Beyond the zodiac

I've been plodding along with a post which has led me across Mithraism more than once, albeit tangentially, and found the image above. It is Leontocephaline (Lion Head to you wrestling fans), a figure perhaps denoting time and seasonal change but who doesn't appear to have been fully explained thus far.

In light of recent posts (Aucamville Project 6 and Jesus was in shape) it is expecially striking: serpent around a kind of pillar, a rod, the caduceus. Here the caduceus is unwingéd but perhaps the man himself bears that function. Plus the two keys evoke the two pillars we have examined as structurally unneccessary elements at the entrance to a sacred space, a liminal point, or gateway to an interior mystery. That they are keys only reinforces the notion of a portal to another space. There are tools, a hammer and tongs, evocative of the BIPM seal, upon which we also find a wing-helmeted mercury carrying a caduceus and other rods or batons. There is also a fir-cone, which has cropped up in our discussions of sacred columns or gateway pillars (Pillars of the Community and Journey to the Center of the Earth).

What it all points to is another question. It seems to be a daunting figure representing a guardian of hidden knowledge, of writing, fertility....all wrapped up in one great phallic investigation, a way the animal is linked to the angelic, the beast with the beauty, the tools metaphors like the working tools of Freemasonry.... Actually, that's probably just my flight of fancy talking. I have no idea what it means, but it's certainly a piece of the ongoing LoS puzzle worth throwing out there.