Stonehenge of the Amazon

I know the Maya and Aztecs weren't in South America, but this is interesting.
A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory ....The 127 blocks, some as high as 9 feet, are spaced at regular intervals around the hill, like a crown 100 feet in diameter. On the shortest day of the year -- December 21 -- the shadow of one of the blocks disappears when the sun is directly above it.

...(P)ottery shards near the site indicate they are pre-Columbian and maybe older -- as much as 2,000 years old.

....Last month, archaeologists working on a hillside north of Lima, Peru, announced the discovery of the oldest astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere -- giant stone carvings, apparently 4,200 years old, that align with sunrise and sunset on December 21.

I think that's pretty cool, and I have to wonder how I missed last month's discovery as well.
I think any observant person would notice that the sun doesn't rise and set in the same place all the time. And a really curious person might try to mark off the extremes, and then try to time the interval. If the really curious person is a high ranking priest or noble, once he (you know it was a he) figured it out, why not put something BIG to mark it, rather than a carved stick or pile of rocks? You'd need to know where to stand to see what you were looking at....so you'd need two objects for every viewpoint (it takes 2 points to make a line). Why not make one an arch to look through and another a stone to stand on?
And then, of course, you'd have to do ceremonies, because that's what the plebs want, so you come up with an elaborate ceremony about some cluster of stars and the sun rise and then your grandson notices that the stars aren't lining up anymore and he talks it over and makes some notes and HIS grandson "discovers" precession of the Equinoxes.
There, wasn't that easy?
Of course, Precession has stopped, hasn't it? I have to look more into this still.

krakatoa

12.19.13.7.10 13 Oc 3 Tzec (welcome to the center of this Tzolkin!)
Some one kindly posted me a comment saying that the krakatoa info is indeed at the discovery channel website...without the www at the beginning.
I'm sorry, but I figure when someone says "discovery dot com" they are leaving out the www because everyone knows it, just like everyone leaves out the http:// now. I often just say "obsidian butterfly dot com" in reference to my web site.

the ancient enemy killed the Maya

I stayed up late to watch the movie of Dean Koontz' Phantoms on Saturday night. I remember thinking the book was okay and being mildly interested in the movie but I guess it never came onto Stars or HBO because it was on some regular channel (Fox maybe?).
I had forgotten the similarities between it and, well, IT by Stephen King. Cyclical monsters in the drain and all that.
So the premise behind Phantoms is that this immortal proto-plasmic creature who has been around since the dinosaurs (and is what caused them to go extinct; an illogical premise until the Ancient Enemy was a LOT bigger back than) periodically comes up from its subterranean lair (sewers--did you know that Diplodocus had plumbing?) and eats everything in sight.
One of the characters is an old geezer who writes for the equivalent of The Weekly World News and who actually has a theory about this creature who he calls The Ancient Enemy. He claims the Ancient Enemy killed Roanoke, the ancient Maya (we'll ignore the fact that there's more Maya alive now than there ever has been), the dinosaurs, the people on the Mary Celeste, etc. Anyplace a bunch of people have all vanished at once--that's the AE. Apparently most of the time the AE gets hungry, it comes up in the oceans or an uninhabited (by humans) place so no one notices. Only once in a while does it munch on humans. Then, like a ground-up flatworm, the knowledge of the dead people is kept alive in the AE's brain.
Then it all devolves into religion and is the AE actually Satan. Blah, blah, blah.
This stuff is the best part of fiction. Find some things that are true and link them together with fiction and truth-stretching. This is what the DaVinci Code was. Do you think I honestly believe there's a massive goo-creature in the sewer which has in its head (nucleus?) all the knowledge of the ancient Maya....?
Oh, wait. I kinda like that. How can I talk to this creature without being consumed by it!?

