1. To carry the sacred ram and set him among the stars.
2. To purify the hide of the sacred white bull.
3. to tame the twin serpents of Teramo.
4. To carry the Great Sea Crab to the Western Horizon.
5. To free the sacred Lion.
6. To fashion a bow for the goddess Diana.
7. To forge the Great Scales of Justice for the Gods.
8. To seal the giant scorpion back within the Earth.
9. To make a golden arrow for the King of the Centaurs.
10. To fashion two golden horns for the Great Goat Fish.
11. To purify the jugs of water which are bore to the Gods.
12. To leash the two Great Fish of the Sea and set them among the stars.
Hereditary Witchcraft, page 97 by Raven Grimassi
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Wolves
Taken from How to Stay Alive in the Woods by Bradford Angier
The Wolf is so cautious that, aided by a high order of intelligence, it will put forth every effort not to be even seen by man. Its correspondingly keen curiosity, however, will sometimes lead to close investigations especially during protective darkness, and this has stimulated some of the tales about wolves trailing individuals with the alleged motive of eventually attacking.
Whenever I hear such accounts I think of the many nights in the Continental Northwest when I've gone to sleep wherever in the wilderness I have happened to be, many times listening as I dozed off to a wolf chorus and often as not hearing the wild music when half-awakening during the night but - except for the thrill it still never ceases to arouse - having no particular emotion except the pleasure of feeling more closely attuned to the unspoiled places; not because of any daring but because I soon realized, both from observation and from what others told me, that no wolf will harm a human being.
The Wolf is so cautious that, aided by a high order of intelligence, it will put forth every effort not to be even seen by man. Its correspondingly keen curiosity, however, will sometimes lead to close investigations especially during protective darkness, and this has stimulated some of the tales about wolves trailing individuals with the alleged motive of eventually attacking.
Whenever I hear such accounts I think of the many nights in the Continental Northwest when I've gone to sleep wherever in the wilderness I have happened to be, many times listening as I dozed off to a wolf chorus and often as not hearing the wild music when half-awakening during the night but - except for the thrill it still never ceases to arouse - having no particular emotion except the pleasure of feeling more closely attuned to the unspoiled places; not because of any daring but because I soon realized, both from observation and from what others told me, that no wolf will harm a human being.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
New Streghe on the Block
Interesting exchanges going on.
And we are reminded again, even when there are similarities, of how diverse Italy and its traditions are. Remember even the Romans didn't "unify Italy".
And we are reminded again, even when there are similarities, of how diverse Italy and its traditions are. Remember even the Romans didn't "unify Italy".
Monday, January 24, 2011
Henbit
I know it's just a weed but I think it's lovely.
It grows where it is moist and wild and cool and dies back in the summer heat.
Apparently lots of people take great effort to eradicate it.
I've actually started collecting clumps on my walks in a golf course that has been fallow and
wild since Katrina in the hope of getting it started in my garden.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Interview with Arch Priestess Diana of Strega of Benevento
Friday, January 21, 2011
SCANDAL in San Diego: Interview with Arch Priestess Diana of Strega of Benevento, Puglia & Piemonte by Lupercus del Bosco Sacro
It is my pleasure to be here interviewing Arch Priestess Diana of Strega of Benevento, Piemonte, Puglia & Sicily. For those of you who might not know yet, she arrived here in America on December 8, 2010, together with her husband and Son, to initiate and teach in the wisdom of Stregheria of Benevento. Tonight at 7:00 PM, APS Diana will appear for the first time to teach before Pagans in San Diego. There has been a great deal of gossip and scandal coming out of San Diego this week - in anticipation of this event.
Arch Priestess, the sudden appearance ot Strega of Benevento in America has been causing quite a scandal this week. What do you think of this?
It is normal and to be expected. Nothing at all of our Stregan tradition of Benevento has ever come out before. We have been extremely secretive until now and our tradition has remained virtually unknown.
Actually, I think it is The Great Rite that is causing most of the scandal. What do you make of this?
This is normal too. Most people think that The Great Rite amounts to nothing more than putting an Athame in a cup or sexual relations between a High Priest and High Priestess before, after, or during a ritual. The Great Rite, in reality, is much more than this. The Great Rite is a means, just to give one example, of contacting divinity in the flesh. There is a vast corpus of spiritual sexual technology that has never seen the light of day before we came to America. This information is an incredible blessing for Pagan couples everywhere.
Yes. There has been quite a scandal prior to your arrival in San Diego this week for your first lecture, workshop, and initiations. There are even several Pagan authors beginning to weigh in on the discussion. Would it not have been better for you to hide the teachings of The Great Rite in the higher degrees of Stregheria of Benevento, instead of putting them up front and center like you have?
Well, I am certain that it would have been easier!
This would not have been in line with our mission, however. By putting The Great Rite up front and center, we make an important statement to the Neo-Pagan movement in America. We want people to know right from the beginning that Stregheria of Benevento is not at all like Neo-Pagan traditions. We do not, for example, rely on fairy tails, psychology, or psychodrama. Moreover, in our rites and tools, you will find next to nothing of the theater and complicated implements that you find in other traditions either.
Stregheria of Benevento is a Pre-Pagan shamanic tradition. Our rites are simple and deadly effective, as are our practices. Most importantly, Stregheria of Benevento is a Pagan tradition that is NOT for everyone. Most people are not even close to ready for a tradition as powerful as Stregheria of Benevento.
We are not interested in educating and initiating vast numbers of people. In fact, there are only couple handfulls of Pagans that are completely prepared and truly ready for something like this at this juncture. Putting The Great Rite up front and center is a great way of weeding out 90% of candidates right from the beginning. Pagans who still have not bothered even to begin liberating themselves from the fear and negativity around sex instilled in them by Christianity, should certainly not come to us. They should better instead go deal with their sexual issues in psychotherapy or in one of the many Neo-Pagan traditions first.
I know that this sounds arrogant, but Stregheria of Benevento is, after all, a School of Perfection. We are only interested in the spiritual elite of the elite of the modern Pagan movement. For these few individuals, Stregheria of Benevento has an enormous amount of knowledge and training to perfect your spirituality and your practice.
We simply do not have the time or energy, however, to waste with the idly curious or people who still think that they can simply make up their own Pagan traditions.
Putting The Great Rite front and center in our teachings, thus, in the long run is not at all a bad idea. Sure, we are scandalizing a lot of people by rubbing under their noses the fundamental importance of spiritual sexuality in ancient Paganism. On the other hand, we are frightening off a lot of people who are nowhere near ready for a school of perfection like ours any way. This helps us preserve both our energy and our initiatic resources for candidates who are truly ready for such an extraordinary opportunity like Stregheria of Benevento.
I am not here to waste my time with individuals who are not suited for this work anyway. I could just as well have stayed in Italy. In fact, I certainly would have preferred to have remained in Italy. Our elders, however, are absolutely convinced that NOW is the time for this knowledge finally to come out.
It is not at all normal, that someone leaves their lives and everything behind to go to another country and start over like this. We barely speak English, for goodness sake. Our Son had to leave his school and his friends behind. If I had it my way, I would still be in Italy, dancing with my sisters and brothers beneath the Great Walnut at Benevento.
This is why I could care less about all of the gossip and noise like that coming out of San Diego this week. Those who are ripe for this message will hear the call of the Goddess, Diana Lucina, and will come to hear what we have to say. Those who are not right for this message will listen instead to the fear mongers - and they will stay away. This is the way of things - and it is good that things are are like this.
SCANDAL in San Diego: Interview with Arch Priestess Diana of Strega of Benevento, Puglia & Piemonte by Lupercus del Bosco Sacro
It is my pleasure to be here interviewing Arch Priestess Diana of Strega of Benevento, Piemonte, Puglia & Sicily. For those of you who might not know yet, she arrived here in America on December 8, 2010, together with her husband and Son, to initiate and teach in the wisdom of Stregheria of Benevento. Tonight at 7:00 PM, APS Diana will appear for the first time to teach before Pagans in San Diego. There has been a great deal of gossip and scandal coming out of San Diego this week - in anticipation of this event.
Arch Priestess, the sudden appearance ot Strega of Benevento in America has been causing quite a scandal this week. What do you think of this?
It is normal and to be expected. Nothing at all of our Stregan tradition of Benevento has ever come out before. We have been extremely secretive until now and our tradition has remained virtually unknown.
Actually, I think it is The Great Rite that is causing most of the scandal. What do you make of this?
This is normal too. Most people think that The Great Rite amounts to nothing more than putting an Athame in a cup or sexual relations between a High Priest and High Priestess before, after, or during a ritual. The Great Rite, in reality, is much more than this. The Great Rite is a means, just to give one example, of contacting divinity in the flesh. There is a vast corpus of spiritual sexual technology that has never seen the light of day before we came to America. This information is an incredible blessing for Pagan couples everywhere.
Yes. There has been quite a scandal prior to your arrival in San Diego this week for your first lecture, workshop, and initiations. There are even several Pagan authors beginning to weigh in on the discussion. Would it not have been better for you to hide the teachings of The Great Rite in the higher degrees of Stregheria of Benevento, instead of putting them up front and center like you have?
Well, I am certain that it would have been easier!
This would not have been in line with our mission, however. By putting The Great Rite up front and center, we make an important statement to the Neo-Pagan movement in America. We want people to know right from the beginning that Stregheria of Benevento is not at all like Neo-Pagan traditions. We do not, for example, rely on fairy tails, psychology, or psychodrama. Moreover, in our rites and tools, you will find next to nothing of the theater and complicated implements that you find in other traditions either.
Stregheria of Benevento is a Pre-Pagan shamanic tradition. Our rites are simple and deadly effective, as are our practices. Most importantly, Stregheria of Benevento is a Pagan tradition that is NOT for everyone. Most people are not even close to ready for a tradition as powerful as Stregheria of Benevento.
We are not interested in educating and initiating vast numbers of people. In fact, there are only couple handfulls of Pagans that are completely prepared and truly ready for something like this at this juncture. Putting The Great Rite up front and center is a great way of weeding out 90% of candidates right from the beginning. Pagans who still have not bothered even to begin liberating themselves from the fear and negativity around sex instilled in them by Christianity, should certainly not come to us. They should better instead go deal with their sexual issues in psychotherapy or in one of the many Neo-Pagan traditions first.
I know that this sounds arrogant, but Stregheria of Benevento is, after all, a School of Perfection. We are only interested in the spiritual elite of the elite of the modern Pagan movement. For these few individuals, Stregheria of Benevento has an enormous amount of knowledge and training to perfect your spirituality and your practice.
We simply do not have the time or energy, however, to waste with the idly curious or people who still think that they can simply make up their own Pagan traditions.
Putting The Great Rite front and center in our teachings, thus, in the long run is not at all a bad idea. Sure, we are scandalizing a lot of people by rubbing under their noses the fundamental importance of spiritual sexuality in ancient Paganism. On the other hand, we are frightening off a lot of people who are nowhere near ready for a school of perfection like ours any way. This helps us preserve both our energy and our initiatic resources for candidates who are truly ready for such an extraordinary opportunity like Stregheria of Benevento.
I am not here to waste my time with individuals who are not suited for this work anyway. I could just as well have stayed in Italy. In fact, I certainly would have preferred to have remained in Italy. Our elders, however, are absolutely convinced that NOW is the time for this knowledge finally to come out.
It is not at all normal, that someone leaves their lives and everything behind to go to another country and start over like this. We barely speak English, for goodness sake. Our Son had to leave his school and his friends behind. If I had it my way, I would still be in Italy, dancing with my sisters and brothers beneath the Great Walnut at Benevento.
This is why I could care less about all of the gossip and noise like that coming out of San Diego this week. Those who are ripe for this message will hear the call of the Goddess, Diana Lucina, and will come to hear what we have to say. Those who are not right for this message will listen instead to the fear mongers - and they will stay away. This is the way of things - and it is good that things are are like this.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Mother Nature's Dow
I can't believe I've held on to this article for more than a year. When I first read it I thought it was perfectly aligned with The Ways, with the concept of Nature as the Great Teacher.
Op-Ed ColumnistMother Nature’s Dow Twitter
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 28, 2009
Op-Ed ColumnistMother Nature’s Dow Twitter
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 28, 2009
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Gumbo - explained with a picture
Amanda Buck provided this is an excellent explanation of what Gumbo is and can be.
I take only one exception. I put file' on my Okra gumbo.
Remember despite the visual in the chart Cajun Roux is darker! It's darker because it is "cooked", toasted longer.
I take only one exception. I put file' on my Okra gumbo.
Remember despite the visual in the chart Cajun Roux is darker! It's darker because it is "cooked", toasted longer.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Atchafalya Houseboat
Atchafalaya Houseboat is a short memoir that takes you to another place outside of time as we moderns know it. It's a worthwhile trip. Into nature and around the wheel of the year.
