lili

It would be strange if Lana was the only musician with esoteric messages. Such information can be accessed from books, internet, other artists or from within oneself. I can see it in the work of Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode, Rihanna etc. Personally I am not into paranoid interpretations like those of Illuminati/conspiracy theorists. I think they don't go deep enough into the nature of reality and derive their worldview from arbitrary fragments they feel threatened by.

For me it's an open question to what extent Lana consciously/rationally employs esoteric symbolism in her songs and videos. Much of it may be based on feelings, which seems to be generally the way of artists. And there are parallels between exoteric and esoteric meanings, like the relationship between man and woman and the relation between ego and soul or masculinity and femininity within oneself. For Lana, the exoteric meaning may be primary or sometimes even the only one but she seems to at least unconsciously intuit also the more subtle, spiritual dimension of it, judging from her poetry, haunting music and religious imagery in videos. She lifts the mundane to that higher level.
 
She has also explicitely stated her interest in metaphysics both in the academic/philosophical sense (which she actually studied at university) and in the popular/spiritual sense. Which too may influence her art, even if not in a direct or fully conscious way.
 
At the bottom it is quite simple: masculine and feminine, analysis and synthesis, differentiation and unification, definiteness and ambiguity, individuality and collective, part and whole... It is the implications that follow from this dichotomy that make reality complex.

Chokmah = CHOKE MA
 

 

 

 

 
"My pussy tastes like the blood of the saints"
 

 
Video Games = Nuit observed by Hadit as she falls away from him

Goddess is coming for the sacred marriage but god is still caught up in his video games and she can't break through that virtual world.

HOLY SHIT I love you and want to have your babies... I just realised TWO things from your post:
 
1) Lana Del Rey = Wool of the King =Woolridge... like whatever!  How did I not catch that before???
 
and
 
2) Lana being a lone bride marrying an unseen man (or her absentee cult leader?) is so similar to the Source yet again! Isis Aquarian considers herself to still be a wife to Jim Baker aka Yahoweh as an "Aquarian Nun" It seems like Isis is the one to coin that phrase as there really isn't much when you google, but interesting nonetheless...

"Ultraviolence" video = the Subject (holding the camera) and Object approaching a state of Blessed Union; the Bride of Christ waiting for an absent (dead?) husband
 
As Pitchfork asked of Born to Die ... "Is that all there is?"
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JAXm2aCRE8
 
Black leather wedding dress http://books.google.com/books?id=fcXuV_U_-LgC&pg=PT127&dq=isis+black+veil&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Wp3eU7uYJ6OKjALql4DQDQ&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=isis%20black%20veil&f=false
 

 
("Finite and short-lived": Born to Die)
 

 
("The divine radiance": Life is beautiful, but you don't have a clue)
 

 

 
Binah (Isis) drawing and holding the fire of Chokmah
 
I note that Lana consistently inhabits Isiac archetypes http://lanasdaily.tumblr.com/post/86807175923/lana-del-rey-interviewed-for-intro-magazine-june-2014
 
 

 
The High Priestess = Isis http://books.google.com/books?id=ac8XpyUuTIUC&pg=PA22&dq=%22high+priestess%22+isis+tarot&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TJHeU5zYL5DwigL0sICYDw&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22high%20priestess%22%20isis%20tarot&f=false
 
The Rider waits ...
 

 
The "National Anthem" video = Isis (Jackie in alchemical gold) mourning Osiris (JFK) slain by Set (Oswald)--this song is immediately followed by "Dark Paradise" on BTD--"I wish I was dead, dead like you"
 
http://www.fastcocreate.com/3023186/the-director-of-lana-del-reys-tropico-film-helps-us-make-sense-of-it-all
 
 
The Garden of Eden (Dark Paradise) of Tropico is the Egyptian First Time (Zep Tepi) where the eternal archetypes of the gods dwell (Elvis being the archetypal Sun King); it is here that Osiris-JFK is slain as part of the primordial creative act--please refer to Mircea Eliade's Cosmos and History where this is elucidated: https://archive.org/details/CosmosAndHistorytheMythOfEternalReturn
 
This is layered in macrocosmic and microcosmic dimensions; i.e. the creation of the universe is re-enacted in the psyche of the individual. There is an apple and a strawberry. In wishing to be "like the gods," the Gnostic Eve as Sophia plucks the forbidden fruit down on the West Coast and shatters the illusory Garden ruled by the Demiurge. (This is difficult to explain ...)
 
