Lammas, August Eve, Feast of Bread, Harvest Home, Dozynki, Luhnasa; Lunasda, Lunasdal; Laa Luanys and Luanistyn; Gwl Awst, Cornucopia, Thingtide, Garland Sunday, Bilberry Sunday, Fraughan Sunday, Chrom Dubh Sunday, Black Stoop Sunday
               
One of the four great fire festivals of the Celtic year, Lughnasadh marks the beginning of autumn. It is the beginning of the harvest season and celebrates the decline of summer into winter. Festivals and rituals typically center around the assurance of a bountiful harvest and the celebration of the harvest cycle. The name Bilberry Sunday comes from a tradition of gathering bilberries (a cousin of blueberries) at this time. If the bilberries were bountiful, it was symbolic of a successful harvest all around. Lughnasadh is typically the feast of the first grain harvest. Though the exact date of the festival varies, held anywhere from August 1st to August 14th, since the Celts reckon their days from sundown to sundown most harvest festivals begin at sundown on July 31st. An alternate date, August 5 (Old Lammas), when the sun reaches 15 degrees Leo, is sometimes employed by Covens.

Lughnasah is named for Lugh, but the god most associated with the ancient festival is Crom Cruaich or Crom Dubh, the “dark bent one.” Lughnasah has the alternate name “Crom’s Sunday.” Originally, Crom Dubh was a deity to whom it is thought sacrifice was made at the Cross-quarter Days, including Lughnasadh. As Crom Dubh, he is stooped from carrying sheaves of wheat to mankind and dark from his time spent in the underworld Sidhe of Aine, emerging from the Otherworld on or about August 1st. People still exclaim “Dar Crom!” more or less the equivalent of “By Jove!”

Though it is said that the ancient Irish sacrificed a third of their children to Crom Cruaich on Samhain, I don’t know how seriously this can be taken considering the sources are mainly from the scribing of Christian monks. To my knowledge, though the figure of Crom Cruiach has been excavated, no bones of the slain have ever been recovered to give credence to the stories. Though Cruach can be interpreted as an adjective derived from the Old Irish word cru, meaning “bloody” or “gory,” it is more commonly interpreted as “heap,” “stack,” or “pile,” referring to piles of grain, or as a “hill or mountain.” According to legend, worship continued until the cult image was destroyed by St. Patrick with a sledgehammer or his crosier, a story which figures prominently in medieval legends about St. Patrick but appears nowhere in his own writings. It seems to me that the legends of human sacrifice may be nothing more than stories told to keep the people attached to the Christian faith out of fear of the alternative.

Crom Cruach‘s cult image, consisting of a gold figure surrounded by twelve stone or bronze figures, stood on Magh Slécht, “the plain of prostration,” in County Cavan and was supposedly propitiated with first-born sacrifice in exchange for good yields of milk and grain. The description of his icon and the surrounding stones indicates his function as a solar deity and the twelve bronze figures may have represented the zodiac. A decorated stone was found at Killycluggin, County Cavan, in 1921. Roughly dome-shaped and covered in Iron Age La Tène designs, it was discovered broken in several pieces and partly buried close to a Bronze Age stone circle. When excavated and placed upright, it was found to lean to the left, perhaps explaining the name Crom, “bent, crooked.” The Killycluggin Stone, as it is known, is now in the Cavan County Museum, while a replica stands near the road.

There has been a small movement in Ireland in recent years to shift the national Irish holiday of St. Patrick’s Day in March to a celebration in honor of Crom Dubh in August. The Friday (Aoine Cromm Dubh) before the Sunday (Domnach Cromm Dubh) before August 1 is the date of an annual pilgrimage up the 2510 ft Cruach Padraig (St. Patrick’s Mound) in County Mayo. Before the arrival of Christianity, the Celtic people regarded the mountain as the dwelling place of Crom Dubh. The sacred mountain was especially important to women, who would sleep on the summit during Lughnasadh to encourage fertility. 

Other gods associated with this day are John Barley Corn and the Green Man. Lugh, God of All Skills, is known as the “Bright or Shining One.” He is called Samhioldanach, “equally skilled in all the arts,” and is the patron of craftsmen and artists. As the god Lug Lamfhota, roughly meaning “bright and long-armed,” he is associated with both the Sun and agricultural fertility. He is a hero of the Tuatha De Danann in their later years. Lugh was the father of the famous Celtic hero Cu Chulainn. Though he was later replaced by St. Michael and St. Patrick, Lugh remained in folk memory as Lugh-chromain (“little stooping Lugh”), or Leprechaun, and sounds very much like Crom Dubh (if the name is reversed to Dubh Crom).

