A special sighting of whales

Here's a video clip of two whales surfacing just north of the Pismo Beach Pier, at 7:40 in the morning on Wednesday, 28 April 2021.

At the time, I was surfing just north of the pier. Sitting on my board looking out in their direction, they were probably within 25 or 50 yards of my location. You can actually hear me exclaim "Ho!" at the 17-second mark in this video, just after the first whale spouts.

What a sight! From the vantage point of sitting in the water and seeing them nearby (in between waves coming in), they looked very big and bumpy-skinned -- totally different from dolphins. The two surfacing together almost looked like a big sea serpent, as their arched backs broke the waves. That's harder to see from this video which was taken from the vantage point on the deck of the pier, at the end of the pier itself.

After the whales continued northward on their journey, I caught a few more waves and went in, and then I ran out to the end of the pier to see if anyone else had seen them.

Huge thank-you to Steven and family for sending me this video which they took from their spot at the end of the pier! From his perspective, Steven believes they were probably gray whales.

So magical and majestic! Special to share that moment with everyone else who experienced it!

 

Who is Shere Khan, and who is Mowgli?

image: Wikimedia Commons (link).

If you have not yet read the translation of the complete transcript of the Russian Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly which was delivered by Russian President Vladimir Putin one week ago, on 21 April 2021, it would be worthwhile to do so.

The complete text in English can be found here as well as in other locations on the web.

The subject matter of this address illustrates quite dramatically the assertion which Professor Michael Hudson has been making over and over in his recent interviews and articles, that there is presently a massive struggle between diametrically opposed economic visions: one vision characterized by (in Professor Hudson's words) "the idea that any rent-yielding resource -- banking, land, natural resources, and natural resource monopolies -- should be in the public domain to provide basic needs to everybody freely" and the opposing view promoted by invasive neoliberalism which involves "giving power to the monopolists, to the oppressors, to violence [. . .] where armies can come in, take over your country, impose a client dictatorship like Pinochet in Chile or the neo-Nazis in Ukraine [. . .] a world centrally-planned by the American military and finance."

You can find the above quotations in Professor Hudson's recent conversation from March of this year entitled "What flavor oligarchy?" and which you can watch and listen to on a video here. 

You can find Professor Hudson addressing the same theme and the same dichotomy in several other recent interviews and essays, including this one, in which he declares:

What China and Russia found out very quickly is what initially seemed to be an economic rivalry between America and China and other countries was not really an anti-China rivalry as such. It's a conflict of economic systems. The conflict is between neoliberalism -- a financialized world order that wants to privatize all infrastructure and create monopoly rents for transportation, education, healthcare: like what occurs in the United States -- and having these basic investments in the public domain, to be subsidized and their services provided at minimum cost. The question at issue is what kind of economy the world is going to have. Will it be a neoliberal economy, a privatized economy -- Reaganized, Thatcherized, and financial: organized by central planning in Wall Street -- or is the government going to plan?

In addressing this dichotomy, the President of Russia primarily did so indirectly -- first, by devoting the bulk of the speech to a discussion of social support at the national level for critical infrastructure concerns such as higher education, healthcare, and transportation infrastructure, and secondly by making a literary analogy to figures in Kipling's Jungle Books (first published in 1893), without identifying exactly who corresponds to which characters (although the thrust of his analogy is plain enough).

The brilliant use of the Kipling analogy is found towards the end of the speech, after the extended discussion of infrastructure and social spending. The critical points are found in this passage of the address:

The meaning and purpose of Russia's policy in the international arena -- I will just say a few words about this to conclude my address -- is to ensure peace and security for the well-being of our citizens, for the stable development of our country. [. . .] At the same time, unfortunately, everyone in the world seems to be used to the practice of politically motivated, illegal economic sanctions and to certain actors' brutal attempts to impose their will on others by force. But today, this practice is degenerating into something even more dangerous -- I am referring to the recently exposed direct interference in Belarus in an attempt to orchestrate a coup d'etat and assassinate the President of that country. At the sam time, it is typical that even such flagrant actions have not been condemned by the so-called collective West. Nobody seemed to notice. Everyone pretends nothing is happening. [. . .] You can have your own opinion of President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko's policy. But the practice of staging coups d'etat and planning political assassinations, including those of high-ranking officials -- well, this goes too far. This is beyond any limits. [. . .]

