ORIENTAL YEAR OF DRAGON 2024 & New Year ZODIAC ANIMALS
Oriental Year of the Dragon Ranks 5th in Great Mythical Animal Race
Animals of the Oriental Calendar, image below rt., are counted from l. of Zenith aka ‘midnight’: Rat, and count counterclockwise thru Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse to finish with Pig [at 1 o’clock].
Ancient Oriental Zodiac Tells of Mythical Animal Race & Origin of the World
In Oriental myth on the origin of the World, [China, Taiwan, parts of Japan & Indonesia] the Universe was dark and without form, before Earth and Heaven were separated, with only the mythical Egg of Creation hanging from the Tree of Life in the cold darkness. To bring life to the Universe, the Creator—the Great Jade Emperor—decided he would create the animals, but it meant he had to choose their order of rank. As he contemplated, the rat bit a crack in the Cosmic Egg and let the air in.
Immediately this happened, the Jade Emperor made his decision to call for all animals to meet at a Gathering Place for a race. He announced that he would designate the first twelve across the finish line as calendar signs in his Cosmic Zodiac and that the first twelve to arrive would be selected in order.
Cat & Rat Were Friends; Agreed to Help Each Other; But Rat Ratted…
The Cat & Rat were friends. So the Cat-who said he always slept late-asked the Rat to wake him, so they could get there early. Rat [conveniently] forgot, so when Cat arrived, the Race had already begun. Cat & Rat forever dislike each other. Elephant also dislikes Rat, as on the starting line, Rat squeezed into his trunk to distract him & Elephant ran away, sneezing, and missed the start.
Rat cheated by asking Ox 2carry him over water, but slid ahead of him at the end. Dragon selflessly helped rabbit in the water thus allowing him 2finish ahead of him. Rat 1st of 12 animals in order at finish line.
Order of Winners:Rat,Ox,Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake;Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig
The animals all knew that Ox, Tiger, Dragon & Horse could outrun them, and were surprised to learn of Rat’s performance—until they heard how he cheated both Elephant & Ox. So, while Rat symbol holds [Zenith] first place, top pix, lower rt., he is shunned/disliked/killed by many animals in present world.
Because of Dragon’s kindness 2rabbit who was flailing in water til the great beast blew wind 2carry him ashore, all animals respect his [mythical] status as supreme, even tho in Chinese Zodiac he is in 5th place.
Dragon people make good friends because they listen attentively/sincerely to others.
Dragon’s Other Companions—Character & Characteristics of Zodiac Animals
Year of Rat: 2020, 2008, 1996, 1984, 1972, 1960, 1948, 1936, 1924. Rat people are popular.They like to invent things & are good at art. They like saving & collecting, but don’t like opening their wallet 4others.
Year of Ox: 2021, 2009, 1997, 1985, 1973, 1961, 1949, 1937, 1925. Oxen are dependable & calm. They are good listeners, but have very strong opinions/ideas.
Year of Tiger: 2022,2010, 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, 1938, 1926. Tiger people are brave. They are independent & respected by others for their courageous acts & deep thoughts.
Year of Rabbit: 2023, 2011, 1999. 1987, 1975, 1963, 1951, 1939, 1927 People born this year are nice 2B around; they like to talk & are trusted by many. [Year of Dragon: above]
Yearof Snake: 2025, 2013, 2001, 1989, 1977, 1965, 1953, 1941, 1929 Snake people love good books, food, music & theatre. They have good luck w/money/gambling!
Five Elements—Qualities in Oriental Zodiac Denoting A Specific Year
In addition to twelve animal signs, each creature is symbolized by one of five elements: fire, earth, wood, water & metal. Specific years are denoted as “metal” or “water” years, e.g. 2023 Water Rabbit
Year of Horse: 2014, 2002, 1990, 1978, 1966, 1954, 1942, 1930 work hard, popular don’t surrender Year of Goat/Sheep: 2015, 2003, 1991,1979, 1967, 1955, 1943, 1931, 1919 artists, wise, ask questions; Year of Monkey: 2016, 2004, 1992, 1980, 1968, 1956, 1944, 1932 make ppl laugh, funny Year of Rooster: 2017, 2005, 1993, 1981, 1969 1957, 1945, 1933, many talents, works hard, punctual, reliability.
Fire Tiger symbol [above 3rd in Race] 2010, 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, 1938, 1926 independent
Year of Dog: (2030), 2018, 2006, 1994, 1982, 1970, 1958, 1946, 1934, 1922 frank, funny, loyal
Year of Boar/Pig: (2031), 2019, 2007, 1995,1983,1971,1959,1947,1935,1923 happy but stubborn
Chart of Elements in Five-yearly Cycle of Sixty Zodiacal Years
Each of the Five Elements—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water—is associated with personal traits and behavioural patterns, which add richer dimension to the personality in Tibetan/Korean astrology matrix. 12 zodiac signs overlaid with five elements complete a 60yr cycle, e.g. last Wood Dragon year=1964!
Above chart uses Dragon images, top of page, as example: Pink dragon:end Old year Dec.thru Feb; Green dragon:March thru May New Year, spring; Brown dragon 2nd row l. summer June thru Aug; top rt.Blue Dragon Sept/Oct/Nov all Dragons but spread over two Caucasian years+. Calendar mix, separated by Candlemas.
Essentially, all five elements follow the same pattern. So, for instance, someone born May 1980 is a Metal Monkey while another in January next year [1981] is also a Metal Monkey until calendar changes early February.
To bring it right up-to-date, a baby born this year after new moon February 9-10th, 2024 has a Wood Dragon twin born January next year 2025. Same applies e.g. mother b. May 1940 & son b. 1976 are both Dragons, but 1940 is Metal Dragon & 1976 is Fire Dragon.
No Bear took part in the Great Race, even though in China they are believed to have divine powers and are revered as sacred animals. Both Panda and Black Bear represent resurrection/eternal life, because of their habit of winter hibernation & re-emergence in spring.
In Chinese myth, Constellation of the Great Bear, is known as Dou. Its guardian star in the Northern sky is nearby Red Giant Arcturus in constellation Bootes, below pic rt. Ursa Major, w/tail curving2 Arcturus.
Ptolemy named Ursa Major & Ursa Minor Gk. Aρκτος μεγάλη (Arktos Megale) & Aρκτος μικρά (Arktos Mikra)(mega & micro). Arcturus follows the bear’s tail.
Many children worldwide have teddy bears —stuffed cuddly toy bear lookalikes—1902 nickname given when 26th U.S.President T.R. (Teddy) Roosevelt refused to shoot a captive American black bear tied to a tree.
Teddy Bears are immortalized in the children’s song ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ & other stories like Winnie-the-Pooh, Goldilocks & Three Bears. U.S. Forestry Service’s Smokey Bear is used as ‘cuddly’ Wildfire prevention icon.
As we prepare 4unprecedented step into a new quarter of a new Century [2024 is 25th year of 21st C Gregorian]; New Moon of Muharram 1446 Islam [July 7th 2024]; Tibetan Losar Feb.10th [Wood Dragon, 2151]; Chinese Guo Nian Feb.10th New Moon; Jan. 24th [full moon] Jewish 15th of Shevat aka New Year of the Trees 5785, we feel gratitude towards the Great Jade Emperor in his Eastern kingdoms for showing the animals [& us] the Way to win.
It seems appropriate, therefore, to share a little gratitude similarly to those of his helpers of our acquaintance in the Western hemisphere, such as Angels of our tribe created by Findhorn Foundation‘s Joy Drake in 1977 to show us our way forward.
As we draw on the wisdom of our Angels, it is a blessing to know that—at our inner core—we all have similar needs & desires: to be happy; to laugh at our struggles & to know that we are loved by someone somewhere-even when the Universe seems dark. And, remembering that laughter is the best medicine.
Many early saints who converted pagan inhabitants of North Britain to early Christianity had roots in Ireland, were influenced by Candida Casa in Whithorn, Galloway or, like Columba, by the Abbey of Iona. Surprisingly, in contrast, St. Patrick [patron saint of Ireland] was a Britonnic monk, taken captive and transported to Irish territory—where he escaped, preached widely, thus gaining the country’s idolatry.
Christianity had a foothold in early Rome—St. Valentine a prime example of a martyr killed before the end of Roman rule in Britannia, A.D.420. But military occupation of Britain-including forays into Scotia beyond Hadrian & Antonine Walls were conducted under the protection of legionaries’ beloved god Mithras. Derived from Assyrian-Greek Mithra worship, he was purely pagan himself; born under the Tree of Life already bearing arms; able to ride-& slaughter-the sacred Bull whose blood fertilized earth.
Legend tells that c.565, St Columba/Columcille, travelling with fellow Celtic monk Drostan aka Drust macCosgreig wound up in Old Deer in Buchan Aberdeenshire, where they founded a monastery, above. When Columba left, Drostan shed tears [Deira], giving the name to later Abbey built there. The Book of Deer,(Gael. Leabhar Dhèir) below pix top l. was written here:a Latin 10thC Gospel Book, with early12thC additions in Latin, Old Irish and Sc.Gaelic, it contains the earliest surviving Gaelic writing from Scotland; now in Cambridge Univ.Library [MS.ii.6.32].New archaeo discovery has unearthed original monastic cell
Top pix ‘beast’ Church of Clatt; salmon & dolphin; lower rt Rhynie Barflat & Picardy Stone at Dunnydeer, Insch, Aberdeenshire. See Pictish symbols below.
Early Saints’ Names and their Regional Variations
Adamnan, Abbot of Iona, d. A.D.704; Feast Jan.27th.Attended Council A.D.697 where he proposed Iona should come into line with Rome on Easter date. Also that women be spared from waging battle. Other forms:Aunan, Arnty, Ennan, Eunan, Ounan, St.Eunan (Teunin), Skeulan, Eonan, Ewen, Arnold, Ardeonaig, Ardeonan, Kilmaveonaig (Perthshire), Damsay (Orkney), ‘Adamnan’s Isle,’ Killennan (Argyll), Kirkennan (Kirkcudbright).
