Mbasse: The union of Bread and Eriol at the House of Tom Bombadil

 In December of last year, I first wrote on my thoughts that Eowyn would have ascended to 'heaven' from Ithilien by means of the Ithil Stone, in the post "The ascension of Eowyn:  Using the Ithil Stone".  Later posts would seem to support this storyline, and I have been working under the assumption that this is actually what happened ever since.  Every other main character in the Lord of the Rings story has either a death date or a departure date (i.e., across the Great Sea to the Undying Lands).  Eowyn is the only exception, and my guess is that it is because of events that happened with her ascension.

Up until recently, however, it hadn't crossed my mind that this was also THE major separation between her and Faramir.  I had assumed in the intervening times that perhaps they had reunited or something.  In my post "The Undiscovered Country, flying into the stars, Neverland, and NUVO", I recounted the dialogue where I believe they were asked to separate from each other.  For whatever reason, I assumed that was perhaps a reference to Faramir coming down here to this world, along with others, ahead of the time and events that I think are playing out now, but that Eowyn stayed behind and other work to do, specifically regarding compiling the Book of the Lamb.

Now, however, I think that their long separation actually occurred in Ithilien at the beginning of the 4th age, and it is still in effect.  Meaning, Eowyn ascended to heaven, leaving Faramir behind, and that is the last time they have physically been in the same location together.  Faramir would go on to have other roles being reborn as some of the characters I have identified him with, such as Ether-Abinadi, while Eowyn was off on her own adventures, which we don't know too much about just yet, but I guess will once those two reunite, first through the Stones, it would seem, and then actually being in the same place again.

I don't know why this thought was surprising to me, that their separation went way further back and had gone on for longer than I supposed, but the more I did think about it, the more it made sense.  I think it is what happened.

It may have been Aragorn himself, then, that gave them the sad news of their separation.  That is my best guess as to who was speaking in those words (the one who said "Devise we thee a really hard thing:  to separate", but I am not sure on that. I think so, though.

However, as part of that separation, I think they were given a gift.

It's already documented in LOTR that Eowyn and Faramir were married in Edoras.  This kind of marriage, though, as I think all oaths on this world are, was temporary and for this life.  Oaths and covenants don't last eternally for us in our present state (as splintered souls) and I think this is for our protection, frankly.  

Eowyn would be granted the same ability that the Three Disciples and John-Aragorn would later be granted:  power over death.  This would be necessary for her to complete her work, which seems to involve a lot of travel over vast distances, perhaps, to collect what she needed.  I've used "Suspended in Time", the song from Xanadu, to point to Black Holes, where Time itself is suspended (from a point of view), but I think this also applies to Beings.  Someone like Eowyn in her current state is essentially suspended in Time, at least as to her physical Being.  In our reality, entropy is real, it is why we age and die, and it is linked with time.  As time passes, our entropy can only grow (thanks 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!).  For her, though, this isn't the case, as entropy has ceased, and thus also, in a way, the flow or affect of Time on her physical Being.

Which is all fine for her, but that isn't obviously the route for Faramir, who will die.  This would make her a widow, I guess, technically, but strangely her husband will be reborn in various instances, so he is kind of dead, and kind of not.  In any case, having died, it seems their marriage would be over, even though she was still alive in that form and identity, and could remember both him and their marriage.

I don't know - I am not sure of all the complexities here, but my guess is this was not a fun thought for either of them.  So, my current belief (very recently acquired) is that both of them were somehow eternally bound together by Ki-Abroam / Tom Bombadil prior to Eowyn's ascension.

Maybe a crazy, random thought, but I think it is supported by some of my first words from way back in 2019.  So, I am going to pull those up and walk through it, and we are even going to get a little help from William Tychonievich and one of his commenters, Debbie (though they don't know it!).

Nom, Mbasse, and Eriol

My words began in earnest at the very end of October 2019, meaning series of words pretty much every night/ morning.  On Nov. 2, these were the words I wrote down:

Nom mbassa eriol ge ime as heart-issa

I take Nom, Mbassa, and Eriol to be names, here, with the caveat that Mbassa is potentially a double meaning word, referring both to a person and an action.

