Symbols - What does heaven look like
Entanglement
Entanglement is symbolically related to both the Great Work and Destiny as well as symbols like the Gordian knot. It is also closely linked with the concept of Fate.
In effect, the part one is to play in the Great Work, the route, the complexity of the path and the almost incomprehensible complexity of all the links in place to make sure the plan is carried through is seen as a tangled interwoven mass into which we become trapped incapable of extricating ourselves unless we follow the path of our destiny and complete the challenge.
There are knots that form the ‘knotty problems’ and if the entanglement is in vegetation we may see thorns and briars – ‘thorny problems’.
As Cirlot explains below there is also a link with the cage. The cage is the physical trap into which we have flown – birds in the cage of life – but a cage, especially if it is very ornate symbolically, also shows the entangled state in which we are enmeshed.
A Dictionary of Symbols – J E Cirlot
Entanglement is a symbol which is related to that of the net and that of bonds. It has been used as an ornament motif right from prehistoric times, either in the form of entanglement or of a bunch or knot of ribbons. Sometimes vegetable and animal forms appear to rise – like grotesques – out of a mass of abstract nerve cords resembling vegetable stalks or animated cords in the form of volutes, or coils or knots or interlacing lines; or sometimes – and this is a more advanced motif – clearly formed beings are shown enmeshed as it were in a cage. Entanglement symbolism takes its place in legends, folklore and myths alongside primitive and Romanesque art. Thus a giant is enmeshed in trees, or the castle in the Sleeping Beauty story is hidden under an inextricable mass of vegetation..
In the key to dreams of the Hindu Yagaddeva one reads; 'He who while dreaming twines round his body lianas, creepers, cords or snakeskins, string or fabric dies'
Observations
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- Alice in Wonderland - Ch 05 - 2 Serpent
- Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad
- Cirlot on nets
- Crowley, Aleister - Book of Lies - Samson
- Genesis - Entangled
- Genesis 22 - Abraham and Isaac
- Gentling the Bull – 01 Searching for the Bull
- Hafez of Shiraz - Thirty Poems - O my soul receive this advice
- Kabir - A certain bird sits in the tree
- Kabir - I talk to my inner lover
- Kabir - What comes out of the harp? Music
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1002
- Lalla - Those who glow with the light of the Self
- Masters and Houston - Entanglement - knots
- Masters and Houston - Entanglement - loops
- Maxwell, James Clerk - My soul is an entangled knot
- Nizami – Makhzanol Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries) – from Poets and Poetry 02
- Nizami – Makhzanol Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries) – from The Second Seclusion 01
- Omar Khayyam - The Rubaiyat - And on the Throne of Saturn sate
- Picts – Basic truths - Entanglement
- Ravidas – from the Adi Granth 20
- Rider-Waite - 01 The Magician
- S'RÎMAD BHÂGAVATAM – Canto 11, Chapter 03 - Liberation from Mâyâ
- Saadi - The Gulistan of Sa‘di – 03 from the Panegyric of the Padsham of Islam
- Samavedas – 01 Book 04 Chapter 01, DECADE III [extract verses 7-8]
- Symbolism - Korean mystic shamanism – Costume: Knots and ties
- The Book of Taliesin - The Battle Of the Trees - 04
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 05 - 1 Wool and Water
- Tolstoy, Leo - Confessions - The thread of life
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book II - Sutras 01 to 55