In 'The Sea Around Us', Rachel Carson writes, "Each of us carries in our veins a salty stream in which the elements sodium, potassium, and calcium are combined in almost the same proportions as in sea water. This is our inheritance..."
Ancient poets and scribes saw blood as life, and they knew water to be life as well. The two have long been intertwined with our understanding of human existence. This week's episode contemplates aqueous themes in spirituality, especially within the Abrahamic tradition, and references Baal, the Canaanite deity of rain, Jesus and the wine miracle at the Marriage at Cana, as well as the textual seams in the Noahide narrative. Themes of water, blood and wine, in this week's musical selections, parallel reflections on the mystery of 'life' -- existentially, bodily, and also spiritually.
The image below depicts three ritual wine containers from the Shang dynasty, dating back to the 13th to 11th centuries BCE. The first two incorporate decorative motifs of the owl, a significant totemic animal in Shang ritual, thought by some scholars to be associated with ancestral beliefs and worship practices.
episode download: [forthcoming]
0:00:25 - station id: by Jack Layton
0:00:34 - promo: cfrc twitter
0:00:46 - Violent Femmes - 'Jesus Walking on the Water'
0:03:52 - Luke Winslow-King - 'The Coming Tide'
0:06:40 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - 'Jesus Met the Woman at the Well'
0:08:40 - Cabaal - 'Altar/Ascent'
":"9:08 - talking: on Elijah and the Prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, [1]
0:14:47 - Ricky Eat Acid - 'God puts us all in the swimming pool'
0:18:22 - postmoderndisco - 'Mist'
0:23:36 - In The Guestroom feat. Bill Cassidy - 'Blood and Faith'
0:27:51 - Blondes - 'Wine'
":"8:03 - talking: on water, wine, and blood, and the marriage at Cana, [2]
0:34:48 - promo: below the decks (radio show)
0:35:19 - psa: traditional lands of the Anishinaabe & Haudenosaunee
0:35:29 - Liturgy - 'Glory Bronze'
0:42:10 - Neon Indian - 'Ephemeral Artery'
0:45:02 - Crystal Castles - 'Baptism'
0:49:14 - Evian Christ - 'Waterfall'
0:53:29 - Balam Acab - 'See Birds (Sun)'
0:57:39 - promo: AMS AGM CFRC fee increase vote
0:58:26 - promo: cfrc radio
0:58:42 - station id: by Amy Goodman
0:58:55 - Salem - 'Water'
1:01:44 - Sleep ∞ Over - 'Romantic Streams'
1:05:31 - Linda Perhacs - 'River of God'
1:09:55 - Julian Lynch - 'The Flood'
":10:13 - talking: on textual seams of Noahide flood narrative, [3]
1:20:44 - Water Borders - 'Ararat'
"In our standard ideological tradition, the approach to Spirit is perceived as Elevation, as getting rid of the burden of weight, of the gravitating force which binds us to earth, as cutting links with material inertia and starting to “float freely”; in contrast to this, in Tarkovsky’s universe, we enter the spiritual dimension only via intense direct physical contact with the humid heaviness of earth (or stale water) —the ultimate Tarkovskian spiritual experience takes place when a subject is lying stretched on the earth’s surface, half submerged in stale water; Tarkovsky’s heroes do not pray on their knees, head turned upward, toward heaven, but while intensely listening to the silent palpitation of the humid earth."
- Slavoj Zizek (The Monstrosity of Christ, p. 243)
"The jug's gifts are water and wine, in which Heidegger finds the "marriage of sky and earth." For the rain is received from the sky and stored in the earth, and the wine is brought from the vine which is nourished by the sky. Water and wine are drinks for mortals providing nourishment and refreshment. Wine is also a consecrated drink we offer to the gods. Both together -- mortals and gods -- are found in the drink which the jug gives. Thus all four -- earth and sky, mortals and gods -- abide together in the jug."
- John Caputo (The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought, p. 85)
Further Info:
[1] Elijah and the Altar on Mount Carmel (Yale Video Lecture)
[2] Theology of Jesus and the Marriage at Cana (Google Book)
[3] Contradictions and Doublets in the Noahide Narrative (Yale Video Lecture)
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