h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, it seems to be time for my weekly update.

As we are being propelled into the midst of the winter solstice festivities, I thought I would do my bit and let you all know that the Sun WILL return.

However, just to be on the safe side, please continue the frenzy of gift purchasing, decorating lavishly with lights and pine boughs in and outside your cave/nest/home, and consuming food and drink liberally, especially those beverages with 'warming' properties. You can never be too sure about the solstice; just because the sun has returned every other year doesn't mean it will THIS time. Especially with the millennium and all...

So, party on. Do your bit to insure the return of the sun.

For a discussion of the Solstice festival from a wiccan/pagan perspective, go to Yule: the Winter Solstice http://www.h2g2.com/A224533 . [This article is currently under construction]

And to see how this problem, as well as other similar issues, is handled in the reverse 'down under', go to the discussion of Magick in the Southern Hemisphere http://www.h2g2.com/A222580 .

Hello, bluDragon. One billypilgrim here, just returning that sugar I borrowed. Thanks a lot. No, really, don't make a fuss. I'll be on my way. No need to move the cat. It's that winter solstice you mentioned. Makes me want to hole up in my apartment and wait for the sun's return. Two more weeks, (not even), and the days start growing again. Til then, I'll light some candles and make myself cozy.

Hibernation, anyone...?

Well, thanks for the return of the sugar, hope it was to make some nice teacookies.

Yup, you're right, the best thing about the Winter Solstice is that the days start getting longer. The interesting thing is how many people have completely lost touch with the movement of the seasons. I casually mentioned to a teller in my bank how dark it was at 5pm, and how good that the days would start getting longer in two weeks. She was astonished that that was happening. Ah, well. A sign of the times, I guess.

I cant hibernate too much this year, but next year I will be living in a log cabin in the northwoods in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan, near the Soo Locks. I intend to REALLY hibernate during the winters then. Good books, a fire in the stove, a nice cuppa tea, and the cat purring on the couch next to me. Now THAT's the way to live.

}:=8

I'd rather worship the sun. Best place to worship Saturnia... I'd choose somewhere south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Winter isn't winter in Woolongong, it's summer near Sydney. After all, if you're going to worship the return of the sun, it'd be nice to get well acquainted first.

Oh well, I can dream. Fifty two degrees north of the equator.

Precisely.
But just as the days will start getting longer in the Northern Hemisphere, they will start getting shorter in Sydney.

So I guess it's a matter of, you know, seeing the glass half empty, or half full. The trick would be to get to Sydney for the 'Summer Solstice' down there, and then head for the same up north, six months later...

Old wolf is studying just this phenomenom in his/her/its article at http://www.h2g2.com/A222580

}:=8
PS you know what Michaelangelo said about an uncarved block...

Ahh, yes, just a form waiting to be uncovered. In that sense, I guess we are all uncarved blocks. Everything we ever become was always in us; it just takes the right person or circumstance to uncover it.....

As for the sun, I would be perfectly content with the short days if I didn't have to keep the same schedule. Modern life dictates that we get up every morning at the same time, go out and spend every daylight hour at work, and come home to a dark house. Our natural clocks, however are saying "Sleep in!! Go out and about in early afternoon while the sun shines!! Stay home at night!!" Which fits in, I supppose, with what you said about people being totally out of tune with the natural world. Modern life says ignore your natural rhythms, work inside in artificial light, wake up while it's still pitch dark, go out in whatever weather nature throws our way, because the mundane jobs MUST GET DONE. Do all that, ignore what's around you, and then run to your doctor for some Prozac to make it all better. (No offense to anyone who IS on Prozac; some people need these things through no fault of their own.)

So, I see the two of you have met...? Shawn, this is bluDragon. She has the best tea. bluDragon, this is Shawn. Quite a lovely man, and sender of e-mail apple doughnuts. Yummm.

Yes, modern life certainly insulates us from our natural clocks. I do so love it in the US where it is 'politically correct' to be environmentally sensitive--and then we do everything possible to put technology between us and the natural world.