Cause I'm your jazz singer
And you're my cult leader
I love you forever,
I love you forever

With his ultraviolence
(lay me down tonight)
Ultraviolence
(in my linen and curls)
Ultraviolence
 

 
Elizabeth Wool-ridge is made an Isiac initiate through the actions of her Cult Leader-Hierophant, and thus embodies a Priestess of Isis in her linens and curls and flower crowns

Life imitates art...
 
"Art" is the Pleroma, the realm of perfect Platonic forms or concepts that transcends spacetime. These forms are abstract, general, like Tree, Beauty, 35 (a number) etc. They manifest in concrete worlds, in spacetime or Kenoma, as concrete, particular forms, like concrete trees, concrete beautiful things, 35 concrete things etc. This manifestation is "life", partial, incomplete representations of the more general forms, in particular locations of spacetime. Spacetime itself can be regarded as one of the general forms in Pleroma, in which other general forms have particular, differentiated representations (parts).
 
In other words, Pleroma is God, whose manifestation in spacetime is creation (both the activity and the product).

I haven't studied philosophy in a systematic way but I have long been fascinated by some fundamental questions about reality, which I guess boil down to this one: Why is there something instead of nothing? Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that deals with such fundamental questions but today the word is also associated with study of a "spiritual world". I am interested in metaphysics in both senses.
 
Philosophy, unlike natural science, is not based on rigorous physical evidence but mainly on logic, thought, feeling and tries to come up with meaningful or plausible explanations not necessarily confirmed by physical evidence. It seems to be more about musing about possibilities than having a concrete definite answer. Philosophy and science should inform each other, and they often do. I am not a scientist either but I like to read popular literature especially on modern physics because modern physics is investigating pretty fundamental stuff too like the nature of matter, space, time and the origin of the universe. Another interesting area is parallels between religious and scientific concepts.
 
Regarding the origin of life, I can imagine that life is purely physical; whether it originated on earth or the seeds were transported here by a meteorite (theory of panspermia) is not particularly interesting to me. What is interesting to me is whether life, especially our human life, is really purely physical or if there is also a non-physical component as claimed by religious traditions (a consciousness or soul that survives the death of physical body) and where this comes from and goes to. It is conceivable that there may be other worlds than the physical one we know and this idea is now being pondered in physics too (string/M-theory, multiverse). Aliens (including ourselves!) may actually come from those other worlds.

Attaining the Pinnacles of Power on earth is the proper course of action for the Scarlet Woman; but we still see her as an externalized Object in this sense, if she is not also actualized within ourselves -- http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=171564
 

Lizzy Grant has dyed her hair a darker shade of brown, as it suits the mood of her soul.
 
The encounter with the Shadow involves directly penetrating into the whole egoic nature in order to transform it from within. Therefore Lana must directly confront the very notion of what it means to be Real in an unreal world, and the very notion of Womanhood as an Object of men's affections. She enters into what is inherently False, i.e. the image of the manufactured pop singer, and thus seeks to transform it into its pre-existent archetype, which is the essential theurgic-alchemical path and the re-creation of the universe. She is tested and broken down and undergoes trials of a greater nature than those who never take this long road--most will never comprehend their own unreality, as it has never been questioned.

"The sun also rises,
On those who fail to call
My life, it comprises,
Of losses and wins and fails and falls"

The rising of the alchemical sun within the psyche involves the coming to the surface of undesirable traits that have been heretofore unacknowledged. We see that there are clearly two personae she dons in this respect: Mary and Eve are the redeemed and unredeemed aspects of the World-Soul; Eve as the girl in the red party dress has figuratively "failed the call" and remains prima materia that has not been brought to perfection.
 
Eve as the woman in red has an existence dependent on what others think about her; she is an externalized Object singing the Body Electric. We may watch her on the stage, as she is pretty when she cries, calling for us (the egos as Subjects) to return to her and grant her a reality.

The frequent comparisons made to David Bowie are not without validity -- http://www.algonet.se/~bassman/articles/93/a.html
 

"Lana Del Rey" is a doppelgaenger in one sense, but her truest Self in another, as she is an image of that which she is destined to be--"I believe in the person I want to become." The "Born to Die" Lana (being a false image) is already dead. Heaven is not birthed without numerous travails. Lana, being Nuit (Soul-Body-Object), should seek to attain the active manifestation of Hadit (Ego-Subject), rather than die and return to dissolution that is the passive state of a purely feminine nature.

