August 06, 2014

August 06, 2014 marks the 69th year since the bombing of Hiroshima.

It may not be widely known that many high-ranking military officers serving in the US armed forces at the time were opposed to the bombings, and went on record to say that they believed the use of two atomic bombs against Japan (the first against the city of Hiroshima on August 06, 1945 and the second against the city of Nagasaki on August 09, 1945) was unnecessary and morally wrong.

This site published by a professor at the University of Colorado gives a partial list of high-ranking US officers who opposed the bombing, along with quotations in which they stated their reasons.

One of the first quotations given is from the Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief during the war, Admiral William D. Leahy (1875 - 1959), who declared that in using the atomic bomb against cities full of noncombatants, the United States

adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. 

General Douglas MacArthur's pilot, Weldon E. Rhoades, wrote an entry in his diary the day after the Hiroshima bombing, in which he stated:

General MacArthur is appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster. I had a long talk with him today, necessitated by the impending trip to Okinawa.

A common theme among the quotations cited is the opinion, given by high-ranking military officers who had been commanding at various levels throughout the war and whose professional judgment on the subject should be respected, that the bombings were not necessary in order to end the war and that they were employed for political reasons rather than military reasons. This opinion, which is repeated several times among those officers quoted, is in direct opposition to what children in the United States are taught in school about the necessity of using the atomic bombs against Japan.

Also present in many of the quotations are opinions that it was wrong to target noncombatants and that if a demonstration of the atomic bombs was considered necessary it could have been done over an uninhabited area in order to show their destructive power. 

Nevertheless, questioning the decision to use the atomic bombs in the way that they were used often elicits powerful emotional responses, including at times hostility, name-calling (such as "revisionist history" or "revisionism," as well as "anti-American" and "unpatriotic," and even "disrespectful to those who served in World War II"), and the general opinion that questioning the decision is off-limits.

This fact in and of itself should set off an alarm, in that the declaration that some subjects cannot be discussed or that only one conclusion is allowed to be considered is often a sign that natural universal law is being violated and the violation is being covered over with arguments to try to excuse it and to deflect the natural human reaction to such violation, which is revulsion. Note that the military officers cited above almost universally rejected the arguments and excuses offered in support of the use of the atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Because most people recognize violations of natural law, and reject it, it generally takes a concerted and coordinated effort to convince large numbers of people that a violation of natural law is actually something to applaud rather than something to reject. Two previous posts in particular have discussed this subject: "Lysander Spooner, natural law, and human consciousness," and "A Memorial Day meditation on natural universal law." 

In those two previous essays, quotations from nineteenth-century natural law advocate, anti-slavery abolitionist, and philosopher Lysander Spooner are cited in which Spooner declares: 

• that acting as an officer of government in any capacity does not give anyone the right to violate natural universal law, 
• that artificially-enacted laws which violate natural universal law may and must be resisted at all times (and must not be "obeyed until they are overturned," as some incorrectly argue), 
• that officers of government who violate natural universal law may and must also be declared to be criminals and treated as such, 
• and that those who try to argue that artificial law can ever trump natural law will always resort to "pretences and disguises" to try to overcome the innate human revulsion towards violations of natural universal law.

The twin facts of the high numbers of American military officers who were appalled and revolted by the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan, and the situation in which questioning this decision has been declared to be "unpatriotic," "anti-American," and "off limits" in the decades since, indicate that the use of the two atomic bombs was in fact completely in violation of natural law, and that "pretences and disguises" have been heavily employed in the decades since in order to try to cover-over this violation. 

Another name for these "pretences and disguises" is mind control.

The horrific destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the hideous incineration of the citizens of those cities -- including huge numbers of noncombatant men, women and children -- was quite simply an illegal and immoral violation of natural law.

The fact that this destruction was inflicted using atomic weapons had the additional effect of exposing thousands of those who survived the initial day of the bombing to lingering death from radiation and the diseases such as leukemia which that radiation caused in their human bodies.

Emblematic of the horrible effects of the bombing, its illegality under natural law and its lack of justification was the death of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who was two years old when the bomb was dropped near her home next to the Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima. Nine years later, at the age of eleven, she began to develop swelling and purple spots in the tissues of her body. She died of leukemia less than a year later, at the age of twelve. In addition to symbolizing the wider tragedy, her death at such a young age was of course also a personal tragedy for Sadako herself and for her family.

There is simply no way to argue that the deliberate targeting of women and children, the rubbling of their homes, and the inflicting of such diseases upon noncombatants, is in accordance with natural law.

Although next year will mark seventy years since this tragic event and the tragic bombing three days later of Nagasaki, these issues remain absolutely relevant today -- perhaps more relevant than ever.

image: Origami crane (orizuru), Wikimedia commons (link).

Star Myths in the Bible: The Prophet Elisha

Special thanks to reader Pat B, who sent me a comment via the Undying Stars page on Facebook and asked if I could discuss my take on the verse from sacred scripture found in 2 Kings 2:24, which reads as follows in the so-called "King James" version (which follows closely on the wording found in the earlier Geneva translation):

And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

Above is a video I made in which I discuss some of the episodes described in the book of Second Kings, including the notorious incident of the two bears.

For those who might be upset to find a prophet of God sending two bears to tear apart children just because they appear to have been mocking him (and specifically mocking his bald head), fear not: I believe there are good and cogent reasons to believe that this specific incident, like so many others in ancient myth (including the ancient myth in the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament) was never intended to be understood literally. This episode can be demonstrated to be a "star myth," following the common pattern of celestial metaphor which underlies virtually all of the world's sacred traditions.

The two she-bears described in the text are undoubtedly the groupings Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, which we commonly know as the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper (technically speaking, the Big Dipper is only a sub-set of the complete constellation of Ursa Major).

I initially thought that Elisha in this passage would likely correspond to the constellation of Bootes the Herdsman, who is located quite close to the Big Dipper (his "pipe" that he appears to be smoking nearly touches the handle of the Big Dipper). The constellation Bootes has a very bulbous, round-looking head, which would certainly seem to correspond to the taunts of the children found in 2 Kings 2:23, in which they mock Elisha by saying, "Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head." You can see how round the head of Bootes is by going back to the earlier discussion of the Greek myth of Atlas and Heracles (or Hercules), in which Atlas probably corresponds to Bootes.

However, upon closer examination of the passages leading up to the incident of the two bears, as well as some of the other episodes in the life of Elisha, I believe that Elisha actually corresponds to an even more important figure in the sky: the zodiac sign of Aquarius. The video above provides the argument and illustrates the correspondence using images from both Stellarium.org and the browser-based Neave Planetarium. The illustration of Elisha looking on as the two bears tear apart some of the hapless children is from a 1463 manuscript which can be seen on Wikimedia commons here.