happy Summer solstice

I was just looking at an article on cnn.com and it said the people at Stonehenge this morning were 5% spiritual and 95% partiers. There were 19,000 people there, about a 1/3 of what goes to watch the snake crawl on the pyramid of Kukulcan. Do you think that's what happens at Chichen Itza for the equinoxes too? That makes me so sad.
One funny quote:
"This is the nearest thing I've got to religion," said Ray Meadows, 34, of Bristol, England. The solstice "is a way of giving thanks to the earth and the universe."
Meadows, wearing a wreath of pink carnations over long pink hair-wrapped braids, identified herself as a fairy of the Tribe of Frog.
One sad quote:
Crowds of partygoers stumbled toward their cars an hour after sunrise, some clutching nearly empty bottles of mixed drinks or beer cans. One described the crowd as 5 percent pagan and 95 percent partygoer. "Some people here are really spoiling it," said Chris Sargent, 37, of Bournemouth. "Once upon a time it was really spiritual." Sargent, clad in a long black jacket and pants, top hat and fighter pilot goggles, drank vodka and Coke from a two-liter soda bottle and confessed that he was "really stoned."
Duh. And you don't think YOUR behavior might be among the spoiling effects?
When I have rituals, my rule is that the alcohol has to stay put away until the ritual is over. And once the alcohol is taken out, the children have to leave. Except as an offering spit onto Mother Earth, alcohol has no place in ritual or sacred behavior.
One of my pagan friends I met through Yahoo answers has a nice article on her blog about the Solstice. However I'm having a problem logging onto Yahoo this morning. This should be the link but it's not working.

it's about time something good happened to me

12.19.13.7.5 8 Chicchan 18 Zotz
For my birthday (which is in a couple of weeks) Will got us tickets to Nine Inch Nails last night in Hartford (Dodge/formerly known as Meadows). They were "only" fourth row and he apologized.
We get there and yeah, they are 4th row, technically 2nd row because of the way the rows have different lengths. There's only one row between us and the stage...except for a pile of equipment. Now we could care less about Peaches, the opening opening act (her last song trumpeted "SIS-stay in school" to a crowd who was mostly in their 20's and 30's), and the guys in Bauhaus were, um, well I didn't care to much to LOOK at them. Their music was okay. Probably they'd move the equipment, right?
Wrong.
So the guy in front of me (who was from North Haven but used to live here in Wallingford, and his friend who's from Wallingford) and I went on a rampage through the security guards. Our litany: the first two bands sucked, there's no beer, and we paid $55 for seats that we thought were good and they are obstructed view. Now, I don't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about beer and I didn't think Bauhaus was that bad (as long as your eyes were shut). But I wanted to see Trent up close, damn it.
I think we went through 5 levels of security before we got to a gentleman in a black shirt (we went through yellow, red and blue shirts, several of each). He listened to us and promised to come down and look. He did, and before NIN started he'd moved us...to stand at FRONT AND CENTER against the stage. (We will NOT go into what happened to me 12 years ago when I was front and center at a NIN concert at Roseland in NYC.)
Yes, that's right. I was front row center at Nine Inch Nails last night.
It's about time something went right for me.
Of course my leg hurts SO BAD from standing (and bouncing and dancing) for 2+ hours but hey, I'm getting surgery on it tomorrow.

some things are just too awful for words

Staring at me this morning from CNN.com's MAIN PAGE (see screen print) was the following headline:
Missing soldiers reportedly found dead
With two photos of those soldiers.
The article goes on to say, "An Iraq Defense Ministry spokesman says two U.S. soldiers missing since Friday have been found dead, Reuters reports. U.S. military authorities in Baghdad told CNN they could not confirm the report."
What the hell? How dare they publish the names and pictures of these men when it's not officially confirmed that they are the ones who were found dead? How must their families feel? I have friends with family members in Iraq and I would hate for them to get the news via CNN rather than official channels.
This is just WRONG.

