Spring Equinox Here, in Northern Hemisphere: Free Vitamin D

The Spring Equinox is here, a day earlier than normal although not uncommon, in the Northern Hemisphere, as appropriately reported in The Sun, including a nice POP (PinkyOrangePurple) Stonehenge photo, and explanation that it’s caused by the way planet Earth travels around the sun.

End of mYm1

So I can hereby declare the continuation of the closing ceremony for the first full mistYmuse (Midwinter Ideal Sunrise Times [November 21st to January 21st] – Midwinter Until Spring Equinox [January 21st to March 21st]) winter light festival.

It started yesterday on fmpoetry with some selfYsun-love art branding I did during the festival, and that have now just fully healed, after the last ones were done two months ago.

More Sun than SAD 

I hope mYm helped those who suffer from SAD (Seasonally Affective Disorder) in the most challenging four months of the year, and entertained everybody.

The weather has been pretty average overall, a mild winter here, but as I’ve stated before, it’s about light rather than weather anyway. Our light is predictable, whereas weather fluctuates. This has been proved true over the last month.

It seemed love was in the air in romantic Valentine February, as the sun shone bright and temperatures rose much higher than normal, but then March saw a return to wintry weather. Thankfully, sun and warmer weather have now returned.

New buds are opening, and there’s a whole lotta photosynthesis going on!

Here’s a few photos of the emerging spring:

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Predictable Light 

Whereas the weather has been unpredictable, light has continued spreading earlier and later in the day, as shown on the met office weather forecast:

It seems a long way from the midwinter December 21st ideal sunrise times of about 08.30, followed not long after by the sunsets of about 15.45.

That was captured for posterity in January (better late than never) on my fmpoetry website, with the sunrise and sunset at the bottom of the screen then; and a bit of an earlier sunrise and later sunset than their late December latest and earliest.

Both those weeks also have mostly cloudy weather, which inspired my Greenygrey original idea, putting a positive green land spin on the normally grey weather, also hoping to conserve green spaces and trees; and some sunshine, which was the main weather reason for putting the Y into the ascendency with the greenYgrey rebranding.

In human terms it was both to support blonde women and show I wasn’t after non-blondes when the Establishment sent me to work in the ‘multicultural’ area of Leeds; or interested in seeing their hair, as some Islamists tried to make out my support for feminists fighting Islamist sexism was all about. Ironically, one of those women told me they don’t like ‘Jews’ around there – probably trying to get Jihadi ‘stripes’ and impress her male controllers!!

At One Under the Sun with Native People

I don’t need to travel the Earth
to be where I feel home
because I’m already
in a pagan state
pagan state of mind.

North American woodhenge sun calendar mirroring British ones and others.
Nice greenYgrey effect as they show how posts marked sunrise at different times of year.

Some great gYgPOP (greenYgreyPinkyOrangePurple) in this.
When the Earth was still clean and pure, civilisations either side of the Atlantic and Pacific worshipped the sun, moon and stars; using them to live with and amongst nature on Earth.
Unfortunately, they also did do some damage to nature, leading to them collapsing in the end.
We still haven’t learnt the lesson!

Thanks to anybody reading this who downloaded my books on Smashwords last week, and anybody who’s already read them.

UFOs: UK Best 100 Cases Documentary

Channel 5 in the UK had a good two hours collection of UFO videos called 100 UFOs Caught On Camera this week, available to watch until March 23rd, but just in UK I think. At least half were really good ones; crafts or lights moving at speeds and angles beyond known human capability, and some looking really big.

One of the best new ones for me, for its veracity; others were more spectacular, but seemed possible fakes or could have been planes, birds or insects; was a National Geographic one. I didn’t even know they had a documentary series about UFOs. Here it is on YouTube:

If you can slow it down, it does really look like a classic big spinning disk with windows/lights.

The editor has commented below it, verifying it as well. Although National Geographic has a good scientific brand reputation, others have fallen below expected standards, so it could all be fake, but as far as I know and think, it looks and sounds genuine.

The Ocean Above: My Personal Theory of Space

Together with the rest of the cases in the programme and elsewhere I think there’s definitely something happening in our sky, atmosphere and space, but don’t know what. I think that’s because it’s currently beyond humanity, as far as I know, rather than there being nothing out there.

