Saturday, February 6, 2010

The CruX of the Matter - Part 3 (& climbing)


Welcome aboard the Mad Ship Too Long in this Place, for our scenic cruise to the stars via the world of d'illusions.

Passengers are advised that they may disembark at any time by pressing firmly on the emergency escape Xbox at the top right hand of their Xporthole.



For your viewing pleasure & in the interests of sanity, we would like to request that remaining passengers please stow all precious beliefs & treasured logic in the safety deposit box under their seat.
Please note that staff will not be held responsible for the loss of any rationality along the way.



Those passengers who have taken the time to read our brochures (The Southern X-Ross Bow - parts ein und zwei) will hopefully appreciate the relevance of undertaking this journey aboard a sailing vessel.

We thank you for your attention & hope you enjoy your time aboard the MS TLITP (End of recorded message).

.....................................................................

Until recently I thought that the land of New Zealand, where I live & breathe, was a relatively free land.

That was until I started looking under rocks. Then I found a different picture. It was a picture of possession. And it was painted by the corporation formerly known as the British Empire.


An excerpt from the Elizabethan Xmas-box speech (2009);

"The Commonwealth is a successor to the British Empire and brings together a diverse spread of around a third of the world's countries and a quarter of its population ... It is, in lots of ways, the face of the future."

Briefly, because it is boring - "The ... Commonwealth of Nations, [is] an intergovernmental organisation which currently comprises 54 sovereign states ... The current Head of the Commonwealth is Queen Elizabeth II. Within the current 54 Commonwealth members, 16 are sometimes described ... as Commonwealth realms, where Elizabeth II serves separately as head of state in her capacity as sovereign."

"Her role as "Head" of the Commonwealth can be perhaps best likened to that of a ceremonial president."

I must admit that the royal tilt to this series came as a surprise to me.

Some months ago while on waiting parental duty, I wandered into a 2nd hand book store. The kindly custodian informed me that all books with a red dot could go out the door at $1 a piece. Thus it was I picked up a couple of semi-ancient books on Queen Elizabeth II with a vague idea that they might come in handy for future research.

Well, they were a bargain!

I know not what royalty entails, but it's high degree of strictured, structured & sutured ritualism, does beg for questioning.

What lies behind the vast requirements of homage & loyalty?

What lies behind it's excessive symbolism?

Why have I found so many royal fingers in so many Kiwi pies?

Here below lies the downunderworld titling of the commonwealthy queen;

"Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith"

& here apparently, is the NZ royal standard - if you can spot NZ please let me know. I must admit to an uneasy concern upon regarding the once-up-on-the-rite wall hanging.


On 6 February 1840, in a place where the waters weep, the Waitangi Treaty was signed by British Crown representatives & Maori chiefs:

"In the English version, Article one signs the rights of sovereignty in New Zealand over to the Queen of England." For your etymological grounding - "sign (v.) c.1300, "to make the sign of the cross"

112 years to the day after making the sign of that cross, a king died & a new queen lived.


Let's back up & dock on one of the biggest days in herstory.

The reason?

To re-sight & see what is perhaps the most amazing coincidence of the 20th century.

On 2 June 1953 ...


... newspaper editors around the world must have achieved simultaneous orgasm ...

... as two meteoric events ejaculated onto their front pages.


For the hard of seeing the above reads;

"2 OF BRITISH TEAM CONQUER EVEREST:
QUEEN GETS NEWS AS CORONATION GIFT:
THRONGS LINE HER PROCESSION ROUTE"
Everest was 'conquered' on May 29, but it took 4 days to achieve mass consciousness.

Sitting open on my desk at the moment is a book with this image ...


The text reads "The crowning moment: Tenzing Norgay on the summit of Everest"

So let's turn up the heat & have a go at re-producing the blaze & craze of fever that was intentionally & internationally, brought to a scorching climax on that Juneish day...

Please bear in mind that the collective humanity of the 1950's bears little resemblance to the zombie collective of today.

"The country was gripped by coronation fever, in those days any royal event was marked by a street party, the time of year allowing, but the Coronation was such a big event, it went unsaid that everyone in the land would hold some kind of celebration. I was nearly fourteen in June 1953, and I was very excited by all these preparations, being nearly fourteen in those days was on a level to being nearly four years old, by today’s standards."



"There must have been about twenty people crowded into this small room waiting for the moment that the Queen was crowned.
Afterwards we had a street party ... I also remember being told that Mount Everest was conquered on this day
"



"We were listening live from Fiji. I remember I was 15 years old We were cheering and were dancing in the streets"

"We watched the entire Service in awe ..."

"This day is tied up in my mind with the pride of the Everest conquest"

"I remember being absolutely in awe of this lovely young woman and the pomp and ceremony that surrounded her. I have been a staunch monarchist every since"


"The coronation of the Queen was the first ever to be televised, and was also the world's first major international event to be broadcast on television ... approximately three million spectators gathered in the streets of London, some having camped overnight in their spot to ensure a view of the monarch ...



