I'm on the first step to researching for Suns now. It's casting the net - using Google-fu and library-fu to find what I need, what I don't need, what I never knew I needed, what I won't possibly use, and what fits precisely and exactly with what I wanted, even though I didn't know it existed.
I'll have a lot of material when I'm done. Most of it will be not precisely trash, but allowed to compost in the back of my brain as not quite necessary just now. For instance - do I want to put my story at the collapse of the Old Kingdom? It has some attractions that fit with the plot, and I could through Exodus in there, which would tickle me. Or do I want to set my story in the New Kingdom? It's glitzier there - faster, fancier. Do I even want to put it at the end of the New Kingdom, and get to play with all the gradeur that was the reign of Ramses II? Or, would I rather make Hetsapsut my backdrop, and imagine what her country was like? What about Ankehaten - the monotheist pharoah? All fascinating time periods, but, like reality tv, all but one will be eliminated, and I won't need the research on that time period - this time around, anyway.
The first round of books and DVDs are winging their way to my home even now. I suspect I'll need a second round, and then I'll make my decision and move on to Step 2. (Which is lacking a good metaphor right now. But it's the step where I'll exhaustively research what is relevant to this story. And start talking to the voices in my head.)
Consecutive days of writing: 001
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Word count since 4/30/09: 4975
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My own garbage for your compost heap.
ReplyDeleteThe I Ching lacks a sigil for Sun or Moon or any of the standard divinitory markers, attempting to be complete unto itself. However, each trigram contains its own meaning, from which derive the standard interpretations of the 64 hexagrams. Fire over Sky is #14, "Great Posession". It indicates progress and success.
I find this interesting in part because I chose these trigrams as making me think about the Sol, the Sun, and there we go, with the word "progress". As in, procession across the sky. I'm sure you can Google a reasonable translation to find help interpreting the moving and still lines, if you care to. I thought James Legge's footnote (Gramercy Press, 1996) was apropos of your project:
"Tâ Yû means 'Great Havings;' denoting in a kingdom a state of prosperity and abundance, and in a family or individual, a state of opulence. The danger threatening such a condition arises form the pride which it is likely to engender. But everything here is against that issue. Apart from the symbolism of the trigrams, we have the place of honour occupied by a weak line, so that its subject will be humble; and all the other lines, strong as they are, will act in obedient sympathy. There will be great progress and success."
and further on,
"Line 5 symbolises the ruler. Mild sincerity is good in him, and affects his ministers and others. But a ruler must not be without an awe-inspiring majesty.
Even the topmost line takes its character from 5. The strength of its subject is still tempered, and Heaven gives its approval."