T32 - Quest For The Rose - C 10

Part I seems to be about taking stock.

Personal inventory. Taking stock of one's life uses inductive thinking. Recollecting the important and specific events and feelings and considering their themes and worth and constructing more generalized ideas of what one's life is really about in terms of ideas, desires, likes and skills is necessary every five years. I guess this is what the old Russian Republic was all about with its notorious Five Year Plans. However, we hope and pray that our own five year summarizations prove far more successful than theirs ever were!

For instance Gableplunk had spent the last few years of his life trying to get to the heart of his life, his essence (he was an arrow). Along the way during this process he experienced various inner conflicts and fears (his feathers were white with fright). He considered ultimate questions and found the standard answers wanting (the answer to birth and death is love). Examining the museum of his mind and memories he found that it was empty, that he could find no deep satisfaction with recollections (the birds already flew south - they flew the coop!). 'Remaining behind to feed the geese': this is a common winter occurrence for all of us. Who has not seen geese on the sides of the roads in winter? Earlier on in his story Gableplunk had gotten stodgy. He wasn't able to understand that the museum was empty and he couldn't freely flow with life so he 'got snowed in by a snowstorm' - he got stuck, mired in the habits and thought patterns of his mental museum, his earlier life. He was struck by the irony that 'even the worms left the frozen ground and danced in the icy flow.' Even the lowliest creatures were more capable than he to be able to take part in the dance of life even under the most adverse conditions (a snowstorm). 'Where should I go?' he asked himself. What should I do? How can I resolve my inner conflicts, my sturm und drang (German for spiritual turbulence)?

A 'friendly gesture' comes along and tells him to take a break, get a little relief, take the edge off. I guess that peoples' 'friendly gestures' could come in many forms: friends, philosophies, psychology, even going to the movies, reading a book or taking a vacation. The 'friendly gesture' offers words of consolation for Gableplunk's anxieties about break-taking: I'll take care of your worries for awhile, it says. It gives him some good advice: Don't worry; be happy! :)

So, taking stock every so often in life can be useful, even indispensable

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The first section of 'Quest For The Rose' was about taking stock of one's life. Part II seems (to me) to be about his concern about his direction. He's feeling doubts. 'Moon flower how you glower' tells us that he's feeling unsure of himself, that there's a part of him that disapproves of what he's doing. 'Far away lies the sun' tells us that he sees his journey as too great. He's bit off more than he can chew. However, he quickly gives himself a courage boost and reassures himself that after a hard day's effort, 'in the evening the cows come home', he will, after all, gain the deep understanding that he needs and will be able to rest. 'Birds on the wing' means freedom. Freedom 'foils the curses of madmen and steals the purses of little women.' 'Curses of madmen' can mean anything that gets on your nerves and 'purses of little women' refers to the characteristic of hanging on to your petty valuables, perhaps those parts of us which are unproductive or detrimental and which we retain as near and dear to us because they comprise some or all of our identities which we can not let go for fear of the unknown. Freedom is the letting go of all of these useless and counter-productive forces in ourselves. 'The runes of the old gnomes Whiten the bed sheets Brighter and farther away From the dunes' - Runes are a symbol system for use in divining, telling the future. Gnomes are a race of old and wise people, so, G. says use wisdom to direct your life so you can sleep at night with clean sheets (an untroubled mind) and sleep well, far away from the churning waves of the ocean which crash up onto our dunes (our peaceful areas) and cause our turmoil. 'The plumes of the runes' seems to be the crowning of knowledge or G.'s way of saying that knowledge is great and powerful and 'fly frosty in the light of the deep dark night' means that knowledge is an icy beacon in the great darkness which envelops us (ignorance). Icy because it is crystal clear and both reflects light and manifests light through itself, light being an ancient and even Biblical metaphor for knowledge, understanding and even God. 'How deep, how dark Is it from here to the park?' How long must my journey last? Gableplunk asks himself. 'Where lie the feathers Of the moon?' Feathers may be a back reference to 'whiten the bed sheets' or an untroubled life, a goal of Gableplunk's, and 'the moon' of course is intuition, intuitive knowledge, deep feeling, rest in the eternal otherness, maybe God, maybe for Gableplunk, a woman, the otherness, the softness of home and a place to rest. 'The Rose! The rose! I will have the rose!' is G.'s dedication to his journey and his goal of understanding - his determination.