For those not present to witness the event, more than 200 microphones were stationed along the path and in Westminster Abbey, with 750 commentators broadcasting descriptions in 39 languages; more than twenty million viewers around the world watched the coverage"


"The coronation itself took more than a year to plan. It was a religious ritual, parts of it unchanged for a thousand years. The rite included the wearing of special garments, anointing, and oaths by the nobles to serve the queen, and by the queen to serve her people. She was presented with symbols of dominion: golden spurs, bracelets, a jeweled orb and cross, a coronation ring, two scepters and two ritual swords. In the climactic moment the Archbishop of Canterbury placed St. Edward’s Crown (weighing 5 pounds and encrusted with 440 jewels and semiprecious stones) on Elizabeth’s head. The assembled multitudes inside Westminster Abbey then rose and shouted “God Save the Queen,” trumpets sounded and, miles away at the Tower of London, cannon fired."

Ok enough queening around the place.

I wanted to give you a taster of the colossal mesmerisation that went down on 2 June, 1953. I lost my footing in this article earlier in this week, & it took me a while to work out why. I finally realised that I had made the mistake of putting Queen before people & country.

I realised that in order for this article to move forth, the queen had to move back a few spaces.


She was not amused.

The view from my current window of today looks like this:
In this world of weirdness there are two major groups - sowers & reapers.

The Sowers are those that create in all shapes & forms (& by rights they should benefit from their creations).

However a very snug system has been put in place, which makes the above statement the stuff of foolish fancy.

Instead there are the rapers, whoops sorry, of course I mean 'reapers'. These are the rulers & runners & profiteers of this system. They do not create, they merely channel & absorb & stake their claim upon the creative energy, efforts & end results of the Sowers.

So you see you cannot put them in the lead. They follow & they glean ...


... the untold riches left behind by the creative gods of this world - that's you & me kiddo, I kid you knot.

Yet time & time again we fall blinded before the pomped, ceremonied & glitzied 'framed' faces on the box or big screen.



Or we fall before people whose job title begins with THE definite article...



... you know people with surnames like 'President', 'Prime Minister', 'Queen' & even the rather risqué 'Honourable Member'.

This is why I feel I have to put Edmund Hillary before the Queen. It's also why I feel he was nabbed & squired, by said gleaner, so very promptly after his accession to the throne of the world.

A newly bee-knighted Hillary alongside a Royal Huntsman

"Hillary had no idea he had been knighted until he received an envelope addressed to him with the postnominals KBE written on there – the Prime Minister of NZ had accepted on his behalf!"

Why was it, I wondered, that this Kiwi bloke should have become so thoroughly royally & ritually encrusted during his life?


"Hillary was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) on 6 June 1953"

&

"member of the Order Of New Zealand (ONZ) in 1987; (created "to recognise outstanding service to the Crown and people of New Zealand in a civil or military capacity". It was instituted on 6 February (once again that royal date hoves into view) 1987"


&

"Knight of the Order of the Garter (KG) on 22 April 1995" - This is the pinnacle of the honours system of the Untied Kingdom. Membership is restricted to the sovereign, the Prince of Wales, and no more than twenty-four honourable members.


&

he was also "awarded the Polar Medal for his part in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (awarded by the Sovereign of the United Kingdom ... for extreme human endeavour against the appalling weather and conditions that exist in the Arctic and Antarctic)."

Joining up the four 'ships' in the first two parts of this series, created a cross. It sparkled thoughts of the Southern Cross (or CRUX as it is astronomically known) - it's kind of like THE down-Underworld constellation.


In the starry section of the library I became reacquainted with The Star Mirror by Mark Vidler, a book suggested long ago by a reader that had not connected at the time. This time, the time was rite.

Apollo-geez, but I can't be arsed doing a big review so I've thieved a few commentaries;

"Vidler explores the implications of the alignment, or mirror image, that has appeared between the most brilliant stars in the sky and the highest mountains on our planet. He argues that this parallel was recognised by builders of ancient monuments ...which are aligned under the brightest stars"

... has demonstrated at extensive length that every megalithic monument found throughout the world in ancient civilizations pointed (in their day) to a very bright magnitude star in constellations which are right now above us in our own skies. The fascinating thing is that these bright stars are lined up directly above the tallest mountain peaks in the world"

(Hopefully) you recall that this series started with NZ ships & disasters. I have long wondered about what lies behind such calamities - I just don't see secret societies or dark magicians having the time or intelligence to be the cause of so many well-timed sacrifices. Nor do I see co-incidence.

Yet I can't help feeling something is afoot or astern.

Disaster - " Obsolete An evil influence of a star or planet"

"An unpropitious or baleful aspect of a planet or star; malevolent influence of a heavenly body; hence, an ill portent"

"from Italian disastro ... literally 'ill-starred' ... underlying meaning of the word malevolent astral influence"

What a disa-STAR! As Above sew Below.

