A reading of my article – Up and Down
(c) K Wicks
Thoughts
Plants and People – article reading
Dragons
I think about dragons every now and then, and the fact there is some kind of legend or myth about them across most continents. So, like the other articles Giants, Fairy Tales and Myths, Monsters & Legends, I try to piece together what it is about it that makes me thinks there is something to it. It was particularly the fire breathing aspect that I kept mulling over, because we have lizards today which almost fit the bill, small ones with flaps of skin looking like wings, large heavy set lumbering ones without any form of wings. But while discussing the phoenix the other day, and descriptions of it bursting into flames, I thought of a fire breathing dragon. Then I thought of a few other mythological creatures that seemed similar once I lined them up in my head. And when put together as below, you can see why I thought of all of them all in turn.
Phoenix – a magnificent creature that was a symbol of renewal and rebirth.
Sphinx – mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle.
Griffin – mythical creature known as a half-eagle, half-lion.
Chimera – a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature, composed of different animal parts.
Dragons feature in all sorts of stories though, Archangel Michael slaying a dragon, St George known for the same. Each of the ancient stories and fantastical tales featuring a winged creature, that had the ability to kill you on the spot or some great power to overcome and defeat.
Another came to mind based on its description, although the visual portrayal I had for this myself was from a movie, so didn’t fit until I gave more thought to the aspect of serpents in all these stories. Medusa being the most ‘famous’ of these I believe.
Gorgons – snakes for hair, wings, claws, tusks, and scales.
If we did happen to find any remnants of things like that today, we might think they looked like dinosaurs or pterodactyls perhaps, or just a plain old snake or bird – or a snake eating a bird, if you have both in the same fossil. Maybe. I know it sounds like reaching a bit, but I like to consider all options. So of course, they really could just be fantastical and outrageous stories we like to retell and pass down through the ages. For no reason other than to entertain it would seem, and to make us think of a time that never was. Or, there is the far-fetched possibility that we really did have a more fantastical time that came before, and something they haven’t been able to get rid of, so rewrite them instead, giving them different names and meaning, scattering the truth to the far-flung corners of the earth for it to be diluted and lost. Until such time of course, that it comes back, as truth often does…
(c) K Wicks
A Portal – article reading
Forethought and Consequences a follow up – article reading
Over Their Heads – article reading
The Great Conjunction
This article is looking at the film The Dark Crystal, it’s fiction and a children’s film no less, but one I like and it’s one of those films that pops back up in thought now and again. More so recently.
I have mentioned it before in relation to a process within it, of draining energy from creatures by way of the crystal and turning them into slaves. But the overall premise of the story is a long stretching one, with conflict, battles and prophecies. Of cycles and a change in the order of things when the conjunction occurs.
“The Great Conjunction is the end of the world! Or the beginning. End, begin, all the same. Big change. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. ~ Aughra”
It reminds of giving thought to the Phoenix event story we have in our reality, even though it is apparently a simulated one, and of alignments in our ‘solar system’, looking like spiral path being followed. With eclipses and a termination point, or recycling point, where it all starts over. Like a clock having a countdown, or a reset I guess, as we do every day when the sun rises and we start over again.
But in The Dark Crystal, three suns align and a new age dawns – with a fair amount of adventure and peril in between of course, yet the idea of multiple suns kept coming up in mind. Making me also think of the multiple suns in Star Wars visible on Tatooine, wondering if there are other lands further from us on this realm, that have a different view from us. And when they talk of blocking out the sun, could it be because it will start to become obvious? Of the pending conjunction or that there is more out there in close proximity than is being admitted? Perhaps that is why we have stories of Niribu, one of the other suns that is visible now and again on its route, or a shadow of it is. Because while we usually think of suns as bright and glowing, perhaps there is a black sun, which may almost look as a black hole would in our astronomical imagination. But perhaps that is what Niribu is, a dark sun as the opposite of our known light sun, and I even went as far as to think that the moon may have also once been a sun – or in fact still is. As it seems to have its own light source to a point, could it be that it’s a super dim small version, but still part of the mechanical system. Playing its own more noticeable part. Just a strange a wandering thought…
(c) K Wicks
Separate Realities – article reading
Gen X
I have done an article on Gen Z, and speculating on that being the ‘zombie generation’, and how they seem to have it in society. But this one will be for Gen X, the last vestige of an upbringing and attitude that no longer exists. But the product of it does. Us. The X-ers. And recently I’ve watched an American woman do a couple of funny shorts, answering random internet people who ask, “Are Gen X-ers okay?” and “Didn’t y’all have access to sinks when you were a kid, why drink out of the hose?”. Well, her response nails it to me, and although done in a funny, punchy and humorous way, the truth in what she responds with is great. With classic timing and delivery, summing up, literally, some people’s childhoods, homelife, upbringing and influences, in a very concise and hilarious manner. Being locked out of the house all day, forgotten about by parents, had to feed yourself for the day, fend for yourself kind of thing. And if you are one of those ‘drink out of the hose’ kids, you possibly know what she means.
I have written briefly about escapades of childhood in The Hay Bale Incident, and of a time before technology in The Before Time, but I guess hadn’t fully appreciated the affects of those times on people, and how it creates a certain attitude amongst an entire generation. Mostly. There will always be ones who didn’t, or who can’t relate to that at all and within it there will be those who had extra weird childhoods as their parents were very good at even looking after themselves, let alone kids. But the toughened attitude that many in that age group now present, can’t be entirely by accident, can it? Maybe the ones from the 70’s and 80’s were meant to be the forgotten generations, the ones who fell through the cracks during recessions, financial collapses and whatever crisis they could manufacture to keep it as they wanted. Giving them an extra hammering now, and including the Millennials as they will also now be the ones with children, mortgages and businesses. The boomers having retired, and Gen-Z not quite able to get involved, and looking as though they will be locked out of ever having the opportunities we did. And it might seem like progress to think they get all new ones, and if it was anything positive and inspiring being pushed for the future, I would be behind it. It does not appear to be the case though, and if they don’t know any different, does it matter?
Being resilient, and practical, and being able to ‘fend for yourself’ aren’t traits that everyone has, or has even retained into adulthood if they did need to be a bit more savvy back in the day. Not all are able to get through childhood and life completely unaided, and despite appearances, many have their scars, emotional and physical. Understanding that what made you who you are, was often a product of someone else’s failure, distraction or circumstance. Lives overlapping and intertwining as we all end up sharing a certain space and time, whether we get on or not, or like each other or not, or can even relate to each other or not. Here we all are. But in the latest twist in society, it would seem that having those traits, or the extra behaviours that followed on from them was not entirely foreseen. Or maybe they were and that is why there is such a push to make people believe they need a label, and a medication that inevitably follows. To be convinced you are a problem, the problem, and it needs to be ‘fixed’. Because otherwise, we might have all spotted sooner that society is the problem, and how it has been set to work. It’s anyone guess whether there really are generational differences that are so easily defined by when you were born, or what you were taught. But if there wasn’t, it makes me wonder why they would spend so much time and energy separating us all out and making sure we have different societies to grow up in. That no decade can be like the last, constantly changing things to keep it all up in the air and never actually progressing, just the illusion of it…
(c) K Wicks
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