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
Social Media Meets its Match—Hackers with Pretend Money Worming Their Way into People’s Hearts
With great sadness I preface this blog with news that Her Majesty the Queen, 96, has died at Balmoral Castle on the Royal Estate, Aberdeenshire. We send sincere condolences and support/love to the Royal Family.
Not certain if as a Brit ex-pat, currently living mid-Pacific, I should announce her death as a post- or ante-script to IWSG & First Wednesday, but a series of unprecedented events this week led me to miss this month’s deadline by 2 days {GMT-1 day PDT}.
My Angelic choir clearly approved/sent spiritual help support my request 2recover from mental & physical violation. Not only did Source aka the Universe send power outage-cum-rainstorm couple hours Weds. evening, but my computah wouldn’t load the blog. Death announcement arrives as the date/midnight changes to zero-day+1 Hence delay, date confusion—didn’t backdate to correct-so here goes Writing Addicts Pic rt. © NewYorker Monarch sits on 11thC Stone of Destiny.
SOCIAL MEDIA MEETS ITS MATCH—HACKERS WITH PRETEND MONEY WORMING THEIR WAY INTO PEOPLE’S HEARTS
FIRST WEDNESDAY BLOG—TIME FOR CREATIVE WRITERS, ARTISTS, MUSICIANS—INSECURE OR OTHERWISE—TO RISE OUT OF OUR DUSTY WRITING CAVERN INTO THE LIGHT OF DAY TO CHRONICLE/COMMENT ON HUMANITY’S SEPTEMBER FOLLIES—BEFORE THE FALL
Hack-Attack: new fearsome enemy on the home front that nobody thought would last
Human memory bank-especially in a child’s 1st, happy, protected, familiar territory with beloved toys, dollies, baby names-rulez!
"I'm gonna buy a paper doll that I can call my own / A doll that other fellas cannot steal / And then those flirty flirty guys / With their flirty flirty eyes / Will have to flirt with dollies that are real" John Mayer
As the Old World [double-entendre] gets demolished around us to make way for the New—below left Cahuenga cut-off where SoCA’s Hollywood “superhighway” (no longer exists) used to link northern end of San Fernando Valley Hwy with downtown Los Angeles Civic Center. Demolished too are downtown Alhambra district Japan and Chinatown, with loss of beloved restaurants like The Far East Café. Korean food trucks replace.
As fuel prices soar, superhighways aren’t getting the traffic. Windfarms and environmentalists rulez.
A ‘stay-at-home work-from-home’ preference shown by majority of employees during our enforced two-year isolation period—using video meetings instead—has begun to rub off on businesses around the globe, with outdoor walks, recreational gardening and a work-at-home-ethic becoming the norm. Remarkably, Saudi desert’s THE LINE, recreational ‘outdoor living’—a feature of old hippie times—is likely to catch on with the new wave—nouvelle vague—of iGen/Generation-Z of youngsters finding joy, pleasure and fulfillment in simple pursuits.
This shorthand version of ‘happiness’ is the wavelength accomplished hackers beam in on. But it’s the oldies—but goodies with a kindly trusting heart—who get spammed.
Decline… and Fall—Call Center Consciousness
There are many spaces between Earth and Heaven and in between are The Doors
misquote Wm.B.Yeats by Jim Morrison & The Doors
In the ‘Fifties when Baby Boomers were ‘in’, English-speaking nations commissioned call centers in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Pakistan using [cough] “English-speaking” local labour at a fraction of cost of a similar outfit at home in the West. They died pre-internet revolution, with onset of mobile phones, but seem to have raised their head again in this latest phone-related scandal.
In the ‘Sixties and ‘Seventies, nobody gave a thought to such strange remote telephone exchanges. An antiquated (but cheap) method of communication did survive the noughties’ boom. But now, surprise surprise, not only is the hacking empire privy to your personal information, but it has resuscitated the old call-center theme—this time in Nigeria, South Africa and Midlands England.
To a veteran ex-pat Brit with octogenarian comfort zone, a Manchester accent even in text—dahling—is a whole lot less intimidating than a voice on the line in broken accent telling you to hang up already.
The little lady from Manchester—so short of breath you can hear her gasping between texts—but so inner circle—in the know about it all—she has time and patience to chat (text)with an oldie—usually a safe bet as we Booomers & beyond less likely to baulk at bottom line when the money chat comes up.
iGens & Millennials are decidedly wary creatures; have little time for subjects that need a long-winded explanation. Often the shortest answer—no—can take Boomers and vintage grannies a very long time to unearth from their verbal repertoire. So they/we say yes instead and then wonder why our friendly social media accounts no longer belong to us.
Cleverly, the technique works in the hackers’ favour: soc.med. sites like Pinterest and Facebook aren’t equipped to handle breakdown. Restoring isn’t an option, either—your site no longer belongs to you. One has to start all over at the beginning; ask to join Insta, send a new photo—the newbie approach.
Meantime—every day since—my poor iPhone jumps and splutters, beeps and cajoles me from mine- no-longer Insta account telling me fifty-two messages from the hacker to all of my followers. Some of my followers still think it’s me. And until I have the strength to initiate a new account, I’m unable to correct that. Thankfully some (young, bright minds) figured it out & challenged the chat-monkey.
Monsieur Musk Plunges into Twitterdom
Most brilliant of all events, however, unfolding in this cyber-saga of crazies, and because I managed to (sortof) get my Twitter page up and running again, albeit with no files or explanation to friends: I asked Elon Musk to look into security risk and hacking potential of his new acquisition.
