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

Midwinter Solstice: Return of the light

Sine umbra nihil

Burning the Clavie at Burghead, Moray

MIDWinter Fire festivals were ancient man’s most fervent prayer to the Universe to return the light to the earth after the shortest day.

At 57º North latitude in Scotland, the equivalent in North America of the parallel of Juneau, Alaska, there aren’t a lot of hours of light in December and January. By the time solstice – the day the sun appears to stand still – December 21st – arrives, ancient man was getting to the point where it was going to get dark forever, unless something was done to propitiate the spirit world.

In the earliest known Calendars devised by Arabian astronomers, even the balmy latitudes of the Mediterranean and Arabian Seas saw a dwindling of the light. And so when Neolithic man erected stone circles and sacred precincts of stone leading the eye to the horizon to a point where the sun set on midwinter’s day, he did it for a most urgent purpose: to ask the Light of the Universe, the Sacred Fire, to return.

What better way to kindle the blessing of the gods of light and fire than with fire itself?

In Northeast Scotland, where recumbent stone circles abound, the recumbent or ‘resting’ stone lies in the southwestern quadrant of the circle, flanked by two carefully chosen pillars of stone (quartz, quartzite, granite with inclusions to reflect the light), creating a window on the horizon where the midwinter sun goes down. At 4:00 p.m.!

Aberdeenshire's recumbent stone circles' window on the horizon

It is more than seventeen hours before it rises again. Seventeen hours must have created an enormous hiatus of doubt and disbelief in the minds of ancient communities whose shaman or holy man might be the only one who knew the light would return. But did they? It is no wonder that oral tradition handed down tales of the supernatural abilities of such knowledgeable men.

We have no record of how such workers of celestial magic were named in the time of the first farmers, the Neolithic communities who raised the megaliths of Aberdeenshire.

But by the time of Roman historians, like Tacitus and Ptolemy, who wrote of ancient Britons’ ‘great powers’, Roman respect for the Celtic peoples of Europe and the Druids of the Britannia was great. Ptolemy and Caesar record phenomenal belief by the people in their magicians, their Druids, their ‘keepers of knowledge’ and rightly so. The Celtic traditions known to the Gauls owed their origins to the British druidic élite. Much veneration and respect was paid in Gaul to this small group of islands lying in Ultima Thule, or in Roman slang ‘off the map’ on the edge of the Roman Empire.

Sun and moon markers embedded in stone

Certainly by the time of our Pictish ancestors – those whom the Romans called the Caledonians – stone circles were in constant use for fire festivals and seasonal rites of propitiation for the welfare of the community. The Picts also had their own druidic priest class like those of Wales and other Brittonic peoples. And their power to be seen to command the elements of fire, water, wind and earth were extraordinarily great. Annals and documents from Gaul, Cornwall, Brittany and Rome confirm their hold over the people, not only to guide farming work through the annual cycle, but also to act as advisor to queens and kings.

By the ancient Celtic calendar, known to the Romans as their equivalent of the Julian method of calculation, there were ten months in the year and thirteen moons. Man moved according to the sun for daily light and warmth, but owed allegiance to the moon for rhythms of planting and harvest, the female menstrual cycle and hence the cycle of birth and death. The Julian calendar was a ruling force for fifteen hundred years, until it started to lose time.

By then the Church, mathematicians and enlightened astronomers had stepped in to alter the rhythm to run more closely with human time. Most nations changed over to the new calendar after it was decreed law by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. But the Orthodox Greek and Russian Churches refused to change. Other nations remained staunchly in favour of the older calculation. Among these were Ethiopia and Russia, who did not accept European calendar reckoning until 1750. Ethiopia still does not.

And Burghead in Moray.

In Burghead they burn the clavie to celebrate the return of the light of a dying sun. An ancient rite practised on the night of solstice in pre-Christian times, to propitiate and ask the dying sun to return, its confused calendrical transposition to January 11th can only be slightly rationalized by calendar change. Nevertheless, it is on this date that Burghead has through oral tradition and in living memory rekindled and paraded its torch of blazing fire.

It’s a little more complex than merely holding to the old calendar. Well-wishing for a new year is what we do in the Northeast of Scotland when the calendar points to January. It’s called Hogmanay. It was always so. Or was it?

In Gregorian, we count this as 2009; about to go 2010. It is already 5770 Jewish time. The month of February 2010 opens the Chinese year of the Tiger; on February 22 Islam moves into 1431. For Sikhs, new year (542) comes just before vernal equinox when Hindus (2067) and Persians (1389) celebrate, just as we used to before the Julian calendar adjusted new year from March to January.

