The Patternist: 2009

Wasn't Wonderland colorful?

This chapter is about black and white. sort of.

"I just thought it was dumb how he tortured himself thru out the whole movie. They kept showing flashes of what happened to him and I thought he did something horrible, what he did was bad but not enuff to throw his life away and commit suicide. I assume he was looking for redemption most people embrace religion for that, he did all those good deeds... and then killed himself, so the girl gets a heart... the storyline was just dumb, it was borderline boring but interesting enuff to keep me watching, hate movies like that, I wanna change the channel but I can't, lol"

-From Facebook, Review of Seven Pounds

dark side of the face

"A large part of the 'point' of all this is to tap into the intuition/impulse of the reader to sense the depth of context behind a pattern; to get a reader/listener to begin asking themselves 'what's the point' of the coincidences he/she is already aware of."

-From Goodbye Kiss For Camera

Among 9 siblings, Micheal Jackson was the 7th-born

???

From the very beginning, the patterns of the sacred feminine seemed just beyond my reach. As clear and obvious as the evidence became by the time I reached Wonderland, so much of the logic was left just on the tip of my tongue. The symbolism of the single eye exemplified this. Something so simple, so basic, so everywhere, and it still escapes me. With the patterns of the Lion and Lamb, however, the moment it hit me, it hit me...

After an awkward opening post entitled look again, I began my pattern-searching with Black Star Messiah, in which an Obama case study opened my eyes to the battle between the country's most prominent black celebrity and the country's foremost feminist figure, Hillary Clinton, in the 2008 Democratic Primaries. The made-for-CNN delegate battle reduced Obama and Clinton to allegorical caricatures of themselves; Obama played the dark knight, the roaring lion, the robin hood man-of-the-masses, while Clinton fought to portray the Queen Bee (last mentioned here), and inevitably, the sacrificial lamb.

The Daily Show - He Completes Us

Also from Goodbye Kiss For Camera

The extreme level of "fakeness" in the 2008 elections uncovered the realness of its patterns. For the first time, the simplification of the pattern- through these overplayed characterizations- helped me to predict the real-life events. If Obama was the lion and Hillary was the lamb, she would inevitably sacrifice herself "for the good of the party", which she did, in grand fashion, at the 2008 Democratic Convention (simple, right?). Immediately after, I could see the theme repeated everywhere, especially in the modern myth of film storytelling. Soon, the gates were opened, and the patterns started yelling.

"The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat."

-Isaiah 65:25

The Lion, The King, & The Lie

As usual, this concept is nothing new. The archetypes of the lion and lamb are probably as old as any ancient story. In modern western culture, the duality is interpreted through the lens of the Christian Jesus. In the New Testament, the Bible refers to it's messiah twice as a symbolic animal. First, as a lamb, in John:

"and he [John] looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, 'Behold, the Lamb of God!'"

-John 1:36

and in Revelation, as a lion:

"…one of the elders said to me, 'Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.'"

-Revelation 21:27

The image of Jesus as a lamb is pretty common. Jesus' story is mainly remembered for the ultimate sacrifice. If you take films like The Passion of the Christ at face value, that's pretty much all his story is about. Less discussed is Jesus as the Lion.

-Facebook Upload from Jon Kidd
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=4553332&id=560965803

...the one-eyed man is king

Aslan from http://www.narniafans.com/archives/tag/digory-kirke

"The Emperor-Over-the-Sea is a mysterious and powerful authority over Narnia. He is the father of Aslan. The laws of Deep Magic and Deeper Magic are said to come from him."

-wiki

Emperor Constantine - Imperialism, Constant

As mentioned a few posts back in Sacred Sex, the Roman Empire replaced the warrior image of the pre-Roman Christ with a self-sacrificing pacifist to neutralize the revolution of the Hebrews. Given the logic of such a politically expedient cover-up, if we accept that Jesus actually existed, we can assume that he was more of a radical, anti-establishment, revolutionary type. That would explain why the Roman government gave a damn about his small, growing movement, and why so much malicious torture would have occurred at his execution. That's what governments do to the leaders of revolts. It would also be in line with his rebel-outcast ancestor King David, who championed the oppressed Israelites from exile in the wilderness before being made king, and was the father of the wizard-king Solomon.

King Solomon lookin brownish

the Seal of Solomon

David being anointed by the prophet Samuel

Of all the chosen/freed/expelled tribes of Egyptian Hebrews, the Tribe of Judah was the only tribe that chose David as king, the man who would later become king of the united tribes. The Lion of Judah, made popular in the west by Bob Marley and the Rastafarian Movement, is the symbol of the messiah of the ancient Israelite Tribe of Judah.

The symbolism points clearly to a warrior savior, but there must have been a historical disconnect somewhere; Judaism -despite originating directly from the Tribe of Judah- adopted the Star of David instead of the lion. Modern Jews are still waiting for their lion-king, but I think there's a good chance he's come and gone -unnoticed and un-anointed- many times over. Especially if he was black.

"...behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David..."

The Lion of Judah is personified and worshiped by most Rastafarians and some Coptic Ethiopians in the form of an afrikan messiah named Haile Selassie I. Selassie was believed to be a direct descendant of King Solomon and Makeda, the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba, and upon coronation as the continent's sole Afrikan monarch in an era of ruthless European imperialism, he was given some of the same titles as Jesus. Ethiopia is believed in Rastafarian culture to be Zion, the biblical paradise and the global motherland (which it technically is, according to the humanoid fossils found there), so Rastas interpreted Bible verses such as Psalms 2:6 ("yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion") as predictions that Selassie was the Second Coming of Jesus the Christ, here to be the lion-champion of the oppressed Afrikans as Jesus was for the Hebrews under Rome. His anointing was justified by more than bloodline and Bible verse however; he reportedly also exhibited stigmata, the wounds of Jesus manifested by the divine.

