Elliot Cowan, Uses for Spider Webs and Renewing Your Virginity

Under the title of Miscellany:
More books that will piss you off if you have an iota of common sense:

Olympus and its Inhabitants, Agnes Smith, 1851.

“The universal belief in the existence of a Supreme Being shines through the accumulated mass of error which it [i.e., Greek and Roman mythology] presents…” (emphasis mine, Page 9)

UNIVERSAL belief???  “Accumulated mass of error”??  Really?!!???  Poor Aggie.   If she hadn’t already kicked the bucket, that chirpy and dimwitted bit of toxic ridiculousness opening this silly book would have inspired me to help her get there in a more timely fashion.  Apparently, she had so little knowledge of every other faith beyond her own judeo-christian cult, it was downright pitiful.  Let’s run it past a few Atheists, Pagans, Hindus, Buddhists and non-capitulatory Native Americans and see what THEY think of it.

Maybe that should be my first book:  “Books to Avoid If You Don’t Wish to Watch Your Own Head Explode”.  In fact, SHE’s the only “accumulated mass of error” I could see on that page.

Fortunately, this was a Google books download, so when I say I basically tossed the entire book after reading her first “narrative sketch” - a horrific description of Jupiter:

“Jupiter, the father of gods and men, the most powerful and most generally worshipped of all the heathen divinities ...” (emphasis mine, page 12) - heathen!!??!!

- I meant:  thank goodness for delete buttons.  Stupid woman.

DaVinci’s Demons
Don’t ask me why, but I ended up watching the world’s silliest movie, “Lost in Austen”.  Premise:  goofy, vulgar, London girl exchanges places with Elizabeth Bennett, the fictional heroine of Pride and Prejudice, and proceeds to screw up the entire plot, not to mention lying unashamedly to everyone connected with that twisted plot, so why she  - chronically rude liar that she was - gets rewarded with the hot hunk at the end, I have no idea.  Austen herself would have been horrified.  I was about to change the channel, when … I suddenly caught sight of said aforementioned “hot hunk”.

(*BLINK*!!) (*BOING!*)  “Hey, that’s Lorenzo de Medici!”

It was indeed.  Elliot Cowan – a younger Elliot Cowan than the man I had been watching on “DaVinci” – was playing the role of Mr. Darcy.  And that guy, may I state for the official record, was seriously hot.  Ladies, if you manage to catch the movie and find yourself getting nauseous in general, you must at least stay through the “wet shirt in the small pond” scene.  Ohhhh myyyyyyy.  That boy was utterly delicious.

After that scene you can tune out, because it was a pitiful movie except for the scenes he was in.  I, despite my better judgment, actually sat through the whole thing, just to watch Elliot Cowan.  He’s probably the hottest guy in “DaVinci” too, now that I think about it – bare butt and all – and the series shows more male frontal nudity than I’d seen on TV ... I was going to say “in quite some time”, but perhaps I should say “ever”.

Explanation:  if you’re going to show women fully naked, men should get the same exposure in the name of gender equality.  And yet, for some reason, male producers/directors have always had an aversion to filming the male appendage (in all its softened, relaxed, unexcited glory) bobbing about on the screen.  Even those silly late night Cinemax soft porn programs never show an un-erect, dangling penis.  Why?  Because they’re supposedly not arousing to look at?  Perhaps we all need to define what “arousing” could possibly mean.

The producers of “Game of Thrones” could learn this lesson from “DaVinci” – and I love “Game of Thrones”!  One of my few complaints about the series is just this – we get plenty of full frontal nudity when there are women on the screen, but not of men.  Why is that?

Starz should get an award for simply taking the beautiful human body – both male and female, young and old - in its natural state and putting it on film without blinking.  Of course, even Starz has room for improvement:  we haven’t yet seen an older woman naked, while they’ve shown plenty of grandfathers with everything hanging out.  But I’ll welcome the small steps wherever I can find cause to celebrate them.

And by the way, they’ve been pronouncing the family name incorrectly since Day One.  It’s “MEH-dee-chee”, not “Med-EE-chee”.  How do I know this?  I know one of their descendants, born and raised in Florence, and now living in the USA, personally.  That’s how she pronounces it, and is extremely emphatic about it.  I’ll take her pronunciation over theirs any day.

Finally, on behalf of Italians everywhere ... we WISH Lorenzo de Medici looked like that!  Because here’s the real one ... sculpturally captured in the days of old, while he was probably thinking, “Damn!  Why can’t I look like Elliot Cowan?”

**********************************************

Back to business.

Spiders.  Living on the ground floor (by which I mean, partially underground – great for insulation against either heat or cold!) – can also mean you’re visited by spiders.  Fortunately, I’m not terrified by the sight of spiders, the way some people are, and we have a basic agreement, those spiders and I.  I give them a few hours notice to get themselves free of the bathtub nooks (like the soap dish – for some reason, they like to hang out in the soap dish, don’t ask me why) and I won’t wash them down the drain.  A simple, “You need to find a safer place to hang out – fair warning!” is sufficient ... by the time I turn on the shower, they’re hiding somewhere else.  Also, I’ve politely requested that they stay away from the bed area, as I would prefer to not wake up with one of them crawling on me, and they’ve stayed away ever since.

