In a serendipitous continuity of my last post, today the newspapers reported an event that I'd like to share with you. I think you'll find it rather amusing:

From today's edition of La Jornada [pardon the clumsy translation, text in brackets is of my own editing]

Witch Swindles Treasurer of the Quintana Roo Congress; takes $440 Thousand

Cancún, Quintana Roo, March 17th. The state Congress Treasurer, Lucía Sánchez Méndez, handed 440,000 pesos (approx. 33,850 US$) from the public funds to a witch who offered to perform a limpia [magical cleansing ritual] to the money, so that it would 'double' [in quantity].

The state Attorney, Bello Melchor Rodríguez Carrillo, announced that an apprehension order would be emitted against the government official, on the charge of 'abuse of trust'.

Rodríguez Carrillo said Sánchez Méndez acknowledged she used the payroll monies destined for the local Congress employees, so that the witch could perform the limpia. The woman had promised the Treasurer to double the quantity of the cash handed to her, and so she complied —but that was the last time she saw [the witch].

The attorney added that the abuse of trust is sanctioned in the state with up to 15 years of prison. However, Lucía Sánchez —sister of the Municipal Police Director, Luis Germán Sánchez Méndez [Mexican Nepotism 101 my friends!]— may return the money to the local Congress and plea for a pardon.

The head officer of the Legislative Power, Sergio de la Cruz Osorno, filed the report [against Sánchez Méndez] when he detected the missing money.

Sánchez Méndez abandoned her position last Friday, and she could be fired, although that won't stop the penal process against her. "We have given notice of the appeal, and the Human Resources Direction will apply the pertinent sanction", said the president of the Congress Grand Commission, Luis González Flores.

The lawmaker added that the public official had cashed some checks on her own, a transaction usually carried out by a reserve funds company.

As you can see, my boss is in good company ;)

Has it really come to this? God...

Yesterday morning, after enjoying a long weekend here in Mexico —well, as much enjoying as one can have without any money— I arrived at the former strip mall where the small office I work in is located.

I work for a very mall Architecture office, and recently we've been through particularly harsh times. On top of the fact that Mexico was one of the nations where the last economic crisis was felt the harshest, things at the office were getting tougher even before that. Long story short, there are currently two persons working here: myself and my workmate, the accountant; and our list of possible projects is on an indefinite stand-by —there was a Real Estate "bubble" in Mexico city over the past few years, and we all know what eventually happens with every bubble...

So, I was walking down the hallway at 9 in the morning, ready to open the office —I'm usually the first one to arrive, plus my workmate is coming to the office every other day currently— from the distance one can look not only the main windows of the office entrance, but also a small window from the top floor, and it was through that window that I noticed something odd.

From the distance it looked like a small glowing orange light. My first though was that my boss had left some cell phone charging or maybe a laptop; but then I realized this was not an electric light: it was flickering.

I panicked; I immediately though "SH*T! a fire!!"; I rushed to open the door, and the smell that poured down from the inside confirmed my suspicion: something WAS burning upstairs.

I climbed the 12-steps staircase as quickly as I could, and in the still-dark small attic-like space where my boss holds his desk and files, I scanned the surroundings and found the source of the flickering flame: a candle inside a transparent glass, the same type that you find inside Catholic temples.

"What the Hell?"

The religious candle, or veladora, as we call them around here, was over a desk on top of a sample piece of glass that we used in one of our projects a few years ago; it was obvious that it had been lit many hours ago, as the flame had consumed most of the candle, and the top of its glass presented smoke stains.

After calming me down a bit, I started to notice other strange things: the top of my boss' desk was rather filthy —and that was a shock considering his anal-retentive obsession with order and tidiness!— and it was covered with grains of salt. The floors upstairs and down were also covered with what looked like grains of rice and corn; and as I was retracing my steps to the entrance of the office, I noticed something else: the transparent glass of the metal door had weird stains, as though someone had sprinkled some kind of liquid on it from the inside.

