world's smallest cat?

12.19.13.3.3 4 Akbal 1 Uayeb portal Day 43/260 (happy birthday to me)

I just saw this article online about the world's smallest cat and boy does it piss me off.

The cat in question is nine weeks old and weighs 1.3 lbs.
My black cat, when I got him, weighed 12 ounces. That's LESS than a pound. He was 7 weeks old. He was so tiny I brought to the vet in a paper lunch bag. (He was the runt and very sickly as well.)
That beats out this enormous hulking thing.

Who knew my cat could have won a prize? Of course now he's a chubby thing, 12 years old and around 14 lbs.

Chichen Itza

How come El Presidente Estupdio gets to go to Chichen Itza and I don't?

CANCUN, Mexico - On a neighborly sightseeing jaunt Thursday with the leaders of Mexico and Canada, President Bush said the three were working to improve vital relationships that can better the lives of all their people.Mexican President Vicente Fox treated Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to an hour-long tour of the ancient Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza before they began two days of talks amid spring breakers in this Caribbean resort city.

Does he even know the historical significance of where he was? He's such an idiot. Of course, even if he knows, he wouldn't care, because the Maya aren't Christians.

0 Ueyab today

12.19.13.3.2 3 Ik 0 Uayeb 3 Ik (day 42 of 260)
2458 days until 12-21-2012

Tomorrow is my Mayan birthday, 4 Akbal, and it's also 1 Uayeb. The second dead day. What does that mean for the rest of my year?

My Goober-bird has been dead for 2 weeks tonight. This morning I watched the sun come up from my bed and cried thinking that she'll never see another spring.

Dead Days (Uayeb) are beginning; predictions for 2006

Today's 12.19.13.3.1 2 Imix 19 Cumku. We're 41 days into this Tzolkin.
Tomorrow the dead days start; six days of them. The Mayan/Aztec version of Lent.
Can you imagine if I went into my boss's office and said, "The dead days start tomorrow. I can't drive, cook, have sex, give birth or do anything for six days. See you on April 4th."
So, April 4th, next Tuesday, is 0 Pop, the Mayan new year. This will be the year of 8 Manik.
The 8 is significant. Anyone who followed my old blog knows those days numbered 8 are days of celebrating that energy.
Manik has some interesting energy. It's the deer, and the helping hand. It's being cooperative and part of the herd and also being shy and withdrawn. And it means the gods could be using you as their hand, as their tool. Not quite a puppet because to truly embody the Manik energy you have to be cooperative with the gods who are manifesting through you. Not exactly being ridden by a loa (although I did write a whole book about that, called Ridden--a kind of alternate-Atlantis story set in the Yucatan 3300 years ago)--something a little milder. But just as life changing.
So is that what we have to look forward to? Volunteering to being ridden, to letting our identities be effaced temporarily in the cause of the greater good?
I just don't like that at all. I am trying to think of it in a spiritual broad way and I keep thinking of President Bush and thinking he'll try to draft me. I am too fat but I'm not sure if I'm too old.
Time will tell, right?

A little more info on my poor bird

Goober had congenitially defective kidneys. The vet described the tumor on her kidney as being "horrific" and said that kidney was totally shut down from it. It didn't seem like there was anything that could have been done. Maybe if we'd caught it earlier? So easy to second guess. Yes, she was sleeping a lot lately. But all my birds have been sleeping a lot. They're all older now. I think Annie is the youngest and she's 12.
She said Goober was "chronically dehyrated" which I couldn't understand. Not only do they always have a bottle of water on their cages, but their food is soaked in water and very moist. But I guess if your kidneys are bad you just can't process water properly. I should talk to the new guy at work, he's got dead kidneys and does dialysis 3x a week. Also, Goober had had previous bouts of near kidney failure which she had survived--and I never knew. My little trooper. God, I miss her.
I had a night time ritual. When I was going to bed, I'd pause at the bottom of the stairs, right outside the bird room, and said "goodnight" and a little bird voice would answer "goodnight."
That little bird voice is gone. I guess only Goober knew how to say it. Or the others just aren't talking.
Because Zeebo shares both parents with Goober, the vet took some blood from him. If his kidneys are bad, I guess there are treatment options. I'll medicate him if that will keep him alive. But I won't do dialysis or anything that will hurt him.

a book review (of sorts)

If any of you have ever been to my regular website, Transformations by Obsidian Butterfly then you might know that I was doing book and movie reviews for a web site called darkfiction.org. Notice the lack of a link. I wrote a movie review last week, zipped it off to the webmaster, and it bounced. I went online to the site and it's gone. I don't know what happened, and the only email addresses I have for the guy who runs it (ran it) are darkfiction.org emails. I guess I'll never know what happened.

