The Aya and Meredith Reading Group continues. Now we are embarking upon the Brother’s Grimm. Growing up I was really into mythology – all different types of mythology. I was not into folk tales. They did not make sense to me. I am not sure why mythology made more sense, but it did. But there is some deep wisdom in these tales, they are the history of the inner life of Western Europe and western civilization. We began with the two brothers.

I have a very beautiful hardback copy of the Grimm Fairy Tales but in this book, there is no tale of two brothers. Instead, there are 12 brothers and three brothers. Two is the dyad, the twin, polarity: the yin/yang, heaven/earth, animus/anima, eros/Thanatos – and as it turns out 2 is very important.

The Story

I loved this story but I have no idea where to begin. It is long and dense – so stay with me here.

This story feels like 4 stories in one:childhood, adolescence, bachelorhood, and marriage. I teach film and I always teach 2001 a space odyssey. My students sometimes say that this film does not make sense. I say, it is not supposed to make rational sense, it is supposed to make emotional sense – so you feel something. Cinematic sense perhaps, or imaginal sense. This story reminds me of that .

Wha happened?

Part One

• two brothers. Ok the dyad – the polarity,
• one is rich one is poor. The rich brother. is evil-hearted. What does money mean? Is it about generocity? False value?
• the poor brother finds a gold bird and is a bit brutal in trying to kill it and then gives it to his rich brother (why?). This makes me think of ethics and also of nonduality. The poor brother seems like a jerk and an idiot. Why does he try to hurt the bird at all and why give the bird to his brother? But there is sense in the story that the poor brother is acting naturally and so perhaps poor really means simple and rich means cunning.
• the poor one has two sons that through adventure involving their uncle produce gold while sleeping. We have another duality but they do not become differentiated until later in the story. These boys accidentally eat the heart and liver of the golden bird while the uncle roasts it and ths lets them produce gold every night under their pillow. Liver is the life force heart is love – but why does this matter?
• The rich brother tells the poor brother his children are evil and the poor brother puts his children out of his home.
• The brothers are adopted by a HUNTSMAN who teaches them how to hunt and keeps their coins (which keep coming) safe. This makes me think of the idea of stewardship.

Part 2

• The brothers pass a hunting test and leave the foster-father gives them a magic knife that will rust on one side if one of he brothers dies.
• The brothers go into the world. They are hungry and want to kill a rabbit to eat but do not instead they get two little rabbits – the same thing happens with a bear, wolf, fox, and lion. What is up with these animals? Totem animals? I mean its not astrology. Maybe the 5 centers of human design.
• The brothers split up.

Part 3

• the younger brother comes to a town covered in black cloth. I though oh no – black plague. But no.
• everything is black because the princess is going to be sacrificed to a dragon. I recently read a book that discussed dragons. Most world myths involve killing. adragon. Sometimes the dragon or dragons blood gives birth to life (or humans). Dragons are also associated with sulfuric caves – that many cultures associate with healing and prophecy.
• the brother defeats the dragon. He first has to drink liquid with a cup and that allows him to pick up a heavy sword and with. thehelp of his animals kills the dragon. The cup is very tarot – emotions. I am always interested in tools – the sword is a great one. The dragon has 7 heads ( the planets?).
• There is giftgiving between the brother and the princess – everyone naps and then the evil marshal beheads the huntsman and forces the process to marry him. The gifts are coral – I wonder about this. It seems strange for a german story. Also headleness comes up again, this is a big theme in magic (the headless rite) and astronomy/myth (orion and solstice)
• the animals get a magic root that brings the other back to life although his head is on backward (temporarily it seems) and then for a year and a day they travel around carnivals – the brother thinks he was abandoned not killed
• He comes back makes a bunch a bets with an innkeeper thanks. to the gold from part 1 of the story and discovers the princess still loves him. She comes. toclaim his hand in marriage and the evil marshall is beheaded.

Part 4

• The brother is now king and is happy and just and merciful. He goes on a hunt in the enchanted forest against the wishes of his wife.
• He gets lost in the magic forest, makes a fire, finds an old woman in a tree. He invites her to warm by his fire she refuses unless he takes her wand and touches each of his animals. Which he does. They turn to stone and then the witch turns him to stone and carts him away to a cellar or something. why does the brother touch his animals with the wand ??
• The other brother meanwhile, the older one, has just been doing carnie work – no kingdoms for him. He sees the knife from part 2 half rusted and determines to save his brother.
• He ends up in the kingdom – everyone things he is the king. He plays along but sleeps next to his ‘wife’ with his sword between them.
• He researches the enchanted forest and then goes to find his brother. The same thing happens with the witch – but the brother does not touch his animals with the wand. He makes the witch turn his brother back – and then throws her in the fire.
• The brothers reunite. The younger brother chops off his brother’s head when he learns he had been impersonating him and sleeping in the same bed as his wife. He then has remorse and saves his brother with the same magic root vegetable that saved him. They both return to the kingdom, the younger brother resumes the throne, and learns about the sword in bed – and realizes his older brother did not betray him after all. There is a test – the queen has to guess which brother is her husband – she does it successfully because of the coral gifts she bestoyed to the brother’s animals.