It didn't took me long to add 2+2 on this whole mystery.

It was hilarious and pathetic at the same time: My boss had commissioned a limpia.

The limpia, or cleansing ceremony, is a sort of syncretic ritual that combines elements of the Catholic faith along with the pagan traditions left by our Mesoamerican ancestors. The purpose of it is to eradicate 'bad vibes' allegedly surrounding a person, an object or a concrete location. These kind of rituals are a very suggestive proof that, deep underneath, all Latin American countries still hold a pagan cosmovision; that one needs to perform rites and ceremonies to appease the spiritual entities that govern or influence the fates of our lives.

It also shows that such beliefs are not to be found only with the 'uneducated' illiterate masses who lack a good education. The idea that one can be affected by 'negative energy' is quite common among the Mexican higher classes as well —my boss has a college degree. Politicians and celebrities are known to seek the services of astrologers and shamans that would enable them to attain more status, or fend themselves against the attacks of adversaries.

Magic syncretic rituals can range from the seemingly innocuous —like the young teen asking St Judas for a boyfriend by placing an image of said saint upside-down, which to me always seemed more like a kind of spiritual coercion!— to more complicated ideas that demand the use of elaborate magical paraphernalia, plus the use of a 'professional'.

In Mexico city there's a very special place called El Mercado de Sonora, which is quite literally the Mexican version of Harry Potter's Diagon Alley; a place where you can purchase magic items of all kinds —and I do mean ALL— for using in both 'white' or 'black' magic rituals. Need a monkey tail to perform a love ritual? no problem! white candles to defend yourself? black candles to curse someone? an illegal endangered animal like a rare desert lizard or an ocelot? fancy an effigy of the Santa Muerte do you? you ask and either they have it or they can find it for you... for the right price, of course.

*Youtube video of some Gringo tourists visiting the market:

Back to my tale of my esoteric discovery, I didn't know what to do. Do I leave the candle lit or not (more on that later)? I eventually decided to phone my boss:

Me: Um, yeah? there's this religious candle lit that I found upstairs, wha—

My boss: Yes, I put it there; I'll be right over *hangs up*

And as you can probably imagine, by the time he came he NEVER mentioned the candle, nor did I ask him about it. My boss do love to keep his secrets —which can be a determent in productivity, as he considers the dates of the project deadlines to be a secret too!

So, to me the irony in all this —other than the fact that I had further proof I work for a complete pendejo— was to realize that some people will ALWAYS try to find explanations in external agencies beyond their control; just like that Vatican exorcist who sees the work of the Evil One in the recent calamities that have befallen on the Catholic church. Not once do they stop to consider that perhaps, just perhaps, the root of the problem lies somewhere a bit closer to home.

Take for instance the candle I found: clearly, the fact that someone decides to place a burning candle inside an unventilated room choke-full of flammable items —and with a FRAKING WOODEN FLOOR on top of that— shows a complete disregard to public safety and the needs of other people. And that is IMHO the very root of the current economic predicament in which my boss finds himself currently; this is the kind of man who thinks he's entitled to double-parking or be late with the fortnight salary payments —when the office phone rings and I hear it's from the bank, I just hang up— who thinks it's more important to satisfy his own personal aesthetic quirks than actually solve the needs of his clients. I could go on and on here...

I believe in the laws of Karma, not out of any mystical spiritual notions, but for its pure practical simplicity: what goes around comes around is in pure accordance with the laws of Physics. No matter what you do, sooner or later you'll have to respond to the laws of Thermodynamics, baby.

Abiding to the golden rule is just plain common sense. It's playing the odds, because there are a lot of people in this world and there's only one You; and sooner or later you'll be face to face with someone with more power than you.

Does that mean I think magic rituals are pure hogwash? not exactly. What I think is that, even if rituals can attain power, that power *must* be provided by the people believing in that ritual. And the way a ritual gains power is simple and universal: through sacrifice.

