Belt Of Venus Quotes

Sparks come from the very source of light and are made of the purest brightness—so say the oldest legends. When a human Being is to be born, a spark begins to fall. First it flies through the darkness of outer space, then through galaxies, and finally, before it falls here, to Earth, the poor thing bumps into the orbits of planets. Each of them contaminates the spark with some Properties, while it darkens and fades. First Pluto draws the frame for this cosmic experiment and reveals its basic principles—life is a fleeting incident, followed by death, which will one day let the spark escape from the trap; there’s no other way out. Life is like an extremely demanding testing ground. From now on everything you do will count, every thought and every deed, but not for you to be punished or rewarded afterward, but because it is they that build your world. This is how the machine works. As it continues to fall, the spark crosses Neptune’s belt and is lost in its foggy vapors. As consolation Neptune gives it all sorts of illusions, a sleepy memory of its exodus, dreams about flying, fantasy, narcotics and books. Uranus equips it with the capacity for rebellion; from now on that will be proof of the memory of where the spark is from. As the spark passes the rings of Saturn, it becomes clear that waiting for it at the bottom is a prison. A labor camp, a hospital, rules and forms, a sickly body, fatal illness, the death of a loved one. But Jupiter gives it consolation, dignity and optimism, a splendid gift: things-will-work-out. Mars adds strength and aggression, which are sure to be of use. As it flies past the Sun, it is blinded, and all that it has left of its former, far-reaching consciousness is a small, stunted Self, separated from the rest, and so it will remain. I imagine it like this: a small torso, a crippled being with its wings torn off, a Fly tormented by cruel children; who knows how it will survive in the Gloom. Praise the Goddesses, now Venus stands in the way of its Fall. From her the spark gains the gift of love, the purest sympathy, the only thing that can save it and other sparks; thanks to the gifts of Venus they will be able to unite and support each other. Just before the Fall it catches on a small, strange planet that resembles a hypnotized Rabbit, and doesn’t turn on its own axis, but moves rapidly, staring at the Sun. This is Mercury, who gives it language, the capacity to communicate. As it passes the Moon, it gains something as intangible as the soul. Only then does it fall to Earth, and is immediately clothed in a body. Human, animal or vegetable. That’s the way it is. —

There is a sense that people of the Middle Ages did not feel space in the same way we do, as an empty expanse through which we move, or as a box in which we are contained. In Saving the Appearances (1957), Owen Barfield suggested that medieval man did not feel he was within space as if it were a container. Rather, for Barfield, medieval man wore the world like a garment. Medieval man, Barfield suggests, saw the world quite differently than we do. For him the air was “filled with light proceeding from a living sun, rather as our own flesh is filled with blood from a living heart.” The night sky was not a “homogenous vault pricked with separate points of light, but a regional qualitative sky . . . from which . . . the great zodiacal belt . . . the planets and the moon . . . are raying down their complex influences on the earth.”16 Barfield says that although he may not have heard it, medieval man believed in the music of the spheres and he took for granted the correspondences between things on Earth and those above: the moon’s correspondence with growth, the sun’s with gold, Venus’s with copper, that of Mars with iron, and Saturn with lead. For Barfield, this meant that our medieval ancestors lived in a much more “participatory” relationship to the world than we do. They were “in” the world in a way that we are not, much more like figures in a painting than objects in a box. There was, we can say, a felt continuity between themselves and the world around them.

