The Taybor Revisited

A couple of years ago, I was brought up short by the realization that Space 1999 might just be more than a shallow, if entertaining, 1970s science fiction vehicle. An episode from the second season called "The Taybor" forced me to give the series a rethink. Specifically, elements of the subtext and imagery, in that episode, point directly to the Tibetan concept of the rainbow body.

I watched "The Taybor" again, recently, and realized that I still hadn't given the episode, or possibly the entire series, enough credit. I'd glossed over a number of details, allusions so direct it's hard to imagine they are not conscious and deliberate.

This analysis of the series addresses the possibility that it's not meant to be taken at all literally – that it only really makes sense if you assume some sort of divine intervention and higher purpose to Moon Base Alpha's unlikely journey across the space.

The idea that the Moon could be thrown from its orbit to drift at speeds allowing it to cross interstellar space in time periods of weeks or months is difficult and often impossible for many viewers to accept. The mass of the Moon is so large and its orbit around Earth so apparently firm and the force of a series of atomic explosions so more likely to obliterate the Moon than to blast it out of orbit, that the imaginations of many of even the most ardent science fiction aficionados were challenged beyond their limit to stretch, despite the fact that the planet Pluto is credibly posited by scientists to have been a satellite of planet Neptune that broke away from Neptune and settled into an irregular orbit around the Sun. And then there is the difficulty that some people have of assimilating the prospect of such an event being caused by human error. Most people prefer to think of future, technological man as incapable of contributing to a disaster of such magnitude.

Today's Forecast: Dizzy

... with increasing chance of lower back pain, headache, and occasional piercing tones.

I rarely do these energy forecast type things, but the last few days have been so strange, I thought it merited mentioning. I've been having bouts of vertigo and some other symptoms, which tends to happen before things like earthquakes and other disasters, but sometimes connected to nothing I can pinpoint. It's been sort of constant, so that I only realize how dizzy I am when I'm walking across the room and realize I can only walk on the diagonal. It's a very strange feeling. Over the past few days, though, I've spoken to numerous people who are having these symptoms, particularly the dizziness and sense of dissociation.

I have no idea what this may be connected to. In terms of earthquakes and the like, the predictive capability is nil. I only see the connection when something happens and the symptoms suddenly abate. So, as a tool, it's pretty worthless. I am fairly certain it's in some way connected to magnetic fluctuations on the planet and the natural disasters are also symptoms, not really the cause.

I'm not going to pretend I really know what's going on. I just wanted to put it out there, because I know, for a fact, that I'm not the only one who's experiencing this right now.

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Coraline and the Blue Pearl

My dear friend Frog recently created this satire of Coraline called Cameline. His point is that there are some very odd parallels between Cameron Clark's experiences in House Teal and Coraline's in the Pink Palace apartments. It got me thinking about some of the deeper elements of Coraline, things I'd overlooked when I saw it in the theater. So, I've given the film a fresh look and moved Neil Gaiman's award-winning book up on my reading list, which is to say, I've now read it.

It goes pretty well without saying that Gaiman is a genius. Coraline, the novella, is a masterpiece. Like Alice in Wonderland, to which it is often compared, there's a nod to the shamanic ability of children to traverse worlds through the odd doorway. The story has its own version of the Cheshire cat and even a tea party of sorts.

It is also a brilliant depiction of narcissism. The Other Mother lives in her own world, populated by puppets she controls. Those who defy or bore her – who no longer reflect her desires – she throws behind a mirror. She eats up the lives and souls of anyone who crosses her path. Anyone who has ever been taken in by a narcissist for any length of time knows the kind of creeping surreality, the warping of perception, that comes from being caught up in their world view.

Henry Selick expanded on Gaiman's book, which wasn't really long enough for a feature film. Characters were added and storylines were extrapolated. What I now realize about the film, is that a mythic subtext was woven through it and that these themes are revealed in striking visuals.

Doctor Who and the Approaching Skingularity

William Henry believes that we are facing a time of decision. Will we choose to remain fully organic beings or will we merge so completely with artificial technologies that they become part of our very skin? Henry has released an eBook, free to whomever asks for it. I recently received my copy and have only just started reading it and poring over the spectacular images. More information on The Skingularity is Near and how to receive your copy can be found here.

In March, Henry appeared on Coast to Coast AM to discuss our future, what is increasingly possible and what is our true potential. Whether or not you agree with Henry that humans are inherently and organically capable of transforming into light beings, the vision of tech companies to transfigure us through technology should reasonably terrify you. They're wearing us down, though, by promising ease, interconnectedness, and even virtual immortality.

Many of the technologies under development mimic the language, the imagery, and even the properties of cross-cultural resurrection and ascension mythologies. The possibilities entice not only because the promises are fantastical but because they resonate with core archetypes. Henry points out that it may well be a devil's bargain. We may be handing over our fundamental liberty to a convergence of state and corporate power. What looks like an enhancement of human power could really be very cleverly packaged tyranny.

We humans have an instinctual fear of merging with inorganic machines that has long played out in our modern mythologies. The Borg of Star Trek: Next Generation portray our primal terror of losing our humanity and independence to co-optation by intelligent machines. The Matrix trilogy depicts a world lost to our development of artificial intelligence, as self-aware machines reduce humanity to batteries and trap our consciousness in a VR simulacram. But the most direct parallel to Henry's "skingularity" and it's conflict with natural human evolution plays out in Doctor Who.

Alchemical Perfume

I love Christmas ads. I know. Commercialism is ruining Christmas and making us forget about the baby Mithras Jesus. But they're festive, nostalgic, and sometimes quite beautiful. Yes, I worked in marketing for long enough that I actually appreciate the artistry of advertising. And the industry rolls out some of its best work at the holidays.

A couple of years ago I noted a perfume ad featuring Julia Roberts that resurfaces every year at this time. It is full of elegant, if not terribly subtle, allusions to Rousseau and the French Enlightenment.

