Wiccan Troops To Receive Proper Burial

The Veteran's Administration and the Bush Administration have finally reached an agreement that will allow Wiccan troops to be buried with the appropriate symbol for their religion; the pentacle. As I reported here, there has been a long stand-off between the VA and the families of those of our fallen who practiced Wicca.

The Department of Veterans Affairs previously had given veterans a choice of 38 religious symbols, including numerous forms of the Christian cross, as well as the Jewish Star of David, the Muslim crescent, the Buddhist wheel and an atomic symbol for atheism.

But, for nearly a decade, the department had refused to act on requests for the pentacle, without a clear reason. VA spokesman Matt Burns said that approximately 10 applications were pending from adherents of Wicca, a blend of witchcraft and nature worship that is one of the country's fastest-growing religions.

But a legal settlement was reached yesterday.

In yesterday's legal settlement, the VA agreed to grant all the pending requests within two weeks and to approve new ones on an expedited basis for 30 days. The department will also pay $225,000 to the plaintiffs for attorneys' fees.

This resolves the lengthy battle, in which Wiccan service members and their families struggled for recognition of their religion.

Until now, the Veterans Affairs department had approved 38 symbols to indicate the faith of deceased service members on memorials. It normally takes a few months for a petition by a faith group to win the department’s approval, but the effort on behalf of the Wiccan symbol took about 10 years and a lawsuit, said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United.

The group attributed the delay to religious discrimination. Many Americans do not consider Wicca a religion, or hold the mistaken belief that Wiccans are devil worshipers.

“The Wiccan families we represented were in no way asking for special treatment,” the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said at a news conference Monday. “They wanted precisely the same treatment that dozens of other religions already had received from the department, an acknowledgment that their spiritual beliefs were on par with those of everyone else.”

Among Wicca's detractors: President Bush.

In reviewing 30,000 pages of documents from Veterans Affairs, Americans United said, it found e-mail and memorandums referring to negative comments President Bush made about Wicca in an interview with “Good Morning America” in 1999, when he was governor of Texas. The interview had to do with a controversy at the time about Wiccan soldiers’ being allowed to worship at Fort Hood, Tex.

“I don’t think witchcraft is a religion,” Mr. Bush said at the time, according to a transcript. “I would hope the military officials would take a second look at the decision they made.”

In what Rev. Lynn described as a "total capitulation," the religion of a fair segment of the armed services has finally been legitimized.

There are 1,800 Wiccans in the armed forces, according to a Pentagon survey cited in the suit, and Wiccans have their faith mentioned in official handbooks for military chaplains and noted on their dog tags.

At least 11 families will be immediately affected by the V.A.’s decision, said the Rev. Selena Fox, senior minister of Circle Sanctuary, a Wiccan church in Wisconsin.

Now if we could just get rid of "Don't ask, don't tell."

Everything Tries To Be Round

You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round... Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle. The nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children.

-- Black Elk, Oglala Sioux Holy Man

Which is the long way 'round my saying that I love this art. I won't be posting the images here, because I think they're proprietary, but Edward Winkleman has reproduced a number of images by Julie Evans. If the spheres within sheres print I included in my last post looks like something that was snatched out of my head, this is like a kind of jazz riff on what goes on inside my head. From the press release:

Evans works slowly and painstakingly, rendering delicate garlands and intricate mandalas, and filling large expanses of color with tiny, countless, vertical strokes. She creates ambiguous spaces within spaces that are at once both micro and macro in realm, keeping the viewer up close to these intimate works, but with the sense of their broader reach into place and time.

She has worked in India and Nepal, including travel and research supported by a Fulbright Scholarship studying with a master of Indian miniature painting. Critic Mario Naves wrote of Evans' work that she "creates vistas infinitely more expansive than the physical parameters of the paintings support. Clearly the conventions of Indian miniature paintings have become second nature to her."

These pieces definitely evoke mandalas and what I find really interesting is the use of sacred geometry. I'd have to break out my tiny, little, screen-sized calipers -- in other words, something I do not have -- to determine if the proportions are exact, but there looks to be a lot of use of phi ratios and golden mean spirals. There are also beautiful lotus images throughout.

I've been thinking a lot about lotus's lately and recently added a handful of the nicer images I could find to the art gallery. The lotus image is one that has been so overused in spiritual circles that it's been largely reduced to a cliche. The symbolism is so profound that I think this is unfortunate.

When we moved into our new house last year, one of the items left behind by the previous owners was a bowl of black, decorative rocks, with a cheap, fabric lotus plunked on top. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I really don't think they were Buddhists, so the imagery is probably completely accidental. This, in part, is what makes it so profound. Amazing the way we all just pluck these things out of the Akashic record, without the vaguest notion that we have done so. The image, of course, evokes the Buddha's "Lotus Sutra." Loosely translated: From the darkest mud comes the most beautiful lotus. So I have kept it. Tacky, Michael's, fabric lotus and all.

But my fascination with the lotus is more rooted in Egyptian mythology and owes to something I plucked out of the Akashic record many years ago in meditation. I scribbled the images down because I did not understand them at all. It was a disjointed collection of death/rebirth images. In the middle of the page was this strange looking flower with a face emerging from the center. It was only years later that I stumbled on the Egyptian lotus mythology that explained the image. Here's the short version from A Dictionary of Ancient Egypt:

The lotus signified Re' 's power and birth and was celebrated in the Loutus Offering, a hymn sung in the temple on festival days, especially at the cultic center in Edfu. The hymn referred to the god Re' as the "Great Lotus," which emerged from the primeval pool at the moment of creation.