In this regard, we behave in an extremely restrained manner: I would even say 'modestly,' and I am saying this without irony. Often, we prefer not to respond at all, not just to unfriendly moves, but even to outright rudeness. We want to maintain good relations with everyone who participates in the international dialogue. But we see what is happening in real life. As I said, every now and then they are picking on Russia, for no reason. And of course, all sorts of petty Tabaquis are running around them  like Tabaqui ran around Shere Khan -- everything is like in Kipling's book -- howling along in order to make their sovereign happy. Kipling was a great writer.

In Kipling's book, a central theme involves a Law of the Jungle which all the various animals must observe. But the ferocious tiger Shere Khan was a serial violator of this law, acting as though he was a law unto himself. He preferred to feed on domestic cattle rather than to hunt for himself, as well as to eat beetles and frogs and fish. In addition to these forms of food, for which the Free People of the wolves (who worked for their food) held Shere Khan in contempt, the tiger would even eat Man, "the weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him."

The text says that the Jungle Law teaches that such behavior leads inevitably to degradation: "man-eaters become mangy, and lose their teeth."

While we might think that the reference to Shere Khan in the recent speech refers to one specific nation, it is actually more accurate (per the quotations from Michael Hudson given above) to identify Shere Khan the man-eater, the violator of all accepted law, with the proponents of the financialization, the privatization, and (when other means fail) the  seizing by force of resources given to the people. 

These devourers of the cattle of others -- and devourers, ultimately, of the lives of men and women -- don't distinguish between devouring the people of other lands or devouring the people of their own land, and thus it is imprecise to identify Shere Khan with any single specific country, even though it is certainly the United States which has had its economy and its foreign policy hijacked to the greatest degree by the forces of neoliberalism, and whose military has been used as the primary means of seizing the resources of other nations and of laying waste to any who stand in the way of neoliberalism.

Rather than representing a nation, then, I would argue that Shere Khan personifies the trans-national (and indeed anti-national) force of oligarchy and opposition to any restraint by the accepted Law of Nations.

The speech of the Russian President also mentions another character, who always accompanies Shere Khan in the Jungle Book stories: Tabaqui, described in the original texts as "the jackal -- Tabaqui the Dish-licker." This figure is equally despised by the Free People of the Jungle because he similarly feeds on the scraps left by the work of others, while acting as an agent and a lackey for Shere Khan, and showing a similar disdain for the proper Law.

In the speech above, the Russian President points to the fact that no one in the so-called West has so much as condemned the illegal attempt to assassinate the head of state of Belarus (a Russian ally). In fact, the controlled media have ensured that the people of the United States (for example) know absolutely nothing about it. A curtain of total silence has descended upon this failed assassination attempt, as far as the media enablers of such behavior are concerned.

And yet this silence cannot cloak the plain and obvious fact that the assassination of a head of state (or the attempt to do so) is inherently an act of war -- and in this case an act of aggressive war. As I have written previously (on the occasion of the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani and the Iraqi General Al-Muhandis), the Nuremberg Trials declared that "to initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime: it is the supreme international crime."

Thus, every man and woman in every nation should condemn such acts of international crime. That the controlled media in the so-called West has refused to do so -- and even refused to discuss the crime -- is despicable, and merits inclusion with whomever else Vladimir Putin had in mind when he referred to Tabaquis who run along with Shere Khan, hoping to feed on his scraps.

In the Jungle Book stories, there are some other important characters who remained unmentioned in the speech cited above, but whose identity is almost implicitly raised by the reference to Shere Khan, the outlaw who devours what belongs to others and who also devours Man.

The first of the Jungle Book stories relates how Mowgli ("the man's cub") arrives among a pack of wolves -- a pack who are referred to as the Free People. The pack, when presenting a united front, is capable of standing up to Shere Khan. However, some of the younger wolves are tempted by the lifestyle offered by Shere Khan and his jackal companion, Tabaqui, and end up siding with the tiger.

