‘Garibaldi EA° in October’

    

In the recent reconstruction of Washington Square Park, its statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi was moved about twenty feet to the north, and was reoriented to face due south. Is the Grand Master drawing or sheathing his sword? Read more about the monument here. Coincidentally, I just happened to shoot this photo yesterday.

This just in:

Garibaldi Lodge No. 542 will confer the Entered Apprentice Degree on Friday, October 19.

Masonic Hall
71 West 23rd St., Grand Lodge Room (third and fourth floors)
Manhattan

It’s a big room, but it does have a maximum capacity, so let the Secretary know you’re coming. Contact RW Robert Mascialino at garibaldi542(at)verizon.net no later than Monday, October 8.

My advice: Arrive no later than 6 p.m., and have your own apron and lodge membership card, and be prepared to work your way into a lodge. More information here.

If you do not know about the Garibaldi Entered Apprentice Degree, it probably is a ritual unlike any you have seen so far. I think its origins have been explained to me, but either I have forgotten, or didn’t understand. To make a long story short, this initiation is a very symbolic and highly dramatic work that comes to us from either the Memphis-Misraïm or the Scottish Rite tradition of Masonry. (Garibaldi was Grand Master of the M-M Rite in Italy.) It is spoken in Italian. Alchemical symbolism abounds. There is a true trial by fire. It has to be seen to be believed, and that’s why I’m telling you about it now.

The last time I visited, I brought with me a copy of the First Degree as published in Le Progres de l’Oceanie 1843: The First Masonic Lodge in Hawaii (Sandwich Islands), a bilingual text of mid 19th century Scottish Rite Craft ritual used by a lodge in Hawaii that was founded by the Scottish Rite Supreme Council of France in 1843. I thought I could have confirmed that the lodge was working AASR ritual, and it is very similar to Garibaldi’s ritual, except that it has far more spoken word for the Venerable Master than you’ll hear at Garibaldi.

Anyway, I will see you there.
  

‘Freedom is a light’

    

Facing Independence Hall is George Washington, standing in one of only five public squares

planned in William Penn’s 1682 survey of Philadelphia.

“Freedom is a Light for which many men have died in darkness” is the main inscription
on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington Square Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Today I’m just repeating a previous Memorial Day post, but with a different angle.

In everyday life, I think most people forget the meaning of patriotism, allowing that unifying virtue to be blended with what really is jingoism, or at best a “me too” moment, free of commitment or sacrifice.

As is often the case, the rituals of Scottish Rite Masonry help me make sense of such concepts. The Master of the Symbolic Lodge Degree (20º) in the A&ASR Southern Jurisdiction puts it succinctly:

“Patriotism, willing to sacrifice itself for the common good, even when neither thanks nor honor follow it; that asks not whether that which the country requires will or will not be popular, but does the right without regard to consequences. Let there be Light!”

As you know, this national holiday began as Decoration Day, the occasion to adorn the graves of the fallen of the U.S. Civil War. Decoration Day was established by General Order No. 11, issued by Gen. John Logan on May 5, 1868, who vowed: “If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.”

Again it is Scottish Rite that says it all. From the Chapter of Rose Croix: “So may the Light that never fails, the Love that never forgets, and the Life that never ends, illumine our world.”

SMIB.
    

‘Freedom is a Light’

    

Facing Independence Hall is George Washington, standing in one of only five public squares planned
in William Penn’s 1682 survey of Philadelphia.

“Freedom is a Light for which many men have died in darkness” is the main inscription
on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington Square Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Freemasonry in the United States is so interwoven with American history and patriotism that it baffles and even offends Masons from other countries. Lodges in America typically append to their opening ritual a salute to the U.S. flag, and while the salute is not truly part of the ritual, its proximity to the ritual’s conclusion creates the appearance of a seamless continuity. I suspect most Masons in America do not realize the salute is not part of the ceremony.