Anyone who tries to listen to nature and breath with the seasons should read this book. I do my best to live *in* the world that we have today. I have a job. I provide a roof and healthcare and schooling for my family. I do my best to contribute to my community for both the short and long term, but there are times I yearn to be far, far away from this modern world. Atchafalya Houseboat let me have a few hours of that. I fell asleep last night after read many chapters and dreamt of my own houseboat with solar panels and a wi-fi hotspot. But no phones. One day I'll have chickens. I can already pick blackberries and make apple pie from scratch.
I have a new list of books to read.
Brad Angier - How to Build Your Home in the Woods and realize that I already have one Angier's books: How to Stay Alive in the Woods.
Or poetry and literature,
Sandburg's Fire Dreams
Mark Twain's Hunting the Deceitful Turkey
Robert Frost's My November Guest
and as I look these up to provide the links, my thoughts of solar panels and wi-fi seem less obnoxious.
Click here to see more pictures taken by CC Lockwood.
Or here for youtube videos.
Or here if you're interested in the PBS documentary.
Anyone who tries to listen to nature and breath with the seasons should read this book. I do my best to live *in* the world that we have today. I have a job. I provide a roof and healthcare and schooling for my family. I do my best to contribute to my community for both the short and long term, but there are times I yearn to be far, far away from this modern world. Atchafalya Houseboat let me have a few hours of that. I fell asleep last night after read many chapters and dreamt of my own houseboat with solar panels and a wi-fi hotspot. But no phones. One day I'll have chickens. I can already pick blackberries and make apple pie from scratch.
I have a new list of books to read.
Brad Angier - How to Build Your Home in the Woods and realize that I already have one Angier's books: How to Stay Alive in the Woods.
Or poetry and literature,
Sandburg's Fire Dreams
Mark Twain's Hunting the Deceitful Turkey
Robert Frost's My November Guest
and as I look these up to provide the links, my thoughts of solar panels and wi-fi seem less obnoxious.
Click here to see more pictures taken by CC Lockwood.
Or here for youtube videos.
Or here if you're interested in the PBS documentary.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Austerity: 2010's most searched for term
John Morse, president and publisher of the Springfield, Mass.-based dictionary, said "austerity" saw more than 250,000 searches on the dictionary's free online tool
Austerity, the 14th century noun defined as "the quality or state of being austere" and "enforced or extreme economy,"
Let's look at Webster's definition for austere:
aus·tere adj \ȯ-ˈstir also -ˈster\
Definition of AUSTERE
1a : stern and cold in appearance or manner b : somber, grave
2: morally strict : ascetic
3: markedly simple or unadorned
4: giving little or no scope for pleasure
5of a wine : having the flavor of acid or tannin predominant over fruit flavors usually indicating a capacity for aging
— aus·tere·ly adverb
— aus·tere·ness noun
Doesn't sound like much fun but is it such a bad thing?
Morally strict... who's morals? Pagan Morals? Would it be such a bad thing, if we were to have Pagan austerity? Where by we only used cloth shopping bags, paid more attention to shopping local whether that was local produced food or arts and crafts or services. If we worked to plant more trees to help with carbon capture? If we worked for bike paths and quality sidewalks that would encourage people to walk more than drive? If we did our best to live lightly on the earth and in the process we lived a simple life and enjoyed life's pleasures, love and each other and the glow of a fire or the warmth of a cup of tea or the way the moonlight can create a soft blue glow? Would that really be so bad?
Austerity, the 14th century noun defined as "the quality or state of being austere" and "enforced or extreme economy,"
Let's look at Webster's definition for austere:
aus·tere adj \ȯ-ˈstir also -ˈster\
Definition of AUSTERE
1a : stern and cold in appearance or manner b : somber, grave
2: morally strict : ascetic
3: markedly simple or unadorned
4: giving little or no scope for pleasure
5of a wine : having the flavor of acid or tannin predominant over fruit flavors usually indicating a capacity for aging
— aus·tere·ly adverb
— aus·tere·ness noun
Doesn't sound like much fun but is it such a bad thing?
Morally strict... who's morals? Pagan Morals? Would it be such a bad thing, if we were to have Pagan austerity? Where by we only used cloth shopping bags, paid more attention to shopping local whether that was local produced food or arts and crafts or services. If we worked to plant more trees to help with carbon capture? If we worked for bike paths and quality sidewalks that would encourage people to walk more than drive? If we did our best to live lightly on the earth and in the process we lived a simple life and enjoyed life's pleasures, love and each other and the glow of a fire or the warmth of a cup of tea or the way the moonlight can create a soft blue glow? Would that really be so bad?
Friday, December 24, 2010
Louisiana Christmas Traditions
BATON ROUGE, — Louisiana has three traditional Christmas celebrations, says State Archivist Florent Hardy.
In addition to Dec. 25, the date celebrated in Louisiana since 1718, there's St. Nicholas Day on Dec. 5 and the Trappers Christmas in late February.
In New Orleans, the original Christmas celebrations included attending midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
"At that time, Christmas was a very religious experience," said Hardy. "After Mass was la Reveillon, a big feast that featured a menu of wild game (duck, venison and turkey), daube glace (a jellied meat), eggs, oyster dressing, chuck roast, homemade raisin bread and cakes."
While everyone was at Mass, Papa Noel paid a visit and filled the stockings of the children with a trinket and some fruit and sweets.
"On Christmas day, you visited la creche — the manger scene. Gifts were exchanged on New Year's Day," Hardy told people at the YWCA Connections luncheon in Baton Rouge.
Not everyone gave presents on Christmas. Families of German descent living in
Robert's Cove in Acadia Parish celebrated St. Nicholas Day, gathering at homes to await Kris Kringle and his threatening sidekick, Black Peter, who was said to collect bad children in his sack.
The St. Nicholas Day celebration was suspended around World War II, but has been revived in recent years. These days, a choir accompanies St. Nicholas, Black Peter and Santa Claus to homes in the cove. All the children are given treats, the choir sings German Christmas carols, and sweets and beverages are served.
The Trappers' Christmas in Barataria was late because Christmas was a very busy time of year for the fur trappers, Hardy said.
Santa had a handful of names, depending on what part of Louisiana a person called home. To those of French heritage he was Papa Noel, to those of German heritage he was Kris Kringle or St. Nicholas and to the Cajuns the gift-giving figure was a woman called La Christianne.
"Along the River Road plantations, St. Nicholas arrived on a donkey and left goodies in the shoes of the children left out on the porch," added Hardy.
The familiar Santa who arrives via a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer was created by author Washington Irving in 1819. "He couldn't figure out a way for St. Nicholas to travel around the world in one night, so he came up with this idea of him flying through the trees," said Hardy.
Howard Jacobs created a Louisiana version in "Cajun Night Before Christmas."
"Now in Louisiana, we know Santa, Papa Noel as he's called, comes in a pirogue pulled by eight alligators," Hardy said.
Another tradition in the River Parishes is the Christmas Eve bonfires on the levee, lighting the way for Papa Noel.
"The tradition of the bonfires began with the Marist priests at Jefferson College in Convent," now called Manresa, Hardy said. "It was originally celebrated on New Year's Eve."
What started as simple bonfires in the 1800s grew into such huge creations that their height had to be limited to avoid damage to the levees. Multiple generations join with friends and thousands of complete strangers for a huge celebration.
Further north in Natchitoches, the Festival of Lights has been celebrated since 1927. Begun by the city's superintendent of utilities, today's celebration runs from Nov. 20 through Jan. 6 and draws more than 100,000 visitors. It features more than 300,000 Christmas lights.
In addition to Dec. 25, the date celebrated in Louisiana since 1718, there's St. Nicholas Day on Dec. 5 and the Trappers Christmas in late February.
In New Orleans, the original Christmas celebrations included attending midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
"At that time, Christmas was a very religious experience," said Hardy. "After Mass was la Reveillon, a big feast that featured a menu of wild game (duck, venison and turkey), daube glace (a jellied meat), eggs, oyster dressing, chuck roast, homemade raisin bread and cakes."
While everyone was at Mass, Papa Noel paid a visit and filled the stockings of the children with a trinket and some fruit and sweets.
"On Christmas day, you visited la creche — the manger scene. Gifts were exchanged on New Year's Day," Hardy told people at the YWCA Connections luncheon in Baton Rouge.
Not everyone gave presents on Christmas. Families of German descent living in
Robert's Cove in Acadia Parish celebrated St. Nicholas Day, gathering at homes to await Kris Kringle and his threatening sidekick, Black Peter, who was said to collect bad children in his sack.
The St. Nicholas Day celebration was suspended around World War II, but has been revived in recent years. These days, a choir accompanies St. Nicholas, Black Peter and Santa Claus to homes in the cove. All the children are given treats, the choir sings German Christmas carols, and sweets and beverages are served.
The Trappers' Christmas in Barataria was late because Christmas was a very busy time of year for the fur trappers, Hardy said.
Santa had a handful of names, depending on what part of Louisiana a person called home. To those of French heritage he was Papa Noel, to those of German heritage he was Kris Kringle or St. Nicholas and to the Cajuns the gift-giving figure was a woman called La Christianne.
"Along the River Road plantations, St. Nicholas arrived on a donkey and left goodies in the shoes of the children left out on the porch," added Hardy.
The familiar Santa who arrives via a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer was created by author Washington Irving in 1819. "He couldn't figure out a way for St. Nicholas to travel around the world in one night, so he came up with this idea of him flying through the trees," said Hardy.
Howard Jacobs created a Louisiana version in "Cajun Night Before Christmas."
"Now in Louisiana, we know Santa, Papa Noel as he's called, comes in a pirogue pulled by eight alligators," Hardy said.
Another tradition in the River Parishes is the Christmas Eve bonfires on the levee, lighting the way for Papa Noel.
"The tradition of the bonfires began with the Marist priests at Jefferson College in Convent," now called Manresa, Hardy said. "It was originally celebrated on New Year's Eve."
What started as simple bonfires in the 1800s grew into such huge creations that their height had to be limited to avoid damage to the levees. Multiple generations join with friends and thousands of complete strangers for a huge celebration.
Further north in Natchitoches, the Festival of Lights has been celebrated since 1927. Begun by the city's superintendent of utilities, today's celebration runs from Nov. 20 through Jan. 6 and draws more than 100,000 visitors. It features more than 300,000 Christmas lights.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Stocking Stuffers
For all those kids who have so much... consider these as stocking stuffers.
Fonkoze (fonkoze.org) is a terrific poverty-fighting organization if Haiti is on your mind, nearly a year after the earthquake. A $20 gift will send a rural Haitian child to elementary school for a year, while $50 will buy a family a pregnant goat. Or $100 supports a family for 13 weeks while it starts a business.
Another terrific Haiti-focused organization is Partners in Health, (pih.org), founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, the Harvard Medical School professor. A $100 donation pays for enough therapeutic food (a bit like peanut butter) to treat a severely malnourished child for one month. Or $50 provides seeds, agricultural implements and training for a family to grow more food for itself.
You can donate on line and print out the confirmation and tuck it in a stocking.
Fonkoze (fonkoze.org) is a terrific poverty-fighting organization if Haiti is on your mind, nearly a year after the earthquake. A $20 gift will send a rural Haitian child to elementary school for a year, while $50 will buy a family a pregnant goat. Or $100 supports a family for 13 weeks while it starts a business.
Another terrific Haiti-focused organization is Partners in Health, (pih.org), founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, the Harvard Medical School professor. A $100 donation pays for enough therapeutic food (a bit like peanut butter) to treat a severely malnourished child for one month. Or $50 provides seeds, agricultural implements and training for a family to grow more food for itself.
You can donate on line and print out the confirmation and tuck it in a stocking.
Full Moon in Eclipse Winter Solstice 2010 - New Orleans
Photo Composite by Matthew Hinton / The Times-Picayune
A total eclipse of the moon is seen in this composite of seven photos on the date of the winter solstice by the center spire of the St. Louis Cathedral beginning at just after midnight before becoming totally eclipsed around 2 am in New Orleans, Louisiana Tuesday December 21, 2010. On the first day of northern winter, the full moon passed almost dead-center through Earth's shadow. According to NASA the last total lunar eclipse that happened on the winter solstice was December 21, 1638. The next eclipse on a winter solstice will be December 21, 2094.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Written into fiction
Just a few days ago I put the finishing touches on a chapter that spoke about Nash Roberts and his amazing ability to explain the weather possibilities to regular folk, calm nerves and warn appropriately during hurricane season.
