Lammastide/Lughnasadh LightFest, Lionsgate, Two Full Moons in August +Tropical Cyclones & Hurricanes

LAMMASTIDE/LUGHNASADH LIGHTFEST, LIONSGATE, TWO FULL MOONS in AUGUST plus TROPICAL CYCLONES and HURRICANES

AUGUST EMERGING FROM SUBTERRANEAN (WATER-FILLED)WRITING CAVERN 2 GREET HEAT & then DIVE BACK DOWN BELOW SURFACE for MUSE-DIRECTED COOL

Euro Heatwave Hits All-time High, Ocean ‘HotTub’ temps in Florida

While tourists dive into Rome’s famed Trevi Fountain to keep cool, and Florida residents stay indoors w/ air conditioning on full blast, rather than take a dip in the Ocean at their local beach, then you know something weird is controlling our weather.

So, what’s up in Paradise?

Even Paradise Island resort-a short boat trip across the Florida Straits in Bahamian waters, connected by bridge from Nassau-reports their young honeymooners-along with older patrons-are hogging the indoor bar, rather than luxury poolside deckchairs on the lanai outside.

Music festival-goers are struggling to hear performers on stage from their ice-filled coolers set as a barricade under umbrellas to ward off (mosquitoes &) heat!

“June too soon; July stand by; August come it must; September remember; October all over”

Old Bahamian hurricane rhyme, now outdated

Helping Wildlife in the Heat

Meanwhile Europeans are struggling with triple digit [Fahrenheit]temperatures in a summer where many have agreed to conserve/enhance natural wildlife in farmland & natural parks-pix top middle: wilderness Glenfeshie rewilding preserve & lower l. Aberdeenshire private Scots pine replanting, w/protected 1826 Douglas Fir, upper rt brought as seedling from Pacific NW by David Douglas, given as gift to Moderator Church of Scotland whose residence it was at that time. Other pix top include protected species-wren; honey bee, w/ local shared beehive within same garden; Kirkton of Bourtie, ABD. Harvest, usually the domain of combine harvesters end August/September top lower rt, in full swing before end July 2023.

Irish god of Light, Lugh—from whom derives August fire festival of Lammas [Lughnasadh] is celebrated still, albeit camouflaged as Nevada desert’s Burning Man; but in ancient times the last handful of grain/sheaf of barley, oats, wheat was woven into a ‘corn dolly’ and hung on doorways & celebrated with bonfires after a field was cleared. The Lammas fire festival is still held by some communities in Scotland’s Northern Isles: it lasts for six weeks— from 3 weeks before>3 weeks after August 1st.

Lammas is happening NOW.

Unst in Shetland holds both the record for longest-lasting Lammas fire festival AND Hermaness, most northerly cherished headland of protected sea-birds, including puffin, greater & lesser kittywake, cormorant, black-backed gull, herring gull and guillemot.

The Gertrude Jekyll rose, top centre, bred by David Austin to commemorate the British horticultural genius & garden creator in her work with architect/life-long partner Edwin Lutyens. Together they designed English formal gardens, including Lindisfarne Castle, N.umberland, the Cenotaph,London.

Harvest this year progresses a month ahead of schedule in Scotland—c.f. winter solstice pic from 2002-20yr ago humour-farmer only just finished baling November, rolled them into position round RSC Kirkton of Bourtie ABD in lieu of missing megaliths -author photo aligned SSW to midwinter sunset viewed from Manse Glebe

Two Full Supermoons, August 1 & 30, 2023 Bright as Daylight

First supermoon of August—the full “Sturgeon” moon, according to Native American lore, is August 1st full moon, with its sister full Blue Moon (two occurring in one month) on August 30th, after the sun moves out of summery Leo into autumnal Virgo. A supermoon is one which nearly coincides with perigee—or, the closest the (full or new) Moon comes to the Earth along its elliptical orbit.

During Lionsgate-8/8 starting July 28 thru August 12, this year’s full Sturgeon Moon coincides w/ Delta Aquarid meteor shower which, because of the moon’s brilliance, may only be visible as sparkles in the sky, or completely outshone altogether.

Our Oversoul Shining thru 8/8 Lionsgate

Those who believe in the opportunity given by the Universal Consciousness to us hoomans in opening the Lionsgate on August 8th each year call themselves followers of Telosians—invisible beings who live in a subterranean cavern inside Mt. Shasta, accessible from a pool in central Mt. Shasta City-itself the source of the Sacramento River; and from snow-lined slopes of the great peak herself near Weed, CA.

