Fireworks in U.S.,Tropical Cyclones, as Brits swim into their Summer Hols thru Torrential Rain

FIREWORKS in U.S., TROPICAL CYCLONES, as BRITS SWIM into THEIR SUMMER HOLS thru TORRENTIAL RAIN

MIDSUMMER MADNESS on ALL CONTINENTS JUST 2 MAKE US CAVERN-DWELLING WRITERS COME UP for AIR & CHECK if REAL WORLD FIRST WEDNESDAY still EXISTS

Yellowstone Followers Disappointed by Kevin Costner Departure

July 4th weekend usually brings must-see shows to U.S. Television audiences; not least Peacock TV’s YELLOWSTONE 1883 prequel series with leading man Kevin Kostner enrapturing his fans. But following the lead star’s announcement last week that July 5th will be his last season-he won’t return November [13,20,27th]-viewers will be dying to get in4 his final performance—streaming all weekend+week 7/5-8.

In the REAL WORLD, outside the Dutton Ranch Paramount TV empire, Yellowstone National Monument is a fascinating Park to visit.

The hotsprings attract animals, insects, birds & other creatures into a unique geological setting.

Its multifaceted chert/gneiss-quartz-feldspar & biotite (black mica) mix reveals ancient creatures embedded within metals like gold & silver in stone polished to a high gloss by hot water over multiple centuries.

History Repeats Itself in Scotland’s Yellowstone Ancient Hotspring

A whole continent & another ocean farther East, within Scotland’s ancient Pictish kingdoms [Fib=Fife; Forgue; Fortriu=Strathearn & Moray=Lat.Moravia] & Regalities of Fidach & Cé [Aberdeenshire, with its famed mountains Bin na Cé/Bennachie and Tap o’Noth, [above pix top l.], lies the hidden village of Rhynie—original home to Pictish Class I carved stone ‘Rhynie Man’ [above bottom l.], presently housed in Aberdeen, but residents are working to have him returned to his companions in Market Square.

Rhynie has many secrets apart from its Pictish carvings, its proximity to ancient Wheedlemont RSC [recumbent stone circle, date approx 5000B.C., upslope SW] & its other claim to fame, the massive Pictish stronghold atop Tap o’Noth, second in size only to Pictish Burghead on the Moray coast 20 mi N. It lies in Dufftown heartland, home of Glenlivet, Glenfiddich & other Distilleries and Huntly, ABD 10mi E., roughly equidistant from Banffshire coast & Aberdeen. Top pic also shows famous Barflat Pictish Class I stone of Salmon & Dolphin [sometimes called Pictish ‘Beast’] on site of a thriving Pictish settlement, in part excavated recently by University of Aberdeen: finding many more treasures from the same era—A.D. 4th-9thC village, itself Rhynie’s precursor!

Barflat is currently farmed by a private owner, but he is a Rhynie fella & shares in their fellowship & supports the village in its having their “Rhynie Man” return “home”.

What the Romans wanted was Pictish gold.

They knew-as their legions stormed Pictish bastions from Normandykes in the Mearns, NE thru Aberdeen, to Fyvie & Huntly,then N wherever legions followed their military god Mithras in his bid to rout out Pictish bull symbols, that there was a secret cache at Rhynie in an ancient pre-Cambrian deposit.

Bathed by subterranean hotsprings, Rhynie chert sparkled with silver & gold, hidden by Picts from Roman eyes in a domestic camp

Rhynie on Important Royal Route S to Forteviot & Strathearn

Of 32 sacred Pictish Class-I carved bull stones which ringed the great Pictish fortalice of Burghead— [pic above bottom rt.] six have been found. They are thought to have guarded the huge fortress-largest in Scotland-until thrown into the harbour. One is kept in British Museum; another in its hometown, near sacred Doorie fire altar [pic above, lower centre], a burning tar barrel used every January for Burning the Clavie-only Northern town remaining to celebrate this fire festival, according to ancient tradition. Sacred bull was anathema to Mithras. whose beloved sacred beast was the Boar!

