Oriental Year of Water Wabbit aka March Hare Brings False Spring, Ice Balls, Massive Snowfall in Unexpected Places
ORIENTAL YEAR OF WATER WABBIT aka MARCH HARE BRINGS FALSE SPRING, ICE BALLS, MASSIVE SNOWFALL in UNEXPECTED PLACES
FIRST WEDNESDAY TUNE-IN FROM DEEP INSIDE MOUNTAIN WRITERS’ CAVE for[?INSECURE] CREATIVE, SCRIBBLERS to WITNESS UNUSUALLY HIGH TEMPS & SUNSHINE in SOUTHERN PARTS of ‘REAL WORLD’
GOLF BUFFS CELEBRATE @PGA HONDA CLASSIC PALM SPRINGS, FLA in 80ºF, w/BAHAMAS, PUERTO RICO, CARIBBEAN vs. SAN FRANCISCO, LAS VEGAS, SHASTA’s SNOW & ICE BALLS
HONDA Classic golf tournament just ended at the hugely complicated PGA golf course in Palm Springs, Fla, with a final playoff between champion Chris Kirk & challenger Eric Cole, Kirk winning by a triumphant birdie on water/bunker-enclosed 18th green.
Rubber Duckies Join the Throng Aboard new s.s. Scarlet Lady
More than a decade ago, ocean studies conducted by major New England ocean research state-funded institutions discovered that “rubber duckies“, below rt. were being unwittingly transported around the globe, following natural current fluctuations & boosted by tropical and Arctic storms. While a concentration of these tiny plastic toys gathered naturally in Central Pacific’s Great ‘Pacific Garbage Patch’, others found their way to Alaska, Pennsylvania, Trinidad, CA & even the Magellan Straits & Chile’s Cape Horn.
Virgin Cruise ship, top rt. s.s. Scarlet Lady has joined Richard Branson’s family of human transportation to unusual places-space, airline jets & deep sea adventures with ocean voyages to Caribbean, Florida Keys, Bahamian Cays, and Leeward Islands, & soon Puerto Rico in essentially British style cruises: the Scarlet Lady takes only adult passengers; although a little bird succeeded in hiding mini “rubber-duckies” under passengers’ dining room chairs & in cabins (for charity) before they sailed on last adventure.
During Mardi Gras Carnival in NOLA, the ‘Big Easy’, and Brazil last month, there were all versions of duckies, although it took return to semi-normalcy for our fave creatures to feature—Valentine’s Day duckies, rt, 2nd top & middle rt. reigning supreme.
Ocean-fishing begins to surge now, with the waxing March moon encouraging fishermen—particularly Pacific islanders-to join their fellows in catch-to-eat swordfish & Ahi-(popular member of tuna family), while Ocean tourism by local Hawai’ian Tourist Board yachts is bringing in early whale-spotters. Humpbacks, monk seal pups, even shark babies are being born in seasonal balmy waters—Hilo Bay, Big Island, HI air temp 80ºF; water temp 76ºF.
Even if no mythical hippocampus sea monsters have been seen drawing god Poseidon/Neptune’s chariot—as in Fishbourne Roman Palace mosaic floor, above bottom rt., indeed gentle giant Mama humpbacks have been spotted giving birth to babies in balmy waters off Kailua-Kona on Hawai’i’s leeward coast. Right now volunteer preservationists are diligent in removing all discarded fish-netting gear & plastic debris from these waters. Even sharks, stranded in unusually high spring tides have been carefully assisted by the volunteers (wearing protective dive suits) back into the Bay. Baby monk seals caressed in sand by Mama are also being monitored,
Thankfully, we are seeing the last of February’s month of high winds and rainfall—two feet in places, up to 7inches per day Hilo coast, associated with high surf & wintry showers over Mauna Kea mountain top, 29,000ft from ocean floor—which coated the telescope array (ELT, extra large telescope) with a dusting of white snow. It had a surreal edge to it, particularly on Virgo full moon night February 19th.
March full “Worm” moon next Tuesday March 7th, will be followed by new moon March 21st, coinciding with Spring Equinox and the beginning of Ramadan. In the old pre-Xtian calendar Equinox falls precisely six weeks after Feast of Bridei/Brigid, aka Candlemas, February 2nd.
Clocks spring forward on March 12th, 2023 (Daylight Saving time in U.S.A.), while British clocks change later month 3/26/23.
Ancient pre-Celtic Deities Based on Babylonian/Greek/Carthaginian Model copied into Roman Pantheon
In the ancient pre-Xtian Calendar, based on Roman/Greek/Babylonian mythology, we [Europeans] still calculate Palm Sunday, Easter & even Islamic Ramadan/ Jewish Rosh Hashanah around solstices & equinoxes. e.g. Candlemas, Feb.2nd, Feast of Bride/ ancient Brigantia falls precisely six weeks after winter solstice; six weeks before Spring Equinox; with one exception—Easter in R.C, Anglican & Presbyterian Churches varies from Orthodox Church by one week.
This clearly wasn’t an issue to the pantheon aka atheist gods of myth; as theirs was a realm “above”/beyond the human sphere, where “God was killable”. Pantheon=place where gods dwell. So, when Zeus/Helios at first reigned within the pantheon [below 3rd l.] he drove his chariot drawn by horses of his creation around the sky in the day, resting at night in the arms of Nyx, Nut in Egyptian pantheon. When Zeus took on the rôle of sole sun god & Hades [the place/underworld] became incarnate as god of night, he delegated the job of ocean protector and father of (sea)horses to Poseidon/Neptune, pic below bottom l. & top rt. who not only birthed equine offspring, but was in charge of earthquakes-[earth-shaker] Sculpture below rt. Poseidon stands at Melenara harbour entrance Gran Canaria; Canary Islands, on Atlantic Ocean side of entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.
His trident symbolizes triple rôle as god/protector of ocean-and ocean-going vessels, sailors and fishermen-earthquakes and horses.
Nymph Scylla, above rt, (in myth sister of Carybdis, the whirlpool), because she was hated by Zeus’ wife Hera-putative reason:her ex-marital lover preferred Scylla to her-was forever doomed to cause the death of fishermen/sailors, therefore the antithesis of a protector, in contrast to Poseidon/Neptune, their guardian god, (adjacent pic w/sea bubbles) whom she loved.
Before Hades was given dominion over the underworld, Poseidon was seen as its ruler: logical, as Ocean and (underground) Earth Shaker. At that time he was married to Demeter, with Persephone as their daughter. When Zeus took over that godhead, in Bronze Age Mycenaean Greek pantheon, Hera, his wife who hated Scylla, bottom r. above, changed her from delicate inspirational nymph -Muse to forever land-bound beauty, so that passing sailors and fishing craft would be inspired/transfixed by her earth-bound loveliness and not see their ship being drawn into the whirlpool of her sister Carybdis in the waters ahead of them.
Homer’s Odyssey describes her fatal attraction in some detail, as a warning to sailors and fishermen throughout the ages.
Traditional belief that planet Earth goes through a transformation in spring, summer and fall/winter, personified in female form by Greek, Babylonian & Roman triad of goddesses Persephone, Demeter, Hecate/Ceres. Earlier Babylonian/Greek goddesses seem to fit the classical image of that female triad: maiden, mother & crone better than their Roman counterparts Artemis/Diana & Selene/ Luna.
Muse-nymph Scylla, above rt. however, never ages, never experiences winter, never becomes the crone.
Archaeologists in 2000 discovered the tomb of Babylonian GILGAMESH aka Nimrod, rt. the first anti-Christ of the Bible (Old Testament).
The U.S, under excuse of going to war, collected the body, looted the museum, stealing 5000-year old Babylonian tablets describing how to ‘raise a god from the dead’.
Cold war antics do not go away. They are just superceded by modern politics.
RAF Nimrod, jet aircraft pictured here on take-off from R.A.F. Lossiemouth airbase—still operational—on Moray Firth coast, near mouth of River Spey.
It lies adjacent to Gordonstoun School, (private), and 7thC Pictish stronghold Duffus Castle & estate.
Neighbours to W: Findhorn intentional spiritual community, Burghead Scotland’s largest Pictish stronghold
Duffus House, previously leased boys’ boarding house attached to G House on school grounds, has returned to private ownership, now operates as a holiday venue entertainment centre for visitors to Morayshire’s North Coast, ABD Scotland.
Enter the Slippery Slope of Politics as Humans Decipher Code from the Stars—or from Rival Regimes
Hacking isn’t anything new. I became a victim of the dreaded hack in late autumn last year, making it impossible to continue writing this, my beloved blog—a fave occupation next to novel-writing; tree-planting—necessitating a three-month hiatus [+deep self-questioning & doubt of my abilities as a writer—guess you could call that truly Insecure], partly rescued by “reality”, a period of enforced confinement in hospital for a hereditary diabetes-related condition, and addressing the ‘real’ prospects of recovery in a [Telosian eternal, I know, I know] body which was in ‘real world’ terms past its sell-by date! i.e. fledgling octogenarian.
Fave trees of ancient vintage-top of page 2nd row: sacred ash, last remaining one of four planted 1752 as church boundary marker Bourtie kirkyard, ABD to delineate division between kirk burial ground (full of Pictish remnant stones) & ‘outsiders’/non-believers who had to settle for burial in ‘annexe’! And companion in age—though worlds apart—Prairie Creek State Park, N of Orick, CA off Old State Hwy & present Hwy-1 UCal/Arcata/Eureka: ‘Corkscrew’ Redwood [Sequoia sempervirens] first-growth i.e. 2000yr old with twisting trunk in characteristic counter-clockwise motion.
It became clear to me that the world of hackers—now being adopted en masse by powerful regimes around the world as a political ruse to familiarize themselves with the prospect of world domination by bot [as opposed to domination by tank, military force, or clever television manipulation of innocent masses] operates with cleverness at the most innocent level, [my persuasive lady who wanted my site/personal info was a mid-life crisean from Lancashire, N.England, working hard to support a family after a lifetime of poverty]. It is also being commandeered by top officials in hugely powerful regimes in both hemispheres of the globe, neither admitting their stealth or outright theft to one another.
‘Cold War’ was a term used c. 1990-2000 to describe an uneasy agreement among war-capable nations not to use their weapons. The expression has raised its head again, as political heads in U.S. imply unconfirmed reports of certain nuclear-capable countries in the Eastern bloc readying their arsenals for ‘potential’ deployment. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has backed his Chinese allies in promising aid—nuclear-capable implied—along with military force if needed. While neighbour (U.S. Ally) S. Korea, Seoul press releases have emphasized both neighbor countries’ poverty-stricken masses’ need to return to traditional (organic, hand-tooled) farming. Food scarcity has become a shared world issue.
American teens-proficient in body-camera/portable phone culture-have taken up the litany to help poor nations—especially crucial right now with thousands of earthquake fatalities & lucky survivors/refugees from recent Turkish disaster—to donate free food.
This younger generation has been storming the White House environs & midtown New York with signs & blocking traffic.
As a footnote to the recent mid-February 2023 President Biden (much-televised, but unofficial) visit to Warsaw, Poland, combined w/Ukrainian leader & Euro NATO member nations’ meetings, U.S. White House supremo promised $500million in (military) ‘aid’ to Kyiv. Teens/children supporting nursing & hospital staff on strike in U.S. mainland agree this sum would pay for rescue food & care packages for the poor, aged care-home residents and homeless within mainland U.S. for the next three years.
39th President Jimmy Carter, 95, recently committed to receiving care treatment at home, would certainly agree.
In order to add weight to White House speculations, U.S. political spokespersons in the D.C. capital have allowed television cameras to reproduce their claim that a variant of the pandemic Covid virus was caused by an accidental leak from a medical laboratory in China. Absolutely no evidence of the validity of this so-called ‘received information’ has been given.
It adds to the nuance of lying by a White House official to an already festering issue of anti-China sentiment.
