Friday, December 07, 2007

Who Killed Pat Tillman

"It was just unreal to even hear that this hero had died, It's like Superman. Just to hear that he died was just awful."



"Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press."'The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,' a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators."The doctors – whose names were blacked out – said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away."

As the death toll from the war approaches number 4,000 the lies and corruption at the heart of this administration still persist. We are definitely not in Kansas anymore, and each day I wake up to more breaking stories of yet more lies, I find it hard to grasp where the hell am I really. What happened to the America that I "thought" I lived in? It most certainly is not the current reality, and now questions befuddle my brain as I ask was it ever that America that television and Hollywood painted such a nice, warm picture of -

Some lines from the new Superman 3 movie -

Clark Kent: Yeah. Well, you know, things change. I mean, of course things change, but sometimes things that you didn't think would change

Jor-El: [Superman is remembering Jor-El's last message to him from the first film] Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. Always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son.



Superman: Listen, what do you hear? Lois Lane: Nothing. Superman: I hear everything. You wrote that the world doesn't need a savior, but everyday I hear people crying for one.


Lex Luthor: Do you know the story of Prometheus? No, of course you don't. Prometheus was a god who stole the power of fire from the other gods and gave control of it to the mortals. In essence, he gave us technology, he gave us power. Kitty Kowalski: So we're stealing fire? In the Arctic? Lex Luthor: Actually, sort of. You see whoever controls technology controls the world. The Roman empire ruled the world because they built roads. The British empire ruled the world because they built ships. America; the atom bomb. And so on and so forth. I just want what Prometheus wanted. Kitty Kowalski: Sounds great Lex, but you're not a god. Lex Luthor: [fixes Kitty with an icy stare] Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their power with mankind. No, I don't want to be a *god*. I just want to bring fire to the people. And... I want my cut.
Kitty Kowalski: Sounds great, Lex, but you're not a god.

Lex Luthor: Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their powers with mankind.

links with chronological details of Pat Tillman's death

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11367
who killed pat tillman
http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=4143

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0313-20.htm

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2949768

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.allhatnocattle.net/1213%2520pat%2520tillman.JPG&imgrefurl=http://whitenoiseinsanity.com/2007/03/28/was-pat-tillman-murdered-on-purpose/&h=285&w=400&sz=29&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=VGdsxGjklU_ECM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpat%2Btillman%2Bcover%2Bup%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4DMUS_enUS234US234%26sa%3DN

http://columbiancokane.blogspot.com/2007/10/while-browsing-boston-blog-bostonist-i.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=473037&in_page_id=1770

http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/?s=pat+tillman



Pat Tillman's family deserves the truth, and justice. And so does America.

I remember Superman from my childhood always ended the show with the words....

"Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Heaven's not a place

you go when you die

it's that moment in life

when you actually feel

ALIVE





We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one
direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.




At the moment of insight


a potential pattern








of organized behavior



comes into being.

Rupert Sheldrake


The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret
recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was
psyche long before there was any ego-consciousness, and which will
remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends.


Carl Jung






Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.



Arthur Golden
It's time for greatness, not for greed. It's a time for idealism, not ideology.
It is a time not just for compassionate words, but compassionate action.


Sunday, November 11, 2007

11:11 and Veteran's Day

"...this memorial is for those who have died, and for us to remember them." - Maya Ying Lin, designer, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall


Heroes
By Jared Jenkins

In war, there are lives risked and lives taken
Men and women giving their best to defend what they love
They defend their country
Their honor
Their people

Some call them soldiers
Others call them heroes

Our veterans have risked their lives for us
They have lived through hell and fought with honor
Many have killed
And regret doing so

For every life, there is a soul
For every soul, there is a life
For those who have died, we show great appreciation and remembrance
For those who live, along with them live the horrific memories of battle
Some, memories of defeat
Some, memories of victory

Our veterans were more than soldiers
They were, and still are heroes



A great change is taking place all over the world. We read books, search the internet, talk to others, pay attention to media, meditate, but last and not least, on all counts, you have to go to your soul for the truth. We've come too far, have seen and experienced too much not to understand where it is all headed. Unlike the past, this is the two minute warning and you must find the truth now, to be ready to detach from the grid when it all hits the fan.

Many people say that America is dying only a ghostly silhouette remains of her great beauty and majesty. I think those people are wrong. America is only in a time of great change and upheaval, giving birth. Giving birth to a whole new world of being. And this new world of being is brought about by all the heroes that you pass day in and day out, and never even give a second glance too. All the little people. The bible says "the meek shall inherit the earth". And all those power hungry, mad, money hungry, selfish egomaniacs at the top of that old pyramid will never even figure it out until it's too late.

America is filled with heroes, little people who go about their lives, loving one another, doing their jobs and giving their hearts and their blood. America will never run out of heroes.

Little people like Flora Brooks, Marriage of Honor

The telegram that arrived on Nov. 15, 1969, was not pessimistic: "Private First Class Johnny O Brooks was slightly wounded in action.

It gave 20-year-old Flora Brooks, recently married, no hint of how much her life was about to change.

"Since he is not, repeat not seriously injured, no further reports will be furnished," the telegram concluded.

Today, they are growing old together, but not in the way either had envisioned. There were no children, no exotic vacations, not even any more of the simple fishing trips they had enjoyed before Johnny Brooks was drafted into the Army — three weeks after their wedding _and sent to Vietnam.

He returned home without a leg and soon lost the other, along with his ability to speak and the use of his arms.

Today, Flora Brooks continues to serve as nursemaid and constant companion to a husband who is confined to a bed, unable to talk or move on his own.

She never imagined any other way: "I'm so thankful that we were married," she said.

And all the little people that bring offerings of love to honor their heroes at the Viet Nam Memorial -


They are lined up like footnotes to the names etched on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial's polished black granite, leaning against its base, some a collective tribute to the fallen, others bearing a message for just one of the dead.

An American Legion uniform cap from Kansas, a police patch from a town in Georgia, a note to "GRAMDADAD" that appears to have been written by the unpracticed hand of a young child. A homemade plaque with plastic red poppies pasted to it, dedicated to a "Band of Brothers."

Poems from middle school students.

"We met once when you played golf with my dad," reads one note, written hastily on a piece of yellow notebook paper, addressed to a Major Shaw. "You served together in Vietnam. He made it back to us. I'm saying goodbye."

Since the memorial was completed in 1982, it has become a de facto shrine with more than 100,000 offerings for the dead and messages from survivors left by the millions who visit it each year.

That number is likely to grow in the coming days. National Park Service officials say milestones like Veterans Day this Sunday and the memorial's 25th anniversary on Tuesday inevitably lead to floods of new items at the wall, as veterans gather at the site on the National Mall and the memories of the war that ended more than 30 years ago are renewed.

The nature of the mementos has changed. In the beginning, it was mostly veterans who dropped off unit patches, Purple Hearts, photos of lost soldiers or old pairs of Army boots. But with many veterans now in their 60s, members of a younger generation — including grandchildren of veterans and the fallen — are making contributions.

On a recent day, a baseball card from a boy named Nicholas was propped against the wall, with a note that read "For my grandfather."



On the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour, "Armistice Day". All the men fighting in the "war to end all wars" laid down their arms, hugged their brothers and declared an end to war, and called for peace around the world.




Physical reality is a consciousness program created by digital codes. Numbers, numeric codes, define our existence. Human DNA, our genetic memory, is encoded to be triggered by digital codes at specific times and frequencies. Those codes awaken the mind to the change and evolution of consciousness. 11:11 is one of those codes, meaning activation of DNA.


You will note that seeing 11:11 frequently creates synchronicities in your life.


The year 2011 will have great significance and consciousness will evolve in full swing. January 1, 2011 we find - 1/1/11 which could be seen as 1111. November 11 - 11/11/11. This promises to accelerate consciousness toward 2012.

2012 links to the Mayan Calendar end time at 11:11 UT, Universal Time. (December 12, 2012).