Much of popular entertainment, of late, from movies and television to the Olympics, has me marveling at the imagery. Is the symbolism subconscious or deliberate? I don't know, but it's getting really hard to miss it. 

This new ad from Dior, featuring Charlize Theron, is nothing short of stunning. The past is nothing but a "dream," an illusion. "The future is gold" she says, ascending through an oculus into a "new world."

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Are the Poles Shifting?

I've been talking about pole shift for a while now. Several years ago, I started getting intimations that it was imminent. There's a little more on these messages here. I just didn't really know what to make of it. The gist was that things were going to shift in some very surprising ways, that the systemic injustice that I find so excruciating had reached the end of the line, and that this was somehow connected to or simply concurrent with pole shift.

I first learned about the idea of pole shift many years ago when I was reading a book on Edgar Cayce. I had no frame of reference for the idea so it rolled off my brain like beads of water from an oily surface. Years later, when I first became acquainted with the work of Drunvalo Melchizedek, I heard it again and thought, so is that what Cayce was talking about? I liked Drunvalo's take on this. It was fairly optimistic and tied the idea of pole shift with an expansion in human consciousness.

Drunvalo says all kinds of things and some I really do take with a grain of salt. But he always struck me as a sincere fellow and so much of what I learned from him has proved itself to me that I keep a lot of his more outrageous material on the maybe pile. His ideas on pole shift fall into that category.

Pole shift has been a subject of debate. It's an accepted fact that Earth's magnetic poles have shifted more than once, in the distant past. That this has caused crustal displacement is disputed by most experts. Charles Hapgood theorized that they did and that it was associated with changes in land masses. His theories have not gained wide acceptance.

Mainstream science has been as strident and dismissive of concern as it has been vague on the particulars. The simple truth is that there's a lot they don't know about how this works and the potential effects. As discussed here, some theories have us already in the beginning stages of shift. The message from officialdom has been that while the magnetic field of the planet has been weakening for over a hundred years, and while we are probably overdue for a pole reversal, the last known one having occurred about 750,000 years ago, the next is probably at least hundreds of years off and will occur gradually, probably over thousands of years. In other words, calm down, people.

Massive Heart Integration

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We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important message.

Breathe into your Heart

I don't usually do things like this but the system is blinking red. Over the past couple of days this has come up in multiple readings as well as in my own process. There is some sort of mass integration underway. I don't know any other details. It's not anything I've read anywhere. I just keep seeing it. It's playing out in different ways for different people, as naturally it would, but it's in every case some version of a massive influx of new energy, soul parts, previously inaccessible components of our SELVES, that can be and need to be integrated now in a new way. Grounding this energy is important but it's not enough. The important thing is to breathe into the heart center whenever we have a few free moments to focus on it.

There are also feelings of emotional and psychic overwhelm for a lot of us. Taking a few moments to breathe into the heart as well as grounding into the earth is tremendously helpful in navigating this new dynamic.

Blessings to you all.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

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The Taybor and the Rainbow Body

Padmasabhava

I've been rewatching Space 1999, mostly as an exercise in nostalgia and to amuse my inner child. My inner child loves her some Space 1999. It's not a terribly deep or esoteric show, particularly by the second season. But every so often it wanders into an intriguing archetype.

The other night I was watching "The Taybor." Taybor is "an inter-galactic merchant [who] arrives from hyperspace on his ship the 'Emporium.'" He is a silly character and the episode is largely quite silly but I was taken with their depiction of the hyperdrive that allowed him to move anywhere in space.

The drive itself is an oculus, aka., circumpunct, aka., stargate:

Drunvalo 2012 Webcast: I Will Be Doing This

Just got a little tap from universe reminding me that Drunvalo Melchizedek posted a video recently. I hadn't watched it yet, but I saw it float by on Facebook. So I just watched it. It's an introduction to a webcast he'll be leading over the next three days. You can go here to get the particulars and sign up. This one's free. I don't know what he's on about but, as ever, I feel strongly led to participate in whatever Drunvalo is doing. I do just love that man. And his work has seen me through some of the most transformative experiences of my life. So check it out if you want. Cheers.

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O Christmas Tower

The Eiffel Tower seems to be trending. Decorative accent sculptures, lamps, candle holders, 3D puzzles and, of course, the traditional art prints -- I've been seeing them in increasing numbers in stores over the past couple of years. But I knew something had really hit critical mass when I noticed a Christmas lawn ornament in front of a neighbor's house.

I've been acutely aware of this particular trend not because I'm so besotted with the idea of Parisian glamor. I don't really have a burning desire to see gay Paris. As with so many things that seize my attention, at this point, my interest is more esoteric.

Many years ago, I went to a shamanic journey workshop. It consisted of live drumming as we all attempted to journey questions suggested by the organizers. One of the questions had to do with finding community. I was a tad disappointed to learn, in my journey, that I have no community and would not have until I accomplished certain spiritual initiations. None of this surprised me, exactly, but it was still a little frustrating. Central in this journey was a kind of mountain... tower... thing. My sense was that I would have to reach the pinnacle of it before I could connect with my community. And my sense was that it would take years. It was a very sharp, elongated triangle, with concave sides. I drew my impression of it when I completed the journey. And I thought, but that's the Eiffel Tower. What on earth could that form have to do with anything? It's not a pyramid. It's not a tetrahedron. It's not any of those cardinal, sacred geometry forms, that I would expect. But there it was. A very rudimentary Eiffel Tower form. For some time, I refused to believe that the shape I'd been shown had anything to do with something that had become, in my mind, a cliche of American Francophilia. But it came up, over the years, in other journeys and meditations. The shape was unmistakable. Nearly ten years later, I gave up on denying that there was some connection to the iconic architecture.

Stargate Skyfall

I caught Skyfall over the holiday weekend and I loved it. Daniel Craig continues to bring a gravitas to the role that transitions Bond from outrageous camp to something with surprising depth. And this was probably the darkest yet -- a journey through death and resurrection, as the series reboots itself yet again. This is a bold re-envisioning, exchanging the high tech gadgetry, that has become too ubiquitous to be entertaining, for low tech cleverness. Javier Bardem is just flamboyant enough to be a Bond villain, yet tragic and human enough to be a believable character. He's also consistently brilliant.

