Bigfoot? Bigfoot.

Sometimes there really does seem to be something paranormal about Randonautica, the app I described in my January 10 post "Ask for a mini T. rex, and ye shall receive a mini T. rex." As you may recall, it works by generating a lot of truly-random map coordinates within a specified radius of the user and then identifying anomalies -- either "attractor" anomalies with an improbably large number of randomly generated points near them of "void" anomalies with an improbably small number. While it's generating the points and finding the strongest anomaly, you're supposed to "visualize your intention," which is supposed to affect the whole process in some mysterious way.

As recounted in the linked post, the first two times I used it I randomly chose "mini T. rex" as my "intention," and both times it led me to something answering to that description.

Today I wanted to do some walking, so I thought why not use Randonautica again. I had just been reading the cryptid section of Joshua Cutchin's Ecology of Souls and remembering my childhood obsession with Bigfoot, which I had been sure was lurking somewhere in the woods of suburban Maryland and could be summoned by continually ringing a concierge bell I had bought for the purpose (the neighbors must have just loved me!) -- so when the "visualize your intention" thing came up, I thought, "Okay, Randonautica, point me to a Bigfoot!"

If a cul-de-sac outside Baltimore seems an unlikely place for Sasquatch hunting, it's got nothing on urban Taiwan! Nevertheless, Randonautica delivered. Everyone knows these trickster spirits delight in puns and in granting requests in an over-literal way. Here's where I ended up:

That's a footprint and the English word foot, both very big (the wall was approximately seven feet tall), with a big finger pointing it out for me. (Except for the finger, that's the logo of a very small local office supplies company. I used to work for the older and much more successful "Hand" brand, "Foot" being to them what the Byrds, the Monkees, and the Allegators were to the Beatles.)

Along the way, Randonautica led me past a little clothing shop I'd never seen before. One of the T-shirts caught my eye through the window.

Some time ago, I discovered David Talbott's fringe astronomy theories and watched a bunch of YouTube videos about them on the "Thunderbolts" channel. Since then, the algorithm occasionally suggests more videos in that vein. A few weeks ago, it suggested this one:

I didn't watch it, but the thumbnail makes the main point clear enough. According to the theory, at some point in the distant past our "sun" was actually an alignment of several planets, which were much closer to the Earth than they are now, and electrical discharges between them formed an eight-rayed pattern (the "octopus" configuration discussed in my March 2022 Tarot/sync post "Lightning from the Sun?"). When this eight-pointed "sun" was not visible, that would be "night," and this video presumably tries to back that theory up with linguistic evidence that the word night is derived from eight with a negative prefix (see also acht/Nacht, huit/nuit, etc. -- clever, really).

The T-shirt is obviously supposed to mean "Number Eight," but the sync fairies don't care about intentions. It says "No Eight," with a night-black background and what looks like a partially illuminated planet. Does it say Neptune? That would make sense, since it's the number eight planet. I couldn't see much more from outside, so I tried googling "no eight" "neptune" to see if I could find the T-shirt online. I couldn't, but I did unexpectedly run into an old friend -- twice, in case I missed it the first time:

The Eight of Cups is normally Saturn in Pisces, but I guess this one blogger identifies it with Neptune. Note that the card shows a night sky with a crescent, just like the T-shirt.

Since I couldn't find the T-shirt online, I went into the shop to take a look. Here's a clearer shot of it:

It was a strange shop. Here's another of their T-shirts:

That's a guy on a bicycle, made up of random letters of the alphabet, together with a few repeated lines from Aesop's fable of the North Wind and the Sun (plus a little introduction explaining that the North Wind is cold). In Aesop, the Sun proves itself stronger by making a man take off his coat, the North Wind having failed to blow it off. In this version, weirdly, the Sun denies the North Wind's ability to make typhoons and huge waves.

There was also this little gem. I'm not sure if it's meant to be worn by a man or a woman, but either way, it's a little weird.

Since the unplanned an unexpected strikes so many, why even bother trying to plan anything?