Perhaps someday I'll write the long version, which is complex and beautiful with tendrils moving through numerous myths. But for now I just endorse you to look at Julie Evans's art.

Also of interest on Edward Winkleman's blog, a discussion of the abortive attempt to exhibit the chocolate Jesus. I just don't understand the outrage. Is it the Easter season conflation of Jesus with a giant chocolate bunny? Or is it the presence of the penis? Because I'm pretty sure Jesus had a penis. I know the Biblical accounts don't go into too much detail on that, but even so. With all his rantings on sacrilege and bigotry, I wonder what Bill Donohue's views are on, say, the tomahawk chop. So far I think he's been mum.

Battlestar Galactica's Special Destiny

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I recently added the "Battlestar Galactica" series on DVD to the bookstore. I think this merits a little explanation. Why would I place a science fiction series about a multi-generational battle with mechanoids in my little new age book shop? Well, for starters, it's one of the best written, directed, and acted, series in television history -- easily on par with that other transcendent bit of programming "The Sopranos." More to the point, some of the themes lend themselves to a range of philosophical and metaphysical discussions.

Much has been written about the political themes in the series. Less so about the religious, spiritual, and mythical themes.

Some of the spiritual themes owe to the source material; the original series which has been fairly described as "Star Wars meets Wagon Train." There are not many similarities to the painfully campy show... well, except for the basic storyline, characters, and a curious homage to mythology; largely, but not entirely, Greek.

The name of the 12 colonies, collectively, is Kobol, "an anagram of Kolob, which, according to the Mormon Book of Abraham, is the star nearest to where God dwells." This owes to the Mormon background of the creator of the original series Glen Larson. The names of the colonies themselves are renderings of the 12 zodiac signs: Caprica, Aquaria, Scorpia, etc. The character names are like a listing from a world mythology class syllabus: Adama (Adam), Apollo, Athena, etc.

From the departure point that was the original show, the new series has moved in some surprising directions and impressed viewers and critics alike with its depth. This is as much the case with the mythological themes as other elements. The central conflict of the show is between the human survivors and their Cylon attackers. But there is also a religious conflict between these two civilizations; the polytheistic beliefs of the humans and the monotheism of the Cylons. But humans and Cylons alike are possessed of spiritual visions and intuitions regarding their shared destinies. These visions, rich in familiar archetypal resonances and shamanic devices, lend a particular gravity to the series.

In the first season, the accidental President of the Colonies Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell), who is taking an herbal compound called kamala extract as a cancer therapy, begins to have strange dreams and "hallucinations." At one point during a press conference she sees snakes writhing on the podium. She later learns that her "hallucination" of the snakes is a vision prophesied by the "Pythia." The name Pythia is, of course, that taken by the Oracles of Delphi in ancient Greece. There are many versions of the mythological underpinnings of the Oracle of Delphi. At least in latter iterations, it was the temple of the Apollo who, legend has it, slew Python (Pytho, Delphyne), the great dragon.

The Pythia was the priestess presiding over the Oracle of Delphi while it was the temple of Apollo, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. The Pythia was widely credited with giving prophecies inspired by Apollo, giving her a prominence unusual for a woman in male-dominated ancient Greece, but given the probability that she was first an oracle for the goddess, Gaia, who was the Great Goddess, Earth, the presence of priestesses at the oracle of the goddess would have been typical in archaic times. The name of Themis is often used to identify the Pythia. In earlier myths, Themis built the Oracle at Delphi and was herself oracular. According to another legend, Themis received the Oracle at Delphi from Gaia and later gave it to Phoebe.

Gaia was also a great dragon, akin to the Sumerian Tiamat. (For more information on the correlation between creation myths, goddesses, and reptiles, scroll down to here.)

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But the allusion to the Pythia myth is not an idle one. According to legend the Oracle of Delphi exposed herself to an hallucinogen. Seated on a tripod she breathed a vapor that was said to emanate, through a crevice in the earth, from the rotting corpse of Python. It was more likely ethylene gas. In Laura Roslin's case it is kamala extract. But the use of hallucinogens in spiritual practice is an ancient one. According to Graham Hancock's Supernatural, it may date back to the stone age, as evidenced by shamanic themes in paleolithic cave art. So called "hallucinations" are a method of "piercing the veil" and revealing the hidden, but very real, world.

But in "Battlestar Galactica," the Cylons are also capable of shamanic experiences. We discover this most poignantly when one of the Number Threes (Lucy Lawless) undertakes repeated death/rebirth experiences to learn what lies between the worlds.

In the season that just ended, we learn more about the visions of Kara Thrace, call-sign Starbuck (Katie Sackhoff). Thrace, by the way, is an ancient country, now absorbed in part by Greece, that was between the Black Sea to the Aegian. We learned a while ago that Starbuck had a "special destiny," of some kind, known to the Cylons. In more recent episodes we discover that she has been painting a symbol over and over for years that very much resembles what they refer to as the "Eye of Jupiter."

