) Sapphire Star
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <DAA1F1B0-CA77-48BF-8BB9-797A1F0A372B at butcherbaker.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes

thinking about the symbolic relationship between the Claw and the  
White Fountain, I looked through some of my mother in-law's crystal  
books for reference.

In "Healing with Gemstones and Crystals" by Diane Stein, which is  
apparently heavily influenced by this Plieadians new age alien- 
channelling cultish scene, I found the following entry on Star  
Sapphire as oddly appropriate to Severian & tBotNS.

Sapphire-Star (natural only)
color: blue and silver
Chakra: Causal Body
*Promotes connection with other-dimensional and other-planetary  
information for healing oneself and others
*Aids teachers of healing and healers in becoming clear channels for  
healing, facilitates connection and working with angelic Be-ings in  
healing
*Supports those in service to others and the planet; aids becoming an  
old soul, becoming a bodhisattva
*Eases healer's burnout, aids healers' own healing needs

anyway, I thought it was a funny bit of gold found in some shit.
the way the writer dropped the alien theories as fact was quite  
entertaining.

------------------------------

---
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 081229-0, 12/29/2008
Tested on: 12/29/2008 9:46:56 PM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2008 ALWIL Software.
http://www.avast.com

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net