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‘.
One of five crop circles in Tlapanaloya, Hidalgo, Mexico last weekend
In the last few years the eyes of the world have been fixed on Crop Circles in the (Northern hemisphere) summer months. The eyes of the world are elsewhere at the moment. So it is not surprising that five crop circles which appeared over last weekend’s Vernal Equinox in two oat fields in Tlapanaloya, 33 miles north of Mexico City were given little media attention. Reuters, the Washington Post and Mexico’s El Universal seemed to be the only news media interested in the phenomenon. They are the first new appearances since the January surprise in Java.
TLAPANALOYA is the old name for this fertile farming region, still tilled and irrigated along indigenous/traditional lines and miraculously spared in Mexico’s headlong drive for industrial ‘revolution’. In its new guise as Tepeji del Rio de Ocampo, Hidalgo, Mexico, it is surrounded by industrial development: several hydro dams, effluent canals, a bauxite-cement works at Cruz Azul, a large military installation, several multi-lane highways (autopista), a national rail line and access roads to feed nationally-supported mineral extraction and mining operations to north and west.
Tlapanaloya lies at latitude 19º52’ N longitude 99º21’W.
Mexican Cordillera L to R: Iztaccíhuatl, Popocatepétl, volcano Malinche, Cofre de Perote and Citlaltépetl
Latitude 19º is significant as the Parallel along which the southern boundary of the North American tectonic plate meets with the Central American plate. Here a line of volcanoes rising to 16,000 feet –the Cordillera de Mexico (or Neovolcanic Ridge)– stretches from the Revillagigedo Islands in the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Seismic activity is frequent here, and the valley is considered an earthquake-prone zone.
Located thirty-three miles north of central Mexico City, Tlapanaloya lies within the closed basin of the ancient Valley of Mexico. At around 7,000 feet, it was the original picturesque Lake District of five lakes, and domain of the people of Teotihuacan, the Toltec and Aztec. The Toltec and Aztec spoke Nahuatl.
The Nahuatl name for the Valley of Mexico was the Anahuac, meaning the plateau or ‘place between the waters’.
Now those waters are crying out for help.
There were originally five great lakes in this stunningly beautiful setting, hemmed in on all sides by mountain peaks that rise to 16,000 feet. But in the last 200 years successive dams and reservoir construction schemes have funneled and tunneled the waters away from their traditional lakebeds and aquifers. Their clear streams were instead diverted to become waste carriers: ‘effluent’–glorified drains for the population of megalopolis Mexico City–now bursting at the seams with a central population in excess of nine million souls (2010 census 8,851,080, see MCMA, below).
Image of Eagle on Cactus in miraculous growth from Stone: Mexico-Tenochtitlan in the Mendoza codex
Mexico City’s ancient name was Mexico-Tenochtitlan after the Nahua-Aztec tribe, Mexica: it means the ‘co-‘ ‘place of the Mexica among stone cactuses’. In symbolic terms, the image (represented in Mexico’s coat-of-arms and flag) is one of an eagle perched on a cactus which grew from a stone (supreme achievement through the greatest of adversity in environment)
The Rio Tula–the Tula River, from which the nearby industrial town of Tula Allende takes its name–is, according to Mexico’s National Water Commission [Comisión Nacional del Agua de México], one of the most polluted rivers in the country. Tula (Tollan) was the Toltec capital, Tollan-Xicocotitlan in its heyday–AD8th-10thCC (Post-Classic period)*–but suffered brutally under Spanish invasions of 16thC, when its society collapsed.
The Toltec called their capital Tollan, surrounded by natural wetlands–a fertile gift from their Sun-and-star god Quetzalcoatl–Xicocotitlan, the ‘place among the reeds near the home of the wasp/bee’.
The Atlanteans of Tula Grande, basalt figures over 12feet high carved from volcanic rock guard the Toltec Tollan temple to Quetzalcoatl (AD10th-12thCC)
The great Atlantean statues which guarded the temple of serpent-god/Venus-morning-star-Queztalcoatl, prior to Tollan‘s destruction by the Spanish, have been reinstated to stand on their original plinths, rescued from the ignominious ditch where they were found buried–hidden by retreating Toltec from Spanish gaze.
