Following up on my post of May 2, which showed images of the binding of an illuminated manuscript I recently produced, in this post you can view a slideshow of some of the illumination work (gold leaf decorations) in the book.
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In this, and 2 or 3 following posts, I’ll be presenting images of some notable details of an illuminated manuscript I produced of the opening scenes of a long narrative poem I recently completed, entitled The Atternen Juez Talen (The Eternal Jew’s Tale).
I began working on this manuscript over a year ago, using a pre-bound empty book that had been given to me as a gift by my wife Nancy some number of years ago. The paper appears to be a Nepalese tissue with minimal sizing (“size” is a technical term that means ‘surface sealant’; unsized paper will allow ink to feather, therefore making it unsuitable for most calligraphy). Thus, I had to size each sheet. I used a thinned acrylic medium as my size. If you’re curious about my decision to use acrylic, contact me.
The sizing process was complicated for 3 reasons:
1. wetting the sheets meant they would become buckled and wrinkled upon drying;
2. since sizing is glue of one sort or another, it meant that if I put the pages in a press to avoid buckling, they would stick together into a solid block; and
3. since the book was already bound, pressing each sheet individually would have been prohibitively time consuming.
I’ll spare you the details of my solution, but needless to say, for this 156 sheet book it required over 2 months to complete the sizing project. But the result was quite nice. The acrylic size made the sheets somewhat pearlescent and translucent, which I liked a lot. But it meant I could only write on one side of each sheet. So suddenly, my 312 page book (156 sheets, both sides) became a 156 page book. No worries. It kept me plenty busy for another 10 months.
The production process was rather straight forward. First I did the calligraphy, using India ink. Then, using water colors, I painted small portraits on pages where the right margin of the text was wide enough to allow a miniature. Then I illuminated all the section breaks with various versions of a sunburst. There were about 20 of these illuminations. After that, I did a number of full and half-page illustrations, again using water colors. Finally, I bound the book in blue leather. Since I used a chrome-based tanned leather, it wouldn’t take gold tooling, so I painted the title on the front and spine, using acrylic paint.
In this post I’ll present images of the binding, the title page, and the end papers.
Enjoy!
On Sept. 23, 2023 I posted the first impressions of a poem that was emerging thru my mind. The poem didn’t even have a name at the time, but I knew it was a powerful energy that would compel me for a long while. Since then I’ve been working assiduously on it, letting it speak, letting it rearrange my thinking, letting it come alive. It now has a name, maybe not a final name, but a first name: Remembrensenz a Tiemz tu Kum, or in standard (old) English: Remembrances of Times to Come.
It is a poem with at least two focuses:
1. preparing for the journey after death, and
2. attempting to reveal the infinite nature of all things, an infinite nature well-hidden not just by the limitation of our 5 senses and our body-focused thinking, but by language itself.
What follows is a short excerpt, first in my evolving English, and then in old English, that is, the English that people are speaking in this era.
Wen I wuz nine I koud fienlee heer
the kwesten that bin asken me:
wy am I in this boddee-shel?
An wen I wuz twennee five I koud heer
the Lor Hem kawlen, ‘hu iz heer?’
an I began an anser, ‘henunnee*’ ………. see Gen. 22:1; Isaiah 6:8
with my broken leeng, awl limmitten krude,
awl mis-derrekten an mis-kunstruez,
awl fragmentes an fule a noiz.
A kors, I didden relize it;
I thot my iyz bin akyuret,
my leeng persise, reflekten tru.
Wen I wuz fortee nine I lern
the Torruh iz but a seengel werd
six hunnert thowzen letterz long.
An me, my werdz ar shatter glas,
three, five, sevven letterz long,
sumtime maybee a fyue mor,
my leeng a meerlee shatter glas.
But a lieftime a riten, shapen a werd,
kunstrukten fraze an parugraf,
bilden grammerz tu ullow mor liets
an ennerjeez tu emmannate,
an awl my rit, life-seel long,
tho porlee spoke an innakyuret,
an wut my ukkomplish?