Anyway, last week I read a book and Kukulkan was in it. A modern book. It's called Wildcard by Rachel Lee. It's genre is that new breed of romantic suspense, where it's a suspenseful action tale but the two main characters fall in love and have lots of sex. I like them, what can I say? If you like Romantic Suspense and you liked the DaVinci Code , you'd probably like this book.

And you're wondering why the hell I'm posting a book review on a blog which is supposed to be about the Meso American sacred calendar and shamanic pursuits, right?

I'm getting to it.

This book buys into the now-tired theory that Mary Magdelene married Jesus and had his kids. It wasn't original when Dan Brown wrote his not-very-good novel (read Foucault's Pendulum for a much better treatment of the same theme) . The author manages to tie in the Templars (yawn) and Akhenaton to her conspiracy theory. And then she brings in Kukulkan (which she misspells throughout the book as "Kulkulcan"). I was excited at first. Not many modern novels talk about the old Meso gods, right? (Thus this posting.)

And then my excitement died. Of course I've heard the theories that K/Q was actually once of Jesus's disciples, if not the big guy himself, and dismissed them. This book's addition to that theory is that it was actually a grandson of Jesus and MM who was Kukulkan, Queztalcoatl, and Viracocha (Incan deity, similiar to K/Q). And in the book a priest is sent to find a mysterious original Mayan document, the "Codex of Kulkulcan" because it could destroy the Church. Blah blah blah. Bringing in the idea that the reason that the Mayans had crosses everywhere was because they were actually, secretly Christians.

Now I pause and blow out a deep breath. If you want to mark a spot so people notice it, you don't want to use just one stick. One stick doesn't stand out. You want to use TWO sticks. There are only so many ways you can fasten two sticks together. Parallel (which defeats the purpose of using two sticks), in an x, or in a t. Do the Christians really believe that no other culture figured out how to tie two sticks together at right angles?

I don't even know how to put into words how angry it makes me. #1, the first thing the Spanish did when they came over is declare all the natives heathens, suitable for excuting as heretics or killed in war or used as slaves. If they were in fact secret Christians, that's pretty bad for the Spanish, eh? But since I don't believe that, I'll move on.

Why can't the pre-Columbians have come up with aspects of civilization and religion ALL BY THEMSELVES without having the need to consult with Jesus, his disciples or his decendents? They built pyramids without going to Egypt. They tied sticks together at right angles without having attended the crucifixion of Jesus. Why do these people insist on sticking their long religious noses into every place on the planet?

Supposedly, this is the first of several books written around this conspiracy theory. I'm sure my mom will buy the other ones as they come out. If the "Kulkulcan Codex" appears again, I'll be sure to let you know.

Happy Equinox

Right now there's probably close to a hundred thousand people at Chichen Itza watching that serpent shadow crawl down the stairs.
Here's a scanned-in picture from a guidebook. See the triangles of light leading down to the serpent's head?
Pretty cool, huh?

how to send light & energy

12.19.13.2.12 6 Eb 10 Cumhu (Happy Vernal Equinox!)
You can use this technique whether you know Reiki or not.
This is a modified version of the Tree of Life DNA energy gathering I do in rituals. You can use it to send energy to people, places, situations, or even take the energy ball and bring it back inside yourself for self-healing.

---

Stand up. Put your arms out, palms up. Feel yourself connect up and up and up to the center of the galaxy, where all energy comes from. (If you want to call it God that's okay.) This energy is silver and violet. Bring it down through the top of your head and into your palms and down into your heart with every in breath.

Now reverse your hands so your palms are down. Feel yourself connect down and down into the heart of the earth, tap into that energy. It's blue and green. Bring that energy up into the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands and into your heart with each in breath.

