Miranda’s Gaze…

(Portrait of Miranda)

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Sir Frank Dicksee had an uncanny eye for beauty; his works have been favourites of mine for many years. He doesn’t get much mention in the US, but is well loved in Europe.

The Portrait of Miranda (above) is one that truly moves me. I have left the picture quite large for your enjoyment. I love the capturing of spirit and beauty in this portrait. I think I fell in love with her in college. She is just that kinda women, eternally captivating!

Whilst on the beauty trail; I have included a short story from Ireland talking about our close relatives, the fairies. Also, we have 2 poems by William Morris. As usual, I go looking for the arcane, and find it on the off-chance.

I hope all is well in your life, and that the world soon awakes.

Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On the Grill:

The Links

The Article: FRANK MARTIN AND THE FAIRIES

Poetry: Two Poems by William Morris

The Artist: Sir Frank Dicksee

Francis Bernard Dicksee was born in London on the 27th November 1853, the son of Thomas Francis Dicksee (1819-1895), painter and illustrator, and his wife Eliza nee Bernard. His uncle was John Robert Dicksee (1817-1905), another painter of some note, as was his sister Margaret (1858-1903), and brother Herbert Thomas (1862-1942). The family lived in the Bloomsbury area of London. Young Frank was initially trained in art by his father, before enrolling at the Royal Academy Schools in 1870. Amongst the more notable of visiting lecturers at the time were Frederic Leighton, and Millais. Dicksee was an excellent student, quickly marked out for a promising future, and won many distinctions, and in 1875, the year he first exhibited at the Academy a Gold Medal.

Like many other artists of the nineteenth century, his early career was spent in book and magazine illustration, including the Cornhill magazine. In 1877 the painter exhibited his famous picture “Harmony” at the Academy, where it was a great success, and was bought by the Trustees of The Chantrey Bequest for 350 guineas.

Frank Dicksee’s artistic home remained the Royal Academy throughout his career, and he became ARA in 1881, and was elected a full RA ten years later. “Startled” was his Diploma work. The painter’s art, and taste were totally in sympathy with that of the public, and his career at this time was one of unbroken success. Dicksee’s pictures were often of historical scenes, involving drama, and sentiment. He was a competent portrait painter of men, and a great portrait painter of attractive women – happy was the fashionable lady who was painted by Dicksee!

His wonderful portraits of women had a charm of their own, uniting soft-focus, elegance, charm, warm colours, and excellent drapery painting. In 1927 the artist painted his famous portrait “Elsa, Daughter of William Hall Esq.” This brilliant portrait captures the charming personality of the young sitter, the sheen of her silk evening dress is marvellously painted. This picture was painted in the last year of the artist’s life, and shows no deterioration in his ability.His last portrait of a woman was of Mrs Frank S Pershouse in 1928. Dicksee lived in St John’s Wood, and remained a sophisticated, and elegant bachelor.

I have not heard any comment regarding his sexuality. He was noted for his good manners, and kindness. Rather surprisingly the painter was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1924, succeeding Sir Aston Webb who had retired under the recently-introduced maximum age rule. This appointment was the subject of considerable reservation on the part of more modern artists, many of whom were had little real artistic talent, who thought of the craftsmanship and aesthetic beauty of Dicksee’s work with disdain. In the event it was a brilliant success, with his social graces and integrity more than compensating for what was regarded as the old-fashioned nature of his art.

Dicksee was knighted in 1925, and became KCVO in 1927. He was a Trustee of the British Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery, and was awarded an Honorary Oxford Degree in 1927. He was also the President of the Artists Benevolent Foundation. Sir Frank Dicksee died suddenly on the 17th October 1928. A retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Royal Academy in 1933. I have, for a considerable time now, been trying to find more information about Dicksee the man, and his career, and happily my latest efforts have met with some success.

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The Links:

UFO Casebook

Russia, Anarchist Mayday in Vladivostok

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Rumsfeld’s Latin American Wild West Show

Dolphins ‘know each other’s names’

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(Romeo & Juliet)

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FRANK MARTIN AND THE FAIRIES

William Carleton

Martin was a thin, pale man, when I saw him, of a sickly look, and a constitution naturally feeble. His hair was a light auburn, his beard mostly unshaven, and his hands of a singular delicacy and whiteness, owing, I dare say, as much to the soft and easy nature of his employment as to his infirm health. In everything else he was as sensible, sober, and rational as any other man; but on the topic of fairies, the man’s mania was peculiarly strong and immovable. Indeed, I remember that the expression of his eyes was singularly wild and hollow, and his long narrow temples sallow and emaciated.

Now, this man did not lead an unhappy life, nor did the malady he laboured under seem to be productive of either pain or terror to him, although one might be apt to imagine otherwise. On the contrary, he and the fairies maintained the most friendly intimacy, and their dialogues–which I fear were woefully one-sided ones–must have been a source of great pleasure to him, for they were conducted with much mirth and laughter, on his part at least.

“Well, Frank, when did you see the fairies?”

“Whist! there’s two dozen of them in the shop (the weaving shop) this minute. There’s a little ould fellow sittin’ on the top of the sleys, an’ all to be rocked while I’m weavin’. The sorrow’s in them, but they’re the greatest little skamers alive, so they are. See, there’s another of them at my dressin’ noggin. 1 Go out o’ that, you shingawn; or, bad cess to me, if you don’t, but I’ll lave you a mark. Ha! cut, you thief you!”

“Frank, am’t you afeard o’ them?”

“Is it me! Arra, what ud’ I be afeard o’ them for? Sure they have no power over me.”

“And why haven’t they, Frank?”

“Because I was baptised against them.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Why, the priest that christened me was tould by my father, to put in the proper prayer against the fairies–an’ a priest can’t refuse it when he’s asked–an’ he did so. Begorra, it’s well for me that he did–(let the tallow alone, you little glutton–see, theres a weeny thief o’ them aitin’ my tallow)–becaise, you see, it was their intention to make me king o’ the fairies.”

“Is it possible?”

“Devil a lie in it. Sure you may ax them, an’ they’ll tell you.”

“What size are they, Frank?”

“Oh, little wee fellows, with green coats, an’ the purtiest little shoes ever you seen. There’s two of them–both ould acquaintances o’ mine–runnin’ along the yarn-beam. That ould fellow with the bob-wig is called Jim jam, an’ the other chap, with the three-cocked hat, is called Nickey Nick. Nickey plays the pipes. Nickey, give us a tune, or I’ll malivogue you–come now, ‘Lough Erne Shore’. Whist, now–listen!”

The poor fellow, though weaving as fast as he could all the time, yet bestowed every possible mark of attention to the music, and seemed to enjoy it as much as if it had been real.

But who can tell whether that which we look upon as a privation may not after all be a fountain of increased happiness, greater, perhaps, than any which we ourselves enjoy? I forget who the poet is who says–

“Mysterious are thy laws;

The vision’s finer than the view;

Her landscape Nature never drew

So fair as Fancy draws.”

Many a time, when a mere child, not more than six or seven years of age, have I gone as far as Frank’s weaving-shop, in order, with a heart divided between curiosity and fear, to listen to his conversation with the good people. From morning till night his tongue was going almost as incessantly as his shuttle; and it was well known that at night, whenever he awoke out of his sleep, the first thing he did was to put out his hand, and push them, as it were, off his bed.

“Go out o’ this, you thieves, you–go out o’ this now, an’ let me alone. Nickey, is this any time to be playing the pipes, and me wants to sleep? Go off, now–troth if yez do, you’ll see what I’ll give yez tomorrow. Sure I’ll be makin’ new dressin’s; and if yez behave decently, maybe I’ll lave yez the scrapin’ o’ the pot. There now. Och! poor things, they’re dacent crathurs. Sure they’re all gone, barrin’ poor Red-cap, that doesn’t like to lave me.” And then the harmless monomaniac would fall back into what we trust was an innocent slumber.

About this time there was said to have occurred a very remarkable circumstance, which gave poor Frank a vast deal of importance among the neighbours. A man named Frank Thomas, the same in whose house Mickey M’Rorey held the first dance at which I ever saw him, as detailed in a former sketch; this man, I say, had a child sick, but of what complaint I cannot now remember, nor is it of any importance. One of the gables of Thomas’s house was built against, or rather into, a Forth or Rath, called Towny, or properly Tonagh Forth. It was said to be haunted by the fairies, and what gave it a character peculiarly wild in my eyes was, that there were on the southern side of it two or three little green mounds, which were said to be the graves of unchristened children, over which it was considered dangerous and unlucky to pass. At all events, the season was mid-summer; and one evening about dusk, during the illness of the child, the noise of a hand-saw was heard upon the Forth. This was considered rather strange, and, after a little time, a few of those who were assembled at Frank Thomas’s went to see who it could be that was sawing in such a place, or what they could be sawing at so late an hour, for every one knew that nobody in the whole country about them would dare to cut down the few white-thorns that grew upon the Forth. On going to examine, however, judge of their surprise, when, after surrounding and searching the whole place, they could discover no trace of either saw or sawyer. In fact, with the exception of themselves, there was no one, either natural or supernatural, visible. They then returned to the house, and had scarcely sat down, when it was heard again within ten yards of them. Another examination of the premises took place, but with equal success. Now, however, while standing on the Forth, they heard the sawing in a little hollow, about a hundred and fifty yards below them, which was completely exposed to their view. but they could see nobody. A party of them immediately went down to ascertain, if possible, what this singular noise and invisible labour could mean; but on arriving at the spot, they heard the sawing, to which were now added hammering, and the driving of nails upon the Forth above, whilst those who stood on the Forth continued to hear it in the hollow. On comparing notes, they resolved to send down to Billy Nelson’s for Frank Martin a distance of only about eighty or ninety yards. He was soon on the spot, and without a moment’s hesitation solved the enigma.

“‘Tis the fairies,” said he. ‘I see them, and busy crathurs they are.”

“But what are they sawing, Frank?”

‘They are makin’ a child’s coffin,” he replied; “they have the body already made, an’ they’re now nailin’ the lid together.”

That night the child died, and the story goes that on the second evening afterwards, the carpenter who was called upon to make the coffin brought a table out from Thomas’s house to the Forth, as a temporary bench; and, it is said, that the sawing and hammering necessary for the completion of his task were precisely the same which had been heard the evening but one before–neither more nor less. I remember the death of the child myself, and the making of its coffin, but I think the story of the supernatural carpenter was not heard in the village for some months after its interment.

Frank had every appearance of a hypochondriac about him. At the time I saw him, he might be about thirty-four years of age, but I do not think, from the debility of his frame and infirm health, that he has been alive for several years. He was an object of considerable interest and curiosity, and often have I been present when he was pointed out to strangers as “the man that could see the good people”.

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(The Mirror)

NEAR AVALON

by

WILLIAM MORRIS

A ship with shields before the sun,

Six maidens round the mast,

A red-gold crown on every one,

A green gown on the last.

The fluttering green banners there

Are wrought with ladies’ heads most fair,

And a portraiture of Guenevere

The middle of each sail doth bear.

A ship with sails before the wind,

And round the helm six knights,

Their heaumes are on, whereby, half blind,

They pass by many sights.

The tatter’d scarlet banners there

Right soon will leave the spear-heads bare.

Those six knights sorrowfully bear

(2 Crowns)

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KING ARTHUR’S TOMB

by

WILLIAM MORRIS

Hot August noon: already on that day

Since sunrise through the Wiltshire downs, most sad

Of mouth and eye, he had gone leagues of way;

Ay and by night, till whether good or bad

He was, he knew not, though he knew perchance

That he was Launcelot, the bravest knight

Of all who since the world was, have borne lance,

Or swung their swords in wrong cause or in right.

Nay, he knew nothing now, except that where

The Glastonbury gilded towers shine,

A lady dwelt, whose name was Guenevere;

This he knew also; that some fingers twine,

Not only in a man’s hair, even his heart,

(Making him good or bad I mean,) but in his life,

Skies, earth, men’s looks and deeds, all that has part,

Not being ourselves, in that half-sleep, half-strife,

(Strange sleep, strange strife,) that men call living; so

Was Launcelot most glad when the moon rose,

Because it brought new memories of her. “Lo,

Between the trees a large moon, the wind lows

“Not loud, but as a cow begins to low,

Wishing for strength to make the herdsman hear:

The ripe corn gathereth dew; yea, long ago,

In the old garden life, my Guenevere

“Loved to sit still among the flowers, till night

Had quite come on, hair loosen’d, for she said,

Smiling like heaven, that its fairness might

Draw up the wind sooner to cool her head.

“Now while I ride how quick the moon gets small,

As it did then: I tell myself a tale

That will not last beyond the whitewashed wall,

Thoughts of some joust must help me through the vale,

“Keep this till after: How Sir Gareth ran

A good course that day under my Queen’s eyes,

And how she sway’d laughing at Dinadan.

No. Back again, the other thoughts will rise,

“And yet I think so fast ’twill end right soon:

Verily then I think, that Guenevere,

Made sad by dew and wind, and tree-barred moon,

Did love me more than ever, was more dear

“To me than ever, she would let me lie

And kiss her feet, or, if I sat behind,

Would drop her hand and arm most tenderly,

And touch my mouth. And she would let me wind

“Her hair around my neck, so that it fell

Upon my red robe, strange in the twilight

With many unnamed colours, till the bell

Of her mouth on my cheek sent a delight

“Through all my ways of being; like the stroke

Wherewith God threw all men upon the face

When he took Enoch, and when Enoch woke

With a changed body in the happy place.

“Once, I remember, as I sat beside,

She turn’d a little, and laid back her head,

And slept upon my breast; I almost died

In those night-watches with my love and dread.

“There lily-like she bow’d her head and slept,

And I breathed low, and did not dare to move,

But sat and quiver’d inwardly, thoughts crept,

And frighten’d me with pulses of my Love.

“The stars shone out above the doubtful green

Of her bodice, in the green sky overhead;

Pale in the green sky were the stars I ween,

Because the moon shone like a star she shed

“When she dwelt up in heaven a while ago,

And ruled all things but God: the night went on,

The wind grew cold, and the white moon grew low,

One hand had fallen down, and now lay on

“My cold stiff palm; there were no colours then

For near an hour, and I fell asleep

In spite of all my striving, even when

I held her whose name-letters make me leap.

“I did not sleep long, feeling that in sleep

I did some loved one wrong, so that the sun

Had only just arisen from the deep

Still land of colours, when before me one

“Stood whom I knew, but scarcely dared to touch,

She seemed to have changed so in the night;

Moreover she held scarlet lilies, such

As Maiden Margaret bears upon the light

“Of the great church walls, natheless did I walk

Through the fresh wet woods, and the wheat that morn,

Touching her hair and hand and mouth, and talk

Of love we held, nigh hid among the corn.

“Back to the palace, ere the sun grew high,

We went, and in a cool green room all day

I gazed upon the arras giddily,

Where the wind set the silken kings a-sway.

“I could not hold her hand, or see her face;

For which may God forgive me! but I think,

Howsoever, that she was not in that place.”

These memories Launcelot was quick to drink;

And when these fell, some paces past the wall,

There rose yet others, but they wearied more,

And tasted not so sweet; they did not fall

So soon, but vaguely wrenched his strained heart sore

In shadowy slipping from his grasp: these gone,

A longing followed; if he might but touch

That Guenevere at once! Still night, the lone

Grey horse’s head before him vex’d him much,

In steady nodding over the grey road:

Still night, and night, and night, and emptied heart

Of any stories; what a dismal load

Time grew at last, yea, when the night did part,

And let the sun flame over all, still there

The horse’s grey ears turn’d this way and that,

And still he watch’d them twitching in the glare

Of the morning sun, behind them still he sat,

Quite wearied out with all the wretched night,

Until about the dustiest of the day,

On the last down’s brow he drew his rein in sight

Of the Glastonbury roofs that choke the way.

And he was now quite giddy as before,

When she slept by him, tired out, and her hair

Was mingled with the rushes on the floor,

And he, being tired too, was scarce aware

Of her presence; yet as he sat and gazed,

A shiver ran throughout him, and his breath

Came slower, he seem’d suddenly amazed,

As though he had not heard of Arthur’s death.

This for a moment only, presently

He rode on giddy still, until he reach’d

A place of apple-trees, by the thorn-tree

Wherefrom St. Joseph in the days past preached.

Dazed there he laid his head upon a tomb,

Not knowing it was Arthur’s, at which sight

One of her maidens told her, “He is come,”

And she went forth to meet him; yet a blight

Had settled on her, all her robes were black,

With a long white veil only; she went slow,

As one walks to be slain, her eyes did lack

Half her old glory, yea, alas! the glow

Had left her face and hands; this was because

As she lay last night on her purple bed,

Wishing for morning, grudging every pause

Of the palace clocks, until that Launcelot’s head

Should lie on her breast, with all her golden hair

Each side: when suddenly the thing grew drear,

In morning twilight, when the grey downs bare

Grew into lumps of sin to Guenevere.

At first she said no word, but lay quite still,

Only her mouth was open, and her eyes

Gazed wretchedly about from hill to hill;

As though she asked, not with so much surprise

As tired disgust, what made them stand up there

So cold and grey. After, a spasm took

Her face, and all her frame, she caught her hair,

All her hair, in both hands, terribly she shook,

And rose till she was sitting in the bed,

Set her teeth hard, and shut her eyes and seem’d

As though she would have torn it from her head,

Natheless she dropp’d it, lay down, as she deem’d

It matter’d not whatever she might do:

O Lord Christ! pity on her ghastly face!

Those dismal hours while the cloudless blue

Drew the sun higher: He did give her grace;

Because at last she rose up from her bed,

And put her raiment on, and knelt before

The blessed rood, and with her dry lips said,

Muttering the words against the marble floor:

“Unless you pardon, what shall I do, Lord,

But go to hell? and there see day by day

Foul deed on deed, hear foulest word on word,

For ever and ever, such as on the way

“To Camelot I heard once from a churl,

That curled me up upon my jennet’s neck

With bitter shame; how then, Lord, should I curl

For ages and for ages? dost thou reck

“That I am beautiful, Lord, even as you

And your dear mother? why did I forget

You were so beautiful, and good, and true,

That you loved me so, Guenevere? O yet

“If even I go to hell, I cannot choose

But love you, Christ, yea, though I cannot keep

From loving Launcelot; O Christ! must I lose

My own heart’s love? see, though I cannot weep,

“Yet am I very sorry for my sin;

Moreover, Christ, I cannot bear that hell,

I am most fain to love you, and to win

A place in heaven some time: I cannot tell:

“Speak to me, Christ! I kiss, kiss, kiss your feet;

Ah! now I weep!” The maid said, “By the tomb

He waiteth for you, lady,” coming fleet,

Not knowing what woe filled up all the room.

So Guenevere rose and went to meet him there,

He did not hear her coming, as he lay

On Arthur’s head, till some of her long hair

Brush’d on the new-cut stone: “Well done! to pray

“For Arthur, my dear Lord, the greatest king

That ever lived.” “Guenevere! Guenevere!

Do you not know me, are you gone mad? fling

Your arms and hair about me, lest I fear

“You are not Guenevere, but some other thing.”

“Pray you forgive me, fair lord Launcelot!

I am not mad, but I am sick; they cling,

God’s curses, unto such as I am; not

“Ever again shall we twine arms and lips.”

“Yea, she is mad: thy heavy law, O Lord,

Is very tight about her now, and grips

Her poor heart, so that no right word

“Can reach her mouth; so, Lord, forgive her now,

That she not knowing what she does, being mad,

Kills me in this way: Guenevere, bend low

And kiss me once! for God’s love kiss me! sad

“Though your face is, you look much kinder now;

Yea once, once for the last time kiss me, lest I die.”

“Christ! my hot lips are very near his brow,

Help me to save his soul! Yea, verily,

“Across my husband’s head, fair Launcelot!

Fair serpent mark’d with V upon the head!

This thing we did while yet he was alive,

Why not, O twisting knight, now he is dead?

“Yea, shake! shake now and shiver! if you can

Remember anything for agony,

Pray you remember how when the wind ran

One cool spring evening through fair aspen-tree,

“And elm and oak about the palace there

The king came back from battle, and I stood

To meet him, with my ladies, on the stair,

My face made beautiful with my young blood.”

“Will she lie now, Lord God?” “Remember too,

Wrung heart, how first before the knights there came

A royal bier, hung round with green and blue,

About it shone great tapers with sick flame.

“And thereupon Lucius, the Emperor,

Lay royal-robed, but stone-cold now and dead,

Not able to hold sword or sceptre more,

But not quite grim; because his cloven head

“Bore no marks now of Launcelot’s bitter sword,

Being by embalmers deftly solder’d up;

So still it seem’d the face of a great lord,

Being mended as a craftsman mends a cup.

“Also the heralds sung rejoicingly

To their long trumpets; ‘Fallen under shield,

Here lieth Lucius, King of Italy,

Slain by Lord Launcelot in open field.’

“Thereat the people shouted: ‘Launcelot!’

And through the spears I saw you drawing nigh,

You and Lord Arthur: nay, I saw you not,

But rather Arthur, God would not let die,

“I hoped, these many years; he should grow great,

And in his great arms still encircle me,

Kissing my face, half blinded with the heat

Of king’s love for the queen I used to be.

“Launcelot, Launcelot, why did he take your hand,

When he had kissed me in his kingly way?

Saying: ‘This is the knight whom all the land

Calls Arthur’s banner, sword, and shield to-day;

“‘Cherish him, love.’ Why did your long lips cleave

In such strange way unto my fingers then?