Yes, it is well known that encounter with the unconscious part of ourselves may trigger a spiritual crisis or "dark night of the soul", with a variety of mental or psychosomatic problems, as the person tries to integrate and may feel overwhelmed by those emerged psychological contents. Lana's references to "deadly nightshade" and "poison" may symbolize such a difficulty or pain with opening up to the soul.
 
Also, according to Jung the first stage of the process of spiritual maturation (individuation) is encounter with the so-called "shadow", undesirable aspects of ourselves that we deny in ourselves:
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_%28psychology%29
 
Songs like "Fucked My Way Up To The Top" or "Money Power Glory" may not only portray a lusty/greedy ego but also the shadow, undesirable traits that the ego denied/repressed. Unless you read these songs as a sarcastic expression of what critics attributed to Lana, they express open acknowledgment of undesirable traits in oneself. That shouldn't mean that one identifies with them, just that one experiences and accepts the fact that these traits exist in oneself (and perhaps also finds that they may be used in a positive way). Honest understanding of oneself is a prerequisite to a constructive life.

http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/1385-original-sin-an-interview-with-lana-del-rey-john-calvert-october-4th-2011-0707/?p=34637
 
"I could have died right there
Cause he was right beside me
Jim raised me up"

http://gnosticteachings.org/courses/alchemy/3076-transmutation.html
 
 
"Oh, boy you're starry eyed
Lay back, baby lay back
You've got heaven in your eyes
I like that, boy I like that"
 
Since her sex life keeps coming up, the song "Starry Eyed" seems to refer to the Tantric practice of Eye Gazing http://amuchbetterway.com/what-is-eye-gazing/
 
 
"Blessed is this, this union
Crying tears of gold, like lemonade"

"They say make lemonade out of lemons
But I try and I just can't understand it
All this trying for no good reason
Man makes plans and God laughs
Why do I even bother to ask?
Well, once you and I, we were the king and queen of this town"
 
Making lemonade out of lemons is making medicine out of poison
 
"I’m a chain-smoker."
 
The Girl on Fire enters fully into chaos in order to perfect it, becoming one with the Ground of Being and realizing herself in the field of space and time, knowing that it all could happen down on the West Coast ("I like a physical love") http://realitysandwich.com/219794/circumambulating-the-alchemical-mysterium/
 
 

 
Neil Krug says: "The allegorical smoking in the hydrangea image is a favorite of mine"
 
Her Fire is allegorical (of what?--he doesn't say)
 
Rilke's "Blue Hydrangea": http://www.thebeckoning.com/poetry/rilke/rilke6.html
 
 
Life lived in the world of beautiful but transient Reflektions transitions to a higher and more permanent life of renewal (the Spark liberated from the dark earth), when the Lonesome Queen comes back to him -- She comes when he calls
 
Upper half of the Pepsi-Cola logo = Noetic Upper Waters of Binah (peyote mind expansion)
 
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/wordpress/the-sacred-art-of-alchemy/
 
 
"I got that magical trance potion"
 
 

 
"I'm a dragon, you're a whore"

http://www.complex.com/style/2014/07/neil-krug-interview
 
How did you and Lana get in touch to do the artwork for Ultraviolence?
It's something that has been in the air for the long time. Since 2012, Lana's fans have sent messages to me asking the two of us to collaborate.  (this literally being a shoutout to me)
I generally don't get mail from other musicians' fans, but her audience is dedicated and had me on blast even before we met. Strangely, Lana had picked up a copy of Pulp Art Book years ago but was told that I was dead from a friend of hers, so it came as a surprise when someone at her label suggested that we work together on Ultraviolence. This was the right one for us to do together, as well. It has all of the right elements, and I'm in a good phase to jump on her moving train.
The album cover is a striking, almost haunting image. How did you decide on this shot in the end? 
The cover photograph of her getting out of the car was always one of our top selects. The image was taken in her driveway on our first day of shooting and stood out from the beginning. When we met, we discussed the idea of the cover being the reverse of what you would expect from such a bold album name. When you hear the title Ultraviolence, you almost expect some sort of explosion happening or her shirt covered in blood.
We both agreed that the artwork should have all the undertones present without having to blast it in your face. Stylistically, I was going for something that felt like a lobby card from a bygone midnight movie. In my mind, the cover needed to feel like the last frame of a '60s Polanski film, where the audience has been properly traumatized, and this is the last thing they see before the credits roll.