I am spoke a werd or tu2,
not dissarraed babbel but Godwerd spoeks.
A kawlen respons, a Barrukhu*, ……… * a call to prayer
a breethen owt, a lissen in,
a kawl tu prae, a life-seel long.
A fyue werdbreths I wil breeng with me,
now breth-bown intu my jennek koedz.
And here, the Old English version:
When I was nine I could finally hear
the question that I’d been trying to ask:
why am I in this body-shell?
And when I was tweny five I could hear
the Lor calling, ‘who is hear*?’ …….. * others say: here
and I began an answer, ‘hineni*’…….. * Hebrew for ‘here I am’
with my broken language, all limited and crude,
all misdirected and misconstrued,
all fragmented and full of noise.
Of course, I didn’t realize it;
I thought my eyes were accurate,
my language precise, reflecting truth.
When I was forty nine I learned
the Torah is but a single word
six hundred thousand letters long.
And me, my words are shattered glass,
three, five, seven letters long,
sometimes maybe a few more,
my language merely shattered glass.
But a lifetime of writing, shaping words,
constructing phrases and paragraphs,
building grammars to allow more light
and energy to emanate,
and all my writing, a life-soul long,
tho poorly spoken and inaccurate,
and what have I accomplished?
I have spoken a word or two,
not disarrayed babble but Godward spokes.
A call and response, a Bar’khu*, …….. * literally, ‘we praise’
a breathing out, a listening in,
a call to pray, a life-soul long.
A few word-breaths I will bring with me,
now breath-bound into my genetic code.
Beginning the illustration and other decorative work on my Atternen Juez Talen manuscript, having completed the calligraphic work.
Here’s the title page with illustrations about 2/3 done:
Saadia and Batkol, the Atternen Ju and his wife
I began working on The Atternen Juez Talen (The Eternal Jew’s Tale) back in 2009. Those days seem like something of another life now. That tale, that literary history, began in 30 CE in Judean Jerusalem, and proceeded to about 1510 CE in the Ottoman Empire’s capital, Istanbul, where it stands now. It is a compendium of tales of Jewish life, real and imagined, tales personal and lived told from a first-person p.o.v. It also includes letters, dreams, and books produced by the characters in the story; stories within stories and books within books.
In the last year I broke my tale out of its chronological trajectory. I began telling the episodes as a montage of interrelated events and ideas. I wrote a Passover montage composed of 8 Passovers in 8 different locations from 150 BCE in Hasmonean Judea to 1950 CE on an Israeli kibbutz. After that I worked on a Messiah Montage about the many and varied failed messiahs in history.
Less than a month ago I realized I had finished the Messiah Montage, or should I say, I was finished with it. And I realized I was done with The Atternen Juez Talen, too. I had begun to leave that story and that life behind already in 2020. But now, wonder of wonders, after months of transitional agony, I could feel a new energy emerging from my depths, a different story that wanted to be told.
Now the world may behold these first images of that newly emerging tale….
Remembrensenz an Deth Jurneez,
thats ware weel start.
Yu say, 'o wo,' 'o dreeree,' 'not me...'
But jes kunsidder.
We ar tole we kum tu this werl
emtee, fresh, a kleen slate.
But that iz an utter fals.
We kum swoddeld in jennettek vaelz,
vast librareez uv knowenz kumpield
uv expereyenz az arktipe us,
embedden, unkonshes intu us:
insteenkt an tallents,
emoeshenz an skilz,
vizhenz an etheks
that nacherlee unfoel
tu respon tu this werl.
Kunsidder:
How eezee an nacherrel
tu lern tu reed.
An yet not a seengel speseez els
kan reed. Not a seengel hyumen
beffor 5000 yeerz uggo
(but a momen in evvolueshennaree time)
evver haz a tex tu reed,
evver red a seengel werd.
