2hateHate → +
-(-)
2hateLove → -
-(+)
2loveLove → +
+(+)
2loveHate → -
+(-)
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Gettin' Medieval with John Ball
Back in the day (1381), this was a riot:
"When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"
"From the beginning all men by nature were created alike,
and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men.
"For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning,
he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free.
"And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God,
in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty."
"When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"
"From the beginning all men by nature were created alike,and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men.
"For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning,
he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free.
"And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God,
in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty."
Monday, September 21, 2009
THE SPECTACULAR DREAM ABOUT THE LITTLE DOVE
(PART II of a Story that Liz Began to Me, by Me; Artwork also by Me)
TO LITTLE BEAR & LITTLE DOVE, MY LOVES
As the days passed by Little Bear and Little Puppy grew to be closer friends than anyone had ever imagined was possible. Eventually, when other animals met them in the forest, no one could tell them apart. Now the two of them had started to look like another kind of animal entirely. They seemed to glow in the sunlight, and they sang together like birds, and their laughter flowed just like the Great River.
A Little Turtle approached them one day, and asked them what everyone had been wondering: “We all remember you once being a Little Bear and a Little Puppy, and though you don’t exactly look different to us, we can’t think of you the same way anymore for some reason. What has happened to you and how do you sing without making a sound?”
“Because we sing the peacock’s song,” blurted Little Puppy, and then he realized that he should not speak of this because the other animals would not understand.
“What do you mean ‘the peacock’s song’?” asked Little Turtle. “How can a bear and a puppy sing like a peacock? I didn’t even know that peacocks sing.”
Little Bear quickly tried to remedy the confusion by saying, “You would not understand even if we told you. You must bravely follow the Great River and you will find out for yourself one day.”
Little Turtle looked puzzled, “But no one knows where the Great River goes! It might be dangerous!”
“The river goes many places, and yet it only flows in one direction. Because of this, it can take you on many adventures – and some of them can be frightening – but you can never be lost, for the river always leads back to where it began.” replied Little Puppy.
Little Turtle blinked in astonishment and wandered away from where they stood on the bank of the Great River. A minute later he went inside his shell to take a nap.
“Why do you feel the need to speak of the peacock’s song Little Puppy?” asked Little Bear.
“I guess that I forget sometimes that a song is meant to be sung. I just get excited sometimes, and I’m a little too eager to talk.”
“Well,” said Little Bear, “maybe that’s why I love you so: you dive right into situations that others might be more cautious of, even though they would miss the adventure!”
“Yes, but I wish that I could just sit still and be quiet like you without always feeling the need to speak or act….”
One day, as winter approached and the days grew colder, Little Bear said to Little Puppy, “Soon I must return to my cave and hibernate for the winter.”
“What is hibernation?”
“It is a kind of waking sleep, during which I dream lucidly for a whole season, and when I open my eyes again, it will be springtime.”
“What is lucid dreaming?”
“It is how I am able to sit so still and so quiet. It is a dream that tells me what is to come. I know things before they happen, and I am not surprised when they do. For example, I knew that I would meet you and that we would be best friends because I dreamed it in my hibernation.”
“But I thought that it scared you when we first met and we tumbled through the hollow log.”
“I said that I am not surprised when dreams come true, which is different than not being scared. In fact, having your dreams come true can be very scary.”
Little Puppy thought about this for a long time. He followed Little Bear into her cave where she curled up in the corner and went into a deep hibernation. He watched her for a long time before he wandered back out of the cave and into the cold air.
As he stepped outside, he noticed that the clouds above him were as dark as the night sky, and thunder growled across the horizon. Suddenly, it began to rain violently. He was freezing cold, and ran as fast as he could through the forest to try to stay warm. Finally, he stopped beneath a large Sycamore Tree to try to keep dry.
The tree’s trunk towered into the sky, reminding him of a strange, dark river flowing upwards. There he saw a nest of bees hanging from a limb, and the bees swirled all around it humming with anger at the rain. There were thousands of little cells within the honeycomb and it looked to Little Puppy as if the tree’s trunk flowed right into this enormous colony in the heavens. Then, in a instant, the sky exploded in a booming flash of light. Time seemed to stop in a spell of luminosity, and he could see every single bee in the colony suspended in midair. They all looked like fireflies lit up and frozen in flight. Slowly flames began to creep outwards from the bee’s nest and then onto the limbs of the mighty Sycamore. Little Puppy could no longer distinguish between the buzzing of the angry bees and the humming of the electricity vibrating through the body of the mighty tree. The fire was spreading quickly now and he ran to escape to a safer place.
Now, Little Puppy was not scared of the fire or the storm or the night, but he felt terribly alone without Little Bear, and as he ran a thought occurred to him: He did not know who he was without her. He began to howl wildly in sadness. He did not pay attention to where he was going, and before long he came to the end of the Great River, where it emptied into the Great Sea.
He ran along the shore for weeks and weeks and this whole time the storm did not let up. He was miles from home now.
Finally, one night the storm started to break up. The Great Sea calmed, the wind died down, and the full moon began to peak through the clouds. Looking into the moonlight on the water, a strange feeling came over Little Puppy. He felt as if Little Bear were right there with him, or maybe to be more accurate, that she was watching him from just beyond the horizon on the sea. “Are you there my best friend, Little Bear? I miss you so!” he yowled.
Then another thought occurred to him, “If I can be still and quiet enough, just like Little Bear said, then maybe she will come to me.” He closed his eyes and immediately saw her there smiling at him. Something near his foot made a sound – Clink! – and when he opened his eyes, he saw a bottle on the beach in front of him. It had washed up on the shore. At first it appeared that there was a scroll rolled up inside. “A message in a bottle?!” he thought. No, as he looked closer, he realized that it was in fact a Little Dove.
