Secondary sight & Other views

What say you to the idea that sight is but the secondary purpose of our visual system?

This is the claim of a German man, Peter Grunwald who currently lives in NZ. His sight was once so bad that he wore glasses in the shower. Now he travels the world (& his shower) without specs & teaches his 'views' to those with ears to hear. He sees our eyes & all they are attached to i.e. us, in a radically different way. And as far as he is concerned the primary function of our visual system is the coordination of our mental, emotional & physical states.

X marks the spot?

I have been working on a kind of widescreen format of ideas lately & this secondary idea fitted well with where I have wandered & wondered...



Which is contemplating more & more the idea that life is not at all like we think we know it.

Contemplating that what we do & what we see are two very different things indeed. Contemplating the idea that we are supposed to be creating & linking with magic, each day, but that somewhere along the way we had the magician knocked out of us.

As mentioned In the Ma'at Ariel World, I have been looking at material about material for a while. The whole world of spinning & weaving has drawn my attention time & again, especially in relation to the bigger picture of the universal tapestry within which we currently find, or have lost, ourselves.

For century upon century, spinning & weaving (& the fabrics that they birthed) were highly valued. We in our world of hard logic will no doubt say that this was because they needed clothes & blankets & suchlike for warmth & survival.

Well what if clothes'n'blankets'n'suchlike were the secondary purpose of weavers & spinners?
What if their main function, was the co-creation of their world? I'm suggesting that as they spun & wove their threads, they were also symbolically & literally spinning & weaving their world - a partnership with reality (of epic creative proportions). What if the peoples of old were (k)not blots on the landscape, rather they were the weavers of it? What if as their hands spun & wove, a ritual was carried out, one that ensured the continued creation of life?

And...

What about food? What if it's function as nourishment for our bodies is it's secondary purpose? What if food has a vitally important primary function? What might it be?

How about as a re-connecter of humanity?
There can't be many more pleasurable experiences than sharing a meal with friends. Food is an absolute essential of all celebration, why is that do you think? Just what exactly does our daily bread or focaccia actually symbolise? And why is Jesus a wafer?



I recently asked a French pastry chef I know, if he thought that food was more than just food. He gave me a slightly 'Are you stupid or what?' look before replying "Of course." Keeping up my 'Yes I really am stupid' image I asked further "So if someone said that nourishment was the secondary reason for eating would you agree?" he answered "Yes" with absolute certainty. I trust a Frenchman with an answer to a food question in the same way I would trust a child with a question about play.

Is food the nourishment of the human (& humanity/Earth) bond? The daily affirmation of our RITE to be? I have been wondering about all those times when people have starved to death - did death came because of the lack of cell nourishment or was it primarily through the denial of the bond that food asserts? Just as babies will die without touch, will humans cease to exist without the sacred bond of what perhaps should be called, 'soul food'?

When I was growing up food was a definite issue. Both my sister & I struggled mightily with a vicious cycle of unvarying & unappetising food, one 'offering' in particular would often make us retch. Emotionally & spiritually my family got very sick & I spent a number of months in hospital as an anorexic. Until I started contemplating food as more than food I could never understand the gut wrenching feelings that this issue brought up in me.

Perhaps the reason we find it hard to cook just for ourselves is because at a deeper level we understand that food is really about connecting & reconnecting.

A third secondary look I want to touch on, is touch. This topic has been a big part of my recent researching.

Touch is the first sense to develop & thereafter it never switches off. All of us learned this world through the touch of our mouths (as babies) & later through the direct contact of our hands & various parts of our anatomy. Our first emotional bonds are created through skin (& the food it brings). We only know something when we have touched/felt it. We learn by 'hands on' experience. Our fingertips & mouths are laden with sensors for feeling, touching, tasting, interacting & communicating with each other & with our world.

We are a world within a world designed to interact in a deeply physical way.

Mention the importance of touch & I virtually guarantee the topic of Romanian orphans dying from lack of touch will, be introduced. The media has made damn sure we understand that touch is important for the development of babies - hmmm... I wonder if in today's media-medicated world, a 'development', is the collective noun for a group of babies?

What if 'development', or it's softer (but still media-popular term) 'nurturing' is the secondary role of touch?

What if touch is about the transference of ancient knowledge?



What if touch grounds the toucher or touchee in the same way that the earth grounds lightning - opening the door to our bodies by unlocking the tower door of our minds?

What if our skins talk to each other, releasing our untold stories?

From the sculpture "The Skin Speaks a Language Not It's Own" (Bharti Kher)

A book I'm currently reading states there was a time when touch was a very important part of healing, but the use of drugs removed that need - I wonder why?

"It seems that we're communicating less and less through touch. Apart from technology that stands in the way, increased awareness of inappropriate touch is also discouraging positive touch."

What I'm looking at here with thoughts of weaving & food & touch is but a taster of what can be looked at. I'm suggesting that we are a physical race whose primary existence has been vandalised & denied. I suggest that for every secondary-scientific-reasoning applied to humanity (& this world), there is a primary purpose that is felt but unseen, known but hidden from us, craved (by the human heart) but denied existence by the business of maintaining a society directed to increased productivity.

When I went looking to see if I could see where we lost touch, I was drawn to the Industrial Revolution, or should I say When the Machines Came.

I recently read an interesting book called The Body has a Mind of It's Own. Although the authors prefer to stay within scientific parameters, it did contain new ways of seeing. My understanding of what was said goes like this -
'as far as our brains are concerned we are more than the body which greets us in the mirror. Our brains map all the space within arms reach as a part of us. Whats more when we are holding or using something, then that too becomes mapped as a part of us.

The knife becomes an extension of the self. And even though it's made of metal we can feel the food as we reshape it. We can also feel our way (& our selves) through larger objects like cars - it's as if they become a part of us.

But what would happen if machines got too big for us & we could no longer feel our way?

"The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the United Kingdom. The changes subsequently spread throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human history; almost every aspect of daily life was eventually influenced in some way... Historians agree that the Industrial Revolution was one of the most important events in history."

"It changed the Western world from a basically rural and agricultural society to a basically urban and industrial society."

What happened when a people used to working with hand-held tools, were driven by necessity to work with vast & previously unheard of machines? What happened to a people that could no longer connect with the goods they made because they themselves were now simply a cog in a machine or part of an assembly line? What happened to a people whose time was legally stolen by industry? In what must be one of the greatest business coups of all time, employers claimed both the time & the production of their workers, the magnificent two for one deal that still applies today.

What happens to the soul when all the hours of daylight are confined within factory walls

"She locked me in a jail of dismal walls
unjudged & yet condemned
to spend my life enslaved
amongst the grief & groans of men"

What happened to a people when quantity or increased productivity became a god?

I feel that this is the time period where humanity began to lose touch & that which is the Western World began to creeper it's way into the fibres of our beings. Here is where the race of the rats began.

A woman 'alone', stands beside a combing machine. Once upon her time, a hundred women would have combed the stuff of life into those threads.

Now up till a short while ago, I thought I would give some examples to round off this theory & leave it there, but some symboly thingys caught my eyes, did a little jig in my brain & insisted that I take a walk on the ritualistic side & wonder a while longer.

What if it is vital to live life symbolically? vital late 14c., "of or manifesting life," from L. vitalis "of or belonging to life"."

What if the actions I undertake during my day, are, at some level ,vitally important to the well-being of this world. What if I am meant to imbue my activities with blessings & create with passion because it is that which fertilises the world that will be my (& your) tomorrow?

If this arousing time period is a chance for us to break out of an energy-prison, then those who have much invested in keeping the door padlocked, must have seen this prison break committee a-coming. A build up of a couple of hundred years would have been about right - a period of intense traumatisation & dehumanising of humans, combined with the phenomenally successful mind fucks of two world wars, topped off with a new religion, Hol(l)yworld & a nouveau god, the Webbed-One & hey presto you have m'asses of asses.

"Of particular interest to anthropologists has been the role of ritual in structuring life crises, human development, religious enactment and entertainment.
Certain anthropologists... treat ritual as social action aimed at particular transformations often conceived in cosmic terms... they become a sort of cosmic event, one stretching into "eternity".

In order to weave some magic unspellings we first need to ride our time machine back prior to the Industrial Revolution (don't worry I've packed some sandwiches.)

The Wiki page on 'When the Machines Came' apprises us of the following;
"However recent research... has challenged the traditional, supply-oriented interpretation of the Industrial Revolution.
Lewis Mumford has proposed that the Industrial Revolution had its origins in the early Middle Ages, much earlier than most estimates. He explains that the model for standardised mass production was the printing press and that "the archetypal model for the industrial era was the clock". He also cites the monastic emphasis on order and time-keeping, as well as the fact that medieval cities had at their centre a church with bell ringing at regular intervals as being necessary precursors to a greater synchronisation necessary for later, more physical, manifestations such as the steam engine."

Now I find I'm becoming a picky little sifter when it comes to being tolled things - I find there are a few nuggets to keep & many, many dusty words to discard.

Here's what I found in my symbology-sifting word-pan.

In the beginning (of the Industrial Revolution) was the word (printing press). Not just any words, but the written word. Just what impact was there on humanity when the tradition of passing stories through the voice ended. What happened when our eyes replaced our ears?

"In mechanical watches and clocks, an escapement is a device which converts continuous rotational motion into an oscillating or back and forth motion, creating the familiar ticking noise... The importance of the escapement in the history of technology is that it was the key invention that made the all-mechanical clock possible. This development in 13th century Europe initiated a change in timekeeping methods from continuous processes, such as the flow of water in water clocks, to repetitive oscillatory processes, such as the swing of pendulums." (wiki).

