Sun Symbolism and Blood Guilt

Over the past 2 years I have had several fascinating conversations with Mr. Jose C. Bulang of Bohol (Philippines). Mr. Bulang is a faithful reader of JUST GENESIS and has found some of the research helpful in his pursuit of information about his family's origins. The emphasis of his ancestors on adherence to One True God suggests Muslim merchants or traders - the Gur or Gurjars. In Akkadian gurguri means metalworkers or copper smiths. In Somali Oromo gurguru means to sell (gurgurtaa = sale, gurguraa = seller). In Somali "gur" refers to collecting something and gurgure means one who collects and keeps collecting. The Gurgure clan of the Somali Dir refers to traders who collect wares and resale them.

Mr. Bulang has proved to be a valuable source of information for me also. One account of his father's wisdom has been recorded here (how pythons were used in navigation).

What follows is a portion of a recent correspondence with Mr. Bulang.


Jose Bulang: When my father was alive, he died in 1993, he would always talked about symbolism, symbolism of thing called pair (or is it like to your binary) like the sun and the moon, the day and the night, the man and the woman, and according to him the most important is the hole and that something that is to be place in the hole that made a coupling. And that the most important symbol is zero for everything will get back into it, as zero is the symbol of supreme intelligence. I do not know how you think of it.

Alice Linsley: The binary feature of reality is the beginning of wisdom. I believe that your father was a very wise man. I wonder did he think of the zero as a sun symbol?

Jose Bulang: Yes, my father use to tell me that O is the symbol of sun, according to him the Alpha and the Omega, to the sun we come so to it we go. He also told me that the earth is a big hole that the sun breath unto it and there comes life. I remember he illustrated to me having his two palms together in a molding fashion and breathing an air on it, and he said that what he breath is like the energy from the sun and it gives life and it is what is said in the Bible "God made image of him from the dust and breath a spirit unto it and it become man."

He told me that spirit is energy trapped in a shell called human body from the earth, and earth is mother and sun is the father, earth is negative sun is positive. and when this energy is released the body returned to the dust and the spirit return to the source that is the Sun. But even the earth may come back into the sun, at anytime. My father lost interest in worldly things, he engrossed in prayers but he is not going into the church. Very seldom, when invited to baptisms or burials did he go to church.

Alice: The solar symbolism that your father shared with you is very ancient wisdom. The image of the human body as a shell is especially beautiful to me because I used to collect shells and I still have some that I gathered off the beaches of Luzon.

Jose: One day I ask my father where our eldest ancestor come and who is he, he answered, "I cannot be certain but accordingly our eldest ancestor was named Osman and claimed to have come from the House of Sulaiman. Accordingly, he told our grandfather, "bring your children to the belief and service of one and only God and so the blood of the Bulang will be cleanse of its Curse." This thing my father have told me. And because of this I have made a research which I started at age 40. I am now 57. It bothers me because the Curse in the Bible refers to Cain and his downline.  In history it refers to Alexander the Great, and in history of the family, if my research is right, there were killings between the family members - the reason why we are now in the Philippines.

Alice: The curse is the same for all clans, all families. It is blood guilt that comes from the blood on our hands, and the anxiety that comes from consciousness of our mortality. Some blame the Jews for Jesus' crucifixion because the agitators in the crowd shouted, "His blood be on us and on our children." However, every human in every generation bears guilt for His blood. The paradox is that His blood frees us from the curse, from guilt, and from anxiety.

None is without the curse. It is our existence since death entered the world. All have ancestors who have taken life and spilled blood. Blood is the substance of human life and it has power to speak even from the ground. When Cain killed Abel, Abel's blood cried out to the Creator from the ground. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ covers all blood guilt. Only by the blood of the Pure One can the blood of the impure ones be made right. And when we doubt that the curse has been removed, we need to receive HIM again in the Holy Sacrament of Bread and Wine; doing this with thanksgiving. Our thankful hearts make the heart of God rejoice.

The priesthood emerged as a response to blood guilt and anxiety of blood guilt. It is the oldest known religious office. Remember that the priest Melchizedek came to Abraham after Abraham had been in combat. Melchizedek came to perform the rite of purification to relieve Abraham of his blood guilt and anxiety, and this rite involved bread and wine. It speaks of Jesus Christ. His symbol in the ancient world was the Sun, and the Sun was believed to give life to the Earth. The ancients were very concerned when there was a solar eclipse, but over time they came to understand that life on Earth does not end when the Sun is black (eclipsed). The Eternal One remains even when His glory is veiled.

Related reading: Kushites in Mindanao; From the Nile to the Philippines; Blood and Binary Distinctions; The Sun and Moon in Genesis; A Tent For the Sun; The Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; The Priesthood in Anthropological Perspective