“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…
WINTER ENDS with NEW BEGINNINGS Emerging from the Longest Night into a New Year
It is Solstice—the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. This year—2018—it is also the night of the Full Moon—a cosmic coincidence which will not happen again until 2094.
Hogmanay now a World-Scots Celebration
Traditional Christmas pudding, oozing flaming brandy, courtesy Delia Smith
Meanwhile festivities are revving up for a week of celebrations in all corners of the globe—more glitzy in countries with the Santa Claus connection: the USA welcomes his reindeer to school halls and shopping malls. Yule logs burn in grates from Scandinavia to Scotland.
While New Year’s Eve is still a week away, around the globe Scots are preparing. They have their own name and a long rich heritage associated with the last night of the Old Year—Hogmanay.
Theories abound on the derivation of Hogmanay. While I favor the translation given by the Scots Dictionary—aguillaneuf=gift for a new year, below—there are others. The Scandinavian word for a feast preceding Yule was “Hoggo-nott” while the Flemish words (many have come into Scots) hoog min dag=’great love day’. Hogmanay can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon, Haleg monath, Holy Month, or the Gaelic, oge maidne, new morning.
Remembering that Mary, Queen of Scots grew up as child bride at the French court, the most likely source seems to be the French translated bodily to Scotland with her when she became Queen. ‘Homme est né’ (‘Man is born’) in France is the last day of the year when gifts were exchanged. Aguillaneuf is still celebrated in Normandy, and presents given at that time are hoguignetes.
Tar barrel flaming at Burghead on Auld ‘Eel ends with burning the Clavie at the ‘Doorie’ on the ribs of Pictish promontory beach fort
In Scotland a practice similar to Normandy was recorded, disapprovingly, by the Church:
It is ordinary among some Plebeians in the South of Scotland, to go about from door to door upon New Year`s Eve, crying Hagmane
Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, 1693
Christmas was not celebrated as a festival and virtually banned in Scotland for 400 years, from Protestant Reformation c.end of C.17th until around 1950s. The reformed Kirk portrayed Christmas as a Popish or Roman Catholic feast and it was forbidden. Many Scots had to work over Christmas and their winter solstice holiday was taken at New Year, when family and friends gathered for a party and to exchange presents—especially for children.
Earliest known Gaulish Coligny ‘moon’ calendar of 13 months dates to A.D. 150
In the earliest known Celtic calendar, the Coligny Calendar of 13 moons (months), now in the Palais des Arts, Lyon, the year began at Samhain, November 1st Fire-Festival of the Dead. At this time the veil between this world and the Otherworld was believed so thin that the dead could return to warm themselves at the hearths of the living. And some living—especially poets, artists, clairvoyants and shaman/healers—were able to enter the Otherworld through the doorways of the sidhe, fairyfolk, like the stone-lined entrance to passage graves in Scotland and Ireland
When the Julian calendar was in place in Rome, the Coligny caledar was seen as the Gaulish equivalent of a 10-month/13moon year, beginning November.
Traditions before midnight on Samhain perpetuated in rural communities when the calendar changed to Gregorian (at the Reformation) such as cleaning the house on 31st December—including taking outside ashes from the fire, when coal fires were in vogue. There was a superstition to clear all debts before “the bells” at midnight.
On the stroke of midnight it is traditional to sing Auld Lang Syne. Robert Burns claimed his verse was based on an earlier fragment, and the melody was in print eighty years before he published in 1788.
Partying from Hallowe’en through Hogmanay
An integral part of Hogmanay partying which continues today is to welcome friends and strangers alike with warm hospitality; and to wish everyone a Guid New Year. The underlying belief is to clear out any vestiges of the old year—ancient tradition included literally sweeping the house clean—and preparing to welcome in a young, fresh New Year on a happy and positive note.
“First footing”—i.e. the first step over the threshold into the house after midnight—is less common now in cities, but continues in rural Scotland. To ensure good luck for the house, the First Foot should be male, dark-haired (believed to be a throwback from Viking days when blond strangers arriving on your doorstep meant trouble) and should bring symbolic coal, shortbread, salt, black bun and/or whisky. These days, however, whisky and perhaps shortbread are the only items still prevalent—and available.
“Handselling” was a custom of gift-giving on the first Monday of the New Year, but this may also have died out.
Magical fireworks displays and torchlight processions through Edinburgh, Elgin and many cities in Scotland are reminiscent of ancient custom at pagan Hogmanay parties which persevered until the late C.20th.
Traditionally one New Year ceremony more reminiscent of American Hallowe’en involved dressing up in cattle hides and running around the village being hit by sticks. The festivities included lighting bonfires, rolling blazing tar barrels down the hill—as is still practised in Burning the Clavie at Burghead, Morayshire—and tossing torches. Animal hide was wrapped around sticks and set on fire. This dense smoke fended off evil spirits. The smoking stick was also known as a Hogmanay.
Giant fireballs hefted by strongarm celebrants swing through Stonehaven harbor near Aberdeen on ‘auld ‘Eel’, old Yule
Some customs continue, especially in small, rural communities in the Highlands and Islands where tradition—along with language and dialect—are kept alive. On Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, young boys form rival bands, the leader of each wearing a sheepskin, while another member carries a sack. The gangs move through the village from house to house reciting a Gaelic rhyme. On being invited inside, the leader walks clockwise around the fire, while everyone hits the skin with sticks. Formerly, the boys would be given bannocks (fruit buns, similar to focaccia) for their sack before moving on to the next house. This tradition is reflected in American Hallowe’en, two months earlier.