11 is a double digit and is therefore considered a Master or Power Number. In Numerology 11 represents impractical idealism, visionary, refinement of ideals, intuition, revelation, artistic and inventive genius, avant-garde, androgynous, film, fame, refinement fulfilled when working with a practical partner. Eleven is a higher octave of the number two . It carries psychic vibrations and has an equal balance of masculine and feminine properties. Because eleven contains many gifts such as psychic awareness and a keen sense of sensitivity, it also has negative effects such as treachery and betrayal from secret enemies.

Many associate 11:11 with a wake-up code/alarm as they see it on digit clocks and watches. It can also be seen as a key to unlock the subconscious mind, our genetic encoded memories, that we are spirits having a physical experience, not physical beings embarking on a spiritual experience.

11:11 or derivatives of these numbers, 111 and 11, are digits that repeat in time thus a metaphor for reality as patterns that repeat in time for us to experience. This can refer to the rise and fall of civilizations, our personal experiences and lessons, loops in time. They are cycles of time that create and recreate following the blueprint.

Ellie and 11:11 .... In 1991, when I was hosting the talk show "The Metaphysical Experience", a woman named Solara was my guest. Her topic was Activation of the 11:11 Doorway. It was all about ascension and the beginning of awareness of the 11:11 code. In 1995, a Crystalinks' reader named Joe emailed about his experiences with the numbers 111:111, hence the file you are reading was first created and in so doing I took a long hard look at this phenomena experienced by those around me. Each time Joe was about to go through another major spiritual awakening, an epiphany of some kind, those numbers would appear in his physical experience to signal the upcoming change. The numbers say, "Pay attention!"

11 represents spiraling twin strands of human DNA moving into higher frequency of consciousness.

11 represents balance.


Some souls see a Golden Age emerging, as told by the ancient prophets. Gold refers to Alchemy , the alchemical changes that are taking place in our bodies in the evolution of consciousness.

Reality as a geometric design is based on numbers (universal language) that repeat in cycles to create the linear time experiment. In Pythagorean Numerolgy, a cycle is based on 9. 9=End. 9/11= end of the DNA biogen(et)ic program running at the moment.

Terrorism and 11:
09/11/01 - 9/11 - September 11 Attacks in NYC -- Crystalinks File
03/11/04 - 3/11 - Madrid Bombings
07/11/06 - 7/11 - Mumbai (formerly Bombay) train bombings

We all have one or more numeric codes that follow the blueprint of Sacred Geometry. It is about the spirals of consciousness, Fibonacci Numbers, the Golden Spiral, also found in perfection, in the exact proportions in the Great Pyramid.

Most digital codes that evoke memory are double digits or countdowns such as 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5 or 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, which goes to Zero Point Merge

You will experience a sudden awakening after which reality is never the same. You are going to create clarity, healing and balance for yourself. Do not expect others in your life to be on this journey with you. It is yours alone as it is for most souls. You will have to seek new friends of like mind who are also being triggered by the digits. Once you open the Digital Door, there is no going back. Your soul will automatically and quickly move you from level to level of experience until you 'get it'. Your consciousness is expanding and therefore you will, manifest faster and with greater comprehension, becoming more aware of the meaning of synchronicities that will become more and more frequent. They are created by your soul creates to help you remember that you are a soul spark in a physical program that is about to end, evolve back to higher consciousness.

Once you see your numeric codes, you have activated something in your DNA codes and they will continue to appear until you 'get the message' ... it is 'time' to move on.

Upon seeing your digit encoded numbers, you may feel a sense of urgency or related emotions. Chill out! For NOW there is TIME!

The numbers usually signal changes in the patterns of your life.

They may confirm something that you are experiencing whenever the numbers appear to you.

You may dream also about the numbers, linked with things you do not as yet understand, or wake up at the same time every night with those numbers on your digital clock, ie. 11:11


All the little heroes across the world will awake and yes peace will prevail, and yes the meek will inherit the earth. A new day dawns, the messages are everywhere, one only has to "awaken".


What was once lost, will soon be found ... Remember the Nostradamus images posted last week. The story of the Lion King dictates that this is the end of a lion's tale/tail ... a sudden flip of reality and the hourglass - the peacock, regeneration.

It truly is "the best of times and the worst of times". I am so happy to be here and so thankful for all the little heroes that are here with me.

Friday, November 09, 2007

November Always Drags Me Down

I think I can honestly say that November is the one month of the year, that I have to struggle the hardest in keeping the light on inside. It is a beautiful month here on the far south side of Chicago. I live in what used to be out in the country, but sadly no longer is. But all the areas around where I live all have names that end in Wood, so yes I live in a magnificiently forested area, that used to cover everything until all the new strip malls and parking lots, and new housing. It used to be a quiet sleepy little area with hardly even any traffic controls, mostly just stop signs, but now it is a crowded, traffic gridlocked, stressful, impersonal kind of town. But I still have the trees.

The trees are alive with color, and some very beautiful specimens that I pass each day on my way back and forth to work, I feel I have a personal relationship thing going with, each day they have changed to a more brilliant color than the previous day. I always thank them as I drive by and I feel this wonderful little tingle of joy inside of me. Am I crazy? Probably, but hell it’s a nice kind of crazy.

On November 9th, 1990 my father died. My Dad was a WWII Marine veteran. He saw action on each of the islands in the later Pacific campaign, Tarrawa, Iwo Jima, Saipan. He was a flamethrower and his job was to burn people alive. He was never wounded in this War but did catch some horrible skin fungus thing that he suffered with for the rest of his life. He came home from the war when I was 2 years old. I don’t remember much of anything then. Only a very few years later, the war in Korea began. I can remember our TV always being on the news with war pictures on it. He told my Mom that his buddies needed him and re-enlisted. He ended up at the Chosin Reservoir. He was wounded twice this time. A hand grenade was thrown into his foxhole with him and all his buddies, and he grabbed it and threw it out. As he was throwing it out, he got shot through the shoulder and then got shrapnel all through his lower back and legs. I can’t remember how old I was this time when he came home, this part of my life remains a blur. The Marines gave him two purple hearts and a Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster for bravery and made him a hero for saving his buddies.

The government gave him a check for $55 a month for the rest of his life. Pretty cheap cost to steal someone’s life, because my DAD was never my DAD again. He suffered terrible nightmares, strange bizarre fits of anger, I learned to just keep out of his line of sight. And he drank, a lot. And I learned how to time the predictable stages of his drinking. After the first couple of drinks, he loved me, sat me on his lap and told me how beautiful I was, how proud he was of me and how glad he was that I was his daughter. Then a couple more drinks and the fights with my Mother would begin, and with each drink he grew angrier and angrier. On several occasions I remember hiding in a closet or behind our couch because he had a gun in his hand.

He was just so damn mad at everyone.

One November day when I was eleven, he volunteered to go pay my Aunt’s gas bill. He was once again jobless and moody as hell. I will never forget that day. It was snowing in Arkansas in November. The kids were all delighted, cause we all got to stay home from school. I remember watching him walk out the front door and noticed that he had a hole in the back of his jeans. For some reason the picture of that hole in the back of his jeans haunts me to this day. I don’t know why, sort of like a hole in your heart metaphor or something.

He never came back. He never paid my Aunt’s gas bill, he just took her money and left. I remember everyone being in a high anxiety over his whereabouts for days and weeks. But he was just gone.

Times got really bad then for my Mother and trying to take care of five kids, with no money, no job, and now no husband. She was a very proud woman, and we were literally starving to death. We had no heat, no electricity, I did my homework by kerosene lamps and we cooked on an old wood burning stove. At first we did ok, one of the most horrifying events of my childhood, was coming home one day to discover that my Mother had sold all our chickens to the store across the dusty street from our house. And I just happened to walk by the back of the store as the owner was killing all our chickens. On an old tree stump, he was chopping their heads off, blood was everywhere. And the chickens were still alive, running around headless with blood spewing out of this gory stump. Those chickens were my best friends. I talked to them every day, in that damp, dark chicken house, they gave me their eggs and snuffled on my cheek. Just writing this now, the tears are rolling down my cheeks. I loved those chickens. One of my life long dreams was to have my own house out in the country somewhere and have my own chickens, that I WOULD NEVER KILL, and would just love them. I still don’t have any chickens and I doubt I ever will. At one point we were surviving on pancakes made from corn meal and water and used this homemade sourghum syrup that to this day if I smell it, I grow nauseous.

