Thanksgiving UK: MIST and mistYmuse Eve Days

As the USA prepares to celebrate Thanksgiving, and break up the time between Halloween (Samhain) and Christmas (Midwinter), it’s time once again for greenYgreyliens and POPolutionaries to party like its spring/summer again in the U.K. and northern hemisphere: MIST and mistYmuse (combining MIST [Most Ideal Sunrise Times, November 21st – January 21st] and MUSE [Midwinter Until Spring Equinox, January 21st – March 21st] eves.

The more serious side is that it hopefully helps people who don’t like the winter, such as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) sufferers survive the harsher weather and reduced sunlight of the next four months. I noticed Iceland has a similar strategy when I visited in January, as they keep their winter decorations up until spring!

The positive side to this time of year for me is that sunrises are later in the morning (8-9am, instead of the early hours in midsummer), and there isn’t too long until the sunset twilight time; only about seven or eight hours later.

New Pagan Festival

It’s one of the newest pagan festivals in the human world, but not the only one, and open to non-pagans too of course. The sky is for everybody.

Last year when I was in the USA my visit coincided with the summer Manhattanhenge, when New Yorkers celebrate the best day of the year for the sunset and sunrise lining up between the skyscrapers, as the stone henge builders of prehistoric times built their great structures to receive the light at special times of the year: solstices (December and June) and equinoxes (March and September) around the 21st of the month. I didn’t know about if before, and saw it in the media. It’s also on Wikipedia.

In the UK, Milton Keynes was built with that in mind, I found out after looking up Manhattenhenge on Wikipedia above.

POP if You Want To

As I believe the sky is for everybody, I also think it’s up to you what you see or want to see there. I’ve been pushing POP (PinkyOrangePurple) as the more normal colour combination to the traditional red (pre-POPularised by the red sky at night and red sky in the morning proverbs), but sometimes there is only one or two colours, and there is rare red. So if you see red you see red, and don’t feel under any obligation to POP all the time.

Last week I was lucky to see a pretty good POP sunset. Here’s some photos:

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I wrote about twilight times a lot in XaW Files, when I first noticed the POP (PinkyOrangePurple) dominant colours, sometimes writing at this time of the year. I think it would make a great Winter Solstice Christmas present.

No O Ban in Oban

As we headed farther north-west, I thought we might face questions about our human-star mixed relationship, but I was relieved to see there was no O ban in Oban, and my beloved star was able to shine as brightly as possible in the lovely coastal town facing the island of Mull across the Firth of Lorn.

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Sunnymoon Full Moon Coincidence

I didn’t know it was a Full Moon yesterday when I wrote of going on a honeymoon with the sun, calling it a sunnymoon. The first I knew of the Full Moon was when I saw it shining very brightly; with its shine a reflection of the sun.

Seeing the orca in the Clyde made me think they look like aquatic pandas, and could be derived from a common ancestor called a pandorca: originally from Majorca.

Sunny Inverary

We continued our sunnymoon in historic Argyll and Bute Loch Fyne (also a restaurant chain!) fine sunny Inverary.

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Viking Pagans Were of their Time, Monotheists Worse in More Recent Times

If I.S. have done one good thing for humanity and the world it is to show the horrors of war; of course, they weren’t meaning to do good for humanity and the world. As Simon Schama pointed out at the start of the Civilisations programme with the account of the killing of Khaled al-Asaad, 82, at Palmyra, for refusing to reveal the whereabouts of art pieces, they were doing it to intimidate and threaten, using new information technology.

Art of the Vikings

My interest in Viking culture (500-1100 AD) was inspired by The Vikings movie (1958), and when I was young it was all about their scenic sailing warriordom; as I was intrigued by wild pagan Native American horseriding culture from Hollywood movies.

However, in modern times; I intended starting my travels by taking the ferry to Bergen, Norway, but then changed them as I waited for the Monsters of Rock in late August, and so headed south straightaway, before reaching there for the Midnight Sun Marathon in 2007; I admire Scandinavia for its democratic civilised qualities and environmental initiatives.

In the latest NASA’s Unexplained Files I liked the story of the skydiver seeing a rock fall near him, causing a year-long search. When a NASA worker worked out it must have fallen from his parachute, the Norwegian investigator said he thought everybody would be angry, but they were all happy and congratulatory, because they’d been honest, and science had worked. That’s the kind of scientific ethos I try to have with my writing and research.

In Secret Knowledge: The Art of Vikings I liked the jadeYgrey Buddha statue they found some Vikings had from the 6th Century Swat Valley in the heart of Asia, which was then Buddhist (about 14 minutes of the documentary).

Then just after about 20 minutes of the 30 minutes documentary, Dr. Ramirez says she thinks one of the main interests the pagan Vikings first saw in the Christian religion was the part played by fish, as they were a part of their natural folklore too, and they valued living things the most. This thirty-five piece gold, silver and bronze (me: Olympic medals relevance?) Viking fishtail necklace shows their respect:

Vikings in Historical Context Compared to Monotheism

Inquisition Documentary Shows Christian Horrors

The Yesterday channel series about the Inquisition has showed the horrors of the Christian church in Europe from the 11th Century to the 19th, with the last episode focusing on the British witch trials. Thousands of people were killed, with most being women who were the community healers; or victims of grudges and land grabs. Britain wasn’t as bad as continental Europe, and one man called Matthew Hopkins killed the majority of victims in a three years period 1644-1647.