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The first section of "Quest For The Rose" was about taking stock of one's life. Part II seemed (to me) to be about Gableplunk's concern about his direction. Part III seems to be about realization.

In Part III Gableplunk realizes the true nature of freedom is letting go of his struggles for personal power, his sense of opposition in that he has heretofore seen himself as separate and sometimes AGAINST others, their ideas and beliefs and also letting go of time, our measurement of all things great and small and especially our lives. These are the limitations that we put on ourselves and abandoning them creates freedom.

'The power of the flower' tells us that when freedom blooms (a flower blooms) it sows the 'seeds that feed the hermaphrodite,' the unified being in all of us (our inner hermaphrodites) that is free of our compulsions to be in opposition to others. He adds a little orgasmic eroticism in the phrase 'And the free flowing juices That seal the blind man's fate Find their release as...' 'Free flowing juices' refer to pre-ejaculation lubrication, 'the blind man's fate' refers to the penis and 'Find their release as' refers to ejaculation. This sexual poetry gives virility and power to the freedom that Gableplunk is writing (singing) about. Continuing with the sexual metaphors, when 'The scene shifts to the universal calm' he's singing of the release from the existential tension which comes from letting go of the forces within us that imprison us. 'And the rift between the rivers' may, I say MAY, poeticize female sexual organs which have the capability to give birth (power to generate) whether actually or literarily to 'The King and Queen,' symbols of equal rulership when both are part of the hermaphrodite, equal rulership of masculine and feminine principles which we all possess but which are expressed by societies and self chosen identities of individuals who see life in terms of polar opposites as black and white rather than the multi-colored and faceted areas in between: sophisticated people. (This is why religions have always put down sophistication, worldliness, as offensive to God (as if Religionists could really speak for God). It enables their position that "ignorance is bliss" and keeps people 'in their place,' that is, ignorant, and helps to maintain their power in the minds of their subjects. Through means such as these quasi edicts they enforce peoples' subservience and obedience to principles which are sometimes useful and good, sometimes hateful and evil and are always questionable. They maintain their power. - my own ideas of course). The SEQUENCE of male ejaculation and then giving birth also suggest that we ourselves generate the birth of opposing forces (King and Queen). So, this could also be part of Gableplunk's Rose: the UNDERSTANDING, which leads to responsibility and, reasonably, responsibility for our future choices of actions/behaviors. The 'Rift between the rivers' could also refer to our divided natures, the separation or split of our personal power between two (or more) forces, forces of whatever. The split, which is depicted in many myths, may cause our sense of opposition or may cause us to feel a 'rift' between ourselves and others.

'Fain would I cry out!' Fain means gladly. 'Gladly would I cry out' as though he would LIKE to exclaim his excitement but can not. He expresses a controlled joy, perhaps expressing disbelief or his inability to believe completely in his revelation. Maybe it's hard to swallow (pun intended on my part) for him. He has found the Rose: his goal, his solution, his spiritual comprehension of life. 'And the Rose springs anew In the fresh soil In the garden of Cosmic Man!' means that spiritual comprehension grows where people plant it, in their own gardens, in their own minds and hearts. Gableplunk capitalizes 'Cosmic' and 'Man,' interjecting a new element, a new viewpoint, that of his feelings expressed in an earlier chapter, that Man is a creature destined for the stars, to be star travelers, cosmic people. Capital 'Man' refers to all of humanity, as in 'mankind.' In summary, G. is saying that freedom for mankind lies in ridding ourselves of our compulsions to oppose others and even ourselves. By this he implies cooperation, perhaps in a worldly sense or in the sense that we need cooperation rather than opposition in order to move mankind into the future. Gableplunk urges us all to cooperate. These are trying times. This is good advice.