An yet az a speseez weer obsest tu reed.
This skil, an mennee unnuther az wel --
sum we kno:
myuzek, arts, fillossuffee, maths;
an sum yet tu diskuvver,
wuz laen intu the thredz uv us,
reddee wen weer reddee fer it.
We kum heer reddee.
We kum heer perpaerd.
We kum heer with a perpessen goel.
An so it mus be
wen we leev this werl
we wil awlso go perpaerd,
tho we kno not how,
tho it seem we hav no knowenz at awl.
But weel go on that jernee wel perpaerd.
So let us kunsidder wut we kno,
wut we wil karee wen we leev this shel.
Wut ar gatherz tu serv ar needz
wen we leev behien ar sensez five,
wen ar werl iz not shaept by nerv?
Wut uv us iz oenlee mien?
Uv kors!
Ar essens iz immajjinnes...
I have begun the research and writing to create a new, modern Pesach (Passover) haggadah, with a new order, new structure, new histories and midrashim, new questions, new questions to answer questions, new portraits of personality types, while still embedding much of the traditional haggadah. This one will be a looking back, a looking forward, a looking at the turbulence and clarities within. Here granular, there sweeping vistas. Now personal, now transitional, now transformational. Thus…
(translated back to old English from my poetic voice…)
Here. The Crystal Haggadah begins. Hear. The seder, its orders retold.
For something like three thousand years or more this tradition, this ritual has been observed yearly in Yisroyel. This, and Shabbat, continuously remembered and observed longer than any other ritual in any other religion or culture in the world.
Observed and honored, festively (or furtively where hate prevails, where laws are writ, where knives are drawn, afraid of us, afraid of our God)…
in Sinai’s shadow; in Judea’s fields; in hovels and mansions in Babylon; in Elephantine ‘way down the Nile, and far up the Euphrates in Pumbedit; in Athens, Rome, and Byzantium; in Medina, Baghdad, Tashkent, Kabul; in Cochin, Calcutta, and Kaifeng; in Kathmandu and Timbuktu; in Algiers, Tangiers, and Tripoli; in Aden, Addis Ababa, and Muscat; in Europe, every shtetl and stadt; in Australia, Sydney to the arid outback; and across the oceans to the New World, in the Caribbean, on every isle, and from Patagonia and Concepcion to Goose Bay and White Horse and Denali Park.
Pesach, the call to liberation; the path to revelation.
The following lines are an excerpt from a book within a book: a lost mystical text on meditation within The Atternen Juez Talen. In this scene the storyline is intended to act as a guided meditation, leading the spiritual explorer on an elevated path thru a troubled psychological landscape. The endpoint aspires to a state of greater clarity, undistorted by the mostly unconscious conceptual aberrations and emotional whirlpools that shape our thinking.
The scene takes as its starting point a midrash about Rabbi Yossi (ben Halafta), who turns aside one night while walking in the vicinity of Jerusalem, to pray in a ruins. He is referred to as ‘Prophet’ in the monologue below. The scene also has another important literary referent: Shelley's brilliant poem The Triumph of Life, which to my eyes is among the greatest pieces of literature ever written. Thanks, Percy. You are ever an inspiration.
This, the "old English" version in prose:
Inside the darkness I see a face, wrinkled like one who the years deform, haggard, unkempt, mournful with dread. His voice intones like the joyless dead.
"I once ruled the heavenly spheres with grandeur such as none can compare. 'Pharaoh' they whispered, them bowed low, and those who knew me trembled in fear. I, even I, was punished severe by that Hebrew Lor whose power I dared. Look ye, now at my opulent home where lapis and gold once tiled the rooms, now rubble of mudbrick, a putrid tomb. Prophet, what further ruin do you vent on one who never learnt to repent?"
Here’s a new scene from The Atternen Juez Talen, translated out of MetaEnglish poetry into standard prose.