grief

12.19.13.7.1 4 Imix 14 Zotz Day 121 of 260 Reflection day

Before I came downstairs to post my Jaguar Nights excerpt, I was upstairs in bed crying for my sweet little Prism. It's a different kind of pain than losing Goober but of course that's stirred up now too. I feel so cheated. I only had her for 3 weeks. I knew she was older and had bad feet but I thought I'd have her something like 3 years. Three years would have brought her to 15 which is how old Goober was, and a pet who dies at 15 hasn't cheated you.
I was trying to be clinical about my grief. As a writer, I need to describe things that happen.
The sadness was like a ball, a mass, a pressure in the middle of my chest. Not my heart, but right behind the breastbone. It swelled and moved up into my throat and then filled the back of my throat choking me. That's the "thickened throat" some writers describe. And then it continued into my mouth, forcing it open until I thought the only way to release the pressure was to scream or sob loudly.
I tortured myself for 24 hours that I killed Prism. She ate part of her cast, it blocked her digestion and she died. The cast was too tight and she got gangrene and died. The food I fed her wasn't fresh enough and she got a bacteria infection and died. (That's how I lost Gwennie and Scarlett-to septic blood infections--Gwennie liked to crawl under the grate and eat random things [she actually had a couple of small rocks in her belly] and I don't know what Scarlett ate.) Or that the stress of moving here, 36 hours on a plane, strange environment, just overwhelmed her and then the stress of the boot put her over the edge and she died.
So I called the vet and asked.
She had a "large mass" in her abdomen on/near her ovaries which also affected her liver (which was "mottled"). Tumor or cyst, I guess; they sent it out. That's how I lost Goober.
I now have a 50/50 ratio of dead to live birds. In one corner, in a box, are Scarlett, Gwennie, Goober and soon to be Prism. In the other room, hooting and eating apples, are Zeebo, Lance, Hogan and Onnie, my sole female.
And Precession of the Equinoxes has stopped. I haven't forgotten about that.
Welcome to the calm, quiet Reflection days.

Precession of the equinoxes has STOPPED?!

I was just chatting with a friend about the coming pole shift and was doing some research to back up the conversation and I came upon this RECENT tidbit:
THE EARTH WOBBLES as it rotates on its axis. At least it used to. As of January 8, 2006, the wobbling has stopped, according to earth changes researcher Michael Mandeville. What will the effects be? No one knows. Maybe nothing.
WHAT!? How could six months have gone by and I've heard NOTHING?!
What happens to 12-21-2012? Are we close enough in precessional terms that it will still happen? Precession was 1 degree in approximately 70 years, right. Which means if we're only 6 years away...That's 1/6 of a degree....damn it, who can I talk to about this at midnight on a Friday night!?
Okay, I need to calm down. Today has been a TERRIBLE day. I should stop worrying about this until tomorrow.
This is the guy's site. I don't understand half of it. All science. Argh. More tomorrow.
Which is in 19 minutes.

I feel cursed

12.19.13.7.0 3 Ahau 13 Zotz (burner)
This morning when I got up something was wrong with Prism, my new rainbow lory. I didn't like how she was sitting in the cage. She was in the corner and she was lethargic. She didn't eat yesterday either; although I did feed her very late last night because I wasn't home. She didn't eat her breakfast though.
On the way to the vet she had a seizure and died. It was awful. I saw the light go out of her eyes. They went from red to yellow the instant she died. A minute or so later they went back to red and I had hope that maybe she wasn't dead, but she was. She never moved again. I have the tail feather she left behind. I had her for 21 days.
Yesterday when I got up my betta had a big red sore or bite on his jaw. I put some antibiotic into the water thinking he'd scraped his jaw on the gravel. This morning when I got up the cory was dead and he had a big red bite taken out of him--and yesterday he was FINE. I think it' s the pleco.
My insurance company denied all my claims for my therapist so I owe her about a thousand dollar which I don't have.
What a way to end out the manifestation half of the Tzolkin (ends today). Hopefully in 21 days when the intention part begins, I will do better. I have the 21 days in between to reflect on it, which is why I call them Reflection days.
But right now I just feel like crap. I blame myself. I think that shoe we put on Prism to fix her foot killed her somehow. I should have left her damn foot alone. I wanted her to be more comfortable. I guess she is, in heaven where she can be friends with Gwennie and Goober and Scarlett. Maybe it's just female birds I have bad luck with. I feel like bringing Onnie to the vet to get checked.

