When I sign on to my blog it informs me that I am now on post number 120. Admittedly a few still sit in embryonic stages, but for the most part they're all on show. Of these, the following article is the seventh I have written because of the death of one women during Samhain in 2006.
Adrienne Shelly was an actress, director & screen writer who was murdered by hanging. The accepted story regarding her death can be found all over the internet along with the venom spewed out upon the man who was charged & convicted of her murder. He was sentenced to 25 years.
I will take the last sentence as the opening for this article.
Diego Pillco was sentenced to 25 years.
I've just spent some time looking for a simple explanation of what a literary sentence is. As they don't seem to exist & as I figure you already know what one is, I'll just give a flighty overview & say that
'a sentence is a group of words that paints a little picture in your mind.'
Sentences weave stories. And it is stories that we are concerned with here.
I have always loved stories. They have been a constant & ever faithful companion in my life. However I have also always drawn (or felt) a very definite line between reality & the story world (apparently that's a sign of sanity).
Unfortunately for sanity's sake, I have been reviewing that viewing. The line has become more like twine & this twine seems to be rather more en-twined than I could ever have thought possible. I had thought that stories stayed in their wondrous world & while we struggled on in our rather fucked up one.
But what if the warp & weft of our 'reality' is created through the interweaving of two worlds long held to be separate?
What if the story world has a reality that is quite as valid as our own & not merely a product of our i-magi-nations. What if characters or themes or events can & do step into our world & change it?
I have often looked at how mythology & life have paralleled each other, but given no 'real' thought to the idea that the myth may be as alive as the event.
When I originally found out the date of Adrienne Shelly's death & combined it with some of the lines & characters in her movie, I felt suspicious. However it was a bizarre synch a little while later that committed me to looking deeper.
I had been reading a tremendous book called The Birth of Passion, which questioned why we seem so addicted to pain & betrayal in love. The book delved into two Greek myths, one to explain this scenario & one to suggest another way of relating. The myths were Oedipus & the tale of Cupid & Psyche.
It was while reading the tale of Oedipus that the synch came out of the blue & clobbered me. Oedipus was the lad fated (sentenced?) to kill his father & marry his mother. When the cat was let out of the bag & all revealed, Oedipus gouged out his eyes &, according to my book, his mother-wife Jocasta, went & "hanged herself on a curtain".
It was the curtain that did it for me. Adrienne Shelly was found hanging from a shower rail in her bathroom. In my remembering, the thought of the shower rail had linked to a shower curtain, although in fact it was a bed sheet was used. Strangely, even now the synchs are still occurring, for as I write this my son is watching Psycho, famed for it's 'shower curtain scene'.
Since then I have travelled down many avenues in my research but never came across anything that could explain further, a possible link between Jocasta & Adrienne (well until recently). Nevertheless it was this synch which convinced me to keep looking & to write of what I found.
...... some time later.....
I got stuck on this article & went out. It just wasn't flowing like normal, I think too many pressures & interruptions over the last few weeks & I forgotten that I must seriously play when I write.
I think the reason that synchronicity or any type of intuitive information can be such a 'wow' experience is that it is so majestically personal. It is somehow sublimely relevant to you alone.
It was a variety of synchs that led me to connect the deaths of Heath Ledger & Ruslana Korshunova with Adrienne Shelly. To give even more substance to the links, a Google Earth image showed a Tyburn 'Triple Tree' effect - A triangular trinity of death in Manhattan, one celebrity dying at each corner of a triangle (give or take a street or two).
Bringing the ritualistic triangle in to view even more, we find that Abingdon (set)Square (at the top of the picture) where Adrienne died, is not a square at all.
"Abingdon Square Park... is a tiny, luscious triangle within which, gated off and ringed with flowers, is a mound of grass so green and luscious that in the summertime it seems almost holy, like a sacrament. The park is dominated by the bronze statue of a soldier holding a flag, the Abingdon “Doughboy,” mounted on an imposing block of granite which explains that it purpose is to “honor the brave men who went forth from this neighborhood to join the armed forces of the United States during the World War”. "
I think I smell the sickly aroma of sacrifice.