How does the cover represent the album concept or the title, Ultraviolence?
For me, it says it all without saying anything. It's an easy read when you look at it from a marketing perspective, because it perfectly communicates Lana's vision and is a clear image of her to absorb. For the fans who sit and listen, I think the image will reveal itself like a magic eye pattern. The image is like a window into the narrative.
What do the other photos in the box set represent? The ripped jeans, Lana in the car, the flowers, the city, etc. Where did you shoot them?
All the images she chose are pieces of a bigger picture that work as devices to put you in the right mood or frame of mind—the same way an author can lead you down the rabbit hole with the situation in which he or she places you. We called the selections "in-between moments" when we did the edits in my studio. Everything you see is the moment or action before and after, but not "the moment," if that makes sense. The ripped jeans Polaroid was taken in my living room, and the car shots were taken in her driveway. The allegorical smoking in the hydrangea image is a favorite of mine and was taken at Frank Sinatra's house outside of Los Angeles.

You also shot Lana for our Complex cover. What was that experience like, and what were you going for having done her album photography?
For me, the magazine shoot and the album packaging are two completely separate ideas, so the creative shift is how she is styled and the location choice.  The overall vibe is similar, probably because it's the same guy behind the camera. All of my shoots with her were done so quickly that's it difficult for me to be objective right now, simply because there are so many photographs over such a short period of time.
How did your style as a photographer develop? Have you always been into colorful images, warm hues, Americana, psychedelia, and graininess?
Since the early days I've always tried to keep the work in this space between illustration and photography. Whether the unnatural vividness of the colors is the narrative device or whatever else might be going on, the style is a hodgepodge of many ingredients.
"Window Water Baby Moving" versus "Gantz Graf" if you like. I love making images but never thought I would make photography a career in any capacity. In fact, photography is the only class I ever completely failed in high school. I remember my teacher passing along advice in the vein of "find another outlet for creative ideas." 

Do you have any plans to make a third Pulp Art Book? Why or why not?
Right now I don't have any plans to make another Pulp Book. It's a slightly complicated story, but Joni and I parted ways in 2013, so I don't see any new work from that project happening anytime soon. That being said, we have a giant archive of unreleased work that may come out in some form, but it's hard to say. I could see us releasing a collection of unseen prints, but sitting down to make a new book together again would be difficult. I will forever be proud of that imagery, but it does feel like the old me in a lot of ways. I want the next monograph I do to be completely different.
Is the present ever as intriguing as the past?
The present is far more intriguing and unknown.
If you had unlimited money or resources, what types of projects would you do?
I don't think I would change much to be honest. I love what I do and feel blessed to be in a position to shoot the type of projects that interest me. With unlimited resources I would probably spend a little more time getting the look and narrative just right, or going to more exotic locations, but at the end of the day, you can make magic anywhere. For me, limiting yourself forces the creative side to find a solution which keeps the work more focused.

She went from being the one who sings the body electric to becoming the body itself...

^ Ascending and descending poles of manifestation ... just Ride up or down ("everyone around here seems to be going down, down")
 
In the new audio commentary she reveals that "Ultraviolence" was originally titled "Melancholia" (she's still a "Sad Girl," isn't she) http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/alchemy%202.htm
 
 

 
Number 13 on her Motorcycle Love Divine -- Deadly Nightshade
 
This is too long for me to quote directly, but Litewave posted this excerpt from Richard Tarnas, which discusses at length how the Subject-Object divide defines Western culture http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 

 
Her West Coast alchemy underscores that Bradley as Ego is the Subject perceiving the Woman in Red as the alluring Body, the Object -- the destruction of the space between them necessitates the Death of the old self (Kill Kill)
 
"I love the archetype of a girl in a red dress. There is something about the lure of the lady in red."
 
"O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
     nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the
     soul, (and that they are the soul,) ...
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,...
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
     marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of
     the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!" (Whitman)
 

 
Litewave said: http://phoenixrise.awardspace.com/lana.htm
 
 
"I feel a strong relationship with God and I feel my ties are with him.... I feel a connection as real with that as I've ever had with anybody on this earth."
 