I'm pretty sure "double cuppin'" is a reference to that cough syrup drank singers of a certain race are always on about. How this stuff ends up printed on T-shirts in Taiwan, I'll never know. (Having just looked it up, I see these lyrics come from an American song that includes the line "Tomorrow got a flight headed to Taiwan" -- to rhyme with a reference to cocaine being "all white like Parmesan." Real art gives me chills sometimes.)

After my walk, I read a few more pages in Ecology of Souls -- the book responsible for making me think of Bigfoot -- and found this:

This may be what several Penobscot tribesmen observed when spying on medicine man John Neptune, who met the approach of "an immense eel" not with terror but affection, gently cradling its head and "drumming on it softly."

That's the only occurrence of Neptune in this 1405-page book, and I read it just after a sync involving a Neptune T-shirt. The combination of Penob-scot, fearlessness, and "an immense eel" made me think of a Moody Blues song:

Captain Scott, you were so bold

Now you're looking rather cold

Out there in the snow

What did you find there?

Did you stand a while and stare?

Did you meet anyone?

I've seen polar bears and seals

I've seen giant Antarctic eels

I've still not found what I'm looking for

The reference is to Robert Falcon Scott, the Antarctic explorer, who I'm sure never saw polar bears. By a strange coincidence, an East India Company ship called the Neptune (admittedly a popular name for ships) was piloted by a different captain also named Robert Scott, perhaps a relative.

The Locust Grove crop circle

I really do have a lot of substantial philosophical and theological posts in my drafts folder, but the synchronicity fairies just won't let up with the fire hose. So my apologies to those of you who "just read it for the articles," but this blog is still in sync mode for the time being.

⁂

In "Break on through to the other side," I mentioned that I had done a one-card pull from the Rider-Waite, got the Eight of Cups, and noted its similarity to the Flammarion engraving. In my own notes on the reading, not published on the blog until later, I mentioned a mental image of

the overlapping circles of a Venn diagram (forming the vesica piscis where Christ sits enthroned in the Maiestas Domini icon), and I associated this with the strange object in the sky of the Eight of Cups (a combined crescent moon and full moon?)

My next post was "The Green Door," and Debbie left a comment all about yoni symbolism in connection with the Door, not knowing of my recent mental image of a vesica piscis (a yoni symbol) in connection with the Eight of Cups (a card I had featured in a post with a Doors lyric as its title).

The thing is, the object in the sky of the Eight of Cups doesn't really look anything like a Venn diagram or a vesica piscis. I just connected it with that at a conceptual level because it seemed to be a union of opposites (Sun and Moon, or full moon and crescent).

My posts sent Debbie looking through her old dream journals, though, and her attention was drawn to one dream in particular, called Serpent Holes. Some convoluted but inspired train of thought led her from that to Serpent Mound in Ohio and to the Locust Grove crop circle, which was discovered on August 24, 2003, less than 2,000 feet from the Mound. Here's a schematic drawing of the layout of the circle:

In "The vesica piscis and the blue moon," I noted that the "moon" on the Eight of Cups is not actually a circle divided into two parts by an arc (like the bright and dark parts of a crescent moon), but is a smaller circle overlapping a larger one. If you look at the silhouette of the entire object, it's not circular but has a convex bulge on one side. The resemblance to the Locust Grove circle is uncanny.

What the Locust Grove formation also includes -- but which is absent from the Eight of Cups -- is an explicit vesica piscis. This is mentioned in the write-up I linked (originally linked to by Debbie in her comment):

So I intuitively connected the Eight of Cups "moon" with the vesica piscis even though nothing in the image really suggests that; and Debbie, following the thread of her own dreams, stumbled upon a formation (in Ohio, which is where I usually say I'm "from"; in 2003, I lived less than 100 miles from Serpent Mound) which combines the Eight of Cups shape with a vesica piscis.

In a similar way, Ben looked at the Eight of Cups and for some reason thought of the Archangel Michael of Panormitas, even though I can't see any connection between the two at all except for the Sun and Moon on Michael's chest -- which Ben did not even notice until after he had made the link. This led me to look up other representations of Michael with a Sun and Moon, and I ended up finding one that corresponds perfectly to the Nebra sky disc -- which disc had also been brought up by Debbie in connection with her dream journal. This is an unusually collaborative sync-stream that's emerging; Ben, Debbie, and I all seem to be "in sync," so to speak.