“Hello!” said Little Dove. “I’m stuck in here. Can you get me out?” It looked at him through the glass in much distress. For once in his life, Little Puppy was scared. He had no idea how to get the Little Dove out! The little guy looked so small and delicate that Puppy was afraid he might hurt him in trying to help.
But before Little Puppy could do anything, a whispering voice floated by them in the air. It said, “Do you want to come out Little Dove?” to which the little bird chirped in acknowledgement. “Then just squeeze on through. It looks impossible, but getting into that bottle in the first place was much harder.”
Little Puppy recognized the voice at once. It was Little Bear! “Where are you? I miss you so much!”
“I am always with you, my love. What’s more important is that you know where you are.” Little Puppy realized that he had no idea where he was.
Little Dove looked at him again and chirped once more, and then he exhaled loudly and squeezed as hard as he could through the flute of the bottle. In an instant, POP! He was free!
The tiny bird flew up and landed on Little Puppy’s shoulder. He whispered in his ear in a voice that sounded very much like Little Bear’s, “I can easily show you the way back home if you promise to be my friend take care of me. For I am a very small bird, and you are strong and fearless.”
“It’s a deal!” cheered Little Puppy.
They walked for the rest of the winter together and became the very best of friends. As they neared home, they came upon the tree where Little Puppy had seen the bees and the fire. He stopped and noticed that the leaves were growing back, and that new bushes on the ground below were growing out of the ashes. He looked high into the branches of the tree and saw that the bees were still there and that they had made lots of honey.
He said to Little Dove, “Little Bear likes nothing better than honey. I would like to take her some, but how can I get to it all the way up there?”
“Don’t be silly! I can fly up there and get it!” And that is just what he did.
A few minutes later they were back at the mouth of Little Bear’s cave. She was just stirring from her hibernation when they arrived. As if no time at all had passed and as if she already knew Little Dove too, she hugged them both and said, “I’m hungry! I feel like I haven’t eaten in weeks!”
“Well, you haven’t, but we brought you some honey.”
“My favorite!” she yawned as she stuck her paw into Little Dove’s bottle where they had stored the honey. “Mmmm!!! You’ll never guess what I dreamed in my hibernation!”
“What?” Little Puppy and Little Dove said in unison.
“I dreamed that I was going to another world across the Great Sea and through the clouds in the darkness. I thought that I was dying, and I was scared. But then I closed my eyes, and you were there Little Puppy, and you were smiling at me. When I opened them again, I knew that although I felt like I was dying, I was really being reborn. Then the clouds parted and there was a rainbow that I followed back here to this world.”
From the mouth of Little Bear’s cave you could still barely see the old Sycamore Tree and there was the most beautiful rainbow that they had ever seen above it in the sky.
TO LITTLE BEAR & LITTLE DOVE, MY LOVES
As the days passed by Little Bear and Little Puppy grew to be closer friends than anyone had ever imagined was possible. Eventually, when other animals met them in the forest, no one could tell them apart. Now the two of them had started to look like another kind of animal entirely. They seemed to glow in the sunlight, and they sang together like birds, and their laughter flowed just like the Great River.
A Little Turtle approached them one day, and asked them what everyone had been wondering: “We all remember you once being a Little Bear and a Little Puppy, and though you don’t exactly look different to us, we can’t think of you the same way anymore for some reason. What has happened to you and how do you sing without making a sound?”
“Because we sing the peacock’s song,” blurted Little Puppy, and then he realized that he should not speak of this because the other animals would not understand.
“What do you mean ‘the peacock’s song’?” asked Little Turtle. “How can a bear and a puppy sing like a peacock? I didn’t even know that peacocks sing.”
Little Bear quickly tried to remedy the confusion by saying, “You would not understand even if we told you. You must bravely follow the Great River and you will find out for yourself one day.”
Little Turtle looked puzzled, “But no one knows where the Great River goes! It might be dangerous!”
“The river goes many places, and yet it only flows in one direction. Because of this, it can take you on many adventures – and some of them can be frightening – but you can never be lost, for the river always leads back to where it began.” replied Little Puppy.
Little Turtle blinked in astonishment and wandered away from where they stood on the bank of the Great River. A minute later he went inside his shell to take a nap.
“Why do you feel the need to speak of the peacock’s song Little Puppy?” asked Little Bear.
“I guess that I forget sometimes that a song is meant to be sung. I just get excited sometimes, and I’m a little too eager to talk.”
“Well,” said Little Bear, “maybe that’s why I love you so: you dive right into situations that others might be more cautious of, even though they would miss the adventure!”
“Yes, but I wish that I could just sit still and be quiet like you without always feeling the need to speak or act….”
One day, as winter approached and the days grew colder, Little Bear said to Little Puppy, “Soon I must return to my cave and hibernate for the winter.”
“What is hibernation?”
“It is a kind of waking sleep, during which I dream lucidly for a whole season, and when I open my eyes again, it will be springtime.”
“What is lucid dreaming?”
“It is how I am able to sit so still and so quiet. It is a dream that tells me what is to come. I know things before they happen, and I am not surprised when they do. For example, I knew that I would meet you and that we would be best friends because I dreamed it in my hibernation.”
“But I thought that it scared you when we first met and we tumbled through the hollow log.”
“I said that I am not surprised when dreams come true, which is different than not being scared. In fact, having your dreams come true can be very scary.”
Little Puppy thought about this for a long time. He followed Little Bear into her cave where she curled up in the corner and went into a deep hibernation. He watched her for a long time before he wandered back out of the cave and into the cold air.
As he stepped outside, he noticed that the clouds above him were as dark as the night sky, and thunder growled across the horizon. Suddenly, it began to rain violently. He was freezing cold, and ran as fast as he could through the forest to try to stay warm. Finally, he stopped beneath a large Sycamore Tree to try to keep dry.
