A View From Up There

The Rock of the Norm Series : X

I don't know about others but I get this strange feeling of elation when I view the satellite photos on Google maps. Its somewhat like the relative feel of viewing Bonsai plants but its more … a little megalomania almost in relation to the passions and just as worrisome. I worry about the fact that it makes me feel good.

 

The night photos are incredible! The map is lighted up by city lights and presents a reverse constellation effect as if stars on earth. We may have to rename the constellations. Quite a perspective to the human experience and certainly a marvel of achievement by technology.

 

Of course I wasn't going to miss the opportunity of spotting my house from up there and took a print out to stick it up on my wall. It moved my mind on issues.

 

My thoughts arose on the early writings of the Indic Puranas … long an ambition of mine to understand how they came to ' see ' what they they represented in their writings. A person has to understand the sleight of wrist on the mind. We call it poetry these days. Possibly written around 1500 bc they grew in popularity and the perceptions were thereafter received as Lokamaya by the Indic mind that ascribed different personalities to different lands.

 

I gave free rein to my impulses and followed up on my curiosities. Another session with Google maps produced some very imaginative thoughts. Italy's boot was simply obvious … but the Mediterranean as the womb? … the Black Sea its ovary? … the Tigris and Euphrates river basin of Babylon as a yoni? And why did I feel an incredible attraction to Baffin Island? Put together, was this the sleeping Vishnu family of the Puranas?

 

In a simple exercise I crossed the notes I made with the legends. Herakles climbed up from the ankles of Hera … on the boot perchance? The dream-based samaritan-like quality of life in the Mediterranean … the creative source of the old testament? The great sage Narada, the celestial musician and the  legends of Ophiuchus with the harp … the  inspiring ovation of the Bolshoi? Babylon with the history of the fertile Avesta is easily traced to the birth of Brahma, the Indic God of creation.

 

The legends of Asgarth as attributed to the Norse is on Baffin Island. The mountains there are named for the legend and look like so many homes. But there was something more ... the names about the place ... British, French, American, Sanskrit ... the reference to folly, mother, royalty, foxes, the net, an eclipse ... and a short distance away Melville island ... makes for a heady read. The Inuit natives certainly appear very reticent on issues.

 

I looked again at Baffin and drew the scroll down over Meso-America. The view from up there would certainly have told an interesting story about the Americas. But the Indic literature is equally reticent on it. However in the Gita, the Guru Vasudeva tells his student  ' Consider my sacred mystery Arjuna, the world is in me not I in it ' … at least it left some clues ...