Have we magnificently underrated the touch of the heavens? Are the stars as intricately connected to us as our breath? Mythology tells us that earth & heaven were once fastened in an extraordinary embrace.

What if mountains act as star resonators? I've often wondered if Mr of Gogh, could see a whole lot better than us.


What if mountains are astral musical scales?


What if the sound or call of the stars, summoned the mountains from the earth?


What if stars & mountains are brothers & sisters?

For the duration of this article let us grant life to Mt Everest.

In days of old she was known as the Third Pole of the Earth. Many westernised men & nations lusted after her. In Nepal she has the name of Chomolungma - Mother Goddess of the World, a markedly different viewing.

Have you ever looked at her common name?

She was X-tened after "Colonel Sir George Everest ... the Welsh Surveyor-General of India from 1830 to 1843.

"One of the most stupendous tasks in the history of science, started 200 years ago by William Lambton and completed four decades later by George Everest, resulted in the Great Indian Arc of the Meridian. It also established that the Himalayas constituted a mountain range and Mount Everest was the highest point on the earth."

"In 1865, Mount Everest was named in his honour despite his objections. It was surveyed by his successor, Andrew Waugh." It seems Mr WAR was quite insistent on naming this peak after his (Masonic) predecessor. What's really interessant is the sounding of the Surveyor General's nom-de-plume, for according to John Keay in The Great Arc, Mr Everest pronounced himself EVE-REST.


Hmmm... I'm beginning to get a diferent picture.

Unbeknownst to us heathen mis-interpreters, it seems that all along we have been looking at the great biblical mother of Earth.

I guess the Nepalese must have been having a bloody good laugh.

So lets get outrageously pagan.

We have given life to Mt Everest & along the way we have found our mother Eve, resting atop the world. We wonder why her name was kept in the dark.

Has she been watching us & for how long?

When the fevered eyes of Western domination turned their lustful gaze upon her did she determinedly resist their advances, ruthlessley throwing back the lifeless bodies of charming would-be despoilers?

There was one whom she called & he answered. She possessed his mind & his heart. On his third coming he drew so close he almost touched her. But when she saw that he was not the one she took him in her death grip & clasped him to her for three quarters of a century, echoing that time when earth & sky had once been locked together. On May Day 1999, this mountain Kali finally released her hold & shepherded a group of seekers to 'discover' his body.

" In 1924, two British mountaineers were spotted high on Mt. Everest at about 1PM, only a few hours from the summit. Mists swirled in and lost them to view. It was veteran climber George Mallory and his powerful young companion Andrew Irvine. Both men were using early oxygen equipment, climbing in the last gasp of this, the third expedition to the mountain. The question that remains in every mountaineer’s heart has never been answered: Did either make it to the top before perishing on the descent?"


In the wanderings of my mind upon the slopes of Eve-rest, a picture emerged of so many little men scurrying to attain the climax of this goddess mountain - my picture looked a little like this


I have long been of the unauthorised opinion that the egg within the female is a very living entity that allows entry to the sperm with the corresponding key or song - rather like the password that allows access to your computer or your Swiss bank account. IMHO, the two are like supreme dancing partners.


This is also how I viewed the earth shaking events on top of the world of May 1953.

What I'm suggesting is that Edmund Hillary was correctly encoded for accsession to Eve's resting place. His journey would have been no less strenuous, but his success was assured. He was the second of the team from the ninth English Hunting party to attempt to reach her summit. The first pair were rejected.

"In 1953, under the leadership of John Hunt, the British were given permission to climb Mount Everest ... On May 26, 1953, the first assault party comprising Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans set off for the south summit ... At the south summit they realized that they would not be able to reach the summit owing to lack of time. Wearily, they returned to Camp XIII.

On May 28, the second assault party comprising Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made their bid. Together they set off, establishing Camp IX at 27,900 feet (8503 m) before spending a bitterly cold and desolate night trying to sleep. At 4 a.m., they finally rose and began preparing themselves for the day ahead ... they departed at 6.30 a.m. Climbing steadily, they reached the south summit at 9 a.m. Onward and upwards into the unknown they persevered. As Hillary stated:I continued hacking steps along the ridge and then up a few more to the right to my great delight I realized we were on top of Mount Everest and that the whole world spread out below us”. It was 11.30 a.m. on May 29, 1953. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary had reached the highest point on the earth."

Although I'm an in-expert of things alphabetical, mathematical & numerological, I really couldn't miss the glaring name/number/letter surfacings & resurfacings, & suggest they make up part of the magical code that allowed Sir Ed to pass safely by.