The tree’s trunk towered into the sky, reminding him of a strange, dark river flowing upwards. There he saw a nest of bees hanging from a limb, and the bees swirled all around it humming with anger at the rain. There were thousands of little cells within the honeycomb and it looked to Little Puppy as if the tree’s trunk flowed right into this enormous colony in the heavens. Then, in a instant, the sky exploded in a booming flash of light. Time seemed to stop in a spell of luminosity, and he could see every single bee in the colony suspended in midair. They all looked like fireflies lit up and frozen in flight. Slowly flames began to creep outwards from the bee’s nest and then onto the limbs of the mighty Sycamore. Little Puppy could no longer distinguish between the buzzing of the angry bees and the humming of the electricity vibrating through the body of the mighty tree. The fire was spreading quickly now and he ran to escape to a safer place.
Now, Little Puppy was not scared of the fire or the storm or the night, but he felt terribly alone without Little Bear, and as he ran a thought occurred to him: He did not know who he was without her. He began to howl wildly in sadness. He did not pay attention to where he was going, and before long he came to the end of the Great River, where it emptied into the Great Sea.
He ran along the shore for weeks and weeks and this whole time the storm did not let up. He was miles from home now.
Finally, one night the storm started to break up. The Great Sea calmed, the wind died down, and the full moon began to peak through the clouds. Looking into the moonlight on the water, a strange feeling came over Little Puppy. He felt as if Little Bear were right there with him, or maybe to be more accurate, that she was watching him from just beyond the horizon on the sea. “Are you there my best friend, Little Bear? I miss you so!” he yowled.
Then another thought occurred to him, “If I can be still and quiet enough, just like Little Bear said, then maybe she will come to me.” He closed his eyes and immediately saw her there smiling at him. Something near his foot made a sound – Clink! – and when he opened his eyes, he saw a bottle on the beach in front of him. It had washed up on the shore. At first it appeared that there was a scroll rolled up inside. “A message in a bottle?!” he thought. No, as he looked closer, he realized that it was in fact a Little Dove.
“Hello!” said Little Dove. “I’m stuck in here. Can you get me out?” It looked at him through the glass in much distress. For once in his life, Little Puppy was scared. He had no idea how to get the Little Dove out! The little guy looked so small and delicate that Puppy was afraid he might hurt him in trying to help.
But before Little Puppy could do anything, a whispering voice floated by them in the air. It said, “Do you want to come out Little Dove?” to which the little bird chirped in acknowledgement. “Then just squeeze on through. It looks impossible, but getting into that bottle in the first place was much harder.”
Little Puppy recognized the voice at once. It was Little Bear! “Where are you? I miss you so much!”
“I am always with you, my love. What’s more important is that you know where you are.” Little Puppy realized that he had no idea where he was.
Little Dove looked at him again and chirped once more, and then he exhaled loudly and squeezed as hard as he could through the flute of the bottle. In an instant, POP! He was free!
The tiny bird flew up and landed on Little Puppy’s shoulder. He whispered in his ear in a voice that sounded very much like Little Bear’s, “I can easily show you the way back home if you promise to be my friend take care of me. For I am a very small bird, and you are strong and fearless.”
“It’s a deal!” cheered Little Puppy.
They walked for the rest of the winter together and became the very best of friends. As they neared home, they came upon the tree where Little Puppy had seen the bees and the fire. He stopped and noticed that the leaves were growing back, and that new bushes on the ground below were growing out of the ashes. He looked high into the branches of the tree and saw that the bees were still there and that they had made lots of honey.
He said to Little Dove, “Little Bear likes nothing better than honey. I would like to take her some, but how can I get to it all the way up there?”
“Don’t be silly! I can fly up there and get it!” And that is just what he did.
A few minutes later they were back at the mouth of Little Bear’s cave. She was just stirring from her hibernation when they arrived. As if no time at all had passed and as if she already knew Little Dove too, she hugged them both and said, “I’m hungry! I feel like I haven’t eaten in weeks!”
“Well, you haven’t, but we brought you some honey.”
“My favorite!” she yawned as she stuck her paw into Little Dove’s bottle where they had stored the honey. “Mmmm!!! You’ll never guess what I dreamed in my hibernation!”
“What?” Little Puppy and Little Dove said in unison.
“I dreamed that I was going to another world across the Great Sea and through the clouds in the darkness. I thought that I was dying, and I was scared. But then I closed my eyes, and you were there Little Puppy, and you were smiling at me. When I opened them again, I knew that although I felt like I was dying, I was really being reborn. Then the clouds parted and there was a rainbow that I followed back here to this world.”
From the mouth of Little Bear’s cave you could still barely see the old Sycamore Tree and there was the most beautiful rainbow that they had ever seen above it in the sky.
Friday, September 18, 2009
3 MYTHOLOGIES OF THE SKY THAT'S FALLING
September 15, 2007
"A supposed meteorite crashed in southern Peru over the weekend and has caused up to 200 people to suffer from headaches, nausea, dizziness, and breathing problems. Local farmers have given eyewitness accounts to Peruvian media, which depict a ball of fire falling from the sky and slamming into the nearly uninhabited region of Andean plains near the Bolivian border on Saturday morning. Officials have now confirmed that it was, in fact, a meteorite. Jorge Perez, head of the department of health in Puno, told The Allied Press that 'toxic' fumes emanating from the liquid-filled crater left by the meteorite, which is approximately 66 feet wide by 16 feet deep, briefly sickened hundreds of people immediately following the crash. Perez said that this phenomenon was likely 'caused by the gas they inhaled resulting from the crash.' But American meteor expert Marvin Ursa disputed this explanation, saying that it's more plausible that 'Dust kicked up by the meteorite, rather than the meteorite itself, caused the kinds of sicknesses being reported.' He continued, 'It's also extremely likely that these symptoms are merely a psychosomatic reaction evoked by a completely normal astronomical event witnessed by a primitive and superstitious people.' Similar cases were reported in 2002 and 2004 in the same region of southern Peru but never confirmed as meteorites."
