Ghimel as Serpent?

Dulcimer

Greetings ;).

Would someone help me out here please? While leafing through Cirlot's A Book of Symbols I came across this entry for 'camel':-

"Traditionally considered in curious relationship with the dragon and with winged serpents, for, according to the Zohar, the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a kind of 'flying camel'. Similar allusions are to be found in the Persian Zend-Avesta"

What do you make of that? From what I've read and (little) understood of the Zohar, I don't remember coming across such a reference. Can any of you wider read folk throw any light on this?

[If you didn't know, and I didn't, the Zend-Avesta is the holy book of Zoroastrianism]
 

kwaw

Dulcimer said:
Greetings ;).

Would someone help me out here please? While leafing through Cirlot's A Book of Symbols I came across this entry for 'camel':-

"Traditionally considered in curious relationship with the dragon and with winged serpents, for, according to the Zohar, the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a kind of 'flying camel'. Similar allusions are to be found in the Persian Zend-Avesta"

What do you make of that? From what I've read and (little) understood of the Zohar, I don't remember coming across such a reference. Can any of you wider read folk throw any light on this?

[If you didn't know, and I didn't, the Zend-Avesta is the holy book of Zoroastrianism]

I have heard of a connection between the camel and serpent before but can't remember the details off hand, I am sure I something about it in my notes and will look it up.

Kwaw
 

venicebard

It might come from the long, single-file camel column snaking along between the bluffs. Gimel happens to be the sign scorpio on the half-circle of the seven 'double letters' in Hebrew (the stops), which form a sort of bowl that contains the 'egg' of the zodiac, and scorpio of course stands for serpent-scorpion-eagle.

Even more striking is the fact that the 'tree' in the Keltic tree-alphabet (which is related to the Semitic alef-bet) for G is gort, the ivy: it is the month following that of muin, the vine, M, the latter including the fall equinox. These two represent (obviously) the kundalini or serpent power that is, according to yogis, 'coiled up' at the base of the spine.
 

Dulcimer

venicebard said:
It might come from the long, single-file camel column snaking along between the bluffs. .

Maybe. But 'flying'?
venicebard said:
Gimel happens to be the sign scorpio on the half-circle of the seven 'double letters' in Hebrew (the stops), which form a sort of bowl that contains the 'egg' of the zodiac, and scorpio of course stands for serpent-scorpion-eagle.

I get the Tree Alphabet reference :), but the scorpio, etc, bit? I have no idea. Could you elaborate?
 

venicebard

Dulcimer said:
Maybe. But 'flying'?
Hmm. Perhaps not flying, but winged: the elaborate enclosures in which high-born women traveled might have looked like 'wings' on the serpent, albeit rather short wings (folded maybe?) compared to the length of a caravan.

Aw, heck: I don't know.
I get the Tree Alphabet reference :), but the scorpio, etc, bit? I have no idea. Could you elaborate?
Being the month containing spring equinox, M is libra. As the month following, G encloses the sign (point) scorpio. The sign aries is straight up, the head, and libra is straight down, the loins. This is why spring springs up and fall falls down. Astrologers lay the zodiac on its side in doing horoscopes, but the original symbolism is what is important.

Now, scorpio is traditionally associated with three symbols: scorpion, serpent, and eagle. For it symbolizes desire. It symbolizes this because libra, being straight down, signifies the physical present, and the sign of departure from this signifies where one would like it to go. Desire can be scorpion-like, serpent-like, or eagle-like, reasoned the sages, hence the symbolic connexion thereto. The winged serpent would appear to be a melding of serpent with eagle.

In Qabbalah, the months of the waning year (summer-fall) were separated out to be a bowl or cauldron—seven ‘double letters’—extending from horizon without (cancer, duir the oak or dalet) to horizon within (capricorn, beth the birch or beyt), their place on the wheel or egg IN the bowl being taken by the vowels (most of which are consonantized in Hebrew). The double letters are stops—discontinuous, like the bowl—while the sounds on the continuous round of the egg (year or zodiac) were originally all continuous sounds (non-stops). (Guttural rolled R was treated as a repeated stop, reysh being a double letter.)