So we co-exist quite peacefully, the occasional spider and I.

Was reading The Real Witches’ Year for 29 March – did you know placing a clean cobweb (without the spider in it, obviously) over a cut or bleeding wound will help stop the bleeding?  Here’s another:  “if you can collect a cobweb with dew on it, without breaking it, place it on a dish of water to attract love into your life.”  The things I learn these days!  I won’t have access to any dew-covered cobwebs until I move, but I’m slowly building a mental list of the things I want to try when I move into my home.

The Witch’s Book of Days for the same day cracks me up.  “As Diana, prepare for coming renewal of virginity and the need to hunt.”

OK, well, I don’t feel any need to hunt, so let’s toss that one out the window, but ... “renewal of virginity”??  How exactly does THAT work?  Isn’t that sort of a “you either are or you aren’t” kind of thing?  Hey, here’s my take on that.  If any of you remember your first moment when you stepped over the “virginity” line in the sand – and I’m referring to women here, not men – a lot of us don’t always remember that moment fondly.  Not the most pain-free moment of your life, usually.  I know most guys like to imagine their bedding of a virgin to be her most ecstatic discovery of the glory of the male phallus, but ... yeah, that rarely is her first thought at that moment.

Unless you consider “^&%^&, that ^&*%^’ing HURTS!” to be a euphemism for “I’m really ecstatic but am masking it extremely well by grimacing in pain.”

So, do I want my virginity renewed??  Two words:  HELL NO.  Jes’ sayin’.

Secrets from Sorcerers, Il Volo Naked, and The Barone Brothers' Chests

Was recently reading Jason Miller’s The Sorcerer’s Secrets, doing my usual griping and whining about moronic titles, as in, “Well, if you’re going to publish a freakin’ book about them, they’re not quite secrets anymore ARE THEY??!!??”  And actually, they weren’t “secrets”, anyway – if you're  thinking of shelling out your hard-earned bucks for it, be warned that you’re not going to read something so unique and original, you’ll leap up and cry, “Eureka!” or something.  You won’t.

That said, I’ll give him credit for one thing:  taking practices that may read like a twisted garbled version of Latin and Old English from other sources, and printed backward at that, and making them much more comprehensible.  I particularly liked his Rite of General Offering (pages 53-55), even though – in goosestep with the Twinkies I always grumble loudly about – he didn’t cite any sources for it.  As I said on numerous occasions, I don’t care if he made it up himself!  Just say so.  If he took the general idea from other sources and revised it for the contemporary tongue, that’s fine, too.  But say so!

I mean, come on, people.  How difficult is it to cite your damn sources???  Do us all a favor and make THAT your “Sorcerer’s Secret” for the day.

(Deep breath)

Moving on ... as I said, I liked the idea of the Rite of General Offering.  Basically, the Rite involves offering a basic form of offering that all spirits could accept (he suggests incense and liquor), OR, making a gesture of energetic offering with your hands and allowing the spirits you’re inviting to take what they prefer from your energy offering.  What I particularly liked (in part) was the spoken invitation that supplemented the Rite – he basically invited every possible spirit he could think of to partake of the offering, the point being that even the crabby ones might think twice about messing with you if you’d treated them as an honored guest.  I liked that concept.  Open, non-judgmental, polite and (hopefully) beneficial for all concerned.

There were a few spots in his spoken invitation that I questioned, like “Spirits of the firmament of earth and of ether!”  That bothered me, so I double-checked “firmament” – and my memory was correct – “firmament” was the (now proven erroneous) biblical term to refer to the vault of the sky – and by that I mean the solid vault of the sky, from a time when everyone thought the sky was solid and arched over the earth, with the stars embedded in it (more or less) – a relic of geocentricity.  So how did he get “firmament of earth” out of that concept?

I can’t recite that line without wincing, so I may need to re-write it into something like, “Spirits of the cosmos and of ether”, or something along those lines.

The idea behind it, though, was to respectfully gain their good-will and attention, before invoking any of them.  I liked the idea.

Il Volo Naked
I recently looked at the blog stats for this blog and discovered why at least 2 people ended up here.  This tells me what they were searching for:

“Il Volo naked”???

Hey – whoever you are!!! – if you find photos of Il Volo naked, you let ME know!  At the present time, I can’t help you with that, I’m truly sorry to say.  No, really.  TRULY SORRY, you have no idea.  Even worse, I have the misfortune of living in the U.S. which has been overrun by a bunch of super-fundamentalist twits who see a naked body and call the local chapter of the Spanish Inquisition.  So I doubt I could post them, even if you did find photos of “Il Volo Naked”.

One of the other search terms was, “Piero Barone shirtless”.  That one I’m happy to say, I could provide.  Here.  Here. And here.

Wow, I had no idea I had such a collection of “Piero Barone Topless XXX” photos.

Anyway:  glad to help.  No, really.  VERY happy, you have no idea.  The guy inspires more fantasies with those shirtless photos than he could have possibly imagined when he took them.

