Journal of Geomancy vol. 2 no. 1, October 1977
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There are many Rods, and Names in Scripture and Tradition attaching to these Rods.
There is the Moses Rod—poor man without a Tongue—that for a sign awed the People and the Pharaoh in their midst. Of Crawly Flesh, it switched on and off. And struck water from the Rock; for which the Lord denied Moses his personal entry into wherein his leadership had taken him. Which story goes to show it doesn’t pay to use the Lord’s Rod to satisfy a premature thirst in the Desert.
There is the Rod of Aaron. And this man’s Rod blossomed out from amongst the rods of other men as the Lord had willed. And it yielded Almonds as a testimony against the rebels. And the others could see the barrenness of their own sticks. And they ceased their murmurings that they might live the while longer.
Now, insofar as we are allowed to speculate, Aaron’s Rod was intended to bud but once. And the Almond, itself, I can’t but conceive was treasured-up without the Eating. And the Rod was relegated to the status of a Show-piece; along with the Golden Pot, which once held Manna. And together they Form the treasured artifacts of Memory.
There is the Rod of Job who spoke patiently about the Seed established in the Sight of Men that they before their offspring crawled. And he measured in patient terms how safe they were that the Rod of God was not upon them; that in their plenteous houses, in which they served no King, no Fear was moistened with their Marrow. It is easy to forget you were once afraid when all the while flesh springs from its very own abundance. And the Rod of Job is oldest, taking comfort in the In-writ Scripture of the Body.
And what other Rods of Scriptural Portent can we take strength? There is the Rod of Proverbs 10:13. “In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is founds but a Rod is for the back of him that is Void of understanding.” A lovely Rod! And there, too, is the Proverbial “Rod for the Fool’s back”; along with a bridle for the Ass. And we mustn’t neglect the ‘The Sparing Rod that spoils the child’. And the ‘left to himself’ Child, without the reproof of the Rod, who shames his Mother.
Isaiah is interesting on the Rod; mentioning Jesse, and how out of the stem of this Personage shall come a Rod. And that this Man, from his Roots, shall yield to the Growth of a Branch. We cannot pause for that one now. It goes on readily enough without us. But it is probably crucial to the Identification of Jesse to know that his name means, simply: Jehovah Is. And beyond that, while I’m pointing things out, we can’t forget Blake’s Hand in all This. And He, whose Name is obvious, says without a mean streak of theology running through him, that Jesus, when he died, became Jehovah. Or, he embraced the Fire.
Ezekiel by his mention of the Rod makes it seem as merciless an Instrument of Trial as ever. For he would pass us ‘under the Rod’ and purge the Rebel and bring the scattered Remnant into a meeketh <sic> covenant: bringing them ‘out from the People’.
In Micah 6:9 “The Lord’s Voice crieth unto the City, and the Man of Wisdom shall see they name: Hear ye the Rod, and who hath appointed it.” The City referred to is the Necessary ‘Abominable Place’. And it reminds me of an Altar, like the highest stranded Ark, in which sealed a bought and paid-for, completely (nearly so) redeemed Relic purchased from that reputable and exclusive class of purveyors of reputed parts. But Lord! How can a City without Money be built? {2}
I am ready! Being to start with, the Charter Member of the English Church of the Wilderness, and being called to name it: Golgonooza—which I plumb with MY ROD on whatever piece of Terra Firma I put down beneath my foot—and which prior to Calvary was Already the Place of the Skull—and which for want of Crypto-Christians gone begging—this Golgonooza is paid for dearly with everything a Man has! Yes. He must sell himself out to enter there; and Work. And with the strangeness that all beauty inspires, there is no mistaking how like Woman Golgonooza is also a city. The City and the Woman is the wrapping of man’s Destiny. But Golgonooza is not God’s doing. It is the Little Man, the Child’s Impossibility, in the Sleep of Albion that pulls off this miracle, forever Building, forever Decaying.
There are references in Psalms having to do with ‘breaking and dashing to pieces’ with the Rod of Iron. And, too, the most beautiful of ironies is there: “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no Evil: for thou art with me; thy Rod and thy Staff they comfort me.” And at last in Psalms comes this spine-stiffening expectations “The Lord shall send the Rod of thy Strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.” I hasten in my proviso-making Urgency to report that “Zion Hill’s most Ancient Promontory” is Primrose Hill in London.
And Saint Paul is encouraged to boast that ‘thrice was he beaten with Rods’; ostensibly to buoy himself up under the super-charged Ministry of Christ he had taken upon himself to discharge.
Finally, in Revelation 12:5 we come to the Rod of Iron. Some of our best minds have applied themselves to that Nut. And who am I to render an out-of-hand, walk-away kernel of judgement shaming ears any further out of hearing? Who am I, indeed? I am ripe to the occasion. The Apocalypse is not a bundle of garbage to be slipped over lightly. It is nothing if not the neatest of contrivances to dispose of the indisposable possibilities building to the End of Time.