There are discussions in previous posts demonstrating similar celestial correspondences in more than twenty other myths and sacred stories from around the world -- for a list containing many of those, see this previous post. In particular, viewers of the above video who are new to this subject may be interested in reviewing previous discussions which show the importance of the Virgo-Bootes pairing in mythology, including the discussion of Suttung and Gunnlod from Norse myth, Loki and Freya from Norse myth, Loki and Sif from Norse myth (same post previously linked for Loki and Freya), the Old Man and his Daughter in North American sacred tradition, and the evidence suggesting that Abram and Sarai (Abraham and Sarah) represent the same two constellations discussed towards the end of this post.

This examination of the episodes in the life of the prophet Elisha is just another example of the assertion made by the Reverend Robert Taylor (1784 - 1844), who argued that it is not necessarily the literal interpretation of the text which gives true reverence to the ancient sacred scriptures of humanity (see, for instance, his Astronomico-Theological Lectures, and the discussions on page 343, page 353, or page 209). 

In fact, in this case, reading the passage literally leads to a rather abhorrent conclusion: that a prophet of the Highest sent ferocious bears to rend forty-two children who mocked him. And, since most orthodox theology would hold that even a prophet could not accomplish such a feat without the actual active intervention of the one whom he serves, a literal reading of this text would indicate that it was not really the prophet who sent those two bears to attack the children who mocked Elisha.

Thus, we come to understand more deeply the assertion of Alvin Boyd Kuhn, when he said: "the sacred scriptures of the world are a thousand times more precious as myths than as alleged history" (Lost Light, 24; italics in the original).

image: Aquarius, as outlined by H.A. Rey, from a screen-shot of Stellarium (I added the yellow outline using the H.A. Rey system, which is different from the outline found on Stellarium and Neave). Note that Aquarius is rising in the east head-downwards -- this is important for understanding the clues found in the ancient star-myths.

Reality Creation and The Tonkin Gulf incident, August 2nd and 4th, 1964

image: USS Maddox in 1964, Wikimedia commons (link).

This day in history, the second of August, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Tonkin Gulf incident, which took place on August 02, 1964, and which was used as justification for a major escalation of US military activity in Vietnam.

The incident was described to the world by politicians and the media as an unprovoked attack on US Navy vessels conducting routine operations in international waters during the night of August second, followed by a second unprovoked attack on August 04. 

Based on allegations that US naval vessels which had simply been "lawfully present in international waters" had been "deliberately and repeatedly attacked," the president went to Congress, asked for and received authorization for the use of "all necessary steps, including the use of armed force." The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was signed into law by joint resolution of Congress and approval of the president on August 10, 1964. 

This grant of authority was used to initiate US air strikes in 1964 and major deployment of US conventional ground forces (in addition to the limited numbers of special operations forces that had been in the country since at least 1961) throughout 1965 into Vietnam, with over 184,000 conventional military personnel on the ground by the end of 1965.

Whether or not the deployment of military force into Vietnam was justified in order to stop the violence that was in fact taking place there, the evidence which has been uncovered in the decades since strongly suggests that any attack which took place on US naval vessels on August 02 was not exactly "unprovoked," that those naval vessels were in fact supporting covert military raids into Vietnam (a fact which Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara denied in testimony before Congress during the deliberation over the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution itself in 1964 and again in 1968), and that there was probably no second attack at all on August 04, 1964. 

In other words, setting aside the larger question of whether or not military intervention in Vietnam was justified, the evidence strongly suggests that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution itself was based upon a false version of reality which was presented to the American people and their elected members of Congress. This false version of reality led directly to the combat deployment of over 184,000 people to Vietnam by the end of the following year, a number which increased to over 500,000 at the war's peak in 1968 (see chart below, which can be found here).

This article from the 30-year anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident (in 1994) lays out some of the arguments and evidence supporting the conclusion that the facts surrounding the August 02 confrontation were completely misrepresented, and that it is likely that no actual second confrontation took place two days later on August 04, 1964.

This more-carefully footnoted essay by Professor Peter Dale Scott of the University of California, published in 2008, explains that of the one hundred twenty-two pieces of signal-data collected on the night of August 04 (from radar, sonar, and other signal-gathering devices available to government intelligence personnel), only the fifteen pieces of data which would support the picture of a second attack were passed on to the White House. 

Meanwhile, in a completely separate agency from the one which passed on that incredibly selective array of data, a paragraph stating that suggested that the data supported the conclusion that a second attack had not taken place on August 04 was removed from the Current Intelligence Bulletin "which would be wired to the White House and other key intelligence agencies and appear in print the next morning."  

Professor Scott writes that it is possible to conclude that these two actions in two separate agencies could conceivably have taken place spontaneously, based upon a certain "shared bureaucratic mindset, or propensity for military escalation."

Of course, it is also possible that these two actions, each designed to paint the picture of a second confrontation which in all likelihood never even took place, and each removing critical information in order to support that false picture, were in fact coordinated.

This possibility is further supported by the published testimony of the Secretary of Defense himself, who went on record before Congress not just in 1964 when they were deliberating over the initial Gulf of Tonkin Resolution but also nearly four years later in 1968, stating "that attacks occurred against our ships both on August 2nd and August 4th, that we had available to us incontrovertible evidence of these attacks when the decision was made to make our limited and measured response, and that these attacks were in no sense provoked or justified by any participation or association of our ships with South Vietnamese naval operations" (see remarks by the Secretary of Defense to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 20 February 1968, about half-way down this web page).

Either he was deceived as well, or he was aware of the selectivity of the data and conclusions that had been presented to the American people and their elected politicians in August of 1964 and was participating in the fabrication of a false reality designed to create a "movie" in the minds of the vast majority of the citizenry which had in its opening scenes events they could look back on and say to themselves, "well, we were illegally attacked first."

The conclusion that the Gulf of Tonkin represents an example of the deliberate creation of a false reality in the minds of a massive number of people is difficult to avoid. 

This conclusion becomes even more likely when we realize that the two ships involved in the incident, the destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy, each had a Navy captain in command, but that they themselves were commanded by a Naval officer on the flagship of their fleet, the aircraft carrier USS Bonhomme Richard -- and that the officer in command of that fleet during that critical time was none other than George S. "Steve" Morrison, the father of the future lead singer of the band The Doors. This fact is stated in the obituary of Admiral Morrison published in the New York Times from December of 2008.