This would suggest, then, that (so she hints) the "Rock 'n' Roll guardians" and initiators of Soul (cult leaders and jazz singers, "keepers of the light") are charged with forging a connection to the Invisible and entering the Holy of Holies that the multitude does not wish to approach -- "Being a bad bitch on the side might not appeal to fools like you." The audience (you) as the collective Subject observes the collective Object (Miss America) on stage as she sets herself on fire before the multitude -- the red Rose has the look of a flower that is looked at. Such is the Mystery demonstrated for all, forever, until they can take full charge of the Soul for themselves.
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
"Vehicle" of the spirit in manifestation, Binah receiving Chokmah's light
 


 
--Gareth Knight
 
"Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough
I don’t know why
Keep making me laugh
Let’s go get high
The road is long, we carry on"
 
Compare with this interview http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/4738-lana-del-rey-interview-xlsemanal/&do=findComment&comment=186095
 

That tire swing caused some confusion lol...
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_%28Lana_Del_Rey_EP%29#Critical_reception
 
It's a nice symbol, a pendulum on which Lana rides between heaven and earth, periodically descending and ascending. When she is at the highest point, presumably somewhere in heaven, she is in complete stillness (timelessness) and has the highest potential energy; as she descends the potential energy is converted into kinetic energy (motion), which reaches its maximum at the lowest point - the divine potential is actualized in creation. Then she ascends as the created parts are reunited into the whole from which they came. But as you said, she retains her connection with the heavenly realm throughout the process.

ur not a gangsta
 
as said, i just want you kids to know you stan for a genuine fucking genius, and we don't have that many of them these days
 
 
The Eastern path speaks of an egoless dissolution ("I wish I was dead") ... the Western path speaks of a sort of active participation in the world (it all could happen down on the West Coast; "just do what you love, do it better than") -- yet these two are one
 
 
In other words ... "a Fire for every experience" (FB Dowd)
 

 
The Artist is suspended from a single cord from Above, rather than Below; Lana speaks of being a willing conduit of the invisible
 

 
Mary-Isis-Sophia (etc.) in White speaks to her children ("shared my body and my mind with you"), saying you can be her full-time baby
 
The Spark is divided into pieces in her Eucharist when her living body is broken and shared: "an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again, sparkling and broken" -- "I know you, I walked with you, once upon a dream ..."
 
The girl in red, the girl in (alchemical) gold, the girl in white -- all these are her, interpenetrating a single soul
 
Inner indecisiveness as wide and wavering as the ocean reflecting the endless USA (Boehme's primordial ground of being)
 

 

 
The ego as Subject observes the Object on the stage, dancing circles around her (hey Orpheus)
 

 
Cut to: Subject and Object are now dancing with each other ("just want it like before, we were dancing all night") ... the Wall is the Law ("got your Bible")
 
By belonging to no-one, she belongs to everyone, and you, too, can be hers, she whispers to those who take a walk on the wild side ("don't be afraid of me, don't be ashamed, walk in the way of my soft resurrection") ... the Lonely Queen will keep waiting

Mystical traditions in general are more attuned to the feminine as they seek unity with God in the subtle world of spirit rather than progress in the gross world of matter. In Christianity God reveals himself as a male - Jesus, incarnation of Son/Logos - and the Western civilization pays much more attention to this aspect than to the rest of the Trinity - not just in religion (Christianity) but in its individualistic and rational direction, in its democratic ideals, capitalism, science, technology, material progress. In Catholicism the feminine aspect of God is still present in the veneration of Mary (who is not regarded as God though) but if you go even furher west, to Britain and USA, where Protestantism prevails, even Mary is downplayed.
 
On the other hand, if you turn your eyes toward the Eastern civilization, religion (like Hinduism or Buddhism) becomes more mystical, intuitive, the material world is de-emphasized as an illusion/maya and the goal is to dissolve your individuality and merge with God/everything in nirvana. Collectivist ideology, socialism, was established on a massive scale in Asia and Eastern Europe.
 
But as globalization intensifies, the lines between Western and Eastern cultures become increasingly blurred: the totalitarian socialist experiment failed but so did unrestrained capitalism; democracy and market economy and Western technology spread in the East, while socialist principles, Eastern religions, yoga, meditation spread in the West. It looks like a manifestation of the unification of divine polarity on earth.