The same goes for inside the head, which I investigated a lot in my writing. Advances in science are now answering some of the old philosophical questions. I’ve included both, in greenYgrey and PinkyOrangePurple (POP) technicolour, looking for reflections in the folding mirrors:

Sunrise, Moon and Venus b4 Y-day

The mistYmuse four months new-age paganism winter festival has now crossed the January 21st midway Y-day, leaving the MIST (Most Ideal Sunrise Times) and entered the MUSE (Midwinter Until Spring Equinox) months. I’m sorry if you missed leaving MIST, and there was quite a party over on this site’s fmpoetry sister site, starting with the new YSL advert on January 13th:

Sunrise POP (PinkyOrangePurple)

I featured some sunset photos on this site near the start of the mistYmuse, and here’s some sunrise ones, from early January, with Venus near the moon:

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Space Travellers

As a video I featured on fmpoetry during the Y-day pre-party showed, we are all travellers through space, on our planet, and in our solar system:

Moreover, our brains are like miniature galaxies, as an article and simulation of a black hole forming on MSN made me think that’s how my mind is working while thinking of new concepts and connections while gYgPOPing.

My Y-day blogging was like a mini-break reminder of my epic classic XaW Files: Beyond Humanity 202 episodes; which is like my real life travel history, of big journeys followed by shorter holidays!

 

 

MIWOST GHOST MIST of mistYmuse

I was excited to see it was a misty sunrise for many in Blighty to see in the first commute (beaut commute) of the middle MIST (Most Ideal Sunrise Times, November 21st to January 21st) week. I could claim it; and the fantastic sunny sunset; was the sun and weather gods rewarding me for my work, but I don’t know if it was.

Winter Solstice New Pagan Festival Acronyms

As the mistYmuse (MUSE stands for Midwinter Until Spring Equinox, January 21st to March 21st, seeing sunny warm weather lovers through to the return of the weather they love) new pagan festival grows, in my mind anyway, and concepts I create, I have some new acronyms to celebrate this biggest week of the four months celebration – please consider them my gifts to you if you are a fan – rather than material goods that can destroy the environment; although I don’t want to appear a grinchYscrooge!

There are so many bad things going on in the UK and world I can’t be bothered being an anti-capitalist this week!

The new acronyms are MIWOST and GHOST, which I think both sound quite paganYxmas in line with the season.

MIWOST stands for Most Ideal Week Of Sunrise Times – which we are in now, only three days from midwinter on Friday December 21st.

GHOST stands for Golden Hour Of Sunrise Times – where the sunrise times are now in Blighty, between 8-9am, ideal for the traditional 9-5 working day start time.

POP Research Also Advancing

As the mistYmuse tradition grows with time, so does POPilosophy. For example, I now wonder how POP (PinkyOrangePurple) twilight time photos are, and in what way, rather than just calling them all POP.

In this great gYgPOP (greenYgrey PinkyOrangePurple) photo I just saw on the Standard website (the first search link with the information I was looking for about this year’s Solstice times) it is a subtle combination POP, with a mostly pinky purple sky, and some orange on one side, and yellow on the other. The grass and stones provide the green and grey.

The new POP art was born on the XaW Files: Beyond Humanity travel quest for the greenYgrey world’s pop artist, Andy Wolfhol, who was inspired by Andy Warhol, and whose favourite catchphrase was wolf not war.

Midwinter Most Ideal Sunrise Times Month

I was thinking of updating the mistYmuse today, as it’s over two weeks in now (started November 21st, a month before midwinter) and there are only two weeks until the Winter Solstice, when it will be midwinter in the northern hemisphere. The MIST of mistYmuse stands for Most Ideal Sunrise Time, and now that we are only a fortnight away from December 21st we are in the best four weeks for seeing the sunrise as late as possible, and it is now in the 8-9am hour in Blighty.

Advent Calendarists joined the December party on the 1st of course, and have to wait another four days for their biggest day on the 25th.

I’ve been seeing in the news that lots of people have thankfully been up popping POP (PinkyOrangePurple) pictures, such as this classic one featured on the BBC:

I just wrote a blog post on this site’s sister site, fmpoetry, with an update about the POPolution.

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.

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!:

Iceland Fairy Angel Elf Pixie (IFAPE) Photograph Evidence?

I’m still an agnostic secularist, bordering on atheism, and with appreciation for nature (mild non-practising [beyond perfect in a self-parody way, scoring 73 on the all new for 2018 parodymeter] neo-paganism). While I’m focusing on Iceland here at the moment, I’d just like to thank my Blighty government for its truly Great Britain plan to plant a million trees over the near future, creating a northern forest, for wildlife and humanity; fighting against flooding. I’ve just seen its been called a ‘ribbon of woodland’, reminding me of I think seeing a ribbon of Northern Lights in Reykjavik.

There was a pristine POP (PinkyOrangePurple) sunrise this morning in Blighty, due to high pressure dominating today, with the sky POPing now at about 7.45, about 30-45 minutes earlier than at the midwinter peak POPing time around December 21st.

goldenYgrandad (age not biological), Inspired by Golden Child

I remember liking Eddie Murphy’s Golden Child movie when I was young, and some of the my first poems wondered if I was special in some pagan way. I guess most people do, as fiction tries to make you relate to the protagonist.