Second in size to Burghead, Pictish fort on Tap o’Noth with Barflat village below was an important A.D. 7th/8thC connection to Aberdeen [harbor traffic] & royal Fyvie [Nechtan Derilea/Darley] en route S to central Royal Fortriu/Forteviot=Strathearn.

Rhynie villagers had no intention of allowing Roman eyes to glimpse their deep hoard. It was guarded well. Legionary atrocities performed on the Druids’ Holy Road 1stC B.C-A.D.1stC between East Anglian Norfolk Iceni territory NE to Pictish neighbors in Druidic Ynys Mons=Anglesey were legend – after all, Queen Boudicca & her family were Celtic neighbours.

So, learning from her example, Rhynie kept their secret close to their chests.

Rhynie Pictish village covered most of Barflat & its dominions stretched inland up to Wheedlemont RSC but the villagers were wise enough to hide their most treasured secret from the invaders. Rhynie chert deposit remains today a site of Special Scientific Interest [SSI] guarded by deep layers of turf & is not open for public display.

Yellowstone-Rhynie Connection aka PreCambrian Hotspring Earth

It may be difficult to imagine hotsprings in the middle of Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, when North winds blow or winter hailstones spatter the Village Green Market Square. But the secret stash of Rhynie gold tells a different tale: In preCambrian times—before Greenland & Eurasian continent Gondwanaland separated, huge volcanic outbursts thundered through the region, [pic top rt.]

No life forms existed in the earliest aeon/eon of preCambrian Earth—called Hadean, 4,500-4000million or 4.5billion years ago. It was a time of the ‘Big Splash’ or Theia Impact when the Moon was formed as a projectile from a collision with a giant Mars-size planet 4.5billion years ago.

The second aeon of the preCambrian—following the Hadean—was the Archaean aeon 3.5-3.7billion years ago, when crustal deposits began forming after volcanic & sedimentary rocks were impacted by increased oxygen in the atmosphere, creating iron-rich layers alternating with metamorphic greenstone & volcanic deposits. [pic above bottom l. Theia impact or “Big Splash” creating the Moon.

This is the famous aeon in which Rhynie chert—and Yellowstone “Y-sedimentary” boulders belong.

Third & last of three pre-Cambrian aeons is the oxygen-rich Proterozoic when the Columbian super- continent Nuna, formed 2.1–1.8 billion years ago and broke up about 1.3–1.2 billion years ago. Oxygen levels increased as creatures in ocean below began to reproduce, feeding into the atmosphere, with resulting oxidation of iron particles to form iron-rich rocks in boulder strata.

It was a time when Earth’s first land-based lifeforms—from bacteria to insects, to plants & creatures began 2appear [above far rt pix ocean plant life feed oxygen-nitrogen-CO2 atmosphere; 1st animals]

That’s when our beloved T-Rex, [above top l.], Tyrannosaurus Rex came into his own.

And the rest is history…<3

Midsummer Heralds Music Festivals in Both Global Hemispheres

With sounds of the British classic 5-day Glastonbury Midsummer Music Festival during solstice week still ringing in our ears, we leave sacred Glastonbury Tor in the Vale of Avalon with its mythic history of Arthur & Guinevere & Knights of the Round Table to another time & to a host of cleaners [& to grateful police officers who didn’t have2 respond to a single violent episode within the 210,000 crowd]—yeah thankU Brit public for showing the world how happy can be peaceful, too!

Glastonbury five-day music festival over summer solstice weekend last month—a precursor to U.S.July 4th fireworks-was a prime example of Brit understatement—or just a bunch of happy people partying together & enjoy a week of music in a sacred setting [Vale of Avalon, Somerset].