Is this where time got (c)locked? Is this where humanity learned what time looks like? A machine ticking forever past 12 frozen numbers - an endless mechanical circle counting down our days.

Words & numbers -
Two special spells to initiate the touch down of the Industrial Revolution?

Now look at this;

"Starting in the later part of the 18th century there began a transition in parts of Great Britain's previously manual labour and draft-animal–based economy towards machine-based manufacturing. It started with the mechanisation of the textile industries, the development of iron-making techniques and the increased use of refined coal... The introduction of steam power... underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity...The impact of this change on society was enormous." (Wiki)

What if creation must take place on a symbolical level? What if the Industrial Revolution was a giant 'initiated' creation. Before I plough on & in case you hadn't realised, I will mention that I work simply & deeply with intuition & gut feelings, often mixed with synchronicity & a great deal of research. I'm not an expert or initiate of anything. What follows is pure gut-work

If the Industrial Revolution was a spell, I would expect to see the four elements of magic -earth, air, fire & water being invoked. Here's what I have seen;

Earth - "Iron was needed to make the railway tracks, steam locomotives and the giant Watt steam engines that pumped the mines and provided energy to run factory machinery"
"the Earth's core is believed to consist largely of an iron-nickel alloy constituting 35% of the mass of the Earth as a whole. Iron is consequently the most abundant element on Earth."

"Iron in mythology and folklore has a long and varied tradition throughout the world. As human blood smells of iron of which it is largely constituted, and blood in many traditions is equated with the life-force, similarly iron and minerals have been attributed as being the blood or life-force of the Earth."

"The metal iron was sometimes represented by the symbol for the the planet Mars. This is also the symbol for 'man'."

Air - "It [the Industrial Revolution] started with the mechanisation of the textile industries" - ahhh the fabric of the universe? That which in ancient times was believed woven by a variety of goddesses. I can't help but equate fabric/textiles with the element of air.


Fire & Water - The combination of fire & water created something very potent-

"The steam engine was arguably the most important technology of the Industrial Revolution"


"The Corliss steam engine was a symbol of the nineteenth-century belief in progress and industry"

"RMS Titanic was the largest steamship in the world when she sank in 1912"

From our phoenix's point of overview we have a huge concentration of the elements within a relatively short period of time. A whole new world was born from machines, the only human labour involved was that of feeding their time (lives) to the new metal mothers.

Now there was one more revolutionay industrial element that kept calling my attention. I won't give you three guesses because I just don't think you're going to get it.

"Also important was the 1756 rediscovery of concrete (based on hydraulic lime mortar) by the British engineer John Smeaton, which had been lost for 13 centuries."

Be honest now, who was really going to say that?

If there was a nifty little descriptor for the mess we've gotten ourselves or been herded into, I reckon 'concrete' would fit nicely. One pair of cement boots per adult is provided free of charge on entry into the adult world. We live in concrete jungles. Anywhere there is a large population of human, there will you find copious quantites of concrete.



What if it's existence as a building material is a secondary function? Could it have symbolical significance? What might be it's primary purpose?

What about freezing time? Or even human transformation, in the same way that concrete blocks the growth of nature in cities. What if our concrete junglar city (b)locks, are built to (b)lock out a positive energy or hold in in a negative one? What is the effect on our visual pathways of constant concrete vistas? Why did concrete magically reappear here at the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution after an absence of 13 centuries?
"Concrete is a very strong building material. Historical evidence also points that Romans used Pozzalana, animal fat, milk and blood as admixtures for building concrete." Nothing ritualistic there then. I wonder what today's mixtures contain?

Back to Mr Smeaton;
"Smeaton's work led to a more widespread use of concrete throughout England and further advances in technology" & "Smeaton's research into the use of better raw materials in concrete led to expanded use of concrete thorughout Europe in the 1800s."

Wiki says this of Mr Smeaton
"John Smeaton, FRS, (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was an English civil engineer – often regarded as the "father of civil engineering" – responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a more than capable mechanical engineer and an eminent pysicist. He was associated with the Lunar Society. He was the first self-proclaimed civil engineer."

You did spot it didn't you?

"The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a dinner club and informal learned society of prominent industrialist, natural philosophers and intellectuals who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham, England..."

WARNING: We interrupt this wiki regurgitation for a gullibility test. If you have NOT taken your Gullibility Prevention medication today then please DO NOT attempt to read the next sentence;

"... At first called the Lunar Circle, "Lunar Society" became the formal name by 1775. The name arose because the society would meet during the full moon, as the extra light made the journey home easier and safer in the absence of street lighting."



Well that was a good thinking wasn't it. Clever name too, almost sounds like it could have been a little knees-up of the Industrially Revolutionary forefathers. Forefathering does seem to be soooo important in this new age.

"... a group of Birmingham-area men prominent in the arts, sciences, and theology. Members included [James] Watt (steam engines), Erasmus Darwin (grandad to Charles), Josiah Wedgewood and Joseph Priestly (discovered Oxygen-not sure where he found it). The Society met each month near the full moon. Members of the Society have been given credit for developing concepts and techniques in science, agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport that laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution."

Interestingly a set of 8 sandstone memorials called Moonstones were unveiled in 1998 in Birmingham, as a tribute to "various members of the Lunar Society... The stones also each have a phase of the moon carved on them, with Watt's (the man of steam) being the full moon"

Mr Smeaton, the Man of Concrete used his skills to construct the Eddystone lighthouse in Cornwall, England (finished in 1759 - "The shape of Smeaton’s lighthouse was inspired by that of an oak tree" (know your symbology!) - It was dismantled in 1877 and moved, stone by stone, to the Hoe where it was re-erected" ( what a dedicated little bunch of lighthouse worshippers).



And a little more for no extra charge - "The lift equation used by the Wright brothers was due to John Smeaton." However they "determined with wind tunnels that the Smeaton coefficient was incorrect and should have been 0.0033" (interesting choice of numbers by the lads).

So where do I finsh?

Let's go back to the beginning, back to seeing differently.

The modern world seems to be incredibly oriented towards the sense of sight. Hearing lags a fair way behind, while the soul builders of taste & touch are nowhere to be seen. What is it about how we see the world & how we 'view' the past, that is so damn important that no expense is spared to keep our eyes locked onto all & sundry media menus?

On a recent walk I jotted down the idea that 'our eyes are keys'. Could this be so? Do our eyes/visual system bring things to life? We're trained to see images flowing in through our eyes, but what if something flows out? Is it powerful? At the beginning of this year someone invaded my space so inappropriately that without thinking I turned & 'looked daggers' at him - not a word was said - he avoided me for rigorously for 6 weeks. So I guess it is powerful.

Can we perhaps sow something amazing through our eyes? If sight is secondary, perhaps we can play even further. Children play make-believe continuously, they have the ability to turn a cardboard box into a house or a boat or a rocket. Or a pot of tea with grass clippings into a delicious beverage. They are always sacredly serious with their play - is that because they have the power to see & work with the symbolical world that is the primary basis of this world?

All actions that children & animals undertake, they make sacred. Why is that? What do they understand that we do not? What do they see that we do not? How do they see what we see not?

one small thought for man, one giant belief for mankind

You know I wonder if we should be more concerned with the black holes in our lives as opposed to the possible black holes in space - ha that's funny really isn't it, I would have said space was a black hole (sorry sometimes I can't help myself slipping into non-scientific jargon).

Anyway, I've been contemplating wordy black holes - you know those letterly arrangements lurking in far too many (life) sentences, waiting to suck the unwary reader (or speaker) into the twilight zone.

The particular black whole that has brought forth this short (yes you can relax, I shall be brief(ish) this time) is that lying little bugger believe (it can also be found lurking in trees disguised as a 'beleaf').

I suggest this word could do with a loooong period of confinement in a wtf-holding-cell somewhere in way-outta space.

Can someone tell me what it means??

Surely it's an arrangement of seven letters that leads nowhere. I'd say it actually belongs is in a seven worded sentence

"I do not know what I believe."

And that's the whole point of it! The instigation of this word 'believe' is a cunning device to get you thinking you know something that you do NOT. AND this process of thinking you know something you know not, leaves you literally & metaphorically tied up in nots & knots.

According to the online etymology site that is a favourite haunt of my Mus musculus, the ancestry of the word believe goes like this "O.E. belyfan ... (W.Saxon) "believe," from P.Gmc. *ga-laubjan "hold dear, love," from PIE base *leubh- "to like, desire".

Now this little noword has one of the largest followings of the humankind - it's power sweeps unhindered across the great divides of religion, race & sex & is unanimously accepted. Once implanted (no need for microchips here) it turns it's followers into a pack of questionless disciples. It's certainly not only religion that has it's flocks 'believing' what they are tolled.

And lest we forget, 'belief' has become the catch phrase of the 'New Age'. Come on I'll bet you've said it too, I'm know I have & Google certainly has (many times) - "Results 1 - 10 of about 174,000,000 for you get what you believe in".

"You can have anything you want if you give up the belief that you can't have it" hmmm...

So let's make like a pathologist & perform a little auto-spy on the Noveau Temps slogan.

"You get what you believe in".

If we'd stayed with the origin of the word, then to get what we held dear would be very grand indeed. But belief got taken by over by religion (FYI religion is also worth a backward glance- "popular etymology among the later ancients (and many modern writers) connects it with religare "to bind fast" - hmmm...

Sorry I digressed. We were looking at the 'B' word - "belief had by 16c. become limited to "mental acceptance of something as true," from the religious use in the sense of "things held to be true as a matter of religious doctrine".

