Deep in the Heart of the Wimmera

 

 

O, come, o, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

 

O, come, our Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

 

O, come, o, come, our Lord of might,
Who to your tribes on Sinai's height
In ancient times gave holy law,
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

 

 

 

Boldog Asszony

Once in royal David's city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother laid her baby
in a manger for his bed;
Mary, loving mother mild,
Jesus Christ, her little child. 

 He came down to earth from heaven
who is God and Lord of all,
and his shelter was a stable,
and his cradle was a stall.
With the poor, the scorned, the lowly
lived on earth our Savior holy. 

Jesus is our childhood's pattern;
day by day, like us he grew;
he was little, weak, and helpless,
tears and smiles like us he knew;
and he feeleth for our sadness,
and he shareth in our gladness.

And our eyes at last shall see him,
through his own redeeming love;
for that child so dear and gentle
is our Lord in heaven above;
and he leads his children on
to the place where he is gone.

 

Exiled Christmases: Coal to Newcastle

Thomas Nast's most famous drawing,

 "Merry Old Santa Claus," from Harper's Weekly,

 January 1, 1881.

 

 

It started, our lifetime of lonely exiled Christmases, with a fight. But it didn't really start then. It started in pre-history, or pre-my-history, in ancient bitternesses, deaths and sins unforgiven from before I was even born.

 

 

By the time the fight happened, my mother and grandmother were the sole survivors of a small, intense and insular family, and I was almost grown up. A father and husband had died, a brother and uncle had died, a powerful grandfather had died, a two-year-old son had died, making my mother an only child. Things were said, their partial estrangement began, and increased, and our many years of bad Christmases began.

 

 

At first it was got through pleasantly enough on the surface, but at great emotional cost to my mother. Then it became an annual awkwardness, the problem of somehow dealing with Christmas in a way that kept my mother and grandmother apart — or at least, bubble-wrapped, like two delicate presents sent together through the mail. [read more]

 

 

 

Image Sourced from

Bill Casselman's article on Thomas Nast: The Man Who Designed Santa Claus

Eminently Useless Information

For the last 18 months or so I have been frequenting a popular astrology forum and paying attention to the topics that come up time and time again for discussion and the extraordinary things people think astrology is capable of achieving.  In some ways, it is like having a window into the workings of a special purpose psychotic delusion and I wonder if because so many people do believe in, and practice astrology, if the 'safety in numbers' deal renders the delusion ~ within normal range?

Whatever that means.

Hot mundane topics for discussion by the amateur wannabe professional astrologers, purveyors of all things cosmic and wise, is the death of Jacintha Saldanha in the wake of the prank played by two royal arseholes in Australia and the latest mass shooting in Newton, Conneticut by yet another troubled single white male loner.

With three more sleeps until the End of the Something on 21 December, I am happy to report that yesterday I received a most pleasant and welcome surprise: an unexpected Christmas hamper from the St Vincent de Paul Society chock-full of my favourite goodies.  Like the hamper gods had read my mind!

It is within these small little ordinary events that I am reminded of the existence of the sacred in every molecule of our lives.  Of  worlds within worlds whirling and turning, all ticking along quite nicely without our help and certainly not in need of our interference.

I know there are intelligent people who are skilled in the use of the tool that is astrology. What worries me is that they are in the minority and are too busy to hang out in these astrology forums to see the ways in which their hard-won and long developed theories are being distorted by the unintelligentsia.

The amateurs are analysing 'natal' charts using false information in lieu of the correct date and place of birth details, so strong is the obsession to know, to force an answer or, in most cases, to make themselves a part of the tragedies: to ride on top of the ambulances and hearses.

Ghouls. 

Internet forums are riddled with them.  People with 1001 ways to fix the world and more opinions than there are arseholes in Calcutta. Yet where the hammer meets the anvil, these are disempowered people searching for transits causing events and imprisoning themselves with Acquired Astrology Disorder ~ sunsagmoonlibra or plutotrinemars. 

A special language for people who need to feel special. 

After three years of intense self-directed study of astrology, I have experienced the positives of astrology as a tool for deep personal growth and understanding; as well as having skated close to losing my ability to converse with others in non-astrological terms. With a Saturn conjunct transit brushing the cobwebs off natal Neptune for only the second time, I am mindful of what I know of Saturn's archetype.

I am mindful of the fact that I met the Saturn archetype a decade before I became curious enough to take a serious look at astrology.  What I have gained from my journey through astrology is the reassurance that I had already lived 49 years of my life without any knowledge whatsoever of whether Mercury was retrograde or that my Venus is in detriment.

Millions of people are living now with no knowledge whatsover of their natal chart and some may say that is what is awry with this world.  As for me, I think the world knows what it is doing and astrology might be the magnet on the cosmic fridge holding down the to-do list.