Adrian or Odran, Bishop & Martyr A.D.875, Oronsay (‘St. Oran’s Isle’), Killoran (Colonsay), Scour Ouran (St.Oran’s Hill), Inverness. Aidan, Bishop, A.D. 651. Inchaddon, Kilmadock (Perthshire). Andrew, Apostle, Patron of Scotland: St. Andrews (Fife), Kirkandrews (Roxburgh). Feast Nov.30th Angus, a disciple of St. Columba: Clach Aenais (‘Stone of Angus’), Balquhidder. Aseph, Bishop, A.D.590. Tobar Asheg (‘St. Asaph’s Well’), Loch Rannoch. Augustine(fromPopeGregoryI) Brit.St.A.D.596 instruction not2 destroy pagan sites; only [Pictish]stones within, as they shouldB ‘converted from dowership of demons to the true God’ -aka Class-I 6thC inscribed stones now in e.g. kirkyards Kintore, Bourtie, Clatt, Dyce, Huntly, Inverurie ABD
Book of Kells (Codex Cenannensis; Irish Gael. Leabhar Cheanannais); also known as the Book of Columba), an illuminated MS & Celtic Gospel book in Latin, contains four Gospels of the New Testament with texts and tables. Originally thought to have been written at Iona, it is now believed to have come from a Columban monastery in either Ireland or Scotland, and contributed to by both regions. Created c.A.D.800.
Bathan, Bishop, A.D.639 Abbey St. Bathan’s (Berwickshire), Bowden (Bothenden), Roxburgh. Baldred, Hermit, A.D.608 St. Baldred’s Cave, Cradle, and Well (Haddingtonshire). Barr or Finbar, Bishop, 6thC: Barra (‘St. Barr’s Isle’), Dunbar (Haddington), Barr (Ayrshire). Baya, Beya, or Vey, Virgin, c.9thC: Kilbag Head (Lewis), St. Vey’s Chapel (Cumbria). Bean, Bishop, A.D.1012: Kirkbean (Dumfries). Begha or Bez, Virgin, c.A.D.660: Kilbucho (Biggar), Kilbagie (Clackmannan). Berach, Abbot: Kilberry (Argyll). Berchan, Bishop: Kilbarchan (Renfrew). Blane, Bishop, A.D.590: Kilblane (Argyll), Dunblane (Perth), Blane (Bute).
Jan 12: Feast of Benedict, Bishop & Abbot A.D.628-89. Founded A.D.674 St Peter’s, Wearmouth, & sister monastery St Paul’s, Jarrow, in 682. Both foundations benefited from his trips2 continental Europe where he inspired2 bring back books, masons & other craftsmen, to work both monasteries
Feast Peter & Paul June 29th
Boisil, Prior of Old Melrose, A.D.664: St. Boswell’s (Roxburghshire). Brandon, Abbot, A.D. 577: Kilbrandon/Kilbrennan (Oban), Kilbirnie (Beith), Birnie(Elgin), Balbirnie (Fife). Bridget/Brigida or Bride, Virgin, A.D.523: Brydekirk (Annan), Kilbride(Arran, Argyll, Dumfries) Lhanbryde (Lhan: Brittonic/Welsh=church)(Moray). Brioc, Bishop, A.D.500: Inchbrayock (near Montrose), Kirkmabreck (Kirkcudbright). Buite or Boethius, Monk, A.D. 521:Carbuddo (Caer Buido, ‘Buite’s fort’), Kirkbuddo (Forfar), ‘Byth Market’ (Aberdeen).
Colmán of Lindisfarne (†676), Bishop A.D.661-4. Chief Bishop instrumental in dating of Easter at A.D.666 Synod of Whitby, after which he resigned. Withdrew to Iona w/his followers then founded monastery on Inis Bó Finne (Inishbofin) in his native Ireland c.667. Feast day February 18th. Patron Lindisfarne, Farne Is. N.umberland, pic.l.
Coivin or Kevin, Abbot, A.D.618: St. Coivin’s Chapel, Kilkivan, and ‘St. Kevin’s Bed’ (Argyll). Colluoc, Bishop, A.D.500: Portmahomack (Tain, Ross), Inchmahome (Lake of Menteith). Colmonel, A.D.610: Kilcalmonell (Argyll), Colmonell (Ayr). Columba or Colum Cille, Abbot, A.D.563: Kilmacolm (Greenock), Inchcolm (Fife), Colonsay (Argyll), Icolmkill (Iona), Kirkcolm (Wigtown). Congal, Abbot, A.D.602: Dercongal (near Dumfries). Comgan or Congan, Abbot, 8thC: Kilchoau (Argyll, Ross&Cromarty), St.Coan (Skye), Kilcowan (Wigtown). Comman, A.D.688: Kilchoran (Islay). Conan, Bishop, A.D.648: Kilconan (Perthshire), St. Conan’s Well (Argyll). Constantine, King & Martyr, A.D.811-820 pix 3. above Dupplin Cross Lat. Custatin filius Forcus =
Lat.trans=Constantine son of Fergus; viz important ogham inscription both edges & Xtian cross-side of Class-II Rodney’s Stone at Brodie Castle, Forres, MOR, rt., seat of Brodie family constructed 1567 moved frm. previous site kirkyard Dyke-Moy 1/2mE on bend R.Findhorn: in 1208-15 records as Logyn-Fithenach, link2 local placenames on John the Baptist, e.g.Ihons-logyfr. Pont’s 1590 Nairnshire map (q.v), Meads of St John & St John’s Pool.
Custatin: Kilclousland (Kintyre), St. Cousland Fair (Forfar), Chousland (Midlothian). King of Picts 811-820, buried St.Andrews crypt, guardianship St.A Cathedral Museum
Conval, c. A.D.612: St. Conall’s Chapel, Ferreness (Renfrew), Kirkconnel (Dumfries). Cormac, Abbot, A.D.6thC: Kilmacharmaig (Kintyre), Kirkcormac (Kirkcudbright). Cumine, Abbot, c. A.D.668: Kilchuimein (Scots Gael.= Fort Augustus) and also= St.Cumin’s Seat Cuthbert, Bishop, A.D. 687: Kirkcudbright (Cuthbert’s Church) Churches dedicated to St. Cuthbert throughout Scotland from Wick to Kirkcudbright [originally Northumbrian/Tyneside]. Cyricus, aka Grig, King & Martyr, A.D.880-889: Ceres (Fife), St. Cyrus and Ecclesgrig (Kincardine) King Grig built first Harbour of Aberdeen.
Dabius or Davius, Priest: Kildavie (Bute & Mull) Denis or Dionysius: Dennis Head (Orkney), Dennistoun (Glasgow). Devenic, Saint A.D.887: Banchory Devenick (Kincardine), St. Devenick’s Fair (Aberdeenshire). Donan, Martyr, A.D.616: Kildonan (Wigtown, Argyll, Ross, Sutherland & Bute), ‘Donan Fair’ ABD Eilean Donan (Ross & Cromarty). Draighen: Kirkmadrine (Wigtown). Drostan, Abbot, see Abbey of Deer, top, 6thC; Craigrostan (Ben Lomond), Drustie’s Well (Forfar), St. Drostan’s Croft (Inverness). Duthac, Bishop, A.D.1068: Kilduich, Arduthie, Kilduthie (Kincardine), Duthie Park, ABD.
Class-I inscribed Pictish symbols
Because Pictish pagan belief in sacred salmon & dolphin [l. ‘beast’] was strong, [pix.top lower rt.panel] early Saints like Fergus [Dyce], below, used Gk.acronym ICTHYS=[trans.Jesus Christ son of God], Lat.’piscis’=fish 2explain Xtianity 2converts.
Ebba, Abbess, A.D.683: St. Abb’s Head (Berwickshire). Englatius/Tanglan, Saint & Abbot, A.D.966: Tanglan’s Well & Ford (Aberdeenshire). Ernan, Abbot, A.D.640: Killearnan (Sutherland), Kinnernie, ABD. Ethernan, Bishop/Martyr Iona or Isle of May? A.D.669 mentioned in Annals of Ulster Itarnan et Corindu apud Pictores defuncti suntThos.Clancy trans. as ‘killed by Picts’ rather than simply ‘died among Picts’: hence martyr; ‘St. Ethernan’s Den’ (Aberdeenshire), ‘Tetheren’s Fair”(Forfar); Isle of May (Fife coast) believed to be site of his original burial, as his tomb was site of worship 4pilgrims until Reformation. His name in ogham inscribed on Rodney’s Stone at Brodie Castle above2rt, orig.frm nearby Dyke/Moy ABD.
Fergus, Bishop, 8thC: ‘Fergan Well’ (Banff), St. Fergus (ABD,pix l.) Dalrossie-Sc.Gael. dal Fhearghuis, ‘Field of Fergus’.
St. Fergus Chapel off Tyrebagger road at Recumbent stone circle [RSC] Dyce above Aberdeen [Dyce] Airport, contains magnifi- cent ‘teaching stone’, l., w/Class-II cross & rear marked in ogham in shape of fish, to appeal to Pictish converts whose Salmon was a sacred creature.
St.Fergus attended Rome council A.D.721 on behalf of Pictish king Nechtan 2make connection which marked way forward for Pictland as 1st Xtian nation in N.Britain
Fiacre, Abbot, AD. 760. St. Ficker’s Bay and St. Fittack’s Well (Kincardineshire). Fillan, Abbot, A.D.8thC: Strathfillan (Perthshire), Kilphillane (Wigtown), Kilellan(Inverness), Killallan (Renfrew), St. Fillan’s Cave (Fife), St. Fillain’s Well (Ayr).c.f. Fillan, Faolan, or Fuelan (‘the Stammerer’), A.D.6thC:’ St. Fillan’s, Dunfillan, and ‘St. Fillan’s Chair’ (Perthshire); Findchanus, Kilfinnichen and St. Finnichen’s Chair (Argyll); also c.f. Finan or Finian, Bishop, c.A.D.575: Kilfinan (Argyll and Wigtown), Glen Finan (Argyll), St. Finan Chapel and Finzean Fair at Finzean [pron. Fing’an] (Aberdeenshire).
Dardanus Stone or Corsedardar rt. 5ft/1.5m megalith/remnant Neolithic circle, Finzean/Feughside, Birse nr.Aboyne ABD access Cairnamount to Strachan/Finzean; broken 18thC, repaired 2 stand nr roadside war memorial. Banchory 5mi ENE; 1/2mi frm Finzean Long Cairn 33mx3m 26m wide W end/of several [Neolithic] longcairns/ burial mounds. Former boundary Kincardine. Finzean Fair 3rd Tues Lent feeing & circus event fair Migvie, Tarland ABD local tradition assoc.w/St Finnian of Moville
Findoc, Fyndoca, Virgin ? Killintag (Argyll); Findo Gask and St, Phink’s Chapel (Perthshire) Flannan: Flannan Islands (W of Lewis). Fumac: St.Fumac’s Well and Fair (Banff and Caithness).