So eagerly glad to kiss, so loath to leave

When you rose up? Why among helmed men

“Could I always tell you by your long strong arms,

And sway like an angel’s in your saddle there?

Why sicken’d I so often with alarms

Over the tilt-yard? Why were you more fair

“Than aspens in the autumn at their best?

Why did you fill all lands with your great fame,

So that Breuse even, as he rode, fear’d lest

At turning of the way your shield should flame?

“Was it nought then, my agony and strife?

When as day passed by day, year after year,

I found I could not live a righteous life!

Didst ever think queens held their truth for dear?

“O, but your lips say: ‘Yea, but she was cold

Sometimes, always uncertain as the spring;

When I was sad she would be overbold,

Longing for kisses. When war-bells did ring,

“‘The back-toll’d bells of noisy Camelot.’”

“Now, Lord God, listen! listen, Guenevere,

Though I am weak just now, I think there’s not

A man who dares to say: ‘You hated her,

“‘And left her moaning while you fought your fill

In the daisied meadows!’ lo you her thin hand,

That on the carven stone can not keep still,

Because she loves me against God’s command,

“Has often been quite wet with tear on tear,

Tears Launcelot keeps somewhere, surely not

In his own heart, perhaps in Heaven, where

He will not be these ages.” “Launcelot!

“Loud lips, wrung heart! I say when the bells rang,

The noisy back-toll’d bells of Camelot,

There were two spots on earth, the thrushes sang

In the lonely gardens where my love was not,

“Where I was almost weeping; I dared not

Weep quite in those days, lest one maid should say,

In tittering whispers: ‘Where is Launcelot

To wipe with some kerchief those tears away?’

“Another answer sharply with brows knit,

And warning hand up, scarcely lower though:

‘You speak too loud, see you, she heareth it,

This tigress fair has claws, as I well know,

“‘As Launcelot knows too, the poor knight! well-a-day!

Why met he not with Iseult from the West,

Or better still, Iseult of Brittany?

Perchance indeed quite ladyless were best.’

“Alas, my maids, you loved not overmuch

Queen Guenevere, uncertain as sunshine

In March; forgive me! for my sin being such,

About my whole life, all my deeds did twine,

“Made me quite wicked; as I found out then,

I think; in the lonely palace where each morn

We went, my maids and I, to say prayers when

They sang mass in the chapel on the lawn.

“And every morn I scarce could pray at all,

For Launcelot’s red-golden hair would play,

Instead of sunlight, on the painted wall,

Mingled with dreams of what the priest did say;

“Grim curses out of Peter and of Paul;

Judging of strange sins in Leviticus;

Another sort of writing on the wall,

Scored deep across the painted heads of us.

“Christ sitting with the woman at the well,

And Mary Magdalen repenting there,

Her dimmed eyes scorch’d and red at sight of hell

So hardly ‘scaped, no gold light on her hair.

“And if the priest said anything that seemed

To touch upon the sin they said we did,

(This in their teeth) they looked as if they deem’d

That I was spying what thoughts might be hid

“Under green-cover’d bosoms, heaving quick

Beneath quick thoughts; while they grew red with shame,

And gazed down at their feet: while I felt sick,

And almost shriek’d if one should call my name.

“The thrushes sang in the lone garden there:

But where you were the birds were scared I trow:

Clanging of arms about pavilions fair,

Mixed with the knights’ laughs; there, as I well know,

“Rode Launcelot, the king of all the band,

And scowling Gauwaine, like the night in day,

And handsome Gareth, with his great white hand

Curl’d round the helm-crest, ere he join’d the fray;

“And merry Dinadan with sharp dark face,

All true knights loved to see; and in the fight

Great Tristram, and though helmed you could trace

In all his bearing the frank noble knight;

“And by him Palomydes, helmet off,

He fought, his face brush’d by his hair,

Red heavy swinging hair; he fear’d a scoff

So overmuch, though what true knight would dare

“To mock that face, fretted with useless care,

And bitter useless striving after love?

O Palomydes, with much honour bear

Beast Glatysaunt upon your shield, above

“Your helm that hides the swinging of your hair,

And think of Iseult, as your sword drives through

Much mail and plate: O God, let me be there

A little time, as I was long ago!

“Because stout Gareth lets his spear fall low,

Gauwaine and Launcelot, and Dinadan

Are helm’d and waiting; let the trumpets go!

Bend over, ladies, to see all you can!

“Clench teeth, dames, yea, clasp hands, for Gareth’s spear

Throws Kay from out his saddle, like a stone

From a castle-window when the foe draws near:

‘Iseult!’ Sir Dinadan rolleth overthrown.

“‘Iseult!’ again: the pieces of each spear

Fly fathoms up, and both the great steeds reel;

‘Tristram for Iseult!’ ‘Iseult!’ and ‘Guenevere!’

The ladies’ names bite verily like steel.

“They bite: bite me, Lord God! I shall go mad,

Or else die kissing him, he is so pale,

He thinks me mad already, O bad! bad!

Let me lie down a little while and wail.”

“No longer so, rise up, I pray you, love,

And slay me really, then we shall be heal’d,

Perchance, in the aftertime by God above.”

“Banner of Arthur, with black-bended shield

“Sinister-wise across the fair gold ground!

Here let me tell you what a knight you are,

O sword and shield of Arthur! you are found

A crooked sword, I think, that leaves a scar

“On the bearer’s arm, so be he thinks it straight,

Twisted Malay’s crease beautiful blue-grey,

Poison’d with sweet fruit; as he found too late,

My husband Arthur, on some bitter day!

“O sickle cutting hemlock the day long!

That the husbandman across his shoulder hangs,

And, going homeward about evensong,

Dies the next morning, struck through by the fangs!

“Banner, and sword, and shield, you dare not die,

Lest you meet Arthur in the other world,

And, knowing who you are, he pass you by,

Taking short turns that he may watch you curl’d,

“Body and face and limbs in agony,

Lest he weep presently and go away,

Saying: ‘I loved him once,’ with a sad sigh,

Now I have slain him, Lord, let me go too, I pray.

[Launcelot falls.

“Alas! alas! I know not what to do,

If I run fast it is perchance that I

May fall and stun myself, much better so,

Never, never again! not even when I die.”

LAUNCELOT, on awaking.

“I stretch’d my hands towards her and fell down,

How long I lay in swoon I cannot tell:

My head and hands were bleeding from the stone,

When I rose up, also I heard a bell.”

(The Magic Crystal)

Angelic Flights of Fancy…

Nice Weekend, working on The Invisible College, a few more daze…. Weather went from sublime to the rainy, in one day. Pouring now on Sunday night.

Saw my good friend Tom Charlesworth Sunday. Went out for a pint at the local. He is in the process of trying to escape Portland with his wife Cheryl to sunnier climes. We will miss him. We have been friends since 1969. So many stories!

Had a nice time with family, talked to good friends around the place, including Tomas B. back in RI. Hey Tomas!

Put together “The Laughing Show” for Radio Free Earthrites. Still on if you want to catch it, coming off the air Monday night.

Hope your weekend was sweet!

Gwyllm

—-

On The Grill:

The Links

The Quotes

You Never Want to Cross an Elf By Brad Steiger

Poetry: René Char

The Art: George Frederic Watts

George Frederic Watts

1817-1904

A portrait painter and sculptor, George Frederick Watts was born in London, the son of a piano maker. Initially, he wanted to become a sculptor, and at the age of 10 was apprenticed to William Behnes. However, in 1835, at the age of 18, he went to the RA Schools, where he remained for only a short period, and thereafter was mainly self-taught. After he first exhibited The Wounded Heron at the Royal Academy, painting became his main preoccupation. When his picture Caractacus won a £300 prize, he used the money to finance a trip to Italy, where he stayed with friends in Florence. He did not return to England until 1847, when his painting Alfred won the first prize of £500 in a House of Lords competition.

In 1850 Watts visited the home of Valentine Prinsep’s parents in Holland park, supposedly for a three-day visit, but instead he stayed for thirty years. The Prinseps seem to have borne the situation cheerfully, and it no doubt gave them a certain cachet in the Bohemian circles in which they moved, which included such writers and painters as Thackeray, Dickens, Rossetti and Burne-Jones. Fortunately, Watts was a man of frugal habits. Although he had been depressed and unhappy when he had moved in with the Prinseps, Watts blossomed in this strange household, where notable writers and painters were treated with reverence. As a portrait artist, his gallery of eminent Victorians is unsurpassed: included among his sitters were the poets Tennyson, Swinburne and Browning, the artists Millais, Lord Leighton, Walter Crane and Burne-Jones; others were Sir Richard Burton, John Stuart Mill and Garibaldi, to mention only a few. He finally left the Prinseps’ home in 1875 and moved to the Isle of Wight. In 1864 Watts married the actress Ellen Terry, who was only 16, although the marriage was short-lived, and he remarried in 1886 when he moved to Limnerslease, near Guildford. His new wife was Mary Fraser-Tytler, thirty-two year his junior. She was of Scottish descent, growing up in a castle on the shores of Loch Ness, and was an artist in her own right.

Watts was a modest, hard-working artist who twice refused a baronetcy and other honours, including an offer to become president of the Royal Academy, although he did accept the Order of Merit. His work as a sculptor exists in the Cecil Rhodes Memorial, Cape Town. His chief work as a sculptor is the heroic figure of a man on horseback known as Physical Energy, casts of which are on the Cecil Rhodes estate and in Kensington Gardens, London.

The critic G.K. Chesterton said of Watts: “.. more than any other modern man, and much more than politicians who thundered on platforms or financiers who captured continents, [Watts] has sought in the midst of his quiet and hidden life to mirror his age… In the whole range of Watts’ symbolic art, there is scarcely a single example of the ordinary and arbitrary current symbol…. A primeval vagueness and archaism hangs over the all the canvases and cartoons, like frescoes from some prehistoric temple. There is nothing there but the eternal things, day and fire and the sea, and motherhood and the dead.”

Another contemporary admirer, Hugh MacMillan, wrote that Watts “surrounds his ideal forms with a misty or cloudy atmosphere for the purpose of showing that they are visionary or ideal…. His colours, like the colour of the veils of the ancient tabernacle, like the hues of the jewelled walls of the New Jerusalem, are invested with a parabolic significance…. To the commonest hues he gives a tone beyond their ordinary power… Watts is essentially the seer. He thinks in pictures that come before the inward eye spontaneously and assume a definite form almost without any effort of consciousness.”

Watts’ declared aims were clear: to paint pictures that appealed ‘to the intellect and refined emotions rather than the senses’: “I paint ideas, not things. I paint primarily because I have something to say, and since the gift of eloquent language has been denied to me, I use painting; my intention is not so much to paint pictures which shall please the eye, as to suggest great thoughts which shall speak to the imagination and to the heart and arouse all that is best and noblest in humanity.”

Since the revival of interest in Victorian painting, Watts is slowly regaining the recognition and respect he enjoyed in the 19th century. However, in terms of public recognition he is not as well-known as contemporaries like Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. Exhibitions such as the Tate Gallery’s ‘Symbolism in Britain’ have helped renew interest in his work.

_____________

The Links:

‘We Shall Overcome’

Again

Fortune-telling judge couldn’t see it coming

What’s the Story, Morning Glory? / The Washington Post takes another bad drug trip.

_____________

The Quotes:

“We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.”

“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”

“Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?”

“Sanity is a madness put to good use.”

“Seeing a murder on television… can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any

antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.”

“Fall not in love, therefore; it will stick to your face.”

“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”

“Someone’s boring me. I think it’s me.”

“I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life.”

____________

You Never Want to Cross an Elf By Brad Steiger

For many people today, the image of an elf is firmly established in the characters of either the handsome Legolas Greenleaf or the lovely, ethereal Arwen as depicted in the Peter Jackson film of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Ring saga by actors Orlando Bloom and Liv Tyler. While the elves in Tolkien’s vision are tall and stately beings, tradition has most often portrayed elves and their fellow citizens from the unseen realm as diminutive, hence, “the wee people.” Small in stature though they may be, elves, the “Hidden Folk,” are not beings with whom to trifle.

Careless or disrespectful humans who trespass on forest glens, rivers, or lakes considered sacred to elves may suffer terrible consequences—even cruel deaths. Entrepreneurs who wish to desecrate land whereon lie fairy circles or mounds in order to build a road or construct a commercial building may find themselves combating an unseen enemy who will accept only their unconditional surrender.

Trouble at the Herring Plant

In 1962, the new owners of a herring-processing plant in Iceland decided to enlarge the work area of the building. According to Icelandic tradition, landowners must not fail to reserve a small area of their property for the Hidden Folk, and a number of the established residents earnestly pointed out to the recent arrivals that any addition to the processing plant would encroach upon the plot of ground that the original owners had respectfully set aside for the elves who lived under the ground.

In a condescending manner, the businessmen explained that they didn’t harbor those old superstitions and neither did their highly qualified construction crew who had modern, unbreakable drill bits and plenty of explosives.

But the bits of the “unbreakable” drills began to shatter, one after another.

An old farmer came forward to repeat the warning that the crew was trespassing on land that belonged to the Hidden Folk.

The workmen laughed when the old man walked away—but the drill bits kept breaking.

Finally, the manager of the plant, although professing disbelief in such nonsense, agreed to the local residents’ recommendation that he consult a local elf seer to establish contact with the Hidden Folk and attempt to make peace with them. The seer informed the manager that there was a very powerful member of the Hidden Folk who had selected the plot near the herring-processing plant as his personal dwelling place. He was not an unreasonable being, however. Elves really do try to get along with humans and compromise whenever they can to avoid violence. If the processing plant really needed the plot for its expansion, the elf seer said, the Hidden One would agree to find another place to live. He asked only for five days without any drilling, so that he could make his arrangements to move.

The manager felt a bit strange bargaining with a being that was invisible—and, as far as he was concerned, imaginary. But he looked over at the pile of broken drill bits and told the seer that the Hidden One had a deal. Work on the site was shut down for five days to give the elf a chance to move. When five days had passed and the workmen resumed drilling, the work went smoothly and efficiently until the addition to the plant was completed. There were no more shattered drill bits.

Because the incident cited above occurred in 1962—practically medieval times in some young people’s minds—many readers will no doubt assume that Icelanders of the 21st century no longer cherish such quaint beliefs. Those readers would be wrong.

In the Boston Herald, December 25, 2005, Ric Bourie wrote that highway engineers and construction crews still regard the Hidden Folk very seriously: “Mischief befalls Icelandic road builders who can’t recognize good elf domain, including breakdowns of heavy equipment and even worker mishaps and injuries. It is said to have happened on more than one job site, enough to take the mythology seriously. Consequently, road planners here consult with an elf expert before routing a road or highway through rock piles that may be elf habitat.”

Bourie interviewed elf seer Erla Stefansdottir, who named elves, gnomes, dwarves, angels, light-fairies, and “the hidden people” as all belonging to classes of what she called elfin beings. Any of the above-named entities, Ms. Stefansdottir said, “…can get quite upset if we ruin their houses or go against their wishes. They get very upset and we have to face the consequences. They can put a spell on us.”

Fairy Mound Disturbed

<img width='272' height='350' border='0' hspace='5' align='left' src='http://www.earthrites.org/turfing2/uploads/1904watts320copy.jpg' alt='' /While some people may be surprised that stereotypically stoic Scandinavians believe in elves and other beings from the hidden world, it seems that the whole world embraces the stereotype of the country folk of Ireland taking their wee people seriously. According to popular leprechaun and elf stories, the Irish know that to disturb the mounds or raths in which they dwell is to invite severe supernatural consequences.

Since ancient times, it seems that the Irish have understood that there are certain areas that the wee ones consider sacrosanct, special to them. Certain mounds, caves, creek areas, and forest clearings have been staked out by the Hidden Ones as their very own, and the wise human, sensitively in touch with the natural environment, knows better than to trespass on such ground.

The trouble at the fairy mound outside the village of Wexford began when workmen from the state electricity board began digging a hole for the erection of a light pole within the parameters of a rath. The villagers warned the workmen that the pole would never stay put, because no self-respecting community of fairy folk could abide a disturbance on their mound.

The big city electrical workmen had a coarse laugh and made uncomplimentary remarks about the level of intelligence of the townsfolk of Wexford. The workmen finished digging the hole to the depth that experience had taught them was adequate, then placed the post within the freshly dug opening and stamped the black earth firmly around its base. The satisfied foreman pronounced for all within earshot to hear that no fairy would move the pole from where it had been anchored.

However, the next morning the pole tilted askew in loose earth.

The villagers shrugged that the wee folk had done it, but the foreman of the crew voiced his suspicions that the fairies had received some help from humans bent on mischief. Glaring his resentment at any villagers who would meet his narrowed, accusative eyes, the foreman ordered his men to reset the pole.

The next morning that particular pole was once again conspicuous in the long line of newly placed electrical posts by its weird tilt in the loose soil at its base. While the other poles in the line stood straight and proud like soldiers on parade, that one woebegone post reeled like a trooper who had had one pint too many.

The foreman had endured enough of such rural humor at his expense. He ordered the crew to dig a hole six feet wide, place the pole precisely in the middle, and pack the earth so firmly around the base that nothing short of an atomic bomb could budge it.

Apparently fairies have their own brand of nuclear fission, for the next morning the intrusive pole had once again been pushed loose of the little people’s rath.

The foreman and his crew from the electricity board finally knew they were licked. Without another word to the grinning villagers, the workmen dug a second hole four feet outside of the fairy mound and dropped the pole in there. And there it stood, untouched, untroubled—exactly where the wee folk permitted it to stand.

The Wee People’s Rock

In The Times, November 21, 2005, Will Pavai and Chris Windle tell how a small colony of wee folk living beneath a rock in St. Fillans, Perthshire, cost developer Marcus Salter, head of Genesis Properties, nearly $40,000 when community pressure forced him to scrap his building plans and start again. A group of his workmen had been about to move a large rock from the center of a field to make way for the new housing development.

According to Salter, one of the residents of St. Fillans came running, shouting that they couldn’t move the rock or they would kill the fairies. At first Salter thought the man was joking. Then came the series of angry telephone calls.

Salter attended a meeting of the community council where he learned that the council was considering lodging a complaint with the planning authority, which was likely “to be the kiss of death for a housing development in a national park.”

Although the Planning Inspectorate has no specific guidelines on how to deal with fairies, a spokesman told Salter that “Planning guidance states that local customs and beliefs must be taken into account when a developer applies for planning permission.”

Salter was forced to redesign the new estate so that the wee people’s rock would be in the center of a small park nicely situated within the new community.

When some friends and I were discussing the recent accounts of wee people activity receiving media attention in late 2005, Patty recalled staying with an Irish family some years ago.

“They owned a large hotel that dated back to before the Easter Rebellion (1916) and had housed lots of IRA activity,” Patty said. “The owner of this place, Mr. Conroy, told me that there are fairy rings all around the area outside of Dublin—especially in St. Kevin’s Bed. There is a story of a truck driver that made fun of the villagers for their superstition about the fairy circles and to prove how stupid he felt they were, he drove his truck through one of them! Then he got out of the truck, laughed at the crowd watching him, and promptly died of a heart attack! Conroy swore that this man was a big fellow in perfect health.”

Patty heard another story while she was in Ireland about some construction workers who wanted to remove a stump near a fairy ring. They felt that since it wasn’t actually in the fairy ring, the coast was clear. They tried to dynamite the stump three or four times and nothing happened. They checked the dynamite, the wiring, and so forth and found nothing wrong. Finally, they all saw a little man dressed in green climb out of the stump and run. Just as he ran off, the stump exploded into a million pieces!

As crazy as this sounds, there was a photographer there from the local newspaper who had heard about all the problems and was going to take a picture of them trying to blow up the stump. He did actually get a picture of the leprechaun. However, Patty was told, it is locked away somewhere in Trinity College.

Patty recalled many conversations with the maid at the hotel where she stayed and she said that she had heard many stories of people who had seen the “wee folks.” And on one thing all the stories agreed, Patty said, “You never want to cross one! Not ever!”

Intelligent Energy

I have concluded in my research that there exist throughout the world pockets of energy in which another order of intelligence abides. And I should make clear that I agree wholeheartedly with elf seer Erla Stefansdottir, who includes elves, gnomes, dwarves, angels, light-fairies, nisse, brownies, skaramooshes, and devas as a single shape-shifting intelligence that we have come to call “The Hidden People.” In some instances, these pockets of intelligent energy may be influenced by human intelligence and manifest in a physical form as a variation on the theme of a human image. In other circumstances, this energy may direct and control—even possess—human beings.

In essence, these “nature spirits” may be the “Elder Race” or “The Old Ones” referred to in so many myths and legends. These vortexes of intelligence may comprise a companion species to our own and may well have maintained a strange kind of symbiotic relationship with us throughout the centuries of mutual evolution.

David Spangler of Findhorn claimed that he was told by such an intelligence that they recognize humankind as a necessary and vital part of the synergistic state of the planet, thus they are essentially benignly concerned with human survival because it bears directly upon the survival of Earth. Spangler’s understanding of humankind’s relationship to these entities is that we were “first cousins,” and that we somehow had a common ancestor.

The elves’ benign nature has been experienced by those men and women who have won their favor. On behalf of such humans, the Hidden Ones can materialize to help a poor farmer harvest a crop and have it in the bins before a storm hits, or they can clean a kitchen in the twinkling of an eye to ease the stress of an exhausted housewife. If they see fit to do so, the elves can guide their favored humans with their ability to divine the future, and they will stand by to assist at the birth of a special couple’s child, whom they will tutor and protect throughout his or her lifetime.