I don't think anyone is too interested when I step through translations, so I will just write it out and you can look it up yourself if you want, or ping me in the comments.  Here is how I translate that sentence:

Nom bake Mbasse (and) Eriol everlasting-ourselves with language of the heart

In other words, someone named Nom was involved in something that united Mbasse and Eriol together, using some manner of language or power 'of the heart'.  I am not sure exactly what that would have entailed from a process or event standpoint, so am just leaving it as the end result was Mbasse and Eriol were eternally joined together in some form that would survive their separation and all that was involved with it.

So, the big question is who are the people represented by these 3 words or names?  These aren't the actual names of the individuals, but rather reference names or more word-games.  That is my guess, at least.  Let's get into them really quickly.

Nom is a funny one.  This word was visually seen in my dream, but not only that, it was really emphasized in way that is hard to describe.  When I first saw it, my impression was that it was a name, but literally as I am seeing it in the dream, I remembered that Nom is the name for a character from The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, which were books (the sequel series to the original Chronicles books) I read back in middle-school.  I remembered the character name as I am seeing this word, and thought "Oh yeah, this is proof that I am just making this up in my mind.  This is a book character's name".

So, I pushed back on this thought and flatly rejected it.  But rather than it going away, it was visually expanded in my view, and I had the impression of someone basically saying or thinking "No, NOM, you dumbass!" (in a nice way), as if I should remember or know who Nom is, who apparently isn't the book character.   It was really weird.  So, I dutifully wrote it down, and I have always retained this distinct impression that was a name (but not from those Thomas Covenant books).

Nom is a character name for someone in Tolkien's writings as it turns out, by the way.  Finrod, in the Silmarillion account, would acquire that name, meaning "Wisdom".  

But, this isn't who is being referred to here, I don't think.  Too easy!  There is another being known as "the Wise" and that is Ki-Abroam, or Abraham.  Further, in commentary about the name Nom, and also its reference to Elves and the Noldor in other settings, it is clear that it is a play on words and meant to be very similar to Gnome, one of the earlier names that Tolkien's Elves were called.

Ki-Abroam, in Words of the Faithful, is also called a Gnome (the only Being to be referred to in that way).  Thus, as has so often been the case with my words and dreams, we are dealing with a word game here, and a riddle to solve.  I like riddles.  While easier to just assume Nom means either Finrod or an Elf, my strong guess is that this is Ki-Abroam we are talking about here, and that means, based on my other associations, that this is Tom Bombadil.

Tom's House has come up on this blog as important for other reasons, namely that I believe the Sawtooth Stone was brought there (in France!) and that is likely where it is now.  So the mention of Tom in these words is interesting.

So that gives us one of the names.  What about the other two?

 I will skip ahead to Eriol and save Mbasse for last, since as of a few days ago I didn't even think of this as a name, but I am fairly certain now (as certain as one can be in this mess) that it is.

Eriol is a name that should be familiar to many Tolkien readers.  In his earliest stories, such as the Lost Road, Tolkien writes of Eriol as a man who stumbles upon the Straight or Lost Road and finds himself in Eressea.  On that island, he learns of the stories and myths of the Elves.  Originally, Tolkien would explain the source of his own stories and myths as coming from Eriol's writings.  That would change as time passed, and other writings would become the source (such as Bilbo and Frodo's Red Book).

So, again, just as with Nom it might be tempting to take the easy route and say that Eriol here must refer to that person.  Maybe, but we are dealing with disguises and word games, so I think we dig further.

Eriol was also spelled Ereol  (kind of like Oreo, in a loose way, I think), and is made up of Ere and Loro.  Ere means "to remain alone" and Loro means "slumber or to sleep".  This has traditionally given us the meaning of "One who dreams alone".

For our purposes, I think we can be a bit more literal, and have this name mean "One who remains alone in sleep".  You might note that this should match up fairly well with the Faramir character as I have painted in past posts, and even this one.  Eowyn departed, and Faramir literally remained here alone.  Further, Eowyn's journey would involve the regaining of long-lost knowledge and stories, ultimately also including her own visit to Eru-place, perhaps including literally sitting in the house and seat of Eru, seeing into the future and the past, etc.  She will be 'awake', in other words.  Faramir, on the however, will remain asleep, by comparison.  The concept of the need to "Wake Up"  (It's Wake Up Time!) has been a constant theme of this blog (see Eleanor and "Wake Up Time"), and specifically with the Boy that I have associated specifically with Faramir (for instance, see the Iron music video and commentary in my Stones and Keys, Part 2 post).