Lionsgate 2023 is open between July 28-August 12th, with its peak on 8/8/23. Astro chart 11:11a.m. EST/03:11p.m. UT 08:11a.m. PDT/05a.m. Hawai’i ST Hilo,HI

Astrotheme chart shows detailed focus at midHeaven/MC Cancer with potent cluster round Sun, Venus retrograde in Leo. Grand trine of planets Mercury/Mars in earth sign Virgo with Jupiter, Moon & Uranus in Taurus & Pluto R in Aquarius-sign of ‘Great Awareness’ aka ‘big picture’ ❤

Saturn Retrograde awash in watery Pisces can inflict no harm in his solitude rocked by fellow Uranus R in its topsy turvy orbit.

This year Hawai’i & mid-Pacific islands e.g. Midway, Guam, French Frigate Shoals (pix below top & bottom rt) receive 8/8 energy first, with California, Oregon, WA, Alaska & Mexico next in line.

Significantly, Lionsgate opens end July, strengthening until its climax 8/8 & then diminishes until it closes on “Glorious Twelfth”.

Oldies from Scotland [‘Olde Countrie] may recall this was a day when lairds & their visitors to estates from Aberdeenshire thru Banffshire, to Moray & Inverness [also Argyll, Perthshire & thru Devil’s Elbow by way of Braemar & Cabrach in Highlands, to Caithness & Sutherland] took elaborate picnics-carried by servants-to remote shooting grouse moors; men of the party supplied with guns/women champagne while they wantonly massacred every flying creature in sight—from black grouse, to ptarmigan, even accidental crows, buzzards, eagle & blackbirds if they got in their line of fire. Subsequently, rich purple heather moorland [food source for grouse] was burned to ‘encourage’ a new crop for next year’s sport.

Polynesians & Hawai’ians Celebrate British Return of Sovereignty- mid-Pacific ‘Independence Day’ Festival La Ho’iho’i Ea

Seafaring Polynesians discovered Hawaii as early as A.D.200 by paddling double-hulled canoes across thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean, pic below rt. When in 1778 British explorer James Cook became the first European to arrive, several chiefs ruled over different parts of the archipelago. Yet by 1810, King Kamehameha I had united Hawai’i’s eight-island chain as one kingdom.

During first half 19thC, British missionaries arrived & began to convert a population seen by them as heathen savages. American and European businessmen, hearing that the islands’ climate & landscape were perfect for growing sugar cane, began buying up plots of land.

La Ho’iho’ai Ea‘s origin links to King Kama-hameha III who on July 31,1843 succeeded in reclaiming his Hawai’ian kingdom after the British had occupied the Hawai’ian Islands for a period of five months. King Kamahameha III achievement is celebrated as Hawai’ian ‘Independence’ Day ❤

Queen Lili’uokalani took the throne in 1891 & attempted to restore rights of her people solely without interference from U.S. business interests, which her brother had allowed under duress, along with a free trade agreement that greatly favoured the islands’ Brit/U.S.sugar planters who by then controlled four-fifths of all farmable land.

In 1894 U.S. Minister to Hawai’i, John Stevens headed a conspiracy to overthrow her, ordered a nearby naval vessel to land troops ostensibly to protect U.S. residents, but surrounded the palace & told U.S.

“The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it”

John L. Stevens 1893 leading white militia Honolulu Rifles to depose Queen Lili’uokalani

The Queen agreed to step down so long as the U.S. recognized her sovereignty under law. Instead, President Grover Cleveland opposed the coup after learning she had been overthrown, and as most Hawai’ians opposed the coup, Cleveland’s administration urged for restoration of the monarchy. Instead the provisional government dug in its heels, establishing a Republic of Hawaii in July 1894.

The British did not go along with U.S. annexation, but the Queen agreed to abdicate in 1895.

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, the islands became strategically important for U.S. troops fighting in the Philippines. Annexation of the islands happened August that year. Statehood was the next step.

There are 4,000 Polynesian residents currently in Hawai’i & both nationals celebrate La Ho’iho’ai Ea together.

Hawai’ians’ Abandon Ohana/Home for Las Vegas NV ‘Ninth Island’

Thus it is no giant leap for [Polynesian/Hawai’ian] Mankind that between 2011 & 2021, the mid-Pacific population of Clark County, NV grew by 40% to 22,000 people.

Since Covid passed, both Spring & Fall Pure Aloha Festivals have resumed at the Craig Ranch in N.Las Vegas, with authentic Hawaii’an music & dance, ukulele ‘slack key’ [open tuning in D], hula contests & more.

2023’s 17th Annual Pure Aloha Fall Festival will happen September 29th-October 2nd

Many native Hawai’ians-who grew up in the islands in simple outdoor-lifestyle homes akin to shacks at the bottom of grandpa’s garden on Oahu-have returned to their ancestral homes to visit, but have found economics of their Las Vegas life more achievable. Many now have bought homes, where ownership would have been out of reach in native Oahu or Maui, Hawai’i.