Scotland’s Legacy of Ancient Customs
One of the most spectacular fire ceremonies to take place is in Stonehaven, just south of Aberdeen on the Northeast coast. Giant fireballs, weighing up to 20 pounds are lit and swung around on five foot-long metal poles that need sixty men to carry them, as they march up and down the High Street. The origin of this pre-Christian custom is linked to Winter Solstice December 21st, with giant fireballs signifying the power of the sun’s return. The fireballs were believed to purify the world by consuming evil spirits in the New Year.
Confusing Samhain/Hallowe’en with Hogmanay is understandable. Longtime tradition holds them inter-dependent. Only the numbers have changed.
Eagle Nebula Pillars of Creation, NASA Space telescope
A theory of gravity is also a theory of space and time — Albert Einstein
According to current thinking, we have gone beyond conventional spacetime and are now floating somewhere in a ‘construct’ of our own imagination.
One hundred years ago Albert Einstein had his great insight.
A decade afterwards he revised his general relativity to include quantum theory. And yet a century later physicists are still beating the quantum drum, trying to figure how to work outside theoretical time, when physicists have always formulated their theories within a space-time framework.
WHALES, NUCLEAR WESSELS AND OCEAN CLEAN-UP
ALAMEDA—Chequered History or Check-Mate?
Alameda—where they keep the Nuclear Wessels, according to Pavel Chekov, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 1986
With a flourish of ceremonial shovels, construction began last week on the site of the (closed) U.S. Naval Air Station, on what will become Alameda’s first major market-rate multi-family development in four decades. Alameda Point sits on the North shore of San Francisco Bay, with strategic connections to Oakland, the Sacramento River and the Bay Area.
Manila Bay whale sculpture made entirely from plastic beach waste in Philippines, image courtesy Greenpeace
It will be familiar to vintage Star Trek fans for its connection with whales, nuclear generators and Space. Alameda has tolerated empty lot syndrome since the ‘nineties—vast spaces where appropriate development could enhance the former NAS site, but records of clean-up procedures are causing concern. The Navy contractor’s method of landfill and dumping radio-active soil and ground liquids has been questioned.
Developers for the project assure that testing and re-certification will continue, as old naval buildings and pavement are torn up to make room for the new 70-acre development, known as Site A: it will include 800 residential units, up to 600,000 square feet of commercial space and a ferry terminal that will connect to San Francisco—plus parks and open space.
According to U.S. Navy’s Environmental Coordinator for the Alameda cleanup, Cecily Sabedra:
“Tetra Tech was the contractor who performed environmental investigation and cleanup tasks throughout the former NAS Alameda, including Site A. The Navy’s internal-review safeguards and the regulatory-review process indicate Alameda data are accurate and the work completed to date at Alameda is protective of human health. Quality assurance and quality control measures, including field oversight and data review by Navy personnel and regulatory agencies, have been and continue to be in place at Alameda to verify data are representative of site conditions.”
From Cold War Seaplane Landing to Wildlife Reserve
Old Alameda Naval Air base runways for U.S. fleet flight deck and seaplane landings, now rare bird lagoon
Tetra Tech was deeply involved at another portion of the 2,800-acre Alameda Naval Air Station property, Site 2, which is deemed a toxic Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The station was an active military installation for fleet aviation activities from the 1930s to the 1990s. Former jet runways, and anchorage for Cold War sea planes and Navy submersibles can still be seen.
In Tetra Tech’s 200-page remedial action work plan, submitted to the Navy and other U.S. government agencies in 2013, Site 2 contained radium-226 and other radioactive materials. In the 1940s, workers coated instruments such as dials using a radio-luminescent paint containing the isotope. Rags and paint brushes were then discarded at the site.
Over a period of sixty years, the land had been a dumping ground for other materials like asbestos, pesticides, sandblasting grit, medical waste and tear gas agents. In ‘cleaning’ the area, Tetra Tech bulldozed in a multi-layer soil mix, to cover the old landfill.
Wilderness will Find a Way—Wildlife Move Back In
Osprey landing on rusty light-stand nest to feed young, in former Seaplane Lagoon
Site 2—owned by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs—will remain closed for the ‘foreseeable future’.
Since becoming redundant in the 1990s, Mother Nature has stepped in to reclaim such wasteland: now home to several endangered species of birds. Harbor seals have moved back into the lagoon and this is third year a pair of ospreys have nested on the old light stand at the entrance to Seaplane Lagoon.
After an impasse was reached in 2004 between the U.S. Navy and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (aka Fish & Game) for creation of a national wildlife refuge, the property was offered to the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.). The V.A. plans to build an outpatient clinic and columbarium on 112 acres of its land, but the other 511 acres of V.A. land will remain undeveloped. The undeveloped area is where egrets and endangered California Least Terns come to nest early April to mid-August each year.