As for this astrology forum?  The latest offering on the tragedy of Newtown is that in the Human Design System, the troubled young man was a splenic (spontaneous) Projector on the Right Angle Cross of the Unexpected.

I am sure the parents of the slain children, the extended families of the slaughtered, and the world community will find that information eminently useful.
 

Corryvreckan: The Gateway to Hel

Gray Dog tidal race

In "The Silver Bough" by F. Marian McNeil we read that 'The Cailleach is the genius of winter and the enemy of growth. Her chief seat is Ben Nevis. She ushers in winter by washing her great plaid in the whirlpool of Corryvreckan (Coire Bhreacain : the Cauldron of the Plaid). Before the washing, it is said, the roar of a coming tempest is heard by people on the coast for a distance of twenty miles, for a period of three days until the cauldron boils. When the washing is over, the plaid of old Scotland is virgin white.'

In 1947, the writer George Orwell rented a place on Jura, a Hebridean island shaped like an elongated raindrop overlooking some of the filthiest seas in Europe. Barnhill, a farmhouse tucked right up on the island's north-eastern edge, satisfied Orwell's desire for distance.  It is five miles down a track impassable to anything but tractors, and twenty-five miles from the nearest shop.

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

The three slogans of the Party on the Ministry of Truth building

While he was at Barnhill, Orwell began work on the novel which was to become 1984, his apocalyptic fable of the individual within the totalitarian state. During the summer months, Orwell spent time with his son Richard (then still a toddler), his sister Avril and his nephew and niece Lucy and Henry Dakin. 

Barnhill, Isle of Jura

The house owned by the Fletcher family who rented it to Geoerge Orwell in 1946-1948.

He wrote '1984' in the small room above the kitchen.

In August, Orwell proposed a camping expedition over to Jura's western side for a couple of days. On their way back to Barnhill, he took Henry, Lucky and Richard with him on the boat and set off for home, skirting along the island's northern tip. It should have been a brief and unexceptional trip; as it was, Orwell met the  Gulf of Corrievreckan.

View of Corryvreckan whirlpool from a boat

Corrievreckan is the largest whirlpool in European waters and the second largest whirlpool in the world superseded only by the true Maelstrom off the Lofoten Islands near Norway's west coast. Sailors have always considered it one of the great maritime dragons, up there with Portland Bill, the Alderney Race or the Men of Mey in terms of risk and challenge.

Image Credit: Hebridean-Wild

The whirlpool runs between the islands of Jura and Scarba and is formed both by the pressures of a 9-knot tidal bottleneck and by two significant underwater obstructions. The flowing tide pulls water northwards from the Clyde estuary and the Irish Sea into the narrow gap of the Sound of Jura. As all the accumulated weight of water races north-eastwars uup through the Sound, it gathers pace.  By the time it enters the channel between the two islands, it is moving at 9 knots or more, and as it rounds the corner into the Gulf it runs directly into four major opposing forces: the two islands themselves (no more than two-thirds of a mile apart at their narrowest point); a large submerged rock stack to the north of the channel, smooth-sided and vertical on its eastern edge and rising up to within 29 metres of the surface; the current running in the opposite direction round the coast of Scarba, and lastly, a deep sub-aquatic pit hollowed out by the movement of water reaching down 219 metres below the surrounding sea bed and known as the Gateway to Hell.

Data used to derive these images was collected by the Broadscale Mapping Project which was funded by the Crown Estate, Countryside Council for Wales, Natural England [formerly English Nature], Scottish Natural Heritage and the University of Newcastle [SeaMap Research Group], with further support from the European Commission under the Life Programme. Images created by Dr Jon Davies [Joint Nature Conservation Committee] from data supplied by Dylan Todd [Scottish Natural Heritage]. [Copyright Jon Davies (JNCC].


The pit sucks water down and the stack throws it upwards, creating vortices which rise to the surface as pulses. In a heavy wind, the standing waves directly above the stack can reach 10 to 15 feet high, and during the autumnal equinox, when the whirlpool runs in fullest spate, it can revolve at up to 10 knots, pushing the water up at the sides to 30 foot above the surrounding seal level. In those conditions, the water roars. They say that Corrievreckan's thunder can sometimes be heard ten miles or more inland.  As the old Statistical Account of Scotland put it:

'Three currents, formed by the islands and mainland, meet a fourth, which sets in from the ocean. The conflux is dreadful and spurns all descriptions. Even the genius of Milton could not paint the horrors of the scene. At the distance of twelve miles a most dreadful noise, as if all the infernal powers had been let loose, is heard.'

