Animals that carry the meaning of the story: Actaeon’s stag, Arachne’s spider, Ninurta’s turtle, Shibi’s dove and hawk, the ram on Moriah, the great fish that swallows Jonah.
Lamech named his son for rest. Noah built a chest sealed with the letters of atonement, fed every creature in it for a year, sent out the dove, and woke from his wine to curse a grandson. Read beside the giants of 1 Enoch, the birds of Gilgamesh, Peter’s eight souls, the dove at the…
Cadmus kills the guardian of the spring, sows its teeth, and founds Thebes with the survivors. Read once as courage and reparation, once as a foreign settlement told from the side that won.
Ra sends his Eye against the humans who plot against him, then floods the fields with beer dyed red to stop the slaughter he ordered. Creation, rebellion, substitution, and a sun that has to be reborn every night.
Arachne weaves what Athena’s tapestry leaves out, and the goddess tears it rather than answer it. A reading of Ovid’s weaving contest through the disguises of the gods, the looms of Penelope and Philomela, and the spider of the Upanishads.
The prophet who drew Israel’s border is sent to save the city that will erase it. The whole book of Jonah with its Hebrew: four descents, a fish on an errand, five words that come true twice and a question he never answers, beside Jesus asleep in the storm, Caiaphas, the sign of Jonah, Inanna’s…