Funny, how your mind works, I had to stop writing this cause I couldn’t stop crying over those chickens. All the sadness, anger, would have beens, should have beens, and those damn chickens still break my heart. Because that’s when it all fell apart for me, I couldn’t be a child ever again.

No one would help us. Not the church, not the government.

One day a Marine showed up at our front door. I still don’t know how they found out about our situation, I’ve wondered if my Dad told them, or got word to someone to look after us, but they came. They filled our house with food, they gave my Mother money, they took all five kids and bought us new shoes and new winter coats. They brought us lots of things that Christmas, but I remember a wonderful chocolate cake with chocolate icing. It tasted like heaven. Every time I see a picture of a Marine I remember those guys as my heroes and my saviours. I could never, ever think bad thoughts about the Marines. They saved our lives.

Of course Marines are a big part of our family tradition. My brothers all became Marines and went to Viet Nam. A ship carries my family’s name – http://www.elrod.navy.mil/.

Here is a brief history of the ship’s namesake - http://www.elrod.navy.mil/namesake.htm
Major Henry T. Elrod
United States Marine Corps.
MEDAL OF HONOR, 1941
VMF-211, WAKE ISLAND
Major Henry T. Elrod was born on 27 September 1905, in Turner County, Georgia. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in December 1927, and was appointed a Marine second lieutenant in February 1931. He attended the University of Georgia and Yale University prior to his entry into the Marine Corps.
Following over a year at the Marine Corps Basic School in Philadelphia as a student aviator, Lieutenant Elrod was ordered to the Naval Station at Pensacola. Here he served as a company officer and as student aviator. In February 1935 he earned his wings and was transferred to Quantico, where he served as a Marine Aviator until January 1938. In addition to his other duties, he was the squadron’s school, personnel, and welfare officer.
In July 1938, Elrod was ordered to a squadron in San Diego and served as their material, parachute, and personnel officer until January 1941, when he was detached to the Hawaiian area.
He arrived at Wake Island a short time before the hostilities commenced and was one of the twelve pilots who flew the Marine planes onto the island. He was killed in action defending Wake Island against the invading Japanese on 23 December 1941.
During the defense of Wake, Major Elrod repeatedly displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life, above and beyond the call of duty. On the 12th of December he single-handedly attacked a flight of 22 enemy planes and shot down two. On several flights he executed low altitude bombing and strafing runs on enemy ships, and became the first man to sink a major warship with small caliber bombs delivered from a fighter-type aircraft.
When his plane was destroyed by hostile fire he organized a unit of ground troops into a beach defense and repulsed repeated Japanese attacks until he fell mortally wounded.
On 8 November 1946, his widow was presented with the Medal of Honor, posthumously awarded to her husband for his heroic actions during the last bitter days of the defense of Wake
.

There is even an entire town in North Carolina, named Elrod. I still hope to visit there someday and find out more about my family history. http://www.city-data.com/city/Elrod-North-Carolina.html

Average family income in 2005 was $16,100. Sounds like the story of my life. We shed the blood of heroes, but then throw them away.

My Dad bounced back in and out of our lives for many years after this. He came back one Christmas loaded with money and presents for all of us. I think he loved us, but it just wasn’t enough. He never stayed long and my Mother always took him back. And then he’d be gone again.

Went on like this for years till I was about sixteen and he left for good. Never heard from him again.

I got married, moved to Chicago with my husband, had three beautiful daughters, our house in the wonderful wooded suburb and we lived our lives.

Then out of the blue, my Dad showed up. He had been living in Washington state, had remarried, and was coming to visit! My husband and I went downtown to Union Station to pick him up. His new wife Antoinette, “Nettie”, was pushing him in a wheelchair. My heart jumped in my throat, there was my Dad, a beautiful man, in a wheelchair, looking old, tired, and sick as hell.

He had cancer and he was dying. He had traveled in misery and pain over thousands of miles, to come and say goodbye. I guess it was his way of telling me that he loved me, or wanted my forgiveness. He died about seven days later and it took me years and years and years till I could give him that forgiveness.

I fought with a burning, hot anger for years. How like you I thought to myself, to break my heart all these years, and then come back into my life and break my heart again. Oh I was so angry at him.

He bonded with my husband, that he had never got to know, and they watched hours and hours of war movies together, and talked of history and politics and sports. I kept my distance. My heart felt like a stone, hard, cold mountain in my chest.

The last thing I remember was him looking at me, telling me he loved me, and this strange light in his eyes, he had beautiful eyes, saying that he had talked it all over with God, and God told him it was all OK. All was forgiven.

Years and years later, I now understand. He wasn’t talking about me. He had been talking about all those people he had killed, for honor, duty and country. All those people he had burned alive.

He had finally forgiven himself and God told him it was all going to be OK.

And I’ve forgiven you too, Dad. And I love you.

And maybe someday I will still get those chickens and live happily ever after.

My last visit with my Dad.




Saturday, November 03, 2007

Your Fear is All They Have

G. K. Chesterton said:

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

"Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.”

“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. "

"Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.”



From a wonderful blog - "Brainsturbator" comes this story of nightmares and monsters and dragons.

http://www.brainsturbator.com/site/comments/your_fear_is_all_they_have/
Your Fear is All They Have


Aside from getting into all the hottest clubs for free, the best part about running Brainsturbator is the readers. They keep me in line and they ask me good questions. After the Colonia Dignidad article, I got a whopper: “Does there come a point where these investigations of yours become self abuse, what with these things you’re finding? Is it dangerous to pummel the mind with these facts for extended periods of time?”

Quick answer: hell yeah, it’s self abuse. I lose sleep, weight and hope for the future when I stare the abyss in the face like this. I can’t say my nightmares have gotten any worse, because they’ve been making me question my sanity since I was a kid, but the everyday world is a very different place.

But you know what? The everyday world always was a different place. Whether we subject ourselves to this horror or not, it’s still out there and it’s still real. And of course, the quick answer is superficial and misses the real meat—this is an important question to look at in some detail, so before I keep subjecting Brainsturbator readers to these nightmares, let’s examine why it is necessary, important, and ultimately—empowering.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Ghost Story



Eva: I will take you places you've never been. I will show you things that you have never seen and I will see the life run out of you.

It's Halloween, Halloween!! So of course I have to acknowledge the things that go bump in the night. What's your favorite Halloween movie? I am not big into the horror genre of today's world and find the old movies I grew up on like Frankenstein, The Wolfman and of course Dracula as so much more my cup of tea. But ghost stories always leave me a little short of breath and so hard to turn the light out at bedtime.

Although this book's cover is hardly frightening looking and has absolutely no gorey, bloody, spooky appearance, once you have read it that little cover will send chills up your spine.

I have to rate this book as one of my all time scariest reads. It still haunts me to this day. I became so frightened after reading it that I actually threw the book away, I couldn't bear to have it in the house with me, as if the story could actually pop out of the book and drag me into it. And I am a book rat pack collector, I love books and find it hard to part with most of them. But this one, scared me like no other book ever has.

Here are some reviews:
GHOST STORY

For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past — and get away with murder.

Peter Straub's classic bestseller is a work of "superb horror" (The Washington Post Book World) that, like any good ghost story, stands the test of time — and conjures our darkest fears and nightmares.


