Thursday 30 July 2015

Memory Cone, Cones & Gyres

Yeats's Gyre:


The implication of Bergson’s moving point of the cone of memory for meditation is this. Ekagrata is our natural state and the skittering away from it is a free act or a minor fugue. To excavate a metaphor, there is a lot of heat or what the yogis call tapas. at the focal point. In alchemical terms there is fractional distillation as the dross memories that guard the tip of the cone burn off. Nice colours.

As a symbol I have seen the double cone done in Kolam powdered rice patterns outside homes in Andra Pradesh. Yeats adopted it for his gyres (supra). MacGregor Mathners the’psychopomp’ of Yeats in the Golden Dawn was married to Bergson’s sister Mina. I draw no conclusions from this, I merely point it out.

Note: Yeats’ s tower at Thoor Ballylee in Galway is open to visitors again. For €7 you will get a conducted tour right to the top plus a cup of tea and biccys and maybe a rendition of Down by the Sally Gardens in a nice baritone. The most important public building in Ireland said Seamus Heaney.

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