newjackcole

Elephant Gohma

Added 2022-07-28 17:00:05 +0000 UTC

The Elephant Gohma represent/embody wisdom and foolishness, which can range from a high sagely quality, to a bacchanalian revelry. Foolishness in this context doesn't necessarily equate to something like stupidity, but is closer to self abandon, or the sort of energy and enthusiasm similar to what the fool tarot also represents.

In this particular image, on the gohma's head is a cousin of the emerald tablet of the alchemists. In the glass case is the bee, which I like to pair with the spider symbolically, as they are both insects whose work keeps the world in balance and abundance.

It's all part of a sort of symbolic/magic apparatus which the aspects I've described are transferred from part of part of the machine, until at last they become a sort of gold liquid which waters re-nourishes the floating stump.

Below on the orb are the swords and drapes, which give a sort of violence and sensuousness. The foxes for this illustration give a little scale of the gohma's size, but in particular I like pairing foxes with the gohma, because they embody imagination.

This particular Elephant Gohma is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum of wisdom and foolishness, aligned closer with magic and alchemy, and the knowledge and sensuality that is the domain of magic.

I hope that is a description that offers more ways to think about the image and hopefully doesn't ruin the magic by overexplaining it, in the way I talked about on the "Comet Fox" illustration.