G. Michael Vasey's Blog: The Wacky World of Dr. Vasey, page 11

Spring is on its way

Every day I walk the dog or myself around Špilbirk Castle. Im very fortunate to live just underneath it – at least for now. When my own place is ready, I will move away from it. I always feel liberated and rejuvenated up on the hill. It is often breezy and the views of the city and surrounding countryside are stunning. Today was no exception.

Today, though, I noticed for the first time that spring is arriving. Small blooms of orange, purple and white have appeared as if overnight. It makes one feel joyous somehow to see these small beautiful colorful flowers!

 

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Combined with the views, it made for an uplifting experience ad once again, I felt that connection to the land and to Živa and other aspects of the Goddess. In past this was also because the Moon – a half disk – was also visible though it is hard to see in the photo – it is there none the less.

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On one side of the Castle, the Sun was magnificent in the sky. He shone down on me, Rocky and Brno, peeking behind clouds. While on the other the Moon reflected its light on us too.

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Some days, it just feels soooo good to be alive!

 

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It’s Time for The Goddess to Return

For some time, I have wondered what is wrong with the world? This constant beat of fear and an almost collective wish to be annihilated at times. We drown in technology and that technology is used in many ways to drive the fear and the message home. With the idea of a climate crisis – that idea that we, humanity, are destroying the Earth, global political leadership fracturing into a sea of ego laden old men, and now a potential pandemic of a flu-like virus, it feels like a fire of calamity is upon us all. Then tonight, as I contemplated what I had learned about Slavic myth and the pantheon of deities they worshipped so far, a whole host of thoughts came rushing into my mind.

I think a major switch is occurring.

I think we are in the deepest depths of a patriarchal world and have gone far to an extreme. The balance has been lost for a thousand years or more already and perhaps we are now at that point of return? This was the thought that somehow placed itself in my head. I can’t fully explain how I got there to be honest but once I had, it seemed right.

We live in a world that is solar. It is black and white – a duality of ideologies. The harsh light of the Sun is burning rather than sustaining – causing a dry, arid, masculine heat. Meanwhile, the world of shades of grays and of reflection in which our emotional selves can be washed and cleaned. It has all but disappeared? The airy and the fiery have reached a maximum. I mean think about it… mankind has become obsessed with the idea that the planet is warming, burning even. The virus that we see sweeping the planet is one that causes fever, politics has become literally black and white – a duality of ideas with no compromise. In the US, the Dems are losing their identity as their hatred of Trump dictates everything. The right has lined up behind a monster. The very representative of all that is wrong about maleness unbalanced by femininity.

I suspect much of this is an illusion – it is brought into an extreme ‘light’ by the brightness of the solar maleness.  I can and will argue that climate change is normal, the virus has impacted very few people compared to the billions and billions who live on this planet, the old men that run everything (t doesn’t actually matter whether that is Sanders, Biden or Trump in the US does it? They are all masculine dried up old men), cannot remain in power long – they are not immortal.  So, it is as if not only do all the signs point to an airy, fiery moment in our world but those signs have been exaggerated as if by the harsh light of sunlit day.

For most of my adult life – certainly my magical life, I have sought out the goddess. I do not know why, but I have a sense of longing for the goddess. I have many images of goddesses scattered about my home. My inner contact identifies as female to me. The watery, earthy side of humanity has been not just been suppressed but brutally deprived of any recognition. The dry wizened old men took the voluptuous and at times brazen Goddess and they put her in a habit. They boiled her down to Mary, Mother of God, subservient to them and deprived her of any sexuality at all. In a sense, it seems symbolic of modern life.