For anyone who might be interested, here's what made the front page headline that day: "BUSH: IRAQ SURGE IS A SUCCESS…the increased level of troops in Iraq have allowed us to neutralize the growing number of Al-Queda cells entering the country from Iran."
"Russian Military Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that one of the United States' most top secret military spy satellites, the KH-13 targeting Iran, was 'destroyed in its orbit' on Saturday. Furthermore, Russia reports that a large piece of the satellite survived reentry into the Earth's atmosphere before crashing in a remote region of southern Peru, where hundreds of mostly indigenous farmers are reported to be ill from radiation poisoning. The satellite's main power generator ran on the radioactive isotope Plutonium-238. Western media reports are giving little attention to whatever did, in fact, crash in Peru on Saturday, but the scant coverage that does exist attributes the 30-meter wide crater there to a 'completely normal astronomical event', namely a meteorite. Russian scientists refute this claim by saying, 'Any meteorite large enough to leave a crater in the ground this size would have struck the Earth with the force of a 1 kiloton nuclear warhead and would hardly qualify as a typical occurrence.' Most astonishing about these reports, however, is the fact that they claim that it was the United States Air Force's 30th Space Wing, located at Vanderburg Air Force Base in California, which destroyed their country's own spy satellite. If these reports prove to be true it would also lend credibility to Iranian military intelligence reports, which tell us that the United States government is currently facing a military coup, being ignited by high-ranking U.S. military leaders who disagree with President George W. Bush's plans to engulf the entire Middle East in 'Total War'."
Just out of curiosity, I checked to see what made the thirteenth page of the Action News: "AMERICAN BEE COLONIES COLLAPSE – Mysterious phenomenon causes U.S. bees to abandon their hives, leaving no trace of their whereabouts. Experts say that the increasing barrage of electromagnetic waves produced by American cell phones may be disorienting worker bees from finding their way home."
I happen to be in Peru on vacation as I write the proceeding story, the words of a Peruvian shaman who described for me his experience of the meteorite / U.S. spy satellite / dying, cosmic bee crash and the prophetic events that led up to it. I was careful to note that his story only included one word in Quechua, the language of the Inca, so I asked him to spell it for me: Y-a-c-h-a-p-a-y. I have since looked up this word and here is what it means: The Echo. But as with many other Quechua words, it has several meanings and metaphoric interpretations attached to it. It can mean "he or it that imitates, reproduces, responds, learns, teaches, also smart, clever, wit, agreeable, gets along, doesn't argue, informs, advises, mocks, or jokes". A related word, "yachay", simply means knowledge or information. Yachapay itself is not a deity or an object of worship. It is an instrument of magic.
Being intrigued (to say the least) by these events, as well as being an amateur journalist (i.e.- a "blogger"), I decided to catch a bus down to Puno yesterday in order to see firsthand what was going on here. From the moment that I arrived I knew that there was more to this situation than either the western or eastern media were reporting. I couldn't even get to the crash site because of a ten-foot-high, chain-link fence that had been erected immediately around the site. I could barely see the crater itself from this boundary, but what I could see of it at first glance definitely made it appear quite a bit larger than media photos had depicted it. Then I thought again about the dimensions that reports had given: "…roughly 66 feet wide…". Actually that seems about right now that I think about it, but seeing this dent in the Earth in person definitely added to its magnitude somehow. I remember thinking at that moment about how I hand experienced the same feeling with regards to what I'll call "the picture versus presence of sublimity" the very first time that I stood in awe of the redwoods back at home in California. There just simply was no way to capture in a picture what I experienced in the presence of those trees. It was like that here in Peru as well: something of a mudhole on film became an alien crater when I first beheld it up close.
There were trailers with satellite dishes on their tops set up all around the crater, and large black SUVs with tented windows parked immediately behind them. No license plates on any of them. What were, I can only assume, scientists without any marks to identify their nationality strolled causally about in hazmat suits, carrying strange-looking pieces of electronic equipment around with them. Because of their masks and my distance from them I was unable to determine what language they were speaking to each other.
After about an hour of observing this suspicious scene, I decided to go to the closest village, Carancas, where I met Pablo, the shaman who told me the story I have recounted above. He started off his tale by modestly saying, "It all happened exactly as in my vision dream the night before." I can only hope that I have echoed the gist of what was recounted to me here because I have since become convinced that Pablo's story is somehow the truest version I've heard of the
events that took place here yesterday when the sky itself seems to have fallen. You can just call me Chicken Little, I guess.
The Official View (US):
On page thirteen of America Today, yesterday there was a story – which might seem notable to anyone still possessed with an imagination – concerning an object that apparently fell from the sky over Puno, Peru on Saturday. Here's what the article said:"A supposed meteorite crashed in southern Peru over the weekend and has caused up to 200 people to suffer from headaches, nausea, dizziness, and breathing problems. Local farmers have given eyewitness accounts to Peruvian media, which depict a ball of fire falling from the sky and slamming into the nearly uninhabited region of Andean plains near the Bolivian border on Saturday morning. Officials have now confirmed that it was, in fact, a meteorite. Jorge Perez, head of the department of health in Puno, told The Allied Press that 'toxic' fumes emanating from the liquid-filled crater left by the meteorite, which is approximately 66 feet wide by 16 feet deep, briefly sickened hundreds of people immediately following the crash. Perez said that this phenomenon was likely 'caused by the gas they inhaled resulting from the crash.' But American meteor expert Marvin Ursa disputed this explanation, saying that it's more plausible that 'Dust kicked up by the meteorite, rather than the meteorite itself, caused the kinds of sicknesses being reported.' He continued, 'It's also extremely likely that these symptoms are merely a psychosomatic reaction evoked by a completely normal astronomical event witnessed by a primitive and superstitious people.' Similar cases were reported in 2002 and 2004 in the same region of southern Peru but never confirmed as meteorites."