While Hawai’i governor Josh Green works hard to encourage local landowners, farming, & homegrown fruit/vegetable homesteading, Hawai’i is still considered the U.S.’s most expensive state to live in, as economics dictate importation of common household items-—from toilet rolls to automobiles—a luxury.

Dragons & Monsters—Hiding out for Centuries Waiting…Waiting…

A little light fantasy before we creative writers, Insecure scribblers, penwielders, pencil scratchers head back down our personal [rabbit hole] subterranean hideout for another session with our Muse.

Reflections of the gleaming sacred monstah icon above midpage,top l.& here, bottom rt. kept by anonymous warlock spellcaster in undisclosed [secret] location, or exposed for all to see on an historic dragon-shaped headland on 21stC Moray Firth at entrance to famed Loch Ness, above middle l., the dragon is a potent & intriguing symbol we are all drawn to.

Dutchsinse—see his Youtube channel—is an amateur volcanologist, with years of experience finding surprise geological events (& now surprise geographical ones) where the professionals forgot to look. In his latest discovery, he focuses on position of 18thC military Fort George sticking out like a #dragon’s head at the point where Loch Ness spills into the Moray Firth. On the ground it’s famed for its Garrison kirk & its founder King George IV [“fat Geordie”] who is traditionally credited with being wheeled to hunting grounds in Scotland [too hard for him to hike] & killing the nation’s last wolf.

Lying a stone’s throw across the Moray Firth at the mouth of Loch Ness-N of Inverness & the spit stretching out from Roseisle on the Black Isle across the water, the stark outline of a dragon/monster stands for all to see. Only we didn’t-until young Dutchsinse, above pic middle l. pointed it out. He elaborates how close to being the real Loch Ness Monster it is—with examples!

From my perspective, as a Pictish fanatic & believer in genealogy of the Pictish Chronicles & their Anglo-Saxon copies, it might well be the site of Pictish King Brideii whom Saint Columba [521-597] visited to try to convert to Iona version of Christianity. But the king’s chief Druid, Broichan dissuaded the king from listening and chastised Columba because in his exalted position, he should have had the [heavenly] power ‘to raise & still storms’. Columba was sent on his way without achieving his goal.

But there’s another hint for dragon-monster fans.

No modern historian has ever been able to identify Pictish king Brideii’s fortress. Urquhart Castle mound, on the W shore of Loch Ness is suggested, because of its extreme antiquity and proximity to [the monster &] Inverness; that’s in the Chronicles.

Nobody so far had proposed Fort George.

In Garrison kirk where military battalions guarding an 18thC fort gathered to worship, a miraculous stained glass window shows St.George piercing his angelic staff into his defeated opponent-a [dead] dragon. St.G is England’s patron & any six-year old can recite he killed a dragon. But how cosmic to find them here, hidden within a private chapel on a dragon-faced promontory on the edge of Monster territory.

Wildlife…and Wolves

In 1999, Dr Martyn Gorman, senior zoology lecturer at University of Aberdeen & vice chair of Mammal Society called for reintroduction of wolves to the Highlands and northern English countryside because at that time 350,000 young trees in commercial forests were being damaged by red deer.

Recently philanthropist & rewilding laird Paul Lister who bought Alladale Caledonian Forest in Sutherland North Scotland in 2003, has plans to reintroduce large carnivores into his wildlife reserve, such as wolves, lynx, and bear. He says farming interests [sheep farmers not keen] are not affected, as there is little agricultural activity in this far Northern county; and he affirms his type of reintroductions would be beneficial both to Scots tourism & economy-as it has been in the U.S.

Yellowstone Park recently reintroduced wolf into its forests.

Elk, CA is famous for its free-roaming Elk, above. One guy breathed heavily into my nostrils when I opened the car window ❤

Before we Submerge2 WritingCave, Moon Message from Dragons

Reminder: last night’s full Leo/Aquarius Moon is still 99% full tonight, only beginning to wane over the next few nights. High tides feature more than ever because Earth’s companion is so close & aligned to stir strong ocean movement. Surfers-enjoy! Beachgoers don’t bathe without proper equipment. Nature always wins.

Post scriptum

A Hawai’ian bumblebee stumbled into my medical bedchamber—its dimensions unbelievable: minimum cupcake size. But then it demonstrated that Mother Nature pairs intelligence with size. It flew [heavily-it was a hot day] towards the light of my [screen] window, put on the brakes as it got near enough to see no bee exit. Then, curving in best NASCAR style, it circled, found a gap in my cubicle curtains big enuff to buzz thru; kept on humming, aimed for the corridor with its outside glass sliding door &—clearly a highly bright boy—hovered. Could almost hear him thinking: “hoomans come in & out here”.

Sure enough, within two seconds, a nurse appeared from another ward with a bag of rubbish for the outdoor bin, punched her code into the door & yanked it sideways. Monsieur cupcake bee took off like a jet. Did I imagine it or did he turn & give me a black & gold blink from his huge eyes? Bless his little pollen socks ❤

p.p.s.