"You can be my higher power baby
I can be your endless USA"
 
 
Agree completely
 
"We were two kids, just tryin' to get out,
Live on the dark side of the American dream"
 
There is, on one side, the spiritual interpretation of such things as the American dream, Pepsi-Cola, and Yayo; on the "dark side" are their inverted reflections as they appear in our exterior, materialist society
 
That Message of Aquaria book I mentioned has a lot of crazy in it, but this passage is interesting ("Talking about that newer nation") --
 
 
Lana has done something infinitely clever, which is to take the ideas about Yahweh and his Shekinah, as described in the Jewish Kabbalah, and then give them a uniquely American spin, wherein they become John and Eve-Mary; the soul of Israel is replaced by the soul of America
 
The 50 stars of the American flag = the 50 Gates of Binah--the red and white stripes are the red and white roses of the Shekinah as Malkuth and Binah, Eve and Mary, as said
 

 
In the Ride video she is distinctly pictured as the Daughter, Malkuth, making her way back to her home in Binah, represented by the 50 Gates on her pinball machine and the 50 stars on the flag in which she is draped
 
We will note how Life Imitates Art and that Lana was, for a period, "in exile" from her American homeland, just as the Shekinah is in exile from Israel, due to the weight of our sins and the hardness of our hearts
 
http://www.northernway.org/shekinah.html
 
 
We, of course, cannot see God directly, but can see His earthly avatar in the form of His appointed Jazz Singer
 
Note Father Yod's (i.e. Yahweh's) reference to the Song of Songs above
 
"I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Cedar, as the curtains of Solomon"
 
 
"We get down every Friday night ..." http://sisterhoodoftherose.homestead.com/Shekinah.html
 
"God has a wife" http://www.northernway.org/presentations/godwife/

I agree - the return of the feminine power in our age was the idea of my first post on this forum...
 
Now that I realize that in Ultraviolence Lana may be using America as a symbolic representation of the Creation landscape it is easier for me to understand the esoteric meaning of her previous references to America in relation to herself.
 

 
At the highest level, all souls merge into one (the world soul/anima mundi) and with God. At the lowest level (on earth) they achieve their most distinct (in the fallen state isolated) individuality as their egos.
 
In the Ride video she speaks from the perspective of the world soul:
 
I was in the winter of my life - and the men I met along the road were my only summer. At night I fell asleep with visions of myself dancing and laughing and crying with them.
 
The "men" are the egos; the contrast between winter and summer is one between calm sleepy passivity and lively activity. But the unity in diversity didn't last; it disintegrated in the process of the Fall:
 
I once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet, but upon an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again, sparkling and broken.
 
In the end though, after enduring alienation and abuse that left both sides in the dead end, the time for reconciliation and renewed harmony has come:
 
Every night I used to pray that I’d find my people, and finally I did on the open road. We had nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore, except to make our lives into a work of art.
 
Again, individuals on the wave of oneness:
 
I hear the birds on the summer breeze
I drive fast, I am alone in the night
(Ride)
 
In line with the American symbolism, when she manifests in Creation she takes on elements of American culture:
 
My pussy tastes like Pepsi-Cola
My eyes are wide like cherry pies
I fall asleep in an American flag
I wear my diamonds on skid row
(Cola)
 
United States - individuals in union / egos in world soul
Red, white, blue - red and blue are from the opposite ends (almost) of the color spectrum, with connotations of right wing (individualism/ego) and left wing (solidarity/soul); white is the union of all colors
 
I believe in the country America used to be
(Ride monologue)
 
- nostalgia for the time when the Creation landscape was united with God, from East to West.
 
John Wayne as God proclaims in Tropico:
 
You ask me why I love her? I've a million reasons why:
My beautiful America, beneath God's wide, wide sky
 
In another guise, her Father proclaims his love for all egos:
 

 
( )
 
And at the end of her shows she asks to be treated with due reverence:
 
Tell me I'm your National Anthem

The girls in the strip club dancing for Adam are "dark stars" filled with poison, until he is able to cross the Abyss and unite Subject and Object (Hadit and Nuit, Shiva and Shakti)
 
"Call me poison ivy 'cause I'm far from good
Pretty from afar, like a dark star ...