 

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Even Eve is reviled…

The Moon is reflective and it goes through phases back and forth – a set of shades of grey. Ziva, the Slavic goddess, is the water of life – the waters of the womb where it is warm and dark. The lunar aspect is the emotional side of our lives. I’m not advocating switching one extreme for the other, but I am seeking the balance in between. We don’t need women trying to emulate men! We need women being women and bringing the feminine or lunar attributes to bear in all walks and levels of life. Men need to reconcile with their inner suppressed female side. We need to remember how to venerate the sacred feminine and bring the Goddess back into our daily lives. We need to see that things are shades of grey and that reflection is often better than either obsession or spotlighting. The cooling waters of reflection are needed to balance the burning sunlight of focus. We need to work on the emotional side of ourselves and not just on the ‘betterment’ of life the application of technology without consideration of its emotional and social impacts. It’s time for the Goddess to make a re-entry into all of our lives – in all of Her aspects.

I suspect it is just around the corner – if not already happening. I feel Her approaching. I hear Her laughter. She is in the forests, flowing in the streams, the eternal Mother is returning. And She is needed. I realized too what it I love about this country – the Czech Republic – the Slavic east – It’s that She is so close.

 

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Myth and Fairy Tale – A Slavic Angle

I have always adored myths and legends. Growing up, I was addicted to stories of the Greek Gods, King Arthur and other such tales. I also enjoyed fairy tales and read them avidly. My favorite was one called Rumpelstiltskin. Imagine being able to turn straw into gold? Just like an alchemist. Old Rumpelstilskin is depicted as an Imp or Goblin-type creature but the name is also reminiscent of the German words for a poltergeist. The girl eventually goes ‘deep’ into the woods where she watches him singing and reveals his name. According to some sources, this story or a variant of it could be up to 4,000 years old! Notice how the girl goes deep into the woods…..in order to earn the name of the Imp.

Fairy tales and myths are stories brought to us through the centuries and were often from a verbal origin. These tales were passed from generation to generation as an oral tradition before being collected and embellished in more recent times. They contain great wisdom and I happen to believe great ‘occult’ wisdom too. They appeal to all and provide a way and a means to pass on knowledge to each new generation.

Recently, it struck me that living in the Czech Republic, I am not so familiar with the Slavic fairy tales and myths. Yes, I have alluded to some in my short book of Czech ghost stories such as the founding myth in which three brothers cast out of their own land find and found the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia (Čech, Lech and Mech). I have watched the very many movies made locally that cover a lot of the more common fairy tales over and over again (It appears to be a Czech tradition to have these movies on TV every year at Christmas and other significant times). Yet, having lived here 14-years, I have little knowledge of the Slavic Gods nor the myths and legends of that culture. It is time I learned a little.

I suspect it was the visit to Hostyn that caused me to realize this. As I searched to try to explain to my own satisfaction why an image of the baby Jesus was depicted like Zeus, I reached out to Sue Vincent and Stuart France. They pointed to a Celtic deity synonymous with Zeus and that was the link to Perun, the sky God of the Slavs. In turn, this led to the tales of the duality of Perun and Veles like this account from wkipedia……

“In Slavic mythology, much like in Norse and Baltic mythologies, the world was represented by a sacred tree, usually an oak, whose branches and trunk represented the living world of heavens and mortals, whilst its roots represented the underworld, i.e. the realm of the dead. Perun was the ruler of the living world, sky and earth, and was often symbolised by an eagle sitting on the top of the tallest branch of the sacred tree, from which he kept watch over the entire world. Deep down in the roots of the tree was the place of his opponent, symbolised by a serpent or a dragon: this was Veles, watery god of the underworld, who continually provoked Perun by creeping up from the wet below up into the high and dry domain of Perun, stealing his cattle, children, or wife. Perun pursued Veles around the earth, attacking him with his lightning bolts from the sky. Veles fled from him by transforming himself into various animals, or hiding behind trees, houses, or people; wherever a lightning bolt struck, it was believed that this was because Veles hid from Perun under or behind that particular place. In the end, Perun managed to kill Veles, or to chase him back down into his watery underworld. The supreme god thus reestablished order in the world, which had been disrupted by his chaotic enemy. He then returned to the top of the World tree and proudly informed his opponent down in the roots “Well, there is your place, remain there!” (Ну, там твое место, там сабе будь!). This line came from a Belarusian folk tale. To the Slavs, the mythological symbolism of a supreme heavenly god who battles with his underworldly enemy through storms and thunder was extremely significant.