Lugh is the son of Ethne, daughter of Balor, and Cian, son of Dian Cecht the Healer, and a chieftain of the Tuatha De Danann. His life eerily parallels the story of King Arthur and Perseus. (Incidentally, Perseus was the son of Danaë who, by her very name, was the ancestor of all the Danaans, a collective name for Greeks in Homer’s Iliad.) It had been foretold by druids that Balor would only die at the hands of his own grandson. To prevent this, he had his only child Ethne imprisoned in a high tower, Tor Mor, with twelve matrons instructed to keep her away from all men. Cian wished revenge on Balor for stealing his magic cow, and with the help of a druidess, he disguised himself as a woman and sought shelter at the tower. The druidess placed the matrons under enchantment, and when she and Cian left, Ethne was pregnant. Nine months later, she gave birth to three sons (this would have made Lugh a three-fold god). Balor ordered that the children be killed, and a servant wrapped the babies in a cloth and took them to be drowned. One of the babies, Lugh, fell from the wrapping, and only his brothers were murdered. A stillborn infant was thrown into the sea instead, and Lugh was fostered by Tailltu (the last Queen of the Fir Bolgs), Goibhniu (the Celtic smith-god), and Manannan Mac Lir (the sea god). Lugh grew up and learned many trades. He was a carpenter, warrior, druid, mason, smith, harper, poet, physician and goldsmith. In the second battle of Moy Tura, he threw a stone into Balor’s eye and killed him, thus fulfilling the prophecy and driving the Formorians from Ireland.

Though Lughnasadh means the funeral games of Lugh, the funeral was not his own. The god of light does not really die until the autumnal equinox. It was in the area of Tailltu’s burial that the festival of Lughnasah evolved. As a favor to Lugh she cleared the Forest of Breg, making a plain for cultivation, and died of exhaustion for her trouble. Lugh decreed that a feast was to be held in her honor every August 1st at Tailtiu (now Teltown near the river Blackwater) for fifteen days. The great annual Lughnasah fair included bonfires, feasting, chariot races and other sporting events. The Tailtean Games were athletic contests very much like the Olympics. Traditional craft fairs and Tailtean marriages (which last for a year and a day) were held at this time. The last games were held August 1st, 1169 under Ruraigh O Conchobar, last High King of Ireland at the traditional site, 15 miles from Tara, the holy city.

One possible derivation of the name of Lugh is from the old Celtic word lugio, meaning “an oath.” A traditional part of the celebrations surrounding Lughnasadh is the formation of oaths. From before recorded history into the twentieth century, marriages, employment contracts and other bargains of a mundane nature were formed and renewed at this time of year. Since the agricultural year had its culmination in the harvest and harvest festivals, oaths and contracts that had had to wait until after the crops were in could be focused on at this time. Marriages, hiring for the upcoming season and financial arrangements were often a part of the Lughnasadh activities. In many areas, fairs were held specifically for the purpose of hiring or matchmaking.

Another tradition of the festival were the Teltown or Tailtean marriages. Joining hands through a wall or holed stone, participants were joined until the following year when they were at liberty to walk away from the arrangement if they so chose. Such trial marriages (or Handfastings) were common even into the 1500′s, although it was something one “didn’t bother the parish priest about.” Such ceremonies were usually solemnized by a poet, bard, shanachie (a traditional Irish storyteller), or possibly a priest or priestess of the Old Religion. The site of these marriages has tentatively been identified as the “Knockauns” in the ritual enclosure still existing at Teltown. From the early Irish term Cnocan a Chrainn, Knockauns refers to “the little hill of the tree,” possibly alluding to the presence of a sacred tree which unfortunately no longer stands.

This festival was also the traditional time of year for craft fairs. Medieval guilds created elaborate displays of their wares, decorating their shops and themselves in bright colors and ribbons. There were parades and ceremonial plays and dances.

The ‘Catherine wheel’ or sun wheel was a ceremonial highlight. A large wagon wheel was taken to the top of a near-by hill, covered with tar, set aflame, and ceremoniously rolled down the hill. Some mythologists see in this ritual the remnants of a Pagan rite symbolizing the end of summer, the flaming disk representing the sun in its decline. Though the Roman Church moved St. Catherine’s feast day all over the calendar, its most popular date was August 1st. They also kept trying to expel this much-loved saint from the ranks of the blessed because she was mythical rather than historical and because her worship gave rise to the heretical sect known as the Cathari.

