Myth and Fairy Tale – A Slavic Angle
I have always adored myths and legends. Growing up, I was addicted to stories of the Greek Gods, King Arthur and other such tales. I also enjoyed fairy tales and read them avidly. My favorite was one called Rumpelstiltskin. Imagine being able to turn straw into gold? Just like an alchemist. Old Rumpelstilskin is depicted as an Imp or Goblin-type creature but the name is also reminiscent of the German words for a poltergeist. The girl eventually goes ‘deep’ into the woods where she watches him singing and reveals his name. According to some sources, this story or a variant of it could be up to 4,000 years old! Notice how the girl goes deep into the woods…..in order to earn the name of the Imp. Fairy tales and myths
Read More »Hostýn – Jesus as Perun?
I recently wrote a blog about Hostýn and noted that the imagery was, well, a bit strange. First, we have ‘Mary’ standing on the crescent moon depicted as a lunar goddess – actually something you see a lot in this part of the world – but then what is going on with baby Jesus? At the time, I pointed to Zeus as a possible analogy. Well, after some input from Sue Vincent and Stuart France, I was led to the Slavic God named Perun. He is the god of the sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, war, fertility and oak trees in the Slavic pantheon. Having come up with that name, I googled it along with ‘Hostýn’ and I found myself back on the monument’s website and an obscure
Read More »Success is Elusive?
There are people who do something once and bang…. they find fame, fortune and success of that type. There are others who work diligently yet never gain any recognition. I have often wondered what drives this? What is the secret to finding commercial success? Yes, I wouldn’t mind a bit of it as I approach my retirement years. Actually, I have a had a lot of career success but a couple of major failed relationships have left me with very little and so, from time to time, I wish one of my hobbies might take off a bit and provide me with more income. But what is success? I tend to think of success initially in materialistic terms. It made me money, gained me some fame or notoriety and so
Read More »Dreams within dreams
I have the most amazingly detailed dreams. Every morning I wake up with some memory of these nightly travels and sometimes, I lay back in awe at just how detailed they are. Am I living two lives at once? Some people see dreams as the subconscious working out issues and even say that without this nightly relief valve, we would lose our marbles. Others see deep meaning in these dreams to be deciphered and chased recording the dreams on awakening in an attempt to recall them more fully. Perhaps others might see them as fragmentary memories of another life in a parallel universe. I have no preference for any of the above ideas. But I do have to marvel at the act of dreaming. There must be a part of
Read More »Hostýn and a Strange Image of Jesus
Last weekend I managed a quick trip out to Hostýn about 100km from Brno. Svatý Hostýn or St.Hostýn is a hill in Moravia and a place of devotion to Mary. As per Wikipedia…. According to a traditional legend, first recorded in 1665 by the writer Bohuslav Balbín in his work Diva Montis Sancti, during the disastrous raid of the “Tartars” in the 13th century, people who were seeking asylum here lacked water and they prayed Mary for help. It is said that a stream of water came out of the ground and a powerful storm forced Tatars to retreat. That being what it may be, the site is very ancient and was once perhaps a Celtic fortress or settlement of some kind. Another article I found states that… Hostýn
Read More »Wanna Buy A Photo??
A couple of years ago, my friend here in Brno – Walter Novak – a quite famous photographer in the USA – gave me some tips on taking photos. I started shooting things with my iphone that I thought interesting. It might be a sunset between buildings, an unusual view of the familiar, an unusual street lamp or anything like that. I then use a tool he shared with me to process it a bit and in as a creative ay as possible. The results I think, have been pretty good. As I collected all of these photos, I inevitable wondered what to do with them? I wanted to put them in an album online but couldn’t ind anything that worked well enough and didn’t cost a grand. Then I
Read More »Jammin’
My oldest son visited a week ago from Austin. We had a great time and it was so good to see him and see what a fine young man he is. Paul was always an amazing guitarist and so one night we got talking guitar. He ended up overlaying one of my songs with his guitar work – the result is out on Spotify today and all other music outlets. It’s a real rocker. It’s Out There is one of my favorite songs (of mine) and his guitar work just elevates it another level. Give it a listen… For good measure, I asked my daughter to add to the backing vocals too so its a family effort.
Read More »Proven? It’s a Theory….
Somehow, the idea that science is proven or settled has become a thing in recent times. I’m not just talking climate – I’m talking about science in general and how it is portrayed by the media in particular. “Settled, done, dusted…..” Er – nope. The scientific method is very specific. It is an approach that goes like this…. – Observe and collect data, – Create a theory to explain the observed data, – Invite criticism via a peer review process of the theory, and – Model the theory and make predictions based upon it that can be validated. Essentially, this process calls for continual iterations of a theory until such time as it no longer serves and is replaced with another. Notice the use of the word THEORY. All science
Read More »Energy lines and Wyrd
A strange thought came to me this evening as I was thinking about mapping energy lines and doing a bit or research on the web. I was wondering what energy lines where? – where they came from? and so on and suddenly a thought popped up – Wyrd. The women of wyrd or the three wyrd sisters spinning the web of wyrd – what if part of that web was Earth energy? The ancients felt these earth energies and used them. They built huge structures where earth energy lines seem to cross. How did they use them? Brain Bates in his novel Way of Wyrd has the apprentice being taught how to use lines of the wyrd web to propel himself through space. The book is fictional of course but
Read More »Dance to My Music
My music is available at all digital music outlets for sale and streaming include Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, Deezer and many more….. Girl on the Phone by G. Michael Vasey – From the Anatomy of Love album
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