Friday, December 17, 2010

Sexual Garments

It doesn't mean what you might think it means.
We've made it into a purient term, but it was not so in the beginning.

Look at Adam and Eve in the Garden, before the Fall. They were naked and thought nothing of it. After the unfortunate incident of the apple they got dressed - in fig leaves!

There were western Canadian unorthodox Christians who practiced nudity, especially in political demonstrations.

Sexual garments is a mythopoeic term; for Blake clothes were an encumbrance. We dress to project a persona (and to hide our real selves).

The innocent babe and the man standing before God are naked.

In the dawning day, sitting quietly, waiting for God; one takes off the usual preoccupations; the mind is empty; there is no thing (Heaven is a place where no thing ever happens; things are mortal entities.)

If there is activity, it's Eternal; it's like Adam before the Fall; we're innocent! because Christ made us so.

After twenty (uncreative according to Blake) years Jesus came and Creation Continues.

A visitor found William and Catherine in their garden, unclothed; they had divested themselves from the sexual garments; it was a study for a picture Blake was producing.

Infant Sorrow
"
My mother groaned, my father wept,
Into the dangerous world I leapt;
Helpless, naked, piping loud,
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Struggling in my father's hands,
Striving against my swaddling bands,
Bound and weary, I thought best
To sulk upon my mother's breast."
(Songs of Experience)


America Plate 12:1-6:
"
So cried he, rending off his robe & throwing down his scepter.
In sight of Albions Guardian, and all the thirteen Angels
Rent off their robes to the hungry wind, & threw their golden scepters
Down on the land of America. indignant they descended
Headlong from out their heav'nly heights, descending swift as fires
Over the land; naked & flaming are their lineaments seen
In the deep gloom" (Erdman page 55)
Jerusalem, Plate 61, (E 212)
Mary leaned her side against Jerusalem, Jerusalem recieved

The Infant into her hands in the Visions of Jehovah. Times passed on
Jerusalem fainted over the Cross & Sepulcher She heard the voice
Wilt thou make Rome thy Patriarch Druid & the Kings of Europe his
Horsemen? Man in the Resurrection changes his Sexual Garments at
will

Every Harlot was once a Virgin: every Criminal an Infant Love!
PLATE 62
Repose on me till the morning of the Grave. I am thy life.

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