True to his image as Humanity’s Saviour, not only did the dear billionaire listen, actually read my text, give it some thought, respond! and follow up but my stats on that day hit the ceiling. Bless you M.Musk
Warning to oldies who get targeted: at first it feels friendly, ‘why not help her? I’m old, what harm can it do?’ Loads. Don’t mean losing friends. I mean losing one’s mind. Constant texting-even when I didn’t reply- sent me to cloud cuckoo-land. More below.
I believe in Musk. I believe he will actually make the change which wraps all this garbage up into a spaceball and flings it into orbit to join all the other spacejunk circling ever circling out there till it falls…
In 40% of hacking cases, the target is older, newcomer-friendly, artistic, feels socially responsible to help humanity and therefore, almost invariably will respond to the long-reaching arm of a complete stranger asking intimate personal questions with a view to “helping out”.
Generation Gap Plus Factor—More Oldie+Goodie Vibe
The older the target, the greater likelihood of receiving off-the-wall personal questions amicably. This sole fact of difference in age producing a different response on a thorny subject has been a miracle catalyst in the whole “false-coin” issue. Hackers already know who the best targets are: they’ve usually well beyond middle years. They’ve had their life. It’s okay to help another out, especially if they’re only just past the starting gate.
One pill makes you larger / And one pill makes you small / And the ones that Mother gave you / Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice when she’s ten feet tall
And if you go chasing [White] Rabbits / And you know you’re gpin’ to fall ——— Tell them a hookah-smokin’ caterpillar / Has given you the call
When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead / And the White Knight is talking backwards / And the Red Queen’s lost her head / Remember what the dormouse said:
Feed your head / Feed your head
courtesy Gracie Slick 1967 & Jefferson Airplane/Starship White Rabbit
‘Advice from a Caterpillar’ from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll illustration by Arthur Rackham d. Sept. 6th 1867-1939 (71) via his dau. Mrs B. Edwards
‘Sixties: Biggest, Most, Best, Weirdest—all the Superlatives
Sample text (below right) received by new Insta ‘followers’, with emphasis on revealing your own pet project, so that #superfriendly lady hacker from Birmingham or Wolverhampton can encourage a ‘sale’
If you were assured a sum of 50 thousand [take your pick, Euro, Yen, Roubles], how would you spend the money?
- New car
- New house
- Cruise liner vacation abroad
- Help relatives
- None of the above
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying
Woody Allen
Music holds the space as underlying influence in all 20thC generations. The earlier the group, the more likely are they to be controlled by addiction of choice. Twenties and Thirties: booze, including illegal venues. Forties: war-restricted, but booze and cigarettes. Fifties & early ‘Sixties: heroin, cocaine, opium. Late ‘Sixties: everything including hard drugs, heroin, cocaine, synthetic and natural coca, ayahuasca, methamphetamine, opiate morphine, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) & recreational ganja.
Closing the StarGate: Full Harvest Moon ends Twin Flame Month
So what do the ‘Sixties and 21stC 2022 Full Harvest Moon post-8/8-Lionsgate Twin-Flame month have in common?
For several generations of moviegoers/big screen watchers, film production invariably features as a growing-up medium. Less so is the attitude of Millennials, 16-year old Gen-Zs and 20-year old iGens to anything that smacks of Media, television news, man-made hype. They are, as a rule, only interested in one person aka self.
This generational trait surfaces in art, film, media presence, social interaction, text and creative identity.
Google the first of the bigtime internet-friendly outfits has warned Google Chrome users of the security risk posed by “friendly” hackers.
Twitter, as we’ve seen above, is responding to the threat with appropriate action.
Writing All the Way to the End
For us (Insecure) Creative types, writing fills the gap between empty memory Muse-infused hippie cabin in Redwood country and 21st Century internet wobble from a system of bots who will control our cyber-future.
Stargates are familiar. We’ve all been here before. As all the best ‘Fifties & ‘Sixties beat generation know, Reggae and Boyband Dance Moves are just playful repeats of an age-old message. This one’s REALLY the last time round, this time. Maya gate-keepers confirm.
p.s. Rainstorms over Pacific and gates of Balmoral; yet HM managed to hold an audience with new Tory PM Liz Truss to form a goverment, before she died Weds/early Thurs—like her daddy Geo.VI— in her sleep. Royal Family members William, Charlotte & George had flown north from Norfolk to Ballater and Balmoral on Monday, to be by her side as she rested on advice of doctors. She asked Tory appointee Liz Truss in her official capacity as Monarch to form a government Tuesday. Died peacefully in early hours of Wednesday a.m.
Ticking all the boxes, Your Majesty. Stay cool, Ma’am. We love you.
Like Her Majesty, tapping her riding crop with an impatient dig at the Almighty B4 the Pearly Gates: Open the Door brother: Immortality here we come.
Or words to that effect. Writers write. Bloggers blog. Gardeners plant gardens and the rest is in the hands of Fate. Go ask Alice. She knowz. ©2022 Marian C. Youngblood
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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
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
New ‘Roaring Twenties’ Generations Breathe Life into Past from a Futurist Perspective
NEW ‘ROARING TWENTIES’ GENERATIONS Breathe Life into Past from a Futurist Perspective—Create Multi-linguistic Multiculture
FIRST (WRITING) WEDNESDAY OF NEW YEAR NEW DECADE-EMERGENCE FROM (INSECURE) SCRIBE CAVE OPTIONAL
New Multi-linguistix Multiculture Shares Subconscious Synchronicities with Fans
Throughout our human past, future generations were traditionally the ones we ‘prepared the way for’, ‘made allowances for, (Boomers) ‘scrimped and saved for’ (pre-WWII) ‘did without so they could have… Several decades down the line, WWII is a distant memory for Oldies; an historical event for Millennials, iGens, GenZs. Yet, there’s full complement of #NewTweenties totally unaware of its political influence in Vintage-gen lives.