Review:
"The scariest book I've ever read....It crawls under your skin and into your dreams." Chicago Sun-Times
Review:
"The terror just mounts and mounts." Stephen King
Review:
"I jumped six inches...when someone came up behind the chair when I was reading it and announced that dinner was ready." Christopher Lehmann-haupt, The New York Times
Review:
"Gave me bad dreams the first night out...the best thing of its kind since Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House." Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek

The story begins like this..................

What's the worst thing you've ever done? Ghost Story, one of Peter Straub's better-known ghost stories, starts out with this question. It's a haunting question, if you think about it. Everyone has their own little secrets, some which would disturb even the best of us. You never know what those close to you are hiding. Not to mention the things that you hide from everyone. You know there's something that you never tell anyone, that you'll take with you to your grave. And what is it? I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me... the most dreadful thing.....

'Ghost Story' depicts a cross-section of the inhabitants of the imaginary small upstate New York town of "Milburn," who gradually become aware that they, their families, and Milburn are being stalked by a clan of alien, inhuman "Nightwatchers" or "Shapechangers," demonic tricksters capable of assuming outward human form who enjoy playing sadistic games with humans. The "Shapeshifters" or "Nightwatchers" are long-lived, quasi-immortal creatures whose true or basic form, as implied in a few passages of the book, is that of a sort of insect, but who can and do frequently assume various human and animal disguises. The "Nightwatchers" hate and despise Humankind, and their main pastime is to drive their chosen human victims to insanity and suicide by assuming the outward form of the girl of your dreams or a long-lost parent, brother, sister, or friend, exploiting their victims' sexuality, compassion, or loneliness, and then disappearing after playing a few very cruel twists. They often "pick on" a family, playing with the feelings of its members for several generations on end, or a whole small town (like Milburn).

The particular "Shapeshifter" clan that has decided to play its cruel games with a few Milburnites and their families appears over and over again, down through the years and in many places around the world as well as in Milburn itself, in the form of a beautiful and intriguing but cold, cruel, and heartless woman with the initials A.M., a handsome but sinister young man named Greg or Gregory, and Gregory's mentally retarded 10- or 12-year-old nephew or kid brother with the initials F.B. At the same time, the Nghtwatchers"simultaneously also torment and "spook" Milburn by producing animal mutilations and "Bigfoot"and UFO sightings - basically, playing their sadistic exploitative emotional games with members of Milburn's educated upper-middle-class cultural elite, and doing the UFO, Bigfoot, animal mutilation, and weird footprints in the snow bit with the local proles and Archie Bunkers. However, on several occasions the "Nightwatchers" also "spook" their upper-crust victims as well with blatantly supernatural stuff: like levitating in full view of a father whose love-struck son their beautiful"daughter" has just driven to suicide!

Straub's 'Ghost Story', by the way, also features what at first glance looks like an inbred, dysfunctional, genetically challenged family of mentally retarded rural ne'er-do-wells of the Jukes or Kallikak type living in incestuous squalor in a tar-paper shack in the boondocks of upstate New York. The Bates of Four Forks, however, turn out to be something far more weird
and sinister.

Straub's 'Ghost Story' is mainly set in the seemingly quiet, pleasant, sleepy upstate New York town of "Milburn," and initially focuses on the "Chowder Society." The "Chowder Society" is a little club of four elderly, moderately well-to-do gentlemen from locally prominent and respected Milburn families who periodically meet in evening dress at each other's houses to
exchange stories of every kind, including ghost stories and tall tales. 'Ghost Story' begins shortly after a party at which one of the Chowder Society members, Edward Wanderley, had died - or
was killed. The Chowder Society, who for years had met in evening dress to tell each other tales of every kind, now find themselves drawn toward the supernatural, as some sort of solace
for Edward's loss. They begin to tell ghost stories, ghost stories that do not always stop when the teller has finished speaking.

The Chowder Society members next begin having dreams shared simultaneously by all of them forecasting horrors the four elderly gentlemen can scarcely bring themselves to discuss. From
farms surrounding Milburn come reports of animal mutilations:

animals assaulted and drained of blood in the fields. As the cruelly cold winter settles in, freak incidents seem to escalate in and around Milburn, forming themselves into a sinister scheme
of chaos and terror.

Edward Wanderley's nephew Don, an aspiring novelist and English teacher at Berkeley, returns to Milburn from California, with his own pressing personal reasons for wanting to join the
defense against whoever - or whatever - is perpetrating these obscene outrages. As he and the reader gradually discover, Milburn is up against a macabre cast of characters who appear and tauntingly reappear in different guises throughout 'Ghost Story' and who have the power to insinuate themselves wilfully upon the mind.

Don Wanderley and the Chowder Society discover that over the years they themselves or people they know have all experienced encounters with "Nightwatchers" or "Shapechangers" in disguised human form. The "Nightwatchers" are entities that derive a sadistic amusement from toying with the feelings of their human victims and driving those victims to despair, violence, or
suicide. The Chowder Society gentlemen, Don Wandereley, and a teen-aged Milburn boy, among others, all learn that they, close friends, or close relatives have at one time or another all met
shape-changing "Nightwatchers" motivated by hatred of Humanity capable of assuming the form of the perfect girl of one's dreams, of a dead parent, brother, or friend, or of a lonely,
abused or friendless child yearning to be rescued and befriended. The long-lived, almost though not quite immortal Nightwatchers are very patient, if need be quite willing to wait and try again a half century later if thwarted the first time in their effort to destroy a victim - or to pursue the intended original victim's family. They also have a sadistic playfulness, delighting in tantalizing their victims with elaborate clues and inside jokes about their true identity. They love to play jokes, and to slyly flaunt themselves.

The Nightwatchers sometimes torment, confuse, and madden their victims by assuming the appearance of a dead brother, parent, or friend. However, they most frequently take the form of an alluringly beautiful and seductive but ultimately cold, cruel, and heartless young woman with the initials A.M. (Alma Mobley, Amy Monckton, Anna Mostyn, Ann-Veronica Moore, etc.), a
sinister, dissolute, evilly handsome youth named Gregory, and Gregory's mentally retarded teen-aged younger brother or nephew.

Those three recur continually throughout 'Ghost Story' under various guises - cropping up in the present and half a century ago, and in Milburn, in a rural "Tobacco Road" community, in San
Francisco, in New Orleans, and elsewhere. My own two favorite episodes of 'Ghost Story' are a Chowder Society member's reminiscences of his youth as an idealistic schoolteacher and his terrifying run-ins with Fenny, Gregory, and Constance Bates in a one-room rural schoolhouse and tar-paper "Tobacco Road" shack in the 1920's, and Don Wanderley's Berkeley/San Francisco romance with the enchantingly beguiling, too-perfect, ultimately terrifying "Alma Mobley."

The Bates family at first seem just a pathetically flagrant case of Jukes- or Kallikak-like rural "white trash" cultural, intellectual, economic, and genetic deprivation cemented by abusive homosexual brother-brother incest on top of all their other problems - but soon turn out to be in fact something far, far worse and scarier. I got a real kick out of the scene where the teacher is shown Gregory Bates' GRAVE by the local Lutheran pastor, who had been exiled by the Lutheran hierarchy to the boondocks for his obsession with "hermetic matters," as indicated by his private library with its little collection of Lully, Fludd, Bruno, and books on witchcraft and Satanism. No doubt the good Rev. Gruber's library also included the 'Necronomicon' of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred! The good pastor's revelations, and the retarded Fenny Bates' voodoo-like voluntary suicide by heart stoppage, disabuse the young teacher of his idealistic dreams of rescuing and uplifting the unfortunate, impoverished Bateses.