So that's pretty much where we stand & dither on belief today - "mental acceptance of something as true". What's missing here is experience, because it's all just in the mind. Perhaps that's why it's gotten to be such a good little earner for the New Age gurus, well who hasn't got a penthouse suite of the mind.

"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just" A-Bee Lincoln said this double-speak was so.

Something I've been wondering is how much we can really 'create' without some kind of physical experience or body knowing. Lately I've been looking into the physical world & also looking into rituals - always some kind of hands on experience is required, it's not a mind only job.

I've been wondering if the masses have been fed a lot of stale air 'words'. Verbs are supposed to be doing words - but verbs like 'believe' & 'hope' don't go anywhere. They are waiting words. Have you noticed how much of our lives revolve around 'waiting' (wait (v.) c.1200, "to watch with hostile intent, lie in wait for"). Do the words that keep us waiting have some form of hostile intent?

Another waiting word is faith "c.1250, "duty of fulfilling one's trust" - a rather bizarre wording, n'est-ce pas?

I suggest that these words could be viewed as peasant food for the masses - a glutinous substance that binds the mind & weakens the body/soul.

I got started thinking about beliefs because of the extremely popular self-bashing system whereby we acknowledge our 'destructive beliefs', yet are completely unable to make the most basic changes - we can see the truck of life that's about to hit us but are unable to step aside. I've been hit by many of these life trucks & am amazed at my inability to either avoid the impact or launch a missile & blow the bloody thing up.
This dilemma has led to the idea that we are not victims of the mental black holes called beliefs. Instead what we are dealing with is a very definite set of inner 'instructions' - we don't move out of the way of the truck du vie because there is within us an override-order to stay put.

Matthew Delooze has written a stunning article which I'll link to at the bottom. He tells of a dream whereby people with mouths stitched shut absorb words in a way similar to how we breathe air. With each word absorbed they become more & more lifeless.

Is that what these words do do us?

There is one more word, well phrase I want to mention before I go.

A conversation with my friend from West Africa a little while ago led to his revealing his irritation with the phrase 'making love'. He told me that he often translates words back into his native language in order to get a better understanding of them. He told me that in his language it is impossible to translate that phrase - that you cannot 'make' love. He sees it, & I agree, as a marketing device. That phrase has been inserted deep into the Western World's psyche - why?? When two (or more!) people get together & make like a sewing machine, love is NOT being made, rather sex is being had. You may have extremely deep feelings for your playmate, but love is not being made.

This phrase may well be behind much of the male-female discord, for VERY different things in-deed seem to be being sought by the parties involved. Another friend of the male persuasion has told me that 'he has never made love.' Research across the generally male dominated blogosphere has introduced me to ideas of a very similar nature - the male of the species DO NOT make love, they seek out & enjoy sex (well when they can get it :)

The more I look into words the more I seem to see a wor(l)d of spells.

Why is it that our world of words echoes the management committee of Planet Earth - a very select few, in in-your-face-positions, overseeing the many?

Perhaps it's time to spell our own words?



Link to Matthew Delooze's brilliant new article

The Ma'at Ariel World

Would it surprise you to learn that the answer to to all you are seeking, is antimatter.

No wonder then, that like that slippery customer Mercury, it's always one step ahead of us.

"answer (n) O.E. andswaru "a reply," from and- "against" ... + -swaru "affirmation," from swerian "to swear"... suggesting an original sense of "make a sworn statement rebutting a charge."

Quite a big hop, skip & mercurial jump then from the "solution to a problem" or "clever &/or correct reply" that we are accustomed to expecting, n'est-ce pas?

My hope in both researching & writing is to find or create new ways to look at things. Over the course of the last few years I have found that 'answers' seem to come with cement boots. They weigh me down & prevent me from striding irreligiously through the thoroughly cultivated lands of the modern world, turning over whatever rock takes my fancy.

Fancy a spot of rock tumbling?

During research for an article on hanging a few months ago I re-membered knot magic - an ages old practise that is now mostly forgotten. That in turn led me to contemplate this world in a much more material sense.

..................six hours (& many miles) later..................

Got stuck. Had lots of info & didn't know which path to travel. Went for a drive. Ended up here. Never been here before...

...This is Huia Point Lookout & we're gazing out over Manukau (man-noo-cow) Harbour to the Manukau Heads, where the Tasman Sea flows into the second largest harbour in NZ.

The beaches on that part of NZ's West Coast have black sand & hardy surfers.

I stopped for a coffee with a friend on the way home. My head was in the writing zone & not the best for chit chat. But we got talking about a subject that my son brought up this morning & thus one coffee & one decent sized bush walk later, I had found my way, article-wise, again.

Our talk centred around the idea that we are living out of touch (& reach), in a material world.



Well this just won't do! Please note, I do not advocate alcohol for cats under the age of 18.

We can live 'out of touch' in a spiritual world, because it has no apparent substance, but while we're in this place we are designed to feel & get to grips with what's here.

Let's get etymological about it;

"feel (v.) O.E. felan "to touch"." Say no more!

Back in the 1950's neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield developed some telling maps maps of the brain which have been translated into 3 dimensional images. They indicate "the relatively large proportion of the brain involved in sensitive and complex movement, particularly ... the face and hands"


The hands & the mouth - the biggest ways we touch our world


How babies read their new world - 'hand (& in this case, foot) to mouth'

"The Hand by Frank R. Wilson, is a book about the influence of the human hand on the evolution of our species... how the evolution and use of the hands has shaped “the brain, language and human culture” ... The fact is, the hands prompted the mind."



If you believe in passion then don't skip the next paragraph.

"When personal desire prompts anyone to learn to do something well with the hands, an extremely complicated process is initiated that endows the work with a powerful emotional charge. People are changed, significantly and irreversibly, it seems, when movement, thought and feeling fuse during the active, long-term pursuit of personal goals. Serious musicians are emotional about their work not simply because they are committed to it, nor because their work demands the public expression of emotion. The musicians’ concern for their hands is a by-product of the intense striving through which they turn them into the essential physical instrument for realization of their own ideas, or the communication of closely held feelings. The same is true of sculptors, wood-carvers, jewellers, jugglers, and surgeons when they are fully immersed in their work.... The word “passion” describes attachments that are this strong... I would argue that any theory of human intelligence which ignores the interdependence of hand and brain function... is grossly misleading and sterile" (from The Hand by Frank R. Wilson, pp.5-9)

I believe that in order to live, as opposed to the current trend of existence, our hands need access to ... well everything we can lay our hands on. In so many ways our hands are our connection to this world, just as the roots of a tree are it's connection to the earth.

connection 14c., connexion, from O.Fr. ... "to fasten together, to tie, join together," from com- "together" + nectere "to bind, tie."

Now we are going to stitch together some ideas as to why touch is so important & why we are so much out of touch. We are going to weave together some seriously playful feelings & un-sigh-entific ideas that suggest we really do live in a material world...

..a spun, woven, knitted & embroidered, material world.

"Myths of weaving exist around the world as metaphors for creation. The spindle is often an axis mundi and its whirling whorls serve a cosmogonic function. Plato, for example, had a vision of the great goddess Ananke, "Necessity," spinning the universe; the sun, moon, and planets were her spindle's whorls; sirens sang through the webs of time and fate that she wove, and souls endlessly moved through the strands on their way to and from death and rebirth. Many goddesses are spinners and weavers: the Fates of ancient Greece; Athena, also of Greece; Neith of ancient Egypt; in Teutonic myth the Norns spin secret meanings into life; in the American southwest, Grandmother Spider Woman spins all life from the shimmering threads in her belly."

Before any of us ever existed and before anything was ever created, only the Sun Spirit, ... was here. He created a proto-type earth, and from it, he created ... Spider Woman ...[who] continued the creation. She spun her spider silk from North to South, then to East and West, and this is what drew the earth into being. She sang as she spun, and from her beautiful singing, her two daughters came into being. These daughters helped their mother by creating the moon from dark black rock, yellow stone, red rock and turquoise. They saw that it was not quite light enough at night, so they created the Star People with sparkling eyes so that night would never be black again...



...Spider Woman went to work creating people, and she did this by molding the red, yellow, white and black clay of the earth. For every person she made, she spun a fine line of spider silk that she attached to their heads, so that they would always be connected to her and have access to her wisdom and teachings. As long as they kept the doorway from the top of their heads to let in the spider silk, they would always be protected by her. She sang the Creation song over the newly formed people, and they came to life by hearing her beautiful voice. The people began to call her Spider Grandmother, since she gave them life

Just pretty (or pretty fanciful) tales?

Why then is our language so thoroughly interlaced with material words? Why are we tied up (& down)? Why do we spin tales & yarns? We get stitched up. Things loom over us. We cotton on to things (except when we know knot what we do). Evidence in the never ending supply of crime shows is immaterial or a tissue of lies. Boring things are run of the mill. We judge people by the cut of their cloth. We are a part of the fabric of society, which is neatly folded into that other fabric, the time space continuum. We are daily entangled in a web (O.E. webb "woven fabric,") of worldwide proportions.

Meanwhile the ubiquitous uniform of the Western World, soundly echoes the very threads of our cell'ad dressing.

'jeanetic materials anyone?'

I'm no scientist, as you might have observed, though I did just take a little trek into the quantum world of string theory. And beat a hasty retreat back out again. Just can't get a grip on them big words.

Matter however, is a different matter. If we sneak in through the back door of our material world & climb the spirally staircase for a wordly overview, something interesting happens.

