The Mind of the Raven is a photograph I made using some of the symbols gathered from alchemical texts. The raven is often symbolic of the nigredo stage in alchemy. The nigredo, or black stage, is the beginning when the old and vulgar material in which the Prima Materia lies hidden must die and rot away to make way for the next stages. The two fish in the head of the raven have a few meanings. First it is symbolic of the view that all this magick and myth come from the machinations of the mind. Consciousness is vast and teeming with all imaginable things. The fish are swimming in a circle or a spiral, a symbol of infinity. In Jungian analysis water and the ocean are symbolic of the unconscious mind and its unknowable depths.

The Book of Lambspring, another alchemical text, has a passage mentioning fish.

The Sea is the Body, the two Fishes are Soul and Spirit.

The Sages will tell you
That two fishes are in our sea
Without any flesh or bones.
Let them be cooked in their own water;
Then they also will become a vast sea,
The vastness of which no man can describe.
Moreover, the Sages say
That the two fishes are only one, not two;
They are two, and nevertheless they are one,
Body, Spirit, and Soul.
Now, I tell you most truly,
Cook these three together,
That there may be a very large sea.
Cook the sulphur well with the sulphur,
And hold your tongue about it:
Conceal your knowledge to your own advantage,
And you shall be free from poverty.
Only let your discovery remain a close secret.

The copy I’ve seen on the Alchemy Website has an illustration associated with it of two fish swimming in opposite directions in a river or inlet. The two fish are the soul and the spirit, that is consciousness, the connection to the divine, and the spark of animating life.
The raven as the beginning of the alchemical process of transformation already has in it the infinitude of the universe.

Asenath

Originally uploaded by unconsciouseye

Asenath was a figure from an apocryphal biblical story, Joseph and Asenath. The story goes that Pharaoh gave Asenath to Joseph to be his wife but Joseph refused her saying that he could not marry a pagan. Asenath, in order to make herself worthy, secluded herself and prayed to God to purify her. In response to her prayers an angel appeared before her and touched Asenath’s lips with a honeycomb. Bees immediately issued from the honeycomb, swirling around Asenath, stinging her lips. The honeycomb and the beestings removed the prayers to pagan gods from her lips. She was thereby purified and worthy to be wed to Joseph. Afterward they ruled Egypt together.I love this story. It has the flavor of one that is adapted from much older stories or traditions. Honey has been a powerful symbol since ancient times. It has been used as a food, a balm, and a preservative. All these thing are nourishing and empowering just in the way a blessing from God would be. For my photo here I’ve used a figure that is reminiscent of a saint in ecstasy, head thrown back, eyes closed, filled with the blessings of God. I’ve cut very small hexagons from the area of her mouth which both symbolize the honeycomb with which she is purified and act, visually, as a gag silencing her. From the edge of the honeycomb is a drip of honey running down her chin. This also has more than one connotation. First honey is the ‘food of the gods’ and represents gifts of the divine as well as nourishment on a fundamental level. It also has a vague sexual connotation as many examples of fluids dripping from the mouth can be found in the world of pornography. At her throat is a silhouette of a bee cut out and surrounded by a roughened, scratched area. This reinforces the bee as an active force in the story as well as becomes a sort of heraldic emblem for Asenath. Because it is at her throat it also references her voice and prayers to either the pagan or the Judean Gods. It also represents the act of swallowing whereby she is taking in and ingesting the honey, the spirit of the bee, and the blessings of God.

Actaeon

Originally uploaded by unconsciouseye

In Greek myth Actaeon was a hunter who happened upon a stream in which the goddess Athena was bathing. In retaliation for spying her while she was vulnerable she transforms Actaeon into a deer and he is subsequently pursued and killed by his own hunting dogs. Alchemists took Actaeon as a symbol of one who has seen through the veil of nature to gnostic truth. In alchemical prints and emblems he is depicted as a figure with antlers or a deer head. For the Riddle of the Echo project he is a symbol of transformation eternally in that magical place between animal and human, intellect and instinct, conscious and unconscious. The figure is from a book of 19th century paintings, the age of neoclassicism. His rack of antlers is large denoting maturity and power. His mouth is covered with the word ‘watching’ indicating his silence, his unending gaze, and the act which gives him his power. Beside him lies a dead fly symbolic of the casting off of the physical and transcending toward higher, spiritual realms.