Half a century later, the young novelist, teaching English at Berkeley, meets in "Alma Mobley" a girl who at first seems too good to be true - but grows progressively spookier, more unnerving, and ultimately more terrifying and hateful. She turns out to have had an affair a year or two earlier with his half-brother who had then committed suicide, and to be involved with a cult called the OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis) in the hard-cover version of 'Ghost Story', and the XXX (Xala Xalior Xlati) in the paperback edition. He discovers her to hang out with a sinister,
disreputable drug dealer named Greg Benton and his mentally retarded kid brother, supposedly old home-town neighbours of hers from New Orleans - a pair whose descriptions are almost
identical to those of the rural "Tobacco Roaders" Gregory and Fenny Bates a half century earlier! After his breakup with Alma Mobley, Don Wanderley does a bit of detective and library
research work, and discovers that all her autobiographical references to her own family are fake - but based on the true family story of a New Orleans artist some 20 or 25 years earlier whose young son had committed suicide after an ill-starred romance with a beautiful and enchanting but weird girl named Amy Monckton who had inveigled him into a bisexual threesome, drug
abuse, and voodoo worship with her handsome but dissolute and sinister family chauffeur Gregorio!

There is a 1981 movie of this book, http://http://www.uk.imdb.com/title/tt0082449/
starring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and John Houseman as the Chowder Club members. I think this is the only movie I have ever seen Fred Astaire in that he doesn't dance, and actually was quite good in. Of course the movie just can't quite pull off the horror like the book did.

And writing this now so many years later after reading the book, I realize how these beings sound very modern day, reptilian, shapeshifters, and like the gnostic demons called "Thetans" by L. Ron Hubbard.

I'm sleeping with the lights on!

Monday, October 29, 2007

Shaman




The Leader of the Band
Dan Fogelberg


And I am flawed
But I am cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now
The things you swore you saw yourself


Take It Easy
The Eagles


Tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way ?
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?
Was it everything you wanted to find?
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?


The Cassiopaeans have said:

A: The bottom line is this: You are occupying 3rd density. You are by nature, STS. You can be an STO candidate, but you are NOT STO until you are on 4th density. You will NEVER grasp the meaning of these attempted conceptualizations until you are at 4th and above.

To make this point a little clearer, let me add that, before the "Fall," human beings were 3rd density STO, which means that they were ALIGNED with 4th density STO. We have already discussed what this reality must have been like in terms of the megalith builders who were able, by their interaction with Celestial forces, to manifest all that was needed without assault on the environment of Earth.

Don Juan tells us that the Seers of ancient times were "men capable of inconceivable deeds. They were powerful sorcerers, somber and driven, who unraveled the secrets" of existence at our level. They were able to "influence and victimize people by fixating their awareness on whatever they chose." This is an important key in terms of Frequency Resonance Vibration that cannot be overstressed.

There are two positions in the study and understanding of awareness: Sorcerers vs. The Warrior Who Sees. They Both practice the same Seeing, the difference is Intent. The Sorcerer practices to control others. The Warrior practices to become Free.

The Cassiopaeans designate these two positions as "Service to Others," and "Service to Self." Those who wish to control others are Serving Self, those who wish to become free and help others who wish to become free are Serving Others.

Shaman is another way to describe the Warrior who practices to be free. A Shaman is not a magician or a sorcerer although he CAN play those roles if he chooses. He is not a healer, though he can play that role also. A Shaman is far more; he is a psychopomp, a priest, a mystic and a poet. Shamanism is NOT a religion, it is a function, a role, a magico-religious phenomenon specific to certain individuals who have ecstatic capacity permitting "magical flight" to higher realms, descent into the underworld to battle dark forces, mastery over fire, matter, time and space. Unfortunately, as Don Juan noted, in the present time, the Shamanic acts are acts of great laxity, distortion and aberration.

The word "shaman" comes to us through Russian from the Tungusic "saman." The word is derived from the Pali samana, (Sanskrit sramana), through the Chinese sha-men (a transcription of the Pali word).

The word shaman, may be related to Sarman. According to John G. Bennett, Sarmoung or Sarman:

"The pronunciation is the same for either spelling and the word can be assigned to old Persian. It does, in fact, appear in some of the Pahlawi texts...The word can be interpreted in three ways. It is the word for bee, which has always been a symbol of those who collect the precious 'honey' of traditional wisdom and preserve it for further generations. A collection of legends, well known in Armenian and Syrian circles with the title of The Bees, was revised by Mar Salamon, a Nestorian Archimandrite in the thirteenth century. The Bees refers to a mysterious power transmitted from the time of Zoroaster and made manifest in the time of Christ."

"Man" in Persian means "the quality transmitted by heredity and hence a distinguished family or race. It can be the repository of an heirloom or tradition. The word sar means head, both literally and in the sense of principal or chief. The combination sarman would thus mean the chief repository of the tradition..."

"And still another possible meaning of the word sarman is... literally, those whose heads have been purified." [John G. Bennett, Gurdjieff: Making of A New World]

Those whose heads have been purified! What an interesting idea! Especially when you consider the concept of Frequency Resonance Vibration and Orientation/Polarization.

We already suspect that these ideas are far older than Zoroaster. And for those who have supposed that the concept of the shaman was stimulated by Buddhism, I will point out that other studies have shown that, even before the intrusion of Buddhism into Central Asia, there was the cult of Buga, god of the sky, a celestial worship that antedates Sun and Moon worship.

The central theme of Shamanism is the "ascent to the sky" and/or the "descent" to the underworld. In the former, the practitioner experiences Ecstasy, in the latter, he battles demons who threaten the well being of humanity. There are studies that suggest evidence of the earliest practices are in the cave paintings of Lascaux with the many representations of the bird, the tutelary spirits, and the ecstatic experience (ca, 25,000 B.C.). Animal skulls and bones found in the sites of the European Paleolithic period (before 50,000 - ca. 30,000 B.C.) have been interpreted as evidence of Shamanic practice.

The "ecstatic experience" is the primary phenomenon of Shamanism, and it is this ecstasy that can be seen as the act of merging with the celestial beings. And merging results in Forced Oscillation that changes Frequency. Continued interaction with Celestial beings is a form of Frequency Resonance Vibration.

The idea that there was a time when man was directly in contact with the Celestial Beings is at the root of the myths of the Golden Age which have been redacted to the Grail stories of the 11th and 12th centuries. During this paradisal time, it is suggested that communications between heaven and earth were easy and accessible to everyone. Myths tell us of a time when the "gods withdrew" from mankind. As a result of some "happening," i.e. "The Fall," the communications were broken off and the Celestial Beings withdrew to the highest heavens.

This is exactly what the Cassiopaeans have told us regarding our former alignment with 4th density STO and our present alignment with 4th density STS, and which we have examined to some extent in earlier sections of the present work.

But, the myths also tell us that there were still those certain people who were able to "ascend" and commune with the gods on the behalf of their tribe or family. Through them, contact was maintained with the "guiding spirits" of the group. The beliefs and practices of the present day shamans are a survival of a profoundly modified and even corrupted and degenerated remnant of this archaic technology of concrete communications between heaven and earth.

And, again, the Cassiopaeans suggested this perspective, which was confirmed in later studies. But we will come to that later.

The shaman, in his ability to achieve the ecstatic state inaccessible to the rest of mankind, was regarded as a privileged being. More than this, the myths tell us of the First Shamans who were sent to earth by the Celestial Beings to DEFEND human beings against the "negative gods" who had taken over the rule of mankind. It was the task of the First Shamans to activate, in their own bodies, a sort of "transducer" of cosmic energy for the benefit of their tribe. This was expressed as the concept of the "world tree," which became the "axis" or the Pole of the World and later the "royal bloodlines."

It does seem to be true that there is a specific relationship between this function and certain "bloodlines." But, as with everything that has been provided to help mankind, this concept has been co-opted by the forces seeking to keep mankind in darkness and ignorance. The true and ancient bloodlines of the First Shamans have been obscured and hidden by the false trail of the invented genealogies of the Hebrew Old Testament supposedly leading to certain branches of present day European royal and/or noble families, which seek to establish a counterfeit "kingship" that has garnered a great deal of attention in recent times.

As we have already noted, BEFORE the Fall, every human being had access to communication with the higher densities via the "Maidens of the Wells," or the union between the right and left hemispheres of the brain and alignment with the 4th density STO. Because of their alignment, their frequency, and the lack of STS dampers, it was a simple matter to amplify Frequency Resonance Vibration.