See here for some background on the geometry and symbolism of eyes and why they speak to something seminal in our consciousness. This particular image of spheres within spheres is one that has entranced me for years. I thought seriously at one time about doing a giant canvas of that image. I never got around to it, and frankly, I'm not much of a painter. But the following image looks very similar to what I saw in my head for a period of years. Stare at it for a while. It's hypnotic.

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There is much to say on this fantastic show, but not much more that I can relate that won't divulge its intricate plotting. I do not mean this to be a spoiler review. To my sorrow, the newest season just wrapped and there will be no new episodes until 2008. Can't wait.

Sick As Our Secrets

One does not become enlightened
by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.
The latter procedure, however is disagreeable,
and therefore not popular.
-- Carl Jung

It took me a while to get around to seeing "The Secret." Once I learned what the secret actually was, I felt no great urgency. But when I saw how it had been savaged on Salon.com, I resolved to see how bad it was for myself. Pretty bad, really.

This is not to say that it has no value. A number of the tools recommended by its co-creators are effective, at least up to a point. Far be it from me to discourage the use of creative visualization, visualization boards, affirmative thought, or any other of what I would consider rituals. When appropriate I recommend these tools to my clients. But they are not a panacea, and that caveat is decidedly missing from the slickly produced movie; and presumably the book, which I did not, in all fairness, read.

I don't think I'm revealing any state secrets when I tell you, gentle reader, that the secret revealed in "The Secret" is the "law of attraction." The problem is that this is not so much a law as it is a bromide. What many of us learned during the "new age" revolution of the 80s and 90s was that all of our affirmations and creative visualization did not, in fact, work. At least not fully or "every time," which is what "The Secret" promises... well as long we don't think "bad" thoughts and undo all the promise of our "good" thoughts. According to the brain trust that brings you "The Secret" our "negative" thoughts bring unpleasant experiences, and our "positive" thoughts bring pleasant ones. I almost wish life were that simple.

The "law of attraction" is really a very dumbed down -- one might say truncated -- version of a much deeper truth. This is probably why it has resonance and "feels" true enough to inspire a cottage industry. It has what Stephen Colbert calls "truthiness."

Underlying this attractive idea is what mystics have been teaching for millennia. It is that all things reflect all other things. That it cannot be otherwise because we are, in fact, one with everything around us. This means that the people you meet are not "like" you ("like attracts like"). They are you.

Where the "law of attraction," as presented in "The Secret," teaches us that if we are attracting unpleasant experiences, we need to shift our thoughts away from the negative and make ourselves happy, mystical thought teaches what Virginia Sandlin terms "sourceful awareness." Mystical thinkers honor that anything that comes into our reflective experience is mirroring something that exists inside of us, all be it, to a different degree. So our recognition of what we find unpleasant in our reflective environment is an opportunity to complete and heal that aspect in ourselves, thereby facilitating healing for the world that is our reflection.

So this mystical awareness comes with a greater sense of responsibility than thinking happy thoughts in order to get a new car.

I entitled this review "Sick As Our Secrets" not simply as a play on words, but because that axiom speaks to one of the deeper problems inherent in the philosophy advanced in the "The Secret." That phrase, popular in Twelve Step programs, is used to describe the dis-ease that arises because of the fraud, shame, and denial that are so much a part of the life of addicts and their families. As anyone who has undertaken a healing process on that level learns, the secrets that do the most damage are the ones we keep from ourselves. Try as a I might, I can't see the difference between the practices advocated in "The Secret" and plain, old-fashioned denial. To advocate that people simply stop feeling their "bad feelings" is not just glib. It's irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

I nearly fell out my chair when I heard "The Secret's" Bob Proctor advise that when you're feeling bad you should simply put on some music, because it would change your mood, and to "block out everything but that [happy] thought." Try that if you're clinically depressed. Just try it. Or if you are recovering from childhood sexual abuse. Or if you are one of our returning veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Even the joyous sounds of Steve Martin's banjo won't make you happy, and to suggest that it's that simple is insulting. And if you could block out all that pain, it would be anything but healthy.

In her appearance on "Oprah," Lisa Nichols explained how she addresses people who want to talk about their personal history or "story." Her response is "I don't want to know it, because you've used it to keep yourself where you are." So word to the wise, if you want someone to help you heal and come complete with your painful history, Lisa Nichols is probably not the appropriate facilitator for you.

The implicit hostility of this particular assumption is one I'm all too familiar within my own field. That is to say, the idea that people are holding on to past trauma because they are "unwilling" to release it. I have even heard colleagues say of their clients, "Well they don't really want to get better." If they're showing up for help, they want help. It just may not be the kind of help that healer is willing or able to provide. And when a healer runs into the limits of his or her own paradigm, it is easier to blame the client than to question the belief system. When a client pushes your buttons, it's easier to dismiss the client than to determine why you have sourced them into your practice.

The glib, binary approach re-popularized in "The Secret" has real world consequences. I was recently emailed an article by Ross Bishop that addresses the impact on people suffering from mental or physical illness. He writes:

I received an email recently from a woman who had suffered through bi-lateral breast removal. She wrote:

Do you have any insight on why I developed this disease? It's been very difficult for me to handle what they teach in "The Secret" and all the Unity Church beliefs and that we create illness through negative thinking because I worked so hard to heal my life and have lived a life of joy for the past two years.

