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Pip Wilson

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7: Wherefore I prayed, and understanding was given me: I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.
8: I preferred her before sceptres and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her.
9: Neither compared I unto her any precious stone, because all gold in respect of her is as a little sand, and silver shall be counted as clay before her.
10: I loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light: for the light that cometh from her never goeth out.
11: All good things together came to me with her, and innumerable riches in her hands ...
22: For wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me: for in her is an understanding spirit holy, one only, manifold, subtil, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good,
23: Kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things, and going through all understanding, pure, and most subtil, spirits.
24: For wisdom is more moving than any motion: she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness.
25: For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her.
26: For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.
27: And being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God, and prophets.
28: For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom.
29: For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it.
30: For after this cometh night: but vice shall not prevail against wisdom.

1: Wisdom reacheth from one end to another mightily: and sweetly doth she order all things.
2: I loved her, and sought her out from my youth, I desired to make her my spouse, and I was a lover of her beauty.
3: In that she is conversant with God, she magnifieth her nobility: yea, the Lord of all things himself loved her.
4: For she is privy to the mysteries of the knowledge of God, and a lover of his works.
Wisdom of Solomon, Chapters vii and viii

Sophia also has a celestial, transcendent aspect and an earthly, immanent aspect. The earthly aspect of Sophia relates to the Holy Spirit which "remains here on earth to guide and care for us." She is the Spirit that gives life and sustains the life of all creatures on earth unto their redemption. Sophia also has a celestial, starry and transcendent aspect. She represents the light beyond the stars. In this mode of symbolism, the ancients imagined the night sky to be like a bowl full of holes through which the sea of light beyond shone through as the stars. Sophia as the Light of the Stars becomes the Star-Kindler, the Queen of the Stars, the Queen of Heaven. The Queen of Heaven is a title not only for the aspect of Sophia represented in the Blessed Virgin Mary but also for the historic figures of Isis, Astarte and Ishtar. She is both Earth's Mother and Heaven's Queen.
Meditations: 'A Homily for Easter Sunday' by Rev. Steven Marshall

Yesterday, a messenger arrived in town, with the very interesting and pleasing intelligence of the Tarleton, armed ship, having, after a chace of some months, captured the Perdita frigate, and brought her safe into Egham port. The Perdita is the prodigious fine clean bottomed vessel, and had taken many prizes during her cruise, particularly the Florizel, a most valuable ship belonging to the Crown, but which was immediately released, after taking out the cargo. The Perdita was captured some time ago by the Fox, but was, afterwards, retaken by the Malden, and had a sumptuous suit of new rigging, when she fell in with the Tarleton. Her manoeuvering to escape was admirable; but the Tarleton, fully determined to take her, or perish, would not give up the chace; and at length, coming alongside the Perdita, fully determined to board her, sword in hand, she instantly surrendered at discretion.
London's Morning Post, September, 1782; 'Perdita' was Mary Robinson, courtesan and author, born on November 27, 1758

The rigors undertaken by devout Muslims inspire respect for Islam among people of all faiths. And this can bring hope of greater understanding for good will. It can overflow old boundaries when wholehearted devotion to one's own faith is matched with a devout respect for the faith of others.
  That is why we welcome Islam in America. It enriches our country with Islam's teachings of self-discipline, compassion and commitment to family. It deepens America's respect for Muslims here at home and around the world, from Indonesia to Pakistan, the Middle East and Africa.
US President William J Clinton, November 27, 2000 (full text)

Famous isn't good for a writer. You don't observe well when you're being observed.
Ken Kesey who started his acid pranks tour on November 27, 1965

He was one of the few people I ever knew who could stand straight up without putting his hands in his pockets or leaning on anything,'' Berry said. ``He was freestanding in that way, if you know what I mean. That told a lot about him. He was a man, as far as I could tell, totally without pretense. He never was pretending to be somebody he wasn't. And he never pretended to be the man he was.
Wendell Berry, US writer, of Ken Kesey

Jimi Hendrix blazed through our lives like a fireball-supernova that most likely originated in a black hole in the middle of some uncharted universe. This was not just some Elvis or Beatle – everything about Hendrix was otherworldly. He had an understanding of sonics and how they related to music, which no human had ever conceived before.
Al Kooper, rock musician; Jimi Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942   Source

November 27 is the 331^st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (332^nd in leap years), with 34 days remaining.
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Feast day of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat (Joasaph)

The Buddha Saints: Buddhism intersects with Christianity in the Middle Ages

Saints Barlaam and Josaphat are the main characters of a 7^th-Century Christian legend, a favourite subject of writers in the Middle Ages – but the Catholic Church now acknowledges that they are entirely fictitious.