Internationally, from a social-media-altered perspective—fueled by two years’ isolation, health concerns and personal angst—the internet has developed/become a huge market for media, news, entertainment and (crucially) under-age teens’ ‘stuff’—ENHYPEN’s seven-crew member dance moves troupe, above, an ‘influencer’ group that skyrocketed to stardom over last twenty months.
Be Prepared
Be prepared!
One of many new groups surfacing through a (suppressed) creative interlude during world isolation, Korean-born Enhypen speak Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and English. Their age range is from 16-20.
If you’re a Baby Boomer, you’ll recall the Beatles started playing in Liverpool as teenagers. (Sir) Ringo Starr is Richard Starkey, and Macca is short for Paul McCartney—technically pre-Boom (b.1940) oldies. Both still perform.
If you’re a Baby Boomer, you’ll recall the Beatles started in a local Liverpool skiffle group as teenagers, 1963. Boomer British nicknames were all the rage then: Sir Ringo Starr (rt.) is Richard Starkey; performing with Macca (l.) Paul McCartney in 2019
Tweenties Stage a Visual Revolution in 2022
With medical resources and technology being shared globally in the current situation, culture and language barriers seem to melt: Native American knowledge revealed, Asian multilanguage interchange commonplace. Differences in generations, too, have a chance to cross (former) boundaries.
In this peripatetic iPhone world, communication by visuals rather than text becomes the norm—sacred realm of Social Media kings/queens familiar to iGens, Tweens and some six-year olds.
While Boomers (and even pre-Boomer Vintage pros) may deign to tweet occasionally (biz, professional, sports, less personal, more oldie), hardcore iGens have Twitter accounts. They also dabble in TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram and possibly also have a YouTube account to show their wares, e.g. artwork, meme graphics, cartoon and classic video art, movies, travel selfies and, most recently, drone footage from the world’s classic locations, never-before seen elevations of ancient strongholds from an angel’s view.
“When the Condor of the South flies together with the Eagle of the North, the spirit of Mother Earth—Pacha Mama—will awaken.
Then She will wake millions of her children.
This will be the Resurrection of the Dead.”
Quechua Inca Prophecy
Baby Condor reintroduction Klamath, CA
Prehistoric Landscape Remembered in Folklore Tradition
Newbie selfies are an attempt by tweens to join a venerable bunch of (#Vintage) bloggers like me—tapping out keys since 2009—described in psychiatric terms as ‘essential journaling accessories’ in maintaining mental health, by Columbia University neuropsychologist Sanam Hafeez. Also adequate sleep and ‘happy-feel’ activities, particularly outdoors, promote serotonin which produces calm within.
Focus has turned on Mother Nature. Renewed commitment is high priority in Cairngorms to ‘save the Earth’, rewilding and restoring former natural pine, hazel and birch forest lost over centuries of careless husbandry. Scotland in particular has lost 90% of its former ‘wild’ Caledonian Forest—plus rainforest— c.f. Pacific redwood old growth stands sprouting 1000-year-old pine needles; rowans as old as Perth’s Fortingall yew; casualty of the Clearances: guilt added to landowner anxiety=restore, replant, rewild.
Some ancestral memory still exists from that distant time when Scotland’s Highlands, Islands and (even) Lowlands were covered in thick ancient pines (Pinus sylvatica) supporting rich arboreal/fungal understorey. Even before the Herschip o’ Buchan, 1308 burn by Bruce, when people remembered trees burning for 30 years, some isolated villages remain where ancient tree spirits are celebrated and given gifts, respect—offerings in pagan tradition.
Glen Lyon, the longest completely enclosed mountain loch in Perthshire, source of the River Tay, is held sacred by local (prefer anonymity) guardians of the Cailleach(Old Woman) and Bodach(Old Man) stone altars, especially through winter until released to grow wild again on February 2nd, ancient Candlemas.
The Old Woman—Cailleach—original creator deity of Caledonia—Roman North Britain—was celebrated in the Western and Northern Isles (now treeless and devoid of any growing medium but sheep, grouse and heather moor) as an entity disguised as a raincloud (prehistoric rainforest—are rewilders ready for extra rainfall that goes with it?) who flew in anger, dropping lightning bolts into forest canopy, starting forest fires. Shades of Pacific NW forest fires where trees burn for square miles in summer, impervious to H20.
Difficult to imagine the Old Woman gathering her skirts to set the Cairngorms alight—only heather. But time will tell.
Rewilding aka Allowing Nature to Do What She Does Best: Growth
Despite political shenanigans surrounding land ownership, traditional (post Highland Clearances) moor management (burning heather, shooting grouse), some landowners allow access to this treeless land in an attempt to encourage interest in new tree-grow projects. Scotland’s Right-to-Roam Act complicates matters in giving an impression that hiking is legal everywhere—more signs get erected in an attempt to clarify who is allowed where.
Meanwhile back in Rainforest Alley aka Underground Word & Verbage Cavern camouflaged as Writing Cave Subterranean Style, we (insecure) writers have a Plan. Plant More Trees; write more stories; keep the Door (to the Future) Open. You never know who may walk right in.