The movie is excellent. But the opening credit sequence is a masterpiece.

Leaving aside for a moment the sheer awesomeness of the cinematography and the buttery richness of Adele's voice, what captivated me was the layering of esoteric imagery. It was the genius of the opening credits (posted above) that convinced me to brave the crowds and see this movie in the theater.

As with the recent Olympics, and so much in popular art and entertainment, it's hard to say how much of the symbolism is deliberate and how much is subconscious. But it's hard to believe that a film about a journey through death and rebirth just happens to have one portal image after another by accident. 

This is the end...

The sequence opens with a wormhole as Bond is pulled through a swirling vortex on the ocean floor. From there, the viewer moves through one circular gate after another, from bullet holes, to the circumpunct like barrel of a gun, to James Bond's eye. We slide through these apertures, moving from one dark, surreal landscape to another.

Skyfall is where we start...

There are also numerous images of the Celtic Cross, aka the Medicine Wheel, aka the four directions. We see it in classic form on tombstones, but also made up from guns and the great stag. In one remarkable turn, Bond finds himself at the center of four, intersecting, shadow selves.

Where worlds collide and days are dark...

In one particularly stunning sequence, we move from trails of blood in the water and into the realm of the Chinese lung, or dragons -- the great, fire-breathing wyrms themselves.

Where you go I go. What you see I see...

There is also a lot of mirroring imagery, as one divides into two, in perfect reflection. And in the penultimate sequence, Bond finds himself in a hall of mirrors. He shoots holes in one mirror after another, finally shattering the illusory world around him.

Let the sky fall. When it crumbles...

The title itself, Skyfall, suggests the death of the illusory world. The sky, the boundary of our perceptual world, crumbles. It's the apocalypse -- the revelation of secrets hidden behind the veil.

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Olympics Opens With Ascension Blueprint

I've been getting caught up on my Olympics Opening Ceremony viewing. As stated, I was not home on Friday evening so I had to record it. I was at a Lughnassadh (Lammas) ritual gathering. It rained. We all got wet -- which was kind of nice, actually. And it produced this magnificent rainbow. My husband got one good snap of one end of it, with his cell. You can also just make out the traces of a quickly dissipating second rainbow that started to form alongside it. But it was one of those magnificent, full bows that you could see from end to end, arching over the trees. I was about dumbstruck, not only because it was a beautiful ending to our ritual, but because we were seeing it at the exact same time as this year's Olympics was kicking off, replete as it is with rainbow imagery.

That said, it's taken me a while to plow through my recording of the ceremony... mainly because it's just awful. When it comes to the performing arts, I'm a "less is more" kind of person, so on that score, this show utterly failed for me. I get that Great Britain is rich in history and great literature. It's also produced many great musicians. But did we really have to hear to them all? I hate medleys. They insult my intelligence.

Perhaps the goal was to obscure all the esoteric imagery, because there was a lot of it. I guess if you can't achieve subtlety in scripting your subtext, putting your audience into total, sensory overwhelm is the next best thing. There were some beautiful images and tableaux in both the film montages and the arena performances but they were nearly lost in rapid-fire smash edits, dizzying camera angles, and what I can only describe as a huge, overcrowded mess.

The spiritual imagery started right from the beginning as did the assault on the senses. The opening film featured an electric blue (pearl) dragonfly (immortality) emerging from the water at the source of the River Thames, marked by a stone reading:

Isles of Wonder

This stone was placed here to mark the
source of the River Thames

The dragonfly was just a blue blur, moving about as fast as electrical current.

We followed the flight of the blue dragonfly as it zipped up and over the serpentine curves of the river...

through tunnels...

until it reached the stadium where we saw the triple goddess holding a painting of a swirly, blue person, alongside the 2012/Zion logo and rainbow-colored overlapping spheres.

Champion cyclist Bradley Wiggins started off the ceremony by ringing a bell made at the White Chapel foundry which made our own, ahem, Liberty Bell. I happened to glance up just in time to catch this Jacob's ladder imagery and it took me a moment to understand that the stargate over this man's head was a bell... about to produce a tone.

The stadium show started in ancient, agrarian England and it's all just incredibly Pagan: Maypole dancers, Glastonbury Tor, and a "world tree" perched on top of the tor instead of St. Michael's Tower or any of the churches and other man-made structures that have been there through the centuries. As discussed Glastonbury Tor is a symbol of the primordial mound and while trees and towers are both symbols of the spine through which kundalini ascends, the tree is the richer archetype.

As an aside, just as I was posting this picture of the Maypole, my daughter came into the room to ask me about pole dancing. She just read Stephen Colbert's I Am A Pole (And So Can You), which contains a pole dancer image -- his nod to the arguably inappropriate, full-frontal nudity of Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen. I was in the process of trying to break down, for a ten year old mind, the sexism and objectification of the stripper industry when it suddenly occurred to me that pole dancing is a tragically reduced form of goddess-kundalini imagery. I just never thought about that before. Huh...

But back to the Olympic "carnival." The pastoral scene was disrupted by a "salute" to the industrial age and the beginning of modern warfare. The world tree was ripped out by the roots...

and the tor (primordial mound) birthed a labor force to give their bodies to the Industrial Revolution.

It bears mentioning that the war industry is specifically decried as "Satanic" in the William Blake poem, sung so beautifully by a boy soprano in the beginning of the ceremony. But even in the industrial sequence we were treated to more kundalini imagery. Smoke stacks were raised quicker than Melusine's tower (spine).

Between these smoldering towers, a river of fire snaked its way through to ignite a sphere.

Then, in a somewhat surreal sequence, more rings floated into the scene looking like some kind of spaceships, merging with the freshly forged, ascending one.

Then, of course, they came together to form the Olympic symbol with all it's overlapping spheres and vesicae piscis. But I thought it was interesting that when they were in place they started raining light. The image put me in mind, more than anything, of the Aton with its beams reaching down with the key of life.

