Heresy in Bb Major, First Impression

or,

What You See Is What They Think

"Things are seldom what they seem
Skim milk masquerades as cream."
-- W. S. Gilbert

[Note: I've apparently been remiss, as my maternal carbon-based lifeform has informed me. This is from July. Okay, fine, it's also from April. I've had a busy summerfall, and it shows no signs of slowing up. I'm doing a 200+ mile-per-day commute (round-trip). I really should see about teleporting...um, telecommuting.]

Okay, so I finished reading the Da Vinci Code. I thought it was a hell of a good read. It reads like a screenplay. The scenes are short, concise, well-threaded -- I mean, someone could toss in some technical annotations, change the format slightly, and it's an instant movie! I was impressed.

Other things which impressed me were the connections between the Mona Lisa, the sacred Feminine, the rise of the patriarchy, the Knights Templar (later the Freemasons), the Illuminati, the Catholic Church and its radical offshoots, and the current state of what passes for Christianity.

And, of course, there are people who will put it all down as hogwash, nonsense, and heresy. I pity their lack of understanding, their cynicism and their zeal in the face of adversity.

Rule One: When you stop learning, you die. You might as well go to sleep and not wake up, because if you know everything, there's nothing to deal with.

So I learned things from this book.

One thing I learned was that 'heretic' is derived from 'hereticum', which means 'to choose'. Choice of one's own direction, as opposed to some grand Divine Purpose or Master Plan which we should be blindly following without question.

I guess that makes me a heretic, for I take nothing at face value, and I look for the underlying currents which are indicative of a true purpose.

Life is a four-way chess match between Choice, Chance, Destiny and Circumstance, and there is no order in which the pieces move.

Circumstance is where we are. Destiny is where we are supposedly going. Choice is that avenue we see which allows us to alter our course to our Destiny, or to a completely different Destiny altogether. Chance is what happens beyond our control.

I saw a website which stated (and I quote):

"the Word sprang from a 4th Century rivalry? Get Real."

By this, I take it to mean that the composer(s) of said site are stupid enough not to question the word of "God" coming from some flaming shrub (don't we have one of those in the White House?), passed along to some zealot with his own agenda who spent forty days and forty nights on some mountain carving two stone tablets which bore his own interpretation of what this burning bush supposedly told him.

Oh, was that my outside keyboard? Sorry.

Anyway. Put the Bible on the same shelf as all the other books of myths and legends. The stories are good as stories, but if you believe a single thing in that book as being proof of a God, you have an ID ten T complex, and you are DANGEROUS to the human race.

Can I rant on the Patriarchy for a moment?

In the beginning, Man created God. In so doing, there were supposedly scrolls written attributing some power or respect to the female.

But the Patriarchy, in its infinite paranoia, decided to make those parts disappear, because to acknowledge Woman as equal, even as equal-yet- different, was to give the Woman power -- power which would eventually unseat the Man as sole dictator of the course of events.

Stupid. Stupid stupid STUPID men. If I can help unseat the Patriarchy, I'll do it in a New York Minute. I'm saying this because, although I am male, heterosexual, caucasian of European descent (in short: the stereotypical scum of the planet), I've met so many GUYS that I *really* don't like. There are women out there, too, like that, but they're in the minority.

So I'm not in favour of putting in a Matriarchy either, as I would get caught in the anti-white-hetero-euromale backlash.

But I do want to see some semblence of balance brought back, for we are destroying our world, and, like it or not, Earth IS Mother. If you don't like it, go sign up for a shuttle trip to colonize Mars or something. You're probably rich and can afford it if you're thinking in a way which exploits the Earth for your own gain, so go away. Meanwhile, I have to live here. I have no intention of going away.

I have found something very very VERY interesting, and this might just blow the minds of the feminists out there:

Woman, by being submissive (at least in certain circumstances), wields a LOT of power. Trust me on this one. Give a guy the perception of a little control, and you've got him right where you want him. The trick is you NEVER allow yourself to be put in a place of harm or humiliation.

Of course, that's hard to allow yourself to do, given the mindset of most of the guys out there, but then, most of the guys out there don't deserve women or the chance to procreate with them.