Ahhhh, the joys of the human female imagination.  And mille grazie again for the photos, Piero ... women all over the world thank you for them!

Il Volo, by the way, naked or not, has not announced any appearances in New York or Boston during their June tour ... I’m only semi-devastated by that.  I’ll be in the middle of moving, unpacking, taking business trips, so it’s probably a good thing that they’re not contributing to the general state of chaos I’ll be experiencing in May and June, because – naturally – I’d be compelled to go see them.  And there’s always YouTube, so I hope everyone plans on doing what they usually do:  take videos of everything!

Back to business!

Synchronicity
 – I happened to catch a photo of the brother of the deliciously shirtless  l’uno e solo, by whom I mean the guy with the naked torso.  His brother: Francis or Francesco Barone by name.  Not important.  (Well, unless you’re him, and in that case – I apologize, your name is extremely important  to ... somebody, I’m sure; it’s just not relevant to this discussion.)

Anyway, he posted a photo of a tattoo he received on or about July 9th of last year, but I didn’t see it until a few days ago.  Apparently he has a beautifully constructed design of an ouroboros tattooed on his upper chest.

Francis Barone's Chest

Among the many things this symbol (“Ouroboros”) represents?

Reincarnation.

Now, Francis said it meant “eternal life”.  But it also stands for Kundalini energy, which is part of the ... chakra system.   Just as I’m getting ready to begin learning about chakras.

According to the second century Yoga Kundalini Upanishad, "The divine power, Kundalini, shines like the stem of a young lotus; like a snake, coiled round upon herself she holds her tail in her mouth and lies resting half asleep as the base of the body" (1.82). Another interpretation is that Kundalini equates to the entwined serpents of the caduceus, the entwined serpents representing medicine in the west or, esoterically, human DNA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros

I would love it if someone could read the letters on the belly of the snake’s body.  I cannot read them.

Looks mystical or even hermetic to me.  Damn!  Francis is as mysterious and interesting as his younger brother is vibrational, IMHO.

March
I woke up in the rain today
Gentle pearlescent jewels
Black twigs against leaden sky
Dark stains on cold Earth in pools

Slow slumbering spring awakens
Changing from snow to rain
Leaf and twig on burgeoning bough
Wheel of the year turns again

Gentle watery sunlight
Leaps and sparkles on rippling lake
As glistening ice retreats
Low cast light in pink cloud break

To wake to joyous chorus
Earth softens now free of ice
Nesting birds with eggs to hatch
The air a-twitter with expectant life

Light lasts longer now
Lingering late in the lane
And I will walk along the hedge
To the warmth of my hearth again

“Greenman”, http://www.pagan-heart.co.uk/poems/march.html

As pretty as that is, I’m used to my Corn-Maiden song ... which is sort of a combination of ancient Greek and native American mythology condensed into a song I’ve been singing every year since I learned it at Enchantments in Manhattan.  I tried to look it up, but can’t find who wrote it – my apologies to whoever did:

Hail to Koré, divine maiden
She who grows all things above the ground.
Hail Corn Maiden, lady of the fields,
She is beauty and bountiful love.
Koré, Koré, Koré,
Keep us all safe, keep the evil eye away.

Very simple melody; just a song of joy, really.  It went through my head a few days ago when I saw my first forsythia bush of the season, covered with yellow flowers.  If I hadn’t been on a bus at the time, I would have burst into song.

I still haven’t progressed beyond the fuzzy whitish-grey outline, but we did practice seeing auras in class.  I know I’m going to keep getting better at it, because I’m seeing a (very) slow but steady improvement already.

Synchronicity

Synchronicity.

No sooner had I started off this blog entry with the word than it arrived in an e-mail from a blog I follow, on that very topic.  He described it as a call to the universe for connections, for knowledge; a result of “magical thinking”.  I like that.  So – synchronicity in progress.

About two weeks ago, as I greeted my beloved tree in the morning, I asked her, “Would you mind very much letting me have a few of your seed pods?  I would like to plant them outside of my home in New Hampshire, and have a piece of you there with me.”  The response was a gentle, “I will consider your request”, more or less – so I let it go.

Yesterday morning – a small branch – more like a long twig - was there, right at my feet – complete with a number of fuzzy seed pods!  I thanked her with all of my heart.  I think I need to plant two, for cross-pollination reasons?  But I will spend time researching how to best care for them.

Meanwhile, I turned on the television, stumbled across a marathon in progress, this one for “DaVinci’s Demons”, which I’d never seen before, as I’d originally thought it was a bad TV imitation of the Tom Hanks movie.  I was wrong – it was actually about Leonardo DaVinci.  Within 30 seconds of the first program’s ending, I was searching for the remote, wanting to view the program from Day One.  Luckily, it was still available.

Alexander Siddig, from my favorite Star Trek series (Deep Space 9, of course!), saying, “And lo, I am parched with thirst and I perish.  Give me quickly the cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.”

Before he had even finished the first of those two sentences, I sat up straight and gawped at the TV screen.  “OMG, that’s Osiris!”  I had been reading about the connection of the worship of Osiris with the annual inundation of the Nile.