Gervadius or Gernadius, A.D.934: ‘Gerardin’s Cave’ and Well (Elgin). Giles/Egidius, Abbot, A.D.714: St. Giles’ Cathedral (Edinburgh), St. Giles’ Fairs (Aberdeen, Dumfries, and Elgin). Glascianus or Glass, Bishop: Kinglassie and St. Glass’s Well (Fife), Kilmaglas (Argyll). Griselda: Ecclesiamagirdle, Pitkeathly (Perthshire). John, Apostle: Ihon’s Logy & Meads of St.John, E of R.Findhorn; Johnstone (Renfrew & Dumfries)
Custatin filius Forcus= [King] Constantine son of Fergus, king of Picts 811-820 (pix. top 2nd rt.Dupplin cross) held his court in Fortriu aka Forteviot (where Dupplin cross in museum; replica on hillside) & founded ancient Abbey/Cathedral of St.Andrew’s, Fife where he retired fr kingship-see Brodie His 9thC sarcophagus inSt.A Abbey church
St.Andrew, Greek born in Holy Land, patron saint of Scotland, whose flag shows how he was crucified=sideways—#saltire.
Saint Lucy (283–304)( Latin: Sancta Lucia) of Syracuse, Sicily was a Roman Christian martyr d.304 during Diocletian Persecution; patron saint of blind, eyes, sight [“lucid”= see or think “clearly”] feast of Light December 13th celebrated Sicily annually during Lent
Macceus or Mahew, c.A.D.460: Kilmahew (Dumbarton), Kirkmahoe (Dumfries). Machan, Bishop, c. 6thC: Ecclesmachan: ‘Church of Machan’ (Linlithgow). Machar, Mauritius or Mocumma, Bishop, 6thC: founded monastery, site of St. Machar’s Cathedral Old Aberdeen on bend of River Don: Machar parishes & Haugh (Old Aberdeen). Machalus or Mauchold, Bishop, A D.498: Kilmaichlie (Banffshire). Machutus/Malo, Bishop, A.D.565: Kirkmahoe (Dumfries), Lesmahagow (Lanarkshire), corruption of ‘Ecclesia St. Machuti’: [from which French town St. Malo (Brittany) derives its name.
Martinmas Feast-prior2 Nov.11 “Veteran’s /Remembrance Day”celebrated w/goose or chicken in Holland/Germany/Austria with lanterns [made of sugar beet, beetroot or turnip; now paper] children’s parade visit to homes like current Hallowe’en/Guy Fawkes; Germanic prelude to U.S. ‘Trick-or-treat’.
Ancient ‘feeing day’ marked end Harvest start of Winter in Europe/N.hemisphere. Saint cut off 1/2his cloak to give 2beggar.
Martin tried to avoid being canonized by hiding in goose pen; geese raised the alarm-hence goose feast! Cult spread to U.S. from France, Ireland via continental Europe & Wales where Cŵn Annwn, spectral Hounds who escort souls2 Otherworld engaged in a Wild Hunt led by Odin-Hallowe’en mix.
Mary, Virgin Mother: Gilmerton (Midlothian), Kilmarow, Kilmorie, Tobermory (Argyll), Kilry (Fife & Perth), Kilvarie (Perth), St. Mary’s Loch (Selkirk), St. Mary’s Holm (Orkney), Maryculter (Aberdeenshire). Medan or Middanus, Abbot?:St. Medan’s Knowe and ‘Maidie’s Well’ (Forfar). Maelrubha or Mulruy or Mury, Martyr, A.D.722: Loch Maree (Rossshire), Kilmaree, Kilarrow (Argyll), Amulree (Perthshire); Samareves Fair (Culsalmond, Aberdeenshire), St. Mariers, (Forres), Summaruff (St. Maruff, Fordyce/Banffshire/Aberdeenshire)
Magnus, Martyr, A.D.1116: St. Magnus Cathedral (Kirkwall, Orkney), St. Magnus Bay (Shetland). Margaret, Queen, A.D.1093: widow of Malcolm III Canmore St. Margaret’s (Edinburgh), St. Margaret’s Hope/bay), Queensferry (Orkney), St.Margaret’s School for Girls, (Albyn Place, Aberdeen) Marnan/Marnoch, Bishop, A.D.625. Kilmarnook (Ayrshire), Inchmarnook (Bute), Dalmarnock (Perth), Ardmarnook (Argyll), Aberchirder & Leochel, Lumphanan ABD Feast: Marnoch Fair 2nd Tues, March. Maura, Virgin: Kilmaurs (Ayrshire). Mayota/Mazota, Virgin, A.D.6thC: Drumoak/ Dalmoak (‘Field of Mayota’), and St. Maikie’s Well, ABD. Medana/Edana, Virgin, A.D.518: Kirkrnaiden or Maidenkirk; St. Medan’s Chapel & Cave (Wigtown), Pitmedden (Aberdeenshire) AA [Archangel] Michael: Kilmichael (Argyll), Kirkmichael (Perth, Dumfries, and Ayr). Moack/Moucus: Portmoak (Kinross), Drumoak (Aberdeenshire). Molios/Laserian, Abbot,A.D.639:Lamlash(Sc.Gael, lann Lais, Church of Lais) St.Molio’sBed (Arran) Molocus, Moluoc, or Lughaidh, Bishop, A.D.592:St. Molloch’s Fair, ‘Luoch Fair’ (Aberdeenshire), ‘St. Malogue’s. Fair’ (Perthshire), Kiimoluag, Kilmallow (Argyll). Modan, Abbot: Balmodhan (Ardchattan), and Kilmodan (Argyll). Monan, Bishop, A.D.571: St. Monans, Kilminning (Fife), St. Monon (Ross), Minnan Fair (Caithness); Feast Feb.4th Monoch or Monachus: ‘Sam Maneuke’s’ (St. Monk’s Day) and Auchmannoch (Ayr). Moroc, Bishop: Kilmorick and St. Muireach’s Well (Dunkeld), Kilmorack (Beauly). M’indus/Fintan Munnu, Abbot, A.D.635: Eileanmunde (M’s Island), and Kilmun Mund’s Church, (Argyll). Mungo or Kentigern, Bishop, A.D.603: St. Mungo’s (Dumfries), St. Mungo’s Isle (Inverness), St. Mungo’s Cathedral; Strathbungo (Glasgow), Balinungo (Fife)-see Thenog below. Murdoch, Bishop: Kilmorich (Argyll), Chapel Dockie (Forfar).
St. Nicholas of Myra A.D.270-343 Gk.Bishop Asia Minor [modern-day Demre,Turkey] patron saint in Europe of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, unmarried ppl, & students; his cult brought to New York/New Amsterdam by 1st Dutch settlers; known4 miracles & secret gifts to children. Festival: St.Nicholas Day December 6th, developed into Christmas reindeer cult w/gifts to children & focus of “12 days of Christmas” which begin Christmas Eve climb down chimney. In Pacific NW Indigenous Americans celebrate “rain season” when reindeer shed their antlers. Aberdeen South St.Nicholas church, Belmont St. known4 20thC gift-giving Rev. Chas. Edwin Forster, on whose d.1956, kirk converted in2 nightclub [rolling in his grave]; nearby kirks of E & W St.Nicholas guard main ABD cemetery; No N.St.Nicholas exists but Back Wynd tunnel leads2 pedestrian Geo.St.
Nathalan or Nachlan, Bishop, A.D.678:St. Nathalan’s Fair, Oldmeldrum & Nachlan’s Well (ABDshire). Ninian or Kingan, Bishop, A.D.432: Kilninian (Argyll) St. Ninian’s (Stirling), North Ronaldsay or Rinansay ‘Isle of Ringan'(Orkney), Kilrenny (Anstruther, Fife), St. Innian’s Well (Lanark), St. Ninian’s Chapel (Linlithgow), Ringan’s Dean (Roxburgh), Kilninian (Argyll), St.Ninian’s Den & Chapel (Kincardine).
Obert?:’St. Obert’s Eve,’ (Perth). Olaf/Olav or Ollow, King of Norway & Martyr, A.D.1030: Ollaberry=Olaf’s burgh(Shetland), St.Ole’s Fair (Lewis), St. Ollowe’s Bridge (Kirkwall, Orkney). Osborne? Ooseburn: ’till Osbern’ (Dumfries & Galloway). Oswald, King & Martyr, A.D.642: Kirkoswald (Maybole, Ayrshire) Kirkoswald, (Penrith, Lake District). Palladius, Bishop, A.D.430: Aberfeldy (Perthshire), Paldy’s Well (Fordoun), ‘Paldy Fair,’ (Kincardine), St. Palladius celebrated Inverurie & Kintore (Aberdeenshire). Patrick, Britonnic Bishop, captive taken to Ireland A.D.493: Patron saint of Ireland [Eire] celebrated U.S. St. Patrick/Paddy’s Day, March 17th; Kilpatrick (Dumbarton), Ardpatrick (Argyll), Dalpatrick (Lanark), Kirkpatrick (Dumfriesshire), Kilpatrick (Arran), Kilspindie (Perthshire).
Apostles St.Peter & St.Paul joint feast June 29th; early3rdC Peter celebrated as martyr crucified Rome upside down(1stC) by Nero symbol upside-down cross; founder Roman church; & iconic Pictish Peterkirks of 8thC King Nechtan. Paul, a Roman, could not be crucified; was beheaded by emperor Nero A.D.54-68 ‘reponsible 4Rome’s great Fire’
St. Peter, Apostle: Peterculter (Aberdeenshire), Kilfeather (Wigtown). Nechtan Peterkirks throughout Scotland, Northumbria & parts of Cumbria, Yorkshire & N.England Regulus or Rule, Bishop: ‘Trewell Fair’ (Aberdeenshire), St. Regulus’ Tower (see St. Andrews, pic above). Ronan, Bishop, A.D.737: Ronay (Skye & Lewis), Port Ronan (Iona), St. Ronan’s Well (Peebles), Kilmaron (Fife), Kilmarnock (Dumbarton), Kilinaronog (Argyll). Serf/Servanus, Bishop,6thC: St.Serf’s Isle (Loch Leven), St.Sear’s Well (Dumbarton), St.Serf’s Fair Perth (& Linlithgow), Dalserf (Lanarkshire), St.Sair’s Fair, Colpy, Culsalmond ABD, & Monkeigy, KeithHall ABD.
