Sacred Cactus

I didn't have room to bring my big pot of sacred cactus inside this year. There are many cuttings from it which live year-round in the yard so I figured it would be okay outside. Then it started drooping from the frost so I had my husband put it in the garage. Big mistake. I opened the garage on Monday and it had gone totally limp and dark. I thought it was dead and I felt horrible. But just now I cut it up and the heart piece, the one I got from Florida in 2003 during my shamanic training, which was already old then, looks okay and a few older chunks growing off it it look okay inside. When I cut between the growths they were still green and moist inside.
The new growth on the ends, which was very long and thin this year, rather than short and fat, looks like it's not going to make it.
The pieces I KNOW will live I'm bringing inside in a separate container. The rest I'm leaving outside (not in the garage) to fend for itself.
I wore a pair of thick plastic gloves under a pair of thick cotton/poly gloves and you know I still got spines in my fingers. Silly plant, I'm trying to help.
It's funny that I posted this today because one of the first growths off it was shaped like Manik the hand.

the road from monotheism to atheism

I read a wide variety of material, both online and in book/magazine form. Lately it seems to me that atheists are getting louder, or maybe there are more of them. I also recently met a very spiritual, enlightened person...who is an atheist. That really got me thinking how that could be. Then I saw the connection, and saw that it's a logical outgrowth of my path. Someday I will be an atheist. Probably not tomorrow, but in 10 years? Maybe.
This is the path I see.

• Monotheism. Usually forced on you by society/parents. Rigid rules. One god, usually male, jealous, vengeful. Look at the first commandment: thou shalt have no other gods before me. Wow, does that ever open up a can of worms. #1, it surely implies there are other gods. #2 it also says that as long as Vengeful is god #1, you can worship those other gods. Which leads you to:
• Polytheism. If there are other gods, why not explore them? Check out ancient pantheons. Greek, Roman, Celtic, Norse are all popular. I've gone to the Native American/Meso-American pantheon myself, and some also choose that path. Now might be the time to dabble in Buddhism as well, although there's no god there! Wicca, with its Lord and Lady, fall here too. (I tend to group everything that's not "monotheism" or "atheism" under "Pagan" which isn't a label everyone likes or agrees with.) The more research you do as a polytheist, the more you come to a couple of conclusions: when you get down to it, all religions are very much the same when you get to the essential concepts. (Love people, don't hurt them, be nice) Then you start hearing/reading/figuring out the next step, which is that we are all a part of god:
• Pantheism: Everything is god and god is everything. My pen is equal to me, and so is my cat, and so is the tree outside, and my cactus plant, and my favorite piece of quartz. My higher self contains all the wisdom I need (a concept from Huna, Hawaiian spirituality) so I don't need to go to any gods, goddesses, ascended beings, etc. I just need to ask my soul. A wise person once told me if you keep re-framing your question, the answer is within it and will come out. So if there are no gods, just your higher self, that leads you unerringly to:
• Atheism. There is no god needed. Nothing to worship. Be a good person because you WANT to be, not because some bearded old man living on a cloud wrote it on a rock 5,000 years ago. There are different types of atheists.
• The skeptics, such as you'd run into at the James Randi Educational Foundation, disdain anything they can't measure with science. Some of these call themselves secular humanists. I do visit that site, but they are so close-minded that it's annoying. It seems to me their lives must be devoid of joy and wonder while they have to measure, analyze, poke and prod every little thing to make sure it's "real".
• Religious humanists, which is what the man I met was, practice spirituality without any defined god or defined religion. Buddhism and Taoism live under this branch but are often visited by those under the polytheism branch.
• There are also Agnostics, which I was for a long time, but I don't see it as a necessary step along the path. It can really fit in anywhere.

This is not meant to be the definitive guide to any of these religions (or non-religions) just a starting point....actually just a way to put my thoughts down on paper (on screen). Please feel free to comment or look up these concepts for yourself. (c)

dream lesson

I had a dream this morning. The actual content of the dream wasn't important because I got the message right away.
It was about me being in unequal relationships, where I give and others take. Wait, that's fair, isn't it? I'd like to get once in a while.
In the dream, I was in a relationship, which started out looking like it would be a mutual give/give type thing, but very soon, it degenerated into the give/take, and I was helpless and hopeless to break out of that cycle. Just like I feel in real life.
I keep taking on "volunteer" jobs which suck up enormous amounts of my time and energy, hoping that I can turn them into paying jobs, or at least use them as experience toward paying jobs. But instead they just lead me to more "volunteer" opportunities. I feel like I have no time for myself, and I still have very little money. I'm very frustrated.
Right now, I am doing the following "volunteer" work: editing at E-press, editing at the Shamballa Foundation, editing for a friend, writing for the ASC, and now I'm apparently part of a start-up group on a new publishing house--but no one's said anything about money yet. Plus all my own stuff, all my blogs, my web page, my own writing...who helps ME with that? No one. I've always got my hand to help (and today is Manik, after all, the helping hand) but when does someone hold their hand out to me? Even when I ask for help, I don't get it.
I submitted one article, as a test, to Associated Content. They were supposed to respond within 5 days on my payment and then put it online. That was 8 days ago and I've heard nothing. It's not online either.
12.19.13.16.7 8 Manik 0 Kankin

Eragon movie: don't do it

When I first saw the trailer for Eragon, I thought it was for a Dragonriders of Pern movie. Then I thought the effects were cheesy. Perhaps they fixed the effects between the trailer and the big screen, because the one thing the movie didn't have was bad effects. Horrible costumes, wooden acting, plots stolen from every movie you can think of...but not bad special effects.
I slouched in my seat, surrounded by children who wouldn't SHUT UP, who were scared and too young to be at the film, trying really hard to care about the plot or the characters. I couldn't.
My husband said, "You know how you can tell when a fantasy movie is bad? The farmers and peasants are clean."
12.19.13.16.5 6 Chicchan 18 Mac

Apocalypto thoughts (spoilers)