Sacrifice literally means "to make sacred", and in order to do that it is demanded that what is offered must be something valuable to the participant of the ritual. For Abraham, there was nothing he wanted more than to have a long line of descendants; so what does Yahweh demand from him to seal their pact? the life of his only son —I'm not condoning the validity of human sacrifice *OBVIOUSLY*, nor the moral high-ground of the Old Testament; I'm just trying to show that throughout history people have considered magic rituals to be something which demand costly offerings. And even that still makes sense to our 'modern' Western mentality; that's why we have a high respect for people who hold PhD's or a black belt in Karate.

So I ask you: what better sacrifice could be offered, in order to improve your life and your economic situation, than to commit yourself into improving your attitude toward other people? to stopping thinking about Me Me Me for a change and strive to be kinder to your fellow man?

Meh... I guess it's always easier (and CHEAPER) to pay a few pesos in candles, some rice and vial of holy water in order to scare away the bad juju. After all: it's NOT my fault that things are not turning the way I want, is it??

So, if you've been patient enough to read up to here, I bet there's a nagging question burning in your head: Why o WHY are you still working for this moron? Weeell... that's a topic for another blog, I'm afraid.

In the meantime, pray that next week I won't find a headless black chicken next to the fax machine ;)

Last Wednesday morning, during my daily commute, I observed something quite remarkable. At least I think it was remarkable... though I may be the only person who thinks that way.

I was driving southward on a boulevard street called Periférico; instead of taking my usual shortcut to avoid traffic, I kept on this main street because I had to stop on my way to work in order to pick up some paperwork concerning my medical insurance at a nearby office.

The day was very windy and clear, and the clouds were long and with very defined edges, not quite lenticular, though. It was around 8:30 in the morning, and the traffic was very slow. On my left, in the southeast direction, and at approximately 2 o'clock altitude, I noticed that the clouds closer to the sun displayed the colors of the rainbow; I was shocked and at first thought this was some sort of illusion due to my car's windshield. I decided then to lower my left window to see this phenomenon as directly as I could.

This page, which displays some pictures taken in Iceland, shows exactly the kind of clouds I saw that day.

I admit that my first reaction was one of fear. My first thought was something like "Oh, sh*t! does this mean there's going to be an earthquake or something?" given that there had been a lot of discussion about weird clouds seen before the massive 8.8 earthquake that struck in Chile a few weeks ago —living in such a seismically-active area like Mexico, you'll hopefully forgive the paranoia.

Later I calmed down and started to enjoy the beautiful portent; I felt humbled and in awe and began to wonder if that's what the people gathered at Cova da Iria in 1917 felt like when they witnessed the events reported during the famous Fatima apparitions —the reason I thought of this it's because I've been reading 'Heavenly Lights'. The Fatima events fascinate me.

Admittedly my behavior was not entirely safe, given that I was paying more attention to the sky than the road ahead of me! still, as I explained, the traffic was so slow I was barely making 25 km/h (something quite common at Mexicans rush hours); during the whole time I kept wondering if the other drivers were also aware of these clouds, or were just minding their own business, either fighting the morning drowsiness like automatons, or performing their usual morning rituals like the haphazard appliance of make-up with the aide of the rearview mirror —for many Mexican women, their cars is another extension of their bathrooms.

As I kept driving forward, eventually these amazing clouds were left behind and I was forced to re-focus on my driving, as I was coming near my first destination. I cursed the fact that I didn't own a cell phone with a camera that I could take a picture to share, but by that time I was confident that other people would report this incident and that it would even appear on the news —In the meantime, I decided use this fortuitous incident as my introduction for my Thursday News Briefs of the week.

Sadly, I was mistaken: I have been waiting for some international or local news media to mention the iridescent clouds that I watched, but there has been no mention of them whatsoever. None!

It's not that I'm conceding this unusual aerial phenomenon to have some mystical significance, as I'm pretty sure it can be explained due to the refraction of the sun light through the thin veil of the clouds. What REALLY pisses me off is that, in a city of 20 million people, I was the only person who bothered to look up to the sky and marvel at his gift of Nature.