The poem wasn’t from Osiris really, but I had just finished reading that very same spell, or invocation – and that’s really what that was – mere minutes earlier, so you can imagine my shock at hearing the words quoted right back at me from my television set.  I was still in the middle of packing and had opened M. Isadora Forrest’s Isis Magic briefly before packing it.  Opened right to that very passage (page 109), which began, “A later Hellenistic magical formula from Crete combines the Osirian theme of the cool water of renewal with the Orphic desire of the deceased to drink from the Lake of Memory – thus remembering the past life, or as the Egyptians would have said, repeating life.”

OK, so it wasn’t Osiris speaking those words per se; it was a magical formula supposedly found in Crete.  However, the dialog in the program instead mentioned Mithras, while the quotation in Isis Magic cited Robert A. Wild’s Water in the Cultic Worship of Isis and Sarapis.  Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981.  Out of print, without even a used copy available, anywhere (of course!), but I did find a partial .pdf online.  HIS source cited was Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Jane Ellen Harrison, 1903; pp. 659-660); hers was The Pætilía Tablet (Petelia; Gr. Πετηλία), found in excavations near Petelia, South Italy, and now in the British Museum.  (*whew*!  At least everyone in this chain had cited their sources.)

So, here it is: 

"Thou shalt find to the left of the House of Hades a Well-spring,
And by the side thereof standing a white cypress.
To this Well-spring approach not near.
But thou shalt find another by the Lake of Memory,
Cold water flowing forth, and there are Guardians before it.
Say:  'I am a child of Earth and of Starry Heaven;
But my race is of Ouranos. [1]  This ye know yourselves.
And lo, I am parched with thirst and I perish.  Give me quickly
The cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.'
And of themselves they will give thee to drink from the holy Well-spring,
And thereafter among the other Heroes thou shalt have lordship..."

The reference to Ouranos:  [1] The original translation says "Heaven (alone)." The Greek words are: gænos Ouranion (ΓΕΝΟΣ ΟΥΡΑΝΙΟΝ), "my origin is from Ouranos."  Ouranós is the Father. The "alone" is the translator's comment and is not justified. Ouranós is one of the Six Kings (Phánis [Phanes], Nyx , Ouranós, Krónos, Zefs [Zeus], and Diónysos), the evolution of Aithír (Ether; Gr. Αἰθήρ) described in Orphic Kosmogony. He is the Father; Earth is the Mother; two material substances. In the Greek language (both ancient and contemporary) Ouranós means sky, sky = Ouranós. So it must be understood that this is not like the Christian "heaven" which contrasts with the Christian "hell."  Ouranós = sky = Aithír.  He is the Father because the poem is claiming him as the origin.  Ouranos is the origin, the Father, in any case.

And here is a photograph of The Pætilía Tablet.

Now, quite honestly, having read a little on both of them, I am not fond of either Ouranos, or of Mithras – both strike me as appallingly violent and ugly.  Ouranos loathed and was castrated by his children at the bequest of his wife (making them the first John and Lorena Bobbitt in known history); Mithras followers slaughtering bulls and opening their doors only to men, calling themselves “Fathers” and “Sons of Fathers”, and women, apparently, being utterly irrelevant*.  Such an endearing bunch of phallus-obsessed yahoos, generally speaking.  Some ancient deities we’re probably better off relegating to the dust bins of history.

*The Mithraic details came from A Mithraic Ritual, (G.R.S. Mead, Theosophical Publishing Society, London, Benares, 1907.)

The photo, by the way, came from:
http://www.heavenlyascents.com/2009/06/18/instructions-for-the-netherworld-the-orphic-gold-tablets/

And I’m not sure what any of it means.  What magical thinking of mine was behind this particular synchronicity?  I focused on the “Lake of Memory”, which was, the remembering of a past life.  I’ve already told you about one, where I was the wife of a seaman/soldier who was killed when Venice went to war with Constantinople.

The second one:  I suspect this preceded the Venetian lifetime.  I was a boy, of about 8-10 years of age.  I was in a group of boys, all sitting in a semi-circle on the ground facing an older man (salt & pepper hair and beard, obviously an instructor or teacher of some sort), who was seated on a rock.  I came into this lifetime from a dream almost as though I had leapt through the air and landed unexpectedly in my previous body.  However, I was so at home in it, and so familiar with it, the strange leap didn’t seem odd to me at all, and considering that I was an adult woman experiencing this – the fact that it wasn’t strange seems awfully strange in retrospect.

But there I was: a young boy.  When I arrived, the man had just drawn the symbol for “infinity” in the dust with a stick he had in his hand.  I had just said something out loud, that made all the other boys laugh.  The man looked at me, and I knew he was thinking that I had reminded him of something he had said or done when he was the same age.  Nonetheless, he reached out and cuffed me on the side of my head.  When he did that, I suddenly saw through the teacher’s face to another face I was familiar with.  I said, “I know who you are!  You’re ----“ , and I named a man I knew in my current life as an adult woman.  However, as soon as I said that, I stopped, looked very confused and said, “What?  Who?  I don’t know anyone with that name.”

