The Root of All Goodness

The 32nd Port Townsend Kinetic Sculpture Race went on last weekend. This year’s theme was Mythos: Gods and Goddesses, so of course it was syncy as hell. I have pics of Zeus, Aphrodite, Hades, Isis, The Unknown God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but for me the best kinetic sculpture was The Almighty Dollar.

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. ~1 Timothy 6:10

The curious thing about the dollar is that its symbol is a snake on a staff, which is also the symbol of Asclepius, the Greek God of medicine.

The myth of Asclepius tells us:

Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt because he raised Hippolytus from the dead and accepted gold for it. ~ wikipedia

This is fascinating, considering our own medical “industry” is all about the gold, and not so much about the healing, except as a way to get… more gold! That’s just the way it is in the land of the Almighty Dollar.

It is not clear why snakes are sacred to Asclepius and to healing:

In honor of Asclepius, a particular type of non-venomous snake was often used in healing rituals, and these snakes — the Aesculapian Snakes — slithered around freely on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept.

However, in shamanic visions, a snake-like character is often described. I’ve seen them myself.

To many occult researchers, the serpent, and especially the intertwined snakes of the Hermetic staff, represent the double helix of our own DNA. If you subscribe to the idea of consciousness being far greater than mere human synapse firing, but something ingrained into the fabric of the universe itself, then it is not so far-fetched to suppose that our DNA has an encoded intelligence, a “library” of information that would make the Library of Alexandria pale in comparison. And this just might be the source of shamanic healing of which Asclepius and his staff are a symbol.

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Notes:

In the short story "The Two Temples" by Herman Melville, the narrator, hired by a lady as a personal physician, describes his job as "the post of private Æsculapius and knightly companion."

I wonder… if you ritually burn a dollar bill, can you release Asclepius from his curse?

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UPDATE: 10/15/14

I read an article in the library about a shortage of snake anti-venom, especially the coral snake, because it was not profitable for pharmaceutical companies to produce it. This syncs fairly hard on the myth of Moses and the brazen serpent.

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UPDATE: 10/16/14

Well, that was weird. Mom asked us to burn some old financial records on the beach, since they no longer needed to be kept. We lit a bonfire, and many printed $ snake signs went up in flames this afternoon. There were many medical bills and receipts in the fire, and old bank statements. The conversation around the fire turned to medical issues of friends and family that were on our minds. It became a sort of fire side lament.

So somehow, we acted out the ritual I had described just above, even though I never goaded, suggested or even hinted that any of this should, or even could, occur.

The Year of Healing

With all the rumors of government conspiracy and god only knows what else, I thought it might be a good idea to focus on who really calls the shots in Washington DC and just about everywhere else:

The Almighty

The Man: He's not much, just looking at him, really just a paper tiger, but everything from birth to death to taxes is valued in dollars - the global fiat currency. He's the machinery behind every transaction from a street corner meth deal to the Wall St. loan shark bankers. And it all goes round and around thanks to a little scrap of paper encoded with the most magically powerful of symbols.

Much sync treasure has been mined from the symbols printed on the dollar, perhaps the most successful magical working - ever. A lot of magic is the art of imparting archetypal power to a physical object, and with the pyramid, all seeing eye, phoenix and all the rest, we can see quite a few of those archetypes inked onto the dollar bill.

The reason the dollar is green is that according to meta-accountants, every dollar bill loaned out is fertile seed, like a green bud of potential profit cast out to the winds. The "good seed" will return to the banker, with interest attached. How Pharaoh Osiris.

The $ sign is an S over a vertical bar: the serpent and staff of Asclepius, the divine physician. Also the brazen serpent of Moses.

Asclepius is the Greek god of health and healing. He is the son of Apollo, the Greek sun-god. His mother died when he was still in her womb and he cried out when her body was placed on the funeral pyre. Apollo cut the womb and pulled the unborn child out and declared that this son of his, Asclepius, would be responsible for the human fight against disease and death.

There is a more than a little irony between this ancient symbol of healing and the unfortunate truth that the dollar is the single most likely culprit behind global warming, deforestation, species extinction and war. Every detective always says, "follow the money".



One myth says Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt because he raised Hippolytus from the dead and accepted gold for it. What a curious thing, this power of healing connected to the power of money. These days, every physician and pharmaceutical company accepts gold, and plenty of it, for their healing powers. I wonder, is Asclepius still paying for his sin?

Anyway, it's got me to wondering. If Asclepius (hissing sounds, anyone?), the snake on a staff, is the god of healing (and more than that, the god of creative potential energy), and yet his symbol is associated magically with the Gaia destroying power of the American dollar, then something is seriously out of whack. It's almost as if Asclepius is held in some kind of bondage, that makes him work his powers of healing for the dollar bill, and the dollar bill, only.