So now I'm thinking that, even if those guys predicting all kinds of weird things happening in 2012 are right, there's a chance that most people will be so utterly submerged with their petty little daily chores that they won't notice a god damn thing.

Jesus Christ could come through a tunnel of light riding a winged unicorn, but that won't stop the morning commuters from humming their favorite radio tunes or yelling to the driver next to them for cutting them off!

It's a depressing an lonely feeling, because we humans often need consensual validation in order to rate our reality. As far as anyone else is concerned, the iridescent clouds over Mexico are a figment of my imagination; and yet I know I saw them. I know I shouldn't care whether people confirm my personal experiences or not, but sometimes we do need the 'other' to be part of our life journey. What's the point of learning new things if you don't have someone else to share with?

After the first terrifying images from Haiti started to fill the news programs, the first ones to volunteer into assisting the Haitians were the 'Mole Men'.

Los Topos, A Mexican group of experts specializing in the rescue of victims trapped amid the rubble of collapsed structures, has its origin in 1985. That year, after the great earthquake that levelled many buildings in Mexico city, a lot of desperate neighbors had a terrible realization: the authorities were completely overwhelmed by the tragedy, and didn't show the expected leadership needed to undertake the rescue operations.

So, the neighbors decided to do things themselves.

Risking their own lives and with no tools but their bare hands, hundreds of men and women struggled to freed those trapped between a devilish maze of concrete and steel. At first they were trying to save their family members —wives, husbands, parents and children— but eventually they continued their efforts to help complete strangers.

If someone heard screams beneath the ruins, everybody laid a hand; they gave a second birth to the living, and they rescued the dead from their unholy graves.

The reasons were simple: there was no one else to do it.

A short while after that, the need to have a group of trained specialists who would be able to coordinate rescue parties after a major earthquake became more than evident —specially in a city built on top of a such seismically-active area! Thus, Los Topos were formed, with the very same brave civilians that risked life & limb during the Mexican catastrophe; trained by experts from Israel & France, they have been dispatched to 'ground-zero' areas all over the world since then.

To some lucky few, the sound of a Mole Man becomes the most beautiful thing in the world; their voice calming them and encouraging them to hang on becomes the voice of God himself.

These people are not paid for their efforts, mind you. They ask nothing in return; they leave their daily jobs whenever their help is needed.

Why do they keep doing it? I suspect that for the same reason Mother Teresa chose to devote her life to help the poorest among the poor. It is a mystery that to me suggests the human condition trascends the boundaries of visible matter.

So: now we go back to January of 2010. On the 14th, along with a shipment of supplies, the Mole Men were dispatched to Port-au-Prince. To do what they do best, and help as much people as they could.

...And after just 72 hours into the rescue mission, they are ordered to suspend all rescue operations.

The order came from the UN. Not only did they think it was unlikely to find any more survivors, but they also feared the rising escalation of vandalism and pillaging unleashed by the frantic survivors —it is for this reason that all rescue efforts had to be suspended after night-fall. They lacked enough soldiers to guarantee the protection of the brigades.

But in reality, the order uncovers an uglier truth: a complete lack of leadership & control in the chain of command; as usual, the UN is not up to the task.

Once again, the Mole Men were left alone. But this time, they have to follow orders, much to their regret.

In an interview given to Reforma on Jan 18th, Carlos Morales, chief of the group —the Top Mole, as it were— disclosed his frustration:

"There is no control whatsoever, there's an awful lack of organization, we already took out 6 live persons from the University & now they are ordering us to return to base over a few gun shots."

"Right now we were in the process of rescuing the father of the First Lady. We left him serum to survive, but they forced us to pull back" he regrets.

The veteran rescuer of 60-something years old (working alongside his 24-year-old daughter, courage seems to run in the family) showed his disagreement with the UN's concern over the welfare of the rescuers:

"The people protect you because they know we're here to help them, but the Un is blocking the rescues."