Times-Picayune Staff Video capture photo courtesy of WWL-TV--Nash Roberts, retired weather forecaster at WWL-TV
"
"
Meteorologist Nash Roberts with his grease pencil
Nash and his maps
Legendary TV weatherman Nash C. Roberts Jr., revered as much for his calm, level-headed presence as the accuracy of his hurricane path projections, has died at age 92, WWL-TV has reported. See Article in full below from Nola.com
For more than 50 years, Gulf Coast weather-watchers relied on Mr. Roberts to tell them where tropical storms would come ashore.
From before Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to beyond Hurricane Georges in 1998, Mr. Roberts was widely considered the region's most authoritative source for hurricane news.
And in the age of Super Doppler and satellite imagery, there remained for hundreds of thousands of New Orleanians a great sense of relief in seeing Mr. Roberts on screen with his throwback bulletin-board-style weather map and felt-tip pens.
"He was old school, but you know what? I miss that," said Bob Breck, chief meteorologist at Fox affiliate WVUE-Channel 8 and a feisty competitor for many years.
Breck said he admired Mr. Roberts' independent approach to forecasting big storms.
"I think Nash wasn't afraid to fail. He trusted his instincts and he just followed his gut. I think that's what people remember him for.
"He was just a man who was a giant of the industry."
Even after his retirement from WWL-TV's nightly newscasts in 1984, Mr. Roberts would reappear on Channel 4 whenever a serious storm entered the Gulf of Mexico.
Bruce Katz, chief meteorologist at WGNO-Channel 26, grew up in New Orleans watching Mr. Roberts' forecasts and hurricane calls.
"He was kind of the inspiration for me doing what I do," Katz said. "Growing up in New Orleans, Nash was the guy. Before the advent of cable TV and satellites, he was the guy everybody turned to.
"He was the legend."
What viewers saw from Mr. Roberts, Katz added, was information and a presentation style from an era that predated today's sophisticated technology.
"His big marker board, the magnetic highs and lows -- it was well before computer technology," Katz said. "You didn't have the data modeling. The science was evolving back then, and he made that interesting."
Mike Hoss, news anchor and interim news director at WWL, came to town in 1989 as a sports anchor well after Mr. Roberts' reputation and loyal following were established.
"Affinity toward him was so strong; it made you, as an outsider, immediately take notice," Hoss said. "And certainly from a technology standpoint, with the greaseboard and the marker, you immediately (and) ever after took notice.
"He spoke to all ages, genders, races, across the board."
In July 2001, Mr. Roberts announced his full retirement, setting aside his black markers to care for his ailing wife, Lydia.
"I actually prayed that I would outlive her, so that I could take care of her," Nash told WWL news anchor Angela Hill at the time. "That's how it's working out."
Mr. Roberts' career in meteorology began in 1946, when he started a private weathercasting service after teaching meteorology at Loyola University and serving as a navigator and meteorologist for the Navy during World War II.
For Texaco and other clients in the oil and gas industry, Mr. Roberts watched the weather over marshes, on the coast and in the Gulf.
In 1951, he began appearing on WDSU as the region's first regular TV weatherman.
Mr. Roberts told Hill in the 2001 interview that he was enticed into the job when he was told about a Chicago forecaster's $80,000 annual salary.
Commenting on Mr. Roberts' premiere, New Orleans Item columnist Ted Liuzza wrote, "He's so unassuming and un-actorish that when he hails you with a shy 'good evening,' you feel like calling back, 'hello.' "
Mr. Roberts cemented his reputation with local viewers by making bull's-eye landfall predictions for Hurricanes Audrey in 1957, Betsy in 1965 and Camille in 1969.
After 22 years with WDSU, Mr. Roberts moved to WVUE, where he stayed until joining WWL in 1978.
Breck had the daunting task of following Mr. Roberts at WVUE, and competing against him after that.
"I was brought to this town to replace Nash," Breck said. "I wanted to beat the old man."
But Breck said he was deeply moved by Mr. Roberts' final retirement in 2001 to care for Lydia.
"He left the love of broadcasting to care for the love of his life," Breck said. "If there's any kind of thing that people should remember about Nash was that he had character. People trusted him."
Mr. Roberts' accurate prediction that Hurricane Georges in 1998 would make landfall east of New Orleans, while all the computer models and other television stations were still insisting Georges would drift to the west, earned him national attention.
"As long as Roberts and his Magic Markers are exclusive to WWL," The Times-Picayune wrote after Georges, "Channel 4 will remain the only place to get an answer to the first hurricane-related question asked by anyone who's lived in New Orleans for any length of time: 'What's Nash say?' "
Mr. Roberts and his wife stayed in town for every hurricane -- he at the station, she at home in Metairie -- until Hurricane Katrina.
Mr. Roberts told Times-Picayune TV columnist Dave Walker in 2006 that it was a joke on his block: During a hurricane threat, neighbors would wait for his wife's car to leave before they'd evacuate. Until Katrina, it never happened.
"I left my wife at home, and she rode out every one of them right here," Mr. Roberts said. "I wouldn't have let that happen if I thought it was dangerous. The story in the neighborhood was, 'I'm staying here unless I look out the window and Lydia's car is gone. If Nash tells Lydia to leave, we're all leaving.' "Katrina, which struck when Mr. Roberts was fully retired, was different.
"For the first time in 60 years, I evacuated," Mr. Roberts said in 2006. "I was pretty sure the thing was coming in here. What convinced me that I better get out was the fact that I knew it was going to be a wet system. It was huge in size, driving a lot of water ahead of it. With my wife, with the condition she's in, I said, 'We'd better get out of here.' ''
The couple evacuated from their Metairie home to Baton Rouge for two months. Their home sustained minimal damage.
"As soon as they would let me, I went to the gap in the 17th Street Canal and looked it over, and then I worked my way through Lakeview and lower New Orleans," Mr. Roberts told Walker. "It just was breathtaking, spooky. To go through neighborhoods and never see anybody, just a bunch of old beat-up cars and nobody living in any of the houses."
Despite occasional pangs of professional nostalgia, Mr. Roberts said he was glad he wasn't at WWL's studio tracking Katrina's path to town via squeaky pen and wipe-board.
"The truth of the whole matter is I'm glad I wasn't on for this," he said. "It would've been a very, very trying and tiring ordeal. My method of fooling with these storms is I lock onto 'em and just stay with 'em 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until they're gone, and that is extremely arduous.
"But I could've done very little for anybody with this storm except do what I did. I left (with Lydia) on Saturday."
Lydia Roberts died in 2007, according to WWL. The couple had been married more than 60 years.
Mr. Roberts figured prominently in a 2006 book from Kensington Publishing, "Roar of the Heavens: Surviving Hurricane Camille," by Stefan Bechtel.
"A wonderful man," Bechtel said. "Kind of courtly, gentlemanly. We spent quite a long time talking, and he started making me little maps with what is now a rather shaky hand, like a football coach calling the plays."
To WWL's Hoss, Mr. Roberts' longevity on local airwaves was as remarkable as his forecasting prowess.
"You don't get to do five decades if you aren't respected," Hoss said. "You don't get to do five decades unless you do it right.
"Quite frankly, he did it right."
Survivors include two sons, Kenneth and Nash Roberts III; three brothers; and four grandchildren, WWL said.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete.
••••••••
TV Columnist Dave Walker contributed to this article, which was prepared by staff writer Stephanie Stokes.
Times-Picayune Staff Video capture photo courtesy of WWL-TV--Nash Roberts, retired weather forecaster at WWL-TV
"
"Meteorologist Nash Roberts with his grease pencil
Nash and his maps
Legendary TV weatherman Nash C. Roberts Jr., revered as much for his calm, level-headed presence as the accuracy of his hurricane path projections, has died at age 92, WWL-TV has reported. See Article in full below from Nola.com
For more than 50 years, Gulf Coast weather-watchers relied on Mr. Roberts to tell them where tropical storms would come ashore.
From before Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to beyond Hurricane Georges in 1998, Mr. Roberts was widely considered the region's most authoritative source for hurricane news.
And in the age of Super Doppler and satellite imagery, there remained for hundreds of thousands of New Orleanians a great sense of relief in seeing Mr. Roberts on screen with his throwback bulletin-board-style weather map and felt-tip pens.
"He was old school, but you know what? I miss that," said Bob Breck, chief meteorologist at Fox affiliate WVUE-Channel 8 and a feisty competitor for many years.
Breck said he admired Mr. Roberts' independent approach to forecasting big storms.
"I think Nash wasn't afraid to fail. He trusted his instincts and he just followed his gut. I think that's what people remember him for.
"He was just a man who was a giant of the industry."
Even after his retirement from WWL-TV's nightly newscasts in 1984, Mr. Roberts would reappear on Channel 4 whenever a serious storm entered the Gulf of Mexico.
Bruce Katz, chief meteorologist at WGNO-Channel 26, grew up in New Orleans watching Mr. Roberts' forecasts and hurricane calls.
"He was kind of the inspiration for me doing what I do," Katz said. "Growing up in New Orleans, Nash was the guy. Before the advent of cable TV and satellites, he was the guy everybody turned to.
"He was the legend."
What viewers saw from Mr. Roberts, Katz added, was information and a presentation style from an era that predated today's sophisticated technology.
"His big marker board, the magnetic highs and lows -- it was well before computer technology," Katz said. "You didn't have the data modeling. The science was evolving back then, and he made that interesting."
Mike Hoss, news anchor and interim news director at WWL, came to town in 1989 as a sports anchor well after Mr. Roberts' reputation and loyal following were established.
"Affinity toward him was so strong; it made you, as an outsider, immediately take notice," Hoss said. "And certainly from a technology standpoint, with the greaseboard and the marker, you immediately (and) ever after took notice.
"He spoke to all ages, genders, races, across the board."
In July 2001, Mr. Roberts announced his full retirement, setting aside his black markers to care for his ailing wife, Lydia.
"I actually prayed that I would outlive her, so that I could take care of her," Nash told WWL news anchor Angela Hill at the time. "That's how it's working out."
Mr. Roberts' career in meteorology began in 1946, when he started a private weathercasting service after teaching meteorology at Loyola University and serving as a navigator and meteorologist for the Navy during World War II.
For Texaco and other clients in the oil and gas industry, Mr. Roberts watched the weather over marshes, on the coast and in the Gulf.
In 1951, he began appearing on WDSU as the region's first regular TV weatherman.
Mr. Roberts told Hill in the 2001 interview that he was enticed into the job when he was told about a Chicago forecaster's $80,000 annual salary.
Commenting on Mr. Roberts' premiere, New Orleans Item columnist Ted Liuzza wrote, "He's so unassuming and un-actorish that when he hails you with a shy 'good evening,' you feel like calling back, 'hello.' "
Mr. Roberts cemented his reputation with local viewers by making bull's-eye landfall predictions for Hurricanes Audrey in 1957, Betsy in 1965 and Camille in 1969.
After 22 years with WDSU, Mr. Roberts moved to WVUE, where he stayed until joining WWL in 1978.
Breck had the daunting task of following Mr. Roberts at WVUE, and competing against him after that.
"I was brought to this town to replace Nash," Breck said. "I wanted to beat the old man."
But Breck said he was deeply moved by Mr. Roberts' final retirement in 2001 to care for Lydia.
"He left the love of broadcasting to care for the love of his life," Breck said. "If there's any kind of thing that people should remember about Nash was that he had character. People trusted him."
Mr. Roberts' accurate prediction that Hurricane Georges in 1998 would make landfall east of New Orleans, while all the computer models and other television stations were still insisting Georges would drift to the west, earned him national attention.
"As long as Roberts and his Magic Markers are exclusive to WWL," The Times-Picayune wrote after Georges, "Channel 4 will remain the only place to get an answer to the first hurricane-related question asked by anyone who's lived in New Orleans for any length of time: 'What's Nash say?' "
Mr. Roberts and his wife stayed in town for every hurricane -- he at the station, she at home in Metairie -- until Hurricane Katrina.
Mr. Roberts told Times-Picayune TV columnist Dave Walker in 2006 that it was a joke on his block: During a hurricane threat, neighbors would wait for his wife's car to leave before they'd evacuate. Until Katrina, it never happened.
"I left my wife at home, and she rode out every one of them right here," Mr. Roberts said. "I wouldn't have let that happen if I thought it was dangerous. The story in the neighborhood was, 'I'm staying here unless I look out the window and Lydia's car is gone. If Nash tells Lydia to leave, we're all leaving.' "Katrina, which struck when Mr. Roberts was fully retired, was different.
"For the first time in 60 years, I evacuated," Mr. Roberts said in 2006. "I was pretty sure the thing was coming in here. What convinced me that I better get out was the fact that I knew it was going to be a wet system. It was huge in size, driving a lot of water ahead of it. With my wife, with the condition she's in, I said, 'We'd better get out of here.' ''
The couple evacuated from their Metairie home to Baton Rouge for two months. Their home sustained minimal damage.