Oblivious to Needy Millions within Continental U.S.A, White House Focuses on 2024 Election
Meanwhile, as of yesterday, Feb.28th, 2023, the White House has given all Federal Agencies 30 days to purge Chinese-owned video-snippet sharing app TikTok, pic above (on millions of private phones) from all U.S.Government-issued devices, setting a deadline to comply with a ban ordered by U.S. Congress—ordered end-January by Texas governor/Austin agents & removed the app. The ban does not apply to businesses within the U.S. (that have no association with the government) or to private individuals.
With my fairly poor excuse that I never quite got the hang of Tiktok anyway—or SnapChat for that matter; I’m a traditionalist & Tweet-person at heart—Elon Musk eat yours out! ❤ with occasional fanciful flights into Instagram—when I’m not being hacked!
Great Britain has not issued any statement on the subject.
Meanwhile Biden seems more concerned with his own image vis-à-vis rivals to his status in 2024 election, as both D.Trump & newcomer Marianne Williamson, who believes in politics of ‘Love inspired by Spirituality’ through ‘Eyes of the Heart’, have a lot of support & promise fairness & equality in federal spending. We wait to see if that might downplay any nuclear arms race.
Writing—and Nature-Watching—a Healthier & Happier Solution to All Ills
Farmers—in particular Organic agri-buffs who use natural companion planting to foster good relationship between plant offspring—remembering Findhorn founder & Angel-chat lady Dorothy Maclean who chatted her sweet peas (below) into producing a more abundant crop—her 1960s’ residence blue caravan at the Park, rt—have always had the edge over those who mow their lawns into oblivion or plant in weed-free rows as means to a quick harvest. Weed killer a no-no!
I have always been one of the former, with addition of hundreds of free-range henny-pukes 2add free manure to an already abundant pasture. See jungle fowl below.
Tree-related p.s.Trees-for-Life started @ Findhorn as a woodland charity, creating its own forest-environment ethos, now centred in Glenfeshie. INV, Scotland
Dorothy, caravan above, in the first garden she planted at the ‘Park’, Findhorn’s perennially thriving growing plot, now peopled with other structures, spoke daily to the sweet pea fairy, left. She was told by the entity’s non-corporeal essence that its cousin, the gloriously edible pea loved humans so much it wanted to thrive.
Peas have always been my fave veg. As a child growing up (in Aberdeenshire) within a hugely productive [organic] garden available to me, I used to pick & stuff my apron with them, climb up the tower of our Victorian granite house & munch [& meditate] overlooking vast-undeveloped-green rolling fields.
As an adult in my own (also granite) house, there was an 18thC walled garden. It welcomed my simple ways, making horticulture a delight. I grew both sweet peas & peas on trellises—wouldn’t you guess, they thrived.
Where I live now-a mid-Pacific ex-pat with gratitude for Hawai’ian warm temperatures to caress my bones-most people grow their own food aka organic. Gardens & woodland [+supermarket parking lots & harbour entrances] are domain of ‘jungle fowl’ who roam freely. You’re lucky to find a nest, as eggs are clearly organic. Go Jungle Fowl!
It is good to hear that Chinese and Polish, Russian and Pakistani agencies are encouraging the innate ability of their country’s poor to grow their own food as a partial solution to modern-day crises—political or otherwise. Poor people, imho, have always known how to make their backyards productive.
So, with the sound of local Hawai’ian froggy-croaks by green shiny tiny Coqui amphibian babes in my earphone-enhanced ears, & the blatant ego-preening swish of cockerel feathers & crowing to his hareem as he gloriously struts outside my hospital window, may I add greetings & good luck to all gardeners, writers young & old. Keep flying the flag of truth, cos lying never wins. We have places to go [in our heart & minds], ppl to influence [truth & light, joy & laughter aka Telosian delight]. And keep that pen and/or Computah working like a Fire-the-Grid expert that you are; and noli illegitimati carborundum don’t let the b–tards grind Udown. ©2023 Marian C. Youngblood
U.S. Groundhog Day, pre-Celtic Candlemas Focus on International Rewilding/Reuse of Old Farmland w/Solar Assist
U.S. GROUNDHOG DAY, PRE-CELTIC CANDLEMAS FOCUS ON INTERNATIONAL REWILDING/REUSE OF OLD FARMLAND w/SOLAR ASSIST
First Wednesday Creative (& Insecure) Writing Celebration of Indo-Euro-Brit Support for Rewilding Old Spaces w/Solar Panel Technology
Getting Carried Away by their own Animal Festivities
Americans do seem to take Groundhog Day a little too literally sometimes—Pres. Biden’s staff getting rather more worked up about holding the poor animal (ground squirrel/marmot) on high for the cameras this year, rather than low for the (poor beast’s fodder) grass & wood-fiber—beaver cousin pictured below top left). And it is the magical creature’s flat-tailed beaver cousin, that Europeans (bar a few Scots purists) think will save the Day—or at least some of our blessed days in the immediate future of the planet and for all of us grateful inhabitants—if we’re spared!
In U.S.A., February 2nd is usually reserved as a fixed date for the miracle animal’s so-called peep out of his underground hideaway—very similar to us obscure writers, hidden away in our Muse-bower or whatever serves to give us undisturbed solitude with our keyboard—before he theoretically pronounces the weather forecast for the coming month [traditional six week gap]. This year’s Candlemas-Beaver-Groundhog Day got a little complicated by Chinese New Year’s being celebrated early with the beloved #Wabbit—aka Hare—coinciding with the last week in January 2023—so they can celebrate a candle-on-water floating ceremony; but the end results appear to come together as February—ancient Candlemas—begins.
Candlemas, as we learn repeatedly from our ancestors, is traditional Feast Day of Bride; Bridei; old British Brigantia; Forest Maiden & Earth Mother—identifying with Ancient Egyptian ISIS [‘Eset’], above far rt., Egyptian Queen of Heaven & Mother of the World. As Patron of all women, she has in recent years (with feminism rising) become world icon for International Women’s Day. It’s crazy in the Shetland Isles as they, too, are celebrating Up-Hellya amid gale-force winds!
It’s Brazil & S.American Carnival time also—traditionally an end to winter with street parades taking over every town.
Chinese New Year tradition—in nations like S.Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, mainland China, Burma & Philippines include a prayer-float from shore towards the open ocean, pictured left.
Hawai’i, particularly in winter months, is dominated by an increase in numbers on the southern route of migrating Whales—most vivid & entrancing, the Humpback whales, who often give birth in these tropical waters before returning to their northern grounds in the Salish Sea(B.C.) to overwinter.
Mid-Pacific technology appears already to be able to outstrip Western thinking—perhaps increased hours of sunlight have something to do with it—a Hawai’ian farming project, given Local Government funding & support, are offering farmland acreage on Oahu, HI, complete with installed solar panel-covered roofs—like glasshouses w/built-in sun—so their solar panel technology will be used to maximum, gathering rays while simultaneously covering useful greenhouses.
British Weather Used to Max for Windpower
As a Scots ex-Pat—grateful for no longer having to endure the rigours of the wintry North Coast [Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, Moray Firth], I’m proud to see, not only restoration of my personal tree glade outside my walled garden, pic top rt. but the continued appreciation of the stand of hazel, wild & domestic cherry (gean; morello; pear & alder, bottom 2nd l.) to supplement plum, birch & previous century’s copper beech. Foregound Redwood [Sequoiadendron Giganteum] planted to celebrate the birth of my son there adjacent to/obscuring the two-century-old Douglas Fir [Pseudotsuga Menziesii; gifted by David Douglas as a seedling to the then Minister in residence in 1827 at the Old Manse who was designate Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, at that time. Scots pine aka Caledonian Pine abound.
It is also truly amazing—and fairly Scots in nature—to know that the little kirk below the Manse in the farmland of the Kirkton continues to celebrate a Sunday service once every two weeks!
Nevertheless, weather & human nature being relatively constant—although increasingly wild conditions appear to be taking hold, the winds of the North are being harnessed—following a lead by radical innovator Burnett of Williamston family, led by daughter ‘boss’, with their Culsalmond/Colpy windfarm. Now wind & wave harnessing is occurring through the Glens of Foudland as far as Maggieknockater in the Buchan peninsula to electric generator power centers in the Black Isle, Cromarty; reaching into Sinclair territory in the Far North.
Easter Island Facial Traits Show Influence on Other Pacific Island Residents
Many Europeans may not notice, but there is a noted characteristic in Hawai’ian, and other mid-Pacific island residents like French Frigate Shoals, Guam, resulting in a less-circular “Caucasian” round-headed appearance, and more flat-backed, almost sheared-off shape for which Easter Island’s gods, below—and presumably their ancient resident population—were known. It is remarkable that the Hawai’ian Royal House, headed by King Kamakameha whose statue stands in downtown Hilo, HI overlooking Lilli’ewa Bay, (bottom rt.) took pride in this trait.
Last of the Royal Hawai’ian line, Queen Lilliuokalani, died last week, aged 90. Her hand-sculpted coffin made of local koa wood is currently lying in state in the Royal Palace, Honolulu. She was the daughter of Queen Lydia Kamakameha (1838-1917) who was the ultimate sovereign of the Islands and who lived during the annexation of Hawai’i by the United States in 1898.
Hawai’ians are not only proud of their facial characteristics and unique Pacific heritage, but on special occasions—during hula dance festivals or fire & light ceremonies, they dress with leis (orchid garlands w/mix of tropical blossoms-frangipani, plumeria, hibiscus-in their hair) usually tied in a “topknot”, shown above left. Easter Island topknots were a feature of all the gods aligned on the island’s shore. They were carefully chosen from local volcanic rock, sculpted into the topknot shape.
Many are now lost.
Hawai’ians are not only expert hula dance performers—using hip movement which Europeans take years to learn. But their body shape—maybe considered large to Britiish eyes—in particular with current mountain-climbing madness gripping a (mostly male) muscle-bound population.
Body movement, however, reveals a supple quality within waist & hip gyration that Caucasians are hard-pressed to emulate. It takes years to learn.
Access 2 balmy ocean temperatures have a lot to offer, & many Hawai’ians bathe once or twice daily in local pool. Pictured here rt. within a literal stone’s throw of downtown Hilo, is fave Lilli’ewa Bay. Its easy shallow sandy beach makes it popular not just with locals, but w/Oldies visiting who may have found volcanic black rocks difficult to negotiate elsewhere!
It’s also the single most sought-after go-to pool for that Pacific anomalous practice of Doolah-tending: South Seas (Bali, initially) assist within water to help young mothers prepare for giving birth.
Hawai’ian Paradise Wins Hands Down, Despite Weather Woes
Bottom Line:when all else is said, locals may complain about the weather; Californians about drought alternating with hurricane disruption; New Zealander Kiwis about people raiding their carefully-guarded environmentally-protected reefs, but it’s relative.
Pele—Hawai’ian goddess of fire & ice—continues to reside atop the Mauna, pic above l, holding the world’s largest telescope array [extra-large telescope, ELT] in her sacred grasp, while anchoring her watery toes 29,000ft into the Pacific Ocean’s deepest trench below. She is revered from ocean fringe to Mariana Trench; from coastal California—earthquake roadblock above top rt.—to Bali, Indonesia, Fiji and beyond. Like the Phoenix, ISIS, Egyptian Queen of Heaven, pic top far rt. she may fade but will never die. Even the world telescope symposium atop her sunset summit, above l., keeps touch with local Hawai’ian ‘guardians’ adhering to their policy of no unnecessary disturbance/development at her summit.
It is sacred ground, after all.
Meanwhile, despite record dry rock-bottom water supply (not) in drought-ridden No.Cal (pic 3 above rt.), organic rewilders and other gardening/planting enthusiasts continue to allow the ground around the sacred mountain and its new farmland project in Oahu to prosper—as it will even more when planned solar-panel-roofed greenhouses are erected.
And what about the workers?!
Yes:we writers, IWSGers, NaNoWriMo-ers, Muse-driven regular bloggers, insecure or otherwise, are fortunate to have such a neighborly friendly heritage right on our doorstep. Whether we’re groundhog fans or not, whether we’re just monthly First Wednesday bloggers with a leaf of fresh mint or homegrown lettuce to chew on [lucky us]; let’s agree we are a fortunate lot.