Wild Mountain Lion Migrate Across 101
Baby cougar faces future from her den in Thousand Oaks, Santa Monica mountains
Megalopolis concerns are with a family of cougar kittens in Thousand Oaks, CA.—being monitored/tagged by National Parks Service researchers—where as grown wildcats they will have to cross Highway 101 to find new breeding grounds—the nearest wild forest being several hundred miles to the north. Cougar have had to adapt to urban sprawl before. Most famous is Parks’ Service favorite, “P-22” who crossed several freeways in Santa Monica, headed south into Los Angeles and took up residence in downtown Griffith Park.
He’s still there. What a Cool Cat.
San Francisco’s former military HQ, the Presidio, with its unparalleled view of the Golden Gate Bridge, has become a model for native plant species and habitat restoration since 1994. That year, the U.S. military machine turned its back on war and handed the land over to the National Parks Service. It subsequently created the Presidio Trust which now oversees 80% of the park. Here endangered and indigenous plant life is being nurtured back to profusion by Parks’ botanists, with a little nightly help from vole, gopher, racoon, fox and coyote. The bears left a long time ago—ages before it was a military stronghold.
Chernobyl nuclear hazard sign after April 26, 1986 explosion blanketed Europe in radio-active fog for a week
Encouragingly, wildlife in Chernobyl, a former 50,000-population density town in Ukraine within a 1,000-sq.mile forest (4300km2 Chernobyl Exclusion Zone) are moving through the irradiated landscape in droves, and showing little sign of becoming mutants. European research teams have been tracking population growth of wolves, bear, mountain lion and multiple migrating birds for over a decade, and proclaim so far no adverse genetic change.
Nuclear warning by crop circle? Latest to appear in Wiltshire field near Stonehenge, drone shot courtesy Nick Bull
Even our crop circling Alien friends seem concerned for our welfare. The latest—July 8th, 2018—depicting a nuclear device—appeared overnight in unharvested wheat in Coneybury Hill, near Stonehenge, Wiltshire. Whereas Salisbury farmers were formerly stressed over public trespass and crop trampling, they now tolerate drone fly-overs and crop circle photography has taken an upswing.
There are positive aspects to our human concern for proliferating the planet with our own waste. As we become aware of our past destructive habits, like dumping plastic in the ocean—the city of New York only stopped dumping municipal waste by barge into the Atlantic in 1992—we discover alternative methods of clean-up.
Within the last five years Woods Hole, Massachusetts marine microbiologists have recorded a reduction in marine plastic waste in world oceans.
They are convinced it is being eaten.
Leave it to the Micro-Plankton NOAA has recorded a massive 90% drop in ocean pollution statistics worldwide since 2011, declaring there is no Pacific garbage patch.
Marine bacteriologists are convinced, however, that, as plastic degrades through sunlight and the wave action of salt water into the tiniest fragments, this plastic confetti becomes the preferred diet of micro-organisms who attach to such clustered ‘reefs’ of food, extracting toxins in their digestion.
Casualty on Huntington Beach—at least he pecked his way through the bag
”Plastic-eating bacteria help explain why the amount of debris in the ocean has levelled off, despite continued pollution. But researchers don’t yet know whether their digestion produces harmless by-products, or whether it might introduce toxins into the food chain.”
Tracy Mincer, Marine Microbiologist Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
If NOAA’s “missing 90%” of microscopic plastic fragments in the oceans is being eaten—mostly by bacteria and other microbes—these little microscopic helpers will continue to eat the plastic. If we can reduce the amount of plastic going into the oceans, via our beaches, they may eventually eat it all up.
Wouldn’t that be a world initiative worth achieving?
If we continue with responsible water cleanup worldwide—as some humanitarian philanthropists are currently showing the way—we ‘oldies’ may emerge from the “Plastic Age” unscathed, sooner than our grandchildren predict.
One century on—John Muir’s Redwood darlings—stripped for cash, hemmed in by hiking trails
“Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and luggage and chatter.” –John Muir, letter to his wife Louie from Yosemite, July 1888
Arbor Day weekend—sadly for the trees—falls on Easter this year: exactly one century after their truest lover, arboreal-sequoia-spirit, John Muir, born April 21, 1838 Dunbar, Scotland, died (December 24, 1914) of a broken heart in a Los Angeles hospital—a terminal scenario he most feared.
Earth Week for Arborists
NoCal 2014: free, enticing, available, but very managed & very non-Redwood-friendly
Arborophiles will gather this week for an unusual tree-planting ceremony. One of many initiatives in the U.S. capital during Earth Week to give credence to the memory of Sierra Club Founder John Muir, the tree-planting ceremony April 25th by Archangel Ancient Trees’ David Milarch at the National Institute for Health, Bethesda, MD will embed in the earth two clones of the ‘Hippocrates sycamore’, a gift from Greece to the U.S. in 1960. At that time, a cutting was taken from the original plane tree on Cos, as an intercultural exchange from the Father of Western Medicine who taught his acolytes there, 330B.C., to D.C.’s Institute of Health—whose whole-medical ethos is based on the Hippocratic Oath. Milarch’s work to clone the rootstock has succeeded. The Institute celebrates Earth Week with an annual tree planting in the capital.
Teetering off the continental tectonic plate: coastline driving along Humboldt’s Scenic Drive is a constant surprise
Two hundred forty miles north of Dunbar, Trees for Life, a charitable group on a mission to restore Caledonian pine forest in sheep-torn northern Scotland, celebrates its twenty-fifth year of planting this summer. The Scots Government (RCAHMS & Forestry Commission) have been supporting individuals to plant small landholdings of remnant forest-cum-ancient monuments with indigenous trees, since 1988. They also celebrate twenty-five this year.
