I like that idea, as I’ve gotten a little bit better at “scrying” in coffee grounds, especially if it’s from a decent shot of Seattle coffee. Hate to admit it, but they do coffee better than we do. But this isn’t about telling one’s future in a cup of coffee, it’s about Dooms Day Cults. I think I really should start one.
[style=floatpicleft>
[/style>I’ve seen three “worst case” scenario cults lately. I’m not linking, and I’m not throwing any traffic – or attention – to any of my little new age friends. Frankly, I’m pretty sure it’s just another get rich quick trick. Which I should employ, but I couldn’t lie to the public with a straight face. I wonder, is anyone else missing a wink here?
Here are the common elements, elders, guides, spirits, or just plain old made-up stuff – it all points to the world coming to end, “big changes are ahead,” the familiar tag line. End of the world stuff.
The alien life forms who communicate with the spirit world who built the pyramids on Mars, which is going to be so close it looks bigger than the moon, they are coming back.
In the words of one of my friends, “Jesus is coming: look busy.”
Big changes. 2012, end of the world. Next year, end of the world? Earth changes.
I like the earth changes material, it shows an inland sea between East Austin and where Houston is. I’d have a real trailer on the beach. Makes my day.
I was dragging a load of laundry to the laundromat, and I got thinking about this. Mundane stuff. If the world is really going to end, who, other than my own mother, would be worried about whether I have clean underwear for the apocalypse? In fact, if I thought the world was going to end, I’d probably be doing something else instead of worrying about clean sheets, and washing my collection of travel-worn clothing.
I’m guessing, five years, that must represent the extent that folks can remember the last hue and cry of the doom’s day cults, the dreaded Y2K “fin de siècle” debacle. The internet was going to grind to a stop. Power plants would stop making electricity. Toads would rain down from the sky and general anarchy would take over. Which might have happened, but you could fool me with that last one.
But it didn’t happen.
New Year’s Eve, Y2K, I was in Dallas. Just after midnight, I stepped outside for a smoke. The Dallas icon, that Pegasus from the Magnolia Building, it was still shining brightly in the winter’s sky.
So we had electricity. That’s a start. If there hadn’t been so many older folks at the party I was at, I would’ve run around to the breaker box and flipped the main switch, once or twice, just to give them all a good scare.
The more I looked at each of the “end of the world” bits, the more I kept thinking, “Y2K – all over again.”
To be sure, the world is changing. But coming to an end? The end of humanity, as we know it?
I was reminded of a quote from some dead Greek guy, and no, I don’t have it in the original language anymore, but: “The only constant is change.”
Then again, I might just start a “Fishing Guide to the Stars End-of-the-World Club.”
Admission is only $2.95 for 30 days. Act now while the offer is still good.
The Opera:
What’s cool, on more than one level, I just got done seeing Wagner’s much vaunted “Ring Cycle,” in its entirety. The most famous bit from that is, of course, the Ride of the Valkyries. Made famous, perhaps more than the opera itself, in a movie. Which piqued my curiosity. That plus an uncle who is far more than just an aficionado, which only makes for a far richer experience.
The final opera in the saga, Gotterdammrung, is a fairly convoluted piece. Lots of plot, musical and textual references to the previous bits in the epic, and it’s all pretty weird. I have a note, scribbled in the dark of the opera’s theater, about Mars Retrograde, Scorpio (and Taurus), plus that little bit with Brunhilda and her magic.
Act III, or thereabouts, Siegfried, the hero’s hero, get whacked. Now, Brunhilda, being the good witchy wife that she was, she had cast spell, basically, to protect her boyfriend from attack. And since she knew that her spouse wold never turn his back on an enemy, she just didn’t bother to protect his back. Literally, or so the story goes.
So the evil nemesis learns about her little slip in the magic department, and when the bad guy gets a chance, he nails ole Siegfried with a spear in the back.
Eventually, after a lot of orchestra and opera singing, Siegried’s body and the ring are returned to the water. The little – okay, they were opera singers, maybe “little” isn’t the right word – water nymphs get their gold back. Harmony is restored, but anyone who touched the ring is made to suffer with its curse. The whole plot to begin with.
Gotterdammrung is about the twilight of the gods, the end of the world. The opera cycle is seeing a revived interest, and it seems to be playing in more places these days. Just another example of the doom’s day cults.
After the fact?
Love these questions, it’s more like a ritual blessing to an answer rather than a real consultation question, and that’s what amuses me. Found this clip over at Extreme Wisdom.
More clips?
Just a silly one.
Gemini note:
I wandered into a local “hippie” coffee stop to meet a client, grab a bite, and have a “double on the rocks,” as is my typical Austin afternoon.
The diminutive form behind the counter, as she turned out to be, was a Gemini, and fare weas serviceable, but I was bit taken by the apron she had on. It was a certain shade of green, with a certain brand name of a chain of coffee houses, and that usual (sanitized) logo of the goddess of caffeine.
“Oh, that’s amusing,” I wryly smirked. “I thought so, too” she added.
Gemini, as I was able to ascertain. Then I had to answer her question, “Harmless Sagittarius.”
“I like that,” she countered, “simple.”