Other researchers, biblically inspired, see the elfin clans as forms assumed by the rebellious angels who were driven out of Heaven during the celestial uprising led by Lucifer. These fallen angels, cast from their heavenly abode, took up new residences in the forests, mountains, and lakes of Earth. They exist in a much-diminished capacity, but still possess more than enough power to be deemed supernatural by the human inhabitants of the planet. These paraphysical beings on occasion take humans as mates, thereby breeding a hybrid species of entities “betwixt Man and Angel.”

Among the more than 30,000 men and women who have returned the Steiger Questionnaire of Mystical, Paranormal, and UFO Experiences, a remarkable 29 percent claim to have seen elves, fairies, or some form of nature spirit. In certain cases, recounted in the questionnaires, such a being may have considered a deserted house or barn its own. Generally, if the elfin entity understands that a human wishes to occupy the dwelling place and if it is treated with respect, it will quietly move out. At most, a token gift of fruits, nuts, or meal would com­pensate the spirit squatter and make it agree to move on to a more natural habitat. However, in some instances, humans have just walked into a particular situation at the wrong moment, and they can experience some trauma before squatting rights are straightened out and understood.

Invisible Assault

Together with the return of her questionnaire, Lorrie Jastrow sent an account of an experience which occurred to her and her fiancé, Karl, shortly before their marriage. They had gone to a movie, then decided to drive out to the tiny house in the country where they would live after they had celebrated their nuptials.

Lorrie thought it was fun to go out there and plan their future. The house was on land that was too wooded to be good farmland, but they intended only to plant a small garden for vegetables. Karl would continue his job in town.

“Our only lights that night were our flashlights. Since we wouldn’t be moving in for another month or so, the landlord had yet to switch on the electricity. He had given us keys to the place, though, and he didn’t mind that we would drive out there to dream about our future life together.”

That night when they walked into the house, Lorrie had an eerie feeling that something was wrong, that they were not alone. “Karl must have felt the same way as I did, because he kept looking over his shoulder, like he expected to catch sight of someone spying on us.

“Then we heard a strange chattering, like some giant squirrel or chipmunk, coming from a dark corner in the room. It suddenly seemed so unreal, unearthly, and a strange coldness passed over my body. I told Karl that I wanted to leave, that I was frightened.”

But before they could move toward the door, Karl suddenly threw his hands up over his head as if he were trying to grab at something behind him. His head seemed pulled back and to one side. His mouth froze in a grimace of pain and fear, and his eyes rolled wildly. He lost his balance, fell to his knees, and then to his side. He rolled madly on the floor, fighting and clawing the air around his neck.

Lorrie stood stunned with fear and bewilderment. Karl managed to struggle to his feet. His eyes bulged, and he gasped fiercely for each breath. Some unseen thing seemed to be strangling him. He gasped that they must run to the car, that Lorrie must drive.

Somehow, they got out of the house with Karl stumbling, staggering as if something heavy and strong were perched atop his shoulders with a death grip about his throat.

“I…can’t get the damned thing off of me!” he gasped.

At last they got to the car. Lorrie got behind the wheel, and Karl told her to drive, fast. He was still trying to pry the invisible thing’s hands from his throat.

Lorrie drove for about two miles down the road—and suddenly there was a blinding flash inside the car. A brilliant ball of light about the size of a basketball shot ahead of their car, then veered sharply to the left and disappeared into a clump of trees.

“I did not stop until we were back in town,” Lorrie said. “Karl lay gasping beside me, his head rolling limply on the back of the seat. He did not speak until we were well inside the city limits, then he said that some inhuman thing had jumped on him from the shadows of the house. He was certain that it could have killed him if it had really wanted to do so.”

Lorrie Jastrow concluded her account by writing that although they returned to their small home in the country with some trepidation, they never again encountered that monstrous, invisible strangler that chattered like a giant rodent. Once the nature spirit had time to calm down and come to terms with the fact that humans were reclaiming the empty house, it moved on to another, more appropriate dwelling. But it certainly did give Karl and Lorrie a piece of its mind before it did so.

Protective Entity

People who leave their vacation homes empty for the major portion of the year also frequently suffer from an elfin spirit developing a proprietary interest in what appears to be vacant property.

Scott Halstead said that he and his family had vacationed in the same cabin in the Northeast for the past 22 years. “We started vacationing in this cabin when Allan was two years old, and we always take the last two weeks in August. And for 22 years, we’ve had to share the cabin with something else.”

Halstead and his wife Lynette made a point to emphasize their contention that although the “something else” sometimes frightened them, their sense of the entity was that it was extremely protective of the cabin and the grounds on which their cabin and others like it had been built.

“The cabin and nine or ten others are situated on a beautiful lake,” Halstead said. “And old Charlie the caretaker knows that there is something kind of spooky going on around there, but he usually just shrugs and says that it doesn’t bother him. It sometimes bothers his dogs, though. He’s got two big German shepherds, and I’ve seen them cower and whine when neither Charlie nor anyone else was near them.”

Lynette said that when their son Allan was around four he would say that he had an invisible friend named Mo-Ko who lived in the woods. “If we were afraid that he might wander off in the woods, he would say, ‘Mo-Ko won’t let me. He says that I have to stay near the cabins.’ Who could complain if his invisible playmate was also a good baby sitter?”

Lynette and Scott agreed that the most dramatic evidence of a guardian spirit looking over the cabin came in 1985 when Allan was 11 and their daughter Tonya was 7.

“Scott and I had gone swimming,” Lynette said. “The kids knew that we would be chilled when we got out of the lake and a fire would feel good to us. Allan had watched his father building a fire for years, so he knew the basics, but he just kept piling on kindling. Tonya tossed newspapers and magazines onto the fire, and pretty soon they had a huge blaze roaring in that fireplace.”

Shivering, clutching towels to their chilled bodies, Scott and Lynette returned to the cabin to see the colonial-style rag rugs in front of the fireplace on fire, the curtains to the side of the chimney ablaze, and another finger of flame moving across scattered newspapers toward the living room carpet.

“There was that moment of panic, when you just kind of scream and shout before your brain kicks in,” Lynette said. “Allan and Tonya were standing against a wall, crying their heads off in fear.”

And then, as weird at it may seem—as strange as it is for Scott and Lynette to attest to it—something started to beat out the flames.

“I’m standing there barefooted and soaked in my swimming suit with a towel wrapped around me,” Scott said. “I don’t even have time to react, really, when I see something snuffing out the fire. More than beating out the flames, it’s like something is smothering it, as if it is covering the fire with a big wet blanket. In minutes, what looked like it would be a major disaster, has become a smoke-filled cabin, a couple of burned and scorched throw rugs, a blitzed curtain, and two crying kids.”

Lynette said that she hugged Allan and Tonya and gave thanks to God “…and to whatever protective spirit looks out for the cabins.”

Over the years Lynette and Scott Halstead said that there were numerous signs to indicate that some spirit entity was protective of the cabin. All of the family said that from time to time they felt someone was watching them. Items would disappear and reappear in bizarre places. And an eerie kind of scratching noise would often be heard issuing from within the walls.

Out of curiosity, they once wrote to the Wagners, a family they knew rented the cabin in July, and asked if they had ever noticed anything “peculiar” during their occupancy.

“Beverly Wagner wrote right back and said, ‘I imagine you’re referring to the invisible live-in maid?’” Lynette laughed at the memory. “The Wagners had noticed some of the same numerous little things that we had, but once when they left a messy table after a party at the cabin, they woke up the next morning to discover that someone or something had stacked the dirty dishes in the sink and cleaned the table top. Jim Wagner jokingly said that it must be elves, so he left a bowl of oatmeal on the front step that night. In the next morning it was gone, but, of course, birds or some critter could have eaten it.”

Scott and Lynette speculated that it could be the spirit of some Native American who cherished the environment around the lake and who kept a vigil over the cabins and their inhabitants, but they added that they had come to believe that the force, the energy, that loved the place so much was something more primeval.

“It’s almost as if nature itself is somehow protective of the few remaining areas that we humans haven’t covered over with concrete and erected shopping malls and gas stations,” Scott said. “Sometimes I would visualize some kind of elf or nature spirit sitting outside near the lake, looking across the beauty of this area toward the city and sighing, ‘What fools these mortals be.’”

Wrestling with Huldefolk

Richard Connors found out that an elf may sometimes envy a human’s possessions and try actively to claim them for his own. Richard said that his family was one a few “token Irish” in a small town in northern Minnesota that had been settled predominantly by immigrants of Scandinavian stock. Ever since Richard could remember, he had heard stories about the family of Hul­de­folk that lived in a cave on Ulmer Sorenson’s property north of town. Teenaged boys would sometimes go out there to test their mettle by throwing rocks into the mouth of the cave and daring the Huldefolk to come out and chase them. Some of the braver teens even walked a few feet inside the cave and shouted their challenges. Later, they told everyone how badly it smelled inside the cave, worse than skunks or civet cats.

Every now and then, someone would breathlessly describe having seen one or more of the Huldefolk moving around in the woods after dark, and it was common knowledge among the kids that those nocturnal raids on farmers’ chicken coops that carried away hens and eggs were the work of hungry Huldefolk, not wily foxes.

Richard’s father told him that the stories about the Hidden Folk had probably been made up by Ulmer Sorenson himself, to discourage kids from plundering apples from his orchard. His father said that their Scandinavian neighbors had their stories about the dark creatures of the forest just as did the Irish with their leprechauns.

Late one afternoon on a warm July day, Richard decided to ignore the “No Trespassing” sign on So­renson’s fence and cut across his orchard to take a shortcut to his girlfriend’s farmhouse. He was walking on a worn deer path when up ahead he could see a short, stocky guy coming toward him. As he drew nearer, Richard saw that the stranger was one ugly character. He had coarse black hair that literally jutted from his skull, deep-set black eyes, and an enormous nose. And when he grinned at Richard, he saw yellowish, jagged teeth that seemed badly in need of a dentist.

Living in a small Minnesota village, Richard was perplexed that he had never before seen the stranger anywhere in town or in school. “He was about five-foot four or so and built like a fire hydrant. He was dressed in a worn bib overall a couple of sizes too large, a torn, dirty work shirt, and his bare feet—at least size 13s—were covered with thick, black hair.”

As they stood facing one another, it became clear from the stranger’s frank stare that he was greatly covetous of Richard’s new jeans and boots. Without speaking a word, the brutish fellow suddenly tackled Richard around his waist and hurled him to the ground.

Richard at that time was five-foot-nine and 180 pounds of solid muscle, captain of the high school wrestling squad, and never one to turn down a tussle. “The ugly little guy was incredibly powerful, and he seemed very surprised when I did a reversal, escaped from his takedown, and flipped him over on his back. I was twisting his hairy arm behind him when this incredible thing happened: I swear to all the saints that he started to grow larger.”

Before Richard’s amazed eyes, his opponent stretched several inches taller and gained about 50 pounds. “And the smell of him became almost overpowering. He stank bad enough when he was a short little bugger, but now he could win a fall by his smell alone. Not being an idiot, I realized that I was up against something beyond my powers of reasoning. This was no ordinary farm boy. Deep in the pit of my stomach, I knew that I would now be fighting for more than my pants and my boots.”

The coarse-haired, foul-smelling stranger now filled out his bib overalls and worn shirt. His black eyes were turning red in color and from deep within the creature’s chest came a low, steady growl.

“Then I knew for certain that the legends about the Hidden Folks in Sorenson’s woods were true,” Richard said. “I turned tail and ran as fast as I could, leaving the thing roaring and screaming behind me. Twice I glanced over my shoulder to see if it was following me, but I didn’t stop running until I got back into town.”

When Richard told his family of his encounter with the creature over dinner that night, his father laughed and said that Ulmer Sorenson often hired temporary field hands from a pool of unemployed lumbermen from up north.

“A lot of those men are pretty rough and tough and a bit short on manners,” his father said. “And they might take a fancy to your new boots and jeans and decide to ‘borrow’ them without your permission. You best not tangle with any of them.”

Richard did not press the issue with his father. “Nor have I ever done so with anyone else,” he said, “but I will always know that there are many kinds of creatures and spirits that exist in the shadows all around us. Maybe they normally live in some other dimension and only occasionally pop into ours. Whoever they may be and whatever their names, I know that the Hidden Folk are real.”

Brad Steiger is a professional writer who deals with the strange and unknown. He lives in Forest City, Iowa.

__________

Poetry of René Char (1907 – 1988 / France)

Forehead of the Rose

Despite the open window in the room of long absence, the odor of the rose is still linked with the breath that was there. Once again we are without previous experience, newcomers, in love. The rose! The field of its ways would dispel even the effrontery of death. No grating stands in the way. Desire is alive, an ache in our vaporous foreheads.

One who walks the earth in its rains has nothing to fear from the thorn in places either finished or unfriendly. But if he stops to commune with himself, woe! Pierced to the quick, he suddenly flies to ashes, an archer reclaimed by beauty.

———-

the lords of maussane

One after the other, they wished to predict a happy future for us,

With an eclipse in their image and all the anguish befitting us!

We disdained this equality,

Answered no to their assiduous words.

We followed the stony way the heart traced for us

Up to the plains of the air and the unique silence.

We made our demanding love bleed,

Our happiness wrestle each pebble.

They say at this moment that, beyond their vision,

The hail terrifies them, more than the snow of the dead!

————

to …

You have been my love for so many years,

My giddiness before so much waiting,

Which nothing can age or cool;

Even that which awaited our death,

Or slowly learned how to fight us,

Even that which is strange to us,

Both my eclipses and my returns.

Closed like a box-wood shutter,

An extreme and compact chance

Is our chain, our mountain-range,

Our compressing splendour and glow.

I say chance, O my hammered one;

Either of us can receive

The mysterious part of the other

While keeping its secret unshed;

And the pain that comes from elsewhere

Finds its separation at last

In the flesh of our unity,

Finds its solar orbit at last

At the centre of our own cloud

Which it rends and starts once more.

As I feel it, I say chance.

You have raised up the mountain-peak

Which my waiting will have to clear

When tomorrow disappears.

———-

The River Sorgue

River which parts too early, in one go, without a companion,

Give to the children of my countryside the face of your passion,

River where the flash of lightning ends and where my home begins,

Which rolls all the way right up to the footsteps of oblivion, the rocky ground of my reason,

River, in you the earth shudders, there is sun, anxiety,

Would that every poor man in his night make his bread of your harvest,

River often punished, river abandoned to its course,

River of apprentices to a callused condition,

There is no wind that does not weaken at the crests of your furrows,

River of the empty spirit, of rags and suspicion,

Of an old misfortune unravelling itself, of the elm, of compassion,

River of eccentrics, of the feverish, of stone cutters,

Of the sun which lets go of its plow to sink to the level of liers

River of those who are better than oneself, river of blossoming fogs,

Of the lamp which quenches the anxiety around its hat,

River of consideration given to dreams, river which rusts iron,

Where the stars are of that shade that they refuse to the sea,

River of powers transmitted and of a scream that enters the water’s mouth

Of the hurricane which bites the vine and announces the new wine

River of a heart never destroyed in this world mad for prison,

Keep us violent and friendly to the horizon’s bees.

————-

Threshhold

When the barriers to people have been moved away, sucked up by that giant flaw, the abandonment of the divine, words in the distance, words which did not want to be lost, tried to resist the exorbitant pressure, there they decided upon the dynasty of their senses.

I ran up to where that diluvienne night issues forth, planted in the shaking dawn, my belt full of seasons, I wait for you, O my friends who are about to arrive. Already I can make you out in the darkness of the horizon. What I wish for your houses is not dried up by my hearth. And my staff of cypress laughs with all its heart for you.

________

René Char, one of the important twentieth-century French poets, was born in 1907 and died in 1988. A controversial figure, he had as many detractors as admirers. He was a pivotal personality in the surrealist movement, and later was a strong cultural force in the French Resistance. “His work,” writes Yves Berger, “is the portrait of a man with will, energy, impatience, an almost animalistic force. Nothing provokes him more than immobility (that is, resignation, or acceptance of the status quo): thus his language, his images of movement. a movement not supple and flowing, but rapid, strong, violent, even brutal.”

Jackson Matthews, in the introduction to Char’s Hypnos Waking, provides this portrait:

He is an abundant man—in size, in vitality, in speech, in silences, in ideas and affections, in seriousness, gaiety, gentleness, violence. The sum of all these is a kind of brooding intensity that seems at any moment free to take any turn. He is exalted and harried by the excessive life in him. He speaks in the rhythms of Provence where he was born, where he grew up, and where he still lives in part. He studied at the lycee in Avignon and at the University in Aix. He was one of the early surrealists.

But it was the war and his experience as the leader of a Maquis group in Provence that have most deeply affected his work—channeled his major themes, furnished the substance and many of the subjects of his later poems. The privation, the hunger, the moral suffering of those years were somehow turned into the passionate economy of his style, his rage to compress everything into aphorisms and short bursts of prose.

Char restores to the poet his mission in our distraught world. This is the major burden of his work. He has faced the difficult conditions of human freedom, and understood the role of the imagination in the life of man. He defends poetry with the passion of Shelly but with more human warmth and wisdom. It is in his humanity, his love, that Char stands above most of his contemporaries. But this love is fatally crossed. For the poet is the visionary leader of man, an absolute figure alone on the frontiers of the possible, ‘there where the sky just went down.’ His task is to bring into being the unhoped-for, the unexpectable. In the high lucidity of his star-crossed love, in the flash of the poem, Char has learned how to hope and how to praise.”

Joshua Cody, with text from The Library.

Friday’s Entry, Part 1 (The Return Of Quetzalcoatl)

Todays Entry is so large I have had to break it up in 2 parts, this being part one…

On this entrys’ grill

Daniel Pinchbeck: ’2012 : The Return Of Quetzalcoatl’

A Story: Titlacauan Tempts Quetzalcoatl

Mayan Poetry for Quetzalcoatl

_________

This book seems to be generating some stir:Book of Daniel

Daniel Pinchbeck: ’2012 : The Return Of Quetzalcoatl’ Chapter One

In the popular culture of our secular age, the gods, demigods, fairies, and gnomes of the old mythic realm have returned as extraterrestrials. Our mingled longing for and dread of contact with some unknown consciousness or superior alien race has been reflected in a century’s worth of books, films, television, and radio plays. I grew up on Star Trek, The Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, ET, and 2001, on Ursula K. Le Guin and Kurt Vonnegut and Stanislaw Lem—as an adolescent, I loved the Silver Surfer and Orson Welles’s The War of the Worlds. The pleasure of these artifacts was in the possibilities they threw out, like so many sparks. They returned the cosmos to a capacious state of “what-if?” that our mechanistic science seemed to deny. The exploration of fictional worlds is a kind of dreaming while awake; the complex ecosystem of the cultural imagination may also have a protective function. Through such stories, we absorb ideas in sidereal fashion, perhaps readying ourselves, on some subliminal level, for future shock of various stripes, before it arrives.

After I finished my article on the crop circles, the images, and their implicit intent, continued to linger in my mind. I was perplexed by the rectangular Arecibo Response formation, dismissed by current SETI astronomer Seth Shostak as a “nice example of grain graffiti,” unworthy of further investigation. I was equally confounded by the “Face” that had appeared in halftones on the date of my daughter’s birth. Whether accident or synchronicity, this correspondence seemed like a personal invitation to visit what the writer Robert Anton Wilson dubbed “Chapel Perilous,” that vortex where cosmological speculations, coincidences, and paranoia seem to multiply and then collapse, compelling belief or lunacy, wisdom or agnosticism.

Considering the scientific evidence, gathered by Eltjo Haselhof and others, suggesting the phenomenon had some mysterious legitimacy, as well as the many personal accounts I absorbed while doing my research, SETI’s blithe dismissal of the Arecibo Response glyph, a direct response to a message beamed into space by SETI in 1974, seemed flat and unreflective. Shostak insisted that an alien civilization would not communicate in such a manner when they could simply leave an Encyclopedia Galactica on our doorstep. But how could we determine the means that an alien civilization might use to communicate? He was perhaps recalling the Fermi Paradox, which noted that any technologically evolved civilization on a nearby star system should have emitted radio waves during its development that our sensors would have picked up. The physicist Enrico Fermi asked, in the absence of these signals, “Where are they?” But the answer might lie beyond the limits of our present knowledge.

The SETI astronomer pointed out that the original Arecibo greeting was sent out to the M13 star cluster, over twenty thousand light-years away, and it therefore made no sense that it could have been answered already. It seemed equally logical to theorize that whoever—whatever—had crafted the reply knew about the original message as soon as it was sent, that they might have observed activities on our planet for a very long time. But even if one could imagine an advanced species watching the Earth, awaiting the proper moment to reveal itself to us, the Arecibo Response still made little sense. Who was meant to receive the transmission? And what were they—or we—supposed to do with it?

Small, big-headed figures with silicon added to their makeup and an extra strand of DNA, as depicted in the Arecibo Response, suggested the peculiar narrative, or evolving postmodern myth, of the Gray aliens. Over the last decades, the Grays infiltrated the global subconscious, through best-selling books such as Whitley Streiber’s 1987 Communion, the TV miniseries Taken, and T-shirts, plastic figurines, cartoons, and other mass-cult detritus based on accounts of abduction. I had never paid more than a glancing attention to the UFO phenomenon or to alien abduction accounts—it seemed like some hysterical symptom of our cultural malaise, adolescent and turgid, overliteral, and deeply disreputable. The notion that three-and-a-half-foot-tall cardboard-colored aliens made nightly invasions of middle-class bedrooms across the United States and the world to insert rectal probes and take sperm samples did not seem plausible, or the type of behavior one would anticipate from a futuristic civilization.