12.19.13.16.2 3 Ik 15 Mac
I don't think I'm going to write a "review" exactly of Apocalypto. Just a collection of thoughts; take what you will and leave the rest (as always).
It starts out with the quote about how a civilization can't be destroyed from without until it's destroyed from within. I saw a review (no I don't know where, so I can't link it) which said that quote set it up to be a metaphor for today's society, and then failed.
That reviewer didn't see the same movie I did.
The people screaming that the movie portrays the Maya as blood-thirsty savages with no redeeming qualities didn't see the same movie I did.
The basic conflict, to boil it down, is the peaceful jungle-dwelling villagers versus the more advanced city-dwellers.
I will briefly recap the plot:
A bunch of men from a jungle village are out hunting. Over their kill, they tease one man about being sterile (reviews said that it was ED, but it's not, because the older man asks if everything works all right, with a crude gesture, and the younger man says yes, but no babies). Yes, they are eating some raw parts of the animal they've just killed. That didn't bother me. It sets them up as people, just like us.
They are surprised by a band of other villagers who ask for safe passage through their jungle. These people are thin and look awful and say that something terrible happened to their village--they were ravaged, I think he says. The main character, Jaguar Paw, tries to ask for details, but his father takes him aside and says that the others are infected with fear, and for JP not to "catch" it and spread it into the village, as if it's a contagious disease. (This reminded me a lot of 28 Days Later, that "zombie" movie which was really about rage.)
JP has a dream that night where he sees the leader of the other band telling him to run. He wakes up to hear a barking dog abruptly silenced, and finds that a party of men is in the village preparing to attack. He gets his pregnant wife and son out of the village and lowers them into a cenote (it's dry, not wet, so it may have a different name) for safety. The attackers kill about half of the villagers, including JP's dad, rape some of the women and take others captive. They leave all the children behind and take the living adults captive (including JP). One of the warriors cuts the vine rope to the cenote.
The children band together and follow the captives, who are led to a place where more men wait with more captives--the other villagers from the day before. The children from JP's village meet up with the children from the other village. The last you see of them, they are on a river bank, and the oldest girl is saying "they're mine now and I'll take care of them" to the women being led away. (This is a plot hole--at the end, when JP and his wife go into the jungle, they should have hooked up with those kids. It had only been a few days, they'd still be alive.)
My thought while watching the brutality of the captive-taking? "So this is what a Flowery War looks like." (Yeah, I've read Aztec too many times.)
They reach the city after 2 days of marching. This is a problem. If the city was only a 2 days' walk away, the villagers would have known about it. Instead they are in awe, as if they couldn't possibly know such a thing existed.
Along the way they meet a child with (apparently) small pox, which establishes the timeline as after 1519 (when the Spanish first came) as small pox was unknown in the New World before then. However, the Mayan civilization had fallen years before (8th/9th century!) and most of the cities had been abandoned by the time the conquistadors arrived. It was the AZTECS who were doing lots of sacrifices at that time, not the Maya.
Around the city, the crops are failing and the people are starving. Again, a two-day walk from a lush jungle. If there was a drought, it would have affected those in the jungle as well. It's almost like they time-traveled as well as walked. One brief scene is the captives being led through a limestone quarry which is seemingly being run with slave labor. Slaves are also shown painting and decorating buildings. I don't know for sure, but none of that feels accurate to me.
The city is gorgeous (to me) but wikipedia points out: On a very basic level, the movie contains a number of items unknown in precolumbian Mesoamerica, such as metal javelin blades. The Maya city inaccurately combines details from different Maya and Mesoamerican cultures widely separated by time and place....(T)emples in the shape of those of Tikal...decorated with Puuc style elements....The mural in the arched walkway includes elements from the Maya codices combined with elements from...Bonampak...and...San Bartolo ....Elements of such non Maya civilizations as those of Teotihuacan and the Aztec are also seen.
The "average" people of this unnamed city appear as starving and wretched. In sharp contrast are the nobles, who are well-fed and dressed. One fat little noble child laughs at the human sacrifices, while a noble girl yawns in ennui over it all. The sacrifices are the assembly-line butchery of the Aztecs, with the timing seeming to be about 1 person killed every minute or so. Yet they only had to go 2 days to find captives? Where have they been getting all these healthy young men? And yes, there has been ongoing large scale sacrifice here (more on that later). Jaguar Paw is just about to be killed when a solar eclipse happens, which the priests are in awe of. Considering that the Maya could predict eclipses that weren't even visible from where they were, they would have known this one was coming. Instead, they say that "Kukulcan" has had enough blood (Kukulcan did not ask for human sacrifices) and "free" the captives. This involves saying "run" and herding them down a ball court (I had high hopes they'd play ball in the court. Oh well.) while hurling javelins at them and then killing them at the end. JP escapes, but kills the slave trader's son, so they go after him (what happens to the captives that haven't gotten to run yet is left unexplained).
He runs through a dead cornfield and over a cliff...into a pit of beheaded captives. Thousands of them. (Why didn't they EAT some of these people if they were starving? That would have been historic.) Where did the people all come from? Could that many small villages be closer to the city than JP's village was? Why didn't all these villagers know each other? Wouldn't they have traded, intermarried, etc? Why would the city-folk have been so stupid as to leave thousands of rotting bodies right next to their crops? Right next to their CITY? And then whine to the gods that "pestilence" walked among them? Duh.
JP is then chased for 2 days at a full run back to his village to save his wife and child. This includes all sorts of amazing feats of endurance, such as doing all this with a massive wound from a javelin stuck right through him, jumping off a 100 foot waterfall, getting drowned in quicksand, getting shot with an arrow, no food for 4 days, etc. This is all straight fiction--enjoy it for what it is.
The last two surviving slave-takers pursue JP onto a beach very near his village. Again, this beach was a 2 days walk from the city. An ocean not yet polluted and over-fished, it could have fed the population with no problem. The three of them stop running. Not because they've run out of land, but because the Spanish are landing. (Convenient.) The two captive-takers eagerly run to the Spanish, proving they are dumb, and JP runs into the forest, proving he is smart.
JP saves his wife, who is no longer pregnant, having had the child in the cenote after it filled with water during a storm. They go off into the jungle rather than visit with the conquistadors.
The end.
Of course, between small pox and other diseases and the Spanish war on the infidels, 90% of the population of "New Spain's" natives were dead in 10 years. Bye bye Jaguar Paw. So much for your sons and his sons hunting the land after you die.
As far as it being a metaphor, our society is pretty screwed up right now. I guess we're ripe for the aliens to come down and kill us all, if they don't die first from our disease. (A sly dig at War of the Worlds.)

Apocalypto angers Maya people

12.19.13.15.14 8 Ix 7 Mac
A day before it's released, Mel Gibson's movie is already controversial.
I'd go see it regardless, but I find the debate interesting. And it's certainly more interesting (to me, anyway) then reading about Britney's Spears' naked crotch. (shudders).
Much like his bloody epic about the death of Christ, a new Mel Gibson production about the collapse of the Mayan civilization is angering members of the culture it depicts even before it hits the screen. ...
Now indigenous activists in Guatemala, once home to a large part of the Mayan empire that built elaborate jungle cities in southern Mexico and northern Central America centuries ago, say his film "Apocalypto" is racist.
From my understanding, the film starred only native Maya people. Did they have a problem being in the film or being depicted that way?
Only trailers for "Apocalypto," which will be released on Friday, have been shown in Guatemala, but leaders say scenes of scary-looking Mayans with bone piercings and scarred faces hurling spears and sacrificing humans promote stereotypes about their culture. ...
Richard Hansen, an archeologist who Gibson consulted on the making of the film, says the director took pains to ensure authenticity and historical accuracy.
The entire script is spoken in Yucatec Maya and the star is a Native American dancer named Rudy Youngblood. Gibson's use of indigenous actors has won praise from Latino and Native American groups in the United States.
You know what? You can't ever make everyone happy.
I never saw The Passion of the Christ. Know why? Not because it was controversial. Not because I think Mel Gibson is or isn't a racist. But because I have no interest in a film about Jesus (except Monty Python's Life of Brian).
The Maya? They're my thing, I guess you can say. I hope the calendar's in it. I'll find out this weekend. Look for my movie review!

Mel Gibson & the Maya

There was a commercial on TV last night for Apocalypto. I switch channels a lot, but I think it was while I was falling asleep to the Sci-Fi original movie Basilisk (which recycled some of the sets & plot from the recent Manticore, which was better).
Today there's an interview with Mel Gibson on CNN.com and EW.com.Of course they have to focus on his DUI and drunken anti-Jew rant. Whatever. Jews could not have anything less to do with the Maya and that's what I'm interested in. Maybe I can learn Yucatec if I watch the movie enough, who knows?
Anyway, here are some snippets from those interviews:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Of all the subjects to make a movie about, why the Mayans?

MEL GIBSON: If I went to the cinema, what would I want to see? That's where I always start. You're always looking to do something you have a thirst to see in your own heart and mind. And there has always been this shroud of mystery about the Mayan civilization.

I went down to the Mirador Basin and saw the pyramids and they're so enormous you can't get your head around it. One of them is the biggest pyramid in the world, bigger than the ones in Egypt. They're 3,000 years old and they've got jungle stuff growing out of them, but they're intact. They're just there. The Mayans just left -- but why? That's a massive question mark.

Apocalypto is an action movie, but it's got a political point. It's about a dying civilization — a great culture destroyed by fear and corruption. A lot of people are going to wonder if it's a metaphor for our own society.
We're all afraid. That's something I've been finding out more recently — how racked by fear we are as a society. It all comes back to that. If you watch the news you're going to be terrified. That little banner that runs along the bottom of the screen — today we're in a state of red alert, with a 98 percent chance of being bombed to the s--- house. That's an exaggeration — we're in a state of orange now — but you've got to wonder where this information is coming from. If I'm watching a video of Osama bin Laden looking through a rifle, how do I know he's not just some shoe salesman they told could be in a movie? You know what I mean? There's no way to verify it. Nobody has provided me with a good reason why we're sending our troops to all these places. I don't know how it jumped from Afghanistan to Iraq. I don't get any of this stuff.

Earlier, you mentioned visiting the Mirador Basin. Is that where the idea for Apocalypto came from — a trip to the Mayan ruins?
Oddly enough, I just wanted to fashion a really exciting chase. I wanted something fast and exhilarating. And I thought, What kind of chase? Cars? Nah, I'm sick of cars. Trucks? Planes? Been done before. Foot chase? I haven't ever seen a really good foot chase. A foot chase could be really primal, with animals and all sorts of stuff. So I ran an idea past my assistant at the time — Farhad Safinia, who ended up writing Apocalypto's script with me — about a Native American guy who gets captured. Because we always have this conceit that history started when Europeans got here, but the history of these indigenous people goes back thousands of years.

You get away with a lot of violence in the film. There are beheadings, people's hearts being cut out, one guy getting his face chewed up by a jaguar...
The world is a violent place. Violence is a recurring part of our history. But this movie is not as violent as a chain-saw movie, not by a long shot. That's just some teenager with pimples being hacked to death. This is less violent than Braveheart, I think. The sacrifices at the temple are puny in comparison to what they did to the guy on the rack in that movie. But I want people to close their eyes sometimes. There is one point where a guy jumps over a waterfall and brains himself on a rock. I don't want people to watch that piece. I've given them plenty of time to close their eyes, because that's really heinous.