These events take place in the hills outside of Genoa, where Saadya, the Eternal Jew and his wife Batkol have settled. The year is about 1420 CE.
While I be bent to a draftin' desk, pourin' thru maps ...
Batkol set out on a different route. Leavin' such chaos and madness to me, she discovered that herbs and cures from extracts, infusions, oils and salves be well-developed in Liguria's hills....
So off she gone a second time, out to see them sorcerous dames, me absorbed in work, and yet concerned for her wanderin' alone. And my worries increased day by day, til after a week my mind won't bend to interpretin' sketches and decipherin' scrawl.
After mornin’ prayers I'm sittin' at the bench, and I thrown up my hands.
"I gotta find my wife, now gone over a week. That ain't right. I'm worried sick."
Out the door and up the road I hustles. I remembers a town up the river where she first gone to learn about healers in the hills. Walkin' all night, I arrived the next day, and begun askin' about women that heal. Well, men, they don't know a pimple from a pox. But women, soon as they hear me ask where that healer dwelt, they clams right up, all suspicious and evil eyes.
So nothin' for it. I'm up the road to a further hamlet. There I tells some juicy yarns about my wife. I exaggerates just a teeny bit, sayin', a wonder healer she be, with many a potion to soothe the soul. There's chitter and chatter a-plenty now. That gone on for a day or some, when a miserable crone come beggin' me to brang some potions for her sickly girl.
"I'll send my wife in a fortnight or so."
says I, and her shoulder sags like a roof on a rotten hut; she's all dismayed.
"That won't do, oh no, not at all. I needs them remedies right away. Guess I must go to that sorcerer,"
says she, and I mumbles,
"Suit yourself."
But soft and secret I watch her close. The very next morn she's out the door and up the road and down some trail and onto paths only animals use, and come to that witch.
I expected to find Batkol inside, when I knocked and gone in. And there, that witch starts screamin' at me, and pulls a knife, howlin' the while like some wild and injured animal --
What the hell was Batkol doin' there amongst such souls untouched by God? --
Thankfully, my walkin' stick kept that hyena woman at bay while I drags Batkol down the trail a ways, til she collapsed. I carried her -- fragile as a dried out stick of birch -- til I couldn't hear them howls no more. Then I built a litter to lay her on and drag her nice and comfortable thru them hills and hamlets and towns. Many a gasp and askance look we drawn, but nary an offer of help -- like I been some brute that beat my wife -- til we come to the outskirts of Genoa, where I hired a wagon for the cobbled streets.
Three fragments excavated from my current notebook….
The first is a piece of poetry from the upper worlds. Our language down here, so limited, will have trouble making sense of it, tho pieces of it will sound familiar. This is what I transcribed:
… He heerd Davee play.
He iz a reed uv iz werd.
He iz heer
selammen seen in iz song,
drippen iz hunnee fraegren a spise.
He iz rae Izayah an Hozayah too
an iz hert iz braken it
in winder abownz.
Ammajjin aer seengen the upper werlz.
I wil breeng em aer fer the aenjelz be heer…
And this opening to a parable…
There was a king who lived in a castle unknown to his people. He employed many ministers and envoys. He was a modern king. He spoke to them by texting!
One of his envoys was determined to meet the king in person. He texted to him, “How can I meet you in your castle?” The king texted in response, “You are too deceitful to meet me. Not only your thoughts, but your senses too are full of deceit.…”
And finally this…
The closer I get to the truth, the more alienated I am from myself and the world.
The closer I get to the truth, the less rational my thinking.
The infinite is not confined by human ratios.
The following short excerpt is from a scene in The Atternen Juez Talen. Our hero has recently migrated to Poland (around 1320 CE) to start a new life, yet again. He is reflecting on a line from the daily prayers, that the Master of the Universe daily renews the act of creation (often interpreted to mean that the world, and each individual in it, is created anew each day, or even each moment). Reflecting on his own renewal, he goes off on a riff.