Coalesced completely into the Olympic symbol, one of the rings -- probably the one that was just made in the kundalini foundry -- is gold (alchemy). This alludes to the imagery in the promo discussed here, in which molten steel hardens into base metal only to be transformed by the rainbow into shimmering, alien figures.

The less said about the celebration of children in hospital, complete with giant Voldemort and Mary Poppins army, the better, but the upshot of that was... well... You know, when we got home Friday evening, we came in right around this point and all I could say was, "Is that a... giant... baby? What the..."

Said Matt Lauer, "I don't know whether that's cute or creepy." I gotta go with creepy. But it certainly cements the themes of birth and renewal. (I should also add, in fairness to the freakish Voldemort war, that Harry Potter is entirely rooted in Western Alchemy.)

All of this took place in the giant, blue-lit circumpunct that is the Olympic Stadium.

And speaking of rainbows, I was very amused by Saffy's African get-up in the brand new "Olympics" episode of Absolutely Fabulous that aired this weekend. It certainly is a coat of many colors and right on her forehead is a rainbow shaped pattern.

I have little question after watching this ceremony that there was more at work here than the workings of the subconscious. That's a pretty seamless ascension narrative weaving its way through the utter chaos of the show itself. But then, the ascension process is painful, disruptive, and nigh well insufferable at times, too.

As for the much discussed possibility that this could be a first contact, "Disclosure," potential alien war thing... I don't know. Maybe.

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More Fun With Olympics Symbolism

I just set my DVR to record the Olympics Opening Ceremony tomorrow night, even though I haven't watched or cared about the Olympics since I was a kid. But now I need to know if it will be first contact, or the beginning of the alien war, or just a garden variety terrorist attack, or... who knows. Mostly, I want to see for myself the spectacle of symbolic imagery that William Henry and Chad Stuemke have been talking about.

Henry and Stuemke had another chin wag about the upcoming festivities on Revelations and it's a lot of fun. There is no question that the volume and organization of symbolism we've seen during run-up is staggering -- stargate symbolism, alchemical symbolism, pagan symbolism, alien imagery. Someone is having a lot of fun. And as ever, it's hard to say how much is conscious and deliberate and how much is the subconscious, intuitional, creative process.

While this year seems really over the top, in terms of imagery, I have to say that I really hadn't realized how much the Olympics has been playing with some of these themes in past years -- the alien thing in particular. I didn't know, or didn't remember, until I watched the Red Ice Radio video special, that the 1984 Olympics had produced a spaceship and a giant alien. Says Stuemke, of the 7'8" alien, "Out of this world. Didn't make a lot of sense. But people loved it."

That's the thing. It doesn't seem to make any sense as anything other than cheesy spectacle. The spaceship is kind of cool but the alien made me think of nothing so much as Waiting for Guffman. "Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring..."

But now that the alien theme has evolved into Wenlock and Mandeville, I have to consider the possibility that the Olympic committee is, and has been, trying to say something. My favored possibility there is that it's part of a kind of spiritual evolution zeitgeist and that we are at long last becoming "galactic humans." And I think Henry and Stuemke have really tapped the vein on a very powerful archetypal narrative that points in that direction. But if it turns out that it's really about the royal family orchestrating our total takeover by the reptilian overlords, all I can say at this point is God Save the Queen.

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Red Ice Radio: Olympic-Size Strange Special

A while ago I posted a William Henry interview on the strange happenings and symbolism associated with the Summer Olympics in London. Red Ice Radio interviewed both Henry and his guest from that show Chad Stuemke, in a special broadcast on the topic. They also brought together a sampling of other perspectives on just what is going on with the Olympics Planning Committee.

It's quite a compendium. In addition to Henry and Stuemke, there are interviews and excerpts of interviews with David Icke, Stewart Swerdlow, Bob Schlenker, Ian Crane, and the late Rik Clay. The commentary ranges from the insightful to the paranoid to the deeply paranoid to the unintentionally hilarious.

Of course much of it revolves around the conspiracy theory du jour, which is to say that the Illuminati is preparing us for a false flag event and/or alien invasion so that our reptilian overlords will be better able to enslave us or kill and eat us... or... it's not entirely clear. Where that argument is the strongest lies in the draconian security measures. London is being fully militarized for this event. But then, Great Britain has been morphing into a police state for a while now -- more than the US, even.

William Henry sees a kinder, gentler mega-ritual. He slices right through those convolutions to the underlying symbolism and associates it more with expanding human consciousness than a diabolical scheme to keep us as a slave race. The cardinal symbols he references: the tree, the serpent, the rainbow, and the wormhole. Well, the tree and the serpent are two of my favorites but that's hardly news. But in a striking synchronicity -- one that I'm not at liberty to discuss -- Henry also mentions Glastonbury Tor which they are also apparently working into this year's Olympic motif. This got me to thinking. Something I have never really contemplated is the possible connection between Glastonbury Tor -- and tors more generally -- with the mythical "primordial mound." So I did a bit of googling and found that, yes, this is so. I found the following in a book called The Shining Ones. 

The name 'Glastonbury' translates as 'glass borough'. It was known as 'the Isle of Glass' due to the calm, still, glass-like appearance of the waters or lake which once surrounded the town and its central mound, the Tor. The deeper significance of Glastonbury and its Tor also stems from two unusual springs, which are said to have emerged from a cave entrance under the Tor. One of these springs is known as the White Spring, as it contains mineral deposits which give it a milky-white appearance, and the other is known as the Red Spring is said to have a regenerative properties. Here we have yet another reference to the familiar theme of the red and white, but this time we see it in the real phenomena surrounding Glastonbury Tor -- which is said to have been a place of initiation for the pagans and Druids of the region in Celtic times.

In Glastonbury Tor, we have a 'primordial mound' surrounded by seven concentric rings or levels, which was once surrounded by water, and and upwelling vortex, along with two energy springs like the pingala and ida 'serpents' or nerve channels.