In and of itself, the connection between the rock frontman and the Naval officer does not necessarily add anything the already substantial evidence that the Tonkin incident represented the deliberate creation of an illusory mental construct designed to influence the thought patterns of massive numbers of people. However, some researchers and in particular researcher David McGowan have recently presented additional evidence that many of the influential rock bands to have formed around Laurel Canyon just north of Los Angeles may also have been part of a coordinated effort to "create a new reality" and change the thought patterns of massive numbers of people.

In his recently-released book, Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon, Mr. McGowan argues that there was something contrived about the sudden influx of prospective band members into Laurel Canyon, many of whom (but not all) had little or no musical experience, many of whom came from military families and/or families with powerful political connections, and many of whom shot to rapid success without going through the usual path of struggling to gain recognition, play at better gigs, and eventually sign deals (he notes on page 151 that the members of Buffalo Springfield had supposedly only first met one another five days before they were playing at the prestigious Hollywood club the Troubadour, and a mere six days after that they were already on tour opening for the Byrds, "the hottest band on the Strip"). He also notes that this sudden confluence of suddenly-successful musical acts all happened to center in a self-contained canyon that also housed a secret military facility. 

Mr. McGowan points out that the initial output of all these bands coincided very closely with the buildup of combat troops in Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, beginning  with the release of the Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man  (on June 21st, 1965 -- summer solstice in the northern hemisphere) and rapidly followed by "releases from the John Phillips-led Mamas and the Papas (If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, January 1966), Love with Arthur Lee (Love, May 1966), Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention (Freak Out, June 1966), Buffalo Springfield, featuring Stephen Stills and Neil Young (Buffalo Springfield, October 1966), and the Doors (The Doors, January 1967)" (13). 

Regarding the Doors in particular, Mr. McGowan presents evidence from previously-published interviews conducted by other interviewers with Jim Morrison himself that the future lead singer never went to concerts before forming the band, and in fact in his own words "never did any singing. I never even conceived of it," nor had he ever felt any desire to learn to play any musical instrument (129). Then, he suddenly formed a band with three other acquaintances who also had no previous musical background, and immediately began putting out albums filled with songs which Morrison had written himself, before even forming the band.

McGowan writes:

Morrison did not, you see, do as other singer/songwriters do and pen the songs over the course of the band's career; instead he allegedly wrote them all at once, before the band was even formed. As Jim once acknowledged in an interview, he was "not a very prolific songwriter. Most of the songs I've written I wrote in the very beginning, about three years ago. I just had a period when I wrote a lot of songs." 

[. . .]

In any event, the question that naturally arises (though it does not appear to have ever been asked of him) is: How exactly did Jim "The Lizard King" Morrison write that impressive batch of songs? I'm certainly no musician myself, but it is my understanding that just about every singer/songwriter across the land composes his or her songs in essentially the same manner: on an instrument -- usually either a piano or a guitar. Some songwriters, I hear, can compose on paper, but that requires a skill set that Jim did not possess. The problem, of course, is that he also could not play a musical instrument of any kind. How did he write the songs?

[. . .]

And these are, it should be clarified, songs that we are talking about here, as opposed to just lyrics, which would more accurately be categorized as poems. Because Jim, as is fairly well known, was quite a prolific poet, whereas he was a songwriter for only one brief period of his life. But why was that? Why did Morrison, with no previous interest in music, suddenly and inexplicably become a prolific songwriter, only to just as suddenly lose interest after mentally penning an impressive catalog of what would be regarded as rock staples? 129-130.

David McGowan's work raises the strong possibility that a concerted campaign of what we might call reality creation was somehow behind the sudden rise of numerous successful bands in the Laurel Creek scene from mid-1965 through the early 1970s. In fact, he presents evidence that some of these 

band members (notably the members of the Byrds) began arriving in Laurel Canyon specifically in "autumn of 1964" (see page 135) -- in other words, immediately on the heels of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and before the actual troop buildup of 1965 (this would only be expected, if the Byrds were to release an album by summer solstice of 1965).

This fact tends to defuse the possible counter-argument that the phenomenon Mr. McGowan is chronicling was somehow an organic response to the sudden deployment of young men to Vietnam (even without the information that these band members were arriving in Laurel Canyon well before the first conventional troops arrived in Vietnam in March of 1965, there would not seem to be enough time between those first troop deployments and the sudden outpouring of albums listed above to be explained by the "organic response" hypothesis).

The thesis that the Laurel Canyon outpouring was some kind of "reality creation" is reinforced by the fact that the first album cited above, the Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man, came out on the date of summer solstice, indicating the possible involvement of parties who understood the ancient significance of such dates. The possibility is further strengthened by the fact that both the Vietnam War and the counterculture movement at home which was closely associated with the music from the bands described in Mr. McGowan's book were profoundly transformative of society as a whole. It is also notable that music itself is uniquely suited to "creating realities." 

The evidence which fifty years later appears to confirm that the Tonkin Gulf incident involved the deliberate imposition of a false narrative or false mental reality upon a large number of people, for purposes of escalating military operations in Vietnam immediately thereafter. The evidence also appears to strongly suggest that at least some aspects of the sudden formation of numerous very influential bands in Laurel Canyon, California almost immediately following that incident may have also been an exercise in reality creation, orchestrated by parties who possessed the knowledge and the ability to do so, and who left clues such as the release of the first Byrds album on one of the most significant dates of the annual cycle.

The possibility that the two aspects of reality creation might be related, and even perpetrated by some of the same players, is astonishing. While it is by no means proven, there appears to be enough evidence to warrant further investigation of this subject by those whose areas of interest or expertise dispose them to doing so.

It should be noted that there is substantial evidence that the concept of "reality creation" -- which should be a positive subject, involving creativity, innovation, and the empowerment and greater freedom of individual men and women, as discussed in this previous post -- was actually at the heart of the ancient mythologies of mankind, which themselves may be a precious legacy to all human beings from an even more ancient "predecessor civilization." However, at a very specific point in history, this ancient knowledge was deliberately subverted and suppressed in a certain very important portion of the world (the western Roman Empire), and those who did so may well have sought to use that knowledge for their own purposes of control and self-enrichment, while suppressing the same knowledge for virtually everyone else (and launching campaigns to stamp it out both within the western empire and then over other parts of Europe and then the world).

The evidence which suggests that there was a historical monopolization of the secrets of "reality creation" by powers who wanted to use them for themselves alone may indeed be pertinent when examining the possibility that there was much more to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and to the Laurel Canyon scene, than people were initially led to believe.

However, even if we set all of that aside and focus solely on the evidence that the Gulf of Tonkin incident involved the deliberate creation of an illusion which was then presented to the White House, to Congress, and to the people of the world, has extremely important ramifications. 