"As soon as they would let me, I went to the gap in the 17th Street Canal and looked it over, and then I worked my way through Lakeview and lower New Orleans," Mr. Roberts told Walker. "It just was breathtaking, spooky. To go through neighborhoods and never see anybody, just a bunch of old beat-up cars and nobody living in any of the houses."
Despite occasional pangs of professional nostalgia, Mr. Roberts said he was glad he wasn't at WWL's studio tracking Katrina's path to town via squeaky pen and wipe-board.
"The truth of the whole matter is I'm glad I wasn't on for this," he said. "It would've been a very, very trying and tiring ordeal. My method of fooling with these storms is I lock onto 'em and just stay with 'em 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until they're gone, and that is extremely arduous.
"But I could've done very little for anybody with this storm except do what I did. I left (with Lydia) on Saturday."
Lydia Roberts died in 2007, according to WWL. The couple had been married more than 60 years.
Mr. Roberts figured prominently in a 2006 book from Kensington Publishing, "Roar of the Heavens: Surviving Hurricane Camille," by Stefan Bechtel.
"A wonderful man," Bechtel said. "Kind of courtly, gentlemanly. We spent quite a long time talking, and he started making me little maps with what is now a rather shaky hand, like a football coach calling the plays."
To WWL's Hoss, Mr. Roberts' longevity on local airwaves was as remarkable as his forecasting prowess.
"You don't get to do five decades if you aren't respected," Hoss said. "You don't get to do five decades unless you do it right.
"Quite frankly, he did it right."
Survivors include two sons, Kenneth and Nash Roberts III; three brothers; and four grandchildren, WWL said.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete.
••••••••
TV Columnist Dave Walker contributed to this article, which was prepared by staff writer Stephanie Stokes.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Apocalypse Soon?
Apocalypse Soon?
Volume 62 Number 6, November/December 2009 by Anthony Aveni
What the Maya calendar really tells us about 2012 and the end of time
On December 21, 2012, thousands of pilgrims, many in organized "sacred tour" groups, will flock to Chichén Itzá, Tikal, and a multitude of other celebrated sites of ancient America. There they will wait for a sign from the ancient Maya marking the end of the world as we know it. Will it be a blow-up or a bliss-out? Doom or delight? That depends on which of the New Age prophets--an eclectic collection of self-appointed seers and mystics, with names such as "Valum Votan, closer of the cycle" and the "Cosmic Shaman of Galactic Structure"--one chooses to believe. In 2012, the grand odometer of Maya timekeeping known as the Long Count, an accumulation of various smaller time cycles, will revert to zero and a new cycle of 1,872,000 days (5,125.37 years) will begin. As the long-awaited "Y12" date nears, tales of what will happen are proliferating on the Internet, in print, and in movies: Hollywood's big-budget, effects-laden disaster epic, "2012," opens this November under the tagline "We Were Warned."
Many of the predictions begin in outer space. It's known that there is a black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and that in 2012 the sun will align with the plane of the Galaxy for the first time in 26,000 years. Then, according to the doomsayers, the black hole will throw our solar system out of kilter. Lawrence E. Joseph, author of a book called Apocalypse 2012, says that supergiant flares will erupt on the sun's surface, propelling an extraordinary plume of solar particles earthward at the next peak of solar activity. Earth's magnetic field will reverse, producing dire consequences such as violent hurricanes and the loss of all electronic communication systems. And recent natural disasters, from Hurricane Katrina to the Indian Ocean tsunami? They are all related to this alignment, and the ancient Maya knew all about it. That's the bad news.
But there's also good news coming from Y12 visionaries. Some say that rather than cataclysm, we're due for a sudden, cosmically timed awakening; we will all join an enlightened collective consciousness that will resolve the world's problems. The winter solstice sun is "slowly moving toward the heart of the Galaxy," writes spiritualist and former software engineer John Major Jenkins. On December 21 (or 23, depending on how you align calendars), when the sun passes the "Great Rift," a dark streak in the Milky Way that Jenkins says represents the Maya "Womb of Creation," the world will be transformed. Then we will "reconnect with our cosmic heart," he writes.
Unwittingly, the ancient Maya provided fodder for all this cosmic rigmarole. Monuments, such as Stela 25 at Izapa, a peripheral, pre-Classic (ca. 400 B.C.) site located on Mexico's Pacific Coast, map out the galactic alignment that would mark the end of the Long Count. Stela 25, for example, is thought to depict a creation scene in which a bird deity is perched atop a cosmic tree. Jenkins thinks the tree represents a unique north-south alignment of the Milky Way--a message from the Maya of what the sky will look like when creation begins anew.
These head-turning forecasts are open to serious criticism on both cultural and scientific grounds. There is little evidence that the Maya cared much about the Milky Way. When they do refer to it, they usually imagine it as a road. The association of the Milky Way with a tree, despite the popularity it has acquired since the publication of the 1997 book Maya Cosmos by noted Maya scholars David Freidel and Linda Schele, and writer Joy Parker, emerges strictly from the study of contemporary cultures descended from the Maya.
From an astronomical perspective, the 26,000-year cycle that causes the realignment of the sun with the plane of the Milky Way was first described by Greek astronomer Hipparchus in 128 B.C. He observed a slight difference between the solar year (the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun) and the stellar or sidereal year (the time it takes the sun to realign with the stars). As a result, year to year, the path of the sun and the spots where it rises and sets will change with respect to the backdrop of the stars. This phenomenon, called precession, is caused by the gradual shift of the earth's axis of rotation. In practice, it means that the position of the sun at equinoxes and solstices, which mark the seasons, slowly changes with respect to the constellations of the zodiac. Maya skywatchers possessed a zodiac, so they could have noted the difference between stellar years and solar years, but there is no convincing evidence that they charted the precession, or how they might have done it.
According to the Y12ers, based on their interpretation of monuments such as Stela 25, the Maya not only tracked the precession, but used it to predict what the sky would look like when the Long Count ends and a new cycle of creation begins. However, anyone who takes the trouble to look at the nighttime sky will discover that the Milky Way, a broad, luminous swath across the sky, looks surprisingly little like it is depicted in the desktop planetarium software often used to infer what ancient stargazers saw. For example, the galactic plane is very difficult to define even when the sun isn't in it, so solar-galactic alignment can't be pinned down visually to an accuracy any better than 300 years. Also, the "unique" north-south orientation of the Milky Way thought to be portrayed on Stela 25 actually occurs every year. And more important conceptually, there is no evidence that the Maya used sky maps as representational devices the way we do. Finally, there is no indication the Maya cared a whit about solar flares, sunspots, or magnetic fields. Pulling prophecy from monuments such as Stela 25 amounts to an exercise in cherry-picking data--often incomplete, vague, or inapplicable--to justify a nonsensical, pre-formed idea.
Most people familiar with the ancient Maya--even those who are not prophets of doom--know that they were obsessed with sophisticated timekeeping systems. And it is clear from their painted-bark books, or codices, that their astronomers had the capacity to predict celestial events, such as eclipses, accurately. So it is no surprise that mystically minded people feel free to attribute to the ancient Maya the power to see far into the future. But what does the cultural record actually tell us about the nature of Maya timekeeping and its relationship to their ideas about creation?
By the beginning of the Classic Period (ca. A.D. 200), Maya polities had mastered cultivation of the land, expanded their states, and begun to build great cities with exquisite monumental architecture. They were on the verge of establishing one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. A few hundred years earlier, Maya rulers had made a fundamental revision to their calendar that would connect the rise of Maya states with their own origin myths. They invented a mountain of a time cycle--the Long Count. A brilliant innovation, it transplanted the roots of Maya culture all the way back to creation itself. The Long Count was established with their existing base-20 counting system, with the day as the basic unit (see above). It consists of 13 cycles--corresponding to the levels of Maya heaven, each occupied by objects and deities associated with celestial bodies--called baktuns that make up a creation period of 5,125.37 seasonal years. At the end of one creation cycle, the count rolls over to the next Day Zero.
Texts carved on stelae prominently displayed at many Maya sites often open with a Long Count date, a series of five numbers (12.8.0.1.13, for example, corresponds to July 4, 1776) similar to the dateline in a newspaper. These time markers were a form of political and religious propaganda. Maya rulers used them to link culturally important but cosmically mundane events in their personal histories--coronation dates, marriage alliances, military victories, and the turning of smaller time cycles (for instance, 9.15.0.0.0, the inscription on Copán's Stela B, marks the end of a katun, or 20-year cycle)--with the history of their ancestor-gods who created the world. Thus, a stela's Long Count gave the ruler the power to proclaim the extraordinary longevity of his bloodline in concrete terms.
The beginning of the Long Count, which marks the last creation episode, took place in the Maya's mythic past. Day Zero fell on August 11, 3114 B.C. That date was denoted as 13.0.0.0.0, which is the same date we will see 13 baktuns later, when the Long Count rolls over from 12.19.19.17.19 on December 21, 2012, the next Day Zero (give or take a day). August 11 falls close to one of the two dates each year when the sun passes directly overhead in southern Maya latitudes--an event known to have been important in the Maya world. December 21 or 22 is the winter solstice (or solar "standstill"), which marks the day the sun reaches its most southerly position in the sky. So it is conceivable that the past and future zero days or creation events were deliberately linked to important positions in the sun cycle.
Why does the Long Count begin in 3114 B.C., well before any identifiably Maya culture had been established by the archaic communities that lived there? If we follow the example of how zero dates were set in other calendars around the world, such as the Christian, Roman, and Sanskrit ones, the choice was likely either an arbitrary date linked to some more recent event in Maya history, or itself a culturally and historically significant moment (similar to the way that the putative year of the birth of Christ roughly marks the beginning of the Christian calendar). But there was nothing special about the position of the Milky Way or the zodiac on that date, nor was anything significant happening in the sky. The Maya may simply have selected some date from which to look back to decide where their own creation date would fall. One possible date for this jumping off point is 7.6.0.0.0 (236 B.C.), which falls right around the time of the earliest Long Count inscriptions. That date also marks the end of a katun and bears the same Maya month and day names as the date of creation. It is amusing that the Y12 prophets are certain the world will end for all of us based on a date that may or may not have had historical significance to the Maya a few thousand years ago, who were themselves looking to a date a few thousand years before that. The ancient Maya might tell us: "Hey, get your own zero point!"
Though the Maya believed that successive creations were cyclic, there is no clear evidence of what they thought would happen on our 13.0.0.0.0. The same holds true for what happened last time the odometer of creation turned over. But a menacing scene does appear on the last page of the Dresden Codex, a Maya bark-paper book from the 14th century A.D., depicting destruction by flood. A sky caiman vomits water, which gushes from "sun" and "moon" glyphs attached to the beast's segmented body. Still more water pours out of a vessel held by an old-woman deity, who is suspended in the middle of the frame. And at the bottom, a male deity wields arrows and a spear. Verses from early colonial texts back up the flood story of creation. Curiously, contemporary prophets of doom haven't seized on the flood myth as a mode of destruction, though moviemakers certainly have. Among the vivid special effects in 2012 are tsunamis engulfing the Himalayas and tossing an aircraft carrier into the White House!
Monumental Maya inscriptions are fairly silent regarding events of the previous creation. Stela C at Quiriguá in Guatemala follows its 13.0.0.0.0 inscription with hieroglyphic statements that refer to the descent of deities (related to Cauac Sky, the extant ruler, of course), who create the first hearth by setting up three support stones (represented in the sky by parts of the constellation Orion). Concerning our 13.0.0.0.0, Monument 6 at Tortuguero in the Mexican state of Tabasco tells of the descent of some transcendent entity to earth. But just when the story might get even more interesting, the glyphs have eroded away, leaving the door open for the prophets to continue to speculate.
Must we read real history (and the future) in the Maya narratives? Or can we see them as frameworks for the cultural transmission of traditional rites of renewal, which take place at the turn of all time cycles, such as the appearance and disappearance of Venus, or the 52-year calendar round that combines the seasonal year with the Maya 260-day sacred calendar? Every year we participate in such rituals on New Year's Eve. We take account of ourselves by celebrating the end of our seasonal cycle--often with wretched excess--as the stroke of midnight approaches. Then we perform our acts of penance (New Year's resolutions) to purify ourselves as we contemplate a brighter future. A vast majority of those familiar with the Maya culture view their cycle-ending prophecies as lessons on how to restore balance to the world by promoting reciprocity with the gods, such as offering them debt payments in exchange for fertile crops. No wonder we are inspired by the Maya--they get to participate in their cosmology! But in that sense, the Y12ers are not so different from the ancient Maya in their desire to reconnect with the past and place their own existence in a broader context. Where the Maya tied themselves to their ancestor-gods by carving Long Count dates on their stelae, the Y12 prophets use Maya myth and math to invoke some sort of universal beneficent spirit or transcendent evil overmind.