Few, if any, of us give it any thought, but Masons from other nations notice it. British brethren, if asked, happily would point out that their lodges are closed before, for instance, the queen is toasted at the festive board.

I’ll always remember one conversation over drinks very late one night during a recent Masonic Week, when this very subject was brought up. Was it not chauvinist or even jingoist to incorporate such flag waving into a Masonic ritual? It was Bro. Piers to the rescue, explaining that it is in fact the personal liberty represented by the flag that allows Masons to meet in their lodges, ergo a logical fit. (I paraphrase.)


“If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.”

          General Order No. 11, which established Decoration Day
          Gen. John Logan
          May 5, 1868


As we say in one of the Rose Croix rituals:

“So may the Light that never fails, the Love that never forgets, and the Life that never ends, illumine our world.”

SMIB.
  

‘A walk in the park’

     
Thanks to limited internet access (long story), The Magpie Mason has been mostly offline for about four weeks, so let me try to catch up. There is a lot of good news to report, from the March 29 meeting of The American Lodge of Research to a recent Rose Croix event, to the first symposium hosted by the AASR-NMJ, and more.

But first, a walk in the park.


Unseasonably warm and glorious weather embraced the New York City area at the start of the month, and so on Sunday the fourth I budgeted some time to enjoy a leisurely stroll around the campus of my alma mater, an area I frequented before and well after matriculation. Truthfully there is no campus (or at least that is how it’s explained in the annual crime statistics report), it’s called Greenwich Village.


I brought the camera, looking for sights and sites discernible to the initiated eye.


Washington Square Park now is in Phase II of a total reconstruction project that will erase the intent of its original landscape architect, and leave the Village with something that, frankly, no one asked for.

But there is still its world famous Arch. The Washington Square Arch. It has George Washington. It marks the square. It is an arch. Pretty Masonic, eh?

Dual likenesses of George Washington face the oncoming traffic headed down Fifth Avenue. At left, Washington the warrior. Right, Washington the statesman. And Washington is not the only Freemason in the park. Toward the east side, but facing the interior of the park is Giuseppe Garibaldi.

 

Grand Master Garibaldi, of course, is remembered as the George Washington of Italy. You can read a little more about him here.

Not far from that statue is a bust of Alexander Lyman Holley, an artificer in steel and other metals. Don't know if he was a Mason, and it's hard to figure out why he was honored with a statue here, but here he has stood since 1890. Some info about him and his statue can be read here. I'm including him in The Magpie mostly because this is a good shot of the bust's head:

Nearby, appropriately enough in La Guardia Gardens, is the landmark statue of Bro. Fiorello La Guardia erected in 1994 after the city decided against ruining the neighborhood by building an expressway that in effect would have extended Fifth Avenue to TriBeCa. There is irony in that, because it was Mayor La Guardia who appointed Robert Moses. Anyway, Bro. La Guardia was mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1945. There is a lodge in Staten Island named for him.

Statues are not the only representations of peoples' faces in the neighborhood. A number of buildings are adorned with various Green Men, gargoyles, and assorted physiognomonic renderings in stone, wood, and even terra cotta. To wit:

As above: The Muse of Art.

So below: The Muse of Music.

Both date to approximately 1880, but were added to the frontage of one of the university's buildings on Washington Square East decades later, after being rescued by the Anonymous Arts Recovery Society from their original home before it was demolished.

Above: Around the corner, a little closer to Broadway, is this terra cotta Green Man.


Below: On Broadway, towering over Shakespeare & Co. Book Sellers, is this friendly fellow. (The bookstore had no Masonic titles on its shelves.) Sorry for the blur. I had to zoom in from the sidewalk across the street, and he is more than five stories up.

Coincidentally, the university's main bookstore displayed this book in its window. Note the Beehive. In the words of Bro. John Priede: "I will add this to my bookshelf."

A few doors to the north on Broadway is this structure, dating to 1860. Plenty of eyes staring down at you.

A close-up of the fellow near the top floor.

Note his neighbors, especially at lower right.