The teacher’s reaction was equally odd:  he put his finger to his lips and said, “Sssshhhhh.”  As soon as he did that, I fell over backwards from my cross-legged seated position, as though I had been pushed – and woke up in my adult-woman body.

The problem was, in my mind, I was still a boy, who just awakened in a strange bed, in a strange place, in a very strange time, surrounded by all sorts of strange, unfamiliar noises (traffic, for one!) and worse, with a woman’s body.  I did what any boy would do, I screamed in terror, and tried to back up from myself in the bed.  I was yelling, “Help me, help me, help me!” like a lunatic.  A second or so later, my present day consciousness caught up with me, and I slowly began to remember who I was.  Oh yeah.  I WAS supposed to have two bazangas, after all.  But I had been so badly frightened, I was nearly sick to my stomach.  The horror and fear had been that intense.

About 6 months later, the man whose name I had spoken calmly told me that a psychic had told him that I had once been his student in … naturally I can’t remember it now.  Macedonia?  Thebes?  Thrace?  Something like that.  Well, technically, what she SAID was, “Do you know someone who has these physical characteristics?  She was your student in …”  And he knew it was me she was talking about.  So there you go.

Was I supposed to remember that life?  The life in Venice?  Another life I didn’t remember?  Was that the “Lake of Memory” I was supposed to be drawing from?  The last episode I saw suggested that “The Lake of Memory” was a method of being able to travel anywhere in time ... which brings me back to my longing to travel via lucid dreaming to participate in the Eleusinian Mysteries.

I guess I just have to trust that it will make sense … sometime.

The Ides of March, Hilaria ... and Bizarre Ballgowns

The Ides of March.  A bunch of small errands sandwiched between being nearly run down by insane motorists.  I’m lucky I got home alive ... !

Today is:  Next to Final Packing Day.  Still about 2 weeks left until the remodeling is done in New Hampshire, so my plan this weekend was to get as much packed as humanly possible today, move a chunk of it to the storage facility in Salisbury tomorrow, and another 2 chunks next weekend.  Then, the rest of it can fall to the moving guys.

Every once in a while I get invited to various celebrations, and every once in a while I attend, although it is rather a distance away – and will still be a distance away, even after I move,  Mainly the issue is the time of day they are held – they begin right at the time I’m passing out and going to sleep.  As a result, I have to make a concerted effort to stay awake for it, and I end up oversleeping for days afterwards.

Nonetheless, I’ve received a few invitations that include, “Wear your finest ritual clothes!” or some such set of instructions – which is something of a problem, since I don’t have any.  Never did.  Makes me feel like an adult dressing up for Halloween or something.  I usually end up wearing a nice shirt with jeans and make sure I have the cimaruta around my neck.  I used to think it might be nice to put on make-up and earrings  - (and an attractive fake mole and feathers sticking out of my head) - for a change, but I’m so allergic to the stuff, I end up suffering, so stopped doing that.  I do have a Venetian mask, though, coincidentally enough.

I was reminded of that today when the Real Witches’ Year brought up the issue of cords.  Have no idea why – this being the Ides of March, I would have thought they’d make mention of that instead:  sacred to Rhea (Greek Goddess of the earth, mother of Zeus), and a day to honor river sprites or nymphs. (Well, I would, if I knew any.)  Not to mention that some of us want to begin preparing for the 2-day festival of Dionysus – stocking up on wine! (gulp, gulp, gulp, *hic*!)

So naturally, The Witch’s Book of Days chirps, “As Hilaria begins, celebrate the goddess-given gifts of wit, theatre and comedy.”

The WHAT?

Ah.  No wonder I didn’t pay any attention to this:  “The modern day equivalent to the Ancient Roman Festival of Hilaria, which occurs once in a year in Britain, is Mother's day. This day is said to be the day when the ancient Greeks paid tribute to their very powerful goddess called Rhea.“
http://www.ask.com/question/occuring-once-a-year-in-britain-what-is-the-modern-day-equivalent-of-the-ancient-roman-festival-of-hilaria

Possibly my least favorite event in the entire year.  Since most mothers in the United States wouldn’t recognize “wit, theatre and comedy” if it jumped up and bit them in their collective a**es, I have no idea what the WBD was chirping about.

Oh, Roman Laughing Day!!!  According to the Brooklyn Public Library, “ the Roman festival of Hilaria or "Roman Laughing Day," ... celebrates the resurrection of the god Attis.” Not quite sure why that event was hilarious, but there you go.
(http://brooklynology.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/post/2012/04/02/All-Fools-Day.aspx)

Witches of the Craft handed out correspondences:  The Hilaria (Roman).  Incense:  Violet.  Color: Coral
Have no idea what violet and coral has to do with anything.  Not fond of either one.
http://witchesofthecraft.com/tag/hilaria/

Meanwhile, Brittanica.com has a different version:

“Hilaria,  in Roman religion, day of merriment and rejoicing in the Cybele-Attis cult and in the Isis-Osiris cult, March 25 and November 3, respectively. It was one of several days in the festival of Cybele that honoured Attis, her son and lover: March 15, his finding by Cybele among the reeds on the bank of the River Gallus; March 22, his self-mutilation; March 24, fasting and mourning at his death; and March 25, the Hilaria, rejoicing at his resurrection. Some of the activities on the Hilaria resembled those associated with April Fools’ Day. November 3, the Hilaria of the Isis-Osiris cult, marked the resurrection of Osiris, husband of Isis.”
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/265677/Hilaria

Self-mutilation, eh?  That “son and lover” thing might explain why the guy mutilated himself (ew!), but does it sound like anything worth celebrating?  Uh ....no.