Angels, Dragons, Fire & Rain, ancient ways to pick up our (writing)skirts and fly. Happy New Year 2022. ©2022 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
Sparrow in a Leopard’s World—SpaceHab Man who Lived many [Earth]Lives
SPARROW IN A LEOPARD’S WORLD—Bob Citron was a Giant under the Sheepskin Rug
No Wolf-in-Sheep’s Clothing, He Changed Space Travel Forever
Leopard from triclinium floor, preserved after Vesuvius eruption A.D.79
Buckminster Fuller said: I live on Earth at present and I don’t know what I am. I do know that I am not a category, I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb. An evolutionary process—an integral function of the Universe.
Carl Sagan: The Universe is within us. We are capable of so much more than we allow.
Bride put her finger in the River
On the Feast Day of Bride
And away went the hatching Mother of the Cold. — Carmina Gadelica
February 2nd—sacred to pre-Celtic goddess Bride—Candlemas, Americans’ Groundhog Day celebrates Return-of-the-Light as Winter loses her grip. A cross-quarter day six weeks after Solstice, six weeks before Spring Equinox, the Spirit of Earth growth begins. In Scotland they hear first wrens building nests. Groundhog goes back to sleep for six weeks if the sun shines.
The Candlemas season—five days from end January thru first week of February—holds significance not just for our pagan brothers & sisters, but for the Space world—a date when fourteen astronauts, space engineers, orbiting teachers and NASA veterans died.
It is also the time when SpaceHab designer and astro traveler Robert A. Citron, rt. below, took his own rocket ship to the stars.
Man in SpaceHab suit, dinner jacket or archaeological welly boots, Citron sponsored Gerald Hawkins & Aubrey Burl, Argyll EEI expedition, 1974.
After a lifetime of adventure travel on Earth and vicariously in Space, Bob died at home in Bellevue, WA the same year Space Shuttle Endeavour, below left, made its final iconic parade through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. He must have known. Bob had “an intense desire for opening the Space Frontier to humans”, according to former senior advisor to NASA for Commercial Space, Charles Miller. He is survived by his third wife—an author—& children/grandchildren
Space Agencies hold annually January 31st as a multiple Day of Remembrance for the many fatal orbit/re-entry disasters in their Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. Shuttle Endeavour flew over Golden Gate bridge, San Francisco on its way to a home town parade LAX-to-Edwards Air Base 2017
Hawkins, rt. and Burl l. assess Kilmartin Glen stone alignment Argyll, EEI expedition 1974, photo GSHull
With Virgin Galactic‘s planning a launch date in two weeks’ time—February 13th 2021—for its next spaceflight, all eyes are on the skies—well, in places like Edwards’ Airforce Base, Kennedy Space Center, Smithsonian and the International Space Station, that is.
Apollo’s command module—susceptible to the flash fire that swept through Apollo-1 in January 1967—is decades later seen by the Space Agency as a ‘rare opportunity to rebuild with inspired help.’ NASA recalls the Apollo-1 incident every January in an annual Day of Remembrance. It also honors Space Shuttle Challenger, (1986) and Columbia (2003) crews, whose death date was also January. 31st.
Man’s First Footprints on the Moon—1969
On the 50th anniversary of the (1967) deaths of the first Apollo mission crew in January 2017, NASA unveiled a new exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center showing the hatches of the damaged command module’s SpaceHab compartment. NASA continues to hold a Day of Remembrance every January to mark the tragic event.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin sets up solar wind sail experiment on lunar surface July 1969, photo Neil Armstrong, whose first moondust footprints are visible, right.
2017, on fiftieth anniversary of death of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, NASA honored them. Day of Remembrance now held annually on last day of January.
Space Shuttle Endeavour’s 2017 aerial flypast Griffith Observatory, as NASA’s baby comes home to roost, following a ceremonial honor parade through streets of downtown L.A.
The Apollo program changed forever January 27, 1967, when a flash fire swept through the Apollo-1 command module during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Despite ground crew’s best efforts, the three men inside—breathing pure enriched oxygen—died. It would take more than 18 months of delay and extensive redesign before NASA sent more men into space. NASA held a special ceremony honoring Apollo-1 astronauts on the 50th anniversary of their deaths in January 2017, which included unveiling a new exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center showing the hatches of the damaged command module. NASA continues to hold a Day of Remembrance every January, to mark the event.
The 2017 exhibit honoring Apollo-1 crew at the Kennedy Space Center displayed the spacecraft’s damaged hatches—release doors on outside of SpaceHab interior human compartment . These release hatches were only discovered on the bottom of ocean floor—along with still-sealed SpaceHab capsule—pictured below left—in 1999.
Historical Picture puts Astronauts’ Life in Perspective
Apollo-1 crew commander, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, was an Air Force veteran of the Korean War. He was chosen among NASA’s first group of seven astronauts, the Mercury Seven. Grissom was America’s second person in space in 1961. On that mission, Mercury’s Liberty Bell 7, the hatch door blew for unknown reasons upon splashdown. Grissom ended up in the water and was rescued by a helicopter (which at first tried, in vain, to pick up the spacecraft; the spacecraft was later pulled from the ocean floor in 1999).
Some in the Astronaut Office were skeptical that Grissom’s reputation wouldn’t recover (many believed Grissom blew the hatch; he swore he didn’t). However, Grissom successfully commanded the first Gemini flight, Gemini-3, and was selected to do the same for Apollo.
Changes made to the design of Apollo spacecraft greatly improved crew safety. The crew’s flammable oxygen cabin environment used for ground tests was replaced by a safer nitrogen-oxygen mix. Flammable items were removed. Rapport developed between astronauts and contractors [SPACEHAB], pictured below left. Design changes used in the next mission series were geared to individual comfort and mobility. Most important, the door hatch was completely reworked so it would open in seconds, when the crew needed to get out in a hurry.