I found inspiration in the American eagle - really a phoenix. I was driving by a strip mall last weekend and saw "Phoenix Games", with the flaming bird on the window. Can I release Asclepius from his bondage by another magical act - a ritual burning? Can I purify his symbol, by renouncing my claim check?

Releasing Asclepius from bondage

Today, I discovered 2013 is the Chinese year of the snake. I know it sounds presumptuous, but I declare 2013 the year of Asclepius, the year of healing.

Watching For Snakes

I’ve always been interested in time travel sci-fi and alternate realities. In most time travel fiction, the paradox of meeting yourself is solved by spontaneous destruction - or something similar. Yet in the latest Star Trek, Spock meets his elder self, and lives to tell. Sorry to go on so much about Star Trek, just be glad I haven’t yet seen Avatar!

I find this idea very intriguing. Is there an “older and wiser” version of my self in an alternate universe? Glad you asked! According to Charles Burke:

Physicists and mystics agree that all of time co-exists simultaneously. The way we experience time, with one moment following another moment after another moment, is (they say) an illusion. In reality, all moments of time are hanging around together, and our consciousness is threading its way through and among those moments of time. 

This concept is consistent with the “frozen time block” experience of Salvia Divinorum and Shamanic ritual that engender an “ego-death” experience. Ego-death is the destruction of the illusion created by our experience of individual (egoic) consciousness, which is threading its way through and among the frozen time blocks - like a snake.

They also say that there are an infinite number of variations of each possible moment. That's what they call "parallel universes" in the science fiction movies. As it turns out, those parallel universes are not actually science fiction after all. They're really there-the physicists say so. We just can't usually see them.

Hmmm. My egoic experience appears to be limited to one time block at a time. Sorta like this Apple Cover Flow™ feature on my iMac - here showing one file at a time in a seamless flow from one to the next, sorta like a movie? (hella snake, btw) Curiously, the apple is associated with the snake and the tree of knowledge. Is this “snake” my own ego, navigating (scheming) itself from one time-block to another, always on the look out for an upgrade? Funny how upgrades always cost you money.

This synchs very strongly with the series of events from the infamous Dreams of Future Past, where the middle dream featured a snake-like movie house usher. Perhaps this “movie house” represents the illusion of egoic perception? The downside is that ego consciousness always ends with death... every movie comes to an end. And maybe that’s what the story of Moses and his brazen serpent was all about:

And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Numbers 21:9

In other words, anyone who saw through the illusion of ego, who “watched for snakes”, was saved.

Forty Years in the Desert

Gay consciousness is officially forty years old on June 28: the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Forty years is just busting with symbolic possibility:

In the time of Noah, the rain fell for forty days and nights. Afterwards, the rainbow is given as the sign of the covenant. Genesis 7:12

Joseph embalmed his father Israel for 40 days. Genesis 50:3

Moses stayed in the cloud on the mountain top for 40 days and nights, neither eating or drinking. Exodus 34:28

The nation of Israel, after "coming out" of Egypt, wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, surviving on Manna. Numbers 14:34

A prisoner cannot be flogged for more than forty lashes. Deuteronomy 25:3

Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days and forty nights, being tempted by Satan. Mark 1:3

The number forty seems to be related to a time of trial and testing. I'm not sure why, but I note the number four is related to the four seasons, four elements, four points of a compass, the four major points of a clock face, and yea... the four horsemen. Perhaps, at least in part, it signifies a period of time or a complete rotation, the completion of a passage, or an odyssey. Forty is also the year that a man finally leaves all pretense of youth behind.

Gay consciousness has survived in the "wilderness" for forty years, and we've had our share of testing. I remember sitting in with a group of straight progressive Christians (yes, there are still a few) some years ago, and the subject came up about how to manifest meaningful and effective care for your "brother", and someone mentioned the gay community's response to the AIDS crisis as a positive example, and I thought it was kinda nice to be lumped in with the "good example" for once.

Anyway, the next step is over the River Jordan, and I think the coming year might be pretty amazing. Jericho's walls are building higher and higher:

California Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8, confirming the denial of marriage equality to gays. --SF Gate

Pro-Israel lobbyists declared their intention to threaten government and corporate sponsorship of the annual Toronto Pride Festival unless the organisation banned pro-Palestinian marchers from the parade. --Rabble.ca

But the higher they build, the greater they fall. Where DID I put my old trumpet?

The Moses Channel

I finally watched 'Soulmaid' last week:

Moses' chronic seizures take the form of religious visions, a goddess named Glintentica. But when Moses meets David, the vengeful goddess attempts to come between the two, possess David's soul, and bring about the extinction of gays forever. Can a way to defeat Glinny's evil scheme be found? 2007.