Columns, and arches, and keystones!

Left: The Fleur de Lis is a familiar symbol. Right: Note the Cornucopia. Both are found on university buildings on Washington Place.

Copper or bronze menorah on the front of Hebrew Union College.

The Torch of Liberty, or the Light of Knowledge? The NYU emblem's origins are somewhat obscure, but what I like is the choice of gold inlaid into granite or... New York neon!

Judson Church is fancifully adorned with complicated stonework.

Headed west, there are residential and commercial sites worth a look.

What a shade of green! 121 MacDougal Street.

Note the face in the keystone.

And across the street is perhaps the only jewelry store you could ever find me in. C'est Magnifique makes and sells all manner of silver rings and other pieces, most are highly unusual and many are symbolic. I rarely wear my Masonic rings, but when I do, it is the simple silver one I bought here in 1999. They also have antique pieces, and what I love most about the place is its dusty, pawn shop-like atmosphere. Unfortunately the place was closed today. Note the All Seeing Eye in the triangle.

Land of Buddha, at 128 MacDougal, specializes in the arts and crafts of Tibet: silver, gemstones, rugs, prayer wheels, clothing, silks, antiques, books, and more. Note the hexagram at bottom.

And now we're getting somewhere. Exiting the Washington Square Park area from the west, and headed south, we find one of my Manhattan hideouts. A favorite place to sit down with a book and a cigar on a sunny day: Sir Winston Churchill Square.

So small and cleverly situated you would never know it was there, this tiny (0.5-acre) neighborhood park  is missed by everyone except for those who live in the area. There is only one statue (or sculpture), and it is an interesting one.

An armillary is an astronomical device comprised of many moving rings and pieces that recreate the changes of the heavens. No moving parts on this sculpture, but note the astrological signs on the interior ring.

The view through its center.

A big part of the Giuliani Revolution in the 1990s was the largely successful elimination of the seedy businesses in the city, including the retailers of drug paraphernalia. The mayor didn't get them all, and needless to say nine years after he left office these stores are reappearing in numbers. There are about half a dozen of them practically next to each other on Sixth Avenue near Bleecker Street. Walking past one of them, my eye was caught by the unmistakable Square and Compasses. Halted by surprise and dread, I stopped in my tracks and took a look.

Belt buckles. Two at top left and another, upside down, at bottom right. All mixed together with glass bongs and that gas mask smoking device. Great, huh? (And no, the proprietors were not interested in removing the belt buckles.)

     

‘Is Summer over yet?’

     
This edition of The Magpie Mason is dedicated to Bro. Gallant, who is in search of New York lodges that work Scottish Rite ritual.

Here is a reason to look forward to autumn: Garibaldi Lodge No. 542 will confer its world famous Entered Apprentice Degree on Friday, October 9. The Friday before Columbus Day.

The lodge will open at 8 p.m. in the Grand Lodge Room (third and fourth floors) at the Grand Lodge of New York, located at 71 West 23rd St., near the corner of Sixth Avenue, in Manhattan.

This degree draws visiting brethren from all over the world. The last time I attended – April of last year, I think – the visitors were called upon to introduce themselves, and they hailed from lodges across the United States, and indeed all over the globe. The Grand Lodge Room accommodates approximately 1,200 people, and believe me when I tell you that every seat in the room was occupied. (In fact, the first time I attended – April of 2001, I think – four hundred Masons, mostly those who arrived late on their buses from Pennsylvania, had to be turned away to placate the Fire Marshal, who was poised to close down the building for safety’s sake.)

If you plan to attend, be at the front door of Grand Lodge at 6 p.m. Bring your regalia and membership identification.

But that reminds me of another important observation. The last time I attended an EA° at Garibaldi in the fall – October of 2003, I think – the room was nearly empty. I was able to get one of the best seats in the house, and I’m not saying where that is.