"material - Etymologically, material is simply a derivative of matter"

My much prized word origin dictionary tells me that the wor(l)d matter comes from the Latin materia & was originally applied to the "hard inner wood of a tree,' and etymologically denoted the matrix or mother from which the new growth came (it was derivative of Latin mater 'mother').

So this gives us an interesting line-up.

Material - matter - mother - the building blocks of the universe?

I find it rather interesting that acquired name of THE Material Girl echoes one of the most revered mamas of all time

Madonna & Child, a favourite subject for Renaissance artists.

La nouveau Madonna has put a modern twist on this age old scenario with a junior amour named Jesus. I don't follow the gossip columns so this was a new one on me. While much is made of the age difference between the dynamic duo, there seems to be a rather glaring omission of the incredibly 'coincidental' name twinning, especially bearing in mind that the baby Jesus' surname is Luz, which translates to 'Light'. I may be imagining this, but I'm sure I've heard of another who went by the name Jesus & was the light of the world.

Ok back to us - you & me. Look closely now & you just might see that we(a)'ve been woven together.

Weave got strands of DNA, spinal cords, grey matter, skin tissue (c.1366, "band or belt of rich material"), ligaments (c.1400, from L. ligamentum "band, tie, ligature," from ligare "to bind, tie,"). Broken bones are said to knit back together. The etymology of Mitosis, the splitting of one cell into two, is "coined from Gk. mitos "warp thread"... So called because chromatin of the cell nucleus appears as long threads in the first stages." Mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell get their naming from "Gk. mitos "thread" + khondrion "little granule."

Here is a wonderful work of art. An anatomically correct knitted presentation of our brain - can you feel the connection?

What one being has stitched together let no scientist pull asunder

It's now time to get a little crafty & weave together & strange set of threads that suggest even further our woven nature.

I am of a rather sleuthy nature & enjoy muchly following where clues dare to thread - (clue - phonetic variant of clew (q.v.) "a ball of thread or yarn," with reference to the one Theseus used as a guide out of the Labyrinth).

I got to wondering about the spinning & weaving nature of the world. Could the sowing of seeds be likened to the sewing of stitches, embroidering the earth with plants. If we shake up the spelling of thread we find earth'd.

Sowing seed has been used as a describing of the male part of the sex act. And indeed, etymology fits hand in glove with this picturing.

"sperm late 14c., probably from O.Fr. esperme, from L.L. sperma "seed, semen," from Gk. sperma "seed," from speirein "to sow, scatter"

"sow (v) O.E. sawan "to scatter seed upon the ground or plant it in the earth"."

Now this is where etymology & me part company for a moment - for it says that sow & sew are not related. Now I'm a questing human & I reckon that it's jolly interesting that these two words ring out the same tone. I felt the inclination to lift up both these rocks & see what lurked beneath.

So returning to etymology we find the origin of the word 'sew' is "O.E. siwian "to stitch"." Ok, cool & groovy, lets look up stitch.

"stitch (n) O.E. stice "a prick, puncture"."

"prick O.E. prica (n.) "point, puncture, particle... Earliest recorded use for "penis" is 1592"

You see I can't help noticing an amazing similarity between look & action of the penis during sex & the movements & action of a needle on a sewing machine. Both needles have an eye through which something binding is passed - thread? (O.E. þræd "fine cord, especially when twisted" (related to þrawan "to twist") - think DNA spirals. The jeanetic material of the sperm (warp?) may reach an egg (weft) & the process of weaving a new individual may begin.

Amazing how similar loom & womb sound. "loom (n) O.E. geloma "utensil, tool," ... Originally "implement or tool of any kind" (cf. heirloom); thus, "the penis" (c.1400-1600). Meaning "a machine in which yarn or thread is woven into fabric" is from 1404."

Ancient knowledge is always worth a second look. "The word tantra comes from two words, tanoti, which means expansion, and trayati, which means liberation. It also means to stretch or to weave" & "tantra type of Hindu religious book, 1799, from Skt. tantram, lit. "loom, warp".

Were we once the children of the loom? Were we cast on?

Loom is a funny word because if you upside down & back to front it, it transforms into the substance that is it's raison d'etre - wool. Is there but one universal substance from which we have all been woven. Are we all part of one great ball of yarn? Is this why our world 'spins'?

That needle trek also called to mind the copious obelisks that presently peirce so many city skylines. obelisk - "rectangular stone column, tapering at the top," 1569 ..." from Gk. obeliskos, dim. of obelos "a spit, pointed pillar, needle."

There seems to be a general internetly consensus that the "Obelisk is an ancient phallic symbol of the male energy and solar energy. Obelisks were originally erected in honor of the sun god."

In keeping with the probing of this latest materialistic angle, my memory pointed me to two of these piercing structures - Cleopatra's Needle, London (bet you didn't know she was a seamstress)...

... & the queerest erection you ever did see (currently lancing the skyline of Dublin).

from wiki: "The Spire of Dublin, officially titled the Monument of Light (because we just don't have enough of them, do we?) is a large, stainless steel, pin-like monument 120 metres (390 ft) in height, located on the site of the former Nelson's Pillar on O'Connell Street in Dublin." Horatio you may remember, had his socks (& the rest of him) blown skyward by the Eye of Ra in 1966.

...Hmmm all this talk of needles puts a whole new spin on that oft repeated phrase: "The pen is mightier than the sword"!

One last point of interest.

If we were more material than the current scientified & objective viewing allows, we would expect that those in the know would be knowledgeably using the material approach for their own bested interests.

"The Bank of England is "the central bank of the whole of the United Kingdom and ... the model on which most modern, large central banks have been based... established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and to this day it still acts as the banker for the UK Government."


"The Bank's headquarters has been located in London's main financial district, the City of London, on Threadneedle Street, since 1734. It is sometimes known by the metonym The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street"

Probably just a co-incidence.

Way back when I was beginning this article my son made a comment about how if given the choice he will always buy a smaller & more expensive glass bottle of cola, rather than one in plastic. A converstaion ensued about why neither of us like plastic & was further delved into when I met up with the friend mentioned earlier. A deep dislike of plastic opened a marvelous path into how we have lost touch with this world.

So much of our physical contact now is through plastic or something that equates to plastic - the keys I'm typing this on, the 'money' I use to 'live' on, the daily conversations that centre on news or other media tripe to name a few.

I have some more info that I want to add to try & express these ideas a little more clearly & hopefully that won't take too long to get here. I found a great book on touch at the library the oter day & want to incorporate a few ideas from there.

We & the world around us are meant to be fully interacting, that is what we & it are designed for. Why are we not doing this??? Some more ideas to follow...



"Therapist Donald Winnicott claimed that it is in playing and only in playing that the individual (child or adult) is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative the individual discovers "the self."

Fair Phantom - the tail biting finale

While travelling in the vicinity of today I collided gently but firmly with a series of hints that suggested I get my butt on my computer chair & bring forth that which follows.

Originally I thought that I would merely put a link to the first in a series that began this time last year - a small gesture to the upcoming upHeavelloween. I'm going away this weekend & therefore my mind said there would be no time for writing.

But that was before reading through the latest at Ellis Taylor's site & being blown away by his dedication to bringing forth as much info as possible, prior to that Hallowed Fest. He has already pointed out astounding time correlations between it & the late symbology twins Apollo & Artemis aka Michael Jackson & Princess Diana.


Last year, on November 1st, I posted the Ist in a series based upon the death of actor, director & screen writer Adrienne Shelly. There were many reasons why I felt her death was so much more than the media generated 'tragic-death-slash-murder' by 'evil-monster-slash-illegal-immigrant'.

For me the date was a very significant factor.

Up until today I'd thought I'd delayed finishing this series because interest was waning, I had perhaps gone on too long! Now, however it seems that it was just a waiting game, waiting for the right time - the 3rd anniversary of a stolen life.

If Ellis Taylor is right about this coming Halloween, then it seems a good time to check under previous Halloween rocks.

The naming of the series Fair Phantom came from the name of the main character Jenna Hunterson (played by Keri Russell) in Adrienne Shelly's last movie, Waitress.

"The meaning of the name Jenna is Fair Phantom"

Somehow this felt exactly the right description for the woman whose ending, for me, echoed down the corridors of myth to Jocasta. There was also the thread that led to Rusalkas, & thus it seemed even more fitting.

Another reason I looked into Adrienne's murder was because of a line in an excellent article from the now quiet, Atlantean Times on the death & times of Heath Ledger - "Ker is never far away either is it Keri."

Gavin was speaking of Keri Russell. The Ker he spoke of was the 40ft owl that hangs out at Bohemian grove & has things sacrificed to it.

Skipping through the fertile meadows of internet-land we may also come across another death sprite;

"Ker (PL. KERES, CER) In Greek belief, a destructive or malevolent female spirit of the dead. Although some sources seem to refer to a single Ker, the more common belief was in a host of Keres. They were said to be the daughters of Nyx and Erebos."



"It is possible that a connection exists between Keres and the Valkyries of Norse myth...



...Both deities are war spirits that fly over battlefields during conflicts and choose those to be slain."

In one of the sections of this series I linked three deaths - Adrienne Shelly, Heath Ledger & Ruslana Korshunova - all died within a neat triangular area of Manhattan, within the spacing of 18 months.

Keri Russell's starring role in Waitress had her acting with Adrienne Shelly. Here are two lines from the movie that was awaiting acceptance at the Sundance Film festival, when it's writer was murdered.

Dawn (Adrienne Shelly): "I've finally found someone who loves me to death"
Jenna (Keri Russell) "Well hopefully not to death."

