Our cat, Simba, has found his favorite spot beneath the Christmas tree.
And to all dog lovers out there:
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!
A Medieval depiction of St. Nicholas (above)
An 1886 painting of Norse God Odin (right)
Supposedly, St. Nicholas of Myra is the primary inspiration for the jolly red-suited sleigh driver and gift-giver. He was a 4th century Greek Christian bishop of Byzantine Anatolia (now Turkey).
But let’s go back farther in time to the pagan days and the Germanic god Odin. When the Germanic people were Christianized, it’s believed they carried forward elements of their pagan heritage, surviving now in the form of Santa Claus.
Let’s take a look at the evidence. Odin supposedly participated in the Germanic holiday, Yule, by leading a hunting party across the sky. The Prose Edda, written by 13th century writer Snorri Sturluson, described Odin riding an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir that could leap great distances, which could be compared to Santa’s reindeer. Odin was also referred to by several names, which meant ‘long beard’ and one name that meant ‘Yule figure.’
According to Phyllis Siefker, children would place their boots–filled with carrots, straw or sugar–near the chimney for Odin’s flying horse, Sleipnir, to eat. Odin would then reward the children by replacing Sleipnir’s food with gifts or candy. Siefker maintains that the practice continued in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium in post-pagan times and became associated with St. Nicholas in a syncretism of pagan and Christian traditions.
So, if Santa is a pagan at heart and we look at the ‘truth’ about paganism, as proselytized by fundamentalist Christians, then we better jumble those letters around: S-A-N-T-A = S-A-T-A-N= Satan! There you have it, folks.That’s what we call a Mercury Retrograde Merry Christmas from the MacGregor clan! Up is down, and down is up. A reality play.
Meet Essie, a fox hound who got tired of running after foxes and was rescued by Lydia and her husband. Essie’s health deteriorated last year and she passed on. This story illustrates how our animal friends communicate with us after death.
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Once Essie’s sense of smell deteriorated it was often hard to coax her to eat. Some days eggs were great, then not so good for a week. Liver was rejected for days, then gobbled down. I was a short order cook!
Anyway, she also started eating dirt, tree bark and sometimes the loose stones from the driveway (that started when I spilled some bone meal in a certain spot, then became a habit.) The vet gave me vitamins for her, just in case it was a nutritional deficiency, but that didn’t make any difference. Basically, we just shook our heads and tried to keep the rock eating to a minimum! The driveway has stone that’s like a loose macadam – it’s not smooth stone like you’d find in the yard. Sometimes she’d throw some of them up when she vomited. The appeal of these rough, scratchy stones was a great mystery.
Well, a few days after she died, I stepped on one single piece of this rock on the rug in our master bedroom closet. To my knowledge, she’s never vomited in there. I had never found any stones in there before. Maybe nothing, but I chose to take it as a little doggie hello from the other side. I hope so.
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Thanks to DJan and CJ for alerting us that the type didn’t show on this!
This synchro came from Katrina Dreamer. It’s a stunner.
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In waking life, I recoil from scorpions. Their shiny, segmented bodies and barbed tails quickly instill fear in me. But this year, I befriended a scorpion, one that came to me in the Dreamtime.
This past February I had surgery to remove a cyst from my left ovary, the second such surgery I’d had in six months. It was the optimal time to include dreams in my healing and, luckily, I’d gotten Dream Tending by Stephen Aizenstat, which includes a chapter on dreams and healing. Within his book I discovered a technique that helped me foster a new relationship with Scorpion.
The Dream Tending technique draws from Jungian dreamwork. One of Aizenstat’s main tenants is to see dream characters as alive and having their own agency. This means using active imagination, a Jungian technique for bringing forth images and characters from the unconscious.
The important piece of the Dream Tending technique is to imagine the dream character and allow it to do what it will. If it wants to sit and stare at you, allow that. If it has something to say, listen. If it wants to dance around the room, watch. The dreamer’s role is to be a passive and receptive audience to what the dream figure wants to convey.
The point is cultivating a relationship rather than taking something from the character. So often in dreamwork practitioners only see dream images as one-dimensional representations of metaphor. Aizenstat’s method recognizes that the dream image is a vital, living force of the unconscious that with which you can have live interaction.
To bring about healing, Aizenstat adds a step to active imagination. He asks dreamers to create an imagined, or dream-time elixir, salve, or other healing medium to apply to the character and themselves, an act which spreads the healing throughout the psyche.
During my recovery from surgery, I decided to work with a particularly vile character from a recent dream I’d had, a character I called spider-scorpion.
Spider-Scorpion
I’m in a house that belongs to a woman. The front door and entryway, which is somehow both inside and outside, is covered with sticky yellow cobwebs. On the cobwebs are bats and creatures that look like a cross between spiders and scorpions. The spider-scorpions have purple-black bodies and pale yellow legs.
I am horrified and grossed out by them, but I don’t run away or hide. I ask the woman if they are spiders or scorpions, but she doesn’t answer. It seems like they’re there to scare away any men that might come calling. I go into the kitchen to get food. When I walk back into the living room, I see a giant web sack and in it are a mother spider-scorpion and many babies. I yell to the woman that she has to get rid of it and take care of it now.