Irish sites associated with Lughnasah include Teltown in County Meath, the Lios stone circle in Lough Gur in County Limerick and the sanctuary of Aine and her harvest consort Crom Dubh atop Croagh Patrick. The area of Knockauns in Teltown contains two parallel mounds, extending approximately 200 feet east-west and sitting roughly 10 feet apart. Occupying the highest point in the area, these mounds provide a clear view of the surrounding ritual area. In 1998, a local farmer bulldozed part of this ritual enclosure, the mound Rathdhu or Rath Dubh, which had previously stood revered and untouched for hundreds of years and comparative in importance with the Hill of Tara and Rath Cruachain in County Roscommon.

The Christian religion adopted the harvest theme of Lughnasadh and called it Lammas, meaning ‘loaf-mass,’ a time when newly baked loaves of bread are placed on the altar. Columcille (St Columba) tried to change Lammas into a “Feast of the Ploughmen” with no success. When it was Christianized as Michaelmas, the date of Lughnasadh shifted from late July to September 29. The Burning Man festival, held in Nevada, has its roots in another Lughnasadh tradition, the erection of giant wicker men or smaller Corn Gods, which were then set on fire. The Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone also comes to mind at this time of year. As August progresses, you can see the subtle changes in tree and plants that mark Persephone’s preparations to go underground again.

In Slavic countries, the harvest festival is called Dozynki. Sponsored by the lord of the manor for the people who worked his fields and harvested his crops, villagers would dress in colorful folk costumes, sing, and play instruments. The przodownica, or best girl harvester, wore a harvest wreath (Wieniec) as a kind of headpiece. Made of woven golden grain and decorated with meadow flowers, small apples or clusters of mountain-ash berries (Rowan), and ribbons, she would present this wreath to the squire who hung it up in a place of honor in his home. He would then pour himself and the oldest male harvester a glass of vodka and toast the entire village. A loaf of bread, baked from the fresh grain, was also presented to the lord and lady of the manor, who would give a slice to the guests who had worked hard to make the harvest possible. They then invited all present to a feast. After the meal, the squire danced the first dance with the przodownica, and his wife danced with the przodownik (leading male harvester) before the whole community was allowed to dance. In Poland today, the ceremony has changed to include everyone living in the entire countryside. Elected officials and area representatives have taken the place if the lord and lady of the manor. The celebrants continue to dress in traditional costumes and carry their harvest wreaths, attempting to surpass each other in originality and beauty.

Ideas for altar decoration :
Yellow cloth and candles
Sheaves of grain, ears of corn, local fruits
Fresh-baked bread
A corn dolly (if you choose to burn it, be sure to use a fire-safe container)

Traditional Foods :
Grains
Breads (Bannocks)
Fruit (especially apples, and berries)
Fruit Pies

Traditional Activities :
Races, Games of Endurance, Horse Races
Rhibo (Welsh game)
Musical or Poetry Contests
Weddings
Making Corn Dollies
Save and plant the seeds from the fruits consumed during the feast or ritual.
Visits to Holy Places; Walk through the fields and orchards or spend time along springs, creeks, rivers, ponds and lakes

Lammas Eve is sacred to Loki and his wife Sigyn. The Celts called it Oidhche L’dghnasa, August Eve, or Lughnasadh.

Not much of a post tonight. I’ve been so busy lately at work, I have to catch up on my reading for my horror book club. We’re reading Perdido Street Station and I am only on page 50 (out of over 600). Luckily, I have another 2 weeks before the meeting, but since there’s not a lot of us yet, I can’t hide behind other people’s discussions and pretend I read it. Gotta finish, the sooner the better, so I can reread it and make notes.

But I leave you with this article concerning a shooting at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Tennessee. I hope there comes a day when people can look at each other without hate or fear and just accept each other and even revel in our differences. I’m not a member of the UUC, but I am angry and upset anyway. I don’t understand how people can do this to one another. Whether it’s a lone gunman shooting up a Church, or a mad bomber targeting some place in the Middle East… it’s WRONG to kill people because they are different from you. There is no excuse for hurting other people, no matter what you think of them. There is no right reason to take a life, and walking into an unarmed group and opening fire is the act of a coward! I’m pretty sure no matter who your god/dess of choice is, they’d agree with me on this one.

