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.

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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.

Michael the Archangel, the Nebra sky disc, and 132

In the comments to "The vesica piscis and the blue moon," Ben linked to the (reportedly miraculous) icon of Archangel Michael of Panormitas, apparently because the Sun's face on the Flammarion engraving reminded him of it.

The Flammarion engraving includes both this Sun and a crescent Moon, as does the Nebra sky disc -- which was in the post because Debbie had referred me to it in connection with a dream of hers that prominently featured the number 132.

Only later did Ben notice that Michael of Panormitas has a Sun and Moon on his breastplate:

I had never seen St. Michael portrayed this way -- it made me think of the Sun and Moon on the breastplate of Oswald Wirth's Emperor -- so I did some searching to see if I could find other instances. I found many -- all from Mexico, all based on this original painting by Maerten de Vos -- currently in St. Bonaventure Cathedral in Cuautitlán, Mexico.

Quoting an article I had linked to about the de Vos painting, Ben notes the similarity of Michael's cuirass to the Nebra sky disc.

"Fundamentally respecting the chromatic code reserved and required for the graphic representation of this member of the Catholic body of saints, the Archangel Michael is depicted dressed in a blue cuirass, adorned all over its surface with gold stars, accompanied by a sun and moon on his pectorals, the former on the right one the latter on the left. His armor is further embellished with ruffled orange-yellow sleeves that stick out from his undershirt, and an underskirt of the same color."

Sounds just like the Nebra sky disc.

Debbie found a reference to the oldest version of the Nebra sky disc having 32 stars, which was a possible link to her dream about the number 132. On the same day, I received an email also featured the number 132: "Hebrews 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

The allusion is to Abraham entertaining three guests prior to the destruction of Sodom. His guests are described only as "three men," but Jewish tradition, since at least the time of Rashi (1040-1105), identifies them as Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Two centuries after Rashi, Rabbi Jacob ben Asher solidified this tradition by pointing out that the Hebrew gematria value of "and lo three men" (Gen. 18:2) is 701, equal to that of "these are Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael."

So that's a fairly direct link between Michael the Archangel and 132.

The grizzly bear, six doors, and an owl

I will never understand how the YouTube algorithm works, but last night it decided (correctly, as it turns out) that I wanted to watch this:

The video is aptly summarized by one of the comments: "I like how it was acting so mischievous. 'I'm not doing anything... Just sniffin' the wind... But now I'M CHARGING- ok ok... Backing away... Or am I-? Yeah I am...'"

Today, I was reading -- well, you know by now what I was reading, right? Am I ever going to finish that book, you ask? According to Kindle, I'm 76% of the way there. In this passage, one of Clelland's contacts reports a dream:

The dream started in a bland suburban setting, and I was standing out in the driveway of a house that I assume was mine. The other homes were spaced sort of far apart, it was summer and the lawns were green. The sun was low in the sky and everything was calm. Then I saw there was a grizzle bear poking around on the lawn across the street. At first I didn't feel nervous or threatened, it was something amazing to see. Then this big thing was lumbering towards me, and I retreated into the garage.

I hurried into the house using the inside garage door, only to realize there were about six other doors all lined up. The bear came into the garage and tried to break through each door. The doors, from one to the other, got progressively more flimsy.

Suddenly I was hearing the hooting cry of an owl, steady and clear. I could hear it as this bear was pulling at this thin sheet of plywood with its claws.

It was at that point I woke up, but the hooting continued. I lay there in bed, with the pale light of dawn easing through the only window in my bedroom. I was hearing the unmistakable call of a great horned owl, and it must have been on the telephone pole right outside my window.

Let me state this clearly: A real owl woke me up right as a grizzly bear in my dream was about to rip down a door!

Like the video, this dream begins with the bear just "poking around" in a non-menacing way, and then it suddenly charges. I was also astonished to see a reference to six doors in this book about owls, since a restaurant called Six Owl Door (in English; just Six Doors in Chinese) recently entered the sync-stream.

Here is how Clelland's correspondent interpreted his dream:

This dream was awash in symbolism. Maybe the bear is the truth and the flimsy doors are the crumbling barriers between me and that truth? The owl was saying -- quite literally -- wake up! Bear is bare, the naked truth. Bear also means to suffer a burden. Anyway, this was sure how it felt.

Later the same day he received this account, Clelland heard from a friend who related a very similar grizzly bear dream he had dreamed the same night as the other person. There's no owl in this one, but the recurrence of the grizzly, the door, and the garage is uncanny.

This guy's dream starts in an idyllic forest where he sees a grizzly bear on the opposite side of a river, it's jsut sniffing around and he feels no threat. The whole scene is beautiful and majestic.

The next thing he remembers is a small house, he walks up to the side door and knocks on it. He peers through a window into the house and sees a tiny woman walking up to the door, and walking behind her is this massive grizzly bear. She opens the door and the bear comes outside. . . . He continues moving away, and the bear follows him and they both end up right in front of the garage. The bear has done nothing threatening, it is just lumbering along and sniffing around, but Jack is very aware of the danger. Then the bear looks up at him, he thinks, "Oh fuck!" and he wakes up.

"I'm not doing anything... Just sniffin' the wind... But now I'M CHARGING!"

The "tiny woman" who opens the door is an interesting point, too.