Today Tula and Tlapanaloya reflect Toltec civilization in name only. And even that has changed. Tlapanaloya is now called Tepeji del Rio de Ocampo and Tula is Tula Grande or Tula Allende– a far cry from its original endearing Toltec-Oromi name: Tollan-Xicocotitlan: ‘place of the bumble-bee.’ Implication is that bees flourished in a rich hinterland where agriculture, flowers, and fruit trees blossomed. Much has changed since their culture died.
Popocátepetl, Aztec 'smoking mountain' stands at 17,802feet 33miles S of Mexico City
Coincidentally, 33miles SE of Mexico City stands the stratovolcano Popocatépetl. At 17,802 feet, its massif is also contained within the 19th parallel and its location is within one degree of longitude of the Tlapanaloya crop circles–at 19°1’24″N 98°37’20″W. It erupted last year (2010) and its present rumblings are ongoing. Its eruptions were recorded in Aztec codices and its legendary lahars and pyroclastic flows (mud and ash slides) are seen as a constant threat to Mexico City in modern times–since the city’s massive sprawl has gradually spread into the volcano’s sphere of influence.
FIVE LAKES: how many remain?
Although originally flowing through the wide Tula Valley, which could accommodate its wild seasonal fluctuations, the river was guided by an ingenious 17thC drainage system, itself a replacement for indigenous waterworks built with native stone, which for the previous 500 years supplied the local population with much-needed water in the dry season. The Tula works simultaneously provided essential water for agriculture (as the ancestors had done) and allowed excess floodwaters in the rainy season to channel from the Basin of Mexico into the Gulf. Now–thanks to gigantic 19thC dams and, more damaging to culture and ecosystems, massive bureaucratically-driven hydro-related and industrial concrete construction from 1930s onwards, the Tula River is catchment for what is left of the rivers of the Valley of Mexico basin which originally tumbled out of the five lakes: Texcoco, Chalco, Xochimilco, Xaltocan and Zumpango.
Five Great Lakes of (15thC) Valley of Mexico: only one remains and it is dammed
Tula River is part of the Pánuco Hydrologic Region, which has a long history of exploitation for its fresh artesian ground-water. The Tula itself feeds into the Rio Moctezuma which empties into the Pánuco, one mile outside the industrial ports of Tampico/Altamira and Cuidad Madero on the Gulf Coast. Altamira has major industry-standard docks for container-vessel traffic. It is no longer known for its (previous reputation as a) bird sanctuary. Tourist traffic is usually carefully diverted south to the coastal resorts of Vera Cruz or the Yucatan peninsula.
According to data from the National Water Commission of Mexico, the Tula is one of the most polluted rivers in the country. It ‘generates 409.42 million cubic meters of “wastewater” annually.’ Tula River’s pollution stems from this stream’s manmade adaptation as a channel for solid (untreated) human waste along with industrial effluent from both the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA, sic), and the ‘industrial zones’ around Tula de Allende.
Lake Texcoco was described in 15thC historical records as a huge natural reservoir–a ‘visual masterpiece’ of mountain-fed streams, wildlife-filled marshes and brackish pools. It was home to the Pelican. Agriculturally-adept and innovative, the native Indios harvested salt from the saltlakes and dammed the ‘sweet-water’ lakes for use in their agricultural terraces (traditional Chinampa ‘gardens’ or small fields). Aztec tradition records that the northern lakes were inaccessible by canoe during the dry season between October and May. When the (summer) rainy season came, Texcoco was known to ‘join up’ with its four sister lakes and canoes were again able to navigate within the lake system.
Lake Texcoco is now dry. The other lakes have gone.