While the exact pantheon characterization differed between the various Slavic tribes, Perun is generally believed to have been considered as the supreme god by the majority, or perhaps by nearly all Slavs, at least towards the end of Slavic paganism. The earliest supreme god was probably Rod; it is unclear precisely how and why his worship as the head of the pantheon evolved into the worship of Perun.”

 

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Perun

 

And in that few words, we can see immediately a solar and a seasonal aspect to this myth as well as even perhaps a tree of life? Interesting too that the underworld God Veles is symbolized by a dragon or serpent representing earth energies? Interesting also that his world is watery. Meanwhile, Perun is airy representing the sky and upper world and fiery by virtue of the weapons at his disposal – so we have also four elements. The story also hints of finding balance between the elements as does the hexagram which is nothing but a representation of the four elements at a minimum. So there is also an As above, So below here. You see, there is so much occult knowledge communicated in just this paraphrasing of the myth, one has to marvel at our ancestors.

 

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Veles

 

Now even before I really began, I can see some really intriguing elements to these Slavic Gods. The symbol for Perun is a Haxagon…. In their eternal battle, Perun is often depicted on horseback lancing Veles depicted as a dragon or serpent……. Now, where have I seen that image before?

 

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8th Century image of Perun defeating Veles

 

So, in addition to exploring the land in search of earth energies in my adopted land, I am now wanting to explore Slavic myth, legend and fairy tale to try to understand how they – the Slavs who occupied this part of the world, saw the land that they had adopted when standing on the mount north of Prague called Mount Říp. Here, the three Slavs Čech, Lech and Mech, looked over the lands they would adopt and inhabit… so the myth says.

 

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Mount Říp

 

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Hostýn – Jesus as Perun?

I recently wrote a blog about Hostýn and noted that the imagery was, well, a bit strange.

 

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Mary and child (Zeus?) on front of Basilica

First, we have ‘Mary’ standing on the crescent moon depicted as a lunar goddess – actually something you see a lot in this part of the world – but then what is going on with baby Jesus? At the time, I pointed to Zeus as a possible analogy.

Well, after some input from Sue Vincent and Stuart France, I was led to the Slavic God named Perun. He is the god of the sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, war, fertility and oak trees in the Slavic pantheon. Having come up with that name, I googled it along with ‘Hostýn’ and I found myself back on the monument’s website and an obscure page there where Google translated the following;

“One of the most beautiful and mythical hills not only of Moravia is Hostýn. It has attracted the incoming since time immemorial. The first experiments with iron were performed by people of Silesian-Platenian culture, the Celts had the largest Moravian oppidum. The Slavs also liked here, in the 12th century Czech princes built border fortifications. The most famous story relates to the Tatar invasion and the images and sculptures depicting this legendary event can be seen today in the Hostýn Church of Our Lady.

In the 13th century Tatar troops stopped under Hostýn. A few months ago, she had defeated the flourishing of European knighthood in Poland, and now it seemed that nothing was in their way to the Atlantic. But in Hostýn, she arranged a higher power in the form of a miraculous storm and floods, and the Tatar hordes were turned to a humiliating escape. The storytellers sing about the originator of the miracle according to who they are eating. The remnants of the pagans, the survivors of the peaceful Christian mission, thanked Perun, the Catholics did not allow the Virgin Mary. Without any imagination, materialists point to the possibility of torrential rain, a heat storm, an earthquake, or a sand or snowstorm. Nihilists, historians and other spoilers even doubt that there has ever been a battle. Let’s do it.

Later, the Church of Our Lady was built on Hostýn (Catholics won it), a monastery, a chapel, and Stations of the Cross. The famous pilgrimage site was established here. Pilgrims attracted a number of vendors, stalls were built along the stone staircase, then the hotel. On the former Celtic acropolis tower rises, a few years ago it was overtaken by a wind power plant.”