And yet, much like the surprisingly tangible evidence on crop circles, the accumulated data on UFO sightings and alien abductions reveals jarring levels of complexity and downright weirdness that do not allow for a blanket rejection of the phenomenon. Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, author of a Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of T. E. Lawrence, dedicated the last decades of his life to studying the psychological phenomenon of adbuction by “the visitors,” as Whitley Streiber called them. Considering the data gathered by a 1991 Roper poll, Mack thought it conceivable that as many as three million Americans had undergone an abduction experience. His study of abductees led him to conclude that the phenomenon had validity beyond any psychological mechanism: “There have been numerous psychological studies of these individuals; none has discovered any psychopathology in great degree that could account for the experience.” In many cases, abductees “have been witnessed by their relatives to not be present during that time. They are physically gone, and families become very distressed. . . . One of the things most difficult to accept is that this can actually have a literal factual basis. . . . Abductees may wake up with unexplained cuts, scoop marks, or bleeding noses.” Mack optimistically proposed that these experiences had some sort of therapeutic value.

The narrative of contact between modern culture and the UFOs has developed over a long period, beginning with mass sightings of mysterious “air ships,” like souped-up blimps, in the late nineteenth century. After World War II, accounts of flying saucers became rampant. “Between 1947 and the dawn of the age of abductees in the 1970s, there were at least six major UFO sighting waves,” writes Brenda Denzler in The Lure of the Edge: Scientific Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs. Each wave produced thousands of eyewitness accounts. Sometimes picked up by radar, the UFOs would execute impossible aeronautical feats, hovering, plunging, zigzagging, skipping across water, suddenly disappearing.

On July 8, 1947, the Air Force intelligence office on Roswell Army Base in Roswell, New Mexico, announced the recovery of a crashed “flying disc” in a press release published in the San Francisco Chronicle, among other places. “The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday,” the release began. The military retracted the information on the following day, explaining that the disc recovered by two intelligence agents turned out to be, upon further inspection, a weather balloon. Since that time, an entire industry of conspiracy theories has developed—books and films propounding government cover-ups, secret deals made with the aliens, issuing from that peculiar incident, and a few others like it.

During the 1950s, witnesses reported seeing saucers that had landed or crashed, with small, silver-suited humanoids standing around or working on them. Sometimes, these humanoid “aliens” would wave at the bystanders. Abduction accounts began to surface in the 1960s. The first famous report—that of Barney and Betty Hill, an interracial New Hampshire couple, whose abduction memories were recovered through hypnosis and published in Look magazine in 1966—established the template followed by the vast body of the tens of thousands of accounts logged since then. The “salient features,” according to Denzler, include “missing time, physical examination while on board the UFO, a tour of the ship, conversation with the aliens, and the use of hypnotic regression to recover lost memories.”

UFOlogist Jacques Vallee links alien abductions to ancient folktales in which humans trespassed or were cajoled into the realm of the fairy folk. Putting the episodes in the same category as Patrick Harpur’s “daimonic reality,” he sees them belonging to “the domain of the in-between, the unproven, and the unprovable, . . . the country of paradoxes, strangely furnished with material ‘proofs,’ sometimes seemingly unimpeachable, but always ultimately insufficient. . . . This absolutely confusing (and manifestly misleading) aspect . . . may well be the phenomenon’s most basic characteristic.” The visitors usually appear at night when the abductee is sleeping, often paralyzing them and then floating them out of their bed and onto a ship, where rapid, confusing, painful, and often repugnant events transpire.

Once selected, abductees tend to be picked up and tormented by the Grays again and again—and hypnosis often reveals that these contacts go back to early childhood. The visitors communicate telepathically, their tiny mouth slits and large black eyes never moving. They seem lacking in affect—although some abductees find them afraid or sad or amused at certain moments—and are puzzled yet fascinated by human emotional reactions. Their behavior is consistently bizarre and unpleasant, as if their actions represent a kind of mangled syntax, their true intentions concealed or distorted in some way. To take one of many examples, at the end of an abduction, the visitors exhorted one abductee, over and over again, to “eat only cow things.” In another account, a male Gray paraded in front of its victim wearing her high-heeled shoes. Another abductee described a group of “small Grays” (they come in different sizes) gathered around a Christmas gift they had found in her car, opening and clumsily rewrapping it. Their hectic movements and the seemingly senseless operations they perform give the visitors an odd, fugitive quality, somehow out of sync, like figures from an old silent movie.

For the abductees, the most prevalent emotional response is one of extreme terror and violation—although some abductees, in what might be an extradimensional version of Stockholm Syndrome, come to believe in and trust their visitors, overcoming their initial reactions of horror. They convince themselves they are in league with the visitors—or were (or are) Grays in another life. They accept the claims sometimes made by the visitors, that they are here to salvage humanity and the planet from our destructive mania. Abductees often report rapes and procedures where small BB-sized implants are painfully deposited under their skin, deep up their nose or their rectum. In some cases, these implants have been retrieved and analyzed in laboratories—but they are of indeterminate origin and inconclusive proof of anything otherworldly.

In 1981, the abductions were declared an “invisible epidemic” by researcher Budd Hopkins, author of Missing Time. In the 1980s, Hopkins and other researchers noted the prevalence of reports describing the removal of eggs or sperm, and the compiled accounts began to suggest that the Grays were engaged in a massive “hybrid” human-alien breeding program. In dozens of reports, women are abducted, gynecological procedures performed, and then, back in their normal lives, they test positive for pregnancy. A few weeks later, their mysterious pregnancy disappears. Under hypnosis, they would recollect an intervening abduction and the removal of a tiny fetus. In future abductions—as revealed under hypnosis—the women would be shown developing fetuses, babies, or children and told that these were their hybrid offspring. A sordid ambience of accusation and guilt clings to these memories. In several accounts, abductees trying to escape from the tortures or experiments the Grays had designed for them were told by their captors: “Don’t you remember? You agreed to this.” As his captors inserted a needle into his brain, Streiber shouted, “You have no right to do this.” The visitors answered calmly, “We do have a right.”

The abductions have the ambience of intensely lucid nightmares, and some researchers suspect they are hypnagogic, chaotic, or nonlinear events that the experiencers reorganize into a more logical narrative afterward. To a certain extent, hypnotherapists may help shape the abduction narratives through subtle cues. Yet the similarity of encounters reported on different continents, the identical details picked up again and again, in thousands of reports from credible and often reluctant subjects around the world, suggest, at the very least, that something is happening that cannot be reduced to current categories of psychology, or fit into accepted frameworks of meaning. As John Mack noted, “What characterizes the abduction experience is that it is physically real and it enters the physical world, but it is also transpersonal and subjective. It crosses that barrier between the hard-edged physical world and the spirit/transpersonal world.”

Although perfectly willing to concede his experiences could represent something other than alien contact, Whitley Streiber wrote: “If it is an experience of something else, then I warn you: This ‘something else’ is a power within us, maybe some central power of the soul, and we had best try to understand it before it overcomes objective efforts to control it.”

In Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind (1995), an intelligent and honestly astonished account of the abduction phenomenon, New Yorker contributor C. D. B. Bryan crafted a physical portrait of the visitors, exploring their many anomalies. “The aliens’ bodies are flat, paunchless. Their chests are not bifurcated; they have no nipples. Nor does the chest swell or diminish with breathing,” he wrote. Culling from reports and his own research, he found, “The lower part of their anatomy does not contain any stomach pouch or genitals; it just comes to an end. . . . The Small Gray’s body appears frail, with thin limbs and no musculature or bone structure.” Some researchers assume they are less like biological organisms than machines, powered in some way we cannot comprehend, as they do not seem to eat, drink, or excrete. Nor do they have a slot for inserting batteries. Incongruous details abound: In Britain, the Grays are associated with the odor of cinnamon; in the United States, their smell is of ammonia, almonds, and lemon.

Bryan’s book offered no coherent thesis to explain the phenomenon. More alarming and pointed in his conclusions than Bryan was David Jacobs in The Threat: Revealing the Secret Alien Agenda (1999). A hypnotherapist and professor of history at Temple University, Jacobs believes that he has, after years of work, distilled a completely logical and entirely horrifying picture of what the Grays are doing and planning—and he is disconsolate over it. He describes the breeding program, including haunting details from abductee accounts.

Captured humans are often brought to play with the children of the visitors, who are described as melancholy and lethargic. The Gray children play with blocks, similar to the blocks used by human children. But the alien blocks do not have letters or numbers on them—instead, they emit different emotions when they are turned. Since they seem to be telepathic, the visitors have no need to learn spelling or counting. The toys seem to indicate, instead, that they are trying to learn how to feel. Could it be that this yearning for affect is one reason the visitors seek human contact? Does it indicate something of their intent?

“I can discern a visible agenda of contact in what is happening,” Streiber wrote in Communion. “Over the past forty or so years their involvement with us has not only been deepening, it has been spreading rapidly through the society. At least, this is how things appear. The truth may be that it is not their involvement that is increasing, but our perception that is becoming sharper.” Even the difficulties of retrieving memories of these experiences could be part of a process in which the visitors are slowly acclimatizing us to their existence, Streiber speculates.

During the encounters uncovered in Jacobs’s hypnotherapy sessions, abductees are often shown images, like propaganda films, of an apocalyptic event—nuclear war or sudden climate change—followed by clips of hybrid human-aliens walking arm in arm across a transformed earth, the sun shining down on them peacefully. The Grays state that their breeding program will repopulate the earth after the approaching cataclysm that makes the planet uninhabitable for our type of life. The alien agenda, Jacobs believes, has three stages—“gradual, accelerated, and sudden.” We are currently in the accelerated phase. Under hypnosis, abductees report being trained to operate the Grays’ saucers, and to help herd masses of people, like frightened sheep, into them, when the moment is right for the “sudden” phase.

Jacobs hypothesizes that the visitors’ frequently nonsensical and bizarre behavior is a way of covering their direct intent. Like cunning cartoon villains, the visitors have used our own propensity for disbelief to render us defenseless to their agenda: the incipient takeover of the earth. One abductee reports, “After The Change, there will be only one form of government: The insectile aliens will be in complete control. There will be no necessity to continue national governments. There will be ‘one system’ and ‘one goal.’” Jacobs ends on a note of dread: “We now know the alarming dimensions of the alien agenda and its goals. . . . I do not think about the future with much hope. When I was a child, I had a future with much hope. . . . Now I fear for the future of my own children.”

I found something wearying—not just foggy but almost smutty—about studying the abduction accounts. Almost from the first moment of pursuing it, it was as if a veil was falling down over my mind and my senses. Whether projections of our own mind or literal entities or both, the Grays call to us from a feverish twilit world of shades of grayness without clear definition. The path to understanding what may or may not be known about them by the government leads to an opaque barrier of reports of unverifiable authenticity, military and CIA panels with names like “Project Grudge,” “The Robertson Panel,” “Project Blue Book,” and “Majestic 12,” a plausible yet unreal history of covert operations, secret underground bases, cattle mutilations, alien crashes, possibly paranoiac accounts of former military personnel, and disinformation campaigns. The endless mass-market books on the subject include, inevitably, black-and-white photographs of disc-shaped objects and blurry streaks that look entirely unconvincing and somehow antiquated—a kind of 1930s idea of what a futuristic technology might look like.

But what if there was a literal truth to David Jacobs’s narrative? Was it possible that the Grays, as horrible as they sounded—as disreputable, somehow, as the entire enterprise seemed—were actually orchestrating an imminent evolutionary shift for the hapless human species?

Reading scores of abduction accounts, I felt a pitiful sense of helplessness against this telepathic, sorcerous, affectless enemy—“the bugs,” as many abductees call them. I thought about my disappointment with the human race, seemingly hurtling toward ecological collapse and nuclear disaster, unable to control our worst impulses. Was this all part of a process, to create the forced conditions for a transformation that would, indeed, be apocalyptic at a very deep level? And if this might be the case, then what would be our best response to “The Threat,” as Jacobs called it? Should we try to resist the visitors? Should we surrender to their morbid mastery? But then, why was there something so laboriously theatrical, tacky, and fraudulent about all of it?

In June 2002, I went with my partner and our baby to the opening of the Documenta11 exhibition, in the West German town of Kassel. As a journalist writing about art, I had always hoped to visit this exhibit, which takes place every five years. I associated Documenta with the hard-core cool of the conceptual art of the early 1970s, with the German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, known for his neo-shamanic self-mythologizing and iconic displays of iron plates, felt, and fat. Unfortunately, by the time I finally managed to attend, my mind was filled with other, stranger matters.

We stayed at a hotel in the Wilhelmshöhe Bergpark, across the road from the city’s baroque castle. The castle had beautiful gardens, old gnarled trees, and a towering stone monument of Hercules clad in a lion skin at the end of a long reflective pool and fountain. The Brothers Grimm had lived near the park, and their house was a local attraction. During the day, we toured the exhibition halls spread across the city, in old factory buildings, breweries, and railway stations. Organized by Okwui Enwezor, a Nigerian curator, the exhibit was starkly political. It featured numerous Third World artists, and minority artists from the West. Many works addressed the destructive excesses of globalization, allegorically or directly. One film documented the bleak, monotonous lives of South African diamond miners, in bunkers and tunnels deep under the Earth. Sculptures mocked the modernist visions of utopia, parodied colonialism’s slave-driven delusions of grandeur. The exhibit was angry, inspiring—a post-Marxist assault on global imperialism.

In the hypersophisticated ambience of Documenta11’s numerous receptions and parties, standing amidst espresso-drinking aesthetes and stylish art dealers chattering in various Romance languages about museum shows and beach resorts and the latest art world gossip, I found myself thinking incessantly about the abduction saga, the postmodern myth of the visitors. Were these glamorous and well-heeled aesthetes soon to be fodder for an orchestrated alien takeover, doomed to explain Neo-Conceptualism and Post-Pop to short, affectless, hyperdimensional invaders?

One night, after a long day of art-going under the pouring rain in Kassel, I had a vivid dream about the visitors. In the dream, I went with two friends to meet one of the “Gray Alien” commanders in an Upper West Side lobby. The alien resembled a Chinese woman. She wore a red silk dress, had large almond-shaped eyes, and four fingers on each hand. She spoke as if we were going to make some kind of deal.

“It’s going to be great for you when we take over your planet,” she told me. “We can’t wait to help you. We want to show you around the galaxy.” She called for her assistants. They were hunchbacks with bulbous features, resembling medieval trolls. They put my two friends on their backs and gave them piggyback rides. The alien commander pointed upward, where cheap tinsel stars and planets were stuck on the lobby’s domed ceiling. She acted as if this were an impressive sight, and my friends did seem impressed. I was disappointed: Was this all they had to show us?

Confused, I left the lobby and went, alone, to a crowded, seedy nightclub where a long-haired weirdo came up to me with his girlfriend. They were “hybrid” human-aliens. The man laughed and put one of his four fingers deep into my mouth. Immediately, in the dream, I turned around and put my finger just as far into his girlfriend’s mouth. Then we all laughed about this almost obscene exchange.

I awoke from the dream and recalled the details before reaching for my notebook—over the last years, while exploring shamanism, I had developed disciplined habits of dream recollection. Wide awake, I reflected on the dream’s particular seamy, swampy ambience. Before I started to write it down, my partner, in deep sleep, suddenly sat up and leaned toward me. She opened my mouth with one hand. She brought her other hand to my face, and put one of her fingers into my mouth.

Startled, I woke her immediately. But she remembered nothing of it—or what she had been dreaming.

Later, I learned that the area around Kassel—an ancient area similar in some ways to the stone-circle-studded landscape of Wessex in England—is the center of German crop circle activity. Several new formations appeared in local fields on the weekend that we were there.

The doors of Chapel Perilous swung open to welcome me inside.

If you are interested in this book, you can order it here:

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Titlacauan Tempts Quetzalcoatl

Because of the Toltec’s great fortune, other gods became jealous of Quetzalcoatl’s success. However, after a time, the people of this land became slothful. They had so many large fruits and vegetables that they tossed away the smaller ones, in waste. They grew so easily that they had to work less as the land was fertile. Their paradise made them soft.

Three demons decided to ruin this paradise at Tula. They were called Uitzilopichti, Titlacauan, and Tlacauepan.

The demon called Titlacauan decided he would turn himself into a weak, little old man. No one notices an old man. He made himself pitiful and bent over, and he walked with a limp. He decided to travel to Tula to meet Quetzalcoatl, the pure. When he arrived at Tula, it was said that Quetzalcoatl was sick. No one could offer him relief. This set Titlacauan’s mind to plotting a trick.

The old man walked aimlessly around Tula so that people would notice his presence. His long white hair and his pitiful way of walking made the villagers feel sorry for him and many helped him from time to time. One day, one of the temple workers saw the man and asked if he could assist. The old man told him he wished to meet their great leader, Quetzalcoatl.

The man told his lord about the man, but cautioned him about the intent of a stranger. His men thought it could be an evil trap. However, Quetzalcoatl was a good man and wished to help the old man. Upon seeing Quetzalcoatl, the old man called him “grandson” and offered him a healing tonic. A potion he said he made for himself for his weary bones.

Quetzalcoatl offered the man his hospitality, but refused his potion. Quetzalcoatl then said he was tired and wished to rest. The old man again told him that his potion was miraculously soothing and intoxicating.

Quetzalcoatl refused it again, saying that he needed to keep his mind clear.

The old man tried to tempt Quetzalcoatl by saying: “There is another old man who can testify to the greatness of this elixir. He gave me his formula. You can be strong like you were in your youth. You can get it from him if you like. He lives in Tollan.”

“I have done poorly since I have saved this for you alone, I can make more and restore myself, but I thought that you would appreciate its power. Let me know and I will give its secret to your people, ” the old man promised. Quetzalcoatl said he was too weak to travel.

The old man told Quetzalcoatl a few days later: “Drink this potion and be of good cheer! You look very sick, this will help you feel better.”

Again Quetzalcoatl refused.

The old man/Titlacauan was getting angry now. Why can’t I get him to drink this? he thought. I have used every form of flattery and sympathy on this man. Then he had a new idea. The old man then asked: “Why don’t you just take a sip? If you don’t like it I will understand and I won’t bother you again.”

Quetzalcoatl didn’t want to insult the man anymore, so he took a sip, just to get him off the idea.

“Hmmm,” Quetzalcoatl smiled, “This is very pleasant.” With that he downed the rest of the brew. Quetzalcoatl then felt relieved of his ailment. He felt no pain.

The old man said he had more of the tonic in his knapsack. He again, offered it to Quetzalcoatl saying: “It will give your body strength, it won’t hurt you, it can only help.”

After drinking the second batch of the elixir, Quetzalcoatl felt very odd. The liquid was soothingly warm and medicinal tasting. A feeling he never had felt before. Then he noticed his balance and vision were altered.

“What was that elixir made of?” Quetzalcoatl questioned.

The old man gave a toothy grin and said it was made from a local cactus juice.

Quetzalcoatl began to weep, now realizing that he had been tricked by the devil. “Why did you trick me?”

The old man told Quetzalcoatl that this was a white wine that fermented in the teometl plant. Titlacauan plotted to give the formula to the entire village.

You see intoxicating drinks were only for sacred occasions, and vision quests, not for everyday. Old men and women were the only ones that were allowed intoxicating drinks for the pain of aging. To drink frivously was frowned upon.

Quetzalcoatl was ashamed. Titlacauan was happy. Now the people of Tula would learn to crave intoxicating drink, which was disguised as a rejuvenator.***

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Poetry for Quetzalcoatl

Yucatan Mayan Prophecy

Eat, eat while there is bread,

Drink, drink, while there is water;

A day comes when dust shall darken the air,

When a blight shall wither the land,

When a cloud shall arise,

When a mountain shall be lifted up,

When a strong man shall seize the city,

When ruin shall fall upon all things,

When the tender leaf shall be destroyed,

When eyes shall be closed in death;

When there shall be three signs on a tree,

Father, son, and grandson hanging dead on the same tree;

When the battle flag shall be raised,

And the people scattered abroad in the forests.

…from the Books of Chilam Balam (sacred book of the Yucatan Maya).

———

Friday’s Entry, Part 2 (Ayahuasca and Human Destiny)

I think people have a very narrow conception of what is possible with reality, that we’re surrounded by the howling abyss of the unknowable and nobody knows what’s out there.

Terence McKenna

(Ayahuasca Dream – Roberto Venosa)

—————–

Well this is certainly a day for info!

Gwyllm

On The Grill

The Links

Ayahuasca and Human Destiny – Dennis McKenna

The Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec – Ancient Inca Poetry pt2

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The Links:

Subtly Simpsons

Playground pentagram to go: Architect, officials say design wasn’t tied to the occult

Hail Xenu!

The battle over certainty

Scientists make water run uphill

Procession of the Species in Olympia Washington…

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(Thanks to Roberto Venosa for this)

Ayahuasca and Human Destiny – Dennis J. McKenna, Ph.D.

My good friend and colleague, Dr. Charles Grob, has extended a kind invitation to submit a contribution to this special edition of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, devoted to the topic of ayahuasca, for which he has been selected as guest editor. I’m pleased to be asked and happy to respond, particularly since I have collaborated for many years with Dr. Grob and other colleagues who are represented here, on various aspects of the scientific study of ayahuasca. For most of the last 33 years, ayahuasca has been one of the major preoccupations of my life.

In that time, I have written extensively on the botany, chemistry, and pharmacology of ayahuasca, on its potential therapeutic uses, and on the need for more, and more rigorous, scientific and clinical investigations of this remarkable plant decoction. Working with colleagues such as Dr. Grob, my good friends Jace Callaway and Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna in Finland, my mentor Dr. Neil Towers, my late and beloved brother Terence, Dr. Glaucus de Souza Brito, and others, to investigate the myriad mysteries of ayahuasca, has been as rich and rewarding an experience as any scientist could ever hope for.