For anyone who might be interested, here's what made the front page headline that day: "BUSH: IRAQ SURGE IS A SUCCESS…the increased level of troops in Iraq have allowed us to neutralize the growing number of Al-Queda cells entering the country from Iran."
The Skeptic's View (Iran):
The Islamic Republic's Action News (IRAN) reported a somewhat different version of the strange events in Peru yesterday. It's interesting to note that this was the top story in Iran following the meteorite crash. Compare this – if you care to take the time – to the brief appearance the story made in the American news on page 13:"Russian Military Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that one of the United States' most top secret military spy satellites, the KH-13 targeting Iran, was 'destroyed in its orbit' on Saturday. Furthermore, Russia reports that a large piece of the satellite survived reentry into the Earth's atmosphere before crashing in a remote region of southern Peru, where hundreds of mostly indigenous farmers are reported to be ill from radiation poisoning. The satellite's main power generator ran on the radioactive isotope Plutonium-238. Western media reports are giving little attention to whatever did, in fact, crash in Peru on Saturday, but the scant coverage that does exist attributes the 30-meter wide crater there to a 'completely normal astronomical event', namely a meteorite. Russian scientists refute this claim by saying, 'Any meteorite large enough to leave a crater in the ground this size would have struck the Earth with the force of a 1 kiloton nuclear warhead and would hardly qualify as a typical occurrence.' Most astonishing about these reports, however, is the fact that they claim that it was the United States Air Force's 30th Space Wing, located at Vanderburg Air Force Base in California, which destroyed their country's own spy satellite. If these reports prove to be true it would also lend credibility to Iranian military intelligence reports, which tell us that the United States government is currently facing a military coup, being ignited by high-ranking U.S. military leaders who disagree with President George W. Bush's plans to engulf the entire Middle East in 'Total War'."
Just out of curiosity, I checked to see what made the thirteenth page of the Action News: "AMERICAN BEE COLONIES COLLAPSE – Mysterious phenomenon causes U.S. bees to abandon their hives, leaving no trace of their whereabouts. Experts say that the increasing barrage of electromagnetic waves produced by American cell phones may be disorienting worker bees from finding their way home."
The View from the Ground (Puno, Peru):
"The night before these signs were made evident by this plague, I had a vision in the form of a dream, in which I looked up into the heavens, and I saw that the Great River in the Sky [the Milky Way] flowed with honey and that each star in the night sky was a cosmic bee fixated upon his work in the great universal colony. Suddenly there was the crashing of thunder though the night was clear and no storm appeared imminent. It was the voice of Illapa, the god of thunder and lightning, and he spoke with the voice of yachapay, which resounded from every mountain. Then the night turned immediately thereafter to day, and a great bee warrior from the world above crashed to the Earth in flames. And all the beasts of the land, and all the fowl of the air, and fishes of the sea withered like flowers because there were no bees left in the world to pollinate them anymore."
I happen to be in Peru on vacation as I write the proceeding story, the words of a Peruvian shaman who described for me his experience of the meteorite / U.S. spy satellite / dying, cosmic bee crash and the prophetic events that led up to it. I was careful to note that his story only included one word in Quechua, the language of the Inca, so I asked him to spell it for me: Y-a-c-h-a-p-a-y. I have since looked up this word and here is what it means: The Echo. But as with many other Quechua words, it has several meanings and metaphoric interpretations attached to it. It can mean "he or it that imitates, reproduces, responds, learns, teaches, also smart, clever, wit, agreeable, gets along, doesn't argue, informs, advises, mocks, or jokes". A related word, "yachay", simply means knowledge or information. Yachapay itself is not a deity or an object of worship. It is an instrument of magic.
Being intrigued (to say the least) by these events, as well as being an amateur journalist (i.e.- a "blogger"), I decided to catch a bus down to Puno yesterday in order to see firsthand what was going on here. From the moment that I arrived I knew that there was more to this situation than either the western or eastern media were reporting. I couldn't even get to the crash site because of a ten-foot-high, chain-link fence that had been erected immediately around the site. I could barely see the crater itself from this boundary, but what I could see of it at first glance definitely made it appear quite a bit larger than media photos had depicted it. Then I thought again about the dimensions that reports had given: "…roughly 66 feet wide…". Actually that seems about right now that I think about it, but seeing this dent in the Earth in person definitely added to its magnitude somehow. I remember thinking at that moment about how I hand experienced the same feeling with regards to what I'll call "the picture versus presence of sublimity" the very first time that I stood in awe of the redwoods back at home in California. There just simply was no way to capture in a picture what I experienced in the presence of those trees. It was like that here in Peru as well: something of a mudhole on film became an alien crater when I first beheld it up close.
There were trailers with satellite dishes on their tops set up all around the crater, and large black SUVs with tented windows parked immediately behind them. No license plates on any of them. What were, I can only assume, scientists without any marks to identify their nationality strolled causally about in hazmat suits, carrying strange-looking pieces of electronic equipment around with them. Because of their masks and my distance from them I was unable to determine what language they were speaking to each other.
After about an hour of observing this suspicious scene, I decided to go to the closest village, Carancas, where I met Pablo, the shaman who told me the story I have recounted above. He started off his tale by modestly saying, "It all happened exactly as in my vision dream the night before." I can only hope that I have echoed the gist of what was recounted to me here because I have since become convinced that Pablo's story is somehow the truest version I've heard of the
events that took place here yesterday when the sky itself seems to have fallen. You can just call me Chicken Little, I guess.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
STILLNESS ON THE WATER
A SONG
Back at the old house in days long past
Sometimes it got so hot and still
I prayed that my angel would come at last
Silence was the speaking of her will
Then the blue sky filled with a dark purple shield
Rain moved like a curtain pulled ‘cross the field
And the thunder rang out in the heaviest song
Clover blowin’ in the wind, the flag of the strong
Neighbors usually get along while it’s fair weather
But what about a storm makes them change?