Blue Findhorn caravan where Dorothy Maclean, Eileen and Peter Caddy meditated, lived and grew cabbages
Dorothy Maclean, 94—surviving co-founder of the Findhorn Garden of miracle growth in Moray, Scotland—continues to speak daily to her Muses, her sweet pea Deva, and the Great Spirit. “If we hadn’t tuned into the Nature Devas and listened to their coaxing, we would just have been another meditation group,” she says of the fifty-two-year old Foundation, Center for Intentional Living and Eco-Village, which grew out of the caravan park where she planted her sweet peas. Her quiet stillness continues to inspire her friends and neighbors. The Findhorn Garden thrives.
Findhorn was fertile ground for many Earth-spiritual ideas. David Spangler, Co-Director 1970-1973, founded the Lorian Association, Issaquah, WA where he is Director of Education-Research. His Center for Incarnational Spirituality
focuses on exploring, understanding, and teaching Lorian’s understanding of the emerging spiritual impulse.
Long-time Findhorn trustee and believer in the angelic realms, author William Bloom regularly speaks on self-realization, and encourages living within nature and within one’s own spirit.
Fup, Jim Dodge’s exceptional mallard, has wisdom of the still life
Jim Dodge has been director of creative writing in the English department at Humboldt State University Arcata since 1995. Author of Fup, above, and Stone Junction, he believes like Maclean, Spangler and Bloom, that by surrounding oneself in nature, making it our friend, Nature has ways of teaching us to flow more intuitively, more naturally, as the waves of energy themselves. It is what is taught in all Native American wisdom.
Earth First or Earth Whenever
Naturalist John Muir took US President Teddy Roosevelt camping overnight in Yosemite, 1906
He thought on it, mulling it with that slow, voluptuous thoroughness that comes with the still life. He paused. ‘Have you not found that hunger becomes most intense near the moment of satisfaction?’
Johnny Seven Moons to Granddaddy Jake in Jim Dodge’s Fup
John Muir would have been happy to see his trees—albeit several foreign imports—receive all this attention. But his first love—wilderness—and our 21st-Century attitude to it, would have him totally confused.
Because this weekend also heralds Spring Break—Brit, Easter Hols—and a sudden switch of fortune for spaceweather-worry-warts from Arctic deepfreeze to Caribbean breathless balmy (courtesy current incoming M-class solar flare, below sidebar right); American teenage tin-soldiers are on the march.
Spring Break: mass exodus of youth, determined to tame Nature in the Wild
Parents in tow, willingly or otherwise, the great Easter adventure is to pit one’s child against Nature, and hope the family comes back in one piece, if not in one tent. Media classes in kayaking and backpacking abound, boyscout-girl-guide firemaking is ‘awesome possum’; endless catalogs touting latest designer all-weather gear, space-age freeze-dried GMO-mush in non-recyclable plastic bombs serve to make vacation roughing it more smooth… or maybe it’s to give Mom relief and a catalog to read, when wet wood spits out the camp fire.
Highway-299, No.Humboldt County’s E-W artery, daily connects Redding, Central Valley via Redwoods to the Coast
School vacations occur, regardless of solar maxima, X-class and M-class flares incoming, internet interruptions, and Chaos Theory.
What currently cool school kids may fail to grasp, in their quest for astral Tesla solar panels, ear-to-ear-sound, and instant palm-top X-box hacking, is that there is no internet on a mountain top; arborophiles and tree sitters hug trees, not cut them down. What their parents may fail to notice is increasing wear and tear on the planet brought on by human indifference.
Homeguard, Humboldt style
According to Forbes Magazine, ‘Gallup poll reports more than sixty percent Americans believe effect of global warming is happening during their lifetimes, yet only 25% worry about it.’
Local tolerance during full moon madness, combined with Easter, the new growing season and runup to Beltane and Cinco de Mayo, is just too much for some local redwoods residents. They close their gates, get out the shotgun, ask stray campers, their single-parent wildchild wannabes—and their litter—to leave.
Big Tree, like her sister Corkscrew Tree, both 350-ft+ sequoia sempervirens, hold Prairie Creek State Park microsystem in balance
Meanwhile, Milarch and his research team have been scouring Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park along infamous Tsunami Alley in Northern Humboldt, in search for the last undiscovered sequoia sempervirens.
It will not have helped matters in the ‘real world’ that Wilderness has not been cared for at Muir’s level for several decades, much less in the one hundred twenty years since he and President Roosevelt founded the Sierra Club in 1892—to take care of Mother N where John M left off. Teddy Roosevelt, at Muir’s insistence, brought 430 million acres of land under federal protection during his presidency.
At the end of his life, Muir and Sierra Club fought a bitter battle on construction of the O’Shaughnessy Dam over Hetch Hetchy Valley in his beloved Yosemite National Park.
1890s Chute harvested redwood logs, wooden trains, flumes called Miracles of the Age hauled lumber to sawmill yards
Muir used his solitary voice in the wilderness; Sierra Club used lawyers.