Although Barlaam and Josaphat are included in the Roman Martyrology (November 27) and in the Greek Orthodox calendar (August 26), the story is actually a Christianized version of a legend about Siddhartha Buddha, and the details, while slightly different, are in broad terms similar in Indian, Sri Lankan and Tibetan texts.

Their tale is a fable containing the entire text of the apologia for Christianity of the 2^nd-Century St Aristides the Athenian. The present text of the story was included as a moral tale in Gesta Romanorum, traditionally assigned to St John Damascene and repeated by the wandering monks.

Josaphat was the philosophically inclined crown-prince of "Inner Ethiopia, called India". The desert hermit Barlaam of Senaar or Balahvar of Serendip (Sri Lanka) converted Josaphat (also rendered Ioasaph or Yudasaf) to Christianity, despite the efforts of Josaphat's father Abenner (Avenier, or Avenner) to prevent it.  

The story is substantially as follows: Many inhabitants of India had been converted by the Apostle St Thomas and were leading Christian lives. In the third or fourth century King Abenner persecuted the Church. The sorcerer, Theodas, had foretold that his son, Josaphat, would one day become a Christian. The tale of Gautama Buddha bears striking similarities, and the name 'Yudasaf' bears an obvious resemblance to middle Persian Budasif (meaning, Bodhisattva, or Buddhist enlightened one); some scholars hear echoes of Sanskrit in other proper names as well.)

To prevent him becoming a Christian, the prince was kept more or less under house arrest. However, despite these precautions, Barlaam met and converted him. Abenner tried his best to turn Josaphat to his old ways, but, not succeeding, he shared the government with him. Later, Abenner himself became a Christian, and, abdicating the throne, became a hermit. Josaphat governed alone for a time, then went into the desert, found his former teacher Barlaam, and with him spent his remaining years as a monk. Years after their death, the bodies were brought to India and their grave became renowned for miracles.

The actual origin of the tale is unknown. However, it is believed to have been translated into Greek (possibly from a Georgian original) sometime in the 11^th Century. Although the ultimate author is usually referred to as 'John the Monk', it has been traditionally ascribed to St John of Damascus.

Versions of the story were written in nearly every widely-spoken European and Middle Eastern language and even in the Ge'ez tongue of Ethiopia; the True Faith was variously identified as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Manichæism.

Barlaam is depicted in art as a man in a tree (a mouse gnawing through its trunk), clinging to it as he grasps at a beehive. Below him is a pit containing a dragon.  

"After the European settlement of India, and the arrival there of Roman Catholic missionaries, certain enquiring spirits were struck by similarities between features of the life of St Josaphat, and corresponding episodes in the life of the Buddha. Early in the seventeenth century, the Portuguese writer Diogo do Couto remarked that Josaphat 'is represented in his legend as the son of a great king in India, who had just the same upbringing, with all the same particulars that we have recounted in the life of the Buddha ... and as it informs us that he was the son of a great king in India, it may well be ... that he was the Buddha of whom they relate such marvels.' Diogo do Couto was on the right track, though it was not until the 1850s that scholars in Western Europe embarked on a systematic comparison between the Christian legend of Barlaam and Ioasaph, and the traditional life of Gautama Buddha, and came to the startling conclusion that for almost a thousand years, the Buddha in the guise of the holy Josaphat, had been revered as a saint of the principal Churches of Christendom."   Source