First we can create with his name:

Hill-à- ("Ré is the ancient Egyptian sun god") hmmm so Hill of the Sun God - I think this would certainly be acceptable to a Mother Goddess.
The man was of imposing stature too, at 6'5". "The image of the tall, imposing New Zealander, catapulted Hillary into the status of media hero."
Hillary: "The meaning of the name Hillary is 'Cheerful'."


Now compare that with Mallory: "The meaning of the name Mallory is 'Luckless'."



"Tall and classically handsome, Mallory quickly became a "star" among mountaineers."

Hill-à- went to Eve when he was at that most holy age for ascension - 33.

Next we come to the elevenses. I have read that 11:11 is some kind of New Age awakening code, personally I don't have a bloody clue. That being said, the tale of Sir Ed is positively littered with 'legs 11' so I suggest something is afoot. They certainly appear to have a mighty powerful appeal to those in the know (& perhaps somewhere within our benumb(er)ed psyches too). We also recall those very popular little trauma numbers 911 & 11/11/11.

We're gonna get creative here & why not? I'm seeing '11' & 'll' as magical dance partners. Numerologically the letter 'l' has a value of 12 which is then reduced to a single digit (1+2)= 3.
Unless I'm worse at maths than I thought, the appearance of the double 'l' gives the resounding & masonically bee-loved 33. Messrs Mallory & Hillary had remarkably similar name codes n'est-ce pas?

The first team on the Hunting expedition also contained that formula;
"On May 26, 1953, the first assault party comprising Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans set off for the south summit." Bourdillon would die in a climbing accident 3 years later.

I happened upon a book about two NZ mountaineers recently - Messrs Hall & Ball, who had set up the climbing business, Adventure Consultants. Gary Ball died on a mountain in 1993 while Rob Hall was one of the 8 who died on Mt Everest on 11 May 1996.

Hillary arrived on top of the world, with Tenzing Norgay at 11.30am. (no I've not forgotten Mr Norgay, indeed I believe he was a very wisely chosen companion). He was flash knighted by Elizabeth II, 8 days after his crowning achievement.

Edmund Hillary died on 11 January 2008. His funeral took place 11 days later, the very day another knight began his eternal slumber.



I had wondered previously if part of the reason that Eve had allowed Ed to pass was because he was a 'honeyed man' - his profession as a beekeeper being most amenable to any waiting goddess.



The man who ascended to the 33rd degree of the world, was born on 20th July - on his 50th birthday we are told that Apollo 11 landed on top of the moon goddess. They carried a symbolic beekeeper with them too - Buzz Aldrin.

On 29 May, 1953 Edmund Hillary became consort to the Mother Goddess & by Xtension, father to this world. Is it any wonder he was so very promptly knighted by the gleaning queen. His new job title became him very well - Sir Ed or Sired.



In the years following his climb he did in deed become a father figure. His obituary in 2008 read "Sir Edmund Hillary has been mourned in Nepal as a "second father" to the Sherpa people and an honorary son of their mountains and valleys."

There has always been some speculation as to whether Mallory & Irvine did actually make it to the top of Everest. In typical forthright Kiwi style Sir Ed, echoed Mallory's own son (& to my mind the mountain herself) with these words;
""If you climb a mountain for the first time and die on the descent, is it really a complete first ascent of the mountain? I am rather inclined to think personally that may be it is quite important, the getting down, and the complete climb of a mountain is reaching the summit and getting safely to the bottom again."

It's definitely time to round off this segment - sorry just too much info to reach 'closure'. I would like to say that no disrespect is aimed at Edmund Hillary. I'm simply looking at historical possibilities from different angles. If our world is running on an endless loop then 'great' events, may very well be forseen or 'created' at the appropriate time. Heck we may all be following scripts. My personal feeling is that I've had more than enough soap operas & that it's time to sack the script writers.

Actually now that I come to mention it, I am looking for a new job ...

Some headlines to wind (you) up :)

"The Queen and Prince Philip were particularly interested in the News Chronicle of June 2, 1953 - the day of the Coronation - and its coverage of the conquering of Everest under the headline "The crowning glory"."

"The Olympic torch was lit at the top of Mount Everest on Thursday, the crowning moment of the Beijing"

"Establishing the last camp was the crux of our Everest climb."

"In 1969, Elizabeth sent a congratulatory message to the Apollo 11 crew on the first manned lunar landing; the micro-filmed message was left in a metal container on the moon's surface. She later met the crew at Buckingham Palace."

"Apo
llo 11 Moon Rocks Headed for the Summit of Mt. Everest with Astronaut Climber"

An encore:

This is a rather spectacular grave.

Little old NZ built this whopping great memorial for a Labour Prime Minister, apparently. The words upon the obelisk spell this out.

"THERE IS NO FAME TO RISE ABOVE THE CROWNING HONOUR OF A PEOPLE'S LOVE"

Why highlight The Crowning with big capitals, I wonder? Is't really a monument to a Prime Minister or do the words suggest something a little grander? I know of no other like this in the country & it is on some of the most prized land in Auckland - Bastion Pt, an area of much dispute between Maori & govt when I was growing up.