There is also something about the Y12 hysteria that is particular to the English-speaking world--especially the United States. The idea that the world will end in cataclysm was firmly planted in Puritan New England. Evangelical and apocalyptic forms of worship were prominent in the colonies as early as the 1640s, when confessors openly proclaimed themselves ready for God to descend from the sky and pluck them up for judgment. Two centuries later, hundreds of Millerites (who would become the Seventh-day Adventists) anxiously awaited the "Blessed Hope," based on their leader William Miller's biblical calculations pinpointing the return of Christ on October 22, 1844. People climbed to their roofs to wait--and wait--for the Second Coming.
Today, American anticipation of a celestially signaled end of time has gone mainstream secular. Many of us remember Comet Kohoutek, the iceball sent to destroy the world in 1973, or the millennial cosmic reclamation project that attended Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997--an "alien mothership" that brought the suicides of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult in California. The celebrated cosmic convergence of Aztec calendar cycles in 1987 is another example of the American desire to get beamed with revelations from beyond.
It is no coincidence that the Maya entered the modern mythos of creation and destruction in the early 1970s, around the time scholars began to make significant breakthroughs in deciphering Maya hieroglyphics. Repeating a trend started a century earlier with the mystical writing of Augustus Le Plongeon ('The Lure of Moo,' January/February 2007), pop-fringe literature such as Peter Tompkins's Secrets of the Mexican Pyramids, Frank Waters's Mexico Mystique, and Luis Arochi's The Pyramid of Kukulcan heralded secret knowledge of the future emerging from the Maya code. It was also about this time that promoting the idea of "shared beginnings," acquired by being at the right place at the right time, began to enter the tourism industry. Tourists, many with New Age spiritual leanings, flock to Chichén Itzá on the spring equinox, for example, to see a serpent effigy emerge in the shadows of El Castillo. Sacred tourism is already beginning to cash in on the 2012 myth. Star parties are planned for Copán and Tikal on the eve of the temporal turnover. And industrious entrepreneurs are already beginning to prepare 2012 survival kits, a Complete Idiot's Guide to 2012, and T-shirts bearing slogans such as "Doomsday 2012" and "Shift Happens." Not to mention the movie. This is just the beginning.
We live in a techno-immersed, materially oriented society that seems somewhat bewildered by where rational, empirical science might be taking us. This may be why the mystical, escapist explanations of a galactic endpoint, replete with precise mathematical, historical, and cosmic underpinnings (masquerading as science), have such wide appeal. In an age of anxiety we reach for the wisdom of ancestors--even other peoples' ancestors--that might have been lost in the drifting sands of time. Perhaps the only way we can take back control of our disordered world is to rediscover their lost knowledge and make use of it. And so we romanticize the ancient Maya.
But the glorious achievements of the Maya and other complex cultures of the ancient world are appealing enough on their own. We don't need to dress them up in Western or apocalyptic clothing. And the responsibility for educating the public about what we really know about the Maya and other extraordinary cultures--such as the ability of the Maya to follow the position of Venus to an accuracy of one day in 500 years with the naked eye--should fall squarely on the shoulders of those of us who spend our lives studying them. The Y12 hysteria could leave us asking whether we are doing our jobs, or whether the desire for cosmic connection and continuity is too strong for science and rationality to overcome.
Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate University and author of the new book, The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012.
Volume 62 Number 6, November/December 2009 by Anthony Aveni
What the Maya calendar really tells us about 2012 and the end of time
On December 21, 2012, thousands of pilgrims, many in organized "sacred tour" groups, will flock to Chichén Itzá, Tikal, and a multitude of other celebrated sites of ancient America. There they will wait for a sign from the ancient Maya marking the end of the world as we know it. Will it be a blow-up or a bliss-out? Doom or delight? That depends on which of the New Age prophets--an eclectic collection of self-appointed seers and mystics, with names such as "Valum Votan, closer of the cycle" and the "Cosmic Shaman of Galactic Structure"--one chooses to believe. In 2012, the grand odometer of Maya timekeeping known as the Long Count, an accumulation of various smaller time cycles, will revert to zero and a new cycle of 1,872,000 days (5,125.37 years) will begin. As the long-awaited "Y12" date nears, tales of what will happen are proliferating on the Internet, in print, and in movies: Hollywood's big-budget, effects-laden disaster epic, "2012," opens this November under the tagline "We Were Warned."
Many of the predictions begin in outer space. It's known that there is a black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and that in 2012 the sun will align with the plane of the Galaxy for the first time in 26,000 years. Then, according to the doomsayers, the black hole will throw our solar system out of kilter. Lawrence E. Joseph, author of a book called Apocalypse 2012, says that supergiant flares will erupt on the sun's surface, propelling an extraordinary plume of solar particles earthward at the next peak of solar activity. Earth's magnetic field will reverse, producing dire consequences such as violent hurricanes and the loss of all electronic communication systems. And recent natural disasters, from Hurricane Katrina to the Indian Ocean tsunami? They are all related to this alignment, and the ancient Maya knew all about it. That's the bad news.
But there's also good news coming from Y12 visionaries. Some say that rather than cataclysm, we're due for a sudden, cosmically timed awakening; we will all join an enlightened collective consciousness that will resolve the world's problems. The winter solstice sun is "slowly moving toward the heart of the Galaxy," writes spiritualist and former software engineer John Major Jenkins. On December 21 (or 23, depending on how you align calendars), when the sun passes the "Great Rift," a dark streak in the Milky Way that Jenkins says represents the Maya "Womb of Creation," the world will be transformed. Then we will "reconnect with our cosmic heart," he writes.
Unwittingly, the ancient Maya provided fodder for all this cosmic rigmarole. Monuments, such as Stela 25 at Izapa, a peripheral, pre-Classic (ca. 400 B.C.) site located on Mexico's Pacific Coast, map out the galactic alignment that would mark the end of the Long Count. Stela 25, for example, is thought to depict a creation scene in which a bird deity is perched atop a cosmic tree. Jenkins thinks the tree represents a unique north-south alignment of the Milky Way--a message from the Maya of what the sky will look like when creation begins anew.
These head-turning forecasts are open to serious criticism on both cultural and scientific grounds. There is little evidence that the Maya cared much about the Milky Way. When they do refer to it, they usually imagine it as a road. The association of the Milky Way with a tree, despite the popularity it has acquired since the publication of the 1997 book Maya Cosmos by noted Maya scholars David Freidel and Linda Schele, and writer Joy Parker, emerges strictly from the study of contemporary cultures descended from the Maya.
From an astronomical perspective, the 26,000-year cycle that causes the realignment of the sun with the plane of the Milky Way was first described by Greek astronomer Hipparchus in 128 B.C. He observed a slight difference between the solar year (the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun) and the stellar or sidereal year (the time it takes the sun to realign with the stars). As a result, year to year, the path of the sun and the spots where it rises and sets will change with respect to the backdrop of the stars. This phenomenon, called precession, is caused by the gradual shift of the earth's axis of rotation. In practice, it means that the position of the sun at equinoxes and solstices, which mark the seasons, slowly changes with respect to the constellations of the zodiac. Maya skywatchers possessed a zodiac, so they could have noted the difference between stellar years and solar years, but there is no convincing evidence that they charted the precession, or how they might have done it.
According to the Y12ers, based on their interpretation of monuments such as Stela 25, the Maya not only tracked the precession, but used it to predict what the sky would look like when the Long Count ends and a new cycle of creation begins. However, anyone who takes the trouble to look at the nighttime sky will discover that the Milky Way, a broad, luminous swath across the sky, looks surprisingly little like it is depicted in the desktop planetarium software often used to infer what ancient stargazers saw. For example, the galactic plane is very difficult to define even when the sun isn't in it, so solar-galactic alignment can't be pinned down visually to an accuracy any better than 300 years. Also, the "unique" north-south orientation of the Milky Way thought to be portrayed on Stela 25 actually occurs every year. And more important conceptually, there is no evidence that the Maya used sky maps as representational devices the way we do. Finally, there is no indication the Maya cared a whit about solar flares, sunspots, or magnetic fields. Pulling prophecy from monuments such as Stela 25 amounts to an exercise in cherry-picking data--often incomplete, vague, or inapplicable--to justify a nonsensical, pre-formed idea.
Most people familiar with the ancient Maya--even those who are not prophets of doom--know that they were obsessed with sophisticated timekeeping systems. And it is clear from their painted-bark books, or codices, that their astronomers had the capacity to predict celestial events, such as eclipses, accurately. So it is no surprise that mystically minded people feel free to attribute to the ancient Maya the power to see far into the future. But what does the cultural record actually tell us about the nature of Maya timekeeping and its relationship to their ideas about creation?
By the beginning of the Classic Period (ca. A.D. 200), Maya polities had mastered cultivation of the land, expanded their states, and begun to build great cities with exquisite monumental architecture. They were on the verge of establishing one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. A few hundred years earlier, Maya rulers had made a fundamental revision to their calendar that would connect the rise of Maya states with their own origin myths. They invented a mountain of a time cycle--the Long Count. A brilliant innovation, it transplanted the roots of Maya culture all the way back to creation itself. The Long Count was established with their existing base-20 counting system, with the day as the basic unit (see above). It consists of 13 cycles--corresponding to the levels of Maya heaven, each occupied by objects and deities associated with celestial bodies--called baktuns that make up a creation period of 5,125.37 seasonal years. At the end of one creation cycle, the count rolls over to the next Day Zero.
Texts carved on stelae prominently displayed at many Maya sites often open with a Long Count date, a series of five numbers (12.8.0.1.13, for example, corresponds to July 4, 1776) similar to the dateline in a newspaper. These time markers were a form of political and religious propaganda. Maya rulers used them to link culturally important but cosmically mundane events in their personal histories--coronation dates, marriage alliances, military victories, and the turning of smaller time cycles (for instance, 9.15.0.0.0, the inscription on Copán's Stela B, marks the end of a katun, or 20-year cycle)--with the history of their ancestor-gods who created the world. Thus, a stela's Long Count gave the ruler the power to proclaim the extraordinary longevity of his bloodline in concrete terms.
The beginning of the Long Count, which marks the last creation episode, took place in the Maya's mythic past. Day Zero fell on August 11, 3114 B.C. That date was denoted as 13.0.0.0.0, which is the same date we will see 13 baktuns later, when the Long Count rolls over from 12.19.19.17.19 on December 21, 2012, the next Day Zero (give or take a day). August 11 falls close to one of the two dates each year when the sun passes directly overhead in southern Maya latitudes--an event known to have been important in the Maya world. December 21 or 22 is the winter solstice (or solar "standstill"), which marks the day the sun reaches its most southerly position in the sky. So it is conceivable that the past and future zero days or creation events were deliberately linked to important positions in the sun cycle.
Why does the Long Count begin in 3114 B.C., well before any identifiably Maya culture had been established by the archaic communities that lived there? If we follow the example of how zero dates were set in other calendars around the world, such as the Christian, Roman, and Sanskrit ones, the choice was likely either an arbitrary date linked to some more recent event in Maya history, or itself a culturally and historically significant moment (similar to the way that the putative year of the birth of Christ roughly marks the beginning of the Christian calendar). But there was nothing special about the position of the Milky Way or the zodiac on that date, nor was anything significant happening in the sky. The Maya may simply have selected some date from which to look back to decide where their own creation date would fall. One possible date for this jumping off point is 7.6.0.0.0 (236 B.C.), which falls right around the time of the earliest Long Count inscriptions. That date also marks the end of a katun and bears the same Maya month and day names as the date of creation. It is amusing that the Y12 prophets are certain the world will end for all of us based on a date that may or may not have had historical significance to the Maya a few thousand years ago, who were themselves looking to a date a few thousand years before that. The ancient Maya might tell us: "Hey, get your own zero point!"
Though the Maya believed that successive creations were cyclic, there is no clear evidence of what they thought would happen on our 13.0.0.0.0. The same holds true for what happened last time the odometer of creation turned over. But a menacing scene does appear on the last page of the Dresden Codex, a Maya bark-paper book from the 14th century A.D., depicting destruction by flood. A sky caiman vomits water, which gushes from "sun" and "moon" glyphs attached to the beast's segmented body. Still more water pours out of a vessel held by an old-woman deity, who is suspended in the middle of the frame. And at the bottom, a male deity wields arrows and a spear. Verses from early colonial texts back up the flood story of creation. Curiously, contemporary prophets of doom haven't seized on the flood myth as a mode of destruction, though moviemakers certainly have. Among the vivid special effects in 2012 are tsunamis engulfing the Himalayas and tossing an aircraft carrier into the White House!