Spacehab crew quarters in Earth orbit 
Space Shuttle launch aboard Saturn V rocket: early missions fraught with anxiety over temperature & design changes
SpaceHab, Diamond Ring, Peruvian Desert Art
Historically, none of this would have been possible, were it not for the ‘single-minded star-struck passion’ of inventor Bob Citron, whose first claim to astro fame was as a young student of aeronautical engineering at U.Inglewood: director of the Pacific Rocket Society’s ‘satellite tracking station’, he succeeded in tracking Sputnik-1 only 48 hours after the Russians’ surprise launch in 1957—the first American group to do so.
Citron worked for the Smithsonian Institution in Cambridge, Mass. for 17 years, establishing satellite tracking stations around the world, and creating and managing scientific field research projects. While at the Smithsonian he built and managed astrophysical research observatories in the USA, Spain, Norway, Ethiopia, South Africa, and India (1959–1968) and founded the Smithsonian Institution Center for Short-lived Phenomena (CSLP) in 1968. Purpose of the Smithsonian Satellite Tracking Program was to track satellites to determine precision orbits, in order to understand Earth’s atmosphere and to define the geodesy of planet Earth. Citron created and managed the Smithsonian Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP) program for NASA during the Apollo Program (1968–1972) and established the NASA/Smithsonian Skylab Earth Observing Program (1973–1974, disintegrated over Pacific 1979) during the post-Apollo period.
After launching Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Short-Lived Phenomena (CSLP) in Cambridge, Mass, 1968, and Educational Expeditions International, EEI in 1969, he concentrated on space travel—inside his space module. He created SPACEHAB—designed as result of his involvement with CSLP, adding enormous impetus to NASA’s Apollo program and Skylab (earth observatory). After his death the company changed hands, although Citron’s self-operating habitable system is still in use.
By 1983 his SpaceHab pressurized module designed to transport human passengers in the Space Shuttle’s cargo bay, was fully operational. Although NASA was cautious about its carrying humans in the module, it continues to serve the Agency a decade after his death. It carried cargo for scientific experiments, flying over 20 shuttle missions between 1993 and 2011.
Throughout his life he was an adventurer, a discoverer, an expedition-investigator. It is ironic that on the day he died January 31st [quietly at home with his third wife and family in the Pacific Northwest] was the anniversary of so many Space-related events—he must have had a reverse-lens telescope trained (from his cloud) on downtown Los Angeles as Space Shuttle Endeavour flew in on the back of a Boeing 747—or maybe he’ll be watching the skies when Virgin takes off in a couple of days.
Educational Expeditions International—EEI funded Smithsonian’s African total solar eclipse research in Mauritania, May 1973, where first-time hands-on telescopes captured ‘Diamond Ring’, the moment when solar orb reappears after totality.
Educational Expeditions International EEI-funded
One great earthly success in ‘adventure-expedition-learning’ was founding non-profit EEI—Educational Expeditions International—later Earthwatch—in Belmont, Mass., 1969. Ideas man and chairman of the board, he left the running of this groundbreaking group of scientists/students/research wannabes and volunteers to fellow business genius, managing director Brian Rosborough, a Jacksonville, Fla. aristocrat and fellow life-long student.
Brian oiled the scientific works, fueled expeditions and staffed international research projects with knowledgeable guides, on environmental or historical projects which otherwise would never have fledged. His great successes were the Mauritania total solar eclipse, 1973, above left, Tony Morrison’s Nazca Lines and Gerald Hawkins’s Megalithic Britain series of EEI expeditions in 1973-74, pictured top left.
Gerald S.Hawkins had previously been using the Smithsonian Institution’s building-size computer, to calculate and measure megalithic solar and lunar alignments at Stonehenge—his work innovative and now fully accepted. His work with EEI in Kilmartin and Mull of Kintyre was revolutionary and has wide acceptance. Hawkins went on to study crop circles until his death in May 2003.
Aftermath & Fast-forward
A longtime fan of all of the above, I am humbled by how History has dealt with of a group of men who were geniuses in their own way, sharing their passion with us, wannabe learners. And, to passionate teachers and influencers of children in our modern times—end January/festive Candlemas notwithstanding—I thank you. ©2021 Marian C. Youngblood
Bread-and-Circuses Loosen the Reins, Have Mass Appeal
Bread and Circuses to Appease/Subdue the Masses
Monthly First Wednesday Call from IWSG Isolation Ward
Tiers of spectators cheer death by chariot or lion, gladiator or slave, Circus Maximus precursor to Colisseum entertained & controlled Roman crowds
Social Distancing in the Nevada Desert for Burning Man
Given vast acreage used for annual Burning Man—young America’s pinnacle location for letting off steam—the 2020 festival—sadly cancelled—should have been a roaring success. Combination of artistic frustration, human desire for self-expression, and a need to celebrate when the worst looks over—all fulfill our ancient cultural seasonal need for celebration.
Lammas harvest-weave in final July crop circle Vorderfischen nr Munich Bavaria S Germany
Grateful for a good season, all early cultures from Mediterranean through high Kashmir to the Orient and in both North and South America and the Arctic, would have some kind of harvest time ceremony, giving gifts back to the Earth in gratitude for their survival another year. Corn dollies are reminiscent of European carefully-woven sacred dolls, placed on the feast table at Lammas/Lughnasadh. A corn dolly was usually woven in straw from the first cut of the sickle of this year’s crop (northern territories).