Motifs to track

As we read more fairytales I want to track characters and motifs. In this I have identified

• language: parts that sound like songs or enchantments, usually involving repetition and rhyming.
• marriage
• fire
• food (and different animals wine lions, bear sweets)
• roles: huntsman, innkeeper, king, marshal, princess
• brothers, fathers, uncles, daughters
• cups
• words
• tongues, livers, hearts
• numbers: 2,5
• an enchanted forest
• evil: brother, marshal, witch
• a witch
• animals: dragon, golden bird, hart/deer, lion, bear, rabbit, wolf, bumblebee, fox
• colors (black and red and gold)
• headlessness
• gifts
• money/wagers/tests
• root vegetables (what is up with this – very promenant in Japanese folk lore too)

What is the esoteric knowledge hidden in this work? What is the ancient wisdom? Lions like to drink.

Last weekend, I attended an herbalism lecture where the excellent Sam Perry spoke about Chinese medicine.

Sam focused on the relationship between culture and medicine. Medicine is a product of culture, like clothing, vases, and frescos.

He spoke about Chinese symbols, yin and yang, the tai chi symbol, the sinusoidal shape of the yellow river in china, and the color yellow, and then he offhandedly mentioned the circle in the square.

Squaring the Circle is an ancient paradox and hermetic symbol.

The problem is this:

Can we create a circle and a square with the SAME AREA with only a straight edge and a compass and use a limited number of steps?

The answer is NO. This was finally proved mathematically in 1882, so the mystery existed for a long time.

This problem had mystical dimensions. The circle in the square was used as a symbol for alchemy: transforming lead into gold. The circle in the square was also used to describe the relationship between spirit and matter.

Discrete Steps and Devices

The structure of this problem reminds me of computation. A universal turning machine, a type of computer, reads and writes symbols on a tape.

The theory of computation asks what we can solve and in what period with what physical limitations.

I wonder what is different between the computational engine of a hammer and nail and what is the computational engine of a straight edge and compass.

The Solution!

As it turns out, you can create a circle and a square with the same area, but just not with these tools and a discrete number of steps.

We can use new tools like the Quadratrix of Hippas (which I do not entirely understand), infinite steps, or non-euclidian geometry.

Can a circle turn into a square? What is the relationship between the shape of a thing and what the form contains?

Transformation

How does the circle shape become the square without losing anything?

This is the mystery of transformation. Ancient myths like Ovid’s Metamorphoses tell how gods turn into trees and humans turn into animals. In China, the 64 hexagrams of the I-Ching describe different types of transformation. Alchemy is about transformation, lead into gold, the individuation of a person from a Jungian perspective.

Squaring the Circle is about tools and processes, about creating a machine for transformation. But there is a limit to the transformative power of a machine. What is this limit? The natural world, life, quantum physics, chance, or just more transformation?

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Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog

Two weeks ago, I binge-listened to the New Books podcasts: film, anthropology, and philosophy.

Sometimes I like to be quiet and feel the ideas come from within me, but it also feels good to get a drink from an idea firehose and see what sticks.

One of the conversations that stuck with me was with Kim Q Hall on her book Queering Philosophy.

Why should you be interested in this topic? Read on…

The meaning crisis

Fake news is news that is not factually correct. Deep fakes are photorealistic images and videos of real people, made by AI, of fake scenarios and events. What is real, what is fake, what is important, and what is not important?

John Vervaeke, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, says the root of the crises we face: mental health, economic and political turmoil, and environmental degradation is a crisis meaning.

We do not know how to reason anymore. We do not know how to decide what is meaningful.

Reason is broken

Socrates was a gay shaman. Socrates and his “frens” like Aristotle and Parmenides, created new ways to make meaning from their world – and from this, we got western philosophy. And maybe a lot of other things like inequality and war, but also perhaps things like science and this fantastic computer.

Our world is different from the world of the ancient Greeks. I am less interested in how a boat disappears beyond the horizon and more interested in why the algorithm suggested that I buy baby formula.

One way to support a new way to reason is to Queer it.

Queering Reason

Could we use a different word? No.

“Queer” is embedded in personal lived experiences, activism, and social convention.

Some ways to queer philosophy include:

• Using methods of queer activism to change the discipline such as a focus on archives and personal stories. Even Hall’s book includes personal anecdotes which I consider queering.
• Examining the “normative” (straight) habits in both the academy and in ideas.
• Make philosophy more embodied. Thinking happens outside the mind as well – as Annie Murphy Paul writes. Queerness is often expressed in the body and in movement and action. And queer bodies are often treated differently than straight bodies.

Ideas and Experience

People say that Freud’s thought could only come from a neurotic.

I often say people don’t have ideas, ideas have people. But these people have lived experiences.

Queering philosophy is one way* we can oscellate bweeen the traditional (dominant) narrative and the personal story: between myth and psychology.

If this was fun for you – give me a follow @hackerm0mor and subscribe to the rewrite ttps://therewrite.substack.com/ – thanks!

*Others include feminist thought, critical race theory, and disability studies.