Helena Petrovna Hahn, later called Madam Blavatsky, was born at the midnight hour between the 30th and 31st of July (in the Russian Calendar, August 12) in 1831, at Ekaterinoslav. She was the mystic and medium who wrote Isis Unveiled.

So apparently, every house we’ve ever lived in right down to the trailer my mother brought me home to when I was first born has been haunted. Supposedly the former tenant had killed her husband and then herself, but I only have my mother’s word for that.

I can usually tell right away if a building is haunted when I enter it, though occasionally some spirit will happen along after the fact. Such is the case with a store I once worked in… it was a bookstore. Apparently there is some rule that all bookstores must be haunted. There were always books leaping off the shelves, and I have a picture (a Halloween picture) which has some pretty interesting “light effects.”

Another place we lived in wasn’t haunted until my parents renovated the attic. When my sister and I moved up there, “all Hell broke loose.” I used to keep my stereo on a ledge overlooking the stairs and the ghost used to throw it down the stairs in the middle of the night. I’d say it was a music critic, but the stereo wasn’t usually on at that time. lol By the time we moved from that place, it was held together with electrical tape. But beyond hating my music, this ghost was pretty nasty. We played hide&seek in the dark (basically you listen for people in the dark and try to find them by sound alone) and my sister snuck back into the unfinished cubby to hide. There were some boards in the middle of the room, and she said that something grabbed her foot. When she fell, she fell to the side, which was very lucky because there were scissors stuck, point up, between the boards, and obviously there was no reason for scissors to be back there at all. I hated that cubby. The door was always coming open, and I’d wake up in the morning or come home from school and the door would be hanging open. Come to think of it, the ghost didn’t start throwing my stereo down the stairs until I blocked the door with a china cabinet.

Currently we live in a house which has at least three ghosts. We know for a fact that one of the former owners died in the livingroom. When we first moved in, I would smell cigars every once in a while (and the former owner was a cigar smoke). Also… the building used to be a whorehouse back in the 50s. lol Every once in a while, I’d hear old timey music on the stairs and sometimes when I was trying to sleep I’d hear “whispering.” There’s also weird drafts in my room. Mostly annoying stuff. I think one of the “whores” stuck around. There is also something in the attic, which I’m not sure if it’s a ghost or an elemental. It mostly just makes nasty smells, but one time I was sitting in my room very late at night and heard something walk over my head. Considering the only entry to the attic is in my room, this was UBER scary. I have the impression that whatever is up there, it’s there because there’s something hidden up there. I told this to my step-grandpa, who owned the house before we bought it, and he said that when he owned the place, he found a picture of some guy in a German-type helmet… so maybe some kind of Nazi war criminal lived here at some point and he still hangs out in the attic?

My mother is also Very good at getting ghost pictures, orbs and mists. I have two photo albums filled with her pictures and the start of a third. The whole area we live in is supposed to be haunted. We live on a canal in Pennsylvania and only a few yards away a “Lady in White” is supposed to walk the canal. We’ve never seen her, but my mother gets most of her orb pictures at the canal and in our back yard. Some of those pictures are so filled with orbs, it looks like a swarm.

Anyway… obviously I believe in ghosts. I’ve been surrounded by them all my life. I’ve never seen a ghost, but I can hear them, sense them, and it has also been my misfortune to Smell them. heh

Thor, or the Anglo-Saxon Thunor, is honored.

Answer any one or all of these questions in the coming
week. I try to mix the whimsical with the serious here, so hopefully
there is at least one question here for everyone.

Siblings in northern India celebrate the Raksha Bandhan. As a sign of family unity, women tie rakshis, amulets made from woven strips of colored yarn, around the wrists of the brothers, and the brothers give gifts to their sisters and promise to protect them.

For the most part, holy phenomena corresponds to natural aspects of the human system, but to “unrealistic” extremes. The only thing that sets them apart from things you might normally experience, is the seemingly excessive power displayed. This is also true of general, non-holy psychic phenomena. ESP corresponds to the senses. Telekinesis corresponds to motion. Nearly every psychic ability corresponds to an ability everyone has at a normal level, but it has been hyped up to an unusual and dissociated degree and therefore stands out as abnormal.

