Republic of Er Rif, Morocco

I found on Flags of the world website an entry about the red flag of the Republic of Er Rif (Morocco, 1920-1926) which showed a hexagram and a crescent. The flag was created after Abd-el Krim (1882-1963) defeated the Spanish army and founded on 19 September 1921 the Republic of Rif.

Roncesvalles, Navarre, northern Spain

On 03 Feb 2006 Valerie Brewster Willis asked Nexus Network Journal readers about an enigmatic twelfth century hexagram in Roncevalles, Navarre,  a relief carved on one of the stones in the wall of the Augustinian abbey. 

As Above So Below

Steven Sora speaks about the six-pointed star in his book The Lost Colony of the Templars: Verrazano's Secret Mission to America. In chapter 7: The Secret Mission of Verrazano he says: 

The family crest of Verrazano was one such symbol. It began as the same six-pointed star that could be found in the windows of churches in Southern France. It evolved into an eight-pointed star after his journey to the New Arcadia.
The six-pointed star was not to become the Star of David until the seventeenth century. Long before that, it had a much different connotation. The triangle pointing up overlaid on a triangle pointing down represented what would become a Masonic creed: As Above, So Below. It is depicted on Masonic aprons as the square and the compass, the “A” without the bar, over the “V.” In Christian symbols it was the Ave Maria, the words Gabriel used to announce to the Blessed Virgin she was with the Child of God. The number six itself had been a masculine symbol for the sun just as the number five and the pentagram had been a female symbol for the moon.
Five in becoming six creates time and space. Our measurements used in dividing time have been based on six from the beginning of time. The ancient symbol for volume is the six-sided cube. Six was the event in which harmony exists as male and female principal come together. It was an understanding once present in Christianity, later repressed in Roman Christianity as the female was pushed out of the equation.

Growing Star of David

Usually the Magen David is a graphic 2 dimensional symbol. In this blog I already showed a few 3D items, but they were not GROWING...
Picture is courtesy of "tonidelong" who published it on Flickr under the title "Magen David in the garden of the old synagogue in Caceres".
Caceres is in Spain - I checked it out.

six and one- 1

I already wrote about the connection of the number seven to the Magen David but here's a fresh approach to it - Lucian Craciun sent me the following chapter from the article he is writing on this subject:

Fearful Symmetry - That’s the name of the 18th episode of the 2nd X-Files season. Fearful, indeed! No, ... not the episode! (I’m not that big of a scary-cat! J ). Rather, I used this to describe the psychological effect my little study on the first chapter of The Book of Genesis had on me: That sense of utter awe and sheer amazement: Such fearful symmetry! (It took me literally days to recover from its realization).
Just imagine that: God worked in pairs –or shifts, if You prefer— first He created the three mediums, (or dwelling-places, if one were to say so): the light; the air & the waters; and –last- the solid earth. Then He went on to inhabit them each with their own respective dwellers: the luminaries, the fowls and fishes, and -last- the land animals. Also, there was an almost inescapable feeling of the increase of density, beginning with the ethereal light, followed closely by the gaseous atmosphere and liquid hydrosphere, only to end with the denseness of the lithosphere. [I can’t help it here but remember the words of our Gymnasium Geography professor: we are all creatures living at the very bottom of a gigantic ocean of air].
Indeed, at the realization of such great things, one cannot resist, but exclaim in one voice with the Psalmist: “Great are You, Oh Lord, and wondrous are Thy things, and no word is ever enough to the praise of Thy works!”. I knew seven was the number of perfection ... and now I knew why! How could it not be? How could such splendid a symphony of symmetry and harmony not be a symbol of utter perfection?

What I had failed to realize then, however, was that this whole thing with the Beginning was just that: the beginning! As I said, it took days for these shivers, thrills and tremors to settle down ... but what I didn’t actually mention was that it took days for these feelings to quiet down; I didn’t imply by this that other such little heart-shakes and mind-quakes didn’t happen ... And, as it happens, one of these was just on its way heading full-strength in my direction ... and when I come to think of it, I realize now that I was just an innocent bystander, placed there by mere chance, at the collision-site of the powerful forces of ideas. [Yep, I’m an idiot! J ].

And so, there I was, a few days after, pondering these things in my heart, when, relatively sure that I’ve somehow come, in some way, to understand, in a certain sense, the beauty of the solution to the things that troubled me for quite a long while now, I just figured that, after all, why should I not try at least to link my find with other such related things? What was there to lose, after all, other than a little bit of time, an insignificant amount of time, of which I had, at that period, plenty, if not enough. Clearer: why not try to see if there might, by any chance, be any possibility of, likewise, discovering a logical structure behind other similar things, (for starters). If, let’s say, I won’t be able to succeed in doing that, then, of course, there would be no real loss in it. But if I were to, in some way, actually succeed, then the implications would, obviously, be of tremendous meaning and have huge implications. With nothing to loose and everything to gain, I set foot on my path. I tried, for starters, to begin with something easy, which, quite frankly jumped right into my mind: namely, the seven openings of the head, which puzzled the minds of Rabbis for centuries. So, what I basically did next was to simply step out of my room, turn left and gaze straight in the bathroom-door-window found right in front of me. My intention was to find, perchance, some structure of, or logic to, or arrangement in it. Well, ... there were two eyes, [until now, nothing of spectacular], two ears, [I think this is when I felt that cold chill shoving down my spine], ... and ... two ... nostrils, [Houston, I think we have a problem] ... and ... a ... mouth ... [Houston, we’ve just lost control] ... I think that as I reached this point my thoughts kind-a paralyzed ...

And I just STOOD there.

And stared.

And was beside myself.

OK, You see: NOW I was worried! ... Was God mocking me? Making fun of me? Laughing at me right now? Teasing me, maybe? Or did he just like to play little mind-games every now and then?

And I just stood there.

And stared.

What on earth ... ? What IN THE WORLD ... ? What ... what was going on here? Had I just kept my Eyes Wide Shut all this time? ...

Eyes Eyes
Ears Ears
Nostrils Nostrils
Mouth

... Talking about the eyes being the light of the body ! (Matthew 6:22; Luke 11:34). Jeez ! (Gives me the freaks when I think of it !).

Bracha Lavee –Brym

Magen David in Bracha Lavee –Brym's painting.

Bracha Lavee –Brym was born in Poland in 1948 and arrived in Israel in 1957…she enrolled in the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem.
The city of Jerusalem and stories from the Bible provide her with endless sources of inspiration.

First Pentagram Drawer

The green leaves' angles do not obey exactly the rules of drawing a pentagram (Solomon’s seal), but I think that the first pentagram drawer might have been influenced by this innocent vegetable...