Some people never get past the comic section in their local newspaper—confusingly, Hawai’i’s own is Bahamian (Herald-Tribune) in reverse:Tribune-Herald! See what happens when you let the fritillary (above bottom rt.) out of the chrysalis!
And meantime in authentic Hawai’ian lingo, may I again wish all Hau’oli Makahiki Hou! Happy New Year. Keep on writing!
©2023 Marian C. Youngblood
Nighttime Chat with Ancestors in Dreamtime Taps Universal Subconscious to Quiet Fear bring Calm
NIGHTTIME CHATS WITH ANCESTORS IN DREAMTIME TAPS UNIVERSAL SUBCONSCIOUS TO QUIET FEAR, BRING CALM—THE UNCONSCIOUS HEALING METHOD
First Wednesday Writers‘ Assignation w/Mother Earth Topside to HEAL post-Emergence from Depths of Subterranean Wo/Man Cave
There are drawbacks to spending writing time predominately below-ground, but then one’s time is one’s own. This has been a boon during our two-year hiatus from #RealLife. Especially if great-grand-auntie Minnie & Co hold forth from their gallery EVERY night in Dreamtime.
Oldies’ #Vintage Gardening Method—Simple Job vs. iGen Virtual or Millennials’ Truckathon Total-Clear Techniques
Let your joy explode your questions. All that matters will fall into place and you will know—without thinking—easily. Drop burdens of separateness and all strivings to gain knowledge and come into the wholeness… All is one.
Let us unite.
Dorothy Maclean message from the Devas in Memoirs of an Ordinary Mystic Findhorn Foundation Press, 2010
While British school/university curriculum continues through June, in U.S. Memorial Day weekend topped teenage graduation ceremonies adding a new virtual voice, as they enter ‘real’ life via their iPhones. Life, they might find, especially one guided by our revered tween-and-twenties iGen-Gen-Z offspring (probably to Millennial parents)—oh dear newest graduates join an almost totally VIRTUAL WORLD—think everything is doable because it can be simulated electronically.
During World Medical Meltdown, Nations Return to Traditional Ways—Summer Music-Fire Festivals—Burning Man 14thC Version
Images below pull heartstrings, coming as they do from another era—a time when the world was safe from rabid disease and the unpredictable destiny of the human mind to conquer it—when masks were something you wore to a fancy dress party or masquerade: from left, Black Rock, Nevada desert giant Burning Man ready to light. Camping out over 3-4 days for music festivals like Woodstock brought out community spirit; music comes in all sizes—staircase in Valparaiso lol. Tarot pick to guide us through. Lower l.secretly all waiting for solstitial moonrise ©MCYoungblood Hill of Barra Kirkton of Bourtie stone circle RSC 6/21/11 extreme moonrise Metonic cycle; lastly— Gustav Klimt‘s golden phase goddess of Health and Medicine, Hygieia—we should know cos she holds caduceus symbol of medical knowledge.
Nations like Pakistan, Japan, S.Korea and most of the former British Colonial regimes have a long history of ‘grow-your-own’. They are geared to help each other manage food production and delivery, when times are hard, with many farming families sharing organic harvests in simple community eating places. Street vendor/outdoor eating is becoming popular in cold countries, too as summer progresses.
Not all countries choose the food-share option, however—some can barely feed their own homeless. While others—more affluent, or like UAR-Dubai-Iranian bloc dedicated to sharing summer festivals and wealth, have led—with European help—to establish secure food-emergency supply chain. Attention via smartphones/instant messaging worldwide, idolizing hospital epidemic docs and medical workers, has elevated 24-hour non-stop dedication to their job to near-angelic proportions—slotting them firmly in the Spirit realm. Health Angel Spirit-Mother figure Hygieia, above Klimt oil & gold on canvas, rules with her [serpent-entwined] rod!
Pure 22-carat Gold symbol of wealth from time immemorial—precious metal mined & worked by ancient cultures: Islam, Assyrian Egyptian, Rome as their ultimate show of power. Left Caduceus Gk.= staff of life, entwined by serpents of pagan spirit world, imparting secret occult knowledge to the initiate. Still used in hospitals. rt. Full regalia: Gold Coach for the Jubilee. Her Majesty hasn’t sprung a platinum one.
All stops are out in London for nonagenarian HM Queen’s Platinum Jubilee parade events involving the royal gold coach, the monarch’s priceless heirloom regalia, with full retinue attending of every member of every Euro royal house from Hohenzollern, Battenberg [now Windsor], Romanov, and Hesse to Monaco, Malta and Gibraltar. Every wearable Guards uniform will be worn, horses shod & cannon & gun salutes performed to the National Anthem over two weeks in June, anniversary of her 1952 coronation.
Typically for the tiny monarch—whose miniature frame can only just hold bucket and spade—focus on her Queen’s Green Canopy features strongly during lockdown, with tree-planting by other royals too. While no longer physically able to ride horseback, Her Majesty adores the outdoors.
Summertime Good Fun Times
British Summertime garden parties—aka dance the night away without a mask ‘good fun-times’ have escalated with relaxed government ruling—stimulating community-led initiatives of outdoor games, theme parks and back-to-nature walks in local woodlands.
New Moon on May 30th clustering conjunct Jupiter-Mars supportive of main moves in Gemini: Mercury direct; sun/moon holding just out of reach of Taurus’s hold on Venus and Uranus—Neptune holding emotional Pisces full-on water no respite, according to lifetime tarot reader and spiritual astrologer, @isispriest David Zunker:
Double or quits: new Moon with Sun exact 11:11p.m.in super-go Gemini-with Mercury now direct-moves a supportive Taurus-Venus-Uranus conjunction, Jupiter-Mars conjunct Aries held trine by emotional Neptune in Pisces:
Watery suggestion—”We open our minds to new connections and ideas but hold on to cherished goals, while remaining flexible to new possibilities. Allow your destiny to pull you through time.” David Zunker
Back to the Land—Bay Area Trustfund Dropouts Move North—Rock Music Follows
The ‘Sixties go down in history as a “Time when if you remember it, you weren’t there”. Liverpool had the Beatles for England, just when New England captured American youth débût performances by new groups at E.coast Woodstock and W.coast Altimont. Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Carole King and some unheard of music groups [like the Doors]! were literally getting their act together.
Down in the Jungle Living in a Tent—Better than a Pre-Fab—
No Rent
Down in ?Hackney livin’ in Clover—wait till the landlord comes—All Over
pseudo Haiku take on British Radio ‘Home Service’ wartime humour Spike Milligan, The Goon Show, 1956
Magically, the San Francisco Bay Area was a magnet for music. Even the Brits ended up playing there*, while real hard-core back-to-the-Earth living attracted many groups farther north-exodus from Santa Cruz or downtown Haight-Ashbury to Mendocino and Humboldt redwood country.
As one of those who was actually there 1969-1973—a clear advantage to Boomer/pre-Boomer vintage status—tho’ some of it IS difficult to remember—was hearing groups’ first performances [Crosby, Stills, Nash débût with Richie Havens, Neil Young, Mamas&Papas]. Above pix, courtesy ©London Records owners Deram-Threshold rt. reveal Brit Moody Blues’ wild-west cave-dwelling fire-burning passion for songs “To Our Childrens Childrens Children” [Never Thought I’d Live to be a Hundred, Gotta Make the Journey Out ‘n’ In] set in a fantasy hippie den on a distant planet; clear taste in décor similar to (below) contemporary NoCal group Cat Mother’s entwined psychedelic window on their [mushroom & music] world. Cat Mother ‘and the All-night Newsboys’, seminal album ALBION DOOWAH [Strike a Match and Light Another…]©Polydor photo 1970 ©Chamberlin shows group family portrait outside their Albion, CA self-built shack/living quarters for six-man band+families.Lead singer-songwriter Michael Equine sitting on outhouse roof; Redwood clearing on Albion Ridge. Buckminster Fuller dome-home; skunk under the bed redwood treehouse, Windjammer ocean restaurant.
*Graham Nash—long-serving CSN singer-songwriter—is English ❤ New tour announced for 2022!
Within a Cone’s Throw of…Cairngorms National Park
Scotland’s Moray coast is often overlooked in a search for Britain’s largest national park: Cairngorms NP at over a million acres (1,118,720 to be exact-size of Luxembourg, or 4,528 sq km (1,748 sq miles). Within shouting distance of North Coast dolphin sighting, the coastline boasts other marvels: Brodie Castle, Cawdor (of Macbeth fame), and probably the greatest cathedral “Lantern in the North” Elgin, burned by the Wolf of Badenoch. Forres has its witch lore—Edinglassie hanging tree shows rope marks. And Valiscaulian order Pluscarden Abbey hides in the coastal ridge, keeping monastic time since 1100.
Findhorn nestles between Burghead’s largest northern Pictish hillfort and Lossiemouth military airbase, currently on standby. The spiritual community lies within ancient curtilage of 8thC Duffus Castle.
Rather like the trees and vegetables of Findhorn community’s Nature Spirits, summoned by Dorothy Maclean or Eileen Caddy’s ‘still small voice within’, Nature speaks. It takes a lifetime to hear her. It’s up to us now.
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying
Woody Allen
End Times: Fire-the-Grid to Invite Joy, Gratitude, Prayer
Terence McKenna spoke of the Eschaton—a final end-of-world spiritual event predicting human ascension to the Oversoul. He was adamant the human race has purpose toward the symbiosis of man and machine—his hyper-complexification [thinkSpock, LLAP #Mindmeld].
Both he and psychoactive dabbling colleague Ram Dass/Richard Alpert have gone up the sky elevator, but felt the human race was headed inexorably to its Omega Point. McKenna was skeptic but convinced—alongside sacred wholistic practitioners Caroline Myss, Greg Braden, Deepak Chopra, Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, David Spangler/Lorian Foundation, to recharge via prayer & joy, as regular input to Fire-the-Grid. He was adamant the human race is constantly speeding up to meet its own designer future.
Native American wisdom talks of Return of the Bird Tribes (Ken Carey) just as native Wisdom-Keeper shaman Kiesha Crowther/Little Grandmother / Message for the Tribe of Many Colors describe changing times as a prelude to an awakening human condition within this new nature-loving, spiritually-based, sacred commune of souls.
We have help.
‘There is a river flowing now very fast. Some will be afraid and try to hold on to the shore. Feeling torn apart, they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above water.
And I say, look around and see who is in there with you and celebrate’
Hopi Elder Prophecy, Oraibi, Arizona 2000
Angels to Guide Us: Love the [Writer’s] Cave You’re In…
1st Wednesdays come around with alarming frequency when you’re underground—with a bunch of [Insecure] Writers banging on the door to your secret inner sanctum. But it’s worth it for the feeling of gratitude it instills in us humans who’re only just beginners in this new way the Universe likes to work it.
Keep on lovin’ what you do—has to be our angelic motto of the day-week-Mental-Awareness month. And with the trees [and Dorothy’s sweet peas] guiding us, what can we newbies do but acquiesce, go with the flow, allow. By letting (Mother) nature spirit move us where she needs us to be, we learn to be willing children in a brand-new guessing game. Let solstitial festivities begin. ©2022Marian Youngblood
Maypole Dancing for Beginners—Tripping the Light Fantastic
MAYPOLE DANCING FOR BEGINNERS—TRIPPING THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
INSECURE WRITERS’ FIRST WEDNESDAY LEAP FROM DARK WO/MAN-CAVE INTO THE LIGHT
Leaping out of Dark Writers’ Cave into Dazzling Light Takes Guts
Bealtainn, Celtic quarter day of the ancient pre-Christian calendar, brings out all the suppressed joy held inside all winter, screaming it into the daylight, sunshine’s warm glow, encouraging us to leave all negativity and pessimistic thoughts behind (down there in our man/woman writers‘ cave and brave the reality of a world struggling to love itself, despite restricted activity and anti-diluvian healthcare system.