Monumental Maya inscriptions are fairly silent regarding events of the previous creation. Stela C at Quiriguá in Guatemala follows its 13.0.0.0.0 inscription with hieroglyphic statements that refer to the descent of deities (related to Cauac Sky, the extant ruler, of course), who create the first hearth by setting up three support stones (represented in the sky by parts of the constellation Orion). Concerning our 13.0.0.0.0, Monument 6 at Tortuguero in the Mexican state of Tabasco tells of the descent of some transcendent entity to earth. But just when the story might get even more interesting, the glyphs have eroded away, leaving the door open for the prophets to continue to speculate.
Must we read real history (and the future) in the Maya narratives? Or can we see them as frameworks for the cultural transmission of traditional rites of renewal, which take place at the turn of all time cycles, such as the appearance and disappearance of Venus, or the 52-year calendar round that combines the seasonal year with the Maya 260-day sacred calendar? Every year we participate in such rituals on New Year's Eve. We take account of ourselves by celebrating the end of our seasonal cycle--often with wretched excess--as the stroke of midnight approaches. Then we perform our acts of penance (New Year's resolutions) to purify ourselves as we contemplate a brighter future. A vast majority of those familiar with the Maya culture view their cycle-ending prophecies as lessons on how to restore balance to the world by promoting reciprocity with the gods, such as offering them debt payments in exchange for fertile crops. No wonder we are inspired by the Maya--they get to participate in their cosmology! But in that sense, the Y12ers are not so different from the ancient Maya in their desire to reconnect with the past and place their own existence in a broader context. Where the Maya tied themselves to their ancestor-gods by carving Long Count dates on their stelae, the Y12 prophets use Maya myth and math to invoke some sort of universal beneficent spirit or transcendent evil overmind.
There is also something about the Y12 hysteria that is particular to the English-speaking world--especially the United States. The idea that the world will end in cataclysm was firmly planted in Puritan New England. Evangelical and apocalyptic forms of worship were prominent in the colonies as early as the 1640s, when confessors openly proclaimed themselves ready for God to descend from the sky and pluck them up for judgment. Two centuries later, hundreds of Millerites (who would become the Seventh-day Adventists) anxiously awaited the "Blessed Hope," based on their leader William Miller's biblical calculations pinpointing the return of Christ on October 22, 1844. People climbed to their roofs to wait--and wait--for the Second Coming.
Today, American anticipation of a celestially signaled end of time has gone mainstream secular. Many of us remember Comet Kohoutek, the iceball sent to destroy the world in 1973, or the millennial cosmic reclamation project that attended Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997--an "alien mothership" that brought the suicides of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult in California. The celebrated cosmic convergence of Aztec calendar cycles in 1987 is another example of the American desire to get beamed with revelations from beyond.
It is no coincidence that the Maya entered the modern mythos of creation and destruction in the early 1970s, around the time scholars began to make significant breakthroughs in deciphering Maya hieroglyphics. Repeating a trend started a century earlier with the mystical writing of Augustus Le Plongeon ('The Lure of Moo,' January/February 2007), pop-fringe literature such as Peter Tompkins's Secrets of the Mexican Pyramids, Frank Waters's Mexico Mystique, and Luis Arochi's The Pyramid of Kukulcan heralded secret knowledge of the future emerging from the Maya code. It was also about this time that promoting the idea of "shared beginnings," acquired by being at the right place at the right time, began to enter the tourism industry. Tourists, many with New Age spiritual leanings, flock to Chichén Itzá on the spring equinox, for example, to see a serpent effigy emerge in the shadows of El Castillo. Sacred tourism is already beginning to cash in on the 2012 myth. Star parties are planned for Copán and Tikal on the eve of the temporal turnover. And industrious entrepreneurs are already beginning to prepare 2012 survival kits, a Complete Idiot's Guide to 2012, and T-shirts bearing slogans such as "Doomsday 2012" and "Shift Happens." Not to mention the movie. This is just the beginning.
We live in a techno-immersed, materially oriented society that seems somewhat bewildered by where rational, empirical science might be taking us. This may be why the mystical, escapist explanations of a galactic endpoint, replete with precise mathematical, historical, and cosmic underpinnings (masquerading as science), have such wide appeal. In an age of anxiety we reach for the wisdom of ancestors--even other peoples' ancestors--that might have been lost in the drifting sands of time. Perhaps the only way we can take back control of our disordered world is to rediscover their lost knowledge and make use of it. And so we romanticize the ancient Maya.
But the glorious achievements of the Maya and other complex cultures of the ancient world are appealing enough on their own. We don't need to dress them up in Western or apocalyptic clothing. And the responsibility for educating the public about what we really know about the Maya and other extraordinary cultures--such as the ability of the Maya to follow the position of Venus to an accuracy of one day in 500 years with the naked eye--should fall squarely on the shoulders of those of us who spend our lives studying them. The Y12 hysteria could leave us asking whether we are doing our jobs, or whether the desire for cosmic connection and continuity is too strong for science and rationality to overcome.
Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate University and author of the new book, The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Snow covered StreetCar New Orleans
The photo above is from December 11, 2008. It's not mine. I grabbed off of a local site in 2008. I've enjoyed it as part of my screen saver display and decided that it would be a nice gift to share it with others.
The photo below is from a British site. It shows just how much snow fell. The snow didn't last long but it was fun while it did.
Now for a bit of New Orleans trivia:
The last time it had snowed in New Orleans was 2004, and we had Katrina the summer after. There was snow the winter before Besty in 1965. There are other snows before hurricanes. So many people were convinced that we were in for another big one in 2009. But what happened instead was, given hell had frozen over, the Saints won the Superbowl.
The city has only experienced measurable amounts of snow 17 times since 1850.
And for all those.... people... who think that this is proof that there is no "global warming"... remember global warming means the average tempurature of the whole globe is going up. What it means locally is climate change, not warmer every where.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Meditation - be still and listen
This is a stresful time for many. Instead of slowing down and aligning with the seasons we speed up. I suggest that we all take some time and read the article below.
Meditation isn't just about relaxing
Meditation isn't just about relaxing
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Loose the dark... loose the magic... loose the connection to the wider universe
International Dark-Sky Association works to encourage changes in our lifestyles that allow for dark starry nights. Below are just a few offerings from their latest newsletter.
A Stolen Sky
Avoiding Depression: Sleeping in Dark Room May Help
The fat cat cometh
Light at Night and Breast Cancer Risk Worldwide
A Stolen Sky
Avoiding Depression: Sleeping in Dark Room May Help
The fat cat cometh
Light at Night and Breast Cancer Risk Worldwide
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
New Orleans Fringe Festival
When does the edge move to the center? This looks like the year for the New Orleans Fringe Festival as it unveils more than 150 shows from 60 performing groups during its run from Nov. 17 to 21.
The 2010 New Orleans Fringe Festival runs from Nov. 17 to 21 with performances scheduled throughout the city.
One measure of the festival's growing importance is that international artists are traveling here for the first time, including some from as far away as Chile, Switzerland, Italy, Northern Ireland and Norway. The foreign contingent joins artists from across the United States for five days of drama, comedy, musical theater, cabaret, multimedia, dance, circus, sideshow and puppetry. The Fringe even sponsors a parade on St. Claude Avenue, which mixes festival performers and neighborhood folks. The Good Children Fringe Parade starts at St. Claude and Poland Avenues on Nov. 20 at 2 p.m.
Although most of the festival centers on a half-dozen locations in the downtown neighborhoods of Bywater and Marigny, the venues also include such -- dare we say "establishment" -- theaters as Le Chat Noir cabaret and Southern Rep. Other venues are as alternative as the performers. This year, for example, shows will be staged in the Den of Muses, an industrial building in Marigny that house floats for the Krewe du Vieux.
Another first for the festival will be a weekend of free daytime children's activities, such as improv workshops, double-dutch contests and art-making activities. They will take place in the Free-For-All tent -- in Plessy Park at Royal and Press streets, beside the festival's central box office. It's a good place to put up your feet, sip a beer, grab a snack or shop the Fringe Market for crafts.
For tickets and details about all the shows, visit nofringe.org.
Southern Rep is currently featuring "Afterlife: A Ghost Story" by Steve Yockey. It's the world premiere of a piece that will go on to theaters in Boston and Los Angeles with support from the National New Play Network. Set in a beach house with a storm approaching, this hair-raiser follows a grieving couple through a plot full of sudden twists and surprises. Southern Rep artistic director Aimee Hayes staged "Afterlife, " with an all-star local cast: Lucy Faust, Michael Aaron Santos, John Neisler, Troi Bechet, Lisa Picone and Andrew Farrier. It runs through Nov. 7. Call 504.522.6545 or go to SouthernRep.com.
Cripple Creek Theatre Company does its part to promote new plays by presenting a trilogy of one-acts in November. Written by the troupe's artistic director, Andrew Vaught, "A Crude Trilogy" is directed by Emilie Whelan. She recently staged a sell-out production of "The Madwoman of Chaillot" for this spunky downtown company. "Crude" opens on Nov. 5 and runs on weekends through Nov. 13. Call 504.891.6815 or go to cripplecreekplayers.org.
Anthony Bean Community Theater continues its run of "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men" by Lonnie Elder III. Set in a rundown Harlem barbershop, this 1969 stage classic centers on the struggles of an aging patriarch and his fractured family. For the New Orleans production, which closes on Oct. 31, Anthony Bean directs a cast of seven, including such notable actors as Harold X. Evans and Damany S. Cormier. Call, 504.862.7529 or go to anthonybeantheater.com.
Saints fans have a chance to celebrate at the theater this month with two notable local shows. "Ain't Dat Super" debuted at the Mahalia Jackson Theatre for the Performing Arts over the Labor Day weekend. It will return to the big hall in Armstrong Park on Nov. 13. Set in a New Orleans bar, the show features beloved local actors -- Becky Allen and John "Spud" McConnell -- in a comedy loaded with Saints trivia. There is even a chance to "tailgate" before the curtain rises. Call 888.946.4839 or go to aintdatsuper.com.
There's also time to catch the final show of "Bless Ya Boys: Who Dat Nation" at Le Chat Noir cabaret on Thursday. It's the fourth year for this popular seasonal review which looks back, with a smile, at 40 years of Saints history. Other shows at the Le Chat include a pair of comedies "Good Night and the Island of Dr. Fitzmorris!" Friday and Saturday and "Love Child" (opens with a benefit show on Nov. 4 and continues on weekends through Nov. 21). Call 504.581.5812 or go to cabaretlechatnoir.com.
Le Petit Theatre also focuses on laughs with "Forbidden Broadway, " which runs at the French Quarter venue Nov. 5 through 19. The comedy spoofs familiar stage actors and Broadway shows. It has evolved in the decades since winning a 1981 Tony Award in New York. It now includes send ups of "Hairspray" and other more recent work. Call 504.522.2081 or go to lepetittheatre.org.
The 2010 New Orleans Fringe Festival runs from Nov. 17 to 21 with performances scheduled throughout the city.
One measure of the festival's growing importance is that international artists are traveling here for the first time, including some from as far away as Chile, Switzerland, Italy, Northern Ireland and Norway. The foreign contingent joins artists from across the United States for five days of drama, comedy, musical theater, cabaret, multimedia, dance, circus, sideshow and puppetry. The Fringe even sponsors a parade on St. Claude Avenue, which mixes festival performers and neighborhood folks. The Good Children Fringe Parade starts at St. Claude and Poland Avenues on Nov. 20 at 2 p.m.
Although most of the festival centers on a half-dozen locations in the downtown neighborhoods of Bywater and Marigny, the venues also include such -- dare we say "establishment" -- theaters as Le Chat Noir cabaret and Southern Rep. Other venues are as alternative as the performers. This year, for example, shows will be staged in the Den of Muses, an industrial building in Marigny that house floats for the Krewe du Vieux.
Another first for the festival will be a weekend of free daytime children's activities, such as improv workshops, double-dutch contests and art-making activities. They will take place in the Free-For-All tent -- in Plessy Park at Royal and Press streets, beside the festival's central box office. It's a good place to put up your feet, sip a beer, grab a snack or shop the Fringe Market for crafts.
For tickets and details about all the shows, visit nofringe.org.
Southern Rep is currently featuring "Afterlife: A Ghost Story" by Steve Yockey. It's the world premiere of a piece that will go on to theaters in Boston and Los Angeles with support from the National New Play Network. Set in a beach house with a storm approaching, this hair-raiser follows a grieving couple through a plot full of sudden twists and surprises. Southern Rep artistic director Aimee Hayes staged "Afterlife, " with an all-star local cast: Lucy Faust, Michael Aaron Santos, John Neisler, Troi Bechet, Lisa Picone and Andrew Farrier. It runs through Nov. 7. Call 504.522.6545 or go to SouthernRep.com.