It causes all the birds to flock in common feather
And cowboys shoot for homes just out of range
When the rain came down I listened to it well
It rattled on my old tin roof, seemed to cast a spell
The storm can silence the stillness from a-speakin’
So I held my heart open to keep my roof from a-leakin’
Well, the floodwaters came and the river just kept risin’
And it washed away the home I thought I knew
But after awhile I just stopped a-fightin’
I learned I could breathe underwater too
Cause even in the midst of the ragin’ storm
Your angel will come to you if you seek her form
She’s the warm breath that’s calmly brought inside
The stillness on the water that starts to change the tide
Back at the old house in days long past
Sometimes it got so hot and still
I prayed that my angel would come at last
Silence was the speaking of her will
Then the blue sky filled with a dark purple shield
Rain moved like a curtain pulled ‘cross the field
And the thunder rang out in the heaviest song
Clover blowin’ in the wind, the flag of the strong
Neighbors usually get along while it’s fair weather
But what about a storm makes them change?
It causes all the birds to flock in common feather
And cowboys shoot for homes just out of range
When the rain came down I listened to it well
It rattled on my old tin roof, seemed to cast a spell
The storm can silence the stillness from a-speakin’
So I held my heart open to keep my roof from a-leakin’
Well, the floodwaters came and the river just kept risin’
And it washed away the home I thought I knew
But after awhile I just stopped a-fightin’
I learned I could breathe underwater too
Cause even in the midst of the ragin’ storm
Your angel will come to you if you seek her form
She’s the warm breath that’s calmly brought inside
The stillness on the water that starts to change the tide
Hold candles to the flickering night,
wavering between worlds,
wading wild words,
shifting sea-signs,
to send smiles like shimmer,
simultaneously shaping
aquarelle horses
to drown desert.
Mirage (waving) withdraws before
oasis scene in kindred glance.
Heartbeats
(sounding pummel)
soak into such newly shown shores,
which straddle sun rising
from sandy slopes.
Alighting (somehow)
chakras cumbered by countenance,
saturnine ships, and silent seasons;
heart-song
beats spring time,
and candles hold to the night, flickering
wavering between worlds,
wading wild words,
shifting sea-signs,
to send smiles like shimmer,
simultaneously shaping
aquarelle horses
to drown desert.
Mirage (waving) withdraws before
oasis scene in kindred glance.
Heartbeats
(sounding pummel)
soak into such newly shown shores,
which straddle sun rising
from sandy slopes.
Alighting (somehow)
chakras cumbered by countenance,
saturnine ships, and silent seasons;
heart-song
beats spring time,
and candles hold to the night, flickering
TO ESP: JOB 30:29
Tell me all the myths, but speak telepathically
(Our eyes were singing like a peacock’s fan)
Draw on the elements with intentionality
(Sea-salted whispers from hearts in the sand)
Star-crossed signs emerge in synchronicity
(Teaching me the secrets of this magic plan)
Truth is only what you know empathically
(Love is simply knowing that you can)
Sophia is the place where I lost my sin
She was waiting there in dragon’s skin
And told me that this beast was my kin
Though her owl could still be my friend
(Our eyes were singing like a peacock’s fan)
Draw on the elements with intentionality
(Sea-salted whispers from hearts in the sand)
Star-crossed signs emerge in synchronicity
(Teaching me the secrets of this magic plan)
Truth is only what you know empathically
(Love is simply knowing that you can)
Sophia is the place where I lost my sin
She was waiting there in dragon’s skin
And told me that this beast was my kin
Though her owl could still be my friend
Saturday, September 12, 2009
THE ERMINE COAT
for CherieSometimes I wonder whatever happened to that old Golden Fleece, so highly esteemed by those argonauts who still call to us from the front gates of history. There, prosperity can be summed up by a magic pelt first worn by the sacrificial lamb. This cloak might have made it all the way down to us had we known where to look for it. Maybe it has stayed hidden for centuries in places we little suspected to find it: The crown of thorns placed on Jesus’ head or the crystalline twinkle in a newborn baby’s eye.
It is, in fact, more than possible that the old woman at the bus stop with bags in one hand, scattering crumbs to the birds with her other, while singing to them softly, might also know something about this mythical fleece. Though we least expect it, the old ermine coat that her aunt Bertha gave her as a child might glow in the old walnut chest where she keeps it stored, while she’s out dreaming of a perfect occasion on which to wear it.
SIRENS' CHANTEY
A SONG
Well, a captain called his sailors
Boys, come gather round!
Remember without your captain
That you would surely drown.
The mates looked at each other
And not a one made a sound
But if you looked in their hearts
Doubt could there be found.
The work involved in rowing
Required every man on deck,
Except for that old captain
Who just kept them all in check.
Til one day they went a-drifting
Where the sirens sing their song
And that night every sailor had a dream
In which he too did sing along.
And they sang:
The sea is rough, and it is wide,
But it can set you free
There is no use in looking
If you don’t want to see
We’re not alone on this tiny ship
As sometimes it may seem
It is only by your captain
That you don’t live your dreams.
So, throw the captain overboard
Throw him to the sea
Throw the captain overboard
And you will all be free!
The next day captain told them
That the sirens could sing tones
Which could bring to life all fears
And peel the skin right from their bones.
Don’t listen to their singing
Whatever you might do,
And cover your ears as we pass them by
Or we’ll abandon you.
But the crew all remembered dreaming
Of the day when they’d be free
To sing the sirens’ chantey
As they sailed across the sea
So the men all got to talkin’
About that captain and his tricks
And that night they threw him overboard
And left him in quite a fix.