"Despite some public concern that the memorial was an extravagance in wartime, work was begun by Fletcher Construction in June 1941 and completed by March the following year. The New Zealand Labour Party met the costs of the mausoleum, estimated at £4000."


I found the doubled-up double el in this Masonic line-up most intriguing. My son suggested that they had spelled it wrong at first, but the spacing left for the 'O' suggests they spelled it just rite. If one tipsies up the 'W', one could also find another pair. Bloody 'ell!

There is one other very famous erection in Auckland & none too far away either. It seems this one was called for by the 'Father of Auckland" - he was a man of EL too

Senses on full bollocks alert please!

"Although it was constructed nearly 30 years after Sir John Logan Campbell’s death, it fulfilled the terms expressed in his will and he had reserved money for that purpose. The Obelisk is situated near Campbell’s own grave, but it was not intended to honour him. It was built as a permanent record of his admiration for the achievements and character of the great Maori race. Campbell decided on the idea of an obelisk after admiring them during his travels in Egypt... The obelisk is 33 metres in height"

"The stone obelisk was completed by 1940 – the centennial year of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi"

Monday, January 25, 2010

A quick Quest (ion)


Is't me

or have you also gotten your imaginings of the future

from the watchings of the shrine in your living room


or

the incessant dj'd voices on your 'wireless' ...


or the wordings (word rings?) in your daily bible?

Does the viewing of the society in which we are currently, very neatly packed


tend to mirror

or be made to mirror


the world that we grew up with


or that grew up in ...

(& all round),

the inside of our heads


Is there even the remotest possibility


that we can envision a world


that has not been tele-visioned into us?


I seem to find myself mole-blind to all my tomorrows



but then again perhaps our eyes are over-rated when it comes to
days to come

causing us to strain our sight down an imaginary tube shaped distance,


when all along we were simply meant ...


to breathe our moments

in & out ...

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Southern X-Ross Bow (The Crux of the Matter) Part deux


We now make a bow to the Bow in the title - a 'Rain bow'.

Normally they look like this...


But in July 1985, a firm of French fashion designers (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure) created a hole new look ...





... when they bombed the Rainbow Warrior (twice) in Auckland Harbour.



Their historically accepted dire-ctive was "to sink the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet ... to prevent her from interfering in a nuclear test in Moruroa."
From 1966 -1996, Mururoa Atoll was the French Nuclear Golf Course of the Pacific. Here they had a thirty year 'blast' attempting to get a hole in one. According to wiki, 41 shots were teed off above ground & 147 from bunkers - giving them a final score of 188.


We return to the scene of the former crime.


"The first bomb exploded at 11.38pm, lifting those in the mess off their seats. Davy Edwards rushed into the engine room to find a hole the size of a car, water pouring in. Everyone was ordered off the ship but some went back to grab possessions. Fernando Pereira, the ship's photographer, was one of them, perhaps going after his precious cameras. There was a second explosion and, caught in a rush of water, Pereira drowned."


As with the Mikhail Lermentov (still 222 days in the future), one ship & one man die.

The name Pereira translates to pear which further translates homophonically to 'pair' - echoing the number of explosions, the similarities of two men who die on two tale telling ships & pre-echoing the man who will die twice, Mikhail Lermontov.

I really can't see that this smallish nuisance protest vessel, that had seen better sailing days, was ever going to be hard to 'dispose' of. A little nudge, accident or sabotage, somewhere on her travels would have done the trick nicely.

Instead a team of specialists was freighted in from France to perform open heart surgery on a vessel taking a breather in the heart of Auckland,

... the largest city in a non aggressive country lying at the end (& the beginning) of the world. Were we to continue our golfing analogy it would have been akin to Mr Woods taking out a full page advert in 'Adulterer's Weekly' prior to his unravelling. As a covert undercover operation, it made no(n) sense.

The sensing however, that the sacrificing of the Rainbow Warrior was an occult ritual, really hit home on learning that the a-bomb-in-able 'incision' was s-p-e-l-l-e-d "Opération Satanique" (Satanic).

At what part of a ritual does 'fate' kick in? Do the Fates come calling as the ritual progresses? Or do certain actions have to take place prior to the event in order to summon the sacrificial lamb (or pear) to their allotted destiny?

"In Greek and Roman mythology, pears are sacred to three goddesses: Hera (Juno to the Romans), Aphrodite (Venus to the Romans), and Pomona, an Italian goddess of gardens and harvests... The ancient Chinese believed that the pear was a symbol of immortality. (Pear trees live for a long time.) In Chinese the word li means both "pear" and "separation".



Now I'd like to take you on a short ramble on a little track I chanced upon. What seems at first to be disconnected, on second glance has the trappings of some deep forgotten truth. In searching for pear pics I came across the words of a painting wise woman.