For several months I have been receiving calls and emails from people who are distraught over the guilt-producing messages contained in the video "The Secret." These people have been told that:

. . . you create in reality, in one way or another whatever you focus your attention on. Your life is going to be an outcome of where you predominantly place your attention.

This is a resurrection of the discredited "Law of Attraction" foisted by new age teachers, MLM organizers and get-rich-quick real estate infomercials. The idea is a simple one: what you place your attention on will manifest in reality.

Like Mr. Bishop I have been hearing from frustrated clients who aren't finding the tools to improve their lives in these ideas that are achieving a whole new level of popularity in the new age arena. And like Mr. Bishop, I see them beating themselves up for not being able to accomplish what they've been promised is so simple.

Experiences like these with the fall-out from "The Secret" make me tend to agree with Peter Birkenhead of Salon, who characterizes the slickly repackaged philosophy and Oprah's endorsement of it as venal.

Why "venality"? Because, with survivors of Auschwitz still alive, Oprah writes this about "The Secret" on her Web site, "the energy you put into the world -- both good and bad -- is exactly what comes back to you. This means you create the circumstances of your life with the choices you make every day." "Venality," because Oprah, in the age of AIDS, is advertising a book that says, "You cannot 'catch' anything unless you think you can, and thinking you can is inviting it to you with your thought." "Venality," because Oprah, from a studio within walking distance of Chicago's notorious Cabrini Green Projects, pitches a book that says, "The only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts."

Worse than "The Secret's" blame-the-victim idiocy is its baldfaced bullshitting. The titular "secret" of the book is something the authors call the Law of Attraction. They maintain that the universe is governed by the principle that "like attracts like" and that our thoughts are like magnets: Positive thoughts attract positive events and negative thoughts attract negative events. Of course, magnets do exactly the opposite -- positively charged magnets attract negatively charged particles -- and the rest of "The Secret" has a similar relationship to the truth. Here it is on biblical history: "Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus were not only prosperity teachers, but also millionaires themselves, with more affluent lifestyles than many present-day millionaires could conceive of." And worse than the idiocy and the bullshitting is its anti-intellectualism, because that's at the root of the other two. Here's "The Secret" on reading and, um, electricity: "When I discovered 'The Secret' I made a decision that I would not watch the news or read newspapers anymore, because it did not make me feel good," and, "How does it work? Nobody knows. Just like nobody knows how electricity works. I don't, do you?" And worst of all is the craven consumerist worldview at the heart of "The Secret," because it's why the book exists: "[The Secret] is like having the Universe as your catalogue. You flip through it and say, 'I'd like to have this experience and I'd like to have that product and I'd like to have a person like that.' It is you placing your order with the Universe. It's really that easy." That's from Dr. Joe Vitale, former Amway executive and contributor to "The Secret," on Oprah.com.

So scientific it is not -- nobody knows how electricity works, indeed -- but the notion I find most disturbing is that we should disconnect from the realities of the world because they don't feel good. I've even heard people go so far as to assert that by tuning out horrific events we can actually help to heal the world; accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative in our minds will reflect itself in a similar healing for the planet, the theory goes. What to say? You know, if reading newspapers is too upsetting for a person and causes discomfort, there's nothing wrong with putting them aside, to create an emotionally safe space for oneself. One would hope that within that context they would undertake the healing necessary to address the world around them again. But to confuse that elective denial for actual healing or some type of spiritual evolution is vanity. I'd love to wish the war in Iraq right into the cornfield by just not thinking about it, but it doesn't work like that. Now when we reach the point that we can look at the news and not get triggered, or thrown into anger or fear... that's an accomplishment. (Full disclosure: I haven't reached that point.)

There's a site I turn to periodically called Awaken in the Dream. The site author Paul Levy writes a great deal about spiritually conscious activism. In a recent piece, "Triggered by Evil" he takes a tack that stands in stark contrast to the idea of ignoring the news because it makes us uncomfortable. Writes Levy:

Due to the horrific events playing out on the world stage, I find myself unable to avoid the subject of “evil.” Some of my readers have objected to my use of the term “evil,” because it “triggers” something in them which makes them feel uncomfortable, and sometimes even makes them stop reading. Their reaction has made me wonder whether I should use a different word so as not to trigger them, or is activating people the whole point of my writing? When I contemplate this question, however, I am left with the feeling that there is no other word that more accurately describes what I am pointing at than “evil.” I find myself wondering, is there something being revealed to us when, for example, people are triggered by the mere mention of the word “evil?”

He goes on to explain how ignoring evil increases, rather than decreases, its power over us.

Evil animates itself, psychologically speaking, through humanity’s unconsciousness. Evil’s power is only operative in the absence of consciousness. Evil, through our psychological blind spots, plays with our perceptions so as to hide itself. In order to not be destroyed by evil we have to understand the nature of the beast we are dealing with. Like that great maxim of medicine says, “Do not attempt to cure what you do not understand.” We have to bring evil to the level of conscious awareness. To quote Jung, “…how can evil be integrated? There is only one possibility: to assimilate it, that is to say, raise it to the level of consciousness.”