The ALOHA Factor
In the Hawai’ian Island chain (mid-Pacific 21ºN-18ºN) seasonal and festive celebrations traditionally include weaving necklaces of fragrant blossoms—leis—with headbands and hat gear woven from coconut palm fronds.
Original Beaux Arts 1925 Palace Theatre in Hilo, HI seats clients in orchestra stalls, dress circle & the ‘gods’
Is a Circus Maximus Drive-In an iMax?
Do you remember when everyone WAS #retro and we featured in those lovely outdoorsie kissing-by-the-stars Drive-In Movie Theaters? They call them ‘retro’ because most moviegoers today—iGens—have no idea what the ‘fifties or mid-20th Century style entailed. We vintage era connoisseurs would love to show them. Visions of cozy little backyard single-lane access loud speakers handed thru open car window—versus its successor, e.g. the lone multi-access, viewers boxed up in tiers too close to an iMax screen to focus on the actors. I recall in a moment of distraction, being coaxed one evening into one of those steel derrick desert billboard son et lumière machines, while on a visit to the Grand Canyon, Arizona. Sun had set, so it seemed the thing to do.
Post-trauma 21st Century Style
American moviegoers are not far behind! Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Enterprises announced midsummer their opening various drive-ins across the U.S. Running every weekend until August, the Tribeca Drive-In summer series will screen over thirty classic and independent films. Participating venues include AT&T Stadium Arlington, TX; Pasadena’s Rose Bowl Stadium; others in Nassau, NY; Orchard Beach in the Bronx and the Bel Air Diner in Queens. County fairgrounds in various states have taken up the idea. As has the out-of-work football stadium or two.
There are Auto Pop-Ups from Virginia and Maryland to New England and the Midwest. But Auburn, NY’s FingerLakes Drive-In claims to be the Empire State’s oldest, operating non-stop since 1947. Naturally it is featuring classics like “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.
Heart throb Will Smith Men-in-Black icon, 1997
Hard Rock Movie Theater has room for more than 200 cars to take in classic films. Two theaters available from June to moviegoers are a socially-distanced open-air theater and a drive-up theater. Hard Rock Stadium will show a diverse array of movies, such as “Knives Out” and “Men in Black.” Masks must be worn in common areas, and all spots are assigned beforehand. HRMT
Retro among Retro experts is one of the oldest on the National Register of Historic Places—NRHP. With its supreme retro look, Missouri’s Route 66 Drive-In is a historic site located on the former Mother Road, U.S. Route 66 in Jasper County, Missouri.
Letting Our Creative Insecure Writer Tap into the Infinite Flow
Much kudos to Roman ingenuity for providing mass entertainment—and free food—when abundance came their way, provided, it was believed, by their gods. Celtic and other northern people believed in similar deities, their harvest festival, Lammas, most potent of the year, a time when food was plentiful.
Summer 2020 Jupiter Saturn conjunction completes another 20-year cycle, Venus dances with Earth & Mars
All early societies shared the belief that what you gave in gratitude would be returned to you one thousandfold.
Nemo knowz…
Now is a good time. Full harvest moon lights the way. Thank you Angels—and my co-Space Capt. Alex—for always guiding the ship through stormy seas to calm waters.
Nemo me impune lacessit.*
*Warrior cry of Scots men & women—Scots translation: Wha’ daur meddle wi’ me? English translation: ask an early American. No, nothing to do with cartoon fish.
©2020 Marian Youngblood
Mad Dogs & Englishmen—in Solstice 2020 Heat, Invoke Water, Rainbows
MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN…SOLSTICE 2020 HEAT, INVOKE WATER, RAINBOWS and IRIS
First Wednesday Monthly Writing Corner for Writers Unlimited, IWSGs, NaNoWriMoers, Indies et al
They say astro signs show portents of changes before they occur. We humans are often slow to comprehend.
Iris, ancient Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian goddess of the Eye & the Rainbow, daughter of the West Wind (Zephyr), she joined ocean and sky, sending healing messages to earth’s creatures
With a significant lunar eclipse coming to occult the Full Rose Moon this Friday, June 5th, and despite challenging earth changes flourishing through rapid temperature rise worldwide, we writerly brigade feel it necessary to inject a positive attitude—and some long-forgotten traditions—into the pastry mix before we all stir the recipe into oblivion.
Venus, ancient love symbol, lately gloriously brightest in our evening skies, is now retrograde, tonight drowning in the Sun, and about to enter the Underworld.
She will emerge later this month as a ‘morning star’. This is a time of wild emotions, but inner beauty can be expressed, too. Venus, Aphrodite, Ishtar, Isis were all facets of goddess of love capable of helping the human race.
MesoAmerican study of Venus cycles provided help to ancient races transfixed by Venus’s precision in the sky. Modern man could use such help.
We need it. There’s currently no help from the Crop Circle brigade unfortunately—As of June 1st, there had been total ONE Crop Circle in the so-called 2020 Season—and that in Belgium!
So—to Ancient Greece—and pre-Roman, hereditary Arabic star clusters and constellations for inspiration and sky-watching between sporadic bouts of earthbound television [not advised]. There we find hidden in myth, but shining in light elusive Iris who gives us the word iridescent—the word itself brings sparkle.