Maypole dancing—like Morris dancing—is Saxon English in origin rather than sprung from a native Celtic/Scots/Pictish Irish celebration of summer—quarter day Bealtainn/Beltane exactly divides the ancient year into four, with cross-quarter days every six weeks—
Weaving, like maypole dancing, entwines threads seamlessly from different origins
Ancient archetypes, top, not altogether helpful during astral fireworks in May skies; focus solar & lunar conjunction clusters of Jupiter/Uranus Venus/Mars in Taurus with Pisces bringing up every watery emotion
Images, top, bring archaic belief to life—except for last, recent find in Turkey: wine-god Dionysus, decapitated, drowning floundering in his own filth, blood-stained or worse—anti-booze ad par excellence. Others, from Vatican lookalike flower-of-life orb to amygdala, pineal gland/brain cortex held by our primeval/ancestral dragon self, l. to simple ride on hippocampus, rt, forerunner to seahorse and/or unicorn; top mid rt. classic show of devotion by (Phrygian-capped) Ganymede, synchronously cup-bearer to the gods—offering to Zeus who appears as the Great Eagle—and as one of Jupiter’s main satellites in a Galileo universe, 1560s.
Northern Fishing Villages Last to Keep Fire-Festival Tradition
Rural Banffshire and the Pictish North Coast have vastly different traditions of their own—ranging from the precursor to Nevada’s Burning Man—Bealltainn ‘Burn the Witches #Bonefire’ (May 2nd) Lammas Fire (Aug.1) & famously, Burghead’s Clavie Burning still has a hold in fishing communities all along the Moray coast—Burghead one of few remaining to uphold fire festival tradition. Superstition holds firm in Buckie in particular, with its 32 churches. Until WWII all the northern ports held bonfire rituals four times a year. Stonehaven’s Swinging Fireballs is a relic of Hallowe’en, but held now on Hogmanay.
According to the Rev. Gregor, In some districts fires were kindled on May 2nd, O.S., called bonefires. It was believed that on that evening and night, witches were abroad in all their force, casting ill on cattle and stealing cow’s milk. To counteract their evil power branches of rowan tree and woodbine were hung over byre doors, with fires kindled by every farmer and cottar. Old thatch, straw, furze (gorse), broom clippings gathered into a central ‘bonefire’ were set alight moments after sunset. Some continually fed the fire, while others pick up flaming mass with pitchforks and poles and run hither and thither through the smoke or dancing round the fire shouting ‘Fire! Blaze an’ burn the Witches’.
In some villages (1881)a large round cake made of oat or barley-meal was rolled through the ashes. “When all was burned up, the ashes were celebrated and scattered far and wide, and all continued until quite dark to run through the ashes crying ‘Fire! fire! burn the witches’.” Gregor
Vestiges of such a strong tradition remain—every port on Aberdeen’s North Coast used to celebrate.
Distributing fire altar gifts from the Doorie, Clavie King Dan Ralph is one of few remaining Burghead residents who remembers when all northern fishing ports celebrated, with ‘pieces’ of burning Clavie barrel given to important local residents (publican, harbor master) on Clavie Crew’s ritual circling of the town.
By the Fireside—Peat Smoke & Storytelling—Centre of the Hoos
“At one corner of the hearth sat the father, and at the other the mother. Between the two, family group might extend to a servant or two, for all were on a footing of equality; the servant being a neighbour’s son or daughter of exactly the same rank and means.
“All were busy. One of the women might be knitting, another making/mending an article of dress.
“Of the men, one might be making candles from bog-fir—cleavin can’les—another manufacturing wood harrow-tynes, a third sewing brogues, and a fourth weaving a pair of mittens. [cleek]
“Family evenings usually included one or more neighbours spending time at the fireside, sharing supper together from the communal cooking pot—this was called geein them a forenicht. On these occasions, young women brought their spinning wheels on their shoulders and their wool or flax under arm. It was not unusual for three or four spinning wheels to be going at once, skilful fingers busy at the stent, with each spinner vying with the other who would be first to complete.” Rev. W. Gregor, 1881
Tales of Supernatural Draw Children in Around the Hearth
He continues. “When the children’s school-books were laid aside, and they’d finished their homework, it was time for song and story and ballad to begin. For most part stories were of fairies and their doings, water-kelpies, ghosts, of witches and their deeds, of compacts with the Devil, and what befell those who made such compacts; of men skilled in black airt, and strange things they were able to do.
“As tale succeeded tale, and the big peat fire began to fade, younger members crept nearer and nearer to the older ones and after a little, seated themselves on their knees or between them and the fire, with eyes now fearfully turned to the doors, now to the chimney, now to a corner whence issued the smallest noise, and now to the next, in dread of seeing some of the uncanny brood. Often stories were mixed in with history, oftentimes the wars between England and Scotland, but the Supernatural beings always won.”
The Folk-Lore of the NORTH-EAST OF SCOTLAND by the Reverend Walter Gregor, M.A. published for the FOLK-LORE SOCIETY, London Paternoster Row, E.C. 1881
Highland Hospitality—Roaring Nineties’ Déjà Vu of PotLuck
120 year gap: fires and fire festivals then & now—hearth centre of the home, above, photos 1860 courtesy Theodora Fitzgibbon’s ‘A Taste of Scotland Traditional Scots Recipes’, 1971
Aberdeen and Northeast Scotland isn’t known just for its whisky and shortbread. The North Coast has a long tradition of smoking/drying fish: Speldings—Sandend, Portsoy, Buckie haddock, herring, trout, ling cod, even potted salmon in the Blootoon, Peterheid.
600ft Tor of Troup-Gamrie Mohr Immune to Norse, Foodie Heaven
Eentie teentie tippenny bun The Cat geed oot tae get some fun To get some fun played on a drum Eentie teentie tippenny bun—festival rhyme, Banff
Eetum peetum penny pump A’a the ladies in a lump Sax or saiven in a clew, A’ made wi’ candy glue
Fraserburgh Rhyming slang, Party Games mnemonics
Think Bannocks, Forfar Bridies, Mutton pies, Aiberdeenshire is famous for Butteries—the buttery rowie: breakfast-lunch #bap (bun) snack of roll oozing butter. Cullen, Banffshire where Scots king Culen died 967, has Cullen skink, ice cream! intact railway viaduct, pink beaches from extruded Old Red Sandstone while Portsoy and MacDuff boast their secret ocean treasure of fresh ling cod, lobster, shrimp and crab available at dockside. Other locations like 600ft, Gamrie Mohr to Tor of Troup teeter high over waves on an open coastline which dissuaded Viking intrusion. St.John’s kirk, and neighbouring Findlater castle are perfect examples of the Buchan coastline’s built-in immunity to attack. St.John’s North sea-facing stone wall, built c.1100, featured Norse skulls from the ‘Bloody Pits’ (‘Bleedy Pots’) battlefield above Gamrie-Crovie beach where a foolish longship anchored without a familiar Fjord (c.f. Argyll, Western Isles coast) to ‘cloak’ its approach. Similarly at Sandend, 16thC Findlater castle perches eye-to-eye with gannets and puffin over sheer drop cliff below, its ‘local’ kirk at Fordyce another 8thC Fite kirk (fite=white aka built of stone not sod, see King Nechtan) is dedicated to St.Talorcan. Like all 8thC Fite kirks—it has the mark of early monastic peripatetic teaching, following a line of stone-built kirks from Tyrie to Strichen and from Old Deer to Old Rayne.
Sandend, still famous for its smokies (dried haddock), smoked salmon, kippers—and surfing—is part of mediaeval landholdings of Fordyce castle, itself a stone’s throw away from Roman-occupied Deskford, where the famed (near-unique) Pictish carnyx battle horn lay buried after battle, c. 420 A.D.
Foodwise, Banff & Buchan were originally geared for oats: oatcakes, Skirlie and Atholl Brose (all use oatmeal). Neeps n’ tatties, too: basic soup broth. Stovies are potatoes fried open fire. And barley (bear) from ancient strain makes the best whisky. Try Caledonian Creme.* *Be prepared: there’s a lot of whisky about: Atholl brose and Caledonian cream specials are loaded with it.
Frighten Away Ghosts by Playing Party Games, Rhymes
I saw a doo flee ower the dam, Wi’ silver wings an’ golden ban; She leukit east, she leukit west, She leukit fahr tae light on best. She lightit on a bank o’ san’ Tae see the cocks o’ Cumberlan’ Fite puddin’ black trout—Ye’re Oot’
Rev. Walter Gregor Folklore 1881 collection of party rhymes and garden hide-and-seek games, counting conundrums, nonsense rhymes, many lost to current generation, see below
As I gaed up the Brindy Hill* I met my faither—he geed wull He hid jewels, he hid rings; He’d a cat wi’ ten tails He’d a ship wi’ sivven sails He’d a haimmer dreeve nails. Up Jack, doon Tam; Blaw the bellows, aul’ man. *Brindy, Cothiemuir wood, Alford
Mr Smith’s a very good man; He teaches his scholars noo an’ than. An’ fin he’s deen he taks a dance Up t’London doon t’France He wears a green beaver wi’ a snoot Tarry Diddle— ye’re oot!
Cottar hand-weaving kashie, left, to carry peat from bog’s drying dykes after casting
similar traditional Pacific hand weave hats, baskets neck gear in ‘maypole’ weave, top
Eerinnges, oranges, twa fer a penny Ah’m a guid scholar fer coontin’ sae many—Portsoy
Eerie, aaree, Biscuit Mary, Pim, Pam, Pot—Portsoy
Eetum fer peetum, the King cam tae meet ‘m, An’ dang John Hamilton doon—Tyrie
As I gaed up the aipple tree, A’ the aipples stack tae me; Fite puddin’ black trout, I choose you oot fer a dirty dish clout—party game counter, choosing a partner, Portsoy
Een, twa, three, fower, five, sax, sieven A’a them fisher dodds widna win t’ haven
Anti-fishing joke rhyme told by fishermen of the Broch (Fraserburgh) against themselves, 1880s
Writerly Advice or Just Common Sense
No critique: but current iGens, Tween-tiger/tigresses, GenZ, even Millennials are far more interested in possible NorthCoast sources for fresh lobster, wild salmon, Sandend speldings or Deveron troot than how those precious fishing villages survived, nay now thrive, despite decades of neglect. Same goes for the Doric language. Unless our genetic curiosity prevails, what hope is there for us country quines?
Nevertheless our joint hereditary conditioning—see previous post on Scythian-Scots Irish connection, echoed by Walter Gregor—digs deeply into a [Caucasian] genetic ability to adapt to whatever Mother Nature throws at us. Plus a deeply-embedded love of fire and celebration by flame in all its guises. Burning the old allows us entry into the new. As writerly occupants of subterranean Wo/Man Cave dwellings—who’ve really had a long winter—we can surely agree now’s a great time for renewal.
Happy month of May, a rare celestial all-planets direct, conjunction and… May the 4th be with You. ©2022 Marian Cameron Youngblood
The Scythian Connection—Eastern Scotland & Ireland Share Famous Firbolg Ancestors: Create First Scythian/Scots Race
THE SCYTHIAN CONNECTION—EASTERN SCOTLAND & IRELAND SHARE FAMOUS FIRBOLG ANCESTORS who SAILED BALTIC from THRACE to GAUL— CREATED FIRST SCYTHIAN/SCOTS RACE
RECENT FORENSIC/DIGITAL IMAGERY REVEALS CELTIC GENETIC ARCHETYPE
Sailing the Baltic from Ancient Thrace, Scythian Genes reach Belgic Gaul, Eire and Caledonia
According to Irish writers, the Picts, in their first progress to Ireland from Thrace, settled a colony in Gaul, and the tribes called Pictones, Pictavi in that country are descended from them. They also gave their name to Pictavia, Poitiers and the province of Poitou. From these Picts are descended the Vendeans of France.
It would appear that the Picts were Celtic-Scythian or a mixture of Celts and other branches of the Scythian family from the Caucasus, and spoke a dialect of the Celtic language.
The Caucasus mountains synchronously create the Euro-Asian mountain divide. How revealing.
