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

FLOWER POWER in the North—Folk Memory & HiTech Open Doors to Rich Caledonian Past

FLOWERPOWER IN THE NORTH—FOLK MEMORY HiTech & TRADITION OPEN DOORS TO RICH LANDHOLDINGS in CALEDONIAN Provinces

Mar, Buchan & Moray—Pride of Pictish Kings for 1000 years

“Tweed, Forth, Tay, Dee, Don, Spey”

Children’s NE.Scotland learning River Rhyme in geographical sequence S to N

Borders Lothians, Central Belt to ancient capital Forteviot; Mearns, Aberdeenshire Banffshire & Northcoast Moray to Great Glen’s ‘Highland Line’ fault

Burghead Pictish Bull, l. totem guardian 1 of 32 Pictish Class-I carved stones found (&reburied) in Burghead harbour

Work by University of Aberdeen Archaeology Unit‘s revelationary & revealing 2021 season just ended at two of the North’s seminal Pictish sites: Burghead on Moray’s North Coast and Tap o’Noth, 1,800ft over Rhynie—inland Britain’s largest hillfort in Aberdeenshire— gold country: farming, silver/metalsmithing, stone carving centre in the North. Excitement has been high recently in academic circles—Aberdeen, Glasgow and Stirling—with new season on-site work enhanced not only by drone footage, but by the miracle of computer-enhanced search and dating tools.

High Status Northern Royal Fortress Protected by Moray Firth Waters on Three Sides, Triple-ringed Ditches on Landward

Descended from Iron Age Celtic tribes, East coast Picts were culturally and linguistically distinct from neighbouring Gaels, who inhabited western Scotland, and the Britons, in present southern Scotland & northern Lake District. Formation of their identity as a distinct group accelerated by Roman presence, forced separate tribal groups to organize and cooperate with each other, developing large Pictish settlements—sub- kingdoms—in the face of a common threat. By the 10th century, the Picts had apparently vanished from Alba, leaving only myths and carved symbol stones inscribed with ‘regional’ designs.

Burghead—Roman Tarvedunum Bull Fort—30 Lost Carved Stones

“It’s like having a magnifying glass that sees thru the layers below me”, said one mystified transformed pupil of Burghead Primary School during their day spent in the Pictish lower trench of the triple-walled Royal fort on the North Coast. Precipitated by rising Moray Firth waterline, lucky local kids got to witness ‘full-throttle hi-tech deep dig’ combo, prompting input from three Scots universities, charitable Leverhulme Trust funding and cooperation of NationalTrust [NTSScotland], with Collections at National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

New discoveries in a remarkably short month were astounding—from Mediterranean wine dregs in Roman amphorae staining high-status blue glass goblets, to cremated animal boneyard relics with their carved mummy headstones, to precious personal mirror and comb fragments of well-known ‘Pictish’ design—even Anglo-Saxon coins from the reign of (very South of the Border) Alfred the Great—871-886, top left. No carved bull fragments yet.

Group interest from Celtic and pre-Celtic academics from Gaul to Cornwall to North Wales, found evidence of mead implying resident bees and honey expertise, with alcoholic perks for high holidays. Invergowrie’s Bullion Stone, top, is known for its drunken rider, implying success in the (battle)field.

Rhynie Man, below rt, ploughed up next to Craw Stane, mid above, with sacred Salmon & Dolphin symbols, holds a titular axe similar in design to silver axehead pin, below, found during the local dig at Tap o’Noth. ‘Rescued’ as treasure trove 1978 (Barflat farmer paid), the then-Aberdeenshire Council authority placed him in entrance to Woodhill House, Aberdeen. Where he still stands—available to view only during business hours. <(

Down in the Burghead Trench…

It was a huge disappointment that all 36 bull stones (except six*) were ‘lost’ aka reburied? when the Broch’s 19thCentury newtown, below l. was built over one third of the prehistoric promontory within its oldest prehistoric walls. The possibility of finding such buried treasure will have to wait till next season. *British Museum has one.

• 

  Burghead overbuilt 19thC newtown

• 

  Oak beams destroyed by fire

• 

  Rhymie Man

• 

  Pictish bone comb fragment

• 

  The Doorie

• 

  silver pin ritual axe ornament

Radiocarbon dates show the fort was occupied from at least the sixth through the tenth centuries. But its prehistoric past beckons. It is the Broch to locals—hinting at its headland massif: the dun of Latin Tarvedunum, the name given to it by the Romans. Later residents lived on top of earlier, adding at least three stages. Burned (oak) timber beams suggest the fort was eventually destroyed by fire. West coast Nordophiles are keen to blame 10thC burning of the ancient fort’s triple layered [imported English] oak beams, above mid. on contemporary Vikings who were raiding Orkney, Sutherland and vulnerable Argyll’s Hebridean fjörd-like coastline, 839-45. it is, however, a tragic historical fact that the Dunadd Scots contingent under Cinaed MacAlpin took the Pictish kingdom (and Forteviot capital) by force in 843, claiming ancestry through matrilineal succession. He and three generations of descendants retained the title ‘Kings of Alba’—former name of Pictish royal house. One descendant, Giric, gave his name to St.Cyrus in the Mearns; another Culen Dubh to Cullen, in former Banffshire. Rocky Kintyre soil (inhospitable to farming) was abandoned for rich agricultural hinterland of lowland Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, Moray, Black Isle and the Great Glen.