AFTER the Fall, it seems that a specific genetic variation was somatically induced by the incarnation of certain higher density beings who "gave their blood" for the "redemption of man." That is to say that they changed the body and DNA by Forced Oscillation. It is likely that this was done through the female incarnations because of the role of the mitochondrial DNA, but I don't want to get ahead of myself here, so we will leave that for the moment.

Nevertheless, the presence of this DNA, depending upon the terms of recombination, makes it very likely that there are literally millions of carriers of this bloodline/Shamanic ability on the earth today. And it is for all of YOU that these pages are being written.

In this present time, there are indications that Cosmic changes of monumental proportions are "in the wind." There are also indications that a particular "time element" is involved, and all the forces of darkness seek to deceive and obfuscate at levels never before achieved in order to distract, confuse, dilute and defuse the abilities of those who may be the bearers of the "circuits of change" for all humanity.

The Sufis have kept the "Technician of Ecstasy" concept alive in their tradition of the "Poles of the World." The kutub or q'tub (pole of his time) is an appointed being, entirely spiritual of nature, who acts as a divine agent of a sphere at a certain period in time. Each kutub has under him four awtads (supports) and a number of abdals (substitutes) , who aid him in his work of preserving and maintaining the world. The interesting thing about this idea is that the individual who occupies the position does not even have to be aware of it! His life, his existence, even his very physiology, is a function of higher densities extruded into 3rd density. That this has a very great deal to do with "bloodlines," as promulgated in recent times is true, but not necessarily in the ways suggested. Again, we will come to that soon enough.

Q: (L) But isn't the nature of a person determined by their soul and not the physical body?
A: Partially, remember, aural profile and karmic reference merges with physical structure.
Q: (L) So you are saying that particular genetic conditions are a physical reflection of a spiritual orientation? That the soul must match itself to the genetics, even if only in potential?
A: Yes, precisely.
Q: (L) So a person's potential for spiritual advancement or unfoldment is, to a great extent, dependent upon their genes?
A: Natural process marries with systematic construct when present. [Cassiopaeans]

In the present time, it seems that those with the "bloodline" are awakening. It is no longer feasible to be a "Pole of the World" who is asleep, because, as we will soon examine, there are some very serious matters of choice and action that may be incumbent upon the awakened Shaman. The first order of business seems to be to awaken and accumulate strength of polarity.

Shamans are born AND made. That is to say, they are born to be made, but the making is their choice. And, from what I have been able to determine, the choice may be one that is made at a different level than the conscious, 3rd density linear experience. Those who have made the choice at the higher levels, and then have negated the choice at this level because they are not able to relinquish their ordinary life, pay a very high price, indeed.

A shaman stands out because of certain characteristics of "religious crisis." They are different from other people because of the intensity of their religious experiences. In ancient times, it was the task of the Shamanic elite to be the "Specialist of the Soul," to guard the soul of the tribe because only he could "see the unseen" and know the form and destiny of the Group Soul. But, before he acquired his ability, he was often an ordinary citizen, or even the offspring of a shaman with no seeming vocation (considering that the ability is reputed to be inherited, though not necessarily represented in each generation.)

At some point in his life, however, the shaman has an experience that "separates" him from the rest of humanity. This Native American "vision quest" is a survival of the archaic understanding of the natural initiation of the shaman who is "called" to his vocation by the gods. A deep study of the matter reveals that those who seek the magico-religious powers via the vision quest when they have not been "called" spontaneously, generally become the "Dark Shamans," or sorcerers; those who, through a systematic study, obtain the powers deliberately for their own advantage. (Again, Don Juan's distinction between the Sorcerer and the Warrior who practices to be Free.)

The true Shamanic initiation comes by dreams, ecstatic trances combined with extensive study. A shaman is expected to not only pass through certain initiatory ordeals, but he/she must also be deeply educated in order to be able to fully evaluate the experiences and challenges that he/she will face. Unfortunately, until now, there have been precious few who have traveled the path of the Shaman, including the practice of the attendant skills of "battling demons," who could teach or advise a course of study for the Awakening Shaman.

The future shaman is traditionally thought to exhibit certain exceptional traits from childhood. He is often very nervous and even sickly in some ways. (In some cultures, epilepsy is considered a "mark" of the shaman, though this is a later corrupt perception of the ecstatic state.) It has been noted that shamans, as children, are often morbidly sensitive, have weak hearts, disordered digestion, and are subject to vertigo. There are those who would consider such symptoms to be incipient mental illness, but the fact is extensive studies have shown that the so-called hallucinations or visions consist of elements that follow a particular model that is consistent from culture to culture, from age to age, and is composed of an amazingly rich theoretical content. It could even be said that persons who "go mad," are "failed shamans" who have failed either because of a flaw in the transmission of the genetics, or because of environmental factors. At the same time, there are many more myths of failed Shamanic heroes than of successful ones, so the warnings of what can happen have long been in place. Mircea Eliade remarks that:

... The mentally ill patient proves to be an unsuccessful mystic or, better, the caricature of a mystic. His experience is without religious content, even if it appears to resemble a religious experience, just as an act of autoeroticism arrives at the same physiological result as a sexual act properly speaking (seminal emission), yet at the same time is but a caricature of the latter because it is without the concrete presence of the partner. [Eliade, Shamanism, 1964]

Well, that's a pretty interesting analogy! It even suggests to us the idea that one who attempts to activate a Shamanic inheritance within the STS framework of Wishful Thinking, has an "illusory" partner as in the above described activity, with similar results. In other words, Sorcery is like masturbation: the practitioner satisfies himself, but his act does no one else any good. And, by the same token, a Shaman who operates without knowledge is like the proverbial premature ejaculation: he gets everybody all excited, and then leaves them hanging!

But, such amusing vulgarities aside (even if they DO make the point remarkably well) the thing about the shaman is that he/she is not just a sick person, he is a sick person who has been CURED, or who has succeeded in curing himself!! This point can't be overemphasized! Those who aspire to mysticism, to the Shamanic path, and who still remain frail or sickly in physical, material or spiritual terms, may not yet have been presented with the initiation, or, if they have, may have failed to pass. The possibility of achieving the Shamanic powers for Service to Self also exists, so great care has to be used in trying to "see the unseen."

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/schwaller_de_lubicz_3.htm

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v0t9o6BQZ-4
The Shamen - Re: evolution Lyrics

The Secret Garden




And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely frame'd
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual Breeze
At once the soul of each, and God of all....




The Secret Garden opens by introducing us to Mary Lennox, a sickly, foul-tempered, unsightly little girl who loves no one and whom no one loves. At the outset of the story, she is living in India with her parents—a dashing army captain and his frivolous, beautiful wife—but is rarely permitted to see them. They have placed her under the constant care of a number of native servants, as they find her too hideous and tiresome to look after. Mary's circumstances are cast into complete upheaval when an outbreak of cholera devastates the Lennox household, leaving no one alive but herself.

She is found by a group of soldiers and, after briefly living with an English clergyman and his family, Mary is sent to live in Yorkshire with her maternal uncle, Archibald Craven. Misselthwaite Manor is a sprawling old estate with over one hundred rooms, all of which have been shut up by Archibald Craven. A man whom everyone describes as "a miserable hunchback," Master Craven has been in a state of inconsolable grief ever since the death of his wife ten years before the novel begins. Shortly after arriving at Misselthwaite, Mary hears about a secret garden from Martha Sowerby, her good-natured Yorkshire maidservant. This garden belonged to the late Mistress Craven; after her death, Archibald locked the garden door and buried the key beneath the earth.