"You have to be among the ruins to understand what the vicim is going through, let's imagine a person hears our rescuing machinery. The person gets excited. And what happens next if they stop hearing them?"

Indeed, what would go through the mind of such a victim. Maybe to them, noticing the rescuers leave might be as is God himself is turning away. What they have already gone through would be nothing compared to the Hell of feeling you're left alone —the most lonely person in the Universe.

On today's paper, Reforma informed the rescue brigades are beginning to return to Mexico. Though some of them will remain in Haiti, they will now focus mainly on the distribution of food rations & medicines.

Were the UN too hasty in calling off the rescue operations? True, after a whole week, the odds of finding live survivors are very slim.

And yet, miracles can happen. In the earthquake of 1985, 16 babies were rescued from the ruins of a hospital. They were nicknamed "the children of the quake"; they were rescued after 7 days of the event, and they became a symbol of hope for the Mexican people.

Some people were even rescued after 12 days.

Yes, miracles can happen; But NOT when you chop off the wings of guardian angels.

Question:

Has anyone read or heard on TV of any country offering to receive refugees from Haiti, after the catastrophic earthquake that claimed the lives of thousands, and will claim even more after the corpses lying on the street start to rot and become a serious health hazard?

Neither have I :(

The reason for this is obvious: Any country willing to open their borders to receive Haitian refugees, would later have a really hard time trying to force those people to return home. Those poor people would struggle & beg to be granted asylum; and frankly, who could blame them??

In 2008, they were already resorting to mud cookies because there was no food to be found, after the tropical storms that hit the island that year.

And after the international humanitarian help stops, God only knows how they will manage to survive.

Last year many news pundits were using the term "failed nation" when referring to my country, Mexico. Well, turns out Mexico is a haven of order and stability compared to our brothers in the Antilles.

But not even that will convince the other nations of the continent to grant asylum to them.

I fear this is just a little preview of the things we will face when more countries suffer the consequences of Climate Change.

The poor are ALWAYS the ones who suffer first.

PS: not only that, but there's also people claiming Haitians are to blame for their suffering, because they made a pact with the devil!! I need to go take a few shots of Tequila to pass that out. BRB >_<

If you read last Friday's news briefs, you probably came across this particular story —which is very fitting for this time of year— about the uproar caused by a billboard erected in New Zealand, showing a dejected Joseph sharing a bed with his 'wife' Mary. This billboard caused some interesting comments:

"What we're trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about," he told the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA).

"Is it about a spiritual male God sending down sperm so a child would be born, or is it about the power of love in our midst as seen in Jesus?"

Unsurprisingly, the Catholic reaction was thus:

"Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph," she told the New Zealand Herald. "Such a poster is inappropriate and disrespectful."

Jesus, the son of God; and Mary, the forever virgin... & what about Joseph?

Instead of entering into the usual debate of whether Mary had more children apart from his first-born Jesus —something believed by the Protestand faiths and even manifested in some Apocryphal gospels— I would like to write a few things on behalf of poor Joseph, strictly from the 'canonical' side of things.

If you look at any classical painting depicting the 'holy family' you will usually find Joseph relegated to a secondary position, with the center upfront reserved to Mary and her child. This was a popular formula to help manifest to the viewer that Jesus was not related to Joseph in the blood —although today I laughed with the comment of a journalist, who questioned whether the real reason Joseph is always hiding in the back, is out of shame for not having followed his wife's sage advise: "See now how we have to stay in stable? I TOLD you to book us a room beforehand!" ;)

But anyway, the canonical gospels tell us little of Joseph, aside from informing us he's a descendant of the house of David; but all the time we see poor Joe obeying commands sent by the 'real' father of the boy during his dreams: "what's this about a divorce?! accept your wife because the child is MINE"; "take the child and flee to Egypt! who cares about your carpentry business?"; "So you like the pyramids after all, huh? well, tough luck! return to Israel".

And every time poor faithful Joe obeyed as asked, without hesitation —and without asking for any child support to the 'biological' dad either!— and what did he get in return?