Other facts you should know:

• Born on the fourth of July 1807, Giuseppe Garibaldi is regarded as “the George Washington of Italy” because his military and political skills were crucial to the unification and establishment of the modern Italian nation-state. And he was not limited to that nation; Garibaldi also fought for independence in Brazil and Uruguay. (It was then that he adopted the red shirt as symbolic attire. At Garibaldi Lodge, you’ll see the officers wearing red dress shirts with their tuxedos.)

After revolutionary exploits in Italy in the late 1840s, Garibaldi went into exile in of all places... Staten Island, New York. So there is a physical proximity of the lodge to its heroic namesake, as well as the ethnic unity. Because of his sojourn in New York City, there is a terrific statue of Garibaldi in historic Washington Square Park. The bronze depicts the warrior with his hand on the hilt of his sword. Is the warrior drawing the weapon, or is the statesman sheathing it?

• The lodge works in Italian, but that does not mean the ritual is incomprehensible to those of us who do not understand the language. Unlike the Preston-Webb-Cross rituals most Masons in the United States know, this ritual is much more physical and expressive and, frankly, dramatic. Its symbolism contains many alchemical elements. I won’t say more.

• Not only are Apprentices and Fellows welcome to attend, but they in fact will be seated in the East with the Worshipful Master, Grand Master, and other dignitaries. Just make sure you introduce them as such to the tilers at the doors.

• Be prepared for a long night. It takes a while to get everyone seated and the lodge brought to order. The degree is longer than that worked in most New York lodges. There are introductions of dignitaries. Maybe the Grand Master will make a speech, as MW Neal Bidnick did last spring... for 45 minutes. My point is, this is not a Broadway production with an audience that can walk out if they’re bored. This is a tiled meeting of a duly constituted and ritually opened lodge. There have been times when visitors, who were so startled by this uncommon ritual, walked out of the lodge. Don’t do that.

• The ritual is “unusual” in that it is uncommon in the United States. There are approximately 10 lodges in Louisiana, several in California, and a few elsewhere that work this ritual. What is it? I call it Scottish Rite. My longtime penpal Bro. Jacques Huyghebaert terms it French Rite. My droog and leader Bro. Piers Vaughan once described it to me as Memphis-Misraim Rite.

I think we all are fundamentally correct, because I don’t think there are material differences separating those three forms of Masonic ritual.

Frère Jacques is co-editor of a very important book on Masonic history and ritual titled “Le Progres de l'Oceanie 1843: The First Masonic Lodge in Hawaii (Sandwich Islands),” which is available from the Grand Lodge of California for about $40. (Seriously, contact Grand Secretary Allan Casalou for a copy of this fascinating piece of research.)

This is a bilingual text of mid 19th century Scottish Rite Craft ritual used by a lodge in Hawaii that was founded by the Scottish Rite Supreme Council of France in 1843. (When you see kings of Hawaii on lists of famous Masons, they were members of Lodge Le Progres de l’Oceanie.) Read the lodge’s history here. Therefore I pay attention when Jacques describes the Garibaldi ritual as French Rite ritual translated into Italian.

Now Garibaldi himself was grand master of the Ancient and Primitive Oriental Rite of Memphis-Misraim, an amalgamation of the Rite of Memphis and the Rite of Misraim, two Masonic orders in Europe that drew from the history and myths of Egypt for their ritual and symbolism. Therefore I pay attention when Piers describes Garibaldi Lodge’s ritual as M-M.

Whatever one wants to call it, it must be experienced. The candidates who enter the Inner Door begin a transformational process. Of course the labor is up to them (and some do not return for the Second Degree), but this highly instructive ritual has the ability to grab the heart and vitals, and set that labor into motion.
     

On this day in 1732

In Manhattan at the beginning of Fifth Avenue, on the north side of Washington Square Park, stands the Beaux Arts monument of Tuckahoe marble displaying two huge likenesses of George Washington, warrior, statesman, Freemason.