One of my recent rants was about the xmas tree at Rockefeller Center. The cut a live tree each year and put it up for the holidays. This year it was proudly announced that they had the largest tree ever; a 100 year old evergreen. So they murdered a 100 year old tree for some Kodak moments. I wonder why it never occurred to them to PLANT a tree there...?????
[/rant]

Nice to meet you Shawn. Good trick with the email and doughnuts.
Should you like to sample some virtual tea, there is a nice selection of herbals at the Wiccan forum. Both of you are invited to stop by whenever you are in the neighborhood, the pot is always on. http://www.h2g2.com/A196300

}:=8

(billypilgrim shuffles her feet guiltily, as she just finished decorating her own murdered tree, although by the looks of it this one couldn't have been more than ten years old...)

I looked at the live ones in the lot, too, but the thought of hauling it somewhere in my Honda to plant in the frozen ground after the holiday made me say "well, I'll just take a slain one." Something to ponder for next year.

Anyway, the guy at the tree lot introduced MY dead tree as "Frasier." We had a nice round of "how d'ya do's", did Frasier and I, and then I brought him home. He LOOKS cheerful, anyway. At least as cheerful as a recently dead tree can look.

I read some of your Wiccan postings, and I find them quite interesting. "She's a witch, burn her." "How do you know she's a witch?" "She turned me into a newt." "A newt...?" "Well, I got better." (sounds much better when said by Shawn, in his 100% natural English accent.)

I can't profess to belong to any particular religion, but my beliefs lie much more with the Wiccans (or what I know of them) and with some of the Eastern philosophies than with the "Big Three" Western religions. As you probably picked up by my postings on H2G2 Christians. I don't practice any big ceremonies, but I do read Tarot cards (although I must cheat and check the book for some of the meanings.) The Queen of Swords went missing, strangely enough, just about the time I was coming out of a bit of a difficult run of things about a year back. I tore the house apart looking for her, but couldn't locate her, so I took it as a sign, and never replaced the deck. So my deck is officially without female sadness, mourning, and privation. For the time being.

I have also been known to pat trees and talk to them. On occasion. Live ones. Usually.

Well, now, I don't really put 'harvesting' Yule Logs/xmas trees in the same catagory of cutting down 100 year old trees year, after year, after year. just to decorate Rockefeller Center. I suspect that 'Frasier' came from a tree farm and was part of a renewable program of planting. But I don't think that the Rockefellers have been planting evergreens for the last 100 years to replace the ones they have cut each year. Anything that took 100 years to grow should be given more respect. And dont get me started on redwood fences made from 500 year old trees...

Anyway, I am sure Frasier is very happy to be with you.

Glad you are finding various wiccan thoughts interesting. Your tarot experience is interesting, too. The queen of swords used to be my significator...but I havent read cards in a long time.

bright blessings, and hug a tree
}:=8

Hello, bluDragon. Thanks for the tea (although, being English, I took your fine Oriental infusion and dumped cow juice into it).

I once read that a sole Tarot card was not to be taken as a sign. Death does not signify death, but symbolic change. If I'm right here (and you'll have to tell me if I am), don't see the missing Queen as a portent for either Doom or Salvation... and keep looking for it; it may be royalty but she doesn't have legs !

However you like your tea, is ok with me. DNA has an article about it and the proper order for mixing it with milk. I do that only occasionally, but it is good both ways. Don't much care for sugar in it, tho.

You are correct about individual tarot cards, and about the interpretation of the Major Aracana 'death' card. It does signify change, or endings. And sometimes these can be very good things.


I hope billypilgrim's queen of swords does show up eventually. She will have to decide for herself about using the deck meanwhile, or getting a second deck. One's relationship with their tarot deck is a very personal thing.

}:=8

Well, if she decides to get a second deck (he said, realising she could be reading this... hello, Beth) I hope she hints for a nice European pack for an early birthday pressie or something.

I'm no expert, certainly, but I do know that a card reading is based as much on the relation of individual cards to each other as to where one card ends up in a reading. And it is very much subject to the reader's interpretation of events. BUT, having one card missing means that the particular card (and all its associated meanings) cannot be part of any reading done with that deck. The Queen of Swords has a rather unique meaning that is not really duplicated by another card in the deck.