The bigger threat to Shere Khan's reign of terror, however, is Mowgli himself -- the child who finds himself among the wolves, and is adopted into the pack (in the scene shown at the top of this post, from a 1910 illustration).

When we first meet Mowgli, he is just an infant, unable to even perceive all the dynamics described above -- but Shere Khan already hates the child, and fears what will happen if Mowgli is allowed to grow and mature. 

And, sure enough, as readers of the Jungle Books will know, as Mowgli develops -- under the tutelage not just of the wolves but also of Baloo the Bear and especially Bagheera the Panther -- he demonstrates that he is indeed more than capable of defeating the tiger, despite the fearsome power and unrestrained aggression of Shere Khan.

I would offer this interpretation, then, of the characters in the Jungle Book analogy which was initiated in the speech to the Federal Assembly of Russia one week ago:

• Shere Khan, the lawless, mangy man-eater, corresponds to the international forces of oligarchy, who are equally willing to devour the people of any nation, including their own, whose ideology Professor Hudson describes as "neoliberalism -- a financialized world order that wants to privatize all infrastructure and create monopoly rents for transportation, education, healthcare, like what occurs in the United States."
• Tabaqui, the Dish-licker, corresponds to the enablers of neoliberal imperialism, especially including the controlled western media cartels -- and who also corrupt some of the "younger wolves" who should actually be standing with the Free People against Shere Khan but who instead go over to his side.
• The Free People of the wolves, who are capable of standing against the tiger and his Tabaquis but who are often divided -- including by those who defect to the blandishments of the tiger and his way of life. These wolves who, when united, can resist the tiger may perhaps best be seen as corresponding to the nations who still stand against neoliberalism and neoliberal imperialism.
• Mowgli, the "man's cub" who at first has no idea what is going on, but who actually has the power to defeat Shere Khan -- a fact which Shere Khan knows full well, and a fact for which Shere Khan always seeks to destroy Mowgli, before the boy can come into his own. I would suggest that Mowgli actually corresponds to the people themselves -- not the nations, but the rather the people themselves -- who, if they can just become aware of their own power, are more than a match for even the fearsome international criminals who disdain the Law of Nations and who correspond to the dreaded man-eating tiger of the stories.
• Baloo and Bagheera, Mowgli's primary teachers in the tales, can be seen as representing two somewhat different possible paths of development for the boy. Baloo represents the temptation to abdicate responsibility to some degree (a kind of "drop out" approach), while Bagheera rightly explains that unless Mowgli actually stands up to Shere Khan, dropping out and following the carefree path of Baloo will eventually end in disaster -- but, as Bagheera knows and as he helps Mowgli to realize, Shere Khan actually fears Mowgli because Mowgli is actually more than capable of stopping the tiger. And this holds true for the people of the world, including the people of the United States, who are in fact the most responsible for stopping this tiger which is intent upon devouring them and devouring the rest of the world as well.

While some readers may be shocked or appalled at the use of a speech given by the president of Russia as the jumping-off point for this discussion, his brilliant analogy using Kipling's Jungle Book characters to illuminate the situation we face at this juncture in history would be equally valid no matter who happened to offer it. Also, they might want to consider the degree to which that shocked response has been conditioned by the non-stop vilification of Russia and its president in the western media over the past several years (vilification which basically started from zero, almost as quickly as you flip a light switch) as part of their role as servants to imperialism and to enrichment through exploitation.

As I have written in several of my books, including my most-recent book Myth and Trauma (2020), this is not a new adversary which seeks to devour the people -- it is instead a very old adversary, one which almost certainly has connections to the suppression of whatever ancient wisdom was preserved among the original sacred traditions given to the various cultures of the earth, as well as to the imposition of feudalism in western Europe following the dismantling of the ancient world, and to the rise of European colonialism in later centuries. 

These are issues of which we should all make ourselves aware, especially as they are not being reported but instead actively suppressed by western controlled media. 