So I have to wonder if this movie will spark off a big interest in the Maya or just more of the same old 12-21-2012 "calendar is ending world is ending" crap that I am getting SO SICK OF.
The interview doesn't say much about it being historically accurate or even what year it's supposed to take place in. Hmm. Well, it's a movie about the ancient Maya. I'll go.
When I first heard about it, I thought it was going to be about when the Spanish came (same era as my beloved Aztec) and Mel, being a big-time Christian, would do it from the Spanish point of view and make the Maya look like insane savages. But he didn't. Yay.

12.19.13.15.8 2 Lamat 1 Mac

Weird dream about Plymouth

You might think I dreamed about Plymouth because of the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving but actually it's a place I like to visit. I've been there many times.
In this dream, I was going by myself and it was August 1. The route I was taking doesn't exist in this world. At a certain point, the highway splits into two (like it does with 95 and 495 to go to Mohegan Sun, except this was in a city) and as I took the right-hand path I allowed myself to get excited. Seems that whatever was to the left-hand fork I went to more often.
As I drove, I started to think that maybe I should have called and confirmed my reservation. Although it's never happened to me in real life, in the dream it seemed like the last time I came to Plymouth by myself my reservation was lost and I was only allowed to stay one night, and the other hotel I was moved to wasn't adequate and I came home. And I realized as I drove that I made this reservation with the same phone call as the lost one.
I parked my car. An astrologer I know came to greet me. In real life she lives in Hartford and doesn't work for any kind of hotel. She was picking up a whole contingent of guests for the hotel. She looked surprised to see me and asked if I had a reservation. I told her I did but she frowned in such a way that I knew she hadn't seen my name on the guest list for that day.
We started walking. I realized that although I had my purse, I had left my luggage in the car, which meant I'd have to walk this long path again. (Not sure why I couldn't drive to the hotel--the Plymouth of my dreams had NOTHING in common with the real Plymouth except its name and the fact that it was on the shore.) We paused for a break by the water, and I walked down a steep path to get to the water, and then another woman and I went out on some rocks because we saw a horse swimming. (Yes, a horse.) On the way back I found this beautiful, perfect shell, a little smaller than my palm, like a mini conch. Janet said the guides (like her) weren't allowed to go into the water and take things. I said, "But can I have it?" I was turning it around, making sure it had no hermit crab or snail inhabitants, which it didn't seem to. She explained that it could have something living in it, and I said it didn't, and could I take it since I wasn't a guide? She never did answer me and I think I took it.
As we were walking, I started thinking about calling Will and telling him there might be a problem, but I decided to wait until I got to the hotel and found out if there really WAS a problem or not. I got to talking with another person heading for the hotel and when I started to pay attention to my surroundings again, they were strange. We were in an obviously very poor neighborhood, heading up a steep hill. The pavement was broken. It was some kind of slum. A dog ran up to me and tried to bite me. It was a yellow dog of some kind. Its owner came up to me and said he was supposed to put the dog to sleep because it had worms but he loved the dog and couldn't bear to have it killed. I said something to the effect that the dog didn't seem to be suffering, and just then the dog fell and had a terrible seizure. The guy explained that was the worms and then we were past him and his dog. I went up to my astrologer friend and said, "Are we taking a shortcut?" and she looked around and saw we were lost.
Now logically, even in the dream, I knew if we back-tracked we'd get to the shore or to a familiar road. But she said she couldn't, we had to go forward. We came to a dead end with a big building which was a police station. We went inside and explained our predicament. The police said they would have to take us into custody until someone from the hotel could come and get us. Basically they were putting us in jail. They wanted to confiscate, I mean, put aside and protect, all of our luggage, they wanted our credit cards and our driver's licenses. I got angry and upset (and secretly glad I'd forgotten my luggage). I tried to call Will at work, home and his cell and he didn't answer. The cop was asking me for my phone. (Now that I think about it, I should have just called the hotel!) He said I couldn't make non-local calls. I was just about to shut my phone when I saw the name "Amanda" on my list. I do know this Amanda (although she goes by initials, not her name) and she lives in Florida, not Massachusetts, but in the dream she lived one town away from Plymouth. I called her and evaded the cop. She was amazed that I called her and concerned when I asked for help. I tried to explain where I was. I went outside, followed by the angry cop, and looked around. Down the hill toward the shore I could see a brand-name hotel (Hilton? Not sure). I told her I would wait for her by that hotel and she said it would take a while for her to get there. I went back inside and found my astrologer friend and explained that I was getting a ride. They were "booking" the hotel guests into jail and taking their stuff. Everyone was very upset. (It also seemed like the group was all women, mostly elderly.) My friend said without a map I wouldn't find my way to the other hotel but I didn't care, I was going anyway.
Unfortunately that's all I got of the dream before waking up.
12.19.13.15.7 1 Manik 0 Mac

things seem to be going badly

Lately it seems like I keep getting whacked with the friendship stick. Have you ever been whacked with that stick? It goes like this.
A friend comes up to you and tells you how much s/he adores you, more than anyone in the world, and how s/he truly understands you and "gets" you.
This makes you feel good. Special. Loved.
Then comes the stick: "Because I love you so much, I am going to tell you the truth about you..." which is followed by a recitation of just how horrible a person you are, your selfishness, your greed, your apathy, your voice, your looks, your mode of dress, your cheap shoes, your bad haircut, your lack of education and poise....etc.
Yes, once in a while someone does appear to just like me without telling me I suck. But when someone tells you that YOU suck, it's really the opposite. They are trying to suck the joy out of you.
I don't feel like there's a lot of joy in my life right now. I have to struggle to find it and when I do, I can't keep my focus on it.
12.19.13.14.19 6 Cauac 12 Cen

S.A.D. and sadness

It's tough not knowing if what's going on in my head is real or chemical. I know I've got Seasonal Affective Disorder so is my current deep depression part of that, or part of something else?
I feel extremely socially isolated. Things keep happening which reinforce this. For instance, I tried an experiment. I didn't email any of my friends to tell them what I was doing or working on, and asking them what they were doing. And guess what. No one emailed me to ask me what was going on or offer information on their lives.
I broke off a friendship which has been going badly, and that ended badly, which is always sad. But I just can't take people beating me with a stick labeled "friendship" and claiming it's for my own good. Being told negative things about myself isn't for my highest and best. It just makes me feel worse and reinforces my pain and feelings of separation.
In spite of all the calendar work and other things I've been doing, I don't feel like a useful member of society right now. I don't feel like I contribute to anyone. My blogs get traffic, but few comments--same with my web site. People tell me my work is great, but they don't buy anything from me.
I met a woman this weekend who said I am a "light master" which is just another title, right? I try to spread light but no one wants to open their eyes and see. I don't know why I have to make that into my problem and my failure, but I do.
I have an idea for a series of Mayan/Aztec inspired mandalas. Maybe doing some artwork will calm my sad soul.
12.19.13.14.18 5 Etznab 11 Cen

another confusing calendar bit: 4 Ollin vs 4 Ahau

Okay, the centerpiece of the Aztec sun stone (Calendar stone) is 4 Ollin (earthquake/movement) which corresponds to 4 Caban in the Tzolkin. In 2012, 4 Ollin/Caban is July 31, which is 12.19.19.10.17 in the Long Count. The 13th Baktun is 4 Ahau, on 12-21.
I mean, a difference of 5 months, when calculated by hand from the past, isn't that big of a deal. If the 13th Baktun started on 4 Ollin (or the 12th ended on 4 Ollin) that would be different.

Precession, 2012 and confusing math

12.19.13.14.8 8 Lamat 1 Cen
I'm writing my NaNoWriMo novel, which involves (in no particular order), Deep Ones, a meteorite crashing into Earth, 2012, the Mayan/Aztec calendar, magical stones from outer space, Grand Cayman, Salem, New Haven, and a little more. (Hey, they say write about what you know)
I took a break to do some Mayan calendar calculations for a discussion two characters are having about the Long Count. (I'm SUCH a geek)
Now the 13th Baktun is supposed to signal a new world age.
Depending on who you ask (which culture) we've been through a varying amount of world ages, each one destroyed different (flood, fire, jaguars, etc). The 12-21-2012 end date points to another destruction of earth. (Which I don't believe, but for hte purpose of my novel I do.)
The beginning date of the first baktun is way back in 3114 BCE, in either September or August depending on which calendar you use, Gregorian or Julian. That's 5125 years ago.
Now the 2012 sun rising through the Milky Way and being reborn thing, as laid out in Maya Cosmogenesis by John Major Jenkins, postulates, as the earth wobbles (precession, a 26,000 year cycle) the sun will rise through the Milky Way 4 times, once on each Equinox and Solstice. This, being the Winter Solstice, marks a new beginning.
That's great. Except that 5125 times FOUR isn't 26,000. It's 20,500 5125 times FIVE is closer to 26000 (25625)--the actual precessional cycle, according to Wikipedia, is about 25,800 years.
So it's great that the 5125 fits so neatly into precession....however....it doesn't fit into the whole solstice/equinox thing. Either the ages are born every time the sun rises through the milky way on one of those four dates, making 4 ages per precessional cycle, or there are five ages per precessional cycle, which means the galactic alignment of 2012 means absolutely nothing.
This is troubling to me. I may go back and skim JMJ's book and see what he says; if he doesn't note the discrepancy I'm going to write to him. My friend John has his email address. (c)