With gratitude to my much-appreciated followers<3

Bees & wolves & monstah thoughts preyed on my efforts earlier [last week’s draft prep4 blog] & my Firefox itchy finger pressed the publish button by mistake. Some of you will have read an opening title with several enormous unedited images before I managed to delete & do this one instead. Thanks for your attention-and patience. Hope this one makes up for it. Happy Lammas summer. Stay cool. ©2023MarianC.Youngblood

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August Musical Express: Insecure Jazz-Jamboree to Nirvana

MONTHLY INSECURE WRITERS’ MIRACLE MANIFESTATION CORNER or
Sounding One’s Own Trumpet

Glorious summer skies: our parent Milky Way galaxy, colliding slowly with Andromeda, fires off Perseid meteor showers every August

Hailstones the size of walnuts in Boston, floodwaters inundating the Rio Grande on TexMex border, volcanic unrest in a new Atlantic seamount off the Falklands, Pacific Northwest arteries ripped by forest fires; no glaciers left in Glacier National Park.
What in the world is happening? you may ask.

Is it a bird, a plane, a super cloud?
No, Batman. It’s called ignoring/misleading public/human condition, in the final horse race to the political gate.

Bread and Circuses—Fodder for U.S. ‘uninformed’ Masses

U.S. adds four new Parks to conservation list, as last glacial ice melts in Glacier National Park

Political press liken both parties’ cavalier attitude to the American Constitution to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Do American politicians still remotely believe the public is listening to their rhetoric?

We in Ninja Cap’n.Alex‘s IWSGers stalwart group of writers know when it’s time to throw in the towel—allow Nature to take over the reins.. After all, we are INSECURE. And it’s summer—festival season. This is no time for intellectual—or intellect-less mind games. Carpe diem—seize the (day) moment. Time to look to the skies and aim heavenward—or hole up and w-r-i-t-e—or even go into permanent meditational mode: achieve mental freedom of Nirvana—or something even more (insecurely) celestial.

What Did You Do in the War, Daddy

What did you do in the War, Daddy? Jeb Bush worldview

Every Gun made
Every Warship launched
Every Rocket fired
signifies a Theft from the Hungry not fed, the Cold not clothed, and the Homeless left unhoused
Dwight D.Eisenhower, U.S. President 1953-61

Analogies with the Roman Colisseum are not totally inappropriate, in 2015-2016 election fever. The so-called uninformed public is now—courtesy of the Internet and the Cloud—hugely well-informed. Where gladiators and gore, pythons and phalluses were customary fodder for ignorant pre-Christian masses, two thousand years down the line, we’d hope we might have learned a little sophistry in leading humanity along a more enlightened path.

Music—Food of Love—Live Transmission
Music heals and regenerates human cells. With recent research confirming what Galileo discovered about acoustics, when he devised the first western scale.

Summer music festivals, it seems, are not just mindless, letting off steam—they are, since the times of Lughnasadh, Bacchanalia, Lupercalia and Saturnalia, an essential release mechanism for the human psyche from the shackles of (cold, winter, drudgery) ‘responsibility’.

Trumpet High-notes Only a Dog Could Hear

Three nights live music under Douglas Fir canopy

If the ‘Father of Jazz’ were alive, he would be 114 years old today. Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong, born August 4th, 1901 in New Orleans, died July 6, 1971 in New York.

As a bandleader, his virtuoso arrangements and seminal trumpet playing earned him the moniker Satchelmouth. Among other predominately black musicians like Duke Ellington and fellow horn player Cat Anderson, we have him to thank for freedom expressed through music, preserved for posterity in this digital age. Louis and Cat were reputed to reach high notes only a dog could hear.

Tribute bands to those former icons—including Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, the Beatles—provide substitute Nirvana for live festival attendees. And August is jamboree month in the Pacific Northwest.

If Burning Man in Nevada isn’t your style, maybe you should go for down-home 31st Annual Reggae-on-the-River in Mendocino; or Oregon’s Jamboree.

Whatever your summer addiction—in this group, it HAS to be writing-related—even the hardest taskmaster will allow you a little time off. Thanks, Taskmaster Alex.
#IamWriting.
©2015 Marian Youngblood

September Blues? Consider Poor Mother Earth

INSECURE WRITERS’ SUPPORT GROUP CORNER

Thanks to our (non-mutant) Ninja Capn. Alex, I make a seasonal appearance as last rays of summer flash, to say hi to my fellow IWSGers, but also to share the pathos of impending equinoctial changes: seasonal, earth-related, celestial and beyond—

Ancient Lughnasadh Festival of Light
I try to celebrate the end of summer, lasting—as all Druid-lore-lovers know—from mid-July to September equinox, plumbing sacred depths of fire festival season centered on:
Lammas Day, August 1st, the Glorious Twelfth.*

Mud-slides: par for course @T-in-the-Park

It spans the crazies of [Brit. advertising-cum-financial industry] ‘Silly Season’, culminating at September’s doorway in a frenzy of global music festivals: epitomized by (Brit) Leeds-Reading Extravaganza and (beer-fueled) T-in-the-Park. And BURNING MAN in the Nevada Desert.