I don't read them much anymore because I prefer to take my life as it comes to me, rather than looking for a portent in the cards. The odd thing about "seeing the future" is that our own interpretation of what we think we have seen can effect our actions in such a way as to actually bring about something that might not have happened otherwise.

Whether this is the inevitable outcome, or whether we actually control our own fate, has been the subject of philospohical debate and science fiction writers throughout history.

Your comments on the deck are both interesting and accurate.

To choose to use a deck without one card certainly would change the dynamics among the cards as well as between the deck and it's owner.

I also can empathize with your reaction to reading your own cards. I used to tell my own cards, and quit for almost the same reason. Not only does what you say hold true, but I got to the point that I didnt WANT to know future possibilities. But that was at a time when I was somewhat overwhelmed by the present, as well.

And there are those that say you should not use your cards to read your own future at all...

And this all has to do with those forces that are at work which we only dimly are aware of, let alone understand.

blessings and peace,
}:=8

SO, what are the most uncanny reading's you've ever had...?

Readings aren't like that. They don't foretell plane crashes and wars and famine. Or they may, but I've never looked for answers in those directions. They are better at telling you where you stand in a current situation, and how that situation may turn out. And they usually tell you what you already know, but don't want to see... which may be why bluDragon mentions not wanting to read them at a time when she found her own present just a touch overwhelming. But that is pure speculation, and very personal speculation at that. No invasion of privacy meant by that, bluDragon....

As for uncanny readings in the context I describe above... That would be just a little over a year ago, but that is a matter for personal conversation, not for public postings.

A very insightful answer, billypilgrim. [And that was EXACTLY why I didnt want to read my own cards.]

The most 'uncanny' thing I can relate about the Tarot is a very dear friend who began telling cards about the same time I did. This was many years ago--before 'New Age' was coined as a religious movement, and before I knew I was a witch.

My friend was, and still is, Baptist by background. She also had folks in her family with precognition abilities. She began telling cards, and found it quite interesting. Eventually, however, she quit. Because it scared her. Because she was so accurate.

The 'Powers That Be' ARE powerful. Whether we understand them or not.

}:=8

Hail, fair Queen.

You mention insight. The thing about insight is that everything we know about someone is told to us by that person, though often not in so many words. As I often tell Shawn when he accuses me of reading his mind. We all tell other people what we, either consciously or subconsciously, want them to know about us. One of the most difficult lessons for me to learn was (and is) that very often when people appear to hide the truth, it is not so much that they are trying to deceive, as that they do not yet see the truth themselves. The Tarot (and other means of fortune telling) simply uncover what we have hidden from ourselves. Just as the scientist can predict what will happen when he performs an experiment, based on the evidence, the precognitive person predicts the future by being hyper-aware of all the factors in the present.

Or at least that's my theory. But, as you point out, there are many forces in the universe which we rarely glimpse, and understand only dimly based on long-lost memories of the way things were when people were much closer to the Earth.

Peace

Our theories definitely parallel.

However, while there are many conscious/subconsious/awareness factors involved in letting the cards speak through us, I also feel that the forces of the universe are at work as well.

I do not know how they work, only that they do. They are real. And not everything can be explained by what we can hope to touch and measure.

But I guess that's why I am a witch.

blessings
}:=8

To me, the most amazing thing is if the cards give you a reading, and it seems so unlikely (or so unlike what you had hoped for) that you rephrase the problem, and do another reading. Invariably, you will get a different layout of cards... which say exactly the same thing.

I don't like reading other people's cards because if the answer is what they had hoped for, they say to themselves "a-ha, exactly what I was thinking." If the answer is NOT what they had hoped for, they say "Ah, well, just a parlor game..."

They do make me a bit wary, sometimes, because I will agree that they have a certain power. Whether they simply channel a power which is already in the reader, or whether they have an innate power of their own, is a question for which I have no answer.

Eight days til the solstice.