"And then one fateful night I created — seemingly from nowhere — a painting with three pears. It seemed somewhat odd reflecting on it later, since I had no known connection to this plump little fruit. The pears then started appearing in my work on a very regular basis, still without much thought, but it seemed very natural and comforting to paint them. ... Naturally people began asking “What’s with the pears?” For years I had no enlightened response ... Then, finally a few events fell into place ... One inquiring friend had made the observation that a pear actually resembles the human heart much more than the traditional Valentine version ... I have endured three open heart surgeries, starting at the age of six. The pears were my hearts — my three hearts, my three chances at life. It made sense that I repeated this image, it was my symbol for life. If I didn’t paint pears for a couple of weeks I would get tired, irritated, off balance. It enlivens me to paint pears, to put them out there, to share them, each pear reaffirming my life and the thanks I give for each chance at life." I heartily recommend the full story here - don't worry it's short & sweet.

And a little foray into the world of art



Madonna of the Pear 1512 (Albrecht Dürer)

"
The pear as an attribute of Christ and Maria is not rare in Venetian painting of the Renaissance, and it appears in all Italian painting;... the sweetness of the taste symbolizes the sweetness of mouth and heart, which are, according to Saint Bonaventure, the gifts of the wise." In case you have trouble locating the aforementioned fruit in the above-mentioned painting, look to JC's hand - the babe got peckish.

On checking out factual descriptions of the human heart, I found many a medical personage agreeing with our sage artiste -

"The human heart resembles the shape of an upside down pear"
"The human heart is a pear-shaped structure"

Something in the lady artists words stirred something in me, something to do with the forgotten wildness & naturalness of our hearts.


continuing...

The naming of the Rainbow Warrior is said to come from an American Indian Prophecy;

"There will come a time when the Earth grows sick and when it does a tribe will gather from all the cultures of the World who believe in deed and not words. They will work to heal it...they will be known as the "Warriors of the Rainbow."

& a little from wiki "Whether as bridge, messenger, archer's bow or serpent, the rainbow has been pressed into symbolic service for millenia."

The historical blend of prism & ship goes back to the greatest ocean going liner of all time. It appeared when the CEO of Earth Inc made Noah & Sons Ltd redundant with the wave of a magical rainbow, & promised forthwith not to get into such a foul mood again.


Of course we can't leave the Greeks out ...

"IRIS was the goddess of the rainbow, the messenger of the Olympian gods. She was often represented as the handmaiden and personal messenger of Hera (aforementioned pear goddess). Iris was a goddess of sea and sky--her father Thaumas "the wondrous" was a marine-god, and her mother Elektra "the amber" a cloud-nymph ... Her name contains a double meaning, being connected both with iris, "the rainbow," and eiris, "messenger."

or the Romans...

"July 10, 1985. Dishevelled, and numb with shock, the crew of the Rainbow Warrior stood, staring into the dark waters of Marsden Wharf, the smallest of three commercial piers piercing Auckland's Waitemata Harbour. Before them, lying crippled and half submerged in the water was the Warrior - their home and an international symbol of peace"

You know I almost missed the spelling of this place of spells - Marsden - or the den of Mars



"scourge of mortals, piercer of shields, the bloodstained one"

"Mars, the Roman God of War, was one of the most worshipped and revered gods throughout ancient Rome. He was the son of Jupiter and Juno (aka the pear goddess Hera) and according to legend, fathered Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome"

Pertaining to Mars' astrological influence we find - "In nature it rules heat, fire, earthquakes, violence, war and explosions. The power of psychological fears and phobias fester within the inner darkness until finally it explodes (Mars rules explosions) to the surface."

"Mars means "bright and burning one"."

Why I wonder was Auckland chosen to be the city at the end of the rainbow? It is rather interesting that while terrorism was being publicly condemned, the ending of the rainbow was greeted with silence (license?) by the then reigning emperor of the USA, Ceasar Reagan & by his co-ruler across the waters, Cleo Thatcher. But then perhaps they were busy telling tales of goats to kiddies at the time.

Almost two & half years later, in December 1987, the corpse of the Rainbow Warrior is towed to the north east of the North Island of NZ & scuttled "to serve as a dive wreck and fish sanctuary."






"Diver Dover Samuels was in the water as the Rainbow Warrior went down. His comments reflect the feelings of many who have since had the experience of diving the Rainbow Warrior. Said Samuels, “To me the Rainbow Warrior is not just a steel structure. It’s a ship with a living heart and the dignity and manna that a warrior’s burial carries with it.”
The ship that was sunk in 'Opération Satanique' presently holds a perfectly aligned death mirror to the Mikhail Lermontov - both times 1 man aged 33 died out-rite, followed by the subsequent deaths of 3 recreational divers.