Yet I feel pathos and sadness engulfing a season’s end, a dying earth. Our Mother Earth, especially, has suffered much this year.

Burning Man festival of light, Nevada desert

*I am not sentimental about the killing of grouse; I never liked the practice, however fashionable and smoothly operated it’s supposed to be. I shall not change my view; but my attitude to what goes on in the ‘Old Country‘, now that I’m an ex-pat, has softened.

I know this doesn’t sound remotely like a writing moan—as our monthly corner is supposed to be—but there is a connection:

Harvest—Dying—Resurrection—Metamorphosis
Ancient Lammas, Lughnasadh primal fire festival of the god Lugh, [‘Light’] is known across the indigenous cultural spectrum as First Harvest, Harvest Home, a time to STOP, give thanks and celebrate with offerings—bread from our table. Rejoicing in Mother Earth’s bounty, we share and celebrate her fruitfulness with good food and friends. Traditionally, harvest tables were decked with red, gold, orange, yellow, bronze, citrine, gray, and green: colors now associated with wild dress-couture-masquerade extravaganzas—particularly in U.S.

Corn dollies have been replaced by macho/Ninja? [!!] sickles, scythes, iMax giant scimitars, over fresh veggies & fruits, bread, and sun-wheels. But drumbeat rhythm focuses joy, seeps between the volcanic cracks into the Earth, honoring her cross-cultural daughters of Lugh: Freya, Demeter, Ceres, Pandora et al.—goddesses of fruitfulness,carers of the Earth thru her seasons. In this sense she (Earth Mother) and Hathor are one and the same: primeval Eve, Brittonic Bride, Norse Auohumla, great cow-giant goddess, and ancestor of the Norse gods. She is also Gaia, Sumerian Antu: who became Ishtar, goddess of love and procreation.

Mutant Ninja Turtles, 2014-style

Summerend, in all cultures—ancient Lammas, now-generation Virtual.world and future Turtle Island—with deference to our Sci-Fi Cap’n’s focus—is always a good time for a celebration.

Now is time to enjoy drinking, eating fresh food, indulging our hedonist within— dancing, expressing joy, getting back to our roots—being oneself.

For a light-deprived northerner, I am grateful for long days of warmth, time in the garden, maybe occasionally, I think about writing…lol. But I digress.

The Caravanserai Headed East
In current Western culture, Burning Man takes precedence. Trailers are rented at great expense, shared rides go East thru the Nevada desert, to pitch camp in an awesome congregation of festival-goers—almost medieval in ethos—with singing, dancing, beating and celebrating the earth, the sun, and being alive— through music, masque, dance and new connections, made over five days.

Leeds-Reading morphs to 4-day festival, à la Burning Man

Glastonbury’s Symposium begins the season mid-June, followed by July drinking madness: Scotland’s T-in the Park, above, originating in 1997 in Strathclyde Country Park, where triple stages were annually bogged down in mud.

Black Rock, NV, 2014 artwork DC

2014’s TITP was last epic concert to be held on Kinross’s disused Balado field:a medically-better location, where WWII runways provided metaphorical undercarriage for nine multiple stages over three-day weekend.

But, because Forties Field oil pipeline runs under the tarmac, Scots (financial and) Government agencies started yelling ‘health&safety’, so 2014 was its swan song. T-in-the-Park 2015 will migrate to the former boarding school of Strathallan, twenty miles West in Perthshire.

Sunday morning at the ephemeral Cathedral, Black Rock Nevada-ending 2014 Burning Man

There follows the majestic three-day wonder of Reading-Leeds Music Festival, at the height of Lammas: August 21-24, 2014.

Leeds-Reading DeafHavana & Bill Bailey

It would seem the Brits are following the U.S. lead in widening the window of music sent heavenward in sheer joy of numbers.

Americans wowed by Nevada desert’s five-day Burning Man festival have yet to experience the booze-quotient of a Brit music venue: comparisons of liters/pints of beer drunk at Glastonbury vs. Leeds/Reading shock American/Canadian drinkers who, by law, have to put tankard to lip behind closed doors. Ah, the contrast.

As Britain closes for the summer, the American continent opens. Festivals ripple like musical arpeggios across barren, dry (over-watered) southern states, Austin, Dallas, Nashville. As the earth gets hotter—most of continental U.S. is in grill-bbq grip of unrelenting heat, forest fires, drought.