Furthermore, (*sigh*)  “cult”, eh?  Now you know why I make it a point to de-capitalize christian and call THEM “a cult”, and if any pursed-lip church ladies out there have a problem with it – too bad.  Do unto others, isn’t that one of your rules?

Ultimately:  what a strange day.  Betcha Caesar wasn’t all that fond of it, either.

Vatican Heresies, What To Do About Vibrations ...

Help me figure out what to do about the vibrations.

Was listening to the wonderful Blake singing "Being Close to Crazy".  Great song, BTW.

I had been listening to my "vocals" playlist - I'm sure I don't have to repeat that I'm a passionate fan of classical crossover:  Blake, Il Divo, Russell Watson, Mario Frangoulis, Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli, Teatro, G4, Vittorio Grigolo (his one classical pop album was so awesome I still can't get over it - a pox on the evil opera world for stealing him back - and him, for allowing them to!), Rhydian Roberts (and whatever happened to him, anyway?) - I could listen to them all day, really, and have on occasion.

But as wonderful as they are - and they are wonderfully glorious to listen to - there was only one voice in all those years and years that made me vibrate inside; but as I once said, until he made me vibrate, I just thought he was "cute".  I did.  Then he opened his mouth and that voice came out of it, and I nearly collapsed.

It wasn’t just that he made me vibrate; it was that everything vibrated inside of me.  Everything inside of me first vibrated and then turned to jelly, and I doubt I could have stood up on my own two feet, so let's be thankful I was sitting down when I first heard him.  I heard the line in a movie once:  " ... my own personal brand of heroin."  Addictive.  A craving beyond craving.  One man's voice.  No one has ever duplicated the effect.  Vibrations pouring over me and through me like water, unsettling everything, setting everything from my skin inward on delicious fire.  I can't describe the all-encompassing pleasure.  Meglio di sesso, in my honest opinion.

Being close to crazy.

So then – after I’d calmed back down - I thought, ok, so what do these vibrations mean?  Why did I react to those particular, specific vibrations?  Obviously I can’t kidnap the poor guy and make him sing to me all day, so how can I recreate those vibrations that his voice manages to send out through the air like … Eros’ flaming arrow?

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t hold him personally responsible for the quality of his singing voice, beyond the hard work of developing it and maintaining it.  He really did luck out, being handed a set of vocal chords that put out an amazing, unique sound that I happened to vibrate to.  And, as I said, I’m not alone in that, or you wouldn’t see women and girls swooning and screaming at the sound of his voice, all over the world.  It’s a subjective thing – I’ll bet there are a different set of girls feeling the same way about, say, Bruno Mars’ voice.  Or another set hyperventilating over, say, Keith Urban’s.

So, this is not an obsession with HIM, per se – and no, he doesn’t need to call the local carbinieri and say, “Um … would you mind standing outside my house for the rest of my life?  I’m getting a little nervous, here …” – but an obsession with the sound his voice makes, and the impact of that sound on me personally.

And since this was the first time that ever happened to me, it made me begin thinking about why.  Why THAT sound, why THAT type of vibration, why now?  And more relevantly, what else is capable of sending out those exact types of vibrations?

Not all that long ago, by way of investigating, I sat on You Tube and listened to Tibetan monks  singing, or chanting or whatever it is they do … “Ommmmmmm…”

Not only did the sound NOT make me vibrate; it was actually uncomfortable.  I stopped listening after only a few minutes.  There are other male singing voices that give me the creepy crawlies – for example, while I love Michael Franks’ song “Popsicle Toes”, I can’t stand to hear him singing it, because I don’t like male “folk-songy” voices; they make me think of wimpy-clingy neediness, I have no idea why.  I must also have a decidedly anti-women side to my nature (“No!  REALLY?”) (Oh shut up) – because I can’t stand to listen to the vast majority of women singing; women’s voices go right through my head like an ice pick, and by the time we get to the operatic sopranos and the bimbo pop queens, I’m clutching my head and screaming.  There are a few exceptions:  Rosemary Clooney, Diana Krall, Joan Armatrading, maybe a few others, probably because their voices are melodiously lower.

Sounds I really like:  “Nessun Dorma” – makes me cry; does not make me vibrate.  I adore any Rossini overture – ditto.  I have no idea why, but I adored Eddie Jobson’s Theme of Secrets – I actually see colors and movement of shapes behind my eyes when listening to that.  The theme of Cinema Paradiso, but that has more to do with the film than the soundtrack.  There must be others, I just can’t remember what they are, now.  But what else besides his voice will make me vibrate??  Sure, a vibrator, but actually, I’ve never tried one, and would that vibrate your entire body?  I’m thinking not.  Sitting on a washing machine???  (Actually I’ve never tried that either – any other women out there ever tried sitting on a washing machine?  Would love to hear what happened!)