2003: "A BRITISH woman tourist has died after diving near the wreck of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior off New Zealand...was exploring the underwater wreck ... when the freak accident happened"

February 2005: "The Rainbow Warrior wreck in Northland has been the site of two diver deaths this month, though an instructor and guide says the popular site is not difficult.
Neil John Doherty, 27, died in Auckland Hospital on Thursday after he surfaced in difficulty at the site near Matauri Bay.
On February 10, a 53-year-old English tourist died after she was pulled from the water unconscious
."

Now we come to our fourth ship. Well actually I'm being a bit creative here, because this time it is an air-ship. Nevertheless I'm suggesting that it was a ship that drove it onto the rocks.

The date is 28th November & the year is 1979.

An Air NZ DC10 is on a sightseeing flight to the Antarctic.

"Collins and Cassin input the coordinates into the plane's computer before they departed at 8.21 am NZDT ... from Auckland International Airport... Unknown to them, the coordinates had been modified earlier that morning to correct the error introduced years previously and undetected until now... the flight crew believed they were flying over McMurdo Sound, well to the west of Mt Erebus and with the Ross Ice Shelf visible on the horizon, when in reality they were flying directly towards the mountain...


... Despite most of the crew being engaged in identifying visual landmarks at the time, they never perceived the mountain directly in front of them. Approximately six minutes after completing a descent in ... good weather and with visibility out to at least 23 miles ... the Ground Proximity Warning System began sounding a warning that the plane was dangerously close to terrain. Although Collins immediately requested go-around power, there was no time to divert the aircraft and six seconds later the plane collided with the side of Mount Erebus and disintegrated, instantly killing all [257 people] on board."


"It was the worst civil disaster in New Zealand's history."


"The force of the crash, followed by the immediate explosion & fierce fire, made survival impossible and completely demolished the DC10"

As with the three fates already told, this tale too contains elements of strangeness & otherworldiness. If we translate this event into mythology, then Flight TE901 flew straight into hell.

"In Greek Mythology "EREBOS (or Erebus) was the Protogenos (primeval god) of darkness... The name Erebos was also used for the dismal, netherworld realm of Haides."

"Erebus was later depicted as a material region, the lower half of Hades, the underworld. It was where the dead had to pass immediately after dying."



"Several crevasses had opened up along the path of the wreckage - the edges of these had been red-flagged as danger areas to keep clear of. They seemed to go down interminably as in most cases we could not see the bottoms ... After setting up suitable anchors I abseiled down until it was so dark I could not see any further. We did not have any torches on the site (why would you with 24 hours daylight?) so we were unable to see what was beyond the dark abyss."

Geologically, this hell is thusly described;

"Mount Erebus in Antarctica is the southernmost historically active volcano on Earth .. [it] is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, which includes over 160 active volcanoes. The volcano has been observed to be continuously active since 1972."

This entry to hell was first opened for tourists in the year 1841 (the year Mikhail Lermontov died for the first time), by the British explorer in the 'title' of this series - James Clark Ross.



His JC initials resonating nicely with the CRoss (either upright '†' or dangling 'x')...

... While his 15th April birthdate will make history 112 years later as a colossal virgin goes down in infamy.

In January of 1841, JCRoss noted that there was sea & land in Antarctica & named them after himself, thus Ross Sea & Ross Island were 'discovered'. Upon the Isle de Ross, a "stupendous volcanic mountain in a high state of activity" was also noted (well they couldn't really miss it). This time the Ross-i-crucian name was given a rest.


Lacking a modern compendium of popular names, Cap'n Ross christ(X)ened the southernmost active volcano of the (under)world after his hell-ship, Erebus. Her sister ship on this seatrek is Terror & thus it is that Mt Erebus' Xtinct sister volcano becomes Mt Terror.

It has always seemed strange to me that such names were used for these ships, when sailors were such superstitious folk.

Four years later these two ships head off on the glorious Franklin Expedition to discover the North-West Passage for the glorious British Empire...



"The Franklin Expedition is the worst disaster in the history of British polar exploration. It occurred with the total loss of two naval vessels ‘Erebus’ and ‘Terror’ and all their crews."

I was rather interested to come across a little snippet about the moons of the plane-t Mars; "Hall named them “Phobos” and “Deimos” so that in the heavens, as in the myths and in reality, war is accompanied by fear and terror. "

Returning the 20th century, we recall that Air NZ Flight TE901 was lost with all on board on the slopes of Erebus in 1979. In a book I've been using for research (dated 1994), the claim is made that Erebus was the worlds most controversial air accident.

Extreme strangeness creeps into this story when on the 29th anniversary of this disaster, it happened again.

This time it was off the coast of France, but Hades was still on board.

"Five Kiwis and two German pilots were on the Air New Zealand Airbus (come on sound it out - Ere-bus) A320 when it crashed into the Mediterranean, off Perpignan in southeast France."