And they sang…
Well, those sailors sailed for ages,
And their spirits did not die
Because they sang the sirens’ song,
All captains to defy.
On their ship they were all equals
And every man the same did row
As well as commanding his own right
To go wherever he might go.
And they sang….
Well, a captain called his sailors
Boys, come gather round!
Remember without your captain
That you would surely drown.
The mates looked at each other
And not a one made a sound
But if you looked in their hearts
Doubt could there be found.
The work involved in rowing
Required every man on deck,
Except for that old captain
Who just kept them all in check.
Til one day they went a-drifting
Where the sirens sing their song
And that night every sailor had a dream
In which he too did sing along.
And they sang:
The sea is rough, and it is wide,
But it can set you free
There is no use in looking
If you don’t want to see
We’re not alone on this tiny ship
As sometimes it may seem
It is only by your captain
That you don’t live your dreams.
So, throw the captain overboard
Throw him to the sea
Throw the captain overboard
And you will all be free!
The next day captain told them
That the sirens could sing tones
Which could bring to life all fears
And peel the skin right from their bones.
Don’t listen to their singing
Whatever you might do,
And cover your ears as we pass them by
Or we’ll abandon you.
But the crew all remembered dreaming
Of the day when they’d be free
To sing the sirens’ chantey
As they sailed across the sea
So the men all got to talkin’
About that captain and his tricks
And that night they threw him overboard
And left him in quite a fix.
And they sang…
Well, those sailors sailed for ages,
And their spirits did not die
Because they sang the sirens’ song,
All captains to defy.
On their ship they were all equals
And every man the same did row
As well as commanding his own right
To go wherever he might go.
And they sang….
QUOTATIONS FROM THE GNOSTIC JUNG BY STEPHAN HOELLER
“Gnosis, as envisioned by such men as Valentinus, Basilides, and their fellows, is the experience of totality or wholeness. This wholeness must be lived in time and must also be experienced in timelessness.” (The Gnostic Jung, p. 151)
“The serpent in the psyche is matched also by the serpent of matter itself. There is much evidence indicating that whenever the mind confronts an unknown or severely repressed force within itself, a corresponding constellation arises in the outer, physical world.” (TGJ, p. 173)
“There is one more grand design, one final alchemical vessel in which the two opposites, the dove [my note: Jung never called the “white bird” a dove, he may just as easily have been referring to Athena’s owl] and serpent, must meet: it is the human being, the new and the eternal Anthropos. In the starry height, in the seventh region of heaven, the archetype and prototype of the Anthropos rides in his solar chariot. The head of the bird joined to the serpent feet by a human torso and arms reveals the figure of Abraxas as the union of sky and earth, of the bird and the snake. ‘In this world,’ say the Sermons, ‘man is Abraxas.’ From the Gnosis of humanity a new Abraxas is born.” (TGJ, p. 173)
“Jung, in his studies of the mandala geometric designs which arise from the depths of the unconscious, came to the conclusion that in these mandalas…one can find the expression of the Anthropos or ‘complete man.’” (TGJ, p. 173-174)
“If the gods have indeed departed from the center of the contemporary mandala, in their stead we may have to accept humanity. This humanity, this Anthropos at the center of the mandala, should not, must not be a puny product of nineteenth century rationalism; it must not be a statistically designed consumer-robot drafted by corporation executives; or an outdated Marxist image of the proletarian revolutionary who naively believes that the basic evils of human nature can be solved by political force and economic change. Rather, the new man and woman must be like Abraxas: with head overshadowed by the Logos of wisdom and insight, with swift feet that possess the instinctual force and libidinal resilience of the serpent. These opposites in turn must be joined and welded together by qualities of true and undisguised humanity, a humanity for which no moral, economic or political apologies are required.” (TGJ, p. 175)
“The serpent in the psyche is matched also by the serpent of matter itself. There is much evidence indicating that whenever the mind confronts an unknown or severely repressed force within itself, a corresponding constellation arises in the outer, physical world.” (TGJ, p. 173)
“There is one more grand design, one final alchemical vessel in which the two opposites, the dove [my note: Jung never called the “white bird” a dove, he may just as easily have been referring to Athena’s owl] and serpent, must meet: it is the human being, the new and the eternal Anthropos. In the starry height, in the seventh region of heaven, the archetype and prototype of the Anthropos rides in his solar chariot. The head of the bird joined to the serpent feet by a human torso and arms reveals the figure of Abraxas as the union of sky and earth, of the bird and the snake. ‘In this world,’ say the Sermons, ‘man is Abraxas.’ From the Gnosis of humanity a new Abraxas is born.” (TGJ, p. 173)
“Jung, in his studies of the mandala geometric designs which arise from the depths of the unconscious, came to the conclusion that in these mandalas…one can find the expression of the Anthropos or ‘complete man.’” (TGJ, p. 173-174)
“If the gods have indeed departed from the center of the contemporary mandala, in their stead we may have to accept humanity. This humanity, this Anthropos at the center of the mandala, should not, must not be a puny product of nineteenth century rationalism; it must not be a statistically designed consumer-robot drafted by corporation executives; or an outdated Marxist image of the proletarian revolutionary who naively believes that the basic evils of human nature can be solved by political force and economic change. Rather, the new man and woman must be like Abraxas: with head overshadowed by the Logos of wisdom and insight, with swift feet that possess the instinctual force and libidinal resilience of the serpent. These opposites in turn must be joined and welded together by qualities of true and undisguised humanity, a humanity for which no moral, economic or political apologies are required.” (TGJ, p. 175)
PICTURE OF A ZULU WARRIOR MAIDEN IN B & W
For Uche
What color was the cameraman
that stole your telling face and
tried to flatten its bold features
out across such glossy paper?