Switched to Blogger Beta

I just switched over to Blogger Beta and not all my sidebar information translated well. I'll fix it eventually. Should be writing. NaNoWriMo looms.

a visit from a beloved friend

12.19.13.14.1 1 Imix 14 Zac

When I woke up this morning and opened my eyes, Zen-zen was lying on my pillow with his paws tucked underneath his chest. His eyes were half closed. The sun shining on his black fur made it look red-brown, the color of Pepsi. He wasn't purring at first, but like he always did, knowing I was looking at him, he started a very quiet whole-body purr. He was in perfect profile, showing his round Siamese shaped-head, so different from Nutter's.
I looked at him for a few minutes but when I started to cry I closed my eyes and when I opened them again he was gone.
Just like he has been for 3 months and 3 days, since he had a heart attack and died.

Cross-posted.

shamanic dream

Last night/this morning I dreamt of being a shaman, of working in a group with other shamans, each of us having our own task, each of us part of a larger whole, like the cells that make up a body.
I lived in a different house, or maybe I was staying there, and we did a healing ritual for Nutter, my white cat (who is not sick in real life, just very very sad that he still can't find his best friend, who died on August 1). After the end of the ritual, I was in a different room, and I saw/heard the back screen door open. I looked outside and there was Nutter. (Nutter hates outside. He has agoraphobia. Sometimes he goes outside by mistake, when the door isn't latched, and basically howls and hides until he's "rescued") I called to my husband to come and catch him (not sure why I couldn't do it) but when he went out there Nutter ran up a hill and into some woods. I looked inside the room where I was watching from the window and there was Nutter in the room. It wasn't him outside at all. I called to Will but he didn't answer me.
The other shamans left. My old friend Beth Jake (not my new friend Beth Jac--well that's confusing) came over. I started telling her how I used to work for Godsmack as Sully's personal assistant. She asked me if I was pregnant and I said my job wasn't to have sex with him, although I had seen him naked. She didn't believe me. She wanted to do a ritual to save some fish, but the other shamans weren't around. I thought I could handle it by myself, playing all the parts. The fish were in a small bowl or large glass. We started the ritual but we kept getting interrupted. Then the water in the bowl started to bubble like it was boiling and the fish floated to the top. I wanted to move them to another glass. There were lots of glasses lined up but I couldn't tell if the water was clean in them. I had to make a choice that might doom the fish. Then I saw another glass but something was going on with the water, some kind of mechanical churning. It was plugged in. I followed the cord into another room so I could unplug it and put the fish in there, but instead of being plugged in, it was hard-wired. Somehow I knew (the other) Beth's husband Scott had done the wiring. I touched the wire and got a shock so I couldn't disconnect it. By then all the fish had died.
Interesting dream to have on the last day of the Tzolkin.

End of Tzolkin

12.19.13.14.0 13 Ahau 13 Zac

Today is 13 Ahau and another Tzolkin ends. Time to finish up all those minor little projects, wrap up all your loose ends, and say all your goodbyes. It's the last intention portal. Tomorrow the manifestation portals begin. Everything changes as we move down another loop of the spiral toward 12-21-2012 but at the same time everything seems to stay the same.

Happy Halloween!

My 360 page with my animated avatar (will change sometime in November)

Fragment of weird dream

I lost most of this dream, which I had not last night, but the night before (Sunday night). What's left is this:
A group of people with very large heads. Their skulls were see-through, Plexiglas or something similar. Instead brains in their heads, they had fetuses. The fetuses were so tightly compressed that the fissures and folds in their skin looked like the surface of a brain. These were supposed to be some kind of evolved people. I don't know how the fetuses got into their heads or why having a fetus for a brain made them evolved or smarter or better.
Looking back at it, it was pretty gross, but in the dream it didn't seem like it was.

12.19.13.13.17 10 Caban 10 Zac

cosmic trigger event TODAY Tuesday 10-17

12.19.13.13.3 9 Akbal 16 Yax
Just as I got it (including errors), emphasis mine:

---

A cosmic trigger event is occurring on the 17th of October 2006.
This is the beginning, one of many trigger events to come between now and 2013. An ultraviolet (UV) pulse beam radiating from higher dimensions in universe-2 will cross paths with the Earth on this day. Earth will remain approximately within this UV beam for 17 hours of your time.
This beam resonates with the heart chakra, it is radiant flourescent in nature, blue/magenta in colour. Although it resonates in this frequency band, it is above the colour frequency spectrum of your universe-1 which you, Earth articulate in. However due to the nature of your soul and soul groups operating from Universe-2 frequency bands it will have an effect.
The effect is every thought and emotion will be amplified intensely one million-fold. Yes, we will repeat, all will be amplified one millions time and more.
Every thought, every emotion, every intent, every will, no matter if it is good, bad, ill, positive, negative, will be amplified one million times in strength.
What does this mean ?
Since all matter manifest is due to your thoughts, i.e. what you focus on, this beam will accelerate these thoughts and solidify them at an accelerated rate making them manifest a million times faster than they normally would.
For those that do not comprehend. Your thoughts, what you focus on create your reality. This UV beam thus can be a dangerous tool. For if you are focused on thoughts which are negative to your liking they will manifest into your reality almost instantly. Then again this UV beam can be a gift if you choose it to be.
Mission-1017 requires approximately one million people to focus on positive, benign, good willed thoughts for themselves and the Earth and Humanity on this day. Your thoughts can be of any nature of your choosing, but remember whatever you focus on will be made manifest in a relatively faster than anticipated time frame. To some the occurrences may almost be bordering on the miracle.
All we ask is positive thoughts of love, prosperity, healing, wealth, kindness, gratitude be focused on.
This UV beam comes into full affect for 17 hrs on the 17th of October 2006. No matter what time zone you are in the hours are approximately 10:17 am on the 17th of October to 1:17 am on the 18th October. The peak time will be 17:10 (5:10 pm) on the 17th October. You do not need to be in a meditative state through out this time, though would be beneficial. The main key time no matter what time zone you are in will be the peak time of 17:10 (5:10 pm).
Perhaps at this time if you can find a peaceful spot or location to focus. The optimum is out in the vicinity of grounded nature, likened to that of a large tree or next to the ocean waves. Focus on whatever it is you desire. What is required for the benefit of all Earth and Humanity is positive thoughts of loving nature.
We call this UV beam trigger event, g818 gateway. Please forward this message to as many people as you know who will use this cosmic trigger event to focus positive, good willed thoughts. We require approximately 1-million people across globe to actively participate in this event. Please use whatever communication mediums you have at your disposal. Reach out to as many people as possible. We require 1-million plus people at the least to trigger a shift for humanity from separation and fragmentation to one of unification and oneness. This is your opportunity to take back what is rightfully yours i.e. Peace and Prosperity for all Earth and Mankind.
This is a gift, a life line from your universe so to speak, an answer to your prayers. What you do with it and whether or not you choose to participate is your choice.

---

Today is 9 Akbal/Calli. If you want to take advantage of those energies for this trigger event, think of what those day-signs mean. Together they are a dark safe place to heal. So you might want to focus your thoughts on creating a healing space/spaces in the world and in your environment, for people and Gaia to recover from the assualt of the atomic test last week and the earthquake Sunday in Hawaii and probably dozens of things we haven't heard about.

NaNoWriMo

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year. That's the craziness of writing a novel (50K) in 30 days. Join me. Link to my NaNo blog below and in the sidebar. Will include word counts, excerpts, etc.
Expect silence from me, unless something huge happens, during the first couple of weeks of November.

.

Mexican pyramid ceremony cancelled

No sooner do I post something....when it gets cancelled.
Yahoo cancelled plans for a "time capsule" ceremony at pyramids in Mexico, citing concerns regarding possible damage to the ancient site....The Sunnyvale, California, online search engine had planned a time capsule event at the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Mexico City, later this month. Yahoo said the decision to cancel the ceremony came as it worked with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) to ensure that the pyramids in Teotihuacan would be "respected and not adversely affected." "The position of INAH is that after evaluating all the technical and operational aspects, it would be very difficult to move forward with this endeavor," Yahoo said in a release.
Well, it's great they were concerned. And they did focus attention on the site and Mexican pre-history. So I'll still call it a positive. No damage, good publicity.