A secondary role in every painting of his family.

Well, if there's something I've learned of living 36 years in this planet, is this: 'Father' is NOT the guy who engenders the child, but the guy who raises that child —isn't that what we keep telling young boys everytime we put a condom on their hands?— Father is the man who educates the child, and that through his example turns the child into a proper adult.

So maybe a dove came down from heaven & planted some celestial seed into a young hebrew girl. To me, a bigger miracle is that of a man who raises a child who is not of his blood, and loves him as if it were his own.

A miracle that can still occur to this very day, everytime an orphan is adopted.

So, this Xmas eve, be sure to make a toast on behalf of Joseph: the carpenter who raised the son of a God, and helped turn him into the son of Man :)

I believe that my stance on Global Warming should be pretty clear to anyone who might bother to read my comments spread all over TDG —namely, that I join the ranks of those who think our world is at a great peril, due to the climate changes brought (in a significant way) by our reckless administration of this planet's resources.

I might also add that I'm the kind of person you *don't* want near during the mornings; and that's because one of my favorite rituals is to yell in anger whenever I read some scandalous article in the newspaper.

So this morning I'm pretty sure all my neighbors in a very wide radius around my home noticed my gutural reaction to this tiny article I read on Reforma, commenting on another article by The Daily Telegraph of Dec. 5, in which I learned of all the limousines being chartered by the international delegations during the Copenhagen summit:

Ms Jorgensen [managing director of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company] reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."

Jesus, Mary & Josephine! I mean, it's not that I was expecting the leaders of the nations to swim all the way to Denmark, in order to save all those tonnes of carbon released during their airplane flights. And I realize that expecting them to move around Copenhaguen on a bike might be a bit too demanding for some of the more senior attendants... but COME ON!! 42 limos, France? Srsly?? You need all those wheels in order to haul Sarkozy's ego?

And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? "Five," says Ms Jorgensen. "The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don't have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it's very Danish."

And then politicians wonder why they don't manage to convince the common people to accept their proposals. My personal definition of politician is: "A human being completely devoid of congruence."

An alternative one might be "Bipedal oxymoron." I'll let you choose your favorite or suggest other ones.

IMO, it's precisely actions like these, that sabotage the Enviromental movement much more than any old hacked e-mail released into the web for whatever obscure intentions. It's because it belittles the honest work & commitment of the people that are trying to change things for the better. It's a symbol of why we're having to deal with this pickle in the first place.

It was the same with that other important summit where the leaders of the world gathered to discuss global hunger: making speeches about how children in Africa & Asia starve to death while making toasts with champagne & gobbling truffles & caviar.

Now I realize why it was so fitting to choose Copenhagen to host this summit. With these kind of "leaders", the only viable plan we might have to survive Climate change and the inevitable rise of the oceans, would be if we follow the suggestions of the local artists :-/

[UPDATE/Dec 27th]: Checking past episodes of The Daily Show, I found out that Jon Stewart commented on the limo fiasco (on Dec 14th) in his own incomparable style. Enjoy!

A nice synchronistic moment happened to me last Friday. An episode concerning UFOs & Alchemy, and their possible correlation with the human perception of reality.

It involved the quote I used last Thursday on the news briefs. As I explained, the quote was a translation to one of the many 'alien writings' that the famous Betty Andreasson has received over the course of her long-spanning experience of abductions and other-worldly encounters. The man who came up with the translation was Dr. Mario Pazzaglini, a psychologist who was also a student and practicioner of several esoteric disciplines —a true heir to Carl Jung's unorthodoxal approach to the mystery of the human mind, methinks— and who was the subject of Greg Bishop's essay 'The Magus of Delaware', which was included in the Darklore 3 anthology.

In "The Magus of Delaware", Greg writes:

So the resulting sentence read: "If you want to make light solid, show it to the moon." So cryptic and ambiguous that, according to Greg, "Mario (and anyone he shared it with) was never able to make any quantum leap in decoding its significance."