Discovered 1997 in a cave in the Black Isle, Rosemarkie Man, above left—reconstruction based on forensic digital imagery and carbon dated A.D.430-630—shows remarkable “Caucasian” Nordic &/or Hispanic features. Perhaps he arrived in a boat of skins and wood like the Broighter, right, found in a gold hoard on a Kerry beach, at the entrance to Lough Foyle. Long journey from the Baltic. Even longer from ancient homelands on the Black Sea.
The original boat would have had nine benches for the rowers, with 18 oars/rowlocks, a long oar for steering at the stern, three forked barge poles, and a grappling iron or anchor and a mast. This is the kind of boat which traded in prehistoric seas between the Channel, North Sea, Mediterranean, Baltic and west mainland Europe—Celto-Belgic, Gaulish, Brittany decor share similarities. Scythian influence had them bringing back not only goods but also ideas, technologies and fashions.
Focus of the Broighter hoard, the gold boat has ancient symbolic meaning. As centre of a rich offering to sea god Manannán macLyr, it was placed by the sea shore on a raised beach leading to Lough Foyle.
The sea was, as it still is today, an unpredictable force.
Mythical Manannán ruled his otherworldly kingdom, riding out over the waves on his chariot. He is ultimate master mariner, impervious to the sea’s deadly turbulence. Early sailors were as superstitious as their descendants! Easy to understand why open boats like this would seek his help and protection.
Along with the delight of the boat itself, the gold objects found alongside were mostly imported from the Mediterranean, including two gold neck chains from the east—possibly Roman Egypt.
Setting out from above the Arctic Circle, Scythian Celts sailed south through the Baltic in ships like the (sacred gold) Broighter Boat, above right, navigating from Archangel or St Petersburg, Lübeck, Bergen, through the North Sea, via the English Channel, Guernsey to Brittany and N. Gaul; and from the Cornish coast to W. Ireland and North to Pictland.
Caledonian chiefs were provided with wives from among widows of slain Tuatha de Danaan by Milesian monarch Eremon, so Cruithneans became “possessed of North Britain & there founded the kingdom of the Picts which continued for many centuries until 9thC when conquered by Kinneth MacAlpin, king of Dalriadic Scots-Irish colony in Scotland.” Psalter of Cashel 10thC
Class-II Pictish carved stone Monymusk, Aberdeenshire left, late cross, stylized cauldron; Reliquary original home
Akkadian Indo-Euro script, over: Akkadian Cimmerians were culturally caucasian, similar to Scythians 1000B.C.
Big Guys with Quivers of Arrows, Renowned Harpists
Belgians were called in the Gaulish-Celtic language Bolg and Bolgach, hence Firbolgs, and Firvolgians; and by Roman writers Belgae, Belgii. Celtic Bolg means ‘quiver of arrows’—apparently they were great archers, although bolgach also signifies ‘corpulent’. So, visualize large men of stout size; celebrated for their bravery. they fought with great valour against the Romans, and were called Fortissimi Gallorum by Julius Caesar, ‘most valiant of the Gauls’.
Bolgs owned a huge landmass. (Roman) Gallia Belgica covered extensive territory stretching through Gaul and northern France, including present country of Belgium. They were divided into separate tribes or nations: Parisii, Rheni, Belovaci, Atrebates, Nervii, Morini, Menapii.
Belgians were a mixed race of Cimmerians and Germans, or a Gaul-Teuton mix like Cimbrians. Having adopted neighbour Germanic language, they were sometimes considered a Gothic or Teutonic race. They were chiefly Celts or Gaels, and spoke a dialect of the Celtic language in German/Teutonic.
Every Bolg Town a Firbolg Market Town
Wealth & status were shown (above) as desirable in prehistoric and early-medieval cultural art. Mithras, god of Rome’s fascination with war and sacrifice, top left Phrygian helmet worn by honored legionaries; sacred pinnacle of Roman foot soldier’s devotion and belief. Caledonians’ sacred symbols, middle, began long before Pictish (Class I & II) incised & relief stones, with fields of Buchan littered with granite carved stone balls-all designs-c.3000B.C. In pre-Christian Scotland, early Class-I boundary stone at Drimmies, Inverurie ABD rt. in situ missing top symbol, but flowing symbol, l.below, may indicate river Don—important waterway—stone’s throw away with feet of lost ‘arch’, mirror & comb c.f. Pictish Class-I symbol chart where symbols are locally identified, e.g. horse Inverurie; bull Burghead. Last pic: Bullion Class-II relief slab Angus, approx. same vintage as battle of Nechtansmere, c.685, example of late Pictish (royal) artisan-craft smithworking community attached to a large cultural centre. Old man on horse drinking unsteadily—classic Class-II relief, no symbols but great realism, both rider & horse.
Many centuries before the Christian era, the Belgians (Bolgs) of Gaul sent colonies to Britannia. When Caesar invaded Britain, 55B.C., they were a powerful people already possessing the southern part of England from Suffolk to Devonshire. Belgic tribes in South Britain included: Cantii in Kent, Trinobantes in Essex and Middlesex; Regini and Atrebates in Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Somerset; the Durotriges in Dorsetshire, and the Damnonii in Devonshire and Cornwall. Their capital city was Venta Belgarum, (trans. Bolgs’ Market; Winchester).
The Caledonians, (Picts, or Cruithneans), according to 9thC Psalter of Cashel and other ancient annals, were an Indo-European race from Scythia on borders of Europe and Asia. According to Venerable Bede, writing in 7thC Ecclesiastical History of the English People, on their flight from Thrace/Scythia through the Baltic, via Finland, they made their way over the North Sea to S.Ireland—present Bay of Wexford. Not being permitted to settle at Inver Slainge, they sailed for Albain, Scotia, “that part of North Britain now called Scotland”.
While Scotland’s Caledonia is strewn with burgh markets, fairs and summertime food festivals celebrating local specialties, equivalent Welsh, Cornish, Brittonic (Saxon-English) market towns retain their Roman character (and in places, name Venta) around which Brit agriculture and livelihood was focused: e.g. Winchester Hampshire above, Gwent-on-Wye ‘Venta’ major market S.Wales.
In an historical context, Chepstow’s Welsh name, Caes Gwent, castle of Venta, Roman ‘market place’, shows how ancient are its roots and significant its position on the confluence of the river Wye (over which the 11thC Castle of Gwent still towers) with the Severn’s great tidal estuary which eventually flows into the Bristol Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. This is southern heartland of ancient (pre-Celtic) Brythonic kingdom, where ancient Britons spoke a dialect understood by other Britons of Prydein–Roman Britannia. Their language was understood over the water-bridge in Brittany, throughout Cornwall, Isle of Man, Rheged (ancient Cumbria), Dumbarton and Strathclyde (Dun-Britton), Brigantia (Yorkshire and Northumberland) and northern Pictland (Prydein). Their ancient monuments, aligned with the movements of the heavens and dedicated to their ancestral dead, were generations older than Stonehenge. Avebury’s great circle is their nearest relative in design and in time. As are the stone balls.
Nation of Shopkeepers Come Thru with Aid when Chips are Down
Pre-Celtic waterways like great tidal Severn estuary, left, combine ancient travel route, with Roman market town, and modern shipping canal. CaerGwent=Chepstow from Roman Venta & Gaulish Brythonic Caer castle holds ancient custodianship over River Wye, Wales, & Atlantic waters
Weren’t you wondering when the Scythian connection would penetrate?
Yes, the blue&yellow flag flying over valleys between the Caucasus and the Black Sea—Ukraine. That’s where our Scythian gene comes from. That’s the cross-Caucasus Asian-Euro mix that confounds any division, brings a HUGE international so-called Caucasian alliance to front & center. You thought DNA & ancestral genealogy research were dominated by Viking-Norse? Re-think: Caucasus wins hands down.
The French—never great buddies with the English [contra the Cruithne aka 16thC Auld Alliance MQS, French court language insinuating its way into Scots]*—are reputed to be origin of uncomplimentary Brit shopkeeper comments—more likely attribution to Napoleon who really didn’t like them. Mixing metaphors here, shopping seems to have unforeseen cultural advantages in breaking barriers—like big personally-driven overseas deliveries from Bradford, Liverpool with the Euro-consortium Médecins sans frontières, and Poland and Finland loaning military equipment normally used for rescue. Shopkeepers adding groceries to growing international rescue mission for refugees score top marks for volunteering.
*Local Scots understand French imports like golf caddy (cadet, young boy), and colloquial ‘loo’ (‘gardez l’eau’) as maid throws bucket of water into Edinburgh street below—16thC—no plumbing.
Writing our Way Out of A Situation is Good (Insecure) Writers’ Cave Advice
In Ukraine, the horse is a symbol of loyalty, devotion and freedom. They still have wolf and auroch (exist in wild) symbols of fertility and strength. Crane symbolizes sadness for their native land. And they tell ancient stories of angels and dragons, like other border communities. They share mythical gods of ocean and mountains with other cultures like Brythonic Bride. Shakespeare even wrote King Lear to satisfy his craving for mythical tales of ancestral gods. Rashly, Scythians calculate Gregorian calendar now along with Western world countries celebrating Easter a month late, a dislocated Ramadan and dislodged Carnival, with a slew of social media reels to cover their trail.
A Doric Northeast Scotland (Cruithne) calendar calculation rhyme for Easter should keep us on local track with the ‘fit like’ dialect. Spoken to me at the Back o’ Bennachie, by a born-‘n’-bred Insch quine with full intonation—Picts, Scots Irish & adoptive Brit-Scythian-Thracians might like to try it.
Fit like?
‘First come Candlemas
Syne the New Meen
The niest Tiseday efter ‘at
Is aye Festern’s E’en.
That Meen oot
An’ anither at its hicht
The niest Sunday efter ‘at
Is aye Pasche richt.’
Ancient Scots Easter calculation. Anon
We in our Writer’s Cave send what we can: support comes in many guises. Gotta get out the Scythian dictionary. Or maybe, like the Doric of N.E.Scotland above Pictish throwback medieval Cruithne dialect (fit like translates as how are you); or Edinburgh’s insider French from a Parisian courtly ‘close’ [passageway], we will probably keep on keeping on.
©2022 Marian Youngblood
WildCats, Wolves Call Ancient Caledonia Home
WILDCATS, WOLVES CALL ANCIENT CALEDONIA HOME
First Wednesday March Hares—aka Insecure Scribes & Weather-Wordsmiths—Emerge from STORMY Subterranean Hideaway
Today Good Hare Day
Uplands are unique spaces for nature, climate & people but they are in crisis. Years of harmful land management practices has pushed nature to the fringes of these wild spaces across Scotland. If we are to tackle the climate and nature emergency, Scots govt. take action at scale and pace to protect these landscapes and species which call them home— RSPB Jas. Silvey
Mountain Hare Chas.Frederick Tunnicliffe 1937
Hares March in First Year of Protection by Scots Government
Today marks the one-year anniversary of protected status for one of Scotland’s most elusive but ancient animals—the mountain hare.
Protection was brought in for the species because of RSPB concerns of declining population and that illegal culls were seriously impacting the species’ conservation status. These concerns were expressed over many years that annual, unregulated culls carried out across many intensively-managed grouse moors were having a devastating impact on the hare population.
RSPB used different data to come to same conclusion: that mountain hares had declined, most apparent from late 1990s in areas of the hill country predominantly managed for grouse shooting.
This evidence was used by Scottish Government to report to the EU that conservation status of mountain hares was “unfavourable” and was the catalyst for protection introduced March 2021.
Future Wolf Bear Beaver Highland Coos/Aurochs’ Mixed Reception
Experimental projects in Cumbria, and the Lake District in vicinity of Roman Hard Knott Pass fort show signs of beaver settling in nicely. A west-coast entrepreneur tries convincing hard-line foraging farmers that heilan’ coos are not so much cattle as genetically extinct Aurochs with gentler grazing habits.
No agency south or north of the Border has introduced actual wolf cubs, though talk continues.