To work with the dream, I got into a meditative state and asked the spider-scorpion to come forward. I saw it in all its alien glory. It sat before me and I focused on allowing it to be there with me. After getting more comfortable with the character, I gradually attempted more contact with it over several days, and I created a healing elixir to apply to it.
Following Aizenstat’s recommendation, while in meditation I put the elixir on the spider-scorpion and then on myself. After a few days, the spider-scorpion morphed into what looked like a waking-world scorpion. It wanted to crawl into my lap. I let it, and I continued to apply the elixir.
After a time, the scorpion grew larger and eventually became the same size as myself. I watched as it stepped into me, our energies merging. I’d integrated the scorpion and its medicine.
And, you’re asking, what exactly is Scorpion medicine? Darkness, sex, death, rebirth, passion, and transformation, according to Ted Andrews in his book Animal-Wise. He sums up the medicine by saying it is “dynamic transformation through secret passions and desires.”
Without bearing too much of my soul here, I’ll say that I’ve definitely harbored several secret desires and passions for much of my life. As soon as Scorpion merged with me it became more difficult to hide and suppress them until eventually many of them burst out of me.
I went through one of the most challenging periods in my life between April and October, only weeks after integrating the Scorpion medicine. Structures and ideas I’d held tightly collapsed, and I was left with an immense amount of space. Scorpion gave me the tools to navigate with grace both the collapse and the void left behind In fact, she told me her name was Mother of Grace, a fitting title.
For my inaugural post, I chose to write about the spider-scorpion, a dream character that helped facilitate a great deal of healing within me. The post went live at the same time as news came from Texas Tech University that a pseudoscorpion had been discovered living in caves in Yosemite…scorpions that are a cross between a spider and a scorpion. Synchronicity, anyone?
I rarely watch Monday Night Football, but yesterday evening my sister in Minneapolis called and asked if I was watching the Minnesota home team, the Vikings. They were playing outdoors in the snow after their stadium roof collapsed and the game was moved to a college stadium. She said they were expecting eight more inches of snow. So I turned it on, watched the first half, and as expected the Chicago Bears pummeled then Vikings.
Since there were a lot of time outs and commercial breaks, I moved between rooms from television to computer, and back again. Noah, the faithful golden retriever would get up and go back and forth with me. Just before halftime, as I walked back to the game I noticed that Noah was carrying a football in his mouth. I turned to him, astonished. “Where did you get that?”
I don’t own a football and so I asked Trish about it. She said Noah sneaked outside when she went out and disappeared for a couple of minutes. She didn’t see him come back in, but he must’ve snatched the ball from the neighbor’s yard. When Trish saw him with the ball, she snapped the picture with her cell phone. It was a surprising synchronicity, and made us wonder just how smart that dog is.
The title of course refers to the string comedies about a golden retriever, named Air Bud, who played several sports, successfully breaking the species barrier.
On December 21, 2010, a total lunar eclipse in Gemini will begin at 1:33 AM EST. According to the NASA website, totality begins at 2:41 AM and last for 72 minutes. NASA recommends that if you want to take a look, head outside at 3:17 AM, when the moon will be in deepest shadow.
I was intrigued that NASA has a little addendum to their info about this eclipse. It’s called coincidences and reads: “A lunar eclipse smack-dab on the date of the solstice, however, is unusual. Using NASA’s 5000 year catalog of lunar eclipses and JPL’s HORIZONS ephemeris to match eclipses and solstices, author Dr. Tony Phillips had to go back to the year 1378 to find a similar “winter solstice lunar eclipse.”
1378? That’s impressive. I fished around on the Internet, looking for world events for that year, thinking it might provide clues about what this lunar eclipse portends for life in 2010/2011. The big news seemed to be something called “The Great Schism.” It seems to go something like this: in 1378, the papal court was based in Rome and an Italian was elected pope as Pope Urban VI. But the French cardinals refused to acknowledge him as the pope, declared his election void, called his election void, and named Clement VII as pope. Clement went to Avignon, Urban remained in Rome. This threw a major wrench into western Christianity. Who were they supposed to follow? This schism lasted for about 40 years.
So, could this lunar eclipse possibly portend some schism in the Catholic church as it exists now? Or maybe it’s a different sort of schism. Let’s take a closer look at those times.
There were some minor rebellions that year – textile workers in Italy rebelled against a town government controlled by the guilds. Between 1378 and 1382, peasant revolts in England and France were cruelly suppressed. The peasants, naturally, didn’t have money for weapons. There was a great disparity between the rich and the poor. The rich, of course, generally lived longer and the poor lived in miserable conditions. Most of the poor lived in small communities of 20-40 families and their lives were about toil. Sounds like fun, huh?
Between 1377 and 1399, considered the late Middle Ages, Chaucer began to write The Canterbury Tales (1380); there was a peasant revolt in England in 1381 and 10,000 rebels plundered and burned London over a period of two days.