On a more sweet smelling note, the movie Waitress, has a central focus on these kind of triangles, known as Pie. If I was more knowledgeable I might mention Pi & Demeter 'n' Ceres things like that.
Ruslana Korshunova was a model who was known as the Russian Rapunzel because of her very long locks. Three days before her 21st birthday, she Grimmly launched herself from the balcony of her ninth stor(e)y tower & fell to her death in the moat? (Water St.) below.
Ruslana's name which means Lion, had synched up magnificently with a theme that I'd been working on at the time I wrote about her. She had died in Water Street. Blending these two themes led me magnificently to Rusalkas;
According to wiki, Rusalkas are : "people who die violently and before their time, such as young women who commit suicide ... must live out their designated time on earth as a spirit.
The ghostly version is the soul of a young woman who had died in or near a river or a lake and came to haunt that waterway. This undead rusalka is not invariably malevolent, and will be allowed to die in peace if her death is avenged ... Her hair is sometimes depicted as green or golden, and often perpetually wet. The Rusalka could not live long on dry land, but with her comb she was always safe, for it gave her the power to conjure water when she needed it. According to some legends, should the rusalka's hair dry out, she will die.."
This leads me to why I found the information about Rusalkas so mind blowing at the time & still do. The understanding when it came was so personal. It has led me to questions that seem too big for answers, for this info would only have made sense to someone from New Zealand or Hawaii (which is where the Maori people are believed to have come from).
Lets look at Waitress again
In the Maori language 'Wai' means water & is commonly used in place names as in;
. Wai-kato: (full flowing river).
· Wai-rakei: (the place where the pools were used as mirrors).
· Wai-rarapa: (the glistening waters).
While 'Tress' = "A long lock or ringlet of hair or Archaic A plait or braid of hair."
Suddenly a movie title about someone who serves food & drink, took on a whole new dimension. Looked at in a different light Wai-Tress became water + tress = wet hair. To me this image of Ruslana looked for all the world like her hair was flowing in water. What's more she is not the only Rusalka in this story. But that's for another 'chapter'.
So lets return to the reality of stories. When I went out to clear my head this afternoon, I was listening to a murder mystery audio book in my car. The sleuths were a bit stuck, so it was suggested that they think of the case in hand 'as a story.' It was yet another marvellous synch with theme at hand. We do so see stories as something quite different to 'reality'.
In Waitress, Adrienne Shelly cast herself a waitress called Dawn, who finds love along the way with a rather strange little man called Ogie. In speaking of him she spells out the words that make a death sentence;
Dawn (Adrienne Shelly): "I've found someone who loves me to death."
Jenna (Keri Russell): "Well hopefully not to death."
A quick search of the past lives of the man who 'loves her to death', Eddie Jemison, reveals some interesting aqueous connections. He starred in the three consecutive watery movies, Oceans 11,12,13. In those nautical days he went by the name of Livingston Dell (ding, dong & all that).
Deciding to leave no stone unturned, I upended Livingston & gave him a good shake. This is what fell off.
It was Dr Livingstone I presume, you realise, who gave one of the greatest waterfalls in the world, Mosi-oa-Tunya (the Smoke that Thunders)...
it's Occidental signature, as Victoria Falls (or was she pushed?).
A number of internet sources give this breakdown of the name Livingston;
"The name itself originates in Scotland ... derived from Livingston in Lothian... This place name was originally named after a man named Levin who appears in several 12th century charters"
Adrienne Shelly was born Adrienne Levine & took Shelly as her stage name. In keeping with our double H & single O theme, we find that Livingston has a residential area known as Ladywell (ding dong).
A final shake of the stone reveals an additional snippett
"In addition to that source, Livingston can be traced to two other ancestors ... [including] the Jewish surname Lowenstein, meaning ''Lion stone."
As so often happens when I begin to write, I find myself inundated with additional informational side-treks. Thus it as that yet another route appeared. Originally the next few paragraphs existed as a space between two literary points but E suddenly equalled MC or some such thing & there arose a rip in the continuum of this article. Here's what now fills that once small space.
As mentioned before, Rusalana means Lion. If you play (carefully) with her name then you will find a very famous lion watching from within - Ru-SLANA or ASLAN.