I have to be hinges or else I would flop

This dream was entirely auditory; the visual field was a featureless black. I heard the sound of a small group of children singing -- I would estimate that it was a group of seven or eight small boys, and I knew that one of them was myself as a small boy. We sang:

I'm all made of hinges 'cause everything bends
From the top of my head way down to my ends
I'm hinges at bottom, I'm hinges at top
But I have to be hinges or else I would FLOP!

I knew that we were singing this under the direction of some sort of very old nonhuman entity -- probably some kind of "gray alien" type of being, though it was covered in a big hooded garment that made it impossible to be sure. (I want to emphasize that I didn't see this in my dream but was aware of it as a sort of mental image or visual memory. I find it odd that even in a dream there is a difference between a mental image and a "real" one.)

As we sang, we danced around, bending all our joints as the lyrics suggest, and when we came to "FLOP!" we instantly let all our muscles go lax and, well, flopped. Somehow we were able to do this without falling to the ground, because we had practiced it many times under this being's direction.

(I, the dreamer/observer, was not dancing or flopping. The dream was as devoid of kinaesthetic sensation as of visual. I was simply aware that my very young self had done those things. Overall, the feeling was as if I were listening to an audio recording in a dark room, and the sound triggered a memory which brought back all the rest.)

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The song we sang is one commonly sung by very young Mormon children, from a children's poem by Aileen Fisher, the difference being that the real song ends "I'm hinges in front, and I'm hinges in back / But I have to be hinges or else I would CRACK!"

Thee two versions of the lyrics suggest two contrasting ways of not being "all made of hinges." A hinge is a specific point of articulation in an otherwise rigid structure. If we were entirely rigid, with no joints, we would crack. If we were endlessly flexible, with no rigid structure, we would flop.

The imagery of the dream clearly draws heavily on Whitley Strieber's book The Secret School, where children meet secretly at night in a "children's circle" supervised by the Sister of Mercy, an alien who wears a nun's habit to conceal her true form, and one of the things they learn is to dance.

Some hours after the dream, I realized that the idea of flopping also reminded me of something in The Secret School, and I thumbed through the book until I found it. It is a scene (p. 203) in which the young Whitley feels that he has traveled into the future and is watching television:

I saw children playing on a patio. They had floppy clothes on and black helmets that reminded me of the ones we wore in the secret school. These kids had dolls that looked like the Sister of Mercy. They were moving their arms very quickly and singing in shrill voices. I found this incredibly alarming, and was glad when the scene changed.

Dancing aliens also appear in the film Communion, recently mentioned in my post "Owls, aliens, Sesame Street muppets, and the Duke of Earl." In the movie, Whitley tells his wife that when he was with the aliens, "they danced." She asks, "What kind of dance?" Whitley bursts out laughing and says, "The bossa nova! How do I know?"

In my July 23 post "Break on through to the other side," I mentioned that the Doors song of that name had been running through my head. I looked it up on YouTube and listened to it. One of the comments below the video said "Bossa Nova + psychedelic rock = perfect sound."

I only have the vaguest idea of what bossa nova sounds like. ("The bossa nova! How do I know?") When I hear bossa nova, I think the Pixies.

Man, I'd forgotten how good the Pixies were. Now I can't stop listening to this one -- a song about a UFO landing, on an album called Bossanova.

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I've just discovered that Aileen Fisher, the author of "I'm All Made of Hinges," also wrote this:

And this:

Mr. Owl ate my abacus

All the recent owl syncs -- particularly those involving Mr. Owl eating things you might not have expected Mr. Owl to eat -- reminded me of this old cartoon I watched as a kid: a version of The Three Musketeers which, correcting this inexplicable lapse on Dumas's part, fills the owl-shaped hole in the original. It took some searching, but I finally dug it up. It's in French, but its genius transcends language. The part where the owl eats an abacus (certainly something Dumas would have included if he had thought of it) begins around the 29-minute mark. Be sure to keep watching at least until 32 minutes.

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."

The Green Door

I received an email from an anonymous stranger, about how some of my recent posts have tied in with synchronicities she has been experiencing regarding the Green Door.

She relates how she ran into a reference on a message board to "a glimpse behind the green door," which she said is "intelligence slang for restricted information and locations," and then later the same day overheard the 1956 pop song "Green Door," which was part of the soundtrack of a movie her housemate was watching. Looking up the song on Wikipedia, she discovered that it may have been inspired by the 1906 O. Henry story "The Green Door," about a man named, of all things, Rudolf Steiner.  Wikipedia opines that "O. Henry uses the eponymous green door as a symbol for everyday adventures which he encourages us to seek out," and the emailer said that my recent exploration of an abandoned restaurant (described in "Owl time, and cold noodles") seemed to be an example of that.

She can't have known, because I didn't mention it in my post, that in order to enter that restaurant I had had to pass through a literal green door.

My own syncs, of course, have not been about the Green Door but rather about the Owl Door. Nevertheless, I thought I might as well look up the O. Henry story and read it. When I ran a Google search on o henry the green door, one of the first results was this:

Apparently, Owl Eyes -- named after the Great Gatsby character -- is a website that has various literary texts with annotations. I had never heard of it until today.

My own first association when I hear "green door" is Bilbo Baggins. In the first chapter of The Hobbit, Gandalf "scratched a queer sign on the hobbit’s beautiful green front-door," later explaining that the sign meant "Burglar wants a good job, plenty of excitement and reasonable reward."

I suppose that by "breaking into" the abandoned restaurant, and even pilfering a few figs, I have officially become a burglar.

(Note: Original post modified after discovering that the anonymous emailer is actually female.)