Brief background on this tiny reclusive spirit:
The goddess Iris, using her rainbow bridge, linked the sea and the sky, and she was allowed to enter the underworld and dive in the depths of the sea. The oldest Greek tradition imagined her as the goddess who supplied the clouds with water she scooped from the seas using a golden amphora or storage vessel aka pitcher, and thus stimulated the rains that brought growth and fertility to the earth. This originated from observing actual rainbows, whose one end can hide deep beyond the horizon, often in the sea or a body of wate, with its other end reaching for the heavens. She is responsible for healthy summer fertility and growth.
In Roman tradition (often similar to Greek), god Mercury is Messenger to the Gods. Not so in earliest tradition in ancient Greece and Egypt:
Iris alone was Messenger to the Greek gods and goddesses at first. Child of the West Wind—father Zephyr— and her mother Electra, a cloud nymph as well as one of the seven Pleiades, she could bring and deliver messages to all corners of Ocean and Sky. The Pleiades themselves were associated with water in all forms—rain, frost, ice, snow, lakes, rivers, and oceans.
Iris was the rainbow bridge.
Maiden Goddess with Iridescent Golden Wings
In some texts she is depicted wearing a coat of many colors. With this coat she actually creates the rainbows she rides to get from place to place. Iris’s wings were said to be so beautiful that she could even light up a dark cavern, a trait observable from all her stories.
Her cult held her as goddess supreme of communication, messages—exterior and intuitive—and her appearance was believed to mark major cultural change and new endeavors.
Though Iris was principally associated with communication and messages, she was also believed to aid in the fulfillment of humans’ prayers, either by fulfilling them herself or by bringing them to the attention of other higher deities.
In some texts she is depicted wearing a coat of many colors. With this coat she actually creates the rainbows she rides to get from place to place. Iris’s wings were said to be so beautiful that she could even light up a dark cavern, a trait observable from in the story of her visit to Somnus in order to relay a message to Alcyone.[9]
Though Iris was principally associated with communication and messages, she was also believed to aid in the fulfillment of humans’ prayers, either by fulfilling them herself or by bringing them to the attention of other deities.
Because no place in Creation was forbidden to her, she was delegated to carry water which she dived to collect from the River Styx [mythological river division between living and dead] and fly with it to Mount Olympus for the Gods to use to swear their oaths by.
Pleiades ocean sky nymphs reflect earth’s fairies/elves in many traditions
In Aboriginal & European mythology the Pleiades are often referred to as ocean or sea nymphs; as water girls and ice maidens. Their relationship with water is multi-layered and multi-faceted and we see numerous connections of the Pleiades with the weather, agriculture, navigation and sailing
Munya Andrews
In earliest Hellenist tradition, Iris monopolized the function of Messenger to the Gods. In early records, like Homer’s Trojan War epic the Iliad, she is the only one allowed to relay messages from Zeus–and, once, Hera–to other gods or mortals, with Hermes being given the much smaller rôle of guide and guardian.
Sit Arthur Rackham, 1867-1939, pictured young Iris as the embodiment of a mystical rainbow bridge between heaven and earth
Like the part of the eye named after her, she was the Kore, Virgin, or Female Soul, a form of the Great Shakti who was both the organ of sight and the visible world that it saw. Her spectrum spanned all possible colors
Barbara G.Walker
It is only in later proto-Roman Greece that Hermes becomes the ‘official’ messenger to the Gods, aka Roman Mercury. By then Zeus relied on Hermes; but Hera continued to rely on Iris because she could manifest, transmit her message and disappear instantly.
No known sanctuary exists where Iris’s cult was held. However, in the lion-ramparted island of Delos, however, annual feasts were prepared in June with offerings of wheat cake, honey and fig delicacies for the youthful idol.
Rainbow appearance and disappearance is still viewed in some cultures as a ‘magical sign’. And many traditions view a double rainbow as double good fortune.
Greek Constellation Cepheus Shelters Iris
Iris appears from Mediterranean skies as far as the Equator as a Nebula within Cepheus, itself a member of the Perseid group. Cepheus is named for mythical King Cepheus of Aethiopia, husband of Cassiopeia and father of Andromeda, all represented by neighboring constellations. Like other constellations in the Perseus family, Cepheus was catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century.
Iris used rainbows to travel phenomenal distances at the ‘speed of the winds’
According to Space.com, Cepheus is the 27th largest constellation in the night sky, occupying an area of 588 square degrees. It is located in the fourth quadrant of the northern hemisphere (NQ4) and can be seen at latitudes between +90° and -10°. Neighboring constellations are Camelopardalis, Cassiopeia, Cygnus, Draco, Lacerta, and Ursa Minor.
Cepheus belongs to the Perseus family of constellations, along with Andromeda, Auriga, Cassiopeia, Cetus, Lacerta, Pegasus, Perseus, and Triangulum. Sky Map here.
Almost all this group can be seen close-to-overhead in Northern night sky around summer solstice—even with the full moon.
[Insecure] Writerly Benefits of Lockdown—Keep On Writing
While looking skyward in the next few weeks may just take our (introvert writing) minds off forced re-entry into normal world affairs, I am the first to encourage the habits gleaned from social isolation to get to the old computah—or manifest a brand new one—and write it all out before anyone outside our charmed inner sanctum gets in and tells us it’s all a dream.
No, it’s not a fantasy. Life, writing and speaking daily to one’s Muse are part of the Dream we signed up for, didn’t we? And a little background levity alongside learning never went amiss. Check back here when summer’s over and we’ll see how we all fared. And keep those fans blowing. ‘Cos it’s hot out there.