Did he try to coax you to smile
by making cheap imitations
of your mother’s tongue
with infantile inflection?
Or did he shout at you
in his own language, expecting you
to figure out the intended meaning
not by deciphering words, but tone?
One observation I can make with certainty:
You are looking upward to an unseen heaven,
either rolling proud eyes or drawing down
some power beyond your caged frame.
OBSTRUCTIONS
Count nothing
With a mathematics
Of language loss
Trees from a ridge
Become a pasture
Where I glimpse
Another church
A hotel in a basket
Obstructed by words
With a mathematics
Of language loss
Trees from a ridge
Become a pasture
Where I glimpse
Another church
A hotel in a basket
Obstructed by words
HALF JAPANESE
for Lynette
Torn by a war
A picture of two
Schoolyard friends
Still embracing
Japanese characters
Form fragments behind
The only message left:
“Remember, I love…”
Torn by a war
A picture of two
Schoolyard friends
Still embracing
Japanese characters
Form fragments behind
The only message left:
“Remember, I love…”
LIGHT SOUNDS!
An electric jungle,Does not lightly sound
If you can hear
In ultraviolet.
Eels of color crawling across other dimensions
Try to catch them as they hurl through space
Becoming! Symbols, perhaps entities,
Shock this fabric; try to interpret me;
Feel my weight, no less light.
MEMORYMAKER
For Jose
I saw my grandpa’s memorymaker sitting on the mantle above our fireplace just below many of the family pictures he had taken using it. I chuckled to myself, “This camera has certainly done a good job preserving all these windows to other times and places, people and scenery, jolly smiles and small accidents, but now even it has become a relic on the shelf, a memory among memories.”
I blinked, and for a split second I thought I caught a glimpse down some ancient hall of mirrors there. I couldn’t see very far toward the vanishing point – the blink of an eye is plenty of time to see a whole lot, but not long enough to hold on to much – however I had some strange intuition that there was another lens where all these repeating fractals converged.
Maybe if I could somehow find my way down this tunnel and finally peer behind that last glass representation of all these separate images, just maybe I might find my grandpa there, on the other side, framing us all in his viewer. I wonder if he looks as much like me as he does in all these old photographs?
I saw my grandpa’s memorymaker sitting on the mantle above our fireplace just below many of the family pictures he had taken using it. I chuckled to myself, “This camera has certainly done a good job preserving all these windows to other times and places, people and scenery, jolly smiles and small accidents, but now even it has become a relic on the shelf, a memory among memories.”
I blinked, and for a split second I thought I caught a glimpse down some ancient hall of mirrors there. I couldn’t see very far toward the vanishing point – the blink of an eye is plenty of time to see a whole lot, but not long enough to hold on to much – however I had some strange intuition that there was another lens where all these repeating fractals converged.
Maybe if I could somehow find my way down this tunnel and finally peer behind that last glass representation of all these separate images, just maybe I might find my grandpa there, on the other side, framing us all in his viewer. I wonder if he looks as much like me as he does in all these old photographs?
PATHS THAT DON’T RHYME
for RhondaWas Pandora’s Box bestowed
By the last of the Titans
Who simply thought better
Than to soil his own hands?
Maybe Zeus filled it
Full of vices he knew
In his superior wisdom
She could never eschew?
Or was it a coffin
Her own shell innate,
With a first glance
At our shared fate?
Could it have reflected
All the apples Eve could see
Twinkling in the eyes
Of Adams’ family tree?
Is it at least possible,
And maybe even sure,
That her box was empty
Before that peek so demure?
Schrödinger’s cat, dead
And alive at the same time
One too many paths
Simply fail to....
A SMALL THING
A SONG
There's river in the water
Open sky within the blue
There's fullness in the notion
Of the me within the you
There's tangles in this moment
A labyrinth in these places
There's wrinkles in the lines of
The lives that hold these faces
There's dark spots that cross the sun
And moonlight on shifting sea
There's movement in the motion
Moving to eternity
There's symbols in living words
Whose syntax is in loving
There's rhythm when there's dancing
To the song that life's singing
Where do you get off thinking
That I am but a small thing?
There's spirit sounding silence
Some soul shaking stillness
Just like mind there is music
Something well in the illness
There’s absence in every thing
Presence means nothing is not
Anything could happen now
If you see what you've got
Where do you get off thinking
That I am but a small thing?
I’ve never been more than a part of this thing
Until now.
There's river in the water
Open sky within the blue
There's fullness in the notion
Of the me within the you
There's tangles in this moment
A labyrinth in these places
There's wrinkles in the lines of
The lives that hold these faces
There's dark spots that cross the sun
And moonlight on shifting sea
There's movement in the motion
Moving to eternity
There's symbols in living words
Whose syntax is in loving
There's rhythm when there's dancing
To the song that life's singing
Where do you get off thinking
That I am but a small thing?
There's spirit sounding silence
Some soul shaking stillness
Just like mind there is music
Something well in the illness
There’s absence in every thing
Presence means nothing is not
Anything could happen now
If you see what you've got
Where do you get off thinking
That I am but a small thing?
I’ve never been more than a part of this thing
Until now.
A BORROWED NIGHT
The stars, which have now disappeared
Spent the dawn mooning each brave face:
Venus, Mercury, the patron of thieves.
They met cold Mars in retrograde
And retired close to the fear of war
But there were no extras on the clock
Or minutes to match thirteen cycles
Whose tides - thus created - pull
Our wilderness into the wind
Of four dim candles, a roaring river.
Spent the dawn mooning each brave face:
Venus, Mercury, the patron of thieves.
They met cold Mars in retrograde
And retired close to the fear of war
But there were no extras on the clock
Or minutes to match thirteen cycles
Whose tides - thus created - pull
Our wilderness into the wind
Of four dim candles, a roaring river.
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