Wishing you a very Zoso Christmas
Showing posts with label Zoso. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zoso. Show all posts
Monday, December 25, 2023
Friday, July 14, 2023
On this day 14 July
Jimmy Page Live at the Greek re-release in 2017
Happy 12th birthday to jimmypage.com!
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| First ever On This Day 14 July 2011 |
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| 2014 On This Day post |
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| 2015 07 July On This Day Zoso tee-shirt |
- 1966 The Yardbirds - Kidderminster, England at Kidderminster Town Hall
- 1998 Page & Plant - Mansfield, MA at Great Woods Center For The Performing Arts
- 2011 14 July On This Day Jimmy Page’s website launched
2011:
"A lot of my studio work had been done with that guitar. I didn't want to take it out of the house. Funny that once I did take it out, it got nicked!"
~ Jimmy Page, Guitar World interview 1991
Interesting musical choice that Jimmy Page used for his website's launch and each subsequent year's anniversary post: The One That Got Away. It could refer to his 1960 Gibson Les Paul Custom, a.k.a."The Black Beauty" (more on the guitar & theft), or maybe it refers to how his own website doesn't publicly archive each On This Day post, so they get away unless you nick them yourself.
From 2011 through 2014 the 'website was born" image was posted on the website with the appropriate wording (three years ago... two years ago... one year ago...). In 2015 there was a Zoso tee-shirt advertised, with no music. For those of you into Magick, give a moment's thought to the notion of how many places Jimmy Page's sigil (sign or symbol considered to have magical power) now appears. We spread the word willingly, though we will never know what it truly means.
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| 2014 July Ciao Magazine |
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| 2014 July Australian Guitar Magazine |
♪ The One That Got Away (Jimmy Page) Soundcloud
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
On This Day 14 July
Jimmy Page Live at the Greek re-release in 2017
2011:
"A lot of my studio work had been done with that guitar. I didn't want to take it out of the house. Funny that once I did take it out, it got nicked!"
~ Jimmy Page, Guitar World interview 1991
Interesting musical choice that Jimmy Page used for his website's launch and each subsequent year's anniversary post: The One That Got Away. It could refer to his 1960 Gibson Les Paul Custom, a.k.a."The Black Beauty" (more on the guitar & theft), or maybe it refers to how his own website doesn't publicly archive each On This Day post, so they get away unless you nick them yourself.
From 2011 through 2014 the 'website was born" image was posted on the website with the appropriate wording (three years ago... two years ago... one year ago...). In 2015 there was a Zoso tee-shirt advertised, with no music. For those of you into Magick, give a moment's thought to the notion of how many places Jimmy Page's sigil (sign or symbol considered to have magical power) now appears. We spread the word willingly, though we will never know what it truly means.
Happy birthday to jimmypage.com!
|
| First ever On This Day 14 July 2011 |
|
| 2014 On This Day post |
|
| 2015 07 July On This Day Zoso tee-shirt |
- 1966 The Yardbirds - Kidderminster, England at Kidderminster Town Hall
- 1998 Page & Plant - Mansfield, MA at Great Woods Center For The Performing Arts
- 2011 14 July On This Day Jimmy Page’s website launched
"A lot of my studio work had been done with that guitar. I didn't want to take it out of the house. Funny that once I did take it out, it got nicked!"
~ Jimmy Page, Guitar World interview 1991
Interesting musical choice that Jimmy Page used for his website's launch and each subsequent year's anniversary post: The One That Got Away. It could refer to his 1960 Gibson Les Paul Custom, a.k.a."The Black Beauty" (more on the guitar & theft), or maybe it refers to how his own website doesn't publicly archive each On This Day post, so they get away unless you nick them yourself.
From 2011 through 2014 the 'website was born" image was posted on the website with the appropriate wording (three years ago... two years ago... one year ago...). In 2015 there was a Zoso tee-shirt advertised, with no music. For those of you into Magick, give a moment's thought to the notion of how many places Jimmy Page's sigil (sign or symbol considered to have magical power) now appears. We spread the word willingly, though we will never know what it truly means.
|
| 2014 July Ciao Magazine |
|
| 2014 July Australian Guitar Magazine |
♪ The One That Got Away (Jimmy Page) Soundcloud
[edited 14 July 2020]
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Zoso
A lot of people mistook it for a word…
~Robert Godwin, as quoted in George Case’s Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man: An Unauthorized Biography
(2007, p114)
Mage Music 74
~Robert Godwin, as quoted in George Case’s Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man: An Unauthorized Biography
(2007, p114)Mage Music 74
Symbols are remarkable. Without them, you couldn't read this post. Without them, you couldn't communicate on more than the most basic of levels.
Without symbols, there would be very little Magick.
Symbols can convey meaning above and beyond “what you see is what you get” (that is, the denotation or literal, dictionary meaning of a word or term). The capacity of symbols to carry richness and depth of additional meaning (connotation, or overlaid meanings that convey emotions, values, associations and nuances beyond the literal) makes symbols possibly the most valuable of all the treasures that a human might possess. For a Mage, symbols are the secret heart of ritual.
In Magick, symbols are most potent when they are maximally realized and intensely embody the desire that fuels the ritual. At their most potent, symbols are so rich that their power carries over to others. Thus a Mage whose ritual is meant to be shared with an audience - a painter or a musician, for example - can use personal symbols within that ritual that have such extremely powerful meaning that the symbols pack a punch for the audience too.
The most potent symbols must remain personal to the Mage, though. To reveal the meaning – if a Mage could even bring himself to do so – would bleed off the pressure of that power, reduce its intensity and thereby weaken the ritual.
