Twin Pylons

“In Traditional Western occult symbolism, the gateway to the lunar realm of imagination is flanked by twin pylons, or towers. 

If you look at most versions of the tarot trump number 18, the Moon, you will see these towers. They represent the door that separates the world of fantasy from material reality.

The descent of the kabbalistic thirty-second path of the tree of life describes an apocalyptic event involving the merging of two distinct spheres: the earthly and the lunar. The lunar sphere is the imagination, the world of thoughts and dreams. The earthly sphere is of the mundane, solid and heavy. In short, not only does real life become more like a story, stories must pay the price of this exchange by becoming more real and allowing the rules of the material world to impinge upon their insubstantial territories.

I can think of no more potent image of this union of real and imaginary than the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

How many times had we seen those towers fall? How many times had this soul-wrenching vision been rehearsed in our imaginations, and repeated in our fictions, almost as if we were willing it to happen, and dreaming of the day?

From the moment the towers were completed in 1973, they became a target for a sequence of imaginary demolitions.

King Kong was the first to climb them in Dino DeLaurentis’s pointless 1976 remake of the giant gorilla classic. They’d been smashed by tidal waves, blasted by aliens, shattered by meteor strikes, and pulverized by rogue asteroids. The terrible fall of the World Trade Center towers on September 11 had the curious inevitability of an answered prayer or the successful result of a black magic ritual.”

Grant Morrison, 

SuperGods

GUNDAN: 

There are 3 Physical Gateways and The 3 are 1. 

• The Whole of This Domain

• The Ancient Arch

• The Mirrors

DOCTOR: 

The thing is, it's not actually a physical gateway that I'm looking for. 

GUNDAN: 

All The Gateways are One. 

DOCTOR: 

Ah. So it is here — 

The Way Out

"Maury Gellman, the Nobel Prize-winner, got his Three-Quark-Model out of Finnegan’s Wake…. 

The Three Quarks are major characters in Finnegan’s Wake — 

The two twins who are opposites, and the third twin who is both twins combined, 

and still a third independent character."

pylon (n.)

1823, "gateway to an Egyptian temple," from Greek pylon "gateway," from pyle "gate, wing of a pair of double gates; an entrance, entrance into a country; mountain pass; narrow strait of water," of unknown origin. Meaning "tower for guiding aviators" (1909) led to that of "steel tower for high-tension wires" (1923).

pylorus (n.)

1610s, from Late Latin pylorus "the lower orifice of the stomach," from Greek pyloros, literally "gatekeeper, porter," from pyle "gate" (see pylon) + ouros "watcher, guardian," from PIE root *wer- (3) "perceive, watch out for." Related: Pyloric.

Thermopylae

narrow land passage along the Malian Gulf in ancient Greece, from Greek thermos "hot" (from PIE root *gwher- "to heat, warm") + pylai, plural of pyle "gate; mountain pass, entrance into a region" (see pylon). In reference to nearby hot sulfur springs. Often simply hai pylai "the gates." Figurative of heroic resistance against overwhelming numbers since the battle fought there between the Greeks and Persians in 480 B.C.E.