©2020 Marian Youngblood
Where Were You…? Mystical Journey Generations Will Look Back Upon
WHERE WERE YOU IN LOCKDOWN…? OUR MYSTICAL JOURNEY—GENERATIONS WILL LOOK BACK & REMEMBER Monthly Writerly Corner for Introverts Coping in Extremes of Isolation and Self-Exploration
Members of Corvidae family overseeing this human crisis—they’re taking the long-sighted view
We all have our doubts, failings, even fears—for family and others—yet we have an inate ability to control that fear, and help ourselves stand up to what makes us feel less than we are. In moments of solitude we are able to breathe in a healing calm. In times of stress we can call on that calm to help us accept and flow with change.
Because Change there Will Be
Is this the Doorway to the New Earth? they ask.
Boomers remember where they were on the night John F. Kennedy got shot 11/22/63. Hippies’ Counterculture memory-mark is Woodstock, NY, August 1969 (or Altamont, CA, December 1969, depending on your coastal affiliation). Brits of all ages remember where they were the night Diana died 08/31/97. Millennials like to think they survived Apocalypse already—when the Calendar of the Maya ended on 12/12/2012. Even iGens—they are a fatalistic lot—believe they are the Chosen Ones to lead us through what comes next.
All of them are trying to persuade their still-living great-grandparents not to remember World Wars I, II and/or III. They forget that those of the ‘twenties generation—last century’s version, not the 2020s—are the ones who know what community is all about. And 2020 lockdown has strengthened bonds in small western bloc communities which haven’t experienced such close camaraderie since 1945.
Mother Earth has responded to human isolation from her wild places, by taking over human spaces and making them more wild.
Reason We Have to Be Here Now on this Mystical Journey
Bestselling author and speaker on human consciousness and transformation, Caroline Myss says we have help—guides from our ancestral archetypes, who hold our hand through traumatic change.
Getting through transformation—with help, courtesy Sistine ceiling by Michelangelo, 1475-1564
This experience we are sharing has all the elements of that larger context of mystical transformation. 1. the nature of a shared journey is we never get to decide when it will start, how it will start, or what will be asked of us. We don’t get to make that decision—it simply ignites. 2. we never get to choose the components—they just arise out of the setting of our lives. 3. transformation accompanies some kind of trauma. There is something that has to be changed
—Caroline Myss, psychic intermediary
Through transformation, we are as beautiful as we allow ourselves to be—Venus emerges from ocean shell ©Uffizi Galleries, Florence, Botticelli 1477
We have now to go into deep reflection and ask:
What is it within myself that I need to transform?
What is the person I need to be as I move forward for the rest of my life?
Instead of wanting to be first, can I embrace being second?
Instead of being impatient, can I be a better listener?
Is there a part of me that, instead of being a hoarder, could I be more generous?
Caroline asks: ‘What is it in you that needs transformation? Because there’s something in all of us that needs transformation. Otherwise we wouldn’t need to be here now.’
Venus, Goddess of Beauty, and Transformation Go Hand-in-Hand
In the classical tale, based on Ovid’s mythological masterpiece Metamorphoses, A.D.8, which recounted Roman history from year dot—aka birth of the Universe—until Julius Caesar’s death, 44B.C., Venus/Aphrodite sprang naked from the ocean, symbolic of change—metamorphosis—perennially beautiful and supported by the winds. She represents spring, new life, fertility and growth—her meadow is sprinkled with violets, a symbol of modesty but often used in medieval love potions. Her purity and chastity are seen as her maintaining a centre of calm through tempestuous times.
Ovid’s masterpiece on transformation inspired Florentine artists Botticelli & Michelangelo, into changing 16thC Roman metaphysical thought
In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas / corpora: “I intend to speak of forms changed into new entities‘
Publius Ovidius Naso [Ovid], Metamorphoses
Many aspects of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus are in motion—leaves of orange trees in background, ringlets of her hair blown by the Zephyrs, roses and violets floating around her, waves gently breaking, with cloaks and drapery of her supporters blown and lifted by the breeze.
The winds blowing Venus towards the shore are Zephyr and Aura—and the handmaid who receives her is one of the Three Graces, or Hours. Knowing the Ancients’ love of calendar synchronicity, it is tempting to think that tomorrow’s Full Flower Scorpio SuperMoon signaling crop planting and waxing growth, was predicted to occur during Beltane week, when Venus stands 90º at maximum brightness—with added perk—Aquarid meteor showers.
Transformation, Transfiguration and Winds of Change
Both Botticelli and Michelangelo were indebted to Ovid—as were Shakespeare and many authors-artists of the period, for speaking out about human transformation.
Remarkably, Ovid’s pre-Christian vision took its characters through psychic and corporeal change which Botticelli and Michelangelo translated into images commissioned by powerful [Christian] Medici overlords, giving glory to the Roman—and Orthodox—Church, rather than the Titans of Greek mythology.
In our new world of change, we are all beginners. But we’re free to make our own choice: pagan, Christian, Born Again, multi-platform, Judaeo-Muslim, Klingon or Supermortal. Enlightenment was never easy. But we do have help with our mental anguish and through physical stress. In our writing family on social media, we (Insecure) writers have only to reach out virtually, and answers and support are there for us.
Amid worldwide trauma, let’s not forget scenes of buffalo roaming the streets of Buffalo, NY; of storks nesting in Sussex for first time in 200 years; of flamingos dancing in Central Park, goats frolicking in Cardiff. The Ancestors: our Archetype Angels are psychically holding our hands, willing us to survive and succeed.They know we have a future and we will have learned—a little—about how to CHANGE and care more deeply for our planetary home.
©2020 Marian Youngblood
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From n3kl.orgSolar X-rays:
Geomagnetic Field:
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