Where does Jesus at the Zoo come from?

The images come from the 13th century Ashmole Bestiary, which actually depict God creating the animals, birds & fishes. That God should look so much like Jesus creates certain problems for a Gnostic such as myself, so the images immediately become something else, especially as it looks like God did his creating in a menagerie, which raises all sorts of notions, Theological & otherwise.

Two of the pieces slated for inclusion on JATZ are animal related - the full soundtrack to DEWA PTEROPUS PERSPICILLATA and a piece commissioned by Mark Coyle from Woven Wheat Whispers back in 2006 for their Nightingale album which never saw the light of day. The others explore themes of Animal Nature from a Gnostic perspective: Mad Maudlin, for example, is the human mind astray in the animal body encompassing the entire cosmos even unto the raiding of Hell; Tempus Est Iocundum is the animal body aroused to the exclusion of the human mind - so very much astray with respect of instinct and / or dysfunction.

Thus do madness & sexuality entwine; feared by the Church, yet celebrated by Shamans, Pagans and Feral types alike! So - good Christians beware, though of course such duality is the essence of the Gnostic Tradition embedded, I feel, in spiritual traditions of the West these past 2,000 years and more. A while ago Christians were wearing little bracelets with the letters WWJD on them - What Would Jesus Do? - and one answer has to be - He would go to the Zoo. Why? Because Zoos are arks, more pragmatic means of conservation emerging out of our ongoing curiosity for a world now in crisis which we still perceive in symbolic and ideological terms, though not to the extent proscribed in the Bestiaries.