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Wednesday 16 November 2011

Magic fairy dust and dirt



The image that we have of Fairytales is built over time. All looks so enchanting and magical. It looks beautiful. We aspire to live some of that, or some of us have done. Girls would like to step into the shoes of Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, Jasmine, Aurora, Belle, Ariel and Tiana. When you think of fairytales, either you recollect the stories read to you from childhood, looking at the various illustrations. Or you think of Disney's retelling of classic fairytales and historical romances. Apart from the latter (the animated adaptions based on history), the fairytales are often set in dreamlike worlds that parallel Medieval and Renaissance eras. So if we were to be realistic, and true to the fairytales, regardless of the fact they couldn't have happened, what would the real princesses and princes and places have been like? What would the real Cinderella have looked like? This isn't going to be a boggy scholarly approach but a viewpoint. Here is an idea.

I meditated and went back in time to the Middle Ages. What I visualised gave me some basis on what the fairytale worlds might've been like. I will point out the fairy tales and its glamour, then add the harshness of it's own that was never told about! It also makes clear the difference between how we regard beauty and how people from long ago saw beauty. Here goes:

In the fairy tales, the stories began in glistening castles with pretty gardens but just around the corner were swinging corpses and heads on spikes.

Princesses were externally beautiful and kind, but they smelled, had yellow teeth and were malnourished.

Rapunzel, the princess in a tower with flowing long hair that was also matted and washed in filthy water.

Sleeping Beauty (also called Briar Rose) was a delicate and frail princess who slept for one hundred years but she was perhaps a version of a Valkyrie who appeared to the war dead. The Sleeping Beauty is also a story that echoes the bubonic plague. When she fell asleep, the entire kingdom fell asleep or was it that they were all succumbed by death? It reminds me of this nursery rhyme:

"Ring a ring a roses
A pocket full of posies
A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down."

The rhyme comes from the plague era.

Snow-White was a delicate and innocent princess, with lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony wood. However, she was also diseased and possibly caught the plague.

The handsome princes came to wake up the Brair Rose and Snow White from death (necromancy?). Yet these princes both had months growth of beards, bad breath and scars too.

When the princesses were saved and married to the princes at the "happily ever after" weddings, at court in the banquet halls, dogs pooed, kids screamed and were sick, people got drunk and urinated, some fell asleep and others got too naughty.

When Goldilocks encountered the three bears, she ran away because she'd stumbled into a dwelling of fierce Berserkers!

Jack climbed the beanstalk and stole the giant's gold. However, Jack was tried for theft and robbery then executed later on. The judge boomed the hearing in court, but what we have is "...I smell the blood..."

With pretty scenes of castles, magic kingdoms, ideal villages, dwarves, giants, fairies, princesses, unicorns, there are even darker secrets.

The unicorn mystery is based upon death, possession or ownership/claiming (raping) and sacrifice. Fairies have an even richer origin as they are considered to be echoes of the old gods and nature spirits. The fairies of Sleeping Beauty who grant wishes are possibly about the Norns. The same might be said about the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella too. Also the Berserkers, werewolves, trolls, demonic entities, witches, sorcerers and cannibalism filled these stories. This wasn't so much intended to be stories for children at bedtime. Now the dwarves are perhaps symbolic of two things: Peasants (with minimal freedom) and benign paranormal spirits. However, not all dwarves are friendly. In the tale "Snow White and Rose Red", the two sisters meet an unfriendly dwarf but were rescued by a berserker warrior. In "Rumpelstiltskin", the dwarf was a menace here. Were these magical dark dwarves perhaps dark elves, goblins and imps? Giants are perhaps a symbol of something magnified that whatever frightened people.      

History is full of plagues, warfare, pillaging, excecutions, famine, poverty. Out of that emerged fairytales, which the Brothers Grimm, Anderson, Disney and others have all sanitised and sugar coated. So now we have this civilised version of a pretty, healthy, colourful, gleaming dreamy fairytale stories, which were immunised from it's occult origins.    

The picture above is "Once was innocent" by Selina Fenech.