In Christian mysticism, there are abilities expressed by saints and other holy folks called Charisms. This word comes from the Greek Charismata or “gifts of grace,” referring to seemingly supernatural manifestations associated with holy people. Some of these correspond to psychic phenomena as we know it- levitation or flight is akin to telekinesis, bilocation may also be akin to telekinesis as teleportation or to OOBE, visions and locutions are obviously the holy equivalent of clairvoyance and clairaudience. Visions
could be perceived as actual images or as a full blown idea as with telepathy. Locutions could seem to be actual sounds or might be
apprehended as knowledge in the mind. Incidentally, angels were thought to communicate via thought as well, and there is some argument among telepaths as to whether telepathy is “heard” as words or “appears” in the mind as ideas. I believe it can be either depending upon the “wiring” of the telepath. Christian saints could also read hearts, an obvious allusion to Empathy. They might also experience incendium amoris, “flames of love.” That is, heat as a sign of their devotion would permeate their body, sometimes even singing their clothes. Sounds like pyrokinesis to me.

Some abilities ascribed to saints do not correspond to known psychic phenomena unless they are more thoroughly examined. Hierognosis is the immediate ability to tell if something’s holy, blessed, or
sanctified. This would seem to be a cross between telethesia and clairvoyance as well as an odd twist of Precognition or Enviro-sense. Stigmata might be seen as a kind of reverse psychosomatic healing, just as vampirism might be a kind of reverse empathy. Tears of Blood and Bloody Sweat is another similar sign. Another strange aspect of saintliness which could also be an aspect of healing, is myroblutai, a Greek term meaning “unguent spouters.” Some members of the early Church secreted “holy oils” from their bodies.
The belief was that saintly people exude a special substance from their
bodies described as sacred blood, milk, oil, or manna.

Christians haven’t cornered the market on “miracles” however. The Indian Yogis and Swamis have known of such phenomena for millennia. In India, they are called Siddhi, a Sanskrit term meaning “perfect abilities.” They are said to be associated with unusual mental states of concentration called Samadhis or Jhanas. While in Christian teachings such phenomena are an indication of the possibility of sainthood, Eastern regard for them is more ambivalent. Some seek these abilities in order to become magicians, but in Buddhist teachings, manifestation of such abilities is actually a distraction from the true goal of enlightenment. Though their attainment indicates the meditator has made substantial progress in their mastery of the meditative states, and they can use these abilities to help others, the attainment of these powers can lead the meditator astray from the true goal of exalted consciousness.

Raja Yogis cultivate a type of concentration called Samyama and claim that unusual effects can be obtained through attention to specific objects while practicing this type of consciousness. Focusing on the throat removes sensations of hunger and thirst (healing, mind over matter). Concentrating on someone’s features can reveal their state of mind (telepathy/empathy). Thinking on one’s memories can reveal memories of past lives. Contemplating one’s body and the surrounding environment can produce levitation (telekinesis). A master can even concentrate on a student’s body and enter it to destroy some aspect which is hindering the student’s meditative efforts. Hindu tantra teaches that access to the Siddhis can be reached through the chakras. When the throat, third eye, and crown chakra are activated, this leads to psychic phenomena. This would seem to bear out the fact that young girls going through puberty, when the pituitary gland is most active (behind the third eye chakra), are much more likely to exhibit poltergeist/telekinetic symptoms.

In Buddhism, these special abilities are known as Abhijnas. They also ascribe these powers to development of the chakras. The most commonly mentioned powers in the Buddhist tantric tradition is the invincible sword (or arm), the power to run extremely fast, invisibility, flight, the ability to project healing energy into pills, and control over spirits. Even greater powers were ascribed to true masters of enlightenment who had attained the supreme Siddhi. In seeming displays which defy reality as we know it, they could cause rivers to flow backwards, stop the sun in the sky, immerse themselves in boiling oil, and drink molten copper in their efforts to deflate pretension and convert others to Buddhism.


Some of the Siddhis are extreme vitality. The Hindu call this Kundalini, and in Tibet it is Tumo. This corresponds to incendium amoris in Christianity, magical heat in shamanism, and boiling nu’um among the African bushmen. Spontaneous combustion cases might
be an extreme form of this enhanced vitality. A related activity with yogis involves
invulnerability to burning, either by handling hot coals or
walking on them. Agility may also be increased through meditation. Lung-gom walking in Tibet is an example of this. There is a tradition in India of the animan siddhi, the capacity to change the
focus of the mind down to the size of an atom, allowing one to
explore cellular and molecular structures. Some psychics have experimented with this ability to examine the periodic table and discovering the two states of the neon molecule before it was verified by science. Is this perhaps how the Dogon tribe of Africa was aware of the twin stars of Sirius long before astronomers discovered Sirius B.