St. Stephen, patron saint of stonemasons, deacons, altar servers, bricklayers, casket makers, patron of Hungary, c.A.D.5-34, Hellenist Jew appointed after conversion by Apostles 2distribute food &aid 2poor; at address2 Jewish Sanhedrin council re his faith, called blasphemous & stoned d.A.D.34-1st Xtian martyr Gk.Stephanos=wreath/crown=reward/honor/fame ‘Feast of Stephen’ Europe=Boxing Day, Dec.26th. Jewish 8-day Festival of Light Hanukkah Dec.18th-26th
Suibhne & ‘Sweeney’, Abbots of Iona, A.D.657 and 772: Castle Sween (Argyll). Talarican/Talorcan Bishop, A.D.616: Kiltarlity (Inverness), Tarquin’s Well (Banff, Stirling) Talorcan kirk & belltower, Fordyce, Banff N.coast, now ABD. Ternan, Bishop, A.D.431 [viz St.Ernan above A.D.640] BanchoryTernan (Kincardine, now Aberdeenshire) Thenew or Thenog, A.D.514 (Mother of St.Mungo).St. Enoch’s formerly SanTheneuke’s Kirk, (Glasgow). Triduana or Tradwell, Virgin, 6thC: Kintradwell (Caithness), Tradlines (Kincardine), St. Tredwell’s Loch & Chapel (Orkney), ‘St. Trodlin’s Fair’ (Forfar). Vigean/Fechin, Abbot, A.D.664: St. Vigean’s (Forfar), Ecclefechan (Dumfries). Volocus/Wallach, Bishop, 5th? or 6thC: St. Wallach’s Baths, Wallakirk, patron of Glass nr. Huntly & St. Wallach’s Well (Aberdeenshire). Wynnin/Finian or Frigidian, Bishop, A.D.579: Kilwinning, Caerwinning & St. Wynnin’s Fair (Ayrshire), Inchinnan (Renfrew), Kirkgunzeon (Kirkcudbright), Lumphanan (Aberdeenshire), Lumphinnan (Fife). Yrchardus/Merchard, Bishop, 5th or 6thC: Merchard’s Seat, Well, and Churchyard (Invernessshire).
U.S. MEMORIAL DAY MEANS DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS
ALA MOANA BEACH PARK FLOATING LANTERN CEREMONY
Shinnyo Lantern Floating Hawaii returns to Ala Moana Beach as an in-person ceremony for the first time since 2019.
Every year up to 40,000 Hawaiians and tourists gather at Ala Moana Beach Park in Oahu, to participate in Memorial Day Buddhist Shinnyo Lantern Floating. The first Shinnyo-en lantern festival held outside Japan was held 1999. This year’s ceremony will be the first hands-on float since the pandemic and preparations have been made to cater for an international group of personal ‘floaters’ bringing their own candles, writing messages and immersing themselves deeply in Oahu waters in the process.
Its goal is to commemorate loved ones and create hope for the future.
The floating lantern festival is accompanied by Japanese and Hawaiian music. This beautiful tradition can be watched from a distance or participated in individually by floating personal lanterns. Those who have attended this event describe it as a powerful and enlightening experience.
The specially crafted floating lanterns-inscribed by hand with prayers and personal messages on special paper affixed to each-are, after a beautiful ceremony of symbolic remembrance, launched lovingly into the waters as a touching show of personal dedication.
Ala Moana Beach Park Lantern Floating Ceremony Memorial Day Event
The ceremony always starts with the sounding of the Pū or Hawai’ian conch shell. This is a traditional signal for Hawai’ian people to gather their community together. It is an announcement that says an important ceremony is about to begin.
25th Annual Shinnyo Lantern Floating Ceremony will be held Ala Moana Beach, Oahu, HI between 6:30p.m.-7:30p.m. Hawai’i time
All reservations have been completed but individuals may submit using the Shinnyo Lantern Floating app for iPhone or Android.
iMac Apple OS & Android info
25th Annual Shinnyo Lantern Floating Ceremony will be held Ala Moana Beach, Oahu, HI between 6:30p.m.-7:30p.m.on Memorial Day 05/29/23 and individuals with reservations may pick up their lantern between 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Memorial Day, 05/29/23 at the Lantern Pickup Tent located at the fixed concession stand from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Hawai’i Summer Time.
The ceremony begins at 6:30p.m and ends 7:30p.m. HST.
All reserved lanterns will remain available through 5 p.m. on 5/29 at the Beach, regardless of which pickup date appears on proof of reservation.
Individuals may write personal remembrances to be placed in Collective Remembrance Lanterns that will be floated from canoes during the ceremony. The Collective Remembrance Tent will be open between 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Monday, May 29th, 2023.
Meanwhile—Across Another Ocean—Whitsun Bank Holiday
Aberdeen University’s 15thC Marischal College, left. currently combines architect Archibald Simpson’s Mitchell Tower [Univ.ABD historical collections] w/ Old Aberdeen’s granite-faced University campus
Below volunteer parents Lady Kintore, P. Ingleby & J. Pidcock assisting pupils Blaimore prep school Huntly, ABD; while Princess Anne/Princess Royal was chair Board of Governors Gordonstoun School for 30yrs.
Prince &Princess & of Wales [Wm & Catherine met at St.Andrew’s University below rt.
In the Church of England Calendar, the Whitsun holiday, or Monday after Pentecost was long held as a time when English schools had half term. Now Scotland, England & Wales celebrate last Monday in May as ‘Spring bank Holiday’, with some private aka ‘public’/boarding schools using the holiday as their half-term break. Pentecost connection is now merely a religious calculation.
Scotland’s private schools, like Gordonstoun in Moray; Cargilfield and Fettes [Edinburgh] and Ardvreck, Perthshire prepare both junior & senior children for British Universities including Aberdeen, St.Andrew’s, Edinburgh, Oxford & Cambridge. Their calendars tend to synch, therefore, with University term-times.
All of them use the Whitsun/Pentecost date as a Spring Holiday.
Vietnam Vets Applauded for Perseverance on Foreign Soil
Some WWII veterans have a [shaky] hold on the 21st Century, but the real heroes on U.S. soil, imho, are those airmen, sailors, army vets and [under-cover] Intelligence officers who penetrated behind enemy lines to assist their fellows in the field.
My first husband [Wm.M.Youngblood] was one of these latter—always on call, always ready to serve—as he did for all those years the U.S. maintained a military presence in the Western Pacific. While I loved him dearly—still do—I was new at the wifely game; quickly discovering basic flaws in U.S. Army quarters on the Tex-Mex border—no wonder current POTUS has difficulty maintaining a presence there! No joke.
I enjoyed being able to tag along on at least two other postings in U.S. [Baltimore, MD & San Francisco, CA]. But his enthusiasm for a job where little could be shared [Official Secrets Act] plus his decision after a second term on Vietnamese soil to return for a third was enough to dash my dreams of togetherness. We agreed to go our separate ways without malice and by the looks of his subsequent voyaging, it was just as well, as I turned out to be the first of four wives who filled a gap in his life. Thankfully the fourth also gave him a daughter! According to recent reports they all hang out in a nice estate in soCal—with all bills paid for by the U.S. Government.
So much for attempts by the poverty group, the homeless and unwanted camper-van resident crowd to share a little of American “bounty”. It goes first & foremost to the Military either in weaponry, in support of other ‘poor’ countries’ weaponry [yes, Ukraine] or, in this case—deservedly—to their own vets.
Capital Consciousness—Chicago/MidWest—Blinkered Attitude Sees No Other
POTUS is not alone in a D.C-conquers-all mentality. The rash of ‘most-important citizen’ spreads at least as far as Springfield, Ill. the capital of great citizens of times past: above from l. Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S 1861-1865; 2, 1866 15c stamp President Lincoln; 3.1920 Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural address Springfield Ill. capital building where his statue remains to this day & 4. Springfield Ill’s “second-most-important son” ‘troubadour vocal poet/bard who “sang” his poems -aka ‘The Congo’, below.
Choral Balladeer Sang his Poetry to a Slavery-Conscious Population
Often decked out in exaggerated costumery with exaggerated blackening on his face, Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) sang his most famous ballad The Congo (A Study of the Negro Race) to white audiences unconscious of the damage done by its imagery to Chicago/DC/Maryland black audiences only recently freed from slavery themselves.
He was the son of a doctor who left his own medical studies to join Chicago School of Art, thus earning the rejection of both parents, themselves well-to-do citizens. He died by suicide attempt shortly after his 50th birthday following a series of bouts of depression.
While his troubadour technique was unprecedented in his time, this greatest of his masterpieces written 1913, has been adopted by friendly African-Americans AND by friendly African residents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Stage Direction/Sound Effects by Lindsay.
The Congo (A Study of the Negro Race) Lyrics
I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY
FAT black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
A deep rolling bass.
Pounded on the table, Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able, Boom, boom, BOOM, With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision
THEN I SAW THE CONGO CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK
more deliberate solemn chanting
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK
Then along that riverbank A thousand miles Tattooed cannibals danced in files; Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.
rapidly piling climax of speed & racket
And “BLOOD” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors, “BLOOD” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors, “Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, Harry the uplands, Steal all the cattle, Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, Bing! Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,” A roaring, epic, rag-time tune
with a philosophic pause
From the mouth of the Congo To the Mountains of the Moon. Death is an Elephant, Torch-eyed and horrible,
Shrilly and with a heavily accented meter
Foam-flanked and terrible. BOOM, steal the pygmies, BOOM, kill the Arabs, BOOM, kill the white men,
Like wind in the chimney
HOO, HOO, HOO. Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host. Hear how the demons chuckle and yell Cutting his hands off, down in Hell. Listen to the creepy proclamation, Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation, Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay, Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play: “Be careful what you do, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,
All the o sounds very golden. Heavy accents very heavy. Light accents very light. Last line whispered
And all of the other Gods of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”
II. THEIR IRREPRESSIBLE HIGH SPIRITS
Wild crap-shooters with a whoop and a call
Rather shrill and high
Danced the juba in their gambling-hall And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town, And guyed the policemen and laughed them down With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM…. THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
Read as in first section
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. A negro fairyland swung into view,
Lay emphasis on the delicate ideas-keep as light-footed as possible
A minstrel river Where dreams come true. The ebony palace soared on high Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky. The inlaid porches and casements shone With gold and ivory and elephant-bone. And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore At the baboon butler in the agate door, And the well-known tunes of the parrot band That trilled on the bushes of that magic land. A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came
With pomposity; rather shrill and high.
Danced the juba in their gambling-hall And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town, And guyed the policemen and laughed them down With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM…. THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
Read exactly as in first section.
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. A negro fairyland swung into view,
Lay emphasis on the delicate ideas. Keep as light-footed as possible.
A minstrel river Where dreams come true. The ebony palace soared on high Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky. The inlaid porches and casements shone With gold and ivory and elephant-bone. And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore At the baboon butler in the agate door, And the well-known tunes of the parrot band That trilled on the bushes of that magic land. A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came
With pomposity.