Never settle for second best. It's better to be alone than to settle.

But I digress.

So what did I learn? That the K.T. harbored the Illuminati, some of which decided to use the front of the K.T. as a shield for darker purposes.

I learned that Mary Magdalene was likely Jesus' wife, that Jesus was likely a prophet and NOT the son of God, and that Mary Magdalene was supposed to carry on the church, but Paul wouldn't have it.

I'm betting that it was Mary Magdalene who went to Christ's tomb and took his body away to bury it someplace before the Romans could wander in and desecrate it.

Something else I have been illuminated on is this point of "immaculate conception". I think, in this case, "immaculate conception" was as mistranslated as the phrase about "passing a camel through the eye of a needle before entering the kingdom of heaven" (the same is used in Hebrew for "camel" as for "rope", I am told. The latter makes more sense).

The word "immaculate" could have been a deliberate misinterpretation of the original word for "pure"; this, too makes more sense. For Jesus to have been conceived and born of a pure conception, one of pure love which two people such as Mary and Joseph shared, makes FAR more sense than a conception in which there was no mess. I mean, come ON, people! The creation of life itself is apparently a miracle, even with our understanding of what happens when the male and female join, when the sperm enters the egg. If that's a miracle, then for it to happen without impregnation along some line, even with today's technology, is not a miracle -- it is IMPOSSIBLE.

Maybe Mary didn't realise what happened, or she partied too hard with Joe, got drunk off her ASS, and didn't remember getting laid.

Or maybe -- JUST MAYBE -- the IDIOTS who wrote the Bible decided that really should mean "immaculate-as-in-no-mess-at-all" instead of meaning "pure-as-in-they-really-loved-each-other."

Let's face facts: Love and Peace do not bring power to men with great aspirations (although I wish they'd all tuck their heads into their butts and aspirate whatever happens down the pipe, thus putting themselves out of our misery).

Control, conflict, competition are the keys for the greedy, the would-be power-mongers, the conquerors, the dictators, the emperors.

It doesn't take too many brains to figure out, by the way, why the state of education and the availability of useful information are in such states as they are.

I'll leave that to you to figure out.

Good day.

Watch This Space

It's been a while. For those of you who have been following my feature page at Star Wolf Innovations , you're probably aware that I'm in the middle of a life-changing event of some sort; those of you with whom I've actually been in contact are aware of what said event really is.

I have advice for you: If you marry someone, you need to be sure that you are both committed enough to each other -- and to any future offspring -- to make it work, because separation is painful, to understate the sentiment.

In fact, it downright sucks large rocks through a garden hose.

It's worse if you've had kids.

...and it's even worse if you're still friends with the ex-. Not that I mind this -- it's a good thing, in my opinion. But it doesn't make it any easier to make the physical move. Even now, as I move my affairs in absentia, I find it quite difficult emotionally.

I suppose eventually, the pain goes away.

I just hope my kids don't grow to hate me because I've taken what I perceive to be a necessary direction in my life. They're such good kids, and I want the good things for them. At the same time, my life's not over yet, and I want to be able to enjoy at least some of what I have.

Hopefully this will not be a conflict of interest. I don't think it will be, but I suspect there are differing opinions.

If you have opinions on this, drop me a line and let me know how you feel.

Back in a while. And I have pictures of Linda which I will post when life settles down a bit more.

Farewell to a Grand Hobbit

"I am sailing with the silver ships to the west,
to the undying lands." -- J. R. R. Tolkien

"So cautiously, at first, and then so high
As he spoke, my spirit climbed into the sky
I bid it to return to hear your wonderous stories..."

-- Jon Anderson, "Wonderous Stories"

(This page will likely receive numerous updates over this year, as I'm sure its current content does not begin to do her justice.)

She was one of the Old Old Ones; a veritable fixture in the Fairs and Faires in the New Old World. She was lively, vibrant, always there to lend her voice and sing to the Heavens and Havens of those of us who were fortunate enough to have known her. Some knew her as Hobbit.