Zumpango Lake (Nahuatl=Tzompantli), the northernmost of the historical lakes in the main basin of the Valley of Mexico, between the towns of Zumpango and Teoloyucan, is the only body of water left of the original five. It lies within 12 miles of the five Equinoctial crop circle formations. It is a manmade version of the original whose boundaries were formed when a canal begun in 1605 started the process of drainage in the Valley, North into the Tula River. It is still home to the 10-meter-deep canyon, the sewage-laden Gran Canal. The original lake has been drained. Only the canal and west drainage tunnel system remain.
Zumpango reservoir has suffered a gradual process of degradation by the presence of industrial operations on its shores and the influx of sewage from Mexico City. The ‘West Issuer’ tunnel, which was originally used exclusively for stormwater drainage, now transports wastewater with a high heavy metal content while increasing tonnage of human waste is discharged into Presa tributaries. Currently, state and local government officially designate it a ‘Water Sanctuary’, but there are no active conservation plans to maintain its high ecological value in the Basin for numerous migratory bird species that take refuge in its waters.
Pelican persevere here. But pollution continues by the local population, compounded by motorized tourism (aquaplaning, outboard motors), and water verges are not maintained. Motor boats disturb avian habitat. Few tourists shown the neighboring solid waste effluent make return visits. At this rate, it is a matter of time before both birds and visitors will have no refuge here.
Formerly part of five legendary lakes that made the Valley beautiful, the name Zumpango is also derived from the Nahuatl meaning ‘the place of the row of skulls’. It was a place of sacred prayer and reverence for the Ancestors. That, too, has gone.
Tourist trajineras on the canals of former lake Xochimilco
The remaining three lakes were drained by settlers from the time of Spanish Conquest, accelerated by subsequent labor, military and government initiatives. The old lakebeds are now almost entirely covered by urban development. One remnant canal at (former Lake) Xochimilco is maintained as a tourist attraction where visitors tour in trajineras (gondolas).
The axolotl, a rare salamander endemic to Lake Chalco, moved house when that Lake was drained, to take up fragile residence near the Canals of its neighboring ‘Lake’ Xochimilco, It is now considered a ‘critically endangered species’ by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Otherwise, the historic Lake Region is now without lakes.
A whole settlement flooded by the Army in 1931 to form Presa Taxhimay
Tlapanoloya is itself ringed by further waterworks–all artificial. They are called Presas=reservoir, dam.
Presa Escondida at the southern end of the Requena Reservoir, is a small dam 3km N of Tlapanaloya; the Presa Requena Tepeji itself, within the town limits, is a reservoir still frequented by wildlife, including pelican; the Presa Escondida, a dam to the west, is polluted and has no wildlife whatsoever; the Presa Encinillas 5miles distant at Jagüeyes is skirted by six-lane Highway 57 at a busy intersection. It no longer attracts fowl and is polluted by industrial effluent from the Cruz Azul plant. It seems ironic that Highway 57 headed 100 miles NW brings pilgrims to the tiny rancho Chahin at Tlacote near Querétaro. There Señor Jesus Chahin gives away samples of spring water from his own ‘miracle’ well, an artesian supply of unrivalled purity believed to cure all ills.
Back in Tlapanaloya, the largest dam, Presa Taxhimay, formerly Laguna Taxhimay, three miles south of town, is the largest man-made Presa of them all. It was flooded by design in 1931 on the order of General Manuel Avila Camacho. In so doing he completely annihilated the Post-classic, colonial and Spanish settlements of Hacienda Catarina and San Luis Rey, whose church towers remain above the waters of Taxhimay dam surface.
Tlapanaloya Crop Circles in Chinampa ‘Gardens’
Farmer Enrique Hernandez in one of 5 crop circles in his oats in Tlapanaloya
Fortuitously, all five of last weekend’s crop circles appeared in oat meadows still farmed in the Chinampa style–planted and lovingly tended in traditional small rectangular-shaped fields by local Tlapanaloya farmer Enrique Hernandez. He was reported to be mystified by their choice of location but delighted that his crop was not spoiled. On the other hand, if he had been assured that his own way of life and his organically-grown porridge oats–now with their hugely enhanced CC/ET-vibration–were teetering on the edge of extinction, he might feel proud.