Ancient pyramid, modern technology

12.19.13.12.17 3 Caban 10 Yax
Yahoo!, for whatever reason, has chosen the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan in Mexico (the "Toltec" city) from whence to beam an electronic time capsule of life on earth. I'm not sure if they expect to receive an answer the same way. The article is pretty sketchy. The photo is nice.
Mexico's Teotihuacan, once the center of a sprawling pre-Hispanic empire, is set to become the launch pad for an attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life. Starting Tuesday, enthusiasts from around the world have a chance to submit text, images, video and sounds that reflect human nature to be included in the message. Those contributions -- part of media company Yahoo's "Time Capsule" project -- will be digitalized and beamed with a laser into space Oct. 25 from the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, now an archeological site near Mexico City. ...Archeologists say a culture centered in Teotihuacan, known as the City of the Gods, dominated Mesoamerica for hundreds of years during the first millennium. It is unclear what led to the society's collapse.
It sounds cool. As I spend a LOT of time on Yahoo answers and other Yahoo properties, I wonder why I had to learn about this from CNN?

New Aztec ruins found in Mexico City

12.19.13.12.11 10 Chuen 4 Yax
They found another part of the Templo Mayor (clearly a Spanish name) in Mexico city.
Mexican archeologists have found what may be the most significant Aztec ruin in decades, with the unearthing of an altar and a monolith....The 15th-century altar, part of the Aztec empire's main temple, was uncovered last weekend near the city's main Zocalo square along with the 11-foot (3.5-meter) stone slab, most of which is still buried under earth....The altar has a frieze of the rain god Tlaloc and another figure related to an agricultural rite....The Aztecs began building the Templo Mayor pyramid-shaped temple in 1375. Its ruins are now only yards from downtown's choking traffic. It was first excavated in 1978 after electricity workers found an eight-ton carving of an Aztec goddess.Spanish conquistadors destroyed the temple when they razed the city in 1521 and used its stones to help build their own capital.
Photos come from the same source.
Left picture is: This Aztec god (Tlaloc/rain) carving was found in Mexico City along with an altar and a monolith
Right picture is: This ancient 15th century Aztec agricultural deity was part of an altar unearthed in Mexico City.

I wonder how different Mexico would be if almost every bit of their native culture hadn't been burned, smashed or killed. What could we have learned from them? Would they still have been the poor nation they are today?

Forced conversion times two (Demon Salt)

I overheard a disturbing conversation at school this week.
Two people started talking about their projects for class. One woman was doing something for her church. Which is fine, and very nice of her. The two got into a discussion of their churches. They were making no attempt to moderate their voices or keep the conversation private, I might add.
The woman said her church encourages homosexuals to join and tells them they can "be themselves" but then preaches to them heavily about how they are sinners going to hell and all kinds of crap. She said this provokes "overnight" conversions back to being straight and all the former gays and lesbians in their church are now married with kids and understand how disgusting they were before in their perversions.
So she is advocating converting people to her "non denominial bible study" AND forcing them to relinquish their biologically programmed sexual identity. That's really tolerant of her. Then again, she claimed that when she was "7" she "knew" the Catholic church was wrong because they were all idol worshippers. When I was 7 I was trying to cast spells. Hmm. Makes you wonder if religion is innate?
Another person sitting nearby brought up Santeria, for reasons I didn't hear, and she jumped all over him. "It's a statue in the corner with a circle of salt. Think about it."
Okay, I'm thinking. What is supposed to come to mind, exactly?
The guy said something about it being a 5,000 year old religion (not true) and she dismissed it as "Satan worship". Kindly explain how a circle of salt equals satan? Demon salt?
I was sitting there with my pen with advertises my friend's witch craft shop and just wanting to lob it across the room into this woman's eye. Or drop it on her desk during break.
But I did neither, and I didn't say anything either.
It's funny, I got a bad feeling from her when I walked in. I ended up having to ask her a question (before I heard the discussion) and I didn't even want to talk to her.

Bits of a dream

12.19.13.12.5 4 Chicchan 18 Chen
Happy burner day.

In the dream I had this morning, Willy and I lived in a different house. It was old and ramshackle, but large.
We must have just moved in because we were still discovering everything about it. I had a small Siamese cat and a ferret. I would never own a ferret but it seemed like someone had given him to me as a gift.
Beth had come over to help me clean up and move things around. In the backyard we found this large wire pen. Off the pen were 3 smaller shed-like structures, but open fronted, almost like stalls for animals. There were blackberry bushes growing everywhere with ripe fruit and I made a mental note to call my dad who loves blackberries.
I don't remember HOW we found it, but we found a very young raccoon who was somehow wrapped in wire. Not loose wire but wire fencing, made of 3" or 4" squares. The wire had cut into the animal's skin and it was bleeding and infected. First we trapped the raccoon in the basement but my cat was down there and we were afraid they would fight. So we got the cat out of there and went to call the dog warden. It was a strange town (not one I know now) and the dog warden wasn't listed in the blue pages so we were looking in the white pages but couldn't find it there either so I decided to shove the raccoon into a cat carrier and take him to the vet, who treats wildlife for free. I hoped they wouldn't put him to sleep and I had vague hopes of getting him to live in the shed area as a kind of pet.
I brought him to the vet and when I came back Beth and Will had made a huge advance in cleaning. They had torn down the wire fence and pens, to my dismay, but set up a kind of outside party area, with 3 walls of shelves under a roof, which housed stereo equipment and other stuff. There were two white appliances out there too, not dissimilar to a washer and dryer, which they weren't, but I can't remember what they WERE, only that it made sense at the time for them to be out there. There was a fridge out there too.
In another part of the yard they had set up this weird little shooting range. People were coming over and paying us $10 to shoot these clear plastic disks at each other. It was very strange. There was a gay black man there shooting who was from a different dream I also had last night.
In that dream I was in an airport and one of my friends flipped out and attacked a security person for reasons I don't remember. They dressed her in camo and put a sash on her with a bunch of foreign words written on it. One of them was Reiki (she was a Reiki person). Security took a bunch of pictures and video of her dressed like that. Then I got mad and tried to rescue her. The black guy was there and I punched him in the crotch and told him he had a tiny penis (I felt it when I punched him) and to my surprise he thought that was funny and laughed and agreed.

Olmec writing found & the paths not taken

12.19.13.11.17 9 Caban 10 Chen
I saw this article a few days ago and meant to write about it. Then I got insane with my calendar and forgot all about it. Until last night.
Last night I went to a speech at Yale/Peabody by Dr Michael Coe, a famous archeologist who has excavated a lot of Mayan and Olmec sites. He wrote his autobiography and the presentation was bits of it (very interesting life). He started talking about this slab and showed a photo of it and drawings of the writing and told about how some "guardian" is keeping it safe deep in some out-of-the-way little village in Mexico.

An ancient slab of green stone inscribed with insects, ears of corn, fish and other symbols is indecipherable so far, but one message is clear: It is the earliest known writing in the Western Hemisphere. The ancient Olmec civilization probably produced the faintly etched symbols around 900 B.C., or roughly three centuries before what previously had been proposed as the earliest examples of writing in the Americas. The pattern of symbols covering the face of the rectangular block also represents a previously unknown ancient writing system. The text contains 28 distinct glyphs or symbols, some of which are repeated three and four times. The writing system does not appear to be linked to any known later scripts and may represent a dead end....

The weirdest thing happened when I walked into the audotorium. I saw a lot of people I thought I knew. (I did figure out that one guy was on the board of Yale Broadcasting when I worked there, but the others...?) The first person to catch my eye was an old guy at the end of the back row. I said, "there's that guy" but I couldn't remember his name--seemed like James but maybe not. I figured he was probably a volunteer back when I worked at Peabody for a summer playing with dinosaur bones.
Then the MC called Dr Coe up...and he was "that guy" and I've NEVER met Michael Coe in my life. In the pictures I've seen of him he has a beard and he's much younger--this was an elderly clean-shaven guy.
I got a funny feeling as he talked--a "this could have been your life" kind of thing. Half-remembered events I wasn't at. Not really like deja-vu. I'm not doing a good job explaining it at all.
When I was little that's what I wanted to do. Be an archeologist or a paleontologist. I let people talk me out of it. And then I wanted to go into genetics but at that time it wasn't offered as a major anywhere and where it was offered it was only a minor if that. I didn't want to major in BIOLOGY, I wanted to know about genetic manipulation. So I fell back into writing. Not that writing is bad. But I just sometimes sense those other paths. I can only hope that in parallel dimensions some other versions of me did take those paths.
I did get Dr Coe's email address.