Seen as the first major battle of the environmental movement, it pales by comparison with present treesit, earth-aware group initiatives, and corporate legal wrangling. But for Muir, who had seen his work put an end to ruthless tree-felling, an exploitative timber trade, this betrayal bruised his spirit. On Christmas Eve, 1914—just over a year after Congress authorized the dam’s construction against his wishes—Muir died of pneumonia in southern California.
Redwood moorings from Trinidad, CA whaling days were replaced 2012 by smart steel dock
His work was seminal. He inspired generations of naturalists, and brought pioneer spirit, raw enthusiasm and innocence to an American system which has only calcified since his time.
National Parks hit by recent budget cuts made wilderness vacations less fun than fatiguing, more stressful than stretching. So, some public opinion has made inroads, in California, Colorado and Washington at least.
David Milarch admits his search for the ultimate sequoia is a hunt for a trigger to activate his own DNA. He believes the trees have more to teach us than we presently have capacity to learn, but thinks, like Dodge’s immortal Granddaddy, that time is on our side.
There is No Planet B
US Congress antics and current Mercurial media circus make chameleons of all politicians, and so 21stC legislation cannot be depended on for preservation of our Pale Blue Dot, as Carl Sagan affectionately calls home.
Full Lunar Eclipse chalice chart 4/15/14 inside a Cardinal Grand Cross: cornucopia of Earth Week abundance: we can lose it all
In 1982, a shy genius marine bacteriological USC professor Milo Appleman, Ph.D., published his Epitaph for Planet Earth: How to Survive the approaching End of the Human Species, (Frederick Fell, New York). His predictions of the North Pacific Garbage Gyre and (projected) effect of human pollution on world oceans fell on deaf ears. Now, trillions of dollars worldwide are spent annually on so-called cleanup operations.
Media moguls, bored with political stalemate, seem to have brightened viewers’ choices by reaching for the heavens: coverage of April 15th’s first blood moon total lunar eclipse of 2014, along with juxtaposition of Mars, Jupiter and Mercury in the northern night sky, broke Nielsen ratings for a decade. This means more people may be—unconsciously—influenced by the stars!
Cardinal Grand Cross: Uranus Jupiter Pluto Mars at 13º square change~change~change
When beggars die,
There are no comets seen,
The heavens themselves
Blaze forth the death of princes
Calphurnia to Julius Caesar Act II Scene 2 William Shakespeare
What they didn’t say—management order not to frighten viewers—is that, energetically, planet earth is still laboring under the aegis of Saturn and Uranus, planets of change, lined up in a Cardinal Grand Cross, which began March 2010 and will not leave us alone until June 2016. This means massive change for society, but also inner change for the individual. Spaceweather and glory of the stars? this is only the beginning.
So-called primitive Man has always looked to the heavens for guidance. He derived comfort in infinite Divine balance of number. Gematria, Judaic name-number of God, reflects supreme balance in Fibonacci Phi spiral that permeates the Universe. In known civilizations of antiquity—China, Babylon, Egypt—arithmetic-number was sacred, as source of all knowledge, a guide to rightful conduct in art, music, affairs of state.
Minimum ‘safe’ height: 146feet; most of Tsunami Alley: sea-level 😦
Ancient Science was based like today on number, but whereas it is now used quantitatively in a secular sense, the Ancients saw numbers as symbols of the Universe. They inhabited a living creature of divine fabrication, designed in accordance with reason, and thus, to some extent, comprehensible by the human mind.
John Michell, Dimensions of Paradise, 1988
Comet ISON whet public appetite, current planetary alignments, plus total lunar and annular solar (visible only in Antarctica 4/29) eclipses and Lyrid meteor shower all in one week are a heady mix. Within the vise of a six-year Grand Cross, daily change is beginning to look scary. The streetwise kid knows at gut level what the Ancients knew by precise calculation: Fireworks in the sky means group change—maybe even all change.
Petrolia Shear Zone, Humboldt County, where 3 volcanic faults meet, courtesy HSU Geology
When solar storms and volcanic activity start to make EarthMama shake, even the masses look to the skies. There are three more total lunar eclipses to complete a tetrad over the next year—encouraging ingénue stargazing—10/8/14; 4/4/15, 9/28/15. Even New Age television seems to be getting stardust in its teeth.
Humans—through Nature—have always thrilled to the presence of the Divine—Muse—in dance, music, water, sound and light. Losing our way in the 21st Century, like those tree people of the past, may not be an option. So, please, would all ’Sixties’ Back-to-the-Land BabyBoomer survivors—or any who sold out to the system and regret—please stand. Along with treesitters in the mold of Julia Butterly Hill, and activists of the ’Noughties, now our flower-power really counts.
This time, it will take all the love we can generate together,
to heal and help each other through.
There is no Planet B.
Now is the time to love our little comfort zone.
WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get.
@2014 Siderealview
Yarnbury, on A303 to Stonehenge: 2012's second crop circle in oil seed rape--canola--photo courtesy Steve Alexander
“Now it begins… needles and pins…” Miss Toni Fisher The Big Hurt
The 2012 Crop Circle season is a little late, but it is underway. This Wiltshire pattern arrived in a night of heavy rain, after a month of downpours, but showing no sign of crop abuse (stalks intact); more rain since then has, however, had an impact. Britain’s second crop design for the season appeared in oil seed rape, at Yarnbury Castle, Winterbourne Stoke near Stonehenge, last Saturday–April 28th–on the same day as European-African swallows returned en masse to their British breeding grounds.