Common seal in speckled dress, Jura

 


References:
Text extracted from The Wreckers: a story of killing seas, false lights and plundered ships by Bella Bathurst, 2005

Images plundered from Hebridean-Wild: exploring in and around the Gulf of Corrievreckan


Further Reading:

Jura & the Corryvreckan ~ tales and legends from an Easter Expedition in 2004.  A delightful travel journal by UK sea-kayaker, Mike Buckley, that tells of little boats and aching arms.

Isle of Jura website

Whirlpool-Scotland ~ get up close and personal with Cailleach's washing-tub in a purpose built catamaran, 'Sea Leopard II'  which took over from its predecessor as the main vessel in operation for Craignish Cruises, in late 2010.

The story of how Corryvreckan got its name by Scot AnSgeulaiche, local historian and storyteller.

About the Cailleach, or Hag of Winter by Stuart McHardy, writer and folklorist. One of the many versions of the Scottish Hag story makes her the chief of eight big old women or witches. This group of nine suggests Ptah and his eight earth gnomes, the nine mothers of Heimdal the Norse god and the Ennead of Heliopolis.

The Goddess in the Landscape - Many mountains and glens in Scotland have stories of the Cailleach, always associated with the local landscape, for the stories were always told in such a way as to find an easy reception amongst their audience. Placenames and associated tales put her all over our landscape

Priestesses of the Deer ~ J.G. Mackay published an article on Deer Goddess cults in the Scottish Highlands in Folklore 1934. He drew attention to the two meanings of the Gaelic word Fiadh as deer and God. He cites numerous examples of Highland tales which refer to the Cailleach associating with deer.

 

 

Beyond Man in a Beyond Place

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. ~ Carl Sagan, 1934-1996


Image: Pale Blue Bartholomew robot sculpture

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme

The Sacrificial Lamb by Josefa de Obidos

A traumatic stressor does not have to be as severe as war or a terrorist attack, however. For instance, a person could experience falling off a bicycle as a child as terribly traumatic and could then have symptoms for the rest of his or her life. It is the perception of the event that matters, not its actual content. Symptoms can include insomnia, repeated dreams and visual, auditory, sensory, or emotional flashbacks of the event or of equally frightening scenarios, hypervigilance, an exaggerated startle reflex, chronic pain, depression, and addiction, among others.
The Native American psychologist, Eduardo Duran, calls such imprints within individuals, families and cultures, “soul wounds”. Soul wounds are not just emotional, but also spiritual. Unresolved trauma leaves a wide rift in the fabric of our beliefs and trust in the innate goodness of life, our physical and emotional safety, our sense of meaning, purpose, and connection to a higher power. These wounds, or gaps in our sense of self, can then be passed down generation after generation if they are not healed. ~ Rachel E. Mann


Extracted from
Can Trauma be Healed with the Wisdom of Rattle and Stone? - Shaman Portal

Into the Heartland

An Offering to Venus (1912)

John William Godward

John William Godward is an artist who will forever remain a mystery. He was a pathological loner, with a reclusive nature so profound that modern psychologists have surmised that he suffered from avoidant personality disorder. Shy, consumed by fears of criticism and rejection, and convinced he was not good in social situations, Godward avoided most interpersonal relationships, and as such, did not leave behind a cache of correspondence nor the reminiscences of friends by which the world might know him better. And at age 62, when Godward took his own life, his parents, already ashamed that their son had chosen to be an artist rather than an insurance clerk, found themselves so disgraced by their son's action, that they tried to expunge all record of his very existence; to this day there is only one known photograph of Godward and it is of him as a toddler. ~ M. D. Innis

Text sourced from Underpaintings

 

Excuse me, I think I have to SCreAM now

I am bleeding.

I have no body.

My body has been severed in the most violent fashion.

It was one thing to be turned into a hag with snakes for hair.

It was one thing to be cursed with turning anyone who faces me to stone.

I can't be in relation with anyone except my sister Gorgons.

I was so beautiful.

I was the most beautiful woman—

gods could not help but fall in love with me.

I loved my body.

I used it well.

And now I am less than nothing.

I have been humiliated and degraded and now decapitated.

My beautiful body lies cut and bleeding on the ground.

I lie cut and bleeding on the ground.

I have lost me.

I can't breathe.

I can't speak.

I am no longer.

I want to scream,

but when I open my mouth nothing comes out.

I am bleeding, my life force is waning,

my beautiful body lies untended,

slowly slipping into rigor mortis on the ground.

I am horrified, terrified, and furious: but I am frozen.

Frozen now in this furious rage for centuries.

Is this to be my legacy?

Is this to be my memory?

Is this to be my "gift"?

The injustice of it all.

And now even you make light of me?

You who know all too well the pain of not being able to speak your soul's desire.

Of not being able to say, I matter.

Of not being able to proudly own your body.

Deny the body, lose your voice.

Deny the body, lose your voice.

from The Silent Scream of Medusa by Cathy Ann Diorio
Image sourced from Horsemanning.com