Sunday, June 21, 2009

Secret Solstice (UPDATED!)



Oh reverse-engineered alien Technology, you are the blogger's friend. Saturday was not the Solstice, but don't tell our friends on the West Coast that. I would think the fact that the Solstice was on a Sunday would be irresistible, but it might also have terrified any remaining Sun worshippers of the officially-sanctioned variety in the environs out of their wits. As if the sight of tens of thousands of folks on the street dancing and carousing and carrying on in ways indistinguishable from ancient Solar cults would not. Note: if you look closely you can see a suspiciously Lovecraftian cephalopod there.



Speaking of ancient Solar cults, Gus Grissom made an inexplicable appearance in Santa Barbara...



Fremont's parade suffered in comparison to Santa Barbara's, since the feeble Washington sun is no match for its Californian cousin, not to mention all of the lithe, Pilates-addicted California girls. But they made up for the deficit with their elaborate, pseudo-Aztec costumery. As far as I know, there weren't any hearts ripped out of chests at the parade's end and offered up to the Sun to delay the Earth's final destruction.



Well, in place of that, we had the nudist bicyclists providing the horror...



Our English friends gathered around Stonehenge for their Solstice blowout, apparently a record turnout. I guess it helps when the head of your state church is himself a Druid. Not sure what connection congas have to ancient Celtic culture, but everyone looks suitably inebriated.

I was in Phila(e)delphia yesterday and saw posters for their own Solstice festival, but the idea still seems pretty isolated to hippie/boho enclaves. It's all good fun but I'm not sure I see these kinds of festivals piercing the Heartland. Too much of a hippie, weirdo tinge to it all. Americans still prefer their Sun worship rituals to be dressed in more familiar religious garb.

Which we'll look at in great detail here on the September Equinox....


UPDATE: Kozmikon Tommy points us to NAZCA NASA's "astronomy picture of the day"- The Solstice Sun rising over the Parthenon.


UPDATE II: Stargurl gives us this scoop- the theme of the Fremont parade was "Phoenix Rising," and "Also Sprach Zarathustra" was the musical overture. Check out her amazing post on Phoenix syncs here. Go to The Satellite for Phoenix-a-licious synchitude.

17 comments:

lynnertic said...

Here's a handy chart on the 2009 solstice, equinox, and cross-quarter dates worldwide by time zone:
http://www.archaeoastronomy.com/2009.shtml

Happy Solstice, and Happy Fathers' Day as well.

tommy said...

Interesting observations, Chris. I had no idea people partied on the summer solstice before reading this post. Then again, what day are people not partying... While people in Iran are protesting and suffering and attempting a genuine revolution, over here we're soaking in the sun and conducting (inaccurately scheduled) ceremonies. Nothing new, but still...

Christopher Knowles said...

Lynn- Awesome link, cheers.

Tommy- Well, it's not like the West hasn't had a few thousand years of bloody revolutions ourselves. But I hope everyone out there will take some time to reflect on those heroes out on the street in Teheran, though. They're fighting for you too.

tommy said...

Agreed. I'm not anti-party, just anti-ignorance.

Nasa's featuring a picture of the Solstice Sun rising over the Greek Parthenon, I already posted about it but just thought I'd share...

stargurl said...

What the Seattle Youtube clips didn't show was this years' theme float: Phoenix Rising -- photo on http://www.fremontuniverse.com/

Nice sync with the Phoenix crop circle post.

stargurl said...

Oh yeah, and the Phoenix rose to Richard Strauss’ "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (opening score in the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey).

Justuss2012 said...

here in the heartland, omaha, nebraska, people were partying all weekend, especially in the O, with the College World Series where uptight flyovers let loose as their own spring break.

Workin in a poor section of omaha, where the end of the month is supposed to be slow, business was booming this weekend. They might not know it consciously, but it was the Feast of St. John the Baptist like a mofo.

Justuss2012 said...

oh and the LA Lakers winning the NBA championship had people setting fires in the streets, or the tops of hills to somepeople, albeit a week or so too early, but that all synchs nicely with the misunderstood inaccurate schedule, eh?

