Remember this: Perfume and love songs are romantic but it
could cost you…..your horn.
After reading about the black rhinoceros hunting permit
auction, my mind was at the pointy end of a horn. What is it about hardened
tissue on the head that drove people to madness, turn on their family, or put them
in harm’s way?
I decided to walk the perimeter of my social media, checking
for holes that would-be creepy bandits could breach. Trust me. There is always
someone trying to get in. On my excursions to public pages owned by
exhibitionists, I had come across a question some person asked. How do you trap
a unicorn? What motivation would drive a person to perform such an act in the
first place? I thought the folly of this idea interesting because of the fact
that there is tapestry art depicting the hunt of a horse-like creature with a
single horn on its head. These works of art are referred to as the Unicorn
Tapestries, which are interred in the Cloisters in New York.
In the spirit of one horned beasts, this seemed an
appropriate subject. After all, the tapestry themselves, either true or
fiction, are of a group hunting a mythical beast. It has the formula; men
questing to catch or kill a beast, an innocent woman, and the ever-present shadow
of deception or manipulation. Let us not forget death because this is how the
story ends. Something has to die in exchange for something else.
What I needed was some kind of formal documentation. At what
point did the unicorn first come into the reality of man? The list of
historical names came into view. There was Ctesias, Alexander the Great, Julius
Caesar, Prester John and Genghis Kahn. Yet no women?
This tapestry work could be symbolic of historical events
from a bygone era. It could also be some strange documentation of a beast that
lived once but now is extinct. We don’t know. There is no actual proof of a
unicorn horn, skeleton, or other. Somewhere it would physically have to exist, unless it’s truly magical and evaporates back into the Ether from which gives
the creature birth. This thought would require the person to believe in some
kind of supernatural event or magic. This becomes like Bigfoot. Until you catch
Bigfoot squatting in the woods, it’s still a pipe dream; possible but still
improbable until there is proof.
If you took the tapestries literally, a mythical beast with
one horn was hunted. Someone thought enough to create the work, otherwise it
might be a fictional depiction of fanciful thoughts. Only mean unbelieving people
want unicorns to not be real.
The physical description of unicorns vary depending on
geographical region. The single horn on the forehead is the one factor shared
over areas.
The misuse of Chinese Medicine has taught us that running
from your mortality through the use of alternative medicines to prolong life
can exterminate species or resources to extinction. Chinese Medicine has been
blamed for the extinction of certain species. It would not be a large jump to
believe back in medieval times, there was a one horned beast that could
magically ward off evil, keep one from dying of poisoning, or eating its meat
to rid one of demons. There are references in the bible about the Unicorn, but
when documents were edited, it remains a mystery. It’s a sad day when sacred texts are
rewritten to serve current agendas.
The question remained: How do you trap a unicorn?
I looked up several references to find that it was either by
a woman, not necessarily physically pure like a virgin, but pure of heart,
perfume, or treachery.
The first example is take a good hearted woman, sit her down
in the woods where a unicorn might be and bam…….unicorn comes over and puts its head in her lap. This could be elaborated on with some sort of perfume.
The second example is a man disguised as a woman, perfumes
his clothes, wears a crown of flowers and sings a love song. The perfume yet
again is what puts the unicorn to sleep on the treacherous pretender's lap. How
awful! The unicorn is collared or trapped where by incarcerated or has its horn
whacked off. Nothing good ever came from a trick. It is destructive to the
tricks end. Reminds me of someone saying, “Ah, look over there.” Only to have
you look at nothing then says, “And thus ends the trick.” A person can learn to
distrust the trickster when one too many tricks are to be had. It’s the boy who
cried wolf all over again. The only exception is Jared Leto.
I then went back to the question of: what motivation would
drive a person to perform such an act in the first place? There are good and
bad motives. On reflection, this endeavor I am sure is for selfish gain. Why
would a man want to trap a unicorn? I give this person kudos for believing in
the first place. Well played. I did some research. Most obvious questions were:
Is there fear of poisoning? Does the unicorn hunter want immortality? Is there
something else I am not seeing? Is the person looking for a spiritual
experience outside the mundane into the sacred? Is there a more maniacal motive
behind this endeavor? Is the man the unicorn who wishes to put his head in the
maiden’s lap but fears the collar? Is the person feeling polluted and unclean
yet wants to experience a form of baptism via the purity of what the unicorn
represents? Questions. Questions.