Jaguar Nights 2007 is now in print, and a rant

I was just in Staples having Jaguar Nights 2007 printed up. It affected me so strongly, so unexpectedly, to see my name and picture above an ISBN. Seriously, I almost started to cry right there in the copy center. When I came back to work and kept thinking about it I DID cry, for just a minute, and then I felt stupid, and then I was angry at myself for feeling stupid. This is a life-long goal of mine and I can feel any damn way I please about it. I can cry or laugh or get a tattoo. Or do all 3.

---

But now I have to pause to do a serious rant against Staples.
I like Staples. I used to work there, at that very Staples, with some of the same people who still work there. I know for a fact that the copy center is 95-100% profit. (That is not a misprint.)
My decision was to print the calendar pages myself, on the self-serve copiers, and then have it bound by the Copy Center desk. I went there last week and picked out the paper I wanted and the cardstock for the cover. Today I bought a package of each (with a packet of stickers, total cost $20), lugged it over to the self-service copiers and went to town, making 7 calendars to start. I'm glad I only made 7 because I'm not crazy about the paper I chose now that I see it printed up--it's too flimsy.
210 black and white copies and 14 color copies later, I carried my carefully hand-collated calendars to the desk for binding. I was going to pay for the copies then but the woman waiting on me (who knows me by name since I used to work with her) said that I could pay later, at the same time as the binding. That's fine, one less check I have to write out.
She asked me what kind of covers I wanted. I explained that I printed my covers on cardstock so no covers were needed. She frowned and flipped through my books as she wrote down the totals. I pointed out that I used my own paper and asked if I got a discount.
Is that unreasonable? I used their ink and their electricity, and my paper.
Not only do I NOT get a discount...I get charged EXTRA.
I have to pay for cardstock copies EVEN THOUGH I PAID FOR THE CARDSTOCK SEPARATELY. I have to pay for colored-paper copies EVEN THOUGH I BOUGHT A REAM OF COLORED PAPER.
That is TOTAL BULLSHIT.
I have to figure out where else I can go to get these printed.

---

Anyway, Jaguar Nights 2007 NOW IN STOCK. Order today.

3d White Buffalo Calf born on same farm

12.19.13.11.11 3 Chuen 4 Chen

Funny that in this time of global warming and global extinction, a sign of world peace is born. Maybe it's not too late after all.

A farm in Wisconsin is quickly becoming hallowed ground for American Indians with the birth of its third white buffalo, an animal considered sacred by many tribes for its potential to bring good fortune and peace. .... Thousands of people stopped by Heider's Janesville farm after the birth of the first white buffalo, a female named Miracle who died in 2004 at the age of 10. The second was born in 1996 but died after three days. Heider said he discovered the third white buffalo, a newborn male, after a storm in late August. That this latest birth is a male doesn't make it any less significant in American Indian prophecies, which say that such an animal will reunite all the races of man and restore balance to the world, (Floyd "Looks for Buffalo" Hand, a medicine man in the Oglala Sioux Tribe)said. He said the buffalo's coat will change from white to black, red and yellow, the colors of the various races of man, before turning brown again. The birth of a white male buffalo means men need to take responsibility for their families and the future of the tribe, Hand said. ....The odds of a white buffalo are at least 1 in a million.

Story & Image source

Cross posted

Jaguar Nights 2007 Wall Calendar

12.19.13.11.10 2 Oc 3 Chen Intention Portal

It's close enough to being finished that I can offermy Jaguar Nights 2007 Wall Calendar for pre-sale. See the sidebar or my main web site for a handy dandy buy-it-now button. I'm not putting on in this post because this particular buy-it-now button features FREE SHIPPING that's right FREE SHIPPING if you pre-order your Jaguar Nights 2007 wall calendar. For a LIMITED TIME ONLY so order quick and save yourself a few bucks. Maybe enough to buy a gallon of gas, who knows?

Goddess dream

12.19.13.11.9 1 Muluc 2 Chen
This morning the Goddess came to me in a dream. The dream itself was odd but not remarkably so, up to that point. It was a large old building of some kind--school, enormous house, school that used to be an enormous house, something like that--and there was someone doing a combination magic/mesmerism act. In fact it may have been a school to learn magic/mesmerism. There was a zoo next door. In this world it was the fashion to have enormous versions of common animals in zoos--they were overfed and overbred to get this way. Right next to the building was the zoo's exhibit of giant iguanas. These iguanas were at least 20 feet long. Somehow they broke out of their exhibit and came in through some open windows and were terrorizing this other building. In real life a green iguana is a quiet thing. A wild one will run from humans. They have very sharp claws, like kitten claws only much larger, but they don't really attack with them, just hold on. They are vegetarian. These iguanas were fearless and omnivorous, chasing people down and eating them. Little pockets of people tried to barricade themselves in various rooms and call for help, but the thick walls limited cell phone contact and the iguanas would batter down the door.
If you are getting a kind of 50's movie feeling about this, yes, that's what it looked like, but the "graphics" were seamless.
The main magician/teacher, a woman, opened a hidden door which led into a basement. I just went into my basement and there are 11 steps. This dream basement had more steps, but not a lot more. 13? 15? Definitely an odd number. At the bottom of the steps was a stone wall to the front and left, so you could only go right. This was a kind of typical old fashioned basement room except that beneath the stairs were stacked cases of Nag Champa incense. The room continued on into the gloom behind and around the stairs. Somehow I know that if a person kept walking, the room behind and around the stairs was more like a cave, and you could walk forever, spiraling down into the earth. But the dream didn't take me there. (Not that "I" was there except as a camera; I wasn't a character.)
The teacher, who was young, in her 20's, bowed her head and waited. She had a student with her, a teenage girl who had no idea where she was. And then the Goddess came around the spiral from behind the stairs. She appeared to be in her 40's. She had dark hair, to just below her shoulders, with a little bit of wave. Her face was perfect--she didn't look 20 but she wasn't wrinkled or anything either. Her body was softly rounded (not pregnant) under some kind of flowing garment. At first she wasn't happy that the teacher had brought a student but the teacher explained about the lizards.
I find this interesting, that the goddess didn't know about the lizards until she was told. It makes me wonder about the omnipotence of the gods. Do they only know what they are TOLD? Are they not actually watching us all the time? Then again, it's a huge job to watch people 24/7 so maybe they do depend on us to tell them the important things.
It seemed like the Goddess couldn't leave the basement but she did promise to help somehow. I woke up shortly after that but it seemed like the teacher left some men in the Goddess's basement grotto which pissed her off and maybe the teacher got eaten or imprisoned by the lizards, leaving the teenager in charge.
I know if I didn't get woken up I wouldn't remember, but I wish I knew more.

Back to the dinosaur age

12.19.13.11.5 10 Chicchan 18 Mol
Lately it seems like this blog is turning into a "global warming" (I type "warning" at first, what a Freudian slip) blog. That's not my intent. It's just what I've been seeing. I've put some stuff on my other blog too, about mass animal extinction.
Source. Global warming over the coming century could mean a return of temperatures last seen in the age of the dinosaur and lead to the extinction of up to half of all species....Not only will carbon dioxide levels be at the highest levels for 24 million years, but global average temperatures will be higher than for up to 10 million years...Between 10 and 99 percent of species will be faced with atmospheric conditions that last existed before they evolved, and as a result from 10-50 percent of them could disappear....Scientific observations had already found that -- as predicted by the climate models -- 80 percent of species had already begun moving their traditional territorial ranges in response to the changing climatic conditions....Not only had the animals, birds and insects started to react, but there was evidence vegetation was also on the move.Not only would some species simply find no suitable space to live anymore, but there would be confrontations with invasive species being forced to move their territory. This would produce not just wipe-outs but species' mixtures never seen before.
Makes me think of the polar bear/grizzly bear hybrid killed a few months ago. Maybe that's what will happen to the poor polar bears, they will mate with grizzlies and survive that way.