1000-acre site[size of 500football pitches] hadn’t asingle violent episode-happy police

As we bounce forward, as is our writerly wont from deep within our subterranean Creative Cave aka H.G.Wells’ 1895 Time Machine, [lower rt], July 2023 has resounding time-travel music festivals & performances on offer from many renowned ‘Sixties musicians us Oldies remember fondly.

From Creedence Clearwater Revival to The Band [John (Cameron)Fogerty b.May 28, 1945, below middle l. comes top of the list.

Now performing solo & by invitation since the breakup of CCR 1972, he heads the July line-up at Table Mtn Resort, Friant, CA. Inducted into 1993 Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, he’s produced nine Top-10 singles & eight gold albums. He now performs solo and by invitation.

Singer/songwriter Fogerty above mid-l. play July 21, 2023 at the Table Mountain Casino, Friant, CA, nr Fresno. Think ‘Bad Moon Rising’, [photo top rt lunar eclipse from UAE/Persian Gulf May 6, 2023] ‘Proud Mary’, ‘Up on Cripple Creek’; the sounds in your head are still coming out of his mouth & his guitar ❤ !

…And a little Napa Vino to go…

Other name musicians scheduled this month include topliners & resident jazz musicians Robert Glasper with Dave Chappelle at the Napa Valley Blue Note Jazz Festival at the Silverado Resort from 10a.m. Fri July28-Sun July30 3 pm. Located within wine country, resort has de luxe accommodation, serves beer & spirits in addition to wine-tasting from on-site vineyards. Blues rendering described as extraordinary.

Rohnert Park in Sonoma hosts many music festivals all summer long from classical, thru art&craft & dance. It is therefore great to see Booker T. Jones, Chris Smither, Steve Poltz performing live there at the Green Music Center August 6th, 2023 7p.m.-10p.m. on Rohnert Park’s Mountain Stage.

In Other Muse/News…

Time & music wait for no man, woman or child, we are told; so an in-depth on Hawai’i’s “Ninth Island”— an unprecedented 370,000 Hawai’ians live in Las Vegas, contra 310,000 residents in Honolulu-will have to wait for another blog. Clark County Hawai’ians celebrated their Holo Holo Music Festival for the first time in the Downtown Las Vegas Event Center in spring & plan for an autumn concert there. Holo Holo features Hawai’ian music stars like Kapena-a native band playing traditional ukelele music & ‘slack key’ [open tuning] guitar. We’ll catch that one later this year.

Back2 the drawing board—or, rather, heads down the volcanic sinkhole into our writing cave for us scribbling-obsessives, devoted followers of our Muse; with an occasional glance upwards into that world of make-believe they call the ‘present day’.

And If they were to ask me which I prefer, I’d have to stick by my Oldie-but-goodie roots & say H.G.Wells, 1895 ‘Time Machine’ & ‘Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home’ have the best take on this Muse-related question.

LLAP Live long and prosper, as Mr Spock would say.

So next time you see something strange skim past the moon, or weird alien footprints in sand under the garden wheelbarrow, remember to thank the Universe for its continuing support—and surprises—and let’s keep on keeping on with this writing gift, cos it comes from that same blessed heart ❤ space. ©2023MarianCameronYoungblood

Atlantic Hurricane Season Echoes Pacific Cyclone in GUAM/MARIANA Is. Heralding Earth’s Hottest Summer Yet

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Surprise Benefits of Lockdown: Revealing New Insights in Old—Archaeological—Territory

LOCKDOWN’S SURPRISE BENEFITS: REVEAL NEW INSIGHTS ON OLD—ROMAN—GROUND

MARCH MUSINGS IN THE WRITERS‘ CORNER—INSECURE WRITERLY STYLE—AFTER ONE YEAR OF SOCIETAL DISLOCATION, INNER DISRUPTION & FOLLOWING THE RULES

Writing—especially when done under difficult conditions—can, like many professions—medical, physical, psychological—bring joy, new discoveries, even resolve to beat one’s own record. When our usual comfort zone in the Writer’s Cave is threatened, writers, creative artists and humans generally have the capacity to hunker down and do what it required. We have had TIME to think, to be comfortable with ourselves, sometimes to open new doors we didn’t know existed.