First, when we realize that previous incidents which were used to inflame public opinion in favor of war (when the public might have been indifferent or even hostile to the idea before the incident) may have also involved elements of deception or fabrication (including the USS Maine incident at the start of the Spanish-American War, or the sinking of the Lusitania to inflame American public opinion towards participation in the First World War), we should naturally wonder to what extent incidents since the Gulf of Tonkin might fit into the same pattern. 

Second, while it is obvious that most of the individuals who actually participated in the Tonkin Gulf episode are no longer in the positions of power that they held back in 1964 (and in fact, most of them have now left the body, or at least the body they had during that incarnation), it is worth asking to what extent the institutions which participated in the Tonkin Gulf deception in some capacity (that is to say, the branches of the US military, the executive and legislative branches of the US federal government, and the more powerful participants in the national and international media) are still controlled by powers or persons who would condone or even initiate such deception and the perpetration of the creation of illusions or false realities.

Further, a sober consideration of the Tonkin Gulf incident should cause us to reflect upon the frequency with which large numbers of people can be influenced to condone or tolerate the application of horrendous levels of violence against persons who are not actually combatants (whether through the use of munitions and chemicals that caused death and suffering among the noncombatant women and children in Vietnam, or in the massacres of women and children in Native American villages during the "Indian Wars" of the second half of the nineteenth century in what is today the western US). How often is such widespread indifference or toleration accompanied by the creation and propagation of a sort of collectively-accepted "false reality" or narrative, such as "Manifest Destiny" or the false storyline created around the attacks on the Maine, the Lusitania, or the Maddox?

The degree to which the media plays along with the creation of such illusions and does not challenge them (certainly evident in the Tonkin Gulf episode) is also worthy of careful consideration. 

Finally, the possibility that certain players on the world stage understand the creation of realities on a level that goes far beyond the simple telling of lies or withholding of available radar evidence, and that they may be using techniques which were once widely seen as beneficial for human consciousness but which have now been suppressed among the wider community and monopolized by a few, would seem to be extremely important to carefully consider and not dismiss out of hand. If some version of this scenario is indeed operating in history, than beginning to understand that fact can help us to realize the extent to which our acceptance of false realities creates false limits and false chains which we let bind and restrict and limit ourselves and others.

But, as Jon Rappoport so eloquently stated in the June 2014 talk discussed in the previously-linked post above, the message of the "trickster-god" in so many ancient mythologies is that we do not actually have to limit ourselves to someone else's imposed realities, and that we can at any time choose to stop giving those realities and their artificial limits that power which they ultimately derive from our own acceptance of them.

An event that happened fifty years ago -- an entire half of a century -- may seem to be ancient history. But, as the above discussion should cause us all to realize, its lessons are profoundly important to our lives at this very moment, and to our understanding of events we see taking place around us today and this week and this year.

The Undying Stars on Truth Warrior

Big up and many thanks to David Whitehead of Truth Warrior for a wonderful conversation and for inviting me to share the message of The Undying Stars with his regular audience.

The above interview was recorded on Saturday morning, July 26, 2014 (link to the YouTube video). David has obviously thought deeply about all of these subjects and really brought a lot to the table, which made it a thoroughly enjoyable discussion and one that I believe covered many important subjects.

He is also an accomplished martial artist, a 3rd Degree Black Belt in Jiu Jitsu, and a Black Belt in Karate and Kickboxing, and teaches martial arts professionally at his school, the Warrior Arts Academy, in Ontario.

Since this was my first-ever "video interview," I thought it might be worthwhile to take advantage of the video capability by opening a computer planetarium app and showing some constellations, describing what is taking place in the sky, and connecting the heavenly motions and players to the drama of various myths and sacred traditions. I used stellarium.org for that portion of the interview -- the discussion with the "planetarium-cam" begins at about 0:39:00 into the conversation.

That experience of using the planetarium was extremely valuable to me, and has led to the short videos that I have posted in recent essays showing the stellar and planetary components of the myths of Ares and Aphrodite, and of Ares in the Brazen Cauldron (for thirteen months), as well as the discussion of the pre-dawn lineup in the morning sky right now, which happens to reflect the pre-dawn lineup from the time of the March equinox during the Age of Gemini.

Welcome to any new visitors from Truth Warrior or from seeing the video of the interview on YouTube! Hope to see you back again frequently. 

You may wish to check out the "Welcome to New Visitors" page, which contains links to a variety of subject-areas discussed in past postings, as well as links to interact or provide feedback via Twitter or Facebook.

Also, regular readers of this blog may want to check out David Whitehead's Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/dwtruthwarrior and Facebook page here.  He also runs the World Was Meant to be Free website, and is a big part of the recent Modern Knowledge tour.

I hope that you find the interview valuable -- please feel free to post feedback there on YouTube and to tell friends or family who may find such subjects helpful or interesting.

Later Note, 08/11/2014: if you would like to listen to the above interview as a podcast instead of being stuck watching it on a screen, you can do so using the Spreaker bar below. To download the file, "right click" or "control-click" (for Mac) on the yellow-colored title of the podcast and then "download linked file as . . ." 

In a Brazen Cauldron (13 months)

I'm really enjoying the way that online planetarium apps such as that created by Paul Neave at neave.com can be used to illustrate the star myths of the world's ancient sacred traditions.  

Previously, we examined the well-known story of the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite, and the night that Hephaestus contrived a cunning net to descend upon them from the ceiling, catching them in the act for all the gods of Olympus to witness.  By observing the planets in motion among the background of stars, the unmistakeable celestial details of the myth become quite obvious, and it is very difficult to argue that such correlations between the story and the sky could be accidental or coincidental.

That examination of the celestial elements in the love of Ares and Aphrodite is only one of literally hundreds that could be presented in order to establish the theory that the world's ancient mythology from around the globe is built almost entirely upon a common system of celestial metaphor. This assertion holds true for the stories in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible as much as for the mythology of the so-called "pagans."

For a list of links to previous posts examining twenty other star-myths and explaining their celestial significance, see here.  

Those previous discussions, however, don't all use the planetarium app, and so in this post we will examine together another Greek myth whose celestial details are particularly evident when discussed in conjunction with a planetarium's ability to present the moving backdrop of the starry sky: the imprisonment of the god Ares in a brass jar by the giants Ephialtes and Otus, and the rescue of the hapless war-god by the trickster-god, Hermes.

To follow along at home, set your planetarium to 02/10/2013 (you can also go back to this previous post from early February of 2013, written when the conjunction was actually taking place in the sky over our heads). Turn your field of vision towards the west, where we will watch the setting sun sink down, and dial the time to about 16:43. You can set your location to somewhere between 30 and 35 degrees north latitude (I'm using the area of San Luis Obispo, California, along the California coast in between San Francisco and Los Angeles).