9/11 thoughts

It's coming up on 5 years since 9/11 which in itself is incredible to me. Feels like maybe 2 years. But that's the whole 16 hour day thing, which is another whole topic.
I never understood why people remembered where they were when big events happened. When the Challenger blew up I was in Social Studies class with Miss Z and they came over the loudspeaker and announced it but that's all I remember. It wasn't a huge thing for me. It's not something that comes up much in conversation anyway.
But 9/11--oh yeah, I remember it so clearly. I wonder why? I was sitting at my desk around 9:00 and Steve Pincott, one of the engineers, came down the aisle saying that a plane hit the world trade center. I thought it was just some kind of accident. I envisioned a little plane like the ones that land at the Meriden airport. I tried to go onto some news sites and couldn't log onto any of them because they were all bogged with traffic. Eventually I broke a rule and installed AOL and logged onto THEIR news and saw the 2nd plane had hit and that it wasn't an accident. By then it was around 9:30. By 10:00 all work had stopped. They had set up a TV in the breakroom and everyone was in there watching TV. We saw the towers fall. I remember seeing my boss, a big huge guy (I think he was something like 6'6") crying. And it didn't matter because everyone was crying. I was doing math in my head--how many people just died while I watched on TV? How many fit in that tower? I thought at least a 100,000--the actual death toll later of only a few thousand still seems wrong to me. Not that it affected their families any less.
That night my husband had friends over and I watched CNN. I watched that 2nd plane hit over and over. I watched burning people leaping out of buildings to their death. I hated every second of it but I couldn't turn it off.
I have been a cnn.com addict every since. I think just about every day I've gone there for at least a few minutes. Funny isn't it? I never went to that site before.
In a certain way, Hurricane Katrina had a similar effect on me. It was so wrong to see dead bodies lying out in the open, rotting, in a major US city. A city I had been to twice. To watch people trapped on their rooftops by fire AND flood, dying, because there was no one to help them.
This world has gone horribly wrong. I don't see anymore how it can be turned around, how anything can ever be okay again.
I've gone twice to see "An Inconvenient Truth" and it's just depressing. We're on such a downward spiral. We really do need to go extinct. But it won't happen. No matter what Mother Nature throws at us in one place we just breed more in another place.

Dream

12.19.13.11.4 9 Kan 17 Mol
This morning I had a strange dream where I went back to high school for some kind of show--they used to have a student talent show there called Razzle Dazzle but that wasn't it. For some reason I was using a walker but I didn't feel infirm or in pain. I was late to the show so I missed half of it. But supposedly the "grand finale" was going to be the best part anyway, although I didn't know what it was. I paid my $5 to get in and laboriously made my way down the aisle. I wasn't given a program and had to search one out. Once I got it, I was appalled and outraged. The whole rest of the program was preaching, gospel singing, Bible reading, Gospel reading (I remember wondering what the hell the difference was even in the dream) and then for the grand finale it just said "wait for it....wait for it..."
I dragged myself back up the aisle to the man who had just taken my $5 and asked for my money back. He refused to refund me because I had gone inside. I explained that it was for only a couple of minutes, it was between "acts" (thankfully) and how hard could it be for him to forget me when I had a walker? I waved the program in his face and said if I had been given one OUTSIDE as I should have been I wouldn't have had to go inside at all, I would have left immediately. I cited the whole "separation of church and state thing" and probably ranted a good bit. An older woman going in started talking about how Catholism wasn't part of Christianity which is ridiculous. I explained that there's Catholics which are one sect and then the Protestants which are many different sects but all of them are Christians and really I didn't care because I didn't want to be preached at or sing gospels at a PUBLIC SCHOOL but they just couldn't understand. A woman I had known in HS came up to me and said something about changing the channel or hitting the "next" button. I was exasperated by this. "It's not a radio--it's LIVE ACTS. In fact I don't even listen to radio because I hate commercials. I listen to Launchcast and if a song offends me I can block it forever or if I'm not in the mood I can just skip it. I'm skipping this and I want my money back."
But I couldn't get my money back.
When I woke up I thought about what a geek I am to dream about separation of church and state.

Voluntary Human Extinction

12.19.13.10.18 3 Etznab 11 Mol

I am all for this. I made this choice before I knew such a movement existed.
A quote from the page:

As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.

Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.

You might also be interested in the post I just made (on my other blog) on the mass planetary extinction going on. The link that led me to the list of going--going--gone species came from the same person that gave me this link about human extinction.

I will list some other choice quotes from the VHEMT site. A lot of this site is very clever and funny:

• Children's welfare will improve as there are fewer of them to care for. Considering the future world we are creating for future generations, procreation today is like renting rooms in a burning building -- renting them to our children no less.
• Humans, like all creatures, have urges which lead to reproduction. Our biological urge is to have sex, not to make babies. Our "instinct to breed" is the same as a squirrel's instinct to plant trees: the urge is to store food, trees are a natural result. If sex is an urge to procreate, then hunger's an urge to defecate.
• Consider (the) rights of (the) unconceived to stay that way.
• Consider ethics of sentencing an innocent person to life, and death, in ecological collapse.
• We pull strands from the web of life, jump up and down on it, and expect it to hold our ever-increasing weight. Few notice there's no safety net.
• Regardless of how many progeny we have or haven't produced, rather than stop at two, we must stop at once.
• Today's extinction rate is nearly one thousand times the average for the eons, and virtually every species' demise stems from the activities of one species. Guess who. Our voluntary extinction for the eternal good of all other life on Earth will be the ultimate demonstration of the best qualities of humanity: compassion and reason.
• (P)eople who aren't created won't starve

Ecological footprint quiz--I take up 14 acres, most take up 24, there's 4 available per person on Earth. Nice.

World Population clock w/ births & deaths

World Population (US Census) monthly

weird dream

12.19.13.10.17 2 Caban 10 Mol

I just had a weird dream. I only remember a bit of it. I was back in high school but physically the size I was as a college freshman. We were all in gym class. For some reason the gym floor was covered with ice. There was a pavilion set up, anchored to the ice, and we were playing basketball inside of it. Well, the boys were--the girls were outside waiting their turn. It was while I was waiting that I noticed that the floor was ice. Then all of a sudden the gym teacher said we had to leave, we were being evacuated. I had a gym bag with me like I carry now to the pool, and I was hurrying in line carrying it and my purse. I finally stopped to shove the purse into the bag and got separated from some of my friends. I ended up huddling in this little alcove on the outside of the building--kind of like a bus stop area. No wall in front, just on the sides. Some other girls came in and they had the most extraordinary facial piercings I'd ever seen (and when I was in high school, it was a big deal to have 2 holes in each ear--the really daring and crazy had 3). This one girl had so many barbell through her face she looked like a porcupine. The barbells were one-sided (like lower lip ones) and instead of having a single stainless steel ball they each had lots of blue and purple beads. She probably had....30? 50? A lot. She was upset at the evacuation and also talking about her piercings, saying how much antiseptic got used before they pierced her face. Another girl came in and she had similar beaded piercings in her ears...but in her EAR CANAL sticking out like q-tips. Some of the wires she had bent at right angles so she had beaded wires coming straight out, and pointing up and down and forward and back. I thought it was ugly AND that if someone slapped the side of her head, the wires would burst her eardrums and break into her brain and kill her.
The girl with the facial piercings started to take hers out and move them around. They weren't real piercings, just jewelry wire with very sharp ends. Her face was bleeding and it was obvious she was going to have scars.
Then someone said that the security guard assigned to our area was coming to kill us, that he was going to go inside the building and shoot us through the brick wall, and everyone started to panic, even though no gun can shoot through a brick wall (not anything carried regularly anyway) and that's when I had to get up.

Movie Review: Snakes on a Plane

12.19.13.10.6 4 Cimi 19 Yaxkin
I HAD to go see it yesterday--it was 3 Chicchan (3 Snake) and a burner day.
My review (cross posted to obsidianbutterfly.com and my other blogs as well as Yahoo movies)