In both Christian and Eastern practices, there are also stories of inedia. This is an extreme
form of fasting, complete abstinence from nourishment beyond such a time as it
would be feasible to expect survival. Although there are some cases in
medical history in which individuals have existed for almost eighty
days without any
solid food, the point would be reached at which no
human being could
survive. Holy men have been intentionally buried, deprived of food, liquids, and air to prove their control over their bodies with no ill effects.

Despite the holy trappings, it seems likely that most if not all supernatural phenomena is a function of higher states of consciousness. Though religion may be the impetus for development of such abilities, the abilities would seem to be available to anyone willing to devote the time and effort to discovering them. That is not to say that there is no interaction with beings existing outside of our dimension, whether they are gods, angels, demons, or just extra-planar beings. In fact, all holy men and women are supposed to have power over spirits. It is only in the source that Christian and Eastern mystics differ, Christians asserting that the power comes not from themselves, but as a sign of God’s favor, while Eastern mystics see it as a sign of enlightenment, but also a dreadful distraction.

Chapter 1.1 in which Glory is not mindful of the store
Chapter 1.2 in which Glory is made to do something she would really rather not
Chapter 1.3 in which Glory thinks she might be sick
Chapter 1.4 in which Aaron makes a mistake
Chapter 1.5 in which Glory is made to see the error of her ways
Chapter 1.6 in which the circle remains unbroken

Chapter 2.1 in which Aaron makes another mistake
Chapter 2.2 in which Glory reflects on her path
Chapter 2.3 in which we learn Aaron is not really a nice boy
Chapter 2.4 in which Glory speculates on the holiness of salt
Chapter 2.5 in which Glory learns of the necessity for upper body strength, but makes do with  what she has
Chapter 2.6 in which Aaron tries to make amends, but is still pretty much an ass

Hatshepsut’s Day in Egypt. This is the 6th day of the month of Thuthi. The Feast of Anket is held, welcoming the rising of the Nile.

I could swear that I made a similar post about a year ago, but I’ll be darned if I can find it. I also had a handy little flow chart of which this is a slightly sad duplicate.

All psychic phenomena fits under a broad label of Metanoia or higher consciousness. This can be considered the broadest spectrum of psychic ability. Though I put this all in the form of a flow chart, psychic ability could be compared to the spectrum of light. Metanoia is further divided by Omnipotence and Omniscience… all-powerful and all-knowing. Few people if ever exhibit either one of these broad spectrum abilities except in flashes.

Within the spectrum of Omnipotence, there is the practice of Magic and the ability known as Telekinesis (TK) or Pyrokinesis (PK). Magic is as much a skill set as an ability, but separate from TK and its extreme sister, PK. Magic allows a broad manipulation of reality, whereas TK/PK is manipulation of matter as a very basic and unrefined level. While techniques regarding the use of Magic have been refined over the millennia, very few techniques for the training of TK/PK have been developed. Another sub-spectra ability within TK is Healing, another largely undeveloped ability in modern psychic phenomena.

The spectra of Omniscience is much broader that Omnipotence because it tends to adhere to the five sense, branching out into psychic phenomena which mimics those senses. This is not always true, but the best known psychic abilities in this group fall under the label of Clairsentience or ESP. The abilities in this sub-spectra exactly mimic the senses and are called Psychometry or Telethesia (touch), Clairaudience (sound), Clairvoyance (sight), Clairgustance or Clairsavorant (taste), and Clairscent (smell). Precognition, Astral projections and O.O.B.E (Out of Body Experience) also fall under this heading. Finally, Empathy (EP)/Telepathy (TP) also falls under the heading of Omniscience.

At this point, things become very muddy. Clairvoyance can be further divided into the ability to see Auras and Psychorrhagy, the ability to see ghosts. However, the ability of Mediumship can involve TP/EP, Clairaudience, and/or Clairvoyance.

It also seems that Vampirism is an aspect of energy consumption and can have psychic elements. So Vampirism combines elements of TK/PK and TP/EP. Empathy can further be extended to include a relative newcomer called Earth-sense (a term coined by Mercedes Lackey in her Valdemar books) or Enviro-empathy as I like to call it (which has been explored in the Findhorn community). This also includes Animal Mediumship or Animal Psychics.