Cripple Creek Theatre Company does its part to promote new plays by presenting a trilogy of one-acts in November. Written by the troupe's artistic director, Andrew Vaught, "A Crude Trilogy" is directed by Emilie Whelan. She recently staged a sell-out production of "The Madwoman of Chaillot" for this spunky downtown company. "Crude" opens on Nov. 5 and runs on weekends through Nov. 13. Call 504.891.6815 or go to cripplecreekplayers.org.
Anthony Bean Community Theater continues its run of "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men" by Lonnie Elder III. Set in a rundown Harlem barbershop, this 1969 stage classic centers on the struggles of an aging patriarch and his fractured family. For the New Orleans production, which closes on Oct. 31, Anthony Bean directs a cast of seven, including such notable actors as Harold X. Evans and Damany S. Cormier. Call, 504.862.7529 or go to anthonybeantheater.com.
Saints fans have a chance to celebrate at the theater this month with two notable local shows. "Ain't Dat Super" debuted at the Mahalia Jackson Theatre for the Performing Arts over the Labor Day weekend. It will return to the big hall in Armstrong Park on Nov. 13. Set in a New Orleans bar, the show features beloved local actors -- Becky Allen and John "Spud" McConnell -- in a comedy loaded with Saints trivia. There is even a chance to "tailgate" before the curtain rises. Call 888.946.4839 or go to aintdatsuper.com.
There's also time to catch the final show of "Bless Ya Boys: Who Dat Nation" at Le Chat Noir cabaret on Thursday. It's the fourth year for this popular seasonal review which looks back, with a smile, at 40 years of Saints history. Other shows at the Le Chat include a pair of comedies "Good Night and the Island of Dr. Fitzmorris!" Friday and Saturday and "Love Child" (opens with a benefit show on Nov. 4 and continues on weekends through Nov. 21). Call 504.581.5812 or go to cabaretlechatnoir.com.
Le Petit Theatre also focuses on laughs with "Forbidden Broadway, " which runs at the French Quarter venue Nov. 5 through 19. The comedy spoofs familiar stage actors and Broadway shows. It has evolved in the decades since winning a 1981 Tony Award in New York. It now includes send ups of "Hairspray" and other more recent work. Call 504.522.2081 or go to lepetittheatre.org.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Shadowfest Cemetary Visit
Today I took my daughter to the cemetary with me...
She was late for school...
Excuse? Religious Holiday.
All Saints Day and visiting the cemetaries is (well was) a big deal here.
I told her stories of the ancestors.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Now that's Scary!!!!!
Take a close look... especially all you folks who live where it is cool....
There is mold... black mold in the eyes and white fuzzy mold in the mouth.
The pumpkin was carved only 2 days ago and was inside the whole time...
I took its picture and then tossed over the side into the trash can.
There is mold... black mold in the eyes and white fuzzy mold in the mouth.
The pumpkin was carved only 2 days ago and was inside the whole time...
I took its picture and then tossed over the side into the trash can.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Charge of Aradia
Whenever you have need of anything, once in the month when the Moon is full, then shall you come together at some deserted place, or where there are woods, and give worship to She who is Queen of all Witches. Come all together inside a circle, and secrets that are yet unknown shall be revealed.
And your mind must be free and also your spirit, and as a sign that you are truly free, you shall be naked in your rites. And you shall rejoice, and sing; making music and love. For this is the essence of spirit, and the knowledge of joy.
Be true to your own beliefs, and keep to the Ways, beyond all obstacles. For ours is the key to the mysteries and the cycle of rebirth, which opens the way to the Womb of Enlightenment.
I am the spirit of witches all, and this is joy and peace and harmony. In life does the Queen of all witches reveal the knowledge of Spirit. And from death does the Queen deliver you to peace and renewal.
When I shall have departed from this world, in memory of me make cakes of grain, wine and honey. These shall you shape like the Moon, and then partake of wine and cakes, all in my memory. For I have been sent to you by the Spirits of Old, and I have come that you might be delivered from all slavery. I am the daughter of the Sun and Moon, and even though I have been born into this world, my Race is of the Stars.
Give offerings all to She who is our Mother. For She is the beauty of the Greenwood, and the light of the Moon among the Stars, and the mystery which gives life, and always calls us to come together in Her name. Let Her worship be the ways within your heart, for all acts of love and pleasure gain favour with the Goddess.
But to all who seek Her, know that your seeking and desire will reward you not, until you realize the secret. Because if that which you seek is not found within your inner self, you will never find it from without. For she has been with you since you entered into the ways, and she is that which awaits at your journey's end.
And your mind must be free and also your spirit, and as a sign that you are truly free, you shall be naked in your rites. And you shall rejoice, and sing; making music and love. For this is the essence of spirit, and the knowledge of joy.
Be true to your own beliefs, and keep to the Ways, beyond all obstacles. For ours is the key to the mysteries and the cycle of rebirth, which opens the way to the Womb of Enlightenment.
I am the spirit of witches all, and this is joy and peace and harmony. In life does the Queen of all witches reveal the knowledge of Spirit. And from death does the Queen deliver you to peace and renewal.
When I shall have departed from this world, in memory of me make cakes of grain, wine and honey. These shall you shape like the Moon, and then partake of wine and cakes, all in my memory. For I have been sent to you by the Spirits of Old, and I have come that you might be delivered from all slavery. I am the daughter of the Sun and Moon, and even though I have been born into this world, my Race is of the Stars.
Give offerings all to She who is our Mother. For She is the beauty of the Greenwood, and the light of the Moon among the Stars, and the mystery which gives life, and always calls us to come together in Her name. Let Her worship be the ways within your heart, for all acts of love and pleasure gain favour with the Goddess.
But to all who seek Her, know that your seeking and desire will reward you not, until you realize the secret. Because if that which you seek is not found within your inner self, you will never find it from without. For she has been with you since you entered into the ways, and she is that which awaits at your journey's end.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Festivals
New Orleans is a strange and wonderful place.
There are 2 "modern" (less than 100 years old) festivals unique to New Orleans that mark our seasons:
Jazzfest - which takes place the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May. This festival is full of music and dancing and food and arts. It's guaranteed to fall over the May Day period. This festival typically takes place right after our "cold" season ends and before our HOT season begins. It brings people of all ages and interests together.
Voodoo Fest - which is ending today. Is a newer offering, only 10 years old this year. But it survived the apocalypse surrounding Hurricane Katrina and is now firmly embedded in New Orleans existence.
How do I know. Voodoo Fest now has a Kid's Stage. Once a festival appeals to all ages it somehow manages to lock itself into the essence of the city.
It is strange and wonderful and some how natural that both these festivals are aligned with the 2 pagan festivals that mark the time when the veil is supposed to be thin: May 1st & Holloween.
There are 2 "modern" (less than 100 years old) festivals unique to New Orleans that mark our seasons:
Jazzfest - which takes place the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May. This festival is full of music and dancing and food and arts. It's guaranteed to fall over the May Day period. This festival typically takes place right after our "cold" season ends and before our HOT season begins. It brings people of all ages and interests together.
Voodoo Fest - which is ending today. Is a newer offering, only 10 years old this year. But it survived the apocalypse surrounding Hurricane Katrina and is now firmly embedded in New Orleans existence.
How do I know. Voodoo Fest now has a Kid's Stage. Once a festival appeals to all ages it somehow manages to lock itself into the essence of the city.
It is strange and wonderful and some how natural that both these festivals are aligned with the 2 pagan festivals that mark the time when the veil is supposed to be thin: May 1st & Holloween.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Elemental Solstice Prayer Alignment
“O spirits of the Elemental forces, hear me. And receive our blessings. O spirits of the earth. O powers that be, hear me and receive our blessings. Assist us on this sacred night to maintain the natural balance which keeps vital the essence of the earth. Let there always be clear flowing water, freshness in the air, fertility within the soil and abundant life within the world.”
These words are taken from Italian Witchcraft by Raven Grimassi. They are part of the Summer Solstice Ritual. But I think that they can and should be used more regularly to align our lives and our workings with Nature.
These words are taken from Italian Witchcraft by Raven Grimassi. They are part of the Summer Solstice Ritual. But I think that they can and should be used more regularly to align our lives and our workings with Nature.
Friday, September 24, 2010
The Moon moves the current and the current moves the shrimp
The quote below is Excerpted from Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell.
A fascinating and prescient title. But don't take my word for it. Here is a 2005 interview with Mother Jones.
Or this review by PeaceCorps writer William Siegel.
"In mid-autumn in the Gulf of Mexico, when the first serious cold fronts drift down from the nation's midsection and push haltingly across Louisiana's subtropical cost, the temperature of the ocean water begins to drop considerably. Miles offshore inside the minuscule brain of Louisiana's female brown shrimp - aka Farfane penaeus aztecus - this sudden Gulf cooling acts as an ancient trigger.
The female shrimp has already mated. She did so months earlier, back in the marsh, just after molting, when she was still sexually immature. She had carried the male sperm in a sac in her head all this time, and now, in the cooling weather of the open ocean, at a depth of at least thirty feet, she begins to spawn. From ovaries barely the size of peas, inside a body maybe six inches long, a half a million eggs somehow emerge. The eggs enter the cool water and the drift, subsumed in the vast ocean environment, sprayed only with a protective coat of jelly as a parting maternal act, then left totally on their own.
By November the water off Louisiana's coast is a veritable soup of trillions and trillions of microscopic shrimp larvae squirming with new life. So many are there that is all the larvae of just three successive generations of Farfante penaeus aztecus were to survive to adulthood and reproduce, the resulting shrimp would be equal to the volume of the sun in less than two years. A few more and every inch of the universe would be filled with shrimp, the mass of crustaceans expanding outward at the speed of light.
But of course most larvae don't grow to be adults. They'll be devoured by a fantastic array of predators, or they'll lose their way during the long migration as epic and perilous as that of the Pacific salmon and the common eel.
Afloat in the Gulf current, the spherical shrimp eggs hatch into first-phase larvae less than a millimeter in size, having not the look of shrimp but of grotesque monsters worthy of battle with Odysseus. They have only one eye, their bodies opaque and pear shaped, with triangular spines and whiplike appendages for swimming. A series of successive molts give the larvae the even stranger look of multi-limbed space aliens, with dozens of barbed digits protruding from bifurcating arms, a video-game villain from a galaxy far, far away.
But after two or three weeks, these odd changes stop and the final product emerges at last: tiny shrimp just half and inch long, but with the familiar stalked eyes and armoured tail and protruding antennae longer than the body itself. Now in order to survive, these newly morphed creatures must somehow get themselves out of the big ocean and into the estuarine coastal marshes, a long way to the north.
For help, the infant crustaceans, roughly the length and width of grains of rice, turn to a spherical body 92 million miles away in outer space, a G2 dwarf star otherwise known as our sun. Twice a month this fiery body of hydrogen gas nearly a million miles in diameter joins forces with the earth's moon, a mere 238,000 miles away, to create a combined gravitational and centrifugal force of enormous power. This force generates ocean tides on earth -- so-called spring tides -- which are much greater than the tides occurring daily throughout the rest of the month. Every two weeks, when the moon shows itself to the earth either as a barely visible new moon or as a blazing full moon, the phenomenon is at work: the moon and the sun have fallen into a straight line relative to the earth, reinforcing each other's gravitational tug, pulling the earth's oceans into two bulging masses of liquid on opposite sides of the globe. These fantastic waves, these great heaping ridges of water, are brought into collision with the earth's landmasses twice a day as the planet rotates. This, in the simplest terms, is how tides happen, and spring tides are the bimonthly champions. So strong is the combined pull of the sun and moon during this period that even the earth's atmosphere bends outward and parts of the continents bulge slightly.
For the trillions of minute shrimp struggling down there in the earth's Gulf of Mexico, this celestial force is plenty strong enough to bear them landward in a high incoming tide that squeezes between Louisiana's barrier islands and sweeps the shrimp up into the food-rich interior marshes. By March thanks to the spring tides, all the autumn-spawned brown shrimp lucky enough to have survived the marathon journey -- perhaps one in a hundred - are now inside the estuary nursery grounds where they begin to feed ravenously.
Brown shrimp, as they grow up, a famously indiscriminate eaters. They are what biologists call "encounter feeders" and "opportunistic omnivores", meaning they'll eat pretty much whatever organic decaying matter they stumble into: decaying plants, animals, algae, fecal pellets, amphipods. Sometimes each other.
This ability to ingest a wide range of food accounts for their rapid growth rate, especially beginning in April with the temperature starts to rise toward 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the coastal marshes and the shrimp grow as much as an inch per week. If both temperature and water salinity remain favorable, the fast growth rate continues and combines with the initial fecundity of the spawning females to produce skyrocketing results. In collective size and numbers, the shrimp, in the spring, reach massive proportions.. It's a shrimp explosion."
A fascinating and prescient title. But don't take my word for it. Here is a 2005 interview with Mother Jones.