Mary becomes intensely curious about the secret garden, and determines to find it. This curiosity, along with the vigorous exercise she takes on the moor, begins to have an extremely positive effect upon Mary. She almost immediately becomes less sickly, more engaged with the world, and less foul-tempered. This change is aided by Ben Weatherstaff, a brusque but kindly old gardener, and a robin redbreast who lives in the secret garden. She begins to count these two "people," along with Martha, Dickon Sowerby, and Susan Sowerby, as the friends she has had in her life. Her curiosity is whetted when she hears strange, far-off cries coming from one of the manor's distant rooms.

However, Mrs. Medlock, the head of the servants at Misselthwaite, absolutely forbids her to seek out the source of the cries. She is distracted from this mystery when she discovers, with the robin's help, the key to the secret garden. She immediately sets about working there, so that the neglected plants might thrive. Dickon, who brings her a set of gardening tools and promises to help her bring the secret garden back to life, vastly aids her in her endeavor. Dickon is a boy who can charm the animals of the moor "the way snake charmers charm snakes in India." He is only a common moor boy, but he is filled with so much uncanny wisdom that Mary comes to refer to him as "the Yorkshire angel."

One night, Mary hears the distant cries and, flagrantly disobeying Mrs. Medlock's prohibition, goes off in search of their source. She finds Colin Craven, Master Craven's invalid son, shut up in an opulent bedchamber. Colin was born shortly before his mother's death, and his father cannot bear to look at him because the boy painfully reminds him of his late wife. Colin has been bedridden since his birth, and it is believed that he will become a hunchback and die an early death. His servants have been commanded to obey his every whim, and Colin has become fantastically spoiled and imperious as a result. Colin and Mary strike up a friendship, but Colin becomes furious when she fails to visit him because she prefers to garden with Dickon. That night, Colin throws one of the infamous tantrums. Mary rushes to his room in a fury and commands him to stop crying. He tells her that his back is beginning to show a hunch; when Mary examines him, she finds nothing whatever the matter with him. Henceforth, she will maintain that Colin's illness is only in his mind: he will be well if only he makes up his mind to be.

Dickon and Mary secretly begin bringing Colin out into the secret garden. On the first of these outings, the children are discovered by Ben Weatherstaff, who has been covertly tending the secret garden once a year for ten years. Ben has done so out of love and loyalty for the late Mistress Craven: he was a favorite of hers. Weatherstaff refers to Colin as "the poor cripple," and asks if he has crooked legs and a crooked back. Colin, made furious by this question, forces himself to stand up on his own feet for the first time in his life. After this feat, Colin's health improves miraculously: the secret garden, the springtime, and Dickon's company have the same rejuvenating effect upon him that they did upon Mary. The children determine to keep Colin's improvement a secret, however, so that he can surprise his father with his recovery when Master Craven returns from his trip abroad.

The three children, along with Ben Weatherstaff, spend every day of the summer in the secret garden. Only one other person is admitted into the secret: Susan Sowerby, Dickon's saintly mother. Susan sends a letter to Master Craven, telling him to hurry home so that he might see his son; she does not, however, specify why, in deference to Colin's secret. Master Craven complies, and returns immediately to Misselthwaite. His first act is to go into the secret garden; he does so at the behest of a dream in which the voice of his late wife told him that he might find her there. Just as he lays his hand to the doorknob, Colin comes rushing out and falls into his arms. Father and son are reconciled, and the miracle of Colin's recovery becomes known to all.

Themes, motifs and symbols
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/secretgarden/themes.html

Secrets
One can say that The Secret Garden is organized around the idea of secrets. Mary is a secret from her parents' associates; Colin is kept a secret by both his father and himself. Misselthwaite is full of hundreds of locked rooms which no one may enter; its servants are forbidden to speak of its history or of its current inhabitants. Colin keeps the portrait of his mother a secret from his servants, and, later, the secret of his newfound health from all but Mary, Dickon, Ben Weatherstaff, and Susan Sowerby. The secret of the garden itself is the most significant. One by one, each of the book's secrets are disclosed: disclosure is presented as an absolute good, for, in the economy of the novel, the content of a thing does not matter—only whether one thinks of it positively or negatively does. Thus the secret of Mistress Craven's death can be disclosed, provided one maintains that she isn't really dead at all; Colin and Mary can come to light, provided that they have become kind and healthy; the garden, too, may be unlocked, so long as it, too, is resurrected.

Parallel Lives of Colin, Mary, and the Secret Garden
A number of striking similarities between Mary and Colin are immediately apparent: they are both ten years old; they have both passed sickly, neglected childhoods; both are unbelievably spoiled; and both have been looked after by retinues of servants who have been ordered to obey their every whim. Both children have parents that have denied their existence and hidden them away like secrets. No one ever sees Colin or Mary: the English soldiers who discover Mary in her parents' bungalow declare that they never knew that "that pretty woman" had had a child at all. Upon first seeing Colin, Mary exclaims, almost identically, "I never knew [Master Craven] had a child!" The garden has been closed for ten years; up to the moment that Colin and Mary each enter the garden, they too are closed off—they have loved no one, and have been utterly unloved. Because it has been so long since anyone has tended the garden, it is impossible to determine whether its flowers are dead or alive. Similarly, both Mary and Colin have had no one to care for them since their birth, and their skin has become either waxen or stony as a result. Both of these words ("waxen" and "stony") connote lifelessness. The awakening of the secret garden both parallels and is the cause of Colin and Mary's own rebirth.

Eden, also called Paradise, was the garden in which the first humans created by God (Adam and Eve) lived until the time of the Fall. The "Fall" refers to the moment that God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden for tasting of the Tree of Knowledge. The secret garden is connected with Eden through Martha's story of the divine times had there by Master Craven and his wife before her quite literal "fall"—before, that is, she fell out of the rose-tree to her death. It is also similar to Eden insofar as it represents a Paradise of innocence and ideality for Mary and Dickon. As in Eden, they enjoy a uniquely close relationship with God (who occasionally is referred to as magic, and as "the Big Good Thing") when they are within its walls. Their work in the garden is compared to the work of "nest-building," which of course has certain marital implications—it is as though they too have become Adam and Eve. Furthermore, their seclusion in the secret garden conjures up that enjoyed by Master and Mistress Craven. This echo is strengthened by the fact that Mary bends down and kisses the newly opened crocuses, just as Mistress Craven kissed her roses. The Eden-like quality of their time alone together in the garden is only strengthened by the presence of Dickon's docile "creatures," which recall the animals created by the Christian God to keep the first people company. Dickon inspires "rapture" in Mary, which implies both ecstasy and "a mystical experience in which the spirit is exalted to the knowledge of divine things" (Merriam-Webster). Dickon's intimate connection with heavenly nature brings Mary nearer to divinity herself.

Symbols
The Robin Redbreast
When Mary first sees the robin redbreast, the reader is struck by a number of similarities between them: like her, he began life as an orphan; like her, he finds a haven in the secret garden; like her, he began to seek out friendship once he lost his family and came to realize he was lonely. The friendliness of the little bird both helps Mary to recognize that she is lonely and to assuage that loneliness. This is significant in that Mary first befriends a wild creature, a distinctive part of the English countryside; the robin is explicitly described as being "not at all like birds in India." She thus makes her first connection with a part of the moor, not a part of the manor. The robin is a representative of wise and gentle nature—part of Chapter XXV is told from his point of view, as though to prove that animals really do have minds of their own. It is he who first shows Mary the key to the secret garden, thereby suggesting that nature itself is colluding with her wish to get inside. Later, the robin's building of a nest with his mate is compared to Mary's nest- building with Dickon in the secret garden.