Over the years, I have seen her act, sing, AND run the Children's Traditional School of Arts and Crafts -- all, eventually, from her transport cart (a mode of transportation a wee bit more dignified than a straight-out wheelchair) as she became unable to walk. I remember being rather excited at seeing her on Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton, and being able to say, "Oh, wow! We know her!"

She performed a naming ceremony for our daughter shortly after she was born, and she has always been there for the small multitude of children who have come into this world from the Young Ones, descendants of the Old Ones. Only recently, Stitch and Pooh have made their way into our house, into the arms of our little ones, courtesy of her.

I remember her birthday one year at Black Point (though I could not tell you the precise date), when 30-plus Scotsmen each brought up to her a dozen roses at the end of her performance on the stage. That was an amazing sight not to be forgotten -- the stage was festooned with roses. I don't think there was a square inch left for an exit path. Similarly, I seem to remember the Irish serenading her with a ten-part harmony rendition of "Red Is The Rose" -- a cappella, of course! I think that even misted a few of our eyes in return.

Of late, I had the honour of co-managing the Brass Rubbings booth for her at the Northern Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Casa de Fruta, near Hollister, California. That was a generosity on her part, actually, as it kept my family solvent during an economically trying time.

On Sunday, 11 April 2004, Linda Underhill passed away.

I, her family, a thousand others who knew her, and the countless thousands who knew of her through her performances, will miss her terribly. The choir of angels and fae have a beautiful addition to their cast.

Sleep sweet, Linda, and may the Westward sail be pleasant.

Remortance, Revisited

or, This age hits home.

"Death. It's not so bad. It beats the alternative." -- Unknown

This year has been quite the year, it would seem. Most of you are familiar with the events which have inundated the world, the Nation, and California in particular. This piece addresses something a little closer to home.

A long running tradition, the Northern Renaissance Pleasure Faire, has closed its doors, much to the dismay of a good many of us. I was a visitor there in 1980 and 1981, and I became a participant in 1985, recruited into the Guild of St. Patrick, the Wild Irish. I owe my prowess on the mandolin and the guitar to this induction.

Like others, I made many friends there and have had the misfortune to lose at least one of them to the faded pall and the black shroud of Death himself. Like others, I wandered through several loves there, only to eventually wander out of them again. Like others, I have helped raise children there.

I will never forget the first threat of losing Black Point, watching RPFN go from the elder Pattersons to be bought by the Renaissance Entertainment Corporation. I will never forget the second attempt on Black Point, which ultimately succeeded after a lengthy battle.

I remember turning my back for ten seconds in front of New Irish Camp, and turning around again only to see someone hauling my baby girl out of the Washing Well (how DID she get there that fast!?).

...and we still have the flower wreaths, complete with ribbons, given to the girls in 1997.

Losing Black Point in 1998 was devastating; to hear that the Northern Faire has closed is a duller pain, but it is still there.

The friend of a friend has summed it all up well, and I shall include her missive here (with some formatting liberties):

---

"There was a time when the Faire was rich and alive
With demi-gods who swaggered through the crowds,
Plucking moments in time and making magic.
Their names were legend...St. Germaine, Kahn, Perry, Zepeda, Hall, Moore, Springhorn, Morales,
And the world was ripe with gigs.

The crowds were alive with eager hearts and minds
Hoping for a chance to make the dream come alive.
And we were all there to help them along.
Some of us sang,
Some of us brought the crowd to their knees with laughter,
Some of us just added amazing color and beauty to the background,
And some of us just stank to high heaven, but that was ok too....

We all were alive and insane!
The gig was all that mattered, not the politics, or the money or whatever.
We would have plucked out our eyes
Rather than break BFA, use an anachronism or
Wear something that was not allowed.
We were possessed with a need to create a world
Where we could gorge ourselves with ripe possibilities
For new and exciting things to do.
We were careless then. Like a kid in a candy store,
We would stuff ourselves and move on as if it would last
Forever.

Then, something happened.

Perhaps we got bored or burnt out.
Perhaps we had our hearts broken one too many times, or
We started to let the "real" world in.
We got greedy, we got mean,
We started treating each other like the enemy
Or at least someone to keep a guarded watch on.
We put ourselves first.
We got lazy and made excuses,
And we let the show go...