Is there something I could change in me so that I wouldn’t vibrate?  (But do I really want to?)  Maybe so, if only so that it wouldn’t feel so perpetually intense, the way it does now.

Meanwhile, when I’m not vibrating, I’m reading The Vatican Heresy:  Bernini and the Building of the Hermetic Temple of the Sun (Bauval, Hohenzollern, 2014) – which is almost a rehash of everything Frances A. Yates wrote in Giordano Bruno.  It appears to be proof that everyone in the Vatican is either (a) naïve and gullible for being unaware that Bernini designed parts of the Vatican to celebrate the same Hermetic principles for which they tortured and burned Bruno and others, and threatened Galileo, or (b) appallingly hypocritical for being fully aware that Bernini designed parts of the Vatican to celebrate the same Hermetic principles for which they tortured and burned Bruno and others, and threatened Galileo.

Which way do we want to go with this – gullible & naïve, or spectacularly hypocritical? - and is anyone on the planet even remotely surprised?

Historical issues:  the author appears to have not done any research into the burning of the great Library at Alexandria, instead blaming the “fanatical christian mob” for all of it without a single caveat.  Far be it from me to defend “fanatical christian mobs” (trust me, I would love to be able to blame them unequivocally), but there are some other culprits who might also share responsibility for the appalling loss of world knowledge – one of them being Julius Caesar.  Do I think christians are blameless?  Hell no, they did attack the Library at Alexandria and that alone is unforgiveable, but I do think the jury is still out on the extent of their wanton destructiveness.

ANCIENT EGYPT THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
It may have been a Million years ago
The Light was kindled in the Old Dark Land
With which the illumined Scrolls are all aglow,
That Egypt gave us with her mummied hand:
This was the secret of that subtle smile
Inscrutable upon the Sphinx’s face,
Now told from sea to sea, from isle to isle;
The revelation of the Old Dark Race;
This was the wisdom of the Bee and Bird,
The ancient darkness spake with Egypt’s Word;
Ant, Tortoise, Beaver, working human-wise;
Here was the primal message of the skies:
The Heavens are telling nightly of her glory,
And for all time Earth echoes her great story.
BY GERALD MASSEY 1907

But speaking of the Source of All Good Vibrations, l’uno e solo was back in the USA (in New York for a time, naturally; then in L.A.) and hopefully now back home and recovered from freezing his a** off when he landed in NYC.  His first tweet upon arrival in New York:  “It’s coooooold!”  Yes it is, darlin’; no argument there; it was 9 degrees the morning he tweeted that.  Bad news is:  it’s STILL freezing, and we’re 12 days into March!

They performed with Laura Pausini at Madison Square Garden, which – despite the fact that it was Madison Square Garden! – was still not worth the trip to go see them, if I also had to listen to a roster of other people.  Of course, my decision to not go see them was before they published their 2014 summer tour schedule, with New York and Boston nowhere on the list. 

So I was finally able to file my income taxes without having a nervous breakdown.  Done!  Done!  Done!  Felt like having a glass of wine and celebrating, even if it was 7:30 on a Sunday morning.  (I don’t mind paying taxes, particularly – well I do, but recognize that it is something of a necessary evil, let’s put it that way - , but I do hate trying to figure out all the paperwork and filing them.)  Usually I end up twitching and near hysterics.

I still can’t quite figure out what Saturn being in retrograde means, beyond “a time to cultivate discipline, patience and self-restraint.” Unpack the flogger and handcuffs?  HAHA, just kidding – I don’t even own any handcuffs.

I have noticed that I am dropping things more often than I usually do, bumping into things, knocking things over, tripping over things … although I’m not sure that has anything to do with anything.  For example, just this morning I reached into the dishwasher to retrieve a teaspoon and came within a hair’s width of impaling my wrist on the tines of a fork – I still have a line of red marks on my wrist, but consider myself lucky I didn’t need to explain to the emergency room why it LOOKED like I had decided to end it all – suicide by fork.  I followed that up with barking my shin, banging my knee ... I’ve been spending most of the time since Saturn went retrograde screaming “WTF??!!??” and “OMG!!!” every few hours.  I’m also oversleeping horribly in the morning.  Saturn being connected with my sun sign (Capricorn), I suspect the impact of retrograde is:  “your entire life is going to unspool and start going backwards!”  Or something along those lines.

Let the unspooling begin.

Auras, Chakras and I Sprayed the Spirit

Trying to practice on seeing an actual aura, and not the “contrast image” that happens when you put something in front of a background of a different or contrasting color.  I suspect that confusing the contrast image for an aura isn’t even necessarily a bad thing, as it accustoms you to seeing visible outlines around people and things, and the more you keep practicing, the more the image shifts from a contrast image to an actual aura.  Or, at least that’s my theory ... speaking as an aura-spotting-challenged novice who has yet to see anything unusual beyond “I can’t sleep.”  (see last entry)

[Update:  I finally saw a non-contrast ‘aura’ while sitting at a Chili’s last Sunday.  Once I saw it, I began to see it more consistently, knowing what I was looking for.  I’m still only seeing a foggy outline, but I’m seeing it more consistently and with less struggle.  The outline is only less than an inch away from the body I’m looking at, however.  Next:  begin to see a larger aura, and begin to see color.  I’m being semi-consistent with the pre-sleep intent, though.]