More on Diogo do Couto, December 10 in the Book of Days

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Day of Sophia (according to some sources) Sophia (pronounced soh-fee'ah in Greek) has been revered as the Wise Bride of Solomon by Jews, and as the Queen of Wisdom and War (Athena) by Greeks. She has been referred to as the Holy Spirit of Wisdom by Christian writers. She is known as Chokmah (hok'-mah) in Hebrew, and Sapientia in Latin. She is sometimes referred to as the Bride of Christ or of God.   In the Christian tradition, she was a widow of Rome during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus, 76 - 138), the legendary mother of the virgin martyrs Faith, Hope, and Charity (also known as Agape). Faith, 12, was scourged and went unharmed when boiling pitch was poured on her; she was then beheaded. Hope, 10, and Charity, 9, were also beheaded after emerging, unscathed, from a furnace. Three days after the death of the daughters, Sophia passed peacefully away while praying by their tomb. (A fourth, and lesser-known daughter, Rat Cunning, escaped the persecution of heathens and lived out her days for at least another 80 years.)  In the Roman Catholic Church, Sophia's memorial day is August 1, in the Antiochian Church, September 17, and in the Roman Martyrology on September 30. To the Gnostic Christians, Sophia had an esoteric meaning, and was the Mother of Creation; her consort and assistant was Jehovah. In the Gnostic creation myth, Sophia sought the unknowable One, being so distant from her. In one account, she saw a distant light which was in fact a mirror image, and thus drifted even farther away from the pleroma, or fulness of God. The Gnostic religion's sacred texts include Pistis Sophia: The Books of the Saviour. Her sacred shrine, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, is one of the remarkable buildings of the world. The first church on the site was built by Constantine the Great. The temple itself was so richly and artistically decorated that Justinian I, after rebuilding it, is believed to have said Νενίκηκά σε Σολομών (Solomon, I have surpassed you!). It was converted to a mosque at the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II in 1453. [Read about this seminal event in history in our article, 'Celestial wonders and the fall of Constantinople, 1453']. A Christian church in Sophia, capital of Bulgaria, gave its name to the city. As Asherah (the Semitic name of the Great Goddess, whose origin differs from Astarte, or Ishtar, or Inanna in Sumerian mythology), who was principally worshipped at the Philistine Pentapolis (coalition of five cities forming a kingdom – namely, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath and Gaza) but also along Canaan and, for some time, Israel, she was even given a place in Solomon's Temple of Yahweh (Jehovah God), which was built under the direction of skilled Phoenician builders and workmen: "When the Hebrew tribes under the leadership of the votaries of the god of Sinai came out of the 'land of drought' into a land flowing with milk and honey of the Queen of Heaven, they found their own race there and their own releigion [sic] but modified by the effects of agricultural civilization ... The Queen of Heaven, under whatever name,. she may have been worshipped – possibly Miriam, ... the high-priestess among the Levites, - belonged from time immemorial to Jewish cult ... The Host of Heaven – the very Elohim of the astral deities was a notable component of this worship. ... The temple of Jerusalem was simultaneously dedicated to Yahweh and the the Queen of Heaven. Before it stood the Asherah, symbolic trees that are throughout Semitic lands associated with the female aspect of the deity." (Briffault 3, 110)   Source "The Holy of Holies, or inner sanctuary, in Solomon's Temple was deemed to represent the womb of Ashtoreth (alternatively called Asherah, as mentioned several times in the Old Testament). Ashtoreth was openly worshipped by the Israelites until the 6th century BC. As the Lady Asherah, she was the supernal wife of El, the supreme male deity, and they were together the 'Divine Couple'. Their daughter was Anath, Queen of the Heavens, and their son, the King of the Heavens, was called He. As time progressed, the separate characters of El and He were merged to become Jehovah [YHWH]. Asherah and Anath were then similarly conjoined to become Jehovah's female consort, known as the Shekinah or Matronit. "Originally, these four consonants [in YHWH] represented the four members of the Heavenly Family: Y represented El the Father; H was Asherah the Mother; W corresponded to He the Son; and H was the Daughter Anath. In accordance with the royal traditions of the time and region, God's mysterious bride, the Matronit, was also reckoned to be his sister. In the Jewish cult of the Cabbala God's dual male-female image was perpetuated. Meanwhile other sects perceived the Shekinah or Matronit as the female presence of God on Earth. The divine marital chamber was the sanctuary of the Jerusalem Temple, but from the