Keri Russell also links to Heath Ledger. She was there in the beginning for him - "Ledger kicked off his career by playing the warrior hero Conor in the Dark Ages TV series Roar (1997). The series lasted only one season, but established Ledger as an up-and-coming heartthrob."

Russell played the love interest who laid down her life for him, stepping in front of her father's sword. She dies sacrificially in his arms, but not before marking his face with her blood. In fox hunting it's called blooding, a "sort of gruesome parody of the rite of baptism."

"Captain Elwe’s two children being present at the death of a fox on their father’s preserves, the old hunting custom of ‘blooding’ was duly performed by Charlie Beacham, who, after dipping the brush of the fox in his own [sic] blood, sprinkled the foreheads of both children, hoping they would be aspirants to the ‘sport of kings.’ "

Russell also fairytale-links with Ruslana Korshunova, the Russian Rapunzel who leapt from the ninth storytower of her apartment last year. She died in Water Street. Her crowning glory was her extremely flowing locks. In the fairytale Rapunzel, the ever present wicked witch trims her locks before evicting the maiden from her Tower-home.

Keri Russell gained much fame through her hair & much infamy through the snipping of it when something wicked her way came.

"Never has a haircut caused such a stir. After Keri Russell's Felicity character chopped off her long ringlets, fans angrily petitioned the WB network and one top exec was quoted saying, "Nobody is cutting their hair again on our network."

"It's been nearly 10 years since Keri Russell famously lopped off her lusted-after locks -- yet ask any girl who started mailing tape recorded messages to friends, and they'll remember it like yesterday... "No one could have predicted just how unfavorably Hollywood would react."

.... & a little pisstake to highlight the cutting impact;

"(A black TV screen. Suddenly, the image of a globe appears, over which is superimposed the ABC logo, along with the words "America In Crisis: Keri Russell's Hair Held Hostage - Day Two", while overly dramatic music blares. Then a familiar face appears...)

Ted Koppel: Good evening, this is Ted Koppel, reporting to you live from Leon's House of Follicles on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. Tonight we bring you Day Two of our continuous coverage of the story that has gripped all of America, and indeed the world. I speak, of course, of the recent, tragic shearing of the famous - some might say infamous - hair from the head of TV's Felicity, Keri Russell."



Keri Russell-ka perhaps?

"Her [Rusalakas] hair is sometimes depicted as green, and often perpetually wet. According to some legends, should the rusalka's hair dry out, she will die"

"She {Rusalkas] may also appear naked, wrapped in her wet hair"

Ruslana (lion- think 'mane') Korshunova (K + Horus + Nova (new) - Horus of course can be twisted & plaited into 'hours' of fun!

It interested me greatly that the actress whose name echoes the Keres should have such intimate connections with this trio of death.



But that's not all folks, for she links mightily with a fourth 'ending'. The one that came during the Great Halloween ritual of 1993, when the Phoenix was killed by the snake.

"On October 31, 1993, [River] Phoenix collapsed from a drug overdose of heroin and cocaine (known as a speedball) outside the Viper Room, a Hollywood night club partially owned by actor Johnny Depp."

After looking into Rusalkas & the Serpentine River in London, I was much interested to learn from my African friend that in African Traditional Religion snakes are very much associated with water & water goddesses.

"Snakes were a common feature of many creation myths, for example many peoples in Africa and Australia had myths about a Rainbow Snake, which was either Mother Earth herself giving birth to all animals or a water-god whose writhings created rivers, creeks and oceans"

"Snakes were also commonly associated with water especially myths about the primordial ocean being formed of a huge coiled snake as in Ahi/Vritra in early Indian myth and Jormungand in Nordic Myth."

The unforgetably named River Phoenix had his name usurped (or was reincarnated) a couple of years ago by Miss Russell-ka. River is the name she gave to the son she bore in June 2007.

As Gavin from Atlantean Times pointed out last year, Ms Russell got her start in the Mickey Mouse Club - not widely viewed in certain circles as indicative of a healthy past.

"In 2005, several reports claimed that Russell was set to adopt Scientology, after working with actor Tom Cruise, who is a Scientologist, on Mission: Impossible III. Russell's representative subsequently threatened to sue the reporter who first made the claim. Stories about the incident had noted that Russell is of Jewish heritage; older reports, which had originally suggested her conversion to Scientology, had mentioned that she was once a member of the Mormon church."

The actor named for both fire & water, himself had an unsavoury past attached to a cult called the Children of God. The fire-water that was River Phoenix was born on a fire sacred day;



"Vulcanalia was a festival in ancient Rome held on August 23 each year in honor of the Roman god Vulcan. During the festival small animals were burned alive in homage to the god."

"In spite of the brutual summer heat, many citizens of Rome gathered in the Forum Romanum to observe the time-honored festival. Sacrificing live fish and lighting bonfires at night were part of the festival...People sacrificed fish, which were thrown live on the fire, or drove animals into the fire as substitutes for human lives."

What an interesting mix of fire & water symbolism (fish).

River Phoenix was 23 when he collapsed outside the black hole known as the Viper Room on the Halloween of 1993. We were tolled that it was a self inflicted overdose & we always believe what we are tolled.

I see from a this year blog, that the Viper Room re-members the dead "Driving pass the Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard, part-owned by Johnny Depp, where River Phoenix died of an overdose one Halloween night, I noticed their sign, which read “Michael Jackson: R.I.P.”

hmmm the Viper Room on Sun Seth Boulevard...

Where am I going with all this? I really don't know!

I got fired up by Ellis Taylor's dedication to setting the table with truth. I recalled that Adrienne Shelly was done to death at this veil thinning time. I recalled that I had not finished her tale. I have also left loads out & it does not seem so important now to cross all the tau's & dot all the eyes.

But I did want to round this off by returning to where I started. In a great many cultures around the world the dawning of November is known as the Day of the Dead. It is a time when those who have left these material shores can get up close & personal for a time. So I leave you with this tale biting (ouroboros) link to the first in the series Fair Phantom. One more side-topic spurned by that event is still to be written - but here, where I started is where I lay Adrienne Shelly (to what I hope) is rest.

Here is a link to Ellis Taylor's site - he's burning rubber & midnight oil to make as much relevant info as possible to the eyes & ears of all questing pixies.

Additional: I just nabbed this from Ellis' "A Year of Tears & Tears"

'The 24th of June is a Freemasonic high day (as well as Christian and other faiths) allied to the summer solstice. Once it fell on midsummer day - the solstice - but now it almost coincides with when the sun appears to start to move again - to the south" -

As mentioned in a one of the Fair Phantom series - 24th June was Adrienne Shelly's date of birth. The lady of the So(u)lstice was hung on the Day of the Dead - the day that follows Halloween, in 2006. That was also the date & year that that Alexander Litvinenko was so famously poisoned. And Halloween was the date that the Viper claimed the life of the Phoenix.

Playing with personages of historical significance

One Dane once asked, if he should be or not be, little realising that he was trifling with the most aberrant verb in the English language.

Etymologically speaking, the

with only one 'e' goes like this;

"be O.E. ..."be, exist, come to be, become,"... It is the most irregular verb in Mod.E. and the most common... it has eight different forms in Mod.E.:
Be Am Are Is Was Were Being Been"

'The Ogdoad of the wordy world, found in all the best sentences in town.'

I was rather reminded of the above set of eight matching Egyptian godlies & couldn't resist a little play - eye see our most irregular verb contains a couple of atoms of AtuM & ISis.

Anyway just to keep things all neat & modern, I thought a spot of godly renaming might be in order - henceforth, shall the 'to-be'-verb-god-collective be known as Toby (or not Toby).

As luck would have it I ran into Toby earlier today on a quiet street corner. After a brief struggle I managed to subdue him long enough to get him under a microscope for a close-up look. Notice the amazing super cellular construction...

...one squeeze of Toby turns a casual sentence into a concrete structure - once a 'pronoun-cement' is made, all ifs, buts & maybes are sent straight to Hades, without passing GO or collecting $200 .

This takes us to what we're going to play with today.

With 'History.'
That topic has gotta be an award winning concrete construction if ever there was one!

Just look what it's done to us...


...backed into a narrow historical corridor absorbing tales of a past that is for the most part, diabolical.


From what I can see, much acceptance of our today world comes from comparing what we have now with a past that exists for the most part only in that double edged sword, WORDS - big fat factual words superglued together by the god Toby (aka the verb to be).

Fancy a change? Without too much further adoing, lets put Toby in the bin & beegin again. Let's play with history from a different angle (actually its more a curve than an angle).

What if the same historical figures keep returning to play the same roles - a kind of historical type casting.

Take this world renowned & glittering figure

Set within our mass consciousness, does not this image instantly trigger the 100 carat Di-mind?

But what if there's more to this instantly recognised figure than meets the eye? What if she is a part of a repeating pattern, one that turns up again & again to play a central role in historical (pre-set?) course changes.

Lets paint a bigger portrait. A not so still-life of three Annes.

Anne Boleyn (beheaded)

Marie-An(ne)toinette (beheaded

Di(e)-Anna (It was also first reported that a paparazzo who saw Diana described her as bleeding from the nose and ears with her head rested on the back of the front passenger's seat.)

What I've been wondering is if these three portraits portray the same royal personage?

I don't know how this world works, but for me reincarnation seems probable. A friend of mine suggested another possibility in regards to the theory du jour - that of exceptionally long living entites reappearing throughout time, but house-sitting new bodies. Exalted bloodlines however, do seem to be a key ingredient, whichever way you look.

