William Blake British
ca. 1803–5
This work comes from a series of eighty biblical watercolors that Blake made for Thomas Butts, an important patron. It depicts John, the author of the Book of Revelation, and his vision from the first line of chapter 10. The diminutive author, pen in hand, on the island of Patmos and gazes at a “mighty angel . . . clothed with a cloud . . . a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.” The artist based the angel’s water-spanning stance on prints of the ancient Colossus of Rhodes and envisioned the seven thunders described in the text as horsemen riding through clouds.
10 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbowabove his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars. 2 He was holding a little scroll,which lay open in his hand. He planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, 3 and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion. When he shouted, the voices of the seven thunders spoke. 4 And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.”
5 Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven. 6 And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, “There will be no more delay! 7 But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.”
8 Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more: “Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”
9 So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’[a]” 10 I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. 11 Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.”
Adversary is talking about the “blessings and curses” section of Deuteronomy.
They F’d up … God sees it all, the illusion failed.
They have to settle the account … even after returning whatever energy they are dressing up in (they have no glow-up of their own, its stolen ‘merchandise’, life-force vitality) and losing their bank accounts and other assets, there is an extreme deficit. They never thought they would get caught.
Blessings and curses
If the Israelites are faithful to God, they will receive blessings of the land, fertility, and prosperity. If they disobey, they will face curses and punishment.
http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/deuteronomy_28_49.htm
http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/destruction.htm
15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.
18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
20 The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.[a] 21 The Lordwill plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought,with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.
25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birdsand the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescueyou.
30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34 The sights you see will drive you mad. 35 The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
36 The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors.There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a thing of horror, a bywordand an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.
38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. 42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.
43 The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. 44 They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail.
45 All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed,because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. 47 Because you did not servethe Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
49 The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagleswooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. 51 They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or olive oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined.52 They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.
53 Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lordyour God has given you. 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. 56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.
58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not reverethis glorious and awesome name—the Lord your God— 59 the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. 60 He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the skywill be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. 63 Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
64 Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations,from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lordwill give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.68 The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.
Imagine you just recently had your 4th birthday & there’s a knock at the door. Who is it? A soldier who demands that you attend a residential school far from home. If your parents resisted, they were beaten & arrested.
After the residential school system was develop, it was mandatory for children as young as 4 to attend until they were 18 years old. Native children were prohibited from practicing their own culture or religion. School staff even went as far as bathing these kids in toxic chemicals to make them look more like Europeans.
Their long hair was cut & the breasts of young girls were binded to make them feel ashamed of their maturing bodies. You could only speak English or you would be harshly punished. Their tongues were repeatedly pierced with needles if they spoke anything other than English.
Other punishments included electrical shock, being put in cages, burning of hands, public strip searches in front of other children, & force feeding of one’s own vomit when they’re sick.
If any letters were written home, it was in English so parents did not even know how to read it. Both boys & girls were sexually abused & girls who got pregnant were forced to have an abortion & even pray for the forgiveness of their abusers.
Student deaths were so common that graveyards were usually part of the school’s architectural plans.
Upon returning home, these children were so lost that they were unable to communicate with their own families. That is why us Native Americans get so defensive when someone says, “Let it go, it happened in the past.”
This traumatic time in history should not be ignored. 🦅
🙏 In Memory of the 215 deceased children found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. May they find Peace.
https://www.humanrightspulse.com/mastercontentblog/cultural-assimilation-of-native-americans
Did you know it has a twin, 200 miles away, also named after St. Michael?
That’s where things get really strange…
This is the “twin”: St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, England.
It’s also a tidal island with a chapel, remarkably similar to its French counterpart, and only accessible at low tide.
Here’s a map of the two. You can draw a line between them just over 200 miles long as the crow flies.
But what happens if you keep extending that line?
You get this: a straight line all the way from Ireland to Israel. Along it are 7 medieval monasteries linked to the Archangel Michael.
What are they, and is this just a strange coincidence?
St. Michael is one of the biblical archangels. He’s best known for defeating Satan in the New Testament, and is usually depicted with a sword or spear during this heroic moment.