Finally, there is Divination which may fall under Magic or Precognition or may be some combination of the two. Though Precognition is technically the ability to see some future event and there are those who can see the past (telethetics usually), the act of Divination, like Magic, seems to be a direct manipulation of reality/time. Further, the act of Dowsing, which falls under the heading of Divination, combines Telethesia and Enviro-sense.

And I didn’t even get into the religious states exhibited by holy men throughout the centuries. There’s a certain criteria for saints in the Catholic tradition which includes Flight (perhaps an aspect of TK?) and bi-location, that is some saints have been known to have doppelgangers. Buddhist monks are also known to exhibit a wide range of psychic phenomena. I’ll try to post more on these things tomorrow.

The Hopi Niman dance marks the end of a visit from the Kachinas which began in February.

Last night I was thinking as I lay in bed (because I usually come up with my weirdest thoughts when sleep eludes me) that science often posits that Time is the fourth dimension. But what if it’s not? They seem to assume that Time is the fourth dimension because it isn’t something that we can easily quantify. We seem to be immersed in it and so cannot look at it from an outside perspective as we can with the first three dimensions- length, width, and height (x,y,z).

But it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around this concept of time as a dimension, or at least the nearest one. What if instead, emotion or thought is the fourth, nearest dimension. Like time, it is something we’re immersed in and is not easily quantified. In addition, with the increasing number of empaths being born, it seems more plausible that as our awareness of the nearest dimension expands, that there would be more people with an innate awareness of its existence/interaction in this plane.

Some have posited that other dimensions radiate into this one and that this radiation may be the only way to experience them from our perspective. Time may be a near dimension, but the fact that some are developing the faculties to experience and manipulate emotion says to me that Emotion may be the next nearest plane to ours, not Time. There is also the fact that shapes and colors evoke emotional responses before we even begin, if ever, to query their impact on time. Come to think of it, color may just be another dimension for which we haven’t come up with a name or it may be one of the ways Emotion radiates into our dimensions.

While obviously there are people who are currently experiencing time-slips, the ratio of people who identify as empaths is much larger compared to telepaths, kinetics, and time-slippers. It seems to me that past the first three dimension in which we make our home, the next dimensions may be emotion, thought, and then time. Though some people say we are transitioning into a higher dimension, there’s really no way of knowing if the fourth dimension is one of these, or possibly encompasses all of these phenomena. In that case, the fourth dimension might very well be energy or all dimensions might be aspects of energy. Some have posited that when we transition to death, we are entering a dimension of pure energy where thought is translated into action. If this is true, then the transition is understandably traumatic for those who are unprepared. This may explain reincarnation. If the mind is not ready to make that transition and fully interface with the all encompassing dimension, we may of necessity devolve to a dimension that fits our comfort levels… this may explain why the Earth is currently so over populated as people have become comparatively less spiritual (from ancient society to today) and more materialistic, they have become less open minded to the other less concrete dimensions.

The Feast of St. Christopher, patron of travelers, occurred today. Much of his character was acquired from the Flemish by way of Thor, the god of thunder, rain, and farming. The Flemish would pray to the Saint in the same way they had prayed to the god. He was called upon to protect their crops from harsh weather.

(the following words in quotes borrowed from the Declaration of Independence)

This essay will probably get me put on some “list.”

The Neptunalia honored the sea god Neptune and his wife, Salacia, goddess of the wide-open salty sea and the mineral water of springs. Originally Neptune was a god of fresh waters while his wife held dominion over the salty seas. The goddess Sulis of the hot springs of Bath may have been one of her aspects. Neptune and his wife are equivalent to the Norse deities Aegir and his wife Ran. In Greece, Salacia would be Amphitrite.

… because it’s kind of gross. It’s one of the reasons I hate being a girl, though I’d never want to be a guy. I’m talking about my period. Just about the ickiest subject a girl can bring up.

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Answer any one or all of these questions in the coming
week. I try to mix the whimsical with the serious here, so hopefully
there is at least one question here for everyone.

The Mayan New Year was celebrated today. Each day, year, decade, century, and millennium had its own god. The Mayan solar calendar possessed 365 days, and they also possessed a sacred calendar of 260 days for determining which deity was in charge. Every fifty-second solar New Year was dangerous because the gods might leave their duties and time would stop.