Alton Priors Code-tailed Swallow crop circle of June 2009 has never been 'decoded'
It is an interesting coincidence that one of several crop designs imprinted in code–one which the ‘experts’ have yet to decode–is the gigantic swallow crop circle of June 27th, 2009 at Alton Priors. It appeared one year after–and in the same field as–a herald swallow, without coded tail.
world communications fracture?
We have blogged before on the archetypal swallow and its significance in all northern cultures. It symbolized loyalty, faith, honor, love, hope and safe return. In this post on swallow symbolism, many cultures look to the bird as a representative of the light.
Even before the European crop circle season began, on April 15th at East Kennett, the honor again fell to Hidalgo province, Mexico, to lead the crop circle world in astonishment, as overnight a ten-acre wheatfield was used as a cosmic database whiteboard, like a screenshot from ‘The Matrix’. Mexican authorities and croppies worldwide are still trying to untangle the web of “alien” words imprinted in the ripening grain, which delighted computer code freaks, who set about converting it into electronic instructions. Locals in the northern suburb were delighted to be the ones to witness the formations being made, reporting lights descending during the night, and ‘buzzing’ while the crop was being imprinted. When the field was monitored next morning, readings of great fluctuations in heat, and sparking electromagnetic static were measured and recorded. The team’s compasses didn’t work, and the local farmers’ cows wouldn’t give milk the following day.
When Tula-Iturbe Farmers noticed that the code embedded in growing wheat was allowing the crop to continue to grow, as, according to the young reporter, none of the stems in the whole field was broken, they were even more convinced that they were being singled out for a cosmic message. “The writing in the field happened in such a short time and there was no noise except for the light sparks”, admitted one resident.
The event occurred on the night of February 27th, 2012 during the Mexican festival to celebrate the national flag–Dia de la Bandera. Rural Tula-Iturbe is a northern satellite community of Tula de Allende, the city famed for standing within the bounds of ancient Toltec capital, Tollan-Xicocotitlan, see this report on last year’s crop circles that appeared in Tula at equinox–one of Mexico’s most celebrated festivals.
World communications blackout?
The Winterbourne Stoke glyph could not be more different from the Mexican formation; but its small, contained design is somewhat similar to the logo for one of Earth’s largest telecommunications corporations. It is tempting to suggest that the positioning of the crop design so that the middle axis lies across one of the tractor ‘tramlines’, enhances the fracture between left and right curves, positioned offset from one another–and emphasized by the median (machine-made) line. Given the remarkable recovery of our sun from solar minimum of a few years ago, its recent active storms, plasma CMEs–coronal mass ejections–of almost weekly M- or X-class flare [alerts on the NOAA solar-geomagnetic indicator, sidebar right] producing subsequent electronic disturbances and power outages; it is a short mental leap to seeing the Winterbourne Stoke design as shorthand for a breakdown in world communications; and it is too much of coincidence that the ‘logo’ appeared only twenty miles due south of that estimable telecoms corporation’s British headquarters in the ancient Wessex burgh of Malmesbury; but I run ahead of myself…
Astrolabe crop circle below Milk Hill, solstice week 2009, appeared in three phases, the tail code manifesting last; its message remains undecoded
Celestial happenings in 2012
Solar disturbances aside, there are several other events in the heavenly lineup for 2012, not least the long-awaited transit of Venus on June 6th:
May 4th: partial lunar eclipse, visible off Mexico
May 5th: full ‘supermoon‘, closest to earth (perigee at 221,000 miles instead of usual quarter-million mile distance);therefore “large”
May 4th-5th peak of Eta Aquarids, meteor shower from debris of Halley’s comet
May 14th first standstill Venus during retrograde loop
May 20th annular eclipse of Sun, visible in Pacific states and western U.S.*
June 4th partial lunar eclipse, visible Asia N.America
June 6th transit of Venus and Inferior Conjunction
November 13th 2012 total solar eclipse in which sun and moon align with head of the Serpent (constellation Serpens), visible only in Pacific Polynesia
November 18th Solar system conjunct dark ridge Galactic Center
Nov 28 partial (penumbral) lunar eclipse.
*Alone, May’s annular eclipse (sun’s disk not totally occluded) will stimulate response from thousands of daytime viewers, as the path of the phenomenon starts early afternoon on the Oregon/NoCal border, moving through Nevada, Utah and Arizona, passing in late afternoon over a corner of Colorado, New Mexico, and ending at sunset in Texas. But then, two weeks later, tens of thousands will be geared up to watch the rare transit of Venus‘s solitary disk, as it crosses in front of the sun, from our earth-view–highest visibility in NW Pacific states. This paired event will not happen again this century.
Twelve-petalled flower motif at Hill Barn, East Kennett, April 15th, 2012, in canola
At the beginning of a season, it is easy to lapse into speculation of how the soon-to-come surprises will impact our consciousness: for a group awareness now exists, watching as this long-heralded year opens its doors to never-before seen messages in the corn. If one believes that Consciousness creates Reality; then to no small degree the Crop Circle Community, worldwide, combines its anticipation–swallow-code: hope, expectation–to ‘create’ whatever comes next. It is only our preoccupation with the external measurement of Time which is seen by our logical conscious mind as a hurdle to understanding what our subconscious is already working away merrily on.