Partly as a result of our collective efforts, over the last few decades ayahuasca has become one of the most thoroughly studied of the traditional shamanic plant hallucinogens. We now have a firm understanding of the plant species that are utilized in its preparation, including the diverse pharmacopoeia of ayahuasca admixture plants, a shamanic technology unto itself that begs additional investigation. We understand the chemistry of the active constituents of its primary botanical components, and have better insight into its remarkable synergistic pharmacology.

We have identified potential therapeutic applications for ayahuasca and the role that it may some day find in healing the physical and spiritual wounds of individuals, if it is ever afforded its rightful place in medical practice. Ethnographically, my colleagues and I have made contributions to an understanding of the central role that ayahuasca already has in the context of Amazonian shamanism and ethnomedicine. We have described, and written about, its status as a window into the sacred cosmology of magic, witchcraft, transcendent experience, and healing that permeates and defines the practices of Mestizo ethnomedicine.

The visionary paintings of Peruvian shaman and artist Pablo Amaringo, brought so beautifully to the attention of the world by Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna, has helped to make that tradition accessible to many who would otherwise have seen it (if they were aware of it at all) as alien, exotic, and incomprehensible. To an extent, our work has shed some small light on the more contemporary role of ayahuasca as the sacramental vehicle of syncretic religious movements that originated in Brasil and now are reaching out globally, if incrementally, to embrace a sick and wounded world that desperately yearns for the healing that this mind/body/spirit medicine can offer.

The story of ayahuasca, and our evolving understanding of its place in the world, and of its significance for medicine, pharmacology, ethnobotany, and shamanic studies, is far from over, and in fact, it may have just begun. I would like to believe that is the case. But for the purposes of this contribution, rather than submit yet another dense and lengthy review on the botany, chemistry, pharmacology, &c., of ayahuasca, I have chosen to adopt a broader perspective, and to indulge in some reflections, and speculations on the past and future of ayahuasca of the sort that a scientist, probably mercifully, rarely shares with his colleagues or the larger world.

To those readers who may wish for my more usual nuts-and-bolts approach to the subject, I call attention to my recent review in the journal Pharmacology and Therapeutics (McKenna, 2004). In addition, a complete list of all of “my” publications on ayahuasca is appended to the end of this article; and I use the term “my” advisedly because these publications represent the work and creativity of many people with whom I’ve been privileged to collaborate over the years. They would not exist without them.

On a personal level, ayahuasca has been for me both a scientific and professional continuing carrot, and a plant teacher and guide of incomparable wisdom, compassion, and intelligence. My earliest encounters with ayahuasca were experiential; only later did it become an object of scientific curiosity, sparked in part by a desire to understand the mechanism, the machineries, that might underlie the profound experiences that it elicited.

As a young man just getting started in the field of ethnopharmacology, ayahuasca seemed to me more than worthy of a lifetime of scientific study; and so it has proven to be. Pursuing an understanding of ayahuasca has led to many exotic places that I would never have visited otherwise, from the jungles of the Amazon Basin to the laboratory complexes of the National Institute of Mental Health and Stanford; it has led to the formation of warm friendships and fruitful collaborations with many colleagues who have shared my curiosity about the mysteries of this curious plant complex.

These collaborations, and more importantly, these friendships, continue, as does the quest for understanding. Though there have been detours along the way, always, and inevitably, they have led back to the central quest. Often, after the fact, I have seen how those apparent detours were not so far off the path after all, as they supplied some insight, some skill, or some experience, that in hindsight proved necessary to the furtherance of the quest.

Just as ayahuasca has been for me personally something of a Holy Grail, as it has been for many others, I have the intuition that it may have a similar role with respect to our entire species. Anyone who is personally experienced with ayahuasca is aware that it has much to teach us; there is incredible wisdom and intelligence there. And to my mind, one of the most profound and humbling lessons that ayahuasca teaches – one that we thick-headed humans have the hardest time grasping – is the realization that “you monkeys only think you’re running things.”

Though I state it humorously, here and in other talks and writings, it is nonetheless a profound insight on which may depend the very survival of our species, and our planet. Humans are good at nothing if not hubris, arrogance, and self-delusion. We assume that we dominate nature; that we are somehow separate from, and superior to, nature, even as we set about busily undermining and wrecking the very homeostatic global mechanisms that have kept our earth stable and hospitable to life for the last four and a half billion years. We devastate the rainforests of the world; we are responsible for the greatest loss of habitat and the greatest decimation of species since the asteroid impacts of the Permian-Triassic boundary, 250 million years ago; we rip the guts out of the earth and burn them, spewing toxic chemicals into the atmosphere; at the same time we slash and burn the woody forests that may be the only hope for sequestration of the carbon dioxide that is rapidly building to dangerous and possibly uncontrollable levels. For the first time in the history of our species, and indeed of our planet, we are forced to confront the possibility that thoughtless and unsustainable human activity may be posing a real threat to our species’ survival, and possibly the survival of all life on the planet.

And suddenly, and literally, “out of the Amazon,” one of the most impacted parts of our wounded planet, ayahuasca emerges as an emissary of trans-species sentience, to bring this lesson: You monkeys only think you’re running things. In a wider sense, the import of this lesson is that we need to wake up to what is happening to us and to the planet. We need to get with the program, people. We have become spiritually bereft and have been seduced by the delusion that we are somehow important in the scheme of things. We are not.

Our spiritual institutions have devolved into hollow shells, perverted to the agendas of rapacious governments and fanatic fundamentalisms, no longer capable of providing balm to the wounded spirit of our species; and as the world goes up in flames we benumb ourselves with consumerism and mindless entertainment, the decadent distractions of gadgets and gewgaws, the frantic but ultimately meaningless pursuits of a civilization that has lost its compass. And at this cusp in human history, there emerges a gentle emissary, the conduit to a body of profoundly ancient genetic and evolutionary wisdom that has long abided in the cosmologies of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon who have guarded and protected this knowledge for millennia, who learned long ago that the human role is not to be the master of nature, but its stewards, Our destiny, if we are to survive, is to nurture nature and to learn from it how to nurture ourselves and our fellow beings. This is the lesson that we can learn from ayahuasca, if only we pay attention.

I find it both ironic, and hopeful, that within the last 150 years, and particularly in the last half of the 20th century, ayahuasca has begun to assert its presence into human awareness on a global scale. For millennia it was known only to indigenous peoples who have long since understood and integrated what it has to teach us. In the 19th century it first came to the attention of a wider world as an object of curiosity in the reports of Richard Spruce and other intrepid explorers of the primordial rainforests of South America; in the mid-20th century Schultes and others continued to explore this discovery and began to focus the lens of science on the specifics of its botany, chemistry, and pharmacology (and, while necessary, this narrow scrutiny perhaps overlooked some of the larger implications of this ancient symbiosis with humanity). At the same time, ayahuasca escaped from its indigenous habitat and made its influence felt among certain non-indigenous people, representatives of “greater” civilization.

To these few men and women, ayahuasca provided revelations, and they in turn responded (in the way that humans so often do when confronted with a profound mystery) by founding religious sects with a messianic mission; in this case, a mission of hope, a message to the rest of the world that despite its simplicity was far ahead of its time: that we must learn to become the stewards of nature, and by fostering, encouraging, and sustaining the fecundity and diversity of nature, by celebrating and honoring our place as biological beings, as part of the web of life, we may learn to become nurturers of each other. A message quite different, and quite anathema, to the anti-biological obsessions of most of the major world “religions” with their preoccupation with death and suffering and their insistence on the suppression of all spontaneity and joy.

Such a message is perceived as a great threat by entrenched religious and political power structures, and indeed, it is. It is a threat to the continued rape of nature and oppression of peoples that is the foundation of their power. Evidence that they understand this threat and take it seriously is reflected by the unstinting and brutal efforts that “civilized” ecclesiastical, judicial, and political authorities have made to prohibit, demonize, and exterminate the shamanic use of ayahuasca and other sacred plants ever since the Inquisition and even earlier.

But the story is not yet over. Within the last 30 years, ayahuasca, clever little plant intelligence that it is, has escaped from its ancestral home in the Amazon and has found haven in other parts of the world. With the assistance of human helpers who heard the message and heeded it, ayahuasca sent its tendrils forth to encircle the world. It has found new homes, and new friends, in nearly every part of the world where temperatures are warm and where the ancient connections to plant-spirit still thrive, from the islands of Hawaii to the rainforests of South Africa, from gardens in Florida to greenhouses in Japan. The forces of death and dominance have been outwitted; it has escaped them, outrun them.

There is now no way that ayahuasca can ever be eliminated from the earth, short of toxifying the entire planet (which, unfortunately, the death culture is working assiduously to accomplish). Even if the Amazon itself is leveled for cattle pasture or burned for charcoal, ayahuasca, at least, will survive, and will continue to engage in its dialog with humanity. And encouragingly, more and more people are listening.

It may be too late. I have no illusions about this. Given that the curtain is now being rung down on the drunken misadventure that we call human history, the death culture will inevitably become even more brutal and insane, flailing ever more violently as it sinks beneath the quick sands of time. Indeed, it is already happening; all you have to do is turn on the nightly news.

Will ayahuasca survive? I have no doubt that ayahuasca will survive on this planet as long as the planet remains able to sustain life. The human time frame is measured in years, sometimes centuries, rarely, in millennia. Mere blinks when measured against the evolutionary time scales of planetary life, the scale on which ayahuasca wields its influence. It will be here long after the governments, religions, and political power structures that seem today so permanent and so menacing have dissolved into dust. It will be here long after our ephemeral species has been reduced to anomalous sediment in the fossil record. The real question is, will we be here long enough to hear its message, to integrate what it is trying to tell us, and to change in response, before it is too late?

Ayahuasca has the same message for us now that it has always had, since the beginning of its symbiotic relationship with humanity. Are we willing to listen? Only time will tell.

+++++++++++++++

McKenna, Dennis J. (2004) Clinical investigations of the therapeutic potential of Ayahuasca: Rationale and regulatory challenges. Pharmacology and Therapeutics. 102:111-129.

Dennis J. McKenna (1999) Ayahuasca: an ethnopharmacologic history. In: R. Metzner, (ed) Ayahuasca: Hallucinogens, Consciousness, and the Spirit of Nature. Thunder’s Mouth Press, New York.

Callaway, J. C., D. J. McKenna, C. S. Grob, G. S. Brito, L. P. Raymon, R.E. Poland, E. N. Andrade, E. O. Andrade, D. C. Mash (1999) Pharmacokinetics of Hoasca alkaloids in Healthy Humans. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 65:243-256.

McKenna, DJ, JC Callaway, CS Grob (1999). The scientific investigation of ayahuasca: A review of past and current research. Heffter Review of Psychedelic Research 1:

Callaway, J. C., L. P. Raymon, W. L. Hearn, D. J. McKenna, C. S. Grob, G. S. Brito, D. C. Mash (1996) Quantitation of N,N-dimethyltryptamine and harmala alkaloids in human plasma after oral dosing with Ayahuasca. Journal of Analytical Toxicology 20: 492-497

C. S. Grob, D. J. McKenna, J. C. Callaway, G. S. Brito, E. S. Neves, G. Oberlender, O. L. Saide, E. Labigalini, C. Tacla, C. T. Miranda, R. J. Strassman, K. B. Boone (1996) Human pharmacology of hoasca, a plant hallucinogen used in ritual context in Brasil: Journal of Nervous &amp; Mental Disease. 184:86-94. McKenna, DJ (1996)

James C. Callaway, M. M. Airaksinen, Dennis J. McKenna, Glacus S. Brito, &amp; Charles S. Grob (1994) Platelet serotonin uptake sites increased in drinkers of ayahuasca. Psychopharmacology 116: 385-387

Dennis J. McKenna, L. E. Luna, &amp; G. H. N. Towers, (1995) Biodynamic constituents in Ayahuasca admixture plants: an uninvestigated folk pharmacopoeia. In: von Reis, S., and R. E. Schultes (eds). Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline. Dioscorides Press, Portland

Dennis J. McKenna, &amp; G. H. N. Towers, (1985) On the comparative ethnopharmacology of the Malpighiaceous and Myristicaceous hallucinogens. J. Psychoactive Drugs, 17:35-39.

Dennis J. McKenna, &amp; G. H. N. Towers, (1984), Biochemistry and pharmacology of tryptamine and ß-carboline derivatives: A minireview. J. Psychoactive Drugs, 16:347-358.

Dennis J. McKenna, G. H. N. Towers, &amp; F. S. Abbott (1984) Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in South American hallucinogenic plants: Tryptamine and ß-carboline constituents of Ayahuasca. J. of Ethnopharmacology 10:195-223.

Dennis J. McKenna, G. H. N. Towers, &amp; F. S. Abbott (1984) Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in South American hallucinogenic plants Pt. II: Constituents of orally active Myristicaceous hallucinogens. J. of Ethnopharmacology 12:179-211.

Dennis J. McKenna &amp; G. H. N. Towers (1981) Ultra-violet mediated cytotoxic activity of ß-carboline alkaloids. Phytochemistry 20:1001-1004

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The Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec – Ancient Inca Poetry pt2

O Lord

fortunate, happy, victorious Wiracocha,

merciful and compassionate toward the people:

Before you stand your servants and the poor

to whom you have given life and put in their places:

Let them be happy and blessed

with their children and descendants;

let them not fall into veiled dangers

along the lonely road;

let them live many years

without weakening or loss,

let them eat, let them drink.

———

O, my Lord,

my Creator, origin of all,

diligent worker

who infuses life and order into all,

saying, “Let them eat,

let them drink in this world:”

Increase the potatoes and corn,

all the foods

of those to whom you have given life,

whom you have established.

You who orders,

who fulfills what you have decreed,

let them increase.

So the people do not suffer and,

not suffering, believe in you.

Let it not frost

let it not hail,

preserve all things in peace.

———–

Prayer to the Sun

Lord Wiracocha,

Who says

“Let there be day, let there be night!”

Who says,

“Let there be dawn, let it grow light!”

Who makes the Sun, your son,

move happy and blessed each day,

so that man whom you have made has light:

My Wiracocha,

shine on your Inca people,

illuminate your servants,

whom you have shepherded,

let them live

happy and blessed

preserve them

in peace,

free of sickness, free of pain.

________________

Have a wonderful weekend…

Pachacutec & Changes on Turfing

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Yep, Changes.

Turfing is sometimes an all day affair. I usually put in at the very minimum of at least an hour, but usually far longer.

I have decided to put some advertising on, to cover bandwidth etc, and to try to tempt people to purchase (and therefore) support some of my favourite writers, poets, musicians (we will be putting up albums as well that get played on Radio Free EarthRites) and Films that we find moving… Earthrites/Turfing of course gets something out of this.

I will never put up something for the heck of it. I have to read it, view it, or listen to it for it to be sold on Earthrites/Turfing.

If nothing else, it will be an experiment in capitalism as far as it goes. If it drives ya batty, let me know.

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As to todays entry: We will be continuing close to the theme from the last couple of days, but moving south into Peru for a day or so, visiting the peoples of the High Andes.

Enjoy your day!

Gwyllm

Wot’s On The Grill:

The Links!

Todays’ Story: THE SHEPHERD AND THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN

Poetry: The Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec – Ancient Inca Poetry

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The Links:

The Gay Agenda (old but funny…!)

Dating to Save People from Hell

King Tut’s Penis Rediscovered!!!

Goin’ at it like rabbits.. 8o]

Hyperactive….

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THE SHEPHERD AND THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN

from “The Incas of Peru” by Sir Clements Markham, London, Smith Elder &amp; Co. 1910 pp. 408-415.

IN THE SNOW-CLAD CORDILLERA above the valley of Yucay, called Pitu-siray, a shepherd watched the flock of white llamas intended for the Inca to sacrifice to the Sun. He was a native of Laris, named Acoya-napa, a very well disposed and gentle youth. He strolled behind his flock, and presently began to play upon his flute very softly and sweetly, neither feeling anything of the amorous desires of youth, nor knowing anything of them.

He was carelessly playing his flute one day when two daughters of the Sun came to him. They could wander in all directions over the green meadows, and never failed to find one of their houses at night, where the guards and porters looked out that nothing came that could do them harm. Well! the two girls came to the place where the shepherd rested quite at his ease, and they asked him about his llamas.

The shepherd, who had not seen them until they spoke, was surprised, and fell on his knees, thinking that they were the embodiments of two out of the four crystalline fountains which were very famous in those parts. So he did not dare to answer them. They repeated their question about the flock, and told him not to be afraid, for they were children of the Sun, who was lord of all the land, and to give him confidence they took him by the arm. Then the shepherd stood up and kissed their hands. After talking together for some time the shepherd said that it was time for him to collect his flock, and asked their permission. The elder princess, named Chuqui-llantu, had been struck by the grace and good disposition of the shepherd. She asked him his name and of what place he was a native. He replied that his home was at Laris and that his name was Acoya-napa. While he was speaking Chuqui-llantu cast her eyes upon a plate of silver which the shepherd wore over his forehead, and which shone and glittered very prettily. Looking closer she saw on it two figures, very subtilely contrived, who were eating a heart. Chuqui-llantu asked the shepherd the name of that silver ornament, and he said it was called utusi. The princess returned it to the shepherd, and took leave of him, carrying well in her memory the name of the ornament and the figures, thinking with what delicacy they were drawn, almost seeming to her to be alive. She talked about it with her sister until they came to their palace. On entering, the doorkeepers looked to see if they brought with them anything that would do harm, because it was often found that women had brought with them, hidden in their clothes, such things as fillets and necklaces. After having looked well, the porters let them pass, and they found the women of the Sun cooking and preparing food. Chuqui-llantu said that she was very tired with her walk, and that she did not want any supper. All the rest supped with her sister, who thought that Acoya-napa was not one who could cause inquietude. But Chuqui-llantu was unable to rest owing to the great love she felt for the shepherd Acoya-napa, and she regretted that she had not shown him what was in her breast. But at last she went to sleep.

In the palace there were many richly furnished apartments in which the women of the Sun dwelt. These virgins were brought from all the four provinces which were subject to the Inca, namely Chincha-suyu, Cunti-suyu, Anti-suyu and Colla-suyu. Within, there were four fountains which flowed towards the four provinces, and in which the women bathed, each in the fountain of the province where she was born. They named the fountains in this way. That of Chincha-suyu was called Chuclla-puquio, that of Cunti-suyu was known as Ocoruro-puquio, Siclla-puquio was the fountain of Anti-suyu, and Llulucha-puquio of Colla-suyu. The most beautiful child of the Sun, Chuqui-llantu, was wrapped in profound sleep. She had a dream. She thought she saw a bird flying from one tree to another, and singing very softly and sweetly. After having sung for some time, the bird came down and regarded the princess, saying that she should feel no sorrow, for all would be well. The princess said that she mourned for something for which there could be no remedy. The singing bird replied that it would find a remedy, and asked the princess to tell her the cause of her sorrow. At last Chuqui-llantu told the bird of the great love she felt for the shepherd boy named Acoya-napa, who guarded the white flock. Her death seemed inevitable. She could have no cure but to go to him whom she so dearly loved, and if she did her father the Sun would order her to be killed. The answer of the singing bird, by name Checollo, was that she should arise and sit between the four fountains. There she was to sing what she had most in her memory. If the fountains repeated her words, she might then safely do what she wanted. Saying this the bird flew away, and the princess awoke. She was terrified. But she dressed very quickly and put herself between the four fountains. She began to repeat what she remembered to have seen of the two figures on the silver plate, singing:

“Micuc isutu cuyuc utusi cucim.”

Presently all the fountains began to sing the same verse.

Seeing that all the fountains were very favourable, the princess went to repose for a little while, for all night she had been conversing with the checollo in her dream.

When the shepherd boy went to his home he called to mind the great beauty of Chuqui-llantu. She had aroused his love, but he was saddened by the thought that it must be love without hope. He took up his flute and played such heart-breaking music that it made him shed many tears, and he lamented, saying: “Ay! ay! ay! for the unlucky and sorrowful shepherd, abandoned and without hope, now approaching the day of your death, for there can be no remedy and no hope.” Saying this, he also went to sleep.

The shepherd’s mother lived in Laris, and she knew, by her power of divination, the cause of the extreme grief into which her son was plunged, and that he must die unless she took order for providing a remedy. So she set out for the mountains, and arrived at the shepherd’s hut at sunrise. She looked in and saw her son almost moribund, with his face covered with tears. She went in and awoke him. When he saw who it was he began to tell her the cause of his grief, and she did what she could to console him. She told him not to be downhearted, because she would find a remedy within a few days. Saying this she departed and, going among the rocks, she gathered certain herbs which are believed to be cures for grief. Having collected a great quantity she began to cook them, and the cooking was not finished before the two princesses appeared at the entrance of the hut. For Chuqui-llantu, when she was rested, had set out with her sister for a walk on the green slopes of the mountains, taking the direction of the hut. Her tender heart prevented her from going in any other direction. When they arrived they were tired, and sat down by the entrance. Seeing an old dame inside they saluted her, and asked her if she could give them anything to eat. The mother went down on her knees and said she had nothing but a dish of herbs. She brought it to them, and they began to eat with excellent appetites. Chuqui-llantu then walked round the hut without finding what she sought, for the shepherd’s mother had made Acoya-napa lie down inside the hut, under a cloak. So the princess thought that he had gone after his flock. Then she saw the cloak and told the mother that it was a very pretty cloak, asking where it came from. The old woman told her that it was a cloak which, in ancient times, belonged to a woman beloved by Pachacamac, a deity very celebrated in the valleys on the coast. She said it had come to her by inheritance; but the princess, with many endearments, begged for it until at last the mother consented. When Chuqui-llantu took it into her hands she liked it better than before and, after staying a short time longer in the hut, she took leave of the old woman, and walked along the meadows looking about in hopes of seeing him whom she longed for.