Movie Review
Snakes on a Plane
www.snakesonaplane.com
4/5 stars
I don’t hate or fear snakes. I think they should be respected and pretty much left alone. They aren’t cuddly and I don’t understand why anyone would have one as a pet.
After all the advance hype for SoaP, I expected something funny and maybe a bit awful, but aware of its awfulness (if that makes any sense)—almost a parody of itself. But the movie took itself rather seriously, although there were many laughs.
The basic plot: Sean Jones, a surfer dude out for a ride on his dirt bike, stops for a drink and witnesses a brutal murder. (The killers obligingly use each other’s names and identify the victim.) He tells no one. Somehow the killers find out who he is, but before they can silence him (even though he didn’t speak) he’s rescued by FBI Agent Neville Flynn (Samuel Jackson), “Do as I say and you’ll live” (this line becomes important). Eddie Kim, some sort of unspecified Asian thug, is known for creatively eliminating witnesses against him. The FBI takes Jones into protective custody and prepares to fly him to LA (They’re in Hawaii) to testify.
Claire, a stewardess on her last run before law school, is miffed that the FBI took over the first class cabin and forced the first class passengers into coach, where they say such stupid things as “is it safe?” and complain that because they are flying coach and not first class they’ll be late to a meeting. Stereotyped passengers include a fat lady in a tent dress, a honeymooning couple (the husband hates flying), two little boys traveling alone, a single mother, an annoying woman with a purse dog, and a supercilious business man. Also on the plane is the rapper 3G and his two-man posse. 3G hates touching others or being touched and constantly washes his hands with sanitizer. You can probably guess from the descriptions who lives and dies.
Somehow the snakes’ box has a timer that lets them loose when the plane hits cruising altitude. It takes a while for the first bite, but then they come fast—almost too fast to enjoy. The moral of this section is: stay out of airplane bathrooms.
Amusingly, some of the snakes’ scenes are shot in a kind of “snake cam” format, from the snakes’ point of view. These shots are hazy and green and reminded me of how the world looked to Frodo in the Lord of the Rings films while wearing the Ring.
The passengers and Agent Flynn get very creative with snake-killing. I will only mention a couple—hair spray torch and microwave. The hair spray torch bothered me for a couple of reasons. First, of course, is that no lighters are allowed on a plane. Second, is it wise to be shooting fire and flames around in an airplane, snakes or no snakes? However, seeing someone crawling through an access hatch full of bundled wires, looking for snakes, is pretty creepy.
I’m going to list some inconsistencies:
o The snakes rip out a bunch of wires. The people reset the breakers and magically the shut-off components came back on. This happens twice.
o The passengers pile up barriers of carts and luggage but don’t block the vents, which is how the snakes got from the cargo hold to the passenger compartment.
o They leave the pilots alone with predictable results. The moment the FBI agents realized what was happening, they should have put the witness into the cockpit with an agent to protect both the witness and the pilots from the snakes. Flynn says that if the plane crashes it doesn’t matter if the snakes bite the witness or not, but he doesn’t try to protect the pilots who are the only ones who can fly the plane!
o A big deal is made about how there are no snakes in Hawaii and no one in Hawaii that could have arranged for that many snakes on short notice. The person who did arrange it was in California and there’s no explanation of how he got the snakes to Hawaii on such short notice.
o The best snake in the movie, the boa constrictor, was shown with rows of shark-like teeth. It also growled.
o At one point, Flynn punches in the code to enter the cockpit (why would he even have it?). Later on, when the pilots don’t answer, he smashes in the door. It took him longer to find a weapon and use it than just to enter the code.
o All the first class passengers were stuck in coach. None of them entered First Class at all. Yet the overhead compartments are filled with baggage.
Don’t wait for video/pay per view/ HBO. It’s more fun to see this one with a bunch of rowdy people in the theater. (c)

bring back the dead...mammoths that is

For some reason when I saw this article I just started thinking about Monty Python and the Holy Grail's "Bring out your dead" scene, except it was "bring back your dead."
No this isn't about my cat. It's about mammoths.

BODIES of extinct Ice Age mammals, such as woolly mammoths, that have been frozen in permafrost for thousands of years may contain viable sperm that could be used to bring them back from the dead, scientists said yesterday.....The mammoth is a close genetic cousin of the modern Asian elephant, and scientists think that the two may be capable of interbreeding. The frozen mammoth sperm could be injected into elephant eggs, producing offspring that would be 50 per cent mammoth.

But the real question is, SHOULD WE? Where would a mammoth live? Wouldn't it be lonely and unhappy like a single elephant kept in the zoo is?
12.19.13.10.1 12 Imix 14 Yaxkin

printed Jaguar Nights calendar

Okay, I officially started today on the 2007 Jaguar Nights wall calendar. That's right, a version of my book to hang on your wall. My goal is to have printed copies to sell at the first Astrological Society of Connecticut meeting on September 21, 2006. That gives me five weeks & 2 days to design it, lay it out and print it. It will have an ISBN number and be available on Amazon.com as well. I'm ambitious if nothing else.
Whew.
I WILL do this.
As soon as I figure out a price, I'll be taking pre-orders via Paypal. My inclination is if you pre-order I will give you free shipping.
Today is a burner day and I am lighting the fire.
12.19.13.10.0 11 Ahau 13 Yaxkin

from the past

12.19.13.9.19 10 Cauac 12 Yaxkin
I keep thinking about something that happened to me a long time ago.
Most of my life, I've had a recurring cough from approximately October-May every year.
When I was in middle school, I had a really bad winter one year. My cough was outrageous. My mom would send me off to school with a bottle of OTC cough syrup. She stopped buying the expensive prescription ones with codeine--they would knock me out so I wouldn't wake up when I coughed but they didn't stop the coughing!
For whatever reason, the staff of the school decided one day that I could not have my cough medicine. They confiscated it. The end result was predictable--I had increasingly worse coughing fits throughout the day. I was allowed every 4 hours to have one small spoonful given by the nurse (the directions on the bottle) instead of a swig between classes (even today, that's what I do with my Nyquil and Dayquil--just swig it when I need it).
One particular day there was an assembly of some type. I don't remember what it was. I sat in the back coughing helplessly. I was hauled out into the hallway and reprimanded for being deliberately disruptive and made to stand in the hall with the other troublemakers (spitball throwers, etc. ) and miss whatever the program was. I continued to cough--and because I was in the hallway it echoed and was even louder.
I was dragged to the principal's office, where I sat there and coughed. They called my mother to come and get me--yes I was sent home, as punishment, for "deliberately disruptive coughing."
My mother came storming in. I'm sure she had to leave work for this BS which really would have pissed her off. "Where's her cough medicine? I gave her a whole bottle to bring to school."
They responded, "We confiscated it. It's not allowed."
Logically, my mother asked, "you called me here to get her why?"
"She won't stop coughing. She disrupted the whole auditorium and ruined the program for everyone. "
"Where is her cough medicine?"
"She's not allowed to have it."
My mother, like me, doesn't like to take shit. She said, "Let me see if I understand. My daughter is coughing. I know it. It's not contagious. It's chronic. I sent her to school with cough medicine, which helps her to cough less. You took that away. Now you are punishing her for coughing."
I don't remember if she called them idiots to their faces or waited until we got out to the car.
And I don't know why this event is lingering so much in my mind for the past few days.

new yahoo avatar and blog

12.19.13.9.18 9 Etznab 11 Yaxkin

I made myself a new avatar which I call "In the Summerland with Zen"

I also started a new infrequent blog just for pet and animal stuff. Because I need another blog, you know.
http://360.yahoo.com/bertpiedmont

Perseid Meteor Shower

The meteor shower is this week--Saturday night is supposed to be the peak. I've lost so many I love since the last one. I like to think those little flashes of light are souls going home.
Goodbye Gwennie, Goober, Prism and Zen-zen. I'll see you on the other side.

musings on being sad, finger of god pictures

I'm going through that counting phase that happens after a loved one's death. A week ago I had my Zen. I fed him breakfast and went to work. I was doing the dishes this weekend (a rare thing, I know) and thinking that when I used some of these dishes I had my kitty. The last time I ate pizza, I had my cat. The last time I watched this show, I had my cat. It's coming up now on a week--I brought him to the vet at 3:00 on Monday and I was home by 4:00 and I never saw him again.
I have a song stuck in my head--I must have heard it on the radio--I think it's the Scorpions--"This can't be the end/just give me a chance/I'm still loving you" and of course I won't ever stop loving my cat, and I know the pressure in my chest will ease and I'll stop crying several times a day.
Something else happened to me last Monday which I'd almost forgotten about until my husband asked me what I'd done with our new camera. When I was leaving for work, it was dingy out, and I saw a curious thing. A shaft of light came through the clouds and the trees and landed exactly on the altar in the middle of my circle. I felt compelled to go inside, get the camera, and photograph it. Usually I pretty my pictures up but these I did nothing to. By the time I found the camera and put a chip into it the light had moved somewhat but you get the idea:

lamentation

As I was writing earlier, I had Launchcast on, and a song called Lamentation, an instrumental, played. It really could have no other name--haunting and sad, just how I feel. Listen to a sample at the link.
It's got to get better sometime, right?

space shuttle Atlantis, global warming, planetary stuff

Atlantis is being launched again. I feel a kinship with it because the last time it launched, we were on our way home from Grand Cayman flying over Florida and Atlantis flew by us (I have pictures; I'll have to scan some in and post here). Plus I like the name, obviously. The next shuttle launch was the one that blew up on re-entry.
It seems strange to me that we spend millions of dollars going into space when our own planet is so screwed up. I understand that space exploration is important but right now we haven't got the technology to terra-form or live on other planets for any length of time. Our space technology has barely evolved since we went to the moon right after I was born. Compare that to the evolution of computers (including the internet) and even how much cars have changed. Obviously we build a lot more cars than space shuttles, but it seems like each trip up there we should learn something new and design something new based on it.
I've been watching Shark Week (of course) and it's amazing what we don't know about the oceans. Shouldn't we be exploring there first?
I watched the Global Warming-what you should know show on Sunday. It was basically a rehash of the recent cover article in Newsweek. But what struck me was the windmills. Why can't we have windmills? I don't think they're ugly. No uglier than cell phone towers and those lines of marching electrical transformers. I would have one on my roof. I'd have solar panels too, but not if I have to cut down my trees. I wish I could afford a hybrid car but I can't right now. But almost all my lightbulbs are the twisted florescent ones.