Evil cannot stand to be seen, for when it is truly seen, it is not unconscious anymore, and its seeming power over us gets taken away. Just like a vampire can’t stand the light of consciousness, once we see evil, we take away its autonomy - it can no longer act itself out through us unconsciously. The energy locked up in evil then becomes available to serve what is best for the whole, which is to say it becomes transformed so as to feed and nourish life, instead of creating death.

I offer up these alternative perspectives, because I think they form a necessary counterpoint to the "tyranny of a positive attitude" advanced in "The Secret."

One of the subtler story arcs of the "The Secret" is that its co-creators appear to have gone through a period of struggle, trial, or some other journey through the shadow world. Rhonda Byrne describes her trauma from the death of her father and career crisis. Joe Vitale was homeless. Michael Beckwith was a drug dealer who had a classically shamanic "death/transformation" dream. What he described on "Oprah" could be defined as a "peak" or "mystical" experience. But it came after a long period of wallowing in muck.

The authors gloss over these experiences, using them more as cautionary tales -- things they went through before they knew the secret -- than exploring how crucial these periods surely were to their later accomplishments. But I guess if "The Secret" promised health, wealth, and relationships beyond your wildest dreams, by instructing, "First, go through a period of personal hell," it wouldn't sell very well. The assumption is, I guess, that people are picking up the book or movie because they are as ready as the authors were to come complete with their shadow journeys. But just because you are suffering and want relief from that suffering does not mean that you are done with suffering. It does not mean that you are remotely ready to just release everything that causes you pain. "The Secret" promises that you can come complete with that pain by thinking really hard. If only that were true.

Your "thoughts" are not the sum of your consciousness. You are so much bigger than your thoughts. The universe does not serve your thoughts. It cannot, because the universe does not exist outside of you. You are the universe. All of it. The good, the bad, the ugly. Our challenge as people of consciousness, beings of power, lightworkers (pick your term) is not to wish the "negative" away. It is to own and reintegrate our shadow, because to do so is to heal -- bring into wholeness -- ourselves and all the world.

"The Secret," both book and movie are available in the bookstore.

Also recommended: Nora Ephron's "The Secret: A Testimonial" on The Huffington Post. Hilarious!!!

Site Navigation Update

I recently updated to the new version of Blogger, which allows for topic labels. This means you can click a label from the list at the end of any entry and bring up a page of all thematically related entries. I've also placed a direct link to the "Eye of God" piece in the sidebar. A quick look through my stats indicates that a lot of people are looking for this article and having trouble finding it since it moved into the archives. Enjoy.

Debunking the Debunkers

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The first major tip-off that the New York Times hit piece on Al Gore masquerading as journalism is really raw meat for the right wing base comes right in the lede:

Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,”...

Yes, Hollywood. That den of iniquity that is poisoning American culture. If Hollywood loves Al Gore, he must be bad for our children.

What follows from there is strawman arguments, unsubstantiated quotes, a rogue's gallery of scienticians, and other usual suspects. It's an old formula. Quote a handful of contrarians without revealing the controversy that surrounds them. Then proclaim opinion among experts divided, when, in fact, there is a near consensus.

But don't take my word for it. Good analyses of the New York Times piece can be found here and here. Check it out.

Mayan Priests to Cleanse Site of Bush

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My first thought when I learned that President Bush would be visiting Latin America was concern for his safety. That he is despised all over the world and must travel in a reinforced bubble is no secret, but Latin America sets off alarm bells for some reason. He is unwelcome in that part of the world.

It would seem the Mayan spirit guides are particularly displeased, and have called upon the priests to purify the sacred site of Iximche after Bush's visit there.

Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

Bush's seven-day tour of Latin America includes a stopover beginning late Sunday in Guatemala. On Monday morning he is scheduled to visit the archaeological site Iximche on the high western plateau in a region of the Central American country populated mostly by Mayans.

Tiney said the "spirit guides of the Mayan community" decided it would be necessary to cleanse the sacred site of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace. He also said the rites _ which entail chanting and burning incense, herbs and candles _ would prepare the site for the third summit of Latin American Indians March 26-30.

I have little doubt that the cleanse will be necessary, having heard the whispering of the guardians at Teotihuacan in Mexico. Most tourists are oblivious to the fabric of spirit that inhabits these sacred sites. You have to listen and you have to know how. These sites are trampled and disrespected everyday, wholly unconsciously. And as Paul Levy has beautifully explained, Bush is the very embodiment of unconsciousness.

At some point I will relate in full my experience with the hidden world at Teotihuacan. It is a place of audible whispers. Every stone and every structure talks. To walk through its ruins is to perform a ritual. It is best to have some awareness that you are doing so.

Iximche is one of many Mayan sites exhibiting the complex architecture of the "resurrection technology" of their human sacrifice rituals. The relevance of the "ball courts" and other ritual elements are beautifully explained in The Shaman's Secret, which can be found in the bookstore.

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Nature's Not Working Quite Right

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Well this is alarming. Something truly awful is happening to the bee population. A mysterious illness is wiping out colonies all over the country.

A mysterious illness is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across the country, threatening honey production, the livelihood of beekeepers and possibly crops that need bees for pollination.

Researchers are scrambling to find the cause of the ailment, called Colony Collapse Disorder.

Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states. Some affected commercial beekeepers -- who often keep thousands of colonies -- have reported losing more than 50 percent of their bees. A colony can have roughly 20,000 bees in the winter, and up to 60,000 in the summer.