I was reading this on Wednesday, and for some reason this idea that the phrase was never able to be explained stuck with me. So, I decided to use the phrase as the 'quote of the day', to promote a discussion of possible solutions among the TDG community —sadly, no one commented on it.

Fast-forward to last Friday: I was at the office, working on some architectural plans, so I decided to download a podcast that I could hear with my earphones while drawing with AutoCAD. I discovered with delight that Greg had already posted the Radio Misterioso interview he had with Micah Hanks on Sunday the 16th. Micah is the man behind the Gralien Report, and the interview is a must-hear because it was really amazing how they were able to jump back and forth so many interesting subjects; Micah excused himself for saying he suffers from diarrhea of the mouth, but the fact is that it's clear this young man's mind is racing at 100 mph when he discusses Fortean topics, and that's a true sign of passion. I also appreciate the fact that he —like Greg himself, along with Nick Redfern and Mac Tonnies— is not afraid to have a broader view of all these phenomena, instead of desperately trying to keep them separate and compartmentalized.

During the interview, after they both mentioned Art Bell's iconic C2C radio show and why that particular program was best suited for the wee hours before dawn —when only the owls are busy with their different chores— they start discussing the concept of the "Witching Hour", and how all sort of strange electromagnetic phenomena are more common during the night, because they might be inhibited by solar radiation. At about 48 minutes into the interview, Micah then said:

You get these terms as "The Witching Hour", you know, or "Dark Thirty", or things like that, you know. Or "Midnight Oil", or "Burning the Midnight Oil" I think that-s the actual term.

Um, and it seems to be that paranormal phenomena in general is often linked (sic) night-time occurrences. And it's funny how with, like you're talking about, Greg, geomagnetic fields is (sic) less inhibited by solar activity —flares and whatnot and solar radiation in general— when you're on the side of the Earth farthest from the Sun [...] So it's funny because it makes sense in terms that there are always electromagnetic anomalies, that seem to be correlated to ghost manifestations, sometimes UFO activity[...]

AND at that very moment, Pazzaglini's alchemical translation popped in my head.

Was the sentence a cyptic reference to the effect of the sun's activity on geomagnetism and EM phenomena?

Viewed in that perspective, it kind of began to make some sense:

"If you want to make light—electomagnetic radiation—solid —manifest in a more 'tangible' way?— show it to the moon —night time.

Was this the answer that had eluded Pazzaglini? Was it an indication that the answer to all these phenomena is intertwined with how we humans are affected by electromagnetic fields?

The Radio Misterioso interview went on with Micah discussing how there might be a connection between sensitivity to EM fields and endogenous DMT that could trigger a momentanous experience of an alternate dimension. He mentions one of Lovecraft's most famous stories, "From Beyond", and how in that tale a scientist is able to create a machine that excites the brain's pineal gland, which he discovers is the most important perceptory organ of all. With the machine, both the narrator and the crazy scientist are able to "see" the hideous ethereal creatures that coexist with us, but that we'e not able to perceive under normal conditions —the implications of endogenous DMT and occult practices was also brilliantly discussed by Blair Mackenzie Blake in his essay 'DMT & Magick', which was part of the 2nd installment of Darklore.

Was Mario's research an indication that Micah's focus on paranormal phenomena is on the right track? I confess I don't know. As usual in this game —and what is this, if not a wonderful game?— any possible new solution opens up more questions.

I would like to share with you this incredible video, from the TV show Ukraine's Got Talent, where a young and talented artist —Kseniya Simonova— captivated the audience not with her voice, or dance skills; but by using sand paintings to tell a story about the German invasion to Ukraine on WWII.

To think that the scenes were made in real time, using the simplest of tools, effectively telling a sequential story, is mind-boggling. And the expression on the audience's faces are clear sign that they were all deeply moved by the fleeting images.

The girl won, by the way :)

From the Washington Examiner:

"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President Obama

*Sigh*

So sad...

Obama turned out to be another agent, instead of The One :(

[H/T to Susan]