moment the Temple was destroyed, the Matronit was destined to roam the Earth while the male aspect of Jehovah was left to rule the heavens alone." Laurence Gardner, Bloodline of the Holy Grail, pp. 17-18   Source Appearing in the Biblical book of Proverbs, she is also found in the apocryphal books of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon, which are accepted as canon by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, and found in the Greek Septuagint of the early Church. However, one writer, Fr William Most, argues (rather strongly) that Sophia was not known as a goddess to the writers of the Old Testament, but rather as a personification of wisdom – a rhetorical device, as it were. "The three sensations experienced by Sophia creates three types of humans: hylics (bond to the matter, the principle of evil), psychics (bond to the soul and partly saved from evil) and the pneumatics that can return to the plemora if they achieve gnosis and can behold the world of light. The gnostics regarded themselves as members of this group."   Source   From 'Daring Night' By Van Morrison Baby squeeze me don't leave me in the daring night Capture it all oh with the Lord of the Dance Oh with the Lord of the Dance in the daring night With the Lord of the Dance in the daring night With the lord of the dance and the great Goddess Of the eternal wisdom Standing by the light of the moon in the daring night    As goddess of wisdom, her faces are many: Black Goddess, Divine Feminine, Mother of God. To Gnostic Christians, Sophia was the Mother of Creation; her consort and assistant was Jehovah. Her symbol, the dove, represents spirit; she is crowned by stars, a Middle Eastern icon, to indicate her absolute divinity. Other sources connect Sophia to the Celtic goddess-figures known as 'Sheela-na-gigs'. "The feminine Goddess has taken a number of forms: "The Moon, signifying transformation, creativity, birth, new beginnings; "The Good Mother and Bad Mother - mother as source of nourishment and fertility and the mother as snake; "Bridgit, the Celtic Mother; the triple goddess, related to learning, craftsmen, healing, childbirth and animal abundance; "The Terrible Mother who can appear as devouring monster who eats her children – the hungry earth which devours its own children; "Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom/Fate." Source Sophia has also been associated with the 23rd Trump in the Tarot.     Ásatrú Feast of Ullr (Ullur; Ull) From Wikipedia: In Norse mythology, Ullr is a son of Sif and a stepson of Thor. While extant sources are scant, he appears to have been a major god in prehistoric times, or even an aspect of the head of the Proto-Germanic pantheon, mentioned on the 3rd-Century Thorsberg chape. "The Feast of Ullr was to celebrate the Hunt and to gain the personal luck needed for success. Weapons are dedicated on this day to Ullr. If your arms were blessed by the luck of the God of the Hunt, your family and tribe shared the bounty with a Blot and Feast to Ullr ."   Source Ásatrú is an Icelandic/Old Norse term consisting of two parts: Ása (Genitive of Æsir) referring to the gods and goddesses, and trú meaning faith. Thus Ásatrú literally means faith in the gods. It is commonly misunderstood to mean 'true to the gods'. The faith is also referred to as Norse or Germanic Heathenry. The Old Norse term for 'heathenry' is 'heiðni'. Yet another Old Norse designation is 'forn siðr'; the ancient custom. The faith may be regarded as an indigenous ancestral faith much like Shinto, Native American spirituality, and Judaism. It represents the indigenous pre-Christian beliefs of the Germanic peoples. Vikings!    The Troth    The Asatru Folk Assembly The Asatru Alliance    Google category: Ásatrú   Goddess month of Cailleach/Samhain ends Feast day of St Acacius Feast day of St Acharius Feast day of St Fergus Feast day of St Francesco Antonio Fasani Feast day of St Gallgo Feast day of St Hirenarchus Feast day of St Humilis of Bisignano Feast day of St James Intercisus, martyr Feast day of St John Angeloptes Feast day of St John Ivanango Feast day of St John Montajana Feast day of St Virgil (Feargal; Fearghal; Fergal; Virgilius; Vergilius), Bishop of Saltzburg, confessor (Lupinleaved wood sorrel, Oxalis lupinifolia, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.) Virgil, or Vergilius of Salzburg (born about 700 in Ireland; died November 27, 784 in Salzburg) was a holy bishop of the Diocese Salzburg. He originated from an noble family of Ireland, where his name was Feirgil, and was educated in the Iona monastery. It is controversial whether he is identical to Abbot Feirgil of Aghaboe Abbey in Queens County. Around 743 he went to Pippin the Younger of Franconia, who in 745 sent him to Odilo of Bavaria, which then also encompassed Salzburg. The same year he became abbot of St Peter Abbey and leader of the Salzburg Diocese. St Boniface of Crediton (d. 755) accused Vergilius of "teaching a doctrine in regard to the rotundity of the Earth, which was 'contrary to the Scriptures'" (Catholic Encyclopedia).