Well Bottom Blues

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Thauma

Thauma (Greek: θαῦμα) is a noun meaning wonder, marvel, or astonishment.  Etymologically, it derives from a root meaning “a thing to look at” and is related to the verb theaomai (to gaze at or view).

In Biblical Greek, the term appears twice in the New Testament, referring to a concrete marvel that evokes emotional astonishment:

* 2 Corinthians 11:14: Describes the deceptive “marvels” or wonders performed by Satan masquerading as an angel of light.

* Revelation 17:6: Describes John’s great astonishment upon seeing the harlot, translated as “wonder” or “admiration.”

Seeing the marvels of this world as something of Satan and Revelations’ great harlot is what is wrong with our world today, our complete disconnection from the natural systems that sustain us. The Buddhists, while the escape the destructive dominion concept, seek to withdraw from the illusion they call Maya, to reject this world.

That is not my purpose.

Right now I’m reading the poems of Cold Mountain, parsing this Chinese Buddhist ascetics complicated relation to the world around him. He didn’t retreat into the monastery and the endless chanting of sutras. He went to the mountain and deep into the natural world. Halfway through reading my take is that he retreated from the things of this world, from the imperial court, from what we might call worldly attachments, but not from the natural world.

I embrace the natural world, find what the Tramscendentalists called awe and the ancient Greeks thauma in it’s manifold wonders. There are no great mountains in New Orleans but there are trees here older than the city by centuries. There are the fascinatingly beautiful water birds. There is the passion flower hiding in the profusion of blooming elderberries.Tnere is the loud singing of the bees in that mass of  elderberry. I’m not trying to completely escape the things of this world but to find respite in nature from the troubling necessities of living. One should not just chop wood and carry water, but visit the wood rooted in the ground and the  in situ water, all full of life.

I’m not working towards enlightenment but seeking a kind of personal transcendence in the presence of something so much larger than myself, all this riotous green and beautiful life. I’m not seeking the lotus. I don’t want the lotus unless I can wade in and touch it.  I’m looking for that beautiful, gifted feather to carry back into the world to make it more bearable, to remind me to live an harmonious life here.

Note: The opening lines are from the AI generated result from my Brave browser search of thauma, and are sufficient to my purpose. Everything below the two bullet points are my own words.

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The Typist

Ghost of a Poet, Risen. Woke as fuck. Beltalowda. Thor Viki. Singing about the dark times. Formerly of WetBankGuide.blogspot.com & ToulouseStreet.wordpress.com & @OddWords. wellbottomblues.com

6 responses to “Thauma”

  1. Yankee Doodle Avatar
    Yankee Doodle

    I’ve had a lot of thoughts about the Whore of Babylon. Sometimes I wonder if I can draw a line between her and Freyja. She comes riding her dragon growing bloated and/or fat on the blood of saints, implying a drinking vessel, a cornucopia. Revelations had a system of inversions.

    Some argue Frigga (Lover) and Freyja (Lady) are inversions of a singular character, that the totality of Her being could not be grasped as a unity. That the same tender, maternal figure could also be the same that feasts, farts and fucks.

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    1. The Typist Avatar
      The Typist

      I read this line contrasting Aohrodite and Hera in the introduction Emiky Wilson”s Iliad, and immediately thkught ofmyour comments on the Friggs/Freya Monad, seeing the deep,parallel through lines in the ancient stories. Definite Frigg vibes: “Hera, goddess of marriage, whose power is second only to that of Zeus…”

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      1. Yankee Doodle Avatar
        Yankee Doodle

        There seems to be that dichotomy in many systems. In which the Devine Feminine is polarised. Sometimes in a jagged line. For perhaps obvious reasons, I am enamored of the devouring mother archetype.

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      2. The Typist Avatar
        The Typist

        It was “whose power is second on,y to Zeus” thinking of Frigg who knows all Odin knows, and carries the keys to that creation. I think Freyr closer to that devouring aspect, while Frigg represents a inique and female power in harmonious rule. She doesn’t need to go on a road trips to demonstrate her power. She simply holds it close like her knowledge.

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      3. Yankee Doodle Avatar
        Yankee Doodle

        That’s a reasonable thought. I’ve heard many theories. And I’m not sure I necessarily believe any one wholesale. As I sit here spinning yarn. It dawned on me, that “the woman clothed in the sun” is said to be allegorical of the Church. (Which I don’t know as I believe.) But if I granted it. Then, therefore, the Priestess of Babylon might well simply represent Paganism period. The religion of the world, as it were. But i think it’s deeper than that, too. My gut tells me she is a figure, not just an archetype.

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  2. The Typist Avatar
    The Typist

    I haven’t given much thought to the details of the whore of Babylon except to always understand that she represented all the feminine deities of that part of the world demonized.

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About Me

Mark Folse is a provincial diarist and aspiring minor poet from New Orleans. His past blogging adventures included the Katina/Federal Flood blog wetbankguide on blogspot.com which David Simon told NY Magazine was one of three blogs that helped inform Treme, and Toulouse Street–Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans, which once outranked the Doobie Brothers on Google Search. His work has appeared in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Trampoline, Unlikely Stories, Peauxdunque Review, LMNL Anthology, The New Delta Review, Metazen, New Laurel Review, Ellipsis,  What We Know: New Orleans as Home, Please Forward, The Maple Leaf Rag IV, and A Howling in the Wires (which he co-edited).

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