So, asked and answered. Here I'm talking about those basic geographical features more than Philip Gardiner's scholarship which I can't speak to. The form speaks for itself. And it's really interesting because it reflects so clearly this image I had in my head earlier of the primordial mound surrounded by concentric rings and a serpent. Again, the reason isn't important. But this, for the umpteenth time, is why I love William Henry. He keeps pointing to the things I see in my head and helping me contextualize them. His work is just very synchronous for me.

Another thing Henry mentions in this interview is the tower that Anish Kapoor designed for the games and its serpentine appearance. From Henry we learn that Kapoor compared it to, of all things, the Tower of Babel. Very exciting.

But when I googled up an image of this thing, it put me in mind of something else.

Yes, I recently saw The Avengers and Anish Kapoor's tower has that same platform thing jutting out of the front as Stark Tower. The angle is also similar. And seriously, can we talk about The Avengers?! That platform on the front of Stark Tower plays host to a tesseract which opens an interdimensional wormhole. Subtle. Seriously. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

William Henry and Chad Stuemke also present a lot of information on the symbolism. Both consider the possibility that there is malicious intent behind the use of these powerful archetypes to manipulate us all. But they are more inclined to the idea that the planners, artists, and architects are both consciously and unconsciously assembling the keys to ascension and presenting them to the public. And that's pretty much how I see it.

On the other hand, there's the perspective of Stewart Swerdlow and others that it's all part of a master plan make us bow to a false, probably reptilian, god. And I'm not saying that there isn't a cogent narrative to be assembled from the available facts that supports that, but as with so many conspiracy theories, it ascribes a level of coordinated genius that I have trouble imagining. Worse, it completely inverts the meaning of a lot of very powerful and beautiful symbolism. But mostly, it infers conscious, malicious intent from some very innocuous material. For instance, this is Swerdlow on astronomy:

In the last several months, almost every other day, there's been some kind of story on the news about outer space. For example they said that in our galaxy alone, there were three hundred to four hundred million earth-like planets. And they even said by 2014 we will discover a planet with life on it. So how would they present those figures unless they knew for sure?

Ummm… Because they estimate from the data they have? Something scientists do all the time? There's also a lot of wiggle room between three and four hundred million. Those are hardly precise figures. And Mr. Swerdlow clearly never got the memo on how press releases from the science industries work. All these agencies need to fight for funding, now more than ever, and making grandiose promises in sound-bite form is a big part of that process. And then the figures get revised as new data comes in and it either disappoints or exceeds expectations. That's how it works. What almost never happens is that a research body presents an estimate of time or quantity and hits it squarely on the head. "Sure" really doesn't enter into it. I can understand why Mr. Swerdlow would have the notion that scientific bodies speak in exact and irrefutable terms. We have a lot invested in thinking everything that comes out of the sciences is holy writ but it's a comfortable lie.

Swerdlow also ascribes a lot of significance to scientific speculation that life forms on other planets would likely be reptilian. What he doesn't seem to want to consider is that we're reptilian. We evolved from early reptiles and our first brain is the reptilian brain. Then comes the limbic or mamalian brain. And then comes the neo-cortex. Whether we call this the triune brain or ascribe to it some other, more fine-tuned theoretical construct, those three, fundamental components are most definitely in our skulls. These are the simple facts that even David Icke acknowledges. Icke also never said that all reptilians are evil -- only that there is a particular reptilian race that is responsible for interfering with human consciousness. So if you're going to be paranoid about reptilians, at least narrow it down to the right ones.

And then there's this nonsensical bit of dialog between Red Ice host Henrik Palmgren and Swerdlow regarding an "insider" Palmgren had hoped to get on the show.

Palmgren: He definitely mentioned again that the G4S, or the G-Force as I call them, who are behind the security of the Olympics are purposely looking for incompetent people and also the fact that he was told in some way that you as a worker in here or a security agent are going to be responsible for the evacuation of London or the biggest historical event in the history of London which is just an interesting little tidbit that I haven't heard him really expand more on that yet. But do you think they would tell actually the people involved in this in a subtle way like this if it really was true that they were planning something?

Swerdlow: Yeah, they have to because they have to -- the staff must be aware or expect something without maybe knowing exactly what it is. Because they need certain programmed responses from that staff that will enhance the entire event and make it look as if it's a natural event or something that happens suddenly and they didn't expect. Yes, the staff would have to be advised that some thing will happen.

So they have to be prepared to look surprised? Oh, but they can't really know that they've been prepared to look surprised. That'll really make'em look suprised! Ummm...

Everything Palmgren is describing is standard operational planning. You always have to plan as if the worst catastrophe possible will occur so that you're prepared to deal with it if the worst happens. Why would an employee be told he'd be responsible for the largest evacuation in London's history? Um, because people from all over the world will be crammed into a not very large city in an age when we're all deeply paranoid about terrorism? This is the same kind of logic that says, if they're not planning war with such and such country, why are there battle plans made up? Because there are battle plans made up and ready for every conceivable contingency! It's called military preparedness. There are battle plans being made up and revised constantly for countries most of us have never even heard and will probably never in a million years go to war with. To paraphrase Stephen Colbert, battle plans cause wars the same way fire extinguishers cause fires. And the same goes for evacuation plans. What really would be concerning is if they didn't have security preparing fully for a massive evacuation and "acting as if." The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

So there are real leaps in logic and things that border on paranoid delusion in this show. There are also some genuinely concerning things -- the kind that make you go, whaaa? But mostly there's William Henry and Chad Stuemke separating the wheat from the chaff and explaining some very exciting, symbolic imagery.

I guess it's all in how you look at it. For instance, when I read the William Blake poem alluded to in the opening ceremony, I see a brilliant piece of esoteric literature hinting at ascension. And consciously or unconsciously those very alchemical themes are woven seamlessly into the thematic language of the event. For example, here's an analysis of one part of the poem:

The poem Jerusalem (1804), by William Blake, is actually an excerpt from the preface to one of his “prophetic books", Milton.