Many look to Highland Fault line 30-year old new growth at Glenfeshie by original charity Trees for Life as an example of what volunteer and donated workforce can do long term in Invernessshire. Caledonian Canal catchment drains off forest understorey waterways, beloved of beaver—and oysters. Scots Pine, aspen, birch and hawthorn foster lichen and berries attracting pine marten and red squirrel.
Early Spring Highlights Grouse Moor Activity
Easter is considered ‘late’ this year 2022, tradition holds never until after Feast Day of Bride maiden of Spring.
Calendar calculation ‘old style’ holds to ancient rhyme centred around February 2nd Candlemas in both pre-Xtian and Roman Orthodox Catholic church—if new moon occurs AFTER that date. New moon 2/1/2022 [February 1st], aka too early for traditional count; so wait until new moon March, aka 3/1.
Calendar switches—on schedule—re-arranging run-up to Easter in apparently flawless fluid fashion: Fat Tuesday #MardiGras Pancake stuff-yourself day before deprivation fasting of Lent, Ash Wednesday, personal 40-days in solitary.
Pride of Leopards Three Castles & Cast-Iron Cat Colonnade
Northeast Scotland has traditionally been dominated by Aberdeen with North Sea ocean connections. It built ships for the Baltic run.
Victorian Union Street—linked by iconic cat-bedecked Union Bridge, above—bankcrupted the City.
Its architectural grand plan constructed white Rubislaw granite buildings to flank upper (Music Hall Doric/Ionic columns) and lower Union Street (Jamieson & Carry, Boots & Woolworth’s Emporium, above lower left). Bridge Street descends behind trams to Joint Station, lower level, and The Green.
This elevated superstorey ran over LNER & LMS Railway lines, over former Den Burn—now Union Terrace Gardens, top far rt. perspective toward H.M. Theatre and Wallace Statue—with tunnel access from the harbour. Stretching from ultra-conservative granite Queen’s Road/Albyn Place, Union Street’s mile-long double-decker ‘overpass’ leads its tentacles underground to joint granite foundations (Uptown Baths, Crown St.P.O., Langstane; Tivoli Theatre, the Green, Belmont Street and the Aberdeen Art Gallery. Terminus: Castlegait, Town House, Tolbooth, and Lodge Walk—police HQ—to St.Nicholas).
Alexander Marshall Mackenzie’s granite 1884 Aberdeen Art Gallery, the main visual arts exhibition space in the city, beckons with a multi-coloured granite colonnade (Kemnay pink, Peterhead red) in foyer leading to its upper galleries.
17thC Provost Skene’s House & 21stC Marischal Square Street Art
In ‘granite city’ Aberdeen grandiose preparations near completion on 2022 107million-pound pedestrian park-oriented centre Marischal Square, where Scots sculptor Andy Scott (Falkirk ‘Kelpies’) will feature his steel-shard Leopard sculpture, ‘Poised’ within a glass dome enclosure on pedestrian Broad Street.
Focus of the street-wide atrium, Scott’s two-ton steel 42-foot high big cat artwork perches atop a plinth inside a ‘conservatory’ style greenhouse geared to capture light in multi fragment panes of glass.
Former 14-storey city council offices-demolished 2014-make way for white [Chinese import] granite facades of new glass-enclosed Broad St.-Marischal Square. Old Marischal College, home to @UofAbCollections became new council offices; a view of their previous ugly 1970s building brightened by closed George Street, pedestrian Belmont Street; a walk up Schoolhill to Art Gallery.
Broad St. may have lost its granite ‘cassie setts’ during development but commercial and entertainment retail properties—hotels, restaurants, a casino and art venues are available for sale and rental in 21stC attempt to balance the books. Among new residents in the complex are the DC Thompson Group, publisher of Aberdeen Press & Journal.
Marischal College, Archibald Simpson’s 1836-1844 world’s second-largest granite building* didn’t bankcrupt anyone. It holds University of Aberdeen’s fine archaeological collections from Moray, Buchan and Cairngorms. Interior leads to illuminated ceiling of Mitchell Tower. All granite.
* First in Europe-world’s largest granite buildiing is El Real Monasterio de El Escorial, Madrid.
Leopard Poised to Pounce May Know Secret Password
Leopard emblem of ‘silver city with golden sands’ has its origin in early mediaeval heraldic design, pictured top middle right, as the city’s coat-of-arms: two cats sinister/dexter support Auld Alliance slogan Bon Accord dating from 1561-68 Mary Queen of Scots’ progresses to her royal Aberdonian Moray and Buchan palaces.
The city’s long-standing stalwart of Northeast life, Leopard Magazine has published locally since it was established in 1974. Owned and published by Lindy Cheyne and Ian Hamilton for last 12 years, it has been taken under wing of University of Aberdeen. Early Leopard archives are held by the University. This writer and colleague Ann Tweedy were early contributors to historic files.
Andy Scott has created pieces for other cities including New York, Chicago and Sydney. Commissioned by Muse Developers and Aviva Investors’ board of directors to come up with a piece of public artwork for the site, he favoured the city’s preoccupation with the local cat. He spent hours chatting to Kelly’s remaining Cats on Union Bridge before plunging into steel.
Following Andy’s lead in wry humour, we [insecure scribes, emerge with Muse in tow from PersonCave preparing to pit ourselves against a spring NaNoWriMo writing workshop] might add a fictitious note: especially apt in Pictish NE Scotland (not a Gael in sight; everyone spiks the Doric derivative of a P-Celtic language, shuns the Gaelic (Gàidhlig, pronounced ‘gaa-lik’ in Highland west). ‘Unpronouncable gibberish’ to quote one extinct Aberdonian. So homegrown gaelic/garlic pun…
Andy’s Cat perches on its plinth in rarefied art environment designed to dominate its little people below. Calling it ‘Poised’ triggered the East Coast Pictish heathen in me: I saw ‘Poised’ as a foreign creature, already possessing its own spirit. It became Gael. ‘poisaed’ pron. “pussy”.
That’s not a rude American pun; that’s Brit for pussycat, Am. kitty. Gettit? Purr-purr. ‘In like a lion’ is code password. ©2022MarianYoungblood
Springing Out of Winter Mindset into a New Lunar Year—Groundhog Style
SPRINGING OUT OF WINTER MINDSET into A NEW LUNAR YEAR SERPENT/GROUNDHOG STYLE
EXTRACTING THE (WRITING) DIGIT AND HAULING ONESELF OUT OF OUR (INSECURE) WRITER’S CAVE— FIRST WEDNESDAY OF THE TIGER DECADE
Prelude to Year of Change
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, lunar Tigresses—Candlemas [February new moon, Imbolc, Feast of Bride, “return of the Light” Pagan quarter day, pagan Chinese new year] is U.S. Groundhog wrapped in a snow pig’s-blanket—or a signal to get back underground and hole up for another six weeks of winter.
"On the Feast Day of Bride the Serpent shall come from its hole. "I shall not molest the Serpent nor shall the Serpent molest me." 1860 Carmina Gadelica Highland Beliefs
Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye could frame thy dreadful symmetry?
William Blake
Tiger is the third of 12 zodiac animal signs associated with the Asian lunar calendar celebrated by Korea, Vietnam, China, Tibet, Mongolia, Malaysia and Filipino islands. If born during a Tiger Year you may be seen as brave, confident and well-liked. Lucky colours—blue, orange, grey; yellow lilies and cineraria are lucky flowers.
Reverse Resolutions better for Psychic Status{Quo}
Traditionally, first new moon of February in the Western World dictated timing for Roman & Protestant Easter—70 days from now—”late” this year. February 1st 2022 new moon happened in purrfeck timing for Tigers, but New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, rt. will have to wait another month—for March 1st new moon. Six weeks (till Equinox) to ponder outdoor-related, earth-nurturing garden & landscape restoring plans.
Not pie-in-the-sky any more.
During lockdown local neighbourhoods, garden clubs, community dig-a-thons and joint Trust-volunteer groups have flourished, resulting in phenomenal fresh vegetable/floral food gifts to charities in 2021.
Below, left remarkable similarity between Humboldt Co. Redwood Coast natural headland tree growth used in some introduced plantings, Scotland with success; rt,up Mardi Gras next month! mid Mildenhall treasure sometimes thought of as Brittonic calendar; lower rt. Loch Craignish Argyll success story by (rewilding) Oyster Boys using centuries-old regeneration beds—rewild both land and sea. Bottom, plant diversity in pinus sylvatica Caledonian pine woodland exclosure groupings, rural Buchan Aberdeenshire.
New Initiative—not Baby-Bathwater Conundrum
WWarII Veterans’ Dig-for-Victory Attitude: Like Getting Hands in Earth, Oldie Tip: Don’t Discard
Just sometimes us #vintage Boomers-&-beyond have a little something worth sharing. In city parks, university and campus allotments in Yorkshire, Durham & Northern Borders, locals are being taught the beauty/benefit of pre-Industrial hoe and rake! tho’ horse-drawn plough and mini tractor discs allowed.
Century-old oaks and beech trees were rescued 2021 by a Basingstoke village-resident association encouraged by HRH Duchess of York in Home Counties after threatened by Council removal for a road and storage upgrade.
Many individual primary and elementary schools in Scotland—since COP26 Summit—encourage local tree-planting initiatives where children dig and plant ‘shade’ areas in gardens of nursing and retirement homes, encouraged by residents. Reused veggie allotments have appeared with free food.
Vintage Landowning and Land working a “high value” experience
Some airlines have joined bona fide charitable donation/investment enterprises, like Carbonfund.org in a bid to reduce passenger carbon emissions by 20% in one year. Western governments now use a system in place for investing CO2 offset levies in sustainable regeneration charitable funds which pay into rewilding, regeneration and restoration tree and hedgerow planting.
Eurobloc nations like Germany’s Schwarzwald, Czech Republic, Norway have limitless multi-age forest cover, supporting wondrous original wildlife. Great Britain lags behind with a staggering miniscule 1% left of its prehistoric giant trees—medieval Royals pillaging and burning wrapping up the last of Scotland’s Caledonian Pine Forest, in 1308. A [German] Royal shot the last Wolf in Scotland in 1722.
Royals are English Landlord—In Scotland, the Laird Rules
Royals do indeed play a rôle in 2022—mopping up after misbehaving ancestors both North and South of the Border. The Crown owns 1.4% of England. This includes the Crown Estates, the Queen’s personal residence at Sandringham, Norfolk, and the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, which provide income for family members; with multiple properties, gardens and Palaces in Central London maintained by her.
A small number of ultra-wealthy individuals have traditionally owned land in Scotland. A Scottish Land Commission review conducted 2020, found that big landowners behaved like monopolies across large areas of rural Scotland with power over land use, economic investment and local communities. Conservation charities, like the National Trust and Woodland Trust, collectively own 2% of England. The Church has 0.5%.
Grouse moor ownership and access in Scotland are a law unto themselves.
Way Into the Baronial Heart—the Three Cs
While the Right to Roam Act 2003 covers England and Wales, convention, courtesy and courage are rules for approaching prickly pathways in rural Scotland: ancient domain of hereditary ‘superior’ lairds. Descended from pre-Independence Royalty of an earlier Pictish lineage, landowners are unaccustomed to having their ‘ways’ questioned.
Contrarily, by tradition the local “laird will provide”—for farmer tenants in times of hardship—is a ‘given.’ Not to be confused with the far North Clearances in Caithness and Sutherland, Aberdeenshire and N.E. Scotland’s agriculture tradition maintains rich productive coastal plain stretching to the central ridge of Cairngorms National Park, beyond Royal Deeside, Balmoral, Mar Lodge, to Ben Nevis and the West. Traditions here include Generosity of the Laird, but also his Rightful Domain aka baronial privilege.
Privilege Preferable to Pool Parties with Foreign Carbon Offsetters
Sadly over the last century, stone properties in Scotland have seen a decline—former hospitals, wartime youth centres, neglected then abandoned chapels, farm steadings, even castles. Drone photography has recently highlighted such hidden gems of heritage with uncertain future. Should current legislation on property ownership in Scotland remain unchanged, these (usually) isolated properties become a target for ‘Offsetters’—absentee (city) investment alliances with sights set on ‘owning’ a treescape/rewilding property thus legitimizing carbon emissions released daily in their ‘other job’. They give out coupons for treading a smaller (carbon) footprint!