Muslim Pirates Acting Like Vikings Until 19th Century

Barbary pirates were raiding Europe as the Vikings had done up to the 19th Century, capturing victims for sale as slaves, until European nations united to repel them. Over a million Europeans were enslaved from 1530 to 1780. Some of the enslavers were European ‘converts’.

When I was reading about Iceland around my January visit I saw that it suffered horrific such attacks in 1627, with hundreds of victims killed, and hundreds forced into slavery. (Wikipedia).

Conclusion

I’ve grown out of my childhood and youthful Romantic Viking Hollywood movie inspiration now, and relate more to Odin than Loki of the Valhalla pantheon; wisdom over trickery; especially after seeing the Valhalla Rising film featured heavily in the Scandinavian section of XaW Files!

As Dr. Ramirez pointed out at the end of her Art of the Vikings documentary, the battles for ‘England’ in 1066 were basically a Viking civil war, with the Normans (Norsemen) Vikings who settled in northern France, and those already resident in ‘England’ having strong Viking links after hundreds of years of residency.

I updated my thoughts on the Americas migration, and its connection to the Middle-East, last night on fmpoetry.wordpress.com, arguing that what is most amazing about it is that the Mayans featured similar structures and symbols (500-800 AD) about 20,000 years after their ancestors must have left the Middle-East to start the migration to the Americas, and where the Mesopotamians would signify the importance of the bag-carrying Apkallu around 2500 BC.

Wolf Howler 4 Earth Hour in 4 Hours

I created a little wolf art for this year’s Earth Hour, which is tonight, March 24th, from 20.30 to 21.30. Using some wrIus writer-genius to add to the 3-D artistry, I call it Earth Howler:

I just posted a long article updating my alien space wonder wanderings on this site’s sister site fmpoetry, including more on the Mesopotamian Apkallu featured on this site before. Along the way I found this artist’s interpretation of how ancient humans used to gYgPOP (greenY[ellow]greyPinkyOrangePurple) before the www!:

Spring Equinox International Day of Happiness and mistYmuse End Eve

The northern hemisphere spring equinox is today, at about 1600/1700 in the U.K., so it’s quite easy to celebrate the International Day of Happiness. However, it must be harder for people in the southern hemisphere, with today marking the beginning of autumn, and the end of the warmer months.

Happiness is Relative

There are a lot of people who find it difficult to be happy in the northern hemisphere too, and that’s where things like society and culture make a difference. Iceland is one of the ‘happiest’ countries despite being one of the coldest.

That’s mostly why I set up the mistYmuse (Midwinter Ideal Sunrise Times and Midwinter Until Spring Equinox) to bring some happiness to the most difficult months, covering November to March.

I could have been saying it was timed right this year (although not the day, as it falls on the 20th this year, rather than 21st, as it sometimes does), with a mini-freeze just ending in time for today, but I just saw another one is forecast for the Easter weekend in a couple of weeks. At least there’s more light than darkness now, with more chance of warming sun when it’s shining through the cloud.

Happy Guilt

U.K. comedy great Ken Dodd passed away recently, and one of his regular topics and subject of a song was happiness. I was thinking then that I would probably be happier if I focused on entertainment, instead of feeling obliged to write about the negatives of the world, mostly due to having been to university and studying politics and international communications, and wanting to ‘make a difference’; knowing I can only try and slow the planet’s decline down, due to human overpopulation and consumption; which brings me into direct conflict with the general theme of global human happiness… in the short term anyway… as future generations will be happier if they have a cleaner planet with lots of other species!

Stephen Hawking, who of course inspired the greenYgrey parody comedy science correspondent, Stephen Wolfing, also passed away recently. He seemed happy, having fought against the most debilitating illness, showing there are different ways to find happiness, and sometimes adversity provides the opportunity for personal greatness… as in Buddhist enlightenment or Nietzsche’s superness, which can provide happiness whatever the situation.

Comedy Philosophy

Anyway, I have become too greenYgrey, and will leave you with some Ken Dodd happiness to enjoy the special day, in whatever way, wherever you are. In the obituaries I was also reminded of Dodd’s 1960s (my birth decade) Knotty Ash Diddy Men, which could have been an early influence on my greenYgrey fantasy fiction, although I didn’t remember them at the time!:

Wikipedia: The Diddy Men have a song, once released as a single, titled “The Song of the Diddy Men”, sung in a high pitched, chipmunk style voice. It includes the chorus: “We are the Diddy Men, Doddy’s dotty Diddy Men, We are the Diddy Men who come from Knotty Ash”. Another song “Doddy’s Diddy Party” featured the refrain – “tonight’s the night the Diddy Men paint the town, we’ll lose our blues, and let our Diddy hair down”. There were several other songs including Diddycombe Fair – a spoof of the well-known West Country song Widecombe Fair.