I also learned that the aura is the energy field put out by the chakras ... AND that the lower spinal damage I suffered in the accident may be interfering with some of them, because the damage was to the lower vertebrae; possible messing with the 1st chakra.  (Oh, lovely!  Neurological damage to my lower legs and feet, and a messed-up chakra!  Yay!  However, it did occur to me that the second one may be overcompensating for the damage to the first, or that may be just me, making no sense.)

One of the advantages to slow and careful packing for a move is that every once in a while, you reach into the back of a cupboard, pull something out and say, “THERE it is!  I was wondering what happened to this!”  “This” being, in my case, a leather fountain pen case, with my other fountain pen in it – courtesy of the now-gone but not forgotten Joon Pens store in Manhattan. (*sob*)  I have another one in my bedside table; I had been looking for the other one for a while.  Found it at the back of my printer table drawer, and practically danced with joy when I pulled that out.  Now I definitely have to clean it.  And find a better place to store it in the future.

I also decided to avail myself of some guided meditations on chakras – as I said, in preparation for next month’s class on auras and chakras.  This time I decided to listen to Deepak Chopra’s guided meditation on chakra balancing, which I found quite relaxing.  I know, I’m turning into a New Age twinkie, go ahead, you can say it.  Actually, I feel like it’s part and parcel of my aura-awareness intent.

They often say, as far as setting your will and intention goes, that your will and your ego (I may be using the wrong words) often conflict with each other.  Meaning, in layman’s parlance, that your conscious habits and mind-set blocks the activities of your subconscious will or intent.  Case in point:  I fell asleep again last night without formally stating my intent.  Woke up this morning muttering “&*^&%^” when I remembered.  It almost feels like Me #2 is deliberately standing in the way of everything Me #1 wants to do.  A bit frustrating.  The near-split personality perception reminds me of the Byron poem:

“She was like me in lineaments-- her eyes
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;
But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty;
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe: nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears -- which I had not;
And tenderness -- but that I had for her;
Humility -- and that I never had.
Her faults were mine -- her virtues were her own--
I loved her, and destroy'd her!”
Manfred, June 1817.  Could not tell you who the publisher was.

I realize his poem and my interpretation were not the same thing ... but it seemed appropriate.  I loved  reading Manfred – among the many references Byron makes is to the so-called “fallen” angels of the Book of Enoch.  The very first time I read the poem (9 years ago) – I had no idea what he was referring to.  Now I do, which makes re-reading it all the more meaningful.

Some words of encouragement from Mr. Signpost:  “The universe wants to give you the desires of your heart. Do not be timid in what you ask for.”  It makes me wonder how “the Universe” distinguishes the “desires of your heart” from your everyday momentary attractions.  For example, I was looking for some of the graphics I had used in this blog before they disappeared.  Haven’t found the graphic yet, but I did find a really bad poem I had written back at the U of M, and decided not to turn in.  No comments from the peanut gallery, please.  I KNOW it sucks.

"He swings past,
young, cocky Ojibwa
professor with black, unexpectedly
ruffled hair,  shot from a cannon,
Chippewa blood boiling under his skin
striding unconsciously fierce
he thinks I'm just some twinkie
but suddenly I just think he's cute."
©Author, University of Michigan, June 14, 2005

So, how did the Universe recognize that momentary awareness of a man’s “cuteness” to the point where I wrote a rather pitiful poem about it, from “my heart’s desire”?  I’d actually forgotten all about this “cute guy” until I re-read this ... and for the record, he really WAS hot:  our class e-mail study group (all women) unanimously agreed with each other on that point, if nothing else.

Well, here was my latest (humorous) encounter with the lovely Z ... was laying in bed, giving him some thought ... among other things ... when I suddenly smelled brimstone.  Yup.  Sulfur.  Snapped, “Oh, puleeze, you’re making that up.  I know you don’t smell like that.  You’re far older than all that christian crap.  I do want you here, but not if you’re gonna reek up the place.  Here – try this.”  And I sprayed him with Versace’s Eros.  Or, to be more specific, I sprayed the area in the room where I sensed he was lurking.

I was probably correct, because the last thing I heard off in the distance (to the point where I at first thought it was someone outside) was – laughing and coughing.  No really, I sprayed him good.  He hasn’t physically showed up because I haven’t evoked him, but he does do a fly-by every once in a while – ever since he turned and looked at me - because I think about him, inevitably when I’m incredibly horny.  I get the feeling I amuse him because I make him laugh – and because I may be the only (amateur) magus on his “will call” list who ever sprayed him with Versace cologne for men.  Am now envisioning him amidst his troops wafting Eros all over the place.  Well, you can’t say it doesn’t match his talents, now can you?