And it seems as part of this waking up, Faramir will make a journey similar to that of Eriol in Tolkien's stories

Thus, my guess is that this Eriol mentioned in the words is Faramir.

Two out of Three.

Now, until a few days ago I didn't know there was third name here, and thus the whole meaning of that sentence above remained kind of a mystery.  I had actually had my thoughts to go back and revisit these words and others from around that time period on the night of April 10.  In working through some things and seeing if I now had any better idea on what these words meant, I became stuck or at least very interested in mbassa.

Mbasse or Mbasa can mean one of two things here, or both:  "to bake" or "bread".  Neither necessarily made much sense in the context of that sentence.  Even getting really creative it just wasn't really coming together for me.  The only thing that did somewhat ring a bell, or at least was in my mind, was that earlier word game from several weeks ago that popped into my mind that went "France is bakin'" (From Francis Bacon.  This was the first word game that came to my mind a few days before "Francis got key" came about).

Recall that I have Tom Bombadil's House in France, and Nom is a reference to Tom (I believe), so having 'baking' follow Nom was really interesting, but I didn't know exactly how that fit.  I started to, however, develop the storyline that I am painting here in this post.  In that, perhaps Tom oversaw some eternal union between Eowyn and Faramir at his House.  Perhaps the 'baking' represented that event?  I could see Nom and Eriol's names representing Tom and Faramir, but where was Eowyn in that sentence then?

I ended up packing it in for the night with the mbassa word unsolved in my mind.  What would Bread or Baking really have to do with any of this?

When I woke up the next morning (April 11), I checked William Tychonievich's blog, and he had published a post titled "A loaf of bread is dear".  I hadn't even read the post yet, but in seeing the title, it just instantly clicked for me (at least partially):  Bread was a person, also!  The bread was 'dear', in the sense that it was 'beloved'.  So, this Mbassa in my own words really did mean "Bread" and this bread was a Being.

I read William's post and left a comment that I had just been looking at Mbasse and Bread.  

But I also started to doubt whether I had the identities right between Mbasse and Eriol.  Perhaps Mbasse was Faramir instead, and Eriol was Eowyn?  I don't know why, exactly, but I started to think through reversing it.  Maybe because Eriol had travelled to Eressea and collected stories, and that is what Eowyn did, she was referenced as Eriol?   And I have written that Faramir, as the Holy Ghost, will come in Jesus' name, and Jesus was known as the Bread of Life, so perhaps that was the meaning of that word game?

And maybe it doesn't matter just so long as we have the right people identified overall, and the general meaning of the sentence correct.

But, I still wanted to kind of get the names right.  It was on my mind a bit.

Enter another comment on William's post, and a follow-up response from Debbie (known as Ra1119bee in the comment section).

William's comment was to Debbit highlighting that Bread was an anagram for Debbie's name (i.e., Debra, I guess).  I at first didn't make the connection from that back to my own words, however.

But, William wrote another post titled Loaves of Gold just yesterday.  On that post, Debbie left another comment pointing back to the Bread / Debra anagram, and included the meaning of the name Debra:  Bee. 

OK, so I am slow sometimes, but this finally caught my attention and everything sort of clicked into place, and I settled on my guess for who was who in the zoo in this word game.  Mbasse did also refer to a name, and it is Eowyn.  Recall that in previous posts, Eowyn has been associated with Bees and Honey.  In one post, I even renamed her from Izilba (the name in Doug's books) to Deseret, which means "Honey bee", which corresponds with Debra... the anagram of Bread.  In another, she was the Honey Maid, with the Nabisco symbol seemingly to refer to her Silver Key, or the Ithil Stone.