The above video shows the heavenly drama, in which the planet Mercury is actually in a "superior" position to the flagging red planet Mars as the two sink down towards the western horizon. This is a fairly unusual occurrence, because if you think about the location of Mercury relative to earth, we can only see it by looking towards the sun, and hence Mercury is always seen to be very close to the sun, visible either in front of the sun before sunrise or trailing the sun after sunset (as in the above video), while Mars is free to roam across the entire night sky (within the band of the ecliptic), since that planet's orbit is outside that of earth.

In that previous post from February 2013, I argued that if the thesis of Hertha von Dechend and Giorgio de Santillana in Hamlet's Mill is correct (a thesis they support with mountains of evidence, as well as quotations from ancients who put forward the same thesis, including Aristotle), then there should be a myth in which Mercury is somehow depicted in a "superior" position to Mars. And, in fact, after not too much thought, one suggested itself: the episode in which Ares was imprisoned in a brazen jar and had to be rescued by Hermes. 

I have never seen this particular myth linked to this particular heavenly conjunction, but I believe it can be amply demonstrated that the specific conjunction shown in the above video (and on your own planetarium app, if you go to 02/10/2013) does in fact correspond to the details of the ancient Greek myth to a remarkable degree.

The imprisonment of Ares in the jar is recounted by many ancient authors, but perhaps the highest authority we can consult in this regard is the Iliad itself, in which the myth is recounted by Dione as part of a speech she gives to Aphrodite, when Aphrodite visits the battlefield, only to be wounded by the Greek warrior Diomedes:

"Patience, oh my child,

Bear up now, despite your heartsick grief.

How many gods who hold the halls of Olympus

have had to endure such wounds from mortal men,

whenever we try to cause each other pain . . .

Ares had to endure it,  when giant Ephialtes and Otus,

sons of Aloeus, bound him in chains he could not burst,

trussed him up in a brazen cauldron, thirteen months.

And despite the god's undying lust for battle

Ares might have wasted away there on the spot

if the monsters' stepmother, beautiful Eriboea

had not sent for Hermes, and out of the cauldron

Hermes stole him away -- the War-god breathing his last,

all but broken down by the ruthless iron chains." V. 432 - 445.

Thus the translation by the late Professor Robert Fagles (1933 - 2008).

Below is a screen-shot of the situation from just after sunset on February 10, 2013, when a dim Mars is situated below a brighter Mercury -- just as if the messenger-god is rescuing the fading war-god:

The fading corona of the sun can be seen disappearing below the western horizon. The large, star-like "dots" that are not part of constellations are planets. Just above the sun's corona is Neptune, which is not visible to the naked eye, but above Neptune are two more bright planets close to one another: Mars (reddish in hue) and above him Mercury. Much farther up is Uranus (also not visible to the naked eye).

But, some readers may object that it seems to be a bit of a stretch to identify this particular conjunction with that particular myth about Ares being rescued from the brazen jar by Hermes. True, Mercury (Hermes) is seen above Mars (Ares), as if pulling the war-god from a jar or otherwise rescuing him from some sort of a trap, but what right do we have to confidently assert that this really corresponds to the myth being related in the Iliad's Book 5?

Well, it just so happens that there are other clues within the myth itself which correspond to the details in the heavens. The constellation through which Mars and Mercury (and Neptune as well, even though that planet is not a "visible planet") are passing in the above screen-shot may be difficult to recognize, but that is partly because the outlines used for the constellations on this and other free planetarium apps (including the excellent stellarium) leave something to be desired. I believe the outlines suggested by the beloved author H.A. Rey are much more useful, and are the outlines that everyone should study and learn in order to help locate the actual constellations when out star-gazing in person.

The constellation that is indicated by that zig-zag atrocity in the diagram above is none other than Aquarius, and if you want some tips on locating this important zodiac constellation in the sky, see this previous post. That post uses the outline of Aquarius as imagined by H.A. Rey and presented in The Stars: a New Way to See Them. Below is a screen-shot of the heavenly drama we are discussing (in which Hermes rescues Ares), from before sunset, in which I have labeled the constellations (which can be seen during daytime on the Paul Neave planetarium app) and drawn in the outlines for Aquarius and Capricorn based on the H.A. Rey method. The screen-shot is first presented without my additions, and then below that with labels and H.A. Rey-inspired outlines:

In the above diagram, you can see Capricorn the Goat, who would not have been visible back in February of 2013 but who is visible this time of year, although late at night along with Aquarius, rising in the east around ten in the evening beneath Cygnus and Aquila (who can be seen to the right side of the above screen-shot and who are very important and identifiable constellations, mentioned in many previous posts such as  this one). 

Also identified in the above diagram is the Southern Fish, containing the bright star Fomalhaut, which is located rather low in the sky for viewers in most northern latitudes, but which is very bright and can be helpful in getting a fix on the location of Aquarius, who can be seen pouring streams of water down towards Fomalhaut and the Southern Fish.

This previous post gives some tips on finding Fomalhaut.

But most important in the above diagram, of course, are Mars and Mercury themselves, indicated by two arrows. The lower, reddish arrow points to Mars, and the upper, white-outlined arrow points to Mercury. 

Please note what the two are directly next to in the sky: the mighty water-urn of Aquarius.

Could this have anything to do with the fact that Ares was described as being imprisoned in a brazen jar?

I maintain that it could. In fact, I would argue that the evidence is conclusive, and here is why. As explained in the Iliad passage cited above, Ares was stuffed into that brazen cauldron by two giants, Otus and Ephialtes, two preternaturally strong sons of Poseidon who were threatening to climb all the way to Olympus (and who were piling mountains on top of mountains in order to get there).

This article on the web describes the adventures of the two giants, and cites some other ancient sources including Pindar and Apollodorus or Pseudo-Apollodorus who give further details about the two. 

Note carefully how some myths account for the death of these upstart giant rebels: Artemis turned herself into a stag and ran between them, whereupon the giants each hurled a spear towards the stag but missed, impaling one another and ending the threat to the order of the universe.

Now look again at the diagram of Aquarius above, and see if that giant figure does not seem to have what appears to be a spear impaling him as he runs forward. This detail should clinch it for even the most skeptical critic of the star-myth theory: the giant who captures Mars inside an enormous jar is one of those giants who met their end by being skewered with a spear.