From wiki:
"Aslan, the "Great Lion", is the central character in The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy novels" (...hmmm like my seven fantasy articles perhaps). Maybe you've read the books or seen the movie (no, no not mine, I mean the 'Narnian' ones) & remember that Aslan is sacrificed on a large stone table - a 'Lion Stone' perhaps? I went back to wiki & HAD to include this;
"Deeper Magic Before From The Dawn Of Time
Susan and Lucy are explained the Deeper Magic From Before Dawn Of Time which says that if anyone is killed on the Stone Table though he hasn't committed a crime, the Stone Table Shall Break and The Man will come alive.
"...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."
This has a hidden moral in it. It says that "Death is also afraid of the one who is always on the path of truth, and willingly sacrifice their lives in a traitor's hands on a purpose to save others".
This again goes back to "Long Live Truth". "
Hmmm, well I'm all for truth, yet what is this fascination with sacrifice, perhaps it's just that I'm short-sighted, but I have yet to see any sacrifice bring any of the wondrous for-centuries-spouted claims.
Isn't this a stone table? I guess all the lines (lions) at the back were 'practice' sacrifices before they got it 'rite'.
Anyway we've now completed that little side trek & returned to where we left off with Ed-die 'Lion stone' Jemison. It seems he is now set to to star in an HBO production called Hung, yes I did a double take when I saw that - but it's ok (really), it's just a coincidence after all. Apparently the title has something to do with the prefix 'Well', because of course they would not sink to any lower levels than that.
One yet further synch to round this off & lead on to the next side track.
Anne Heche was mentioned repeatedly in the Hung reviews. It was she who was brutally murdered in my lounge as my son watched Psycho (I'd hired the remake instead of the original by 'apparent' mistake). A quick investigation on her wiki page reveals that she was born in Aurora, Ohio. This led me to exclaim aloud in rare unladylike terms, because Aurora has become very familiar to me, for it is the Latin name for Dawn, aka Adrienne Shelly.
.......... just back from another internet surf.
I tell you what, NEVER try to outdo your intuition & sense of play with logic or reason or you'll miss the most amazing treasure. I find on re-looking at Aurora, that there is a synchronistic gem just waiting to be seen.
Here's wiki: "In ancient Roman mythology Aurora, goddess of the dawn, renews herself every morning and flies across the sky, announcing the arrival of the sun... A myth taken from the Greek Eos [Greek version of Aurora] by Roman poets tells that one of her lovers was the prince of Troy, Tithonus. Tithonus was a mortal, and would age and die. Wanting to be with her lover for all eternity, Aurora asked Zeus to grant immortality to Tithonus. Zeus granted her wish, however Aurora had failed to ask him for eternal youth. As a result, Tithonus ended up aging eternally. Aurora ended up turning her beloved Tithonus into a grasshopper."
The 'Grasshopper' of course died by hanging just over a month ago. Two victims of hanging from our world woven together in one mythical story.
While researching hanging for my recent articles, I came upon a statement that said that Shakespeare had mentioned 'hanging' in some form or other in almost all his plays - at present I haven't been able to find it again. However the stories written by the 'wobbly skewer' have been spectacularly interwoven through four of our real centuries.
Although familiar with a few of his plays, I only knew King Lear by name. In searching for the Shakespeare-hanging link above, I happened upon Cordelia, Lear's youngest daughter. I was rather surprised, as was her father it seems, to find that Shakespeare had her hanged.
And on the same subject, what knew he of the future, when he wrote the following in Romeo & Juliet?
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the furthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora's bed"
This mingling of story worlds keeps reappearing for me, not least in regards to Adrienne Shelly's husband's because of his name - Andy Ostroy or O'Story. Within that name also lies one of the most famous stories of all time - Troy. Indeed, I'm of the opinion that much of the strife between the sexes may hail from that story - a future article perhaps. Nevertheless it too is supremely apt for this tale, woven as it is & will be, around the feminine elements of women & water.
In the next installment, we dig the time machine out of the garage, dust it off & travel back to another dawning time nearly two hundred years ago & visit with more Rusalkas ...Unless I get sidetracked again, in which case we will follow the trail of a demon.
Either way both roads will be travelled......
