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Giving the Fig
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Giving the fig (French faire la figue, Spanish dar la higa)
was an indecent gesture of ancient provenance,
made by putting the thumb between two fingers or into the mouth,
with the intended effect of the modern gesture of “flipping the bird”
(see bird (n.3)).
- www.etymonline.com/?search=fig
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The pirates aboard the ketch gunboat waited nervously as they watched The Brew D’Agon bear down upon their small ship. The gunboat’s covetous captain did his best to mask his feelings behind a fake smile as the shadow of the larger, more powerful vessel engulfed them.
Louis rested his back against the wooden arm of the ketch’s capstan, and smiled as he had been ordered, but his smile was as fake as his captain’s. Louis’ life as a rum smuggler had been full of fun and excitment… outwitting government tax collectors and sailing the tropical sea. Now, with this new crew and captain, life was different. He didn’t mind stealing from the rich, but Louis had limits to how far he was willing to bend the basic morality he had learned as a child. It was one thing to cheat a government out of unjust taxes. It was quite another to be forced to watch while men, women, and children are raped in ways he had never before imagined possible. Louis had often been accused of being a dreamer, and it was true enough, but this was no longer the life he dreamed of having.
Louis had decided to escape, and was waiting only on an opportunity. In hopes of lulling his overseers into becoming complacent, he'd remade himself into the very model of a competent and compliant crewman. Before this ominous ship had appeared, there had been no chance to make good his escape. As the strange man-o-war maneuvered alongside the smaller ketch, Louis realized his salvation might finally be at hand. Maybe it was, in a sense, but what he expected is not what happened next.
Have you ever experienced déjà vu? Modern scientific studies have indicated that these sensations may be the result of nothing more than random misfirings of neurons. As true as this may be, from time to time, the sensation of déjà vu does result from other causes (e.g. reemerging memories of precognitive dreams, and/or the merging of time-lanes at intersections of multiverses). This is what happened to Louis… a nightmare returned in the midst of a deep daydream. Two moments occupied one place in space-time, for an intense instant within his internal eternal-mind.
The multiple masts and spars of the ominous vessel merged into a single, monstrous tree. The ropes and rigging became vines and snakes entwined, like his present moment intertwined with the memory of his dream and/or an entangled alternate reality. The tree’s leaves were silvery, shimmering, and indistinctive; merging together into a billowing white empty space – ethereal sails woven of light. Louis had once had the opportunity to view a painting imported from the Far East; the background had been left almost entirely unpainted: a great negative space where smoky mists, reflections on water, and blossoms of trees were produced by suggestion as much as by brush strokes. Like elusive metaphorical allusions – hints hidden in plain sight – such were the leaves of this tree.
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and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
- Revelations 22:2
King James Bible
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The invisible wind slipped between the leaves – memories of momentary togetherness kissing hello/farewell with rushed whispers.
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whisper (v.)
Old English hwisprian “speak very softly, murmur”
(only in a Northumbrian gloss for Latin murmurare), from Proto-Germanic *hwis-
(cognates: Middle Dutch wispelen, Old High German hwispalon,
German wispeln, wispern, Old Norse hviskra “to whisper”),
from PIE *kwei- “to hiss
- www.etymonline.com/?search=whisper
Should you be so lucky to hear
whisperin’
It is an invitation for you
- Clutch
Drink to the Dead
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches;
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
- Revelations 2:7
King James Bible
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The longing of separation created rifts in the veil of white, rips in the fabric of light, through which he stole glimpses of primordial wooden gnarls twisting and branching from the tree’s massive pseudo-trunk. The gauzy curtain of heart-shaped spirit-leaves just barely hid this ancient living mystery, breathtaking in its majesty. Beneath the hem of the leafy garment, all is revealed, nothing is hidden… the tree’s trunk, arms, and legs exposed in a purposely provocative metaphysical metaphor.
The titanic tree rose above the ship which bore it, supported on arched aerial roots forming living Gothic flying-buttresses. Root-vines descended from ancient branches in rows of thick cables that partitioned the tree’s interior into a twisting labyrinth. Louis intuitively knew many souls before him had lost themselves for all eternity inside this super-natural maze. Snakes coiled amongst the roots and branches. The boundaries between beings becomes blurry in the deepest shadows. A proven root suddenly slithers sideways. A supposed tail turns wooden and stiff.
A sole black bird roosted in the crown of the giant tree rooted to the ship’s deck. The bird itself was nothing to look at, literally nothing. Some would call the avian spirit a “shadow being”, but, this would be a somewhat inaccurate metaphor. The blackness herein was not caused by something; it was the cause. Its caws echoed from nowhere. The Nothing-being watched with no eyes a human could see.
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The tree provided a shaded place
for a village meeting
or for merchants to sell their goods.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan
We are building a religion
A limited edition
We are now
- Cake
Comfort Eagle
having the bake sale of the year
- Clutch
10001110101
As long as there’s some money
Who wants that honey?
- Smashing Pumpkins
Cherub Rock
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Barely audible voices called to him from within the spirit tree, teasing him in their secret language with tantalizing hints of deeper knowledge.
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6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,
and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7. And the eyes of them both were opened,
and they knew that they were naked;
and they sewed fig leaves together
- Genesis 3:6&7
King James Bible
Diodorus Siculus gives an euhemerist interpretation
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladon_(mythology)
a rationalizing method of interpretation,
which treats mythological accounts as a reflection of historical events,
or mythological characters as historical personages
but which were shaped, exaggerated or altered
by retelling or traditional mores.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerism
Euhemerus is credited as having developed
the theory in application to all myths,
considering mythology to be “history in disguise”.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerism
The expression fig leaf has a pejorative metaphysical sense
meaning a flimsy or minimal cover for any thing or behavior
that might be considered shameful,
with the implication that the cover is only a token gesture
and the truth is obvious to all
who choose to see it.
A metaphorical fig leaf is something visible but innocuous,
as against a coverup in which
the existence of something may be entirely hidden.
In the context of negotiation,
an offer might be characterized as a “fig leaf”
if that offer is actually a ploy
to conceal a sinister plan.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_leaf
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