It seems another possible theme that could emerge from this lunar eclipse and the solar eclipse on January 4, 2011: a growing disparity between the rich and the poor. Given the current trends, including the U.S. Congress cutting taxes for the richest Americans, it seems likely. The same politicians on the right, who promoted the tax break for the wealthy, are calling for deep cuts in domestic spending–possibly affecting medicare and social security–which will undoubtedly hurt all but the rich. So it goes.Could this unusual cosmic phenomenon result in some minor rebellions? In the U.S., we mean real rebellion, not the corporate-funded reactionary protests of the Tea Party. We’ll see.
But, the future aside, I plan to head outside around 3 AM tomorrow morning, and am hoping for clear skies! And I love it that NASA at least recognizes coincidences!
In the wake of the news that the corporate giant Haliburton has negotiated an agreement to pay Nigeria $250 million if the country drops the bribery charges against its former CEO Dick Cheney, it seems time for another synchro from Augustine who relentlessly links his country synchronicistically with the U.S. or Great Britain. But first we can’t pass on commenting that the deal struck by Haliburton sounds like another bribe! So it goes.
Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth this time links Steve Jobs with a Nigerian entrepreneur…and there’s more, including my own American-Nigerian connection tale. But first, let’s see what’s on Augustine’s mind.
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“In California, Steve Jobs was born February 24, 1955. The much talked about business mogul
rose from grass to grace. He was known to walk long distances for free meals provided by the adherents of Hare Krishna. Born of a Muslim Father, he has an aversion for television and has ben described as a technology evangelist.
“In Lagos. we have Jimoh Ibrahim born February 24 1967. Known for his phenomenal rise in the business world, he was known for eating on credit as an undergraduate.Also born of a Muslim father, he has an aversion for video films and has been described as a motivational speaker
Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College, which has the only nuclear facility operated by students, whereas Jimoh Ibrahim finished at the Obfemi Awolowo University, which has Nigeria’s only program in nuclear engineering.
“Also in California, you had Leland Stanford, born March 9 1824. A pioneering business man, lawyer and philanthropist, he lost a son. Stanford kept dogs, bred award-winning horses and had a deep interest in farm machinery.
“Relatedly, in Lagos we have Subomi Balogun, born March 9 1934, a lawyer, pioneering banker, and philanthropist. He also lost a son. Like Stanford, Balogun loves animal life and agriculture. Balogun keeps ostriches, rabbits, goats and grasscutters. He also loves cultivating food crops.
Stanford was governor of California and Baloguns influence looms large over Lagos State. Most of the managing directors and senior managers of banks in Nigeria once worked under him.”
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Okay, now for my Nigerian-American link. It’s not from industry, commerce, or politics…but rather from the trickster.
There is a long history of trickster deities throughout the cultures of the world and the image of those gods are reflected today by folks who are not exactly deities. In America, we have comedians, such as David Letterman, Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, and Kathy Griffin.
They have much in common with an ancient Nigerian trickster god, known as Eshu.
Eshu provoked humans to argue among themselves. He wore a tall hat that was red on one side and white on the other. He walked between friends, who later got into an argument about the color of the hat. The two friends came to blows, and Eshu walked over, laughing at the bloodied and angry men and showed them his hat.
The hat trick was a way of getting get people to understand that everything is not always black and white, that sometimes there can be two perfectly valid perspectives.
So, if you think Nigeria has nothing to do with the U.S., make sure that you’ve seen both sides of the ‘hat.’
This synchronicity came from Trevor Simpson, an author and spiritual coach. Trevor recently lost a good friend, Charlie, and as with any major passage in our lives, there were some synchros involved.
This week I received the shocking news that my dear friend Charlie Richardson has passed away unexpectedly in Mexico from a heart attack. At first it seemed incomprehensible that vibrant, ever cheerful, good-hearted Charlie could have “shuffled off this mortal coil.” Yet gradually as I conversed with friends and we shared our stories it began to slowly register, Charlie became passive tense rather than present, as reality sank in.
The night before I heard the news I had an experience that in hindsight seemed particularly meaningful. A friend and I were meeting for our weekly meditation; at the close of the evening we draw a Tarot card which usually throws uncanny insight on some pertinent issue; I had purchased a new Tarot based on the poems and teachings of Rumi that I was anxious to test out. She went first and initially expressed some discomfort at working with this new deck. Finally she drew a card; it was No 20, Judgment reversed. As I read the interpretation I could sense that she was not finding it particularly significant. Somewhat disappointed I shuffled the 74 cards and drew…. the same card. What were the odds of that?
I put it down to new shiny cards and discarded the experience as meaningless, dismissing her suggestion to read it again. The next day after hearing the news of Charlie’s death, I felt drawn to look at the cards again. The poem on the front of the card by Rumi read, “By love, the dead are made living.” Spooky – I think Charlie made one last appearance! A couple of days later I reflected on this synchronicity and decided that one of the ways I could show this kind of love was by reflecting on positive memories of Charlie. In this way he would indeed be brought alive.
We ran across this video on Whitley Strieber’s site. These images are from cameras at a volcano in Sakurajima, Japan. The squares to watch are the upper left square and the lower right.Anyone have any ideas what this might be? The narrator gives us his opinion.