 

The bolding is mine. As I related in the original article, the myth of the founding of the place goes back to this supposed battle with the Tartar army and a miracle that was said to occur at that time…

“In the 13th century, and this is a historical fact, the Tartars launched an attack on Moravia. The townspeople took to the hills, to the site of an ancient Celtic settlement mainly because it had defences and a water supply. Besieged by the Tartars, the inhabitants prayed to the Virgin Mary. Their prayers were answered. A storm broke out and lighting struck the tent of the Tartar leader, killing him instantly. The invading army decided to no longer pursue the inhabitants and fled.”

 

Well, this is all very well but back in those times, christianization of the region had only been partially successful. While the aristocracy may well have been devout christians, the ordinary people had a reputation for clinging to their Slavic roots …. and Gods. In fact, a Slavic christian church was in existence that in effect, tried to have its cake and eat it too. As wikipedia states…

“Many elements of the indigenous Slavic religion were officially incorporated into Slavic Christianity,[2] and, besides this, the worship of Slavic gods has persisted in unofficial folk religion until modern times.[5] The Slavs’ resistance to Christianity gave rise to a “whimsical syncretism” which in Old Church Slavonic vocabulary was defined as dvoeverie, “double faith”.[1] Since the early 20th century, Slavic folk religion has undergone an organised reinvention and reincorporation in the movement of Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery).”

 

So could that solve the mystery? Could it be that in a nod to Slavic paganism, the catholic church has adopted an image that shows the Slavic God Perun as the baby Christ? And if it had, wouldn’t that simply be an extension of the “double faith” discussed in the wikipedia article above? I also find it interesting that the miracle points to a miraculous storm… brought on by Perun, the God of Thunder and the skies and the God of the Slavs.

 

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Mary and child within the water chapel

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Success is Elusive?

There are people who do something once and bang…. they find fame, fortune and success of that type. There are others who work diligently yet never gain any recognition. I have often wondered what drives this? What is the secret to finding commercial success? Yes, I wouldn’t mind a bit of it as I approach my retirement years. Actually, I have a had a lot of career success but a couple of major failed relationships have left me with very little and so, from time to time, I wish one of my hobbies might take off a bit and provide me with more income.

But what is success?

I tend to think of success initially in materialistic terms. It made me money, gained me some fame or notoriety and so on. Actually, success can be defined in many other ways.

I take it as success that I have had a few hit books on Amazon….. even that I have written books at all. I think I have around 40 books out. That, is in itself, an achievement.

 

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Getting to #1 on Amazon is fun and an achievement…

 

Then there is music. Making records – learning how to record, mix music, get it released and see people play it. That’s success too isn’t it?

 

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Over 8,000 plays on Spotify for Far Away…

 

But, I can’t help myself. Now its photos, my book reviews and associated site, this blog, My Haunted Life Too blog and so on and on….. I just keep going and going. And while I have succeeded in doing these things – in ways that I could never have imagined – wouldn’t it be nice to have a run away success. A song that gets 1 million plays or a book that sells 100,000 copies or even a book review site that gets 1000’s of visitors a day?

I’m not even sure how that happens.

And if it did, what would it do to me? Make me want to repeat it but bigger? Yes – most likely.

I really enjoy doing these things. I enjoy that I can do them! The world is full of people who do not have the luxury of being able to do these things and for many reasons from poverty to illness or access or whatever. I am grateful for what I have been able to do and how successful I have been….

I have sold over 17,000 books. But the income from that isn’t very much and the sales from each book slowly fade away meaning another is required. There are days and weeks when my songs never get played. I have yet to sell a photograph. The traffic from my best trafficked site has yet to produce $100 in google ad revenues…..

The lesson I have learned is that turning the success of achievement – doing something you thought beyond you – into money and fame is a very rare and elusive thing….. it seems to occur accidentally to some and others, well they sell their souls really and I don’t see that as a fair cost for the return.

Hey – I’m only 60. There is plenty of time yet …. so I will keep pushing it out happily, enjoying the fact that I can.