This follows another epidemic of bee killing mites a few years ago. But the current crisis points to a possible explanation for that ailment, and disturbing portent for the future of apiculture. An analysis of the dead bees points to an immune breakdown.

Cox-Foster said an analysis of dissected bees turned up an alarmingly high number of foreign fungi, bacteria and other organisms and weakened immune systems.

Researchers are also looking into the effect pesticides might be having on bees.

In the meantime, beekeepers are wondering if bee deaths over the last couple of years that had been blamed on mites or poor management might actually have resulted from the mystery ailment."

Now people think that they may have had this three or four years," vanEnglesdorp said.

This is disturbing on many levels. Not only does it bode ill for honey production and agriculture that relies on bees for pollination. It's yet another indicator of nature gone awry. And like global warming, this phenomenon probably has its roots in human behavior; in this case the use of pesticides.

Here's another example of nature gone mad, that can only be ascribed to the planet's rising temperatures. Cherry blossoms... in January.

Cherry blossoms have been sprouting from Baristaville to Brooklyn, but in January? It seems that mother nature is giving winter a miss this year. The evening news last night even reported "April Showers" for later this week.

And if you're thinking that the massive snowfall in New York state is an indication that global warming isn't such a threat, think again. Lake effect snow occurs when the warm air from lake water meets a cold front. The more the planet heats, the warmer those lakes get, and the greater the shock when cold air, from say Canada moves in. Kind of like our intensifying hurricanes, as the waters in Gulf of Mexico become warmer.

Well. Aren't I a ray of sunshine.

Virgin Mother Gives Birth To Five

ineffable, hidden, brilliant scion,
whose motion is whirring,
you scattered the dark mist
that lay before your eyes and,
flapping your wings,
you whirled about,
and through this world
you brought pure light.

-- Hymn to Phanes-Dionysus


The hotly anticipated Komodo Quints have made their debut. Reports of the virgin mother komodo started circulating this holiday season, in coordination with the birthday of another famous virgin-born child, Jesus. They didn't quite make it in time for Christmas, but they cracked their eggs on January 15th. Babies and mother Flora are reportedly doing fine at Chester Zoo in Great Britain.

Other reptile species reproduce asexually in a process known as parthenogenesis. But Flora's virginal conception, and that of another Komodo dragon earlier this year at the London Zoo, are the first time it has been documented in a Komodo dragon.

Flora joins a proud tradition of virgin mothers, long predating the Madonna. Virgin birth is a recurring theme in goddess traditions from around the world.

Crishna was born of a chaste virgin, called Devaki, who, on account of her purity, was selected to become the "mother of God."

Doane, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions

A recurring theme in ancient religion revolves around the manner of the sun god's birth, as well as the chastity of his mother. In a number of instances the sun god is perceived as being born of the inviolable dawn, the virgin moon or earth, or the constellation of Virgo. The virgin status of the mothers of pre-Christian gods and godmen has been asserted for centuries by numerous scholars of mythology and ancient religion.

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And, curiously, the mother goddesses of ancient mythology have long been associated with serpents.

Serpents were commonly connected to the Mother Goddess; however, the reason for this connection is still quite unclear. It can be seen around the world in such examples as a Gorgon. Notice that the common dragon slayer myths often include a woman to be saved by the valiant knight.¹⁰

The theory today states that the societies with a more patriarchal worship came down through the Mediterranean area, where many of the Mother Goddess cults remained, and changed the culture through war and conquest. This can account for the many dragon slaying myths that have been recorded.¹¹ The most common format for the story is something like this: An evil dragon scourges the land, a valiant knight takes up the charge of killing the dragon, and he slays the dragon and wins a bride or saves the virgin sacrifice. While some interpretations may vary, the knight is generally a symbol of all that is good, while the dragon is a symbol of corruption. The knight, which represents the new conquering culture, should be revered by the people while the dragon, which represents the Mother Goddess of the past, should be hated. What is left of the symbolism of women? Well, she's either give over as a prize, or she is a virgin saved by the knight.¹²

Even before Christianity, the Mother Goddess was devalued. However, she was not tossed aside entirely. There was still a need for a mother figure in religion; her complete "overthrow" did not fully take place until the Christians took their toll upon the religions.¹³ In the end, the people were left with two major role models for women: the Virgin Mary and Eve.¹⁴

Connections between women and serpents and dragons are everywhere. Tiamat was slain by Marduk, a male god. Eve was tempted by a snake; the Gorgons had hair that was writhing with snakes. Apollo slew Python, a serpent of terror. The saints commonly slew dragons to save maidens. Countless connections can be made between dragons and the view of women.¹⁵

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Serpent lore lies at the heart of creation myths in ancient civilizations all over the world from the Naga Serpents of the Hindus to the snake mounds of the Americas to the great stone circles of Europe.

Now in another twist in the tale of the serpent I uncover one of the ancient truths about dragons, remembering that in myth and in ancient history, dragons and serpents are intertwined like the coils of a pit viper....

Avebury is a huge British Temple and stone monument erected around 2,000 BC in the shape of a serpent when seen from the sky. Once known as Abury which according to Deane [2] is evidently Abiri or Ab-ir (after the Abiri people or Cabiri who were serpent worshippers). Abir incidentally means the solar snake or fire snake.