Jerusalem is here the symbolic residence of a humanity freed of the inter-related chains of commerce, British imperialism, and war. Blake's "mental fight" is directed against these chains. In his Blake: Prophet Against Empire, David Erdman tells us that Blake’s "dark, Satanic Mills" are "mills that produce dark metal, iron and steel, for diabolic purposes . . . . London . . . was a war arsenal and the hub of the machinery of war, and Blake uses the symbol in that sense.”

As I pointed out here, there is a sequence in one of the promos of golden, molten metal being poured to make drab steel which is then transformed by the rainbow into living, golden beings. Pure alchemy.

Others see reference to that poem as a clue to an evil "zionist" conspiracy to take over the world. Eh. You say tomato...
 

And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic Mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold! Bring me my charriot of fire! I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land.

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Excellent Drunvalo Interview on Red Ice Radio

I had noticed a couple of news items earlier this week regarding planetary magnetics that I wanted to put into some context. I was trying to remember which of Drunvalo's lectures addressed some of the theories regarding potential pole shift but I didn't have time to dig through it. As luck would have it, this freshly minted interview he did with Red Ice Radio pulls a lot of threads together that I had hoped to. The first hour of this interview is a particularly good overview of things Dru has been teaching for years with a level of clarity I've never heard before. The second hour is a bit more... conceptual. But it's all very enjoyable.

The first article I stumbled on is on a new theory that suggests a possible reason for the magnetic reversal of the Earth's poles that occurs periodically. And there is some indication that the next one may already be in process.

Lopsided growth of the Earth's core could explain why its magnetic field reverses direction every few thousand years. If it happened now, we would be exposed to solar winds capable of knocking out global communications and power grids.

One side of Earth's solid inner core grows slightly while the other half melts. Peter Olson and Renaud Deguen of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, used numerical modelling to establish that the axis of Earth's magnetic field lies in the growing hemisphere – a finding that suggests shifts in the field are connected to growth of the inner core.

There are signs that the next switch may be under way: rapid movements of the field's axis to the east in the last few hundred years may be a precursor to the north and south poles trading places, the researchers speculate.

This is not say that we would have crustal displacement. Although, there is some indication that this or something like it has occurred in the past, as in Charles Hapgood's hotly contested theory. Edgar Cayce also spoke a good deal about pole shift, predicting that it would start around the year 2000.

In the late 1920's and early 1930's, Cayce was the first to describe the concept of the shifting of the pole as a result of the crust of the Earth moving independently from the core of the Earth to bring different a surface area over the spin axis. During the past 30 years, this concept has received more and more attention by geophysicists, some of whom now seriously argue that the crust does move independently. Some geophysicists now also argue that the best way to explain a variety of paleo sea-level and other data is that it moves and shifts fairly frequently and more rapidly than previously imagined.

Cayce predicted changes to the Earth surface to begin some time between 1958 and 1998. The cause of these dramatic Earth changes will be the shift in the world's magnetic poles around the year 2000. Cayce predicted that when this pole shift occurs it would begin reversals in the world's climate so that:

"..where there has been a frigid or semi-tropical climate, there will be a more tropical one, and moss and fern will grow."

Cayce's prediction of a pole shift occurred in 1998. According to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in 1998 something changed the Earth's gravitational field which moved the magnetic poles closer together. The NASA article explained that as the ice on the poles melted, ocean currents moved water toward the equator, which factors researchers believe to be partly responsible, in conjunction with shifts in atmospheric patterns, for this ongoing shift in the Earth's magnetic field. This NASA finding affirms Cayce's prediction of a pole shift.

Cayce also predicted it would mark an evolution in consciousness, restoring us to our antediluvian state.

That there are some rather wild magnetic shifts occurring seems hard to dispute. I'm one of the people who thought the massive bird and fish die offs in early 2011 might be connected the abrupt changes that were causing everything from GPS systems to air strips to be rapidly reconfigured at the time. The thousand birds all suddenly flew into something -- who can say what -- because they were so upset by fireworks explanation just didn't cut it for me.

The other article I noticed this week lends some fresh insight into how birds and fish navigate based on magnetics.

Trout have cells in their noses that act like miniature compasses to help them navigate, a study has shown.

The cells, which are believed to exist in other animals, contain iron-rich deposits of a magnetic material called magnetite.

. . .

Tests suggested the cells were capable of detecting magnetic north as well as small changes in magnetic fields.

They were about 100 times more sensitive to magnetic fields than had been expected.

On a different subject, but also worthy of particular note, Dru claims in this interview that the Vatican blocked the Maya from reserving sacred sites like Chichen Itza for ritual use on December 21, 2012. It put me in mind of another bit of bizarreness that I only first learned about not long ago. The Egyptian government stopped a planned event to replace the missing capstone on the Great Pyramid with a solid gold one on the "millennium." They bought into the fear that it was a Zionist/Masonic conspiracy. These governments must really think these rituals are powerful.

Oh, and circumpunct.

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Full Circle

I've written before about my near obsession with this basic form. First it possessed my inner vision, so that I seriously considered doing a giant, and I mean giant, canvas... except that I don't paint. Then I began to recognize it in a variety of contexts, penultimately in the giant obsessional painting of Battlestar Galactica character Kara Thrace. And it slowly dawned on me that it appears in a great deal of spiritual iconography. Now it's taken to stalking me.

Rightly or wrongly, Dan Brown calls the stripped down version of this symbol a circumpunct.

Brown has this to say in his novel [The Lost Symbol]: "In the idiom of symbology, there was one symbol that reigned supreme above all others. The oldest and most universal, this symbol fused all the ancient traditions in a single solitary image that represented the illumination of the Egyptian sun god, the triumph of alchemical gold, the wisdom of the Philosopher's Stone, the purity of the Rosicrucian Rose, the moment of Creation, the All, the dominance of the astrological sun, and even the ominscient all-seeing eye that hovered atop the unfinished pyramid. The circumpunct. The symbol of the Source. The origin of all things."

. . .