Here is not the place to bring up city water demands from rural salmon spawning hinterland—Eel, Van Duzen, Klamath, Trinity and Navarro— but we all know Earth is shrieking for us to slow down, take a look at what we are doing to our Pale Blue Dot, called home, and stop.

One could liken it to an Apocalypse scenario. But our Ninja Cap’n knowzzzz all about that.

Thank you Alex, always for providing a corner for a moan, a shared frisson and love for Sci-Fi, and a window on tomorrow’s world—and for letting me in under the wire—late. 🙂
©2014Marian Youngblood

SciFi for Beginners

Monthly IWSG Corner

European Crop Art: Rheigaustrasse Zurich, Switzerland July 4th 2013

The old folks always used to talk about the weather—for something new to say each day. It happened more in country settings where rain/sunshine affected crops, staple of life; but even city-dwellers seem to have become more weather-conscious of late—space-weather, that is—while our earthly home currently goes through some interesting changes:

Tornadoes in Minnesota, hail and rainstorms running through Missouri and down the Mississippi; annual forest fire battles ongoing in northern California—

Great Britain has had its first month of sunshine (July 2013) since 2010—bringing out a few crop circles—but the country is close to power grid overload from excess use of domestic heaters, because the solar panels don’t work!

By contrast, the Aleutians, Alaskan peninsula, Greenland, Iceland, Shetland, Nordkap and the northern Steppes of Russia had a month of blistering cloudless days, with temperatures over 100ºF.

Japan, it seems, had a month of solid rain, but there the weather is affected by the continuing Fukushima ‘clean-up’. Typhoons have followed on the volcanic ‘murmurs‘ [Richter 3 & up] ongoing in New Zealand.

According to solar buffs, it’s happening because earth, now within the sun’s year of solar maximum—an eleven-year cycle at its peak now—is getting more space weather than usual.

And if we didn’t have enough to occupy us on earth, there are next week’s spectacular Perseid meteors, that always make a show on the glorious twelfth. And glistening planets Mercury, Mars and Jupiter in the dawn sky.

It’s enough to make us writers throw caution to the ethers and turn to sci-fi. I know we IWSGers are reader-fans of sci-fi or we wouldn’t be the minions we are to our revered leader Alex. But I mean WRITE Sci-fi.

Earth envoys—the Voyager twins—enter a whole new dimension: heliopause, between solar system and hyperspace, August 2012

Add Comet Ison to the mix—a recurrent comet starting to appear on the outer edge of the solar system—and don’t we hear those Voyager vibes in the background? Doesn’t the sci-fi inner child in us all want to come out?

Beloved Voyager—that last vestige of ’fifties technology—hit the edge of the heliosphere, the heliopause, entered ‘outer’ space a year ago last August. Comet Ison appears shortly in our skies, bright by November. I wouldn’t be surprised if it arrives next month, September, just to add glitz and glitter to the launch of Cassastorm.

Come to think of it, Ninja Captain, are you responsible for earthly tornadoes, rain and windstorms, too?
🙂
©2013 Marian Youngblood

Focusing Calm while the Storm Outside Rages

What to do during a Grand Cross

Phoenix Haboob over July 4th weekend, 2011: Signs of the Times

“During such intense time acceleration, chaos breaks out everywhere, since chaos is always part of new creation. The reorganization of the fractal fields creates exceedingly unexpected new things in our lives.”
Barbara Hand Clow

We in this blog have commented on celestial Grand Crosses and Cosmic Crossroads before now. Last year’s was pretty bad.

But, if seen in the light of current crises, world drama and, combined with the personal pain and grief we have all been through in 2011, it may seem mild by comparison.

Last (2010) June’s Grand Cross was only a taster. One would be forgiven for thinking the world-as-we-know-it has taken a giant tumble since then.

The horror of March 2011 earthquakes brought repercussions within world charitable organizations which turned a disaster into a desire to share human resources. By the following month — April, end of the tax year — world agencies were predicting a calmer year ahead.

Spring equinox brought new hope. In the northern hemisphere the season was seen to have started well. Mother Nature lulled us into believing maybe the signs weren’t all bad. The month of April was, in Britain, the hottest and driest on record. Abundant rain filled the waterways of Spain, Italy, the Rhein, North and South Carolina and the American Midwest. Snow lingered on hills in the US Eastern Seaboard, in the Alps and in the Caucasus. Even North Africa and Afghanistan had respite from drought.

May and June were unbelievably sweet: suitably decked with blossom and birdsong, English fields grew abundant with a brand new (higher dimensional) version of the 2011 Crop Circle.