Autumnforest said...

Great finds! Personally, I'm more of a Yule person (the only reason I celebrate summer solstice is that days are finally going to get shorter) Hey, I live in the desert, I get way too much sunshine :-)

Anonymous said...

Chris,

Today Space.com published about what they say may be the weirdest object in the solar system:

"Discovered on Dec. 28, 2004 (catalogued as 2003 EL61 and nicknamed "Santa" for a time), the minor planet now known as the dwarf planet Haumea, to honor its Hawaiian discovery, is as big across as Pluto and one-third of its mass, but shaped something "like a big squashed cigar," said one of the astronomers who studies the object, Mike Brown of Caltech..."

"When astronomers first found this object, they noticed that it was getting brighter and fainter by about 25 percent every two hours. If it were round, that observation would likely mean the object rotates every two hours, an incredible rate that would rip it apart, Brown said.

Astronomers determined that it was more likely that Haumea is elongated and rotating every four hours.

"We see this thing tumbling end over end getting brighter and fainter," Brown said.

Haumea is the fastest spinning object in the solar system...."

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090622-mm-kuiper-haumea.html

EL61 is interesting, EL is a very old and important noun. From Wiki:

Ēl (written aleph-lamed, i.e. אל) is the Northwest Semitic word for "deity" , cognate to Arabic ʾilāh and Akkadian ilum.

In the Canaanite religion, or Levantine religion as a whole, El or Il was the supreme god,[2] the father of humankind and all creatures and the husband of the Goddess Asherah as attested in the tablets of Ugarit.[3]

The word El was found at the top of a list of gods as the Ancient of Gods or the Father of all Gods, in the ruins of the Royal Library of the Ebla civilization, in the archaeological site of Tell Mardikh in Syria dated to 2300 BC. He may have been a desert god at some point, as the myths say that he had two wives and built a sanctuary with them and his new children in the desert. El had fathered many gods, but most important were Hadad, Yam and Mot, each of whom has similar attributes to the Greek gods Zeus, Poseidon or Ophion and Hades or Thanatos respectively. Ancient Greek mythographers identified El with Cronus (not Chronos)..."

So, EL could be read as THE deity. And 61?? Wiki says was in the Coptic Calender an interesting year (or number): - 223, - 222

Space.com says the object was nicknamed "Santa" for a time. Interesting that "Santa" is an anagram for Satan....

Eyes to see, hears to hear...

Anonymous said...

Maybe late priest Malachi Martin, a friend of many Popes, knew something about this EL61. It seems the interview was on July 11, 1997 on Coast to Coast:

"...knowledge of what is approaching us, could be of great importance in the next five, ten years..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQh1LQocZuQ

Christopher Knowles said...

EL=17

Devin said...

Great and interesting as always Christopher and happy belated Fathers Day! I had no idea there were this many types of parades regarding the solstice-in fact-embarrassingly -i only remembered Stonehenge-all the best!!

Riverwolf, said...

My little burg had its own solstice celebration, which I'm pleased to see is gaining more participants. No parade but instead a party in the local arboretum. And they lure the unsuspecting parents in by attracting the little tikes with face painting and fairy wings--kids can't resist that stuff! The adults get to browse art and jewelry, and get treated to a few fire dancers and drummers. Never had a chance!

Anonymous said...

hey mr secret sun have you ever read grant morrison? there's some stuff in final crisis which i think you would find interesting. (like a black superman in the white house) sorry if you've already talked bout it. if so, please direct me. i would enjoy reading yr take. btw, i heart morrison.

Anonymous said...

Chris, I am fairly new and greatly enjoy reading your blog. I was wondering if you have seen the Operation Blackjack that the Telegraph UK put up on there website back in January, it is a fictional nuclear attack. I saw many syncs in the 5 part series and just wanted to get your take. Thanks, Ben.

Christopher Knowles said...

I did, Ben. I found it extremely creepy and manipulative. I don't know how much detail I went into on it- try a search.