But just for good measure, it is worth pointing out that the location of the zodiac sign of Aquarius would seem to give added confirmation to the identification of these upstart giants with that constellation. Below is the zodiac wheel which has been discussed in numerous previous posts about the ancient system of celestial metaphor which was in operation in the mythologies around the globe. Note carefully the location of Aquarius, after the "turn" at the bottom of the year, on the upswing towards the spring equinox and ultimately the summer solstice (Aquarius is in the lower-left quadrant of the circle below, and is depicted as a sort of "mer-man" holding a canteen-shaped urn or jar, from which are flowing two streams of water):

Previous posts have presented extensive evidence to support the assertion that the "upper half" of the zodiac wheel was allegorized in ancient myth as heaven, or a high mountain, or a "shining city upon a hill" (see for example here and here). We now see that that high-point of the year corresponded as well to Mount Olympus in ancient Greek myth, because the two young giants Ephialtes and Otus are described as trying to reach Olympus themselves (in order to wage war on the Olympians), and doing so by piling lesser mountains on top of one another in order to reach those heights.

If we look at the location of Aquarius, the constellation who has the characteristics described in the myths about Otus and Ephialtes, including a jar in which he can imprison Ares and a spear which played a role in the myth about the death of the two upstarts, we see that Aquarius is definitely in a position to be "heading up" the mountain, but is still nowhere close as yet. He may be "aiming" at the top of the zodiac wheel (and Olympus), but he is just an "upstart" -- he is just at the start of the journey up wards for the annual cycle.

It is also worth pointing out that the "lower half" of the zodiac wheel corresponds in many ancient myth-systems as the "watery" half, or the "deep" -- and that Poseidon (the father of these two particular upstart giants) is of course the god of the seas.

Based upon these details, I believe it is more than evident that the myth of Ares being rescued by Hermes from the giants Otus and Ephialtes and his imprisonment in the brazen jar is describing just such a heavenly convocation in the constellation Aquarius as the one depicted in the screen-shots above and in the movie of the planetary motions from February 10, 2013.

Note also that this myth, along with the details in many others, indicates a rather sophisticated understanding of astronomy and the heavens, especially when we realize (as pointed out in my previous examination of this particular myth) that the orbit of the planet Mars causes the planet to grow brighter for 13 months and then grow dimmer for 13 months (becoming brightest at the time of the planet's opposition every 780 days, as discussed in this excellent website from Nick Anthony Fiorenza; 780 days is about 26 months, during half of which time Mars is growing fainter in brightness, and half of which time the planet grows brighter to observers on earth). This no doubt accounts for the mention of thirteen months in the passage from the Iliad cited above.

Finally, note that just as in the previous discussion of the myth of Ares and Aphrodite and their binding in the weblike net of Hephaestus, Hermes features prominently in discussions about binding and loosing, just as we would expect him to do based on the argument put forth in the powerful talk delivered by Jon Rappoport this year at the Secret Space Program conference in California.

This is because one of the profound messages that all these celestial myths were intended to convey was the message that each and every man and woman is connected to and embodies the infinite cosmos that we see over our heads each night, and ultimately cannot be contained, constrained, chained, or circumscribed against his or her will. This message was also brilliantly articulated by the philosopher Giordano Bruno, who wrote an entire treatise on "binding" and "loosing" and "of bonds in general," available online here (in Latin). Because Bruno was a hermetic philosopher, we can assume that he understood the role of Hermes in the overcoming of bonds and binding.

Thus we see that an episode which seems to be just a minor and amusing myth, the imprisonment of Ares in a bronze jar, is actually full of profound import, and insight into the message which the world's sacred traditions were intended to bring to men and women throughout the ages.

The Love of Ares and Aphrodite Crowned with Flowers

Above is a link to a video in which I used the very user-friendly online planetarium app at neave.com to illustrate the well-known "star myth" describing the dalliance of Ares and Aphrodite -- which ends in embarrassment, as Aphrodite's husband has prepared a little trap for the illicit lovers.

The celestial aspects of this ancient myth were discussed in this previous post from June 10, 2011 -- and if you want to go to the Neave browser-based planetarium (or any other planetarium where you can  easily adjust the date and time) you can re-create the events shown in the above video for yourself.  

Just set the date back to June 11, 2011 and set the time for about 4am (you may want to adjust your location on the globe to a point that's between 30 and 35 degrees north latitude), swivel the field of view around until you are looking along the horizon towards the east, and then press down on the little arrow below the "minutes" portion of the time-field to set the heavens in motion! If you press and hold, the sky will begin to smoothly rotate and the stars and planets will begin to rise in the east; if for some reason the stars and planets are setting in the east, then you are obviously going backwards in time and will want to hold down the bottom-arrow below the minute-dial, not the top-arrow.

When you do so, or if you carefully watch the motions of the planets Mars, Venus and Mercury in the above video of the same process, you will experience direct evidence that the ancient myths and sacred traditions from around the globe are all star myths -- they are all based upon a common system of celestial metaphor, and encode the endless, silent, majestic motion of the heavens circling above our heads. For a list of about twenty other star myths containing links to blog posts which explain their connection to the motions of the stars, planets, sun and moon, see this previous post.

As explained in the previous post regarding the conjunction of Mars and Venus underneath the shimmering Pleiades, and explained as well by the authors of Hamlet's Mill (see this online version, and page 177 in the chapter entitled "Samson under many skies") and by the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata (c. AD 120 - c. AD 200), the famous liaison of Aries the god of war (Roman Mars) and Aphrodite the goddess of love (Roman Venus) in which they are snared by the net of Hephaestus the god of fire and the forge (Roman Vulcan) almost certainly depicts a specific heavenly event. 

The story of the trap used by the plodding Hephaestus to ensnare his unfaithful wife and her lover is found in the Odyssey. It is presented below in my favorite English translation, by the late great Robert Fagles, along with screen-shots when appropriate to illustrate the celestial counterpart of the myth:

now the bard struck up an irresistible song:

The Love of Ares and Aphrodite Crowned with Flowers . . .

how the two had first made love in Hephaestus' mansion,

all in secret. Ares had showered her with gifts

and showered Hephaestus' marriage bed with shame

but a messenger ran to tell the god of fire --

Helios, lord of the sun, who'd spied the couple

lost in each other's arms and making love. VIII. 301-308.

A bit of translation -- when the above passage says "but a messenger ran to tell the god of fire -- Helios, lord of the sun, etc." it means that Helios is the messenger who ran to tell the god of fire (that is, Hephaestus). It does not mean that Helios is the god of fire: Helios is the lord of the sun, "who'd spied the couple lost in each other's arms and making love." This aspect of the story indicates that the liaison between the two lovers occurs close to the rising sun, as indeed it does on the morning indicated (June 10, 2011). 

