Alchemical Symbolism in Superbowl 40
| I'm going to watch the Superbowl rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers, my hometown team, but also keeping an eye out for all the great alchemical symbolism which this game must provide. Why? Primarily because I'm a weirdo who can't tell the difference between literary fiction and a sports game, but let me explain anyway. In looking at the team symbols, this game will be a clash between the 4 powers of the earth. The Steelers obviously represent fire and earth, after all, iron is the "earth metal" (check out 3rd paragraph here) and you need some pretty hot fire to turn it into steel. Obviously the Seahawks represent air and water. I don't know anything about their team other than that they've got a great QB (Hasselbeck), a great running back (Alexander) and a killer defense. Well, I suppose you'd need those 3 things to get to the big game; the Steelers have 2 great running backs, Parker is the "fire" with his speed (along with the volcanic pro-bowler, Troy Polamalu on defense) and enormous Jerome Bettis, as the "bus", is definitely a land vehicle. Supposing a quarterback's passing game is determined by an affinity to the air element, Ben Roethlisberger might be a veritable Griffin, i.e., king of air and king of earth. His passing game in the post season has impressed most people even though his rating for 2005 is about equal with Hasselbeck. Maybe it's because he choked in the post-season last year. The water element in football I would associate with flexibility and cunning. So I would look for these qualities to be exhibited primarily by a football teams defense. A "quick poll" on the Seahawks site asking fans how will they beat Pittsburgh has fans overwhelmingly voting for "The Defense" over the Quarterback, Running Back and "offensive line". So there you have it, the alchemical question of Superbowl XL. Will the soaring Seahawks rust out the infamous Steel Curtain or will the Steelers' hot steel cook those seabirds like Thanksgiving turkeys? We won't have to wait until book 7 to find out. I promise I'll provide the analysis of this titanic battle on February 6 and hopefully my predictions here will be enough to make Professor Trelawney proud. |
Comments on "Alchemical Symbolism in Superbowl 40"
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Merlin said ... (January 26, 2006 5:38 PM)
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Merlin said ... (January 28, 2006 5:56 PM)
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Pauli said ... (January 28, 2006 7:44 PM)
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jkr2 said ... (January 28, 2006 9:47 PM)
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Merlin said ... (January 28, 2006 10:47 PM)
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jkr2 said ... (January 29, 2006 6:23 AM)
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post a commentI haven't read this all yet but what I have read is downright hilarious ... I love it.
There is to be, I am sure, a huge goings-on at the place I live in, one of our former house mates who (like Pauli) lives in cleveland area but was born in Pittsburgh is a huge Black and gold fan and has made it back down to watch the past 3 games at our place, and they hav ewon all 3 so he will be in for the bowl. I'm generally not a huge football fan but I have to admit ... this is basically Quidditch for us muggeles LOL ... I'll be there with the guys hooping it up and doing my once a year indulging of my blast-ended skrewt (ie male) nature LOL
I finally read this whole thing, and Moody should tell people that back-pocket wand packing is not the only way to lose your buttocks ... I laughed my but off
-I am definitely rooting for the Harry-Cedric combo on this one (Fire and Earth, Griffyndor and Hufflepuff)
Hey, here is an interesting thing I just remebered having a decided opinion on in Latin class. Once other students learned the mechanical "torches and swords" translation for the typical latin narrative description of an army "attacking with fire and iron" that's all they would use to translate it, and I always thought "no - that is just the mechanical meaning - thare is more to it than that - it also means that they wielded the elements" - maybe that is why I will root for the Steelers, they attack with fire and iron (I worked between smesters once in a warehouse that handled Steelers, Eagles and Jets merch. One of the Steelers things was a book on the history of Pittsburgh, and some of those pictures of mill-workers amidst the thick grime and the flying molten sparks - kind of fills you with awe for the fierce tenacity of the human spirit)
That's a good example of what happens when we lose alchemy to science and literalism. The cart gets put before the horse. The reason we make swords and torches is because the fire and iron is inside us as soldiers and as men. It's not the other way around although the outward expression should serve to reinforce the inner reality.
Interesting - men have more iron in their bodies by percentage and women have more copper. The ancients saw copper allied with Venus and iron allied with Mars. So the pop-psycology book "Women are from Venus, men are from Mars", which I never read, as least has a title which contains some true alchemical meaning.
interesting about john gray. he's a pop psychologist if ever there was one, but a few of his thoughts as good as saved my marriage at one point!
i can now put it down to alchemy!
Lewis had that whole thing going on in the whole Malacandra (Mars)/Male and Perelandra (Venus)/female thing - and then you notice the real culmination of That Hideous Strength is marriage - the book begins with Jane Studdocke's private thoughts and questionings on it and ends with Ransom telling her, when she says she thinks she chose the wrong path in marriage and now should be celibate and work for St Anne's on the hill, that her husband Mark Studdock has haphazardly found his way to the cottage and says something to the effect of "go heal this man." The whole trilogoy is a three stage work on marriage along alchemical lines.
ok. i REALLY must read that some time soon.