Summer solstice came and went. Despite a flurry of internet speculation on the imminence of Comet Elenin, and a record number of three successive eclipses, most northern hemisphere activity progressed as normal: English Ascot, horse-racing in Virginia, mountain climbing in the High Sierras, even hotair balloons in New Zealand — to get away from the heat. One astrological chart for solstice week featuring the longest day was likened to music of the spheres — all heavenly bodies were singing, if not in harmony, at least in tune.

… by the time I get to Phoenix she’ll be rising…
And then July arrived. With a jolt.

While America was revelling in its July 4th weekend celebrations, a Sahara-style Haboob — a massive dust storm — went raging into Phoenix… and engulfed this manmade miracle in the desert, the Arizona city with its six million-plus inhabitants. The fuzzy-looking dust-bunny with its huge friendly-looking paws caused electronics breakdown, electrical shorts, water pollution and breathing hazard.

…and there was more to come…

Barbara Clow is an author and respected astrologer, as well as being a devotee and proponent of Carl J. Calleman and his view of 2012 from an accelerated viewpoint. In their opinion, the December 2012 ‘end’-date has already speeded up and Humanity is now facing its nemesis, its ‘Fate’, its comeuppance — depending on your Judaeo-Christian/EarthFirst concept of End Times. Ms Clow and Dr Calleman believe the end of Mayan calculation happens nearly one year early — on October 28th, this year.

Ms Clow is particularly intrigued by the way events playing themselves out on the 2011 stage seem to hark back, almost mystically, to the astro chart for 1776 when America’s founding fathers set it all in motion.

Cherhill Whitehorse peace-pipe crop circle, Calne, Wiltshire July 27th, 2011 in same location as 1999 9-point star

July moved into August, and we were relieved to be distracted by a stream of hyper-dimensional messages in the corn. Crop circles in Wiltshire — and other world sites where they have a tendency to show up just before harvest — delighted a world audience. The croppie following was by now thoroughly split into the camp of believers (anomalous substances, pristine formations, untrampled and beautifully-layered grain) and board-stompers (unbelievers and those who use the phenomenon for their own agenda). While a plethora of inspired and inspiring designs made their presence known to a visual audience worldwide, business and media coverage turned into a circus. This continues in the present with the current series of conflicts — as the Grand Cross builds once more. It seems we are not to be spared an iota of pain until we navigate our way through this tunnel…

‘…the problem is not the good-natured heart of the people, but the outmoded mindset of the controllers…’ BHC

And the abundance brought by August fulfilled the prophecies of July. There was indeed more to come.

Ninth-century saint Swithun, Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester also predicted weather from his niche in Stavanger cathedral!

The culprit is probably the previous month’s full moon (July 15th in Capricorn) and the potent assistance of long-dead but much revered St Swithun (c.AD800-862) — whose day is usually celebrated if the sun shines and reviled if it rains. It rained on St Swithun’s this year in Britain and, according to the Old Wives, we will suffer for that while full forty days play out — until August 30th. It is clearly not St Swithun’s fault. His heyday was the ninth century, when all weather signs were contemplated seriously, astrology consulted before tackling any important project and the advice of one’s ‘inner voice’ listened to before all rush and noise of the outside world.

But in the 21st century, the outside world has rushed in.

With clamor and clash, we are surrounded daily by images, events, and newsmedia words which heighten our stress levels, draw us in sinuous path, yet oftentimes with success, away from our inner guides. That elusive quality that our ancestors revered and listened to — that still small voice within — is harder to hear. She speaks in silent syllables, but we are too distracted sometimes to listen.

Grand Cross realigns

Grand Cross with all the trimmings -- August Full Moon, Saturday 13th, 2011

So it is not surprising to look at the progressed chart for the August 2011 Full Moon [August 13th] that we see a GRAND CROSS in full flight. Grand Crosses have dogged us since midsummer last year, and they won’t leave us alone for the forseeable few months, so we might as well grow accustomed to them. World events have only intensified since the June 1st eclipse and, according to Clow-Calleman, won’t let up until at least his version of the Mayan Calendar (Calleman preview) end-date of October 28th.

‘We have to end the rape of Earth by nuclear power, corrupted entertainment, and the diversion of our resources to warfare. It is obscene for media to showcase starving people in Africa while not critiquing military expenditure.’ BHClow

When such contrasts surface daily in our lives, it is not difficult to see why there are riots in London and the North of England, drought warnings for nearly half (41%) of the landmass of the United States and nuclear power officials tearing their hair in the (ongoing, continuing and continuous) global disaster that is Fukushima.

August full moon (13th, in Aquarius, the far-sighted) nevertheless brings the power necessary to use the energy window wisely; directing us to focus and not to be drawn off-balance by news of earthquakes in Cheyenne, Wyoming (August 11th) and submarine volcanoes in the axial Seamount off the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate (August 12th) on Oregon’s Pacific coast.