Since the planet Venus is on an orbit whose path is closer to the sun than that of the earth, observers on earth will always see Venus somewhat close to the sun, but she can be found on either the sunrise side of the sun, or the sunset side of the sun, depending on the relative position of earth and Venus. For more details on the motions of Venus, see the fascinating discussion in this previous post.

Hephaestus, hearing the heart-wounding story,

bustled toward his forge, brooding on his revenge --

planted the huge anvil on its block and beat out chains,

not to be slipped or broken, all to pin the lovers on the spot.

This snare the Firegod forged, ablaze with his rage at War,

then limped to the room where the bed of love stood firm

and round the posts he poured the chains in a sweeping net

with streams of others flowing down from the roof beam,

gossamer-fine as spider webs no man could see,

not even a blissful god --

the Smith had forged a masterwork of guile. VIII. 309 - 319.

The authors of Hamlet's Mill establish that this net of Hephaestus corresponds to the Pleiades by tracing the appearance of the heavenly net and its connection with the Pleiades in other sacred myths from around the globe. On page 175 of the same chapter linked above, they write:

Then there is a true avenger-of-his-father, the Tuamotuan Tahaki, who, after long travels, arrives in the dark at the house of the goblin band who tortured his father. He conjures upon them "the intense cold of Havaiki" (the other world) which puts the to sleep. Then Tahaki gathered up the net given to him by Kuhi, and carried it to the door of the long house. He set fire to the house. When the goblin myriads shouted out together "Where is the door?" Tahaki called out: "Here it is." They thought it was one of their own band who had called out, and so they rushed headlong into the net, and Tahaki burned them up in the fire.

What the net could be is known from the story of Kaulu. This adventurous hero, wanting to destroy a she-cannibal, first flew up to Makalii the great god, and asked for his nets, the Pleiades and the Hyades, into which he entangled the evil one before he burned down her house. It is clear who was the owner of the nets up there. The Pleiades are in the right hand of Orion on the Farnese Globe, and they used to be called the "lagobolion" (hare net). The Hyades were for big game.

The Farnese Globe to which they refer, of course, is that born by the statue of Atlas discussed in this previous post; the fact that it contains clues which indicate that the ancients had a sophisticated level of astronomical understanding is discussed in this older post.

So, having established that the "gossamer-fine" web woven by the master-smith Hephaestus in this myth corresponds to the Pleiades in the night sky, the stage is now set for the actual drama involving the gods. The poet continues, explaining that Hephaestus pretends he has to head off on a long trip to visit his most-cherished town -- but he is really setting a trap for his unfaithful wife Aphrodite, and he has tasked the sun-god (actually, a Titan) Helios with keeping watch, and alerting him when the trap has been sprung:

Once he'd spun that cunning trap around his bed

he feigned a trip to the well-built town of Lemnos,

dearest to him by far of all the towns on earth.

But the god of battle kept no blind man's watch.

As soon as he saw the Master Craftsman leave

he plied his golden reins and arrived at once

and entered the famous god of fire's mansion,

chafing with lust for Aphrodite crowned with flowers. VIII. 320 - 327.

Below is a screen-shot from 04:44 am, in which Ares has now arrived on the scene, "chafing with lust for Aphrodite crowned with flowers":

In the above image, a dotted line has been added to help distinguish the line of the horizon (Venus is still invisible, below this line). The cluster of the Pleiades is indicated by the longer, bluish arrow. The location of the impatient god Mars (Aries) is indicated by the orange arrow (and Mars himself is orange-red in color).

The poet continues, and now describes Venus herself, and then the two go off to bed:

She'd just returned from her father's palace, mighty Zeus,

and now she sat in her rooms as Ares strode right in

and grasped her hand with a warm, seductive urging:

"Quick, my darling, come, let's go to bed

and lose ourselves in love! Your husband's away --

by now he must be off in the wilds of Lemnos,

consorting with his raucous Sintian friends." So he pressed

and her heart raced with joy to sleep with War

and off they went to bed and down they lay -- VIII. 328 - 336.

Below is a screen-shot of the same scene, but now from 04:53 am, and Venus has arrived on the scene, following Mars off to the bed of love:

In the above diagram, Venus is indicated by a green arrow. Mars and the Pleiades, each now slightly higher in the sky than they were at 04:44 am, are still indicated by the short orange and long blue arrows, respectively.

And now, the bard in the Odyssey tells his listeners, the two lovers are caught in a trap (they can't walk out):

and down around them came those cunning chains

of the crafty god of fire, showering down now

till the couple could not move a limb or lift a finger --

then they knew at last: there was no way out, not now.

But now the glorious crippled Smith was drawing near . . .

he'd turned around, miles short of the Lemnos coast,

for the Sungod kept his watch and told Hephaestus all,

so back he rushed to his house, his heart consumed with anguish.

Halting there at the gates, seized with savage rage,

he howled a terrible cry, imploring all the gods,

"Father Zeus, look here --

the rest of you happy gods who live forever --

here is a sight to make you laugh, revolt you too!

[. . .]" VIII. 337 - 349.

Notice the repeated mention of the Sungod in line 343 -- once again we are reminded that it is the Sun deity who spies the lovers, just as he did earlier when he informed Hephaestus of what was going on, enabling the Smith to create the web in the first place.

If we dial the time forward some more (you can do this yourself if you go to the online planetarium app mentioned earlier) the sky will begin to lighten in the east and the corona of the Sungod will begin to crest the horizon -- followed by the sunrise and the advent of the Sun himself. Trapped beneath the cunning net of Hephaestus, the two lovers are now exposed to the full light of day -- and the gathering of the immortals to laugh at their plight:

So Hephaestus wailed

as the gods came crowding up to his bronze-floored house.

Poseidon god of the earthquake came, and Hermes came,

the running god of luck, and the Archer, lord Apollo,

while modesty kept each goddess to her mansion.

The immortals, givers of all good things, stood at the gates,

and uncontrollable laughter burst from the happy gods

when the saw the god of fire's subtle, cunning work.

One would glance at his neighbor, laughing out,

"A bad day for adultery! Slow outstrips the Swift!"

"Look how limping Hephaestus conquers War,

the quickest of all the gods who rule Olympus!"

"The cripple wins by craft!" "The adulterer,

he will pay the price!" So the gods would banter

among themselves but lord Apollo goaded Hermes on:

"Tell me, Quicksilver, giver of all good things --

even with those unwieldy shackles wrapped around you,

how would you like to bed the golden Aphrodite?"

"Oh Apollo, if only!" the giant-killer cried.

"Archer, bind me down with triple those endless chains!

Let all you gods look on, and all you goddesses too --

how I'd love to bed that golden Aphrodite!" VIII. 364 - 384.