Here is a prose translation into standard English (what I call 'old English'), and then the original text as it was composed...
I, the Eternal Jew am a voice in the streaming world a-coil in you -- a recurring face, a recurring place, unknown, familiar, a recurring embrace. Hate me and I will choke you with hate. Fear me and I will hound you with fear. Love me and I will ignite a desire that consumes but can’t be satisfied ...
Blink and look into your mirror. I am behind you. Blink again. I am you. Was it always so? Blink. I’m gone. Was I ever there? Blink. You stand in a room well known. Blink. You are lost, and no way home. Blink. I am with you leading the way. Blink. A stranger has led you astray. Blink. You walk with your father instead. Blink. You awake. Your father is dead....
Each moment the world is created anew. And I, sub-atom, an orbit in you. Where I am, and where I will be... you cannot determine the point of me. Whoever I was and who I can be, you can’t compute that continuity. Accept me. Is this how you mean to be free?
The original text:
I, the Atternen Ju ar a vois
In the streemen werl a-koyellen yu --
A rekkerren fase, a rekkerren plase,
Unknoen, fammilyer, a rekkerren embrase.
Hate me an I wil choke yu with hate.
Feer me an I wil hownd yu with feer.
Luv me an I wil ignite a deziyer
That kunsuemz but woen be a sattisfy.
Studdee my bouks an yu may untwist
The okkulten thredz that taengel yur seel
In the annammah grip uv this Addom shel.
Louk tu me az the Proffetten God
An I wil kumpoze divvine skaelz
That reverben myuzeks owt uv the speerz
Koyellen yu in infinnitteez.
Bleenk an louk intu yur meerer,
An I am behien yu; bleenk aggen
An I am yu. Wuz it awl wayz so?
Bleenk. Iem gon. Wuz I evver thaer?
Bleenk. Yu stan in a rume wel knoen.
Bleenk. Yu ar los, an no way home.
Bleenk. Iem with yu leeden the way.
Bleenk. A straenjer iz led yu astray.
Bleenk. Yu wok with yur father insted.
Bleenk. Yu awwake. Yur fother iz ded....
Eech momen the werl iz kreyaten a-nu.
An I, sub-Addom, an orbitten yu.
Ware I am, an ware I wil be,
Yu kant determin the point uv me.
Hu evver I wuz an hu I kan be,
Yu kant kumpyute that kontinnuwittee.
Assep me. Iz this how yu meen tu be free?
This is a short excerpt from The Atternen Juez Talen, or in normal English, The Eternal Jew's Tale, in which our hero has a visionary experience that he tries to describe:
We read in our prayers,*
“Renewing all; a perpetual day of God-Creation.”
And I seen for myself that this be true. I was carried along on my rivery thoughts, every heart beat and every breath, every flickering blink of my eye, a new “me” in a new world come to the surface and then sank down; distinct worlds that bubbled and burst, and bubbled again, new and the same -- consciousness pulsing into my mind, and every mind, notes of one song: I to I, me to you, we to all, all to one; mere slivers of a slivery world that rushes thru us, seamless it seems. But slow it down and note by note it comes apart in fractallin’ thoughts.
For a short time my world slowed down and I seen its notes, one by one floating apart, each from each, and felt the Divine Song of it rejoining the slivers. River. It flows. Wonder and dismay as my eyes seen what my mind fails to understand.
While saying the Sh'ma (the most well-known of Jewish prayers, which we are enjoined to say morning and evening; it begins, "Listen, Israel!") the other night, these words passed thru my mind...
The poem is still rough, being only 2 days old. But here's what I have so far, first in metaEnglish (SteveTok), and after that a prose version in old (ie standard) English:
Yur evver waer iz this Ruwakh werl
But hu knoez the Ruwakh tu see it?
Yu wuz spaken a roer
That ar seemen a silens,
Tho Yur Proffets say iz a wisper
Evver wun heerz
But hu ar lissenz? Evver wun
Stanz so klose but stil too far.