It is true that the circumpunct symbol has been around for millennia, albeit more often known as "the circle with the dot in the middle". It can symbolise everything from gold in alchemy to a European road sign for city centre. It is commonly used as a solar symbol and reputable sources date this to ancient Egypt, where the symbol has its origins in Ra (or Re), god of the midday sun. In fact, the circle with a midpoint, plus a vertical line is the hieroglyph meaning "sun".

So how did an Egyptian symbol rise to shine again as a token of the ancient mysteries among 21st-century Freemasons in Brown's novel? Langdon's exposition is as follows: "The pyramid builders of Egypt are the forerunners of the modern stonemasons, and the pyramid, along with Egyptian themes, is very common in Masonic symbolism." Very neat. Well done, Brown.

Brown is frustrating to read. I keep expecting there to be more of the depth hinted at by the subject matter but it's never forthcoming. And even in this case, the assigning of lineage and intrigue does nothing to address the pull this symbol has on the imagination or its underpinnings in sacred geometry. But it does flesh out a little context.

The symbol is also immediately recognizable as a human eye... or the Eye of Jupiter if you're a Battlestar Galactica fan. I was reminded the other day of that solid bit of conventional wisdom: The eyes are the windows of the soul. Eyes tell you everything you really need to know about a person. They are what many people report recognizing during past life regressions as belonging to people they currently know. Creepy eyes warn of malice and even psycopathy. I've learned through hard experience that if I don't like someone's eyes, I don't like them. Note that both Robert D. Hare's Without Conscious and Martha Stout's Sociopath Next Door feature eyes on the front cover.

Eyes are made up of vesicae piscis and circles. And that geometrical interplay between the sphere and the vesica piscis is, as I said here, the gateway in and out of manifestation. So it stands to reason that it is associated with the soul's migration. But it also seems to represent various levels of spiritual expansion and possibly even ascension.

My point is this. We are not drawn to that form because it looks like an eye, as when Eye of God mania swept the web. The eye is shaped like that because the eye is a significant portal in the body and one associated directly with light.

"In our circles, in our circles, in our circles, in our circles..." ~ Madeline Kahn, The Carol Burnett Show

For over a week, I've been awash in synchronicity, and much of it has revolved around this repeated geometry. I've been reading William Henry's Secret of Sion and it's just brought one epiphany after another. Like much of his work, it has me pulling out journals that date back over a decade, because it clarifies and validates things I've been seeing in my head for years. Henry, of course, associates various iterations of concentric circles with the opening of stargates. And I realized at a certain point that as I moved through the concluding chapters of the book, I began seeing the symbol everywhere.

The issue moved into sharp relief on Thursday when I noticed this amusing juxtaposition on my Facebook homepage. The photo is by my old friend Andy Cohen who is a simply exquisite photographer. The geometrical synchronicity is by universe.

Click to Enlarge

It does not escape my notice that the photo is of a sunflower and the circumpunct is, among other things, the symbol for the sun... and gold.

Later that day, I went to Target. Nothing to do with the power of suggestion. My daughter needed something and it's close. But having discovered the night before, while sitting by the pool, that it was definitely time to retire my very old iPod nano, I did something a little impulsive. I bought myself a new iPod. It's a purchase I've been planning but I could have gotten it a little cheaper elsewhere. It was, to put it oh so gently, not a good day, so I went straight for the instant gratification. I don't regret it... at all. And it was only later that I realized how truly flawless the timing was.

And, of course it came home in a Target bag because I bought it at Target.

Much later in the evening, I kept finding myself brought up short by my husband's viewing choices. I'd glance up at the TV just in time to see things like Alton Brown on the Food Network talking about the perfect form of the donut.

And then by these electric blue crested worm-things that were supposed to represent yeast... or something.

A little later, I noticed he was watching the Keanu Reeves remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I looked up just in time to see this stellar scene.

And, of course, the reticulated python moving towards the sphere.

Sitting by the pool Friday night, listening to Hildegard von Bingen on my new iPod, I finished reading Secret of Sion. The concluding chapters of this book contain too many ah-ha moments to recount. But you really could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw his concluding image. The White Rose by Gustave Doré is a plate from Dante's Divine Comedy: Paradiso.

"In fashion then as of a snow-white rose displayed itself to me the saintly host..."

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William Henry on Merging with Icons

From For the Sexes by William Blake

A while ago I posted something about the pernicious role of iconoclasm -- and the second commandment -- in keeping humanity from direct interface with the divine. William Henry had touched upon the issue in an article on St. Francis of Assissi who developed stigmata, at least in part, because of his spiritual merging with religious iconography. I posited then that part of the motivation for iconoclasm is to keep us from the transcendent and mystical experiences that the Church has always found threatening. Direct experience of God was not something that just anyone was supposed to have.

I am currently reading Henry's Secret of Sion and he addresses the issue of icons as spiritual triggers, and the cruelty of a system that would deny them to humanity, very directly. He suggests that prior to the dark reign of the idol smashers, icons served an important and known function doing exactly what the second commandment says they shouldn't.

When the icons were made alchemy was the normal way of interacting with the world. Everything was viewed as in the process of transmutation or changing into something else -- like the acorn into the oak -- simultaneously unraveling and being reborn. Everything was transmutable, including the human body, which was viewed as a 'pupal' form of an ascended spiritual being, usually symbolized by the butterfly (earlier by the phoenix). All that was required to effect the transmutation was the Philosopher's Stone (= the pure tone or ring of the gate.) This (S)tone causes the body to emit or secrete an elixir - the Secretion of the Ages - that purifies the body, transfiguring it to light.

This is the key benefit of the Transfiguration icons. These images were designed not just to help the early Christians to teach about the Transfiguration through pretty pictures, but also to encourage them to re-shape their lives in accordance with the  hope or expectation of transforming into light (something our culture does not support). Through contemplation, meditation and reflection on the icon we begin to reflect the Light experienced by Jesus in our lives.