I spend my whole life driving in cars with boys
Riding around town, drinking in the white noise
Used to talk about where we be and where we go
Now we know, baby, now we know"
 
He hit me and it felt like a kiss http://yourgodisafraud.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/misogyny-in-crowleys-writings-and-the-occult/
 
 
The Aquarian liberated woman ("I'm free") of the new generation is no longer merely in the backseat Driving in Cars With Boys but attaining the driver's seat and her own adepthood, greater than that of the ossified patriarchal traditions
 

 
You’re my one Heaven King Daddy (Isis and Osiris the Dying God)
 

 
"Strangled up in ivy
I’m the garden of Eden"
 
"A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed."
 

 
(Is the woman holding a microphone?)
 

^ Got her bad baby by her heavenly tsela
 
Directly after WITHOUT YOU on BTD is LOLITA ... or is it Lalita, another name for Maya-Shakti??? http://www.shreemaa.org/worship-of-goddess-lalita/
 
 
I wish there was one book I could recommend ... lately I've been reading Frithjof Schuon, who speaks of the Perennial Philosophy -- if one were studying Metaphysics, that would probably be where I would go
 
But in the past it's been people like Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Stephan Hoeller, Carl Jung, Algis Uždavinys, Arthur Waite, Franz Hartmann, Manly P. Hall, etc. and whatever I could find in English on Kabbalah -- none are easy reads but I find I have actually understood them more through the lens of Lana's work, intentionally or not on her part
 
But perhaps the source of her knowledge is summed up in the passage from Psalm 51 that she flashes during "Body Electric": "Behold, thou lovest truth in the inward affections: therefore hast thou taught me wisdom in the secret of mine heart."

Funny that yesterday I was thinking about Adam's initial androgyny. The Hebrew word Adam means man, human or mankind (not necessarily a male human). So at the beginning Adam may have been androgynous but then God took out one of his ribs and made a woman from it. The Hebrew word tsela is traditionally understood as a rib but it also has a more general meaning: a side. So the scripture can be interpreted in the sense that God separated a feminine side from the androgynous human and made a female human from it. In the formerly androgynous human the masculine side remained, thus making this human a male. This was not the Fall yet, just a gender-specialization on the physical plane. The male and female egos/bodies were still in harmony with their souls and thus with God.

The video behind her lends a new dimension to "Without You" -- when Adam (Ego) and Eve (Body-Soul) are separated, they fall into duality, Shiva gazing upon Shakti as Maya in the world (the externalized Image burned into the brain of the World-Soul), which is, after all, "nothing" without him, being "without" and not "within"
 
Can you picture it? The life we could've lived; Heaven on earth in Paradise?
 
http://pages.intnet.mu/ramsurat/GauraKrishna/English/RamayanaGenesis.html
 
 

 
The China Doll with money, notoriety, etc. as Eve "without" is seen falling forever, farther away from her eternal lover Adam (as the girl in red does at the end of the "Shades of Cool" video, while the girl in white, as what is "within," drowns)
 

 
I wonder if she ever came upon noted metaphysician Frithjof Schuon?
 
Or perhaps Jakob Boehme?
 

 

 

 
"Shared my body and my mind with you ..."

When I first heard Old Money I took the line about "words" and "beauty" as referring to the archetypes of Word and Beauty, the polarity of ego-soul or of Son-Spirit in God, so when she sang "Will you still love me when I shine from words but not from beauty" I interpreted it as foreshadowing her shift from soul to ego, descent to earth where the Spirit of God is subdued and only the Word remains, also in the sense that the beauty of God is gone and only scriptures remain. This parallels the theme of growing old and devitalization where eventually the physical beauty is lost too.
 
The nostalgia for youth is also evident in the child voices at the beginning of Bel Air and at the beginning of the Summertime Sadness video where a child's voice says: "Remember, always love you, bye."
 
The power of youth is on my mind
Sunsets, small town, I'm out of time
(Old Money)
 
The "I'm out of time" is another delightful double entendre: (1) she is out of time because she grows old and approaches death as the separated ego; (2) she is not touched by time as the eternal (albeit repressed) soul.
 
My father's love was always strong
My mother's glamour lives on and on
Yet still inside I felt alone
For reasons unknown to me
(Old Money)
 
The first two lines evoke the glory of God, of the eternal masculine-feminine polarity in God (Son and Holy Spirit) that created her, as it creates everything. And the next two lines contrast this with the disruption of union in her own being and life.