Suggestions from the world of archaeology have indicated that long term study provided by enforced closure and reversion ‘to the books’ and laptop have produced remarkable new insights into what we thought was a locked-up world of Scotland’s Pictish past.

Fierce Pictish ‘beasts’ guard Class II relief slab at former early Xtian site in Conon Bridge, Easter Ross Black Isle. Rescue-restoring a previously-recycled 18thC McAuley tombstone, revealed affinity with larger group of Pictish relief cross-slabs Rosemarkie, Cromarty Firth and inner Morayshire, direct line to southern enclaves of Pictish centres Forfar, Brechin, Meigle. Pink granite stone will be on display after conservation in Dingwall museum.

The new Dingwall cross-slab is a uniquely significant western extension of the prestigious Pictish symbol-bearing relief sculpture of Easter Ross, notably connected with the tall slabs of Shandwick and Rosemarkie Dr. Isabel Henderson

Double disc, Z-rod & horsemen, 7thC similar to reliefs in ‘Kingdoms’ of Fib (Fife), Fotla, Fortriu (Forteviot) & Forgue are dominated by cross-carved interlace guarded by beasts on Christian side of 6-foot Conon megalith

Not so. In Pictland, the former Scotland, that is. With time on their hands, access to drone and digital technology, it’s all change.

So say archaeological field- and National Museum-based historians and archivists who have had amazing revelations on their doorstep appearing within last 24 months. With recent lockdown private time provided to reassess and appreciate collections and individual finds, their vision of North Britain in (1st C) Roman times and following Roman withdrawal in A.D. 420 has changed.

At the close of the 1st Century, when Roman legions were at their most adventurous and conquering best, the Empire stretched from modern Russian riviera in the Caucasus to Scotland’s Ultima Thule. Marching camps furthered the Roman reach beyond what would become Hadrian’s Wall, and while Romans never quite relaxed to enjoy the warm waters of Moray Firth and Cromarty—no lush villas built after Agricola’s seminal campaign, A.D. 83 below, as they did in the South near Bath, Colchester, St. Alban’s or Birdlip Gloucestershire. No swimming pools, games or multi-servant dining in the triclinium until autumn return to Rome. Nevertheless, Roman marching camps (following the few ancient tracks north) were substantially built upon—sometimes like Inchtuthil reworked to become fully-manned forts—Raedykes in Kincardine spanned 93acres/37ha. and was capable of housing three legions, or 16,000 troops.

A marching camp of similar size at Durno in Donside seems more likely to have fueled 11,000 legionaries ‘held in reserve’ at battle of Mons Graupius—on undulating lower ramparts of Mither Tap of Bennachie—in the Garioch*, while 3000 cavalry and 8000 British auxiliary infantry (according to Tacitus) alone decimated the screaming tribes numbering at least 30,000. *pron.Gee-ree

Pictish Placenames come to the Rescue

Cairnamounth pass between the Mearns (Kincardineshire) and Deeside (Aberdeenshire) has also been suggested, but no large Pictish royal centre lies south of River Dee at Banchory. Several Pictish placenames do help, however—Pictish Pitcaple Pet-capull ‘place of royal horse’ gives weight to a location closer to Bennachie. Kintore was built adjacent to a mile-long avenue of prehistoric cairns, circles and carved stone megaliths (Druidsfield, Broomend Crichie, Kintore kirkyard) sacred-ancestral to local tribes. Kintore-Inverurie corridor is lined by Pictish Class I (5thC-7thC) incised carved stones.