The Archangel Michael, of course, is generally shown with his foot on the defeated serpent or dragon -- which syncs with the crop formation being so close to Serpent Mound. The file Debbie linked to about the crop circle even says that Serpent Mound probably represents the constellation Draco, identified by the Sumerians with Tiamat. In D&D, Tiamat is the evil counterpart to the good Bahamut, the Metal Worm.

If the serpent is the Metal Worm, who is Michael? He's Mr. Owl, of course. In the de Vos painting of Michael, written around his hand is the Latin motto Qui ut Deus? -- a translation of the literal meaning of the name Michael. In English, it would be Who is like God?

In the sky, Hercules is depicted with one foot on Draco -- in other words, he plays the role of St. Michael. In Oswald Wirth's Tarot, the Emperor is associated with Hercules, and he has a Sun and Moon on his breastplate just like the depictions of Michael we have been discussing.

Wirth also identified his Herculean Emperor with the Hebrew letter Daleth -- the Door. The Emperor is numbered 4, and his throne is a cube -- adorned with, if not actually an owl, at least a bird of prey.

In a recent discussion I was having with someone about the Owl Door, the number 64 and the word Lionclad (from a dream) came up. Lionclad clearly means Hercules, and 64 is the cube of 4. (Also, if 4 = Daleth = Door, 64 corresponds to Six Doors -- called Six Owl Door in English.)

It's also worth noting that my posts on Oswald Wirth's Emperor card are what first led Debbie to contact me.

The vesica piscis and the blue moon

I ended my July 23 post "Break on through to the other side" with a one-card Tarot reading in which I expected to draw the Eight of Wands but in fact got the Eight of Cups. I didn't post much by way of interpretation, except to note that the mirror image of the card bore a certain resemblance to the Flammarion engraving.

In my own later notes on this reading, I wrote:

My impression was that there’s some other group of associates I need to open myself up to, without leaving the Romantic Christian circle behind. The mental image that accompanied this thought was the overlapping circles of a Venn diagram (forming the vesica piscis where Christ sits enthroned in the Maiestas Domini icon), and I associated this with the strange object in the sky of the Eight of Cups (a combined crescent moon and full moon?).

The "moon" on the Eight of Cups is really quite strange. At first it looks like a crescent moon with the dark side illuminated by earthshine, but if you look closely, it's actually two objects: a crescent and a disc, or perhaps one disc partially eclipsing another.

In mirror image, the waxing crescent corresponds to the moon in the Flammarion engraving and the disc to the sun. Even the proportions look roughly the same, with the solar disc only large enough to fit the inner curve of the crescent.

I sent my comments on the vesica piscis to the anonymous email correspondent mentioned in "The Green Door" but did not discuss them with anyone else or publish them on my blog. It was therefore something of a surprise when the first comment on that post, by Debbie, was all about yoni symbolism and its relevance to the idea of a door. One of the forms yoni symbolism takes is, of course, the vesica piscis.

After reading Debbie's comment, I received another email from my anonymous correspondent. Referring to the Eight of Cups, she wrote, "having the moon there (even in a strange form) feels like a good omen, although it would suit better were it blue." She did not elaborate on why blue would have been better.

I then received a follow-up comment from Debbie. The Eight of Cups had reminded her of a dream and sent her looking through her old dream journals. In the comment she also mentioned a dream she had just had on July 23 of this year -- the same day I posted the Eight of Cups (or maybe not quite, given the time difference between America and Taiwan).

In my recent dream, my father gave me a silver half-moon shape pendant necklace. I recall the pendant had a beautiful blue inlay. I recall looking at the necklace and I saw a price tag of $132.00

When I woke from the dream, I googled 132, and found it interesting that in Strongs the number 132 in Hebrew means : Red , Ruddy. Also I found (just this morning July 25) this very intriguing website (2nd link below) of the Nebra Sun Desk which looks VERY similar to the pendant my father gave me.