Now reverse ONE of your hands, so one points up and one points down. Bring in both types of energy at once and let them gather in your heart in a ball of white light. Let this light expand with each in breath as you bring in more galactic and earth energy. When the ball is bigger than your chest cavity, put your hands on it, take it out, and hold it in front of you. Imagine the person or situation you want to send energy to, and throw the ball in their direction. (If you don't know exactly, just guess--they don't need to be in the room). Know that this ball of loving energy will reach them immediately and begin to impact their situation.

more thoughts on my lost birdie

12.19.13.2.11 5 Chuen 9 Cumhu

I am feeling better about losing my sweet Goobette. I know it's only been a few days and I assure you that it's not because I'm heartless or I didn't really love her.
I talked to the vet who did the necropsy on Friday (a necropsy is an autopsy for a bird). She said that Goober had a tumor on one of her kidneys and that all her organs were in bad shape. Not from disease, but from old age. The seizure which I thought killed her was actually the result of her dying, not the cause of it.
If I had known she had a tumor, I would have had her put to sleep.
It doesn't surprise me at all to learn that she hadn't been well and hid it from me. Her mother did the same. Literally one day Scarlett escaped from the cage and led us a merry chase through the birdroom, shrieking and enjoying herself. The next morning she was dead of septicemia, a toxic blood infection which had destroyed her kidneys. She hadn't lost any weight or any feathers. I still grieve for her because she was only six, and it was a pointless way to die.
But her lovely daughter died of old age. I'm okay with that. That's how it's supposed to be. We have our pets, we love them very much, and they grow old and die.
It doesn't mean that I don't miss her. I do. It means that I'm not raging against the gods for taking her before her time.
This last year, I've lost two parrots, three bettas, two plecos (sucker fish) and at least a dozen corydoras (whiskers catfish). The gods have enough of my pets. Please, leave me be for a while, okay?

"love song for the dear departed"

12.19.13.2.9 3 Muluc 7 Cumhu
My sweet Goober died last night. She was 15. She hatched at Thanksgiving time in 1990, my very first baby lory ever. I hand-fed her from 19 days old. She has never been apart from me, never been owned by someone else or even spent a night at the vet for being sick. Only when I went on vacation were we parted.
I thought she was a boy when she hatched, so hence the name Goober. When Goober was six, he laid an egg and became Goobette. Since she lived with her brother, Zeebo, we called them the BoBo Twins--Zeebo and Goobo. (Zeebo's from a different clutch; he's 12.)
Last night around 10:30 I was half-asleep and Will came running up the stairs saying "Something's wrong with Goobette" and by the time I got down there she was dead. She had a seizure (Her, Zeebo and their father Lance all have epilepsy) and I think she broke her neck. She was sitting in her food bowl with her beak hooked over the edge and her tail sticking up. Not that this was unusual--all my lories like to sit in their bowls and sometimes sleep in them. But I think with her beak hooked like that the siezure broke her neck. Willy insisted she had been breathing and moving and alive when he came up but as soon as I saw her I was almost postive she was dead. It took a minute to get Zeebo away from her (horribly reminiscent of when we had to pry Lance away from Gwennie's body this summer) then I took her out in the bowl and she was dead. Will kept saying she was breathing, but when I took her out of the bowl she was totally limp and cool and just dead. Not alive. My sweet little baby bird who loved her father and her brother equally. I was going to switch her to Lance's side of the cage this weekend so she could preen his pinfeathers and because he's been plucking his legs. Now what am I going to do?
A year ago I had six birds, three happy pairs. Now I have a daddy without a mommy and a brother without his sister. Before I got out of bed this morning Zeebo was calling and calling, making that 2-note contact call lories make when they're looking for something. Then he started throwing his dishes around and going "hey-hey-hey" and then he got Lance going too. When I went in there Zeebo was hanging upside down like a bat just looking around with his eyes wild. He wouldn't come to me or even look at me.
My heart is just broken. I am trying to console myself, thinking that she's with her mommy now (Scarlett, who died in 1994 at only 6 years old), and Gwennie, and Alf-dog and Patches and Streaker and Nippy and all my hamsters and guinea pigs, and maybe even Goober's couple of siblings that died at a few days old, and of course they're all with my grandpa who loved animals and would surely care for all mine until I get to wherever heaven is to claim them. I imagine him with Gwennie on one shoulder, Scarlett on the other, and now Goobs on his head. He'd have a cat or two in his arms, the dog and the others at his feet. Take good care of them for me, Grandpa.
On Yahoo answers there was a question a few weeks ago: "Do you think dogs and cats go to heaven?" and the answer I voted for, the one that got the most votes, was "I hope so."
Because what kind of god would separate us from our animal friends forever?
BTW, the title of this post is from the new Korn album, called "See you on the other side" (apt, huh?)