• 

  At the time of building Emperor Hadrian’s wall to keep out wild pagan Caledonii (A.D.122) Roman presence in NE Scotland followed ancient trackways from conquered territories in S, over the Mounth into Donside and via Aberdeen north to Fyvie, Banff and Moray coast, in order to control gold reserves and pre-Pictish sacred centres in Black Isle (Rosemarkie) and Cawdor

At the height of Agricola’s campaign, 20 years before the end of the 1st Century, according to his son-in-law, Tacitus, Rome could do no wrong. Twenty years earlier, her legions had defeated (tortured and killed) most of the Iceni under their great queen Boudicca, ransacked all the Brigantian gold reserves and sacred shrines they could find, and were on a mission to subdue the northern tribes: Dicalydones (Caledonian tribes in two main divisions) for their rich eastern landholdings.

Caledonians Unsubjugated, Rome Withdraws
By A.D.368, just thirty years before Roman withdrawal from Britain, Ammianus Marcellinus describes tribes of the Priteni [Picts] split into two by the Mounth: northern Dicalydones and Verturiones in the south. To Roman authors, Priteni-Britannii were linguistically just another people of Prydein. By the post-Roman (early Medieval) Dark Age, Caledonians had re-possessed their northern forests, the Fortriu people their rich lands of Perth, Kinross and Fife.

Tacitus was faithful to his father-in-law in the possibly fictitious speech he put in Caledonian chieftain Calgacus’ mouth:

Solitudinem faciunt pacem appelant

They create a wilderness and call it ‘peace’

Following the rout of local tribes by such a small Roman force—not even involving key legions— army ranged from 17,000 to 30,000; although Tacitus says that 11,000 auxiliaries were engaged, along with a further four squadrons of cavalry, the number of legionaries in reserve was iapproxunately 15,000—none deployed.

Caledonian chariotry was charging about on the level plain between both armies, their wooden war chariot wheels getting stuck in mud. Imagine Harthill Castle, Back of Bennachie, Gadie Burn hinterland, leading to Insch, the Cabrach, protective forest cover.

After a brief exchange of missiles, Agricola ordered auxiliaries to launch a frontal attack on the enemy. These were based around four cohorts of Batavians and two cohorts of (paid) Tungrian swordsmen intended to terrorize the tribes who were deployed in a U-shape upslope. Caledonians were cut down and trampled on the lower slopes of the hill. Those at the top attempted to outflank them, but were themselves outflanked by Roman cavalry. Caledonians were then comprehensively routed and fled for the shelter of nearby woodland, ‘relentlessly pursued’ by well-organised Roman units.

It is said that the Roman Legions took no part in the battle, being held in reserve throughout. According to Tacitus, 10,000 Caledonian lives were lost at a cost of only 360 auxiliary troops. 20,000 Caledonians retreated into the woods, where they fared considerably better against pursuing forces. Roman scouts were unable to locate any Caledonian forces the next morning.

Tacitus was succinct in his criticism of Agricola’s recall to Rome in the autumn of 83: having confiscated the Caledonians’ granary harvest—leaving the locals without food for winter—their subjugation was assured. It was a significant victory for Rome. Honors and illustrious awards awaited him, but the frontier he had opened shut down tight. Tacitus’ quote on his account of Roman history A.D.68-98 : Perdomita Britannia et statim missa ‘Britain was completely conquered and immediately let go’, showed his bitter disapproval of Emperor Domitian’s failure to unify the whole island under Roman rule after Agricola’s successful campaign.

Perdomita Britannia et statim missa Britannia was completely conquered and immediately allowed release

Retreat to Writer’s Cave When no Other Avenue on Offer

Given Tacitus’ example of a journalist’s account of an event outwith his area of conttrol (mostly), our suggestion to fellow scribes for March—one year down the line from a time when we had not a (writing) care in the world—must be to hold down that inner knowing that we’ll pull through; that we can (and will) find the words we’re looking for. And to use them as wisely—and with as much human compassion—f not love—as we can muster.

Because we know our writerly Muse has higher [consciousness] ancestral connections, who also look down—like Calgacus—from their virtual mountain perches, wishing us well and directing us—ever so gently—along this new, previously untrodden path. ©2021 Marian C. Youngblood