Dream Experienced by Ya<qob (B-Re>s^it 28:12-15)

Whereas there is "the straw thatch over the ladder-opening of modern Hopi kivas" (BH, p. 14, fn. *), and whereas this straw thatch can be "rolled back" (BH, p. 14) : such procedure is a close parallel to how "the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll" (Ys^a<yah 34:4) : (Apokalupsis of Ioannes 6:14) "And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were {read "was"} moved out of their places {read "its place"}." (Cf. how "the tops of the high mountains ... As the people watched them, ... sank until they were all gone" [BH, p. 20].) This caelestial scrolling-curling (as if winching-away mountain-and-isle, vanishment whereof may symbolizing historic eroding of limit-and-defects of instrumental music) is matched by the invention of the automatically self-playing pianoforte, mechanically directed by a punched paper-scroll.

Aspects of Puthagorean music-theory, whereby the sky is replete with inaudible (because too high-pitched) is tones emitted by the planets eerily wending their ways so as to comprise a cosmic diapason, are matched by music heard in dreams. Here, and in Ya<qob's dream, the ladder (28:12) is symbolic of the musical-scale; the mal>akiym (angeloi) climbing up-and-down the ladder are chanters chanting the notes-of-the-scale (in Latin, ut-re-me-so-fa-la-ti-do). This is a realistic-enough dream, for (with assistance from the dream-music-enhancing herb sinicuichi) unworldy chanters can be seen, with their chanting being heard, in dreams (as experienced by regular ingesters of that herb, including myself).

The pillow-stone's being afterwards anointed (28:18) with oil (Rock-of-Ages thereby becoming christened/christed) is indicative of its being likened to a hone-stone (hones regularly being oiled before being used for sharpening knives etc. in a grinding-rub movement, rather reminscent of bodily-massage), in the figurative sense of sharpening of musical alphabetic-letter-notes. In the corresponding Norse myth (MSM, p. 57), O`dinn ('Bulwark') is provider of a hone-stone (to peasants, enabling them to sharpen their sickles and their scythes -- perhaps emblematic of tuning some sorts of musical string-instruments); which is regarded in myth as correlative to the hammer (evidently the musical hammer employed to tap the strings in a pianoforte-instrument) : so that this combination (of hammer-and-sickle crossed) would be a Norse emblem for a modern orchestral musical-instrument ensemble.

Ascending-and-descending is not only performed on the ladder-scale of musical scales, but also on the path of Kun.d.alini vertically traversing the subtle-bodily cakra-s.

Vertical travel can be contrasted with horizontal travel, as in the myth of the migration led by Mos^eh out of Mis.rayim. This sort of myth may be emblematic of transmigration of souls, out of the temporary after-death world (wherein one must stay until one is provided with a spirit-guide for leading one's journey-forth thence towards redincarnating into another lifetime) through a redincarnatory transition : until, at length, the Promised Land (i.e., a new material body for redincarnating into) is seen from mt Pisgah ('contemplation') (repraesenting the final vantage-point of the discarnate soul seeing, from outside, the embryo-body which it is approaching in order to incarnate into).

The stepping-stones [also prominent in the Hopi migration-myth (BH, p. 20) and in the Kic^e` migration-myth (BH, p. 25)] emplaced by Yhows^uw<a (emblemizing one's spirit-guide into one's next life) in the temporarily-dry river-bed of the Yarden could repraesent reminders which will be available in one's next lifetime in order to help one then to regain, by gradual stages, a pious attitude of devotion to metaphysics.

Instead of 12 stepping-stones in a river, there could otherwise be (LB, p. 562) "glass ... thought ... water, ... stepped across"; or else looking-glasses : (HChM, s.v. "Huang Di", p. 142) "twelve mirrors, ... one in each month." Thus, in the Praxes of Ioannes, "The twelfth number dances on high." (GB, p. 353) "I am a mirror to you who perceive me." (GB, p. 354) In the Praxes of Thomas, the Prince-of-the-Pearl declareth (GB, p. 393) "As I gazed on it, suddenly the garment {emblem for one's perispirit} like a mirror reflected me, and I saw myself apart" (emblematic of observing one's material-body when faring-forth from it in the astral-body) : this is consequent to that (GB, p. 392) "the letter {epistle} that awakened me was ... a woman on the road." This "woman" is aequivalent to the queen of S^ba>, who had received the pertinent epistle from (LB, p. 561) via "the hoopoe ... tied to his wing." According to >an-Naml ('The Emmet'), they affirmed, "we have been taught the language of birds" (verse 16), "Until, when they came upon the valley of the ants" (verse 18), and king Sulayman [= S^lomoh] inquired, "Why do I not see the hoopoe ...?" (verse 22). But she "uncovered her shins" (verse 44); or else, "her bared feet the king noticed" (LB, p. 562). Perhaps "feet" in this context may refer to metrical feet of musical phrasing; subterranean emmets to unseen-by-audience small details of organizing an orchestra; and birds to a "tweeter" in electronic-speakers for reproduction of electronically-recorded music.

The flowing-with-milk-and-honey are the human-kindness which will be available to oneself in one's future life.

[N.B. This sort of interpretation of the Ex-[h]odos ('out-road') is fairly standard in modern Qabbalah.]

BH = Frank Waters & Oswald White Bear Fredericks : Book of the Hopi. Penguin Bks, 1963.

Ys^a<yah 34:4 http://biblehub.com/isaiah/34-4.htm

Apokalupsis of Ioannes 6:14 http://biblehub.com/revelation/6-14.htm

MSM = Grenville Pigott : A Manual of Scandinavian Mythology. London : William Pickering, 1839. https://books.google.com/books?id=w2oAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=

LB = Louis Ginzberg : Legends of the Bible. Konecky & Konecky, Old Saybrook (CT).

HChM = Lihui Yang & Deming An : Handbook of Chinese Mythology. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara (CA), 2005.

GB = Willis Barnstone & Marvin Meyer (transll.) : The Gnostic Bible. Shambhala, Boston, 2003.

>an-Naml http://quran.com/27

[written Febr 15th-16th 2016. (I may not have used quite this musical understanding, praeviously, of these myths.)]