Although some have argued whether Avebury should ever have been Abury or Aubury (serpent sun) the fact remains that even as far back as the 17th century there was a Mr Aubury who said himself that it should be pronounced and spelt Aubury (found in the legier-book of Malmesbury Abbey.)

Of course even as Ave Bury, the ‘Ave’ reverts back to the root of ‘Eve’ which we know means ‘female serpent.’ The pathway of Avebury passes through a large circular Temple of the sun emerging and then winding again and ending with an oddly, not quite circular head – directly in line with ‘Snakes Head Hill’ (Hackpen.) The central circle is symbolic of the sun, which is the male principle in the creative process and is symbolized elsewhere as a bull or lion. Once the serpent has passed through or around this sun circle it is recharged for new life.

And so we come full circle.

Got Raw Milk?

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There's an excellent article in Salon about the controversy over raw milk. As the article makes clear, the FDA, CDC, and AMA have branded raw milk as dangerous, even though people all over the world have been drinking it that way since time immemorial. How is that the entire population of India didn't become extinct before pasteurization?! Hmmm...

The article is full of valuable info on the health benefits of dairy in its original state, but it is also a reminder of the flaw in allopathic medicine in the broader sense. The dependence on the "disease model" often negates any discussion of true health. The FDA says pasteurized milk is non-pathogenic and therefore healthy. But for some of us the absence of germs in our food is not enough. We require that there also be some nutrients that the body is capable of using. Nature still makes food better than technology does, and raw milk is a prime example.

Among the health benefits of raw milk from pastured (grass fed) cattle is a reduction of allergy symptoms like asthma, hay fever, and eczema. A number of the subjects of the Salon article came to raw milk as a last resort for those afflictions and turned their conditions around. And as reporter Hannah Wallace points out:

A compelling new study, published in the June 2006 issue of the Journal of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, seems to lend support to what these three already know to be true. Researchers at the University of London analyzed the diet of 4,700 children in Shropshire and found that those who lived on farms and drank raw milk had significantly fewer symptoms of asthma, hay fever and eczema. Children who drank raw milk were 40 percent less likely to develop eczema and 10 percent less likely to get hay fever than their non-raw-milk-drinking peers. Blood samples showed that they had 60 percent lower levels of immunoglobulin E, an antibody released by the immune system when it's confronted by allergens. (IgE, in turn, causes cells to release histamines, which is what causes an allergic reaction.) In their conclusion, study authors Michael Perkins and David Strachan surmised that the lactobacilli found in raw milk protect against eczema. They also stated, "Unpasteurized milk is known to be rich in a variety of gram-negative species and their lipopolysaccharides, and it is plausible that a persistent exposure to a diverse milieu of bacteria from an early age is likely to have an effect on the developing immune system."

For some of us the worst allergy is to dairy itself. I was diagnosed as dairy allergic many years ago, and I noticeably react to dairy products... unless they're raw. Allergic reactions to food occur because the body can't digest and process them properly. Pasteurized milk is effectively dead and, in the attempt to kill off any lurking pathogens, all the enzymes necessary to its proper digestion are also killed. Raw dairy, rich in the enzymes and cultures nature intended, is far more digestible, which means the body can actually utilize its protein, vitamins, and nutrients.

Breezing through some of the blog entries and letters in response to this article, I'm unsurprised to find that many people are just terrified of raw milk and sure that it's very, very dangerous. But as the article makes clear, E. Coli and other dangerous pathogens have been found in a number of foods that have not been made illegal; like spinach. Taco Bell hasn't been closed down, despite it's recent traffic in contaminated food. How is that the FDA is so quick to demonize raw milk, but rely on testing and regulation for other foods that are at least as likely to be contaminated? The answer probably lies in the demands of industrial agribusiness. Pasteurization is a blanket solution to the problems of mass produced milk from sick cattle.

"Pasteurization is an excuse to produce dirty milk," says Los Angeles raw milk activist Rahman Dalrymple, citing the outbreaks of salmonella, listeria and Campylobacter that have all been traced to pasteurized milk. In California, accepted bacteria levels for Grade A raw milk are fewer than 15,000 colony-forming units per milliliter; accepted levels for raw milk destined for pasteurization is 50,000. (Post-pasteurization, milk in California can contain 15,000 CFUs per milliliter. States that adopt the FDA's Pasteurized Milk Ordinance allow pasteurized milk 20,000 CFUs per milliliter, one-quarter more than California's raw-milk limit.) Dalrymple, who credits raw milk with curing his asthma, emphasizes that he would never drink raw milk that's destined for pasteurization by a large industrial dairy. Not all raw milk is created equal, Dalrymple says. "Raw milk is dangerous -- if you get it from one of these industrial dairies that have fecal matter and pus and blood in their milk. I would absolutely not drink that!"

This distinction -- between raw milk that's destined for pasteurization and raw milk from a small, spotlessly clean dairy that's kept to higher standards precisely because the milk won't be pasteurized -- is a crucial one, and it's lost on public health officials like Sheehan, who seem to lump all raw milk into the same pathogen-contaminated vat. Industrial farms are dirty -- as the recent agri-exposés "Fast Food Nation" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma" have proved. When Sheehan thinks of raw milk, in other words, he's thinking of milk from cows crowded together in barns, eating a diet of corn, and standing in their own manure. All the raw milk advocates I spoke to are against drinking this type of raw milk.