Krakatoa

So during the show on Krakatoa last night, they said repeatedly that if you wanted to read all the documents the show was based on, to go to discovery.com/krakatoa.
Which gives a lovely 404 not found.
I've tried everything to find it--even google, even discoverychannel.com. This isn't the first time this kind of situation has come up for me with the various discovery channels. I don't get it.
If you search for Krakatoa, you get the listings of when it will be on again. (June 17 9 p.m., June 18 1 .m., June 24 2 p.m., June 25 9 a.m.)
That's pretty useless.
I had questions. I guess I'll have to research them myself.
Like about the boiling ash cloud (something-clastic cloud) that killed the baby (and lots of others). Did that ash cloud only go in one direction? Why didn't it hit the lighthouse and the ship? What happened to the ship which survived the tidal wave? Is it in a museum somewhere? What happened to the lighthouse keeper's wife? How about her son's dog, which saved her life?
I also wonder if anyone has thought about doing controlled detonations on volcanoes so their eruptions aren't so destructive. You know, blow a hole, a safety valve, so the pressure doesn't build up. My friend is into volcanos; I'll ask her.

Giant Tsunami

12.19.13.6.16 12 Cib 9 Zotz
I watched the end of the show on Discovery last night about the 2004 Tsunami, which had actual home video footage. It was awful to watch. It reminded me of 9/11, how I sat in front of CNN crying, watching the plane hit the tower over and over, watching the people jumping to their deaths, and I couldn't not look.
Then there was a 2 hour special on Krakatoa which was re-creations based on actual diaries of people who were there, and then I watched part of the Mega-Tsunami show, which is about the Canary Islands blowing and creating a landslide that would cause a massive tidal wave which would take out the East Coast of the United States to about 12 miles inland (which is about how far I am as the crow flies). There'd be about 8 hours warning. It sounds like a lot, but we don't have evacuation plans in Connecticut. Look what happened in New Orleans with their evacuation, and a few months later in Houston where people were trapped on the highway for 12 hours not moving and running out of gas.
So I started thinking about it, because that's what I do. I think about things. I guess I'm a philosopher at heart. Now if the volcano blew at 11 or 12 at night our time, basically we'd have no warning, unless the police went through the streets with a bullhorn. Even right now, I've been awake for over 1/2 an hour, I haven't been to CNN.com yet, I don't have the TV or radio on, so I would be blissfully ignorant.
Let's said I HAD warning. I live right at the edge of where the wave would end. I thought about my choices.
I could stay in my house, drag everything up to the 2nd floor and hope that if any water did hit, my old house wouldn't fall down.
My husband and I could pack everything in one or both of the cars (another dilemma--take both cars and save more stuff, but risk being separated? Or stick together and leave precious goods behind?) and flee. With the state of the highways around here, we'd probably drown in our cars.
I thought about how low my street is. It isn't called Valley Street for no reason at all. Wallingford is shaped like a V with the Quinnipiac River flowing through the bottom of it. I live....hmm...my distance guessing is terrible, but if the buildings weren't in the way I could SEE the river so I'm going to say 100 yards. Not in a flood zone for normal flooding, but this is abnormal. My parents live about a mile away but they are up the hill quite a bit. Better to pack our two cars and head for my parents' house, I think.
And what do you bring when everything you leave behind might (probably will) be gone?
My birds. Cages for them. Cats. Food for all. Water. The computers. Photo albums. Clothes. Blankets. The air mattress. With only one car, the TV and stereo would have to be left behind; with two cars we could manage that. Maybe some of my books. What else is really important?
This was just an exercise to make me think about what's important. My animals and my knowledge.