Vedic belief would have it otherwise: that all is solved by releasing tension and disbelief into the hands of the gods. Here is a friend’s take on the wisdom of the Subcontinent. True, if humanity can focus daily on manifesting the best, highest and most calm, we might just get through this time of huge stress — together. But it will take considerable wit and presence-of-mind to keep one’s head above the waters.

Calleman, too, has positive thoughts to see us through the next months. He considers a New World will emerge ‘after the end of the tun-based Calendar’, i.e. after October 28th, 2011. He is promoting a worldwide ‘cosmic convergence’ for the autum equinox.

It is at times like these that heroes are made.

The Glorious Twelfth

3D Starfish crop circle at Knoll Down, Beckhampton appeared with a companion, one field distant, on the morning after the Glorious Twelfth

Meanwhile, the heavenly ‘signs’ have kept on coming. The Glorious Twelfth is one of them. A little tongue-in-cheek, perhaps, since few know nowadays the meaning of the expression. What happens on that date now is a gesture only to the glory of past ‘hunter-gatherer’ activity and is but a shadow. Grouse moors used to open to guns — the occasion marked with picnics and wine and a day in the hills — to peck off the carefully-reared grouse population one by one for hoarding in the larder. Like the royal pursuit of the wolf (last wolf in Scotland shot in 1722 at Invercauld by King ‘Geordie’ the Fat — who had to be trundled to the moor in a wheeled litter to do it), and the English fox-hunting game, their days are numbered…the shooters, that is; no doubt a few more days of respite for the grouse.

Central nest in Windmill Hill-2 crop circle, another sign of authenticity
photo Stuart Dike

A perfect comparison with those outmoded practices can be seen in the work of David White & Son’s Wiltshire farms which include the fields of Etchilhampton and Windmill Hill, both highlighted by ET this year for consecutive crop circle embellishment (July 25th and 26th). The Whites farm organically, use no insecticides in the food they grow and the 1000-acre farming enterprise is a haven for lark, corn bunting, yellow wagtail and turtle dove. It is fitting that these Wiltshire nurturers and guardians of the soil should have their grain amplified by the extra nutrition and enhanced (measurable) vibration provided by two further crop circles this year. The Whites are also finalists in the RSPB Nature of Farming Award where votes will be counted until August 31st.

Our Oversoul seems insistent that we recognize those members of the community who nurture the soil, protect the earth. It is relevant that the Aberdeenshire farmer whose land was chosen August 24, 1995 to display the only crop circle in NE Scotland at Culsalmond, did at the time farm organically — still does — and is now one of the first in this corner of Scotland to drive an electric car.

Crop designs at Etchilhampton (left) & Windmill Hill appeared on consecutive mornings, July 25 & 26, on arable land farmed organically by the Whites who are donating all visitor moneys to Swindon Fluency Trust

Along similar lines, the female nurturer in Barbara Clow gives this advice:

The only thing that matters is how you live your life. Who do you love now? Are you faithful and devoted to each person you are connected to? Are you ready, at a moment’s notice, to go right to those who need assistance from you? Do you trust the grand plan that is unfolding, no matter what will happen in your personal life?

While cutting through a lot of male-dominant bluster featuring wars, weaponry-build-up, space race and political manoeuvering, she does not dismiss these ‘shocking weaknesses’ in aspects of society which have been under the control of ‘outmoded industrial and political systems’. She believes that some may be unable to dissolve their fears and guilt instilled by 5,000 years of organized religion in a second of ‘new time’. But we have to believe we can. We have at least to try.

These concepts are revealed in her book The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind where successive compartments of the Universal Underworld (March 9 to October 28), broken down into ‘days’ of human spiritual progress and ‘nights’ of terror, mayhem and planetary destruction, are a few of the surprises yet in store for us.

“Remember, you create your own reality, and the events in the outer world are deeply connected and inspired by what’s in your mind. Please take a look at your Spring Equinox intentions, for example, and assess how you are doing now, and also take note of the things that are popping into your life that you didn’t even plan on.” Astroflash

Ms Clow –selflessly– attributes her erudition to many teachers, including José Argüelles, Terence McKenna, Teilhard de Chardin, Carl Jung,
Graham Hancock and, not least, her Cherokee grandmother on one side and her Celtic heritage on the other.

“We are living through a great awakening and we are going to go through a lot of stuff. But I am optimistic. We live in a benevolent Universe.”

Others of her calibre and strength believe so, too. McKenna called the Universal Mind an ongoing process.

“To whatever degree any one of us can bring into focus a small piece of the (Universal) picture and contribute it to the building of a new paradigm then we participate in the redemption of the human spirit. That is, after all, what this is all about.”
T. McKenna, 2000.

It takes courage to face the music and not fail at the final reprise. We have great minds before us on the Path, and many fellow seekers focusing inner intent while the storm rages outside. There’s just a wild chance that — together — we’ll make it.
©2011 Marian Youngblood