Below is a close-up of the 1910 illustration of the Pack Council in which Baloo and Bagheera sponsor Mowgli's adoption into the wolves known as the Free People, showing the part of the drawing which I believe depicts Mowgli as a young child, blissfully unaware of what is actually going on:

Welcome to new visitors from Radio Cui Bono! (and to returning friends)

Listen to "77RCB Myths based upon the stars with David Mathisen" on Spreaker.

A sincere "Mange Takk" to hosts Patrik Holmqvist and Martin Emander for inviting me over to their podcast, Radio Cui Bono, for a conversation about myths, metaphor, Higher Self, illusion, deception, and the search for truth.

Welcome to any new visitors hearing about this site for the first time as a result of this show! And of course welcome back to returning friends!

Here is the link to the above episode, where you can download the audio file, find some links related to topics we discussed, and leave comments and feedback. 

After the show, Patrik sent me a link to a video that he was describing during our conversation, about a cut in a granite block now on display in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo -- and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a video made by my friends at Adept Expeditions which is led by the deep-wisdom dynamic team of Karina Itzcoatl and Anyextee!

Overwhelming archaeological evidence from around the world argues that the conventional narrative of human history is gravely flawed and in need of radical revision -- and the evidence which shows beyond doubt that the world's ancient myths and sacred stories (from cultures on every inhabited continent and island of our earth) share a common foundation of celestial metaphor stands alongside the archaeological evidence to reinforce this conclusion.

In Radio Cui Bono, Patrik and Martin explore the evidence that much of the conventional narrative about a wide variety of subjects -- including historical events -- can be shown to be built on a foundation of lies and deception. While we may disagree on specific examples, the overall conclusion that deliberate deception is taking place cannot be denied.

This subject of course is very serious, and one which impacts all men, women and children on our globe. I am grateful to Patrik and Martin for hosting this conversation and I hope that the subjects discussed will be beneficial to you in some way.

Please give them some positive feedback and encouragement, and feel free to share with others who would would find this conversation to be of interest.

Zion Petroglyphs: Celestial Connections?

Last week's amazing "Contact at the Canyons" event included an opportunity to visit one of the petroglyph sites located within the boundaries of Zion Canyon Nation Park.

These petroglyphs are very striking and moving in their symbolism and left a deep impression on me and (I could sense) on others who experienced them with me.

The panels of glyphs were clearly conveying powerful concepts which appear to me to resonate with central messages of the ancient myths, including the cycle of taking on a body in this incarnate life, and the existence of a Higher Self from whom we can become estranged but with whom we can also recover our relationship and connection. There is also a decidedly other-worldly feel to many petroglyph images, as if depicting the practice of journeying to the Other Realm, the infinite realm, the hidden realm.

I believe it is difficult to declare with anything close to complete confidence what the intended message, meaning, or symbolism of any group of petroglyphs might be, because it is often very difficult to find multiple "data points" of confirmatory evidence which can help to positively identify the original intent.

When it comes to interpreting ancient myths, scriptures, and sacred stories, I usually remain tentative with interpretations unless I have more than one piece of evidence which helps confirm a specific celestial association. However, because ancient myths and scriptures are actually verbal stories (and sometimes written stories as well), they often do preserve multiple points of confirmatory evidence which in many cases will allow us to make celestial associations with a high degree of confidence. 

With petroglyphs, we usually do not have that same level of redundant evidence.

However, there are a couple of petroglyphs from the site we visited which appear to have some parallels to constellations and heavenly features (features such as the beautiful Pleiades cluster), as shown in the short video I made above, entitled "Zion Petroglyphs: Celestial Connections?"

It would be interesting to spend more time at this site and contemplate it more closely in order to see if other possible connections begin to reveal themselves.

The site itself is located within one of the many fairly narrow slot canyons which run through Zion Park and which have high steep sides and a flat canyon floor. This particular canyon in which the petroglyphs are located runs north-south, and the petroglyph panels are arranged along the base of the western wall, such that they face towards the east. 