To a degree, that scenario completely ignores the fact that the Earth herself, a biological, pulsing, cohesive, supportive (sentient) being, may be capable of sparking electromagnetic vortices–like the subterranean aquifer of Wiltshire-Salisbury Plain–into producing high sonic, low-resolution heat, electrostatic charges which twist and manipulate plant stems into ethereal forms.
However potent is Earth’s own energy, it is on record that previous crop circle groups have combined their meditations/expectations of a design, willing it to appear; and been gratified when something close to their dream manifested.
2012 is already hyped as Apocalypse, EndTimes, Rebirth, New Aquarian Age, but it is also the time when the Maya predicted we would renew ourselves as a (human) race; when their Great Cycle would climax, and it would feel to us like ‘coming home’–their and the Hopi’s ‘Return of the Ancestors‘.
Equinox is approaching; light shines for fewer hours; the Earth’s northern hemisphere cools. A hinge on the doorway of the seasons swings to a close.
Time reaches the halfway point between solstice and solstice; it pauses, giving all of us equal hours of day and night at once, at one. There is still hope. Then the door closes.
There is definitely a feeling of closure around right now. In turbulent times we resort to gathering in of faculties, pulling in the feelers after a tentative burst of faith and hope that the world would change overnight. Did we believe that by our being blasted with Cosmic Rays, messages from ET, a flurry of spiritual internet (and out-of-planet) communication, that we might find a quick fix, a rescue remedy to reach the Promised Land? After the pinnacles of 09/09/09, three eclipses, admonitions to prepare for a Life Change, a Planetary Shift, Shift of the Ages, there now seems a finality to each day, a touch of chill descends at night. The summer of 2009 gently pulls down its curtain and allows us to retreat from the elements, to enter our caves for the winter.
Many cultures of ancient tradition take this time to go inward spiritually. Eastern philosophies turn from waning light without and focus on the light within. Autumn lecture tours by gurus and autumnal spiritual retreats abound. Others in the West find solace in working to consolidate one’s own projects, to take stock and assimilate knowledge, insight, light gained over summer.
For a writer this should be a glorious time: more access to internet and computer hours to satisfy even a librarian.
This writer is a gardener though and the gardener in her demurs. Doesn’t want to let go of the light; the feeling of summer still warm on the skin is seductive, there is a longing for a reprise, a need made more poignant by the last rays of the sun, the gathering of swallows.
Not all of us, however, may like grasshoppers flee the wintertime. Change is often a call to the human urge to move on. We need to heed the call.
Fall was traditionally – and in some places still is – a time of migration. Food supplies dry up with shortening days, earth has given her all: the wise move on. Swallows, songbirds, geese are the last in Europe to leave, while their fellow residents still gather in the harvest: human farmers barley and wheat, animal residents nuts and berries. In the Pacific NW mammals of the old regime are urged by primeval instinct to move to winter grounds. Wolf, elk, bear, caribou, mountain lion and moose all have to find more food, shelter, winter quarters.
Farther south there used to be buffalo.
Heading into the Wind
Now with little territory of their own, bison (political correctness of terminolgy goes with manipulation of animals) have nowhere to move. They are herded like other domestic beasts, subject to humanity. We are now trying to do the same with wolves.
The Wolf, unlike the Buffalo, is fighting back. There is a current initiative to overturn Washington’s recent shortsighted alteration to the Endangered Species Act.
They say our only way forward as a Race is to follow our inner urge to move with the times. That we should trust our guidance by our Higher (inner, wiser) Self to bring us out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves and our planet into. The Earth is, after all, reaching out to show us how to do it.
At autumnal equinox, the beauty of light, growth in its final stature (before the fall) and abundance of fruit, prolific increase in bird and vegetable kingdoms, all give us hope to nurture us through the winter, to protect us from wilds of weather and wind. As well as gathering in the harvest, we are being asked to ‘gather into the fold’, to foster in ourselves a spirit of endurance.
Mountain lion, cougar or Kelly's Cat, wild cat is a survivor
In all older traditions there was one totem animal that embodied endurance. Russia had Bear; Norway, Sweden, Finland have Reindeer; Central Europe (used to) have the Wolf; North Africa and the Middle East the Camel; Central Africa the Cat; both Americas had the Eagle. But in addition to Native American’s respect for Eagle, his admiration went out to Buffalo.
When all of surrounding humankind is packing up tipi, provisions, families and goods to find winter hunting grounds, following migrant animals was a way of life. It more often than not included hardship and trek over difficult terrain to get there. Death, survival and jubilation on arrival were common in both man and animal. Native American wisdom says that animal teaches Man how to live.
When all else failed, the buffalo headed out from sunny summer plains and through what seems like insuperable odds, braved wind, hail and snow to reach better ground.
We are being asked to do the same. Human nature has the power of endurance, the intellect and spirit to survive and ensure survival. Along with our fellow earth residents, we have an obligation to care for both summer plains and winter feeding grounds. Without our care, they won’t be there next fall.
Buffalo hooves are not made for concrete
We as a species are being asked to hold firm to what we believe. That we should show gratitude for the gift we have been given of this unique planet. That heaven-on-earth is as we make it. Nature will help, but we have to want to cooperate, not bully her into it.