A moon pendant with a blue inlay! Looking up the Nebra sky disc, I find that it looks like this:

The full disc on the left and waxing crescent on the right matches the mirror-image Eight of Cups I posted. According to Wikipedia, "These symbols are interpreted generally as the Sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars." I had noted this same ambiguity -- Sun or full moon? -- in my thoughts on the Eight.

The disc also suggests a smiling face with the Sun and Moon as eyes. Actually, what it reminds me of is a symbol used by the late Roger Anthony: a lion with a plus-sign in its right eye and a minus-sign in its right. The lion's mouth was a smile with an arrow head at one end, so that it was an arcking arrow pointing from the minus to the plus. When Roger shared these and a few other symbols with me, in or around 1999, he said, "Once you've learned these symbols, they'll be in your memory forever, and when you need them, they'll come back."

Break on through to the other side

We chased our pleasures here

Dug our treasures there

But can you still recall

The time we cried

Break on through to the other side

Break on through to the other side

-- The Doors

I understand how people take in a story, and how they need a symbol or a sign on the door. But the owl is meaningless to what is on the other side of the door. It’s just the doorway that’s important. 

The owl is the right symbol for the door. We are on this side, and EVERYTHING else is on that side of the door. There is is a LOT more! We are in this little tight hallway here, and on the other side of the door is this vastness! 

-- Mike Clelland (under hypnosis) 

 

Ere I knew, I had walked to the door, and seated myself with my ears against it, in order to catch every syllable of the revelation from the unseen outer world. And now I heard each word distinctly. The singer seemed to be standing or sitting near the tower, for the sounds indicated no change of place. . . .

Hardly knowing what I did, I opened the door. Why had I not done so before? I do not know.

-- George MacDonald, Phantastes

There's a subtle but discernible sense of frustration from the synchronicity fairies these days, as if they have been trying and trying for some time to nudge me into taking some particular decisive step, and I keep not doing it because, in my mortal obtuseness, I haven't the slightest idea what it is that I'm supposed to do. (Honestly, I don't think they know, either, which is why they can't spell it out for me.) And if the sync fairies ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Last night, a bit before two in the morning, I was out walking through the dark neighborhood, with the old Doors song "Break On  Through (To the Other Side)" running through my mind. The combination of the lyrics and the band name ("There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors") made me think of Mike Clelland's owl as a symbol on the door, "and EVERYTHING else is on that side of the door." At the very moment I was thinking that, I turned my head and saw this:

It's the front door of one of my neighbors. I've passed it thousands of times without ever noticing anything. Can you see what I saw last night -- the stylized form of an owl, complete with facial disks, ears, beak, and folded wings? -- and perhaps, dangling from the beak, a playful hint of a metal worm?

During my lunch break today, I read a bit from Clelland's book. Specifically, I read this:

I've listened to a lot of people tell their owl experiences, and even though these are just stories of people seeing a bird, they almost always get described as a blessing, an honor, a gift, or an outright spiritual event. Almost all the accounts I receive have a similar mystical undercurrent. For me, the consistency of these stories represents a kind of confirmation, that these experiences go way beyond just owls and tap into something much deeper.

In the afternoon, I opened an English textbook to see what pages I needed to assign for homework. The first page to assign was this one:

Clelland wrote that people always describe seeing an owl as "an honor." Here, on a English test, the word honor is missing from a sentence, and one of the possible choices to fill the gap is owl.

Just after writing the above, I had the sudden thought that I ought to do a one-card pull from the Rider-Waite deck -- but then I immediately thought, Why bother? I already know it's going to be the Eight of Wands (the decisive action, strike-while-the-iron-is-hot card), and that's not helpful.

I ended up doing the pull anyway, though, and surprised myself by getting not the Eight of Wands but the closely related Eight of Cups.

That's an interesting twist, anyway. The sync fairies always do have a few surprises up their sleeves. I'll have to think about that card for a while. For starters, what comes to mind is how much its mirror image suggests the Flammarion engraving.

I don't think I'd ever made that connection before. It seems obvious now.