Through the agate doorway in suits of flame, Yea, long-tailed coats with a gold-leaf crust And hats that were covered with diamond-dust. And the crowd in the court gave a whoop and a call And danced the juba from wall to wall. But the witch-men suddenly stilled the throng
With a great deliberation and ghostliness.
With a stern cold glare, and a stern old song:— “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”… Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes,
With overwhelming assurance, good cheer, and pomp
Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, Shoes with a patent leather shine, And tall silk hats that were red as wine.
And they pranced with their butterfly partners there,
With growing speed and sharply marked dance-rhythm.
Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, Knee-skirts trimmed with the jessamine sweet, And bells on their ankles and little black feet. And the couples railed at the chant and the frown Of the witch-men lean, and laughed them down. (O rare was the revel, and well worth while That made those glowering witch-men smile.)
The cake-walk royalty then began To walk for a cake that was tall as a man To the tune of “Boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,” While the witch-men laughed, with a sinister air,
With a touch of negro dialect, and as rapidly as possible toward the end.
And sang with the scalawags prancing there:— Walk with care, walk with care, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, And all of the other Gods of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you. Beware, beware, walk with care, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.” Oh rare was the revel, and well worth while
Slow philosophic calm.
That made those glowering witch-men smile.
Rather shrill and high.
Danced the juba in their gambling-hall And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town, And guyed the policemen and laughed them down With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM…. THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
Read exactly as in first section.
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. A negro fairyland swung into view,
Lay emphasis on the delicate ideas. Keep as light-footed as possible.
A minstrel river Where dreams come true. The ebony palace soared on high Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky. The inlaid porches and casements shone With gold and ivory and elephant-bone. And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore At the baboon butler in the agate door, And the well-known tunes of the parrot band That trilled on the bushes of that magic land. A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came
With pomposity.
Through the agate doorway in suits of flame, Yea, long-tailed coats with a gold-leaf crust And hats that were covered with diamond-dust. And the crowd in the court gave a whoop and a call And danced the juba from wall to wall. But the witch-men suddenly stilled the throng
With a great deliberation and ghostliness.
With a stern cold glare, and a stern old song:— “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”… Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes,
With overwhelming assurance, good cheer, and pomp.
Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, Shoes with a patent leather shine, And tall silk hats that were red as wine. And they pranced with their butterfly partners there,
With growing speed and sharply marked dance-rhythm.
Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, Knee-skirts trimmed with the jessamine sweet, And bells on their ankles and little black feet. And the couples railed at the chant and the frown Of the witch-men lean, and laughed them down. (O rare was the revel, and well worth while That made those glowering witch-men smile.)
The cake-walk royalty then began To walk for a cake that was tall as a man To the tune of “Boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,” While the witch-men laughed, with a sinister air,
With a touch of negro dialect, and as rapidly as possible toward the end.
And sang with the scalawags prancing there:— Walk with care, walk with care, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, And all of the other Gods of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you. Beware, beware, walk with care, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.” Oh rare was the revel, and well worth while
Slow philosophic calm.
That made those glowering witch-men smile.
III. THE HOPE OF THEIR RELIGION
A good old negro in the slums of the town
Heavy bass. With a literal imitation of camp-meeting racket, and trance.
Preached at a sister for her velvet gown. Howled at a brother for his low-down ways, His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days. Beat on the Bible till he wore it out, Starting the jubilee revival shout. And some had visions, as they stood on chairs, And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs. And they all repented, a thousand strong, From their stupor and savagery and sin and wrong And slammed their hymn books till they shook the room With “Glory, glory, glory,” And “Boom, boom, BOOM.” THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
Exactly as in the first section.
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. And the gray sky opened like a new-rent veil And showed the apostles with their coats of mail. In bright white steel they were seated round And their fire-eyes watched where the Congo wound. And the twelve apostles, from their thrones on high, Thrilled all the forest with their heavenly cry:— “Mumbo-Jumbo will die in the jungle.
Pic left. satellite image 2001 Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa
Sung to the tune of “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices.”
Never again will he hoo-doo you, Never again will he hoo-doo you.”
Then along that river, a thousand miles,
With growing deliberation and joy.
The vine-snared trees fell down in files. Pioneer angels cleared the way For a Congo paradise, for babes at play, For sacred capitals, for temples clean. Gone were the skull-faced witch-men lean. There, where the wild ghost-gods had wailed
In a rather high key—as delicately as possible.
A million boats of the angels sailed With oars of silver, and prows of blue And silken pennants that the sun shone through. ‘Twas a land transfigured, ’twas a new creation. Oh, a singing wind swept the negro nation; And on through the backwoods clearing flew:— “Mumbo-Jumbo is dead in the jungle.
To the tune of “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices.”
Never again will he hoo-doo you. Never again will he hoo-doo you.”
Redeemed were the forests, the beasts and the men, And only the vulture dared again By the far, lone mountains of the moon To cry, in the silence, the Congo tune:— “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.
Dying off into a penetrating, terrified whisper.
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo … Jumbo … will … hoo-doo … you.” Vachel Lindsay, 1913
From Illinois’ Second-Most-Important Son to 21stC Cross-Culture Beacon
Writers are traditionally most tolerant of all species. It is said if you can lay down your arms to put pen to paper—or fingertap the keyboard to get a message across, your voice of calm will affect others striving to overcome prejudice. Past enflamed rhetoric has no place this new world of peace & love. Because sharing joy and spreading gratitude has a daunting effect on the Universal Mind—our Human Selves on a Higher Plain. Let us begin with a forgiving glance at Lindsay’s direction.
Just like Bad Robot & New Age fantasy masques cover current multi-color skin tones with white paint to fake pretend ‘ghostly’ figures, Lindsay faked with black paint to illustrate his Golden Track through the Black [Jungle] of a river he never visited.
“While the outrigger Hokole’a was created from fragments of sacred trees, logs, boards, custom fabric for sails, hawsers, ropes, Home is wherever she is made welcome, whichever port her crew succeeds in reaching throughout the voyage.
Bringing with them fresh supplies (gathered/donated at each port-of-call) to last them two weeks, the multi-aged crew will have to catch their own fish & other food en route. Little deviation from this routine allows them to eat fresh fruit & veg indigenous to each island on their journey circling the Pacific.
In addition to 150 indigenous islands, they will visit Japan,Taiwan, Indonesia, S.Korea,Vietnam, Guam, Burma, Borneo, Marshall Is., before return to Hawai’i.
Ocean Consciousness Teaches Environmental Awareness & Evidence of Change
A mid-16thC European, by the name of Ferdinand Magellan would enter the Pacific and the Pacific embraced him, with relatively calm weather, and so he would call it ‘Pacific’ because it was relatively peaceful. The Ocean was gentle.
“Trust me, says Master Navigator Nainoa Thompson, the Pacific is far from gentle. So we call it by another name—one from our ancestors-thousands of years old. It is Moana Kia the Great—the Ocean of the Great expanse. We embrace both names.”
Thompson an his crew of combined new recruits and old-timers will begin their arduous journey in June, after their beloved canoe is shipped to its starting port in Alaska. Then, over the next 42 weeks she will circumnavigate the Pacific, visiting 36 countries and archipelagos, 150 indigenous islands.
“If you look at a nautical map of the Earth, it is divided into political territories & exclusive economic sub-divisions, marked by lines, international borders and boundaries. The Ocean has no lines. It covers one-third of the Earth’s surface and it’s all water. That’s what we want to protect, not just for environmental reasons, but for the sake of our children and grandchildren. It’s our responsibility.”*
Thompson says he wants to sail as little as possible, to allow the crew-the younger generation-to handle the legwork in order to develop an environmental awareness of the importance of life-giving water first-hand.
“Forty-seven years ago Pianu was launched & she and her crew of 17 would pull Tahiti out of the Sea, rescue those islanders in distress.
“It’s easy to look backwards, to what has been. What we’re about today is ‘What will we look for in the next 50 years?’ Hawai’i today is part of a global civilization, a financial/media driven world where we’re uncertain whether the future is good enough for our children. What’s its Kuleana?*
*Kuleana = Hawai’ian responsibility, which comes from privilege
Thompson says where they’re going there are no lines. There are no economic sub-divisions. “It’s a myth—It’s only one ocean and we are all one people on this island-the Earth.”
Inspired by Space flight Astronauts to see Earth as Single Island
One of Capt. Thompson’s gurus was space voyager Lt. Colonel Lacy Beach who compared the sailing in the Pacific to seeing Earth from Space. In the early 1990s, he summoned Thompson to his home when he was dying to share a few thoughts with his (then) pupil.
“I can go in the craft and it can fly me out of the atmosphere into Space, so I can turn around and look down at the whole Earth because what we need to figure is how to protect this Earth – our only home.
Thompson listened.
“He was a great navigator and a great teacher. He told me ‘we can’t protect what we don’t understand’.” We need to understand the systems. And we can’t do that if we don’t care. He made me keep three promises that he couldn’t. He said: you can’t do this alone.”
“He said ‘pay attention to the new language—’Climate change. Sustainability. Hypoxia, dead zones; acidification – a lot of words we don’t know because we weren’t taught. Sail round the world, touch it; feel each place. It’s the only way you can be part of it.’
“And the last promise he made me make was to build a school for the Earth by the Earth.”
Starting from Alaska in June 2023, canoe Hokole’a’s journey—Moana Nui Akea—Great voyage for Earth of Thompson and his crew will visit 36 countries and archipelagos and at least 150 indigenous territories. As President of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Nainoa Thompson affirms: “It’s our responsibility to connect, explore, discover.”
He admits he is already grateful for the reception he knows he and his crew will receive at each port of call. Indigenous people are always welcoming, friendly, as they understand the enormity & rigours of an ocean voyage, especially by canoe.
Thompson says the only way for the future is to build schools where the younger generation can be inspired to be part of the Earth by learning to experience her waters first-hand.
1762-85 Industrial Revolution-250yrLoom/Weaving ‘Progress’ can be Reversed
A British entrepreneur Edmund Cartwright between 1762-85 changed history by replacing hand-woven fabric, weaving looms and tapestry work by men and women (+many children) & introducing first machines capable of spinning yarn into cloth, thus creating the Industrial Revolution which has lasted so long that nobody remembers any other way.
Thompson is convinced this adaptation of human ingenuity can be reversed, but only with a change in the way our children & grandchildren are taught.
University of Hawai’i @Hilo Agrees to Change Curriculum to Offer Navigation
University CEO Dr. David Lassner of the University of Hawai’i at Hilo (Big Island, HI) has volunteered to add navigation skills and teaching Ocean canoeing to the curriculum, starting this autumn. Many Hawai’ian youngsters already have a taste for canoe group learning and have taken part in (small) canoe races at elementary level. By making ocean navigation & observation part of their degree, or even as an adjunct to sports lessons, Dr. Lassner hopes to create/inspire the next generation of navigators and provide them with the tools for a lifetime of sharing their beloved Ocean with others.