Wy shoud I beleev sech a theeng?
I, an annekdote uv yuez.
Yu sen Yur messajjerz.
I doen open my iyz.
Thay greet me but I am no respons.
Thay proffessiy in Yur werden.
A win uv hissez. A babbel a brouk.
An infant gergeld. Yu hu ar spoken.
Yur messajjerz shake me by the shoelderz.
I wake in sech a trembelz.
I pik up a pen in my emteenes.
I rite a werdz, nor an arid gust.
I kan fien no meen in this.
I kloze my Bouk, that rokkee gullee.
The letterz re-arraenj aerselz.
Yur messajjerz leev me.
Wut am I enneeway?
Jes a dreemles nite.
Later, I open the Bouk tu Yur paje.
Hu iz rit in theze siferz?
Misten vaperz, I wil dissappeer,
Foelden intu the porres aer.
Wut wuz nevver herd, in iz konstan spaken
Awl so foeld in the Ruwakh uv us.
Behole!
Tho nutheeng iz chaenj,
Heer, I stan in 2 werlz.
Iy, the Ruwakh raze frum my Bouk.
Werdz laen like a pile a stane
Bekum a lenz on a werl a lite,
A stane glas pannel in a holee plase.
Misten vaperz, thay dissappeer,
Enfoelden intu the Addom uv us.
Thaer I stoud a braken leenk;
Heer, forrevver bown tu Yu.
Atternen heelenz that onee Yur Proffets notis.
Jes az Yu re-arraenj my werdz,
So Yu re-arraenjen us awl.
Such ar lissenz, Uddoniy ar God,
An such ar we heer, Uddoniy Ekhud.
You are everywhere in this Ruakh world but who knows the Ruakh to see it?
You who spoke in a roar that seemed like a silence, tho Your Prophets say it is a whisper everyone hears, but who is listening? Every one stands so close but still too far.
Why should I believe such a thing? I, but an anecdote of you.
You send Your messengers. I don’t open my eyes. They greet me but I do not respond. They prophesy Your words. A wind of hisses. A babbling brook. An infant gurgles. You are speaking.
Your messengers shake me by the shoulders. I wake with such trembling. I pick up a pen in my emptiness. I write some words, just an arid gust. I can find no meaning in this. I close my Book, that rocky gully.
The letters re-arrange themselves.
Your messengers leave me. What am I anyway? Just a dreamless night. Later, I open the Book to Your page. Who has written these ciphers? Mist and vapors, I will disappear, folded into the porous air. What was never heard in its constant speaking, also is folded in the Ruakh of us.
Behold! Tho nothing has changed, I stand in 2 worlds. I, the Ruakh raised from my Book. Words lain like a pile of stone become a lens on a world of light, a stained glass panel in a holy place. Mist and vapors, they disappear, enfolded into the atom of us.
There I stood a broken link; here, forever bound to You. Eternal healings that only Your Prophets notice.
Just as You re-arrange my words, so You re-arrange us all.
Such, our listenings, Adonai our God, and such are we hear, Adonai Ekhad.
A man migraten tu a land, fownd dry dust.
He tilld with grate laber.
A lush garden bloomz.
An eegel bilt a nest in a windee krag
And hatcht an eg.
She fed her yung and raezd it,
And kast it frum the nest.
She kot it and kast it aggen.
Her yung iz made tu sore.
A man tosst and ternz a fitful sleep.
He woud wake but be unnabel to rize.
He woud dreem ov being awwake.
He woud dreem a sereez ov awwakeneengz
In eech, surprize! He iz not alreddee awwake.
The werldz swam, hiz dreemz,
En-dimmenshenz ov illuzhen awoven.
A yung liyon livd a grate plennatude.
Frum hiz abunden he enterd a nu land
A subdu it tu hiz rule.
A wield plase, fule ov kunneeng.
Deseet, vermen, hunger.
Kan a liyon streng prevael in such?