We do not treat further of the sister, as she now drops out of the story, but only of Chuqui-llantu. She was very sad and pensive when she could see no signs of her beloved shepherd on her way back to the palace. She was in great sorrow at not having seen him, and when, as was usual, the guards looked at what she brought, they saw nothing but the cloak. A splendid supper was provided, and when every one went to bed the princess took the cloak and placed it at her bedside. As soon as she was alone she began to weep, thinking of the shepherd. She fell asleep at last, but it was not long before the cloak was changed into the being it had been before. It began to call Chuqui-llantu by her own name. She was terribly frightened, got out of bed, and beheld the shepherd on his knees before her, shedding many tears. She was satisfied on seeing him, and inquired how he had got inside the palace. He replied that the cloak which she carried had arranged about that. then Chuqui-llantu embraced him, and put her finely worked lipi mantles on him, and they slept together. When they wanted to get up in the morning, the shepherd again became the cloak. As soon as the sun rose, the princess left the palace of her father with the cloak, and when she reached a ravine in the mountains, she found herself again with her beloved shepherd, who had been changed into himself. But one of the guards had followed them, and when he saw what had happened he gave the alarm with loud shouts. The lovers fled into the mountains which are near the town of Calca. Being tired after a long journey, they climbed to the top of a rock and went to sleep. They heard a great noise in their sleep, so they arose. The princess took one shoe in her hand and kept the other on her foot. Then looking towards the town of Calca both were turned into stone. To this day the two statues may be seen between Calca and Huayllapampa.

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The Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec – Ancient Inca Poetry

The Sacred Hymns:

Oh Creator, root of all,

Wiracocha, end of all,

Lord in shining garments

who infuses life and sets all things in order,

saying, “Let there be man! Let there be woman!”

Molder, maker,

to all things you have given life:

watch over them,

keep them living prosperously, fortunately

in safety and peace.

Where are you?

Outside? Inside?

Above this world in the clouds?

Below this world in the shades?

Hear me!

Answer me!

Take my words to your heart!

For ages without end

let me live,

grasp me in your arms,

hold me in your hands,

receive this offering

wherever you are, my Lord,

my Wiracocha.

———-

2: Prayer that the people may multiply

Creator

Lord of the Lake,

Wiracocha provider,

industrious Wiracocha

in shining clothes:

Let man live well,

let woman live well,

let the peoples multiply,

live blessed and prosperous lives.

Preserve what you have infused with life

for ages without end,

hold it in your hand.

———-

3: To all the huacas

Creator, end of all things

root of all

Lord of the Lake

active diligent Wiracocha,

Lord of Mountains

Lord of Prayers

Lord of Rituals

Lord without measure,

Creator, end of all,

who rewards and grants:

Let the communities and peoples prosper

and also those who journey outside or within.

_____

The hymns of Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui, composed for the Situa ceremony around 1440-1450, are among the world’s great sacred poetry.

The eleven hymns, or jaillis, in Quechua verse, were sung to the accompaniment of instruments during the annual Inca ceremony of the Situa Raymi, held at the first new moon after the Spring equinox.

Pachacutec, considered by many to be the greatest Inca emperor, transformed Manco Capac’s vision into Tawantinsuyu, Land of the Four Directions, the Inca empire. One can compare Manco Capac – legendary Inca demiurge, mythical founder and bringer of civilization – with King Arthur, Prometheus or Quetzalcóatl; one can compare Pachacutec – historical leader of an expanding new socio-political world order, a new Weltanschauung – with Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Napoleon or Mao Tse Tung (another extraordinary poet).

In appreciation of the sacred Inca hymns, the great Quechua scholar Jesus Lara writes, “Among the hymns… there are fragments of profound beauty, interpreters of a high level of spirituality reached by the Inca people. Many of them seduce by their transparent simplicity, for the elemental gratitude in them for the deity who creates and governs, who grants sustenance, peace and happiness. Many captivate by their elevation contiguous with metaphysic. All by the emotional force that palpitates in them.”

More on the Mayan Theme…

Continuing on the Mayan Theme… We have a couple of stories… more poetry and the lot. Beautiful days here in Portland.

Had a nice night with Andrew (my nephew) and with Mix Master Morgan who stopped by for a chat. It ended in everyone having a great meal together (Thanks to Mary!) of Shepards’ Pie, and fresh baked bread…. ummmmmm.

We have been battling a rodent infestation, killing 2 rats in the garden on Monday, and setting traps on the roof for the ones we hear up there. The whole neighborhood is affected by the little blighters. I really dislike having to kill them, but they trash a place. They got into my garage and ate up T-shirts, silk screens and the lot. It took several hours to clean up after them….

The Garden is looking good. Changing things out, getting the plantings in…. I love this time of the year!

G

What’s on the Grill

The Links

The Coyote and the Hen

Vukub-Cakix, the Great Macaw (From The Creation Cycle)

The Mayan Poetry of Ah Bam -The Songs of Dzitblaché Part 2

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The Links:

Endgame for the Constitution

Breast Cancer Has Made Me A Criminal

Sorry old Bean, the apes got there first

$50.00 Reward for Terrorist…

Bumps in the night spook workers

Mexican police shoot at striking miners

Police shoot and kill two striking workers in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, Mexico

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The Coyote and the Hen

Once upon a time a hen was up in the branches of a tree, and a coyote came up to her:

“I’ve brought some good news for you. Do you want to hear it?” asked the coyote.

“Do you really have some good news?” the hen asked.

The coyote answered: “It’s about the two of us.” Hear this, the coyote and the hen have made peace. Now we’re going to be friends and you can come down from the tree. We’ll hug each other as a sign of good will.”

The hen kept asking if it was true what the coyote was saying: “Where was the peace treaty approved, brother coyote?” The coyote answered:

“Over there by the hunting grounds on the other side of the mountain. Hurry up and come down so that we can celebrate this moment of peace.”

The hen asked: “Over there on the other side of the mountain?”

“May God witness that I am telling the truth. Come on down from the tree,” insisted the coyote.

“Maybe you are telling the truth, brother. I see that the dog is coming to celebrate the fiesta with us, because you and he are also going to make peace. I see him coming near, I hear him coming. He’s coming fast and he’s going to grab me, now that you and he have made peace. Do you hear, brother coyote, do you hear?” asked the hen. She was very happy and came down from the branches of the tree.

The coyote accepted this explanation and ran away. As the hen said, the dog was coming, that’s why he left. The hen didn’t want to come down from the tree. She didn’t fall in front of the coyote; if she had, he would have eaten her. She realized he was just telling her lies.

Thus ends the story of the coyote and the hen.

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Vukub-Cakix, the Great Macaw (From the Mayan Creation Cycle)

Ere the earth was quite recovered from the wrathful flood which had descended upon it there lived a being orgulous and full of pride, called Vukub-Cakix (Seventimes-the-colour-of-fire-the Kiche name for the great macaw bird). His teeth were of emerald, and other parts of him shone with the brilliance of gold and silver. In short, it is evident that he was a sun-and-moon god of prehistoric times. He boasted dreadfully, and his conduct so irritated the other gods that they resolved upon his destruction. His two sons, Zipacna and Cabrakan (Cockspur or Earth-heaper, and Earthquake), were earthquake-gods of the type of the Jotuns of Scandinavian myth or the Titans of Greek legend. These also were prideful and arrogant, and to cause their downfall the gods despatched the heavenly twins Hun-Apu and Xbalanque to earth, with instructions to chastise the trio.

Vukub-Cakix prided himself upon his possession of the wonderful nanze-tree, the tapal, bearing a fruit round, yellow, and aromatic, upon which he breakfasted every morning. One morning he mounted to its summit, whence he could best espy the choicest fruits, when he was surprised and infuriated to observe that two strangers had arrived there before him, and had almost denuded the tree of its produce. On seeing Vukub, Hun-Apu raised a blow-pipe to his mouth and blew a dart at the giant. It struck him on the mouth, and he fell from the top of the tree to the ground. Hun-Apu leapt down upon Vukub and grappled with him, but the giant in terrible anger seized the god by the arm and wrenched it from the body. He then returned to his house, where he was met by his wife, Chimalmat, who inquired for what reason he roared with pain. In reply he pointed to his mouth, and so full of anger was he against Hun-Apu that he took the arm he had wrenched from him and hung it over a blazing fire. He then threw himself down to bemoan his injuries, consoling himself, however, with the idea that he had avenged himself upon the disturbers of his peace.

Whilst Vukub-Cakix moaned and howled with the dreadful pain which he felt in his jaw and teeth (for the dart which had pierced him was probably poisoned) the arm of Hun-Apu hung over the fire, and was turned round and round and basted by Vukub’s spouse, Chimalmat. The sun-god rained bitter imprecations upon the interlopers who had penetrated to his paradise and had caused him such woe, and he gave vent to dire threats of what would happen if he succeeded in getting them into his power.

But Hun-Apu and Xbalanque were not minded that Vukub-Cakix should escape so easily, and the recovery of Hun-Apu’s arm must be made at all hazards. So they went to consult two great and wise magicians, Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, in whom we see two of the original Kiche creative deities, who advised them to proceed with them in disguise to the dwelling of Vukub, if they wished to recover the lost arm. The old magicians resolved to disguise themselves as doctors, and dressed Hun-Apu and Xbalanque in other garments to represent their sons.

Shortly they arrived at the mansion of Vukub, and while still some way off they could hear his groans and cries. Presenting themselves at the door, they accosted him. They told him that they had heard some one crying out in pain, and that as famous doctors they considered it their duty to ask who was suffering.

Vukub appeared quite satisfied, but closely questioned the old wizards concerning the two young men who accompanied them.

“They are our sons,” they replied.

“Good,” said Vukub. ” Do you think you will be able to cure me?”

“We have no doubt whatever upon that head.”

answered Xpiyacoc. “You have sustained very bad injuries to your mouth and eyes.”

“The demons who shot me with an arrow from their, blow-pipe are the cause of my sufferings,” said Vukub. “If you are able to cure me I shall reward you richly.”

“Your Highness has many bad teeth, which must be removed,” said the wily old magician. “Also the balls of your eyes appear to me to be diseased.”

Vukub appeared highly alarmed, but the magicians speedily reassured him.

“It is necessary,” said Xpiyacoc, “that we remove your teeth, but we will take care to replace them with grains of maize, which you will find much more agreeable in every way.”

The unsuspicious giant agreed to the operation, and very quickly Xpiyacoc, with the help of Xmucane, removed his teeth of emerald, and replaced them by grains of white maize. A change quickly came over the Titan. His brilliancy speedily vanished, and when they removed the balls of his eyes he sank into insensibility and died.

All this time the wife of Vukub was turning Hun-Apu’s arm over the fire, but Hun-Apu snatched the limb from above the brazier, and with the help of the magicians replaced it upon his shoulder. The discomfiture of Vukub was then complete. The party left his dwelling feeling that their mission had been accomplished.

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The Mayan Poetry of Ah Bam -The Songs of Dzitblaché Part 2

THE MOURNING SONG OF THE POOR MOTHERLESS ORPHAN DANCE TO DRUMBEATS

I was very small when my mother died,

when my father died.

Ay ay, my Lord!

Raised by the hands of friends,

I have no family here on earth.

Ay ay, my Lord!

Two days ago my friends died,

and left me insecure

vulnerable, alone. Ay ay!

That day I was alone

and put myself

in a stranger’s hand.

Ay ay, my lord!

Evil, much evil passes here

on earth. Perhaps

I will never stop crying.

Without family,

alone, very lonely I walk,

crying day and night

only cries consume my eyes and soul.

Under evil so hard.

Ay ay, my Lord!

Take pity on me, put an end

to this suffering.

Give me death , my Beautiful Lord,

or give my soul transcendence!

Poor, poor

alone on earth

pleading insecure lonely

imploring door to door

asking every person I see to give me love.

I who have no home, no clothes,

no fire.

Ay my lord! Have pity on my!

Give my soul transcendence

to endure.

———–

THE SONG OF THE MINSTREL

This day there is a feast in the villages.

Dawn streams over the horizon,

south north east west,

light comes to the earth, darkness is gone.

Roaches, crickets, fleas and moths

hurry home.

Magpies, white doves, swallows,

partridges, mockingbirds, thrushes, quail,

red and white birds rush about,

all the forest birds begin their song because

morning dew brings happiness.

The Beautiful Star

shines over the woods,

smoking as it sinks and vanishes;

the moon too dies

over the forest green.

Happiness of fiesta day has arrived

in the villages;

a new sun brings light

to all who live together here.

_________________

Just One Of Those Days (after one of those Nights…)

Listen To:The Beltaine Celebration on Radio Free EarthRites

Argh. Insomnia. Up until 5AM this morning than I just forced, forced myself to sleep. Don’t expect great coherency from me for the rest of the day….

This happens once in awhile, has all my life. I get to contemplate it all, in the silence of the night…

Some nice stuff today, all based on the Maya…

On the Grill:

The Links

The Story: A Mayan Tale/The Jaguar and the Little Skunk

The Poetry: The Songs of Dzitbalché / by Ah Bam

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The Links:

One of those Days…

A little something from my friend Tomas!

Nude, but Artistic…?

Best Buy…

Xian Birthing Fun… Do the numbers!!!

and least we forget… “The Advice Bunny”!

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The Jaguar and the Little Skunk

Once there was a gentleman jaguar and a lady skunk. Mrs. Skunk had a son, who was baptized by Mr. Jaguar, so Mrs. Skunk became his comadre. And as Mr. Jaguar had baptized the little skunk, he was Mrs. Skunk’s compadre.

Mr. Jaguar decided to go looking for food and came to Mrs. Skunk’s house. “Well, compadre, what are you looking for? What have you come here for?” the skunk asked the jaguar.

“Comadre, what I have come to do is to look for some food,” said Mr. Jaguar. “Oh,” said Mrs. Skunk.

“I want my godson to come with me so that he can learn to hunt,” said Mr. Jaguar. “I don’t think your godson ought to go; he’s still very small and something could happen to him. He better not go, compadre,” said Mrs. Skunk. But the little skunk protested: “No, mother, I had better go. What my godfather says is true. I need to get some practice, if I’m going to learn to hunt,” said the little skunk.

“But if you go, you’ll be so far away,” said Mrs. Skunk. “I’m going, I’m going. Come on, let’s go.” So they set off on a long walk. “We’re going to where there’s a river. That’s where we’re going,” Mr. Jaguar explained to the little skunk, his godson.

“When are we going to get there?” asked the little skunk. “We’re getting close. Follow me so you won’t get lost,” said Mr. Jaguar. “All right,” answered the little skunk. They finally came to the river. “This is where we’re going to eat,” said Mr. Jaguar to the little skunk. “All right,” said the little skunk.

“Come on over here. I’m going to sharpen my knife,” said Mr. Jaguar. “All right,” said the little skunk, looking at his godfather. Mr. Jaguar sharpened his claws, which he called his “knife.”

“I sharpened my knife. Now you’re going to be on guard, because I am going to sleep. When you see them come, wake me up,” said Mr. Jaguar.

“All right,” said the little skunk, “all right, godfather.” Then Mr. Jaguar told him: “Don’t shout. Just scratch my belly when they come. Scratch my belly, so I won’t alarm them. But don’t wake me up if just any little old animals without antlers come along, only when the one with big antlers gets here. That’s when you’ll wake me up.”

“All right,” said the little skunk. Then the one with the big antlers came, and the skunk awakened Mr. Jaguar. He scratched his belly, and pointed out the deer to Mr. Jaguar, who attacked the animal with big antlers. He went after him and seized him.

“All right, my godson, let’s eat. We’re going to eat meat,” said the jaguar. “All right,” said the little skunk. And so they ate and ate. “Now we’re going to take whatever leftovers there are to your mother,” said the jaguar. “Since we are full, we can take something to your mother. Your mother will have meat to eat, just as we did. We will take some to your mother,” said the jaguar. When they came back to the mother’s house, he told the lady:

“Look at the food here. Look, we’ve brought you some food, the food that we hunted. Eat your fill of the meat, comadre,” the jaguar said to Mrs. Skunk.

“All right,” said the skunk, and ate the meat. “I’m full,” she said. “It’s good that you’re satisfied. I’ve seen that you are, so I’ll be leaving now,” said Mr. Jaguar to Mrs. Skunk. And so he left. After the jaguar left, the little skunk stayed with his mother. When they ran out of meat, Mrs. Skunk said to her son: Dear, our meat is all gone.” “Yes, the meat is all gone. I better go and get us some more food,” said the little skunk. “How can you, son? Do you think you’re big enough? You’re very small. Don’t you think you’ll be killed?” asked Mrs. Skunk.

“No, mother, I already know how to hunt, my godfather taught me how,” replied the little skunk. “I’m leaving now.”

He left, and Mrs. Skunk was very worried. Her son came once more to the river, the place to which he had come with his godfather to get the meat.

“This is how my godfather did it. Why shouldn’t I be able to do the same thing?” said the little skunk. “This is how you sharpen a knife,” said the little skunk. He sharpened his “knife.” “This is the way my godfather did it. I’m not going to hunt the little animals, I’m just going to hunt the one with the great big antlers. I’m going to hunt one for myself just like the one I ate with my godfather. I have my knife here and I’m going to sleep for a little while.” The little skunk lay down to sleep, but then he awakened. He was waiting for the one with the big antlers, and when he came, he attacked him, thinking he was as strong as his godfather. But he just hung from the neck of the one with big antlers. His claws had dug into his skin. He was hanging from his neck and was carried far away and fell on his back. He was left with his mouth wide open.

Since he had not come home to his mother, she wondered: “What could have happened to my son? Why hasn’t he come back yet? Something must have happened to him. I better go and look for him.” And so Mrs. Skunk went as far as the bank of the river. She was looking everywhere for her son, but couldn’t find him. She began to cry when she found the tracks where the one with the big antlers had come by running. “They must have come by here,” said Mrs. Skunk, and began to follow the tracks. She came to the place where her son had been left lying on his back. When the mother caught sight of him, she noticed that his teeth were showing and shouted at him:

“Son, what are you laughing at? All your teeth are showing,” she said to him before she had gotten very close. When she did get close she told him:

“Give me your hand. I’ve come to get you, but you’re just laughing in my face.” She put her hand on him, thinking that he was still alive, but when she noticed that he was already dead, she began to cry.

_______________

Ancient Mayan Poetry: The Songs of Dzitbalché / by Ah Bam

I WILL KISS YOUR MOUTH

I will kiss your mouth

between the plants of the milpa.

Shimmering beauty,

you have to hurry.

BIN IN TZ’UUTZ’ A CHI

Bin in tz’uutz’ a chi

Tut yam x cohl

X ciichpam zac

Y an y an a u ahal

————

TO KISS YOUR LIPS BESIDE THE FENCE RAILS

Put on your beautiful clothes;

the day of happiness has arrived;

comb the tangles from your hair;

put on your most attractive clothes

and your splendid leather;

hang great pendants in the lobes of

your ears; put on

a good belt; string garlands

around your shapely throat;

put shining coils

on your plump upper arms.

Glorious you will be seen,

for none is more beautiful here

in this town, the seat of Dzitbalché.

I love you, Beautiful Lady.

I want you to be seen; in

truth you are very alluring,

I compare you to the smoking star

because they desire you up to the moon

and in the flowers of the fields.

Pure and white are your clothes, maiden.

Go give happiness with your laugh,

put goodness in your heart, because today

is the moment of happiness; all people

put their goodness in you.

————

LET US GO TO THE RECEIVING OF THE FLOWER

Let us sing

flowing with joy

because we are going to

the Receiving of the Flower.

All the maidens

wear a smile on their pure faces;

their hearts

jump in their breasts.

What is the cause?

Because they know

that they will give

their virginity to those they love.

Let the Flower sing!

Accompanying you will be the Nacom

and the Great Lord Ah Kulel

present on the platform.

Ah Kulel sings:

“Let us go, let us go

lay down our wills before the Virgin

the Beautiful Virgin and Lady

the Flower of the Maidens

on the high platform,

the Lady Suhay Kaak,

the Pretty X Kanleox,

the Lovely X Zoot

and the Beautiful Lady Virgin X Tootmuch.

They are those who give goodness

to life here in this Region,

on the Plains and in the district

here in the Mountains.”

Let us go, let us go,

let us go, youths;

we will give perfect rejoicing

here in Dzitill Piich,

Dzitbalché.

———–

FLOWER SONG

The most alluring moon

has risen over the forest;

it is going to burn

suspended in the center

of the sky to lighten

all the earth, all the woods,

shining its light on all.

Sweetly comes the air and the perfume.

Happiness permeates all good men.

We have arrived inside the woods

where no one will see what we have

come here to do.

We have brought plumeria flowers,

chucum blossoms, dog jasmines;

we have the copal,

the low cane vine,

the land tortoise shell,

new quartz, chalk and cotton thread;

the new chocolate cup,

the large fine flint,

the new weight,

the new needle work,

gifts of turkeys, new leather,

all new, even our hair bands,

they touch us with nectar

of the roaring conch shell

of the ancients.

Already, already

we are in the heart of the woods,

at the edge of the pool in the stone

to await the rising

of the lovely smoking star

over the forest.