Some of us went away,
Some of us passed on to a better place,
Some of us came every weekend
But just "phoned it in".

I am just wondering if maybe it is time to just
Let this all go.

My wish is that there will, once again, be a place
Where Bruno dance and girls run by, giggling and winking.
I dream of a place where there is music again in the streets,
And people laugh and greet each other with the fever of old friends
Meeting after a long absence and desperately missing each other.

I am tired of Patterson vs REC, of all the politics,
Of the drama and anger and angst and death and sadness.

I miss old friends who are gone and will never come back,
I miss old friends that stay away for stupid reasons
That really don't matter anymore.

Some of us will cry, some of us will get mad,
Some of us will say "ah ha! We've won!" or "I told you so",
And some of us will hold onto some meek hope that
Somehow it will all be like some weird dream where
"Bobby" isn't really dead, but just taking a shower
And this last year really didn't happen
(obscure Dallas reference-sorry-I'm an old broad, humor me)
And there will be a Northern next year.

I propose that, instead,
We try to get together whenever we can
And remember when it was good.
When we loved it and it wasn't some odd private D&D game
And audience-be-damned.

When my father died,
I built a new family from the people I knew at Faire.
They have (for better or worse) been in my life
And I have loved/hated/fought/shared a laugh/shared a drink/shared a life with them all.
I met and married my husband,
Felt the joy when dear friends got married,
Felt the pain when they divorced,
Brought my son here to grow up from a grub to a wonderful little boy,
Cried when friends died. Jocelyn, Larry, Damien, Am.
I will now have to make a life where something else defines me.
This is an odd thing for me.

No matter what else happens, keep the stories alive
And wherever you go, try to make the magic.

My hope is that we will meet again soon-

Sandra Cadell

---

Running events in life are very much like a school, I note. After the last day of being in school -- not just for the Summer -- you wake up and wonder, "Gods, what now?". Everything changes. Everything you have taken for granted over the last N years is gone, and no matter how much you may have tried not to take it for granted, you did anyway.

And it's all right if that happens after a fashion. We are all mortal.

Let us all meet again, soon and relatively often -- we from the Renaissance Faire, we from the College, we from the innocence of the neighbourhoods of our past.

Interestingly enough, we will probably find that we're not all that different than we used to be, and it will be this which will keep us all connected.

Memories are life. Pass them on. Bright blessings have visited those who have played. May they continue to visit us, and those who have yet to play.

Welcome to the Remortance

or, "I didn't think time could go backwards."

"What did I know? Those days are gone forever, I should just let 'em go."
-- Don Henley, "The Boys Of Summer"

---

"Alas, poor Yorick; I knew him...well..."
-- John McDill as Captain Hook in "Peter Pan"

---

What a time it was. Learning became available beyond the monasteries, trade flourished (pirates notwithstanding), artisanry abounded, music and dance came to represent life, and morale had never been higher.

I speak, of course, of the Renaissance. The more astute of you will query, "Which one?"

Good question, for we have had several in the history of this great planet. The first Renaissance began in Europe -- specifically in Italy, somewhere around the latter half of the fifteenth century, carrying forward and flowing outward to the borders of Europe and farther, covering France, Greece, Basque, Prussia, Spain, Holland, Ireland and, at long last, England. For various reasons, I am convinced that England was the distant last to become overwhelmed by the phenomenon which was to be the Renaissance -- the joys of which were over all too soon, thanks both to Elizabeth Tudor's stranglehold on Ireland and to her demise, which left many issues in Ireland unresolved.

There are also probably far too many countries left unnamed above. But I digress.

After the first Renaissance in Europe, the world would never be quite the same, although it would not find a true glow again until sometime in the nineteenth century, when an upsurge of creativity happened again during the Industrial Revolution. This Renaissance period would last until its death in 1929, when the Stock Market crashed quickly, suddenly, taking untold fortunes with it. Castles in the sand, and all that.

The third Renaissance would have to have been the 1960s -- still more creativity, more exploration, more music, more art, more expression, and we *still* got a man on the moon in spite of it all. The third Renaissance ended, near as I can tell, somewhere in the mid 1980s.