I tied these ladies together for a number of reasons.

Firstly for echoing theme of early death: Diana 36 (1997), Marie Antoinette 37 (1793), & Anne Boleyn (year of birth uncertain but believed at death to be either) 29 or 35 (died 1536).

Two of the trio were undeniably executed, while the third has so many questions around her demise that it's just plain 'logical' to wonder.

All three have a French connection.

Die-Anna died there as did Marie Antoinette - indeed Diana passed the place of Marie Antoinettes' execution, Place de la Concorde just minutes before heading into the lunar tunnel of death.

"After crossing the Place de la Concorde they drove along Cours la Reine (approx translation Queens Court) and Cours Albert 1er (the embankment road running parallel to the River Seine) into the Place de l’Alma underpass"

In the true ritualistic style we gave come to know & ...umm, expect, the Place de la Concorde sports a grand Egyptian erection.



"The center of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with heiroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramesis II... The obelisk once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple. The Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Mehmet Ali, offered the 3,3 00-year-old Luxor Obelisk to France in 1829. The obelisk arrived in Paris on December 21, 1833. Three years later, on October 25, 1836, King Louis-Philippe had it placed in the center of Place de la Concorde, where a guillotine used to stand during the Revolution."

Etymologically speaking this is kinda interesting : "concord c.1300, from O.Fr. concorde, from L. concordia "agreement, union," ... lit. "hearts together"." A little while ago I came across this informative snippett regarding Marie Antoinette's 10 year old sun "The heart, ... was cut from Louis XVII's body following a tradition of keeping royal hearts separate from their bodies."
On August 31 The Queen of hearts passes the Place where the former queen's stopped beating - two hearts beat as one? I wonder what lies beneath the place of hearty togetherness? I also recall reading recently the suggestion that Diana's heart was removed from her body after death.

The third member of the Three Graces, Anne Boleyn, spent many a year in France during her formative years.

"The meaning of the name Ann is 'Grace; favour'."

Although Anne Boleyn did not die in France, the coup de grâce was delivered from there

"her life was cut short on 19th May 1536 when her head was cut off in one stroke by a French swordsman from Calais"

"A death in the French style may have been requested by Anne herself; it was certainly intended as an act of grace towards her, to add to the kindness of a death by beheading, instead of the accustomed fire of the female traitor” - ... errr at the risk of sounding a little naive, I can't help thinking that kindness should perhaps lean a little more in a life enhancing direction.

A great strangeness now occurs in this narrative.

In the beginning (of this article) we started out with a depressed Danish prince. This was in order to introduce the idea that, by the use of the verb to be, (aka Toby), our history has been cemented in time & place. I played with that verb as is my won't & put in a picture of a wee bee-being. That pic related to a weekended visit to a land of milk & honey - well ok, a honey centre actually, but I'm sure they had milk on the premises too.

Today I'm finding myself beeing hounded across the internet by the little b(ee)lighters. I have also re-membered the curious incident last week of a pair of bees absailing down my chimney & creating a stir in my unlit fireplace. Plus I keep running out of time of late & have been repeating a pattern of dining on dollops of the nectar of gods (on toast of course).

Returning to & connecting with, our French theme, we find that bees "were considered ... the oldest emblem of the sovereigns of France."

And connecting with the death of Marie Antoinette, we find the little man who would bee king, (well actually emperor) of France, was a lover of bees (though not in the Monty Python sense you understand).

"Napoleon had a veritable mania for the industrious insect, which he had made into a symbol of his own reign; even made it into a flag and a cloak, wearing which he was painted by David. Bees long standing symbols for immortality and resurrection, they linked the new dynasty to the very origins of France, more Merovingian than Napoleonic"

"In a glass-sided carriage beneath a crown supported by four silver eagles, Josephine blazed with diamonds in a white satin gown ornamented with golden bees, and Napoleon's cloak was also embroidered with them"

And connecting with our three little maids...

"the god Apollo speaks of three female seers as three bees or bee-maidens ... These sacred bee-maidens with their gift of prophecy, were to be Apollo’s gift to Hermes, the god who alone could lead the souls of the dead out of life and sometimes back again... The Greek word for ‘fate’, ‘death’ and ‘goddess of death’ is e ker (feminine); the word for’heart’ and ‘breast’ is to ker (neuter); while the word for ‘honeycomb’ is to kerion (neuter). The common root ker links the ideas for the honeycomb, goddess, death, fate and the human heart, a nexus of meanings that is illumined if we know that the goddess was once imagined as a bee."

"Aphrodite, revered as the queen bee by her priestesses, was worshipped at a honey-comb shaped shrine at Mt Eryx. The hexagonal shape of the honeycomb was the holy geometric shape of cosmic harmony. The honeycomb represented the perfect union of the macrocosm with the microcosm. In many ancient Egyptian, Indian and Greek cultures, bees represented the divine spirit or soul ... In the ancient Minoan culture they were a symbol of immortality and rebirth. In Celtic myth, bees were regarded as beings of great wisdom and spirit messengers between worlds. Honey was treated as a magical substance and used in many ancient magical rituals."

"The 3rd century Greek philosopher and mathematician Porphyry of Tyre believed that souls arrived on earth in the form of Bees, having descended from the moon goddess Artemis, and that they were lured to terrestrial life by the promise of earthly delights, such as honey."

The Honey-moon?

"The Mayans had the Ah-Muzen-Cab (the Bee God), designating honey-producing cities (who prized honey as food of the gods). The Kalahari Desert's San people ascribe the Creation of man to bees: A bee carried a mantis across a river, but when exhausted it left the mantis on a floating flower, simultaneously planting a seed in the mantis's body before it died. From that seed grew the first man. The Egyptians believed bees to grow from the tears of the sun god Ra when they fell on the desert sand (much like the foam of the sea was considered by the Greeks to be the sperm of the cut genitalia of Cronus from which Aphrodite emerged). The bowstring of the Hindu love god Kamadeva is made of honeybees and Vishnu is often depicted as a blue bee"

"Bees in Ancient times were also the symbol of the Goddess Artemis. This was because she was once the Great Mother who created the world without the help of a male God. The ancients believed that bees created themselves through parthenogenesis, so bees became a symbol of the Virgin Creatrix Mother"

Sooo all honeyed out?

How about a light sea voyage
If you look sideways at Anne Boleyn or Marie Antoinette or Princess Diana you might be forgiven for thinking you can make out the outline of Helen of Troy.

One woman who powerfully captures the imagi-NATION of his story

We are told that it was Henry VIII's desire to marry Anne Boleyn, that led to his sacking of the Roman Catholic church & setting up his own DIY business. He patented a number of creative products.

Who can forget 'Monks Away', the most effective Monastery disolvent known to man.

And then of course there was the extra strength (& cost effective) "Henry's Spray & Wife"

'"Removes stubborn wives without harsh scratching"

"Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation."

Further down the track we come to the Queen of the Gateaux Chateau


No one really remembers her husband. It is just this lady that holds the dubious claim to fame. Her name exists in history as monumentally as the obelisk that marks the spot where she lost her head.

Not far from that spot is the underground Moon Temple where she may well have died again.

Well why not?

"One day I'm going to go up in a helicopter and it'll just blow up. MI5 will do away with me" - Princess Diana"

"In 1995, two years before her death, Princess Diana warned of a plot to kill her in a "Staged Car Crash"

The possible 'whys' of her death have been gone into extensively, along with the possible who's.

But what if she is, (& has had), a reincarnational career as sacrificial 'queen'? What if her fears of death were re-memberings of dismemberings?

What if the lives & deaths of this queen bee have an intregal part of circulating or recirculating (or recycling) an energy that is not as infinite as we have been led to believe.

What if public rousing tragi-dramas & horrific destruction are what turns the hamster wheel of this cough, cough 'life'?


What if emotions such as human rage & agony are among the methods by which energy & time are eternalized in this world?

If we were all happy for a day would this world go away? What might we see?



I had loads of other personages of historical signifigance to twin up reincarnationally speaking, but I gotta go!

I leave you with this.

Shortly before her (latest?) death, Princess Diana was cruising the Mediterranean in a yacht called, or should I say 'spelled' Sokar


"In Egyptian mythology, Seker (also spelled Sokar...) was originally... the deification of the act of separating the Ba and Ka from the Ha, roughly the separation of soul from the body, after death.

Perhaps it is time to play with history.
To look & wonder if famous names & great ones might not have an air of familiarity.

Additional:
A little extra on the bees that leads to wondering how important a role they may have to play in these strange times.

"For if they are not courteously kept informed of everything that happens, they will take umbrage, swarm, and fly away, or die of grief or resentment. In the British Isles and all over Europe, the folk continually keep the bees abreast of the news, at national as well as local level; decking the hives with crepe or ribbon, whichever fits the case. On one occasion, an ancient great-aunt of mine, hieratically assuming a head-dress of feather and globules of jet, required me to accompany her to the beehives. 'But you surely don't need a hat, Aunt Jane! They're only at the end of the garden.' 'It is the custom', she said, grandly. 'Put a scarf over your head.' Arrived, she stood in silence for a moment. Then - 'I have come to tell you,' she said, formally, 'that King George V is dead. You may be sorry, but I am not. He was not an interesting man."

& how about this?

"For the Bee has at all times and places been the symbol of life - life as immortality. In the Celtic languages, the Cornish 'beu', the Irish 'beo', the Welsh 'byw', can all be translated as 'alive' or 'living'... So, the Bee stands for - or is a manifestation of - the fundamental verb 'to be'. 'I am, thou art, he is', it declares, as it goes humming past."