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Dreams within dreams

I have the most amazingly detailed dreams. Every morning I wake up with some memory of these nightly travels and sometimes, I lay back in awe at just how detailed they are. Am I living two lives at once? Some people see dreams as the subconscious working out issues and even say that without this nightly relief valve, we would lose our marbles. Others see deep meaning in these dreams to be deciphered and chased recording the dreams on awakening in an attempt to recall them more fully. Perhaps others might see them as fragmentary memories of another life in a parallel universe. I have no preference for any of the above ideas. But I do have to marvel at the act of dreaming.

There must be a part of memory dedicated to our dream life for periodically, I dream of this castle come stately home. It is a very large rambling building that has been constructed at various times in history. It has ancient parts of brand new ultra modern bits. It has parts so old, they are now ruins of a former glory. Each time I dream of this place I am thrilled by the place. It is somehow precious to me and I have dreamed of living there – in a small set of rooms – in the past. There are places in that building that I am more familiar with than the place I live in now. I dreamt of it again a few nights ago and awoke deeply saddened that I could not actually live there. I have often wondered if this place is a representation of me as a spiritual creature perhaps having lived many lives through time each represented as an add on to the original and now ruined parts of the building? I do not know.

The other morning I awoke though from a dream with a different sense of dreaming. In this instance, the interaction with a person in my dream left me in no doubt that deep in my psyche, I am wounded and still in pain. The wound is deeply hidden, even ignored as irrelevant at this stage in my life yet waking up from that dream, I realized I was still pained and wounded. As I lay rubbing sleep from my eyes, I wondered what I needed to do to heal and the answer was a strange one. Nothing. I can only be the way I am with the person I dreamt about and wait to see if I will ever figure out the circumstances that caused my hurt.

I realized that I am a wounded King. Not just this wound and pain but a whole litany of them. I suspect we all are even if we do not know it. It is how I chose to view the wound that I think counts though. Is the wound festering? Gangrenous and life threatening? or, is more of a cross I need to bear? In this instance, it is more a cross I need to bear I think until such time as I can come to an understanding of it and truly let it go. It is a hurt that doesn’t cause me daily pain nor does it ask for revenge nor eat at me insidiously coloring my life negatively. At least I think and hope it does not. I do not need to hide from it in sorrow, drink or drugs…. I must just watch and learn and try to understand forgiving myself and the person involved. I must understand you see. I must learn.

When I dream of that wonderful building, I see and sense areas of darkness and sorrow. Places that are unfinished. I suspect these are the parts of me where I am carrying a wound. As I look at the building, I realize also it has a history that goes back into the farthest reaches of time. It may even be timeless existing in another world – my inner world. And, as I awoke the other morning with momentary tears in my heart, I also knew what it means to say time is a great healer. For in time, I will understand, reconcile and heal. There is no point in forcing it. The building has a plan and it will be finished according to that plan.

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Hostýn and a Strange Image of Jesus

Last weekend I managed a quick trip out to Hostýn about 100km from Brno.

Svatý Hostýn or St.Hostýn is a hill in Moravia and a place of devotion to Mary. As per Wikipedia….

According to a traditional legend, first recorded in 1665 by the writer Bohuslav Balbín in his work Diva Montis Sancti, during the disastrous raid of the “Tartars” in the 13th century, people who were seeking asylum here lacked water and they prayed Mary for help. It is said that a stream of water came out of the ground and a powerful storm forced Tatars to retreat.

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The basilica

 

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Basilica

That being what it may be, the site is very ancient and was once perhaps a Celtic fortress or settlement of some kind. Another article I found states that…

Hostýn is also a very important archaeological site. The first mention of it dates back to the middle of the 16th century and it is written about Hoštejn. Later archaeological findings, however, confirmed that approximately two hundred years BC, the Celts settled in the place. There was always water in Hostýn, so they could set up a settlement on its top. Moreover, it was also a safe place, the top of the hill was already surrounded by a massive protective wall.