The fourth Renaissance to date was the Technological Revolution, and some might even say it was riding on the wave of its predecessor. I'd say it was intermingled with the third one, to be sure, but it was under its own power.

The next Renaissance has yet to happen. I'll be quite surprised if it happens in my lifetime, as the thumbscrews which have been emplaced after every outbreak of creativity, expression, outrage against authority, life, for heaven's sake! have been tightened down. We have been encumbered with more rules, regulations, laws, decrees, taxes, fees, policies, acts and constitutional amendments, all supposedly for the good of the people. This is also not to mention the amazing growth of litigation over creativity.

Oh, wait -- you're reading this. I must be preaching to the choir here.

The aforementioned outstretches of the human(oid) mind and spirit have been met with such amazingly hostile repressions of late that I fear we are in for a tragic reversal of events. True, our accomplishments cannot be taken from us, but we will be forced to rest on our laurels unless we can find a way to grow from beneath this ground cover under which we now find ourselves.

Music is meant to be enjoyed, and the people who make music should surely be paid for it, but the Recording Industry of America is ensuring that they get their percentage off the top, even if the musician must then pay the RIAA. This is an insult to the integrity of music, as much of it that remains, anyway. Several musicians have decided that sharing music is the best incentive for getting people to buy it. But the RIAA is probably searching for a way to circumvent this.

Of late, the Motion Picture Academy of America has voted not to accept for nominations movies which are sent directly to Academy members. This is going to severely restrict the exposure which independent filmmakers get.

Also of late, we in California have been unfortunate to acquire yet another actor in the position of Gubernatorial Marionette. And, of course, a Good Ol' Boy, in the political sense.

Do we see a trend here? The status quo is not going away, in spite of our best efforts, because the status quo keeps changing the rules by which they play. This leaves the rest of the people at a disadvantage.

Of course, if the boat starts rocking too much, it won't take too much more to help tip it over. The timing would be critical, though.

Yes, this is rambling. I apologise.

To go back to the Renaissance, though, something to take into account:
How much of the innovation, invention, exploration, creation of all that was would have come about had there always been such creatures as, say, patent lawyers hanging around?

Think about it. The patent process is heinous. Creativity has always been borne of improvements upon existing processes or machines. Hell, if the patent laws had been around at the time of Leonardo da Vinci (and carried forward), how much innovation would have been completed?

The current copyright laws (and resultant licensing agreements) are as horrid (look them up -- they're nasty). Michelangelo could have probably gone after a number of artists for painting in a similar style as he. By current laws, his family/estate could have gone after them for eighty years after his death.

If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of congress?

I think it's ironic, incidentally, that the mechanisms of political interaction have outlived the mechanisms of social interaction. Socially, we've gone backwards. We entered a brief period of civilisation in which we actually learned to say hello to one another, and over the last thirty or so years, we seem to have forgotten it completely.

Music has gone dark. The arts and entertainment are attainable by and large only by the wealthy. Education, likewise. More people are working longer for less, and the price of living continues to rise. We have a cadre of people running the country who think, more than ever, that the genders do not deserve equivalent compensation for what they do, let alone equivalent consideration for who they are.

A difference is that we do not have a plague or a war or a blight reducing our numbers at any significant rate. Also, we have procedures in place to keep the stock market from dropping out of existence.

These, I feel, will hinder, rather than help the re-emergence of progress, creativity, life.

What we have now as a world is not life. It is existence. It is the journey, in the literal sense: Getting from day to day, hoping to see the next one, never mind the one after that.

What we have now is the Remortance: The re-death of that which was alive. No period after a Renaissance has been as dark as this.

The Great Depression left a scar on the financial optimism of this country, but that was overcome. The events which have transpired since 1980 have left more scars, and we have not yet borne them out. How will we overcome them? We will forget them, and that is the greatest travesty of all.

We must find our way through this and shine as beacons of light. We must give our children hope that the world can be better; if they enter the real world with the thought that it is hopeless, then the world is lost, and it will only be a matter of time.

Let us be light for our children. The world still has so much potential.