From mountvernon.org:

George Washington was born at his father’s plantation on Pope’s Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on February 22, 1732. His father, Augustine Washington, was a leading planter in the area and also served as a justice of the county court. Augustine’s first wife, Janet Butler, died in 1729, leaving him with two sons, Lawrence and Augustine, Jr., and a daughter, Jane. The elder Augustine then married George’s mother, Mary Ball, in 1731. George was the eldest of Augustine Washington’s and Mary Ball’s six children.

In 1735 Augustine moved the family up the Potomac River to another Washington home, Little Hunting Creek Plantation (later renamed Mount Vernon). In 1738 they moved again to Ferry Farm, a plantation on the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg, Virginia, where George spent much of his youth. Little is known of Washington’s childhood, and it remains the most poorly understood part of his life. Popular fables illustrating his youthful honesty, piety, and physical strength have long taken the place of documented fact. Some of these fables are more plausible than others. The story that Washington threw a silver dollar across the Potomac River – an impossible feat – had its origins in the recollections of a cousin that George could throw a stone across the much narrower Rappahannock River. But others, including the familiar story of Washington and the cherry tree, seem to have been invented by one of Washington’s first biographers, Mason Locke Weems.

When George was eleven years old, Augustine died, leaving most of his property to George’s older half brothers. The income from what remained was just sufficient to maintain Mary Washington and her children. As the oldest child remaining at home, George undoubtedly helped his mother manage the Rappahannock River plantation where they lived. There he learned the importance of hard work and efficiency.

Little is known about George’s formal education. Commonly the children of Virginia gentry were taught at home by private tutors or in local private schools. Boys generally began their formal education around the age of seven with lessons in reading, writing, and basic arithmetic. Later they were taught Latin and Greek, as well as such practical subjects as geometry, bookkeeping, and surveying. Wealthy planters often sent their sons to England to finish their schooling, as was done with George’s two elder half brothers, Lawrence and Augustine.

The death of his father, however, made schooling abroad an impossibility for George Washington. He may have attended a school near his home for the first few years. Later he went to another school, either in Fredericksburg, Stafford County, or Westmoreland County. He excelled in mathematics and learned the rudiments of surveying. But he was not taught Latin or Greek like many gentlemen’s sons, and he never learned a foreign language. Nor did he attend college. His formal education ended around the age of 15.

Among the gentry class, strong social skills were also considered an essential part of a young man’s or woman’s education. After the death of their father, George began to spend a great deal of time with his older half brother, Lawrence, at his home, Mount Vernon. Lawrence became a mentor to his younger brother, tutoring him in his studies, teaching him social graces, and helping to introduce him into society.

Throughout his life, Washington regarded his education as defective. He consciously made up for some of what he did not learn in school through reading and study on his own. Over the years he amassed a large and diverse library, and in his later years he subscribed to several newspapers. He became a skilled and prolific writer. Perhaps as a result of his lack of formal education he strongly believed in the value of a good education and left money in his will for establishing a school in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as for establishing a national university.

One of Bro. Washington’s aprons.

In 1752, Washington was initiated into Freemasonry at a Scottish lodge at Fredericksburg.

Washington Square Park in Philadelphia.

Washington’s chair at Independence Hall, where the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, remains in place. It is adorned with a sun, of which Benjamin Franklin said “I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I... know that it is a rising...sun.”

Washington Whiskey

On this day in 1799, Bro. George Washington died at his home at Mount Vernon in Virginia. Victorious general, signer of the Constitution, and first president, Washington undoubtedly is best remembered as the only Founding Father who commercially operated a distillery.

At peak production, Washington's Distillery employed five stills and a boiler and produced 11,000 gallons of whiskey, yielding $7,500 in 1799, one of the most financially successful operations at Mount Vernon.

Washington lives on today, as Mount Vernon’s Distillery is the only site which still demonstrates the 18th-century distillation process.

Alas, my Brother.

At the beginning of Fifth Avenue, on the north side of Washington Square Park, stands the Beaux Arts monument of Tuckahoe marble displaying two huge likenesses of George Washington, warrior, statesman, distiller.