It was built by people about 1500 years BC. The technique used to build the wall is interesting. They allegedly deposited piles of stones, covered them with clay and then burned them. The process was repeated in several more layers. This made the stone wall perfectly solid. In the 19th century, the wall was noticed by the church historian Béda Dudík and he discovered that it was 1825 meters long and was interrupted in places where there were gates.

The construction followed terrain unevenness, so it was reportedly up to 13 meters wide and 15 meters high in some sections. The Val na Hostýně is still visible today. The Celts from the rampart built an opidum, and from this position they could control movement on the Amber Trail that passed through the region.

According to researchers, the Celtic period is the most famous era of the prehistoric settlement of Hostýn. They still find the remains of their activities. In addition to typical ceramics, amber jewelry, whorls from looms and even hut foundations. A small Celtic water reservoir has been preserved. Originally it was a place with more springs. It was not until the end of the 17th century that a water chapel with a cellar was built around the modified main spring.

Water was collected into it and then flowed back into nature through free spouts. When at the beginning of the 20th century began to build a religious-accommodation complex in Hostýn, the whole spring was rebuilt and the water outlets were separated in two levels. Pilgrims in the upper took water as sacred, on the lower floor they washed their feet because most of them went barefoot to Hostýn.

 

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Basilica door – energy line runs straight into this…

 

So, the water plainly wasn’t anything to do with Mary. It was always there. Wikipedia also makes this quite clear…

The first medieval chapel of Virgin Mary was probably built by the miners and was first mentioned in 1544 without any reference to the legend, which probably originated from the existence of massive walls, chapel and spring near the hilltop. At the time when the legend was first mentioned by Bohuslav Balbín (1665), it was a clear analogy to the contemporary war with the Turks. After another successful war against Turks there were an increasing number of pilgrims visiting Hostýn, so a new basilica was built in 1721–1748 together with Via Crucis, the pilgrims’ hospice and other facilities.[3]

Another chapel was built next to the spring of “holy water”, which was believed by locals to possess a healing effect. This led to the nickname “Moravian Lourdes” for Hostýn. A 240-step stairway from the spring to the basilica was constructed in 1909.

In 1903 new open-air Stations of the Cross were built by the architect Dušan Jurkovič, and are now a major tourist attraction for the region, together with the basilica itself, attracting not only Catholic pilgrims but thousands of other tourists. The largest crowds at the site were in August 1912, when the main statue of Virgin Mary was crowned by the golden crown blessed in Rome by Pius X. The number of pilgrims and other visitors was estimated to be 200,000 within ten days.

 

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The water chapel

 

The day we visited it was really really windy and that wind was biting cold. It was also a Sunday, so I didn’t get into the basilica because there was a service going on. I did take my rods and did detect an energy line going straight into the front door and passing directly through the water temple lower down the hill but the cold wind made my hands so cold, I didn’t persist with the rods. For me, the place lacked the presence I had hoped for until sitting in front of the well – more on that below. In fact, as is typical with many Catholic sites, it’s all rather tacky and commercial with lots of small huts selling everything from plastic rosaries and crucifixes to sausages with ketchup! Despite that, the basilica is beautiful indeed and well worthy of a future visit in warmer weather.

It was actually down the hill a bit that we found the water temple. Dedicated to Mary, there is a real energy there that put the hair on the back of my neck on notice. It is sited on a natural spring and a variety of taps, sinks and so on allow you to take some of the water which is clean, ice cold and nice to drink. It is said to have healing properties and I would not at all be surprised as the place is pulsating with earth energies. I collected a bottle worth while others came with plastic gallon tanks and filled them up to the top.

 

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Mary and child within the water chapel

What puzzled me most was the way in which Mary and child Jesus are depicted. Mary stands afoot a large crescent moon and in the hand of the baby Jesus is a strange device from which emanates lightning. I have seen this device and lightening before….. Zeus. To me, there is something strange about the place. This is to me not Jesus but Zeus depicted here. I found a reference to this strange depiction by a devout Catholic who said they had seen nothing like it except in one small village in south America. So it seems a pretty rare way to depict the Mother and Child – at least in christianity.