It would probably be a valuable exercise for a serious student of these petroglyphs to visit the panel every day for a year beginning in the early morning, to see where the first rays of the sun might strike the glyphs on particular days, and to determine if there are any significant interactions between the artwork and the rays of light at various points of our annual cycle.

There is an important petroglyph site located in the county in California where I live, and which I have written about in several previous posts: Painted Rock in the Carrizo Plain. Some of this artwork appears to have clear parallels to specific constellations, although again I caution that with interpretations of petroglyphs it is probably always best to remain somewhat tentative. Previous posts about Painted Rock include:

• "The ancient wisdom of Painted Rock"
• "Painted Rock, the inner connection to the Infinite, and two competing visions of human existence"
• "Geology, mythology, cataclysms, and the world's ancient wisdom"

Being in the presence of petroglyphs has a powerful impact on us, perhaps because they are so mysterious and yet so familiar at the same time. They seem to depict a realm with which we all have had at least some experience, some fleeting contact from time to time, and sometimes more than fleeting contact. The very fact that they are so ambiguous in their precise meaning and intent allows them to speak to us without our having to be told by anyone else what they supposedly "mean."

Below are a few photographs I took of these Zion Park petroglyphs when we visited them on April 10, 2021. If possible, I hope you will be able to experience petroglyphs in person, and to listen to them to see what they might be trying to say to you, across the ages.

Breathwork and Cold Work with the Wim Hof Method

One of the most transformative features of this year's wonderful Contact at the Canyons event was the breathwork training given by master teacher Brandon Powell, a certified Wim Hof Method instructor and all-around adventurer, martial arts master, and investigator of the intersection between vortex mathematics, sacred geometry, and human motion and their implications for athletics and injury-free movement. Brandon's new website is being constructed at onphyr.com ("on Fire").

Each morning, Brandon led the group on powerful hour-long breathwork sessions during which we learned some of the basics of the Wim Hof Method of breathing -- you can learn more about those techniques and see free videos and instruction at the Wim Hof website here.

Without "talking it away" too much (since it is really something you have to experience for yourself), the method involves a long series of preparatory deep breaths followed by a complete exhale of all breath and a holding period with no air in the lungs, during which you simply sit (or lie) still and observe what happens for as long as two minutes, before resuming the cycle of deep breaths again. 

During this period of being still with no breath, the mind will initially revolt and demand a breath, thinking that your survival depends on it -- but in fact the body can go for quite some time without taking a new breath, having just fueled up on the previous series of deep breaths and partial exhales. 

What happens, describing it from my own perspective and using terms pioneered by Dr. Richard Schwartz of the Internal Family Systems therapeutic paradigm, is that the "protective parts" will start saying all kinds of things initially, but then the voice of Self will arrive to say "I've got you" and that you can do this -- and you find yourself going into a deep calm place as if you've been dropped into a deep pool of crystal clear water, where you feel that you can remain calmly almost forever.

You may at this point begin to see some different colors and even shapes and figures -- what those might be is probably best left to each practitioner to experience for himself or herself.

All I will say is that it is a deeply transformative and very powerful practice and I highly recommend investigating it if possible and if interested. There is a wealth of material on Wim Hof's site, and if you want to really experience it I would definitely recommend seeking out an experienced practitioner and trainer such as Brandon.

After the weekend of hikes and star-gazing was almost finished, we had a somewhat impromptu opportunity to experience the other, more famous, aspect of the Wim Hof Method -- cold work involving submersion into a body of cold water. 

We were just finishing up our spectacular hikes in Zion Canyon National Park and we availed ourselves of the waters of the Virgin River, which flows down through the basin of the central canyon of Zion Park. 

Once again, the experience was very similar to the breathwork described above. Brandon supervised. The waters were cold and flowing at a moderate pace -- enough to cause me to drift while trying to stay submerged. In order to stay beneath the surface, I found it best to go down to the bottom of the river and hug a large boulder, about chest wide, which was covered with a soft coat of moss. 

While beneath the surface, I experienced the same feelings that I had felt during the breathwork -- although the breathwork was even more extended and even more transformative. I went down and held the rock for a couple of times, because it felt so peaceful to put the method into actual practice. Afterwords, I and everyone else who had done the cold work in the water felt completely invigorated.

