A Joyful Beginning...

One of the joyful new beginnings so far in January was the baby shower today for Moriyah. "Mori" is due on January 21st! Cassie and Michael, a Jewish couple who are Reiki teachers, as well as friends and comrades in many areas are expecting their son in two weeks. When my daughter Ariele and I asked what they might like for the shower they expressed that they would like to find some baby moccasins for Moriyah.

I had a pair of tan or brownish leather moccasins in mind when I was looking for some this week, but there were none to be found "in all the land," except by internet order. It has been a few years since I searched for baby items, but I thought it wouldn't be difficult to find baby moccasins, especially since we live in Oklahoma which was once Indian Territory! With no time for ordering online, I continued the search until high-noon this morning, just in time for the shower. I even thought of making a pair, but with time running out, I continued the search. Going by suggestions from previous shops I visited, one specialty shop owner suggested a place in downtown Edmond called, "Simply Southwest" (at 1 North Broadway, Edmond, OK) only about one mile/minute from my home.

My week-long search had led me to this store (trading post) which I have passed many times, but I hadn't been inside before. The previous shop where I stopped suggested I check with them and the owner even called ahead to check for me and see if they had any baby moccasins. They said they did have one pair of baby moccasins in their store so I went in, surprised to see that the moccasins were in the display case along with all the other southwestern-style jewelry... I say other jewelry because the moccasins were just as much jewelry with bead work and were truly a work of art - a national treasure, not only for the Osage Nation but our own.

The owner explained that the moccasins were authentic Osage Indian moccasins, hand-stitched by a local Osage artist from tender deer skin hide and traditional Osage bead work. If I had to choose a gift "fit" for the newborn baby of a tribal chief, or for the baby Jesus even, these are the moccasins I would choose, the moccasins of a true shaman, ready to be a wind-walker or to dance among the stars.

The shop was full of beautiful art from various tribes, Hopi Kachina Dolls, intricate Navajo pottery, woven blankets and silversmith jewelry with turquoise, as well as many other southwestern works of jewelry and art. After talking with the shop owner, I learned that she also is an Osage. We parted with the moccasins and a gift she gave us of a book written by another local Osage author, a science-fiction writer, who had just been in the shop. She gave us the book and seemed satisfied that the moccasins would be appreciated and become a treasure to their new owners for generations to come.

New Year - New Beginning

With the New Year beginning just after the recent Total Lunar Eclipse on December 21st, which occurred on the Winter Solstice for the first time in 372 years (beginning just 14 hours after the total lunar eclipse), I am more aware than usual this year of the idea of new beginnings after witnessing such a beautiful event in nature. It's true, the promise of spring is on its way, former things are passing away and new things are soon taking their place. But it's difficult to tell during the darkest, or longest night of winter what has died and what will survive, or revive, and I can't help but feel a primitive sense of disarray.

Sully Erna: Avalon



What does the tarnished moon of a Total Lunar Eclipse have to do with the New Year? The word "sully" provides a clue. Sully means 'to soil, stain, or tarnish; to mar the luster of; to defile, or sully the reputation of.' It can also mean 'to become sullied, stained or tarnished.' The moon goes through a tarnishing phase during the total lunar eclipse, which was even more dramatic from where I observed it this time, with dark clouds also moving over the eclipse making it even more hidden, obscure and diminished.

In one description, tarnish was 'to diminish or destroy the purity of.' You could even say the moon was 'dead to rights, in the very act of committing a crime, offense, or mistake; (caught) red-handed.' The moon also became 'a type of copy, having been used or rejected.' The moon was 'out of play - a dead ball,' so to speak. The moon even appeared to be tarnished, showing an oxidized rust color. Not only did its color change, it began 'to grow dull, discolored and lose its luster,' 'to become hidden and obscure,' to 'deaden' (or just 'dead').

The moon was temporarily cut off from its direct source of light, its life, bereft, unresponsive, unplugged, 'completely killed' in the dead of winter, in the dead of night, in the period of greatest darkness and coldness. Fortunately, it also became "undeadened" or just, "undead" when it 'passed out' of Earth's shadow, and looked even more brilliant than before against the blackened-inky night sky.

More 'dead' references:

