The Symbology Of The Burl
I love The Burl for a lot of reasons.
- We reached out to each other early in my nascent career (here, the Burl being Cannon Armstrong and Seth Bertram).
- They have always been complimentary patrons of my art (they were early Lex Rocks sponsors)
- They are a great music venue, bringing in great band, creating a great atmosphere, and genuinely caring about the customer experience (they hired Edgar Purdom, fer Chrissake).
- They invoke deep and multi-layered mythology in their branding.
That last one’s a little niche, obviously, but I gotta be me. Look at their logo:
An amphisbaena (two headed snake), surrounding a large, heavily rooted tree. Amphisbaena are fairly common in mythology and poetry. They are said to spring from the spilled blood of Medusa, the gorgon. Though they are poisonous, as you would expect a mythological snake to be, their venom was also said to be used for healing by Shamans. They, at once, symbolize music, to me. Powerful, with healing properties.
You might also imagine the two headed serpent to be Jormungandr, the mythic midgard serpent of Norse mythology — a giant snake that lived in the ocean, encircled the earth, with it’s tail in it’s mouth. Jormungandr represents a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth — which, I feel, is descriptive of Lexington’s music scene, with multiple bands and venues being born, dying, and in some cases (Busters, The Dame that one time), being reborn.
Snakes in general are symbol of new life, in most mythic traditions. Christianity alone tries to subscribe evil and satanic qualities to snakes, but, being the minority opinion, I think it’s okay to ignore that particular interpretation.
The snake surrounds a tree. Obviously, the name “The Burl” represents a knot in a tree, but I think we can go a little deeper
Looking again to Norse Mythology, Yggdrasil was the world a tree — a giant ash tree that connected all of the nine worlds of norse mythology. Likewise, The Burl has become connective tissue between the multiple bands and genres that make up Lexington’s music scene.
In Buddhism, Buddha sat under a Bodhi tree and achieved enlightenment. Who among us, chemically aided, or not, hasn’t stood in front of the stage, at The Burl, receiving the musical offerings of whatever band was playing, and felt we were transcending to some higher state of consciousness?
Trees appear elsewhere in various mythologies, often as what is know as “the world navel,” a place of geographic significance. A holy spot where the barriers between the material world and the spiritual world are thinner.
It’s a lot, I know, but the logo of the Burl is no simple piece. It’s a complicated combination of mythologically rich images. As a sigil, I think it can guide us towards an awareness of Lexington’s musical history, and a hope of transcendence.
I’m in no way claiming that Cannon, Seth, and their partner Jomo selected their logo with all of this in mind. But that’s the great thing about mythology and it’s connection to our unconscious selves. We know this stuff, even when we don’t know it.