Old information I found

12.19.13.6.13 9 Ben 6 Zotz Manifestation Portal (day 113 of 260)
I'm cleaning off my hard drive...always a fun task...and I found some really old stuff I wrote for this blog and never put up. I'll leave it under today's date because who reads back that far? Some of the info isn't accurate anymore either.

---

This was written on 04-28-05:
12.19.12.4.6 5 Cimi 4 Uo
I AM Gevera Bert Piedmont. My shamanic name is Ix Mahel Ek Penpen, which translates roughly to "Angelic Jaguar Shaman Black Butterfly." My patron goddess is Itzpapalotl (Obsidian Butterfly) (Black Butterfly-get it?).
I was accepted into the Order of the Feathered Serpent based on a 28-page spiritual resume submitted to the head of the Order. (If you want more information on OFS, please join the yahoo group Feathered Serpent Teachings)
Twenty-eight pages is a bit extreme, I know. But I included the complete text of a ritual I'd written, and also some sample pages from my book about the Tzolkin, Jaguar Nights, as well as a list of books I've studied.
The reason I made it so long is that I have little formal training. I fell in love with the Tzolkin while in college (read the complete story on my web site, www.ObsidianButterfly.com) and basically just started reading up on it, memorizing things, studying things, and gradually branching out to become a pagan (or embrace my essential pagan-ness). I have taken a few very basic course in things like Indian Beadwork, constructing medicine wheels, and weaving dream catchers, and many classes on generic pagan & wiccan subjects. I have master level (teacher) training in Usui Reiki, Karuna Reiki, Karuna-Ki Reiki, Tera Mai Reiki, Tera-Main Seichim Reiki, 7-Facet Seichem Reiki, Mayan Reiki, Shamballa Multi-Dimensional Healing, Ama Deus Shamanic Healing and Holographic Sound Healing with the Angelic Realms. I have developed my own system of healing called Elements of the Divine. Right now I actively schedule/teach Shamballa, Mayan Reiki, HSH, Ama Deus and of course ED. I am also a Master-Healer in the Magnussa Phoenix school of Reiki, from Germany. I have studied Huna (Hawaiian Shamanism) extensively on my own, never having had the opportunity to take a course in it (except a distant-learning one I did many years ago). I am a certified Reflexologist, and I do astrological & psychic readings based on the Tzolkin.
Except for the Tzolkin Self-study, none of my training took place before 1998. I have accomplished an amazing amount in relatively few years.
I am not done learning (or I wouldn't have accepted the invitation for the OFS studies) nor am I done teaching.
Other accomplishments of mine in the metaphysical realm are having edited Dennis Alexander's book MayanReiki (including writing a chapter on the Tzolkin) and being initiated by him as a Shaman of Mayanism on the Spring Equinox of 2003. I also do editing work for Steve Rother of Lightworker.com.

---

Updates: I'm not an editor for Steve Rother anymore. The Order of the Feathered Serpent appears to have died; I haven't gotten a lesson in a year. I've shelved Elements of the Divine again. Ama Deus, Holographic Sound Healing and Mayan Reiki are only be offered by request. I'm no longer scheduling classes and buying advertising to promote them. It never worked that great.