After researching mental health, I put it down to ADHD and Bipolarity, and seeing documentaries by people like Chris Packham and Lotje Sodderland recently, think it might be mild autism/Asperger’s or brain damage! However, I don’t know for sure, and maybe I do have a special relationship with the natural world, like the shamen of traditional societies.

Bjork’s Iceland Pagan Light Returned?

As I wrote in a previous blog Cork Bjork Dork Talk post, I was surprised to see Bjork’s The Gate and Utopia videos related so much to the PinkyOrangePurple (POP) theme of XaW Files: Beyond Humanity; and that she’d started writing it at the end of 2015, drawing inspiration from her Iceland countryside, when I was finishing XaW Files in the Iceland countryside; of course unaware (un-a-were in greenYgrey parlez) of Bjork’s wandering wondering.

I’d already decided to visit Iceland when I found that out about Bjork. I’ve of course always wanted to visit, and finishing my book there provided extra drive, along with cheap EasyJet flights; which were excellent, flying there on time through a storm, and landing in quite heavy snow. It looked beautiful in the snow, but looked even more so when I returned at the end of my trip.

Remembering greenYgreyology, there is a negative to Iceland’s tourism popularity, as many locals are being priced out of housing because so many flats etc are being converted to tourist accommodation. So, sorry to those struggling to get on the housing ladder if I contribute to the ‘problem’.

Borgarnes Sun Light

As I wrote in the last couple of blogs, I set off on a Friday morning at about 10am to have a look around Borgarnes and do a little shopping at the Bonus supermarket; No Rush. A pinky sunrise creating a purply hue above the snowy mountains kept me walking across the bridge:

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The sun didn’t rise over the mountains, but when I neared the end of the Borgarfjordur icy frozen beach I was delighted to see it around a corner, both for its brightness and warmth:

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I was going to take a photo of Borgarnes shining in the sun, but a combination of the brightness and cold hands (despite two pairs of gloves, albeit old ones with some holes!) made me turn the phone camera to ‘selfie’. I saw the sun behind me, so took a photo anyway, as I was nearing the end of the beach, and felt it was an occasion worth remembering.

I couldn’t really see the screen at the time, and it was only when I returned to the warmth, after finally doing my shop, for a couple of hours before going out for four hours Northern Lights view-attempting, that I saw the golden light near my mouth.

The rational in me says its a sunlight reflection, but after watching Bjork’s videos again, I did wonder if it was something to do with the Icelandic pagan light she featured in The Gate:

and Utopia:

I think I have seen such ‘light’, but don’t know if it’s just atmospherics, with the Icelandic air seeming very active, perhaps because of Northern Lights activity providing extra electricity – the end of the recent Lotje Sodderland documentary featured new neurological research finding the brain’s neurons process ‘light’ for their electrical impulses.

Maybe some of that light travels through the brain and body unprocessed, exiting still as ‘light’.

Northern Lights greenYgreyology Debate

greenYgreyologists in my brain (like the comic Numskulls characters I knew, and later the Hollywood movie Inside Out) have been busy decoding and discussing my Northern Lights experiences in Iceland, with reference to the greenYgrey of course.

Missing Nightime Northern Lights 

I spent three nights out looking for Northern Lights (aurora borealis) and didn’t see the big show of dancing lights. Ironically, the media did report professional photographer Owen Humphreys seeing them elsewhere in Iceland, about 150 miles east of where I was.

I could have used that media coverage to claim I saw them too, but I believe in honest reporting.

Seeing Daytime Northern Lights

I did see what look like white ribbon Northern Lights just in passing, originally seeing and taking a photo of a rainbow while out walking. I wouldn’t have known or thought they were Northern Lights if I hadn’t seen them mentioned in a Sky at Night documentary last month, and previously discussed here on this blog.

The presenters then said they’d named the daytime white ribbon Northern Lights ‘Steve’. I added that a female version should be Stevie, after Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac fame, and there are two white ribbons visible here: Steve and Stevie, the gYgPOP twins?

They were static ribbons, as seen from the two photos, taken a few seconds after each other.

greenYgrey a Sun Wolf

greenYgreyologists have interpreted me seeing more in the daytime than night as being because the greenYgrey is a sun wolf rather than stereotypical moon wolf.

I was also lucky in that there had been a lot of snow the previous week, and there was a lot of clear sky the week I was there, meaning the scenery was particularly photogenic.

I did see a few meteors while watching the night sky, including one that appeared low in the sky for a second or two like a dollop of paint, looking like one described as a fireball meteor reported last year.

So, all in all, I missed out on the big Night prize, but got lots of great Daytime consolations, I suppose like a football team going for the Champions League or Premier League and not winning it, but winning other cups.