He hosted a recent press conference offered by CBS-Hawai’i to broadcast Capt. Thompson’s voyage starting June this year; and, along with others in the media with a love of ocean-going & support for Hawai’ians’ sharing/caring attitude to the importance of the Seas for the future of a healthy planet
University CEO Lassner agrees with PVS Navigator President Thompson that there are two paths. The first path is to stick to this path—the one that leads nowhere except to extinction —Science agrees and presents conclusive evidence. The second path is to change the path to one of caring and loving our island Earth. Love, he agrees with his colleague, is not an option.
“It is a way of life for Hawai’ians. We are all part of the same Ohana—one large family”
Many indigenous islanders throughout Polynesia have a similar ‘Aloha’ (loving/welcoming) attitude to their own Pacific home. And equally want to share the love with others—native & newcomers alike.
Hokulea will be in Polynesia from March to December 2024 and then make its way to New Zealand, Melanesia, and the West Pacific. With a voyage of 43,000 miles and visits to 345 ports in the bag, it will start the homeward journey.
The voyage will end in Japan, at which point the Hokule’a will be shipped back to Los Angeles and then sailed home to Hawaii.
Ancestral Navigation by the Stars: Nature Prevails, Removes Fear of Unknown
Both Lassner and Thompson have had to face inevitable “modern thinkers’ fear”; constantly being asked “Well what if…” citing a list of ailments or possible world cataclysms which might endanger the voyage. These always include World War III, death by shark-bite, nuclear weapons testing on nearby islands, another pandemic, influenza on board, running out of food. The list is endless—and representative of modern society’s attitude to any new enterprise. Fear first; trust later.
All Polynesian islanders and neighbouring seafaring countries like Japan, S.Korea and Taiwan have an intimate relationship with the ocean on their doorstep—remarkably similar to Out-Islanders of the Bahamas; Jamaica & Trinidad in the Caribbean, parts of Mexico & Guatemala in Central America, and Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, Skye and Shetland. They are the first to admit that they couldn’t live without its constantly changing temperament; that it affects their lives more than some care to admit, while watching news on TV, reading a newspaper (if they can obtain one) or going to the supermarket on a shopping spree.
Not All Doom & Gloom:Some European Countries take Responsibility for Future
After shock waves from WWII subsided in early ‘sixties, certain nations—like Germany and Japan made strong anti-war alliances, joined United Nations, promoted Peace Corps or local equivalent to make amends. Even now U.S. president Biden seems unable to unthink his war mentality, and continues to send military aid in $$millions to Ukraine on pretext of ‘helping’ them defend tank manoeuvres by Russians. The White House continues to foster fear in younger generation as an excuse for not channeling similar funds to help his own poor and needy—recent hurricane & tornado victims in disastrous Deep South. He seems unaware that Russian tank force is a seriously outdated repurposed squad of ex-WWII disused equipment which even Ukrainians laugh off. They accept U.S. aid nonetheless. Who wouldn’t?
French Frigate Shoals, above, is part of group of outlying islands in the Hawai’ian island chain (NWHI). Formed by remnant atolls around a submerged (extinct) volcano, the reef system associated with French Frigate Shoals supports the greatest variety of coral species in NWHI with forty one species of stony corals documented.
A steep-sided basalt pinnacle juts out of the water in the middle of the atoll. This is the last remnant of the original prehistoric volcano. The pinnacle was named “La Pérouse Pinnacle” after Compte de la Pérouse, who visited the atoll in 1786. In the moonlight the pinnacle so resembled a full-rigged sailing ship that it lured more than one vessel to her doom on the Shoals.
While there is still a U.S. military presence in the form of a runway atop immediate neighbor Tern Island, (formerly used as a refuelling stop en route to Midway Island, see top far right 1942 Pacific Nuclear bomb dropped by Enola Gay), the Shoals are an international refuge for Pacific Green Turtle, who lay their eggs in exposed dug-outs, above rt. while sun-basking, fishing, or travelling to mainland Hawai’i, but are devoted parents who return once the offspring hatch. The string of islets also provide refuge for the largest sub-population of endangered Hawai’ian monk seals and preservation of this atoll is critical to their survival.
Local temperatures never fall much below 79ºF in the islands, and so Hawai’ian Pacific activity continues at a frantic level, year-round. Meanwhile, there are many heroic deeds happening on shores of the ‘other’ Ocean, where temperatures are still slow to rise.
Holland aka Netherlands, severely strapped by Nazi domination in WWII, has blossomed in peace-time and is now second-largest #sustainable world nation to grow and export (organic) food. Their tulip fields are legendary; but so now are their organic farms, fed & powered by near-90% solar & wind-power energy, with distribution capability second to none-a Euro-bloc icon of sustainability.
Another-tiny-country known for sustainability is Morocco. 100% oil-dependent at the turn of the Century, now 23 years later 43% alternative.
Back in the Pacific, coastal Costa Rica is recovering from its previous bad habits.
The Central American nation had cut down over half of its forests last century. Now, with reforestation grants, and a lot of encouragement, they have restored over half the country’s trees. And their youngsters are enthused, involved in the new jungle.
Japan—while paying attention to its global impact on other nations after changing from a warlike nation to a peaceful one, is now known for slowing everything down in its overpopulated country. Whilst continuing to welcome newcomers who want to learn its ancient customs, traffic lanes have been diverted, pedestrians given right of way. Large slowing-down water boat and candlelight festivals are promoted. And all done with grace—with respect for their elders who kept traditions going, but emphasis on showing the young how to emulate such gentle cultural elegance in dress, tradition, food and other ceremonies. Japanese kimono & other costumes, tea ceremony, porcelain kiln & outdoor firing have been raised to a new level to allow the young to appreciate thousands of years of tradition. It goes without saying that Sumo Wrestling continues to play a big part in cultural exchange.
Quietly, when nobody was looking, the Pacific Diesel Company in Maui, HI began growing sunflowers on its 200-acre farm in 1998. Now, 25 years later it has opened fuel stations dockside in Honolulu and Maui to provide processed biodiesel for motorboats, biodiesel-capable cars. It recycles used oil from various outlets.
A separate purification system manufactures cooking oil for local restaurants. Mainland support was quick to fund the enterprise, as PDC, Hawai’i was first of its kind in the United States.
The company will feature in Earth Day celebrations April 22, 2023 throughout the Hawai’ian islands.
With a Little Help from His Friends…
We all extend our sincerest good wishes Bon Voyage/ Gute Reise & indigenous blessings to Navigator Thompson and crew. May fishing be abundant on lean days; and local pineapples, guava, coconut fruit & veg sustain them throughout their mammoth four-year pilgrimage. What a team!
TIME TO TEMPT HUMANS TO ACT LIKE TELOSIANS—DELVING DEEP WITHIN TO DISCOVER OUR ORIGINS AS STAR-PEOPLE
MARDI GRAS—FAT TUESDAY— IN NEW ORLEANS, THE “BIG EASY” ECHOES BRAZIL’S CAR-NA-VAL, LONDON’S NOTTING HILL CRAZIES LATER IN SEASON—ALL FOCUS ON JOY WHATEVER THE WEATHER
Mardi Gras in New Orleans, below featured floats of multiple facets of fantasy l. & far rt., with yum-yum food like NOLA specialty King Cakes pic 2, while many threw private balls 2nd rt, with individual gowns created for such a special occasion.
NOLA-‘Big Easy’ Leads World Celebrating Mardi Gras-Fat Tuesday in Joyful Parades, Happy All-Nighters & Loadsa Food despite winter weather, while Rich Nations’ Powerful Leaders’ Boast their ‘Nuke-em’ Attitude
While rain & wild winds battered the North Pacific & huge low pressure throw winter rains, bitter ice balls & heavy snowfalls at New England and cities in central United States, like Denver, Las Vegas, many cultures on both sides of the Atlantic & deep into Brazil—original Carnival country-threw caution to the winds and celebrated as if it were their last day on Earth.
In spite of deep flooding in Gulf states, Arizona, California & Mississippi basin, unusually high temperature fluctuation in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, the Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba and the Caribbean experienced hotter-than-usual (winter) highs. New England, along with D.C. New York & Michigan froze solid.
Europeans—Britain, Scandinavia and Finland suffered deep low pressure, although this is more ‘normal’ for them, and their icy road clearance vehicles and sand-gritting lorries were out getting plenty of exercise.
Stretching farther north into Alaska, the Siberian Arctic and (presently high-profile) Ukraine, Poland and Russia their native tolerance of bitter weather seems not to deter their warlike tendencies—especially Russia & Ukraine continuing to batter each other with (borrowed) weapons, their perseverance encouraging weakling U.S. President Biden & distant N.Korea & China to promise MORE.
Through all the pain & suffering experienced by (non-warring) families in Turkey—with two recent earthquake disasters claiming 40,000 lives so far, it seems that four leaders of some of the world’s richest nations—U.S.A, Russia, China, & N.Korea have lost perspective in promising to “solve the problem” with NUCLEAR armaments, rather than by family-focused humanitarianism.
The dilemma is—for any rational everyday person-on-the-street—unfathomable.
$500 Million Funding for Nuclear-bearing Aircraft Weaponry can feed World’s Poor & Homeless Masses, with Some to Spare
Instead of moaning on about how difficult it is to “find appropriate housing” for the poor, homeless & underpaid voluntary sector-[traveling hospital staff, volunteer social workers, families in temporary vehicles/mobile campers], U.S. President Biden & Russia Head of State Putin declare war on one another—not perhaps in news bulletins, but in ‘unofficial trips to neighbor nations. With a quick speech for United Nations European members in between. U.S. President, cleverly ordered AirForce One to transport him secretly from D.C. to Germany; then commissioned an overnight sleeper to Warsaw, in order to arrive ‘fresh’ for a televised speech.
China & North Korea respond—as they don’t like to appear laggards in the nuclear ‘game’, having had their baby surveillance balloon shot down by U.S. jets over the Atlantic. They hastily gathered support from other small neighbours in the East; sprucing up their nuclear weaponry and preparing for war.
Turkey, meanwhile, languishes between, grateful for any help: money, food, vehicle response, care-givers, life-support professionals from anywhere in the world which supports their plight.
Turkey/Syria earthquakes (second occurred Monday night, February 20,2023) have created a crack in Earth’s crust 186 miles/300km long-not easy to patch up!
Animals & some stalwart hooman owners have survived 10 days or more beneath the surface of the rupture, without water or sustenance & yet were alive when rescued.