 

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Mary and child (Zeus?) on front of Basilica

 

According to the history of the Gods, “Zeus’ father, Cronus, had castrated and deposed his own father, Uranus, who personified the sky in Greek mythology.  And Cronus had then topped that act by gobbling up most of his own children.   Zeus was rescued from his siblings’  fate when his  mother saved him by tricking his father into swallowing a stone instead of her infant son.  After he grew up, he rescued his brothers and sisters and went to war against his father.”

 

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Statue of Zeus holding thunderbolt – identical to that depicted above

I came away a bit puzzled by the place honestly and determined to revisit it. While I was there, I had Mary Magdalene in my mind the entire time as opposed to Mary, Mother of Jesus. Plainly, this site is one of feminine Earth and Water energies and is associated with healing. Anyone with any thoughts, please do let me know….

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Basilica

 

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Water well

 

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Wanna Buy A Photo??

A couple of years ago, my friend here in Brno – Walter Novak – a quite famous photographer in the USA – gave me some tips on taking photos. I started shooting things with my iphone that I thought interesting. It might be a sunset between buildings, an unusual view of the familiar, an unusual street lamp or anything like that. I then use a tool he shared with me to process it a bit and in as a creative ay as possible. The results I think, have been pretty good.

As I collected all of these photos, I inevitable wondered what to do with them? I wanted to put them in an album online but couldn’t ind anything that worked well enough and didn’t cost a grand. Then I saw an ad on facebook – sell your photos! – it said. I took a look and realized here was a way to keep my photos in one place, allow access to them and perhaps even make a little pocket money in the process. After all one or two people had told me – wow – I’d buy that! So, that is what I have done. If you click on My Photography on the menu – you will be taken to where I am slowly uploading my photos…. and you can even buy one if you so chose.

To whet your appetite, here are a few images….

 

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Images © Gary M. Vasey

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Jammin’

My oldest son visited a week ago from Austin. We had a great time and it was so good to see him and see what a fine young man he is. Paul was always an amazing guitarist and so one night we got talking guitar. He ended up overlaying one of my songs with his guitar work – the result is out on Spotify today and all other music outlets. It’s a real rocker. It’s Out There is one of my favorite songs (of mine) and his guitar work just elevates it another level. Give it a listen…

For good measure, I asked my daughter to add to the backing vocals too so its a family effort.

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Proven? It’s a Theory….

Somehow, the idea that science is proven or settled has become a thing in recent times. I’m not just talking climate – I’m talking about science in general and how it is portrayed by the media in particular. “Settled, done, dusted…..” Er – nope.

The scientific method is very specific. It is an approach that goes like this….

– Observe and collect data,

– Create a theory to explain the observed data,

– Invite criticism via a peer review process of the theory, and

– Model the theory and make predictions based upon it that can be validated.

Essentially, this process calls for continual iterations of a theory until such time as it no longer serves and is replaced with another. Notice the use of the word THEORY. All science is theory. Once Newton’s theories were the order of the day and then Einstein came along and now his theorems are the generally used ones but, as one scientists put it, they are becoming frayed at the edges.’

When the papers say ‘scientists say…’ it should more accurately say ‘Scientists hypothesize….’

It’s the missing word – theory. And not enough people understand science to know it’s just a theory.

I engaged in some banter on the comments of a youtube video recently – I made the statement science was never settled and was laughed at by one commentator who postulated that I was writing my comment on proven science….i.e. internet and computers. I can understand how people can hold such an incorrect view. But, we have a theory how electrons flow and what they are. We do not know for sure. Some postulate that electrons are particles, others that they are waves and yet others both. In recent years, alternate theories have been put forward including that everything is sound. The fact is we don’t know for sure. We do know however, that if you use this phenomena in certain ways, you can write comments on a board on the internet. Still, the science of how isn’t settled and never will be.

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