Thank you, Brandon, for sharing this powerful discipline with us during this year's special event -- and thank you to Wim Hof for sharing his discoveries and method with the world!

Ten year anniversary of the Mathisen Corollary blog!

image: Wikimedia Commons (link).

Ten years ago, I published my first post on this blog, on April 12, 2011.

In the ensuing years, the earth has either circled around the sun ten times, or perhaps -- as argued by Simon Shack and his Tychos model -- the sun has gone around the earth ten times while conducting a dance with its binary companion, with our planet circling in the barycenter between the binary pair.

Over the same period, the two mighty planets Jupiter and Saturn have aligned in a Great Conjunction, which only takes place once every twenty years (actually, just over twenty years).

And in that time I have written and published over 1,320 blog posts, all of them fully searchable using the search window function either on the blog's original home (here) or on the blog's newer home at the Star Myth World website (here). 

Above: Earth, Moon, Sun and planets on 12 April 2021, per the Tychosium model.

Perhaps most significantly (to me), during that ten year period in which these celestial cycles have made their revolutions, my entire worldview has shifted radically.

I initially started this blog soon after publishing my first book, The Mathisen Corollary, which I began researching in 2009 and which explores connections between the myths and the stars, as well as evidence for a world-wide catastrophe which left a record in our planet's geology. At the time of publishing that book in 2011, I was still taking the Bible literally, and while I was intrigued by evidence that the world's other myths appeared to have a connection to the stars and heavenly cycles, I was not willing to accept the possibility that the stories and characters found in the Bible might be build upon the very same foundations of celestial metaphor.

However, between the publication of that first book in 2011 and the subsequent publication of The Undying Stars (2014), I had to personally wrestle with the overwhelming evidence I was finding which indicates that the characters and events described in the Biblical texts employ the very same system of metaphor which underlies the ancient myths and sacred stories of virtually every other culture on our planet -- a discovery which should unite us and cause us to reject the twisting of various religious traditions into tools to divide men and women from one another.

The Undying Stars was my first book which attempts to present the evidence that the stories in the Bible, in common with myths from other cultures around the world, are built upon the same system of celestial metaphor -- and to explore some of the implications of that conclusion, as well as some of the ways that this knowledge might have been lost and forgotten.

Since then, I have published a series entitled Star Myths of the World, and how to interpret them (presently at four volumes: The Ancient World-Wide System, Greek Mythology, Star Myths of the Bible, and Norse Mythology), as well as the books Astrotheology for Life and Myth and Trauma. You can learn more about each of those by visiting the "Books" section of my website, where you will also find some sample content available from each volume. 

Those books together total over 5,000 pages of evidence and analysis so far, and include many hundreds of diagrams and star charts which together should establish beyond any reasonable doubt that the world's ancient myths -- from virtually every culture on every inhabited continent and island of our planet -- share a common foundation of celestial metaphor, a fact which thus far has been ignored or overlooked by most conventional scholars, historians, and the controlled media outlets.

Additionally, during the ten year period since releasing my first book and starting this blog, I have published several dozen videos and appeared on dozens of podcasts and independent media outlets: you can find many of these videos and podcasts archived on my website as well, as well as on my YouTube channel.

My understanding and appreciation of this ancient system of metaphor has of course grown and developed over time, and continues to develop as I study and analyze the evidence with the benefit of the comprehension I have gained thus far. Additionally, my entire outlook on politics, economics, and world history has been radically altered by what I have encountered on this journey to date. 

I am grateful to everyone who has joined me on this voyage of discovery through the stars so far, and looking forward to many new insights which I will share in upcoming books and videos and blog posts. Many of the interactions I have had with those reading this blog have been extremely helpful in pointing me towards new questions to consider or new evidence to explore.

I would encourage new visitors to make use of the blog and its internal "search" function, which enables you to find posts which mention any word or name you want to type in -- and I would also recommend going back in time and taking a look at some of those old posts from 2011 and other previous years, even though my positions may have evolved somewhat since then.

