The Orange Lodge

Chapter House 19

I’m not sure where this all began, but I’ll peg August 21, the day of the Great American Eclipse. That was the day I went to seek therapy about symptoms of depression. I was there at the clinic at the exact time of the eclipse, and I joined some of the staff out on the sidewalk to view the historic event. At least I could be assured that they had the medically approved eye protection, which they kindly shared. 

I hadn’t really planned the visit for that exact date, because the first date offered was Sept. 11 and I felt that I didn’t want my reach-out for therapy to get all synced up with 9/11, so I chose the next one offered, not yet knowing the signs and portents of that day.

My therapy “intake” interview was on Sept. 19. That’s when they get their first look at me, and I sign a bunch of release forms. As I was signing, the case worker volunteered: “Today is the 19th, which is also my dog’s birthday. I have no idea why I just said that.”

I replied: “Well that’s odd, because today is also my dog Oliver’s birthday”. 

Twin dogs, twin stars. Birthdays. It reminded me of Sirius, the “dog star”, which is actually two stars: Sirius A and Sirius B.

My first actual therapy appointment wasn’t scheduled until Sept. 27, and on Sept. 25 I had a dream:

I was a fraternity brother. I was attempting to get all the bro’s packed and ready, we were going on a road trip or something. I was half naked, with nothing on but trainers and an orange polo shirt. It didn’t feel unusual, I wasn’t embarrassed - apparently this was normal attire in this frat. I ran from floor to floor organizing the guys. I paused once at a hall mirror to look at myself critically, because I didn’t really like the shirt and was considering what to wear on the trip. I decided to keep the orange polo shirt after all, it looked good on me.

Fireman

On the 27th I went to meet my new therapist. She was late, so I got to peruse a nice children’s picture book about life in the middle ages, at a baron’s castle. All the soldiers wear the coat of arms of the baron’s family. When I sat down to meet my therapist in her office, her first act was to offer me an orange.

This reminded me of the House of Orange-Nassau, and I considered that orange was the signature color of my dream fraternity.

Fire-lion

On Sept. 30 I read Fraternity Rituals - a homoerotic story set in the basement of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. Have I mentioned yet that I was a Kappa Sig? Though I don’t recall initiation rituals quite like this one.

On Oct. 3, I had another appointment about my depression, and I was given an orange-flowered pen with which to fill out the questionnaire. Note the 3/17 sync.

Then my own birthday arrived on Oct. 11. It was uneventful (besides having dinner at Syren’s Grill) except that  an old frat brother of mine called to wish me a happy birthday. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in over 15 years.

As it turns out, the fraternal order of the Freemasons revere Sirius, they call it the Blazing Star. It shows up in a lot of occult art: the stairway to Sirius.

Note the checkerboard motif as well.

I was also visiting Home Depot a lot because I’m building a small boat in my garage and I’m always scouting for tools and materials. Being duly sensitized to orange via my dream, I notice the signature color of this hardware store. And the orange aprons.

On the square

Masons are famous for their aprons.

Pyramid schemes

So then October 31 rolls around: Halloween. Can’t really think about Halloween without orange.

And on that day, an orange aproned Home Depot rental truck with a large “19” painted on the side, driven by a fellow wearing a black and white checkerboard shirt, plowed into a crowd of Halloween revelers in Tribeca Manhattan, killing 8. 

I note the orange-aproned truck was heading directly toward Ground Zero. Can’t escape the 911 Sync Hole after all.

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Notes:

Christopher Knowles and his Secret Sun has been all over the color orange lately.

Just to fuck with me: Orange Porsche 911 w/ balkenkreuz at Bring a Trailer on 10/31/17.

Sync Tides

Friday's child is full of woe

I think it started a few days ago when I heard a track from Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon playing in some store  and hummed a few bars. Or maybe it started when I happened upon this lovely schooner at the dock named Freda B. (Friday is named after Freda or Freyja, Freia).

Then I got a moon ad this morning via MyFonts news:

But then it got personal, because I got a total bill of $237 at Costco today.

237 is one of the strongest sync attraction numbers, thanks to Stanley Kubrick. His films have been sync analyzed to death, however most agree that Room 237 in The Shining refers to the moon (237,000 miles being the average distance of the moon from the earth), and in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the alien artifact known as the “monolith” is discovered on the dark side of the moon.

This Friday, or Freda’s day, we will witness a “super-moon” that is completely dark. A new moon at perigee.

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Notes:

Googling “Friday’s Child” I get the eponymous Star Trek episode guest-starring Julie Newmar as the pregnant queen:

The episode's title is derived from a traditional English poem, known as "Monday's Child". The reference is to a line in the poem: "Friday's child is full of woe". Within the episode, the significance is in the unborn child of the planet's murdered ruler, whose prospects of being born depend upon the outcome of Captain Kirk's mission.

The odd thing is that Friday’s child is loving and giving, not full of woe, as Star Trek would tell it. That is Wednesday’s child. Be that as it may, the sync is Julie Newmar, AKA Catwoman. I can’t tell you how many black cat syncs I’ve had lately, and she is certainly one of the most famous. 

Continuing on Star Trek, we note that a black cat is served as “Isis” in the episode Assignment Earth, featuring an alien come to earth to to save mankind from ourselves, so to speak.

Freyja's chariot is pulled by two cats.

6/24 marks the 70th anniversary of the first recorded UFO sighting in Washington State near Mt. Rainier by private pilot Kenneth Arnold. 

The Missing Link

Taking care of the neighbor’s dog this week. We were given the Missing Link.

I enjoyed the Dogon, dog star, Sirius symbolism of it. The thing is, to a web designer a link is a gate or portal to another website. It’s  instantaneous teleportation through time and space. The original name of a web link is an “anchor” tag, shortened to <a>. It’s the foundation of the web: the most important aspect. 

Today I walked the dog by a lovely piece of garden art for sale. It featured an anchor in the very center of a glass pentacle. I wondered… if I pick it, will it transport me to Sirius?

The Fifth Element

Been awhile since there has been a post here. Thought I'd change that today. Fool's day and all.

I have this weird thing going on right now because I’ve realized that most of the movies that resonate for me are, in one way or another, a story about the discovery of an all-powerful entity or device that is variously called anti-matter, the tesseract, zero point energy, the god particle, the holy grail, or the fifth element. 

And I have long felt that this secret lies within. Not in mega collective projects, but within our very own skins and minds. We contain that god particle in our selves - no giant machine is necessary unless you believe that a giant machine is necessary - then it is.

Faith is important here. That’s why the Church is important, because it demands faith in something unseen. Technology and movies have replaced the church in the faith business, because their burnt offerings are more “believable”. But it doesn’t remove the centrality of a collective faith as the engine behind it all. If Jesus replaced Zeus, and was then replaced by Science, they are still all birds of a feather - in that they are attempts to explain the inexplicable with absolutes. 

“Thus sayeth the Science!”

Science is a harsh god. It is devoid of empathy or pity to mortals. Or even miracles, unless you think on scales of millions of years. At least Zeus or Jesus was said to listen to prayers. But if your god is a machine then it can’t listen, can it? Oh but wait, now our machines can listen, so now god can listen too. We just need programmers.

It’s rather pathetic. We invent the gods we can believe in. We used to believe in Gods and Titans, and then it was heroes and sacrificial saviors, and now “god” is just cosmic machinery that is programmed by beta-tested belief systems from Hollywood.

It makes me wonder. is the entire universe a faith-based proposition? Do we need to believe in it for it to exist? And what happens when our belief ends? 

“The real world begins where your belief ends.”
-Phillip K. Dick