It is becoming clear that–whatever one feels about the provenance of crop circles the world over–they do occur in locations which require our attention.
Given that the Tlapanaloya crop circles did NOT contain elaborate interior designs–as are now commonplace in sophisticated annual formations on Salisbury Plain and the fields of Wiltshire’s electromagnetic aquifer–it seems a simple intuitive leap from the five Mexican crop circles to a crisis water situation, symbolized by the five extinct Great Lakes of the Basin of Mexico–along with their important historical contribution to this crucial aquifer.
They also occur as part of a triangle of 33: Their point is 33miles N of Mexico City. Also 33 miles NE of the city lies Teotihuacan, where equinox is seriously celebrated each year. And Teotihuacan lies approx.33 miles E of Tlapanaloya.
Equinox sunset over the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, Valley of Mexico, March 20, 2011
The crop circles appeared on Equinox weekend when hundreds of thousands of Mexico City residents head for the pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan–to pay their respects to the setting sun as it disappears behind the pyramid. Teotihuacan, Toltec ‘place where men become gods’ lies just 33miles east of Enrique’s field. Its central avenue’s due N-S alignment, on which the pyramid’s shadow casts a precise shadow at the moment of dusk, remains today a fascination for Mexicans who traditionally celebrate the onset of spring on Equinox. This year was no exception. Teotihuacan was mobbed.
It was also the weekend before the world-wide celebration of World Water Day, March 22nd.
Water is becoming scarce in many countries with over-population and rising mean annual temperatures. Water will soon be a commodity more precious than the metals mined in the Mexican hinterland.
The present explosion of shanty towns — barrios — which have sprung up in the last decade around the Mexican megacity have bolstered the population of MCMA (see above) to 21 milion people. While canals and drainage systems channel their human waste North into the Valley of Mexico agricultural region centered on (the crop circles of) Tlapanaloya, a clean drinkable water supply continues to be a problem in the city.
Industrial growth within an enclosed basin has not only produced pollutants in smog, but water quality issues for the Valley. Over-extraction of ground water has caused new flooding problems for the city as it sinks below the historic lake floor. Seasonal flooding was thought to have been historically ‘cured’ by the Spanish and successive Mexican governments by the very act of drainage. Now excessive drainage–and extraction of more water than is being replenished naturally causes subsidence and the need for further infrastructure–more pipes and tunnels.
For a high mesa totally enclosed within mountain ranges, the Valley is completely dependent on its groundwater supply. This has traditionally come from the underlying aquifers, the upwelling of seasonal springs supplemented by (previously unwanted) flooding and rains. These underground springs and wells are now almost exclusively the source of drinking water for the greater metropolitan area of Mexico City. With the rapid addition of shanty barrios around the city’s outer limits, more water is being pumped out of the city’s underground reservoirs than Nature is pouring in–[main aquifer currently pumps 880,000 USgallons/minute while the water table refreshes at around 440,000 gals/min]–that is, water is replenishing at around half the extraction rate.
Much of the city has now sunk below the ancient lakebed level and it continues to sink at around 15 inches per year. Water from the surrounding mountains which always flowed towards the city, now passes through shanty towns where there are no city ‘services’ (water supply or sewage removal), so the rivers become sewers–which contribute to an ongoing health risk in the capital. MCMA is struggling to prevent this contaminated water from entering the drinking supply.
The present dilemma is specific to Mexico. But in the West, clean and clear water is a blessing and a gift we may not have appreciated enough until now.
All this communicated by a chance appearance in two traditionally-planted-and-irrigated Chinampa fields in a rural district of central Mexico? you ask?
Perhaps not explicitly, but we have had a little experience of messages transmitted in the last decade of crop circles in other areas of the world where aquifers–and their underlying electromagnetic mysteries–have contributed enormously to the medium.
This Mexican Wave may indeed be sending us a High Five: a reminder to reconnect with our traditional lifestyles. But it is more likely to be a distress signal–a wakeup call.
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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