Take off your clothes,

let down your hair,

become as you were

when you arrived here on earth,

virgins, maidens.

Lighting The Baal Fires…

Tune into “The Beltaine Celebration” playing now on Radio Free EarthRites!

Today’s Offerings….

The Links

What’s Coming Up on Earthrites: THE INVISIBLE COLLEGE

The Articles: Maio &amp;

The Poetry: Poetry and Songs of Beltaine…

The Artist: Norman Lindsay

On Norman Lindsay:

Norman Alfred William Lindsay (February 22, 1879 – November 21, 1969) was a prolific artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist and scale modeler. He is widely regarded as one of Australia’s greatest artists. His sumptuous nudes were highly controversial, and in 1939, several were burned by irate wowsers in the United States who discovered them when the train in which they traveled caught fire. A large body of his work is housed in his former home at Faulconbridge, New South Wales, now the Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum, and many works reside in private and corporate collections. His art continues to climb in value today. In 2002, a record price was attained by his oil painting, Spring’s Innocence, which sold to the National Gallery of Victoria for $AU333,900.

Lindsay was associated with a number of poets, such as Kenneth Slessor and Hugh McCrae, influencing them in part through a philosophical system outlined in his book Creative Effort. He also illustrated the cover for the seminal Henry Lawson book, While the Billy Boils. Lindsay’s son, Jack Lindsay, emigrated to England, where he set up Fanfrolico Press, which issued works illustrated by Lindsay.

Lindsay wrote the children’s classic The Magic Pudding and created a scandal when his novel Redheap was banned due to censorship laws. Many of his novels have a frankness and vitality that matches his art.

(Lindsay Self Portrait)

Lindsay also worked as an editorial cartoonist, notably for The Bulletin. Despite his enthusiasm for erotica, he shared the racist and right-wing political leanings that dominated The Bulletin at that time; the “Red Menace” and “Yellow Peril” were popular themes in his cartoons. These views occasionally spilled over into his other work, and modern editions of The Magic Pudding often omit one couplet in which “you unmitigated Jew” is used as an insult.

Lindsay influenced more than a few artists, notably the illustrators Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta.

Sam Neill played a fictionalized version of Lindsay in John Duigan’s Sirens (1994), set and filmed primarily at Lindsay’s Faulconbridge home. James Mason and Helen Mirren starred in Age of Consent (1969), Michael Powell’s adaptation of Lindsay’s 1935 novel

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The Links:

Thanks to Steve F. for this… Wombat.

Balls of Steel – Free Umbrellas!

Water Monster…

Delivering the Message…

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What’s coming soon to Earthrites: THE INVISIBLE COLLEGE PDF Magazine

It is with great pleasure that we can announce something new under the Sun: The Invisible College, a PDF Magazine we have long dreamed about producing, will soon be ready for publishing.

The current proposed publishing dates will be on or about the Cross Quarter Days: (give or take a week or so)

Beltane (May 1)

Lughnasadh(August 1)

Samhain (November 1)

Imbolc (February 1)

First edition will include articles, artwork, poetry from many of todays’ most forward thinkers and artists.

So keep tuned and watch for its appearance!

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Article: MAIO

Maio, or Calendi Maggio, a May-Day festival still surviving in rustic Italy, especially in Tuscany and the Roman provinces, as a relic of the old Roman custom of celebrating the kalends of May. Songs called maggiolate are composed, or at ]east sung, by the peasantry on this occasion, trees are festooned with ribbons and garlands and windows decorated with branches, the adornments being known as the Maio. In the heyday of Florentine glory these festivals were celabrated in the city, and dignified by songs, dances, and feastings, which lasted several days; as, for instance, the grand banquet of the 1st of May given in the Portinari palace, where Dante fell in love with Beatrice. Evidence of the former prevalence of these festivals exists in the numerous maggiolate composed by different authors, and among others by the magnificent Lorenzo dei Medici, whose poems are not at all worse than those of a common citizen. One of his songs commences thus:

Ben venga Maggio

El gonfalon salvaggio:

and in another he thus alludes to these festivities:

Se tu v appicare un maggio

A qualcuna che tu ami.

One of the latest celebrations of this festival in Florence was in 1612, when a Maio was planted and sung before the Pitti palace in honor of the Archduchess of Austria.

In Rome it was customary for children on the 1st of May to place upon a chair before the house door a puppet of the Madonna crowned with a garland. Every passenger was then applied to for a donation in the following verse, which was sung by the little beggars:

Belli, belli giovanotti,

Che mangiate pasticiotti

E bevete del buon vino,

Un quattrin’ sull’ altarino.

This custom suggests a curious parallel in the past. On the kalends of May the foundation festival of the altars of the lares praestites was celebrated in all the houses of ancient Rome. The lararium, bearing the small household gods, was decked on this occasion with fresh garlands of flowers and foliage, and modern antiquarians believe that the custom of the Roman children is a relic of the ancient festival.

Curiosities of Popular Customs

And of Rites, Ceremonies, Observances, and Miscellaneous Antiquities

by William S. Walsh.

J.B. Lippincott Company. Philadelphia.

Copyrights 1897 and 1925.

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From Twice-Told Tales, 1836, 1837

By Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864

The May-Pole of Merry Mount

BRIGHT WERE the days at Merry Mount, when the Maypole was the banner

staff of that gay colony! They who reared it, should their banner be

triumphant, were to pour sunshine over New England’s rugged hills, and

scatter flower seeds throughout the soil. Jollity and gloom were

contending for an empire. Midsummer eve had come, bringing deep verdure

to the forest, and roses in her lap, of a more vivid hue than the tender

buds of Spring. But May, or her mirthful spirit, dwelt all the year

round at Merry Mount, sporting with the Summer months, and revelling

with Autumn, and basking in the glow of Winter’s fireside. Through a

world of toil and care she flitted with a dreamlike smile, and came

hither to find a home among the lightsome hearts of Merry Mount.

Never had the Maypole been so gayly decked as at sunset on midsummer

eve. This venerated emblem was a pine-tree, which had preserved the

slender grace of youth, while it equalled the loftiest height of the old

wood monarchs. From its top streamed a silken banner, colored like the

rainbow. Down nearly to the ground the pole was dressed with birchen

boughs, and others of the liveliest green, and some with silvery leaves,

fastened by ribbons that fluttered in fantastic knots of twenty

different colors, but no sad ones. Garden flowers, and blossoms of the

wilderness, laughed gladly forth amid the verdure, so fresh and dewy

that they must have grown by magic on that happy pine-tree. Where this

green and flowery splendor terminated, the shaft of the Maypole was

stained with the seven brilliant hues of the banner at its top. On the

lowest green bough hung an abundant wreath of roses, some that had been

gathered in the sunniest spots of the forest, and others, of still

richer blush, which the colonists had reared from English seed. O,

people of the Golden Age, the chief of your husbandry was to raise

flowers!

But what was the wild throng that stood hand in hand about the Maypole?

It could not be that the fauns and nymphs, when driven from their

classic groves and homes of ancient fable, had sought refuge, as all the

persecuted did, in the fresh woods of the West. These were Gothic

monsters, though perhaps of Grecian ancestry. On the shoulders of a

comely youth uprose the head and branching antlers of a stag; a second,

human in all other points, had the grim visage of a wolf; a third, still

with the trunk and limbs of a mortal man, showed the beard and horns of

a venerable he-goat. There was the likeness of a bear erect, brute in

all but his hind legs, which were adorned with pink silk stockings. And

here again, almost as wondrous, stood a real bear of the dark forest,

lending each of his fore paws to the grasp of a human hand, and as ready

for the dance as any in that circle. His inferior nature rose half way,

to meet his companions as they stooped. Other faces wore the similitude

of man or woman, but distorted or extravagant, with red noses pendulous

before their mouths, which seemed of awful depth, and stretched from ear

to ear in an eternal fit of laughter. Here might be seen the Salvage

Man, well known in heraldry, hairy as a baboon, and girdled with green

leaves. By his side, a noble figure, but still a counterfeit, appeared

an Indian hunter, with feathery crest and wampum belt. Many of this

strange company wore foolscaps, and had little bells appended to their

garments, tinkling with a silvery sound, responsive to the inaudible

music of their gleesome spirits. Some youths and maidens were of soberer

garb, yet well maintained their places in the irregular throng by the

expression of wild revelry upon their features. Such were the colonists

of Merry Mount, as they stood in the broad smile of sunset round their

venerated Maypole.

Had a wanderer, bewildered in the melancholy forest, heard their mirth,

and stolen a half-affrighted glance, he might have fancied them the crew

of Comus, some already transformed to brutes, some midway between man

and beast, and the others rioting in the flow of tipsy jollity that

foreran the change. But a band of Puritans, who watched the scene,

invisible themselves, compared the masques to those devils and ruined

souls with whom their superstition peopled the black wilderness.

Within the ring of monsters appeared the two airiest forms that had ever

trodden on any more solid footing than a purple and golden cloud. One

was a youth in glistening apparel, with a scarf of the rainbow pattern

crosswise on his breast. His right hand held a gilded staff, the ensign

of high dignity among the revellers, and his left grasped the slender

fingers of a fair maiden, not less gayly decorated than himself. Bright

roses glowed in contrast with the dark and glossy curls of each, and

were scattered round their feet, or had sprung up spontaneously there.

Behind this lightsome couple, so close to the Maypole that its boughs

shaded his jovial face, stood the figure of an English priest,

canonically dressed, yet decked with flowers, in heathen fashion, and

wearing a chaplet of the native vine leaves. By the riot of his rolling

eye, and the pagan decorations of his holy garb, he seemed the wildest

monster there, and the very Comus of the crew.

“Votaries of the Maypole,” cried the flower-decked priest, “merrily, all

day long, have the woods echoed to your mirth. But be this your merriest

hour, my hearts! Lo, here stand the Lord and Lady of the May, whom I, a

clerk of Oxford, and high priest of Merry Mount, am presently to join in

holy matrimony. Up with your nimble spirits, ye morris-dancers, green

men, and glee maidens, bears and wolves, and horned gentlemen! Come; a

chorus now, rich with the old mirth of Merry England, and the wilder

glee of this fresh forest; and then a dance, to show the youthful pair

what life is made of, and how airily they should go through it! All ye

that love the Maypole, lend your voices to the nuptial song of the Lord

and Lady of the May!”

This wedlock was more serious than most affairs of Merry Mount, where

jest and delusion, trick and fantasy, kept up a continual carnival. The

Lord and Lady of the May, though their titles must be laid down at

sunset, were really and truly to be partners for the dance of life,

beginning the measure that same bright eve. The wreath of roses, that

hung from the lowest green bough of the Maypole, had been twined for

them, and would be thrown over both their heads, in symbol of their

flowery union. When the priest had spoken, therefore, a riotous uproar

burst from the rout of monstrous figures.

“Begin you the stave, reverend Sir,” cried they all; “and never did the

woods ring to such a merry peal as we of the Maypole shall send up!”

Immediately a prelude of pipe, cithern, and viol, touched with practised

minstrelsy, began to play from a neighboring thicket, in such a mirthful

cadence that the boughs of the Maypole quivered to the sound. But the

May Lord, he of the gilded staff, chancing to look into his Lady’s eyes,

was wonder struck at the almost pensive glance that met his own.

“Edith, sweet Lady of the May,” whispered he reproachfully, “is yon

wreath of roses a garland to hang above our graves, that you look so

sad? O, Edith, this is our golden time! Tarnish it not by any pensive

shadow of the mind; for it may be that nothing of futurity will be

brighter than the mere remembrance of what is now passing.”

“That was the very thought that saddened me! How came it in your mind

too?” said Edith, in a still lower tone than he, for it was high treason

to be sad at Merry Mount. “Therefore do I sigh amid this festive music.

And besides, dear Edgar, I struggle as with a dream, and fancy that

these shapes of our jovial friends are visionary, and their mirth

unreal, and that we are no true Lord and Lady of the May. What is the

mystery in my heart?”

Just then, as if a spell had loosened them, down came a little shower of

withering rose leaves from the Maypole. Alas, for the young lovers! No

sooner had their hearts glowed with real passion than they were sensible

of something vague and unsubstantial in their former pleasures, and felt

a dreary presentiment of inevitable change. From the moment that they

truly loved, they had subjected themselves to earth’s doom of care and

sorrow, and troubled joy, and had no more a home at Merry Mount. That

was Edith’s mystery. Now leave we the priest to marry them, and the

masquers to sport round the Maypole, till the last sunbeam be withdrawn

from its summit, and the shadows of the forest mingle gloomily in the

dance. Meanwhile, we may discover who these gay people were.

Two hundred years ago, and more, the old world and its inhabitants

became mutually weary of each other. Men voyaged by thousands to the

West: some to barter glass beads, and such like jewels, for the furs of

the Indian hunter; some to conquer virgin empires; and one stern band to

pray. But none of these motives had much weight with the colonists of

Merry Mount. Their leaders were men who had sported so long with life,

that when Thought and Wisdom came, even these unwelcome guests were led

astray by the crowd of vanities which they should have put to flight.

Erring Thought and perverted Wisdom were made to put on masques, and

play the fool. The men of whom we speak, after losing the heart’s fresh

gayety, imagined a wild philosophy of pleasure, and came hither to act

out their latest day-dream. They gathered followers from all that giddy

tribe whose whole life is like the festal days of soberer men. In their

train were minstrels, not unknown in London streets: wandering players,

whose theatres had been the halls of noblemen; mummers, rope-dancers,

and mountebanks, who would long be missed at wakes, church ales, and

fairs; in a word, mirth makers of every sort, such as abounded in that

age, but now began to be discountenanced by the rapid growth of

Puritanism. Light had their footsteps been on land, and as lightly they

came across the sea. Many had been maddened by their previous troubles

into a gay despair; others were as madly gay in the flush of youth, like

the May Lord and his Lady; but whatever might be the quality of their

mirth, old and young were gay at Merry Mount. The young deemed

themselves happy. The elder spirits, if they knew that mirth was but the

counterfeit of happiness, yet followed the false shadow wilfully,

because at least her garments glittered brightest. Sworn triflers of a

lifetime, they would not venture among the sober truths of life not even

to be truly blest.

All the hereditary pastimes of Old England were transplanted hither. The

King of Christmas was duly crowned, and the Lord of Misrule bore potent

sway. On the Eve of St. John, they felled whole acres of the forest to

make bonfires, and danced by the blaze all night, crowned with garlands,

and throwing flowers into the flame. At harvest time, though their crop

was of the smallest, they made an image with the sheaves of Indian corn,

and wreathed it with autumnal garlands, and bore it home triumphantly.

But what chiefly characterized the colonists of Merry Mount was their

veneration for the Maypole. It has made their true history a poet’s

tale. Spring decked the hallowed emblem with young blossoms and fresh

green boughs; Summer brought roses of the deepest blush, and the

perfected foliage of the forest; Autumn enriched it with that red and

yellow gorgeousness which converts each wildwood leaf into a painted

flower; and Winter silvered it with sleet, and hung it round with

icicles, till it flashed in the cold sunshine, itself a frozen sunbeam.

Thus each alternate season did homage to the Maypole, and paid it a

tribute of its own richest splendor. Its votaries danced round it, once,

at least, in every month; sometimes they called it their religion, or

their altar; but always, it was the banner staff of Merry Mount.

Unfortunately, there were men in the new world of a sterner faith than

these Maypole worshippers. Not far from Merry Mount was a settlement of

Puritans, most dismal wretches, who said their prayers before daylight,

and then wrought in the forest or the corn-field till evening made it

prayer time again. Their weapons were always at hand to shoot down the

straggling savage. When they met in conclave, it was never to keep up

the old English mirth, but to hear sermons three hours long, or to

proclaim bounties on the heads of wolves and the scalps of Indians.

Their festivals were fast days, and their chief pastime the singing of

psalms. Wo to the youth or maiden who did but dream of a dance! The

selectman nodded to the constable; and there sat the light-heeled

reprobate in the stocks; or if he danced, it was round the

whipping-post, which might be termed the Puritan Maypole.

A party of these grim Puritans, toiling through the difficult woods,

each with a horseload of iron armor to burden his footsteps, would

sometimes draw near the sunny precincts of Merry Mount. There were the

silken colonists, sporting round their Maypole; perhaps teaching a bear

to dance, or striving to communicate their mirth to the grave Indian; or

masquerading in the skins of deer and wolves, which they had hunted for

that especial purpose. Often, the whole colony were playing at

blindman’s buff, magistrates and all, with their eyes bandaged, except a

single scapegoat, whom the blinded sinners pursued by the tinkling of

the bells at his garments. Once, it is said, they were seen following a

flower-decked corpse, with merriment and festive music, to his grave.

But did the dead man laugh? In their quietest times, they sang ballads

and told tales, for the edification of their pious visitors; or

perplexed them with juggling tricks; or grinned at them through horse

collars; and when sport itself grew wearisome, they made game of their

own stupidity, and began a yawning match. At the very least of these

enormities, the men of iron shook their heads and frowned so darkly that

the revellers looked up, imagining that a momentary cloud had overcast

the sunshine, which was to be perpetual there. On the other hand, the

Puritans affirmed that, when a psalm was pealing from their place of

worship, the echo which the forest sent them back seemed often like the

chorus of a jolly catch, closing with a roar of laughter. Who but the

fiend, and his bond slaves, the crew of Merry Mount, had thus disturbed

them? In due time, a feud arose, stern and bitter on one side, and as

serious on the other as anything could be among such light spirits as

had sworn allegiance to the Maypole. The future complexion of New

England was involved in this important quarrel. Should the grizzly

saints establish their jurisdiction over the gay sinners, then would

their spirits darken all the clime, and make it a land of clouded

visages, of hard toil, of sermon and psalm forever. But should the

banner staff of Merry Mount be fortunate, sunshine would break upon the

hills, and flowers would beautify the forest, and late posterity do

homage to the Maypole.

After these authentic passages from history, we return to the nuptials

of the Lord and Lady of the May. Alas! we have delayed too long, and

must darken our tale too suddenly. As we glance again at the Maypole, a

solitary sunbeam is fading from the summit, and leaves only a faint,

golden tinge blended with the hues of the rainbow banner. Even that dim

light is now withdrawn, relinquishing the whole domain of Merry Mount to

the evening gloom, which has rushed so instantaneously from the black

surrounding woods. But some of these black shadows have rushed forth in

human shape.

Yes, with the setting sun, the last day of mirth had passed from Merry

Mount. The ring of gay masquers was disordered and broken; the stag

lowered his antlers in dismay; the wolf grew weaker than a lamb; the

bells of the morris-dancers tinkled with tremulous affright. The

Puritans had played a characteristic part in the Maypole mummeries.

Their darksome figures were intermixed with the wild shapes of their

foes, and made the scene a picture of the moment, when waking thoughts

start up amid the scattered fantasies of a dream. The leader of the

hostile party stood in the centre of the circle, while the rout of

monsters cowered around him, like evil spirits in the presence of a

dread magician. No fantastic foolery could look him in the face. So

stern was the energy of his aspect, that the whole man, visage, frame,

and soul, seemed wrought of iron, gifted with life and thought, yet all

of one substance with his headpiece and breastplate. It was the Puritan

of Puritans; it was Endicott himself!

“Stand off, priest of Baal!” said he, with a grim frown, and laying no

reverent hand upon the surplice. “I know thee, Blackstone! Thou art the

man who couldst not abide the rule even of thine own corrupted church,

and hast come hither to preach iniquity, and to give example of it in

thy life. But now shall it be seen that the Lord hath sanctified this

wilderness for his peculiar people. Wo unto them that would defile it!

And first, for this flower-decked abomination, the altar of thy

worship!”

And with his keen sword Endicott assaulted the hallowed Maypole. Nor

long did it resist his arm. It groaned with a dismal sound; it showered

leaves and rosebuds upon the remorseless enthusiast; and finally, with

all its green boughs and ribbons and flowers, symbolic of departed

pleasures, down fell the banner staff of Merry Mount. As it sank,

tradition says, the evening sky grew darker, and the woods threw forth a

more sombre shadow.

“There,” cried Endicott, looking triumphantly on his work, “there lies

the only Maypole in New England! The thought is strong within me that,

by its fall, is shadowed forth the fate of light and idle mirth makers,

amongst us and our posterity. Amen, saith John Endicott.”

*Did Governor Endicott speak less positively, we should suspect a

mistake here. The Rev. Mr. Blackstone, though an eccentric, is not known

to have been an immoral man. We rather doubt his identity with the

priest of Merry Mount.

“Amen!” echoed his followers.

But the votaries of the Maypole gave one groan for their idol. At the

sound, the Puritan leader glanced at the crew of Comus, each a figure of

broad mirth, yet, at this moment, strangely expressive of sorrow and

dismay.

“Valiant captain,” quoth Peter Palfrey, the Ancient of the band, “what

order shall be taken with the prisoners?”

“I thought not to repent me of cutting down a Maypole,” replied

Endicott, “yet now I could find in my heart to plant it again, and give

each of these bestial pagans one other dance round their idol. It would

have served rarely for a whipping-post!”

“But there are pine-trees enow,” suggested the lieutenant.

“True, good Ancient,” said the leader. “Wherefore, bind the heathen

crew, and bestow on them a small matter of stripes apiece, as earnest of

our future justice. Set some of the rogues in the stocks to rest

themselves, so soon as Providence shall bring us to one of our own

well-ordered settlements, where such accommodations may be found.

Further penalties, such as branding and cropping of ears, shall be

thought of hereafter.”

“How many stripes for the priest?” inquired Ancient Palfrey.