The Eagle and the Horse
Let's use the example of the eagle and the horse to talk about denotation and connotation: An eagle is a bird, but its deeper meaning is that of wild power used as weapon. Long a symbol of power, the eagle was the Egyptian symbol for the god Horus, it was the standard of a Roman legion, and today eagle is the US emblem. Although there are much larger birds in the world, the eagle has long been held as the King of the Birds in mythology by many cultures. A predator, eagle carries a depth of meaning that includes the danger of a focused and yet unlimited power.
A horse is a mammal, but its deeper meaning is that of power shaped by human will. Horses symbolize grace, beauty, nobility, strength, speed and freedom. These meanings can transcend the normal world when the horse has wings or horns as Pegasus or unicorn. As a powerful and dangerous animal that is not a predator, horse’s power is broader focused and symbolically horse is a helper. There is great power with both horse and eagle, but horse carries a feeling of less danger in its symbolism.
Or not.
Maybe you come from a place like Alaska where there are so many eagles that they’re like pigeons and you have little respect for them. Maybe you come from a culture that eats horses, or maybe from a culture that has never even heard of either. Maybe you're scared to death of both of them.
The power of a symbol isn't in the object itself and certainly not in its name or its history, but rather what it means personally to the one who uses it.
In the right hands, a symbol can carry meaning so powerful, so potent, so filled with possibility that the symbol is the fissionable material of Magick. Such things have no names that you or I could - or should - know.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
SymbolicallyYours
“…knowing the notes isn't enough. You have to know how to play them.”
~ Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear
This is why a Mage who works through music needs to own the music - ownership not in terms of the law of man but in terms of the law of Magick. It's not enough to simply know the notes and to play them well. A Mage musician has to know the notes as he knows his own soul, and to perform them each in a place made sacred by intent, without error of desire or will, and freely offered to the Universe.
♫
Here are links to two versions of the same song, When The Levee Breaks, yet with so different a sound they could be different songs. Of course, part of the explanation for the difference is that the kind of music Led Zeppelin was doing wasn't invented yet - but what's more important is how Led Zeppelin made this song their own. This is how the Magick comes.
~ Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear
Mage Music 55
Designing ritual is like building a skyscraper, as I discussed in the last post. Both require solving one finite component of a complex issue at a time. Both ideally begin with a strong foundation upon which a sturdy framework and solid layers are constructed, and only at the end is the ornamentation added. Of course, neither ritual nor a skyscraper must absolutely be constructed that way, but if they're going to support any real weight at all for any length of time, it's best to start from the bottom up and do it right.
A structural engineer or architect works from specifications that can be generally known in advance. The specs for location, materials and the construction methods can be codified, and there will thus be similarity in basic construction from one skyscraper to the next if they are constructed within the same time period.
The challenge for a Mage, however, is that the components of ritual will not be known well enough for specifications to exist, and rituals with similar goals may not be similar in appearance at all. This is because rituals are generated from and are an extension of the Mage and the components have meaning of personal rather than external significance.
Ritual objects
Ritual should not be confused with ceremony, which is a series of acts performed according to a traditional form. Ritual of Magick must be new in essence every time it is performed because all facets of the world in which the manifestation is to occur are constantly changing. Owning the ritual - generating the symbolism personally - is key to successful Magick. This means that simply adopting the use of symbolic objects and acts from other rituals that have no personal meaning for the Mage most likely will not generate the intended result.
When it comes to ritual - and Magick in general - one Mage's truth does not have to be truth for the next. Furthermore, what the rest of the world believes to be true doesn't have to be truth for a Mage's either. Good thing, since much of the world won't even admit that Magick exists other than as stage tricks.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell defined a symbol as an energy evoking and directing agent. He said that symbols have three aspects: that of the thinking mind, of the unconscious mind, and of the "ineffable of the absolutely unknowable". The first aspect can be consciously known by the Mage, the second can be felt through emotion, and the third is known only indirectly as a Mage's connection with the energy of the universe.
As a symbol, the physical specifications of a ritual object are not as important as how pure, personally meaningful and emotionally loaded the object is for the Mage. While anything will do, obviously some objects will not work in a ritual - either because they don't have physical form or because the physical form is inconvenient or perhaps doesn't even exist. No matter, because it's the meaning of the symbol to the Mage that is the important thing. Unfortunately, not only does meaning have many layers, it is a squirrely thing that can't exist nakedly on its own in the human universe. With the meaning changing as the Mage changes and the reality of the world changing as it will, it's obvious why the old adage of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) applies. The successful Mage has to develop symbols that he is attracted to and that he can manipulate without losing the meaning of as the ritual progresses.
As a symbol, the physical specifications of a ritual object are not as important as how pure, personally meaningful and emotionally loaded the object is for the Mage. While anything will do, obviously some objects will not work in a ritual - either because they don't have physical form or because the physical form is inconvenient or perhaps doesn't even exist. No matter, because it's the meaning of the symbol to the Mage that is the important thing. Unfortunately, not only does meaning have many layers, it is a squirrely thing that can't exist nakedly on its own in the human universe. With the meaning changing as the Mage changes and the reality of the world changing as it will, it's obvious why the old adage of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) applies. The successful Mage has to develop symbols that he is attracted to and that he can manipulate without losing the meaning of as the ritual progresses.
This is why a Mage who works through music needs to own the music - ownership not in terms of the law of man but in terms of the law of Magick. It's not enough to simply know the notes and to play them well. A Mage musician has to know the notes as he knows his own soul, and to perform them each in a place made sacred by intent, without error of desire or will, and freely offered to the Universe.♫
When the Levee Breaks, Memphis Minnie (1929)
When the Levee Breaks, Led Zeppelin (1971)
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