Our feast, our wedding Will be auspicious to the world. God fit the feast and wedding To our length like a proper garment. Venus and the moon Will be matched to each other, The parrot with sugar. The most beautifully-faced Beloved Makes a different kind of wedding every night. With the favor of our Sultan's prosperity, Hearts become spacious And men pair up with each other. Troubles and anxieties are all gone. Here tonight, You go again To the wedding and feasting. O beauty who adorned our city, You will be groom to the beauties. How nicely You walk in our neighborhood, Coming to us so beautifully. O our river, O One Who is searching for us, How nicely You flow in our stream. How nicely You flow with our desires, Unfastening the binding of our feet. You make us walk so nicely, holding our hand, O Joseph of our world. Cruelty suits You well. It's a mistake for us to expect Your loyalty. Step as You wish on our bloody Soul. O Soul of my Soul, pull our Souls To our Beloved's temple. Take this piece of bone. Give it as a gift to our Huma*. O wise ones, give thanks To our Sultan's kindness, who adds Souls to Soul, Keep dancing, O considerate ones. Keep whirling and dancing. At the wedding night of rose and Nasrin* I hang the drum on my neck. Tonight, the tambourine and small drum Will become our clothes. Be silent! Venus becomes the Cupbearer tonight And offers glasses to our sweetheart, Whose skin is fair and rosy, Who takes a glass and drinks. For the sake of God, because of our praying, Now Sufis become exuberant At the assembly of God's Absence. They put the belt of zeal on their waists And start Sama'*. One group of people froth like the sea, Prostrating like waves. The other group battles like swords, Drinking the blood of our glasses. Be silent! Tonight, the Sultan Went to the kitchen. He is cooking with joy. But a most unusual thing, Tonight, the Beloved is cooking our Halva

the Earth troops marooned on Asteroid Belt—the first line of defense against the hordes of sub-human creatures from Venus.

If you hurl outside?” From his far-off hidey-hole, Dave was directing, not asking. “Shovel it up and put it in the trash. I don’t want my dogs to get to it because it’s whatever you ate plus the shrooms and they’ll gobble it all up and freak the fuck out.” “I promise you. I won’t throw up,” Flynn heard Allison groan before her vomit hit the kitchen sink. “Outside.” “It’s cold out there, honey,” LA Tina said with a deep, soothing voice. “Someone grab up all that pretty blonde hair so it don’t get puked on.” As Flynn fully immersed himself in the music, the merry-go-round in the song was spinning sound and vision around him. Mushrooms were coming on quickly, powerfully, puckering his saliva glands and twisting his stomach into knots. Unsure if he’d actually made it to the bathroom, he was relieved when he saw his emesis kaleidoscopically stewing in the sink. Opening the spigot to wash the corruption down the drain, he splashed cold water on his face as he watched his eyes lit like fires from faraway camps, lips pushing the folds of his cheeks into reiterative grins. A timeless face reminded him of who he was and what resided within him as water drizzled down his chin and swirled into the drain. Emerging back into the rest of the world, a melodic hum hung just above his head. He found his way back to where the notes fully unfurled the song’s motif. Throwing himself into an air-guitar stance, he grimaced as he acted bending out the first, bluesy guitar note. Sparking and glowing like a welding rod, the room around him blazed with his light. Emma leered and licked her lips after glugging down a huge swig of Flynn pretending to be Pink Floyd. Tall, thin, somewhat handsome and exotic in his urbanity, Flynn was poised in a way Pogoner boys could never be. Something about him prickled wildly on her skin and excited her. Gliding from the kitchen to where he rocked, arms raised to reveal her Venus form, she sashayed with dabs of riffing blues, synthesizers scaling the air while guitars and bass vibrated through shabby carpet. As she joined him to take the music within, two objects in space edged closer and closer, gravity pulling both to an inevitable collision. In the gentle light of Christmas bulbs and uncountable candles, they circled round in time to the music, watching each other as neon Nazca-line insects scrambled across the walls. “Remember when you were young?” Emma crooned deep and soft. “You shone like the sun…” Flynn picked up before they both continued with the chorus. “Now there’s a look in your eyes,” she watched him draw closer. “Like black holes in the sky…” “Shine! On! You! Crazy… DIAMOND!” they both shouted, him with uncertainty, her full-throated and stepping into her own, reminding the house why no band playing in town turned down her offer to stand on stage and belt one out. Continuing to spin toward one another, trading lyrics and leers, the two ground their desire like peppercorns, seasoning the diminishing space between them. Whisper came out of the kitchen after a few verses, singing loudly and a bit off-key, Ra-Ra and LA Tina in tow. “You wore out your welcome, with random precision…” “Blown on the steel… breeze…” the followers continued as a chorus. Emma and Flynn unraveled from one another and gave the group a look of, Really? Now? “Come on you raver,” all a chorus, “you seer of visions. Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner and shine….” Everyone then fell out, shaking to various degrees as though they’d just been brought to tongues by some tent-preacher’s sermon.