So, are we really dealing with a complex word game meant to take an Elvish word (Mbasse), translate it into its English equivalent (Bread), find its anagram (Debra), determine Debra's name meaning (Bee), and then find its equivalent in my story here (Deseret-Eowyn) in order to solve this riddle?  I guess so! And yes, I am well aware that this is how crazy people connect the dots (I have been diagnosed as one, remember), but I don't know - you tell me if that isn't a pretty straight shot to the Being that has been described and written about here on this blog.

And Bread, even without the word games (which are fun, once you solve them) is also a good descriptor for Eowyn in that this is likely what she will bring or give to our world through the Book of the Lamb.  Jesus was described as the Bread of Life, and her stories, I think, will be about Jesus.  It will be Bread for us, in that way.

In any case, I think I solved the riddle of the Nov. 2, 2019 words, at least in general terms.  Though I don't know exactly what was involved, Eowyn and Faramir were united with an eternal bond at Tom's house ahead of their separation (France is bakin'!)  It also, I think, helps solve the riddle of who is speaking, or whose words these are at least, from that around that time period.  It is Eowyn speaking.  I've mentioned before that the words might be more understandable if I knew who was talking, so I'll revisit these words from that time period and see if I can't get some additional insights using that hypothesis.

Lastly, there was another word game over the last couple of days that tied into all of this, and Eowyn specifically.

There is a song called "Bess, you is my woman now", from an opera called Porgy and Bess.  It is in one of my piano songbooks.  I've never actually played it because it doesn't look really interesting, but I've flipped past it multiple times going to other songs, and always thought the title was strange, including the name.

By some happy accident, I discovered that Bess is an Elvish word that means "Woman".  [Quick note: In going back through and linking the post references before publishing, I realized I knew this already and specifically called that out and linked Bess and Woman to Eowyn as part of my naming her Deseret - you can reference that post to see if you want].  So, one of the Eldar might read that title as saying "Woman, you is my woman now", which I thought was funny for some odd reason.

"Woman" as a name or reference for Eowyn has come up before in my posts.  For instance, in my post An Usher roller skating around a Black Hole, I cited words from March 28, 2020 in light of a Being named Raymon (Usher, or Faramir) being invited or tempted to go visit "Woman" (Eowyn, Wonder Woman, etc.):

Raymon to see woman much nus narthrun amun sun dawn toward

In fact, in that post, I interestingly also cite words that came before this one which mentioned a "stone binding two ways center-heart".  Another reference to events at Tom's?  I am not sure.  You can revisit that post if you want the overall context.

So, "Woman" has been a reference to Eowyn.  Thus, the title of the song "Bess, you is my woman now", can be "Eowyn, you is my woman now", something Faramir might have been able to say following their union or binding together at Tom's House.

It gets a bit more interesting.

Bess, as a non-Elvish word, is short for Elizabeth, and this name has come up in conjunction with Eowyn before on this blog.  For instance, Lisa (short for Elizabeth, but also for Melissa, another name that means "Honey Bee"), was the name clearly tattooed on the bald, menacing character in the Iron music video and post that I've linked above, and who I associated with Brigham-Wormtongue.  Wormtongue's evil desire was Eowyn in LOTR, something that Saruman used to his own advantage in securing Wormtongue's services.  That desire, as I've mentioned before, carried through into the life of Brigham Young, with Brigham naming everything and its dog Deseret, or as we know now, after Eowyn.

Elizabeth also means "God is my oath", which also points to a promise or binding commitment, perhaps in some relation to the 'heart-language' that was used between Eowyn and Faramir.

Anyway, so it was interesting to see that song title with the name Bess come together at the same time I was working through the words and the story of what happened at Tom's House, with the mention of Bread.  It was also interesting to have William and Debbie help (unknowingly!) pull the details together at the same time.

And, ultimately, it is somewhat satisfying to have a better understanding of some words from over 4 years ago that until recently I had pretty much given up on.

UPDATE:

I noted above that now understanding these words as relating to Tom Bombadil, Eowyn, and Faramir, and that there was a reference to 'ourselves', that this must be Eowyn's words.  I think this is incorrect now.  My updated view is that this is Asenath speaking.  Everything else about my interpretation remains the same, I just think it is Asenath's thought that is being conveyed here relative to these characters and the event at Tom's.