Not having a potential different from that of Earth; free from any electric connection to a source of potential difference and from electric charge;
Law: deprived of civil rights so that one is in the state of civil death, esp. deprived of the rights of property;
not fruitful; unproductive: dead capital;
without resonance; anechoic: dead sound; a dead wall surface of a recording studio;
flat rather than glossy, bright, or brilliant;
tasteless or flat, as a beverage: a dead soft drink;
infertile; barren: dead land;
without resilience or bounce: a dead tennis ball;
put out; extinguished: a dead cigarette;
sudden or abrupt, as the complete stoppage of an action;
complete; absolute: dead silence; The plan was a dead loss;
lacking the customary activity; dull; inactive; without vitality, spirit, enthusiasm, or the like: a dead party;
(as language): no longer in use as a sole means of oral communication among a people: Latin is a dead language;
utterly tired; exhausted: The moon felt dead from the five-hour trip;
not moving or circulating; stagnant; stale: dead water; dead air;
no longer functioning, operating, or productive: a dead motor; a dead battery;
no longer current or prevalent, as in effect, significance, or practice; obsolete: a dead law; a dead controversy;
(of an emotion) no longer felt; ended; extinguished: a dead passion; dead affections; incapable of being emotionally moved; unresponsive; lacking sensitivity of feeling; insensitive;
bereft of sensation; numb; resembling death; deathlike; not endowed with life;
inanimate: dead stones; no longer living; deprived of life...

these descriptions, along with any number of additional experiences of what it is like to be diminished or 'dead' in some way whether from rejection, reproach, shame, blame, failure, or other types of loss give an idea of what it is like to be tarnished.

This New Year 2011, like the moon's response to being diminished, shows the potential for all the dead things that were lost or diminished to revive, and like the moon that passed its test, to become 'undead'. Whether its finances, productivity, dreams, or just from being exhausted, the New Year can also be full of new life. With such a dramatic display of nature, I look forward to what the New Year might bring in, or back - and on the brighter side, the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus will be the brightest shining objects in the Southeastern night sky on January 3rd-5th, that is, unless the moon is near!

(Definition references from www.dictionary.com)

New Year's observance

Did you ever feel something approaching that has gotten into your head and its momentum is moving so fast but it seems to be going in slow motion like a car crash and there is nothing you can do to slow it down or change it but sit at the intersection and take it all in as you see it happen and say "muther......-uuuuckkkkerrrrr" until the moment of impact when it all collides? (inhales.......... deep sigh......) That's how I've felt about this new year taking over... I wasn't that aware of its approach, but I tremble at the intensity as I see it happening and I feel in awe all at the same time. I feel clipped by it somehow, but not in the direct path, and hope to hang back and survive, enough to come away with a little DIY ethic, some extra cash and maybe a new tattoo.

I chose this song to express the feeling because I had a dream that a friend of mine was playing this song on stage with Fugazi for a fundraiser at a beach in CA. I hadn't listened to this song in several years until I heard it again in my dream.

Total Eclipse of the Moon

Total Lunar Eclipse on December 21st.

Image: Ian Morison

The first and only time I have seen a total lunar eclipse before today was a few years ago from a beach house balcony at Balboa Island in Newport Beach, California. Last night I saw the total eclipse of the moon for the second time just above my front door! I only had to step outside to be under its shadow. The phases of the eclipse last for around five hours. The first time I saw one, I was sick with the flu, so I didn't stay outside long enough to watch it completely.

This time, I spent time watching the various phases as diagrammed in the photo above. One thing I noticed this time was that during the phase when it is leaving the umbra back to penumbra, there was a large area of blue light reflecting back up onto the moon, while the moon was still mostly red. The appearance was as if the moon and a reflection of the earth were in an embrace. The reflected blue light is due to the atmospheric changes, but it was a dramatic effect! The colors were so vivid and seemed to dance, even to the naked eye. At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me for being up all night, but my daughter also confirmed that it was definitely a blue reflection which looked like two orbs instead of only one.


I am always reminded of a bride in her wedding gown when I see the full moon, and seeing the moon going red was as if it were going through a bloody battle, emerging as a triumphant warrior-bride, crossing over the dark phase to get to her bridegroom. When I read the story about Adam and Eve, that Eve was taken out of Adam's rib, or side, I am also reminded of the theory that the moon was formed out of the earth and broke off from it when the earth was struck by a huge planetesimal, at least that is the theory accepted by most astronomers for the origin of our moon, although the metaphors are from stories I've heard of various origins.

Story Time (with A and Coop pt II)

The mall was pretty dead last Friday night. We're waiting for Ariele's friend to arrive from Ft. Sill in Lawton, OK. It is her first time to meet Robert in person, who is in the Army and just recently returned from South Korea. While waiting we decided to visit the Waldon Bookstore. Besides being sick with the flu all week (please excuse in advance my cough and all), I wanted to be there for the occasion. Here is a rare moment of Cooper being still long enough to read us a story:



He made it through the book and nearly broke out in his metal voice a couple of times near the end... not easy for him to keep from it even while reading "Corduroy."


Feeling better now thanks to lots of green tea, back to homework and the laundry...