Soulmaid Trailer

OK, I hated it... at first. mainly because it was trampling over ground that I had sort of personally peed on, and I didn't like the trespassing. That said, it's clear that I'm not the only homo with apocalyptic dreams. Those pinko beams of VALIS are definitely getting around. Like a funky bad dream, I couldn't get it out of my head.

Manhattan Moses is employed as a "Male maid". He cleans your apartment in nothing but his tighty whities - while you watch. Some kind of kinky NYC cottage industry. Moses is always cleaning, cleaning... sponges, sponges. I'm deliberately avoiding Sponge Bob Square Pants synchs for now, because I fear Bob is a ravenous synch hole of epic proportions, and my time is short.

So anyhoo, the very next day my honey asked me to clean the kitchen floor, which I admit was several weeks past due. So I'm on the floor, sponge in hand, and I'm thinking, this is SO weird, I'm acting out "Moses". I scrub and I scrub, all the way around the kitchen and the breakfast nook, and I'm especially diligent, because this is like MOSES doing the cleaning.

I get everything spotless, except there's the round table in the breakfast nook, and I decide to clean underneath it. The table has a cruciform base, and when I slide it away, I see the major CROSS shaped stain beneath, tinged with RED from God only knows what. OK, a filthy RED CROSS on the floor of my pristine breakfast nook! No match for the SPONGE of MOSES!!!

The Bloody Cross is the sign of the Templars, and in my synchropinion, a fabulous candidate for the infamous Mark of the Beast. It flashed on me: Holy Fuck! Is THAT what we're supposed to do? Make the RED cross WHITE? How is THAT supposed to happen?

I have some funky Moses synchs, Burning Bush and all. The strangest one was last summer, when a Jehovah's Witness lady came to the door, evangelizing. As usual, I told her that I was a Christian and that I was QUEER, and she was completely unperturbed by that news. She got out her bible in her best 'Church Lady' way and it plops open to Numbers 20:9-12 which is the tale of why Moses never made it across the River Jordan to the Promised Land. She reads the verse, tells me in no uncertain terms the moral of the story, and then she turns on her heels and leaves, and I had the feeling that verse was the WHOLE REASON she came to my door.

I was like, WTF?!!

The opposite of the Templar cross is a white cross in a red field, which synchs up with the sacrificial Red Shirts. It is the sign of the LIFEGUARD - the GUARDIAN of the beach - the eternally bronze sex symbol. The first gay porn I ever bought featured a lifeguard. And then there's BAYWATCH.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Baywatch is the most watched TV show in the world of all time, with over 1.1 billion viewers. That pesky 11 again.

David Hasselhoff was never my cup of tea, but I sure envied his job. He was King of the Beach, and he hired only the hottest of the Hottentots.

Before Baywatch, David was Michael KNIGHT:

Michael Knight, a former police detective... is recruited into the secret organization FLAG (Foundation for Law And Government) after nearly being killed during a botched investigation. Knight is provided with the use of KITT, an ultra sophisticated autonomic car which enables him to travel across the United States fighting crime.

Alrighty then. Michael (the angel/archetype) drives around the New World (Atlantis) in a self-aware chariot/grail (human being) that is voiced by William Daniels, who plays the car/grail like a flaming QUEEN!

The reverse Templar cross also happens to be the Swiss FLAG - an odd little country. Land of chalets, Toblerone, cuckoo clocks and Swatches, fondue, secreted wealth, the Matterhorn and the infamous CERN in Geneva. Most importantly, it was the HAVEN to which Julie Andrews FLED from the Nazis in The Sound of Music!

One wonders what kind of secret leverage the Swiss have held all these years that prevented them from being absorbed into this or that European empire.

The Swiss GUARD are the ceremonial protectors of St. Peter's - AKA GUARDIANS of the Key Bearer. I doubt if the Vatican has anything besides money and reputation left to guard, but the symbolic point is made.

Swiss Guards is the name that has been given to Swiss mercenary soldiers who have served as bodyguards, ceremonial guards, and palace guards at foreign European courts from the late 15th century until the present day. --wikipedia

Dig those funky silks. Strangely, those were the colors I chose for the sail of my second little yacht - a SOL cat.

A boy and his solar powered Grail, at rest.

Anyway, back to Moses. Moses didn't make it across the River Jordan on the first go, because he didn't give God the credit for his acts. A copyright infringement. Maybe he'll make it across the second time around, as long as he gives due credit:

"By the power of the Great Phallic Sky God!"

That should play well in Peoria!