Egyptian Temples, part IV: The Temple Building by Mirjam

Model of the Universe
From at least the New Kingdom on the Egyptian cult temple building was a symbolic model of the universe. It was built along an east-west axis, following the sun´s course through the day and surrounded by a brick wall built in alternating concave and convex sections. These symbolized the Primeval waters out of which Creation had risen. A processional path led up to the pylon towers, which were a reminiscent of the early, predynastic reed shrine that once had stood at the back of just such a guarded enclosure as the mud brick wall. The great portal which was set in between the pylons lead into one or several open courtyards in line, thereafter followed one or several covered pillared halls until finally the darkened sanctum where the naos which held the cult statue of the deity was reached.

Cordyceps

Cordyceps sinensis
Cordyceps
Dong Chong Xia Cao
The remedy called the cordyceps is actually made from lichen – a symbiotic organism of fungi, the name cordyceps itself can be translated literally from the Chinese as the “winter bug summer herb.” An herbal remedy is made from this fungus and the fungus itself is found as an antlered fungal form which grows over insect larvae, this infestation is done before the formation of a cocoon by the insect – thus the fungus is parasitic on the insect. Morphologically, the fungus has a short and sticklike form, it also has a fat and full or round shape, the coloration is yellow white in cross section of the fungal body. Early summer and late spring is the usual time when the fungus is gathered from infested larvae. The main method of collection of this fungus is lab based from tissue cultures in the laboratories, as the pure fungal strain is very hard to collect in sufficient quantities in the wild – in spite of the fact this particular fungus is found all over Japan and China, and is also found to infect insect larvae along areas of the Atlantic seaboard in the United States.

The Nine Sisters and the Axis Mundi

Alby Stone

 
According to the medieval Icelandic poet Snaebjorn, as quoted by Snorri Sturluson in the Skaldskaparmal section of his Prose Edda, ‘nine skerry-brides turn fast the most hostile island-box-mill out beyond the land’s edge’. This mill (eyludr) is cognate with mills mentioned or hinted at in other Icelandic texts – the poems Grottasongr and Vafthrudhnismal from the Poetic Edda; and Snorri’s own Gylfaginning – and closely related to the mill-like Sampo described in the Finnish traditions preserved in the Kalevala. These mills, sources of wealth and abundance, are cosmic structures; they are models of and metaphors for the world itself. The essential image is that of the rotary quern, comprising a flat, unmoving lower millstone and an upper stone revolved by turning a handle. The lower stone represents the earth as perceived by early cosmologists: a flat, immobile disc. The upper stone represents the sky, which is seen as revolving about the celestial axis in the far north. The imagery is extended by the English abbot lfric in his Homilies, composed in the last decade of the tenth century. He incorporates the paddles used to power early vertical water-mills, so that the earth and sky are augmented by the underworld, giving a tripartite division of the cosmos, in accordance with other, pagan cosmological patterns.

A threefold cosmos

Alby Stone

 
1930 was to prove something of a landmark year for mythologists and Indo-Europeanists. In the Journal Asiatique for that year, Georges Dumézil published an article on social structure in ancient Indian and Iranian cultures. He asserted that the early Indo-Iranians were formally divided into three social classes.