Pictish Chronicles, Sacred Books & Long-lost Placename Clues

Pictish Chronicles—such as survived the deliberate defacement and downgrade of a subdued culture—were either rewritten or ‘lost’. Despite Nordic and Scotian suppression, we are fortunate to have original contemporary accounts by Venerable Bede (Northumbrian Anglian monk and historian, d.735 Jarrow) and Columba’s 7thC biographer, St. Adamnan of Iona. Margin illustration notes in 10thC Book of Deer show how gradually over 200 years, the so-called Kings of Alba gradually asserted their Irish and Scots roots, in a country they finally named Scot-land. Pictish heritage is jealously guarded in lowland central Aberdeenshire in a rich assortment of Pictish placenames, ancient forests, tollroads and routeways carved through an adoptive-Gaelic landmass. In this maelstrom of mixed lineage, Aberdeenshire Moray and Banff proudly speak the Doric—local Scots sub-language with strong Pictish overtones filled with hidden meaning.

Cathedrals may come and go but Pechts’ hooses remain…

Elgin cathedral— Light in the North—burned and ravaged before the Reformation. Pluscarden Sistercian Abbey and Brotherhood, burned but rebuilt; Abbeys of Arbroath, Brechin and Melrose ruinous, roofless. Yet the Fite Kirks (white aka stone building c.f. sod earth structures of pre-Christian cells) survive at Tyrie, Old Rayne, and Fordyce—a sacred stone’s throw distant from Deskford battlefield where a lone Celtic Carnyx battlehorn was found.

Trajan’s Column in Rome shows barbarian hoards sounding the Carnyx in battle. Designs in 1st-4thCC continental Celtic countries share the trumpet’s ‘Pictish beast’ shape, like the Craw Stane & pin above; imply a sacred meaning, as do regional shapes of traditional Class-I incised Pictish symbols on slabs from Ross & Cromarty to the Firth of Tay. Mirror & comb usually indicate lineage through female line of succession.

Old Aberdeen’s 10thC St.Machar’s Cathedral retains the best of ten centuries of change in a multi-faith population. Within a ploughshare of the ‘teaching stones’ of early-Christian monk Fergus’s sanctuary at Dyce [Aberdeen airport], top rt., sacred kirks and preaching steens (cross-carved stones with no other ornament) gradually filled in the jigsaw of Pictish ‘affiliation’ with Rome in King Nechtan’s time, 721. Then the Pictish nation politically and architecturally surpassed Northumbrian Jarrow, Lindisfarne and York in holding ‘Roman’ Easter alongside the Vatican, ahead of laggard barbarians of the Saxon south and ‘antiquated’ Iona. This division within the church in Scotland survived the Reformation.

Local kirk adherents [Church of Scotland] still prefer to speak to God directly, without the assistance of meenister, beadle, angels or peripatetic monks as intermediary.

HighTech to the Rescue: Creative Solution to Past Mysteries

Exciting new work opens the door for creativity in a field previously dominated by English [Oxbridge] chroniclers with understandably few tentacles in the Northeast Brythonic black-haired race’s murky past. With Univ. Aberdeen in the cauldron mix now, stirring chronicler cells in the Celtic cerebral cortex, folk memory, subconscious links to our past are no longer ‘forgotten’. They surface and bring aha moments.

Triggered by drone footage—superior to ’50s archaeological ‘aerial photography’ in cost and fuel efficiency—and I.T., Earth equivalent of depth-sounding in the Deep, avenues we never knew existed open—multi-layer occupation; imported oak versus local-grown timber for sacred buildings; extended habitation as royal residences within surrounding high population dense ‘burgh’.

Tap o’Noth, 1,800ft, similarly surprised the team in revealing a high density ‘town’ at hilltop level, supported by a rich artisan-agriculture-forestry-based ‘royal’ burgh below in Rhynie-Clatt culture centre within prehistoric RSCs of Wheedlemont and the Ladder Hills. Rhynie’s current residents call for return of their iconic Man, to reunite with remaining carved compatriots in Market Square.

Looking Ahead at Burghead

Past & Future Storm

Burghead winter frolics are just beginning. Clavie King Dan Ralph, son John & Clavie Crew brush up their tar-burning barrel-toting oil-spill defying skills 2prepare for Auld’Eel Burning the Clavie on the Doorie fire-altar overlooking the Moray Firth. Late solstice: early January here we come.

For all creative spirits under the solstital Storm’s watchful eye, may we writers gain wisdom from our own collective subconscious, learn new ways to preserve and protect our ancient paths.

Here’s to embracing both past and our human future. Sláinte selig skøl santé salute salud cheers. ©2021 Marian Youngblood