The image below will set the scene as it appears in the sky:

Again, if the resolution of the images is too low, head on over to a planetarium app and dial up the scene for yourself. However, it is hoped that in the above scene you can make out the following players:

• The Sun, rising over the horizon (marked with the number 1 in the version of the same image, below).
• Mercury, just above the Sun (marked with the number 2).
• Venus, almost directly below the Pleiades, and marked with the number 3.
• Mars, a bit ahead of her, along the same "ecliptic line" which the sun, moon, and planets follow across the sky (Mars is marked with the number 4 in the diagram below).
• The Pleiades, marked with the number 5.

In this final scene, one can really appreciate the breathtaking level of poetic correspondence between the myth itself, as related in the Odyssey, and the heavenly bodies of our solar system, who act out the drama recorded in the myth. 

Most notable, perhaps, is the final detail, in which Hermes and Apollo are described as sharing a joke over whether or not it would be worth it to exchange places with Ares at that moment, in order to be able to lie next to Aphrodite. Look again at the planetarium image above, and see how the planet Mercury (Hermes) is right next to the Sungod, as if the two gods are standing off to one side as they make fun of the situation. Mercury, of course, is always located close to the sun itself, a fact which helps set up the stage-directions which translate into the myth as Apollo and Hermes sharing a laugh together at Aphrodite's expense.

Anyone who reads the lines from the Homeric epic, and then studies the diagram shown above, should have no further doubts that the ancient stories embody the motions of the heavenly spheres -- and that they do so with a degree of precision and sophistication that is absolutely astonishing and delightful to behold.

But, as previous posts have argued, and as my latest book The Undying Stars works to establish, the allegorization in exquisite myth of the motions of the celestial actors was not simply for entertainment or delight -- as entertaining and delightful as the star myths undeniably are. These ancient treasures were intended to convey profound wisdom to men and women of all parts of the world, and in all the ages of humanity. 

They contain a message of liberation from bondage and mental slavery. Hermes, the one who laughingly offers to be chained up if only he can be next to the goddess of love, ironically enough is the one who most embodies the transcending of false barriers and mental chains, as discussed in this post entitled "Jon Rappoport on the trickster-god and creating reality."

And so, even as we enjoy the wonderful ancient myths found in the Odyssey and the rest of the world's sacred traditions, we can also ponder the profound messages which they want to carry to each and every one of us.

The Dawn of the Golden Age

If you are able to rise before the sky begins to lighten in the east, or just as it begins to take on a beautiful deep blue color in the east, you will be able to enjoy one of the more spectacular pre-dawn pageants in all of the heavenly theater. 

The magnificent constellation of Orion will be above the eastern horizon, or just rising out of the eastern horizon (depending on your latitude and the time you begin looking to the east), and above him will be the V-shaped Hyades of Taurus the Bull and above them the dazzling Pleiades (all descriptions in this post are northern-hemisphere-centric; friends in the southern hemisphere will have to adjust the descriptions or stand on their heads in order to make these descriptions and the video below make sense).  

Following the line of his upstretched arm (the arm that begins at the shoulder-point marked by giant orange Betelgeuse) will take you to the Twins of Gemini, currently made even easier to locate in the morning sky by the fact that the planet Venus is passing through the constellation.

As the earth continues to rotate towards the east, the sky will grow brighter and brighter, the blue color will become lighter and lighter, and eventually the sun itself will burst over the horizon and drown out everything else in the sky.

The constellations which are visible in the east before the sun crests the horizon will change throughout the year, of course, because from the earth we are able to see different "walls" in the "dining room" as we make our annual circuit (see this previous post for a video that explains the "metaphor of the dining room"). Only during a certain, special time of year does the awe-inspiring constellation of Orion dominate the eastern sky as it begins to turn that indescribable color of deep blue to herald the approaching dawn. That time of year is right now.

That time of year, however, was once much earlier in the year. The motion of precession (also explained in the video describing the "metaphor of the dining room") acts to "delay" the background stars over the ages, delaying their position on any given July 28th by only a single degree of arc every 71.6 years (see this previous post for more explanation of that concept). Once upon a time, the magnificent pre-dawn lineup of Orion beside Gemini and below the Bull of Taurus marked a very different and very closely-observed time of year: the time of the March equinox, or spring equinox for the northern hemisphere. 

The spring equinox is the day of rebirth, the day of bursting across the line that separates the "lower half"of the year (allegorized as the land of bondage, the valley of death, Hades, Sheol, and Hell) from the "upper half" of the year (allegorized as the promised land, the holy mountain, the city on the hill, and even Heaven with its streets paved with gold). The spring equinox marked the start of the year in many ancient calendar systems, and the zodiac sign which dominated the eastern sky before the sun made its critical appearance on that morning of rebirth for the year gave its name to the entire age. The motion of precession is so gradual that it takes approximately 2,160 years for the sign which dominated that station to be "delayed" enough to let the preceding sign take over.

The situation in the morning at this time of year, then, when Gemini and Orion are in the east prior to the rising sun corresponds to the way the sky looked during the mornings of the spring equinox back in the Age of Gemini. The Age of Gemini was so long ago that it was before the Age of Taurus, which itself preceded the Age of Aries, which preceded the Age of Pisces -- and the Age of Pisces itself is now coming to an end, as we move into the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. That's how long ago the Age of Gemini was.

But the Age of Gemini, for many important reasons, was described in ancient myth as the Golden Age. One of the reasons for this was the fact that the Milky Way passes by Gemini (between Gemini and Cancer) just as it does between Scorpio and Sagittarius on the other side of the zodiac band. That means that the equinoxes during the Golden Age were each marked by the shimmering band of the Milky Way galaxy in the Age of Gemini (the spring equinox was marked by Gemini, and the fall equinox by Sagittarius in that age). 

Another reason that the Age of Gemini was seen as a Golden Age was the presence of the majestic Orion in the east, guarding the sky above the rising sun on that critical morning. Orion was seen as a benevolent, civilizing figure in the mythology of many ancient cultures -- the one god who came and walked among humanity. He was also associated with Saturn's benevolent aspects, and the Saturnian color of yellow or gold (the other color often associated with Saturn is black).

Below is a short video that I put together in order to show you the constellations you will see in the east at this time of year, prior to the rise of the sun. I used the delightful online planetarium app created by Paul Neave, which can be found here.

If it is at all possible to do so, this is a perfect time of year to go out and absorb one of the most beautiful spectacles our sky has to offer, and as you do so to reflect back upon the successive ages through which other men and women have lived, thinking back, back, back, all the way to the Golden Age . . .