Unfortunately, in the seventh century Byzantine Emperor Leo III banned icons (726-729) in response to criticism from adherents of the new religion of Islam who proclaimed that icon/doors were false idols (more later).

. . .

Before the Renaissance and Reformation, holy images were treated not as "art" but as objects of veneration, which possessed codes of the intangible presence of the Holy realm.

In this way, a Transfiguration icon is the same as a computer icon and a highway sign. It is concentrated information that symbolizes or points to something beyond itself. When we click on a computer icon and a highway sign. It is concentrated information that symbolizes or points to something beyond itself. When we click on a computer icon it opens into a phenomenal inner world of enourmous potential called a program, a set of coded instructions that enables one to do work. The program's icon is not the program, but it symbolizes it and opens the way to it.

Strange as it may sound to our sensibilities, this is how devotees used icons to do the Great Work, the alchemy of the soul.

. . .

The materials of the image become a channel or a bridge, a gate ('babel') between the two worlds. In fact, to an Orthodox Christian the images are a medium through which the energy of the Transfiguration moment can be channeled, like a two-way mirror. Devotees could enter the cosmic realm through the icon.

Henry goes on to describe the way this mirroring process essentially brings us back into oneness with the divine depicted in the icon. I would use the term merging but it amounts to the same thing. When we experientially merge with something we perceive as being outside of ourselves, the ego which separates us from all that is, momentarily dissolves.

I was just blown away by this passage -- so much so that I thought it needed a stand-alone post. It speaks precisely to my perception of religious icons as tools for becoming "transparent to the transcendent." (Joseph Campbell) But there are some other points he raises here that deeply resonate with me.

My old teacher, Cherokee Mystic Virginia Sandlin, always says that nothing changes in this reality but everything transforms. Nothing is solid. All matter is in a constant state of transformation. During a vision quest, Virginia took us through an elaborate butterfly-transformation ritual. And she made the point that the butterfly is a symbol of transformation not just because it comes out of the chrysalis dramatically different but because it so completely embodies the nature of the transformation process.

When a caterpillar goes into a cocoon, it doesn't just sprout wings, go through a few other changes, and pop out. It completely transforms and becomes a new being out of the same raw material. It secretes an enzyme and digests itself. It breaks down completely into a gelatinous goop and reforms as a butterfly, reemerging with magnificent wings.

It suddenly occurred to me as I was reading this passage that Henry's "elixir," or the "oil" he has also  discussed at length,  may be something similar -- an organic substance meant to break us down and transform us. What that would be I have no idea. It's been
suggested that the DMT, which probably issues from the activated pineal gland as Rick Strassman theorizes, is the secretion. I don't know, but something about the way Henry has correlated those two thoughts -- the butterfly and the elixir -- has me contemplating.

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William Henry on Olympic Strangeness

Wenlock and Mandeville: Mascots for 2012 London Olympics

I will be the first to admit that I don't pay much attention to the Olympic Games. When I was a kid, I liked the figure skating but even that doesn't hold my attention anymore. No sports fan I, but more than that, I've completely lost interest in group-think. I find the collective, water-cooler nature of the experience off-putting. At the same time I realize that that's the major draw for a lot of people, hence the group-think. This year, though, I think perhaps I should pay more attention because it seems like something unprecedented is being directed at the collective mind. Or so I've learned from William Henry.

Henry's interview with Chad Stuemke is fascinating. The symbolism associated with the upcoming games in Great Britain is positively heavy-handed. So much so that Iran has threatened to pull out because of charges of a Zionist conspiracy. They've also apparently blocked the website. It would seem that by pulling the logo apart and readjusting the angles a bit, we come up with something that looks sort of like the word Zion. So conspiracy theories abound.

William Henry, however, has a somewhat different take, which speaks to one of the reasons I love his work. Henry's new book Secret of Sion is an examination of the mythical significance of Sion/Zion. He posits that it points to plane of existence associated with ascension, the seraphim, and the legendary rainbow body. And both he and Stuemke see the imagery associated with the 2012 Olympics as redolent with those themes. And, now that they say it, it's kind of hard to miss. This page on Stuemke's website gives a good rundown.

The promo video which introduces Wenlock and Mandeville -- the "one eyed rainbow riding aliens" -- alludes to alchemical transmutation. They start as molten, golden steel. They harden into lumps of dull, grey, base metal. After being sculpted into their weird, little alien forms, they are transformed by a rainbow from heaven into iridescent, golden beings. They ascend on rainbows promising to return to London in 2012. A cake celebrating the builder's retirement is a circumpunct, albeit, missing a slice. I believe I've mentioned my obsession with that form one or ten times. The video is just full of suns and spheres and eyes.

Henry and Stuemke discuss at length two different ways to view the apparently conscious use of all this symbolism: Illuminati conspiracy or spiritually guided consciousness event. As I've said before, I don't do the paranoia. When I look at all these symbols that so much of the woo-woo world says are the secret government flaunting their power and engaging in public rituals to keep us docile, I see the opposite. I see symbols of illumination designed to awaken humanity. How much of that is conscious and how much of it is artists, architects, and world leaders plucking archetypes from the subconscious I can't say. But when I look at a collection of symbols as blatant as these, it's hard to call it anything but deliberate.

Personally, I think what has become of the word Zion is a tragedy. Like so much of this symbolism, its meaning has been inverted. This is not a commentary on the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. I don't do those. It's more a reaction to the reaction and the way fear and paranoia distort and stupefy. As I've said before, if there's a conspiracy associated with these symbols, it's a psych op to make us fear rather than embrace them. It is positively Orwellian the way Zion has come to represent war instead of peace. These symbols are powerful. We need to reclaim them and give them their rightful place in our consciousness.

I'm with Henry's wife Claire, whom he interviews here to speak in her capacity as a native Brit:

When are we going to have some leaders that say, "Let's make this world a better place." We know what we know. We've got the ancient knowledge. It's about time that it was put on the top table and all this symbolism and hidden knowledge and art that's been showing us the way for years and years and years; for eons. It's about time we all wake up from the dream and make this world a better place.

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