I have lots more to share and research with you -- this has been a truly life-changing experience for me and I hope that my work and writing will be positive to you in your life in some way as well! Looking forward to your joining me for the next discoveries during subsequent revolutions of the great spheres and our beautiful planet Earth.

Back from an incredible "Contact at the Canyons" event at Bryce and Zion Canyons!

After a year of delay, the much-anticipated "Contact at the Canyons" event, hosted by the Grimerica Show podcast and the Brothers of the Serpent podcast, finally became a reality -- and what a reality it was!

Thank you to everyone whose hard work and planning went into this event, and especially to all the friends from near and far who patiently waited for twelve months to attend this special gathering.

We convened at our cozy log-cabin headquarters in the woods between Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon National Parks for a full non-stop itinerary of hikes through the canyons, Star Myth discussions, petroglyph exploration, powerful guided Wim Hof Method breathwork, and extended night-sky star-gazing under some of the darkest and clearest high-desert skies to be found anywhere.

Brandon Powell -- martial arts master, philosopher, and certified Wim Hof Method instructor -- led us through daily guided breathwork sessions which were completely transformative and which will now become a practice I will incorporate into my pre-dawn ritual. Regarding the impact of this discipline, Darren of Grimerica laughingly says: "No one ever sees the breathwork coming," which is a very true observation.

The night skies over Bryce Canyon were absolutely stunning and filled with more stars than I have seen anywhere else. We met constellations from Orion to Scorpio and Sagittarius, and all points in between, including the Pleiades, the Beehive Cluster, Virgo and Berenice's Hair, the Northern Crown, Bootes, Perseus, the Gemini Twins, Draco and both Dippers, the Swan, the Eagle, Delphinus the Dolphin, mighty Hercules and towering Ophiuchus, the Crow, the Cup, Hydra the hooded Serpent, and of course the Milky Way.

I had the opportunity to narrate a few of the related myths while indicating the outlines of the constellations using a laser pointer, and giving my best tips for locating these constellations again using easy "stepping stones" and night-sky "landmarks" that help in the identification of some of the more challenging ones.

Along the way we explored one of the iconic hikes down into Bryce Canyon and back up past Thor's Hammer and many of the most famous vistas the park has to offer, as well as a breathtaking hike through some of Zion's incredible slot canyons and towering massifs.

We concluded our outdoor activities with a completely voluntary plunge into the frigid water of the Virgin River which winds along the floor of Zion Canyon, cold-work which was guided and supervised by Brandon, as the rays of the evening sun lingered upon the tops of the sentinels and the shadows climbed higher and higher along the towering rock walls. Then we repaired to the comfort of the Lodge for spicy fajitas grilled over open flame under the open sky, provided by our talented cooks Keith and Gage, followed by an evening of jam sessions led by the Snake Brothers and anyone else who had brought their guitars and djembes. 

There were also plenty of libations, including of the Texas wine vinted by the multi-talented Russ and Kyle of the Brothers of the Serpent.

At the end, we concluded this inaugural Contact at the Canyons event and pledged to keep the spirit going for future Contact gatherings. It was an unforgettable weekend, and I am very grateful to everyone who participated and whose positive feedback was very gratifying to me and to the other organizers.

If you were unable to attend this weekend's Contact at the Canyons, I sincerely hope that the stars will align for you to find yourself at a future evolution of this special series.

 

Traveling through Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon: What forces could have caused these dramatic geological formations?

I'm getting ready for a long-awaited journey to Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon National Parks for star-gazing in the high desert along with the podcasting heroes from the Grimerica Show and the Brothers of the Serpent Podcast and special guests -- perhaps including some readers of this blog!

The geological region which contains the wonders of Bryce and Zion contains distinctive and striking terrain features which relate as well to the Grand Canyon, the remains of petrified forests, and the famous mesas and basins found in areas such as Monument Valley and familiar from countless Hollywood films.

As the above video explains, a strong case can be made that they are all related to a massive catastrophic event in earth's ancient past. The video deals with the forces which it argues to have been responsible for the formations of Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon beginning at around the 0:30:00 mark in the presentation.