Dog & cat-owners are overjoyed at their pets’ return.
Food parcels & non-perishable donations are being accepted & distributed in shelters hastily erected to house lost individuals and families still searching for loved ones.
In Sadness there is Joy in Pain/Sorrow there is Hope—Message from Light Beings
Reminiscent of Star Trek Four: the Voyage Home, with Spock, Capt Kirk, Pavel Chekov & Scotty’s surprise appearance in their stolen Kingon ‘wessel’ complete with recyclable whale family, pic left; our brothers and sisters in the light appear as if by magic from an unknown realm to help us learn new attitudes to life and express joy, humour and gratitude instead of worry & despair.
When on Earth they keep counsel inside Mt. Shasta, pic l. my book touching on their story. They live within their own secret kingdom inside the mountain, emerging when humans summon them in need. They encourage us to find places where we feel joy-beach bottom rt. Richardson’s State Beach Park, Hilo, HI; and encourage us to plant more beautiful greenery—preferably trees, bottom l. to help our planet thrive in troubled times.
There is always Hope.
Elderly humans a generation ago conscious of maintaining a positive attitude to see them through hard times, would use this attitude in a difficult situation – loss of a loved one, misbehaving child, even the onset of age in their own bodies.
Now, with amazing timing, Light Beings of Other Worlds beyond ours—Telosians their own name for themselves— have miraculously entered our timescape with a spectacular array of pointers to guide us off the “inevitable” course we were on, and along a totally new path to-[pick one-happiness, enlightenment, Salvation (biblical), problem-solving, truth, LOVE, the answer: empowerment]!
Telosian Truth Has a Different Ring to it—or When Life Gives You Lemons, make Lemonade
When all else fails, Humans have had a habit of looking on the bright side. The New Age emphasizes this thinking by the adage ‘If Life gives you Lemons, make Lemonade.’ Telosians take this feeling even further, with a positive attitude to everything from automobile breakdown to missed rail/air connections, to burning supper on the kitchen stove. It’s all going according to Plan, i.e. don’t worry the small details, the bigger picture has a better solution in store.
Sure enough, with a firm belief of something better to come lining our pocket, a surprise solution will suddenly appear and the problem will go away.
Recent World Meditation Initiative Fire-the-Grid 2/21/23 pulled People of all Nations & Faiths together to Create a One-Mind Gathering for Thousands
Fire-the-Grid, pic below rt. uses symbols unknown to us in the ‘real world’ but which trigger a space deep inside where their shape and simplicity mean something intangible—for which we have no words.
In a religious context, the Gk.word Telos is used by many New Testament bibles to denote the physical form of a human-Jesus-as a result of INTENT by a Creator who has no physical form aka God.
Fire-the-Grid, below rt. shows us the way, even if only our subconscious mind gets the message.
Anael, early guide to making this series of “letters” mean something to our subconscious, describes them as words without a known language. She says our soul understands their message, even if our conscious mind does not.
As earthling guide sent by Telosian Light Beings, she begs us to trust that inner knowing to bring the Light forth into day.
Symbolic of an inner language we know in our hearts & rarely used parts of our subconscious mind, Fire-the-Grid shapes are familiar, but we can’t express why.
Telosian Light Beings sent out a “Wake-up Call” the night before World Meditation trial, February 19, this year. It was followed by 24 hours of psychic support 2/20-2/21, 2023, with a full hour exercising our ability to meditate tuned in on every part of the globe.
Telos Allows Change on Day-to-Day Basis, Just as Human Intentions Change
Humans gathering to share in a mind-meld (tku Spock) in the spirit of gratitude, joyful expectation and in some cases the use of prayer was enough to form one of the first events in 2023, following many years of practice after original Fire-the-Grid exercises at the end of the last century. Light Beings from a different Universe at that time helped Earthlings understand their mission on Earth was similar in belief, but different in content, from messages received by other cultures like the Maya Elders who have long expected a change—the SHIFT—from physical earthbound living to belief in the coming of the Light to end human darkness.
Humans will prepare for the coming of the Light in their own way within their own cultural limitations. The Maya, he affirms, will assist in that transition to feelings of caring and love, of friendly sharing of wealth and protection of the innocent and young families by gentle persuasion and the support of elders within their own community who already believe the change is happening.
So now, ten years after the predicted date—the Maya had known of this for at least fifty years prior—their ancient ritual gatherings at solstice and the equinoxes when the sun climbs the staircase of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan are evidence of their brothers’ faith in the Feathered Serpent Kukulkan-great god of ancient Central American race whose monuments built over one thousand years ago predict the path of the Serpent-god each year. It is he who has foreseen humanity’s impending change from dark to Light.
Kukulcan, great Feathered Serpent god of the Yucatan, pictured bottom of page rt. is known to be capable of wildly astronomical feats-like climbing the temple stairs on solar ascension on solstice and descending when our Sun declines on autumn equinox. His knowledge of the galaxies is understood to be beyond human comprehension & therefore immortal.
If Not Apocalypse, What Can We Expect?
Four minutes before Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) 11:11 a.m. February 21, 2023 converted to world time zones—East Coast U.S. five hours prior; Central CDT 6 hours, California PDT 8 hours prior; Hawai’i central Pacific a day before @ Midnight + 7minutes.
Western time zones prepared. We had practised feeling joy in the pleasure of simple things, laughing at our own childish attempts at grown-up seriousness. We were learning to release worries and doubt; we knew it was time to be counted along with those who could lay down fear & doubt; pick up the sword of true ‘reality’. To laugh, cry with joy, dance, play & be grateful for all that life has already given us—our family, friends, cats, birds, garden veg, herbs, fruit—with the expectation of more to come in the future. Even love we never thought would reach us in our rapidly advancing world.
Linguistic aside: in Indo-European terminology—study of language from its first ancient roots common to Latin, French, German, Dutch, Polish, Jewish, Flemish, even Islamic variables & to tribes along the Road to Marrakesh the word Telos denotes point of a spear, dagger or arrow. Just making a point!
Plus the knowledge that we are capable of creating anything in a world we choose. Laughter the best medicine; joy, happiness, pleasure and humour are tools of our trade.
“Find a place of comfort and calm; release all feelings of urgency, guilt or worry-anything negative which might hamper one’s mind from entering that special place within where all is light.
“Move away from FEAR conversations; move away from FEAR thoughts; TRUST in a bright and beautiful future. Hold your frequency high, so that you are part of all that moves forward. The darker the time, the more you look for the light”
They added this message the following day: “If you joined us last night/day before, bless you. There is more to come.”
Telosian Future Vision is Variable—Dependent on their own Group Mind
It is comforting to realize Telosian Light Beings are themselves subject to their own Group conclusions.
Telosians predict the “Collapse of the Fourth Field”—their name for our current world culture of war & legal battles, embezzeling, stealing, murder & rape: our unloving treatment of our fellow men & women.
Whilst conceding the Group Mind is capable of making decisions for themselves along with us, their followers, these are subject to change along the way, because Group Consciousness is constantly on the move too, changing shape/direction with each new day.
Other (S.American) cultures—like Machu Picchu, in the Peruvian Andes above Cuzco, have found unique methods of switching into non-time. as actress and Academy Award winning author, Shirley MacLaine discovered in her own search for enlightenment.
Shirley’s book ‘Out on a Limb’ charts her search in Earth’s highest mountains for ‘other’ consciousness ‘closure’.
Expectations for a Future Without Sadness/Crime or Disappointment
With our new arsenal of pleasurable thoughts, funny & satisfying life changes, expecting the unexpected—and thanking our lucky stars we are the recipients of such daily surprises, we remind ourselves to show gratitude and love to those who bring such new surprises into play.
Light Beings enjoy continuously—anything & everything that comes their way. As in their realm there is no such cataclysm as death. The physical body renews and becomes more beautiful as our genetic structure is in balance and so physically we cannot “age” after 35.
They constantly repeat—so it becomes our belief too—that we are immortal; that there is no dying in that place beyond…
NEW PLACENAME RESEARCH coupled with HiTech & Drone Insights REVEAL SACRED ANCESTRAL KINGDOMS OF CALEDONIANS
SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGEWAY TO PAST : RECONSTRUCTING PICTISH SYMBOL TOTEMS as ALTAR
With current miraculous advances in technological research, drone photography, virtual reconstruction and archaeological scan-not-disturb techniques—alongside deeply cultural linguistic memory and placename derivation we are blessed to step into an earlier age and relive our ancestors’ route to stewardship of the sacred landscape—game-forests filled with wolf, boar and deer; fertile river straths and falls for salmon, trout and duck; Sacred dolphin (Pictish ‘beast’) breathing air in the waters of Moray Firth. Bulls were guardians of Tarvedunum, Burghead.
In AD368, Ammianus Marcellinus described tribes of the Priteni [Picts] split into two by the Mounth: northern Dicalydones and Verturiones in the south. To Roman authors, Priteni-Britanni were linguistically just another people of Prydein. By the post-Roman Dark Age, AD420 on, Caledonians had repossessed their northern pine forests, the Fortriu people their rich landholdings in Perth, Strathearn and the Kingdom of Fife.
Bronze replica of Deskford Carnyx battlehorn Pictish tribes’ warcry-sounding call to advance on invading Roman army; found Banffshire bog inland Hill of Durn, Castle of Fordyce, Tor of Troup coastal Findlater fionn-leittir stronghold of the white (gleaming sacred, kingly)slope
Trajan’s Column, in Roman forum depicts Carnyx being blown by #Barbarians
It helps to remember that Scotland’s parish system, discarded in current maps, used to transmit a clear layout of medieval churchlands, themselves descended from earlier chapels, attached to Pictish strongholds.
By the seventh century Pictish kings were fully Christian, educated from youth in the cultural milieu of a monastery. In the centuries before Gaelic became a court language, it was the language of the ScotsIrish. More significantly, it was the language of Irish monastics, keepers of annals, copiers of sacred texts, educators of the nobility.
For a nation proud of its heritage, its oral tradition and roots – supported by faithful descendants in all corners of the globe – we Northeast Scots are remarkably careless with it.
In part this stems from a history of being conquered. But suppressed belief and myth have a way of being treasured: a precious relic to be hidden from secular eyes.
While great historical documents may have been lost in centuries of ‘acquisition’ or political manipulation by other cultures, there is an element of keeping knowledge of the Dark Age dark – maintaining in recesses of the mind secrets rehearsed in saga and song known – at least in the historical Pictish era – to all.
This was a people glad to be left behind in AD410 when the Romans walked out, left to themselves in a rich land with its own ancient culture.