Clavie Crew hoist the burning barrel and parade it round the town

This is no surprise to the Clavie Crew of Burghead on the Moray coast. They still run on Julian time.

When Scotland changed calendars in 1660, there was much misunderstanding in country districts – the loss of 11 days was seen as someone in a position of power having robbed them of important events. This was also a period of change in parishes because of the implementation of new church doctrines introduced at the Reformation. Calendars in Church records added to the confusion by writing numbers in ‘Old Style’ and ‘New Style’. It caused so much concern that Old Parish Records (OPR) had to show both systems. Births in the OPR are recorded for several years in both Old and New Time.

Also at the Reformation pre-Christian festivals, such as clavie-burning and fire festivals at Beltane, Hallowe’en and harvest too, were frowned on. On the other hand, local tradition was strong: it was commonplace to mark the return of the light after midwinter in all northern communities and northeastern ports. Such pagan celebrations as ‘fire leaping’ and dancing round the fire within the precinct of stone circles was still known in 1710 and harvest fire festivals continued unabated until the year 1942. Gradually, however, other celebrations and farming fire festivals started to die out.

When the other northern ports stopped their Clavie burning in winter after the first World War, Burghead held on. After the second War, it continued to celebrate as it had always done. It has continued to do so ever since, except for two of the years during the 1939-45 European War.

Now only two villages hold to the ancient tradition: a pre-Christian ritual of celebrating the closing of one seasonal door and the opening of another.

Stonehaven in Kincardineshire celebrates with a street festival of fireball-swingers. Both festivities are awe-inspiring, if marginally dangerous to watch. It must be awesomely perilous for those involved. On Hogmanay night Steenhivers have a street party to end all street parties. Whereas Burghead only spills combustible materials over the shoulders of Clavie-bearers, Stonehaven delights in spinning fire in clumps into an unwary crowd.

Stonehaven has conceded to the newer calendar, swinging its crazy fire balls on Hogmanay; yet it is celebrating the same midwinter seasonal hinge as the Clavie Crew of Burghead: The end of the Old Year; Old Yule: Aul’ ‘Eel.

Burghead is more precisely still counting its eleven lost days.

In Burghead, lighting the eternal fire and carrying it round the town reenacts the celebration of the return of new light after the longest night in the Northern hemisphere – the dark of the Latin quotation often found on sundials: ‘without shadow there is nothing’. Implied, naturally, is the fact that the all-important entity which creates shade in the first place, is the Sun.

To the Clavie King and his torch-bearers of Burghead, this is Aul’ ’Eel, pre-Christian Yule or winter solstice. Yule becomes interchangeable with Christmas south of the border but Scotland has held to its pagan festival of Hogmanay, itself a testimony to and turning point in that Roman calendar.

Fire for the clavie is ritually kindled from a peat ember – no match is used. This is in respect for the spirit of fire itself which is eternal.

The Clavie itself is an old whisky barrel full of broken up staves ritually nailed together by a clavie (Latin, clavus, nail). One of the casks is split into two parts of different sizes, and an important item of the ceremony is to join these parts together with the huge nail made for the purpose. The Chambers’ Book of Days (1869) minutely describes the ceremony, suggesting that it is a relic of Druid worship, but it seems also to be connected with a 2000-year-old Roman ceremony observed on the 13th September, called the clavus annalis. Two divisions of the cask in the Burghead ritual symbolize the hinges of the old and the new year, which are joined together by a nail. The two parts are unequal, because the part of the new year joined on to the old is very small by comparison with the old year which is departing.

Clavie King, Dan Ralph and his Clavie Crew heave the Clavie into position

Clavie King Dan Ralph has carried out his duty for twenty years. He gathers together his Clavie Crew and they help each other take turns carrying the man-sized torch: a tar-barrel stoked with oak staves soaked in combustible fluid. It is a feat of human endurance alone to lift what must weigh more than a man, not to mention avoiding flaming drops of leaking fuel. They stagger in unison round the town, dispensing luck as they go: flaming brands from the burning tar-barrel are presented as tokens of abundance to important burghers, including the publican. The bearers keep changing; circling the town sunwise, stopping only to refuel or change carriers. A final free-for-all happens after the clavie arrives at the fire-altar hill, on a rib of the old Pictish ramparted stronghold, which juts out into the Moray Firth. There it is fixed to its fire-altar, the doorie.

More tar, petrol, any source of incendiary fuel is added until the flames reach for the heavens. Then both fire and wooden vessel, the fast-distintegrating clavie, and its lethal blazing contents are left to die.

Happy New Year. Julian indeed.