"The jet plunged into the Mediterranean as it was approaching the Perpignan airport, from which it had taken off on a circular flight an hour earlier ... Witnesses said it appeared low in the sky and seemed to drop into the sea as it began to turn."


First pic 1979: "there was no time to divert the aircraft and six seconds later the plane collided with the side of Mount Erebus and disintegrated ... Most of the aircraft was smashed into small pieces, with the exception of the empennage (aviation term used to describe the tail section of an aircraft)."

Second pic 2008 "GRAVE MARKER: The tail section of the Air New Zealand Airbus A320 airliner is seen above water in the Mediterranean Sea off France's southwest coast."

"The crash was highly publicised in New Zealand due to a date coincidence with another Air New Zealand crash. Due to differing time zones, the crash of Flight 888T occurred in the morning of 28 November New Zealand time - 29 years to the day after Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed into Mount Erebus in Antarctica, killing all 257 onboard."

We started our tale with ships, moved to an airship & then returned full circle to another craft lost at sea.

New Zealand is a small country with a small population (around 4.3 million) & situated at the edge of the world. I think because of this we have felt things that happen to our land & people very strongly. We have perhaps been inclined to regard ourselves as a little outside of this world, not having a great deal of input in what goes on 'out there'.

Yet lately I have wondered if there could be more & so had a play...
What if we looked at NZ as the tugboat of this westernised world?


What if we envisioned a tapestry of ropes reaching from the great continents to this little country that is shaped like an arrow? Each day she leads the way to the new dawn. Could this be why the Green witch's home is in ground zero?

Insert from future: I've just popped back from the tomorrow of this article because I forgot to mention the tale that makes these fancyings a little less fanciful.

In Maori mythology the North Island of NZ is a great fish (Te Ika-a-Māui) that was hauled to the surface by the demigod, Maui. The South Island (Te waka-a-Maui ) was Maui's waka (canoe), while Stewart Island (Te Punga o Te Waka a Maui) at the very bottom was the anchor stone.


I got a kindly email from Ellis Taylor the other day & he said thus "NZ has always been regarded as a mirror in many ways of Britain. Even at school I can remember how that was mentioned several times." Thus perhaps, the grasp of the royal grip begins to make more sense - more to come on this.

In investigating my homely country I became concerned over whether it is best to speak out of what I seem to see, albeit in a looney kind of way. If strange & nasty things are afoot do I make them stronger by looking at them? My wonderings on this were also settled by Ellis through a comment I found in his latest newsletter.

"Every person who is made aware of this Spell will change the nature of it, the course of it. The Spell will not work in the way they intend if just one person understands, but the more there are that observe it then the more powerful will be our interruption and the more successful will be our operation."

So I write this & will continue to write because NZ is not a pawn to be used by any dark forces - she is a wondrous land that deserves to be home to, & cared for by, goodly people.

Thus this just about wraps up the second part of our tale. We have focused on the loss of four craft (with a fifth mirroring the fourth hellish incident).

I decided to join the dots of these darkly deeds to see what I could see.

Joining those dots left me feeling cross.

(As NZ is very skinny, I have exaggerated the west to east crossing to allow you to get the picture).

Our marking of the spot goes like this:

We've had Satan in the North & Hades/Hell in the deep South. X-rossing this line we've had an Adam in the West & in the East, lay Eve, done to death upon a reef - "ridge underwater," 1584 ... from O.N. rif "ridge," lit. "rib". "

(Looking down over Auckland Harbour, where Satan conducted his Requiem for a Rainbow is my favourite Auckland volcano, Mt Eden).
After all this there was only one way to go.

Up.

As above so below.

Next time we climb up a pole & head for the stars in what should be the finale of the series.

I leave you with a question.
Does Ross Island in Antarctica, remind you of anything?
(So far 3 out of 4 people have seen what I see).



Beneath the frosting of this little sphinx lies the pulsing heart of Mt Erebus, the southernmost active volcano in the world.

We'll take this little lion skyward next time too.

A little bit extra & free of charge - a couple of links to two of my earliest articles - one on the Rainbow Warrior & one on Erebus

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Ride easy stranger



Alone we are born
and die alone
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
over snow-mountain shine
upon the upland road
ride easy stranger
Surrender to the sky
your heart of anger.

I had thought that last night I would finish & post the next part of my article. Instead I sought the solace of true friends after the climax of some very trying times.

I feel these are BIG times right now, I have seen buried things rising eerily to the surface, I have seen voices that were quiet for TOO LONG, ringing out, shakily, but bloody strong. I have felt that this is a time when we must choose to live or we die. I don't mean physically die, something much worse - emotionally, spiritually, humanly.

I take a course of action today that has taken many years to reach - I am one of those shaky voices that is speaking out because I choose to live.

I will be back shortly with the second part of my post, but first I have to go & "Surrender to the sky my heart of anger."



I wish life to ALL of you

(Poem at top by NZ poet James K Baxter)