Saddle Bags full of Old Stuff, Camping Out in the New
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Janus Effect— Riding into the New on an Old Horse
Janus, an Etruscan god, borrowed by Romans for their first month of reformed Julian calendar, which previously began March—equinox. The god is pictured, right, as a young man looking forward, old man looking back.
Angels, far right, were invoked to guide the army through battle, horses blessed as bearers of essential supplies
Emperor Trajan, A.D.98-117, seen left, creator of Trajan’s Column in the Roman Forum, used his power as Optimus Princeps to erect a 1st-century video documentary in STONE of his successful campaigns in subduing barbarians throughout the Empire, being offered beheaded captives
Trajan’s column in Rome, erected after successful Dacian campaign, portrays Rome’s omnipotence in all things martial—barbarians always defeated by superior Roman knowhow/weaponry/transportation
Saddle bags full of Old Stuff, Camping out in the New
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Emerging from what feels like a deep dark cloud of a year—2020—into the light of a new one which has potential to wake us all up and catapult us right out of bed, it is tempting to blanket all of the bad with the old, and look to the new year to solve all our problems.
But it’s a little more complicated than that.
If I’m honest, solitary confinement aka lockdown aka quarantine aka Tier 4 [for Brits], has had a remarkable effect on my writing regimen. Many blog authors and fiction wannabes will agree, we need a writing routine to help get ourselves organized, or we’d never produce a single word—bless our Muses, may it never happen.
Angelic Potpourri of Offerings from the Stars & Social Media as Humanity Wakes up to Responsibility
Creative people have found time in isolation rewarding in unexpected ways: more self-time allows honest re-assessment of our capacity for change, our output—both volume and quality—and enjoyment of what we do. With no distractions to interrupt our daily entry to the Writer’s Cave—painting boudoir, or garden plot [unless it becomes a criminal act to do so]—new books get written, music composed and broadcast, gardens and parks flourish. Nature likes to show off her growth.
Having nobody else to talk to, or hug daily—some elderly have had no phone connection or physical touch for months—has an effect of allowing us to spiral inward to where our Muse usually sits at her own computah waiting for us to ask! That isolation opens inner doors to our mind—and its myriad compartments—usually unheard in the (former) hurly burly of day-to-day existence—what we used to call the Nine-to-Five.
The new Nine-to-Five might be called more appropriately the Dawn-to-Dusk, or Sleep-no-More. Reaction to having only oneself in charge of one’s day—plus social media— has made superstars out of teenagers and octogenarians alike.
Drive-thru Virtual Graduation for U.S. Students, Remote Viewing A-levels in Britain
A virtual world for Education premiered in British A-level exam results, and U.S. Virtual Graduation ceremonies, with drive-in access to ‘graduates’ on a giant public screen, and cars suitably six feet apart. Zoom and Facetime no longer domain of teenagers, hosts home vids from newbies thru to experts. Tweets and Instagram posts get a million followers, 12-year olds become ‘social media influencers.’ Even the Mother Road, beloved of Kerouac and the Beat Gen, has shown (very cool, hip) example by maintaining nightly shows at its Route 66 Drive-In Movie theater in Jaspar, MO, with Miami Dolphins converting their stadium for film shows and Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Drive-Ins operating in many states.
Our entertainment antennae are being tweaked. We lap up visual, virtual televised or electronically-generated media like babes to the bottle. Royal audiences have become a television moment of a tap on the virtual shoulder by a non-corporeal monarch with a (light saber) sword.
Angelic Intervention and Messages from the Stars
Our senses have become heightened by this aloneness. Plus an automatic human response to being caged—escape—to get out into Nature and do more walking, planting, appreciating. World movements have appeared, to plant rescue forests, create community veg and fruit gardens, rewilding abandoned plots and city parks. Cairngorms National Park, largest park in Britain, has committed to revitalising biodiversity and to restoring (near-extinct) Caledonian Pine Forest (rewilding and exclosure plantings) and to Scotland’s looted and damaged peat bogs. Some highland estates have initiated a reduced seasonal game shoot, with fewer acres of heather burn (cover for the grouse), allowing local wildlife to return in natural numbers.
Messages from aloft include December highlight Saturn/Jupiter Great Conjunction, when every planet and asteroid that we know of—plus a few we didn’t imagine—came into alignment in a small quadrant of our (Earth-view) sky, over winter Solstice. While the two giants are separating now, they continue to dominate January skies. Astrologers predict cataclysmic change. Seismic scientists believe this alignment of planetary bodies produces earth-directed energy, similar to the effect of a sunspot maximum when the solar face aims directly at earth: it produces increased volcanic eruption and earthquake movement.
Something like that is happening now—which started on Solstice—in the Halema’uma’u Caldera, a collapsed crater atop Hawai’i’s Kilauea volcano, 4,000ft. Quiet for three decades, goddess Pele chose earth’s shortest day to reawaken a two-year old collapsed shield volcano that had filled with water (60ft deep). Blasting through rock, old petrified magma, and evaporating the water lake in process, Halema’uma’u (and Pele) created a lava lake that is currently changing the local landscape. Watch this space.
Volcano National Park USGS webcam and drone footage of December eruption update to Epiphany, January 6, 2021
Writerly Conclusions—When Life Brings you Lemons, er, Lava—make Lava-ade?
Meanwhile an Epiphany in the (smokey but breathable) writers’ cave, wassup, Doc? Is a new year resolution to keep on keeping on when all around are losing theirs, still valid if the ground we walk on is shifting beneath our feet? In our newfound zeal for restoring the wild, reducing CO2, becoming more in tune with Mother Nature, do we turn the clock back aka horse-drawn-plough? or forward akabook a seat on Space-X?
Roman ingenuity would have known. Ancient advice to the fallen, the wounded, the lost—and the found? Get back on the horse.
Britannia’s Londinium was Roman empire’s ‘colonial’ inner sanctum until Boudicca & her Iceni AD61 wiped out their military Mithraeum—a subterranean sacred bull ceremonial center under what is now the heart of the City of London, dedicated to Mithras. This Roman soldier’s god-in-his-corner and brother-in-arms was a deity stolen from the Zoroastrian Indus tradition, rising almost as a foot soldier’s vision of their marching champion of blood & guts for the Empire.
Their version symbolized by Mithras, son of Sol, bringing light into the barbarian darkness: stabbling the sacrificial bull of ignorance in heathen tribes to inject civilized aka Roman ways—became symbolic for pedestrian occupations: soldiers, merchants, travellers.
Currently City of London’s newly restored Mithraeum under Bloomberg’s Walbrook EuroHQ, groups gorgeous original carvings and paintwork with original and visual reconstruction to bring the temple alive. Mithras’ cult reached peak secret status—perhaps as counter-Xtian independent soldier with his own deity against Christendom and everyone else beyond Deere St.
Why were Roman legions so interested in subduing some tribes and not others? Why build the great edifices of Antonine and Hadrian‘s occupations to shut out the northern territories and patrol the borders with encampments, but essentialaly ignore them, when others, like Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, merited wholesale plunder, murder and annihilation?
It was not merely a matter of geography. The Northern Tribes of the Caledonians, in what eventually became Pictland, were hostile but they were no immediate threat to Rome. They were warlike and they were rich in land, but their territories were only worthy of one campaign: that of Julius Agricola in AD77. During that campaign, while he was Consul of Rome and Governor of Britannia, he conquered much of Wales and northern England and made his historic venture into lowland and eastern Scotland to conclude his enterprise at the legendary battle of Mons Graupius…
Approaching another #Stargate has us reflecting on 2012. Then we thought the world as we knew it was ending.
Thoth, Ibis god of writing & learning; god of the Moon; sacred scribe
A decade later we confront ourselves again now—humans becoming superhuman—Egyptians, Assyrians, Scythians knew this would happen—we are their gods.
Ancient texts, such as (much-maligned) Hebrew/Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls, and Egyptian ‘Knowledge of Thoth’, insist that we humans are destined to become gods; that from their Zep Tepi—Dawn of Time—literally First Time—we were programmed to evolve beyond our present terrestrial form.
The Egyptian god spoke of the Star Walkers—individuals who, like Enoch, traveled beyond the Great Eye of Orion [out of the program] and returned—to walk like gods amongst men. Such evolved humans are comparable with the ‘Lords of Light’ of the Maya, Sumerian Nephilim or Anunnaki—”those who from Heaven to Earth came”—and the Tibetan Dakini—Shining Ones.
Inca portal of Amaru Muru at Hayu Marca, which is believe to give access to the world of serpent wisdom and interdimensional travel Last weekend the sun stood, as it does on both equinoxes—March 21st, September 22nd—directly overhead on earth’s equator, before making its (apparent) journey southward towards the tropic of Capricorn, where it will stand on winter solstice—S.hemisphere midsummer—on December 21st, 2012. For one day and night, everyone on planet earth experienced a twelve-hour day* and twelve-hour night, with sunrise due east and sunset due west. From now on, days in the northern hemisphere will appear dramatically shorter. If that were not enough to make the most avid outdoorsman turn inwards for consolation, the end of the British crop circle season would appear to be a done deal.
*allowance is made for sunrays appearing before ‘dawn’, giving longer daylight at some latitudes.
Next week—Equinox, March 20th—marks a full decade since surprise eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, resulting in airline lockdown in Britain, Ireland, Norway and the Euro-bloc with flights cancelled for over a month.
While in the U.S, domestic flights were less affected, NASA suddenly had to find an alternative to (normal splashdown)landing of Space Shuttle Discovery on her final re-entry from the Space Station; dodging re-routed air traffic over the north American cointinent, in order to achieve an unprecedented touchdown at Cape Canaveral Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Tomorrow morning, April 19th, 2010, at around 5a.m. PST the Space Shuttle Discovery is due to reenter Earth’s atmosphere on a trajectory that takes her over the Pacific Northwest, and then on a southeasterly heading towards Cape Canaveral, Florida. She undocked from the International Space Station at the weekend in preparation for reentry.
Early birds in the states of Montana, South Dakota, Missouri and Mississippi and those driving to work in the cities of St. Louis, MO, Memphis, TN and Columbus, GA may catch a glimpse of the descending craft as it prepares for landing at the Kennedy Space Center, ETA 8:48a.m.
Viewers in continental U.S. will be able to see Discovery as a blazing fireball in the dawn sky on first reentry over Northern California, Oregon, Washington and BC, and then, when daylight progresses, as a bright high-altitude object, as the craft heads east. Those who may not be…
View from the Stars: whichever way you look at it, we are present in Sidereal time, Space is our growth medium, and stardust and water our constituent particles. When electromagnetically charged, our solar-powered circuitry is capable of Creating Anything We Choose.
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