Or this review by PeaceCorps writer William Siegel.
"In mid-autumn in the Gulf of Mexico, when the first serious cold fronts drift down from the nation's midsection and push haltingly across Louisiana's subtropical cost, the temperature of the ocean water begins to drop considerably. Miles offshore inside the minuscule brain of Louisiana's female brown shrimp - aka Farfane penaeus aztecus - this sudden Gulf cooling acts as an ancient trigger.
The female shrimp has already mated. She did so months earlier, back in the marsh, just after molting, when she was still sexually immature. She had carried the male sperm in a sac in her head all this time, and now, in the cooling weather of the open ocean, at a depth of at least thirty feet, she begins to spawn. From ovaries barely the size of peas, inside a body maybe six inches long, a half a million eggs somehow emerge. The eggs enter the cool water and the drift, subsumed in the vast ocean environment, sprayed only with a protective coat of jelly as a parting maternal act, then left totally on their own.
By November the water off Louisiana's coast is a veritable soup of trillions and trillions of microscopic shrimp larvae squirming with new life. So many are there that is all the larvae of just three successive generations of Farfante penaeus aztecus were to survive to adulthood and reproduce, the resulting shrimp would be equal to the volume of the sun in less than two years. A few more and every inch of the universe would be filled with shrimp, the mass of crustaceans expanding outward at the speed of light.
But of course most larvae don't grow to be adults. They'll be devoured by a fantastic array of predators, or they'll lose their way during the long migration as epic and perilous as that of the Pacific salmon and the common eel.
Afloat in the Gulf current, the spherical shrimp eggs hatch into first-phase larvae less than a millimeter in size, having not the look of shrimp but of grotesque monsters worthy of battle with Odysseus. They have only one eye, their bodies opaque and pear shaped, with triangular spines and whiplike appendages for swimming. A series of successive molts give the larvae the even stranger look of multi-limbed space aliens, with dozens of barbed digits protruding from bifurcating arms, a video-game villain from a galaxy far, far away.
But after two or three weeks, these odd changes stop and the final product emerges at last: tiny shrimp just half and inch long, but with the familiar stalked eyes and armoured tail and protruding antennae longer than the body itself. Now in order to survive, these newly morphed creatures must somehow get themselves out of the big ocean and into the estuarine coastal marshes, a long way to the north.
For help, the infant crustaceans, roughly the length and width of grains of rice, turn to a spherical body 92 million miles away in outer space, a G2 dwarf star otherwise known as our sun. Twice a month this fiery body of hydrogen gas nearly a million miles in diameter joins forces with the earth's moon, a mere 238,000 miles away, to create a combined gravitational and centrifugal force of enormous power. This force generates ocean tides on earth -- so-called spring tides -- which are much greater than the tides occurring daily throughout the rest of the month. Every two weeks, when the moon shows itself to the earth either as a barely visible new moon or as a blazing full moon, the phenomenon is at work: the moon and the sun have fallen into a straight line relative to the earth, reinforcing each other's gravitational tug, pulling the earth's oceans into two bulging masses of liquid on opposite sides of the globe. These fantastic waves, these great heaping ridges of water, are brought into collision with the earth's landmasses twice a day as the planet rotates. This, in the simplest terms, is how tides happen, and spring tides are the bimonthly champions. So strong is the combined pull of the sun and moon during this period that even the earth's atmosphere bends outward and parts of the continents bulge slightly.
For the trillions of minute shrimp struggling down there in the earth's Gulf of Mexico, this celestial force is plenty strong enough to bear them landward in a high incoming tide that squeezes between Louisiana's barrier islands and sweeps the shrimp up into the food-rich interior marshes. By March thanks to the spring tides, all the autumn-spawned brown shrimp lucky enough to have survived the marathon journey -- perhaps one in a hundred - are now inside the estuary nursery grounds where they begin to feed ravenously.
Brown shrimp, as they grow up, a famously indiscriminate eaters. They are what biologists call "encounter feeders" and "opportunistic omnivores", meaning they'll eat pretty much whatever organic decaying matter they stumble into: decaying plants, animals, algae, fecal pellets, amphipods. Sometimes each other.
This ability to ingest a wide range of food accounts for their rapid growth rate, especially beginning in April with the temperature starts to rise toward 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the coastal marshes and the shrimp grow as much as an inch per week. If both temperature and water salinity remain favorable, the fast growth rate continues and combines with the initial fecundity of the spawning females to produce skyrocketing results. In collective size and numbers, the shrimp, in the spring, reach massive proportions.. It's a shrimp explosion."
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Italian Definitions
From Myth on Italian Streghria
Fiabia
A story of a fabulous nature, such as wondertales, fables, or fairytales. These stories often contain supernatual or magical beings, such as dragons, fatas, stregas, giants, griffins, talking animals, etc, as well as mortal heros and heroines. See storia folcloristica.
Famiglia
Famiglia Iiterally means "family" in Italian. It carries the concept of a tight bond among those who are related, not only by blood or marriage, but also by commitments of friendship.
Fantasma
A fantasma is the Italian word for "ghost" or "apparition." It orginated from the Latin word, phantasma, meaning "vision" or "image."
Fata Buona
Literally, in Italian, a fata buona is a "good faery," who may randomly decide to assist someone. Fata buonas are common in Italian fiabias or folktales. The fata buona often appears as an older woman. Such a figure of folklore is sometimes called a fata buona della fiabe. See fiabia.
Gnocca or Bella Gnocca
beatifull girl, sexy girl (Gnocchi is a food.)
Gnomi
The gnomi are little people.
Lampadine
Lampadine are supposidly surernatual lights seen dancing or fittling over the fields at night. The lampadine may be related to the idea of the lampedes, who were Greek cthonic nymphs. The lampades serve in the entorage of the Goddess Hecate. These infernal nymphs are her lamp-bearers.
In English, these lights are known as "faery lights," "friar's lantern," "spook lights," "will o' the wisp," or a dozen other names indicating their otherworldly nature.
Mago Alchemist
A mago alchemist is a magician who practices alchemy (alchimia), the mysterious occult art or science that was the forerunner of modern chemistry. Alchemy focuses on the concept of the transmutation of matter.
Paese
Literally paese means "village" in Italian. In particular, it has been used by Italian-Americans to refer to the concept of the "home village" to which an indivdual has ties.
Paese Incantato
A paese incantato is an enchanted place, supernatual landscape, or faeryland, which is often an enchantingly beautiful place.
Paese della Fate
A paese della fate is a realm inhabited by faeries.
Spettro
Spettro is Italian for "specter," a visible, but incorporial spirit that is often the soul of a dead person.
Spiritetello
A spiritetello is literally a "little male spirit." He is a mischevious spirit with a faery-perverse nature.
Spiritetello Malevolo
An evil male spirit of faerie is a spiritetello malevolo, like the English "Red Cap" that dips his cap in the blood of murdered victims to keep it red.
Storia Folcloristica
The storia folcloristica is an Italian term for a tradtional story orginally spread orally in numerious versions among a people, generally the common folk, i.e. a folktale. The term literally means in Italian "folkloristic stories."
Stregone Divinatorio
A stregone divinatorio is a socerer who specializes in practicing the art of divination.
Fiabia
A story of a fabulous nature, such as wondertales, fables, or fairytales. These stories often contain supernatual or magical beings, such as dragons, fatas, stregas, giants, griffins, talking animals, etc, as well as mortal heros and heroines. See storia folcloristica.
Famiglia
Famiglia Iiterally means "family" in Italian. It carries the concept of a tight bond among those who are related, not only by blood or marriage, but also by commitments of friendship.
Fantasma
A fantasma is the Italian word for "ghost" or "apparition." It orginated from the Latin word, phantasma, meaning "vision" or "image."
Fata Buona
Literally, in Italian, a fata buona is a "good faery," who may randomly decide to assist someone. Fata buonas are common in Italian fiabias or folktales. The fata buona often appears as an older woman. Such a figure of folklore is sometimes called a fata buona della fiabe. See fiabia.
Gnocca or Bella Gnocca
beatifull girl, sexy girl (Gnocchi is a food.)
Gnomi
The gnomi are little people.
Lampadine
Lampadine are supposidly surernatual lights seen dancing or fittling over the fields at night. The lampadine may be related to the idea of the lampedes, who were Greek cthonic nymphs. The lampades serve in the entorage of the Goddess Hecate. These infernal nymphs are her lamp-bearers.
In English, these lights are known as "faery lights," "friar's lantern," "spook lights," "will o' the wisp," or a dozen other names indicating their otherworldly nature.
Mago Alchemist
A mago alchemist is a magician who practices alchemy (alchimia), the mysterious occult art or science that was the forerunner of modern chemistry. Alchemy focuses on the concept of the transmutation of matter.
Paese
Literally paese means "village" in Italian. In particular, it has been used by Italian-Americans to refer to the concept of the "home village" to which an indivdual has ties.
Paese Incantato
A paese incantato is an enchanted place, supernatual landscape, or faeryland, which is often an enchantingly beautiful place.
Paese della Fate
A paese della fate is a realm inhabited by faeries.
Spettro
Spettro is Italian for "specter," a visible, but incorporial spirit that is often the soul of a dead person.
Spiritetello
A spiritetello is literally a "little male spirit." He is a mischevious spirit with a faery-perverse nature.
Spiritetello Malevolo
An evil male spirit of faerie is a spiritetello malevolo, like the English "Red Cap" that dips his cap in the blood of murdered victims to keep it red.
Storia Folcloristica
The storia folcloristica is an Italian term for a tradtional story orginally spread orally in numerious versions among a people, generally the common folk, i.e. a folktale. The term literally means in Italian "folkloristic stories."
Stregone Divinatorio
A stregone divinatorio is a socerer who specializes in practicing the art of divination.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Your environment influences you subtly (and sometimes not so subtly).
The Land matters. Where you live, How you live, The culture with which you surround yourself, Matters.
Your environment influences you subtly. This is one of the reasons I love living in New Orleans. It is a wonderful mix of Old World and New World. We have strong European influences. These influences tend to be from the French, Spanish, German, Italian primarily Sicilian cultures. We have strong African influences a result of the period of slavery. We have, in American, unique mixtures of European and African influences in the legacy of the French Code Noir. We have American Indian influences mingling with African influences. We have the Cajuns who came to Louisiana in the 1700s.
This place and its unique melange of history makes for an open and interesting life. It has an interesting way of existing "between the worlds", slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. This protects us. So some would say it isolates us and insulates us and makes us backwards. But in many ways we are so far behind we are head. We still have a walkable city with unique neighborhoods. We support local businesses and miss them when they are gone. We don't mind being silly. Or being perceived as unusual. We dance in the face of death. Our jazz funerals are a unique combination of a Irish funeral dirge and African dance. Where else could this have happened?
Can you imagine another city on the planet that, in 2005, could have been completely emptied of every citizen by hurricane followed by an engineering disaster that would have had so many people WANT to return? It's amazing. Some would say foolhardy, others magical.
Where ever you live take the time to know your landscape. Sure this means climate, geography, etc. But it should also include history of the place. Nature (climate, location, geography) influences "Place" but so do the imprints left by history. Get to know these as well. Knowing yourself is part of what it takes to make a witch. So is knowing the place where you live.
Your environment influences you subtly. This is one of the reasons I love living in New Orleans. It is a wonderful mix of Old World and New World. We have strong European influences. These influences tend to be from the French, Spanish, German, Italian primarily Sicilian cultures. We have strong African influences a result of the period of slavery. We have, in American, unique mixtures of European and African influences in the legacy of the French Code Noir. We have American Indian influences mingling with African influences. We have the Cajuns who came to Louisiana in the 1700s.
This place and its unique melange of history makes for an open and interesting life. It has an interesting way of existing "between the worlds", slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. This protects us. So some would say it isolates us and insulates us and makes us backwards. But in many ways we are so far behind we are head. We still have a walkable city with unique neighborhoods. We support local businesses and miss them when they are gone. We don't mind being silly. Or being perceived as unusual. We dance in the face of death. Our jazz funerals are a unique combination of a Irish funeral dirge and African dance. Where else could this have happened?
Can you imagine another city on the planet that, in 2005, could have been completely emptied of every citizen by hurricane followed by an engineering disaster that would have had so many people WANT to return? It's amazing. Some would say foolhardy, others magical.
Where ever you live take the time to know your landscape. Sure this means climate, geography, etc. But it should also include history of the place. Nature (climate, location, geography) influences "Place" but so do the imprints left by history. Get to know these as well. Knowing yourself is part of what it takes to make a witch. So is knowing the place where you live.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Requiem
By Mark Folse
Please watch the video and remember.
If you think it can't happen where you are... think again.
Please watch the video and remember.
If you think it can't happen where you are... think again.
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