I wonder...

I heard an old George Michael song on the radio this morning & as I mentioned him in my last article, I lent my ears to his spellyrics.

Because of them I was reminded of something I've wondered about for a while.

The song was Father Figure

and it ends on these lines

"I won’t let you go my baby
I will be your father figure
Put your tiny hand in mine
I will be your preacher teacher
Anything you have in mind
I will be your father figure
I have had enough of crime
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time
I will be your father
I will be your preacher
I will be your father
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time"

That song & those lyrics made me question better, stronger & faster than I've done before - well it is the six million dollar question we're pondering here.

What other notion is there in this world that keeps us eternally hanging on & hanging round.

It must be...

well yes it is madness, but the correct answer is LOVE.

I think there is a general feeling amongst ...errr questioners, that if something has been launched into the mass-mind by a precisely aimed-media barrage, that it may have alternative ...ummm connotations.

Quite some years ago, when my son was about eight, he came to me & sounding slightly shocked, announced that all the songs on the radio were about love, either being in love or having lost it. I, who knew this well, but was so used to it, was forced to take a more conscious note.

There seems to be a general feeling that 'Love' (well our modern version of it), arrived on a flower powered bus in the 60's.


Actually I arrived then too, though not in such a psychedelic way & not on a bus.

From then until now, there seems (to me) to have been this highly intoxicating suggestion that 'all you need is love'. This love thing has entwined it's way into our lives in an extraordinarily virulent way.


Although I'm no expert on the 60's, my historical senses insist on tying the birth of love to the birth of song (as I currently know it)


An inquisitorial discussion (not of the Spanish kind you understand) took place with my West African friend a few weeks ago. Ideas were toyed with & past memories elicited. The sum of this equation equalled the suggestion that music is used to 'invoke' certain energies. When I asked my friend what he felt was invoked with Rock Music (using the Rolling Stones as a touchstone), he felt that an angry, aggressive or youth-filled energy was being called up. His feeling about the Beatles interested me mightily for he felt that their music would be used as an invocation of fertility.

At the time I was impressed for it seemed to me that, in the scheme of things modernly musical, the Beatles were most certainly of seminal import. The '60s were certainly a time of mighty change.

In 1969 a huge contingent of two legged earthlings swallowed the idea that a man conquered the moon with a giant step.



Two years before this big day out, four fabulous footsteps led the world down another mind altering path


In a ritual invocation, the Beatles fertilised Our World with their love in the summer of 1967.


No. no. not our world, I mean Our World.



"Our World was the first live, international, satellite television production."

"With seemingly unstoppable momentum during the summer of 1967 ... The Beatles signed a contract to represent the BBC, and Britain, on Our World, the world's first live television satellite link-up to be seen by approximately 400 million people across five continents... John Lennon wrote the song [All You Need is Love] especially for the occasion, to the brief given by the BBC: it had to be simple so that viewers around the world would understand it.

The satellite link-up was devised by the BBC ... Personalities, including Maria Callas and Pablo Picasso, from 19 nations performed in separate items from their respective countries. The event, which lasted two-and-a-half hours, had the largest television audience to date... For the first time ever, linking five continents and bringing man face to face with mankind, in places as far apart as Canberra and Cape Kennedy, Moscow and Montreal, Samarkand and Söderfors, Takamatsu and Tunis... The Beatles then performed All You Need Is Love... surrounded by various friends including Mick Jagger, Keith Richard, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Moon, Eric Clapton... All were dressed in colourful clothes, and were surrounded by flowers, balloons and placards... After the broadcast ended and the studio guests had left, The Beatles finished off recording the song ahead of its release as a single... All You Need Is Love was mixed the following day, and rush-released on 7 July 1967."

The day that the world stood loved occurred exactly 42 years prior to the death of Michael Jackson this year on 25th June.



The date that recorded Love was released into the world is the now infamous date of the London's 2005 bombings - 7th July.



I didn't start out with any intention of writing about the Beatles, they just came out of the woodwork (as beetles do) whilst I dabbled a little sleuthily on the Internet.

As I was driving home from work tonight & pondering on love, a number of car licence plates seemed to seek out my attention. A Volkswagen called 'Bug', made me think of love bug & ponder on the almost virus like characteristics of modern Love, while another car sporting an XP seemed to suggest to me that perhaps it is through that very word, that we have been conquered.

You see for a while now my somewhat distrusting mind has wondered if the spell that the word love casts is of a destructive nature. I have wondered if it's vibration or frequency could convey a very different message to the one played out to our conscious ears. What if it vibrates to a different tune?

One of the reasons I wonder this is because of the frequency with which this word is used - which is incessantly.

Is it just a word that the marketers of all things material have swooped on or does it invoke something more? Is some energy 'raised' each time the word is used? Remember it is a word that is very much tied to emotion - the vital component of all invocation.

And should this sound too weird, I remind you that there is a rebellious Celt who is firmly convinced that the universal symbol of 'love', the heart, is in fact a symbolic depiction of the vagina. Bearing in mind the power of all things sexual to attract & hold human attention & keep it in the programme it's accustomed to, this should not really be too surprising or unexpected.

If that symbol is a cheat, then what of the word itself?

Perhaps the best thing to do might be to look at the experience of love. If the word was a loaded gun, might we not expect to see evidence of injury amongst 'users' of such a weapon?




I know these refer to the programme of 'romantic love', yet they are eloquent all the same.

If we had eyes to see, might we see that this 'spelling' of love invokes an energy that comes with barbs to wound & hooks that bind too tightly - for these seem to be among the greatest harvests that are reaped when this word is in progress.

As the western world continues it's insatiable conquest of all things living, that emotion-feeling-energy, purported be love, is supremely noticeable by it's absence. We are entombed in a civilisation that spouts love, but enforces artificial isolation.

Anyway this is really just meant to be a little wondering session.

I feel a great tiredness of late amongst those who have shone brightest & it worries me. We did not come here to put our lights out. I do believe that there is a vast trickiness at work within this world. Therefore let's leave no stone or word unturned. I'm simply offering a suggestion that there could be more than one level to this word 'Love' & it might pay to wonder what energy may be being created, magnified, or harnessed with each emotional repetition.

I return to where I started & why I decided to put these thoughts into words. If words & music are used to invoke more than we realise & the word Love has a particular & possibly unhealthy frequency, then how might we re-read or re-hear the lyrics of George Michael & to who or what might they be aimed?

"I won’t let you go my baby
I will be your father figure
Put your tiny hand in mine
I will be your preacher teacher
Anything you have in mind
I will be your father figure
I have had enough of crime
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time
I will be your father
I will be your preacher
I will be your father
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time"

Incidentally, George had his 4th birthday on the day the World got loved by the Beatles.

The god squad

"In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him." (Dereke Bruce)

Now this is where the gods went wrong, they stopped with the dog. Doggone it, they even turned the canine name back to front, lest we forget them.

Not that that would ever be allowed to happen.


For the gods & their games have been stalking us for a very long time indeed.

It seems to me there's been a big show going on, on this catwalk called histroy. Each 'new' culture contributing it's own fashion sense AND religion.


The Greeks came bearing gifts of epic proportions (which is just as well considering that their Olympian overlords were in constant need of sport & entertainment).

Then came the Romans bearing shapely thighs & a great dollop of testosterone (which mightily pleased their own pantheon of prime movers).

Somewhat later they covered up their thighs & brought in a more pontifical & severe look, in keeping with their neo-uno-supergod (minions were allowed to suffer greatly & dress in natural shades of sackcloth & ashes)

Time passed & the Tudors further advanced the severe(d) look with a display of headless queens. They also put a new angle(c)on religion & made themselves rite royal.

More time passed, the world got dissected, inspected & experted upon. Text books were written, stuff was understood & the gods were sent packing to the ignorant past.

Cough, cough.

Sorry, nearly choked on my rosary beads.

For this space & time I suggest that the gods are where they have always been - riding on our backs.

I propose that the religion of each civilisation is tailored to seamlessly fit the society upon which the gods need to feed.

No doubt you've done enough reading to know that similar deities appear throughout a multitude of time periods. Put the Greek god Hermes into a Roman breadmaker & the god Mercury will be sure to rise. Put Artemis into a Versace frock & hey presto, instant Diana. Send a sun god out for a loaf of bread & a son of god will return with a pcinic basket & a couple of fish.

Come on keep up.

Put a newspaper reporter into a phone box, throw in some red & blue underwear & out pops an iron man of steel.

Put an actor on the big screen & the cover of a magazine & out pops a demi-god. Put a songster on the tv tabernacle & the radio pulpit & an idol is propagated. Feed the mind drugged populace a diet of celebrity ad nauseum & a cult is created.

Our modern world worships celebrity. Thesaurus-tically, the word celebrity twins with the likes of the "aristocracy, beautiful people, blue blood, crème de la crème, elect, establishment, glitterati, high society, nobility." It keeps company with the "acclaimed, illustrious, applauded, renowned, glorious, immortal."

"In research published in the British Journal of Psychology, psychologists established a "sliding scale" of celebrity worship - one in which the devoted fan becomes increasingly hooked into the object of their attention, until their feelings begin to resemble addiction."

"Evidence indicates that poor mental health is correlated with celebrity worship."

"It's an unhealthy interest in the lives of the rich and fabulous. According to the researchers, about a third of us have it to some degree."

If we take an etymological looksee at what celebrity was birthed to mean, a rather interesting understanding emerges "celebrity c.1380, "solemn rite or ceremony."



