The Symbolism of Red lips
W.B. Yeats - from Selected Poetry
Before the World was made
If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made
What if I look upon a man As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel Or that he is betrayed?
I’d have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.
In 1889 W B Yeats met Maud Gonne.
She was “an Irish beauty, ardent and brilliant”
and he fell in love with her.
Although Maud Gonne liked and admired him,
she was not in love with him,
but Yeats raised her to goddess like status and she became his ideal
Perhaps the only problem was that she was all too human
and all too accessible
But Yeats tried, and in her we see a key method
used by those well advanced on the spiritual path
- Love with visualisation
Portrait of Ann by L.S. Lowry
“Portrait of Ann” is a painting by British artist L. S. Lowry.
It is one of Lowry's most famous portraits
and its subject appears in many of Lowry’s works.
Wikipedia
Opinion remains divided as to the identity of the subject
and her significance for the artist.
‘Ann’ was never sold at auction,
but instead remained the property of the artist
until it was bequeathed to Salford Museum and Art Gallery
upon his death in 1976.
No one was ever told the true story of Ann.
Lowry told the features reporter for the Manchester Guardian
that Ann was “25 years old, lived in Leeds
and was the daughter of some people
who have been very good to me."
The architect and Manchester academician Frank Bradly,
said that Lowry had told him "she was a pupil
of his mother's who had died when she was 25.”
The artists Harold Riley and Pat Cooke
both claimed that Lowry had told them Ann was “a friend
from Lytham St Annes who died when she was in her early twenties.”
So here we see yet another use of love with visualisation,
and Lowry raised his image of a young girl to this status
Ego death
The Last stage of the spiritual path is ego death
- the annihilation of the ego.
But this requires the ego to ‘die’ voluntarily
- so how does it do this?
And more important why should it?
Up to this last stage ‘helpers’ are always there
and we are pushed, prodded and guided at every other stage
Now we are told by some 'gurus' that this last step in the path
is done 'alone' with not a helper in sight
The ego figuratively speaking must commit suicide,
but why should it?
There is, in all honesty, no reason
Impossible to voluntarily ‘die’ for ‘God
Anyone who has reached this stage spiritually,
knows that ‘God’ is not a ‘Father figure’ [see our video on God].
It is pure power, incomprehensible, unknowable
and always will be, as the Bible says
John 1 - No man hath seen God at any time;
This 'something' may evoke awe, respect,
submission and obedience - ‘thy will [will] be done’,
But, it is no use telling the ego that it must die to or for ‘God’
As it will remember only too well
what happened to Semele when she was exposed to Zeus.
It caused total annihilation, not an ego death
And no ego will ever voluntarily ‘die’ in this way,
it is only able to die for something it can love
Then, the ego can figuratively die
in the figurative arms of the loved one
And so through this logic
we can see that ‘ego death’ is achieved via ‘love
with visualisation’
And this is when a figure
who is incapable of being ‘experienced’ physically,
a being who is already loved by you,
is raised in your eyes to god like status.
The virgin stays virginal, the man becomes a hero,
the saint is raised to god-like status,
someone you admire or admired
becomes the focus of your love - total and absolute devotion
And Yeats created Maud Gonne
And Lowry created Ann
And when they are female one of the key symbols used is Red Lips
Red Lips and the High Priestess
The High Priestess in the Mysteries,
had Red Lips as a sort of badge of office
And it is why the second part of Yeats’ poem sounds so ‘cool’,
because the High Priestess had a job to do,
and emotional involvement would not have helped
What if I look upon a man As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel Or that he is betrayed?
I’d have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.
The Sumerians invented red lipstick as a badge of office
for their High Priestesses
and Egyptian women fully embraced the concept
But the Geisha perhaps of all the High Priestesses
took the symbolism to its most advanced
Alchemy uses Black - nigredo; White - albedo;
and Red - rubedo and the Geisha used all three
[see the Three Degrees - Purification video]
And their hair was black, their faces white, and their lips red
So as your ego died they sealed it with a kiss.
John Masefield - Beauty
I HAVE seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills
Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain:
I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils,
Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.
I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea,
And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships;
But the loveliest thing of beauty God ever has shown to me,
Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes,
and the dear red curve of her lips.