Naked Eye Observations - 2

This week, in addition to doing naked eye observations in Astrology, we had to dissect a baby pig in biology lab. We had no volunteers at our table of four who were willing to do the dissecting, something I vaguely remember with a frog in a high school class before. Ours was a small baby female pig. I decided to begin so we could get it over with by thinking of it like cutting up a chicken to get past the initial grim thought of cutting through the skin. Then I named the pig "Pearl" and thought about Ichabod Crane in the movie "Sleepy Hollow," the coroner who fainted easily, and rolled up my sleeves. Once I got started, I became more interested by the details of the different organs. By the time we were finished, I was ready to look at the brain, one of the most interesting organs to me, but we found out we couldn't include anything above the neck. I can see why Dr. Frankenstein became so obsessed, there is something fascinating about understanding how things work that makes it hard to know when you've gone to far. (Never give me a scalpel unless you really want me to use it.) I had a small following before it was over who were also interested in looking at the brain. I'd say it went well, with a stretch of the imagination, except for the missing blood, white lab coats, the electricity, the storm and the castle - I shouldn't have read Mary Shelley's "Frankentein" the semester before I took biology, things tend to overlap a bit and I like to relate all things to art and literature. This kind of procedure could even be considered a work of art by the cut-ups, although the use of preservatives made me wonder what the universe could be saying to me in the "now". The song playing in my head through the procedure was ohGr's song "Cracker" and Death in June's "All Pigs Must Die," but I'm not sure what that means except that I don't think it means literally that all the pigs must die. And not to ruin a good piggy song, but I am sorry that this one had to die.

A few weeks ago I had a similar but alternate experience when I went to the Asian market with two friends, Cooper and Ben from the band Warped Corpses. Ben wanted to cook dinner for us all and he sometimes makes his own sushi. This time he wanted to try a frozen octopus. I was already sick that evening, so I rested on the couch while they were doing all the preparation for the dinner. It turned out that they had to clean it before cooking and the size of the octopus was similar to the little pig except they also had to remove its eight long tentacles. I wondered if they were enjoying themselves much more than they should have for such a gory task. I don't think I heard them laughing and "cutting up" so much before and I realized that they were more interested in exploring the dinner than actually cooking or eating it. I was tempted to look in on them but I didn't want to spoil the magic, and unless like Tom Green on "Freddie Got Fingered," I might find one of them wearing the octopus on his head. They weren't being obscene or disrespectful of its being, but just having some good clean-ing fun, and although the laboratory and scientific observations were missing, the wonder of exploring life and playing like children seemed more connected to the nature of life as a scientific naked eye observation. But then, maybe I have gotten used to their peculiar sense of humor. I didn't get to eat the dinner since I was sick, but it turned out to be a really nice meal when it was all done.

A quote from an article from a previous project I did about William Burroughs and cut-ups:

In reading "hermann nitsch' orgien mysterien theater- the artist as high priest," an online article, I recognize a correlation between the artist as painter and the cut-up method of writing in the following paragraph:

"When paint turns into intestines and painting into slaughtering, also the painter must be drawn into such vortex. Whereas formerly he used to disappear in the canvas, he now places himself in the forefront as an actor staging the act of painting. The canvas is literally turned into a mere backdrop. Already action painting introduced ‘das Schaumalen’ - ‘painting as a performance’, as Nitsch has it (p. 49). In the footsteps of Pollock he begins to ‘paint and splash huge planes, jumping around on the canvas and to let himself go’ (p. 61). The trend is accomplished when the product is wholly replaced by the process: from painting to ‘Aktion’ – the German word for 'happening.'"

The dissection wasn't what most would consider high art, but we all knew it needed to happen. I also remembered that I have been and hopefully not again at the other end of the scalpel.

Naked Eye Observations

Historically, the zenith of naked-eye astronomy was the work of Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), who built an extensive observatory to make precise measurements of the heavens without any instruments for magnification.

Under typical dark sky conditions with a minimum of light pollution, the naked eye can see stars with an apparent magnitude of up to 6 on the apparent magnitude scale.



The scale now used to indicate magnitude originates in the Hellenistic practice of dividing stars visible to the naked eye into six magnitudes. The brightest stars were said to be of first magnitude (m = 1), while the faintest were of sixth magnitude (m = 6), the limit of human visual perception, the naked eye (without the aid of a telescope). Each grade of magnitude was considered twice the brightness of the following grade (a logarithmic scale). This somewhat crude method of indicating the brightness of stars was popularized by Ptolemy in his Almagest, and is generally believed to originate with Hipparchus. This original system did not measure the magnitude of the Sun. The scale works in retrospect, rather the brighter the star, the smaller the grade of magnitude, where the sun would be an apparent magnitude of -26, and as we know, the naked eye would be damaged by direct observation of the sun's brilliance.

Some of the faint light of distant stars and planets which would be perceived with color are not perceived by the naked eye with color due to the detection of weak optical signals by the neurons within the human visual system which are detected by optic nerve rods rather than cones.



There is also a consideration of dark stars, how they are detected and how to determine which is the darkest star. I'll write about that another time. But so far, since the observation cannot be made with the naked eye, and a dark star is a dark matter, here is one candidate for The Darkest Star:



One more:

Sources: Astronomy course material/UCO, and info from http://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Apparent_magnitude and Youtube.com