Each point on the line has a curious link to him…
The westernmost point is an island called Skellig Michael. Medieval monks started worshipping here in the 7th century, and built a church honoring Michael around 950 AD.
Next is St. Michael’s Mount. A monastery was built here in the 8th century, and it was later gifted to the same Benedictine order of Mont Saint-Michel.
But local legend says the link is far older, and Michael was sighted here by fishermen in 495 AD.
Then, Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy. People call it the 8th Wonder of the World for obvious reasons — it can be hard to believe it’s a real place.
This one has the most curious origin story of all…
In 708 AD, an oratory was built here by a local bishop. He had been visited by Michael in a series of visions and instructed to build a shrine on the island…
Why? Because this was the exact point at which Saint Michael defeated Satan (in the form of a dragon).
This is stated in a 9th century Latin text recording the origins of Mont-Saint-Michel.
Next is Sacra di San Michele, at the peak of Mount Pirchiriano (near Turin).
It’s also on an impressive pinnacle, and its origin story is a vision of St. Michael. In 980 AD, he appeared to a hermit and instructed him to build an abbey here.
Next is even older. The Sanctuary of Monte Sant’Angelo is the oldest shrine dedicated to St. Michael in Europe.
8th century writings say he appeared in 490 AD, and again in 663 — when his spectacular apparition helped the Lombards defeat invaders in battle.
Then, a small Greek island called Symi. Most of its religious buildings are dedicated to Michael, including this one in Panormitis. It dates all the way to 450 AD, and was built around a miraculous icon of Michael…
Last is the Stella Maris Monastery in Israel, on Mount Carmel — close to Nazareth.
It’s also a vantage point, but not dedicated to St. Michael. It’s where the prophet Elijah lived, built over a small grotto of his…
Similar imagery to Michael is associated with Elijah, wielder of a sword.
And the monastery is dedicated to the Virgin Mary — Queen of Angels. Perhaps it’s fitting that the line ends here, at the entrance to the Holy Land…
So, what is this all about? Some say the line represents the stroke of St. Michael’s sword that sent Lucifer to Hell.
But how accurate is the line exactly?
order to capture all of 7 points in an arc connecting the end points, the line has to be about 20km wide.
Sacra di San Michele falls exactly in line with the two extremes.
This is what’s known as a “ley line”. Of course, you can draw them between all sorts of places and eventually find one. There’s even another relating to St. Michael across England:
They’re usually put down to sheer coincidence. But what about this one?
Well, there are many more accounts from the Middle Ages of him appearing miraculously across Europe, and plenty of other sites bearing his name.
But these are the most beautiful and significant of all, arranged curiously in one great swing of a sword.
Were they named intentionally by medieval Christians to form a line? Or did they simply fall into place…
Looking at Mont-Saint-Michel, it’s certainly hard not to conclude it was divinely created…
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Pilgrims have come from afar for 1,000 years.
To cross to it from the shoreline is known as taking the “paths to paradise” — and it’s easy to see why…
I’m not religious, and quite naive, however, this is interesting. Does anyone know more?
I was raised in the forest, many miles from society. School was social hour. My friends were dogs. I did not watch tv. I was separated from all the hype of life in the cities.
I’m interested in the truth. That means listening to all data before generating a perception.
I’m against good men dying in dictators’ wars for dominance.
Folks will get real upset with you when you don’t pick a side. They feel if you are “warm” you’re no good. They don’t care for peace, only conformity.
The links below are from X (twitter). Unfortunately, X no longer allows embedding of the files into other platforms, so I’ve shared the links.
It’s video of men explaining how they feel about the Jewish people. Again, I don’t pick sides. I’m only trying to understand. I share, in the event you would like to have exposure to info explaining the heated relations between people.
https://x.com/gadsaad/status/1711104799536537676?s=46&t=zsZI5mlc1igVGWFu2MUwig
https://x.com/gadsaad/status/1711106354092327231?s=46&t=zsZI5mlc1igVGWFu2MUwig
https://x.com/gadsaad/status/1711108725929353311?s=46&t=zsZI5mlc1igVGWFu2MUwig
https://x.com/gadsaad/status/1711109937747710200?s=46&t=zsZI5mlc1igVGWFu2MUwig
opensenseme 