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Out of synch

This is a post expressing my random thoughts such as this. I think there could be a more sinister reason behind changing GMT to lighter evenings.The British government have sort of considered the idea of changing GMT time. This is to make evenings lighter, and for whatever reason. It would be moved two hours ahead to make SDST (single/double summertime). At the moment we've got GMT (Greenwich Meantime) from March to October. In March the clocks are moved forward one hour and then in October, clocks are set back one hour. The recent plan is to make it different by having the clocks in March set two hours ahead. For more on this go to:

Lighter Later

Some argue that this would make mornings dark. Also this has happened before. It was done during World War Two to prevent bombings from air raids. In the Seventies, this was brief and turned into a disaster because of road accidents.

Well personally I'm not interested in supporting this campaign. One reason is that, as a mother, I'm going to find it difficult at bedtime. Children won't go to bed easily in Summer when the evenings are bright and sunny. Winter's are very dark, moonlit and it's clearly no problem then. So for a child who refuses to go to bed, thinking that the sunlight means it's daytime, will just not want to go to sleep. Imagine if there's to be extra hours of sunshine at night in Summer then, the kids will never go to bed. This will cause stress in the home. Secondly the mornings would be a lot darker and that wouldn't feel nice during the school runs.

Now it's obvious that people are interested in this for personal reasons, not thinking of anyone else. The whole idea has been considered before, done also and failed, then reconsidered. It's to keep in line with the rest of Europe, as mainland Europe is one hour ahead of the UK and Ireland. So if we're set at SDST in the UK, the Republic of Ireland will be at the GMT. Cross the border from Northern Ireland to Eire and you'll be one hour different!

I also have a theory too about why the SDST idea has come about recently. Being two hours different would also change the way people will be used to observing the sunrise and sunset. If the earth tilts on its axis, a sudden polar shift, the first thing you would notice would be the way in which the sun moves. It would appear on the horizon each morning at a much earlier time. Some say that we already have tilted and another about tilted axis site but it's gradual (and people have seen the sunrise earlier). Observed in other countries, such as Greenland. Well whatever it is, IF that is the reason, no one in the UK would now see the unusual behaviour of the sun. The SDST change will simply blindfold British people into looking too hard at the sky to keep us in the dark, for a while. We have experienced very cold Arctic like Winters, and this is how the UK looked last year in Winter:
Satellite image of snow covered UK.

Of that note, the pole shift may cause the UK and Ireland to move northwards, possibly turning towards the North Pole! There will also be other countries that would turn upwards, and others will move south. Having the hours moved to SDST is perhaps their way of stopping any panic.    

This is just my opinion. I could be wrong and hope that it isn't this at all but one wonders the actual motive behind anything.   

Links on the earth's tilt:

Greatdreams Pole Shift
British Geological Survey Magnetic Flip

Monday 7 November 2011

Topaz - Wolf of November




The birthstone of November is the TOPAZ. It's considered lucky to wear a topaz gemstone if you were born in this month.

For those who were born in the month of November the Topaz is the traditional birthstone. The November birthstone poem reflects some of the properties with which the Topaz is associated - constancy, loyalty, faithfulness and friendship. The Traditional Metaphysical Properties for the November Birthstone Topaz are strength, releasing tension and balancing emotions. The healing properties of the November birthstone are reputed to be effective for health problems relating to  sanity, asthma, gout, blood disorders, tuberculosis and insomnia. The Topaz is also used to enhance spiritual rejuvenation and feelings of happiness.

The month of November is a shift between Autumn and Winter. The fading leaves become crisp and cold. Mist and frost arrive, sometimes snow. The fallen leaves turn red and brown and yellow, finishing their time on trees and bushes. The bonfires are lit to burn those fallen leaves. It's a time to chop wood for the coming winter, and clear away gardens and streets of foliage. Avoid the bright berries on the hedges and branches (they're poisonous). Only be very sure and get help if you don't know what exatly is edible or not. This is when Guy Fawkes is celebrated in the UK with fireworks and bonfires - an echo of a pre-Christian fire ritual with burning effigies. Some Halloween themed holidays overlap in the beginning of November, such as Day of the Dead. Also the Remembrance Day (Poppy Day) celebrations coincide with other ancient rites of honouring the dead, war dead, fallen heroes and hailing to long gone ancestors.

The "Topaz Wolf" is the special November person who was born this month in November. Whether is is those born under Scorpio (23 October - 22 November) and Sagittarius (23 November - 21 December).

November born Scorpio people are sparkly but haughty.
November born Sagittarius people are homely but angry.

These are just my own observations of people I knew born under these starsigns. Also it's combined with reading materials. This is not an assumption on each individual.

Links:

Birthstones
November