“None as yet,” answered Endicott, bending his iron frown upon the

culprit. “It must be for the Great and General Court to determine,

whether stripes and long imprisonment, and other grievous penalty, may

atone for his transgressions. Let him look to himself! For such as

violate our civil order, it may be permitted us to show mercy. But wo to

the wretch that troubleth our religion!”

“And this dancing bear,” resumed the officer. “Must he share the stripes

of his fellows?”

“Shoot him through the head!” said the energetic Puritan. “I suspect

witchcraft in the beast.”

“Here be a couple of shining ones,” continued Peter Palfrey, pointing

his weapon at the Lord and Lady of the May. “They seem to be of high

station among these misdoers. Methinks their dignity will not be fitted

with less than a double share of stripes.”

Endicott rested on his sword, and closely surveyed the dress and aspect

of the hapless pair. There they stood, pale, downcast, and apprehensive.

Yet there was an air of mutual support, and of pure affection, seeking

aid and giving it, that showed them to be man and wife, with the

sanction of a priest upon their love. The youth, in the peril of the

moment, had dropped his gilded staff, and thrown his arm about the Lady

of the May, who leaned against his breast, too lightly to burden him,

but with weight enough to express that their destinies were linked

together, for good or evil. They looked first at each other, and then

into the grim captain’s face. There they stood, in the first hour of

wedlock, while the idle pleasures, of which their companions were the

emblems, had given place to the sternest cares of life, personified by

the dark Puritans. But never had their youthful beauty seemed so pure

and high as when its glow was chastened by adversity.

“Youth,” said Endicott, “ye stand in an evil case, thou and thy maiden

wife. Make ready presently, for I am minded that ye shall both have a

token to remember your wedding day!”

“Stern man,” cried the May Lord, “how can I move thee? Were the means at

hand, I would resist to the death. Being powerless, I entreat! Do with

me as thou wilt, but let Edith go untouched!”

“Not so,” replied the immitigable zealot. “We are not wont to show an

idle courtesy to that sex, which requireth the stricter discipline. What

sayest thou, maid? Shall thy silken bridegroom suffer thy share of the

penalty, besides his own?”

“Be it death,” said Edith, “and lay it all on me!”

Truly, as Endicott had said, the poor lovers stood in a woful case.

Their foes were triumphant, their friends captive and abased, their home

desolate, the benighted wilderness around them, and a rigorous destiny,

in the shape of the Puritan leader, their only guide. Yet the deepening

twilight could not altogether conceal that the iron man was softened; he

smiled at the fair spectacle of early love; he almost sighed for the

inevitable blight of early hopes.

“The troubles of life have come hastily on this young couple,” observed

Endicott. “We will see how they comport themselves under their present

trials ere we burden them with greater. If, among the spoil, there be

any garments of a more decent fashion, let them be put upon this May

Lord and his Lady, instead of their glistening vanities. Look to it,

some of you.”

“And shall not the youth’s hair be cut?” asked Peter Palfrey, looking

with abhorrence at the love-lock and long glossy curls of the young man.

“Crop it forthwith, and that in the true pumpkin-shell fashion,”

answered the captain. “Then bring them along with us, but more gently

than their fellows. There be qualities in the youth, which may make him

valiant to fight, and sober to toil, and pious to pray; and in the

maiden, that may fit her to become a mother in our Israel, bringing up

babes in better nurture than her own hath been. Nor think ye, young

ones, that they are the happiest, even in our lifetime of a moment, who

mis-spend it in dancing round a Maypole!”

And Endicott, the severest Puritan of all who laid the rock foundation

of New England, lifted the wreath of roses from the ruin of the Maypole,

and threw it, with his own gauntleted hand, over the heads of the Lord

and Lady of the May. It was a deed of prophecy. As the moral gloom of

the world overpowers all systematic gayety, even so was their home of

wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. They returned to it no

more. But as their flowery garland was wreathed of the brightest roses

that had grown there, so, in the tie that united them, were intertwined

all the purest and best of their early joys. They went heavenward,

supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to

tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry

Mount.

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Corinna’s Going A-Maying

Get up! get up for shame! the blooming morn

Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.

See how Aurora throws her fair

Fresh-quilted colors through the air

Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew bespangling herb and tree.

Each flower has wept and bowed towards the east

Above an hour since, yet you not dressed;

Nay, not so much as out of bed?

When all the birds have matins said,

And sung their thankful hymns, ’tis sin,

Nay, profanation to keep in,

Whenas a thousand virgins on this day

Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.

Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seen

To come forth, like the springtime, fresh and green,

And sweet as Flora. Take no care

For jewels for your gown or hair;

Fear not; the leaves will strew

Gems in abundance upon you;

Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,

Against you come, some orient pearls unwept;

Come and receive them while the light

Hangs on the dew-locks of the night,

And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himself, or else stands still

Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying

Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying.

Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark

How each field turns (into) a street, each street a park

Made green and trimmed with trees; see how

Devotion gives each house a bough

Or branch each porch, each door ere this,

An ark, a tabernacle is,

Made up of whitethorn neatly interwove,

As if here were those cooler shades of love.

Can such delights be in the street

And open fields, and we not see ‘t?

Come, we’ll abroad; and let’s obey

The proclamation made for May,

And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;

But, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

There’s not a budding boy or girl this day

But is got up and gone to bring in May;

A deal of youth, ere this, is come

Back, and with whitethorn laden home.

Some have dispatched their cakes and cram

Before that we have left to dream;

And some have wept, and wooed, and plighted troth,

And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth.

Many a green-gown has been given,

Many a kiss, both odd and even;

Many a glance, too, has been sent

From out the eye, love’s firmament;

Many a jest told of the keys betraying

This night, and locks picked; yet we’re not a-Maying.

Come, let us go while we are in our prime,

And take the harmless folly of the time.

We shall grow old apace, and die

Before we know our liberty.

Our life is short, and our days run

As fast away as does the sun;

And, as a vapor or a drop of rain

Once lost, can ne’er be found again

So when or you or I are made

A fable, song, or fleeting shade,

All love, all liking, all delight

Lies drowned with us in endless night.

Then while time serves, and we are but decaying

Come, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying!

By Robert Herrick

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——–

THE MAYPOLE

Come, lasses and lads,

Get leave of your dads,

And away to the May-pole hie,

Where every He,

Has got a She,

And the fiddler standing by.

Where Willy has got his Jill,

And Jackey has got his Joan,

And there to jig it, jig it, jig it,

Jig it up and down.

Tol de rol lol, &c.

“Begin,” says Harry,

“Ay, ay,” says Mary,

Let’s lead up Paddington-pound,

“Oh, no,” says Hugh,

“Oh, no,” said Sue,

Let’s dance St. Ledger round.

Then every lad did take

His hat off to his lass;

And every maid did curtsey, curtsey,

Curtsey on the grass.

“You’re out,” says Nick,

“You lie,” says Dick,

“For the fiddler play’d it wrong;”

“And so,” says Sue,

“And so,” says Hugh,

And so says every one.

The fiddler then began

To play it o’er again,

And every maid did foot it, foot it,

Foot it unto the men.

” Let’s kiss,” says Fan,

“Ay, ay,” says Nan,

And so says every she;

“How many?” says Nat,

“‘Why, three,” says Pat,

For that’s a maiden’s fee!”

But instead of kisses three,

They gave them half a score;

The men, then, out of kindness, kindness,

Gave ‘em as many more.

Then, after an hour,

They went to a bower,

To play for ale and cake,

And kisses, too,

Being in the cue,

For the lasses held the stake.

The women then began

To quarrel with the men,

And told ‘em to take their kisses back,

And give them their own again.

Oh, thus they all stay’d

Until it was late,

And tired the fiddler quite,

With fiddling and playing

Without any paying,

From morning until night.

They told the fiddler, then,

They’d pay him for his play,

And every one paid twopence, twopence,

Twopence, and toddled away.

“Good night,” says Bess,

“Good night,” says Jess,

“Good night,” says Harry to Holl;

“Good night,” says Hugh,

“Good night,” says Sue,

“Good night,” says Nimble Nell.

Some ran, some walk’d, some stay’d,

Some tarried by the way,

And bound themselves by kisses twelve,

To meet next holiday!

Source: IN PRAISE OF ALE or Songs, Ballads, Epigrams, &amp; Anecdotes Relating to Beer, Malt, and Hops by W. T. Marchant. London, 1888.

WALPURGISNACHT

A small edition for Saturday. This edition is aptly named WALPURGISNACHT. This would be April 30th, celebrated by Goethe in “Faust”.

Have a great weekend, and happy reading.

Gwyllm

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WALPURGISNACHT

Walpurgis Night which is celebrated on 30th of April is originally a heathen spring festival. The heathen deities Wodan and Freya are said to have conceived Spring that night. It was a feast of sacrifice in which the focus was formed by the drink of love and a green coloured May punch. Traditionally the festival was held on the Brocken the highest mountain in Northern Germany.

A. Dürer, The Witches

In the Middle Ages, during which witch hunting reached its pinnacle, the inquisition declared the 30th of April as the Witches’ Sabbath. It was believed that the witches rubbed a special ointment onto their skin that enabled them to fly. Having done so they mounted their brooms and flew to the Brocken where they met other witches. The farmers tried to protect themselves by hiding their brooms, billy-goats and goats which were also used as a means of transport by the witches. Three crosses over the house- and stable door were believed to keep the witches away. In order to protect sleeping children, stockings were crossed over their beds. In urban areas as much noise as possible was made in order to keep the witches away. On their flight to the Brocken the witches were believed to bite pieces out of every churchbell they passed. The Brocken itself is steeped in legend. Countless tales are recounted about what happened to people who found themselves on the mountain while the witches were meeting.

Walpurgis Night probably received its name during the time of the inquisition. Walburga, born on the 30th April, was an abbess of a very kind and gentle nature. She died in Eichstätt in 788. Even after Christianisation some people did not want to give up their belief in pagan gods. In order to frighten Chrisians they dressed up as devils and witches. The Church on their behalf introduced the gentle Walburga as the counterpart who would protect its followers. Thus Walburga has become the protector from witchcraft and magic.

The night from 30th April to the 1st May is also called “Freinacht” (“free night”). During that night it is very common in Germany to wrap cars in toilet-paper and play others little tricks on people. And not only is it celebrated to drive out the winter, or to protect oneself against witches but also conscripts celebrate it as their last chance to have some fun before their medical inspection for the military service the next day. .

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From Faust:

Witches in chorus

The witches t’ward the Brocken strain

When the stubble yellow, green the grain.

The rabble rushes – as ’tis meet –

To Sir Urian’s lordly seat.

O’er stick and stone we come, by jinks!

The witches f…, the he-goat s…

Voice

Old Baubo comes alone, I see;

Astride on farrow sow is she!

Chorus

So honor be where honor is due!

Dame Baubo first! to lead the crew,

A hag upon a sturdy sow!

All witches come and follow now!

Voice

Which way didst thou come here?

Voice

By Ilsenstein crest;

I peered into an owlet’s nest.

Her wild eyes stared at me!

Voice

To hell, I say, with thee!

Why ride so furiously?

Voice

She almost flayed me!

See here, the wounds she made me!

Chorus of Witches

The road is wide, the way is long:

How madly swirls the raving throng

The pitchfork pricks, the broom us hurts;

the infant chokes, its mother bursts.

Wizards. Semi-chorus

We creep as slowly as a snail;

Far, far ahead the witches sail.

When to the Devil’s home they speed,

Women by a thousand paces lead.

The Other Half

Not so precise are we! Perhaps

A woman takes a thousand steps.

Although she hastes as best she can,

One leap suffices for a man.

Voice (above)

Come with us from the rockbound lake!

Voices (below)

We fain would follow in your wake!

We’ve washed, are clean as clean can be;

Yet barren evermore are we.

Both Choruses

The wind is hushed, the starlight pales,

The dismal moon her features veils;

As magic-mad the hosts whiz by,

A myriad sparks spurt forth and fly.

Voice (from below)

Tarry! Tarry!

Voice (from above)

Who calls so loud from rocky quarry?

Voice (from below)

Take me too! Take me too!

Three hundred years I have been striving

To reach the peak – I’m not arriving;

I fain would join my equals too.

Both Choruses

The broomstick carries, so does the stock;

The pitchfork carries, so does the buck;

Who cannot rise on them tonight,

Remains for aye a luckless wight.

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For Beltaine is Coming…

NOW IS THE MONTH OF MAYING

Now is the month of Maying,

When merry lads are playing,

Fal la Ia la Ia.

Each with his bonny lass

A-dancing on the grass,

Fal Ia la Ia Ia.

The spring, clad all in gladness,

Doth laugh at Winter’s madness,

Fal Ia Ia Ia Ia.

And to the bagpipes’ sound,

The nymphs tread out the ground.

Fal Ia Ia Ia Ia.

Source: IN PRAISE OF ALE or Songs, Ballads, Epigrams, &amp; Anecdotes Relating to Beer, Malt, and Hops by W. T. Marchant. London, 1888.

This Edition is dedicated to all the Earth Rites Clan who are gathering in Northern California this weekend. My heart is with ya, but my body is staying here in Oregon. It was one of those crazy things…

On The Menu:

The Links

Article – Personal Daimons

The Poetry – Li Bai

The Art – Gustave Dore

Have a Good Weekend, and A Brilliant Beltane if we don’t talk soon…

Blessings,

Gwyllm

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The Links:

Proof of God!

The Death Of EmoKid21Ohio

Wormwood…

abovegod.com…

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Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld

Personal Daimons

by Patrick Harpur

Guardian angels derived from Neoplatonism and, along with the other classes of angels, became part of Christian dogma at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325). But, long before this, the ancient Greeks believed that individuals were attached at birth to a daimon who determined, wholly or in part, their destiny. Philemon was clearly such a daimon for Jung, who emphasized the crucial part this strange Gnostic figure played in his life and work. Plato’s mentor, Socrates, had a daimon who was famous for always saying “No.” It did not enter into rational discourse with Socrates; it merely warned him when he was about to do something wrong (especially something displeasing to the gods), like the prompting of conscience…

However, Plato in Timaeus identified the individual daimon with the element of pure reason in man and so it became “a sort of lofty spirit-guide, or Freudian super-ego.” This may be true of certain, perhaps exceptional individuals, but is is also true—as we shall see—that daimons are as likely to represent unreason or at least to be equivocal. But meanwhile it is instructive to consider the case of Napoleon. He had a familiar spirit “which protected him. which guided him, as a daemon, and which he called his star, or which visited him in the figure of a dwarf clothed in red that warned him.”

This reminds us that personal daimons favor two forms by which to manifest: the abstract light, globe, oval and (as here) shining sphere, or the personification—angelic, manikin-like or whatever. It confirms, in other words, my speculation … that the two forms are different manifestations of each other, with (in Napoleon’s case) different functions: the star guides, the dwarf warns. Both are images of the soul, which is another way of understanding the daimon.

Indeed, it seems that, next to personification, daimons prefer luminous appearances or “phasmata,” as the Syrian Neoplatonist Iamblichus (d. 326) called them. He was a real expert on daimons, and ufologists could do worse than study the distinctions he makes between phasmata. For instance, while phasmata of archangels are both “terrible and mild,” their images “full of supernatural light,” the phasmata of daimons are “various” and “dreadful.” They appear “at different times … in a different form, and appear at one time great, but at another small, yet are still recognized to be the phasmata of daemons.” As we have seen, this could equally well describe their personifications. Their “operations,” interestingly, “appear to be more rapid than they are in reality” (an observation which might be borne in mind by ufologists). Their images are “obscure,” presenting themselves within a “turbid fire” which is “unstable.”

The first of the great Neoplatonists, Plotinus (AD 204-70), maintained that the individual daimon was “not an anthropomorphic daemon, but an inner psychological principle,” viz:—the level above that on which we consciously live, and so is both within and yet transcendent… Like Jung, he takes it as read that daimons are objective phenomena and thinks to emphasize only that, paradoxically, they manifest both inwardly (dreams, inspirations, thoughts, fantasies) and outwardly or transcendently (visions and apparitions). Plotinus does not, we notice—like the early Jung—speak of daimons as primarily “inner” and as seen outwardly only in “projection.” He seems to agree with the later Jung—that there is a psyche “outside the body.” However, his use of the word “transcendent” also suggests that the real distinction to be made is not between inner and outer, but between personal and impersonal. There is a sense, he seems to be saying, in which daimons can be both at once.

Personal daimons are not fixed but can develop or unfold according to our own spiritual development. Jung might say: in the course of individuation, we move beyond the personal unconscious to the impersonal, collective unconscious, through the daimonic to the divine. Acording to Iamblichus, we are assigned a daimon at birth to govern and direct our lives but our task is to obtain a god in its place.

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Daoist Poetry: Li Bai

Endless Yearning (I)

I am endlessly yearning

To be in Changan,

Insects hum of autumn by the gold brim of the well

A thin frost glistens like little mirrors on my cold mat,

The high lantern flickers, and deeper grows my longing

I lift the shade and, with many a sigh, gaze upon the moon,

Single as a flower, centered from the clouds

Above, I see the blueness and deepness of the sky

Below, I see the greenness and the restlessness of water…

Heaven is high, Earth wide, bitter between them flies my sorrows

Can I dream through the gateway, over the mountain?

Endless longing

Breaks my heart.

Endless Yearning (II)

The sun has set, and a mist is in the flowers

And the moon grows very white and people sad and sleepless,

A Zhao harp has just been laid mute on its phoenix holder

And a Shu lute begins to sound its mandarin-duck strings…

Since nobody can bear to you the burden of my song

Would that it might follow the spirit wind to Yanran Mountain,

I think of you far away, beyond the blue sky

And my eyes that once were sparkling, are now a well of tears,

Oh, if ever you should doubt this aching of my heart

Here in my bright mirror come back and look at me!

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A Visit to Sky-Mother Mountain in a Dream

So, longing in my dreams for Wu and Yue

One night I flew over Mirror Lake under the moon,

The moon cast my shadow on the water

And traveled with me all the way to Shanxi,

The lodge of Lord Xie still remained

Where green waters swirled and the cry of apes was shrill,

Donning the shoes of Xie

I climbed the dark ladder of clouds,

Midway, I saw the sun rise from the sea

Heard the Cock of Heaven crow,

And my path twisted through a thousand crags

Enchanted by flowers I leaned against a rock

And suddenly all was dark,

Growls of bears and snarls of dragons echoed

Among the rocks and streams,

The deep forest appalled me, I shrank from the lowering cliffs,

Dark were the clouds, heavy with rain

Waters boiled into misty spray,

Lightening flashed, thunder roared

Peaks tottered, boulders crashed,

And the stone gate of a great cavern

Yawned open,

Below me, a bottomless void of blue

Sun and moon gleaming on terraces of silver and gold,

With rainbows for garments, and winds for horses

The lords of the clouds descended, a mighty host,

Phoenixes circled the chariots, tigers played zithers

As the immortals went by, rank upon rank.

—–

On the Way Back to the Old Residence

Traveling to Heaven in dreams

There is another space and dimension in the kettle

Overlook the human Earth,

That is easily withered and rotten.

—–

Ling Xu Mountain

Leaving the human world

Going toward the path to Heaven;

Upon Consummation through cultivation,

Then follow the clouds to Heaven,

Caves hidden under pine trees,

Deep and unseen among the peach blossoms;

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Drinking Alone under the Moon (月下獨酌, pinyin Yuè Xià Dú Zhuó)

Amongst the flowers is a pot of wine

I pour alone but with no friend at hand

So I lift the cup to invite the shining moon,

Along with my shadow we become party of three

The moon although understands none of drinking, and

The shadow just follows my body vainly

Still I make the moon and the shadow my company

To enjoy the springtime before too late

The moon lingers while I am singing

The shadow scatters while I am dancing

We cheer in delight when being awake

We separate apart after getting drunk

Forever will we keep this unfettered friendship

Till we meet again far in the Milky Way

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Li Bai was the son of a rich merchant; his birthplace is uncertain, but one candidate is Suiye in Central Asia (near modern day Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan). His family moved to Jiangyou, near modern Chengdu in Sichuan province, when he was five years old. He was influenced by Confucian and Taoist thought, but ultimately his family heritage did not provide him with much opportunity in the aristocratic Tang Dynasty. Though he expressed the wish to become an official, he did not sit for the Chinese civil service examination. Instead, beginning at age twenty-five, he travelled around China, enjoying wine and leading a carefree life -very much contrary to the prevailing ideas of a proper Confucian gentleman. His personality fascinated the aristocrats and common people alike and he was introduced to the Emperor Xuanzong around 742.

He was given a post at the Hanlin Academy, which served to provide a source of scholarly expertise and poetry for the Emperor. Li Bai remained less than two years as a poet in the Emperor’s service before he was dismissed for an unknown indiscretion. Thereafter he wandered throughout China for the rest of his life. He met Du Fu in the autumn of 744, and again the following year. These were the only occasions on which they met, but the friendship remained particularly important for the starstruck Du Fu (a dozen of his poems to or about Li Bai survive, compared to only one by Li Bai to Du Fu). At the time of the An Lushan Rebellion he became involved in a subsidiary revolt against the Emperor, although the extent to which this was voluntary is unclear. The failure of the rebellion resulted in his being exiled a second time, to Yelang. He was pardoned before the exile journey was complete.

Li Bai died in Dangtu, or modern day Anhui. Traditionally he was said to have drowned attempting to catch the moon’s reflection in a river; some scholars believe his death was the result of mercury poisoning due to a long history of imbibing Taoist longevity elixirs while others believe that he died of alcohol poisoning. (From Wikipedia)

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