In fact raw milk may be less likely to be infected with pathogens than it's mass produced, pasteurized counterpart, because pastured cattle, using their four stomachs the way nature intended, produce milk that naturally defends against contamination.

Another reason no pathogens have ever been found in his milk, McAfee believes, is that it contains a host of active antibacterial components -- not just proteins like lactoferrin, but enzymes, bacteriocins, colicins and at least 25 beneficial bacteria, including lactobacillus and bifidus, the same probiotics that are found in most yogurt. And all of those components, McAfee says, are destroyed during pasteurization. (In her book "Nourishing Traditions," WAPF founder Fallon concurs: "Pasteurization destroys these helpful organisms, leaving the finished product devoid of any protective mechanism should undesirable bacteria inadvertently contaminate the supply.") To prove his theory, a few years ago, McAfee sent his milk and colostrum to a private lab and had both injected with high levels of the three pathogens. The bacterial counts of all three bugs decreased over time. And the conclusion of the scientist at BSK Labs? "Raw colostrum and raw milk do not appear to support the growth of Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, and Listeria monocytogenes," stated the lab report. McAfee is so proud of his below-normal bacteria counts that he posts annual averages on his Web site.

The exact opposite is true of the corn-fed cattle that are the stock-in-trade of big, commercial farms.

Cows, like all other ruminants, are meant to eat grass. Yet, at the vast majority of U.S. dairies -- even organic ones -- cows subsist on corn feed. In "The Omnivore's Dilemma," Pollan explains how eating a high-starch diet acidifies a cow's rumen, making the animal sick and eventually allowing bacteria to enter its bloodstream. A cow's corn diet can also make us sick: E. coli O157:H7 has been around only since the early '80s, when it likely evolved in the acidic guts of corn-fed cattle. (E. coli O157:H7 is so lethal because human stomachs, too, are acidic. We can kill off microbes that evolve in the neutral pH of a grass-fed cow's rumen, but not the acid-resistant strains such as E. coli O157:H7.)

I'm fortunate to live in a state where producing and selling raw dairy products is legal and the farms certified to bring it to market are scrupulously inspected. And let me tell you there is no going back once you've experienced what milk, yogurt, and cheeses are supposed to taste like... and digest like.

Meanwhile, the FDA has just announced that it's safe to eat meat and drink milk from cloned animals. In such an Orwellian universe, where raw milk from cows that have two biological parents is considered dangerous, while pasteurized milk from cloned cows is safe -- is it any wonder that a growing band of consumers don't trust FDA decisions?

I DO Believe in Angels!

It turns out an overwhelming majority of Americans believe in those mysterious, celestial beings. Belief in angels is most solid among Christian evangelicals at 97%, which doesn't seem terribly surprising. But belief in some type of angelic presence is also shared across a wide cultural spectrum, even among people who have no religious affiliation.

Protestants, women, Southerners, Midwesterners and Republicans were the most likely to believe in angels, although strong majorities in other groups also shared that faith. Belief in angels declined slightly with advanced education, from 87 percent of those with high school education or less to 73 percent of those with college degrees. Overall, 81 percent believed in angels.

One of the points made by Graham Hancock in his new book Supernatural is that religious belief is universal. These beliefs are not rational and not empirically provable, but they are part of every human civilization. He disputes the idea that religion is simply a means of providing comfort in a confusing world, by pointing out that religion is often counterproductive to cultural harmony. Many religious beliefs inspire fear as well as awe. And religious conflicts can escalate to open warfare. Hancock explores the human capacity for interfacing with the supernatural world that the highly reasonable dismiss as hallucinations. Hancock delves deep into shamanic practices, including the use of the notorious "vine of souls" ayahuasca. He posits the notion that the world we experience when we pierce the veil is not a disordered hallucination, but a separate reality accessible through the same brain that perceives this one.

In other words people cling to religious and spiritual beliefs because they experience them as real and tangible, even if their glimpses of this hidden reality are usually ephemeral. Such is the experience of Edward Pelz:

Edward Pelz, 80, of Grabill, Ind., said he believes that angels are guiding him, even though it's impossible to explain to anyone else.
"Have I ever seen one? Nope. We depict an angel as a person that's white, has a robe on, has wings on back. I'm not sure that's the way they look. So for me, I think sometimes there's angels that aren't that way."
Pelz recounted a story about a man who showed up to change his tire when he had a flat in Ohio five years ago.
"I look at life — I say, well maybe I had an angel with me here today. It could have been just another man doing a good deed."....
Pelz felt another spirit when he walked into his backyard on a winter's day — that of the wife he lost over two years ago. He called her Mom.
"She loved bluebirds," he said. "In the wintertime, we don't have bluebirds. I was out in the back, thinking, 'Mom I'd like to see you,' and this little bluebird comes by.
"I don't know, maybe that's an angel. It was just something I wanted to see. Maybe I imagined it. Next thing you know, it flew off. What is an angel? Is an angel something that has a heartbeat like us? Or is it ...?"
The thought trailed off.

Editor's Note: Graham Hancock's Supernatural is available in the bookstore. I will probably be writing more about the process of discovery Hancock leads the reader through in this amazing book. Really, one of the best books I've ever read.