This video explains the dramatic features of the Colorado Plateau using the paradigm of the Hydroplate Theory of Dr. Walt Brown -- a theory which I believe to be supported by tremendous amounts of evidence and about which I have written many times in the past. 

While the theory has some connections to literalist interpretations of Biblical scriptures, it should be abundantly clear that I myself now argue that the events described in the Bible -- in common with ancient myth and sacred tradition from virtually every other culture on our planet -- can be shown to be celestial metaphor, and not literal history.

However, I do not at all believe that the majority of the arguments for a catastrophic event similar to that described in the Hydroplate Theory necessarily require literalist interpretations of ancient myth. On the contrary, it is very possible that there was a massive catastrophic event similar to that described in the video above at some point in our planet's ancient past, whether or not that historical event had any similarity to the events described in ancient myth (which can be shown to be based upon celestial metaphor, including the myths from various cultures which describe world-wide floods). 

I highly recommend watching the above video with an open mind, and seeing if you do not agree that the mechanisms detailed therein appear to explain the evidence we find in the geology itself in a much more cogent and coherent manner than do the conventional explanations we are asked to unquestioningly accept and believe. 

And, if at all possible, I hope that you might have an opportunity to visit this unique part of our earth at some point, and experience it for yourself!

"Human Trauma: What ancient myths teach about ignorance of Self and its recovery" (in New Dawn Magazine Special Issue Vol. 15 No. 2)

Big thank-you to the team at New Dawn Magazine for including my latest article in their new Special Edition issue (Volume 15, Number 02)! 

My article is entitled "Human Trauma: What ancient myths teach about ignorance of Self and its recovery."

I hope you will have the opportunity to check it out, as well as other articles I've written for New Dawn mag such as the article that appeared in February this year, in Issue 185.

When my copy of this new Special Edition arrived, I was pleased to find that it contains a poem by the powerful an d inspired journalist and author, Caitlin Johnstone. I highly recommend exploring her work.

Of course, I do not endorse every single thing that anyone else says or thinks: in fact, I am pretty convinced that no two men and women agree on every single thing, even if they are "identical twins"! But we can and should carefully consider other perspectives and dialogue with one another without rancor and without demeaning or denying the inherent dignity of every single man or woman with whom we come into contact in this world, all of whom are trying to negotiate the complexity of this incarnate life.

Please support independent journalists and independent media platforms -- such as New Dawn mag as well as truth-seeking podcasts -- as much as you can!

And I hope you will find this latest article to be positive in some way.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929 - 1968

April 04 marks the anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

He chose to speak out against the illegal and unjust war in Vietnam on April 04, 1967 -- in a sermon which discussed a malady which went far beyond Vietnam, and which was appropriately titled "Beyond Vietnam." 

It is very appropriate to listen to this entire talk by Dr. King today, in his own voice and in his own words, and to consider how everything he says is just as appropriate for our situation now as when he delivered that sermon in 1967, now fifty-four years ago.

Exactly one year later, Dr. King's life was ended by elements of the national security state in a criminal operation which was subsequently covered up and has continued to be covered up to this day. Proof of this criminal conspiracy to murder Dr. King has been uncovered in subsequent years by diligent researchers including William Pepper, who represented the King family in the civil lawsuit in 1999, which proved the existence of the conspiracy to kill Dr. King.

In a sermon he delivered in November of 1967, entitled "But if not," Dr. King expounds upon the civil disobedience depicted in the ancient text of Daniel, in which the three youths tell the king that they are confident they will be delivered from harm even in their refusal to violate their conscience -- but if not, they still will not violate their conscience, even if it costs them their life.

In that sermon, Dr. King declares:

It is important to see that there are times when a man-made law is out of harmony with the moral law of the universe. There are times when human laws are out of harmony with eternal and divine laws. And when that happens, you have an obligation to break it.

[. . .]

I say to you this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit to live.

The words of Dr. King are speaking directly to us this day in 2021, more than fifty years after his death, and it is more important for us to hear them now than ever.

Text of "Beyond Vietnam" (link).