ו' באייר תשס"ח
Mab 7
In a vision this morning right before waking, in the place between moments I beheld, as if the gaze of my "looking" was carving into a reality made of pure light. No light was removed from the original matrix of light, as the line of light I was seeing "carved" was formed.
Instead, mountains made of light were pushed up and valleys also made of light were sunk low, by the act of carving and forming through beholding. The line formed by gazing was "connected" to a line I had carved into my magic staff before going to sleep last night! For a moment, I perceived with clarity the perfection with which the two were one - the carvings on my witch's staff and the astral double of those carvings imprinted into a matrix of pure light.
It was an electrifying sight to behold.
Update
Perusing the blogosphere, I find this tidbit at Balashon:
Degel דגל is an interesting word. Ask any Israeli - or any Hebrew speaker for that matter - and they will tell you that it means "flag". That certainly is the uncontested meaning in Modern Hebrew. But I imagine that only a precious few will know the meaning the word had in Biblical Hebrew (do you?).
In the Tanach, the word degel primarily appears in the beginning of the book Bamidbar, in the section describing the arrangement of the camp. Verse 1:52 says:
וְחָנוּ, בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, אִישׁ עַל-מַחֲנֵהוּ וְאִישׁ עַל-דִּגְלוֹ, לְצִבְאֹתָם
The JPS translation is: "The Israelites shall encamp troop by troop, each man with his division and each under his standard". The translation of degel here is "standard", which originally meant a "flag or other conspicuous object to serve as a rallying point for a military force".
Similarly, verse 2:2 -
אִישׁ עַל-דִּגְלוֹ בְאֹתֹת לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם, יַחֲנוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל: מִנֶּגֶד, סָבִיב לְאֹהֶל-מוֹעֵד יַחֲנוּ.
is translated, "The Israelites shall camp each with his standard, under the banners of their ancestral house; they shall camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance"
However Milgrom, in his (JPS) commentary on Bamidbar, disagrees with the translation of degel as "standard". On 2:2 he writes:
Hebrew degel possibly originally meant a military banner. This is supported by the Akkadian dagalu, "to look", and diglu, "sight". The meaning "banner" was later extended by association to include the army division, just as shevet and matteh, the two terms for "tribe", were probably derived from the "rod" that served as the official tribal insignia (cf. 1:45; 14:17-18).
Interestingly, both shevet and matteh not only can mean mean tribe, they can also both mean staff (like a magic staff or walking stick). Consequently, by way of connection to shevet and matteh, Hebrew degel or Akkadian dagalu, may refer to a staff of gazing - as in my vision this morning.
Dave of Balashon also notes:
There are those who claim that the Akkadian word dagalu can be traced even further than its Semitic roots, and is related to the Indo-European root *deik, meaning "to show", and is the source of many English words including "teach" and "diction".
Indeed, I was "shown" in a vision of gazing, thereby taught the direct theurgic effect of my carving from the world of action on the creative matrix of light.
My witch staff is a real and awesome magical tool.
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