We as a species are being asked to become custodians again: to care for our home like responsible animals; not trash it like hyenas and wild dogs: This is no longer simply wise; it is a necessity. Like the animal kingdom, we are being asked to look after our territory for ourselves, for our children, our families, our piece of the planet, and in combination with others, the planet as a whole.
This project we are taking on will not be easy. But we have been genetically engineered to overcome our past and endure its consequences. The journey will have its pitfalls. We may not arrive as we started out. But we will get there. If we do it together.
In order to get there, though, to make sure we reach our goal, by immersing ourselves in transition from medieval to superstellar species we, like the Buffalo, may have to head into the Wind.
Book cover by Joris Amerlaan for SHASTA: Critical Mass by Marian Youngblood
SHASTA: CRITICAL MASS
The following is an excerpt from the new back-to-the-Earth spiritual novel by MARIAN YOUNGBLOOD
A video presentation of the novel’s story and setting can be seen on YouTube here.
… or a shadow over my grave…
The wolf pack had been gathering all day under the watchful eye of Tawnia, the mother, and were about ready to head out. Her mate Lobo, the tribe’s great white alpha male, experienced in the ways of Men and the natural world, would lead them. If they walked all evening and most of the night, they would travel beyond the perimeter and out of danger. In the Park they were protected; out there their lives were not safe because Man and they didn’t always get along, It was a risk they had to take. Staying behind was for the aged or sick. The young were hitching rides with cousins, allowing aunts to carry them in their mouths. Never in Tawnia’s time had she seen such cohesion and trust within the pack: young warriors were cowtowing, behaving like wise old beasts, just this once. They knew something big was afoot.
Lobo’s instinct was pure; his decision contained wisdom beyond their own limited view. They trusted him to lead them to safety. He called the Elders together and they agreed.
They had to leave the camouflage and protection of their Yellowstone home and take their chances in desert night temperatures because Lobo had read the signs and Yellowstone was telling them to leave: west across the desert, through the badlands lay sanctuary. There a new home beckoned. Lobo knew. Now the young had practiced and could imitate and howl the name of their destination.
Three Sisters.
Back at daybreak, Lobo called together and addressed a conclave of Elder wolves, experienced in the ways of canis lupus. They all agreed. Craters of the Moon was close, but barren; lava beds had a familiar smell but supported little wildlife. They would have to go farther to find the perfect place.
Lobo's wisdom would guide them
They may be of Wyoming stock, their strength in their connection to volcanic timber slopes and grassland, but their experience was gained in richer territory. Expert and lethal at trapping niche animals in a familiar shared habitat. Specialists in foraging as a posse. Community skills handed down, kept their tribe alive and strong for ten generations. Lobo’s direct ancestor founded the dynasty. Nine-times-great grandfather had been a traveler, himself: descended from New Mexico’s original and celebrated Lobo, the great wolf emulated by teenagers; one of whom even human beings had heard. He, a son of the Great Wolf Spirit, inspired respect.
Much had changed since Man created the first National Park in their hunting grounds; some Elders believed and hoped that ethos of the original parks was alive and active in the human young.
More senior Elders felt Man had not yet learned to put aside his ancient fear of Wolf. It was even said their Ranger friends in the old homeland were persecuted in their stead for allowing Wolf to return.
Elsewhere in this great country, canis lupus was, if not extinct, definitely rare and there were few areas where they and domestic animals shared territory. But Yellowstone was a milestone park, even if it was about to die, and there was talk among humans of giving wildlife a fairer portion, a more sensitive sharing of habitat, of a new kind of park where the lion might lie down with the lamb.
Even Abuela had heard such talk and encouraged Lobo before departure to head for the most dreamed-of location because dreams come true. Oregon had volcanoes, people there were also descended from original pioneer stock and a place would be found.
After Lobo patiently explained her words, they listened thoughtfully to her opinion and came to a consensus. There was no doubt about the Elders’ decision. They were agreed their aim was for Three Sisters. There the Great Wolf Spirit would provide a place for them.
A couple of hours later, the pack was on the move.
Only Abuela, the old grandmother, stayed in her den. If Lobo’s guidance proved less than accurate or the crisis was somehow averted, they would return to her. Age gave her resignation. She watched without blinking from her rock ledge, head between outstretched paws. As she saw the last straggler leave, her eyes closed.
Book cover by Joris Amerlaan for SHASTA: Critical Mass by Marian Youngblood
Update:April 2010
When I wrote this, who would have known that the Bush administration would cancel the US Endangered Species Act and allow wholesale murder of Wyoming and Yellowstone wolves. Wolf killing continues as a ‘sport’ in March and April 2010-2012 in Wyoming and Idaho.
I entered SHASTA: CRITICAL MASS in James Twyman and Robert Evans’ 2010 spiritual author competition, Nexttopauthor.com. The video presentation was created at that time. Another excerpt –which gives more of the novel’s volcanic flavor– can be accessed here.
‘SHASTA: CRITICAL MASS’ has been picked up by AllThingsThatMatterPress for publication during 2012. I continue to encourage all genuine interest from agents who may wish to represent the novel with its déjà vu scenario and may feel its publication is prescient. I may be contacted via this page. Thank you.
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