The quest was in full swing.
As for love and spiritual experiences, we have the following
passage.
“The unicorn’s meaning increased with pictures that
interpreted it as symbolic of Christ or love. Christ was pierced on the cross
as the unicorn was pierced by hunters. The analogy could not be extended any more
than that, but another analogy with Christ presented itself; as the unicorn
allowed itself to be tamed by a young woman, so Christ’s divine nature allowed
itself to become a baby in Mary’s womb. In some 15th century
depictions, the unicorn could symbolize a man’s love, which permits a young
woman to tame it and slip a collar on it. When a unicorn is shown tamed, in a
collar or within an enclosure, love is more likely the meaning than Christ.” (Johnson
516)
Some would perceive this as a man’s moment of weakness
because he falls in love with a beautiful woman that scares the shit out of him. For whatever reason he can’t make the decision to give it up. If we do as
Angelia and turn the knobs of our viewing glass a mere 1/8 we might see this as
an emotionally immature person’s moment of crux where he truly grasps the
unicorn by the horn and becomes a man. Not literally speaking. I could say bull
but it's turning out to be a bunch of bull anyway but the message is between the
lines. Drink deeply of it. The man becomes brave…….without exerting himself
other than deciding to do what he must or wants to do. Self-realization of a
part of his manhood he hadn’t attained before. The person no longer has to be
treacherous and deceive thus being himself and aligning with his sacred profane
self; at peace. A unicorn is not necessary for this but people need their
motivators. There will always be treacherous people attempting to lead you off
the path. The good news is they might one day step out the dark onto the path
themselves. It could happen.
How did hunters get a bad rap in the unicorn story? Those
damn tapestries.
First off, the hunters killed a sacred beast. As the story
goes, the unicorn would come to important people during their life or death. That represents
obstruction of the sacred and impeding on the timeline of world events to the
negation of humanity. Through man’s treachery, a woman is used to capture the
beast. Nothing much has changed down through the centuries. Women are either
used by force, coercion, lies, or out of their own neediness to please and
become a part of some group. One could also take this as the less force you use
on gentle creatures the better the result because some animals and people do
not require a heavy hand. To be fair men are used by women to. After all, there
are female hunters that are not nice at all. Most assuredly every time the
trick leads to the death of the unicorn; Evil’s desire to possess, conquer, and
kill. No good comes from this desire even if there is some evil in the hearts
of men. Some just have more than others.
In conclusion, if a
hunter wants to trap a unicorn be weary of the motive. If the hunter is pure of
heart and well-meaning then by all means pursue. If the hunter is truly
unworthy, it is only through treachery that the physical laying of hands on the
mythical beast will end in death. To project the sense of worthiness onto the
hunter by besting the mythical beast is to attempt to attain God-like status or
be as Achilles. Even Achilles had a heel. Anyone doing this wants to have God
status and needs a reminder of humble humanness.
The unworthy hunter has malice in his black heart. Yet again, maybe a gaping hole where a heart
might have been?
“I have captured you and conquered the unicorn. Therefore
the unicorn is beneath me because I am truly elevated above its divine purity
and rite.”
This is not an honorable person and only through subjugation
could make the inner malignancy of his heart fooled to elevation by over-powering something out of one’s comprehension. That is the test of a unicorn:
to find a worthy person that does not need to capture, subjugate, degrade, or
destroy the symbol of the profane and the sacred.
As for those tapestries, people like to mount heads on the
wall for their conquests in hunting. It would be funny if some woman in time wove
herself out a tapestry depicting her conquest of a man because she couldn’t put
his literal head on the wall. She couldn't make it obvious to people she was gloating over
the conquest of a man, who laid down his sword. Maybe I should rethink the way
that last sentence is written. Nope. There is more than one way to skin a
knight.
In closing I conjured a poem in my own tacky fashion:
When Midnight Blue
Meets Twilight Night
On Moon Beams dust
Weigh your heart,
O Hunter of Horn,
If treachery filled,
Deceit shall fail
If purity reigns,
Your love song sonnet shall prevail.
~W Harley Bloodworth, poet~
~Courtesy of AOFH~
Written by: W Harley Bloodworth