Can we therefore reinterpret the flashing stars that draw eye & heart to the big screen, tv, stage & magazine as clerics & missionaries who spread the word to all corners & curves of the globe?

And if so what is their creed?

How about a religion that is so tailored to the fabric of our modern society that we're not sure which came first. It's (made up by me) name - The Church of the Wholly Material.

We should be noticing by now a certain echoing of previous (& ongoing) religions.
- The familiar crick in the neck that comes from looking UP to greater beings.
- The familiar dues & adulation that must be consistently paid by beings of ground dwelling status.
- And who can forget the grand dramas played out on the screen of life - the heroic actors whose golden deeds of living & dying separates them from their audience whose only task is to grasp these tales with their minds.

Thus we are led back to where I originally intended to start my last article.

With death.

I had erroneously thought that birth was for beginnings, but it seems that those in 'the know' (& they seem to know a lot more than I), prefer death as the entree on the 'menu of creation'.

So if you will just grab a hold of the four horsemen's reigns for a second, we'll contemplate the deadly requirements of any 'good' religion. Let the Greeks lead the way.

"Besides the word worship, we may use the word cult. As in the expression hero cult."

"When we consider the Hero in ancient Greek culture... we must 'de-familiarize' our notion of what a hero is... First and foremost, the... hero was a religious figure, a dead person who received cult honors and was expected in return to bring prosperity...


The hero, who is mortal, not immortal like the gods, must suffer during his or her lifetime, and, significantly, must die. Only after death can the hero receive immortalization in cult and in song. The hero must struggle against the fear of death, in order to achieve the most perfect death. Such a perfect moment must be recorded in song, kleos. Kleos means 'glory, fame, that which is heard'... kleos was used to refer to both the medium and the message of the glory of heroes...



Unlike natural flowers that go through the cycle of blooming and then wilting, this unnatural flower, this kleos, will forever stay the same, never losing its color, aroma, and overall beauty.
The songs sung for heroes and the cult honors given to them in worship and festivals, including athletic festivals, celebrated in their honor, are an attempt to provide compensation for the death of the hero... these honors are considered ongoing and never-ending... those who participate in the worship believe that it will continue forever, thus providing a way for the hero to be immortalized, to live on forever."

"In real worship, we do not just do ritualistic worship but we try to imbibe the qualities of the one we are worshipping" (Rig Veda)

In the last article we looked at one who appears to fulfil a role of herald & chief priest to the gods.

A funereal looking psychcopomp standing before the great temple of Windsor Castle?

So did you pay attention to the Greek bit above? Did you note the need for heroes to be sung - as opposed to unsung. And of course you do realise they do need to be dead, deceased & pushing up the daisies (daisy O.E. dægesege, from dæges eage "day's eye," because the petals open at dawn and close at dusk).

On 15th July 1997, Gianni Versace was murdered as he put a key into the lock of the gateway of his Miami abode. The fashion king was shot twice at close range by a 'gay psycho'. Bloody nutters!

End of story? No.

A wee while ago the king of pop was done to death by lethal injection.

He graciously & posthumously shared the extravaganza of his memorial with his fallen comrade, Gianni Versace.

"MOURNING GLORY: One thing the overwhelmed Jackson clan didn't have to worry about before Michael Jackson's memorial was their clothes. Apparently Janet herself put in a call to Donatella Versace, who knows what it's like to lose a talented brother before his time. She agreed to outfit the whole fam in Versace's finest."



The strange thing is, that 'Jackson' was there to pay homage as Versace died.

"On July 15, 1997, fashion icon Gianni Versace was declared dead at Jackson Memorial Hospital, following a shooting in front of his Ocean Drive mansion, the Casa Casuarina, in Miami Beach."


Coincidentally both icons departed this plane at 50 years of age.

After reading Ellis Taylor's awesome A Year of Tears & Tears article , I decided to toy with time. I found a site that counted down days & up days & proceeded forth to juggle with infamous dates. In my timescale lottery I opted for the choice of including the end date in each count, I'm not of a mathematical bent, but it seemed to make sense to me.

Well I found bugger all & was close to calling it quits when I remembered the importance that Ellis placed on the Michael Jackson sacrifice. So I entered the end days of these two great ones.

What I got blew my socks off (they were last seen orbiting Neptune).

Remembering how important 'remembering' is in all things sacrificial we find that the time between the deaths of Versace & Jackson, is a memorial in itself.

"11 years, 11 months, 11 days including the end date" - 11/11/11

"Remembrance Day ... is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918. (Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 ... The day was specifically dedicated by King George V" (wiki)

"The moment when hostilities ceased on the Western Front became universally associated with the remembrance of those who had died in the war"

"King George V personally requested all the people of the British Empire to suspend normal activities for two minutes on the hour of the armistice "which stayed the worldwide carnage of the four preceding years and marked the victory of Right (Rite?) and Freedom."

The reason I kept the bit about good King George was his connection to Michael & Elton.

It is now 8pm on a Sunday evening. I have work tomorrow & commitments for tomorrow night, therefore what follows will take a creative leaf out of Versace's book & why not, it's because of him that this trek came about. We are gonna mix & mingle as thoughts come to mind & see what kind of outfit we end up with.

So get your thimble at the ready...

We've just seen that King George V took out a copyrite on Remembrance Day & it's sacred hour of 11/11/11. We have linked (well I have) the memorial of Versace & Michael Jackson with those same numbers. Now there is a man who until recently, I somehow kept overlooking despite his connection with the one I called chief priest, Elton John.

Like Elton he also sports two first names, those of George & Michael.

These four christian names got together 6668 (including end date) days ago & sang a song to Apollo or was it Ra?

"It was as a duet with George Michael that "Don't Let The Sun Go Down on Me" had its greatest success. The pair had performed the song at the Live Aid concert in 1985. Recorded live at a concert at Wembley Arena, London on March 25, 1991 when Elton John was a surprise guest of George Michael, the duet became a massive hit on both sides of the Atlantic. It was released later that year and reached number one on the UK singles chart for two weeks in December 1991."

Two points. Firstly 25th March, 1991 that just happened to be Elton John's 44th birthday. Secondly, the sun had in fact just set on he who would be Queen, Freddie Mercury, when this very song peaked in the charts.

Aha I just found a thirdly. According to this page, Don'tletTheSunGODownonMe was preceded by Michael Jackson's "Black or White" which rattles the ol' skull & bones for all of an occult 3:22 minutes.



This returns us to Versace - keeping up ok?

"It was Gianni [Versace] who first collaborated with Michael [Jackson], back in 1983; the designer was still an up-and-comer, and the singer was already a superstar in need of an ensemble worthy of a duet with Paul McCartney (“Say Say Say”). The unusual black-and-white-checked tailcoat Gianni whipped up must have pleased Jackson, as he continued to wear Versace both on- and offstage throughout his life. Several of Michael’s iconic, military-inspired costumes, as seen in both the Dangerous and HIStory tours, were Versace creations."

OK let's whizz forward in time again. Remember Elton, he's back on the centre stage again.

If celebrity is the clergy of the new religion & Elton a chief priest, then would it surprise you to learn that the clergy were gathered at the chief priests abode for his yearly extravaganza White Tie & Tiara Fundraising Party, when the news broke about the death of Michael Jackson.

"Celebrities had descended on Elton's £20million home to attend what has become the society event of the summer. But it seems that the death of the hugely popular pop star cast a shadow over the usually jolly events"

"Would it surprise you to learn that Elton sang for Michael (whom Ellis Taylor calls the representation of Apollo, the sun god) & that the song was "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me".

That particular song we recall was made famous when it was perfomed as a duet with George Michael on Eltons 44th birthday. This year Michael Jackson's death was performed on George Michael's birthday - 25th June.

The SUNGOD song contains a rather worrying line

"although I search myself, it's always someone else I see. "

OK back to Versace - the boldly sexual & dramatic Italian fashion designer (& I believe, yet another high priest of the modern religion). Let's follow the Greeks (& their sneaky gods) again.

"Gianni Versace was born in South Italy – in a landscape known in ancient times as "Magna Graeca", Great Greece, because of its magnificent cities and states, that Greek people had founded there a long time ago. The Greek heritage has lived on in this area, where classical tradition and the union of the unique and the simple are passed on from father to son, mother to daughter."

"Medusa appeared in Versace's world almost immediately, and accounts of his childhood (which differ) say that he had found either a mosaic of her near a beach in Calabria or a statue of her on family property"

"No figure in the world of fashion and design, however, has ever had a closer association with Medusa than Gianni Versace. His self-selected symbol ...

is "now perhaps as twentieth-century an image as the Nike swoosh."

"... he [Versace] declared that "Medusa means seduction"."

"Eccentric rocker SIR ELTON JOHN will only eat from VERSACE china plates, because he's convinced they are all possessed by the spirit of his late pal, designer GIANNI VERSACE.
Elton and his partner, Canadian producer DAVID FURNISH, were close friends with Versace, who was shot dead outside his home in Miami, Florida in 1997. And they claim they feel closer to him when they dine from his china.
David explains, "Because of the great friendship Elton had with Gianni there's a lot of sentimental attachment.
"It's like you can feel his spirit in every bowl."

I'm sorry I'd planned to wrap all this up & get it posted tonight by hook or by crook. Instead, as fast as I type new ideas & connections keep surfacing, so this gets to be an introduction after all.

In the next exciting instalment we check out the first designing family, we strip search the new religion, uncover a terrible curse, journey on a cursed ship & follow a trail of rite 'royal' murders.

Is it just me or can you see the face of the dead king of pop in this album cover? Once I pointed it out to my son he could see it too.