Roses
The roses are Mistress Craven's personal symbol; they are mentioned whenever she is mentioned. The bower from which she fell to her death was covered with roses; when Mary first discovers the garden, it is still flooded with rose-trees and rosebushes, though none are in bloom. Dickon reassures her that they are not dead, and remarks, "There will be fountains of roses here in the spring." This foreshadows the way in which the resurrection of the garden will bring the spirit of Mistress Craven back within its walls—she exists wherever roses are in bloom. The tree from which Colin's mother fell to her death can itself be said to undergo a kind of resurrection: though it is the only thing in the garden which is wholly dead, it is soon "covered with new roses," so that the dead wood is no longer visible. The new roses symbolize both the children and the spirit of Colin's mother herself, which has come back to the garden to watch over her son.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA_NHJL8EmE&NR=1
Winter Light by Linda Ronstadt - The Secret Garden

Is There Purpose in Nature?
by Dr. Mae-Wan-Ho
http://http://www.cts.cuni.cz/conf98/ho.htm
Organism and Pysche in a Particpatory Universe
by Dr. Mae-Wan-Ho
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/organis.php

The Doctine of Cycles
By Lydia Ross, M.D.
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/gdpmanu/cycle-lr/cycle-1.htm
Man and Nature Allied in Cyclic Progress
There is a purpose in every important act of Nature, whose acts are all cyclic and periodical. -- The Secret Doctrine 1:640

Nature repeats herself everywhere. She follows grooves of action that have already been made; she follows the line of least resistance in all cases and everywhere. And it is upon this repetitive action of our Great Mother -- universal nature -- that is founded the law of cycles, which is the enacting of things that have been before, although each such repetition, as said, is at each new manifestation on a higher plane and with a larger sweep or field of action. -- Man in Evolution, chapter 13
Nature moves like a great wheel, ever turning round and round, so that as it goes forward in time and space, each of its spokes takes its regular turn in moving upward, forward, downward and backward. As the whole wheel of the universe rolls onward, every atom of it gains ground and experience, and also adds its impulse to the common urge forward. This evolutionary urge in mankind is naturally quickened, in greater or less degree, by mind and self-consciousness. Thus we are able to help things below us, as we in turn are helped by wiser, greater beings.

The Origin of Dogs




Now we turn to a mystery that nearly equals the pyramid, though it is
a little known conundrum hidden in the mists of remote antiquity. Let
us start with a simple question that appears to have an obvious
answer: what is a dog? It turns out geneticists in the past decade
have shown the answer is not so obvious. In fact, generations of
anthropologists, archaeologists and wildlife biologists turned out to
be dead wrong when it came to the origins of "man's best friend".

Prior to DNA studies conducted in the 1990s, the generally accepted
theory posited that dogs branched off from a variety of wild canids,
i.e., coyotes, hyenas, jackals, wolves and so on, about 15,000 years
ago. The results of the first comprehensive DNA study shocked the
scholarly community. The study found that all dog breeds can be
traced back to wolves and not other canids. The second part of the
finding was even more unexpected - the branching off occurred from 40-150,000 years ago.

Why do these findings pose a problem? We have to answer that question with another question: how were dogs bred from wolves? This is not just difficult to explain, it is impossible. Do not be fooled by the pseudo-explanations put forth by science writers that state our Stone Age ancestors befriended wolves and somehow (the procedure is never articulated) managed to breed the first mutant wolf, the mother of all dogs. Sorry, we like dogs too, but that is what a dog is.

The problems come at the crucial stage of taking a male and female wolf and getting them to produce a subspecies (assuming you could tame and interact with them at all). Let us take this one step further by returning to our original question, what is a dog? A dog is a mutated wolf that only has those characteristics of the wild parent, which humans find companionable and useful. That is an amazing fact.

Think about those statements for a moment. If you are thinking that dogs evolved naturally from wolves, that is not an option. No scientist believes that because the stringent wolf pecking order and breeding rituals would never allow a mutant to survive, at least that is one strong argument against natural evolution.

Now, if our Paleolithic ancestors could have pulled off this feat, and the actual challenges posed by the process are far more taxing, then wolf/dog breeders today certainly should have no problem duplicating it. But like the Great Pyramid, that does not seem to be the case. No breeders have stepped up to the plate claiming they can take two pure wolves and produce a dog sans biogenetic engineering techniques.

The evolution of the domesticated dog from a wild pack animal appears to be a miracle! It should not have happened. This is another unexplained enigma.

And who gave the dog it's name? God spelled backwards?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2498669.stm
Friday, 22 November, 2002, 05:03 GMT
Origin of dogs traced

Even puppies seem to have an innate understanding of humans

By Christine McGourty
BBC science correspondent

Dogs today come in all shapes and sizes, but scientists believe they evolved from just a handful of wolves tamed by humans living in or near China less than 15,000 years ago.

It looks as if 95% of current dogs come from just three original founding females

Matthew Binns, Animal Health Trust

Three research teams have attempted to solve some long-standing puzzles in the evolution and social history of dogs.

Their findings, reported in the journal Science, point to the existence of probably three founding females - the so-called "Eves" of the dog world.

They conclude that intensive breeding by humans over the last 500 years - not different genetic origins - is responsible for the dramatic differences in appearance among modern dogs.

One team studied Old World dogs to try to pin down their origins, previously thought to be in the Middle East.

The other team studied dogs of the New World and found they are not New World dogs at all, but also have their origins in East Asia.

Carles Vila, of Uppsala University, Sweden, one of the team studying the New World dogs, told BBC News Online: "We found that dogs originating in the Old World arrived to the New World with immigrating humans.

"Thus, even before the development of trade as we know it now, humans had to be exchanging dogs."

A pet now but an integral part of the story of human development
He added that exactly how or why humans domesticated dogs was not known, but the speed at which they seem to have multiplied and diversified indicates they played an important role in human life.

"I can imagine that if dogs were, for example, improving the quality of hunting, that would be a very great advantage for humans. It could even have made the colonisation of the New World easier.

"There must have been something advantageous about those dogs that made them extremely successful and allowed them to spread all over the world."

Peter Savolainen, of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, led the study of Old World dogs, analysing DNA samples taken from dogs in Asia, Europe, Africa and arctic America.

'Bit of a surprise'

His team found that, though most dogs shared a common gene pool, genetic diversity was highest in East Asia, suggesting that dogs have been domesticated there the longest.

"Most earlier guesses have focused on the Middle East as the place of origin for dogs, based on the few known facts - a small amount of archaeological evidence from the region, and the fact that several other animals were domesticated there," he says.

The researchers studied gene sequences from the dogs' mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited directly from the mother. The findings indicated that the major present-day dog populations at some point had a common origin from a single gene pool.
Matthew Binns, head of genetics at the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket, UK, said the findings were significant.

He told BBC News Online: "For the first time, there's relatively convincing evidence actually pinpointing the date at which the dog was domesticated and also the location of that domestication, which is a bit of a surprise.

"People have previously thought that a lot of species were domesticated in the Middle East and this data clearly shows domestication took place in East Asia."
He added: "It looks as if 95% of current dogs come from just three original founding females and I guess these are the Eves of the dog world."

Human evolution
In a separate study, researchers at Harvard University and the Wolf Hollow Wolf Sanctuary, both US, studied social cognition in dogs and were surprised by the findings.

In a simple experiment designed to compare their behaviour to those of wolves and our closest relative, the chimpanzee, the findings clearly showed that dogs - even young puppies - were far better at interpreting social cues from humans.

The food was hidden in little buckets
The dogs had to choose which bucket had food hidden underneath it, and the experiment was designed so they could not rely on their superb sense of smell. The scientists helped by pointing or looking in the direction of the hidden food.

Researcher Brian Hare said the dogs outperformed even the chimpanzees, and the puppies were as good as the older dogs, proving the skill was innate and not learned.

"During domestication there was some kind of change in their cognitive ability that allowed them to figure out what other individuals wanted using social cues. The biggest surprise was the puppies - even as young as nine weeks old, they're better than an adult chimpanzee at finding food."

He said the research might ultimately provide some clues as to how social skills evolved in humans.
http://www.wolfsongalaska.org/Canis_biogenetic_engineering.html






Dogs continue to be in the news lately, hammering our heads and hearts. The pet lovers among us can't help but notice, and the news stories make it glaringly apparent that something is missing in so many people.


Like this story http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/10/26/national/a075118D67.DTL