Chief economist of Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank, Carys Roberts is NOT in favour of foreign ‘investment’ of this type. She thinks concentration of land in a few hands is reason enough for wealth as a whole being unequal in Scotland, without competing with incomers who care less about their community, just as they prevent those without land from generating more income.
“We have this idea that class structures have changed so that the aristocracy is not as important as it used to be. What this demonstrates is the continuing importance of the aristocracy in terms of wealth and power in our society.” She said one effect of the sale of public land was public loss of democratic control of that land so it could not then be used, e.g. for housing or environmental improvements.
Food for future thought. Yet how long dare we keep thinking before we have to do something about it.
As many #vintage traditions being reexamined, May we be guided well through this February starGATE.
any shortcomings please forgive—novacaine [sp.] erythromycin or plain ibuprofen take blame
tku Walk-In Island Ohana Dental Hilo, HI
©2022 Marian Youngblood
Autumnal Wisdom: Time to Call on Ancestors for Help
AUTUMNAL WISDOM: TIME TO CALL ON ANCESTORS FOR HELP
November (Writing) Storms Wakeup Call for Humans to Gird Our Loins Before Things get Messy
It’s that time of year again. In Europe they light bonfires, set off fireworks, summon agricultural roots. It’s pre-Celtic Samhainn, after all, start of the ancient year. In Scotland children go ‘guising’ dressed like leftover scarecrows with neep lanterns and songs to sing. This converts in America to ‘trick or treating’—slightly more scary as most houses kids visit give them candy treats—by the bushel—but no fireworks. Ancestors on both continents are on standby—listening raptly—speaking in our dreams.
“Cranking up the temperature of the entire globe by around 1.2ºC on average within little more than a century is extraordinary, with the oceans alone absorbing the heat equivalent of five Hiroshima atomic bombs dropping into the water every second.” Unprecedented temperature rise in world temperature in just 100 years—since the car replaced the horse and cart—can’t go on.” Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist Texas Tech U; also chief scientist at Nature Conservancy.
Stage props for Climate Leaders: photos clockwise from top l. Colosseum in Ancient Rome; arrival via climate-controlled Airbus British PM Boris Johnson & wife Carrie cut travel costs; Romans sacrificed goose in lieu of (New World) turkey to go with their fermented grape sauce over hypocaust-heated parsnip (ketchup & fries)—pun intended—remembering the poor pedestrian Roman never knew New World pleasures of potatoes, tomatoes, had to make do with homegrown olives, peaches, Persian pomegranates) sinister-dexter-sinister-dexter #chattinLatin; PM Boris uses 2100-year-old stage to demonstrate his (lack of) historical memory as he prepared to speak up for (bottom left) endangered capercaillie aka black grouse removal from Cairngorms and Highland glens
G20 Summit Leaders Save Fuel on Travel Rome to Glasgow for COP26 Summit
Private jet used by Britain’s prime minister top rt. is an Airbus chartered from Titan Airways, producing less than half C02 emissions of RAF Voyager that PM sometimes uses for foreign travel. Round trip charter London Heathrow to Rome, to Glasgow Prestwick, return to London “cheaper than rail”, more efficient, given PM’s heavy schedule.
“One of the most carbon-efficient planes of its size in the world, producing 50% fewer C02 emissions than larger RAF Voyager sometimes used by PM. It runs on ‘special mix’ of 35% sustainable aviation fuel mixed with 65% ‘normal’ fuel—the maximum allowed. Prime Minister will off course offset all emissions.”
Downing St. British parliamentary spokesman
Throwing a coin into Rome's Trevi fountain ensures good fortune—and secret assignation to return with the same companions—Mutti knows this—don't think the others do! l.-rt. Boris Johnson, MP, M Emmanuel Macron of France, Italian host Mario Draghi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel G20 2021 Summit
Most of the world’s government leaders have been getting together in unprecedented intensity over last week. European leaders hosted their international counterparts in Rome end October; with a follow-up exceedingly more crucial rendezvous in Glasgow in Scotland’s west industrial belt for COP26 first week November 2021. Prime ministers, premiers, princes and presidents posed for photo calls, using world media as a means to get their combined message across: reduce world temperature rise to 1.2ºC/1.8ºF.
Hate to say, but some of the hi-five elbow bumping goings on between political ‘buddies’ on the climate leadership circuit are huge reminder of #cool-hip-gangsta ‘Turkey!’—stage-version:element of surprise usually part of the embrace. Turkey, left above, isn’t: he’s Scotland’s emblem of grousemoors, a black grouse male displaying red eyebrows and chortling love-call.
Hallowe’en a Broken Dream, November Remember Virtual Turkeys Yet to Come
World leaders—political, business, charitable and entertainment heads—get to speak during first week of the United Nations Glasgow conference with bureaucratic follow-up after they leave. November in West of Scotland is pretty basic. Icy Cold. Where the city’s homeless may be sheltering under the airport overpass, HRH Prince Charles, Jeff Bezos, President Biden and Frau Merkel will stay cozy in their upper-storey overheated hotel suites. HM the Queen, most sensibly, addressed the throng by video.
Perhaps of all the great-&-good worldwide who choose this time to gather together and share a single commitment—with the eyes of the world upon them—HM the Queen may be closest to keeping her word. Not one year of her life has gone by without her planting a tree or unveiling a naturalized parkland. Her royal estates are dedicated to natural growth and management. Crown lands include 135,000 acre Duchy of Cornwall—Duketh Kernow—run using ancestral ways. Following on from Malta’s Commonwealth QCC initiative in 2015, she’s proudly touting her Platinum Jubilee Queen’s Green Canopy for 2022.
And she’s 95. Rôle model par excellence. God Save the Queen. She chats with the Ancestors all the time.
It’s been said Virtual Reality acts as a substitute for real life in the many worlds inhabited by our younger generations: the so-called post-Boomer years occupied by iGens, GenXs, Millennials and now Meta-gens ❤
If all the world around is virtual—as some families have experienced in these last two tumultuous years—there may be an answer: WRITE IT DOWN!
Amid the Frivolity, Spare a Thought for NaNo Writing Marathoners
Daily journaling has been known for decades to be a self-healing mind-releasing blow-by-blow therapy. By writing each day—thoughts, feelings, encounters or just personal epiphanies—our mind-body dualistic strangers come together: communicate: and we writers feel better for it.
That’s NOT to say everyone has it in them to be a NaNoWriMo marathon junkie: writing as many words per day for 30 days as their physical body (+refrgerator pre-cooked stored camp-out food) will allow. I know. I’ve done it. But not everyone can be a runner. Sometimes it’s good just to walk. Day by day, with a little journaling to cap off the evening. p.s. blogging does this well.
After all, patron of writers, large & small, famous or insecure, Egyptian god Thoth, the Ibis-headed scribe who writes down all our deeds both good and bad and weighs them to see if we can enter the Afterlife—he is probably our best ally-Ancestor.
Writerly advice: if you ‘got’ it, enjoy it. Set off virtual fireworks in the brain: who’s to say the Ancestors aren’t enjoying the show. ©2021 Marian Youngblood
FLOWER POWER in the North—Folk Memory & HiTech Open Doors to Rich Caledonian Past
FLOWERPOWER IN THE NORTH—FOLK MEMORY HiTech & TRADITION OPEN DOORS TO RICH LANDHOLDINGS in CALEDONIAN Provinces
Mar, Buchan & Moray—Pride of Pictish Kings for 1000 years
“Tweed, Forth, Tay, Dee, Don, Spey”
Children’s NE.Scotland learning River Rhyme in geographical sequence S to N
Borders Lothians, Central Belt to ancient capital Forteviot; Mearns, Aberdeenshire Banffshire & Northcoast Moray to Great Glen’s ‘Highland Line’ fault
Burghead Pictish Bull, l. totem guardian 1 of 32 Pictish Class-I carved stones found (&reburied) in Burghead harbour
Work by University of Aberdeen Archaeology Unit‘s revelationary & revealing 2021 season just ended at two of the North’s seminal Pictish sites: Burghead on Moray’s North Coast and Tap o’Noth, 1,800ft over Rhynie—inland Britain’s largest hillfort in Aberdeenshire— gold country: farming, silver/metalsmithing, stone carving centre in the North. Excitement has been high recently in academic circles—Aberdeen, Glasgow and Stirling—with new season on-site work enhanced not only by drone footage, but by the miracle of computer-enhanced search and dating tools.
High Status Northern Royal Fortress Protected by Moray Firth Waters on Three Sides, Triple-ringed Ditches on Landward
Descended from Iron Age Celtic tribes, East coast Picts were culturally and linguistically distinct from neighbouring Gaels, who inhabited western Scotland, and the Britons, in present southern Scotland & northern Lake District. Formation of their identity as a distinct group accelerated by Roman presence, forced separate tribal groups to organize and cooperate with each other, developing large Pictish settlements—sub- kingdoms—in the face of a common threat. By the 10th century, the Picts had apparently vanished from Alba, leaving only myths and carved symbol stones inscribed with ‘regional’ designs.
Burghead—Roman Tarvedunum Bull Fort—30 Lost Carved Stones
“It’s like having a magnifying glass that sees thru the layers below me”, said one mystified transformed pupil of Burghead Primary School during their day spent in the Pictish lower trench of the triple-walled Royal fort on the North Coast. Precipitated by rising Moray Firth waterline, lucky local kids got to witness ‘full-throttle hi-tech deep dig’ combo, prompting input from three Scots universities, charitable Leverhulme Trust funding and cooperation of NationalTrust [NTSScotland], with Collections at National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.
New discoveries in a remarkably short month were astounding—from Mediterranean wine dregs in Roman amphorae staining high-status blue glass goblets, to cremated animal boneyard relics with their carved mummy headstones, to precious personal mirror and comb fragments of well-known ‘Pictish’ design—even Anglo-Saxon coins from the reign of (very South of the Border) Alfred the Great—871-886, top left. No carved bull fragments yet.
Group interest from Celtic and pre-Celtic academics from Gaul to Cornwall to North Wales, found evidence of mead implying resident bees and honey expertise, with alcoholic perks for high holidays. Invergowrie’s Bullion Stone, top, is known for its drunken rider, implying success in the (battle)field.
Rhynie Man, below rt, ploughed up next to Craw Stane, mid above, with sacred Salmon & Dolphin symbols, holds a titular axe similar in design to silver axehead pin, below, found during the local dig at Tap o’Noth. ‘Rescued’ as treasure trove 1978 (Barflat farmer paid), the then-Aberdeenshire Council authority placed him in entrance to Woodhill House, Aberdeen. Where he still stands—available to view only during business hours. <(
Down in the Burghead Trench…
It was a huge disappointment that all 36 bull stones (except six*) were ‘lost’ aka reburied? when the Broch’s 19thCentury newtown, below l. was built over one third of the prehistoric promontory within its oldest prehistoric walls. The possibility of finding such buried treasure will have to wait till next season. *British Museum has one.
Burghead overbuilt 19thC newtown 
Oak beams destroyed by fire 
Rhymie Man 
Pictish bone comb fragment 
The Doorie 
silver pin ritual axe ornament
Radiocarbon dates show the fort was occupied from at least the sixth through the tenth centuries. But its prehistoric past beckons. It is the Broch to locals—hinting at its headland massif: the dun of Latin Tarvedunum, the name given to it by the Romans. Later residents lived on top of earlier, adding at least three stages. Burned (oak) timber beams suggest the fort was eventually destroyed by fire. West coast Nordophiles are keen to blame 10thC burning of the ancient fort’s triple layered [imported English] oak beams, above mid. on contemporary Vikings who were raiding Orkney, Sutherland and vulnerable Argyll’s Hebridean fjörd-like coastline, 839-45. it is, however, a tragic historical fact that the Dunadd Scots contingent under Cinaed MacAlpin took the Pictish kingdom (and Forteviot capital) by force in 843, claiming ancestry through matrilineal succession. He and three generations of descendants retained the title ‘Kings of Alba’—former name of Pictish royal house. One descendant, Giric, gave his name to St.Cyrus in the Mearns; another Culen Dubh to Cullen, in former Banffshire. Rocky Kintyre soil (inhospitable to farming) was abandoned for rich agricultural hinterland of lowland Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, Moray, Black Isle and the Great Glen.