And John the Divine wrote: “And she brought forth a Man Child, who was to rule all Nations with a Rod of Iron; and her Child was caught up unto God, and to his throne”. Was the Man-Child born? It was; and yet it isn’t. For the Dragon stood against her to devour the Moment of Her birth. And therein, well within the Serpent Temple writhing in its wrath is situated the Throne of God. And the old Serpent is a vehicle cast into the Earth. Well, now; that pretty much covers the ground of what the Scriptures saith on the Rod.
But there are Legends, persistently Apocryphal traditions that keep up the Miracle of the Rod’s ubiquity. And more than one would care to shake a stick at. Two such I have narrowed myself down to: Joseph of Arimathea’s and Saint Etheldreda’s Fugitive Sticks.
The story of Joseph of Arimathea and Glastonbury is too rife with dead-ended ramifications for me to repeat. A quote from the Church of England Newspaper appearing on the dust wrapper of a book entitled St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury by the Rev. Lionel Smithett Lewis M.A. (late Vicar of Glastonbury) pretty much sums up my desire to stress the Infinite dubiety surrounding the Uncle of Jesus, without my having to venture the reckless opinion that smoke of long-standing blows no ill wind whilst Fire’s in the Making. The generous quote goes thusly: “One of the most widespread of the ancient stories settled upon England is that circling around the figure of St. Joseph of Arimathea. And tradition claims that Glastonbury, where he set foot, is the Cradle of Christianity in England, and it was here that an Infant church was planted by those who personally know Our Lord”. The key to this outspoken endorsement is the word ‘planted’. St. Joseph ‘planted’ his staff of thorn wood. And it sprouted; And grew; And blossomed. And always, they say, at Christmas, or thereabouts, it blossoms, unseasonably—‘It’ from a piece of the True wood brought along to perpetuate the Generative Miracle out of dead wood. {3} That is St. Joseph’s Rod. It sprouted; and continues to do so, true to type — never flourishing Apple blossoms, for example.
Now the Sprig of Ely volunteering from the Rod of Etheldreda whilst she rested in her flight to Ely didn’t lose her any time. She arrived on schedule and founded her Abbey Church and presided as Abbess over a joint Conventual of Monastically Ordered Men and Women. And her royal husband in pursuit of his virgin consort gave up the ghost. She was the beginning of Ely Cathedral on the Isle of Ely.
Names are funny in the ways they are warped as surely as scriptural fulfilment declares them. Saint Etheldreda, whose genealogical table is tilted in descent from Odin, saw her very name struck at and altered in favour of ‘Audrey’, Saint Audrey; and for the sake of the Hearer who was not a member of the Church. And even easier was the corruption of the tongue fossilizing forever the word ‘Tawdry’. The fair in her honour, to the glamour of her name, drew crowds annually to the Banks of the Cam. But as with all such convenings, tradesmen gained the sleazy upper hand, and the popular event degenerated into a ‘Tawdry’ affair,
‘Cope’ is an interesting Middle English word. It’s like ‘on the cheap, to barter or trade-off’; like ’ a mantle, semi-circular in cut; a vestment for the shoulders of office’; like ‘stitching a ferret’s jaws together’; like ‘todays hypocritical struggle’; or like a popular tranquillizer. St. Etheldreda stitched with English Art, on her own Cope, the only version true from the maiden hand in the Wilderness, of the Sprig of Ely I adopt.
There are many tawdry miracles attributed to St. Etheldreda’s remains and working presence. And the breviary of her mortal life, in its arresting moments of significance, has been reverently, as a matter of record, pictorialized. And of course, in her sleep, the budding of her Rod, occupies a specifically charged station of her way. But there has always been some doubt as to what Species, in particular, her Stuck-in-the-ground Rod aspired to. The Rod, itself, was never cherished up. Nor did it ever spur forth again—in tradition. All we have to go on is the sweet embroidery from her own hand.
And what does the Sprig of Ely resemble? Nothing so much as a bat crossed with a radical subterfuge of twin not-too-nearly-opposed coils in a binding agreement that seeds detached to flutter after is all we have left in aspiration sprung from ungrounded Prophecy! And Here—for your aesthetic delectation—is the Stitchery of Time that I take my stand on! Could you go into battle beneath this banner?
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” Jesus cried aloud. I do believe the inflection is corrupted. I so believe the Man, the Son of Man, has been bought off with a doubt. Thank God! that doubts prevail but To The End! Take your Elysian fields, your Isle of EELS, your maundered Elohim, your Elevated seekers leaving for the walls of Westward-Out. I stand odd-man-out in Nod East where England most prevails. Cambridgeshire is Los’s Eternal Station. Ely is the Scribe, whose pen no man dare touch. And the Sprig of Ely, in threads handed down, is the Remnant of the Mantle left to me.