Religious arrogance & judgement

12.19.13.2.8 2 Lamat 6 Cumhu
One of my friends called me last night for some moral support. She's pagan, like me, and works with a lot of Christians.
She had a bad day at work (who doesn't?) and started talking to one of her co-workers, whose only solution was for them to attend a Bible study together.
I don't understand Bible study, but that's just me. My friend was angry at what she termed the arrogance of Christians. She would never suggest her co-worker come to one of our rituals to calm down after a bad day.
I have another story. My friend who has cancer was in hospice for a while. While she was there, a Christian she knows came in and preached at her, saying if she didn't find Jesus right then and there she was going to hell. This person said this to her literally as she was dying. I find that so offensive I can't even put it into words. This friend is not a pagan, she's agnostic, btw.
My pagan friend was upset about something else. There's a guy she likes at work, and someone told her he likes her too. He likes her so much, he wants her to come to Church with him. She's horrified at this. Like me, she's vowed never to set foot in church again except for weddings and funerals.
However, we're both wrong.
I asked her, "If he was Jewish and wanted you to go to Temple, would you go?" She would. "If he was Buddist and wanted to take you to that temple, would you go?" In a heartbeat. But she won't go to church. And it's a form of prejudice. I see it clearly (doesn't mean I'd go to church with a new friend either), and I hope I made her see it.
We all try so hard to be non-judgemental. To be accepting of everyone, the way WE want to be accepted. Yet it seems like the more we focus on acceptance, the more we see the intolerance of others around us. The more we are quiet about our beliefs, the louder those around us preach.
And does any of it matter? Maybe we should go around shoving our pagan ideas into people's heads and suggesting they go to rituals instead of Bible study groups.
Today's Lamat, the self-indulgence day. Can I indulge myself by preaching my gospel to the Jesus lovers? Of course not. I wouldn't even if I could. I just get so tired.
Listen, our cars might look different on the outside, but it's the same engine under the hood. The same god. Give up the fighting. Give up the preaching and converting. Love the form of the god you've chosen and leave me alone.

new life for old trees

12.19.13.2.7 1 Manik 5 Cumhu
2473 days until 12-21-2012

I don't blog news stories much here (I'd probably get more traffic if I did), but this one touched me. It's actually been on CNN.com for a few days but I didn't click on it until this morning.
It's about all the ancient live oak trees which were uprooted during Hurricane Katrina last year. I think about trees. I worry, for instance, about the really big old tree behind the new movie theater here in town. They remodeled the old-old Kmart into the theater and didn't touch it, and now they're building something next to it, and it's still okay. But someday I might go by and see a "cut me down" ribbon around it, or worse, it will just be gone. Maybe I'll go take some pictures of it. When I had to have the big old tree in front of my house cut down because it was dying and had become a menace to my bird room, I wept to hear the chainsaws, even though I had made the call for them to come and take it down. Turns out I did the right thing; the tree was rotten all through down to the base. Doesn't mean I didn't feel bad. (No different from putting a sick pet to sleep. But don't get me started on why we can't put sick humans to sleep.)
Anyway, a lot of 200+ year old trees got taken down by Katrina. We all saw the pictures of the devastation down there, but I hadn't realized a tree that big and that old could be uprooted. Apparently they can, and they did.
But when I clicked on the story's link "Katrina trees will get new life on historic ship" I thought it was going to be that they were planting baby trees (like the acorn from the Charter Oak tree which was planted in front of my old elementary school). But that's not it at all.
They are using these downed oaks to rebuild old wooden ships. Right here in Mystic. (Well, it's an hour away, but compared to Louisiana, it's right here.)


Live oak trees, many more than 100 years old, are connecting residents of storm-ravaged Mississippi and experts at Mystic Seaport, a Connecticut maritime museum.
Hurricane Katrina uprooted hundreds of live oaks, but the trees will not go to waste. They'll be used in the restoration of the Charles W. Morgan, one of the last wooden whaling ships in the world. The Morgan was built in 1841 and made 37 voyages before retiring in 1921.

I think that is so cool. Better than going through a wood chipper.
(The photo is from CNN as well.)

Welcome to my new Blog

12.19.13.2.4 11 Kan 2 Cumhu
2476 days until 12-21-2012

This blog is replacing my previous blog: http://ofsinitiate.blogspot.com. I will leave that blog up indefinately because it's full of valid information on the Mayan/Aztec calendar and my shamanism journey. The name is no longer correct because I'm giving up on my Order of the Feathered Serpent training, and I didn't want to change the name and lose any links I might have had.
Thus a new blog.
The name of this blog, Jaguar Nights, is the name of the book I wrote on the Mayan/Aztec calendar. I am looking for a publisher and/or an agent. If you are such a person, please contact me!
It will take me a little while to get extras going--my counter, my Change Detection panel, my yahoo answers, etc. So be patient with that.