Pictish Chronicles, Sacred Books & Long-lost Placename Clues
Pictish Chronicles—such as survived the deliberate defacement and downgrade of a subdued culture—were either rewritten or ‘lost’. Despite Nordic and Scotian suppression, we are fortunate to have original contemporary accounts by Venerable Bede (Northumbrian Anglian monk and historian, d.735 Jarrow) and Columba’s 7thC biographer, St. Adamnan of Iona. Margin illustration notes in 10thC Book of Deer show how gradually over 200 years, the so-called Kings of Alba gradually asserted their Irish and Scots roots, in a country they finally named Scot-land. Pictish heritage is jealously guarded in lowland central Aberdeenshire in a rich assortment of Pictish placenames, ancient forests, tollroads and routeways carved through an adoptive-Gaelic landmass. In this maelstrom of mixed lineage, Aberdeenshire Moray and Banff proudly speak the Doric—local Scots sub-language with strong Pictish overtones filled with hidden meaning.
Cathedrals may come and go but Pechts’ hooses remain…
Elgin cathedral— Light in the North—burned and ravaged before the Reformation. Pluscarden Sistercian Abbey and Brotherhood, burned but rebuilt; Abbeys of Arbroath, Brechin and Melrose ruinous, roofless. Yet the Fite Kirks (white aka stone building c.f. sod earth structures of pre-Christian cells) survive at Tyrie, Old Rayne, and Fordyce—a sacred stone’s throw distant from Deskford battlefield where a lone Celtic Carnyx battlehorn was found.
Trajan’s Column in Rome shows barbarian hoards sounding the Carnyx in battle. Designs in 1st-4thCC continental Celtic countries share the trumpet’s ‘Pictish beast’ shape, like the Craw Stane & pin above; imply a sacred meaning, as do regional shapes of traditional Class-I incised Pictish symbols on slabs from Ross & Cromarty to the Firth of Tay. Mirror & comb usually indicate lineage through female line of succession.
Old Aberdeen’s 10thC St.Machar’s Cathedral retains the best of ten centuries of change in a multi-faith population. Within a ploughshare of the ‘teaching stones’ of early-Christian monk Fergus’s sanctuary at Dyce [Aberdeen airport], top rt., sacred kirks and preaching steens (cross-carved stones with no other ornament) gradually filled in the jigsaw of Pictish ‘affiliation’ with Rome in King Nechtan’s time, 721. Then the Pictish nation politically and architecturally surpassed Northumbrian Jarrow, Lindisfarne and York in holding ‘Roman’ Easter alongside the Vatican, ahead of laggard barbarians of the Saxon south and ‘antiquated’ Iona. This division within the church in Scotland survived the Reformation.
Local kirk adherents [Church of Scotland] still prefer to speak to God directly, without the assistance of meenister, beadle, angels or peripatetic monks as intermediary.
HighTech to the Rescue: Creative Solution to Past Mysteries
Exciting new work opens the door for creativity in a field previously dominated by English [Oxbridge] chroniclers with understandably few tentacles in the Northeast Brythonic black-haired race’s murky past. With Univ. Aberdeen in the cauldron mix now, stirring chronicler cells in the Celtic cerebral cortex, folk memory, subconscious links to our past are no longer ‘forgotten’. They surface and bring aha moments.
Triggered by drone footage—superior to ’50s archaeological ‘aerial photography’ in cost and fuel efficiency—and I.T., Earth equivalent of depth-sounding in the Deep, avenues we never knew existed open—multi-layer occupation; imported oak versus local-grown timber for sacred buildings; extended habitation as royal residences within surrounding high population dense ‘burgh’.
Tap o’Noth, 1,800ft, similarly surprised the team in revealing a high density ‘town’ at hilltop level, supported by a rich artisan-agriculture-forestry-based ‘royal’ burgh below in Rhynie-Clatt culture centre within prehistoric RSCs of Wheedlemont and the Ladder Hills. Rhynie’s current residents call for return of their iconic Man, to reunite with remaining carved compatriots in Market Square.
Looking Ahead at Burghead
Past & Future Storm
Burghead winter frolics are just beginning. Clavie King Dan Ralph, son John & Clavie Crew brush up their tar-burning barrel-toting oil-spill defying skills 2prepare for Auld’Eel Burning the Clavie on the Doorie fire-altar overlooking the Moray Firth. Late solstice: early January here we come.
For all creative spirits under the solstital Storm’s watchful eye, may we writers gain wisdom from our own collective subconscious, learn new ways to preserve and protect our ancient paths.
Here’s to embracing both past and our human future. Sláinte selig skøl santé salute salud cheers. ©2021 Marian Youngblood
Wayback Window—Room with a Vintage View
WAYBACK WINDOW—ROOM WITH A VINTAGE VIEW
Advantages to Having #Vintage Boomers’ Writerly Perspective —First Wednesday from Beyond Time Barrier
The good writer/artist is a vehicle for truth, s/he formulates ideas which would otherwise remain vague and focuses attention upon facts which can then no longer be ignored.
Iris Murdoch 1919-1999 Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature
SEPTEMBER Northern Hemisphere Switch to ‘Autumn’ Thinking…Planting
September wasn’t always the ninth month: its name septem means seven. Roman calculation before the Julian calendar reform in 46BC began at March equinox. Julius Caesar changed Roman lives by changing how their year went. By adding days and months (January, February), he created a mode of reckoning which survived until the Reformation. It went into Roman law two years before he died, 44BC.
His Julian calendar, widely adopted in remarkably short time within the Empire, survived in the Western world for more than 1600 years until 1582, when a correction was made [Pope Gregory XIII instigation hence ‘Gregorian calendar’ revision] to correct Julian calendar’s drift against the solar year of 365.25 days. Most of Western world adopted it, Roman catholic countries before, Protestant countries after the Reformation.
Eruptions of rebellion broke out in Scotland, when the Reformed Calendar—backed by the Reformed Church—went into effect in 1752. Bemoaning their eleven ‘missing days’ in tinkering with leap years, adding and subtracting at will, making a mockery of a lifestyle usually ruled by the Ocean, they did it their own way.
Some coastal ports of the ‘North Coast’—ocean-going villages & fishing communities in Banffshire, Buchan and along Moray Firth in Northeast Scotland—protested the loss of eleven days; maintained their own rhythm by holding their own fire festival : not at New Year but during Aul’ ‘Eel (Old Yule) in second week of January. Burghead burns the Clavie Stonehaven swings man-size fireballs around the coastal town.
Other North Coast towns (Forres, Pennan & ‘The Broch’ (Fraserburgh) also kept similar rituals up until WWII, discontinued after 1945.
Burning the Clavie on Aul’Eel, left: oak whisky barrel soaked in tar set alight and carried around the town of Burghead by Clavie King and Clavie Crew Dying firebrands then hoisted up on to Doorie on castle ramparts to burn rest of night. Clavie King Dan Ralph
Rhythm of the Seasons Guides the Human Machine
Much weight has been placed in these recent times on living a healthy life, cultivating an outdoor lifestyle—walking, hill-climbing, gardening—back-to-nature open air pursuits. With increasing use of social media, charitable rewilding groups and some landowners are committed to restoring wild spaces, with plans to reintroduce extinct species. National Trust (former Royal property) Mar Lodge, top rt. before&after rewilding 2011 & 2021.
The movement has become enormously influential: countries in the former European bloc are now proud to reveal their reintroduction of (formerly endangered)rare species like wolf, boar and marten. Pacific NW and Canadian forests are responding to replanting; with activists halting clear-cut felling of ancient woodland
Scotland’s last wolf was shot in Braemar in 1720 by a Royal.
Rewilding Restoring Forest builds on Earlier Spiritual Initiatives
Present-day Royal estate of Mar Lodge (top rt., now administered by NTS) plans to follow a lead set in the ‘Sixties by the Findhorn Foundation, in their organic garden, at a time when spin-off miracle Trees for Life treeplanter-cum-earth wizard founder, Alan Watson Featherstone was bringing ancient Caledonian pine forest (and related understorey wildlife) back in Glenfeshie, and Dundreggan, near Loch Ness. Mindful of ecosystem fragility, TFL offers instruction and accommodation to volunteers in its wilderness locations.
Trees for Life is some thirty years ahead of the (top) Mar Lodge project: Before-and-after views are invaluable in locations where locals remember the treelessness—sadly almost 70% of Cairngorms National Park is still treeless—long way to go. Next decade’s #before&after pictures should be stunning!
‘We have lost most of the larger predators in Scotland. We used to have elk, auroch (wild cattle), brown bear, wildcat, wolf and lynx. We could restore all these species—there is enough space—but we do need to do a lot of habitat restoration as I don’t thihnk there’s enough habitat for them.’ Andrew Kitchener NatMusScot
‘Britain has one of the lowest forest covers of any nation in Europe at only 13%, less than half the Euro average, 38% across EU, with an increase of only 1% in the last quarter century.
‘For Scotland, most northerly of 4 Brit.nations, expanse is proportionally higher, rising from 5% to 19% in last 100 years., Much of that forest is commercial plantations—which contributes $1.4billion to the national economy, but according to rewilders, are less biodiverse.
‘Only one-fifth of Scotland’s forests are native woodlands.’
Author/Photographer Kieran Dodds &Curator of Vertebrate Biology, NatMusScotland, Andrew Kitchener
There are advantages to being a (tick one) Boomer, oldie, vintage, organio; Wartime Land Girls worked with pick & shovel. Townsfolk work garden allotments-nothing new. Some of us even remember harvesting without machines.
Trying Harder Isn’t Enough: We Have Serious EarthCare Work to Do
We’ve been experiencing another year of highest-ever temperatures, and unprecedented snowmelt of world’s most reliable glaciers. Most alarming, however, is severe drought expectancy in five States in the SW United States, fed by the Hoover Dam and Sacramento valley’s Oroville Dam (under forced repair).
Mount Shasta, below, has no snow—first time ever. The Yurok are still insisting that Atlas-Copco remove and restore dam damage on the River Klamath. Oil pipelines have been halted in B.C. and Midwest USA.
With another year of enforced isolation upon us—but with benefit of breathing fresh air—EarthFirst movements are gaining ground. More supporters provide more resources for restoring land health. Group consciousness spreads urgency on the need to replant-rewild-restore our patch of Earth so it can look after original species, us included.
Mount Shasta, iconic source of the Klamath and Sacramento rivers. Sacred source well in downtown Shasta City, CA is dry. Successive dams report low water level or-as at Oroville-inoperative; salmon hatcheries are failing.
Sacramento basin water supplies Bay Area of San Francisco & Peninsular home to most of world’s hi-tech companies Silicon Valley.
Hoover Dam provides H20 to 5 U.S. southern states, water levels below record low.
Writers’ Cave Resolution: Keep on Keeping On
Insecure or otherwise, we writers do need help occasionally to keep our nose to the grindstone. Inspiration from such New Age visionaries as Findhorn’s founders Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean who started a spiritual garden in 1968 only to see it become a world ecovillage of global influence. are invaluable in reaching our own comfort zone —albeit head-down. Some scriptorial caverns have MILES of subterranean tunnels and false passages to keep us in solitary company of our Muse. All right. Admit it. We thrive in solitary. Writing feeds the introvert scribe.
Muse speak: You may play in the sunshine; then—back in the box. Happy Kalends of September, sacred to Jupiter the Thunderer. May he see us through this dry spell and unleash his life-giving waters in time. ©2021 Marian Youngblood
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From n3kl.orgSolar X-rays:
Geomagnetic Field:
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