Haile Selassie's birthday is July 23, 1892.
My birthday is July 23, 1982. Just sayin.

This is where Jesus' place in the pattern gets tricky. As I said before, this is about black and white. Well, black mostly.

For the record -in case anyone is still in the dark on this one- in a historical sense, Jesus would have been a man of color. Does it matter? Yes. It is socially significant that Jesus is being portrayed as black, instead of white, as per usual. It is cosmically significant that the archetypal Savior is being portrayed as dark, instead of light, as per usual. The convergence of these two concepts in our time through politics, film and music is no coincidence. In keeping with simplified caricatures of these concepts, the dark savior, the dark knight, is literally represented by the "black man", i.e. Obama.

"...In the closing scene [Batman] declares, 'You’ll hunt me. You’ll condemn me, set the dogs on me, because it’s what needs to happen…' Once again, my Christian eyes and ears could not help but return to Christ, who was blamed for the sins of Israel and killed as a criminal. Nor could I help but recall how the Psalmist [David] prophesied that sacrificial death: 'Dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet…' (Psalm 22:16)"

http://www.saintaidan.ca/2009/08/dark-christ.html

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight starred a trinity of dark saviors, but most obvious was Christian Bale's portrayal of Batman, who literally sacrificed himself for the sins of the city. Near the film's end, Bale is given the all-seeing eye in the form of a city-wide network of cameras by Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, who got to play both God and a savior-president in previous roles. In addition to being the savior of the future in Terminator:Salvation, Bale also actually played Jesus in the 1999 TV movie Mary, Mother of Jesus.

"The heart and soul of Wayne Enterprises [WE] lies below, in the basement, where Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) works."

http://www2.beyondstructure.com/article_batman.php

Besides being metaphorically dark, Batman is literally made dark by his black costume, a simple narrative technique seen more overtly in Star Wars' Darth Vader. Men In Black...

"...So, how is Darth Vader like Jesus? He dies to save Luke from the Emperor and from the Dark Side, just like Jesus died to save us from all of our sins."

http://aramink.wordpress.com/2007/09/25/how-star-wars-is-like-jesus/

Darth Vader and Batman provide two solid examples of the allegorical black Jesus: a savior from The Dark Side of the Force who finds his own salvation through self-sacrifice. These characters also reinforce the strong sense of duality in this pattern; Batman through his alter-ego and Vader through his drastic transition from angel to demon. Following the breadcrumb trail of these characteristics I soon stumbled upon an ideal dark knight- dark Christ figure in Fight Club's Tyler Durden, thanks to some great out-of-the-box analysis by Ryan Stander over at Axis of Access [good stuff].

"Tyler may be thought of a sort of Christ-figure insofar as he gives sight to the blind (awakens slumbering culture to the effects of consumerism) and then heals them by giving them a new identity, and brings good news to the poor (both literally poor and of spirit), and frees them from the burden... and yet, we must consider not only what Tyler is liberating them from, but to what/where are they going?... Radical individuals fail to see that they cast off one set of traditions for another set. Thus Tyler leads them from the oppressions of one tradition (namely consumption) to another (namely violence and anarchism). If this is correct... Tyler can simultaneously be thought of as an anti-Christ leading his followers into another form of oppression."

http://axisofaccess.blogspot.com/2008/03/tyler-durden-dark-christ-figure.html

As Ryan points out, the film paints Tyler as the revolutionary warrior messiah and the oppressive dictator with the same brush, reflecting the character arcs of Batman, Darth Vader and Obama. Remember, like Jesus, Darth Vader -as Anakin Skywalker- was the prophesied messiah of the Star Wars universe, and -get this- the product of a virgin birth. Tyler Durden, Batman and Obama also seem to be missing their fathers...

Simba Dreams of his Reflection

...their earthly fathers, anyways... again, I digress...

The duality of lions and lambs represents a basic, legendary interplay between spiritual darkness and light. Upon further study, I saw this dynamic in characters of many different races, and sexes, but for the purposes of the pattern -and the sake of simplicity- the duality was initially made clear to me through the race and gender dynamics of the black man and the white woman.

black and/versus/playing with white

The 2008 political circus reached its climax in March, when Obama defended his friendship with Jeremiah Wright with A More Perfect Union, a commentary on racerelations between the "black" -Afrikan American- and "white" -European American- people in America. With this speech, two things stood out to me: 1) Obama subtly revealed the racism of the attacks on him throughout the primaries, and even defended and justified that racism, all while predicting the Coming Together of the two candidates, and 2) He reaffirmed his oratorical superpowers. The negotiator, the pacifist, the Voice of Reason.

http://g8ors.blogspot.com/2009/06/starring-blackstar-jesus-as-voice-of.html

Yeah, comin' back to that later...

However you feel about the 'politics' of the players involved, the whole show was really about black versus white. Not versus... versus implies one against another... in this dynamic, the two only appear to be at odds. Upon closer inspection, they're moving around one another, in sync, in the same direction...

After writing Black Star Messiah, Obama's celebrity campaign brought further relevance to two other lines of research:

I) the patterns of the cosmic Black Star, researched by Jake Kotze at The Blob and Richard Arrowsmith's Black Dog Star, concerning the black hole as our Galactic Center and the "Dog Star" Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, as well as

II) the pattern my friends and I discovered in Denzel Washington movies where Denzel plays the savior of a white female.

The Pelican Brief stars Sacred Sex's robot, Julia Roberts, and portrays Denzel as her Lion, her savior, her dark knight... Man on Fire stars Wonderland II's little girl lost [as in, kidnapped], Dakota Fanning, and again Denzel plays... well... Denzel. I'm sure you can think of an example or two of films that fit. He's got plenty.