Dream

12.19.13.6.10 6 Oc 3 Zotz Manifestation portal

Had a short dream this morning.
In the dream, something was wrong with my eyes so I called a doctor who referred me to another doctor. The first doctor even set up the appointment for me. The 2nd doctor's name was Dr Robert Miller. I went to him and he gave me a drug called Kallin or Callin or Callen or Kallen (something like that) to fix whatever it was that was wrong with my eyes. A while later I went to the first doctor because I didn't feel good. They took some kind of bodily fluid from me, not sure what, and put it in a glass beaker (a large one, maybe a pint). They poured in a reagent and before they even stirred it with the glass rod the liquid turned crimson (it had been clear). I knew from the past that red was bad; it was supposed to turn purple. Red meant I had diabetes. Obviously I wasn't happy about that.
They started asking me all kinds of questions and I said that Dr Robert Miller, who I went to on their referral, had given me this Kallen stuff for my eyes. The doctor pulled out a sheet of paper listing doctor's names and said "did you say 'Robert Miller'?" "Yes" "It was a man you saw?" "yes." It turns out their office had made a mistake, I was supposed to go see a different Dr Miller, a woman. The Doctor Miller I saw didn't know eyes from squat (I forget what kind of doctor he was) and he had given me the wrong medicine and that medicine had given me diabetes.
So right away it became a question of fault. I said, "You guys gave the referral and made the appointment. You said 'Dr Miller' and I went to the Doctor Miller you made the appointment with. So it's your fault." They claimed I should have double-checked the referral, but why and how? Or maybe I should just focus on this wrong doctor who made me sick.
The dream wasn't resolved before I woke up.

"crazy for you" & impeccable language

12.19.13.6.9 5 Muluc 2 Zotz manifestation portal
I don't remember what I dreamed about the other night but I woke up thinking of the phrase "crazy for you". I started thinking about some stupid things I've done in the name of "love" (we won't get into if I actually loved these people or if I was just deluded). No, I'm not going to list them here--this isn't a true confessions blog.
I was just thinking that there have been times that I have done inexplicable things, acts that if I was in my "right" mind (whatever that is) I never would have contemplated. And it seems to me that being "in love" really is a form of insanity. And that there is such a fine line between an attentive lover and an obsessive stalker. (I have never been a stalker or been stalked.)
If you have a boyfriend who has flowers delivered to you at work and leaves love notes under your windshield wipers, that's sweet and all your friends will be jealous. If some guy you used to work with at Burger King when you were 17 does it, he's a stalker and he gets arrested.
The only difference is how YOU feel about HIM.
It seems to me like "Crazy for you" is one of those phrases people throw around who don't have any knowledge of impeccable language. Other phrases to avoid when living by IL is "killing me" (My back is killing me) "I could have died" (I laughed so hard I could have died).
Look at the phrase. Spell it out completely (we have such lazy syntax & pronunciation in the US--that's how "I could have died" turns into "I could of died" & then "I coulda died")--I am crazy for you.

• I AM--you are setting up intent with the most powerful phrase there is. And even if you DO NOT say "I am" your soul knows when you've lseft it out due to lazy speech. But since you don't hear yourself say "I am" you don't realize what a declaration you are making to the universe.
• CRAZY--The meaning of "crazy" has gotten watered down to mean someone who is maybe slightly zany (zany is such a good word; no one uses it anymore except maybe movie reviewers), but not at all dangerous to the self or others. Just like "mad" only means angry now, not insane, except of course if you're "madly in love" which is pretty much the same as " crazy for you". Crazy means insane, not in your right mind, you might hurt yourself or someone else. And this is your intent, to be this, with the I AM CRAZY.
• FOR YOU. Have you seen the trailer for the remake of the Omen? Of course you have, it's everywhere. When the nurse or whatever she is kills herself and she says first "It's for you, Damien, it's all for you"--it's the same thing. This gift is FOR YOU is what you say when you hand over a gaily wrapped present (not one wrapped by a fruity man, but a brightly colored smile-inducing present). I bought food for the cats. I do this for you, as a gift. I am insane out, out of my mind, as a gift for you.

Yeech. That's really scary. If someone came up to you and said "I am out of my mind and insane, as a gift for you" you'd run. ("Out of my mind" is another interesting phrase if you think about it. I'll leave that FOR YOU. lol).